the overall maximum height that we're allowed to go to is 924 that's that red dash line it shows up better in the elevations because this is a plane oblique but if you look along that south side of the building you'll basically see the existing grating is potentially right at the midpoint at this the 869 which is the average grade that it happens to be on the other parts of the site um but yes the front of the site is approximately three to four feet higher than the southern back corner but as you draw down to the east over on manchester we do drop down and that's where we specifically dropped the the building you can see the facade step down when we switch between the c3 and the zero i'm sorry the o zoning you see a step on this drawing and that shows you where we're trying to address the height issue that was a concern and that was brought up with neighborhood meetings initially but i understand the concern it is effectively though a four-story building at that point it is lifted up to those neighbors to the south but we are trying to keep it well within the height limits that are permitted and is there maybe just help us understand is there uh what is in this space like where that 853 elevation marker is i mean i know there's a driveway but is there my understanding is that to the south there's parking that's part of the trader joe's complex right josh if you'd go the ground floor plan we basically what we have is um there's a real skinny lot that's trader joe's parking lot that runs along that south side so there's a strip of weird property that isn't part of our site which basically achieves somewhat of an existing land buffer and it has trees along it on the south side then there is parking kind of non-conforming parking one-sided parking with a strip of pavement then there are a whole bunch of other trees that are not on our property and then you hit our property line and then there's 20 feet where some of those trees are still within that area but effectively that kind of sidewalk runs around for the firemen to get around the building great so effectively there's quite a bit of landscape buffer there is um okay thank you and then my last question um maybe is more for staff in the staff report um there's a sentence in there that says there's concern with safety and and i wondered i think it's uh let's see it's under traffic staff comments page three and i just wanted to know more about that i think it's like i took that section right from the the traffic engineer who stated that and we had the petitioner um actually put this on the site plan so in the future if the if the turning driveway is approved with the condition that future safety and operational issues may require this drive access to be converted to write in and write out only so at this time they're not expecting any type of issue with the traffic circulation but we had them put it on the site plan in case there needs to be changes in the future so that means they'll observe the conditions at that stadium curb cut and if necessary convert that just with signage to a write-in right okay that's all thanks commissioner weich can you say more about the um the the entrance and exit because i that's a path for me to bike to work and it's already a fairly precarious path because you have folks coming out of the trader joe's they they crest the crosswalk and they sit in the crosswalk so as a biker i either have to go around in front which puts me out on stadium or i have to go behind which may get the ire of a car that's trying to pop out to get to that um turning lane so are we saying that traffic said it was okay for them to exit and make a left turn out of this development is that what you said and then you're noting it on the site plan that if it is a problem and i i need some clarification of what a problem is is that an accident and then um then it will be changed to right and right out yes that would be my understanding um you know i'm not the traffic engineer but i think it has more to do with the if you know the traffic volumes are increased in their circulation issues that at some point in the future if it is causing congestion at the entrance there at washington and stadium that we'd have that option since it's on the site then that yes we are going to make it a right turn only right in right now so what uh if i can ask a follow-up uh what triggers that determination so is it a car pedestrian incident a car bike incident a car car incident oh sorry i was just gonna jump in um if that's okay um my name is lori and i'm the traffic engineer that had worked on the traffic study for this project um i believe that the concern was with the west bound left turn movement into the site um just concerned that that movement may be backing up traffic through the intersection however our traffic models and our trip estimates um did not see a much bigger increase than what's currently there now as far as those left turn movements um and the q we do a queuing analysis and that only showed you know at the most um one vehicle waiting to turn in there and so it was approved but just they want to monitor that if there is a problem with that movement backing up then we might need to do something about the restricting turns in and out so i think my question still remains and so i don't know if it's for staff or to you a chair give randall to get answered which is what triggers the change in the direction of that traffic so how because it feels odd to me if i'm reading this correctly and understanding what i'm hearing correctly is we're going to wait until an incident occurs and then evaluate what we do so if i'm not hearing that correctly could someone just abuse me of what i'm hearing not something that i've ever run across personally since i've been here since 2015.
uh so the reality is we may not have to purchase new buses uh if so we may purchase one or two but a lot of i think it's going to depend on where we're at by the time we get these new buses in that we ordered back in 20 at the beginning of 2022.
so um uh i don't know if mr kowalski has any sense of that either in terms of the past or perhaps miss pollock if that's something that you've experienced or mr chang because you've been here for a long time too any of you experienced people that's been here for a long time what would you um has there been a precedent in the past where we've had to kind of wait and see in terms of a traffic um potential traffic issue um there were um i'm thinking a little bit far in the farther past 10 years or so ago well actually closer than that there's if you remember even the south pond project had um if you guys remember south pond the large single-family development behind arbor land there that had lots of issues with circulation um the part of the agreement was to have them pave up to that entrance of it but there were um kind of a qualification that said well if the city but it wasn't directly within the development agreement it was kind of a wait and seeing an enforcement type of issue meaning that if that did become a problem the city was going to possibly go back and either look at if traffic was going um north on chalmers which was dirt there may be an issue with that you know restricting turns coming out of that development but it was always done on kind of a like i know you're yeah i think you're looking for a definite metric but like to say that this happens but at that point in other developments i'm thinking of it was really based on a kind of a complaint driven aspect almost like if we see these issues this is becoming a problem the traffic engineers i mean they have uh kind of a complaint type system so that's basically where it was there wasn't because like you said there's no it's not saying there's nothing in a metric says one accident it triggers this as far as i know again i'm gonna refer it wasn't my project directly and obviously i'm not a traffic engineer but that's how it's been done in the past that we've had i don't think we've had them in like in much larger projects there's been things that can be added to development agreements that have to if this triggers this then that's done but um i don't think that's the case in this project so probably the short answer to that is it's kind of uh um yeah kind of i don't say complaint driven but really based on the situations that that occur after the development is up and running i mean these sites do get monitored i mean people do look at these and and we do hear about this isn't working this is working so that may be a long way to answer i hope it helped a little bit so i have seen things similar in the past yeah south pond wasn't ever built though sorry what was that south pond wasn't ever built though correct we never got to sort of test the water well you're right exactly but i'm thinking of other projects where it wasn't that uncommon where that said well you know we're good with this right now but we reserve the right to go right if this is an issue and i think whether or not that's included in the in the well i don't want to speak out of my league but i think it whether or not that was even mentioned up front if something becomes an issue the city can go in there and you know whether or not it was mentioned in the first if this becomes a problem the city can go back in there and take some corrective actions to help address the problem if you don't mind i just wanted to add a little a little bit of history to that too that the city and it's probably not you as a planning commission but the city traffic planners i think for a long time have been looking at this intersection and we had seen many preliminary designs for the intersection so i also believe part of the caution and part of that request to put that on was to give the city some flexibility should they change the intersection and i don't want to say what that's going to be but you know you could imagine it could be a roundabout it could be something completely different in the way those come together so give i believe it gives the city a little flexibility once that would happen i it didn't come up to be honest as a safety issue it just came up more as an issue of how do we address something we might do in the future to make that intersection better i would just like to piggyback on on your comment as a as a biker through there i think this is this is um a really rough spot in an otherwise pretty bikable area which is hard because stadium has a nice has a nice lane there and then you can connect up to the system that goes through county farm park which is wonderful and there's this section that's terrible right in that little zone that you're at so i'm thrilled that you're going to be rebuilding the sidewalk in there i think it's a bigger issue for mr weich about how to integrate bikes into this area that i feel your frustration and there's only so much they can do i think about it they've oversized their part their their sidewalk by two feet they've made it seven feet wide instead of five feet wide which i appreciate because i think that people do want to be able to use that little that little zone in through there and frankly i would encourage the city in the remaining stretch in front of the the um the parcel that they're kind of working around and connect all the way up to manchester to replace that section at the same time because it's it's awful in there you almost have to get off your bike it's so bad in terms of how pitted it is so um i think the city has to do has to be thinking about some of these larger issues about connectivity here because it really is pretty great on either side and then it just falls apart right in this short little section here um any other comments commissioner lee yeah um i think what commissioner weich was trying to say is that we should have some level of an evaluative framework and not like wait for something to occur but rather to have like a defined period after stabilization to say hey let's evaluate what thoroughfare looks like and obviously i think we all of us have said that strengthening non-motorized transit uh in our city is important reducing single occupant vehicles miles traveled is an important facet of what we're trying to achieve so again i think bringing housing that is closer to the attractors of jobs within the city is important um that this has obviously been a difficult site yet it is actually so i like the idea though the difficulty of pre-allocating resources on evaluating you know six to 12 months after stabilization it's kind of a tough you know how do you allocate resources that far so i understand the concern it just seems like a difficult thing to try and you know mechanically structure in the development agreement so um understand where you're coming from so i just wanted to say probably better to try and set that as opposed to wait for something bad to happen to take action um that being said actually my question is actually with respect to the development agreement i think it was let me just go to the section p7 this one is for staff it says um developer agrees to be included in a future special assessment district along with other benefiting property for construction of additional improvements at east stadium boulevard manchester road such as street widening storm sewers curb gutters sidewalks and i wanted just a little bit more um i guess knowledge for for my own sake i mean what does that necessarily mean i mean i think clarification is important for both developer and just for me um what that p7 really means um as far as like what can we expect is that just the flexibility to say anytime in the future there could be a you know future assessment district and they'll vote in favor of it um and i'm just trying to understand what mechanisms that particular section means for both the city and for the developer so i i did go over the draft development agreement with the city engineering department and there's a lot of standard language and i think that is a standard paragraph that is included and that they wanted left in now with that being said we still have our attorney's office to review the draft development agreement and i think there is going to be some give and take with the developer as we're reviewing and approving the draft development agreement and that's exactly why it is a draft at this time so if the developer wants to discuss this further i'm sure their attorney in our attorney's office will be discussing it further but i i think it's a standard paragraph our engineer did look it over and and wanted to leave that that section in okay got it thank you um i just needed a little bit of clarification and then yeah overall i think it's fully electrified brings additional housing i think you guys made a really good looking development with the constraints of the geometry of the site from the visibility of the height obviously from the south uh rear i think the um conflicting buffer will help uh you know i thought about a lot about what the the sound attenuation might be or carry of the amenity deck on the south eastern portion uh just making sure that we didn't necessarily disturb any of these sites adjacent sites but the again the conflicting land use buffers designed well so i think a lot of thought went into this so kudos to you guys i look forward to supporting this thanks commissioner sobe one final comment i don't have any questions i really appreciate the project but i did see you know it was evaluated to be tc1 or there's a question of why to zone or not zone um and with parking uh and this is more for you know planning commission and that the hearing is coming up to rezone more and uh washington is one of the next you know to be blanketed and i think while this isn't tc1 the targets about not a lot of surface parking are here electrification and housing density are here so i really appreciate this being the gateway to washington and the discussion of tc12 and the efforts for electrification so just you know additional observations not really around this project per se but what this project can lend into other projects as well so thank you so much commissioner lee um this question for petitioners in an ideal time frame what does it look like i'm asking on behalf of basically the church and you know other peoples that may be impacted by um construction in a perfect world right mobilization construction costs or you know oh they magically go down sure that that won't happen but in a perfect world what's the timeline in a perfect world um our plans would be to start uh sometime next year you know spring or fall depending on of course the approval on the doc the planning uh the finishing the planning documents and submitting for permits so um you know we we've been working with staff for a while on this project and as everybody recognizes and i appreciate all the comments so far it's been extremely challenging working through all the limitations of the site you know we were we knew that going in um the location we felt was very attractive but knew it was challenging so our hopes you know are to start that i mean we're our company's been around for a very long time we're actively building four projects right now uh three of which we started in the last 60 days so we hope you know we'll be able to build this as well once you break ground what's the time i guess that's the build time um impact to that probably um i you know i'm not the construction expert but i would say sometime in the range of 20 to 24 months would be my guess gotcha it's going to take a little bit of time to do the underground garage and some of the logistics on the site uh the infrastructure first gotcha thank you okay thank you commissioner weich one small thing and i want to echo the rest of the commissioner's comments around doing the project adding the housing doing the conversion the care that you seem to be taking with the electrification in solar would love to see more solar on the rooftop but i guess you've put in what you're going to put in one thing was just on the bike racks you have in the site plans just a standard hoop and i'll send this to mr chang for staff consideration but there is a better rack that you can put in where you can get more bike racks in it's the boston bike rack it's black it's a powder coated post with a ring track so that you can lock more bikes to it in the same space that you've allocated which if this will be activated potentially for students or young professionals that are here there's just a lot of opportunity for them to leverage bikes and then be able to move from this site throughout the city so just wanted to put that on your radar screen anything else okay are we ready to wrap this up and have a vote okay uh let's do roll call vote okay i'm i'm sorry who is the original motion moved by and second oh move by mail second bicep okay okay um if we're all ready for a vote at this time um commissioner mills commissioner gabriel yes commissioner sovay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes and thank you for the electrification and commissioner lee yes commissioner clark is absent and uh commissioner white yes okay um this project is approved thank you all okay we give me a minute to shift around some people here all righty so we will be moving on to 8b which is 2502 packard street alrighty this is the george site plan for city planning commission approval a proposal to convert 23 462 square feet of retail space on the ground floor to 42 residential units new dwelling units will include approximately 205 square feet of mezzanine space for a total of 8 600 square feet of new floor area if you all wouldn't mind moving your conversation to this side that would be great thank you new dwelling units will include approximately 200 205 square feet of mezzanine space for a total of 8 600 square feet of new floor area relocate a solid waste area north to drive from its current location to the location south of the north drive and add two bicycle parking spaces 6.52 acre zone c1b or community convenience center staff recommendation is approval okay so we will start with the petitioner presentation which will be up to 10 minutes uh hello thank you for your time my name is ken gold i'm vice president at somerset development we are a new jersey based developer we have projects here in ann arbor michigan and around the state of new jersey and in suburban illinois and at the village of hoffman estates i'm joined tonight online on zoom by my engineer andrew wiseman my architect steve dykstra from hobbs in black and my attorney um pat lennon from honigman i'm hoping i get to pay him by the word tonight so um oh and additionally i'm joined by um adam rich adam richards who is a specialist uh from epro who handles um vapor barrier mitigation systems uh and uh environmental mitigation systems uh this project i know has a long history um with a lot of issues uh with the previous developer and and you know there were a lot of construction issues and you know we're not here to talk about the past so i i just want to acknowledge that you know there we know what we know what happened here um we were under contract to buy this piece back in december of 2021 we recently closed in june and the entire time that we were under contract through now we have been marketing the retail space i have not had a single phone call i have not had a single request i have not had a single tour there's no interest in the space um and that is why we are looking to turn the space into more units to to generate you know more more housing for the community uh and a better overall product uh all the units will be one bedrooms and all the units will be fully electrified products uh appliances um and with that i think it's i think i'll hand it off to andrew to walk through the site plan just to show you that we're really not changing anything it's just the interior spaces good evening commissioner members my name is andrew wiseman the civil engineer for the project noah confronts engineers been involved in this project uh various incarnations for many years uh first i'd like to thank the planning staff for their assistance bringing this project in front of you tonight we're very excited about the improvements to the george and i look forward to going forward with those improvements uh i would like to let you know that the improvements are basically restricted to the existing building inside the existing building externally there are no improvements proposed with the exception of relocating the trash enclosure on the north side of the drive to north side of the building to the north side of the drive if i could share share this i could show you a rendered copy i have but that is the only change externally the parking count shall remain the same with the additional residential units we are adding three internal bike parking spaces in the garage structure and that is pretty much all we are doing uh from a civil engineering standpoint on on the site is there a way we can show that i know jeff here this screen right now sure you should be able to there you go okay you got it so this area inside the u this is where the existing retail spaces are being converted into residential units the trash enclosure currently is located on the north side of the building here is going to shift to the north side of the drive here and the parking count will remain the same this is a loading area that's just being shifted as a result of this change to the trash enclosure configuration i can let steve dicer go through what's the architect hops in black is proposing as far as the floor plans go but i just want to show you these floor plan drawings and elevations steve he's he's in your muted yeah he's he's there he's in as there you go steve are you saying anything steve we can't hear you if you are we don't see him as a as a box on the screen i see him as a box yeah he's there so i can go through what's happening here i'll continue this conversation this is existing university this is the existing retail space which is going to be converted to the 42 units this is half a mirror image of um that's this portion here and here's the mirror image so the extent of retail conversion the residential is represented in these clouded areas here and a couple units will be proposed in this bottom u portion of the building and you can go back to the floor plans for a second so so yeah yeah these are so these these units there's there's essentially four different sections that we'll be converting as you can see here these they're separate um the larger space is around somewhere between nine and ten thousand the smaller space is between 11 and 1500 square feet uh we'll be these will become one bedroom with lofts as you as was mentioned earlier that we're putting like a loft space up there so these will all be one bedroom one bath units walkouts directly to the parking that's in front and behind it uh they're back to back uh they'll all be one bedroom one and a half bath and again they'll all have electric appliances and we're really just keeping the architecture in line with what's there um just you know replacing the the the back sides of the spaces currently are solid walls so we'll be putting in windows and the doors will just line up you know with the units and it'll be you know pretty straightforward so um i guess if steve's unable to talk i don't know that we have much more to say yeah i'm sorry but he's i think he was at a panelist i'm not sure why you know we've only been dealing with zoom for like two and a half years i think we've figured this out i even promote him as a co-host but okay all righty well why don't we move on to the staff presentation then if um if you feel like that makes sense would you like me to stop sharing or shall i keep it open mr khan would you like him to keep sharing why don't you stop sharing for now but be prepared to open it back up um for for the conversation um yeah thank you um i i do want to provide a little bit of history of the to the site um for those folks who may be less familiar with it this was the site that um was the old georgetown mall which was uh one of the early shopping malls in ann arbor uh had a kroger shopping um center and and other retail establishments um including a dry cleaner this site struggled after after being constructed in the 60s by the time the 1990s 2000s hit the site was struggling to maintain um tenants and uh eventually the site was sold to a developer who came in with the original proposal ownership changed during early construction [Music] it was eventually acquired by the petitioner who uh indicated that they're um that they have been attempting to lease the retail spaces um as i think some of you know um the uh site was originally contaminated from the dry cleaning operation but the contamination was contained because there are heavy clay soils in the area so the contamination was removed and vapor barriers were installed the petitioner is going to be working with the county with regard to maintaining those vapor barriers during during and after construction um every time i've spoken to someone who's inquired about this the uh uh site whether it's prospective owners or um uh anyone i've i've talked about the interest the strong interest that the city has in um you know in a retail component here that that we really feel that this this part of town um does not have a great deal of retail even though there are a lot of rooftops out here um and um as the petitioner indicated earlier in their presentation they've struggled to find retailers who've been willing to take the take the plunge here so i do want to say uh as staff we're disappointed too that there's not a mixed-use component however code does not require a mixed-use component code requires code allows residential uses as a um as as a permitted principal use uh and so staff um is supportive of the project because it is consistent with code i would like to read the recommendation staff recommends approval of the site plan because it complies with all applicable local state and federal ordinances standards and regulations it will not cause a public or private nuisance and and it will not have a detrimental effect on public health safety or welfare and that's the summary of of my report thank you mr khan we will move on now to public hearing and this is an opportunity for people to speak up to three minutes we'll call first on individuals here present in the room and then remotely um to speak during the public hearing remotely press star nine if listening by phone or use the reins hand feature of viewing through the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and then our meeting id 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anybody present here that would like to be able to speak good evening my name is dr lauren sergeant i live at 2815 ember way i moved to that neighborhood near the georgetown mall because i wanted walkability and i walked to kroger and rite aid and the post office and the dry cleaner and this is not about the city code this is about our stated goals to increase walkability sustainability all that kind of stuff and also about faith in agreements that are made when that building was built there was an agreement with the neighborhood with the community that we would have a mixed use facility with retail with services we have now lost two krogers we've lost the packard food co-op we lost food and drug mart we've lost all kinds of services that existed in that neighborhood my walkability walked away from me and this has got to stop if we talk about getting out of cars well how are people going to get their groceries and their pharmacy and all that kind of stuff and also if we let the developer do this what's to stop the next developer from wink wink not nod with agreements to have mixed use livable community facilities i think this is a really bad decision to allow and i oppose it vehemently the other thing i think you should know is that i thought i was alone in this but when what going through the site to look for the retail that was supposed to be planned my neighbor and i were shoot out of the the site and this happened to other people as well i found out yesterday i'm talking to folks at the polls this is really a bad deal back to the drawing board if you want retail there don't charge rents that are downtown level or downtown chicago level rents how about reasonable prices and food drugs and uh services thank you thank you anybody else present here that would like to speak on this project okay seeing none we will move to the virtual line is there anybody yes we have several callers um so caller with the last three digits 593 you can now address the planning commission and you have three minutes you need on mute caller with the last 3g 593 if you can unmute you can address the planning commission asking them to unmute here we go okay hi can you hear me now yes yeah matt this steve dykstra i made it i just wanted to say that i am available here via phone my computer had sound issues so if there are any questions that i could be available to address i'd be happy to do so if i if that works uh over the phone line here that's all i really need to say i think uh andrew and ken covered the architectural issues pretty well okay thank you okay so um all right this time then we will go to um looks like ellen abramson if you can uh please unmute and you have three minutes to address the planning commission yes hi thank you my name is ellen abramson i live at 3204 farnborough court i'm about a 10 minute walk from um the george and a long time resident so i well remember the little georgetown mall we had and all the wonderful amenities there so um i'm representing myself and neighbors i've spoken with just as the previous person who came up and spoke in person i um there's been a lot of excitement among the neighbors and a lot of patients over many many years to see some retail walkable retail installed there you know i have a friend who i thought we'll meet for coffee it's sort of midway between where we live uh my daughter was babysitting for children who are so excited of course these children have grown up now but you know oh there'll be a maybe there'd be a candy shop maybe there'd be an ice cream store this is all to say that the neighbors i think by and large would be very very disappointed if um the planning commission approves this proposal we've been patient we've had trust in the agreement and having that trust broken doesn't does not feel good i also agree perhaps there are ways to interest tenants i'm quite sure that there is a price point for rental uh fees that will uh bring interest in parties and um and i'm going to say that maybe there's some sort of compromise maybe retain some retail and make a few additional residential units perhaps there's room for compromise here i would still like to see some retail thank you thank you okay um okay um mr james damore you may un unmute and please uh three minutes to address the planet commission thanks matt can you hear me yes we got you good great uh uh thanks uh members of planning commission i thought i'd put my two cents in regarding on the george proposal um i've read a large number of the letters opposing this amendment change and i agree with them um as jeff mentioned this was once a major retailer servicing the neighborhood um look guys i really appreciate your efforts to increase the supply of housing through this and your various tc-1 efforts throughout the city however i really think throughout all of this you've been making changes to benefit the developer or in this case the current owners while asking enough in return you're not demanding enough in terms of affordable housing as nearby communities have done you haven't done enough to protect natural features when they're allowed to do so as other people have mentioned on this one the existing surrounding neighborhood residents were promised a vital new replacement for georgetown mall and while be sure the impact of the pandemic cannot be discounted this isn't a forever occurrence retail and shop space is important for residents and particularly new small businesses if antarctica is to densify and create viable transit oriented development along important travel nodes we really need to insist on the environment to create healthy communities by keeping a local shop option in place um perhaps in this situation a review of the current retail space is in order i think that's it um again i agree with others have said here let's work with the community and get something right here and act on behalf of the community thanks guys for considering my remarks thank you okay next up uh caller with the last three digits five three four um please unmute and you have three minutes to address the planning commission good evening this is tom stahlberg and i'm calling from lowertown in ann arbor lowertown being another location that lost its retail slightly different story over here i'm also a commercial landlord mixed-use landlord during the copa pandemic i gave my commercial tenants free rent for over two years so they could survive and come out and be able to open up again and thrive they are now open filling their place to full capacity and thriving and paying rent as a building owner as a business owner we have a risk return this is one of those times where there's some risk nobody foresaw covet it did a lot of damage i think in michigan a third of the dining and bar establishments closed that's based on a liquor license uh reporting number uh it's been tough and right now at the time the businesses that went out of business have reduced the competition for what could come in here if these units were reasonably reasonably priced competitively priced even priced at a loss they could get tennis in here now the competition is reduced because people were hurt by coving this neighborhood needs walkable retail just like my neighborhood needs walkable retail we were denied ours for very different set of circumstances and our developer even closed our local market to put in their sales office that was insult to injury for us i'm looking at other people experiencing the same thing on the other side of town as you know i'm a long time advocate of transit oriented development principles and i do not agree with some of the ways he's handled our current transit zoning issues including the mass resulting but packard is on the list of quarters to be rezoned you take out the commercial and then turn around in the very near future mastery zone this corridor to tc1 looking for mixed use you're kind of going backwards right now we're not going to hit our 820 goals if we don't have the mixed use part of mixed use the commercial retail part of mixed use if we end up with all residential or in the case of the lower town 99 and a half percent residential then we do not have the mixed use to create walkable neighborhoods and people will get in their cars and drive and people will own cars if we want to produce parking which it seems like we do we can't have people owning that many cars which they have to own if we don't have the mix the commercial part of the mixed use thank you if we're trying to look forward this is going backwards thank you okay um another caller um caller with the last three digits 194 and please unmute you have three minutes to address the planning commission you could i believe you're still muted call it the last there you go hello yes we can hear hello thank you this is rita mitchell calling and i'm um in in agreement with the prior speakers with my concern about actually driving out retail that's been planned for and counted on by people who agreed initially to have this additional housing i'm worried that this is a precedent setting kind of decision and i hope that you'll really really reconsider how it can be managed for this case and for future ones there is a development near on south main street near madison which has also no retail that was promised in its ground floor it's called the yard um and and what i'm worried about is that the expense of the the floor the ground level um businesses that that will be charged by the developers will drive out and and and we'll drive out what could be our potential local small businesses um i'm thinking forward to the tc1 plan for west stadium in north maple those businesses that are there are there because they can afford those rents if new development comes in and brings in an expensive floor plate like this one that our local businesses can't afford we will lose those unique elements of our community and i really want those to stay i mean i we really need them and and that is will it be contrary to the goal that has been stated for the tc1 and for this kind of of development so i'm asking you to reconsider this and to work with the developer because there's something else that has to be done and i really believe it's reduce the price of the floor plate and i would like to know how much outreach the developer did to seek tenants because it sounded rather passive um in terms of of how um there was there were no encounters it looks like that no one asked to be there but did he ask people to look at the space and talk about renovating or whatever the needs are to keep it that's a question i have but really if we're going to have the walkable communities we want we have to have the walkable services and ideally they will be supported by our small local businesses that's what we want i think thank you bye thank you okay um caller with the last three digits five four two um please unmute your phone and you have three minutes to address the planning commission call her with the last three digits of five four two if you can unmute your phone you have three minutes to address the planning commission um we may maybe we can skip one remember ahead we do have a one other we can come back to caller 542.
um let's kind of see where we're at with that so kind of see what the cost is and the time length that we'll take to get those buses and and see kind of where we're at already in our fleet when we get when we get those buses by the time we get those new buses we may be having our inspection for next year just to get the budget approved though yes normal delivery so we'll keep them in there um and then we need them we'll use it or not then we'll have to look at the buses in the next so so we have to advertise these uh we no longer have to advertise in a newspaper but we can advertise them on our website and so i don't know if that is later in the agenda or not but asking for permission to advertise the 2023 capital projects it's not on our new business so let's just do it right now and i would prefer together you know both the the projects and the bus replacement yes okay so [Music] to approve the advertising of the capital projects at the bus replacement plan all i'm trying to say all right all right um and then the last thing is this is another thing with indiana code is we have to advertise our 2021 financial report so this would be for calendar year 2021 from january to december we have to advertise that in august of last year's annual financial report and there are certain things that are required in there and you can see all of those things from revenue to expenditures to teacher salaries to classified salaries to eca salaries to all that type of stuff there we used to have to advertise all of it in the newspaper now we only have to advertise a portion of it in the newspaper and the rest of it goes on our website so you can see i think it's the last three or four pages is the shortened version that would go into the newspaper and then all of this would go on our website right there that starting there is the summary which would be advertised in the newspaper and then the rest of all of it would be on our website who decided what i mean how did they put the paper in one of them yeah that comes from the state so they tell us what we need to fill in i fill it in and then that's what gets advertised and it is nice that they use it because it's very expensive to do this and we know that we could actually send this out to other modes um and we're gonna actually have more people to see it because owners make people see this and yes but now it's gonna be on the website so that's all i'm saying so i just asked for your permission to advertise that the deadline has to be advertised in the newspaper between august 1st august 15th so i get that permission i will reach out to them and get that advertised as soon as we can okay so you see the motion in a second second motion in a second to advertise the annual financial report always ever say hi okay so we'll move to personnel under resignation we have joe lacey assistant principal southpaw high school kelly beaver paraprofessional at northville high school sally bisel athletic secretary at southwood school jeffrey pinnacle pe teacher at southwood high school and katie harwood cook at southwood elementary school and theresa carell for a professional southpaw mentor under employment ashley hunt kindergarten teacher at metro north elementary ashland nickim junior high cheer coach northville high school kayla barlow junior high cheer coach at northfield dakota getz varsity volleyball coach at northfield lamb cook at southland high school kimberly mcadams cook at southwood high school melissa metz cook at metronome elementary jessica france bus driver for the north chad andrews special ed teacher for southpaw elementary rebecca metz cook at northfield high school and carol holbrook paraprofessional for metro north elementary under transfers i have a preset math teacher transferring from white's high school to southwood high school for a block or sixth grade teacher transferring from southern elementary to southwood high school have a decline sixth grade teacher transferring from southwood elementary to southland high school tammy ross transferring from kindergarten teacher metro north to third grade teacher at sharp creek and kate davis transferring for a professional prayer professional at southern elementary two paraprofessional sophomore high school under coaches california high school these are all for the upcoming 2022-2023 season uh tanya boone head cross country danny asbestos jesus junior high cross country sorry danny dave schneider head football coach doug marks corey blocker zach ball all assistant football coach ben bachman junior high football george boyer head carol scoff tom finickle head volleyball grant lange barles assistant volleyball also becca dylan and karen tinkle assistant volleyball stephanie hacker junior high volleyball rachel hurst gina deaton junior high volleyball and tim drake assistant i've only object to one so that is your full slate of hr for this week i'm going to decide i'll show you in a second to approve the personnel recommendations all in favor say hi all right and i just want to mention uh you know good luck to those who are moving on there's a lot of different reasons uh joe lacey of course um assistant our principal going back to his alma mater um and being in that school and being closer to home and he's done a great job for us uh the last um 10 years actually and so uh and then also of course the the rest of them there some of them have been here longer than than others but uh appreciate them good luck to the other new ones coming in and of course the transfers two of them corey took tab with us because we're moving to sixth grade to uh south of junior senior high school and yeah and emil priesic for math teacher of course our enrollment's a little bit lower there at whites and so that's going to work out well we appreciate amy being a team player to be able to help us out there at southwood so good luck and congratulations everybody moving on to reports hartman career center you have anything for us tonight oh just a little bit we accepted a 3e grant for over 48 000 and what they're planning to do with that grant is to hire a person to go with all the senior students there we'll see what their project going to do after school and stuff like i try to line them up with jobs and things like that just kind of follow them around we're hoping to see some improvement and i would say kids going out after school after they graduate and stuff like that have a plan or so and we'll run that for two years and see how that goes and decide whether you want to keep that and pick the scores for that yeah and we have a free distracted quote contract for the heartland career instructors mr higgleton so okay all right superintendent's report mr p faber yeah i just have a few things and actually dr can do some of this too but um since he does all the budget and takes up most of the time school board meeting i thought i'd get a chance to talk a little bit so anyway um because he actually oversees the transportation or at least our transportation director of west falls so this is something we've been doing but i just want to make sure that people know about our bus driver training reimbursement ideas that we have here the things that we've been using and so you've had this ahead of time of course uh but basically there's there's different things that go along with this of course if you want to be a bus driver we have a few people in the audience tonight and so if you're interested we can get you all hooked up break these off and get you going right away but we do have other things that we would pay for um if you're an active sub driver for one year or a full-time driver for six months to help you out with that we also have a sign-on bonus of fifteen hundred dollars though they're starting to shake their head yes um and then of course if we have a referral though if you want to refer somebody though too and they do everything that's required so if you want to drive a bus um and also refer somebody else so like one of you could could drive the other could refer you get two thousand dollars and we pay for everything so just keep that in mind that's a great deal um and then these are just all the forms that we use so just appreciate everybody's been involved with this uh to come up with this plan of course you see everywhere where they're hiring bus drivers you'll see bus buses along the highway and different places with big signs to say we're hiring and just like everybody's saying that we're hiring so basically that's just to let you know that that's what we've been doing and and we are filling some positions but we can always use more so keep that in mind so i wanted to mention that also just want to thank all of our staff who participated last week in pretty pretty warm weather as far as the 4-h fair the only good thing about not the good thing not the only good thing but the one good thing about the fair is that now it's in the bruce ingram building which is actually air-conditioned but it's not as large as what it used to be when it was out um what did they call that look i mean it's emergency building that's the kind of highway building um and you know back in the day that used to be packed all the time and so but we did have a lot more vendors people businesses in uh there that what what they were last year so i had a good response it was fun being there just appreciate all the people have done that um also just want to let you know that a lot of things coming up next week we have a new teacher orientation on august 4th on august 5th we have our admin retreat on august 8th is our opening day for teachers where we will go at northfield and have some introductions and things happen there this is the first year probably ever that our first day with teachers is just a half day on their contract and then august 9th on that tuesday will be a full staff a teacher day in preparation we really won't have meetings so that will be their time to be able to prepare for the students and then of course august 10th will be the first day of school and finally just want to report as far as the referendum we have just really two more steps tomorrow the county election board is going to meet again um and to approve uh the question and then after that they will send that to the dlgf and then that will take care of uh most of everything that has to happen there's another timeline of august or october 1 to make sure it's all about but there were a lot of things that had to happen in a short amount of time it looks like it's all going to happen so i do want to thank publicly county clerk lori draper and county auditor mercy shepherd for all to work and everybody else to be able to get that completed and i believe that's it for now moving on to curriculum and instruction report well i think you missed the best part about being in the bruce singer miller was being next to sheriff baker i think they provided constant entertainment for us for the people around uh i had promised you these results um once we got it together you probably have seen them already though because laura lambie walls makes them look beautiful and then she shares them in social media so i just wanted to make sure you had a copy of that again you know we'd like to see 100 of our kids pass these so we know we have some work to do but we understand these tests can be challenging so um being above the state average is a good place to start so they'll keep trying to hammer whatever any questions on on those charts they pretty much speak for themselves question has that been kind of consistent through the years very traditional uh we have been i feel like we've been above the state average more often than not with iowa now i learned only a couple years with istep for sure but yeah yeah same way with our contemporaries i feel like that's the case yeah i'd have to look closer but um because i recall that it was very similar i think it is i think every once in a while manchester is there and then sometimes we get them and vice versa and do well against the state adversary yeah um some people asked i guess i'd go and address this you can see under math in english it says without whites whites sometimes has seventh and eighth grade students and so math and english are tested at those grade levels science and social studies are tested actually outside of the native even though they call it iowa in 338 they're at younger grades and so whites doesn't usually have kids at that age and so those numbers don't reflect any students from whites because there's no kids enrolled in those grade levels so somebody asked that question that's clarification and then on the back um you may remember that we talked about our partnership with sora to get that online app uh pulaski county stepped up and helped us with that and so i was able to run a report over the summer so over the summer our students or staff read 44 books through that app and so i thought that was pretty impressive actually to be honest that's higher than i thought it would be right um and so they could do this on their home devices they can do it on the phone um they just have to log into their school email which is still live for the students so how's that work so you go to the app like you just download any app you go that app and when you click in you get to choose the library in the school district and so that all pops up and then i ask for your login information you just choose what you would for your school and most of our kids are pretty familiar with their school email and password and you click and log in and then all of a sudden it populates through the filter that we have set uh so kids get to see age-appropriate things as we've deemed with our library people and click a button you get to read the book online and you can see here several of them checked out audiobooks these are like actual audio books not like where you know the computer reads you a thing and it kind of sounds like a robot like these are actual professional actors that read the books and so uh you can see that they took advantage of that also and so i i was thinking a handful of kids might check out one or two things i mean it's the summer right and they don't have their ipads and i'm pleasantly surprised we got some kids take advantage of it and again no cost to us no cost of library um no harm no power why did we use pulaski uh we tried to work with the local district uh local library and um they did not approve that they reject so the wabash library did not but msd interesting so we have to go to pulaski to get that yeah the vendor if you remember the vendor was like shocked that we got turned out and so like you mind if we ask other libraries to see if they'll help you out and i was like sure thinking everyone's why wouldn't they do that we're not in accounting and then it wasn't within the day we were like hey we got somebody to want to sign up so there was no calls to the library right no cost and no work like the vendor did it all so like i said they fought they found him in a day and i want to say within a day or two the vendor had everything gone kids were able to kids and staff were able to check books out we don't know why all those i mean you'd have to ask them that question to help our students out yeah yeah all right so is there anything else no that's it i'll have other data for you but uh it hasn't been released or it's all in marketing so in our new business we have the recommendation to approve the modified 2022-2023 calendar based on the state board of education approval of the 1003 flexibility waiver application for a one-year-old well this is very very involved and so i don't know how much i want to say right now i did email all of the staff and and warned everybody at the time that this was going to be a fairly long email which it was but basically the state legislators in house bill 1093 1093 became law the governor signed the bill on march 15th and the part that really pertains to us was it establishes the whole virtual student instructional day that there could only be not more than three virtual student instructional days that do not meet the established requirements and those established requirements would be being synchronous compared to asynchronous and then right after that the doe came out and said uh they were trying to figure out all that out so they came out with a memo to say that there are different possibilities but one possibility is that you could apply for the 1003 flexibility waiver grant or waiver and many schools across the state of india i did that i actually worked with some other local school districts here we worked together actually did the did some waivers we collaborated together um and then the state board of education then actually approved the waiver and so what that means is uh the flexibility part of it is that we could use minutes instead of days and so we had to figure out how many minutes we had in our schools um compared to days which allowed us to be able to do some certain things so what we have proposed here is our three e-learning days um will be three e-learning professional day so if you see where it says for example the first one on september the 9th it will be a no school staff professional development day so it originally would be e-learning and professional staff professional development but it's only going to be staffordshire staff professional development consider everyone tonight um the same thing with october 11th which is the parent-teacher conference day so that will be parent-teacher conference and also staff development day and that's actually one and a half days because that's a teacher contract that we actually go through the evening so they get one and a half days at that particular day and there will be no e-learning and then also on march the 17th no school staff report staff professional development day and then along with that we were going to be able to with the house bill uh what was it again 10 we were still going to be able to have those days but then if we had any cancellations with e-learning it would have been synchronous which would have been 50 of the day being connected to the students so in other words 2.5 hours for kindergarten through 6th grade or 7th through 12th grade would be 3 hours connected and we know that would be somewhat difficult with a lot of different situations and so every cancellation day at the beginning will be e-learning day just like we've always done but it'll be asynchronous like we've done before um but if we get into the situation where there's not been uh historically that many days in that situation but if we have three plus days on the third day fourth day fifth day et cetera we will not have school it will not be e-learning for the students but contractually uh the staff will still have to be working so that is really in a long explanation the reason for this change and so you can see at the bottom cancellation days cancel days become e-learning the day of the cancellation that language has not changed from the calendar that was approved in november but a third plus uh consecutive cancel day converts to a no school no e-learning day for students students only and the information that i gave all the staff basically we have from 2013 to 2014 we did have five consecutive days that year that if you recall that was the blizzard year um in 1415 we had four consecutive 15 16 we had less than three 16 17 we had less than three um 17-18 we had less than three we did have three consecutive 18-19 coven year was 1920 in the last two years we've had greek and segmented so it probably i'll just say probably because we don't know how the weather's going to uh around this this winter um but typically we don't have that many consecutive anyway so we won't use any days but again the flexibility waiver allows us to use minutes instead of days and actually i don't think i have this right here but by memory whites has about 10 extra days converted to minutes south of the northfield have 20 days and the elementaries have like it's a big range because they have busting is different and when they start school 27 to 39 days so we have plenty of days we're not going to lose that many days at all when we don't want to do that but at least allows us to be able to have that flexibility especially for for professional development you know other school districts have three four five six days a week we're going to continue with the three that we have for the staff and that's one thing that's going to be interesting and i think very good for staff to be able to concentrate just on that staff development and not being able to do the two things at one time as far as having staff development and also working with students and homework and things like that so as my recommendation to approve that if you have any questions i'll entertain those at this time to accept the modified calendar based on the flexibility waiver uh approval all in favor say ah okay we have no unfinished business we'll move on to the board policy and we have uh the recommendation to handily adopt the teacher finishing appreciation appreciation grant which is a slight change to our board policy and all of them yeah interesting every year through the indian department of education we have to supply them our policy for the tag monies and that's basically an indiana code also and so it's pretty prescriptive of what you need to do and i've sent in every year this year they said well one thing that we don't have on here that we don't talk about annually adopting it even though it's in our policy handbook and we don't take it out in theory it seems like it's adopted annually but i don't think they thought that was good enough because it didn't say that on the policy so we had to add that language uh with also the definition of a teacher and also just a statement at the end so it doesn't really change anything um that dr and his staff's going to do when we get the monies it will not change anything with that and it doesn't even ask for board minutes it just says that we need to have it written on our policy so it's annually um adopted so i do not believe this has to be a second reading because it's already been in a handbook unless maybe we can ask our school attorney if we need to do it twice but um yeah i don't make sense so josh we have a question yeah well typically we do a first and second reading of uh policy this policy has been adopted several years ago we voicing it to the states um but they said that it didn't say annually on there that we adopt it because they want us to annually adopt it and not just have it in our policy book and so my interpretation is since we've already had the policy they just want us to annually adopt that we don't have two reasons because this is the same policy we've with a few tweaks that haven't changed doesn't change anything with what we're doing that they can just adopt it tonight without a second reading because it's always been in our handbook i mean in our policy and the safer thing the easier thing probably to do would be to to make a motion to suspend the rules of requiring the second reading okay yeah so at this point i will entertain a motion to suspend the rules requiring a second reading of a policy exactly yeah we'll have to okay so we have a motion on the table i have a second to suspend the record the rule to have a second reading all in favor say okay now at this point i'm going to see the new policy check no second okay at this point we'll motion a second for to annually adopt to change the policy to annually adopt the teacher appreciation grant as explained by mr key faber all in favor say uh we'll move aye to public comments there's once okay but i'm going to say something to the comment back to the bus incentives he said 2 000 but if you get a 1500 sign-on bonus and then a 500 referral and then you sign on that's actually 3 well couldn't they refer each other yeah matt can testify that probably i've had enough years driving any other items or any items from board members
if you want um pat lennon if you would uh like to unmute your phone you have three minutes to address the planning commission uh thank you can you all hear me okay yes we can great my name is pat lennon i'm an attorney with the hongman firm i'm here tonight on behalf of the applicant you probably heard mr gold introduced me i promise to only charge by the word so i'll be brief i i want to begin by thanking everyone for their thoughtful comments tonight uh you can tell everyone really cares about this property and the community uh at the same time i want to emphasize the fact that you know we're in the midst of a site plan approval application and as part of this application one thing is not in dispute and that is that the proposed site plan satisfies all the requirements of the ordinance uh you know this has been confirmed by city staff and it was tailored to comply with all the requirements the developers spent a lot of time uh prior to submitting the application to be sure that what they were putting together would fit within the framework of the ordinance so i'd ask you all to keep that in mind throughout the discussion tonight beyond that additional multi-family housing is is good for the site and good for the community there's a tremendous demand for more housing throughout the state and the and the community has a need for it in this case you have the unique opportunity to add more housing without adding new structures the structures are already there we'll just be populating the inside of them they've long been vacant and will certainly continue to be if this path isn't isn't taken again we've heard a lot tonight about trying to make retail work here nothing would make the developer happier or the petitioner happier than to make it work unfortunately it just hasn't but even if it did this site is still permitted to be used for multi-family purposes and in fact it's already primarily used for just that purpose so unfortunately as you might imagine our client you know can't be asked to sustain empty space particularly when there's a community for housing and particularly when there's a demand for it and an opportunity to establish it without establishing additional structures so we think that's a pretty unique opportunity and we hope the planning cons commission sees it that way as well you know for all of those reasons we we hope the planning commission approves the plan tonight because it does comply with the ordinance and it does serve an important community need thank you for your time and consideration thank you okay so um at this time let's go back to uh caller with the last three digits five four two um could you please unmute yourself and you have three minutes to address the planning commission mute through your phone star nine oh star nine sorry star nine if listening by phone that's oh yes we can hear you uh i really apologize i have to say that the system really gives conflicting information on whether or not you're doing star six or start nine but that said that's the problem for another day um i'm kate mccune and i live at 1912 anderson in the neighborhood and i would start by saying i completely agree with the previous speaker in that the issue before you seems like it's clear that the present owner is entitled to do this but what i would like to do is turn my question to the commission and to the city planning department to look at why these retail fails are happening over and over again and i wonder if um you know my background is in retail and i have consulted in retail for 30 years and i wonder if there's expertise on the commission around developing retail within multi-use i wonder if there is advice and uh in the planning department for working in concert with developers to understand what's in entails in maintaining retail and frequently small retail i got interested in this at 211 packard which i think is a great apartment building that is put in really unworkable retail that is bound to sales it's tiny and you just have to think like how does this stuff get passed so um i guess my my question in general is as a commission and as a planning department are you working at developing an expertise for ensuring this kind of thing will work because time and time again in the last 50 years in the us we know that if you build it they will come won't happen and so you know i guess i would just challenge you going forward to if there is that expertise let us know more about it and participate more in it and and again go back to in this case you know this is like locking the barn after the horse is gone um you know the work on this should have been done in the initial phases so um thank you for your time and i appreciate you hearing me thank you okay um caller with the last three digits zero zero zero please unmute your mic and address the planet commission three minutes or less hello this is kabitha lobo from 2642-h in the georgetown community and i'm also a small business owner in the community as well um and i'm calling because um i yeah want to kind of echo what many of the other speakers have said and really speaking to the promises that the developers of the george made in um in deciding to build this development and what i believe is a pretty disingenuous effort that they've made to actually secure retailers in that space um i want to point out in case the planning commission doesn't already know this that tenants you know people who rent at the george are required to show three and a half times income just to rent there which makes it fairly inaccessible to many people and um it sounds like it might not be surprising if they were expecting that of people in their retail space as well so i think if they as many have said made the retail space affordable and competitive they might not be in the issue that they're in so it feels like a pretty disingenuous effort on their part to do that and um as many have also stated you know looking at ann arbor's sustainability goals and also desiring walkability in our neighborhood i speak for that myself but also amongst the neighbors in this community would be a tremendous asset and something that was lost by this community so i really encourage the planning commission to take that into consideration in their decision thank you okay um it is uh sorry you've one more caller on the line um is it adam jeskevich um please unmute you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi uh my name is adam josekovic i live at 1430 las vegas drive in the fourth ward near the west stadium corridor although my my grandmother my late grandmother lived in pine valley apartments right near georgetown mall and i often went there as a kid i do believe that having walkable groceries and other basic daily needs is essential to the neighborhood and ann arbor's goals and our needs um as a community and also as a society and humanity however i understand the reality of this situation with this particular development i'm just sad and disappointed that the retail is not going to happen and i want to echo it was the caller right right before the the um one right before me um we need to figure out how we're going to solve these issues going forward with future developments and hopefully we can figure out why this this happens and fix it thank you okay um i see no more hands raised at this time okay thank you you'll you'll get your chance i'm going to read the proposed motion which is the anniversary planning commission here by approves the george site plan 2502 packard road for planning commission approval moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner dish we are in discussion commissioner dish okay um we will call on you when we're ready yeah and you might want to stay standing um okay so this uh this this is a this is a a very complicated site the georgetown mall had been empty since so retail failed before this proposal came up and i'm not saying that it's impossible for retail to happen here but i want it to be clear that nothing was removed to create this project either in 2011 when the first efforts to develop it began or recently none the less walkable neighborhoods are critical to our carbon neutrality plan and our transit corridor zoning effort will not serve the purposes that we hope if we can't succeed in having mixed use in those projects and i understand that you are not currently on a transit corridor there's nothing that requires you to do any of this but in uh one of you i forget which one of you said we want retail to work it just hasn't and i feel an urgent need to ask you to help me understand why because we need to learn from your experience because we are going to move forward and we will need to succeed so i i i'm going to pose a series of questions and i would love you to answer as much as you can and i would urge you to make sure you can answer everything that i'm asking you now when you come before council so i'd like to know how the retail space was priced relative both to the surrounding neighborhood and relative to downtown i'd like to know if you reduced the price in order to try to attract retail and if you didn't why not are there constraints on you that make it difficult for you to reduce retail price um and i'd also like to hear a little bit about the configuration of the space as i look at what you're planning to do with the space i find it a little difficult to believe that there would ever have been a kroger grocery store in that space so it may in part you know we might be talking there may be a problem with configuration here i'd also like to um and i realize i'm asking a lot so if you forget them i can remind you or whatever uh and then just finally are do you have criteria that you in mind when you're entertaining types of retail so are there some kinds of retail that you feel mix badly with residents residences i believe is the what i meant there so things that create an odor that people might not want to live above and would make them not prefer your housing so um and then there's also the question whether and this is sort of the la the thing i'm least interested in but whether um retailers or their financial backers are worried about look at parking when they think about gee whether we're gonna give you a loan to start up there the reason why i'm less interested in that is because we are talking about walkability and density and so some of those models are antiquated and it's frustrating for us that we deal with financiers who have an antiquated model but so if you could start at the front end of my questions i'd appreciate it detailed question by just giving a little more background as to what somerset development does and what we are so good at and it is essentially everything that has been said by the community here we are if you look at what we've done our developments are transit oriented walkability new urbanist that is the core tendency of what we do i would love to stand here and tell you that i i could fill this space up with retail i'd love to do that to answer your first question i believe which was the the pricing i think that was the first question um we started somewhere between 20 to 25 triple net but at the same time i didn't go out to market at that i went up i told we hired uh collier's jim chaconis everyone here sees his signs everywhere i said go to market see i don't even go out with like we didn't go out with a price you know i told them what i wanted but we didn't go out with a price we said go out and see what's out there i got nothing i got no phone calls i got no tours but you know i'd also like to address the um i bought this we bought this building in june so whatever was agreed upon some agreement you know i'm not privy to that i have no i'm sorry if there was something done but you know i just like to throw out that i'm not going back on anything we i previously said because i didn't own the building until june um june of this year so we had started showing the building when we were in when we went to contract in december i had no bites no nothing uh the previous developer you know wasn't wasn't particularly active so i can't speak to what he was what he was doing or what price he was at i can only tell you what what i get i will tell you that to me the first time that i looked at this building which was in october of 2022 of 2021 i immediately said retail will never work here and that is because of the configuration of the building um it's set down below the road so there's i think about a six or eight foot retaining wall so the visibility is poor you have to drive in under the building to get to the retail area which is very confusing no one really knows how to get in there there's no there's there's no signage there's nowhere to put like if i came here for a signage package i would need a variance because i need to go on top of the building it the who this building was not designed right in order to get both the retail to work here um i'd love to put a kroger's here but kroger's needs 25 000 square feet contiguous i've got a 10 000 square foot block an 1100 square foot block an 1100 square foot block and a 10 000 square foot block with poor visibility and poor directions it's i want nothing more than the retail to work it it just hasn't so and again it's not because of pricing it's not because of uh poor visit it's not because of poor traffic it's just it's visibility layout and the general market right yeah i mean i i found out about this property in october if you're telling me that it was had issues back to 2009 nothing that we here sitting can do to fix there's not much we can do to fix it there's there's a market and there's supply and demand so i'm sorry what was your what was your next question um no you you actually covered it because i asked you if you reduced the price but since you didn't have that yeah i reduced it to zero i said go out to the market and find out we'll find out so what does i guess i could say what does go out to the market sorry so i hire a broker he and he has connections i mean i'm the guy that sits behind the desk and stands in front of community boards i don't i don't go out knocking on doors i i hire a broker to do that that's what colliers does okay oh right okay i'm sorry yeah yeah good oh the the parking question um parking uh i would say is not really i'd say signage is most important to a retailer and to put this in perspective we might somerset development redeveloped the old bell labs in new jersey which is a two million square foot redevelopment we've got 150 000 square feet of retail it's doing great right we we to the caller that that called and says the old buildings we gave free rent during covid during during the worst of it we didn't we didn't collect a penny we didn't ask for a penny we let them survive we know we need retail to create better space i'd love retail because then i could drive my rents on my apartments that that's what work i want to create a better community it i'd love to put it there it just it hasn't worked i'm good commissioner weich all right uh you can stay because i have questions uh i'll start with um staff uh question because i like the rest of the commission we received i don't know 35 maybe more communications i had an additional 25 conversations with residents either adjacent to the property or in the neighborhood and i emailed mr khan to try to ascertain some information so one mr khan can you just uh just for this part of the conversation clarify uh that about in a development agreement that between the city and or planning commission and any of the developers or owners of the property starting with packard place i think is what it was called was there an agreement in order to make the development to have retail be attached to it happy to answer that um the short answer is no the longer answer is that packard square did have a development agreement associated with it it was a pretty straightforward development agreement addressing things like some off-site improvements like water mains and sanitary sewers that are off-site as well as park dedication issues and that sort of thing but there was no reference in the development agreement to any commitment um to provide a certain amount of retail space so then i asked you why uh are res why did residents believe there was a development agreement and so in your experience working with this development was there anything that would communicate because as we received these comments and as i talked to folks the thing that kept coming up was they agreed to do retail you shouldn't change it we i actually thought it was a pud at first and that it was a part of the pud and then i asked about that and was told there was no pud and this is a by right because it's in c1b which is already a mixed use it's under the floor area ratio and so again i was just confused as to why there was all of this energy and there was a lot of energy around this and it wasn't until you clarified uh that people were like oh i thought there was an agreement oh i thought there was a pud and then that changed so did you have any insight or can you share with us i i can say the city does not enter into agreements like that to um guarantee uh for a a by right project like like this a certain amount of retail space so so whatever agreement folks are talking about it's not an agreement that the city signed on to i i can't speak to a previous developer or the previous developer on what they may have or may not have said in in meetings with neighbors um all i can say is i'm not aware of any such agreement either an agreement that was um signed by the city or an agreement signed by the property owner okay so then um so like the callers like the speakers and house i want walkable neighborhoods as well i would love to have retail a pharmacy uh all of those things activated just the other day i woke up we were out of eggs we're close to a bushes but it's like just less than a mile and i have to drive because there's no way to get out of my neighborhood to the bushes in a convenient way and i was like ah if we had a neighborhood grocery store i could walk down and just get my two eggs finish my breakfast and then go on with my day so so that is a real felt need and i would love to see that kind of development happen and but the thing that is striking to me is this is already zoned for that this is already a mixed use zone and so if the developer is correct that the building was poorly designed which is making it hard to activate the retail is it correct that there's nothing planning can do to force the developer to put in retail here there's there's nothing that that my department can do um there are certainly comprehensive plan documents that that speak to the desire for walkable neighborhoods and mixed uses but that's different than code when we review site plans um for for projects like this that that are not requesting a rezoning we focus on what code says and all the reviewers are focused on the standards and i can say um this evening that the petitioner has met all of the city standards okay so uh now to the petitioner um how are you planning to mitigate the 10 000 square feet that's over the brownfield that you're dealing with the the vapor that's there because when i looked at the staff report there's a section of one of the retail spaces where the contempt the brownfield or the contaminant is acutely but you're still planning to put residential on there so could you just speak to how you're planning to mitigate that it's interesting to bring that up because the reason that i even have to go under there right now is because the building was built so poorly because they didn't run the plumbing before they did that so even if i were even if retail were going to go in that space you'd still have to run plumbing and you'd still have to to penetrate the vapor barrier having said that um i have um adam richards on on the line from epro who is he's the rep for the geoseal um uh vapor barrier uh that can speak to exactly what goes on in that video but by phone i don't see anything okay while we while we get him if if he's not i mean i see somebody raising it isn't that nine three seven that's the one i'm hoping okay so would is that okay well okay so i think um you should be able to there you go you should be able to speak now you can hear me now yes yep okay yeah my name is adam richardson with epro we uh manufacture the geosteel vapor intrusion barrier system um for you know redevelopment of contaminated sites so as you can imagine we deal with um you know tenant build change of uses you know we deal with this quite a bit and our policy doing maintaining the integrity of the system is to you know have a certified installer make the repairs we have details um if the barrier is damaged how to make those repairs uh so the certified installer will come in and make you know essentially ensure that that barrier sealed and all the pathways where you know the contaminants in the subsurface are mitigated from entering the building um this building is the the application of this barrier is unique the original consultant designed it with 18 inches below the slab uh so there's you know uh that'll be dealt with uh you know from the design of the utilities um obviously we have specifications protocols on how to properly uh work around our barrier and then uh you know ensure it's properly repaired so that's you know this is we deal with it's on a i wouldn't say daily basis but as you can imagine this this occurs especially with uh retail or you know old buildings that are being uh renovated for reuse that answered your question yeah thank you uh can i ask two more questions sure okay so again in my conversations with residents or adjacent residents one of the things that came up and i also emailed mr khan about it as well was the repair of paige street which is behind the development uh that goes from there's entrance behind the development on page that then goes to king george and it was damaged during the original construction and the neighbors have written in as well as to you they've indicated asking if you'd be willing to repair that mr khan indicated that there had been no conversations between staff and you about repairing that street and the street is not scheduled for repair until 2027 so one of the things i wanted to just bring to you from some of the folks that i talked to for the neighbors that are around was it would go a long way if paige got redeveloped uh during this conversion to retail and then uh the other thing uh that came up was um the again and i am a broken record because i bike in the city and every day someone tries to kill me with their car when i'm on my bike and it's not a pleasant experience and so the activation of the bike lane and the sidewalks on packard need some attention because people whip in and out of the development which can create a potential harm which you just sat through the conversation we had with the previous developer about that on stadium so i just want to give those two things to you or actually it's three the sidewalk the bike lane on packard and then paige being redeveloped from the back of the development to king george as something that i've heard from neighbors around this development first i'm hearing that so i i i can't really give you an answer on the spot i'm trying i'm going to pull up exactly to see where you're you're talking about i'm i'm done okay um and then what what specifically are you asking about the bike would you want re-striped or i'm not really sure what you're what you're asking well it so i'm not a traffic engineer all i know is uh cars are dangerous and uh if i collide with a car i'm gonna die and i wear a helmet but it's you know above like 25 30 degrees there's a nurse practitioner in the room she can tell me whether i'm right or wrong a speed with a collision i'm not going to make it so things that calm the exit and entrance of the development onto packard as it intersects with the sidewalk that's there as well as the bike lane that's there is something that that i've heard from a number of neighbors that i've um talked with and i was planning to bike it today just to take a look at it myself but i i didn't have a chance to to go buy it today so that could just be something that you could talk with staff about or with engineering uh to see if there are any things that can be done to create a little bit more uh safety for bikers that have to cross the entrance in the exit of the development um sure jeff call me whenever you want will do commissioner lee thank you um so i grapple a lot in my professional life with retail office leasing etc um just as a point of clarification on co-star you're listed at 28 triple net so yeah i don't i told that's news to me i don't i don't check regularly so okay gotcha you do have a price out there okay um okay just wanted to say um could you just clarify what triple net means please yes triple that would mean that the um the reach of the tenant would be reimbursing for all common area maintenance property taxes and insurance on top of the listed rates so okay given that they just bought this i'm guessing taxes uncapped you guys are probably looking at 10 12 maybe 13 a square foot on top so i'm guessing that the total occupancy cost of the tenant looking to locate there they're probably looking to pay about forty dollars a square foot i i don't i don't agree with that number really the only thing would be taxes it's all there's really no common area maintenance because of where it is in the building there's no additional charge to them so it would really just be the taxes so you're probably like five bucks a foot what are your nets i guess that's my question um what do you mean what are your triple nets so you don't have like snow plowing that they're like allocated to it demands keeping to minimus yeah no i i could i don't have them available right now so oh okay gosh i need to get them for you sure yeah taxes are probably gonna be at five six bucks yeah and i'm not just looking to have objective facts you guys are listed at 28 triple net nets are where you are looking to pass through operating expenses i think somebody asked why does retail fail i think a lot of what you said is true um the visibility the ground level activation of something being depressed into the ground right so a good example might be liberty plaza the part that we've all struggled with on division right when you have great separation and it's it's underneath it's it's a little more less desirable um and i think retail is difficult because fundamentally it's changed in 2000 to 2010s um amazon to live um traditional middle of retail kind of failed you had a bifurcation right you had flight to quality you you you have deep experiential retail so somebody asked hey what how can we have retail succeed i mean it's going to be about your sales we generally track occupancy and health ratios so basically say what are your sales relative to your overall occupancy cost so like a healthy group is going to have like a five to eight percent you know health ratio and that's what you want to target um relative to overall sales now i would say the ti costs sound pretty tremendous if you have that vapor thing that you gotta worry about so that that's you know and at the end of the day my question at the very end of this is are you willing to compromise at all given the community feedback you've gotten so that's going to be my ask for you but i'm going to go kind of talk a little bit more about the general market as we're seeing right now um i would say that uh we've had and i'm just gonna talk facts um over the last i just checked i have won retail uh downtown i've gotten 19 inquiries in the last since may 4th i have coffee 1500 square feet korean corn dogs chicken wings steakhouse coffee i had a marijuana consumption lounge that inquired vegan italian medical office yemeni coffee japanese restaurant i'm just simply saying this is what i've seen as far as my marketing in downtown retail so it's it's on state and packard so it's maybe about you know a mile and a half from the george's location um all of that said um retail is tough you're right place making access visibility and making sure that people go through the space and i think fundamentally pure retail has changed right we've early in my career with stabilizing shopping centers that were basically struggling from losing pure retail tenants and it all went to basically service oriented quasi-retail so pediatric yoga essentially like anything that has to do with you know physical therapy things that you just can't buy on amazon essentially so so now we're in this era of hey why do people still go to coffee shops right it's that stochastic alert of maybe i'll run into somebody that i don't know like why don't we go into the office and so it's that kind of randomness uh that that allure that possibility and it's that meaningful place making where people might have a chance to build the relationship that keeps people going to retail uh it's it's the experiential component to it so you you have this again bifurcation of high-end retail and then you kind of have this discount whether you're going to you know an outlet mall to go discount shopping i mean finding a deal is awesome right so between those two things retail is tough look no further than hoover and green you know they're listed at 27 triple net so and they're close to the stadium but they don't have very good traffic or thoroughfare and angela's great signature is awesome at what they do so is jim i think colliers is great as well so it's so i just wanted to basically you know all of this is to say you know what makes good retail um we grapple with that often because i think 20 minute neighborhoods are important we want to encourage people to have access to food we want to make sure that they don't have you know food deserts and so really the kind of question is i mean have you tried thinking about percentage rent scenarios where you're saying hey instead of you know paying me a flat base rent with nets recoveries can i can you just report sales every month and pay me you know eight twelve percent of your gross sales and so we'll share the risk so looking at those kinds of arrangements again the ti cost i i don't know what that you know brownfield vapor mitigation is going to cost especially with the trades where they are right now but with respect to um you know i guess you've you've heard the community great great attorneys too i mean we use hongman too i mean you know i guess the ask is would you be willing to compromise given how much you've heard from our community and and consider at the very least creating a few 1200 square footers that you would dedicate and then you basically either have to say i'm creating you know centralized mass or it's a loss leader in my performer right it's like you have to choose and so the question is would you be willing to compromise i mean you guys just closed on us you you have a target performer 270 a foot i mean you know at an eight and a half cap rate you're probably going to have to secure at least 22 triple n i get it i understand why you have certain pressures on your end would you be willing to compromise to at least put you know three 1200 square footers that could be on a percentage rent basis to say you know we'll work with local operators to try and create meaningful place making uh you're right kroger's probably not going to go there yes you look at lucky's um and the loss of certain retail around that neighborhood i think it would go a tremendously long way you guys are experts at place making so trying to be creative with leveraging local talent because they do exist i'm telling you they they exist so that would be my ask is would you be willing to at least compromise to retain some to try and create it doesn't have to be 23 500 square feet okay like that's not the ass it's could we have some neighborhood amenities that are considered to be loss leaders that you might find actually turn out to be pretty profitable because you've leveraged local talent so i actually met with the broker on site today to talk about that very thing um because i'd love to put a coffee shop here if you're getting interest in in a coffee shop in your location send me an email like let's talk i'd love to put a coffee shop i actually i don't think i'm allowed to talk to petitioners outside the room i um the big thing he actually told me was that a lot of these coffee shops around here um or at least what what the ones that he's been dealing with they can't find the the workers to actually work the space so that even if someone were to even if you know i'm just going to say zingerman's just because i know they're like if they if they were going to say hey we want to put a coffee shop right well they'd have to find someone to be the manager and and they're having a hard enough time filling their own spaces let alone what's currently out there so um with respect to the percentage rent yeah i mean we've done that it it was successful in new jersey like it makes sense but that's really almost always almost after the ti is already done so you know what you're getting to it's a little bit different um to answer the cr the core of your question about uh compromising um if if i could walk out of here tonight with an approval i would be happy to to leave the two spaces at the front can can i andrew east on can you put the key plan back up can he get back in he should be able to yeah yeah he should be able to he's still he's still on andrew weissman he's still online if he's listening who knows there we go there we go here i'm just trying to share it yeah yeah no problem i don't have an option to share oh here we go let me maybe i'm going to give you permission again let's see no no i'm good you should see it there you go there we go yep so if you go to the floor plans this this that you see the large block and the smaller block so there's there's two of each this is just the lower the southern portion yeah so i there's there's a couple reasons why i'd be okay with what we'd be okay with keep would put no go back to the floor plan please the smaller block because there's two of them yeah they're about 1200 square feet each so i think the tote i think the number was 22 64.
you know so you have two 1100 1200 square foot spaces which i'd love to put a coffee shop or convenience store or any of these things and the reason why i'd like to put it there is in large part because of the visibility from the street and the ability to put signage because it's furthest back so you have the most time seeing it when you drive by and it's got the easiest place to put signage because i don't need to put it at the front i can have it you more time to see it and not only that the parking is set up perfectly if if i i've heard we've heard the community loud and clear again i'd love to put it here place making walkability this is this is what we do as developers i i encourage you to look at what we've done in new jersey and the type of product that we do um so if if that gave me the ability to walk out of here with an approval to to say yes i will keep these two spaces as retail i we would we will sign up for that to right now okay gotcha what i could ask for um thank you that's it thank you as far as uh yeah question phil thanks uh okay here we go down the line commissioner mills you could have started the other side of the line um i have so thank you in terms of the question that we got about expertise about retail it is really nice to have your expertise commissioner lee um bringing the numbers and explaining triple net to those of us who don't know that um i that sounds great to me because i share everything that was said about the importance of walkable neighborhoods you do too people like to have coffee shops right who knows what that'll transform to the other thing that really just strikes me about this is that this floor plate is done in such a way that it is able to accommodate different kinds of uses like and that's why when we're thinking about rezoning for other places like thinking about how to make that first floor flexible but we regularly hear this about not wanting to tie people we don't empty space is awful for lots of things the question i so there's one for you uh oh actually i think both of these are staff questions so one is about the trash enclosure and i just noted that you're moving it from close to your building to close to the property line and so i'm curious about um what regulations exist on that and any screening staff that is required for that for the trash enclosure because this comes up sometimes just there we go um you were asking about the uh screening enclosure of the um of the solid waste area yeah if there's like any any other you know vegetation that because that right now that property line is not green um right but i would note that on google street view at least it's the doors are closed like it's a nice looking trash enclosure but it's just um there is a conflicting lattice buffer that's required on the south side of the site or on the right side of the screen uh because we have residential zoning to the south however the north zoning zoning to the north of the site is some commercial and so no uh conflicting land use buffer is required so the developer is meeting code requirements to provide us a screen and it you know intends to keep the dumpsters within the within the screened area okay just wanted to verify that thank you the other question that i had is what the trigger for review was here because um is it that is it the addition of floor area that we then had to do is it because of parking associated with it and i'm curious about how future changes to parking requirements might change the trigger whether we're discussing this at all so if you could just answer why it is that this is before us right that was um a call made by the city's planning manager brett leonard who felt that the additional units warranted up a planning commission review if i if i could just add to that it was in our most recent code changes as obviously as you know we made significant changes um one of the categories in there is addition of units without um expansion of florida i forget the um exact terminology but so this was it's no question it was required in the table and the reason why that was it's if we have any additional again it would only go to planning commission obviously um so but i remember part of our discussion back in the history of that was because of the parking requirements because a site like this again so it was we we recognized we had pulled it back uh some levels of review needed but because we had parking requirements well we do still have parking requirements right now um that was the trigger and that's why this is going before you as a as for planet commission it's only because of the additional units even though they're not expanding it so it is a pretty clear um line item within the site plan review requirements chart now that is something that we've discussed i just discussed with mr leonard last week actually about now that things are are changing in the city regarding parking requirements that may be something because without that again you're looking at a use here that's allowed they could have built an entirely residential project and to start with their entire so so there's not there's not a lot of value added through this process necessarily um so that's kind of a long-winded answer to your question and do you have thank you for that and thank you for like thinking about what this means if it's not triggering different you know multipliers in the parking table um because i also agree that in terms of adding new witness with minimal visual impact this is super again taking vacant space and making it occupied is a great thing in my mind um do you remember six months ago before i made those changes if this would have gone all the way up to council it it would it you don't know it's okay i don't remember if it would go all the way to council but i know it would have still triggered at least planning commission action i know that okay but i i i can't recall off hand whether or not wait it would go all the way to that's okay well and the fact that they are adding floor area i assume may have even in this situation may cause a different trigger too okay that i think that answers my um the answer to my questions and i would be in order to uh make the changes that commissioner lee suggested that the petitioner seems very willing to make um what would you recommend in terms of amendments to the motion or yeah well i'm not sure again because you're not necessarily requiring it so i'm not sure how to add something into the motion that we don't have a trigger in a certain like i don't i don't know how to catch we're just we're you're asking him to look in to this but i don't know how to really add that into the motion that like guaranteeing that he looks into it i guess you know what i'm trying to say there's nothing that and and you could also it he can and again i know we want the assurance that he's going to look into it kind of but it nothing precludes even if he got approval for what exactly he was asking tonight nothing precludes him from pursuing that path i mean he he could change you know tomorrow some big retailer comes in and if he's agreeable they could he could this face with retail so it doesn't necessarily preclude him going forward with that because the parking numbers would still work so you know there'd be no change in floor area if he decided to fill out that additional space with um retail rather than residential but i'm not sure i guess i would need something more specific to kind of link it into emotion just you just want to say that he works with explores that as an option but sorry i and maybe i misunderstood or there is misspeaking on either side i understood it as the petitioner is willing to not convert those two units and so yeah yeah it would be creating slightly fewer oh then i'm sorry so you're saying with the re so these two units excluding those two units from this so then that would require if you were to come back into the future to add additional units it may trigger you better it may take coming back to us okay so i think if um we could add that in there i think we would need the uh you know kind of square footage or some identifying nature like what units what sweets that would remain commercial use okay sorry sorry um if i could if i could interject yes in general it might be beneficial to provide the petitioner an opportunity to be explicit with regard to what he's actually offering yeah well can we just i'm i'm willing to to have there's there's four units that i'm there's four blocks of space that i'm looking to convert to residential units i'm willing to have the two smallest spaces which are closest which are furthest from packard remain retail okay and and i i i know the number is 2264.
that's the number my architect gave me but at the same time are we amenable to making that just a condition while we work out the the total because i don't want to come back and say oh it was 2265 when we really measured it yes all right go ahead you're good um my i guess my concern would be actually i mean like i think it's a good faith gesture my concern is i mean all it makes sense to obviously dedicate end caps but one of the most critical variables to retail success is actually clustering as well so just dedicating you know a very tiny sliver i get a little bit of hesitancy i mean it seems the clustering is just important when you're able to daisy chain like trips and say like i'm gonna visit this store i'm gonna go check out this one so um that's my only like point of hesitation don't get me wrong i mean i think it's still a good gesture um i i guess from my standpoint where we were going was probably an approval with the condition that you know within a certain you know time frame that's reasonable that you would not be look i mean because it should have a sunset what we're not looking to do is to have an economic deprivation of like we don't want you to hold taken space forever like that's not that's not the intent we want to see meaningful activation and i think the community during the community input process when this and by no fault of yours right it's your predecessor during those community meetings even if it wasn't codified in a development agreement my guess is that there were discussions real substantive discussions that led people to believe that there was going to be retail here so i i think that's probably where the genesis of a lot of this kind of discord and this grunt told me uh with the general public is on this approach my concern about just limiting end caps is that we don't necessarily have any kind of meaningful clustering or concentration um and so it would be service only and i think that's you know it's better than nothing i'll tell you that so you know i'm of the mindset that uh you know a condition an approval with a condition of like a sunset clause of i don't know 18 months or something like that of devotion of this particular spaces you know is denoted on exhibit a1 or something like that the geographically basically located on your floor plan would be dedicated as a retail um using commercially reasonable efforts to you know lease up so it's something along those lines i i don't know the right answer um but i think where we were going with it was an approval with a condition in that respect i'm not sure that we can set a time limit on a condition we've not we've never done that before i i don't think we can do that within the codes saying like after six months the condition goes away it has to have a or it can be in perfect territory i'm fine within perpetuity right i'm fine like it it'll make if i i i'm fine with that i'm fine with going and saying this is approved this has to stay retail i'm fine with that okay um so it would be a condition yeah i suppose an approval with a condition i um mainly i'm looking to try to echo the sentiments of the folks that gave their feedback during the public feedback process when this was being developed and felt that you know what they said wasn't realized so that's it for me okay we had before commissioner hammerschmidt commissioner sovay and then i saw commissioner dish is something like immediately on this piggyback that makes more sense i think i was going to say something that you realized during that last explanation unless there was something else just to correct to make sure that we're clear in the record we get final thank you for i was going to deeply apologize that i can't even remember that on my own things i was excited about um i just wanted to ask mr kahan if he wanted to also we've gotten really excellent advice from mr kowalski i wondered if mr kahan also had um anything that he wanted to say about this kind of you know i'm always a little nervous when we amend things at the table i always think it's good that we respond and we rethink but sometimes we you know you guys spend a long time thinking things through and maybe there's something we're not seeing so i invite thank you um what i what i would add to the conversation is that the developer from what i heard is offering to convert the four westernmost dwelling units that are proposed to be residential to retail uses so that would um mean that the 38 dwelling units on both ends would remain and if um if the planet commission is comfortable amending the motion you could amend it to say something like subject to converting the four westernmost dwelling units to retail uses resulting in a total of 38 dwelling units being approved or something along those lines and i just want to clarify is the are are is he correct that it's the westernmost units um let me think about it on a map yeah yeah yes packers are a little out of an angle there but it's mostly west yep okay the two furthest into the building is probably the another good way of looking at it okay commissioner white i'm just moving forward oh you're okay well look let's well i don't think we've had a formal no motion yet i just want to make sure before we do that there were some other folks that had things to say to commissioner sobei anything that you wanted to add to that yeah did you find them wait this says there's only 2 400 square feet available and then our staff report says it's like 23 or 2 400 square feet i mean i guess i'm just i'm not convinced that enough effort has been made i i again i i hire a broker and and i don't check the listing so i i can't speak to what's what's there right but it's just hard for us to to sort of like suss out whether or not i don't know like enough is really being done or these these are the right i don't know that's just it's concerning to me that i'm trying to figure out like where this space is i'm not even seeing those other 20 000 square feet is like available i mean i i met with my broker in that space today so i i i can't answer why he doesn't have that listing upright if you're if or if it's somewhere else i i don't i don't yeah i mean this is tricky like i i but i can see both sides of this you know like we don't want this space to just that they're empty we need housing right but i don't know it doesn't appear to me and i don't know commissioner if you want to chime in on this just like by just a quick like search and you know you just said you're getting tons of inquiries for a property that you're trying to lease like something just doesn't downtown that's very yeah that's very different yeah and let me als let's um the what i do see listed are two spaces that are at 1200 square feet or 12 19.
so it does not look like the 10 000 square foot blocks are being marketed which would indicate that there isn't a commercially reasonable effort being made to market those spaces would that be an accurate statement no i i i don't agree with that if if my broker doesn't have it upright the leasing agreement that i have with him says to lease 24 000 score for 23 685 square feet so i i i don't agree with that at all if there's an error made by being made by my broker i will happily call my broker and tell him to get those things up there sure but i'm telling you that my leasing agreement is for 23 600 whatever that number is so but if nobody knows that those bases are available to lease then nobody's contacting that's i mean i don't know that that's why you're not getting inquiries about it but i i i respectfully disagree i think if someone wanted that space and jim chaconis is as big a name out here as anybody that the market knows so okay i just want to point that out that like i tried to find this and it's not there that's all i'll say for now commissioner i guess we'll kind of add like i've talked to clients who look at this space and walked away like so they're they're looking there and it just doesn't work for everything that's pointed so there has been effort for i've talked to people under all the ownership so maybe not you because it's so new but that's my take the question of why retail doesn't work because every project that we ask for we ask for everything in one project we don't have site plan light and we have resistance to incremental commercial near neighborhoods that should be walkable because people are concerned about people parking in front of their house on public streets that people have claimed to be their own parking this is the kind of issue about why neighborhoods don't become mixed use is because there's resistance to incremental growth and we think that brand new expensive development with all of the burdens we ask of them have to carry all that load carry all that expense hit all of these market rates and then we wonder why it doesn't happen we don't have slate plan light so that's that's why we have these new developments that don't work like old developments do in an incremental way this is a buy right project like we have this weird gap right now with parking and everything i don't see the conversation in the hoops that we're going through right now i want to be able to enable things to happen in the space and i've looked at a restaurant i've looked at a yoga-ish space for this thing and they all said they would pay premium somewhere else the amount of ti work that needs to happen tenant improvement allowance so what the tenant needs to put into the space what the landlord can afford to put in the space and the rent and then how long it takes to succeed and have a profit margin on that those are just very big hurdles in this space and it's a silo and doing 2 000 square feet of it makes it harder in the cluster part it's got to be a cluster of a neighborhood not a cluster and a corner of one development so i think that's less successful it's like an argument to like us picking where this is going to be successful within this one building so i wouldn't support emotion i support this as proposed i've talked you know i do a ton of commercial small business renovation stuff and i think right now we actually just have an issue with our ordinance to allow these small changes to happen and i don't really want to talk about it anymore that perspective was incredibly helpful no i'm serious like i think i think yeah i kind of wish we would have honestly like i didn't mean to make you feel like i was attacking you either like i just i just wanted you to see what i'm seeing but that that was a really helpful perspective so i appreciate you sharing it so where are we here folks i don't have a lot to add and i don't take up a lot of time i'll just say i think the primary reason why this conversation has been frustrating is that the misinformation that this was a pud and there are like informed members of our community who have a history on planning commission who have written blog posts about this as as it was a pa about how it was a pud and why people are bad because they're inflexible so i just want to be very clear to anyone who's listening out there there was never agreement with the developer as far as we understand this was not a pud this is a this is a development that meets the ordinance according to the zoning that it is and so i'm not it's confusing to me that we're yeah that we are kind of wringing our hands over this i also say i also lament the fact that there is not retail in this neighborhood and that there is not more mixed use and that's something that i think this commission is committed to working on but i don't think it has it's going to happen in this project commissioner dish i think this has been a really actually helpful discussion and i think that when we agreed as i forgot that not everything will go to council this is the kind of thing that we will need to talk about here because we need to hear we need to hear confusion we need to clarify confusion we need to try to avoid creating more confusion but this will be part of our job and to do the kind of work that commissioner weich did in the neighborhood was enormously helpful um because because the fact one of the things that residents said when we were going to make that change where by right side approvals wouldn't go to council anymore even if this one really would never have gone to council they were concerned that they would lose the place to be heard and be responded to and i didn't think they would and we have shown that they won't because we deliberated the issues that were raised and so where we are right now is we have the motion we have a potential amendment to the motion which some of us feel might be a good thing and others of us have suggested might just be a symbolic thing that doesn't doesn't get what people really want in this neighborhood which is services within walking distance and so i think that we should propose the motion the amendment that and then vote yes or no on it i mean i don't know if this is how to do it commissioner mills is nodding her head and she's used to doing this so i think we should propose the motion because we discussed it and mr khan gave us language i mean the amendment and then either we um we approve the motion as amended or we approve the motion as it was presented earlier yeah we vote on it yeah yeah i'm sorry oh i didn't mean that i didn't mean to prove it yeah vote vote yeah no there's only one way to vote okay the original motion are you talking about the amendment to the motion what we do on council is we read the amendment and then we either vote it up or down and then you read the whole notion either as it was okay got it or as amended because we we did vote okay so the amendment then would be um that they'd be offering to convert the four western most dwelling units to retail use 38 units would remain um yeah that's it yeah that's it so we'll move by moved by commissioner and seconded by commissioner dish so we will have a oh yes so further discussion on this or do we all kind of know where we are commissioner mills i do have a question for staff if we to be clear if we were to approve the new amendment tonight they would if they wanted to convert those four westernmost units to retail they would have to come back to us through the same process if we were to approve the site plan that we see tonight with the 42 dwelling units on it if they choose not to do they have to build out all 42 units they or can they they can just keep the 38.
i want to make sure that like we're understand like i understand this yes and i'll confirm mr khan are you still listening yep he's still there that's correct yes that is correct sorry to confirm with jeff as well they can't they can't add units right now they couldn't add them without our approval but they don't have to build them they can just keep it as it is correct they don't have to build the entire thing as shown right what i'm hearing is they wouldn't have to build the entire thing as shown they would have to change some things they would have to add presumably the bicycle parking because that's one of the things that doesn't currently meet our standard they would want to move their trash so it's not outside people's front doors but they don't have to build them all in that case again to allow for the flexibility that this zoning district allows for even though i strongly support the idea of neighborhood residential i think it provides the most flexibility to approve this neighborhood commercial thank you very much um i think it makes sense to approve this to allow for that maximum flexibility and hope that there's a lot more effort put into the kind of innovative not 28 triple net but figuring out like an alternate arrangement to get that coffee shop there is what that's how i i will be voting down the amendment because i think that voting it down allows for the maximum flexibility any other discussion i see you talking over there so there's discussions which i'm happy to do with the second degrees and then we'll go back to the emotional okay so you're withdrawing the amendment okay okay the table is good to give the flexibility i just wanted i mean yeah if we have the agreement what the motion does is put it in writing if we're saying the thing we really want is the most flexibility then we should take that out so that we provide the most flexibility so oh i'm sorry thank you i'm done talking the public did i apologize all righty so withdrawn then so now now we are back to our the original motion shall i read it again or are we good okay all right let's have a real call about that okay we're all set we're all set okay okay um commissioner mills yes commissioner gabrandal yes commissioner sovay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammersmith yes uh commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes and commissioner white yes okay uh motion passes thank you very much thank you thank you all righty um i would like to have us take a 10 minute break so um let's come back in 10 minutes folks people in the room can see okay all righty sorry about that we are back in session to move on to item 8c um which is 1301 morningside drive um this is item number 22-1332 a special exemption used for city planning commission approval request for a child care center for up to 40 children to 10 gear givers in the existing building with a site plan to show existing staff and conditions staff recommendation is approval with conditions so i think we are up then for the petitioner presentation ten minutes uh we can hear you go ahead okay good thank thanks hello my name is dave uh last name is g uh with me are my my partners uh my wife pam and erica harwood um and we are applying for a special exemption used for our facility at 1301 morningside i don't have any uh any slides uh like a previous presenter did but i think you have a few notes based mostly on the uh comments that came in in written form and i just highlighted a few things uh around the questions and the concerns that were raised the first thing i'd like to highlight is the number of children and the number of staff um we put uh 40 children out there based on the square footage of the building and the licensing requirements for for children at 35 square feet per child um we don't know exactly what licensing is going to approve for us um it's kind of a chicken and egg thing we have to get yep mr gee you are breaking up on us come on mr ghee mr ghee we just lost about 30 seconds of of what you said you you your connection isn't very strong you were talking about a chicken and an egg thing yes so what i was saying is that um we don't know exactly how many children will be licensed for until the state gives us a license the number 40 is an estimate based on square footage but that's not the official number the official number comes from licensing and regulatory affairs um we expect that that it will probably be lower than that and we also want to mention that the ratio for older children that the four to one ratio is based on the youngest child the youngest age group um the ratio for older children is eight to one obviously we're not going to have all babies obviously we're not going to have all preschoolers so the actual number of caregivers is going to be something uh probably also lower than 10.
so the the numbers um are our estimates and uh we're putting those out there mostly to have some numbers to work with the second point i wanted to make is about drop off and pick up unlike elementary schools or middle schools so uh forza and wines are close by to this this address unlike those those schools there is not a designated start time or designated in time for daycare parents bring their children when their schedules dictate that they bring them and what we have found in our current location is that that often pick up time is spread out over several hours that there is not a rush of traffic at a particular time a few here a few there and so it doesn't happen at all at once and likewise with pickup that there's only uh people coming when their schedules dictate that they come and so there is not a big rush of traffic at any particular point in the day another point that i wanted to make is about the number of cars so we have experienced in our current location that the number of cars that business places is smaller than the number of children and there are two reasons for this the first is that we have some groups and we expect that there will be sibling groups at our new location as well and so obviously a ceiling group all comes in the same car um and so that reduces the number of cars the other thing is that one of the one of the really great things about this neighborhood and about the neighborhood we're currently in on patricia is that it's very walkable and we do have families that walk to drop their children off as a matter of fact when we had our public meeting back in june there were two people who came to the public meeting specifically because they live in the neighborhood and were interested in care for their children so we know that there is interest for uh walkable child care um there was a discussion last week at the uh variance uh board about uh about parking and one of the things that was mentioned in the comments was about the possibility of the parking lot we don't like that idea for several reasons firstly because it would require the removal of four mature trees and we obviously don't like that secondly it would create a large area of impermeable surface and we don't want to do that and then it would it would also take away from the playground space that that we have there that is required by licensing and then it would just not fit very well in the neighborhood to have a a parking lot on that particular location so um those are the reasons yeah and getting getting a lot of cars in there would uh would be a real issue so that's the reason why we're we're not proposing to build a parking lot um while i'm talking about playground space uh there was also comments about the possibility of looking at commercial properties and we did in fact look at commercial properties we looked at quite a few of them and uniformly what we found is that while there was plenty of space available indoors they almost never had outdoor space and an outdoor space is a requirement uh for licensing for tiles together so those properties were just not workable we wouldn't have been able to uh qualify for for our license um and then the last point that i'd i'd like to make is that there is a lot of precipitate for this particular kind of space for instance there are a couple of locations of gretchen's house one on mount pleasant one on mount vernon that are likewise located in residential areas in fact the one on mount vernon if you look at their website they list 17 staff members there's also a location on 8th street there's a location on miller avenue there's a location on 5th avenue all of these are in residential areas and and they are successful and well integrated into the community at those locations so there is plenty of precedent for for doing what we're proposing so those are the the points that i'd like to make i would be more than happy to respond to any questions um and uh to explain more about what we do and why we do it i can tell you also that there is a lot of interest in child care we we already have a dozen families and we get calls every day in fact we had an interview with the respective parents this morning so there's a lot of need parents are desperate for child care and we have a real passion for that and would really like to do what we can to help with that need so thank you all right we will now move on to the staff presentation mr chang okay i do have a presentation it's somewhat brief but can you see the slideshow yes we can yes excellent and you can hear me okay yep excellent okay uh the location is at 1301 morningside drive which is north of miller air and to the west of newport and it's on the west side of morningside drive as you can see from the map it's just south of forsyth middle school and wines elementary uh here's a close-up of the neighborhood it is zoned r1c single family residential that is why a child care center is required to get a special exception used in a single family dwelling neighborhood uh here's another close-up uh of the actual house it's approximately three thousand square feet one story um they're asking for up to i think that was uh who mentioned earlier 40 kids with 10 caregivers they did in fact receive a variance from the zoning board of appeals from eight parking spaces they do have a carport that's in front of this house that a couple of the caregivers could park at they could actually park probably another five cars in that drive way but we those didn't maneuver in and out if you happen to be one under the carport so they in fact get uh space variants from the zda um this is also within 250 feet of the residence and they can park approximately 25 cars that would accommodate the pickup and drop off of the kids again here's an ariel of the same uh house within 250 feet there is parking on both sides of the street fronting this house along morningside drive and we can refer back to any of these slides if you'd like to if you have any questions on them and i'm also here for any questions you may have thank you righty now we will move on to the public hearing and this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes um we'll first call on individuals who are present in the room and then uh move on to those who are remote to speak remotely you press star 9 by listening to the phone or use the raise your hand feature for phone access call 877-853-5247 and then our meeting id 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name you'll hear an automatic announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly and then hit star six to unmute for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments we will start with anybody in the room here would anybody like to be able to speak on this petition for three minutes come right up and introduce yourself i'm maya skiba i live at 1310 morningside i lived there for 50 years at 40 i'm sorry um 40 or 45 years ago i called the city i wanted a stop sign at the corner and um the stop sign didn't do what i'd hoped it really doesn't slow people down much many people don't don't hesitate to turn the corner the neighborhood's filled with new children because we're kind of turning over it's neighborhoods too it's on a hill and i just see kids riding bikes scooters everything down the hill i worry about the parking lot changing over the driveway also in the morning and at night people drive their children hill ridges at the top of the hill there's a walkway there and you can drop your child off and they're almost four sides and you avoid the parking or parking light of course i um i just see it bringing a lot of a lot of traffic to the neighborhood beyond what the neighborhood can handle the city seems to be into quieting streets but this seems to be accentuating the activity i have had an experience on mount pleasant where i picked up a friend at 8 30 every morning to go to the y and it's very busy there at 8 30 with people dropping off their children thank you would anybody else like to come up and speak i've lived in this neighborhood since 1969.
if you could please stay your name and address yours first earhart wrote 1244 westport road um i live four houses from the proposed site the um i've lived there since 1969 and this whole as you saw from the map this whole area is a residential area single single family and there's just this is one isolated blip in this whole map of 1950s somewhat homogeneous homes put in by neil stabler at the time and um i don't think that a commercial school like this has any business in the neighborhood i'd like to also talk about the assertion that kids could walk to school my wife and i walk so around the neighborhood say within a mile of the house all over the place there are very few people with children left we've aged people around us of age very few people have moved out very very few new people have moved in and it's obvious when you see children there just aren't many around there yes the schools are nearby forsyth and tappan but i'm talking about the homes so i i think that the whole idea of having a a school in the middle of this it may sound like a nimby protest here and it probably is um i might mention that two doors down from the school in each direction are people with vicious dogs and one person even has a nice drainage pond it's about three feet deep for people to fall into but that's beside the point i just wanted to say that this is not a good idea and i hope that you'll turn this down we've a lot of old people in the neighborhood i'm maybe among the oldest but the young kids and old people are iffy at best and i hope this won't come to pass thank you thank you um good evening my name is lee roosevelt i live at 1256 westport which is two doors down from the proposed child care center i absolutely empathize with the need for more child care i'm a nurse midwife i work with families every day that are attempting to find child care the type of child care that we're actually missing in this city is subsidized child care that's affordable for people people that can afford private in-home child cares figure out a way to make their child care situations work this situa this the child's place does not take state subsidies for kids so this will not increase affordable child care in our community i'm also the mother of an autistic child i chose to move to this area because it's a quiet area there are kids riding bikes in the street safely it felt like a neighborhood that i could raise my son in safely if you're adding 50 cars into the neighborhood and it actually makes it worse to me that there's not a set pickup and drop off time right now i know when forsyth lets out that that's not a safe time for my son to be able to play outside but if you're talking about the hours from seven a.m to six pm that pretty much means that the entire front area of our house for our kids is not accessible for them and is not a safe place for them to be without constant adult supervision i'm i'm confused by the assertion that they're not children in the neighborhood there are many many children in the neighborhood my son plays with the children the neighborhood they ride their bikes around adding in 50 cars twice a day into the neighborhood does not create livable space for the kids that are living in the neighborhood i am pleased to hear that they aren't going to be building um an additional parking lot because that would be an additional hardship for the neighborhood but i really if the city is going to approve this i really wish the city would sort of have some very clear objectives of what it's going to look like to make this a safe area for our kids to play the hill that goes immediately up westport that ends at this is not visible people come flying up that hill quite frequently parents have been out there encouraging people to slow down frequently and as a result we've been able to slow some of the people that are flying up that hill that's not going to be the case when you're talking about 50 families that don't live in the neighborhood that we can't come up and address and say please be more careful and mindful when you're coming up that walkway it's just not a great area to add 50 cars twice a day thank you thank you you can come right up thank you just state your name and address hi my name is risa gottlib i live at 10 43 westport i had an address on newport about two years ago which as you know is a much busier thoroughfare road and part of the reason that i decided to buy my home into the neighborhood is because i wanted an area that was quieter i can also attest to the fact that yes there are children in the neighborhood this intersection is extremely busy what was already spoken about is a lot of the overflow traffic for forsyth and wines where people don't want to access it through some of the normal means to get to it our neighborhood is excessively busy with people driving really quickly during um you know pick up and drop off times and there is one of those like really fantastic i mean i grew up in ann arbor so i'm very familiar with the little walkways that happen in neighborhoods to the schools um we have one of those that is just around the corner from this intersection of westport and morningside i also know that on either side of the proposed location the homes are sort of set on a hill and people pull out of their driveways without looking even when you're on the sidewalk walking let alone having 50 plus additional people coming in and out of this area um it's it is it's seemingly a good idea to have a child care center right like we need that it's echoed amongst the community before this proposed location there was a home here for um i don't it was actually there just as i was moving in and it was closing and leaving but it was a home where there was like several people who i think had like developmental issues um and caregivers and that's part of the reason why the house is sort of chopped up um i think it's sort of interesting that like just before this conversation we had all of this talk about you know population density because what i think that piece of property would have done great for is like a duplex or even a triplex because it has two kitchens already um and something where you know it could have been like an affordable housing issue or uh addition to the community that i think would have been like really fantastic when i saw go on the market i was actually very excited about that and i have to say like i think that this is just such a bad idea for the community for the traffic i just can't imagine how much more insane it's going to be during the times when people are picking up and dropping off i mean it's already extremely disruptive that it is used as a thoroughfare on top of that i don't know if this is just hearsay but the other day i was driving home and i saw a lot of the tree workers that are going around to sort of chop down some of the trees to help with some of the power outages because we actually happen to be one of the neighborhoods that has like really extreme power power outages when there are storms um but i was told that there is a plan i don't know if this is hearsay of a traffic light going in at miller and newport is this true possibly we don't know if that's true it's going to make this intersection near our house even worse because people are going to avoid people are going to be avoiding the intersection and using it even more as a cut through to get to schools and to the preschool and it's just going to create a tremendous amount of traffic that's going to be a really big problem and possibly dangerous for a lot of the people in the neighborhood older and younger so thank you for hearing all of us i appreciate that it's late thank you all righty so um remote participants mr kowalski do we have any yes yes um okay so uh caller with the last three digits uh seven 763 um please unmute and you have three minutes to address the planning commission carl s digit 763 you could please unmute and you can address the planet commission here we go thank you very much for making the time for us and saying going so late my name is matthew cruz and my wife larissa is with me we have a two and a half year old boy we live six houses away from this residence at 1500 hill bridge boulevard i'd like to thank the speakers that came before us the first lady that talked about that being a very dangerous hill was very right our street is called hill ridge because we are at the top of the hill in the winter especially the plowing here is not consistent we have very icy very bad snow going down morning side there that makes it very easy for your card to split one of the things that the other gentleman said that there was no children i think maybe towards that westport side that he lives is possibly the case but in the last three to four years um morningside hill ridge boulevard wines and bonders have about 30 to 40 children all under the age of about 10 some are a little bit older most of them i'd say we're between two and seven years old and as the last speaker indicated many of them ride their bikes with confidence safely in the street and you will find children running back and forth between both sides of hill ridge boulevard um you know they look both ways but they're not used to a lot of traffic so there would have to be a lot of changes after a bit something happened like the first lady said where someone gets hit so today i'm we're requesting that you deny this exception because it will actually affect the morning traffic of the residents that leave their homes to go to work and without question the safety of the young children especially in the afternoon that live here on all those streets i won't go into the map so you can all see for yourself that there's three streets that lead up the hillside which could very easily be the path that they are to hill rides hill ridge our street that could very easily lead to the drop-off point for this day care the first gentleman already mentioned that this neighborhood roads were not planned in a way conducive to having these traffic patterns furthermore um the daycare tried to talk about their planning but i just don't think they can predict the traffic rush they cannot necessarily guarantee sibling groups are going to attend their daycare and as far as being walkable they submitted 347 postcards which they announced in their letters attachments nine individuals attended only two participants expressed interest of their children attending there so therefore there are people that attend are likely to be bringing children from outside of this subdivision if it was the other way around and we were and it was everybody here fill in that capacity then they would probably walk there and we wouldn't be worried about all the traffic stuff but we can't impose that on the daycare so uh moving on to a few other points they talked about parking but what about cars standing so they can say that there's not a set time for daycare drop off but if you go to all of these daycares most of them have children there because they're working parents and you know nine to five so you have people going there between 8 30 and 9 and picking up between 5 and 5 30 and day cares are actually pretty strict if you show up so you've reached your three minutes all right thank you very much okay thank you thank you um i would just suggest that they're they're um okay sorry um the three minutes uh is there anybody else that so we um have another caller on the line caller with the last three wait that was the sorry adam jeskevich um you can unmute and please address the planet commission okay yep there you go hi my name is adam joskewicz 1430 west fake drive i think it's entirely reasonable for a neighborhood child care facility to have limited parking and be within a single family neighborhood i grew up across miller from this neighborhood going to hazely elementary and forsyth middle school i walked to and from elementary school and middle school as a child and hope today's kids can continue to do the same as a latchkey kid this would have kept me out of some trouble in middle school having a child care facility is a third place for kids beyond home and school is valuable for the community if there are issues with traffic we should address the traffic calming concerns as a kid i used to cut through from foresight every day we just walked though it's extremely concerning to me to hear that parents are using it as a car centric pickup and drop off location i think that's something the city or the school district should look into regardless of this proposal thank you okay um one more um adam birkenstep you have three minutes please on newton address the planning commission thank you hi can you hear me we can great uh my name is adam vickersdeath i live at 1315 morningside drive which is two doors north of uh um this proposed new facility i really just wanted to echo what other people have said that the main concern about this proposal is the huge potential increase in traffic coming into our neighborhood from outside of it um 50 40 even 30 cars coming and going twice a day is going to fundamentally change the nature of our neighborhood we currently have a street morningside drive which is quite quiet for most of the day um and it's a healthy street and i know that the council is in favor of maintaining healthy streets i think it's deeply regrettable that the city staff so far have chosen not to carry out a comprehensive traffic impact analysis on this proposal and i think really the this proposal should be rejected until such an analysis has been carried out that's really what i wanted to say thank you thank you okay um another caller with the uh last three digits five five six um you may unmute and address the planning commission for three minutes or less call it the last three digits five five six hello can you hear me yes we can hear you hello go ahead i want to um my name is larissa i live on he'll reach like six houses from the uh the daycare and i i want to support the previous speakers against like the against the daycare being set up in this neighborhood i i also researched some of the violations that they have in their patricia location so i'm concerned about the safety because it says that in the violations that they have in the lara site that seven out of eight child care staff members did not complete their health and safety training and then they have another one where uh for four out of eight childhood members did not have complete fingerprint results to determine eligibility um they didn't complete the fire tornado drills um they also were tired again for not completing the health and safety training so the licensee also did not have a complete physical so i'm just concerned that if they cannot keep up with their current location how are they gonna transfer to you know to this new one that's all i wanted to actually talk about thank you oh yeah go ahead you can continue you still have time um okay so then i also concerned that like there is going to be a lot of traffic on hillary where there is a lot of children um running their bikes and everything i think when people want to come back maybe they will just go around and take the cul-de-sac and that risk like the children and the people who go out for walks and just not just the young toddlers and children but the elderly in our community so thank you thank you all i wanted to say bye okay um there are no other hands raised at this time okay all righty um so i have to read the motion had a hand pop one more okay okay just had one pop up um okay caller with the last three digits eight two eight you may unmute and address the planet commission for three minutes or less i don't know my name is kathy strachan and i live on orkney which is in ward one this is not my neighborhood so i i don't have any skin in this game but i would like to urge you to listen to the people who live in this neighborhood people move to a neighborhood because like that one woman said you know it's quiet she likes to have it and then someone wants to come in and change the character of it and i think that that traffic is going to be a nightmare i'm glad i don't live there that i don't have to deal with it but um i just i really hope that you'll take um strong consideration of what the people who live in that neighborhood are concerned about and i hope that you you don't approve it because it sounds like they're not in favor of it and as a like i said as a person who has no skin in this game it's not affecting me directly but i empathize with the neighbors and so i hope you'll listen to them thank you thank you okay um um one more a caller with the the last three numbers five nine five may unmute and address the planning commission hello can everyone hear me we can hear you hi my name is sajeev krishnan we live in 1201 trail crescent in the neighboring neighborhood i guess and we are one of families who are strongly considering sending our children to a church place it has been quite difficult for us in the last year especially with a year or longer than a year long wait times with multiple daycares and especially as working parents it's incredibly challenging for individuals such as ourselves to find uh what to say dependable we have been considering this simply because they have an established facility already with a number of individuals and we since we are close in the neighborhood we are one of the families where we do plan on walking over to this facility in addition we have two children so it is one of the uh sibling families who plan on bringing them over i do recognize some of the concerns that the other residents are bringing up over here but i strongly hope the commission over here considers the proposal because while we weren't able to attend the public meeting we've still been in touch with uh the team over there and hopefully this is able to open and we're able to start our children in the daycare soon thank you okay we have uh one more caller caller with the last three digits six six eight if you unmute you can address the planet commission for three minutes hi my name is uh eric helverson i live at 1505 hill ridge boulevard i just uh not to bring up all the points in opposition that have already been expressed i just wanted to uh voice my support for the opposition to uh to the daycare we do have a very quiet neighborhood uh there are while i don't have any children of my own uh we do have plenty of young children around in the neighborhood playing in our streets and it's really a uh it's really a great healthy young environment to have watched the neighborhood turn over we've we've lived here 20 plus years and i've seen it seen it change and it's it's really nice that the young families here can uh let their kids play and play freely without having to worry about all the extra traffic that uh that the daycare will generate so um i uh hope that uh all the comments in opposition uh ring true and uh that you uh the commission votes this down thank you very much okay um another caller with the last three digits seven six zero if you may um unmute your phone and you have three minutes to address the planning commission hello can you hear me yes ken hello my name is francis mills i live at five parkview place um i grew up within walking distance of daycare i loved it i've lived two different addresses in ann arbor here that were always walking the distance of daycare never once was bothered by graphic issues in fact i would point to a little preschool on eighth street as being a very similar location to this possibly worse cut through risk and uh nothing but a very quiet pleasant place with my name um also i had two children paul was taking them to uh daycares within walking distance and yes i uh it's tough to uh believe it unless you've tried it first but uh i think uh avondale gear centers in residential neighborhoods is uh nothing short of nightville location thank you okay that is the last caller i see no other hands raised online okay i will read the motion which you will have to bear with me is quite long um okay this is uh the anniversary planning commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information including an accompanying site plan finds a petition substantially meets the standards in chapter 55 unified development code section 5.29.5 point d session accept special exceptions and section 5.16.2 point b child care center and therefore approves child's place llc special exemption use for child care center at 1301 morningside drive this approval is based on the following findings one the proposed use will be consistent with r1c single family dwelling district which provides residential use including special exceptions for religious assembly and child care centers number two the proposed use will not adversely impact traffic pedestrians bicyclist circulation or road intersections based on that location morningside drive provides access to the site and the proposed use is consistent with the existing and other surrounding uses traffic to impact number three the subject site meets the youth specific standard for at least 7 500 square feet of lot area and the existing conditions together with the variants for off-street parking granted by the zoning board of appeals meets the standards for off-street parking and on-street drop-off and pickup spaces number four a site plan documenting the existing and proposed conditions of the site has been submitted as part of this application the special exemption use approval is based on the following conditions the child care is provided for no more than 40 children and that the ann arbor planning commission approves the attached site plan which demonstrates compliance with the applicable special exception use standards as no development which would otherwise require site plan approval has been proposed okay moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner mills we are in discussion of the proposed motion commissioner mills i first of all want to thank folks for looking out for what's happening in your neighborhood and for participating it's really really great to for you to bring to us the issues that are going on um in your neighborhood to one of the you know also folks that are participating on who called in like um whether it's this proposal or for something else like it it lets us know where there are already problems so um the first question that i and um i'll just say i the uh my kids have been in three different child care facilities two of them had only one off street parking spot one of them was a lane well it used to be annie's now it's elena's downtown they're licensed for 103 people with one off streets parking spot so we i mean this and um we everyone was walking and biking their kids there the other place was little blue preschool right like so this idea of kind of going to places in neighborhoods or around or like getting there where there is where you can't expect to have a parking spot as a parent dropping off like i um my experience has been not to show up necessarily in a car and i and many of my kids had friends in this particular neighborhood at both of those places right so like i would hope that you know i if i lived in this particular neighborhood like i would look forward to having another option because we were also on waiting lists forever right um because we don't have enough spots overall in the city um also i mean maybe maybe this is me as a parent when i am in a car like i am watching out for the kid that's gonna zoom in and out so the fact that there are kids on the street if any like i would i don't know as a parent i think that and other parents coming don't want their kids to be hit by the cars either so i think that that's that's another um kind of i don't know maybe that's just my observation but one of the things that i'm i i have been thinking through it does sound like though there needs to be options for traffic calming and for kids at play signs regardless of what happens so i'm curious from a staff's perspective how you go about doing that how do you get a speed bumps how do you get the how do you get the signs to say watch out for the kids playing um do do you have any ideas mr chang well i did have a brief discussion with the city's traffic engineer unfortunately we didn't talk about signs or or speed humps and it is a discussion i could have with him um regarding some type of petition possibly from the neighbor that would want something like that installed in the neighborhood um what we did discussed though was that this this project it didn't meet the threshold to actually have a traffic impact analysis and the reason is it takes 50 peak hour trips peak hour trips are you know typically 8 in the morning 5 at night and because of those 50 trips that this one has 40 kids possibly up to 10 caregivers but the expectation is that you know they'll be families that bring multiple kids that would reduce that 50 count and there'd also be families that went walk and bike so as far as you know the conversation we had with the traffic he was supportive of you know the the number of kids and the location in a residential neighborhood but i would have to discuss further with signs of speed bumps or additional traffic calming in the neighborhood because that seems like one way or the other something that would be really helpful in this particular place particularly if people are using are dropping off kids at the cut-through to to the middle school and and elementary school there so um so that's one of the that's one of the questions and and i was going to ask about the traffic study just another point to one of the speakers brought up the idea like alternate uses of this property like is this a good place for a duplex and sadly i mean this is zoned so that a duplex is not allowed there um so uh so there's no special exception that would allow for uh for a duplex there without re without completely rezoning so um that's one of the reasons that that's not that's not an option even if it does have two kitchens um uh there's accessory dwelling units but that would require some additional things so um that's um just just for information that's why we don't see duplexes in that particular neighborhood is because of the zone the the zoning underlying classification of the zoning commissioner dish i want to follow up on the discussion that you just started commissioner mills and i agree that it is really useful to hear from the neighborhood because it lets us know where there are already problems and i understand that speed bumps work by by neighbor petition and that we are also back logged with those petitions it's a long process um because you have to have a number of meetings and this does this uh this geographic configuration there they are explaining to us that there is a hill and that of course as we know visibility is reduced on a hill and they're explaining to us that people speed through this neighborhood because they use it as a drop-off for schools and we know that this is a problem because we don't have the bus service that we need and so parents are driving their kids to school in the morning right we don't have the right so in i live near that's not the way it works uh i live near steam school and we've had to make a lot of adjustments in that neighborhood to control the driving uh you know there had to be no parking and no standing and all kinds of things to control the informal drop-offs that parents are doing so it sounds to me like there's there are some issues here that were that are not that are being exacerbated by this project and that aren't easy for us to capture with our usual approaches and so um kids play sound like a signs sound like a good idea but um it it does sound like we need to take a look at how parents are using this neighborhood to drop their kids off at the pass through and i thought it was a good question whether there is a plan for a traffic light at miller and newport i have no idea i don't keep track of all the traffic lights we're putting in but we do we do understand that things like that do exacerbate cut through traffic so i do not think that there's a problem with this proposal but i think there's an existing situation that this for which this proposal creates a tipping point and we need to address the infrastructure here to make sure that we maintain a safe environment for people to walk and play but those are not reasons to deny the special exemption use these are reasons that we might need to do a little thinking outside the box to capture what sounds to me like real issues in the neighborhood with traffic right now commissioner survey so i i hear one thing which is about the public right-of-way and traffic our role is to approve land private land use right and so there's kind of two discussions being had us hearing about infrastructure issues and what can we exacerbate in the public right-of-way and what our role is to understand the private land use in the city and you know in this case a special exception use within a neighborhood um one of the things thinking about the traffic limits and things our current ordinance especially with covid you know we really looked at home occupation and the amount of traffic and trips any single home for people working there could have and any single family home could have up to 24 visits per day so if we look at this neighborhood every single one of these homes could have 24 visits just by being at home therapist or something like that and so when we think about kind of that ratio that we're up to you know 50 visits if everybody's driving and things yes it's a special exception instead of you know buy right like home occupation uh but uh i think when we think about these things paired in a neighborhood uh with schools and i i see and you know i was guilty sometimes of driving my kid over to ever white at times when it was just a little bit more convenient but i should have walked and i did walk too and so it's just sometimes that threshold of convenience um but the more the more you build up daily habits you know if i'm dropping two kids off instead of one and coming back and working more at home and things like that that's how we build walkable communities these incremental pieces and it goes back to site plan light incremental things like this improve having things in each of our neighborhoods amenities in each of our neighborhoods but it sounds like we have some traffic issues and the way that the community has organized around this project to highlight the issue it can organize to get the infrastructure that is actually going to solve the truck the traffic that this project and our role is not here and built to do anybody else commissioner abrams i don't have a lot new to add to the discussion but i wanted to i think begin by just underscoring the gratitude and the appreciation for all the comments we've heard tonight um before and against and we also received a lot of emails about this issue as well um and so we did we do receive those and we read those carefully um i think that i i in some ways what i heard was a kind of confusing depiction of what the neighborhood is like now i actually have very good friends who live on morningside so i've been there quite a bit but on the one hand it's like we're being told that it's this place where kids can ride their bikes and play in the street we're also being told that people drive like crazy through there and fly around the corner so it's like i'm not quite sure if the daycare center is you know disturbing the piece or just contributing to the mayhem and so it's a little bit difficult but what i do think is that while i love the idea of kids playing in the street and i live in a place where my kids could play in the street that isn't actually like what streets are meant for like it isn't the land use designation right and so i think it sounds like there is a traffic problem here uh people speeding um people not obeying stop signs or maybe they're needing to be stop signs so i agree with all the comments about that i think it's really important to carve that you're saying no to me but people are that's what i heard um they're worried about people cutting through that there's already a lot of traffic of people dropping off at forsyth so so but i also what i think i'm hearing and what i received what i heard through the email communication is i don't think that it doesn't sound like there's fundamental opposition to the idea of a daycare in this neighborhood i think people are worried about the number of children and the number of staff and so i think in the community meeting the number was given as a range between 20 and 30.
and in the motion it's capped at 40. and so i was wondering if we could hear from the petitioner whether they would be open to a lower cap and whether you said you expected it to be less than [Applause] and that you expected the caregiving staff to be less than 10 and i just wanted to hear a little bit more about what you thought the range would be and what you'd be amenable to you need to unmute mr ghee please unmute okay now you can now we can hear you i was waiting for for your host to unmute me sorry um yeah would we be uh amiable to a lower cap than 40 i think i think we would i'm looking at my partners and i i think we would uh we would be amenable to that um as i say the the 40 was kind of a just a working estimate um we we get the number the actual license number comes to us from licensing and regulatory affairs it's not something that we can set for ourselves so until but until we get the zoning approval we can't even ask them what the number would be so it's uh it's a little bit of a guessing game um so yeah i think the answer to your punch is yes we would be immutable to 30.
sorry having trouble turning on my microphone um i feel like that that would be a reasonable compromise so i would if but i'm trying to read the room here about whether there's any appetite for that making that motion um or what or whether you want more discussion before i make that motion commissioner hammerschmidt what would the staff know the staff number i'm guessing would then adjust down as well if we kept it at 30 children and i'm not sure what that staff number would be because i think you were doing a four to one ratio which is the worst case scenario in terms of infants right yeah yes that would that would be in in terms of infants four to one uh an infant as defined by the state is any child less than 30 months so that's two and a half which is in my opinion hardly an infant but yeah so 30 divided by four that would be seven possibly eight uh staff commissioner weich so having run a daycare center uh for several years i can appreciate all of the licensing concerns and having spent a lot of time with licensing to comply things change so the the only concern i would have about the cap is just what does that do downstream if they wanted to expand within their site their footprint would that mean they'd have to come back uh to us uh to do that again and if i understand correctly mr g mr g you also had some concerns through this process because i think i heard you comment at city council some months ago when you were trying uh to get your approvals and your licensing and that created substantial cost to you because you had to acquire the property and then you weren't sure how things were going to go so i just don't know how would it it's not i don't based on licensing it's not they're not going to get 50.
it there's just no way for them to get 50 kids in that footprint 40. it's probably no way for them to get 40 in there because kids have it's it's about mobility if they're doing infants it's the cribs the the spacing of the cribs have to be in a certain way for fire things i mean i would be surprised he's the business owner you should speak up because this is where we're trying to go for you uh but i would be surprised if they're over 25 in that in that square footage just because they have to have so much space for those kids to move around um and and right now he's just doing raw numbers but once they put um things in the room that changes the the configuration of the room and then it changes the licensing requirements for that room and then that's all based on just a raw square footage and there's already walls in there and hallways and those things are going to eat up their square footage so i would be surprised if they had more than 25 kids i would be surprised if those 25 kids generated more than 12 cars um just you know like 12 to 15 cars in your time and i and i hear you like uh we we have a parking lot and we share our parking lot with four other businesses and we had to reserve the front of the parking lot so that parents could come in and do drop off and pick up so these are real concerns i have three kids that are young but i live on a major road in ann arbor so my kids can't play on that role now we have a traffic island and on my traffic island they go down about 45 mine traffic island they go down 45 miles per hour which is a risk you know for my own kids so i am especially sympathetic to the concerns that you have and i i'm happy to continue to raise those issues with traffic around the concerns and it sounds like this development is at a t so i think that's also the concern that i hear you saying it's at the end of the stop sign the parcel is right across the street from the stop sign and it's it you know i can see where the concern that you're raising are there and i think those things are valid uh as commissioner silvay said it's out of our purview so we can't if if staff says it doesn't meet the threshold to get the traffic evaluation because it's not more than 50 trips per day we can't deny it based on that peak hours because that's how the the the traffic report works but that doesn't mean you can't talk to your council members you can't talk to the city to say these are the concerns that we have and it sounds like the developer is wanting to be agreeable with the neighborhood and to fit into the fabric of the neighborhood um to work with you all that i that that is my assessment um here so uh am i correct that you're somewhere between like 25 and 30.
that really is our expectation that the number will come out somewhere around there you're right and and thank you for your comments uh you are absolutely right uh the square footage calculation is a very rough calculation and uh and things like kitchens and hallways and bathrooms don't pound in the square footage yeah realistic play space and and so on um yeah we would we would probably not ever get it close to that 40 number and i think to write that 25 to 30 is much more realistic cars yeah and 12 to 15 cars sounds right also and i do want to just point out i i don't know who said it but we only have one kitchen there are three bathrooms one kitchen uh six six bedrooms um so that's and we do offer some systems oh yes and and we do take state subsidies we don't have any children taking the subsidies right now but we have in the past and we will take state subsidy children absolutely any other comments commissioner lee based on what commissioner weish and abram said i would be friendly to a motion to amend the condition down to 30 as a capacity looking up their existing location at 1217 patricia it looked like their capacity was 7 to 12.
um based on 1500 square feet so would be actually 14 it's actually working we just got it changed based on the new state law in the last month because of the need for child care gotcha no understood relative to that takeoff of like doubling in square footage i would be friendly to that amendment that's pretty much it thank you any other comments okay so we would then need to amend the motion so that in the second part of this under this special exemption use approval is based on the following conditions to child care providers for no more than 30 children is that correct mr kowalski okay yes that's what i have listed the only modification i have is that that to change from 40 to 30.
yep so do we have a motion we have a motion for that we have a second to that motion oh oh i'm sorry i thought that's what you were okay yes all motion motion second by abrams any other discussion on that know the discussion okay so um should we vote on um are we ready to vote then with that yeah yeah right exactly yes it's friendly yeah i believe if it's friendly you don't have to have an actual vote okay friendly friendly okay alrighty so let's just update the motion then okay and then we can be ready for a we'll call vote okay so that means the motion okay okay so roll call vote uh commissioner mills yes commissioner gabrandal yes commissioner sobe yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes and commissioner white yes thank you the motion is approved as amended all righty we are now moving on to our final opportunity for public comment this is for people to speak up to three minutes on any issue that is um uh that is not listed on the agenda uh we're first calling people in the room which looks like they are currently leaving and then we will also um sorry words are starting to fail after 11 o'clock because [Laughter] we'll entertain people virtually as well so to remember to speak remotely to so to speak um remotely press star 9 if listening by phone or use the raise the hand feature for phone access call six three four one 877-853-5247-6634 two six city staff will select callers that are raised their hands using the three digits of your phone number or my name you'll hear an automated announcement please go to a quiet area please state your name and address anybody waiting in the queue all right yes i'm sorry um yes we have one caller at this time um and i'm jessica if you could um mute sorry unmute and uh you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi adam here again um super brief i just want to say the discussion on the george was very edifying i really appreciated the question questions and clarifications by the commissioners as well as the answers from the petitioner and um special thanks to commissioner lee for cutting through some of the jargon the petitioner for willing to be more than accommodating on a buy right sight plane revision and commissioner survey for grounding the conversation i hope we can take some lessons from this situation and i hope this neighborhood can eventually regain some walkable retail services thank you thank you all righty on to item number ten commission proposed business i would just say i'm sorry there was one more oh sorry apologies really i'm sorry not so quick anybody else adam goodman if you uh you have three minutes to address the the planning commission hi uh adam goodman 400 virginia avenue um so i i sent an email to the commission a little while back about bike parking and tonight made me realize there was one thing i i hadn't noticed that might also be worth looking at so in the in the university yin project uh it looked like all of the bike parking for that building is b is class a which means it's indoor and secured and generally you know that's a good thing right we consider class a to be the best form of bike parking in the uni in the in the udc uh but that means there's not really anywhere good for for visitors to lock up the bike so um i think that what the developer proposed there is allowed under the code because you're you're allowed to upgrade to better class of bike parking but that might not actually be what we want i think we might actually want a mix um in in in all of these sorts of developments so that there's some back parking for visitors as well as for residents um so you know it might be something to think about on in future projects that's all i have thank you thank you i agree uh okay on two have one more caller another one caller with the last three digits of six zero four you can mute and address the planning commission please call us there you go hi this is eric lipson on rosewood street and when we moved into this neighborhood on rosewood we had two kroger stores within walking distance one was at the georgetown mall now known as the george and the other was at the corner stadium in south industrial and despite all of the talk that we have heard over the years about mixed use the results have been extremely disappointing the george just being one formerly south main market being another for all the talk of walkable cities all we get is a food desert around here you there's no more walkable supermarkets you have to drive or take the bus so these experiments on us on the neighborhood also break until they actually take effect the george is a giant ugly thing i was pleased to see and hear one of the commissioners actually addressed the issue of the fact that the dumpsters were going to be closer to the residential area anyone who has ever lived near a dumpster area knows that at six a.m that's when they come and beep beep beep pick up the garbage so once again uh the incompatible uses between these giant complexes and residential areas become apparent uh and the lack of any real real retail or any retail whatsoever the same you know it's the 600 block of south main there's no retail there anymore they want to turn that into residential as well so why don't we figure out some way to actually make this work not a lot of constant rhetoric about affordability and mixed use and all that but let's actually try to figure out a way to incorporate that into our planning process so that we get both affordability and real mixed use because just letting the market control this is clearly not working thanks very much thank you anybody else um [Music] that's the last caller okay on to item number 10 which is commission proposed business anybody i just we have the public hearings that we read earlier but um i don't have anything else on offhand i would just like to um and we don't have to discuss this now but today was an excellent example of a lot of communications just dribbling in throughout the whole day and it's very difficult i think for us to keep up with all of that and i suggest that we at some point talk about a cutoff in terms of it being realistic for us to actually absorb those prior to the meeting so anybody else all right on to item 11 adjournment moved by commissioner lee seconded by commissioner mills i'm sorry uh who i was writing your note who moved in lee and mills wait i'm sorry who who made it and who's second are you sure you want to leave come on this is my first meeting back you guys are getting done so quick come on you
of you the 7 p.m is january marcel at 7 45 do i have any uh comments or motions relatives a second i just have a question well i understood the plan was to set up a meeting where the third would be interviewed we were going to discuss that in the fourth agenda out in the discussion okay all right yeah i just i i thought the plan was to do all three but one wasn't available tonight i understood yeah uh and my doctor told me i have to keep dark glasses on i was going to wear my pirate patch but i didn't think that would have been so anyway thank you for and the consultant to ensure that we bring in administrator select committee against with the town administrator town hall and the town the group of eight excluding one member decided to present the three candidates that were invited to the meeting last week to me about the meeting which kind of needs a guest by the way in which the deliberations were initiated it was extremely disheartening to see that the town administrating mr walden was supposed to uphold the committee's choices and not interfere with the process instead there was a clear indication that preference and bias were present in the way in literal light due to the actions that were taken in this meeting in addition many of the town administrator select committee members do not feel that the interviews and deliberations that followed him speaking to this situation not only as chair of the committee but as a citizen of the town as i feel that the process we observed last week did not represent the people of sherborne even though those that directed us to choose from for this ta position as the process continues it is our hope that it is reflective of integrity thank you vicki mr chairman make a comment um so i'm going to open the review process now is noted on the agenda first item is the review of the interview process i reviewed it last week but i'm going to go through it a little bit quicker today but i want to and vicki alluded to some of it in her public comment this we did have a search committee that was formed uh the select board uh commissioned in january um created a position description that when the position was advertised for 30 days and we received 23 applications and then the sundays that they felt the search committee should consider interviewing at that's absolutely given a week or two later all those materials on eight candidates their resumes that they were totally four of the eight candidates um based on that and after the four award to the select board to be interviewed and that's what was done they picked three candidates to be interviewed but the motion was made that we should maybe consider interviewing them in person and what might make the decision easier so that's why we're here tonight the um interim count administrator uh read the uh will have the first interview starting at 7 pm and background checks on the candidates um not not really like a full reference check but just background check will to do a background check or reference check the select board with the candidates is to review that we have a phone call with uh on a resume if there's questions about and uh you know share that with the board with the um talk about that in their opening remarks with the various committee dumb the next gentleman who will not be many years of experience both the moment three years in that position he's a certified patient no violations of no issues with regards to his ethics check several professional references one in los alamos and then we talked to a reference here brings analytical skills and the good of working as a contractor for the federal government uh jeremy who will be here in a few minutes jeremiah natick as a dpw director uh involved with the mma on a number of boards committees uh region uh that i interviewed uh three references a former see they have uh mentored him when he was in framingham and this is that um felt that he uh you know in their experience with him working with him as college our labor relations uh uh you know those sorts of things and again a registered a neighbor lives in natick worked there for a number of years and have interviewed a number of people uh and he felt he had a he was an asset because he he didn't have he didn't bring uh some of the drama some of the uh time during the budget process uh and then i spoke to two work colleagues that praised his style respectful to them and others individual in his capacity but 5 30.
uh okay one more time one more time yeah okay good evening i will call this regular uh board of trustees meeting for alpha valley unified school district to order on august 4th 2022 at 5 p.m uh with that um we'll do a roll call vote i mean uh roll call uh dennis bender attendance here yeah we'll get to the votes later chris nunez here maria uh wilson would you lead us in the pledge to the please of the united states of america and to the republic which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right moving right along kylie do we have any uh public comments um we do have one okay karen you're up karen is from a buddha we're good i don't want it up my nose thank you um i want to start out with good evening superintendent nelson assistant superintendents board members and audience what a great start to the beginning of the school year thus far i've heard from teachers that have said in all their career yesterday was the best first day yet i know that enrollment has been very busy which only means one thing the students and family are excited to get back to school with a sense of normalcy if you will i would like to give a shout out to the ladies working in the enrollment center and also to mr davis at phoenix i was helping a family enroll a student that had just can't come from thailand and the student mother spoke limited english the student also has many medical disabilities after getting the student enrolled mr davis customized a schedule so that the student remained in one building the entire time and doesn't have to walk from class to class across campus so he went beyond what is asked of him and made the family feel really welcomed and we really appreciated that as you know avuda participated in the new teacher orientation last friday it was a huge success we were not only able to feed the teachers a nice lunch we were also able to raffle off over 20 baskets thanks to a cta grant an organizing cart bluetooth speakers donated by the standard and gift cards donated by cta and schools first avodah would like to thank the board members who stopped by to say a few encouraging words to the new teachers and we would also like to thank dustin for his kind words between that he spoke between avuda and the district also theta jessica and justin for their help in having the food tables and other things set up and readily available i also want to thank theeda for helping me get a class set of white boards to a math teacher at granite the smile on his face and the picture that he sent afterwards of them on his shelf in the class made my day we truly appreciated everything and hope the new teachers enjoyed themselves avuda was excited to see the new teachers and welcome them to av usd we all agree that apple valley is a great school district and that our students deserve the very best we also know that the students learning environment is the teacher's work environment the teachers in av usd give a hundred and fifty percent every day we participate in the community not just in our classrooms the students come into our rooms every day and are not just our students they are our kids teachers are a generous bunch we donate our time and our dimes to encourage the success of the next generation we are altruistic with the desire to make the world a better place to be however teachers also have to live in the same world many teachers are going to come out of college with loan loans needing repayment our veteran teachers we have given so much live in a world where just a few miles down the road in either direction veteran teacher salaries are considerably higher we have teachers that go to the food bank on fridays for food are receiving assistance for utilities and other things and can't make ends meet at the end of the month one of our buddha exec board stepped up at the end of last month and paid 75 dollars for teachers groceries at winco when she fell short we as an av usd family must realize we can't ignore these facts we lost teachers to neighboring distance this summer and many are making 30 000 more a year those that did not leave are av usd teachers at heart regardless i stand before you tonight and ask that you recognize the value of our educators and what an important resource they are i know that we submitted our sunshine back in february however a lot has changed since then the governor has since just in july added a 6.26 extension to the already high 6.56 cola this is not a one-time money being given but ongoing school districts across california including abusd are seeing more money given to them than they've ever seen in a lifetime so far i'm asking that you consider in good faith giving the teachers beyond what we have asked for lucerne just recognized their teachers hard work and gave them out of good faith an extra one percent that the after they had already given them the settlement hisperia is going back into negotiations because of a clause on their statement which states that they will receive a raise if the cola is increased avusd needs to be able to retain and recruit the best teachers possible for our students because our students do deserve the best in order to do this we have to have a competitive salary schedule i know we will never reach the amount that victor high district receives because of the differences in funding however we can still make it desirable for new and veteran teachers to come and teach and stay in apple valley as i'd stated in my first speech to the school board in teamwork coming together as the beginning keeping together is progress and working together is success evuda looks forward to working together with the district in order to make this a great school year thank you for all that you do and have a good evening thank you karen okay before we move on to closed session kylie did we have any public comments pertaining to closed session um that would have been the only thing okay all right all right so before we move on to closed session i'll or into closed session i'm going to read out this here so item one conference litigation government code section 54956.9 subsection 8.
you just don't have to work anything negative i mean i've made it through our process i mean it would be embarrassing if we found out say okay thank you very much we'll move on to another candidate i'm going to bring you somebody that's going to embarras they had issues find out negatives to an individual that i would say based on their skills in terms of so i want to make that before we have the candidates here i can see rebel tonight so we'll have to decide in our discussion session how we're going to handle the candidate but we do have two available tonight jeremy marchette and tim o'leary questions of these candidates and one of the things i've been concerned about is we haven't gotten a lot of input from town department heads and town employees in the process so when i did this to any of the candidates on their behalf so it was a way in which if they had a concern about something that they would like to have answered by the candidates i'm not sure we only have a half hour with each one so i have one that weren't consolidated they were just verbatim from town department heads so i appreciate the select boards as we go along so that's my plan there right right and i think it will be refreshing having these candidates already so i'm going to do i need to make sure their questions get answered but otherwise i'm going to defer be relatively quiet just to remind you it is only half an hour and excited to be back before you um you know your candidates are all very capable i know i'm i i'm very confident that i can do the work try to give some um something you know a little bit about me i want to talk a little bit take some time to talk a little bit about me um you know i've been a resident of medfield your neighbor for 18 years my wife and i chose medfield because of the school system advocate for public schools and for smaller class sizes then you know there's some challenges that you know people move to medfield and sherman because of the schools and then they stay for the character in the community that that your town has so that's you know a very you know important part of your community i understand that um you know i have two kids um that learn very different ways um my daughter is an aspiring equestrian class she needs one-on-one learning my son spent a fair amount of time with him as a soccer coach in the community and watching him develop as a player and person find all the 4 000 four mountains in vermont new hampshire new york name uh canoe the the rivers uh the st johns river between sailing that's my current fashion um became new hampshire my second which was great but we also had a great time um jim not stanley this weekend because he's doing the pan masks challenge i love the energy that he brings um cape cod on the weekends those properties to a fair i like to do home improvements and trips this past year after some hiatus and we're trying to talk him out of a ferry my wife calls me a municipal geek christie i've wanted to be a town administrator for some time now dedication um the skill set a great time administrator after serving for mike's within as top administrator has done very well as it has gotten planned they have just updated um and compassionate residents that are helping medfield which is a relatively small community that things don't get done without as a resident being active and interested in passion and kind of can leverage all of that volunteerism um you know and looking for a community that in your community um the last time i was in this room on the way here talking to the design it was like quintessential quintessential small town character it was wonderful i think today it's a little too hot to have those things inside but great thank you so who would like to lead off do you want to start out with let me do one why don't you do one of those department heads what is your strongest once again listening motivation or organization certainly a tough choice um i think of of all of those i think i listen um i i'm open to new ideas our folks are working interacting with residents the public um you know helping solve things shoulder to shoulder through so that you know kind of to support them you know leadership i can think of some examples from my time in natick um you know as a leader of public works just a few months before i i started work there was a fatality so this needs to change it's not that we listening understanding and trying to find out their needs and what uh what was lacking you know what they what they were doing in the supervisors we developed a safety program it wasn't didn't exist before we developed a whole program together that included a handbook that was simplified that we could give to folks we had a safety manual more comprehensive and detailed if somebody wanted to dig into it we received got some grants from the state 30 30 000 or so to do a complete update of all the training through the department of consulting did you know osha 10 the ocean 40 climbing you name it we updated everybody's training so they they thought wow okay and then during those trainings you know we deserve our trailers for other personal protective equipment so we all work together to make that program and to keep it make it successfully sustainable as well so you know it was one thing to develop but folks were really appreciative of that they felt that we cared we one of the other things we did we actually we raised money to build a memorial um every year and annually we advocate so you know that you know listening and just observing so you know taking the next steps of actually doing something about it and working together as a team to do it as well good question and one very specific tough you know on the ground kind of question you you're a dpw director you've been a town engineer um the dbw director has a plan wants to do something it's a process that you don't agree with as ta um you know when asking questions doesn't mean that you're you're criticizing or from what i've seen you have some strong department heads and they are so i would find no need to question those those don't work together as a team and leverage all their strengths um but have projects that are underway right now pedestrian improvements okay um so where do you see what do you see as boston changes what has been unique i think the opera is incredible you need to protect that and that you face is that you know housing in the commonwealth whether it be just markets great goals statewide there's opportunities i believe of some of those zoning changes so that there's more flexibility such that you're maintaining your strong school system to maintain your talent services you're not putting other there's other strengths that other communities bring to bear or folks leaving so i've been able to you know sort of uh succession planning my way of making people and i'd have had the fortune to aim to the public works department in natick uh as it didn't retire he was i and i was selected that quickly melted away and i remember about six months since i'm here and i had a chance to work with you and um but filling his role uh was a challenge a position um we were hoping to have somebody internal was it was difficult to identify a good candidate who fit uh realize that um right person that you know things were it had the internal candidate i mentioned that uh i think he's been he's one of the best managers his uh mentor him and uh helped him grow in that role so that failure um i've had the opportunity to fill that role um you know i've got experience with um not micromanage but stepping back and letting the the way they do the work in their own way so this is kind of related with a department head or an employee in in the situations become pathetic but my satisfaction of getting things as well you know even for location of where my office is it's just for everybody coming in and out before they even happen sometimes or um kind of steer it in a direction one of time administrator natick has helped me we're doing doing a native timeline transportation advisory committee that's an advisory need you know they have different ideas i'm stepping in to help um to been doing some driver on them and you know i have some different takes on on folks from public works but also has resident from the safety committee we're getting warned that what's that do with the uh okay um municipal officials today five years i mean of what this like um limited prop two and a half projects that gets approved and i think that is a game and then after accomplishing do for for modern tour rates under sustained having that fill with their cat report and help them uh mission funds that have dedicated funding fully vetted but the regular when i started on the warren committee i mean we had police cruisers that were not good so for many communities as i see employees to just improve your communication that that sounds like it's been a challenge communication has been kind of bored um you know so there's definitely a lot of um your community budget stress is going forward so if you can get replacement tires or vehicles the um is definitely above the top three because um the best people can balance away it's just been your experience interacting true um he's helped something that might not be the best for your community wrong volunteers you want strong winning of projects creationists to help build your community maybe an extension of the side against the great one typically sure and framingham the conservation project manager and the community economic board the building office and every testify in front of the planning board to help um to manage our our shirts too to to make sure infrastructure can accommodate with working together with them to create new bylaws i have one last department and we're right at some education are an integral part of the community and providing the surveillance school superintendent made a commitment um a regional school system that you know you can educate and and you know your your population is old sounds like you've got an election coming up and you know for those elections you hear ideas from the candidates and house departments can provide things that you can do to support your seniors you can bring to them facility is open a couple years in hearing um and services that that are less cost if your field has been in town or in that field it's not far um streams um i i think they've been the values of what you're valuing your community for how you've stayed in for your community what is important to you the timing is perfect yeah i think we've got a great fit for your community because they have really enjoyed working with you all energy and a lot of friends you know we've chatted a lot about in the last couple weeks what what is true and would be silly not to happen and whatever i can do to support [Music] on their behalf so i have a bizarrely even just remaining from is there any sort of opening statement as i intend to be brief okay interview process in the hr consultant with them in real time i was about to get a new housing i think i'll see if that comes up in the commentary be brilliant be brief be gone thanks for coming nice to meet you in person uh turn over the supervisory rule and since you've been in knock those were in turnover as to reshape the culture appreciate the organization i have my diversity equity and inclusions and most of them love new people we made initial offers and we ended up hiring somebody who'd been working in communicable government although i had experience in local government so we hired somebody else whether they've never been in low percent transit i guess of course the military everybody the first 20 years my professor is important and people to move to the media for the rest of their lives some didn't like yeah i told us a a story coach versus the expert driven approach who described how uh you had a lot of people you told us the story about you know you went ideally optimally at hopkins and experience which is pretty recent it was the first answer referred to an assessor for a city with a 20 i'm the assistant treasurer and we there were some oh so go ahead i was good as that assumption was not correct we'll have other issues in the analog service uh because i wish i will say though you always you have people remember the cfo the coast guard coming in was even these two guys you're trying to move on and find something different people out and i would say on balance no go ahead from the department head there's a brief way what is your strongest playing one i'm gonna say so i'm really committed to mission i'm i'm really we're we're here to are turning the crank on a machine they've been turning for 20 years lost their spark for mission and i really feel strongly and i think that i have been most effective by creating a folker i had some crew members who used to complain when we got a call train them bought a vessel bought gas your training drills you know you're not so i'd like to uh ask you what do you see in sherman's planes in the coming years and what opportunities i just need to make a few notes uh not have its own need to be a new dunkin donuts and of course we have this uh community of homes and those families after living this area is not a money the mbta someday hope g is is there for people to be if people can live in a place like shear burn and the town will become we which is safe and secure because our tradition system for it and by going with so that's a hundred year question really what did he be able to affordably treat whatever contaminant our experience was when legacy farms built down houses were going at they were highly changed what hopkinton high school was and talking to most people in that community i think there's no question it's been brilliant it's been a real refresh i guess then this is another wave of immigrants and you know it's going to make us all that maniacal uh obsession with systems purposely about how we're planning and preparing for that what do we want this town to be given the projected ch sure good right i eat it and that process what would you have added uh and foresight i think i think no is it does it include things like moving to a paper focused on their concentric inhalation change consulting process where you look at what the holes in the gap you know the counseling we have a significance so we have donut access to those services the town wants to go in to meet its goal experience in the coast guard anti-aircraft systems too and then they'll tell us what they're not putting money on those priorities totally understand why you couldn't guess what was development is happening everywhere open space and climate which opened a lot of doors for a community through some of these every opportunity you have and everywhere as is in the in the open space and i think the money being spent on education which is exhaust of educating new students and do you want to go high density or northwest dc just up by american university for a long time and that is a risk to the historic nature of your town the wanna build four million dollar house to to have it make sense i don't know so sure what has been your uh specific experience interesting so uh i guess i border health planning board and conservation don't add it here i'll have so in my role the siblings and claims and worked on a lot of the admin issues uh we had so i was involved in those cases that was a bit of a learning the council had some let's say the second one was in los alamos actually my spouse on some of these matters because she was the marketing major i have done a couple of uh where i got a couple friends and we bought a failed and and participated in that and then sold the condos and i have several lots in total committee on some analytical questions for the past seven years we've gotten more new from most towns we were the founder of the whole community group including people in the police department are bad and that was so i have some knowledge of that and it's also an interesting thing and then i did jobs in every phase of the planning programming budgeting you're a budget person planners are planners i did everything thing so i'd enjoy that we know that schools and education are an integral part of the care representative and provided with the services they need about that the equity part of that before i talk about sir the court makes decisions on my own initiative i developed proposals for sewer discounts for seniors who met the state circuit breaker incoming the select board has now approved annual discounts for some of our neediest seniors three years in a row to pay to provide discounts for these acne these needy seniors then when we got into this problem with our pfas water supply i propose the same thing for water and we have just during the early days of coven when we were under the cares act i proposed and developed and personally operated a proposal to provide grants to people who had income disruption as a result of kovid checks after we had developed deployed received applications vetted the applications and turned out before christmas we mailed them out the wednesday night before thanksgiving i think if the select board is interested in equity measures to try to everybody else and what we found is when other people see it and it's of course scalable if we gave ten thousand dollar grants it would have been unaffordable but you can help people in a material way and modestly and stay true to your community values and it can be affordable and pull that out of the air you you need that analysis i'm working right now in an analysis on a residential exemption in the property tax we've never done that and those are the people who use the residential exemption but that can give a lower tax available you can do it at any degree where it provides a modest discount it hasn't be in that case that the vacation the decision of the select board but you need somebody to give you room i think the chance to physically gather is probably i know you have an innovative transportation program but i think we just decide they want to explore doing more for the seniors ten great ideas than to think up one really easy things you can do and you've been really great about collaborating with other communities there's a scale factor too so i think there are a lot of opportunities to really grab the low-hanging fruit and find those opportunities i you know i answered an essay question i've got to be cheating so i'll try it out this will be a recall test too you can do a uh you can do make sure all the classified pubs are there you have to review the person it gets a new captain every two years and reviewed my notes from that thought about the two times were a small city it's its own again thinking about about what has to be done and then making jail and the state had taken receivership do that kind of risk analysis of what comes first and what's most about because i have a method i would follow in the absence of guidance and that's what i wrote in that paper valuable and important and have insights so that's what i do i think now i think that it's been it's been i actually watched a little bit of the other interviews i think you have some excellent leadership leadership with integrity and we used to say in the coast guard i'd rather be captured and this is a very attractive opportunity for me to move from and uh you know it's a it's about a beautiful from where i am to this job and appreciate it seeing you again in person thank you thanks everybody thank you i do better with a live audience so um that concludes the interviews um the deliberation into that i do agree with that i think it's only fair i guess while it's fresh in our mind i don't know if we want to discuss anything that was said tonight that that or do you think it's better to just wait so i happen to like the third candidate that's not here to sherbert that's a little different from the other two per opportunity to to show you what that person could do to this town saying you know what we like what we don't like because uh set of answers from the five or six he's done he's got back up for a few errors monday tuesday wednesday that was as of a sounds like wednesday is the day wednesday is okay um but just one is it going to be working for all five of us and i understand that eric couldn't be here tonight and he wasn't at the last one now he can he can watch the tapes of all those things so i i'd like to to have the next date based on eric's schedule insights yeah i didn't announce that they had the media we know the candidate's schedule so it sounds like well it's when they shoot wednesday going to have validates i think the work of the search committee i was honored to be a member of the search committee they have a a series of candidates we candidate be quiet and on favor hi all right guys have it