The city’s ordinance regulating metal building construction and site selection for the new fire department dominated discussion at Monday night’s nearly two-hour city commission meeting.

Local resident Beth Woodall and Joe D. “Doc” Coughlan, the contractor she hired to design and construct a 432 square-foot detached garage adjacent to her house on South Eighth Street, attended the meeting, along with members of the city’s planning and zoning (P&Z) board.

At issue is the 2018 city ordinance which requires that at least 40% of the front exterior and 25% of the sides of new buildings must be constructed of “nonmetal” materials.

The ordinance exempts buildings constructed in an industrial district and buildings in a residential district that are not larger than 160 square-feet in size.

The ordinance also allows for the issuance of conditional use permits as another route to allow construction of buildings that don’t comply with the code.

That’s a multi-step process that starts with an application (and fee) submitted to the city, notice mailed to neighbors within a certain zone of the proposed building and a hearing before the planning and zoning board.

A majority vote by the P&Z board only constitutes a recommendation to approve or deny the permit, advancing the case to the city commission for a final vote.

Woodall’s requested conditional use permit to skirt the 40/25% nonmetal materials requirement, in large part because the garage is set well back from the front property line, was recommended for approval by the P&Z board after a hearing in which no neighbors objected.

It also was the most recent case where the commission voted against the P&Z recommendation.

Commissioners Kyle Mecklenburg and Geoff Covalt, along with Mayor Roxie Alexander, voted to deny the permit last month, with commissioners Bill Tucker and Wendell Prim voting in favor.

“I’ll be honest with you, I’m not a big fan of metal buildings coming up all over town,” Alexander said Monday night.

“It’s the exterior of the building that’s visible to the public,” Mecklenburg said.

“We’re trying to regulate the fact that sheet metal buildings aren’t going up all over the town because they don’t look good.”

“We disagree because I think it’s a very nice looking building,” Coughlan said.

“My neighbors supported it and said it was great,” Woodall said. “When it passed the P&Z, they said it had to go to the city council but we shouldn’t have a problem.”

Reggie Redwine, one of several P&Z board members present at the meeting, expressed frustration about recent rejections of his board’s recommendation.

“We turned down (an earlier request) and you guys approved it and then we approve this one and you turn it down,” Redwine said. “It’s frustrating to us because what are we supposed to do?”

“My opinion has changed because I’ve learned over the course of the year and a half that I’ve been up here. I’m still mad at myself about (a vote to allow an earlier exception),” Mecklenburg said. “ We can’t regulate landscaping or what color metal building they put up, but we do have the authority based off city code to control what exterior of the building is made of.”

Redwine said he relies on neighborhood opinions to a large extent as the basis for his decisions to recommend conditional use permits.

“If we have nobody around that says they have a problem with it then I don’t have a problem with it,” he said.

“People move in and out and different opinions come in all the time,” Mecklenburg said. “We have to look at what’s best for the entire city as a policy, not on the individual basis of what the neighbors in a certain area want.”

“My concern is we do have a rule in place and my vote was along with Kyle’s and Roxie’s because we have that rule in place. You continue to provide exceptions then you have things that crop up that we don’t desire,” Covalt said.

“Whether the neighbors agree or not, we have a whole host of people that we report to. My desire is that we get together and take another look at the rules and see if we need to come up with something different.”

Neil Brown, another P&Z member, said that some buildings have applied fiberglass, old barn wood and even spray-on truck bedliner and “other outlandish things” to the exterior to be in technical compliance with the code’s open-ended definition of “nonmetal” materials.

“I’d rather have a good looking metal building with some landscaping than what others have had to do (to comply with the code),” Redwine said.

“I’m more apt trying to get the material that can be used defined more specifically,” Mecklenburg said. “I like the code and don’t think it needs to be changed other than that. If you’re going to build in Kingfisher you need to abide by the rules.”

City commissioners and P&Z board members present, including Tim Abercrombie who also addressed the board, agreed that a lack of communication between the two boards and with the public may be contributing to the problem.

A joint workshop involving both boards will be scheduled in January to discuss the building materials ordinance in detail and recommend possible changes.

City Manager Dave Slezickey said he’ll seek advice in advance as to whether or how the ordinance can be amended without running afoul of more recent state legislation limiting municipal control over building materials.

“We do appreciate what you guys do,” Redwine told commissioners. “I know it’s tough.”

“We’re all here for the same reason,” Alexander said. “We’re not trying to bully anyone, we’re really out for the community.”

The story concerning discussion on the fire department site selection appears below.