001and welcome to the thursday february 18 2021 meeting of the ann arbor city planning commission this meeting is being held electronically to protect public health and safety due to the covid19 virus and to comply with orders issued by the governor the michigan department of health and human services and or the washington county health department we intend to cut conduct the meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues the public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877-853-5247 or any of the other published numbers and enter meeting id 939-5339-6143 this information is also available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 at
002t channel 99 and also online at a2gov.org watch ctn you can select the government channel item number two on the agenda is a roll call mr leonard good evening commissioners uh commissioner mills here commissioner milstein here commissioner gibb randall here commissioner sobe here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here commissioner dish here commissioner lee here commissioner clark here full house and quorum excellent looks like no introductions all right moving on to item four which is the approval of the agenda may i have a motion to approve the agenda please uh moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner dish any discussion on the motion all those in favor please say yes or raise your hand i see all hands commissioner clark there we go all right um the motion carries item number five is minutes of the
003previous meeting um those are the minutes from february 2nd 2021 may i have a motion to move the minutes uh moved by commissioner abram seconded by commissioner dish any discussion of the minutes all those in favor of the minutes as drafted please say yes or raise a hand that is everyone the motion carries item six are the reports from city administration city council planning manager planning commission officers and committees and written communications and i'll just report that we have a couple big packets of communication online from the two items that we discussed at the last working session thank you for organizing it that way by the way um steph um council member dish do you have any report for us from council you know it totally slipped my mind and right now nothing is coming
004to the surface of my mind so i may need to rely on mr leonard to help me with what i've forgotten it's a thursday this is we don't normally meet on thursdays for those of you who don't know that we don't normally meet on thursdays sure no problem um so uh at the city council meeting on earlier this week we had three uh planning related actions we had approval of a site plan for a 2150 freeze which was saint francis addition we had an approval of a site plan for an apartment multi-family residential at 907 913 south main street and then we also had just first reading on uh annexation recently annex property 2731. um and then looking forward uh at the ordinance revisions committee agenda for next week we're going to have a pretty
005packed agenda we're going to touch on site plan review thresholds t1 the transit zoning district accessory dwelling unit uh accessory dwelling units and um a proposed uh ordinance amendments as directed by city council relative to short-term rentals so it will be a rather rapid fire rc meeting lastly i want to point out i think i shared with the commission and for the benefit of anyone else the recording of the working session um that was referenced from the 9th where we had a lot of feedback and discussion on accessory dwelling units and the transit zoning has now been memorialized on video and available on the both project websites for both of those two proposed ordinance amendments so i think i shared the link with you as well but please note that it's also available on our
006website for your binge watching leisure very good any other commissioner officers or committee liaisons have anything to report out commissioner lee sure i started the transportation commission meeting yesterday um three of the items that we talked about were we had a presentation on equitable community engagement the other two big um items were a city administration of snow removal from sidewalks so the transportation commission was of uh in favor of pushing the city to further investigate how the city could see sidewalks that's something that they do in terms of snow removal um they considered it an equity issue sidewalks are um fundamental transportation um edges essentially so they wanted the city to continue to look at how they might actually implement that so a snow buddy study was shared it's actually a pretty good read it's
007about 60 pages so um and then the last item was personally mobility vehicles um i think it's mostly around like those bird scooters and essentially anything that's kind of motorized is traveling on sidewalks so we talked about duty of care health safety general welfare on the sidewalks and we one of the discussions was on the ordinance language regarding a 10 mile per hour speed limit which is equivalent to about running at a 6 minute mile uh but then they had actually just said uh we don't really want to put a speed limit because it won't be really enforceable no one's out there with uh lidar at sidewalks so um those are the three items it was my first one so i hope that's a sufficient summary very good thank you for representing us there and
008bringing what's going on there back to the table any others all right very good um next um the agenda is item seven which is public comment um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda so that's this is not the time to talk about 2385 east ellsworth or 2394 winewood to comment on any other matters please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting id 939 5339 6143 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number you raise your hand on your phone by pressing star nine when it's your turn to speak um there'll be an automated uh message telling you that mr leonard will also
009call on you by those last three digits of your telephone number please move to a quiet area mute any background sound so that we can hear you clearly and please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments if any callers on the line wish to address um have public comment right now you can press star nine to indicate that you'd like to speak unindicated all right very good um we'll move on to item number eight then which is public hearings for the next business meeting yes we have two scheduled uh public hearings for the march 2nd 2021 meeting of the planning commission the first is proposed amendments speaking of long ordinance titles proposed amendments to table 515-1 table 515-2 section 5.33 section 5.37.2 key and section 5.37.2 s of chapter 55
010of this code of ordinance for city council's approval unified development goal to establish and regulate short-term rental uses and then the second is proposed amendments to table 515 permitted use table and section 516.6d accessory dwelling unit specific standards in chapter 15 unified development code article 5 of the evander code of ordinances accessory rolling unit modifications that were discussed in the working session very good so that is effectively two weeks more or less um again next week uh is the working s or um the ordinance revisions committee so two opportunities coming up for ordinance change discussions and um always as a reminder um folks are always welcome to email us as well in between those opportunities at planning a2gov.org thank you very much mr leonard we'll move on to item number nine a this is regular
011business this is um the petition at 2385 east ellsworth road site plan and special exception use for planning commission approval as is our standard procedure we'll give the petitioner up to 10 minutes to tell us about the project and proposal um staff will then offer a presentation and then we'll open up the public hearing before a commission discusses the item so as mr leonard is populating with the petitioner and staff we'll give him a minute there okay uh mr hart i think you should be able to access shardscreen and whenever you're ready you have up to 10 minutes to present to the planning commission all right is that screen coming through yes all right let me uh all right um my name is heath hart we are here uh we have brian fenich um and
012kyle gonzalez the architect and also steve soka the owner for the property all presents so if there's any questions that i cannot answer we have a good group here that i'm sure we can answer any questions that you might have this is a request this is a property 2385 east ellsworth um it's an existing property the property is kind of uh it's on the north side of ellsworth between shadowwood drive and jonathan court uh just kind of pointing out this ariel i just kind of want to drop in just so you can see that the current site is is kind of a of pavement and building structures and looking at the site to our east we've got a forest hills co-op which is the zoned r4a and then to the west and also to the
013north we have a c1 commercial zoning so we've got residential to our east and then commercial to our west and to the north um and as i as i stated the existing property it's got a large impervious footprint there's no storm water management uh there is no buffer provided to the r4 except there is a existing masonry wall that separates the east property line lies right on the property line and we are proposing to maintain that existing masonry wall to provide additional screening when we came to you first uh that would have been um it would have been over a year ago um this is the plan that we had provided and after we had left and got the original seu approval started looking at this plan and noticing some issues the biggest being we
014are at that point in time we were proposing a new building that was going to lie in the south side of the the property and with the square foot of that building uh even maxing out our allowable off-street parking we had six spaces and uh our owner and the use of the building uh had a real concern with only providing the six spaces um also the circulation part circulation patterns was not the best we had a single entrance a single-sided parking lot and our space constraints really did not allow us to add any additional parking to service the medical marijuana i'm sorry the recreational marijuana facility so we had some concerns with that original uh plan um we're coming forward today with a new plan and this plan what we're proposing is to renovate the
015existing building so we're taking apart taking away the the new construction or a new structure away from the plan this existing building years ago served as a liquor store so it already had a solid foundation uh for us to work off of a footprint for us to work within to renovate it to make it make it work for our purposes um with this new building um this is 2533 square foot building so with that square footage we were allowed to increase our our parking spaces to a total of nine uh which is maximizing the allowable parking which serves a great benefit for our use it also provides a increased circulation pattern now we have an area you can actually pull in and then there's a a large vehicular use area that's in the center that
016allows for turning movements so as cars come in they're allowed to turn around it also allows for a trash truck to come in and turn around on site um as well as a fire truck can actually back up and make that turn although it is it is uh deficient in the regulations um we do have fire department approval but since this is less than 150 feet we're not required to have a turnaround but um in running running a truck turning movements it is possible for a truck a fire truck to turn around if if in case that event ever was needed so we also decreased greatly decreased the impervious footprint right now the northern uh proposed lot split would be uh all that existing pavement would be removed that would be restored with grass we
017were providing a 15 foot wide natural feature i'm sorry a conflicting use buffer along the eastern edge to separate our commercial use from the residential use to the east we are also increased the width of this sidewalk so um we are not we don't fall under the requirements for the electric vehicle ordinance however with this arrangement we do have the capabilities of dropping in a electric vehicle charger and that would probably be laying right between the the ada parking space and the regular parking space and that could be a dual charger to serve actually two parking spots a accessible parking spot as well as a standard parking spot and the spatial requirements do allow for the placement of that charger if it was ever desired in the future and it would still allow for the
018pedestrian axis widths needed on the sidewalk to be able to maneuver that sidewalk uh without conflicting with the placement of that so we were pleased about that that consideration uh that if an event we have if in the event it's decided added we don't have to uh reconstruct or reconfigure any parking or um sidewalks in order to get that consideration we are dual using the pavement area with a large um underground detention system for storm water management that would be used in conjunction with a structural water quality unit um that's one of the one of the units that would capture sediments and allow for pumping of that structure to remove those sediments so when we discharge into the street it would be clean water and it also would be a controlled release rate to prevent
019any downstream capacity issues with the existing storm drain i will say with that storm drain that's in ellsworth road we were notified actually last week that that is a county drain so we scrambled over the last week and worked with the water resources commissioner office in order to get the approval for this system and really pleased with the layout um and how this is all working and i guess next i'll turn it over to kyle unless there's questions on the site layout i can answer and if not i'll turn it over to kyle and he can speak on the the building kyle he left you about a minute okay um the uh the concept for this building is to reuse um as much of the existing as possible um there's no new development we're not
020proposing any additions uh the awning that you see here is being it's actually integrated into the overall structure so we couldn't cut it off and we redo it like we would in other facilities it's it's integrated into the overall roof structure one of the things that we are doing here is using lifetime materials um stone veneers nijiha uh panels fiber spent that have a 10-year just finish warranty um the other part of this overall concept is to raise the parapet height it does two things one it gets a little bit more of a street presence and minimizes the scale of the awning and two it provides a little bit more screening to the adjacent sites on either side if we don't think you'll see any of our rtu's from the ground but anyone possibly on
021a second level uh we're looking out for them there's the the layout uh this area was concerned with security and this is one of the few uh locations that we've designed a few in the city but this is one of the few locations that we have an exit vestibule um there's a separate entry separate exit and it's um it's there just as an extra security precaution um you can see the extra parapets and then all of the existing light fixtures that you see on the building on this image have been replaced or are proposed to be replaced with dark sky compliant light fixtures we use lithonia wedge fixtures and wst they're on one of the latest sheets or one of the site plan sheets i can bring it up if needed that's 10 minutes perfect
022nicely done all right um [Music] there we go mr leo do you have a report for us thank you um i'll start by saying i can pull up some um graphics as well but i think i'll just keep it a little more brief but know that i have them on standby but um thank you very much let me just go over some of the technical aspects of what is before you tonight um you have um two motions in your staff report because there are two petitions one is a site plan for planning commission approval so i know that currently you don't approve very many site plans but since there are no building editions it's just site work this falls under the site plan for planning commission approval category and also we have an amended special
023exception use uh before you um the approved special exception use um is very specific to a um a marijuana provisioning center slash retailer to be in place in a newly constructed building south of the existing building on this site so the amendment is to change that condition to allow the approved use in the existing building the staff report does have a long proposed motion for you for both petitions um i think that uh mr hart and mr gonzalez explained very well what's going on with the site improvements um the staff report um also runs through a brief description of that of that uh staff report also goes through the special exception use standards the general standards um um which for all special exception uses are summarized master plan consistency compatibility with the general vicinity consistent
024with the neighborhood and not detrimental to it uh parking pedestrian safety vehicular movement and traffic on and surrounding the site and impacts on natural features i will point out that i have a um error in the staff report a little bit too much copying and pasting in the pandemic and not enough proofreading the staff report general uh special exception new standards mentions that the site has enough space to accommodate 1500 square foot commercial parking um for the proposed use that was for the old site plan in the new building now you can see from the site plan that the uh current site also has um enough parking to meet the ordinance requirements and thus the general special exception use standards and then specific special exception use standards for marijuana facilities um the applications need to
025come with some additional required information things that address the operations safety and security plans you have to address the description of order control the waste disposal plan and state the hours of operation those i went over those in the staff report as well um overall we found that the site plan meets all of the development approval standards and the request to amend the special exception use doesn't change or negate the previous findings um in some sense you can argue that the amended use in the existing building is perhaps more compatible with the surrounding neighborhood residential neighborhood because it doesn't increase the volume of commercial uses in the area it reuses the existing building staff has reviewed development review team has reviewed all the materials as well and has no outstanding comments staff report and the
026motion mentions that we recommended approval subject to receiving the county drink county water resources commissioner's approval and that just came yesterday um thank you to the applicant team for working so well with us on this last minute twist and the staff report i provided a little bit of background which i won't go over but i'll just mention it's there because we have you're not it's not deja vu we have talked about this um project um a bit in the past year staff is recommending approval of the site plan and the amended special exception use i'm happy to answer any further questions thank you very much um at this time i'll open the public comment for this petition public comment may be made by calling eight five three five two four seven and then entering meeting
027id nine three nine five three three nine six one four three city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number you can digitally raise your hand by pressing star nine once you'll hear in a um an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any background sound so that we can hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and i know there's a bit of a delay so wait to see if anyone calls in no callers currently on the line all right then because it's a very long motion i'll close a public comment and if somebody sneaks in while we're reading it
028we can button commissioner gibb randall would you be so kind as to read it or i can do this one if you want to read the next one all right we'll do so buckle up the ann arbor city planning commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information including an accompanying site plan finds the petition substantially meets the standards in chapter 55 unified development code section 5.29.5 point d special exceptions and section 5.16.3 point g marijuana facility and therefore amends the 2385 east ellsworth road special exception use for a medical marijuana provisioning center slash marijuana retailer this amendment approval amended approval is based on the following findings one the proposed use remains consistent with the c1 local business district which provides for commercial retail uses as well as office and residential uses two
029the amended location of the proposed use will not adversely impact traffic pedestrians bicyclists circulation or road intersections based on the location east ellsworth road provides access to the site and the proposed use is consistent with other surrounding uses traffic impact three a site plan documenting the existing and proposed conditions of the site has been submitted in conjunction with this application four through documentation submitted by the petitioner regarding waste disposal inventory tracking security and other mesh method methods of operation of the facility the provisioning center retailer in the amended location on the site will still be operated in a manner that will not have an adverse impact on the neighboring properties or area and will not have a detrimental impact on natural features five previous conditions relating to timing and deadlines remain in effect maintaining established
030expectations despite the amended physical form and location of the provisioning center retailer on the site this amended special exception use approval is based on the following conditions one approval of a site plan to redevelop the site for a marijuana provisioning center or retailer is approved by may 19 2021 2. a land division application to create the lots proposed on the site plan is submitted and approved prior to issuance of any permits or licenses three the petitioner obtaining and maintaining both the state of michigan marijuana license and a city of ann arbor marijuana permit and providing documentation to planning services by november 19 2022 for the petitioner operating a marijuana business at this address by november 19th 2022 and the ann arbor city planning the second motion effectively is that the ann arbor city planning commission
031hereby approves the 2385 east ellsworth site plan dated january 25th 2021 subject to one approval of a land division as proposed and two approval by the washington akane water water resources commissioner prior to issuance of any permits or licenses moved by commissioner dish seconded by commissioner gbranzl any discussion of the proposed motion commissioner milstein thank you um mr leo so my recollection was the reason why last time around they were not able to use the uh existing building there was because they were within 600 feet of bryant elementary and so the reason so they did the whole um so the reason why they move they uh they pretty much change the property line was the reason was that they were more than 600 feet away is that is that correct and what so what they're
032doing now is they are instead cutting the back part of the of the property um and keeping the the existing building in the front in place and that's more than 600 feet away from the from the school yes exactly um the building the building itself is more that is has plenty of distance um and by doing the land division cutting the northern part of the property rather than putting the line south of the building there still is a conforming lot created we have a sketch um on file about that that you can get a retail building um and small parking lot on the north so it's a conforming lot and it has development potential it couldn't it could have any permitted commercial use on it but it could not have a um a marijuana facility
033on it now for two reasons one it is too close to bryant elementary and now it's too close to another um provisioning center retailer but um this the spirit and the the rules are being maintained but the land division line is being moved so technically you know from what i believe i heard from the participants presentation was you know the northern parcel now the small parcel um was going to be used as green space but what i'm hearing from you is that it is technically a developable lot so they could potentially put a building on that property is that is that correct yes it will be um in the immediate term um they need to do the land division and they need to remove all the impervious surface um and restore it to a more
034vacant condition because um parking is not a permitted principal use in the c1 district however um it being a fully conforming lot vacant lot a site plan could be submitted in the future for um for a commercial use um but the immediate is for it to be a vacant lot and all previous improvements are going to be removed so that it is truly a vacant lot and it will not be used inconsistent with the zoning okay so i would like the commission as we're having a conversation about this to discuss that um knowing that that's not going to be a there's a potential that that property could be developed um i believe we had a conversation you know when this was before us that you know this is sort of working it's not working the
035system but i don't know the exact terminology that i would use but it's sort of like going around um what um you know around the 600 uh feed from the school criteria that we have so i feel like this is now you know so here they are uh cutting off the northern parcel we have no guarantee that that is going to remain a uh you know it could be developed into another building so what we're currently seeing is a grassy area um that might go away so i'd like to i'd like to get feedback from other commissioners as uh they're uh talking about this item thank you mr leonard yeah um and uh planner deleo can correct me if i'm wrong but i just wanna i also want to set the scale on that distance
036requirement um to be clear when we first looked at this parcel um well let me back up the city has two public mapping systems one of our mapping systems showed that it did meet the requirements of the separation another one of our mapping systems showed that it didn't meet the requirements of the separation based on the margin for error and to be clear that measurement with it was within one foot it was you know between the last foot of the requirement so because of my understanding what i learned then to be the margin of error frankly for measuring based on those tools that's what ultimately necessitated our contact with the petitioner letting them know that they would not need it without clear documentation of that basically they would need a broader survey of numerous parcels
037in order to document because i couldn't reliably conclude that based on that so i just want to set that scale i totally agree with with you know how you question why this was happening commissioner milstein and planner deleo was absolutely accurate but i do want to be clear that um it was awfully close without this from the dimension so i don't i don't want you to go on the sort of premise that we're talking about the majority of that property is necessary to meet that separation it's not it was awfully close to the corner of that existing one we just couldn't i couldn't conclude that it was compliant with the ordinance without it with this division it's clearly compliant so i just wanted to set that stage i but i totally agree with the with
038the point um our intention was for the time being to make sure that this use didn't frankly creep in to that area out of compliance with that but term we don't know what's going to happen but we do know it would be subject to sight thank you for that clarification um commissioners clark i saw your hand up before was that by accident i'm trying to read your lips assuming yeah you don't need you don't want to talk about okay great any other commissioners have comments or questions or want to take commissioner milstein up miss uh commissioner dish yeah i want to take commissioner milstein up because um my main question my two main questions about this project were what is anticipated for the vacant lot and i suppose the answer could be nothing's anticipated at
039the moment but we've just had a discussion of what is possible and you mentioned in the report that residents had several residents have written to oppose the proposed use the that those communications were included in our packet this time around and so i wondered if you could summarize some of those concerns i glean from the um from the presentation of the proposal that security was among them and that that concern has been addressed a little bit as much as it can be the information divulged to us and the rest will be of course given to the state but that we don't make all that public because we do not want to assist danny ocean in planning a heist so um we will not ask any more questions about security but i would love to hear
040about objections and uh if there are any existing plans for that developable lot um and i i do i kind of see that there's not really much we can do about it necessarily but i i'd love to hear whatever anybody wants to say i can address the um some of the comments from the original special exception news approval um and i can let the um the owner of the design team the future use my i suspect there are no immediate plans for the future use of the lot um from the original uh special exception news public hearing um the the neighborhood i can summarize it by saying they seem to be um um appreciative actually of this current owner taking over the property my understanding is there was a lot of conflict and um the
041former liquor lotto deli was sort of a sort of a nuisance it became a hangout um it was not a bright spot of the neighborhood um and um i think there's a lot of desire paths that cut across from the neighborhoods coming to the coming to this site i think that the um current use of the site um cleaned it literally cleaned it up a bit um it removed some of that attractive nuisance element i believe and it's a physically nicer site and they expressed some appreciation for that but their main concern was they they did not want um a medical marijuana or retail facility in such proximity to so much housing they just they felt it was um would be a bad influence on the neighborhood it would make things too accessible and too
042easy and it would send the wrong message for the neighborhood um very valid um concerns but from our other facilities in the neighborhood and but i have to say there was an equal number of persons in support of the um of the provisioning center and retailer talking about how they would appreciate this service so close in the neighborhood um they are patients or recreational users um and so that was actually almost a 50 50 public hearing and i you didn't ask but just to clarify if the amended special exception use is not approved the current special exception use would still remain if it is not um invalidated it may or may not be the right word was still the outstanding question about the development team's plans and is that if anyone from the um from
043the development team would like to talk to that i can talk to that briefly there there are no plans currently for that uh that lot um it's just uh a grassed area for now um there was a a plan that was proposed to demonstrate how a business could be placed there but there is no plans for a business to be placed in that that area do i get one follow-up absolutely okay we don't have the same time limits i think that okay now um thank you for your answers and your candor um and certainly the grassy spot looks great uh i was just curious this was another thing that occurred to me when i was looking at the project do we have other marijuana provisioning centers in such close proximity to residential housing okay that's
044you know good to know it may be a brief list if anybody could follow up with that um so i can be prepped for council but other than that you missed the string for a while we heard a lot of petitions um any other questions commissioner hammerschmidt uh and mr actually can we if mr leonard has something that's clarifying yeah um i just want to follow up on commissioner dish your comment um uh i presume you're just talking about information just to be clear the planning commission is the final stop for the special exception use and the site plan in the circumstance so however if any site plan was proposed for that lot that would go under the current regs that would go through the planning commission and on to city council thank you commissioner
045hammerschmidt yeah just quickly i think um the petitioner mr hart you showed this sorry if you guys can hear screaming children um he showed this i think on the first slide but can you just remind us what in the original proposal what was happening in that back portion if anything um it was parking lot okay thank you that's what i thought thanks other questions or comments commissioner good brandel um i'm just curious um mr hart does does the underground detention is it infiltration at all are the soils really bad there or did it um or did it it's bad okay it seems really variable in that area in terms of sand and clay i was just curious um and then i presume the drive kind of heading towards the back even though it's not really
046going anywhere is that mainly for the fire truck to be able to kind of pull up to the building or is it more about the future use of access to the back oh that is a shared access for both access and franchise utilities to service that backlot the easement is going to be in place at this current time but so there it is an access point to that back lot right now which i i believe is required as part of the land division you know that has to have access to the to a public street okay alrighty thanks other comments or questions i have a couple um and i'll start with the one that uh kind of follows on to what commissioner milstein said and i've been trying to pull it up but you guys
047know the plan better than i can look on my screen um what kind of physical separation i know you that you're removing concrete but what is stopping people from parking on the new lawn that you establish because people park on the lawn sometimes in this town so how do they how do we stop them from doing that um there are no physical separations right now on the plan um well i guess i can double check if there's gonna be a curb on the back of the sidewalk or not i mean sidewalk drive um but perhaps um curbing can be installed um even some baller type things could be installed if there's nothing right now i'm not the landscape architect on this but i mean i planting bushes right or something that is physically planted to
048stop people like i would i would actually feel more confident then that this is functioning as two separate lots and that sure there could be another development that's unrelated based on what we hear it has to be on you know it couldn't be a um some kind of a marijuana facility just because um of the proximity issue and also like what's you know to an existing facility um so some if somebody some development does go there they would have to tear it out but i um i don't want to like be again play landscape architect at the table but that's i'm just think wondering if kind of curving that landscape buffer that um conflicting land juice buffer around works this is this is actually like a question then for the development team i'm happy to
049agree to it but um i don't own a lot i i'll take that um i don't think these have any issue with that um planting some shrubs i don't we wouldn't plant a tree obviously because that would be detrimental if we have to cut it down if there is a future development but um some low-growing shrubs some grasses something as a physical delineation or or we could do a curb across that i welcome others thoughts but that would give me a little bit more confidence because a lot of these standards are reliant on people you know neighbors calling in and i don't wanna i like particularly if this is done intended to you know honor that separation um i think physically putting something there to make it more difficult i don't know that we need
050bollards and honestly i would rather see shrubs than a curb um so but welcome others thoughts commissio mr leonard um uh my crack staff has put together a proposed condition just i'll throw out there for your consideration um it would be a fifth condition of the special exception use plan that would direct that the petitioner work with staff to develop a landscaping plan curb or other method to create a physical barrier to restrict use of the vacant northern site i like that um or uh i almost would i kind of would rather have landscaping plan rather than the curb um but um i'll go with what your crack uh staff has developed and i'll move it i guess anybody want to second it okay commissioner mills jean so now we are in discussion of the
051amendment not the overall plan because it was moved and seconded now we're in discussion about the amendment so what do people think about requiring that commissioner clark um i think that's great idea it's gonna be really important to separate those two parcels especially stay in the spirit of you know keeping that separation um and i was just kind of concerned about the security um and i think it would also be good if there's some kind of a buffer there especially hedge just to ensure that the security for the property stays on the property and doesn't you know have security guards or anything at the back of it things like that so there's a lot of benefit there great other questions so commissioner clark i guess because i moved it as discussed does it it sounds
052to me like you like heads should we cut off the curb i like the curb as well because i do think that like people parking back there seems like it might happen and i don't know okay so keeping that as part of it makes sense i'm fine with that too other questions discussion of the proposed amendment commissioner hammerschmidt i mean i would actually be fine with just saying landscape i mean i feel like you're going to put a curve i mean who knows when this will be developed but if you're going to pour the concrete and have to rip the concrete out that just seems like a lot of work and expense and you could reuse some of the like landscaping elements that you put in so i mean i would be in favor of
053just saying a landscape but i could also go either way that's just my general feeling about the situation and leave it up to staff to hash out the details commissioner mr leonard i would just point out that this language would provide for that option it but if for some reason the petitioner you know or for some reason we didn't think the landscaping was going to adequately we weren't going to be able to get to a solution this just does provide some flexibility but generally i think the development team is probably of the same mind as referenced by the tree comment you know there's probably no intention to make it more difficult than less for future consideration great other comments on the amendment or questions discussion all in um do you want a roll call on
054the amendment mr leonard or should we just can we do a voice vote voice on the amendments okay okay all in favor of the amendment to require landscaping curb or other thing please say yes or raise a hand any opposed i see none okay so now we have an amended main motion um i still had two more comments one what are questions one is about the ev parking and there was a comment that the petitioner made that it's not required and that was confusing to me because i do see like a retailer provisioner um provisioning center is on the the table that's now in part of the udc so steph can you help us understand that yes the uvb parking ordinance applies to site plans for city council this is not a site plan for
055city council got it if the rear parcel was developed that would be adding new floor area and it would require compliance with the uv ordnance got it so and if it slight plans for for this use typically do stop with us unless it's a brand new development problem if a new building was being proposed that would require city council approval but because none of the triggers that would necessitate that are being provided here um it's it is your authority and ev parking is not required got it and just so that i'm making sure that i'm reading the table right if this were to something that would go before city council they would need to provide 10 of the parking would need to be installed another 10 percent would need to be ev ready which is
056conduit there and 15 would need to be capable that means they've got a big enough box so they would they would have to install one charger if it went if if that were required and probably have two spaces wired to be able to do that and then space in again the electrical connection for um for another charger or two like the night spots is weird i agree that was my read and my first reaction was they'll need to provide the ev parking because that went into effect on february 14th but as mr leonard mentioned it's a not a site plan for city council but um i tried to encourage them and they were in agreement um although the shopping habits that uh provisioning centers and retailers uh the customers um it's a very quick trip
057but employees um i said if you may have an employee who would um like to charge um and since they were redoing the parking lot anyway they felt it would be easy enough to do and that was the whole premise of the um ev ordinance that if you're doing enough site improvements put in the capabilities very good so can you remind us one more time because i was distracted once you said it's not required i was like wait i thought it was just required so can you remind us one more time um either mr leo or someone from the petitioner about like what is going in oh um i'm gonna let mr hart explain again um they were making it ev ready for they were putting in a i'll stop um essentially we we looked
058at the spatial requirements um when you put in an ev parking space you have to maintain an access aisle width to allow for pedestrians to go by so what we did is we bumped that sidewalk out so now it's wider at the building so in the event that it ever does go in there is a physical spot that it will fit and you won't have to modify um curbs or gutters um the proposed spot would be right next to the building so if it was going in it would be essentially probably a slap of concrete that you'd pull out or cut out in order to install that so very minor minor work um to move forward with that okay and it's being and you're wiring it now then no we're not wiring it now we're
059just making sure that there's spatial you know a spot for it so um in the event it does go in we're not gonna have to reconfigure the parking lot okay commissioner gibb randall i'm i'm glad the spatial part works it seems to me that sleeving it would be really cheap and mean that it just is so much easier for it to potentially happen and um you know just given that like gm just announced that they're going fully electric by 2035 this is just this is what's happening it just is and so um you know again i'm not suggesting that you necessarily upgrade your entire electrical panel or anything like that but putting in a pvc sleeve to allow it for the future just seems like a small small thing that would then make it such
060an easy lift for the future to be able to thread it on through and just um and again the bigger thing is the spatial capacity i totally agree but it seems to me that a sleeve would be really simple and straightforward to be able to do so that you all are set up for the for the future so i would i would request that is that a motion to amend uh i i would we be amending the yeah we'd be amending the site plan right it would be at well it would be adding an additional condition is that fair mr leonard like that's what yeah and so you want to make it first like to kind of see what other people think i guess um if there's i would second that motion so that we
061can discuss it okay let's discuss it putting in the conduit to make it ready any discussion i see some thumbs up mr leonard was that oh uh commissioner lee i would be in favor of that as well at least it's the conduit it's not necessarily the actual electrification itself but just infrastructure so um i don't think that's too egregious of an ask but that would be in support of that got it did you i know that that was kind of an informal amendment this is what we're discussing is to make it effectively not ev installed but ev ready the installation of the conduit yeah what i would what i'm hearing is a condition that it'd be essentially two parking spaces based on where they had previously mentioned that the proposed location would be would be
062made ev capable so which means obviously already designed in a way for physical and it's going to include the raceway not necessary and the space it would require space in the panel i would encourage you to make that consistent with our ordinance if we're going to be measuring that but it doesn't have to yet be wired um the conductors don't need to be installed that sounds good i i like that so eevee capable that's the that's the the entry level on our grid thank you for reminding us about what that all entails any other discussion of the proposed amendment which would be a adding that condition all in favor please raise your hand or say yes yes i see everyone's hands so that means we are back to the original motion that now has two
063amendments on it i have one more question or comment and um i have to go back to my oh this is actually um the petitioner mentioned um that they are changing out the building lighting to be dark skies compliant which is fantastic thank you um so presumably even in the security plan which we understand we might not be privy to all of the security measures but even in that floodlights are not generally um dark skies compliant so that we're not having flood lights on this building effectively no there are no floodlights fantastic um great and i would just like go ahead night vision night vision cameras to get anything that's out a little bit further beyond okay so more light does not always necessarily mean more security it's the um message that i hear too
064any other comments or questions on this petition commissioner milstein just want to confirm the fencing that that's currently around the property is going to be removed is that correct no we were keeping the fencing at least around the north and west side the east side is a masonry wall that is also proposed to stay i guess what i'm talking about is the large gate um that's currently at the front that's being removed is that correct that is correct at the at the street side okay thank you any other questions or comments commissioner lee i can't really tell on the site plan or not is the front curb the concrete curb going to be like the turning in lane is that slated to be replaced as a part of this i just can't really tell there's
065a lot of cracks i see um so i don't know if i really just can't tell and the reason i'm bringing it up is simply because i see a pretty um substantial bus stop nearby and i'm just thinking from like a standpoint of like i think aesthetically and you know with the landscaping kind of buffer i i overall like the design i think it'll be better than what is currently there um i just also want to make sure that you know people that's using that bus stop is gonna feel comfortable and safe and uh so i just wanted to know if there was any uh i could i just couldn't tell is that turning in lane just gonna remain the way it is because it doesn't look very good um no the the turning in
066lane does get removed and replaced okay got it should be new concrete yes at our entry itself and then our sidewalk gets replaced at the entry okay um and then after sight plan when we work through with engineering we do have to tie into a place that's ada compliant so if the existing sidewalk that we're tying into is not ada compliant we do have to go at least another 15 feet in order to try to find a place that's ada compliant um to tie into got it um all right yeah that's pretty much the extent overall i think i am um okay with what i see here so i just wanted to at least mention the uh the bus stop and the residential use is obviously of a slight concern i mean a grocery or
067something that's a little more widely um kind of accessible would be ideal but we don't live in an ideal world so um i yeah i'll yield the rest of my time thank you any other questions or comments on this petition all right then we'll do a roll call vote recalling that the initial petition now has been amended twice commissioner gibrindl yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner mills yes mr milstein yes motion carries very good thank you very much folks thank you all right the next item i'm scrolling through my forever long script here from the last petition discussion is um item this must be 9 a 9b 2394 winewood avenue special exception used for planning commission approval as before we'll start with up to
06810 minutes of petitioner presentation and then staff uh filling in any uh providing a presentation before we have the public hearing and the motion yep just give me one moment here no problem did i lose anybody i wasn't supposed to you know i'll look here petitioners do you think you have everybody that you were expecting you see them their faces now okay perfect whenever you're ready then you can um present for up to 10 minutes i'm kathy keineth with nikon engineering and i prepared the site plan um we originally brought this plan um i'm gonna sure plan here can everyone see that okay yes we can okay so we originally um came with this site plan back in 2018 and um well i can get to the next page for you and the at that
069time it was for a medical marijuana provisioning center the site was upgraded there were a lot of improvements made there was impervious parking lot removed there was new landscaping put in there was handicap parking added a lift on the outside of the building to accommodate the handicapped parking a dumpster was added and since that time all of those improvements have been made and they've been functioning and this petition is strictly there's no changes to the site plan it's strictly to change from a medical marijuana provisioning center to a marijuana micro business so i'm going to let eric go ahead and talk with you and explain to you what the difference between those two things are i think you're still muted there how's that much better all right uh my name is eric uh i've been
070operating the the facility since uh 2017 originally it was a medical marijuana caregiver um operation so it was just just serving my patients and then from there like kathy said in 2018 we were approved as a medical marijuana provisioning center um and also the site um so so now we have a certificate of occupancy for not only the the provisioning center but also the marijuana grow and a processing facility so those those that grow in the processing facility because the building is is m1 those are approved uses and the provisioning center was a special exemption use that that was approved um in 2018 and we made the changes so now um there's a since then there's a new license that's that's been made available by the state it's called a marijuana micro business so it's
071an adult use license that is a single license type that's all three of the uses that i was already doing combined onto one license so instead of having three separate licenses for a provisioning center or retailer a processor and a grow it's a single license type it's called a micro business and it's essentially a scaled down version of all three of those so it's 150 plants as opposed to the 500 that it was previously approved for um and then we will be allowed to process only our only the product that is produced in house and then we'll sell to the public um the the flour marijuana flour um and then also the concentrates that are produced so it's going to be a closed loop we grow everything organic so so it's a small um vertically
072integrated marijuana facility and and so that so that required a special special exception or a separate special exception use so that's what that's what we're doing today so i'm happy to answer any questions about about the previous approval um or this or this micro business as well great thank you very much um mr khan or mr leonard have anything to add i don't have much to add this is this is jeff khan some of you may recall this petition coming before you in 2018 the petitioner did implement all the improvements that they promised they uh they would implement so we were very pleased by that we were happy to issue a certificate of occupancy uh for the provisioning center um and uh i i think the only thing i'd like to do is is read
073the staff recommendation staff recommends that the special exception use be approved with conditions which are summarized in the motion subject to the planning commission consideration because the proposed special exception use is of such location size and character as to be compatible with the zoning district in which the site is situated and the location and size of the proposed use its nature and intensity the site layout and access and effect of the proposed use on public services would not be hazardous or inconvenient to the neighborhood nor unduly conflict with normal traffic in the neighborhood that's the staff recommendation i do want to point out that we have not heard of any neighborhood complaints uh so far very good all right i will open the public hearing for this petition this is an opportunity for persons to
074speak for up to three minutes about the proposed 2394 wine wood special exception use public comment may be made by calling 877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 939 5339 6143 city staff will select callers that have digitally raised their hand you do that by pressing star 9 on your telephone when it's your turn to speak you'll hear an automated announcement and mr leonard will call on you by the last three digits of your telephone number if you could please move to a quiet area mute any background or television sounds so that we can hear you clearly and please state your name and address for the record at the beginning of your comments if there's any colors on the line that wish to speak at this public hearing again you press star nine to raise your
075hand all right seeing none i will close the public hearing and either commissioner gabriel angelo or i will start to read the very long motion again would you like to do it this time commissioner randall thank you very i much take it on okay the ad over city planning commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information including an accompanying site plan finds the petition to substantially meet the standards in chapter 55 zoning ordinance section 5 104 special exceptions in section 550.1 regulations concerning medical use of marijuana and therefore approves the 2394 winewood street special exception used for marijuana micro business this approval is based on the following findings the proposed used will be consistent with the m1 limited industrial district which allows for industrial limited retail and office uses the proposed use
076will not adversely impact traffic pedestrians bicyclists circulation or road intersections based on the location south maple street and winewood street provide access to the site and the proposed use is consistent with other surrounding uses through documentation submitted by the petitioner regarding waste disposal inventory tracking security and other methods of operation at the facility the provisioning center will be operated in a manner that will not have an adverse impact on the neighboring properties or area and will not have a detrimental impact on natural features the special exemption news approval is based on the following conditions the petitioner obtaining and maintaining both a state of michigan medical marijuana license and a city of ann arbor marijuana permit and providing documentation planning services within three years the city planning commission approval date of this petition the petitioner operating
077a marijuana micro business at this address within three years the city planning commission approval date of this petition the petitioner ceasing operation of our marijuana provisioning center and our marijuana retailer at this location and set us in satisfactory acknowledgment as the city's sole determination of adequacy the special exemption news may only occupy 2394 wine wood street approval of the special exemption use is subject to the petitioner maintaining site improvements as shown in the site plan including new bicycle parking relocated barrier-free parking space and providing a barrier-free sidewalk to a building entrance and approval of the special accepted news is subject to the petitioner installing an on-site solar panels that will provide a minimum of 10 percent of the sili of the facility's energy usage prior to the issuance of the final certificate of occupancy and
078that the ann arbor planning commission approves the attached site plan which demonstrates compliance with the applicable special extension new standards as no physical development of the property is proposed moved by commissioner sovay seconded by hammerschmidt thank you very much commissioner gibrantel any discussion of the motion commissioner dish and then commissioner gabe randle you're muted with commissioner dish i wanted to ask about the energy requirement this is a pretty big building and it seems like you could offset more than 10 percent which i know is not a requirement but i recall from an earlier discussion of a different grow facility that um the energy footprint of these facilities is considerable and so would it be possible to i i'm asking this i guess of staff as well as the petitioner i don't know if it unreasonably
079raises the costs if it lowers your energy bills i think that would be a good thing so is is is the design currently just to max out the whole surface on the roof is there any way to get more reduction additional reduction other than 10 um i'll just start from the regulatory side of it um it's something that we really looked at carefully and we wanted to um we wanted to find a level that was achievable um and rightfully so these uses particularly grow facilities can have a pretty high energy demand although they are improving um with more led lighting systems and the like nonetheless we tried to find a balance that would recognize that they can be pretty high energy users and the available quote unquote real estate for solar panels may be difficult
080to achieve higher percentages of that energy load um on site so that's the starting point of the regulation i guess i would have to i'd have to defer to the petitioners in their particular circumstance if they thought it was feasible to achieve a higher percentage um so yeah i spoke with with one energy with uh with the solar company um and it sounds like uh they said that the 10 was was feasible um i think he said it was a 115 000 um initial investment and obviously um some of that you know or that a lot of that cost is is uh recuperated through through energy use um i'm i don't i don't own the building so um having a shorter having a lease on my building uh the way the lease my lease is
081right now i'm unlikely to see even even uh even a one-to-one return um unless you know unless i have a extended lease situation which i which i don't have right now although i hope to so so it would it would be somewhat cost prohibitive to me um because i you know i'm unlikely to see the to see the returns um even even on the 10 that you know that that we've talked about so um so although although 10 percent seems like a small amount um it's a lot of it's a lot of solar panels covering the building um i don't know exactly how much it is um but it's somewhere around uh 40 of the building or half of the building um is is what 10 would look like um so so that's my thoughts
082on it commissioner this year all done okay commissioner gabriel i'm i'm curious about this as well and i'm just wondering if the solar um company gave you kind of an estimated return on investment in terms of like how many years it would take to of your energy bills to be able to make it worth it to you just as we're developing all these things and coming up with it it's really helpful for us to understand you know just what it actually means for people in in in reality um and so um as we've said we know the energy costs can be super high and i and i hope that that you have to pay your energy bills so that at least it's like this couldn't come back to you to a certain extent um because
083uh we we saw some pretty sobering statistics about how much energy use these facilities are for growing but um i'm curious i know when we put solar on our own house they gave us like a number of years based on our use of how quickly we would recoup that cost and i'm wondering if they gave you a similar prediction because it's just helpful for us to know as a commission um yeah i think i think you said it's somewhere around five or six years um is where is where the break-even point is um so that's that's what they told me i haven't um you know i haven't looked too far into it but but but that's what i was told okay that's that's helpful for us to just have a sense of kind of what
084that actually means for people so thanks for sharing that sure i hope your landlord understands what a good deal he's getting [Music] [Laughter] any other questions or comments commissioner hammerschmidt for staff i'm just curious um because i remember when we've had these you know uh these things come up before there are a certain number of permits that the city has so does transitioning this to a micro business permit mean that it's freeing up more permits or like another provisioning permit or grow permit for other businesses yeah it would have the effect of sort of opening up one permit okay thanks that was the same question that i had commissioner hammerschmidt so i'm going to ask the follow-up on that which is there's still a distance separation is that true so micro businesses they're still like
085the 600 feet between that and the nearest either other micro business or provisioning center slash retailer okay great any other questions i think we're ready for a vote then even turn my mic on for it commissioner sobe yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner dish yes commissioner lee yes commissioner clark yes commissioner mills yes commissioner milstein yes commissioner gibb randall yes motion carries very good you're all set then thank you subject to the conditions all right our uh we're on item 10 which is another opportunity for public comment and i'm getting a restart your computer message so let me make sure that i click the right button and don't actually restart my computer sorry about that um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any item of
086interest public comment baby made by eight five calling 877-8535 two four seven and entering our meeting id which is nine three nine fifty three thirty nine sixty one forty three city staff will select callers that have raised their hand you do that by pressing star 9 on your phone as always please move to a quiet area when you hear the automated announcement that you are being allowed to speak um we'll call on you by the last three digits of your telephone number please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments for the callers that are on the line if you would like to address the planning commission during this opportunity for public comment you can press star 9 to digitally raise your hand caller with the phone number ending with 432 you
087can unmute your phone and address the planning commission storage six perhaps to unmute your phone there you go okay can you hear me now yes we can oh thank you everyone my name is mohammad safedeen i live at 2245 hemlock court ann arbor this is the forest hills cooperative i'm a resident a member and i'm also uh on the board of directors but i'm speaking as a resident not on behalf of the board but i'll take this back to the board at our next meeting and i appreciate this opportunity actually this is the first time i've attended a planning commission and um actually it's very instructive um i learned a lot from listening to all of you i appreciate the really thoughtful comments uh from residents you've taken both for and against the project uh
088your concerns for the security because that's one of my concerns so i just actually recently learned this week that the the permit was already granted i didn't know that i attended two community meetings before uh with uh some of the people that are on this uh that were on presenting tonight uh so i just want the state for public record i i'm in opposition to this and the reason being what one is security um but i'm a registered nurse i'm a public health nurse i'm a nurse case manager with children's social health care services in the washington county health department i worked 14 years as a nursing director in a substance abuse facility overseas and a mental health facility so it was an inpatient tool so i've seen and i've been an mp in emergency
089rooms i'm from new york so i've seen what mood might altering substances do including alcohol so something legislated doesn't mean it's good and we just saw four years of that so but i understand if something is voted on it's permitted it can go forward and this project going forward but i just wanted to to state my personal opposition actually my professional opposition because there's plenty of material evidence-based material peer-reviewed journals you don't have to go to youtube um in fact u of m has an excellent 80-plus page report it was put out last year on marijuana it's impact and i'm not going to go through all that everyone can read that um this is moving forward um but this is this is really my concern and so what we have at hand what i have
090in my hand what i can do is just observe this property i mean i do a lot of walking paths there that's that's why security is my concern because i looked on last week and i went through the other 28 sites on google maps i was going to drive it so that's going to take too long and this really is a unique location uh and because of that this large community behind it and that's some that is concern for many of our members and i understand some people support that and i get that um but i will be personally be observing um as a as a board if something a problem comes to us of course we discuss that so what we have in our hand to do uh is report make complaints to the
091state if they're reportable if we feel 30 more seconds and we will do that because that could impact future licenses for this property so they should understand that this is what we will do they will do we'll do and we'll do what we're able to do so thank you for this opportunity thank you i don't see any other callers on the line that have called in so we'll close this opportunity for public comment and move on to item number 11 which is commission proposed business is there any i i want to note something that came up to put in the notes for the future which is we have talked because we've we've sent um at council's request they asked what um opportunities there might be to take some of the site plans that they see
092for small impact projects off their plates um and kind of move them down the food chain uh we if you recall we sent back a memo highlighting what opportunities there might be for either um projects to you know have us as the last line of defense or you know just better scale those projects tonight's discussion about the ev charging infrastructure um made me recognize that there might then be a gap and maybe that's okay because taking that away means that you know it's one less thing at the same time if we're if we're easing some of the process i would just highlight that that's a bit concerning to me that i think we need to have a discussion at least about whether that's the right threshold actually for the ev ordinance to kick in um
093if if this is you know again the idea is future proofing our infrastructure at all scales so um looks like i'm not the only person that had that idea commissioner dish i'm really glad you brought that up because when council voted on the ev ordinance i did pose a question to staff could this little sentence which i then forgot about because i had the same reaction everybody else did tonight so it's not required but still uh i had i i did pose a question to staff can we modify that um if the if if it should happen that we would no longer bring by right side plans to council because that would actually exclude an enormous number of proposals from of new proposals it you know it's like two-thirds i think are by right that
094or no never mind i won't say that because i don't know exactly how many but still it would be a lot and i think that we i don't think that we want that's not the right threshold anymore if we make planning the last stop for a substantial chunk of the of the new developments that we currently see yeah so i guess the commission proposed business is that i know this is now on our work plan working through like actually executing on the the memo that we sent to council and reducing the thresholds and i don't think it begins at the beginning of that process but at the end of that process i think we i would really like us to come back and say okay this is now the only things that would that that
095we're recommending moving down it's just a recommendation right just so that everybody's clear here but it's that it would be our recommendation to not require going on to city council for final site plan approval and then running that through the lens of which of those projects if any do like do we think ought to comply with this part of the ordinance so that's my commission proposed mostness any others commissioner hammerschmidt i have a request that mr leonard you guys may have done already but there were a lot of comments from the public the whatever we're calling the working session that we had um and i know we have the packets of the written in communication but has staff compiled any of those comments and would it be possible for us to get those as well
096at some point before orc yeah the transcript of the webinar yeah like yeah yes yeah the questions and comments that came in yeah no problem awesome thank you anything else all right item 12 is adjournment would a commissioner like to move for to adjourn moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner dish all in favor can raise their hand or say yes or wave goodbye because that's everybody have a good night thank you all