Ann Arbor Planning Commission Meeting 5/4/2022

001welcome to the wednesday may 4th 2022 meeting of the anne over planning commission while we are conducting this meeting in person we will provide virtual opportunities to address the commission during public hearings please be patient if there are technical issues mr leonard will you call the role yes commissioner mills yes absent commissioner gibb randall commissioner sovay here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here commissioner dish present commissioner lee here commissioner clark here commissioner white here we have a quorum all righty may i have a motion to approve the agenda okay moved by commissioner lee seconded by commissioner is there a discussion on the motion discussion all those in favor please say aye opposed the motion carries all righty a little closer thank you um we are on to number four which is minutes of the previous

002meeting um uh may i have a motion to approve the minutes of april 19 2022 okay uh let's see commissioner lee seconded by commissioner weich um any discussion of the minutes no all right all those in favor of the motion please say aye any opposed okay so the motion carries we are on to number four which uh reports to the planning commission council number dish do you have any report council hasn't met yet okay uh mr leonard um no report i'm still uh we have a potential pud pre-submission for next week's working session but it's not confirmed yet so i will certainly update the commission on the content of that working session probably on friday of this week okay any other commissioners or officers or liaisons have anything to report from any of the other

003committees or anything all right commissioner orc met on tc1 i refused myself but there was a continued discussion for tc1 rezoning at stadium boulevard can i ask the nature of their recusal yeah happy too uh i am a property stakeholder uh in the currently planned rezoning territory all right thanks for that okay so we are on to item six which is audience participation uh this is an opportunity for persons to speak up for three minutes about an issue that is not listed on the public hearing of this agenda please note that the planning commission will be holding dedicated public hearings on two one two miller avenue site plan and the comprehensive plan review if you wish to address the planning commission on other matters now is an appropriate time to speak on this matter press

004star 9 if listening by phone or use the raised hand feature of viewing into the web link for phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting id 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly for any speaker please state your name and an address at the beginning of your comments we don't have anybody present in the room is there anybody virtually waiting yes okay caller with the phone number ending with five three four you have up to

005three minutes to address the planning commission good evening this is tom stalbert calling from lowertown in ann arbor later on tonight we're going to talk about the comprehensive plan as i was thinking about some items relating to that i was thinking about the past and actually was quite reflective today about uh my friend ethel potts who passed on and how was it five years ago maybe uh her and i were at the planning commission talking about the upcoming morningside level retail project and saying how if the application that was being presented to you was to be contemplated that it required a revision says a comprehensive plan because it was not conformed with the comprehensive plan uh and i think we were getting naive at the time it should have been done um in that case

006uh it would have been a very simple matter of uh looking at the comprehensive plan seeing how that site called for the mixed-use urban college and as planning staff itself said that this uh the proposal did not comply with that and there was a desire by the developer to have essentially an entirely residential development with unnecessary commercial use uh given that was multiple parcels one partial recorder but it could have been zoned to something that would have use and the rest would have been zoned to a residential category so why didn't a revision to that part of the comprehensive plan occur as we requested well if it had occurred you would find out what the citizens the community envisioned for that site for that area in the case of that area of extreme service village

007probably would have been confirmed as what the community did want uh you look at what you want for tc1 and that's consistent with that that makes sense uh and then the development could not have proceeded which has rejected has the community said no well our vision has changed uh we're fine with an entirely residential project that's called that location uh and then we if we had then changed the comprehensive plan to match that new vision uh then the project would have had to go for a residential zoning and the most tense residential zoning let's say what was approved for valhalla 30 more seconds wasn't as much as they wanted so in essence we didn't do the city did not partake in revising the comprehensive plan to the site as it should have because the developer

008would not have like either outcome but that's not how we operate so we're looking forward to changing uh revise our comprehensive plan which we need to do we need to look at the past and learn from the past and learn why we've gotten things so wrong over the past few years with regards to the comprehensive plan that's one of multiple errors that's occurred with regards to the comprehensive plan in the past few years i think we need some training it's time to get that from an outsider three minutes thank you anybody else no other speakers are indicating a desire to address the commission okay uh let's see we are on to item seven then uh mr leonard are there any uh new scheduled public hearings yes we have two new public hearings scheduled for the

009may 17 22 uh planning commission meeting one is 330 detroit street sight plan for planning commission approval this is two existing buildings are proposed to be removed and accommodated a five-story building to include 14 residential units 23 on-site parking spaces eight 1 850 square feet of ground floor retail space and pedestrian vehicular access will be from north fifth avenue and detroit street the zoning is d2 a lot size of 879 square feet 0.23 acres the site is located at 303 303 12 and 314 detroit street the second new public hearing is proposed amendments to the ann arbor city code chapter 55 unified development code to sections 5.16.1a residential occupancy section 5.16.2 a and b adult day care center child care center 5.16.3 j outdoor recreation 5.16.3 p transit corridor development 5.16.4 b non-profit corporations 5.16.6

010c drive through facilities 5.16.6 g group daycare home and section 5.19 parking standards are being considered to eliminate minimum parking requirements for all uses eliminate or consolidate some parking use categories eliminate the option for off-site bicycle parking change the weight limit for vehicles parked and driveways and simplify the requirements for electrical vehicle parking and change reformat include the tc1 district in the special parking district regulations all righty we are on to item 8a which is unfinished business and we have the um the site plan on 212 miller avenue that we discussed last time for planning commission approval this is the proposed construction of an eight unit multi-family residential building on this point two acre parcel zoned d2 downtown interface this item was postponed from the previous meeting and we have up to 10 minutes for

011a petitioner presentation hi i'm kathy keineth with maken engineering and we did go back at the last planning commission meeting you asked us to look at providing better barrier-free access to the site so we went back through that process and we've met with the city we looked at doing some various configurations of ramps and we determined that the lower level graduates would be severely impacted by placing a ramp um and you know as we discussed at the last meeting there were also some issues with the city sidewalks and existing grades there not being very free compliant so we came up with a solution of providing a lift on the outside and if i can i will share my screen with you um can you see that not yet no there we go so originally um

012i also back up the step here this is the 309 ashley project which is under construction the work along the right of what has already been completed there is an ada compliance sidewalk along here there's a door back here where my cursor is pointing and this existing sidewalk that was installed with the 309 ashley project is a barrier-free um ada compliant sidewalk so what we're proposing to do is to use this area and grant a pedestrian access between the two properties which would allow people to use the existing sidewalk come up this sidewalk that's on the 309 ashley property and then access a proposed lift that we are looking to put in this area when originally we had the steps here we moved the steps over to the east and we think that that's the

013best solution to provide the barrier-free access from the public right-of-way up to this patio area where the entrances and the courtyard are to the 212 miller project and i will leave it at that unless tom has anything he would like to add uh no thank you kathy that pretty much sums up about what we looked at over the last two weeks thank you mr khan would you like to give a staff presentation yes um what i wanted to add to kathy's presentation is that um we did put together a meeting amongst a number of city staff members as well as the petitioner um the architect and the civil engineer and um city staff all supported the proposed lift as a apparently viable solution to creating a safer uh non-motorized access to the to the east

014side of the site um so staff at this point um continues to recommend approval of the cycling project okay thank you so now we are on to the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the proposed 212 miller site plan if you wish to address the planning commission on this item press star 9 if listening by phone or use the raised hand feature of viewing through the web link for phone access call eight seven seven eight five three five two four seven and enter meeting id nine seven seven six six three four one two two six city staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link

015you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly for any speaker please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments first is anyone present that would like to address the planning commission on this topic don't see anybody in the room mr leonard any speakers that are waiting in the queue online no speakers have indicated a desire to address the commission on this item okay i will close the public hearing then and read the proposed motion the anniversary planning commission hereby approves the 212 miller site plan inclusive a layout amendment stated 4 22 22 as it complies with all applicable local state and federal ordinances standards

016and regulations and it will not cause a public or private nuisance moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner lee discussion of the proposed motions nobody commissioner lee uh just a quick clarification question um does the latest site plan actually show this change or is it changed okay gosh i was looking through um i'm guessing the renderings didn't get updated but uh but the change is representative cool all right just wanted to make sure perfect thank you yeah and i would just add on to that you'll recall in order to keep the shorter time frame we did suggest that they provide this one page layout which they've that's been attached to the packet the subsequent full site plans will be amended to reflect that with this revised layout but i think that's what you're referring to

017yep that's perfect thank you for the clarification looks good to me okay i just would like to say thank you team development team for accommodating our request and coming up with a creative solution so we appreciate that you um that you went through that exercise okay are we ready for a vote all righty um mr leonard okay commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammersmith yes commissioner dish yes yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark commissioner weich yes commissioner gibrandal yes commissioner sovay yes the site plan is approved thank you very much for your time we are on to 9a regular business uh this is for the discussion of the comprehensive plan review the anniversary planning commission and planning development and services unit review the city comprehensive plan on a regular basis the planning commission is seeking comments about

018the city's comprehensive plan including elements that should be studied for possible change or new elements that should be added to the plan presentation by staff that would be me um i am going to just run through a very brief uh overview if i can remember how this whole zoom thing works okay as commissioner gibrandal indicated this is kicking off a look at the city's comprehensive plan just a reminder of the framework about why we plan we plan for a couple of reasons the michigan planning enabling act first of all that is the state legislation that directs us and allows us to plan it's an act to codify the laws regarding and to provide for city planning city our local ordinance uh the chapter eight uh directs not only the establishment of a planning commission but

019also that the planning commission shall prepare a master plan for the orderly physical development of the municipality and the bylaws the commission shall the planning commission's bylaws shall advise the city council in the preparation and continuance of the comprehensive plan being a guide for the future development of the city but more importantly the comprehensive plan is the guide decide designed to help us create a vision of what we want to be how do we want the city to change how do we want it to evolve what is our vision for what the city looks like on the long-term horizon there are a couple of terms that are referenced already in this presentation and that you'll see over time first is master plan and comprehensive plan the planning commission has already started this process but as

020you'll note from the previous slide state legislation refers to master plan many of our documents are entitled master plan however the term master may evoke slavery it may invoke paternalism it may invoke a finality that is that suggests that things are set in stone and not to evolve so for those reasons the planning commission and staff are moving towards an evolution of using the term comprehensive plan rather than master plan there's no specific reason that the term master plan has to be used as a term despite its reference in legislation but um i will confess that over 20 plus years of doing this work it's still um at times finding myself tripping up and switching my terminology but um that's the aspiration that i'd like to that i'd like us to consider moving forward what

021is the city's plan the city's plan in our case is actually eight documents some communities have a single document we don't we have eight documents these documents collectively comprise our comprehensive plan for the city these eight documents collectively set the policy guidance that the planning commission city council and our community utilized to understand what our vision is for the city and that's a lot of pages as a reminder you've seen this before sometimes we talk about this in the context of development review right now we're talking about this in the context of the left side of this this graph this graphic the comprehensive planning process is the widest opportunity for community engagement it's the widest opportunity to set the topic areas and aspirations and exploration of how we want our community to evolve this is

022the sort of casting the widest net to figure out how we can identify and prioritize goals so that in the future we can set those strategies and implement those goals so that the subsequent development that we see is meeting the goals that we desire as a community review uh of the comprehensive plan happens through a couple uh from a couple of of points um since 2008 and the adoption of the michigan planning enabling act there is an expectation that communities will review the plan every at least every five years and then in your bylaws it actually establishes a higher standard to review the plan on a annual basis so this is an opportunity to be very um big thinking broadly thinking um i think you've seen some of the feedback already from communication that's been

023received in the packet but this is an opportunity to really we're not presenting changes to the plan at this point but rather an opportunity for the public to come to use the planning commission and say the plan should be changed or it shouldn't be changed what should it address are there ideas for what the process should look like are there ideas of what the product should look like how how would it be usable how would it be functional are there particular areas of emphasis how far ahead should we be looking 20 30 50 years and in fact anything um again this is the opportunity for really the broadest opportunity for feedback and and brainstorming as the city considers um if to undertake this work and if and so in which direction this isn't the only

024opportunity for that feedback planning at a2gov.org is always available to the community to provide feedback at any time as we move forward thank you okay now we're going to have a public hearing on this topic this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the city's comprehensive plan if you wish to address the planning commission on this item press star 9 if listening by phone or use the raised hand feature of viewing through the web link for phone access call three four one 877-853-5247-6634 two six city staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or if i name or by name if available for those accessing through the web link you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing

025you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we may hear you clearly for any speaker please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments first is anyone present i don't see anybody present any speakers that uh wish to address us virtually at this time mr leonard not yet but i'd suggest we give it a minute while we're waiting we we got quite a few um emails and things like that too so i hope people have had a chance to be able to look at those uh mr stolberg you have three minutes to address the planning commission hello this is tom stahlberg again calling from lowertown in ann arbor i really encourage you to engage an outside consultant to work on

026revising our comprehensive plans and engage an outside consultant to work on training both planning commission and city council in understanding better the relationship between the comprehensive plan and zoning and our udc a lot of people on the planning commission right now are very capable professionals can do a good job scrutinizing his night plan and this has been observed by multiple people i've talked to but over the past five years not just the current body but the body overall over the past few years is not addressing a brazonings and master i'm sorry comprehensive plan issues in a manner that uh us with experience in the business are accustomed to seeing uh as one land use attorney an expert in this area said they're not even having the right conversation and what that relates to is in

027order to comply with the michigan zoning enabling act of michigan planning enabling act and our own udc there are certain criteria we have to follow in certain process we have to follow uh and we have not been doing that when we make evaluations uh free zonings uh we are not always following the criteria that's in our udc when we're taking other actions we're not following the process that's outlined in those other enabling acts we're not permitted to have zoning if we don't comply with the michigan zoning enabling act and we've been out of compliance frequently over the past few years so i'm very much in favor of revising the comprehensive plan i'm very much in favor of city council planning commission and planning staff being better educated and better aware of the proper process for

028proper loss and i hope we can get that education from outside the city with by hiring an expert as part of this process thank you very much any other speakers caller with the phone number ending with four six four you have three minutes to address the planning commission um hi this is uh linda brauer can you hear me yes we can okay so you know frankly i am i'm mystified by this agenda item because it's raised um in terms of you know we're supposed to look at the map at the comprehensive land use plan every year and you know you want the community to weigh in if you think it's something we need to do now and if so which little bits and pieces of what we think should be changed i i don't understand

029this because state enabling legislation says for certain to fulfill certain requirements we have to completely review and update our master plan i think it's every five years we are well beyond that so i would think that as the city planning leaders you guys would be trying to put some heat under council to get that complete review rebooted as i recall before the pandemic there was a commission or a committee appointed to to seek out a consultant to shepherd through that process now i know that how would lazarus stop that process and then the i don't know why and then the pandemic happened so it got put on the back burner it's time to put it on the front burner not just a look at here and there let's do an annual cursory review we need

030a complete comprehensive review of the comprehensive land use plan and i want to point out that at the um april 18th city council meeting our city administrator milton dehoney stated that our comprehensive land use plan is badly out of date and needs to be updated that's a quote and he talked about how state law requires this to happen and he proposed allocating seven hundred thousand dollars seven hundred thousand dollars for the process of re review public engagement and revision so i'm hoping expecting that budget item will be approved at the may 16th council meeting and you should be now getting ready to prepare to shepherd that process through and during the same presentation mr dahony called out three specific areas for future focus overall one downtown upgrades including public restrooms and i as your city

031planning commission i would ask that you look at where we can have public restrooms downtown and number two equity inclusion which should be part of your process as well as every other city process and he the third focus he mentioned was engagement and he said it needs to be robust and inclusive of all sectors of the community and so that kind of public engagement not has to be part of the comprehensive review of the comprehensive land use plan not just looking at particular stakeholders quote unquote but at broad sectors of the community just as our new city administrator mr dehoni has asked for and i'm really expecting the city planning commission and mr leonard as a planning staff head to really put some heat on this because it's high time it's way overdue we need

032to look at everything as as the community thank you very much thank you any other speakers alex lowe you have three minutes to address the planning commission alex lowe you can address the planning commission alex lowe there you go now we can hear you sorry about that all right sorry about that um hi this is alex lowe uh calling from fernwood avenue i'm actually quite excited about about the new comprehensive planet options that that we have for it and i just thought i'd express what i'd like to see but first thing i'd like to see is more for uh focus on pedestrians and uh bus riders it um that that includes uh things like if you've got a large development under under proposal uh uh requiring cut throughs uh so that people can acc uh

033access uh busways and various leads goes really well with uh with the tcc one zoning uh related to uh to which i'd love to see more push from all parts of um of the city government to work towards more tc1 faster and i think i think it might be time to start to start considering in in certain areas of uh of the city's parking maximums um we we death desperately need more density in the in the city so that we can allow more people to uh to live in ann arbor and in some places what uh what we're seeing is just huge swaths of parking at outside of uh stores that even on black friday just never fill up beyond you know thirty percent maybe fifty percent so i'd i'd love to see uh to

034see some action taken on that thank you thank you no other speakers have indicated a desire to address the commission alrighty so there is no action proposed tonight but this is an opportunity for a planning commission to be able to provide feedback to staff on what to incorporate into future action on the comprehensive plan yeah and i can maybe just set the stage for that a little bit so you heard some of this during public comment the city administrator is proposing funds for to assist the city in some comprehensive plan update process that has not been adopted but it will be considered i think at the second may meeting of of the council accurately we went through an rfp as well back in 2019 i believe so from a staff perspective i just i want

035to tell you what sort of my envision is my vision is for moving forward um i do think it's time to sort of revisit that comprehensive uh plan update that was started in 2019 and got a bit sidetracked by the pandemic my vision would be to start working on a request for proposals in that regard i think much of the requests for proposals priorities that were established previously are still relevant a more concentrated focus on climate change a more concentrated focus on equity more concentrated focus on perhaps aging in place and now we have the benefit of some more community conversation about some of these items such as the a20 plan and and other community conversations so uh i envision um frankly sort of dusting off that rfp uh starting with where we are today

036with some updates having an initial conversation with the master plan subcommittee of this group to get it into what i hope is a pretty final format present it to the planning commission then for feedback and then it'll sort of go away from the planning commission as the hopefully the city the budget holds we can start working on that we i do envision engaging a consultant to help with this so we can start that process eventually hopefully successfully select a consultant and start the work of that process so that's what i envisioned from a process perspective either now or at the next meeting this would be an opportunity if there are big picture aspects of that rfp that you think would be really important that perhaps weren't addressed last time um if any of those big

037topic areas that i just mentioned seem to be glaring blind spots for something that you want to see specifically addressed provide that to me now or even if you individually provide it to me as correspondence before the next meeting or even after that i can take that and start considering it in the context of that rfp so um i'll stop there again this is an opportunity for the public to sort of provide their feedback to you if you have thoughts now things that you would really want to make sure that are emphasizing that rfp i can take them now or in the future commissioner dish i'm not really sure how to word this but i think it's distinct from equity and i think that it has to do with updating the comprehensive master plan with

038a view to understanding uh sorry uh well with a view to reparation and i i hesitate to use that word because it can be just a red flag word but i think more than equity is at stake here it's really a we want to have a consciousness about how land use contributed to wealth creation in the past for a limited group of folks and what can be done to address the the built-in structural distribution of wealth through land use patterns and to as much as we can mitigate redress you know undo undo is hard we don't get to start from strat from scratch but clearly this is a you know it's a national conversation most of us are aware of it it's come up here on planning commission many times and i think of that

039as being distinct from equity because it has something more to do with with justice so anyway i kick that out there i think we've talked about this before so i just wanted to bring it back up commissioner hammerschmidt are we able to see that rfp at some point soon to be able to make comments yeah on it okay um i agree with what commissioner dish was saying um to the extent that we talk about equity and racial justice both i think that's really important um yeah i think it'd be good to see the rfp another thought i had was you know coming out coming out of covid public health is sort of another umbrella where we can you know that climate change impacts health um equity impacts health um what's the other thing oh aging

040in place um so that could be that's a frame that i know a lot of other cities las vegas just did they adopted a new comprehensive plan and like health sort of was a frame for that i think it'll just sort of that'll depend like what consultant we pick but um that could be something if that's something that we think would work as a frame maybe that gets worked into the rfp i don't know but yeah i kind of want to at some point would like to see the rfp that we used last time to be able to yeah i can share but um let me just give a maybe a quick high level overview of the content now a little bit more than what i had did before so the the original rfp um

041started with um a pro a conversation with the community about values i envisioned this to be a bit of a less so about what are what are our visions for being uh where we want to be but more as a um a set of filters that we could apply when we were facing a different a difficult discussion through the evolution of the comprehensive plan when we were facing something that there were maybe multiple viewpoints a set of values that we could go to and say how would it further these values to perhaps help us resolve conflicts in that process um the second piece was community engagement that it was going to be expansive and successful to make sure that we were getting to everyone it included even aspiring community members as part of that conversation

042instead of just community members and that and we've specifically emphasized community engagement as your proposal should reflect that as a primary proportion of cost and work because it's so foundational to the process we asked for we suggested consolidation right now we have eight plans um the original rfp set a target of a maximum of 100 pages i will tell you that in the even in the preliminary conversations that that was really appealing to some people and it was really scary to some people because we have thousands of pages of policy and i think that there's a fear of what gets lost in that but i think it doesn't have to be 100 pages but having uh having to read eight documents to establish what the community's vision is i think is also not ideal land

043use [Music] identify a future land use plan that addresses goals of the city including projected or desired population growth the original target was 2050 and beyond trying to perhaps think about less of a future land use map that is very referential to our current zoning pattern and more of a future land use map that might similar to those values provide a framework for how proposals could be evaluated i think that's a fundamental component of our community conversation do we want to preserve our existing land use pattern or do we want to find ways that it can evolve then we talked about focus areas aging in place perhaps updating our design guidelines that are used in our downtown districts we started having conversations about applying those elsewhere how does it interact with the university of michigan

044plan we will not be planning on university property but how are we thinking about their long-term evolution a very and then a very specific uh an effective implementation strategy for us to take those visions move forward um that's an addition those are so those are the things beyond the um the focus on equity and climate change that i had previously addressed so i'll share this as well but that's a more comprehensive picture of what was in the original rfp that's super helpful which brings up a couple of other questions for me um one of the things i was going to ask anyways that talked about the like consolidation so you showed the pictures of like the eight different plans so you know we just adopted a transportation plan the 820 plan how and then you

045should like the land use element so like what port are you seeing that this is an update to that are we trying to eliminate some of those other planes we're not going to eliminate a transportation plan that we just adopted so and there's like the pros plan for parks we're just kind of going to take those plans and incorporate them within this document so that you wouldn't have to read those others to get a general idea or how are you envisioning that i think it's a great question uh the some of them i think are well suited to consolidation i would say things like our natural features master plan our downtown plan our land use plan and the sustainability framework those are all city-wide gi city-wide or very fairly wide geographies that i think would

046be well suited for a single consolidation plans such as the transportation plan the tree line master plan and the pros plan the pros plan gets updated on a sort of a little bit tighter timeline i feel less strongly about those i i would say generally their four documents is still an awful lot but there might be some logic in keeping some of those so i don't i'm not i don't envision all of them being consolidated but i don't know that i would start off with that assumption it might be worth at least the exploration about how far could we go okay then the last thing i think um we talked about values they talked about focus areas and i feel like they could be one in the same so i i think we need to

047up like absolutely set focus areas initially but if it feel i'm assuming that the the consultant would sort of go through like you know we all sitting at this table are saying equity injustice has to be a focus area you know when we get out into the community when the consultant gets out into the community maybe they'll hear something vastly different i mean there's going to be some sort of like discussion if we say these are certain focus areas that we want and that's not what comes out in community conversations there will be adjustments i can't imagine that the ones that we've said would not be but you know i also don't want to be like premature and saying like before we even have community conversations like we've decided that these are the focus areas

048if that makes any sense don't think we're doing that but that's that that community engagement plan i think has to be sort of like designed to make sure that that input is all reciprocal yeah i mean i i think that's i i'm not worried about that ours for example our city council has set some policy directions you know that's for example climate carbon neutrality is something that this board struggles with on a project-by-project basis our legislative body has declared that as a goal and so including that as a focus area seems pretty comfortable to me justice and equity seems like a fairly comfortable component to put in there as a priority um perhaps things like you know i mean i like when you're when you're posing that question i think about aging in place we

049have an aging population like everybody else but a lot of the things that are good for aging in place are good for everybody across the community so maybe it doesn't need to be framed in that way so but i i also think that there's some logic in trying to be specific in what we're asking for so that we get the best partnership and assistance in getting there so i think to keep it too open to say let's wait till the community engagement process is resolved before we know what those focus areas are that might that's probably too late but i hear what you're saying we need to build in the ability to sort of reset and make sure that they are reflective of what we're hearing yeah i totally i totally agree with all that

050i think it's just you know i think there's this rhetoric that's like well why should i participate if they've already decided yeah yeah commissioner hybrid like i guess maybe that's this is just a very specific thought but like through the past few years we've learned about the possibility of engagement that may not have been in that wasn't in the rfe to that degree before and so making sure when we are talking about community engagement looking at access to technology access to multiple time scales but you know access virtually and in person and making sure there's like we just have more tools and access points so i think that's just something to like to reinforce which might be another way to engage i think how we discussed in the previous effort around this our current and

051aspiring communities um which i know is also like an interesting one but you know we've got that commuter segment of our population the student segment of population and so those are areas outside of you know the established population that have a huge impact and should have a say um and probably have a desire and can have pain points to that should be voiced and listened to um so those are at least a couple of my additional thoughts right now oh um we did talk maybe like six months ago about maybe doing a call or at least at this table like looking through every like is that part like prior to this process something that we're looking to do or like offer up to the consultant as like a first pass from our end yeah i

052mean anything i think we do in that regard would help that process um it is something that we've talked about it's something that i wish i would have gotten done already but any progress we make on that even if it's not complete i think helps set the stage if only sort of uh an audit about the goals and strategies of the previous documents and what is our assessment on those you know uh an example of one of those as you'll see in the work program is revisit premiums to encourage housing in the d1 and d2 districts so that occurred in 2009 that was a specific strategy it was accomplished five years ago i probably would have said chuck we don't need to do that but here we are now revisiting that it's still reflective of

053that same strategy so um but yes the shorter answer is i think that would be work that would be well done well time to be doing now as we're gearing up to a contractual relationship with a consultant say hey here's some homework all ready to set the stage for where we've been but you also got a lot of other stuff going on so is do you think that do you imagine that being with the full board part of this committee like subscribe to start with the master plan committee okay um and then for timeline i'm assuming that we're trying to get to a contract starting with a fiscal year or yeah if the funds are awarded they wouldn't be available until july so now seems like the right time to start sort of a rfp

054i don't know exactly when that procurement process will start if we'll start it actually in july but the time seems right to start getting organized so that once that hits we're either well underway or maybe even close to a selection process yeah yeah i don't know if like you don't want to actually announce rfp until the money's officially like opened up first it hasn't yet yeah until july so yeah i guess that's kind of the time you know like are we ready to sign from the rfp in july or are we ready to release the rfp for applications in july yeah we could probably release it before okay um but even starting now i anticipate that there'll be some time and we're going to want to provide some time to respondents to make sure that

055you know we're getting the information we want yeah um and i guess to that committee since we have a lot of commissioner turnout like and i don't know if we've addressed that role in this past year since it was kind of like a floating thing since we we didn't know how active it was going to be i just wanted like if anybody wanted to like join oh um in the interim right now that like isn't like officially designated to that committee yeah typically we do committee appointments in july but maybe it makes sense to bring it with the work program next meeting and since time's right that there's going to be work particularly done on this plan committee okay so yeah we would we would wait till july typically but since just get a head

056start on new committee appointments maybe or at least for this one okay that's it thank you anybody else go ahead commissioner abrams uh can you remind us who's on that committee i was afraid you were going to ask that and while you're pulling that up i also just um have a question about the timeline the process that you described sounds very lengthy and i'm wondering how we balance um taking our time and leaving enough time for the right amount of engagement and you know close careful thoughtfulness with a kind of urgency that i think we feel in the community feels to do this and i'm also thinking about 2030 and it being i don't know or maybe we could just talk about an estimate of the process you described and how long it might take

057it sounded to me like could easily take two two and a half years or something like that um and so then would we be would city council be adopting a new comprehensive plan in like 2026 or 2025 for things which were meant to impact our you know 2030 goals among other things so yeah um i i do think it's a multi-year effort sure i know i know i just wondered if we could just and i think realistically about how to about the timeline i don't mean to brush us but maybe just to have expectations um shared expectations i i think that part of that is probably part of that we're more successful in that probably by more accurately pinpointing the focus areas at the outset so as we're engaging with a consultant we're putting together

058that work program we have a better sense of what what we need to do and that gives us a better ability to probably stick with that time frame and be faithful to it i think to the extent we um leave more of that evolution um not content but even like sort of categories to we will decide that after phase one that probably increase increases the chances of more time for scale i think the last rfp was proposing about a a year and nine month process which i thought might have been optimistic so the current plan review committee is commissioners clark hammerschmidt lee and sovay thank you um is there uh what would be the standard practice in terms of um i'm trying to figure out how to say this so there was a consultant who

059had been engaged and that contract was terminated due to covid no it was never executed it was never executed yeah we uh we had um so as a reminder to new commissioners when we started this process in 2019 we actually formed a sort of an advisory committee each award nominated a resident from their ward as well as the mayor and then we had some city staff as well we went through that group did the review of proposals shortlisted them for interviews conducted the interviews and then came to a recommendation that was never exec that was never approved by city council so um is there any possibility of uh having that time and labor be part of this process or are we are starting from scratch required um i don't think we're starting from scratch because

060we have that rfp is a good foundation already i think that it does warrant going through the process again part of that is firms deciding what their capacity is timing wise and we are going to have some minor adjustments to that rfp we have the a20 plan now we didn't have that before previously we said climate change should be more front and center now we have some more specific recommendations i think one of the questions now is how do we want to pull that document into our land use framework so so the short of it is i don't think that there's much recycling that work but at the same time i don't know that we need to go through that same process again commissioner hammersmith do you mean the same process you mean with the

061community correct okay i was going to ask about so you're envisioning the the selection process is going to be comprised of staff i don't know yet um but um probably something different than it was before that was it was a really robust process we got a lot of feedback but one of the things that was interesting with that is because for whatever reason that construction we started having a lot of discussions about content and what might end up in the planning process versus sort of just getting to that process so i don't know you know again very very interesting conversations really compelling passionate conversations but it wasn't necessarily always the best path towards getting us into the work of actually turning the switch and starting to actually incorporate some of those ideas or test them

062so um so it'd probably be some combination i'm guessing of commissioners and staff yeah ultimately it's a city council awards the contract um but i haven't i i i don't have it sort of exactly mapped out yet but not the same process as last time i'm pretty i wouldn't recommend that that makes sense to me commissioner lee uh thank you um i kind of voicing everyone else's uh discussions i think it's important for us to clarify the deliverable and timeline of things just to be able to have a pretty broad understanding of you know what are expectations of timing as well as deliverable are we combining are we reducing are we enhancing some of these different plans i know each one of these have had incredible amounts of feedback inclusion research so um the thought

063of combining would be you know have to be a pretty rigorous process um my other thoughts i know there were some comments that came in about the land use plan um being a pretty critical one for us to tackle i agree with that also natural features just because i know we've come such a long way with storm water as well i've also been looking at other you know cities comprehensive plans best practices an infrastructure plan is i think something that we might want to also consider um as we move forward uh identifying and resolving conflicts that may exist between the different plans just given the kind of temporal nature of how long it's you know the distance between it i think will be kind of critical um but uh yeah overall the overarching point that

064i want to hopefully we can get is clarifying the deliverable and timeline of this of what we're looking to achieve so that we we're all talking kind of from the same viewpoint okay these are some of the hallmarks or i guess time frames that we need to hit so those are the two items deliverable timeline let's clarify those and then and obviously the the values piece is so obvi incredibly important transparency inclusivity social justice all of those things are going to be obviously key as we move forward and and the ability i love the comment about technology and how far we've come in the way that uh people provide comments so i think we have a opportunity to be more inclusive than ever but uh just uh wanted to bring up at least these points

065of resolve conflicts that exist within plans and let's clarify what are we do like what's the deliverable of like what's the composition of that comprehensive plan going to look like at the onset without compromising all of the underlying work that's been done to you know get us to where we are so just getting a clearer sense of that i think will help a lot of people to conceptualize what this process will look like thank you anybody else um i would just like to get a little bit more clarification i'm not on the committee i'm not asking to be on the committee for this but um i'm just wondering how you see the interface between the larger planning commission and the subcommittee is it that something that's going to sort of come up in a somewhat

066regular basis are working sessions or do you see them being pretty separate i'm just curious because i i would definitely like to be able to weigh in every once in a while but um i don't have the bandwidth for it either to be able to be on it so yeah i don't know um it could happen a lot of different ways initially i think that i would envision that the subcommittee would help as like orc does they help staff present a better product to the full commission so the committee wouldn't have any action they would they would be an extension of the staff in that case sort of playing that interloper role between what we put on paper and them saying i think the commission's going to be more responsive to this approach and so

067then that would come to the full commission i would envision at some point i think it would be great to have the planning commission say and take action to say yes this rfp represents our desire for how this process should look and the product that we want and the areas of focus i think that's important that's an important endorsement because you are the body that ultimately has to create this document and present it to the city council then the next phase of that would be determining how we want to involve the planning commission with uh selection the planning commission won't vote on that contract but i think we want to figure out how to involve the either the committee a few members in that process so that once that does go to city council similarly

068the planning commission has had a voice and saying yes this seems like the right partner for us to undertake this is the right scope these are the adjustments we would suggest so that's presented to city council and then if that is enacted then then it's probably the next phase is what's in that work plan what groups are we creating are we creating a steering committee are we creating many steering committee are we creating focus groups um the last plan had a little bit of both it had some sort of bi-disciplinary focus groups but then it also had some sort of steering committees that were sort of over top of those focus groups trying to tie some of those things together so um and that's one of the things that you know i think that a

069consultant can help bring us some expertise and how that has gone in other communities and that's that's one of the really great benefit besides horsepower is hey they're they're doing this planning process in multiple communities on a frequent basis where they got several going at a time they can bring that expertise and knowledge about how those community engagements were successful or not successful and how we can improve upon them that's helpful thank you um i guess one other thing i'd like to say too is the whole idea of aspiring people in ann arbor and i have teenagers and i just noticed that their views are really different than a lot of the things that we hear here for our public comment and um you know they're the future i would love it if my kids

070could afford to live here i don't know that they will be able to um but i think it would be interesting to engage like some people in our local high schools or things like that about like what they this is really i mean we're planning for the future these are the people that we hope can live here the people that grew up here that actually could have a chance to live here too so i'd like to think about that in a slightly broader way because i think they are very unlikely to show up to our typical meetings um and i think that they do have an important voice so i guess i would just add that in terms of how to think about engagement as well within this that um you know i think there

071are lots of places where where kids and students are corralled where we could actually get get their feedback and not ask them to show up to an evening meeting or something like that and i think that um uh there's a lot of things that they have a stake in with this so i'm sure they're at least watching mom on tv [Laughter] all right so um what i i just want to just sort of reflect back what i'm hearing um it sounds like the commission is of a similar mind as i am probably a good starting point as a similar rfp as we did before i'm going to make some adjustments based on some of the comments that we talked about um i would say um the next time that this full group might see it

072is after staff has gone through it and the sub the plan subcommittee has gone through it so i'm not going to commit to a time yet but i do want to get moving on it it's perfect timing with our bylaws now if that council budget holds um i do think that we're in good shape to make some progress if anything i would say that i'm a little worried about cost based on this budget item and what our last cost was um but um i still feel really fortunate that so far that um and i think the administrator as as was noted he's he's very committed to having this conversation to the extent we can so great okay thank you all right we are on to uh item 10a which is other business so um this

073is the 2022 city planning commission and staff work program recommendation uh and the recommendation is postponement so um mr leonard did you wanna yeah so as you'll recall from the memo so this is um a frequent flyer on your agendas both the last meeting this meeting and then it will be presented to the commission for hopeful adoption at the next meeting so after the public hearing we just held after this conversation about the plan um this is an opportunity for you to say i like this i don't like it i want to re we should re-prioritize things um since you've last since you last saw this i think i made the changes that were discussed let me just highlight them um i did and you i think you there was at least one communication on

074this i pulled out the next steps my milestones as part of this this is an annual work plan we can always put it back in if desired um um i added what i thought um and thanks to commissioner sylvain mills who um i sort of bounced some just just some drafts off of um there was a conversation about why are we doing some of these things what is the impetus for this where they reference in our planning documents so in the top stanza you're seeing more sort of regulatory frameworks and then in the bottom is our planning framework i put down just a very simplistic reference to where you would find the applicable language in those documents as it relates to those standards i did include the a20 plan on here um i also include

075applicant petitions things that the planning commission has proposed and things that staff have proposed in addition to the land use planning framework uh i moved parking maximums and added solar energy readiness to to this year um as was as was discussed another item that was discussed uh was mixed-use neighborhoods 20-minute neighborhoods providing other types of uses in perhaps residential neighborhoods to reduce trips that has been added to 2023 missing middle r4c and residential district infill has also been added to 2023 other than that you'll still see the tc1 by corridor by year you'll still see the laundry list of sort of things we might get to in the future again this is just another touch point hopefully it's getting closer to what's comfortable for the commission this 2022 is a little intimidating to me but

076just to be clear i'm happy to shoot for the moon and we'll see what we can get done any discussion commissioner sylvain thank you for adding that um if you want to look at it um with those references i like in terms of the work plan for 2022 and just the previous discussion um the transportation plan recommends parking maximums in transit corridors which we've done you will reconsider them that next meeting okay so i guess i like i i just want clarification on like uh in addition to that for for me i'll just kind of voice that i i do not see parking maximums as a priority to pressure the work plan instead of being thoughtful of the other agenda items when the parking maximum goals i feel like have been met um to the

077extent of being within those districts they're not recommended to be um applied to all districts at this point so i'll just say that like of of things and priorities that would be one that i would be happy to drop to 2023 if not just watch the market and like respond and have it be kind of a living thing so i i think like what you did was actually really uh really helpful to be able to like see and pinpoint exactly what the language said about parking maximums and decide at least for me that it isn't kind of a necessary effort at this time any other comments i would envision i buy the next meeting i don't know how much i will have but to the extent i have a better sense of time frame for

078the planning process i might reflect some of that in there but i uh as a caveat i don't envision that at half that time those timelines have to be in here i really envision this to be our this is the big thing that goes on the bulletin board there's a lot of work that happens with each one of these that we can talk about time frames and i'm happy to develop other products so um just over the coming weeks before that adoption if it's something that you feel is important to incorporate we can look at it but i really wanted to start with a um the list this and just keep us hopefully disciplined on these things the other challenging thing will be if things come up um if for some reason council asks us

079to look at something in the past we sort of put a placeholder for that there but that hasn't happened with the same frequency over the last year that it probably did the prior couple of years so i'm okay with it how it is mr white so looking at the work plan in particular the delta changes am i is my understanding correct that the comprehensive plan review process won't touch the udc that's correct so is in in terms of this lead of the changes in udc one of the things that i was hoping for was sort of some consolidations of overlaps in some of the zoning does this incorporate that or is it being kicked out separately as like the r4c at the bottom of 2023 and then into 2024 so the idea would be we

080would like take a meeting and everyone brings the thing they want to get rid of in the udc and then we we hash it out put it on a board and then we come to some consensus and then we vote things out of the udc or is your plan staffs going to bring recommendations to planning as alexis has already done and then we say yes or no to those types of things so it can happen either way how did if i could how are you imagining it in the work plan so right now in this work program i'm not imagining a lot of capacity for um adding new things so if you if like if if that is something that the planning commission is desirous to say that there might be things that are not

081reflected on this list that we would like that you'd like to tackle more quickly in that case i would suggest we define and name it and we add it to this year and then we move something else off maybe it's parking maximums maybe it's something else or move something back i guess i'm because i don't want to be out of line that is to say this is your first this is exactly the process you're not out of line it i understand that i'm not out of line in this part of the conversation but when i start directing staff work that's where i feel like it's out of line so if if if the idea was hey i've looked at the udc we can get rid of like 40 of these restrictions which would you know

082help us with light sizes and non-conforming lots and would allow for height restrictions to be removed and stuff like that i imagine that's going to generate some kind of staff work and then you're going to say okay we can either do these 40 things you just brought to us or we can do the things that are on the work plan that i've already created for you so what i'm asking is given that you're the person who brings the plan to us and then we give you feedback how did you imagine that going did you did you imagine that being a part of this year's work plan at all and so you just say no yeah okay it's not it's not part of this work plan but it could be like one of the things we

083do i know you're agreeable and i appreciate that but but i want to be clear you know it's the planning commission that's why this is here this it is for you to direct my work and so it is for you to tell me of these things which are the things that are most important to the planning commission and if um and and i would say like it depends if you want to eliminate if if that conversation is let's eliminate lot sizes and all dimensional requirements in all districts that's a big conversation sure um that i'd probably say like we probably need to move three or four of these things off at least to have that conversation um if we have that conversation that's more focused it might it might be one if that's but if

084that's a conversation i think that's my point is let's name it let's commit the resources to having that conversation to see um what that looks like or just put a placeholder on there just and even if we have to limit it even if that list is 30 and i say let's start with these five sure that's at least prioritizing that conversation in the context of all these other things that the commission has already talked about right so i think in my mind i was waiting for the invitation of the review of the udc four things we could just consolidate and it doesn't seem like that's on the horizon explicitly yeah it's being picked up in the r4c conversation it's being picked up in the missile missing middle it's being picked up in things that alexis

085identifies and brings to us but there's not a blanket conversation where we look at the udc and we say there's a lot in here that doesn't really need to be in here you know like i didn't know that in the udc is the restriction of unrelated people inside the living thing that was surprising to me because i just read about that in kansas and i was like i thought we got rid of that but no it's right there four unrelated people can't live together by statute and i'm like why is that in there i mean i know why but why is it still in there so that's the kind of thing and and there's no un unless we bring it through the um planning commission business at the end of the agenda then it's a

086surprise to everybody there is no real conversation to tack it on to something and that's what i'm i'm really asking is what's the process for us to have that level of conversation because we've identified hey this shouldn't be here but there's not a clear path for how are we going to talk about it what are the implications what does it mean for staff time and so then it just sits and then you just bring it up like i am now and everyone's looking and they're like yeah what are we going to talk about that okay did you have something yeah we had like unzoning i think was it was called right which was this kind of a little maybe brainstorming segment that it got a little lost is i'm assuming that's kind of what we're

087trying to get back to can you explain kind of where that win or like how that logic might fall into something yeah so a couple things it's not on here it was something that i threw out it um i guess i didn't hear a lot of momentum towards it i think part of it is also i think some of the things that commissioner white is talking about and unzoning there are aspects of that conversation that we could undertake today we could clear the deck and dedicate our next working session to let's just start what's everybody's wish list for the udc and then some of that i think would be sorted in the context of what do our plans support in that regard and what do our plans not support in that regard so i think

088some of that can happen through this plan process that we're talking about when we undertake that planning process what do we want that to say about our definition of family what we wanted to say about lot sizes across the city what we wanted to say about height so there's a lot of ways towards it and i would i think in a way the broader it gets and the more comprehensive across all of our land that's the right place for it that's not to say that we have that conversation and there might be some really more pointed narrow things that are clearly supported by the years of engagement that we've already commented that are reflected in our current planning documents even though we are we might suggest that yes it's time to update our plan it

089doesn't mean that we disregard the policy that we have on the books now so um part of that conversation is these three meetings what are you not seeing on here if if if getting rid of unrelated the definition of family is one of those things that's the kind of conversation that we can add to this work program um it doesn't have to happen in these meetings we can dedicate a time to it to explore that but that's part of my intention is sort of getting this to you in these iterations to say there's 10 things on here that i don't see that i would like to see that's up to the whole commission to agree that those things are important as opposed to just one commissioner it's not a list of everybody's wishes but this

090is absolutely the time to to do that and if and i can work to sort of put together that conversation if you feel like that hasn't been provided adequately i think the thing that i'm struggling with is the the land use through the comp through the comprehensive plan review overlaps but doesn't directly address so like the setbacks is in the udc it's not going to be in the land use but how we use the land is related to how we place structures on the lots and i just don't know where to get into that because where we get into it is when someone comes and says like jennifer hall did and said you know we're going to build this structure here and we see the setback and we're like why are you not maximizing this

091land and coming closer to the sidewalk because this doesn't need a 35 foot setback and so then it's it feels like it's incremental yeah whereas we had that conversation about that one lot and we're like well if we just change it by five feet we should be able to get more in and and you sort of looked at the plots and alexis weighed in and all of that and so it's just like i just don't know where to bring that so if you're saying let's dedicate a working session to unzoning then it would just be helpful to a know when we can do that b um figure out if there's some interface with staff so that i can ask the question before the meeting about like hey if i propose a change to setback from

09235 to what's that going to do across the city you know in terms of lots so that we don't have that argument not the argument but that discussion where you could say well darl let's look at these original plottings and how that all lays itself out so so that's all because i just don't want to feel like it's coming out of left field and you've got this work plan and you're like gosh we're getting close but we keep getting tripped up on these small places so i like your idea of let's have a unplanning working session where we all like pick five things in the udc we want to see go and we just bring them and like survive or just vote them out of the udc exactly because i just say i think there's

093some things about that i'm learning about our land use that restricts certain things and you know i even asked you the question about setback and it was like where is it and you're like it's at the property line and i'm like okay but here are three things tell me exactly where this becomes an issue and then we have all those non-conforming um units or you know uses throughout the city and so it's like how do we just sort of you know i think it was jane henry's comment tonight that just sort of said something about that to just say like how do we just skip it in the code and just say we're just going to accept this as a new non-conforming district as opposed to trying to do it incrementally so that's all and

094the only opportunity to have this conversation because of the open meetings act and how we can use email is here at the table and then our meeting is at 11 and everyone's like oh fun conversation but i would like to go to bed and i i just want to avoid that so um yeah so i vote not that it matters for a uh an unzoning you know sort of conversation and i'd love to hear what the other commissioners think about that go ahead commissioner abrams i really like that idea um i also think that we often have small small bites on our agenda like um cottage food industry update update or i'm drawing a blank but i think between us we could all remember kind of smaller items so i think in the work plan

095something like drive-throughs or i think there can like maybe we could have a working session to kind of generate a bunch of ideas but we don't have to take them all on at once and we could identify ones that are little nibbles or smaller bites and sometimes those small bites balloon and end up taking nine months but sometimes we are able to be quite efficient and do things within a couple of meetings um and adding 20 minutes to each meeting or something like that it doesn't have to be so maybe we could um try to tackle it that way like maybe there's a kind of i don't know what you call it in the work plan but there's a an allowance let's say that we hold for kind of smaller scale items and the work

096plan really outlines much bigger the kind of bigger things we know are going to take months months of work commissioner dish i like this idea of an unzoning conversation uh as often when there's a potluck or even a reverse potluck i'm a little daunted that my offering may not be very good because the idea of reading through the udc and figuring out what i want to strike that feels like more than a weekend's homework but it does seem to me that a number of things have come up so i know that during the discussion of adus two years ago that uh restriction on the number of unrelated people that could live in a place because we had to think about it in terms of the adu and the main house so that has come up

097and there seems to be an appetite to think about what purpose that is serving and what sorts of normative household forms it is enforcing um and so that would be something that i think we've already talked about it seems like there are probably other things like that that we that have come up before that we might want to visit in a systematic way and like you said commissioner white getting some staff feedback so that you know what looks ridiculous to us oh but think of this oh so and it's fine for that to happen at the session or or in notes beforehand the way the staff gives counsel staff responses so that we save embarrassment um we could you know we could do that kind of format but if if anyone else can think of

098ones that we have spoken about before and i don't know can we talk about setbacks generally i know that we have spoken about them with respect to particular zoning districts uh because we that's what we did with when we did when we just did the great r2a revision we specifically looked at um it wasn't setback but it was lot sizes right so yeah um i don't know if there are are there other things that have come up more or less repeatedly that are in the udc that we would want to come to in a structured way and really think if we want to tackle rather than keeping on butting up against them and in feeling you know vaguely annoyed or confused by what they are doing there i guess i would add one other thing

099too and that is like what makes sense to have does it make sense to have that discussion as part of our own discussion and or is it better as part of the whole comprehensive plan piece too so that that's they're i'm a little confused by that frankly about sort of how those things overlap um and so i don't know if you have any wisdom on that well i think i think commissioner weich was starting off with this the planning process at the conclusion about planning this planning process ideally from my lens it has there's three pages with tables at the end and it says year one the city should update its lot size requirements and it's setback requirements and it should look at uses in the r1 districts year two it should evaluate changes to

100its natural features ordinances in the following manner and it should consider consolidation of commercial districts for simplicity and it should revise short-term rentals in the follow to consider this impact um year four five and it get it lays out then that's the the plan as commissioner white asked doesn't change a single regulation in our udc it does result in a community vetted and bought in prioritization of those changes that we should undertake to the udc after adoption for the sake of realizing our vision i think commissioner weich is saying i don't want to wait till that there are changes that we should take concurrently to that process yes and those are those are the changes that you that we've identified here because they are currently reflected in our plans as we go through that process

101that is the conversation that we would have i would be frantically at this table trying to say i want to reduce the lot sizes in the r1b district i would be frantically trying to answer the question does our plan address that or not commissioner i guess like i support maybe i didn't say it when it was on the page loud enough before it fell off the page the unzoning um but i am kind of imagining a structure where through a working session brainstorm we discover things that might fall into the charlie delta category and then other things that get their own line item right like that there's there's two tiers of this work to be done and some things might be less impactful and be all single correct right um and so this feels like

102a bigger conversation than parking maximums but um like unzoning before parking maximums and then at least we get the first round of things out to figure out what needs to map out into this list and what then becomes maybe in the future list rolling into you know i guess whatever all the minor changes and so when it kind of comes up again in staff tasks they're like oh there's actually this pile down here um so i i would support that i'm not sure maybe that's for like the next meeting if you're starting to look at time look what an unzoning working session might be at least they kind of have dedicated discussion to it to build the framework and sort of make the decisions at that one to start doing the ordinance work just for

103a reference point over the last 10 years the city has on average adopted four udc amendments per year [Laughter] how many have we adopted so far in 2022 i don't know that yet i mean i just haven't done that data so um it's you've been increasing over the last five years we've averaged six amendments per year so just for a scale of a pretty good that's that 10 years is different planning commissions different councils different planning directors um yeah so i i um i really appreciate this part of the conversation because for me the disconnect is between the udc and the comprehensive play that we're going to create a document that plans the city to 2050 but it's not going to actually touch the codes at the at that process and i think that's the

104piece when i'm talking to people in the community that there's that disconnect of like oh how are we actually going to do the missing middle if we don't actually change the udc so we can say we want to build these sort of neighborhoods that are more walkable or more livable or where people can age in place but then it pushes the udc to have to change to reflect that and there's not a straight line or i shouldn't say it as declarative as that there doesn't seem to be a straight line all the way from the land use to how it's going to change in the udc it feels like it's going to happen but it happens in stages it happens incrementally it happens along this kind of path and as we've already identified there's some

105things that i think we've already noted like oh do we really need to have this and if we do need to have it it may inform the consultant's work around the comprehensive plan and so if if we can't adopt 15 revisions to the udc because that's unprecedented it would cause a lot of concern for folks we could cue that up to the consultant to say as you're building out our land use these are the changes we need to see reflected in the udc so that we can accomplish this vision of aging in place this vision of a walkable neighborhood and just the idea of having you know in our neighborhood in lawton there's all these roads but there's not enough sidewalks that get you out of the neighborhood so even if you want to get

106out of the neighborhood you have to walk all the way up to scio church before you can go and it's like where does that come into the land use map where we like cut through two people's yards and we created easement and we put a sidewalk there so that they could get out to get to main street so they can go to bushes without having to walk a half a mile to get out of the neighborhood and so that's the those are the kinds of things that i'm looking at as i bike around the city as i walk every day through the city to try to say like how do i get to my library from my house right and and how do i cut over and so forth so those are the the sort

107of unzoning uh things that i was sort of trying to tee up and um and i'm grateful that you're open to that i think my specific question would be let's say i have a list of things three right now should i send that to you and then let you feedback or does it go to the whole group because of open meetings i i just don't know what the protocol yes so um you can share with the whole commissioner you can share with me and i'm going to share with the whole commission okay great all right i'm not gonna so i'm not gonna but towards that end i won't any response i do to your questions is going to go to the whole commission right which is fine because that's what it has to happen but

108i can just send it directly to you okay thank you i appreciate this time to have this conversation just don't ask commissioner lee cause i never return his calls commissioner clark did i see your hand up did i see your hand up or no yeah it's sure of course yeah so this is kind of like i don't know what to call it infill sidewalk project because i heard about that from people in fox fire too that their understanding was that when fox fire was created there were cut-throughs programmed but they didn't never got made and it that is not small you know if you have to go all the way up to duvarin and then walk a while where there's no sidewalk and the traffic is going 65 and then cut in i mean that's

109crummy that's not walkable at all so that is a that is a dimension of walkability that that i don't think we've talked about a lot and i really like that go ahead commissioner clark i hope this says um okay time to mention this um sorry so something i didn't uh we kind of briefly mentioned about youth engagement in urban planning um a little bit step beyond that i just was curious if there was space on the agenda for um making more all-age-friendly cities and centering like children and families we're about to get a bunch of um affordable housing units and other developments that are assumed we're going to be bringing in families and children there's a lot of new materials and research on cities and how they can plan and zone to be more child

110friendly there's ways with like zoning with child care places like that looking at which areas of the city our in-home daycare is allowed but zoning what you know the size of the lots that would be required given the time right now with you know what a shortage we have in those things and that we're trying to make a city that's for all stages of life i just would be curious if there's any space that we could kind of squeeze in not only engaging youth that are older to do so which is a great idea but also um children and yeah so that's it yeah i think that's really that seems that's a better articulation of what i was talking about with aging in place um you know the original rfp actually recommended enrollment in a

111very specific program through the end of the bird through the aarp um called livable communities and it's really intended for aging in place and the provisions of aging in place for the elderly are really good for children and they're really good for everybody um so yeah i i think if nothing else it's a broadening of that definition and that focus area um i also like the idea though of of just being able to have a session where we can kind of throw spaghetti at the wall and get your reaction about like well that you know you may that that may be a little out there or something like that because um i think that it would be nice to have kind of a brainstorming session that felt a little bit more free um too to

112be able to just kind of see and help each other you know uh just gauge each other's uh reactions to some of these things too and just uh see where we land and then we may come out with one thing or we may come out with five things or something like that and i don't know that we need to vote or prioritize but we don't often get that opportunity and i've we haven't done it for a long time but like having that whole day workshop thing i feel i'm i've missed having that opportunity to be able to have that more kind of loose and open format and i get it that we're kind of stuck with the working session thing and that's fine but i would like to be able to bring some of that

113feeling in of being able to really kind of talk with each other too about um ideas and priorities and just like well what if this or what you know or it's just so that we can we're all seeing a lot of different things here and talking to a lot of people and experiencing a lot of things through our own professional networks and everything too and i just think it would be helpful to be able to have a session or two where we could really kind of pick each other's brains and i i totally get your need to be able to have these as tacklable items and maybe we'll come out with two that are tacklable items but it would be nice to have a format where we could just be a little bit more open

114with each other to be able to you know have a conversation yeah i think that i think that conversation might benefit your review of an rfp yeah and i was thinking the same thing that maybe uh maybe the retreat format is a good place to do this i'm just gonna jump in and add to like i know you can't probably like the the research behind alexis is really good at like explaining where the codes come from but like for unrelated persons it can be because you can have a dozen unrelated persons living together in a basement an unsafe condition sort of thing right so like worst case scenario and typically a historic moment tips the scales to requiring a code and you know i can't pull every precedent but it's helpful sometimes to situate why

115codes might be couched you know in health safety and welfare but have other sort of impacts to opportunities of living and things like that so like i think if we can also like set that conversation in that way so we can maybe as we i don't know if it's like a two-part then that we like raise the question of like why is this this feels and then we send you back with some homework to explain why it is so that we feel more comfortable with what's still on books that we might not want to pursue right we're like oh now that we actually know it's kind of purpose in in the udc we feel more comfortable with its reasoning yeah i am [Music] i'm sensitive to that i think my initial thought is i would

116bring a bunch of staff and i would try to provide that framework sort of in real time to the greatest extent we can at the same time i sometimes um as much as i wish i weren't this way sometimes i think me and bureaucracies can be sort of we can sort of gravitate towards it's always been this way because of x y or z and so i do wonder about whether there's just some value in really just finding the right line between trying to answer those questions but being clear taking a step back from advocating like for example the definition of family um has a very um impactful history across the whole state our definition of family to my understanding is sort of the court case that establishes a reasonable balance of being able to

117limit the number of people that can occupy a dwelling unit so that you might not get unsafe impacts i'm guessing part of it frankly came from student encroachment into neighborhoods as well without that there would be the provision to any home would then potentially could be occupied by a much higher um number of people because you know going from like a a four bedroom in an r4c versus a dedicated home so i'm guessing there was a lot of public policy discussions it makes me nervous to adjust that because i know it's been vetted and supported by the courts but that's an example where like i don't know if that's the right thing for that conversation just because of all that doesn't mean it's not worth revisiting so um so i appreciate that i don't know

118the answer i sort of feel like it's somewhere between us trying to provide some color commentary but still writing it down to see where we go with it yeah i totally agree like it's not to just like uh remove things from the list but also it might be more about defining the terminology instead of just removing the line item sort of thing when we understand the purpose behind it and uh actually the per there's like purpose and there's impact and those can be two different things and to have the conversation of what both of those are might steer us in a better direction of the way to change that policy so that's right like poking holes in it you know in the best and the worst case scenario i think is the best way to

119get to good policy and it's um from some of the research i did for the housing and human services advisory board you mentioned in 99 years we've gone from seven pages of regulations to like 340 pages of regulations so when you're talking about there's a moment in history or that's exactly what happens there's all these moments and over that time period whether it's marijuana facilities or short-term rentals or accessory structures or you name it there's these moments in time where we say how do we want to respond to this and that results in that drastic increase in regulations all coming from very good policy discussions and thoughtful discussions and debates at the time but collectively they can have a big weight on a on a site and times change too anybody else okay so we

120are at item 11 audience participation one more opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about any item of interest if you wish to address the planning commission at this time press star 9 if listening by phone or use the rain raised hand feature viewing through the web link phone access call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting id 977-6634-1226 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand using the last three digits of your phone number or by name if available for those accessing through the web link you will hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly for any speaker please state your name and address at the beginning

121of your comments nobody's present here is there anybody in line virtually there is kirk westfall you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi good evening a great discussion tonight i unfortunately missed part of it at the beginning but i really appreciated the conversation um i uh the first thing that kind of struck me about thinking about the future comprehensive land use plan and the rfp and so on which i hope um i hope some timetables can be can be put on because that's i think a super important process um made me wonder if uh folks that have the opportunity to look at the sustainability framework which is um one of the elements of the comprehensive plan it's it's uh it's a pretty short and readable document and i'm i'm curious to hear from

122folks um like how the format of that or sort of the broad values of that would differ from your ideal uh you know comprehensive plan at the you know at the as a finished product so i'd be curious to to hear any observations about that um what else struck me about the conversation is it sounds like um it might be helpful to have some clarity around what is and is not possible or advisable to do uh either you know before the comprehensive planning process takes place you know next year or whenever [Music] or at the end of that which is going to be in a couple of years my impression has always been that anything that touches like r1 or r4 um has been assumed that it's going to wait for that process i wish

123i wish i was wrong you know things like eliminating minimum lot sizes or reducing setbacks or allowing increased height and density and residential areas you know i would love for that to happen quickly but you know i i just in an effort to prevent any kind of wheel spinning with some of these work sessions um it would be good to get some clear guidance about what is and what isn't possible to my knowledge that you know the r2 adjustments that were made have already been called out in plans and that was sort of allowed from that standpoint um 30 more seconds with regard to the work plan i i just want to i i hope you all were able would be able to read my lengthy email today at some point but i really want

124to reinforce the the importance of parking maximums uh new studies have shown that parking maximums are three times more powerful than increasing transit service basically if people don't have places to park you attract non-drivers uh to live in your city and on page 82 of the 820 plan it calls for setting low parking maximums throughout the city not just uh not just in downtown or that's where thank you anybody else yes caller with a phone number ending with four six four you can address the planning commission for three minutes uh thank you this is linda burauer again i appreciated your talk about the comprehensive plan i'm very happy that you want to look over that previous rfp and see if it can be revised and updated and send it out quickly i i think that's

125wonderful 700 000 is not a small amount of money and hopefully council will pass that amount um for the process i do i don't understand it sounded like brett didn't think the i know that the previous committee that designed the rfp and was actually in the process of betting consultants um it sounded like mr leonard didn't think that was a very friendly process and i wonder why i mean it seems to me i think that committee was composed of staff and planning commissioners and one community representative from east ward and it seems to me that that was a really good way to do it and i would hope that you wouldn't just exclude neighborhood ward representatives when you resuscitate this committee i i think i heard brett recommend you keep it just to counsel um

126just to some segment of planning commissioners and staff that's not inclusion i mean we're you're always talking about equity and inclusion that's not inclusion so please rethink that and then i also want to say in terms of the actual process of designing the community input i really appreciated whoever was talking about getting teenagers involved i totally support that i totally support being very proactive and going out into different segments of the of the community like high schools i think we need to broaden the scope of the input to include all ages very important to include all income levels all neighborhoods go into low-income neighborhoods you know into community halls in those neighborhoods with the schools you know you just need to do broad outreach and then of course all races and ethnicities so we really

127need diverse input and i'm hoping you're going to go in that direction my only final point is it seems there's a quite a bit of confusion even among the planning commissioners and i know some of them are new about the relationship between the comprehensive plan and the udc now there there is a relationship and i think it needs to be made very clear and if mr leonard cannot make that clear to the commissioners maybe he can call in a professional to make make that relationship a little more clear for all the planning commissioners because it really is a key there's there's supposed to be a relationship and we need to make sure there is a relationship and not look at the two of two separate entities which it seems like are confused about thank you

128very much any other callers adam joskewicz you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi adam juskevich here from the fourth ward 1430 las vegas drive um i think it's a lot of good discussion um i just want to make sure um the the previous caller listed a bunch of different groups of people um i think it would be valuable to include input from renters in ann arbor because that's a pretty large portion of our residents in the city and i think we should make sure that they're included in any discussions that we have about land use thank you that is all okay any commission proposed business or is that what we've been discussing for the the last 45 minutes alrighty then i think we are moving on to item 13 which is adornment

129moved by commissioner dish second invite commissioner weich we are adjourned thank you commissioner gibrandal for your fine leadership