001wednesday november 4th 2020 meeting of the ann arbor planning commission this meeting is being held electronically to protect public health and safety due to the coven 19 virus and to comply with orders issued by the governor the michigan department of health and human services and or the washington county health department we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues public comment will be held via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call enter meeting 877-853-5247 986-8779-4536 this information is also available on the published web 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 dot org slash watch
002ctn and then you select the government channel mr leonard can we have a roll call please commence here commissioner mills here mr milstein here commissioner gibb randall here commissioner ackerman here commissioner sovay here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here they have a quorum very good the next item on the agenda is introductions and i do have a resolution of appreciation for um wendy woods there's a caller on the line um mrs woods if that is you could you please press star nine and we will let you in we weren't sure if she would be able to join us tonight okay so i will read the appreciation for her um whereas wendy woods has served on the ann arbor city planning commission for 12 years from 20 2008 to 2020 and whereas wendy woods also provided
003leadership as chair of the ann arbor city planning commission during that time and whereas wendy woods has provided valuable insight based on her experience and over 30 years of service to the city of ann arbor serving on the transportation commission the energy commission the parks advisory commission the environmental commission and the solid waste commission and as a university of michigan associate director of the michigan community scholars program an adjunct lecturer and whereas wendy woods has used her wisdom and knowledge of the community to discern appropriate actions of the commission while providing leadership in the pursuit of community goods community goals and whereas wendy woods has contributed significant time and energy to improve the quality of development proposals and support regional planning and collaboration efforts and whereas wendy woods has ensured through vigorous and thorough examination
004that all voices in the process are heard and whereas wendy woods collegiality civility foresight and commitment will be missed by the commission be it therefore resolved that the ann arbor city planning commission expresses its sincere gratitude and commends wendy woods for her dedicated service to planning in the city of ann arbor on this fourth day of november 2020. and then the uh this resolution is signed by all of us i was wondering if i could have a commissioner move this moved by commissioner milstein everybody wants to second it uh you can put commissioner hammerschmidt as the official second um is there any discussion on the motion commissioner gabe randall the only thing i would like to add is that i also really appreciated um commissioner wood's ability to think about the campus and its intersection
005with our planning process um and so i'm not going to change the motion but it's just something that occurred to me after the after the fact so if she's watching or anything i'm not sure when when we get to gosh about wendy but that that's something that i really appreciated that she always had that perspective and um they're a big part of our community and i really appreciated that about her in addition to all the other fabulous things that were listed in the resolution i think now is the appropriate time to gush commissioner milstein so i'll go on slightly funnier um tone here um so it's actually it was it's really interesting to realize that wendy was with us we're on the planning commission for 12 years uh never once did she mention that that
006she's been on for 12 years we've had previous commissioners over the years who would tell us all about how long they've been with uh on the planning commission but she never mentioned it um so it that just shows that she she never wanted to one-up anybody and she you know i've she was on here the entire time i've been on here for however many years it's been now um and she brought a great perspective um asked great questions and was super respectful to anybody who called in and to all of us so for that uh wendy if you're watching this thank you so much for your leadership and for being a part of this commission um i am um sad to see you go um you know i'm i'm not the biggest fan of change
007but this is one of those other changes that i'm sad about uh but i hope that you are enjoying your tuesday evenings now uh and uh enjoying that time off uh with your family and that does it for me anything else to add similar to alex i'll just add that the list of commissions that she was involved in like i knew about the one or two that she served at you know at the time because she would give updates but it's amazing the amount of expertise that she added to the city in so many different capacities um and there are many times where i you know when i have the floor i'm trying to channel like what would commissioner woods do and we can't see the students who are joining us now which is one
008of the sad parts about um about operating our you know meetings via zoom often we would have com for community members who might not know have students come and observe our meetings as part of their class um and commissioner woods would always be the first to like call out and ask where they're from and um encourage them to come up during public comment and speak and i think um she was a great mom a great role model so again commissioner woods if you're listening happy tuesdays and wednesdays in this odd case um but your uh all you've taught us is remains with us commissioner ackerman thank you chair uh just just briefly um serving alongside commissioner woods was a pleasure as other people have mentioned um i just i really admire the time and intention
009she spent listening um and asking questions to get to the truth and to form her perspective and then her ability to from that position of understanding challenge gently but firmly and there was no one who was sacred in the process it could be staff it could be the petitioner it could be our neighbors and residents but when she went when the understanding that she gained and earned um through her questions and through her listening came in conflict with you know assertions that other people made based on you know assumption she she never hesitated to to correct which i really admire all right seeing no other hands um i say we vote on this all those in favor of the resolution of appreciation please raise your hand or say yes yes yes any opposed clearly none
010um the motion carries um any other introductions mr leonard and uh commissioner briggs and commissioner ackerman if this is your last public meeting um we would encourage you to we will encourage you to come back when we sing your praises as well we will call upon you for one more tuesday night um when it's actually a tuesday and not a wednesday um next up is approval of the agenda can i have a motion to move the agenda moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner hammerschmidt any a discussion of the agenda i have one and that is we have two items tonight i would wonder if the commission would be interested in adjusting it for the benefit of the petitioners to talk about the petition first and then the work plan discussion after that all right
011um so um do is it friendly to commissioner milstein and hammerschmidt to amend that um any other adjustments to the agenda okay all in favor of the agenda as amended just now please say yes or raise your hand yes yes any opposed i don't see any so the motion carries we will move forward with an amended agenda um the item five is the minutes of the previous meeting can i have a motion to approve the minutes of the october 20th 2020 meeting moved by commissioner abram seconded by commissioner sovay any discussion of the minutes all in favor of the mission minutes as drafted please raise your hand or say yes yes yes that is everyone the motion carries item number six is reports from city administration planning council or city council sorry not planning council
012city council planning manager planning commission officers and committees and written communications there were some written communications in the packet that we received um uh but first we will turn to council member ackerman do you have any report for us i do not have a report for you city council will meet tomorrow evening because of this week being the week of election day um glad to see since in the time since i checked in on the election last michigan has been declared for joe biden so that's exciting news and all of our eyes are tuned to philadelphia in las vegas i'm sure um but uh i so in lieu of a report i just want to take a moment to thank each of you this will be my last planning commission meeting as a member of
013the board so i want to thank each of you for your service to ann arbor as planning commissioners and planning staff members you all are called upon to work long hours give painstaking care to minute detail speak hard truths to neighbors and sometimes make unpopular decisions you listen you learn you deliberate thoughtfully on hundreds of issues some bland and dull but each important and you do all this for no reward other than service to others and commitment to our collective future i also want to thank you for the greatest learning experience that i could have asked for through your collective insight and experience over these past four years i've come to truly understand how important land is land is everything for our future it's how we leverage this limited resource that will dictate our economy
014our environment our culture our equity and our very sense of community and this is perhaps the most revolutionary lesson that i've learned in my time at city hall you're the sharpest board staffed by some of the best professionals with whom i've had the pleasure to serve with and each of you is an a player so i wish all of you the very best in your future considerations and i trust you'll make us all proud well goodness thanks commissioner ackerman you're going to be missed you have big shoes to fill um yeah i will sing praises later or do you want to sing praises now what's appropriate all right we'll come back all right um mr leonard do you have any update it's awfully hard to follow um but um uh commissioner ackerman uh for my
015part thank you and thank you for a role i've always really valued uh your role both on the planning commission and city council i think you've been a great ambassador of the dialogue at the planning commission table to the city council which i know at times is is difficult and sometimes communicating um tension-filled um deliberation and decisions but um i i always valued how thoughtfully you did that so thank you um uh just one update we have a working session scheduled for next week we have a pre-pud petition application for your consideration for 530 north division in short it's a proposed pud to allow a development prototype to increase density and allow it to be conducted in a very high sustainable fashion so um that is the sole item on that agenda it's possible i
016might also add a touch point on some of the orc's dialogue of the proposed site plan review thresholds process as well and that's all i have excellent are there any other commissioner officers or committee liaisons that have anything to report mr leonard just touched on the thing that we've we talked about at orc last week which is the the charge that we had from council to look at the site plan process for small projects um and so he kind of gave us an update um on that we reviewed kind of more tables making very clear how many things are um included in you know are required with a site plan um so uh i expect that you will all be wowed when you see this um there's a lot of work behind there and it
017makes the clear like the high standard that we have for a lot of projects um okay uh and i already said that we had some written communications that i'm sure you all were able to check out as well so we're on to item number seven oh sorry shannon sorry commissioner randall can i just can i just jump in for a second so um i need to recuse myself for next week and i know a lot of people are leaving too do we need any kind of quorum for a working session or no not for a working session the working session we will not be advancing any actions on a petition okay great um so now we'll move on to item number seven which is audience participation this is an opportunity for persons to speak up
018for up to three minutes about an issue that's not listed as a public hearing on this agenda which is 2115 south strait street marijuana provisioning center or retailer or our work plan because i think we will allow for a public hearing on that too if you want to speak specifically to that item when we talk about it to comment on any other matter please call and enter 877-853-5247 id 986-8779-4536 mr leonard will select callers that have digitally raised their hand you digitally raise your hand by pressing star nine and he'll call on you by the last three digits of your telephone number um when you hear you'll hear an automated announcement that you have been unmuted and are able to speak you may need to unmute your phone it yourself and please move to a
019quiet area and turn off any television or background sounds so we can hear you clearly um and please do state your name and address for the record so i do see a couple callers that are on the line now if you want to speak at this audience participation opportunity you can raise your hand by pressing star 9. all right i haven't given a look to make sure that the column numbers but since we have two i think we're probably safe that things are advertised correctly so we'll close the audience participation and there's another opportunity for this at the end of the meeting as well um item number eight is the public hearings for the next business meeting yes we have three uh new uh public hearing items for the november 17th meeting um one is
020two one one one packard street rezoning and site plan for city council approval this is the proposal to remove an existing retail building and construct a new three-story 79 000 square foot multi-family building with that includes 3 600 approximately 3 600 square feet of retail ground floor retail space the project proposes 72 dwelling units with a total of 119 bedrooms and 84 surface parking spaces second new item is 2060 west stadium boulevard site plan for city council approval and special exceptions for planning commission approval this is a proposal for a four-story 120 000 square foot self storage building a three-story 23 000 square foot mixed use building and uh the mixed use building including a ground floor bank two upper floors of office and a proposed drive-through that's the special exception use request to the
021planning commission approval a petitioner is also proposing to re-zone a portion of the site which is currently zone p parking to c2b business service zoning classification the the petitioner is also seeking out variants separately to reduce the parking being proposed for the site and then finally near north town homes rezoning site plan for city council approval with planned project modifications this is 700 north main a petition to rezone a 1.2 acre site from pud to r4c and a site plan for 22 townhomes including a request to modify the front setback from 25 to 10 feet and the rear set back from 33 to 22 feet this development will include the removal of five landmark trees um mitigation is of course proposed and some uh modification to the flood plain with mitigation is proposed this last
022project is a former 39 unit affordable housing that was previously approved on north main and this is a re-conceptual preconception of redevelopment of that site very good thank you very much so um we're now taking up item 10a because we did the swap on the agenda earlier so this is the new business which is south state street special exception use request for city planning commission approval it's a request for an accessory marijuana provisioning center retailer incidental to a marijuana grower at 2115 south state street which is zoned m1a the grower and its accessory provisioning center will occupy a total of 2 000 square feet of the existing building on 1.65 acres and so um for the public or for the petition we'll first have the petitioner give a presentation for up to 10 minutes um
023and then staff can fill in uh what else they we ought to be calling our attention to and then we'll open the public hearing um before i get started is there anybody missing from the petitioner team that has not been promoted that you were expecting um there were two callers um that should have that should be added do you want the last four of their phone numbers or would you want their names or um give me their names first jason bricco and ray kalasho okay hello everyone hi okay um all right um uh if you're ready i think alexis you have a presentation for them if you want to go ahead and bring that up and we'll start 10 minutes great well first and foremost thank you all for considering this petition my name is
024brian fennick i'm on behalf of uh the petitioner um jason bricco and ray coleshow's agent i'm joined with um joining me tonight is kyle gonzalez with damian farrell design group and this has been a a a long journey to get here and we are again grateful for the opportunity to have it heard finally and we're grateful for staff for all their help over the last few years to get us here so um without further ado i'll hand it off to kyle and he can walk you through the plans for the accessory provisioning center that will accompany a cultivation facility thanks brian can you guys hear me okay okay um the property is 2115 south state street it's located in between stadium and eisenhower uh it's surrounded uh north and south by ann arbor township and
025then to the west uh office district and then to the east it's public lands separated by railroad tracks there lexus we can go to the next one survey of the existing property we can skip this one for the most part for right now let me go back to it and could you just zoom in on the site plan thanks alexis we are proposing some modifications to the site um remediating some of the trouble areas uh we had solid waste issues with both our portion of the building and the adjacent property what you see is a proposed double bin cycle and trash enclosure on the north side of the property that's going to be shared by both suites the problematic enclosure to the south is to be removed and we're also cleaning up a little bit
026of the circulation and in doing so adding additional green space to the property so we're adding end islands of converting that that was all impervious before including some of the space up on the northern side behind the trash receptacles and in the back of the parking lot area this petition has a dedicated loading zone area so there's no circulation conflicts or anything everything is happening in the back and then all of our bike parking pedestrian entryways will still be happening from the west side and that'll be what we would consider the front um we're required to have one class b parking space but due to some of the other sites uh in ann arbor we've noticed that the bike parking gets used quite a bit um so we propose four here uh for this location
027and then there's an accessible ramp that has been cleaned up so that it meets the accessible route requirements to get into the building um alexis we can go on to the floor plan next seat next sheet thank you and actually sorry for one second can you go back to the previous sheet i think it's probably easier to see it in the area sheet the top left portion so what you see there in like the teal color is the existing adjacent suites an automobile truck repair facility this petition is proposing to the growth facility is the permitted use within m1a and then the provisioning center is what you see in the gold color it's our program actually picks these colors by at random they just happen to be sort of michigan so it's not pandering i
028swear okay alex we can go to the floor plan now thank you uh the vestibule location is existing the glass location on that wall is existing um and we're repurposing sort of just all the back house stuff here there would be a shared lobby area for vendors for the grow facility for clients coming in potential investors um anything like that and then the provisioning center would be on the far side over there which we still see the main entry for that coming off of the main parking to the western parking lot so pedestrian entryway would be through that way the entry from the east side that you see where it says secured vestibule that will be used for product delivery um to both facilities if there's anything that gets has to go through and be
029vetted and can be set in secure storage and before it gets sent to the grow or into the rest of the building as far as other improvements to the site there are no proposed additions at this time [Music] we are going to uh we we do the exterior there's some painting and some remediation of the roof and stuff that they just require some some love um but i think uh i'll leave it at that other than the one one thing that i do want to touch on that's uh slightly different than what was in our operation manual one of the things that we've uh been trying to battle nowadays uh is the issues that we have with covid and how it impacts retail spaces uh sort of dual purpose here we have listed hepa filters
030and carbon filters as a way to remediate odors but one thing that's not on there that we are doing standard practice now in all facilities is a photo ionization bipolar sorry bipolar photoionization filter it doesn't have uv lights or anything like that it's just this ionization plasma bar that works in a way that it breaks down indoor pathogens while also destroying odors that's actually how we found it um this product that we use is called gps imod and they tested it up against they haven't tested against coping 19 but it has shown serious promise against sars so any of those pathogens that have a shell around the outside or core that have to be broken down first and then they have similar dna structures like that and it's been showing to proven to to do
031pretty well and a lot of hospitals and stuff have already gone to this uh we're doing it any way that we can anytime that we have any sort of unit presidential commercial um even in the cultivation area because it it also increases um energy efficiency which uh by reducing the amount of airflow that is needed inside the unit so it's just another thing that standard practice that's not on there but it is an extra piece for odor control and for pathogen pathogen control in today's world great is there anything else [Music] nope all right more from us thank you thank you mr leo thank you i will give some highlights from our staff report i think that mr gonzalez does a very good job of explaining what the proposal is this is uh the 2115
032south state street special exception used for an accessory marijuana provisioning center marijuana retailer the primary permitted principal use as mentioned will be a marijuana grow facility um in the m1a district um standard practice that accessory retail is permitted incidental to the primary use and in this case the primary use is a marijuana facility and the accessory use is another marijuana facility um in the um staff report i would like to point out that i had an error um actually a couple errors um in the surrounding land uses and zoning the zoning is correct but the land uses to the west is both office and residential single-family residential um staff report also goes through special exception use standards there are the general special exception use standards that apply to this special exception use as well as
033the specific standards for marijuana facilities southport um goes through them as well i'll hit on some highlights it is a condensably consistent with the master plan uh in compatibility with the general vicinity um regarding consistency with the neighborhood and not being detrimental again i'd like to point out i this report only mentions the surrounding uses being light industrial retail and office there is residential in the area um across the street there is single-family residential and in the surrounding area there's single-family as well as multi-family um parking uh the on-site parking meets the needs of both the growth facility the accessory provisioning center retailer and the auto facility as well the additional information for marijuana facilities has been provided um is attached and referenced um although this petition was submitted before um it's been submitted for
034a while um and in the queue it was submitted before special exception uses required type 1 citizen participation however they have since satisfied that requirement by holding up citizen participation meeting the year is wrong in the staff report that's a typo um it should be october 2nd 2018 um but otherwise they held the meeting satisfying the the current requirements seth is recommending approval of the petition um and we have um the findings in the proposed motion as well as um some conditions of approval the first two conditions are standard what we have been asking for every um special exception use and the third is specific to this um address um because we are considering an accessory marijuana provisioning and retail sales we are reiterating that all of the normal udc requirements for accessory businesses incidental
035to a primary use are shall be in effect and maintained happy to answer any additional questions and i know that the applicants are here as well thank you very much um now we'll open the public hearing for this item this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed 2115 south state street special exception use permit public comment may be made by calling 877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 986-8779-4536 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one by calling on you by the last three digits of your telephone number you can digitally raise your hand by pressing star 9 and once you are um approved to kind of move in to make your public comment you'll hear an automated messed it message that the
036host is allowing you to speak when you unmute your phone to speak please at the same time mute any background noise that you have or move to a quiet area so that we can hear you more clearly um please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and it looks like there is someone on the line who has their hand raised caller with the phone number ending with the number zero nine eight um feel free to unmute yourself and you have three minutes to address the planning commission thank you can you hear me we can't sure okay thank you my name is uh david d pice i live at 2096 south state street we're the residential property almost directly across from this proposal uh thank you to alexis for making those
037corrections on your staff report it makes my comment a lot shorter um i just want to re-emphasize that uh while this area seems to be a hodgepodge seems to the outsiders to be a hodgepodge of industrial commercial and office there is still quite a bit of residential use in this area and that should be the residential component should be an important part when evaluating the value or detriment of this project i read through the operations plan and boy that's uh there's a lot of information there and if the developer follows if the developer follows through with all its promise including in the areas of security voter control and hiring equality employees they should be a good neighbor i do have one concern one question and one request my concern is about the traffic if the
038developer developer meets their low-cost goals and their future revenue projections as detailed in their plan it seems like they'll generate more vehicle trips than the 24 daily vehicle tricks currently being projected also i'll note on the site plan they uh say that the current business stadium towing generates 70 70 plus trips a day and my uh personal observation would be that that travel doesn't come anything close to that number of trips currently coming in i hope during your discussion someone can talk a little bit more about traffic projections my question is about energy usage i thought that ann arbor's ordinance for marijuana growers which is the primary use of this property required a statement about the facility's energy usage and needs and required the installation of solar panels to help meet that energy usage am
039i wrong about this or is that not part of what's being discussed here tonight hope staff can answer that question during your discussion my final point is about a request about the exterior of the building as you know state street is a major corridor into town i'd like to see wait yes we'd like to see the current exterior improved today it is mostly blank wall with a peeling paint job that doesn't seem particularly welcoming i hope you encourage the developer to improve the exterior in a tangible way thank you for your time and attention thank you very much if there's anyone else who wishes to speak on this petition you can digitally raise your hand by pressing star 9. i don't see other callers coming calling in and the other person on the line hasn't
040raised their hand so i will close the public hearing and read the very long motion um the ann arbor city planning commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information including an accompanying site plan finds the petition substantially meets the standards in chapter 55 unified development code section 5.29.5 point d special exceptions and section 5.16.3 point g marijuana facility and therefore approves the 2115 south state street special exception use for an accessory marijuana provisioning center slash marijuana retailer this approval is based on the following findings one the proposed use will be consistent with the mia m1a that's a one not an i sorry m1a limited light industrial district which provides for light industrial uses and accessory retail sales of manufactured products two the proposed use will not adversely impact traffic pedestrians bicyclists circulation
041or road intersections based on the location south state street provides access to the site and the proposed use is consistent with other surrounding uses traffic impact three a site plan documenting the existing and proposed conditions of the site has been submitted as part of this application four through documentation submitted by the petitioner regarding waste disposal inventory tracking security and other methods of operation of the facility the provisioning center slash retailer will be operated in a manner that will not have an adverse impact on the neighboring properties or area and will not have a detrimental impact on natural features this special exception use approval is based on the following conditions one the petitioner obtaining and maintaining both the state of michigan marijuana license and a city of ann arbor marijuana permit and providing documentation to planning
042services within three years of the city planning commission approval date of this petition two the petitioner operating a marijuana business at this address within three years of the city planning commission approval date of this petition three the marijuana provisioning center slash marijuana retail sales are accessory to a permitted primary use marijuana business at 2115 south state street and meet all applicable requirements for accessory and incidental retail uses provided in chapter 55 of the unified development code and that the ann arbor planning commission approves the attached site plan which demonstrates compliance with the applicable special exception use standards as no development which would otherwise require site plan approval has been proposed can i have a commissioner move the motion moved by commissioner silvay seconded by commissioner briggs commissioned discussion of the proposal anybody want to start
043us off commissioner milstein thank you um a couple of things and questions that i uh i guess let me first start with uh questions um so mr leonard i remember this was several years ago um there were i believe at one of our meetings somebody had appeared to talk about a marijuana provisioning center that they wanted to open up on south state street and that parcel was in the township um and it was right on state street and they they spoke to us briefly i i don't remember the extent of it i just remember thinking about it just because i drive by this site on a very regular basis and i drive down this corridor on a regular basis so my question is and we've never run into this scenario that i can think of
044um does the township allow marijuana provisioning centers and if so is there a center that's open there or is going to be open there and would that then cause issues with regards to us and our 600 foot um distance do you know anything about that just because i strictly remember it being in this in this block that we have this conversation and seeing that the site to the i think it's the north and the south or the east and the west whichever direction it is are both township islands do you know anything about that um i recall the conversation i don't to my knowledge it hasn't been established um uh the petitioners actually might know that answer more than better than i do about what the other communities allow or don't allow um i don't
045recall but i don't remember i thought one of the conversations might have been that they were seeking to potentially annex because the township wouldn't allow that use at that site so um so i don't think that use came to fruition for those reasons but i i would have to go back to that specific site address um as to as it relates to the 600 foot requirement because i'm not aware of anything there it we feel that this one complies with our standards but i it's a good question i don't know about our language how it would apply if there was a facility outside of the city's jurisdiction relative to that um that's something i probably have to follow up on with additional research but the short of it is i'm not aware of another facility
046and proximity to this one okay i don't know how i feel about that right now i'm just raising that as a point for other commissioners to maybe think about it so i'm i'm open to feedback on that would you so would you be comfortable letting mr finnick weigh in from sort of what his knowledge of other communities sure thank you um so the township has opted out as of april of 2019 the township has opted out so currently under their ordinance um there would not be a provisioning center um you know allowed or any marijuana facility allowed to operate there and second if i may speak just briefly to the uh to you know hypothetically speaking if there were to be another um facility within the jurisdiction in another jurisdiction um i think that that
047would uh and and i and again i had a bit of a hand in drafting the ordinance uh ann arbor's opt-in ordinance so i'm i remember you know we would we were discussing the the buffers and whatnot and um it would kind of be like a school even if there were a school that was not in the city of ann arbor but it was within a thousand feet of that facility it would still create a problem for that facility within ann arbor and uh i think in this hypothetical i would probably apply that same um that same logic where if there were a provisioning center already there that um somebody would not be able to put one in within 600 feet regardless of whether or not it's a township island and then vice versa so
048i hope that's helpful well i don't know if i'd agree with the regards that you know the township may have other standards at that point so if if someone decided to open up in a township island i'm just just the reason why i bring this up is because we had someone early on that had this conversation with us and i just you know and i also i i do want to get you know i guess more guidance in regards to what the township is doing because i feel like you know the conversation's been ongoing um at least from the little information that i've seen a lot of townships are are looking into this so i i'm just going to leave this up to other commissioners if if somebody else would like to discuss it to
049see if this is a concern of theirs um it would really uh you know it really impact us to have you know two uh marijuana provisioning centers right next door to each other um so just something to uh think about um next piece commissioner melch and i would just um i'm just looking up the language and i would i would concur with mr fennec that our ordinance isn't specific that that site is within 600 feet on a city of an arbor jurisdiction property or anywhere else um so i i just want to concur that i think that that is an act i would agree with that read an interpretation of it and i'm happy to follow up on i would have to fill out more to see if they have any intention of revisiting that
050opt-out i don't know the details of that but i can confirm that there are no licensed facilities within the 600 feet currently regardless of jurisdiction okay i think i would feel better i can add that um direct from the ann arbor township zoning ordinance that it's one sentence marijuana provisioning center or dispensary is not a permitted conditional or accessory use in any zoning district i can't speak to their future plans but they're they currently are prohibited and i don't expect us to know what their future plans are i would it would be great if we could at the very least you know just um maybe not necessarily for this site but for future sites if they are if there are talent violence or it's very close to another municipality to know where they stand with
051you know are they developing something is something in the works um it might be something for us to know um once again i don't know if this is an issue for for me necessarily i just would like to get a little bit more information but i'm also just going to see if my colleagues have any feedback on that um and then next piece i want to talk about was in regards to energy usage our caller had brought that up i guess the question the petitioner um do you have any knowing a little bit more about what's happening with ann arbor with our plans in the next decade do you are there any plans for uh solar panels on the site so currently that is not uh part of the of the plans at this point
052um this uh and again i'm not i'm not totally familiar with when the solar panel requirement would uh you know kicks in for new projects or for you know if it's is it only for like uh you know newly constructed buildings um or things that require site plan approval i'm not sure when it would uh trigger for a project but this this was um filed in 2018 which i believe was uh well before the a20 um ordinance and uh our commitment and um any ordinance surrounding it were came into play but i will say that best practices in the industry right now for cultivation facilities is for the use of leds as opposed to high pressure sodium bulbs and they're far more energy efficient than anything that was uh used in the past so that's
053you know that's the direction they'd be headed for the commission uh for background um we have we have to this point solely focused on the petition which is for the accessory provisioning center and retailer we have i have not discussed at all anything related to the applicant regarding the primary use the grow facility is a permitted use they can open at any point and they could have already opened they have chosen to have the two uses run um or develop simultaneously but when they do submit um so at this point we haven't discussed their permitted use um hasn't even been part of the conversation when they do submit building permits um for their uh primary use we will make discuss all of the requirements with them as well as do all of the enforcement necessary
054now specific there is a specific requirement for a marijuana grower or a marijuana micro business to include 10 percent of its energy usage via solar panels one of the reasons why we haven't discussed it too much with the applicants right now they were going to be a processing facility at first they've changed their business plan to a grow facility again all fine both are permitted principal uses and that is within their purview to their permitted principal uses so when they finalize what their primary use is will and apply all of the um standards and regulations there at this point they're indicating they're going to be a grow facility which is fine when they do those permits and apply for all of their permits and licenses and um certificates of occupancy will handle all of those
055um development requirements then for that side of it the before the planning commission is we've just been talking about the accessory retail got it i believe in others we've asked petitioners to add some sort of solar for when it's been provisioning centers have we not asked for for solar does anybody i i guess i'd like to you know i'd like to maybe push back on that a little bit and just see you know we do now have a plan and i understand um that this application was made in 2018 but at the same time this is a special exemption news which is very different than some of the other things that we've we've uh we've seen the other issue is is the towing facility still going to remain on site is that the plan somebody
056from the petitioner's team can answer yeah there's okay um and is the gate going to stay in place that we see uh pictured um in photos just because the gate looks like it would be a gate that would so the gate's going away okay and then are there um actually are there one thing back backwards the towing company is no longer going to be there but the truck repair facility is going to remain got it okay and then um are there plans to make any improvements to the building visual improvements to the building absolutely okay can you discuss uh what those changes are since that was one of the pieces of feedback that we received sure so um at the absolute very least it does require stripping of the exterior paint because it is peeling
057um they have to resurface the roof potentially replaced depending on the status of that uh inspection it's um standard practice for us to go through and give it a little bit more of a contemporary feel um we usually add hardy board and nietzsche hot panels which are fibers long life lead time items that will add a little bit of visual depth to the wall you build up pack them out slightly so it adds a little bit of shadow gap there is no in uh we're not intending to add any windows to the side because it doesn't work very well in your grow rooms when you have natural light getting pushed through there so unfortunately having that a a tight space for the growth facility we can't add additional windows sometimes we can get around it
058by the way we work our corridors but in this case we could only add windows on the back side so it's a re-skinning painting and general upkeep of of everything on the exterior how about landscaping um there is a drive just the reason i drive by the site probably five times a day so i very familiar with it and the lack of landscaping that's there it does have um it does need a little bit of love yes on the exterior on the landscaping um as of right now we use um it it's had us it has street trees and it has exterior trees but we bring in um casey runspin to do landscaping plans for the exterior of the building once it's it's up um but in terms of just general we we claim those
059as green space at the moment but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're lawn it's usually low plantings or some sort of ornamental grass or something up in the front and then if we can fit it i think in the island to the south a tree would be appropriate that's right i can't see you is the screen share helpful or i can take it down um i'm good it's it always looks pretty on the screen um so thank you um and then one last thing and then i'll hand it off um so i noticed that our motion uh does not have anything about hours which we typically see hours of operation um can we include that i know it's part of the operational plan but can we include that in the motion um unless somebody has
060an objection to it i think it's let's just keep up that standard since we we've seen it across all the all the other motions that we made in regards to special exam exemption uses so um i'll wait for feedback from others and then i will make that amendment thank you and may i clarify one thing that the towing company i don't want there to be any confusion the towing yard will remain um on the site in the back however that location um they and and they will be removing the gate um but that location uh it's really only used for football saturdays and towing off of uh the golf course so to clarify it will it will remain but just to uh you know to kind of describe the pattern of use there it's very
061it's it's used very minimally is there anything else that you had at alex okay commissioner gibb randall so i'm a little confused on what we're approving in some ways because when we had done our um our discussion i don't know was that about a year ago or something where we were talking about you know covering 10 percent with solar and all that kind of in some 10 of their energy needs with solar so that does not get approved at this stage mr leo um it is not approved it is not a requirement of the provisioning center or retailer but that is a all yeah all provisioning center retailers are special exception uses whether they are principal or accessory now um in the m1a district there are a couple marijuana businesses that are just permitted and
062including those are processing facilities and grow facilities um it is entirely the um applicant's choice when to open that that primary business they just have chosen not to do it yet um but they've not heard this application right it's not they could they could have done it yesterday they could have done it two years ago um when they apply for permits which won't go through the planning commission because they permitted use when they apply permits though we'll look at their permits apply all the development standards um they'll and they'll also have to apply for their permits with the city clerk and the state so we will apply the regulations for growth facilities when they open the grow facility right so that it's parallel to this but it's not part of this um okay um and
063like i said they have they they could open but they're choosing and it's fine but they are choosing to wait and do all construct all renovations at the same time okay and i just just to be crystal clear if they proceed with the grow facility they will submit permits to build out the space they will as part of that we will review those permits not only for building codes but to make sure that they are meeting in this case the 10 renewable energy standard that you set forth so if they're going to do a grow or micro business they will have to demonstrate compliance with that then we will issue the permits they will conduct that be inspected and then ultimately approved as uh as alexis is indicating if they were to change their business
064model and shift that to a processing facility we don't have that same requirement for solar panels they would that would not be pertinent to that permit it would just be more focused on building permit requirements um and we don't have the standard of for provisioning centers or retailers right to commission commissioner milstein's question um you know part of the special exception use is compliance with master plan so that is a conversation you can have with with the petitioners um i think the my my thought is that you know we set that standard sort of as a more automatic to sort of take some of the judgment out of that um and i i think um i don't think we've actually had a lot of growth facilities come to the planning commission i think most of
065our conversation about solar has actually been with just larger other types of projects because they're often just a permitted use in those districts right right okay that's that's very helpful to know um and i guess what i would just suggest to the petitioner is see what's on the horizon that's coming if you become a growth facility and that if you are doing plans now you might think about your roof loading and you know the things where you're getting conduit up to your roof and all those kinds of issues that would come with that because that is something that we are expecting of growth facilities and i just want to give you a little bit of context here they are massive energy hogs in huge ways we can literally undo our carbon neutrality goals if we
066had some decent-sized growing facilities in this area it is incredible how much energy growth facilities use and i hope that the petitioner and the owners are listening to this because as an industry i think you all have to take some responsibility for this because the crazy energy use that you all are um creating by growing indoors 24 7 with unbelievable amounts of led lights are having an impact on the rest of us in terms of emissions so please think about the big picture with this because you need to as an industry we are taking a small step in this but i would really hope that you all start to have discussions with colleagues and people across the industry to start to take responsibility for what this really means in terms of your carbon footprint on
067this planet it's really serious if you start looking into the impact that you all have so we're only going to require so much this doesn't look like a massive growth facility but i just want to impress upon you that this is a really serious thing and that i hope you all take it seriously i have a few other things i want to ask about too um uh we usually get exterior elevations from you all when you come before us was there a reason you because i think that's something we've kind of come to expect that like the last time you were in front of us you had exterior elevations so um i guess that's something that i don't know if that's part of their checklist or not in terms of staff but um i think
068it's something that is nice for us to be able to see about what what's going to be happening from the road i know it's going to be more closed off because it's a grow facility and that you have limitations in terms of windows um but that's something that i think that should be kind of a a standard um piece of the um of what you all bring before us because i i can't remember many that didn't have that um as part of what they submitted um and then um oh i know um so uh around your bike parking there was grass and it's on a on a concrete pad but i would like to make sure you are connecting um the place where the bikes have to you know what whatever way you're you're getting
069them there whether it's kind of through the parking lot or from the sidewalk that gets there make sure that there's a a a connection that is pavement all the way um in through there and that i would hope that some of those parking lot islands that you are creating which you know i'm glad you're taking some of those out of impervious surface but i think that it would be excellent to add some canopy trees in places that wouldn't preclude you from being able to do the solar that you may need to do but i think some of those ones towards the back on the east side um would be appropriate for something like that so um i think any way that you can shade the pavement is is a good thing so those uh those
070were my those are my questions and then i guess the only thing left was what the neighbor brought up around traffic um and i would just say from my own kind of personal observations of walking by some of these facilities there's a lot of traffic actually i've been surprised by how many cars pull in and out of these things and so i'm just wondering uh from staff if there are i'm not saying that you know we need a traffic light here but have has there become more kind of fine-tuned understanding of the traffic in and out of these facilities given that the percent of retail that is there and things like that is there that's has that become any more known as um they have been locating in ann arbor and and that we're kind
071of getting some you know meaningful patterns on the ground i don't know if staff have any or or or the petitioner frankly if there's any um it just it seems like there are there is a lot and there's a lot of in and out i've i've noticed so do we have anything staff wise in terms of like understanding that in a more fine-tuned way i know they probably don't have to do a traffic analysis i would imagine um but have you all been kind of noticing things or getting any reports from people or things like that that would just allow us to become a little bit more um aware of what is happening with the actual patterns on the ground i know that um from speaking to our traffic engineers that um this is a
072new land use and the the bible for the traffic engineers is the ite manual which is the institute of transportation engineers they study all land uses basically they average them out they produce um manuals about expected trip generation and it's a chart based on size of the use um they have charts for urban locations in rural and semi and suburban um but um they don't have much data the ite institute they don't have much data the data that they do have um often was collected and analyzed in colorado and other states that were the first adopters and that was also it was heavily skewed towards medicinal provisioning centers or medical card centers um so our traffic engineers um are using that the the published information as well as their local expertise local knowledge um and
073they are uh working on it as they go as all transportation engineers are i i'm under the impression from our traffic engineers that what we're seeing is the traffic slash trips are not uh have not caused um problems but we we have been seeing pre-pandemic parking there's been parking complaints parking concerns that we are treating them the marijuana facilities as just general retail use for parking standards and they are um that may be low um that more on-site parking more than trip generation is the initial impressions that were that feedback is coming back um this site has um by having two a couple of uses on it it's a bigger building it has a little bit more parking um might be a better fit than some others because there's a little bit extra here for
074parking overflow during the pandemic some of the provisioning centers are offering um like curbside pickup and not exactly drive-throughs it's not like they're adding windows but they're offering other things that um have quicker turnover less parking needs um so it's a long way of saying the traffic engineers recognize that they don't have ideal data but they are collecting it they are continually trying to figure out the what the right mix is what the right thresholds are and the pandemic is throwing a wrench in the works and i think we're all just trying to use some common sense um in this particular case in my common sense there's a center turn lane in state street so turning movements should be better than other locations and there is um some decent extra there's a lot of asphalt
075here in this case we can use that to our advantage otherwise um it this is a um use your best judgment in this case because it's such a new land use yeah yeah that's that's helpful i wondered and i'm just curious from the petitioners you know um mr fennick and both of you actually have been involved in quite a few of these projects just and again i'm not saying go and do a traffic study or like have a light in front of your facility i'm just curious from your own experience with several of these you know because you both have done quite a few projects in town just for our own understanding as as we live with these more what is what are your impressions do you feel like that number's low like what what's
076your what's yours i do based on sort of what i see and some in my neighborhood but i don't know you know i'm not sitting there all day checking things off either so all right second what uh alexis had said i i think that on a lot of these sites it was it was more of a parking issue than a trip's issue um especially when you have like a 1200 square foot standalone structure or 1500 square foot standalone structure those become almost impossible to park once you get the minimum the maximum it's like six and seven or something like that um and then you take away one of those as a full fully band accessible space you're you're really operating under the gun to get people in and out and then you need a little
077bit extra space so i think that that causes a little bit extra impervious because you need circulation space and overflow space a little bit um which at times can be hard to sell to you guys um as to why we need it but um i would say from a trip standpoint that you get different peaks you know it's it's not um yeah and it's it's not at the same time as um general um you know rush hour traffic uh i i think that you get ebbs and flows during the day and that's why most of these facilities i mean you see them opening at 10 o'clock that's uh um far past the the am peak hours that you would see for rush hour traffic so i i think trips can be an issue if the
078artery is not big enough to handle it but i think state street is is adequate um but parking i think will always be a struggle with these facilities i mean i don't i don't know if the largest size facility that you guys have or the maximum parking that it has but um the smaller ones will struggle if i may add um just anecdotally to what is happening in town um uh first of all the the ite metric is it does account for recreational sales as well and so it was kind of you know applying that um metric to ann arbor prior to um uh wreck passing in michigan it was already that those trips are kind of baked in already and that 24 number that the caller mentioned um that's a peak those are peaks
079not not that's not throughout the day but that's like peak hours got it so um just to clarify that part but you know really aside from that first couple those first couple days where we had wrecked sales that started and there was you know uh one or two shops in town that were like the first one some of the first few that had recreational sales and admittedly that you know created some issues um we we really haven't seen a lot of uh traffic um concerns i will echo what kyle mentioned in terms of the uh in terms of the uh parking situation you know in certain on certain projects that we've worked on before there you know we're parking issues and um frankly with curbside now and whenever that executive order is lifted then you
080know they'll rethink the model but also you know it's not a large uh there's not a lot of space inside the actual provisioning center so the model is really gonna be a thought of there's going to be a lot of delivery you know the goal would be delivery and um also uh app based purchases so that people are just basically buying online and then coming there and the trips are real short so um i don't i don't anticipate and based on like like i said based on what we've seen from other locations that have a larger facility a smaller parking lot and um uh on you know a main artery even at peak times we're just really not seeing a ton of congestion in that area okay thank you that's it for me commissioner briggs
081um just a couple of things that haven't gotten discussed yet um reading through the citizen participation meeting that you had it sounded like the there were just a couple of folks that attended that and the business owner had some concerns around parking which seemed like that they got um addressed satisfactorily um though the one piece that one of the neighbors had brought up was i think issues maybe around security and discussions around your lighting plan had been something that was brought forward in terms of addressing those concerns and you these sometimes the sense of lighting as equating to safety is something that we're trying to address a little bit in the city obviously lighting can help is important in in to some degree in terms of safety but we also are on the brink of
082adopting a dark skies ordinance which is complementing our carbon neutrality goals as well and so just wanted to get a sense of better of what that lighting plan looks like um obviously it's not in our ordinance yet and so you haven't been able to take a good look at it but for um kind of broadly speaking you know we're we're ideally we're not requiring parking lots to be lit all night long it's something that they in the future that they can be lit but at a lower level of lighting it would be really shielding lights um much more effectively um so if you could just talk a little bit about what you're thinking about doing yeah um actually uh standard practice we use all dark sky compliant fixtures uh whenever we are doing any exterior
083lighting there's no plan for anything way out in the parking lot or anything like that but from a security standpoint we like to light the perimeter of the building and all fixtures would be down lights that are it's it's a lithonia wst if you wanted to look at that up later but uh we have no problem complying with that and adding that in the um if we get approved as a condition great and if you could kind of think about i think from the neighbors perspective they may not uh we don't want to get anywhere near the property line with the light bleed yeah exactly and if it's possible i mean i think it's just a lot nicer actually to have that have those lights um super low at nighttime or off if possible um
084and then just to go back i can't remember which commissioner brought this up now just the in terms of that i think it was commissioner milstein in terms of the hours of operation that's another p i agree that those should be in the um in the um whatever a lot of lots of words but the piece around um i was looking at the hours of operation they seem a little bit later than i remember um i was passing but it's been a while since we've had one of these um next to a residential area and so it seemed like night it's i seem to recall that 8pm might have been closing hours but i don't want to my memory is not always greatest on these sorts of things i just thought maybe um that could
085be double checked what we've done in the past so we can be consistent with that um and i think that's that's it for my perspective thank you commissioner sobe just a couple of things the first is for accessory use is there a limited on square footage in terms of how we have this squared out for what we're proving alexis i was trying to understand so like uh on the map the provisioning center is called at 216 square feet but it's also landlocked so if nothing else happens and they just open the provisioning center without the grow they don't have exterior entry so i'm just trying to understand how square footage is calculated for that use if you can't actually access the use so two things um uh first and maybe foremost um they cannot open
086the this this provisioning center until the principal use the primary use is opened um but then second so we've um gone over the floor plan um a couple different times and our standard was essentially you need to be able to cut off the provisioning center um floor area i'll pull up the floor plan cut it off and then there's and without any effect to the principal use um got it hope that makes sense i'll screen share i know it takes a second there somebody shout when it's loaded you're there okay so so um they're a little they're a tiny bit undersized um based on the 10 but this is the only space that is the sole purpose is the retail space all of the other facilities are shared um and are needed for the grow
087facility um um so or they could pivot and make it a processing facility or some other permitted use but um this vestibule and storage um it serves both facilities and it's only this retail space that its sole purpose and no other reason for being is the um is this um space here um and that was our uh that is the way that we um determine when you have whatever principal use and an accessory retail in the industrial district i recognize that for these the marijuana uses um businesses come with a little extra baggage um state requirements for secure openings and storage and lock boxes and all kinds of things that the applicants know a little bit more about which is a little bit extra burden than say if this was um a rubber band factory
088and they're just heaven and they're selling some rubber bands um in the showroom um but it is what it is for them it's their sort they have a small space so they get a small retail facility but that was where um how we determine what counts to what and you will need to be and here you can cut off this retail space or close it and have no effect on the grow facility and i did mention did i that um they can't um open the all right i'm nodding okay yep uh my other question was on signage uh in the community meeting there was talk about concern of traffic going into the neighboring property and parking there and that signage additional signage would be included to clarify where to enter um but since we don't
089have any elevations and i don't see any kind of marquee signs or anything on the site plan i'm curious from the partition petitioner if there's additional signage planned and what that's going to look like i can adjust one tiny component before kyle answers um because signage is not part of site plan approvals we typically tell people actually leave it off we don't want to imply that anything has been approved reviewed or approved signage requires a separate sign permit so um yes no elevations were provided even if they were there probably wouldn't be any signage we typically tell people to take it off um and um and i'll let kyle answer their plans though uh at this point we'd still be we are still designing what we put on the outside um but at any way
090we were comfortable putting something in there as a condition um that we will work with that neighbor to get something that they agree with and that satisfies the requirement of making sure the traffic doesn't flow over into their property um it that was kind of just the other you know looking at the site plan and how the kind of driveway blends between them a little bit more yeah it's a pretty strange situation so it and i mean and it's it's odd right we're talking about trip counts and drop-offs versus how much parking but concerned with parking on the adjacent one um i think that would be important to make sure that we've got clarification on the parking area uh especially because it came up in comments too um i mean and that's it goes to
091other elevation issues if this is grow seeing where solar panels are on the roof if they're on the facade side if they're on the back side of this if they all fit or not or if we're going to start seeing carport solar panels for this um because you know like commissioner gibrano said it's a it's a big energy suck and 10 10 might be more than the roof area you have um to kind of see how this really plays out to get capture it um we've been tiering our lights um with the leds too so it's not just one size led fits all um there's three different varieties and they go back and forth between the two but essentially they come they're about half of what the old grow lights used to be in terms
092of um wattage and that converts to btus which means that we actually use a lot less energy on the air conditioning side and another strategy is to have you i'm sorry have you done calculations on approximately what would be required for the grow no we have not done the calculations for vessel accounts on this side yet that's part of that is because we have to size the vrf system the mechanical side to understand our full energy load okay that's all i have for now commissioner abrams but while i'm doing this i don't uh before you go um commissioner briggs brought up like hours and uh if somebody's doing research i've been trying to type it in great i was thinking the one on packard by um oz music um is kind of is this similar
093kind of a neighborhood setting um also there's the one that's on it's behind the 7-eleven off of state i don't know what that little road is there but that's those were the two that came to my mind sorry now commissioner abrams oh i was gonna ask a question also about ours or just um commissioner briggs did you did you refer to hours which were submitted for this facility i didn't see that anywhere where yeah they're they're in the operations plan and they are um they probably know them off the top of their head but they are yeah ten to nine and then sunday ten to six which i think the sunday hours seem typical i it just i just can't remember what we've done in the past but i remember for a while there we
094had these so many in a row that we were pretty consistent about it and it's it's been a little while since we've had one um maybe i could just uh use a little bit of direction from staff is is like is that within the purview of this body to determine to write approve hours of operation yeah okay um and then oh no hold on it's gonna slip oh i know sorry uh also it's just some clarification from staff so uh it's this conversation has been very useful for me and uh many of my questions have been answered um but this distinction between the the permitted use and the special exception use i just want a little bit of clarification here so when will there be a moment when this body sees a site plan for
095the permitted use no right okay so the kind of questions about the solar there will not be any other opportunity where these questions around solar could would arise but it's just written into the ordinance so okay um and are elevations are required part of this they're not a required part of this submission or we would see them is it always the case that there that elevations are not required for yeah okay we uh all my questions are just nonsense just as as it relates to the architectural elevations um you may recall recently we uh updated some uh reorganization of our site plan content requirements and we more specifically created one for conditions such as this for special exception uses where knows what we say no physical development is occurring that is is applying a special
096exception used to an existing building and so through that through those requirements we have limited the content that is required for such site plans and architectural elevations are not part of that we can revisit that in the future but they're not required okay no that makes sense uh okay thank you that's all i had commissioner hammerschmidt i had a question for staff um and i could be remembering this incorrectly since it's been a while since we've talked about anything marijuana really did and i was not on the commission when you guys were approving lots and lots of things but is there a limit on the number of special exception use permits that we can give out for the provision centers there is it's 28 and this is number 28. oh okay wow all right um
097so what would happen that's interesting what would happen if if this was approved but for some reason like the growth like if somebody came in behind them would they look what would happen if this didn't end up opening would we give like uh you're next in line um we have a wait list um fun fact they were on it and uh they were 29 um the planning commission denied one uh so we accepted 28 initial applications um approximately two years ago um on our on our opening day and um we had a few who asked to remain on a waitlist planning commission denied one application and so um when that was firmly um done um this one became this one was called up um and we have one or two we are we must tell
098people um you can we'll take your application and it can you can remain waiting but we have no idea if and when you'll ever come off the waitlist um we have 28 we are by code we can give out 28 special exception uses and 28 licenses um you have three years to activate um and to open the business we are still within the window of what was first approved um it has not been three years since we started accepting applications and approving um so there is a and i would say totally off the cuff half have opened um or are opening and the other half um i personally am not too sure about but they have time um most of them have time to to open so first we have to wait until the window
099for opening um expires and then we have to figure out calling people off the waitlist they still need to meet all the other requirements though spacing requirements um and there they have to figure out whether they're at their they can hold the lease for that long and so forth but um i think i'm getting a little off track but um we we have a short wait list it seems like most people have actually not not many people are on it because it's so um uh unknown but yeah 28 is the limit we have 28 and we're still in the window for what's going to happen to the original bunch just a little bit more refined to that of the 27 that have been approved already um uh eight of those have not yet received the
100required state license to operate a provisioning center the deadline for those ranges from march of 2021 to november of 2022. okay so we could potentially see more if that doesn't get doesn't approve so is that what took so long like i know you you said like the date of the um citizen participation meeting was 2018 is it because of the waitlist that this took so long to get before us okay well there's litigation also um for the prior one that was denied and that took the better part of the year to get resolved um they were waiting you know this project um we initially were told we were and you know we started the process of doing a review and then um you know we had to kind of hit the brakes when um we
101were told that we need to wait until the litigation was resolved and so um it took uh it took a while yeah i was that was i was really confused with that date like why but that that all makes a lot more sense i would also just add that this petition also got i bounced this around my our team a little bit so i think we just also had some processing delays and so my apologies to the petitioners on that but but i think the biggers the more significant issue was basically waiting for the ability that we knew that we had a permit to issue right all my other things were addressed previously so i think that's it thank you and if i may speak to hours um really quickly because i i just pulled
102up um some other locations in town um the the location you were speaking of next to other um that you were speaking of next to the 7-eleven their hours um they're 9 to 9 p.m um and then you know bloom on miller um i'm thinking of all the places that are near kind of like housing developments or neighborhoods they they have hours until nine um but i do you know in every other project that that um i've been involved with there there's always language and the conditions in terms of hours and it has varied a little bit i think in the beginning some of the first few that were approved their hours might have been a little different than um you know then after a couple you know you saw a couple more of them
103so and then the one on packard by oz music that one um you know uh i believe it's 8 p.m or 9 p.m as well but um so but i would i we would agree that um hours in the conditions is completely uh appropriate and it was expected i honestly i didn't look at the uh i didn't look at the resolution um for that part so but we're you know we fully expect that to be included excellent um anything else i know that i'm expecting a motion for uh to for to amend um i have something else to add you have want is are you making that motion alex or not yet i was going to but go ahead and i'll make it after you're done okay so i was just going to and i
104was going to actually make a motion too actually it's a separate amendment though um that kind of picks up on a couple of threads so i think that we kind of discuss the traffic which is there's the i t e that effectively comes up with those numbers and established kind of what time that is so i think that's taken care of um i think that most of my other questions like again thinking about what limits to put on this given the proxy given what we've done to other um projects or other um special exception uses is appropriate to that end i know and a lot of those other projects you know there's been i feel like they've all had some kind of weird sidewalk issue many of them had a lot of sidewalk issues and
105this one i don't think is the case because this the stage tree has just been redone is that fair i haven't been that way in a while so actually i'm is that fair that the sidewalk is in decent condition here okay that also like that we don't see i i know that the one that's over by oz music comes to mind like the idea of making sure that the paint that it was repainted was a big deal like i remember that us being us talking about that and so the motion that i would be especially because we haven't seen um we haven't seen kind of the uh whatever the plan that shows you know the facade i was thinking that it might be appropriate to make a motion that to add a condition contingent upon
106like facade improvements which at minimum need to include like repainting um because i think that that's really i think that's really i mean i know that that's the petitioner's intent but i don't think it's unreasonable given what we've asked of other special exception uses is that if i make that motion will someone that effectively a motion to amend um the petition or the language to add a condition that there be physical improvement to the facade at least repainting the facade the for the you referenced another petition the condition placed on that uh addition was exterior improvements including repainting of the building and new lighting i would say a version of that that you were referencing might be architectural exterior improvements at a minimum including repainting of the building but to be clear that that is
107that's leaving some discretion and judgment which i'm happy i think that the petitioners and staff can can satisfy that um and just setting at that high level sets the expectation clearly that that there has to be a plan to address the aesthetics of that building i'm not worried about it our experience with these facilities is that they're done at a high quality nature they tend to look really nice but we can memorialize it in that way totally agreed my experience has been that these like are aesthetic improvements in almost every single situation um so i just want to make sure that we've got some guarantee for that so i like what you read um the lighting part is not other than it was brought up so and that there it was discussed um maybe the
108the addition of the lighting would be lighting that complies with that is dark skies compliant and just put that in now seconded by commissioner milstein and then i make it and can i make a friendly amendment to that absolutely can we add language that says including but not limited to the items that mr london mentioned and can we also add to that list landscaping and also parking lot repaving and restriping or i shouldn't say repaving parking lot improvements including restriping because i actually don't know if it needs to be repaved or not i'm that is totally friendly to me discussion of that proposed condition all in favor please say yes or raise a hand any opposed i don't see any hands so that's now we have an amended motion is there another uh yes commissioner
109milstein and i further would like to amend that the hours operation the hours of operations are to be monday um monday through sunday uh uh i guess the hour's operations are to be at a maximum of monday through saturday ten to nine and sunday ten to six um the reason i say maximum is in case they wanna not work those hours they want to work shorter hours you must work those hours second and by commissioner briggs any discussion commissioner briggs just to be consistent if we had something that was nine to nine in another one i think it's reasonable doesn't sound like that's their desire but i don't wanna i just i just wanna make sure we're consistent with the past um whatever that was they've we've um in the research i've done we've um
110been inconsistent but there have been many that started at eight or nine so i think that'd be appropriate that's finally nine to nine monday through saturday and then ten to six on sunday is the ten to six consistent in the past mr leonard um your previous um approvals on sundays have been nine to eight ten to eight twelve to seven and no no hour restrictions commissioner g randall they've done it a lot on the context so that's partly why we're inconsistent because i think we thought about like is it in a neighborhood what are the other businesses that are around it and what are their hours i know that we've had some of those discussions before and so uh like yeah the ones the ones i just referenced were bloom 702 south main which is
111near the the packard near the oz music 617 packard was one of them that's downtown the old bakery under the record store his name i'm escaping right now a plymouth road site and then 202 miller was the corner of miller and ashley and east ellsworth so um so i in short i think nine to nine monday through saturday makes sense um maybe ten to seven somewhere in the middle of some of the other residential associated ones and i would yeah i this is zoned m so like um you know it there are there are residences around there that i think we should be sensitive to but it's it's it's a manufacturing zoning which is kind of the most intense so commissioner abrams i would be hesitant to limit the hours beyond what like narrow the
112hours compared to other ones i can't imagine their facility like this doesn't seem to be what am i trying to say there are other businesses in this corridor that are open late like the oasis hot tub gardens or it i don't think so i mean if the petitioner is comfortable with it i guess it's fine but i'm not sure i feel compelled to limit their sunday hours in a way that's more limited than other facilities which are maybe in closer proximity to residences um did was that a question that you posed to the petitioner commissioner abrams uh maybe in a minute but i would be curious to hear commissioner milstein be since it's his amendment yeah sure commissioner millstein so i think the only difference is so this quarter has some residential but very limited
113and there's a residential property across the street hence the reason i think restricting the hours and since they've already said that they per their operations plan it's sunday ten to six and we're already giving them more hours if the residential component wasn't there across the street i would feel totally differently where i wouldn't be pushing this subject um what are the mr leonard what are the that makes sense um what are the bloom hours bloom is no hour restrictions yeah yeah so maybe maybe the petitioner could weigh in um thank you um i think the nine to nine during the week and on saturdays is you know perfectly acceptable and um and the you know i mean even ten to seven on sundays um you know would also you know we would not be opposed
114to that one thing i would like to kind of um i don't know how you can i don't know how you can amend the language uh but obviously we're only the seu is only applicable to the provisioning center but because this is an accessory provisioning center and you know the cultivation facility may have you know different hours of operation i wouldn't want there to be any confusion that the traffic or anything that was going on in the parking lot or things happening within the cultivation facility are in some way in violation of this condition so while the seo is specific to you know the the accessory provisioning center i i would feel more comfortable i guess if there was some language that that delineated between the two uses in terms of hours if that were
115acceptable so in my mind it would it would be a friendly amendment to just spell out the hours of operation for the accessory provisioning center shall not exceed these that it's friendly okay any other discussion of what of the hours of operation proposed amendment which again is nine to nine monday through saturday ten to seven on no yes ten to seven on sunday and that it would apply to be clear only to the accessory retail component all in favor of the amendment please say yes yes yes all right any opposed no so that's everybody okay so now we have the main gigantic motion that i initially read that has been amended twice one about physical improvements including landscaping um and re-striping the parking lot and the second one with hours any other discussion of this
116now amended motion we need to include the bike thing or can you handle that brett in the next round in terms of um just making sure that there's pavement that there's not grass surrounding the bike parking we need to be part of this or is that something that you all can just handle during the permit process um i'm i'm comfortable uh just making sure that that happens if the petitioner i just want to be clear that's not objectionable to the petitioner to make sure that that happens i don't know okay yeah now we'll ensure that that happens and if it doesn't happen it's my fault i'll come after you with my bike [Laughter] and your muddy feet for not having muddy bike tires technically but you got to walk your bike through anyway i need
117sleep guys um any other com discussion i think we're ready for a roll call vote mr leonard commissioner briggs yes commissioner mills yes commissioner milstein okay uh commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner ackerman yes commissioner sovay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes it is approved very good thank you all thank you and if i may add to the commissioners who are leaving this body thank you for your service here and we look forward to the next chapter so thank you all very good all right now we are back to item number nine um just a minute that was a long motion on the other one uh so this is 9a unfinished business back to our city planning commission fiscal year 2022 work program mr leonard you are the petitioner who has given us your presentation
118we have a can we have a body break for yes let's take uh let's take six minutes so we'll come back at nine okay that sounds great thank you yep thank you yeah to lead the discussion on work plan yes um so um as part of your regular function you um bylaws uh direct us to work on a work program um the goal is to obviously establish our priorities and it you know helps me to understand what how i should be thinking about the resources for myself and my team to help support your priorities that's the planning commission um i would say that while i am um proud of the the volume of accomplishment that has happened over the last couple years i'll be the first to admit sometimes the work program um falls down
119the bottom of the list as we're sort of wrestling with emerging issues or emerging directions you name it but nonetheless i still think it's a valuable tool even if even if we don't get it all done i think it's still keeps me and the planning commission honest as to the things that resonate as important and of a high value for us as a community to be working on and so when i first presented the draft of this to you it was coming i think at like 11 30 after a particularly long meeting and we postponed it and at that time um i must have been sort of channeling what was going to occur because the recommendation at that time was like there's a lot of stuff in here and i need you guys to cut
120half of it out and since that time because because of some progress on a lot of fronts in those subsequent months as well as um i just probably am blocking out some anxiety i i'm not proposing that now and in fact i've added a couple of things to your proposed work plan so um generally i've shared this with the packet and with you in advance i'm just gonna sort of go over what i'm proposing and um then we can jump into it uh the first uh the first uh segment of the proposed work plan is what i'm calling projects this would be both master plan type projects as well as other projects that aren't really ordinance related and there's three projects on proposed on here one is the capital improvements plan this is an annual
121function that the planning commission undertakes you've uh we recently had a work session about the sort of next phase of that work and how it's been restructured a little bit um the fabulous deb gosselinois is a great a steward of that process for the city um master planning update i've shifted this a little bit obviously we went through and some of the planning commissioners were involved in this process we had gone through an rfp process solicited consultant proposals to really tackle our master plan on a holistic level that is um you know absolutely um starting not starting over but a comprehensive community visioning analysis of our master plan and really a comprehensive update of our master plan land use documents unfortunately through a lot of hard work from commissioners from other city staff from some
122citizens that joined us on that journey ultimately that was indefinitely postponed a large part in part to the sort of uncertain financial situation of the city in this time of pandemic and so um i am proposing that we we as the planning commission shouldn't um take that as sort of the determinant path forward and in fact we should find a different way to start updating our master plan and so i'm envisioning that we put together the master plan review subcommittee which many of you are a member of and we would probably start with a bit of dialogue about i would envision identifying some components or approaches or aspects of the master plan that we could perhaps bite off in chunks and then prioritize those and figure out which one we want to take on and
123start the work to update that aspect of our master plan then i've added a new project and i want to be clear that i don't envision this as part of a master plan but i want i'm proposing that we start a conversation with our community about single-family zoning in this in this time of heightened attention to racial equity to sustainability to poor poor choices of us as a government in the past i i think this conversation is happening in our community it's happening on a larger national scale about the legacy of single-family zoning how it evolved the impacts that it has had to communities particularly to separate socioeconomic populations in our communities and you know i i i think again at its simplest i think this conversation is happening on a national level i think
124it's happening within our community and i think it's a really hard conversation for us to have um single family zoning does have a history of having adverse impacts to people of color it has an adverse impact on affordability at times but it also has a lot of aspects of wealth creation in households and people in our community and elsewhere i i think i'm proposing that we start this conversation without a goal in mind without an objective in mind just to be part of that trend where people are exploring this in their communities and the legacies of these districts and how we should maybe start to think about them differently but again i think i think there's a lot of education is part of that conversation prior to us um leaping towards any policy direction or
125consideration associated with it um so i'll stop there for the sort of project oriented that last piece i actually had some conversations about this i would envision we actually appoint a subcommittee that might be comprised of both some planning commissioners but it might be comprised of other community members as well to help us craft um and and have this conversation so um now i'll really stop and see if you have any thoughts on that before we should maybe shift to the proposed ordinance work and then clear i think we put it in we decided that we were going to have a public hearing and i think that i see a couple people on the line so i don't know if you want to make the presentation and then we'll come back for discussion is that
126apologies yep my apologies i forgot about that um so let's shift into the next segment of the of the work plan and that is um very very ordinance heavy um updates to the udc this is obviously where we put our um this is where we take the policies that have already been established or desired and put them into code to ensure that we are getting the type of development in the city that we desire there's a lot of ordinance amendments that are going on and a lot of them are close to resolution i believe on the side ordinance has already been considered by city council once it's coming back in december there might be some small tweaks to that based on a recent court decision but largely i believe that that's in the final stages
127of resolution we are scheduled for november 16th to have the first reading of electric vehicle parking ordinance and the solar height exemption and solar accessory structural ordinances that you considered those are all currently scheduled for november 16th for first reading that would put them in december for second reading outdoor lighting um i have inserted myself into that conversation a bit there was i think i sensed that there was some frustration about how we're regulating that from a zoning perspective its relationship to non-conformities i don't know that i will be able to solve that but both myself and our city attorney's office have been starting to just sort of frankly brainstorm that a little bit to see if there are some options to take some portions of the outdoor lighting regulations and advance their implementation in
128the city more quickly than through a zoning framework again i just want to be clear i don't know that we'll be able to get there that's caused some delay before progressed from your action to the city council nonetheless i still anticipate that coming up in early 2021 unless something really substantially is different about it in which case we might make the decision to bring it back to you um that you passed a series of uh udc technical amendments um i anticipate those um those were um those will probably go to the city council in december for first reading while they're largely ready to go i think i appreciate the feedback that i've got from the administrator and my boss that maybe i was just putting too much on one agenda and it wouldn't hurt to
129let people go to bed once in a while then we also have on november 16th the proposed floodplain overlay zoning district which would be a second reading in december um you'll recall that we've made good progress we believe on proposed uh planned project modifications alexis is working on some final tweaks to those so all of those in addition to two city city council directed amendments that are underway one is recommendations on the c1a and c1ar zoning districts and the other one is site plan review thresholds i anticipate making some progress on the c1a and c1ar presenting some potential language for year consideration by the end of this calendar year i don't think it'll be resolved by the end of the calendar year but we'll provide an update to the city council that progress at that
130time site plan review thresholds i definitely don't anticipate presenting any language for ordinance amendments uh to either you or the city council by the end of the calendar year but rather working with the planning commission to adopt some direction to move forward in that regard in response to that city council direction that is the review of site plan thresholds for small or modest projects to maybe facilitate them make them a little easier uh transit-oriented development um has started and then stopped um we were working on that the city council earlier this year had considered a resolution to prioritize that it was tabled based on that frankly i just made sort of the resource decision that i didn't want to put a lot of time into that if there didn't seem to be widespread support for
131it i think that there's probably i think that that ordinance is going to be um uh i think it's gonna be reconsidered um the um appropriateness to take that up as a priority given how it relates to so many of the city's climate change goals particularly and then parking standards is something that i keep presenting to you and i think it's time that i actually do it for you and a new one is accessory buildings and structures accessory buildings and structures i think our ordinance is currently quite convoluted in how they are regulated and i would you have to go to actually several different places in our ordinance to understand the regulations for things like garages or flagpoles or pools or play structures you name it and i think that our ordinance should not only
132be a more clear from frankly selfishly a way for us to be able to efficiently administer it but it should be a lot more easy and clear for the public to understand what they can and they cannot do other properties and right now it's a little so um those are all of my proposed uh work plan items um i'm framing this actually as potentially a two-year work plan actually um but i'm sort of thinking it i i was starting to think about it a little bit like the capital improvements plan where maybe every other year we sort of really throw it out the window and just open brainstorm but then maybe we sort of commit to these um over a multi-year period to really try and make some progress on them so with that maybe
133we can shift to okay unless you have any questions prior to that thank you very much i have comments which are all complementary but i'll uh wait after until after public hearing um this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed work plan public comment may be made by calling 877-850 and then entering meeting id 986-8779-4536 city staff will select callers that have digitally raised their hand you do that by pressing star nine and mr leonard will call on you by the last three digits of your phone number um you'll get an automated announcement that you are allowed to speak you might still have to unmute your phone um but when you do that please move to a quiet area and mute any other background noise so that
134we can hear you clearly and please do state your name and address at the beginning of your comments again folks on the line if you would like to provide a public comment about the work plan you can raise your hand by pressing star 9. i don't see any hands if people come in urgently well i'll keep my eyes on that but um do any planning commissioners want to oh i need to breed the motion sorry let me read the motion and then we can discuss it um the motion is the ann arbor city planning commission hereby adopts the city planning commission fiscal year 2021 2022 work plan moved by commissioner sovay seconded by commissioner milstein now we can discuss it commissioner hammerschmidt and then commissioner milstein i really like the idea of doing like a
135two-year work plan i'm curious i probably can assume that i know the answer would you think then like at a year we would sort of review progress and like shift around a little bit if necessary and then every two years just sort of be like a big overhaul yeah um cool or we could we could do it on a more frequent basis um you know i think part of it is just um and again i i'll take uh some i'll take some responsibility for this too but i think um part of me is just kind of always looking for a better system and maybe sort of thinking about it in a longer term chunk like some of these they'll be long dialogues and i think at times i don't think it's bad to just sort
136of think now that you know talking about something like parking requirements might take us more than a year and so just sort of mentally thinking about it in that scale might be helpful but absolutely but i would just say it doesn't have to be a year at any point you can revisit this but i think this is an effective way that we can communicate to the public to elected officials to other boards and commissions our priorities as a body i like it and i really like the starting a conversation um community learning opportunity on single family zoning i think that's a great addition so yeah no questions really just complimentary ambitious commissioner milstein and then commissioner silvae thank you um so i love the single family um discussion i think it's time that we as
137a community have that and i'm volunteering to serve on that subcommittee i'll just step up for it right now um the accessory dwelling um is a common god accessory building sorry accessory building sorry sorry sorry the accessory building question especially from the real estate community that comes up all the time and you hit control f in the udc and you keep going through it and none of it is it's very confusing so i'm all for that as well um and then i'm coming back to t1 um my hope is that we are going to see it very soon so i think we should keep it at the forefront um and maybe start work on that otherwise great plan and i do like the idea of having it a two-year plan thank you commissioner yeah i
138really like two years i like the big idea projects the one thing in terms like little projects uh the 2021 work the page three it has um planning commission operations timing schedules petitions staff reports overall process i think we've gotten a lot with notifications for the commissioner proposed business stuff i don't know when we address it if it is just each year we talk about kind of the little things we also want to tick off but we we do consistently get you know comments about what the postcards are and i know we took a look at that but notices and things so just kind of bringing it up again but with the floodplain one you know we wouldn't visit it so it feels small i don't know how small it really is but i like
139the two-year broad but maybe starting to think about what the the smaller little pieces we might plug in as kind of the one-year bits especially since we have so much that looks like it's going to unload really soon so i just kind of want to raise the kind of page three with the commissioner business as well in the kind of smaller and more specific pieces and how we approach that i mean my my initial reaction to that would be if um i would sort of like it elevated you know maybe that is another project we might recognize that maybe it doesn't feel as big as some of the other projects but um part of the reason of putting that there is i want to i want to acknowledge i mean i think some of these
140things drive the priorities that are already there to an extent but i want to be um i want to be faithful to these thoughts and not lose sight of them and and i think your observation is great if you know we've brought it up a couple times if if that's an aspiration i would say let's add it to the plan and we just got to figure out a way to incorporate that and hopefully at the end of that two year period we've answered it yeah and kind of what i'm not raising is maybe it doesn't like pop up right now but as things clear if we have like a checkpoint at one year or every six months at a working session we just kind of look and say how much progress have we gone are
141there kind of little things we can add because we also don't know what kind of council we're going to have and what kind of tasks they are going to allow us that might be different heavier or lighter than the previous console so i'm not sure how we engaged plugging those things in and holding space for both of them so i just kind of bring it up as a talking point commissioner abrams i have a question that's just a little bit about um i guess staffing is what i'd call it even though we're not staff um because uh like i'm very very uh excited and in support of the single family zoning community conversation and project i also wish i could be on that subcommittee but i think i'm probably committed out but i also remember
142that when we did talk about um committees it seemed like we were digging deep to to staff the com to like populate the committees and i'm my impression now is that we're going to be one more at least one more commissioner short i just wondered is there any update about new commissioners joining the body in in the near future yeah um i my understanding is that the mayor has two uh potential candidates citizen reps that he's going to be nominating um uh and then um i would anticipate once the new council is seated the 16th is their first meeting the november 16th but i would anticipate probably within the first um commissioner briggs or akron might know this better but i'm guessing within the first two months there will probably be some progress on the
143council appointments to the various boards and commissions so i would i am thinking that there might be a brief period where our our numbers are lower but i don't think it's going to be long until we're back to a full uh full commission okay great um and then i just had a question about so there there's the potential future projects which have the kind of orange pattern header and then there's the proposed commissioner business and those do we understand this to be have any hierarchy of prioritization or importance and would it be helpful at all to pull some of those out to be like i guess as commissioner savage just did like identify the ones that we would want to be kind of in the waiting room if time allowed yeah just um no uh
144there's no um there's no particular prioritization from my lens i will just tell you um potential future projects have been those those tend to be projects that have been carried forward on quite a few work work programs and so i've been somewhat reluctant to just say yeah i don't think they really care about that much anymore and then the commissioner of business is just again you this is more recent often times in the course of a meeting this is all commissioner proposed business items and i take those seriously i can't as you know i can't always um jump into a long process on each of those but my goal is to at a minimum memorialize them to make sure that well is trent like if we take on transit zoning that might hit a lot
145of those goals on some level but on the flip side yeah you might decide that yellow table let's just scratch it and start over and a long way of saying i don't see them as prior to priority different different priorities they've just come to this document as sort of a potential future laundry list and they came from two different sources and do you excuse me do you would it be helpful to you for us to provide any clarification about those two lists or are you okay having them as they are um they don't um i don't care that they're there um i think that but my my message to you is i'm not i'll i'll probably not be spending a lot of time trying to advance those um i'll i'm just sort of presenting them
146to you as i heard you in some cases or i heard previous commissions in some cases but for now these are the places where i'm going to try to put my energies to advance ordinance or policy change okay thanks commissioner briggs yeah um regarding the city council um sort of appointment my understanding is those commission appointments usually happen in early by early december so i think that might be the likely time frame when um a new appointment would come from city council um and then one thing in with regards to that in terms of i agree there's kind of been a seems like it's been challenging i don't think the zba position is is there anybody serving on the cba right now from planning commission no the zba is full but there's no planning commission
147right nzb appointment exactly so that was like that was one of the open ones um council recently um put together a new committee or group the center of the city task force or not a task force but anyway but it has a posit it has a seat for a representative from parks commission as well as from planning commission and so um it might be useful for planning commission at some point if if that is a challenging seat to fill to provide i would think maybe provide some feedback on that um and then just to the work plan um i think it i think it um sounds great i think there's gonna be a lot of interest in sort of development issues um it's good to see sort of figure out what sort of master parts
148of the master plan process can move forward maybe the the visioning process in terms of community values and vision might be one piece i know also um one of the debates that has happened this last year around tod was the the complaint of when we still thought the master plan process was going to begin was well how could you possibly start thinking about a transit oriented development district before you started the master plan update um and so you know we've talked about the fact that that that piece is actually embedded this is master planning process and isn't really just starting from nowhere it's actually been a part of our pre-existing documents and that was part of the supposed to be part of the master plan update anyway was to sort of identify where some of
149those um where there's a lot of history on certain certain ideas and so especially on something like tod it might be really useful to have some of that documented as to you know how many different layers of our plan that that's that that's been in already and you know some other guiding principles that um some other pieces as well okay uh with regard to single family zoning i think that is also something that's been particularly controversial for the community so it's great to have that conversation being brought up i think there's going to be a lot of concern from the community and skepticism from certain parts of the community that this isn't just educational it's leading somewhere and so i think having um addressing that concern up front will be important um in terms and
150thinking through exactly what does this process look like in terms of obviously i think just we need there are a lot of misconceptions around um why those processes have happened in other communities what you know what sort of outcomes they've led to what the history of ann arbor actually looks like what the implications have been in our own community so i think it's great that we're having those conversations and actually think that right now is probably um one of the there may be some benefits to to covet in doing it now because any of those those conversations happened sooner rather than later they would automatically be on it be presentations that are online that could be recorded that could be then saved and um people might be able to watch them later if there's another
151subsequent conversation about you know okay well maybe this you know maybe there are some morning changes that we want to pursue but then we would have this sort of repository of educational pieces that that are already existing around it so i think that might be great um kit mccullough is somebody that might be i sh if not somebody for the working group um i want to volunteer here because that would be uh she would be surprised but i know she might be a good person at least for a presentation she um came to a fifth old west uh side meeting at one point and gave a really compelling sort of um presentation on it so i would i could imagine she'd be might be a good speaker but i can imagine she also has a
152interest at a level that she might be interested in being a part of the working group she's at the university of michigan school of art and of architecture and urban planning so um it comes with a lot of credentials as well my thoughts i if i could just i i really appreciate the the feedback on on this idea i i think that i i i hear and i embrace what you're talking about being really i i think that this conversation is gonna be really important to sort of establish what our goals are and how we envision it to happen i think separating it from any policy development is going to be really helpful to that goal but at the same time i think i i want to i want to be i want to be
153honest that like part of the reason to have the conversation is that in the future we may want to consider those policy goals but i i really think that there is a value to just explore the issue first just learn about it and and i i totally agree i think that there's i think there's going to be a natural tendency for people to say then what and i think that it's going to take some discipline on how we structure that to make sure that we're successful and just for providing a safe space i think to have the conversation without jumping to that conclusion commissioner ackerman thank you um just a quick comment on when you're gonna get new colleagues also um those two potential appointments aren't on the city council agenda for next week so
154you'll just by way of process it takes two meetings so you'll probably get all your new colleagues in december and then uh with respect to the sequencing of a community conversation in public education regarding single family zoning and its interaction with adu policy i think that it might be beneficial to sequence with adus coming first and that we have tangible policy recommendations that that can happen and are the product of a community conversation um and then engage in the single family um the broader single family uh dialogue only in that um i think one of the common refrains that i've heard during my tenure about adus is that it's an upzoning of single family zoning and so i think if you have those two conversations at the same time people connect those dots whether you
155know it's it's appropriate or not um and it may be more beneficial to to just you know try to get the adu policies done and then turn your attention to the zoning districts as a whole to be clear as a point of clarification i understand that adu's is not currently on our on our work plan anywhere right correct but this is something where this if i'm remembering all of this right we did some work in the past on adus and it went to city council in 2018. and nothing happened and it failed there right nothing happened it was going to die so so it could be dusting that off are you suggesting that we add commissioner ackerman adu's back to our list or because that's not currently on our our work plan um you know
156i'm uh i'm a washed up has been i don't know you all can can dictate your own uh agenda but i think it i think it's vitally important for our community that adus before they're liberalized and made more um realistic because currently they're not commissioner briggs if i recall correctly council didn't necessarily entirely kill it there was a suggestion that more community engagement was needed um that's and then it was voted down was it actually physical was it actually voted down yeah it was different okay i guess i missed that meeting okay commissioner abrams i would support adding that to the work plan so i if i i guess i want to just make sure i understand um the so the history of that was council had directed planning commission to look at amendments to
157the accessory dwelling unit ordinance to maybe further their realization in the city you went through that process made recommendations ultimately those were not enacted by the council i just want to get a sense would you like to sort of start a broader conversation or would your thought be let's restart those that package that was previously considered commissioner randall i kind of feel like starting the broader conversation because that's like one of the ways that we may end up getting too but it feels like it's kind of like a uh like a solution before you have the conversation in the first place um that when we have that conversation it might lead to different strategies or not or whatever um and that and that's one um possibility of them but i don't know i guess that's
158just how i feel to sort of start big and then and then get more defined in terms of strategies based on that if if it goes in that direction i don't know if others have thoughts that's my kind of initial reaction on that just the the thought that i have that but but maybe i should let the folks who won't be with us next time weigh in on this uh is that that makes it really tricky then what i heard commissioner ackerman saying is that if you if you go into the conversation about single family zoning saying like we if given what commissioner briggs said we have no there's not necessarily a policy in mind but there is a policy that we're looking about it like that's where sequences the sequencing these things might make
159sense but if what what commissioner abrams you were just talking about is pulling out what we have and saying we like looking at it potentially in the next month and saying we still stand by this like we put all this work into this two years ago and we still stand by it like i don't know that that is so much work as just us sending it back to council but um commissioner ackerman weigh in tell me where that's wrong so no no not where you're wrong at all just to build on that i think you know with the adus policy we put forward in 2018 you know we knew these were good ideas in 2017 and then we refined them over the course of 2018 and put them before city council which means these are
160ideas we knew were good for the last three years and if we broaden it to the to a wider conversation and then focus back in we're gonna wait another two years so that's delaying five years an idea we knew was a good one three years ago i will say though there will be by the time by the time you all read this legislation again there will have been 50 turnover on the planet commission so it's likely things might get iterated on approved upon um with a new set of eyes but i think i think they were pretty good i think we work really hard on them and they move the community forward and making adus more realistic commissioner abrams uh that is that is what i was um intending i realized i spoke very succinctly
161but that's that's what i was intending um i also think we have like two years of data which is which will which that kind of demonstrates the um in efficacy like the way in which the current ordinance doesn't work right it isn't producing the intended effect and so um yeah i think it would be worth revisiting that uh with a different council too and that has to come from us correct me if i'm wrong mr leonard right like i mean council can tell us to do it or we can send it but they can't come up with a new zoning ordinance all themselves like that's how michigan zoning law works when specifically our our code says that city council can't enact land use legislations without asking for the planning commission's opinion on it but also
162there's nothing stopping us from sending something unsolicited other than like wasting time so okay commissioner milstein um i think it'd be really important and i'm looking at commissioner briggs right now more so than anybody else i think it'd be really important to get some feedback from our new council when they um are uh sworn into office about what's a priority for them um so that we don't spin our wheels and work on something that is not a priority so i don't know how we can have that conversation um i think at one point you know i think it's been a really long time since we've had a joint session and i know joint sessions today are not quite you know when you have that many people on zoom they're not quite as productive but i
163think it'd be really great and i'm not saying that it needs to be anything formal i don't think we need a council to pass a resolution but it'd be really great to get a all right here's our work plan what do you want us to work on first you know what's a priority for our council um i know we have some say in it but i think at the end of the day it ends up on their table so it'd be great to get feedback from council about our work plan commissioner briggs yeah i i think that's a great idea in terms of a joint working session sooner rather than later i can imagine i think that there is a lot of interest in different different issues including accessory accessory dwelling units and thinking about
164that having that that joint discussion might be useful is challenging to do over do-over zoom so i suspect that there will be a fair amount of different recommendations kind of um coming forward to a request coming forward to planning commission um in the next not too long but um you know i think that one piece that um is really important to just remember is even though kind of amongst this body it feels like these conversations have happened a lot um when you're revisiting a conversation that happened a couple of years ago or three years ago and there's new people in the community sometimes you have to you have to go a little bit slower and bring back in that that community engagement and bring um have that conversation about you know kind of what commissioner
165abrams was saying in terms of okay you know we we passed this you know what happened with our previous um ad ordinance and and what do we really what were our goals why did we not you know what wasn't realized you know is that something that we still stand behind and and allow the community to kind of have that conversation too because i i think there's a lot of concerns um the primary concerns that i have heard is that from the community is that some of these conversations get pushed seem to get pushed through pretty quickly um but i think part of it is because you know folks aren't aren't always necessarily aware of previous conversations that have happened but um yeah i think they'll be let's leave it at that mr leonard well um
166i i guess i would i would urge the planning commission um to think about your your priorities yes city council can um direct and and suggest um but um i like i guess that my initial thought is think about think about accessory dwelling units and if you want to add it to your work plan is it do you think it's important for us um i i think that whatever work plan whether it gets adopted tonight or it gets adopted some future date that that will be communicated to the city council so that is an opportunity for you to share with the city council how you see priorities should be should be approached and what activities we should be resourcing to that end and i would say that if um as it really specifically to accessory
167dwelling units um rather um i think that there's going to be a lot there's always a lot of demand on you there's always a lot of demand on city council and i by no means what i would um uh diminish the value of a joint session but um like something like that i would say that um if if you think it's a priority that's probably a pretty quick thing for us to do because we have done some work on it and we we i don't think it has to be one or the other we could use that as a template you know for example we could dedicate a working session to it and we could advertise that widely you know go beyond our normal notice requirements try to get it out on social media and
168and public notice and more gov deliveries and neighborhood associations and we could we could spend some time just talking about the previous direction that led us to craft those recommendations we could we could put together some data and i would say something like that while not expansive it is opening up a conversation with the community about something that was previously done and why it was done and then from that you as the planning commission or any feedback you've received at that point from city council can take all of that in to decide how you want to respond to that do you feel like it's time to go forward as largely it is or to commissioner good randall's point maybe there's new factors that weren't a wider conversation so um i would say unlike some other
169things on this work plan actually we have the benefit that we've been through it um we've got a sort of like the classic you know is it better to sort of brainstorm and draft something or you put something out there to get a solicitor reaction and a conversation about what it says so um so my recommendation would be if you feel that this is worthwhile particularly as commissioner ackerman is saying that you you believe that it has some value and timing or association with or in a chronology with other work plan items i would suggest we just put it on our our plan and we try to accomplish that i'll chime in that it seems to me based on the conversation that it there's already a lot of sunk time in it and that dusting
170it off i honestly don't i mean things have not changed all that much i welcome looking at it again especially with the new commissioners that we have and potentially like i don't really want to wait too too long to get the next you know but by the time we actually get around to this we'll even have more new commissioners on um i i'm swayed by the idea that we don't really want to start the conversation about single-family homes single-family neighborhoods um with this hanging out there um and i think that that conversation will take longer than we think it will and and i think that's important and so i would i think that that makes sense to add i would support adding it commissioner ackerman before we lose you or commissioner briggs what else is
171like that is there anything else that you can think of which we spent some time on but that didn't make it from the like just crd just tod okay i was gonna say it's been a while i feel like there were elements of like d1 d2 that that happened to as well but i so can't remember and i think that it it's like moved on like the changes that we made to premiums like have subsequently moved on yeah that was passed yeah the only other like one out there was uh updates to the traffic calming program um but that's a different body that's transportation commission commissioner gibb randall what about um the whole solar in your yard business it seems to me that that's something that um is another thing that we sunk a bunch
172of time into and that given our community priorities i don't know i'm seeing brett waving his hands all over the place i'll stop i see that is linked to accessory structures but go for it agreed okay i think that's the opportunity when you pull up kind of what is allowed in some ways i see this you guys uh it's like zorrowing all of these different elements like resort like we're making clearer what our site plan requirements are we're making clearer what is uh excess of like accessory structures what where they're allowed to see where it doesn't make sense i want to excise that as a verb from our vocabulary okay getting triggered sorry is that but is that you didn't mention that as your intention but do you see that as part of that work
173element well you know i i will say that the the udc i think is um was a great leap forward um you know just as a reminder um we went from 10 chapters to one chapter we did a lot of consolidation but i i will also say that we consolidated a lot of ordinances that were still based in their core on a mid 1960s origination and so um you know we as the city made that decision that that was the direction we were going to go in and i think um there are those that have been around longer than i am that have that always envisioned that there was a couple sort of large scale pictures that were important to do one was to get the udc done then it might have been to do
174a master plan and then it might be now that the udc is amendable how do we really drastically change it to get the things that we want and um you know what again the udc is is much better but things like accessory buildings us adding in um whether it's solar structures and personal solar structures or adus we are a lot of what we're doing is shoehorning thing shoehorning things that we desire now into a framework that it sometimes wasn't set up for that and so that's where you end up with three different places in the ordinance to figure out if i'd build a garage where does it have to be and how tall can it be and what is it exempt from and so um so um i i won't use that as a verb
175but i think part of it is um the next phase and i think at some times it's further organization and consolidation and sometimes i think it's moving on from how we approach something in the past how we should approach something in the future commissioner briggs you asked if there were any other things that have been brought up from the past i can't think of anything um in terms of how this discussion has gone in terms of you know your suggestion of you know bringing it back to the work plan and i and others as well i think that that's i think that makes sense i think there's gonna be a lot of um you know i'm only comfortable speaking for myself and not for for not for an incoming council body um and so obviously
176all the things that i'm excited about and um parking being one of them that ties to so many different things um i think are really important but i think i think it's fair to say that you're you're going to have a city council that is very receptive to hearing what planning commission thinks are priorities for our community and so you know that i i'm only cautioning that sometimes it feels like we've had these conversations a lot and we have but we've had this conversation and people you know people don't aren't always aware that you know despite the fact that these are probably not publicly noticed they're just not really aware that the conversations are happening so as mr leonard suggested in terms of you know broadcasting something a little bit broader around a working session
177i think that makes a lot of sense um if something like 80 uses is coming up again that that gives the community an opportunity to to be a part of that conversation again um and and to understand where it's coming from so but i think that there's going to be a lot of a lot of interest to think about where hanover should be heading next i'll just add in that i think um one of the things that commissioner abrams brought up before is about our capacity and with the new staff or with the new planning commissioners we'll have to revisit our committee appointments i don't have that table right in front of me but i think what one of the committees that we like staffed up to get ready to do something with was effectively
178the affordability committee and in my mind there's a number of things that are our work plan that don't necessarily have that in the title but that link so much to that right so if we do undertake the single family units there's there's clearly a link to that so much of what you're finding in um the site plan review threshold for those small and medium projects really is about like how expensive there are there are elements within the site plan that makes it make those projects expensive but on those calls so for those who aren't on orc to know like um there's this committee that is being pulled together this work group effectively that um the council asked um staff to man but they've been doing interviews with each of those committee members before pulling them
179together and so some of us on the orc have been listening in and like things about big projects and the affordability of big projects are also coming up so i think that all of this stuff is linked um the elements about sustainability like can you afford to do some of the elements of sustainability like these things are all coming together so i think that actually everything bret i wanna you know this is the compliment like everything that you've laid out are the things it's getting to the heart actually of the things that we think are really important and continuing and the master plan conversation that you have i'm positive that you're going to find things on par that will inform the parking discussion like this has been in so many of the past master plans
180right like it right it needs a conversation but just like tod is justified in all of the many many documents that are our master plan going back and like dusting those off and seeing what's still relevant and what's not i think is going to be super helpful for that so i'm really excited about this i like the idea of it being a two-year work plan i think that there we have to recognize that right now the we have in progress the fiscal year 2020 city council directed amendments but i think we know that well i i expect that there are going to be ordinance changes that come out of some of those things that we're going to want to add to our work plan to leapfrog things that we're not anticipating right now so i
181want to make sure that you are unders like that's your intention too and that as erica just said like there's probably going to be things that come from fiscal year 2021 city council directives that are coming too is that right to be clear i don't i think that you know and we have done this we've had to adapt and we've had to juggle and we've had to shift priorities and focus and we'll have to continue to do that um i will say though i think that i am interested to see um as we make more progress and actually set more of your priorities as a planning commission um i think that there's a lot of alignment with the items that city council is concerned about as well and um i fear i speculate at times
182those directives happen because there's a perception that nothing's happening on those fronts to advance those ideas as quickly as desired and so um whether they're whether we get a resolution saying do this or you choose to do that the benefit to the community is the same yeah well i'm i think that the in-progress stuff is a testament and the things that are like in progress but soon to be finished as a testament to like how much you have helped move us so thank you and your entire team um if you you weren't watching the thumbs up that we're also here um it sounds to me like from our conversation before commissioner abrams had suggested an amendment do you want a formal amendment to add in the um the accessory dwelling units discussion that was the
183one that i picked up on and then there was a quasi amendment that commissioner sovay included on the process but we didn't really discuss that one much so yeah well i was i was about to sort of uh reflect back what i was hearing um i was hearing to add um from the proposed commissioner business list the timing scheduling of petition staff report overall process i envisioned that a conversation about our citizen participation postcards the notification timing of how all of that happens leading up to it landing on your agenda item for discussion um uh so i would i was hearing to add that as a project um to our proposed work plan and then i am also hearing i was also hearing let's add accessory dwelling units i'm actually proposing that we add that
184as an ordinance however as described i think we'll we will start that with a broader conversation about what are the goals that we are seeking to achieve and use it more as a template as to well we'll use it as parallel to here's what was considered in the past towards these goals have that conversation to validate if that still resonates with the community and then we can decide do we need to go back and make adjustments or can we start dusting it off and it's largely the same form and moving forward and i am hearing that it's important that that particular ordinance happens before we undertake that project of conversation about zoning sounds good to me so then yeah if you're comfortable and that those changes resonate with i think lisa moved and alex seconded
185um i would love to get it adopted so we can share it with the public and other 14 commissions and the council and get to work on it any just more discussion you can have a roll call vote if you need it of the proposal as okay as we just talked about being amended please say yes or raise your hand yes any opposed i saw alex's hand now so that was before i said a post so that's for the record all of us are in agreement um it carries and so thank you this is a lot i know you know it's a lot of work for staff it's a lot of work for the planning commission too i appreciate and um um i look forward to accomplishing as much of it as we can great
186the last item well the second to last item is audience participation it's an opportunity the final opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any item of interest public comment can be made by calling 877-853-5247 and our meeting id is 986-8779-4536 mr leonard will call on you when you raise your hand you do that by pressing star nine and do move to a quiet area introduce yourself with your name and address there is a caller on the line if you'd like to speak star 9 is how you can signal that they're from denver that's fun all right seeing none seeing none item 12 commission proposed business anyone want to propose something you kind of just had your for the next work plan for the next work plan all right item 12 adjournment
187moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner sovay all in favor of adjourning say yes yes yes all right all opposed none opposed one abstention have a great night thank you very much commissioner ackerman and commissioner you