So, we have to figure that out, right? No, definitely. I I think it is a big deal. Um that change. It's not Yeah. So, um yeah, just kind of two things going on right now. The the the um applicant having their a chance to u appropriate time to respond to all the information they've just been given and this simultaneous thing going on about questioning the cost of using GCG. Um now I think the planning board can have a you know um obviously a voice about that no this is who we use and we don't feel comfortable anyone else but that that that is one take my take when I was talking about to Alvo is that that's who we use but in my own practice I have found sometimes that I needed to have a plan B. And so I also didn't think it was a bad idea for the town to have other places they might call if say there was a conflict of interest or or something like that, right?
Yeah. Uh no I did a search. Okay. I just I thought I had seen it. Um so I was just double checking but yeah I'm not seeing it either. I see a non- workinging meeting but yeah. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Graham. Um, the structure of the environmental commission was completely different than the other commissions right from the beginning. And um I think I remember it was really established in another era of very aggressive development ideas and a very strong mayor who um uh didn't really want to listen to uh doubling up environmental concerns against um overzealous development And the environmental commission has always been advising the council directly. It hasn't been advising staff to advise the council. We've always worked independently. And I would guess at least 50% of the things we've worked on while I've been involved have bubbled up out of our group, whoever they've been over all those years and haven't come uh either with specific instruction from the council and certainly not from staff.
Um so it just came it kind of just brought up well maybe this is something we should understand. Do other towns have more than one? You know, maybe Lisa me has a has some experience with that. um like are do we have the our team in place for the town that we should have um as just a part of that question. So, so back to the shot clock though because I I would have belts and suspenders have the plan B but we have a we have a applicant in front of us that we are do not have a B and so we we have to work on that but um and I think in good faith we should probably try to investigate that to say are we prepared to offer that but I'm not sure we certainly can't do it under the shot clock time right and so if that's the case and we're not stopping the clock.
So these are changes being made here that are pretty significant for the environmental commission. I'm not opposed. I I I think it could be um a lot of synergy between a lot of very different people putting these two things together. But I agree with John and Anna that we need to be able to bubble. Thank you. Thank you. It's going down to the rest of uh article 8 and article 9. Right. Uh and then article 10 uh amendment to the bwels and article 11 and that appears to be a blank page at the end. So uh Commissioner Mski, thank you. Uh as to uh point 11.1 um there was discussion uh in both the energy and environmental commissions that one of the reasons for the combination of the two commissioned into one sustainability uh committee was to better align with uh the organization um of city departments and structure.
You we don't need to wait and give them an answer. Right. In my opinion. Right. No, I I understand and I I think that's a I think that's a definite um Yeah. Uh that's correct. I believe that's correct. Right. So, I guess we need to be in communication with the we can we can approve the continuence, but we need to be in touch with that applicant and know that they fully understand that the clock is completely shut off if that's even possible. If it's not, we just we they just have to go with GCD and Okay. you know. Yeah. So, I just review the dates as of now. Um the date to close the public hearing will be on June 11th um for day filing date was February 18th. Um, so that will be the final date for them to like close the hearing. And I'm happy to follow up and just explain these if there's no more continuences.
Um I would ask the city to re-evaluate um at the same time the the the current structure as it says right here that um uh both the office of sustainability and public services shall be the providers of administrative support. Um it seems to me there's a possibility that some of the functions could be combined under one head or the other. Um that's just a a seed for thought and um right now there isn't uh essentially in alignment because the energy commission in the past works strictly with the office of sustainability and the environmental commission worked almost exclusively not entirely with public services. And so now we're combining one entity, but we're not realigning uh city department structure to correspond with the commission. So that just want to point that out. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. So the plan is that the new commission will align with OSI.
Okay. Yeah. So, in order to have someone besides GCG, they're going to have to agree to quite a long continuence. Yes. To allow us the proper betting process. Yes. And who and in the end, a second company may have a higher price than what you started out with. So, I guess just like follow up, there was another part of it that they were in front of the conservation commission. They mentioned the change of making a change on the turf of fields and also the conservation commission requires peer review. So it could also happen that the conservation commission says we only want GCG and they will still have to do that okay with them because often with the projects that they have been coming into town is that the conservation comm commission uses the same peer review that we received the same report because they feel comfortable with it.
or is it going to align with public services? Currently, we sort of have both for the environmental [Music] commission. I think you're in public services and you're OSI, right, Sean? Correct. Yes. Uh I'm unsure what the um intention is. Uh it is written here at public services and OSI uh would be primary providers of administrative support. Um, but I will look into if that needs to be changed to one or the other. Both is fine. Are there any other questions on the bylaws? Okay, let's move on. Next order of business is report outs from committees. Uh, first one is biodiversity. Well, we worked on the resolution. I'll probably say that next month also. Uh, circular economy. Steve, you're next. Yeah, we met on um April 16th. Um, we meet every u I think it's the third Wednesday of the month at 4 pm. So, um, first thing I'd like to, um, first thing we discussed is, um, is the the city.
Um but there will be another part of it that they will have to work with both of the planning board and the commission to have a better peer review if that was the case. So let's touch base with the conservation commission and see if we're all on the same page. So, we also are going to tell the applicant that we need updated calculations for their new design. It was not what was submitted. So, we will not be I mean, it already went and it's on the process, but we aren't going to accept. We don't care what GCG or anyone says about that. That's not the project anymore, apparently. So, they need to do something for that. And I think we want to talk about shot clock with that on them, too, because it We're now looking at we will be looking at an application that's different than the application.
If you look, the city has an entire web page on, um, student moveout. this year they have a remarkable coalition of local organizations cooperating to uh to try to uh minimize the waste and divert you know divert furniture, bicycles um clothing as much as possible uh you know from getting to the going to the city landfill. So, um you know that started um that started on April 14th um with um with sports equipment being dropped at um St. Andrews Church um and April 23rd yesterday there was a bike drop off if you if you wanted to drop off a bike that happened and then it's continuing through April 25th to 26th and then May uh 1st through the 8th. So, um, the city staff and, um, needs to find volunteers, you know. Um, so there's a web page up on the city site where you can volunteer for this or you can talk to Sarah Mason or Jenny Paskki about volunteering to help with this.
Right. Right. I think that has to be brought up or else to not put the board in a bind. Yeah. Because the clock's not on us because the application has been changed. Right. So I mean I think a the continuence should be saying stop until we settle these things in my opinion tonight if we offer that. Right. Well I think in that case we will have to wait. The continuence that they requested was to move it to the next planning meeting. So that's the only thing that we can approve right now. But in that case, they will have to come in front of the board and discuss that directly here. Um so they can make an agreement that will be the next steps that they take if that's the route that they're looking because otherwise I mean we're going to have to say no, it's no longer the application.
So, I'm going to help out when I'm back in town. And, uh, it's a really big operation and it's much better organized than it was in the past. So the city's found the resources to do that. Uh which is which is good because um the solid waste if you look at the metrics from year to year um the student move out is a big bump and what ends up in the landfill. So this is a this is an important operation that we should all try to volunteer to help with. Um um um you can look at the um to volunteer you look at this um um engage um website that the city has a2ggov.org/projects. So you can look at that and you can um you just look around the website. Um we're thinking about um we're thinking about um we haven't done much work on construction and demolition recycling lately um but we're getting around to the point where we'll resume work on that um this year and um we heard that um um Lisa Dish on council is working on CND type issues.
And we have a way to do that politely, professionally, quickly because I don't I mean this could you could see how this could just get no definitely messy for everyone for no reason. And it can be handled like if people are paying attention to the moving parts, it can be handled and keep it going. But um and then we I guess last thing we there was railroad. It's near the railroad. I did quick scale. It's within it's under um I believe it's under 50 feet which is a typical railroad. Again I don't work for the road. I don't it's not you know but I think it's something we had said do asking Lisa meet if we have any responsibility to um either conditions or anything about that because the applicant didn't seem to know anything and I don't want to leave that just we're not as familiar.
So she's going to update us uh the the working group on the next meeting on May 21st. And um and just uh lastly there's um you know the Washington County is working on its materials management plan strategic plan. Um they are focusing right now on residential recycling and then multif family and then commercial recycling and uh um Theo Eggermont in the U is leading this initiative and Sarah Mason is the city's representative on that body. So they have public meetings. Um if you look at their web website um you can see that um you can um you can you can attend the public meeting if you'd like. Um and that is it. Okay. Next is water quality. Commissioner Nudri. Hello. Um yeah so we had a Phoenix schedule that I had to cancel due to child care. Um but I was able to um go to uh the city's storm water comprehensive plan meeting um which was last month.
Yeah. Yep. That was an ongoing question. Okay. So, um, we have a list of those items and we'll be putting them all in front of the appropriate parties. Um, the applicant, the conservation commission, Lisa me um and have some um direction on that for the next meeting on the 8th where we can take this to and that'll give them enough time to review the other comments as well. Um, so I'll make a motion to move the public hearing on 24260 Pleasant Street Metro West Facilities LLC. Second, I Katherine Jersey. And Trisha Kendall I. Okay. Um, so we have uh already covered item five. Item six is 61 Waverly Street. the um the letter that we have been talking about sending to the zoning board of appeals. There's this is at the right in front of numeral one. Um I took a look at it. It looks like you had made some changes or kind of put this together.
Um highlights from that we worked on drafting a vision statement for that. Um and also took a look at some resiliency data looking at like climate effects and how it's going to change um storm water uh in Ann Arbor. Um so that was a really good useful uh exercise to go and be a part of. Um but yeah, water quality work group took a spring break. Um our next meeting will be May 16th. So that's all. Thanks. Uh energy commissioner. Thank you. Uh the energy commission had a working session uh in its last meeting. Um it was uh focused entirely on incentivizing driving accelerating electrification particularly in new buildings. That's a trend that we already see happening. Um but um it's not uh entirely the case and in particular hotel developments are still in uh the general areas primarily heated with natural gas. Um there aren't a lot of this we do not have I'll put it broadly the community does not have a lot of latitude because of um state leg uh legislation and codes.
Thank you. Yeah. So the first the the second part of it is m is directly from our letter um on the first iteration of this project. Um, I did take out the stuff on there that talked about the housing units and things like that. So, I just went with the stuff that was appropriate to the site. The first part of the letter, um, is our, you know, what what we talked about and our process here. The part in red, I wasn't sure how to include or if it was already included. Yeah. Um, the one thing I was going to say that on the first page, uh, there's a spelling error in the one, two or fifth paragraph, the word except for emergency vehicles. Is that consensus? Yep. Um, yeah. And then the red language you had. I mean, I I I remember we talked about this, so you definitely got the gist of what we're trying to say as a board.
Um we primarily came to the idea that um the best thing we can probably do is education and engagement with developers, architects, engineers, builders. Um and um there looks to be the seed for a collaborative effort to put on um a session in the fall that the Wolfpack is already working on. So, it would be a collaborative effort between the energy commission or potentially our future commission um the city U of M um and the Wolfpack to u pull a convening um and we're looking at trying to get out of town speakers and the university is actually working on a project um that could be an exemplar for um developers. uh the city the university is do doing a convention center and hotel up on north campus and that's very similar to obviously other hotels and very similar to multif family um development that's the the the major type of development that's going on in the city right now so um we're going to be pursuing that um so there looks to be some promise there that's all okay for parks and Marson emailed me her update that's pack met last Tuesday.
Um, so I maybe we should say that we're suggesting a way to move the parking spaces to a less visible location on the site. Okay. Something like that. Make it a little bit more ambiguous so that the zoning board of appeals can decide what that might mean because it seems like the project keeps evolving. You know what I mean? So rather than saying to the back side of the building, say to the less less visible from from the East Union Street side. Exactly. less visible from the East Union side, less prominent from the East Union side, might be a little bit more giving the zoning board of appeals some flexibility to figure out what that means because again, the project is going to it seems to be continuously evolving. Yeah. So, the I don't know if it's going to change again. They they had the first uh they had their first public hearing a month ago and then last Tuesday they had the first traffic peer review meeting.
Here in Riverdale is returning to Gallup Park on May 18th from 12:00 to 4 p.m. Volunteers are needed. Parks is transitioning to warmer weather. Pools, canoe liveries, and golf courses are open or opening and parks is hiring summer staff and pack recommended approval of the fee adjustments and a proposed budget for the 2026 27 fiscal year. Uh, is there anything from council that they need to update us on? Okay. Um, and I have nothing else from chair. So, I think next is report out from staff Sean. Yes, thank you. Uh, let me pull that up really quickly. All right. Um, from community services, the comprehensive land use plan draft is complete. Uh so that is available up on our uh A2 engage uh platform for review and public comment. Uh you can also send uh feedback to planning at a2ggov.org. Uh from OSI our uh the Ann Arbor Earth Day Festival is coming up this Sunday, April 27th from 1 to 4:30 p.m.