Ann Arbor Planning Commission 6/2/20

001the tuesday june 2nd 2020 electronic meeting of the ann arbor planning commission this meeting is in accordance with the executive order from the governor to affect social dissenting and mitigate the spread of covid19 virus we intend to conduct this meeting similarly to an in-person meeting however please be patient if there are any technical issues public comment will be available via telephone only to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877-853-5247 this information is also available on the published agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting on ctn channel 16 18 t or i'm sorry yeah 18t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch ctn and we'll begin the meeting this evening with the roll call commissioner woods here commissioner briggs here commissioner mills

002commissioner milstein here commissioner gabe randall commissioner ackerman here commissioner sovay here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here we have a quorum thank you do we have any introductions this evening we have one um joining us later we will have cynthia redinger a transportation engineer for the city both of our petitions this evening had some traffic related questions and so she's available to address any questions that may come up great thank you um do i have a commissioner that will move the agenda move by commissioner break seconded by commissioner woods um any discussion or changes to the agenda see no one all those in favor please say aye hi host is approved um before us this evening we have the may 19th 2020 uh meeting minutes that we received uh momentarily ago um yeah if you

003and i would just say they were provided quite late if you haven't had a chance to review them it's perfectly okay to postpone consideration of those to the following meeting all right do i have a commissioner that will move uh the minutes moved by commissioner ackerman seconded by commissioner gibrandal do we have any discussion on the meeting minutes commissioner briggs i just i only got a chance to skim like the first page so i'm not sure would you like to move i'll move to postpone if others are in the same place than i am i'll second that second by commissioner abrams any discussion on the postponement all those in favor please say aye to postpone hi oppose all right postponed um [Music] moving on to reports from city administration city council planning manager planning commission

004officer committees and we will begin with our city council representative uh commissioner ackerman thank you mr chair um city council met last night and a few updates uh relevance to this body that i'd like to share with you um the first was with respect to our ongoing initiatives to close sidewalk gaps um traditionally the city has funded uh building sidewalks where there aren't any today by assessing property owners on which the the sidewalk gap exists um you know there there are issues with that they are general social good it puts you know a significant burden on that exact location um and so to explore other funding mechanisms city council asked staff to develop a potential ballot language for a sidewalk gap millage so in addition to renewing our street bridge and sidewalk millage that we've

005traditionally had in november of 2020 for five years we would also consider an additional 0.2 millage for install the installation of sidewalk that doesn't exist today um the exact language of that of the the ballot initiative would be it is what we've asked staff to develop and they'll get back to us in july with a few options for our consideration um so big thanks to staff for their proactive work it's been a topic of conversation at the city council table for some time but it's just kind of languished as an idea until they brought this back so very grateful for for them moving the ball forward um additionally city council did adopt the 820 carbon neutrality plan last night this is a seven strategy living document meaning that it's not signed and sealed last night

006it's going to change and evolve as we learn more about the latest science the latest technology and changes in federal state regulation and funding as well as our partnership with dta will evolve certainly as well over the next 10 years um just as a preview these seven strategies include powering our electric grid with 100 renewable energy switching our appliances and vehicles from gasoline diesel propane and natural gas to electric significantly improving the energy efficiency in our homes businesses schools places of warship recreational sites and government facilities reducing the miles we travel in our vehicles by at least 50 which includes some land use and zoning changes changing the way we use reuse and dispose of materials enhancing the resilience of our people and our place and a general catch-all strategy that captures miscellaneous actions that

007don't filter into one of the other cities so very exciting step forward a huge development for our new office of sustainability and innovation led by dr missy stoltz who will be fully funded in her budget this coming year to start making headway on this uh very progressive in my marketplace um the final item i wanted to share with you is that city council did approve a resolution to close downtown streets in consultation with the business associations to allow outdoor dining at our local restaurants in our downtown so soon we'll be releasing more detailed plans which i'm sure you'll be able to read about in the media and i encourage folks to come out and support local businesses who have been hurting pretty bad over these last few months of course practicing the safety precautions that

008you need to keep you and your family safe thank you um mr leonard do you work for us um just following up on um uh commissioner ackerman's report from city council the transportation team has been doing great work in that regard i wanted to share with you and the public healthy streets program information it's a website available at the city at a2gov.org healthy streets this has a lot of information about how the city is approaching this additionally there's a public input tool that provides information for where you can submit information about your interest in in a particular geography or type of response for healthy streets so some great resources apart from that the working session scheduled for next week will be as a bit of a a bit of a uh hodgepodge um in addition

009to the a20 uh document that commissioner ackerman just referenced i'm going to invite dr missy stoltz or in her team to provide a brief overview of what that document says to get you start to thinking about how it may or may not relate to land use policy going forward i'm also going to invite in deb um one of our one of mine one of your favorites who runs our capital improvements program um to give you a snapshot of where that process is sort of mid-stream um if you have any questions about what's happening i know typically you only see that sort of leading up to adoption so this is an opportunity for a checkpoint and then in addition to healthy streets i'm going to invite plant transportation planner eli cooper to talk about the healthy

010streets initiative a little bit more detail as well as the status of the city's update to the transportation plan and that's all i have i'm sorry mr winter uh also planning commission reviewed some cosmetic changes to the udc that clarifies distinctions between what is requested in site plans and area plans if you recall city council passed that first reading and hopefully that will move forward at second reading as well great thank you any planning commission officers and committees any reports this evening okay let's see noah uh we'll move on to audience participation um this is an opportunity for persons to speak corrupt about an issue that is not listed in the public hearings on this agenda so this is you can speak to the planning commission about anything other than the valhalla and the liberty

011project uh to comment on such other matters other than valhalla and the liberty project please call 877-853-5247 and enter meeting id 926-3370-3308 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we meet we may hear you clearly please see your name and address at the beginning of your comments so this is the time for anybody to speak about any subject other

012than the two petitions that we have before us this this evening so you are able to speak about anything other than valhalla and the liberty project mr leonard do we have any yes a caller with phone number ending with five zero zero you have three minutes to address the planning commission i'm sorry i pushed the wrong button i wanted to talk about blah blah blah okay sorry no there'll be another opportunity for that i'll call back sorry no other indication of speakers okay thank you um all right moving on to public hearings for next business meeting mr leonard yes we have uh uh three primary agenda items um one is uh the return of 2800 jackson road uh it's a site plan for two hotels uh the petitioner has followed up on some of the

013requests to reevaluate the interaction with the right-of-way and some landscaping for those landscaping changes then we have two new items appearing on your agenda one is the proposed site plan for city council for a home to hotel this is a proposal to demolish an existing building and construct a four-story hotel with 115 rooms on a 2.6 acre parcel located at 361 west eisenhower parkway it will include 115 car parking lot and two driveways that access onto signature boulevard then we also have a item for a series of rezonings the city has had submitted earlier last year a set of proposed annexations of properties from scio township pittsfield township and ann arbor township while about 100 of those properties were submitted only about only 26 of those were approved by the state um so those are

014all from scio township we are proposing to rezone those properties um so bear with me they uh the properties in question are 560 570 allison drive 404 barber avenue for 10 barber avenue 25 70 25 76 25 82 30 and 30 to 14 dexter road 2510 miller road 410 parkwood street and 2565 and 2850 valley drive all these properties are proposed to be zoned from township to r1c single family dwelling then 3428 porter and 147 167 175 225 235 255 363 367 and 371 south wagner road as well as 153 west over 2 2 1 westover and 260 westover are being proposed to are proposed for rezoning from township to r1d single family zone thank you for letting me get through thank you mr leonard and commissioner woods you have your hand up yes um

015so mr leonard it sounded like a lot of things were not approved is that correct and yes can you give us a sense of what happens with those properties at this point sure at this point they still remain in the adjacent townships i think jeff khan from our team is working with folks from public services on sort of what the next steps of that process are for those properties if there's any sort of subsequent appeal or further dialogue with the state regarding that but but the short answer for the interim is if that decision just stands then those properties would remain in the townships and then we would reconsider them with any future annexation petitions either if the city re-initiated some different capacity or if the property owners themselves elected to annex so in this

016case the property owners themselves were not requesting it correct the city was initiating these annexations okay thank you you're welcome thank you all right moving on on our in our agenda to item nine e unfinished business valhalla ann arbor site plan annexation and rezoning for city council approval our procedural evening uh will be a presentation from the petitioners for them to speak and present their project for up to 10 minutes it will then be followed up by a staff report for mr kowalski followed by a public hearing and then discussion and just give me a moment we have quite a few project representatives that i am going to add to the meeting hello uh we're just loading it up so one quick second uh while we put all the petitioners or yeah all the petitioners

017and representatives so we will be getting started momentarily um i think so just give me a moment i'm trying to uh get the presentation pulled up here for us sounds good i don't see our traffic engineer coming up nor do i see our civil engineer coming up todd's there there he is there's julie you all right are we ready to go mr liner i am are you ready to go mr moore yep all right um all right we will begin with our presentation mr moore take it away you have 10 minutes uh along with your team to address the planning commission this evening uh mr leonard cut me off at six minutes so that uh bradstreet our planner can have the time after that i think i can fit everything and we'll see um i'm

018brad moore with jay bradley moore and associates architects i'm here on behalf of the hala project team i have with me tonight representatives of the development group as well as my co-architects for the project hlr architects and other members of the development team including our civil engineer todd pascoe with atwell our planner brad straiter eric with catalyst partners our energy consultant who can speak to the sustainability aspects of our project especially as compared to single family uses our traffic consultant julie kroll and others bob lamkin is here tonight representing hlr bob and i graduated together from the u of m architectural college here and one of our last co-projects you may remember is 615 south main so we look forward to reprising our success uh we've all worked very diligently um for nearly a year

019now um to craft the proposal that's uh for you now um i'm gonna have to move quickly to cover a lot of ground so uh i apologize for the brevity but i had the time i have this is a quick location map showing where the project is in the southwest quadrant of the city it is highlighted with the red dashes it is located north of briarwood and south of the big house next this is uh the next slide is a quick aerial view uh contemporary uh shot recently this shows the site um as it lays near bush's market across the street and surrounded by the u of m golf course on three sides next slide this shows some historic context for the site this is just after world war ii about 1947 when land development

020patterns were starting to change in the south side of town from the traditional agricultural uses you can see some of the farmland is being carved up into single-family lots both west and south of the u of m golf course next this shows the 17 existing parcels uh all but two of which are in pittsfield township this project will result in the voluntary annexation of these parcels that be no quote-unquote forced annexations most of these are unwell and septic the next slide um i want to speak to the fact that um the about a decade ago um the city council uh created a new zoning district called r4e this classification was intended to accommodate additional density within the city while fostering more sustainable forms of development um they didn't re-zone any land when they created this

021new zoning district it was anticipated that land already zoned otherwise would be rezoned or land that was annexed into the city would carry this new zoning the they set forth in their creation of this selling district some significant criteria to make parcels eligible for this r4e zoning including they had to be on a significant transit corridor into the city that had a bus service route i had to have access to public lands school shops and services all while having a low impact on adjacent property and we believe that now hala project meets all of these criteria uh this map before you describes some of the uh services in shops in the area as well as development patterns in the area brad strata will speak more at length about this particular slide next this shows the

022site relative to the 5 15 and 30 minute walking radius as well as to the designated bike routes through the city it's an eminently walkable site services right across the street a 15-minute walk puts you to the u of m stadium and 22 minutes by the way it takes is what it takes to get to washington dairy by my stride next slide this shows the site's proximity to the parks that are on the southwest side of ann arbor there are plenty of public lands available to people within walkable distance go ahead to the next slide this shows the slight proximity to the city's bus system there are two bus lines that go right past the system which connected via several other stops to all the other routes available in the city next and this slide

023shows that this the university bus service is also in a walkable distance just down at stadium boulevard so you could connect to the university bus service as well next this slide shows in blue the new pedestrian access we're providing to connect the site both to the intersection at scio church road and down to ann arbor saline road and also to the sidewalk along the old main street spur we have two entrances to the building uh to the project rather one is off the old main street spur to the south uh west corner and the other is on the curve or the bend along uh that transition on main street there that's a right in and right out only designation and then on the north side of the site there's an emergency access only connection for

024the fire department next the uh this is an overlay from matwell that shows uh the significance about a minute brad yep that shows the significant landmark trees we organized the site to try to preserve the landmark trees that had a score of 25 or higher and that's that that's what drove where we put the larger buildings so we could sneak the smaller buildings in between the trees the townhouse buildings are snuck in between the trees the parking is largely tucked underneath this buildings we use the site topography to that advantage the next series of slides are a variety of 3d perspectives we can just click through these pretty quickly brett we can come back to them as the planning commissioners desire they show the the project in its context with the surrounding golf course and

025the uses in the area like the bushes shopping center across the street uh also shows the elements of the buildings including exterior patios canopies outdoor courtyards the large building also has an interior courtyard and we can discuss these at length if the commissioners have an interest these are there's a very similar palette of materials to the yard these are the townhouse buildings the smaller buildings set in amongst the landmark trees we included a large play structure for recreation outside the buildings keep going this is a picture of the outside of the yard our last collaboration that bob uh lampkin and hlr and i did for those of you some of you are probably still on the planet commission back then it's not that old our project i didn't know if you'd had a chance to

026see the interior courtyard shots so i included some of the interior courtyard shots to give you uh guys an idea of the level of amenities provided to the residents on the interior courtyards which you never see on the exterior renderings because they're exterior renderings now i'd like brad straighter to speak about the planning concepts that he wrote a letter to you guys about we're not able to hear you nope still i can't hear you brad would you like to try calling into the phone number yeah i'll do that oh we heard you we just heard you okay great sorry hopefully that doesn't eat into my time um i'll try to go quick again bradstreeter mksk and i was brought on by the development team after we got the initial staff report to look at the

027implications of the master plan and future land use map and as brett can tell you i have over 30 years of experience in master planning and zoning including some work in ann arbor i actually did the pittsfield township master plan years ago just have a few key points to make and summarize the letter that i prepared one is that this is a unique situation because the properties are being annexed from pittsfield into the city of ann arbor so it's not really a rezoning so back when the master plan was done the south area plan in 1990 it had specific recommendations for a number of the properties in the south area but not this one so this one was shown as single family in the master plan because that's what it was for decades in pittsfield

028with the anticipation that when the property owners came in for annexation that the city would look at the appropriate zoning so that's where we are now so when the city designated the site for single family it was not really based on analysis like was done for 12 specific sub areas but just because that was the existing land use what the expectation when the property owners come in then you would look at appropriate zoning when you look at this property it really doesn't have the characteristics of the other high quality single family neighborhoods in the city it doesn't have parks it doesn't have sidewalks the cul-de-sac length needed would be over 900 feet and the city standard is 600 and so forth so it's really not set up for single family in the city of ann

029arbor and also single-family along this corridor is inconsistent i believe with many of the policies in the city's various planning documents so when a future land use map is outdated in this case it was 30 years ago in 1990 that the future land use was looked at here what are the factors the planning commission should consider and i do a lot of training for the michigan association of planning and mml and the factors we say are looking at land use needs land use trends in the area the appropriate location and so forth and just hitting a couple key points there is obviously a need for more housing and housing choices and this type of housing in the city of ann arbor if you look at this map other zoning decisions over the years based on

030the south area plan did not follow the future land use recommendation most of the decisions allowed multiple family as is being requested here this is a good site for multiple families as brad moore went through we're on a a route for transit we're close to the u of m transit system we're on a high volume roadway we're surrounded primarily by the golf course there's no adjacent single family and so forth so this really fits the criteria for good multiple family in the city of ann arbor and the conditions being offered as part of this conditional rezoning for the green roof and the solar and the ev charging stations and all those different elements also help um we film makes a compelling argument that this is very consistent with the city's overall planning documents so in

031summary we feel this is a really good location for this type of housing that this type of housing is needed it's consistent with the development trends in the area and it meets many of the goals and principles that have been in the various documents of the city council and the planning commission with that appreciate your time if you have questions as we go on i'd be happy to answer them thank you um at this time i'd like to welcome mr kowalski for a staff report um mr kwalski may want to just unmute yourself okay thank you good evening everyone um i'll kind of be brief and a summary of what we have through our recommendations and the individual actions that you'll see here tonight um as you know there's three separate petitions associated with this

032project the annexation um a zoning as well as a site plan a conditional zoning i should say um so really as far as the annexation i mean staff does support the annexation it is within our um ultimate city boundaries it's within the township annotation agreements um so in consistent with city policy of accepting property when it is offered voluntarily for annexation we do support the annexation of the property um as far as the zoning as you know staff did not support the r4e zoning for this site um staff is recommending kind of a placeholder and r1d zoning um when property is annexed into the city you do need to assign a zoning district to that that um those properties now it does not preclude a higher density zoning in the future of going over that

033and r1d right now would be consistent with land use recommendation as well as uh the existing properties in the area right now i believe there's four or five single family homes left on those properties um those properties would be consistent with an r1d zoning they're actually a little bit larger r1d is a 5 000 square foot lot minimum um those the two properties there one is zoned r1a and i believe the other one is zoned r1 cr1b um so that for the zoning-wise staff would be recommending an r1d zoning uh site plan as you know again in in coordination with the art conditional r40 zoning staff did not support the site plan at this time we have worked extensively with the petitioner from the time of submittal to add green features such as vegetated roofs

034the solar panels as well as elimination of some of the extra impervious surface around the site uh the fire access drive that was mentioned previously along the north side of the proposal previously did have parking alongside that as well staff did urgition to remove that and they did so that access drive now is solely for a fire um and not and fire and non-motorized uh access um in addition to that um looking through the notes right now regarding the the nx annexations we did cover that so really again in summary although we have worked with the petitioner and looking at the land use recommendation for as in conjunction with the other master plans that we have as part of the city while the land use recommendation however originally on this site to date to the

035original master plan of 1990 it has been reaffirmed um with the current master plan and and is still valid for that site um so in conclusion now staff would recommend approval the annexation um in r1d zoning um and does not recommend approval of the site plan at this time thank you mr kowalski um at this time i would like to open up the public hearing on this item this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed annexation rezoning and or site plan for this fall hall of petition public comment may be made by calling 877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 926-3370-3308 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and the video feed city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using

036the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand after dialing into the meeting please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television and background sounds let me hear you clearly please see your name and address at the beginning of your comments poller with phone number ending with two nine nine you have three minutes to share your comments with the planning commission great thank you uh appreciate this opportunity to speak i'm michael o'keefe at 105 golfing lane uh so i just want to comment that i'm not against development in my uh neighborhood we have been in this house for about 20 years and have been involved in

037providing feedback and support for other uh developments that have gone on and i find it's really been enough positive for the area as we've seen growth over the years but i am very concerned over this particular project and it's not the first time i and others have raised concerns i was reviewing documents online regarding valhalla glenn and i looked over the summary of citizen participation meeting last year i was surprised that while it's described as a summary of comments and questions it didn't include any of the comments raised about the density of the project it really was just a summary of the questions people's people asked i read through the petitioner's latest rebuttal to the planning commission's concerns and and as they say it may be that the future land use map is outdated or

038has not always been followed and exceptions have been allowed for other multi-family or residential units but really none of those developments comes close to approaching the density that this one proposes with now 454 units for such a small footprint i was hard to learn that the planning commission recommends around 80 to 90 units which i support as is the hologram is very out of whack really with everything else in the area it is much closer to what you'd expect to see for density downtown while the traffic studies said there are no issues i'm just having a hard time seeing how there won't be issues at such an odd little intersection with the entryway so close to scio church and main street but the number of cars that would accompany this this density of a project

039and the requirements of traffic being right turned in and right turnout only i support development for valhalla area i think it's needed i welcome higher density than what's there than just single residencies um and i really welcome further discussion on this as a neighbor but i really hope the planning commission votes down this development as currently designed thanks for my time thank you is there anyone else who wishes to address the planning commission in regards to this item if so please press star nine to raise your hand caller with phone number ending in zero nine four you have three minutes to address the planning commission on the valhalla application i thank you um you might like to know too that um the the meeting number that's posted on screen is not what i was able

040to use to get through to speak to the council um it says on the screen that it ends in three eight one two and what i actually had to do was something somebody emailed me the the correct id which ends in o eight i don't know if that helps anybody else or allows anybody else to speak but just to let you know about that thank you so generally speaking so short version is i am on the other side of the golf course or on the other side of the driving range i've been an owner here for 17 years i've been the association president here for probably 16 years and one of the things that i think as an association we're concerned about is just the firstly the aesthetics of what is proposed how that would

041match with what is and we have 48 units here as of the moment and i think the idea of the 484 ish that's being proposed it it seems wrong basically that when i think of the other project that's that's been mentioned the other projects that i see like that around town i like them i don't dislike them as a matter of fact but i think that sort of thing in this location is aesthetically a little bit strange is the short way of putting that a secondary concern that i have just off the top of my head is parking that as is as a moment um we already have a shortage of parking here that it is a constant battle frankly especially when students are in town and and that generally speaking students tend to take

042a few more spaces than uh per per unit um than just a single family actually per unit and so parking actually is at a premium at the moment and i can't imagine that getting better if a 400 plus unit place is put in very close by that right now our overflow actually goes in that direction and as is the the yeah the parking is already strained here so um the way it is structured at the moment i appreciate the fact i just heard that the the current recommendation is voting against that and i guess i'm glad to hear that so appreciate your time thank you very much thank you who was that oh did somebody caller ending with phone number ending ending with one zero seven you have three minutes to address the planning commission

043hi um my name is eaton holland and um i live in 111 golf u lane which is adjacent to um the u of m property and just across proposed area of development i want i want you to understand that i do support developing the parcel it's really been a need of improvement for a long long time and a new development there would be most welcome i do not support the developer's request for the high density zoning i do support the r1d zoning that was recommended by the planning commission that would limit the number of units to 84. um this keeps it in line with the city of ann arbor's master plan if if you were to drive through this area and take a look at our existing buildings and residences you could easily see that

044there's a number of one to two story buildings some single family homes some condominium developments none of them are as densely populated structures that have been proposed by the developer once again i do support the 84 units i do not support the 400 plus units proposed by the developer it's way outside of the norm and most inappropriate for this area thank you thank you caller ending with phone number phone number ending one three four you have three minutes to address the planning commission um thank you mr leonard i'm ken garber at 28 haverhill court that's on the far north side of town i'm going to speak to the sustainability elements of this plan i appreciate that the petitioner apparently is building to a lead silver standard and will include some solar panels green roofs and

045ev charging stations as council member ackerman mentioned the 820 carbon neutrality plan is now official city policy literally overnight the community's expectations have changed for example i refer you to strategy 2 dictating all electric new construction 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 so we'll soon have a ban on natural gas infrastructure in new construction something many cities elsewhere have already passed and are enforcing the eight or zero plan timeline shows this going into effect for us in 2022 but complete building electrification should be the default option now to avoid the need for unnecessary and costly retrofits down the road electrification should not add any cost to this project according to a

046recent report by the rocky mountain institute it reads for newly constructed buildings heat pumps are universally more cost effective than natural gas even without optimizing for demand flexibility primarily because the heat pump provides both heating and air conditioning avoiding the need to purchase both a furnace and an air conditioner the valhalla site plan is no longer sufficient to meet the sustainability expectations in ann arbor where we're moving aggressively towards carbon neutrality and eventually a net zero emissions built environment according to the best science and principles of global equity the entire developed world needs to get to zero emissions by 2035 at the latest to avoid catastrophic climate change so if staff is not already doing so it should raise this issue with every new petitioner including this one so should commission full electrification is now

047the baseline community expectation even if it is not yet required in our building code 30 seconds it soon will be mr moore mr lampkin you should revise your plans to incorporate vrf systems in your buildings and forego all natural gas infrastructure including kitchen appliances if you rack experience with non-fossil fuel heating systems you should consult with local developer matt groskoff who was developing a 99-unit all-electric residential project on 14 acres off platte road thank you caller with phone number ending with the numbers 829 you have three minutes to address the planning commission hi my name is chris pesco i grew up on the lot in question at 98 valhalla drive i grew up went to ann arbor public schools community and pioneer high school and then the university of michigan school music and aerospace engineering

048program i will say that i i really am interested in in the uh seeing the design plans for the first time this evening i think the proposal looks great i like the density i think high density uh in this site is ideal i grew up walking and biking to to all the the downtown locations that were shown on the map earlier it's highly accessible to pedestrians and i hope that you know people that will inhabit this area in the future don't rely entirely on cars because uh it's a nice area to walk and bike um and i will say i think you know the amount of sprawl that's taking place currently south of the city of ann arbor is really an eyesore and and really a problem for traffic and encouraging higher density developments like

049this is really the future of the city these you know ann arbor is the city that's in position to deliver resources that the surrounding community needs from both from good schools and uh in in basic you know necessities like libraries uh uh you know the all the great things that the university of michigan has to offer these are resources that are more accessible to the public when the public's closer so i do really you know appreciate what's been done here the work of the architects and engineers and uh and would like to see this project move forward as designed thank you thank you as a reminder if you'd like to speak on this public hearing please press star 9 on your phone to raise your hand caller with phone number ending with the numbers five

050zero zero you have three minutes to address the planning commission on the valhalla application hi my name is stephanie savarino i'm very familiar with brad moore who i greatly respect and actually the developer as well i also am very familiar with development and i am i i absolutely support um the annexation and development of the parcel and i want to ask the planning commission on uh the south exclusively the city of ann arbor master plan land use elements you know dated november 5th 2009. under are we site two in the site is this site two of the south area which is saying you know the 65 acre site is located east of maine south of the event offers it includes 12 parcels single family attached multi-family dwellings are recommended with additional neighborhood parkland to serve

051residences higher residential densities of up to 15 dwellings per acre can be supported if greater street access and parkland are available if that's the case and this is site two why would we ever ask for more than fifteen callings per acre um because this is what the master plan unless this is wrong this november 5th 2009 master plan do you guys know the answer to that or anybody i'm fanning am i not allowed to ask the question i'm sorry anyway that's my question i support the planning commission and their notes about um the deep r1d and and short of that i would be willing to support something with less density as i do support development in general it's just i cannot support this development at this location at this time thank you thank you not

052seeing any additional speakers okay thank you very much all right so this time um we will uh head into reading the motion and uh discussion mr leonard i assume i'm just reading the proposed uh emotion not the alternate provided by staff correct thank you that's that was that was strictly provided as an alternative for your consideration okay sounds good um so without objection i'll read uh and move both of the motions at the same time see no objection all right the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the annexation in the valhalla ann arbor rezoning petition to r1e i'm sorry r4e multiple family district based on the proposed zoning and accept these conditions the density not to exceed 50 units per acre the maximum height of any building

053will be 79 feet the inclusion of nine affordable housing units as described in the statement of conditions the approval is subject to executing a conditional zoning statement of conditions notion number two the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the halal site plan and development agreement do you have a commissioner that will move moved by commissioner ackerman seconded by commissioner briggs and we are in discussion mr ackerman thank you mr chair and thanks to the petitioner of the residents and staff for the input and background um i guess i want to turn my attention first to the the conditions um they seem somewhat loose and i was a little confused about the nine units versus the 15 units of affordable housing of course these conditions are voluntary on

054the petitioner's part but given the scale of the rezoning request and the fact that you're requesting only 50 units per acre but r4e could allow up to 75 units per acre i realize that you're bringing it down but there's just you're kind of still asking for a pretty big box and blank slate without as many guarantees to the city so i guess some reconsideration of that on your part i'd be interested in again of course their voluntary um under state law and that's completely at your discretion um i i don't know i guess i'm i'm overall on the the subject of of the petition uh i'm a bit torn i i and i feel the the tension and the staff report of seeing benefits and mr kowalski and mr leonard having negotiated gains along the

055way um that speak to what we're trying to accomplish as a city i was grateful to see that we got up to you know 12 of the energy consumption of the development would be produced on-site through solar that's that's good to see that's so much better than so much of what's been built even in the last decade um i was glad to see 15 units of affordable housing although it's not guaranteed in the rezoning um although and i was a little bit confused and skeptical of the varying levels um and this is housing along transit which is totally within you know our other master planning documents with and i think speaks to a lot of values that the city holds dear um i guess looking to staff there was reference like not enough and if

056you were to advise us like what should we be asking for what what is the threshold at which staff feels as though the petitioner has put forward ideas worthy of these allowances worthy of this increased density um and where should we draw that line in order to negotiate at the 454 units or you know clarify some other course of action i don't have an exact answer whether to think through whether the magic number of sustainability features is this this and this or whether the number is here um i mean we kind of react to what was given to us so um we did negotiate it up to basically as far as we felt we could as far as we could get it before the project was scheduled so um i mean what i do know

057is again we we look at everything in the in the whole picture and and as we said in the staff report as well i mean we do feel the site could support additional density there's there's added value in the proposal um but however as you stated you know there it's a massive increase over what the existing recommendation is for that site and you know try trying to get it closer to a point i mean eventually yes we would we would have to make this decision where that standard is or the planning commission ultimately obviously has to make that decision well finally city council so i don't have an exact answer but i know that we weren't staff did not feel that we were there yet as far as getting all sustainability features for housing features

058any other features to um support other elements of the master plan besides the landing's recommendations so like i said i did think i apologize for not giving you the exact answer i had anticipated it and it is a good question okay i would appreciate that answer bye if i could just also add two um that the the city is has considered sort of similar um balancing of a variety of goals and our master plans and i think that mr kwalski has done a um a great job in trying to recognize those at times frankly conflicting um direction that comes out of that voluminous set of documents that guides our land use policy in this case however it is a rezoning request it's a conditional rezoning request but at its core it is a rezoning request

059and while there is no inherent legal um clear legal link that says any rezoning must follow the recommendation of the master plan obviously that is our advice that it should that is the policy that we have set forth for our community goals to the extent that we are consistently applying those recommendations it gives us a volume of valid decisions over a long haul that are reliable in a way predictable to property owners and petitioners but i would also agree with mr kowalski that it as it is a rezoning and as there are multiple aspects of our master plan beyond the future land use map that is not that's not anything defined in our zoning code that says what those numbers are as it relates to affordable units we could look at other documents that do

060set those thresholds in our udc things like our pud standards things like our premium standards but those would simply be proxies of other public policy or regulatory decisions based on that policy it would be looking to those thresholds for a more discretionary decision for a rezoning okay that's helpful so um ms severino also cited a 2009 update to the land use element that cites 15 units per acre can you speak to the accuracy of that yeah that that's actually so she was that land recommend land use recommendation is for the site directly kind of south of that which was to be site too so that's kind of the site that includes i believe where she lives as well as the gulf view development so it did not include this site okay because the 15 acre

061the 15 units per acre is denser than the r1d recommendation so r1d would net 84 units 15 units per acre is like 150 units then this is like 450 units um so there i mean within the vicinity there's there is justification for going above r1d in terms of density um and some of the neighbors to the south have you know netted the benefits of that increased density um so so i think i i do appreciate staff's perspective that this is kind of going above and beyond the density that we have experienced and allowed um in the immediate vicinity uh given the master plan and that there is this this tension and need for added benefit with respect to um to sustainability and affordable housing and i do have interest in giving staff more time to

062see what what can be done with respect to those if the developer is open to it um i did also have some questions around staff's comments on natural features that didn't seem like fully cooked yet um as well as the the transportation elements i really appreciate ms retinger for being here um thank you um but uh the i might um i might have just not lack i might lack some imagination but it's hard to visualize exactly what all those recommendations look like and then what the process and path forward to implement those would be given the need for public engagement it seemed as if we're asking for certain things to be implemented but there is a process that would need to unfold that would include neighbors to implement them um and it it felt a

063little bit like putting the cart before the horse and improving this without knowing if that process would pan out so i had a few uh points of confusion and concern there um i want to support this i want increased density along transit it's something i've talked about for for five years and it definitely speaks to my values um and what i believe firmly our community needs um but there are a few items that still seem a little undercooked and and i do do want to see if there is opportunity to increase sustainability measures and affordable housing so i'll leave it there for now i'm curious to other college slots i could just really quickly speak to you you did mention a natural features review that that may have uh i know their engineers on the

064lines here somewhere still todd todd oh there you go um that may have been addre they were there were revisions submitted late last week that our natural features coordinator did look over and um they may have been addressed by now but so i was looking to mr pascoe to see if he could add that response i apologize i i can't go back right now and look at that but they were communications at the end of last week you're sure i can respond um yeah we we did respond to tiffany's comments uh earlier but when we did uh resolve the interior landscape islands and the bioretention areas we accidentally moved two trees out of the bioretention areas right so all we had to do is move those two trees back yes okay so when the staff

065report says miner it's it's i believe that could that's that wasn't that's not a was not a reason for denial and obviously the transportation issue as well we do have our transportation engineer on the line if we didn't already point that out so yeah uh grateful for that um i'll i'll let it be for for now i am very interested in other colleagues thoughts um so thanks further discussion commissioner i'm wondering if you could that staff could address the point that the petitioner brought up about um the fact that these sites were annexed and that they weren't really part of the master plan from before and then how your determination of the r1d was determined you know based on the fact that it kind of wasn't it it sounds like by what they're saying that

066it was kind of default based on the fact that that's what was there not what was necessarily envisioned for the city so i guess corroboration as to whether you say that's accurate or not and then r1d like why r1d if some of the sites around it are um well it's a mix right there's a couple of single-family homes and then there's quite a bit of multi-family and so um but frankly the the single-family homes are kind of in the minority you know in terms of what's around it character-wise so if you all could talk through those two points i would that would be helpful for me sure i can start i mean i yeah the point that was brought up about the master plan the origination of that and that that recommendation that was um

067from the original plan of 1990 i i honestly i can't speak to that you know that was i can't speak to how they got that recommendation um you know none of us were here at in the 1990 i mean typically we have when we've done we've done other master plan plan updates since that point we do look at more than just placeholding of of land particularly land that has a lot of vacant area like this but i don't know how that was done in 1990 i apologize as to the r1d designation um that's that was uh one that we had lots of discussion as staff as i said previously there there two of the parcels currently are in the city one is r1a and i believe the other one is r1b um so it in

068the master plan ultimately does say single family so we we do agree that the site can support more density um than necessarily a single family however with an annexation you do need to assign a zoning district anything other than an r1 or would require an area plan um we couldn't necessarily slap an r4 on there um there is other issues as well as going to possibly even an r1e but rwne has limitations on house sizes which would make a couple of the existing houses non-conforming um r1d again is supports the most dense of single family however again nothing precludes that from being rezoned in the future to something of a higher density i would i would i would just add on to that that uh the notion that it was township property and if it

069was if the master plan recommendation was somehow deferential to that existing use um that may very well be the case that um and you could take that as a criticism of the master plan that it should have envisioned some other use nonetheless it was clearly identi it was clearly master plan for single family um but for sure um as consideration of changing factors is something to consider in deviating from those recommendations in the context of all the master language policy [Music] okay that's that's it for now commissioner so i just want to really kind of clarify that point that the master land use plan did an overlay zoning in 1990 for the township parcels calling for it to be single family but part of the practice of the master plan is to do an overlay

070on township parcels you with the anticipation they might be annexed in but i think i know what you mean like correct we would look at properties that are ultimately within the city's uh annexation boundaries so that that is what they did at that time okay so anything within the annexation boundaries was one for one overlaid okay uh i just want to make sure it wasn't kind of again looking at that vicinity thing um i do want to kind of just sorry is this i was gonna say it is it's worth noting that with within that same land use plan there were other sites that were called out close to there for multi-family as one of the callers pointed out earlier so it's not like that wasn't necessarily looked at 30 years ago however this site

071was not there are various land use recommendations specific to sites within that plan but this was just a continuation of the existing land use okay so proximity sites that were within the city boundaries at that time were actually zoned 30 years ago to be multi-family well they weren't zoned but they were they had recommendations for recommendations speeds up yeah to that to be again as they came in many of those sites is referenced and again some of the callers that did some near those locations that were in fact built according to some of those land use recommendations okay um kind of on that i want to be clear that uh with this motion those those single-family homes would wouldn't be non-conforming because it's taken together as an r4e with the um proposed conditions of the

072unit type so like if we're talking about the first motion to be r4e is there a case in the future if that's adopted that those houses would stay and be non-conforming um well you do i believe single family is a permitted use within the r4 so the r4e so that they wouldn't be non-conforming those existing so if the zoning did go through and all the properties were zoned r4e those existing houses could remain and say the development for whatever reason doesn't go doesn't go forward all the properties would be zoned r4e including the vacant properties within that the parcels but the single-family homes could remain okay oh that's helpful too um and i guess i i do want to go uh to transportation to get clarification on both i think that the condition that was

073the main condition i read that is raised about the median island and the left turn uh for um that main street entrance and the process that it seems that it might need to go through as i read the staff report because it seems like some more work needs to happen for transportation and the additional work may require additional public engagement so if staff could speak to all of that and what that means to where where the project is as proposed uh what changes might need to be made sure the applicant's transportation impact analysis recommended a a couple of things that they recommend the first thing that we looked at was access to the site so they have the two site accesses that are proposed the access on main street is a right and right out

074access as a condition of the boulevard section that boulevard section currently has an opening thank you brett that allows access to the commercial parcel that is on the other side of the street their transportation impact analysis is a senate recommended um eliminating left turns for southbound main street and through movements for from that commercial driveway we want to make sure that we aren't creating a crash pattern where individuals who are southbound on main street would basically make a u-turn there and go back to the right and right out driveway and instead go down to the ann robert's celine intersection and come in the site through the other or the other access point as part of that um and with the city's interest in having public participation processes we wanted to make sure that the developer

075would go through that process with with the public particularly with the commercial property that is across the street and while we really want to make sure that that process happens we also didn't want to put the public through the process at the site plan and the annexation did not get approved so this project isn't kind of triggering a kind of republic process on the private parcel it would be within the public right of way re-engineering that boulevard on main street if this is adopted that that would kind of trigger contextual changes to the traffic patterns yes that's accurate the the changes would be as a result of the study but it would er as a result of the development but all of those changes would be within the public and what would be this like

076what would be the lag or kind of uh movement forward on that front if this project is approved how how quickly does the city mobilize in the public right of way to make those changes so that that boulevard might be constructed at the same time that this property would be complete so that we have residents there and that that street improvement is done that timeline would be it would be a burden that was placed upon the developer and the developer would be funding those changes okay and would that then be a condition for uh occupancy permit that those changes in the right-of-way uh are done by the developer for the property to also be approved for occupancy right please correct me if i'm wrong but i believe that is the case yes we could within

077the development agreement the language would be specifically spelled out as to when the improvements needed to be done and uh you know before so and so usually it's before issuance of the first co or something of that nature so that development agreement it's not directly in the draft that you have in front of you before sorry right now but that will be in there and that's ultimately approved by council okay so it's something that we won't see because it's in public right away and we're looking at uh private land use but to just know in context that that would be an additional kind of condition to this project that would need to happen correct um okay and then i guess to kind of clarify everything on the site then looks good to go and that

078that was the big kind of flag to traffic yes okay yes um i guess i have uh i'll raise a couple questions to the developer uh with the public comment is there feasibility to do full electricity in the building plans um we certainly are are willing to have a discussion uh with the uh our energy consultant um hlr and i have uh as a matter of course done vrf uh heat pump heating and cooling systems uh we could certainly uh have a conversation with our energy consultant with the ownership group as to using uh gas appliances gas clothes dryer non-gas clothes dryers non-gas appliances we haven't had that discussion yet but we certainly could have that discussion with the ownership group and then i think financially i would kind of push on the small percentage

079of affordable units the 9 versus the 15. would there be room to do a full 15 units at the 60 ami instead of splitting it between those three tiers that's something i'd like to see again i'd have to have a conversation with the ownership group about that okay um so those are my primary highlights right now i'll i'll leave it for other discussion at this point fisher breaks it sounds like um based on how long and kind of how far this project has gotten and how much how many negotiations and tweaks have happened that there is there's at least been some entertaining i don't know if this is fair to say from a staff perspective about whether the r4e sort of zoning designation was appropriate is that is that fair to suggest that yes okay

080um so it's not i guess it's not from staff's perspective um a completely um crazy proposition that this was put forward it's more than sort of a balancing of of different you know uh what maybe the public benefits were um to me when i'm looking at this i am reminded again of how disappointing it is that our um master land use process has been delayed um longer i mean it wouldn't have impacted this project regardless but it's um we can see how many pressures we're having on sites um based on what our sort of new sustainability and transportation does you know interests are in the community versus what our sort of older land use plans recommend and so i can understand the frustration from sort of the developers perspective of looking at a land use

081recommendations from 30 years ago that don't seem to be consistent necessarily with what our more recent master planning documents suggest as well as maybe more of the development that we've seen in that region and when i look at this project um you know for a heavily dense project outside of the downtown it's it's actually remarkable how much is already in place to support that from a walkability um perspective it's it's pretty impressive i can understand how some of the folks who live in the neighborhood nearby feel like this is a little intense but um so i guess the other question is based on obviously what the land use recommendations are for the area and that is what what our master plan documents suggest right now were there discussions at looking at this as a pud

082thinking about that um this seems like one of those situations where that would have been an appropriate though painful process to potentially go through i'm just curious how much that was was considered and why it wasn't um well i could just speak it it was submitted directly as an r4e proposal with the site plan so there were not discussions regarding a pud i mean internally staffed we had some discussions but with the petitioner it was submitted pretty much exactly how you see it with without the you know some of the green features and things yeah and i guess just kind of throwing that back out to the development team if you'd like to discuss that a little bit based on sort of the recent discussions that you've seen around development in our community recently and

083sort of new policy directions is that is that something that you would be interested in considering um based on past discussions with the ownership group i'd say that's very unlikely um and then the other question i mean personally i guess the other question i have is transportation so um miss redinger i with the traffic report i know that the traffic report said that there wasn't um despite the fact you just described the whole boulevard situation i'm still having a hard time processing exactly what those changes are but i know it also didn't recommend um changes at the intersection but one of the challenges that i have with this development of this density where you're suggesting that folks need to just turn it's right in right out um even if that's put there it seems like

084the temptation would really be to do movements that are find some other movement that would get you going left a lot more quickly than you should so would there what has there ever been consideration of a roundabout at the um main sire church location i mean i know this is just throwing around you know but was that is that something that's ever been interchanged i can imagine that being with a much denser development there beneficial i am not aware of any design considerations for a roundabout intersection never having done before is that does when i suggest something like that i mean i'm just curious what your reactions are to that that's obviously just that's coming that thought is coming with very little engineering background in terms of thinking about whether that would be a logical

085recommendation at all to even consider for a location like that is that i don't know if you have general thoughts about it well and a roundabout in that location would have to be a multi-lane roundabout um i nothing lower than that would work i don't think and as such it would require a very large footprint and right-of-way is a little bit constrained with that intersection okay are there other thoughts on that from a development team um only i mean we had not considered any roundabout but um the the movement that uh uh an occupant or resident who wanted to travel south or southwest they would exit the second or the southern exit to the project and go out onto the main street like south of the church or the anniversary road exit or intersection so

086there is a way for for residents to make the same travel choice as trying to take a kitty wampus left-hand turn out of the entrance which they couldn't make with the redesign of the island so um i just want to make sure you're aware that there is that opportunity for residents to leave out of the other entrance okay okay that that does actually help a little bit on that okay thank you for reminding me of that that's all for me right now further discussion christopher hammersman thank you so i apologize if i missed this somewhere in the staff report um the town homes how many bedrooms what's the break down there it's like i i don't think i have the breakdown of the bedrooms uh but the architect may be able to answer that i'm

087not sure how many bedrooms were in the townhouse uh bob lamkin can probably speak to that although it may be in that report bob can you unmute yeah i believe they are all two-bedroom townhomes okay and then um the affordable units is that all proposed to be in the apartment building or not necessarily i believe so but again that uh they may speak we haven't assigned while there's a number assigned with there and there wasn't specific units but they do say studios yeah i think those would be in the apartment but again the architect may be able to answer that more specifically yeah so that's a the since the townhouses are that are all two-bedroom um a lot of the the ones that are uh studio or one bedroom uh commitments for the affordable couldn't

088be in the townhouses and and my guess is that the two bedroom affordables would also be in one of the larger apartment buildings rather than the townhouse i guess in a roundabout way um sort of trying to get at i would like to see well i think i along with many of my fellow commissioners would like to see more affordable units than than nine um but i'm just trying to think of um you know people that want to live in ann arbor and can't afford to live in ann arbor and the types of housing that they might want and many of them would probably want something more than a studio so i would also like to see it the mix changed a little bit if that's at all possible i understand that financial aid that

089might be difficult um but you know more of the two bedrooms so that families could essentially move into these apartments or townhouses i'm not sure what the profile of residents that you guys are thinking about at all um that's just one thing that struck me as i was reading through this um if that's anything that you've considered and set on or if there's still some negotiation that can happen um and i i think we got and i'm getting confused now between all the different public comments we heard and read but i think we received a communication about um pedestrian access to bushes and potentially being unsafe and if that is not does not sound familiar then i can ignore that but i guess can you talk a little bit about how i think the point

090was maybe that intersection messiah church wasn't the safest for pedestrians so if you can uh uh brad if you can pull up the slide let me give you the number where'd my reference list go um there was the slide that had the bus stops slide 10 yeah no slide 10 yep right there you passed it keep going down right there that one so um what you're seeing there in blue is currently non-existent um there is no pedestrian way on that side of main street it in fact i believe city council authorized an engineering study to put a pedestrian uh way on that side of main street all the way down to stadium boulevard what we agreed to do is put in this section so that you could cross at the signalized intersection of scio church

091and maine and then um you could also continue south and you could cross at the ann arbor saline road the signalization would of course be adapted for the pedestrian crossing which doesn't now exist so the signaling timing hasn't been adjusted to permit it but obviously when there is a pedestrian path there they would adjust signaling to create a safe passage for pedestrians who wanted to cross the bushes and i think that's a huge benefit too of the location of this site it's just the adjacency to a grocery store that's and all the other amenities that existed in that shopping center as well as i assume you didn't i don't think you mentioned this and i don't think it was in your walk shed but there's a high school really close by that you can walk

092to right yeah you could cross across the main street at the scio church uh right there and go uh due north upon you're at the corner of that's the pioneer prairie on the other side of uh of scio church there so you could literally walk to school uh if you if that's if you were you know student living there yeah we have we have uh generally selected these as to be market rate housing so they would be available to anybody who wanted to live and work in ann arbor um we're hoping that some of the studio units would be appealing to those people that were working in the downtown area maybe they're working at one of the restaurants or maybe they're a grad student so it's not a it's not a student-focused project but we

093we assume there'll be lots of university-affiliated people living there who work for the university or other employers in ann arbor so i can certainly have a discussion with with my clients on the mix of the affordables but we have some two bedrooms in the mix already and i assume you're putting in a playground so they would hope for at least some children to be living there as well we anticipate there would be some um is any of the space on the side and this is i guess also thinking about the the desire from staff you know to go a little bit further um for some of this for this zoning and this density um are any of the open spaces on the site publicly accessible are you imagining that you know people that live nearby

094could also easily come access this playground and i think there's a slide really quickly about like parks you could walk to so that it didn't fully absorb but i'm just trying to think of like other public public benefit that might exist and some of the things that you're already planning for this site or if you're really envisioning to be for residents only it's not a gated community i mean there's there's no no you know a guard out there preventing people from coming out of the site okay um and you did mention there were three parks existing parks that were walkable from this side too oh there's several yeah okay yeah i mean i guess from my perspective and i appreciate the the um you know callers and the the communication that we got about density

095concerns but you know this is a long a transit quarter i've been talking about density along a transit corridor i'm not sure what other scenario would make a project like this appealing i mean i i think there's some more discussion to be had and potentially some more changes to make but in in general like i think that this looks like a really great project and a good location and i apologize for my children all right further discussion commissioner abrams hi um thank you uh i guess i'm i'm feeling really torn about this project which i sense maybe some of the other commissioners are as well i think um as some people have said it in many ways meets um criteria for projects that we would like to see in town in terms of um increased

096density some sustainability measures some affordable housing uh walkability and those kinds of things um and i understand that i guess i guess one of the things that i'm really not sure about um and it's difficult because i think i would usually ask staff to help provide me some guidance in this is the appropriateness of using a 30 year old master plan that maybe doesn't didn't have the same value priorities that we would identify today uh that probably will be uh embodied in a new master plan to come in the near future or future so you know like the appropriateness of using something that from that long ago in evaluating this and so um and then i think that the kind of next question just as i kind of think through it methodically is to say

097well if we if we agree that maybe r1 is not the right density and that we don't want to be designating more land to single-family homes in ann arbor that's not the kind of density we're trying to foster then the next question is what is appropriate and there's a huge jump from r1d to r4e so there's a there's a big jump from my math might be wrong but if i'm i think right now if there's 15 parcels if we assumed 15 single family homes on 10 acres that's like a 1.5 dwelling unit per acre and the proposal is 50. and so i think one of the things you know i would love to hear from colleagues or staff too about how to think through the rationale for figuring out what density is appropriate and a

098lot of the public comment that we got were citizens feeling like they support development they support increased density but this was too much 79 feet was too high right so there's a kind of threshold that i think um there is a threshold i guess there's a kind of line and i'm trying you know as i consider how i would vote for this up or down kind of where i think that line should be um and so i don't have an answer for that i'm just kind of maybe sharing my deliberation with you and hoping maybe through dialogue we can uh i can get some come to some clarity i think i share my fellow commissioners desire for um all 15 units to be 60 ami um so officially affordable by the city's designation i think

099uh as a percentage of the total number of units that's still quite small uh i support the desire for full electrification i think that part of our desire for density and walkability are our goals related to sustainability and as one of the callers mentioned the city of ann arbor is taking you know concerted measures um and so i think everything this building can do to kind of meet those sustainability goals makes sense uh and should be i think things that we're holding uh developers accountable to meeting um yeah so those are those are kind of my thoughts they're not conclusive maybe maybe a few more minutes of conversation can help me on that but for me it's kind of like in general i support the the kind of qualities of the project the development on

100that site increased density transit corridor walkability etc um but it's it's a kind of extreme the density feels at the kind of you know extreme end and i'm trying to figure out kind of where on the dial uh the appropriate density would be thanks uh commissioner woods troop your hand up um i think there's a lot that i like about this particular project and a lot that it has going for it um the master plan is really taking a hit during this meeting and i think maybe one of the things we should we should think about is um it has been around for a long time but but even when you think about looking at a master plan it takes a lot of gearing up to do that and uh you know expense and everything

101else so so i can see why they exist for for quite a while the other thing is i think many times this particular project if i'm not mistaken is actually a combination of a number of sites i think based upon what either the developer said or i read within the within the report so um perhaps those who looked at the master plan back in the day weren't really thinking somebody's going to combine a lot of things put it together and therefore it will support a higher density and that sort of thing so we should always just have a little caveat i think when we when we talk about things like that i would have liked to have seen a uh a table perhaps which could give uh the planning commission a better sense of the

102differences or the uh what you're getting with an r1d versus the uh uh conditional zoning and the um uh r4 that the that the commission that the developer has proposed um yet nevertheless um hardly any neighborhood ever wants more density right beside them um traffic is going to be a nightmare for every all of us no matter what we sort of put in there we know that and um you know one of the things i'm thinking about is uh when there's a football game you know there's going to be what a lot more people needing to go south i guess at that point but you know michigan football give or take a couple thousand people you know what what's what difference does that really make i guess um but the other thing that is a

103stumbling block for me at this point is the affordable housing units and um if someone from the development team can uh talk a little bit more about that because we're getting to the point where we're many of us are getting a little tired of hearing oh we talked about nine we talked about 15 and nobody wanted we we're not going there i mean you're asking a lot from the city so you know if you want the city and the residents to live with this increased density can't we at least also get you work with us so that we can have more people who are going to be living in the city and working in the downtown area and would love to have a development like this as their home let's let's see if we can

104get a few more of those folks to be able to live in this area as well so um i really need to hear more about that particularly because it is one of the city's goals just as sustainability and walkability is important as well so thank you for doing that um but it's also you know this could be a good opportunity to really to really do the affordability as well um i i'm certainly wanted to have the discussion as i indicated with the ownership group about this shifting or changing and perhaps even adding affordable units in light of one of the uh public hearing comments in the light of declining commissioner ackerman's discussion of what transpired last night at city council regarding carbon neutrality and sustainability since we have our energy expert here with us perhaps

105you'd like to ask him some questions about the sustainability of this model of development over single family we'll we'll get to that in a minute i just wanted a couple couple of comments that i have um in regards to i guess uh miss redinger if you're here if you're available for a quick question if not i'll move on oh yes thank you um the stub road so sort of the stub off of south main it so i've been on that road although it's been several years since i've been on that road um i actually did not realize there was a road i thought it was a driveway um is that road really equipped for the amount of traffic uh to support 454 units and 731 parking spots is that road really equipped for that much

106traffic since it mostly looks like a driveway it is a low volume street it is a public street i'm actually going to defer to the developers uh transportation consultant if she wouldn't mind talking about how many trips that are anticipated to be on that driveway sure yeah i'm looking at the the volume of traffic on the driveway and with the future traffic volumes that we're looking um we did collect existing traffic volumes on that driveway um and added them to the site generated traffic volume to calculate the total so the peak hour traffic volumes are right around a hundred ingress um a little less on the egress because we have that additional access on um main street so we split the egress from the two driveways and all the ingress will mostly have to come

107in via main street so um the volume of traffic is if we're looking at 200 vehicles during the peak hour that's right around maybe 2000 vehicles a day which is a relatively low traffic volume for a side street and that's a traffic volume that would be consistent with a a low volume stream of this nature throughout the city okay now the one thing that's a little bit different about this street from my recollection although it's been probably two or three years since i've been down there a lot of people park off of that street um not parallel but they literally pull into the golf course and i believe it's the driving range that's there um and then they back out right into that street there so my concern is if there's gonna be so much

108more traffic going uh back and forth on that street um one i'm concerned about the quality of the street if it's truly you know able to handle that much traffic and i'm not talking about handling um the number of cars but i don't remember that being a very uh nice road i should say um something that would probably need some maintenance um but also my concern is as people are parking into the driving range there of how they are then backing out onto the street so i'm a little concerned about that and and part of it the concern goes in regards to traffic is that um with the entrance off of ann arbor actually at that point it's main street my concern lies in the regards that you know since it is right in and

109right out um with regards to people who are going southbound um you know if that's not a smooth you know road for people to travel on the stub road um and they decide they want to exit out through the main main street exit and they need to go southbound the really the next turnaround spot is pioneer high school um and people driving in there i know we have buses it's a park and ride lot there's a lot that's already happening there um and so i'm just concerned all those cars then going into uh into pioneer high school along with you know kids driving to school um that that might not be a um that's i don't yeah i'm i'm really concerned about that um i was actually really surprised with the access for 454 units

110um that that's all that we provided with access to the site um one main entrance and another one that sort of is kind of a entrance and exit out of the site um so i'm not i i look through the traffic study i'm not 100 comfortable with um the traffic flow that's gonna happen there um so i i wanna learn more about that before moving forward on this with regards to affordable housing i agree with all my colleagues you know i'm out of 454 units to have only 15 affordable units i'm not telling the developer what to do here but um maybe we need more than 15 units here um full electrification um i'm in full support of that obviously with what's transpired at city council last night i think we need to start going

111in that direction um i agree with commissioner briggs a pud uh might not be a bad idea for the site for what it is unfortunately the master plan i'm not going to say the master plan is failing us in this regard because i do believe that density is important for this but i i think there's more yeah i'm not gonna dog the master plan the master we already know what's going on with the mastermind it needs to be rewritten so i'm all for density i will say knowing the site and then looking at the dry or the situation with the traffic in and out of the site 454 units seems like a lot of people moving in and out 731 parking spots that's a lot of cars going in and out and i'm not um

112totally comfortable with that um and i agree with commissioner abrams you know there's that line and i think 454 units has crossed over that line where i don't feel comfortable uh with that number um i don't know what it's going to take me to get more comfortable with it uh but i think 450 454 based on the current master plan that we have in place is uh too much it's too much so those are my comments uh commissioner ackerman mr leonard did you want to offer something um if i could just briefly a couple questions have come up um by commissioner abrams and commissioner milstein um as it relates to another number and i think this was posed to matt kowalski as well absent a unpacking this site and going through sort of an updated

113master plan effort for that that's why it's really difficult for us to tell you in any way what the number should be but i just wanted to comment that generally that i've i i think that the way you are talking about this site is appropriate if if you are looking at that single-family residential density as perhaps in a questioning way i think the ways that you would want to proceed from that are referencing the other aspects and policies of our master plan what is this what buttons of that policy document is this hitting from a connection to transportation public transportation to walkability to proximity to businesses and and to sustainability efforts and the like um beca but that i recognize that puts the commission uh to start down that road in a um i don't

114want to say challenging but it it is um arriving at in your own eyes as a commission what that balance is um so i just want to i just wanted to be clear that if if if you feel that it's appropriate to go away from that future land you spend the wave that you're talking about positive aspects of this proposal i think are really valid and those would be important to articulate as to why to just why to justify that alternatively the petitioner may not be interested in exploring other other densities beyond this if that's the case that's also equally they also have the equal opportunity for you to render a decision on the proposal in front of you so i would at some point if that's a direction the planning commission goes and i

115would encourage you to give them the opportunity to see if that's something that they're even interested in pursuing thank you um i guess as a comment as i'm hearing conversation about density i hear a couple things one is a general discomfort with how much the city may be giving up and how much we're getting back um i think then two i heard from um from the chair my friend wilson um some concern about the traffic volume just the sheer number of cars and trips that this may produce and then from the resident we heard about the aesthetic of the density um and that i think gets more to massing than it does the number of units so what is the physical footprint how is it visible from the neighbors and i think it is somewhat

116telling that the neighbors here are the neighbors directly to the south who are likely the ones going to be most affected and i think it's important to to listen to that voice and so you know as i was measuring the distance from the neighbors to the south's property to the property line and then to the first building on the proposed developments about 460 feet so you know it's about a football field and a half or it's um you know it's it's about the length of a city block um if you're walking downtown um that's a considerable distance but i and i do respect the developer put a lot of townhouses in the southwest i think that really helps to scale the density and step the density in an increasing way as you move forward or

117stuff the massing up as you move to the north there is one building building b and it's subsection b3 that's in the southeast corner it's still a five story building and i think if i were the neighbors to the south and i was concerned about the density and its aesthetic impact in my life um you know that's probably the building i'm concerned with if i'm waking up and looking at a town house and it's a well architected and i think it's an attractive townhouse i'm less concerned than i am looking at that five-story building um and if if there's opportunity to meet multiple goals so decreasing the overall density which decreases the number of car vehicle trips while also improving the view shed of the neighbors to the south i think there could be a

118big win there um so if there's opportunity to address that building b b3 i think it would hit on a lot of notes that we've heard through the conversation um so i guess that's that's the last piece because i yeah that's that's just a a constructive offer i wanted to throw out there as we also discussed the 15 units getting to them to 60 and the electrification and also i think you heard multiple hesitations about the traffic pattern and i think if i think it would be advantageous to the developer to um maybe do some renderings or some drawings some engineering drawings of what those may look like um just to help us in our analysis um i don't want to put that on the city i don't think that's our burden um but it

119may be advantageous to your petition to help us visualize this uh commissioner briggs and then commissioner so um a couple of questions one for staff in terms of um how you might see your recommendations shifting depending on how this changes might come back um and then a little bit more on sustainability i know first kind of mentioned mr moore was mentioning you know somebody on the team might speak to that but so for the first question um it gives me pause if there's a fair amount of concern both from sort of residents and then also we're seeing a recommendation from the staff that's saying this doesn't really feel appropriate um obviously um from our other master planning objectives there's there's clearly a lot in this project to like and i have many less concerns around

120transportation because i think this is well situated to be able to take advantage of transit and basically when walking and um i i think it's the exact sort of project that people would get on the bus rather than driving downtown um so but is there mr kwelsky is there um could you imagine um this project coming back with with some changes based on kind of the discussions that you've heard around the table and that's substantially shifting the recommendation from staff saying we could we could r4e sounds it does seem like the appropriate zoning designation for this um well i think yes i mean as we've kind of tried to lay out in some of the staff report i mean i think we've talked about the master plan we've talked about the other areas of master

121plan i mean as as we can see staff acknowledges conditions have changed in that area um in one of our goals or something that that reaches across a lot of our goals for our master plans is you know increased density as we've said along transit routes and things like that um however there are many there's many other goals of that the master plan land use is just one element of the master plan so yes i mean i i could see a point again it was staff's opinion as you know that that in our it went too far in one direction without satisfying other goals of master plans so of other elements of the master plan i should say so i mean in a long-winded way yes i mean we're always open to looking at what

122they what they come back with if there's revisions in response to planning commission comments um anything else uh absolutely i mean staff can take and revise plans and i mean again if it comes closer and all things way out equal i could imagine maybe there could be a change in recommendation but i mean i don't want to say that again at this point because there's so many unknowns but we do look we'll look at that data or whatever is submitted as revisions and absolutely weigh it against the same criteria we've weighed it the first time thanks and then when it comes to sustainability um i think increasingly we're going to need to move away from as our community i i appreciate the table that's in the sort of uh and later in the report talking

123about you know the summarizing city's goals with single-family use versus multi-family use and how this benefits are is better from a sustainability perspective i don't think you know i don't think anybody around this screen um would disagree with that um but we need to be doing obviously multi-family is better from sustainability perspective than single-family homes um and having that along a denser development along a transit corridor is great but we have to be pushing ourselves further as a community now we recognize that we have a really ambitious climate neutrality goal we need to see our buildings um especially buildings that are going to house so many people for the future um be greener and so i think that if this project came back it would you know for me i i would want to see

124that that manifested along the discussions but i don't know are there additional pieces and the fact that it's 12 um renewable energies is great but is there is there more that the um sustainability member of the team wanted to chat about and and share with us hi this is eric doyle uh yeah i can i can address that from a couple different perspectives the single family versus multi-family energy use just in general multi-family projects use generally more than 50 less energy so that gets into a carbon neutrality issue it gets into an affordability issue too because on average those families are spending roughly a thousand dollars less per year on energy uh utility bills in a multi-family type project like this especially ones that are more dense uh when you get into greater density like

125this the efficiency of the units gets better because you have less of those units have uh outdoor um or exterior walls which provide i guess the opposite of what you're looking for with efficiency as far as the location is concerned the location efficiency that we looked into with this project if you combine a high efficiency building with great access to transit with great access to walkability to all of the various resources around there you can increase that additional savings of energy consumption and cost of energy by up to 70 percent so those are both great cases of why you would want to look at something of a larger scale like this to address affordability to address costs of utilities to address the whole carbon neutrality goals that that were approved last evening or actually i

126guess this morning thanks um and this is just one last teeny comment i really appreciated actually the the report that kind of helped us look at whether or not how this met our master planning goals just uh there was only one little paragraph that rubbed me a little wrong and i just thought i would mention it just for future reports i'm sorry i'm scrolling through to see it um it i can't find it there's the piece that talks about why it's not appropriate for single family homes and because it's not really neighborhood like um and we're talking about creating a neighborhood for way more many people than would be there if there were single family homes there so i think if it's appropriate for multi-family housing then it's a neighborhood i i understood some of

127the other points in there it was just just a little tidbit of that rubbing me slightly the wrong way anyway i'll pass this on commissioner again brandon um so you don't have to convince me that um single family is a whole lot less sustainable here the thing that i would like to know is mr doyle what you feel like is possible here because my sense is that it's not going as far as you could go that's my gut when i look at the plan and i look at the flyover that shows where the solar panels are and i feel like i could live i share the same discomfort that commissioner abrams is talking about trying to find this sweet spot if you guys upped your game and really it wasn't like kicking and screaming getting

128there but leading there by what it could be that is an entirely different thing to me it really is and so if you guys could max this thing out and really put solar everywhere and really make a commitment to matching what our goals are then that feels really different to me i feel like this site is situated in a really unique spot for a lot of the goals that we do have it's also uniquely sighted and that it is surrounded on three sides by green space we don't have neighbors that are you know 30 feet away from this thing that are going to be looking into the windows of this this is really different in that way so we have kind of an opportunity for density here that is a little bit different than other

129places in the city i feel like now granted it's a driving range we can't put a bunch of evergreen trees in the middle of the driving range to be able to screen it but it's still hundreds of feet away that's really different than many of our other situations that we have with this i just feel like you guys are holding back on the sustainability thing and for me if you pushed it you might convince me to be able to go up as high as you are but i don't see it i feel you hesitating i feel you not wanting to go there and instead if you were saying you know what you're asking us to you know we're asking for this density we're going to give you something really amazing with sustainability i don't i

130don't feel it from you and with the solar thing i was confused by the report with the solar thing it only talked about three buildings so you could explain that to me in terms of you know how you would see that but i would just be curious what mr doyle would say about what he feels like is possible in terms of solar on this project viability wise in terms of the space the loading that kind of thing not whether the owner is willing to pay for it but what is possible in terms of the spatial requirements what you know what what the physical um capability is of this project and i'm sure you can't like just off the cuff say okay then that's gonna if we could do this then we could provide 20 i

131know you can't just suddenly you know come up with that but i'm just curious because i know you work on other projects where you do this and i'm just curious what you feel like is possible on a project like this actually i do have some statistics we've done a white box energy model of all of the the buildings thus far as as design and as proposed and the current solar array that we're seeing on this can provide approximately 20 percent of the project's total electric use on on as as currently designed and so if we look at other things like electrification which we are doing in other projects and you can do it very affordably that tied in with energy efficiency can increase while maintaining that same solar panel array can increase the percentage of

132what that provides to the project i totally get what you're saying i'm just wondering if you could fit more solar panels on those roofs i'm sure that there are ways to do that yes that's what i'd be curious about and i'm a believer in green roofs but right now i feel like we need more solar on that roof not more green on that roof so that's what it would take for me is to give you that density because it is out of place all the other things around it are you know two three stories you know that kind of thing but it's on like a big old street there's except for that one little piece of single family that's that's close by it's mostly multi-family and it it's a big road so i am i

133feel like the r1d is less than what i think it should be that's me personally in terms of my own kind of you know threshold um i respect that staff is trying to balance all these things and and they're trying to kind of take the you know look at all the pieces together i'm just telling you where i'm coming from in terms of that balancing act and how all those components come together for me i feel like it could take more density than than the r1d i could totally see this thing as you know four story buildings too but i i don't want to i'm if if you're going to get the height then i would want to see something way more intense in terms of your commitment to other things whether it's the um

134carbon neutrality goals or affordability at some point we can't ask for everything though planning commission in terms of you know the the petitioner too we have to kind of choose because they have the math has to work to be able to build the thing so we also have to kind of realize within our own sphere that things just won't happen if we ask for you know half of it to be affordable housing and all of it to you know to be super sustainable because that all costs money too that's the you know that's the reality but for me i would like to um if i'm going to give that you know allow that feel okay about that density happening there then i want to see um more of a commitment and frankly leadership from the

135development team commissioner survey so i'll just say like at this point i'm i'm more supportive than not of this project i think for a lot of the reasons about i think density and multifamily makes a lot more sense than single family here conditions like the underground parking when we look at the proportions of building to uh impervious pavement to green space i think it's it's a it's a well-proportioned project in that uh i think uh to commissioner brando's point we're talking about even carports and things so i'd like to even see the spacing of the surface parking to be prepared that they could receive carports um to have solar panning on panels on those as well right so if that's adopted that that spacing is already planned that that could be added to it so

136i think there's like a lot of things that even not in the you know again like what what should we ask for that we're not going all the way to pud and this reminds me of the beauty conversation over on jackson road that came to impervious pavement and kind of uh environmental management traffic and things like that so um like i don't think i i think this could get there without a pud i think the you know the too many asks we get to a pud we're probably just not going to see any units i think that we're talking about mass more than units at least in my perspective i'm not concerned too much about the traffic and the going to uh pioneer the the route to go south on that leg is so much

137shorter and quicker than trying to go up turn around and get left and whatever that strategy is so i think people are going to come out that way and it's a pretty easy way for that traffic pattern i'm not too concerned about traffic um so i i think it really is understanding the big trade-offs that could get it get this project to happen to get a lot more units on site or in the city which i think we desperately need um especially right r4e was adopted after the land use plan of 1990. so these two things don't overlap in any circumstance so it is really up to us and our contextual knowledge of where we've come in the last 30 years to decide where this overlay would be appropriate and i think we're getting there

138and we just have to figure out what other additional trade-offs there are and so um yeah it's dense but we do like we almost have built-in extended setbacks because of the perimeter land around it and so that additional height is kind of buffered by um the directly adjacent parcels so i think for me i'm i'm actually kind of in the i support but probably postponement so that the petitioner can go back look at affordable unit numbers because i'd like to see those raised i'd like to look at you know see what uh sustainability uh issue can be remediated uh you know some additional review of that traffic if commissioners uh are requesting it as well and that we we review it again i think that's where i'm at like i'm i'm generally in favor but

139there's details to work out abrams and then commissioner woods thank you um i have one i guess one question for the petitioner and one for staff so maybe a clarification from staff um that the conditions which are attached to the rezoning are those specific to this project yes specific okay by the petitioner specific to this project but if we if this body voted to approve a rezoning and then this project didn't get built do those conditions stand for a different yes owner yes sorry i okay i misspoke the first so yes the zoning district is across all of the parcels that's correct well yes the zoning district would be assigned to all those parcels once so if if it were not approved or i'm sorry if it was approved with the r4de with conditions the

140project never gets built you would have a site remaining or for you with those conditions with those conditions okay correct if that's approved by city council that would be the zoning until otherwise changed whether this developer or anybody else okay it is i guess i need to think about that for a moment but um and then is there um this is a two-step vote right so one one thing we're being asked to vote on is the rezoning itself regardless of the site plan and then the site plan or those two things are are linked there's three steps so there's annexation as well as the zoning and the sorry the conditional zoning and the site plan so yes it's kind of like a three-stage process but there was a there could be a scenario where we

141would say approve the annexation and rezoning to r4e but not approve this site plan for example r4e uh zoning other than an r1 or an r2 but i believe our one would require an area plan to go with it or a site plan yeah um unless waived by the planning and development services manager but um i don't think that would happen here but um so yeah we would need i'd have to think through that answer more but the in order to zone something the code requires an area plan or a site plan for multi-family zoning yeah our ordinance does require with a rezoning it be accompanied by either a site plan or an area plan there are exceptions for single family zoning where that can be waived it would be for consideration of this conditional

142zoning to move forward without a site plan would not be meeting that expectation so ultimately we would a site plan would still have to accompany that action to be clear the proposed site plan is consistent with the conditional zoning that is being requested but okay i think i understand that and then a question just for the petitioner about the parking um i'm noticing that there are many more parking spots on the included with the project than are required and i wondered if you could share a little bit of that thinking because it seems to counter this argument that you and we are making about how great it is because it's on a transit corridor and there's walkability in it but it seems like you're you have an expectation actually for more than one and a

143half spots per unit being necessary yeah that that that boils down to one of the the real world uh consideration that commissioner gibbs randall was speaking about yeah when she talked about you got to make the numbers work and in this case it's not the construction numbers it's the financing numbers because the the mortgage writing underwriting entities that look to finance these projects at the back end have uh requirements in terms of looking at you know parking uh availability is one of the criteria for the underwriting so it's it's more based on underwriting requirements it is you can view all that additional parking uh that you're speaking about is all under the buildings it's not it's not taking off a surface area it's it's another level of underground parking that it's our expense to build

144but it it makes the building uh financiable right so that's interesting thank you for educating me about that um no i'm aware that it's much that it's money that you that the owner will spend that could be put to other things like some more affordable units or something so i'm kind of i'm wondering about that but um thank you for for uh educating me that's interesting to know thank you the reality is um all the grandest plans of architects in landscape architects and energy consultants and traffic engineers are for not if you can't get it financed oh i'm well aware thanks commissioner woods so i'd like to move for postponement and for all the reasons that other commissioners have said and i don't know if um mr leonard you need a listing or i or

145mr moore needs to know exactly why many of us are saying better to postpone it uh at this point um because if we were to take a vote i don't think i would be voting for it for um for a number of the reasons that have been listed my own as well as other commissioners so um i moved to postpone do i have a second uh second about commissioner sovay um any discussion on the postponement mr leonard um i would just like to make i would like to check in to make sure that mr kwalski and i understand the follow-up items that you would like addressed so my notes are the possibility to for provide additional sustainability elements to the site be it additional renewable energy other ways to make to lead with sustainable sustainability

146efforts one of those is to consider complete electrification of the development whether that not there is a possibility to extend the number of 60 area median income units to either a minimum of the full 15 or beyond the consideration of the southeast corner building potentially reducing the scale of that to the proximate land uses and potentially uh and some renderings of how the configuration might take place um is there anything that i was missing in that just to make sure that we understand what you're looking for i just want to make sure that the looking at like further solar capacity would be within your list of sustainability items not just full electrification commissioner briggs i think that's our wish list if for some reason that the team goes back and finds that that is those

147those items on the wish list are not feasible for a different variety of different reasons obviously um what we're hearing from staff and from and from nearby residents is that less density is is desirable and so for some reason you know kind of meeting our our dreams is not possible um it seems like the only other path under this would be would be less density so that's not my personal preference disc uh commissioner hammersman and then on the affordability i just like to see if there's a way to mix up the mix like what is the best mix possible you know i'd almost rather have nine affordable but a different mix than like 15 studio affordable maybe but anyway just send different scenarios that they might be able to come up with further discussion on

148the postponement see none all those in favor please say aye all right this item is postponed all right who who opposed no no no one okay all right all right thank you very much um and we will take a five minute recess um so we will be back in just a couple of minutes thank you thanks so much you know you're back business is liberty town home site plan for city council approval uh we'll begin the meeting with a uh petitioner presentation um they'll have 10 minutes to present their project before us followed by staff report for ms delio um then a public hearing and then we will have a motion and discussion um so i will let the petitioner group um get started alexis are you gonna run a presentation or am i yes

149i have the um uh i have the slides i can share anyone can share them but i have their presentation that i can share right now okay is this working yep okay all right the team you can proceed with your uh introduction your project sorry i had a little new problem there alexis you can leave that slide up from here and i'll tell you if i needed to change it i'm john kerry from pea we're the project engineer uh julie kroll uh bill jarrett tom gritter also on the on the zoom today we're excited to finally be here with this project it's been a long time in the works this vlog was previously approved for a higher density development four years ago and over the last several years we've worked with the owner in the

150city to further refine the revise the plan and arrive at a less dense project with 52 market rate townhome apartments rather than the original 68 units proposed now liberty townhomes was designed to meet the requirements of the four r4b districts no variances modifications are requested for the development and it serves the need to provide housing for ann arbor's workforce the buildings proposed are a modern town home style with garages on the ground floor access from a vehicular courtyard between the buildings alexis you can switch to the second slide now there we go uh there's a vehicular courtyard between the buildings on one side with access to garages uh walk-up entrances and produce pedestrian cars on the opposite side of the building the units are a mix of two and three bedroom units and provide approximately

1511400 speed of living space as part of this project there is a sidewalk gap across two properties east of us on the way to maple i will be filling in that sidewalk gap to allow residents to walk to stores restaurants in maple and liberty the developer is also making a contribution to the city park fund as another community benefit uh usually utilizing retaining walls we're preserving a large stand of mature spruce trees along 94 as well as a tree row on the east property line that includes several landmark trees and of course we're providing all required landscape plantings and screening as well the storm water detention basin has been approved by the water resources commissioner and we've also provided a walking path loop and the open space around the basin the site will connect to

152public water mains and liberty and to a site to the rear of our site creating a loop between maple and liberty with water main i will be connecting to public sanitary and liberty and also providing a stub for future development to the east of us through multiple iterations and responding to all the department's concerns there remained one issue with the site entrance that the fire department and traffic engineer were not fully comfortable with uh however the last couple weeks uh even yesterday and into this afternoon we've been working through that design solution for that with the city uh that we think will address those concerns uh meet all code requirements and put the land to its highest and best use i'd like to turn this over to bill jarrett the architect to discuss the building

153after that we can open up for discussion and any questions you might have bill [Music] is bill can you hear me hello if bill can't connect yeah i got you now though am i connected yes you are okay uh yeah just real quick um as john mentioned the units are town home units so we have the and they're roughly 14 1500 square feet thereabouts depending on whether you add the mud room in and so forth on the lower level but just to run through the basic layout um oh you by the way i'm bill jarrett jarrod architecture and uh thank you for having us here today so the lower level if you look at the garage level there includes the tandem two parking spot and a uh mud room vestibule area that brings you into

154a stairway that takes you up to the second floor which is the main level living kitchen dining bathroom and a nice balcony up there and then uh from there you go up to a third floor two bedrooms two bath nice roomy bedrooms um very efficient plan uh getting a lot of space in here and a lot of use kind of at a very in a very small footprint and then uh from the bedroom level we can go up to a fourth level where we have we have a small study up there which would be uh would also include like a rooftop uh garden type area to uh hang out on and the the overall look we're really just trying to come up with a real modern look here the combination of brick stone aluminum storefront

155systems we have a lot of glass and a lot of that glass just facing south so we can take advantage of some passive solar there and then uh we have uh a metal panel is kind of in the center area of the elevation if you want to switch to the elevations there we can i'm kind of running through that now which would be the next slide there yeah um so that center area on the front elevation would be uh we're looking at either a luca bond met with an aluminum panel system or possibly a limestone product to kind of break up the massing there so it's not just like a continuous row of town homes um and then on the very top where we do have the loft area we're looking at putting some corrugated

156steel in there or another type of more modern looking metal the garage doors are somewhat recessed a little bit of to a lower level so they're not going to be real visible which is a nice feature the overall height is about 35 feet on the garage side and 30 feet from the front side so it's not really an overly intrusive height on the with this particular building as far as sustainability the as you can see the units are very rectangular in nature and they're lined up nicely and that makes for a very efficient plan as far as energy goes um and we would uh we can certainly get you know a fair amount of insulation on the roof and then the outside walls plus the clusters are five six and seven units but the outside

157walls will add additional insulation in there as well um and like i said we might we i think we're going to be able to pick up a certain amount of solar from the south facing windows um and i think we just think it's we just think it's a very attractive concept and works well for the ann arbor market and with that i'll i'm up for any questions and back to john i suppose yeah we're prepared to take any uh questions or discussion about commissioners great thank you very much um so i'd like to head over to ms stelio for a staff report um thank you planning commission um i'll just go over our staff report the contents and our staff uh review um briefly it's a 52 unit town home project on a 4.6 acre

158site zoned r4b um staff has gone over the site plan and we have found that it meets all development standards with one exception there are um in terms of statistics it is an 11 dwelling unit per acre project the r4b allows up to 15 dwelling units it meets the requirements for open space proposing 56 open space 55 is the minimum required front setback on liberty is 15 feet um parking required parking is 78 spaces they are providing 104. there are seven landmark trees on the site um uh there are some lame retreats on the site two are proposed to be removed and will be mitigated the as mr curry mentioned their public sidewalk will be extended in front of the site for a short bit just from the driveway eastward it will not go behind

159westward behind the guardrail and it will continue across a couple properties to meet up with the stub provided by the west town originally called blue heron or do i have that backwards originally west town now blue heron um and they are proposing to do a parkland contribution for um as requi as uh requested staff originally recommended denial because the project did not meet the fire code standard for emergency vehicle egress but as mr curry mentioned and as the um secondary cover letter mentioned things have happened since friday the um since the planning i'm sorry since the staff report was published it appears that with some more revisions that they have found a way to make the um uh the island will be able to comply with the fire code it still will not the driveway

160location still will not comply with sight distance to the west so for making a right turn uh making a left turn out of the site therefore the turn movement will be restricted and that is a permissible operation to address lack of sight distance um i would mention as a side we do have cynthia redding or transportation engineer part of this call and because that right there is the limit of my transportation knowledge so if the detail checks out so far staff just look at the detail sketch and it's looking promising but we do need to do a full review of it and if it checks out then we'll get it incorporated into the full site plan and um we will come back to the planning commission so we are switching our recommendation from denial to

161postpone i am happy to answer any additional questions my notes say i did want to mention that the site was annexed in 2005 and zoned r4b in 2007. we've had uh site plans come through in fits and starts but um there has been no approved entitlement on the property as of yet now i'm free to answer any additional questions and like i mentioned we also have a traffic engineer if need be thank you very much um at this stage you open up the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed rezoning and site plan for liberty townhomes at 2658 west liberty public comment may be made by calling 1-877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 926-3370 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and

162video feed city staff will select the callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand after dialing into the meeting please press not star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television or background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments please raise your hand to speak or press star 9 on your phone no speakers indicated see no one i'll close the public hearing and i will read the motion the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the liberty townhome

163site plan do you have a commissioner that will move moved by commissioner woods seconded by commissioner ackerman we are in discussion mr ackerman thank you mr chair um i guess i want to defer to the body but is there since we wanted to discuss this or postpone now so i'll just raise that question um and see what others think happy either way but i think it would be good for us to discuss it just that we can give the petitioner feedback so that when they do return there are no surprises at that time um so i would like to have a discussion on it um i did have one quick question um for staff and that is i swear in the last couple of years we approved it came before us and we approved a

164project on this site and i don't know if it went on city council but i sw but i it was possibly a mckinley project um i know we we proved something i feel like we've we've we've dealt with the site before um yes in i double checked the date um in 2016 uh it was called liberty flats and the planning commission um and it was very very similar and it was a um mckinley um would have been the owner um and it came through and it was recommended for approval by the planning commission and it was scheduled for a city council meeting and about noon of the day of the city council meeting the applicant asked for it to be postponed and so it was the city council did postpone it as requested and a

165few uh some weeks months went by and they ultimately asked it to be um just withdrawn so just from a city council i'm sorry just from a planning commission perspective it was recommended for approval and it appeared it would have been approved okay thank you um all right further discussion commissioner briggs um can we talk a little bit more about the transportation issues it sounds like the one with the fire issues been resolved but um uh in terms of the sort of restrictions on turning movements that always seems problematic um i don't know discuss it a little bit in terms of how concerned she is with those issues sure so as alexis read in the staff report the driveway cannot support decision site distance for a motorist who is exiting the site who would be

166turning left and those restrictions are the limitation to that sight distance is really a function of where the driveway is in relation to where the bridge over i-94 is the bridge over an i-94 is both on a horizontal or a horizontal and a and a vertical curve so the combination of those those two geometric elements with you know the bridge items such as the parapet wall and the guard rail and where the drive approach meets liberty it really restricts your sight distance as you would be looking to them to your right as a driver to make that left and um there's an area for decision site distance where you're supposed to be free of obstruction and the parapet wall in the barbed wire in that area it doesn't block entirely but it blocks the majority

167of the site period so that's why the applicant has proposed that right turnout only to overcome that site limitation so this would be regardless of how that property was used it would always really be an issue with having a driveway there with pretty much any whether it was residential or not i guess yes um if it were a single family home as it previously was there would be less concern about that in an area like that you you really usually expect to be able to provide stopping site distance for motorists on mainline although it's always good to be able to provide decisions like this isn't possible but when you're when you're looking at larger developments such as this work we always look to make sure that we can provide that that decision site distance so

168the the applicant's team has put together the suggestion of this alternative of the right out only that would then move all trips would have to go right and in order to return to the city they either will have a bit of a detour um out to wagner road or they would be required to you know duck into a residential street to turn around and are there any sort of changes that could happen i mean is are there any modifications to the roadway or bridge that are feasible to do that would would correct for those those flight distance issues it would be very costly the you know the the grade of the site and the grade of liberty street itself relative to the bridge um they're a good bit lower the the bridge is is higher

169than the surrounding land so that you know you have the guard rail there because you have the slope up to the street as it is going over through so it would be very costly to overcome that are there it looks like it seems like i used to see this and i don't see this anymore mirrors ever used to help drivers to be able to see situations i'm just very skeptical of anybody actually following just turn right i'm just wondering if there are if this was approved people are despite the signs that are put up we tend to to do what we want to do are there things that could be put into put into place that would make that safer that's a great question and this we've gone through a couple of design rounds with

170the applicant and i think john is raising his hand and asking to be able to to respond to that a little bit but we have um they have proposed some design solutions to that and i will let john go ahead and discuss that if everyone is agreeing sure um i probably am going to say the same thing you would have but the look at the geometry of that driveway the intent is to really kind of force people to take that right turn um you can't control everyone from doing anything but the idea with that curbed island with a channelized right turn would make it really uncomfortable to try to turn left there that's kind of the idea of that they call it a pork chop a right out um island so that it to answer

171your question that that's the method by which we try to control those right turns physically not just with signage okay um that's that was my major question the other piece and i just thought it looks obviously this this project is going to get designed however um it seems fast but it seems like there's stairs into the the residences and stairs like once you're in the garage there's stairs up is that is that correct like there's no level entry anywhere to any of those townhouses is that right is there entrances into like a living space there you meet or is that yeah just everything entry every all the entries into the homes are by stairs right yes okay and we would have some stairs coming from the entrances there down to the sidewalk on the front

172um let's see uh yeah everything would be by stairs and i can understand that from you know how you're trying to make efficient use of space and different things but from an accessibility standpoint you know not just not just thinking wheelchairs but you know thinking aging parents and grandparents and somebody breaks a leg because a random thought about that being uh problematic for many people um having anybody visit them so you know i understand it's you know they're not catering they're not residences catering to folks who are successful but you know there's just so many folks who who have those needs at some point or have somebody that they love who has a need to come into their home so um it seems like they would open up your market a little bit to at

173least um reduce frustrations down the line to have some entry point but that was just a general thought thank you the most may have questions for our transportation further discussion commissioner i guess with transportation you know looking at street view even with the right turn i put the wide opening to provide for that radius directly across the street is south maple park country and it's you know shown on the site plan that i guess there's still a concern that even if they're not turning left it's pretty easy to do a quick you know shot directly across the street get into that park entrance and then do a u-turn there so i think there is really concern that you can straighten your car out if you can't get it to do a left turn to get

174it straight across the street and i think that's it still reads in terms of where that right turn lines up directly across from that park curb cut feels like an invitation to just cross both lanes to get into that park to do a u-turn so i don't know if that can get shifted you know more to the west it's so it's not lined up to really make people turn right uh or if that starts getting into the elevation change to go over the bridge but you know it really starts to look like that that's an invitation there um so that would just be something i'd like to see more that it's been investigated and confirmed that this is the only place that we're going to get that right turning right turn out without those conflicts

175um the uh a little thing um is that your all of your lighting is shoot what is it called it's not dark sky compliant it's got this funny made-up designation that the only place i could find it is in the uk as a seal it's not like a formline's dark sky lighting seal so if you can just update like there's a lot of dark sky registered lighting out there it would be a very easy thing to change what you're specifying to be dark sky compliant relative to our lighting ordinance so whatever that arbitrary seal is that you have just switch to dark lighting and just make a lot of commissioners a lot happier um in that regard i think those were you know my two you know first touch but oh i guess the other

176one maybe this is for staff is parking in the stack stacked parking in the garage garages i think we've seen this on another project as well but that's not been like formalized in terms of how we're counting right that one car is stacked into the other so i just want to confirm how it is written in the ordinance to count the parking versus what we're seeing here and if how it's set up in the garage as the stacked parking meets current ordinance or if we're doing that a wiggle room thing to getting those counts we'll verify okay i can answer some of those okay um as far as the right turnout the on the graphic you see that the current layout of that driveway we've been going back and forth with the city with actually

177is a little more severe of a right turn on that so it kind of does force even more than what you're seeing in that visual um so that'll be updated yeah it is a little bit more we've been going back and forth with fire and traffic with a little bit different geometry and some things and one of those things is actually kind of you see the alignment of the driveway as you head toward liberty it kind of just goes straight instead of going perpendicular to liberty there and then curves so you're a little farther west away from that park entrance you're concerned about so that that will be improved a little bit on that entry regarding lighting we'll certainly look into that um and as far as the stacked parking alexis i think we had

178this conversation when we first went in with this one and we are not allowed to and we are not counting both parking spots under the buildings you can't count the one that's trapped behind the other one so technically they they do have a two-car garage but our parking count doesn't doesn't allow that right okay that helps thanks fisher hammersman so i'm also concerned about the the right turn out and i'm sure i'm gonna get shut down for this this might not even be allowed but could we entertain putting like a stop light there or is that just like i'm probably looking to staff for this is that just like completely no i was trying to think of options other than like having to go all the way to wagner to turn around or cut through

179somebody else's neighborhood traffic controls such as traffic signals and multi-way stops they do have warrants that you have to meet and they are established in the michigan animal unified traffic control devices and this site it generally doesn't produce enough traffic to meet those types of warrants okay fair i just have to ask i i don't know what else you would do besides force people to turn right but i tend to agree that people are gonna find a way to go left especially being located so close to everything that's over in that like maple stadium area that is it for now mr woods i was wondering um because i think i remember a previous uh previous submittal project similar to this and i was wondering whether or not the petitioner has had conversations with the surrounding

180properties uh to the i guess it would be to the north maybe i'm not sure but i'm just looking back over along the expressway back over there and i'm looking at the aerial view which was in the staff report so have you had any conversations i know um well two types i'm thinking about one is in terms of any kind of an access that your residents might be able to have but also in terms of any kinds of walking paths or what have you um for your residents to be able to access some of the businesses which are which are back over there there's uh well there's kroger's of course but there's westgate and and some of those things so can someone from the petitioners uh team speak to that for us uh certainly the

181developer and owner like i said we've we've as alexis referred to this this been bouncing in and out of uh the city with site plans for about five years now with with the team i'm working with and in all cases all developers and owners involved have talked to the owners next door and behind about access um to no avail to this point um even for pedestrian access early on we looked at having that path in the back connects somewhere off-site but to no to no avail so efforts have been made in that regard but it hasn't gone anywhere great seeing no other hands i think we're ready for a postponement motion mr leonard do you is there any other feedback that you're looking to get um no but i would ask that i didn't do

182a good job and broke the cardinal rule with the previous petition any motion to postpone should include a date um do [Music] the staff have a recommendation for a date um i guess ultimately it would be um ultimately it would be up to alexis and cynthia as to where you feel the progress is on the alternate configurations of that driveway it seems to me that could be done either in i would guess either the meeting two weeks out or a month out i guess i would defer to you as reviewers where you're feeling the confidence is in getting to a determination on an alternative design um i know that uh mr curry has been very good um the past couple days we've um he's on top of um submitting the uh revisions um and seems

183to be quite focused um typically staff would take two weeks to review certainly possible we can do one week um but typically it's two is it possible to say something like no later than july first meeting or july 2nd meeting no i to postpone it we'd need to do a date certain than that okay as anybody who's interested in this item would know exactly when it's going to be i got it yeah um so based on that i guess i would suggest perhaps our first july meeting yeah okay will commissioner move uh a postponement until our july 1st meeting moved by commissioner sivay do you have a second commissioner hammerschmidt thank you um any discussion on postponing commissioner briggs it's july 7th is the date of that meeting july 7 this is i'm sorry this

184is it just took me a little bit to process what commissioner woods had mentioned earlier so it's not really on the purpose moment but just an extra random thought um i thought that was a really good recommendation around connectivity to other sites and i recognizing that that's not an option but if that could be built a little bit into the kind of little layout so that in the future that that is potentially possible for connectivity you know down the road would be would be really great to see sorry no discussion on postponement thank you um well i just want to verify that date give me one moment please yeah scheduled for the seventh okay it's been moved second ed i don't see any other discussion um all those in favor of postponing until july 7th

185please say aye opposed all right it is postponed thank you uh moving on to audience participation this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about any issue city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your phone number in order to electronically raise your hand to indicate your desire to speak please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement once the host is allowing you to speak please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments do we have anybody who would like to speak those speakers indicated thank you moving on to commission proposed business is there any commission proposed business this evening commissioner brandel i'm wondering if we have the schedule set for the

186next year yet in terms of our meetings just speaking of like kind of when the next meetings are coming up and i'm just wondering if that's been solidified yet yes you adopted it i um i think um i think we're in the process of sending out the typical outlook uh appointments for your calendars but i'll send you the summary as well okay thanks and commissioner briggs i guess just on that note around um meetings um has there been discussion around um how long it's anticipated we're gonna be continuing to meet virtually um no status i think since the last time uh i updated you the governor's order is extends through june at this point um we have i know that there are is interest in the city and learning from this experience i think that

187it's conceivable that there will be different opportunities to meet depending on the type of board that is there may be a different there may be different flexibility for a committee versus the full board or even potentially distinct from a business meeting to a working session but i don't have the city is not um well let me rephrase that if if those determinations about long-term possibilities have been made i i'm not aware of them but i'll follow up and i'm happy to follow up with the correspondents because i know that'll it's helpful for planning our calendar going forward great thanks thanks um any other commission proposed business um do you have a motion to adjourn move by we do have um if if the planning commission is um willing we have had somebody indicate raise their

188hand um if the commissioner would be willing to reopen the last audience participation sure yeah okay hello caller with phone number ending with 998 if you'd like to address the planning question you have three minutes to do so hi my name is chad nytre i live at 2534 west liberty which is at blue heron pond and i'm sorry i tried to call in during public comment but it wasn't going through quick enough so um you have kind of addressed some of the issues that i wanted to bring up about this site plan i pull out in the morning every day onto liberty street out of blue heron pond and when you turn left and we're quite a ways down from the highway overpass when you turn left there during you know school hours and rush

189hour it's kind of like taking your life into your own hands it's really tough to get out onto liberty street and the cars come over that uh bridge pretty quickly so sometimes we even have to go out onto maple to get out onto the main road because the traffic is really really bad so that was my concern about that development being so close to 94 any traffic that gets added to liberty street trying to come out and make left-hand turn in the morning it it's going to be really bad so i just wanted to kind of make you aware of that the right turn that that you're talking about could be a really good answer to that but i can see a lot of people making that left turn anyway and i can pretty much

190guarantee there's going to be a lot of accidents there i've seen cars already run over the curb to get out of the way when they've tried to turn out of of the blue hair and pond development on to liberty and a car comes that they didn't see and they literally will go over the curb across the street to get out of the way at times so that's just the comments i wanted to make on that that's all i really have great thank you very much for calling in all right um we are our german has been moved and seconded um do i have are all those in favor please say aye hi hi all right we are adjourned thank you very much you