Riley County Commissioners moved Thursday to grant a replat application for property in University Park, but not without some pushback from neighbors.
The applicant, Danielle Maple, requested to have four lots re-platted into a single lot to build a bigger shop on her property. University Park Improvement District Board President James Slaymaker challenged the replat, due to Maple having a donkey on her property, claiming that violates terms of the community’s covenants, noting that livestock is inappropriate and outside traditional use of those properties.
“A lot of these quotes, it’s like 398 pages of your document. Most of this stuff is in the beginning, like in the first verbiage it talks about covenants and character of the community. It’s not in the end in small print. It’s in the front, which should be a focal point,” he said.
Maple says her donkey is an emotional support animal and that Slaymaker misquoted the very covenant he helped write.
“That covenant says you cannot have either livestock or poultry. He has publicly admitted he has had chickens. Tons of people have chickens in University Park. There’s absolutely no reason to not allow it just because University Park has never enforced covenants, whose board members break the very covenants they’re upset I’m breaking, think I’m hurting the property value of their rental,” she said.
According to agenda documents, County Planner Bob Isaac has explained that with the previous zoning regulations, livestock was only allowed in the large-lot single family residential zoning districts (SF-4 and SF-5), which made more sense due to the 2-acre minimum lot size for those districts. He says although the use limitation was always “one stock animal per acre; .75-acre rounded up to an acre”, with the adoption of the
Riley County Land Development Regulations and the addition of “residential livestock”, having stock animals was not limited to any particular district or districts. As long as the property met the size standard, Isaac says a resident could have one or more stock animals.
Riley County Land Development Regulations and the addition of “residential livestock”, having stock animals was not limited to any particular district or districts. As long as the property met the size standard, Isaac says a resident could have one or more stock animals.
“As of now, the regulations are allowing it, not just in University Park, but everywhere,” Isaac said.
A link to the Riley County Land Development Regulations documents can be found here.
