001please review the full printed meeting agenda provided Mr Leonard will you please call the role commissioner Lee commissioner here commissioner W commissioner Mills commissioner hamers Schmid here commissioner dish here commissioner so here commissioner Clark commissioner Weatherby here we have five members for a quorum um we need six members to act on a plan I do anticipate commissioner Clark should be arriving so I would recommend we proceed and hopefully she will arrive soon thank you Mr L uh we now move on to number three approval of the agenda may I please have a motion to approve the agenda moved by commissioner Weatherby seconded by council member dish all those in favor of the motion please say I I any opposed the motion carries item four minutes of the previous meeting May I have a motion to
002approve the minutes of the September 19th meeting moved by commissioner Hammet seconded by commissioner Weatherby any discussion of the minutes all those in favor of the motion please say I I any opposed the motion carries item five reports to the Planning Commission and written Communications council member dish do you have anything to report yes I can report that whereas last evening's council meeting consisted mostly of consent agenda items one of those was an item to fund the comp plan terrific thank you Mr Leonard do you have anything to report a few quick items speaking of the comprehensive plan the uh consultant team will be joining the Planning Commission at your uh October 11th uh work session um to provide an over viw of the process ahead some a first dialogue with the with the Planning
003Commission and a report out on some of the stakeholder interviews that have occurred thus far um we also uh have to city council Direction on considering some additional tc1 cors on October 12th uh we will have the first uh Community participation meeting this will be held at traverwood library at 6:30 p.m. I believe um double check that time on our website anybody listening um that will be an opportunity to discuss a proposed tc1 Zoning for the Plymouth Road Corridor uh I'm still in the process of scheduling a similar meeting uh for the Wasa Avenue Corridor um having a little bit more challenged finding that space But should get that wrapped up and share that with you soon um uh and then I'll maybe leave one of the Commissioners who participated in our comprehensive plan subcommittee
004meeting early this week for an update in that regard thank you so commissioner officers or committee Liaisons have anything to report commissioner so we're just uh doing a little thumb war over here to figure out who's doing it uh so comprehensive plan sub met yesterday to understand current applications to the steering committee and uh how to decide and choose uh right now as we understand it we're we have a handful but we're looking for even more applications to the steering committee and so we are extending the application until October 16th the current Posta deadline is October 6th so please tell all of your networks that we want a wide and diverse participation in our steering committee thank you I can report that the ordinance revisions committee met last week and we discussed uh ordinance revisions
005around drive-through lanes and the commission can expect something to come before them soonish regarding that I don't have a date certain any other reports okay uh there were a number of written Communications which were included in today's packet so we're now to agenda it item number six public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to 3 minutes this is about an issue which is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda we'll first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this 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- 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 977 66 341 City staff will select callers who've raised
006their hand using the last three digits of their phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link 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 so we may 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 at this time seeing no one we will move to zoom is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely Mr letter No Hands raised all right thank you we will close that part of the public hearing uh next item number seven public hearings for the next business meeting Mr Leonard we have two public
007hearing scheduled for the October 17 Tuesday October 17th uh Planning Commission meeting uh 1 3874 Research Park Drive this is a site plan for plan planning uh listed for city council approval I think that'll actually be for Planning Commission approval uh proposal to construct 110,00 110 800,000 ft office research lab space as phase two of the project for a new overall total of 241 100,000 square ft a new 77 space parking lot is also proposed in the re research district and O RL District the site is total 16.9 Acres the first phase of This was sorus um if that Rings Bell the second public hearing is uh returning application 2929 Plymouth Road a site plan for City Planning Commission approval this is for the University of Michigan Credit Union is requesting demolition of the existing
008office building and constructing a one-story 4,740 ft building on this o office Zone site the 1.73 Acre Site is proposed to be split with the Western to remain vacant address access is proposed off of Plymouth Road and Prairie Street accessing 22 parking spaces addresses include 2929 and 2935 pth Road Road uh this petition returns without the corresponding drive-thru that was uh proposed in our previous iteration of this [Applause] plan thank you okay so we are on to item 9A and that is 900 Brierwood Circle this is 900 Brierwood Circle site plan and rezoning for city council approval the developer proposes to replace the existing Sears store with a two-l grocery 57,6 49 ft and a twole sporting goods store 100,000 square ft² with an adjacent playing field The Proposal also includes 354 multif family residential
009units in in a four-story building a parking garage and a red and redesigned parking with added Landscaping a new connector roadway will intersect with Brierwood Circle East of maul Drive the 18.2 Acre Site will undergo rezoning from P Parking to c2b commercial affecting 8.29 acres and the staff recommendation is approved we'll begin with a 10-minute petition or presentation hi welcome hi um hello good evening my name is John fips I'm with Simon uh Property Group and I'm here tonight with our development team to uh walk you through our um the Redevelopment plan for the former sear site at the mall um wanted to start with a little bit of serendipity um it was 50 years ago today um October 3rd uh 1973 that the mall open to the public so it's a little it's fitting
010that we're here to talk about the continuing evolution of the mall um I think everyone knows where the mall cited by the interstate and between Eisenhower and state streets I wanted to mention the um the uh ownership of the mall site Simon Property Group doesn't own the entirety of the mall site um Macy's owns its own parcel Penny's owns its own parcel Von owns its own parcel um the briwood mall itself and that parcel which is in yellow on this uh slide is owned by a partnership with Simon and General Motors pension fund and so the vacant acre space which is the former sear site in green that's really that's what Simon owns and that's what we're here tonight to talk about uh read developing um current zoning is uh parking and c2b designations and
011we are proposing um uh changing 8.29 Acres of uh parking to the c2p designation and that area is outlined it's in the in the hatched area there's a couple couple spots there um the we have one site Play application and we've we've bifurcated it into two sites site a site B site a is um will be the large format retail and the U grocery store and that'll be developed by Simon and site B is um the residential site and that will be developed in a partnership between Simon and Hines um obviously we have to demolish the anchor store to to for the read development that's that shows the demolition area of the store and that is this is an image of the existing store ain't she a and I think even those in back in
0121973 would think that this is probably outlived its usefulness so and um okay then this slide shows site a and site b in a little more specificity um uh site a has got a large format retail um anchored to the mall the grocery and uh about a half acre Plaza the retail is about 100,000 ft the grocery is about 58,000 ft and we we intend on uh putting in all the requisite EV spaces and bike parking spaces and in this area and then site B is the uh four floor 354 unit apartment complex same there we uh intend to put all the re EV and bike spaces in in that area as well and this just shows the uh existing condition and then a rendering from the same perspective of the uh of the Redevelopment
013um because we are uh de demoing the building and we're putting the residential out in the parking lot essentially we are increasing the green space in the uh on the site and there there's kind of a an existing uh View and and show the future future view with the increased uh green area um we are increasing the multimodality of the uh development site we are proposing um crosswalks across briwood to the adjacent properties um we're proposing a uh bike bike path uh on briwood Circle adjacent to the mall um we are creating an Turtle circulation Drive between the uh Grocery and the uh and the residential and then we've got a fairly extensive network of new sidewalks that go among and around the uh the new buildings to help with connectivity um I would also
014mention this shows uh the current bus routes we've been working with aaat to come up with a way they're looking to um move the uh move the uh bus shelter the bus uh stop so that they can lessen their travel time on site they'd also like a little more area to um for future increased bus traffic and so we're working with them and and you know balancing that with the convenience of the bus riders and the safety of the mall Patron so that's an ongoing um that's an ongoing discussion but it's it's been a good discussion so far um this just specifies the the large format uh retailer it will be anchored to the mall there'll be an interior entrance from the uh that store into the mall um and again it'll act as a
015act as an anchor much as uh Sears did that's that's an elevation of the uh proposed retail uh the grocery will be about 58,000 ft it's new to the market um they are uh they Pride them I can't announce it tonight I wish I was hoping I could uh but we're just not quite ready um but it's got um they they Pride themselves in um local uh uh generating their produce locally and they're big on farm to table so that's be a nice addition to the mall in the area and this is this is an elevation of that building and then we're also uh creating a green space um which will serve as a transition from inside the mall this green space will also have an entrance from the mall interior out into this green
016space um we're it's about a half acre we are we're trying to make that a community Gathering Place uh we'll activate it program it um and then when we're when it's not being active like that it'll be a static place where they'll be seating people can can come and sit have a coffee work on their laptops whatever and then that is a concept rendering of of that of the green space and with that I'm going to turn it over to uh Brad sod wall with hin so he's going to talk to you a little bit about the uh residential component and there he is here I am thank you John and good evening everyone um I'm Brad Sall with Hines here to talk a little and more detail on the residential opportunity um what's shown
017on this slide it's about six uh Acres out of the the 8.9 that's being rezoned and it represents about 350 um uh market rate apartments and it is a four-story uh wood frame construction and I think um maybe on the next slide we've got some uh more detail on the Green Space what I think you can pick up in this uh in this slide um more than some of the past week we do have two interior Courtyard spaces that will be uh that will be green and offer uh amenities to our our residents um we're really excited to just flip back we're really excited with this opportunity to really um create a sense of community and and the mixed use nature of the location of this uh of this project being so close to uh
018a million sare feet of retail with a new grer and the new large format retailer to to us is just a terrific way to um Embrace um Embrace walkability um to have uh everything so close at your fingertips as a resident here and I know um the community is is is looking for additional um uh multif family units and I think this is a a great addition to the community so we're excited to um to be here presenting today um I want to point out we do have a parking garage that is actually embedded inside so we call this a wrap project so we've got um the parking garage hidden which is nice you won't see the the the parking structure that's there to support um our residents and then you can see we've got
019some walking paths and bike paths we got good opportunity for um uh bike parking as well around and inside um the building so um maybe go to the next slide yeah thank you so here's just some initial uh conceptual renderings um we are at this point at the schematic design phase we just completed that we have gendler here with us who is our design architect and so we are actively working on our um on advancing the design um this is a couple of the uh elevations obviously it's a it's a large building a pretty big footprint about 150,000 Square ft and so uh taking great care to create um some character and and some Daoism to the outside of the building so it doesn't look so monolithic so um again gendler I think is doing
020a great job as we develop it to really kind of push and pull the facade of the building just so that creates some of that visual relief I think that means my time is up uh finish here with a a a great rendering and view once the projects are completed um with the residential on the left and you can see the grocer there in the on the right side thank you very much thank you uh we'll now move to staff presentation Mr Kowalski okay good evening everybody um so I just wanted to kind of reiterate could you move just a little closer to your microphone please sorry or move it closer to you yeah I could do that okay um I just wanted to reiterate again some of the the uh part of the three
021motions that are in front of you tonight um of course there's a motion for the uh rezoning uh which obviously would go to city council for final approval there's a motion for the site plan and there is a separate motion for a landscape uh modification so the landscape modification is approved by Planning Commission so if if approved here tonight it goes forward um that's obviously would stop here the site plan with the rezoning would proceed to city council um so I wanted to really touch I'm not going to go through a lot of the details on the plans specifically uh that the petitioner has already covered but I really wanted to touch on some of the highlights as you'll notice so there were some conditions that are noted in our first motion uh really the
022the first the approval of land transfers you could see from one of the slides uh there's a lot of Shifting of parcels that that needs to happen around here for ownership uh that's not necessarily that unusual with development proposals that would be something that would be uh any final approval from Council would be conditioned upon that that would be uh completed after coun if if and when Council would approve the plan um those land transfer would all be done um the uh the second condition really is there's some Landscaping issues that that aren't quite um resolved yet however again the petitioners submitted a revised plans a letter indicating that they are resolved um they're relatively minor issues however they do need to be addressed um so that that that issue does remain unresolved until we
023have staff confirmation there comments we do back a little bit later this week again it wouldn't be before you tonight if these were large issues that would somehow affect the design um they do not the third condition is can now be removed uh the solid waste I had a I've had staff confirmation at all solid was issues have been addressed and the fourth condition uh again is not something that's that's unusual with a lot of the plans we see that just before Council uh if and when Council would approve it they need to have their uh approval from the Water Resources commissioner uh that doesn't seem to be an issue as well they're working towards them as you probably know uh there's Regional Detention basins that cover the entire Mall Complex uh most likely there
024they'll need obviously they need some site modifications um on within the Development Area however those ponds probably have uh enough capacity and maybe need to be cleaned out at most um so those are the four conditions on that uh some of the again I wanted to touch through some of the the remaining staff comments other ones that we didn't touch uh traffic as you know obviously with a proposal like this um there was quite a robust Transportation study that was done uh including a multimodal Transit study um so again some of the the recommendation when this project was originally submitted they the petitioner proposed a uh kind of an an extra turn lane that would lead out to state from uh one of the drives I think it was the Center Drive um on the
025proposal here there was an extra right turn lane traffic uh Transportation study came back and said that's that's not necessary so that that was removed um part of what came through the multimodal is the addition of some of the bike Lanes um on Brierwood Circle unfortunately as was pointed out Simon and um as well as H they don't control all the parcels in there so the the bike Lanes at this time are pretty limited to the Frontage that that they do control um so basically Brierwood right now is five Lanes it would go down to four with a a bike lane um on the one side uh separated I think it's a couple feet by some uh striping in that area so that was a result of the multimodal uh study as well as again
026some of the different sidewalks uh that you see within within the development um the as again as was mentioned the aat has been in negotiations with uh the petitioners I spoke with them last week they say yeah you know things they anticipate a successful resolution they're excited to be able to bring um you know more people into the site and hopefully have act as a you know a larger transfer point or or even something that's going to pick up a lot more traffic that'll help all the uh the accessibility in that area um Parks so one of the issues remaining Parks um so the petitioner again has been working with our parks to get kind of something that that works really for everyone at this point again there a donation hasn't been uh requested at
027this point however the petitioner again the the park staff has looked at the improvements that they have offered as far as like the plaza the public Plaza there's also a a Grove area that's an it's an existing kind of Grove of trees just south of the Development Area um I if you can all see M yeah there we go it's it's in this area here that um so the petitioners offered to improve that area a little bit and and and Parks the main concern with Parks was just kind of they wanted to help create a regional type destination in this area something that that all members of the public could really feel like they they could use not just necessarily um residents or maybe uh customers as far as again like the plaza Parks was
028overall uh in favor of that but some of the concerns that were noted again was helping to make it feel truly that it's welcoming to the public that you don't necessarily have to buy something in order to use that um so again these are issues that that wouldn't stop obviously an approval recommendation or anything from going forward but these are issues that we want to continue to work on with the petitioner and if there's other items that need to be addressed Parks will continue uh to work with them towards that goal um storm water I've already mentioned regarding the the condition on that working with the County water resources commissioner uh solid waste that condition has been removed forestry or landscaping again noted that there are some revisions that are needed mostly to kind of
029interior landscape islands and calculations around that area um again indicated that it was addressed we just need confirmation from staff and um so again really as as planning staff we looked at this uh we've been working with the uh the petitioner and developer and their their whole team for quite a while on this and really the way that we looked at it and again I think the developers are looking at is just just one piece of a larger puzzle all of staff from the very beginning here has looked at this from Transportation parks and again obviously with planning is saying you know in general this is something that we support the way that these that this development is going and we want this to be one piece of of a larger puzzle that goes so
030we've tried to phrase our comments in in that way to help get it so that eventually when the rest of the mall if and when would redevelop like this this would fit in into that quite nicely including like sidewalks and again obviously the the transportation impact in or not impact the transportation changes to briwood Circle would ideally con uh extend all around the entire uh Brierwood mall and um is as I've noted in my staff report as well with one of our most recent sub area plans the South State South State Street corridor plan this aligns pretty much exactly with that goal of re you know taking parking and resoning it to something that's not parking and putting development where there's there's a lot of parking so um with that I think that wraps up
031my staff comments and like I said obviously staff is recommending approval of this noting that those uh the three conditions that remain thank you thank you uh so we'll now move to the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed um excuse me site plan at 900 Brierwood Circle we'll first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during the public hearing remotely press star N9 if listening by phone or use the rais hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877- 85352 47 and enter a meeting ID 977 663 41226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of their phone number or by name if available for
032those accessing through the web link you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute television or background sounds so we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please St your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time seeing no one Mr Leonard is there anybody who would like to address the commission remotely there are no hands raised Desiring to address the Planning Commission at this time all right then I will read the motion uh I'm going to read the three motions and we're going to take them together unless there's anybody opposed to that okay that's the plan uh and just to confirm Mr Leonard and
033Mr Kowalski I'm going to read the first motion with only three conditional statements remove all right the Anarbor City Planning Commission recommends that the mayor and city council approve the 900 Brierwood site plan and development agreement conditioned upon one approval of land transfer with the adjacent Macy's parcel 700 briwood two approval of landscaping issues identified in review dat 918 2023 and three approval from the Wasa County Water Resources Commission the second motion reads the annarbor City Planning Commission recommends that the mayor and city council approve the 900 Brierwood rezoning from P Parking to c2b Commercial and the third motion reads the Anarbor City Planning Commission approves the 900 Brier would site plan landscape modification that removes the infiltration landscape Island requirement because the soils at the subject location will not infiltrate moved by commissioner s
034seconded by council member dish we are in discussion is there anybody who would like to begin our conversation commissioner hamers thank you um I I'm very excited about this project I've been waiting for something to happen at Brierwood um and I was hoping I feel like there's this elephant in the room that nobody's brought up I've read in the staff report all Electric Residential Building I want to hear more about your commitment to sustainability you obviously know the city's climate goals like I just wanted to give you an opportunity to expand on absolutely appreciate the uh timer went off on me before I got there so I thought this would come up in conversation so thanks for bringing it up you know us um yes our our our intent is 100% electrified building um working
035closely with DTE to make sure that they have the right um capacity on their side uh but that's absolutely our plan we have selected um some HVAC equipment that is that's more efficient than than the average I would say for this product type around the country in our experience um you know our firm as well as Simon very focused on sustainability and and carbon reduction so I I think it's a great fit and very exciting to be working here um in a in an environment where it's embraced and and you're looking for it and pushing for it sometimes it's harder to do that if it's not you know if it's not uh something that's desired by the municipality so really appreciate that um we are also evaluating um uh solar and geothermal just the Renewables
036to try to bring that reduction of um of of demand down to help out DTE because we know it's going to be a struggle to get all the power we need for for the development so and then we have um obviously the the required 10% EV charging stations that are are there and then another 90% um capacity basically in the panels and the in the conduits just the pathway so for future expansion we can we can bring that online um so that's um any questions on that it's awesome thank you it's just nice not to have to have you considered you have that's great um why is there so much parking there like you know a lot of discussion about increasing multimodality I understand like the parking is wrapped maybe this is more for you
037um there's still so much parking and I know there's so much parking already at briwood and just yeah so question parking onay onay so that's a John question yeah the requirement of the uh the grocery store they needed 350 parking spaces that was their requisite number um there's 354 and that includes the EVs and handicap EVS but the total is is 350 so that was our parameter really the entire site plan has been driven by the footprint of the grocery store so that that's that's really the the reason for those spaces okay I I'm super excited that there's a grocery store coming in I'm glad you have somebody identified I'm like dying to know who it is you can tell me after right okay um that's oh that's just so much parking when like you
038know know we know like the rest there's so much parking that exists already and that was really interesting I had no idea that like Macy's own their own Parts I sort of just assumed like Simon owned everything it's a Simon Property the other interesting thing is while the cities um that you no longer have minimum parking requirements uh we have old um and still in place um agreements with the with amongst and between the anchors um that we will contractually have to maintain a certain uh amount of of parking spaces ratio per th000 ft of gla um we actually in the process of this got everyone to reduce that total um so it benefits us because um you know we can do this development in the future it'll benefit them when they go if and
039when they go to um when they go to redevelop they'll contractual anyway they'll have a a uh a lesser requirement for that okay have have there been conversations about like re redeveloping any of the other Parcels um I would just say generally okay just knowing these uh anchors Macy's in other places not yet this Market but in other places they are monetizing their real estate where they're they are leaning into um they're leaning into residential as well and office depending on the market um vonmar is a very traditional uh uh retailer I you know I approached them hey you know how about you can reduce your parking ratio they're like we're Merchants we love our parking and we want people to come in and have plenty of parking come in and Shop pennies is somewhere
040in the in between so it's not within with you know it's not it's not eventually it can happen it's just going to happen over time yeah I mean this to me is like the ideal space to continue what you've proposed here throughout the site um I I'm very familiar with the domain project in Austin when I live there I was so excited I've like envisioned like a domain like on this side obviously to scrape a lot more but I feel like this is getting us closer to something like that which is really exciting it's really tough when you have a 50-year-old mall with a regional Mall footprint and it's very hard to yeah you know a lot of cities maybe you included will will hire urban planners and they'll say hey let's create a citycape
041knock them all down and you know cut it up into blocks which is the ideal um but you know we've got this this mall that's uh uh you know it's there and so we we have to kind of deal with the the Baseline that we have what do you think it would take to expand the bike lane off of your property to like with the other I assume the other property owners would have to want to right I mean that's the problem is that there's 22 Property Owners around the Ring Road in addition to the the the owners on the mall site and we you know we don't we need consent and approval and we just we can't guarantee that keep pushing um I guess the last thing I'll say for now um I think
042you're I I mean I lik the rendering of your Plaza area I don't I feel like the the mall already feels public like I've never felt like I have to go buy something just to like I've taken my kids to the mall before just to play in that little play area so like I mean Splash would be cool if you really if you want to do that but otherwise like I'm a little confused by Park's comments cuz I feel like that will sort of inherently still feel like a public space yeah I mean eventually not part of this project but when we take the Sears building down that'll leave a wall of the mall that right now is but the mall owner of which we are part is you know with this in mind is
043considering you know creating outward facing spaces so you could have patios and other things out in which would further activate the plaza we've done we've done uh these green spaces other places and they they're well received um um I don't know if you noticed but we tried to put up University get a little credit for that although I saw the football I didn't it didn't connect we probably couldn't license that but I mean you know a big video screen on that wall would be cool you could have movie night I mean you could just do a lot of different things we have we just built one of these in uh in Buckhead a suburb of Atlanta and they they've got a cornhole League where they come and do that and just you know a lot
044of different things yeah I mean malls turning into to more Regional destinations I think is sort of the direction that they should be going like I can see this being that with this partial Redevelopment and then like even looking more forward so thank you that's all I have Mr Leonard can I ask a follow question on that that Plaza space um one of the things that the mall does now is it's it's always being creative and trying to think about the use of that parking lot even in its current configuration do you envision some of that sort of programming that happens now in the parking lot being focused more into that Plaza or do you think both or that will M continue in sort of the parking areas um or don't know yeah I don't
045know at this point but this this this opens up more opportunities you know where somebody might not want to have a program you know yoga in the plaza would be better than yoga in the parking lot so thanks commissioner Weatherby so five years ago I was on Planning Commission and we voted for a uh magic carpet rug tent in the parking lot and at that time I think we all were envisioning wouldn't it be great if there were housing and grocery stores and bike parking and so it's very exciting to see that there actually is something like that um I have a a couple comments but in general super exciting to see this um it it is hopefully step one of a a new vision for the mall area um one thing that I did
046notice is there is a lot of car parking and not very much bike parking and um one of the things if you talk about it being a multimodal space it is a super easy straight shot down from downtown down State Street there are bike paths elect electric bikes ebikes are going to make this a I don't know four minute trip or five minute trip it is very quick and um it just seems like there's maybe a little bit of a disconnect there of hey we want lots of parking and again you have lots of uh ownership and but there there doesn't seem to be a lot of bike parking relative to kind of who might come in because people do grocery shop on bikes and more and more especially with ebikes there's a slide I
047don't know if Matt you can find it but we've we are adding uh to the Redevelopment area I think we're adding a lot of bike racks and a lot of parking space I mean what I consider a lot it's not you may not consider a lot um so yeah we've got oh you passed it sorry I think I passed it oh had one job I think it's the next one no I think it's the next one there's blue little there you go there we go that's the blue squares okay there you go yeah you can see the I think on one of the slides oh you want the numbers yeah we got we've got on another slide it's numbered one more oh here we go maybe Matt I mean Mr ksky so we've got is
048this for what is this s56 so that's 28 cover 28 okay we have 28 cover 28 uncover bike spaces in site a and then what about site B site B's got 72 38 spaces covered 36 uncovered and I know you have what the requirement is okay um so you're just saying hey I'm saying hey got it uh things are changing and they're changing quickly and if you are going to be really promoting that sort of thing then especially in the in the retail I mean especially in the residential uh you know 36 Class A spaces for the residential is not a lot um so I'd say the nice thing we have flexibility with the garage there to capture additional space very easily right like if one one level turns into bike parking then hey and
049and you and you you can scale it right I mean just to to meet the demand and as that demand changes and shifts so that's not something that you panic about that's something you're like that's easy day two hey we've got 100 bikes and we got to find so you you build a wall and you close off 10 spaces of parking and then you've got an opportunity to park bikes so you know we our our job is to keep residents happy and to meet their needs and you know what they say goes so we'll get it done okay thank you one thing I just note sorry I in my summary that it does say 36 but it's actually thir it didn't pick up properly from the the main report there's 36 for the residential 36
050Class A and 36 Class C still again I understand the concern about more but there were 36 of both so the summary was incorrect but in the comparison chart it's correct commissioner Weatherby did you have more comments no you're done okay anybody else commissioner s I'll going of rate like this is this is this is great to see this is great progress on this site so maybe I just out of curiosity a couple things uh infiltration wise I'm ass like it's Clay or just the soils that you can't um for the grocery parking would they be amendable to covered parking if you plan for foundations for buildings above in the future I'm just thinking future future yeah um we you know that's not been talked about or considered but just so you understand on the
051on the uh large format retailer and the grocer we are basically providing the utilities to the pad and and and giving them an engineered pad and then they're going to build their their store but we also we have made them aware of the um you know your your carbon neutrality goals and hopefully they'll lean into those so they have control of the parking lot then too as part of okay yeah I mean we basically we've we gave them a requisite number of parking spaces have to be so wide so long so many handicapped and then they MH so you're doing the pr development work and then you hand off site a and then you move forward s b okay no that's helpful um but I can see this right like moving around the site and
052any incremental bit and I see I I see the parking as this is step one and if we repeat this pattern with 20% less every time we've made huge moves um my experience in renovating spaces down toown things that we did we played musical chairs with office space back when that was really used um but this was a threshold that we actually saw some offices move to do temporary leases while they moved out of their downtown spaces and so this really is a sweet spot threshold that people believe that they can access downtown um reach amenities and still feel connected to the city so it's great to see uh more places to live and you know gather uh in this place which I can see it's being like a a really great launching Point not
053just for a park and ride for the bus AAA but for actual just moving through the city in different ways which is great um that's yeah I'm I'm happy to see this project and it's it's great to start to see one step in the many steps hopefully but understand that there's many players involved um but it's great to for you to lead the conversation appreciate it thank you yeah commissioner dish yeah I want to add to the chorus of wow yay it's so great to unpay a parking lot um and put in some grass and I I wanted to pick up on another aspect of your sustainability which is um your proposal to divert 90% of your construction debris or what construction materials I should say from the dismantling uh from landfills and I just
054wondered do you know where where you're going to take things and only because I'm curious about the market capacity and so I'd love to hear more about where you find it seems like there's a lot of places that will take and and Crush asphalt but there are other things and you mentioned reuse and I'd be just really delighted to hear how that goes and what you find because we would like to we would like to be able to make that more of a norm in the city and so we need to know what the ecosystem is for it so thank [Music] you um so I will also Echo support on the project um um but I have a couple questions so um I noticed in the report from the citizen or resident participation meeting that
055there was a question about affordable units and maybe a response that indicated uh I think the the quote is we will have some affordable units and I just wondered if you could provide any detail on that cuz I don't see anything about that anywhere else in the I I can address that um uh we had planned initially um at the beginning for 3% of the units to be attainable as we kind of moved through the process and had some uh some meetings with folks from the city including the Housing Authority um knowing that we were really trying to push the envelope on sustainable opportunities the um the the market rate um the need for market rate housing in an arbor we were told was really a greater priority um than than the attainable piece with
056the attainable piece being 3% they said really let let's why don't you make it 100% market rate and focus on sustainable so that's that's the direction that we've we've taken okay so currently all 354 units are market rate correct and then moving to um sustainability um can you say a little bit more about where you are in terms of exploring geothermal and solar yep we have um thirdparty Consultants that we're working with just doing the technical analysis and understanding you know what are what's the load requirements for the property what kind of loads can we get from solar um uh studying geothermal in this area and trying to extrapolate just some other geothermal Wells I think that have been dug to see you know what type of capacity might we have and then you know
057analyzing just the financial side of it to try to make sure obviously there's a pretty um sizable upfront investment in geothermal and so um there are there are firms that um that will make that upfront investment and then sort of amortise those costs um uh over time for the property and we're just in in the middle of those conversations and those evaluations to see um not only what is the geothermal well and in equipment what does it do you know to um to efficiency but then what's the down you know there's also mechanical changes that are required within the building um to accommodate that water source um also so it's it's just sort of an iterative process to really evaluate with our me engineer and those third third party Consultants to just make sure that
058we understand what the implications are from a schedule cost and um you know an efficiency standpoint have you done geothermal on any of your other projects um yeah we've done uh geothermal yes in other parts of the country it was an office project uh actually in New York and a retrofit situation and there's some some others um I think out west as well but it would be uh the first in their our Midwest office okay and then what about solar or rooftop solar is that on the table yes so yep we're looking at solar arrays and and just how how many fit along with the mechanical equipment that's on the roof as well yeah I would imagine it'll be harder for something like a grocer perhaps but um I guess I I mean so I
059I appreciate the sustainability narrative the you mentioned the um waist stream and the the things like solar and geothermal are in there but I I just want to maybe call our attention to the fact that none of that is in the development agreement right so I think the only I don't even know if the electrification is in the development agreement I try to search for the word and I didn't I didn't find it in there it's not in the development agreement we we can add that to the development agreement if that's the request of plan I just kind of yeah maybe just want to put on the table first I don't want to make a motion yet but just like uh I think there are a lot of things that we're talking about that we're
060excited about the project that are loose Loosely proposed but maybe it won't show up um and one of those that I'm curious about is the um like part of the site plan approval is also thinking about the building form I mean I know that everything's in schematic design but there seems to be a huge discrepancy between the uh rendering of the grocery store that's in the site plan packet and the rendered image of the grocery store that we see uh in this presentation and I think it actually shows up in the site plan it does uh so there's one that in the site plan official site plan doc doents we see existing and proposed perspective site view it's also the one that shows up in this presentation it's the kind of one the before and
061after and in that the grocery store looks totally different than it does in the later in the site plan which is actually it might even look different than this one and like just that's that's something that we're actually voting on or approving to some degree like it says in the development you have to build it to look like this without substantive change so I don't I just want some clarification about what it is we're saying yes to that might be a question for staff as much as for you yeah I'm not 100% sure of which changes I mean the footprint this what's included in the site plan is that's your petition so any renderings that are being shown in this PowerPoint are if they are distinct or different they wouldn't be part of that site
062plan package that you were what if there are two renderings in the site plan that are different we should probably clean that up then can I I mean I can call everyone's attention to I mean it's page eight of the PDF versus page 60 wait maybe not eight sorry four four and page oh maybe my page sorry 23 yeah 25 is the rendering sorry 23 is the elevation I bring it up just because one is like much nicer than the other I mean the renderings are are concept plans I would I would say for the the elevations at least speaking for the uh the large format retailer and the grocer those are their elevations that they plan on building um and I know for the elevations you're in you're through schematic design or do these
063renderings represent schematic design I think uh I think yeah that's right they came from our SD package yeah I don't see any I I don't see the discrepancy on the residential portion it's it's the retail yeah side okay so we should take the elevations as the proposal yeah the footprint is also the same but I see what so the footprint is essentially the same but I understand the concern regarding the oh yeah I see the I mean between the renderings which are Concepts like the rendering of the of the of the of the uh Green Space um you know we're going to figure out how that's programmed if we really put food trucks in there um but the elevations you know the markets it's it's a two Lev building in the sense that they they're
064going to they have a mezzanine upstairs where they have a wine bar and they have actually Windows looking out over to the Green Space pretty cool if you want to go have a glass one at a grocery and uh and then I think people do these days yeah and then the again the the uh large format retailer that's it's two level and that's the you know that is the elevation so the the concept renderings might be a little bit uh might take a little bit of Liberty that's that's that's a renderer you know stylistic interpretation yeah no I get it um see would the would you be willing to agree to building electrification in the development agreement is that something you prepared to to commit to this evening the only thing I'd say to that
065is just our conversations with DTE and and you know limitations where they said to us we don't know that we have enough capacity to do 100% electrified building which was a shock coming in to this market and having your power provider make that kind of statement so that that that's outside of our control really and so that's where I get a little concerned you know we have every intent to do it I mean we're we're pushing that platform form all across the country um it's just at some point the limitation of local power grids are real um does staff any have any feedback about that yeah Mr lard so a question to your conversations with DTE from a timing perspective uh as this will this proposal if it moves on from this evening would then
066progress to city council um for two readings so they'd be a say hypothetically a month out from now and a month after that would you have a pretty good sense of the capacity answer within that time frame um I hope so yep I would hope in the next 60 days we can solve some of that so with that one of the things I could suggest is what what I'm hearing is interest in trying to memorialize some of those sustainability pieces into the development agreement we could work with the petitioner you know I I'm reluctant to say which ones now for reasons like that because if electrification is put in there but we find a month from now that there isn't capacity to do that that's going to hamstring them their ability to go forward so
067what I would a possibility is staff could continue to work with the project team with that direction from the Planning Commission to incorporate as many of those sustainability efforts in as possible the construction waste Diversion the electrification the the renewable exploration geothermal exploration and try to advance those to as much finite determinations by the time that city council is adopting that site plan and the development agreement at the end of this review cycle yes with with the understanding that could be the building might not be all electric so I just want that so like I think it's a little bit misleading for the report to say the building will be all electric with no natural gas connection like I think if we're going to assert those things then not just for us but for the
068public if we're going to assert those things they should be things that have been committed to by the developer not just um things which are intentions or aspirations for the project so uh I just want to be clear about that um I I wouldn't it's not like I'm going to withhold my support because of it but I just want that to be clear um and then I just want to go on the record and say I I I I understand 22 Property Owners is a lot of property owners but like if that Bike Link could go all the way around it' be amazing so um I'm going to put in a vote for that and sorry let me just one anyone else have anything while I gather my I think that's all I had but
069I just want to look at my notes one more time I also just if was anyone curious about I was surprised no no other commissioner asked about tc1 you thought about it commissioner said I mean just for fun I looked at kind of what it would mean if this was tc1 instead of c2b I mean I think the biggest difference is that you could build a 300 feet so we could have a tower a residential Tower here um but interestingly we don't allow in tc1 outdoor recreation or um oh this was my other question uh do you plan for any of the residences oh no never mind um oh the other thing that I noticed was that um and we would get more EV parking which I don't think is all that significant uh but
070we would the the max parking in tc1 is outrageously High so like the max for the residential side would be uh 1,528 spots so we might that might be something we want to come back to in the future okay I think that's all I had thanks for bearing with me thank you any other comments yeah commissioner hamers I just want to make a comment that it's just just to State publicly I guess like it's really frustrating that like DTE is I just feel like over and over we're hearing this and I'm just going to sit it's very frustrating like if you can't you you are actually coming here and standing here and saying you're committed to being all electric this is important to your both of your companies and for DTE to be the bottleneck
071when I all over TV I see their ads about like we're promoting sustainability and we're helping an arbor get there it's like it's crap so I hope that they give you the answer that you're looking for to be able to make this the the project that we all want it to be any other comments oh commissioner are are you Gathering your thoughts you need no no I'm done but go ahead do you want to say something about tc1 it seemed like you wanted to respond to that I looked at tc1 and my evaluation of the rezoning is that these are actually very small like the c2b we're going from parking to c2b it's not a jump of a C3 to c2b like it it's just it's way better than zone parking um and it's with
072everything that matched that I think staff alluded to and advise like we're going to look at them allall separately it's basically its own mini City in a different way and that we it it feels nearly byright to me to go from a parking District to expanding the c2v so that's my review of it and that's actually how I looked at this project was more from a bu right standard in terms of measuring my expectations and asks um even though I know it is a rezoning so I'll add that actually maybe since we're talking about DTE though did you get submit a early a pre-design work order with them to I don't know what we call it we've had the we we've had the initial conversation we've showed them sort of a the whole engineering team
073together yeah oh yeah we had yeah and like a formal you can like submit a form pay them $2,000 and you actually get their attention that they have to put you on the schedule sort of thing with deadlines we've given them all our electrical loads for all components and submitted that and that's that's I'm just C like I think it's like a unknown process that makes it really hard that you can do that like there's a one pager and there's a middle Loop man that like helps facilitate organizing all of those meetings and that you have a a pre-design a schematic and a DD phase meeting to help develop and engineer it right alongside of you and it is like $2,000 um but I think that it's something and I think I've talked to step
074about this was a little bit maybe more Heather than anybody but um something that maybe we can do better to help more developments early on how they connect and scale with DTE so that by the time you get here they've done a lot of their math with you um and so I just curious if you if you did that and they're still lagging behind or I would say it was we it was slow to get their attention to get that first meeting we had that first meeting just last week and you know quite honestly heard some things like I described earlier that were shocking as well as at least for the multif family side um you know then looking for our our our power system to be designed as if we were building a highrise
075which is was a bit of a head scratcher as well and we're just again new news we're trying to work through it but you know they're talking about bringing massive Transformers into the building yep with 8ot wide corridors and things between elevators and it's just Madness it's why you want huge electric rooms next to where people are sleeping I don't have any idea but um but we're working through it y um maybe I I'm just going to add this I don't think it's really amendable maybe they'll ask staff this is a zba thing a lot of your electric load is your EV capable not your EV installed um and so I would rather see a fully electric building of occupied spaces rather than a fully occupied panel for future parking right and so if it's
076something that we can be in fully electric building of units and there's a zba variance of I don't know a 10-year compliance to get the rest of the power for DT update that you bring in a second panel and service I would rather see that step instead of bringing the gas to the building so would that be like a ZB like how or if I don't think that would be a very good zba because you'd be rendering a decision on a property that was dependent on somebody else doing something okay I would suggest if that's a concern we need to revisit our EV parking standards yeah I'm all for that but I keep but so yeah I can just actually I can add to that because I did have a conversation with one of our
077EV people in the OS the office of sustainability and um and kind of expressed that concerns I heard from this petitioner as well as for the um uh the village The Village project that we saw a couple weeks ago or so um so they UND they the office of sustainability understands that this is an issue and they were they are looking at again I can't promise anything but they they understand that because I express exactly what you said is that capacity needs to be there for those EVS EV capable spaces and if they're not ever going to be installed in 10 years so so anyway just to add to that yeah they're aware that it is an issue but I'm not sure of the timeline on that yeah and there's diversity as well right so
078a charging station doesn't mean that that's available like I plug in and I'm right you can you can there software and Technology changing all the time so I think you could take that 90% And you can rationalize a a reasonable amount of diversity on that just to bring the overall load down on it so that it doesn't hamstring the initial upfront you know design so so maybe a tip would be design your secondary service for the parking and your primary service for the residential and if you need that only okay well so yeah so somehow if it needs to be gas powered we should gas power those EV panels so that when you can untap it and plug in more electric it's an easy transition sort of thing like I we have conflicts in our
079goals right now and I think the hardest thing is seeing what could have the worst case scenario is we put in full electrification into this project it's unachievable and so you're either coming back and spending more time uh reapproved this project if it gets approved um we're we're coming back and reapproved this project delaying more housing in our community for the sake of electric vehicles that aren't yet on the road um and so I think I said my piece in my agenda for new proposed business but to uh not to further complicate but we're assignment across the country is putting level three EV Chargers in because it's more in keeping with the shopping trip or going to the you know shopping going to restaurant whatever and so which obviously require more more power than the
080trickle chargers the level two which really that where they might work overnight just like I have a charger at my house Works overnight but so that residential would work but for the for the the retail and you know it's EVS or level three is the way to go are you I mean and how much p 22 Property Owners how many power Services now I'm just curious how many property how many power services do you have to the mall in terms of are you and my question is are you looking to add more EV Chargers across the other parking lots at this time too um to keep up with you know clientele market demand I think and again going back to that ownership structure the the mall you know the Simon we were we putting we're
081loading up with EV Chargers on the Redevelopment site the the mall ownership partnership with the pension fund um and we were looking at doing that I mean so in you know in the future we may Von Mah Penny um Macy's don't know I do know in other places Macy's have they have put in uh Chargers on on their properties but but we're doing it throughout the country y okay appreciate that thank you um before we vote do do we need to change anything um to include this kind of provisional idea about the supplemental regulations Vis of sustainability or can that be an informal I don't feel like there needs to be a change to the motion that the instruction that I'm going to take from this conversation is and I just want to be clear
082with the petitioners before we move forward with the city council we're going to have a conversation with you about to what extent can we incorporate your sustainability provisions into the development agreement um that is just to set the stage that if those are included in there they become requirements of the project however the development agreement is a contractual relationship between the city and the petitioner so that would not necessarily necessitate a revision to the site plan so another example of that is if they were to say if if they were to agree to full electrification of the commit to that for the Residential Building at this time move move forward it turns out that that can't be realized they would have to come back to city council amend that development agreement to remove that provision
083you would not see that again at the Planning Commission level but that would create that I think what commissioner syve is talking about some process requirements if that couldn't be met and so but in short I don't think we need aemotion transmitting that to the project team and to to Matt we will work with them to see if we can advance some of those into the development agreement this will progress then though to city council and we may report to the city council that they were unwilling to do that and we'll just be clear about that okay I think we're ready for a vote then that's me too uh let's start with commissioner dish yes commissioner s yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Weatherby yes commissioner aens yes commissioner hamers Schmid yes the Motions carry thank
084you thank you you appreciate all right we're moving on to item 9B on the agenda 1655 Plymouth Road Taco Bell this is a planned unit development zoned parcel site plan for City Planning Commission approval a proposal to demolish wow a lot of people okay a proposal to to demolish the existing structure formerly Wendy's restaurant and construct an approximately 2,500 ft Taco Bell restaurant with a single drive-through Lane site access to remain off Plymouth Road and oage drive with 35 parking spaces located in front of the restaurant it's a 098 Acre Site the staff recommendation is approval with condition we'll begin with petition or presentation you have 10 minutes thank you okay sounds good uh just give me one minute I'm going to pull up there PowerPoint too well I'll just introduce ourselves because we're going
085to let the engineers take over the the PowerPoint but I'm Clint lighter I'm the owner of the proposed development uh the land owner is in attendance as well um this is Matt depra our director of construction so I just want to give a little background so we are a local company we're out of Brighton Michigan we we're franchises we own the three other bells in an arbor I actually live right next to the hands on museum so I'm a local as well um so I grew up going to this Wendy's I went to Green Hills um so I always thought it'd be a great Taco Bell um it shut down I was super excited about it and I've been going after this for two years so I know there's a lot of lot of hurdles
086we had to jump through but um it's something that I've always wanted to develop and the opportunity presented itself so all that but uh I don't know if uh Excel is on right now um Scott uh yep hold on let me promote so we have Scott from civil um they're both out of Wisconsin and then we have John uh for any building questions today if I have to I can present it I guess um I have a Scott R and A an AAL which might be those are both uh our Engineers okay and then there's a JD Jason day yeah all right should be ours as well everybody should Beed here Scott from Exel engineering can you hear me yes we can okay great you can proceed if they're going to provide any overview are
087they all are they all in the zoom oh okay take it away Scott okay all right so as uh I talked about we are looking at redeveloping at Zine restaurant the old Wendy's site um right now we have gone through a couple of Staff reviews on this project and uh we we have addressed the issues um we just had another uh resubmittal to the city on Friday uh addressing any issues that were on site um most of the comments were driven by technical issues uh there didn't seem to be anything that was outstanding as far as anything that would really hinder the development um from a zoning perspective and also what's allowed through the through the uh the supplemental regulations and the C and the zoning regulations so um I know the staff is recommending
088approval based on on the zoning um that there are no amendments to the uh supplemental regulations are to the special exception um that are required because it's basically following the same the same use that's there right now it will use the existing uh drive-thru Lane that is at the site right now um and it complies with all the the state and local federal laws and ordinances and standards and regulations subject to the resolution of the following which were the staff requirements that we just went through like I said we just did submit those on Friday and I believe that we addressed all those issues of course the staff still us to look at that and uh I think we can if there were any issues but I don't believe that there are any that we
089could get through through those um and um we are you know hoping to upgrade this property from what it is right now which is it's a little bit in this repair right now based on you know it's been bacon for a while and right now I think it'll be a great Improvement for for the city know John if you have anything to add as far as the architectural elements to the building um yes this is Jonathan D with Excel Engineering and just as a note we are not fully demolishing the existing wy's we are keeping um a couple portions of wall and reusing them then from an architectural standpoint um we're keeping with the red brick to match the existing and then there are a couple elements from the Taco Bell corporate portfolio at the
090main entrances and Corners to kind of make those Taco Bell elements pop a little bit I guess so so the the plan said or um I don't know if the staff review said that we were going to demo the whole building but um we we tried to keep two walls up because we thought that would grandfather in the special use permit um I'm not sure if that's still the case that's how we developed the the whole site um that's why it's red brick that's why uh it's configured the way it is um I'm not sure if that still stands but that was the mindset behind how it's developed okay thank thank you anything else okay we're going to move to staff presentation Mr Chang okay excellent thank you for the presentation uh the site is
091Zone PUD it was originally Zone PUD back in 1985 back then we didn't require supplemental Reds so at that time it was combined with I think it was an oil change and self storage at this time it was split off and we had supplemental regulations added in about 1998 when we Finly required supplemental RS as part of the Pud um it was divided from the parent parcel and a approved back in 2012 met all the zoning codes back then so all the cross access easements and parking easements have already been recorded uh I didn't include them in the packet but I assure you they've been approved um I I think probably just to address yes they uh stated that they're keeping two walls up but staff you know once we considered that it's it's a
092new building it's new floor area it's going to be approved by the Planning Commission this is the final um decision maker it does not go on to City Planning Commission so city council I'm sorry city council I'm looking at uh commissioner dish and knowing that it's not city council Council and Dish council person dish um now I just lost my train of thought but uh we did conclude that it does need Planning Commission approval as the final approval I do realize we only have six members and we'll need all six members tonight to vote in the affirmative so if for some reason this starts to go down probably a rocky road and maybe one of you don't feel like approving it please postpone it and not deny them because they're going to have to come
093somehow petition you to come back because they're going to need all six votes to get approved tonight um it is contingent upon the engineering uh approvals they're I was just looking at them again it hasn't been approved although the approval deadline is I think October 11th for the engineering review these are very fairly minor review items that can be addressed um when you go through them so we felt comfortable of of approving this subject to engineering uh appr review and approval and I'm here for any questions you may have thank you we will now move to the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed sorry there's a typo in here um 1655 Plymouth Road site plan we'll first call on individuals present to address
094the commission than remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star9 if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 9776 63 41226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link 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 so we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time is
095there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely no thank you I will close the public hearing I'll read the proposed motion the anber City Planning Commission hereby approves the 1655 Plymouth Road Taco Bell site plan as it complies with all applicable requirements of the unified development code and other applicable laws ordinances standards and regul ation subject to resolution of the following one approval of engineering issues identified and reviewed dated 98 2023 moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner s we are in [Laughter] discussion commissioner so I just uh want to track the timeline and understand the project in parcel so it was zoned as a PUD as a commercial condo with several other Parcels the storage and mechanic shop and things like that correct where there were no previous supplemental regulations 1985 we
096didn't have re and so we have a PUD overlay and then in 2012 this parcel separated from that combined parcel but still remained in the Pud and within compliance of the Pud zoning that's correct okay and so we're not looking at the combination stuff but we do have the supplemental regulations which I understand it says permitted principal use a fast food restaurant with drive-thru window so it's not it doesn't require in the Pud a special exception that's correct and okay and so it also wouldn't matter if they demoed it or not and it would allow a new drive-thru right the two walls don't matter single Drive Lan a single drive-through Lane which is what's there now and what's in the site plan as well so it would still be compliant as all new construction okay
097so um other than the presentation where it said this was a public benefit if you've been tracking a lot of our discourse here at the table we don't think drive-throughs are quite the public benefit relative to the multimodal but uh as our responsibility to review if site plans meet uh the requirements in zoning uh I believe it does and there's nothing to hold us back from that we have no special exception uh use filter to look at this project through um so generally I I support the project meeting the requirements I do not believe it provides a public benefit I don't think it meets our current PUD standards but that's not what we're here to discuss tonight so welcome Taco Bell commissioner Weatherby so uh I have a not fond memory of this drive-thru uh
098for anyone who has been through this drive-thru went to get a Wendy's on a a frosty on a lunch hour with some friends and got stuck in the Drive-Thru because one of the cars behind us was was not functional and there was it's it's tight it's about the smallest drive-thru I think you could have just throwing that out there that hopefully at some point this drive-thru will cease to exist and it won't be a thing anymore um but I do I do want to say that I do think pickup Windows which is not how Corporate looks at them they look at them strictly as drive through windows um but pickup Windows have a certain interest it's good for people with mobility issues it's good if you have kids and dogs in the car and you
099don't want to get out um I'm just going to say it's not always they're not always terrible we don't like them they're very uh car Centric and the fact that you can't come on a bicycle or you can't be a pedestrian and use that pickup window is really um discriminatory in my opinion I know there have been court cases about it and I think that the drive-throughs have won but uh maybe in the future we will have something um I know Taco Bell makes a lot of their money off of the drive-thru windows I think it's around 70% of the money comes from the drive-through window so um hopefully you will not see cars dying in the middle of your drive-thru cuz there's no real way out of that one unless you scale the the
100wall so um Good Luck I I can say that we we did look at this one as hopefully more of a walkable destination for all the students and all that housing over there yeah I think as a walkable destination it's great yeah but obviously we want to have a drive-thru just for the people that want to go through the drive-thru and not have to get out of their car so but we're hoping that it's more 50/50 split commissioner H um does Taco Bell or any of your taco bells or maybe Taco Bell corporate has a policy about this I don't know how this works but you know just like a instead of a drive through like a app order pickup situation where they bring it out to your car I'm just thinking like this could
101be a future so we do have a pickup stations inside the Taco Bell um so they'll order ahead it'll be placed on the the pickup shelf and then they'll come in and just grab it that's kind of our okay but there's no like like I know McDonald's you can like check in and they bring it out to you and you don't have to like go in the drive through um you sit ID a I think we are working on that with like you know designated stalls that has it um I haven't seen it in any of our stores yet okay I just curious I'm sure it'll be coming yeah I mean that could be some way to sort of like mitigate this too where you convert somehow and I'm having trouble like envisioning the site
102I have a fun story about this my senior design project senior year of college we did time studies in this Wendy's really yeah their their line efficiency was way better than McDonald's cuz they had one line in multiple servers McDonald's had like you just joined a line this was like 25 years ago guys anyways that's my Wy story um if that if the if you could like make that a more walk up window or a bike up window or something like that to like avoid some of these like getting stuck problems because you had another another solution for somebody driving and needing and not wanting to get out of their car whether they have kids or whatever that could just be something to consider in the future any other comments questions I guess I have
103one council member dish I just have one small question to which I think I know the answer um would this be a site that you could put housing in instead not under the current PUD supplemental Rags okay and there isn't any residential in this no little mall I mean I mean I go to this little mall and I didn't remember any so yes I get out of my car and eat in the Indian restaurant but yeah okay is this parcel earmarked for rezoning to tc1 yeah I I'll let uh planning manager Leonard address this but the short answer is yes this is in the proposed tc1 areas that the Planning Commission guided us and we are considering is the petitioner aware of that uh we did see the M live article that came out today
104so but you didn't receive notification from the city that wouldn't have happened yet I guess uh no we did not uh letters are not to all Property Owners so we're not the property owner H there you go so letters went out to all property owners and postcards went out to uh all property owners and residents within 1,000 ft of the proposed area so I can I can share that letter with you as the as a business owner there as well so I find myself in a difficult position um this is not typically the kind of project I would be super excited to support um which is maybe no surprise to you particularly on a corridor that is about to be rezoned for mixed juice development in a location where I think a mixed juice project
105would make a lot of sense um and this just kind of cements uh this kind of development on this site for many years to come so um but but I also understand that this site plan ends here at Planning Commission and that we only have six members present so I need a minute to think about that um you understand like you need six it need six votes to be approved there's nine members of the commission but three happen to be absent tonight nobody else has anything they want to say to fill the void commissioner can you can uh Mr chair can you explain again I'm sorry the the outstanding comments that we are still waiting on from engineering the engineering issues yeah I I just kind of reviewed those before the the meeting they're fairly
106minor they're they're items like they're more addressing labeling issues on site you know so there's it's not an engineering issue per se that you'd say oh they've got to reinvent the wheel here just labing items on the set of plans to satisfy our engineering department gotcha okay um so I I think the other thing that's sticky is that typically um I understand that it's a it's a essentially a byright development it's meeting the zoning uh as it's currently zoned you couldn't build housing on this site even if even if that's what was proposed but the fact that it's like right about to be resumed um what's that they could but then they would bear the the cost of doing that right so um I would just it's definitely in a proposed area but that goes
107that is going to go through a legislative process that's going to come to this board it's going to go to the city council so I can appreciate your perspective that in your in your eyes it is likely to be reasoned soon I would be remiss not to remind you that it's not yet that process is has an undeterminate outcome um so I definitely understand your tension but um and you know we have we've had these conversations with staff that you know this is sort of a unique situation if it were a special exception use we think it would be um probably a challenging petition um that's not the case here you've got a very unique situation of a relatively small component of a larger PUD the Pud clearly provides that so I just I understand
108your your perspective on that I understand the analysis but I I do want to be clear that that is still a speculative outcome yes I understand that it's a speculative outcome but it's also one that would be resolved in you know in a matter of months whereas the Taco Bell will be here for decades know how long was the Wendy here sir how long what I know do you know what year the Wendy's was built before I was born my point I I you know I think the extra pressure being here that um the petitioner only needs to convince six people to vote Yes and we're missing three people so it's like um I just have to figure out personally what I'm going to do about that situation I get so one option would be
109to postpone till the 17 October 17th meeting I I would ask you what would be different about the measuring this against the standards by which it is being measured uh nothing then I would suggest maybe you take that doesn't oh so this is a site plan said no I I understand I understand perfectly well I I think sometimes I can just take issue with the regulation I no I understand um commissioner s maybe I'll just add to the record that it was December of last year that direction from Council came to this table to spend more attention to West Stadium rather than move into rezoning of Plymouth and Wasa and so the urgency and the uncertainty of this thing being in the middle of tc1 with more certainty than the curbs and the setback of
110West Stadium is coming into play the decision and the priority of council to spend this time looking at car use and setbacks has now put us in the predicament of a future in another Corridor memorializing a drive-thru instead if we were able to spend time resoning Plymouth starting January instead of talking about car uses and setbacks in West Stadium this may not be the situation that we're in and so I just want to offer that up on public record to say that maybe our priorities need to be better communicated maybe we need to do better scenario planning to understand outcomes and where we need to put our time in policy efforts if directed from city council city council has to understand what those planning effort repercussions will be and that this is a repercussion of
111their direction that they've given us and this is now the situation that we're in because of that directive so councilman Bish if you want to relay that back but I'm going to say that on public record this is the problem we're in 10 months after that resolution we are just in the first steps of looking at this Corridor and this is the [Music] problem I I appreciate that and I I I would not I would never dispute that perspective I just do want want to remind you commissioner s and the balance of the commission that tc1 is not an instantaneous change and I I I definitely appreciate like every every site that doesn't meet our aspiration for a potential tc1 zoning feels like a lost opportunity but I I just we've talked about it at
112this table before these are the quarters have gotten in these situations over a long period of time even with the corridors that have now been zoned tc1 the we are not going to experience instantaneous change for these and that's that's not right or wrong I'm not saying that to refute that perspective but I guess I am saying it to recognize that this site or 10 more properties um being considered in the context of future action on tc1 zoning along any quor is not a it's not an an Absolution of the the fate of these corridors just like it hasn't been over history sure noted and I also just for the record it's not that I have some um idea that if there wasn't the Taco Bell here there would be some incredible vibrant mix like
113I think just like a quadplex with I don't know like retail the I know something small like just anything but this um like a single use car oriented drive-thru I just like um and I um yeah it's hard um I was going to say one other thing but I lost it was in response to what you were saying about the schedule and the city oh I just was also going to say for the record I'm sure you all have heard about this but like there are people calling for a moratorium on development on Plymouth and Wasa until the tc1 can be enacted that's not something that would that's a city council issue not a Planning Commission issue of my understanding yeah that would be a city council and I'm not to my understanding there's been
114no initiation I've heard those I've heard those citizen calls CI res calls I should say Sor for that I am not aware of any Endeavors to undertake that um Council has instructed us to continue with those Corridor as I report at the beginning of that meeting we're making progress in that regard well maybe I would just ask my fellow Commissioners then if their senses um is your sense that you feel B bound Duty bound to vote in the affirmative because it's meeting the supplemental regulations of an existing PUD please commissioner S I mean I'll just yes I feel I feel Duty bound to this but I I feel that this is a condition we could have avoided and it doesn't mean that we wouldn't have got a two-story Bank instead of more housing but it
115means because of the lack of use for over a year of a drive-thru drive-thru would not be permitted again MH and so may it be the resolution to focus on West Stadium that this drive-through be dedicated to that resolution this is this is where I really feel you know I feel Duty bound but I actually don't feel responsible for this outcome I believe that this outcome was priorities at a different table directed at us all right any other comments commissioner weatherbe so maybe because I grew up off of Plymouth Road I've seen a lot of change in this cor Corridor I'm not going to wear a hair shirt over approving a small drive-thru in this area it's a Taco Bell it has a very tiny drive-thru there's going to be a lot of people walking
116to it that drive-thru may end up being picnic tables who knows um I think it's it's it's not probably what we want to see in a dream world I'd be more concerned of the McDonald's down the road that has two lanes that's an entire parcel like I just don't I'm not I'm going to sleep fine if I approve this it's it's not it's a small spot it's it's not even the biggest part of this parel tc1 has plenty of opportunities in the Plymouth Road Corridor I I just think this is It's currently what our zoning says there's so many Parcels that are not our ideal zoning I mean back to the Brierwood Mall you know there was a lot of discussion of should this be parking should this be is it okay to put a
117tent in the parking lot like we're beyond that this is not going to uh this isn't going to ruin everything if this is a drive-thru it's it's just not and I don't know what the building your building is but it's not a 100-year building it is no you know 10 years right I mean wait what yeah I mean remodel every 10 years yeah I mean there's not an intention that this is going to be here for 50 years this is by the time we get a proposal it that building could be done and gone like it could be 15 years easy 20 years before something is proposed for this and you know we'll have been sitting here for hours discussing it it's just not it's not that it's a big deal for you but it's
118not huge for the corridor it really isn't I just I don't see it commissioner dish I just want to say something brief and positive because um this quarter has gone through a lot of change and um after the financial crisis and also the pull out of fizer all of the small shops in this Corridor shut so there was a popular wine store there were a couple restaurants lots of stuff and then the university bought the fiser property and this area right now both here and then just a little bit up at um Nixon it's a flourishing small business Zone and students do walk all over the place you see them walking and they lug giant plastic bags of groceries and all kinds of things and so there is a way in which this area has
119gone through having things for mixed use having those things close and having those things come back and have new ownership some of which is minority and so yes I would like there to be residential that isn't dorms but I am happy for there to be places for people to go and eat and Shop and get Co shots and Asian grocery stores I mean it's actually a pretty exciting part of town and this isn't a huge parcel so I don't feel like we're oh my God we could you know put 300 units of housing here I think that we can get 300 units of housing along here and we can and it's it's full of services and it could be very vibrant so I just I I don't the notion of mixed use doesn't always have
120to be everything in the same building if you have the services to sport residential you may get them and so I am not upset about this and I don't necessarily think this parcel is the most suited to become residential it's part of that little shopping mall so I think that there we are seeing positive changes on this Corridor of the kind of thing we would like like to see to support what we what our vision ultimately is and I don't see this as a harm but I wanted to put it less reluctantly I mean yeah any other comments commissioner hamers Schmid I like this discussion I feel like I'm going to beat it de horse but I like this discussion um I mean I think for me first I'm not opposed to drive-throughs so that's
121not even my problem I think for me this is just like and I'm going to vote Yes but this is like just indicative of the larger issue we're seeing that commissioner S I think like basically alluded to like look at our agenda in two weeks we have the credit union coming back like if this was tc1 they could pull their Taco Bell closer to the street so we could create a better pedestrian environment so I think like that's the frustrating thing here for me is just like I don't I don't care if there's housing or not not I it's the form and I get why you're doing what you're doing completely um but let me ask you a question what is your construction timeline like when do you plan to have this done and open
122and starting and what are all your dates we're still have to go through building so I mean we'll probably if we can start obviously after Frost so it's like next spring yeah I mean depending on how fast we can push through tc1 and get that reson I just want to put a bug in your ear like think about if you were rezoned to tc1 if you would want to take advantage of something like that like how that could change your approach because you wouldn't be bound to this beauty so it's just something to think about we are just leasing the space too so okay so he's the land owner but then I'll say that to you any other comments all right I think we're ready for a vote Mr Leonard uh let's start with you
123commissioner s yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Weatherby yes commissioner a yes commissioner hammid yes commissioner dish yes motion carries I'm Comm in for my tacos sorry but thank you guys I do have a quick question about um West stadium so we are remodeling that store what is the impact for that cuz we're going to do like a cool Container Store there um made out of all containers you should you'll have to meet with staff what meet with staff to find out Chris can help you with that because we do own that property so we'll talk to someone else then yeah cool all right thank you all right does anybody need a break before we move on to item 10 let's just power through you want a break I can't tell yes okay we're going to
124take a five minute break till 8:57 thank you calling us back into session we are picking up with agenda item 10A Planning Commission bylaw Amendment bylaws amendments an item which was postponed from our September 19th meeting and we will begin with a staff presentation by Mr Leonard and I want to first uh draw your attention to I Absol I fully recycled the packet I didn't change anything but I will be asking you to postpone this again to the second meeting in November however um one of the things one of the things that has been outstanding was and I I'm sorry that this ended up being a smaller group of the Planning Commission and I think some of the voices who specifically raised this are actually not here nonetheless I finally was able to get Kevin
125McDonald who is the grand second assistant senior Deputy to the City attorney better be at and so there were a couple questions particularly around conflict of interests and here here's my understanding and framing of it we have a pretty active group of Comm here you are all involved in a lot of projects we have several Architects we have several developers property owners and managers and there's been some discussion about the frequency by which recusals are necessary causing situations sort of similar to what we face tonight where we have a smaller group of Commissioners uh ready to take business and so to that end one of the questions was coming that was raised was is there a better way that we could look at this one a couple of the questions that were raised and validated
126through sharing this memo with all of you you to make sure I had captured this correctly so I'm going to assert that should there could there be an investigation where the Planning Commission is required to vote to Grant uh a conflict of interest to a member and a specific question that was raised in that regard was that creates a potential for an individual to feel that they do have a conflict where the commission is voting not to that is sort of irre ilable and so that was a question that was raised I'm going to start by saying I think that's a terrible idea I think that Commissioners should have the ability to um bring their own um life experience work experience to make that assertion on their own and not be put in a position
127where they have to somehow potentially be at odds with their colleagues because um there might be nuances to that it might be an employment relationship it might be something else and I I would never want that we were putting Commissioners in a position that we were somehow saying that you have to vote when they you personally felt like I I can't do this in an unbiased manner um and then second could the use of exstension votes be utilized to maintain that expertise of somebody in a discussion but at the actual Recon the actual decision Point um that they would abstain from a a vote but actually participated in it and my recommendation in that regard is no that I don't think that's a good idea yes extensions are provided in Robert's Rules but the whole
128nature of conflict of interest is to avoid not only real but perceived influence on a decision and even in that case where somebody was participating in the dialogue or deliberation of something even though they weren't part of that final decision that is obviously still an opportunity for them to influence something that perhaps they shouldn't be so those are the questions and to that point I've asked Uh Kevin to come um to not only provide just sort of a highle summary a couple of questions that I've posed to him is that voting mechanism is actually something that's used at the city council table at times and I've asked Kevin to specifically talk about why the city how the city council is a little bit different from the Planning Commission and why our bylaws are a little
129bit different um he might weigh in on my Declaration of exstension um but I also just wanted to provide an opportunity for you to ask any questions um uh and sort of reacquaint something that hopefully we did a good job during your orientation to say that whenever you have a question about it you're always he is a resource available to you and so this is also an opportunity to sort of just reacquaint yourself with him and I'll stop um turn it to you maybe to provide an overview of some of those questions and then just wanted to provide a little opportunity if you had questions or further dialogue that you would like to explore um he's the expert on it so thanks Brett um first of all my my title is actually Chief Deputy City
130attorney um and so Brett likes to make fun of our very militaristic titles in the attorney's office which I don't know why that's part of Municipal life but I was just saying to Brett that I I I'm thinking back and I think I was starting I I was on the Planning Commission for 5 years I've been in the city attorney's office for 20 and I think I started at the Planning Commission like 25 years ago to this month so it seems um appropo that I'm here today and so I just want to say a couple of things just to start out with first of all um you know conflict of interests are sometimes clear but they they often require additional consideration and really since I've been with the City Attorney's office we're always analyzing these
131things on a Case byas basis for members of the boards commissions and Council and so I'm just going to um encourage all of you when you when something's coming up when you have some concern you're welcome to call me directly um BR Brett can also put you in touch with me but we're always happy to to meet with people to talk to people to work it out because sometimes it's um I'll just say it just clearer to us since we've done it so many times and dealt with so many different situations um and so I'm certainly always available so so Brett touched upon and I think and I think when I looked at these questions it was clear that somebody was trying to maybe look at what the council is doing versus what the Planning
132Commission is doing so let me talk a little bit about very quickly about the the purpose of these ethical rules at the Planning Commission um and maybe the council as well but your rules are designed to protect the Integrity of the commission um and you have to think about that in terms of two levels there's there's substantive or actual Integrity meaning this is going to be a fair process it's going to be evenhanded all the petitioners going to be TR uh created um in the same way all the members of the public will have to go through the procedural rules to speak in the same way but also you need to think about apparent Integrity meaning it needs to it needs to not only be fair but it needs to look fair to anyone observing
133and that's they're they're two slightly different things if somebody turns on a meeting um shouldn't be kind of wondering well why is the person who lives next door to the building talking about the building right um and that will kind of tie into maybe some of Brett's uh you know Brett's recommendations about not changing these things in terms of extension um once once as you know under the current bylaws and I don't think there's anything being recommended to change when there is um a a conflict of interest the planning Commissioners are asked to do four things first you um you declare the conflict you you um you disclose you cease to participate in any conversation and of course you leave the meeting and don't participate in the vote it's a relatively simple process once um
134once that decision is made that there maybe or is a conflict um but I think the and just to start out with I just wanted to kind of talk about the fact that you know this is a commission it's designed essentially for objective decision making you're you're applying standards um you are um mostly for the well you're really an administrative body not a legislative one council is a legislative body um they have a very specific individual constituency they their the body is kind of designed to do something different also unlike um and so when they're making these legislative decisions their policy decisions um some of them are very subjective and that's sort of the background for their decision making but really what guides the council is there's literally a charter provision that requires them to
135vote um you don't have that but it really says um on any matter you shall vote except with in given circumstances they have ethical rules just like you do there's very specific statutory and other conflict of interest reasons why they would not vote um but that's really what that's really what the main difference is um it really says so the charter really says look um basically you you have to vote unless you're excused by a vote of six of the members of council so all of the all of the rules regarding ethics go back to that um and so that's kind of a fundamental difference but the thing that I wanted to to kind of point out is that the the the underlying policies of conflict of interest are still the same and the interesting
136thing is I don't know in 20 years I'm not aware of any time when a council member has has come forward and said I have a conflict sometimes that's with our office sometimes that's without our office Consulting where where a council member said I have a conflict and the rest of the council did not vote to recuse them it's a little bit of a I don't want to call it a u a u I won't call it a rubber stamp they have the decision to decide but even at their body I think the idea is to try to preserve the Integrity of the body and if somebody believes that they have a conflict uh they step away um but I think that uh I think that that the other question that came up that I
137just wanted to kind of talk about is this whole idea of Obion um and again the the problem with that really is you know especially the perception you know that problem with that apparent Integrity if if somebody has is stated that they have a conflict um you're you're certainly going to have you know or or I'll say this even maybe worse than that that if you change the rules so they were not going to state that they have a conflict but they were participating someone is still going to be wondering why you know why is the person voting on something that his employer owns uh why you know why is she making a decision that affects uh that affects her family's business or something like that and so those are the concerns that you have
138but also the the I think one of the underlying things that you have to think about is um conflicts are you know there's two parts of this that are very individual and I think people sometimes get confused thinking about that the conflict is about whether or not the person can make an objective vote and it's never about that at all um we've had many people over the years who call and say well I don't think this is really con a conflict because I can I can objectively vote on this and it's really not whether the person has the ability to make a fair decision it's really if that person is perceived to to be doing something that's unfair that person should step away it has nothing to do with with a personal ability to do
139it but also you have to think about the fact that if you were to um if this body was to take on kind of every decision and you wanted to vote on it uh for somebody to to recuse themselves that puts people in a very difficult position because sometimes you have um you know conflicting interests fiduciary or otherwise um I just can't imagine I think when I was on the Planning Commission for example I worked on I I worked in a law firm and often one of my firm's clients would have something that that that I may or may not have been involved in but I stepped away from it because the perception of that if people know that uh is is somewhat problematic to the perception of the commission being a fair body but
140also uh I'll just give another example if you know you could really be if if somebody came forward and said I have a conflict I don't really think I should be voting on this and they've come to that conclusion themselves you may be putting them in a position where they're they're they're forced to to make a vote that's contrary to their employer or their family um and that may be very difficult it's like you know we we would like you to vote on this when that person may have to vote I'll just say for you know they they they may know that the the hotel that's in front of the Planning Commission for a decision meets all the requirements so they need to vote for it but that may really have a negative effect on
141their on the Hotel they work for next door right it's just a it's just a terrible position to put people in and so I think that's why you're hearing from staff that the recommendation of course is to leave those things in place and I and I know Brett mentioned that maybe some of the folks who had some concerns are are not here but I will kind of invite if anyone's listening to this meeting or want to listen to it anyway they're always reach out uh happy to reach out I mean I'm happy to talk to them further about this but I also um certainly would love to entertain any questions that you have but we just wanted to talk about it generally to kind of put it in context um the other thing that I
142would mention is the Planning Commission probably has the most Rob robust set of of of guidelines regarding conflict of interests actually um out of all the boards and commissions and I think historically it's always been that way um because there's an interest in of course maintaining that objectivity and maintaining that that fairness I will just tell you that you know regards to land these conflicts are not easy um I've been to at least two two land use institutes with attorneys from around the country and we sit for two hours talking only about conflict of interests it's an issue that comes up it's very hard to um it's very hard sometimes to to understand very fact dependent um but I I would suggest um I would suggest that that the rules that you have in front
143of you you are robust for that reason it's got some examples um if anyone has any questions you have plenty of people to call and ask and we can work through those issues um but I I think that the the Planning Commission certainly should be at least cautious about sort of trying to come up with hard and fast rules or trying to have the whole commission sort of decide whether or not somebody has a a conflict or not um I certainly you know as I as I said it's a it's a case by case basis it's very difficult sometimes to discern um but I think that the whole process is sort of set out so that um so that the body um uh is impartial and also seems impartial um in terms of the Integrity
144of the commission thank you very much are there any questions for Mr McDonald commissioner s thank you for all of that um I think one of the other discussion points I think there's a responsibility as the commission is appointed and built around a diverse expertise to cover the review as well um it's nice to have two architects one recuses somebody but right now we don't have a landscape architect sometimes you know I think there's more than one kind of development potential but I am curious there are decisions or insights to Market factors or a variety of issues that I do think a lot of the times the commission uh brings the expertise that might not be from staff review or the staff present so I guess I'm wondering do you see any ways to like
145if somebody's refusing we know that there's a knowledge base how we bring that expertise back like to the panel a third party participant that isn't a petitioner or a commissioner alternate sort of thing no I I'll try that we if we identify that we can still bring that expertise so um I I can't sit here and say like that is one of the benefits I really value like that I can ask you about a building code requirement or I can ask uh commissioner Lee maybe about uh the challenges of office rental or or how they're evolving but if one of those perspectives is determined to be valuable it's hard for me to do it at the meeting but if it's something that I get that I need to follow up on or I'm um that
146question's raised outside of that staff can do our best to try to bring that expertise to the review you're right A lot of times we might not have it inous but if that's something that's desired I'm happy to try to bring that expertise it may not it wouldn't be coming from that person at that point but with all due respect to all you you are not the only ones that have that expertise so we can always try to seek that out through other creative ways what would that look like procedurally say if like I'm recusing myself and the commission decides they like to have an architect sorry ell like come an example I I believe you just meant to say another architect another architect um come would would it be I'm just thinking through the
147scenario that it would be maybe the meeting before in commission proposed M this maybe or some other point I would raise I plan to recuse myself and that the commission would then vote if they want something I guess it's just Aur like how we would do that ahead of time yeah it's a good question it could happen in a couple different ways if we knew that there was going to be a recusal and and because of that um we could share that information with with the commission and ahead of time find out that that's going to be a really valuable perspective um that would be one way to do it I another way would be that and let's take it a step back even without recusals if there if there is some of that expertise
148you're always welcome to ask ask that you know we do our best to try and bring a lot of expertise from staff perspective and sometimes we're able to answer those questions and sometimes we're not able to answer those questions um we it's impractical for us to have all those reviewers at every meeting but always when you have a question we will endeavor to try to find the details of that ahead of time in that case when we can find out ahead of time absolutely we can try and arrange that expertise bring that perspective that that could be bringing actually somebody to the meeting or it could be just trying to consult with that person and we do the same thing that we would do with City staff in all those cases my first pass or
149reaction to that would be to make sure that it is relating to one of the standards that is is at play here so like in the case of a byright site plan we don't really have architectural standards I might say like well what what do you hope to get from this but what if in the case of like a plan unit development if we were trying to explore something about sustainability or what have you um we could definitely bring that and if we couldn't accomplish that at in advance of that meeting that would be a great reason to postpone something because it's something that you want more information on as the remaining commission to say like hey I don't feel like we're getting the right detail or understanding of this particular aspect can staff help
150us bring more of that and then we would Endeavor to try to provide that so it could happen before it could happen during and result in postponement I'm frankly a little I'm happy to sort of put together some scenarios if that would help um I don't want to I don't want to systematize it too much because I don't want to for close the opportunity I don't want it to be like oh you didn't you know it wasn't raised ahead of time so we don't do that as a reminder the commission always has three decisions on any petition you can approve it you can deny it or you can seek more information through a postponement or tabling you should always remember that and when whether that's as part of a recusal or anything else those are
151always options available to you and if you can't reach one of the first two conclusions that's the appropriate conclusion to say I'd like to post on this cuz I need more information in the following regard and that would be a great example of invoking that tool okay that's helpful just in terms of like would a system need to be in place the same way we're just having a discussion of like should we vote if you're accusing bad idea should we vote if we get expert Witnesses not necessary but um I don't maybe I just kind of raise that as a talking point and a reminder for myself to maybe notify everybody so if any you know if if anybody's refusing to notify as early as possible so the rest of the commission can make any
152decisions relative to additional voices and support okay so the other idea I just want to kind of hear more thoughts about is we just changed our bylaws from six to five right that seemed to be the first recommendation to help with the voting in numbers um I know that there was an alternates kind of posed at one point two are there any other tools that seem appropriate relative to the numbers as as we're seeing just to lay everything back out on the table for discussion yeah we did explore alternates and that's not possible under the State Legislative framework the zoning board of appeals specifically allows that that example was invoked it's not permissible at Planning Commission in fact Planning Commission legislation specifies that you can have Boards of a certain size you are the largest
153board that can be specified in that regard so um I in short I don't think there are other tools reducing that to five would be one mechanism to do that um pointing less experienced and active members would be another way to do that that has its downsides no I wasn't looking at you um uh you need some it advice we did the a week Mr kski um no uh I mhm it's imperfect um you know and um we did explore both of those I think shifting to five is reasonable that's still a majority of the Planning Commission that's why it's being postponed again because I need that chapter 8 amendments to be considered adopted before you can officially adopt that because it would be inconsistent I'm just trying to keep that order in place I
154don't know of other tools um just want to have a conversation thanks commissioner whether I realize I did didn't read the proposed motion before bumping us to discussion but since this isn't a public hearing I think it's okay yeah that's fine okay commissioner Weatherby so uh I just want to say as someone who is outside professionally of the planning milu um I do think that there is also strength to not having an expert in everything um you know right now it would be great to have an electrician on this board um and somebody who worked for a DTE or a subsidiary or consumers perhaps um which would help answer a lot of questions I think that we have and I know um you know Shannon Gib Randall was immensely helpful for landscape architect things that
155that came up um but there's going to be lots of that there's going to be there aren't Water Resource people there aren't you know uh and I and I think that there is a danger of thinking that uh your expertise and I'm not this is that anyone's expertise is the most important expertise relative to a project because of course if you have understanding or knowledge about a project or a location then that is really Paramount to you and doesn't maybe include some of the outward perspective so I think with every development we see there is there are many people in the know on that development who aren't on this board and who aren't staff and I think that it's it's fine I mean we make decisions on those all the time and not having that
156internal perspective is actually okay um not you know I mean it would be great if we could have the best perspective on everything every time because obviously sometimes you know the sustainability isn't there or the and we just miss it because there isn't somebody who's thinking that all the time but um I think it's probably okay that we all just approach this the same way every time which is I'm going to do my best if I see there's a lot of landmark trees getting torn down I'm going to as a member of this board see what I can do to understand that and whether that's me seeking out expertise or going to staff or however that works but I think that's always going to be an issue whether the people are on the board or
157not any other comments or questions no hard questions for Kevin at least one hard question no I think because we're just being told no okay all right it's it's really not required a hard question I'm not sure I'm not sure why Brett's trying to encourage you uh I have a question for you Mr Leonard though um this is this is not about vot the voting body well it's about the uh bylaws amendments uh so I know that the proposal is to remove to change six to five affirmative five Commissioners but in order to change the bylaws I thought we were keeping the higher threshold but what I see in here now is that it's been changed to say an affirmative vote of the majority of the commission members present so that is for actions other
158than acting on a plan all right well the specifically says amendments to these bylaws so it's on page 11 it's article 14.1 proposed amendments to these bylaws may be approved at any regular meeting by an affirmative vote of a majority of the commission memb present sorry I think we were talking so we were there were a couple conditions in the bylaws whether there was a remaining question about whether a higher standard would still be required despite the changes that was one that we had debated and I thought and the commission had determined that just a majority of those present would be appropriate for that so that's a lower standard lower standard than a plan action however I believe six votes will still be required to go into Clos session yes that's because of open meetings
159act I presume requires so now I do have a question for you Mr McDonald would that be would that be typical that changes to the bylaws would have a lower standard of review of no like I thought it we were doing a super majority for changes to the bylaws yeah I mean I mean I I'll say this I do not think that's I don't think that's normal but if that's that's what the Planning Commission would like it's certainly within your purview to change your bylaws to do that subject to city council approval do you think it's advisable um well since I'm being put on the spot I don't I wouldn't recommend it but um it's that there's no you know there's no there's no I'll just say this it's really it's really my opinion based
160on sort of years of experience of doing this there's no there's sort of not a legal reason why you wouldn't want to do it but I think the concern of course is that you know you should be your your rules are you know it's everyone holding the rules out and and when you're making changes to the rules maybe you want to make sure that you have you know you're not doing it just because there's a few people that that are there at a meeting um could that possibly be misused it could now keep in mind there's still a requirement in this paragraph that they have to be submitted and writing ahead of time so people should have some knowledge of this happening um but it's really you know it's really solely up to the commission
161whether they do that um I'm happy to report back and I'd have to look at other boards and commissions but I don't think that that's I do not think that that's typical of boards and commissions uh in the city that there'd be a um kind of a lower number of people or or kind of a majority of those present to do this and I'm not sure if if Brett who the reason why I assume that this came from a suggestion of one of the planning Commissioners uh it was but I would just point out as part of the um most postponed item ever on the Planning Commission this will be coming back in the second meeting in November um part of that is the City attorney will be reviewing these now that we know that
162they're I'm not hearing any proposed changes to the conflict of interests that was sort of one of the outstanding questions based on um the discussion I'm I'm hearing um support for the perspectives that we have brought that they're good as they are and so um as over that time period I could work with Kevin and his colleagues to compare that to other boards or I'm just take your direction to maybe strike the word presence which would say the majority of the commission which would have the effect of five Commissioners um I'd be interested to hear from other Commissioners about this I would I personally would H would leave it at affirmative vote of six six out of nine 2/3 that's just my my experience on other boards and voting bodies that I'm on that there's
163a higher threshold to change your your governing rules um so but if I'm in the minority that then I'm in the minority so I'd be interested to hear what other people think about that Commission clerk I would agree that uh changing the rules just to be a majority of whoever's present is probably not advisable just to change rules for presence in just a second what you de said don't have anything to add is there anybody who'd be opposed to requiring an affirmative vote of six members to change the bylaws any other comments or questions about that okay can I propose can I propose that change Mr Leonard yes I will incorporate that change into the version that is presented back to you right that change which is actually just not changing it not changing it
164unchanging it un rejecting the change in the parlot of shared collaborative document review okay any other comments commissioner SE sorry um annual disclosure of employer and organizational affiliations form yeah that's how my to list to send to all of you okay is uh I guess I'm curious relative to that and then the actual recusal like that's a documented thing any kind of communication is either recusing at an open meeting or communication that's foilable like I guess I'm just kind of curious yeah either why both or should both be similar in a way I I'll I'll think the pur of the is sta the ability to you know predict things that are coming up right if if they know what your who your employer is where you might have conflicts they may be able to to
165to really kind of talk to you ahead of time make sure that you're aware of it maybe make the rest of the commission aware of it um but it doesn't it still it doesn't take away your um it doesn't take away your obligation to still recuse at a meeting um for the purpose of just kind of uh creating a record but I would suggest to all of you that it's still appropriate to you know get on the phone and call staff if you have a concern about um about a conflict I mean often especially if you're not sure or you want to hear somebody else's perspective I mean often we're just kind of working that out before meetings um so that we can make sure that people are comfortable and they they they you know
166some people just want a second opinion um often somebody's not sure sometimes they think they want to vote but I think it's always a good idea to reach out ahead of time um unless it's just absolutely clear to you um but that way you can that way you can kind of get some advice about it and and maybe have more confidence about it when you get to the meeting great um maybe kind of with that like we have the annual disclosure so that you have at least within a year would there be any expectation or like if things dramatically changed for a commissioner that they should proactively update that yeah we could we could consider some language that just puts that burden if you will on the commission that says if if your condition changes
167if you say that you're employed by the University of Michigan but you end up being employed by washingon county or something along the lines I'm sure that there's a way that we could sort of I don't want to get too crazy with it yeah but we could put something in there that it doesn't have to be it's only it's not only annual but it's that's intended to be at least a back stop so that yeah again as staff we know that if we get a petition from Thrive that I know that I'm going to reach out reach out let Sarah know that hey we got this application she's probably going to be aware of it but but in the event she's not that gives us the ability to say hey doesn't seem like this is
168going to be appropriate for you to be involved in that that right okay yeah and I'm just kind of like running through my Planning Commission folder be like what are the tools that we have right now just to see if they're like coverage still applicable or anything has changed so that seems to be the only other kind of form in communication is there anything else we or the public should be aware of relative to some of these notices no I mean I think uh again just to be clear things change and like this has come up this come up particularly with you you might be involved in a project that might be a short term that wasn't on your disclosure before you are not limited to that you know again that's that's more if anything
169it's helping staff and it's it's planning for conflicts the best we can plan for conflicts but that is not final if it's if it's not on there it doesn't mean that you don't invoke it you still should be invoking those standards on a project by project project decision by decision basis okay I don't know if this is hard sorry I'm just thinking out loud I know you guys are all on go bed I just is uh I just like the the idea that everybody can decide for themselves is there a point that any commissioner can just recuse themselves without any example or intention be like no disclosure necessary well your your rules do allow someone to disclose it there is a conflict um but sometimes it's not um I think if it if disclosure of
170that conflict would reveal some confidential information um that's not required to be to be placed on the record um and so especially when there's a situation like this I certainly would suggest that you consult us or Brett ahead of time and we can kind of help you work through that um uh but but that has I mean that that has help happened historically in some situations it's never really been a problem um but ultimately because a person kind of discloses it it's I think people respect the fact that it's really for again the Integrity of the body and I guess I would say this too because I think one of the concerns I guess in these questions and I just want to make sure to put this in here is that there is a concern
171I know about the expertise at the table but there's also this concern about hey we we're just not going to have enough people to vote and ultimately I think that I think that that as long as people are disclosing ahead of time we can cross that bridge when we come to it to some degree but ultimately it should always be or what my suggestion would be is that you always sort of take a conservative approach and if there's a conflict you know that you recuse for the conflict and if there's a problem with the vote we will deal with that sort of secondarily But ultimately it's about the protection of the Integrity of the decision-making um and the decision-making body and so I certainly don't want anyone trying to um uh to to be making
172a cost benefit analysis or trying to weigh one against the other it's really just you know is there a conflict that I need to step away from that's great I can't worry about kind of what's happening with the fact that there are only three Commissioners left we will we will cross that bridge when we come to it if we come to it which we hopefully will not I can't wait for that project any other questions or comments all right I'm going to read the motion the proposed motion is to postpone bylaws amendments to the November 14th City Planning Commission agenda moved by commissioner s seconded by commissioner dish all those in favor of the motion please say I I any opposed the motion carries thank you Mr McDonald we appreciate it thank you we now
173have an opportunity for public comment you you can speak for up to 3 minutes about any issue we will first call on individuals present to address the commission there are none so we will not do that we will only call in remote participants to speak remotely press star 9 if listening by phone use the rais hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877- 85352 47 and enter meeting ID 9776 63412 26 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area mute television or background sounds so we may
174hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone who would like to address the commission remotely there is not I'm going to close public comment item 12 commission proposed business is there any commission proposed business commissioner sove e reduction of EV requirements yeah thanks any other commission proposed business the width of drive-through Lanes commissioner [Music] with emergency exits out of drivethru lanes emergency exit let's talk about let's let's let's expand the drive-thru Lane opportuni require them to be two M minimum okay any other commission proposed business all right then we are on to adjournment can I get somebody to move for adjournment commissioner s seconded by commissioner dish all those in favor say I I we are adjourned