001welcome to the November 14th regular meeting of the an arbor Planning Commission for detailed information on meeting procedures please review the full printed meeting agenda provided MX Kelly will you please call the role chair Lee I'm here Vice chair here uh noting that secretary we will be coming to the meeting later in the agenda commissioner Mills here commissioner hamers SMI here council member dish here commissioner s here noting that uh commissioner Clark will be absent this evening commissioner Weatherby here you have a quorum thank you moving on to agenda number three may I have a motion to approve the agenda motion by council member dish and seconded by commissioner Mills um all those in favor of the motion please say I I motion carries uh going on to section four minutes of the previous meeting
002uh may I have a motion to approve the minutes of November 1st uh 2023 moved by commissioner Mills and council member dish um I wanted to note that we got a note from Barnum with respect to amending um some of the clarifications what do we have to do in order to make that happen yeah I think the minutes um so we did the the communication indicated that uh mix Kelly had referenced that they a property owner requested um to be included I think we did correct that on the record uh later in the meeting so um I don't feel like uh that needs to be addressed that communication is shared just for your reference perfect thank you so much all right um I will put it to a vote then all those in favor of
003the motion please say I I I any opposed not seeing anyone the motion carries uh next up are reports to the Planning Commission and written Communications we can start with council member dish thank you very much chair Lee uh city council was very busy with Planning Commission business last meeting um and uh several things past first reading the setback adjustments to the Lockwood PUD and the Brierwood PUD zoning both passed first reading the elimination of downtown premiums also passed first reading and the revision of tc1 setbacks also passed first reading thank you mi Kelly or Mr Leonard no manager report this evening okay thank you do other commissioner officers or committee Liaisons have anything to report if nothing else written Communications are included today in today's packet so we will move on to public comment
004this is an opportunity for spe a persons to speak up to 3 minutes about an issue that is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda we will first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star n if listening by a phone or use the hand raised hand feature if you're viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877 853 5247 and enter meeting ID 9776 6341 1226 City staff will select callers who've raised our hand using the last three digits of their phone number or by name if available you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area mute any background noise so that we can
005hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of the comments is there anyone present that would like to speak seeing no one we're going to move on to remotely is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely there are no hands rais Mr chair give it five 10 more seconds just to make sure and welcome to everybody that's in the audience all right I that I will sorry uh of course right right on the Edge of Time uh one hand was just raised so that is phone number ending in 534 you have uh permission to address Planning Commission for three minutes good evening this is tomber calling from lowertown in an arbor I'd like to encourage all of you to read the letter Julie
006R sign attach the agenda storm water management should indeed be get top of people's minds in any significant planning activity for City such as ours in a river valley here in Michigan where the impact of climate change are being experienced as increased frequency and increased severity of storm events please value our natural resources and respect the value that our local ecology provides to us if we respect if and please plan for it I did not apply to beond the comprehensive PL the hearing committee and I'd like to tell you why the Administration has signaled policy directions that would be financially beneficial to me and others like me could that be the outcome of this process I would not have wanted to have even the appearance that I was somehow influencing the outcome in a matter
007financially beneficial to me and as Mr Leonard explained how the selection was done uh some people were left out who were qualified who have spoken a lot previously and made their voices known and who are likely to speak again and like make their voices known uh as some of you may know I've spoken at Council and Planning Commission uh for the past several years so I get that and I see where I would not been ticket uh under that criteria I'd like that criteria to be applied a little bit more evenly there's one in particular arul who publishes a Blog called danam Arbor and over the past year here here's his guest writers on that blog Kirk Westfall Michelle Hughes Adam Goodman Dan Adams Abdul Raman ATA and Jessica L talk so the writer of
008that blog and those voices have all been heard quite a bit and are all likely to be heard quite a bit going forward uh and we're talking over years uh in the past uh so very similar to me and regardless of what our personal beliefs are what dire things should go I think if you want to have any Legacy to the criteria that you've laid out in applying for selection of this committee I think it should be applied a little bit more evenly and would suggest you remove the name Ben Connor gy from your list thank you thank you any other callers there are no other hands raed thank you we're going to move on to agenda item number seven public hearings scheduled for the next business meeting with that I will turn it over
009to staff a public hearing on the following items will be held uh by the an arbor City Planning Commission on Tuesday December 5th 20123 at 7 p.m. uh first a public hearing on amendments to chapter 55 of the UniFi development code sections 5.28 and 5.2 9.6 related to Transportation impact analyses requirements and review criteria involving amendments to sections 5.2 8.8 required plan information paragraph e Transportation impact analysis and uh proposed to update references from the 2010 Institute of Transportation Engineers Transportation impact analysis for site development to the 2023 Institute for transportation Engineers multimodal Transportation impact analysis for site development eliminate listed individual components of the analysis to avoid inconsistency and redundancy and provide separate requirements for area plan plans amendments are proposed to section 5.2 9.6 site plans paragraph e criteria for review of a
010traffic impact analysis to update references to include traffic Andor parking impact analysis to multimodal Transportation impact analysis and Streeter traffic improvements to Transportation improvements the second will be 101 Cornwell place a proposal to vacate Cornwell place a one block street extending East from North Engle Street all properties AB budding are owned by the app the University of Michigan thank you moving on to agenda uh number eight we do not have any UNF unfinished business which takes us to agenda number 9A regular business uh we are hearing 300 to 312 East Chiron Hotel site plan for City Planning Commission approval a six-story hotel building providing 139 rooms with nine surface parking areas access from the South fth Avenue the site size is 19,000 597 ft the zoning destination is D1 Midtown character lay overlay as secondary
011Street Frontage destination the staff recommendation is approval with conditions and we will move on to petitioner presentation Mr cover good evening Planning Commission thank you for the opportunity to review with you our project I hope everybody's had a great day my name is Tom cover I'm with Midwestern Consulting I'm here tonight to discuss the AC hotel by Marriott with you um with me tonight is also the owner developer Mike Martin and the members of the architectural team Chris and Nick the project is a small site uh which is about .45 acres in size or a little over 19,000 Square ft it's located at the southeast corner of hon and South Fifth a south of City Hall here it's east of the City Center building it's uh north of the bank of and Arbor and um
012East and the AT&T building is to our East zooming into the site a little bit um you'll see our project area is a bit less than a quarter of the block Bound by here on South Fifth East Washington and South Division the site is currently a paved parking lot the project will be adding to the census in the downtown area um or adding people to the equation for the vibrancy of this area we're activating the area with the Hotel uh to a 24/7 use it's going to be adding Vitality uh to this area which can largely be seen as office and uh business hour user so with that we're adding to that um underutilized property by bringing this vibrancy of this 24/7 use uh as you can see on the zoning map here we are
013currently zoned the property's currently zon D1 downtown core surrounded by the same with some public lands that uh Compass the city hall and fire station a bit about the project the project is a six-story building with 139 guest rooms the size of the building is about 77,000 Square ft it will have meeting rooms Bar and Lounge as well as a fitness center the project has a corner presence uh with pedestrian space along here on in fifth that we've coordinated through with the DDA the site is accessed from South Fifth a so the front doors of the building will face South fifth a um as well as the uh uh access to the parking lot that sits on site the parking lot on site has a small roundabout area or turnabout area cars can pull up
014to a drop off area in front of a door that sits um on that face of the building an entrance there um there are nine internal on-site parking spaces with EV charging this is a non uh autoc Centric Hospitality use we're adding employment opportunities again the 24/7 vitality and uh we're going to be utilizing sitting parking spaces um which is a little bit of an evolution of that use since uh some of the office users uh that would might normally park in those structures um are working remotely so we're replacing that with this um Hospitality use from a utility perspective uh it's a pretty simple site water and sanitary leads will be extended to the site from hon Street we're also extending a water man across ton Street to add a hydrant towards the corner
015of the uh hon and fifth uh providing for additional fire protection coverage storm water will be below grade on the kind of the brown Square in the parking lot area um it will be below grade it'll be an infiltrating system and it'll have a um emergency out flow only so we plan to um be infiltrating all of our storms that way and if it needed to it would outfall to a connection to the storm system in South Fifth Street um one of the things that I also mention here because I know it's in your report about Solid Waste Solid Waste will be stored internal to the building kind of on the Eastern end north of the tree that you see in the image here we plan to implement a license agreement with the neighbors to
016the South so the bank of an arbor has a um Solid Waste enclosure in their parking field uh Solid Waste would be collected internal on site stored in our building it would be staged outside rolled around to the uh enclosure and solid waste area on the bank of an arbor property where it would be stored for collection just as it exists today for the the bank property our backup plan for that is that if that license agreement um for whatever reason became null and void then our backup plan will be that the uh owner and operator would be contracting with a solid we waste provider to um remove our solid waste and take it to an appropriate location so with that I'm going to turn this over to Nick to talk about the beautiful [Applause]
017building good evening uh thank you for having us here today to talk about uh some of the design features of the hotel proposed Hotel building I'm Nick Munos with Myers and Associates this is Chris Myers our architect as well um just looking at the The View on the screen here we're looking Eastward on Hon this is kind of the northwest corner of the building um we had a very productive meeting with the design review board board earlier in the year and um adapted some of the modifications that were discussed in that building to provide more kind of dynamic visual interest to the exterior facade with some material changes and uh wrapping the corner window there on the northwest corner and also pulling the streetscape facade out to uh here on street and allowing views expansive
018views really into the space to see some of that Lively activity so as you can see it's a six-story building ground floor is Lobby space guest rooms and um uh small rooftop private Lounge on the Upper Floor how do I Advance this arrow for thank you so looking into some of the streetscape and material de material details uh the upper left view here it's kind of the corner looking more downward on hon um or the upper left view is also looking right towards the entry so we wanted to kind of position that entry on the Fifth Street side so that it has a good proximity to the parking area and the drop off while also maintaining a presence around the corner on here on Street um in the upper right image you can see some
019of that material detail I'm talking about with a accent color at the depth of the windows so uh we felt like it was a very productive design discussion with that group and we're very happy with the building as is um Marriott International after their reviews these are a few views of the interior of the building so really the reason to kind of incorporate these into this presentation is just to get a get an idea give you a sense of what you're looking into from the outside so we want to entice passers by on the streetcape with the nice views of this interior the guest room floor plans are uh pretty simple straightforward um geared more towards let's say the business traveler with a kind of just a bathroom beds a chair small desk TV and
020um say a modern European style that's very efficient and beautiful at the same time uh one of the one of the things that we worked on with this building is trying to really enhance some of the sustainable features of the building in response to some of the strategies outlined in the city uh standards so one thing we're doing is providing electrical electric HVAC to the guest rooms which is about 75 70% of the HV HVAC of the building um the Energy Efficiency we're addressing with energy star appliances and there's also uh LED lighting throughout the building with um a daylight kind of a daylight control zone out at the perimeter to really maximize some of those large Windows um and reduce the impact of uh electric lighting so we've got also a lighting dim and
021control Central dim and control system that adjusts the light levels automatically throughout the day to go to a daytime evening nighttime uh setting so that it um doesn't waste use of light um strategy five we have addressed with some uh construction waste and management plan and then perhaps the biggest initiative here is the initiative to uh provide some renewable energy uh which we're which we're doing a solar PV array on the rooftop and that's it yep so thank you again for allowing us to present our project to you um our goal here tonight is to receive approval of uh our our site plan thank you thank you um that'll conclude the petitioner presentation um staff Mr Chang I believe the petitioners did an excellent job of presenting tonight there's not a whole lot more I
022could add other than yes the approval is subject to getting a a license agreement approved with solid waste that is ongoing as far as the back and forth to try to get this completed and I did make mention in the staff report about a landscape modification but after further consultation with the city Forester this is meeting the required minimum amount of Street trees and with the interior parking lot Landscaping so anything with Landscaping is being met at this time got it thank you we're going to move on to public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the proposed site plan we will first call on individuals present to address the commission and then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star9 if listening by
023phone or use the raised hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877- 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 977 66 34122 six City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of the phone number or by name if available you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please speak clearly and mute any background noises for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone of uh present that would like to speak at this time please I was wondering please come up to the podium and please state your name and address thank you okay um hi I'm eileene do I have to say like my full
024name and everything okay Eileen and address okay I'm Eileen um I'm from 909 East University Avenue here in an Harbor and I was just wondering you mentioned that you're providing nine parking spaces and that the rest of like the 139 guests would rely on City parking and I was kind of wondering if there was any further plan for that um so generally it'll happen in discussion okay I'll I'll pocket that for later then okay do you have any other uh you have three minutes so that's okay thank you perfect thank you Eileen do we have anybody else present that would like to speak to the commission seeing no one I'm going to give it another five seconds seeing no one are there any uh commenters remotely phone number ending in 134 you have permission to
025address the commission for 3 minutes thank you m Kelly this is Ken Garber 28 heav H court and thank you CH Lee for giving me the opportunity to speak I'm sorry not to be there with you in person tonight um but uh I did want to offer one comment on the sustainability elements of this hotel um Mr Munos did mention that the um guest rooms will be all electric however this is a little misleading I suspect these will be pxs package terminal air conditioners these are the window units you see when you go to hotels um and yeah they're electric but they're extremely inefficient this is really not um a climate friendly solution for for a hotel and this is not an all electric Hotel I mean it's a public space will be heated with
026gas um in uh contradiction violation of our H2 plan and um if you think it's unreasonable to ask for an all electric hotel we are starting to see them popping up around the country and even occasionally a Net Zero hotel um like um all the Hotel Marcel in New Haven Connecticut um so um yeah I mean it's frustrating right across from City Hall you've got um a cookie cutter Hotel heated with gas um the guest rooms with probably with Pak um what they really need is a vrf system variable refrigerant flow um much more efficient heat pump all electric um the rooms can um adjust their own temperatures there's this is something that's become standard in buildings of this size they also could use an Erv system energy recovery ventilation um there's so many ways
027this building is deficient and fall short of what we really need in 2023 I mean two major climate reports came out today uh showing that really the world is completely failing in our efforts to bring down F fuel use so those are my comments uh again sorry to be doing this remotely um I miss you guys and uh thank you for all your hard work and uh good luck with the rest of the meeting thank you Mr Garber our next hand raised is Alex low you have permission to address commission for 3 minutes hi this is Alex low calling in uh from South Southeast e over I'm glad to see a lot of stuff this for this hotel there should not be in enormous parking like there like like their currently is um but I
028will also say that uh that the previous speaker uh Falls right when he uh when he's uh is right when he says that this building falls short and I mean it in a very very literal sense six floors is embarrassingly short for the for this location this should be a 15 20 maybe 25 floor uh building six six stories is nothing really they're not even uh meeting the uh the regular F let alone uh the F uh with premiums let's let's focus on uh uh on seeing bigger and better and I know we can do it thank you thank you Mr low there are no other hands raised at this time Mr chair okay with that I will close public hearing so I'm going to read the proposed motion which is the city an arbor
029City Planning Commission hereby recommends that wait this is for approval correct this isn't going to city council let me just make sure that's clear okay um the proposed City Planning Commission motion is that the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby approves the 30312 East here on Street site plan with the following condition approval of a solid waste management and service plan compatible with the site plan as presented move by commissioner Mills and council member dish we are in discussion who'd like to kick us kick us off council member dish I have an uninteresting question which is just could you say a little bit more about your construction and demolition plan told you it's it's really funny because our construction guy was like do I need to come tonight I said no you'll be fine so
030uh he's not here uh if you want to uh we're using O'Neal construction uh local general contractor that's been here for 60 plus years and knows the city very well what specifically about the construction demolition it's a vacant lot right now so we're going to hopefully get started sometime next spring and then look to be open by the fall of 25 so is it that you're pulling up Asphalt from it correct yeah okay and yeah there's a good secondary market for that and O'Neal is who you're using they are yeah we have a recycling and um uh kind of construction waste uh management plan but certainly happy to pass along your comments about the asphalt no that I'm just I'm just trying to figure out because I'm really interested in we're interested in encouraging that
031and I was delighted that you had a plan for that and we're trying to figure out how people are doing it if but you don't have much I was I I thought oh it's great they have that but they're not really taking anything down so there's not much of value there I although it is important to to deal responsibly with asphalt so if there's anything your construction guy wants to pass along to me as more details I'd love to share it with the solid waste people but other than that thank you okay next time I'll tell him to come sorry and I will uh really quickly just follow up on the the commenter thank you for speaking by the way and I will follow up with the question can we hear a little bit about
032the parking plans um 139 guest rooms do you have a license agreement with the city parking structure Etc no I mean I think that uh we're all pretty aware that the structures are pretty underutilized right now so what we've seen in the past is that folks have used a combination of uh anytime permits and then night nights and weekends and it would reflect kind of what we perceive to be the general moving habits of the guests at the hotel so you know we have one uh right next to the Anna Ashley facility and we use that uh fairly frequently so we're we're pretty well vered with it I would say the difference would be is most of those guests are self- parking right now on this location because it's not immediately next door our plan
033is to run a valet perfect thank you uh commissioner weatherbe so one of the things that we see with apartment buildings and also this has been a problem with the graduate also on hereon can you someone describe a little bit the drop off uh valet delivery sort of area and how that's going to work because especially if fifth changes how traffic functions in the future and how do we not kill pedestrians and bicyclists and little things like that yep thank you for your question um and I'm looking at the waste plan that was provided to the city from O'Neal and it does specifically talk about concrete and Paving U being diverted from the typical waist stream so I'll mention that while I'm here um so if you were coming to the site uh and you
034were in a vehicle you would come down um north to south on Fifth and you would turn left into our parking lot through a curb cut there you would drive underneath the building You' pull forward and then on the um this plan's probably better to look at on the plan here you would pull through the under the building through the site there would be a painted striped out area that looks like a roundabout you'd pull around that with your car come around and there's a staging area for three vehicles that sits in front of an entry door that exists on that face of the building so you'd engage with the valet and um they would take your car and they could either pull it onto the site into one of the spaces that are there
035or what's likely going to happen is they're going to leave and go park in a public parking structure um and then come back and then if you were in your room and you needed your car you call ahead and they would retrieve your car um and it it they could stage it in one of the parking spaces that exists on the site there if you were coming as a pedestrian the two main entries are off of Fifth Avenue and obviously in the parking lot area and then our bike parking is located kind of in that Courtyard area if you will where um the turnabout is so there's bike lockers located there and the bike Hoops are located along here on and Fifth Street okay and what about um like uber and lift and deliveries yep
036they they could use the drop off point as well so they could go through yep okay all right thank you MH I just wanted to add one other thing I'm Chris Meers one of the Architects on the site plan in front of you you see there's seven small um squares those are columns that are holding up the upper portion of the hotel so about half of this entry area including the the three cars that are shown uh in that drop off waiting queue the handicap accessible spaces the handicap route uh entry into the hotel which is right where that hand is um are are all to the right of that hand is all undercover and so we have you know some some proximity for drop off and cover rather than an additional port cocher to
037the hotel it just allows the building to create that coverage for a drop off space thank you commissioner Mills it was good that you let me wait because I think that answered my question well maybe not actually now that I'm seeing um the the squares that you were talking about I was curious what was happening in the southwest corner the of this property or does it not actually is it not rectangular is there like a little cut off what is that this area here yeah it is part of the building it's the stair Tower okay so if you were using if you were in the building on this side you could walk the stair Tower down to your parking area or to the pedestrian street okay great so that is all part it's it looks
038like building correct great yep okay can you actually go back to the rendering yeah okay so that's what I'm seeing I'm seeing the so that's like here the book end of the building is that stair that's the drivein got it that's the door at the front yeah okay and that helped that answered a lot thank you um and I know that there's like what the plan I'm going to follow up on this question because there's a lot of I don't know it's not double parking because it's not there's no parking on here on it's just people stopped when they shouldn't be stopped I am super excited about there being life on that corner and things to look at and I think that this looks this will be a great addition um especially since the building
039next to it has no windows um and so it will give life to that block um um are are there entrances are there doors here where people might be tempted to to stop on the particularly on the hon Street side so there is a door on Hon street but it's recessed in this kind of area here and it's only service so the other stair Tower sits there so it's a door without a window it's you know not inviting right people aren't going to and and presumably it's going to be maybe locked from the outside or key access yeah yeah that door at the East End is an exit from the stair that's at that end of the building and then just to the just immediately west of that is a is the fitness room immediately
040west of that is the meeting room so where the plan steps inward is where the the true Public public part of the hotel sits so you you are kind of looking into the meeting room and the fitness room but we really want to get people coming into the bar around to that main entry vestibule perfect I'm less I'm thinking that people would be more tempted to do the double parking on Hon than they would on Fifth just because if you've already turned to go so that make that gives me actually a whole lot um more comfort that we're not going to repeat things of the past and I like this I like that it's tucked in uh and that you have not um provided more parking than you have one of my initial questions was
041thinking about connecting to the parking lot to the south of there was that under discussion at all yeah it's um not at this time I just think it's to similar uses and could be confusing for guests coming in and it was just easier for us to kind of keep it uh separated great so and the only other thing I I will add is that we had initial conversations about potentially a drop off on Fifth Avenue uh obviously with it being a one-way Street some of the um kind of Autometrics and other traffic study issues didn't allow us to do something like that our concern is the same we live here right having the people that are jutted out into Heron that you have to drive around all the time is not a great solution uh
042and so I think one of the things it's not on the topic here but um as potentially that street goes to 2way you might see us back here with a revision to our site plan asking to potentially put a curb cut in if it becomes an issue just from a public safety and everything else perspective um but right now we know that's not an option uh with with it being a two-way street uh I with a one-way Street if it goes a 2A we might come back and revisit that if it becomes an issue again we've designed it for it to to hopefully not to be but we just know uh again what happens on Hon is not a it's we live in a city and people have you know behaviors like that and so
043just trying to potentially um alleviate that at some point in time if we need to but um hopefully that won't be an issue great I was um also thinking about cooperation with the neighbors which was my final thing that I was going to bring up the solid waste condition that we have to get that sorted I like the collaborative approach is it driven because of requirements of our Solid Waste like turnaround stuff is that that's what's driving itre that and the fact that this site doesn't have public alley off of it so um you know again I think there's a larger conversation needs to be had about kind of ways removal in some of these smaller sites um that are in the central part of town so we looked at an exhaustive array of potential
044options and again we think that this is the one that will um because we're incentivized too we want to have a functioning waste uh removal system and we don't want our front door to have a bunch of trash on it so um yeah we think it's um it it works um you know for the time being and uh is a good solution great thank you commissioner W hi thanks I listened to your presentation as I was making my way here sorry to be a little bit late um could is there a render where you show your bike parking at all or where the bike is on the site plan and um I wonder why you chose the loop as the bike um attachment as opposed to a loop and post which would be a a
045better um bike facility cuz you could allow for more bikes uh to use a single device and I see that you exceed what is required but I wondered if you considered uh doubling uh so going up uh from the I guess it's five or six to maybe 10 or 12 so that was like three or four questions yep so um thank you for the questions about bike parking we were working with the DDA to add bike parking to the area here so there's the loop there to the area up here and then so that kind of covers that service door back here kind of covers the entry here uh in the front and then we have our bike lockers that sit here the six Bike Locker spaces that kind of cover this area and would
046be available for everybody there um so we we felt like yeah so I understand the the bike lockers and thanks for those it's just whether is this a DDA requirement that you cannot put more in on on the site so we're balancing I can't answer we didn't specifically say could we put a bunch more bike uh Loops there but we did talk about how that interacted with the Planters okay and the spacing of that the lights and the trees and these were the areas that seemed to fit that the best for what the requirements they sure and if there is a possibility to add more bike infrastructure that'd be something that I would request uh wanted to pick up uh from the caller Alex low who asked um about the height of the building six
047stories why not 12 why not 20 why not 25 uh you're in D1 you're only limited by height uh at this uh Point yeah so when we started this project it was before kind of any of the conversation that's going on right now with respect to um you know allowing F increases and so uh this site is maximized um to the area that was um byright before premiums and um allowed for us to do the programming we looked to try and accomplish with this hotel it's 139 Keys building a 300 room hotel in an arbor um just from a market perspective doesn't make sense and so it simply was that um this is the project we wanted to bring to this site and it f with fit within the footprint of what was allowable to
048us before getting into things like premiums which um you know would have added certainly a lot of cost and it would have been um for space that we don't need we're able to accomplish what we want here so uh that would be the answer I was confused you said uh that the market doesn't have space for a 300 Key hotel no uh in one particular building we would have um that would be a very tough thing to have an an arburn and be successful in our opinion One Singular building of 300 Keys again I mean I think you've seen things have been talked about in the news where they're adjacent to Conference Centers and everything else but a standalone facility of 300 Keys is something you'd see in a much larger uh Urban Metro than
049an arbor okay that's interesting because we're hearing information that we're 12200 new rooms short in an arbor and so then trying to sort of balance those things I understand that you're saying it didn't work for you but I did want to ask the question from the caller why not build something bigger because you have sort of this premium space in downtown already zon to go as high as possible but then we're getting a dwarf building here again I mean um you know when you say as high as as possible I mean that would have entered into using premiums and other things that again just didn't match with our programming so I think that that was uh for us the constraint we are maxing out the available F and a buite as the the uh zoning
050is currently written okay thanks thank you commissioner hamers Schmidt I had that same question so thank you um it I I was thinking too that this was before the premiums discussion and I was going to ask if if once premiums are eliminated if you would entertain going higher but I think your answer makes sense um also I think we've approved a couple other hotels recently and then there's another one coming and I was wondering if we were going to oversaturate so I think I'm comfortable with this um I have a fun question and then maybe a harder question the the bar and lounge I assume will be open to the public yes love a good hotel bar will the meeting room be available to the public to reserve yeah the ground floor meeting room will
051be okay awesome okay um we've heard about sustainability appreciate the all electric 70% can you talk a little bit about the 30% that is relying on gas and what exactly that is and if there is a way to avoid yeah I mean so when we uh started the project we had an initial conversation with DTE about uh an all electric and this was hypothetical again we hadn't um necessarily looked at what the impacts were to our proforma and costs and everything else but we just said hypothetically speaking is it possible to do it here and the message we got at the time and I'll tell you we started this project back in 2018 we checked in on the conversation with DTE I think postco um we were told that there was not necessarily potentially the
052power in the circuit and and that they were looking at doing improvements but who knows when that was going to be available and so um you know we made the decision um just because you know we think it's the right way we know the city's trying to promote that you know I would say the hotel that we did down here on Street 10 years ago is almost 100% gas right every room every public space everything else and so what we did is we designed the building to the best for our ability to match up the city's interest with what was commercially viable um uh and so the 70% in the rooms those are quality units I I mean these guys can probably talk to them but we expect the the best uh friederick uh because
053they have to have low ambient controls and everything else you you know we worried about it freezing again if you want to get in that level of detail we went down that rabbit hole and we have good highquality units they're not the you know uh nothing against the side by side of the road freeway thing with the thing through but that's not what we're putting in it's it's better than that um the remainder of the the property it's really the public spaces that become challenging from an electric solution it's easier to do obviously the rooms are a smaller space to condition right so we're talking about the bar area the meeting spaces the public corridors um but uh again the a large part of the square footage and the actual use will be uh electric
054and so that's kind of how we got there and again we think it's a a great move forward from where what we did 10 years ago uh I think we're also you know proud of the fact that I think we're going to be the first hotel with a you know PV installation on the roof um so I think that that's good and um you know I think that given the availability and the technology um that this is where we arrived at and we feel we feel pretty good about it so the public spaces will be heated and cooled with a gas powered correct okay yep I think I said this a month ago and I guess I'll say it again this is not directed at you it's really frustrating that we're we keep hearing from
055developers that like we talked to DTE about it and they were concerned and they there might not be enough power like it sounded like you would have been open to exploring that and we're dissuaded by you know the the state of our grid and that's just unfortunate and that's all I'll say thank you thank you council member dish having asked you about trash can I ask you about laundry now the the recent discussion of uh it feels like I'm very steeped in the domestic but the recent discussion of the electricity reminded me that I think some concern had been raised about the ability to do the volume of water yeah exactly and I just wondered if if that is another thing that's entering into the 30% that can't be done yeah and again I mean
056the calculation we did at the time with our engineering team was that the amount of power that would be needed to run those systems versus burning natural gas on site again sourcing the power from a grid that is burning coal and natural gas um that the impacts and the energy usage would be higher than burning natural gas on site so that's uh you know where we ended up on that I just wanted to give you a little more reassurance we we've worked on about 15 uh AC hotels and a number of Marriott uh product as well Marriott has a very very high uh interest in uh promoting sustainability and through standards and us as a the firm and our Engineers as well also equally support it um it was mentioned on the call uh that
057these are inefficient PTAC units they are not uh it's much more uh energy efficient very high uh percentage ratio of energy uh quality in the guest rooms and they are 100% uh electric what happens in hotels like this is um there there's a hot water management uh system that actually uses what's called an electric maintainer so for example the hotel is not at full occupancy it doesn't have a massive surge of everyone taking a shower at the same time it runs off of a moderator which is an electric unit that maintains temperature in a tank system within the building at the moments that you have 139 showers running at the same time they're trying to wash sheets and cook something in the kitchen what kicks in is the gas system uh to boost the mechanical
058components so the 30% is maybe a little misleading because that's at you know Peak usage which is at limited times in operations uh so this is a very very efficient building um Nick had also mentioned uh you can have the most uh efficient electrical system but you can have a very inefficient um U building envelope and so or the materiality of this building and so uh this is a very highly elevated exterior wall envelope insulating value recycled content uh a number of other elements that go into the design of these buildings enhance the utilization of some of the mechanical systems so if we just focus on the mechanical units we're only looking at a piece of the uh the picture um I will also mention the the utilization of uh PV on the roof is
059also going to tie directly into uh this system and its promotion of uh sustainability so hopefully uh we're giving you comfort that this is a good healthy building and uh good for your community thank you do we have any other Commissioners any questions comments U one of the things that I wanted to mention um this site used to be a 20th century automobile repair station and then a parking lot so from a utilization standpoint um seeing this more into the urban core rather than the downtown periphery is really really great um from the design review board standards I think what this will Mass appropriately with City Hall as well well as the City Center building they're about five six stories as well so I think driving in from here on is going to create a
060lot of visual contrast as well as continuity um so from that standpoint I was just looking at this uh um what City Halls facade looks like in contrast and so I think it'll create for a goodlook intersection um for I think students or students yes okay cool well welcome um we're basically looking at this from uh the unified development code standards right so the D1 D2 zones are downtown D1 is going to be the highest density 180 ft uh limitation as well as a currently 400% Florida area ratio which is why the question um the city council recently had the first hearing with respect to uh F and and really eliminating f as a requirement so they could go much higher as as high as 15 stories um so looking at this uh they they
061match um the F requirements as well as height um setback regulations that are set forth and so that that's what we're really looking for we do have a little bit of legislative tension that we've talked about with environmental sustainability not necessarily being codified in here so that you know we we talk about it but do we necessarily have the teeth so it really behooves citizens to push for that kind of change and so just uh a note there so aside from that I mean this project to me uh meets the standards of the unified development code um and contingent to the conditions set forth I would recommend um approval so I think with that do we have any other final thoughts from Commissioners if not we will go to a voice uh roll call vote
062on the motion is presented Cher Lee Yes Vice chair abon yes secretary w yes commissioner svie yes commissioner hamers Schmidt yes council member dish yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner Weatherby yes that motion carries thank you good luck good luck with the construction we are now moving on to section 9B of regular business at this point in time I will be recusing myself from this particular discussion as this petition involves my employer thank you hi so this petition is for 2845 State Street a RightWay release vacation it's a request to release or vacate three areas of RightWay rights fronting 2845 South State Street including a 50t by 220 9 ft area and a 50t x 51t area along South State Street and a 27t x 310t area along Eisenhower Parkway the staff recommendation is to postpone
063to January 16th 2024 I believe there is no petition or presentation that's correct uh thank you for the introduction the reason for the postponement is um the city staff has been working with the petitioner to identify some additional information that's requiring some additional time to validate that and we were obviously hoping to get that uh information put together prior to uh considering on this agenda um but are now recommending the postponement to January uh 16th 2024 I would note that that is um speculative you have not yet adopted your 2024 calendar but with any luck we'll hit the target thank you Mr Leonard um because this was noticed we will still hold a public hearing for this item so that's why it remains on our agenda this is an opportunity for persons to speak for
064up to three minutes about the proposed uh vacation for by way release vacation sorry uh we'll first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during the public hearing remotely press star 9 if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877 8535 247 and enter meeting ID 977 66 34122 6 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute television or background sounds for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there
065anyone present that would like to speak at this time seeing no one is there anybody that would like to address the commission remotely there are no hands raised all right we will close the public hearing and I'll read the proposed motion no I won't read the proposed motion um I will ask if anybody wants to move to postpone to a date certain of January date semi certain because we haven't adopted our calendar but it would be second meeting of postpone to a date certain if for some reason that doesn't happen we will would Ree what is it there's semi certain not a thing um postpone to a date certain of January 16th 2024 moved by commissioner Hammer Schmid seconded by commissioner Mills can we do a Voice vote on this yes all in favor please
066say I I all opposed the motion carries we'll pause for a minute and allow commissioner Lee to rejoin us very depth discussion all right cool well welcome back to myself uh all right we're moving on to we we're moving on to agenda 10A other business this is a proposed Planning Commission bylaw updates um and with that we will go to staff presentation Mr Leonard yeah I think this uh might have received the item for the most postpone item ever on a Planning Commission agenda and uh my proposal to you this evening is to end that practice uh these are a series of changes that we've discussed uh for um uh for changes to the bylaws uh one change that has been made um the Planning Commission originally uh suggested a change and then based on
067feedback at a subsequent meeting um remove those changes I want to highlight that is the amendment to the bylaws um that still would require a six member vote um other things we are proposing some changes to uh reflect a minimum five vote requirement to affirmatively act on any petition um as you will recall that would requires an amendment to chapter 8 with your approval of these these will accompany that proposed amendment to the city council so that at the time of the second reading and um if that isn't enacted these bylaws could be considered at that same time happy to answer any other questions again the I think the the significant changes to this were uh trying to reference gender neutral language um adding some additional language for a city council role in potentially appointments
068and as I said changing the standards from a minimum of six affirmative votes to a minimum of five affirmative votes to an act a petition perfect thank you very much I'm going to read the proposed motion which is the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission moves to recommend the approval of the bylaws is that correct Brett Mr L sorry that's correct okay got it um again I'm going to read the proposed City Planning Comm motion which is the annarbor City Planning Commission moves to recommend approval of the bylaws as presented um moved by commissioner white and seconded by commissioner Mills we are in discussion commissioner white just a quick question so if Council rejects our proposed changes do we start the process over or do our bylaws revert to the last change uh good question enacting
069these changes also require city council approval if they didn't enact that ordinance they wouldn't be able to enact that so then we would then bring back amended version that you would have to re- reccommend and then that would progress to be back to the city council maybe we'll get a few more post comments unless they any other comments questions discussions all right give us five more seconds to make it awkward anybody can say all right we will go to a Voice vote without objection the motion passes any objections motion carries well thank you we're moving on to agenda 10B other business appointment of the comprehensive plan steering committee and this is again discussion of the appointments of the steering committee going on to staff presentation Mr Leonard thank you again uh as indicated this is
070the planning commission's appointment of a steering committee to support and advise the Planning Commission through the development of the city's comprehensive plan um as a reminder to set that stage you are the author of the planning uh the comprehensive plan you approve it you deliver it to the city council then the city council either approves or rejects that plan uh the steering committee is envisioned as part of our work plan to provide um an Advisory Group to you as the Planning Commission to staff to the consultany in the carrying out this process uh the intention is uh is for this group to meet on an intermittent basis over the course of the comprehensive plan uh to advise the process to provide feedback things such as um are we hearing and processing feedback we're hearing through
071our community engagement in the community are we prioritizing responses in an appropriate way is the document itself once we get to that end accessible and clearly uh communicates the things that we're trying to communicate um provides an additional set of voices to you and ultimately staff the team and the city council to make sure that we are um incorporating wide voices and being as successful as we can in um creating and ultimately adopting that plan uh these names uh were presented are presented to you through uh largely a process of applications um we opened up an online application on September 18th um it was closed on October 16th so a little bit less than a monthlong um application window um you will recall uh that we reported we extended that period at one time which
072I'm really grateful for we ended up with an additional 40 applicants through that process which got us up to over a 100 applicants um I um am presenting to you uh a list of that steering committee um they are presented in the memorandum they are Rebecca barington Nolan Earl Chan Richmond Vanessa puno Kira saltz Wendy Ramson Gage Wendy Anne Woods Jack lison Jazz Brennan Bia casy yasien Tahir Mark skuro Ben Connor Barry Dandan Chen Sandy Aldrich and then planning Commissioners sadira Clark and Sarah hamers Schmid um uh the way that I present these names to you is um I did a review of these applications you heard a public commenter and um I've received some emails to expressing similar um similar um feedback on this process I'm really grateful that um generally it seems like
073this list has been really well received um I started that review process started looking at individuals um spent quite a lot of time then looking at the entirety of the applicant pool and trying to specifically identify demographic characteristics that were um either not identified in in any initial sort or initial identification um I also shared with you and and available to the public is a comparison of the demographics of these appointed members compared to the city at large compared to a survey that our Public Services has actually done of other feedback and surveys that they've received from self-reported data um just to give you a sense of how the steering committee does or doesn't line up with um our community um for the members of the public it to be clear it I think uh
074I think it does represent a wide wide perspectives in our community it includes uh while includes largely City residents it also includes three members who are not City residents this is something that was specifically identified by the Planning Commission as um people who might interact with the city in different ways maybe they work here um maybe they have other connections through school or church or um just aspire to live in the city and they might um bring a voice about what some of the barriers are to being able to to achieve that um by with a numerous applications I want to be clear um there were a lot of really excellent I was really Blown Away by the the just the expertise that of applicants that we received um by somebody not being included on
075this I did you know I received some questions that people felt qualified I just want to be clear you know there were many qualified people and something uh that was referenced in public comments and a and also in my memorandum um I did try uh my best to bring what I would identify as new voices that I haven't seen at this table or at the city council table um I that's not 100% there are some familiar faces there's former um my predecessor is here uh former city council member uh planning commissioner is here but also um a lot of new names people who have interacted or been involved in other City committees or not been involved in other City groups uh to date so um I'm happy to answer any questions my ask for you
076is to formally appoint this group so that we can reach out to them start getting them scheduled and to have them start fulfilling that role uh thank you sorry one last thing sure uh the comprehensive plan subcommittee was also really helpful through this process they helped me not only um uh create the application process um but I also presented recommendations to them um you will note this revised M does does include a couple of names that were added since that committee meeting um one of the things in the original version of this we had under representation from WS one and two and we had uh no representation from people who identified as Asian or Asian-American so um um I specifically added those names both from applications received and from other Outreach that I just conducted
077independently so U but with with apart from those two changes uh the committee did endorse the remainder of those names perfect thank you Mr lonard with that I'm going to read the proposed motion which is we move to appoint the following individuals to the comprehensive plan steering committee um the list of the 14 plus names so all right with that U moved by commissioner Mills and seconded by council member dish we're in discussion would anyone like to kick us [Music] off commissioner aens just a CL clarification question um the comprehensive plan subcommittee still exists and are commissioner hamers and Clark on both those hearing committee and the subcommittee yes and and okay that's cool with you okay who who else is on the can you remind me who else is on the subcommittee commissioner s
078dish okay and Le so everybody with me and commissioner mels and commissioner Weatherby you three are left out yes wait so the sub subcommittee is hamers Schmid Clark wh s dish and Lee that's correct six of the nine okay um we can add more if you'd like more meetings I feel left out okay uh that was all thank you thank you any other discussion points comments questions all right with that then I will move it to a Voice vote without objection this motion passes any objections seeing none the motion carries thank [Applause] you all right we're moving on to agenda item 10 C this is a close session request um I'm going to move this to um staff yes thank you uh this is a request for the Planning Commission to vote to go into
079close session to receive um uh attorney client privilege communication uh the basis for that is a educational session with the city attorney on Planning Commission procedures okay um the proposed motion is I move to go into close session under the Michigan open meetings act for the purpose of disc discussing attorney client privilege communication set forth in mcla 15.26% we will come back to the regular meeting after close session but for member both the commission and members of the public I don't anticipate any action um after after that but we will progress to the last public comment got it thank you very much um any other discussion points if not uh we'll do a Voice vote uh without objection this motion passes any objections seeing none um I'm not positive but I would prefer a roll
080call vote for close session just to for documentation my apologies thank you for the clarification we'll go to voice thank you commissioner hamers Schmid yes commissioner wh yes commissioner aons yes commissioner Lee Yes commissioner Mills yes council member dish yes commissioner s yes commissioner Weatherby yes thank you that passes all right Commissioners we'll be heading up to uh a conference room on the third floor we will uh escort you um so you can be trusted through our secure elevators thank you so much for coming guys to speak during the public hearing remotely please press star9 if listening by phone or use the raised hand feature of viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877- 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 977 66 341 1226 City staff we'll select callers that have raised
081their hand using the last three justs of the phone number or name if available you'll hear an automated announcement allowing uh that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to the quiet area so that 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 present that would like to speak seeing no one um is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely there are no hands raised Mr chair thank you might just give it two seconds all right we'll close public comment all right moving on to agenda number 12 commission proposed business is there any commission proposed business great with that I will move to item number 13 adjournment moved by commissioner white seconded
082by commissioner abens all those in favor say I I we are adjourned I silent at the end