Ann Arbor Planning Commission Meeting 10/18/2022

001[Music] is so much higher that we're seeing this repeatedly that just we're running it we're always having to upgrade our electricals in all of our projects because the standard announced because the standards so high yeah [Applause] above Construction there we go welcome to the October 18 2022 meeting in the city of Ann Arbor Planning Commission for detailed information on meeting procedures please review the full printed meeting agenda uh Mr Leonard will you call the roll I will commissioner Gabe Randall present commissioner Abrams here commissioner sovay here commissioner Mills here commissioner Hammerschmidt here your dish here Mr Lee commissioner Clark yeah commissioner white here of course all right may I have a motion to approve the agenda commissioner white seconded by commissioner dish any discussion no discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye

002all right emotion passes uh we have one minute uh to approve or not from September 7th um moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner Mills any discussion no discussion already all those in favor please say aye aye motion passes okay on to item five which is reports from City Administration City Council planning manager Planning Commission officers and other committees and any written Communications foreign start with commissioner or council member dish C I already told you that tc1 passed on first reading right yes just yes you might get a little closer oh okay I'm sorry and last night I don't remember doing anything that you would be interested in thank you Mr Leonard eventually yeah um a couple of updates um at your table this evening and it'll be attached to the agenda packet in the

003next day or two um there was a question um at a previous meeting about sort of the procedures to add agenda items to the agenda on the bylaws dictate that the planning manager sets the agenda for the Planning Commission I've referenced that uh um uh I referenced that that section if I think from my perspective it has worked pretty successfully over my tenure however I just remain open if there's any questions or desires to revisit that language we can always do so second um uh related to a item later on the agenda I wanted to share my joy that the requester proposals for a consultant to help with the city's comprehensive plan has been issued um it's out it's available on the website if you are interested in it I did make some revisions based

004on the conversation at the comprehensive plan subcommittee um uh as a reminder this is uh not uh the document that determines our vision it is the document that helps us select a partner to embark on that conversation in our community um and ultimately arrive at those recommendations and approve a document those proposals are currently due on November 21st I'm working to assemble an evaluation team that will help me with that process to ultimately recommend to the city council thus the action later on your agenda and um that's all I have to report for now alrighty thank you anybody else from any other as a commissioner liaison or other look like anything already so we will move on to item six which is public comment There's an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes

005about an issue that is not listed on the public hearing of this agenda we'll first call an individuals present and then remote participants to speak during this hearing please remotely please please 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 977-663-41226 to unmute plus start press star six City staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits with their phone number or by name if available through accessing through the web link when you 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 song so that we may hear you clearly for either method please state

006your name and address at the beginning of your comments anybody present that would like to address the Planning Commission [Applause] thank you trigger Randall Ken Garber 28 Haverhill Court very nice to be with you here tonight um you'll remember the village the 484 units off duvern road um with another 100 or more to come later which you'll see I'm sure eventually the developer Robertson Brothers has agreed to Electrify the 164 single-family homes but the 320 Apartments will still use gas you approve the project many of you with reservations at your September 7th meeting and it's on its way to city council at the end of that meeting Tim Lofgren Robertson Brothers agreed to meet with me and with other concerned citizens that meeting took place three weeks ago attending for the citizenry were Matt brokof

007Doug Selby Jan Culbertson um and commissioner Hammerschmidt also attended unofficially all of them have professional experience designing or building low and zero emissions buildings Robertson Brothers entire senior management team showed up including the company CEO there was an amazingly Frank discussion of the barriers to building electrification that this developer faces they had no concerns about the technology hire rental utility bills aren't a major issue right now either because current gas prices put electric heat pumps at parity roughly there was some worry about upfront costs and supply chain reliability but the biggest issue for them was our local electric utility DTE and Robertson Brothers experience simply hooking new projects up to the grid can take a long time in one instance they built 10 homes and then waited a year for DTE to give them Electric

008um and uh just getting DTE to return phone calls can be hard and if more transmission capacity is needed there's no predicting when DTE will get around to making the necessary upgrades maybe it's not surprising for Monopoly utility not to care but it means that electrification poses or business risk for the village project it's not just the delays DTE charges large fees for electric upgrades in contrast DTE Gas hookups are fast and cheap um by the way I've heard that the Ann Arbor school district has had to delay heat pump hookups until DTE gets around to making circuit upgrades from a climate point of view it's still insane for the village or any development at this point to go with gas full electrification should be mandatory for all new construction and this should be written

009into our city code but dte's dilatory behavior is a real problem I don't have an obvious solution except for City staff to bring up electric capacity with developers at the very start of the review process so DTE can be brought in right away if necessary a municipal electric utility would solve the problem but we're a long way from having one of those thanks thank you anybody waiting in line for us virtually indicated uh to address the commission okay alrighty so we are on to item seven which is public hearings for the next business meeting all right okay then we are on to our regular business item 8A which is the Amendments chapter 55 unified development code section 5.22 stormwater management and soil erosion for storm water management systems looks like we have Miss de Leo

010and Mr Hancock ready to tell us all about it um I'll just do a brief introduction um and um then Jerry who is official title I believe is the flood plain and storm water management programs coordinator close yeah so exciting let me introduce what is on the agenda for public hearing this evening we have some amendments to the unified development code which is chapter 55 of the city code we are talking about section 522 which is the storm water management and soil erosion um section um and then specifically we are talking about subsection 5.223 which is the storm water management systems and to this subsection we are proposing some amendments and then um we are also proposing to reorganize section 522.2 and 0.3 those are non-substantive we are not changing any of the rules regulations

011procedures numbers data steps processes of anything of the sort but we are um adding putting some of the text in tables and adding headings um to it um I will let Jerry um give you an overview of the substantive amendments and then I am assuming we don't need to talk about the reformatting but I am here to answer any reformating questions I feel that the reformatting should be fairly straightforward but as always I'm happy to answer any questions um Jerry all right thanks Alexis so the reason these uh changes came in is because the city has to have a permit um it's called the national uh npdes National pollution discharge elimination system permit and that those permits are required by the Clean Water Act but in Michigan they are handled by eagle or the environment

012Great Lakes and energy department and when our application our renewal application was being reviewed a while back they provided some comments and said we we have some exceptions in our stormwater requirements that do not meet the Clean Water Act rules and from to simplify all of the changes basically they're saying that the exceptions we have are kind of based on use and they don't really they don't really care what impervious area we use is if it's impervious it should be controlled it's kind of it's kind of the kind of a summary of it but um a quick overview of the changes that are proposed they indicated that on all projects on sites that are over one acre we have to minimally require control of the first flush and we had an exception in our ordinance

013that if a project didn't increase impervious area you didn't have to do stormwater management and they have said that that's not okay for projects that are over one acre um and the other the other there's three other exceptions that they've asked us to eliminate and they're basically we had some some minor exceptions for projects that were only for ADA compliance and nothing else where we had an exception for public sidewalks um and this would only apply to a site plan if a public sidewalk were being proposed through a development um you know not if something's in the public right-of-way it's not part of the site plan anyway so there's very very limited application for that anyway and then historic buildings so we had a minor exception in for for the roof of a historic building

014and they said that that doesn't matter so um to give everyone a sense of like what does this all mean like what would be the effect on development um we look back at the last two and a half years worth of site plans which are about 65 site plans to see what the effect of each one of these items would have and I can report that the the change to require first flush on projects over one acre we found two projects where that would have uh kicked in so um and it's and just so everyone knows first flush is the first inch of rain so we're all the change in that requirement were you know two projects over the last year and a half would have had to control one inch of runoff so a

015fairly small change the exception that we currently have for for Ada there were no projects that utilize that um that hasn't been utilized in a long time that that was put in in the 90s when there were some changes in ADA requirements and we had a rash of projects and so we put this exception in and it hasn't been used much since then then the public sidewalks we found one project where there was a public sidewalk uh basically going around a tree to preserve the tree that would have gone on to the private property that would have added a very minor amount of storm water management for that project and the historic uh building or historic roof of exception that we had hasn't been utilized in the last two and a half years so zero

016projects that would have affected and additionally there's one other change that we are proposing that wasn't asked for by the state there is an alternative section basically meaning um where a site could choose not to provide stormwater management if they provided either a land to the city or money that there was a formula that you know the idea of being equal to allow the city to do their detention for them and some other other Manner and that that section has only been used once in the last in over 20 years and it's and the the dollar values in it are also over 20 years old so not representative of current cost um so we're proposing to change that section instead of instead of looking for uh compensation just providing more flexibility like if it if

017a development is on a site that's contaminated and they really can't do detention if they can provide justification um we still have to require first flush for the state requirement but there are some flexibility for difficult sites and there's a few um specific example listed in there where exceptions can be made oh and we thought that that would that would help with especially with these changes that were proposing uh to make make things a little more flexible instead of this the um and basically pay in lieu of section that we previously had that wasn't utilized that's kind of the overview so I think we can take questions should we do the public hearing first alrighty so we'll we'll have questions in a bit um so this for public hearing persons to speak up to three

018minutes about these changes to the UDC uh first call an individuals present and then move a remote if you're speaking remotely press star nine or use the raise hand feature for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226 City staff will select callers that have raised their hands uh please go to a quiet area so we may hear you for either method please state your name and address um at the beginning of your comments is there anybody present that would like to speak doesn't look like it alrighty anybody virtually let's just give it one moment nope no indications okay well I will read the proposed motion which is the anniversary Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the amendments to chapter 55 unified development code section 5.22 stormwater management and

019soil erosion subsection 5.22.3 storm Water Management Systems to eliminate currently offered exceptions and revise the criteria for approving alternative standards and to reformat subsections 5.5.22.2 and 5.22.3 with additional headings and tables for a more user-friendly and concise layout consistent and reorganized content for efficiency alrighty we are in discussion oh sorry I'm sorry skip that part moved by commissioner sovay and seconded by commissioner Abrams now we are in discussion commissioner dish and then commissioner White I just I had a question on page two of the um staff report it says that a detailed explanation and Analysis of the proposed amendments and the reorganization is provided separately was that meant to be the marked up document with comments or did was there a detailed explanation more along the lines of what Mr Hancock just provided us that

020was supposed to be attached and wasn't um I can address that as I wrote the staff report although my screen just froze um the um in the body of the staff report the strikeout version that was done the strikeouts with done with the current format um that was what was intended to highlight exactly what was being amended so it didn't get lost among the reformatting and the analysis does come from um Mr Hancock's memo from September 2nd is that it that's it okay commissioner White uh this is just a um maybe a typo era that I just want to clarify so I am looking what am I looking at hold on okay I'm looking at attachment number three ordinance to amend storm water management system final draft 10 13 22 version 2 PDF is it

021error reference source not found yes got it okay it should be section 5293 and section 5294 it's in your strike through version but it's not in the version that I presume will go to city council so I just want to make sure we catch that because if we approve it and we don't catch that then I think there might be problems that is um just for clarity um that's considered just a I think they call it a scrivener's error so even if the ordinance to amend included that um that's a um that's not a code um issue and it can it can be corrected without any type of formal amendment that is a editorial situation for lack of better editing terminology yeah and um my apologies for that we try to catch those what that

022is is a function of we are maintaining that document in Word and it's a link and we do our best to try and fix those but when we're doing edits and pulling a section out of the UDC that's um sometimes I make that mistake yeah the links get broken commissioner sovay we'll start by saying I think these are great you know changes that I I think make it clearer um maybe I'll just add on to some of the little edits though um one of them was uh in terms of the replacing the exceptions with uh sites that are less than one acre size site plans for planning manager grading permits that don't increase their overall impervious area it reads unclearly as if it were any one of those things or all of those things combined

023but the table is really helpful that I understand that less than one acre um is kind of split sometimes it's not applicable and sometimes it is but then when I go to the table it says one acre or less and the narrative says less than one acre so the exact one acre lots are kind of straddling the definition um to be on one side or the other so I think again it's just a small clarification comment if we get a perfect one acre site there might be some confusion early on but also uh maybe an Oxford comma combines all of that that sentence together to make sure it's all of those pieces combined um and then I did have a question for the sidewalk requirements to be included in the calculation that is for any

024public sidewalk on the private property or also within the right-of-way adjacent to the property so when we decide plan a project we're only site planning the private property we're not site planning the public Street per se or that that fronts so the storm water requirements don't apply to the public right-of-way so you'd hit you'd have to have a situation where you were putting the public sidewalk on private property for that for the current exception to have any effect on stormwater calcs and it's it's very rare that that when that happens okay I just want to declare it sounded like there was that one like hook of a path but not that this becomes a much bigger kind of move that we are tracking anything adjacent so that was just a clarifying question but other than

025that the kind of where does one acre land in that split um and making sure I believe that all three of those are supposed to be combined together correct to be exempt in that first paragraph one b b uh sentence or paragraph one or maybe we could address both those Alexis maybe you could talk about the structure of the exceptions and Jerry if you could address the one acre is it is there a specificity with the state guidelines yeah the The Memo from the state said over an acre okay so we'll make those Corrections cool thanks anybody else I think it works um I'm gonna screenshot oh yeah I've I've got a couple of questions too so um I'm wondering how this meshes with what we passed earlier this year about the 300 square foot

026um that you can change a site plan add 300 square feet of imperviousness and not trigger site plan submission and so I'm just wondering how these changes mesh with that because according to this it according to this table I would think that that reverses that and so I'm just curious how how does that affect that um go ahead Alexis I think I'm going to share a um word document here this afternoon Jerry and I were meeting um and to make to make sure that our reformatting did not change any of our of our substance and so this um table these highlighted in yellow um we ended up changing the this language um because it just it didn't what is in the packet doesn't seem to Jive um and I think that this may um address

027the partial question here and then I'll get into it a little bit more but um one for sites that are in the city of Ann Arbor's review responsibility and here's something the it's actually not jurisdiction um it's review responsibility but when you are in this city of Ann Arbor review responsibility and your site is one acre or less um and so this threshold is new um because we are removing the exceptions if you have no net increase in impervious surface um and you were years ago an administrative Amendment or today if you are a site plan for planning manager approval there are no changes required to your whatever stormwater management system you have there now even if it's none um now so this is consistent with the 300 square foot and this is so this

028is I would say an exception but Jerry correct me with the terminology but the review comments didn't have issue with this exception because it offer a site of one acre or less so we are maintaining this exception but we are going to make sure that this language and this is the language we're going to use um says when you it's no changes are required when you have a site plan for planning manager approval now if you are doing a 300 square foot Edition um you're not even triggering the need for a site plan at all in the first place in our development review table so again these two issues are not connected they they work well together and there is no change these reformatting or the exception changes doesn't change if you were doing a

029300 square foot Edition or slightly larger and it was not and it was on a small site and it was going on top of existing impervious surface um then again your stormwater requirements tomorrow will be the same as today and that they um no changes are required um and then I'll just circle back with this yellow language here um because it was and so it still will be you actually do have to provide storm water management when you're on a small site even if you have no net increase but if you are a site plan first Planning Commission or city council anyway I hope it didn't ramble too much and I hope that actually answered the question so if you have no net increase in a site that is over an acre does that trigger

030stormwater or no yes that's that was the comment from the state the state has indicated we have to at least require first flush okay so that's a change then from from when we passed it before it seems strange to me that you can have a site like relationally to the size of the site that you're you're actually doing less you know because it's a bigger site but it still triggers the system if it's over an acre yeah and it's that that was that was the most clear thing from the state that and so the the rules of the Washington County Resource Commission that commissioner that we use as our standards that that is how theirs is set up there there's is set up to meet the state requirements because it's it's been revised more recently

031than ours uh that so we just we we just didn't have that one acre threshold indicated we were just saying if it's a site plan for the old administrative amendment that you didn't have to do storm water they said that that that did not meet the state requirement so that's that's actually the largest change that's proposed okay and then how does that relate to the whole 50 business from the county in relation to that as well in terms of change like how does that dovetail with yeah so it um So within the county rules which which basically any site plan that comes in the the review that if it's at the city or the county it's going to be reviewed the same other than this table that we're looking at because we both use the

032county rules the county rules have uh a a threshold in it that is not in city code that if a development is is um disturbing less than 50 of the site that they only have to deal with the the 50 or less from a storm water management standpoint not the whole site if you are going to disturb 51 of the site then you have to address the entire site so um that applying that threshold basically uh eases up the requirements on all all you know projects that are a complete Redevelopment okay so can I ask yeah please so Jerry am I to understand then that a two-acre site that is proposing to disturb um 25 of the area 25 of that area is going to be have to meet all the county design standards for

033stormwater for that Disturbed area however the entirety of the site would have to meet first flush at a minimum yes that is correct good clarification thanks yeah that that does help okay all righty that's how the county rules are already set up okay okay uh anybody else alrighty I think we are ready for a roll call vote all right so this is uh um on the proposed ordinance I do want to note I don't feel like we need a motion to change but I just want to know we are going to make sure it's up to one acre for uh the exception um because it's over one acre is what the state we're going to follow that to the letter and then we will also correct the reference and may also clarify the exception language

034to make sure it's clear what the intention there is so um I'm I just want to there might be some small changes from what you're seeing but I am hearing acquiescence to all those big improvements so I'm gonna we're just going to do that uh commissioner sovay yes commissioner Abrams yes commissioner Hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner white yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner good Brandel yes it is unanimous okay we are on to item 9A which is other business and we have quite a few of those so um let's see we will begin with the update to the state of Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation open space plan the prose plan for 2023 through 2028. [Music] Planning Commission action to forward draft plan to city council for review and authorization to distribute

035to adjoining municipalities the draft plan incorporates feedback the city received through an online survey and public meeting the prose plan is an element of the city master plan and provides an inventory of existing parks and Facilities describes a relationship between the Park and Recreation system surrounding municipalities and Recreation providers identifies Park and Recreation needs and deficiencies and proposes major Capital Park projects for existing and new parks based on citizen input okay so uh thank you very much so uh as you just described uh the parks and recreation parks recreation open space plan is typically considered as part of the city's comprehensive plan uh Tome uh the Parks and Recreation team is in the process of updating that as you will recall or some of you will recall from the the approval of the comprehensive planning

036process is very prescribed after the plan is developed it is presented here to you you then are at tonight the decision is does it look good to distribute this plan for um public comment to surrounding jurisdictions and agencies that recommendation will be forwarded to the city council if they say Yes um secretary sove will sign a letter Distributing this plan to surrounding jurisdictions and it'll start a public comment period for those agencies to provide any feedback or thoughts all of that will be presented back to the Planning Commission at the conclusion of that uh that comment period for consideration and a public hearing to adopt a recommended adoption of the comprehensive the pros plan to the city council um and with that um I'd like to introduce Adam furchow who is one of our Park

037planners with our Parks and Recreation Department he's going to provide an overview and ask any questions that you may have answer any questions um I put together just a quick presentation that we could um I can share with you and then I'm happy to take any questions that you might have um let me share my screen real quick foreign can you see my screen you can okay thank you um so a quick overview of what the prose plan is so it's our comprehensive plan for the park system um with goals outlined for the next five years and Beyond um it provides a forum for public input to ensure the plan reflects the values and desires of the community as well as current trends it outlines needs and desires for the existing are for existing and

038future facilities and amenities and it's required to be updated every five years to be eligible for grant funding from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and helps us provide justification for Grant requests and other capital projects so quick timeline of how we got where we are in winter of 2020 or 2022 I think it was December we started we had a prose plan kickoff meeting um there was a task force that was created for the prose plan um and we worked through our process and kind of the community we outlined the community engagement process through the spring April to June we put out a survey which is one of the main methods that we use to receive feedback um that was open and I talked about that here in a minute through June and September

039we held we held public meetings and focus groups we analyzed our community feedback and then we began updating the prose plan document today here in October um we are looking to publish the prose plan draft for a 42-day review period um I presented to our Park advisory commission this afternoon and I'm here in front of you today uh in December um January when it lines up with Council um we'll be coming back for approval from Pac and from Planning Commission um and the public hearing um and discuss any feedback that we received during that time period in January we'll be looking for approval from city council and then we need to submit to the Michigan DNR in February of next year just want to highlight a little bit of the community engagement that we accomplished

040so we had focus groups with the park advisory commission with the recreation advisory commission um with the Planning Commission with the office of sustainability we had a group looking at downtown Parks um and then we had a group that looked at bike recreation in the Parks um we held a virtual public meeting in June and then we held another in-person meeting at um Burr Park um I think it was at the beginning of August we held it during um some of the day camps that go on there to help catch parents that were coming and going uh I want to highlight our online survey we had 2 382 respondents which is well over doubled that we've had in previous years um so we thought that was quite a success and then we received comments um

041throughout this process and we've kind of compiled emails that we've received um over the last few years on things that the community wanted so we incorporated that into the plan as well and then we have our 42-day open Period um which we're hoping to get more review from and to highlight a few a couple key findings um that I think really stood out to us going through this is that Parks I mean they play a large part in people's lives not just for like Recreation um it's serving as a respite it's serving as mental health breaks they serve as Transportation corridors with our border to border um people view our Park system as really integral so their lives um it's not just the place they go to have fun um Park accessibility is an important

042issue for the community um we heard that loud and clear we have an ADA transition plan going on right now looking at accessibility and it's not just accessibility in terms of being able to do something people want to be able to know how they get to the park when they get there how can they move around where can what other Parks can they go what linkages can they see and then we also heard accessibility how can they get in touch with us um so we want to be cognizant of making sure we have someone out there that people can come to our thing that stood out is as the city's growing um so must our Park system um we've seen an increase in growth as you guys know and that puts a of your Demand

043on our amenities our experiences in the Parks but then we're also looking at we have the corridor along Stadium or Briarwood that will be having future residential possibly and so what does that do to impact the system and what can we do to make sure we're meeting future needs another important thing is while we reached out to the public we also reached internally to our staff to see what they needed and maintaining and improving Park infrastructure it's an increasing task um in the report it's me in the report um there is a needs assessment chapter it is 19 pages long and 17 pages of that is just needs that we have for our current Park system two pages of those talk about new amenities but the majority of that are things we need to do

044to improve our system so that's going to become a big issue moving forward and something we need to think about so our next steps um we met with the park advisory commission today to update and review them we are meeting with you um to hopefully provide a recommendation to city council so we can distribute this plan to review for adjacent municipalities and open the public comment period um we'd like to go to City Council to approve and distribute that plan and start that comment period and then we're going to be having a prose plan Task Force review um in feedback sessions so that we'll go over that document as a whole one last time in December we'll be coming to pack for public hearing and approval and then we'd also like to come back for

045Planning Commission hearing and approval I believe it's I think it the way the timing works out will be that last meeting in December but there's a chance it's the first in January um so we need to talk about that and then January 2023 city council approval and then February 1st is when we'd like to submit it to the mdnr so with that um thank you and I'd be happy to take any questions that you might have thank you so I guess we'll have a public hearing on no public hearings no public hearings we'll have a public hearing at the time of adoption but this is just an opportunity if you have any preliminary feedback on the draft provided otherwise um it would be acknowledging that it's getting close to its final format and ready for

046bedding with a wider audience commissioner Hammerschmidt thank you for this it looks like a ton of work um and I'm excited to dig into it a little bit more but I don't know if anybody brought this up to you yet the numbering is like the page numbering and then like the numbering in the table of contents is like really off like there's no there's like two page 71s there's like it jumps from like 108 to 120 or one or I don't know it the numbering is really inconsistent like I was looking for something specific okay I was looking for like the draft project schedule and said it was on page 135 and there's like it's not just I would just check like yeah 72 and section five and then sort of section six is Page

04771 again and then that ends at 98 but then section 7 starts at 98 and then it jumps like from 101 to 108 page numbering pages is really annoying and then I think a table of contents is probably off too um let me take a look at that yeah because they were supposed to be linked in word and then we made another PDF today so let me take a look and see what yeah that's probably what messed it up is was there an appendix attached or was there supposed to be so there's an appendix so the first one that talks about the budget is in there um we have a placeholder for an accessibility study which we will be having um that will be loaded in November we're finishing that up right now it's part

048of our Ada transition plan and then the third part of that appendix will be the resolutions from Council um and Landing commission and pack so those aren't in there yet cool well congratulations on getting it this far this is very impressive fix those page numbers thank you excited to see an update um I think one uh the planning department has updated much of the language from master plan to comprehensive plan and that's uh still existing in this draft the other one that I saw was but I guess I wasn't completely aware of uh was that the park rangers were replaced by police several years ago and that through many of the surveys there was a different feedback from the community about police presence and parks and things and I know that our unarmed response is

049really geared towards Social and Health Services but I'm wondering if there's been conversations yet with the unarmed uh Response Team about um additional or different um Civic workers to be able to support the parks instead of police yeah it is um it was something we heard in the in the feedback for sure and it's something that we've discussed there's a contingent that wants more police and then some that don't and I know Josh landenfeld our director has been reaching out um to the groups to to figure out what we can do about that and one thing we thought internally is more staff available um that could help with that um so that is definitely something that we're thinking about um and it was something that we heard um that I think was more prevalent this

050prose plan session than it was last prose plan so I think the last Pro's plan there was that want for police and that has decreased um so it is something that we're aware of and talking about I appreciate that if that can kind of be like really clarified I mean to be very friend I haven't read the 140 pages but when I you know control F with police it outlines you know the public comments about it but if there is a summary about that discussion that you're having right now uh that would be really helpful to be available for the public to know that you know it's part of the plan to have that conversation continue um and then regarding the budget I'm wondering um we have the uh Park contribution fee for projects and

051you know I know there's concern the millage is coming up but when was the last time the park contribution fee was updated just in terms of what we might do to help improve our parks that one I actually don't know the last time that it was updated um I can talk to Josh landefeld and get a response to you on that one but I'm actually not sure the last time that was touched okay yeah I don't know that the last time it's updated either but we can we'll bring that when it comes back yeah um it is it is an ask but yeah we can and I know it was based on I think it was based on acquisition costs at some time but I suspect it probably has an update I'll try to find

052out when the last time that is and if it's warranted to sort of revisit that yeah well I think it's based on at least the language right is uh per capita maintenance per capita maintenance so if there's some sort of metric from the parks that can outline that to see that update um because I believe you know the military for you know maintenance there's a maintenance and then there's an improvements budget in terms of the overall for our Parks so if that's something that we can do at this table uh to help improve and match that uh with the kind of economic growth um I'd be open to kind of that feedback in the next discussion as well thank you okay that's great thank you commissioner dish are you ready yes and thank you for

053perceiving that I was thinking um so I wanted to um I wanted to ask you about the mention of possibly relocating the public launch at the Cascades to somewhere else is that it was mentioned in the report um is that something that we're actively considering so it is something that was brought up it's not something that's actively being considered at this moment it's something that was brought up as a need from our Livery manager um with the popularity and we're talking like that parking lot the gravel parking lot that is just North of where the Livery and Cascades are due to the extreme popularity of that especially on the weekends we've had residents kind of complain about not being able to get their boat in the water um so that is something that has been

054discussed what could we do we have a launch on gallup's side but we don't have anything we only have that one spot at Argo so that's something that is just being talked about but it's not very active up front it could be something that comes up though it was brought up to our attention by our Livery manager it's I represent that word and I hear a lot about that uh facility which I which I like very much but it it is uh in some ways over extended um parking yes as people mention um and uh and there's there are issues about uh being able to Monitor and restrain public drinking and the things that follow from that and so it certainly it certainly an interesting suggestion and I'm I'm I'm intrigued excuse me intrigued to

055hear that delivery manager brought that up um I wanted to ask how you deal with con conflicting results that came up from the public survey and maybe you don't see these as conflicts but I noticed that while um funding and developing the area that is identified with the center of the city is of low importance generally it ranks higher when you look at the results from the question where you ask people to list their top priorities which suggests that while it is it ranks low generally some residents have a keen interest in it how do you reconcile those findings like that you think at this point I mean we have this in the plan so it can further we can have further discussion in the group I think we're trying not to skew it one

056way or another in there so we can have those discussions we're not taking any action like on a specific item at that but I think it's important to know that there are those conflicting things that you just mentioned in there um so that would be something that I mean we'll have to discuss as a department when we move forward but we have this as a base right now and that can actually flag as this could be a controversial thing or something that we need to engage the public more on um but we have that in the plan right now as an item that is something that we can discuss great and then I would assume that the same thing holds true um I saw a tension between public support for splash pads which is low

057but public support for making facilities accessible is higher and you all list splash pads is one way to yeah you see what I'm saying yeah it's the it's that same discussion and um it's like I think one of the survey questions also talked about like spending lower amounts of money or they weren't as supportive on new amenities which that that would be um and then you read through the comments and splash pad is like really popular like you're saying so I think it's about informing the public what that means and allowing them to kind of help weigh in on what it is and something we can explore further I know the splash pad was something that was really mentioned in the last prose plan and was it kind of gained a little more popularity this

058time so it's something that's on our radar and something that again I think would come to us as this is an item that we might need to talk to the public more about before making any type of decision on what we need to do but it's in there for now so it's something we can't talk about great and I wanted to um I hope you'll indulge me colleagues express some personal Delight that you're thinking it would be a good time to fix the potholes at Fuller which I can warm up before my swim in before I go into the pool yet commissioner White thanks for this it's uh quite exhaustive and I'm sure it took a lot of work aggregating collating all of the feedback to get the report done like one of my colleagues

059mentioned mentioned I did not get a chance to read the entire report but I do want to ask a couple uh questions the first one was uh has the report been submitted to our office of diversity equity and inclusion for review I don't recall seeing that in your presentation no it has not yet but that is something we want to start we want to have our own City staff and um kind of look at this so that's a good idea to have them take a look at it okay and and I bring that up because in the survey results you note that some of the what you label as minority users of the parks don't always feel welcome in the Parks and so having the Dei Department take a look at that to make recommendations

060at least before this plan is finalized I think could be helpful you do make note of the need for Di or Dei initiatives on page 121 but that seems to be targeted towards the nature area preservation programs but not to the park system as a whole so just wanting to make sure that all the residents and the folks who are in Ann Arbor feel comfortable accessing our Parks I appreciate my colleague commissioner sovay bringing up uh I think it was you the police and I just want to Echo her recommendations um to maybe consider uh having the unarmed response program that the city is developing be a interface to the parks as opposed to the police over Reliance on armed officers who are authorized to use violence to bring people into control with what the

061police call subject control is not a welcoming sort of premise in our Parks especially if you have loose dogs and someone has to call the police now you've invited a gun to um what would be just a civil enforcement so any things that you can highlight to D emphasize the need to have armed police officers in the park I think will go a long way to making the parks more accessible more welcoming and especially for those who have had troubling interactions with law enforcement I just have some formatting things and I just don't know a commissioner Hammerschmidt went first on this so I'm just gonna pick up a couple things the tables are that cross multiple pages are hard to reference because the headers are lost as you move through the brakes on the tables

062so starting with the inventory the park inventory section four that blue table it goes for several pages and then you lose track of what the dots mean as soon as you lose so now I have to go back and forth to find out if this park has a drinking fountain type of thing so if there's any way to bring that forward for readability also the labels there are over running the columns but I don't I I just don't know how much input you want from us at this point or if that's something that is already on your radar our screen and I would say on any table that breaks a page if you could bring the header onto the new page I think that will make the report more readable and more accessible and require

063less scrolling as you navigate and then I had a just a really random question that can be offline which is in the Green Belt map that you have in the report you show the boundary for the greenway but then there are two properties that are outside of the boundary and there are I I didn't see any attribution for why those um Acquisitions are outside the boundaries and I don't know if it's important uh to include that but it it raised a question with me and so I just wanted to present it to you it's section five is Section Five land use and planning acquisition you have a green great way um Greenway boundary it's in Superior Township to the East and it's in West Webster Township to the northwest okay um I do not have

064an answer on that but I can talk with our um acquisition manager and nap director Remy long and I can get an answer on that one for you um he's the one that kind of put these tables together so I can earn those Maps together so I can ask him about that yeah it's just interesting to know I mean even if it's just like oh this property was acquired before they made this boundary or anything like that just to sort of explain why we've acquired properties outside of the boundary since the boundary is noted okay thank you I can get that answer everything okay thank you so much yep commissioner Mills great thank you for this and I um similarly applaud kind of the amount of Engagement that was put into this and and overall

065not just in this plan but I've been happy to see the Public Notices in the Parks themselves when you're contemplating changes I've um uh so I think that that you know meeting people where they are I think is great as I was going through here um similarly didn't read the whole thing confess to that um but you all have 42 days [Laughter] but but recalled then our conversation earlier I don't even know when that was this summer maybe part of the working group and that's that's included that discussion is included in or sorry during a working session the discussion is included here um that for everyone if you haven't control left that that's the conversation about like tc1 and and kind of what is park access around there one of the things that struck me

066and that I maybe I missed it but during that conversation we had a map about like there was a talk about 10 minute walk two parks and particularly because this lives if because it's being adopted through the comprehensive planning process and is intended to live as a home for us that kind of thing would be helpful I think for Planning Commission if if a 10-minute walk to a park is a community goal then I think including that in here would be really helpful and not just for that Corridor but kind of throughout and actually in the process I also went through then and looked at the Ann Arbor moving together towards version zero eight two zero that one um and I just note that in there there's also this discussion about walks walkability to amenities

067including a park but in there it's a 20-minute walk and it doesn't then show that hole around State Street I don't honestly know which is right or wrong um it's not uncommon for multiple elements to uh conf I don't necessarily know that these conflict but these aren't the same goals and so I'm curious like when I'm looking at this what you know I would trust honestly within the context of a of a Parks plan like if if our intended goal is to be this 10 minute element like maybe that needs more engagement and maybe that's for the next time you do this um but I I would just note that it if if we are to factor that into our deliberations and conversations knowing what goal we're aiming for and making sure that we have

068tools including a map to be able to refer to I think would be really useful so that's more of a comment unless you've got a uh you know I didn't meant I didn't see any other like I can I control F for a minute I didn't see any other reference to like this idea of a 10-minute walkability goal anywhere else in the document and so given that that was really the focus of our conversation back then I just didn't know where that came from in the context of this overall plan yeah um I remember talking about that with our GIS um uh staff person that helped with the 10-minute walk but I don't think we actually included it anywhere else like you're saying in the map I think we focused on accessibility like in terms

069of being able to use the border to border get around use the parks but I don't think we looked at it in terms of that 10 minute but that's something that we can go back and look at and add in if I mean it seems like a good thought so well I get the only I only bring it up because like that was it's what's like memorialized in here and if and if your goal or if it's if this is something that's been vetted and ought to be our goal okay cool I'm just noting that there's another element in our comprehensive plan that says our goal ought to be 20 minute walk like neighborhoods where you can within 20 minutes you have access to retail schools parks and uh I need to scroll on the

070page just a minute whatever the the fourth element is groceries like and so we we have in an a plan that's already adopted as part of our comprehensive plan you know a map about which neighborhoods are lacking some elements one of those four elements within 20 minutes and so I just again thinking about the totality of our plans I it maybe if maybe we just let this one slide and we don't generate the map because it's actually not a fully vetted idea I just want to make sure that if if this is something that we should be thinking about as we're thinking about either zoning changes or thinking about new new developments that we we know which map we're going towards and what we should be looking at commissioner Hammerschmidt I want to add on

071to that and thank you for reminding me of that conversation um so 10 minute walk like trust Republic lands movement 10 minute walk mayor Taylor actually signed on to that so there is like a really well developed like this is like a thing a 10-minute walk to a high quality Park and I think it would be really important um to include a map that sort of shows the area and I mean we're very well parked in Ann Arbor we're very lucky that we have a lot of amazing Parks but in that conversation we saw that there are areas especially if we're talking about adding more residential that will be under parked if that's a word um once people start moving to those areas so I think it would be helpful um to sort of lay

072that out in here if you know the parks department thinks it makes sense since I mean technically it should sort of be one of our goals remember Hillary at one point was like we have a goal of a five minute walk and maybe that's not like memorialized anywhere but I mean I think you know because we have this robust Park system in Ann Arbor there aren't that many pockets where it's missing but you know making sure that everyone has access to a 10-minute to a park within a 10-minute walk from home a safe walk from home um can you know help meet a lot of our other goals too so I would actually I would advocate for adding a section that sort of talks about the importance of that um I'm happy to help you

073I can help write it if you want because I used to work on this in my old job but 10 minute walk is like yeah contact me that's something we can work on and I'd be happy to talk to you about that and get your assistance on it yeah I've got language already somewhere anyway another stuff I've written okay thank you anybody else you go one I got up to look at the map that's outside of this body and it's actually a five minute walk to Parks which is I thought uh sort of interesting but my my question was about pickleball uh as We Know as we know uh it's sweeping the nation um and it's also displacing kids being able to play in spaces that they have had full sort of purview on and

074I I see you address it somewhat uh in the plan you note that we have two parks but you don't name those two parks uh in the plan and then um this is probably for a future thing because I don't um I don't believe you're asking for Content changes but just like how something that may reference how the city is going to approach the access to the uh parks with the potential conflict with um pickleball because they'll take up like basketball courts or spaces where kids like rollerblade are able to I think of my own neighborhood lands down there's a really nice paved basketball court that's at the end of the park that's there and um it would be a prime place for pickleball and so then like the Primacy of who gets to make

075those spaces available and right now there's pickup games with adults that come as they're like morning activity there are kids who recreate there after school and just wanting to make sure that as we think about the uses that we're really trying to make sure that there are a lot of uses and not these dominant sort of uses of the park that would exclude other people so just a comment I'm glad to see it in there I'm glad that we are approaching it and I hope that kids can still have access to their parks yeah and I will say I think if you when we looked through like our Excel table of all the comments that we got pickleball was one that really popped up quite a bit and I know it's something that we deal

076with all the time is how can we add more and like you're saying not take away from other activities that are out there other spaces so that is something that we're dealing with constantly um but that's a good comment thank you anybody else okay thank you Mr ferco thank you would you consider a motion to recommend forwarding this to the city council and distributing the plan ah okay so there is a motion because we talked about uh yes absolutely moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner Hammerschmidt alrighty discussions proposed motion alrighty so we'll have a there we go thank you Adam oh thank you thank you everyone okay we are on to item 9B 22-1718 the um fiscal year 23 work plan review at the last meeting or at a recent meeting there were some

077public comment and there was um a desire to think about the comments uh the comment that sparked conversation was uh specifically about Cooperative housing how the city considers that much like it does fraternity and sorority housing and what are the opportunities for that um so um from that I have put together just sort of a brief draft of the work program we have more to do you don't have to make changes to this but I thought it would be an opportunity at a minimum to just sort of make sure we're all on the same page about the status of some things also some conversations that I've had that I'd like to present to the full commission for consideration um so I'm going to focus on the discussion draft just for some status updates as you're

078aware of the Capital Improvements plan we've heard from Kayla Coleman that is underway we'll be presented that back to the full Planning Commission late this year for adoption or early next year that is underway this is a sort of a quote unquote full Capital Improvements plan the comprehensive plan as I noticed in my noted in my comments communication comments the RFP has been issued this is going to proposals are due November 21st I am estimating at this point to be a 12 to 18 month process and that's going to be a lot of work for the community for staff and for you as the Planning Commission as we embark on that process switching jumping down to ordinance amendments um as is the case the Planning Commission has really been working very hard um from the

079existing proposed work program parking regulations have been completed and adopted those were adopted by the city council in August of 2022 the Delta batch of changes included modifications to landscape modifications r2a lot size some use changes in the M1 District some marijuana license flexibility those were completed and adopted by the city council in August of this year the tc1 rezoning for stadium is scheduled for second reading and public hearing at the November 10th city council meeting so that's upcoming the first reading uh has already occurred um I've had one uh presentation of uh draft language around sustainability to require electrification for new development with the ordinance revisions committee I'll be presenting that to the full Planning Commission I anticipate doing that on November 15th I'll also be accompanying some additional solar access language specifically around

080a solar accessory structures to consider some potential more flexibility for the for that uh D1 D2 housing premium reconsideration has been identifying the work plan um I am in the process of uh I have solicited a proposal and we intend to um a contract with Carla Wartman Associates this is a consultant that we have some ongoing Professional Services arrangement with for both Planning and Building Services um so they're going to be bringing some additional frankly horsepower that we can kick off that process here in the next month or two I hope that's going to include a lot of Engagement with you as the Planning Commission with different stakeholders across the community both advocacy groups other boards and commissions downtown groups and the development Community about premiums and what the future of those might look like

081um I already talked about solar energy Readiness so that's the status of things that are currently on our uh our work program um shifting to 2023 um we've had this Revisited I've had some conversations uh with Cherokee brandl and uh about the the public right-of-way setback for tc1 I would like to sort of put that bed uh again one way or another but I am proposing that if we are to do that my recommendation would be that we not create character overlay districts but rather we consider a very adaptive change to the tc1 district like a lot of the other parameters of that that would be responsive to what is happening in the public realm and might lead to increased or difference front setback requirements I'm proposing that if we take that on we do

082that in conjunction with a joint rezoning consideration of both Washington Avenue and the Plymouth Road corrivers so planning manager is prerogative to change their mind my rationale for that is that I think that despite my insistence previously that we take the corridors one at a time I think I stand to be wrong but I think that there are more similarities between Washington Avenue and Plymouth than either of the other corridors that we have previously considered I'm not saying they're identical but I think there's more typology that are similar I think to be clear I think that the inclusion of all of that together would probably be a little bit longer engagement process it's going to be obviously doubling the work with notification with consideration one of the things that I'd really like to do and

083I'm exploring this is I'd like to actually hold a working session with the commission out on the corridor so that we can explore some of these aspects particularly as it relates to the right-of-way and the like in a real tactile way if you will timing might make that cold but nonetheless you look like a hearty Bunch so um I am proposing that we would kick that off probably in early next year sort of lumping all three of those tc1 conversations together that would enable us you as the commission and ultimately the city council to make decisions on all of them but we would be engaging and sort of taking those all together because I um for the reasons that that I indicate site plan light remains on the plan drive-throughs accessory buildings and accessory buildings

084and then those two have been priorities that the Planning Commission has identified over time as priorities site plan light just as a refresher that is determining if we might be able to find a more cost-effective way to get the information that is necessary for some category of site plan developments that is less than what we require now can be fairly fairly costly to go through the process to put together the plan set to bring all those Professionals in it'd be seeing if there's an opportunity apart from the site plan changes we have made to look at the actual content that the minimum content that could be potentially reduced drive-throughs have come up um I haven't heard much lately I um we we get inquiries from them we share the previous Planning Commission dialogue that they

085seem to be a conflict point of time but I think at the end of most of those conversations when they happen here there is a desire to revisit drive-throughs I don't um frankly have a lot of Direction about what that means yet or how that might go but that's identified and then there are three these are really more staff driven potential ordinance amendments that I'd like to consider accessory buildings and structures has been on there for a while all our recent changes to our site plan you just saw some changes to our storm water I'd really like to look at our ordinance as a way to clarify and better communicate how accessory structures are allowed regulated and the like in our community conflicting land use buffers I'd like to specifically look at conflicting land use

086buffers to no longer require them between residential projects right now density of residential can dictate that I'd like to reconsider the application of conflicting land use buffers and this is a new one driveways um right now we um I don't know how best to describe this so when you're building a new home we require you to have if you're going to provide a parking space which is no longer required at all but if you choose to provide a parking space it has to be a compliant parking space that means it has to be in a garage or it has to be behind the front line of your home so in that case if you're building a new home you would have to either and decided to provide a parking space would either have to be

087in a garage or your driveway would have to extend beyond the front your house sort of your side yard if you will now that parking is not required and independent of that at times property owners are seeking to reclaim garage space for other uses they're seeking to renovate their garage and for a garage to be reclaimed if the driveway stops at that that driveway becomes illegal you can no longer legally park in that driveway because it does not lead to a legal parking space once that garage has been reclaimed to living space or some other space I would like to explore allowing that driveway in that circumstance to be maintained now in order to reclaim the garage space you would have to remove that driveway um and so I'd like to explore a small oh

088well time will tell but a an amendment that would allow basically some limited front yard parking which the ordinance does not allow currently then I would like to draw a darker green line and not do anything these are all the things that I propose we do concurrent with adoption of the comprehensive plan and we don't do anything else until after adoption of the comprehensive plan bigger things like r4c zoning integrating mixed uses into residential neighborhoods missing middle r4c residential district infill unzoning parking maximums I think these will be threads through the comprehensive planning process and I would propose until those goals are identified and the implementation priorities are established through that planning process those would be after whatever date that ends up being so um we've got work to do no changes have to happen

089to the work program um I did not include a significant change to Cooperative housing or fraternities or sororities you heard that conversation I think some of that does relate to mixed-use neighborhoods I think some of it does relate to our 4C zoning and infill in a lot of residential districts um but I just wanted to be clear that I think you know that those comments is something that sparked this coming to mind I want to make sure that those that feedback's not lost and at this point I'm happy to answer any questions about uh from the commission's perspective of your interest in ex exploring any of these things excising any of these things and however I can help commissioner watch I'll start with a question on the driveways is that a form-based requirement in a

090way okay on the comprehensive plan I remember you uh answering my question so I just want to clarify it that the engagement will not produce UDC text Amendment recommendations I anticipate the plan will identify recommended UDC text changes at this point I can't commit that this contract will develop that text language but I fully the aspiration of this plan is that there will be an implementation schedule that says the city should in year one make changes to the UDC to address the following items but there won't so we will I'm asking the question to understand what our task will be I know we'll get a deeper um explanation of that but I'm just looking at a vis-a-vis the plan that you've put here so we will have to develop absent the consultant producing recommended tax

091amendment changes we will have to do that work um while like at our working sessions of which we have 11 or 12. 12 typically so it would have it would come through that flow assuming a fairly normal schedule of site plan improvements and things like that okay so that again a question does that is that included in your 12 to 18 month forecast or is that an additional 12 months to your forecast so that's the actual I'm sorry to cut you off the actual conclusion of this will be somewhere between 24 and 36 months so when when you say the hard Green Line we're not going to actually see those things if I'm understanding you correctly until 2020 five or six yeah the 12 to 18 months is my estimation of when the city ultimately

092will adopt the policies and the vision it's interested in implementing and so until it does that it doesn't make sense for my lens to start the implementation of that language so it would be the longer term as you're talking about it is identifying what those goals are those goals are adopted and then we get to work and the implement the drafting that language now that could that could be continuing services with a consultant it could be occurred in a lot of different ways but I want to be clear it is sequential it is not parallel okay um that brings up a whole bunch of things which I'll try to capture an email to send to you or to the whole team another question uh site plan light um would that include the possibility of pre-approved

093proved plans so like site plans that if someone brought those two they would automatically be approved at the city staff would potentially create um it's it's not how I was thinking about it but it's possible um I um if if anybody hasn't of mine recently the Michigan Municipal League put together uh a pattern book and it sort of goes to a very common historical framework where you could have ready-made houses in that case except in their case it's a duplex and a fourplex that they've that they've modeled that um you can download the architectural plans they're sort of ready to go um I am intrigued by that model um I think that could have applicability at that kind of scale that's another model that I'm interested in and is doing that from an accessory dwelling

094unit perspective sort of ready-made plans for accessory dwelling units as you get into sort of larger site plans and probably commercial plans the um commonalities probably fall away so it becomes less likely so I see more applicability there probably in the projects that don't require site plans or even potentially for some smaller scale site plans the five six ten unit residential it could be possible that we could explore those kind of products and then my my last question for now is uh I I don't know if the law is passed or if it's just been introduced for alternates for Planning Commission is that at all like do we have anywhere on our work plan sort of internal work and the reason why I bring that up is the TC ones have caused a number of

095Commissioners to have to recuse themselves which then puts downward pressure on the rest of the body to have a conversation and there's some debates of whether or not those Commissioners needed to completely recuse themselves so I don't know where we have the conference con the conversations around the bylaws and how we Define those conflicts of interest of course a planning commissioner could recuse themselves because they want to but like how do we approach that as a body and where are in our sort of working relationship with each other do have we carved that time out because I just feel like there's some conversations I'd like to have because about this so that we all know what we've agreed to is a conflict of interest and then we're enforcing that as opposed to making it sort

096of commissioner developed but that's not on the work plan it doesn't seem to be in the working sessions and there doesn't seem a pathway to bring that up except by exception and so I I would just love if we could like it would be in my unzoning dream like you put that in there and then we fixed the bylaws and the unzoning but I I see you've kicked my unzoning way down to 2024 and in fact really to 2026 and who knows if I will be reappointed so I'll just uh I'll just wish for unzoning I love the end zoning um so um the short answer is we can address that whenever we have the time that could be on a regular session it could be on a working session at a working session we

097can't make decisions we could schedule that for a regular decision the best place to do that I think is in the bylaws that's where the conflict of interest language is put forth um I would just um I don't want to get to attorney e because I'm not and I would I would I would defer to the City attorney uh for more definitive answers but I will say um to get myself in trouble that conflict of interest is is often not a easy or even sort of binary decision ends in you know we do talk with Commissioners at times sometimes um sometimes it's obvious sometimes we have conversations with the commissioner sometimes I have that conversation sometimes we bring in uh the attorney's office to have that conversation um and I I appreciate what you're saying

098um as far as the alternate language I don't know I can follow up with that I'm not I'm not plugged into it so I don't know the status of it we provide alternates for a zoning board of appeals but not so much with the planning um that's definitely something we if if that's possible we could look at that um but I I would I would say that you know just conflict of interest can be messy and sometimes um even if maybe not required sometimes that might make sense just frankly from a perception perspective um to err on that side so um but the short of is we can have that conversation whenever and I think the best place to memorialize it would be the bylaws I will say this from the conference we are unique

099in our approach to conflict of interest I went through a training session on it that is done by the MSU Extension Course and when I described what we did both the instructor and everyone in the room was like you didn't need to do that that that's not necessary like why are you all doing that if you just tell the public it'll be okay and I was like thank you commissioner silver maybe just a little thing on drive-throughs and this could come up during tc1 since they're been banned in tc1 that may be a map in terms of that process would help us understand where the overlay of what's remaining for special exception use so that we could evaluate if drive-throughs it's almost all commercial districts yeah yeah but not d1d2 either not D1 not tc1

100but all the C districts yeah so that might be a way to mid point evaluate that's all thanks commissioner dish I wanted to just ask a point of clarification or actually two points of clarification and one is just following up on what commissioner weitz just asked so I understand the thick green line um but I want to understand what counts for you as the comprehensive planning process being finished and I think that commissioner Weiss just asked this but I just want to make sure that I understood so there's there's initiation of comprehensive planning to adoption by the council and then there's a further stage of working implementing the plan by developing UDC taxed amendments and for you the comprehensive planning process would be finished when all of the implementation is done or no because other

101things could run concurrently with that I don't know I'm sorry from my view the comprehensive plan is finished when the city council adopts it as the land use policy of the community that then tells me and used the Planning Commission that these are the changes that the community will be pursuing that the that is the time when it makes sense to start figuring out the resourcing of those changes whether they're map changes or UDC text amendments or other items and so the there will be a lot of there'll be a lot of work as part of the comprehensive planning thinking about what those steps look like but I want to be clear that I know it's frustrating but the adoption of the comprehensive plan changes nothing but it also tells us that these are the

102goals and the metrics and the steps that we as a community have endorsed and directs then you as the commission us a staff to go forth and do that until that decision is made um the commission is it we have plans now then those decisions are bound by are Guided by the plans that are in place until that new plan is adopted yes and the the actually the point that I was trying to be clear about was at what point do we get to peel off that thick green line and start working on some of the things that you put down there would it be concurrently with implementation of the comprehensive plan or do we have to wait until we finish all the map amendments and text amendments below the dark green below the dark

103green line the comp plan ice anticipate will provide us additional Direction on those things I think those things as well as other things are going to form our list that's but yeah that's not for me decide that's for the us to go through the process of identifying exploring ideating and ultimately prioritizing these are the things that we want to do and these are like right we might decide on zoning you know Brett that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard that cannot be in there I hope not I think it's a really good idea but I think the planning process is going to hit on these topics and they are going that planning process is going to shape this list it's probably going to be a bigger list and it's probably going to add some detail

104as to the steps on how we're going to approach some of these understood so it so if all goes well and the comprehensive planning process is done sometime oh I can't do math but uh anyway add two to where we are 20 24. then that all the things that are now under the thick Green Line Get we get to reapproach them through whatever lens yeah okay great and um I I understand that the timing of a of a working session on the tc1 corridors might make it cold but I hope it won't be both cold and dark um which means that it might not be in our regular meeting time commissioner Mills thanks for laying this out again I appreciate these mid-year check-ins in part so that we don't have to wait till the end

105of the year to say holy cow guys like we've done a lot like and and by we I mean I feel like staff puts it on us because it does come through us but this is really like I want to say thank you this I we are taking so many more things off the list these days and I like it takes a village or a city and I like really so so Kudos um and I'm glad that we're revisiting this now I uh in terms of 23 like yeah let's do it all like that sounds amazing um and some things I think are smaller rather than bigger although they may turn out to be the big crazy things that we don't anticipate but let's do it and I mean just given how many things we've

106checked off I think that that's great to this point about about the thick green line and maybe a friendly amendment to this in case it is towards the 18-month end of that window before the comprehensive plan is fully adopted I might suggest that the mixed-use neighborhoods and the parking maximums are both things that are in the moving towards Vision zero documents which were adopted through the comprehensive plan process and which all of the input that is part of the comprehensive plan the big now new comprehensive plan process that we're undertaking like I know we'll learn things but in terms of a goal that's already been adopted in the city those are two things that are in our Tome of documents now and so I might make a friendly suggestion and you can shoot meet daggers

107with your eyes that if we finish everything on the 2023 list in our twiddling our thumbs because um we don't have a fully adopted Mass uh comprehensive plan document yet that those are two things that I think that we will have learned through the engagement process that maybe we could that we've already identified as things we want to do in our existing tone of documents and so could we potentially start those concurrently rather than waiting for the full adoption if yeah that's a question um it's your I mean I totally agree these are recommendations in our current in our current I still think those are um big conversations um the sentence established parking maximum was across the city is not easy to accomplish I think it's going to be a really challenging to find the

108right levels I think it is um there are fewer Community examples out there than eliminating parking minimums um uh so um but yeah I I I don't disagree with that I would and maybe that's just what we do we sort of put it as 2024 above the line um but I I I don't want to lose sight of um work I don't know exactly what that process looks like but you are all going to have a lot of work ahead of you for this comprehensive planning process and so um I in short I don't have an objection to it the more that gets above that I just want to be honest I am getting less confident that we will be able to get it all done um you have you I appreciate that but you

109guys have done hard work it's hard to make these decisions at times you um I really value the feedback and the shaping that you bring to it so I hope you feel as accomplished as I do um so yeah I mean we can do that I I would I would just be honest that um I don't know what that I don't yet know of the load of that dark green line but I know it's going to be big and so um if we get there I I don't have any hesitation to come to you and say I'm just not going to be able to get to it until X Y or Z so I don't I don't have a big objection to it being aspirational um but you have me on video saying we will

110do our best yeah well and also why I would just bring that up now because I don't think we need to change we've got we've got stuff to work on for the next year I would just say like maybe we'll exceed all of our own high expectations and if we do like I think that there are things like this is maybe for everybody else like we're not going to not use our work sessions that's a double negative but right like we will use our work sessions there's things that we can work on that we know we'll be teeing up big conversations that we the the planning process will have done a lot of the engagement work but there's a lot like figuring out what the models are and what that number is is gonna take

111some time and so and so this is why if there is time we know that this is something that we want to do not waiting until you know for for a different line I just think I want I hope that I can plant that seed now so that when we have this conversation next year and we say but we're going to want to move things up above the line yeah okay thank you commissioner Abrams um I agree with that commissioner Mills the last thing you were saying is kind of what I was going to say which is like for the things we know that are very complex and time consuming might it make sense to begin some of the due diligence and research and Preparatory work before the city the final City Council vote um

112so I know that those things are kind of time time permitting but I would maybe support pulling those two things above the green line just as a statement of value and intention even if we it's aspirational and we have to adjust later um so I would I would support that if other people were interested in making that change commissioner Sylvie um we adopt this again at fiscal year right like July like there's at least one more checkpoint which should be during Comfort the process correct you adapt in the work program yes you can we we have to adopt a minimum once a year but it can happen multiple times it doesn't have to happen at a specific time yep um I'm just thinking I mean like the driveways it's one of those things that not

113everybody's privy to and like this conversation being part of the community engagement process that this conversation and its next adoption become part of that Community engagement um so that it's with the facilitator so that maybe we can unpack some of these project issues that we're seeing at the table with projects that might be different than what the community is seeing for prioritization so they can understand our process for prioritization at the same time that they're trying to lay out their priorities and it might just be a really good checkpoint at the six ten month Mark or something of this process to say this is where we're at the progress we've made and you know are there priorities coming to the top um as we finish the end of it so I mean I I'm fine

114with kind of leaving it as is I understand the amount of you know work that's going to be ahead but actually rolling this process into comprehensive planning instead of rolling more of this ahead of I actually want to flip and bring this into it instead of get ahead of ourselves um for that fact so I don't know if that's actually just a conversation with the consultant one that's once they come on that our role being available um as part of the process so because we're we're gonna do stuff like this is a lot so I'm good at this just to take a unasked answer and step back um uh commissioner gabrandel had asked for sort of an overview of some of the ordinance changes that have taken place and um it was a great opportunity

115for me to reflect on how important the UDC has been to being able to do this since 2018 when the UDC was adopted the quantity of ordinance amendments has really been remarkable and there's been a lot you know of the varying scales and and impacts and um I for sure have my critiques of the UDC um but um these changes in our old uh 10 chapters and pyramidal Zoning where C3 is everything in C2 and C2 is everything in C1 would have been nightmarish if not impossible and so just to say that the hard work of you and your predecessors um I I think to your point of we're going to get stuff done you you've shown that and the city council has shown it there's been a lot of evolution and I think really

116Improvement of our of our code over that time um first I will just third the idea of moving up mixed-use neighborhoods and parking maximums at least is aspirational above the dark green line but I have a question about tc1 the the three things under there the Washington Plymouth and then the setback amendments are you I know you said taking like the Washington Plymouth Corridor rezoning together are you also anticipating that uh right-of-way Amendment would be sort of studied I think it would be great to explore that in the in applying any proposed change to those corridors it would have implications to the other areas as well but yeah I think if I think that would be a great time to do it okay which quarter you're thinking of walking both I don't know yet okay

117I have thoughts let me talk about that okay okay maybe both oh I was just gonna chime in when when um Mr Leonard was talking about UDC we should make sure to acknowledge if she is still watching us maybe she is not Leo like this was a labor of love for a decade I think like honestly this was like the thing even before I love even before I got on Planning Commission they were talking about it and like it's anyway no I and it's just a testament to our staff like and and the stick-to-itiveness perseverance power as my first grader says thank you thank you for that um and I couldn't agree more uh commissioner or not commissioner uh Mr Leo um you know we were going through these changes and kind of Midstream we

118said you know this is also an opportunity to maybe improve the usability of our code and I don't know if you remember when we were doing the flood play overlays on and some of the previous storm water changes there was a lot of questions about which type of measure is going to apply and I really I do appreciate how particularly Alexis is willing to jump in and say yeah we could just make these changes but are there other changes that we could make this better and I appreciate it I'll share that with her despite the fact that she's probably already enjoying a cocktail commissioner white I just went to Fourth um commissioner Abrams um recommendation which was building off of commissioner Mills recommendation to move the mixed-use neighborhoods and the parking maximums above the line

119um so I you know I wanted to say that early but I'm glad someone else went ahead so I could follow and say I agree so if emotion came to change the work plan there would be a friendly second from this side of the room um and I only say that because of the time table um the thing that I'm hearing as I talk to community folks is we can't do stuff until the comprehensive plan is done but then they don't understand that that doesn't as you said tonight it doesn't do anything it's all of the text amendments that have to come afterwards and that process is going to be a lot longer than I think well one I'll speak for myself then I initially realized when I myself looked at oh great we get

120to do these things in the in the comp plan but then through my questions learning no we actually then have to Target a section of the UDC we have to propose a text Amendment we have to have a public hearing we have to forward that to council Council has to have a first reading and a public hearing they have to have a second reading and a public hearing and then it will be implemented and on a good schedule of moving all those things along that could be four to six weeks for every single text amendment that we want to go 46 months right but I just don't think that it has been my experience in talking with community members that they don't fully grasp that that's what's in place and while we work on that

121our existing UDC is what is in place and will drive whatever development happens so as as much as I concur that we are a we've been moving very quickly and making changes I would love to do as much as we can simultaneously and especially for things that have already gone through a community engagement process so we have things that even came out of the a20 plan like increasing buy right housing or housing diversity throughout our community that already went through a community engagement process but it's not yet reflected in the UDC and I just think there are opportunities for us to do some of this work concurrently as opposed to sequentially so I I just want to um really really really strongly agree with Senator uh Commissioners Mills and um Abrams I've just promoted you

122all uh and and and they're Rec and their recommendation plus if you put all these things in July of 2023 my term is done and I you know want to be able to work on some of these things with you because I've enjoyed that uh I would um I would like the ability to just reflect and present you a refined work program so if you are comfortable I would like to bring that to a future meeting sounds good which means you don't have to take any action we don't that's right no motion no vote alrighty so then we are on to item 9C which would be pretty quick here on the 2022 City Planning Commission meeting calendar which only has a couple more meetings in it so yeah we um had moved the next meeting

123to this November 2nd and we didn't need to so this change would move it back to the normal November 1st okay we don't need to vote on this do we do we do need to vote okay we would like to make motions that's why you're here to vote pushed her so many second invite Mr Mills discussion no vote everybody hi there we go okay on to item 9d 22 1741 the comprehensive plan evaluation appointment um I um have uh I will be putting together an evaluation committee with a lot of staff from different departments across the city I have asked Commissioners uh survey and Hammerschmidt as the two longest tenured planning commissions that are also on the comprehensive plan uh subcommittee to participate in that they have both said that they are willing but I

124would like your endorsement that they right you are appointing them um to that um just some bureaucratic boring um this will be a contract that is ultimately presented to the city council the city council will ultimately execute the contract um then that's where the Planning Commission and Mia's staff and my team are going to work with that consultant to kick off the engagement process and the development of the planning process so um it is a an administrative function to select the consultant we do we're doing it through an RFP as I said I would like to have some members of the Planning Commission be involved in that so that um I am not the only one um trying to convince all of you that we pick the right group alrighty shall I read the motion

125it's just a motion to approve commissioner sylvain Hammerschmidt to serve on the RFP evaluation committee moved by commissioner Mills seconded by commissioner dish any discussion no let's have our roll call vote all in favor say aye it passes okay ah I think we are on to our final public comment okay we'll call an individuals uh nobody's present sure as the commission if you want to call in press star nine if you listing by phone or use the raised hand feature for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-663-41226 City staff will select callers at a razor hand using the last three digits of their phone number you'll hear an automated not announcement that the host is allowing you to speak for either um please state your name and address at the beginning of your

126comments do we have anybody who would like to address the Planning Commission just give it a moment we have a couple attendees if you are on phone plus star nine to raise your hand or use the raise hand feature if you are logged in see none okay you're on to item 11 which is commission proposed business but um we had two Commissioners uh commissioner White's reference and I believe commissioner Mills although technically wearing a different hat recently attended the Michigan Association of planning conference um I guess I just wanted to offer the commission if you are interested in hearing any we heard at least one notable uh conversation if there's um if those Commissioners are interested in Sharing anything either this evening or in the future to the Commissioners or if the Commissioners are interested

127in um that kind of report I heard Mia Gail said that you're supposed to give a three to four hour presentation after attending that's what I heard [Laughter] um so it doesn't have to be tonight but I guess I would I would just like to um offer the commission does support um some Commissioners attending um if you attendees um um found anything particularly noteworthy that you'd like to share I'd be happy to distribute materials or if you'd like to um for another upcoming meeting take whatever minimal or hours of time that you're interested in Sharing um what you took away from it that might be of interest to other commissioners I with the commission's acquiescence I'll just follow up with those Commissioners maybe uh for a future agenda and if I can talk them into

128doing so I'll put on the agenda and if they do not want to it will go quietly Into the Night and I would just add that I I really appreciated your comment tonight commissioner white about just things working it into our discussion I really appreciated that so if there's times where you feel like whatever you learn there applies then I'd I'd be really curious to know more about what you all have learned I will say this uh upon my registration I met the Michigan chapter president of the association and we had well she had a 20-minute conversation with me about her concerns around our planning activity especially in her neighborhood so much so that her deputy director who's also my neighbor called to make sure I was okay at the end of that conversation so

129I was I I'm a pastor I'm used to people stopping me and yelling at me and telling me what I should do so it fit that narrative um but it I think the one thing that I will reflect just very briefly and I'm happy to do more and um later but it trying to find ways for us to engage the community and the community where we can do it in the construct of the open meetings and accessibility and all of that I think would be helpful to people because I think they've there's a lot of concern that they don't know how to share their concerns with this body and I think it's different than what I often hear which is you're not listening to us which really means you're not doing what I'm asking you

130to do I don't hear it in that direction I just hear it in do you realize that I see my neighborhood changing and in this case it's not changing in a good way because she was talking about bigfooting so people buying small properties combining them and putting bigger houses on them and um she just talked about the neighborhood character and how and and this was a if I will if I could this is a good way of talking about the neighborhood character um because it was accessible to lots of different immigrant groups who have moved through the city over time but because of these small Lots they're easily targetable to be combined and then bigfooted which means those lots will never come back the other way and um I thought that that was like I

131felt like it was a worthwhile conversation and and I was like oh here are some things to do and you know she had stepped down offer her some box and took a breath and sort of checked my face and was like oh I'm really sorry I did that and I was like it's okay like you care about your community and you want to have neighbors and you want neighbors to be able to afford to be with you so I think all of that just struck me as what is permissible for us as planning the Commissioners to do in our neighborhoods to both educate and include people not in it the formal process because I just feel like sometimes that is its own barrier but just to say hey we understand this all of you at

132this table do something related to development in our community or trying to improve our community but I don't know what the mechanisms are for us to have these human conversations with people and then how it translates at the table so I found that to be really really striking plus um Ann Arbor is is really unique as I sat in the room with a lot of other planning jurisdictions like all of the things that they're talking about are things that we're not considering and I I actually felt quite lonely I was like we need like Kalamazoo and Traverse City and Grand Rapids and some of these other communities to sit in um because I was like oh we want to build as much housing as possible and I got a lot of dirty looks and so

133it was interesting so I'd love to share some of those um those Reflections and I would really love to have the conversation about the conflict of interest because we went through our exercise um that was really interesting about how to determine it and getting the different perspectives and I would just love for us to I would love to have a little bit more guidance and freedom on how to have conversations especially with developers that don't sort of break those conflict rules because developers have insights and wisdom that I feel like I need as I sit at the table and review site plans and try to implement what I what we've been told the community wants to do but it feels like sometimes to have those conversations because those folks might come before planning would create

134a conflict of interest and so can we have a mechanism for that disclosure so that it meets the the statute and the law but allows us to get the wisdom and the Insight from the developers so yeah um I'll follow if if you're willing I'd love to follow up with you about that session and I think scheduling that for a conversation would be better arranged with having some of those questions in advance and um like I said I'd bring the attorney's office into that as well and I'd love to have some of those questions like some scenarios that we could talk through about the frustrations that you've had or other Commissioners have had and barriers or Clarity that would be helpful to them so commissioner dish I wanted to say that I really I really

135resonate with what you're saying about having a different kind of conversation somehow I don't know what form that could take in communities not not in this room because this room has a predictable uh quality to it and um I don't know what forms such conversations could take but it does sound something like a an informal Forum or whatever and uh it and it may not be it may be something to explore but not necessarily expect planning staff to orchestrate but possibly Outreach stuff possibly I don't know maybe that yeah go right ahead yes please what are your just trade-offs if we go and walk the corridor we don't have the benefit of being on CTN or on YouTube similarly if we were like as we're you're talking I'm thinking like how great would it be

136to hold the Planning Commission meeting somewhere else like in in areas of the city maybe but um there are accessibility costs to that as well so you're not going to have the infrastructure here to be able to broadcast it and and the like so um so I would I guess I would start with like if we were going to experiment with that I think it's probably with sort of working sessions and the like which I want to acknowledge is not achieving that goal because part of when the decision is made that's where the formality I think can be at times constraining or um intimidating frankly to some people um and probably the people who people who are less intimidated by it we probably don't need to try as hard to reach because by that nature

137we are more accessible to them so um so I just as we're thinking about it I think you know it's it's complex but yeah I I think it's great exploration and not I want to be clear the comp plan just like we were talking about that's it's not going to change our regulatory framework but this is uh where we we are going to be putting resources and time into having those Community conversations so as those ideas come this is a great process bringing them to um that's one of the things I want to bring the consultant and then people who are doing this in a community-wide basis on a regular basis this is what we did here this is what we did there this didn't really work so well I want that expertise along with

138the resources and connections all of you and we have in the community so that we can be as successful as possible so um whenever those ideas come send them to me let's think about them because even if we can't hold the Planning Commission meeting there we can find ways to incorporate those ideas into the comprehensive planning process does it mean a decision-making meeting I really meant something more in the nature of a Forum or just a you know talk to your planning commissioner kind of thing yeah commissioner Mills there was actually I had to miss the session that was a debate over the appropriate role for public hearings like are they actually a good way to get public comment and um I I heard it was fantastic and left people leaving saying we that we

139still have a role for you know public hearings are important but they shouldn't be the only thing the only way that we're engaging so that like a couple of the people that I talked to um had that I would say one of the keynote speakers is a new law professor here that talked about exclusionary housing that's his Jam I am he was talking housing I talk Renewables we're having lunch in a couple weeks to compare notes um but I think like that that's a resource and it was a really it was a good talk and things that we've talked about before at this body about you know that some policies that seem great may actually backfire um and there was a the lunch keynote was talking about Urban forest and it made me actually think

140of some of our discussion about our corridors that don't have trees right now um and kind of what that means there was it was it was the the speech was full of the slides were all pictures and I I just thought it was um really great the rest of the time I went to law sessions I think that we're in pretty good shape but like sign ordinance sign ordinance what happens with trees on private property and how to make sure that your you can actually enforce tree ordinances um I mean yeah lots of talk about how not to get yourself sued in a rural community when you're facing a contentious land use decision um solar like this happened like that's yeah um but yeah I think it was I mean it's a great resource and

141to the conversation about engaging Ann Arbor residents that I subsequently had a conversation for the very same individual and and brought up to the point like calling us all full circle um that we have been making we have recently made changes to r2a because that they're um and this person who lives in an archway District did not know about that that that that was a non-conforming lot previously and to the point of like we're trying we're here yeah like and and these are the things that um that we need to uh address and it's not just a simple you know I mean that there's lots of layers to it and and it's on a radar and UDC allows us to address that much more efficiently than it had ever been and also that we've taken

142care of parking minimums I talked to a couple people about that who were shocked like who didn't know that we had done that um and how could we possibly have Pat like gotten that through and and it was really a testament to like the engagement and I said we quickly followed we had a comprehensive plan process this was noted and we quickly followed up with it so anyway um yeah we are lonely in some ways on the spot thank you very much done now we don't have to have a special session because I I will forget about it in a month too but yeah I while I have the while this is still on I just also want to say thank you to those who participated in the follow-up meeting about the village of Ann

143Arbor um yes I really appreciated hearing that update and um and like that knowing that it actually happened was great also knowing kind of what some of those what the key barrier is also really important and I think this was like following up with the utility of something that came out of I I took on from our conversation at the ordinance revisions committee when we're talking about electrification and similarly didn't get a great response so I'm um trying to work through kind of what you know if there's other opportunities to engage on that but anyway so thanks for everyone who participated in that anything else I think we are on a dormant everybody up for everybody up for it