Ann Arbor Planning Commission 9-15-20

001to the Tuesday September 15 2020 electronic meeting of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to AFF social distancing and mitigate the spread of the covid-19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are technical issues um public comment will be via telephone only and to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call one of these two phone numbers they they are listed on the agenda but they the toll-free numbers one of our technical difficulties is that the toll-free numbers are not working so the one number is 206 337 9723 the other option is 213 338 8477 um once you call in you can enter meeting ID 24427 this information is as I mentioned

002available on the published agenda and it's in the Public Notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on CTN Channel 16 AT&T channel 99 and online at a2gov.org CN where you can select the government channel uh item number two is the roll call commissioner Briggs commissioner Mills here commissioner milstein here commissioner Gib Randall here commissioner Akerman here commissioner s here commissioner abon here commissioner hamers Schmid here we have a quorum but I would note for the commission and petitioners we have seven members and uh six affirmative votes are required to forward any Landy recommendations onward thank you um number item number three on the agenda is introductions do we have any this evening Mr Leonard none this evening all right next is the approval of the agenda can I have

003a motion to approve the agenda moved by commissioner Mine seconded by commissioner hamers Schmidt are there is there any discussion of the motion did I see minutes were they linked sorry I missed them if they were linked okay never mind um all those in F favor of the motion please say I I I I or you can raise your hand that's fine too any opposed that's none so the motion carries um next is the minutes of the previous meeting um these are the minutes of the September 1st 2020 meeting can I have a motion to move them commissioner uh moved by commissioner abon seconded by commissioner milstein any discussion of the minutes all those in favor of the motion please say I or raise your hand I any opposed that's no one so the motion

004carries um item number six is the reports from City Administration city council City or planning manager Planning Commission officers and committees and written Communications um councilman council member Akerman do you have any report for us yeah thank you Sharm Ms uh so it's been a couple weeks and we're in a weird month so there's a delay for City Council meetings so a couple updates from two weeks ago and then again from last night um a couple weeks ago in in the planning world city council made a few decisions uh which you had input into the process um so with respect to um uh short-term rentals uh city council did pass an ordinance that bans uh nonon owner occupied short-term rentals that's to say uh properties that are explicitly commercial for use of permanently being airbnbs

005um th those are no longer permitted um in in areas uh in residential areas they are still allowed in U multi-use areas so the downtown zoning districts any um zoning districts that allow for mixed use however they're they're no longer allowed in residential districts um if you are an owner of a of your home you are still allowed to leave for a weekend leave for a week leave for a month and uh and let out your house through one of these apps um on a short-term basis but if but but no property can be exclusively used for that purpose that those regulations will go into effect um around uh believe it's the beginning of March of 2021 um then also something that that your hand was very much in was the sign ordinance city council

006at the ordinance's first reading pass the sign ordinance as is um you usually more deliberation and debate happens at the second reading which will happen in about three weeks um and and I know staff is is ready and on alert for all the many questions that people may have given that it took us three years to work through all of the the idios proes and details and nuances um from moving from uh code to Project Specific updates um in late 2017 uh both Planning Commission and City Council passed um the 1140 Broadway development uh also known as lower toown uh we did just sign an affordability agreement that locks 15 units of those um as affordable units in perpetuity then also uh to um other updates uh home to Hotel it's a site plan down

007on Eisenhower on the south side of town near State Street um that site plan passed City Council and then finally the property where the Valhalla development um sits the 9.8 Acres near Pioneer High School um that was annexed successfully and the their next steps uh as the petitioner will be to to move the process forward with the rezoning and the site plan likely in the coming months very good um Mr Leonard do you have any report um uh commissioner akan anything from last night that you think is note worthy to share with the planning commission I'm sorry yes uh we hired a city administrator uh Mr Tom Crawford who's our longtime CFO and has been our interim uh City administrator now for his third time has been hired on uh full-time uh we're moving to

008the contract phase of the hiring process so hopefully that will be permanent and in place soon and we'll have some stable leadership uh in in the chief executive's office um oh I'm sorry also sorry Dr stz gave us an excellent update on the a20 plan and the progress that their team has been able to make in just the couple months that the plan has been ratified um I really encourage people to go back through uh she speaks quickly because she works quickly um and so there's a lot of really fantastic and valuable information um and she only she her team uh presented it in an hour so there's tons to to snc into but lots more homes um buying solar uh in bulk so that it's cheaper for per per household uh as well as

009um really good news and developments in our negotiations with DTE to uh turn the the landfill into a solar AA very good Mr Leonard anything to add now yes um uh just um one item I wanted to alert that we will be doing um some um very wide Outreach as we have as we did in the past we've scheduled another um um Workshop to discuss proposed uh flood plane ordinance um um text amendments in our UDC um that is scheduled for October 8th from five at five o'clock pm um it will be a a virtual given our our current realities um but we will uh be Distributing that information widely um I'm sure you'll see be seeing that in a lot of different um communication uh pipelines towards your inboxes and other places thank you

010very much do any other commission commissioner officers or commiss committee liaison have anything to report all right we will move on to item number seven which is our first opportunity for audience participation this is an opportunity for persons to speak to for up to three minutes about an issue that is not listed as a public hearing on this agenda so not for the Ellsworth um petition or for 1290 duvar to comment on other matters please call those two um non- toll-free numbers the first one is 9723 the other option is 213 338 8477 and you'll enter meeting ID 962 39 92 4427 City staff will select callers that have raised their hand um calling upon you by the last three digits of your telephone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate that

011you'd like to speak please press star nine on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak and then you can unmute and um address Planning Commission when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or back ground sounds so that we can hear you clearly and please also state your name and address at the beginning of your comments it looks like there's a number of telephone numbers that are on the line but I don't see any raising their hand to speak for an issue that's not on the agenda tonight um if you want to during audience participation you press star nine not seeing any indication all right very good the oh it oh just as I said that hello speaker with phone number uh ending

012with numbers 221 you have 3 minutes to address the Planning Commission I'm sorry just point of ification um if we do want to speak on Save the Lockwood property um when is the opportunity to do so tonight um it's right after this audience participation the Lockwood property will be the first the next thing on our agenda so there'll be the opportunity to speak would be after that so what we'll do um the order that it goes in is that there'll be a um a presentation a staff report and then we'll open the public hearing for that so I'm guessing it'll be 20 minutes or so from right now okay thank you I didn't see that on the agenda thank you for the clarification I'll wait until then okay thank you I'm not seeing anybody else

013very good well those who are on the line as just noted if you're on for one of the specific petitions there'll be an opportunity when those come up so we'll move on I'll close the audience partic ation section then and move on to item number eight I misspoke there is one item first um and that is for Mr Leonard to tell us about the public hearings for our next business meeting yes uh we have several uh public hearing scheduled one I want to acknowledge um is actually a repeat from this evening's agenda um we have advertised the proposed zoning of 1290 duvar Road for city council approval um the reason that we Ren noticed this is we are recommending um action on the annexation this evening but not the zoning as the staff recommendation differs

014from what was noticed um from the zoning District the notice was for r1a staff is recommending r1d so um given the fact that the annexation will um precede the zoning um regardless we thought it was appropriate to Reen notice that just to ensure everybody had the correct information of course then we also have a proposed uh amendment to chapter 55 of the unified development code sections 5.3.1 plan project site plan modifications for city council approval this would be an Pro proposed amendment to delete the plan project site plan modifications and add new paragraphs offering flexibility to setbacks for mixed use and special purpose zoning districts exceptions to height limits for sustainable and affordable housing developments and parking waivers for sustainable and affordable housing developments respectively and we also have a new um modification to a

015natural features protection or mitigation plan for the annex um this is um us uh the former um the annex is an apartment development on Nixon Road um as part of their original approved site plan they were to um preserve numerous Landmark trees one of those landmark trees has been removed so they need to seek uh an amended natural features protection plan so those um adjustments are being proposed and then finally a proposed annexation and Zoning for 1acre parcel located at 3411 Gettys Road um to Annex from an arbor Township End Zone r1a very good busy agenda next week two weeks from now guys um so we'll move on to item 9A unfinished business and the first uh petition is the Lockwood of an arbor planned unit development zoning and site plan for city council approval

016as I just mentioned we'll start with the petitioner giving us a presentation um the petitioners are te team is coming in they'll have 10 minutes um hopefully it won't be interrupted with crazy technology issues like last time um then we'll have a staff presentation and then we'll have we'll open up the lines for the public hearing I just wanna is my screen being shared right now there is a screen being shared and it is full screen version so it looks looks pretty good please I believe Mr Lockwood's going to walk through the project again so I will click through but please let me know if the slides are not clicking like they weren't last time so with that I guess I'll turn it over for now thank you Matt uh it's Mark Lockwood uh with

017Lockwood development company our address is 27777 Franklin Road in Southfield Michigan and uh good evening Commissioners and thank you for the opportunity to prevent present this proposal um for a second time uh I would like to just briefly highlight a few areas of The Proposal uh and not get into too much detail before handing over to our professional team uh to walk through some of the specifics of the design site plan and Landscaping um the project um represents a significant creation of new construction high quality affordable housing in a service enriched environment for seniors which uh seeks to serve a diverse range of residents um the development in or the proposal is for 154 uh 154 apartments in a mixed income independent senior living community it be a three-story building and for this proposal we're

018seeking a PUD zoning classification a plan unit development zoning classification uh from the current zoning classification of r1c and uh the proposed building have a 57,053 apartments or 65 Apartments would be set aside to serve residents of 60% of area median income or below uh with with uh with 63 of those apartments uh at 60% Ami or below and two of those at 50% of Ami or below in the balances market rate um so moving on we have uh services for for residents which would include for all residents access to all amenities of the building uh Game Room movie room arts and crafts Interfaith Chapel Fitness and Wellness Room barber shop beauty salon uh we'd also have transportation services provid provided via wheelchair accessible shuttle bus um which will be available on site and running

019daily trips uh coordinated enrichment activities including uh directed by our activities director including Fitness classes arts and crafts um games music musical and educational entertainment as well as various social Gatherings and happy hours and the like um in addition we have some available Services which would be offered uh uh for coughs but on a more customizable all the cart basis with uh dining with three available meals daily uh up to weekly housekeeping services uh up to weekly house or weekly laundry services um and then optional off-site events uh which would include uh things going like things going to uh uh concerts museums sporting events where we would cover the transportation and provide that uh but admission to to the event uh would be the the responsibility of the resident um terms of running running down

020the uh public benefits uh first and foremost and and largely the creation of 65 affordable housing uh apartments in the city of an arbor uh which is a significant uh relative to the existing housing stock as well as the uh uh creation of affordable housing over the last several years um provide high quality senior housing with a just representative uh average resident age of 82 just based on our existing five communities in the state of Michigan uh a storm water infiltration bed uh which would significantly reduce storm water um burden on the system existing tree canopy management with preservation of of landmark trees preservation of 61.7% U open space uh which would go U significantly above the U compar comparative Z comparable zoning uh of r4c uh dual charging stations for electric vehicles extended sidewalk

021uh in the public right of way to the east which would allow for connection uh of the site to uh to public transportation the AAA stop on the uh Northern side of the uh of the street on Ellsworth and uh 100% infiltration for all imperious spaces uh which would reduce the stor water running off the site on on a calculated basis from the current 7.92 Acres uh which the site currently sits at a very high uh level compared to to the surrounding uh area uh down to 1.64 Acres of calculated runoff based on the storm water management system U up on the screen now is a site plan aeral site plan uh with a significant open space buff highlighted to the north um you can also see that there's a pretty significant landscape buffer and

022setback uh on the Eastern side of the site as well moving on to first floor plan which has a variety of common areas uh as well as resident Apartments second floor plan which is a continuation of of additional common areas in Resident apartments and then the third floor plan as well elevations and uh an additional highlight of the open space uh of development highlighting of the infiltration zones and uh and highlighting of of some of the open space around the building as well as the uh Landmark trees so I I just wanted to highlight a couple a couple things I didn't uh uh get to in the in the presentation and then uh pass off to uh our Professional Services team to uh get into some of the more technical details of the proposal about

023three minutes left okay all right in that case I'll uh I'll wrap up and hand over to our architect Jordan London from Edmund London Associates and I look forward to your input and welcome any questions you have uh going forward thank you Matt can you go back to the rendering back one this one or that one right there yeah sorry that one okay so the building uh which is orientated with the entry to the east originally we proposed it uh um towards the South and the main road but that uh projected too close to the east property line for the neighbors and too neighbor media me ings that we had uh that was a predominant comment um we also pushed the building back um from uh the road so that the setbacks are uh 200

024feet setback from the north that was pointed out uh from the school the South setback or front setback is 69 feet uh that compares to the current zoning which would allow for 25 foot setback and a 30 foot rear setback um the East setback which is uh near the residential uh uh area is 145 feet and uh and landscaped heavily and then the West uh setback is 64 feet and in the current zoning uh both those sidey guard setbacks could be as little as five feet um you can see from the rendering that we try to break up the building the massing with residential Peaks and astral chingle roofs uh siding uh brick and stone the apartments there are 154 Apartments there are uh there are 89 one-bedroom units that will range between 650 and

025700 square feet there are 65 two-bedrooms that are between 900 and 1100 square feet again for a total of4 units and I guess I got to be close to running out of time so we're here to answer any other questions that you have we do have the landscape I think the landscape architect is here in the uh civil engineer uh to talk about other issues about a minute left if you'd like to touch on any last items Joe are you on the line yeah I'm here um so Mark if you flip back to that landscape plan real quick or Matt sorry sorry uh couple more so um mark actually pretty good job about this I just wanted to point out you know this plan really just kind of highlights the significant Landmark trees um that

026we're saving to the north and to the to the east of the property and it kind of highlights a lot of the this green tone out here gives a lot of the areas that the residents will use for gardening sitting and and and walkway all the way around the property for them to kind of walk around and really get outside and use this open space that we're creating um this project has over 60% open space uh which is really significant for this side of a project so and then the next slide real quick um actually go one more real quick one more wrong backwards back there it is okay this one just shows the infiltration zones that we have around the property we've got a really large zone out front and then along the north

027and east side um all those have emergency overflows that actually direct all the water to Ellsworth Road and not towards the back or to the neighbors so everything if it doesn't infiltrate we get a really heavy rain overflow it'll come to Ellsworth Road and not flood out the neighbors so that's really the significant portions of this part of the project and as we get into it we can answer any of the questions that you have thank you very much Mr Kowalski do you have any comments to fill in sure I I would just like to add um I'll actually let me switch to yeah the landscape plan really quickly um I won't go through the whole pres my whole presentation again as as we did at the previous meeting um however I did want to

028as the commission is aware you know we have been recommending postponement at the last meeting due to some of the um basically the issues revolving around the landscape plan and mitigation so forth um since that meeting we've we've had a couple of meetings actually with the uh petitioner and the landscape architect including one just later this afternoon um so I wanted to touch on kind of a a couple of the highlights of really where some of the issues and there are there are a couple notable issues that will be um requested under the Pud zoning which uh Landscaping sorry a PD regulations do allow you the ability to flex some Landscaping requirements so really um where we're at is that um so some of the parking lot Landscaping uh interior parking lot Landscaping islands are

029required by city code um there are is my mouse moving on the share screen I just okay um there are a couple landscape Islands basically within here and I believe it is over there too as well where there there's a hydrant located within that and a bio uh bio infiltration area that um kind of prohibit a tree being located directly in there there's separation requirements between the hydrant and where a tree can be planted of course um so while they cannot meet the in the true defin they cannot meet the requir of that landscape Island to count per code um the area is the area of the landscape Island does meet code and the tree will be planted kind of just outside these landscape areas there so while the tree will be planted adjacent to

030it it's not going to be planted directly in those landscape Islands so technically that would not count as a required landscape Island this is a change that has been reviewed um again with our landscape uh our landscape staff and she does support that modification again it does mean the intent of the code um some work regarding the final Mi mitigation calculations as you can see from this plan in the existing there's a significant amount of trees particularly towards the rear of the site um however a large amount of those trees are um are invasive and of a lower quality so um the mitigation calculations were um were a little bit more involved due to the large number of trees but also some of the quality of the trees um what were marked as I believe

031there there's two Landmark trees that were called out in the last plan review however but due to the health our Landscaping uh meaning they're they're in poor health so our landscape reviewer they do not qualify because there's a health rating that goes which each Landmark tree those trees do not qualify as Landmark trees so those do not need to be mitigated for um there's also as I said they they will be clearing out some of the invasive species that are within there that goes to part of the um Open Space Management of that area will in turn help the health of the remaining Landmark trees in addition to the trees that they'll be planting within that area so again this was something that re was reviewed again as late as this afternoon um our landscape

032reviewer has no question that they will the mitigation will be satisfied it's just a question of um exactly finding the exact number and what would be required as a fine tuning um the last remaining item um the landscape buffer so city code although it is multi multi family adjacent to other multifam city code does require Landscaping buffers um they do meet the landscape requirement on so basically on this project there would be three sides that would be required they do meet the requirements on this Northern side as well as the adj the Eastern side which is adjacent to the um to the uh residential neighborhood to the east um however due to some of the slopes in in in addition to kind of nudging the building over as far away from the residential to the

033east um there's a significant slope if you have visited the site out to to the west of the site um it's not a natural slope it is a man-made engineered slope but it is a significant slope so due to the proximity of that in the retaining wall and some of the utilities that are existing in that area including stubbed from this uh fail development over here um the trees cannot kind of be planted within that area there so um so staff is supportive of a landscape a buffer well shouldn't say variance but it would be kind of a modification that is again something that is approvable under the Pud regulations um all these changes were reviewed as I said earlier this afternoon and our landscape reviewer has no doubt that these will be able to

034be satisfied however we have put if Planning Commission is inclined to move the project forward tonight um in either way with a recommendation in either direction um these concerns we will have the pl final plans um reviewed and approved before we even schedule the project for city council um and I also want to highlight that what you see although we are saying there there might be a couple of tweaks to the mitigation plan the nature of what you see in front of you here before would not change I mean that the landmark trees that are shown as being preserved now will continue to be preserved it's not a matter of removing more trees it's really a matter of just fine-tuning those calculations um so with that staff um is recommending in approval of the project

035contingent upon these issues being resolved prior to city council scheduling thank you thank you very much Mr Kowalski um this will now open the public hearing for this petition this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed Lockwood of an arbor planned unit development zoning district and site plan public comment may be made by calling to 206 337 9723 or 213 338 8477 and then entering meeting ID 4427 um as before City staff will call on people by the last three digits of your phone number once you have raised your hand and to raise your hand digitally you press star n on your phone um there'll be an automated message telling you that you can speak uh please do move to a quiet area and mute any television

036um so that we can hear you clearly and as before please um state your name and address at the beginning of your comments and keep in mind you do have three minutes to address us all right caller with phone number ending with 221 um you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission thank you my name is Susan basat I live at three Trowbridge Court in an arbor um want to say good evening ladies and gentlemen and thank you for your service on the Planning Commission as an elected School Board member I know you do a lot of work on behalf of a Citizens and it doesn't often get recognized or appreciated so I wanted to do that first I also know that sometimes an enthusiastic idea can overshadow or Miss questions or concerns from

037the public and often they're not brought up by enthusiastic staff because they get missed intentionally or not I come to you tonight as a member of the southeast Coalition of an arbu um as an impacted residence I attended both meetings hosted by the Lockwood properties developer I asked questions and raised concerns and some were addressed in the latest proposals thank you others were not so I want to um present my questions and concerns um tonight the first one is the rationale for building on this this location is questionable why this particular site it's not clear by the developers the benefit to uh us residents living nearby or for the residents that they're proposed to to retain um there are other like likewise properties already in the vicinity within five miles of this proposed property you

038have American house Carpenter Place story point and cran Ro and by the way none of these properties were imposed on a neighborhood like the Lockwood developer wants to do to us how will this property um how would the Lockwood address the noise from the local airport This Land Is Not zoned for commercial use for yet another for-profit senior highrise could it be that the city's payment in lie of taxes which allows for tax exemptions if the Housing Development offers housing at 60% of Ami is that the reason why that's just not fair to the rest of us who get no tax breaks secondly the resoning this property violates the master plan which was a shared understanding of our Visions for a city some of us were there for those discussions and some of those agreed

039and fought for to ensure the property would remain an rc1 as opposed to being commercialized our the master plan currently calls for what we envision a community uh shared space like a center whereas res residents can have a meeting place a Learning Center a safe space for potential disasters contrary to staff's comments the Bryant Community Center was not designed to serve the broader Community Beyond The Arbor Oak subdivision third resoning to a planned unit development is simply not warranted it violates the spirit intent of the Pud class ification for flexibility not to avoid the Sony requirements that are meant to preserve the character of our existing neighborhood such as is this is this being offered as a consolation prize this proposal offers very little benefit to the public we want to come to you to

040work with you on a joint solution that would be amable to all of us we are affordable housing we are not opposed to affordable housing for anybody our rents and our carrying costs are are minimal compared to what you're currently proposing in this offer so please let us work together to help you find a more viable am meable long-term solution thank you for your opportunity to speak thank you very much if anyone else would like to address the Planning Commission on the Lockwood proposal the um you can press star nine to raise your hand caller ending with with phone number ending with 102 you have 3 minutes to address the Planning Commission caller one can you hear me yes we can can you hear me yes my name is a kpo uh I live at

0412275 shadowwood Drive in Forest Hills Cooperative I represent the southeast an Coalition the city of an arbor when it applied for permission to use the land between Ellsworth plat stone school and Morgan roads for the official City Dump had to gain permission from the DNR for said usage when the original side of a quarry was Tapped Out it became an unofficial and unregulated dump site the agreement entered into between the DNR and the City of an arbor uh included two promises from the city one they agreed to clean up the unofficial unregulated dump site and two they agreed to suitably line the site they would use for dumping City Refuge so that there would be no pollution of the aquifer the city didn't either thereby leaving the entire area with a highly toxic plume of

042dioxine and vinyl chlorides and other pollutants our groundwater is completely polluted and unusable to the population that resides here the city then proceeded to apply for phase three dump space which would have allowed the city to continue to dump pollutants and Airborne toxins into our community for years to come however the DNR refused permission for further dumping due to the blatant abuse of original agreement made the city was also required to dig up and try to remedy the mess under their Phase 2 which they did though unsuccessfully nonetheless causing even more Airborne pollutant to be released into the breathing space of our community the city over the course of its dumping promised the residents of this area that when all the dumping ceased they the city would build a beautiful park with buildings and amenities

043a ski slope Etc ET Etc and all of the unpleasantness of having to endure the dump for the residents would be ameliorated however the extreme toxicity of not only the site but the plume that has come out of the site and spread even into the wetlands on the other side of the expressway has such extreme toxicity that nothing can ever be built upon it or the areas under which the plume has passed the last piece of land in this area that would allow for any amenities activities services or Community Based safety and disaster preparedness measures is 2195 Ellsworth Road the community of Southeast an arbor is officially requesting that the Planning Commission give the citizens of the southeast area time to present their plans for the only amenities they will ever have and you can

044check your city demographics there are none on this end of town further the citizens of South eastan Arbor are requesting an investigation into the wrongdoing of the city in regard to this area area we also feel that the city has some responsibility for funding the benefits to the population of this area the center that we would like to see developed on this site would serve the entire area of some 5,000 people that reside in this small half mile radius unlike the Bryant Center which the city keeps trying to tell us is all we need when they know it is only its only mandate is to the 250 houses comprising an arbor Oak subdivision and which falls woefully short of the actual population in this high density area we look forward to working with the Planning

045Commission to resolve this matter and we want you to think in terms of what our needs of the citizens on this side of town truly are thank you thank you very much there are a couple other hand rais hands raised that Mr Leonard is promoting now caller with phone number ending with 134 that is caller with phone number ending with 134 um if you can unmute yourself and you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission thank you Mr Leonard this is Ken Garber I live at 28 H Hill Court which is on the far north side of Ann Arbor I'm really happy to be with you once again and I'm really glad that Lockwood Senior Living didn't give up on an arbor after city council rejected the Jackson Road Project two years ago it's

046good to see this Ellsworth Road proposal today the 65 affordable units are a badly needed public benefit this is a good proposal from an excellent company however the sustainability elements are lacking other than some EV charging stations the storm water infiltration bed and the fact that there will only be 154 parking spaces versus the 231 required which preserves open space I see none in the plan the petitioner especially should be making this development all electric as you know the a20 plan in strategy 2 action one specifies the following goal quote all new residential and commercial buildings are designed and built to operate without the use of natural gas reducing the increased cost associated with retrofitting existing systems end quote This Is Now official City policy such buildings are technically and economically feasible as commission has

047seen with the Valla Glenn and vidiian projects for planed projects especially electrification should be the standard for approval I hope the ordinance Review Committee is considering this sorry I haven't been keeping up with your work on that area um now will it cost a developers more for all electric vrs systems than for the standard gas fired boilers and duct work maybe slightly you'll remember that the vajala development team when you asked them this back in June wasn't sure they did expect a slight increase in operating costs but said that Resident utility bills would not go up now Lockwood has many more affordable units than Valhalla but electrification does not preclude affordability in your packet tonight you'll find the list of all electric projects in the Bay Area that I sent you including 18 affordable developments

048these got going even before the cities of San Jose Berkeley Meno Park and San Mato all passed ordinances Banning natural gas in new construction if Lockwood tells you that electrification is too expensive it should document that with a detailed comparison gas versus electric for review by staff commission and the public 30 seconds all right I'll conclude I would have eagerly supported this plan two years ago but our world has changed and our city has evolved in 2020 at this very late stage of the climate crisis it's past time to put an end to natural gas and new construction we need to go all electric unless there's an extremely compelling reason not to thanks thank you very much for the other callers on the line we see Hands raised we'll work on getting you in if

049you are on the line and wish to to address Planning Commission you can raise your hand by pressing star nine caller with phone number ending with 534 um caller with anying with 534 you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission hello this is Tom stalberg I live at 1202 travor Street um forly I developed subdivisions and presented for rezonings in multiple communities uh in Oakland County not in washon County uh on one such occasion I had a plan a proposal that the community really liked and wanted but it didn't meet the master plan so I and them I waited and I went to my seller and the land owner and got an extension and the City changed the master plan they went through the proper process of updating the master plan not specifically for

050me and only me but the you know they they look at the area surrounding there and the community did want it and the public was able to speak and say yes we do want this type of project and once that Master Plan was changed then my resoning application was uh voted on and passed and it ended up being a good development and people were happy uh I see a similar thing going on uh here in an arbor the original lock with proposal of on Jackson Road was turned down for that very same reason it didn't meet the master plan and the opportunity was there to approve that project on that site if the Community First went through the proper process and had a master plan revision where the broader Community could weigh in and say

051is this you know we have a current master plan which speaks to the vision that the city and the community has for a particular area if that Vision has changed the proper process is to have a master plan revision and then the community can speak about hey we we want to see something different on the site our vision that's spoken in the master plan has changed this conversation needs to happen so the same thing here on this site needs to happen the if this project which has a lot of good things going for it if the community as a whole wants this project on this site well right now this project doesn't meet the master plan but if that we have a master plan revision and we review the site and the broader Community gets

052to have input on this and determines yes our vision for this site has changed and it would fit this project well then we Chang the master plan and then and only then we have the resoning application that you have before you viable to be heard uh and and passed at that time so we're and we're bypassing the entire step in the process by skipping that this is not what the master plan calls for the site so we have to revise the master plant before we should be considering such a res zoning thank you thank you very much I do see at least one more hand but again if you're on the line and wish to speak to this proposal it's star nine caller with phone number ending with the numbers 133 uh you have three

053minutes to address the Planning Commission hi good evening my name is Lea Reynolds I'm a member of the University townhouse of Co-op I don't wish to provide my address in this public forum however um I am also a member of the southeast an arbor Coalition and I wanted to um add my voice to this conversation uh wanted to let you know that I am uh against this uh Lockwood development resoning request uh seeing as how this proposal was previously rejected on the other side of town um this development is still looking to rezone rather than just building on uh commercial class classified land um this development would not offer anything to the current residents in our areas instead it would be devastating to our area at least as as far as I can tell um

054it would add more traffic to an already congested area specifically and especially when we are not in the midst of a pandemic uh I am I'm curious to know what uh type of traffic control measures would be put in place um adding to the ones that are already in um there on Ellsworth um it seems that the development entry and exit ways would would be rather close to the current traffic uh control um right near there um for the other Co-op um also I'm concerned about what what happened with leveling this land to allow for the development um it would be devastating to the landscape that used to in that area um especially at I'm concerned about the rainwater I know that they've um proposed some um mitigation measures but um during the presentation tonight

055I did hear one gentleman state that um there would be flooding on Ellsworth Road rather than uh to the neighbor well I'm I'm a neighbor down the down the hill and so I imagine that that flooding on Ellsworth uh Road would make its way to me uh over the last few years years we've seen uh the nature of our rainstorms change dramatically so over the past um three rainfalls bad rainstorms we've had our parking lots have been flooded um so I'm really concerned about what this development would do to our um our ground and especially the the rainwater um I have some concerns and questions specifically regarding the development um I know it's stating that it's mixed income and I'm wondering if that affordable housing um the affordable housing units would remain so after the

056residents um the first residents of these affordable uh Apartments would leave would would they then become um Apartments fall under the the other um price ranges and if so that would seem to make those uh essentially making those temporarily affordable um so that's kind of a misnomer um I also don't understand how Lockwood canant the same amount of parking space as units how can it be planned that the residents of these um uh these apartments would have only one car how many parking spaces are allowed for staff visitors and where will the Overflow of Staff visitors Park if there is not enough on site thank you all for your time I appreciate it thank you very much if there's anyone else that wishes to address the Planning Commission during the public hearing for this petition

057you can press star n to digitally raise your hand seeing none I will close the public hearing and read the proposed motion um the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve Lockwood of an arbor development planned unit development PUD zoning district and supplemental regulations PUD site plan and development agreement that petition uh that motion is moved by commissioner s seconded by commissioner milstein uh we are in discussion commissioner Akerman thank you uh chair Mills and thanks to staff for for the presentation uh to the public for your input uh and to to the petitioner for um for being here um I guess I'll I'll lay my cards on at the table a little bit and then I have a number of of questions um I I I find

058myself torn tonight and and I think answers to questions will will really guide me in this process uh I've spent the last five years representing this area on city council and having one-on-one conversations and Community conversations about um what it's like to live in the neighborhood and live in the area and and there have been some strides we got a bunch of new sidewalk installed on the south side of Ellsworth we got a community center expanded we streamlined how uh the stone school tow houses can get sold um but there's also still a lot of of pain points uh in the area and so you know I want to be sensitive to those and and talk through them in a really diligent manner um on the other hand I supported this this project when it

059was on another site and I did so for a couple reasons I did because the the market demand is is really real the data that we look at says this type of housing is desperately needed in Anarbor over the course of the the next two decades the senior population of our community is going to double um as the baby boomer generation ages and also as the millennial generation reaches Greater Heights of of maturity uh The Strain on the housing market in those two ways is is really tough um and and we're seog our Southeast for Michigan Council of governments which is this Regional entity that helps track all of our demographic data says this type of housing is something that we're going to really desperately need um 20 years from now uh but also I

060I come to it from a really personal experience of watching my parents growing up really struggle to pay for housing for my grandmother who had no savings and was living off Social Security and and the market rate units in in an AR for seniors are three times as expensive as what Lockwood is presenting tonight um and the idea that there might have been housing that my grandmother could have gotten that would have made uh being near her loved ones easier and and would have meant that my parents spent more time sleeping and less time worrying about their finances is a reality for a lot of people um and so those are those are the the the two angles I come from a ton of sensitivity for the Neighbors who I represent and I care a

061lot about and also really recognizing that this type of housing uh is is going to be super critical is super critical now and will be even more so 20 years from now um so I think with that I want to move into to some questions again I think the answers to them are really gonna guide my decision- making and consideration um you know and then a few other questions came up um in the in in the conversation I think a lot of neighbors had the same reaction I did in reviewing everything um but there were a couple new ones I just want to hit on those quickly um Lockwood will not receive any local tax exemptions right I just want to be crystal clear on that there's no Brownfield process there's no tax abatement there'll

062be full-fledged property tax payers in the city of Van Arbor right uh they're not seeking any Brownfield uh assistance but broadly the city provides a payment and Li of taxes for any property owner um that provides affordable units that are subsidized by any federal or state program largely thly low-income housing tax credits so um they would be eligible for that for the affordable units to the extent that those units were subsidi subsidized by those sources if they provided those units and they were not subsidized they would not be eligible for that but um I guess that would be a question for the petition whether they seek to Avail themselves of that benefit for the Leonard um Mr Lockwood is currently he's not in he's on hold did you yeah he he is you could add

063145 he got bounced out number ends with Mr there Hi can can you hear me yeah um are are there was a question from the audience around tax abatement um what are your plans around local property taxes our plan is as with the Jackson Road uh proposal to seek a payment in Le of taxes Arrangement um under the the specifically the senior affordable housing uh component which should be a revenue based uh or a net shelter rent based uh formula at 4% of of net shelter rents which are all rental revenues of the development um less um less owner paid utilities times 4% so for the 65 units you would be paying based on a formula established L by the city correct okay and do you have a sense of the order of magnitude of

064savings that that present to you um it's a little bit difficult to uh determine the order of magnitude of savings but the the gross dollars worked out works out to be uh in in the area of 130,000 a year of of tax payment or payment Loop taxes annual so for so for those 65 units you're paying $103,000 a year for for for the development for the full development so after okay understood um okay and I'll get with the treasure and try to get a sense of what that looks like relative to uh to what standard property taxes would be but thank you that's that's a helpful clarification um so I want to talk about storm water first um so in the presentation there there was a figure um that uh eight Acres of runoff currently

065hit the site and and leave the site in a in a rainstorm right now and that would be transition to 1.6 acres can you help clarify what that means acres are are not used usually a uh a unit of of measure we hear in the discussion of storm water so can you clarify how storm water hits the site currently and where it goes and then if your development were constructed how that changes sure I can do that for you um I may be able to sorry excuse me I may be able to share the screen if that if that may help I could go back to there that plan that would be fine that that storm water page yeah uh oh um TR here uh oh um all right give me a big lag here

066we can see it now you can we can see a slide yeah yeah this is the crosssection of the property trying to sorry it's not um there you go okay uh that one maybe Joe there you go that's perfect so um So currently the existing site is got a lot of trees and and in invasive in a single family home and as the site sits it actually kind of sits on on top of a conb so all the storm water that comes to this site as it is right now some of it runs to the north some of it runs to the east some of it runs to the west and some of it runs to the South it all kind of splits and runs in all different directions um our project is taking about

067I forget exactly what the number is but the 6.9 Acres of our area of development which includes all the parking lots the building the lawn areas everything with inside of that cone and brings everything into those two um infiltration basins one as we noted it's on the north side of the property and the east side and then the larger Square underground system in the front of the property so all the rain water that enters that portion of the site enters those infiltration zones and the only point I was making about the emergency overflow is every system needs to have an emergency overflow as we know we get heavy heavy rain events sometimes they fill the system capacity and they need a place to go so that place to go actually is through a pipe Network

068to Ellsworth Road it's not that we're going to be flooding Ellsworth Road we're maintaining a 100-year storm infiltration as per the Washington County Water Resource commission's code [Music] um within our site so the only thing left on our site is really the North End of the property that is the natural tree vegetation area which has all those great large Landmark trees um and it's going to be complemented with other trees and everything in that area that area is basically what's left it will not enter our infiltration system that will actually run to the North or infiltrate as it normally does right now that area will not be impacted so and what about the steep grade for this to the east after so uh it looks like there's you have the retention and then there's a

069grade towards the east towards the Forest Hills Cooperative what what happens to water there actually most of that water is there's several channels in that area we tried to create kind of a a hilly Channel area so the hills are there they kind of funnel into um swales those swales run into our infiltration system so we actually tried to take everything on the east side that we could and bring it right into our infiltration system that's why we created those little BMS and undulations through there to pull everything that we could possibly pull in to our infiltration system into our infiltration system so that stretch just to the east of the retention um does that does that slope in towards the building or down away from the building that slopes in towards our parking lot

070in towards the parking lot okay that's helpful okay so so as it it sits right now water hits this elevated area where the building would one day sit and then sheets out and down uh towards the boundaries of of the development and then what you are suggesting is water would hit the building or the uh the parking lot and then would instead sheet into your engineered system or this retention system to the North and the east correct okay except for the area to the north um so I guess I would love to hear I know we have some members of the commission who are you know e experts in in this area and if there are any creative ideas for what could be done to improve the natural environment to the north um to mitigate

071any um storm water impact because it based on this engineering for you know 80% of the development the storm water situation improves and that we're capturing the water on site which is right now sheeting off to the to the property's boundaries that area to the north has no positive impact um and I'd love to hear if there are ideas of how to improve that so we can put a pin in that one um so as a caller indicated you know 100-year storms are happening more often that's kind of our engineering standard of what we expect to see for storm water systems um can you can that be over engineered can we make an assumption that bigger storms are only going to be happening more often especially during the lifetime of a building like this which

072could last you know 50 plus years um you know you're applying for 99 years of affordable housing um what what can be done to make sure that the systems underground are going to keep up with a change in climate well one of the things that's done is when we do our infiltration testing um that testing comes back with the infiltration rate of the soil and immediately that infiltration rate is basically cut in half so if we have an infiltration rate of say 50 inches per hour it's automatically cut in half by the rules of the Washington County Water Resource Commission and then they take one step further and say the maximum you can use is 10 Ines per hour so the soil itself actually has the capacity to infiltrate more than what we're designing it

073to there is a safety Factor built into all of these systems by basically taking that infiltration rate and dividing it in half of what's designed and what's tested on site in the field so by dividing in a half expectation of how much water you capture or at least the rate at which you capture that water is doubled is that is that that does that factor carry over is it a multiplier it's not really a multiplier it's it's the size of the Basin and the system so if if the soil could infiltrate 50 Ines per hour you would only need a certain size so by dividing it or reducing it all the way down to 10 you're increasing the footprint the system which actually increases the rate the amount of actual water that would be infiltrated

074okay okay and then have you all given any further consideration to how you could over engineer this to keep up with increased water Trends over time so last time the Water Resource Commission passed these regulations was 2014 and we've seen a shift in rainfall even in those last six years what do you I mean what are your thoughts on protecting your investment long term by increasing the amount of storm water that that your system has the capacity of of retaining and detaining so one of the things we worked with on um with Peter Stevens at the city there is we actually provided one of our emergency overflows from the rear infiltration system actually flips right around and goes to the front infiltration system so if the rear system got overflooded um that water would then

075be picked up to the p network and actually brought to the front system actually before being leased offsite so that's kind of an added benefit um we don't have any other um Safety Systems built into this um that's something I guess we would probably have to look further into okay thank you um and then to a question to staff um what ha what is our recourse if something happens to the system in the future I think to the um development on Spring waterer um where one of the big detention drains you know got clogged some decade after for after construction and we were able to hold the developer accountable to to fix that what's our recourse should something happen are there shity Bonds are there do we have a legal means to enforce sure yeah

076sorry we don't we don't have we don't take a bond up front for something up like that however I mean that just one there will be also a development agreement that goes with this but development agreement or not the the the owner of the site whether it's it's Lockwood still in 20 years or 30 years whatever it may be they are responsible for keeping that system up up and functioning for the life of that that project is operating on that that uh property so this can this can even involved staff can re request a routine inspection to make sure that it's functioning the way it should be um but ALS Al as I said so that that's in the code whether or not there'd be a development agreement along with that um but this project

077also has a development agreement that will go with it that further gives the city you know kind of another um enforcement mechanism to really go after this petitioner if really if any item of the project fails I mean they're they're they're they are required to keep this all operations full of util or fully operational including all utilities which is storm water as well so for that life of that project those things do need to be maintained whether it's this owner or any other owner in the future okay so I'm going to move on thank you Mr quy I'm going to move on from storm water what I'm hearing is the situation because we would be engineering the site we would be introducing storm water detention and retention and we're changing some of the grades there's

078a positive impact to storm water compared to what happens on the site today um that's not to say it's perfect and it couldn't be better and what I'm hearing there might be opport unities to the north and there might be opportunities to over engineer and create some greater safety mechanisms should one part uh fail um but I'm also hearing that in the event of failure the city has the means to enforce the the repair um and so that's that's helpful um I'm going to move to massing and height so the the actual physical um footprint and size of the building I think three stories and 42 feet wouldn't be that different than surrounding tow houses I mean certainly it's it's larger but it's not um you know uh it's not a high-rise it's not towering

079over the developments however the property um is is elevated relative to some of the surrounding properties um and so uh I wanted uh to get a sense if you had renderings that that compared your elevations to surrounding property with kind of the the topography um as well that's a question to the petitioner yeah I'm go you can go back to the rendering Matt um the uh we didn't we cut a section on the previous project that we did uh in our attempt to show what this building would look like to ad and households since the setback to the um to the east is 45 feet we don't have enough paper to actually do that um but but uh uh you know a two-story house uh would be roughly maybe 10 feet lower than this and

080then we did I think if you go on we do have a rendering in this packet mat at the end maybe that that shows the alternate plan that we did or maybe it's just a site plan is that the end of it uh no um well if you look at the site plan here we originally came in the building was turned um uh towards the street and uh so that there was a much bigger impact on the residential neighborhood to the east with the with the wall and then we pushed the building back to the north and to the East and then we create These Wings uh to minimize the scale of the building but also we have the bump outs go back to the rendering real quick sorry for ordering you around Matt no

081that's okay uh um sorry yeah so I I I I know this doesn't exactly answer your question because the the the there isn't a structure that's really close that we could fit on the on the sheet um but basically what we did to minim to minimize the scale of a fairly large project again is to have these bump outs like at the end of the building and the balconies and then we mixed up the materials both with brick and different colors of brick and stone materials and then siding materials as opposed to making it all brick and all one color uh so that that those are some of the things that we do with those Peaks as well to reduce the massing of the overall building and have it fit in and look more residential

082in scale did you play with different um geometries so for example on Jackson Road you introduced an x-shaped building um and spoke to the merits of that design um now we're seeing an H do do different do different geometries different shapes of building reduce or lessen any impact to the surrounding viewscape yeah um the the shape that we pick is based on two factors one is an internal factor of walking distance for our senior residences so uh you see sort of these symmetrical designs so that no one person is walking too much too far and some people are walking very short distances some people are walking very long distances so when we do these um uh that's another reason to go three stories uh uh to shorten the overall walking distances um in this particular

083case the the actual shape we have a number of different shapes that we can use that fit the inside uh needs of the residence on the outside so what Y and H versus an X or something else well on this particular site we we uh the the H shape fit in better with the rectangular shape of the property and that we we were able to create sort of instead of instead of a single row we were able to create these Pockets uh in the H which serve for outside space for the residents but also opportunities for additional landscaping and uh and again to break up uh maybe the site plan will show yeah this will show it so you can see um that these these outdoor areas that are within the two T's uh provide

084activity space for the residents and also green space for the community that uh that face it so um we looked at certainly we look we started maybe with the X shape but um we felt that this shape fit this site better and that's why we were proposing on Jackson Road um you all were able to redesign the building for a reduction of 6,000 square feet in total between versions of site plans have you looked for similar um say I guess reductions of of uh of massing here yeah one of the things this is a much bigger site than Jackson Road and we are proposing more units but we're also proposing more open space in this site so um when we when we looked at it and we looked at at how this fit on the

085site initially quite frankly it was easier to to to site plan um because of the fact that it's a larger site now the back of it slopes off significantly to the north um so it was so we couldn't push the building all the way back there um but but in terms of uh we made a similar uh redesign uh on this site plan as we did on the Jackson Road after talking to the residents so um I'm I'm sorry that we don't have that I have it on my screen but to show you but we did submit it to the city an alternative plan where the building basically is fli 90 degrees and the and the uh the the wing that's to the North and South was up against the residential area and the setback

086was significantly less and so the modification we made to this plan is to flip it uh maybe not 100% ideal from having the entry not facing the road um but um oh there it is yes so you can see this this is where we started from it was from a perspective of hey let's put our the front of our building uh out out uh uh visible to the road as people pass by so they can see uh you know what the what the building is and everything but again it you could see the parking to the side got quite close to the east property line and the residential units there and that was uh com and also also we had parking uh in front of the building in uh in the front set back uh

087so that there was a neighbor across the street who actually is in Pittsfield Township but one of his comments was can't you give me more green space in front of the building so based on those two comments uh we were able to flip the building provide significant more green space in both the East and the South uh sections of the property okay um I want to turn to traffic um this came up as a resident concern and does similarly with with pretty much all all the developments that we review um you know I'll just say as a starting point we we've experienced um and the data proves out nationally and locally that senior developments generate a lot less uh track traffic just given the population um and and I was hoping um someone from the

088the petition team or someone from staff could just quickly walk us through some highlights uh of your traffic study um as well I would just add I would look through uh right the petitioner to add for the traffic data in the detail however you know I just like to point out as far as and obviously our traffic engineer has has looked at this but um and have their approval looking at what they look at the traffic impact on the street and everything else like that what we did as well as if you remember back at and this relates directly kind of to the traffic and to your point is that you know we looked back at the the the original or the first proposal over on Jackson Road which was proposing significantly less parking than

089one per unit this is essentially one per unit um there were quite a bit and and rightfully so there's concerns regarding that and from staff as well is while we all want to tend to push for Less parking we have to realize that location as well as this did not have really any opportunity for easy overflow um so we did quite a data bit of data from the petitioner but staff itself uh staff myself basically did a couple of site visits to locations as well as looking at independent data and for both of this these petitioners other other properties that they have around uh Southeast Michigan I happen to be visit two or three of them remember um and the parking lots were significantly empty um so that it kind of bore out a lot

090of what we were seeing kind of in the data but it was actual real world experience because I did want to see for myself well for you know providing this people have to have an area to park so it doesn't necessarily I'll turn it back over to them to answer the specific traffic questions but we did find that the data proved that there weren't a lot of cars every Resident was did not seem to be bringing a car um so I visited a couple of times of the day so anyway that goes kind of the point regarding traff traffic generally well equals cars and vice versa so with that I I'll turn it over to the petitioner to comment a little bit more on the specific traffic data I'll just say thanks Mr kski for

091doing that that homework and actually seeing it in action and I did I wanted to reiterate that just because I thought that was a point that goes to the traffic thank you totally yeah thanks Matt and and as he pointed out we did a complete traffic impact study um looking at all the intersections around the area and that pointed out you know senior housing does not have the peak demand as say an apartment complex would on a traffic system you know usually Mr quickly just for the lay person Peak demand is morning and evening rush hour that is correct yes sorry yep so you don't have that Peak you what everybody's getting up and heading to work or coming home from work those are your peak hours of traffic impact and the impact study for

092the intersections that was studied actually showed very very minimal uh like tenth of a second if if they changed at all for the intersections around this development um that's and that study was submitted to the city and reviewed and um has been approved and so just to to translate that the at when there might be traffic congestion on uh on the surrounding streets that the impact the increase that this potential development would cause would be a delay of a tenth of a second to someone's total commute time as they travel in this area correct do you have a sense of how many cars that is over the course of your morning or evening Rush Hour how you know I don't have the exact numbers from the traffic study um but you do have some employees

093coming and going you might have you know depending on which direction you're coming from five six additional cars um you know the owner probably said tell you exactly how many employees are are staff during the times of of the project and hours of Staffing um and when those shs change whether this project would actually have that kind of an impact but you know yeah study it's just you know handful of c and I don't want to downplay the the traffic concern um but but if to provide some reassurance I'd have a lot more concern if this was just Standard Market rate any age demographic housing because you have people who are commuting to and from work and really it's that Rush Hour impact where people feel the difference of a development of a new development

094that this is for a very specific age demographic which is generally folks who have retired um and you know we we just we we know from past experience that the impact is far less and almost immeasurable um so or not measurable so um that's helpful and then also Mr Kowski thanks for clarifying uh the the parking um question I know someone had a question about that as well the ratio seemed low um and that that does seem appropriate based on the demographics of of people living there and the experience that Lockwood properties have in other similar communities is is helpful as well um I want to turn to uh lighting and and noise um there was an added question from trustee baset about no external noise coming into the property which I thought was very

095gracious of her to look out for future potential uh neighbors um and so I just wanted to to touch on that quickly as well what kind of soundproofing are these units having you know you hear horror stories of affordable housing developments that have paper thin walls and I just want to get a sense of the quality of construction that you're you're eyeing um the the this is high quality construction the partitions are sound and meet um all stdc sound rating requirements and exceed them uh one of the biggest things that we know from these is that if you can hear between units it doesn't matter if it's senior housing or if it's uh a aable senior housing or high-end Luxury Condominiums if people can hear each other next door it's a major problem and there

096are complaints and it's it's a long uh and we as we as Architects uh don't want to hear it so uh there's nothing about this building that it's going to be a cheap in terms of the the type of construction the structural system the sound system the water penetration systems uh this is really and our firm uh has been specializing in healthcare facilities and Facilities to house and care care for the elderly for over 60 years um and we do all the gamut we do uh high and uh expensive uh facilities and we do affordable facilities and while there may be some material choices that are different and some economical systems that we uh choose for affordable to keep the cost low uh we're not compromising on uh on noise or or anything that would

097that would uh affect the C comfort of the residents either inside or outside okay um I also uh you know light pollution was a concern of of some neighbors I I spoke to um and I saw in the staff report that you're going to be dark skies comping C I just want to be crystal clear that you understand that no light can escape your your property under those conditions correct correct okay so absolutely no light from your property will impact neighbors under law or as as agreed upon in this this development correct okay um then just turning to noise quickly um on Jackson We baked in limit ations around when delivery trucks could come as a means to protect from commercial noise in a residential area are those same limitations being considered here staff has

098not actually brought that up with this location but we could ask the the petitioner at this time I mean I it I I did consider those however I was it was given some of the distance from where um where some of the loading facilities were on this um I didn't consider this strongly however that's definitely a valid point that the petitioner could respond to no I noted that too Mr kski I mean it is a different site than Jackson there's more space the the loading facilities are further away but to some this is more commercial than the immediate neighbors have experienced before so I think if we could do what we can to reduce any kind of feeling of a commercial use in their area before or after hours when people are certainly home and

099maybe trying to rest I think that would give people a lot of peace of mind um so I'd love to to see that included as well and I I'm going to leave it there I have some other questions around the amenities and then the the school and pedestrian connections as well as sustainability um but I I also realize I'm monopolizing time so I want to let my my colleagues on the commission ask questions as well anybody want to follow up after commissioner Akerman commissioner Gib Randall and then commissioner S I just want to follow up on some of the storm water um things that I believe commissioner akman was probably alluding to on our commission so um when when I look at their plan um I think they have enviable soils that very few developments

100get to be able to take advantage of in our city um they have a fox sand which has incredibly High infiltration rates and and very few places actually have a luxury of having that so um Mr Maynard is absolutely correct it's like there there's so much safety Factor built into to what the standards are and it's going to go Way Beyond what the 100y year is it's designed for 100y year but it's going to go way beyond that in terms of just how conservative um it there's it's kind kind of like Beyond Belt and suspenders approach in some ways with the with the Washington County um Water Resource commissioner's office with some of their standards especially on sites like this where they just don't let you count how fast it can go and so when

101I see soils like this and I could certainly ask Mr Mayor to see like what the infiltration rates were but you know in those Fox soils they're often you know they can be 40 or 50 inches an hour and they only let you count 10 you know in the regular ations so there's just so much there's there that's the least of my worries about this site is their storm water um because they they're just lucky enough to have the soils that work so I think the the open space at the back it's no different than what it is right now so it's it's um you know it's fully vegetated they're going to be planting a bunch of new trees and so um it's just it's going to be instead of the entire burden of the

102site flowing to the north which most of it is for when I looked at their stormm water plan it's going to be a whole lot less of that flowing to the north and it will mostly I mean it will infiltrate according to the soils that they have and taking it to the front just means that the burden is just coming off of this in general so I am totally comfortable with um what's going on with their storm water plan um I also just want to bring up some of the landscape stuff uh quickly I'm totally comfortable with the the fire hydrant and the the variances they're asking about for that one thing I would like some clarification on um so the wall on the west holy cow that is a that and and perhaps Mr

103manard can get on again um uh when I looked at the top wall bottom wall elevations along there it is kind of a roller coaster going along there um and there's places where it gets to be you know like 20 feet tall in places which is nutty some of which are the the the development is on the low side of and some of which the development is on the high side of and so I think what this is saying is that you know this site has been highly manipulated in the past in terms I believe I don't know that history and I would be curious actually um with either of the staff members or perhaps even the the petitioner would know about the history but I do know that there was some kind of query

104action going on in here and that's where you can get these like crazy steep slopes and all kinds of manipulated things and so I know that you know they're going to be short on their conflicting land use buffer for the West I understand that with this wall that's going to be going in and you need space for the footing and all those kinds of things so I totally understand that but for the future land owners um which is Ann public schools to the parcel on the north side of the West side and a private parcel on the south side of the West Side depending on where that wall is in the Arc of whether it's going up or down I would request that in the places where the Lockwood is up and we have a

105huge wall on the west that um I know you're planting things along the top there but perhaps you could plant some vines that would just vegetate that wall because it's going to be huge and I think that that would soften it a lot on that side and I know there's nobody there right now but somebody's going to be there in the future and I feel like it's a small thing to be able to offer and to be able to ask and I think that it's something that um would just make a difference for those people that are going to move in at some point as things as things change or if the schools end build you know ends up building on that site um that would be just I think nice for the future to

106be able to have something growing on that wall because boy that's big in places I mean really really big so that's a request that I have uh for that I'm also um very glad to hear that you're going to be removing a lot of the invasives in that area and planting other mitigation treat trees instead um I guess what I would encourage you to do in terms of the removal of those invasive trees and you know I've worked with these sites a lot it's hard and I would ask that especially in these areas where you're putting in a lot of um mitigation trees is that you actually remove those things out of the ground you don't just cut them at the base because they're going to Spring right back and so you're going to be

107clearing and grubbing so much of the site you're going to have big equipment out there you have the opportunity you know before you start building this whole thing up and when you're doing the site clearing to really take those suckers out of the ground get their root systems out of the ground um which will just mean it's a whole lot harder for them to be able to spring back I'm sure the seed bank is full of stuff but it's really going to help if you can if you can not just cut and then plant around it but that you can actually get those things out of there um and that's you know the key I think to being able to have some of these forested systems start to regenerate so um again that's kind of

108a you know that's not a typical thing that goes in the development agreement but I guess what I would say is just in the in the interest of your stewardship of this area which is what is partly discussed in this you know and it was one of the benefits that um Mr Lockwood talked about not just canopy management but Forest Health Management I think um so I would like to see um some of that in terms of your process of your construction um in in that North Area um so I guess it just one more thing and then I'll let some others speak and that is do um do staff know what the history of this site was when I looked back in time on the um you know in in the old Aerials it

109doesn't um it looked pretty cleared for a long time there were some big trees and things like that on the North side but I'm curious about um you know what one of the residents brought up about uh you know know some sort of adjacent area that had a bunch of um you know Brownfield things going on in it and and I just don't know the history of what that's all about and I'm wondering if anybody understands what the resident is talking about it doesn't seem like it's this particular site um so but I'm just curious what the context of that is um because it was my understanding that dioxine was only you know over uh on the west side of town and not I I had you know that's news to me that it would

110be in this area as well and I'm just wondering what the um what the context of that comment is do you all have any idea I actually I I mean I imagine that most of the contamination they were speaking to as a landfill across the street there across Ellsworth further down um not on this site in itself um I mean I can say I did probably what you did as I looked back as far as we could on our aerial photos um and right it's been kind of cleared there was no obvious activity on this site as far back as 402 45 I forget we got a really grainy photo in the 40s but um you could tell it's kind of cleared at that and I know as well as the the adjacent site um

111that was on Ellsworth the one that I believe the school system is negotiating with along the summit site it was previously called The Summit it was under construction and then they kind of walked away um that site they did do Environmental assessments when that came through just as part of it but there was no issues because of the adjacency there there was nothing on that um site either so I I'm not aware of any contamination underneath the site or with it I mean tier could also speak to that but that's all I can really add yeah I can't add much more if it's something you're interested we could we would have to probably follow up with our Public Services team who managed that facility but um I I presume that the reference is is less

112relative to the Gman um plume and more to the historic operation of that site as a landfill um I know it is um under some um review or regulation by the state um for that I know that there are obligations that the city has for maintaining that in a safe manner um that um I'm sure that that has been um considered in the context currently the city is actually looking at potentially um because of limitations of that as a potential site for solar energy um installations um but um beyond that General detail well and then one other um detail is um whether it is any type of contamination the city does require developments to connect to the city's water and Utility Systems right um so um obviously any sort of impacted aquafers is not a

113great thing but that is um among the reasons that we require utility connection so that we can mitigate mitigate that risk for any uses okay so it basically is you know the site across the street and and not this site in particular um so I think it gets difficult for us to be able to kind of regulate around you know this particular site which is across the street and you know I don't understand all the promises or or that were or weren't made in the past you know with that sort of thing but it's difficult for us as on the Planning Commission to be able to kind of apply things from um sites that aren't you know the one in question um just in terms of the way that we operate so it's pretty difficult

114for us to kind of look look into that to be able to figure that out in terms of what our what my understanding is anyway of what our our um the planning commission's ability to control and understand what's going on on this particular site so we we now need to kind of stick to the boundaries to a certain extent uh with that so um I guess that's that's what I would say about that and I'll um I'll sign off for now and let others uh ask questions commissioner so thank you uh yeah that set use was a question of mine so I'm glad that got answered um one of my questions is a clarification on the affordable housing in the supplemental regulations it says 65 affordable units no income no higher than 50% Ami but

115in the present ation it shows a mix so I just want to verify what affordable units we're actually including in this and that we get the numbers sorted out right because I have one I have two units at 50% Ami 361 bedrooms at 60% 27 two bedrooms at 60% but what I'm reading is 65 oford at no higher than 50% I mean it's probably more accurate to say 65 no higher than 60% um there'll be a few at 50 um but 60% is the or or lower is the for the affordable I know we'll have a couple in 50 is there a reason it was at 50% in the supplemental regulations because that's better it it was probably would have been that probably would have been an error typo would have been my mistake Matt

116got my hopes up okay yeah that that's a claric like getting that up then is important um I guess on that too maybe with like the parking uh relative to the old site and then this is the new site uh there was it were called like a uh amenity as like a bus transit that you guys had uh is that still in existence on this site do you have that as an amenity like a yes we have a bus that transports residence yes okay um I think that's like especially important where this site is located uh as an amenity so I just want to kind of clarify that um did uh I guess uh talking about sustainability and energy use did you guys do any evaluations relative to electrification um and a cost analysis to

117the EV I know you've got the conduits run but is it set up to supply power to the EV with your current electrical load um and did you review full electrification of the building as an option it's two questions is right now the uh you have EV uh charging stations but they're noted to be um installed conduit for future charging stations um and I we recently did a study the parking came up recently on some projects another project we're working on and we did an analysis of all the uh red senior projects that we have in housee um it really the residents the average age of the residents in our units is eight came out to about 82 years of age the amount of residents that actually have a vehicle own a vehicle ranged anywhere

118from 20 to um on a highend 40 but more closer to 20 between 20 and 30 individuals um so we're willing to do the the parking it just needs to reflect and on the makes us reflect on how many you would need and if we need to add them as far as whether the electrical was sized for that um when we talked with we did the construction numbers up front we knew that we had to if you do one it's you know if you get into a dozens then it becomes a whole new Transformer system and different things so um that's why we wanted to be able to adapt to what we need there um but to answer your question on the full electric um we did not I don't believe we did a a

119um Jan I don't believe we did that in on looking at the entire electric I mean from our experience we do when we look at the affordable the from our experience the gas um for the Heat and gas for the for the stoves and so forth people tend to like that the the gas stoves and then from a cost standpoint on the affordable side um that's something that we we look at keeping cost down for the residents on the Utility side I know those systems are getting better and more efficient and we hope to be there it's just when you're comparing uh the Bay Area to uh the winters here um there's a little bit of a cost difference on the electric for the winter Heat versus the uh the gas I we're getting closer

120every year with the technology um but on this one we did not we're not looking at um at the electric heat component yeah on first of all on the charging stations uh we did not put in you know it's not a problem if someday everybody drives electric cars and and and and charging stations are the norm and hopefully that'll be the case uh sooner rather than later but the initial cost of putting that in would would be very large in terms of the Transformers and that sort of thing the service is there the ability to do it is there in the future um even putting the conduit quite frankly the conduit would be pretty easy to put in in the future but but putting it in now uh is a good idea and and and

121it costs money but it's not absorbing it so um I I think that what we're looking for is there's flexibility there uh to add as the need grows in the future in terms of all electric um there are uh there are buildings like this that that where the heat Source in the units is electric um we we have done that quite frankly the main reason uh we see that it's done in motels a lot and it's done in some senior living facilities where they're going to flip the property because uh the initial cost is actually lower uh can be lower to put those types of units in but the operating cost is significantly higher now hopefully that'll change to in the future or simply um we'll we'll absorb that but right now it is a

122concerned for the affordable units um you know I I haven't our engineer hasn't done a detailed study for this building on the difference of costs we've done them in the past and um you know I can tell you you know when my son was in Indiana University in Bloomington his his apartment was done in all electric and the bills were very high per month in terms of heating in the winter um so hopefully that's changed somewhat since that those that was a few years ago and hopefully it's going to change more in the future but um our concern right now would be that that cost would have to be somehow passed through to the residence yeah I mean I i' challenge it you know and push you to really look at it I know you've

123got gabled roofs but you've got Southern Exposure you can put solar panels you can capture energy on your site to you know I know it's a cost to put the panels on but it captures and feeds your grid onsite too so I we hear these from all different spectrums because I've as an architect I've done analysis and I've looked at you know the cost difference and there's a margin difference your we had a previous project that you know uh talked about The Upfront cost being more you're actually saying it's cheaper so it runs as a commission and what everyone's hearing too so it it's partially like what we might be hearing as also a sales pitch to stick with the project as proposed um but I think even gas ovens if we talk about uh

124if people aren't driving I'm not sure how many people are cooking so often or are particular about gas stoves versus electric stoves uh I think that's a really easy switch to make uh I I can't see chefs being too you know in inh house cooking uh for that difference and really starting to think about even those small changes right away to do electric appliances and that the hfac systems might be gas uh at this point with the project um so that would be something that you know I'd look for like all all appliances switching to electric and just thinking about bigger systems being gas and I hear you and I'm I think we're on the same page by the way the engineering system has not been designed for this building yet um and so we

125certainly I think can't take into account your suggestions about appliances um and uh we can look at uh I guarantee you if I could convince my client it would be cost effective to go all electric they would do it um and if it was close they would do it um so uh we'll look uh we'll look at ways to save energy any way we can um and hopefully there soon it'll come a day there's different types of electrical systems some be more expensive the one I was thinking of the motel type units been around forever are cheaper um but but the run them at the at this time is not but I think that Gap is closing uh and I guess my last question um I'll raise now is about the schools and the programming

126and the connection I know that they're in early conversations now but I am kind of curious with the dumpsters in the um northwest corner and where it's intended to maybe connect I guess it it's still a little vague so if the petitioner could explain a little bit more about how there might be overlap or not between you know the note about the Community Gardens and programming and stuff like that like what is where's that conversation stand and what are kind of like uh long-term goals of programming between the school and this project we've we've the conversations we've had with the school system have been very preliminary very conceptual um but they've revolved around programming an example of a program would be and they they've also um to speak to commissioner GB Randall her idea of

127the the high wall um there's some idea of them not wanting the wall either so in we may be able to reduce that and they may need some there trade off for some grading and some things so it's been very conceptual because um they don't they're not sure what they're I don't know the details of their plans um we talked about also uh things like gardening programs with seniors that interact with the elementary school children that then have the the food that's grown and then utilized at the uh in the in the kitchen that we have the commercial kitchen that we have to serve the residents so those type of things things we've talked about synergies there that are just interactive synergies but as far as detail ad Jason es the only detail we talked

128about is maybe grading um bringing that wall down on the on the western edge um it maybe and that's nothing that was a very um that was a phone conversation so but we don't have anything in in huge detail right now but we've been active we've been actively talking with speaking with them they've been busy with other things going on given the nature of where we are right now so but they have been they have been a an open open to as they look at developing adjacent and we've been open with them as far as use of space in the rear of the building in the rear of our lot that you know and so forth so yeah I guess that was kind of the question of like connectivity like is is it actually that

129uh the school might be able to utilize the open space and that grading would help blend between those two sites because there's you know steep wall for some part of it or is just that food comes over to the kitchen sort of thing well they've got some programs down in speaking with the asset manager there they have programs that started um at Bryant revolving around Gardens down there that didn't really take off because people didn't some people come and take ownership and some people don't it depending on the what year it is um there was not a huge interest in actively utilizing that space down there because it is elementary and they they tend to want fences because they don't want the the kids just taking off and not not being contained having children I

130know the way that works but uh the um it's more been along the lines of um you know them being able to have some of the too they have on their side it may be helpful to have the way that site adjacent and Summit was cut that maybe taking some of that material down and some share there with um some gr a grading joint grading plan and in exchange we get a we bring the building down a little bit and they have some material so they can still have their uh PL their uh their game space as well as whatever they're planning on doing there in the future so I think they're planning for it sounds like they're planning for future expansion but I don't we didn't get into I didn't really get into their

131detail thank you that's it for now you're welcome commissioner milin thank you um so several Commissioners have touched on this and I just want to get a little bit more information um in regards to this um and that has to do with um the financial aspect of the affordable units um so 65 units are going to be at 60% 60% Ami or less and so I really want to know what exactly that's costing the citizens of an arbor um in the regards to um tax breaks um I know commissioner akran um asked for that information and he got an answer but I'm still not 100% sure um if Mr Lockwood or any uh anybody else um can talk a little bit more about what is this really costing the citizens of an arbor in the

132regards of if this building was built without affordable units what would property taxes be collected and what is the reduction um now that uh there are affordable units here so can somebody address that on an annual basis of what is this costing technically the city yeah we could go ahead Mark happy to uh to address that it's a it's a little bit of a difficult question uh to answer um because there three really three factors at play uh one is the structure of the payment and L of taxes which is the proposed structure that that we're seeking for this proposal um the second component is what if what would the tax um property tax be in the event that there were affordable apartments in the development uh but not a tax abatement that's something we'd

133have to to investigate with the assessing assessor Department to see what methodology is used uh in in appraising or assessing uh properties of this sort whether it's an income ba income capitalization based approach or whether it's a a modified cost basis approach and then the third would be the cost of uh or the the the property taxes of fully market rate um senior community of this sort so I I guess that's a sort of a long- winded answer to say that we'd have to do some more homework and discussion with the assessor's office to determine what the assessment methodology is and how it specifically applied to this project so let's say for example this property has an assessed value of just for the sake of ease um 10 million doar um can we can we

134work on that numbers and knowing that the uh millage rate for uh property taxes in an arbor is 49 Mills so I I just want to I I'm still having a hard time you know what I'm trying to understand is yes you're Pro providing affordable housing but is it really a public benefit um and how how well it is a public benefit but how much is it actually costing the city of an arbor the residents with regards to property taxes that we're not collecting that's what I'm trying to get a grasp on because I don't have a really good understanding at this point of what what it's actually costing the residents of the city I mean the analysis you just did would be $240,000 $45,000 you take the value the the value of 10 million

135divide by 2,000 and then multiply by your millage rate you may have to do 80% of that because someone goes to the land but the challenge is I when you talk about pilot have done affordable housing for a long period of time having the fact that an arbor has a pilot ordinance welcomes affordable housing um cities have affordable housing ordinances Farmington Hills City of Detroit certain ones have those but for having um because if you don't have it you can effectively keep out affordable housing and we talk about affordable housing in this project this is affordable housing in it's portion of it but it's market rate you will not be able to tell the difference between the market rate housing and the affordable housing my grandmother lived till she was 92 in a in a

136American house unit in an affordable unit because she was a worked as a janitor in the school system she did not you would have known the difference between her unit and the unit of someone that was paying $3500 a month so that's important but if you have a pilot um you enable affordability if you don't have a pilot that tool effectively cannot have it makes that that rental so subsidy it's it's in effect a rental subsidy in addition to the subsidy that's allowed by Misha Misha provides a subsidy on their on the in the form of tax credit and also in the reduced uh affordable interest rate on the financing so you get the financing plus the the pilot brings you to the or two tools that get you to affordability but for not having

137those it's very difficult to get affordable housing because the the cost of just the general cost of construction so so that number again on a $10 million susp value I I did just using 10 million I didn't deduct for I just took 10 million divided by it's half that would be half that would be assess value divided by th which is the mill rate so I take the year number 10 million divide by 2,000 and I multiply by 49 and I came up with 245,000 okay and then are you receiving any uh federal or state funding on an annual basis um here on after so it's built are there any tax incentives that you're receiving other than local property tax reduction are there any other tax incentives for the affordable unit just the low the

138low income housing tax credit funding and the mistu the Mist financing okay um I I can speak to the uh guess the total uh different funding sources involved the the there there really four funding sources involved aside from a local tax exemption the first is the tax exempt Bond uh financing which is really aside from the characteristic of it being tax exempt to the buyers of of the bonds that back the mortgage for the property um it is a traditional U mortgage obligation like would be uh uh provided by a bank um in fact in in the current very low interest rate environment there's there's very little reduction in an interest rate on taxes and bond financing um the secondary piece is the low-income housing tax credit which is a 10-year tax credit uh paid

139out to or or credited out to um an investor in in the project but that is effectively monetized on the front end to to support the the construction of the project up front so it doesn't really flow as a subsidy uh annually to the property so there's no call it defraying of of of operating expenses or or sub or direct subsidy of rent and then the the third and fourth components in this proposed development are home investment partnership funds which is is secondary uh financing it at a very low interest rate below uh Market interest rate um and that is a contingent based liability so it's it's paid from uh paid from from the from the development um on an ability to pay basis so it's it's again more of an upfront uh Capital support

140to to the construction and then Misha also has a matching program with the home investment partnership funds that are allocated through HUD um of their really balance sheet reserves that they they structure a very similar loan uh in a subordinate position uh for development great thank you and then how long are these units going to be affordable for the the program-based affordability uh for for the the funding sources utilized is 50 years uh I'd have to uh to confirm with Matt what the what the affordability period in development agreement is uh I know for Jackson wrote it was 99 years and uh I I we're we're amable to to that sort of a structure for this development 50 vers 99 years is not uh um strongly impactful I guess on the on the feasibility of

141the project Matt is that correct it's 99 years yes that's correct that's 99 years written in the the Pud supplementary regulations all right perfect um and um I guess another question with regards to the mix of units that only two units are at 50% Ami uh the remainder of the affordable units are at um 60% Ami how was that mix how did you arrive that those numbers and also with regards to how many are in one bedrooms versus two bedrooms how how did that come about uh the well the mix uh to start with the one-bedroom versus two-bedroom uh component the mix is based on uh the market study uh for for the development uh commissioned by by Misha uh identifying need in the marketplace as well as our experience with other developments that uh

142we found that there's a pretty robust demand for both one and two bedrooms um in in most markets that we've been in and having that balanced mix of the one versus two bedrooms um provides a a good uh coverage for the market and and offering uh for prospective residents and then uh on the affordability mix side of things the 60% area median income is again with with numerous sources of funding there are numerous sources of of uh of um rent and income restrictions so the the tax exempt bonds as well as and the mortgage as well as the lowc housing tax credits specify 40% of Apartments um at 60% of area median income or 20 20% of apartments at 50% of area Medi income U and in in this case we we thought it was

143better to go in the direction of 60% uh area median income to have a significantly higher apartment count uh of affordable apartments given the significantly reduced uh rent on those apartments compared to the market rate and uh the 50% the the two 50% apartments that that kind of show up in our in our proposal is as just a small subset are actually part of a 11 apartment group or layer uh driven by the Home investment partnership program um that has specifies that um that or 10 rather 10 Apartments uh that specifies that 10 uh apartments are subject to home investment partnership program regul or or restrictions and on rent and income uh of which two are are designated low home and eight are designated High home uh High home is six the lesser of 60%

144area median income or the HUD fair market rent uh for the area um and the low home apartments are the lesser of 50% area median income or the fair market rent for the area okay thank you um and then I have one comment um in regards to one of the callers that we had Mr stalberg who talked about the master plan and um Mr stalberg if you're still listening to us um thank you for being here uh but more importantly um I think there's not one member of this commission who does not agree with you that the master plan uh process um the master plan rewrite or the rework of it um needs to get back on track um as many of you know and those who don't know um we undertook a almost a

145year-long process of finding a consultant to help us with this uh a group of dedicated uh citizens got together um to work on finding a consultant um city council has unfortunately tabled this um indefinitely but that work needs to start again because we keep running into these sorts of scenarios and that is because our our master plan is decades old um and it's time for a rewrite so so to everybody who has friends on on city council including commissioner aurman and Mr stalberg I'm sure you have friends on city council as well um I encourage everybody to contact your city council representatives and tell them to get uh the master plan process back on track thank you so much I don't know if I have any friends on city council but I can thank you

146so much and I will uh I'm all set with my questions for now commissioner hamers Schmidt thank you um not surprisingly a lot of the things on my list have already been discussed um I have a couple of questions clarifying questions for staff um and I think I'm clear but I'm seeing a disconnect between the staff report and what I'm reading as this up the current supplemental regs document that I found on R tret um so I just want to make sure I say this for the record so that everybody's clear and that everything's going to be updated appropriately in the supplemental RS it says there's 158 units but we're talking about 154 units correct yes okay um so that's the thing I saw that needed to be updated in the supplemental R and then

147this discussion of the split of the 65 affordable units between um 60% and 50% I'm wondering if in the supplemental regulations it needs to like right now it just says 65 shall not exceed um 60% is it worth putting in there that two of those will not exceed 50 so that it's you're muted Matt if you're talking yes um I I can I sorry I didn't mean to cut you off but yes that that can be clarified exactly within the supplemental regulations to the unit count um within the supplemental regulation there are you'll also notice some of the within those suppl regs there's a little bit of uh leeway that's given those just meaning like it may have been written to allow the possibility of 158 units with on that site but what they're proposing

148are 154 now again it doesn't mean they can add units without coming back through site planning but since this is a zoning um we're setting the zoning regulations the same way with if and I know you didn't ask this question but just in case for members of the public or anybody else that sees there there is a little bit of leeway given within the setbacks as well because you don't want to put them exactly what they're saying now now again with those parameters set in there that's just setting the Zoning for it they still have to so if that site plan changes radically it's still has to go back to Planning Commission so I hope that kind of answered your question and and again going back to the supplement regarding the breakdown of the affordability

149yes that will be update and yes that will be within those supplemental regulations okay and this I kept reading in the staff report 40% of the units are going to be affordable but then I want to do the math 40% of 154 is really like 61.6 or something something and I know the staff report is not binding um but I just as long as like the supplemental regulations actually say 65 units well probably say 40% but I I believe it actually does say a minimum in there but I don't have yeah I think the the suppl r document that I'm looking at if it's the current one says 65 units it doesn't have a percentage okay okay so we're good that will not in there my second question um for staff is really just sort

150of for my own benefit I remember when we talked about this project it feels like a million years ago and in the the prepetition meeting I think we talked about that adjacent property and there's clearly a sidewalk Gap um which would be great to have filled uh between the property we're talking about and the intersection where there is a shopping center and at that time I think there was I'm really trying hard to remember the details but like there were we there was no buyer um and like no plans to do anything but now it sounds like the school district is planning to purchase that property my larger question is before anybody does anything with that property that that new owner is going to have to fill that sidewalk G is that correct um well

151I mean I would say a a a private private owner yes I mean if that was to be developed like under that site plan that was that was previously proposed for that that side walk app okay is required to be filled but since it's a school district do the rules change well the school school districts um actually have some accountability directly to the state um as opposed to the city so um we um for projects such as new schools they um submit those projects to us for an advisory review but they are not bound to zoning like private development is so um they are you know I would say generally they are is interested in pedestrian safety as as we are as an organization but um if if that became publicly owned in that that

152manner they would not be subject to those regulations that um Mr kski refers to that would require any private development to meet okay okay so there is a risk that that get might not get filled if the school is in fact purchasing okay I don't like that I'm not really sure what I want to do about that but I don't like that um okay my third question is going back to parking and thank you Mr Kowalski for going out and looking at those um similar properties that was super helpful but let's just hypothetically um say that everybody that comes to these 154 units brings a car and we still need parking for visitors and we still need parking for staff how are the spots being allocated is it sort of like first come first serve

153I mean is this is there any possibility of the scenario coming to fruition I'm just a little bit concerned what would happen if this is this somehow is different the context is different than in the other properties that you're managing not that I want more parking I'm not saying that but I'm just curious about the plan for allocation may let the petitioner the site operator speak to that maybe that's been a concern um that I would say that that uh we certainly think that's unlikely and and hope that that uh is not um a risk that that we face at any point in time our general approach is to not assign parking just because of the challenges that can create with with the exception of of um accommodation requests for for accessibility purposes um but

154ultimately if we had a parking constraint that was creating U some challenges for our residents where they were unable to park in in um acceptable parking spaces we would certainly uh at that point in time uh look at assigning parking spaces to uh to make sure that our residents are served and staff and visitors I assume too yeah correct okay um I really thought I had a four thing oh okay this is I've been thinking about this a lot and I'm just gonna this is just sort of food for thought so as I was looking at the layout of the building I was trying to see like where the stairs were and where the elevators were and I think I noticed there are two elevators is that right yeah yes um so I'm just sort

155of trying to think a couple of different things come to my mind um we're in the middle of a pandemic I I you know friends that I know that live in buildings with elevators are a little bit suspicious of their elevators right now for a good reason um so I'm curious how the stair situation is set up like they look sort of like more typical fire stairs and not really like you know this is only a three-story building theoretically like if somebody lived on the second floor and they were you know able to they could just walk up a set of stairs but if they're not easily seen then there's I'm just they're probably going to be people queuing up to ride an elevator if they don't want to have to ride an elevator with

156other people still in a year or two like there might just be sort of like a backlog of people trying to get up there and I don't know have you thought through any of these sort of like new things that have happened because of covid and any sort of like mitigation plan for opening up stairways or making them like easier to access yeah um we're we're hoping that Co won't last forever um but the the residents in these buildings are uh maybe a little different than what you would think uh this is not a retirement community uh the residents are in their 80s most of the people that are moving in this building there's a need there's a reason um quite frankly many of them can't drive anymore and that's why they leave their homes

157and move into that's probably a top reason that they come to these types of facilities very few of them would walk stairs um so the elevators you know they're they're coming up up and down the elevators um so uh in the past sometimes we'll put a decorative stair into one of these facilities uh nobody uses it maybe the staff will run up and down it a little bit but um the residents wouldn't and most of our clients think it's more of a hazard to do that um so you know that that's just the reality of the type of of residents that'll be living here is is that they're they're just not as mobile uh they are mobile this is uh independent but although uh the building is designed for them to age in place so

158some of these people might come in you know 82 and they can't drive but they're otherwise very mobile but you know within a few years that may change and we and we don't want them to leave so um that's just the reality of the residents that are here and that's also why um I think you'll find that there that uh parking won't be an issue going into the future and also uh there is a hope although we're not planning for it yet that with ride share and autonomous vehicles that the need for parking spaces will actually diminish over time that is yeah thank you that's really helpful context post for that question and my previous question and so then my followup question is do you feel like two elevators is enough uh uh yes answer

159you okay um I think that is it for me for now commissioner aons although I'm happy to let you go first commissioner Mills if you want to you don't have to go last I do have a list you do because I have the the super geeky stuff that hasn't been picked up yet but I'll let you go first and take pick off the last couple of items well no I mean I guess I would say um I I think I'm struggling more with this project than I sense many of my fellow Commissioners are but I but I'm not quite sure and I and I just wanted to maybe communicate a little bit about my struggle which is to say that um like commissioner abon's I'm having a hard time hearing you a little bit could

160you maybe just step forward a little bit yeah sure let me is that better yeah okay um I just was saying I'm struggling a little bit with this project and I think maybe similar to commissioner aran's sentiments it's a it's a I'm trying to kind of weigh what I think the risks of the project are with what the potential benefits might be um and I just wanted to say that I it's not often that we hear so much Community opposition to a project during the public hearing it's pretty remarkable um and I can't help but notice that you know the two voices that spoke in favor of the project are from residents who don't live in the neighborhood um there wasn't anybody from the neighborhood who spoke in favor of the project and so when

161I hear that then I have to I feel then that I should think very carefully about what I think the benefit is not just to the city but to the people who live in that community and when I and in addition I think our responsibility when we're considering rezoning from r1c to a PUD is to consider the public benefit right there has there has to be a kind of public benefit component to the to the Pud um and when I look at the list of public benefits that the that um the petitioner has presented they feel minor in a way so like on the list are things like sidewalk but the sidewalk is actually an obligation that you would have to put in unless I misunderstand that right as a private development they would have

162to put the sidewalk in um so you can stop me if I'm wrong about that but uh or like the open space which yes I mean on the one hand I I'm support open space but the open space is largely a result of the reduced parking which is largely a result of the constituency for which you're to whom to who you're building for and is a kind of cost savings measure and doesn't benefit and isn't open to the public let's say I mean it seems I guess there's kind of early conversations with APS where sorry with an Harbor Public Schools where that open space could benefit more than just the residents but it feels currently like it's really for the residents of the site as opposed to a truly public benefit um another thing on

163the list is EV the EV vehicles but that again feels like many of these things feel like things which are um you know either already requirements or or very soon to actually just be minimum requirements for a for a development like this in an arbor um same for the electrification right like I I think um and the affordable the affordable housing component of it which I think is obviously the most important aspect of this potentially the most important benefit it's it's very disappointing to Me Maybe to pick up on what commissioner s was saying to find out that it's not 50% that it's actually two units at 50 and 63 at 60% Ami um and then there's the master plan question so I you know I support what commissioner milin is saying about getting the

164master plan back on the docket but in the meantime to to it's a big jump to go from r1c to the Pud so I think those are the struggles that I'm having is I I'm trying to weigh this and honestly I'm I'm still I'm still kind of weighing it out so um I'll maybe listen to commissioner mills's questions and and maybe weigh back in or Chim back in if I have further thoughts about it but I think one thing that would sway me would just be for the petitioner to be more bold in the kind of benefits that they are offering oh one more thought I had is it's clear that the community wants that the that the residents in that Community want a community center they want a space to meet and you have

165this huge site with all of this extra space and like maybe that would be something to consider would be a space that was actually open to the public and not just for the residents of this private development thanks commissioner akman before I have my list go ahead yeah no totally and I I want to hear uh your stuff chills there's going to be some good detail in there um and but uh I guess to to Telegraph a little bit I think there are some outstanding concerns around sustainability elements that I'd love to just get some more information on um and so telegraphing that I'll I'll move to postpone for a little bit I maybe we could each think through what are those lingering questions we have or additional asks um that might prove the public

166benefit a little bit more solid um in the inter intervening time um so I'll I'll leave it there and then terminals I trust you have uh a lot of good detail for us well I have some detail um but I'm going to start out by picking up on some of the details and um strands that were already brought up and linked to what commissioner Akerman just said one of my questions was whether the office of sustainability and Innovation reviewed this because I know they have been reviewing some of the rezonings in particular the thing the places where we need to you know there's Community benefits associated with this and and so that I that's a question to staff have they and what was their take no they have not reviewed this proposal okay and so

167I think that that would answer a lot of my questions like as we're you know I think based on the some of the feedback that we've gotten from you know their reviews in the past there you know they the office that you know H established or you know helped spearhead I mean did spearhead a20 and knows all of the things in it but also knows that at the same time you know I think is pragmatic about what is the right balance um and so I would I think I would really take I would like their take on this and so that's where if commissioner arriman is going to Mo move to postpone them weighing in specifically the elements that I'm curious about are um what are there what is their feeling about the electrification I

168just kind of picking up on the previous threads um this is actually first a question for the petitioner how are each of the how is electricity handled within the units or is it within the building is it individually metered or is it all together so it's a a it would be individually metered for apartments and then all common areas uh would be uh on a house meter so parking parking as well as uh all the all the common area spaces which make up about I'd have to get the i' have have to have Jordan way on on the exact uh percentage of floor area but probably around 30 to 35% got it um and I I mean I think I thought that they would maybe have been all together in which case that is a

169extremely strong case for having rooftop solar um because you would you have a you have an ongoing load that you'll be pulling and so um you don't even have to worry so much about net metering and selling power back to the grid which is you know that can add cost right now if you if you are only taking if you are only using up the power that you know you can then that's really cheap solar um and it's a i my understanding but like this is where the office of sustainability will help a little bit more on this is that that's you know if if everything's aggregated then it's not all of all of the um the units are on the same bill effectively it that's a little bit easier um I it's probably possible

170but that's where I would rely on their expertise um the other thing that I would chime in and I don't know that the the offic sustainability needs to add in on this but just back to the conversation um oh now I can't even keep track of which of my fellow Commissioners mentioned this earlier about I think it was commissioner sve about whether the electrical panel would be able to support the EV Chargers I understand that like right now upfront getting it so that every single spot can be electrified is probably more than what is feasible um at the same time because we just underwent this big review and P you know ordinance change that included EV infrastructure we you know did a lot of investigation with DTE and it's a lot cheaper to size that

171now if you know that you're going to have 10 spots in the next five years in the next 10 years and and the city intends to be carbon neutral in 10 years time which means any internal combustion engines we've got it offset and if you're a taxpayer in this city you're going to be probably helping to offset those payments so I would strongly just again hedging against what is to come in the future strongly encourage you to make sure that your electrical service is sized so that you can have more than a spot or two electrified um uh those I think are the key sustainability things that were on my my list that um that I'd want the office of sustainability and Innovation to weigh in on um everyone did Cover almost everything else um

172I also want to pick back up on the 50% versus 60% Ami and I appreciate um uh commissioner or Mr Kowalski saying like it might have been a typo except there's an entire paragraph in the staff report that suggests that um that actually distinguishes that's that um I'm I want to get the page for you just so that you know um it's on on the most recent staff report um on page 10 it's like one of the first big paragraphed bullets it says like this is for 99 years um 40% of the units designated for affordable housing for 99 years for households at or below 50% of median income and then in parenthesis it says 60% Ami is specified in the city code so I don't know if maybe that change like I don't know

173when that changed that it's it seems to me that it wasn't just a typo in the supplemental regs that at that there was a change somewhere along the line and I I'm with commissioner abrons on this that like going above the minimum 15% requirement I think is good that just that's making me a little un like unsure about what it is and and what are the CommunityWide benefits also thank you for pointing out the idea of the sidewalk like it um I thought that it was on the neighboring property as well because I kind of thought that that's what we did discussed can we can we clarify that it is there's a section that that was not connected to the east that connects to the public transportation public transit that's what we are it's offsite

174it's in the right of way but it's not on our property got it okay so it's so it's not just the sidewalk on your property it is the the East to connect to the the the transit stop bus stop it's there and it requires it's substant it's going to require because of the toppo that it's going to require a um retaining wall and because of some of the things it's not um it's not just a simple got it can um Mr Kowalski or Mr Leonard can you help us figure out where that's covered in the supplemental regs or in the or in the development agreement just because like I maybe I'm searching you know control fing the wrong thing I just want to make sure like that we do have ourselves covered there and maybe

175you don't have to do it now I would just make sure that that's included because that's important to me like that is that is um not just a CommunityWide benefit again the additional affordable housing that we're getting from this is a CommunityWide benefit but that is something that is for the neighbor like that the neighbors can benefit from as well so I think that that's I'm glad that we set the record straight yes I I we can make sure that that's clarified if if this is postponed so that the length and and everything regarding that sidewalk is would be covered both in the sub well at least in the development agreement but probably within the suppl RS as well we have to see where it's appropriate and showing on the site plan as well okay

176perfect thank you um that takes care of that uh the other part that I want to just um pick on and I think I mentioned at the last meeting where this one was postponed um i a I'm always the voice that wants to make sure that our supplemental regulations um because this is a resoning match are pretty close to what we see that that there's a site plan coming before us at the same time gives us a lot more comfortability with that but I also want to make sure that if that it's pretty darn close um to the in terms of the setbacks that the setbacks the height you know what is shown in our r renderings what's shown on the site plan so what we're being asked to approve is a height of um

177uh 42.7 feet and it's 45 is allowed so like in my mind that is that's very reasonable all of the setbacks too are within a couple feet so I think that that's really close to even if what the site plan that we're seeing today doesn't get built that the Pud designation just to remind everybody stays with that land and so the suppl metal regs will stay with the land and a new site plan would have to come in if the site plan expires and meet that the things that are being talked about as potential benefits that I was just not sure how they um come out here is I see that there's a mention of additional open space but I don't see any quantification of that in the in the supplemental RS can you help

178me understand what I'm missing or explain why um if that the supplemental RS wait hold on let me that can certainly be a number that is specified within those supplemental Rags that would go forward with the zoning um it is shown on the site plan if that's not clarified within the supp RS that is something we can put an exact area within those regulations that again this project or anyone in the future would have would have to adhere to that's not clear it will be clear okay I was going to say and and maybe you can just help me understand because there's a couple of things to this effect like in the in the supplemental regulations where it says like what the principal uses are it talks about affordable H the the Preamble section three

179talks about you know it's desirable to have independent SE Senior Living facility so it's it's there but it's not like once you get to section four which in my mind is like the nuts and bolts there's no mention of at all it just talks about affordable housing and it just talks about multif family residential which given our discussion about about um traffic in my mind right it it's quite different so I just want like but is is section three where we say the reason that we're approving this is because we need independent senior living does that like how how would that factor in if for or if again worst case scenario the site plan that we are seeing this all gets approved eventually and the site plan that we are seeing doesn't get built like

180how can we be sure that that that another project would not just be affordable and multif family but would also have the senior component well picked in with I mean they they would have to adhere to those I we could actually repeat that you're right in in another section of the code um you know we generally felt with with the other project we kind of lay out those public benefits to to go forward with that they would have to any project would have to adhere to those public benefits one of which would be affordable senior housing so otherwise however that can be reiterated well I want to clarify how we could clarify that regulations yeah to be clear the supplemental regulations would require if if these were enacted in their current form anything that gets

181built there 40% of the units right now would have to be 50% Ami or if that gets modified to 60% Ami so whether this proposal gets built there or something entirely different this would be establishing the zoning requirements for and so whatever happens would have to meet that 40% affordability requir it's the senior component that I don't see that's my question and so yeah and so that's if if if you would like if the Planning Commission thinks that the senior component is critical then I think that that should definitely be added there and I think for me it is critical in part because I feel like this is the basis on which you know the traffic study is based I think that our discussion would be different right like what we were talking about before

182about the the the Peaks there aren't so the you're the you'd like to see it be specifically affordable senior housing yes okay and I think that's the intention um in here and like I said it's in section three it's just not in section four which in my mind is the much more and you're absolutely right if without it in section four it would not govern okay great so to that extent if we are if one of the benefits of this is the open space then I think that that should also be in there and again the idea of providing some rounding you know you know so it's not to the exact decimal percentage is okay um if what we're seeing on these plans is 60 what is it 61.7 or something like if it's 60

183or 61 like that that's okay um but I think that that should be in there um I also want to make sure that the interpretation for parking the one vehicle space per unit is seen as neither minimum nor maximum uh this is in the supplemental reg G is that being interpreted as there shall be exactly as many parking spaces as is as there are units that is how it's written okay and just to be clear for our perspective and for the petitioners if they really don't think they even need that many um they're still able to defer I would I would say yes because you're not specifically modified ifying that provision unless you're specifically modifying a provision of the code then all other yes sections of the UDC would apply and so they would have

184the same deferment rights for their calculated amount of parking as any site would got it um I also H in that same that same section where it's talking about parking shell include underground conduit for future installation for Ev electric vehicles I'm assuming as it's written I read that as all of the parking that this is going to every space is that how it was drafted and that's what the intention is no I don't think that was the intention to every space not not to have every space ready it was for the ones that they were being provided so we can make that clarification well I I don't have okay so when when you say the ones that were being provided there there s uh what's the minimum number there were had they were suggesting a

185couple EV charging stations your question whether that would be for every parking space I that was not the intent so to have it ready for every single parking space within there I have to clarify the number is the planning commission's intention to have this comply with the proposed EV ordinance that's under consideration or are you looking for something beyond that at minimum I feel like it needs to comply I recognize that like typically there's some time between these two things but for a PUD I feel like that in my vote I will signal that my vote is that it should be the the things that we've just passed that have been in the works for a while seem to be reasonable yeah so I'd suggest we just replicate that those specific percentages for this type

186of land use as in the draft ordinance and in the event that that is those that ordinance is enacted prior to this then I would suggest we just strike it okay and I would also suggest that on like on this you know if I can't exactly remember what our multiplier is for honestly the current EV ordinance or the EV ordinance that is in the limbo we've voted on it but Council hasn't right um I can't remember what the multiplier is but I um if the petitioner wants to exceed that that is again a rationale for public benefit going to what commissioner abon said right additional electrification is a rationale for you know providing public benefit and and so I think all of those things can are those things that that the Pud is set up

187to allow us to Acom accommodate the other thing that's related to that is um the lighting is in the staff report but I didn't see it in the development agreement or in the supplemental regs um it well I guess in the development or in the supplemental regs it's in section three again it's in the interest of the city to have dark sky compliant light fixtures but it's then not again further down in section four so and in my mind it's not the just the compliant fixtures like the the ordinance is about more than that it's also about lighting levels and parking lots after hours and all of that is would go towards that and so I would just mirror the compliance of that regardless of which goes first F that out specifically within that section

188four I think so I mean if that's the intention and maybe it's moot if if the lighting ordinance is approved before this goes because this effectively says and everything else that's in code right um but if it doesn't or if there's some element of I don't know like what the how much of that's in the development pipeline right um so that's I would those are just again the details that I those are the ones that I picked up on um just for reference the um I just pulled up the draft uh ordinance um this would be multiple family um it would require 10% of the spaces to have installed Chargers would have required 25 % of the spaces to have power ready for a charger to plug in and it would require 65% of the

189spaces to have conduit like I said you know the idea of when you're sizing the electrical equipment not just a couple um you know that's that's the base minimum that would be required of every new development in the city um once you know that's what that's what our body approved and so um I think that that's important to keep in mind um the only other thing on my list that I just thought I would address is this idea of parks in that vicinity um I also was not privy to the conversations or promises that were made in the past regarding open space associated with you know the landfill um I can say that part of our covid activity has been visiting every single Park in the city of Ann Arbor and um Ellsworth Park is

190nearby um as its name suggests right on Ellsworth and Southeast area Park according to the Parks and Recreation open space plan the pros plan so the the Parks Commission puts that one together um is considered a a CommunityWide asset um and has it it's lovely that's one of our family's favorites um and that intersection also has the dog park across the Street and kitty corner from that is a county park or or maybe it's Pittsfield Township Park um we did not venture out of the city of an AR burst boundaries and our Park wandering um to the to the idea of a community center I heard that I like I want to acknowledge that I heard that um a lot of the considerations that are given you know again what the city takes on is

191driven not by the master plan uh in terms of its Parks is not driven by the master plan so much as this Parks and Recreation plan and maintenance of all of these facilities and the upkeep of those facilities is something that is a continual consideration I'm not sure you know how you know what is the density of parks there compared to others there's a goal for having a park within a quarter mile you know I didn't pull out the the ruler to see if if Ellsworth is within a corner bile but I would just say that I think um looking my looking at the map and my cycling around it doesn't seem completely like this this areas left out in terms of parks but um and I don't don't see any parks specifically called for

192in the pros plan um but I but just to let folks know kind of how that is organized um and what our relationship is to that that the pros plan is something that we um that when it's adopted every three or or four or five years um comes before City Planning Commission um but but that's not that's an element of the city's large toome of planning documents um so that's what I have I know commissioner auran suggested that he was going to make a motion but also suggested that if there are other Commissioners that had lingering questions um that might be addressed in the interim that would be helpful to talk about now commissioner AC uh commissioner arriman sounded like he had something and then commissioner Gib Randle yeah not not a motion yet because

193definitely want to get ideas on the table um but just some ideas that I wanted to put forward as we think through these um I think there's uh interest in the community in the school district to have some kind of CommunityWide amenity uh available to the surrounding neighborhood of which there are a few um and the north part of the open space I think presents some opportunities some of which the the developer is pursuing actively with the public schools um but I think it would be interesting to see some type of easement language or um or some kind of a right to First refusal offered to the school district or the city um codified in some way just to show a commitment to that vision um I think would be really beneficial um the other

194one is is solar which has come up many times I think is achievable electrification I'd like to see a more serious and thoughtful reaction to I think Mr Garber from the audience articulated well you know if if you can realist if you can meaningfully present a case for why it doesn't work financially to Electrify so be it but but I think we deserve to see that since that's the direction we're trying to take our community um and then the 50 60% Ami difference you know that's that's a savings of thousands of dollars for loow income seniors um if true so any movement there or consideration there um so those are the four I wanted to touch on um but just want to hear colleagues as well commissioner gim brandle I think this is more for

195us than it is for the developer but I just would like to put out there as somebody who designs these things too there is only so much budget and in some ways we also have to understand as a body that we can't ask for everything if this is a huge affordability thing this may be the thing that they are able to do and they may be able to do some green things too but it's pretty hard to pull off both those in a seriously robust way especially given how long it takes to get through our process and we are exemplifying that tonight I hate to say that but so this is kind of for us I think the developer I think it's you know they're going to need to go back and I mean this

196is clearly the energy of the group I'm not going to stop that but um I think we also need to have a little reality check with ourselves about what's possible for people given the there are there are real parameters out there people in terms of what people can afford to do here in terms of building and we we can't have everything all the time and so in some ways we may have to prioritize what we think is the most important thing for this development and um I don't understand all the costs of all those different things that we just asked for but I think we also need to just look at our own mindset too around that and maybe it means that um when they are coming back with these things that they have some

197idea of what these costs are and we kind of say okay well the things that we really care about are the electric cars or the solar or the electrification or whatever so we just have a sense of what it is that is doable they have to be able they're not gonna this can't work if the math doesn't work and I've worked on projects before where that's happen where it's like every green thing out there and then nobody finan is there isn't enough money to do it and so we we also just need to I think we also just need to have a sense of um the choices that we have to make as a commission around what the benefits are and that there's just and and the developer deserves to be able to make some

198money on this too like it doesn't have to be crazy you know profits but frankly it's pretty hard to do that in Nar right now given how long it takes to get through the system and how expensive it is to get through our our review process so um I just want to put that out to there to our own group about what um just our perspective I guess on things and that perhaps when the petitioner comes back that if they could have um you know some sense of kind of what the what the really big asks are what the smaller asks are so that we can just have a sense at least relatively speaking of what things like you know we may be asking for six different huge sustainability it items and we say well

199these two are the most important to us and and you know so that that there can be um some prioritization on our side in terms of what's possible so um I was prepared to pass this tonight I think the will of the group is otherwise so I'm not gonna I'm not going to get in and stand in the way of that but um I also want us just as a body to kind of have that perspective as well um I think that also um I feel a little bad for the developer because the last time they went through this we were not having these discussions about sustainability stuff I think they thought they kind of knew where we were headed and all of a sudden it's like whoa we're taking this other turn too so

200um it you know it is a super important thing I mean environmental commission I greatly believe in these things but um we we also need to figure out what our own priorities are and there's just only so much that people can do too so I just want to kind of put that out there as for our own group and also on the public record about what citizens can expect as well with these I think with a PUD I think there is a high bar I agree but I also think we need to just understand um that there are choices that have to be made too about what our own what you know the important things are we can't necessarily have everything that we wanted we we want of course we all want that right but

201that's not the real world either so I just wanted to put that out there commissioner milstein I couldn't have said it better commissioner G brandle so I'm going to give it really short um we do have to be mindful you know every time the petitioner comes before us with their group of Engineers consultants and such all those people are most likely charging hourly um and then the more work that we uh give them the more the hours add up and that is why an arbor has the reputation and so I'm ready to vote on this and um although commissioner gab brandle won't uh interfere with this I will be voting against uh postponing it um for those added expenses we've asked a lot um and I believe that this project what's come before us this

202evening um is bringing a lot to our city there's a lot of benefit here um so I understand that somewh more but I also am mindful of the reputation and the costs and I believe what they're bringing to the table at this point is enough to take them to the next step and the items that are open are things that staff um can resolve between now and city council commissioner abens um I maybe just wanted to clarify what I was saying before so I don't it's not that I have a kind of laundry list of things that I am um that I need the petitioner to meet all of these different things in order uh for me to support the project I think what I'm looking for is a deeper understanding of the public benefit

203to the to the city which I think that aspect may be more clear at the moment because we could think about that as affordable housing although I wish that more of it was more affordable but that maybe that's just my wish but but I also would like to see a scale of public benefit for the community within which this project will exist and so what I'm looking for is evidence that there was a dialogue between the petitioner and the community where the community was able to kind of get some benefit that they're seeking from the project and it feels it feels to me at this moment that that that isn't how they feel and so you know I'm I'm open to ideas from the petitioner about what that could could be um you know what

204are the things you've discussed with the neighbors what are the things they asked for at the community meetings what did you offer in return um but like I think there needs to be a benefit you know the benefit kind of has scales um so like I think the sidewalk we could say is one um for me it's not quite enough at the moment so um but I I hear what commissioner Gib Rando and commissioner mil are saying I don't disagree um my goal is not to I don't want to kind of establish a bar that's so high that nobody can jump it I I just want to yeah I think for me I want to have a clear understanding of what that benefit is and um how the immediate neighborhood will feel that they are

205getting some benefit because I think like electrification is not I believe very strongly in that but that's like a different scale of benefit I just want to add in here too that mine was not this is the laundry list this is like better articulating the the benefits I feel like there are op there are paths and options and and my pointing out the P that that particular line about the staff report saying one thing about the level of affordability versus what was discuss like that there's a discrepancy there suggests to me that like there's a misunderstanding on what the level of affordability is or at least like the the the depth of that benefit that and that was the point there I also would take into account like I mean this is the one that

206right like I've been talking about this a lot like what are all the things that we do that add expenses but I think one of the things that we have to Grapple with is if we do have ordinances that we're passing that are required of everybody like that are on the sustainability and like how do we deal with that like better understanding what this means like because we have we have dual goals in the city I think that are in often in competition and I like again I I came to this conversation tonight thinking like the goal the benefits here are affordability and I I read it as the 50% and so that's where I thought like this is not the affordability that I thought in it and that's why I'm actually asking for more

207clarification um I I share this idea but I think also like recognizing how far on some of the sustainability things this may be from some of the things that we've just required Citywide um if if it's too expensive here right in a in a project where there is a significant increase over the underlying kind of development potential I I wonder what this means Citywide quite frankly um and in terms of um to commissioner abon's point just recently about what are is the benefit to the community I mean I think or to the immediate vicinity I think the sidewalk in my mind is and the fact that the you know how how much of a setback there is to the neighbors there's a significant push back um on the east side and on the North side

208and I think that that is actually a good benefit to the neighbors it's it's actually more the like level of benefit on the affordability part that I'm not I it just I feel like there's a discrepancy commissioner Hammer Schmidt so I'm I'm I'm actually not sure I'm convinced that the sidewalk is a benefit to the neighbors because the sidewalk is they're filling it in so that the people that will be living at the senior housing will be able to access Transit I think it would benefit the neighbors if the sidewalk gap on that property to the West was filled um I'm sort of along um sort of where commissioner aens I think is right now um in ter terms of wishing there was like a little more benefit that the uh adjacent Community was seeing

209and I'm not positive what that could be or if there are like even any possibilities but I feel like if we could just get if there's just like something I mean we heard some very strong public comment we got some very strong emails um you know to her question of of what what were the conversations that happened in the community meetings and what were some of the concerns that they brought up and and maybe what the petitioner did to address them I would also be interested in hearing that as well um I don't want to postpone this either for the reasons that commissioner Gib Randall and commissioner milin gave and I was also prepared to vote on this I I just I think the afford I think 65 units of affordable housing when only 15%

210would be required is is huge um but just hearing the residents's concerns like I still just have there's just there's something that I'm it's still like not sitting right with me commissioner s just go kind of briefly you know going through a lot of the neighborhood concerns uh there were noise and lighting concerns traffic concern like to go through what the concerns were versus if they are concerns we've got traffic reports we've got dark skylighting I don't see how Senior Living facility is a noise issue um so in terms of what concerns are actually like raised by the Community versus the kind the way that the site is manipulated in open space and trying to resolve and like the uh over engineered storm water and things like that I don't have too many reservations about

211the items raised to how it was addressed in the vicinity I think affordable housing is very important right now I think that's like my leaning of what I'm looking at um and that's why like my push back is more just hey let's prep for some some more conduit some more um EV stations but at the same time we know these parking spots aren't full so asking for a full-fledged that's that's not a priority on this project for me but little tweaks like yeah going to electric stoves we're not a bunch of chefs in this space that's a good kind of shift towards reducing gas load in the overall building especially when you look at 150 units uh with gas load so I that's where I'm at is I think those are small details and cleaning

212up um but in in the overall scheme of this many units and many of them affordable it's a twofold we're getting a lot of units for a growing older population and many of them are affordable and I think that's a double win even the non-affordability commissioner hamers Schmid sorry I did forget one thing that that may actually push me over the edge um so when we were talking back at the very beginning of this conversation about um the drainage and the and the potential flooding I mean you're flattening the slight is getting kind of flattened right so like everything currently is sort of draining and now those will be alleviated that I could actually see as a very direct benefit to adjacent properties does that does anybody else think that I'm characterizing that correctly or

213incorrectly I see the architect raising his hand yeah may I speak sure yeah absolutely I mean one of the major concerns I mean we we had uh two two meetings with the uh neighbors and quite frankly let's be honest there are people that don't want anything built on that um and and that's that's the case often um uh we did listen to them we did change what we thought we could change um but one of the big things was the drainage and there's no question that this site right now is a big hump in the Middle with everything flowing off of it and the the land it's true that there is good sandy soil uh and and that a lot of the problems uh that that that the neighbors are experiencing are probably not not

214caused and great by this site um but the fact is the neighbors can be assured that it won't be an issue moving into the future um as far as postponing for the for the issues that you were talking about in terms of um sustainability you know the we look at that with our client for every project we design and it always comes down to uh a cost benefit issue unfortunately this project being affordable uh means that we can't just arbitrarily tack on extra cost if you're buying a an electric vehicle you may be willing to those are subsidized Remember by the federal government but even so a person might be paying more for that electrical vehicle right now versus a gas one and hope to make it up in Con in consumption unfortunately it is

215true that that if we went to all electric units the initial cost would be lower but the utility cost would be significantly higher and pass belong directly to the residents who couldn't afford it quite frankly and and and it could be a deal killer for the affordable units because the the the utilities are passed along to the tenant um or the resident so as far as the suggestion of going to Electric appliances I'm I'm maybe my client is going to like what I'm going to say that but um I think that's a good an excellent s suggestion uh I don't think that's a deal killer uh uh in this project in my uh opinion and I design a lot of these uh and that's something that I think that we could do uh and commit

216to I I think unless my client tells me no um with that suggestion uh to to go to Electric appliances versus gas um obviously it the the one problem I have is that the real engineering of this project is coming next after you approval it's it's a significant expense to the owner hundreds of thousands of dollars to to to engineer this building and uh without s side plan approval I doubt he's going to authorize to do us to do it we can do initial studies I can tell you right now my engineer can do a study to show that it's cost more for electric heat than it does for gas so you wait a week and get in writing but that's what it's going to say um so you know I think that in terms

217of of suggestions that I heard tonight that we can do solar energy I wish um I'm I have a h a small house in Colorado and it works in Colorado we have 320 sunny days a year out here in an aror it it can it can make a difference and maybe it's getting better but in terms of enough solar panels to to uh uh cool this building you know handle the electrical load uh I'm dubious of that and again it would be an added expense so um the community benefits I think are clearing you know have been expressed here um you know is it's it's clearly and and I understand that affordable housing is a benefit to the overall community and not necessarily and I think that that's what they meant by Community benefits when

218they when they talked about the Pud process and again if I'm wrong there feel free to correct okay I'll stop talking yeah I we went to the meeting and Jordan I mean we were Jordan Mark and I were all at the meeting we had two public meetings um one was at and my numbers should be close I just I'm not working from the from the notes but they've all been provided to the city but we had I think 12 10 people at the first meeting we met at Brian at the Brian Community Center we had maybe 14 at the second meeting I think two of those were city council folks um City Council Members um we had a couple people just didn't want anything and then but the main issues were flooding is a huge

219issue in that Community um you know there's a lot of issues they've dealt with even Brian has a little water you know they have the Lea water relief areas in front um around the community center that was a big issue um another Main issue was um the uh making sure that there's some connectivity just the school's a huge part of that Community the elementary school so they wanted us to reach out make sure and the city asked us to do that also I wish we had more along those lines right now but they they're close to being acquired it just they had a few glitches in that and they can't make commitments until they get to a certain point but we we've had the meetings we had one sit down one phone call um and

220and there are open conversations that I have personally had um with the uh with Folks at the the an arbor schools that was that was an issue making sure that and that benefits us having programming with with you know our residents and then the elementary I think there's a benefit to having those and they agreed so I didn't and as far as the other I mean outside of some of the things were asked where we need a community center there which was a little bit more difficult open space we're definitely open to that space to the north we've always been open to use that however whether that was play fields that didn't work so well because we need the trees but we're always open to that if there's some one of the Commissioners mentioned some

221kind of you know ability to put that out there we would definitely do a use open to a use area and I offered that to and schools they just weren't in that in that mindset they have to do they have a process also yeah part of the problem that we've had with with the school is they've had bigger issues on their minds correct um so it to if if table it for a couple weeks for us to nail down an agreement with the school is your desire that's going to be difficult to do yeah that's you're not going to get that I mean they have to acquire I mean hopefully they you know they're in the process of closing on that through their due diligence but they have to go through an entire board you

222just have to trust us that's conceptual we wouldn't you know that's not it's not give me a word that's what we talk when a and I speak and about that and so forth but there's a process there so um and it's in our best interest is something to work with the community to they're a good neighbor and the other thing that came up with those meetings were moving things we moved the interesting thing is that the community people that asked for us to move things then they disappeared they did they left and they were fine they they said listen there were people said you move this over to the West away from my my Co-op condo here and you move it to away from my residents and we're good and we never those people didn't

223attend again so there's that piece too there's it it's a little bit challenging because we didn't get we sent out over a thousand notices we didn't get a huge response and then it's not that you ignore the people that come out but um you take as much as you possibly can but if you think about the economics what we're talking about tonight 65 affordable units you look at that rent schedule you're looking those 65 units are a th000 to $2,000 a month difference in what we're doing you start looking at those numbers and that's that's what you have to F feel that I mean that's that's hard to do when you start adding all these extra costs and having the benefit of affordability without having rental assistance on project like this commissioner hamers did you

224get what you needed from yes and so I just want to say one more thing sort of like to us that was very helpful I think that was very helpful I mean I sort of talking about the the topic of potentially postponing and you know I'm commissioner M as you said I think the last time you spoke like now I'm getting a little concerned about all the things that we're asking people to do in the and the costs that are associated with them and I think it's really important for us to maybe try to understand that a little bit better but I don't think that doing that to this project in particular is fair to the petitioner um you know maybe if they can if they can give us the electric stoves and they can

225give us a couple thing 65 units is a lot in talking to the Housing Commission is more than from a new housing standpoint new units it just has been it's not there have not been and that support is there I mean it was there at the city council I we didn't bring that support here because but it's it's really easy on Zoom to just jump in where what we've been talking about is H trying to um we'll let you know when to have the petitioners jump in so thanks I apologize no problem it's this is the format we're getting used to it ourselves and like trying to you know figure it out um commissioner Hammer Schmid did is there anything else you wanted to add nope I'm good thank you commissioner Gib Randle just one

226other thing that I think that um could be a a we may not be able to get away with solar I I understand that in terms of The Balancing Act that we're striking but one thing that um perhaps could happen in support of that is thinking about um kind of structural support and wiring to be able to allow it to happen in the future and so it maybe the panels can't happen now but you're not prohibiting it from happening 10 years from now or or five years from now or something like that so that you know the conduit is there and and there's just things in place that that would allow it to be able to move forward um should the opportunity arise because it is something that we really need to be this is

227a goal of our community it's also a goal of our community to have affordable housing so um but I feel like that might be something that is it again allows us to be able to have the potential for in in the hopefully near future you know wouldn't that be great um but uh because you know it does it does help your bottom line to a certain extent too you know in terms of paying your utility costs and and um Mr London I just put it on my house and and it's it's it's working you know um so it's not totally pointless in this climate um and I know it's better in Colorado for sure but but it's working and so I think that for me um I know it's a big ass to have all

228these other again important but but perhaps not the first priority items on there but things that still allow for for some of the those potentials to develop in the future so we don't preclude things um at this at this moment um for that so that's where I'm sitting right now is that for me it's the affordable housing is the big important piece the other thing that I feel like is a little bit unfair is if if it were a staff error to put the 50% instead of 60% that we're like really hammering them for something that could have been a staff error and that doesn't seem quite right either you know if it was it was something on our part you know then it's like that doesn't I know that you know that's hard but

229it's like that doesn't seem quite right either to me so um so for me the affordable affordability price or the affordability piece is the the primary piece I would love to see some things that allow for these potentials to come to fruition um hopefully in the near future um but I'm also just mindful of just getting through this process and understanding what um what they can do to be able to make this project happen which I think is sorely sorely needed and I do think it's a community benefit for everybody and I also feel like you know I mean we don't we don't expect people to put Community you know centers in all of our neighborhoods around town I mean that would be fabulous but it's like there's a few of them scattered around but

230that is not something that we just kind of have as an expectation for what neighborhoods are in our community so I think that's also kind of a big ask you know I mean I get it that like that would be really wonderful if every neighborhood had that but my neighborhood doesn't you know I mean so um and and the parks are near by I helped design redesign Arbor Oaks you know that's just down the hill it's right on the other side of the school um and frankly people tend to use the school property is as you know open space too in in reality so for me it's it's a matter of some small things getting clarified that's where I am with it and I do think like the nitpicky stuff that you know we always

231count on on commissioner Mills to bring up about sort of all of the little details and make sure that things are are um are uh consistent but I feel like those are all things that are probably doable between now and and and next meeting and so I I guess I said I'll go with the will of the group but part of me is kind of feeling like you know what maybe we should just move this thing forward um because I feel and I know that like people are swirling in a lot of thoughts right now and so I respect respect the fact that that um you know that's a process that we all kind of have to go through and to be able to digest but um commissioner Abrams to to your point I think

232that um I'm I'm I'm I think part of of your um your experience with this seeming really negative from the community is the fact that you haven't been on Planning Commission for very long because we have sat through two hours of this for single projects where 60 people speak and so this felt um it like for sure we got some negative communication but this is like a drop in the bucket compared to what we have had in the past for certain projects so um it doesn't feel like a oh my God whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa we need to rethink this whole thing um uh in terms of the community feedback I understand people are upset about you know change around them but boy I feel like the the benefit of this is so important

233for us now and in the future so I guess that's where I am right now commissioner abon so thank you all this has been like a a great conversation I think you're I think you're changing my mind so that's exciting um I I want to say I mean I I don't want to downplay the the um the importance of the affordable units I think that that's huge um I I think there are a couple small things and I also am not necessarily pushing for postponement I was more hoping to kind of gain better understanding about what the kind of benefits would be to the community so um I want to clarify the sidewalk question because um that does seem to be one of the kind of benefits at on the table and um at one

234at one point early in the conversation there was a back and forth between commissioner hamers Schmid and Mr Kowalsky about the possibility that the sidewalk would not get built and that sidewalk that you were discussing is the sidewalk to the West so the sidewalk that you that the petitioner is going to connect is just a tiny portion on the east side that's correct right not to the West okay so I just want to make sure everybody understands that because I that was I got turned around there looking at the map I see commissioner giand looking and and okay got it okay so um and then I guess um commissioner acrian or councilman akman offered some possible mechanisms to reinforce this partnership with aaps on the North side a kind of did you offer like a

235are you suggested maybe a WR of first refusal or I so I'm I would or n so I I'm looking for that to to be reinforced somehow um here and so I would look to staff for some guidance about a re assurance that that could be something that could be reinforced between now and the next um approval when it goes up for city council if it passes tonight and yeah like what would the mechanism be for that um I guess to clarify I'm sorry were you asking us to yeah I'm just kind of I guess yeah like do you know what that mechanism could be or if or if you don't feel that you could speak to it right now do you feel confident that that's something which could be put into place between now

236and when this would go in front of city council if we were to pass it tonight well regarding any easements and things I mean the right of first refusal I can't speak to that but but I can regarding easements I mean ultimately it's the the petitioners you know willingness and and we don't know exactly what kind of easement I mean they've indicated that they've been you know willing to allow some Community use and things like that that Northern open space I mean whether or not I mean there can be some Li limited pedestrian easements or conservation easements even or something of that nature kind of that that protect that that area or even perhaps a path I mean that was considered I know with the amount of natural features in that area in some slopes

237a path gets a little bit challenging um but there are certainly ways that they they could protect that area in perpetuity but I mean is allowing again the speaking of what exactly would be in that easement I don't know I mean it's like what would be allowed what wouldn't be allowed in public access ultimately between the owner and again I mean working with the school system that would that would be great but as they said it's it's kind of we we can't make any commitments for that while the schools indicated they're willing to work they have not made any uh concrete decisions on this so we could certainly work to ensure some kind of easements whether it's pedestrian access easement maybe a conservation easement over that area which Again by its nature though it will

238be preserved I mean you can't just go in and remove any of those landmark trees without site plan so but there may be mechanisms like that that allow that that area to be to be preserved again like a double protection whether there's an allow for some public access in limited areas um but what that would be exactly I don't know and and how far that could go I mean again reaching all the way to Ellsworth I think that we may have investigated that or it may have been brought up like as far as like a path going out to Ellsworth but that again unfortunately you're involved with slopes and trees and things so that also gets a little tricky in that area as well I I I hope that kind of answers your question yeah

239no it helps me understand the complexity of of the request so thank you um and then like regarding electric appliances like that isn't something we typically regulate or or that isn't that's a scale to at which we don't normally work so I think that's just like a request on the record that into The Ether but that's not something that we can actually put in writing anywhere is that correct now we I mean we may be able to build something of that into the supplemental regulations I mean it would be unusual though wouldn't it to it would it would but is yeah okay um okay uh that's it I guess I mean I'm not um if I think if people are ready to vote we we could move forward I would support moving forward with a

240vote that was the over overall sentiment commissioner Gib Randall one other super quick thing thank you for bringing up the whole sidewalk thing to the West commissioner aens because I'm it and the East so the East there's a there's a little there's a little nub it's kind of tricky because of the grades but if you go west it's actually going to be really tricky because until this whole site is developed it falls off really fast and so they could build this whole thing and then the whole thing gets ripped up once they they put in their site so it's not a kind of like just a flat site where they could build it right across it drops off like behind like before the RightWay line is it's like it it drops off in the wrong

241place if it dropped off after the property line then it'd be a lot easier but it doesn't so there's not a sort of lwh hanging fruit so to speak easy sidewalk to connect to the shopping center to the West I guess I just wanted to put that out there so sorry to keep prolonging this any other comments miss or commissioner Akerman um I won't put us through through a vote it seems like it's the will of the body to to vote on this tonight um I I will ultimately be supporting this I think it is a net positive for the community the local neighborhood uh in terms of the offset of storm water um we're going to see huge retention and Detention of storm water that currently right now just sheets across the site into

242uh other properties across the boundary um the engineering that's presented to us uh takes a large step forward in keeping that water on site that the drops of of rain that hit the site will be kept there as opposed to moving to adjacent properties um I'm comforted too by the uh continuation of the burm on the east side and the fact that the storm water will flow downward towards the retention detention that that the developer is providing um I'm comforted by the fact that the level of traffic disruption during rush hour um the only time uh at which there's there's disruption to traffic patterns is less than a second of impact to neighbors um that gives me a lot of comfort uh and then finally is the benefit of the affordable housing um this type

243of housing is needed my family's experienced it firsthand and we see through through demographic statistics that this is going to be so critically needed for our community over the next two decades um we hear it as a shortage now and that pain is only going to grow um and those are those are real those are 65 real grandmas and grandpas real members of our community who have lived here who have worked here who have spent their lives pay taxes here who who now may have the opportunity to stay here uh well into their 80s and 90s and I think that's that's a critical importance to all of us um so I you know I look forward to the debate at the city council table uh if this moves forward tonight um I think there's more

244opportunity for the community to voice um their their input uh so so please stay engaged and involved I'll just add that I'm I am ready to vote as well I do think it would be helpful I think that this these ideas about sustainability are going to come back and so I think having some input particularly for the keepers of a20 um and in part because you know it's energy commission that kind of was spearheading the EV um EV requirements that came before us right and so I I think that th this is not the first nor the last time we're going to see like how do we trade these things off I think that you know what commissioner s said and the the the case that was made about how many EVS are there going

245to be in a parking lot that is mostly empty and you know I at the same time like I wish s some of this conversation would have come up when we had the EV ordinance discussion too because it's not just the site and so I think you know I don't it's going to be too late for commissioner proposed business but um uh I I think I I think that having some input from the office of sustainability when this moves to council will be helpful um and a yeah um I do think that it provides a lot of benefits I hope that my little nitpicking specifically to make sure that this is it's in the development Rags that it's senior affordable housing I think clarifying what that level of affordability is 40% is a lot um

246I you know wish it were 50 but I understand the economics of making it 60 particularly that we are asking for some additional sustainability things and so again that's maybe my internal trade-off um and so I think um yeah I'm I'm ready to vote for this I think that there are benefits to the immediate communities as commissioner Akerman said but also this is in many elements of our master plan this is what we have been asking for any other comments okay we need a r call V then Mr Leonard can I just clarify that so the motion is to uh recommend approval with amendments to the supplemental regulations that specify senior affordable housing and correct the staff error which change that to 50% Ami to 60 % Ami and in addition investigate a variety of

247sustainability sustainability aspects for at a minimum inclusion or at least Information Services uh benefits as this progresses to city council the only addition I I think that including the open space like specifying the open space in the minimum percentage of open space well the minimum I have that in my notes as well the the minimum percentage so that remains going forward I think that that's important yeah I do I do want to I do want to clarify I apologize the 50% wasn't our error um we had a typo in the staff report in our reviewing it in ensuring the supplemental regulations were consistent with the staff report we adjusted this supplemental regulations to reflect that typo that was our mistake my apologies got it that's mistake I apologize for that I understand it's Institute a

248bit of a confusion so but thank you for double checking it commissioner hamers Schmid but we do have those two units at 50% Ami and so articulating that yes two units of 50 the balance of the 40% at 60% Ami but can we can we say like the number of because 40% of 154 I hate to belor this 40% of 154 is like only 61.6 and So currently says 65 65 units yeah so I don't I kind of want to get rid of that 40% and just this if we're going with 65 units go 65 units well to that I just want to be clear though that if for some reason this project doesn't go forward in a 65 unit development replaces it all of those units will then have to be affordable okay thing

249can we get the p as long as the percentage I don't know what minimum percentage is a minimum so to be clear if it's 40% and then they hit that at 62 that would be the minimum required they can always go above it but if we set it at 65 whatever happens it's going to have to meet that well then can we say like 42% because at least that would be or is that can we not do round numbers because at least than that would be 64.6 and they'd have to round it up to 65 it's always going to round up to a whole unit so yes you could do 42% if desired commissioner milstein I would rather be clear on this and just say 65 um units because let's tie it all together because

250this is what we're seeing today so let's be very specific about it instead of percentages say that we want exactly 65 units I tend to agree rather than to scale it I mean I think that there's there's a lot of things in our supplemental Rags that really tie it to what we see which gives us all comforter I think and gives can give the community Comfort too so 65 units at 60% or below two of which must be a minimum of 50% that's I'm here you're ready to call a roll call Mr Leonard finding the paper I am I just confirm uh commissioner s and commissioner milin you find all those amendments friendly yes okay commissioner s yes commissioner abon yes commissioner hamers Schmidt yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner milin yes commissioner gab Randle yes

251commissioner Akerman we didn't hear you commissioner Akerman yes motion carries all right very good thank you very much for your patience with the technical difficulties for hearing all of our conversation sometimes we got to talk it out so thank you very much for time everyone thank you all right um I need to find a charger for my other computer and I'm guessing that some people might need to stretch their legs or run to the restroom so can we take given the hour can we take like five minutes max okay so we'll be back here at 11:43 no 10:43 it's not 11 yet I was already rounding 10:43 I thought we were done oh 10A which is the annexation of 1290 duvar Road Gretchen's House for city council approval um we'll start with uh Mr con

252are you the only person to give a presentation or is there there petition or presentation I would like to point out that the um that the owner is well as the um civil engineer have joined us Gretchen Preston and Kathy kyth if if you have any questions very good but you're going to be giving the presentation now I'll give a brief presentation and um it's going to be very informative great floor is yours the site is located on the south West corner of dvar Road in pinec trail uh the site is in the trer Watershed the petitioners requests annexation of the 2 and a half acre parcel um and single family zoning the petitioner is interested in um using the existing house for uh Child Care Center um staff recommends um that the annexation portion

253of this petition be approved this evening uh but that we would postpone the zoning decision for a later date probably October 6th um we had a bit of a snafu with regard to uh the the the the zoning designation staff had a discussion on um uh the preferred zoning District but the public notice went out um with a different zoning District so we we'd like to get that right um and hopefully after approval of the annexation we can get that process to the state and get that going uh so it it won't hold the petitioner up at all and um staff recommends approval of the proposed annexation all right um now we can open up uh the public hearing so this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the

254proposed annexation of 1290 duvin um public comment can be made by calling to 206 337-9723 or 213 338 8477 and then entering meeting ID 962 3902 4427 um City staff will call on You by the last three digits of your phone number after you've raised your hand you can raise your hand by pressing star nine on your phone um please do when you speak move to a quiet area and mute any television or other background sound so that we can hear you and if you'll state your name and address um at the beginning of your comments we would appreciate it so for callers on the line again star nine is how you raise your hand and it looks like we have one caller with phone number ending with numbers 253 three minutes to address the

255Planning Commission hello caller with phone number3 this is gretan Preston can you hear me yes go ahead okay um I live at 4660 West Ellsworth Road we got a lot of Ellsworth here tonight haven't you um I just wanted the only thing I wanted to clarify here tonight was that my main reason for annexation of this property is so that I may create this child care center that will be a satellite to the one I already operate on duvar road and I'm looking for your impressions of whether this is going to be a go or not if I I'll need a special use exception from the Planning Commission to do this I've been through this process several other times any of you who know of my other centers may know that that's my question thank

256you very much there's it looks like there's one more caller on the line if you're interested in speaking you can press star n to raise your hand all right I am going to close the public hearing and read the petition um or read the motion the motion reads the anab City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the annexation and it and no that's cut okay that's what I thought um approve the annexation of 1290 duvar and Road moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner s discussion of the annexation commissioner hamers Schmid and then commissioner s just to clarify something um that the caller just brought up so we're just talking about annexation anything with with any sort of like special use exception anything that would be not right now correct

257what's on the table in front of you is the annexation portion of this annexation zoning petition um the city can't take action on zoning or on the special exception use until after the the property has been annexed it's my interpretation that um uh what um Miss Preston was asking was whether you whether you had any opinion about a future special exception use that will come before you for a child care center in this location okay thanks m s go ahead I just uh I guess I have a question for Steph if there was kind of an analysis on the r1a versus r1d uh because the staff report said about you know density um um you know to fit more housing and what the difference would be between those two zoning classifications if this lot was

258subdivided after reson to either one of those I I could um give it give it um or take take a stab at that and then Brett's welcome to join in uh R r1a um requires a minimum lot size of 20,000 square feet that's about two units per acre r1d as in David has a minimum lot size requirement of 5,000 squ ft² so it's about a quarter of the size in terms of the minimum lot requirement uh the reason that staff discussed this zoning issue for this site is because this site is the very first site of all the other properties in this side of town off of dearen um east or excuse me west of pinec trail to to request annexation so the zoning is important to us because we'd like to be consistent with

259future um with future annexations uh in other words we we would like to have a consistent zoning district and it's the opinion of staff to have a zoning District that encourages A diversity of housing type types including more affordable housing maybe smaller Lots um more modest sized homes uh mixed in with some of the larger lots and maybe maybe larger homes but the idea was to encourage diversity maybe encourage some density support Transit along the pinea trail Corridor use land and infrastructure more efficiently so um that's that's why we are recommending R1 D Brett do you have anything to add no I would just add that the petitioners application is for r1a um both the r1a and r1d would provide the potential for a special exception use for that um for a child care center

260that's not distinct um the only difference would be um you know just doing the math as indicated on how many what the minimum lot size and ultimate density would be for those different single family zoning districts so um I think Jeff did a good job summarizing sort of our our thoughts on it so to clarify trying to get it's been submitted as r1a but we're we're shifting it to try to get it to r1d because at roughly 100,000 acre lot 20,000 s feet means five homes 5,000 foot lot means 2021 homes could fit on this if you know it wasn't a child care facility and setting that precedent for the the area exactly and because it was advertised specifically as r1a we thought it was important to make sure that um Everybody actually received that

261information was aware of that if the Planning Commission were interested in proceeding with an r1a you thought that was more appropriate then no no additional action or notice would be necessary I have no interest in making it r1a I'll just put that on the record um now that's helpful and I yeah I just kind of want to like talk through like the reason for this site but it's good to know in the context of the entire area that that's also the intention um I think it also reinforces why we need Master planning to come back that you know we're we're reacting to a site as a strategy instead of having Master planning for the area um but yeah uh it I guess I really tried I really tried you really tried too um I don't

262want to go through that again but I would um I I I'll lay out my opinions they're not guarantees but since I'm unmuted uh I think uh uh I there's one down the street from me at Gretchen's House I think there's a neighborhood across the street that could service you know be serviced really well in terms of close proximity um I don't have any general reservations at this time to that sort of special exception use but yeah until we actually see the proposal then we'll we'll review it but that's kind of my feelings at this time about that commissioner milstein um same opinions regarding the special exemption use um as commissioner s um I'm happy to see that uh it's not going to be in marijuana facility of some sort special exemption use it's been

263a while since we've seen one that's been outside of marijuana um I um I do have questions regarding this area um and that has to do with um have have Mr Khan or Mr Leonard has anybody else in that area approached the city regarding um annexation into the city not not to my knowledge no okay and in sending out are notifications of this public hearing um our residents who are not city van Arbor residents so residents of Van Arbor Township were they notified of this my understanding is that that yes um regardless of what jurisdiction you're in if you're in if you're within the 300 feet notification area you would be notified I'll let Brett um correct me if if that's if that's not right yeah the the law and the law and our ordinance

264reflect that it's 300 feet period it doesn't matter the jurisdiction okay and then um this area is serviced by uh Municipal Utilities uh not not currently um however this site is because it's it's right along Pontiac Trail but if you go further uh to the West uh those sites are not currently served by City Utilities like water and sanitary but this site is uh does AB but water and sanitary in Pine Trail okay and was this area included at all in that list of you know I think at some point there's uh a list of properties like along Newport and long Gettys um is this area at all on any any of those lists to be annexed yes it's it's within that grouping of around 500 partiel parcels that we call Township islands that are

265within the city's ultimate service boundary okay all right thank you that question was the one that I had whether this was it's not a matter of if but more when and part of the agreement between the township and the city um so you've addressed kind of my concern on that and in terms of you know what happens here I mean this is long Transit there's already relative ly dense housing just south of here with the r1e so I'm in support of um higher density development here and also a mix of uses to service all of the housing that is coming in that area and um so I I look forward to the conversation and seeing the proposal for the rezoning and the special land use any other comments I think we're ready for a roll

266call vote Mr Leonard you're muted could you remind me who made the motion and seconded it commissioner milstein I think definitely was one commissioner s could have been the second commissioner aens yes commissioner hamers Schmidt yes yes commissioner Mills yes commissioner milin yes commissioner Gib Randle yes commissioner Akerman yes commissioner sov yes it is [Music] unanimous very good so now it will move on to city council um thanks folks for sticking around with us it is at 11 o'clock so we have to take a vote to take up any addition items um that are on our agenda uh we've already punted on two of them and there are work plan for this year um and I actually think given our discussion of the previous thing I think we need to actually we need to dig

267a little bit more into that personally um so I propose that maybe we should do that when we're a little bit fresher it's not going to happen next this is my concern though our next agenda is completely full so Mr Leonard like do you need our um do you want us would help to discuss that for for your staff to work um because we don't do these things without your staff no no um we've got plenty to do um I'm more worried about you adding more stuff to it um we have several large ordinances that are still finalizing we've got lighting that needs to get to City Council we've got the c1a C1 we've got site plan standards I've got the committee the development committee that um the city um I just got sort of

268a list of names that I need to reach out to so I am happy to postpone that I and I do think we need some more time I have um I have a fair bit of questions for all of you given that recent um uh PUD discussion um so I think it would be worthwhile for us to spend a little bit more time on the work plan um as far as the committee structure um um perhaps we could take quick action on that just to establish the new orc committee um but we're gonna have to revisit that now that commissioner Woods um is no longer our transportation commissioner but maybe we don't decide that tonight and we amend it so does anyone long way of saying let's maybe tackle committees as presented um the planning

269conference resolution and will postpone work plan discussion okay so if the next item on the agenda would be the work plan which it sounds like there would not be interest in taking up so given our bylaws we just can skip over it and say is anyone want to make a motion to take up item is um agenda item 11b which is committee membership commissioner milstein second in by commissioner abon um can we have any discussion of taking this up now all in favor please raise your hand or say yes yes yes anyone oppose that's everybody's hand okay so we will we can take up um 11b which is a short staff report by Mr Leonard this is public hearing associated with this so um I presented the um proposed commission assignments um as discussed in

270the working session um I think the uh significant changes that would be incorporated with this would be um adding um commissioner milin to the affordable housing subcommittee and uh removing commissioner Briggs from the orc uh ordinance revisions committee and replacing uh her with commissioner hamers Schmid and as indicated we would need to come back um um perhaps and spend a little bit more time identifying a new Transportation Commission repres okay the motion um we just voted that we would take it up now I'm reading the motion and then somebody's going to move it um the an arbor Planning Commission approves the Planning Commission subcommittee and design assignments as presented moved by commissioner milin is fast tonight commission seconded by commissioner Akerman any discussion of the assignments do you want a roll call Vote or can

271we just do a Voice vote all in favor please say yes or raise your hand yes yes yes any opposed no one so that carries great um would someone like to um move to extend the meeting commissioner milstein to take up attendance at the association of planning conference that's what it was seconded by commissioner Akerman any discussion of extending the meeting all in favor say yes or raise a hand that seemed to be everybody no one is opposed osed all right so we will extend the meeting is there any presentation for this Mr Leonard um just um as I offered uh via email uh the Michigan planning conference is virtual this year um which means that the cost is reduced we could support any planning Commissioners who wanted to attend three Commissioners have expressed interest

272and so the proposed resolution would um per as required in our bylaws have you authorized the financial support for them to attend that conf Commissioners s abon and hamers very good I will read the motion the annarbor City Planning Commission hereby approves the attendance of Commissioners abon ham Hammerman and so at the 2020 Michigan Association of planning annual conference on October 7th to the 9th 2020 to be held virtually and further approves Associated expenses from the planning Services conference and training budget moved by commissioner milstein seconded by commissioner Akerman any discussion have fun have fun thanks learn a lot and bring it back to us all right all in favor please raise your hand or say yes yes great any opposed none okay we are then on to item 12 audience participation which I think

273we can continue on um yes right we don't have to vote to take that up um so this is the final opportunity tonight to speak for up to three minutes and uh people can speak about any issue of Interest public comment can be made by calling 206 337-9723 or 213 338 8477 and then entering meeting ID 392 4427 um you can raise your hand by pressing star n and as always Mr Lenard will call on You by the last four digit or three digits of your phone number Mr Garber you have three minutes to address the Planning Commission yes thanks Mr Leonard uh Ken Garber again I'll be brief I know it's late regarding Lockwood thank you for the very thoughtful discussion um just one technical Point listening to the answers on building electrification when

274they're referring to Hotel style electric HVAC it sounds like they're talking about PTAC units that stands for packaged terminal air conditioners these are the individual units that you see in hotel rooms that are basically single air conditioners that can heat the room when you reverse the flow I'm not an expert on this but I don't think that's the kind of building electrification we want we want vrf which stands for variable refriger an flow with vrf one central heat pump plant has refrigerant Distribution Systems serving individual spaces which have their own thermostats my apologies if you already know all this um these are much more efficient much quieter operation Mitsubishi and some other vendors now offer some extremely efficient vrf systems that work well in our climate the petitioner answers talking about Motel units and flipping

275properties um make me wonder whether Mr gabis and Mr London have any experience with VF especially the new systems and my apologies to them if they do but I just wanted to mention the difference uh if the petitioner is going to do an electric versus gas operating cost comparison before this gets to conso and they should they should be costing vrf not Pac um all right now that I've said all that let me say that I'm impressed as always by your stamina and I thank you for your great service to this community thank you Mr Garber anyone else who um wishes to speak you can press star nine to raise your hand nobody else is on the line all right very good um any commission proposed business item number 13 Mr Leonard proposed what I

276was going to say which was let's look at our work plan so I I I would ask um please look at the work plan you'll notice in my memo I was already suggesting you maybe pull five or six items off of it um I hope that's what you mean by look at it commissioner Mills as opposed to going the opposite direction but I would spend some time with it before um I anticipate um it will come back to the next meeting um and just stay on the agenda but it'll it'll be at the end of the meeting and if we don't have time we'll see see what happens but um I would just ask that you do spend a little bit of time with that and I'm happy to answer any questions in the meantime

277if you hav't the the comment that I want to say is like I want more information about which things we need to be paying attention to that address our dual challenges right like a lot of these things can add costs right which goes against our affordability and so I think we need to have a little bit of discussion about the balance of those I know I I don't think it's an either or but in some cases it's an either or and I think I think we do need to um I I I think that your point is a good one I think commissioner gandle was getting at this I I was having some of the same thoughts um I think we need to we need to think about um at times at times in order

278to be successful we're gonna have to prioritize perhaps affordability over sustainability or vice versa and um that's hard for any any of us with both of those concurrent policy goals and I I think it's probably something that we need to spend some more time on yeah that's the lens that I think like in helping evaluate how we spend our time yeah okay um would anyone like to make a motion for adjournment commissioner Gib Randall seconded by commissioner s uh all in favor of a journey say yes or raise your hand yes yes commissioner acrian uh all opposed not gonna say anything um there's at least six of us there's at least six of us who are going to adjourn thanks everybody for hanging in there good night good night bye thank you very much