Rapid City SD – Thursday’s agenda runs from a 10-by-18-foot carport on Cruz Drive to the rules that would decide how much water a data center can use in Rapid City.
The Zoning Board of Adjustment meets at 7 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in the City Council Meeting Room at City Hall, 300 Sixth St., with the Planning Commission following directly after. Both meetings stream live on the city’s YouTube channel.
The Zoning Board has one item. The Planning Commission has a seven-item consent calendar and one regular item: the data center ordinance.
How the consent calendar works: Everything on it passes in a single vote, following staff’s recommendations. Any commissioner, staff member or audience member can ask to pull an item off for its own discussion and vote. Items marked with an asterisk (*) are final at the Planning Commission unless someone files a written appeal to City Council with Community Development by close of business on the seventh full calendar day after the vote. Everything else is a recommendation that still goes to City Council.
Zoning Board of Adjustment
1. October 22 minutes
Routine approval of the last meeting’s minutes. That meeting settled the Block 8 Tower sign variance at 440 Mount Rushmore Road, continued from Oct. 8. The applicant had cut the request from 1,400 square feet of wall signs to 837, and from 850 square feet of electronic message signs to 172.75. The board approved the smaller version 6-3, limited to static black-and-white or neutral displays that change no faster than every 8 seconds. A substitute motion to approve the wall signs but deny the east-facing LED sign failed 3-6.
The board also approved, 9-0, a 65-foot joint identification sign along I-90 near North Lacrosse Street, on a pole that has stood since 1985.
2. 26VA031: Carport at 1733 Cruz Drive (staff recommends denial)
The request: Kyle and Laura Troastle want to build a 10-by-18-foot open carport on the south side of their house, over an existing parking pad. City code requires an 8-foot side setback. Because the south property line angles, the carport’s front corner would sit 3 feet from the line, while the back corner would meet the 8-foot rule.
Why they’re asking: The house, built in the early 1960s, has a single-stall garage that’s already in use. The family says a second vehicle sits on the street, has been damaged by hail and gets in the way of plows and street sweepers. Narrow, sloping side yards mean there’s no other place to put a carport. Their written statement also says a new survey moved the property line about 3 feet past a neighbor’s retaining wall, into what they believed was their side yard.
Why staff says no: The garage already gives the property “reasonable use.” Single-stall garages with cars parked outside are typical of the neighborhood, and carports are “scarce or absent.” The lot sits higher than the neighbor to the south, so a carport 3 feet from the line would loom over that neighbor’s backyard.
Background: A variance is permission to break a dimensional rule like a setback. The board has to find special conditions on the property, real hardship rather than inconvenience, and that the request is the minimum needed. Staff’s report lists two findings that would support approval, the sloped lot and the angled line, and three that support denial. The board decides; this item doesn’t go to Council.
Planning Commission: Consent Calendar
1. October 22 minutes
Routine approval. At that meeting the commission:
- Recommended approval, 9-0, of 26CA002, which removes part of a planned collector street between I-90 and Deadwood Avenue North from the city’s Major Street Plan, south of Calamity Road. Staff said the planned street would have made the Heavy Constructors property between the interstate and Deadwood Avenue undevelopable.
- Recommended a rezoning of 2918 Garden Lane from low-density residential to mobile home residential.
- Re-elected Erik Braun as chair and named Vince Vidal vice chair and Karen Bulman secretary.
- Heard that around 400 online data center surveys had been submitted so far, and confirmed the ordinance would return Nov. 5.
2. 26PL086: Park Hill No. 7 Subdivision (Hennessy Drive)
The request: Park Hill Development, Inc., through Longbranch Civil Engineering, wants to create two residential lots at the end of the Hennessy Drive cul-de-sac and move the line on an existing duplex lot at 2502 Hennessy Drive.
What to know: The new lot lines wouldn’t fully meet city code. The duplex lot would shrink to about 6,839 square feet, below the 8,000-square-foot minimum for a duplex, and its north side setback would drop to 6.4 feet instead of 8. The house planned for the new Lot 9 is drawn 16.51 feet from Hennessy Drive (20 required) and 7.1 feet from its south line (8 required). Staff recommends approval anyway, on the condition that the developer either gets those exceptions or variances later or redraws the plat. Wilma Street, next to the lots, is unimproved, and the developer must build it to city standards or get an exception.
Background: A preliminary subdivision plan is the first approval in the platting process. City Council has the final say before engineering plans and a final plat can move forward.
3. 26PL092: Commerce Park Subdivision (1540 Rand Road)
The request: Angel and Barbara Munoz, through Renner Associates, LLC, want to split about 5 acres of Light Industrial land at 1540 Rand Road into two tracts. One has an existing storage building; the other is vacant. Renner’s drainage exhibit lists the client as Rangel Construction.
What to know: Public Works has already waived, administratively, the curb, gutter, streetlight conduit and sanitary sewer normally required along Rand Road, and the streetlight conduit along Fountain Plaza Drive.
Rand Road is a collector street, but this stretch sits in a 66-foot access and utility easement, not public right-of-way. The owners would dedicate 34 feet of it as public right-of-way, which pushes the existing building about a foot closer to the new front line and requires a setback exception.
A drainage channel crosses the property under the Deadwood Avenue Drainage Design Plan, and staff wants a revised drainage report showing the easement can carry the existing flow.
4. 26PL094: Apple Valley Subdivision, Phase 4
The request: Meadow Valley LLC, through Towey Design Group, wants to add 104 home lots and one drainage lot to Apple Valley, east of Lodi Lane, on about 25 acres. It would be built in three sub-phases: 4A (39 lots), 4B (28 lots plus the drainage lot) and 4C (37 lots).
What to know:
- It’s outside city limits. The land is zoned under Pennington County rules. The city reviews the plat because it sits inside the city’s three-mile platting jurisdiction.
- Not city water. Rapid Valley Sanitary District provides water and sewer. A city water main runs in Long View Road, and the report says plainly that the subdivision may not connect to it.
- Who maintains the roads. Pennington County’s Highway Department won’t take the streets into its system. No final plat can be approved until a Road District is formed to maintain them.
- The traffic study is from Phase 1. The study, submitted with Phase 1 engineering plans, covered all of Apple Valley and found no intersection improvements were needed. Staff says Phase 4 “generally aligns” with that layout.
- The drainage lot. The city no longer accepts standalone drainage lots it doesn’t maintain, so the 1.41-acre lot must be folded into home lots as an easement, or the county must sign off on it.
- The sequence. Phases 3A and 3B, 84 lots approved by Council in June 2025, haven’t been final-platted yet. Phase 4 can’t be final-platted until they are.
Background: Council-approved phases so far are Phase 1 (80 lots, 2022), Phases 2A and 2B (100 lots, 2024) and Phases 3A and 3B (84 lots, 2025). With Phase 4, Apple Valley’s approved total would reach 368 lots.
5. *26PD022: Small engine repair in a garage (124 Viking Drive)
The request: Daniel Standifird already has a city certificate to repair small engines, like lawnmowers and snowblowers, in his basement. He wants to move the work into his attached garage. Engines are bought online, fixed and resold online. Buyers either pick up by appointment between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. or get delivery.
What to know: Home businesses are allowed in this district if they’re entirely inside the house. Using the garage makes it a “major home occupation,” and because the neighborhood (Northbrook Village) has a Planned Development overlay, it takes this amendment.
Staff’s conditions: the garage door stays closed during repairs, no work before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., customers park in the driveway, and no sediment or contaminants go into storm drains or sewers. The report doesn’t separately address storage of fuel or oil. The asterisk means this decision is final unless appealed.
6. *26PD023: Rapid City South Dakota Temple (Moon Meadows Drive and Mount Rushmore Road)
The request: FMG Engineering, for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wants an amendment to an existing Planned Development overlay so the church can build its Rapid City temple on 4.86 acres at 8212, 8215 and 8227 Bella Luna Place, at the northeast corner of Mount Rushmore Road and Moon Meadows Drive.
Background: The church announced a Rapid City temple in April 2025, its first in South Dakota, and released the site in February 2026 and a rendering in May. Churches are already allowed in the General Commercial zoning there. The amendment is needed because the land carries old planned-development overlays from 2006 (for a Walmart) and 2017 (for a hotel), neither of which was built.
What’s in the plans:
- An 11,475-square-foot, one-story temple, about 32 feet tall, with a spire rising to about 109 feet. City code exempts spires from height limits.
- A 4,520-square-foot accessory building for a distribution center, a waiting area, offices, maintenance and storage.
- A single 40-seat ordinance room. Visits are by appointment, with no weekly congregational service, and the temple is typically closed Sundays.
- 140 parking stalls and two bus stalls. Code requires 24 by staff’s count; the applicant’s worst-case count, counting every seat in both buildings, is 81.
- A 6-foot ornamental steel fence with brick pillars up to about 7 feet 4 inches, around the grounds and close to the property lines. Code limits fences to 4 feet in those front areas, so staff recommends an exception. The vehicle gate would have a Knox box for emergency access; police and fire noted no concerns.
- No traffic study. One is required at 100 peak-hour trips. The church’s estimate tops out at 45 trips at Saturday’s peak, and counts from a larger temple in Afton, Wyo., peaked at 66. The city traffic engineer agreed a study isn’t needed.
Nearby: The site plan lists Sanford Health of South Dakota as the owner of land on the north side. The same stretch of Moon Meadows Drive was at the center of a developer’s appeal at Public Works in September.
The asterisk means this decision is final unless appealed.
7. 26VR007: Pine Hills section line vacation
The request: Kerry and Sharla Steever, through All Aspects Inc., want to vacate parts of two section-line rights-of-way southwest of Kingswood Drive and Pine Hills Drive.
Background: Section lines are old public road corridors along survey lines that often never became actual roads. Buildings must stay 58 feet back from one. Vacating these segments removes that setback so four undeveloped lots, replatted under a plan Council approved Aug. 17, have more room to build. The lots will use a new private access easement and on-site wells and septic. Utilities and neighboring owners have signed off in writing.
Planning Commission: Regular Agenda
8. 26OA006 / Ordinance 6746: Data center regulations
The ordinance and what the public said about it are covered in the Sentinel’s preview.
Ordinance 6746: Rapid City’s Data Center Rules Head Back to Planning Commission Thursday
New since then: The packet now includes the city’s survey results, collected Oct. 14 through Nov. 2, plus two files of written answers to its open-ended questions. Depending on the question, 888 to 923 people answered. On Oct. 22, commissioners were told the count was around 400.
- Most answered “not restrictive enough.” For every limit in the draft, a large majority marked it “not restrictive enough.” That ranged from 61% on requiring a sound study to 90% on the 1,000-foot residential buffer for large-scale facilities.
- Distance. Asked how far a data center should be from homes, 82% chose “more than 3,000 feet.” The draft uses 500 feet for micro facilities and 1,000 for large-scale.
- Prohibit, not permit. Asked whether micro data centers should be permitted, conditional or prohibited in Light Industrial zoning, 71% chose prohibited. For large-scale, 85% did.
- Water first. 54% ranked water as their top concern, ahead of always requiring a public hearing (35%), noise (7%) and power (6%).
The survey was open to anyone, so it measures who chose to respond, not the city as a whole. The packet doesn’t say whether the online version limited repeat responses.
What’s next: After Thursday, the city’s posted schedule sends the ordinance to Legal & Finance on Nov. 10, City Council first reading on Nov. 16 and second reading on Dec. 7.
9. Staff and Planning Commission discussion items
10. General public comment
Anyone can speak on items not on the agenda.
Questions the packet leaves open
- The Apple Valley agenda listing names 64 lots by number; the staff report and phasing plan describe 104. Which is right?
- The temple’s accessory building is listed at 4,520 square feet, but staff’s parking math uses 3,100 square feet of storage plus 2,625 of office, which is 5,725. The church has also described the temple as 11,800 square feet, not 11,475. Which numbers will the building permit use?
- On Cruz Drive, the applicant’s own statement describes about 5 feet in front and 3 feet in back, while staff describes 3 feet in front and 8 feet in back. Which drawing is the board voting on?
- Will the data center survey results change anything in the draft ordinance before Thursday’s vote, or will they only be passed along to Council?
Sources: City of Rapid City, Nov. 5, 2026 Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission agenda (rcgov.org); project reports and attachments for 26VA031, 26PL086, 26PL092, 26PL094, 26PD022, 26PD023 (including FMG Engineering’s letter of intent) and 26VR007; 26OA006 survey results summary (Oct. 14–Nov. 2, 2026) and open-ended response files; Oct. 22, 2026 Zoning Board of Adjustment and Planning Commission minutes. Temple announcement, site and rendering dates from Church News and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Newsroom.
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