Dear Residents:
On March 15th, 2023, a petition from residents in the Pinnacle Point subdivision was received by the city regarding concerns over lack of notice given for the Public Hearings on the Prairie Encore Development.  At the March 15th meeting, I addressed the questions and concerns posed in the petition.  Today I received a request from a petitioner to respond in writing to their petition and post the response on our website.  You can find the points of their petition listed below along with a response from the city.

4 Points raised by the Petition:

The initial Public Hearing for this rezoning and PUD application was published in the St. Charles Business Record, posted at City Hall and at the project site, and a good faith attempt to mail notices was made back in November of 2022, prior to the December P&Z and BOA meetings.  This is the standard required by law.  This public hearing has been continued each meeting since.  No additional postings (other than agenda postings 24 hours in advance) are required.  All necessary requirements were met, and this was confirmed by the city and developer.

This section of Missouri law (RSMO 67.1431) refers to public hearing and notice requirements for the creation of a Community Improvement District.  At the last meeting, no Community Improvement District was being created.  The issue on the agenda on March 15^th was to rezone the parcel of land and establish a Planned Unit Development zoning overlay.  There have been conversations about establishing a CID (Community Improvement District), at which time they will need to follow the posting and notice requirements of this section of the RSMO.  It is not however required for the Board actions taken on March 15^th or March 22^nd. 

There was a notice that was posted regarding the current Community Improvement District located on the Bopp Property and within Inverness.  The notice was regarding proposed changes to that district which did occur on March 15th, when the Board of Alderman approved the request to remove the corner Bopp Property from the already established CID.  Those notices are only required to be mailed to property owners within that existing district.  No property owners outside of that district (i.e. Pinnacle Point) would expect any type of notification.

Using the County’s Geographic Information Software, your property (10 Heavenly Valley Dr.) is clearly located outside of the 185 ft parallel distance range from the Bopp land.  You can use the County’s GIS site to review this data at St. Charles County Public Web Map (sccmo.org)

via certified United States mail.

The developer provided to us a list of all owners that were required to be mailed notices pursuant to this section of the city code back in November of 2022.  We are told those notices were mailed back then, 15 days prior to the December P&Z Meeting.  Our ordinance does not require certified mail and the city has never required such for any of our rezoning.  The city ordinance here goes beyond what is required by the state law in this instance, but still does not require certified mail.  You can see the wording from our ordinance below.

Section 405.871 of the City Code reads as follows:

Notification to adjacent property owners. The petitioner or applicant shall make a good faith effort to notify by mail all persons identified in the information provided to the City pursuant to Sections 405.250.A(8), 405.470.A(6) and 405.865.A(6) of the City Code. Such notices shall be postmarked at least fifteen (15) days prior to the date of the hearing.

I hope this clarifies any confusion regarding the notices that have been posted or sent out recently.  If you have any questions regarding this or any other matter, please never hesitate to contact me at jknowles@dardenneprairie.org or 636.755.5303.

Sincerley,

James W. Knowles III
City Administrator