001i'll call us to order good evening and welcome to the tuesday december 7 2021 meeting of the ann arbor planning commission this meeting is being held electronically to protect public health and safety due to the covet 19 virus and to comply with orders issued by the governor the michigan department of health and human services and or the washtenaw county health department we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues to speak during public comment opportunities you'll be able to speak through the webinar link or by phone depending on your method of access to this meeting and the devices you have available to you both the phone number and the web link are available on the published agenda which is in the public notices section
002of the city website for phone access tonight if you are watching us and want to call in the dial-in number is 877-853-524 and then you enter meeting id 977 1226 this information is also available on the published agenda which i noted is on the city's website and it's on the broadcast of the meeting on ctn channel 19 and online at a2gov dot org slash watch ctn and you'd select the government channel item two is our roll call mr leonard could you please assist me with that i would be happy commissioner mills present in ann arbor commissioner gibb randall here in ann arbor commissioner sobe aaron ann arper commissioner abrams here in ann arbor commissioner hammerschmidt also here in ann arbor commissioner dish here in ann arbor commissioner lee here in ann arbor commissioner clark commissioner
003weich here in ann arbor ed you are our full quorum is at home and cozy and warm it's bitter out there tonight huh um all right number three is the approval of the agenda may i have a motion to approve the agenda moved by commissioner lee seconded by commissioner abrams any discussion of the motion all in favor please raise a hand or say yes i see all the hands the motion carries item four is minutes of the previous meeting may i have a motion to approve the minutes of two meetings um revisions to october 19 2021 and november 4th 2021 moved by commissioner hammerschmidt seconded by commissioner gibrandall are there any discussion of either of those minutes sets of minutes great all in favor of the motion please raise a hand or say yes that's
004all hands very good the motion carries um item five are all of the reports um [Music] commissioner council member dish do you have uh a report for us from last night i do and i might not be remembering everything but the big news is that the site review thresholds uh were passed on first reading so there will be a public hearing and probably um a fair amount of discussion at the second time but i think there was a really good discussion of this last night with a lot of understanding about what motivated us and how it will you know how we're facilitating um small and medium-sized projects and how really how we can trust the planning commission to work over these site plans as we do and get the benefits out of them for the
005community that we need and it doesn't need to go to council so it was a i thought that was a good discussion last night and not of direct interest but i'm sure of interest to all of you is that we did approve the community climate action millage it will be on the ballot in november and so um please vote please ask all your friends to vote and uh i'm not campaigning i'm offering public information sorry um and i can't remember if there was anything else of special interest to planning i can take it from there there was one other item the approval of 106 north forth the site plan for the um modest edition on the downtown development was approved as well um and then the last thing that i'll just for my report is
006in the working session for next week we have a pre-pud petition uh meeting with the planning commission for 415 west washington this is one of the sites that the city council has instructed the housing commission and city staff to pursue as potential redevelopment and affordable housing very good thank you do any other commissioner officers or committee liaisons have anything to report out commissioner gibrandal i'm from the dda partners i thought i might just give you a few updates on some of the different um downtown projects they have going on with roads especially as it relates to some of the things around uh bike lanes and things like that a division is nearly done um so that's exciting that we're going to have a protected bike lane there on uh along williams there's going to be
007there they're revising some things in there and you may have seen some barricades up and stuff like that so that's going to be um they're going to have a removable curb in part of it so that art fair can more seamlessly fit in with that state street is currently being redesigned and there's lots of meetings and public input going on with that so that's another thing that people can weigh in on and then miller and catherine are under redesign right now too um and i know again as we're thinking about transit and alternative ways um getting around town that those might be of interest to people as we you know have things come in and then the other thing is we got a a really nice long um uh presentation on the uh the transportation
008plan and the different scenarios that might come out of that um and you know obviously that relates a lot to kind of how we're thinking about things with uh a20 and with tc1 and things like that so um uh that's still in kind of probably towards the tail end of public input right now um but they uh there's a lot on their website if people want people want to know more um so um yeah that's that's i think pretty much it in terms of things that really directly thanks any others i'll report out that orc did meet two weeks ago last week was a fifth tuesday so we had the week off um and talked about uh the parking regulations mr leonard gave us a couple of different scenarios in terms of things that he
009that staff were thinking of um so that is moving incrementally forward um all right um um seeing no other hands or committee liaisons i'll move on then to item six which is audience participation this is an um next is an opportunity for public comment it's an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue that's not listed as a public hearing on this agenda so for tonight we'll be holding dedicated public hearings on three items the village of ann arbor annexation the capital improvements plan and the ann arbor chinese christian church and special exception use permit if you'd like to address planning commission on any other matter now is an appropriate time to speak if you've already dialed in you can press star 9 on your phone if you've joined us
010through the web link you can use the raised hand button which is located at the center bottom of your screen if you are watching us and need to dial in or want to dial in now you can call 877-853-5247 and then enter our meeting id which is six six three four one two two six mr leonard we'll call on those who have raised your hand again you do that by pressing star nine or using the raised hand button um and he'll call on you by name if you've joined through the web link or the last three digits of your telephone number if you join by phone you'll hear an automated announcement when it's um when it's your turn to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any background sound including television um so
011that we can hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments hopefully i gave enough time for the tv delay again star nine i don't see any indications of speakers all right then we will move on to item number seven and just letting people know there's an opportunity at the end of the meeting too to call in if you so desire um item seven are the public hearings for the next business meeting no new public hearings are scheduled for the december 21st planning commission meeting well hot dog we'll see if anything gets carried over but let's try to get through okay um uh item then we're on to regular business 8 a um is the village of ann arbor annexation for city council approval um as the development
012team comes in i will give the little blurb out on this this is a request to annex a number of parcels from ann arbor township into the city of ann arbor the total acreage is 65 acres um the agenda reference is rezoning but this recommendation won't be considered this evening it's the rezoning is to come with a future site plan so it sounds like we're just talking about annexation and we're talking about properties on pontiac trail and duvarin so um mr leonard is moving kinda the development team and planning staff in um our normal procedure is to have 10 minutes for the petitioner to make a presentation um and then mr khan can provide staff's presentation then we'll have the public hearing before our discussion uh tim will you be doing a visual presentation yes
013if i can share my screen that'd be great all right is there anybody else that needs to come in seeing everybody on your team yeah i believe so thank you all right so whenever you are ready to start uh we'll start the clock great thank you um so i'm tim lockren i'm the director of land acquisition for robertson brothers home robertson brothers homes uh nice to see you thank you for your time today uh we have some of our partners as well uh brett stuntz from sme and john woods from dtn management we also have atwell group is our engineer on the project first of all just want to thank you for your time i'm a fellow planning commissioner and i know that you do not get thinked often so i appreciate your time this
014evening if it's okay since i'm already into my 10 minutes i'm going to share my screen and my address for the record is 6905 telegraph road in bloomfield hills um so we're very excited to be here uh tonight um it's been a long road already um it's a large parcel of land um we're about 65 acres or so um and it is in technically um in the township today obviously so we're looking for an annexation um and then the rezone and site plan to follow so we're calling the the development the village of ann arbor if anybody's familiar um also probably know what is the brewer property it's also um there's also an assemblage of land with um the mann family the dufek family and the summers family the summers property is actually already in
015the city it is at uh basically the southeast corner of duvarn and pontiac trail just uh quickly on the project summary um and what we're really looking for here is more of a vision for a village concept hence the name village of ann arbor and i i'm happy to share some of these components again we're not looking for site plan tonight just the annexation but i think it's helpful um to to show you the project in an episode 67 gross acres um there is a landfill on the property which is why it's been sitting there for so long about nine acres or so we are not looking to do anything in that landfill area street if you go out there you wouldn't even know it's a landfill we're looking to keep that area natural and
016develop around that so it's about 56 net acres the master plan density um is designated for 7 to 10 units per acre we're proposing 564 total homes and that's a mix of for sale single family attached homes and townhomes and then also a highly amenitized apartment community which i'll go into a little bit of detail unit sizes you know it really does range quite a bit from 684 all the way up to 1850 square feet anywhere from one to three bedrooms we really wanted to to have a number of price points and different options um for uh home buyers so the village concept it really provides for multiple entry points and pricing this is what's really important to us we want to have a lot of different options for those that are in the um
017the new home market or the or the rental market we will have multiple open space areas this is very important to us so we'll have different pods within the village and those different pods will have open space areas and then they'll be all interconnected so this is something we've really concentrated on in addition to that we're going to have neighborhood connections from olson park to the north to leslie park to our east and we'll be providing vehicular access to leslie park whereas right now um there's only access through a private subdivision um duvarn on the park i think is the name of the subdivision um so this would open that up it would be private roads we would allow we would basically have a public access easement for anybody to access leslie park um and
018we would have the walking and biking trails we are proposing potentially if the environmental is permitted to have trails through the previous landfill area which again is a very well-treated amenity in our minds we believe it's an appropriate mix of land uses it's all residential but it really runs the gamut from high quality rental with smaller units to larger units and then smaller townhomes for sale townhomes larger townhomes and then what we call an attached single family feels like a single-family home they are attached um the use of the site it basically is a reclamation of as i mentioned the previous landfill property we're going to clean up a lot of that there's there's methane on the site that will be remediating um there there's just a lot that we're doing in regards to cleaning
019up the um the land which again there's a reason why so much land has been sitting there for so long so um we've tackled it we spent a couple of years by the way analyzing the site we're providing for family oriented plans um and then we'll also have the high quality owner occupied homes and amenitized apartment homes and um just a little shameless self promotion i'll get to this in a second here but robertson brothers homes um we've done a little bit in ann arbor it's been a while since we've been in the area um but you know i would put our reputation up against anyone um ask around you can see our projects around we do about uh we've got about 15 active sites right now that we're either delivering um in the middle
020of delivering or are closing out so we're very active and dtn um is as well um john woods is on any questions for dtn but they've they've been around for a very long time as well so you've got a good team here and i think what that's important because it shows um you've got a couple of developers here that are going to see the see this through and do what's right for the property and the community just quickly on experience i don't want to go too far into this but um we've been around a very long time uh robertson brothers has been around over 75 years we've built a lot of homes and again i think if you ask around i believe we have the best reputation in the market um we're we've got about
0211200 homes in our land acquisition pipeline so um you know we're we're going to be around for a while um and what we really like is to build um infill type of communities um where there is walkable there's there's it's it's something unique to the property um vibrant that's what we look for we do not build out in the cornfields like other home builders so this is right up our alley we're very excited about the site um our partners dtn we're partnering 50 50 on the project um they're privately held they've been around for a very long time as well 50 years [Music] they've got a lot of properties as well lansing grand rapids all over the state and looks like they've developed over 8 000 residential units so we reached out to them we
022think they're a very quality apartment partner for us just a little bit of site context i'm sorry if this is difficult to read but i wanted to show where we fit in so um if you see uh you can see m14 to the to the left which is west um our basically left or western boundary is pontiac trail the north south and then the east west the top is duvarn we do not have much connection to either of those streets most of our land is in the center as you can see but what i think really this points out is a we're really matching the density of the overall area some of those are blurred as you can see i've got an overlay on it but there there's quite a bit of density in this
023area um town homes and that and and such so we think we're fitting in from a density standpoint and you can also see from here you can see the connections to leslie park which is on the right of our site the east side of our site that'll be a new connection to the park whereas there was no there was no connection really other than going through that private subdivision there so we think these are really good amenities for the overall area not just our project and that's something we're uh we're very proud of so again that's the overall olsen park to the north i don't know if i mentioned that this is the site concept plan i apologize if it's a little blurry um essentially the larger units on the south those are the dtn
024rental units i believe there is about 320 of those units and that's really on the southern end of our site so that east-west connector that's a new road we'll be building from pontiac trail connecting to leslie park and then the north south spine that goes to the north of that goes out to duvarn um and everything essentially on the um north side of that is a for sale product ranging from smaller townhomes to larger townhomes to this attached single family and also what we call towns over flats which allows some ranch style units on the first floor which we think would be a really good um product for uh for this area um how much about a minute okay i'll read up um just quickly this is the uh example of some of the town
025homes this would be more on the western portion this is what we built on the old tiger stadium recently this is the towns over flat building on duvarn so there'd be a multiple buildings of that and townhomes over on the first floor would be ranches they'd have covered parking these would be the attached single family units about 1850 square feet three bedrooms it really feels like a single family home again for sale just pictures of of the quality we we do if you go to any of our robertson models i think you'd find that quality throughout and then dtn's product um again on the south side of the uh of a project very high quality very high-end um um nice amenities um the amenities that we're providing in the clubhouse in the pool those would
026be shared for everybody in our community so the for sale and the rental which i think is really um interesting and unique potential for our home buyers there are some pictures of what btn does and i think that is my last slide so any questions i am very happy to answer and i'll put it back on the state plan very good thank you very much thank you mr khan report for us and actually probably will stop sharing this screen if you'll if you will um we'll come back to it i'm sure yes mills um i i don't have a lot to add to the proposal it's a it's a site that is very interesting from a number of standpoints um it has some challenges that the petitioner is attempting to mitigate and address it's also
027located in an area with a substantial amount of parkland leslie park the very substantial leslie park is located immediately to the east olson park is located pretty much immediately to the north uh and the fox fire system of parks is also is also nearby um so we look forward to bringing this petition to you um hopefully um fairly soon um where you can um contemplate the proposed r for a zoning district as well as um is the proposed cyclone that's that's all i have all right um we can open them the public hearing um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed annexation if you wish to address the planning commission on this item and you've dialed in press star 9 on your phone if you've joined
028us through the web link you can use the raised hand button for phone access if you're watching us um our call-in number is 877-853-5247 and the meeting id is mr 977-6634-1226 we'll call on those who have raised their hand you do that again if you've called in by pressing star 9 if you've joined us through the web link through the raised hand button he'll call on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or by your name if you join through the web link you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any background sound including the television so that we can hear you clearly and please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments call it
029with the phone number ending with one three four you can uni there you go you have three minutes to address the planning commission thank you mr leonard and chair mills i'm ken garber 28 haverhill court ann arbor um i know this is an annexation not a site plan but the village is a huge project so it's not too early to bring up some design considerations as mr law firm did one is building electrification this is more a building issue than a planning or zoning issue but planning commission to its credit has addressed it in the past i assume mr lawford and his development team know by now that the city's 820 plan includes the following assumption quote all new residential and commercial buildings are designed and built to operate without the use of natural gas
030reducing the increased cost associated with retrofitting existing systems end quote we don't yet require this but recently approved large all-electric residential projects here with air source heat pumps include valhalla glen viridian 2111 packard and lockwood senior living those developers told us that electrification adds only an incremental additional cost if any to new construction and modern heat pumps are very efficient minimizing the difference in utility bills which is narrowing anyway as the price of natural gas rises making the village all electric will avoid major emissions let me quantify that in 2019 the average annual gas consumption per household in michigan was 103 million btus that's 100 000 cubic feet of gas or 1 000 therms at 13 kilograms co2 equivalent emissions per therm a conversion factor that takes into account upstream emissions that comes to 13
031metric tons co2 emissions per household per year just from burning gas multiply that by these 564 units and you get 7 300 metric tons co2 per year that would be a 1.7 addition 1.7 percent addition to the city's current total residential emissions at 7 300 tons every year for at least 75 years and co2 stays in the atmosphere for centuries another consideration is fiscal for the city to achieve carbon neutrality it will need to offset those emissions i don't like offsets but they're in the 80 plan the highest quality offsets are currently priced at 47 per metric ton co2 so this project with gas will cost taxpayers about 343 000 a year to offset and by 2035 it will need to be retrofitted anyway with heat bumps because that's the last year by which rich
032countries like ours must fully decarbonize in order to keep to 1.5 degrees of freedom based on ipcc carbon budgets the village stands out because it's so big but the same principle applies to all new projects the forced air gas furnace is a technology that no longer has any role in residential new construction not in a world where atmospheric co2 is at 420 parts per million and still rising fast thank you thank you call it with the phone number ending with five three four caller with the phone number writing with five three four you have three minutes to adjust the planning commission good evening this is tom stalberg calling from lowertown in ann arbor uh it's nice to see this property come in for annexation i'm going to talk about more than just the annexation because
033it's hard to just do that with this property it's nice to see that this project is meeting the existing comprehensive plan as some others have not recently something to consider in this area the area was planned for a certain level of density with the anticipation of not having traditional single-family homes and just a lot of two-car commuters driving into town and that relies a lot on transportation alternative forms of transportation and we haven't seen that addressed yet as we've seen other developments coming in and we know there's been a lot of new development in pontiac trail devon nixon corridor and we know aaata has made some presentations recently about what they could do for increased service uh that relies on substantial millage increases as well though so as you evaluate this project uh please contemplate
034how we can achieve the density that this was planned for with the transportation needs so we don't just have a lot of commuters getting into cars and driving in which was the whole purpose of planning this for a higher density and some of their designs do certainly meet that differentiation so i appreciate the developers variety of design that has an eye towards that uh while we're looking at this there's also r1e across the street and the polti development i believe that's the only built r1e project there was another one that was approved but that was never built uh and i think that when he went away with a consent judgment if i'm not mistaken um there's been calls before to evaluate rooney and see how it's working and not working i think this would be
035a good time to contemplate that do we want it on our books or not i don't believe this developer is proposing that but i'm not positive because this is just annexation at this point so overall this looks like a very good project that it's meeting the uh the plan the comprehensive language plan for the area and i hope to see all these issues at least talked about thank you thank you if anyone else would like to participate in the public hearing if you've dialed in you can press star 9 on your phone if you have joined us through the web link you can use the raised hand feature see no additional speakers all right very well then i will close the public hearing and read the motion the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends
036that the mayor and city council approve the annexation of 1680 duvarn road 2670 pontiac trail 2672 pontiac trail 2678 pontiac trail and 2682 pontiac trail moved by commissioner abram seconded by commissioner sovay discussion of the proposed motion anybody want to kick us off commissioner abrams thank you um i was hoping that either mr leonard or mr khan could review kind of um consideration for annexation so since we're not since this is not about the site plan or the zoning i think it would help me as a matter of process to clarify what things we should take into account when we're thinking about annexation thanks i'm happy to start off um commissioner abrams and then brett can jump in if you like um with regard to considerations i think one thing to consider is the agreement
037that we have with ann arbor township which was signed and i believe 1994 which spells out the ability for a private property owner to petition for annexation into the city of ann arbor in order to obtain city utilities like water and sanitary and that agreement says that the township will not contest um the annexation so um it is what is being proposed now is consistent with that agreement so i would think that that agreement would be one thing to uh one thing to consider another thing to consider would be the availability of water and sanitary which uh both of which are are available uh so i would say that those are the two things that that come into uh mind for me at this stage of the process which is uh just to review the
038annotation let me pause to see if brett had anything else he wanted to add now the only thing i would i would sort of add that is just a different way of framing i think what uh jeff has already stated is that in those agreements with the surrounding township including in this case ann arbor township um this area is part of our um planned utility service area so um in considering annexation of that property that is part of an ultimate geography that the city has counted on providing those services to the annexation obviously not only opens up the opportunity for those services to be provided to that but also brings that land into accessibility for all of the benefits that are available to properties within the city commissioner dish i realize that we're just considering
039the annexation and it seems a pretty straightforward case um i i really appreciate the design of this proposal and i appreciate the um the diversity of housing options if it isn't inappropriate i would like to carry a couple of things forward from the public meeting that happened on this i i can't remember if it was this summer or when it was in covid blurred time if that's not appropriate please tell me so i don't keep us here any later than we need to be if i'm quick okay okay i see from chairmills it's okay so i just wanted to say um following up on garber's comments that i that uh at the public meeting on this property we talked about how since it is a village concept since it is a pretty expansive development and
040a nicely dense development it would be great if you all would explore the options for electrification and in particular checking into whether geothermal is possible for you and cost effective for this site since you are servicing so many homes that might be a realistic way to approach it otherwise certainly electric appliances at a minimum hvac would be ideal heating would be ideal the other thing that i wanted to raise delighted to see that you're going to be providing this alternate entry to leslie park off of that will come off of pontiac that's going to take some pressure off that private association which is not happy with the traffic that it gets i can tell you um and i'd love it uh if you would uh be sure to consider to make both of those streets
041that you're putting in complete streets because this is an area where folks bike because there's so many parks and so we want to make sure that the streets that you're putting in not only have sidewalks but that they have biking amenities this is also a part of town which i live in that has incomplete or less generous than i would like bus service and so um a lot of folks really do bike up pontiac and in a town it's a really short and reasonable bike trip and so we'd want to make sure that your your village supports and encourages that option um and then the final thing which i'm not sure if oh whoops also please be sure to build um covered bike storage for the apartment portion of the property because you're going to
042have a lot of units there and i don't know what the garage situation will be for those units and also people don't like to carry their bicycles upstairs so um making sure that you have covered bike parking there would be really superb and then just finally um we are seeing such a traffic load on pontiac and there is no there is nothing to stop the traffic between us 23 and barton drive so though the speed limits decrease and people are supposed to slow down people actually whip through there at very fast speeds at a minimum i would love to see a four-way stop at the duvarin pontiac intersection which is your intersection in my wildest dreams i would love to see a a little roundabout but um i'm not sure obviously i'm not a traffic
043person so i'm not sure that that's feasible or warranted but um you know this will be the the third really kind of big development within a few blocks on up there on pontiac and so we really are seeing a lot more traffic and um i'm really hoping that we can do something to help control the speeds because the folks who live in arrowwood and then there's one other housing association immediately south of arrowwood on that same side of pontiac they can't get out of their driveway in the morning they can't get on the pontiac trail during the peak traffic times um because there's just such a flow of cars and a lot of the folks who live in the relatively expensive really nice homes that are right across the street right across pontiac from where
044you're developing they do drive they drive to the hospital they drive to the university so anything that we can do to take the load off of our neighbors in arrowwood would be really lovely by at least just providing a break in traffic other planning commissioners commissioner clark hey so thanks for bringing this part i agree it looks really um i live on pontiac trail directly on it right um down the street from this will be a new neighbor um i want a second at least sorry what commission commissioner dish said about um why try and provide alternative transport towards town it is really short bike rides down into town that's really straightforward it's just traffic speeds i've never um had a weird word directly on height trail i've never had it so bad that we
045can't back out of our driveway i have to say that's something i've not experienced but i can definitely say that there has been a massive increase in vehicle traffic so um i know it's kind of like a bigger picture thing but i agree with the need for there to be a better biking structure potentially a roundabout at jubaran um and anything like the shuttle buses i've seen from another development have been going up and down pontiac trails that seem to be pretty well utilized so i think there's a lot of room to explore there looking forward to seeing this progress other commissioner questions or comments commissioner hammerschmidt and then commissioner gibrandal thanks this should be quick um so i'm just trying to keep these things separate in my head the annexation and then the site
046plan so um the annexation so this is more of a i think a process question for staff so we approve the annexation something happens with the site plan god forbid because i think this looks like a great project it's still annexed into the city is that correct like nothing changes with that we're gonna bring it into the city and then whatever happens with the property in future dates happens with the property yeah what in just that's a good question it would become the city and we can't take any site plan action or zoning action on any property until it is part of the city in the event that it were annexed and something happened to the site plan um probably what at some point um then staff would come to the planning commission council with
047a recommendation for zoning um in an interim basis to memorialize a set of regulations that would be appropriate for this property so it's coming annexed without zoning it annexation is the first step um so this this typically you will see when this happens with single family properties for example we often present both the recommended zoning and the annexations to the planning commissions this time given the complexity of this and the time associated with that we have worked with this petitioner to consider the annexation first so that that could proceed to the city council to the state of michigan that because you can't take action on that site plan and zoning until such a time that that's complete so um so if this proposal would not to proceed but it is successfully annexed by the state
048of michigan moved from the township to the city we would then as staff come in and propose a zoning absent a site plan at that again just to apply regulations to this property uh for future consideration okay i think that's really helpful and this is probably in the staff report i apologize how long does it usually how long is the annexation process take like what are we looking at in terms of timeline um yeah sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's long jeff do you have a sense of beverage but that's correct on that it's hard for us to say um we get a sense that the office of the great seal um may review these in batches it's actually an engineer from mdot that that does the review to make sure that the um legal
049descriptions close and so it may be as is as fast as a month or two or it might be you know three to four months um so we typically like to get the annexation going so it doesn't hold up the whole process um but yeah it's hard to say typically one to four or five months all right we will just cross our fingers for speedier thanks commissioner gabriendel i know that there was a transportation study in the works for this area could staff let us know kind of where that is in the process and how that may or may not coincide with the development here in terms of um you know possible recommendations and things like that jeff you want to go ahead and address that i can start off yes there is a transportation
050study uh that started off with it being called the lower town transportation study that is looking at um from all the systems that are coming into the lower town area since there are a lot of uh major transportation um facilities coming into that area and it's looking um up the financial corridor to determine um you know what types of systems might make sense brad and i meet with a group of folks from our public services area um every um every quarter to to get an update on on where we stand we we were not we were not able to meet uh last quarter but we are meeting next week so we'll actually be able to have a more information next next week but um that's pretty much what i know in terms of where they
051are and i believe that they're going to be wrapping this up within the next few months brett did you have anything to add no that's my um i was actually just looking for the last update i received from our transportation department and i i can't find it but i that i i'm under the impression that they are close like early next year they were going to be presenting sort of recommendations and any conclusions publicly um i can follow up with the commission with a more sort of helpful and detailed analysis if that's what the schedule is anticipated and what the steps of rolling out that information is but in short that analysis i think is is coming to a close i think recommendations will be presented shortly um and if if not completed the traffic
052engineers will be reviewing this proposal will have the benefit of most of that work being completed as they consider the traffic any traffic mitigation impact would be necessary as part of this development that that would be really helpful i think because um as commissioner said i mean this this corridor has really just been uh i mean there's been a lot in a short period of time and the whole area that it dumps into is right near my work and it's it's just a it's a mess down in that area and so i would be very you know it it affects the immediate area but it also affects these these zones outside of it too and i i would really like to have the benefit of the recommendations from that i'm glad that it looks like
053it's possible to be able to get some of that information before the next iteration of that comes through because i would really be looking um to that study to understand what some of our possibilities are um for this um i would also like to just echo the desire to this is a this this is a lot of this is a lot of homes and um this is a real opportunity for us to be able to uh really make a difference in terms of sustainability and i would really like to see the developer um embrace that and uh because this is this is i think we need the housing i'm i'm very supportive of all of that but i would love to see you all um really rise to that challenge because i feel like we
054just have a huge opportunity here and um you know there's there's um you know there's there's just looking at the history of of this site you know this is pretty much big open farmland for a long time there's no like big old woods and things like that there as much as there have been on other parcels and so you have a lot of wide open and in terms of like solar access and things like that you really it would be great to really have you thinking about how to fine-tune things to be able to make your development set up to engage some of the practices that we are really encouraging people to consider and i know that we don't have the ultimate leverage to kind of make you do things but boy it's so much
055easier for us to be supportive if we see you um not dragging your feet on it but leaving with it and uh it's a real opportunity that i would love to see you be a leader on because i think that um combining that with some of the other amenities that you have would really i think that frankly i think the market here likes it so that's something for you to think about too is that it's not just what awesome planning commission what we're saying but it's it's a whole populist of people that are interested in this stuff and and i think that we're seeing that in some other developments around town that are engaging it and they are they are getting people to sign up for this and are who are interested in it and
056so i really see it as an opportunity for you to extend your market reach in some ways too in terms of who you might attract so um you know i'm sure because of the size of your organizations and things like that you are doing all kinds of market research and and you know do your do your research on kind of who ann harper is because it's not necessarily birmingham you know in terms of what people are interested in and i think that it's it's not just to have to but i think it's a want to in terms of what um what a lot of people here are interested in in terms of buying things so i think you have an opportunity there too to attract um you know a different kind of buyer it's close
057to town um you really can bike from here in a real way i do it along this area because my work and i think you have real opportunities there that make it like actually viable um that would really be exciting to see so thanks i it looks really interesting and good so please continue along that road and it would be great if you can consider some of the things that we're bringing up sure thanks we understand mr leonard i saw your if you want to jump in yeah thank you um because um the city's transportation engineer luke liu is awesomely responsive um the lower town traffic study report is in its uh review staff review phase we're anticipating uh a release of that in january or february of next year but what that means is
058all of the data that has been analyzed and the development this project will be fully benefited from the work that was done in that report that's not an if it will benefit from that so great um i see commissioners lined up i think it is helpful for the petitioner to hear um thoughts but i encourage us to be brief since we still have a full lineup and it is almost eight o'clock um so uh commissioner dishing commissioner super brief since you've already been spoke have already spoken and then commissioner weich yes super briefly i looked in my notes of course this hasn't been staff reviewed but at a briefing on the lower town traffic study they recommend uh a roundabout at duvarn and pontiac a light is warranted they say but a roundabout will do
059a better job of showing slowing people down so that was a briefing in september we don't know what staff will do with that commissioner watch go ahead i thought you were going to go to commissioner clark uh you're you're first on my list okay uh my question is just about the annexation um uh so going back to that if the petitioner still has their slides available could you show me on your um overview where the landfill is i don't know that that was um marked anywhere and if it was i'm sorry that i missed it um i'm seeing your cursor there to the upper right side is that right um it should be sharing my you see now yeah we can't yes so it is the area that says wooded open space with potential natural
060trail so this is around you can see my cursor over this about it's about eight to ten acres and then um for staff or mr leonard i was um just struck by commissioner schmidt's question around the annexation process so if we approve the annexation but the petitioner for some reason doesn't do the development and now the land is annexed in the city do we the city bear any responsibility for um any of the pollutants that may be present in the landfill to remediate that to clean that to address any of that um no the regulations around environmental conditions are actually statewide so the standards and measures by which they are evaluated are state standards they are not city standards in fact annexing the property into the city um not not that that avenue would be
061closed to ann arbor township but um the city is the member of the washington county brownfield redevelopment authority so it probably actually adds more tools should remediation be considered and that is a dialogue we are having with this petitioner about a potential brownfield plan to assist with that work that'll be considered ultimately by the city if they choose to pursue that option as well okay thank you commissioner clark just quick comment that um i just want to make sure it was like clear earlier when i say like with pontiac trail i think it's a corridor that's really well positioned for density uh the extra traffic on the road i don't think so much is like a problem of like having a new development all the new developments especially like was mentioned before this has been
062um land that really has been needing some abatement it's been kind of just sitting there for forever and i do think that the sustainability aspects of like all electric that would be kind of a nice like bonus and everything but i guess from my perspective i'm really excited to see this project move forward for one density and then it is just a straight shot down pontiac and that's kind of more of a city issue and that we can deliver these services pretty efficiently since this area is already that seems like a no-brainer to the annexation the annexation and yeah really looking forward to this one any other commissioners i'll chime in concurring with what others have said about sustainability features complete streets on the way to the park i have gotten lost on my way
063to try to figure out how to get to that park um uh so i think that that would be fantastic um also just to be very clear i'm excited um by the number of units here and i would encourage as many units as possible particularly if that helps your performa mean that you can reinvest that in sustainability in this area i mean this is what the this is what the comprehensive plan calls for um this is one of we keep on saying this but this really is one of the last few large properties in town where this will happen and so i hope that this becomes a village um i i i think that this is a great opportunity so please do not be at the low end of that band and please certainly do
064not undershoot the number of housing units that we can get in this particular area so thanks um any others all right mr leonard i think we're ready for a roll call then okay uh let's start with commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner mills yes commissioner wage yes commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner soviet yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes carries very good we'll look forward to seeing you when you come back for rezoning and site thank you we look forward to coming back soon thanks thank you all right next up is eight a or eight b sorry um this is the fiscal year 2023 to 2028 capital improvements plan or cip um as mr leonard moves folks in and out of the kind of discussion chamber um again the cip is
065comprised of updated financial data for fiscal year 2023 projects um that were already in the fiscal year 2022 to 2027 cip and there's changes to some project schedules and a few additions so the um this is a a city effective initiative and so we'll start with a presentation by ms goslin and then we'll have the public hearing all right thank you very much i'm going to be brief tonight um so the plan is covering fiscal years 23 to 28 however the focus tonight is on fiscal 23 primarily and 22 the current year as it affects 23. you all have had a copy of the draft in your packets it was also available the draft to the public in a couple of places both through the systems planning cip website and then of course through the
066attachments to the agenda for tonight's meeting and for your convenience and the publix we just used simple colors to help highlight where things had changed and we look at projects in the 2223 window where the schedule changed or the dollars needed change or both and then also a very small number of new projects would have been added we basically do not make changes to the outer years and this keeps us in alignment with the upcoming fiscal 23 capital budget that council will next consider uh in the early months of 20. next year 22. uh so just some very quick highlights um there were 206 projects active in 22 or 23 and we're adding 19 new projects four are getting eliminated and then some moved in and out of the window so the net number of
067active projects is 217 in this proposed plan so not much of a change in that regard dollar wise the original funding need in the current plan 423 specifically was approximately 111.4 million the total adjusted funding proposed for fiscal 23 is approximately 97.6 million so that's a decrease of about 13.8 million which amounts to about a 12 decrease and you know when i first crunch the number i'm like wow it seems like everything's going up and yet that number went down and certainly when you look at funding adjustments you're going to see a lot of individual project costs went up however there were four things that i highlighted for you and we'll just go through very briefly since this is a public hearing that had big dollar implications that affected this window the first thing was
068housing commission projects as you know with the passage of the local housing commission millage the city has a very ambitious plan for converting city-owned properties such as surface lots to become affordable housing projects however due to lots of things going on you know covered related things happening on state level the planning and design is being pushed back um a bit on three of the larger projects and that had the effect of taking some large construction spends out of 23. so that was probably this you know single biggest contributor to that decrease again the projects aren't proposed to change they're just not going to be ready to move to construction um and that was very significant the second thing is parking facilities of course we've now been through 2020 and 21 in which a lot of
069us are still telecommuting so revenues for parking facilities downtown have been down so if your money's down your expenditures need to go down also so the capital maintenance on the parking facilities this was not nearly as big a change as the housing commission but it did result in roughly a 2.5 million dollar decrease across all the facilities now bear in mind they're also not taking as much wear and tear because there aren't as many people in them so that will catch back up but that's one of the contributors to the decrease a third thing that i highlighted was the train station project when last seen was thinking it would start into final design 23 but it can't proceed without federal approval on the previous step which they refer to as nepa pe that has not
070yet been forthcoming so the 4.4 million we would have been spending on design and 23 has moved outward um i also mentioned in both the housing commission and the train station and the final one i'm going to talk about in a minute the funds that are moving out of 23 are not local funds in the first place so they are federal funds that aren't going to be spent so the actual effect locally is uh the project is affected but not direct things approved by council in the capital budget and the final one i wanted to mention was the airport runway extension those of you been here a while know that's been in the cip for some time again it cannot proceed to that step without certain faa clearances which have not yet occurred so that
071was roughly 4.2 million that would have been spent in 23 that will not be happening so those were some significant minuses offset by some pluses led to that net 12 percent decrease and then the final thing i just briefly wanted to mention are some statistics so we had 60 projects with funding adjustments so that's a lot um and i think that's a reflection of the pricing changes that are driven by the national supply chain issues and contractor shortages they tend to bid higher there are 28 projects with schedule adjustments 12 that had both funding and schedule adjustments and then 19 projects that were added so that's my high level overview and of course then i will be here to answer your questions and also if you need any assistance in answering anything raised during the
072public portion and with that i will turn it back over all right very good um we will now open the public hearing for the cip this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed capital improvements plan update if you wish to address planning commission on this item please press star 9 if you've dialed in by phone or use the raised hand feature if you're viewing through the web link if you need the call-in number for the meeting it's 877-853-5247 mr leonard will select those who have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or by your name if you joined through the web link please move to a quiet area mute any background sounds so that we can hear you clearly
073and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments color with the phone number ending with three two six you can unmute your phone using star six address the planning commission for up to three minutes yeah hello this is jeff crockett can you all hear me we can great uh so i noticed in a mission in the capitol budget and that is a consideration uh for the center of the city in the library lot and in 2018 proposition a was passed that call for that part or the library lot to be a commons and since that time there have been numerous groups um the uh the one i think it would be prudent y'all to consult with is the center of the city uh task force because then in the midst of
074putting together some beginning planning that is probably going to be sort of a long-term vision and it would seem to make sense to consult with them to figure in some kind of budget for this i have long wanted and this goes back like 25 years a fountain in ann arbor i don't know if any of you have been to plymouth but plymouth has a beautiful fountain it's a place for people to congregate weddings all kinds of different events we really have nothing like it in ann arbor and so i would encourage you all to consult with the center of the city council of the commons to fit in to the capital budget some consideration for a commons thank you very much thank you caller with the phone number ending with one three four caller with
075the phone number ending with one three four in three minutes to address the planning commission thank you mr leonard and chair mills this is ken garber again i appreciate the opportunity to comment on the cip i'll basically repeat my comments from last year i suggested then that geothermal loops could be incorporated into some of these street and sewer projects the 820 building electrification goals call for large scale retrofits with heat pumps and geothermal systems are one way to do this as you know they take advantage of the relatively constant ground temperature to heat or cool a refrigerant that circulates to the individual heat pump more efficient than air source but geothermal is also more expensive to install because excavation or drilling is involved however the city can lower the cost in its denser districts mainly
076downtown by laying down geothermal loops in which refrigerant that's warmed by the earth circulates continuously each building along the loop would need to install a heat pump system but these homes and businesses will avoid the high upfront cost of the loop which is converted into a monthly service fee to the city for example boise idaho now heats 6 million square feet of downtown buildings during the winter this way almost half of its entire downtown boise uses water from a geothermally heated underground river rather than a chemical refrigerant but the principle is the same each time we rip up the streets we could take advantage of the excavation to drill the holes and install the pipes that comprise the geothermal loop thus lowering the overall cost without added disruption last year staff properly questioned whether state
077law allowed municipal geothermal the answer is yes valerie brader the city's contract energy attorney told energy commission that a parallel city utility that competes with dte is completely legal chris bisdock the lawyer for the public power citizen group confirmed this in october the office of sustainability and innovations issued a detailed report on a proposed city-owned sustainable energy utility geothermal not just downtown but also neighborhood level is a big part of it so we should take advantage of major road and sewer projects commissioner gib randle mentioned tonight several pending downtown street redesigns in this cip i count four road reconstruction projects nine sanitary sewer extensions and 43 water main projects not all of them will be suitable for geothermal installation but let's look at them the u of m is already doing this its plan calls
078for the eventual conversion of all campus buildings to geothermal heating and cooling with 30 more thousand with 20 000 boreholes drilled across all the campuses we should be equally aggressive not in this cip than next year's i don't know if this is best done on a case-by-case basis or with a high level study but each time we dig out and then fill in a hole a trench or a road bed without laying geothermal pipe we may be losing a valuable opportunity thank you if anyone else uh wishes to participate in the public hearing you can press star 9 on your phone or use the raised hand button at the bottom center of your screen uh mr haber you have three minutes to address the planning commission oh thank you very much yeah so i want
079to echo in some way what jeff crockett said at the beginning and the last speaker who emphasized the importance of geothermal i i speak on the ann arbor center of the city commons i was an initiate i live in the fifth ward allen haber and i was an initiator of this effort back in 2009 to have the center of the city be a place devoted to fostering a culture of peace and non-violence as a community commons and the commons is a form of organization that pools resources and has them managed by the people who are actually using them it is different from the city governing or a private corporation owning it is the people who use it and we're trying to develop a number of working groups after the uh res after the proposal a
080was passed the city council set up an a uh a center of the city task force that put forward a number of recommendations after about seven months of work i was part of that task force also and i encourage you all to read those recommendations uh it is as as jeff crockett noted uh the planning commission and indeed nowhere in the city has this popular vote actually been recognized and included into the master plan which the task force said this is part of the master plan so thinking forward in your longer term toward 2028 uh see how this center of the city becomes part of the master plan and in the shorter run see how the kinds of amenities that the center of the city task force identified as a short-term beginnings of making this
081a functional place of welcoming to everyone in town through wi-fi through public toilets through a drinking fountain through facilities that encourage artistic expression uh a playground is very when we passed the petition around so many people said if i had a place i could come downtown with my kids and then make another place to play well the main point is the center of the city is part of the master plan is identified by the task force and by the voters and you should see it that way in our planning we look toward 2024 the bicentennial of the city to see some high point in this development and so wherever it fits in your immediate capital plans and toward wi-fi and toilets and things like that are very short-term but in the longer term see this
082is part of the opportunity to develop a unique social innovation in the center of the city so thank you thank you very much would anyone else like to provide public comment yes the phone number ending with um i don't know if i accidentally removed your indication if you were interested in addressing please press star 9 on your phone to indicate that you'd like to address operator error potentially on my part and i'll use this opportunity to say if anyone else wishes to provide a public comment if you've dialed in it's star 9 if you're watching us through the web link click the raised hand button at the bottom of your screen see no other indication all right i will read the motion whereas section 1 colon 185 of the ann arbor city code requires that
083the city planning commission annually prepare a capital improvements program for the ensuing six fiscal years whereas the fiscal year 2022 to 2027 capital improvements plan cip was approved by the ann arbor city planning commission on january 5th 2021 whereas the fiscal year 2022-2027 cip was approved with minor adjustments by the ann arbor city council on may 17 2021 as the basis for the fiscal year 2022 capital budget whereas the second year of the fiscal year 2022 to 2027 cip has been adjusted based on current conditions as related to the adjusted fiscal year 2023 capital budget to be considered by the city council and whereas a duly noticed public hearing was held by the city planning commission on december 7 2021 resolved that the city planning commission hereby approves the fiscal year 2023 to 2028 capital
084improvements plan moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner dish any discussion of the cip or who wants to kick off our discussion i should say and mr leonard your hand is up you want to kick off our conversation um well no i'm going to have ms gosselin kick it off um there were a couple comments about the center of the city and so um one of those colleagues actually worked very closely with the center of the city task force i know we have representatives of that task force here if they want to add anything to it but i wanted to start with ms gosling to just um cover a conversation that she has had in regards to that question as it has come up previously okay just a couple of brief comments yes uh mr
085crockett and mr havers comments about there will undoubtedly be capital improvements that come out of the council of the commons i'm just getting used to the new name that will end up in the capital improvement plan at this point however there has been no specific adoption by a body of this is what we're gonna do maybe it's a fountain like someone had mentioned but once we know what specific improvements that are capital in nature and total more than a hundred thousand so i anticipate by fall uh at your next adjustment that you will be seeing council of the commons related capital improvements but we can't put them in at the particular stage we're at because the specifics have not been resolved yet there's lots of great ideas coming through that but not here's where we're
086going definitively and therefore we need x number of dollars so coming but not in this program that is why it's not there currently commissioner hammerschmidt i'll just tag onto that as the planning commission liaison to the council of the commons that's exactly correct what i was going to mention as well there's no real plan or ask yet um specifically for the the the lot on top the service parking lot on top of um the parking garage liberty plaza is under parks um and so we're treating that sort of separately um but yeah so there's there's no ask we're going to be we have a little bit of money that coaster briggs was able to get put into the budget for a design process and so um staff is going to be putting out a request
087for information early in the new year to try to get um some some firms to to let us know how much it might actually cost for a whole like design process where we would hopefully get some of those ideas solidified um that might then make it into a capital improvement plan so yeah i think we're not nearly ready to start putting money into this plan for that particular um piece of land other comments or questions i will note that i was extremely heartened to see within the projects that are added um a number of things that are specifically related to a20 or to the bikeway um and so i um i know i've ever since a20 came out have been the squeaky wheel asking like when are some of those things going to make their
088way and as those um as those plans take shape it's good to see them added even in this year where we tend to add minimal projects so i think that that's great um relatedly though um there has been lots of discussion about geothermal at least you know on and off at this table has that um how has that been part of the discussion because i know part of the cip is actually programming in particular where our systems our transportation system water sewer intersect and so as there's discussion of kind of the energy space as well has that has that started happening in city hall i mean to take that i assume um this is kind of a twist on the council of the commons in that we're not in a position yet to talk about
089adding things to the capital improvement plan as mr garber said it is you know i'm i've never specifically researched it but if municipal government could have a geothermal utility we don't have one yet so any code related things like that would have to happen first we have a water sewer and storm each of them are set up as a utility we do not have a geothermal utility so it may be something certainly that the sustainability group may be discussing that i have not been in on but until that groundwork is laid from a code standpoint we could not be planning for spending money on a utility that doesn't exist because we just are not in that position at this point understood also again kind of the scheduling of these two of these systems together i
090think that's one of the benefits of having a cip that kind of thinks out and includes the involvement and so i have confidence but also like encourage regular reminders that as we are doing as we are taking up some of these roads thinking about future proofing them for all of the systems that may be required i think i appreciate i appreciate the the reminders on that i'm just curious in looking at the projects that were added there was something called a pump track within the parks what is that i was hoping no one was gonna ask me oh sorry never mind it's not a typo i was like you know but if you give me just a second i'm gonna like uh yeah i think it's like uh crossfit like i could be way out
091on a limb here but i'm going back to my young bmx bike days i think it is like uh sort of a recreational trail for like uh mountain bikes slash bmx bikes where it might involve obstacles and the like yeah i was trying to see if uh when colin smith had me added and technically i made a note that that is not in 2223 but he said for it to happen he'd have to go after grants and there's a lot of lead time so he needed it to be in there and have a presence but let me see if he described it in any way other than no he just literally had me put in create pump tracks so i apologize that well to the bmx community it's in the cip like this is uh
092and i i appreciated that note about going after seeking additional funding so commissioner yes if you want to go with google it is a looped sequence of rollers and berms swoopy bank terms for bike riders designed to maximize your momentum so you can ride with minimal pedaling oh i like the swoopy bank turns like cool um commissioner dish so i want to register my total excitement and thrilledness about the b2b vandermer barton connection money that's in here i am so excited and thrilled and i'm so thankful to the city for entering into that project and i want to just uh make sure that i completely understood ms gosselin that given that we do not yet have a geo thermal utility established there wouldn't really be any point in asking staff to assess the projects that
093are scheduled scoped out in the cip to see which ones [Music] since we're ripping up the street anyway which ones we might want to install geothermal because we just that would be really putting the cart before the horse correct okay hammerschmidt and then commissioner weich um i'm not even sure if i'm how to ask this question or if this is even like a real question so i was also surprised that the total funding need was like 13 million dollars lower and then you know it like makes sense so some projects went up these four were really big and they got pushed out you mentioned i think that though a lot of the or the score projects have a lot of federal dollars so i'm just sort of wondering you know the projects that went up
094if they're more local dollars like how does that how much are we actually asking for more locally in fy23 than we were and how does that how does that work because i know yeah that's a good question and it's a hard one to simply answer but you can see from the number in that are in the category of projects with funding adjustment that there were some that went down but there were a number that went up and some of those still are outside asks but a lot of them are local inside so i would say that if you took the outside funds out there i would believe there would be a net increase of local dollars and they uh most of those are driven by pricing changes like in sanitary sewer lining projects for example
095it's like wow yeah price of those is is going up so it's a good question and yes i would say the net is probably positive from local dollars this is probably my own ignorance of budgets but but like what are these things come at the expense of like do other things have to be reduced somewhere else to make the capital improvement plan work yes and they again if you look at 2223 were focusing on 23 but 22 affects it and some of them you're just seeing an increase in 23 because it moved from 22 to 23. but we already have the money budgeted for it so yeah and if we have bids come in high during the course of the year we have to adjust and sometimes we decide something just has to slide out
096um but the finance people are like gold and helping us navigate our way through those when they arise but um often it's plus because it was a delay so it's it's so complicated trying to say this is exactly what the nature of the change was i appreciate that question it's our heart um i appreciate how you've made this as easy to understand as possible so thank you very much commissioner so this is my first uh cip so uh forgive any rookie uh question so one i was just wondering around um the ability to talk specifically and this may this is just a process not necessarily for this one because i think this process has already moved along but for specific line items so for instance the east medical bridge expansion that funding allocation is changing
097because of action that council took to agree with the with the university to expand that bridge it already needed to be repaired and so now that it's in the capital budget does planning commission have any ability to make any funding adjustments at a disapproval state or is that funding allocation already achieved by a council action that particular one um just for an example i could pick something else but yeah that that's a difficult one but a lot of these things in 23 are technically not approved for funding until council acts in may of 23 or may of 22 for the 23 budget these are the asks for them now things that were in 22 are already budgeted and if they go up or down you know those changes get highlighted but you know unless they're
098a new 22 ask which could end up triggering like eight votes account so i don't think we have any of those but the east medical center bridge in particular is one that has to be subject to what's called a memo of understanding with the university and the university a lot of money and there's university money so both parties and then council does uh is the body that approves memos of understanding with the university or it could be with the county like on vandermeer to barton i assume there'll be one so that's the most complicated one but otherwise you know what we have in here is how many dollars we need to accomplish it and you know questions you have about projects or not you know wondering why they're in here at all whatever that everything
099is fair game in that sense but the dollars are what it's going to take to bring it forward and will be up to council to fund the 23 projects so if we wanted to make an adjustment again just fielding a question that would be an amendment to the proposal with that particular line item highlighted and then that would be subject to our approval since it has to be approved by planning commission yes that could um happen in theory it generally um doesn't but it can and there i'm thinking in the time i've been here what i've seen more often happen is something that's not in here at all that maybe commission would ask to add um and again the the dollars that it takes to accomplish a project you could say okay let's knock this
100down to x but then i would be asked the question is that reasonable to do and the answer is probably going to be no because the budget is what staff and you know wherever the dollar came from have felt that it takes so i'm sorry that's not a super clear no no it it you're helping me because the the nature of the concern is the connection of the bike paths um as they uh come around that section so the conversation was around adding another lane of traffic and so i was just trying to understand the ability for planning commission to prioritize a different mode of transportation over car and could we do that through this capital plan by prioritizing a connection from the university back into the border to border trail um as it crosses
101fuller and so then that would take funds away for the bridge and move it to the bike trail so that that was the nature of the question but um yeah i'm happy to talk some more offline with you about it for a future thing yeah that would be great and i'll tell you there are besides the bridge project itself there are also in active transportation other um bike connection projects allied with that bridge project but you write the most recent requests to actually add language on the bridge which means redoing the bridge is why the price went up then i know there are currently design discussions about do we want the bikes on the bridge and an extra bike lane or is it safer using the money we have elsewhere so i think that's a
102fine design question that we aren't going to be able to adjust for at this table but i believe in perhaps council member dish i think there have been some discussions already at council on that that she might actually be better equipped to update you on where that stands in this case than i am yeah it was less on an update but just trying to understand the mechanism that we have at this table because if there is a mechanism for this body to reprioritize something understanding what that process is to achieve our goal as opposed to just um a continuation of something that we may not want to prioritize but thank you i appreciate uh the conversation mr leonard yeah um commissioner white great questions and i'm just i i'm gonna i hope i'm not gonna
103make anything worse um i'm happy to help with that conversation um but so i'm gonna the planning commission approves the capital improvement plan that's by state legislation and i will tell you one of the benefits that we have here at the city that not every community that's subject to that same planning enabling act across the state of michigan has is we have frankly resources and expertise and the ability to do the partnerships and the scoring and the prioritization that deb uh talked about in the working session you know the sort of communities of interest if you will my terminology that that are assembled around these different categories to identify projects to help priority prioritize projects to determine how to score and evaluate those projects against one another to reach those priorities and we are i
104would say we are well positioned uh because of all those resources perhaps to a different extent than some other communities in the state of michigan where the planning commission weighing in on the capital improvements plan is just really critical to bring any land use dialogue maybe to how those resources are prioritized but the short of it is is you can absolutely have influence over it by the decisions that are made with the capital improvement plan um that has happened in the past uh sure mills was talking about sustainability that has been i don't see it as maybe like one project but that has been a trend that has come up repeatedly and we're starting to see more evidence of that in the capital improvement plan over time ultimately city council uses this as a plan
105they ultimately decide what to fund through their budget so regardless of the decisions that are in the capital improvements plan it is critical to help plan it's critical to help size what is feasible with the resources available on a time basis but at the end of the day the plan is adopted by both bodies but the budget actions of the city council are truly what get projects done so just a little bit more broader lens on the interaction in this specific case i'm actually now now this has me curious in terms of the scheduling um because this is this is border to border that runs through there there are two other projects i think on the in active transportation um the schedule which i think i mean if they're not this specific project are certainly
106adjacent fuller maiden lane and then the connection under fuller road the scheduling for them is significantly farther out though and again makes me question like prioritization of that and whether they're actually being scheduled like together so it's again it's not this it's more do you have any sense of i know that we try to schedule things together so why is there such uh you know it looks like 2027 for which is almost off the charts right um for some of those projects in the exit transportation yeah that's an excellent question this one was very awkward in that we're focusing on 22 23 there was already some activity on the bridge in here which was just design money then all of a sudden this you know accelerated um process was brought up and if it shakes
107out then i anticipate next fall we will pull those associated projects in uh to the second year of the build for the bridge so that they'll go together but they the bridge itself would have to be replaced for all those things to physically come and match it so i didn't try to pull them forward like i usually would to match this schedule because we haven't had the ability yet to let go for tap grants and so on but i do believe they will end up being pulled back into alignment if in fact this project with the bridge goes forward as it is in here if the university and the city you know totally come to terms on this and the movement forward as it stands in here then in the fall we would pull those
108back to match it but i felt it was premature because of when this got in but it was a big dollar decision um if we're gonna move it forward that it could affect you know three million dollars in 23 part which is university so yes i usually would have pulled them with but i was a little hesitant but council already has on the books a directive that when the intersection goes and now that's also meaning replacing the bridge that those need to go with it so they will end up having to come in and match but um this is like 2324 project and i would envision the act of transportation being the second part of the construction project anyway so um in this fall next fall i should say i think you will see them
109being expedited into 24 which would be the second year of the bridge project but we wouldn't be pulling them all the way back because there's no way they're going to start in 23. the design will still be finishing up in the early part 23 any construction would be in the latter part it's simply not going to need to happen in 23 to physically keep them together so the design for them does not need to be brought forward or that's the design for that component is included as part of the bridge design i think the transitions will end up being part of this current design project like we're you know making sure if there's any physical connections and it's not just the bridge it's the whole where the roads come together because there's the one um
110connection that they're envisioning coming out of the parking lot as we call it where the train station might go someday going under the railroad abutment coming up and ultimately going over the water maybe not on the bridge and that comes to commissioner weisha is talking about well maybe they'll decide they want to bring the bikes across the bridge so that question is going to come into play in the design for the bridge i think there'll probably be a lot of healthy discussion as part of the design process really where is the best place for the border to border style is it where we envisioned on a bridge of its own or is it moving it onto this bridge and once they decide then we know what to do with the monies so it's it's an
111awkward spot with regard to 23 i felt comfortable that we could address it in the next get it and still have it come together all right mr leonard yeah thank you uh so i think this discussion is really great i think it's um it's elevating to me that sort of what i said about you know the way that the city is approaching it i think that what i'm hearing is a little bit more desire for the planning commission to maybe see some of that um processing and and the like and so um i just as a reminder because this is an update this is sort of a relatively modest uh modification to the plan but i think what it tells me is that we should start this conversation on the the next update soon after
112our action on this um like early in 2022 and um bring deb back and i think let's dedicate some time to making sure that she is getting those direct policy directives that you would like to transmit in the next cip whether it's specific projects whether it's concepts because then she can take that as those communities of interest meet as a filter to those discussions and dialogue to make sure that when it comes back to you at the end of that that process it's if not including those it is um acknowledging them and at least coming to you with why the decisions were made as presented so um so um great discussion and i think we should continue that momentum um um i'm just thinking about the conversation about the center of the city sustainability the
113any progress that's made on utilities um of course non-motorized so i think it seems seems to me that the time is right um to maybe um kick that dialogue off sooner than later for the next year which is is sort of um for lack of a better term a blank slate that's really uh opening it up broadly to identify new projects and priorities i think that that's great i think that makes a lot of sense and i agree pulling that together other questions or comments all right mr leonard we are ready for a roll call vote i think commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner wage yes commissioner mills yes commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner sobe yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes curry's unanimously very good appreciate it uh deb um
114once again i would just like to thank it is remarkable the expertise that you bring to budgets sustainability transportation utilities remarkable yeah having all the projects in your head and how they interact is uh is this is a superhuman skill you threw me on the pump track though oh well thank you so much yeah all right um can we take a seven minute break to fill our water bottles before i think we're at about the halfway point hopefully more than halfway point so um we'll come we'll uh reconvene at um 8 55. um we're on item 8c um this is the ann arbor chinese christian church site plan for city council approval and special exception use which is for planning commission approval this is at 1750 duvarn road expanding to provide a social gathering area
115and classrooms um i see that we've had development team or petitioner folks move on um to into the kind of speaking section um so you folks will have up to 10 minutes to provide a presentation before we hear from mr kowalski and then the public hearing and have you made arrangements with you need to share screen uh yes my name is sue dickinson i'm with midwestern consulting we did the uh site work and the in the site plan for this project and i would um yep i will be sharing my screen here super is that you can see it excellent um so this project is located at 1750 duvarn road the there's an existing ann arbor chinese christian church and this site plan is for an expansion of that church so um tonight on the
116meeting here we do have all of the building expansion committee from the church um and our and the pastor for the design team i'm here and but tina fix our landscape architect could not be here so um hopefully uh there aren't too many specific landscaping questions for me um and we also have uh zion church builders um the architect dan white um and um jim heinz as well to help answer questions so it was very interesting listening to the presentation for the village of ann arbor since um they'll be our neighbors um so the the church is located in northeast ann arbor um you can see here in blue is the uh total acreage 8.51 acres it is east of pontiac trail and west of leslie park circle between olson park and leslie park it's
117zoned r4a and the existing use church is a special exception use um so you can easily see that residential and parkland is what surrounds the property also interesting to note the uh the landfill that was discussed with the village of ann arbor presentation does extend onto the southern portion of the church property so as far as the existing conditions go um the existing church was constructed in 1999 um the special exception use has a capacity of 160 people there's an existing parking agreement with uh food grabbers food gatherers across the street and there's a crosswalk that is provided and we'd like to part of our application is to increase our capacity to 240 people there was a failed site plan attempt back in about 2006 um and i was involved in that as well so
118um i'm very happy to be here tonight and bringing forward a scaled down um request from what was asked before but during that a previous uh submittal we did find that there is a native forest fragment to the west and south of the church so when we were planning um for this expansion we made sure that we stayed in the areas that were not trees so that we could protect and preserve those beautiful trees so the existing building is here and it's about 8 200 square feet and the existing parking lot is going to be maintained um there's a few changes that um needing to be needing to happen to it as uh the dumpster location is going to be relocated from this area over to this corner so that there's uh it's easier for
119it to be able to be emptied and these four parking spaces um unfortunately were constructed within the front setback and so the parking lots being revised a little bit in order to get those out of the front setback the stormwater management basin is currently a wet basin and it's located up in this corner and that is being improved it's being enlarged because of the increase of impervious area with the new building but it's also being improved by not being it's not going to be deeper than its outlet so we can talk more about that and there will be a variance uh requested due to that existing parking agreement um not being permanent it's uh it's a lease agreement right now so our project that we're here to discuss is um the first floor has about
1206 400 square feet and it has three classrooms and a social hall that will seat about 128 people and then it has a second story that has five classrooms um about 2800 square feet so the social hall is a two-story two-story room so as i mentioned the combined proposed capacity is 240. the parking we are adding four electrical vehicle parking spaces two chargers and a variance will be requested for that as well because that's a much reduced number from what your ordinance states our the features are that we are preserving the native forest fragment and the existing detention basin is being improved to minimize the open standing water so the utility services for the new building um it is going to be fire suppressed so the blue line is the fire service lead that needs
121to go out to the public water main in the street it couldn't connect to to this water main the orange line is the sanitary sewer lead that also had to go out to the public um sewer which unfortunately is all the way across to dubarron uh the green outline is the uh increased area it's it's the where the 100 year storm elevation will be we'll store and we'll be using the same outlet for the uh for the pond um for the detention area in order to go out to the duvo barn uh storm sewer here is the landscape plan um so you'll notice that we're adding four trees and 42 shrubs for the right way screening along with eight street trees we're we're adding five interior island trees and the conflicting land use buffer um
122over towards the leslie park side on the east side of our site we're adding 16 well we've got 16 trees that are remaining and we're adding 58 shrubs and then part of our citizen participation meeting um it was noted that when dte came through and did some maintenance on the utility line that they removed some trees in this area so we added plantings to replace those so this is the proposed building this is the existing building here and so this is the end elevation but you can see the two stories in the doorway and so here's the back elevation and the front elevation of the building and this is the uh floor plan so this is the first floor with the sidewalks shown um the connection to the existing church and um you can see
123the three classrooms and the restrooms on the first floor and the social hall and then upstairs we have five classrooms so that's my presentation i'm here to answer any questions and as was stated you have a lot of the other team members here as well thank you very much mr kowalski good evening everybody um okay so i just i'll touch on a couple of the highlights here um petitioner did a good job of really summarizing the main um features of the proposal uh a couple of things i do want to add to that is um as far as the natural features as you guys can tell the majority of them obviously are being saved on the site there's a very high quality natural woodland in that area that would be preserved there is one landmark
124tree that would be removed for the expansion they are mitigating for that as as you know as required of course um a couple of key things so this is of course a special exception use so with and i just want to remind the planning commission as well that that special exception use is although the site plan will proceed to city council for final approval the special exception use uh will be approved or denied by the planning commission so um again and obviously without that if it were to be denied then the site plan would not be able to proceed further so um the special exception used we did add so there is a separate motion for that special exception use uh within that special exception use we do put the limitation of what they have
125offered as far as the capacity of the facility uh the church facility of 240 uh people within there um in addition to that there are um there is a revised motion that we had i we had just emailed out i apologize i had left that off of the original planet commission motion that is to include the two landscape modifications that they are requesting both of those landscape modifications were reviewed and approved by our landscape staff member those the first modification or one of the modifications is for the um the code requires 15 spaces in a row you have to have a landscape island um in that case she did accept them not putting in the landscape island a couple places they have a couple more than the 15 spaces giving their parking concern and i
126guess not not significant parking lot modifications she did accept that as well as um a modification for the bioretention islands um that is also again a requirement but without the their justification without this significant modification of that parking lot um which again it's more than just putting in um the body retention you have to have everything drained there properly so it does it does require some significant reconstruction of that parking lot um one item i did in particular i also wanted to touch on is you can notice that they are the plan would be if it was to be uh passed tonight here at planet commission uh they will need to go to the zoning board of appeals as tishner mentioned before there's they're requesting two variances um really the the first variance is a
127little bit more of an unusual one which is one you don't see too often that is just going to be uh it's a variance of from the parking requirement really so they um they they need the um but i'm down a blank on the space i believe it's 80. um uh yes and they have a 63 car parking so it'd be 17 spaces so they've had in place for a number of years the petitioner may be able to highlight as many but really as far as i could look back in that record from this original special exception use approval which i think i had written down in 90 2006 um i'm trying to blank on that but it's been in place for quite a while with the food gatherers location across the street um so
128they have this signed lease agreement and um they have an excess it's only for the use of kind of the warehouse the office spaces if you guys are familiar with that there's the residential section as well as the warehousing and office space um so they have about 50 spaces there for the warehouse and office space um those spaces and obviously these peak times run really perfectly because obviously the the church functions typically are you know evening hours on the weekend which is where the warehouse and office uses are not used and actually even knowing that they're from the day when they are used they have a surplus of spaces as well during the day um so but however the code does require that um they it has to be a permanent un uh recorded access
129easement and sorry not access a parking easement and those those spaces cannot be counted for they can't count for required parking for two locations so so basically although even though it's a shared kind of agreement and it works with off-peak hours technically it does not meet the requirements of the code so um that is what they need to go to the for the variance well it i mean staff personally i feel it meets the intent however uh that would need to go the zoning board of appeals for approval as well as um they are requesting a variance from the ev parking spaces to be installed um and that would be able uh that their request they're going to be installing four spaces and um really kind of oh so i did look the original special
130exception used for this was approved in 1996 and that was for the 160 which is still in place today again so what is really triggering that the renewal that special exceptions is obviously this expansion and the use of that new facility one other concern we did have you know perhaps or not even a concern that we an issue that we had brought up with the petitioners you know would this facility be used for like um weddings and like major uh social gatherings things like that and they indicated no they have no plans for that um you know it's really meant for church functions but they're they're very willing and i think in the past i've had some neighborhood meetings within there so things like that but it's not going to be a banquet facility there's
131no uh formal kitchen located within there um and uh again with that i think that does summarize up my my uh presentation at this time and i staff is recommending approval of both the special exception use as well as the site plan uh contingent upon of course the variances being granted by the zoning board of appeals thank you thank you all right um i will open up the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed ann arbor chinese christian church site plan and special exception use permit if you wish to address the planning commission on this item and you're joining by phone you can press star 9 to raise your hand if you joined us through the web link you can press the raised hand
132button if you're watching us and would like to call in now the dial-in number is 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 977-6634-1226 mr leonard we'll select those who have raised their hand again you can do that digitally on a phone by pressing star 9 or by pressing the raised hand button if you've joined us through zoom when it's your turn to speak you'll hear an automated message um to that you're able to unmute yourself um please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sound so that we can hear you and please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and banister you can unmute yourself using the button you just did you have three minutes to address the commission great thank you i don't need uh three
133minutes uh ann bannister former ward one council person from north main street and i just wanted to applaud and congratulate the church for uh making a design that preserved the landmark forest there i think that'll serve the property well and a lot and continue to be wildlife habitat and support the ecosystem so i hope more property owners will go with designs like that that are sensible and preserve those landmark trees and so thank you so much good night thank you if anyone else wishes to address a planning commission during the public hearing you can use the raised hand button on your computer or press star 9 on your phone all right seeing none i will start to read the motions and we have three um first about the site plan the ann arbor city planning
134commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the ann arbor chinese christian church 1750 davarin road site plan second is the landscape modification so the planning commission approves the following landscape modifications one allow existing landscape islands to remain without bio retention capacity and two allow parking lot to continue with greater than 15 spaces without a landscape island and then the third is for the special exception use so the ann arbor planning commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information find the petition substantially meets the standards in chapter 55 ann arbor unified development code section 5.29.5 which is special exception use and therefore approves the ann arbor chinese christian church at 1750 duvarn road special exception use for church uses this approval is based on the following findings one the proposed
135uses will be consistent with the objectives of the comprehensive plan permitting churches and schools by serving residents in their districts in their district two the proposed use will not adversely impact traffic pedestrians bicyclists like circulation or road intersections based on the location and existing uses three a site plan documenting the existing and proposed conditions of the site has been submitted as part of this application this special exception use approval is based on the following conditions one the church use maintains a maximum capacity seating or let me stay at that again the church use maintains a maximum seating capacity of 240 persons that is the end of those three motions would anyone like to move them moved by commissioner weich seconded by commissioner sovay we are in discussion anyone want to kick us off and i'm
136assuming that we can take these all together unless anybody objects otherwise commissioner white go for it uh this is for staff um just why is the 240 seating capacity related to parking um because i was just surprised to see a specific cap on the seating capacity of the facility and i was trying to relate that to the um church on maple and whether they had the same restriction and i was trying to see if it was related to parking or traffic yeah so um okay yes so the 240 is um sorry i cut you off um yes the 240 is is um the the capacity is yes directly related to the the parking count that's correct and if you remember the church on maple we did not they did not have a special exception use
137approval because they were still under within theirs so that's kind of why that that cap they already had one in place but we didn't revisit it on that one so that's why this is a little bit different on that one but you are correct it's it's directly related to that parking account and then this can be answered offline what are the what are the concerns for the petitioner let's say they just have a fantastic weekend and 300 people show up but they're not exceeding the parking and they're not creating more traffic is there there's no violation otherwise will we be into a building code violation like i'm i'm just stuck on the 240 because i'm just trying to figure out like once you hit 241 sorry i can't let you in because we're stuck and
138as a pastor we would never turn away anybody who was coming uh to church on a sunday so just trying to figure out what the what the thing is and you can answer me offline uh because i don't i don't think it it's uh we have to take up the time tonight to talk through it but i'm just stopped we can certainly get back to you okay thanks other questions or comments go ahead commissioner gibrandall yeah a couple of things um i'm fine with not doing the depressed island i know it's been sort of a tricky thing but there's been a lot of projects that have had to do this and i know it's kind of a tricky thing in our code i do have a grading question and that is as i'm looking at
139the grading plan it looks weirdly steep in the parking lot as you get close to the new building in terms of the cross slopes and things like that where some of those parking spots are and i'm assuming that you're fighting the finish floor elevation of the proposed building how it connects to the existing building and how to be able to get ada access into that but if i'm looking at this based on sort of the typical dimension of a parking spot because i don't have a scale on my screen it looks like those grades are pretty steep like one on 12 or one on 15 or something like that which seems um pretty tricky to uh park in for those spaces where this parking lot suddenly kind of uh comes up to be able to
140meet the new addition um so i'm presuming that engineering looked at all this but it's just a little it's a little funky in terms of how a parking lot would normally be graded um so it's something that i'm i'm just wondering about um and it looks like you're trying to kind of figure out where i'm talking about um yeah i know but you can kind of guesstimate basically i don't expect you to say it's exactly you know one on 11.2 or something like that but if you just look at the scale of the parking spot you look at the distance between those contours between the 922 923 and 924 it just seems like the parking lot like rises very suddenly in front of that that addition and i'm just wondering like what is that going
141to be like for people walking from the rest of the parking lot up to this area especially given that there isn't a sidewalk along that um southeastern edge of the parking lot and kind of how you see that all functioning for just the reality of people getting there on a icy morning or um or whatever so that's i guess my my first question i'd be glad to help answer that um if uh um the reason that it's very flat at the very um southern corner of the parking lot is because of those uh barrier-free spaces um and and then um we set the building floor elevation to match the existing church um because eventually when they can afford to fire suppress the existing church we may connect the two um that's you know way in
142the future um so the whole the whole reason why the parking lot is is as steep in that area is just like you were saying is just to try to match what the existing grade was while we were able to make the ada compliant spaces so those had to be less than two percent and so in order to um tie in the had to be the rest of that portion of the parking lot had to be steeper um it's it's not it's about about one in you know the if i've got the scale and everything right um i mean you're right it's about one and 12 so it'll probably it would be about um eight percent through there um which you know it's a matter of balancing um the budget with the church and trying
143not to reconstruct the whole parking lot right it's it just seems to me that it's like and again i know you've come this far and this really i'm assuming should be kind of thought about at the engineering review level not necessarily at this level but i guess i just questioned like it seems like some more spaces should have been demoed in order to smooth that grade out so that it's not so i just i just hope that the client understands what it's going to feel like there to park in some of those spaces which is essentially like an ada ramp and you're parked sideways on it i mean it's going to those those spots are going to be really um out just outside of those ada spots it's going to be really steep um so
144it's like just you know again like this is probably not the time to take this sort of thing up but i it's it's just worth making sure that everybody understands what they're doing yeah because it just i think that's really hard for people to get you know what i mean just in terms of looking at plans and that you know it may make sense to make some of those into a parking lot island or something that can take up the grade more easily than somebody parked and your door just like swings open really wildly you know on one side and is really hard to push open on the other side you know so um i guess this is something to think about in terms of the design and how it feels um i think that
145i really like actually the the whole sharing of the parking with the facility across the street i think that i wish more um we had more agreements like that i think it's a really creative way to deal with um parking overflows so that you know especially facilities that are just used really heavily on certain days uh come you know um and working that with other facilities that have different kind of uses um and when their peak demand is so i'm really glad to see that i do not want to see just like a ginormous parking lot here when there's and you have a walkway and all those kinds of things i think that's great uh so i'm very supportive of that variance going through and and working that out um uh even though it doesn't
146quite comply i'm i'm completely supportive of that obviously that's going to be up to the zba how to figure that one out um so uh generally speaking i think this makes sense um i'm i and this is not really our jurisdiction i'm a little surprised there's so few windows at the ground level for the side that faces the parking lot on the street feels pretty harsh it's like these little tiny windows up at the top and it seems like a big gathering area like that you'd want to have some openness to it but you know again that's to each his own in terms of how you would want to design that space um unless you're kind of using it as a uh you know basketball court space in the future for recreation or something like
147that where you really don't want to have windows but it seems just a little a little harsh from the pedestrian side even though i know there's not a lot of pedestrian you know view of this it just feels a little brutal to just have these little tiny high windows along the side that is the kind of welcoming to the parking lot uh facade of it um but again that's not that's not really our um our place to you know govern any of that it just seems a little seems a little harsh to me um so generally speaking i'm in support of this uh one thing i am not in support of is only doing the four ev spots i feel like it would be really straightforward for you all to be able to add the
148required spots by simply extending the electric line along that southeast edge of the parking lot there's no sidewalk you have to tear up there's no nothing it just doesn't seem to me that there's anything obvious in the way of being able to supply that there and i think it's just the way that we want to go it's part of the regulation that we have and i've i feel strongly that that um i think you all should comply with that standard that we have because it really doesn't look to me like a heavy lift in terms of how you would deal with um reconstructing the parking lot because it's not like you have to um change things up there's again there's not a lot of infrastructure you'd have to rip up in order to be able
149to put that in so i think that that's the one part of the petition that i do not support in the way that it is otherwise i'm supportive of it i appreciate your comments shannon and we will look at that grading i know more of the parking lot ended up um being disturbed because of the utilities so we could it wouldn't take much more to to push that grading out that's why i was thinking that storm line is also you know getting cut out there and by just extending it a couple more spaces you might be able to make it work a little bit more gently for users mr leonard you raised your hand earlier i wanted did you want to jump in here yeah um i just wanted to touch on that last conversation
150between the petitioner and commissioner randall um i wanted to i don't want to i don't think it makes sense for us to redesign that portion here at the table but um it sounds uh it sounds like there might be generally support about improving that and i was just gonna say that as because we've got a little bit of time because of the variances that they will be seeking um we matt and the petitioner could work to see if they want to reconsider that and i would we'd be of course happy as the site plan progress progresses to city council just to acknowledge that there was some modifications from the version that the planning commission saw in response to a concern raised about the grade for those particular spots so um timing you know there's a
151lot of steps for this one but that would provide an opportunity for conversation between the petitioner and the city to just perhaps make some modifications at worst nothing happens but we can highlight that if there's an evolution before it goes to city council other questions or comments i will chime in that i too am uh very happy and heartened to see the lease with the neighboring property and not expanding the parking on this particular site um i think that's that makes wise use of existing infrastructure and appreciate that uh your congregants are walking across the street um it's not that far of a walk and also that there's there's the pedestrian infrastructure to allow for that so um i think that that's um i i'd love to see more of that um again this highlights
152among the things that we've been talking in orc about looking at our parking standards so like this is just another example of um both kind of howard folks who are i think doing the you know parking lot sharing things that we want to see um have to go through extra hoops right now to get that approved and so i think that's helpful and also um i uh on the ev parking i'm interested to see kind of what the um the zba has to say about that i think that this is one where spaces that are clearly disturbed i think um uh it makes sense to rebuild it with this i'm not sure how much of it is actually not so i believe that that's not our jurisdiction anyway that's going to be in zba's hands
153um but i i think that that's another one where um kind of looking at what our standard is for ev parking and when it's required um i think is uh is one of the things that's on our work plan too um mr leonard yes yeah uh regarding the ev parking there's been a couple comments on that and i would i just wanted to point out that it is an application that would ultimately decide be decided by the zoning board of appeals but you have some um your decision can be relative to that as well so right now this plan would require as presented to require that variance being granted alternatively you could add a condition to your site plan approval that recommends that the plan be modified to fully meet the ev ordinance again i
154wouldn't design it here but that would be a condition that would direct the petitioners and staff to work on adding those to be fully compliant to to the ordinance so um in either circumstance the zba that i want to be clear if the zba grants a variance you adding that condition to this likelihood doesn't eliminate the possibility of them seeking a variance or the variance being granted and a subsequent plan then being compliant but it is a way of in a way of messaging i think from the planning commission's perspective is if if that is of interest i guess i mean this is this has come up with churches like i mean many of the times where we've seen this it's been associated with church uses um i'm curious uh maybe it's that i don't
155quite understand it and um what part of the parking lot is being rebuilt more or less i mean clearly there's there's spots that commissioner gibb randall picked up in the grading plan those are currently not at that slope so um can you do you have some if go ahead ms dickinson i'd be glad to share my screen again if that would be helpful that would be helpful okay so oops how does it say we saw it and then it's yeah okay you saw it now you can't right all right share stream i've got the right um okay yep we got it okay excellent so um the darker shaded areas right in here are the portions of the parking lot that are being repaved so this is concrete down here but this is all um asphalt
156here and this is mainly because the existing barrier-free spots were over um two percent so they were not compliant um and so we um made that you know leveled that out and um and then some of these are because of the utilities coming across so um the steep grades are right in these this area that that shannon spoke of so what i was thinking is that maybe we can bring it down to this far a couple more spots um parking spaces and um i'm not seeing a cursor i'm not either thank you i'm sorry there we go yep now we see it all right so she talks about her steep spots where um right here okay so this is not the grading point that that was not part of the presentation i can no that's
157totally fine but reading that would be hard yeah okay yes so um what i was thinking is that if we since now we have this utility coming through and and these utilities is why this part of the pavement is now coming out so if we brought this down further we could make this pavement be less steep so in the end maybe we'll be reconstructing the parking lot out to this edge so all along here but i i would like to be able to take this moment to say that required per the ordinance based on the 240 seating capacity we'd be required to install eight ev parking spaces have ready eight more and then have capable 12 more of that so a total of 28 spaces so that would be you know more than just this
158line of parking it would be that whole line of parking and these over here probably just wanted to mention that and from my perspective again while you're i think thank you very much for sharing that um i um defer to kind of commissioner gibrandal whether uh you were feeling strongly i i am comfortable with saying the part that's disturbed like um not requiring tearing up any more than what is already under kind of under construction but there's quite a few there's more than four spaces that are going to be affected by this and so installing more than you know including ev infrastructure and more than four seems to me to make sense and is in the spirit of kind of where we were you know not requiring tearing up things unnecessarily but if things are
159already being torn up to install that infrastructure there but i um i welcome other commissioners thoughts on that and ms dickinson did you have more to add in terms of yeah i just wanted to say that also what shannon was saying is that that whole length of parking spaces on that south edge there's no um sidewalk underneath it so that's what she meant is that we could add more chargers without having to tear up pavement or sidewalk thank you yeah and it's also putting the conduit in to be eevee capable evie ready is super that should not be onerous there um it's my understanding too other commissioners have thoughts on this or other i don't feel super strong i mean ultimately i feel like the zba has in their analysis in the past in these
160situations has done this sort of analysis and so to some extent i um trust kind of the balancing that they um think through on this um but i um would welcome others thoughts on this issue or others go ahead commissioner abrams uh just a question about procedures so the the if if we were to vote to approve the site plan this evening that approval is contingent on the variances being approved but if the zba wanted to kind of counter offer which is what i think you're indicating you know chairmills that like there's a there might be a kind of negotiation uh or are we offering a kind of middle ground negotiation i guess what i'm wondering is like if it's not if they deny it then the site plan is denied and then the petitioner
161comes back here again with something that they think they can get through zba i i would say that if the if the variance was denied i don't think it would be a substantive change to the layout it would be that would mean that the plan would likely be modified before it progressed to city council and it couldn't be approved by city council at that point as meeting the standards unless all of that eb parking was provided um so does the zba have the authority to uh negotiate a compromise variance no they don't they they don't but but one of the standards that is utilized in considering a variance is is this the minimum variance necessary in order to um it to be granted for um matt you probably have the rest of that language more
162than i do but so oftentimes it's it's it's not a negotiation but oftentimes they're they respond to something and they might sort of go back to the petitioner and say this doesn't feel like the minimum variance that's necessary and it it might appear a bit as a back and forth but it really is sort of bearing out that particular variant standard about what is a reasonable uh variance and what is the minimum exception from the code that would be warranted based on the conditions that's a long way of saying it can be modified from the ask but it it's it's not quite as simple back and forth the only thing i would just add to that is they will have we will provide them a copy of these plans including like that grading plan that
163shows the disturbance um limits within that parking lot so that's kind of part part of that report and part of the information that the zba will be able to um take in as well as part of their discus uh decision making okay i'm not sure how to do this in a clean way because there's a little there's a there's a lot of kind of like if then scenarios here i think and kind of interdependencies but if there was some way for us to communicate that we would like there to to be as much easy parking accommodated as reasonably possible given parking lot disturbances or something like that i would support that my instinct in that circumstance is actually to let the variance process play out um i i i think sort of like i mean
164it's possible that you could add a condition that says conditioned upon a variance not to exceed something but i think again that decision is the zoning board of appeals i guess my advice to the planning commission would be either to acknowledge that they are presenting a plan that is shy of the standards and recognizing that they will have to be successful to the zoning board of appeals in order to be able to build this plan or a version of it alternatively i would say that your direction to them would be no this is appropriate given the scale of the parking lot impact and the like it should fully comply with our ordinance that's the intention um i guess the risk there is that the they that this variant is approved and this we feel that
165this falls far short of what could be reasonably accommodated but but again with all due respect to the planning commission's perspective at that at that point the zoning board of fields has rendered a decision and a plan that doesn't that shows compliance with that decision would be fully compliant with city ordinances at that point right hmm okay it feels like a little bit of a conundrum but i'm gonna let others weigh in i appreciate you working through the conundrum commissioner abrams because that's what was that was clearly my inarticulateness was showing that that was a similar conundrum in my head commissioner dish i think i want to just register some discomfort um around what's happening with the eevee parking ordinance and i think we need to be consistent and um it appears we've we've got
166an ordinance with a problem and so it goes to the cba and there's an impression of negotiation and give and take and that's not that doesn't seem quite the way that's supposed to work so um i i don't i'm i don't know if i feel as strongly as commissioner gabrandal to say you should just comply given the conditions of this site it is compact there's a considerable amount being dug up there's not obstacles to the eevee ready um provision really because you don't have to dig anything up to do that so in you know from a sustainability perspective it makes sense there isn't a whole lot of concrete being disturbed et cetera but i don't well yeah so um yeah i'm concerned just that we're seeing too many of these there's there's too much wiggling
167um obviously i don't want to call for a moratorium on new development until we work out the ev ordinance but i'm a little concerned and so i don't know if that if the best way to deal with my concern is to say no please comply we don't think it's unreasonable or if it's just to let the variance process and us not try to influence it just let the variance process play itself out i'm not sure which is the better way to make this clean and principled um as opposed to fuzzy and conditional mr leonard yeah i appreciate this and so i just want to add you know from staff's perspective we've presented you a recommendation that we would we would advise letting the zoning board of appeal process play out um but i fully acknowledge
168i totally agree with commissioner dish your comments and i can [Music] during reports uh commissioner mills commented that we were looking at some aspects of the parking ordinance trying to write right size write apply find the right triggers for ev parking is part of that proposed so i i just want to confirm that i hear your concerns i think i think others on the commission have shared those concerns so i do think we have some work to do as it relates to those standards um given that i think that approaching it in this way is it perhaps imperfect but it is consistent with the way that we have addressed it with some of the other recent petitions commissioner lee thank you um i i just want a second commissioner dish's commenter um that your consistency
169seems to be pretty key here especially since we've had churches with a very similar request for our feedback and just certification for the petitioner what drove that decision just to try and seek a variance um i just want to flat out ask what's the feedback and what what was it cost i'm just trying to get an understanding of what drove it so that's a question for the petitioner i think we have to answer it first and then maybe the building expansion committee may want to add to what i have to say but i know that we looked at the amount of time that people spend at the church and we looked at how many full-time employees are there and we took that into account as to um you know who would actually drive a car
170and plug in long enough to uh to charge um so i think a church is a kind of a different animal than um uh the residence or an office sure yeah um you know so a shopping mall even um you know shopping mall restaurant church you you normally go when you're there for an hour um two at the max maybe if there's a social gathering as well um so that's that's what we were looking at and and of course cost comes into it um they're expensive and then they need to be maintained as well so um those were the two uh large reasons why we felt that a variance should be requested yeah if i may just to add a little bit i think uh mr dickerson sum up our logic pretty well because on
171average for our people to attend church they go to church twice a week maybe one on fellowship night one during sunday morning they go there probably spend no more than two hours and for the ev parking that city require us for the class 2 it will take four to six hours to charge a car and so we just don't i mean we we we recognize city of bangkok's intention to be carbon neutron and i really think that's a great idea but for a church facility to put all those infrastructure for that kind of utilization um we just don't think that's a that's a very proper and then you have a long-term call maintenance and all that you might we might end up spending more energy to maintain those parkings charging station then utilize them so
172i think that's the fundamental reason that we are seeking for the cba zba gotcha um well thank you for that feedback um as i said before i think consistency and then not trying to be uh spurious about our decisions um is probably critical here so um i'll be in favor of this essentially kind of in a um as is fashion uh but i do want to say we as a board should remain consistent in our decision making so um but thank you for the feedback that's very helpful and i think we probably need to take a more careful look at the ev ordnance as a whole based on uses and making sure that it's not a one size fits all so thank you other comments or questions about the petition commissioner weich sorry i'm still
173stuck i've been reading uh udc and so forth trying to get my head around this thank you brad i know you you're excited by that um so the two questions there are questions question number one if the church needs to expand their seating capacity without changing the footprint of the building that would be a building code but it would be a violation of the special exemption use and so then how does that get resolved they would need a modification to the special exception and that would come back to the planning commission to approve which would require a new site plan but you know one i guess one question for the petitioner and the team is i don't i guess i don't know what that 240 size is if that anticipates any future growth or if
174that is the maximum capacity now um i i um so so that's one question but then i would if if if the planning commission is coming at it from a perspective of you want to provide more flexibility to them in the future without that step i would say i would say given the conversation here about the parking variants in a way it's pretty flexible to alter that number here at the table then the corresponding variance has to change it might increase the ask of variance which i would say could have an impact on his own board of appeals you know that minimum required set same standard but i i would just say that i don't i don't know that there's a downside at this point if you wanted to increase it if they didn't have
175any sort of growth projection within that um because the variance could follow um but it they would have to be connected because right now unless parking and minimums are eliminated at some future date we do have that nexus at this point because really the seating capacity is related to the parking it's not actually related to the site they could put 500 people inside that footprint but because we expect those 500 people to come in 500 cars that is the restriction and just honestly it doesn't make any sense i mean just for all intents and purposes and i wish we could approve this without the maximum of the seating because if they exceed the seating capacity then it incurs additional charges or fees for them to come into compliance that's that that is my agenda is
176to just say if there's some way for us to get rid of that part while they stay in compliance with the udc so that they don't have to come back to this table when they get to 300 and say you know because people could arrive by foot they can arrive by car they could come via a lift like i don't even want to get into the ev conversation because i feel like that constrains us to using a car as the infrastructure and i think that's bad i i would say let's not put that permanent infrastructure in place let's find a way for people to be able to treat this neighborhood net good which is how they get this special exception use as a neighborhood net good there are thousands of residents who could walk here
177and now we're saying because we only expect you to drive you've got to tick all these boxes and i know we're in the midst of all this change right now but they're at the table and i don't want them to come back to the table at a cost of ten thousand dollars a time that they have to come to the table and i know that's not the actual costs so don't get stuck there [Laughter] thank you commissioner uh mills or chairman i guess to if maybe the petitioner could address where did that number come from do you have a growth factor in that from sort of your current occupancy plans yes uh the 240 is expecting future growth uh right now our capacity capacity is 138 if i i'm not mistaken and that's within a
178160 su and for the foreseeable future we are not planning to increase or expand our sanctuary uh but as we are building this um uh this second building we do ex foresee that maybe in the future we could grow a little bit so that's why we and also uh i appreciate a commissioner which uh think us through that we that's actually there's also a city planner recommendation for us to foresee the future growth and increase seo at this moment so the 240 is already already factory in the future groups uh um just if if parking minimums are re removed as our transportation plan supports then you will see less of those limitations in the future um because that nexus has been sort of broken or that not nexus the connection between parking and occupancy has
179been broken so you will see less of that just following in on that if we were to strike right now any limitation on capacity so it's unlimited capacity which means they would be required to provide a multiple of unlimited parking i mean is that the is that the reason that we have to provide a cap is to is is providing the cab just to calculate the parking it's because yeah because that's a code requirement that we have to measure and evaluate this plan against so that's why we've picked that number so we can measure it against a standard it's not meeting it that gives us a variance standard that they could potentially seek to apply for or provide it through a permanent easement elsewhere or develop that additional propaganda site so the short answer is
180yes because without that standard establishing the requirement we can't conclude that the cyclone meets our udc requirements further indication of why the stuff that we're doing at orc and dealing with this both the ev side and the like parking minimums is super urgent important commissioner clark then commissioner good randall yeah i just i commissioner had some really interesting points that i just would like to explore in the long term and um you know innovative things that they potentially be doing like running shuttles to where maybe their communities might have a majority of residents there's all sorts of things and i just wanted to back up that i thought that uh a question or why she made some really outstanding kind of bigger picture and um questions and that was really helpful this discussion commissioner gabriel
181correct me if i'm wrong and this is something that commissioner survey probably knows more about than me but i mean there are other limitations on the buildings we can't just put a thousand people in i mean there's fire code there's all kinds of it's not as wide open as it's not only parking people there's numbers of bathrooms there's all kinds of things so don't quite make such a direct connection with that it's not only that there are all kinds of other things that have an impact on that too um so clearly that's the main thing that we govern in in terms of what we can control but there's all kinds of other things that would come into play to limit that we can't just have a thousand people in there without there being serious fire
182hazard you know going on and things like that i would imagine um i think the uh i don't know and i don't have the the ordinance in my head enough to understand the kind of assembly use that is here and how that relates to what our to what our kind of triggers are for numbers i think it's a compelling argument about a church and just the amount of time that people spend there and the likelihood of them charging and i think that's a really good point um i don't know enough i just don't remember enough about how the ordinance is structured clearly i think there needs to be some fine-tuning with some of that because i think that's a compelling argument but i also feel like you know a lot of people do drive and
183we can't just like throw out this whole thing that we've got and i feel like some of this like i think that again it's pretty low-hanging fruit to run some pvc pipe along that southeast side and make it for the future able to be able to let that happen you know and and again we can have you know the ones that are like av ready compared to ev capable to you know all those kinds of things i mean clearly the ones you're building out the whole infrastructure for that's a really expensive part and that's a maintenance part but i feel like we should just be careful about saying oh no big deal let's just put in four spots and this is our chance people they're not gonna go back you know i mean and this
184is it like we're really trying to there's there's so if anything there's so few areas that we actually have any control of the planning commission and this is one of them and i just feel like we shouldn't just completely toss it out with this i feel like it needs to be fine-tuned i i also completely understand the argument of you know let's be consistent and things like that and and i would hope that the zba can right size this and understand it i don't know that again whether it's negotiation or not but from the kind of constructability side of it i would love to see some spots that are dedicated and a whole bunch of spots that would be able to be converted um for for the future while they're ripping the place up and
185putting down conduit and sticking underneath that whole line of sidewalk that they've got and and making it capable of that for the future so that's kind of my sense is that it gets right sized for the actual staff that are there the people that are really spending time there and thinking about it that way but making the kind of easy um really cheap frankly like putting in the putting in the conduit so that it can happen for the future um so that's kind of where i am right now again it sounds like we don't have a ton of if there's any again we don't have any dual appointment right now between planning commission and zba which is part of where these things like we would want that to be translated i don't know how you
186know i don't know if they read our reports or not in terms of in terms of that stuff um but uh i guess that that's kind of where i'm landing right now is is right sizing it for the the use that's there in terms of the permanent spots that are actively available and then doing the kind of while the places ripped up the easy conduit that makes it possible for the future that's where i am right now with me um and really pretty much just along that southeast side and i think that that would make me feel comfortable within the jurisdiction that we have mr leonard and then commissioner clark yeah i am just absent a duly appointed member i just want to be clear mr kowalski will be following this petition to the zoning
187board appeals so he will be able to bring the dialogue that happens here even with without that um and um and i would you know and i i would say um we can um we can also sort of uh sort of calling the shot a little bit uh me and mr kowalski can follow up with the petitioners in advance of that zoning board of appeals application and explore some of these ideas with them as well and and and you know i think the petitioners hearing this conversation from the planning commission we certainly are as well we can explore with them how we can potentially push that their current plan maybe it is you know really focusing more on the infrastructure so it's future proofing that so we can work with them to try to you
188know um can work with them in advance of it appearing to the zoning board of appeals to rights right sizes it to the best way we can from an agreeable nature between the petitioner and also staff and i um based on the comments i've heard it seems like they'd be really open to sort of that dialogue so mr kowalski you wanted to jump in here too yeah sorry that jump ahead of commissioner clark sorry about that um i just want to add on to that what mr lawrence said regarding we do you know i do construct a new staff report that does go to the zba for petitions like this that are site plan related i will be the one writing that report just like i did for the grace bible um petition so you
189can i mean if if you want to see some of what you know we can go back and look at that one as well so we do relay these concerns just like we did uh for grace bible you can see a lot of the planet commissioner we had the the notations in there and you know these concerns were were mentioned here so um i just wanted to add to that that it there is that separate report but in addition we do also um you know include the planning staff report but but more importantly the concerns that we hear here tonight are summarized within that report commissioner clark this will be really brief i just want to say i just want to make sure that like you know i feel like the um church probably knows
190their constituents better than anybody else and they probably will know their means of transit to and from and i want to be sure that we're not imposing our kind of views about what we think the future is going to be like with the electrical vehicles and um that does kind of seem like the church's business to handle the future and i'm i i guess it's like one meeting so i might not be expressing myself perfectly clearly here but um i just want to make sure that we're kind of considering these things on a more holistic level um maybe taking these conversations onto like you know like we've mentioned a few times revisiting these policies and maybe even looking at things like electric bike charging and stuff like that which in an area like this where
191there's a lot of dense housing i could see the electric bikes being a much more um reasonable expectation and again that's a bigger picture policy issue but i feel like this when it comes down to the site they know their constituents they're going to be the ones bearing the cost of the future if they decide that they do want to install these electric vehicle parkings and i don't think it's really us up to us to like be prescriptive on that um when it's you know they know their constituents they know their population there's a good chance that people aren't driving just one person per car there's all sorts of considerations a lot of people in their church might not even have cars so um i just i want to make sure that we're really considering
192these things and the special exception um to me seems fairly reasonable at this stage but um that's just my view any other comments mr leonard i think we're ready for a roll call vote and we can take all three site plan landscape modification special exception together that is the clarification i was hoping for commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner weich yes commissioner mills yes commissioner gabrandal yes commissioner solvay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes motion's currently unanimously very good all right good luck at zba and with city council thank you very much all right um item 9a in our other business is the approval of the notice of intent to plan for an update to the city of ann arbor parks and recreation open space plan we call that the
193pros plan um before i guess we don't have a public hearing on this so i just effectively introduced it and i think we move it and then we will have just mr leonard there's no person like you're not giving a presentation no no um you you covered it uh this is the first step in an update to the city's comprehensive plan the pros plan sort of is dual purpose it is typically adapted as a component of our comprehensive plan it also provides a more focused obviously attention to our park system and it also meets some requirements for potential eligibility for different state funding opportunities uh and the like so it is a routine process i think it's every five years four or five years five years um now that i think it happened about the
194same time with the city and uh this um while frankly the parks and recreation department will be leading most of that work because it is adopted as a comprehensive plan we take the first step and we notify adjacent jurisdictions that hey we are intending to update our parks and recreation open space plan if you're interested in it let us know we will keep you apprised of progress and status and opportunities for engagement and then you may recall as recently done with the transportation plan at the tail end of that process we share the plan with those same jurisdictions saying this is what we came up with if you have any comments please share them before it is ultimately adopted all right if there are questions about that once we've moved it we can have that
195discussion but i appreciate that that introduction um can can we move would uh commissioner please move this move by commissioner dish second by commissioner white so now if you have questions or want to discuss the notice of intent to plan this is the time i just have a small correction which is that the second paragraph is a repeat sentence of the second sentence of the first paragraph sorry i see the second sentence i noticed that actually while i was reading through this before during the meeting and since i write and since i i wrote that letter i have to have to make sure thank you make sure you don't have any typos commissioner abrams secretary abrams my reputation sorry your secretarial staff let you down secretary any other discussion all right um i think we
196can do just do a voice vote all those in favor of the motion please say yes or raise a hand those are all of the hands uh the motion carries so next is revisions to uh uh this is 9b revisions to the planning commissioner planning commission meeting calendar mr leonard you want to walk us through the revisions yeah the this is a update to our schedule there are three changes unless you don't get through this you have gotten through all your business we have no public hearing scheduled for the december 21st meeting so this schedule would have the impact of canceling that meeting it also makes two adjustments to meetings in 2022 uh the first adjusts uh the meeting from uh 118 to 121 because meetings that week are being moved back for the martin
197luther king holiday and then there is a may special election on may 4th so we are moving to may 5th to not overlap any election are you sure it's that's a friday uh i was just looking up the very same thing i kind of think it's 20. i'm sorry sorry hold on it says 20 in the schedule that we were given yes i'm sorry i just put 21 in my notes it should be the 20th and then i'm sorry the other the other one i was so stuck on the friday that uh they're is being moved for the standard may election in the event that there is a special election in may um then that would be off offset i don't um honestly know if there is one but we're accommodating for it okay the
198council meeting has been moved for it so you're also moving okay so the first is a move to a thursday the second is a move to a wednesday that's correct yeah all right and the third is a cancellation great um thank you for introducing that can we move it and then we can ask if there are any other questions um moved by commissioner hammerschmidt seconded by commissioner lee any other discussion of this or clarifications all right all those in favor of the amended meeting calendar please raise your hand that's everybody um i'm sorry who moved in second did that i miss hammer schmidt and lee thank you that's right okay thank you um next is item 10 audience participation this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any item
199of interest if you wish to address the planning commission at this time please press star 9 if you're listening by phone or use the raised hand feature if you're viewing through the web link for phone access our number is 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 977 6634 1226. mr leonard will call on those who have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number or by the name that is available if you are joining through the web link and i'm going to stretch this out since there's no one joining us right now but we do have the tv delay um also to say that when we are in person i'm i will let my mind forget this phone number because it's the same blessedly it's the same one all
200the time uh you um hopefully not because we um are one of two bodies along with city council who are going to be piloting the ability for the public to still participate remotely even though all of you will be in person that is right so we will continue to invite people to the podium and also to invite people to call in great that was thank you for reminding me nobody's calling in no speakers no speakers okay so um we'll move on to item 11 which is commission proposed business is there any commissioner uh just a quick question about our uh eventual move into the council chamber given that i never started in the council chamber um uh where do we ask the questions is there how does parking happen if i'm not biking um what's
201the ventilation situation going to be like and are we still under a mask mandate and then i also wanted to apologize to you chair mills for using the wrong honorific when i was cutting myself off so i apologize uh for that uh improper use of your honorific um i'm super you can be very informal i appreciate that um that's okay honor honorifics matter you you all have spent a lot of time achieving the things you have achieved and i want to use the right ones and i apologize that i did not i can take a stab at that if you do not ride your bike or take the bus thank you for your contributions to our parking system um if uh um so that means we're paying for our own parking yeah okay but it's
202it's free if you can find it it's the finding the street parking yeah um i'm not gonna tell you where i ate so far as as far as um as far as ventilation um i i'll have to follow up with you i am not aware of specific changes to city hall's ventilation but they have um recently actually cleaned out the ventilation of the duct system which my understanding had not been done for some time so um that work is either completed or scheduled to be completed shortly i i'm happy to follow up with any more details if i can learn about that anybody in city hall must be masked whether you are staff public boards commissions and the like um i think at this point most of you may have received a communication from boards
203and commissions that in-person boards and conventions also have to demonstrate their vaccine status or seek an exemption from the city so if you haven't followed up on that process please make sure you do that before our january meetings as well [Music] so i guess out of all that i don't have the best answer to the ventilation system but i'll see what i can provide as a follower if you could just ask about um air filters if that is a possibility as well so that we can just bring that in especially because we'll have the public addressing the commission and even though people will be wearing mass i don't know if there's enforcement for masking because some people wear their masks as a chin guard and not over their nose and mouth so i don't know
204how that that's going to be managed sure and i would also i would also say because you haven't had in-person meetings there's there's a fair amount of physical separation as well between the public and the commission um at meetings but um it is airborne it's like smoke so once it's in a space it's in a space so it's not about droplets or uh distance it's really about what's in the air so those are those are my questions so yep know i'll find out on that um i see you commissioner clark but while i'm thinking of it if if this is part of my duties um of mask enforcement uh some pointers on how that works i am in front of a classroom i've never had to enforce a mask requirement because everybody has been in
205compliance but i welcome thoughts on how that is proceeding um commissioner clarke um that's the question i don't know we'll have like an answer immediately but i'm just curious if there's any accommodations or hearing um i sometimes rely on um watching people's like bringing whatever to get a full you know um understanding what they're saying and i was just hoping that there might be i don't know how like captioning could work or like so like later on i can go to reviews you know see but i'm just worried about um my ability to like uh follow along so i don't know it's a tricky question and so i'm not expecting like a miracle answer or whatever um it's just some things are on the radar yeah captioning is done for city meetings um you're finding
206the best way for you to access that while you are at the dyess i don't know that answer let me explore that and figure out the best way but um the the service is there i don't like i said though i don't know the best way to get that to you at worst it might be um you uh utilizing a personal laptop and just sort of keeping the live feed up on your laptop and with that caption service but there is a delay there as commissioner mills is often referred to so that could be challenging as well but let me let me explore that as well the best way to get that service to you and even like a microphone inside the mast or something it could even help a bit but just just get
207out of your sd i know that's a tricky one so yeah and microphones are used in the council chambers so yeah so um at a minimum um sometimes we all um commissioners and myself have to be reminded to actually make sure that they're speaking close to them uh but um um so that might help but i'll i'll see also how i can explore maybe the best way to get that closed captioning service uh to your spot on the dice thank you commissioner lee just really quick i just want to say i can't wait to actually meet you guys in person so like master on that so i'm really looking forward to it i won't be there on the fourth i noticed um i'll be out of state i think i sent you guys an email
208but i just can't wait to actually meet you one person so sorry silly commissioner business up and that's about it we'll see how tall everybody is like this is the thing that is yeah uh any other well anything else about meeting in person because the next time well next week we will gather together in a um for our working session but after that the next time that we will all be together will be in person yeah and um you know the uh we will be we will be advertising the meeting much like we traditionally did we will be providing the virtual comment option at this point just for our public participation at this point i we are not extending that to staff or petitioners yet we could explore that in the future but that's where
209we're starting just with public participation um i will say that we are there i think there will be a learning curve um i think it um at the city has done a great job in sort of preparing us for this we will probably be noticing that if you want to make sure that you have access to provide public comment providing comments in writing or attending the meeting is probably the most sure-fire way because there could be technical difficulties but um so i i just want to acknowledge that we will be trying to qualify that but our we are fully intending to get this successful as quickly and operational as possible so it's just to say i'm sure there will be some adjustments as we learn sort of back and forth to in person and going
210to a virtual comment and um at this point i think it's going to show up in audio in the room and you're only going to see it on the televisions in the back of the room um so um bear with us as we um fine-tune this and and you as the planning commission and the city council are the other um you are going to be the sort of guinea pigs to see what application this might have for others commissioner hammerschmidt um are we are are we intending for working sessions in orc to also be in person like the basement conference room yeah and i think um so i've i've just actually recently had this conversation with the attorney's office and they recommend that the planning commission and all of its impertinent committees should be in
211person because those actions could be leading to i think when we're talking about the working session and the orc in the basement conference room i think it is going to be a little bit different dynamic um i i think that is going to be probably some starting probably with some adjustment just to how we set up physically for the commission um um i i i don't know exactly how i'm going to do it but i think we'll probably start sort of more separate but in that is such a smaller room seeing what the comfort level how how what comfort we have or concerns we have about that um that i think is frankly going to be a little bit more challenging from of a physical distance but that's also the reason we meet there is
212because the nature of those meetings or see in the working session lend themselves to a little bit more collaborative and frankly intimate kind of dialogue so um they will be in person um um and will i think it's going to be sort of on us to sort of figure out our comfort level with that arrangement i wasn't even thinking about that but thank you i was actually more thinking like like you know we have public comment at those as well are people are we going to try to figure out how to are people going to have to like physically come and then that would probably make me slightly uncomfortable because that is for people you're cramming into that room yeah that will probably require people to physically come because the way we're going to be
213able to be accommodate virtual comments is through some work of ctn and sort of bringing that feed into the room at this point i don't know that we'll have the ability to do that in the conference rooms just through the computer versus the ctn feed so that i think that will be a challenge we're gonna have to be really cognizant of separation masking in those circumstances yeah this will be an interesting test yeah and it i i would say ultimately if we decide that we're not uncomfortable that what we might have to do is explore alternative meeting times where um you know as as it is we were sort of balancing um for example igpak and orc meet at the same time and both were sort of interested in using the basement room we work
214with them to sort of move them to the council chambers where because it's more of a public-facing meeting it's televised and alike but at some point we're going to have to find our comfort with the orc for example and being in that smaller room and if we're not for some reason we might have to explore alternative locations to accommodate them commissioner weich just a real quick one um can we bring our personal laptops to use at the dios or okay yeah most people do yeah yeah perfect thank you yeah the only uh the screens at the dios are actually sort of a public speed and they're distorted for some reason so like all the site plans end up stretched oddly so most people just use their laptop other commission proposed business i just want to
215note that i'm hoping mr leonard that in the next time orc meets or talks about parking that we are reminded of the things that came up tonight um less important about kind of the minimum i think that that is not at all in conflict with the kind of this the things that we had been discussing but i think um ideas about uh edits to the eevee ordinance specifically just for everybody's benefit one of the things that the last just or see was discussing whether we should not have three categories whether whether installed and kind of capable like kind of get rid of the ready category might go away um so kind of simplification but also what i heard was what are the multipliers according to kind of how long people expect to be there um
216so if we can just carry those along and just for everybody's benefit too like to remind people right now like this is going to become less relevant if council actually passes the thing that what past that first reading last i think that you said it was last night council member dish because um right now they only comply with the ev ordinance if the site plan goes to city council for approval and there's very few things that will go on to city council for approval in the new situation other than rezonings is that fair so um there's well that's another reason why we've got a we've got to do something because it lost its trigger like the stormwater lost its trigger so exactly exactly somebody jumped in along the way commissioner abrams no okay it's not
217important okay anything else all right item 12 is adjournment all moved by commissioner abrams seconded by commissioner sovay all in favor please say i'll raise a hand that's everybody's hands good thank night