001for you that the premiums are not working towards the city's goals and so so what's it going to take is it going to be another year before we actually get to a solution um I you know I I think it it's it makes sense for you all to continue with this in a in a deliberate Manner and try to think through what the right premiums are for our city but it seems clear to me that the premiums pre-2019 were working better than the premiums now so why not just come forward with a straight rollback ordinance you could do this you know immediately yeah it would take a couple meetings to get through all the process but this wouldn't take a year to figure out and then after we've reverted the premiums to the ones that
002actually worked they were not perfect then you could continue the process of thinking about what the right approach actually is that's all for the moment thank you thank you anybody else present that would like to address the Planning Commission Trudeau 526 North Main Street I wasn't planning to speak at this point but just to piggyback on Mr Goodman's comments um I'll make the observation that we've seen a number of planned unit development proposals near downtown for high density projects and we've also seen University begin to gobble up a whole bunch of land adjacent to downtown the university clearly sees a need for significantly more housing as do Developers for the student market and if you talk to any students you know how difficult it is for them to secure any kind of housing of any
003quality anywhere near campus downtown is a great place to put that housing and we're not getting it so I think the evidence is pretty clear that the problem is urgent it's significant the demand is still there and I will also urge you to please consider the problem in Urgent one and act accordingly thank you thank you anybody else present that would like to address the Planning Commission thank you very good Randall my name is Ken Garber I live at 28 Haverhill Court I agree with the previous two speakers on the urgent need for new housing in Ann Arbor but I'd like to talk a little bit about something else what happened to the gas ban ordinance you last discussed it on December 6th with upper review at year February 14th working session with the March
004March 6 vote those dates and two other working sessions have come and gone nothing as the Platte Road Town Homes remind us gas burning developments aren't exactly pausing while we sit on this meanwhile the following groups have come out against the gas ban DTE Energy the Home Builders Association of Michigan or hbam the national Federation of Independent Business two utility worker trade unions and nine local Builders whose letter is in your packet they all want to keep doing things the same way they've always done them but that is insane you may have read or heard about the ipcc report that came out yesterday if you haven't had time to read it I brought a visual aid suppose not the only guys should get to show pictures so um we have a remaining carbon budget of
005380 gigatons of CO2 they have a 50 chance of stopping Global heating at 1.5 degrees Celsius we're at 1.1 to 1.2 degrees now 1.5 degrees will mean millions of deaths and wide ecosystem collapse goodbye coral reefs but it will avoid the worst effects of climate change given that the world emitted a 38 gigaton CO2 last year a record we only have 10 years left even if emissions level off and they're not they're still Rising this pie slide shows our remaining carbon budget in the context of historical emissions from the report quote without rapid deep and sustained mitigation and accelerated adaptation actions losses and damages will continue to increase including projected adverse impacts in Africa ldcs that's less developed countries SIDS that small island developing States Central and South America Asia and the Arctic and will
006disproportionately affect the most vulnerable populations end quote the current famine in the Horn of Africa and the flooding in Pakistan are nothing compared to what's coming this graph taken from the global carbon project the treatment Global carbon budget project shows the task we face emissions have risen steeply since 2000 they Rose one percent last year 1.3 percent in the U.S uh now the graph tells us we must get to 2-0 not Net Zero by 2040. um that means rich countries must zero out by 2035 at the latest to give poor countries more time to catch up in development and again this is just for a 50 chance of 1.5 degrees for a higher chance it's Net Zero by 2030 the a20 target we're not going to get there if we listen to the dtes and
007the hbams of the world if we do the line will go like this or this not this thank you thank you is there anybody else present that would like to address the Planning Commission do we have anybody in line virtually there are currently two hands raised the first hand raise is Shane Thomas Salvatore Gunther um Shane you have permission to speak thank you I would just like to speak about the Pud um on uh sorry I forget the street name of the crush me Squad and I just like to say that I represent a student organization on campus and we are incredibly Pro the Pud to increase the number of Apartments because as we all know in operation housing crisis countries and housing crisis we need as many apartments as possible there will be a
008dedicated public hearing for the 721 South Forest this is a time to address well I'm so sorry yes Church oh wait is he talking about church or Forest sorry you can continue on they are right they are very close to each other our club yes um I guess I can just talk about both then so I just we very much support the addition of apartment buildings because of course we're in housing crisis we're in a climate crisis and solution to both is dense housing which this would very much be um and so I just would like to say they're very much urge you guys to approve this um yeah that's all thank you still a second hand raised yeah our next Cambridge excuse me our next hand raised is Alex Lowe Alex lo you have
009permission to speak hi this is Alex Lowe calling in uh from ward 3 to enter the statements of several previous speakings first we desperately need more more housing in and here downtown we desperately need to uh to reduce our CO2 up fortunately these these goals will work in Canada more downtown housing will mean shorter commutes for people less needs to drive long distances Etc unfortunately and fairly counter-intuitively Banning new natural gas hookups within the city limits may have the opposite of the intended fat I would absolutely love to uh to bad new natural gas hookups and indeed and indeed eliminate natural gas altogether and we need to do that at the state level at what's going to happen if we do it at the city level is is that it will be more expensive to
010build in the city which as Mr Goodman's discussion uh on premiums already pointed out it uh is causing a reduction in a new construction and so people uh people will end up building new housing out in the townships where they have the natural gas uh over that and where people are forced to thrive into the city I would love to uh to see National I guess banned all together but we have to do that at the federal level and at the state level doing it with it within the city will harm our planet our planet goals thank you thank you anybody else and I'm sure there are no other hands at this time okay thank you all right we'll we'll move on to um our regular business section and begin with 8A which is the
011Platte Road townhome site plan for City Planning Commission approval Wetland use permit and Landscape modification this is for 3680-369-63746 and 3788 Platte road while the petitioner is coming up to start their presentation we do have uh item seven which is public hearings for the next meeting oh I'm sorry I skipped right over that thank you for correcting me at the next regular session of this body on April 4th at 7 pm there will be a proposed project at 2929 Plymouth Road University of Michigan Credit Union is presenting a site plan and special exception used for City Planning Commission approval it is a proposal to build a 4740 square foot building with three drive-through Lanes 22 parking spaces on a one acre site it is currently zoned office a special exception use is requested for the
012three drive through teller Lanes okay thanks alrighty now we will move on to 8A on to the Platte Road Townhomes so first we will have a petitioner presentation for 10 minutes on the project good evening Commissioners my name is Andy milia I'm a development consultant here on behalf of Trowbridge Holdings the petitioner also with me tonight is Mr Anthony Randazzo who's the principal of Trowbridge Holdings John Curry who's our civil engineer and Bill Jarrett who's our Architects over here happy to answer any questions I've got a very quick five-minute PowerPoint which I think will answer some of your questions we've enjoyed working with your staff over the last several years on this project have made significant process progress and a pleased that they're recommending approval tonight what we're designing is 78 78 townhome unit development
013on Platte Road quickly the the profile developer Mr Randazzo has over 40 years of experience in residential and commercial buildings high quality single-family homes apartments shopping centers as well as office and industrial building on the the photos on the right are three photos of recent and current projects the Hazelton and Royal Oak Town Homes of Caswell and Troy and the Dakota and Birmingham all very high quality in communities that are similar to Ann Arbor that have both an urban downtown and a Suburban Arts outskirt so very familiar with developing in these types of communities and Mr Randazzo has also built several projects at Ann Arbor as well in the last few years the development team is uh Mr Randazzo's company Bill Jarrett Jared Architects civil engineers here as well tonight John Curry from PA and
014landscape architect Verdi Architecture Firm a summary of events as I've indicated this project started actually almost close to four years ago in 2019 we worked through the Wetland issues on the site conducted a market study looked at different concepts again all working in conjunction with with your fine staff we originally had a project that was 43 units that was submitted um recommended and then we've gone back and added some density to it still all fitting within the same footprint as the original just made the units a little bit uh smaller but all fitting in the same footprint so what's before you tonight is the site plan approval Wetland and Landscape plan for 78 unit townhome development the project is where the red arrow is is on the west side of Platte Road north of I-94
015freeway did a little bit of a older area of town and we think that this will help Revitalize the areas well with building a quality townhome project in this area here is again the site west side of Platte Road heavily treated on the south side we'll be preserving those trees on the south side we are removing a few Landmark trees and then replacing those and we're also contributing just under fifty thousand dollars into the preservation area so you'll see on the Landscaping plan it'll be enhanced and we're taking uh nice use of the site and incorporating it protecting the Wetland areas on the site as well uh here is the plan overlaid on the aerial again you can see the protection on the South Side the protection of the Wetland and on the property a
016nice continuation of buffer around the West End of the property and Landscape treat area on the east side as well um landscape plan these are additional enhancements to the site in addition to a lot of the vegetation that will remain on site architecture is modern high quality design these are what's called stack Town Homes which are three stories with parking on the grade level and then two stories of living space above they're what's considered a two-car Rod tandem garage rear and side elevations again the use of high quality materials and aesthetically a very nice looking product that will fit in well in harmony with the site uh we have two concepts one's a 39 foot concept and one's a 42 foot concept multiple uh three bedroom two bath units you can see the first floor
017again on the right is uh is parking in the garage second floor and third floor would be living spaces uh with uh bedrooms on the third floor and accommodation of bedrooms and living area on the second floor 42 cotton foot concept is just slightly larger and similar configuration uh unit sizes are 1250 square feet 1350 square feet so we we're we're bringing a product into the market we think that is is badly needed in this market it's not a luxury high-rise apartment um it's not a 700 foot apartment it's it's a very marketable unit that will track families that could attract graduate students but it provides a housing need currently needed in this market in this location sustainability is very important to us we reviewed the letter from the sustainability office and they provided several
018recommendations we're pleased to incorporate many of those recommendations into this plan specifically all the garages would have the conduit outlets for future EV charging stations in in each unit high efficiency appliances in the units LED lighting and all public lighting areas uh we would encourage use of public transportation although we're providing garages and cars and and feel that many people will still need that we're encouraging uh the bus route and would offer discounted passes to those people that choose not to have a car on site although this might not be as popular in 2023 it'll become increasingly popular and we're happy to write that into a lot of the lease offerings designated area for compost will be designated on site and there'll also be minimized gas use the best that we can that's practical in
019today's environment so we would mandate electric cooktops electric stoves and electric dryers would be mandated for all the units were available for any questions both of myself or Mr Randazzo or the architect or the engineer thank you deaf presentation Mr Chang uh yeah I think the developer did an excellent job of making the presentation not hear me um I would just add just a couple of items that just to touch on that there is a landscape modification as part of this application they are planting the trees that are required they just can't fit in the public right-of-way so they're going to plant them behind the sidewalks they're also asking for a wetland use permit that's really just pouring under one of the wetlands to make connection to the sanitary sewer in both cases the staff
020Reviewer is supported these modifications to the site plan I'm here for any questions you may have thank you okay we will open the public hearing for this project this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes we'll first call on people who are here and then people who are remote um for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 City staff will select colors that are raised their hands um and uh you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area for either method please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anybody present that would like to speak on this project you can come up to the top you get three minutes and just state your
021name and address um my name is Phil Hoon I live at 315 for Williamsburg which is across from this proposed building um I was actually here August 16th uh last year for this and at that time I did I mentioned a couple of things at that time and one of the major issues that we see within our town homes that we have there are 426 Townhomes across the street from this development beyond that there's two there's a middle school in an elementary school and so there's a major traffic issue that I perceive especially when I'm trying to leave the our Williamsburg entrance that um I feel that you need to address I'm currently as I said there's 200 427 Town Homes at Colonial squares is um currently there's actually two subdivisions that have just been
022built along Platte Road near Michigan Avenue and there are four more subdivisions going down Platte road that are in that are in design at this point so traffic coming in and out of Platte road is going to be horrendous as far as I'm concerned it's going to be increasing throughout the years as as these developments happen and this also affects the people who are going to be living in these townhouses is they have to get out and I believe that the way it's been architected is that they're going to be basically mirroring our exit from Colonial squares and it will be you know across the street from that so I don't know what your intentions are in terms of traffic if you're going to be putting a light in or whatever is going to happen
023but I would like to find what your your intentions are for dealing with traffic um also at the time I mentioned um that there are 90 Acres of woods that are scarlet Mitchell Woods and there's current traffic of animals actually going from the wooded area from um Scarlet Mitchell Woods all the way over to um Mary Beth Doyle Park and so um there's going to be some issues along the animals too which I also mentioned that thank you thank you is there bunny anybody anyone else present who would like to speak on this project thank you turkey Randall I know what you're thinking of course um but um last year I suggested that planning staff calculate the greenhouse gas emission impact of each new development as part of the review process that didn't happen but
024that's okay I took it on as a personal responsibility I also said developers should have to model and disclose their building's energy use intensity and hasn't happened either but it's still possible to make a reasonable emissions estimate so Pratt Road this is morning nerd alert here this is going to be extremely boring um as you just heard there are two floor plans one 1250 square feet 11350 let's assume half of each that's 101 400 square feet Consumers Energy sites a 52.9 kilo BTU per square foot annual energy use from gas consumption for new Mid Michigan low-rise multi-family buildings multiplied by this Project's Total Building square footage you get 5.4 million kilo BTUs or 58 000 therms now multiply this by a greenhouse convert greenhouse gas conversion factor of 13 kilograms per therm which takes into
025account Upstream methane and CO2 emissions that gives 702 metric tons CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions a year just from gas combustion in these 78 Townhomes now this will be partially offset because some current commuters will move here semcog reports that the average Ann Arbor commute is 19.3 Miles let's assume a net of one person a day commuting an average round trip distance of 38.6 miles to and from Ann Arbor for half of these 78 units that's 1505 miles a day or 31 300 miles a year excluding weekends and 30 miles per gallon it's just over 13 000 gallons of gasoline they emit 11.3 kilogram CO2 per gallon higher than the EPA estimate of 8.9 kilograms taking into account Upstream emissions that gives you 147 metric tons CO2 emissions that you're saving by converting commuters to
026residents that's 150 emissions from burning gas in these furnaces total net emissions impact from Plant Road Townhomes just from these gas furnaces 555 metric tons CO2 equivalent emissions a year uh that of course does not include emissions embedded in building materials or indirect emissions from Dirty power generation from DTE just from gas we are putting almost 600 net metric tons extra emissions into the atmosphere each year for decades to come um so I have 30 seconds um so I've got to use it of course um Alex Lowe called in and said we can't have a gas ban because developers will flee Ann Arbor on Moss there's no evidence that this has happened in any of the 50 odd communities that have adopted gas ban ordinances Ann Arbor is a very desirable place to live developers
027know this I don't think we're going to see a surge of Township projects and as far as cost goes basically for new construction they're at parity or close thank you thank you is there anybody else present that would like to speak on the Platte Road Project hello Scott Trudeau again 526 North Main Street um so to also follow on the previous commenter who brought a lot of math to the table one of the things I think to keep in mind is yes the emissions from a commuter in the township is not as much as the emissions from a gas heated home however those people who are going to move to the townships and outside of the city limits will also live in gas heated homes because our neighbors have not and they're not considering an
028electrification ordinance and the economics of the electric coupons and other things are tricky I think if we were talking single-family homes the evidence is pretty clear that over the lifetime of the building the economics are pretty good and like we would probably see just as many single-family homes if we required electrification or not right now I think when we talk higher density construction and I think if any of you have talked to people trying to build larger more substantial projects that are electrified in the city the economics are very different and so um there's a very significant risk especially over the next decade or so that if we mandate full electrification for any new construction we will be driving people to live in other townships because we're not going to just make people decide not
029to exist they're going to want to live somewhere and if we're not building homes within the city limits that allow for shorter commutes they're going to live somewhere and if they're going to live somewhere it's going to be heated in a gas heated home or a large single-family house which we don't have a lot of room to build in the city or even near the city at this point so I encourage you to really weigh that seriously because we are responsible for the effects of our decisions whether the effects happen outside of the city limits thank you thank you best present who would like to speak on this project anybody in line virtually at this time we have one person with their hand raised Alex Lowe you have permission to speak this is Alex Lowe
030again calling three just don't just throw away from the uh actually glad to see the positive improvements that have been made on the planet since it's previously came plan information and especially happy to see the increase in in your account although I do wish there could have been more I would I would have liked to have seen some further improvements though most notably a plan for pedestrian connection to the green space behind the development and the reduction in the impervious surface on this property the former would reduce it would improve Park's access not only for residents on this new property but also for others in the areas such as those on the Colonial Square Cooperative right across plant since it could connect this property to both Pilgrim Park and Marybeth Doyle Park without the noisy
031few phone walk alongside the latter of course could be achieved by reducing wood to the main driveway within this development and getting rid of the unnecessary setbacks from the main driveway to each individual garage this would also provide some more uh Green Space within within the development while I believe they could and should be more units here and less space dedicated solely to Motor Vehicles if this is the compromise you ever can get I believe it's better than betting the space continue to walk I also want to thank the Developers for listening to my previous comment about gas stoves and mandating electric cooktops well I would love to see ground sources a previous speaker showed just how much this will be reducing us uh CO2 emissions especially since Townhomes are widely known to be a
032more energy efficient type of building than they likely single-family hose that would go up in the in the township to replace them so building a more energy efficient type uh type of building and reducing uh commutes seems like a huge win to me on the uh on that thank you so much thank you anybody else waiting to speak we have two more hands raised the first is phone number ending in 360. you can press star six to unmute yourself take yes good evening or this is I also live in Williamsburg Road um and um just to reiterate to what the first Speaker said um we have two entrances on the Williamsburg or Colonial Square and both of them uh exit from Flat Road so we're very worried about the construction that will be there because
033it will become it's already a nightmare in the mornings to leave when we go to work or drop kids to school to even find the moments or a place a space to exit the cars come they are passed they don't leave the space for that entrance so I don't even think that even a light will be helpful to that extent I think the best would be to maybe do a two lines when you you design uh for for construction to think about increasing the size of that road it's a very narrow road with a lot of traffic so in being in Colonial Square it's becoming a problem for us thank you the last hands raised is James damore James demore you have permission to speak Madam you can hear me hello you can be heard
034great um thanks for uh taking me in at the last minute um I'm certainly been interested in this project I was on the playing commission when iteration came uh before us so it's interesting to see the progress that has happened um just some quick comments uh just in general um I would hope in terms of uh development that we do go to all electric format as much as we can um simply because uh um we simply uh when we have the equation of guests fired uh homes of the Townships versus the city uh we have no control over that happening so we have to clean make our own houses as best as we could um regarding uh density in general um if we build it here it doesn't prevent why not order from them building
035it elsewhere within the township these are the considerations in terms of the development of the of the project um that being said um I hope a decision she'll make tonight will be reasonable and you'll take an account uh neighborhood concerns um certainly I'm interested in the impacts in terms of budding uh Murray Beth Doyle Park but nice connectivity there um but this is where we are right now that being said thanks for considering my remarks thank you all right I will read the three motions and I'd recommend that we just take them all as as as one so the first one is the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission approves the Platte Road Townhomes site plan and recommends approval of the development agreement as the site plan comprised with all the applicable requirements to unified development
036code and other applicable laws ordinances standards and regulations and based on the following conditions all Parcels must be combined before the issuance of any building permits and final approval from the Washington County resource commissioner the second one is the Planning Commission approves the Wetland use permit for the Platte Road Townhomes project site plan and the third is the anniversary Planning Commission hereby approves the proposed landscape modifications or according to chapter 55 unified development code section 5.20.10b to require one tree for right-of-way screening every 45 feet moved by commissioner white seconded by commissioner dish we are in discussion on Platte Road commissioner dish uh thanks to the petitioner and staff for the really informative presentations um it is great to see that the petitioner offers because we are not in a petition to come in a
037position to compel so it is great to see that the petitioner offers high efficiency appliances and lighting discounted bus rate bus passes and electric cooktop stoves and dryers however it seems to me that or if I'm under if I'm reading this proposal correctly um you are proposing or the the project proposes EV capable not EV nothing EV ready or rather nothing EV installed and that doesn't seem that perhaps this project started before we had the ordinance but we've had many petitioners offer to comply with our current regulations so I wonder why this doesn't OSI had requested that at the very least you do a feasibility study to price out alternatives to gas heating I wonder if you had done that and you just didn't share the results and I'd be curious to hear what they
038were um they also requested that you price out solar and on-site battery storage and at a minimum provide for solar Readiness so that your the people who buy these homes if they want to install solar it's the facilitated for them and so those three questions are questions I'm putting on the table for debate from colleagues or the petitioner and then I would like to hear staff speak to the concerns that have been raised about traffic what would you like to start with the petitioner or with staff why don't we start with the petitioner thank you for your commentary thank the public for uh their comments and we understand the environment that we're working in and we're working very collaboratively uh with staff with researchers uh and with the market as well um is to address
039this dishes comments uh specifically uh the the recommendation from the sustainability office was to make the units have the conduits for the EV stations and to have a panel availability within the uh um within the electric panel it wasn't actually put the Chargers in so they will be equipped so that if a charger wanted to go in could put it in on a moment's notice and all the conduit would already be in in place for it so you know if and when electric vehicles take on uh more popularity those units would be upgraded and they're they're equipped for that we are currently studying solar the the we don't want to put solar on the ground because it's not practical we'll take up ground space very small roof line and there's a lot of trees in
040there so it's not a extremely popular or practical place for solar we are studying it we would potentially make it available for the future we did do a a rudimentary feed feasibility study on electric it would add several thousand dollars to each unit to make furnaces electric and water heaters electric but that's not the concern as much the concern is passing that cost on to the consumer to operate a much more inefficient system in terms of costs from an electric system so what should be noted here is when you look at this product these are not single family homes so they are well insulated the homes back on to another heated unit they're three stories so there's you know the heat will rise so there will be less heat generated from these units less furnace
041use than a typical single-family home so they're very efficient units are very efficient from uh insulation standpoint they're very efficient from a design standpoint all the appliances would be high efficiency furnaces and appliances so we have done a lot to make it a energy efficient albeit partial electric and and partial gas unit and we're currently studying battery storage but not in time for for this plan but I hope I've answered your questions thank you did you want staff to respond to the traffic okay uh just in regards to the EV it is for townhouse dwelling units 100 required for Ev capable so and that's what they've what they've met I'm scrolling through I can tell you that the transportation engineer did approve this I just don't have a very good summary until I go through
042here and I think and start reviewing the comments but it was approved on you know their initial submittal anybody else commissioner Hammerschmidt thank you I'll piggyback a little bit on um commissioner dishes questions um so to the petitioner again if you want to come back up um I guess my first question and maybe I missed this somewhere are these rentals or are these for sale Townhomes they would be initially rental units but they are built town home quality so they could be for sale in the future okay I agree with you I think this this is needed in the market here I think that rent or sell like these will be very popular with family so thank you for providing that type of housing sure um I think my only my only real I guess
043my only real thing would be just like to push you as much as we can on the solar and batteries um like the induction you know inflation reduction act has a lot of rebates especially if you're going to be renting them initially the developer would keep I think those rebates um you know heat pump water heaters solar appliances Etc don't let anybody tell you heat pump water heaters don't work in Michigan because they do I just got one and somebody actually told me they would not work um and if the solar does work obviously like then your electric costs would be lower if you're putting in those types of appliances so I just encourage you to keep looking at that as much as possible and look into these rebates because I think that will help
044make it pencil or perhaps uh we will We would like that not to be a condition but we would continue to uh you know study that and uh Mr Randazzo and his son is here another generation or long-term holders and a very investment in cost savings are very important uh Tony you want to add we are we're working with Dr Anna Tony Randazzo uh we're working with Donna Anna stefanopolo she's the director of engineering and she specifically asked me to work with her regarding the battery I'm very uh Pro environmental I I believe we need to save energy I do believe there's global warming it is a concern to me personally if you recall when we did our project on Main Street we are going to have a electric furnaces there so that was a
045concession however and they're going to be for sale so they're going to probably boot the cost if there is any I've I've had some mixed reviews they are getting better however we want we believe in affordability and I think it's imperative that we consider that the city that's why these units are kind of snug very efficient um we built a project down the street on Caswell and uh stone school so we're very familiar with what people want I think this is an improvement and the other thing is we do energy seal our all of our units which gives you a higher efficiency and you probably know this but the furnaces of today are much more efficient than the ones of the 90 Plus and the heat bills are really very moderate just something to think
046about thank you if you if you can get the solar things figured out before I think you go to council I think that would be helpful for there wait did this go to council no because it's not rezoning I always get confused about this okay it stops here all right we we will continue to look at it although we don't want to contingent because it's just a benefit for everybody in common sense right okay thank you anybody else commissioner Mills I concur with what everyone said and um my sense is that this fits within the parameters of the existing zoning like others I encourage you to think more about the sustainability but to some of the calculations that were brought up I agree with what everyone said I had a student dig into some of
047the calculations and I would just also point out that if this were to be built elsewhere it's not just outside in a Township it's not just the commuting into the city that adds you know that would add emissions it's also in those places you have to commute for or you have to drive for all of your other things so it's not just the commuting um uh emissions but it's also the within Town kind of running errands that are really car dependent and so I think that there's someday this will be all electric it will need to be just to make that very clear um I encourage you to continue to look and in the things that you're developing to always put that on the table um I but I think that this does meet the
048standards that we've set forth thank you all right Burns I just wanted to return to the question on traffic and maybe just for the public benefit you could describe what it means to say that it was approved like what is the what are the criteria for approval and um our residents concerns about increased traffic in that area being met I wish I were a traffic engineer and I could explain it actually I was kind of looking through the the summary it is in the intergov is the attachments I do know it was approved I was looking just for a brief summary but it really doesn't give a summary that I could I could state but I can tell you that it is uploaded um yeah I don't want to put words in the transportation engineer's
049mouth so I guess I was just asking like um could anyone describe what are the general conditions for approval that means that the traffic engineer has concluded that there are no concerns about increased traffic above a certain threshold or Traffic Safety is there anyone who can help yeah so generally traffic is looking at a variety of things they're looking at how the proposed development interacts with our road Network so that tends to be a lot of analysis and in consultation with our engineering department about things like radiuses clearances visibility how those intersections actually intersect with with the road Network in addition to that for a project I'm presuming this had a traffic impact study city planner Chang can correct me if I'm wrong that they are also providing data as to how this project will
050change volumes in the network that model then projects how if if and how it might have impacts to uh delays at intersections I will say though that our traffic analysis has not standards have not changed and evolved with a lot of what I think we would be thinking basically is that it is that the traffic analysis is complete it meets basic safety configuration requirements and it doesn't if if the level of service um dips below d e to d e or F the site plan could be recommended for denial that doesn't mean it is recommended for denial I don't know that this project is um I would be I can't speak to the traffic impact study but based on a volume of the number of units I would be very surprised that this would have
051a significant change on the level of service some of the factors that Commissioners are already talking about the biggest impact on level of service on Platt or any Road in Earth in our city are job creation the the university um units I think it was mentioned units happening in the city provide the opportunity for alternative modes but I want to be clear from a non-trafficient engineer but a planner perspective the level of service on our roads is going to decrease with time unless the University of Michigan and all of our job centers decide now let's we're cool let's not bring anybody else to the hospital or to the University of Michigan so and I would just add I just opened up the traffic review not sure I don't want to put words in the traffic
052engineer's mouth but they've done it with under several I I think uh uses one being multi-housing low rise one being multi-family housing low rise mid-rise mid-rise and all of them if I'm just looking at it just in summary it's it's stating it's around you know from four to you know seven to nine a.m it's 0.46 average rate per dwelling unit so a half a trip during peak hours at seven to nine um if I look at it you know at four to six pm again it's point out of half you know 0.56 per dwelling unit so it's less than a trip during you know the morning in afternoon peak hours so they're roughly around 0.56.44 somewhere around there and what they've submitted Madam chair one of the things that the planners look at in the
053traffic consultants and in your own ordinances your density ordinance is designed uh for a particular area in particular Road structure so your own density ordinance contemplated this many units and as much traffic so it's kind of Incorporated within that what we're finding in this town home product both in your community and many other communities is covet changed the world and it changed the work process we have so many more people working from home or if they're not working from home they have more of a flex time commuting structure so the traffic is is now among all the communities spread out over much of an area so consequently we're not getting as much pushback on traffic in many of the communities and traffic has become much better and this meets within the criteria of that anybody
054else commissioner Solvay I'm imagining you're going to bring this up but I'm going to maybe the kind of last thing that I heard was concerns about kind of nature migrations on the southern edge of the site and as I understand it there's an additional parcel before the highway and you've got a detention Basin that connects but can you speak to kind of your landscape plan and some of the migrations between the parks that are happening and if you've evaluated those with the situation of the building yeah I'm going to ask John Curry the civil engineer to come up and address your specific question to you rephrase what your concerns was it with Landscaping we heard we heard a bit about migration over to um the Mary Beth Doyle from the forest area behind the schools
055and so now that there's a large area of natural landscape that's going to be interrupted by new development um as I as I read the plan there's a detention planned on the south side and this additional kind of Green Space for that migration between the two green areas in the neighborhood but was that evaluated at all in terms of kind of natural migration patterns or movement between natural areas of the air like the area beyond your site as far as like Wildlife migration we did not specifically look at that okay um I mean there's there's a lot of buffer around it still I mean if you look at it there's still a lot of agreeing around but the the marsh behind the back and all that protected area I don't know the direct route they're
056talking about but directly south of us is I know that's a private parcel and we don't know where it'll be but to the South currently between us and the expressway is still green and then certainly the entire east side of or the west side of the property is all natural and preserved so and I as I understand it's like 110 feet to the South Side from the last building structure so you've got a hundred foot ish two yes to the property line right there's a that's that very southwest corner is all left natural okay so so the likelihood of bats that southern residents developing its parcel you'd always have at least 100 foot band between properties yes also the flood plain kind of comes through there so even when that does develop they're going to
057be limited they can go some of that as well okay I appreciate it I will just kind of echo comments overall from everybody like continue to develop As you move towards the building permit process um I I think there's a lot of innovation and tax capture for incentives and I would just add to that that the housing type that you have seems particularly well suited actually to be able to because all these units thin all next to each other are actually it's not a high rise so it's very different in that way it's really set up well to be able to handle electrification and if you can do the solar then and you're renting that pays for itself over time so that's another piece of the puzzle just think about as you're as you're doing
058it especially with the 30 rebate that the government is giving so um again we don't have teeth for that right now but um it's something that we really uh would encourage you to look at as an opportunity as well if you there are people out there that can help you with this in terms of How to Think Through It okay are we ready for a vote vote on the Motions as presented commissioner Gib Randall yes commissioner survey yes commissioner Abrams yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes pressure dish yes commissioner Clark yes Fisher wife yes commissioner Mills yes those motions pass thank you very much and we appreciate your comments and we'll continue to work with staff in the permitting department and incorporate a lot of the ideas thank you great thank you okay we are on to
059item 8B which is 721 South Forest PUD rezoning and site plan looks like we are getting set up for petitioner presentation for 10 minutes and then we'll have a staff presentation after well good evening everyone I'm Ryan Baum with subtexts where the developers on the project I'd like to thank you all for having us here tonight and we're excited to be back in front of you and share our updates since we were last in front of you during our working session thanks to Brett Matt and staff for all your input and review of our proposal we have a fantastic multi-disciplinary team of local partners that we've brought on this project including Jay Bradley Moore and Associates Brad Strader with mksk planning Consultants John Beeson with Eco Works sustainability Consultants Bill Lawrence with urban forestry Consulting
060and Scott betzel with Midwestern Consulting we also have our lead design architects wdg who subtext partnered with on our award-winning design for 611 which is just two blocks north of the subject site just tell me when you want to advance slides oh I'm sorry go ahead [Applause] are sites located on South Forest Ave just south of University Ave where just two blocks to the west of the University as well as we've got the residential district there to the South contextually we're in a mixed-use district there's a wide variety of uses including high-rise residential mid-rise single-family residential commercial uses a seven-story parking garage and institutional uses such as University buildings Greek life and religious buildings as well we hired mksk as planning Consultants to help evaluate the proposed project in the context of the site location
061central area plan and downtown Ann Arbor and what we found through this exercise was that the current master plan is now 14 years old and the existing zoning is not compatible with the current use for this location or the development Trends in the area as Ann Arbor strives to meet its housing and sustainability goals next slide [Applause] we felt that this location warranted more density given its proximity to the university the commercial uses and the D1 District just one block to the north I think staff notes in their report as well that this location can support more density than the current land use designation mix that here's an overhead view of the connectivity we're just over a 10 minute walk to the downtown core through the diag and close proximity to both the downtown commercial
062district and the South University and East University commercial District this location is very appealing to students they like the east side of campus but by going through the diag is still just a half mile walk to get to downtown next slide in addition to the walkability this location boasts strong connections to Transit and bike infrastructure the ride bus line is just to the north and Forest Ave serves as a neighborhood connector between dedicated bike Lanes to the North and the South there will be 206 bike stalls with a variety of Class A and Class C stalls as well as e-bike charging stations on level one sustainability features on the project include a passive house inspired envelope with double the code required continuous insulation to reduce thermal bridging we're proposing an all-electric building coupled with 100
063renewable energy certificates covering 10 years of energy uses 100 kilowatts building integrated solar power on the roof 26 EV charging stalls on site out of 98 total parking stalls we're designing the project to lead silver design standards which will automatically reduce the energy usage of the project by 15 percent and with 638 new beds added we're expecting just an additional six vehicular trips in the peak hour next slide we went through several design iterations and Incorporated a number of changes in response to stakeholder feedback most importantly the preservation of the local tree canopy on the north side this resulted in a six-story step down in the northeast corner and all this together created a very rich facade we have a fantastic delivery and ride share drop-off Lane in the front of the building to bring
064these uses off the street and we're planning a first floor Community Coffee Shop that will be open to the public Landscaping enhancements include native plants and pollinators next slide the resulting project is 12 stories 228 units and 733 beds plus we'll have a rooftop social lounge and those building integrated solar panels I think that thank you everyone for your input and we believe this result has turned out wonderfully we're happy to answer any questions you might have thank you any staff Mr Kowalski great good evening everybody um I'm going to read somewhat uh some of my notes from the staff report actually usually I don't do that but I want to make sure that I cover various aspects of it um so we don't have a presentation tonight but I will read the summary aspects
065um so as you can see from the planning staff report staff does not support the project in its current iteration the density per se is not the issue at the site um I think we all agree this site could use additional density above and beyond the master plan or the existing zoning um but really the issue is the size of the structure the massing and the height of the structure the area as was Illustrated is surrounding by surrounded by a mix mix of uses as far as sorority uses as well as some group housing in addition to that co-ops and a couple of other multi-family structures they are of various Heights and densities however nothing does a approach the scale of this project um so again it's the additional density does appear reasonable over the
066current uh projections within the comprehensive plan as well as the existing zoning but and they have made significant steps in other areas which I will touch on but I will keep obviously coming back to the mass and the height issue um the proposed height is it stands right now exceeds of even the maximum height in the uh closest D1 zoning District which is 150 feet that don't zoning District's about 275 or sorry about 300 or almost 400 feet away from the property it does also exceed the D2 standard which is the downtown interface that's almost about 300 feet away and one of the overall concerns is as you can see from my report as well as my comments here tonight the massing in the size that really prohibits any kind of transitional or step-down development
067to the adjacent districts again the site is surrounded by r4c properties which is a 30 foot height limit immediately adjacent and abutting the property on both the east as well as the south side is a historical District the Washington Hill historic district that is a mix of R2 as well as R4 zoning again with the 30 foot height limit there um so having said that I mean the petitioner has really come a long way from the initial submittal I will say in working with staff I think architecturally the the project is uh significantly I think in my mind is improved over the initial submission and really got to the it fits about as well as a building of that size could I think in the ground level is nice as well um they've come a
068great deal in sustainability features as well you can see from the report I did not summarize all of them within mine but you can see within the supplemental regulations as well as the attachments that they provided there are numerous sustainability elements some of which were introduced initially some of which they've worked with our uh the staff at the OSI on to improve certain aspects of that um and again a very significant noteworthy in the project is the affordable housing contribution now again that is required for a PUD of this size when it's exceeding the residential base density but they are providing uh above and beyond that a contribution as well to basically up to 4.7 million from a little bit above 4.6 as a required they were also proposing a donation it's a 50 000
069to the Ann Arbor Housing Development Corporation to assist in in projects in that area uh they are going or sorry there will also be contributing a Parks donation as well to be used with in the adjacent parks there um we did as I mentioned we did run it through the uh the office of sustainability initiatives uh while they didn't support the the project directly they did acknowledge some of the improvements that uh the petitioner has made and they've come a long way with that however again the OSI did not support the project as it was presented and I think uh really that summarizes up kind of the the main comments that I wanted to cover tonight and um obviously I will be available for any questions thank you alrighty we will move on to the
070public hearing for this it's an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about this project uh we'll first call on people here and then call on people remotely for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 uh City staff will select callers that have raised their hands um uh when you're speaking please move to a quiet area for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments there are people here that would like to speak on this petition hi I'm Mark gerstein of 1321 Forest Court where I've lived for over 40 years I am strenuously opposed to the application for a PUD at 721 South Forest I strongly support the analysis of Matt Kowalski and the planning department staff and his memos of October 13th
071and December 12th I strongly support the planning and development staff report strongly recommending denial the proposed luxury student apartment building is totally inconsistent with the zoning of this site and the land use goals of the city's master plan it significantly exceeds any density and building size permitted for the zoning District the proposed building is totally out of character with the surrounding r4c neighborhood a diverse and Pleasant area of well-maintained residences small apartment buildings fraternity and sorority houses and a child care center it contravenes the central area land use recommendations that seek to encourage appropriate development to protect the existing character of neighborhoods this project clearly does none of this unlike the recently constructed small apartment buildings at 721 727 South Forest and adjacent at 1315 Hill at the corner of Hill and South Forest as
072well as the Tousley Children's House The Proposal is in complete and total violation of the zoning created by the city in the recent past establishing D1 and D2 zones it seeks to do via a PUD what the established is owning will not allow if this PUD project is permitted to go forward it will make a mockery of and demolish the zoning regulation studied negotiated and voted on by the city council and opened up the whole area south of Willard to barely restricted development ignoring the city master plan and Central Area plans for this PUD is not how City Planning is or should be done nor should Ann Arbor be remade through single site spot zoning like this this is precisely the only purpose of this request for a PUD for this project which is to
073circumvent the existing zoning of this site in addition construction of this project is certain to degrade and even kill some of the landmark trees to its North at the forest Plaza Apartments through damage to the root systems and blocking the Sun during large portions of the day this is precisely what happened with the building of Foundry Lofts on Huron at division to the old trees to its North I strongly urge you to reject this PUD proposal that is in total violation of the zoning and of the purposes of the pram Union developments approval will only open the way for such PUD proposal excuse me PUD proposals in the r4z zoned area being between Willard and Hill and Beyond and lastly um do we actually really need another ground floor Cafe as a public benefit it
074really seems absurd thank you thank you good evening my name is Jennifer beers 722 South Forest I'm the vice president of the beta Ada corporation which owns and operates for non-profit organization that owns and operates the sorority house at 722 South Forest Alpha Delta pi um which is directly across the street from the proposed development I'm here to represent the owners of this multi-tenant sorority house as well as our current and future residents which include active members of the sorority as well as a live-in house director that is employed by our organization our organization has owned this home since 1933 and we have continued to provide housing for Collegiate Collegiate members all of these years we are proud of our house and the neighborhoods surrounding our house we strive to maintain the historic architecture and
075provide a warm and welcoming environment to our residents and their guests we continuously invest in maintaining this older home very old home both structurally as well as aesthetically and are committed to continuing the upkeep to attract future members to our organization I actually lived in this home in the 90s and I'm you know love love the neighborhood and love what it has to offer very safe and welcoming um our board is concerned about this proposed development and we strongly oppose many aspects of The Proposal um and I'd like to share those concerns our main concerns are with regard to the height and the footprint of the building um it's so much bigger than what is there right now and seems overpowering to the neighborhood um we're worried about the shading that it will create on
076our property um as well as the surrounding area and any kind of urban desert effect it might have as the glass you know reflects the sunshine during the warmer weather and what about the wind tunneling around the area and the effect in the colder months of the year um we're worried about what it will how will impact our Landscaping we actually had plans this summer to update plant additional planting materials plant additional trees and it's all on hold now until we know what's going on with this building um we have concerns also obviously with the impact of construction of this facility um and and what it means to trash removal water and sewer and how long that construction process will be and how it will impact our student residents during the school year um we're
077very worried about the common space at the top of the building um the rooftop facilities appear to have you know an area a common area for people to hang out in and we're worried about noise implications and parties and things that could happen in the evening hours and again in a residential area thank you for your time thank you anybody else present who would like to address the Planning Commission my name is Eleanor Lynn I live at 1321 Forest Court one block away from the proposed building I'm adamantly opposed to it and I urge all of you to vote against it this project would be five times taller than the current City Zoning allows and would contain more than nine times as many units the scale is not at all appropriate for its surroundings which
078are almost all two and three-story buildings the City Planning Department staff has twice recommended rejection of this plan although the developers claim that they will construct a green building the proposed solar panels would only provide three percent of the needed energy it would be fueled by dte's coal burning Electric Plant in Monroe the city's office of sustainability and Innovations does not support approval of this project the developers repeatedly refer to the city's outdated master plan this is presumptuous of them and highly offensive to me the city government with input from citizens and elected officials is charged with writing and revising the master plan as we see fit developers must petition us for approval not the other way around the developers say they would pay into the city's affordable housing fund if they want to support
079affordable housing they should build it themselves neither would this project reduce the price of rent elsewhere in my experience landlords of two-story houses raise their rents to exceed those of the high-rise buildings because they consider their properties more desirable and they get what they ask for the developers also claim that this project would help curtail urban sprawl that is a total fiction the people who want housing in new buildings at the edge of town are a different Market mostly families with children than those who might rent apartments in this project U of M undergraduates what's more the developers claim there would be no impact of this project on older people that is also not true the neighborhood south of the U of M campus has a considerable number of older adults many of whom made
080their housing decisions when it was still possible to live here on the salary one could earn at a nearby job many hope to age in place in a walkable location to support their good health and not be displaced by new construction the elephant in the room is greed developers brag to investors about their profits this project is not supported by the neighborhood and I urge you to vote against it thank you hello my name is Lindy Jurgens I'm a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority which owns the house at 722 South Forest we've owned the house since 1933. we have submitted a letter to you stating some specific reasons why we oppose this project hopefully you have all been able to read that letter but I'm just going to highlight a few of them the
081neighborhood in which our house sits is primarily made up of houses and small apartment buildings is very much a typical Midwest neighborhood has typical Midwest neighborhood feel most of the Lots in the area have grass Trees and Landscaping caddy corner from us is a small apartment building with a beautiful grassy lawn and a circular Drive the addition of 11 or 12 story building directly across from us will negatively affect the neighborhood feel of the area the increase in traffic particularly with the limited parking spaces for this building will negatively impact all residents of the area we are also concerned about the potential environmental effects on our house this building May negatively impact our landscaping or Green Space either due to the lack of sunlight or due to the glare from the building we are also
082concerned about the effects from the wind we are particularly concerned about any wind tunnel effect particularly if another proposed project is built directly behind us for these reasons that I have mentioned today plus those in our letter and those stated by Jennifer who came before me we urge you to reject the plans for this high-rise or any other high-rise in that neighborhood thank you for your time thank you would anybody else like to speak on this project who's present hello Adam Goodman 400 Virginia Avenue again I think this is a great project I think that it contributes greatly to many of the city's goals that I mentioned earlier it would provide a lot of badly needed housing directly and we need housing at all income levels including both market rate and affordable so it'll provide
083market rate housing directly and provide as Mr Kowalski said 4.7 million dollars into the affordable housing fund I haven't looked at the numbers in a bit so this might be off but if I remember correctly that's about two-thirds of what our affordable housing millage raises from the entire city in an entire year that's huge and councilmember Dish heard me say this last night um costs are cost of construction are increasing rapidly so the millage is not enough to achieve to to successfully build off the affordable housing developments that the city is planning we need more and this this would go a long way and you know this commission we were talking about this as well has been seeking to get fully electric developments and this is one and it has other sustainability elements on top
084of that so seems great right but we have this denial recommendation and frankly I found this disappointing and concerning again where is our sense of urgency in trying to address the problems facing our city and our region so I sort of took two specific things away from that one was you know the building is too big or Too Tall I took a walk down South Forest yesterday and I don't really notice a huge difference in character or context in a couple hundred feet between this site and the area zoned downtown zoning it's kind of an odd mismatch of things there's some attractive buildings including some of the ones that other commenters uh have talked about but there's a lot that's not there's a lot of surface parking lots I don't really consider the area taken
085as a whole that attractive and especially not the building currently on 721. um I think it would be improved by a new building now I realize this is just a personal aesthetic opinion but I think so is saying the building is too big or too tall cities often have different sized buildings close proximity to one other and you know I also don't understand this distinction between density and mass these are rather related Concepts I think and then also that it's not sustainable enough you know I love the folks in OSI but this seems like a big exercise in goal post moving and technically yes this is a PUD you do have the the power to ask for whatever you want but you know I think this is already above and beyond what you were asking
086for for most other developments and so moving the goal post at this point just seems you know counterproductive at best so I think it's the right project in the right place I think the petitioner is exactly right that the current zoning isn't serving us well and so I hope I we will see a strong support from the commission tonight thank you anybody else present who would like to address the commission Scott Trudeau 526 North Main um we are reading the same script that we've been reading for 100 years or thereabouts um the parcel immediately next door to this one of forest Plaza was originally proposed to be a nine-story luxury apartment building and the immediate neighborhood reacted negatively to such a large structure being built eventually forced to the developer to cut four stories off
087the top and push it to the back of the lot so nobody could see it I think that's a handsome building and I think the Builder building has originally proposed would have been handsome in a lovely asset to the street if it had been built as proposed in the 1930s it would be a nine-story building being proposed next to like 12-story building being proposed next to a nine-story building and it wouldn't be so far out of context um we've gone through waves of this kind of back and forth allowing for a little bit more to be built and then reacting against it in in constraining growth for most of the last 100 years we've used the tools available to us to limit the ability to develop housing and and meet the needs this has been
088100 years a desirable place for a lot of people who want to live close to campus and will continue to be um the alternative uh if we decide this level of density is not appropriate is that people will move further out and to disagree with the previous commenter who suggested that that's not how the market works it of course is how the market works not only does having students giving students more options to live closer to campus free up other housing that those students would otherwise choose to live in as close as possible to campus we've already seen developers build housing targeted to the student Market far from campus requiring them to travel in car or in shuttles with the the very the the the the Trinitas project on the North side and I I
089fully expect that if we continue with our current momentum of limiting the ability of any kind of project for student housing to pencil downtown and now limiting the ability of developers who want to build housing near campus using other Strat strategies because we have basically cut off the ability to do it anywhere else we'll see more of the ones and we'll have students shuttling into campus on buses because that's the best option they can have available or driving in and and causing all those problems so I think you know we have to live with the situation we're in we've created some of these problems ourselves so so we have to make the decision like are we willing to accept this close to campus or are we not and if we're not we're gonna like that's
090my prediction of exactly what we'll see thank you thank you pump the panic button sorry that was I didn't mean to call the police on you sorry please my name is John Markowitz I'm the alumni president of built up some opportunity 1331 Hill Street uh our house was built in 1903 Albert Khan built the house it's historic and we have a couple of Apartments just adjacent to where our house is located but they're a reasonable size so they fit well within the environment that we have I feel that this project is just too immense compared to the footprint of what we have in that particular area on the street like I said we're not opposed to Apartments we have one we share a driveway with one that's right next door to our property and that
091allows our guys to drive out and turn off onto Forest Street and and be right in that area so I would recommend that you oppose this project based on the size of the project thank you for your time thank you anybody else present who would like to speak you have people in line Madam chair there are six people with their hands raised this evening the first callers Adam yeskovich hi this is Adam jaskiewicz 1430 Las Vegas Drive looking at this proposal I'm confused why staff is recommending denial it is appropriate for the surrounding area and has a number of benefits for our city this building would be within a couple blocks of several other buildings of comparable height and density and an area dominated by student housing we are in a housing crisis with high
092demand for housing and not enough Supply this would add a significant number of units to our local housing Supply that in itself is a benefit to our city we are also in a climate crisis and again this development picks a number of boxes there have been a number of discussions around encouraging electrification or even Banning natural gas well this development is fully electric they are installing solar panels so that some of the energy needs will be generated on site they are increasing the efficiency of the envelope with extra insulation to eliminate thermal bridging all of these are great and seem to be above and beyond what we require another benefit the location is easily walkable to campus and to local businesses that are frequented by students it's right in the thick of things in terms
093of student living so residents will likely not need to drive much this is great because we're trying to cut vehicle miles traveled in half this benefits our vision zero goals as well as our 820 rules furthermore this building would pay 4.7 million dollars into our affordable housing fund which Jennifer Hall and the Housing Commission can leverage into more wonderful developments like 121 Catherine the old white lot at 5th and William and other projects coming down the pike these benefits to the city seem substantial to me hence my confusion this seems to check all the boxes please approve this project tonight thank you thank you our next hand raise is caller with phone number ending in 599 you have permission to speak you can pla press star 6 to unmute all right hello my name is
094Josh Lurkey I live at 521 Snyder Avenue I don't have a super detailed comment on this but I think this is a great project and should absolutely pass it may not fit all of the immediate surrounding land uses but it does fit the land uses of the neighborhood given its proximity to campus and South University I'd like to point out that there is literally a parking garage a similar height approximately 500 or 100 feet away it's not 500. uh as a former student of the University of Michigan I have to remind everyone that we are in a housing crisis and homes are desperately needed in this specific area with this proximity to campus there aren't too many places to build near campus and we should take every opportunity perfect or not uh thank you that's
095all I had thank you the next caller is Daniel Adams you have permission to speak uh good evening Dan Adams uh 1016 Daniel Street um I want to say that I'm surprised by some of the opposition comments to this project um but I've I've engaged in Ann Arbor Housing politics for too long to be surprised um a lot of the comments we've heard tonight are pretty similar to the comments that we hear every time a project like this is in front of planning or Council um I was surprised that I was surprised to see the staff report and I want to address because I think others have addressed aspects of it but I want to talk about the finding that you know this would be out of character with the surrounding district and the adjacent
096historic neighborhood I was I went to undergrad at U of M and I know this neighborhood really well um anybody inclined to take these comments and these objections to this development objections grounded in neighborhood character or partying or sunlight really needs to go walk this neighborhood on a Friday or Saturday night uh not only is this neighborhood not only is this development smack dad and one of the densest concentrations of student housing in the city not only is it next to or adjacent to or near a number of the most notoriously loud notoriously party motivated Greeks sororities of eternities but this is right next to Rex this is right next to the crown chug Charlie's I I sort of can't help but chuckle at the notion that we can't build a dense building next to
097Rick's American Cafe right if we reject a project like this on neighborhood character grounds we may not be fully capable of addressing our housing crisis that just isn't going to get it done we've got got to be more aggressive than this I understand where staff is coming from I understand their point of view but I'm asking planning tonight to to reject that recommendation and approve this project we need housing and the neighborhood character concerns here are just ridiculous thank you thank you [Music] the next caller is Ellen ramsburg give permission to speak I will note that a few more people added themselves to the queue there are five hands raised currently Ellen remsburg you can unmute you have permission to speak okay sorry I I just want to say that I really did appreciate the
098staff report and the office of sustainability report and their suggestion that the this proposal be denied because they took a broad out look at the at the objectives that apply to this site and I'll State them one that to ensure that these projects in areas both contribute to downtown livelines and help buffer established neighborhoods this is an established neighborhood there should be buffering between a building of the size and adjacent properties the other point I want to emphasize is that to review and revise the PD regulations to better achieve development of appropriate scale and character and to prevent the circumvention of zoning ordinances merely for convenience it is really as a citizen it's really discouraging to hear comments from the planning Commissioners after the February 23rd meeting it's as if you're only considering density as
099a goal and there are other considerations that be that should be taken into into consideration existing zonings the progress the process that was used to plan for those zonings uh the fact that proposals don't meet the qualifications of a qud the impact on Child Care Facilities the impact on existing structures those are all part of making this decision to a citizen and a neighbor the it it seems that density is the only goal and there are just too many other considerations that should be taken um we would like to have confidence in planning commissions to consider the impact on the existing structures around it on what an addition of this scale does to those properties on whether it improves sustainability of surrounding properties as well as its own whether it addresses really the need for
100affordable housing or just pushes up rental rates for nearby properties taking a hard look at a proposal in view of the comprehensive plan should be required not only to add density but to ensure that the developments don't have a negative impact on the surrounding neighborhood um thank you for sharing my comments thank you our next caller is phone number ending in 955 you have permission to speak can press star six good evening Kirk Westfall 3505 Charter place um I just wanted to share my strong support to this project I think it's really an exciting building and honestly a glimpse of what we're going to be seeing in the future uh my only nitpicks about it if changes do you get made is that you get rid of the strange Suburban kind of front setback and
101as well as the parking because clearly it's not very needed in this District I think the community benefits are super compelling that has been noted before the sustainability performance might be the highest of any large building that's been built in the city the affordable housing contribution yes it's required but the scale of it is really [Music] um compelling and I would imagine unmatched by any of the projects and I think it's completely appropriate for PUD um because no Zone can really exact these kinds of benefits and contributions um and and sort of the future technology that the city is looking for out of out of buildings um so I you know and again this is if if approved this would go to council I believe to get the actual rezoning uh considered so I think
102it in that respect it deserves another hearing at Council so you know puds are a judgment call um I would just urge you to consider the climate impacts of not building this building and also the climate benefits of building this building um and what is the actual harms that are being weighed against this building that the neighbors are disgusting I think character is a word that is not going to it will continue not to age well uh when we're talking about discriminating against departments and I would just like you to consider where these units will go and how many smaller projects would have to be built to became like this number of housing units in a badly underserved area of the city thanks a lot for your consideration thank you our next caller is Eric
103zakar you have permission to speak hi this is Eric zecker I'm at uh 2435 Prairie Street in Ann Arbor can you hear me okay we can great I was just calling in to say that I support this project and I hope that you vote in favor of it I've listened a lot to the callers here for both for and against the project and I think that having walked and biked through this neighborhood a lot I'm not a neighbor but I do use this area quite a bit both when I was a student in the area and as a father and a U of M employee um my general comment is if not here then where I mean the students that are living in student housing are already here and as a previous caller mentioned if
104we don't build large student developments uh adjacent to campus as this is then we will be building them somewhere within the city we'll be building them on the North side the far Northeast the west side and you'll be starting to get sprawling developments uh in areas where students have to drive to campus and that certainly doesn't need any of our sustainability goals it won't result in the contribution to affordable housing that this development does probably probably won't get all electric like this one does and it won't be walkable I mean a lot of these kids students not kids that are going to be living here will be able to walk to and from their jobs from campus it's very bus amenable it's really lovely that there's folks in this area who feel like they have
105a sense of place already the folks that live in the small Horse Court area it's lovely the folks that run the sororities it's great that they're able to provide housing for students but it's a drop in the bucket as far as the demand goes in the area there's so much greater demand than what's being currently served and this area is where we want to serve this population we want these students to be close to campus we want them to be safe in an area that already serves them well so I think that this project makes a lot of sense especially given everything that they're willing to put forward whether it's the affordable housing contribution solar electric um it's it's great I think that it should be approved and I hope you do approve it thank
106you thank you we have three more hens in the queue at this point our next caller is Meredith Khan you have permission to speak my name is Meredith is calling to Express support for the 721 South Forest PUD rezoning and site plan while I respect the city's planning staff and have read their analysis I'm asking the Planning Commission to vote to approve the rezoning and the site plan this proposed development has several important benefits for the city and for its residents and it represents an opportunity for us to plan for the city we want rather than be limited by the constraints of the past if a highly desirable student neighborhood adjacent to campus and the South University commercial Corridor is somehow inappropriate for denser development then that's an indication that the current zoning of the
107site and the city's 14 year old master plan are insufficient to meet our stated goals of addressing housing affordability and climate change everyone agrees that we need more housing here in Ann Arbor so let's build some in exactly a place where it's needed and wanted close to school jobs and Community amenities as planning Commissioners the choices you make will affect the community for decades to come if we are truly in a climate emergency if we truly want to make Ann Arbor a more inclusive and affordable place to live then you will need to push beyond the status quo to make bold choices for a more Equitable future in the spirit of being bold I ask you to vote in favor of the 721 South Forest PUD rezoning and site plan thank you thank you our
108next caller is Alex Lowe you have permission to speak hi this is Alex though calling in from Ward three lesson generally in favor of this PUD on South Forest I think we should be asking for more first let's just discuss the front and reass effects reducing these setbacks to better fit the Keratin of the neighborhood as as we see with the landmark Market apartments and the Forest Avenue parking garage which come all the way up to the sidewalk would probably allowed another 24 extra units or so on on the same space I think that would be great second I'd like to discuss parking given that the location is going to have clearly student oriented retail on site is parking for 12 bicycles for retail customers going to be sufficient perhaps we should get some class
109B parking both for retail customers and of course the employees on site uh maybe we could turn some of those excessive car parking spots in uh into an uh into e-bike Chargers one of those spots could uh could be used to charge a dozen e-links third I want you to uh to discuss height please get some more flaws on this this PD is set to be 12 floors yeah less than 500 feet away Landmark apartments is 14 floors it's less than a mile from uh from Tower Plaza which is 26 floors uh high and it is 0.2 miles a whole four minute walk from University Towers which is 18 foresight if our current zoning doesn't allow us to build a building that's less than half the height of a 50 year old apartment Tower less
110than a mile from there I would strongly urge to the city council and Planning Commission commission to consider why our City's zoning laws are so updated and back the fact that this development has to be a PUD at all is quite frankly ludicrous this development includes so many of the stated environmental goals set forth by the city of Anna the fact that it's anything but a pyrite development shows that the city's zoning laws and comprehensive plan don't align with our stated goals and desperately need updated as a city we need to do so much better and frankly this is the Batman I would strongly encourage you to approve this PUD and use it as a template for future development goals thank you Madam chair as we have been listening to this caller another person added
111them to the queue and there are two people in line the next caller is Luis Vasquez you have permission to speak foreign Mission Luis Vasquez our president of upper lower town in the First Ward 909 Martin Drive I I'm going to be very brief I support this project um would like to see uh you all vote in favor of it it meets many of the criteria set forth in Ann Arbor's goals as has been iterated by numerous callers tonight and speakers so I'm going to leave it at that I support this project and I hope you vote in the affirmative thank you thank you the last caller this evening is s e strongman you have permission to speak hi um first of all thank you so much to Planning Commission I know that this is
112not an easy job and you have to balance uh what the city wants versus local residents versus you know the goals stated goals of the city um I'm calling to support this PUD I'm a specialty struck by what some commenters have said about the need for nearby student housing I had students last year who lived at the one and really struggled to get to campus and some of whom have just decided to drive to campus Because the shuttle was and was unavailable we know that our students need housing they want Housing close to campus this one building is not the only answer but adding more housing means that students aren't going to be paying twelve hundred dollars to live in a basement apartment that has mold in it that is flooded that doesn't have a
113working smoke alarm or whose Heat goes out in the middle of winter there's a lot that needs to be done this building no one building is is going to solve the problem but not building anything new certainly isn't either I'm sensitive to the desires of nearby sororities and other neighborhoods but I also Echo what others have said which is that Rick's is right there tons of tall buildings I looked at your packet for today a number of large apartment buildings are within several blocks one is even closer to the neighborhood Forestport than the proposed building so I do hope that you suggest that you approve this plan that you send it on to council and that if you have asked that if you know you're going to approve this plan if it's one or two
114floors shorter so that is the same height as a building two blocks away if that's what it takes then I think that's fine but to say that it doesn't at all fit with the character of the neighborhood as someone who works at the U and walks through this neighborhood just doesn't strike me as accurate again thank you so much for your time thank you okay I will read the motion and then we will go into discussion there are two which I'm going to combine the anniversary Planning Commission recommends the Marin city council approved the 721 South Forest plan unit development zoning district and supplemental regulations and the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the Marin city council approves 721 South Forest PUD site plan and development agreement we are in discussion commissioner weich
115oh sorry to move by commissioner we just I really want to talk about this executive commissioner did did you want to say something I bet you did so first of all I I want to thank everyone who's taken time uh to uh write in to email to show up uh to tweet um about this I also want to thank the folks that I've had some in-person conversations uh with for this development I also want to thank the developer for hearing us in our working session and making some significant improvements as staff has noted uh to this project and I just want to start by stating my strong support for this proposed plan unit development when I read the staff report I was actually surprised I was so surprised I reached out to our policy makers
116because it's sort of my understanding that staff follow policy and I wanted to check in to find out if something had changed in our policy regarding housing in our city so in my conversations with our policy makers I was told no nothing has changed Ann Arbor is currently in a housing crisis we are in a housing crisis with historically low vacancy rates one to two percent mayor Taylor as recently as uh just a couple meetings ago has said Ann Arbor needs more Ann Arbor rights this PUD is in a student area it's replacing student housing with more student housing I think a net of 633 beds it's within a neighborhood that has comparable dense housing emerging research which just came out yesterday has indicated that removing zoning barriers and increasing housing density has positive effects
117on rent stabilization and it especially has positive effects on rent stabilization in areas with constrained housing Supply this PUD which staff has already noted has several benefits but the one I want to focus my time on is the 4.7 million dollars that will be contributed to our affordable housing fund when I saw that number I was quite impressed and I know having read our UDC that this is required because the density is ex is exceeding the underlying zoning that it would replace but what I didn't realize until I had visited our domestic violence or excuse me our intimate partner Domestic Violence Shelter last week was that safe house is seeing folks who are fleeing hostile environments come into their shelter and are seeking housing the average that safe house would like to have folks who
118come in is about 30 days enough time for them to get situated to get their caseworker set up and to begin the process of trying to find transitional and Rapid transitional housing what I learned from the director and the program director is that it is taking now on average between 120 days and 180 days before victims of domestic intimate partner violence in our community are able to transition into emergency housing this PUD brings new housing online which will help in our community the next thing that I learned from our housing and Human Services Advisory Board is that there are currently 900 people that are on our affordable housing waitlist the 4.7 million dollars based on my back of the calculator or back of the napkin math says we might be able to house 737 people
119at 30 percent of Ami for one year with those funds or over 365 Folks at 60 percent of Ami and I have the numbers as we go down from one person to two to three to four so I'm grateful to see this I'm going to say what I said when you came to the working session why didn't you build it higher I'd like to see as other callers had noted higher density in this site so I'll be supporting this and I hope that you my fellow Commissioners will join me in this support tonight commissioner dish thank you commissioner watch and thank you everyone who's here whether you're here to speak about this project or another one it's great to see you I am torn because I have the utmost respect for our staff and for
120the governing principles that we respect as planning Commissioners and yet it is simply a fact that our land use plans are old and not aligned with the principles affirmed by Ann Arbor rights who have voted for affordable housing and sustainability millages and for candidates who have campaigned on the message that we have a housing crisis and a climate crisis so there is much that is attractive to me about this project not least of which that it would provide a demonstration project that you can go all electric in a building that is not a single-family home not even a town home and is higher than four to six stories we hear from a lot of people who tell us that's not possible so I would love to see it done I recognize that all electric and
121Net Zero with respect to carbon and energy are not the same but is it not the case that as Ann Arbor finds Energy Partners who are willing to provide clean healthy options for power that in all electric building gets closer to Net Zero with respect to carbon and we are on the road to negotiating such an agreement just now um I read the staff report carefully more than once and I perceived two arguments in it one is that the concern here is without of scale construction meaning that this height is too much in this context particularly in the context of the zoning regulations so that argument suggests that there's nothing that could make this project acceptable there seems to be another argument or I perceived a second argument which is that there aren't enough public
122benefits to justify such a such a height so this project does exceed the height limits on the books though I would note that it is just 16 feet taller than the height limit for D1 as the staff report noted um I have walked this area and driven this area and the project does not strike me as out of context with the University Towers project and Landmark apartments projects which at 18 and 15 stories respectively are taller than this proposed project and located roughly two blocks away at the intersection of forest and Washtenaw so uh perhaps so if we see it that way it is it exceeds our regulations but it may or may not be out of context depending on what you experience as you move through this neighborhood we look at the other objection
123which is that there are not enough public benefits and there's a clear and strong statement we want Net Zero with respect to carbon energy water and waste how might we get closer to any of these I'd love to hear that I'd like to direct to the petitioner a note that we had some written Communications from current student tenants who mentioned that the new owner had extended their leases through the 2324 Academic Year and they fear that they will be displaced and so I wanted to hear about that I will leave it to my colleagues to speak if they wish to uh the issues that were raised about danger to trees and the urban desert effect which are things that I don't know enough about and you do would you like to have the developer come
124and respond to your questions alrighty commissioner Mills commissioner Edition commissioner rich I appreciate your comments I also appreciate everyone who's come out I'm going to offer a different kind of view or the things that I often think of when weighing kind of PUD which are some of what I think was laid out in the staff member but I actually I don't know kind of did my own analysis too right so the first thing is is there no another zoning District that where this could be achieved and I think that what's been talked about a lot here is D1 and as noted it's just up the street but where this project wouldn't be viable in D1 is it does exceed the height limit just a little bit and there was comments to the to the point
125that we could well we could change D1 or we could change what is allowed in this PUD but I think the idea that this is extending that area to me sits better that there is consistency with kind of how it is zoned if it is if it is intended to read then that's one of the things that I would think of if it were D1 that were under discussion I'm thinking about what are the what are the um stipulations that would allow it to be built to the far that it's developed because the D1 base floor area ratio far is 400 percent so to get up to the 650 that's being called for here you neither either need to provide affordable housing or you need to do sustainability those are kind of the the paths
126right now um in order to you can get up to the 650 650 far by doing sustainability alone but you have to go lead platinum and what is being proposed here is lead silver so it's not the same argument that OSI is giving in terms of meeting that bar but it's not needing the bar that would get it if it were proposed in D1 it wouldn't be it wouldn't be the bar that we have currently there for that in terms of affordable housing you can get another 300 so you could get to the 65 percent with the 20 affordable units do we have any sense of like how many units the the 4.7 million dollars what that translates to I don't I'm sorry it's 15 percent well that's how the numbers calculated okay okay so
127so I think that that's I mean now I see like you you can I think that's a combination of those two things but I'm still would just say that it's a different bar if it were if it were D1 so the other thing that I think about but in my mind this is trying to achieve D1 without being in D1 which I don't totally love because I do think that that district and how we're thinking about expanding this as what's happening in that in the South View area is um of that District so then I think about like what are the benefits that are actually put on the table and are they commensurate with what is being asked of exceeding kind of of this rezoning and so again on the affordable housing side you can
128count it either way you can count at the you can count at the 4.7 plus the um million plus the 500 that or the 50 000 or you can count it like effectively say the 4.6 is required so what is above and beyond and so that's 148 000 that's 3.2 percent over the requirement so that's one thing on sustainability again you can kind of say like what are the benefits and OSI makes very clear with their bar is and again it seems to me that at least being commensurate with kind of what is in D1 I think is reasonable I um one of the things that just strikes me I think that the Pud is particularly helpful and a lot of the flexibility that we have in our code is are when we have unique
129sites where there's something that's really important to protect and I am not the tree person but when we discuss this I think the the and I'll defer to other tree people um it is thinking about the northern property boundary and the lovely Grove of trees that are there what strikes me is that the proposed zoning actually encroaches in front crouches on them more than what is allowed in an r4c District so the north property setback is 10 feet where what would be required is 12. and so if what if the reason that P if you don't buy everything that I just said and we say that the reason that PUD makes sense is because of of protecting that natural feature right and having some flexibility afforded because of that being closer to that property line
130then and potentially having the additional shading which again I don't know I really am looking to others to help understand what what effect that might have on that just strikes me as not achieving that goal either so I I appreciate conversation I am open-minded on this those are just the things as I was kind of doing my analysis of laying out how to square this that's that stuck out to me and I'm um I will just say that I am really glad that we're in the comprehensive planning process right now and I'm really glad that there's so many people here because I really think that we need to have a real conversation about how we're going to balance additional housing and sustainability goals because there was the talk before right if there are things that
131are undoable does it push development outside of the city this is a and where do we see that additional development and what Must ALL developments be Net Zero I don't think so but at one point do if you want to exceed what is allowed in that District what bar do you have to hit and and I think that that's a real conversation that we need to have as part of the comprehensive plan process and so I'm sad that we haven't fully had that yet um thanks commissioner silvey it's all over so just last week we had a working session of a similar project that there was a public comment for um and I actually offered uh different comments which were actually to request that the petitioner consider a lot of what was coming within the
132comprehensive plan and those discussions since it was not yet at the table now we're up looking at a very similar project up for vote tonight and within this time frame between the discussions I had a lot of things to consider and one of them is that the conversations that have been brought up tonight and thank you everyone for your comments is that as a community as a whole we want to take care of each other and make space available and there's a housing crisis and now the question is where do we make space available um I believe that this is an appropriate space for it and the uniqueness of this PUD is if we end up with up zoning this area we do not get the affordable housing contribution later if we pause this and
133we tell the petitioner come back when this area is up zoned through Community input in the next two years with a new comprehensive plan then additional two years to actually rezone this property it becomes buy right and we do not get that 4.7 million I remember another time in our recent past where we used terms like neighborhood character too many shadows and we need parks and we lost five million dollars in affordable housing we don't have time to do that again we don't have time for the whistleblowing we like the dog whistling needs to stop and we need to come together as a community and figure out where things happen and it's in somebody's backyard and it can be in my backyard and I absolutely support this project because I actually think that we are
134in a gap that it fits of public benefit that may not exist in the future as we move towards what I believe to be up zoning through all of the conversations that we've heard tonight um and so with that I think that this as a PUD in a unique condition is at the friction point of Housing Development and high density and historic neighborhood it's not natural features but it is a unique Geographic condition where we have high density next to a protected historic district for its neighborhood character where we are protecting buildings for the sake of making it difficult for people to afford to live here and if it's my decision and you know what we're doing to protect I'd rather protect people than buildings and I'd rather see new construction than protecting historic stones
135um so I look forward to supporting this as is anybody else go ahead commissioner Abrams um so I think this has been a difficult deliberation on the one hand I think I uh in principle agree with all the people who support this project based on a desire for more housing um and support of its sustainability goals and the sizable contribution to the affordable housing fund those are all incredible things I think if I go through the process maybe akin to commissioner Mills and I think about it from a procedural standpoint and I think about the role of a comprehensive plan um the kind of purpose of a PUD and the way in which it's not supposed to be used to circumvent existing zoning and I think about public benefit I think it becomes a little
136less clear for to me honestly um and so I have been trying to weigh both of those things uh in my head and I think maybe just to be transparent about the process for all the people who spoke in support and against this project and I also want to express my gratitude for for all the people who are engaging this process I think it's really really important no matter which side of this you're on um but I think it's important maybe to make our thought processes transparent so that you know that we hear you and that we actually take into consideration all of the information we receive and we deliberate quite ferociously when we're thinking about these decisions and I think I'm I'm coming down in a similar place to commissioner sove which is that
137um I think we are in a we are in a moment where uh we as a body have been asked to use our discretion to make a decision about something which does not have a cut and dry answer that you can kind of look to procedure or look to policy in order to determine so things like uh harm or benefit are actually discretionary terms that we you know things that we have to decide and in this case I think that the need for housing really uh super seeds I would say the fact that we are at the beginning of a comprehensive plan process as opposed to a year from now or 18 months from now when we will be maybe adopting a comprehensive plan which I feel very confident is going to call for greater
138density in this neighborhood and so similar to the people who've said if not here where I think that that is kind of where we're headed but I want to acknowledge that I don't think that that means there there are no downsides to this project there are always trade-offs and some you know people are going to feel the effects of those trade-offs and some people are going to feel the benefit to those trade-offs and I think that is the thing that all of us up here are trying to weigh um and I but I will say that I appreciate commissioner Mills logic which is to say that it is a little it is a little confusing to me that um that we were not presented with you know if this were one block north in D1
139here's what we could have built and so it makes sense to us that we would try to achieve that it seems like that was not part of the consideration I think there are other things in the Pro former that are determining the density but so while the 15 payment in lieu is amazing 20 would actually get you in line with D1 and be even more amazing um but I plan to vote yes thanks commissioner Hammerschmidt decided to write my thought process down because I was very eloquently off the cuff if that was off the cuff okay so I know I know we need housing we need affordable housing I understand the urgency I'm very pro-development I fully appreciate the affordable housing contribution so this was really this is hard for me um this to me
140is it's not an argument about neighborhood character but I am hearing this argument that you know there are tall buildings just a block or two North it's zoned differently and I worry then that the same argument can be used if a 12-story building is built here in South Forest in 19 story building on Church Street to continue to build sort of random high-rises block by block we have zoning districts that allow taller buildings for a reason in certain places in downtown we just rezoned two Transit corridors with more following behind because we said this is where we want this is where we think taller buildings make sense I use that same if not here then where argument for um one of Mr Moore's higher density projects along a Transit Corridor on South Main and that
141to me is more of the where this doesn't feel like and if not here than where scenario to me um we can still build more density without building really tall and I think we all know we need to change zoning codes to allow for that and again I understand the urgency of all of this the comp plan will guide us I think towards a community decision on allowing more density like duplexes and quadplexes within single-family zones we just keep seeing all of these proposals for really tall buildings and I think it is possible to be more dense without height high-rises add more housing absolutely but there are also risks of social isolation loneliness things like that I don't think we talk about enough that are starting to concern me the more of these types of
142projects we see um I don't have a problem with tall buildings next to short buildings per se but putting them what feels to me rather arbitrarily on Parcels of land throughout the city that are not zoned for this does not make sense to me six or seven ish eight-ish maybe stories to me makes a lot more sense in this location maybe there's less parking or no parking the building's pulled up to the street more for more units at that height we can step down Heights from the Z the D zones more transitionally than a 12-story building would on a smaller building solar would probably contribute more than three percent of the energy needs which to me just feels nominal um again I understand the urgency but at this point the proposed sustainability aspects just feel
143almost too basic to make it worth it to me I think we already talked about Lee Silver versus lead Platinum They Don't Really push the envelope I don't think this would necessarily be a model for sustainable development in this city I think that's kind of a reach of a claim um it just seems like there's a lot of throwing money towards something and not substantially moving the needle um you know there's additional affordable housing money above and beyond what was required which is great but it just I don't know I think we need to balance this pressure of needing housing wanting sustainable buildings and making sure we're allowing taller buildings in areas where they make the most sense and working to increase density in all possible ways not just high-rises I'm struggling with this one
144I am going to vote no um even though I don't think I've ever voted no on a project um yeah that's all I'll say for now this is hard I agree this is hard for me too um and for a lot of the reasons that you just detailed actually um I I would rather have it be a little bit shorter than D1 it somehow kind of doesn't smell right to me with that I would rather have the parking go away and have there be more density further down um it's hard for me to evaluate the trees without knowing we we didn't get enough we didn't get a sun shade study or anything like that for me to kind of understand that we'll obviously have you all come up to respond to the 52 things that
145we put out there we're going to respond to at some point um uh so because it's just difficult to know what the Shadows are are going to be it does look to me like there are some Oaks right up against the property line there when I'm when I'm looking at that um uh I uh I think if this weren't a PUD we're not going to get an electric building I think that's just the plain and simple truth of it and so for that reason I like it that it's a PUD and that it's not and I mean given where we are in our evolution of what we're doing with their code that's just the the hard truth of it um and we don't have uh we don't have the new ordinance for electrification or disconnecting
146from gas and so that's that's that's really important to me and um that that Ben and I would like it more if there you all were pushing the envelope a little bit more in terms of handling you know geothermal doing things like that I it's nice that you're sort of getting towards passive house you're not obviously achieving passive house um I think it's pretty tough to do Net Zero on a building this tall I think that's I think it's a little bit hard to see what OSI is writing in that way that it's kind of like well that's pretty hard to pull that off people so the fact that you all are doing all electric I just think you could do more to actually support your project frankly especially given all the things that are
147coming out from the federal government I mean why not why not do some geothermal here it takes thinking about your building differently and it takes thinking about it differently early on and moving forward with that so I you knew kind of how we were thinking about this from our from our first meetings and it would have been nice if you all had actually Incorporated some of that more because you have the opportunity you could do Wells here and I'm not saying you'd necessarily achieve Net Zero but you'd get a lot further we just haven't heard anything else with that other than what I've seen in the osi's report which is a little bit nebulous in terms of what's happening with that so um I think I will withhold my my yay or nay until I
148hear more from the development team and I think we've given you all a pretty robust list of things to respond to so please whomever makes sense to come up to to answer some of the various questions we look forward to your discussion that's fine team members to begin to whittle through them but I would like to address commissioner Mills uh statement about the uniqueness of the site and this clearly goes to the urban Forest fragment that is right next door and we have crafted a resigned to have the least possible impacts on that and that very valuable community of resource we have done shade studies and we've hired the former city Forester Bill Lawrence who's done an extensive multi-month study and research about what the impacts of how we organize the mass of our building
149and the site would have on those trees so part of what we did is for the vast majority of the length of our site is we put a 15-foot green buffer zone along our Northern property line so that we're not impacting root zones significantly of those larger mature trees and then we also if you recall in our working session we had a uniform height building presented we began to look at those shade and Shadow studies and it was clear that we could allow a little bit more afternoon sun onto those trees by dropping the North West corner of our building to six stories to account for the loss of that density or raise the rest of the mass but by doing that we let so much more sunlight especially the late afternoon silent into those
150trees so that is one of the biggest unique things about the site outside of its context in the area where there are already other tall buildings is that we have a an urban Forest fragment next door to us and we want to protect it and so we've crafted the building and the organization the site in such a way that we minimize any potential for any loss of any canopy on the trees next door so we have letters to that effect from Mr Lawrence in our submission packets so they're there for everybody to see if there was another item I'm what's the next item list that you'd like to hear about the goodness uh how about geothermal geothermal did you all explore that um I know that the wgg and the owners have been working on
151the energy package so I'll let wdg and subtext address hi uh I'm Matt uh with wdg um I don't think we actually in directly investigate geothermal in this site uh just yet we actually did a couple more Auto buildings and we did find that the foundation work is actually in this area is quite complex now we did actually study the rooftop area for additional renewable energy on site that has to be balanced out with also what we're doing with what we're surfing the building because we also have to use the building roof for mechanical unit fresh rate intake you know x-ray Aces system as well so we are studying that that they're currently what we're proposing and actually we have already expanded it a little bit more to the amount of solar panel that we
152can actually put to actually fit on a footprint so that that's where we are and Scott do you have any questions the constraints the the existing setup Scott betzel Midwestern Consulting good to see you all again um I also want to just add that the existing site has no storm water management system and we're putting in underground detention and getting full infiltration but the the rate of infiltration wasn't as great as we liked it so the expanse of the underground Chambers grew which is becomes a little prohibitive for the geothermal Loops as well I'm not an expert at it but I know people have looked at it and said well that's too bad because it doesn't seem to really work out as well as it could have for a building of this size from from
153our previous outer project not in this particular site we actually know that a lot of each geothermal actually need a lot more footprint compared to the outbuilding footprint on height so that's why we did not so far investigate a whole lot of Investigation of geothermal particle on this site if I could interrupt for one second though I mean I don't think that a loop system would even be considered for building this High you would be doing Wells for something like that so it's really a question of how deep rather than how big the area would be I know you spoke at the very beginning about having John Beeson on your team who I've worked with before in the past I don't know if you have a representative of that group that might be able to
154speak more clearly to this topic specifically or no we do not have that person here today maybe we can follow up later on I would suggest that you do because I think that those on the commission and those at city council will likely want to know more specifics about that because I think that that again with the federal government out there helping with this it just seems prudent to think through those things as as possibilities because frankly it's free energy it takes something to put it in but this is rental this is part of the power of rental is it the more you invest in the beginning can come back to you later on you know once that system is paid for then you're harvesting what is free to everybody which is the temperature of
155the ground so I really would encourage you all to explore that in a meaningful way with the people that you've hired on your team to be able to know that because I I know I've worked with John before I know he's going to know that stuff cold I'm sure who whoever he's working with will be able to advise you well with that what he needs is a green light from you all and goal setting from you all that that is what you see as part of what you want to achieve so that's I think that that's an important piece As you move forward to think about if you all pass tonight and that's it commissioner dish you also had some other things to bring up um that you had wanted them to respond to but
156this was like 45 minutes ago so I don't know if that was one tiny thing and I I am I'm always I really benefit so much by your expertise commissioner gibrandel and um so I I I would say that Council would be very interested in hearing a serious exploration of the possibility of geothermal Wells and it may not cover everything but it could cover a lot I mean so especially if you have an electric electric building it's only going to help you with you know your costs as the building ages and then the the question that I had was from the um it was from the written Communications that we got from a few students who mentioned that they had been offered lease extensions through through the Academic Year 2023 2024 so till about this
157time next year and they were concerned that they'd be displaced by the construction yeah we and we understand that and we are um right now just focusing on renewals um and just given the early stages of where we're at right now um it's it's difficult for us to not offer those renewals and um all I can say is that we look to be transparent with those tenants we look to work closely with those tenants and uh and help them ultimately if this project is approved and we would be proceeding to Construction in the fall but how you'll help them because as we know leases are places get leased up for the next academic year usually in the fall actually despite our legislative attempts to force that change um so how would you find uh beds
158for what are they about a hundred and that would be the total uh yeah right now it's just those renewals of the tenants that have shown interest in that um so usually we work with our property management team to work through their connections with other property management groups and they they can usually identify locations preemptively so that those students have to don't have to go out on their own and find it in a very tight market right it would be important that those be comparably priced to to what they are planning on based on the renewal that they made with you um because as you know it's it's very hard the prices are very hard for them to to meet yeah some of them especially grad students but yeah so thank you thank you for
159the answer anything else were there any other questions or responses that folks wanted from the development team it wasn't asked but it's a follow-on until kind of what we were discussing if you were to further explore and this is um I don't know the answer to this so if you were to further explore geothermal how hard is it to go from lead silver to lead gold um and maybe that's not you maybe that's somebody else on your team well I mean I will acknowledge that we have not done the full in-depth study of geothermal based on our team's experience of our of our full project team um given a site this size and The Limited area that we have due to our storm water detention that we generally feel that that's not going to be
160cost effective or feasible but I do acknowledge the the need for maybe further study into that and having the numbers to back that up so are we ready for a vote yeah oh one more well if I the other thing so I I'm still trying to make up my mind honestly um and so I just do want to point out one thing that is happening in here in the supplemental regs so I appreciate the Sun study in the supplemental regs the height doesn't I don't see anything in the supplemental reg suggesting that there would be a setback from the northwest corner and if that is if if people care about that which I could only vote for this if that I mean I think that that again I have this oh I I think that
161where there is a viable current zoning or zoning District I think that that makes a whole lot of sense to you so I'm only comfortable kind of voting for this under the condition you know that this is offering something else and that that can't be achieved and I think that I have been persuaded um but that's missing right now from the supplemental wrecks um so I know that the development agreement calls for the billing to be substantially as it's presented here or it has to come back to uh this body if there's you know major changes Tech you could you could say that the development agreement is covering it but we could certainly make amendments to the supplemental regulations between here and Council as well add that same protection so both documents say the same
162thing okay the other thing that I thought I would bring up because again in this idea of like how where should the bar be between kind of D1 and and puds again I see two different Pathways that this could be achievable in D1 and one is through higher um uh affordable housing of 20 rather than a 15 and the other is through higher sustainability or there's a combination too and this is why I just asked about gold because the combination of 15 affordable housing and Lead gold also gets you the far that is effectively what is being proposed and so I'm curious from the development team like whether either of those either increasing the affordable housing contribution or increasing the commitment to achieve not lead silver but lead gold is a viable path for your
163team um as has been acknowledged the Pud allows for certain other balance of costs and benefits and so what we've done is partnered with the ah DC and making this 50 000 donation and that's going to go directly to sustainability upgrades in their buildings throughout the central area so the mathematically I don't know what that would equate to but I feel like that supports both the affordable housing and the sustainability and so we're trying to take a creative View at how how can we best help meet the goals along these different Avenues and again the constraints of this particular site with regards to the natural features and the setbacks of the the neighboring property is set back which is what drove us to provide the setback to kind of be equal with that as well
164as maintaining the views to that Grove of trees to the north um so these are the things that we were pushing and pulling on throughout this whole process and you know taking bits and pieces of comments from you all here and from others stakeholders who we've talked to and I'm trying to apply them in a creative manner to meet as much as we could commissioner dish thank you I appreciate of course the the fact that you've gone almost a hundred thousand dollars over the 15 threshold for affordable housing contribution I appreciate the fifty thousand dollars I think that that is a a meaningful thing to do but uh given the way that the disc I will be reporting the discussion as it has been framed here at Planning Commission to counsel if this project goes
165forward to council and it I will present to them the question of how do we answer where the bar should be and I will present to them the options that commissioner Mills has clearly laid out and it is possible that Council would say okay just make it 20. so uh a 50 000 donation and I appreciate it very much and I'm not not you know you've done a lot of work I'm not trying to naysay that but I I miss I think that that would be over a million right if it's 4.7 million is 15 20 has to be like yeah one point was yes so total uh close to 6.5 million so um so you'll have those options will be in front of council to ask you to do they may say no you've
166done enough if provided this gets to council I'm not saying that I know that it will but I would really want to see the math from you as to what the effect that would have on your on your financials if if we pressed you to a 20 affordable contribution because I'm not saying that Council would but again we need the numbers if you really think that geothermal understanding that you're not talking area but you're talking depth if you think it's not feasible there we would need to see why and if moving from 15 to 20 percent affordable kills you need to know need to see it open to hearing okay all right thanks did you have something that you wanted to I did it was just a really quick thing because I heard commissioner Mills
167ask like you can or state that you could get this to D1 if it was at fifty percent affordability and Lead gold 15 right did I say 50. it sounded like it but yeah from the table was uh 15 gets you uh 150 right we'll get you another hundred and fifty percent so right so then that would get you to the 300 far so it just depends on where you are with leads silver right sorry it's a 50 to 59 Point range and gold this it starts at 60. so if you are already going to be at 59 go to go to 60 and it sounds like you have convinced uh commissioner Mills so if someone wants to commit to that at the table um it sounds like you have convinced commissioner Mills but if
168no one wants to commit to that you'll have to roll the dice and see how [Laughter] I guess the only other thing I would say is is Mr Kowalski is there anything you would like to add this is not our typical situation and I just want to give you some space to be able to just respond to what people have said and if there's things you've been interfacing with all the staff on this and just are there things that you would want to be able to add to the conversation here no I mean I think it you guys have had a great discussion I mean it was one that you know staff struggles with as well for many of the reasons that you guys have pointed out that were benefits of the project but no
169I mean I think my step what it really comes down to as well is is commissioner Mills hit it and it wasn't is clearly identified my report is that is is the zoning District here is that it's not there's nothing that's truly unique about the site that requires a PUD other than requiring extra density so but but I or other than acquiring extra density through that but and I acknowledge we're at this unique point in our our comprehensive plans uh as as well as our existing zoning in there and that like I said clearly in my reports acknowledged that you know this may not be what's there now the zoning wise I mean I don't think anybody necessarily agrees is the correct density for that area for many of the reasons you guys highlighted here
170but again it was just a tough we have to look staff again you guys have more of an ability to kind of look at that overall picture and see but I'm looking at what's presented to me and the documents that I have to go by and again like this affordable housing is it's a tremendous contribution but we do have to I have to kind of break it down to what were they given just as a requirement and and yes they're going up above and beyond that um in a couple of different areas but again looking at all my documents that I have to put together looking at the context look at where we are in history and and trying to compare this if the Pud comes in next door um so those are or you
171know across the next block over and things like that so that's kind of how we looked at the entire picture so but but I I mean I acknowledge the petitioner they've worked with as far as I feel comfortable as they they could go and they've made plenty of changes and so no I mean I think this has all been a great discussion we've got lots of good things for Council to um address as well so no I appreciate the opportunity to add that the only other thing I would say is I think um commissioner Mills the question regarding a supplemental regs in your correct what's in there now is it's kind of just an envelope so you're correct as shown on that plan it dips down this the supplemental regs would not guarantee that um
172and I know uh so Mr Moore had addressed that the the elevations which is true to a certain degree I think that but I wouldn't feel comfortable with just that I could again with if I hear agreement from the overall commission I mean I I think we can easily between myself and the petitioner work to frame the supplemental reg so you get the structure of the building more I mean we can say a setback here to this length and things like that so I believe there's a way we can structure that to address commissioner Mills concerns so and I mean with that I think I'm done okay thank you all right thank you all right are we ready as we'll ever be for a vote uh vote on the Motions as presented commissioner weish yes
173commissioner Clark yes national dish yes commissioner Hammersmith no commissioner Abrams yes commissioner survey yes commissioner give Randall yes commissioner Mills no uh that motion carries alrighty I think we should take a body break for 10 minutes we'll reconvene at five minutes to ten alrighty let's begin we are on to item 8C which is a 121 Catherine Street site plan and uh let's see do we have a description for this one we do not have a description for this one so um I guess we will uh start with the staff presentation uh let's start with the petitioner presentation boy I am feeling it tonight thank you for the crowd you know so yeah I know exactly really go ahead yeah hi I'm Jennifer Hall the executive director of the Ann Arbor Housing Commission this site is
174one of 10 city-owned properties that the city council in 2019 directed the Housing Commission and other City staff to evaluate for affordable housing and to develop those sites if they were determined to be Financial financially feasible locations I am here with my development team we have some folks that are here in person many of them are online as well who will be presenting and answering questions Jack Schroeder and Ashley windella will be presenting from Landon bone Baker Architects Aubry patino and Wendy Cardy Saxon are here from Avalon housing Kathy kyneth from Macon engineering Darren McKenna from DMC Real Estate Services Tim Stout from O'Neill construction and we also have a unique part of our development team which is that we have a number of black leaders that are Consulting with us including Angela Davis this
175is here in person who are here to as our community Leadership Council the community Leadership Council is designing and creating a community and cultural space to support and honor the historically black neighborhood as well as business district that used to be located in this area and has been displaced and lost by economic gentrification all the housing that we are providing is for households at or below 60 percent of the area median income half are reserved as Supportive Housing and half are is reserved for people who are working in or hobbyists in the creative Fields but since we are here to talk about the building and the site plan I'm going to turn this over to our architect to go through the site plan with you and they will be online hello there Jack Schroeder can
176you all hear me and see my screen we can great uh Jack Schroeder with lbba really excited to present to you all appreciate your time and attention augments pretty quickly you know it's already been a long evening so I will move through it and show you our program and kind of our aesthetic feel for the building cited it but always open for more questions if I do too quickly so this is our development 121 Catherine Street mixed use with six stories tall 63 units of housing 62 of which are one bedroom one two bedroom unit we're proposing 16 parking places and you can see in this image where it sits right at the corner of course with Catherine and the Carytown District right across from that Market just a few contextual photos just to place
177I know everybody's very familiar with the site this is our shared public alley looking down for Catherine Street and then just the current use of the site which is a Surface parking lot a public service Park surface parking lot so we're bringing some parking backwards certainly wouldn't match the counts here but kind of delivering a higher use for the site we think looking around at the immediate context you know we love the texture and materials these buildings that are around and we hope to pull some of that into our architecture and we really love the walkability of this area the ability to use the walks or some Gathering dining and different activities so we're excited to be a part of this pattern this is the building in its current state uh where we've held pretty
178close to the corner to form the sort of urban wall that I think could both best fit the site we pulled back a little bit off of Catherine a little bit additional off of the public property there to Mark our main entry for the residents and then our main entry for this future cultural community space that we're working with the community Leadership Council on um the first two floors of the building are kind of a red brick masonry to work with a lot of what's around you know it is cleaner lines a little more modern but we're trying to bring some of that texture in um that we see kind of throughout the neighborhood and then the upper four levels transition they step in at the second floor and transition to multiple uh profiles colors
179of metal panels that give kind of a modern light look to those upper levels and then we use large openings portion to kind of break up that that Mass along the urban base there jumping into our first floor plan and site plan along fourth there was there were currently two two-way entries off of fourth we're reducing that down to one one-way entry uh where we hit 16 parking spaces two of which will be uh EV parking that will be shared parking or shared car spaces for the residents and then the remaining parking is is meant to be used for public uh two additional those spots are EB as well um kind of managing generator waste uh Transformers all of our kind of services are kind of held back here off of the alley and there's
180a two-way driving exit um out of the alley at our main level as I said before we're set back this hatched area it's the setback from the public way this is our main residential entry and we like that that's sort of placed down at the corner in our most public space this community and Art Space is down at grade with large openings to kind of match the commercial of the surrounding areas um this is kind of pinkish space on my screen is that uh cultural community space we're still in the process of planning exactly what that will be but we love that it's set off the Catherine and again has this like a large public space out in the front a little more programming for the residential this is our main core mailboxes packages yes
181interior bike parking Social Services Property Management so really kind of your basic needs are met down on this level and then you proceed up through the elevators to residential floors this is just our basement there's a smaller basement on on the Catherine side that will not really be accessed by clients or residents this is just mechanical storage Janitorial and then jumping up to the second floor this is that elevator core as I said previously it's really mostly one bedroom units um really simple modern plans open kitchens pretty generous living space and a one bedroom off of that space it's all visitable you know we tend to design all of our developments with universal access in mind and then we're able to bring some units up for even further accessibility this is the the one two
182bedroom the reason this corner can afford that is that we're still stepped out into that second floor basin reportion and then moving up through the building you see where the building steps back where all one bedrooms be stacked all the way up and then I will jump up to the sixth floor where there's a second kind of community core there's an exam consultation room this can be used for physical health mental health exams um Avalon has had programs where they bring in uh outside programs so they can use this space shared laundry that's adjacent to another community space um with the public bath so we think this there's kind of the main level and then there's also this this kind of bunch of public stuff up at the up at the top um a roof
183uh currently has green roof to kind of mitigate some of the storm water um oh sorry okay uh solar ready I do want to hit just a little bit of our Dream strategy we're doing National Green Building standard Green Plus Net Zero we are all electric uh full disclosure except for the generator and we have been trying to explore any options that exist to avoid that but that's the low gas piece of our project as I said solar ready EV parking and we're actually in the process of uh trying to see if we can make geothermal work we're actually exploring using the public way for our wells because we occupy our site still completely and we want to maintain some access to those Wells for for future maintenance and I'll wrap it up there and
184I thank you for your time thank you any other um comments from staff on the project DeLeo is joining us remotely thank you all right I have a um pretty brief um staff report to provide mostly to keep um everyone on track thinking as Ben mentioned this is the 121 Catherine Street site plan project um site is located at the northwest corner of Catherine and North 4th Avenue the zoning designations are D2 this is the downtown interface for the base zoning District it is the Carytown character overly zoning district and it has secondary experience could you pause for a minute and Mr shorter could you stop sharing your screen for a moment oh yeah we're not seeing we're not seeing your screen Alexa so there I'm sorry great thank you when you're seeing a page
185that says staff report now we're good yep go ahead this was the only slide that you missed um so northwest corner um Catherine D2 Carrie Town character secondary Street Frontage site is a little less than 17 000 square feet um the proposed development is a little more than 52 000 square foot six story 63 apartment residential building with some ground floor commercial and residential support service space it includes 16 to 18 parking spaces underneath and behind the building more in a second some notable details about the project it includes premium floor area specifically they are using the affordable residential unit premium option which gives an increase over the 200 percent base far and allows up to um with their 100 affordable projects they are allowed to go up to 400 flooring ratio they are also
186using the exception to height limit specifically the affordable housing development exception that allows affordable housing developments to exceed the height limits this one is only exceeding it by one foot but um they are using that exception that is available to them um I think it's well covered that this is a 100 affordable housing project but it is a notable detail of the project and also includes ground floor mixed use um I think Mr shorter has well covered the sustainability aspects um the parking this project um is proposing public parking um you can also get a premium for that in the new one District but never nevertheless this project is growing public parking it was a key concern of the neighborhood about the loss of the public parking from this surface parking lot um it's used
187by a lot of the businesses um it's especially popular place to park on the farmers market days and this project um went to Great Lengths to include parking um uh put back parking as part of it there are 18 spaces shown on the proposed site plan on file they may need to go down to 16 spaces because the tube spaces closest to the wall and closest to North 4th Avenue are extremely difficult to access from North 4th Avenue and the Turning movement might be too difficult so those two spaces are in flux but nevertheless um the number of spaces that are provided will be managed by the Downtown Development Authority except for two which will be reserved for the development um the Catherine oops sorry the Catherine Street streetscape um has been pushed back the
188building is has a five foot setback um the required setback is between zero and ten feet and this allows for a little bit more space for the amenity Zone and the public sidewalk Zone um the that side of the site will also have an alternative Parkland contribution of some benches we did not request the normal Parkland contribution with this project but we still wanted some sort of public recreational type of Mendy the North 4th Avenue streetscape does not have any doors it does not need that door swing area then but the streetscape is being improved by a little bit wider sidewalk and a wider amenity Zone if you look at the entire block to the north of this site there is more Tree Lawn space um and the sidewalk jogs so this will in the
189end this project will align the curb line and sidewalk for the entire block of North 4th Avenue we have um unusual for staff but we have um recommended a conditional approval um and we have listed the conditions in the motion one of them has already been satisfied but I will go through them fairly quickly and just sort of explain that this project um is very close to meeting all of our development standards we have a fairly long lead time in advertising for a public hearing and we advertised for this public hearing um but as it turns out there are a few details that um still need to be addressed in general they're minor technical issues and they won't affect the layout or the development program or what is being proposed um so we do comfortably
190recommend conditional approval the outstanding items deal with clarifying the street trees that are proposed confirming the exit site distance and providing bump outs on the plan um a change to the sequence of construction recycling compactor dumpster details and providing bollards to protect that thing um there is a public access easement that is needed and is proposed but we need to nail down some of that documentation um and clarify the alley restoration and some ownership information of the things that are going in the right-of-way in the amenity Zone uh it was it's listed as a condition of approval to confirm the sanitary mitigation analysis that was actually completed yesterday there is a sufficient dry capacity for this project but as typical they'll need to participate in the offset mitigation program for the wet capacity um the
191fire marshal made a comment that it's a little bit rhetorical um but they just need to acknowledge that there are building codes that impact the green roof um the green roof and deals with this surface area that it can be because it is vegetative material um that if it gets dry it could be a fire hazard um and a condition related to um showing some of the sidewalk and amenity Zone design on the site plan or on the civil engineering drawings um I am happy to answer any additional follow-up questions but staff is recommending conditional approval of this project at 121 captain thanks okay we will move on to the public hearing it's an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes uh we'll first call on individuals who are present and then we'll
192move on to remote um if for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 uh City staff will select callers that have raised their hands um you'll hear an automated announce that the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area for either method please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anybody present that would like to speak about this petition West Kingsley Street this project actually is um very long overdue one because of affordable housing two I love the project and a lot of the members that are participating in this project are happy that where this location is as we all know is historically black District which is now has become pretty heavily gentrified so with that said giving back to that area is
193is significant to us myself my my grandparents um at the first house there on West Kingsley Street you know about delong's Barbecue Pit we're over there that is now becoming a high-rise so as much as this city needs affordable housing and that in that particular area a lot of the black residents have been displaced for many reasons you know at this particular project helps to give back and we uh the leaders on the council committee are very much appreciative with the Planning Commission coming to hear allowing us to present this to you your listening and hopefully that based on the condition of approval that you approve the project to go forward we are actually in the midst of really nailing down what we're going to use um the 2 000 square foot area in the
194pinkish area that was presented on the slide we have a number of um hubs if you will ideas that we want to use that would actually give back to the community that not only will say okay well this is just you know to give back to the black community but it is to embrace all of the diverse cultures and backgrounds that we have in this city so that we all can Thrive as one unit and so this is all that I have to say to show you that hey I'm here and to give my support in and I pray that it also is a favor among you all as well thank you anybody else present that would like to address a Planning Commission hi Adam Goodman 400 Virginia one more time um before I move
195to my current residence I lived basically around the corner for Miller Manor and you know Not only was this I was there for eight years and this was never a problem but but not only that I was actually kind of in awe of that building and what it represented you know first of all it's it's in a really desirable place in Ann Arbor it's close to downtown it's next to one of our nicest parks um that we we provide affordable public housing in our community uh not just at in a variety of locations not just at the sort of fringes near the highway ring right and then I went through Ann Arbor Community Academy and I as part of that a tour of the facility and an explanation of how it works from some of
196the folks who are in this room tonight and that just blew my mind even more you know learning the about that it's it's not just we're providing housing it's permanent Supportive Housing which only works in in cooperation and partnership with private nonprofits like Avalon housing we are ensuring that the most vulnerable people in our community can have a place to live and all of the services that they need to stay housed um this sort of thing you know I'm I'm often at this Podium or calling in virtually complaining about things in Ann Arbor that we're not doing enough uh but but this is something that really makes me proud to be an Ann arboret um I'm I think it's amazing uh of course we're not doing enough we need more and this Catherine project you
197know I think it it you know it's many of the things I just said but it's also new and it's so much more challenging to build affordable public housing now than it was in the sort of federal policy environment back when a place like Miller Manor was built and so it's great that we're doing this I'm so excited um if I had to if I had to nitpick one thing it would be the parking um I if you look around the the Carytown area so much of it so much of the ground level space is used up by car storage and I think it's a little bit ridiculous honestly so and and new development is an opportunity to change this and we keep seeing new development not do that you know there's the fifth and
198Detroit project which most of the ground floor is parking and this I guess half half of the lot is going to be parking it's like four blocks from Blake Transit Center next to one of our brand new bikeways I I really just don't see that it's necessary but in the spirit of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good I don't think that's a reason to oppose this tonight I just hope in the future we can do better thank you thank you hello once again Scott Trudeau 526 North Main I am a nearby neighbor of this project I live about a thousand feet from this site and I'm here to express my enthusiastic support um and welcome our future new neighbors um I'm very happy to see this moving forward I particularly appreciate
199the work that has been done to engage with black residents and former residents who have been displaced from this neighborhood as as we've learned about and really acknowledge that reality and take one small step in repairing the damage we've done as we've um the city has grown the demand for living here has grown and we haven't made room for people and we don't make room for people then people get pushed out and the people who get pushed out are the people who have the least means and the least access and have faced other systemic oppression in the past um and so that's and we've done that over and over and over again through the history of the city to come with all kinds of reasons why we can't do something so I'm excited to see
200this as a step going in the other direction I encourage you all to approve it we also are long time neighbors of another Avalon Supportive Housing Development right next door to us and we are they're happy to have all the Avalon tenants as neighbors as I wrote in response to a proposed project in Dexter a couple years ago that in particular we appreciate living in a neighborhood with our and raising our daughter and our family where she can see that and she an intrinsic sense of Who belongs like who belongs in this neighborhood and it's everybody and we make space for everybody it's despite their backgrounds despite their you know different struggles different challenges everybody has a place so let's create more of those places thank you thank you anybody else present and we have
201folks that are lined up in we do we virtual world there are currently five people in the queue to six people to speak on this item the first of which is Adam jessicavich you have permission to speak hello this is Adam jessicavich calling from the fourth ward 1430 Las Vegas Drive I support the proposed affordable housing development at 121 Catherine I'm very happy that the Ann Arbor Housing Commission has partnered with Avalon housing to bring this development forward we are in a housing crisis and building high quality affordable housing downtown in an extremely desirable area where it is close to jobs transportation and daily needs is essential we also live and we're also in a climate crisis so housing people in a situation where they may not need to drive a personal car every day
202is also important this site is ideally located near Transit and on our great new downtown Bikeway Network thank you to the Ann Arbor Housing Commission Jennifer Hall and of course the Avalon housing for making this possible and for all the important work that you do housing is a human right this is why I voted for the affordable housing knowledge so the Housing Commission could leverage a portion of my tax dollars into building as much affordable housing as possible this is also why I support Avalon housing Avalon and their residents are an important part of our community and I'm grateful to have them here I believe in Avalon's Mission so earlier today I made a donation to Avalon housing I encourage others to do so as well and please approve this project tonight thank you thank
203you the next person in the queue is caller with phone number ending in 403 you have permission to speak hi we can we can hear you that's awesome thank you um so my name is Jim hike I live in the Fifth Ward and I know about a mile due uh west of this site and others have spoken very eloquently in support of it uh so I won't even try to match their eloquence I just want to say that I really support this I really appreciate all the hard work that has gone into developing this I wish it were twice as tall of a building but uh I I don't want to let that stop me from supporting it um so uh I guess I'll just say the word support one more time and uh thank
204you for your time and again thank everyone for their effort that's it thank you this color is phone number ending in 274 you have permission to speak you may need to press star six I'm home my name is Gene Roberts and I'm calling from The Fifth Ward of Ann Arbor and I also went through the Ann Arbor Community Academy and um I'm now on the housing and Human Resources Advisory Board since I've been following um the housing crisis in Ann Arbor very closely and I am calling because I wanted to say that I'm really excited about the commitment that the city of Ann Arbor has to really beginning to step up to provide housing to the most vulnerable populations in Ann Arbor we need affordable housing downtown and I think that this is a fabulous
205development as people have said it'd be great if it were taller um and could have more housing but it's lovely that it's coming and that it's there and Avalon does a great job and is a great Community partner and I just wanted to call in and say that I really support this project thank you thank you the next color is phone number ending in 955. you have permission to speak hi good evening Kirk Westfall again 3505 Charter Place uh just calling to support this project I'm super excited uh for what it pretends for the future of of other uh City initiated uh housing developments downtown um and and outside of downtown I hope that this might even Inspire other government entities in the area to make better use of their land as well as as
206we move forward with it um I think the building looks like a well laid out and functioning and attractive addition I I really hope that the petitioner finds a viable commercial tenant that will be an enhancement to the residents and the neighborhood or the ground floor that's something that really came out in some of the public sessions um and I think you know my fear is that if there aren't defendant plans for the ground floor spaces that they'll just eventually be used up for storage or something like that and you know that would obviously be be uh be a shame um I think uh just a word about the process speaking of public feedback I think it's a significant problem that a merchant group was able to override what what I perceived as fairly unanimous
207public sentiment at the public information sessions and the feedback sessions that folks didn't want parking here um maybe a few spots for residents or people serving the residents but there are literally hundreds of parking spots available on a daily basis within two blocks of this and on top of that I think it's simply an environmental justice issue for us to expose the residents to idling cars of public parking um and a terribly inefficient use of space for a small a small lot um but that being said a fantastic project on balance and really excited to move forward thanks our next caller of three remaining is Amanda Carlisle you have permission to speak hello members this is Amanda Carlisle I live at 1619 Waltham drive and I serve as the executive director of the Washington housing
208Alliance which is a non-profit organization working as a coalition of a number of organizations to end homelessness in Washington County and wha's office is actually across from the Catherine Street site proposed for development as affordable housing by Avalon the housing Alliance supports the Catherine Street proposal that has been developed and um it looks like what we see is the you know staff recommending approval with conditions which seem pretty minor and that can be met so as you all know we have a great need it's been talked about a lot tonight for New housing and particularly affordable and Supportive Housing for our community members with the lowest income levels and the site is is truly ideal for its location near the transit center and bus routes businesses needing both employees and patrons and the many services
209downtown and nearby future residents of the site will have a wonderful new home in a location that can't be beat it is my hope that this project moves forward tonight with the necessary site plan approvals thank you so much for your time thank you a next caller is Luis Vasquez you permission to speak uh thank you uh Ann Arbor Planning Commission for the opportunity to speak again um I I think this is a no-brainer um uh and I would just also like to Echo you know the sentiments that maybe this project should be taller and I mean you can always repurpose parking right if you find out that it's not really truly providing a benefit to the project so uh yep uh General support uh all the way um get this thing built we really
210need projects like this um call me impressed uh at what what I've seen uh presented so far but yeah once again um build it up build an all build and tall uh there is parking close by plenty of parking close by a structure that's uh underutilized within walking distance of this development I mean and it hits on everything so um thank you uh have a great night I urge you all to support this project thanks thank you The Last Hand raised is Alex Lowe give permission to address the Planning Commission hi this is Alex Lowe still calling in from the third board for a better additional history on the spot in uh in in addition to the well-known uh history of Kerry tan and what's already been said at the turn of the 20th century
211this is at this location at 121 Catherine Street it was a blacksmith show by 1920 it had become the home of amongst other things the Ann Arbor packing company by the 1930s it was the annabidary Washington County's Premier manufacturer of ice cream it had an exciting and dynamic history until 60 years and one week ago when destruction came in today this fight has yet another crater in the lunar surface the 1960s made of so many American cities a gash in the fabric of our community to the South another surface parking lot to the northeast or you guessed it a surface parking lot and to the West I try to clean it oh under a gas station in the surface parking lot parking lots parking lots everywhere a beautiful Urban Forest half marked with meteor strikes
212for over 50 years so it's wonderful to see this property finally being repaired this is such a fantastic project but why are we only limiting ourselves to six floors and a smaller footprint than the Ann Arbor Dairy building as others this project provides under two percent of the over a thousand parking spaces within a three-minute walk that two percent really gonna make uh the difference I don't think so I truly believe that Avalon are doing the very best that they can given the restrictions the city of based on this site and I had in my other work I think the public comment has so far has been unanimously in favor of this project so I guess I have a question for the city how do we get more of this how do we allow the
213next wonderful project like this to be bigger to be more supportive to the community and to make even more of a difference than this one is making thank you since the last caller was speaking there has been one additional hand raised which is color ending in 648 you have permission to address Planning Commission thank you hey there this is Sarah Elizabeth 837 West Huron Street um I am just learning about this project tonight in the meeting and I'm so excited to see um this development it looks amazing and like an awesome use of the space um so like the other callers before me I am just wanting to express my support for this awesome awesome development um my only comment would be I would love to see the facade of this building matching better the
214historic nature of the neighborhood um if only because I think that would actually enhance the experience of living in the building I'm a big believer in the way that architecture can lift and Elevate our lives and I I feel like something that was perhaps more harmonious with the neighborhood and a little bit less last year might might do that better and I guess I also wonder what guidelines there are for this district for the more historic areas of Ann Arbor's downtown but fundamentally I just found that Assad this and say I look forward to more things coming up like this in November and great job thank you okay I will read the proposed motion which is the anniversary Planning Commission approves the 121 Catherine Street site plan and development agreement subject to addressing outstanding Service
215Unit comments summarized as one clarify plan for Street trees two confirm wrong way exiting vehicle site distance and provide bump out at end of loading zone three revised sequence of construction regarding curving and first course of asphalt four provide details of recycled compactor dumpster and add protection mileage for electrical equipment five proposed and detail of Public Access easement to note the need for a temporary grading easement to clarify limits of restoration in alley and note ownership of certain features in right-of-way six sanitary mitigation approval seven note necessary compliance for green roof and eight adjust width of sidewalk and amenity Zone and Street tree and street light spacing moved by commissioner Mills seconded by commissioner white we are in discussion commissioner white so I just want to uh just again share my strong support for this
216development and I would love to just tell a quick story um I've lived in Ann Arbor now since 1997 and I did not know about the sort of African-American community that was in Residence in Kerrytown until Reverend Roger Brown who's a minister in Ypsilanti but grew up in the area near Willer Park took me on a walking tour and it was a chance for us to get together we met at the farmers market and he just walked me through and pointed out everything including his childhood home where there I guess was a hog farm the junkyard we walked all the way to the Argo Cascade and over the bridge and back which I didn't even know you could get to at that time having lived here for almost a decade and then that sent me
217on a journey a journey of learning about the contributions of our African-American Community the their placement in Carytown and the Very nature that almost all of the building materials that came in through the trains had to be offloaded and then carted and taken through this area to build out the rest of our city and so it's my pleasure it's my joy to sit here at this table Miss Davis thank you so much for the work that you have done and leading um the the community and getting feedback I think that that's a sign a good sign of how we can get good community support and feedback we just had a presentation at our working session about the fact that the most people that we hear from present company excluded are white wealthy landowners and so
218it's really glad I'm just so grateful to see that you took a different approach with this I'm grateful that you are reclaiming this space and building housing and I think I asked in our pre uh uh session why didn't you build it bigger and so I do have a question which is if I remember correctly you're not building it bigger because you have maxed out your funding and then um I'm gonna join the chorus against the parking and I uh in addition to my support for this I also talked to some of the business owners in Kerrytown to try to understand what the concerns were and I appreciate that you all are taking it on yourself to put this parking here but I actually think it's an issue of the city that the city needs
219to address the fact that we don't do a good enough job of highlighting where there is parking for people who come out of town I live here I know how to avoid paying for parking everyone should really park at the Catholic parking lot that's up the street and I'll take the heat on that because it sits empty on most Saturdays but um I don't think you all should have to bear that responsibility um I don't think we should be setting aside 16 spaces for car storage even though those will be fun generating car storage I think that should be given over to you completely and so if anyone from the development team can just help us understand like can if you didn't have to do the parking do you have enough money to put something
220else in there or do you have to do the parking because you have run out of money and I think that's my question I'm gonna actually um respond to partially to the money thing first um in the type of financing that we use for this site we do have to layer like the 10 layer cake of of different kind of capital stacks of financing which is not unusual but in particular for affordable housing the largest source is low income housing tax credits it's becoming a smaller and smaller portion of this site because of our cost of construction have gone up so significantly so it does make me wonder about the brain damage of going through that process for 13 million dollars instead of it being half of our cost it's you know like 20 of
221our costs but that does limit the um the height isn't such a thing it's like the number of units and the total development costs and because of the footprint of that site it does limit us to a five or six story building and once our construction costs came in it made it even harder and because of a variety of and I apologize Angela because I said it wasn't the city but it is city regulations the layers and layers of regulations that the city puts on our project really made the cost go up even further and so one of the things we had to change was the facade of the building it's much flatter planer unattractive I am hoping what we do with it as one person who has control over that is have more artistic
222design into it after it's built so it isn't so plain related to all of that related to the parking the parking is not a costly part of our site there is definitely strong opinions on both sides Angela was just telling us how she wished it was dedicated first tenants to be able to use and we've heard that from some of our other CLC members who would like it not to be public parking but would still like there to be parking there I see it as a as a in some ways flexible space I think one of the colors said you could do something with it later and I kind of view it that way as well as like spilling out of this first floor space that we see as a very vibrant area can be
223a lot of activities that can spill out into that lot it would be nice if there was some flexibility in in how we use that in the future I agree does it answer all of your questions I mean yes it sounds like you're going to keep the parking I was hoping you'd give me another answer if someone told me I can't have parking there I would not have parking there you cannot have parking there I'll stay because I'll probably be answering those questions commissioner Clark so thanks again for coming out tonight's um I'm really excited to see especially such a central location activated and developed a match by an organization that's repeatedly demonstrated Investments community over 30 years and it's just um really cool to think about that that over 30 years this organization um
224you know volunteers staff and the tenants have worked together to set gold standard in the state of Michigan even nationally recognized for affordable and Supportive Housing so we're really lucky to be having Avalon built this year and especially the you know they kind of live the values of kindness openness radical acceptance and it really represents the best of Ann Arbor and putting that in the central location again um is really just important I know that um this process has been very in-depth and has reflected a deep understanding of Avalon that Avalon has with their tenants um I really appreciate the intention um as an example of the public engagement process um by the way you don't have to stand up here full time I leave one question again you're talking about me yeah and uh
225so yeah I just wanted to say that you know that I think it's been really impressive how thoughtful and reflective the public engagement process has been for the site it's been sensitive to the history and the context I appreciate the Deep listening uh centering voices that have historically been excluded from the city's growth and acknowledging that um and I also have full confidence that this development will be managed for long-term good for the entire Community including Uh current future residents of all means the site is ideal for inclusion access to amenities that Ann Arbor has to offer and I'm sure that this is a process that um and responsibility the Avalon and Ann Arbor Housing Commission has not taken lightly um just being familiar with your work um so yeah I'm really excited to have
226the property developed these standards I do think it's kind of a fun fact maybe not so fun but um the pro developments like this that are used public subsidies like litec as Jennifer mentioned earlier they're held to higher standards and regulations and market rate developments and so this is going to be a high quality development with every deep detail thoughtfully planned out from the earliest stages um just an avalanche has track record of demonstrating that um now with all that said I do want to bring up parking um and I just want to gently kind of um ask for consideration that making sure that the design and interaction between the housing residents and the parking is carefully managed that there's no unwanted interaction between potentially like Security Services and tenants and making sure there's clear
227delineation of private and public space so there's no confusion or so the tenants don't feel like their space is being um you know kind of violated by the public coming in and out of parking um also you know again I've said a lot about Avalon just having a track record and intentional development for the benefit of the entire community and really knowing and understanding their client tenants so um this is more just kind of a little just extra like kind of push I guess just to make sure that all those things are thought out which I'm sure they you know will be um and then like noise pollution safety and building access are are going to be carefully separated and aside from that well even including that because I'm very excited to have this and
228I know that it'll be carefully stewarded commissioner Mills I want to Echo one of the um things that was brought up in public comment which was a question for you uh how do we get more of this and I want to know that I mean you'd have an an affordable a fully affordable all-electric building which are things that we these are the two things that we regularly are asking for um I'll also note that it's Net Zero ready but not not Net Zero and so can you talk to us a little bit both about how affordable about the all-electric component fading that into your kind of program performer whatever the thing is called and then you mentioned in the in the response that you gave to commissioner weich about the expensive things that we that
229the city requires talk to us about some of those things because yeah if you can to the extent that you're willing yes okay uh let me break this down um height um I'm going to ask Darren to come up and stand next to me and correct me if I'm wrong um certain things happen to our design of the building that added cost we actually started from underground and worked our way up one day and tried to list all of those and so starting from underground storm water requirements is a very expensive cost to our site what are the other underground the connection fees the water and sewer connection fees the footing drain disconnect water mitigation fees the what else is underground on the surface we have large expansion of the sidewalk depth from what it
230is currently and you know each of these things is coming from a place of um good intention and and adopted at different points in time historically with recommendations by city council things that are approved by Planning Commission are approved by city council that they all add costs like they all add costs from the material designs of what we wanted and first proposed as our material on the outside of the building not allowed to the height of the building one of the things that we had to remove that we were really excited about and wanted to keep was we had built-in originally a sixth floor or outdoor patio we were really really really pushing hard against a 55 foot limit that's adopted by the state of Michigan but the city of Ann Arbor could or any
231Community could it could opt out of it what triggers a high-rise building this is the part where I need to turn to Darren and say why that matters but I know that it impacted the depth of the um floor of what we could support what Shrunk the ceilings and the height of the hallways that became uncomfortable and I'll let you talk more about that piece of it you don't need me so we had to remove something that was a feature for the tenants that we really were excited and liked because of that so um there were many more things we've got a whole list of them but at the end of the day what that did was force us to change the facade of the building remove the features that we also liked of some
232of the um so it's not so flat you know some of the I don't know what you call it articulations of the building and also we did have some outdoor patio decks that we were we weren't all 100 percent um sure how that would end up being built because it's hard when you only have it on some of your units and not all of your units uh especially when everybody's getting subsidized um so everybody's you know paying 30 of their income on rent so we had to make some design changes that I I feel like made the building less attractive and felt more like a subsidized not a market rate building because we had so many expenses that we had to reduce to fit within our funding guidelines um there's a lot of other things
233too but those are some of the big ones and I know there's been discussions in the city in the past and hopefully in the future about in particular the connection fees the in the mitigation fees are like two of the really expensive items the developer offset mitigation that there's no um affordable housing um you know everybody's treated the same so yeah there's no waiver for affordable housing um but you didn't skimp on going all electric because we had made a commitment to doing that just like we had made a commitment to doing as much parking as we could in from 2019 in the beginning of all this discussion so I felt like as a city employee who had made that public commitment that I had to continue to make that commitment now where we are
234now on the all electrification here is for real what happens on our projects which is it is more expensive to do certain kinds of installation of your HVAC systems again Darren will have to correct me like we are looking at geothermal I think Shannon you brought up at that previous project it is more expensive to install it is hard it is hard on a small footprint when we looked at Catherine we literally were putting it on every sidewalk every under the storm water in the alleyway and that was at 400 foot depth so you could do fewer Wells deeper more expensive even with the um inflammation not inflammation what's it called reduction inflation reduction act even with the inflation reduction act um offsetting some of those costs our operating costs are going to be much
235higher we can't increase our rent to cover those operating costs we can't pass that increased cost of utilities onto our tenants and so we have to get more subsidy up front and so we already were like way high cost for our total development costs right now our our current uh per unit cost for 600 ish square foot one bedrooms is 450 000 a unit four years ago pre-covered those same units would have been closer to probably three hundred thousand dollars so like that is the difference in a short time frame of what it is costing and what's making us look at our design and one thing we don't want to do it's it it's one thing on what the facade looks like it's another thing on what it looks like and feels like to the
236tenants who are living there so we're trying to preserve you know that high quality design of material on the inside at the very least can I just ask a quick question Jennifer this this body has been considering a potential ordinance that would require electrification do you have a sense of can you quantify that 450 per unit would that number come down if this was not a fully electric building if it was typically gas-fired and if so do you have a sense of how much I mean that's a really tough question to ask an answer it's there's so many variables there Brett I mean so it might not come down because of construction costs generally speaking it is less expensive to put in all electric heating equipment and the capital cost yeah yeah generally speaking in
237the rental market the tenants pay the utilities so if you have a developers saying yeah I'm happy to be all electric because it costs them less up front and they don't pay the utility bills going forward so why wouldn't they the only problem they have is that it gets out there that they're they're developing expensive to live in and then that's the word on the street so to speak and well this is your rent but then you've got this 3x 5x utility cost that you'd pay compared to a so it is part of that 450 000 a unit cost include building in a higher subsidy to offset the higher operational cost for you for you as a operating agency was going to be bearing the cost of these utilities long term that might not be
238the actual physical cost of the units but that's what you need to bring in subsidy in order to offset those increased costs long term yeah I want to I also want to come back to the cost of the installation because when I come back to geothermal we have two choices more subsidy or raise the rent so when we have built-in rent subsidies that is not relevant so half of our units have built-in rent subsidies so they're we're charging I think it's 1300 ish unit the tenant pays 30 percent of their income so they might pay fifty dollars or they may pay 500 like that makes the whole Project work but half the units we don't have project-based vouchers on them and so we're like what is a reasonable affordable rent that isn't laughable you know
239is a thousand dollars reasonable well that still feels like a lot when you're trying to say you're doing affordable housing so we're like okay how can we get that down to 700 or 800 you have to have more development subsidy because you you can't have as much money do you have to pay back to A lender essentially so it's got to be Grant like money on the geothermal question that has great benefits to the long-term operating costs if we can figure out how to pay for it up front and so if if our development costs continue to increase um we have to cut something else so this federal funds that potentially will offset the cost now it's like can we build it can we get enough offset but it still doesn't lower our development cost
240it still brings our development costs it's just a grant Source at that point that's where we're stuck at right now and to Jennifer's point you you need a place to drill those Wells right when you have the building taking up so much space the one benefit of the parking lot is you other than the part where the storm water is you can actually put it in a parking lot other than that you're looking at public right-of-way to put a geothermal well which right now we don't have permission to do but we're talking to OSI about looking into that so this challenge is all around and one going back to the building I think which is what I think you were trying to get me to say is you know people say why not build it
241taller because we really really really really really don't want to be a high-rise and that's what we that's why we calculated down to the road level that we're measuring our building height per building code and Michigan you may not know this is the only state in the country that that has a definition of high rise of 55 feet every other state in the country is 75 feet but did I also hear you say that the city can opt out of that yes I can they can we just have not that's correct city council can pass a resolution there are a couple cities no Lisa says no I'm not gonna challenge myself backrooms can't change thank you for kind of opening that up for us I mean because these are the things that we regularly hear
242and so I really appreciate kind of the nuanced feasible at 350 South Fifth it's a mixed income 300 if ish units literally are geothermal map which is our site let's say this is our site the Blake Transit Center site 4th Avenue Fifth Avenue there are wells every single sidewalk every single surface everywhere on the Triple A ta site in every spot on Fourth Avenue that is how much geothermal it takes for a traditional 400 foot well to service a building that size it is not if you want to go a thousand feet deep and spend a lot a lot a lot of money you might be able to do it like we we are struggling to figure that out on that side as well did you all consider solar awnings rise buildings my story buildings
243is that you can't get enough surface area of PV panels to offset your electrical needs yeah it's not going to cover everything I don't think anything's going to cover everything you know is it Flats thing that was put on it but they like literally cheesed it right but then you start talking the Homeland and they'll tell you about the photon angle of impact on the PV and it gets way down the rabbit hole real quick so putting the vertical solar panel doesn't really make a lot efficiency standpoint right you just run on a surface area and we are doing um solar ready purely for financial reasons we're going to add solar after it's built so that it doesn't become part of our initial development cost that's it that's the only reason commissioner dish this is
244really great I just want to ask a question about trash um I imagine I actually can just imagine um and it just am I understanding that you're going to you have a recycling compactor no that's a mistake I thought so we're not sure where the miscommunication yeah that's not happening right I was going to say because Raa will freak yeah yeah yeah no no no there's a trash compactor just the trash recycling is just like you have at home yep anybody else questions comments commissioner survey just thank you I just like that's it I'll just appreciate all of you so much and all the comments that came and all the work that's put into this and I don't know how much you don't hear it probably so I just want to just send my appreciations
245out for this project and everything you do in the community thank you commissioner Hammerschmidt that's exactly what I was going to say I wanted to thank you so much for this project Evelyn in the Housing Commission I'm hoping that we can learn from the process that you guys used to do such great public engagement with the comprehensive planning process that we have coming up um and I also just wanted to acknowledge that we got a lot of comments about this project in support but one of them struck me it came from a resident of I think one of the housing commission's buildings and just how much that I think Avalon works with and wow it's late I have no words how much all of you have really impacted his life by housing him and supporting
246the services and it was a really impactful comment and you guys do amazing work so thank you so much ready for a vote a vote on the 121 Katherine motions as uh presented let's start with commissioner Mills yes commissioner give Randall yes yes commissioner Abrams enthusiastic yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Clark yes and commissioner wise a very enthusiastic yes I just want to be clear they still just counters yeses you don't get too votes for that all right motion motion carries all right uh we will move on to our last section of public comment it's an opportunity for persons to speak up for three minutes on any issue um we'll first call on people who are present and then move on to remote the phone access is 877-853-5247 enter meeting ID 977-663-41226
247to unmute press star six uh we're gonna call on people here first and then remotely for either method please state your name and address anybody present one more time one more time scottradeo 526 North Main Street I'll try to be super quick thank you all um I just want to say I think I appreciate your optimism that we will have a comprehensive plan and be implementing recommendations from that plan within two or three years I think that's probably in reality not going to happen um and keeping that in mind like we have urgent problems we need to solve um and so I just want to underline throughout the theme of the evening like that that urgency is real and we need to keep it up and also please do be listening to the real experiences
248of both of people like Jennifer Hall who are trying to actually make this stuff happen for real and also developers like who are running into the wall of reality trying to make stuff happen like because you know we can we can try to hold everybody to the standards of D1 in a d1-ish project but we're not seeing any D1 projects proposed because the standards of D1 appear appear to be unrealistically achievable and so do we want to have unrealistically achievable standards that have high-minded goals that actually deliver nothing like no new housing no affordable housing contributions no ongoing tax revenue into the affordable housing trust fund to help subsidize other people's homes or in other parts of the city and into the climate Village funds that help you know other areas of the city like
249make their homes more sustainable at the same time so those are all the things we're giving up by making it so hard and making the perfect family of the good and by not making room for more people the people who get excluded are you know as we know the people who get excluded so um thank you all again thank you anybody else present my name is Angela Davis 118 West Kingsley and it's absolutely incredible that this commenter here said just about everything that I had in mind to say which is perfect that we're all on the same page and I don't really like to um beat the dead horse because we all know what is at stake yes we have a housing crisis affordable housing is a must I I like to look at outside
250the box and it's it will be really awesome if the the powers to be like yourself the city council and whoever involved that would put plans in motion that would come up with ideas of giving tax incentives as gentlemen stated to like homeowners who want to partake in a in a program that would allow them to turn their homes over for a certain tax break for participating in the affordable affordable housing um outside of just building a structure which it would be great too because now you're satisfying the needs of multi couples and families and individuals opposed to just one particular family but however everyone needs the access to affordable housing and I will not say in every income bracket because the ones that we are speaking of are those that are below a hundred
251thousand dollars and a lot of the residents in Ann Arbor some born and raised here in Ann Arbor are service workers in many different capacities that do not make a hundred thousand dollars and cannot live here you know and I may look like that I make a hundred thousand dollars I try to do that every day but I'm in that affordable housing category thankfully I do have a place to live so looking outside the box to other alternative Solutions you know rent control I used to live out of state in an area that had rent control is that something that we can even address I don't know what sort of channels that would have to go through if that would even pass but these are other things that could be addressed and analyzed to see
252if it actually worked for us Post pandemic threw everything out of the water so now we're scrambling to make things happen for the good of all so thank you thank you anybody else present who would like to speak do we have anybody in line virtually one hand is raised Alex Lowe Alex Lowe you have permission to address the Planning Commission hi this is Alex Lowe once again calling from 3340 Fernwood Avenue on the side of it in the mallets Creek setting now known as the mutual neighborhood of Anna we saw some wonderful action today and I want to see more and I want to see it happen first let's get some more tc1 let's get a comprehensive fan that eliminates the ridiculous restrictions we have concerning the height restrictions the far requirements let's let our
253city grow as a city and not hamper it and not hamper it down and let's do it and let's do it carefully and methodically but quickly before the uh this crisis turns into an absolute catastrophe thank you all right we are on to item number 10 commission proposed business don't see any so we will move on to a German moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner Abrams all those in favor aye we are adjourned foreign