Reader
Browse passages, annotate evidence, and export with full provenance for citation.
of the Cheshire Board of Education I'll call roll Catherine Helen here Tim white here Anja Martelly all right please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance all right Gianna and Richard Clement yes through some project updates VIN you're gonna take the first interior lighting up under the JK energy project improvements at the schools yes I will thank you and good evening everyone appreciate you pulling this meeting together rather quickly you know I do apologize I did send some of these documents late but you know what I'm going to try and do tonight is present as much as I can on the screen so you could follow along and I I'm assuming you could see the agenda on the screen now yes the first item is the interior lighting upgrade recommendation that we have and I'm going to give you a little bit of background oh I'll go quickly but if there are questions just you know let me know as we go through so you know here the background is that in 2019 we did a project with JK energy at Cheshire high school to make some energy improvements and you know what I'm showing here on the screen is what that project entailed we replaced the steam piping insulation in the utility tunnels below Cheshire high school and you could see that the project cost was 52 thousand dollars and energy savings estimate I'm doing that $7,300 we also went in and upgraded all the LED lighting that we weren't able to do as part of the 2015 Ameresco energy performance contract project so we hit areas like interior offices gyms and other spaces that were just not part of original amaretto party you could see that you know that project cost was a hundred ninety-eight thousand with 19 thousand and energy savings and then we're we made some refrigeration improvements to fans and motors you know on the you know mostly the kitchen and heavy-duty refrigeration we have $15,000 project cost generated energy savings of 1700 per year the total project cost here before incentives was two hundred sixty six thousand we received a hundred three thousand dollars in energy conservation incentives from eversource as part of that and so the net project cost to the schools was a hundred sixty two thousand with energy savings of twenty eight thousand you could see that the payback on that project was five point seven one years JK energy did a very good job with the actual contracted work and you know Rich's on you know with us and and he could vouch for the work that they did the one thing that I do want to explain is this one hundred sixty two thousand dollars and just for brevity I didn't include all the detail on this particular project but the way we funded the hundred sixty two thousand one we had a five-year interest-free loan that gets paid back through our energy bills so we had to lay out sixty two thousand four hundred ninety three dollars you know from our capital account to cover the sixty two thousand that wasn't in the interest-free loan yeah I got this on this portion of the project a hundred thousand interest-free loan was for a term of four years Oh correct thank you right yep so you know the the bottom line is we save $28,000 a year we paid $25,000 per year to pay off that hundred thousand dollar loan and then after year for our savings is the full twenty eight thousand four hundred forty nine dollars the interesting thing when we did this is that we had appropriated you know about a hundred thousand dollars to do the pipe insulation and we didn't need it because we only wind up that only will end up costing us this fifty two thousand so we know any JK resources work already and they are one of the approved contractors in the small business energy Advantage program with eversource and that's you know how we were able to get that hundred thousand dollars of financing we also didn't need to go to bid because this was already bid by eversource okay so that's the background rich did you want to add anything on this original project i believe the town is utilizing a different contractor under the same program to update their park lighting and parking lot lighting to LED so they're they're in a similar program only with a different contractor then guys has a question all that work was completed in 2019 correct 2018-2019 all that summer 2019 it was done during school shutdown with the punch list activity that ran maybe into mid-september who actually who did the actual work to jk jk Resources LLC basically is kind of like a construction project manager that hires electrical contractors you know mechanical contractors refrigeration specialists so they basically develop a you know a group of contractors select contractors that they work with continuously through all of these projects in order to qualify by for the SBE a program they have to provide guaranteed pricing so those subcontractors have to agree to those prices as well so it works pretty well and I was actually skeptical at first but was surprised at how well they managed the project how well they worked on site they were clean they cleaned up you know every day which if you have any any experience of construction you know that's that's usually almost an impossibility and they were very responsive so you know if there was a bad fixture it was replaced immediately they were very very good and I would have no qualms are working with them again okay and coming from rich who know better than then you maybe that's staying a lot because he usually does have a qualms about something that's good that's good it is good no it's a it's an excellent characteristic for him to have so if there are no other questions I'll move to what we're recommending and asking for approval tonight so based on the success of the high school project we continued to talk to JK Energy and when I say we I mean mostly rich because he did all the legwork and you know obviously we work together as we got to this approval stage but they went back into Dodd and all the elementary schools and we asked them to find other additional projects that we could do that are eligible for this eversource business energy advantage program that we could start to reduce our energy costs and make improvements to these buildings and so showing on now is the recommended project that we would like to do you know this summer and you could see just very quickly that it affects Dodd Highland doolittle Chapman Dorothy and Norton so basically all our other buildings outside of of the high school less Humiston most of most of the project work is again to replace LED lighting or replace whatever we have with LED lighting the at Dodd and Highland though there are some refrigeration motor and fan controls that were worth doing so you could be the project costs by building you know the highest being over at Highland you know followed by chapman and then Dodd the project overall has a hundred thirty nine thousand dollar project cost before the incentive there's a thirty two thousand nine hundred seventy seven dollar incentive that is attributable to this work from ever source so the project awesome eight hundred six thousand one twenty the energy savings is twenty two thousand six sixty two so when you look at the payback we're under five years on these these projects the actual financing details is you knows where this gets a little bit more interesting and I think easier for us so here's the hundred six thousand dollar project cost were eligible again for a zero interest loan except this time it's five years instead of the four at the high school so the only funding we need to do one hundred six thousand dollar project is six thousand one hundred twenty dollars which will come right at our operating budget we we certainly can cover that so if you if we look just a little bit further from a cash flow perspective the energy savings is twenty two thousand a year for the first five year we have to pay that loan back in twenty thousand dollar increments over five years so we're net positive cash flow on years one through five of two thousand six sixty two and then once the loan we paid you know the entire energy savings passes through to us the only other thing I want to mention and then we can answer some questions if you'll look and I gave you know I know it's 47 pages of detail but this is the work that JK resources did they did it by school they showed a summary of the savings and the incentive by school which we just rolled up nice and then here you could see every single one of the ECM the energy conservation measures so you could see that you know the LED lighting we're replacing gin storage room custodians office main office storage again everything about classrooms and hallways because those were covered as part of the Ameresco contract back in 2015 so that's that's in a nutshell summary of what we're recommending and you know what we're asking for is the planning committee's approval we'll seek approval from the Board of Education to go forward with this as well add and this is the the critical piece we as the Board of Ed we are not allowed to borrow money only the Town Council can authorize that so even though it's a it's a five year interest-free loan we still require approval of the Town Council to proceed you know and execute a loan agreement and actually the loan agreement once it's approved by the council would get executed by Sean Kimball it's the same way we did it in the present year at the high school all right Catherine question yes I've been on the list of the new can you go up a page yeah sorry I'm just curious why the payback years for the Nortons school project is so much higher than the rest of them just out of curiosity hey rich well I'm thumbing through to find what drives that ultimately they look at usage so ultimately like Norton a good portion of the school is already converted to LED including exterior lighting and so the lights that are left what you know our the ones that get almost no return which is why it wasn't covered under the Ameresco project so you know bathroom lights closet lights you know storeroom lighting you know things that typically you know are sometimes yep so you can't really get a large kilowatt hour savings return but when you roll it into you know yeah it was the beauty of you know rolling all of this into it'll take the highs and the lows then and average them out so you know it becomes a little bit more palatable okay yeah that makes sense thank you yeah so this is this is the detail for Norton and you could see some of the annual our our 800 hours so that doesn't really you know that's what you're gonna have come on over paybacks but it's saying you know when you put this all into one larger project it were as a large project so that's where the advantage comes in you know the the big money saver is offset they're not so big money savers right great end up areas district-wide will be like 99.9% LED will be completely divorced from incandescent compact fluorescent and fluorescent so that's a that'll be good to what's not realized here will be future maintenance cost blob replacement ballast replacement you know general general lighting maintenance that you know will virtually go away yeah and you know I mean the other advantage is we'd like not sending our guys up on ladders to replace bulbs all the time because you know we've had some pretty serious ladder injuries so yeah that's a great point rich that the maintenance savings these LEDs as you know they're rated for about 50,000 hours that's correct we won't be replacing bulbs or we won't be replacing LEDs and unless one one just yeah yeah then yes question with the energy and Sun that we get the conservation incentive that we receive and then the eversource business energy advantage program the five-year loan if we renovate or close or do something with any of the schools does that impact the incentives that we received from ever source for the work that was done meaning is there a time period the work has to remain in place in order to receive that money or time to be responsible for paying it back yeah the way the way the the way the SBA program works the incentive actually goes to the contractor we don't receive the incentive we just reap the benefit of it so we never sorts reviews this project in its entirety it approves it in its entirety so regardless whether a building is opened or closed within the next six months to a year has no bearing as to what the project cost ends up being okay and that's for both projects for the incentive and for the loan that's correct okay yeah if the loan is the loans right so the money okay yeah thank you any other questions I don't see any Tim nothing yeah it's a good deal it was a good deal when we worked with them in 2019 for the high school and I think the thing that impresses me the most you know there's a lot of data here other than our friend and they you know there's a risk on their part they do this at at without a cost to the to the schools so and you can look there's you know there's a lot of man-hours involved here to do the due diligence to actually you know go through every closet every storage area every basement every attic and you know determine what what can be you know what could be converted to LED for the maximum energy savings amount that we could possibly benefit from it's a really good program wish we had more buildings after this to do but I highly recommend it I ten your question yeah thank you Andrew and I want to apologize to everybody I've run in and out of this meeting a little bit I have a four year old who did not take a nap today and experienced the little late to make it to this point yeah I'm not sure if anyone said this but I just want to so mention so we have a four and a half year payback school you know it's entirely possible a school gets demolished and rebuilt that's gonna or we get a new one it's possible that would probably take at least two to three years so to me even taking that into context this makes sense to do that to do this project we were talking about what six schools out of maybe one I could you know be done in two or three years yeah take it out of school by school you know analysis you know as it's relatively low cost there's low risk ya know I think this project makes a lot of sense thank you for doing it rich and the one other thing that I wasn't quite sure and looking at this is there a demand savings in here or is it just a wh and it's just calculated as kWh so there actually could be where it's entirely possible we get more savings yeah I mean yeah overall usage drops our demand rate automatically drops as well so yeah there's potential for more savings yeah so just to get everybody on the same page what what rich and I are talking about is you have kW kilowatts and you have kWh kilowatt hours and when you're you know for residential you really only talk about kilowatt hours but when you get into commercial buildings there are charges for both kW and for kWh the savings calculated here is related to the kWh but there could actually be a savings related to the kW not guaranteed but it's entirely possible that there would be so yeah thank you I mean to me this makes sense to do this any other questions nope alright would somebody like to make a motion to approve I can't find the text of the motion it's honest number one screen okay I'll make the motion I move that the planning committee request that the Board of Education approves the recommendation to proceed with the energy improvement project as proposed by JK Energy and further to seek the required approval from the Chester Town Council for approval of the financing agreement I have a second second all in favor aye all right excellent thank you now next step then you're gonna present to the wool presented the full board meeting and then to the Town Council yes after the board approves it I'll get on the agenda for the Town Council and we'll take them you know through and you share the documents and hopefully get it approved and then get it done this summer is the is the goal will this go on Thursday's agenda this Thursday's business meeting yes it's already on got it thank you okay the next the next few items are updates the next one is a stadium lighting upgrade and you know this is a capital budget appropriation but I just kept it under the JK energy project within the because as it turns out this project you know it has been awarded to JK Energy who has a de State Department of Administrative Services award for this type of world and so to give you just a quick background you know back in 2018 rich you know went ahead and had a study done of the stadium lighting at the Cheshire high school main game you know and you know the results of the study and it was pretty detailed is that the of lighting that we had and which that metal metal halide lighting ethyl field that's correct even even after which had all the bulbs replaced which is an expensive proposition because we have to get out you know we have to rent a lift you know to get up to each of those very high fixtures you know with replacing all the bulbs is new I think we got somewhere to 20 foot candles we should have 30 so it was really insufficient lighting you know plus it's more expensive to have metal halide than LED which is being you know which will be installed with this project so which do you want to talk about that any any more detail my grandson plays on that Chester football team so a few years back I went to a game and it was you know early evening the Sun had set and I could not see anything and I'm like telling my wife this is I gotta have to go to a Thomas because I I just can't see anything out in the field let me grab a light meter and when you know I think it was a week later they were having practice that night I went out there and started measuring and I was astonished because you know I'd have got 21 points then I took throughout the field that we were under ten foot candles and you know we're supposed to be you know triple that amount so kind of explain why I couldn't see anything because it just wasn't wide enough so we did replace we've replaced the metal halide metal halide is the very bright light that's great lumen output problem with metal highlight is that as soon as you put electricity to it it begins to degrade almost immediately so the bell curve on how long it takes for metal halide from peak to Valley this is a very short period roughly one and a half years so it's you know at about $10,000 a change it was time to investigate what was available for LED lighting what prompted this this study we found that thirty foot candles was the industry standard for high school football or high school athletic fields and you know I read solicited some lighting designs to see what it would take to meet that and that was the result of the reason the result of that study is in front of you okay and so the I guess the one thing about this project is you know even though there isn't it energy savings you know which is estimated at about sixty three hundred dollars per year some of it is maintenance and the rest is energy savings we're not because we're not running these lights you know other than a certain period of time during the year and for a limited number of hours we're not going to have a large energy savings but it is really more of a lighting improvement project that you know but it does save us energy but it is a lighting improvement project for the benefit of people who use the field look at it from a perspective of safety you know it certainly is an improvement on safety you know for people that are playing the field you know yeah so the project is it's a hundred thirty nine thousand dollar project cost but there there is an incentive from the utility it's thirteen thousand dollars so it's somewhere around ten percent again it's lower because of the usage hours so the net total investment is a hundred twenty six thousand three hundred fifteen dollars this you know because of the das award that was awarded to JK energy and rich I don't know you know when they might begin work because I know there might be a lead time Wow submitted the contract to them so we're in the process of contract execution once that occurs then we could they can start their material orders so as with all materials today you know we're gonna be you know we're gonna be we're gonna be such you know susceptible to long lead time so that's what I'm trying to get this kicked off ASAP okay and so the I mean the bottom line the installation will be why don't you talk about what we're getting rich I don't want to steal the thunder what we're getting yeah dimmable LED yeah the premise of the project is weary utilize the poles the poles stay in place weary utilize the wiring harness so what gets changed will be the light fixture all the light fixture stands at the top of the poles and then brand-new LED light fixtures so they're comparable they're comparable to 1500 watt metal halide more focused narrower beam you know better control the controls will be instead right now we have a keyed on I think it's actually not yes so I'm off simple on-off switch at the switchboard this control which is the arctan control will allow dimming capability scheduling capability remote operation it's all in the cloud operation so we'll be able to you can dial in on on the cell phone and turn the lights on turn the lights off adjust them no keys you know it'd be a keyless operation much easier to maintain you know you could schedule so automatic shut offs occur and the stadium lighting doesn't stay on all night which occasionally happens so there's a lot of benefits to at least control and an operation on these new lights at the existing lighting array meaning the towers all those are going to be reused yes new lighting okay yeah the towers themselves are in good condition it's all galvanized steel and then the wiring harness was replaced not that long ago probably seven years ago oh and uh new switchboards installed there was a I guess there was a wiring harness failure some years back I don't then maybe you know more about that than I do but apparently it occurred during the game as well so yeah just before my time yeah so about the still in good shape there's no need to replace the conductors so you know that's the savings in itself we were the capital was for a hundred fifty thousand and we're gonna get this accomplished for less than that so I think it's it's a good deal okay Tim Way has a question yeah rich you know to be able to operate stuff from the cloud is definitely helpful yeah but that stuff can it's not unheard of that that stuff goes wrong I'm not a perfect system or an infallible one either do you still have a physical switch where somebody can go turn the lights absolutely okay okay control the control will just be you know we'll be in line and you know it can certainly be bypass if that's your that's your question yeah yeah I just you know somebody doesn't have their cell phone they forgot it at home and then they don't have the app and nobody does and fortunately I live pretty close to the high school and I see the stadium lights when they're on so I'll be I'll be right here right at this desk watching the lights well let my porch and know from this right rich yeah yeah it's more focused and the fact that it's dimmable will provide some some relief for the neighbors so as the for instance the the goal is saying you're having a football game so light levels would be at roughly say 60% until game time at game time it would ramp to a hundred percent half time would come would ramp down to 60 second half starts ramped up to 80 conversely when it's time to go home it ramps down to 60 we give that we give our patrons 30 minutes to clear the field the lights flash their warning and then fade out so off it'll be you know that's just one scenario that could be that could be scheduled into a system like that so it'll be I think it'll be good and it led tends to be less light scattering than metal halide or incandescent so should reduce light pollution yeah and what is that what's the funding mechanism for this and I'm sorry if I miss that capital its capital we have 150,000 and town capital okay so we're putting we're recommending this goes in the capital budget that the domain I believe yeah it's been assigned to the Board of Ed yeah so we don't need any I mean we don't need anything here we'll it looked like age we're going to come about twenty four thousand under the appropriation so we'll give that money back great okay any other questions I think that's it okay Brenda is joining us also welcome a little doctor hello guys thank you for that very warm welcome grin alright it's doing the cabin project underway ft I'll whip through this quickly because these are all updates the Darcie underground storage tank replacement that when that went out to bid it's been awarded we're amazed right rich at the price it looks like I'm able to replace this for about 51,000 dollars so we had we originally had this project designed initially designed and I had silver in Patras Ali the original the original premise is that we were going to replace like the like so right now we have a 10,000 gallon underground storage tank for fuel oil when a pretty significant long fuel run which would have required a new fuel line's replacement of the interior fuel pumps and the the initial estimate budget estimate was a hundred and eighty eight thousand so after some thinking I talked in a couple HVAC contractors and they said why don't you investigate the use of propane which is bottled gas similar to what many many of us used to like their fireplaces on a cold winter night so we took a look at those at that option and see what that cost would be and I knew I could get the tank removed for a relatively low price so we developed the scope to a three-phase three-part scope one to remove the existing tank and restore the landscaping provide two one thousand gallon underground storage tanks there's so there LP liquid propane and then modified the burners that are for the existing heat and hot water boilers that entire those three components combined will come in at under less than $80,000 so yeah that was the pleasant surprise yeah and you know because you know kind of what Tim you talked about earlier you know we don't know what the long-term faith of Darcy would be but we're doing a good replacement you know at a much lower cost and we originally expected and just you know by way of background the Darcy on the ground oil storage tank is it's reached its thirty or light so it hasn't seen as yeah it's even past that it's completely failed that was it didn't make it to its 30-year life but intended life cycle it failed previous to that so where it is non-compliant right now with DEP yeah yeah quick question the underground storage tank at Darcy so we're doing Darcy and we're doing what other schools do little just those two in that 560 is that appropriation for multiple years or is that just for these two projects thick it can be for multiple years yeah it's multiple years but it's for these new projects and these are the first two of that 560 being expended yeah it's the only two we have left okay no that's not true either well okay yeah the high school will need that one's gonna need to be replaced in the next two years but while we were playing we're replacing that one because I think initially we discussed not replacing it because the building utilizes gas but because it's also used as a town emergency center it might be wise to maintain the dual fuel capability there okay but do it there's three schools that we do not have access to natural gas that's Norton nor Doolittle and Darcy correct nor has the fiberglass tank and it's good to like believe 20 26 or 27 so we have some time and ask your question now do you wanna jump in yeah go that was me I was just curious do we the amount that was appropriated or and requested do we have any concerns about like contaminated soil that we're gonna have to deal with once the tanks removed or as all that kind of testing been done and we don't think there is any what now when you're removing the tank I've in my in my career I've removed over 35 tanks and I've yet to see one that has failed to that degree ultimately that's an unknown you know that you know if it's if the tank has failed you know you wouldn't really know it until you you dug it up and you know tested the soil below or had a visual confirmation they actually sniff by the soil to check for hydrocarbon that's how they determine if the soils been contaminated what scenario like that you would have to have some indicators so you would have to have extreme usage so say you know normally do little for instance you know we burn you know thirty thousand gallons of fuel oil a year and all of a sudden I'm burning 50,000 gallons then you know would be suspect that there would be a leak somewhere but I'm confident we've we've pulled up five tanks thus far district-wide and everyone came up clean I don't anticipate we're gonna that's okay okay then we might be a hundred thousand dollars under this on UST appropriation yeah you know this is a hundred thousand dollar pick up over what was you know we didn't anticipate it and requested that's great we don't get to keep that money per se you know it if it's capital money and it's not new you know the town just doesn't borrow the funding for it right it's more for school modernization absolutely I like to thinking Andrew okay we're good with that one window replacement at the high school another one bid awarded this one went to JL Simpson we have five even though you know 750 thousand appropriated for Windows this phase of the project we bid was five hundred thousand you know we did get a responsive bid that was a Gail Simpson and the total including you know alternates that we had do multiple classrooms came in at four hundred seventy nine thousand two eighty three so we're in good shape with that my contract signed you know ready to move forward I'll keep going until somebody says stop I'm gonna okay norton unit ventilator that was also bid 110 thousand dollar appropriation $96,000 award to FF Hitchcock this reporting that we're going to replace the library carpet at Cheshire high school through a Department of Administrative Services state award to spectrum performing we have two hundred thousand dollar appropriated rich I don't remember how much think it's like okay okay and so we'll have money remaining to do other floors across the district yeah we're gonna work on scope review for a replacement of the stairwell flooring Kathryn you wanna jump in yeah I'm you this is kind of more of a general question to the extent that work is being done inside the buildings I mean I assume that there's like a covin protocol that these companies are going to be following do we have any concerns about you know people coming in and out and working on the buildings and being able to reopen in September is required to provide us with their company policy regarding kovat 19 protection for their employees and their customers so we we have 80% of them have complied out of those 80 50 have already worked in our buildings oh yeah it requires that it requires that policy and statement in order to work in our buildings you must come in mast and you must maintain social distancing I knew you already had that on your beautiful eye was curious question thank you hey rich with the library carpet at CHS there was no asbestos mastic or anything underneath out no is there tiles that's going to be covered over concrete floor flat slab nice thank you I mean we had done the we had abated that library floor in the prior project so you know we know it's clean okay next one is the do little underground storage tank replacement the bid was East and which has a walkthrough scheduled for this week yeah - my afternoon agile yeah I'm trying to try to get in under the wire before school reopens this tank also has is beyond its 30-year limitation perdy EEP it's a tight tank and it works okay we're gonna opt to go with a smaller tank it's a 10,000 gallon or ground storage tank currently we're gonna go with a 6,000 gallon double wall fire blast tank relocate it so it's out of the driveway the big issue here is going to be lead time on that tank so I'm hopeful that there was an abandoned construction project somewhere out and North America and that tank is just sitting there waiting for me to come and get it all right and then rich is working on scope for the millwork replacement across the district you know worse first basis is the method that we use same thing for ceiling tile replacement and you could see the dollar amounts that are appropriated for those projects the norton cafeteria project that is that is assigned to the public Building Commission and what we're gonna do you know between now and next summer because this project won't get into next summer has just got the the design work done who who's gonna be selected for that which do you know I think it's just I'm not a hundred percent sure about Jan magis who was the architect for the doolittle dolittle Elementary School kitchen renovation in the last year which came out which came out nice okay Highland boiler replacement that's a relatively large project which what's the update on that I know you spoke design completed in 2018 so we're going to convert the existing hot water corner to condensing boilers but I also want them to integrate that domestic hot water package and and also take a look at eliminating some of our existing pneumatic controls so they're revising the drawing and revising the bid package and I'm hoping that I can get that out to the street by the end of June if I can accomplish that I think we could get this project done this year the beauty of it is Highland boiler is segregated from the rest of the school building the only thing I'll have to come up with is a temporary hot water plan but we could certainly do boiler work all the way into October without impact to school operations so I'm hoping I can get that in this year okay great a dot HPA three working design yeah working with the designer of the arc mechanical engineer right now so that's the process now the High School AP AC improvement you know we have we have two related products HVAC improvements and legacy control improvements you know both at the high school that are in scope definition right rich nothing else to add there yeah yes the okay the next one they're not we're gonna be repaid with Cheshire high school then you know on the north side the parking lot and also Chapman's parking lot so rich is working on pricing we know that there is a state award to till Conn is it till Conn rich that Souter Tania was as well so you know I'm not sure it's going to go to them but that's the likely candidate we're waiting on pricing from is is the north parking lot like towards Pat and drive yes okay yeah it's the teachers parking lots the two-tiered lot kind of and then the Doolittle parking lot entrance repaving that's a separate appropriation but that's also getting priced so those hopefully done all this summer it's aggressive but we're trying yeah well this whole list is aggressive rich but you got painting Israel is a tough one Chris jump back rich the CHS BMS that's building management system legacy control yeah is that to help balance the systems in the school so help control the systems okay patrol and balancing or to two separate components so right now right now there's percentage of controls in the school that are pneumatic so it's it's basically the valves that control primarily heat or or fresh air damper position you know are controlled by air pressure versus direct digital controls which is controlled by a little electric servo so you get much more you get much finer control with DDC that you do with pneumatic yeah what happened though just to give you a little more background in 2015 when we did the Ameresco project you know we couldn't school we did not upgrade all the controls at Chester High School you know I wish we would have you know wasn't included in the scope so you know this it was good that this appropriation was approved so that we can you know work to get all of Chesterton high school you know on the you know on the BMS system with updated controls and I know Andrew I know you're asking about the load balancing because it's come up during some of the school modernization I think so you know I rich I know you will not have talked about load balancing is is a commissioning step in the installation of an HVAC system so when uh when a mechanical engineer or architect develop an HVAC system they also they also earmark on supplied ducts to output a certain amount of air so they usually use cubic feet per minute so like standard I'll say nine by nine supplied register will probably supply roughly seventy five to ninety five cubic feet per minute of air so the balancing component is when that system is finally installed a balancing firm a certified balancing firm comes in and actually adjusts the control damper or the RPM of the fan motor to meet all those numbers across the entire system so once that's accomplished that report is given to the architect and he signs off on it and they approve it and it's and it's checked off on their punch list unless you physically change the system if the system is unchanged for two decades you'll never have to rebalance it it's when you change a motor or motor size you change ductwork duct configuration duct size that's when the system has to be rebalance so at the end of every at least in my experience of construction at the end of every installation of an HVAC system that asketh air handling it's an automatic requirement that the system be balanced that's how that that's how that works so and then unless you change something dramatically in the system the system stays static it would be the same thing as if you had a an air handler in your basement that was providing air conditioning and heat to your first floor as long as you don't change anything to the system there's no need to rebalance the system it stays balanced that makes sense it does thank you Catherine do you have a question Jamis yeah yeah rich also but like whereas the high school has been added on over the years is that you think that's some of the problems with some of the problem is that you have yeah you have you have four or four decades of different technologies in the in the building so in some areas you know I'm gonna go back I'll probably I'm probably gonna stick my foot in my mouth but I mean we spent the money on that addition after high school the 99 2000 edition yeah and we you know we probably spent a million and a half on new HVAC equipment and didn't include air conditioning come on you know it those are kind of things that you know that urge I don't know short-sighted I guess it's easy to be armchair quarterback looking at it you know from 20 years in in the future but ultimately you know those are those are problems airflow you know when you when you're trying to increase airflow with 95 degree outside air I don't care how much air is crossing your forehead it's still uncomfortable right you know and the only way you can modulate comfort is full environmental control Highland is a good example it's said that's what it is at the high school you just have way too many different technologies from rooftop unit ventilators to classroom unit ventilators rooftop unit I mean it's just a whole litany of different types of technologies that you have in that school that makes it a difficult to control it's not impossible and yeah hot and cold zones that's that's the inevitable result yeah not to mention I mean some of the issues we have you most of our windows in the in the buildings are well you know so they're singing pain they really don't have the energy efficiency you know to keep the warm in when you need it and the cool in when you need it and vice versa so you know some of some of the issues we have are related just just to the windows sure building envelope makes a big difference I mean there's there's no doubt but that mean that's always that's kind of that's kind of you you know you're dealing with that technology so you're gonna get a certain amount of our value from a single pane of glass well with weather was 20 years ago where today that single pane of glass has the same insulating properties it's just a matter of you know how much fuel can you afford to throw at it to offset to offset that and then what what level of comfort you know are you looking for are we more sensitive today than we were 20 years ago I don't know it's a hard one to ask but I think I think people have difficulty with heat more than they do with cold that's my my impression okay all right Tim you have a question yeah thank you Andrew actually is not a question I don't think probably more just a comment pravin and for rich so we're talking about parking lot REE pavements and we also are considering doing solar carports it could happen may not happen just be mindful of the two because they would presumably be co-located you know the I believe the one at the police department is partially like in the grass but then part of it is right in the pavement so just something to consider as you're moving forward on the parking taping yeah I think all of that is in the pavement okay it may be I'm not sure yeah yeah pretty sure I'm pretty sure does their it might have an overhang over Devon but it's a sanctuary yeah in the pavement yeah so just I mean just try to have that in mind the timing of the two different things well you unless some but that the solar wouldn't go up this summer yeah I don't know how fast things could happen if we wanted to move forward I mean knows regardless regardless whether we have solar or not it still needs to be repaved so oh sure sure sure yeah assume you'd want the parking lot paid before you didn't saw this Yeah right footing and things of that nature so yeah that's gonna be that'll be just prior to part of that deal thank you we're good we're good you talked about Doolittle right okay also hopefully what was that Doolittle yes I need to get that tank replaced right you know I hate to go in there repave the whole thing just to have to cut it you know yeah for sure so I'm trying to coordinate that so it stays clean right because that tank is partially under the sidewalk and partially under the yeah yeah yeah my plan is entirely yeah okay and then the the next three items they're just really informational to district school security improvements and the ad a compliance project those did go to bed earlier I got two months ago but we didn't get a lot of bids there was a PVC recommendation to go forward but the council was not comfortable going forward so those went those are being referred back to the PBC for bidding you know the question that's come up actually you know this morning was you now is there a chance that we could get these bid and done you know and the answer is not for the summer you know if we knew that fools were not going to be open till October then I think it would make sense to rebid those I mean ultimately it's the public building Commission's decision but for those two projects you know only not summer projects at this point any more it's too late realizes I'm on the public building Commission I'm a member ultimately its construction this is their busy time of year and especially from an estimating perspective in order to bump someone out of their slot their schedule slot you're gonna have to pay premium so even if school was just was postponed to October there would still be a premium to pay it might think yeah so when would you go back out to bear you think I think might in my opinion you know it's a winter but back you're figuring for a 2021 construction period so we will go I mean we try and get out early you know like January January yeah okay you know you can maximize your bid productivity right because not many people go out to bid until February March for the summer so if we get that get out there early hopefully we get a good round of bids and and get this lined up for next summer invented we notify the state that we weren't going forward with our work at the high school because we had gone to them crack yeah we did and you know I remember asking Ryan Haley to do that of rich I just think you know believe it did yeah I believe it did that question I'll just I'll just make a known double check okay okay and then we already talked about to do a little boiler replacement yeah the next year for the last item that we have on the agenda is a building maintenance update and you know we we traditionally do this with the planning committee as a first step the performance environmental is our current cleaning contractor I did provide you know some background information and I'll just walk through it you know for the planning committee members because the recommendation is to extend their contract for one more year they they've been outvoted since 2014 you know as a result of a bid that was sent out you know they've done a good job for the schools since that time their first contract fried their first contract we extended up to the five-year limit which ended on June 30th of 2018 went out to bid again and the bottom line is they were the winning bidder again and they actually gave us the two-year firm bid of 680 two thousand four hundred eighty eight dollars which was forty eight forty thousand eight hundred thirty three dollars lower than the previous year's contract and they were able to do that because one name learned our account and two they would make able to make some internal staffing changes you know so that was a good workout you know again I think it's important to just remember that when we went out to bid we have two years of the six hundred eighty two thousand dollar price and they clean all our building with the exception of Humiston okay during the cobra period a couple of things happen first of all when when we were early in the COBIT period in march you know we didn't need them to step up there they're cleaning and disinfecting you know we had them disinfect the central office side actually you a special mister because we did have you know one person that had been diagnosed with Koba 19 so they really did a nice job stepping it up for us you know they gave us their covin 19 procedures that you know they were following and that staff were following on March 27 when we closed now buildings actually was two weeks prior we was the last day of school you know rich contacted them and we essentially suspended services so we have not been paying them during that period of time we did restore some services last week but they are limited and they've been very very cooperative during that period you know there's been no issues as it relates to contract um so you know the first item that I'm recommending here is that we do extend their contract or one additional year so that would be from July 1st 2020 June 30th of 2021 again from a from a board of ed perspective our committed to do we can extend the contract for up to five years and we do it one year at a time so that's the first recommendation the as far as the contract price and couple things I want to point out you know first of all again we've got two years of fixed price which was $40,000 lower from 2017-18 we talked your performance Richie and I spoke to the president of a performance environmental the owner Steve Sadler who was a treasured resident and he takes very good care of this account before he is a resident he and his firm and minimum wage was raised from 1010 an hour effective October 1st of total 19 obviously that did affect them negatively and then the minimum wage going up now every 11 months till it gets to $15 an hour so the next increase of a gala per hour is on September 1 of 2020 so basically two months you know after the new contract year begins they did not raise our prices in October 2019 they couldn't because we were under a contract with them based on the bid but you know there's Dixon will increase you know in the minimum wage of about nineteen point eight percent so that is their issue to deal with but of course you know they're gonna have to pass some of that cost on to us so what we did is we negotiated a five and a half percent increase to the base contract so it will go from 680 to 488 to this 719,000 784 you know we are recommending I think it's it's a it's a reasonable increase you know given that they've already been paying their staff you know a higher wage to whatever they've had to do that since October but there is some good news here and that is that because we've been out of school and our buildings have been closed since March 27th our building maintenance staff has gone in and started doing the summer cleaning and they're pretty far along and so riches has negotiated with performance environmental we will not need any summer cleaning services and if they are there there there'll be minimum so that will result in a hundred three thousand eight hundred fifteen dollar costs decrease so we're expecting instead of the 719 thousand dollars assuming that's five and a half percent increase we're expecting that will pay performance about six hundred fifteen thousand because we're excluding the summer cleaning this year and the only cost and I wanted to put you know the planning committee members is that we're not sure what additional Cova 19 related costs will incur for performance environmental whether it's you know additional disinfecting or sanitizing that needs to be done when schools open and we're all assuming that they do you know we may need to have someone during the day do periodic bathroom cleanings you know whether we do it with our own staff or have to higher performance environmental we'll need to see but I did want to point out that we may have an offset to some of this expected savings just because of you know the Cova 19 required cleaning so I mean the summary here you know we we certainly are appreciative of performance environmental work you know they've done a good job for us they've been very reliable during this pandemic period so we want to extend them for a year and rich I don't know if there's anything that you'd like to pepper in here now they've performed more consistent over the last two years I can say I think the first year I was here they had different supervision and there was a little rocky at times but over the last two years they've been consistent which is probably the biggest challenge when you're dealing with commercial cleaning contractor they're responsive I rely on them especially at the onset of this kovat 19 you know pandemic you know for their you know I consider them subject matter experts on cleaning sanitizing and disinfecting they gave us a lot of good pertinent information and you know they've been supportive of contract and we have a good relationship and certainly would like to continue that and then just even with the five point five percent increase you know contract it's still lower than it was in the 1718 year of 723 321 correct yes it is that's so even with the minimum wage increases based on the original kind of still saving I got compared to that yeah yeah and you know even the 719 is below where we budgeted so you know that that'll in good shape which were gonna need and very rich with their responsive like we're service well and if there's issues at the schools they're there and yeah oh yeah oh my god yeah yeah okay we've developed a couple programs there's a for instance especially during flu season or you know dealing with the lower grades with you know you know defecation and urination and you know we get we've developed an internal system where you know we notified them that day by three o'clock if we need to disinfect the room they do it that night I mean it's rough it's actually sometimes I'm amazed at how quick they can get it done but you know they are they're responsive we've we've developed some decent some decent protocols and programs and they've been working so okay 18 year old daughter has a different opinion about the DAAD bathrooms but clean Tim you the question yeah wait yeah you can then I think you had mentioned so this contract was originally a five-year contract which ended two years ago it was when we bid it Tim it was the first two years were bid and we signed a contract and then we extend one year at a time so we extended three times oh okay so what so we've done five years so far correct under the fruit after the first bid we did off five years now we're going into year three of the second bit wait a second all right I'm I'm what year did they actually start we're in 2020 what you're they started 2014 okay that was contract one yeah was all right so here's my here's my bottom line question I mean I'm fine with this you say they're providing you say they're providing good service you want to extend it one year I mean in your opinion at some point would you want to go out to do a full bit again yeah well that that's exactly what we did two years ago Tim okay all right oh if we would dissatisfied we would have gone to bed again in this year but we're not and you know changing a cleaning contractor you know you need a lot of lead time and it is a big deal for them to learn that makes sense to me I guess it's just as a general as a general rule of thumb I mean at some point you know five years seven years ten years whatever it is I think it would be worthwhile so we're two years into it crud to go out to bid you know periodically that's that's my only point this year is you said they're provide a good service so I'm happy with that at a good price yeah there's current contract the max you can extend it is for a total of five so eventually your head so in three years we would have to right right all right thank you I hate to think about to bed now during this current climate you know it would be I'm sure people are gouging over services cleaning it's yeah to get it stuffed it but turnover on crews the attrition rate on crews is like crazy so it's like very difficult to find you know a contractor that does that kind of service and it's consistent as far as quality I mean yeah I understand there's different opinions on what quality is and should be but you know they've been they've been doing the job at least for my satisfaction can't be any other questions Katherine yells that I'm all set thank you Andrew okay so do I have a motion to approve an extension of the contract for performance environmental sir um I move that the Planning Committee can you move that okay the Planning Committee requests that the Board of Education approved the extension of the contract with performance environmental LLC for the 2020 2021 fiscal year is there a second Tim is seconding it Tim sorry second I was on mute sorry about that no Pam all in favor aye we are getting it done tonight is there anything else for discussion I have nothing else no Katherine you're good Tim I'm all set all right kind of motion to adjourn oh yeah let Tim do it okay thank you everybody thank you very much thank you thank
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
following the meeting back into order okay the clerk will read out any action taken in closed session thank you and comment any word not at this time okay and super tether superintendent's comments let's see thank you okay and board comments well six I don't have any Dennis and Rick that's merciful and I just want to thank all the people here this has got to be one of those times that we've never seen in our lives before and we hope we never see again thank you and I think that's it meeting a junkie
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
like to call the meeting to order yes Oh call Danny spender here Donna Davis here hurry up para here Rick Rowley here Wilson so yeah Wilson could you lead us in the pledge today thank you okay we need to do roll call we already did okay public any public comments today we have no public comments at this time thank you so much we need to go into closed session I make a motion that we go into closed session second we're gonna give it a minute to get the stream off
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
um this keeps it in line with the city of ann arbor's master plan if if you were to drive through this area and take a look at our existing buildings and residences you could easily see that there's a number of one to two story buildings some single family homes some condominium developments none of them are as densely populated structures that have been proposed by the developer once again i do support the 84 units i do not support the 400 plus units proposed by the developer it's way outside of the norm and most inappropriate for this area thank you thank you caller ending with phone number phone number ending one three four you have three minutes to address the planning commission um thank you mr leonard i'm ken garber at 28 haverhill court that's on the far north side of town i'm going to speak to the sustainability elements of this plan i appreciate that the petitioner apparently is building to a lead silver standard and will include some solar panels green roofs and ev charging stations as council member ackerman mentioned the 820 carbon neutrality plan is now official city policy literally overnight the community's expectations have changed for example i refer you to strategy 2 dictating all electric new construction quote all new residential and commercial buildings are designed and built to operate without the use of natural gas reducing the increased cost associated with retrofitting existing systems end quote so we'll soon have a ban on natural gas infrastructure in new construction something many cities elsewhere have already passed and are enforcing the eight or zero plan timeline shows this going into effect for us in 2022 but complete building electrification should be the default option now to avoid the need for unnecessary and costly retrofits down the road electrification should not add any cost to this project according to a recent report by the rocky mountain institute it reads for newly constructed buildings heat pumps are universally more cost effective than natural gas even without optimizing for demand flexibility primarily because the heat pump provides both heating and air conditioning avoiding the need to purchase both a furnace and an air conditioner the valhalla site plan is no longer sufficient to meet the sustainability expectations in ann arbor where we're moving aggressively towards carbon neutrality and eventually a net zero emissions built environment according to the best science and principles of global equity the entire developed world needs to get to zero emissions by 2035 at the latest to avoid catastrophic climate change so if staff is not already doing so it should raise this issue with every new petitioner including this one so should commission full electrification is now the baseline community expectation even if it is not yet required in our building code 30 seconds it soon will be mr moore mr lampkin you should revise your plans to incorporate vrf systems in your buildings and forego all natural gas infrastructure including kitchen appliances if you rack experience with non-fossil fuel heating systems you should consult with local developer matt groskoff who was developing a 99-unit all-electric residential project on 14 acres off platte road thank you caller with phone number ending with the numbers 829 you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi my name is chris pesco i grew up on the lot in question at 98 valhalla drive i grew up went to ann arbor public schools community and pioneer high school and then the university of michigan school music and aerospace engineering program i will say that i i really am interested in in the uh seeing the design plans for the first time this evening i think the proposal looks great i like the density i think high density uh in this site is ideal i grew up walking and biking to to all the the downtown locations that were shown on the map earlier it's highly accessible to pedestrians and i hope that you know people that will inhabit this area in the future don't rely entirely on cars because uh it's a nice area to walk and bike um and i will say i think you know the amount of sprawl that's taking place currently south of the city of ann arbor is really an eyesore and and really a problem for traffic and encouraging higher density developments like this is really the future of the city these you know ann arbor is the city that's in position to deliver resources that the surrounding community needs from both from good schools and uh in in basic you know necessities like libraries uh uh you know the all the great things that the university of michigan has to offer these are resources that are more accessible to the public when the public's closer so i do really you know appreciate what's been done here the work of the architects and engineers and uh and would like to see this project move forward as designed thank you thank you as a reminder if you'd like to speak on this public hearing please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand caller with phone number ending with the numbers five zero zero you have three minutes to address the planning commission on the valhalla application hi my name is stephanie savarino i'm very familiar with brad moore who i greatly respect and actually the developer as well i also am very familiar with development and i am i i absolutely support um the annexation and development of the parcel and i want to ask the planning commission on uh the south exclusively the city of ann arbor master plan land use elements you know dated november 5th 2009.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
under are we site two in the site is this site two of the south area which is saying you know the 65 acre site is located east of maine south of the event offers it includes 12 parcels single family attached multi-family dwellings are recommended with additional neighborhood parkland to serve residences higher residential densities of up to 15 dwellings per acre can be supported if greater street access and parkland are available if that's the case and this is site two why would we ever ask for more than fifteen callings per acre um because this is what the master plan unless this is wrong this november 5th 2009 master plan do you guys know the answer to that or anybody i'm fanning am i not allowed to ask the question i'm sorry anyway that's my question i support the planning commission and their notes about um the deep r1d and and short of that i would be willing to support something with less density as i do support development in general it's just i cannot support this development at this location at this time thank you thank you not seeing any additional speakers okay thank you very much all right so this time um we will uh head into reading the motion and uh discussion mr leonard i assume i'm just reading the proposed uh emotion not the alternate provided by staff correct thank you that's that was that was strictly provided as an alternative for your consideration okay sounds good um so without objection i'll read uh and move both of the motions at the same time see no objection all right the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the annexation in the valhalla ann arbor rezoning petition to r1e i'm sorry r4e multiple family district based on the proposed zoning and accept these conditions the density not to exceed 50 units per acre the maximum height of any building will be 79 feet the inclusion of nine affordable housing units as described in the statement of conditions the approval is subject to executing a conditional zoning statement of conditions notion number two the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the halal site plan and development agreement do you have a commissioner that will move moved by commissioner ackerman seconded by commissioner briggs and we are in discussion mr ackerman thank you mr chair and thanks to the petitioner of the residents and staff for the input and background um i guess i want to turn my attention first to the the conditions um they seem somewhat loose and i was a little confused about the nine units versus the 15 units of affordable housing of course these conditions are voluntary on the petitioner's part but given the scale of the rezoning request and the fact that you're requesting only 50 units per acre but r4e could allow up to 75 units per acre i realize that you're bringing it down but there's just you're kind of still asking for a pretty big box and blank slate without as many guarantees to the city so i guess some reconsideration of that on your part i'd be interested in again of course their voluntary um under state law and that's completely at your discretion um i i don't know i guess i'm i'm overall on the the subject of of the petition uh i'm a bit torn i i and i feel the the tension and the staff report of seeing benefits and mr kowalski and mr leonard having negotiated gains along the way um that speak to what we're trying to accomplish as a city i was grateful to see that we got up to you know 12 of the energy consumption of the development would be produced on-site through solar that's that's good to see that's so much better than so much of what's been built even in the last decade um i was glad to see 15 units of affordable housing although it's not guaranteed in the rezoning um although and i was a little bit confused and skeptical of the varying levels um and this is housing along transit which is totally within you know our other master planning documents with and i think speaks to a lot of values that the city holds dear um i guess looking to staff there was reference like not enough and if you were to advise us like what should we be asking for what what is the threshold at which staff feels as though the petitioner has put forward ideas worthy of these allowances worthy of this increased density um and where should we draw that line in order to negotiate at the 454 units or you know clarify some other course of action i don't have an exact answer whether to think through whether the magic number of sustainability features is this this and this or whether the number is here um i mean we kind of react to what was given to us so um we did negotiate it up to basically as far as we felt we could as far as we could get it before the project was scheduled so um i mean what i do know is again we we look at everything in the in the whole picture and and as we said in the staff report as well i mean we do feel the site could support additional density there's there's added value in the proposal um but however as you stated you know there it's a massive increase over what the existing recommendation is for that site and you know try trying to get it closer to a point i mean eventually yes we would we would have to make this decision where that standard is or the planning commission ultimately obviously has to make that decision well finally city council so i don't have an exact answer but i know that we weren't staff did not feel that we were there yet as far as getting all sustainability features for housing features any other features to um support other elements of the master plan besides the landing's recommendations so like i said i did think i apologize for not giving you the exact answer i had anticipated it and it is a good question okay i would appreciate that answer bye if i could just also add two um that the the city is has considered sort of similar um balancing of a variety of goals and our master plans and i think that mr kwalski has done a um a great job in trying to recognize those at times frankly conflicting um direction that comes out of that voluminous set of documents that guides our land use policy in this case however it is a rezoning request it's a conditional rezoning request but at its core it is a rezoning request and while there is no inherent legal um clear legal link that says any rezoning must follow the recommendation of the master plan obviously that is our advice that it should that is the policy that we have set forth for our community goals to the extent that we are consistently applying those recommendations it gives us a volume of valid decisions over a long haul that are reliable in a way predictable to property owners and petitioners but i would also agree with mr kowalski that it as it is a rezoning and as there are multiple aspects of our master plan beyond the future land use map that is not that's not anything defined in our zoning code that says what those numbers are as it relates to affordable units we could look at other documents that do set those thresholds in our udc things like our pud standards things like our premium standards but those would simply be proxies of other public policy or regulatory decisions based on that policy it would be looking to those thresholds for a more discretionary decision for a rezoning okay that's helpful so um ms severino also cited a 2009 update to the land use element that cites 15 units per acre can you speak to the accuracy of that yeah that that's actually so she was that land recommend land use recommendation is for the site directly kind of south of that which was to be site too so that's kind of the site that includes i believe where she lives as well as the gulf view development so it did not include this site okay because the 15 acre the 15 units per acre is denser than the r1d recommendation so r1d would net 84 units 15 units per acre is like 150 units then this is like 450 units um so there i mean within the vicinity there's there is justification for going above r1d in terms of density um and some of the neighbors to the south have you know netted the benefits of that increased density um so so i think i i do appreciate staff's perspective that this is kind of going above and beyond the density that we have experienced and allowed um in the immediate vicinity uh given the master plan and that there is this this tension and need for added benefit with respect to um to sustainability and affordable housing and i do have interest in giving staff more time to see what what can be done with respect to those if the developer is open to it um i did also have some questions around staff's comments on natural features that didn't seem like fully cooked yet um as well as the the transportation elements i really appreciate ms retinger for being here um thank you um but uh the i might um i might have just not lack i might lack some imagination but it's hard to visualize exactly what all those recommendations look like and then what the process and path forward to implement those would be given the need for public engagement it seemed as if we're asking for certain things to be implemented but there is a process that would need to unfold that would include neighbors to implement them um and it it felt a little bit like putting the cart before the horse and improving this without knowing if that process would pan out so i had a few uh points of confusion and concern there um i want to support this i want increased density along transit it's something i've talked about for for five years and it definitely speaks to my values um and what i believe firmly our community needs um but there are a few items that still seem a little undercooked and and i do do want to see if there is opportunity to increase sustainability measures and affordable housing so i'll leave it there for now i'm curious to other college slots i could just really quickly speak to you you did mention a natural features review that that may have uh i know their engineers on the lines here somewhere still todd todd oh there you go um that may have been addre they were there were revisions submitted late last week that our natural features coordinator did look over and um they may have been addressed by now but so i was looking to mr pascoe to see if he could add that response i apologize i i can't go back right now and look at that but they were communications at the end of last week you're sure i can respond um yeah we we did respond to tiffany's comments uh earlier but when we did uh resolve the interior landscape islands and the bioretention areas we accidentally moved two trees out of the bioretention areas right so all we had to do is move those two trees back yes okay so when the staff report says miner it's it's i believe that could that's that wasn't that's not a was not a reason for denial and obviously the transportation issue as well we do have our transportation engineer on the line if we didn't already point that out so yeah uh grateful for that um i'll i'll let it be for for now i am very interested in other colleagues thoughts um so thanks further discussion commissioner i'm wondering if you could that staff could address the point that the petitioner brought up about um the fact that these sites were annexed and that they weren't really part of the master plan from before and then how your determination of the r1d was determined you know based on the fact that it kind of wasn't it it sounds like by what they're saying that it was kind of default based on the fact that that's what was there not what was necessarily envisioned for the city so i guess corroboration as to whether you say that's accurate or not and then r1d like why r1d if some of the sites around it are um well it's a mix right there's a couple of single-family homes and then there's quite a bit of multi-family and so um but frankly the the single-family homes are kind of in the minority you know in terms of what's around it character-wise so if you all could talk through those two points i would that would be helpful for me sure i can start i mean i yeah the point that was brought up about the master plan the origination of that and that that recommendation that was um from the original plan of 1990 i i honestly i can't speak to that you know that was i can't speak to how they got that recommendation um you know none of us were here at in the 1990 i mean typically we have when we've done we've done other master plan plan updates since that point we do look at more than just placeholding of of land particularly land that has a lot of vacant area like this but i don't know how that was done in 1990 i apologize as to the r1d designation um that's that was uh one that we had lots of discussion as staff as i said previously there there two of the parcels currently are in the city one is r1a and i believe the other one is r1b um so it in the master plan ultimately does say single family so we we do agree that the site can support more density um than necessarily a single family however with an annexation you do need to assign a zoning district anything other than an r1 or would require an area plan um we couldn't necessarily slap an r4 on there um there is other issues as well as going to possibly even an r1e but rwne has limitations on house sizes which would make a couple of the existing houses non-conforming um r1d again is supports the most dense of single family however again nothing precludes that from being rezoned in the future to something of a higher density i would i would i would just add on to that that uh the notion that it was township property and if it was if the master plan recommendation was somehow deferential to that existing use um that may very well be the case that um and you could take that as a criticism of the master plan that it should have envisioned some other use nonetheless it was clearly identi it was clearly master plan for single family um but for sure um as consideration of changing factors is something to consider in deviating from those recommendations in the context of all the master language policy [Music] okay that's that's it for now commissioner so i just want to really kind of clarify that point that the master land use plan did an overlay zoning in 1990 for the township parcels calling for it to be single family but part of the practice of the master plan is to do an overlay on township parcels you with the anticipation they might be annexed in but i think i know what you mean like correct we would look at properties that are ultimately within the city's uh annexation boundaries so that that is what they did at that time okay so anything within the annexation boundaries was one for one overlaid okay uh i just want to make sure it wasn't kind of again looking at that vicinity thing um i do want to kind of just sorry is this i was gonna say it is it's worth noting that with within that same land use plan there were other sites that were called out close to there for multi-family as one of the callers pointed out earlier so it's not like that wasn't necessarily looked at 30 years ago however this site was not there are various land use recommendations specific to sites within that plan but this was just a continuation of the existing land use okay so proximity sites that were within the city boundaries at that time were actually zoned 30 years ago to be multi-family well they weren't zoned but they were they had recommendations for recommendations speeds up yeah to that to be again as they came in many of those sites is referenced and again some of the callers that did some near those locations that were in fact built according to some of those land use recommendations okay um kind of on that i want to be clear that uh with this motion those those single-family homes would wouldn't be non-conforming because it's taken together as an r4e with the um proposed conditions of the unit type so like if we're talking about the first motion to be r4e is there a case in the future if that's adopted that those houses would stay and be non-conforming um well you do i believe single family is a permitted use within the r4 so the r4e so that they wouldn't be non-conforming those existing so if the zoning did go through and all the properties were zoned r4e those existing houses could remain and say the development for whatever reason doesn't go doesn't go forward all the properties would be zoned r4e including the vacant properties within that the parcels but the single-family homes could remain okay oh that's helpful too um and i guess i i do want to go uh to transportation to get clarification on both i think that the condition that was the main condition i read that is raised about the median island and the left turn uh for um that main street entrance and the process that it seems that it might need to go through as i read the staff report because it seems like some more work needs to happen for transportation and the additional work may require additional public engagement so if staff could speak to all of that and what that means to where where the project is as proposed uh what changes might need to be made sure the applicant's transportation impact analysis recommended a a couple of things that they recommend the first thing that we looked at was access to the site so they have the two site accesses that are proposed the access on main street is a right and right out access as a condition of the boulevard section that boulevard section currently has an opening thank you brett that allows access to the commercial parcel that is on the other side of the street their transportation impact analysis is a senate recommended um eliminating left turns for southbound main street and through movements for from that commercial driveway we want to make sure that we aren't creating a crash pattern where individuals who are southbound on main street would basically make a u-turn there and go back to the right and right out driveway and instead go down to the ann robert's celine intersection and come in the site through the other or the other access point as part of that um and with the city's interest in having public participation processes we wanted to make sure that the developer would go through that process with with the public particularly with the commercial property that is across the street and while we really want to make sure that that process happens we also didn't want to put the public through the process at the site plan and the annexation did not get approved so this project isn't kind of triggering a kind of republic process on the private parcel it would be within the public right of way re-engineering that boulevard on main street if this is adopted that that would kind of trigger contextual changes to the traffic patterns yes that's accurate the the changes would be as a result of the study but it would er as a result of the development but all of those changes would be within the public and what would be this like what would be the lag or kind of uh movement forward on that front if this project is approved how how quickly does the city mobilize in the public right of way to make those changes so that that boulevard might be constructed at the same time that this property would be complete so that we have residents there and that that street improvement is done that timeline would be it would be a burden that was placed upon the developer and the developer would be funding those changes okay and would that then be a condition for uh occupancy permit that those changes in the right-of-way uh are done by the developer for the property to also be approved for occupancy right please correct me if i'm wrong but i believe that is the case yes we could within the development agreement the language would be specifically spelled out as to when the improvements needed to be done and uh you know before so and so usually it's before issuance of the first co or something of that nature so that development agreement it's not directly in the draft that you have in front of you before sorry right now but that will be in there and that's ultimately approved by council okay so it's something that we won't see because it's in public right away and we're looking at uh private land use but to just know in context that that would be an additional kind of condition to this project that would need to happen correct um okay and then i guess to kind of clarify everything on the site then looks good to go and that that was the big kind of flag to traffic yes okay yes um i guess i have uh i'll raise a couple questions to the developer uh with the public comment is there feasibility to do full electricity in the building plans um we certainly are are willing to have a discussion uh with the uh our energy consultant um hlr and i have uh as a matter of course done vrf uh heat pump heating and cooling systems uh we could certainly uh have a conversation with our energy consultant with the ownership group as to using uh gas appliances gas clothes dryer non-gas clothes dryers non-gas appliances we haven't had that discussion yet but we certainly could have that discussion with the ownership group and then i think financially i would kind of push on the small percentage of affordable units the 9 versus the 15.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
would there be room to do a full 15 units at the 60 ami instead of splitting it between those three tiers that's something i'd like to see again i'd have to have a conversation with the ownership group about that okay um so those are my primary highlights right now i'll i'll leave it for other discussion at this point fisher breaks it sounds like um based on how long and kind of how far this project has gotten and how much how many negotiations and tweaks have happened that there is there's at least been some entertaining i don't know if this is fair to say from a staff perspective about whether the r4e sort of zoning designation was appropriate is that is that fair to suggest that yes okay um so it's not i guess it's not from staff's perspective um a completely um crazy proposition that this was put forward it's more than sort of a balancing of of different you know uh what maybe the public benefits were um to me when i'm looking at this i am reminded again of how disappointing it is that our um master land use process has been delayed um longer i mean it wouldn't have impacted this project regardless but it's um we can see how many pressures we're having on sites um based on what our sort of new sustainability and transportation does you know interests are in the community versus what our sort of older land use plans recommend and so i can understand the frustration from sort of the developers perspective of looking at a land use recommendations from 30 years ago that don't seem to be consistent necessarily with what our more recent master planning documents suggest as well as maybe more of the development that we've seen in that region and when i look at this project um you know for a heavily dense project outside of the downtown it's it's actually remarkable how much is already in place to support that from a walkability um perspective it's it's pretty impressive i can understand how some of the folks who live in the neighborhood nearby feel like this is a little intense but um so i guess the other question is based on obviously what the land use recommendations are for the area and that is what what our master plan documents suggest right now were there discussions at looking at this as a pud thinking about that um this seems like one of those situations where that would have been an appropriate though painful process to potentially go through i'm just curious how much that was was considered and why it wasn't um well i could just speak it it was submitted directly as an r4e proposal with the site plan so there were not discussions regarding a pud i mean internally staffed we had some discussions but with the petitioner it was submitted pretty much exactly how you see it with without the you know some of the green features and things yeah and i guess just kind of throwing that back out to the development team if you'd like to discuss that a little bit based on sort of the recent discussions that you've seen around development in our community recently and sort of new policy directions is that is that something that you would be interested in considering um based on past discussions with the ownership group i'd say that's very unlikely um and then the other question i mean personally i guess the other question i have is transportation so um miss redinger i with the traffic report i know that the traffic report said that there wasn't um despite the fact you just described the whole boulevard situation i'm still having a hard time processing exactly what those changes are but i know it also didn't recommend um changes at the intersection but one of the challenges that i have with this development of this density where you're suggesting that folks need to just turn it's right in right out um even if that's put there it seems like the temptation would really be to do movements that are find some other movement that would get you going left a lot more quickly than you should so would there what has there ever been consideration of a roundabout at the um main sire church location i mean i know this is just throwing around you know but was that is that something that's ever been interchanged i can imagine that being with a much denser development there beneficial i am not aware of any design considerations for a roundabout intersection never having done before is that does when i suggest something like that i mean i'm just curious what your reactions are to that that's obviously just that's coming that thought is coming with very little engineering background in terms of thinking about whether that would be a logical recommendation at all to even consider for a location like that is that i don't know if you have general thoughts about it well and a roundabout in that location would have to be a multi-lane roundabout um i nothing lower than that would work i don't think and as such it would require a very large footprint and right-of-way is a little bit constrained with that intersection okay are there other thoughts on that from a development team um only i mean we had not considered any roundabout but um the the movement that uh uh an occupant or resident who wanted to travel south or southwest they would exit the second or the southern exit to the project and go out onto the main street like south of the church or the anniversary road exit or intersection so there is a way for for residents to make the same travel choice as trying to take a kitty wampus left-hand turn out of the entrance which they couldn't make with the redesign of the island so um i just want to make sure you're aware that there is that opportunity for residents to leave out of the other entrance okay okay that that does actually help a little bit on that okay thank you for reminding me of that that's all for me right now further discussion christopher hammersman thank you so i apologize if i missed this somewhere in the staff report um the town homes how many bedrooms what's the break down there it's like i i don't think i have the breakdown of the bedrooms uh but the architect may be able to answer that i'm not sure how many bedrooms were in the townhouse uh bob lamkin can probably speak to that although it may be in that report bob can you unmute yeah i believe they are all two-bedroom townhomes okay and then um the affordable units is that all proposed to be in the apartment building or not necessarily i believe so but again that uh they may speak we haven't assigned while there's a number assigned with there and there wasn't specific units but they do say studios yeah i think those would be in the apartment but again the architect may be able to answer that more specifically yeah so that's a the since the townhouses are that are all two-bedroom um a lot of the the ones that are uh studio or one bedroom uh commitments for the affordable couldn't be in the townhouses and and my guess is that the two bedroom affordables would also be in one of the larger apartment buildings rather than the townhouse i guess in a roundabout way um sort of trying to get at i would like to see well i think i along with many of my fellow commissioners would like to see more affordable units than than nine um but i'm just trying to think of um you know people that want to live in ann arbor and can't afford to live in ann arbor and the types of housing that they might want and many of them would probably want something more than a studio so i would also like to see it the mix changed a little bit if that's at all possible i understand that financial aid that might be difficult um but you know more of the two bedrooms so that families could essentially move into these apartments or townhouses i'm not sure what the profile of residents that you guys are thinking about at all um that's just one thing that struck me as i was reading through this um if that's anything that you've considered and set on or if there's still some negotiation that can happen um and i i think we got and i'm getting confused now between all the different public comments we heard and read but i think we received a communication about um pedestrian access to bushes and potentially being unsafe and if that is not does not sound familiar then i can ignore that but i guess can you talk a little bit about how i think the point was maybe that intersection messiah church wasn't the safest for pedestrians so if you can uh uh brad if you can pull up the slide let me give you the number where'd my reference list go um there was the slide that had the bus stops slide 10 yeah no slide 10 yep right there you passed it keep going down right there that one so um what you're seeing there in blue is currently non-existent um there is no pedestrian way on that side of main street it in fact i believe city council authorized an engineering study to put a pedestrian uh way on that side of main street all the way down to stadium boulevard what we agreed to do is put in this section so that you could cross at the signalized intersection of scio church and maine and then um you could also continue south and you could cross at the ann arbor saline road the signalization would of course be adapted for the pedestrian crossing which doesn't now exist so the signaling timing hasn't been adjusted to permit it but obviously when there is a pedestrian path there they would adjust signaling to create a safe passage for pedestrians who wanted to cross the bushes and i think that's a huge benefit too of the location of this site it's just the adjacency to a grocery store that's and all the other amenities that existed in that shopping center as well as i assume you didn't i don't think you mentioned this and i don't think it was in your walk shed but there's a high school really close by that you can walk to right yeah you could cross across the main street at the scio church uh right there and go uh due north upon you're at the corner of that's the pioneer prairie on the other side of uh of scio church there so you could literally walk to school uh if you if that's if you were you know student living there yeah we have we have uh generally selected these as to be market rate housing so they would be available to anybody who wanted to live and work in ann arbor um we're hoping that some of the studio units would be appealing to those people that were working in the downtown area maybe they're working at one of the restaurants or maybe they're a grad student so it's not a it's not a student-focused project but we we assume there'll be lots of university-affiliated people living there who work for the university or other employers in ann arbor so i can certainly have a discussion with with my clients on the mix of the affordables but we have some two bedrooms in the mix already and i assume you're putting in a playground so they would hope for at least some children to be living there as well we anticipate there would be some um is any of the space on the side and this is i guess also thinking about the the desire from staff you know to go a little bit further um for some of this for this zoning and this density um are any of the open spaces on the site publicly accessible are you imagining that you know people that live nearby could also easily come access this playground and i think there's a slide really quickly about like parks you could walk to so that it didn't fully absorb but i'm just trying to think of like other public public benefit that might exist and some of the things that you're already planning for this site or if you're really envisioning to be for residents only it's not a gated community i mean there's there's no no you know a guard out there preventing people from coming out of the site okay um and you did mention there were three parks existing parks that were walkable from this side too oh there's several yeah okay yeah i mean i guess from my perspective and i appreciate the the um you know callers and the the communication that we got about density concerns but you know this is a long a transit quarter i've been talking about density along a transit corridor i'm not sure what other scenario would make a project like this appealing i mean i i think there's some more discussion to be had and potentially some more changes to make but in in general like i think that this looks like a really great project and a good location and i apologize for my children all right further discussion commissioner abrams hi um thank you uh i guess i'm i'm feeling really torn about this project which i sense maybe some of the other commissioners are as well i think um as some people have said it in many ways meets um criteria for projects that we would like to see in town in terms of um increased density some sustainability measures some affordable housing uh walkability and those kinds of things um and i understand that i guess i guess one of the things that i'm really not sure about um and it's difficult because i think i would usually ask staff to help provide me some guidance in this is the appropriateness of using a 30 year old master plan that maybe doesn't didn't have the same value priorities that we would identify today uh that probably will be uh embodied in a new master plan to come in the near future or future so you know like the appropriateness of using something that from that long ago in evaluating this and so um and then i think that the kind of next question just as i kind of think through it methodically is to say well if we if we agree that maybe r1 is not the right density and that we don't want to be designating more land to single-family homes in ann arbor that's not the kind of density we're trying to foster then the next question is what is appropriate and there's a huge jump from r1d to r4e so there's a there's a big jump from my math might be wrong but if i'm i think right now if there's 15 parcels if we assumed 15 single family homes on 10 acres that's like a 1.5 dwelling unit per acre and the proposal is 50.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
and so i think one of the things you know i would love to hear from colleagues or staff too about how to think through the rationale for figuring out what density is appropriate and a lot of the public comment that we got were citizens feeling like they support development they support increased density but this was too much 79 feet was too high right so there's a kind of threshold that i think um there is a threshold i guess there's a kind of line and i'm trying you know as i consider how i would vote for this up or down kind of where i think that line should be um and so i don't have an answer for that i'm just kind of maybe sharing my deliberation with you and hoping maybe through dialogue we can uh i can get some come to some clarity i think i share my fellow commissioners desire for um all 15 units to be 60 ami um so officially affordable by the city's designation i think uh as a percentage of the total number of units that's still quite small uh i support the desire for full electrification i think that part of our desire for density and walkability are our goals related to sustainability and as one of the callers mentioned the city of ann arbor is taking you know concerted measures um and so i think everything this building can do to kind of meet those sustainability goals makes sense uh and should be i think things that we're holding uh developers accountable to meeting um yeah so those are those are kind of my thoughts they're not conclusive maybe maybe a few more minutes of conversation can help me on that but for me it's kind of like in general i support the the kind of qualities of the project the development on that site increased density transit corridor walkability etc um but it's it's a kind of extreme the density feels at the kind of you know extreme end and i'm trying to figure out kind of where on the dial uh the appropriate density would be thanks uh commissioner woods troop your hand up um i think there's a lot that i like about this particular project and a lot that it has going for it um the master plan is really taking a hit during this meeting and i think maybe one of the things we should we should think about is um it has been around for a long time but but even when you think about looking at a master plan it takes a lot of gearing up to do that and uh you know expense and everything else so so i can see why they exist for for quite a while the other thing is i think many times this particular project if i'm not mistaken is actually a combination of a number of sites i think based upon what either the developer said or i read within the within the report so um perhaps those who looked at the master plan back in the day weren't really thinking somebody's going to combine a lot of things put it together and therefore it will support a higher density and that sort of thing so we should always just have a little caveat i think when we when we talk about things like that i would have liked to have seen a uh a table perhaps which could give uh the planning commission a better sense of the differences or the uh what you're getting with an r1d versus the uh uh conditional zoning and the um uh r4 that the that the commission that the developer has proposed um yet nevertheless um hardly any neighborhood ever wants more density right beside them um traffic is going to be a nightmare for every all of us no matter what we sort of put in there we know that and um you know one of the things i'm thinking about is uh when there's a football game you know there's going to be what a lot more people needing to go south i guess at that point but you know michigan football give or take a couple thousand people you know what what's what difference does that really make i guess um but the other thing that is a stumbling block for me at this point is the affordable housing units and um if someone from the development team can uh talk a little bit more about that because we're getting to the point where we're many of us are getting a little tired of hearing oh we talked about nine we talked about 15 and nobody wanted we we're not going there i mean you're asking a lot from the city so you know if you want the city and the residents to live with this increased density can't we at least also get you work with us so that we can have more people who are going to be living in the city and working in the downtown area and would love to have a development like this as their home let's let's see if we can get a few more of those folks to be able to live in this area as well so um i really need to hear more about that particularly because it is one of the city's goals just as sustainability and walkability is important as well so thank you for doing that um but it's also you know this could be a good opportunity to really to really do the affordability as well um i i'm certainly wanted to have the discussion as i indicated with the ownership group about this shifting or changing and perhaps even adding affordable units in light of one of the uh public hearing comments in the light of declining commissioner ackerman's discussion of what transpired last night at city council regarding carbon neutrality and sustainability since we have our energy expert here with us perhaps you'd like to ask him some questions about the sustainability of this model of development over single family we'll we'll get to that in a minute i just wanted a couple couple of comments that i have um in regards to i guess uh miss redinger if you're here if you're available for a quick question if not i'll move on oh yes thank you um the stub road so sort of the stub off of south main it so i've been on that road although it's been several years since i've been on that road um i actually did not realize there was a road i thought it was a driveway um is that road really equipped for the amount of traffic uh to support 454 units and 731 parking spots is that road really equipped for that much traffic since it mostly looks like a driveway it is a low volume street it is a public street i'm actually going to defer to the developers uh transportation consultant if she wouldn't mind talking about how many trips that are anticipated to be on that driveway sure yeah i'm looking at the the volume of traffic on the driveway and with the future traffic volumes that we're looking um we did collect existing traffic volumes on that driveway um and added them to the site generated traffic volume to calculate the total so the peak hour traffic volumes are right around a hundred ingress um a little less on the egress because we have that additional access on um main street so we split the egress from the two driveways and all the ingress will mostly have to come in via main street so um the volume of traffic is if we're looking at 200 vehicles during the peak hour that's right around maybe 2000 vehicles a day which is a relatively low traffic volume for a side street and that's a traffic volume that would be consistent with a a low volume stream of this nature throughout the city okay now the one thing that's a little bit different about this street from my recollection although it's been probably two or three years since i've been down there a lot of people park off of that street um not parallel but they literally pull into the golf course and i believe it's the driving range that's there um and then they back out right into that street there so my concern is if there's gonna be so much more traffic going uh back and forth on that street um one i'm concerned about the quality of the street if it's truly you know able to handle that much traffic and i'm not talking about handling um the number of cars but i don't remember that being a very uh nice road i should say um something that would probably need some maintenance um but also my concern is as people are parking into the driving range there of how they are then backing out onto the street so i'm a little concerned about that and and part of it the concern goes in regards to traffic is that um with the entrance off of ann arbor actually at that point it's main street my concern lies in the regards that you know since it is right in and right out um with regards to people who are going southbound um you know if that's not a smooth you know road for people to travel on the stub road um and they decide they want to exit out through the main main street exit and they need to go southbound the really the next turnaround spot is pioneer high school um and people driving in there i know we have buses it's a park and ride lot there's a lot that's already happening there um and so i'm just concerned all those cars then going into uh into pioneer high school along with you know kids driving to school um that that might not be a um that's i don't yeah i'm i'm really concerned about that um i was actually really surprised with the access for 454 units um that that's all that we provided with access to the site um one main entrance and another one that sort of is kind of a entrance and exit out of the site um so i'm not i i look through the traffic study i'm not 100 comfortable with um the traffic flow that's gonna happen there um so i i wanna learn more about that before moving forward on this with regards to affordable housing i agree with all my colleagues you know i'm out of 454 units to have only 15 affordable units i'm not telling the developer what to do here but um maybe we need more than 15 units here um full electrification um i'm in full support of that obviously with what's transpired at city council last night i think we need to start going in that direction um i agree with commissioner briggs a pud uh might not be a bad idea for the site for what it is unfortunately the master plan i'm not going to say the master plan is failing us in this regard because i do believe that density is important for this but i i think there's more yeah i'm not gonna dog the master plan the master we already know what's going on with the mastermind it needs to be rewritten so i'm all for density i will say knowing the site and then looking at the dry or the situation with the traffic in and out of the site 454 units seems like a lot of people moving in and out 731 parking spots that's a lot of cars going in and out and i'm not um totally comfortable with that um and i agree with commissioner abrams you know there's that line and i think 454 units has crossed over that line where i don't feel comfortable uh with that number um i don't know what it's going to take me to get more comfortable with it uh but i think 450 454 based on the current master plan that we have in place is uh too much it's too much so those are my comments uh commissioner ackerman mr leonard did you want to offer something um if i could just briefly a couple questions have come up um by commissioner abrams and commissioner milstein um as it relates to another number and i think this was posed to matt kowalski as well absent a unpacking this site and going through sort of an updated master plan effort for that that's why it's really difficult for us to tell you in any way what the number should be but i just wanted to comment that generally that i've i i think that the way you are talking about this site is appropriate if if you are looking at that single-family residential density as perhaps in a questioning way i think the ways that you would want to proceed from that are referencing the other aspects and policies of our master plan what is this what buttons of that policy document is this hitting from a connection to transportation public transportation to walkability to proximity to businesses and and to sustainability efforts and the like um beca but that i recognize that puts the commission uh to start down that road in a um i don't want to say challenging but it it is um arriving at in your own eyes as a commission what that balance is um so i just want to i just wanted to be clear that if if if you feel that it's appropriate to go away from that future land you spend the wave that you're talking about positive aspects of this proposal i think are really valid and those would be important to articulate as to why to just why to justify that alternatively the petitioner may not be interested in exploring other other densities beyond this if that's the case that's also equally they also have the equal opportunity for you to render a decision on the proposal in front of you so i would at some point if that's a direction the planning commission goes and i would encourage you to give them the opportunity to see if that's something that they're even interested in pursuing thank you um i guess as a comment as i'm hearing conversation about density i hear a couple things one is a general discomfort with how much the city may be giving up and how much we're getting back um i think then two i heard from um from the chair my friend wilson um some concern about the traffic volume just the sheer number of cars and trips that this may produce and then from the resident we heard about the aesthetic of the density um and that i think gets more to massing than it does the number of units so what is the physical footprint how is it visible from the neighbors and i think it is somewhat telling that the neighbors here are the neighbors directly to the south who are likely the ones going to be most affected and i think it's important to to listen to that voice and so you know as i was measuring the distance from the neighbors to the south's property to the property line and then to the first building on the proposed developments about 460 feet so you know it's about a football field and a half or it's um you know it's it's about the length of a city block um if you're walking downtown um that's a considerable distance but i and i do respect the developer put a lot of townhouses in the southwest i think that really helps to scale the density and step the density in an increasing way as you move forward or stuff the massing up as you move to the north there is one building building b and it's subsection b3 that's in the southeast corner it's still a five story building and i think if i were the neighbors to the south and i was concerned about the density and its aesthetic impact in my life um you know that's probably the building i'm concerned with if i'm waking up and looking at a town house and it's a well architected and i think it's an attractive townhouse i'm less concerned than i am looking at that five-story building um and if if there's opportunity to meet multiple goals so decreasing the overall density which decreases the number of car vehicle trips while also improving the view shed of the neighbors to the south i think there could be a big win there um so if there's opportunity to address that building b b3 i think it would hit on a lot of notes that we've heard through the conversation um so i guess that's that's the last piece because i yeah that's that's just a a constructive offer i wanted to throw out there as we also discussed the 15 units getting to them to 60 and the electrification and also i think you heard multiple hesitations about the traffic pattern and i think if i think it would be advantageous to the developer to um maybe do some renderings or some drawings some engineering drawings of what those may look like um just to help us in our analysis um i don't want to put that on the city i don't think that's our burden um but it may be advantageous to your petition to help us visualize this uh commissioner briggs and then commissioner so um a couple of questions one for staff in terms of um how you might see your recommendations shifting depending on how this changes might come back um and then a little bit more on sustainability i know first kind of mentioned mr moore was mentioning you know somebody on the team might speak to that but so for the first question um it gives me pause if there's a fair amount of concern both from sort of residents and then also we're seeing a recommendation from the staff that's saying this doesn't really feel appropriate um obviously um from our other master planning objectives there's there's clearly a lot in this project to like and i have many less concerns around transportation because i think this is well situated to be able to take advantage of transit and basically when walking and um i i think it's the exact sort of project that people would get on the bus rather than driving downtown um so but is there mr kwelsky is there um could you imagine um this project coming back with with some changes based on kind of the discussions that you've heard around the table and that's substantially shifting the recommendation from staff saying we could we could r4e sounds it does seem like the appropriate zoning designation for this um well i think yes i mean as we've kind of tried to lay out in some of the staff report i mean i think we've talked about the master plan we've talked about the other areas of master plan i mean as as we can see staff acknowledges conditions have changed in that area um in one of our goals or something that that reaches across a lot of our goals for our master plans is you know increased density as we've said along transit routes and things like that um however there are many there's many other goals of that the master plan land use is just one element of the master plan so yes i mean i i could see a point again it was staff's opinion as you know that that in our it went too far in one direction without satisfying other goals of master plans so of other elements of the master plan i should say so i mean in a long-winded way yes i mean we're always open to looking at what they what they come back with if there's revisions in response to planning commission comments um anything else uh absolutely i mean staff can take and revise plans and i mean again if it comes closer and all things way out equal i could imagine maybe there could be a change in recommendation but i mean i don't want to say that again at this point because there's so many unknowns but we do look we'll look at that data or whatever is submitted as revisions and absolutely weigh it against the same criteria we've weighed it the first time thanks and then when it comes to sustainability um i think increasingly we're going to need to move away from as our community i i appreciate the table that's in the sort of uh and later in the report talking about you know the summarizing city's goals with single-family use versus multi-family use and how this benefits are is better from a sustainability perspective i don't think you know i don't think anybody around this screen um would disagree with that um but we need to be doing obviously multi-family is better from sustainability perspective than single-family homes um and having that along a denser development along a transit corridor is great but we have to be pushing ourselves further as a community now we recognize that we have a really ambitious climate neutrality goal we need to see our buildings um especially buildings that are going to house so many people for the future um be greener and so i think that if this project came back it would you know for me i i would want to see that that manifested along the discussions but i don't know are there additional pieces and the fact that it's 12 um renewable energies is great but is there is there more that the um sustainability member of the team wanted to chat about and and share with us hi this is eric doyle uh yeah i can i can address that from a couple different perspectives the single family versus multi-family energy use just in general multi-family projects use generally more than 50 less energy so that gets into a carbon neutrality issue it gets into an affordability issue too because on average those families are spending roughly a thousand dollars less per year on energy uh utility bills in a multi-family type project like this especially ones that are more dense uh when you get into greater density like this the efficiency of the units gets better because you have less of those units have uh outdoor um or exterior walls which provide i guess the opposite of what you're looking for with efficiency as far as the location is concerned the location efficiency that we looked into with this project if you combine a high efficiency building with great access to transit with great access to walkability to all of the various resources around there you can increase that additional savings of energy consumption and cost of energy by up to 70 percent so those are both great cases of why you would want to look at something of a larger scale like this to address affordability to address costs of utilities to address the whole carbon neutrality goals that that were approved last evening or actually i guess this morning thanks um and this is just one last teeny comment i really appreciated actually the the report that kind of helped us look at whether or not how this met our master planning goals just uh there was only one little paragraph that rubbed me a little wrong and i just thought i would mention it just for future reports i'm sorry i'm scrolling through to see it um it i can't find it there's the piece that talks about why it's not appropriate for single family homes and because it's not really neighborhood like um and we're talking about creating a neighborhood for way more many people than would be there if there were single family homes there so i think if it's appropriate for multi-family housing then it's a neighborhood i i understood some of the other points in there it was just just a little tidbit of that rubbing me slightly the wrong way anyway i'll pass this on commissioner again brandon um so you don't have to convince me that um single family is a whole lot less sustainable here the thing that i would like to know is mr doyle what you feel like is possible here because my sense is that it's not going as far as you could go that's my gut when i look at the plan and i look at the flyover that shows where the solar panels are and i feel like i could live i share the same discomfort that commissioner abrams is talking about trying to find this sweet spot if you guys upped your game and really it wasn't like kicking and screaming getting there but leading there by what it could be that is an entirely different thing to me it really is and so if you guys could max this thing out and really put solar everywhere and really make a commitment to matching what our goals are then that feels really different to me i feel like this site is situated in a really unique spot for a lot of the goals that we do have it's also uniquely sighted and that it is surrounded on three sides by green space we don't have neighbors that are you know 30 feet away from this thing that are going to be looking into the windows of this this is really different in that way so we have kind of an opportunity for density here that is a little bit different than other places in the city i feel like now granted it's a driving range we can't put a bunch of evergreen trees in the middle of the driving range to be able to screen it but it's still hundreds of feet away that's really different than many of our other situations that we have with this i just feel like you guys are holding back on the sustainability thing and for me if you pushed it you might convince me to be able to go up as high as you are but i don't see it i feel you hesitating i feel you not wanting to go there and instead if you were saying you know what you're asking us to you know we're asking for this density we're going to give you something really amazing with sustainability i don't i don't feel it from you and with the solar thing i was confused by the report with the solar thing it only talked about three buildings so you could explain that to me in terms of you know how you would see that but i would just be curious what mr doyle would say about what he feels like is possible in terms of solar on this project viability wise in terms of the space the loading that kind of thing not whether the owner is willing to pay for it but what is possible in terms of the spatial requirements what you know what what the physical um capability is of this project and i'm sure you can't like just off the cuff say okay then that's gonna if we could do this then we could provide 20 i know you can't just suddenly you know come up with that but i'm just curious because i know you work on other projects where you do this and i'm just curious what you feel like is possible on a project like this actually i do have some statistics we've done a white box energy model of all of the the buildings thus far as as design and as proposed and the current solar array that we're seeing on this can provide approximately 20 percent of the project's total electric use on on as as currently designed and so if we look at other things like electrification which we are doing in other projects and you can do it very affordably that tied in with energy efficiency can increase while maintaining that same solar panel array can increase the percentage of what that provides to the project i totally get what you're saying i'm just wondering if you could fit more solar panels on those roofs i'm sure that there are ways to do that yes that's what i'd be curious about and i'm a believer in green roofs but right now i feel like we need more solar on that roof not more green on that roof so that's what it would take for me is to give you that density because it is out of place all the other things around it are you know two three stories you know that kind of thing but it's on like a big old street there's except for that one little piece of single family that's that's close by it's mostly multi-family and it it's a big road so i am i feel like the r1d is less than what i think it should be that's me personally in terms of my own kind of you know threshold um i respect that staff is trying to balance all these things and and they're trying to kind of take the you know look at all the pieces together i'm just telling you where i'm coming from in terms of that balancing act and how all those components come together for me i feel like it could take more density than than the r1d i could totally see this thing as you know four story buildings too but i i don't want to i'm if if you're going to get the height then i would want to see something way more intense in terms of your commitment to other things whether it's the um carbon neutrality goals or affordability at some point we can't ask for everything though planning commission in terms of you know the the petitioner too we have to kind of choose because they have the math has to work to be able to build the thing so we also have to kind of realize within our own sphere that things just won't happen if we ask for you know half of it to be affordable housing and all of it to you know to be super sustainable because that all costs money too that's the you know that's the reality but for me i would like to um if i'm going to give that you know allow that feel okay about that density happening there then i want to see um more of a commitment and frankly leadership from the development team commissioner survey so i'll just say like at this point i'm i'm more supportive than not of this project i think for a lot of the reasons about i think density and multifamily makes a lot more sense than single family here conditions like the underground parking when we look at the proportions of building to uh impervious pavement to green space i think it's it's a it's a well-proportioned project in that uh i think uh to commissioner brando's point we're talking about even carports and things so i'd like to even see the spacing of the surface parking to be prepared that they could receive carports um to have solar panning on panels on those as well right so if that's adopted that that spacing is already planned that that could be added to it so i think there's like a lot of things that even not in the you know again like what what should we ask for that we're not going all the way to pud and this reminds me of the beauty conversation over on jackson road that came to impervious pavement and kind of uh environmental management traffic and things like that so um like i don't think i i think this could get there without a pud i think the you know the too many asks we get to a pud we're probably just not going to see any units i think that we're talking about mass more than units at least in my perspective i'm not concerned too much about the traffic and the going to uh pioneer the the route to go south on that leg is so much shorter and quicker than trying to go up turn around and get left and whatever that strategy is so i think people are going to come out that way and it's a pretty easy way for that traffic pattern i'm not too concerned about traffic um so i i think it really is understanding the big trade-offs that could get it get this project to happen to get a lot more units on site or in the city which i think we desperately need um especially right r4e was adopted after the land use plan of 1990.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
so these two things don't overlap in any circumstance so it is really up to us and our contextual knowledge of where we've come in the last 30 years to decide where this overlay would be appropriate and i think we're getting there and we just have to figure out what other additional trade-offs there are and so um yeah it's dense but we do like we almost have built-in extended setbacks because of the perimeter land around it and so that additional height is kind of buffered by um the directly adjacent parcels so i think for me i'm i'm actually kind of in the i support but probably postponement so that the petitioner can go back look at affordable unit numbers because i'd like to see those raised i'd like to look at you know see what uh sustainability uh issue can be remediated uh you know some additional review of that traffic if commissioners uh are requesting it as well and that we we review it again i think that's where i'm at like i'm i'm generally in favor but there's details to work out abrams and then commissioner woods thank you um i have one i guess one question for the petitioner and one for staff so maybe a clarification from staff um that the conditions which are attached to the rezoning are those specific to this project yes specific okay by the petitioner specific to this project but if we if this body voted to approve a rezoning and then this project didn't get built do those conditions stand for a different yes owner yes sorry i okay i misspoke the first so yes the zoning district is across all of the parcels that's correct well yes the zoning district would be assigned to all those parcels once so if if it were not approved or i'm sorry if it was approved with the r4de with conditions the project never gets built you would have a site remaining or for you with those conditions with those conditions okay correct if that's approved by city council that would be the zoning until otherwise changed whether this developer or anybody else okay it is i guess i need to think about that for a moment but um and then is there um this is a two-step vote right so one one thing we're being asked to vote on is the rezoning itself regardless of the site plan and then the site plan or those two things are are linked there's three steps so there's annexation as well as the zoning and the sorry the conditional zoning and the site plan so yes it's kind of like a three-stage process but there was a there could be a scenario where we would say approve the annexation and rezoning to r4e but not approve this site plan for example r4e uh zoning other than an r1 or an r2 but i believe our one would require an area plan to go with it or a site plan yeah um unless waived by the planning and development services manager but um i don't think that would happen here but um so yeah we would need i'd have to think through that answer more but the in order to zone something the code requires an area plan or a site plan for multi-family zoning yeah our ordinance does require with a rezoning it be accompanied by either a site plan or an area plan there are exceptions for single family zoning where that can be waived it would be for consideration of this conditional zoning to move forward without a site plan would not be meeting that expectation so ultimately we would a site plan would still have to accompany that action to be clear the proposed site plan is consistent with the conditional zoning that is being requested but okay i think i understand that and then a question just for the petitioner about the parking um i'm noticing that there are many more parking spots on the included with the project than are required and i wondered if you could share a little bit of that thinking because it seems to counter this argument that you and we are making about how great it is because it's on a transit corridor and there's walkability in it but it seems like you're you have an expectation actually for more than one and a half spots per unit being necessary yeah that that that boils down to one of the the real world uh consideration that commissioner gibbs randall was speaking about yeah when she talked about you got to make the numbers work and in this case it's not the construction numbers it's the financing numbers because the the mortgage writing underwriting entities that look to finance these projects at the back end have uh requirements in terms of looking at you know parking uh availability is one of the criteria for the underwriting so it's it's more based on underwriting requirements it is you can view all that additional parking uh that you're speaking about is all under the buildings it's not it's not taking off a surface area it's it's another level of underground parking that it's our expense to build but it it makes the building uh financiable right so that's interesting thank you for educating me about that um no i'm aware that it's much that it's money that you that the owner will spend that could be put to other things like some more affordable units or something so i'm kind of i'm wondering about that but um thank you for for uh educating me that's interesting to know thank you the reality is um all the grandest plans of architects in landscape architects and energy consultants and traffic engineers are for not if you can't get it financed oh i'm well aware thanks commissioner woods so i'd like to move for postponement and for all the reasons that other commissioners have said and i don't know if um mr leonard you need a listing or i or mr moore needs to know exactly why many of us are saying better to postpone it uh at this point um because if we were to take a vote i don't think i would be voting for it for um for a number of the reasons that have been listed my own as well as other commissioners so um i moved to postpone do i have a second uh second about commissioner sovay um any discussion on the postponement mr leonard um i would just like to make i would like to check in to make sure that mr kwalski and i understand the follow-up items that you would like addressed so my notes are the possibility to for provide additional sustainability elements to the site be it additional renewable energy other ways to make to lead with sustainable sustainability efforts one of those is to consider complete electrification of the development whether that not there is a possibility to extend the number of 60 area median income units to either a minimum of the full 15 or beyond the consideration of the southeast corner building potentially reducing the scale of that to the proximate land uses and potentially uh and some renderings of how the configuration might take place um is there anything that i was missing in that just to make sure that we understand what you're looking for i just want to make sure that the looking at like further solar capacity would be within your list of sustainability items not just full electrification commissioner briggs i think that's our wish list if for some reason that the team goes back and finds that that is those those items on the wish list are not feasible for a different variety of different reasons obviously um what we're hearing from staff and from and from nearby residents is that less density is is desirable and so for some reason you know kind of meeting our our dreams is not possible um it seems like the only other path under this would be would be less density so that's not my personal preference disc uh commissioner hammersman and then on the affordability i just like to see if there's a way to mix up the mix like what is the best mix possible you know i'd almost rather have nine affordable but a different mix than like 15 studio affordable maybe but anyway just send different scenarios that they might be able to come up with further discussion on the postponement see none all those in favor please say aye all right this item is postponed all right who who opposed no no no one okay all right all right thank you very much um and we will take a five minute recess um so we will be back in just a couple of minutes thank you thanks so much you know you're back business is liberty town home site plan for city council approval uh we'll begin the meeting with a uh petitioner presentation um they'll have 10 minutes to present their project before us followed by staff report for ms delio um then a public hearing and then we will have a motion and discussion um so i will let the petitioner group um get started alexis are you gonna run a presentation or am i yes i have the um uh i have the slides i can share anyone can share them but i have their presentation that i can share right now okay is this working yep okay all right the team you can proceed with your uh introduction your project sorry i had a little new problem there alexis you can leave that slide up from here and i'll tell you if i needed to change it i'm john kerry from pea we're the project engineer uh julie kroll uh bill jarrett tom gritter also on the on the zoom today we're excited to finally be here with this project it's been a long time in the works this vlog was previously approved for a higher density development four years ago and over the last several years we've worked with the owner in the city to further refine the revise the plan and arrive at a less dense project with 52 market rate townhome apartments rather than the original 68 units proposed now liberty townhomes was designed to meet the requirements of the four r4b districts no variances modifications are requested for the development and it serves the need to provide housing for ann arbor's workforce the buildings proposed are a modern town home style with garages on the ground floor access from a vehicular courtyard between the buildings alexis you can switch to the second slide now there we go uh there's a vehicular courtyard between the buildings on one side with access to garages uh walk-up entrances and produce pedestrian cars on the opposite side of the building the units are a mix of two and three bedroom units and provide approximately 1400 speed of living space as part of this project there is a sidewalk gap across two properties east of us on the way to maple i will be filling in that sidewalk gap to allow residents to walk to stores restaurants in maple and liberty the developer is also making a contribution to the city park fund as another community benefit uh usually utilizing retaining walls we're preserving a large stand of mature spruce trees along 94 as well as a tree row on the east property line that includes several landmark trees and of course we're providing all required landscape plantings and screening as well the storm water detention basin has been approved by the water resources commissioner and we've also provided a walking path loop and the open space around the basin the site will connect to public water mains and liberty and to a site to the rear of our site creating a loop between maple and liberty with water main i will be connecting to public sanitary and liberty and also providing a stub for future development to the east of us through multiple iterations and responding to all the department's concerns there remained one issue with the site entrance that the fire department and traffic engineer were not fully comfortable with uh however the last couple weeks uh even yesterday and into this afternoon we've been working through that design solution for that with the city uh that we think will address those concerns uh meet all code requirements and put the land to its highest and best use i'd like to turn this over to bill jarrett the architect to discuss the building after that we can open up for discussion and any questions you might have bill [Music] is bill can you hear me hello if bill can't connect yeah i got you now though am i connected yes you are okay uh yeah just real quick um as john mentioned the units are town home units so we have the and they're roughly 14 1500 square feet thereabouts depending on whether you add the mud room in and so forth on the lower level but just to run through the basic layout um oh you by the way i'm bill jarrett jarrod architecture and uh thank you for having us here today so the lower level if you look at the garage level there includes the tandem two parking spot and a uh mud room vestibule area that brings you into a stairway that takes you up to the second floor which is the main level living kitchen dining bathroom and a nice balcony up there and then uh from there you go up to a third floor two bedrooms two bath nice roomy bedrooms um very efficient plan uh getting a lot of space in here and a lot of use kind of at a very in a very small footprint and then uh from the bedroom level we can go up to a fourth level where we have we have a small study up there which would be uh would also include like a rooftop uh garden type area to uh hang out on and the the overall look we're really just trying to come up with a real modern look here the combination of brick stone aluminum storefront systems we have a lot of glass and a lot of that glass just facing south so we can take advantage of some passive solar there and then uh we have uh a metal panel is kind of in the center area of the elevation if you want to switch to the elevations there we can i'm kind of running through that now which would be the next slide there yeah um so that center area on the front elevation would be uh we're looking at either a luca bond met with an aluminum panel system or possibly a limestone product to kind of break up the massing there so it's not just like a continuous row of town homes um and then on the very top where we do have the loft area we're looking at putting some corrugated steel in there or another type of more modern looking metal the garage doors are somewhat recessed a little bit of to a lower level so they're not going to be real visible which is a nice feature the overall height is about 35 feet on the garage side and 30 feet from the front side so it's not really an overly intrusive height on the with this particular building as far as sustainability the as you can see the units are very rectangular in nature and they're lined up nicely and that makes for a very efficient plan as far as energy goes um and we would uh we can certainly get you know a fair amount of insulation on the roof and then the outside walls plus the clusters are five six and seven units but the outside walls will add additional insulation in there as well um and like i said we might we i think we're going to be able to pick up a certain amount of solar from the south facing windows um and i think we just think it's we just think it's a very attractive concept and works well for the ann arbor market and with that i'll i'm up for any questions and back to john i suppose yeah we're prepared to take any uh questions or discussion about commissioners great thank you very much um so i'd like to head over to ms stelio for a staff report um thank you planning commission um i'll just go over our staff report the contents and our staff uh review um briefly it's a 52 unit town home project on a 4.6 acre site zoned r4b um staff has gone over the site plan and we have found that it meets all development standards with one exception there are um in terms of statistics it is an 11 dwelling unit per acre project the r4b allows up to 15 dwelling units it meets the requirements for open space proposing 56 open space 55 is the minimum required front setback on liberty is 15 feet um parking required parking is 78 spaces they are providing 104.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
there are seven landmark trees on the site um uh there are some lame retreats on the site two are proposed to be removed and will be mitigated the as mr curry mentioned their public sidewalk will be extended in front of the site for a short bit just from the driveway eastward it will not go behind westward behind the guardrail and it will continue across a couple properties to meet up with the stub provided by the west town originally called blue heron or do i have that backwards originally west town now blue heron um and they are proposing to do a parkland contribution for um as requi as uh requested staff originally recommended denial because the project did not meet the fire code standard for emergency vehicle egress but as mr curry mentioned and as the um secondary cover letter mentioned things have happened since friday the um since the planning i'm sorry since the staff report was published it appears that with some more revisions that they have found a way to make the um uh the island will be able to comply with the fire code it still will not the driveway location still will not comply with sight distance to the west so for making a right turn uh making a left turn out of the site therefore the turn movement will be restricted and that is a permissible operation to address lack of sight distance um i would mention as a side we do have cynthia redding or transportation engineer part of this call and because that right there is the limit of my transportation knowledge so if the detail checks out so far staff just look at the detail sketch and it's looking promising but we do need to do a full review of it and if it checks out then we'll get it incorporated into the full site plan and um we will come back to the planning commission so we are switching our recommendation from denial to postpone i am happy to answer any additional questions my notes say i did want to mention that the site was annexed in 2005 and zoned r4b in 2007.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
we've had uh site plans come through in fits and starts but um there has been no approved entitlement on the property as of yet now i'm free to answer any additional questions and like i mentioned we also have a traffic engineer if need be thank you very much um at this stage you open up the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed rezoning and site plan for liberty townhomes at 2658 west liberty public comment may be made by calling 1-877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 926-3370 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed city staff will select the callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand after dialing into the meeting please press not star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments please raise your hand to speak or press star 9 on your phone no speakers indicated see no one i'll close the public hearing and i will read the motion the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the liberty townhome site plan do you have a commissioner that will move moved by commissioner woods seconded by commissioner ackerman we are in discussion mr ackerman thank you mr chair um i guess i want to defer to the body but is there since we wanted to discuss this or postpone now so i'll just raise that question um and see what others think happy either way but i think it would be good for us to discuss it just that we can give the petitioner feedback so that when they do return there are no surprises at that time um so i would like to have a discussion on it um i did have one quick question um for staff and that is i swear in the last couple of years we approved it came before us and we approved a project on this site and i don't know if it went on city council but i sw but i it was possibly a mckinley project um i know we we proved something i feel like we've we've we've dealt with the site before um yes in i double checked the date um in 2016 uh it was called liberty flats and the planning commission um and it was very very similar and it was a um mckinley um would have been the owner um and it came through and it was recommended for approval by the planning commission and it was scheduled for a city council meeting and about noon of the day of the city council meeting the applicant asked for it to be postponed and so it was the city council did postpone it as requested and a few uh some weeks months went by and they ultimately asked it to be um just withdrawn so just from a city council i'm sorry just from a planning commission perspective it was recommended for approval and it appeared it would have been approved okay thank you um all right further discussion commissioner briggs um can we talk a little bit more about the transportation issues it sounds like the one with the fire issues been resolved but um uh in terms of the sort of restrictions on turning movements that always seems problematic um i don't know discuss it a little bit in terms of how concerned she is with those issues sure so as alexis read in the staff report the driveway cannot support decision site distance for a motorist who is exiting the site who would be turning left and those restrictions are the limitation to that sight distance is really a function of where the driveway is in relation to where the bridge over i-94 is the bridge over an i-94 is both on a horizontal or a horizontal and a and a vertical curve so the combination of those those two geometric elements with you know the bridge items such as the parapet wall and the guard rail and where the drive approach meets liberty it really restricts your sight distance as you would be looking to them to your right as a driver to make that left and um there's an area for decision site distance where you're supposed to be free of obstruction and the parapet wall in the barbed wire in that area it doesn't block entirely but it blocks the majority of the site period so that's why the applicant has proposed that right turnout only to overcome that site limitation so this would be regardless of how that property was used it would always really be an issue with having a driveway there with pretty much any whether it was residential or not i guess yes um if it were a single family home as it previously was there would be less concern about that in an area like that you you really usually expect to be able to provide stopping site distance for motorists on mainline although it's always good to be able to provide decisions like this isn't possible but when you're when you're looking at larger developments such as this work we always look to make sure that we can provide that that decision site distance so the the applicant's team has put together the suggestion of this alternative of the right out only that would then move all trips would have to go right and in order to return to the city they either will have a bit of a detour um out to wagner road or they would be required to you know duck into a residential street to turn around and are there any sort of changes that could happen i mean is are there any modifications to the roadway or bridge that are feasible to do that would would correct for those those flight distance issues it would be very costly the you know the the grade of the site and the grade of liberty street itself relative to the bridge um they're a good bit lower the the bridge is is higher than the surrounding land so that you know you have the guard rail there because you have the slope up to the street as it is going over through so it would be very costly to overcome that are there it looks like it seems like i used to see this and i don't see this anymore mirrors ever used to help drivers to be able to see situations i'm just very skeptical of anybody actually following just turn right i'm just wondering if there are if this was approved people are despite the signs that are put up we tend to to do what we want to do are there things that could be put into put into place that would make that safer that's a great question and this we've gone through a couple of design rounds with the applicant and i think john is raising his hand and asking to be able to to respond to that a little bit but we have um they have proposed some design solutions to that and i will let john go ahead and discuss that if everyone is agreeing sure um i probably am going to say the same thing you would have but the look at the geometry of that driveway the intent is to really kind of force people to take that right turn um you can't control everyone from doing anything but the idea with that curbed island with a channelized right turn would make it really uncomfortable to try to turn left there that's kind of the idea of that they call it a pork chop a right out um island so that it to answer your question that that's the method by which we try to control those right turns physically not just with signage okay um that's that was my major question the other piece and i just thought it looks obviously this this project is going to get designed however um it seems fast but it seems like there's stairs into the the residences and stairs like once you're in the garage there's stairs up is that is that correct like there's no level entry anywhere to any of those townhouses is that right is there entrances into like a living space there you meet or is that yeah just everything entry every all the entries into the homes are by stairs right yes okay and we would have some stairs coming from the entrances there down to the sidewalk on the front um let's see uh yeah everything would be by stairs and i can understand that from you know how you're trying to make efficient use of space and different things but from an accessibility standpoint you know not just not just thinking wheelchairs but you know thinking aging parents and grandparents and somebody breaks a leg because a random thought about that being uh problematic for many people um having anybody visit them so you know i understand it's you know they're not catering they're not residences catering to folks who are successful but you know there's just so many folks who who have those needs at some point or have somebody that they love who has a need to come into their home so um it seems like they would open up your market a little bit to at least um reduce frustrations down the line to have some entry point but that was just a general thought thank you the most may have questions for our transportation further discussion commissioner i guess with transportation you know looking at street view even with the right turn i put the wide opening to provide for that radius directly across the street is south maple park country and it's you know shown on the site plan that i guess there's still a concern that even if they're not turning left it's pretty easy to do a quick you know shot directly across the street get into that park entrance and then do a u-turn there so i think there is really concern that you can straighten your car out if you can't get it to do a left turn to get it straight across the street and i think that's it still reads in terms of where that right turn lines up directly across from that park curb cut feels like an invitation to just cross both lanes to get into that park to do a u-turn so i don't know if that can get shifted you know more to the west it's so it's not lined up to really make people turn right uh or if that starts getting into the elevation change to go over the bridge but you know it really starts to look like that that's an invitation there um so that would just be something i'd like to see more that it's been investigated and confirmed that this is the only place that we're going to get that right turning right turn out without those conflicts um the uh a little thing um is that your all of your lighting is shoot what is it called it's not dark sky compliant it's got this funny made-up designation that the only place i could find it is in the uk as a seal it's not like a formline's dark sky lighting seal so if you can just update like there's a lot of dark sky registered lighting out there it would be a very easy thing to change what you're specifying to be dark sky compliant relative to our lighting ordinance so whatever that arbitrary seal is that you have just switch to dark lighting and just make a lot of commissioners a lot happier um in that regard i think those were you know my two you know first touch but oh i guess the other one maybe this is for staff is parking in the stack stacked parking in the garage garages i think we've seen this on another project as well but that's not been like formalized in terms of how we're counting right that one car is stacked into the other so i just want to confirm how it is written in the ordinance to count the parking versus what we're seeing here and if how it's set up in the garage as the stacked parking meets current ordinance or if we're doing that a wiggle room thing to getting those counts we'll verify okay i can answer some of those okay um as far as the right turnout the on the graphic you see that the current layout of that driveway we've been going back and forth with the city with actually is a little more severe of a right turn on that so it kind of does force even more than what you're seeing in that visual um so that'll be updated yeah it is a little bit more we've been going back and forth with fire and traffic with a little bit different geometry and some things and one of those things is actually kind of you see the alignment of the driveway as you head toward liberty it kind of just goes straight instead of going perpendicular to liberty there and then curves so you're a little farther west away from that park entrance you're concerned about so that that will be improved a little bit on that entry regarding lighting we'll certainly look into that um and as far as the stacked parking alexis i think we had this conversation when we first went in with this one and we are not allowed to and we are not counting both parking spots under the buildings you can't count the one that's trapped behind the other one so technically they they do have a two-car garage but our parking count doesn't doesn't allow that right okay that helps thanks fisher hammersman so i'm also concerned about the the right turn out and i'm sure i'm gonna get shut down for this this might not even be allowed but could we entertain putting like a stop light there or is that just like i'm probably looking to staff for this is that just like completely no i was trying to think of options other than like having to go all the way to wagner to turn around or cut through somebody else's neighborhood traffic controls such as traffic signals and multi-way stops they do have warrants that you have to meet and they are established in the michigan animal unified traffic control devices and this site it generally doesn't produce enough traffic to meet those types of warrants okay fair i just have to ask i i don't know what else you would do besides force people to turn right but i tend to agree that people are gonna find a way to go left especially being located so close to everything that's over in that like maple stadium area that is it for now mr woods i was wondering um because i think i remember a previous uh previous submittal project similar to this and i was wondering whether or not the petitioner has had conversations with the surrounding properties uh to the i guess it would be to the north maybe i'm not sure but i'm just looking back over along the expressway back over there and i'm looking at the aerial view which was in the staff report so have you had any conversations i know um well two types i'm thinking about one is in terms of any kind of an access that your residents might be able to have but also in terms of any kinds of walking paths or what have you um for your residents to be able to access some of the businesses which are which are back over there there's uh well there's kroger's of course but there's westgate and and some of those things so can someone from the petitioners uh team speak to that for us uh certainly the developer and owner like i said we've we've as alexis referred to this this been bouncing in and out of uh the city with site plans for about five years now with with the team i'm working with and in all cases all developers and owners involved have talked to the owners next door and behind about access um to no avail to this point um even for pedestrian access early on we looked at having that path in the back connects somewhere off-site but to no to no avail so efforts have been made in that regard but it hasn't gone anywhere great seeing no other hands i think we're ready for a postponement motion mr leonard do you is there any other feedback that you're looking to get um no but i would ask that i didn't do a good job and broke the cardinal rule with the previous petition any motion to postpone should include a date um do [Music] the staff have a recommendation for a date um i guess ultimately it would be um ultimately it would be up to alexis and cynthia as to where you feel the progress is on the alternate configurations of that driveway it seems to me that could be done either in i would guess either the meeting two weeks out or a month out i guess i would defer to you as reviewers where you're feeling the confidence is in getting to a determination on an alternative design um i know that uh mr curry has been very good um the past couple days we've um he's on top of um submitting the uh revisions um and seems to be quite focused um typically staff would take two weeks to review certainly possible we can do one week um but typically it's two is it possible to say something like no later than july first meeting or july 2nd meeting no i to postpone it we'd need to do a date certain than that okay as anybody who's interested in this item would know exactly when it's going to be i got it yeah um so based on that i guess i would suggest perhaps our first july meeting yeah okay will commissioner move uh a postponement until our july 1st meeting moved by commissioner sivay do you have a second commissioner hammerschmidt thank you um any discussion on postponing commissioner briggs it's july 7th is the date of that meeting july 7 this is i'm sorry this is it just took me a little bit to process what commissioner woods had mentioned earlier so it's not really on the purpose moment but just an extra random thought um i thought that was a really good recommendation around connectivity to other sites and i recognizing that that's not an option but if that could be built a little bit into the kind of little layout so that in the future that that is potentially possible for connectivity you know down the road would be would be really great to see sorry no discussion on postponement thank you um well i just want to verify that date give me one moment please yeah scheduled for the seventh okay it's been moved second ed i don't see any other discussion um all those in favor of postponing until july 7th please say aye opposed all right it is postponed thank you uh moving on to audience participation this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any issue city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments do we have anybody who would like to speak those speakers indicated thank you moving on to commission proposed business is there any commission proposed business this evening commissioner brandel i'm wondering if we have the schedule set for the next year yet in terms of our meetings just speaking of like kind of when the next meetings are coming up and i'm just wondering if that's been solidified yet yes you adopted it i um i think um i think we're in the process of sending out the typical outlook uh appointments for your calendars but i'll send you the summary as well okay thanks and commissioner briggs i guess just on that note around um meetings um has there been discussion around um how long it's anticipated we're gonna be continuing to meet virtually um no status i think since the last time uh i updated you the governor's order is extends through june at this point um we have i know that there are is interest in the city and learning from this experience i think that it's conceivable that there will be different opportunities to meet depending on the type of board that is there may be a different there may be different flexibility for a committee versus the full board or even potentially distinct from a business meeting to a working session but i don't have the city is not um well let me rephrase that if if those determinations about long-term possibilities have been made i i'm not aware of them but i'll follow up and i'm happy to follow up with the correspondents because i know that'll it's helpful for planning our calendar going forward great thanks thanks um any other commission proposed business um do you have a motion to adjourn move by we do have um if if the planning commission is um willing we have had somebody indicate raise their hand um if the commissioner would be willing to reopen the last audience participation sure yeah okay hello caller with phone number ending with 998 if you'd like to address the planning question you have three minutes to do so hi my name is chad nytre i live at 2534 west liberty which is at blue heron pond and i'm sorry i tried to call in during public comment but it wasn't going through quick enough so um you have kind of addressed some of the issues that i wanted to bring up about this site plan i pull out in the morning every day onto liberty street out of blue heron pond and when you turn left and we're quite a ways down from the highway overpass when you turn left there during you know school hours and rush hour it's kind of like taking your life into your own hands it's really tough to get out onto liberty street and the cars come over that uh bridge pretty quickly so sometimes we even have to go out onto maple to get out onto the main road because the traffic is really really bad so that was my concern about that development being so close to 94 any traffic that gets added to liberty street trying to come out and make left-hand turn in the morning it it's going to be really bad so i just wanted to kind of make you aware of that the right turn that that you're talking about could be a really good answer to that but i can see a lot of people making that left turn anyway and i can pretty much guarantee there's going to be a lot of accidents there i've seen cars already run over the curb to get out of the way when they've tried to turn out of of the blue hair and pond development on to liberty and a car comes that they didn't see and they literally will go over the curb across the street to get out of the way at times so that's just the comments i wanted to make on that that's all i really have great thank you very much for calling in all right um we are our german has been moved and seconded um do i have are all those in favor please say aye hi hi all right we are adjourned thank you very much you
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
we are live all right thank you Eric good evening everyone and today is Wednesday June 3rd 2020 and I call the regular meeting of the Brookfield Board of Education to order so let's stand where we are for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all I know Debbie Debbie always supplies us with the flag which is helpful so we have all of our board members in attendance tonight and today even though we are not together in person and it's a wonderful time of year because we get to recognize our teachers and staff that deserves special recognition so I am pleased to announce our teachers of the year are as follows at center school we have Alisa Larson at huckleberry hill school Wesley Marchetta at whisk in your middle school Kim Marshall and at Brookfield High School Heather beyond Cherie sounds like a good applause and Rosa I'd like to add a congratulations to all four of our building recognized winners of the Teacher of the Year for their schools thank them for everything they do and how they represent the teaching profession and the Brookfield teachers and how they service serves the the students and families of Brookfield were just so proud of them and I'd like to announce that the district Teacher of the Year from huckleberry is Wesley March Anna so congratulations and Wesley Wesley started with us he did some back and forth between huckleberry and center and was then leaner and very very new to Brookfield and doing a great job at huckleberry and obviously his peers are extremely proud of him yes I'd like to turn it over to you maybe say a couple of words absolutely um I'm gonna go off of mark bilenda's reaction my journey in Brookfield didn't just start with center school when I was doing my master's program at the University of Bridgeport I did an internship at Brookfield High School and that's where this whole sort of community came in to support me and that journey sort of follows a through line to this very point so it's there's quite a narrative that's taken me to this point and it's a narrative developed through an amazing community so thank you very much I'm very honored to be your Teacher of the Year congratulations again congratulations to our three other teachers awesome just wonderful thank you so much for all you do know where we are we're to have such great teachers oh my god yes so I would like to reiterate yes thank you for so much for everything you guys do now more than ever um you guys are really going above and beyond for our district and our students and we really appreciate that we also have some staff members that we would like to recognize so the 20/20 staff members of the year are as follows at center Elementary School I'll be Silva at huckleberry hill school Maggie Heaton at whisk in your middle school Mandy usko at Brookfield High School Carolyn D'Arcangelo and at the town school offices Eric Conklin so thank you so much I want to send a virtual clap there as well but thank you yeah sorry did you yeah you say it's important for the community to know and and remind the board members that our staff member of the year started four or five years ago and you know while while we have 230 teachers and we're only recognizing for this evening the remainder of our staff which takes us to almost a balance of 400 employees do a great job whether it's back office work or cleaning or supporting students in a tutorial role or managing and administrating all of the things that go on in the district or directors who are leaders for us it's it's amazing the work that goes on it's important for the community to understand that I always say it's Tim the Toolman Taylor from the old home improvement show used to say every job has two things in common it has to be done and it has to be done well and our five five people recognized here are just fantastic examples of that and again thank you all for for everything good stuff words aren't enough obviously they're done absolutely and I wish I could shake all of your hands in person but until then I can just say thank you so much for for everything that you're doing the board would also like to recognize the top ten graduating seniors from Brookfield High School and I would like to let principal mark Belinda who's been with these remarkable students for the past four years introduce them and then hopefully we get to pick their brains a little bit about their experience in Brookfield and at the high school and what their future plans are so principal Blanton oh it's all yours thank you Rose I appreciate it this is usually a night of it is a nice night of celebration as I've said in a couple different communications it's just a different version of celebrations of the the accomplishment of not just our staff and our our teachers but of our our top 10 students as well this is usually when the top ten dinner is and then we roll right into the this board meeting which is I know the board members are smiling kind of I wouldn't say licking their chops necessarily but I know some people have their questions ready to ask and you know I have another chance to really prep the top ten some students aren't weren't able to make it tonight so we do have a few students here so what I'll do is I'll just go through and introduce each of the students one by one so I'll call it their name I'll let them say where they're going to go and then I think we talked about the possibility of somebody board member maybe asking a question because I'm sure they want to hear a little bit you know about you and just your experiences so I'll start with the first one I see which just happens to be orphanage Mary so our faun you can probably unmute yourself and you can it's everybody little about yourself and what your plans are and then you'll get ready for a question hello everyone my name is orphanage Mary and I'm gonna be attending Northeastern this fall with the major in finance very nice congratulations thank you what would you say was your favorite class at Brookfield High School I probably say one of my business classes probably marketing - was my favorite class but I definitely liked all of the classes because all the teachers supported me and every way they could that's good to hear thank you and the other board members want to ask a question go ahead Bob oh you have to unmute your unmute yourself now officialy double muted I do that at work because I always blurt things out so earth on Boston is a great place for college you're gonna love it do you have any expectations on how different it's going to be from Brookfield so northeastern it's based in downtown Boston so more of an urban environment so I'm looking forward to the city life but I'll definitely miss Brookfield well you'll have to look up my son who's a PhD student at Northeastern right now I don't how well it's like some great Brookfield connections at Northeastern so and it's just good right just want the only thing I'll tell you is look both ways before you cross the street the current drivers there are crazy thank you anyone else all right well thank you and good luck thank you yeah all right well done Earth bond see so that night got warmed up so now you know he took that he took the first time and now let's see who do I want to introduce next oh let's go to uh let's see if she's still here I liked things up a little bit I thought I saw her name Sophia for lenses so Sophia I'm gonna turn it over to you if you want to unmute your microphone then you can share a little bit about where you're going and what your next steps are and get ready for some questions um so hi I'm Sophia and I'm going to Fordham University in the fall hopefully if we're able to go in person and I'll be majoring in psychology very nice I actually have a question so was a psychology major myself so what decided what sort of drove me to that decision psychology what interests you um well I loved my psych class at Brookfield high school I really miss Fallon is a great teacher and I had a wonderful experience in that class and then I just I don't know maybe my mind could change when I get there but I really loved the class and I'm really excited about taking more classes at Fordham that's great stay open anyone else feel free to unmute yourself I have like two screens to two screens of people to monitor then raise their hand yeah go ahead Jen so congratulations I was wondering if you could give some advice to maybe a freshman entering Brookfield high school next year what advice might you give them the school seems big but it's not you will find your way around the class around the school and then it will be fine and I know that's probably the cheesiest thing I could ever say but it really I remember when I came into senior year I was so freaked out and felt like I had no idea what I was doing but you will eventually find your way and you might end up somewhere where you never thought that you'd be and you'll realize it's the perfect place for you so stressful as it is in the first three years you really will find your way that's great advice thank you thank you all right anyone else move the question okay thank you and good luck well thank you thank you so much nice job Sofia well done so up next I'm going to introduce Cameron and Courtney Spiro it's it's an actual optical illusion they're really not know they are in the same room at least they wear last time I saw them but they are - they are two different young women we're very proud of both of them and how lucky we are all nice pose that's good how lucky we are that they're they're both ended up being in the top ten so ladies I'll turn it over to you you can decide who gets to go first I'm sure that's something I believe when on drop off odd days I forget who sits in front on odd days and then the other one when you switch it on even days I forget how that works but remember asking out so you guys can flip a coin and see who gets to go next mute button okay I'll go third hi Cameron I'm going to math can you hear me there's a big wide can you guys hear me yes okay hi I'm Cameron I'm sitting back through college in the fall with a double major and hi I'm Courtney I'm also attending back there cause this fall ah a double major and economics in psychology with the free wall track but that is subject to change right now but I think that's what and we both plan on participating in the basket repertory of dance theater as well oh very good please so uh my question to you guys and you guys can choose who answers it um looking back at your time in Brookfield it doesn't have to just be high school but what would you say was sort of most memorable experience for you well we all definitely the most memorable experience in this obviously has memories within it be a part of this peer counseling group all four years of high school I found a lot of great people through the organization I am hugely fond of my advisors I think they really influenced my whole career frenchie organization and just having the opportunity to help out the community in a variety and different ways was something I created a lot of them great memories that's great thank you yeah go ahead Debbie are sorry yep Cameron and Cory I'm a parent of twins so I'm very curious about your thoughts like that can you hear me okay I'm very curious about about when and going to college together and you know sort of going becoming your own person but having your sibling there with you do you plan to room together and I heard you're gonna be in the repertory dance company together but what are your thoughts about that so I bastard it actually got completely ran in my system so you don't attention to remain and their wife clean up and put it together so we plan on happening our different social lives and slides and have Danice be sort of that space where we need each other and grow her own follows absolutely and Vince o'clock also I human being in parts of society awesome anyone else hey well thank you that was I felt like that last answer was just like you know scripted you you wrote it so perfectly part of society I'm just it's so proud of you of all the students here we do have one more student here who is in attendance that we certainly want to recognize and that is mom see who the board know is pretty well by now after the course of this year so my on see I'll turn it over to you and you can share a little bit about yourself cuz you know I think they need to know more hi thank you so much I'll be attending Johns Hopkins University in the fall whether it's in person or online and while I've definitely debated between majors I think as of now I'm gonna double major in psychology and public health on a pre-med track excellent anyone have a question for Monty Monty I have a question what would you say what you're most rewarding either extracurricular activity or club or you know non-academic thing that you were involved in Africa high school I think one of the most rewarding things for me was arsenate Baldrick's event last year fortunately we can have it this year but just seeing everyone being so supportive of each other the way we were able to organize it the way like so many people shave their heads the fire department the police department there that was that was really special that was really special today right Amy go ahead I just curious since the school shutdown and what we've all been experiencing with kovat how have you been navigating that and what's your experience been as a high school senior so in terms of classes I think our teachers have been pretty understanding with like the course load I would say it's like it's been pretty manageable like teachers are applying really fast to their emails if we have any questions and technical difficulties there being understanding about that it's nice to hold like little zoom calls and even if you don't have any like academic help you can just go in and say hi to them so it's just those like little things that like encourage you and just make the difference so it's been it's been pretty okay for me as a senior yeah I've got what I've got actually I have a two parter for you mom see we've sat with us for a year and by the way it's been great we've enjoyed having you on the as our student liaison to the board and it's been a joy I guess first part my question is now that you've seen what the board does in action if you wanted to leave a legacy for us or something to go focus on what would it be it could be a little it could be bigger it doesn't have to it doesn't have to be a super huge you know cosmic question but things that do you know I always love our board liaisons to have a chance to leave us something to work on so I first of all I've enjoyed this experience so much and I'm so thankful that I got to like watch all the behind the scenes and and just see like how the decisions are made and even like contribute like my own ideas I'll make you a deal you can think about it you can send it to it how's that the second part of my question though is the one of the roles as you know of above the board as we look after the senior leadership of our school district so is there anything we should know about mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
this committee meaning border blowhole Carol can we take a short mr krepo here miss helen yeah miss ham here miss Harrigan here mr. Martelli yeah mr. Peres Jeanie here mr. white yes mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Bandhu I actually I I thought maybe I would get my little like the student spotlight thing that I've had had at other meetings um I kind of prepared something small I wanted to to say to mr. blando because he's actually done so much for us this year he's done things for us every year but especially this year I am so thankful to him and every student is so thankful to the way he's been there for us through these times I don't want to get emotional but for real um we know when we first got to quarantine he sent us a video specifically to the seniors you didn't have to do that he didn't have to send us all videos he didn't have to show up to the top tens house with this huge poster to congratulate us you didn't have to make these videos every single day with funny jokes that I start my morning with I know so many other students start their morning mornings with mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
chairman you have a problem Thank You Carol all right I don't see any agenda but I unless the board minds I do the Pledge of Allegiance or mine miss Jeff you wanna pop up that flag and if we're ready I pledge of allegiance one nation they carry on this is a Finance Committee board a whole I'm an attorney with chairman Gribble is gonna run the rest of the meeting we have two wines on a drink tonight primarily is the 2020 2021 board of an operating budget with that being said message finest shine right turn over to you Thank You mr. chairman okay so we have discussion of the 2021 budget which we've had much discussion about mr. Solon or mr. Massey Anna did you want to go over the update or the line by line yeah I'll take it here Thank You mr. grip oh and good evening everybody I appreciate you joining us this was obviously the most unorthodox budget season we've ever seen if you recall after many many nights and hours of deliberation at the end of January you is the Board of Education you ninety-three thousand nine hundred and twenty six dollars that represents a one point six nine percent increase over this year's current operating budget the increase through our budget and raw dollars is 1.2 million roughly the reduction therefore that we need to make is exactly nine hundred eight thousand six hundred and twenty eight dollars so subsequent to learning this information last week I've worked with our administrative team and really in in kind of short order have tried to turn around for you a number of recommendations to get down to that approved that dollar amount is mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Blanton at like I am so lucky to about a principal like him like genuinely him being open to change with the grading system with our graduation I had to say anything you'd be thank you so much hey what a great answer mr. ball and uh I think the board thank you didn't say you know am on see you know into the seniors here and to you know I know I have staff watching as well and it's you know sometimes you question why you do what you do you know there's days and I think when all of us want to hang it up and say why are we here what are we doing this for and it's for all the people here it's for the the trust of the board and the and the superintendent and assistant superintendent and have put in me to lead the building to work with such amazing staff and teachers and I know Carol Ann is here to work with her to help support you know she's somebody's been at school every day since the school closed down to you know so the students this is what this is why we do the work and it's it's definitely been nothing short of sure sort of nearly impossible but it is all worth it you know to try to give something to you you've taught me so much more than you probably realize you know this is proud this will be the hardest graduation I've ever had to it you know oversee and take a look at and I'm just glad that I was able to develop relationships with with you as a team all the all the kids and them in the top ten and a lot of the other students that I feel that I got to know and so it's it's you know you've taught me so much about Odie and you know often times you know teachers and adults will tell you to learn from your mistakes and you know I think I've learned from my mistakes and you know every every opportunity is a learning experience and you've helped me to remember that so I can't thank you students enough not just Monty but everyone else and yeah I'm none too pleased with mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Massey Anna often says that you know the this budget is about trade-offs and it's it's about priorities and I think you know through my tenure I've really tried to focus on what we've identified as the school system as our priorities complex thinking social-emotional learning and as part of that you know class size and and meeting student needs to the greatest extent possible with the people that I consider to be most valuable for our kids that's the staff that are working with them every day so I'm gonna share on the screen here line-item reductions that our team is proposing and walk through with you as well how we kind of got to these these decisions so if you'll bear with me here I'll just share the screen tough do you want me to share my screen and this and I could drive and you could talk would that help you no that's alright thanks I'm I'm used to driving and talking you know just kidding but anyway what you see here I'll make it a little bit bigger can people see that okay if ya can see it okay yeah because when I'm sharing my screen I can't see you so if you were nodding your head I I didn't know it so what you'll see here as we go line by line through our our budget what that you have is our expended 2018 amount what we budgeted for the current academic year the projected expenditure in the current year the Board of Education approved budget and then you'll see the change in the approved budget from the prior year really what we're looking at now is the far right adjustment and that's you know what recommendations are we making in order to reduce our budget line item as I indicated we're we're we emphasize staffing and personnel that's the biggest it's the lion's shares of a share of our budget it's its personnel heavy and so you know that's where the biggest impact is going to be as you conceded the teacher lying at 33 million represents you know just about 45 percent of our overall budget so in that line item what we're recommending here is the reduction of five hundred and thirty thousand five hundred dollars now we generated that through the retirement incentive that we've offered staff we had 14 people we had initially five folks looking to retire through the reduction of or through the offer of the retirement incentive we are able to secure a total of 14 retirements or nine beyond where we had originally figured you know in that incentive plan there is some cost to it but the overall savings for us is 290 thousand five hundred dollars that's a significant savings in 2021 but I want you to realize that you know well it's saving us two hundred ninety thousand dollars this year this upcoming budget year the subsequent budget year it takes down our our personnel line by about four hundred and twenty thousand dollars so it's it's a big number this upcoming year but the following year it pays even greater dividends and that we I think are anticipating a tougher year that year the teacher reductions you don't come in great deliberation you know we spend a lot of time looking at this the the three teachers we're proposing to reduce to red dot and one is it Cheshire high school and I think that's you know preliminary projection the two it Dodd we are looking at in seventh grade where we have three and a half teams and we're looking to reduce it to three teams and I had shared with the board previously that that class size reduction are they that teacher reduction makes class sizes basically right at their historic average so where we had a little bit more wiggle room in our approved budget the reduction in these positions is not anything that you know is really putting those students behind the eight-ball and you know the financially we really need to look at those reductions we need to make those reductions to get to this place now at the high school we are looking at one position within the English department alternatively our special education staff we're looking at that our team is reviewing IEP individualized education plans and considering another option just you know we're thoroughly going through everything so that may be an alternative to the one English position that position I think is a little bit more sensitive than the ones at the middle school but we are thoroughly reviewing that so the combination of the retirements and those three positions get us to the five hundred and thirty thousand dollars I'm just gonna stop sharing for a second and pause here because that is a big that's more than half of the total reduction that we're looking to make so I figured this may be a decent time to stop and answer any questions looks like and beat me to it so and go ahead thank you and thank you to faith for getting me this link so that I got here in time and also faith nice haircut okay you got in I got Jeff I'd like to hear more justification on that high school English teacher being cut is is there evidence fewer students in English classes or I mean how are we able to take a position out when I talk to doctor GAD they are looking at how can we make a reduction where could we possibly look at making that reduction for recommendation after evaluating all areas at the high school based on relative to enrollment was to look at that one area then in English the one of the teachers we're actually cutting the teachers position from God so this would result in two teachers from the CHS being bumped one of the folks from Dodd would go to the high school so I think that's part of when I say this position is a little bit more sensitive to replace two teachers with one that's not taught at the ice was an outstanding English teacher but you know hasn't taught at the high school I think we're a little bit more sensitive to that one and we're continuing to explore other options hope to kind of have a final recommendation for you tomorrow if there was you know obviously if the group felt like these are recommendations but the group felt like you know we really do not wanna to make that reduction you know we would be looking at money someplace else in the budget we look at about $80,000 you know I did get a resignation today from a teacher who you know took a promotion in another district and that will save us roughly ten thousand dollars just literally this afternoon got that so you know if we have more stuff like that that could certainly help buoy this position I don't like to cut any positions I don't like to cut other lines either but you know I think the packages we're presenting it is as lean as we feel comfortable on these different as lean as not as we feel comfortable as lean as we need to be to meet the budget recommendation I I just I would be in favor of looking at that a little bit deeper tonight because I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with with cutting those teaching positions I'm thinking specifically of the position at the high school in the English department okay next question is from Catherine sorry Thank You mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Belden right now for putting me on the spot so I think it's time for me to stop talking so you know there are there are a couple of people who aren't here students around here and I just because they're not here and normally they would be here I know on any given night so I just want to make sure I introduce them and and say to them to the diverse that people watching here where they're going and what their plans are so unfortunately I'm not able be here tonight with us was thighs Kaiser he is going to UCLA next year Jamie hi treaty's who is going she's the the face of the athletic Advisory Council and the CIA see you've probably seen her a lot of different places she's going to Villanova University we have Jackson boo jury who was not here tonight but he is going to Johns Hopkins as well where Mon C's going we also have Molly Birdsall who you seen at other meetings before she she plays in this and the string choir does just about everything so she is going to you let's see Vanderbilt and then it looks like our fun will be joined by our last person in the top ten which is Kevin tang and going to Northeastern University so those are the students that aren't here tonight that were unable to make it but it doesn't mean we we celebrate them any less and I think it's just you know looking at and just listening to some of your answers just how articulate you are your your you the enemy of what we we hope for our students at Brookfield High School and what I loved is some of the things you heard about they talked about well there was a favorite experience or favorite class things like you know the the Cameron and Courtney they're gonna be working and dance but they talked about peer counseling you know earth on talked about psychology I mean excuse me marketing being his favorite class you know you had Sophia talk about psychology and Montse talk about st.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
grip oh so the reductions of dog are gonna be in the seventh grade because the we don't need as much teeth we don't need as many team right so there there are roughly three hundred seventh graders next year right numbers going down from this year right right and so the the teams roughly next year eighth grade would be a twenty four point one and the seventh grade would be roughly 25 under 25 just lender per class okay so is that I mean if you look close to the historical average okay all right that's all I just want to clarify your we would have been making would we have been making this cut these cuts regardless of we wouldn't because it wasn't in our original but in our original budget to make these reductions yeah you know I think that you know optimally we would keep all these positions and other line items that we identified you know in order to do business and continue to propel the district forward we have to identify areas that our administrative team believes is going to provide the greatest opportunity for our success and you know these we don't like to cut teaching positions ever if you know once we identify an appropriate ratio but you know and looking at the total package I think these are these reductions are appropriate again particularly at the middle school at the high school having been a middle school person most of my life and you know administrator at Dodd for seven years I think 25 is something that we could certainly manage but you know optimally yeah we would prefer 21 with these are in optimal circumstances yeah I understand yeah thank you okay next question mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Baldrick's and it's it's it's awesome to hear the rounding out you know we often think of the core five the maths or study science English and world language classes but there's other things that we offer here and the fact that we're able to offer a well-rounded education for these kids and they're getting so much more than just academics the core that we think about is just on I I can't say enough how lucky I am to be a part of the school and part of the working with these kids and with the staff so alright I'm done now don't make me talk anymore thanks guys thank you and sorry Monty but you're not out of the spotlight just yet because the board would like to thank you for your service to the Board of Ed as our student representative and it's it's hard not to smile when you give your reports you have such positive energy and we know that you are on to do great things so we just hope that you share and continue to share that energy positivity went in everything you do so congratulations and thank you thank you so much Rose I just wanted to add one thing about Monsey I feel like she's set the bar for what the student representatives and he are gonna be in the future yeah I felt like you were a member of the Board of Education on many occasion you jumped right in you asked a question you gave us perspective and really yes we enjoy the reports you give but you were in the moment giving us the perspective of a student and that's really helps inform our decision-making so thank you for doing that I really hope that the students that follow you are sort of inspired by your work and continue in that ilk so really thank you so much I really thank you so much and then I wanted to just add Monsey and I've had some conversations but Jen I was really gonna act I echo what you were what you said that's pretty much what I was going to talk about it's just so inspired by the way Monty is able to think on her feet and be part of those conversations and in spite of her her stumping tonight from mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above
Perry gee thanks uh Emma yeah Mike my question is quick I I think he answered that Jeff but we're not concerned about you know I know every every couple years or few years they will wave of students that kind of right through to different elementary school no I remember one year yeah we a few years where we had a wave of students come in Norton I know he shored up the staff to handle that but we're not just a lot of wave coming in next year maybe the following year we're not having this position in place to be an issue that's this what I took from it yeah in the 2021 year I I think you bring up a good point Tony the it this year I don't know that it will be like other years and I don't know how to read the tea leaves to say what more people decide maybe next year to home-school or do something different because of fears or coronavirus well some people you know not attend private schools because of job implications I you know it's really kind of a toss-up right now but based on the data that we currently have this is a good decision now we do have to be agile and there's not a ton of room for flexibility in our budget the last five years of this year included have been really leaned the five Venus there's a window of five years as leanest we've ever had actually but I know that if we were to get a real oddball bump in enrollment in a particular grade or building then we would have to adjust to that and this would be the same thing here ton yeah yeah that's pretty much it thank you next question is Andrew you button Andrew there sorry there you go okay chairman capo so my daughters on Dodd the super team at Dodd which is the team and a half so Jeff what positions going to because it's going to be an English teacher or a math teacher has that been identified or is it just gonna be reduction in overall hours of the teachers know it the positions because of the retirements there's a little bit of moving the pieces around on the board so it would be a map position reduction and however one of the math teachers would bump into another spot because of a retirement and in science oddly enough so it's is just kind of weird because of dual certifications and then another position would be English would be a reduction but that person would bump to the high school do to see no there's there's no actual teacher losing a position not of those two no [Applause] but the high school would lose people yeah at least one English teacher made you know we're debating a second one teacher would lose their position the least senior would lose it to the person and dodge the next senior may lose it based on our conversation and what we determine and again this isn't a recommendation tonight tomorrow and we you know I hope to have it absolutely final Thank You mr.
⚗ AI-reconstructed · cite from original above