001welcome to the January 17 2023 regular meeting of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission for detailed information on meeting procedures please review the full printed meeting agenda provided Mr Leonard will you please call the roll absolutely commissioner get Randall commissioner Abrams here commissioner sovay commissioner Mills here commissioner Hammerschmidt here commissioner dish here commissioner Lee here commissioner Clerk commissioner waich here we have a quorum thank you we'll now move to approve the agenda may I please have a motion to approve the agenda moved by commissioner Lee seconded by commissioner Mills is there any discussion on the motion all those in favor of the motion please say aye raise your hand any opposed the motion carries um on the agenda I see approval for minutes from November 15th and December 6th but I believe we only received November
00215th so my apologies for that just uh the action should only be relative to November 15th minutes great may I please have a motion to approve the minutes for November 15th moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner weich any discussion of the minutes all those in favor please say Aya raise your hand I any opposed the motion carries next we move to reports from City Administration City Council planning manager Planning Commission officers and committees council member dish do you have anything to report yes I do from the January 9th meeting of council um we I think we approved 530 North Division or was that a first reading first reading first reading okay yeah I didn't my notes are it's good than they should be um we had a first meeting of the amendments to the
003UDC pertaining to storm water management and we had lots of fun talking about those in fact there was no comment and we also um we we approved the annexation on 2118 Victoria Circle and we approved the annexations of two 2520 and 2540 Pontiac Trail which are additions to the Village of Ann Arbor um acreage and uh we approved the prose plan as well so it was busy but very short [Laughter] thank you Mr Leonard do you have anything to report uh no additional report uh uh sorry I take that back included in your agenda is one memorandum that has a response to some of the questions that arose during the Capital Improvements plan um so some of the items that were discussed have been addressed in that memorandum just attached that as part of reports
004if Commissioners have any additional questions on that we can follow up as well great thank you do other commissioner officers or committee Liaisons have anything to report okay so we'll move on to item six on our agenda which is public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue not listed as a public hearing on this agenda we'll first call on individuals present to address the commission than remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely press star nine if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of their phone number or by name
005if available you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time is there anyone who would like to address the commission remotely Mr Leonard yes James demore you can press you can unmute your self and address the Planning Commission for three minutes thank you members applying commission uh this is James demork and you hear me yes we can excellent good actually the primary purpose of this is because it's I'm not used to the zoom function for your uh uh um for
006the Planning Commission doing my phone before and I had some trouble getting in before my own concern is just naturally uh uh the the issue regarding natural systems and the protection of trees and you know a bit more about that this evening but I want to thank the commission for being available and I look forward to hearing more comments and that's it for now I'm gonna lower my hand thank you no other speakers okay thank you item seven public hearings scheduled for the next business meeting we have one new public hearing schedule this is for the February 7th Planning Commission meeting a for 415 West Washington planned unit development rezoning and concept plan a petition to rezone the 2.8 two and a half acre parcel from PL public land to plan unit development PUD the
007concept plan shows 157 residential units in a building constructed above floodplain elevation surface and under Structure Parking public open space including construction of a segment of the tree line Trail through the site thank you we're now moving to item 8 regular business we have one petition on the agenda public project review for 2415 South Huron Parkway proposed new 12097 square foot fire station to replace existing and we'll begin with a petition or presentation um and if I could just jump in very quickly before the return the petitioner loose so as a reminder this is appearing on your agenda as a public project review this is in response to a city council resolution that was passed um in the past that requires a Planning Commission review and advice on any public projects that would exceed an
008estimated two hundred and fifty thousand dollars but if they were being conducted by a private development would require review under the zoning ordinance so this is an opportunity for the Planning Commission to review the proposed project in the context of if it were private development provide advice to the city council on that to Aid the city council in considering the ultimate advancement of this project so I just want to set the stage you are commenting on its consistency with the ordinance not a typical approval or recommendation of approval or denial of the site plan and with that take it away all right uh good evening commission Mike Kennedy fire chief city of Ann Arbor Don Berry I'm the architect of Records so we're doing a bit of a hybrid with we're here we've got some
009folks remote for us driving the uh presentation um so I've heard brevity is key so that that will uh be the the driving force here this project was part of the Capital Improvements project that all of you recently approved so this has been part of that for the better part of four years now and was recently as part of that update if we could go to the next slide please uh project team done if you want yeah we've teamed with a firm out of Seattle TCA Architects that specialize in Net Zero fire stations they did the first one in the country and the second one in the country and I think the next several after that um so we've brought them in as experts to get to Net Zero I'm from a3c We're the local
010Representatives pea group is our civil engineer um John Curry is on running the slides and he's available for questions pea is the MEP engineers and we have our mechanical engineer that's available for questions regarding systems and and whatnot and the rest you can be for yourself all right next slide please okay so quick kind of orientation or location this is fire station 4 in the south east corner of the city of Ann Arbor it's um on where Platt and Huron Parkway intersect just south of Washington Avenue if we could go to the next slide I put this slide up here to show the process that we've gone through to get to this point just briefly it's been nearly two years to get here and the reason being that you'll see the design takes a portion
011of the Parkland in sheffler park to take a little corner to get to the light at Platte and here on Parkway so that we can get a drive-through station and control the light to exit safely yeah if we could advance two slides please so part of this with the park strategy I know the layout's a little busy to see there the current station will jump to in a second um actually can you go back one John I'm not sure if it's okay I apologize go back to that I put my apologies for that so this show Scheffler Park we did extensive engagement with the parks and rack following their Normal public engagement process where all homes I think generally it's whatever their their normal parameter was and it's escaping me right now we went double
012that um for the use of Parkland and this is a public posting notification with public Outreach there's actually still a website available that talks about the project um so we did significant we did the Flyers again followed all of the normal parks and recs Outreach where basically we engaged the public about number one the the partial use of Scheffler Park and the parcel that fire station 4 is on and shuffler Park are all City owned this was procedurally not required we could have just it's all city property we could have done this uh based upon the preference from City leadership and uh from the parks and Parks and Rec we we did it anyway to show good faith um so the area that's needed for the outlet is currently a half court basketball hoop and
013sheffler park is kind of bifurcated um by a creek and so the the part that we need is on the west side of the creek there's currently a softball diamond on the east side of the creek you'll see that there's three locations that were provided with the preferred one which is kind of in the bottom middle because of some some land balancing issues that was what we had preferred and that's also what the public came back as their preferred the East part is apparently a small sled Hill for children and the West part is current parking that the local neighborhood wanted to keep part of the quid pro quo with this is this um project if funded we would build a full court multi-use court in place of the half court which could use a
014little TLC um and is in a bit of a state of disrepair so this would significantly improve that that part of Scheffler Park um anyway we we've received nothing but positive feedback from the community about this there was not a whole lot of Engagement to be very upfront but the engagement that we did have there was no no opposition so and just for your information that's the size of a junior high school basketball court uh next Slide John okay so this is the current station was built in 1966. um one it's it's a bit shocking that in 66 they designed this to back end off of Huron Parkway the fact that we don't have more traffic collisions is a bit of an astonishment to me um our vehicles returning from quarters after turn on the
015emergency lights back in southbound traffic there's a curve it's the the sight line is horrific to say the least um so from a simple Traffic Safety perspective this is poor at Best in 1966 um there was no such thing as female firefighters so this station was not designed with any sort of gender inclusive no exercise facilities we have far exceeded this from the health and safety of our of our current firefighters there's an open sleeping area I could spend the rest of time talking about the inadequacies of that but I will move on so next slide and then this is a proposedation I'll kind of went down next Slide John I think we're running out of time um just briefly um this is the first first floor you see the drive through apparatus Bays public
016areas to engage the park in living areas downstairs and next Slide John and dormitories upstairs next slide this is just to show that we designed this to also in the interests of firefighter safety so the current station doesn't separate what we call Hot zones from living areas and so current research says that the the incidences of cancer for firefighters are very high so we're trying to avoid that next slide um for Net Zero we're doing a ground Source heat pump system we're doing solar panels we're doing efficiency in water we're doing EV charging in the parking lot and prepping for future electric fire apparatus and we're reducing the embodied carbon in the materials that we're using and we're prepping for future battery storage we found that the to do that now would be cost prohibitive
017next slide and energy use intensity the average for Ann Arbor fire stations is 106. um the current station 4 is 127. um and The Benchmark nationally is 79 we're at an estimated Design Energy use intensity currently at 25. so that's how you get to Net Zero and real quick this has the potential as long as we get funded to be the first Net Zero in Michigan in one of the first two east of the Mississippi so kind of fingers crossed assuming that we don't take too much yes next slide yeah oh this is just a plan in case we want to go back and refer to it during question and answer and and I think that's it for us Jeff thank you yeah staff presentation from Mr Khan uh I don't have much more to
018add thanks thanks very much we're we were excited to review the project it's really our first uh Net Zero proposal that we've seen for any public facility in Ann Arbor we think it will be a demonstration project and has the potential to be here for a century or longer and that's that's all I have to report we do recommend the Planning Commission to prove the motion um regarding the public project uh so we'll now move to the public hearing so if you want you could have a seat and we'll call you back up when it's time for questions thank you uh so for the public hearing and opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed public project at 2415 South Huron Parkway we'll first call on individuals present to address
019the commission then remote participants to speak during the public hearing remotely press star nine if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of their phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time yeah thank you commissioner Abrams my
020name is Ken Garber I live at 28 Hammer Hill Court um yeah this is a fantastic project of course for the city's first Net Zero building that means it will produce as much energy as it consumes on an annual basis um I'm really pleased that the city staff has modeled the energy use intensity for the building you know I think we should require this of every petitioner um it's it's basic knowledge and it's not hard to do um the big question I have about this project is the on-site energy storage or the lack of um I'm disappointed to hear that we won't have on-site battery um storage it sounds like it was a cost issue I'd be interested in hearing what the calculus was behind that decision um I assume this means there's going to
021be a gas line connection for an emergency generator but that's so that's another question I have um and you know I just I'm no expert obviously on this subject but there are companies out there for example energy port that have installed lithium ion battery storage systems for fire stations I don't know if TCA Architects is familiar with them if not then yeah with others be curious to know if TCA has done battery storage for their other fire stations or not um glad to hear though that sounds like there will be accommodation for future battery storage um presumably when it becomes more affordable um so that's a minor quibble overall really happy with this project um I Heard um just now that a little conditionality to this project as long as we get funded this has
022the potential to be the first Net Zero building in Michigan so I'm just curious on presumably this is federal funding so I know the economics of the project probably aren't the purview of Planning Commission but I'm curious about uh what we're waiting on to move this project forward so those are my questions overall um really looking forward to seeing this project be made reality thank you thank you Mr Leonard is there anybody that would like to address the commission remotely there is James damore you can unmute yourself and address the Planning Commission for three minutes thanks friend um this is James damore again I live on Maplewood Avenue and I live about two blocks away uh from uh Shepherd's Park um I walk uh my dogs there um just about every day and so I'm
023very familiar with this property and uh um I've been so in the 15 years that I've uh lived here and uh it's interesting to see the park you Bob over the years we live in a single family home since we don't share walls with neighbors a few years back uh Jeff Kahan will know this I work with him in the Northeast area plan we were carelessly burned out of our apartment by careless Neighbors on the second floor and we wouldn't be alive today uh without the help of the anniversary fire department so I'm grateful to them every day for the work that they do and I applaud the fire department um for what they do and I appreciate their being willing to step forward on this wonderful project here and I urge the plan commission
024to support this excellent project that's coming before you this evening um so I would say again to uh Chief Kenny thank you for all that you do well I also mentioned about plant process I'm a former planning commissioner so let me uh step into my former roles applying commissioner per minute uh Mr Garber had some concerns I think which are interesting um Let me throw a couple of mine here which are nowhere near the scale of this but I'll play planning commissioner and say that I'm glad that for the replacement of the basketball court um it's at the site where it is but because I'm familiar with this park I've been familiar with some trees that were planted there not long after I moved there and I've seen them turn from seedlings into beautiful trees
025and I see that two of them are being slated for removable um I would ask the commission if they could to find a way if we could keep those uh trees that are there I think it's uh I have to move my screen a little bit I'm looking at the age 10 of the site plan uh uh um uh document and I see I see two trees slated for removal on The Closer end of uh um towards Edgewood which is uh one I can't look at the numbers right off hand but it's something to that effect at any rate if you can find it in your heart to keep those trees I think we can work around it since what we're talking about is is the mere uh placement of a basketball court maybe we
026I'm not sure if the fence is necessarily needed for something like this I'm playing with the weeds at this point but uh if we're going to make changes uh this is probably the only change I would recommend um I'll wrap it up here Brent uh I think we got a fantastic Plan before us here and with those changes I suggested I urge your approval thank you no other speakers okay I will now read the proposed motion and I will turn off the buzzer thank you whereas the city administrator is directed to obtain comments and suggestions from the appropriate City departments with regard to certain city projects meeting private development regulations prior to recommending that city council approved funding for them whereas such projects are to be reviewed by the City Planning Commission prior to city
027council approval whereas the city administrator shall indicate which private development regulations are not being met for such projects resolved that the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission finds the city of Ann Arbor Fire Station Number Four adheres to City private development standards notwithstanding the following the right-of-way screen along South Huron Parkway would be required to provide 230 lineal feet of landscaping the project is providing 162 lineal feet a total of 555 square feet of interior landscape Islands would be required the project is providing 540 square feet 35 Street trees would be required 15 trees are provided a 15 foot wide conflicting land use buffer would be required the conflicting land use buffer has been provided where possible can I get a commissioner to move this motion moved by commissioner Mills seconded by commissioner weich will now
028move to discussion of the proposed motion is there anyone who would like to begin our discussion commissioner Mills thank you um again I'm really excited to see this project come before us and I I feel like it has been on the CIP for a while um you've been working at it it's great to finally see what it looks like and how you know how it's going to achieve Net Zero so I I really appreciate that um what I'm curious is if staff or maybe along with the petitioner can walk us through each of those four deviations from the private development standards um and help us understand kind of the the challenges about why or why they're not achievable or my in being met in this so um I mean I can read them off to
029you or if you want to what make whatever you prefer Mr Khan maybe we should pull up the uh a safe plan sheet I'm gonna I'm gonna encourage the architect of record to join the discussion um the the first one was the right-of-way screen along South Huron Parkway um right-of-way screen is intended to provide a vegetative buffer um for a non-residential project such as this in this case the project has extensive curb cut width to accommodate a one-way drive so that there are two curb cuts that that limits the amount of of um right-of-way screening I'm gonna I'm gonna see if the architect has has any additional comments on that issue yeah and I may if I could call on our civil engineer um to comment as well the other issue that I see is
030sight lines for safety the truck's coming out got it so would it be possible whoever's driving I don't know if you're able to show your mouse like uh point out where there is right-of-way screening along that along kind of the road and where there's not yeah gotta grab the landscape plan and Pull It in that might help thank you um okay so part of the issue also is that because this is site planned for the existing fire station site and the entire park property a number of these variations are the fact that the right-of-way screening and the street trees apply to the entire Frontage of both Edgewood and Huron and Platte along with property boundaries so as far as what you're screening for a majority of that is parked um that's part of the reason
031and also as Don mentioned sight line that corner is flat turns into here on um there is a sight line issue around that corner got it and um just to be clear we wouldn't normally have the right-of-way screening from a park like we want that to be visible and not screened from the road so those things together okay and if I made that that's also the answer to the number of Street trees question okay I we're including the entire Frontage of the park there and um and through discussions with staff it was determined that we would just do the street trees in the areas that were affected okay and I was just going to ask that as a follow-up question the staff that keeps an eye on the street trees that we have are comfortable
032with this okay super landscape Islands the landscape um Island square footage was minimized in part because of a desire to shrink the size of that parking lot to as small of a footprint as physically possible it could be expanded a little bit to accommodate the extra 15 feet or maybe what might turn into 20 feet but I think the the intent was to keep it as small as possible so that the amount of impervious surfaces would be minimized I'll I'll defer to Don and Jonathan if they want to add anything to that John do you have anything uh no I think the other thing too was part of that was that the the bio bio retention area kind of eats into that a little bit and it is such a small lot I mean usually
033we've got a big light got numerous islands and peninsulas and stuff and a lot is so small that there's only a couple little areas that qualify as that parking lot Mass do you think so you can see there's a lot of landscaping around that parking lot it's just the matter that the definition of that of that criteria it doesn't all mean it except for these little corners okay and then the landscape conflicting land use buffer this is I would just note that in preparing for tonight's meeting right when I went through the notes from the previous um the or the the minutes from the previous meeting that we approved tonight what I put into the record was hey let's reconsider the conflicting land news buffer again because this comes up an awful lot so why
034is it required where would it be required and yeah and here it is again showing up as not really workable right it it is required when properties of bought um residential uses or Parkland in this case the petitioner and their design team is working with a triangle which is a terrible uh um a site to to work with there's just not a lot of efficiencies here and so um in in this case uh portions of the uh significant portions of the of the building and access drives are encroaching in areas that would otherwise accommodate a a conflicting land use buffer the petitioner did successfully provide it where they could but looking at the site holistically in terms of of how to fit every you know every single aspect of this facility um uh the the
035design team was was very challenged but again uh did did provide uh the completely language buffer where they could I'll defer to Jonathan if he wants to to see if he wants to add anything to that uh no I think it comrade Jeff I think I've traced and read the property boundary of the actual fire station site as you can see to the South or kind of yeah we're not seeing it I was just gonna say yeah maybe we're looking at something different than you are uh what are you seeing right now let me uh we're seeing that um part of the slide presentation the overall dimensional layout plan is up we have not seen anything other than the slide presentation so I've been showing you lots of stuff all right yeah okay is that
036better it is take us on a tour too if you can show there was something before that you said and maybe the landscape Islands or something yes yes so to answer this latest question this is just trying this is the fire station site okay so as you hit this little corner in the back you're into wetlands and floodplain mm-hmm well they're not conflict amount of commercial but to this side we're blending right into the park so we provided Landscaping sort of between our parking and the driveway and the park and we kind of come right into the park um I think it's not a whole lot of space in those areas to provide more screen over the guy God so we are running into just to be clear the them as we are running into
037the situation where public land needs to be screened from public land because of our conflicting land use buffer a public service the fire station needs to be screened from but as right just if I could just jump and remember we're we're valuing this as if it were a private development so right so it it's not public land from other public land this is being um this is being reviewed as if the city had a private contractor running its Fire Protection Services got it okay so in this situation definitely makes sense and also I was kind of concerned that it was that I don't know the Eastern property line the Eastern side of the wedge yeah because I was like that's ridiculous to screen from that there's parking right up to the corner like right up
038to the property line on the other side like that okay well that makes me feel a little bit better about the conflicting land use buffer to be honest and obviously this that's infinitely reasonable here this is where I was zooming in before for the discussion about the landscape um I believe this so I think so here's the parking lot s of landscaping all around it but I believe only these cross-touch areas are the areas that meet the requirement for uh parking lot Landscaping so calculation wise for that requirement were like 15 square feet short but part of it also was this biosoil or bile retention Basin comes into that area and it's just such a small lot there's not a lot of peninsulas or Corners that meet that criteria got it so your options are
039to make it bigger to add more green but that eats into the park or yeah okay super got it makes sense um thank you so from my perspective these are all reasonable I mean I think it's really I like our practice that we say are we holding ourselves as the city to the uh to the standards that we would hold private development to um I think in this case all of these things particularly because of this intersection with Parkland that's public property onto Parkland it like um these all seem reasonable to me and again I I think it's useful to see what it's difficult for us to achieve to evaluate those standards overall this does not suggest to me like it's not any worse for the conflicting land use buffer but I still think that
040we do need to come back to that at some point um but I don't see anything in here which suggests maybe this is unreasonable for um would require changes to our standards overall unless somebody else does or yeah and then you can propose it during commission proposed business thanks thank you commissioner dish okay I also want to just make sure that I'm understanding that there are a couple ways of making parking green and one is to keep it small and another is to put in landscape Islands so you're opting not to make it larger in order to make it Greener which okay that's which would cause us to use more Park land and yeah yeah um okay so is there any difference between a junior high sized basketball court and other basketball courts yeah high
041schools bigger you know oh okay full-sized it's a slightly downsized version because the facilities in junior high is just aren't as big okay and uh so it's a it's you're replacing an aging half court with a full court oh and that's the park standard as well oh it's the park the park standard is a junior high size Court yes oh that's interesting I didn't know that yet okay um all right so I did want to ask uh return to some of the questions that Mr Garber posed so um I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about um has TCA done battery storage for other fire stations that they've designed is it a financial constraint that precludes it here and will that create a need for a gas line for an emergency
042generator I don't recall it them telling us whether they have on other projects I do recall him commenting on the expense being prohibitive but I I would actually call on our engineer to respond to your question about I mean they looked at it and we had discussions with Dr Stoltz regarding it and she'd like to see them too we'd like to see a future microgrid in that area that we could hook up to but that not being the case yet we did look at it and our Engineers looked at the expense of it and I would ask Aaron are you there could you comment on on promoting Aaron France should be joining the meeting here shortly thank you I think I'm here I think Zoom crash when you hit that yes can you hear me
043yes good evening thank you hi yes Aaron France with Peter Brasso Associates Consulting Engineers so the design team has been engaged with Dr Missy Stoltz in terms of the city's expectations for sustainability and local carbon emissions uh this has been a lengthy design period and we met with her in January of 2022. uh to the point of the batteries you know they are going to be appreciably expensive and right now the the focus is just to make sure that we have a station that's going to be within budget because as was knowledge during the presentation the eui of the existing station is something in the neighborhood of 125 by going down to our proposition if we can make our design current goals of 25 you're you're making a was it a uh you know 80
044Improvement in overall Energy Efficiency even before batteries which is huge in terms of broad Energy savings with Dr still with Dr stoltz's Direction the design team has been proceeding in a realm of batteries if we can but if constrained by budget just making a battery ready so the designs of the of this project are going to be evolving um subject to uh funding subject to um City approval and we will be looking at that there but right now our initial reaction is the batteries are going to be out of budget but it absolutely will be ready for it to the point of the gas meter it was understood that having a gas meter on site was not something the city was interested in just from a values point of working towards a decarbonized future um
045we investigated what it would take to use batteries for the standby power that would be required for this you know critical uh infrastructure building by building codes and by fire department regulations and it's batteries similarly were non-viable what is presently proposed is a propane tank uh generator propane fire generator what that would allow is that if the price of batteries can come down and if the carbon impact of producing those batteries can come down that the propane can be removed from the site without tearing up the paving if the a resilient microgrid grid can be developed in the area which has a level of operating reliability that is acceptable for what is needed for a you know 24 7 resilient through power outages fire station then the propane could be removed but there will be
046no natural gas brought to the site thank you I appreciate that explanation I also really appreciate your doing the math around the um that slide went very quickly but doing the math around the 80 percent Improvement in eui even without batteries that's a very impressive thing to put forward I appreciate the explanation about the propane fired backup tank um I wanted to ask uh I can't seemed like there was something else but I did want to know um if if uh if you all had thought about more than four bicycle hoops or if you don't think they're useful it did I I think that's what I read in the description that there would be four um honestly I I need you to answer that yeah there's I believe there's four at the fire station side
047of the park an additional two with two bikes per loop at the other at the Edgewood side well six total groups 12 possible bikes yeah so on that bike path the Edgewood side is by the basketball court so maybe they would be some utility to having more there unless there are some Lots in the park that there are several in the park that I'm not seeing because we're so zoomed in it's just a question I'm not yeah I don't have an answer for you I'm sure she did but I would need Shannon to confirm that further discussion oh commissioner Clark hi there so this might be a little um I'm just curious if uh there are any resilience uh measures incorporated into the site so you know istm and there's other guides now coming out
048um tied with critical infrastructure like uh fire stations being useful for things like water distribution in case of water plant failure I'm just curious if there's um I'm sure you've already considered that in the planning um oops Yeah I appreciate everything that you're bringing forward tonight but I just wanted to ask about that I'm sorry clarify um so I was just asked about resiliency measures um things like uh water backup systems it sounds like the propane kind of covers running and operating the facility um the reason I ask is just I know that there have been other stations that have been really critical of um in other cities across country for things like for responding especially water infrastructure and distributing communities and I'm just curious more on my own curiosity if there's like a backup
049system for water things like that I don't I don't believe so but Aaron can you confirm that at present time there is no uh redundant or backup water system the the extent of water considerations that have made so far have been about uh site drainage and minimizing uh water use by the building itself so some Community resiliency was part of the initial design plan there was the balance of square footage site location um a potential shared community center on the site but that would have dramatically increased the square footage of thus dramatically increasing all these other requirements and dramatically increasing the cost so that was deliberately by City Direction my direction taken out just because um the funding of this has been a a big Challenge and I'll be very upfront about that so the
050trying to keep costs down on this have been Paramount and this is currently an unfunded project so we're trying to do the best we can with right now no funding so sure thank you um looks like a great project overall obviously that zero is pretty incredible um just taking a procedurally speaking I know we're supposed to evaluate this as a private development so um looking at this from my standpoint permitted use under the pl under uh table 5.15 I would think that it falls under government office right we don't really have a specific category so I was like I think this applies so I think on a used side we're fine and then form development standards massing I don't think there are it just says None across the board so it was tough to say
051hey we're going to apply this pursuant to the UDC simply because it is a public land but it looks to comply with both so I don't see any issues there I wanted to address the speaker's question about the tree removals I saw that there's a wild black cherry and swamp white oak that is being removed um I think the speaker was speaking specifically to the two trees that are getting affected by the basketball court and I was wondering if there is any way to potentially accommodate that speaker's request John can you speak to that I wasn't a hundred percent clear exactly he just said that I believe the speaker was saying two of the trees are being impacted and removed by the basketball court yeah so if there's a way to you know accommodate great
052um I can't answer that definitively here and now um but we could certainly with Shannon and Joe my engineer I must take a look at it and see if there's a way we can enable that get the volume and area we need in that Basin and and save those and we can take a look yeah I would hate to I would hate for the solution to be moving the basketball court at this point you know considering that we've gone through the community engagement and everything sure location so um but yes we should look at that gotcha understood thank you if we could take a look would be great if uh not I'm still in support of the project overall I just want to recognize the commenters yeah um uh wishes since he does walk the
053site and traverses it um frequently uh last item just my comment my understanding is the the Capital Improvements prioritization plan is something we pass um and then city council is the one that allocates the funding so I was wondering if anybody knew if there was any kind of federal funding I think you had indicated uh that there is no funding currently for this and it would have to be allocated by city council grants is that correct correct um so at direction from uh so that this Project's been going on for several years I had direction from some uh previous City administrators along with Mr dehoney currently who has supported our continuance of this um my marching orders would have a shovel ready project so should funding become available this is as as shovel ready as
054we can pretty much possibly get it at this point um it was in contention for the community allocation of the arpa funds it did not receive strong support for that unfortunately we are in the process of uh staff recommendation to the administrator for fiscal 2425 improvements this will be not not a surprise to anyone will be part of my proposal but costs are only going up with inflation we're expecting this is going to be every bit north at 10 million at this point so that's a tremendous amount of money and as with all City projects 10 million for this is 10 million not for something else sure so um This truly becomes a we we've gotten this to the to the one yard line yeah and it's just whether or not there's Federal funding in
055terms of Grants there's really not a a grant program for this sort of stuff like specific to fire stations we've some of the federal infrastructure I know City leadership has been looking at that as to this point we have been unsuccessful of identifying Federal sources I think that if the city were to move forward on this it's going to have to be through city funding I I'm not optimistic about external funding I I I don't want to speak too broadly on that but I also don't want to say there's this path of federal funding that's available for this because thus far we have not been successful with that and we have been diligently trying so understood thank you for the comments um I think overall the project looks great um I think the energy use
056intensity improvements in themselves Merit an improvement the safety considerations as well as kind of the Antiquated nature as you were speaking towards gender Mutual facilities for our firefighters so um overall I think again use and form seems to apply pursuant to the UDC the overall building mass and materials and the rendering looks to be in line we don't have anything that's you know crazy out of scale looks to continue well with the kind of environment and so yeah overall I think I'm in support so thank you for answering my questions thank you thank you commissioner Hammerschmidt thank you I just have to think a few clarifying questions um quickly back to the the comment was made no natural gas is being brought to the site is there natural gas there now there is so we're
057going to be removing that yes cool awesome good answer um okay uh I also noticed kind of a lot of flood plain around the site um is it is it your opinion and maybe this is a Shannon question too that this the proposed stormwater detention is enough to sort of mitigate any impacts of like Creek overflow or like have you kind of sized it you know because climate change and things are just getting Rainier we have above ground detention and below ground detention for this and John is the really the best person to answer this well perfect right yes we are I mean we're uh we're meeting all the city and county requirements of storm water equality and volume and when you're this close to the ultimate Outlet being the creek um yes when you
058get a flood it's going to back up the system but um really your turn serving the intent of detention is to hold it past the peak so it doesn't uh that's not an issue as far as it being close to the creek or the floodplain elevations um we've kept also the building has cut the foot above the 500 year as required for fire stations and we're not actually doing anything in the floodplain or Wetland here okay great I read in the staff report two sidewalks are proposed to connect pedestrians directly to Scheffler Park where can can somebody pull up a map and just I was just curious where that is because it looked like there were sidewalks are they new sidewalks this is the existing are here okay the added sidewalk from the building is
059connecting oh okay okay the park system okay thanks um and then oh one of you mentioned something about when you were going to the floor plans public areas to engage the park maybe I heard that wrong they're public are there something about public areas within the fire station know what I'm what I was talking about is the way it opens up oh okay the entry to the fire station it faces the park okay oh I so it's I get it it's like engaging with and you know the amount of Glass on the on the apparatus Bay um is really intended to do that as well yeah that didn't help us with Net Zero but right um I mean overall it's a beautiful building I hope you get the funding I mean a net zero fire
060station across from a new net zero neighborhood is a really cool narrative maybe that could help in the ground I don't know um you know another way to make parking green is to use a permeable Paving instead of proposed well we Limited in the areas that we could do that just due to the weight of fire trucks ah but now you know about that new product Chief Kennedy so we'll try to prove that out before uh you get this built but yeah this is going to be a beautiful Edition I drive by that old fire station all the time and it'll be great when it's replaced with this thank you people commissioner Lee uh thank you just really quickly this isn't a floodway zone right I just want to make sure because as a critical
061facilities it does I was noting on Section 5.142 critical facilities cannot be in a flood way John can you confirm that oh yeah that we are not enough we're not in the flood okay okay perfect thank you any further discussion commissioner white uh thanks for the presentation just looking um at this as we're supposed to I wanted to come back to commissioner dishes um question about the bike racks uh both the ones that you have um adjacent to the fire station as well as the ones that you're proposing in the park um a couple things they are one there is a better bike rack design that we should be advocating it is the Boston uh post sign um bike rack it allows you to attach pretty much any kind of bike to it and they
062take up a smaller footprint so you can put more of them in the space the UDC says that if you're building a plaza it have to be 96 square feet for every two bikes but because this is not in that space I don't think you're subject to that is that correct Mr Khan and and I guess it doesn't matter because you're not subject to any of the requirements for the bike but if you were a commercial or non-city uh one we would have a little bit more and we would ask probably instead of just Class C that we would have better bike facility um there and especially since you're taking that half court away um at Huron River Drive and Platte and moving it to the neighborhood side having more facility for the folks who
063would use a bike like kids going down to the park and having a place to park their bikes and lock their bikes I think it you know it's not a it's not a huge cost you've already dedicated the space putting a few more facilities in there for that purpose I think it's good my church is right there on Platte so I come in and come out of that space a lot and I and people use that Park all of the time and they are playing basketball on the court as you noted that needs TLC um and so just because that facility ability is being moved it may be easy enough for us to just get a little bit more bike parking there or maybe hit up parks and see because we approved their plan too
064and maybe they can lend you some money to get that established so that was it it was just the recommendation on the Boston Post design instead of the hoop design because you can get a lot more of those in and you can arrange them in a way that you could probably get about 10 to 12 bikes as opposed to just the four that you might be targeting thank you I think that's a good suggestion and the fact that it's easy to do makes it a great one yes yep thanks thank you any further comments for discussion all right I'll just say I agree with all of the excitement around the project and um also hope that funding is secured um all right Mr Leonard I think we're ready for a roll call vote all right
065the motion as presented Mr Hammerschmidt yes the commissioner dish yes commissioner Lee Yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner white yes commissioner Abrams yes commissioner Mills yes uh the motion is approved so this will be forwarded to the city council um compliant with that resolution thank you so moving on to agenda item number nine this is our last opportunity for public comment an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any issue not listed as a public hearing on this agenda but really any issue right anyway sorry um we will first call on individuals present to address the commission then remote participants to speak during this public hearing remotely press star nine if listening by phone or use the raise hand feature if viewing through the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and
066enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name available for those accessing through the web you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly for either method of participation please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present that would like to speak at this time seeing no one is there anyone that would like to address the commission remotely Mr letter you're moving so efficiently I'm just going to take my time to respond to that to give a few seconds in case anybody would like to which the
067answer is no very well thank you item agenda item number 10 commission proposed business is there any commission proposed business from the commission not proposed but just a question um on the update from the review of the Capital Improvements plan um what's that oh whether we have any additional updates because I think you mentioned that there were two finalists that you were looking at oh for the comprehensive plan yes sorry I thought I saw a comprehensive plan yeah so uh so the comprehensive plan we received seven proposals uh the Review Committee uh including Commissioners Hammerschmidt and survey from the Planning Commission and City staff have recommended two finalists for interviews those interviews will be conducted later this month after that we have anticipate a recommendation the two finalists that we are bringing into interviews at
068this point are interface Studios and housel Levine Associates so those are the next steps the next steps on the evaluation will be those in-person interviews we're bringing the project teams on site we will be um hopefully having a productive interview session with them maybe a little bit unconventional but helpful and like I said hopefully in my goal will be sharing the at the a conclusion of that a recommended consultant to share that with both the Planning Commission and ultimately present it to the city council for a contract consideration to get this exciting work going is there a how do I work this correctly is there any objection from staff to add a line item to our agenda where the where updates could just like just a text update of like okay here's where we are
069we have this part because it's just otherwise I feel like I'm always asking for information as opposed to and since this is a big process and the last time you mentioned the two folks I had to go back and listen to the transcript to try to figure out which two it was and you know to do all of that so you had to do the dreaded relive the meeting by watching it again no actually I I I I did it in a more efficient way I asked the computer to tell me what you said absolutely absolutely um absolutely sure but but let me take it a step further once we have somebody on board we're going to be putting together a much more detailed product no I know that I know that's coming and there
070will be a subcommittee and we'll interface with them and I imagine there will be reports but just while we're still in this episode just a little text line that's like hey we have these meetings because you say the end of the month yep like when are they actually going to be scheduled and how does that all work and how can people ask questions yeah yeah that's all I'll start including that in the uh planning manager report as an upset on that that's a great place yeah thank you and first more a little bit more specificity again those those interviews are again they're scheduled for January 25th and 26th okay um they'll be held um here at City Hall um the format of that interview is we're going to actually sort of go through a bit
071of role playing like have the consultant team actually run through a problem statement or an issue because we want to see how they work through that process with our group we're going to go through a very what I would say more conventional question and answer period and then we're going to talk to that team about a particular project more in depth that's all this is a little bit different I would say since the last time we went through this experience where we had I would say a more perfunctory presentation by the develop the proposed consultant teams almost helpful we learned a lot about them but it was I found it personally to be a little bit repeating a lot of what we learned from them in the written proposal so this is um the the
072evaluation team is trying to really get to more to the heart of how are they going to function in our community how are they going to function on their feet what x of course what expertise do they bring to help problem solve so um uh these two were I think again they're the highest rated um I think the team is really excited to have these conversations but Absolutely I'll do a better job of being a little bit more proactive because it was not a criticism yeah no I think it um it's it's a it is appropriate and then um that's an inappropriate transition until we get to that more detailed project plan which will be able to to share more uh details there'll be schedules and that'll be shared more publicly of course once it's
073developed sure and just uh one more follow-up since I won't be um able to interface with these two finalists before you select one I'd like to ask uh again that as you do the role playing that you craft some kind of interface that asks these Consultants how they would interface with children about our comprehensive plan so how do we get the folks who are actually going to inherit the work that we're doing to have a voice so that they're not excluded from that and I think it it's vital for us to not just include youth but actual children um to this process and children have a lot of insight because they used our planned environment a lot and I have a eight-year-old who refuses to bike to school because the way that the road is
074just is designed she doesn't feel safe and every time we come to the intersection she says this intersection could be better if x y and z and I go will you come and tell us that and she says no uh no did they they're often embarrassed by me that's their one thing please don't embarrass us um and then the other aspect of that is I've heard from other parents uh who try to use our planned infrastructure like biking around the city and having to wait at uh extended times at lights in summertime and then making maybe not the best decisions because you don't want to wait too long for the light so you sort of run the light so just how do we these Consultants at least these two finalists how they would approach bringing
075kids into this conversation so that it's not just us that they're hearing from but they're hearing from those who they are actually planning our city for not that we won't be here but it's primarily for them in case someone calls in and says something thank you any other commission proposed business I would just like to Echo that technically wasn't any proposed business there was no any other comments foreign all right I think we're on to item 11 adjournment commissioner moved by commissioner weish seconded by commissioner Mills all those in favor say aye we are adjourned