Art, construction, and zoning

 Parmele Exhibit

The current exhibit at the Fendig Gallery is a retrospective exhibition featuring the art of local artist Abby Parmele. Her interest in art came early. While a high-school student in Iowa, she organized an art club because the school had no art classes. Below is a painting she made in ninth grade.

Mrs Parmele's job as a flight attendent influenced some of her paintings.

She has exhibited in many shows throughout the state and region and won numerous awards.

Mostly she works in oil but there are a few watercolors in the exhibit

At the reception I commented to her that she had not done any pictures of the Courthouse even though it dominates the view from her studio windows. She took me over to this display of paintings on glass bulbs.

These paintings have incredible detail.

The exhibit runs until July 13. The Gallery is open on Tuesdays noon until 4:00 and Thursdays 2:00 until 6:00. There will be a conversation with the artist on Sunday, June 25 from 2:00 until 4:00 with a presentation at 3:00.

Odds and ends

The Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce now has an office, the tiny room at the front of the Ritz Theater.

The Chamber had what amounted to an open house on Thursday. I learned that  ghost hunters had investigated the Ritz for paranormal activity and you can see what they found on a video on Youtube. (The video is over an hour long and I have not finished viewing it yet.)

Work continues on replacing the storm sewer under College Avenue. The old pipe was metal that was badly corroded.

A boring machine was working on Harrison earlier this week. This work is to repace the overhead lines and underground cables.

On Friday the cables were being pulled. The drilling machine was working on Harrison near Front Street.

We continue to need rain. The County Commissioners have issued a burn ban because the local fire departments have had to respond to so many field fires. I have begun to accept that this is not going to be a great year for my garden.

Rensselaer Plan Commission and BZA meetings

The City of Rensselaer Advisory Plan Commission met Thursday evening with four new members. The Plan Commission appoints two members to the BZA and they appointed Sean Cawby and Jeff Rayburn.

There were three plat amendments on the agenda. One was a request to separate the house from a farm parcel in the buffer zone west of I-65. The owner wants to sell the house to his tenant but keep the farmland. It was approved. The property owner also needed a variance from developmental standards, which was granted in the BZA meeting that followed the Plan Commission meeting.

The second was a request from the owners of Genova/Rensselaer Plastics to combine its original lot with about an acre of land to the south recently purchased from Lirio (formerly CDC Resources. There were questions about the City Road easement (an undeveloped extension to Cherry Street) that runs through this lot and apparently negotiations between the City and the company are being held. The paperwork was not finished on this re-plat so no action could be taken.

The third item was a request from the Fairgrounds. The Fairgrounds would like to build a new horse barn west of the existing horse barn, but it is on a property line, with the land to the east owned by Jasper County and the lot to the west owned by the Commissioners of Jasper County. The County is in the process of combining these lots but the paperwork is not finished. The Board had no problem with the Fair Board moving ahead with the building.

There was a short discussion of the budget, specifically the pay to Board members for attending meetings, which has been $20 for many years. The head of planning will work on that for the next budget.

A citizen had a concern about rules for back-yard swimming pools. A pool that is 18 inches deep or less is unregulated. Anything above that needs a fence and a $100 license. The citizen thought the fees and requirements should be graduated, rising as the depth increases. He also had an issue with the way water for the pools was billed. Our water bills come with an attached sewer bill, but water to fill pools does not normally drain through the sewer system.These issues will be discussed with the Mayor.

The next meeting will be July 13.

Following the Plan Commission meeting, the Rensselaer Board of Zoning Appeals met. It had only three members present, but that was enough for a quorum.

At the previous month's meeting a resident had started building a garage that was on the property line and above their gas line. They have dismantled the construction and will resite it.

The first item on the agenda was a request for a variance of use for a short-term rental. The owners of Market Arts, an 8-foot wide storefront on Washington Street, want to rent out the back part of their building for short-term rentals. There is nothing in the code about short-term rentals so the item was brought to the BZA. It was granted.

The second item was a request for a conditional use for daycare/child care. The woman making the request currently operates an unlicensed daycare but would like to become licensed so she can expand beyond five children. Before she applies for a state license, she wanted to make sure she would not have a zoning issue. It was approved.

Next up was a request for a variance of use for Pizza King, which recently changed ownership. The business is in a residential zone and the previous variance ended with the change in ownership.It was approved and the Board also refunded the $100 application fee.

Concerns had been raised at a previous meeting that perhaps the cost of getting variances was too much and as a result some people simply ignored the process. The local BZA can control some of those costs, such as the requirement to send certified letters to neighbors. Currently the rule is that these letters need to be sent to neighbors within 200 feet, but at $8.13 each, the cost in some cases can be hundreds of dollars. There was also a suggestion that perhaps newspaper notices could be coordinated and combined by the Planning Department. No action was taken at this meeting.