Ann Arbor Planning Commission 11/17/20

001patient if there are technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak during any of the public common opportunities please call 877- 85352 47 or one of the other published numbers and then you'll enter meeting ID 8 um sorry 2451 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&T channel 99 and online at a2gov.org CN where you will select the government Channel item number two is the roll call good evening commission uh commissioner Mills here commissioner milstein here commissioner G here commissioner sov here commissioner abon here commissioner hamers Schmid here commissioner dish here uh we have a quorum um I would note that uh because we have currently have two vacancies uh

002we do um uh six affirmative votes are required to advance any land use petition very good thank you very much and item number three is introductions and it looks like we need to introduce uh council member dish welcome to Planning Commission um it's good to have you you've got a full agenda for your first meeting so uh trial by fire we just throw you right in do you want to give a short introduction of yourself to those of you who those of us who might not be in your uh in your District sure your award uhuh so I I represent uh I just now started representing W one and uh I've lived in an arbor for about 12 years and I uh I have always had a thing for urban planning and so it really

003really excites me to get to do this um I'm a political science professor at the University and I care a lot about um I I care a lot about the things that we can do with policy tools to Envision a new city and this is the commission to that on and um I miss seeing Shannon in the pool commissioner Gib Randall I should say at the why you'll see that we're a mix of formal and informal so welcome welcome to the bunch um I'm not sure that we'll put you on the spot uh but usually just so you know item five is when we call on you to report out what happened at your first meet meeting last tonight but first we'll go to item number four um which is approval of the agenda can

004I have a motion to approve the agenda moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner s is there any discussion on the motion all in favor of the agenda as drafted please say I or raise your hand I I that is everybody none opposed so the motion carries item number five is the oh sorry it wasn't it item number five it's item number six item number five is minutes of the previous meeting um we had November 4th in 2020 uh minutes in the packet can I have a motion to approve the minutes moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner sove any discussion or Corrections of the minutes all in favor of the motion please raise your hand or say yes yes excellent that was everyone um so the motion Carri item number six is reports from

005City Administration City Council planning manager Planning Commission officers and committees and written Communications uh first up council member Tish do you have any reports I do have one report and Mr Leonard will do the other item so city council passed two things that are of importance to Planning Commission and the one that I'm especially happy about um given that it is uh it it it's a great way to honor my predecessor Zach akman um who I am not going to fill his shoes but I'm really honored to replace him uh we passed a resolution to create a Transit supported development District um with a goal of increasing housing density and uh options along major quds and we request that Planning Commission develop additional public engagement opportunities both educational in nature and designed to solicit feedback

006um but we don't I I believe and Mr Leonard can correct me if I'm misunderstanding I don't think that we mean to make this a large scale allout hire a consultant kind of thing um I think that you know uh webinars would be nice and something that we uh council members need to do ourselves is to figure out how to get how to hear from people who are not just the usual suspects um not that we don't value the citizens who show because we do but there are many people who don't show up regularly to meetings and and on a change like this um to the city it would be really great to have a very broad perspective of people uh represented in those discussions so uh and I'm happy to be amended in any

007way that I left out by Mr Leonard um thank you uh commissioner dish um I would just add that part of that discussion was a bit of I would say um um just a lot of discussion about the interplay of the master plan and implementation of the master plan so there is a fair amount of discussion about um you know those components for a master plan that reference Transit oriented zoning um sort of more generally for and those that are more specific so there was a bit of dialogue on that um but I think the shared goal was to investigate a lot of the things that are already on planning commissions um mind as it relates to starting this community conversation um and then a couple other um tidbits from that Agenda One first reading

008of the two solar related ordinance amendments were was passed um that is the proposed height exception for flat roofs to install a roof mounted solar and then also solar accessory structures um on nonresidential properties when they are covering existing impious surfaces so both both of those received approval on first reading um they'll go to Second reading and public hearing on December 21st I believe and then the last uh small item on that agenda was uh sharing your adopted work program with the city council so that was uh appeared on that Council agenda as well very good any other um planning commissioner officers or those who sit on committees that want to report out from anything that happened in the last two weeks with those subcommittees we had any meeting meetings um the within this is

009also written Communications and you may have noticed that there were six different packets plus the comments from the the EC comments that were provided um we used it as an opportunity for second grade math so there are 66 pages of comments if you care um I did a little addition there uh next item is audience participation this is an opportunity for persons to speak up for up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed as a public hearing on the agenda so this is not the time to talk about the near North at 700 North Main project about the self- storage office bank that's on Stadium or about the residential development proposed at 2111 Packard there will be public hearings for those later on this is for other items um to comment on

010the any other matters please call 877 8535 247 and enter meeting ID 3155 2451 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand digitally um you can raise your hand by pressing star n on your phone Mr Leonard will um uh make the necessary changes to promote you and you'll get an automated message that you have been unmuted um you may need to still unmute on your side of the telephone and when you do please move to a quiet area and mute any background noise so that we can hear you clearly also uh please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and it looks like we do have a hand raised caller with a phone number ending with 534 you have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission

011thank you good evening this is Tom stalberg I live at One 202 trayor Street uh I was watching the council meeting last night and I did speak um something that I'm in favor of Transit oriented development in general um I think it's important to point out that we do not have the type of transit to support a full Transit oriented development uh which is perhaps why it's title something else Transit supported development District uh I think it's important to note some of the reasons that Transit oriented development Works where it does work uh is that it has nodes or hubs of activity uh centered around Transit stations so we're not going to have that uh I am a little bit concerned about spreading this anywhere up and down the transit quarter uh because you have

012an ecosystem that isn't complete if you do that uh say reducing or eliminating parking works well when you have a mixed juice center around a transit station but um when you just have a single building anywhere up and down a quter uh where you reduce or eliminate the parking you may just be offloading the burden of parking from that development onto neighbors and neighboring streets so I hope that you will take a look at that and that consideration uh when you design this uh as instructed by Council the other thing that's missing in my opinion uh in council's direction to you that I hope you have the discretion to add in or at least add in as as part of the conversation is the uh the Reliance on indirect causes for affordability and sustainability essentially

013trickle down theories which I personally don't believe in uh as almost 30 years in the real estate business I think I have some experience to uh to speak on uh with that um so why not bake those directly in we do it in our premiums ordinance we do it with our PUD ordinance and you're in the process of revising the plan project ordinance to to do that directly uh which is a really good move the plan project uh ordinance that we have on the books now uh is troubled uh for those of you who don't know that that was one of the things that was mentioned in the lower toown lawsuit um that was never resolved one way or another as part of the lawsuit but we had great concerns about the uh actual legality

014of the plan project uh ordinance as it stands in her book so we were very happy that she took that up and we're revising that and very happy that you're taking it you know out some of the arbitrariness and the this discretion that ARB and putting in some very specific items and measurements and putting in that uh you know if you want something changed in your development say like reduceed setbacks that there's a trade-off and that could be sustainability or affordability so I'm looking forward to having that discussion later on from one of the items on the public Hearing in terms of the plan project modification and lack of tradeoffs thank you thank you very much if there's anyone else who's dialed in that wants to talk um that would like to address the Planning

015Commission on an item that is not listed as a public hearing so that's not the project on North Main West Stadium or on Packard there's anything else you'd like to address you can press star nine to raise your hand and we can call on you all right seeing none I will close the public hearing the audience participation section not public hearing yet um and there in case you're interested there is another opportunity for audience participation at at the end of the meeting item number eight is the public hearings for the next business meeting yes we have one new public hearing currently scheduled for the December 1st 2020 uh Planning Commission meeting uh that is Maine and Davis apartments it is located at 907 to 913 South Main Street it is a site plan for city

016council approval a proposal to combine 907 and 913 South Main Street demolish the existing structures and construct a sixun 35 bedroom rental complex on a 32 Acre Site Z zoned r4c very good commissioner aons I saw your hand raised sorry go ahead no sorry if this is out of turn I just um I noticed in the for the communications that there are now nine packets in addition to the e-comments so I wanted to make sure people went and grabbed those excellent thank you those must have been added at very end great thank you very much for pointing that out um all right we are on to item number 9A the regular business this is the near North Town Homes resoning and site plan for city council approval with planed project modifications this is at 7

017100 North Main Street um as is our usual practice we'll start with the petitioner presentation um then have staff fill in for us and then we'll have the public hearing and again as is the practice uh we'll take the entire petition which includes the rezoning and site plan together for the public hearing and I am just in the process of um having everybody join the meeting give me one moment here Alexis do you know who from the project team will be providing the presentation we still can't hear you Alexis nope Lexus is unusually quiet this evening I don't know if she needs to plug in her headphones all right is that it yes got it never the same setting twice um I believe uh um I was going to say I think the presenter will

018be Ryan bisner from pow Associates but I see Michael Powell so um that is my I believe it's gonna be Michael Powell Brian bisner has his hand raised [Music] there I am very good Ryan would you be running the PowerPoint um I won't be uh I believe Alexis says I won't have control of documents okay you want to do that Alexis um I can if you enable screen sharing and Alexis if you could go to uh just let's look at sheet three of a site plan submitt first off um are is my screen no it's not okay all right um S3 you requested yes ma'am okay um first I want to uh uh I want to start by saying uh thank you uh Planning Commission for seeing us we want to thank the staff especially

019Alexis uh for sure with with uh her enormous help uh Amy Ponto and Jerry Hancock to get us to this point um obviously with the flood plane and the flood way and um um we definitely uh we had a lot of communication with Jerry to get to get here however uh we are asking that uh after my presentation and the public hearing uh to get input uh from input and comments from the Planning Commission but we would like to postpone or table till the next meeting uh we received a letter from the uh adjacent neighbors and uh we we did have two two citizen participation meetings with them but the owner W wants to take an opportunity to meet with them and go over some of their concerns we we were a little surprised by

020that letter today so I'll give my presentation and uh we look forward to uh the the the planning commission's uh comments and then we'll get into uh more detailed discussion next time around so uh uh looking at sheet S3 we have uh uh 22 units uh proposed Upland of the flood plane oh thank you Alexis uh they are uh with with a garage underne underneath they are twostory with a dormer on top and uh all parking for the units will be contained underneath uh the uh structure in the garages and um the uh uh any any access parking will be taken care of uh by the um prvious pavers in the flood plane area um uh that would be for visitors and and deliveries or anything like that um uh moving uh counterclockwise around the

021site we have a we have a retaining wall along the north line that is to help uh preserve the existing trees that are there uh that as part of uh requests by uh the owners of the adjacent properties and then uh as we move uh continue along we see our detention tank there that's where we'll be storing our storm water and uh our some of that's the their we go it's really hard to not Point uh uh while I'm talking uh and that detention tank will be will be um connected to the uh the sewer storm sewer in the road right away and we've made that connection via that bio Swale there as it moves counterclockwise along uh the property the BIOS Swale uh uh provides two uh uses is to drain the detention tank

022and we're also creating a depression there as our uh um flood plane fill mitigation um the parking area uh the sanitation turnaround uh in that area right there and the entrance that's all a previous P material uh that's me that's meant to uh mimic the existing conditions uh that's that it can percolate into the ground or it is connected to the Bosell and and it can exit the site via the BIOS storm sewer as well um due to our interactions with MDOT we have a uh um right turn in right turn out um as we call it there in the center that little island is a pork chop uh to that was request by them to help mitigate traffic we've had the proper traffic studies it's a minor amount of traffic umed by MN and

023city of Ann Arbor um so the um and if you could uh Alexis could we switch down go down to Sheets towards the end the architecture a a-0 A-1 and uh we just kind of get a look at the outside of the building A-1 and then let's stop on a-2 when you get there okay right there that's good thank you I wanted to uh uh talk about this for a moment because uh uh we wanted to one of the unique features of the of the building is that the uh the residents will park underneath the units and they will enter through uh the garage area area or they could go up some outdoor stairs on the north side of the building and they will um move through the that middle area with the with the

024plantings there that they will that will be the main entrance into their building and that it a as a courtyard it's open to the air it's not covered um and that and that keeps the the activity of the residents in uh screened from the uh residents to the east by no Courtyard or anything like or or or entrances or or decks out on the east side and so this is kind of a unique feature this hangs above the the garage area and it will actually drain down into the garage area um and so that's the M main entrance for the units um uh due to the uh City's desire to have entrances on Main Street uh we we will have entrances for those uh Westerly buildings on Main Street that have a connection to the

025sidewalk um but the uh the units to the east or the top of the page they will enter through the garage or through that um elevated uh deck area there I guess if you want to call it uh in the middle um and uh that that concludes my short presentation H we look forward to any comments or questions that the Planning Commission has and hearing from the residents of course thank you very much um Alexis do you have anything to add and you have to unmute yourself because I hit the mute button during that um I can give um a I'll give a short staff analysis um uh I do have um our brief uh staff pres presentation um with the um aerial photo I'll go through it very briefly um for the benefit I

026know that there's going to be there's going to be a public hearing as a petitioner mentioned um they are requesting it that to it be postponed this evening um so I would encourage the Commissioners um for any specific questions or concerns you might have or something that you may be looking for a revision you may be looking for to uh share that now this evening so that they can incorporate it but this will be coming back to you if tabled this will be coming back to you for a more in-depth discussion nevertheless uh let me get some um some background highlights and some of our staff analysis um it is a 1.2 Acre Site currently zoned PUD the petition is to uh two petitions one to rezone from PUD to r4c multif family dwelling and

027then the site plan to develop the 22 Town Homes I think um Brian bisner did a great job going through the site plan aspect of it um the um master plan recommendation for the site is actually for continued single and twoam I'm sorry is not for continued but recommends single and two family residential uses for this site um I did in the staff report note there's a couple of changes since that staff report uh recommendation was made and it was um um re reiterated in our adoption of the combined master plan um some changes are that um the single family homes that were present on the site have since been removed some of those is not not a bad thing uh they were in the flood plane and the flood way but others were uphill

028the site um actually the lower part of the site is in the flood plane as Brian mentioned the upper part is not um the staff report goes through the standards of approval for rezoning the petitioner has also provided their petition um and they have addressed some questions the questions are not the standards of approval but we ask them of an applicant to help you make your um decision it was staff's evaluation that the uh proposed rezoning from PUD to R forc um is moving in the direction of the master plan recommendation um the the r4c district allows single and two family uses and also the proposed development is for attached single family units um this is um more in keeping with the master plan recommendation and specifically in this case we think it's appropriate to

029um rezone to multif family because it allows for that attached um single family homes better enabling to provide the the density reasonable density on the site outside of the flood plane and floodway um the site plan comes with a few planned project modifications those that is a tool in the UDC that allows the site plan to flex either height or setbacks only if the project then provides certain public benefits the public benefits are predefined in the UDC the um let me screen share for a second the hope this works quickly here we go uh here's the site plan again the plan project modifications are for a reduced uh South Side setback and East rear setback um also there's a plan project modification for increased height the South Side setback standard in r4c is 12 feet

030and then there's a formula additional setback is required based on the depth of a building the proposed setback is 15 ft Which is less than the uh total amount required but more than the base amount and the 15 ft is consistent with the required conflicting land use buffer on the rear the setback is proposed at 22t in this um orientation south east corner is 22 feet and it increases as you move north because of the irregular or the not parallel lot line this uh the normal setback in rear setback in the r4c district is 30 ft and then again there's a formula for increased um so many inches per feet based on the width of a building the proposed setback is less than the standard but is still more than a conflicting land used and

031as it approaches the uh North Side the setback um does meet the the the the normal code requirements The increased height uh 30 feet is the standard in the r4c district 30 um 2 and A2 fet I believe is what the petitioner has um has requested and this is to allow the parking underneath the building I have noted in the staff report that other R4 zon districts but not the r4c but other R4 districts allow a 10-ft height increase when there is parking underneath the building so this application is to be consistent with other R4 um districts um the propos the site plan does impact natural features um there are a few Landmark trees that will be removed and there is some cut and fill to the flood plane therefore have provided an alternative analysis

032in the staff report the proposed layout um is the one that minimizes the disturbance to the sum total of natural features the least um there I've just quickly gone through the and I believe I've hit all the highlights from the staff report um staff what is prepared to recommend approval because it meets the because the rezoning is consistent with the master plan and the uh site plan meets um I'm sorry the site plan does meet the standards of approval and all the dimensional and development requirements but the applicant has requested um it be uh postponed I am here to uh answer any questions that you might have um I have a few additional Graphics if need be but I will pause right now and just let it go thank you very good thank you very

033much much um we'll open the public hearing for this item um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed near North Town Homes development um site plan and rezoning petition uh public comment can be made by calling 877 85352 47 and then entering meeting ID 3155 2451 uh City staff will call in those who have raised their hand by pressing star n um and uh you'll be called upon by the last three digits of your telephone number again please move to a quiet area when um it's your turn to speak and mute any television or other background sounds so that we can hear you more clearly if you can also please state your name and address for the record um looks like we do have one person

034on who has their hand up couple now so we'll take you in turn folks a caller with the phone number ending with 321 you have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission you may need to unmute your phone on your end which I think is star six six caller with a phone number ending with the numbers 321 please unmute your phone and you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission let's try caller with a phone number ending with the numbers 13 4 um you have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission thanks Mr Leonard this is Ken Garber 28 H Hill Court um hopefully caller 321 will get a chance to speak after me um anyway uh first I'd like to welcome council member dish to this commission I'm really

035excited to see you here um okay 700 North Main more downtown housing is obviously desirable especially on this site which is currently vacant it's a problematic site for building due to the flood plane um but the petitioner found a viable solution with reasonable density but my comments tonight as usual are about the sustainability elements of this plan I see none here in general I don't think we should approve rezonings for market rate housing in ant Arbor without some significant sustainable element the most urgent one is building electrification since solar panels can usually be added later but HVAC systems are effectively permanent given the cost of retrofitting in this case presumably from a forest air gas furnace system with extensive duct work to a ductless heat pump system um it's never going to happen these Town

036Homes will be burning gas for 50 years or more keep in mind that building electrification and new construction is Now official City policy as you know strategy 2 action one of the a20 carbon neutrality plan states that quote all new residential and commercial buildings designed and built to operate without the use of natural gas reducing the increased costs associated with retrofitting existing systems end quote plus we now have the valhal Glen and vidiian precedence to show it's economically feasible assuming groundup construction and a tight building envelope we don't have the enforcement tools yet to mandate this for all new construction but petitioners like this one should be asked to incorporate heat pump HVAC systems or vrf systems for larger buildings many times I've brought up building electrification at Planning Commission and I apologize for doing

037it again because this really isn't a zoning or site plan issue instead it could and should already be part of our city building code as it is for many cities now contrary to Common wisdom that is entirely consistent with Michigan law but because we don't have it in our building code it falls to staff and Planning Commission to defend our Community Values that's especially true for re rezoning PUD project position petitions since these are not by right developments um commission has taken my concerns seriously in the past and I'm grateful for that this commission has more Collective expertise than I can even grasp not to mention incredible stamina at meetings like this but these projects with fossil fuels keep coming through so I'll keep bringing the issue up until we am amend our building code

038to make it moot or until someone convinces me that I shouldn't care about it um and believe it or not I find public speaking really hard thanks for indulging this thank you thank you very much Mr Garber there's a couple more hands hello Mr stalberg you have three minutes to address the plan commission thank you it's Tom stalberg again I do live at 1202 Traer Street tonight I am uh representing the properties at 110 East Summit Street and 112 East Summit East Summit Street I'm a manager in the llc's that owns those properties so I am a neighboring property owner to the north I did attend the uh Community presentation at foresight which I think might be almost two years ago now I have not heard from the developers since then and there are changes

039that I've not been aware of uh I know they're you know published publicly and have been able to look at them I would appreciate if the developer uh since the developer's tabling I'd appreciate if we could have a conversation about some of the drainage issues I have enormous faith in our uh Jerry Hancock at the city so I'm not concerned about the storm water drainage but I would sure like to know from the developer uh some of the updates that have been made there that impact us directly moving on to the rest of development uh to Ken Garber who just spoke uh never apologize Ken you're asking the right questions you're asking the right thing of their City we have made very specific declarations about affordable housing and sustainability and if we're serious about Meeting

040those goals then we need to be bringing that up every single time a project comes up this is not a byright project it's a plan project modification those are variances the developers not entitled automatically to those and given what we've asked our citizens to do through a millage to support affordable housing I do not see why we are not asking our developers to kick in their fair share as well towards affordable housing and or sustainability and that goes back to the plan project modifications which I've been following at the ordinance revision committee and and I like what you're doing and I know that's not uh come through the pipeline and made it all the way uh to council and into our ordinance yet but those are really good Concepts and right here we have discretion

041because they're asking for a plan project modification uh so use your discretion and let's make sure we deal with affordable housing and sustainability when we evaluate these projects thank you very much thank you very much again if you're on the line and wish to address the Planning Commission on this P for this public hearing you can press star n to digitally raise your hand caller with the phone number ending with 347 347 you could unmute your phone you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission call her with the phone number ending with 347 if you can unmute your phone you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission you may need to press star six there we go caller ending in 347 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission oh REM muted

042try star six one more time there you go hello hello my name is Christine Crockett and I live in this neighborhood in an r4c neighborhood I live on Kingsley Street ever since this piece of property has been up for debate on new development which has been for over two years I have been involved with the developers and their discussions there have been several different developers this recent one had meetings about two years ago and I attended that meeting at foresight there have been vast changes in this project since that time and I was never no notified even though I was at that original fory meeting the current project before you is one that is twice the size of the project that I saw at foresight that project was proposed as a PUD a PUD requires

043the developer to give a proven Community benefit and it also requires that there be a contribution to the affordable housing fund now this comes back to us a project that is twice as big and yet it's no longer a PUD but it's r4c this if I've ever seen anything that should be a PUD this project is it these developers need to develop need to contribute to our affordable housing fund the citizens of an arbor have voted to tax themselves for that fund and we should ask no less of the developers who are asking to build in our community and to manipulate the zoning in such a way as to hold the developers not responsible for making a contribution to our affordable housing fund is just unacceptable to me as a citizen who always votes and

044pays higher taxes for the benefit of our community I also think that this developer since he's asked to table this should talk to the stakeholders who have followed this project all along and were also present to that meeting at foresight um I think that the changes here are far beyond just our forc and I think that the Planning Commission should use its better judgment to require this very large much enlarged development what was previously proposed to to tell the developer that he must pay into our for aable housing fund thank you thank you very much it looks like the should we try the phone number ending in 32 one one more time yes caller with the phone number ending with 321 phone number ending with 321 if you could unmute your phone you have three

045minutes to address the Planning Commission and again to unmute you may need to press star six on your phone all right if there's anyone else on the line who would like to address the Planning Commission on this item um you can press star9 to digitally raise your hand seeing no one I will close the public hearing on this um and read the proposed motion the an arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the near North rezoning from PUD planned unit development to r4c multiple family dwelling and the an arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the near North site plan with planned project modifications to a increase the maximum height from um to 33 feet 6 in B decrease the Southside setback to

04615 feet and C decrease the rear setback to 22 feet subject to one maintaining 43% open space two maintaining 132 feet North Side setback and three having front doors facing North Main Street garages underneath and accessible only from the interior of the site and development agreement subject to receiving preliminary approval from the Wasa County water resources commissioner and addressing outstanding engineering comments prior to scheduling a public hearing of the city council uh those motions are can I have a motion to move them by commissioner s seconded by commissioner milstein you guys are quick on the draw tonight um we are in discussion again I think because the petitioner requested postponement giving any um outstanding issues that you think or questions that you have that they might address next time would be most helpful in this

047anyone have anything that they'd like more information on for next time around commissioner milin oh that's go ahead y go ahead I was just going to say to uh commissioner dish this was typically commissioner akerman's job uh was to offer the kind of the first comment so you didn't know that you were uh filling in it was it was just the thing that he tended to do so you're not filling his shoes though as you said so we'll let commissioner milin take the first comment although I feel like I've taken over that role in the last uh couple of meetings um so a couple of things that I would uh like additional information on um it'd be really great to get additional uh renderings of what all sides of the building look like I had

048a hard time figuring out the back doors um or actually maybe either the front doors exactly where they go um so it' be great to get additional renderings just so I can get a better idea of what the site looks like because I was having a really hard time imagining what the site might be and with that said um uh I am one that's pretty vocal about Brown buildings um and how we have plenty of them um so if the architect or the the development team wants to maybe look at some other uh interesting color schemes um in that area I think that would be appropriate um so I'd encourage you to do so um in regards to public participation um hearing from uh some of the written communication that we received as well as

049hearing from some of the uh members of the public that spoke today having a public uh participation meeting two years ago and then uh coming to us with something completely different I shouldn't say completely different but larger and different in general um I would encourage the development team to uh go through another public participation meeting um I think that feedback will be valuable to us as the Planning Commission um in particular would be very valuable to me just to get more participation from uh the surrounding neighbors um and then um just some additional questions that I had I was having a hard time figuring out where how a uh how trash was going to be picked up from the site um of exactly where that was going to happen and how that was uh going

050to occur so I'd like some information on that and then the last thing I was hoping to get some additional information on because it's been a while since we've seen a I actually don't remember the last time we saw a building that's all one building phased out the way that it was so I I guess I'd like some more information about how the phasing will work um since it's one big building or I I'm not and I'm not just not understanding how the phasing is going to work if phase one's going to be built but then the side of the building is going to look like it's cut off exactly how that would work so I'd like that additional information as well so that's it for me and if I may uh very quickly um

051yeah the purpose of the tabling was to have that citizen participation meeting we were surpr we were very surprised by that letter because we did we had two with that them uh and the the first one in 2016 had 19 units the next one was this side this building exactly only it had 16 units um but it was this exact building in the site has hardly changed and then um this one we did go from 16 to 22 units that is a significant change I'm sure in their eyes that is certainly the purpose of tabling is to get with them and uh get their input but we thank you very much for yours and I would just encourage you not just with the immediate neighbors but to I the people that you invited to the

052public hearing at foresight um I would Circle back around with all those people um and do a more in-depth public participation than just the adjacent neighbors ABS thank you y any other Commissioners have comments or questions that the petitioner might bring back with them in the future commissioner Gib Randall um two one is um is this compatible with the revised uh flood plane ordinance or the new flood plane ordinance I guess that's that's coming um I'd be curious to know more about that um and then the other is that uh you are very well set up for solar in terms of the orientation of your rooms and uh because you know one of your roof ples will be facing south so um I would like you to look at that too um you know our

053caller was absolutely correct when we're doing rezonings this is the time that we are tending to to have developers really look at what's possible with their site and because of the orientation of your buildings I think you are well set up for that are these for rent or are these um um to own uh they're to own they're to own so to sell yeah and so you know these this helps with people's utility bills you know there's a there's a there's a payback with that um so it could also be a selling point I guess is what I would say so those are two things that I would be curious to know more about for next time okay commissioner abens hi um I wanted to just point out a little bit of like some of

054the detail about the the plan project modification and make sure that I'm understanding it correctly or need some guidance from staff so um currently the the only thing being provided in exchange for reduced setbacks and increased height is a small increase in open space is that correct no we're making a contribution to the park it's it's an we're making a contribution of $133,000 to the Alexis is that the park fund um yeah May one second I scroll through the um I don't see that listed as yeah part of modification yeah um in the staff report page seven uh yeah um so they are proposing a Parkland contribution in lie of an on-site um park facility um but for plan project modifications um goes back to the UDC section C and there are um eight um

055I'm they're not eight but there are um it provides certain benefits and I have identified uh staff has identified three hold on I think I'm confusing myself I mean I have open I can help rattle them off if you'd like yeah but no that was I was correct so um page seven and eight but I've I felt that this project um meets three of the approval standards um it is providing a little bit of excess open space um the north side setback far exceeds the minimum standard um and so that's a I feel that it functions as sort of a balance there's a reduced Southside setback but there's a much greater North Side setback um and I think that the arrangement of buildings is um pedestrian oriented which is one of the uh plan project

056benefits um the buildings do fr front the street um there are front doors to each um direct access to the the front building um and to I believe that it meets that criteria as well I noted in the staff report that by code you only need to provide one of those benefits um but I have also note that for this one in particular the I believe that the total is more than the pieces together with the little bit extra open space uh the balance B ing setbacks and the um pedestrian orientation of the streetcape um that this is a this is a Justified and approvable plan project modification um for the side rear and height okay thank you I appreciate that clarification it feels I mean just maybe to the petitioner it feels borderline to

057me I suppose like what the kind of what's being asked in exchange for what's being provided like the increase in open space is feels minimal and it's also completely within the interior of the project it doesn't provide even a kind of visual you know um kind of amenity let's say to the pedestrians or to the city or to the neighborhood um and I think you know as I'm sure you're aware the kind of two uh you know um priorities of the city at the moment in terms of of development are sustainability and affordability and it's disappointing to me that the project doesn't really address either and sustainability is part of the plan project modification kind of folio of things available too so um I think it's just something to consider um and um my other

058questions have already been addressed by other Commissioners thank you I'm going to chime in here because I would do more than consider it I um think that the open space and the north side setback you are on a site that has flood plane that you can't buil in and so it is out of necessity um it's it seems to me that some of that space is just not usable um it's not so I would I would push a little bit harder than what commissioner Ain just did um and say that um I I do think that there's a benefit on having um uh you know front doors on Main Street regardless of you know how tall the building is we would be asking you for that um and so I think uh and honestly My

059Hope Is that the people that are living in your units want to go out that front door and walk up Main Street to get to the things in Cary town and on Main Street rather than walk out the back door that's between the buildings anyway um or between the units anyway so I so I think that that's not it's a it's a public good but I also think it's definitely a private good as well um and so uh I know that our site plan or our plan project modifications have not been passed yet but we've discussed them many times and so thinking through the list of the things on there that might be possible and if I could ask staff to again I know it's not finalized it's not gone through but thinking about how

060some of these things the shifting of setbacks kind of as a comparison of the things that we were talking about there's some types of modifications that um are seen as as lower bars than others um I think the comparison of that and how like where the where where we stand right now on the plan project modifications and how this Stacks up would be really um that's something that I would really like to see from staff next time um the other thing that I just didn't uh see and we didn't hear about but uh the EV ordinance I'm curious about the parking I want to note that you exceed significantly the amount of parking that is um required and um and because it's under the most of it not all of it because there is the

061kind of guest parking to the north end but because most of it's under the building I you know okay like that's that's the choice but we do have a um the EV ordinance is also going forward to so to just in the presentation next time pointing out like how you're dealing with EV charging um would be uh something that I'd like to see um and I feel like there was one more change that's kind of in the hopper that and because there's a lot of these things that are kind of in the hopper and it has escaped me because I didn't write it down but maybe it'll come back to me um so those are the those are the key questions that I had for now so e let me just understand EV quickly um

062you'd like to see ev uh some of the units themselves have uh be uh be wired for Ev uh as well as possibly uh some of the guest parking or whatever uh outside one or both or do you prefer either one so there's an ordinance that pass Planning Commission that is s um that is to go before city council that's right the right status right um and so again I'm not sure how the sequencing works if that actually gets approved before you do I think that you have to meet it so recognizing that I'm you may well want to then think about how much parking you provide um because effectively there it's a multiplier if you if you build it based on what you know what is the use of that facility there's a different

063multiplier about how many of your Park what percentage of your parking spots need to be pre-wired how many you actually need to have chargers for how many you just have to lay the conduit for and because it's underground it you know effectively the the whole purpose of this is that your infrastructure is going to last for some time and we are we have a city-wide goal of carbon neutrality and so in order for that to work we got to Electrify our vehicles um and so if you're going to build it build it to be future proofed effectively so I just pointed out because um I recognize that given how many parking spaces you have especially that exceed what the minimums are there may there may be implications on that so I just want to make

064sure that you're aware of that um we we will consult that ordinance that that's the perfect we will look at that gotcha perfect and I now I now that we're thinking about this I was thinking about the other ordinances that are in the hopper and the other one that's that's related to this was already mentioned which is the um flood plane ordinance so just kind of showing that on the map and I think being uh it's probably it's buried in the um documents I'm sure somewhere but to the to the point about the you know what percentage of the property effectively is is falls into that I think would help evaluate to what extent the you know 3% extra land area that's open space is I think that that would help me at least and

065I I I mean I even so I would still encourage you to look at the changes that are in the hopper for plan project project modifications some of which are sustainability some of which are affordability effectively you don't have to do it all um but that would um make me much more comfortable saying yes this is this is um uh uh it meets those thresholds any other Commissioners who have questions or comments um commissioner s Alexis I think you mentioned uh height would have metant for R4 not r4c is there a reason like what other things made it go to r4c instead of R4 oh well um there there's R4 a b c d and e a b and d um whatever their base height uh maximum height is and they vary but whatever it

066is that you can uh increase it by 10 ft if you put parking under roughly half of the building but there is no such um flexibility in r4c I want just wanted to point out that what they're asking in terms of a little bit of height increase when they have um parking underneath the building is actually not unheard of it's not completely outside of the realm other zoning districts which I I don't think are appropriate for this location um uh but other zoning District other r4s the a b and d already offer the exact thing that they're asking for through plan project is there a reason C doesn't um to be very honest r4c is like the third rail um and when we added the when we did some modifications to the other zoning districts

067uh but I want to uh 10 to 12 years ago we left our we left many things about the r4c alone and we we did start to tackle it on its own but we that has it has not gone far or fast okay I'm just trying to like reconcile the plan project issues and what we're looking because I think there's three ordinances that are currently in the pipeline that aren't applied to this project but I appreciate uh petitioner saying I want to postpone because I want to have these conversations with the community uh and I think all of these um pipeline ordinance changes are conversations about Community Values so the more that you can integrate them into the project which are the EV charging stations the updates to the plan project which if we eliminate

068the the small modification to height because r4c is weird we're talking about Shifting the setbacks and you can do that with either stainability or affordability which we heard from the speakers um as a priority and I think from this body um and the third EV plan projects blood plane blood plane so thank you those I think look talking to staff about those three and what changes would look like on this project I think would be valuable in the long term and I think get uh a lot more support when meeting those more uh future thinking metrics because we're updating those ordinances when we can't update we're kind of stalled on Master planning and we're trying to finesse some of these things so I think if if you if we look at those three things I'd

069like to have a discussion about around how those are applied even though not adopted in this project that would be my yeah we'll have that for you when they're ready to come back that's great thank you commissioner Gib one other thing on the flood plane and that is um if you could also um I know that some of the FEMA maps are going to be redrawn in this area based on the tunnel and I I I don't think they're likely done at this point but it would be interesting to get Mr Hancock's opinion about whether this parcel would be affected by that change or not and um I know that would be more of a gut check on on his end um because they haven't been officially redrawn but I'd just be curious to know

070if um if he feels like that would shift much based on um the remapping that's going to be happening yeah I'll have a statement from from him um I can tell you though that he is well aware I think he knows what uh he has the anticipated impact which will benefit this property I think they'll actually going to free up much buildable area but for this project it was a timing issue um it will be a couple years before the FEMA maps are done they need to collect data um um so this this project should comply either way because it is more conservative in that aspect however I'll get Jerry uh Hancock's official I'll get a statement from that would be great thank you if I if I may uh we we had a lot

071of of conversation and input with Jerry and uh we are where we are at uh due to the current flood plane and floodway lines but the flood plane line is going to move away from our building to the north because it's going to lessen just a little the flood uh flood way will probably not change hardly but we uh Jerry just two weeks ago we we were talking about this is what we you can do this now and then we can look at a site plan Amendment later maybe depending on that new line but so we've had an enormous amount of help and input from him so yeah absolutely a statement from him is welcome commissioner dish and then commissioner hamers Schmidt so I am not sure if this is the appropriate place to raise

072this question but actually I'm confused by some of the public comment and what I read in the packet and I'm confused because my understanding was that this site was zoned PUD for a failed multi-use uh 50 unit Tower plus office space I did not understand from the packet that this particular project was ever intended to come forward as a PUD so I am correct in that okay thank you then uh okay there there was there was a a um a commenter Miss Crockett said that she thought it should be apud um but the petition before you is not for a revised PUD it is for resoning to a conventional District yep I understand that and I just she I felt that she had implied that the first at the first meeting when she first saw

073this project it came forward as a smaller project and a PUD which that didn't comport with my understanding so I made a note for myself to double check that initial history um I made and I made a note for myself to double check yeah okay you heard that too so I guess just the only thing that I'm a little bit wary about is um when we make something a by right you know when we when we Zone something so that a project becomes a byright project it is not wrong to say that we're giving up leverage and so I would like to underscore everything that all of you who have way more experience and I'll get there but it's going to be a little while I'd like to underscore everything that you've said about um

074looking to these future oriented metrics and revising this project as if it were perhaps following or or adding a little adding a little bit more to this project as if it were following following excuse me falling under them already because when you look at what the petitioner is asking for it's not very much it's way less height than they could get if they weren't an r4c and they had their parking Underground um it's an offsetting setback not really a very big deal so they're not asking very much and we haven't really asked for very much in return except what we're giving is this big benefit this will be a byright development and so I think it is appropriate to try to raise what we're asking from the planned projects standards because it did catch my

075eye in the staff report that these are three kind of smallish things that add up to enough and I'm I'm feeling a little wary about whether we're actually it's enough better in fact to qualify under the plan projects commissioner hamers Schmid thank you um I'll try to be quick um one thing was sort of related to the public participation I'm glad that you're doing another meeting I was also a little confused by the uh the comments that I heard and then I went back to look at the the notes from the meeting too and I noticed the notes that are linked in the staff report are from the meeting in 2016 not the 2018 so I don't know what happened at that 2018 meeting it would be good I think I'm again I'm glad you're

076meeting with them again I'm hoping that that you know that'll address a lot of the questions that came up I wonder if though when you prepare the the um like a report from that public participation meeting could you add in there like what really did change from 2018 just so we can make sure that we understand where some of those concerns were coming from and also maybe we could even get the notes for that 2018 meeting and if and if I may I have that plan it's in I I can show you right now if you like um uh Alexis has that that was the second PDF I sent you the 2018 plan is 95 I hate to speculate a percentage but the building is nearly the same it's in the same place the setbacks

077are the same we trimmed a foot off of the north end of the building because we're we're in the flood plane just a little bit with the garage drive but the the BIOS sale was there the drive was very similar the the the 2018 meeting that the plan had definitely been set by then and we can look at it now or we'll be happy to discuss it later you'll you will uh find the 2018 notes in the in ET tret if that's what you use uh uh the the site plan documents have the 2018 notes and the rezoning um the resoning of of documents has the 2016 I found the 2018 in the other in the other um document list in in ER tret so it is in there but we will absolutely have that

078and it's accessible and and U we have that plan now if You' like to look at it or we'll certainly have it next time without a doubt sorry I don't think we need to look at it now make sure though in your public participation meeting that it's very clear like even if it's tiny tiny things that have changed like I would just make it really clear what Chang that's why we asked that's why we asked for the table T to table it because we were very surprised we had met with them twice and the even the 2016 project was extremely similar to the 2018 and so anyways we're going to meet with them just for that reason um thanks and then I'll just Echo everything everybody else said but also I'd be curious to hear

079next time um if you've considered electrification since you know one of our callers did mention that and um we have approved a couple of projects recently that were full electrification and if if not why not we don't require it but I would just like to hear next time a little bit more that you've looked into it electrification that is it and and excuse me for not knowing what you mean you mean EV or do you mean solar commissioner Mills would you like to take this one sorry it's my part of my day job um it's it's the idea that you don't necessarily hook up to natural gas so it's a furnace you know your your uh HVAC system and appliances that are running on electric gotcha for the purpose of meeting sustainability goals that are

080very aggressive in the city of V exactly because natural gas is a fossil fuel um so it's to get rid of that um and this is one where building electrification also helps to make those solar panels pay for themselves faster because you're using a lot of you know you're using additional electricity anyway um so just something to consider uh any everybody had talked anyone can want to make a motion to postpone moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner abon discussion of that commissioner milstein Mr lonard do we need a date certain on this one yes I would I'd recommend you um postpone to a date certain um my recommendation would be for you to consider the actually the January 5th meeting um the next the next meeting of the commission we do have um a

081light agenda I think however am concerned about the ability to get um invitations out for a meeting um over that time frame and uh and hold it and get that information to us in time unfortunately our 15th agenda of December is fairly robust so um if you're open to it um I'm open to it but I would recommend postponing to the January 5th Mr Leonard I was actually because of the holidays maybe it might be wiser to postpone it until our second regular meeting in January just in case they're able to do just over the holidays they're not able to do it in the schedule for early January that question for me that would be the 19th oh the 19th so if it's okay with the commission I'll friendly amendment to postpone it until January

08219 18 what is that for I'm confused that he won't that they won't be able to get their meeting together in time before then a public participation meeting especially because we have the holidays over the next six [Music] weeks I would actually um ask the petitioner uh from your perspective uh we want to we like to do a date certain just so that those who are listening know kind of what is planned so uh I would say that uh uh we would we would um we we were expecting to meet with them when uh we were talking about citizen participation meeting I think we can do it that much quicker we have the list um I'd like to uh I'd like to if we can turn the part citizen participation meeting around quickly um hit

083the next uh T meeting that we can hit from that um I I think I think most of these most of these items we can we can uh we can handle uh but the the meeting is going to be the most difficult thing to get together but I think we can get to that quickly so I don't want to say a date but we wouldd like to do the soonest one if we can if we can meet with them next week we'd like to hit the next Planning Commission meeting which could be de which could be December I don't know that we need a a citizen partic participation meeting not no you know notify everyone but we wanted to address all the people on the letter and anyone else on part of the uh on

084the list that we have that was that was our goal so go go ahead um you're thank yeah well I was gonna I'm gonna pose it back to um some of the Commissioners who who were um thinking about yes go ahead Mr Leonard I just I just want to go through some timing here the next uh meeting of the Planning Commission is on December 1st um that packet will likely go out on next Wednesday the 25th because of the holiday um so that would provide um we would need um um we would need responses from the petitioner on the outstanding items as well as um if to know that the meeting had taken place probably by Monday um that seems like a fairly aggressive time frame from My Lens um again um the 15th we've

085got three projects um tentatively scheduled there already um I you know it's it's up to the commission there's nothing no reason why we couldn't add it to that meeting um that would that would that'd be a pretty heavy load um for that meeting that's why I was proposing the fifth um so I so we have to set the date here now that that's what I'm not sure about uh is that correct um if um if we set the date now um that date is set otherwise the earliest that we would be able to do um um well if if we're shooting for that time frame actually we could um just table it that would mean it couldn't hap it could definitely not happen before that date but it could happen at some point after we

086would Ren notice the public hearing at that point if we don't know the date um the the logic of that is anybody who was here to hear about it they're um paying attention they can follow when it's being rescheduled if we don't know when that is we will Ren notice the public hearing whenever that happens so you need the additional time the two weeks I think that's required for yeah for but to be but to be clear if we set it for January 5th um we could reoti for that now so if that's a tentative date I would perhaps we do just table it if you think there's any chance of going beyond that more simply I think it would just make sense to set that date as our Target date for follow okay I

087I can't I can't argue I I I agree um January 5th uh we don't want to go beyond we don't I'd like to not go beyond that I think we can meet our burdens pretty quickly uh but uh the first might be if you have to notice for two weeks then yeah we the first was not is not going to not going to work so all right so I'd recommend postponement to January 5th for the item then that's friendly and commissioner ibens you're okay with that any other discussion of a postponement to January 5th do you want to roll call vote Mr Leonard on The postponement no okay Voice vote is okay so all in favor of postponing this item until January 5th 2021 which is crazy uh please raise your hand or uh say

088yes yes that is every hand that I see or a verbal yes so um that is unanimous we will see you back here in should be months but it's not all that far off um thank you very much again thank you very much planning commissioner for all your input have a good evening you too all right um 8:30 do we need a break before the next one or are we chugging on and we'll have a break closer to 9:30ish 930 okay anticipating that this might be a long one maybe a break now would be wise fill up your water bottle um maybe a break after the presentation before public comment that would work too yeah let's do that so let's plan on hearing the presentation and the staff report and before the public hearing we

089can take a break then perfect um okay the next item up uh for discussion is 9A uh this is 2060 West Stadium Boulevard site plan with rezoning for city council approval and a special exception use for Planning Commission approval um as our usual practice we will start with a petitioner presentation for up to 10 minutes and then a staff presentation and as we just discussed we'll take a short break then and then have the public hearing following that um and then we'll dive into commission discussion just give me a minute here no problem okay so uh I have our presentation slides ready um and I was going to be controlling the slides but I uh I would need the ability to share my screen I think one moment okay is this your full team usually

090Mr Leonard ask this but do you see everybody are you missing somebody think we have one more Tina okay check out the Hollywood Squares see who's missing there we go hey Brett what do I to do to get off the phone um what what are the last three digits of your number 6244 oh it's like the cycle of the Endless cycle goodbye all right can I hear you Sean uh oh I think I got disconnected Brett so I'll we hear you through the computer can you hear me we hear you no we hear you yes I can't hear anyone else are you let's see oh there we go I had to unmute my computer sorry about that can you can hear us now I can hear you now I had my my computer muted because

091obviously we're trying to do the phone and obviously technology is not working today so we'll go by the phone Ted you should uh be all set you have up to 10 minutes all right everyone uh thank you uh for seeing us this evening my name is Sean Hava uh most of you um I am familiar with uh Sarah congratulations on being the chairperson this year uh first time I think we're before you uh in a while uh and welcome commi commissioner dish um we are talking today in regards to 2060 West Stadium um we have on with us uh several members of our development team uh with North Stadium LLC we have myself Mike Kennedy and Jordan s we are serving as the master developer of the site as well as the specific developer for

092the storage facility we also have David sath who is with Northstar an arbor Properties LLC who is also representing Northstar Bank uh we have Tom cobt Ted H and Tina fix with Midwestern Consulting who are our civil engineer and landscape architect Hobs and black Architects we have David Nims uh who is the architect for the bank and then mohagen Hansen architecture we have Ron Paul who is the architect for the storage facility go ahead Ted so to give some site context uh this is uh on West Stadium south of Liberty Street across from the uh UPS uh USPS station um currently along the west Stadium Corridor we have an existing mixture of various commercial businesses um which is also a AAA bus route with access to I94 the current zoning of the property is currently

093a split zoning with c2b at the front along stadium and then the parking District along the back portion of the property we are proposing to do a rezoning of of the parking District to c2b to bring that into compliance with the master plan which calls for the entire area uh and the property to be considered a commercial uh use area area next slide so part of the reasons that this site was selected for were for a a number of reasons obviously this is specific to the self storage facility but we'll also provide a little context in for Northstar bank so one of the uh reasons that this was selected is that this provides a close proximity to not only residents in the area but also to businesses as well um which we which we find

094are are uh both users uh of storage facilities um it it is an ability for students to be able to store uh belongings throughout the year we we own a couple student housing um apartments in downtown so we do know how this can be done within the area there are currently just under 19,000 renters that are within a three mile radius uh and this provides to those renters an affordable solution um when they need to store U belongings that they may be able to fit within a a smaller apartment or a smaller home or residential dwelling we also feel that this helps support the a20 plan uh which one of the uh components of that is to work to help minimize the amount of mileage that is required um to be driven and with the

095majority of the current uh storage facilities in the area they were on the outskirts of town and so residents would have to drive businesses would have to drive um several several miles in order to utilize those facilities so that allows the reduction in mileage into this in regards to Northstar Bank uh Northstar Bank currently has a small uh retail operation down on State Street just north of Eisenhower they have been looking for several years in regards to finding a site in which they can develop a full service Branch their current one is not a full service branch is a very small uh facility it also allows them to consolidate and and expand um their operational back of house their lending Services uh their operational staff as well in the area and provide them room to

096grow and expand they they continue to want to expand in the Ann Arbor area this is the first area uh they they're look going to be looking at other facilities and sites throughout an arbor to continue to expand their footprint um I'm going to now hand this over to Ted who will be able to talk more about some of the site context and site specific items thanks for that introduction Sean um so yeah like Sean said I'll be kind of focusing more on the site specific um features um after he gave you that nice contextual uh presentation so uh we'll start with the existing conditions this is a a vacant parcel with a uh a dealership and parking lot um no real natural features to speak of on site no uh flood plane no no

097steep slopes um there's one Landmark tree that's in proximity um although it's not on the site it's um it's in the residential uh development to the East and the critical root zone is uh encroaches a little bit into this property um talk a little bit about the the proposed uses um and uh just kind of highlight the fact this is a a nice reuse of a you know an infill project um of this vacant parcel and um the two buildings that we've got proposed are the self storage facility um and the bank with uh second and third level offices um also want to highlight the the drive-thru that's being proposed for the bank as well um we'll we'll kind of go through um some higher points of of why we feel that's a good feature

098that we're proposing um the rezoning of uh the the rectangular portion of this parcel um is actually currently zoned parking District um over on the east end and we'd propose to um rezone that to uh be consistent with the commercial zoning of this Corridor um and uh again with this drive-thru we'd be uh requesting a special exception use uh talk a little bit about the actual layout um so the self storage facility um little over 120,000 square fet of floor area uh across four floors uh the bank and office building um a smaller less than 5,000 square foot ground floor with um roughly 9,000 square foot um second and third floors with offices uh the parking required uh for the entire development um calculated 137 parking spaces we're we requesting a variance on that as

099we provide 102 parking spaces um we have uh consulted the EV draft ordinance and uh have Incorporated a plan that um shows how we would intend to meet those requirements um we'll talk a little bit about the Landscaping uh the the East and the north um uh we have adjacent residential developments buffer from those developments um part of the uh the variance request uh that we have for parking we have two additional uh variance requests um as there's some contamination on site from the previous users will be uh requesting a deviation from the bior retention requirements so that we're not infiltrating and exacerbating that uh contamination um and then also requesting a variance for the street trees that would normally uh be required in the road right away we would be proposing to plant them

100on site as uh there's a sidewalk directly adjacent to the road and really no room to plant trees and this would be consistent with the the existing streetcape along West Stadium uh pretty simple as far as serving the the buildings with utilities there's existing Mains out in uh The Stadium Boulevard right away small extension of the sanitary sewer on the West Side would allow us to serve uh leads for both buildings perpendicularly across the road uh and then existing water M uh we'd be tapping with uh fire suppression uh domestic service leads for each building uh as well as uh two fire hydrants to help um meet the fire department requirements for for serving for fire uh storm water management uh would be a big upgrade there's no um storm water management system existing uh

101it just all directly contributes to the city system so we'd be proposing to take that underground store in Chambers and then uh controlled out Outlet release to the to the city system um and from there I'll hand it over to David Nims he'll talk a little bit about the the big building one minute left did you say that you plan to hand it over oh is oh sorry about that can you guys hear me yes okay uh I'll be very brief um as Ted said the the bank's about 22,000 Square fet the 18 ,000 sare feet of its general office and another 5,000 is uh retail bank and and Lobby to service that general office um we have a slightly irregular shape to the site which is guided the architecture this is pro predominantly brick

102and glass with metal accents um for the client's desires the exterior kind of Blends a little modern and a little traditional aesthetic uh to enhance the stadium Road Corridor uh to you know kind of proot promote a sense of timelessness so it can consistently act as a athlet to the community um the northeast corner of the building anchors is anchored by a multi-story glass enclosed stairwell that serves as the main access to the upper levels of the office while providing sense of arrival to the site and with that I will turn it over to mohagen Hansen hi I'm Ron Powell um this that is minutes should I quit yes Ron we'll we'll hopefully get back to that very good thank you Mr H if you could remove the shared screen as well plus Chris you

103want that for your summary for any reason I think I'm all set I'll refer to any slides that may come up uh during just a couple of issues that I wanted to to uh touch on I thought the petitioner did a very good job uh presenting they cover just about my whole checklist there couple of things the underground storm water uh that was approved by the Wasing County drain commissioner's office and if indeed that this site I'm sure it's going to come up if it weren't reson from the P which is on the east side of the site uh to the c2b which is the business Service District um that there's a little if you go back to the slide there's a little finger that was shown there so if let's say the rezoning wasn't

104approved they would have to remove that that kind of that one-story finger and just a little bit of a portion to stay out of the PE parking zoning I don't know if we're going to go yes so you could see that's absolutely right so that's the whole P area that zoned for parking so if it wasn't rezoned you'd have to shave off kind of that one-story little finger right there going down so if you're trying to just at least get a visual of what would be missing if they didn't get the rezoning approved that's the portion of the building that wouldn't meet the the rear setback otherwise it does meet floor area ratios setbacks for the for the side front and rear and with that I'm here to answer any questions the Planning Commission or

105the public may have thank you very much um because I know that there are a number of people on the line and we want to make sure that we are hydrated and ready to take public comments let's take a um five minute five minute break by my clock that will bring us back here at 8:46 um and at that time we'll have the public hearing so those of you who are on the phone stay with us uh we're taking a TV time out and we'll be back at 8:46 e for e e e us back I will call us back into session and um we will have the public hearing so uh this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed development at 2060 West Stadium public comment

106may be made by calling 877 853 5247 and then entering meeting ID 2451 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand you do that by pressing star nine um we'll call On You by the last three digits of your telephone number please when you're speaking move to a quiet area and mute any background sound um or television so that we can hear you clearly and please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments we do have a number of folks on the line and already a number of hands up so be patient um we will we will get to you and I will give callers a audible 30 second um note when that time is uh coming up when the end of the time is coming up so starting with

107caller with the phone number ending with 008 um caller with phone number ending with 008 uh if you can unmute yourself you would have three minutes to address the planning question hello hello we can hear you am I being heard yes good evening Commissioners uh my name is David Olstead I live at 600 Ridgewood Court our neighbors have requested that I speak first then Su Perry director Leonard has graciously arranged for our calls to be accepted in that order and if we have time constraints then Kurt Gardner to complete our uh statement other neighbors then will be called in random order three minutes a piece a copy of Sue's and my combined statement was sent by email to planning a2gov org just before meeting time so you can follow along and so you can track

108our timing so that we can make a seamless and effective presentation we respectfully request that the commission vote under its bylaws article 8 section three to modify its time limitations to allow me to speak up to 5 and three quart minutes and Sue up to three and a half minutes given that we're in the middle of the comment now we're not going to be able to do that so if you can continue um with your public comment okay I will simply note that by collapsing two public hearings into one you've effectively cut our timing in half and your timing seems highly stacked in favor of petitioner uh Kurt because I'll be abruptly cut off Note where I am so you can later on uh present the rest of the statement hello Commissioners we future Northstar

109neighbors appreciate the need to redevelop the dormant nailor site and realize that northstar's public storage facility suits that need we will be cooperative and restu and constructive we have two requests one that the commission weigh the interests of Northstar and the interest of residents equally and two that Northstar provide actual answers to legitimate questions raised from the beginning of the project process along the Lots along this section of Stadium Boulevard are unusually zoned they have bifurcated zoning the lots are Zone c2b in front and a narrow strip in the rear is zoned parking the fact that this original and longstanding Zoning is unusual does not make it suspect instead it warrants careful attention to why this unusual provision was there in the first place the purpose had to be more than simply assuring adequate Part

11030 more seconds I can't possibly get through this I need I this is is an outrage this is an outrage you can cut me off and I would ask other people that have seen this statement written to give it to you haphazardly peace meal over time you are not equally treating we ask simply equal treatment between the petitioner and the resident you're not doing that you haven't even helped us do that good good night outrage thank you sir um to be clear we're following our bylaws um which lay out kind of how we how we operate public hearings um Mr Leonard I just want to the kind of time given in this is similar to what has been happening since I've been on commission I just want to make sure that that's consistent that's correct

111Mr said um you'll note from your Communications had expressed frustration that the Planning Commission doesn't hold separate hearings for every ction uh with a associated with a petition in this case a rezoning along with the site plan as you indicated um we are following our ordinance requirements public hearing is held for many of those actions is um by practice and our bylaws we do not hold separate public hearings um um uh the plan commission does have the opportunity to wave time requirements um from my view this is a very similar petition to other types of petitions that we frequently uh consider within the time allotments of our public hearing so I wouldn't recommend that but um if that's something the Planning Commission desires it can be done um and if you have any other questions

112I'm happy to address them commissioner abens can members of the public speak more than once during a hearing no could you proceed on um finding the next person that was in line uh that was kind of arranged I also want to just note um thank you to commissioner aens for pointing out the additional the comments that were received so this is um listed as item number eight online in the etrack OR item number nine I think it's it's titled com 8 what um what the p uh the person who just called in was um starting to work through a caller with phone number ending with 321 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission yes I'm here hi can you hear me yes can yes my name is Susan Perry and I live at

1131708 Fair Street the staff report recognizes the unique purpose of this separate Zoning for parking staff States quote historically P zoning was used as a buffer from commercial uses adjacent to residential uses unquote an extended buffer Zone to insulate residents from actual operations is absolutely essential here storage operations mean truck and trailer traffic and moving noises and L lights 6:30 a.m. to 900 p.m. every day 7even days a week instead Northstar wants rezoning so it can move its building and operations 40 to 50 feet closer to Residence Northstar insists that its project must be allowed if it meets current UDC requirements fair enough but just as norstar wants to rely upon existing stand ards so too must residents be able to rely upon long-standing zoning that was spe specifically intended to protect their interests nonetheless

114staff gives greater weight to northstar's interest staff says quote the master plan land used element recommends commercial uses for this site and thus quote staff recommends that the zoning be approved because the proposed uses uses permitted under the c2b zoning District are consistent with the recommendations of the master plan unquote staff's reference to the master plan is extremely misleading there is nothing in the master plan which recommends that parking zones be eliminated or that parking zones be rezoned commercial here is what the master plan in summary actually recommends number one minimizing the amount of unnecessary parking spaces number two designing parking lots to be less aggravating and number three requiring that the surface parking be placed at the rear of the buildings now let's compare staff's standard for reason zoning that being quote consistent with

115the recommendations of the master plan unquote with what the law requires compare the staff recommended standard for resoning with its recommendation for site plan approval for site plan approval staff carefully recites the specific criteria of UDC section 5.29.18 not cause a public or private nuisance not have a detrimental effect on public health safety or welfare like its specific criteria for site plan approval the UDC likewise has specific criteria for resoning 30 more seconds quote for the purposes of establishing and maintaining sound stable and desirable development within the territorial limits of the city the boundaries of any zoning District shall not be amended except and here in summary are the three criteria one to correct an area two because of change in Municipal policy or three because of changed conditions of the area the staff recommendation

116for rezoning does not recognize or address any of the required UDC criteria the staff recommendation zoning is legally defective on its face at the same time nor answers to resoning application questions are vague or exaggerated thank you very much thank you caller with the phone number ending with the digit 630 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission good evening thank you this is Kurt Gardner at Ford do Court continuing to finish this uh presentation instead of saying there are two jobs in the storage facility Northstar exaggerates res zoning allows for the development of a business that promotes employment op opportunities and helps to stimulate the local economy with rezoning northstar's appliation states that with with with rezoning noise and lo pollution are potentially reduced fuse from the homes to East will be largely

117un effect in that the resoning will help to create a stronger relationship between the business on east side of the Stadium Boulevard and the residential neighborhoods to the East look carefully at the resoning application every Advantage promised in the application will be accomplished without the resoning just by reducing the 120,000 foot building by 10,000 square feet compared northstar's exaggerations and exertions without evidence in its Zone rezoning application to northstar's actually replies to the questions of nearby residents at the citizen participation meeting there are questions about noise Sun blockage light night light pollution trash being discard when when storage renters from Storage renters all problems that will be severely aggravated by moving the storage structure 20 to 25 question mark feet closer to the residents by resoning here are in invariable norstar replies we are further

118refining our plans and will incorporate Community contents from the meeting to revise our current site layout as appropriate appropriate to whom we are working with our Engineers currently to address noise emissions we anticipate little noise to the surrounding uses question mark we are working with all our Architects to provide us with the Sun study exercise which will allow us to better answer this topic have not been seen we are still in the preliminary design phase with regards to lighting we work together with neighborhood Property Owners to ensure needs met this is not good seeing norstar promised to get back to Residence with answers to the questions in the meeting report norstar lists the email addresses for each question mayor but there's not been any answers to these questions by norstar staff response to norstar evasiveness

119is a trusting be careful for for example in this August 12th letter staff says please ensure all lighting does not cause a nuisance with the adjacent neighborhood unlike staff we neighbors have no Comfort or satisfaction for our lives and homes in coming years by northstar's exaggerations in this assertions without evidence nor has not answered our questions we will have to find out the answers ourselves in instead indeed staff and this commission should want answers to these same questions there is a way for all of us to get these answers planning staff requested North start to consider reducing floor space the office building with storage facility to meet parking standards your ref staff's request in the September 11th reply letter nor our refusal is predicated on dot dot dot application knowledge of other storage facilities similar

120size storage buildings Bild by the developer have only required 12 to 15 parking spaces to adequately serve the building in effect norstar is telling his neighbors the Planning Commission the staff this based on North experience for similar building and those how to avoid all the problems concerns raised by staff one thing to consider is the overall size versus all the rest that are without the us we'd like to see norstar provide evidence of another 120,000 foot facility that they manage that's time thank you very much for those on the phone a number of people have raised their hands and we'll call on you in turn caller with a phone number ending with 437 437 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello uh my name is Andrea ladne I live at 1609 green

121View Drive dve and uh basically this development does not fit in this area it belongs in an industrial area um not somewhere you know with shopping and like things that would actually uh you know it doesn't add anything to the neighborhood uh the size isn't I'm not I'm not crazy about the size but that isn't necessarily my problem um but the use of it is uh storage facility you know there's I don't know how many others right around this neighborhood uh or I'm sorry right you know within a two- mile radius and uh also as far as the bank goes I have nothing against a a local or Regional Bank trying to set up shop and you know have more space they can Branch out their retail offerings but honestly there are three other banks

122in a credit union you know within a quarter mile of this site and I just don't think that that's a good use of this site thank you very much thank you caller with the phone number ending was 737 three minutes yes yeah ahead okay hi um I thank you for giving me this opportunity to address you my name is David ay I live at 1739 ivywood drive I'm the neighborhood right to the East and uh so my I object to allowing this or making allowances uh for this project because the project essentially gives the city nothing in return and the neighbors nothing really in return for the allowances that they're asking to be granted um it is disturbing to me for one that there is concerns of contamination underneath in the site and the developer

123seems to just state that they would like to uh cover it up and ignore it rather than remediate that contamination in their presentation I just noticed that for the first time and I would like that to be addressed uh very urgently this type of development here that they're asking for variance so that they can bring in actually traffic they claim this is consistent with the Net Zero for Ann Arbor but this development is really intended to attract uh traffic and specifically larger vehicles trucks moving bands and trailers and stuff into this uh what we would hope would be a Transit Corridor they have stated that they believe that the views from the East are largely unaffected in their uh petition for resoning which I do not see how that could possibly be true in that

124petition they have stated uh benefits from employment by definition of Self Storage has minimal employment AA opportunities um so it is really going to be a very large empty building that attracts traffic and a lot of truck traffic to the area and we should not be changing our zoning to allow this sort of development to occur and then we should also ask some very serious questions about what they plan on doing with the uh possible contamination in the soil on the site um thank you very much for listening to me I could go on for about 30 more minutes or so but I think I'll keep it short and succinct thank you very much call her with a phone number ending with 470 470 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission caller ending

125with 470 if you press star six you should be able to unmute your phone and address the Planning Commission hi go ahead evening Commissioners thank you good evening Commissioners and staff thank you for your time and for your service my name is Kent love Ramirez I live with my family at 1919 ivywood drive one of the homes adjacent to the proposed development we sought out the Eber white neighborhood when searching for a home in order to raise our family in an urban walkable Community with nearby goods and services we regularly walk to school and parks to the East and restaurants grocery shopping the hardware store and dry cleaning and more to the West along Stadium Boulevard it's the life we imagined now at risk of being tainted by what we feel is an ill advised

126development that does not serve the needs of our residents the city's land use plan for the stadium Corridor States quote the purpose of a neighborhood and local business district is to serve the needs of the surrounding residential neighborhood providing Goods that are needed on a day-to-day basis simply put 120,000 square foot four-story self- storage facility does not align with the day-to-day needs of nearby residents despite Northstar Stadium stating during their public participation meeting that they anticipate 80% usage from local residents the land use plan recommends improvements to the Liberty Stadium District that quote create a stronger relationship between businesses on the east side of San Boulevard and the residential neighborhood to the east a self- storage facility does not create a stronger relationship with residents in fact it creates a divisive one and we believe

127that there is no president or need for such a development adjacent to a residential neighborhood as owners of an adjacent property we will be directly impacted a four story which by the way the petitioner failed to mention in his presentation with a cinder block wall will obstruct sight lines and diminish natural light including our view of sunsets earlier this month I shared with the Planning Commission and city council photos taken of my family from our backyard looking at a beautiful sunset if the development proceeds as planned there will be no such views in the initial Community presentation meeting or participation meeting they show sight lines from street level if you note in our backyard we slope up to our property line on the ridge uh see uh so we instead will stare at a cinder

128block structure that will likely increase light and noise pollution from the physical buildings and increase vehicular traffic using the bank's proposed three-lane drive-thru and also loading zones for the storage facilities 98 proposed units we respectfully ask the planning thank you we respectfully ask the Planning Commission to decline the rezoning and special exceptions request the development will negatively and irrevocably impact the adjacent residential neighborhood and is misaligned with the vision of the city's master plan thank you for your time and consideration thank you for the folks on the line we see a number of hands still up so we are working our way through the queue holler with the phone number ending with 060 caller with the phone number ending with 060 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello can you hear me

129sure can my name is ingred Peterson I live at 1943 ivywood directly behind 2060 West Stadium my house featured several times in the development presentation I'm speaking today with a mix of disappointment and outrage at both the Planning Commission and North Stadium LLC after the July meeting hosted by North Stadium LLC I contacted several members of the City Planning Commission as well as city council to register my objections I received one response that indicated I would be added to a distribution list regarding the status of this project I never received any status updates as our neighborhood organized throughout the summer it became evident that most of the residents were in AIM situation the lack of status updates impedes our ability to participate in a decision-mak process that directly affects us I am disappointed but not

130surprised by North Stadium llc's contempt for the residents of this neighborhood and their lack of due diligence I make this claim based on their neighborhood correspondence study which is a blatant conflict of interest the content of this document misrepresents and omits the concerns of the neighborhood among the omitted items was a question of why 26 D West Stadium was a better location than other available plots on Stadium between Liberty and Pauline this question was raised to address the issues of large vehicle large vehicle traffic as well as avoiding the need for rezoning nor Stadium LLC had no answer and is seeking to hide this inquiry from the Planning Commission the question concerning light Wildlife was linked to an issue of trash disposal and was presented as a specific issue with um with a former neighboring

131business and had resulted in a citation from the city this was not a hypothetical question but an actual concern about attracting racons and possums into the area that then pose a threat to Residents and our pets I personally have dealt with several encounters some resulting in vet visits and required erecting a privacy fense further North Stadium LLC is arguing that Northstar bank is a as a Regional Bank is a unique addition to the corridor this is more evidence of their lack of dut diligence as the other banks in the area are local and other Regional Banks I object to the unnecessary rezoning of 2060 West Stadium and a development project that is not consistent with the city's master plan simply to benefit a collection of companies that are not transparent and not reliable Community Partners

132thank you thank you caller with phone number eding in 134 Caller Name with 134 you have three minutes thank you Ken Garber 28 H Hill Court again thank you for the opportunity to weigh in on the sustainable aspects of this plan like the last one it's commendable that the petitioner spoke to the office of sustainability and innovation and I'm glad for the apparent voluntary compliance with the city's not yet passed EV charging ordinance and this petitioner unlike the last one at least knows what building electrification means and has considered it but that's about the extent of it Mr Hava comment that this project will advance the 820 go goals by reducing vehicle miles traveled is a stretch since these storage facilities don't get much traffic to begin with which the petitioner acknowledges by asking for

133a variance to avoid putting in 35 parking spaces that it doesn't need there is no commitment to electrifying the two proposed buildings although the petitioner does write in its a20 response letter that a vrf system for the Bank building only is under review I don't know if that's still the case maybe the petitioner can tell us tonight as for the self- storage building which is much bigger it's definitely going be gas however there are heat pump HVAC Solutions in similar storage facilities out there even in cold climates has the petitioner looked into this the petitioner in its a20 response letter writes that an electric reheat system in the Bank building will help by reducing the use of natural gas however reheat systems are inherently energy wasteful and may be the single most inefficient HVAC system

134type in fact reheat as a designed practice is prohibited by energy standard 90.1 of the American Society of heating refrigerating and air conditioning Engineers so for the petitioner to write that electric reheat is somehow a sustainable element of the plan when the opposite is probably true is a measure of how little it's actually offering regarding solar the petitioner states that without net metering it doesn't make economic sense now we're unhappy that the Michigan Public Service Commission let net me metering expire in 2016 and we're trying to get it back but many of us are putting in solar anyway that's because eliminating greenhouse gas emissions not just reducing them is an urgent Global imperative and an individual responsibility 30 more seconds that's all thank you very much caller with the phone number ending in 34 call

135her with a phone number ending in 340 if you can press star six to unmute yourself you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hi thank you very much um my name is Laura lawence um I live at 800 dartmore Road um I sent an email um but did not get it in in time to be included with your packet so I wanted to call in um and read the contents of my email um dear Planning Commission and city council I'm writing to voice my strong opposition to a proposed development at 2060 West Stadium Boulevard I live in the neighborhood behind this location and and am extremely concerned that this development will increase traffic congestion and light and noise pollution in our area in addition this development is a visual blight and will be

136detrimental to the relation ship between the stadium business area and the nearby neighborhoods the stadium business area should be made more accessible to Residents attractive safe for pedestrians and consistent with the residential character of surrounding neighborhoods I am asking that you do not approve the rezoning request I would like to see this empty lot developed in a way that is consistent with the city's stated vision for the stadium Corridor my family has benefited from the enhancements along the stadium that promote walk ability shopping and dining out this development would be a blight on the stadium Corridor and negatively affect families in my neighborhood thank you thank you I see a couple more hands raised if you are on the line and would like to speak um you can press star n to digitally raise your

137hand and get in the queue call her with the phone number ending with 009 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hi this is Reena Seltzer I live at six over Court which is um again the neighborhood just to the east of the development and I just want to Echo my neighbor concerns um stadium has become a a nicer streetcape um in the time in the uh 22 years since we've lived in the area and uh like other neighbors we appreciate that there are businesses that can walk to um there grocery stores there's uh there's bask and rins there's you know like there's uh retail um having a storage unit kind of right in the middle of that section of Stadium just really seems like it is kind of creating a big dead

138zone um a lot of people have mentioned the number of banks there as well but particularly I'm concerned about this huge storage unit um it sounds like it's really mostly to serve the students who use the building that the developer um also owns and it just doesn't seem like there's a reason why that needs to be right on top of a residential neighborhood it sounds like more like something that should be on a street like South Industrial or another commercial area that doesn't just directly a but up against a residential neighborhood I'm also really concerned about the impact on the sight lines and the sun blockage for the neighborhood so I hope you will take the neighbor's concerns seriously ly and think about um what can be done in a site that is a better

139use and more fitting for a residential neighborhood thank you thank you caller with a phone number ending with 833 call her with the phone number ending with 833 you have minutes to address the planning question go ahead um hi my name is Kelly Good connect I live at 1943 ivywood um a lot of it is I would like to just add my voice to the points that several other neighbors have brought up about the mismatch and inappropriateness of a storage facility with the joining neighborhoods the concerns about like noise pollution and traffic difficulties um I would also like to also point out um the issues that the developer has not been particularly forthcoming or cooperating with addressing the neighborhood's concerns um but in addition and also to some of the light issues that I would

140like to point out um there are a lot of families and homes in the neighborhood that have vegetable gardens um and I'm really concerned about the light blockage from the building affecting people's ability to use those Gardens that they placed in thank you thank you there's a couple more hands up and we're getting to you now if you um are on the phone and wish to make a comment in the this public hearing it's star n to raise your hand call her with a phone number ending with 930 phone number ending with 930 um if you can you have three minutes to hello uh my name is Dale Dunlap I live at 829 dartmore uh also known as dartmore Condominiums unit four which is in some of the drawings but we are not technically an

141adjacent neighbor uh we're actually adjacent to the zal G grot parking lot uh but I would argue that our property is would be the most affected by this development we tend to live on the south side of our house and I have eight windows that face South which would face directly at the the huge uh cinder block wall and from the drawings if you you notice the the different sides of it we'd be looking at the long side of that and it would dominate the the view from our Windows um I have a lot of other concerns that have already been uh voiced by other neighbors I I agree with uh a lot of what was said so I'll just leave it at that and and just the other thing I wanted to point out

142is I I I've read a a lot of the documentation and read the relevant pieces of the master plan and I don't see how this development uh of the storage facility at all fits with the the character of the uh the the master plan for this Corridor so thank you for your time thank you caller with the phone number ending with 68 call her with the phone number ending with 68 you can unmute yourself you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission to unmute yourself you can press star six on your phone caller whose phone number and in 608 you should be you're in the meeting now to be able to make public comment but uh it still looks like you're muted so star six is one of the ways to unmute yourself I

143don't know if there's others it's the way all right we'll try you again caller with phone number ending with 503 have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello my name is Jonathan noose um I live at 1906 ivywood drive and I just want to add my voice um to um my neighbors voices um in opposition to the development um you know my issue is with um the self storage facility um first of all the location I find it hard to believe that there isn't another location um in an arbor the outskirts um where this type of building could be located um which would be more appropriate um than a commercial Corridor and also the height of the building um you know four stories which is going to Tower over the tree line and like

144one of my other neighbors said this is the sight line for a lot of us facing west um and and it does you know play out in terms of sunsets and um Family parties and those type of things so it just does not fit in the neighborhood and I think that's overall what we're looking for is any addition in terms of um commercial um buildings we'd like it to be um something that we can um visit and it's it's cohesive um with a residential neighborhood backing up right to it thank you thank you caller with a phone number ending with the numbers 1 one you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hi my name is Amanda wise and I live at 1937 iWood drive and um the proposed development would be basically in

145our backyard we live right there and a portion of the site is zoned P um for parking service classification to provide a buffer of space between the commercial businesses and the residential neighborhood and I believe it should not be rezoned the former owner of of the commercial property dug out the berm that was there separating the neighborhood from the commercial space to making the to make the parking lot for his car dealership bigger and that took out the buffer of trees already that was there so resoning the lot now would open it up to Future building even closer to our houses the city of an Arbor's application asks how the rezoning will affect the public welfare and the property rights of persons located in the vicinity res zoning this land C the business service classification

146will affect all of the people who have houses adjacent to the land we will see and hear the activity from the building because they can build even closer we will see the lights and hear the people and hear the cars because there will not be a buffer the building will create a wall blocking the sky it will affect the view of our backyard and the tower over our houses and height to be seen from our front yards it will affect our property values the Builder wants to build a four-story building which is inconsistent with all of the other buildings in the area page 98 of the Anor City Master plan's land use element states to achieve a commercial District that is physically attractive cohesive shopping district with a unified visual impact that conveys a sense

147of place and provides a positive impression that is the goal they have for stadium nothing on Stadium that is adjacent to a neighborhood is T taller than two stories a four-story building will look out of place set precedent for other developments to build the super siiz block the sun cast security lights well over the tree line a four-story building will be so tall it will be the first thing that people see when they step out of E White Woods onto ivywood drive this would not be physically attractive it would not provide a unified visual impression it would be ugly the developers application says that the storage facility and bank will attract the interest of the community members and create stronger Rel thank you create a stronger relationship between the businesses on the east side of

148stadium and the residential neighborhood but people cannot walk to a storage facility they have to drive a truck there people cannot walk up through a drive-thru at the bank they have to drive a car through a drive-thru at the bank so please please consider not approving the application to rone the lot from P to C please do not approve this four story building in the location it's not consistent with the goals of the city master plan and it does not meet the qualifications thank you thank you thank you very much caller with phone number ending with 541 you have three minutes to address the py commission yes this is Janet Young I live at 825 dartmore road which backs up uh to the uh proposed storage unit um I've lived here for 20 years uh

149I think most of what I'd like to say has already been said and probably much more eloquently than uh what I how I can say it um I am uh very concerned about having a four story building uh right behind my house um this will obviously be an eyesore for me and uh remove my entire Southern Exposure um I also do not believe that uh having a storage unit right there on Stadium is in any way helpful uh to our neighborhood most of what is on that Corridor are businesses um that people in the neighborhood would use uh I don't see this as being such uh a business it seems like such a large storage unit would be much better in an industrial area [Music] um so yes those those are uh some of my

150main concerns as well as uh I really do feel that having that there uh will reduce property values for those of us who have adjacent properties thank you thank you caller with phone number ending was 617 caller with phone number ending was 617 uh if you can unmute your phone you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hi this is Renee Salter at 1925 ivywood Drive which is directly adjacent to the proposed development I'd like to Echo all of the sentiments of our neighbors we recently moved into our home in this neighborhood coming from an area with zero walkability and we were excited to move to a place where our quality of life would be greatly improved this we intend to be our forever home and plan to live here for over 30 years

151hopefully um we this development will look straight into our second story of our home into our bedroom into our toddler's bedroom and into our bathroom it will block the sun it will be an eyesore and it will negatively affect our way of life I stand with all of my neighbors and ask that you reconsider the requests of this developer thank you thank you for those who've called in um I see the line is short if you haven't spoken yet and wish to address us on this issue it's star nine caller with phone number ending with 608 caller with phone number ending with 608 if you can unmute your phone you would have three minutes to address the Planning Commission caller with phone number ending was 608 if you can press star six on your phone

152to unmute you can address the Planning Commission if you desire that is all I can do to prompt unmuting okay very good anyone else star n raises your hand see no one I will read the Motions there are three um for this petition they are the an arbor City Planning Commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information finds the petitions to substantially meet the standards in chapter 55 zoning ordinance section five colon 104 special exceptions conditioned upon approval of the corresponding site plan and therefore approves the 206 West Stadium special exception used for a three-lane drive-through Bank facility second motion is the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve 2060 West Stadium rezoning from P Parking District to c2b Business Service District and third the

153Anarbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the 2060 West Stadium site plan subject to First combining the subject la with 2040 West Stadium second approval of reduced parking reduced required parking relocation of Street trees outside the public right of way and elimination of bior retention Islands by the zoning board of appeals moved by commissioner milin seconded by commissioner so discussion of the motions and commissioner dish sorry I saw your hand before and then it went to down yes ma'am and then Mr Leonard I lowered it because I was not aware there were still more and people in line and I didn't want to cut them off uh so I would like to be Zach arrant for a minute um the people who have spoken tonight are correct in so

154many ways the proposed storage facility will be a visual blight it will carry the stadium business area in the wrong direction I am speaking I'm sorry against the uh specifically against the second and third motions um so it will carry the stadium business area in the wrong direction further away from walkability shopping and dining out the project does belong in industrial area where we are not concerned about streetscape or less so a 12 120q foot storage facility is detrimental to walkability I agree with all of these points and it makes me frustrated and sad we need to be clear we are not changing our zoning to allow this project our zoning allows this project we can res we can refuse the resoning request of the parking portion of this site but the bank and the

155storage facility will likely get built anyway the only thing that will not happen is what Mr Chang described as the one story finger of the storage structure that is projected to jut into the area of the site that is adjacent to the neighborhood and that is zoned for parking so there could be no greater testimony to the disjuncture between our zoning code and our vision for an arbor than this proposal and there could be no greater argument for the urgency of moving forward on a Transit supported zoning District that can prescribe how residential and Retail can work together productively such a zoning District would prohibit supersize Warehouse style businesses like this one in mixed use zones so this poses a dilemma for me and I am new at this so I am looking for counsel

156from the commission we can protect the parking buffer between the store storage facility and the residential neighborhood between the proposed storage facility and the residential neighborhood but this will not stop the storage facility from being built it seems to me it will be built and we will lose any capacity to demand concessions that would mitigate what one of the callers so eloquently called the visual blight so uh am I right in this uh I think I am sadly and I'd like to know are we in a position to make a recommendation to the zoning board of appeals with regard to the petitioner demand for a reduction of the mandatory parking minimums if so I would like us to recommend that the mandatory parking minimums be enforced that included a question for staff so I'm gonna

157pose that to staff and also Mr Leonard you had your hand up earlier too so I wasn't sure sure um you can the planning commissioner can definitely provide any um statement or recomend Commendation it has as it relates to a zoning board of appeals action affiliated with petition so you could do that to be clear the zoning board of appeals is charged by the ordinance to to measure such variances against the set of standards that are prescribed in the ordinance so um I would say that your um conversation is probably more um um any communication is probably focused on the importance that you believe that in this case that the the parking is met as described in the ordinance towards that end but the short answer you can definitely provide any feedback to the zoning

158board of appeals but that decision is theirs um before I go on does that answer the question okay great um and then um just a minor Point um I I don't intend to forward these but like over the course of the meeting I just want to acknowledge that we've probably receiv received approximately um six or so additional emails um uh opposing this project some by speakers that you heard some by others um they will be appended to the packet but it's I think it's um I just want to acknowledge that those came in during this time it's difficult for you to obviously review them during the course of your cation thank you commissioner dish you still have the floor if you have other questions or comments okay other Commissioners commissioner milstein thank you madam chair

159um so I am I commissioner dish you and I share very similar opinions um I think this is a very sad development on Stadium Boulevard um I passed through this Corridor um uh pretty much on a daily basis my office for almost 15 years was located on West Stadium Boulevard and a lot of improvement has happened in this area over that I would say over the past 20 years especially in the last 10 years um Stadium Boulevard is looking much more so like a uh like a downtown as one of the speakers had said it is truly the downtown of uh the West Side from um you know uh from Arbor Farms to uh other businesses that around there small businesses um it's become a really great area very walkable and so to see a

160120 square foot storage facility built there is sad really really sad um so what am I going to do about it I'm going to fight it as much as I possibly can because I think this is not the right uh the right use for the site um I am going to vote no um I don't not going to be in favor of uh resoning it I'm also not going to be in favor of uh the drive-thru um at this site because I'm going to fight this um so this will be the first time that I'll vote against a motion to have drive through drive-through facilities um so I'm I'm going to do everything on my end to make sure that uh this 100 120,000 I have to keep saying it myself square foot storage facility

161uh that's that's huge so this is the wrong location for it and I will oppose this and I will continue to oppose this as much as I possibly can um to the neighbors there I'm sorry this you know they will most likely come back with something that is uh going to conform to our zoning code but I promise you this that I will uh oppose any sort of drive-thru at this at this um location if there's a storage facility there and furthermore um as a I think I'm pretty much the only former uh zba member here um I with hopefully uh commissioner dis I will uh prepare something for the ba to oppose this um so they oppose and fight this for us as well so um I've never had such a strong reaction to

162something like this but I do because I think this is just the wrong uh it's wrong for our community thank you madam chair other Commissioners commissioner GI Randle I have a question for staff do we have any jurisdiction over the type of commercial in this kind of zoning I mean do we I mean do we have any leverage in this kind of case or I mean I'm under the impression that we don't have much but explain if if we do um that's my first I have two questions so if you could start with with that one I I I wasn't none of the impression that we can say what kind of commercial other than you know huge trucks are going in and out there all the time and have a big impact on traffic and

163things like that so if um if Mr Chang or Mr Leonard could illuminate that one for me that would be great that's that's correct per the zoning ordinance uh there are certain uses that are permitted that we have listed uh in a table so if it's we don't really have control over whether it's office medical office self storage Etc so if it's allowed in the c2b district we really don't review what types of uses are going in there okay that's that's what I was suspecting um and then my other question is with the the the parking zoning um I was kind of under the impression when we dealt with this around um some issues out at briwood um which also has big areas of parking as a zoning that that was something that staff was

164um I don't know kind of parcel by parcel looking to retire that zoning designation that it felt kind of like a 50s 60s ero zoning designation that was getting um kind of transformed as we de you know moved forward with things am I am I right about that or or maybe you can just further enrich my understanding of that um zoning because I know that the intent was the buffer but I remember that we've discussed it in kind of a different context um with a couple of other sites another one on um I guess forther down on Maple too so if you could tell me your thoughts on that I'd be curious well I'll start and Chris if you want to add anything but um the the conversation I think um is it's um I

165think it was it's been accurately reflected in the conversation both um by Mr Chang and by some of the audience particip participants as well as the petitioner in this case um parking District uh I uh was to and I conclude this from where you see it used in our community it does appear that it was used very um deliberately as a buffer um as a transition zone um I think the conversation you're having is uh another example of that actually is is briwood mall that was used in such a way to um buffer or frankly protect um potential um maybe competition from new developments surrounding the mall for the benefit of the mall and so in that case um that site was actually zoned so the actual physical buildings were zoned for commercial which provides

166a lot of flexibility of the type of uses that we're that are applying in a similar District as this but then the parking was zon parking which um in short provides for nothing else but parking uses um it does provide some construction you can do parking garages and structures so there is still that opportunity for um sort of vertical um investment in those sites but it cannot be for sort of productive uses of of active retail or residential or you have you name it and so um so I don't um I think that you're reflecting that this has come up in a couple of circumstances um this is one the briwood mall has come up um I think it has a role in the next uh agenda item this evening as well um so um

167we have not um I don't think the Planning Commission really hasn't put a stake in the ground to say that I think we should get rid of them or not um I would say generally since the creation of that district and its application in different places of the Cities a lot of our districts have um been um adjusted to provide some level of Transit transition unto themselves through the development standards that is uh as evidenced by the last petition sometimes when you have a higher tolerability building it requires a greater setback so there there are other ways that that can be accomplished but I don't think that there's been sort of a clear public policy Direction yet that these districts are inherently good or inherently bad um I think um I think these kind of

168conversations and projects are sort of recognizing I mean I think they evolved for similar reasons um that was a it was a a way to frankly freeze and limit severely limit some activity in these zones um in the city and then is the is the height within the allowable um you know height limitations in terms of the the zoning in that area is it just kind of a matter of I guess what I'm wondering is is this what's really allows for the zoning along Stadium as things get redeveloped that you can go up that high and is just kind of the first one that's taking advantage of that or is this something that is um kind of just give me a sense of of where stadium is heading in terms of height and whether this

169um just fits easily within the requirements or is pushing the requirements or I'm just curious where that where that sits I'll let Chris Chris address that yeah yes so I I was just kind of doing a comparison because typically on the uh the west side of Stadium it's more Zone C3 so I was just looking up and yes both C3 and c2b have a four story 55 foot height uh maximum there it is correct I haven't seen too many um I'm thinking of the Reinhardt building I think yeah that was on the West Side that's C3 off the top of my head but that one is not 55 feet but it it probably came down to they may not have had all the parking for that one and that's what limited yeah I agree yeah

170there's ways of of looking at it that way but yes it is meeting the the height okay so in other words um as sites redevelop a stadium this height um threshold just in ter I guess in terms of the neighbors too um this is sort of the wave of the future in terms of how development will continue along Stadium as sites get redeveloped and things like that that's that's what we can expect because that's what um that's what the the the zoning allows basically and there's also a section with the c2b so once you exceed 30 feet in height which is typically the the maximum height limit in a residential Zone they also have to increase their setbacks One Foot In this case they have they hav met it yeah okay um yeah I was

171just curious to kind of see what the what the future of stadium is and I know some of the more recent buildings when I was just kind of doing doing the Google street view um you know looked like there were some sort of taller three stories um I didn't notice any four stories but I think you're right that there's there's a certain limitation based on lot size um in terms of being able to really get the parking that you would need uh to be able to support that kind of square footage I would imagine but um you know I think in general the the direction of where stadium is that we're trying to move away from the single story uh retail along there and be able to go up in general along that to create

172a street wall along um Stadium am I right about that in terms of kind of what the the code is encouraging people to do with some of the changes that came along with Stadium the Reconstruction and things like that am I correct about that or no once again commissioner Randall that is correct we have reduced the front setbacks to start pushing buildings towards the front and parking towards the rear okay all righty I just wanted to get a sense of sort of what you know what we allow what we're looking for in this and I think that um I I know it's hard as a neighbor to you know you have your vegetable garden you have your sunsets and things like that um and it's it's difficult to be able to have things change around

173you I get that um I've had to deal with that as a homeowner um a couple of times too um I think the the message is whether it's this development or another development in the future that that's probably the direction that things are going and so just in terms of adjusting expectations I think it's important for Neighbors to understand that that's really what our zoning allows in this and whether this development is successful or not um that is the direction that things are going now so I just wanted to be able to kind of say that out loud um because I know that it it is difficult and I I can understand that but I also um just want to give people a a sense of the realism too of what this Corridor you know

174may look like in 20 years or something like that because that's really what we are supporting in this area so um that's it for now commissioner s and then commissioner abon uh I have a question mainly about motion the third motion about the subject to combining lots of 240 and 260 is one of those lots the parking Zone Lots those address addes and what happens if they're not combined relative to the proposal and not rezoning parking so the 20 uh 4 Z West stateum is a very small triangular shaped lot uh to the South East really where the bank area is it was it's always been used to my from my research as parking for the dealership back in the day but they were never formally combined so they're going to com as part of

175this approval since they're going to be using it for part of the part the the bank proposal they'll have to combine them and that's because but it is not reone it not it is Zone c2b they're the same zoning to combine correct casted it's an administrative function to get that done correct correct they just have to file a form which they have just combining both lots and we'll send it to the assessor's office yep okay um yeah yeah I mean right I don't even know if I'm having a hard time with this I think it's a pretty grotesque kind of project to put in a neighborhood that's growing more people friendly uh it it's fascinating to me the argument about sustainability when we are conditioning a building for Consumer products that aren't actually desired to

176be next to people right they are off shut stuff that we have to air condition and that's what we're spending building energy on and we're not electrifying it we're not putting solar panels onto it because it's a cost to the developer so when I read through the a20 arguments about why some of the energy requirements that we're looking for aren't feasible by cost and then the narrative is turned around as if this is uh environmentally friendly because shorter distances for people to travel to store their things in an airconditioned space or a heated or a tempered space doesn't make sense to me in any sustainable realm in any long-term fashion um when I think about this project uh for 50 years like what that means that long-term duration of this project uh those are the

177types of things that a developer should have to reconcile with and understand the investment in the upgrades to that property uh I think it goes similar when we start to think about what the zoning is and what the ordinance is versus what the master plan looks like and all of the vision of the master plan the criticism of that it's dated and what we're seeing with public participation of the overwhelming amount of Engagement and feedback for the future of an arbor especially along these corridors to Transit oriented development more retail and walkable friendly um we should be work to have things catch up uh and to approve a project that is so far behind what the public wants I just can't agree with so uh maybe I'm harsh in my in my complete filter of

178this but this is a very hard project to understand uh why there would be approval so I'll I'll be voting no that's it commissioner abens hi um I have a number of things I want to comment on but first I wanted to get some clarity verification uh for Mr Chang so you mentioned that if the um rezoning was not approved it would eliminate the kind of one story Little arm to the east side of the site my question is if the two if the two lots remain zoned differently is there any setback required between the the parking per portion of the site and the c2b portion I noticed that the current building is kind of set back from that L line divides P from c2b and the root of my question is really if the

179rezoning didn't happen would it afford the neighbors any additional buffer that's really what I'm wondering so it would be the that finger area that was shown which is like the one story and it would be a a portion of the two-story building but that that P zoned width is approximately 100 feet so if it doesn't get rezoned and remains parking yes they could build that four-story storage building up to that rear lot line considering that it would be still 100 feet from the East lot line that's shared with the residential neighborhood did I explain that correctly or understand think so but right now I'm right now I believe there's a 72.6 foot rear set back so that would mean that if it was not rezoned that would increase to 100 feet correct it would provide

180have to stay outside of that 100 foot width of the parking Zone okay so that would give a additional 27 and a half foot buffer approximately yes um I want to touch on a couple of points many of them are things that fellow Commissioners have already raised so I'll try to be brief but um I wanted to start by just talking a bit about the master plan and the role of the master plan and the work that we do I think often this body kind of laments I mean as as commissioner sve just mentioned that we have a kind of master plan that maybe doesn't reflect you know contemporary values in 2020 about um some of the things we'd like Ann Arbor to be I think what's really distressing to me about this proposal is

181that I think it VI it kind of goes against the existing master plan and the master plan we imagine creating in the future so I think one of the callers pulled out these two quotes from the master plan it inspired me to go look at the master plan and kind of read the language myself and I think the existing master plan which um I believe the L use plan is from 2009 is that right yeah um you know mentions these things that the caller also mentioned about providing goods for residents on a DAT that are needed on a day-to-day basis and a stronger relationship between businesses on the east side of Stadium Boulevard it's very specific about that the east side of Stadium Boulevard and the residential neighborhood directly to its East and I think

182this project just clearly violates that in addition I think it goes against what commissioner survey was saying which is a kind of Future Vision of this city that we all imagine which brings us closer to pedestrian oriented development as opposed to pulling us further away from it um that provides kind of walkable Transit accessible um Housing and Development that's sustainable that's affordable Etc so I think just thinking about the kind of existing master plan and the future master plan I it's hard for me to understand how this project kind of meets either of those desires for the land use in this Corridor in terms of affordability sustainability um I agree with the comments that have been made about the kind of almost absurdity that of the suggestion that this project meets the a20 goals um

183of the city I think I noticed that um I mean in addition to the to the caller comments about the HVAC units and the reheat HVAC being not an efficient system um one of the things which is called out is that it um as being kind of beneficial about the project is that it reduces the impervious area but it reduces it from 87% to 81% which just feels like it's not a particularly um you know uh diff it's not a difference that makes a difference it doesn't feel like a kind of significant change that would tip this into something which would promote kind of sustainability um I had a similar thought to commissioner so about the kind of 50-year life of the building and thinking about the fact that this is a particular building type

184that could not be adapted or reused it's very hard for me to imagine how in 30 years this could become something other than what it is so if we imagine the future of Stadium Boulevard as commissioner Gib Randle described Where It Feels Like a downtown it has a street wall it has a pedestrian life amidst all of that mixed juice and restaurants and shops and offices there is this huge storage facility with a huge amount of parking next to it which it requires because U-Haul trucks have to pull in and out it like doesn't fit the kind of Future Vision um of that Corridor um I think just thinking about the special accept except use in the drivethru I do think there's been robust discussion in this body about the kind of um tolerance or

185appetite for um future drive-throughs again when we have these a20 goals we're trying to reduce automobile traffic um and I also I guess question the need for the three lane drive-thru um I mean I my bank has a drive-thru I believe it's one lane it seems understand that it's an important part of transactions I understand that right now there's a kind of desire for driveth because of covid I hope that that's not a 50-year um demand but but a near-term one um and I guess the last thing I just wanted to say was that I you know even if a development is kind of allowable by by code I think or by zoning by ordinance it just seems like there would be a desire on the behalf of the petitioner to be a good neighbor

186and to think about what are what could they what could they do here that would be beneficial to the neighborhood and to the people who live here there's clearly immense opposition to this project that can't be a kind of surprise to you and I'm just I guess disappointed that the public participation seems to have been undertaken as a matter of you know uh because you had to and not in kind of good faith where you actually were interested to know what the public or what the community would want in this location um and I find it hard to believe that a 120,000 square foot storage unit self storage facility is the only thing in the proforma that would make sense on this location I have to imagine that there are other programs and other land

187uses um which would be more amendable to the community and would also be possible uh so for all of those reasons I also plan to vote no thank you I see you raising your hand Mr Hava we're trying to do this like a normal thing which is when we call on you uh to come to the podium kind of thing um commissioner hamers Schmidt thank you I feel like all of you before me said it way better than I could have um commissioner abin I think a lot of what you just said especially the last part you just said was a lot of what I was having concerns with there's a lot of opposition to this project probably more than you or I specifically have seen in the past year of being on Planning Commission

188and I'm just really disappointed I guess that these things just didn't seem to be like just like the neighbors just seem so against this project I work with developers a lot in my day job and like we tell them all the time like you need to get the residents on board or exactly this is going to happen um you know I know we can't really pick and choose the types of developments that go in you know in terms of like the the actual uses but um this just does not feel like like everyone has said I don't want to sound like a broken record but this type of this use this storage facility in particular does not feel like the right use at this particular location um I don't want to belabor that point but

189I fully agree with um what all of my colleagues said specifically the like one of the parts that sticks out to me is like the argument that it minimizes mileage to the storage facilities but everybody has to drive to access this particular use you can't walk to this particular use and I think what we want to see along this this uh Corridor in particular and you can you see that you feel that when you're on the corridor with the improvements that have been made already are things that remote walkability I have a concern with the the bank less than I do with the storage um and I was it was a little hard to tell from the renderings but it looked like the drive-thru which I don't specifically have a problem with drive-throughs I understand

190for accessibility reasons like they come in handy but it looked like it was you were accessing like a drive-thru tunnel from um from actually from Stadium like that west elevation if I'm right that that is was fronting Stadium like that just doesn't feel like I didn't see a door I just saw like this sort of Big C Cavern like I don't think that's the type of Frontage that we want to see um you if the drive-through is maybe like more in the back it also looked like from one of the site plans and I couldn't really make this up but that there was like a curb cut for that and then another curb cut driveway I couldn't really tell if that was on that property but that sort of stuck out to me as as

191a potential issue um I'm wondering if we heard a lot of concerns about the height of the building and the the obstruction of views and the shade that could potentially be casting onto the neighborhood adjacent I'm wondering if if a shade study could be done um if it has not been done I'm wondering it's possible to show renderings of the building from the neighborhoods I think you know you hear a four-story building I'm having a hard time in my head imagining what you know being set back 100 feet and what a four-story building would actually be blocking the view of so I don't know if it would be possible to try to create renderings of that West Facing East looking that side of the building from the neighborhood um to sort of see like in

192scale like what is this actually going to look like to people I think potentially it could sound scarier than it actually might look and I'm saying this because of what commissioner gab Randle brought up just these are the types of of scale buildings that we could potentially be seeing and I think you know we we might that that would we would want to make the streets um feel a little bit more pedestrian oriented I think a four story building in itself is not very tall but I think showing people what that could look like could um alleviate a lot of that concern however I think that gets us back to the issue of like this particular use in this particular spot that I I mean I I struggled with this all weekend like I don't

193know you know like like I said like it's we can't really like pick the uses like I don't think we can deny something necessarily just because it's a storage unit like I don't or a storage facility like to staff I don't know what the process would be for that like they could come back and build this in a different configuration I assume um but yeah I just like as it stands right now like I I'm not in support of this project in this particular location you seem to pose commissioner hamers smid a question about a solar study do you was is that a question I just want to I don't know I think it's I don't know not specifically so if you would like to I can pass the torch on to you well I'll

194ask that question of the of the petitioner um and I've got a couple others too so go ahead Mr H sorry uh so David uh Nims I'm gonna have him answer that but one thing too uh Sarah obviously hearing a lot of the comments um we would like to request to be tabled if we could until January give us some opportunity to you know obviously hear a lot of the concerns we've heard uh evaluate uh several aspects uh related to the project as well but obviously you know we're we're hearing all the comments but I'm gonna let David uh comment because they're the guru and how that system works my phone is breaking up can you repeat that uh David are we able to do a shade uh analysis I believe we can via SketchUp

195uh yeah we got we we have a number of softwares we can do a shade analysis St have sure thank you um so the idea of tabling like I think that that's really helpful I'm GNA uh generally when that's requested just so for the people who are listening in when that's requested by petitioners that's something we tend to honor so I think that um that's something that I would would welcome a motion to talk about that but first I want to I got some thoughts myself um on this um to sum up and put a finer Point um both on kind of what my reactions are to this but also a plea to the neighbors um because where commissioner dish started this out and thank you what a what a way to start your first

196meeting um is that this is a corridor that's been on our radar for some time currently the zoning here allows for mixed use it allows for developments that are 55 feet tall it um actually the amount of building the the amount of floor area that's allowed in this Corridor this project doesn't Max out more building could be built here like that's what our current zoning allows for to and this is what commissioner Gib Randle was saying we're just not getting it one of the reasons my guess is knowing what happened across the street and knowing the variance that's being asked for here not about on our body but for of that would be required of the zba is about the parking and um the the trick is generally speaking we're a body that says if

197you don't have to build the parking don't but that that all makes it tricky like all of this stuff works if you're thinking about these Li these these um different types of uses mixed together personally I need to like I want to be really clear to to the neighbors I I'm not concerned so much personally about the height or about the size because this is something that you know that amount of density helps to activate a lot of those spaces um you may be and so what I'm saying is when we have this discussion about zoning and Transit supported development know this like if you are concerned about height you should we need to hear your voices we need to hear you involved because honestly there are this may be four stories and it's not

198quite maxing out the hype but it's close but there's no windows on that building and so honest you know like in terms of height like there could be a lot of other things built there that may be more intrusive than what this could be and as commissioner milin said like very likely a proposal may come back that is entirely by right where effectively there's very little discretion for us so I just want to be really clear and make the pitch to you all that that participation in the planning and the and the zoning writing process the ordinance writing process is really really important because that's you know once we already have a code any development proposals that we see we evaluate according to what the rules are on the books right now so that's the

199kind of pitch to The Community um the the the thing that I would say to the developer is um I it I'm not like I don't I'm like commissioner hamers Schmid I don't have like a real thing against drive-throughs they're not my favorite thing all things considered I think having building above the drive-thru is some of the better use that I've seen of that like actually getting more building and more people in that space and making the use of the airspace above the drive-thru I think is clever um and if we're going to see drive-throughs that's the kind that I'd like to see where it's tucked in so I think that that is really well done I think that commissioner s's comments though about the the sustainability of a storage facility I don't I don't

200have a chip on my shoulder but I've used had to use storage facilities before when I did not own a car and I had to write rent a truck right to drive my stuff there so like people even though I'm a bicyclist right like I'm not going there on my bicycle to really make that case this would need to be that it fits within a20 though it need to be the most sustainable sorage facility ever like you would need to pull all if you to make that like make me feel confident that I can vote on that you would need to pull out all the stops because I don't think that this is the place for a storage facility and that is my final thing which is to our body which is this is something

201it's not just the zoning along that Corridor but this is the use table right this is permitted in our C2 or our c 2B districts and so if we don't want and their c2b districts tend to be I don't um maybe this is for staff this is not a test but like what other oh in addition to this Corridor what are the other general areas of the city that are c2b do you know maybe not that's totally a test Chris off top of your head I don't and I could go back and look what the SE I probably look at the definition of c2b I know it's stand you know stands for a business Corridor for the most part and they're typically Auto related type trips to go to the site but I could probably

202get back to you with a better answer than that my guess is probably it's like along Plymouth I don't know if it's along Plymouth Road or not anyway this is one where it is allowed if we don't want it in this kind of place then we need to change the table right and again there's nothing that we can do now but the you know when we this is zoning is a living document and and we try our best to fit um you know to to have it be reflective and to find all of the loopholes and things that we are going to get that we don't like but this is a place where you will see in commission proposed business that we might consider whether we just take that off the table particularly when we

203know what are our other c2b corridors areas so all that's to say when you come back to us you know there's lots of information now lots of feedback um petitioner that you've gotten from the body um I would I'm not going to have the same Hardline personally that commissioner milstein has on that but honestly like unless this is the most sustainable the most sustainable storage facility ever I just cannot see how that fits here given again the character what is in the what is in the master plan about the character of that particular thing yes it is allowed in the in the in c2b districts so I recognize that but um the the additional question that I had for you because I think that this is important and and you know you've chosen to tie

204these two facilities together um the bank and the storage facility why like why I I'm just it's it's interesting to me because they seem not similar why they are both coming before like why that combination because in some ways you know the this the approval of the site plan which includes the special exception use as well as like the physical design of both buildings is is linked so I'm just curious about that so part of that is uh looking at the which obviously we've talked about parking but obviously sharing in some of the parking um you think that you know a majority of the the parking at the storage facility required a very large amount which really isn't needed um we we have provided you know we have provided information to support that fact Beyond

205just anecdotal from other facilities but looking at you know traffic studies and and traffic um reports traffic engineering uh manuals as well on that uh so it allows a a use that um did not require a lot of uh again if we received the variance in parking did not require a very Parky and intensive use with one where you have office use and and a retail type use um which do require more parking uh there so that's part of part of that um the site even though it's two different Parcels um was owned by one owner uh and so in order to you know utilize the f as as quiet uh um as possible that um you had to utilize the area for both properties to make both projects from an F standpoint work uh

206as well as the the storage facility is a quiet use uh in that area um you know versus a a retail type use where you you will have more comings and goings uh versus a these types of indoor storage facilities where people pull into the into the inside of the building they're unloading inside of the building going up and then leaving so it's a much more quieter use so that was why we contemplated that uh those you together so got it the idea of like symbiotic parking is we need to be thinking a lot about that I like that um and where I would where I would uh push you on kind of the characterization of the different uses is there's not a lot of coming and goings which means that it's not actually super

207like it's not a neighborhood amenity um and that the comings and goings are by trucks that have the backup beepers which is obnoxious um and so it may well be by moving trucks that have the the you know sound when they are backing up so um I mean and again given the proximity so that's all that I have um any other commissioner comments questions before I entertain a motion to postpone to table uh commissioner aens well I just a point of order if I had a question about the desire to table should I ask that now or should I wait till the motion's up and then we'll have discussion of the motion either I think works but you can have discussion of the motion okay I'll wait I'll wait I'm still learning that Robert's Rules

208of Order here commissioner milstein um so I'll talk about it commissioner Abrams in regards to that um that I will not be moving for a tbling I don't believe this needs to be tabled I think this needs to be uh voted on this evening uh primarily because uh tabling it uh will bring this back to us but it's not going to go back to the C to the residents and to the citizens for their participation to see what changes uh have occurred and to get their feedback so I don't see a reason to table this my desire is to vote this down and let the petitioner start all over so if that motion does come about I will vote against it um so I will this will probably be the first time that I'm not

209in favor of tabling any other comments questions proposed motions commissioner dish sorry I'm just confused so didn't we just um oh no no no I'm sorry we didn't just table we postponed to allow more participation in the previous one so tabling wouldn't necessarily result in time for more participation is that it wouldn't prude it from my perspective um uh it wouldn't preclude it but I can see commissioner M's Point yes commissioner milstein but it won't require it true um commissioner abon it feels appropriate to ask my question I would like to hear from the petitioner more about why they are why they want to table and what they imagine they would do at that extra time uh I think it gives us opportunity to go back um and you know evaluate a few things um

210if if need be we can obviously go back out to the citizens I think restarting the whole entire process from Square One um isn't necessary uh I think we can evaluate here fairly quickly and and look at you know taking into account all of what has been said uh and still like the previous petitioner uh work within a a time frame of postponement uh to be able to address various issues and various concerns could you maybe speak more specifically about what those what those concerns are as you understand them right now and how you imagine the what the possibilities of addressing them might be I I want to have a sense I guess of well I can't I can't specifically address as to well what exactly are we going to change because that's a conversation

211that we're going to have to have as a team you know hearing all of the the concerns in regards to the the storage use you know the setback the height you know those types you know electrification sustainability all of those various items that have been discussed are all things that we can take back we can reevaluate um to say well we're going to propose this I can't do that because that obviously is an analysis that has to be done and looking at taking into account all of what has been said I think that you know looking at that um um gives us that opportunity to do that if we need to reach out again to the community we can do that obviously um I think if you you If you deny and obviously we then

212start all over again um I I don't think that is a necessity to be able to do thank you commissioner hamers Schmid clarifi do you see coming back to us with a proposal that does not include the self storage facility as a possibility I'm not I'm not going to be able to commit one way or the other I I know we're going to take obviously and hear what you've said um I don't think um that if we do come back with a storage facility again it doesn't preclude you from making you know a decision to deny if that's how you see fit um if we're able to like you know make this a completely Sustainable Building and it it it does beat certain requirements we would allow you know like that to be considered I

213just can't say one way or the other obviously what that may or may not be because obviously that's going to to be something we're going to have to talk with all parties involved you know obviously we represent Northstar uh in Arbor properties but and we're also developing the other site so it's there's multiple parties that are involved here that are going to have to have uh insight into that yeah to I totally understand that makes a lot of sense I just want to make sure that you not saying that it's not an option I'm speaking in double negatives there is a p you you do see it you've heard the concerns you could potentially come we're GNA we we will evaluate the you know various options that may be available um there okay thank you

214why don't if it's okay I don't know that the chair normally move something but can I no I can't never mind does anybody wna hamers I'll move it what am I moving to table no move on voting right to table C we need a second I'm making a motion to table Yeah okay and that so that was seconded by commissioner dish you you looked puzzled Mr Leonard um I just want to be clear that motion would table it to um basically typically you would table it subject to some information you'd like to see and then whenever that happens we would then schedule it for a future meeting we would re notice it um versus postponing it to a date certain so I just want to make sure again we're clear um if you wanted to

215postpone it to a date certain um I would suggest either January 5th or January 19th commissioner hamers Schmid I guess I didn't understand the distinction so thank you with that I I do I mean I don't see this just there's there there's a lot I think there's a lot for the petitioner to absorb here and to discuss here and like with the previous one running up against the holidays like like I can't speak for the petitioner but like I I feel like this is a um table and then reissue type of situation to allow for as much time as they need to actually do their due diligence but if any of you want to argue against me that's fine we would be in agreement with that just so you know but I just a cleric

216because I might have just messed up we vote on the motion to table right yes we do we just if we can't vote on it if there's only one person in support of it so that's why we require a second so that we can actually vote now we're in discussion though of it which we just clarified is is legitimately a table so this is date uncertain so those of you who are listening um we don't we can't tell you when it will be coming but it will be publicly noticed just like this petition tonight was just like the hearing tonight was any discussion commissioner milstein thank you madam chair um so I plan to vote against this um uh because I believe I'm ready to vote on it and I'm ready to vote against this

217project um but there's a chance that my colleagues will decide to pass this um so to the people who are on the line who are watching this please stay involved uh please uh please stay involved because your input is what influences how we vote on this so um I encourage you to get involved in any which way you can please stay in touch with the planning department at the city of Van Arbor uh please keep an eye on this uh we want to hear from you um so please when the time comes please come back to us so that we can hear from you uh depending on what changes occur and to the petitioner if this uh is tabled um I would hope that you would host another citizen participation meeting um because you heard

218a lot of opinions today we've received a lot of written Communications in my almost six years on the commission I don't think we've ever received this much communication on a project um so you uh you I I highly recommend that you host another participation citizen participation meeting especially because it's a whole lot easier to do so now um because it could be done all uh virtually thank you any other comments uh commissioner S I just want to highlight in the staff report uh part of the planning comments say that when this proposal was submitted staff made comments regarding the 35 space parking requirement variants rezoning from P to C2 and Self Storage layout in the proposed three-lane drive-thru I'm not sure what the comments are but I'm sure that they're similar to what we've seen

219and said um about resistance to it and then the following sentence says the petitioner did not make substantive changes to the site layout and the responses to these comments are attached which would be for the a20 uh and the uh zba uh Amendment so I guess when I read into the comments that were delivered from residents the citizen participation meeting that did happen um and how that was reconciled into a document and the kind of follow-up uh defense of a20 from staff comments I'm not sure we're going to see many substantial changes since this dialogue has already happened so I'm just putting that out there in terms of a context that I'm reading through staff report of how much further we're going to actually see this project going so it's very hard for me to

220understand that a tabling of this project would see a substantial change um into a positive impact to to approve so stand any other comments commissioner or Mr Leonard um I just I would just um I guess my I to your to your decision um the petitioner has definitely heard I think a lot of concerns from both neighbors and Commissioners I think um from milin giving them the opportunity to respond to them um um is just that an opportunity it doesn't um it's not it's not transactional in any way that you um have um said that if this then that they have heard concerns and um want the opportunity to see if they I think um can address any of them um giving them that opportunity doesn't I don't think changes any of your thoughts on

221the appropriateness um likewise um I would um Echo the the comments to um that were made to by commissioner milin to uh to community members likewise to you if um over that time if you have questions about master plan language and the like we we can help um provide any um support or responsiveness to that as well so um I just wanted to say that the you know the opportunity here um to give the petitioner time to respond is not um it it's certainly always in the commission's prerogative you can vote to approve vote to deny or um postpone because you need more information so um it's those are always Avail available to you um in this case I I guess my point is I don't think you you don't inherently lose any of those

222choices by tling at this time I just this is a point of clarification too um there are three motions here one of them is the final say we have the final say which is on the drive-thru but is it possible for us as a body to vote against something regardless of how we vote city um for the other two motions uh is that something that city council can take up I'm just not I know that they can take up a site plan approval that we deny that we recommend denial of um can they do the same on a proposal that we recommend uh or rezoning that we recommend denial of yes like if if the Planning Commission recommends denial of a resoning that doesn't end the rezoning petition that still progresses to the city council

223because the city council is the determinant body in that case it goes with a recommendation against that resoning from the Planning Commission but that a recommendation of denial by the Planning Commission doesn't stop that process it is just that a recommendation on it I would say in the case of the drive-thru particularly the special exception use because the Planning Commission is the governing body on that um that site plan then progressing to city council to the extent it still included that was not does no longer meet the requirements of the ordinance and it would not be a compliance sine thank you for clarifying that any other questions on the motion to table this effectively postpone it to a date unknown uh let's do a roll call vote on that as desired uh commissioner Mills yes

224commissioner milstein no commissioner Gib Randall yes commissioner sov yes commissioner abam yes commissioner hamers Schmid yes commissioner dish yes it is table so those who are following this again you can check in with um staff it will be noticed the same way that this meeting was noticed um when it comes back to us when it is ready to come back to us thank you all it is 10:35 we have one petition still to hear our bylaws say that we have to vote to take up something after 11 o' but we are not there yet and once we start it generally we continue on the when we reread the bylaws it's continuing on so Mr Leonard is bringing in the new petitioners um I will go ahead and read do we need another five minute break

225stretch break or should we just power through what do you what can we get the petition like the proposal and staff report and then decide okay okay so we are on item 9C which is the 2111 Packard Street resoning and site plan for city council approval uh we'll have the petitioner presentation and then staff petitioner has up to 10 minutes and then we after the staff presentation we'll take the public hearing just give me one moment here for our city clerk does this so much better than I do you're doing a great job thank you Mr Leonard you are the Jack of all trades there are a lot of people to have to pick through and promote so okay I believe that's everybody on my list um that I had petitioners let me know if

226there's any glaring errors that you see and um petitioners do you one of you have a PowerPoint that you'd like to share with the commission I think Jeff has it all set up I believe in the system um and Josh if you can Jeff is that the one is that the one you sent me yeah okay I got it then okay do you want to just take us through it Brett when we ask you is that okay or do you want us to share it um whatever your preference why don't I just call I'll call I'll call them okay um let me pull that up for you here Brett for some reason Ryan I think is not hooked up is he on there Ryan Tobias now he is okay and is Shawn with you too

227or no there's someone on the line yeah I don't know who sea is all right well great Sean is my part Sean is my partner but he doesn't have to be on this oh okay okay um can everybody see the screen yes this is it jump great well we were gonna have Ryan just give a quick introduction Ryan why don't you start sure so um this is Ryan Tobias um petitioner on this site 2111 Packard um I live here in an arbor just a few blocks north of where this map you see here this is um 211 Packard is a former grocery store built in the 1950s um it's Zone the north portion of Zone C3 the south portion of Zone P for parking that's going to come up again here um we are seeking

228to rezone the whole site to C3 to build a mixed use 72 unit apartment property and with about 4,000 ft of retail at Each corner of crin and Anderson there um with a parking to the east to the rear of the property um this is a um you know I'm goingon to let John kind of go through more of the specifics here but just to give you a very quick sort of overall concept this is an infill site here in a gray Corridor of Packard that um I've been going by for a long time and and felt like it could be a higher and better use um we have a little bit of Advantage here of being the third project to present today this I believe complies with so many more of the things that

229you guys are looking for and that I'm looking for as a citizen of an arbor um it is a um Transit oriented type of development um on one of the best sort of transit or alternative Transit corridors in the city the number five bike um uh bus line here the bike Lan and unpacker uh going into downtown in campus uh we're Feathering the needle a little bit here with parking we've got the the minimum as uh Allowed by zoning with the a one per unit but trying to really encourage Alternative forms of Transit it is an all electric building solar panels on the roof um really trying to comply with the inor zero um guidelines uh ahead of time and really looking to do U what I think has been missing so much of which

230is kind of a smaller to medium scale type infill project unlike the um sort of the towers that have come in downtown to mainly serve students and more of the garden style um lower density type product that ends up on the periphery of town I think this is one of the few projects being built uh out in the neighborhoods uh that can really take advantage of the infrastructure on the walkability of this neighborhood um and and Arbor in general um and so I know we're tight on time so I want to let uh John mayavi take over talk specifics of the plan okay thank you Ryan I really appreciate it again John this is John mayovsky and thank you honorable chair and commissioner members I really appreciate you having us tonight I'm fortunate and you're

231fortunate that Ryan is our client he is willing to do a project that fits in in scale and has worked with us and with the neighbors since the beginning um this is your second time some of you seeing this as a concept initially uh after our first neighborhood meeting and since then we've had two neighborhood meetings uh since then and have gotten a lot of input basically what we're trying to do is reinforce Packard with a building that is just three stories in height and locate the parking behind the building and use that to create a buffer for the residential area behind it as the site as Brian said the northern half was already C3 the southern half is this odd outlier of PE parking um which I don't think was ever really meant to

232just be nothing so we have to get that rezone to put a building in its place what we're proposing is to meet the parking we'll have to total of 84 parking spaces four of those will be ride share parking spaces to provide for ride share that was a big concern in the neighborhood uh we will provide one Amazon loading spot within the site so that when Amazon pulls in they can actually find a place in our parking lot to park their vehicle when they unload um our trash is done internal we've pulled that away at the request of the neighbors so it's more centralized within the site and does not go up against their border or buffer there is a buffer along that side the setback is 10 feet around the three Street fronts that

233we have but what the neighbors have really asked is more what the distance is from the curb so from Packard we're 28 feet at our furthest point and 24 feet at our kind of narrowest Point uh that just gives them something they can actually touch and feel and look at we went uh and created a landscape buffer adjacent to the residential area and that includes adding a six foot fence for the portion that currently doesn't have a six-foot fence um as well as all the Landscaping that goes in there all the parking meets all the current and the new uh pending approval EV parking requirements so we do meet those and those are included in our in our drawings and plans uh we believe we meet all of the other requirements that are here from

234a zoning perspective uh as Ryan said the building is fully electrified with a solar roof we'll get to that in a second you'll see it that will power about 6 and a half to 7% of the power of the building which is amazing um and one of the only one second one we've done in an arbor that's been able to get to that level we did move the sidewalks from uh along the northern side of the building we've moved those back south so the sidewalk jogs there there's a that's the only place we have some Street trees that are really spectacular so we want to do everything we could to avoid impacting their root zone so that's the only place where the so sidewalk of jogs um I think what's incredible about this building is

235it's actually on our whole site will be at a 1.05 so just subtly over one F on a site that would normally permit you to do a two F the building will be three stories tall at its highest point because of the elevators it's 42 feet 8 Ines we are permitted to go 80 55 feet um so we'll be well below that and the building is only a three-story building Ryan has been gracious enough to actually allow us to do a lead silver equivalent sustainable project we know that's important for the community uh the solar system helps us get there we are looking at since several of people had called in earlier the idea of some of the different mechanical systems we're using we're going to use all the tricks and trades that lead allows

236us uh this is the roof you can see I can't fit any more solar panels on that roof than I have on there I do have to allow space for the fire department to move around away from the parit if that has not come up to you before there is a distance requirement I have to pull it back um but it does hide everything and it allows us to hide um the equipment that we need for the mechanical systems as well up on the top of the roof if you wouldn't mind clicking to the street this is actually taking a look at um the street front along Packard kind of looking at the northern side of it we tried and one of the intentions here was not to have one big massive building but to

237rather create more of a street front was several buildings actually about four or five buildings divided by the use of stone and Bricks so the light material you're seeing are Stone panels actual stone uh the brick infill is not brown it's more of a terracotta where you see the terracotta color and then where you see the darker color that actually has an iron spot in it so it's got a little bit of a purple color to it when I say that it's super super subtle uh the mat metal panels are black and silver and they divide the space between the buildings this particular Corner shows our largest retail on that kind of pointed part of the site plan so we had some fun with that and created kind of a unique bay windows up on

238the top right if you wouldn't mind clicking to the next one this then flips you and takes you to the opposite corner so now we're at the South corner of the site looking at Packard and that is also one of our retail Corners there we envision kind of a small Cafe it's about, 1500 square fet of space um and that is intended to be something that has more of a mixed juice character and charm immediately to the left of this is actually the entry to the building as well as the entry on the back of the building want to show you the next one you get the side looking up the northern side of the building uh next this is just a little bit of a closeup when you're walking on the street so you

239can see the building isn't pushed right up against the street we try to push it in pull it back so it varies about five feet back and forth next this is actually looking at the building from the rear um we've removed all the Landscaping except for the required trees so there is actually a six- foot fence here and then the landscape buffer is completely full um but we were asked by some neighbors to actually show it without that so I'm showing that to you as well next and here you get the other portion of the site again nobody would get this view but it's the best way we can show to kind of describe what the building looked like with um the furthest distance and I think there might be that might be at so

240with that um I'm a few seconds under the wire so I will leave it up and try to get you guys out of here tonight and answer any questions you might have thank you very much um Mr Khan anything to fill in I thought the summary was very good just a few notes um we were impressed with a few elements that are being propose some of them are code related some of them are not code related but I think they help tell the story of this transition from a mid century project to you know at the Forefront of a sustainable project in the in the 21st century um is joh some of these are things John mentioned but I just want to cover my little list um Solid Waste as John mentioned is going to

241be pulled away from the neighbors to the east um a conflicting land buffer will be constructed for the first time including a portion of a fence uh which neighbors had asked for uh a curb cut will be eliminated along Packard which our Traffic Engineers love because we want to reduce conflict points um storm water detention will be provided on the site for the first time in history underneath a portion of the parking lot um Park dedication is proposed $45,000 for uh nearby parks a new sidewalk is proposed to be constructed on the north side of the site which doesn't currently exist which we think will enhance uh pedestrian uh activity the solar power uh is not something that we even ask for this is one of the very first usually we we really try to

242push that solar and uh sometimes we're successful and sometimes we're not this time the petitioner came forward and offered it um excuse me um um the petitioner is willing to show EV parking uh requirements um consistent with what city council will be looking at shortly the the the the project because it's moved toward the sidewalks along Packard and the two side streets is um uh something that we consider to be pedestrian and Transit oriented it includes a mixed use component at both ends along Packard um they're going to attempt to save the only regulated natural feature on the site which is a 24in sycamore on the north side of the site uh petitioner is also going to be providing an additional 50 new trees on the site uh the all electric was uh mentioned and

243um uh we always like to see loading zones be provided on site where possible so it doesn't create traffic issues offsite so that's the end of my summary very good does can we move forward with the public hearing or do people need a five minute break going I'm going all right so um this is uh this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed development at 2111 Packard public comment can be made by calling 877 853 5247 and then entering meeting ID 978 2451 you can raise your hand once you've dialed in by pressing star nine there's a couple callers that are on the line no now if you'd like to make a public comment you can press star nine to raise your hand um and as always

244please mute any background noise move to a quiet area um and state your name and address at the beginning of your comments please and limmit them to 3 minutes please caller with the phone number ending with 542 um you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission uh I'm sorry we might have gotten a little bit of an overlap there uh could you tell me who'd been authorized to speak which phone you are go ahead okay thank you hi we are Kate mun and Lyndon Kelly at 1912 Anderson and uh Lind on speaker with me and we've been following along with this project since the beginning and have been um very impressed with the developers commitment to fit into the community and I think at this point um in the materials that have been supplied

245the only question we have that seems um not complete information is the traffic impact study that uh if you go back through all the materials that the neighbors when they were raising questions our big concerns were uh traffic moving into the neighborhood uh when there's a backup going on to Packard and turning of an extremely extremely walkable neighborhood with more and more children into uh a neighborhood that suffers some of the problems that uh JW and Rosewood and harps do as cut throughs to South Industrial so in the traffic study I see that the city has summarized it but um I have a lot of specific questions about it and I'm wondering if that actual study is available to the public to review and then to talk with you about or should I just keep

246talking till the end and you'll answer that at the end keep talking yep we'll we'll pull this up during our p uh during our uh discussion of it okay so um we're curious about when this study happened how long it went on for um you know it's happened during covid is that an accurate study and um at what locations was it done at both Crestland and Anderson and then finally I did want to if you guys can go back not right now but to the 3 views the corner at Anderson is an angle that is by Frasier's Pub and right now it is already uh periodically kind of dangerous to pedestrians and cars and with the setbacks it is g to come even whoops you can't hear me who no we can hear you please

247continue on uh and with the way the setbacks are changing which we're fine at but the visual that residents have now leaving Anderson onto Packard will be significantly re reduced as the building moves towards Packard so 30 more seconds so the residents are fairly concerned about the quality of the pack of the traffic study both in terms of actual density um the Anderson corner and whether or not it may be necessary to try to review um how traffic moves out of the project so that it's it is safer for the neighborhood other than that we've been happy with it yeah thank you thank you and thanks for staying up to call in caller with phone number ending with 431 caller ending with the phone number the phone number ending with 431 you have three minutes

248to address the Planning Commission great thank you can you hear me yes we can great so my name is Sarah Patterson and I reside at 16004 Anderson Avenue which is next door to the Plan Building um I would like to admit that this is the first time I've seen the plans I'm a renter at this address um but thank you to the partitioners for your presentation and to the planning committee for the opportunity to speak my concerns revolve around sort of relations to this particular building but also around greater housing issues in an arbor so first the petitioners propos that there will be shopping along the bottom of the building but the George which is just a few blocks south of um where we reside has shopping space that sits completely empty I would also

249like to Echo what the previous caller had just mentioned about being able to see it's quite difficult to get out onto Packard from Anderson Avenue so that is a question I also have um but in terms of the shopping I was interested in what's going to be different about this building and then second in terms of the greater rental issues of Ann Arbor what are the prices going to be of this of these apartments I've personally moved around the country because of my own work and schooling in an arbor is relatively expensive in that it has a medium rental price that are $200 above the national average um so my concern is of Greater issues regarding the affordability of these new housing units in an arbor um for instance the most recent poverty rate in

250an Harbor is actually 22.6% which is basically one in every five resident lives in poverty while the median income is quite High relative to the national average this number highs deeper um income issues that are present in an arbor and that if we uh break down median income by renter versus owner status we can see that over half of renters are 53.4% of renters have a median income below 50 $50,000 per year compared to only 18.6% of those who own um and this these rates are quite drastically different if we even look at a lower um income of $25,000 per year of renters so my so my questions basically resolve revolve around sort of the affordability as well as the shopping and like I said to Echo the previous caller in terms of the ability

251to see when you're turning onto Packard either way so thank you so much thank you I see a couple more callers that are on the line if you'd like to raise your hand you do that by pressing star nine caller with a phone number ending with 364 caller with a phone number ending at 364 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission yes my name is Steve and I live at 16006 Anderson Avenue and I happen to own the rental property that the previous caller called in from I live next door to it um it sounds as if this is meeting the parking requirements which is a concern for me I see a 119 bedrooms and 80 84 parking spaces um and I'm not eager to have Anderson and Crestland become the Overflow parking

252lots for this unit uh so that's a concern for me early on with some of the preliminary meetings it seemed to me as though it was up in the air as to whether or not these were going to be apartments or potentially Condominiums and um for what it's worth is the person that lives essentially next door to this I would prefer condos and I think along with what Sarah mentioned the previous caller as well as some other people that I've spoken with there's some concern relative to the George that sits down the street all their retail is empty and I don't think they've even filled up the apartments yet I know they're insanely or they're extremely expensive but um I have to wonder if Ann Arbor's getting a little saturated with that type of unit

253that type of product um and I guess that's it thank you thank you the callers that are on the phone if you'd like to make a public comment for the public hearing it's star n to raise your hand caller with a phone number ending with 844 caller with a phone number ending with 844 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello hello am I on yeah go ahead uh Kim Walda 1468 Rosewood uh I've looked at uh the architectural plans and I'm very concerned about overflow parking in regards to individual occupants of this building having enough places to park far as a second car people coming to visit and where you going to put all these people other than our side street and the other thing is the parking lot is arranged in

254such a way that there's no direct drop off to the entrances um I I heard the part about eliminating the front uh pull in but uh it's you're going to be in a parking lot that's jammed with delir people and not be able to get people dropped off and pick up parcels and vice versa um it it just doesn't sound like there's enough parking that's going to create a problem for all the neighbors around here that's my big concern that in the flat face of this uh create uh creates an amplification of all the road noise back towards our neighborhood uh and I don't think that's been addressed uh I'm very concerned about that because in the summertime we like to open our windows but with that kind of noise you know you're going to

255be forced to keep your windows closed thank you for allowing me to to uh address this I would like to have more information and writing on these meetings I've had two postcards if I didn't uh dig into this further I I didn't see any packets or anything else that was promised thank you very much for your time thank you caller ending caller with the phone number ending with 112 caller with the phone number ending with 112 you have 3 minutes to address the Planning Commission to unmute you might need to press star six caller ending 112 go ahead we can hear you or you're unmuted H caller with the phone number ending with 112 we can hear you if you'd like to address the Planning Commission yeah this is Gary Rockman can you hear me

256sorry I'm getting a lot of yes can you might want to turn off the stream of this I think that's probably one of the issues okay thanks uh yeah this is Gary Rockman and I own the property diagonal across the street at 2204 Packard and I appreciate the uh presentation and the the efforts that the that the developers are doing to improve the site my concern is about the retail I would love to have more retail there what happens if you can't I'm concerned what happens if the developer cannot fill the retail space what happens at that point obviously the George is sitting just kind of listing in the breeze over there and we're all concerned about that so will that become residential um and yeah similarly if these are Apartments will they become condos

257or what what is the ownership and what is the long-term I guess what is a developer planning long term in terms of ownership for the property um but I love the look of it and I hope it's a great Improvement to the neighborhood but yeah we would love to just get more retail along the corridor thank you thank you there's one more phone if you want to raise your hand it's star n all right I'm going to close the public hearing then and read the proposed motion the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the 2111 Packard C3 zoning site plan and development agreement moved by commissioner nilin seconded by commissioner abens discussion commissioner abens are we going to take a break would you like to all right

258um let's take five minutes again okay so that by my clock it's 11:12 that we will come back e e e to order then commissioner aens did you want to start the comments or I can sure great um I mean I think there have been a number of questions which were raised in the public hearing that I wanted to give the petitioner a chance to address um in particular concerns around overflow parking and cut through traffic um around Sight lines and around the George and I know that that's a topic that was addressed at the parti Community the public participation meeting but it seems like it's it it would be worth just repeating again um those items thank you and I can list them one by one if that's too confusing to just rattle them

259off I will address the George comments and I'll let either Lori or John talk about um sight lines and traffic Lori still on um yeah I see her there okay I I'll I'll start with just the George just some general comments on that obviously um that's come up at nauseum from the very first community meeting and and the um uh Planning Commission working session that we did on this some time ago to now and you know I've said this before and we basically been trying to do to um design the anti- George with this project um and that that means kind of you know pushing the retail up to the street um you know and really the main thing is honestly is is doing a smaller more efficient um cheaper project both to build and

260to be able to rent to so I mean the question that came up about retail the biggest thing is they have 28,000 square feet of retail that they're asking I think something like 36 $38 a foot all in for rent you know we're we're we have 4,000 square feet where we're looking at 26 s of foot all in okay so that I mean if they were if they had that it would be full it would be it would be full with wonderful you know neighborhood type tenants which is what we're going for um so we're not overly concerned about that that it's all important to note too that that building is is has been foreclosed on and still owned by A lender and is in has been in foreclosure this whole time so it's a

261I think the long term that that project you know if you look back 10 15 years from now people that don't know the story won't see the same way that we do now we've lived through it um it's in a still a continuing kind of precarious situation that makes it difficult for that retail to lease for example um but anyway we're we're trying to learn from all the mistakes that they made and do this much better um and and and less expensive um all around and I think we're going to have a lot of success in that department um so that's kind of how addressed the George um as it relates to uh traffic parking uh Lori from way trim is on who did the traffic study so maybe she can comment to that um

262and maybe maybe I'd like to follow up on those questions first and then we'll traic um go ahead yeah and sure I just maybe two other things that came up relative to the people um the community members who called in so one would be long-term plans for ownership um and the other would be you know what what is a plan B um if you couldn't fill the retail I guess lower the price or yeah yeah you know um so the longterm the plan here this is a something that we we do intend to keep it Apartments uh rentals we don't have any plans to convert it to to Condominiums at any point um we do intend to hold the property long term uh you know we intend to be the owners of this five 10

263years from now this is sort of a backyard kind of a something a community sort of play for us and something that I want to be a part of for the long term I mean you never know what could happen down the road but that's the intention and as far as the retail uh we really think it's of it as an amenity to the building into the neighborhood and so um I have no plan B like you said would be reduce the rate I mean well you know we would we want to fill it um converting to Apartments is I guess you could do that um but it we would hold that I mean retail demand would have to go to negative Infinity for us to to pursue that purs do that strategy okay thank

264you yeah so maybe we can shift to park to traffic then I think specifically there were a couple questions so one is um I hear members of the community community wanting some reassurance that the traffic study thought about traffic levels preco um and I think they have concerns around overflow parking which I guess is not a traffic study concern so maybe that is a separate topic hi let Lori do the park the traffic part okay thanks um uh I'm Lori from way trim I'm a traffic engineer and I can discuss um the amount of traffic the issues or the concerns with how much traffic will be added um based on the new developments in this site so the per purpose of the traffic study is to determine impacts that the proposed development um would impose

265on the Street Network um the study area was actually coordinated with the city engineer um and was approved by the city and included the intersections of Packard with Stadium Anderson Crestland and JW and luckily traffic counts were available um that happened to be taken prior to the pandemic um and the city actually provided us with those counts that we used in the analysis um and those accounts were used to develop the traffic models for existing conditions now and then with proposed conditions with that additional traffic um and based on the number of housing units the square footage of the other developments um we used a very conservative value of vehicle trips and generated those based on standard practice um the it trip generation manual data and we found that currently all the intersections operate at

266acceptable levels of service um Anderson crln and JW actually operate at level service a which is um very good the the ratings are kind of like a report card a to F A being the best um stadium was operating at level service C in the morning peak hour D in the PM peak hour which is D is actually acceptable level of service um so that's that was um our Baseline condition um when we added the additional traffic based on uh the trips generated um we found that there was minimal impacts um during the peak hours it was about 3 seconds or less per vehicle average delay that was increased um at each of the inter sections and they still are expected to operate at level uh levels of service a at Anderson Crestland and JW

267um and then the C and D at Stadium um we also looked at the crash history in the area of the site um just we' like to make sure that there isn't an existing safety issue um or one that might might get worse once you add that additional traffic um so we looked at the crashes just in that Crestland Anderson area in the past three years um it was found that there really isn't a safety issue there were three rear end crashes um and two sideswipe no pedestrian or bicycle crashes and um no serious injuries in the area um as far as the parking I think um or if there's any questions on traffic no that I can jump in too it's John I just want to add that we we did intentionally on Anderson

268pull the corner of the building back there so you can see how it's chamfered the point on the first first level so it's it's well over 36 feet it's Way Beyond the standards that are required for that 45 degree angle View Corridor Plus on Anderson you're pushed out further as you're you know pulling out so your view is enhanced and on crust we well exceed what we're required to have as well for the angle um for that view so that was something we took into consideration I can certainly understand how it's hard for somebody to understand without seeing the building there um but one of the benefits we get is what I had mentioned earlier it's that we're set back so far from the curb already there's just a lot of kind of land there

269that helps us so we are pushed back from those areas and I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that um the road noise was considered that's one of the big reasons why we broke the building up and selfishly enough that was for us as well as for you know the benefit is for anybody with a building that's broken up using a diversity of different materials including masonry with joints and things that will help to effectively defer the sound in different directions that was all part of the consideration for the way that this was laid out and I think Jeff had mentioned you know when it comes to traffic one of the best benefits for the neighborhood is that there's no longer that mid Point mid block along Packard which would cause more traffic

270concern because there was another curb cut interrup interrupting the traffic flow so I I don't get too many projects like this where I've got two corners and I'm pulled back really the appropriate distance from both Corner um from the from the the more um busy street so overall I think that that really was a benefit you know parking is a tough question I know that's going to come up and there's some of you I know on this particular Planning Commission that would say you meet the parking you're all set and then there's some people are going to probably say why do you even need all that parking and then there'll probably be a few people who think why do you why don't you have more parking where do the guest Park and you know the

271real answer to that is diversity and the way that we work this out and so having the ride share spaces which is really probably the most important thing and is not actually something that's required um and having it midpoint mid center of our site is probably the number one thing that we can do to benefit everybody we'll work with Uber we'll work with lift we'll try to get a point once this project is named and set so that we can drop a pin on those ride share points to help them even avoid then going out into the street because I know that's a concern for the neighbors but honestly nobody wants to believe it but we see parking demand going down not up people don't drive as many cars as they used to and I

272know that's hard for people to believe but it's true and the facts show it and this project is just properly parked commissioner abens did you get all of your issues taken uh answered [Music] um uh yes for now I'm fine if I have more I'll come back thank you commissioner Gib Randall can I just say thank you because you are hitting so many of the things that we are trying to go for and it is just incredibly refreshing for me as a commissioner to be able to review a project that is just firing on so many pistons at the same time um I'm really impressed with this and the way that you all have pulled this off and um I understand there's neighbor concerns I but I you know for me in terms of what

273I see us reviewing on this commission I just feel like this is an exemplary project and I am fully behind what you're doing um I did some really quick kind of aerial searches and and things from their Road View and those streets are not parked up maybe they are on football Saturdays something like that but in general I think there's plenty of space for guests that come and it's frankly in my mind impervious surface is not being used in a regular way and I think that it's totally fine to have you know guests in there and that we don't necessarily have to have everything filled up on that site it's on a bus line you have all these other ways of being being able to handle that so um the thing that I want to

274know is how you're making it all work frankly in terms of what this is what we're asking other developers to do and um everybody's saying it's hard I know it's hard but I am just curious like just in terms of um how you're accommodating all of these things together um to be able to make it work in terms of the math frankly in terms of what you can charge for rents and and then what you know what you're able to pull off so I think it's important for us as Commissioners kind of understand your reality to see the different things that you're balancing uh around this and um so I'd just be curious about uh what the process that you went through to figure out like the electrification and the solar and all those and

275all the other elements of you know the massing and mixing it up and there's just so many things I like about this project but especially in terms of the sustainability elements I am just curious how you kind of um were able to make that all work with this scale of project well I've been playing the lottery quite a bit recently and hoping to figure out a way to pay for it all um well the honest answer is there's a couple different things one is that you know this is a little bit more of a passion project and it's a longer term type of an investment then um I think that you've seen in so many of the projects that you guys probably review on this board um you know it is that are from a

276just a different development model and I'm not criticizing that it's just it's just the way of the world we're taking a longer term lens on this than than probably most and so that that helps um other factors are there are some um some grants and some tax credit stuff available um uh like DTE has a credit program for the um for the charging stations for example that helps make that financially feasible there's some obviously some some credits available for for solar not really enough to make it work but it helps um we're pursuing Pace financing for this um you know which is which is something if you're not familiar with uh relatively new to was County but um it's a a different layer of financing that sort of acts as a tax assessment actually but

277helps to um again it's just another thing that helps to make the numbers work a little bit so it's it's it's doing a lot of um extra layers and and and and some complicated and timec consuming things to try to make it all work um and then also just having a much longer term view of of of this project and and the world than I think you know most developers do oh I appreciate that I'm also curious if you are having um renters pay for their own utilities or if you are paying the utilities and and part of the the solar is kind of you know that there's a return on investment for you or is it like how are you I'm just curious how you're structuring that the pl uh it is the intention

278to have a leas electricity be tenant paid so it's not really a savings to us it's more of a you know well I mean it all comes out of the same thing right I mean if your if your rent is x in your utilities are why it's you know it might as well be one payment so even if we're paying it or they're paying it it's it's still a savings and and and more than that I think too just from a marketing standpoint and you know Ann Arbor and and and renters here and and citizens and residents an arbor are they're conscious of this type of thing they're environmentally conscious they have choices um and you know we just think that it's something that people are going to get behind and again I mean just

279to we're clear I mean you know as John said at the beginning it's it's maybe 7% of the building energy I mean unfortunately solar isn't to the point where it's making this huge doesn't move the needle as much as we'd love it to but but it helps um and every little bit helps so that's it for me for now sorry uh commissioner dish just a quick question um what's the fence made out of it's a boardon board cedar fence okay so just pretty straightforward but it looks good on both sides allows it to breathe the air to go through we really want that for our Landscaping as well as the neighbors Landscaping excellent okay and yeah I just want to underscore what you said about cars you know you're these are Studio one bedroom and

280two B Apartments this is not housing families this is the kind of project that we will see fewer people having cars in and choosing not to have cars so commissioner milstein thank you um so first question I had for Mr Khan um so somewhere along the lines there's something in the staff report but I heard um and I'm actually not sure at this slate hour who I heard it from that um the so part of I know that part of parcel is Zone P for parking does does this petition require any sort of um resoning of that P Parking yes part of the part of the petition is a rezoning from P to C3 so do I did I miss in the uh in our motion do we have a do we have as part

281of that in our motion that we're resoning that read the motion if you'd like no I I just want to does it say that we're resoning so we're proving the site plan and resoning it says C3 zoning so it's not explicit that it's rezoning but it's C3 zoning because typically we have two separate motions and it looks like this went all into one motion um and is that is the reason for that just because we're trying to tie the site plan and the resoning into one that that was the general idea I'll let Brett um comment further If he if you'd like yeah I don't I don't think there's much um science to it they were combined into a single motion they could be considered separately the intention here is no sort of conditional zoning

282or anything so to be clear yeah as part of this action would be to rezone the C3 portion or the parking portion to C3 and then the corresponding site plan would meet all of the development regulations for the site okay um coming from our last discussion so I believe C3 allows storage facilities so my only question is um and we have I sort of feel like we we rehash this on a regular basis if we rezone it and then developer chooses not to move forward with the project we've just rezoned it and we've taken away any opportunity to potentially have any say on what happens with that parking is that a fair statement Mr Leonard yeah if it's reson to C3 the C3 would govern um if um I'm purely speculating though Bas in the

283last conversation I could see some conversations about our permitted use table in the future yes very much so so is there any way uh to tie the uh the zoning and the site plan together not under this framework I mean we have other mechanisms that could do that um you know such as plan unit development and the like um as a as a resoning and site plan here um I I it's it's not easy to do um um if the petitioner wanted to seek um another mechanism such as whether it's PUD or conditional zoning or something to that effect we could consider that but in its current state I don't think it would be appropriate to consider the zoning dependent on this you if if you want to consider those separately we could definitely structure

284the Motions separately nope I'm totally fine I just want to make sure that my colleagues are aware of this and it's partly because of the last um item that was on our agenda that's where my concern comes from is you know all of a sudden there's a storage facility um and I'm sure the neighbors would be happy about that so just bringing that up um in regards to the actual site plan the look of the building um I'm very much in favor of this um it looks great I think this is the right use for the site uh for years and years and years I've driven by the site thinking wow somebody's got to do something to this sometime soon and I'm happy that the time has finally come um and John thank you for

285not making it brown all brown um you've done a great job in Ann Arbor with all of your projects um to sort of make them look very interesting so I appreciate um all that you do for our community to make us uh prettier so thank you thank you appreciate it commissioner hamers spit then commissioner s so I will follow directly on that I also very much appreciate the interest in the facade I'm not an architect but I thought that the renderings made it look a lot more interesting than just sort of like a flat-based building um going along Packard I really like this project um I like everything that youve you've said about it and you know wanting to contribute to the neighborhood and I appreciate that it's a passion project I appreciate that you

286brought up solar and EV and electrification without us having to say it um I really appreciated the the way that you like laid out and presented us the public comments that you've gotten and your responses to them I thought were very thoughtful particularly I know there' have been a lot of questions about the George um and I think that the way you guys answered them those questions tonight and both in in the public comment that we saw makes a lot of sense to me two minor yet potentially impactful um questions that I just wanted to hear your thoughts on there's is there outdoor space in this I saw like little section of grass behind the building um was curious like if that's if that is like lawn if you were thinking of programming I was

287just trying to I was looking at closest parks um and there's one across Packard which you'd have to Crosser and the closest one is like a 10-minute walk away so I was just curious like if you what you were thinking in terms of like access to any sort of outdoor space for the residents well I think we we definitely have that small area but that's really pretty limited I'm not going to try to push that and sell that as a big landscape area I mean for us what we're really trying to create is this kind of urban residential feel where we're part of a community in a neighborhood that we can share the parks and use the parks and not it honestly it's very different than if you're down in an urban area where you

288just have pavement right up against everything so it's Urban but it's this transition and and that's really a big part of what we'll be selling have you considered anything like a bench or anything so that people you know if they just need to get outside and this just like strikes me a lot like just during this Co and feeling like you're trapped in your house and like I understand you can get out and walk around in the neighborhood but if somebody just wants to like get outside for 10 minutes just maybe consider like adding in some sort of seating I think we could add some seating in there Ryan that sounds like a great idea yeah yeah I think we could I mean we have some areas that probably just haven't been articulated as much

289yet that we could probably address um I like that idea yeah I don't see any reason why we couldn't do that excellent and my other thing is just sort of regarding I feel like I bring this up with a lot of projects but this the the stair placement um you this is a three-story building people could easily just take stairs up to their unit rather than use an elevator which often you know we see you walk into a building that's the first thing you've seen the stairs are sort of like tucked away behind like a fire door and so people just naturally gravitate to the elevator but particularly again with Co I think people probably and hopefully by the time this is built that'll be gone who knows if there will be another pandemic um

290but since it's such a since it's just like a a short building like walking up two flights of stairs is not outside the realm of possibility for people if the stairs look like attractive stairs to take up so I guess my question is what are you envisioning for the stairs is it behind a fire door or is there a possibility to like open them up make them a little bit more attractive and easy for people to just default to that yeah I think there's a possibility I mean I think what we what we actually had talked about was really creating a stronger graphic in the lobby to promote that I mean honestly it's a great comment and it actually works really well here three stories it's perfect most people will probably just take the stairs

291so definitely something we're going to have at the main stair where the two elevators are but you'll get further down to that more remote stare and we can still work to promote that as an access point as well great those I think are my only comments um for now but I just I really appreciate all of the work that you guys have put into this and I'm excited to see this buil missioner syv I'll get nitpicky just because it is a great project and maybe tagging right off of commissioner hamers Schmid and I when I was reviewing the project I was kind of betting that stairs would come up um part of it is actually the bike uh room and that there's like one unit straddling between the stair and the Bike Room and I

292guess I'm curious uh because a lot of these have individual entries to the units are there enough bike spaces in that bike room for all the units that have common Corridor for like one per unit I guess I didn't do the math myself yeah I think we I don't have it right here I know we exceeded I had looked at it so yeah we're we're definitely ahead of the game on the number of required parking spaces including the walk-ups that we have and I never really brought that up but that is kind of one of the unique things about some of those units is their direct access walk-ups which is really kind of fun and interesting and it also helps activate the street in the neighborhood but yes we exceed the parking requirements okay for

293bikes and that it's just like in that traffic wedge of you know people coming in maybe from the retail from the back bikes coming in deliveries the trash going out and I think it's similar to like how can you make that bike room as functional as possible for the residents so it doesn't get at that pinch point and it's so much easier for people to want to use it um so it's just one of those little nitpicky things that it it it seems like there's some easy potential and I know that these plans are just kind of giving us the the rougher layout yeah no we we'll definitely look at that yeah that L Lobby leasing area that is kind of opens to that area is all kind of yet to be designed and I

294think there's some kind of you know along with the stairs you know I think there's a a real opportunity I I I personally think the biking aspect given I mean I'm a extremely frequent biker on the Packard bike lane I I think is a huge element in this project so I think we'll really try to emphasize that you know more than just have it be you know just a tucked away bike room so that's something that we've discussed before and we just haven't given enough detail to that little part of the building yet it's just you know it's just sort of blocked off at this point as we work through a more detailed site plan totally I think it's a great potential and maybe like there's a coffee shop and a bike shop room would

295be ideal I I don't think anybody else is on the line but in terms of asking like where will visitors Park there's street parking for a reason and that's for visitors to houses and to Apartments like homeowners don't own the street in the same way the whole does and so I'm not really concerned about what overv parking might look like on the ebb and flow of visitors uh and I just want to like put that out there and say that like when we talk about street parking uh the people who are there now don't own it so visitors I'm definitely not worried about um and then I think you know concerns with the George I'm not worried about either because this is so um Street Front Centric the George completely is inverted right it's a

296concave development that every everything is so off the street and I think that this is also so much closer to all the other things as you get towards stadium so I'm really excited to just see how it starts to stitch these things and hopefully we just see more projects like this along the corridor that finally meet up with the George and the George can realize its full potential so fingers crossed for like the next five years of movement in this Corridor and what tods might be able to do uh for this you know projects like this as well so I'm support of it thanks you guys other comments I think I'm last then which is to say first I want to ask a question about uh maybe you said this when you talked about building

297electrification what are you doing for HVAC right now what we're using for HVAC is we are looking into this idea of the heat pump system that the individual who called in would be extremely excited if we could do it um we're right on that transition Edge where it's tough so I'm we're very open-minded to it I I don't even think we think it's it's necessarily a cost issue it's is it going to function the way that we need it to when it's minus 20 degrees out so it's something we're looking at and that would be the best system that we could do to do that but but it is going to be based on individual heat pumps um and that's what we had placed in the center of the roof up on the top of

298the roof got it thank you very much and this is something that we may well there's a couple of us on this phone that may well follow up with you on that just to better understand that and also um again this is the kind of project that we that I I don't want to speak for all of us love to see um and to see if there are other elements of our code that might be hindering us getting more of this not just your like what you shared with us about the the um uh your approach to development right you're how long you're ex you know how you see this investment um but anyway that's not for 11:45 at night um thank you uh commissioner milstein for pointing out that this is a resoning and

299I often am the person who says what is the worst case scenario that comes out of this right I want this project to succeed I don't want you to have to sell the project somebody else you don't want to have to sell the project to somebody else um one of and so uh kind of what would worst case scenario look like for particularly for that part the fact that you're only resoning half of it and it is not the uh asking for rezoning of half of it and that it is um the the the worst case scenario I think from a neighbor's perspective if I May is not just that like they don't get a building that has all of these fantastic elements that again is not the norm that we hope becomes the norm

300but that is not the norm right now um but it's also I think a a height concern that's something that didn't come up because you mentioned you're not maxing it out right um and so I would say I'll I'm generally the person who would strongly recommend that you think about tying some element of where you're not maxing out that code to your resoning request that is something that would have to be offered from you I mentioned this um because commissioner dish is you know you're gonna have to see her again and in case that is something um that is that you think is valuable like I'm just going to put it out there that that's we've not been burned by you before but we've seen this where there has been you know rezonings and and

301what people reone to is not panned out and it's come back to bite us and so I don't know how that fits in and I'm not pushing it here I will vote for this because I think that this is a fantastic project but I just want to put that out there and also kind of let other people if anybody else wants to weigh in on that commissioner g brandle i me just say I feel like it's a little bit on us if we don't feel like we want that use going on in the zoning I mean it's like that's kind of on us to figure out what's in the table and if we don't want it then that's kind of seems like it's our job you know and maybe it's because it's next to residential

302or you know whatever it is but that feels like that's more you know what we should be doing about what we feel like supports you know the the kinds of uses where we have that zoning so I don't know I guess that's I I I feel like that it's coming up in front of us you know twice tonight but um I think that's I think that's our responsibility in some ways and to be clear I wasn't not talking about that use because that's something that I hope we can take care of like pronto but it was more there's lots of things that when you rezone something from parking to C3 there's lots of uses that are possible but also including residential uses just like this one but residential use that's not 40 feet tall that's

30355 feet tall so commissioner milstein uh commissioner G Randle I completely agree with you it is on us but I also uh since we have a new council member representative with commissioner dish here it's also on city council and our master plan and uh commissioner dish you I I this is maybe the third or fourth time that we've talked about the master plan um and this is part of some of the projects that we're getting is because of the lack of a of a master plan that sees the city as it is today um so it is on us but it's also a master plan that we're working from that's not adequate for where we are here today in 2020 or at least elements I think there's a lot that's good that we need to

304highlight and yeah that's again for another day not at 11:51 at night um commissioner s just one follow-up question did you guys have any difficulty with financing or Banks relative to your parking count well to tell you the truth we've only had preliminary conversations with banks I mean that's something that's not um you know it's still a little bit ways out yet to be able to firm firm that up um but no not really I mean we've kind of positioned this I mean I think John kind of said it you know we positioned this as sort of this quasi Urban you know neighborhood type of a project that you would just expect to have a little less parking I mean you know we we've looked at projects downtown with almost no parking obviously you build

305stuff out in the townships with unbelievable amounts of parking and this is in between so so I I think just for the project type and the location it I mean I don't I can't recall it you know we've I mean talked with a few local banks here and um I don't recall it coming up you know I mean I think they kind of got the concept and that's good for us to know we have different conversations and feedback about that about when we were seeing more than minimum parking and the like Bank being more or less a scapegoat so it would be helpful you know the same way we're saying how do we get more of this and seeing you worked on and what you didn't if you can even at some point if we

306weren't if we weren't in the Packard Corridor like that I mean just you know that just goes a long way I mean even if it were a similar infill location in the city but not quite as aligned from a Transit perspective I think that would it would be a harder conversation to have um you know even the earlier project get looked at like off a stadium or something like that I mean this is a it's just a straight shot that gets a lot of use from a walking biking B and bus line stuff so this particular location I think sells itself pretty well to that in a way that would be harder again even in a similar distance from the core type of area might not might not work quite as well thanks anything else

307I think we are ready to vote Mr Leonard roll call please commissioner milin yes commissioner Gib Randall yes commissioner sve yes commissioner abam yes commissioner hamers Schmid yes commissioner dish yes commissioner Mills yes carries unanimously thank you thank you good luck at city council apprciate it thanks for sticking with us uh for the last four hours I council member dish got a heck of a first uh first Planning Commission light agenda last night so we wer so she's feeling refreshed not refreshed but comparatively yeah comparatively all right everybody really nice to work with thank you um we are on to item number 10 which is an our final opportunity for public comment this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any item of Interest public comment can be made

308by calling 853 5247 and then entering meeting ID 978 3155 5 2451 City staff will call on people who have digitally raised their hand by pressing star n um you'll be called upon using the last three digits of your telephone number um you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is asking you to speak please move to a quiet area mute any background sound I am killing the time a little bit because there is that delay that we heard when somebody called in earlier so in case somebody does want to call on the phone giving them the time because right now there's no callers but we know that there's a delay I see no one okay great if somebody calls in maybe we can come back so 11 is commission proposed business it is late

309but I do have something commissioner milstein first though and then commissioner AB there is a run on commissioner proposed business this is exciting um I think commissioner you and I have the same thing excuse me um that we should just clear up this uh storage facility language like ASAP um and I'm thinking like maybe then bring it up next at our well at our next working session and then you know let's let's get it moving fairly quickly um because I think we received a lot of feedback about that so instead of being being a permitted use being a um uh what do you call it special section use exactly thank you changing those two e in the this is a friendly amendment in the c2b and the C3 districts from those two PS turning them

310into e yes keeping the P's in the manufacturing districts yeah Mr loner can we just make a motion like that and just take care of it right now I'm kidding I'm totally kidding um I was going to say you've already adopted a two-year work plan so this will be year three if it takes me writing it up and we can probably take an extra 30 minutes at our next working session I happy to put it on your next next working session thank you I I would suggest that maybe we look at those districts broadly the permitted uses um I think the easiest would be to just really focus on on those districts the per the range of permitted uses and any any consideration modification is sort of narrowly tailored in that way commissioner abon um

311I know it's late but I just wanted to bring up um notification because I think it comes up every single time we meet that there are people in the community who feel that they weren't notified or they would told they would be notified and they didn't receive an email or they didn't receive notification and I know we've I know we've kind of rehearsed the procedure in the past but I would like to see that at some point be a topic of discussion for us to revisit the the protocol um and actually as I'm saying that I'm not even sure it's in our purview to change it but or to recommend it that we change it but it seems uh like um uh a hiccup in this process that is preventing an adequate amount of public

312anticipation it's actually already on our work plan for the next two years like so maybe what I'm proposing is we bump it up a little because I think it's like in the third table right or something it's buried in there I think a bit no no we we pull it up so it's it's definitely it's definitely risen great I think commissioner s kind of resurrected that one said can't we deal with that all right um can I just add one not much but I don't it it seems like a wormhole of like the r4c underground parking height thing like I don't it almost sounds like a scrier error to just like copy and paste I don't know how easy it is or again like if it opens up a big wor hole of attacking r4c

313but I'd like to just see if it's if there's some simple modifications to align it with the rest of it can you remind us Mr Leonard if r4c r2a were on made it to our two-year work plan they did not oh now you know um yeah so let me as expressed I think r4c was the subject of sort of a more dedicated Endeavor um it also functions quite differently in our community than a lot of our other R4 districts that is a lot of our other R4 districts are really larger multif family um suited where r4c is very much aligned with a more traditional pattern of conver converting housing like old turn of the century housing often into multif family um so they do function quite differently but me understand a little bit more about

314that um um I am H happy to support wherever whever we go but um just keep in mind we've got Transit got adus um we're going to start some master plan conversation um site plan review um so just I I would just ask that you keep these brainstorming ideas come but I'm going to need your help to continue to help prioritize how you want to tackle these things um because you won't be able to do them all at once yeah and I that's kind of like I want to note it but I don't want to elevate it like because we're seeing this and I think commissioner aon's kind of brought it up again like the six bedroom units and I think that's the bigger lift of figuring out that modification but there are kind of

315maybe some tweaks that can come along earlier and I please to be clear these are great this is how we form our work plan you know I this is a great opportunity at the end even late at the end of the night to think about some of the issues that you're facing and then when they're presented and reflected back to you it's an opportunity to see where there's some alignment and that's a good way for us to figure out how to prioritize things thank you commissioner uh I move to a journ seconded by commissioner Gib Randall all in favor yes Ah that's a lot of hands have a great night folks already Wednesday thank you bye bye bye e e e