Ann Arbor Planning Commission Meeting 9/19/23

001welcome to the September 19th 2023 regular meeting of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission for detailed information on meeting procedures please review the full printed meeting agenda provided Miss Leo will you please call the roll I will thank you um chair Lee here I'm a vice chair Abrams here secretary White here commissioner Mills here commissioner Hammerschmidt here commissioner dish here commissioner sovay here commissioner clerk care and commissioner Weatherby here we all members are present we have a quorum thank you may I have a motion to approve the agenda uh moved by commissioner weich seconded by council member dish all those in favor of the motion please say aye any opposed the motion carries may I have a motion to approve the minutes of the September 6th um uh moved by commissioner Mills seconded by a council

002member dish is there any discussion of the minutes all those in favor of the motion Place AI any opposed the motion carries we're going to move on to reports from City Administration next upper reports the Planning Commission and written communication council member dish do you have any report yes last night at the council meeting the rezoning of the residential two residential buildings on Celine Road was approved from residential to office and I don't remember anything that should interest you but I and I'm forgetting something thank you Mr Leo do you have anything to report I do have a few informational things from the planning manager that I'm calling up right now um yeah from the planning manager Brett Leonard the website for the comprehensive plan work is up and running it has a short code

003of plan dot a2gov dot org slash plan 24. um the steering committee applications are also live and are being collected for anyone who'd like to apply there was a press release on Monday announcing this and the applications will be open until October 6th everyone is invited to apply there is also a list serve or um an update list that you can join you can um sign sign up for that at plan.a2gov.org comp plan updates c-o-m-p-p-l-a-n-u-p-d-a-t-e-s um planning staff will be at the green fair this Friday from five to eight the green fair is I believe on Main Street downtown um and there'll be a booth there you can stop by and learn about the comp plan or make some comments and finally our consultant team will be joining the planning commission's working session on October

00411th um and those are it for planning manager tidbits thank you do other commissioner officers or committee liaison have anything to report commissioner salve so I'll do an informal report on house party since I think all of you are aware of it um but last week we had 11 events talking about housing 221 unique participants 47 individuals from our community contributed to the communications and the University of Michigan students collected a lot of information on Wednesday and Saturday specifically to provide the interface so we're looking forward to them consolidating and including them in the comprehensive plan thank you any other commissioners written Communications are included in today's packet so we will move on to item number six public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about an issue that

005is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda we'll first call on individuals to present to the commission and then remote participants so to speak during this public hearing remotely please press nine star nine if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877-853 5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 do we have any callers we do have one caller and their hand is raised caller let with the phone number ending four to nine you are now open to talk and can speak to the Planning Commission for three minutes caller ending 429 you'll have to unmute Yourself by pressing star nine and then you're free to speak to the Planning Commission um the caller has lowered their hand s okay one more time

006but they have lowered their hand but okay hands back um caller ending four two nine you can unmute Yourself by pressing star six all the stars thank you oh thank you got it great can you hear me okay yes we can thank you thank you commissioner my name is Clark McCall I live at three three five five Yellowstone in Ann Arbor thank you Commissioners for your public service work on the commission I am in favor of rejoining or requiring future developments in Ann Arbor for the all-electric I know it's expensive to live in Ann Arbor Rich environment and transitioning to all electric housing is all part of this big picture we the people of Ann Arbor are attempting to lead the ways often do and going all electric is part of our piece of leading

007the way it's part of our character thank you thank you and procedurally speaking I'm just going to back up real quick simply because we normally do people who are present and then call so I do apologize for that so for uh so let me just back up and ask is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time on a matter that is not on the agenda seeing no one we will go back to addressing the commission remotely is there any would you like to speak okay is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely it's allele we do have one additional caller uh Alex Lowe you can unmute yourself and address the Planning Commission for three minutes on mute by pressing star nine six star six press star six fortunately

008I I'm on Zoom so uh so just have to press the unmute button thank you uh thank you folks um I really do like the idea of getting more electric and less gas in the city but I think that using that as a way to hamper into intermediate development is probably more harmful than it uh than it is helpful especially when we have to consider things like how long people how far people are going to be commuting Etc rather I would love to see the uh the city do something uh like uh starting to phase out gas stoves in all residents in all residences it's really clear and really science science showing how bad it is for inter indoor air quality Etc so this would uh this would help us to both improve our health

009and be environmentally friendly also I'm really I really like seeing the removal of the fars in D1 and D2 on on the table I just wish that we'd extend that to all zones the uh far better in my opinion if we just had no far limits throughout the city and started at sort of managing things by a number of floors and height thank you foreign okay with that we will close public hearing um this is number seven uh agenda number seven public hearings for the next business meeting um staff sorry we're moving quick [Applause] five tomorrow yeah book hearings to announce that will be um on the next Planning Commission meeting which is Tuesday October 23rd at 7 pm the first is for 1655 Plymouth Road a planned unit development PUD zoned parcel site plan

010for City Planning Commission approval it is a proposal to demolish the existing structure formerly the Wendy's restaurant and construct an approximately 2 500 square foot Taco Bell restaurant with single drive-through Lane site access to remain off of Plymouth Road and Osage Drive with 35 parking spaces located in the front of the restaurant this is a 0.98 Acre Site the second public hearing on Tuesday October 23rd meeting starting at 7 pm is what'd I say naturally the second meeting for Tuesday October 3rd 2023 starting at 7 pm is 900 Briarwood a site plan and rezoning for city council approval the developer is proposing to raise the existing Sears store which is 166 277 square feet and construct a grocer at 57 694 square feet and a sporting goods store 100 000 square feet two levels and

011an adjacent playing field in addition to the retail The Proposal includes 354 units of multi-family residential in a four-story building or buildings planned to be constructed adjacent to the grocery store a parking garage will be constructed surrounding the residential units parking spaces will be redesigned on the site with landscaping and storm water infiltration Islands added a new internal connector roadway is proposed to be constructed creating a new intersection with Briarwood Circle East of Mall Drive rezoning from P Parking to c2b the site is 18.2 Acres it is the total site planned area of which 8.29 acres is proposed to be rezoned thank you with that we are moving on to section 9A of the agenda regular business this is a UDC premiums amendment I will introduce a petition Amendment to the unified development code chapter

01255 of Ann Arbor city code premiums amendments chapter 55 UDC to eliminate floor area premiums provided in section 5.18.6 premiums and to change the maximum far of the downtown D1 core and D2 downtown interface in sections 5.17.4 mixed-use zoning districts a table 5.17-4 from up to 900 and 400 percent respectively To None the staff recommendations is approval so we'll move on to consultant presentation and I believe prior to that we have recusals from yes thank you commissioner chair Lee I'd like to recuse myself at this time based on involvement of a active petition in the D1 District so thank you thank you and with that I will also move to recuse self from this discussion as my employer owns property in the D1 Zone all right so we are now welcoming our colleague from Carla

013Wortman for a brief presentation um yeah oh thank you and good evening um um but tonight I'm here to talk about proposed tax amendments to amend the premium as well as a downtown so we um regulation however unless you've been exercising I think it's important to start this discussion with going back a little bit talking about the city and the Atlantic Christian has been working with us on CE uh January and I think the timing of this is really appropriate that your own computer is doing as well as a recent article um how started way back when in January was we started with a review and Analysis of the existing and of a particular importance of us of that process was to ensure that the current oh it helps to turn on the microphone doesn't

014it um I hope you heard my introduction okay thank you um so a particular part importance was to ensure um and and discuss whether or not the existing premiums were one consistent with the current city goals and policies and two to ensure or discuss how they were being utilized or how they were not being utilized based on the existing review of the premiums with both the Planning Commission and the city staff we felt that they were not advancing City goals and potentially stifling development the downtown that the city was trained to achieve so from there we work with the city in various stakeholders to one establish potential assumptions for these amendments to ensure that we were all on the same page working off the same sheet music with regards to what we assumed was happening

015in the downtown with regards to development draft policy options for the Planning Commission and others to consider vet those policy options with various stakeholders and community members present a UDC amendments for consideration and that's where we're at tonight it's considering an actual text Amendment to the proposed UDC with regards to zoning it's also worth knowing that this was not done in a vacuum Just Between the Planning Commission and the city staff in us we over the past eight months have gone out and discussed these options with the various stakeholders at multiple points throughout the process and the stakeholders I know I'm going to leave out a few uh included affordable housing community the Downtown Development Authority the sustainability community and the building and development community so they were all part of that discussion and getting

016us to the point where we're at today you can move forward so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these assumptions because we have vetted these and gone over these in detail over the past nine months but it's important to note that we use these as the foundation under which we would approach the amendments to uh the the zoning District regulations but in summary basically the assumptions that we all came up as a group was there should be an equal equilibrium or balance of land uses in the downtown between residential commercial uh and other in office uses developing in downtown is more difficult and more expensive than anywhere else in the city since the last amendments of the premium in 2019 there has been an affordable housing millage which does support additional

017housing affordable housing efforts in the city but I think we recognize that that alone is not enough to meet the affordable housing demands a significant number of properties are ineligible for premiums in the downtown based on their location either in historic district considerations and or location in the flood plain the current residential Market in the downtown currently being built is either high-end low-scale residential or student rental and it does not provide the necessary attainable high density that we are seeking and attainable housing the downtown is important to address both current and future and of our residents needs and lastly current premiums are not being utilized to their potential due to a very variety of reasons let's just move on thanks so um based off those assumptions in going and working with the Planning Commission the

018various stakeholders there are three common goals that came out of what we were trying to achieve through this process and through the premium discussion first was increase the affordability of uh in the downtown with regards to housing and this is accomplished in two ways both through streamlining the development process but also increasing the housing Supply in the downtown the second goal was to increase sustainability again this goes more to the market side about increasing the amount of Supply in the downtown because this is where the infrastructure the jobs transportation in a mix of land use already currently exists to support additional housing and lastly increase the equity in the downtown both for supply of Housing and commercial but also enlarge the development pool of applicants that can actually develop and build in the downtown so

019those are the three goals that we started that were formed out of this whole discussion my next one So based on assumptions that led to these goals led to discussion with the Planning Commission this is where we're at tonight um it's funny because we had spent eight months to come up with pretty simple text amendments it's actually removing language not adding not a menu it's removing language so essentially it's based on these goals the proposed amendment is to eliminate far regulations from the D1 and D2 and regulate massing through setbacks and height in the second by eliminating far the D1 and D2 the need for premiums are eliminated and those are recommended for removal as well um what's the impact of these of these um amendments first off in our research of comparable communities we've

020found that most do not have premiums and most regulate Mass seen through either far or hype but they don't do it with both we found that eliminating the far and rather regulating through height and setbacks and other measures makes development in this town easier streamlines the process and makes it easier for City Administration as in part of the review essentially we found that utilizing both far and height was complex and not necessarily would affect the development massing in the downtown because what we found was far was not the limiting factor on development in the downtown it was height with limiting and restricting Factor so by limiting far you're really not affecting what can be built in the downtown we do note that we are not making any changes to the height exceptions for sustainable and

021affordable housing developments that provision the order and still still exists we're also not creating any new precedence In the City by doing this as you've already eliminated far considerations in the tc1 and again you regulate that through uh height and setbacks as well and lastly and perhaps most importantly the city now is undergoing to comprehensive plane process where the issue of height in the downtown probably should and could be discussed in that process in context of the larger City goals of what's trying to be achieved so again just to reiterate um the the regulations that are going to remain that we're recommending is from a masking standpoint still going to regulate massing through the character zones the front setbacks will remain there's no proposed change to that and the height restrictions will still remain so

022for that reason we do think that the familiar building forms you see today will remain since the building and massing and setbacks are not proposed to change simply we're eliminating the far as part of the equation and lastly as I know the height bonus will also remain as is moving forward as well last slide I believe um so it's also important to to when you consider zoning amendments important to consider what the implications are uh what the consequences are and what some unintentional consequences may be I've addressed most of these in the presentation but I just want to reiterate again one again most comparable communities do not regulate um via far and height they pick one to regulate massim and most do not have any sort of Premium measure in their in their ordinance we

023don't think there's going to be an increase in billable area since the height again is the mostly the limiting fact that we studied for the recent developments in the downtown however we do know it is probably likely that it's going to be easier to reach the maximum height because of those far restrictions are removed we are likely to see similar building forms because again we're not changing height massing or building front setbacks we anticipate a similar amount of construction that we see in the downtown to what we saw pre-me before the last round of Premium amendments again that's very contingent on market conditions and we just can't predict what that's going to be but at least we're limiting restrictions to design ordinance we do think there's going to be a number of dwelling units proposed

024and increase from what we've seen the last two years and we think most importantly perhaps is that the the diversity of the Downtown Development opens up too because we're lowering that bar of FBI requirements so in summary we are um recommending based on the direction from the Planning Commission other stakeholders to eliminate the far and the D1 and D2 and removed the premium section from the Udo as well thank you Mr Leo do you have a staff presentation um only very briefly and it's just to point out some of the resources that are available and as Brett did go Ben this is clearly not my night I'm just going to get that it's gonna get that out there um as Ben mentioned we started and kicked off in February with a Planning Commission meeting where

025we went over what our initial review and Analysis was and then we worked through meetings in April May stakeholder meetings in May and June we talked about Concepts and options about what to do in July and again in August and here we are before you the planning staff do recommend approval of the proposed amendments we have repaired the ordinance language for you to consider um um and as um I've mentioned we have done some analysis looked at pest projects um that have been recently approved say in the past 10 years both in the D1 and the D2 thinking about um that uh that what-if scenario and what if we did this um a few years ago and what would think and what we found is that most projects either got to the maximum far or

026if they didn't it's because they ran into the height limit and so with these changes the physical Skyline will probably not change now it will get taller because as new development comes online new buildings but these new buildings proposed are probably going to be of the same size and scale and all depending on the size of the site compared to what they have been um the market is asking for residential this is probably what we're still going to be seeing even though we are not having a residential premium these new developments will continue to support our affordable housing millage um and also just our downtown tax increment financing districts that and then those monies can be then used for other supportive for supportive things as they are intended um Ben and myself are happy to

027answer any questions um uh and but I'll stop there and let the discussion begin thank you so now we'll move to the public hearing on this item an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed chapter 55 city code amendments regarding downtown premiums excuse me well first call on individuals present to address the commission and then remote participants to speak during the public hearing remotely press star nine if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if visit if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers who have raised their hand using the last three digits of their phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link you will hear an automated

028announcement 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 foreign you can approach the podium thanks uh hello uh my name is Carson van fossen and I live at One Marshall Court in Ann Arbor and I'm just here to speak in support of the change to the far requirements or the removal of the far requirements um because it is one thing that I do believe even just like trying to read it myself it just seemed very complicated and if we're trying to encourage development downtown Ann Arbor which

029I believe that we should then that is uh removing those requirements is one way to reduce red tape and allow more housing units to be built for more people I'm just giving an example of a say that's not quite as equivalent to ours but I see that's also thought about re doing its res or about changing its zoning in Minneapolis they recently completed a well it's been several years since they completed a change to their zoning process that increased ifar limits and that City in the past you know five or so years has had like the lowest rate of rent inflation in the country so in Ann Arbor where rent is so high as it is I do believe that this is one way of helping to reduce that or helping to reduce the future

030burden on people so thank you for allowing me my time to speak and that's all thanks is there anybody else present who would like to address the commission um you're not getting more um but my concern is sustainability yes you can build your way out of the highway by increasing Supply your use pressure on price am I on now yes to week to recap I support this but um so uh yeah you can build your way out of a housing crisis or at least reduce pressure on prices um so rewarding that with greater height makes total sense but you can't build your way out of a climate crisis unless it's Net Zero Energy any new building will add carbon to the atmosphere and the bigger the building the more carbon yes density age sustainability but

031marginally compared to the impact of burning gas I've crunched the numbers that's why at 0 assumes that all new construction starting in 2022 is Net Zero Energy including no gas right now the sustainability component consists of solar sustainability exception height exception consists of solar panels covering 60 percent of the roof space and if the building is not fully electric at the time of construction it has the capacity to achieve full electrification at a future date that's not good enough to align with a20 and to avoid adding emissions we should only allow extra height if there is full electrification at the time of construction and Net Zero Energy and include both the and developers should include both the affordable housing and sustainability components for that 30 height bonus not just one or the other we can't

032put up buildings that lock in decades of carbon emissions and certainly not be incentivizing them to build even higher um maybe that would have made sense 20 or 30 years ago but not now our carbon budgets are dwindling for any future that we care to live in um to conclude yeah I'll prove these uh the fire removal in D1 and D2 um but um to get to go to get the 30 additional height require both affordable housing sustainability components not one or the other and change the definition of sustainability to include Net Zero Energy buildings and no gas at the time of construction thank you is there anybody who would like to address the commission remotely yes we have one participant Alex Lowe you Alex Lowe you may now unmute and address the Planning Commission

033for three minutes I want to say again that I support this I think we should be getting rid of all far restrictions throughout the city I think that we should be massively liberalizing our height restriction restrictions in general and I think that if we really want you to tackle the uh the uh the environmental damage caused by buildings uh within us our city that is mostly constructed already we should be focusing on how we can make those existing cases uh uh or environmentally friendly for uh for example instead instead of making situation [Music] Let's uh rather focus on yeah if you also people parking you're gonna have to start paying annually for the environmental cost of that bargain thank you thank you there are no other participants or callers um for one last chance anyone

034on Zoom who would like to address the Planning Commission at this public hearing press star nine to raise your hand or raise your hand um again there are no hands raised all right then I will close the public hearing and I'll read the proposed motion the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission recommends that the mayor and city council approve the amendments to chapter 55 unified development code to eliminate the floor area premiums provided in section 5.18.6 premiums and to change the maximum far area ratio as a percentage of law area of the D1 downtown core and D2 downtown interface in section 5.17.4 mixed use zoning districts table 5.17-4 from up to 900 and 400 percent respectively to none moved by commissioner Mills seconded by commissioner weish we are in discussion is there anybody who would like

035to begin our discussion commissioner Mills I um I think I said this last time or the second to last time we talked about this I want to complement this process and that we really started with making sure we shared the same assumptions um and I think that the tweaks to the assumptions actually were really useful and helpful I appreciated then that we had goals that we talked about both on commission and in the stakeholder groups to get kind of what are the priorities associated with this um and I appreciate too that uh the solution arrived at is The Simple Solution uh subtraction rather than an addition and I think that's really elegant and um I think that this will make for clearer better code that I think will achieve our goals and uh I think

036this is also a just a a good reminder to all of us that if something's not working just because you draft it doesn't mean it's cast in stone forever that the zoning ordinance is a living document and that we should be evaluating it to make sure that we're getting what it is that we want and I I think it's great that we were able to do that here so I'm looking forward to supporting this commissioner Weatherby just like to Echo that I feel a little bit like I fell asleep and woke up four years later and we're still talking about the same um because when I was last on Planning Commission we were just about to approve this and uh now here we are approving a different version of it and I actually think it's

037great because as uh commissioner Mills points out you know it's been a big four years things have changed and what we the Our intention is pretty much the same we want more affordability we want more sustainability but it's just we're thinking of it in a slightly different way and it's great that we're making these changes to make that process better so I think it's uh it's a really good thing and something that we should think or other processes that we do processes that we do because looking at 50 year old documents to plan the future is probably not ideal commissioner dish so yes I'm I also want to say that the process has been terrific and I think the output is great but I have a couple of questions and part of that is just

038because one of my roles is to be able to make sure that I can explain this to the public and so I have to make sure that I understand it really really well um so but so one of my questions is going to be just nailing how much we have actually changed with this subtraction but another question which is probably easier is you're in your report at the end in the summary part you note that you are seeing multi-family residential development throughout South thousand Southeast Michigan and that there's lots of financing for that and I wondered if you were talking about student housing or all kinds of multi-family rental housing um so we work throughout Southeast Michigan Ann Arbor um take this in a good spirit is a common anomaly for compared to a lot

039of places in southeast Michigan um so we're seeing a significant amount of of housing multi-family housing throughout the area that we work in it's not student housing it's it's it's mostly market rate housing um we've we've seen very little student housing outside of the Ann Arbor City area some of the surrounding townships we work in we still a little bit of student housing but outside of that area we don't see any student housing it's it's it's market rate multi-family housing in most these communities and every everything from duplexes all the way to higher higher rise or multi or mid you know mid-rise apartment types developments okay okay that's great that's that's good to hear so we are anomalous in that um okay uh so I am trying to understand exactly what simplifies the premiums over

040the current model and I I think that clearly one aspect of it is by removing the far by by ceasing to link or ceasing to um offer premiums that are calculated in terms of far but linking directly to height that is a simplification okay um you note that to qualify that some of the things that are cumbersome about the current process is that to qualify for premiums currently a developer must provide affordable housing and or achieve Leed certification so am I incorrect that this will still be the case except that a developer will be able to provide a hundred percent payment in lieu under the new rules that we are adopting so yeah so the recommendation is to eliminate all premiums right so the the affordable housing in the unit or forward housing in lieu

041is removed other than if you go for the height which we didn't spend much time studying in depth through this process okay so where we started was look at the premiums tell us if they're working if they're not working why not and through this process it's been an evolution if you told me nine months ago we would have ended up here today I probably wouldn't have thought that to be true but one of the fundamental things with zoning is make what you want easy to do and from everything we've heard and everything we discussed with the community and the Planning Commission easier process simplifying the process opening up the field to other development Community is a good thing and the easiest way to do that is to eliminate unnecessary or burdensome regulations okay so let

042me try it by removing so not adding not amending not changing but by removing if nothing else you're moving a burdensome cumbersome regulation that that stifling the goals of what this community is trying to achieve okay so in the in the offered us a couple months ago which was a great question I'd go back a couple months ago here no I will remind you um you you stated and you you restated in this memo as well that we were not seeing buildings maxing out their far we were seeing them maxing out height so height is limiting density correct so yes these reforms eliminate premiums but they also make they also I don't know if this was always the case but they also say that the 30 percent additional height that's available elsewhere in the city

043for an affordability or a sustainability component is available in the downtown correct now if projects were maxing out height under the current regime that suggests that more height is desired than what our height limits right and so we may have eliminated the old scheme of premiums that was linked to far but because we have an increased height at all we are making it likely that people will still need will that there will still be a desire to have a height increase which does call premiums into play they are city-wide premiums no longer downtown specific premiums no longer tied to far okay um if if first the question if you were just making sure to establish an understanding I will stop but if you were looking for some clarification I would say that um most projects

044downtown have used the premiums so first up but the base far is fairly low about half what most projects are and then so all most projects have used premiums so um right there we are making it easier there's no magic formula to unlock more development we are just raising the bar saying that 400 percent floor area ratio in the D1 core or 200 percent in the D2 that's not the we are raising the bar and we are raising it to kind of what the developments are that use premiums so we are we are right off saying bigger is better we want density and we're going to make it much easier for you to do that regardless of your use and we've removed the barriers you don't have to achieve two points in an old version

045of lead and you don't have to provide affordable housing affordable residential in your building you don't have to get lead certification so we've we've made it just plain easier much more intuitive someone can call up and say I've got this address and I can say well whatever building you can fit under maybe 180 feet or maybe 150 feet so that's what we are saying it's making it easier we're probably going to get the same buildings in the end the skyline will look very similar it's much easier to explain tell me your address I'll tell you your zoning district and this is your box that you can that you can build in so we've reviewed removed a lot of that complication we will not be getting any affordable housing contributions in lieu because there's no requirement

046anymore right right unless they want unless they would like even to exceed the height but we've made the first step much easier there's still a second step if they really want to go big but and I does this at all yes and can I ask you one more thing because this I was sort of afraid to say because I thought um I was way off but based on your response I do think I understand it well which is that in order to even reach the max height that was allowable they were needing premiums because far was capped or our base far was so small that you just couldn't go up to 180 feet unless you took that you took the fvr far premium and then you didn't actually even max out on all the far

047you could have because the height kept you right yeah yeah it is unclear if they didn't max out just because that was the design and they were very happy with that or if they would have liked to go to go more but um to meet our goals of um making it much easier but knowing there has you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere so we're the height limit Remains the massing the building articulation the modules setbacks and so forth they remain yeah um but just the then the additional layer of what's the maximum floor area right that's been released so to achieve the maximum height that has always been the maximum height they no longer have to access premiums for the height on the books for the height that's on the books

048right correct and should they want to exceed that height they can through premiums but the premiums are they're no yeah the city wads are premiums they're yeah they're labeled as um exceptions to exceptions we are eliminating exceptions to height limits I I suppose one could it's one could one could possibly Nuance but I was just going to say one definition of is yes one could call it a premium but it's not a premium like with a capital P all right it is a it is a different it's a premium it's a bonus you gotta give up something as you affordable how you provide affordable housing or sustainability to get that additional that exception to the high limit okay that's we're not recommending that be removed that that stays on the books right okay I will

049I will correct my semantics and I do think that I understand in principle fully what we've done and I I agree with something that commissioner Mills said last time which was we've really made this a lot easier to get even the height that we were already allowing so that's good thank you thank you for that that's really helpful any other comments for discussion um I just had a question for staff I noticed in the staff report um urging a quick consideration of section 5.18.4 exceptions to height limits and I noticed that in that recommendation it lists all of the kind of built elements that we might consider and I wondered um but it doesn't list a consideration of the sustainable and affordable housing development part of that um ordinance and I wondered if you could

050maybe just share with us a little bit about the rationale behind that the rationale would be because it has not come it has not come up yet I heard tonight I think it's a great idea our plan as staff was to work with the ordinance revisions committee at their very at their next available meeting which they have a meeting in September that has been booked and they will be meeting again in November and so we have a discussion in November about uh draft language and it could come up there should should it be expanded um because it's a more of an idea it's not a proposed amendment yet it's all on the table great thank you commissioner watch and just to clarify what we are potentially bringing to orc is removing the mechanical equipment from

051the height consideration so that a developer doesn't get penalized if they have to have an HVAC that's at the top of the building and they're already at the maximum height and such they'd have to take out a floor of housing like a a story of housing in order to get back within the requirement so we're looking to not yeah that is that what we're looking at I'll ask the question that way sorry correct we any other comments all right I think we're ready for a roll call vote all right um sorry skipping commissioner Lee um commissioner Abrams yes commissioner white yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner clerk yes commissioner Mills yes and commissioner Weatherby yes there are five affirmative votes the motion carries thank you that's seven seven but the motion still carries

052um we're going to take a brief pause to welcome commissioner Lee and commissioner sovay back to the chamber [Applause] um I I saw a flash oh that's Matt I proposed maybe a one or two minute break all right we're going oh here they come here perfect [Music] all right I am back so we will move on too oh thank you cool yeah yes all right we're moving on to section 9B regular business this is 35 20 Green Court a plan unit development text Amendment for city council approval the proposed amended supplemental regulations will expand the permitted principal uses of the Pud that's the plan unit development the permitted principal uses would add medical and dental offices expand the definition of hotel and would permit development of multi-family residential housing which is currently excluded this PUD

053District includes 35.26 Acres staff recommendation is approval and so we will move on to petitioner presentation all right thank you good evening Mr chairman and Commissioners it's a pleasure to be here tonight my name is David calden I'm with varnum LLP and we're counsel for the applicant alterim Institute um with me today is Miss Tracy lawyer who is all terms general counsel and joining us via Zoom are missed in eastern the CFO and Mr Anson burlescans the paralegal in Tracy's office so we're here tonight to talk about revisions to the ERM PUD if you're interested I was that acronym erum comes from the former name of Altera which was the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan and it was the owner of the Pud when it was property when it was established in 1998. how we

054got here tonight is that we um well first I want to thank Matt and your staff who have been incredibly helpful throughout the process and really available and really responsive so I want to I want to thank them but we started with Matt last year we appeared before the Planning Commission in October of last year we presented the the project that we're talking about tonight subsequent to that meeting there was a citizen participation meeting that was on May 2 2 there were 651 residents that received a notice of that hearing and there were really only three attendees one of which was a representative of the parcels there hasn't been a ton of neighbor involvement there were a couple of comments that were received those comments were generally in the nature of questions about the proposed

055use of the vacant property in the Pud and then following that meeting we finalized the application we submitted that to staff for review in June and substanted review suggested a few minor changes and subsequently this meeting was noticed and so with that let's jump into quickly a very brief overview of the project the project is in the red box that's shown here it's northeasterly of downtown Ann Arbor and northeasterly of the University of Michigan's North Campus slide please thank you it's zooming in further it's located between Green Road and US-23 just south of Plymouth Road it's generally surrounded by commercial and multi-family properties on the South Commercial in the North next Slide the uh yeah zooming in all the way we see there's five Parcels in the Pud it comprises a total of 35.26 acres

056and each of those Parcels is outlined here next slide and then uh here's here's a good view of sort of the current conditions at the site for the parcels are presently used for an extended stay hotel and Commercial office purposes Altera moans one of those commercial office properties it's kind of the bottom left property and it also owns the remaining vacant lot which is a 7.16 acre property it's the top left there of the picture we are not presenting a site plan for that vacant parcel tonight instead we're just proposing some text revisions to the supplemental regulations those have been reviewed by staff and I'll quickly expose explain those changes now next slide please Matt um first the changes would allow medical and dental office uses in addition to General office uses hotels in addition

057to Extended Stay hotels and multi-family residential uses we believe that these uses are consistent with the character of the area compatible with the other uses surrounding the Pod including the multi-family that I mentioned to the South earlier and we think that incorporating medical and dental professional office uses along with general office uses is much more consistent with your current UDC which of course does allow those sorts of professional offices in general office in the general office District um next slide in connection with these expanded uses which would allow multi-family housing we've heard of course that the provision of affordable housing is important to the city we studied the UDC and we noted that as shown here the UDC requires that if the fire is between 75 and 100 then 10 percent of the total dwelling

058units must be affordable housing dwelling units and if the far is more than 100 then 15 percent of the dwelling unit is supposed to be affordable in our proposed supplemental regulations we would increase those figures from 10 and 15 percent respectively to 15 and 20 percent respectively which provides a public benefit and although not noted here the supplemental regulations would allow that requirement to be satisfied by payment of affordable housing contribution consistent with the formula that is established by the city council by resolution annually or by a combination of affordable housing units and a contribution so to clarify we're proposing to provide five percent more affordable housing than is required by ordinance next slide and finally the proposed text changes would incorporate the city's more current development standards relative to things like Landscaping lighting and

059parking and also increase the permitted floor error ratio subject to the affordable housing requirement that I just mentioned um an example of those more current standards is the city's uh is that the city's owning ordinance now requires down directed or so-called that Dark Skies type lighting to help prevent light pollution and those sorts of Provisions are Incorporated by reference to the UDC many of these changes were suggested by staff helpfully we agree that these sorts of you know primarily dimensional and sort of you know construction guidelines will help to ensure that the property is consistent with your current zoning ordinance and that the property is not underutilized um slide so to conclude there have obviously been a lot of changes societal and demographic since this PUD was initially established in 1998 it's resulted for the

060need of different types of development changes in the way that development is done in the city there's obviously now much more emphasis on creating a walkable and bikeable Community than was the case in 1998 and of course the proper utilization of infill property to prevent sprawl is is um is much more highlighted now than it was previously we believe that these proposed abundance will bring the Pud language up to the state of the art make the property more useful to meet the current needs of the city and to ensure good and efficient development in the Pud we were also pleased to see that the staff supports these changes and so for all these reasons we ask for your recommendations recommendation to the city council in favor of these changes tonight and Tracy now will be

061here to answer any questions you have thank you thank you and now we will go on to staff presentation Mr Kowalski good evening okay so a petitioner did a good job of summarizing up really the basis of why they're here tonight so as I indicated it really started with the request to add a multi-family use to these um to the district and again I want to make sure that it's clear that we are talking about the Pud this the entire District that you see on the screen here so again I mean we tend to maybe focus a little bit more on the vacant parcel because that's obviously most likely the next one that would probably be developed however these regulations do apply to all of the properties within the Pud District so again it's multifamily

062was is specifically excluded from there um it was it was one of our earliest puds it has a really interesting mix of uses um that uh if many of which we kept because um I think one of the benefits of this PUD is really a unique diverse mix of uses that we don't allow anywhere else I mean there's light industrial that's allowed here if you read that it exists you know craft manufacturing um it says like glass making there's really it's like I said I've never quite seen one in those uses like I said we're kind of uh they're quasi manufacturing and things so we wouldn't allow those with any other typically with residential type uses um and I don't know why exactly that is put in there from the beginning yes oh sorry Mike

063your mic oh I gotta move it a little closer thank you thank you thank you um didn't have my glasses so I saw you leaving so again a diverse bit of uses so that's that goes to one of the public benefits we also felt this staff that it was a reason why we preserved those uses although they're not really being utilized now that's truly something that unique that we don't have in other uses with residential office again things that were excluded like medical dental offices um I don't see why any reason why we would exclude those going forward um it it had other unique extended stay hotel again to us a hotel is a hotel um if that doesn't really matter uh and then there was numerous other items that were in the previous supplemental

064regs that again we don't we don't have a supplemental regs currently nowadays these were many of the requirements that were typically now in code things regarding landscape buffering um access there's other items like that the um and also there are some design requirements things that were a little bit more vague that would be basically impossible for staff to enforce saying things like the new buildings plan there have to meet the common theme of The District I don't know what that is so we removed a lot of non-substantive what we would call and hopefully plan a commission agrees items through here which again are unenforceable at the end of the day we've also tried to bring it up as was mentioned to some of our current standards you know removing there's there's no parking minimum uh

065there is a parking maximum they're uh again updating some of the uses within there let me uh the far limit again was was lifted that was also kind of a comment from Planning Commission initially when we uh presented this back as a pre-pud concept meeting was a comment regarding the far as well as the affordable housing that was something that as you know now affordable housing is a requirement in the PD however the petitioners have offered to go above and beyond that to increase the Pud and increase the affordable housing within the Pud and again that would affect to any that would affect any parcel that's being developed within the district now and that would be above the base far of 75 percent um so again currently like existing puds and the reason why the

06675 was chosen that was the original uh we flipped all the way back through the original zoning it was an orl type of zoning back then so office research light industrial basically and that was the original far limit what's in the district now is 40 which I mean I think most of us probably feels pretty low for Parcels within the the or you know the the city um so we've obviously reduced or sorry eliminated that the height limit has been increased a little bit from four stories to five stories 65 feet so previously four stories and 50 feet now to 5 and 65. I mentioned the issue with the hotel or all hotels are now permitted we did add again working with the petitioner or something that staff kind of offered the petitioner agreed is

067to kind of add in as an accessory retail type of use truly is an accessory use it's written in the supplemental regulations I think we have a 10 percent and up to a 12 000 square foot limit as an accessory used to any building and I believe that covers really the substantial changes one other thing I know that was mentioned by a a public commenter earlier in one of the communications through email was the issue regarding curb cuts the Pud does have a restriction analysis two access points to Green Road and that's what's there now so we didn't change that and that again is the district it's not just these Parcels so that so basically this if they could maybe move a curb cut but they can't they're not allowed another curb cut directly to

068Green Road and other things were setbacks we did bring the setbacks the front setbacks in particular into uh into basically to align with some of our current standards we've designed this much like the office districts some of the standards that I looked at regarding the setbacks were setbacks that were similar in the office uh districts as well so the 15 foot front setback as well as the height the height is also consistent with the office district and I believe that summarizes up the changes and um of course I will be available for any questions thank you thank you Mr Kowalski we're moving on to public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the proposed 3520 Green Road uh PUD text Amendment will first call on individuals present to

069address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star 9 or possibly star six if listening by phone or use the raised hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers who've raised their 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 and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background nodes noises so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak

070at this time foreign [Applause] of course thank you chair Lee um yeah alterim has an interesting history um as Mr Colin mentioned it came out of erum the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan which was deceptively named this was Ann Arbor's biggest military contractor during the 70s and 80s and was a target of Vietnam era protesters when what's called The Willow Run labs in the 60s um in the late 90s the arm created a for-profit arm that later became part of General Dynamics they pretty much moved away while the non-profit erum bought another local military contractor Vector Research and renamed itself alterum it now does Health Care research mostly for the government no classified military research anymore as far as I know um so there's a for sale sign in front of the company's vacant 7.2

071acre parcel on Green Road Altera obviously wants more flexibility for the parcel and maybe for other parts of its site which um if you were looking at the aerial renderings rather resembles a sea of parking with three buildings on it um except for the 77.2 vacant acres and yes it would be nice to have multi-family housing on those 7.2 acres and this will allow for that but there's no guarantee that that's what the eventual buyer is going to build um and Altera to my view is offering very little new public benefit a slight increase in affordable housing Beyond what's already in the Pud that's about it the parking maximums are the same as in UDC these could be lowered especially if alterm is willing to open up the new development to some of the vast

072amount of parking already on the site but more most importantly there was nothing here about electrification or Energy Efficiency so as I already have mentioned Ad nauseam the a20 plan assumes that all new buildings are to be Net Zero Energy including no gas connections beginning in 2022. let's write that standard into this PUD ordinance Altera May object that this would limit rather than expand the pool of potential buyers of their 7.2 acres and they may be right but it would ensure that we get a buyer willing to build according to our community standards which have been formally adopted by our city council um still got 30 seconds uh yeah um how about puds in general I think it's really a positive development that this community in this community developers are now they now realize if

073they want a PUD they have to go all electric we're seeing that time and time again I think it's it's just become standard I don't know why this project should be an exception um and um yeah that's pretty much it it's hard to murder sorry to muddy the waters but so be it thank you Mr garper is there anyone else present that would like to speak seeing no one is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely no callers or attendees have raised their hand thank you all right seeing no one uh speaking remotely we will move to the promo proposed motion the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the erim erim at 30 3520 green Corps planned unit development zoning text Amendment moved by

074commissioner white and seconded by council member dish we're in discussion would anyone like to kick us off icial I'll do a quick small one um if we can bring back up the presentation Mr quasi and then go to the slide that showed the existing regulations and then the proposed and I think it was the second in that sequence yes sir and then if you could uh put that up because I can't actually see it on my screen because the viewers block it yeah I don't know why that that's okay well if you're sorry there you go is that better yeah oh no but it's under no minimum building hype requirements is there anything beyond requirements wait um right now it has a two-story yeah wait minimum there actually is a building height requirement I'm on

075Building height requirement I guess so there's no there's no additional words after that correct okay great so that I wanted to start there with my question and I don't know what just happened after I asked you to do that but it has now gotten worse oh yeah that wasn't I think he was trying to solve our our visual problem and now we can see ourselves and nothing else which is okay um why why are we proposing or did staff have a conversation with the petitioner oh that's much better thank you yes um to remove the minimum Building height requirement because this means on the whole parcel if they were to tear down any building and reconstruct they Could reconstruct a single story building which if tc1 is coming to this area that would be sort

076of out of scope so it is there a rationale for why we would remove the two-story minimum which is present in tc1 from this PUD since it already exists and would match the district that's coming yeah well I would also defer to the petitioner I want that one because I want to start with stats yeah I appreciate that but no I think a two-story minimum is okay at that location okay I know that they you guys should revise that to be the one story but I don't think that was a strong discussion point at the time no I think that that was not something that was particularly important I think that my strong suspicion is that whatever happens here is going to be multi-story trying to facilitate the use of the property but that's not

077the requirement of the Pud so I mean I appreciate what you're saying unless we write it in someone will come in and say I can build a single story and the Pud will permit it and there is nothing we can do to prevent that yeah I think I think that my recollection is that that might have been something that was suggested to kind of just get rid of a lot of old good language but but yeah it could have been but I think overall we would staff does support the two-story minimum and I would look to the petitioner as something we can amend here if it was okay obviously this has to go to council so we have ability to make amendments if it's agreeable I mean yeah I I don't think that's agree with

078the tc1 that was discussed briefly what the petitioner about going to the tc1 district instead of a PUD so um but again the Pud has different advantages with it so yes that's something that commission could certainly um get behind and recommend at this point yeah do I need to make a formal motion uh to strike the uh no minimum height excuse me Building height requirement I don't think so I don't think you need to make a formal moment um we can note that as a I mean you can make it is there agreement at the table generally friendly okay okay all right cool okay I'll start yeah that certainly starting to make note that that item will be amended thank you thank you commissioner Abrams well we have this slide up I think that there

079might be a discrepancy between what I'm reading in the supplemental regs and what I see on this slide so I want some clarification on the slide it says uh front setback 25 feet from the edge of green road yeah I did notice that it's 15 in the document um and it says South Edge the slide says 25 feet along the South property boundary and the supplemental reg say 30. yes that's well so again I would I don't know fortunately we did have the 15 has been in there for a while so both of those I think it might have just been the typo in the again unless David or the petitioner disagrees I think that but the supplemental regulations is what you guys had reviewed in a and agreed to so I think the presentation

080like is I I agree that's that's entirely my fault I apologize good good eyes good catch I appreciate that yes but thank you thanks the the slide is wrong the supplemental reg's document is correct are correct yes the supplement of eggs are something that has been reviewed previously correct thank you And to clarify it's 15 feet correct yes okay it's in the supplements right now that's what we write consistent with the office District that's why we went to that number gotcha and as a point of clarification the side setback is 30 feet so yeah okay any other Commissioners commissioner hammershit I have two things quickly to start um the curb Cuts I only see one where are the two is it is the north one on they're both yes that is on the altaram site

081yeah yes yeah the line doesn't quite go that far up but the property line goes to the middle correct okay I thought I was reading something in here that there's maybe not in there in somewhere that that was like some sort of easement but yes there is an easement that goes back to the hotels behind there okay that's correct okay there is because there's there's adjacent access to all of these other there's a couple of hotels including the hotel that's off of Plymouth yeah uh yep I see the Holiday Inn but I don't know what it is now yeah I don't remember okay um okay so that's the max curb cuts no more curb Cuts they can relocate a curb cut that's it um since this is a PUD and puds you know we talk

082about public benefits since this is it's an existing PUD but we're amending the Pud do we still need to analyze this in terms of public benefits yep absolutely because you're still you're still I don't want to say re-upping but yeah you're still reauthorizing the Pud uh to the standards of today yeah correct and which is why we've tried to highlight certain benefits that we've called out but yes that's absolutely correct okay I mean I fully support more development on this site um I live by here I think it would be great for you know more residential more anything I would love to see it more like tc1 where it's pulled up to the curb um so I need I want to think about like the setbacks and the building frontages and stuff but you know

083to the to the point of electrification too like those are things that we're asking for in puds and that we're getting so I I mean I know like what like to the petitioner or staff like was that was it discussed that like you know new development within this would need to be all electric because was that ever a conversation I mean it was brought up that it would probably be a comment from planet Noah so well yeah that's that's a fair question we we um I don't believe it was brought up when we were before the Planning Commission to present previously to present this I did hear a discussion about it tonight um obviously we haven't done any real analysis of that we don't know who will purchase and what they will build obviously back

084before the Planning Commission if and when there's a site plan uh for review and that will require if I'm correct uh it's a an amendment to the Pud again so well it may not require it will definitely require a site plan but if it's consistent with the zoning it would only it would still be a full site plan that it would go to Planet Commission but it may it may tweak the Amendments but or sorry the Pud but okay so so but it will it will be back in front of the Planning Commission for a site plan for site plan review certainly that that we can explain I thank to whoever is interested in purchasing the remaining lot that that's a consideration that the Planning Commission is going to be looking at certainly so we

085can't require it then uh you you probably couldn't require it but you could certainly indicate that that's something that would be your decision now okay yeah we have again we have not we have not done any review of that debate no I'll leave that with that for now council member dish so yeah two other wish list items off of Kirk was Fall's wish list um I don't know why we don't accept the suggestion of prohibiting Street facing parking that that's something that you you could I mean we didn't the staff discuss it I did not discuss that with the petitioner I didn't go into that level of kind of detail but but absolutely as a commission if that's something same as with the um the other issue we brought up that we were going to

086change the two-story minimum um correct that can also be discussed and you know discuss with the petitioner brought up as well yeah well I would like to put that on the table um uh clearly not that existing parking should be ripped up unless it's being substantially altered but development on the vacant part it seems like there's no reason to have Street facing parts so basically by Street facing you mean like so no parking in front of a building more or less like there has to be a building screening it correct okay so again that that's something I would look to the petition if what what our council member planning Commissioners is pointing out in the supplemental regulations would be a restriction to have parking uh sorry no no parking in front of buildings along uh

087Green Road Green Road yes that'd be correct well and just and and the reason I bring this up is because when we last discussed this which was about a year ago we talked about why it wasn't being rezoned tc1 and it was it was an interesting answer that we had there that that there might be some benefits that we could get if not that um if we Zone this tc1 the existing buildings would be in non-conforming with that but also that aspects of this project are looking forward to tc1 and I sort of I liked that sentence in my notes and so I thought perhaps we should think about as many uh aspects of the of of what we're doing now to look forward to tc1 would be nice and so and then the only

088other one and this conflicts with what I have just said but uh the other one that uh Mr Westfall brings up is protecting the trees that are now shading that very long sidewalk along green and um a setback of 25 feet would probably do a better job but that was an error so so we have a setback of 15 feet and um that is probably not adequate to protect that lovely stand of trees I don't know um if they're I'm not an arborist they are large I don't know if they're special in any way but they do produce shade along a pretty exposed area by virtue of it being across from a really large concrete you know what's on the other side of the street is a really large concrete thing and so those trees

089are pretty nice and I think I would be you know so if we can I know that that goes against the idea of we just want to build up to the front lot line but we're also debating that as well so um okay so those are the two things that I wanted to put on the table the front-facing parking and do we want do we care enough about the line of trees sorry and sorry if I could just add one thing it triggered my memory as well that I wanted to mention is that right one thing to keep in mind with these supplemental regulations and you touch them as there are existing buildings in this PUD right now so that is one thing that we have to consider a lot of times with a PUD

090you're dealing with one a vacant site or you know a site to be completely remodeled but this these puds I meant the the it applies the entire now again that doesn't necessarily have to change any weight Direction you're going I just wanted to make sure that's clear and then regarding the trees along there that is something that well at least staff I internally debated about reducing that setback knowing that those trees were there but again looking at how we were like with tc1 now we're putting you know things a little bit closer to the street and so that again was a good point for discussion at Planet Commission in which direction we want to go and I don't know necessarily whether 25 feet wood protected trees or 15 feet would necessarily kill them I didn't

091go into that level of detail thank you commissioner salvate so maybe I'll address that and say I believe it's a minimum setback and so the building could set back further and if we reviewed a site plan a alternative Arrangement plan may have to be shown relative to the change of natural features so if they demoed all of the trees to fit the sidewalk and the building very close we could evaluate that in terms of harm or good uh similarly if we allowed the flexibility at 15 feet maybe a piece of the building such as an entrance could protrude we could lose a couple of trees and the thing could jog back or something and so I'm comfortable with leaving it and giving the flexibility for design and that we could evaluate it with natural features

092at a site plan level later on um but I do want to add relatives to maybe the kind of alignment with tc1 and that um also the 2021 building code is finally getting reviewed um and that we might be looking at 75 feet instead of 55 feet for uh tall buildings now and so this uh asks for the 65 feet and I'd recommend it aligning it 75 feet maximum height maybe even striking the stories this is my comfort level so I put it to the table um just to to meet similar to tc1 which is at the 50 and 75 feet and then it also aligns with the building code so that we're not having kind of difference in height restrictions between zoning and building code so I offer that to the table commissioner Mills

093thank you for noticing me because this follows immediately onto that I um I was curious about the 65 feet because that doesn't seem to line up to anything in the height table everything is 55 feet and two stories or something different and I was similarly curious about um in most of the situations where it is 55 feet there is some reference to nearby residential and I know again a lot of the attention is on the parcel that's farther from residential but following through kind of the 55 within 80 feet of residential and 75 within 80 to 300 feet within residential I think again borrows from another District that this might be realistic to or um related to and I was just curious about why that why in a lot of the office in the office

094District there's a step down when it's a budding residential and since that I double check to make sure that the the residential to the South is is residential zoned so I was that part of the discussion reducing the height next to the residential note was not what is common in the other areas um I know it would be a reduction from what's proposed but it's not a reduction from what is there right now within 80 feet and then going up to what commissioner sovay suggested 75 for what is the majority of that site um makes me feel like it uh it's more in keeping with what's there but I'm curious from um the petitioner's perspective like if that's a if that's a friendly Amendment yeah I I I think that the um decision was made

095to increase the height based on comments about how to make the pros the parcel generally better use of the property um so it was basically based on on feedback that we received um I don't think there's any objection with making the height taller and or you know limiting the height in relation to residential adjacent districts to the proposed height and taller and other areas I don't think either one of those is necessarily problematic um we don't know Tracy if we need to speak with any of any of the other folks in the Pud to get feedback on those sorts of ideas but we have I mean I don't think we would have any objection to that I mean to be clear my understanding again I got to pull up the other one but the 55

096feet within 80 feet is still more than what's currently what's currently allowed at all correct so it would ah I'm it's still again more than what's there and this would allow even higher um kind of farther from that southern property line so sure and it's a PD um so I think there's you know some some policy decision making about you know whether or not the City wants to try to you know make the best use possible the property but um there was there hasn't been a ton of discussion about higher height or a different height at this point yeah thank you I had another note let's see I appreciate the um so I'm I'm interested in that I would be interested in making now we're talking about three changes to height adding a minimum height

097increasing the maximum height overall except within 80 feet of residentially zoned property to keeping that at 55 to match whatever's and the rest of here and I don't care about the story stuff so I'm sorry you said match fit to 55 the existing says 50. I know I'm at 55 from Office correct 55 from office and from almost everything else within the table in the current Zone 55 feet office within 80 feet 75 everywhere except within 85 feet of residential 80 80 feet 80 feet of residential sorry and then being 55. 55 over week with that residential zoning yes within residence I think that's right I think that that is how the tc1 is drafted and that's how a lot of this works yes that's similar yep um I appreciated to the discussion the reminder

098or about why keeping it in a PUD D I'm I'm so I I actually have looked I was like I don't remember discussing this it's because it's math last year like and so I was up north at the map conference so I wasn't there so sorry um but I think this for me so I um I trust that conversation happened I'm thinking about like what are the benefits um and part of me but also saying like this is why I don't love Beauties generally because they come out of date because we're making it current with what is happening now and so um it's interesting to me that there are uses that are allowed here that we don't allow the combination of uses anywhere else that is very interesting to me I don't know though based

099on what we're hearing that that's actually what we're gonna get um and so I would just say like this is what happens I appreciate like pegging it to the things that are currently required in our code because I have lots of questions about EV charging and all of those things you know um Dark Skies compliance and all of these things and so even so if it were just if it were uh um a standard zoning District that would that would keep up with the times as we're going overall so I'm not staying in the way of this but I just noting it for everyone's benefit thank you commissioner Weatherby yeah just a couple things um one I think the height makes sense to sort of tie it to other districts but also this is on

100the north side of the housing and so whether it's 55 or 65 or 75 it's not going to block sun it's not going to really look that different to the three-story buildings behind it so that's just like I don't have a strong feeling but if 20 more feet gives us a lot more opportunity than I don't think it's really infringing if somebody on their first floor apartment is looking out it's going to look the same whether it's 55 feet or 75 feet from their point of view and it is on the North side so um but then the other thing that I did notice is the public benefit really the only public benefit other than um an interesting mix of uses is the affordable housing premium I'm not going to say premium but um and

101and there is no guarantee I mean this could very easily be medical manufacturing I mean and would make a lot of sense in that area to you know manufacture face masks or vaccines or whatever so there is no guarantee that affordable housing or housing at all would ever be there and um so for that to be kind of the only public benefit is it it doesn't necessarily sit well with me as a really strong benefit it's great if housing is built but there there is really no guarantee because we've added other uses in addition to housing for this site thank you um with a petitioner like to respond to that just briefly sure that there's some really good comments there yeah um we just interestingly we did hear from another owner in the Pud that

102is an office owner that they would actually have interest of considering potentially in the future looking at a residential use even in lieu of existing office so the the couple things you mentioned there in terms of making the house the height uniform throughout the project would probably help facilitate that was one thought and then the other thought I guess is you know the fact that there is there has been expressed interest in potentially doing housing on this vacant site um and and existing um other other existing Uh current office users considering housing as well um you know I realize that that that's a limited public benefit in relation to other types of public benefits but I do think it's material in terms of the the impact of a 15 to 20 percent affordable housing component

103if if in fact housing does materialize as we've you know seen interest in in actually happening on the site that's it thank you if I could just add a little bit I mean we did internally as staff we discussed um with with Mr Leonard as well as you know that the question that you just kind of touched on which is that residential right is not required um but it's it's a slippery slope where we try you know how how could we require it like like just on the new parcel or like part of the old again dealing with all these other existing uses it was really tricky so again not to say that the blind admission can't recommend things I mean absolutely we can we can work within that but that was something that we

104did debate again it wasn't something that we put forward to the petitioner because we just didn't it it was it was challenging in itself and again to write something that necessarily require it we get into but acknowledging that the public benefit would only be achieved with that use or that public benefit but you know again we're trying to make it a little bit more liberal rather than trying to restrict things down even though I understand that housing is what we all really want to see on the site um but but that is correct it's not a required use commissioner White so I appreciate commissioner weatherby's raising of the public benefits because I I would agree also with the public comment from Mr Garber that there aren't very many public benefits in this PUD um dare

105I say any and um I wonder given so so if I can get a better framework because this is an existing PUD that we are making text amendments or changes to to permit more uses and we're trying at the same time to bring aspects of the Pud to match our existing code but that's not required so we could they would have a right to leave the Pud as it is and just come and ask for the additional uses and not have to meet our EV charging not have to meet our dark sky no I mean I think I understand but they still have to do a site plan which has all those requirements when a site plan comes but that's only triggered by the site plan correct okay yes all the application of those ordinances

106and it would not apply to the other built infrastructure that's inside the Pud unless they brought a new site plan because that would be the only place that we could make those changes right would it put correct like if EV parking well I'm trying to think through this if it was a requirement how it would depend on how this particular PUD supplemental regulations are crafted if if tonight's project fails the existing PUD does remain and they have and they are entitled to build under the current supplemental regulations right so I would build I would say that's a manufacturing the benefit yeah and I would say that the benefits discussion should be what the what the proposed changes are they could propose to fully revamp the planned unit development supplemental regulations and and and I understand

107they have to an extent they have not correct me if I'm wrong they have not said we we will retroactively apply say electric vehicle parking but also it doesn't seem like it's it doesn't seem like the Pud has been labeled as phases for the this vacant piece these are the requirements requirements for it we have a sort of a hybrid approach there's nothing that's off the table per se but to be clear at what they have they are proposing that to change the supplemental regulations and the new requirements would be immediately effective but they only apply to when a site plan um the trigger is the site plan so um it I am correct in my understanding that they could uh re-parcel the land sell it and then the new owner could come and request

108a zoning change from PUD to something else yeah that could happen with or without this tonight's change so it and just helped me as I am I'm going to do a commissioner dish I'm even going to use the fingers I I just want to better understand what I don't understand and um sorry if that wasn't fair to how you articulated it um so there are benefits to the current holder of the Pud for us to make these changes as opposed to us rejecting these changes and then having the owner either have to decide to parcel out the land and request a new zoning and and so because I'm just trying to to to understand like the framework that we are presently under correct so I think if I understand so right say that say the

109existing so one of the options could be for the petitioner if yeah if you left the existing zoning in place as a PUD that the petitioner could um withdraw you know with the permission of the other you know pull this out of that PUD district and rezone it is our 40 year or whatever I mean that is an option that I think was briefly looked at at least initially but again and then the existing PUD would stay in place for the other ones right but that was something that we as staff it looked at and again in cooperation with the petitioner thought that would be more valuable to bring the whole District up acknowledging that there's challenges with that but maybe getting some new things again we were looking towards most of the likely the

110potential uses of residential but that's not necessarily true so we but overall like I said we did feel that there was advantages to bringing the whole PUD District rather than advising them to pull that parcel out and rezone it to something else okay I hope that answered thank you Alexis I know this is your question between you it answers my question I think what I'm trying to parse is they're because this is such a artifact from past zoning being brought forward there are advantages that are built in for this PUD that wouldn't exist if we were looking at a new PUD so if they were bringing this PUD to us today this would have to meet you know section F of 5.29.11 and there are seven points under there the open space requirement the innovation

111of the use of the design and the layout and the type of structures the economy and the efficiency of the land use the preservation of the natural features the employment shopping district as well as the use of reuse of existing sites and none of that is really under consideration as we consider these changes all right for the for the proposal correct right okay that's that's what I thought other Commissioners commissioner Abrams um I would like to continue having the conversation around public benefit but first maybe I also want to just have a conversation around potential detriment I guess um and make sure we're protecting against that so um I wanted to talk about parking maximums and maybe learn a little bit about how those were determined because they seem high to me and I would

112support lowering them but I didn't know if they were so some of them are zones where there currently isn't a maximum some of them are zones like office where there is and it matches that uses sorry not zones like one thing I can say to the parking is that many of those are are the exist what was in there exist there actually wasn't no more then in the current um requirements the the only thing that staff uh we did change to one and it was actually two per two per dwelling unit for multi-family and we re we just knocked it down to one and a half which again I I think I probably have mentioned but but parking would be a discussion issue as well as far as the parking maximum but interestingly there was

113already maximums in in that section but we didn't so those are in place from the current uh proposal so I would be interested in a conversation around reducing those if the petitioners uh open to that conversation I don't have any numbers to propose like throw on the table but we could talk about that I think also um I really want to add my voice in favor of something which prohibits Street facing parking in any Redevelopment or future development um so those are the things that I think would be potentially detrimental like more big Seas of parking which are on green um and then in terms of the public benefit I would like to have a serious conversation around electrification so I don't know how to but it seems like maybe that's something you wouldn't be

114prepared tonight to commit to um so I'm not totally sure how to proceed on that but maybe the first is to see whether fellow Commissioners would support that on the topics of electrification Street facing parking and parking maximums would any other Commissioners like to speak up in support of those changes I could take those all three kinds separately commissioner oh I'm sorry for a long day sadira Clark sedira sorry commissioner um yeah I just put support what um commissioner Abrams just brought up with the um adding in something about the parking in front yeah commissioner Mills so the parking in front is not allowed in a lot of our districts because they have we have a minimum setback or maximum setback I'm sorry so in my mind that actually again I like flexibility but I

115don't see that as a benefit a unique benefit to this Sony District so I think that it should be included in the regulation but I don't I don't count that as a benefit um I I would be very much in support of including full electrification as a benefit because that's not something that we do require in any of our districts you can't even get a height bonus right like that doesn't even get you necessarily A type one so um or you don't have to go that far in order to get the hypo and this is the better way of saying it so yes that strong benefit I can totally stand behind that um the other thing that as you were talking thank you commissioner Weatherby for breaking up like yes there's lots of things that

116could happen but and we're thinking about one particular use that might be beneficial but there's nothing that ties it into that I mean one of the things I don't love this but I'm just going to say one of the things that was through my mind was you could you could you could cap the square footage of non-residential right I don't like that at all exactly I see sheds shaking but I mean if you want to if you want to make sure that any additional is residential I mean again because though this is all together It's Tricky um but requiring residential is something that we do like we have we have this is what we have in tc1 right so so for me the thing that we know we can get out of this is electrification

117and that's important no matter what but it it's really important to me particularly if it's not residential because well um that requires a longer conversation but but I think that is really really really important and that's something that we can no matter what goes in this space we could say is going to be a benefit and justify a PUD because you because it's not in any of the other districts thank you so um commissioner also it's uh safe to say that you would like to see that as an amendment to the Pud do I have a friendly second on that commission seems like whether it be commissioner Salve which okay um all right I'm gonna any other commissioner wanna add in at this point in time commissioner Hammerschmidt I support that too I just I

118think I have a clarifying question I don't even know who I'm asking this to um so the full this is a five parcel site right the um we're saying full electrocation on the whole site it's like anything new obviously would need to be electrified at what point is it like any sort of renovation I'm thinking about the existing structures that are on the site that would then be like non-compliant I'm assuming if they have anything true this okay that's my question I'm sorry anything that triggers a site plan would happening on the site would then be subject to retroactive even for renovations right we wouldn't it would depend on if yeah yeah we'd have to word it but right we could word it in a way that wouldn't affect the existing well I mean I

119wanted to affect the existing if anything happens to the existing but yeah okay yeah I mean I support that as like the fifth or sixth got it thank you um sure Hammerschmidt do we have other discussion items commissioner Weatherby uh I just and I think probably everyone understands this but I just wanted to point out that the expansion of the permitted principle uses would include medical and dental offices which are currently prohibited um and expand the definition of hotel which is now like only Extended Stays bigger than 100. right and permit residential so just that we are actually adding a lot of potential uses to this which I you know I mean that's something that we're giving a lot um of potential uses and I think some of those are probably as you know definitely

120medical and dental offices are a would be a big thing over on that personal thank you any other commissioners I'm going to look to recap a little bit here and see where we're at let's take a little bit of a count um so prohibition of Street facing parking there was discussion regarding kind of the frontage of the maintenance of the trees relative to the building Frontage one of the things that I'll add is to me that's kind of the new urbanist concept of trying to make it more interesting slow down traffic if you bring buildings closer and I think a lot of that has to do with making pedestrians feel safer so is our tree sufficient in that you know that end so I think that's still kind of you know Up For Debate but

121there's discussions around Frontage one of the things that I wanted to mention on that street to the north is c1b and C1 which is actually a 10 feet up setback so from my standpoint I was thinking about what what is the continuity of that zone look like so that's one thing that I also want to make sure that Commissioners take into account so we have Frontage Street financing parking electrification the requirement thereof we talked about height making it consistent with the tc1 zone so increasing maximum height to 75 feet unless within 80 feet of residential um and then I think we have a larger thematic question at least the one that I think people have been kind of grappling with is is this is this a PUD amendment can this be achieved in another different

122Zone um and then this question about you know what are the sufficient public benefits so the um the sufficiency of electrification one of the things that I will mention is that in the past we did have Sartorius come here if they are doing lab it is difficult when you have larger cooling requirements Etc so just the the vast variety of uses it electrification the grid requirement for us to sit you know sit here and say we don't necessarily know what that substation can hold to say you know that that's required we may be prohibiting some uses without us actually knowing it so I think a little more due diligence is required on all parties in that respect um taking a look so I think that's kind of the items that I see as you know

123uh discussion points that we've had so far the things that I wanted to add we are in the midst of a new comprehensive plan currently in fact there's a new public uh announcement that's going to happen at the end of this meeting um as well uh that being said the best thing we have right now is a 2009 Land Use plan as a part of our comp plan so when you take a look at that it does say mixed use for that so it says commercial to the north mixed use research to the east resi to the South and so for me um I think the challenge is does this actually adhere to the land use plan that we've come to as a community um and so the challenge I have is is it going

124to result in the mixed use right because it could be any one of the Myriad of yeah it really is a wide palette of uses um so I think that's the challenge I I have kind of going into this the so that that is my feedback as far as the application of the 2009 Land Use plan is it going to result in the mixed use that we want um Mr Kowalski I do have a question um procedurally on puds okay when I look at the Pud on the UDC the unified development code says that a revision of pauds refers back to the beauty section and it should be accompanied with a site plan so for me it's kind of tough to say like how can we kind of evaluate without did you guys come to

125that did you have that discussion internally I mean it can be unless no development is proposed yeah then there's that exemption that the planning manager can waive the uh area plan or it's like well it'd be an area plan so it any reasoning typically above single or two family has to come with an either an area plan or a Safelite so the planning manager does have the ability to waive that so in this case again since we didn't have anything proposed at the time that was the case so correct this one does not obviously have a cyclone with it sure and so to try and judge the merits of these proposed changes without having kind of a clear site plan that that's a little tricky especially with the infinite permutations of uses that we see

126here I agree with commissioner hammer schimitz first statement that we support densification intensity of land use productive use of land I think that the proposed changes here may be challenging to reconcile in this short period of time unless the petitioner can tell us it seems like the commission would like to see I'm going to recap again electrification that's probably a big one even though I'm saying here right now in the past we have said for lab uses restaurants you know things that require you know high intensity of heat thermal load Etc that require lots of cooling there may be times where you know we may not be able to accommodate that we've said that in the past but we do have an a20 climate goal and we do need sufficient basis for public benefits so

127electrification Street facing parking you got same petitioners tends to be pretty friendly to that the height you were friendly with um so I think it really comes down to can we get a commitment I think from the petition or on electrification and let me just ask that question otherwise I feel like this is probably headed to uh I'm just reading the room and I'm trying to be practical about like Hey what how do we proceed So yeah thank you actually for that summary that was very helpful I think to kind of take some notes it was very good summary yeah um and I'll just I'll just note how we got here because I there's been a lot of new stuff discussed tonight and I appreciate that the initial concept was to say it would really

128be helpful in in marketing the undeveloped site to expand some uses and um that's kind of where we started we had some discussions with staff and staff said well that's great it would be good if we could update all of these kind of Standards to current you know lighting EV parking Landscaping setbacks all that sort of stuff and so um there was a good comment uh made that you know somebody could come in and develop under the existing PUD and not have to do any of that stuff so we kind of view that I mean we do view that as a benefit that that would happen um so I I think in light of all the in light of all the the new things so that's how we got here I just wanted to clarify

129a lot of these changes were not things that we initially were proposing or thinking about um given that some of the discussion tonight I I think it would be helpful for us to probably if if it would be um something that the commission would consider to table this let us go and have some discussions about how some of these things um what the impact of these things would be and see whether they're things that see what see what we can find out I mean to your point we have no idea about the capacity of the substation to provide for electrification of whatever uses may go in there or you know we certainly haven't discussed with existing owners the potential that they have to rebuild their their existing buildings to some of these standards that you've

130discussed tonight so I think it would be our preference to have some time to go back think about this come back next month tell you what we can and cannot do and and see if the commission wants to move forward oh sorry and to that point I I think I would second that because I think with some of the changes that most of these are no no-brainers but I I would like to go into a little bit more depth on that electricity and again see how that affects because most of our puds like we say are dealing with like a new parcel basically or new building and this has all these existing uses so I want to make sure that however if if that is the will of commission as far as electrification that how

131can I how can we write that in there that we don't create either non-conformities or limit things too much so understood uh so commissioner Abrams I just want to make sure I understand everything there is going to be non-conforming in a lot of ways right no there will be no nothing will be well like a once we change the Pud the existing things will be non-conforming well I think you'll want to someone will want to go back and look through and be very clear about what the new standards are and how and what they apply to um and and for all the changes I don't think we'd be creating a lot of non-conformities well like you currently proposed yeah the goal would be not to create like we've expanded setbacks or not expanded but we've

132redu we do we fainted High School I don't think looking through what we've proposed I did think through that previously that I don't think we've created any non-conformings as it stands now again but however I didn't go through it's possible there's a medical office no so I think Street facing parking would be the one thing that we're talking about tonight that would produce that for the one that we wanted that correct I mean there could be a set but yeah I guess I bring it up just to say I I already thought we were doing that and I thought that was just part of the process was accepting that in order to do this kind of funny thing where we're changing a beauty for multiple puzzles some of which are developed in some art that

133producing non-conforming would would be part of that product I guess I was comfortable with that so if that's something that's something I should be alarmed by then maybe I would want to know that and we can have it better if this is indeed postponed obviously I'm gonna look into the issues of the and how how that affects any of the existing okay absolutely because I certainly wasn't indicating that I thought the existing buildings needed to be retrofit to become electrified it was just new construction yeah okay yeah based on the discussions here at the table okay um I believe I'm looking for a motion then to uh postpone I moved to postpone this to the second date uh of Planning Commission in October the 17th I second and I think we do a vote right

134just by showa hands um show hands all right um any opposed okay um hereby this is postponed to October 17th thank you thank you Commissioners appreciate it yep okay um it is 9 15. uh how is everyone doing on energy should we keep going good good all right we are moving on to section 9C regular business I'm going to introduce a petition 1710 duvaren Road Village of Ann Arbor mended site plan and rezoning for city council approval thank you again um an amendment to the approved side plan that includes rezoning of two Parcels from Township to r4a multi-family residential and an additional 200 120 residential units along duvaren with an amenities Park area in adjacent parking the total units proposed will be 604 units on the 78.5 Acre Site the parcels to be rezoned are

1352520 and 2540 Pontiac Trail the total area of rezoning is 5.9 Acres the staff recommendation is an approval and we will start with petitioner presentation welcome thank you welcome back I am back good to see you again uh Tim lockerman Robertson Brothers Home 6905 Telegraph Road uh see a lot of familiar faces hello good to see you again um so tonight um yes we're here and I had alluded to this back when I saw you last which I'm thinking was last year already time flies that we'd come back with a site plan Amendment for the remaining portion of the village of Ann Arbor which was a previously approved excuse me for 448 forums for 84 homes on Pontiac and duvarn so we can skip to the next I'm trying to size this properly I don't

136know why my screen isn't I think you can go to under view Matt on top left view I got the view up oh no no no no no it's sorry there's a lag uh re yes read mode I think that's what we want there we go okay that's better sorry about that yes okay yeah it's still a little I have to scroll up a little bit but okay perfect um so just and I'll go quickly because I know you're all familiar with the project quite a bit um but the village of Ann Arbor and we are developing in conjunction um with dtn there are Partners on the project it's a large site obviously you all know we had a lot of challenges um to bring the project to fruition took a lot of time and

137effort and thought and help from you help from the city council and and you know we appreciate we're very happy with where we're at again this is really that last step um in the the process as we had been up front about from the beginning the site overall we really we called it Village of Ann Arbor because we really believe it is a village it's a concept with a lot of different types of housing options um you know ranging from the request here tonight 685 square feet up to about 1850 square feet multiple bedroom types that sort of thing so you're going to see a lot of different types you know real diversity of home buyers and renter so there is a for sale and a rental component tonight what we're talking about is the

138just around five acres of the site which is over about almost 80 acres so it's a very obviously small portion of it we really always envisioned as you know the bringing in this additional area and the site plan and you know in fact our storm water Pond had been sized for it so this was always something that we had had planned I want to go into detail obviously in a minute here your master plan density designation is seven to ten units per acre it is zoned r4a with the exception of the two Parcels that are recently annexed which is why we're delayed we were delayed in bringing this additional portion in front of you tonight but r4a we are buy right in that r4a zoning District we have not asked for anything this is not

139a PUD with any public benefit requirements we did have a variance we don't need it now if we can get tonight's site plan Amendment approved which again we'd always envisioned so tonight 120 rental units in this amendment is a total that would bring the total up to 604 total again for sale and four lease homes just around eight units per acre which is right in that seven to ten band the unit sizes tonight and the request they're 685 square feet for a one bedroom and just over a thousand square feet for two bedroom units it is a stacked product three stories and overall open space which is very onerous is 65 but I think it really adds to kind of what what will draw people into this uh this community so why are we here

140I've kind of alluded to it it's to mend the overall plan for the village of Ann Arbor and we're asking really for just just some specific things the addition of the 120 unit for at least portion that is the area on duvarn and these areas have actually been already rezoned a portion of it was previously previously zoned r4a we had rezoned the other portion of duvarn I think it was probably official earlier this year late last year the rezoning request that is in front of you is for the two Parcels that we had annexed in recently and that's important because um the delay and bringing you these 120 units on the plan really specifically was the length of time it took for those two Parcels on Pontiac Trail to get annexed in it's just a

141long process well well no so we had moved forward with the rest of the project knowing that after we get annexed for those two Parcels which is official now we come back in and those are the 10 acres on Pontiac Trail the reason we did that a for density although I think we would have met the density without it but really the open space the open space of 65 percent it's very difficult to do without buying additional land so we had identified that a long time ago just took time to get the annexation so that really is the purpose of meeting your open space minimums the majority of the site really does remain the same we've made some what I'll call minor improvements to the south southern portion which I'll show you on the plan

142and those improvements are really kind of just realigning some of the buildings changing some of the access around the clubhouse and an addition of a building path system on the former landfill which of course one of those challenges on the site as long as we can get through Eagle the other thing I'll point out on the site plan which I we're very excited about is we're adding a very significant Park amenity to the site dog park landscaped areas Pathways Community Gardens that sort of thing so we're very we're very excited we always kind of thought of that as this is an area where we can do something really special on the site so and as I mentioned this does eliminate a variance then that we already received so the project highlights I'm just going to

143go real quick on this um you know we've got the mix of residential land uses we do have um I believe quite a bit of green energy initiatives we've got solar street lights just to bring everybody back up to speed um BMP stormwater infrastructure Clubhouse solar panels energy efficient appliances and we did agree to the for sale portion being all electric again that was not a requirement but we felt that was very important to do um you know we've had a lot of conversations with you with the city council and also with quite a bit of the the residents of your city we've had a lot of private conversations and and I think we've really had a lot of good discourse between and again family oriented plans and I won't talk about dtn Robertson because

144you've heard me say it all uh next slide is the context plan uh everybody's familiar with it I hope but again duvar and the Pontiac Trail the things that maybe you may have forgotten we are providing a new access to Leslie Park the only access right now was from the Devon on the Park Subdivision which is really kind of a private entrance we will have private roads but they are open they'll be a public easement so they'll function like City roads we'll just maintain the um through our HOA and our leasing operation the maintenance on those roads so I think that's a win-win for the city as a matter of fact and also to the north to Olson Park so we really like how that kind of connects the two parks that's been something we've

145we've really liked from the very beginning and you can see we've got r4a and r4b basically all around us so we really do fit in in that respect the next slide please Matt so this is the overall plan it's basically almost identical to what you've seen before with the exception of the four buildings along duvarn that's 120 units for 30 unit buildings All Surface parts and then essentially you can see those nature trails I think I'd probably shown you that in a previous iteration saying we don't know if equal allow us they have given us a thumbs up but I don't have a permit for it so we're still working through that but we believe that we'll be able to meet all of their requirements to put nature trails which be open to the public

146again better connection from Olson to Leslie Park and then on the south side if you can scroll down a little bit we haven't touched any of the town home the for sale portion the um the apartments on the south side we just kind of cleaned up some of the um dimensions of where those buildings are located just to make it more efficient and then improve the parking around the clubhouse um and then I think the most exciting part is as you go west along where the apartments are we've had that Community amenity I don't think this shows up very well but we're very excited about that so there'll be some natural areas some um you know special seating seed mix on on some of the the grass areas as I mentioned before our Our Land

147planner Geeks out on this so he really he really kind of kind of I think gave us a vision that we were hoping for on this and then you can see a little bit of a community area gazebo with some Community Gardens so that's something that I think in a community this large is something that that I think is really productive for the project and then we'll still have a lot of open space you can see all the way to Pontiac Trail that'll stay open at this point other than there will be a single family home that'll that'll remain and that that's always been part of our plan there and that'll stay with the seller we do have quite a bit of wetlands of course we're I think our Wetland we already have a wetland

148permit and I always think it was like .04 Acres so we stayed out of that as much as possible so I went quickly on that but you've all seen it so that's the overall plan I just wanted to point out some of the improvements that we've made the next slide just as a um highlight of the new area again it's close to duvarn road which takes away that variance that we've received you can see the elevations there it is it is a stacked product they are all rental units all surface part we're meeting your your new EV parking codes which we went through you know throughout length with planning and you can see there's kind of that little line there that is part of the the landfill area we do have a methane trench I

149think I talked about that last time which has been approved by eagle kind of cuts up in this area but of course away from from the units themselves we are providing quite a screen to the west side where there are some existing homes we've had a lot of conversations with them we've worked with those Neighbors on a new easement so they can access this new road there so I believe and we've tweaked the site plan to as you can see put some trees so they don't have buildings right against right away from the across from there and entrance there so we've worked closely with them as well so that's the new site plan amended area the next slide again is that little bit of a blow up on that Community Park amenity I'm happy to

150go into detail on some of this but I think you can tell this will be a great addition to the project overall and then the next slide and I showed you this before so nothing's really changed I just we we did have a lot I think a lot of things that we added to this project that maybe we don't typically do just because it was such a large site so first and foremost this is recycling a contaminated landfill it's been sitting there there's a reason why there's 70 80 acres in Ann Arbor um how should we dropped it once so I think I said that before so it's hairy but um we got we got a handle on it we're ready to get started of course the all-electric component which I know is very important

151to you and those connections to Leslie Park so I went through that fast but I think you probably appreciate that and I am happy to answer any questions you may have thank you yes thank you we will go to staff presentation Mr Kowalski and get you a yeah good overall screens um good evening again I don't really have a lot to add uh interestingly although it's not necessarily a small apartment with a small project with adding 120 units it's it's kind of a small part of the overall site so um as far as like a site plan review there wasn't um you know there wasn't um as was mentioned there's not a lot of changes Elsewhere on the site there's a couple of tweaks to building layouts and parking Arrangements obviously that was all looked

152at as staff we look at the entire site plan again because excuse me there it's it's one site plan so we had to look at everything again so um we did that but as far as focusing in on the 120 units there again there wasn't a a lot to really analyze there there are it's heavily treated but a lot of them are not Landmark trees there's a lot of I mean and I hate to call any Trio junk tree necessarily but there's not a lot of necessarily high quality um features right in that area and of course everything's mitigated as required by code um again you know as was mentioned if you have it just to reiterate there is a rezoning involved with this as well so this is a pipeline that will go ultimately

153to city council for final approval um the rezoning at those Parcels along Pontiac Trail basically as was mentioned those are annexed to to get the uh the land area basically to enable these units to be added along duvarn and that was uh that the nullified basically the variance that the petitioner had to get previously because of the uh Min the max exceeding the uh setback in that area so that now goes away uh again as far as any other items worthy of pointing out of all the existing sustainable elements again we just reiterate those are anything that was pledged for the first project as far as yellow solar lights and all those kind of things for Street lighting that goes consistent with this with this new area that's being developed as well um and I

154think that sorry I think that kind of wraps up really my presentation I think at this time again just reiterate the site plan and rezoning before you're here tonight thank you Mr Kowalski we will move on to public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the proposed Village of Ann Arbor amended site plan we'll first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star 9 or star six if listening by phone or use a raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number and by name if

155available for those accessing through the web link you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background signs so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time hello welcome thank you we have a microphone okay my name is Rich Fein I live at 618 Duane Court I'm a member of the Ann Arbor chapter of the citizens climate Lobby I lead their building electrification and efficiency action team back in July of last year you were told in a commission meeting that operating costs for heat pumps were much more than for gas

156yes in Ann Arbor utility costs for heat pumps are higher it's due to our high electric rates and our low gas rates but the burden to the renters is much less than what you were what you heard I apologize for going old Tech on these all right next time I'll be digital the data tables that you have received show utility cost differences between gas and all electric for a for rent town home at the Village of Ann Arbor this graph shows the cost differences per month between Gas and Electric these calculations are from four different energy analyzes the main point is that the consistency across three of the four analyzes indicates that additional utility costs for using a heat pump over gas in these Town Homes is likely around 21 to 31 dollars per month

157rather than the much higher 93 dollars per month shown in a report provided at that July 2020 commission meeting now relating this to the 120 apartments at the village a preliminary analysis for its two-bedroom apartments and I will repeat preliminary shows the cost difference is likely to average around ten dollars per month yes every dollar counts for a renter but where 71 of the city voted for a climate millage we believe that most are willing to pay a little extra for cleaner Heat it's a very small percentage of the rent Robertson Brothers should also consider that when the public disclosure component of a20's green rental housing program is implemented gas will be a marketing liability other developments are being built with all electric Why Can't This we have all have to start moving out of

158our comfort zone to make changes that must be made the passivity has to stop we request that the village to project up I'm done or not permitted to move forward without further review of the potential for it to be all electric or until the Planning Commission and the council develop a plan that incentivizes electric or otherwise averts new construction with gas thank you thank you is there anyone else present yes please hi I am Dr Larry drunk 2128 Wallingford in Ann Arbor's Ward 3. I am a professor emeritus and U of M medical school here to speak against the plan of Robertson Brothers to incorporate gas furnaces and gas water heaters in The Villages of Ann Arbor I have no conflicts of interest my comments today are directed both to the Planning Commission and to

159Robertson Brothers is a physician knowledgeable about air pollution and climate change I'm very concerned about the bad Health consequences from climate change caused by the burning of gas I'm also concerned about other consequences of climate change including direct heat effects on humans extreme weather events Extinction of animal and plant life virtually no educated person doubts the existence or seriousness of climate change but recent events in the news highlight how serious this is this summer was the hottest summer ever by a large margin the oceans are the hottest ever by a substantial margin in the past month we've seen three severe storms with a probable relationship to climate change including storm Daniel which has taken over 11 000 lives effects in Michigan have included flooding in Detroit and threats to Michigan agriculture atmospheric CO2 levels are

160the highest ever at 417 parts per million and Rising steadily strong actions are needed Ann Arbor's 820 plan is a strong plan with a realistic chance of success provided homeowners and other involved parties cooperate it calls for measures to make Ann Arbor carbon neutral by 2030. in 2022 a millage to fund this plan passed with over 70 percent of votes in favor Robertson's plan not only doesn't comply with a 2-0 plan but it's an insult to the leaders of Ann Arbor and to our good citizens who strongly support this plan with its gas furnaces and water heaters excuse me the plan of Robertson Brothers appears to be geared toward their short-term profits but against the long-term interests of their future residents and the people of Ann Arbor in doing so they have underestimated the people

161of Ann Arbor who tend to be smart caring about the community and caring about the world around us in addition to flying in the face of the 820 plan Robertson Brothers proposal to use 20th century Heating and Cooling technology will contribute to health problems in our in our citizens as well as the health problems of climate change it will leave homeowners paying higher monthly costs in the future concerning that burning gas is less efficient than heat pumps for home feeding and Home Heating and water heating also that gas prices are unsustainable at their present level it will lower the long-term value of these homes because of their inefficient 20th century technology I urge the committee to do everything you can to steer Robertson Brothers in a better Direction with this plan thank you thank you

162hello hello welcome I'm Lisa Spitz I'm a tax paying City resident 809 Johnny Woods Drive thank you for this opportunity to speak I appreciate your work this spring I retired from a3c collaborative architecture after 25 years with some of the best sustainable designers in the region for the prior 13 years I worked in planning and design at St Joe's I recently started a retirement job for the A2 2030 District continuing my work with Jane Culbertson who I'm sure many of you know I'm an artist with a lifelong passion for the natural world I'm appalled by the Folly of people who are blind to the worth of all other species with this history combining science art and inclination I'm here to beg you to do the right thing on phase two of The Village project and

163further at every opportunity please use your position to help and fossil fuel reject the site plan Amendment until Robertson Brothers agrees to an all-electric plan for all units you are not locked into approval you could postpone request more information or simply vote no I offer one example of many Tim McDonald and onion Flats architecture whose team has created dozens of phenomenally inspiring Net Zero multi-family developments many for affordable housing you don't build affordable housing with overly costly Tech The Proven technology is in use right now we are in a climate emergency not in the future right now we must stop business as usual you can make this simple choice to insist that all new developments be built all electric city council recognize the climate emergency a tremendous effort has been put into the incredibly ambitious

164a to zero plan it's not perfect but it's such an excellent framework any new fossil fuel plans negate this work and we are not meeting those ambitious goals I'm told the developer plans to build in capacity to switch these apartments from gas to electric in the future when these appliances will last from 8 to 20 years gas appliances working in this field all my life I can tell you that switch won't happen before that if you must see it only in terms of dollars look at the long term cost the fossil fuel damage in this plan would dwarf any negligible cost of the electric alternatives finally back to art I believe at this critical time in human history we must recharge our imagination there are so many astonishing inspiring efforts underway all over the world

165to implement Solutions we need all of these efforts we have to search for them build on them and align our imaginations it's not too late we can do this but we must do it now thank you hello hello I'm Donald Levitt I live at 218 West Kingsley street I'm here to voice my opposition to the use of natural gas in the village of Ann Arbor phase two I'd like to tell you about my personal story as to why I feel so strongly about this my story is in two chapters chapter one on May 7th I hosted the first annual A2 climate teach in at Genesis in Ann Arbor mayor Christopher Taylor was our opening speaker Professor Shelley Miller was our closing speaker we had six breakout sessions and 16 table staffed by local climate action

166organizations we were sponsored by eight congregations Beth Israel congregation blue ocean Church First Presbyterian Church First Unitarian Universalist Congregation Sinclair's Episcopal Church Saint Francis of Assisi Parish Temple Beth ameth and Zion Lutheran Church all of these congregations are concerned about climate change and there are certainly others now hearing this you might think that I'm knowledgeable about climate action I'm not I'm a total novice it was only 18 months ago that I really gave this any thought chapter 2. two years ago in 2021 my wife and I moved into one of the new condos in Carytown there are 51 units in the building all with gas heat here's the point of my story when we moved in in 2021 I didn't pay any attention to the fuel used to heat the condos it wasn't on my

167radar screen then I got interested in climate change and now I'm frankly horrified that I live in this gas-powered condo it's a beautiful building on great location we love it but damn I wish I had thought of this before we moved in my point is that many people in Ann Arbor will be like me the 250 people at my teach-in will be like me they won't pay any attention to the gas versus electric issue until they do pay attention to it and then they'll be mad like me that the builders could not look even a little bit into the future and see that gas-fueled heat in this day and age is ridiculous and vastly destructive it's wrong we all know it's wrong and a couple of years from now people will look back at this

168so-called controversy about continuing to install gas and wonder why it was even considered it's time that we stop installing gas now not only at the Village of Ann Arbor but for any new construction we can't stop this one development at a time we need a comprehensive process that steers developers away from gas and to full electrification thank you hi Commissioners thank you very much my name is David gerk I'm from 1315 South Maple Road on the west side of town and I'm representing Washtenaw climate reality this evening um I understand that this uh is your opportunity to consider phase two of this project with phase one a lot of us did come here or write letters and we asked for you to compel the developers to use purely electric means to eat the property and

169as I understand it you went through with the approval anyway I and and it went to the city council for them to pass um so you might wonder what's different now what's changed now what's happened why are we bothering to come again if it happened before presumably you'll do the same thing this time what's happened this time is the summer of 2023 I'm sure you've all been reading about it every day hearing about it in the news we've been breaking uh heat records everywhere 31 straight days over 110 degrees in Phoenix nearly the entire summer over 100 degrees in Austin Texas not only in our summer here in the northern hemisphere but in the winter which is going on right now in the southern hemisphere they're breaking all sorts of Records it's not just a

170matter of breaking records it's demolishing records obliterating records not by hundredths of a degree but by a quarter of a degree that might not sound like too much a quarter of a degree celsius that is a gigantic differential when you're talking about going above what the previous record was and it's not just a matter of numbers it's also a matter of consequences we had the fire uh the wildfires in Hawaii now was that all because of climate change no they had invasive grasses there which really were not properly adapted to the area but climate change is always a threat multiplier it dried they had a drought there they had a excessive heat there everything was dried out and when the heat when the fire came it just spread literally like wildfire just a couple of

171I guess it was about a week or two ago not probably not even two weeks ago probably one week ago in Libya they had that horrible flooding situation now we all know the dams broke and a lot of that was because they weren't maintained properly much of it was because it was an inordinate amount of rain just today the weather attribution World weather attribution service said that the rains were 40 percent greater heavier than they would have been in the absence of climate change and that the break the breaking of the dams was 50 times as likely as it would have been in the absence of climate change I'm just saying things are different now had it been 10 years okay had it been 10 years okay okay please I'm just going to Echo what

172my what my colleagues said earlier please don't let this through and I want to thank the Developers for making the change that you did with regard to putting in heat pumps in the um in the condo aspect of it but this is a different era now we are not in the era of half measures we must stop the use of fossil fuel completely at this point so thank you very much thank you is there anyone else present I would like to speak thanks Charlie Ken Garber again 28 Hamburg Court I won't try to match the eloquence of the previous speakers um I'll just try I just want to raise a few points the um 164 for sale homes they'll be all electric the solar street lights and the clubhouse solar I don't know how widely

173known this is but you and I are paying for that not the developer it's it's been Incorporated in the Brownfield plan for this site um 1.32 million for the heat pumps 440 thousand dollars for the solar panels plus 1.171 million in carrying costs for the above so um a developer in my mind doesn't get points for this and I personally think that we as a pub the public should not be paying for something that developers should be doing already um so uh I've spoken and I counted 14 separate times on the village project dating Back to December 2021 um all for the same reason that the previous five speakers just did I understand everyone's position on this the developer it's a speculative project you know they see risk it's a big project they have to

174pay off their construction loan they have an internal rate of return they have to achieve why add x what they perceive as you know an extra risk on to this you know this commission I know you badly wanted electrification we saw that with the alterum discussion I thank you for that I'm really grateful that that it looks like you're going to require that of that developer I realized that once this zoning is approved this becomes an all right project and you feel that you cannot you can ask for it here but you can't require it um because there's nothing that addresses this in the UDC all this is true everyone is right okay but the net effect is more and more missions you know globally nationally locally on our our latest uh inventory showed that

175local emissions are up for the second year in a row we must take Collective responsibility for this problem including average Americans like me with our huge carbon Footprints someone has to own this uh maybe that time and place is here tonight I asked Robertson Brothers Mr Law Firm for the 14th time to go all electric you know this is a good developer and this is a good site plan um like I said I understand their their point of view but um I ask you to take what you perceive to be a slight additional risk to this project you're just harder to go all electric um but do it for the planet um if they don't I ask you as a Planning Commission to take an expansive view of your responsibilities something has to change thank

176you Mr Garber is there anyone else present that would like to speak seeing no one else is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely we have three total callers with their hands raised I'll go in the order on my screen color ending in five three four where's my mouse um you have permission to speak to the Planning Commission please unmute yourself you have three minutes thank you let me start with what I like about this project it meets the density in the comprehensive plan seven to ten years and it has a nice variety of houses I really like that aspect of the project the for sale and the four ramp and the different housing structures I think that's excellent part of this plan I suppose energy commission environmental commission even the CBA

177anybody to speak to ask or essentially a carbon impact statement on every single development that comes before you if we are going to beat Net Zero by 2030. we need to know the numbers to plug into that great big spreadsheet we must have because every time we approve something that's then there's a deficit that we're going to have to make up somewhere else if it's your intention to approve this with The Gap appliances then we need to know that number to plug into that big spreadsheet but we have to make up we know what we have to make up elsewhere in order to hit that at zero and we should be doing that for every single project the hope I can influence Planning Commission to put some pressure on whoever it is that's going to

178make that decision the required carbon impact on every single project whether you vote no or vote Yes we need to know that we know how we're doing on meeting that Net Zero recently we passed we approved a plan at lower down phase three for 200 apartments that are going to be yeah heating gas water heat they said maybe they might switch to electric dryers uh your former chairs Planning Commission was essentially pleading with the developer to please do better um in that case we have the Leverage demands that they do better I think some people did not understand conditional zoning well enough to know at the time that the developer had conditions upon them and they were asking to have those taken off and we had the leverage to demand better in terms of putting

179the building on that project we're not always going to have that Leverage but when we can we need to use whatever influence we have if we're going to achieve that Net Zero and I really want to thank all the articulate speakers that preceded me today thank you all for showing up I'm sorry I did not thank you all right um next speaker um Luis Vasquez you are now allowed to speak you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission thank you uh Luis Vasquez 909 Barton Drive practically a neighbor of this development this proposed development um it's hard to balance the need for the extreme need for housing in Ann Arbor with the need for sustainability and just as you spent a bit of time talking about the Green Road PUD just before it hit

1809C on your agenda you spoke about electrification and the importance of electrification and I have to agree with all the previous speakers that this is also important for this proposed development uh so um yeah uh and and additionally I think the buildings along uh that that are being proposed to be built along to foreign they're not nearly tall enough and also need to consider electrification in in terms of reaching our goals of sustainability and uh getting the use of fossil fuels down but yep it's hard to balance the need for housing along with the need for sustainability but I know your hearts are in the right place on these issues and uh and I would encourage the developer also to take it to heart you know we want the best developments we want to add

181neighbors to our neighborhoods in Ann Arbor and let's move forward I'm really excited to see uh Planning Commission moving forward on a lot of these properties and developments and these issues but uh yes it's important to consider electrification thank you for your time tonight thank you we have one more um attendee who has a raised hand Alex Lowe now you can unmute and address the Planning Commission for three minutes hi folks it's Alex Lowe again 3340 Fernwood Avenue I want to start with just a quick correction to Dr Larry duck gas heating isn't a 20th century technology we've been piping methane into people's houses and burning fossil flatulence since the 19th century so it's even older than that I am a pro heat pump and pro electrification I certainly think that gas stoves are a

182terrible idea and quite frankly heat pumps especially you've gotten ground Source ones are a no-brainer there aren't many things in engineering that are a win-win situations but these are better for the environment even with dte's coal-fired generation and it's something that they'll have to eventually do anyway putting in geothermal heat pumps now well there's already going to be large construction equipment all over the site it's going to be far cheaper than retrofitting the buildings later we've heard tonight from some real environmentalists with real concerns as well as from someone using for environmentalist arguments to opposers development I'd like to add one more real environmentalist perspective I would like to see electrics Joe's heat pumps Etc I'm okay right now with uh with having gas for backup uh heating for the middle of winter and maybe

183for uh for uh for water heaters if we could get a limited one that would be great but another environmental thing that's that seems to have been overlooked sheer magnitude of space that we're devoting to or specifically of lands that we're devoting to the storage of cars rather than you know housing people I think that a a much better version of this project would be are for e-zone and would have either far less parking or have their parking instructions I really would encourage the developers to consider this especially get given the Egypt just in normal in all this environmental damage that that caused you globally every year thank you so much thank you we have another caller with their hand raised give me one second caller with phone things jumping color with phone number ending

184194. please unmute and you may speak to the Planning Commission for three minutes caller ending in one nine yes we can hear you now thank you hi this is Rita Mitchell calling I was at 621 5th Street in Ann Arbor and I'll just let you know that I am here at the environmental Commission in Ann Arbor but I am speaking for myself tonight um and I want to thank all the speakers who called out to the points of needing to move to electrification as soon as possible our need for that is urgent because of the clinic emergency so I only want to call out a point that the real expense right now I think Kathy for developer probably won't be the long-term owner of this property and so is looking at costs related to initial

185implementation but we need to look long term and so my comment is that what's really expensive is retrofit we should not set up buildings now that has to be retrofitted in the future in order to accommodate the electrification that we know we need now that's all thank you very much thank you uh no other callers so we will move on to the proposed motion the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the village of Ann Arbor r4a zoning and site plan located at 1710 duvarn and within the southeast quadrant of the Pontiac Trail in duvaren Road moved by council member dish uh seconded by commissioner weich we are in discussion would anyone like to kick us off our council member dish I will take the privilege of speaking

186first because this is a project that is in my ward I appreciate the acknowledgment by a number of the speakers that we are all on the same side none of us denies the seriousness of anthropogenic climate change none of this lacks a sense of urgency about the problem in this as in every situation we confront trade-offs and we can emphasize what this project does not do but we could also emphasize what it does do this is a forward-looking future looking project that repurposes a blighted site that has a capped landfill on it has and has been set or sorry has sat vacant for over 50 years I think right um this is diverse housing these are not High bedroom count units targeting students students are welcome to live there and they may well this project

187adds some housing at an accessible price point to an area that has seen on the one hand high-end Market construction and on the other construction targeting students designed for students and not very adaptable to anything other than student use it is the 164 for sale condos are all electric that is not how this project came to us it required considerable negotiation hard work by staff and a lot of I think genuine Goodwill by the developer who has spent an enormous amount of time and money trying to figure out how to build residential you know houses which is all houses or residential houses how to put a residential project on a site with a landfill all of the buildings and homes with this within this project not just the condos but all of them will include

188electric cooking appliances and electric washers and dryers the I mean I I wish that there were simple choices but there are no simple choices the city does not have the legal ability or really any other tools to compel developers to heat and cool all new buildings with Electric Power and until we are able to make the same impose the same requirements on everyone who comes with comes to us with this kind of project this is not a PUD this is not a this is not uh this is not the same yes we are rezoning a next properties but it's not the same as when we Face a PUD I don't feel that we can randomly hold some people to higher standards than we hold others we need to treat everyone who wants to build here

189fairly no one is seeing this only in terms of dollars I'm seeing it in terms of 604 more people who will come to the North End of Pontiac Trail rather than driving in on M14 which is doing a whole lot of damage to our community and so I understand the things that this development doesn't do I value the things that it does this is a small piece of a project that has been very uh that is required a whole lot to bring it to fruition I think that we would have negotiated into in bad faith if we did not allow these this last bit of this project to go through and welcome the green space that these residents will have it's marvelous to provide such amenities so thanks commissioner salve I'll Echo that um yeah

190we have a hard time and we have a lot of work to do relative to incentivizing I agree that there are tools that we can probably incorporate that we haven't yet to help incentivize not require that's what we can do at this table and I'm looking forward a lot more of those conversations and we are in the crisis that this is should be near the top of our list um at the same time there's just this unique point of this project that um with the addition of this we get more open space so we remove the requirement and we get more density simultaneously so it just seems like a little Nuance to celebrate within our zoning that's going right that we get open space and density simultaneously um and a lot of the pieces that

191you know we go back to to the trade offices if not here those homes are going to go somewhere the housing crisis doesn't stop at our city borders it goes elsewhere and the market will follow it and we have a green belt and so we're not those homes aren't going nearby in the township they're leapfrogging over that green belt and commuting even further away so our our ideas of the green belt from 30 years ago or actually having repercussions on increasing our vehicle miles traveled uh and the townships and the municipalities in their perimeter uh are not putting the pressure on electrification uh where we are not not only putting the pressure on and seeing developers kind of meet us somewhere we are continuing to try to work on those incentives as well um I'll

192add I appreciate the utility cost mishta's uh utility schedule for our region actually um matches this very similarly so he just to kind of add anecdotal data heating is eleven dollars more for electric versus natural gas cooking seven dollars water heating water fifteen dollars service for gas is 14 for electric is 10. so that gives us a Delta of 29 additional a month for mishta and how they factor in your cost of living at your 30 percent for your AMA calculations so similarly we see between 21 and 31 dollars a month and mishta is here at 33 29 to 33 a month so Misha's done the work too and misht has also done the work to calibrate and say affordable and electric are also compatible right and they're factoring that in so it's just good

193to see and it's also recognizing that electricity is more but also supported by our affordable housing factors at the same time so I don't see it ever as an excuse that a little bit more a month makes it inaccessible or inaffordable it just kind of validates we're all working with utility costs as the issue and maybe my final point and I know we had this discussion the first time around that DTE and the service on the North side is difficult and I understand that there were conversations around this project and what service could come and again we have a lot of conversations to have as a community with our utility and service Proprietors to put that pressure on to bring more service to these areas because we want to see more density and we want

194to see it serviced by electricity um but I don't want to see it serviced by gas outside of our our community and IT service by gas and then connected by gas cars simultaneously so I look forward to supporting this with the tools that we have as it's presented today but I appreciate all the variables and the conditions presented and we understand and we're really working towards that if I can kind of offer that up thank you thank you commissioner salve Mr Hammerschmidt can't really follow either of those so I will say I concur for the petitioner you mentioned an easement thing is with the neighbor and I remember when you were here before we we talked I think a lot about the the lack of connectivity into that neighborhood at that time so were you

195able to make inroads with that Community that's to the north west to a lot to to have more like penetration and connectivity between the sites to single-family homes that are on duvarn so there's a common access right now off of duvarn for that we're shifting that over allowing them to access on our new road so that's what I was referring to I don't believe there's any opportunity necessarily to connect to Devon on the park just because there are a lot of their homes basically backing up all the way to the actually adjacent to the landfill so no I we that's what I was referring to right now okay so those homes are not that is not part of correct that's to our West okay the entrance yes oh bummer so that still doesn't connect okay

196um then one more question um what is the distance so I was just trying to like I'm looking at the clubhouse I'm looking at the new park and I'm looking at the the new um Townhomes that are being proposed off of duvar and like to walk from like that building that's right on devaren down to the clubhouse how long do you think that would take and and is that a path you're envisioning that people I'm I'm concerned about people being like I want to use the pool I'm just gonna drive there you know so I'm just wondering what are you thinking about like making that Street feel like something that people want to walk down or I can't I can't get a sense of like a distance it's about a quarter mile I'd say um

197so I mean it's certainly I mean we obviously encourage um walking we did put parking down by the clubhouse but we limited it I know that was a con you know part of a conversation we had earlier um so we did that specifically for that so yeah the encouragement obviously is to to walk to it um I can certainly understand your concern but um you know our our own intent was to create all these paths so people will use them yeah I mean I'm sure you're thinking of this like whatever you can do in terms of like wayfinding signage and stuff like this it just feels like you're way up here in duvarin it's a little disconnected you know like I'm looking at bird's eye view I don't know what it's gonna look like when

198it's done but just anything you can do to encourage like people to be like taking the trails or taking the sidewalks together I appreciate that that thought it's hard to see um you know obviously we'll have a connection actually there's so many trees there you can't really see it but on the east side of that north south street where the landfill is there's a sidewalk there so that's kind of the encouragement there um you mentioned way finding I've never mentioned it but we have kind of a kind of a robust wave out wayfinding plan um that I think hopefully everybody will will appreciate just to kind of theme this also those exactly what you're talking about it'll have directions to some of these Pathways awesome um and one of the callers mentioned parking it does

199seem like a lot of parking I also know this area of town and like it's hard to get around without a car but it does seem like an awful lot of parking but you know we don't we don't have minimums we don't have maximum so yeah and and I don't know if you wanted to respond to that or not you know we talked about I know we limited quite a bit there was a I think um the commissioner watch had kind of um made those comments earlier and we did reduce quite a bit of parking on the southern side the northern side we're about one and a half spaces per unit our concerned with going any lower than that is there's really not another area to park so we didn't want to you know flood

200the neighbor to the west or the church to the east so that's there just wasn't an opportunity to have any overflow parking in our mind there well I thank you for not putting it up against the road no I well yes I mean we we consciously wanted to put the the buildings up against the road we think that that's good planning practice for sure thanks any other commissioners commissioner White uh thanks for uh coming back and remembering that I was uh opposed to all the parking I remain opposed to all the parking um especially uh when you first presented it and it was quite uh significant I wonder uh as we've heard from uh the public tonight around the concerns with the gas and um hookups and I know Mr Garber has actually spent a

201lot of time uh talking with you and and speaking before us about your project in particular to try to convince you because you know we lack the authority to deny this request because you are hooking up to gas but I wonder sort of where you are today because this has been a multi-month um project and uh are you willing to reconsider um hooking up gas and going all electric for this new edition so it's the same I guess the same arguments we had before and I do understand things have changed a bit you know and I've heard those comments we have met quite a bit with Mr Garber Mr fine um you know and and and umzersky as well so I mean we've had those conversations um in fact we're we're willing to have more

202conversations they've actually invited us to a forum which we're excited to be part of we're happy to be part of it so yes I think we're open to those conversations um as of right now no we're not willing to commit any more than what we've commit we did though commit I think um uh commissioner dish had mentioned um councilmember Edition mentioned the appliances the washer and dryer those are all electric and then we will it's not a matter of retrofitting we will plan on the front end for the replacement of those when they go and it is probably it is 8 to 15 years I think is really what what the the thought process is that's our game plan now we're open though as I mentioned we have have accepted their offer to meet with

203the Forum we're not going to just turn her back and go from there so I know that's easy for me to say and you know just just believe me but um we're willing to keep the door open and they'll they'll attest to that I'm sure they will and can you remind us the length of time you've applied for the Brownfield abatement is it a 30-year um it's a 15 I believe so 15 years yes okay thank you any other commissioners thank you for the presentation and to all the commenters obviously um we have talked about this at length again the legislative tensions with respect to what zoning act enables us to do is the challenge I think commissioner white asked the question that I was going to ask which is simply have you tried um

204I mean there's a trade-off of you know natural gas piping is also very expensive right so there's a initial build cost relative to you know but again infrastructure once it's installed um uh tough too take away let's put that being said I think I agree with the I concur with the comments made earlier I think I'm not seeing any additional comments I believe this goes to a roll call vote Miss allele thank you uh commissioner Lee yes commissioner Abrams yes commissioner white yes commissioner Sobe yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner Weatherby yes that's nine votes the motion passes thank you we are moving on to the next order of business it is 10 20. let me just check in with Commissioners okay we will take five and

205we will reconvene at 10 24. thank you all right we're calling the Planning Commission back into session moving on to section 90 of the agenda regular business I'm going to introduce a petition 3701 and 3713 Riverside Drive annexation and Zoning for city council approval request to Annex these two Parcels totaling 0.74 acres in Ann Arbor Township to the city of Ann Arbor and Zone it to r1b single family dwelling the staff recommendation is approval we'll begin with staff presentation Mr Kowalski thank you that was pretty much my presentation um I mean there's not much to this um as chairman we just read it's I mean it's two family single family Parcels basically a parse a building on one of them a house the other one is vacant um again they originally requested r1a zoning staff

206had come up with an r1b zoning the difference being 10 000 square feet per lot 20 000 square feet minimum lot r1a and 10 000 square feet a minimum for our 1B and that pretty much summarizes the uh presentation yep and of course that's recommending approval thank you thank you and apologies for taking your thunder but I think the the r1b activate the rest of them too the r1b was uh very helpful I'm going to now move to public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the proposed Riverside Drive annexations well first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star nine or star six ifless Thing by phone or use the raise hand feature if

207viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-66434-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits for 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 and when speaking please move to a quiet area mute any background sounds so that we can hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak seeing no one is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely there is one person with their hand raised Alex Lowe you are now able to address the Planning Commission for

208three minutes if anyone on the commission other than potentially a commissioner whether it be doesn't know what uh what I'm going to say at this point um you don't have to ask yourself but maybe maybe pay more attention because it's going to be the uh the same drug feed that I have for every one of these it's great that we're doing this annexation it should be R1 e or n or maybe even r2a there's nothing that is allowed in r1b that it uh that is disallowed in either of those districts and that allows more freedom for the uh for the property owner as further development happens especially noting that one of these Lots is entirely vacant and surf the current owner which is uh were to sell that under r1b there uh the uh what

209could be done with it would be far more restrictive than other either under an R1 e or R 2 a so thank you thank you Mr Lowe any other callers um there are no other colors with their hands raised thank you with that I will close public comment and I will read the proposed motion the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission recommends the mayor and the city council approve the annexation and r1b single-family dwelling District zoning of 3701 and 3713 Riverside Drive move by commissioner Mills uh council member dish um discussion don't all speak at once oh commit hey council member Dash I will merely ask the question seeing as I have heard some feedback from residents in the area where we rezoned to r1d is there any reason why we shouldn't do the same here

210since we did it elsewhere I think from the report the wording of the port I think I know what you will say and I'm not saying I'm not saying I want to change this because you know we did it to Ward one let's do it to ward two two um I would only mention the within the R1 category staff feels it is the planning commissions discretion prerogative we would caution against an amendment to a multi-family District on the floor because of the um the public water and sanitary sewer impacts have not been studied commissioner weich but we we could go to r1d because all that is is that just changes the minimum lot size it doesn't restrict them from just putting to single-family homes on the Lots as they are currently sized it would just

211increase the density later if they choose to sell they could subdivide it into four and I just what I don't understand sits at front uh here on River Drive are there any restrictions that I'm not aware of in terms of the orientation of that subdivision that would prevent them from being able to fully realize the four from from being able to go if it's a 10 000 you were considering r1a so it's a twenty thousand square foot lot so going from r1a to D would allow for four and so are there restrictions in the code that would prevent that sub division and not be allowed in that space no there's nothing in the code that would preclude I mean there may be natural I was trying to pull up a map really there could be

212other elements but there's nothing necessarily in the code that would preclude them from getting access to that they have Frontage along the public roads so I would be happy uh to amend from r1b to r1d um since it has no significant impact on how they're planning to use it and I don't think we have to re-notice no commissioner or council member either way I'm proud of both um the report um so it's a it's a it's a 0.74 Acre Site so um so yeah so if it were r1a there would be they say yeah um one house only that would be an extremely inefficient use of the space which is 32 000 square feet if it were r1b it goes up to three and if it were r1d the max would be six and then

213and I don't know if they looked at natural features when they calculated that just they were just doing the math I could say yeah those are just based on the raw numbers so again when you once you put layouts and setbacks in there I don't know I rarely see that actually penciling out exactly like six odds and they're seeing all of these arguments uh with people whom I need to talk to about this not being such a dramatic thing to do because um you know so in this case unlike the other case that we had the owner intends to sell the parcels for development opportunities so we know here that that is the plan so um you know the more you subdivide the less you charge for the house so at some point your own

214Financial calculation it should you know might say to you I think three is fine even if it is zone for six so you know I don't know why we don't on the logic that we had for the last one zoning changes nothing we add more flexibility um it I I I I take the report seriously it says r1b is recommended for consistency with surrounding land uses and the opportunity to evaluate future zoning of the area comprehensively I don't you know we aren't we aren't leaping from residential to multi-family residential so or single family to multi-family so I would feel good about it but I'm also I don't really feel strongly about it and I also am tired as everyone else so so whatever commissioner white yeah I mean we didn't have a strong argument the

215last time either and only to understand it it wasn't at the table um it wasn't a big back and forth because I I think the thing that I learned from commissioner sovay was the when when Mr Leonard responded around density because I went when looking at those 11 Parcels that were coming in on Nick on um yeah Newport I was like let's go to r4c that's where I started and I and I was just not being ambitious enough you know I I should have gone all the way uh to whatever our highest residential density is which I've talked to with Miss DeLeo about like let's just go all the way to R6 but um any in any event I think it's easy for me to support the conversation that you've started for us to go

216from r1b to r1d and I think just as a signal to planning staff if there's a way for us to so to say can you all bring things that are Township Islands in at the highest residential density that makes sense for that um as we gear up I think that just makes the conversation a little bit better because it sort of pits the staff against the council or against the table and I don't think there's that much distance because even Mr Khan said when we when we sat here he's like I'm not going to defend r1a but that didn't get into any public comments it was all you know we we just decided to change it at the table and and he was the person he was like I'm only picking it because that's what

217the code says and I just don't think that's a strong enough argument for us as we're sort of trying to improve uh what we're doing with density so so I I fully support where you're going commissioner disc I'll just add some quick math that if we're looking at Frontage with r1d it would be five instead of six uh Parcels could be the lot split so that's actually more of the limiting factor than the 5 000 square foot minimum lot size it's a lot Frontage just for more spatial context for us yep yeah thank you commissioner Salve do I have a friendly to amend to r1d well first will you move yeah yeah to r1d uh the second uh by commissioner salve discussion all in favor oh so yeah yeah uh all in favor aye all

218any opposed okay so now we're in discussion for r1d uh okay and commission reels the only reason the only reason that I had a slight pause in terms of differences is in part how it's currently served by public transit which is when we were thinking about this before I mean it's right on like right on bus line This is less removed but I also think that we need to plan for what we want to see in the future um and the idea that there would be I don't know that there's any bus service on here on River Drive right now um but the idea that we would want more frequent bus service on here on River Drive sure um so I I would just put that into the mix as we're like as we're kind

219of debating I mean collapsing overall the number of districts that we have makes a whole lot of sense anyway but yeah I think we need to start the trend somewhere about like what is the appropriate R1 zone so yeah thank you any other discussion um council member dish the only I've I'm not a lawyer um we know this one we have a statement of intent to sell the parcels for development opportunities and I know that uh I I don't know if that um creates a presumption that we are engaging in a form of zoning that we should not do in order to create wealth for a developer the fact that we know that as an intent that was that is the biggest difference between this and the other one so absolutely not I mean there's

220no that intent could go through that that yeah no worries okay commissioner Salve our intent is to create housing that's what this does I believe any other discussion I believe we're good for a roll call vote [Music] commissioner Lee Yes commissioner Abrams yes commissioner white yes commissioner Soviet yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner Mills yes and commissioner Weatherby yes that is nine in favor the motion passes thank you yes now we move on to section 10A other business uh note of notice of intent to plan um we'll go to staff presentation and Mr Kowalski yep um well we don't really have presentation tonight I need to read my whole uh intro yeah um this is the requirement that I think many of you have seen before basically in the planning

221enabling act that requires us to distribute uh uh excellent actually at this point said the notice the plan basically that we send out to all the adjacent communities and telling them that we're starting up a plan so um really with that I mean we have kind of emotion in there and a little bit of background there so we can answer questions but otherwise it's just really looking for Planet commission to um approve the motion so we can release the documents today or at least joining people know that we're planning perfect thank you Mr Kowalski I'll read the proposed motion resolved by the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission that a notice of intent to plan be shared with the surrounding communities in applicable agencies as prescribed by the Michigan planning Naval act moved by commissioner weich

222and seconded by commissioner Mills is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor of the motion please say aye any opposed the motion carries moving on to section 10B other business bylaws discussion the agenda um okay uh do you want to give a quick introduction here well you're going to hurry to both yeah no we're just we're recommending it be postponed at this time and at the next meeting the City attorney and as well as planning manager will be present to go through the rest of the explanations got gotcha all right sounds good I move that the consideration of the proposed bylaws modification be postponed to the October 3rd 2023 Planning Commission moved by commissioner Salve seconded by commissioner Mills any discussion all those in favor of the motion please say aye aye any

223opposed the motion carries moving on to section 11 public comment this is an opportunity for peoples to speak up to three minutes about any issue that's not listed on the public hearing on this agenda will first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely please press star nine if listing by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those access synced through the web link you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and when speaking please move to a quiet

224area so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and your address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to address the commission seeing no one is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely there are no Colors oh no there is a caller thank you Alex Lowe you may now unmute and address the Planning Commission for three minutes hi guys I'm back um I'm really disappointed that we only go out to r1d I'd like to point out that from the documents it says that R1 deep can get a maximum of six homes on the space and r2a could get six duplexes or or 12 phones and it seems like the only opposition to to that was well we haven't

225studied the utility oh Mr Lowe we can't hear you Mr Lowe hi can you hear me now yes yes sorry about that uh it's Alex Lowe yet again 33 40 foot uh Fernwood Avenue I'm a little bit disappointed in uh in that last piece specifically about it when you're getting to r1d which allows six units in in that area of land uh to a would have allowed six duplexes um it seems the the discussion was pushed aside pure leaving uh really because of not having studied the utility difference of those potential extra six units but it's this is a potential of six extra units it's not like we're adding 30 000 housing units to uh to to Ann Arbor uh with that we're adding the potential of six more hoes that doesn't seem like a

226a huge burden to me we should be we should be studying the uh that by default maybe even all the way up to our uh our foreign by default so that uh us that we know rather than uh having to guess thank you Mr Lowe any other callers there are none seeing no other callers will round out public comment we're moving on to section 12 commission proposed business is there any commission proposed business chocolate is something I heard thank you to Mr Leo we'll move on to seeing no other um commission proposed business a German move by commissioner weich seconded by council member dish all those in favor say aye aye we are adjourned