001wanted to register the question that or I don't know the caveat that they don't they question whether level of service no matter what you call it translates to pedestrian cyclist travel so if we really want to do multimodal transport we have to um work on a on a different measure to capture comfort and safety which are much more important than congestion which is what Los tracks and we know that St was thinking about that and working on it and we also know that staff knows a lot about it so um uh council member acman in particular hopes for future changes that focus on our a20 goals um the 7-Eleven Church Street resoning supplementary RS site plan and development agreement all passed uh 7:32 Packard PUD zoning district and supplemental uh regulations um passed first reading
002and the council voted to put a charter amendment to prove a sustainable energy utility on the ballot for November so please vote and bring everyone you know to the polls to vote did I forget anything M Deo uh no that was all of the council that was all of the Planning Commission business at Council yeah and that was really all the council business everything else was filler yeah thank you um and then M Kelly manager of report no manif your report cor thank you do other uh committee Le a zon have report yes um the ordinance Provisions committee met on April 23rd and discussed um a petition that's been submitted to for five amendments to the tc1 zoning um District which include things like curb Cuts uh modifying allowable building dimensions for larger sites exceptions
003to minimum building Frontage requirements exceptions for use specific standards for parking structures and clarifying what we um how we Define a block so we discuss those there's no action taken in the revisions committee meetings but um those will be coming to the full commission at some point May 23rd May 23rd they'll be coming to all of you to discuss so you can look forward to that great May 14 May 14th 23 session the next working session yeah would uh soon be next week next month later this month thank you right thank you do other Commissioners have anything to report quick update on the Transportation Commission we met on April uh April 18th so it was a little while ago now but we just reviewed budget um and the ACT 51 funding allocation that's the gasoline
004pack just something to be aware of it's kind of starting the plateau in terms of act 51 Revenue um sidewalk construction millage um looking at the Main Street upgrade the sidewalk from in Arbor Selena Stadium uh climate action millage is uh going towards crosswalk street lights and bike lane upgrades it's about $700,000 uh other ones we talked about serious crash responses and some of the improvements that we're seeing around town so the just uh the East Medical Center Drive uh construction is going until the end of 2024 um and I think the one uh M has indicated a willingness to add non-motorized connections across us23 but that's still kind of underway as far as discussions go um and then the state and Hill improvements they did say that the constructions are intended to be completed
005by August so just uh we'll see if that happens but uh just want to give everybody a heads up um any other Commissioners with reports if not written Communications are included in today's all right we we'll keep moving on we're on to agenda number six which is public comment uh this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to 3 minutes about an issue that's not listed as a public hearing uh on this agenda we'll first call on individuals here and then we Mo participants so um speakers during this uh public hearing remotely please press star9 if listen my phone or use a raise hand feature if viewing through the web link and for phone access please call 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 977 663 41226 City staff full select callers have raised
006their hand using the last three digits of the phone number or by name of failable you'll hear an automated announcement saying that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and new background sound so we can hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is anyone present that would like to speak at this time about a matter that is not on the agenda Mr Barber thank you Charlie Ken Garber 28 H H Court um I'm sleep deprived so forgive me if I get some of the details wrong um and this just came up but back some time ago when you um removed the uh um f premium incentives for the downtown uh I suggested that
007you revisit the um exceptions which if you remember allow a downtown building to build 30% higher if they do one of two things meet the definition of affordable housing or sustainability affordable housing definition I believe was 15% of units 60% Ami um sustainability was solar panels covering 60% of the roof area um or um a rectification ready which is some which is defined as you know basically um some electrical panels and conduit and I argued then that um you know given that we've removed we've allowed F you know basically any kind of bulk at this point without meeting any incentives that we should tighten up the incentives on the uh exception side um especially on the sustainability definition which my worst nightmare was that some build massive building was going to come in and claim
00830% higher height while calling itself a rectification ready but burning gas for heat and that has just happened this hasn't reached you yet but there's a building at uh 621 church that hasn't formally submitted a plan yet but they're going in front of the design review board next this month I think 19 stories over 200 units kind of cover an entire city block um you know really big building and they're going they're going to be 195 ft High which is 45 ft higher than the 150 ft height limit for D1 and they're saying they're doing this for sustainability um reasons and so they're putting some sol solar panels on the roof um they'll only serve a fraction of the building's electrical needs and they're not electrifying the building they're calling it electrification ready um and
009so what we have here is a building that's going to be taken advantage of our sustainability incentive and we'll be burning gas uh in throughout this massive building which seems to me that the incentive for sustainability is a failure here you may argue that well we want to go higher anyway um heard that a lot last night at city council from a lot of the public but to the extent that you int buildings to be relatively decarbonized the definition for um you know height exception in the UDC really isn't working and we're seeing the first example of it now and you'll see this building at some point come before you so I don't know if it's too late to change that definition I would argue that building should be both affordable housing and sustainable and
010that we should ask for electrification at the time of construction that's what I said last time um I don't know if it would be a breach of Faith at this point now the developers move forward I think my time is up right sorry oh I said it up thank you Mr Garber do we have any other public comments I'm going to actually before we get to the remote participants apparently they cannot hear us on Zoom right now so I would like to call for a quick uh 3 minute recess to restart and then we will resume public hearing so right folks can hear on the cpan broadcast but I just need to check that everything is uh as it's supposed to be because we got some feedback so just give us a few minutes y
011we'll reconvene at 7:17 thank you I missed it earlier where the outlooks are here e e e I'm going to call this back to session that was my G um we're going to we're back to public comments um is there anyone else here in person that would like to speak at this public comment seeing no one we're going to move on to remote partici phone number ending in 955 you permission to address Planning Commission you will need to unmute please hold for technical difficulties okay can you hear me there yes we can great um can I have a comment on um the work plan or is there going to be a public hearing on that there will uh there will not be a public hearing on that think this Mr good okay so 355 Char
012pleas uh I um sent you all a uh an email um sure if you're able to read it but um I was remarking on the work plan um this sound basically it looks like you have a really busy agenda tonight and I know the work plan is coming last um I'm if there if you all are prepared to amend it and um approve it tonight that's great if if there may be things that uh you all aspire to accomplish accomplish this year uh you know in parallel with the come going on um and they don't happen to be on the work plan and you don't have amendments prepared I we just ask that you postpone it and uh give that some thought as well as I hope you can give my uh my proposed amendments
013and consideration as well um that's all I got go back tonight got you taking call thank you Mr Westell our next caller is phone number endan 194 you have permission to address Planning Commission the child hello this is calling side of and I'm calling about the South Town development um agreement that you're considering tonight and the changes excuse me first I'd like to excuse me hello hi I'm so sorry um so this is a public comment with respect to uh items not on the agenda um this we will have a public hearing uh at the actual agenda item so if you could actually call back um it should be the next next item thank you okay thank you so much bye there are no further hands raised okay thank you with that um I'll close
014public comments uh we're going to move on to agenda number seven which is the public hearings scheduled for the next business meeting and with that I will prer to Melly for the Planning Commission meeting on May 21st 2024 uh there are four items the first of which is 227d plat Road site plan for Planning Commission approval a site plan to amend the approved Meridian at County Farm South site plan um by redesigning buildings V KK l m CC through DD and E through FF increasing the total units from 110 to 121 building locations generally remain the same while the types of buildings proposed and number of units per building changes the ran at County Farm South development has 110 approved dwelling units uh for proposed of 121 in single family townhouse and apartment buildings on
015a 363,462 of which is 3310 wash the site plan for Planning Commission approval the proposed demolition of an existing restaurant and construction of a new 5,240 ft restaurant building and 50 new parking spaces the site is Zone C3 Fringe commercial no drive-thru is proposed 2862 Stone School Road annexation and Zoning uh Ann Arbor Public Schools initiated annexation of a vacant 2.65 acre parcel from pitfield Township and resoning to PL public land and finally 3801 stone school annexation and zoning and Arbor Public Schools initiated annexation of of a vacant 3 Acre parcel from Pittsfield Township and resoning public land thank you with that we're going to go on to section 8A which is UNF unfinished business there are none so with that we go to regular business um this is 1601 South State Street Southtown resoning
016this the offer to amend a conditional zoning statement of conditions this is a petition to amend the Southtown zoning statement of conditions adopted and Incorporated by ordinance number 23-2 24 to Zone a 1.66 Acre Site C1 campus business residential district with conditions by restating paragraph 2. D from the property shell have no natural gas connections except for emergency backup power to the property will demonstrate continuous micro grid operations at 60 to 75% less carbon intensity than the electricity incumbent DTE staff recommendation is approval and with that we will head on to petitioner presentation welcome thank thank you uh I'm Dr Margaret poer and I am the developer uh and we are as you said requesting uh a restatement of conditions so that we can provide the city with a much more sustainable project and with
017that I will turn it over to my right hand and energy expert Heidi poer great thank you very much um let's see help me Hank not working two seconds okay so the first thing I want to talk about is just what is this micro grid so the micro grid is a computer controlled system that is actually housed inside of the not only the Southtown footprint but the Southtown building it will involve fuel cells that run on renewable natural gas solar battery storage a geothermal system and uh a vehicle to a grid charging system all of those um what we call generation assets or storage assets will be um monitored by a micro grid controller it'll have a 247 um real time insight into what's happening with the assets and we will configure various programs in
018terms of what our outcome objectives are most of those will uh relate to sustainability or reliability um they'll integrate with the building system U the building management system runs all of the U mechanical operations so the hbac the lighting system and the purpose of this integration is to optimize the overall operation to be as sustainable as possible but also to allow for shelter in place we're going to have uh 221 units at Southtown so probably about 400 residents and 54 parking spots and what that means is is that there's going to be an awful lot of people that bike or walk as the as the city wants and as we want um but when it comes to uh bad weather or extreme conditions um we don't feel like uh giving them any other option other
019than Sheltering in place is is good as a uh as a property owner um so we want to allow for fully energized shelter in place we want to our objective is to maintain a carbon negative operation so not just uh do better than but to actually kind of set the a new bar in terms of operation and then lastly to establish and maintain energy economy for Southtown residents uh we're very aware based on um our experience and our ongoing um research and involvement in the energy industry that retail utility rates are going to do nothing but increase and uh we actually think we have a solution here to manage those to a great degree and that's important to us as well um can you do the next slide Hank yeah could you actually see works
020again yeah okay there we go thanks so what's the language in the zoning modification um what we're committing to uh is um to establish performance versus what the incumbent electricity provider DTE does and we're also referring to that as business as usual so most of the residents in an arbor get their utility service whether it's gas or electric through DTE and so that's the uh kind of that's a that we're evaluating our own performance against um we'll we'll basically be coordinating all of the assets that I talked about that are included in the microG grid um but one of the assets that relate specifically to this request are uh fuel cells that we'll have on site um the fuel cells will be powered by renewable natural gas which we're going to get um directly through
021Contracting with uh farming operators um and and I'm going to talk in the next slide about what that looks like specifically um but the outcomes that we're trying to support are uh carbon intensity reduction so by our measurement we think that we can actually reduce the amount of CO2 um or greenhouse gas that's um that's put out into the environment uh by about 7,000 metric tons um which is over on a year-over-year basis which is pretty substantial um we also think that we'll be able to lower on-site electricity costs especially as electricity rates um increase for uh typical electricity clients um this the greenhouse gas and what happens with that a big question and we know we have to um not only answer that question now but provide information about how we're doing that performance
022objectives objective um when the chemical process that the fuel cell uses to take gas and um um breaks it down into water hydrogen and CO2 um there will be no combustion on site and we'll also have um CO2 uh collection units that will basically capture that and allow us to sell it to another user we can also sequester it but um the CO2 will be completely captured by the fuel cell um one thing that's really important to note is this is a transitional plan um obviously our objective would be to use either a even more sustainable more Renewable Fuel a synthetic fuel what the oil companies are calling a molecular fuel to fuel these fuel cells and an important thing to know about this as we make this transition is that the fuel cells themselves
023stay in place the the filters are typically changed periodically so every 5 to 7 years um those filters get changed and the chemistry inside the filters is um is basically um customized to whatever the fuel source is so if we for example went from renewable natural gas to hydrogen there would be different chemistry inside the filters but we would use the same fuel cells so it's it's not going to be any kind of onerous cost to us to change to an even Greener fuel when those become available and I this think is important to remember um because this really will help us um hit all three of our objectives which are sustainability resilience and lower cost over all right let's talk about um cows and the man how do we how do we make how
024do how do we make this Renewable Fuel well first of all uh a manure is collected from from Dairy Farmers and it's put into digestors and the digestors keep all of that gas from going out into the atmosphere um the Anor robic process that collects that gas uh creates 45 to 65% pure methane as as an outcome of that process it also creates yeah it also I only have 3 minutes left out of 10 wow okay um it also creates uh water or fertilizer and BTY so the um the gas get goes through its own filtering as part of that digestion system it gets injected into the fuel system it is the the gas is purified from there they take out all the noxious gases and they increase it to a greater methane content which
025is about 90% pure so why is this renewable well it absorbs more greenhouse gas that it emits and it um also keep it prevents a manure from um expressing greenhouse gas into the atmosphere couple interesting numbers um renewable natural gas 90 carbon score uh solar 18 positive 18 carbon uh carbon intensity score regular natural gas 16 uh carbon intensity score so this is this quite a bit lower um this is what it looks like it goes into when it comes to us it goes through the fuel cell uh comes in as pure almost pure methane it mixes with oxygen and like I said it creates electricity water hydrogen carbon dioxide that car carbon dioxide is captured on site and uh it's either sold to a third party or it can be sequestered um um really
026important uh chart here the blue line just below 60 is what almost everyone in ant Arbor is is um performing at in terms of the electricity they buy from DTE the orange line is what DTE says it's going to do the green line would be our fuel cell if we were operating on landfill gas the blue line is landfill gas plus carbon capture and the purple line that's less than zero is if we use renewable natural gas and Capt caption car carbon which is what we actually intend to do um I'm just going to zip through to this slide CU I'm sure we're going to do some more talking later I I think I have the Liberty to extend the time to good cuz I really set up there yeah no we want now I
027just went into Gil mode okay so on the right hand side we've got the business as usual all right so if we had built the building to regular 2015 standards and we met that building code and we powered it through DT dte's electrical system and we didn't we just met all of the objectives in terms of the the code the mechanical systems and got DT electric and put their Transformers in our building we would we would create about 25.6 metric tons of greenhouse gas per square foot foot per year on the left hand side is our approach and our approach is to do the mass Timber construction uh so that means off-site panel construction that means use Michigan green electricity as we build it means use a passive house envelope to the extent that we
028can without um really messing up our geothermal system because it's it's um it's a tricky mistress and you got to make sure you protect that field so that's our our number one objective um we'll use geothermal we'll use heating and cooling uh load capacity that runs on um heat pumps and Chiller loads to optimize that geothermal system we'll optimize all of our mechanical systems whether it's air exchangers every everything that you can do to make a sustainable decision that's what we've done with the with the design choices um around Southtown um we'll include tenant demand reduction and as part of the demand reduction um as we create carbon intensity avoided incentives and sell those carbon credits out into the marketplace will reward our tenants will reward our tenants for um their participation in the program
029as well so it'll be it'll be very much a holistic environment around um conserving energy so we haven't even gotten to the part until we get to the last Square about actually using fuel um whatever's left in terms of the demand of the building after we take all of those measures on the left hand side we'll have a dispatch order that's as green as it possibly can be so the first dispatch um asset is um solar followed by energy that's stored from solar charging so the the dispatch of Last Resort is using the fuel cell which again will have U renewable natural gas from Dairy Farmers and runs at a negative um at a negative carbon intent because that fuel is just so so carbon intensive based on the amount of CO2 that it's already
030captured in the process of either making it or before it actually gets to the digestor um when you add up all of that efficiency um number one you're actually avoiding 31.4 metric tons of greenhouse gas per square foot as opposed to burning 25.6 but even more importantly as a as a collective for the entire year year after year you are um performing at 7,000 um metric tons of greenhouse gas and that's scope one and scope two so the the highest order and the and the biggest hitter in terms of sustainability which is you know incredibly important help me Hank got about 10 seconds remaining but why don't we extend of how long need like 30 seconds okay 30 seconds so because I know there's going to be a lot of questions and I'll just answer
031the rest of it in the in the questions um as I mentioned you know electricity costs are going up because they have to there's lots of uh there's lots of infrastructure that has to be replaced there's lots of upgrades that have to be made and there's lots of generation fleets that have to be substantially um upgraded into renewable standards um to meet with uh you know Mand that are that are handed down by the government um what we think we'll be able to do is keep our pricing very consistent and we'll be able to keep it um much more in control in terms of the overall um impact to to our customers so between 2026 and 2040 we forecast that energy bill savings will be more than $400,000 to the tenants of Southtown versus other
032folks that are paying DTE rates as a function of these increases that are unavoidable thank um accountability measures uh we've come up with some language that's going to go into the development agreement um and it basically goes through everything that I said and it just kind of walks through the process of transitioning between um renewable natural gas to whatever the most sustainable um objective is or um I'm sorry fuel type is for us um you know we don't know what's going to happen with green carbon or with uh green hydrogen we don't know what's going to happen with any other kind of forms of synthetic or molecular gas um I know that there's you know with respect to the renewable natural gas some people have asked the question well what if you can't make a
033contract with Dairy Farmers I mean you know Missy stultz makes a point that there's plenty of feed stock available where that came from so you know like maybe we'll do a project with the city to do some other form of um digestor um the the objective though is to get below the line of sustainability and um there are many many reasons to do that it's an opportunity in terms of sustainability it's an opportunity for our company as well in terms of pushing the pushing the envelope in terms of creating value and um it doesn't take very long in terms of studying the climate economy to to understand how true that is so it's both a um an objective for in terms of of um meeting the objectives of the city but it's also an objective
034for good business and um figuring out ways to take advantage of the climate economy and that's what I feel like we're doing so um there'll be an annual report it'll talk about performance it'll be very data intensive uh we'll be collecting all sorts of data anyway and um that Central comparison that we're promising to um in terms of the uh the zoning language will be at the center of of everything that's in that report and then I I included this in here um you know I don't think we need to go through it these fuel cells are very very safe um we can have lots of discussion about that but um you know they've been in these environments for 200 I'm not 200 years those Yankees are really something but for the last 20 years
035um in Connecticut but um you know they're like 800 units operating and they monitor 247 by this company um so I included some information in there uh it's more of as a takeaway um but they're incredibly safe all right thank you for the extra time thank you appreciate it now we move on to staff presentation Leo thank you I also want to mention that we have Missy SP on Zoom oh thank you um as mentioned this is the 16001 Southtown southstate Street Southtown zoning and it's an offer to amend the conditional zoning statement of conditions um um in summary the site is currently zoned C1 AR with conditions being a there's a maximum height limit b a maximum vehicle parking space limit C A use limitation and D elimination on natural gas connections the proposed
036zoning is C1 a r with conditions um repeating a b and c but D will be a requirement to operate a carbon efficient continuous micro grid um staff report and a couple different places um list the exact language that will be um swapped out in the conditional zoning statement of conditions um an amendment to change or um an amendment or a change to a conditional zoning statement of conditions that was the attorney's office came off with that phrase um um being adopted and incorporated into chapter 55 of the code is subject to review and approval procedures of a resoning petition as if it was C1 AR to you PL um the staff report goes into a little bit of some um existing conditions and background of the Southtown project and linked to the staff report
037were the other staff reports for the actual Southtown project happy to get into them but I'll skip over them um for this moment um I think as thoroughly mentioned but it's worth uh repeating the current power plan and what was the basis for rezoning and sight plan approval was the project was to be um powered using the DTE electrical grid and having a internal combustion generator operated by natural gas um just for its emergency backup the proposed power plan is as just described but it's um they will power and operate an onsite fuel cell to generate its own electricity hence the term um uh micro grid um there's a little bit of background um to help explain what a fuel cell is I think that's also been well covered um in the um um in
038tonight's presentation um and so with that I will say that staff recommends that the offer to amend the commissional zoning statement of conditions is accepted because it meets the intention for a reduced carbon intense building and result in a project that's both more sustainable and climate friendly than conventional projects as well as the originally accepted condition happy to answer any followup questions or um I'm sure um the posters are as well they might be more able to answer technical fuel cell questions I sure hope so otherwise we're all in trouble yeah thanks Alexa yes why a question for staff oh um I think we go on to public hearing we thank you um okay thank you for the staff presentation I just wanted to check if Missy would like to add anything from Step perspective
039this monary opportunity and apologies all sometimes a little slty I I am appreciative of the Innovation that we're hearing here and we just add this is something that is unique as we're thinking about the future of microing broadly throughout the city and so OSI is is really kind of leaning in to learn as much as we can from this type of project for their for this iteration space so thanks for the opportunity to be here thank you we're now moving on to public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to 3 minutes about this particular item we'll first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star9 if listening by phone or use a raiseed hand feature if viewing through
040the web link for phone access please call 877 853 5247 and enter meeing ID 9776 63 41226 City staff will select callers that raised their hand using the last three digs of the phone number or name if available you'll hear an automated announcements that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move through a quiet area and back uh mute your background noises so that we can hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of the comments do we have anybody present that would like to address the commission I think thank you chair where can I be most Audible to the remote AI actually if one of our petitioner guests could make room for Mr gber to make a public comment micone the
041microphone is right there sorry thank you thank you chair Le Kim Garber again first of all I want to point out this just how unique this circumstance is I've been attending planning commissions regularly longer than any of you with the exception of commissioner wether be or commissioner Mills and uh and you took a long time off but but I have never heard any developer talk about things like carbon accounting or emissions prevented or carbon intensity much less produce an annual report on all these subjects and um just that fact alone makes this just you know an exceptional kind of um event to me um you know I need time to absorb the details of the proposal I really haven't had time to look at uh the packet materials but I I do have a I'm
042you know I'm inclined for sure to support the um petition to change the um uh I'm sorry to yeah to to change the conditions for approval of this project um I wasn't happy about the new natural gas connection but given the fact that they're removing themselves from DTE electricity um and that the Natural Gas uh will be used as a last resort that's acceptable to me um so overall um I know probably there are callers who will disagree with me but I think this is really worth digging into and for you know lessons for other buildings around um you know around the city and for possibly standards the questions I have I know my time is running out uh carbon capture um my I'd love to learn about exactly what technology you're thinking of I've
043been reading about low temperature solid sorbent CO2 capture and regeneration the problem with this and all other carbon capture Technologies I've been reading is just they're very energy intensive 25% 25% what additional load additional load right um so that you know that's one concern you're going to need more electricity for that um on the hydrogen side um I was a little concerned by the statement in the staff report that if pure hydrogen can be used to produce electricity the Southtown microgrid could be completely carbon free um I assume you're talking about Green carbon not carbon produced from methane um using um you know methane cracking or steam reforming yeah yeah I mean that's the only green there is right so yeah so your carbon um accounting will will take into account Upstream emissions and and
044methane if you use go that route and so forth okay um yeah those are my questions and those are my comments um I'm really glad I showed up today thank you thank you Mr Garber do we have anybody else that would like to speak presid seeing no one else um who do we have for M phone number ending in 194 you have permission to address the Planning Commission hello this is Mitch calling from the west side of man can you hear me yes we can yes yes okay good um I'm call I'm calling about this uh project and and I agree that the um the approach is an Innovative one and it's great to get away from DTE uh at the same time I have a serious concern about the source of the renewable natural
045gas with call that um particularly with the source being agricultural because those the perpetuation of um animal factory farm production for that source which is polluting on its own in Standalone from the the methane that will be produced and also that the methane that will produce is nothing whether it's um it is from house not Fel but it is still a greenhouse gas with serious heating potential and getting it to the flight is likely to have the same kind of weak concerns that we have with methan that we would get from C so I'm concerned about that I'm also concerned about the uh technical aspects of dealing with the carbon capture um and the energy required to produce either glue or green hydrogen so um green hydrogen as I understand it is produced from renewable
046energy sources such as wind and solar blue hydrogen is produced from natural gas what's called Natural Gas which is actually nothing once again so the emissions immediately in this area will be reduced which is super but some way on the road um wherever the hydrogen is produced will have some um pollution associated with it I believe so i' really like to understand that and I'd like to understand the um process of accounting for the per performance of the program um so once again I just want to say um great for moving forward and that's Innovative and different from GTE but I think this requires a lot of detail to understand and rely on it and to actually have um energy provided to this project that doesn't poll down down river in Lake eie where the
047pollution from our Factory firms at least that are local to our area relatively local to an go we get the BL green energy right there and polluting right here that's a wor um thank you thanks for listening thank you for your comments do we have anybody else Adam Goodman you have permission to address a Planning Commission for 3 minutes uh Adam Goodman for Virginia Avenue um I this is a really interesting presentation and it's an exciting uh concept I I hope that works out well um and of course I I do think that the uh profession here is is reasonable and should be approved but um really I would have preferred that these conditions not exist at all I mean if this is what the developer wants to do um have just support it but
048uh I think this notion that we have of writing extremely specific conditions into our zoning code um to make every res zoning a a totally thepoke unique object that you know cannot adapt to you know different realities in the world uh without having to go entirely through the legislative Zing process again I think that that's not the right approach broadly speaking for our city to be taken uh when we have you know a massive with the problem with the housing crisis and clate crisis um it's if if the uh original condition about you know connection to DTE and and natural gas had not been written into the zoning then uh the developers here could have proceeded with this plan without let come back to Planning Commission and city council to get approvement for that um
049and I S wish it had been done that way but um if this is the approach that everybody wants to take uh fair enough um I favor that's all thank you thank you Mr Goodman there no further hands raised Mr chair okay we get it just one more second okay with that I will close public comment um I'm going to read the proposed motion for the Planning Commission um this is the Anarbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve rezoning 1601 South State Street quote unquote Southtown by accepting the offer to amend the conditional zoning statement of conditions to change from prohibiting natural gas connections except for emergency backup power to demonstrating a continuous microG grid operation at 60 to 75% less carbon intensity than in electricity incumbent DTE provided
050in paragraph d.2 moved by commissioner white and seconded by council member dish we are in discussion uh who would like to kick us off I just had a question um and Alexis I'm not sure if this is um a question for the City attorney or not I'm not sure what procedural posture we're in here because I I I saw the note from the city attorney and the staff report and that makes it sound like we're in a we're in a rezoning a traditional zoning petition context where we would have a free hand to take the proposal and make changes to it but it's being also packaged as an offer you know voluntary offer under the separate section of the Michigan code for you know voluntary conditions attached to zon which we cannot alter or mess
051with so I'm I'm wondering if the City attorney provided any color on what latitude we have um I do think I can I can answer this so this is um a rezoning from C1 a with four very specific conditions and the original condition conditions are in the packet um and then this is um a an offer to rezone it to um to C1 a/r with four conditions the first three happen to be the same but the fourth is different and then that that document is also attached in the packet um and yes the state statute says that the city of Harbor uh city council is non- legal term allowed to accept conditions they must be voluntarily offered and they cannot they are not negotiated um unlike say a planned unit development um you can um
052in your discussion make it clear about why you are accepting them or why you are not accepting them um but you can't say for example um I could you make the micro grid be 40 to 60% better you if this is a yes or no on the condition that they are offering but like I said in your in the discussion you can tell them if you are if you do not like this offer you can be clear about why don't like it they can come back or not so there is no negotiating with this offer unlike a plan unit development but you can be clear about why you don't accept this offer yeah go does that answer your question it gets me most of the way there I'll sharpen the question okay if I wanted
053to in two moves two motions reject the offer and strike condition 2D completely as a change to the existing zoning which I am allowed to do can I do that in this meeting or am I is that a separate meeting to do the Second Step so I think that you cannot strike it I think that you can say why you are rejecting this offer that's what I wanted to know thanks thank you commissioner a um maybe also a question for staff um there was talk of this annual sustainability performance report but I don't see it mentioned in the conditional zoning statement and conditions so I'm wondering where that would show up it is not it is in the draft development agreement which I did not print but it is an attachment it look for the
054attachment called something called uh first um First Amendment to Southtown development agreement okay and um it is there thanks so it's attachment number eight in the screen on okay yes exactly council member dish um I would like to invite the petitioner to respond to the concerns that one of the callers made they in writing they expressed that because this is complex technology and the you know the whole introduction of meth blah blah blah they expressed the concern that this project will default to Simply going into a traditional agreement to get methan from DTE got it got it okay so complexity will yeah yeah um well first of all just as a general response to the color that was talking about um concerns about farming and downstream impacts I it's it would be hard for me
055to disagree with that uh you know like the sustainability digging out of the sustainability the climate hold that we're in um is going to be an extremely complex process um there's no magic bullet to get us out of it um every comment that she made is a legitimate comment um let me start with a a couple things so I just want to go back to right now everybody in ant Arbor who gets gas from DT or electricity from DTE where it's not under a special program um which is limited by the way you know Mi green power is is limited and you know they they can't they can't cover all of the all of the demand for that but there is some pretty extreme um greenhouse gas being created by typical generation because it's 85%
056fossil fuel intensive so what are what are our options with respect to using that micro grid and he with with respect to the fuel cell which I think is really the big part of the concern here it's not the micro Grid it's the it's that last order of dispatch which is the fuel cell um and powering it with gas so um and just as a reminder we've done everything we can to make that slice of demand as small as it possibly can be which I think is important so we spent a lot of money to make the extra modifications in terms of the design putting the geothermal field and getting optimizing the PB um and that's that's not um anything other than to say we get it you know we get using the gas is
057is a it's a tough swallow right but um within the context of all of that what's really important to us as a business is to operate below um carbon neutrality to get into the negative I mean carbon neutrality is great but if we can get into the negative that's even better and we have we are financially motivated we are I just want to and that I don't want to make a big deal about that but I want to tell you why um like that last degree really matters to us it's it's a big deal it's a way that we can support more sustainable development so it's a it's not just a notional objective it's really important um why does that matter because because in order to meet our business objectives we have to be able
058to honestly account for the same kind of performance that the city of Van Arbor wants us to account for which is show me your math exactly how are how are you coming up with this performance standard and if we can show zero or less than zero not only are we meeting our our uh goals with respect to what we've agreed to with the city which is which is important to us but we will have put ourselves on a different tract in terms of of being participants in the climate economy in ways that'll help us to extend more sustainable development which is what we want to do so um there's no way to fake it you know if if the if the hydrogen is gray or blue and not green then it doesn't count it doesn't
059get us below that into that purple line where we want to be um you you know we could say you know people have asked didn't come up here in question people have asked how do you know you're going to get this Dairy contract I mean we could we could use um renewable or landfill gas but it's still it still doesn't have it's not as green when you add things up as the dairy natural gas is so we're all going to have to agree to some sort of calculus around how do I balance how do I add up the carbon over here and how do I take away the carbon over here we're all going to have to agree to some system of accounting that moves us forward and um if you know and and I
060think the caller was actually doing that she was saying you know Innovation around these important things is is you know should be supported but we're not going to get to a perfect you know but here are my concerns and I get that those are concerns but we got to make forward progress somehow so starting with we can do the math around being green is really important um and the and the The Greener we get the the better it's going to be for us in terms of meeting our objectives with the city but also meeting our participation objectives in terms of the carbon econom or the climate economy so um none of that's wrong but but we've we've got to we got to come up with a least common denominator way of measuring all of this
061stuff out um otherwise we're never going to make the transition we're just going to be stuck and I don't want to be stuck at 7,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas a year at a brand new development that's supposed to be really sustainable that's just gross I don't know does that answer the question or not maybe not no no it does I mean to my mind to yes I mean I I I find it implausible that your development having a contract with Dairy Farmers one Dairy Farmer is going to perpetuate Factory fing I think that of course not right so and uh you spoke about scope one and two emissions you're clearly thinking about scope three emissions because you've made this choice of your fuel source but that doesn't make you responsible I mean almost it's
062the the accounting there I don't think anyone has a whether whether I buy that whether we buy that gas from that farmer or not it's going to have absolutely no impact on large form format Dairy farming um but it does make a difference right it does it does get the manure into the digestor and out of the out of the field and it it does take advantage of what the intent is which is to start using the waste that we're creating in a circular economy thank you um commissioner Mills thanks this is really exciting and interesting and so I've got a number of questions um just so I make sure that I'm understanding kind of what we're talking about so it's been mentioned a couple times Clarity are you are you not connecting at all
063then to the DT electricity no we are not okay so before it was like no gas connection and now it is only gas connection no electricity connection ironically right and then um the micro grid is does that also cover the space conditioning or is like will that be through I don't I don't know as much as I ought to know about how F cells work like how how is space conditioning working yeah so we have we have an HVAC system we have a mechanical system that brings fresh air in we have uh water-based heat pumps because we have have one GE Thal field and possibly too we might have redundant geothermal Fields um because we're so concerned about maintaining operations um so all of those devices that are in a typical as green as you
064can get environment will um will basically connect to an energy system that is whether it's fueled by the PV or whether it's fueled by the storage or whether it's fueled by the fuel cell will provide it electricity so um everything gets converted to electricity on site okay um with no combustion and then it's I think your question might be is it still an all electric environment yes it is what and more because like right you can this is combining now and what we want to do is try to combine the heating system to something like a common denominator that right um just to make sure that in the future when renewable natural gas is not the right when it's green hydrogen or what like whatever know Missy and I might might do something crazy and
065just partner with the Wastewater facility like our biggest problem will be the supply chain how do we get that gas from Wastewater to to the real estate development wouldn't that be awesome yeah yeah I'm curious about the size of the battery then in here have do you have any sense of like the like the physical size um no me Kow or Kow we're it's not we're not up to a megawatt yet no it's probably I have no idea how it much to put it all together okay so the overall it's all Based On Demand right so the overall demand of the entire uh 226,000 Square ft of real estate development is about 960 Kow okay which is just under me almost almost um so we we'll actually have and I you know the Architects are
066here and I'm you know I should never jump in and talk about stuff that I'm not an expert and they definitely can answer these questions better but it looks like we're going to have two battery components that are going to be about 250 Kow each and then we'll have uh we'll have PB obviously um and then we'll have um and the only limitation to the BB other than what they what we're planning on right now is we're going to have three fuel cells and those fuel cells have to we're going to do a lot with the waste heat and there's two there's really two ways you can use a waste heat you can use it to actually heat or ironically again you can actually convert heat to chilling um and so we'll have some other
067equipment that has to go on the roof to um that will actually take all of the waste heat off of the um off of the fuel cells and either convert it to to heating for other areas and put it in the air or they'll turn it into cooling the whole objective with the fuel cells is not um it relates to not only much gas you use but how efficiently they run so we want to another way that we can really minimize the impact in terms of how much gas we use is to make sure we're you know getting every last bit of value out of the thermal capacity as well as the electrical capacity and that's where the the heat comes in great the questions that I have for staff are about um a lot
068of times when we talk about this energy area on commission it's um what is the enforcement mechanism especially that requires annual like uh compliance and so my reading is that the enforcement is in carbon offsets is that if they so if they if they're not meeting the target then it then it's purchasing offsets is that right am I reading that right I believe you are reading that right it is also not my area of expertise okay but that's what that's what we offered right and so um and again you know like that's that is like it's you know everybody else is still at you know like at the DTE numbers so like we're we're saying if we don't get to 75% of that we're going to we're going to pay to to make sure that
069we deliver that yeah the Practical consideration in that too is what happens you could be on time with knowing your numbers but what happens if we don't know dte's Carbon intensity by the first month of the year we'll be tracking that too we'll be tracking that in five minute intervals too okay yeah now you can I mean you might go back and audit it and you might say well you guys said it was this and it was this and then you know like we'll settle up but you know we'll it's in order to I'll just tell you this in order to meet our objectives like I was telling you before about in terms of participating in the climate economy you know we need to know that and it can't be wrong because we'll be selling
070carbon credits to other people and they'll they'll want accountability for the question about um the enforceability and the development agreement um Missy unmuted to speak to thanks yeah thank you commissioner for the question it's a really important one and just want to offer two things that I think are relevant in the conversation Pro for sustainability Advantage One is we do annual greenhouse gas emissions in the here at the city so we are always getting information about the ghd intensity of the electric gr and of course we're following the studies in terms of fossil gas and how it's just lost in distribution and what that means in terms of our greenhouse gas emissions in invers so we have a baseline that we can be using to to do a comparison here with the the petitioner the
071second thing I wanted to offer is that city council also passed a series of energy criteria and principles that move through the energy commission that actually give guidance what we mean when we say carbon offsets carbon offsets do not mean just going to the market in an and buying the cheapest Offset you can get we actually have very clear guidance from city council that car offsets have to be additional new renewable energies uh that that AR we're not displacing someone else on the system so I just wanted to add that my my assumption here and I don't know if that is fully codified is that when we do offsets in now but we don't do like everybody else we make sure that they really are significant enough moving the ours I think that probably needs
072to go into the development agreement but I understand exactly what she's saying that it's you know great I would only add that um in terms of uh proposed um enforcement um it seems very clear it seems very enforceable actually and then of the possible enforcement Alternatives that um I might or one might think of such as like disconnect and connect to the electrical Grid or um even a one-time find this seems very proportional very reasonable very enforceable and also um still fur furthers the same goal so I would without commenting about the very specific language but the gist of this is um something that staff supports and and overall it is enforceable okay commission weatherbe s did you want to something so uh just kind of following up on that um while I trust you
073and your interest in this should there be a different owner at some point who is like ah we just use the gas why are we doing messing with all this stuff uh all that is covered under the development agreement through these what we just talked about right so that yes the zoning runs with the land so regardless of the owner the requirement to if you accept this and it gets rezoned then um this District requires whoever the owner um is to operate a continuous micro grid the development agement is um between the city and this particular developer but I believe there's a language in it that talks about it applies to Su successors if this project never gets built then the development agreement would also be moved because this Southtown project never be built but
074the zoning says even if the Southtown project looks vastly different there are still four things that any that run with the land mhm which would be the performance criteria of 60 to 75% of the businesses usual DTE regardless of how they got there okay procedurally speaking it will move on to city council as well it's just a recommendation commissioner Adams yeah I I feel like I should explain my earlier question um I think since we're stuck with the proposal on the table I'm inclin to support it has presented the Project's fantastic and I don't want to tie it up and it's such an Innovative proposal and it's an Innovative project and it's great um but I asked about rejecting the offer and striking the condition because I'm worried that this isn't the type of thing
075we ought to be doing in our zoning code um if anything these things seem more appropriate to put into a development agreement or a site plan my concern here is that the terms of the offer letter that you submitted make it clear that the actual way this is going to work is far more nuanced and complicated than what's in the zoning contemplates right absolutely the zoning says continuously operational the zoning has its targets the zoning is the law the development agreement and the site plan don't Trump what's in the zoning so later on when there's a liquidated damages provision that says we buy carbon offsets if we fail the zoning language doesn't tolerate that on its face the plain terms say you will continuously operate and you will hit those targets so as an attorney
076I can't Square those things and I I would rather have tackled all of these requirements if I could in the development agreement in the site plan because those documents will make allowances for the things that inevitably happen with systems this complicated they sometimes fail they sometimes don't hit the targets but the language that we're being asked to put into our laws doesn't again doesn't contemplate that um I worry about the enforcement I worry about a zoning requirement that measures compliance using unverifiable data generated by a third party power company that seems unusual to me and then finally as with all of these things I worry about the codifying something into the code that no future future project if heaven forbid your project doesn't launch we now have a parcel that's got this highly specific highly
077technical energy generation requirement baked into the zoning we're going to have to deal with so those are my concerns I think I'm stuck can I ask you a couple am I allowed to ask questions yes okay please respond so the first question I have is well it's just a comment I think what I'm sensing is is it for you there's a disconnect between the you know what you the actions you might have to take to get to 60 to 75% of um performance against DTE as you know there's a disconnect between okay I will I will buy you know buying carbon credits as specified by the city which I think the language probably needs to be cleaned up to to be more like what Missy said not just you know acres of land and you
078know a Swiss forest or something like that um the the you know I think a future if there was ever an issue I think somebody would just come back and and say let me just connect to the DTE grid like you let everybody else you know and I I won't use a g I'll use gas only for emergency but the the big thing is that you said that triggered I should I should address this is we would not be relying on dte's performance you know their self-evaluation um there are other ways to and that's what we've used to come up with that you know I think it's 5,975 is um metric tons of greenhouse gas is the counterfactual that we've calculated so if if we powered this with uh with DTE electricity that's how much
079greenhouse gas we would generate every year that will not come from DTE that will come and won't come from us it shouldn't come from us it will come from a third party that uh can authenticate that with authority uh what we'll provide is we'll provide um uh basically our metric information with kind of like full insight into the calculations and complete transparency in terms of how we got there that's that's how we have to do everything and I'm sure you you sound very knowledgeable about this the proof of impact in terms of this any transitions in the carbon or transactions in the carbon Market Market are becoming more and more and more um you know kind of like price of admission you have to be transparent and you have to show your math so you
080uh somebody at the city Missy might say hey I want to take a look at that report and take a look at and say hey that math doesn't make sense to me you might have a third party authenticated um that language is in there but you know how the city chooses to act on what I think is probably pretty important not because it's our project but because it is setting a standard um that's up to the city you know we just have to make sure that we create authentic data and we we apply algorithms correctly and we provide transparency so we really do want it to be a a legitimate proof of impact I just can't stress that enough thank you um with that do we have any other final thoughts before we move to
081a vote Yes Mr hamers last comment oh um my question is for staff um you have a full agenda anual sustainab and this is this is super cool I understand like less than 50% of it but like I'm really excited to hear like Innovations and you know sustainability my my concern is or my question is about the annual sustainability report is OSI going to review that like is there a staff capacity for this or an appetite for it or does this just continue forever that's what it sounds like in the development agreement like are you guys prepared to take this on I guess is my question um inity the the city of an arbor is prepared to take this on I didn't mean you specifically I understand I think that is a level of detail
082that needs to be worked out I think this is this draft of the first statement First Amendment um has not yet worked its way through City Hall um for that level of specificity or level of detail um I think so I I am confident when I say the city of an arbra is prepared to take this on but um which department will be having initial enforcement and then if you're here long enough the office of OSI may become the administration of something else and the planning department may become the planning services and so on so forth but the city van Arbor is prepared to take this on okay say I have one other one thing the DTE connection just to clarify for gas is it just for backup or are you planning on you already
083taking gas from them yeah so we'll we'll pay for the Dairy Farmer to inject the gas into the system we'll just take the gas but then we'll have all of those mechanisms to take the CO2 out and um yeah okay yeah okay last one council member Dash this is a question for Miss Deo so I understand commissioner Adams objections to the level of specificity that is in zoning here but my understanding is that in a conditional zoning or that that conditional zoning is an established thing that exists in order to tie a s side plan to the zoning and that is something that is within the City's power to do and am I am I missing something yeah no not at all um conditional zoning is um it doesn't have to tie a a zoning
084District to a site plan because I mean it's a very broad tool um um it is not contract zoning it is conditional zoning and if you think of it Statewide or Citywide it is an we have the ability to accept conditions imagine you have a zoning District that allows a huge variety of land uses but this particular location is right next to a very sensitive thing and so half of those uses are not appropriate um and so this is a mechanism where we can say well you can Zone it C3 but these 10 uses are actually not allowed here um the basic one the one rule of conditional zoning is that it must further limit whatever the normal allowances are it cannot allow over above and beyond or it cannot add this particular Southtown one
085it is very spefic specific um the conditions that they offered are very nuanced very specific um and but they were voluntarily offered and there is no if you if they do no harm there is no reason not to accept them and why I say Do no harm they they seem to do no harm to the city they are very restrictive but they were voluntarily offered and the developer wants these conditions um and there we the city and curs no harm by accepting them did that answer your question I think so thank you and then oh yeah final com from yes commissioner Clark so I think it's great that we're going to have the density and this project here supportive of that um I guess I'm one to lean in favor of Simplicity and Zoning code
086especially keeping in mind in perpetuity so just coming on that um I guess I just have a quick question if will this be in concert with a heating pump uh with heat pumps uh um so be water waterbased heat pumps yeah okay for the geothermal system and then has there been any uh un leaks on site is there any risk for um leaks and site has there been any Research into that or you're meaning methane leaks yeah yeah I mean that that on site's really easy to control what happens Upstream we don't have any control over so I think you know whatever whatever once interpretation of any side anything outside of them but it's really button down on site um because we're capturing the CO2 we're taking you know that's like water energy CO2 it
087doesn't you know the off the off uh off gasing it there's very limited things that it does in heat so um and we're accounting for all of of managing all of that okay thanks all right thank you I think you uh thank you for the presentation I think you've addressed all of my questions as well and with that we will go to a roll call V Miss Kelly on the motion as presented commissioner Lee Yes commissioner ABS yes commissioner W yes commissioner Hammerman yes council member dish yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner wetherby yes commissioner Adams yes curious all right thank you very much for moving the bar for us I want to say heck yes thank you have a great night we will move on to the next one um other business
088this is 1146 South Maple Road um plan unit devel the pre-application conference Hickory way number three is proposing a four story 39 unit permanent support of housing building by Adon housing will meet National Green Building standards have 15% barrier free units and provide 700 ft of community space the project compones to Annex 1146 south from Scio Township and reone to a pug will be ad to the existing HC grade one and two buildings and surrounded by mly residential andan Natural Area City Park staff recommendation is approval we have our petitioner in person and so hello welcome thank you thank you for bearing with us and then with that yeah we will move on to petitioner presentation and bear with us as we get this going and just making sure that clicker works for you guys
089okay go ahead and try that c now with that welcome I'll hand it over to you guys great all right thanks so much I'm Wendy cardi Saxon director of real estate development at Avalon housing and we'll go over our team members shortly but really appreciate uh you having us here so we can chat about our P request for Hickory Way Apartment three development um great so I'll just briefly go over a little bit about Avalon I think folks no fair bit and then the development team and then really diving into what we're asking for here so just Z on so we're really excited as Avalon to bring another new construction development into the city we currently have two developments under construction at the moment um and then in 2021 we brought 70 units online adjacent
090to this particular properties those our Hickory way one and two and frankly we've been eyeing this parcel since we were looking at planning those particular uh units so we're really excited about being here now a quick background Hickory Way 3 is currently in Scio Township we have a purchase agreement with the city of analer for it and I just say that's really been helpful cuz having public owners allows us the chance to have the time that we need let's do that U Mission of Avalon I think folks are probably pretty familiar we build healthy safe and inclusive Supportive Housing communities as a long-term solution to homelessness and offering flexible voluntary on-site services to accomplish that good attendance and just a couple pictures of existing properties and we do Supportive Housing uh since 92 so um
091our development team I'll just mention we've got a couple folks from Avalon on the phone if there are any questions we've got got uh Aaron Cooper our executive director gree Carpenter our director of employee experience and John Scott our construction project manager so I'll hand it over to Brandon to uh good evening everybody my name is uh Brandon Hodes I'm the principle of tribe development we are a Detroit headquartered affordable housing developer and consultant um we'll be serving as development consultant with Avalon housing on this transaction um as you can probably see you know it takes a village to do an affordable housing deal um and so so we have a very Dynamic team um we have in the room uh Fusco safer and Papas who will be our architect of record um we will
092be releasing uh a contractor RFP very shortly um we are going full steam ahead in our design process so wanted to have that contractor selection kind of pick up with that process um we also have making engineering as our civil engineer um Asti environmental has done uh most of our environmental uh assessments to date um we also uh have hired a wling consultant some conditions on site uh so that would be ECT and then Avalon housing will also be the property manager for the site so this is a bit of an aerial view of the proposed location um as you can see this is a interesting time stamp because the hick way one and two is being built directly north um that is as Wendy mentioned 70 units in total across two buildings um this
093side is also directly north of the Hansen nature area um which is uh directly south and so there is right on 11:46 uh South Maple on the western side our civil engineers provided a bit of uh comparative zoning analysis um as Wendy mentioned this will be an annexation that we'll be going through um it's currently located inside of Township so you know no real zoning exists today um and Wendy will touch on you know why we felt uh the Pud zoning designation was most appropriate um for our pursuit of this affordable housing project but this just gives a little bit of an insight into how we thought about the the site the efficiency um and some of the calculations relative to um existing conditions but also the R4 eation I'll let Wendy kind of touch
094on the TV y thank so with uh requesting with PD you know certainly The Beneficial impacts bringing affordable housing as part of this development half of the units looking at being support of housing all of the units being affordable um under 60% so affordable housing and also High you know Energy Efficiency and green which we'll touch on in a little bit uh we did explore the current zoning districts and you know where we ran into challenges forther leading us to the Pud it's like flexibility for affordable housing with the Pud being the mechanism that really allows that flexibility to bring affordable housing where we otherwise might might run into hiccups uh with standard zoning efficient land use got a four-story building with 39 units 15% are accessible and you know it also has our services
095and management space in there and really we fi represents the most compatible and efficient land use practice aligning our objectives while respecting the neighborhood context um optimizing the site utilization here we think the building footprint really uses the site accommodating our landscape buffers firet truck access uh parking was expressed by staff and tenants and walkable access from Hickory way 1 and two um we're really looking to have interaction between these two sites food pantry community events so you know minimizing the distance between those two um you know with the Lower Side setback is we feel it's beneficial to us very free parking and charging stations so incl bar free parking electric vehicle ready capable charging stations really ensuring that safe and accessible amenity for tenant staff Etc we're running into incompatibility with existing zoning uh
096District Dimensions you know don't know specifically setbacks so you know major issue we're running into so we couldn't achieve our optimal number of units with the height and the building footprint and vision and um having us move to the resoning for PUD uh for economic and functional feasibility and the neighborhood character uh really you know we think the design really enhances the character you know emphasizing you know the Green Space connecting to Hansen Park nearby pedestrian friendly layout and again that integration in the proximity proximity Day history way one two and I'll just note that another thing that with the continue affordable housing one of the things that as a petitioner might be F but with the Pud I kind of like that the affordability gets attached to the land and the zoning so in
097perpetuity with you guys so I just think that's another benefit of the few for this so hand it back over to brandley so we did want to briefly mention we do have a wetland condition on the site uh we've already spoken with eagle um had a pre-application meeting it has been noted as um unregulated and low quality but it's a little over 08 Acres um and so we've we've run a handful of scenarios to you know try to orient the site you know as far away as possible from that um weather condition and ECT will be the Wetland consultant that will help Shepherd us through um further scenario analysis um because of the federal funding that we're going to be applying for for the project we have to go through a fairly elaborate eight-step process
098and so that consultant team will help us navigate that process this is just a bit of overview of the actual project program um as Wendy mentioned we have 39 units that'll be on site um across four floors of uh housing uh all the units will be one bedrooms uh so populations up to 60% Ami but we imagine uh the majority of the building will be you know deeply skewed affordable housing um this will be uh permanent Supportive Housing project so at least 35% of the units will be designated for those Supportive Housing uh t uh tents um there will be on-site Services um across the building one of the things that we do like is the adjacency to the existing grade 1 and two uh to drive efficiency and really impact in that trade area
099uh we are also going to do an enhanced amount of uh bike storage on site we will have really interesting Community rooms um we will have a laundry room on each floor uh there will be shared outdoor community space that will actually play off of the existing outdoor space at hi reway 1 and 2 um central air conditioning will be featured as well as high speeed internet and we will have control door access and I'll let uh our architect team talk a little bit about sustainability Focus just quick time check you have two and a half minutes um my name my name is Scott Kelly I'm from F sh for papis Architects uh we're from Dale Michigan and we're honored to work with avelyn housing on this project um as far as the sustainability I
100don't think we can get to the level of the project before us makes me feel kind of small but um we do um we do understand uh the 820 uh uh you know guidelines and uh we definitely want to uh adhere to a lot of those guidelines as we move forward in this project and along with um you know the the goals of the the a20 kind of go hand inand with um the low-income housing as it can relate to um better quality of life for the residents and better use of the building um for the for the the Property Management Group in Adon housing as they uh kind of navigate through the years of of the project um our building is going to incorporate a lot of sustainable Design Elements um obviously they're going
101to well exceed the Michigan building code uh features include uh an insulated envelope um high performance Windows uh it with Advanced Ear ceiling all electric uh heating systems and energy star uh radio appliances um energy efficient lighting uh all LED lighting equipped in with occupancies to further enhance the uh the conservation of um efforts and then also the materials that are being used within the project making sure that they are sustainable and meet a lot of the different uh um requirements uh of uh floor score um certification and making sure that we're using uh low vocc products in terms of paints um and flooring and making sure a lot of the adhesives and construction materials that we're using um are of of a high quality and are sustainable products as well as making sure that
102pre and during construction and afterwards that there's a waste management uh program to make sure that we are dealing with all the uh construction waste and or waste from the building is is is taking care of it correctly all right um we're at time um is there anything further that you wanted to add you add one additional minute we just want sure it would be important yeah two minutes okay so this is kind of a just a a rendering of of the site is how we're showing it 39 units obviously four stories um it's roughly about 9500 ft per floor um all will be one-bedroom units uh you can kind of see at the top there there's a there's a big elevation change between um where the phase three will be and Phase 1 and
103two is uh so you can kind of see that a little bit the scale on the top there uh we do have uh the road going down with the the parking spaces available to the site as well as making sure that we dealt with uh what the fire department needed as well as Waste Management to be able to get rid of the the waste this button just go one more there was a hidden slide here's here's basically a layout of the units um all one-bedroom units a lot of the uh support spaces uh for the community are in the front of the building by the front entry uh we will have uh plenty of bike storage and as uh bike parking out in the front a lot of the back of the house items are
104in towards in the back of the the building in terms of uh electrical mechanical and things like that it's kind of an elevations or computer generated and then I'll get to there this is more of the uh renderings uh for the building at the moment a little bit different than the phase one and phase two uh but we feel that uh you know the architecture fits well especially trying to make sure that we're using sustainable materials uh with the brick at the bottom as well as using a lot of uh mate uh sustainable aluminum throughout projects that's all I have perfect thank you for uh thank you for U this is a pre p u conference so this is uh there's no public hearing but we'll go on to stack and we'll go right into
105discussion Mr kosi so just to kind of uh summarize up a lot of what has been said but really with any p the the first step is really meeting with staff determining what zoning districts and why pick a PUD over a different zoning district and and this one's a little different in that you know most of the puds you see are existing in the city would that have a zoning set obviously this as mentioned was a Township parcel that'll be annexed the closest uh really the type of the closest zoning District that matches the land use and the density that is proposed would be the r4e district um so the R4 e District the the density more than complies I mean it the R4 e District significantly denser but um and the height limit is
106not an issue with that either cuz there's no height limit in the R4 but um however the the main issue that comes up is the setbacks that were identified so working through uh again kind of with the petitioner in trying to see if there's a different zoning District we could use as I said really we focus upon the r4e the challenges with that are the setbacks our code also has a there's Provisions within the zoning code that like our standard setbacks for the r4e is 10 ft however ex if you exceed building length over 50 ft um drawing a blank on if you see the building length I believe it's over 50 ft and the height over a certain drawing a blank on that as well now too but there's additional setback that's required for
107the additional height that you exceed above the limit and for the additional building length so you add that onto one of the setbacks so adding that onto the setback to the it would be onto the north side there that pushes the required setback I believe it was 28 ft and um so that's that's quite a significant setback to accommodate that setback in an R4 District obviously the plan would have to be significantly altered if if um I mean the building would have to slide over you probably eliminate the parking and so on so forth and and obviously U one of the most important points of that is it would obviously result in a smaller building um so going through PUD Justus ifications we look at that kind of thing as well like one of our
108obviously our priority goals in the city is everybody well knows housing and specifically affordable housing so and the ask on this we look through and we see well what what is really the ask on like are they asking for something that's completely unreasonable and you know it no these this that's not going to fly in this case but but that's not what they're asking here again it's a setback modification they do um meet like I said as a standard setback but the additional setbacks that are required push that even larger so in this case while again it's we we don't want to default to puds that should be kind of a last case scenario in but really in this case the it's really the only way to accomplish and get a public benefit that the
109city and a priority goal of affordable housing as well as um accommodating all the restrictions in again the um design considerations and restrictions that the applicant has to set that up so really and and this is a point again obviously is a a PR prep PUD conference uh this is a point for you guys' Planning Commission to give your feedback the um we did we don't do an extensive staff review before this I mean we do kind of a preliminary review we did have a look at the the plans they have a pretty complete plan set um that has already been is that we've already viewed it's not submitted yet but um that we've already reviewed so most of the issues have been kind of flagged U flagged by staff previously and and really one
110of the most prominent ones as was mentioned is the Wetland issue and the natural features on the site uh the Wetland again mentioned was a lowquality wetland uh that will be obviously as we go when the project is formally submitted that will be reviewed by our city staff as well going out there with the our their natural featur staff um and there's a significant I don't know about significant but there are quite a few Landmark trees on the site and if you go by it now it's pretty uh it's pretty wooded as well but um with those you know obviously again a goal of the city preserve natural features and things so they did the Alternatives analysis which is required for any site plan basically how can you put your use on this how can
111you design your building on the site accomplish what you want by mitigating that impact on natural features um on this site it's it's really challenging because again where that uh Wetland is kind of located in the center of the site that kind of leads into the middle of the site and then the natural features sorry the trees are kind of sprinkled all around the site they are s saving a significant um section of them in the uh would be what the northwest corner there as you see so those trees uh will be saved as well and obviously Landscaping will be compliant with city code so um that's kind of it we don't necessarily have a formal recommendation at this point but again it staff is supportive of the Pud moving forward um could I just
112ask if uh planner Shake would have anything to add yeah thank you yeah thanks and uh pleasure to be uh official for my first commission meeting um just wanted to dig in a little bit more really quickly to the issues really are around the setbacks and both the front set back and the side set back and they're both kind of quirky I guess um so so Matt mentioned the regulations the regulation for side setbacks in r4e um is 10 ft plus 3T for every foot over uh a 35 ft building plus one .5 in for every foot over 50 ft of building length so the building length is 168 uhet Building height is 48 ft I believe so those together and make the the sidec back requirement um go up from the minimum of 10
113to 28 to 28 um so it is it is of note that the adjacent building is is um Avalon I'm not sure if it's if it's part one or part two but it's the adjacent Avalon site and on the front setback um it's a really curious case too where there's um a RightWay designation in the front um because it is a Township and that it is a Township parcel that hasn't been incorporated into the city of B Arbor yet so the annexation will run parallel to this process um so the front so the one uh as you can see in the the staff memo and the the documents the 1 foot um setback they couldn't meet the r4e setback requirements is the one foot from the RightWay designation um that's designated there and I could
114just add that may that the front setback were um working through that with staff right now with with engineering basically because what it shows as a right of weight if if they dedicate right away to the city then that comes off their property and that you know that's their setback is to that line of the RightWay however there's also an opportunity which is again kind of over the last couple days we've been working with engineering which is uh potentially you just grant an easement for the RightWay if the city ever needs it basically so an easement does not count against their land so the setback the front setback ISS issue may or may not be an issue going forward but even again if it seems kind of shocking at first I have a 1ot set
115back in reality it's it's it's more I mean the road is not going to we're not going to be expanding a Maple Road over there there are utilities and things like that in there but that is consistent with the RightWay that was granted to the uh Hickory way projects above but the main takeway from this is that RightWay that front set back number might be in in in in flock there because it may end up being if that right of way is just through an easement then their setback uh would probably adjust to the do the previous along the road right in one one foot inside of the sidewalk which is pretty typical so but again the side the the main issue that does kind of leave the side set back issue as well got
116it thank you uh for that presentation again there's no public comment here and procedurally um just so that I understand this is going to be this is a pre PE application they will event they're going to get our feedback and then they're going to come back for probably an annexation and a pu recommendation well it'll be submitted so the project be submitted all there will be when the project is submitted it'll be submitted as an annexation zoning and sight plan so Planning Commission will see all three of those at the same time uh the annexation zoning the site plan and then uh after Planning Commission action that the uh annexation goes off to the state gets approved and then U sorry wait first then the annexation just gos Council Council agrees to accept it then
117it goes to the state and then it comes back and then they kind of match up again when they're going to council got it so with the you guys will see everything as one piece got it and assuming that you again the feedback and the discussion here is is PUD truly the appropriate venue in Z so um great uh commissioner Mills please kick us off great I think in terms of the standards that we have for p this makes a lot of sense um and actually I given the way that the right of way works there I think the idea of encouraging things that move it back up and maybe even force it up would be better also just the practically speaking I think then you see the kind of jog it's not paralleling I
118mean it is paralleling the building but there it's a little offset from the one so like just thinking about light right nobody's ever going to be in Shadow all day long even in the dead of winter because whichever way like there's some coming in so I think that that's useful I am curious I do think though this makes a whole lot of sense you guys have the land now who knows what can happen I'm Cur um and I think right it would run with the land um if in the Pud the uses I don't know I don't know how you tie I don't think it makes sense to tie it to an owner but I think that tying in the affordability is really important just so that if something happens like we are sure that
119this will also be um Supportive Housing like and I I yeah I think if I can add to that right that that's another I guess benefit of that PUD is that is exactly right we can tie that into the Pud zoning with an r4e zoning or similar we can't so the Pud has that mechanism so if whatever Avon you hopefully it didn't go away or whatever but the the zoning is in place so whoever Builds on that has to adhere to the Pud that would give me a little bit more comfort because the place because the place that we are impacting is just to the north I mean it protects you from your I don't know like not protecting you from yourself but maybe I don't know um I think I think that that's really
120helpful um in this particular situation I think that this makes tons of sense commissioner I have two questions the first one uh is to staff um it's a great U project but I just have some G questions um c1a did we consider c1a it has no setbacks well the setback is um conditional to the residential that it abuts and does our removal of the conflicting land use buffers address that because it doesn't have the height restrictions it won't have as strict a front setback restriction it right well first the first answer is no we didn't look at it so I apologize that will be fine I don't know if that if anybody wants to give us a a c1a comparison when we go to PUD yeah it could be challenging with the different you uses
121that would and again with that District we wouldn't have a way of of guaranteeing affordability going forward we wouldn't but but but yeah we could look sure yes and then that leads me to my second question is because it's a PUD does it have a requirment for an additional contribution to the affordable housing trust fund because of the underlying zoning or is it because it's coming in from the township that's waved it no it would still there's still a formula that even if it came in from the township there's still a way that we would have to calculate if they if if a market rate project came in here there would still be a way to calculate based on our land use recommendations and things like that of an affordable housing contribution so just because
122it would be annexed it and you're right like there's no uh City Zoning in place there but there would still be an affordable housing requirement for any PUD but again this one will I mean technically this one has one too but it's more than exceeding it so it it because it's 100% affordable so that's that's with units on site pardon the units on site it changed hands that's still the the zoning it it would they would have to go if it changed owners anything else that zoning is still in place they would have to go so they would just have to make a cont tion well they would have to we can so again writing we haven't got obviously this far into it but writing the supplemental regulations the that go with the zoning project
123we we have the ability as a city to write whether or not they they um with again they're working with them whether or not they want that option in the few like with any other applicant we would work with them to say well you could do the units on site or you can um do the contribution in Li so we can write that in development agreement I think in this case we would probably I would assume the app would be okay with us just right units have to be on site so that again even if for whatever reason God forbid you know Avalon and then this group goes away anybody that that zoning has to then it's in place it has to all be affordable housing on that site to whatever Ami like we we
124can specify those different numbers within that and the only way to change that again would be to go all the way back first starting with you and then going all the way to city council to change that zoning so no matter who owns the site that PUD zoning is in effect okay and just to note on the on the SE zoning the our land use element is is in the process of being updated now but in the 2009 Land Use element it does um address like potential for different types of of housing specifically so whether or not like designated as a c zoning would be in conflict with with that or not because all the other neighboring uses are residential uses but there are some interesting differences in setbacks between the different um zoning Master
125categories I guess between uh C and R great thank you any other Commissioners commissioner l so I just said just a couple comments on the thing um the the on the the plan the uh balconies love that just wanted to throw that out there CU so often you don't get nice amenities like with affordable housing and it's nice to see that um and also the interaction between sites that's something that we of often see people try not to have interaction between sites and so it's really great to see interaction between sites and I realize they you're sort of both SES so that makes it easier but it's still I appreciate that it is not like walled off from other that commissioner hammid thank you for thinking about sustainability have you considered whether or not you
126want to be all electric yes they will be you will be yes oh put that on your bullet point I didn't see it I forgot that oh he he probably reading the bullet points and didn't and that can be added to the supplement regulations yes can awesome thank you and I will St at our Hickory weight one and two we did all electric for the units we did gas for the common viian we did all we're doing all electric um frankly we're still waking working out that we're calibrating those units correctly so they come on at the right temperature yeah intent on this and I think that's an oh no go ahead it's just interesting for us to note that an affordable housing unit can go all electric because a lot of times we hear
127people say they can't go all electric because of the cost you're right we're still working on our calculations got thank you any other Commissioners with thoughts about applicability of PUD this really is a um prepetition conference to evaluate whether this is appropriate application I guess I'll add oh I was say my silence is an indication of no concern yeah not not indifference but support you yes same um it is interesting about the um the applicability of Bey here I mean as long as we've exhausted kind of like other you knowable zoning categories as far as all the other kind of checklist items you guys have really hit so I think if this makes sense I would also be for as well so um one other thing I would add to that too again like if
128we were think just as I've mentioned before like we don't want to default to puds you really don't justify that but so if this was just probably a standard market rate project that's just coming with the apartment you know and it was just that side setback for the you know that this would be it would be a different discussion because again noted that the significant priority goal the city affordable housing this more than exceeds any requirement that is a definitive public benefit that the city will will achieve by going forward with a minor setback issue so um I will let me just ask one quick question that I I was thinking um I noted that 20 parking spots there's 36 units and obviously you need fire lane for you know making sure that you have
129compliance in that respect how does utilization in your units kind of look like and what led you to say hey we want the 20 spot was it just a spacing thing or how did you can you get through they just thought yeah so we worked with our property management staff talked to tenants our maintenance staff um so we got 39 so about one for every two this we're doing both thing to do half and the thing we talked about 35% but I think half will be supportive housing we don't tend to have as much utilization for our Supportive Housing residents the other half well we're looking to just be affordable um getting a little bit more of a mix frankly are other sites often we kind of say that but they're really all Supportive Housing
130sure um so here with that and kind of exploring it we want to make sure that it all works for the entire site so that's what we gotcha and does e Readiness I I don't know if a PUD e installed SL ready is applicable or not I don't know that I saw any of those it wouldn't necessarily Because unless we wanted to because again as a PUD we can we have the ability to alter parking sure again requirements and things like that so that could be a subject for discussion I mean it will definitely will be a question when staff gets to review like will EV be part how much will be added and things like that just food for thought not really again I think the applicability of the Pud still which as a
131principle for matter of this particular discussion I think it fits kind of all the category so um commissioner weatherbe you want to add um I think my thing about the Pud I think it's perfectly applicable I think my concern is that in the future the Pud is going to be more of a pain for you than than it is you know I I don't have a problem approving it because of the use and all that but it just does make things a little more complicated on your side if you go to change something or if you go to that it then requires coming before and so that's just something to think about that like it is more flexible upfront but not necessarily more flexible over the lifetime of the project well I'll note I'm that
132trying to learn from earlier ones like when we did our vidiian on our PUD we committed to Enterprise green certification and someone else in the our side someone else in the office said you sure you don't want to say equivalent I'm like no no no no that's fine that's what we do we always do well we're now looking to do a different standard National Building standard so frankly we're doing both now because we have it in the zoning so trying we're also learning for past ones and trying to keep in mind language when we get down to the writing in ourselves in more than we themselves C yes yeah so yeah and I noticed that you have uh or equivalent in the language here uh I just wanted to ask because um is it half
133or 35% of the units that are supportive so to get into the um tax credit round that we wanted to be we have to be 35% in there so we wrote that we drafted it up actually for an earlier meeting trying not to overcommit for that but in subsequent conversations with our services team and where we want to go we're looking we're planning to commit to half as the supportive hous okay so you have the the language in your proposal here right now is up to 35% oh so maybe you could say something like uh minimum minimum 35% and that way if you end up doing half that's great if you don't you hit the minimum that you need for the funding category thank you for that last comment from you U bike parking just
134um were are there any intentional thoughts given to kind of location or storage um you know if we don't have you know um as many parking spaces or you how are people getting around bus stops and proximity but also counting F bicycles any thoughts on that respect well we definitely have it um it would be more towards the front U for the bike parking it may not show up on that but I think we also if you go to the floor plan we also have a bike storage room we've got uh for interior uh storage for bicycle parking as well on that first floor so we're definitely making accommodations for that awesome thank you um any other thoughts from Commissioners at this point in the juncture uh does a petitioner prep petitioner do do you
135guys think you have kind of what you were hoping for feedback yeah appreciate it largely it seems to be in support of um the applicability of PUD after Innovation and land use affordable housing Etc so um staff any final thoughts no with that I think we can conclude thank you all right how we how's everyone doing um just a energy SL you guys want to crush through the CPC or you guys want to take five I think we should power through okay all right but I'm all right sounds like a plan all right we are moving on to the next item which is CPC work program I'm going to introduce this which is the 2024 2025 City Planning Commission work program discussion and adoption work program is adopted on an annual basis pursuant to commission's
136bylaws on October 17th 2023 Planning Commission reviewed and adopted a 23 to 24 work program uh the present proposal updates the status of all items includes line items for recent city council resolutions and other new work since October um staff recommendation is approval with that uh I will turn it over to M Kelly for staff presentation uh thank you the last time that we had a discussion about bylaws it w or excuse me about work program it was significantly past the indication of when the work program should be adopted by the Planning Commission in the bylaws it specifies may and so in the um let me just do the minimal amount of uh hybrid participation that we can here um uh was to just share that we'd like to get back to that may deadline
137this does not mean that this is the only time that you can um do updates to the work program throughout the year but that you are supposed to do at least one update of it now we have two meetings in May your next meeting has about six items on it and um getting requests for more all the time so seems to be Fe your famine for our Planning Commission agenda items um but uh so even though the the um plan was the the work program was adopted in October there still were a lot of things to update and clean up for example there are a lot of new Council resolutions that we still don't have certainty about exactly uh when those will take place um if they will be in undertaken inhouse or by an
138external consultant um those are conversations that are happening primarily with Mr delort Mr Leonard and uh Deputy City administrator and of course city council um but I wanted to place um just a note that those those are happening and that there are early discussions around them and then when they start to be assigned there will be a lot of work um and then there's sometimes where we just we don't always predict the work that comes up and a good example of that is the tc1 text Amendment which we didn't necessarily anticipate when this was prepared last October because we had just been in the process of crafting so many other changes to the tc1 district but now there's a a significant project proposal that um I think people would love to see work with this
139Zone and uh happen by right and that was um now moved up so there have been it's been before the Planning Commission twice it'll be in front of you again for another discussion out of the orc advancing to the working session um we hope next week so I can go through what the red lines are but um there are a few options tonight you could decide to just continue under your October plan you could adopt the staff proposed plan you can make adjustments to um either of those or you could request that we table this and uh discuss it at a future meeting it will not be your next meeting which would take us out of May otherwise you'd have seven items there were only three on tonight's agenda and here we are um only
140it's only the night is young there's a tornado basement it's just a watch tornado we're already safe 11 feels like time time moves differently down so um just a summary of um basically what's been happening with your work program and numbers in 2020 3 we completed uh eight items and we started four there were 12 items total in 2024 uh we have um 13 started items some of those represent a lot of other items like the council resolutions but it's still it's quite an increase from the previous year and also from 2022 and then at 2025 this is kind of like where things that might shift around um even further uh have been placed and then we peeled out items as in the version that you saw in October that um in consultation with manager
141Leonard uh make most sense for the comprehensive plan and so then those of those there are 10 items identified and then there's some ongoing work that is not insignificant for staff for example this is not um uh like a Ty in year for CIP this is a project proposal year but it's also where a year where we are making a lot of um efforts to improve our selection criteria in some cases we're entirely re rewriting them and this is uh from the perspective of equity and sustainability criteria that pervade every single asset group and also individually in all of the asset groups um we've been asked by the Planning Commission to be more heavily involved and to provide more information into the CIP process and we've tried to take that charge to heart and so
142it has been um again we're just working from the same pool of staff for all items pretty much so that that is another thing that affects our capacity so looking at our red lines here um there were some things that were started in 2023 that I if they were um completed but they weren't marked complete before I put it in red I clarified the title of this so I put it in red but it it um actually this for some reason was not on the work plan before but this was completed and this was approved by um City Council in January and the tc1 Plymouth Corridor washing is still in process I gave an estimated date for when that will be advancing to the planning commission so uh this is all in your packet you
143can see this if you have questions about it you can let me know um in discussion I did provide some uh indication of things that uh were moved and tried to explain why and that gave us uh the proposed uh version for adoption which has accept changes at the end so this is um what is referenced in your motion and I think that's yeah and then I also had your original approved if we want to take a look at that on the screen I can pull it up got it um thank you for the the priming of that and then so yeah the proposed motion that I'm going to read is the Anover City Planning Commission adopts 2024 25 City Planning Commission work program we'll go into discussion with moved by commissioner ab and seconded
144by council member dish we're in discussion and I'd like for actually this to be fairly flip free flowing so um this one actually we don't follow order yet go ahead so I want to um thank you very much M Kelly for the clarity of what you've presented to us here and uh the notations about things having been moved up because they are either being worked on or they were aligned with a comp plan or they are part of the economic development resolutions or whatever that's really helpful so I just want to note um I just want to note that uh 2023 is more than twice 2022 and that in 2024 all those things that say CC resolution placeholder the four things those are going to take more than four lines when the substance of those
145come in some of those are three things um at least so um yeah some of them have 20 things yes oh yes yes we can say that too yes um so I am I am really reluctant to move anything else I you know I just think we just don't know what's coming and um and what's on the 2024 work plan here is responsive to not only petitioners you know text Amendment requests which I guess we kind of have to respond to those but the sca the staff discussion with co-ops which has been going on for some time is all has also been moved up in response to discussions aligned with the comp plan and um and some uh importance that Council attaches to that so I'm not saying that we should vote on this right
146here now because maybe we're not quite ready and we have questions and we want staff to come back and give us a memo or just give us some more information but um I really hope that we're not going to stuff any more things in there because I just think it's completely unrealistic because even if we hire external even if the city hires external um help for some of the economic development um they're they're all part of Economic Development even though only one is called that uh they still have to be supervised I mean and so it's not it's not as if oh good we can hive that work off no there's there's a lot of interaction I mean I think we all saw that with the work that we did with the fine Consulting team
147that we had for the um for the premium change um that still required a lot of work from staff so y uh I I feel that I I am in a spirit of caution about this work plan because it's meaningless if it's totally unrealistic and and so but I think that we are going to have a lot of long meetings because we are moving into the comp plan implementation season on top of that we have this initiative led by the deputy City administrator which actually is part of what Mr Garber brought up before and addresses some things that we've all been talking about as priorities for us they are Incorporated in some of those things so that's more than two cents or no it's about two cents worth but spoken at twoo Great length you're
148good thank thank you for that feedback um my my thought was actually with um Mr westfall's comment about assigning months or at least quarters to them that helps us to at least get a sense of like when are we really going to tackle and like what's the sequence of things is there any kind of temporal order that you have here um is it in order of kind of when we expect things to hit or is it just like let's dump it into this bucket I think if we put to it we could always put months to it but they would just be moving around all the time because the like text amendment that we received we didn't understand when that would be we thought that we were going to get a much earlier head start
149on Building height and average finished grade we had a draft um from our consultant and then um there was disagreement among staff about whether or not to move forward with uh the proposal that was presented and then we ran into some capacity issues to retake it up because again there have to be check-in meetings there needs to be um sometimes join work uh meetings with Consultants it would be really nice if we could just hand things to people and then they turn it back to as perfect but it's more of a collaborative thing so we actually did try to you know just for that item for example move that forward uh several months ago but we ran into a wall so I think that um I would be happy to put months in here but
150I don't think that they would give uh extra certainty to I don't think they would necessarily provide the certainty that is sought after by adding them got it okay understood I was thinking from maybe a prioritization or um even like a quarter standpoint so that we're like oh in this 3mon bucket maybe this can get kind of tackled but I I understand it's an iterative process so um some things are um uh do feel like more depression the the timing of them for example the the text Amendment we don't want to lag too far behind a significant project that could add a lot of Housing and be really great for the city we want to be responsive to that and also responsive to the fact that changing the Zone could benefit many districts in the
151city so um city council of course they're our boss and um they're uh telling us that there are certain things that are important to them we're taking that really seriously uh so there are certain things that if they become City matter of City policy it's may be different than a nice to have item for example um that that might be covered through another discussion and not to demote it but like the co-op discussion there are a lot of different factors there it's married to group housing it's married to some other things about unrelated persons it feels like it would take a long time to resolve it there's something discreet that is in the council resolutions that we can take up immediately then it's going to move to the the top of the queue the pro
152housing Grant we just don't know if we will be if we will be receiving that if we do receive it then we will immediately have to start work on it with the city of biplan and dedicate staff time and it would be a really great opportunity and it would be a good idea for us to move that higher if we get it it would be really exciting so got it yeah I S a little bit of yeah hesitation or it seems like a futile effort really cuz we have to rep prioritize when we get feedback from external parties as you were saying so may not be worth the squeeze it's when I'm hearing uh commissioner white so I I do want to move things up into 2024 um unlike my colleague uh who asked for
153us not to do that uh namely I just want to name the things I'd like to move up from uh 2020 into 2024 because I really do believe a majority of our time in 2025 will be spent on the comp plan text amendments so the bike parking requirements I think uh that needs to uh come up into uh this uh calendar year because we're continuing to see developments and um it it feels accessible to me in terms of something well actually I I won't justify I'll just say this is what I want um the other piece is um the traffic studies I think that is in the transportation review criteria is that correct before I say the wrong thing could you point out to me Transportation demand management or uh no in 2023 uh right
154under the last Green Line there is a transportation review criteria the second reading of that is going to um right the first reading was yesterday yeah uh I don't why I have the wrong date there but the second reading will be a month from now is that the consideration of like um the deas the de deemphasizing of cars and traffic as congestion and more into the multimodal cuz that's what I remember from last that's what that amendment was yes it changed all of the references from traffic to Transportation multimodal transportation and to U reduced some redundant criteria to The Institute of Transportation Engineers guide yeah cuz I think this we we have comments in our packet today uh of a development that's coming on sco church that's 75 Town Homes and the the person who
155rode in is it's going to add all these cars and I live on CYO church and it's not going to add any of those cars they're not actually going to notice that those cars are actually there and and so moving I I guess that's already in line because it's I almost marked it complete but I don't want to speak for all right great I think it's going to be approved with it will likely be approved but I I I thought I almost marked it green I'm like that's that's not um the the unzon um is still uh something uh since I've sat at the table I have okay great and um the other piece is the mix use neighborhoods um I think it's going to be helpful to get some of that conversation started sooner
156rather than later because as I was even sitting here thinking of the Pud that we just saw I thought gosh if we had a different zoning category than the ones that we currently have is it possible that they would have benefited from that zoning category as opposed to putting them into a PUD and I appreciated uh commissioner weatherby's comment that today it's flexible tomorrow it's not as flexible and so that was really Salient for me and so where do we start those conversations because I imagine there's going to be some pre-work that we'll need to do to begin to think about that both inside the plan and the recommendations from our Consultants but also how do we adapt it into our UDC and then on top of that we're not the first people to do
157this so there is lots of examples of communities that are similar size Gainesville for example Charlottesville Virginia for example that have moved from a Primary Residential um zoning classification into either a neighborhood zoning or uh something else and so those are my um pieces uh to move over because while I agree with uh council member dish that the council requested resolutions are coming those Phil um uh ethereum maybe is the word that I want to use here because there some very specific super specific but they have to go through some processes to get to this table as noted by yourself that there are conversations that are happening not at staff level but that are happening at the deputy um U City administrator at the community services director in the at the planning but with an
158expected end date of December 202 so the somewhere between the theal stuff now and the more specific stuff in December 2025 the expectation is that they'll be significantly Advanced um mix use neighborhoods I do think is being discussed I think now is actually the point in the comprehensive plan where I've started to see discussions like that pop up more there are going to be a series of um more intensive and focused conversations with small business owners about integration into neighborhoods there was a proposed concept about um how to introduce more commercial units maybe accessory commercial units if that could work in an arbor bike some council members staff were asked to look at that and we pass that on to our Consultants to fold into the same conversation I think that that will be present
159in the next steering committee meeting which out of an abundance of transparency we have decided to broadcast um because we don't want anyone to have the perception that these sure are excluding or deciding things on behalf of an arbor that they don't have access to so um if you would like to tune into to that steering committee meeting you certainly can those details will be um posted by manager Leonard and uh administrative staff when they're available um and then the uh subcommittee for the comprehensive plan from the Planning Commission I would encourage to push for these items and understanding how they get folded into that process I have insight into that but I do not have as many details I think as you're interested in tonight sure I I don't know that I'm specifically interested
160in anything other than um putting it on the agenda because if it's there then at least there's some indication that we're moving um in that direction and and um thanks for the feedback that you just uh noted I would also like to vote for moving the lot size and the setback review uh into this year as well because I feel like those are cuz there's a lot of UDC stuff that we're going to have to do that they are functionally started this year because they are part of the comprehensive plan they just are not uh being worked up by staff in detail but if these existed in 2024 yeah they would say discussion where do I have that sure yeah cuz I right and I don't know if that's at to make them special and
161indicate they're part of the comprehensive plan that were put here yeah other thought so to summarize I think you would like to see mixed used neighborhoods lot size setback review and bike parking requirements or yeah bicycle parking requirements in particular what I'm looking for there is some zoning or some regulations around um adding cargo bikes to um our development process that there are at least some spots created that like we have the sorry um Class A Class B Class C is there a new class D that speaks to a Caro bike so that people can have that uh inside their developments got it thank from my point of view that's without any justification for why I'm asking for 100% your this links onto two things that commissioner white just said that um so in our
162and the rest of the orc should correct me if I got this wrong but I feel like in our last conversation about simplification unzon there's two different things that are part of that one is like Zone collapse and effectively the sense was that that is a that is a after comprehensive plan conversation there's some work that we kind of looked at like what might make sense but work that that is a bigger thing so that's part of the conversation the other thing was what are really complicated sections that could be simplified and I thought that one of the way too many pages was about transport like the non-motorized transportation and also like the multipliers for EV charging and we won even require we don't require parking anymore and so like it's a massive complicated table
163and so I think that that like I think that that might be the opportunity um to kind of think about okay how do we simplify this so that it's you don't have to think about what all like it doesn't have to change with the use sure right the the multiplier doesn't change with the use but also that we get the things that we want right and I was thinking about that again with the Pud that we just had because we have these sub rules so in the r table there's a b c d and then we just heard that if the building exceeds a certain length you have to add so much UMES to the setback and I was like let's just get a red line and go through that and go through this and
164go through that cuz they could have come in under r4e without that restriction and then they don't have to do anything it's just like see you later it's by right just get it Zone that and build it so I don't so to the that point of the zoning simplification I don't know that like of what will survive I was left with a sense that like there's part of this that we definitely don't that we're not going to bite off now sure but there's another part of it that maybe there's some really simple things that sah hamers I think committed to like I did have I done anything striking things through but I but I thought that the the section that's on Transportation might be the thing and so that that could almost be a merging
165almost a merging of those two things of the transport like Transportation like that's the flavor that the zoning and bike and um and the zoning the tech no the text the part well the what I'm thinking is the zoning simplification became more specific it was a so H the orc zon simplification discussions on the um transport regulation possibly um so that was one of that was the connection to what we were saying so like I'm might be with you I don't know that we can build it up bring it up to 2024 but I think there's part of that that started and seven months there's a lot of things on here too I'm just looking is there anything else we can cross off in 2020 I think that the specific things about resoning like North
166Maine and Fel residential I that's that should be off this list entire early for 2025 I would vote this is 2025 plus so this is just everything that had been on a previous work plan that wasn't yeah like we do the CIP like so uh the uh reone main infil I just feel like that that's been on there so so so long and that if we can't collapse zones I mean I feel like that's a thing that needs to come out of the comp plan okay if we need to wait for that I vote that one off the island could you clarify again what is the post comp plan section what does that mean that se I think that's just like we tackle it after the comp that's how I understood it Q4 2025 to
1672026 is I think comp plan supposed to be done Q3 Q4 next year right so so in in what respect are you making it special um by by peeling those things off and saying these conversations should happen not all aart but together as part of a a uh comprehensive implementation of the comprehensive word that was not comprehensive it just didn't Consolidated effort so it's kind of like the category of 2025 plus is this is a stew of stuff like we don't know when we're going to get to which it makes sense I think to pull some things out of there that people are passionate about and that are really closely align to our goals um and the post comp plan things might have at one time been in 202 2025 plus but they've been pulled
168out because those are the things that we anticipate their first out acting on quickly their first out after the confence they interrelate and it would it would be most responsible to think think about them together for example if we start to change lot sizes it should be in concert with considering consolidating our zones yeah and that would be if we're going to undertake such a large effort it would make the most sense to do those together if we are going to consolidate zones which would which would have the implication of um updating zoning maps in the city and changing um neighborhood property character that is something that really should be done comprehensively as part of a Citywide re um zoning update recommendation so that these are reasons why some of these things were uh put
169in put in that spot is because the conversation for many of these yes in some cases has already started or is um being distilled in different ways but there isn't necessarily an emerged recommendation that staff can take and start to craft uh ordinance updates around or um something that is more fine-tuned you could just as easily take this and give it a little prefix that says you know comp plan and put it under 2024 and Market at all discussion I just don't think that it will result in different outcomes for what you see at this table I think it will just put it in a different category yep but but but I think what I the message that I'm getting is the way you listed it your flag flagging it as a priority you I
170think we saying that the comp plan we've been told by the Planning Commission we'd like that you would like to address these things as part of the comp plan because they are important MH if this list doesn't reflect very well those things then we can adjust that and again I would encourage the participants of the um of the subcommittee to bring this up specifically as expectations and to talk through this list which we can put on an agenda later this year and modify again if you would desire so so this seems almost less like post comprehensive plan than like com comprehensive plan should address the following and I and I my understanding would be that a lot of these things are going to be the core Crux and you know thought process during that Comm
171plan and it's really taking the action to implement right and actually executing on these things happen you know as soon as I comp because I think we're going to see what iterations of the plan you know q1 Q2 I think next year as well so these are the topics that we expect to be addressed and then we will execute on them and before we just called it comprehensive plan but I think I ch um manager lonard suggested post comprehensive plan because that's when they would likely be adopted right and so we could strike that's confusing no no it's not confusing that's not that's not the issue I think for me the issue is the the comp plan doesn't change the UDC right and but we talk about it from my experience as if it does
172the actual changes to the UDC are text amendments correct that somebody proposes and the way that I think it works is it starts either at the table we ask staff we want to change this thing in the UDC then it goes to orc then orc has a conversation about it and then there's a staff presentation and then we discuss it and vote on it we're going to have anywhere between 100 and 200 text amendments unless you decide to put them all together in a big package that has to come through this table and then go to city council it's going to go through two public hearings no three public hearings right one here two there and then it's going to be boot it on and adopt it so when I am talking about a lot
173size change we know we're going to have to look at for instance the residential zoning map we have a lot of different lot zones we're going to have to say what do we want in these lot zones how do we want that to look the comp pl's going to say we want to build these kinds of neighborhoods so that's going to give direction to that but somebody is going to have to say it's 1,200 across all of these zoning categories and then we discuss it debate it and then vote on it and then move it forward so so that's the thing that I am trying to highlight when when I hear comp plan that's just going to give us a document to guide us but it's not actually I've asked this every single time we've
174talked about the comp plan are the Consultants going to provide us a list of text Amendment recommendations and I've been told so please correct me if I'm wrong that that is not going to happen they are not going to finish the comp plan and then give us a packet of text amendments that we can start to work through and adopt we are going to have to jate that and by we I think I mean staff but maybe not I was just say I think all of that is right I don't think there's any maybe I'm just reading this um spreadsheet differently I don't think there's anything here that counters what you're saying well no no no but I mean just for clarity so that maybe if there's anything anyway we can make it more clear
175I understand everything under that list to basically be a pull down menu that's being inserted in the left whenever we get that whenever the comp plan is done like once the comp plan is done then all of this stuff s get slotted in here we just don't know when that is I don't I right I hear you so maybe and I defitely with the words that you are saying I don't know that it's going to follow that way so what what I'm highlighting with what I'm asking for is we know some of these things are coming and they require UDC test Amendment why can't we get started on that now I just do not understand why we cannot get started on now one part of that answer I mean I was just thinking the other
176day about collapsing our districts but I feel like I'm prejudging the comp process if I were to attempt it and that's the most simple easy to bite off thing right I could take that table and I say 1400 1400 1400 1400 6666666 I don't know that that's where the comp plan process going to land so I'm going to do that work that's going to take me ton of time and then I'm going to chew up some time here and then in a year I'm going to get the comp plan back and I'm going to have wasted that time and I'd rather not do that unless you hear from city council that they want the increase of density across the whole residential district and the Consultants have already said we're going to have to increase this
177density across the entire residen you just shortcut the process oh I'm not trying to shortcut I'm just trying to start it so I so I hear you commissioner that there is an um hey let's be efficient about this cuz it'll take time to generate take years no I certainly understand that you're looking to be efficient with kind of the execution of plan and so let's prep but there is again this kind of like presupposing specific outcomes when we like we need to let that process play out sure and I maybe L size was the example for that I suppose also this is a function also of Staff capacity and I think it behooves us to listen to you know the department that's been down like you know three people when they say hey this is
178like this is what I think is reasonable for us to you know really chew off cuz like they don't want to rush this through and half you know um half ass this thing any more than you know we do and we want to make sure that Seth has had ton to process Etc excuse my Lang well I never said that this was reasonable for stuff this is this is stretching us we have backfill two positions as you know um charlee said but you know with all due respect to to Julie and Mariana they're just getting the ropes you know underneath them and it takes our existing staff Time same pool of people who do all this stuff who process every petition that comes to you it takes their time to carefully train up newer staff
179who although they may have other work experience they're new to working in city city government in some cases and specifically in City Planning specifically in the city of an arbor with our UDC with our quirks with our different departments it is something that frankly just requires a lot of patience I wish that I could fast trck some of this work myself but it is um it's daunting to think about how we will manage even the consultant labor that may go into some of the consultant resolutions I have concerns about the how realistic The Proposal in front of you is um so you can add whatever you would like I just can't promise more staff capacity because you added the um no thank you for that feedback and I think it's really important for us to
180listen to say hey and I I certainly want to be as efficient as possible and understand that these text amendments will take time um to me the ones that are most flaring are the city council resolutions as you said we don't know how many drop downs there are when you unclick and un bundled exactly um you know again some have 20 so um again the the choice in front of us there's four options we can just say let's live with the 2020 31 not make modifications I don't think anybody doesn't sound like people want that uh we can amend this um I hear support on Don uh commissioner White's part to increase spiking mixed us name we think that this is actually kind of a stretch in its current state so I'm inclined to say
181we accept the 2024 in its current format um that that's kind of where where my head is at um again four options adop 23 24 amend it or reject it all together and then it comes back to us and we you know address it in June essentially um so I I invite other people's thoughts I mean and again this doesn't have to be you know a unanimous thing either there can be desent but we do have to talk about whether we adopt this tonight or kick it back so um I invite others thoughts kind where I'm standing so just are we voting on the options there's not a was there a res oh there was a resolution resolution the yes or no okay yeah yeah so so we' be voting to accept this unless somebody
182introduces a motion I'm good with this for the record hearing all concerns hearing all that so any other further discussion on this with that um if there's no motions to amend it doesn't look like there' be support so no one wants to find they have no support on the table with that I will move it to a voice call this is proposed City Planning Commission motion to adopt the 2024 2025 City Planning Commission work program in its current format with no changes mix Kelly let me know voice votes um yeah it can just be a um all in favor or any of those doesn't need to be roll okay all in favor say I I any opposed motion passes we can propose amendments to this right no no no I mean I I thought I
183heard Kelly earlier say like in subsequent meetings if we decide that there is capacity or there is a specific discret proposal that makes sense and if we can effect we can do that for example the uh 611 working session has room on it to discuss um the 79 working session has room on it to disc thought those were places on Church side1 yeah exactly June June 11th yeah yeah thought you were talking addresses addresses you really have the professional going commission no the June 11th working session or the July I I don't have um usually we try to put the the um pre PUD petition applications or then there's sometimes uh special requests from other departments that come up that we um try to save space I don't like to put too much more than
184two items on a working session agenda but we definitely can we could also put it on a regular session agenda although um we' like to this happened to be a lighter um meeting in terms of the agenda item so I I felt comfortable putting it on to allow time for discussion as folks have pointed out it's still only 9:49 the lot size piece wasn't a hypothetical I mean the lot siiz thing was not hypothetical I was not but I couldn't but the thing the reason I'm asking the question is if it turns into an idea that has like that doesn't feel connected to the comp plan process in some way then that was the point of the question yep gotcha and you can come back at a working session so um please talk with staff
185or you know email the rest of the commission to try to get it on the working session agenda um that takes us to um our last public comment this is a second opportunity for persons to speak up to 3 minutes about any issue we'll first call on individual present um then remote participants to speak during the public hearing remotely please press star9 if listening by phone or use a raise hand feature if you includ the web link and for phone access please call 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 977 66 341 1226 City staff will select callers and raise our hand using the last three of the phone number by name available you'll hear an automated announcement saying that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to the quiet
186area and mute any background sound so we can hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone here that would like to speak at this time seeing none are there any remote callers um there are not I will note that about 5 minutes ago I was automatically logged out of Zoom due to inactivity I'm not sure why because I'd been sharing screen and looking at participants and definitely touching the screen um we've had a lot of challenges is here in the basement so um hopefully this is the last meeting where we do this but um unfortunately due to that there there are currently no rejoined attendees I didn't I don't remember the last time I looked I think we were down
187to maybe three people about 20 minutes ago so I'm not sure if they organically dropped off or I'm very sry eliminated technical diffic difficulty thank you um if there is no one that would or no one currently on then uh we will close public comment please do email or feel free to reach out to us uh we're moving on to agenda item 12 is there any commission proposed business lot size any um well for example if you'd like to see your work if you would like to see a work pro dedicated work program discussion later this summer or revisit this so that you don't feel like this was just you know pushed on you in in May you are now in keeping with your bylaws which is great and um we we could have moved
188this to July or August before and you wouldn't have been in keeping with your bylaws so now you're in keeping with your bylaws and we can reschedule it if you'd like to revisit it and I'm happy to put that on an agenda for more discussion if if the Planning Commission directs me to do so thank you and if our new staff and up getting up to speed really quickly or finding certain things that they really want to work on or we could move things up through staff you're like that's not going to happen there's too much to do I heard it might Mak sense to do it when we get some more specificity around the council in directives because some of them probably align with some of the things that we've been wanting to do
189for a while and I I didn't realize that we gave you until December 25th Christmas 2025 oh December 202 five a year and a half no no no but that's not to give us the prioritization that's to finish the work yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so the prioritization should come sooner right between now and then oh we really need to clarify that I do have one clar down the there's a lot of to ask it's back to the the commission work program um it had the bylaw updates in chapter 8 amendments as a first reading at city council for yesterday I don't think that took place that definitely didn't take place okay so we could just get an update for for that cuz that affects our not Quorum but majority votes was what you were
190considering there I will check on that I'm not sure why it would have been delayed but um I'll check on that I mean they had nine public hearings but I don't think that was one of them and I listen to all nine so weren't they enjoyable they were thank you commissioner W sure um I moov at we oh see no one else yep moved by commissioner white and seconded by council member dish all those in favor of adjournment say I I we are adjourned thank you this was weird