Ann Arbor City Planning Meeting 5-5-20

001sounds good well welcome to the tuesday may 5th uh 2020 electronic meeting of the anne arbor planning commission this meeting is in accordance with executive orders from the governor to affect social distancing 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 technical issues public comment will be via telephone only to speak any of the to speak during any of the public comment opportunities please call 877 eight five three five two four seven that's eight seven seven eight five three five two four seven and enter meeting id nine two one one seven 1722-6228 that's 921-1722-6228 this information is also available on the publish agenda in the public notices section of the city website and on the broadcast of this meeting

002on ctn channel 16 18t channel 99 and online at www.a2gov.org watch ctn and we will start the meeting with a roll call commissioner woods commissioner briggs here commissioner mills here commissioner milstein here commissioner gibb randall here commissioner ackerman here commissioner sobe here commissioner abrams here commissioner hammerschmidt here full attendance and quorum right um do we have any introductions this evening we do not do i have a commissioner that'll move the agenda move by commissioner ackerman seconded by commissioner mills any discussion or changes regarding the agenda just note um one um we did place the solar udc amendments as unfinished business you actually haven't discussed them because they were on the first meeting that had to be rescheduled because of the coveted stay-at-home order so that might look a little funny too but that's why it's

003appearing that way great thanks any discussion on the agenda see none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed all right the agenda is approved moving on to uh minutes of previous meetings uh before us this evening we have the april 21st 2020 meeting minutes uh do you have commission they'll move them move by commissioner wood seconded by commissioner abrams any discussion or changes to the minutes all those in favor please say aye aye proposed those are approved uh moving on to reports from city administration city council planning manager planning commission officers and committees and written communications and petitions we'll begin with commissioner ackerman with a report from city council uh please unmute yourself thank you very much mr chair uh city council had a long agenda that we moved through with with great

004haste but prudence and responsibility uh first a set of rezonings relevant to this body um we re-zoned a single-family township parcel about half acre to r1a at 715 heather way it was a voluntary annexation we also rezoned just over an acre of land on east eisenhower to become new parkland we did the same with 16 acres on duvarn road the buttonbush nature area as well as 1.5 acres on south maple and two acres on dillon drive the hickory nature area 25 acres a huge addition on green road in addition to the oak woods nature area and finally just under half an acre on um oh and i'm i'm sorry uh i that was that was all of the additions to our parkland and annexations uh we also had before us the rezoning and site plan

005of the garnet however we postponed that um to to line up the rezoning insight plan on the same agenda um with respect to uh kind of our the city's emergency covid response two items of relevance to this body um the first is that the city released uh 250 thousand dollars to support the county in the shelters to provide homeless sheltering that also respects the needs for social distancing to reduce the spread of the virus and the second is city council also passed a resolution directing staff to begin first a pilot phase and then a full implementation of allowing street closures to promote safe recreation uh on on streets um so that pedestrians and cyclists have more space to operate freely in our roadways and then finally of relevance a few sidewalk gaps being filled um

006that i know this this body is keen and interested in uh a couple on barton drive one on nixon and trevor and one on four court that was everything great thank you uh mr leonard do you have a report for us this evening sure a couple of brief items uh we have scheduled for the may 12th working session we'll be bringing city planner jill thatcher has taken up the gauntlet of the proposed outdoor lighting ordinance that has been worked on by a couple of planning commissioners and energy commission members so we're going to be bringing that back for a working session on the 12th um i also want to just let the planning commission know we are entering sort of a a unique circumstance and that the governor's flexibility with open meetings act is about

007to expire more quickly than stay-at-home order is and so i will keep you apprised as we move forward with both a working session i anticipate the working session will stay on as digital but after that um as we've always been doing we've been publishing meetings to be held either virtually or in person as the circumstances provide for there's a single location on the city's website where you can always check in to see what the status of those needs are if they move to an in-person meeting we'll be conducting those meetings um with every care to respect this so i'll keep you apprised as moving into future plays that but it's probably somewhere on the horizon great and that's all thank you uh planning commission officers and committees does anyone have a report commissioner mills yeah

008i just thought i would update folks that the orc did meet last tuesday and we talked about two things um planned project modifications and um alexis has done a great deal of work kind of putting some proposals forward and so i can't remember what the next step is if it's gonna come to um all of us or come back to rsc but i think there's lots of progress there and this is something that we talked about a lot so she did a good job at like taking all of our random comments and putting them together so um and then we also talked about a whole list of minor changes to the udc we talked about this at the end of the last meeting where um we heard a couple things from public comment and from

009commissioner ackerman about the [Music] adus and kind of the scrivener's error that happened there for the r2a districts but there's apparently quite a list you know it's a i don't know about a dozen um of those similar kind of things so um we met it looks good i'm expecting that we'll see that stuff soon great thank you any other um planning commission officers and committee reports all right seeing none written communications and petitions um we received two items and one came in just like within the last hour and a half or so so please um take a look at that that came to your va email from mia and then now we move on to audience participation this is a time for anyone in our audience to address the planning commission um if you'd like

010to address the planning commission you'll have up to three minutes to uh to address any subject that is not on our agenda for this evening um if you'd like to uh make a public comment please call 877-853-5247 city staff will select callers that have raised their hand one by one using the last three digits of your 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 that 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 for the record at the beginning of your comments do we have any audience participate participation

011this evening thus far nobody's raising their hand let's just give it a few moments no i see no indication all right thank you moving on to public hearing scheduled for our next business meeting for our next meeting on may 19th we have two public hearings scheduled the first is uh for 2800 jackson road hotels this is a rezoning and site plan for city council approval it's a proposal to rezone a four approximately four and a half acre vacant parcel from r5 hotel motel to c3 fringe commercial and construct two new hotels with about a hundred and thirty three thousand square feet of new floor area and then we have another uh scheduled public hearing to consider proposed amendments to chapter 55 the unified development code section 5.24 signs to update and modernize requirements for signage

012in the city of ann arbor very exciting very exciting i'm looking forward to that meeting um all right moving on to unfinished business the first item before us this evening is 36 11 uh to 3621 plymouth road rezoning site plan with planned project modifications for city council approval and special exemption use drive-through facility for city uh i'm sorry for city planning commission approval uh we will begin this uh with a petition or presentation they'll have up to 10 minutes to address the planning commission um and then we will have a staff report and then after that we will go into a public hearing and then discussion so i will let the petitioner start the presentation as they are entering so i'll give them just a quick minute to enter the room and then we'll begin

013the presentation actually i think as they've already provided a presentation when this came before you prior i think alexis is probably just going to summarize what's happened since then if that's okay with the commission okay that sounds good yeah alexis go ahead thanks um i will summarize um and catch everyone up to speed if uh we have signals crossed and the um petitioners team would like to add more we can turn it over to them to them and then i can take it back for my staff recommendation um all going with the flow but um as mentioned this is the plymouth mmg plymouth road mixed use project it is a collection of three petitions um um it is a collection of three petitions um first there is a petition to rezone the site the 4.5

014acre site from pud to c3 fringe commercial the second is a proposed site plan which will demolish two of the existing buildings and construct a six-storey hampton inn hotel and remodel the existing restaurant into a new restaurant and the with that site plan there are planned project modifications to allow increased height and to increase or eliminate the front maximum setback for new buildings third and finally there is a special exception use petition to allow a drive-through facility added to the remodeled restaurant these uh this collection of petitions were tabled at the november 19th planning commission meeting recommendation a table was primarily to allow the petitioner additional time to respond to outstanding engineering and forestry natural resource landscape comments but during the course of the discussion two additional concerns were raised by the planning commission that

015focused on the lack of specific commitments to energy conserving design and the lack of active recreation opportunities the site plan has been changed um the parking a parking lot area has been redesigned to be smaller increasing the open space um and more specific commitments have been provided about the solar panel coverage on both the hotel and the renovated restaurant um if the i'll i'll ask the petitioner's team if anyone would like me to add a little bit more or if you have something more to add otherwise i can move into the staff report all seems quiet yeah okay um you want me to run that alexis either way it's up to you all right um probably go to the next slide so i've reviewed that this is three petitions and this is a summary of

016the three petitions next slide as a refresher this is the location of the site we are north of on the north side of plymouth road just west of the 23 um um on and off ramps was the former site of the big boy restaurant and the red roof inn yep the cursor is pointing to the site this is a area view of it now it um the site has two parcels to it um the red roofs are the red roof inn the whitish roof is the big boy restaurant which is um almost connected to the red roof inn now these look like two buildings but actually they are actually four buildings down there there are two pairs of buildings um that are connected and sort of appear to share a roof thanks next slide so

017this is also in the staff report this highlights the changes to the site plans on the left side is the previous layout that was presented in november and with the red scribble on it that's the highlighted area that has been changed on the right side is the proposed site plan before you for consideration outlined in yellow is the new curb line and you can see it's farther back from the uh service drive and a little bit of a sidewalk area was added with some seating so they've lost a few parking spaces gained some open space and a little tiny bit of amenity area um the they've lost more impervious surface than um parking spaces due to the inefficient design of the area currently so that they we've got a lot of bang for our buck

018with this change for the next slide um as i mentioned previously part of the reason it was tabled was to provide additional details about the planned project modification justifications as before there is increased open space none is required in the c3 district they are proposing a minimum of 30 percent open space to be maintained they'd also mentioned a solar orientation and energy conserving design but it was a little bit vague they have gone they have worked with their design professionals and they can commit to 45 of the hotel roof area being covered with solar panels and 25 of the restaurant roof area being covered we've included these details in the development agreement it is hard to enforce and monitor how much kilowatt hours they're being produced and used etc but we can enforce how the

019percentage and square feet that is covered so that is the detail that we are putting in the staff report for this project um that concludes um my overview of the the powerpoint part i will refer back to the staff report and mention that our previous staff report which is attached to the to today's staff report described and analyzed the rezoning petition uh we also went through a review and analysis of the proposed site plan and including a detailed description and analysis of the plan project modifications and as well as the special exception use analysis for the drive through window i won't go into them tonight for brevity but i can if there's any questions that arise the outstanding comments identified by staff in engineering and in forestry have been addressed with this proposed site plan

020number seven and so staff we are recommending approval of all three petitions including their extra bits meaning the rezoning petition they are recommending approval of the site planned and planned project modifications and we are recommending approval of the special exception use the proposed motions in the staff report contain a few basic um conditions um for the planned project modifications and the special exception use happy to answer any additional questions um if i can and also as you can literally see um the development team is here i believe they can answer questions as well great thank you um at this time i would like to open up the public hearing on this item um this is an opportunity for persons to speak up to three minutes about the plymouth road application public comment may be made

021by calling 877-8535 and entering meeting id 921 1722 6228 the information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and 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 after dialing into the meeting please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that the host is allowing you to speak when speaking please move to a quiet area and mute any television and background sounds so that we may hear you clearly please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments well we have one indicating interest uh hello caller with phone number ending 711. you have up to three minutes to address the planning commission my name is wendy carmen

022i live at 2340 georgetown in the orchard hills maplewood subdivision a little over a mile from this property and in good weather i walk to this site regularly in 1978 the bogus family sold this part of the farm and it was zoned pud the supplemental regulations allowed only a furniture store about 35 000 square feet of motel space and a sit-down restaurant these uses were meant to intentionally keep the number of trips at a reasonable level still allowing the owners to profit from the closeness to the freeway although we were worried about left turns out of the site the traffic on plymouth road was a shadow of what it is today and the plan was to encourage those going east to exit onto green road first as you know c3 allows many uses and can

023buy right before stories and have 200 percent far zoning property to c3 gives the owner a blank check to do anything that is allowed in c3 not just what you see on the plan today we should not sacrifice safety to give the developers that much flexibility in 2015 the pud and its restrictions were upended to allow the western building to be zoned for plum market the neighborhood supported the change probably not realizing that the zoning would change at the same time i personally like purse plum market and i thought it would be fine if they could figure out how to handle the traffic in and out of sight perhaps that was a mistake because problems with ingress and egress exist and because it spurred staff to write this report suggesting c3 is the perfect use

024for this site there are already days when the driveway off green road has several large trucks and vans blocking the drive and a few days when delivery trucks have even parked in the center lane out in plymouth road the driveway from green used for truck deliveries also competes with the cbs drive up window and the entrance to the neighboring medical office building how can we allow even more delivery trucks serving the rest of the site with the same driveways how can we contemplate what a20 is proposing and justify any more drive up windows how can we afford to create uses that virtually mandate the need for left-hand turns across heavy traffic this plan needs to be rethought instead of giving the owners a blank check for c3 we need to find a plan that will

025limit these problems i'm not saying the property shouldn't be upgraded or there shouldn't be a hotel or but i am saying that not all c3 uses or their density are reasonable on this site i'm saying that the site can't handle the truck traffic it currently has that the traffic and storage in green is already a problem and you should not be recommending c3 without an enforceable plan to prevent ever increasing trips to the site thank you thank you thank you is there anyone else who wishes to address the planning commission in regards to this petition sorry about that i don't see anybody else indicating uh that they would like to speak okay see nobody else i'll i will close this public hearing and we have three motions here does anyone oppose uh taking up the

026three motions um all together uh all right i see one hand opposing it so um i will let's start with the first and then we'll move on to the second and then the third if that order is okay with everyone um so the first motion before us um the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the mmg plymouth road mix use development rezoning from pud to c3 fringe commercial we'll have a commissioner who will move that moved by commissioner ackerman and by commissioner woods we are in discussion commissioner ackerman thank you mr chair and thank you to the commissioner briggs for actually having us take these separately i'm guessing it's about the drive through and i think that's a worthwhile conversation to have separately so thank you um

027uh i it would be great to to better understand the traffic patterns uh just in response to ms carmine's uh comments but um before we do just kind of as a a tangent but an important one um the um the shelter association has moved most of its tenants and clients from the delana center downtown to the red roof and facility um for emergency shelter during the global pandemic to provide for you know greater distancing between their clients who are without homes do we have a sense of project timeline and any impact to the shelter association's plans i just i think that would be an important piece of kind of community knowledge and certainly for our non-profit partners uh commissioner ackerman i do not have an update uh regarding that i do know that you know

028of the overall project only one of the two buildings or one pair of the two will be demolished the other will remain open and standing the design the development team is here they might have a better sense of construction schedule and i'd have to follow up with the shelter association to see what conversations they've had with red roof and management okay great yeah it looks like maybe mr butler's screen someone has a comment they might be on mute they're not okay they may be uh mute on their end can they dial into the public comment number and catch them yeah if if you could call the number um um alex do you wanna yeah let me read the number and the meeting id and they can call in yeah so the phone number is eight

029seven seven eight five three five two four seven and then the meeting id is nine two one seven two two i mean rob six two two eight have them uh ask them to raise their hand by pressing star nine and then if you can raise your hand by pressing star 9. so i don't know if this makes a difference uh but it looks like he's on here twice yeah like he's solicited as an attendee so i don't know if that's like the phone part of it here's the 248 number oh somebody who raised their hand mr butler is that you with phone number ending zero nine zero yes hear you hello all right can you hear hi heroes yeah okay there we go uh sorry we were trying to get your attention for a while

030and it looks like we're on mute we apologize can anybody hear us now i heard some comments about the shelter housing people with covid at our hotel and i think there was another question that's the timeline so yes we are housing um we are housing for the washington county correct and our timeline right now is kind of up in the air because of everything we we want i think our permitting process will be i think your approval if you approve us i don't want to be presumptuous is about two years before we have to come back to you folks and ask for it if we do not get a permanent start so we are looking within that timeline to start once we secure our financing and uh kind of get a grasp on how the

031situation is these days but we will hopefully break ground before the end of the you know period where this plan is approved that's the best answer i can give you right now what um what kind of coordination or collaboration would you plan with the shelter association to make sure that they you know understand these timelines and can plan accordingly because the logistics of moving 75 uh people who need supportive services is tough so we've been in constant contact with them on a weekly basis right now they tell us they want it to may 15. we told them you can have the hotel as long as you like for as you know as many rooms as you like we're we're not in a hurry where it's uh even though you know we are in some way

032taking a financial hit on this because of what red roof franchise corporation is doing to us but that's okay um so we're in constant contact with them weekly right now they've extended out to may 15th and we told them if they need it more just let us know we're more than happy to oblige if they need different hotels we have other hotels in the area that we can service them to still in washington county and they seem to be okay with that okay mr leonard yeah well um i just want to my understanding from um talking with um county staff is that red roof has been a really business and i was just going to offer if it's helpful to to sort of provide the other side back um i'd be happy to um coordinate

033with the county and provide sort of a some length of that as well should this advance to city council so that information is available as well that would be good and i we also remember keeping up one of the buildings that's not getting demolished so that can also be service for them should they need it you know in years from now i guess we're only knocking down the building that runs perpendicular to the road we're not knocking down the building that runs horizontal to the road and that's about 52 rooms i believe okay yeah that's that's reassuring but mr leonard yeah if you could nail down some some details and the other side of the perspective just for our reassurance because we did just last night invest 250 thousand dollars into supporting um this so

034that'd be uh we really appreciate it thanks um that's all the questions for for me from now i'm i was encouraged to see um what's moved in the last months i'm curious to hear colleagues reflections as well further discussion there was a traffic study that was made i think there was somebody referencing a traffic study we did submit a traffic study outside was done by bergman was reviewed by the city okay thank you um mr mills did i see your hand yeah commissioner mills thanks um so this this first one is specifically on the rezoning and i'm definitely um uh i take the point of the caller um in terms of like when you once you rezone it it's not necessarily tied to the specific site plan so i think that that's a really good

035thing for us to talk about and whether that zoning overall if we feel comfortable with it because future things might not look exactly like this if you know there's lots of things up in the air right now um and so and and that zoning decision sticks with the land it doesn't necessarily stick with this site plan um one of the things that i couldn't find necessarily that um maybe i'm just looking in the wrong place in the in the staff report alexis is um often uh how the far kind of compares to what is allowed here versus um what would be allowed under c3 versus you know how much based on the site plan that we're seeing um is actually what the far is of the site plan compared to what would be allowed uh

036in in c3 total had to unmute myself um the site currently has about 12 percent far it's proposed to be 47 and as you uh may know c3 allows up to 200 percent thank you um so um presumably i mean that that's quite a big difference right so like much more could be built on this site in the future um the the horizontal or you know the building that runs east west that is currently staying um could then be redeveloped according to the c3 overall zoning in the future is that correct yes it could be um you know with site with a site plan um things are subject to redevelopment right and so the one comfort i think that we have is that all of those things would require relooking you know if there's effectively

037more built there there would need to be additional parking and at some point you're going to run out of space for that there would also like often a concern of neighbors is um with additional floor area right there's more activity there and so there's additional traffic um but any subsequent change would require a traffic study so this is not the only you know rezoning to c3 in my mind isn't like unleashing um making it a free-for-all for effectively what happens there sure there are a lot of uses that could be allowed by right but they would also be subject to coming back and doing additional site planning um and all of that would have to go through traffic studies is there any is there something that you could imagine that wouldn't necessarily that would be

038effectively a large development there that would not require traffic studies um no the the only thing i was going to say the only thing i can possibly think of would be if somehow they're able to renovate the existing buildings whatever they are be today or tomorrow renovate the existing buildings into um into a permitted use and wouldn't need to go through the site plan process however um even if you don't go through the site plan process and are renovating for new uses you still need to do zoning compliance and that includes a check of the parking requirements so um most everything that you can think of um that's gonna be a real change of use meaning you know apples to oranges would trigger either site plan or the full review of meeting current code got

039it from my perspective like i think that it's it's good to think through like what i often think of like worst case scenario and i feel like the challenge with thinking about worst-case scenario and rezoning is that everybody has a different worst-case scenario in mind um i so but i think often what um what people are worried about is just something that's going to drive a whole bunch of additional traffic this is a place that is literally right on the highway um right like you can see all of that and so from my perspective like this seems to be the right place for um for this zoning in particular and um so i'm not i often i think that that's a helpful thing to think about is like what else could be here in the

040future if we do rezone it and this doesn't get built um but i i think that that zoning actually fits here um so thank you for answering those questions commissioner abrams um thanks i found commissioner mills uh perspective really helpful for framing how i might think about it but one question i had is like it seems like the parcels are that c3 is appropriate zoning for the parcels but the zoning of the parcel doesn't take into account the ingress and egress so in other words like what it's adjacent to might make sense in terms of c3 but if it has one point of access that's too narrow to allow proper traffic in and out that wouldn't be something which would kind of be taken up in zoning if that makes any sense so i was

041wondering um maybe staff could educate me a little bit more about the traffic study itself i i in my time on the commission i have not yet seen you know a traffic study which essentially um indicated that the proposed development was that was prohibitive of the development like that said this site cannot accommodate this development because of the traffic and i wondered does that happen or like what are the um how might one mitigate that if in the future the thing that wanted that was going to be developed here was going to produce an excessive amount of traffic um i can um mostly address that there is a traffic study for this our traffic studies analyze the new trips and the trip distributions um also a side note i'm not a traffic engineer i just

042play one on zoom um but our uh requirement um traffic impact studies are submitted they are triggered when um a proposed project will um has more than a certain number of peak a certain number of trips in the peak hour i believe it's 50 trips in a peak hour and when you have that threshold then you must submit a traffic impact study our traffic engineers look at it and you know still the bedrock of traffic engineering is level of service and how long are vehicles waving at intersections our traffic engineers are getting better and are definitely moving toward the direction of it's not how long our vehicle is waiting at intersections it's how how are does all modes of transportation getting around and treated a little more equal but the bedrock of a traffic impact

043study is level of service so it took it looked at the current traffic conditions at all the nearby intersections it and um took into account what they call background traffic which is what new development is proposed in the whole area and then this added in this development proposed in particular and the study concluded that there will be additional traffic generated from this bigger newer hotel and the new restaurant um but there's already so much traffic that it it's not really statistically significant or you wouldn't really notice that additional seconds of delay or i guess it might be fractions of a second compounded um most of the traffic concerns i've heard tonight revolve not around the hotel the red roof in hotel or or even perhaps the proposed hotel but some of the existing conditions it

044has to do with loading i i and that is probably a function of layout of another site that is adjacent and uses the same private streets and same driveways as this one your other comment um i feel like it's been in the past 12 months but i believe that the planning commission did deny a special exception use um because of traffic conditions um on north main street um you usually it doesn't get to this point where the planning commission or council have to deny a project because of the the layout because staff we work with those um design professionals and we say your layout doesn't work we're never going to let you get farther we can't we won't let you go until you fix this circulation issue um um and then sometimes we get a

045traffic impact study that says um yeah horrible impacts and this is what we need to do but as a community we sometimes push back and we say to fix the traffic problem means to widen a road to eight lanes and we say thank you but no thank you we'll keep our bad level of service and i i would just add i think alexis uh did a great job responding to all that i would just add to that to that a footnote to starting to make sure we're really comprehensive looking comprehensively looking at transportation um there are inherent trade-offs in that you know if we are to widen streets and put in extremely large aprons and drive accesses that's going to facilitate loading and vehicular travel it's going to compromise pedestrian safety and at times on

046motorized safety so um so i think they do uh a thorough job and and ultimately to alexis's point we work very hard because we know that that balance and that aspect of site plans are of um paramount importance to us commissioners to the city council and to the community and so we work very hard to make sure as many of those issues are resolved as we possibly can well that thank you that's very helpful so i guess my kind of takeaway then would be that the site plan has already taken into account existing traffic patterns and is designed to be as efficient as it can be within the constraints of that site for the expected traffic um and that staff feels confident that that's been done essentially right um and yeah i mean i guess

047you know on the commission we often we often i think hear kind of um a difference between perception by neighbors of certain problems in congestion and kind of what the traffic report is is saying right these things are sometimes an odd so i think it's difficult to think through it but that um that information helps thanks and i would say it's not always perception you know there we definitely experience congestion in different areas of the city and that's part of the balance as to how we respond to it yeah and i i would never advocate for widening the road as a as a mitigating as a way to mitigate it i just was curious kind of what the what it is yeah um i mean i guess we'll come to this later but obviously the

048drive-through would be something which contributes to automobile traffic on this site and so that's probably something we'll we'll continue to talk about uh this evening further discussion commissioner give random i would just say too it wasn't very clear in the site plan because they didn't do a zoom out to show how it related to the rest of the site um but there you know it comes down and hits plymouth road but then it also connects through past the plum market and the cvs pharmacy and exits out onto green road which for not for the uninitiated that's never been there before but for somebody who does know the site there are actually a couple of ways out through this one that are a little bit different than some of the other sites where they're more landlocked

049um so there does seem to be you know green road can get busy too but plymouth road i think is the the real challenge um so um again that's not shown in their site plan anywhere but just pulling it up you know on on google maps you can see that there are kind of back ways out in terms of congestion too commissioner hammersman so i can actually offer resident perspective as well i live about a mile south of this site i go to the cvs in the plum market all the time so i know that plum is doing the best job of any grocery store i've seen in this area and all of the social distancing safety stuff for grocery stores um i've been to this site at various times of the day i've never

050seen it backed up trying to get back out on the green road um it's definitely narrow when you try to go through like two to the plum and past it um to the parking lot of the old big boy but um i don't know i've i've really never experienced terrible issues i think my one concern would be and we can probably talk about this later with the drive-through too the left turn out of the site back onto plymouth road could get a little bit dicey if there's a lot more cars coming in and out but even with that i don't know i guess i'm as a resident of this area not super concerned with what this might do to traffic based on what i've experienced with existing traffic um and i'd just be happy to

051see something done with this site so i'll just say that for now about my experiences with the traffic all right further discussion all right looks like we're ready for a vote on motion number one all those in favor please say aye hi and mr lana do we actually do should we take a roll call on this or are you okay with a voice vote but it'd be my preference to take a roll call when we're taking actual actions on the petitions okay let's let's do a roll call commissioner woods yes commissioner briggs yes commissioner mills yes commissioner milstein yes commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner ackerman yes commissioner sovay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes okay motion cares all right thank you so we'll move on to the second motion and i will go ahead

052and read that uh the ann arbor city planning commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approve the mmg plymouth road mix use development site plan and plan project modifications to increase the maximum height to 65 feet 10 inches and eliminate the maximum front setback requirements for new buildings subject to providing solar orientation and energy conserving design by maintaining solar panels covering a minimum of 45 percent the proposed hotel and 25 percent of the renovated restaurant roof surface and maintaining a minimum of 30 percent open space and development agreement move by commissioner survey seconded by commissioner hammerschmidt we are in discussion commissioner briggs um i'd say god i'm not unmute anymore um i just wanted to comment that i appreciated the modifications that were done they seem much more in line with um with

053what i would have hoped to see for plan project modification and and so i'm supportive of of the changes uh commissioner ackerman thank you mr chair uh a process question um what if let's say the special exemption used for a drive-through wasn't permitted in the next motion what would happen to the site one i believe that the um i believe the site plan will can stand without the use they'll have a useless driveway so they may want to come back with a um it would be a site plan for planning commission to rearrange the layout of the parking lot um um but the just from a site plan perspective it functions without the window it's not like it's a separate building okay thank you further it discussion like we are ready for a vote on

054this all right so uh mr leonard if you can do a world cup commissioner briggs yes commissioner mills yes commissioner milstein yes commissioner gibrandall yes commissioner ackerman yes commissioner yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner woods yes carries unanimously great thank you uh moving on to motion number three and this is a long one um the ann arbor city planning commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant information find the petition substantially meets the standards in chapter 55 unified unified development code section 5.29.5 special exemption use and therefore approves nmg plymouth road mixed-use special exemption use for one drive-through lane at the freestanding restaurant this approval is based on the following findings one the proposed use will be consistent with the c3 french commercial zoning district which allows commercial activities accessed primarily

055by personal vehicles two the site plan is located adjacent to a highway and its axis ramps and the drive-through facility is more appropriate in close proximity to highways three the proposed use will not adversely impact pedestrians bicyclists vehicles and general circulation based on the location plymouth road is and the private street network through the site provide adequate access um and the proposed facility is consistent with the surrounding uses on and adjacent to the site the special exemption and use approval is based upon the following conditions one approval of the mmg plymouth road mixes development rezoning petition and safe plan with planned project modifications go commissioner they'll move this moved by commissioner mills seconded by commissioner woods and we are in discussion commissioner briggs yeah so i continue to be concerned about the um the drive-through

056in this location um for a number of different reasons i think one is actually because of its proximity to the highway i think it's inappropriate i think that it encourages a lot of in and out traffic in a location that is particularly dangerous you know we have heard some public comment tonight that suggests that there are neighborhood concerns about um about increasing um encouraging more in and out traffic at that location and kind of conflicts that are maybe already occurring um when i look at you know what our criteria are for approval there are a few piece little a few points that um i think are conditions for for not approving um i mean i do think that we as a as a body should consider um drive-throughs in general and and determining whether or

057not they're appropriate anywhere in the city but um one you know will be consistent with the general objectives of the city master plan obviously there's a lot of different components but i think the sustainability framework which is um there are reasons to multiple reasons to think that idling and increased encouraging that sort of um the sort of traffic movements is not consistent with their sustainability framework um and then you know will not be there's another point will not be detrimental to the use peaceful enjoyment economic value of the development or development of the neighboring property or the neighborhood area in general um this is adjacent this is drive through adjacent to a hotel where we should be concerned about air quality to some degree i mean i also know it's next to a highway so

058there's there's questions about whether or not that's consistent and internally in terms of thinking about it but we are certainly encouraging um i think there's reasons to question it and then finally um will not have a detrimental effect on the natural environment which i think in general we should be considering whether or not drive-throughs i think it will have a detrimental effect so for those three reasons i'm not comfortable with supporting it but um i'll leave it open to rest for you guys to discuss commissioner woods um i am i actually am in favor of it and um because actually i think our most recent experiences with the whole kobit uh phenomena and the way that those things are changing some of our uh lifestyle um leads me to believe that perhaps there are times

059when it is better to uh have someone in a vehicle and doing a pickup or something for whatever they're ordering from a business or in this case a restaurant that that might be a little bit uh better situation for our community in general so so that's one reason why i would be in favor of it also i know rece a couple of months ago we discussed another a place where there was a drive-through that was uh that was requested and um later on in talking to different people um some folks brought up to me some um situations that i hadn't really thought about in terms of um persons who might be driving who are um either disabled or unable to get out to go into a business and to get what they want and that

060a drive-through affords them that opportunity i i don't want to debate uh the pros and cons of those kinds of things but i just wanted to indicate that there certainly are times when drive-throughs may be appropriate and when i think about whether or not a drive-through is appropriate this close to uh to a highway maybe that's one of the better places to have drive-throughs because it doesn't bring so much traffic uh down into the city and into um a little bit farther i know when you know if sometimes when we're traveling it's easier to do a pull off and to go into a location that has a drive-through or or something like that and not to have to get out of your car and to keep be able to keep moving so for that reason

061i actually am leaning towards supporting uh this uh particular motion commissioner ackerman thank you mr chair um and thanks for the consideration and dialogue um i i'm torn as well i understand that drive-throughs have a real positive impact on people's lives being disabled or single parents who are in a rush and need to get food and panera presents a healthier option than a lot of fast food take out and drive through but you know i think commissioner briggs outlines some valid points that like what are we trying to encourage both on the site but also citywide and if there are real concerns from neighbors about turning movements in and out of this facility those are going to be exacerbated by incentivizing and encouraging these kind of short 10-minute trips 15-minute trips to the drive-through as

062opposed to the longer stay of a dine-in or a take-out experience um i know that you know there are uh that impact is hard to to quantify them although i'm sure the traffic study did and i needed to review it more closely but um the other elements are what are we trying to encourage city-wide which is trying to to incentivize through both carrot and stick you know reduction of carbon emissions and transportation through single user vehicles uh is a huge contributor to our carbon emissions citywide um you know the the original pud was constructed in the early 70s and so it's been standing for about 50 years now and as we think about what we want to be building for the next 50 years on this site um you know it it it is difficult

063to say you know with our carbon emission goals as well as just the realities of climate change um that that having 50 years of drive through is a good idea and so i'm torn as well but leaning towards now further discussion commissioner mills so i am also torn um i would love to see kind of more of the research on how this factors into emissions really but also like i feel like now is not the time for us to be doing that that that those kind of decisions need to if we're going to be basing our decisions on how this fits to sustainability and carbon neutrality then i think that that goes into re-evaluating drive-throughs entirely um i think that in terms of looking at my unders my reading of kind of the a lot

064of it has to do with um the safety around there and i i feel like the arrangement of this particular drive-through definitely does like not give cars the priority so much and actually pushes them to the side i take into it also um to commissioner woods point about where in the city if ever there was a place for drive-throughs right next to the highway off so that's another thing that i um kind of keep in my mind i think um one of the points that i've also seen is we don't have very many drive-throughs in the city of ann arbor which i think also like my experience has been that the queues are often quite long and so um and that was also something that a caller had raised or maybe it was in our

065packets um thinking through kind of where all of those cars would cue i think that there actually is space that's again kind of tucked into the site it's not right out on the street and so i'm not so concerned about um the traffic impact that it's going to have on the circle drive um what i just have a question for staff about is uh how i want to just verify um that the the arrangement is or the the special exception use for the drive-through is pinned to this site plan and so it's not just saying that there's always a use comes in or a different site plan comes in that wants to have a drive through they can't put the drive through on the other side is that true the special exception use would run

066with this site plan and it would be for this restaurant a different restaurant could come in and then use this drive-through but say a bank um that's a different use and this um this would this i'm going to check the staff report as well but this is for a special exception used for a restaurants drive-through so as long as it met that criteria um and any layout changes would need to come back as well because it is tied to this site plan but it could it could be a different type of restaurant as well thanks i i'm i am even though i'm torn i'm leaning towards support and you'll see that in commission proposed business i think we should put this on our list of i think looking at drive-throughs is something that i um

067would recommend that we look at again because this is not you know this is going to continue to come up i feel like and so i think it might help us as a group review it not in the context of a specific proposal but overall all um all right further discussion commissioner gibrandal i i agree i think that this should be a policy level discussion not a specific site discussion and i would really like to take this on as a larger policy issue um so i just i think that you know when you submit for these things it's like you know years it takes a long time to get through the process and so i think when somebody first comes in and talks with staff you know staff needs to be able to let them

068know like hey you got a high bar for for a drive-through in this town you know i mean so that that was probably not communicated because that isn't our policy you know so i feel like it's kind of letting them know really late in the game that we're we're changing on them um so it's still a special exception use i get that but i feel like um we need to we need to have that larger discussion and and i would be very supportive of having that larger discussion because i completely believe in the things that you're saying um uh commissioner briggs so i just think that we should have the bigger discussion about it and so i will um i will support this because because of that um and again i i agree also with

069what others have said about it being close to the highway i think if you know if it's going to happen that it makes sense there and not downtown or something like that further discussion commissioner abrams uh just briefly wanted to share and say that i'm also torn i kind of agree with all of the comments um but i think the this last this last um point about kind of thinking about taking this on at a higher level and not simply trying to take it up in a ad hoc basis one project here one project there i think makes a lot of sense uh and given that we recently did approve a drive through for another project it would feel inconsistent to me so i don't love the idea of it but i plan to vote

070for it commissioner hammerschmidt um i also don't love drive-throughs also agree that if there's ever going to be one this is probably the best place to have it also as a mother of two small children and i can totally see how they can come in handy um my concern i think and i don't i this isn't really going to sway me one way or another on this permit but is again the the safety issue of people coming from the highway wanting to go to panera coming going through the drive-through and get back on the highway and needing to turn left back onto plymouth road to get there though as i'm looking at the site plan the way that the drive-through comes out um kind of spits you back out in a way that you could

071take that through road back to green and then green turn left onto plymouth so i guess my question is more for staff is it ever possible to do like a no left turn onto plymouth from that driveway like who would make those decisions if in the future um this just gets to be so popular that there are tons of accidents like is that something that would be like looked at again like this would be a very easy place where you're just like hey if you want to go back what direction would it be like back to 23 you have to go um you know out to green and do that first or if you want to turn right on plymouth road that's fine but is that something that like in the future could come up

072like who would who would look at that if there are potential issues that come up and there are a lot of safety issues that occur because of what's going on this site um our city traffic engineers can right now work with and i believe that the um the land owners and all the people who have access to and rights to the circle drive they can put up signage now if they'd like the the wayfinding or you know best way to 90 you know sort of like um the some i think it's the ddas putting up signs like go this way to get downtown they can do that today um our traffic engineers you know are also they are responsible for our city streets and i do know that if warranted they can have um traffic

073control restrictions at plymouth road to um prohibit the lefts um and i believe that plymouth is not under mdos jericho jurisdiction so if warranted our city traffic engineers can control movement there at plymouth road not on the circle drive because it is a private road although they can consult and help okay yeah i actually think there's a another shopping center further down where you can't turn left back onto plymouth um i don't i guess there's probably nothing to do about that now because we don't really know what the impacts are going to be but it's good to know that that's an option in the future okay thanks it sure breaks i'm still not needed um so i appreciate the desire to have this discussion you know kind of a more global discussion and and not

074be unfair to this petitioner i would note that this issue got raised um you know quite a while ago and so there was there has already been this discussion here i don't think it um i i hope there was some discomfort with coming back and still proposing a drive through to some degree um in terms of i want to just talk a little bit more about why i say in close proximity to the highway why why i think that's problematic i'm not suggesting that downtown's a better location obviously i'm not suggesting that any places but um but i am particularly um i do think stadium was a much better location than this location and the reason is if you think about it why why is it that we're saying that next to the highway is

075a better location well we're thinking okay when we're traveling and you're googling where you're gonna get you know where should you stop and get some food and you grab you know you get off the highway you pull through and then you get back on so what are those movements that we're asking people to do you know we're asking people suggesting that people that it's safe that they stop stop at panera and then get back on a highway going 70 to 80 miles an hour while eating food while driving i mean we're encouraging behavior that we recognize is dangerous and so i think we have to push back on ourselves a little bit about somewhat of those assumptions are that we think why is this better next to a highway because we're accepting the sort of

076autocentric you know patterns anyway larger discussion but that's the reason i don't think it's great next to the highway um and i i was actually thinking about this um commissioner woods as well in terms of the covet 19 piece where um i agree we're we're seeing a lot of restaurants coming um a lot of take out and um just anecdotally my son who is 20 is back from college and does not follow fall in his following his mother's footsteps in terms of traffic stuff so he drove out to carpenter road for starbucks the other day where he could find the one starbucks that was open and his report back to me was that the drive-thru line there was 60 cars line long or something like that and he parked his car you know did the

077mobile thing walked up to the door somebody brought out their food you know brought out his drink and he got on his way and so but there were people wrapped all the way around the building waiting to go through that driveway when it would actually have been a lot quicker for them to park call in their order have somebody walk out and that's what we're seeing at a lot of places we're seeing at a kroger we're seeing lots of different places we're not saying that accessibility is not possible we're not saying that christ disease you can't deal with things in a different way we're just suggesting that maybe the best way that you can do that is you know pull into a parking spot and somebody can pull out your food so um i don't

078think that we necessarily have to worry about that so but i understand everybody else's arguments and impositions on this but that's those are my thoughts on it further discussion commissioner survey i would say anecdotally i've seen the opposite on stadium the one of the banks that has a drive-through i saw a man standing between two cars getting through the atm right after covet where people are trying to get money because of the issue that you couldn't have access but i mean you can do walk up and you can do the thing you know it's it's more about the management of the building than it is about cars versus people i have concerns about stadium because it is getting more pedestrian friendly and adding more cars to it through drive-through i think is more problematic than

079here we might be asking people to get off of the highway and on their way home to deliver bring food to their family um it as a park and ride adjacent to it this is a very trick car heavy area so i think we have to understand the kind of modes of transit in different areas of the city this is a special exception used is not making a stand to us saying that uh drive-throughs are for the city this is not saying that drive-throughs are 4c3 this is special exception so we are reviewing it in a case by case right now i think uh commissioner get brandel really kind of brought up the strong point of we need we need to evaluate this as a policy um and i think we see a lot of

080policy things that even though the other one came up in the past year i mean we've been talking about parking heat islands and maximums instead of minimums is you know a significant thing to sustainability too that hasn't moved forward very swiftly things take time and it's worth putting on the agenda but we have to kind of look at the current condition so i think for what it is i support it for this project further discussion all right looks like we are ready for a vote mr leonard commissioner mills yes commissioner milstein yes commissioner gibb randall yes commissioner ackerman yes commissioner sovay yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner woods yes commissioner briggs no motion carries i just say one thing um we are unless would one of the uh commissioners like to hear something

081from the petitioner we are all set here i would like to hear what the petitioner has to say thank you thank you i just want to let you know you know i'm a father of four children i want to see this planet for my four children so i when i was here last i heard you folks loud and clear if you recall last time when we did the panera building there were no solar panels on the panera building i said you know what let me try to mitigate as much as i can with this drive-through by putting solar panels so you know i'm the first one who wants to save the planet believe me i want to see my four kids enjoy this planet but we have to do this in a reasonable smart kind

082of way so i thought how can we avoid this and i thought if we do solar panels on the panera and mitigate some of these things then maybe we can all get a win-win out of this and that's really what i was hoping to do and you know i think and i want to thank you folks for listening in and really reading the materials and i appreciate your support thank you okay thank you very much all right we are going to move on to the next item on our agenda which is the unified development code udc amendments relative to solar energy systems installation for city council approval and i see mr kowalski is here welcome uh you're muted right now but welcome um and thank you um so we will begin with with you okay

083thank you very much um good evening everybody it's been a while since i saw you all um so it's good to see you in the virtual settings so i have a couple of amendments here proposals for tonight uh mr leonard is going to be running a a slide show in a minute um so the two proposals we have are our udc amendments regarding solar um solar equipment solar energy systems um these were presented originally back in um i believe it was january or so to the orc committee and i honestly by now i kind of forgot who was at that meeting we did have it at that meeting so these drafts do incorporate some of those changes um as the staff report says we did originally plan to present this in march but obviously that

084plan was uh sidetracked a bit so um we will go through the first uh proposed amendment is really regarding the um is an exception to the height limits what this would allow is basically it's an exception for uh solar panels and accessory well sorry solar panels and their supporting structures to um exceed the height limit by up to 12 feet um that is for a flat roof so what this would allow if we can go to the next there we go thank you um so basically and again this is only on a flat roof right now currently um as is mentioned that our height limits are taken to the top part of any feature of a roof of any structure whether it's mechanical equipment or architectural features on there so currently if you put a

085solar energy system on on top solar panels on top of a roof a flat roof in particular where this is focused it's it's typically going to extend beyond the limit of a roof and as many of you know we have people that like to get up to the maximum the height limit but we're also trying to encourage solar in this area as well so um if we could flip to the next i just have a couple of examples really obviously you've seen these all before the first example they obviously don't extend that far above the surface of the roof you can see kind of there's an edge these are not from ann arbor by the way i've probably many of you can figure that out um by looking at that um these do kind of

086extend a little bit below the parapet on the around surrounding the edge of the building but gives you an example um you could go to the next place here these ones have extended a little bit higher you can't quite tell from some of the angles of the photo but um it does extend upon the parapet beyond that obviously in this one it has some other structures that are higher than that but in the city of ann arbor again with that slope if solar panels were the highest structure we would take the height to the highest point of those solar panels um so in particular that and again we really apply this to flat roofs only so the next example is really why we've gone to the 12 foot limit um so you can see right

087here is as we're trying to go to encourage maximum solar coverage as i said many of our buildings the mechanical equipment is on the roof in most cases in particular downtown buildings and the flat roof buildings tend to have their equipment on the roofs so this would allow for them to as you can see in the picture to extend solar panels above any mechanical equipment this one was elevated about nine to 10 feet i saw some other examples that you know again vary between they're usually around 10 to 12 usually less than that so we figured 12 feet does give enough room to allow for any kind of if there's additional mechanical equipment for those to extend um so again this is not i want to stress it's not an exception to the height limits

088of the downtown it does not allow you to extend structures up 12 feet all this would allow is the extension of solar panels and their supporting equipment as you can see here um so that's and we can obviously come back for discussion but i'm going to handle both of the um amendments kind of at the same time so if we can hop to the next one um so the next one is a little bit more involved but um really what it cons what what it um boils down to is an exemption for solar panel accessory structures things like carports again right now in the city of ann arbor if you install anything including solar panels it's greater than 240 square feet on the ground it's considered an accessory structure and it would trigger site plan

089now in most cases that would be an administrative amendment um but not always so um what what this would what this amendment would allow would be to for solar panels as accessory carport structures to basically cover areas and we're gonna see it um actually maybe we could flip to the slides if one of mine right now we'll give you some examples um of kind of and i'm sure many of you seen this this is from uh kind of a local if you could recognize on the trash barrels um uh east lansing so one of the largest solar car ports in the country well it's installations i mean they have it over a couple of lots um so this kind of gives you an example these uh vary about to about 20 feet in height in

090some cases um they have these in a couple locations around their their um campus so this is again kind of a larger of an extreme example we did put a limit in our um in the regulations for a 10 000 square feet thank you a limitation of 10 000 square feet but there's not necessarily a size limit per structure but the total of all the structures cannot exceed 10 000 square feet and if you'll see the other standards yeah we're gonna flip through the other pictures nope sorry we can go back to the pictures thanks brett um next picture again these are just some typical examples nothing that's um earth shattering but these are some other things that we we were looking at that in the past we've had interest for people adding carport structures

091um at very locate at various locations now this is obviously kind of a multi-family setup so while um you could not just a carport a would trigger car uh site plan this if you put one up for the express purposes of solar panels under this you would be allowed to do that um again here's kind of a much smaller example but it does exceeds 240 square feet as well um and then the last example very similar to um kind of what started this all this proposal and um so again you see them in various sizes and bread if you could go back to kind of the text language so um okay so again so really what this would allow is if you have an existing parking lot something like a westgate maple village large parking

092lots that want to construct structures over existing impervious area this would allow that it does not if if the construction of the uh solar energy system would it affects any other site plan elements it it does kick it in the site plan so you can't remove as you can see here uh required landscaping landmark trees if you add impervious surface so basically if there's anything that would trigger a site plant it still triggers it this is only allowing them to put it over existing impervious surface um this really was kind of triggered by a uh a case that was kind of brought forward to us that initially really um kind of a one of our dealerships in the city um wanted to install solar panels for uh you know solar vehicle charging and a bit

093of display as well and um you know unfortunately as as i told them while it's not it's not prohibited you are allowed to do those it it would trigger an administrative amendment um this particular location has not been site planned in quite a while um it truly would be a cost prohibitive um uh activity for them and really though it did start getting all of us as planning staff thinking in order to bring things in line with kind of our sustainability goals and all those other type items and looking around through other communities this does seem like something that could um allow and maybe encourage in some cases certain locations to to do this so again i mean parking lots you look like larger installations like briarwood the maple villages and things like that so

094um it would may allow them to do this even on an incremental basis so really the bottom line on that one is it's still any site plan elements that would normally be triggered will still be triggered if the solar installation occurs if it removes landmark trees or if it has anything to do with so um i think that kind of in a nutshell covers almost all of it so um i look forward to any questions or discussion at this time yes am i calling or no thank you mr kowalski okay thank you at this time i'd like to open up the public hearing this is an opportunity for persons to speak for up to three minutes about the proposed solar energy zoning code amendments public comment may be made by calling 853 5247 and then

095it and then entering meeting id this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and 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 after dialing into the meeting please press star 9 on your phone you'll hear an automated announcement that 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 commissioner mills my apologies if i somehow booted you out of the meeting when i was doing all the arranging um and chair milstein you did an excellent job we have no callers on

096the line all right thank you um seeing no one i will 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 amendments to chapter 55 unified development code section 5.18.4 exceptions to height limits to allow solar panels to exceed height limit section 5.16.6 n solar panel or i'm sorry solar energy systems to wave site plan requirements for construction of solar car ports subject to standards for accessory structures do you have a commissioner that will move moved by commissioner ackerman seconded by commissioner mills and we are in discussion commissioner ackerman i just want to say i think this is great and thank you to the staff from the orc for your your work in this uh it's really appreciated i

097feel like these are pretty much no-brainers any way that we can add incremental solar coverage in the city we can and this is to structures that would already exist or to cover parking lots that already do exist and i think that that makes total sense um just from an aesthetic standpoint that's the one point of concern that i could anticipate um uh especially like given in 2017 all the debate we had about ground-mounted solar in front yards um i i fell in love with my girlfriend when i found out she led the advocacy to get her entire high school's parking lot covered in solar panels um and they live in a very like hoa mindset town in california and none of the neighbors to the high school have complained and they all appreciate it and

098it produces 880 kilowatts uh of power so it's uh it's pretty cool and yeah these things uh i think it inspire more than they detract from the aesthetic uh commissioner brandel um i too thinks this is great um i there's there's one thing i want to bring up that has to do with designing these things um which is that by virtue of putting in the posts you will be non-compliant with the size of the parking space because they have to be a certain width and depth and they don't float magically above and so i'm wondering if there are some ways that we can still make this work by allowing you to um increase the number of compact spaces that you have because you could have a slim post and comply and make it a compact

099space um so i get it that you're trying to like really keep the site plan exactly the same but you're not going to be able to keep it exactly the same if you cover large areas of parking lot with this the way that they got away with it in the um the one area in kerrytown where they put up a few you know over there if you look at the structure for that thing it's this massive cantilevered thing with big steel i-beams coming out that do not have posts that is super expensive and is not going to encourage people to necessarily do this and so um if there's some way i really want this to happen i've i've you know i i think we this is exactly the direction we need to go in but

100i also think that we need to set it up so that people can actually do this and still comply so if there's some way to write in language around um you know that they can change the number of increase the number of compact spaces that they have in their site plan or that like as long as they don't reduce the number of spaces by one percent or some some sort of way to be able to allow people to still build these things and comply with our design standards um that's that's my concern so just figuring out how we can because if you imagine i think what we're all imagining are these huge parking lots like you know briarwood or or maple village or something like that most of those things don't have tons of islands

101in them in which you can put the posts you know you're going to be putting in the middle of a bunch of pavement and so um i just want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up so that people can can still comply with um with what we're so you see yeah see how they have that slim footing there but that and and you could split the difference and allow it to be six inches on either side or something like that but i just want to make sure that we are cognizant of of what we're doing to the dimension of the parking space seeing that they got away with it because they actually they put their parking spaces this one was designed with this in mind and and we're really trying to do this as

102a retrofit situation i mean we would love it if people did it you know with their site plans too but i just want to make sure that we're covering our bases in that way in the in the way that this thing is written um see big big cantilever i mean you know this is partly because they're trying to you know advertise this and show it off but building that structure is massive you know to be able to do it that way so um that's i just want to make sure that you know as we're reviewing all these things that we're taking all the kind of design aspects into consideration too so that we are allowing this to move forward in a way that is going to make it it's going to facilitate its installation for

103people so that they you know that you're like oh all of a sudden you don't have as much you know you're not complying with xyz and you're going to have to go through site plan so i just want to make sure that we're covering our bases in that way you can respond to this if you'd like matt but um i appreciate that and i just want to remind the commission this the same question came up with eb parking as well and so um it's a um i hadn't thought about it in the context of these i'm glad you raised it but i think some of the solutions or approaches that you were talking about maybe look at compact spaces frankly maybe we look at adjusting the dimensions of our parking spaces i don't know this

104to be true but i would guess that a higher percentage of electric vehicles might be smaller i know they're not all but um so i think um the solutions the sort of palliative solutions might be the same for both of those proposed ordinances further discussion commissioner mills i it was my internet connection it was not you mr leonard who bumped me off sorry um my question is about the first set um the the roof mounted uh flat roof solar panels and i really appreciate um the presentation mr kowalski um as you know was curious about the height limit going 12 feet above and then you showed mechanicals underneath i want to be clear that that would allow for the mechanicals that are associated with the solar panel solar energy system itself but as i read

105the ordinance you can't use solar panels as an excuse to have other mechanicals that exceed the height limit is that right that's correct yeah okay so in my mind like honestly allowing that loophole might actually get us more solar um and so uh you might maybe what we have right now is safe but i would say in the future that's something that you could loosen honestly if you're like people are going to want to keep those solar panels relatively low just because as i mentioned like they become a sale right and and it just takes more to to anchor them the other thing though that i thought i would mention is that if we're allowing them to be 12 feet tall they could be an amenity space so they could be shade for the roof

106um uh there's that's being talked about actually right now in our state parks about offering some ground it's on ground but offering ground-mounted solar panels as like shaded picnic areas and so i think that that is a good height and i would say that as written right now it's fine in the future if we're not seeing as much solar as we want again maybe providing allowing other mechanicals to be hidden under be an additional carrot that we want to offer to see more roof mounted solar in this in the future so overall though i'm super supportive of this and i i really appreciate what shannon said about the parking spaces too and i wonder if like we could just maybe that's a tweak to the language about overall number of spaces like if we if

107we allow for reduction in number of spaces we might have problems but like reduced width of spaces um i think should be non-controversial or even a language that would say like reduction in number of spaces so long as it doesn't go below our minimums are you know i mean i this kind of gets back to the circular conversation that we talked about before about whether we have parking minimums or maximums and i don't think we want to pull that into this conversation right now but for the future um i'm not i again i could happily draft a little amendment amended language to the to the second one i just don't know what seems to make sense to people um but i think that those are a couple options either allowing you know um compact spaces

108to count or or kind of what shannon said about reducing it either by a percentage or as long as it doesn't reduce the number of spaces to be less than the than the minimum required yeah i so just generally as as you discuss my my thoughts are um i i feel comfortable that we could take that direction from you and progress with this to the next stage with city council um my the intent i'm hearing from you is that um making sure that we're thinking about some of the structural aspects and how that relates to our dimensional parking spaces so that we're we're sort of like to mention randall's point we're not creating this option only if you spend a premium structure wise to accommodate it um so i i feel i likewise i'm not

109sure what i would suggest in that regard right now we are i know that planner khan and the sustainability office are starting to look at some of those options for evs we could approach this kind of two ways if you are comfortable with us taking that direction and advancing with this i'm happy to progress with that recommendation it might result in a little bit of break before it goes to city council or on the flip side we would of course be happy to bring this back to you with that more fleshed out in a little bit more detail so if i can i just ask a question for clarification as well is um is because because we did i did actually consider a little bit of the impact of the um the posts and things

110like that and some of the like the ones towards the end of the show right the chevy one that's significantly overbuilt obviously um so it's a really good point it would the commission be i mean we could build in something i mean i think typically when i was looking at the base of many of those they're not that large you can like you said kind of split in between the two um i think if we get into the question of modifying any kind of parking weather compact mounts and things like that i think it gets a lot trickier and it starts to open up things however we could explore that but is it okay to say we allow you know like some variance in in width to these individual spaces or is your concern more

111that people just simply can't use it because of those posts there because we could it maybe make more sense to you know the posts can take up as much as one foot square well you know two square feet of a parking space you know what i'm trying to say is we can allow the post to encroach into space spaces rather than mess with the amount of compact or other spaces allowed um does that make sense and what are some ideas commissioner gabe randall so you just don't want to make it so it's difficult to park um and so i think that splitting the difference health you know if each side can absorb it but there's a reason that your compact spaces are eight foot wide and your regular spaces are nine foot wide because getting

112less than eight feet is pretty tricky you know because you have to turn to get in right so if you can just say something about like you cannot encroach more than six inches into each you know side or you know something again bret i i trust that you guys can kind of figure out um how to be able to take it from here i think that's fine um but you also just have to be cognizant of like it's got to work for a car to be able to pull in there and and the further back it is in the space the harder it is because you can't start turning until you get all the way out of that thing and so if it's really narrow it's like backing out of a really old garage you

113have to stay straight for a really long time and the way that our dimensions are set up for our parking lot aisles is 22 feet and that's small like you have to start turning before you come all the way out because your car is 18 feet long you know so like where it's placed and you know i mean there are different ways to be able to but maybe just talking to some of the folks from engineering about the the issues with turning radii and all that kind of thing i think you could get it straightened out with that um i and and again i trust that you all can figure it out in between now and city council but i think that you have the resources on your staff to be able to figure this

114one out and i think you probably can get away with it in terms of like not necessarily it being a compact space or not in terms of categorization but more defining how much you can actually encroach into the space to still make it workable for cars to be able to move in and out of there fluidly and things like that we could also make minimum dimensions of the spaces to cover any spaces they must be nine by so not to allow them to cover compact spaces with it that gives them an extra foot well that if they you wouldn't want to do it on a compact space because then you have you don't have enough room right yeah exactly so you it's like it has to be in a normal space and then you could

115define something about how far you can encroach in either direction or something along those lines um but again i think you all have the resources around you to be able to make a good decision with this and i'm completely fine with you all just running with this and then um taking it to council that's me anyway mr leonard did you have a comment i had a question if the commission could comment what what would be your feedback on if it resulted in a reduction of parking however it still met the parking minimum of of the site okay so that might be that that's not going to solve everything but that might be part of some of the things that we look at if if you're if the site were over parked by two spaces and

116you wanted to convert two of them and they could function in such a way but maybe they shrunk below our minimum size or something maybe we could still accommodate in that regard we're still we're still sort of hitting the goals that we're still on existing impervious surface and we're still going to be meeting the parking minimum requirements for the site and advancing sustainable sustainable options commissioner so kind of the thing i for the parking what i think this kind of triggers is like an administrative amendment for internal rearrangement parking spaces and the only kind of line item it says is no removal of required parking is the language and so maybe it is just a terminology that you can do a re internal rearrangement within the project area as long as it still meets those

117minimum requirements um so that that's one of those kind of like muddy areas that it's not really covered if like if you can get away if it's a loophole or not based on this language it just says that you can't remove parking so maybe it's that internal rearrangement is kind of part of the language to look at to make sure people can do that without going through the whole administrative amendment process for something like this i had a question maybe for clarification about the height limit and to commissioner mill's point about tucking other things under it like i like it as an amenity as long as it looks good doesn't you know like you can make pretty rough scaffolding 12 feet high to like have as a pergola for people to hang under but it's

118a it could be an eyesore so there's a little concern about that but what i what i understand is it's 12 feet high but um if it's other mechanical equipment it would still have to meet the minimum height i guess what i don't want to see is things keeping like building up off each other so the top of that mechanical equipment still hits a height limit and now we can just build scaffolding but the scaffolding could still sit 12 feet above even that mechanical equipment if that's the height limit so it's not really kind of nesting in nicely in a way it would only be if that roof hit the top height limit and then we wanted amenity coverage is what the reason for that 12 feet would be yeah i don't know how much

119it would come into a play as an amenity out you you probably know it's better than i do but you can guessing for most rooftop for more most rooftop amenities it's going to be accessed by an elevator overrun um so you're you're probably i don't know how much higher you would need to go with solar panels to for that that particular circumstance i think this is going to be more probably coming into play when a building is really kind of just barely making its height limit with mechanicals or elevator overruns based on what it's trying to accomplish and and then you can't get higher for solar i don't know like it's still like a plus 12 like i'm i'm just kind of like seeing that gap like there's always going to be a 12 foot

120gap between the top of the last thing at the max point so there'll always be that margin and the only thing that would fill that 12 foot margin would be equipment to service the panels yeah i think anything else could fail that gap i'd have to double check it but i think the the standard the project at the corner of william and maine i think the way that's constructed is the tower portion of that is pretty close to the height limit so they couldn't put solar panels on that portion so but i was trying to like understand like the 12 feet and what happens in that 12 feet just solar yeah i guess like that's more like an angle for pose than it is like if these things are at like 12 degrees you never

121really need all 12 feet to get that height um i don't i mean i i think it's okay now we'll just kind of see how it goes and adapt like i don't think it's critical to adjust at this point but i just kind of want to talk through like what we're really going to see in that height margin um based on this maybe we need to do some more um diagrams matt that um just like clearly we could take a couple of examples about how this may manifest and what would count and what wouldn't count on that commissioner gabe randall i just want to go back once more to the parking lot scenario and that is i think the other thing that's important is to make sure that none of the posts come down um

122in your handicap spaces so that you put that in there too because you you you have to comply you know with that um in terms of those those dimensions that's regulated way beyond the city so just make sure that that gets included in the language too all right further discussion looks like we're ready for a vote um with the understanding that there's going to be a couple of minor amendments when it gets to city council all right all those and are actually we'll do a roll call vote mr leonard start with you commissioner milstein yes commissioner give randle sorry yes commissioner ackerman yes commissioner abrams yes commissioner hammerschmidt yes commissioner woods yes commissioner briggs yes commissioner mills yes a lot of yeses thank you thank you very much thank you we'll get it refined and

123hopefully in a really good shape you guys will be proud of i guess i would ask um to extend your comfortable um commissioner ackerman um you can kind of be a role of of checkpoint to make sure that by the time this progresses to city council you see that this has been reflected right all right so we are moving on to our regular business um and before us we have the 2020 2021 city planning commission meeting schedule uh mr leonard do we need to vote on this or is this an fyi uh you need to vote on it all right so i will have a commissioner move our schedule move by commissioner mills seconded by commissioner survey uh discussion on our 2020 2021 schedule commissioner woods uh just one question i know that i think

124mr leonard mentioned earlier that the governor's um guidelines might be coming into play and the city guidelines and everything um do you think that we will be able to even if we if it's moved that we can begin to have meetings in city hall will we still possibly have this option of zoom for those who might not feel comfortable coming to city hall um or even for the public that might want to call in and not come to city hall yeah um it's a good question um i i will i'll have to follow up on that i i can tell you generally um the city has been learning a lot from zoom meetings and we actually see the possibility of incorporating this by choice not out of necessity um in some circumstances i think it's

125much more accessible for people to be able to participate um via from your home as opposed to having to come to city hall and perhaps perhaps it's a little bit more challenging to multitask while you're waiting for a particular agenda item to come up or something so a lot of things are at play in that regard the city has traditionally taken steps and policy directions that all meetings whether they legally have to comply with the open meetings act or don't do take steps to comply with the open meetings act a great example that is we post the ordinance revisions committee meeting to meet open meetings act that's a committee meeting the oma would not typically require that to meet the same publication requirements as the full planning commission but the city's always done that from

126you know a lens of a desire to be as transparent as possible and so um as to your specific question about if um the governors or a lot of it comes down to the governor's order and what is allowed and not allowed um i would have to follow up to what extent the city has made any determinations that incorporating zoom as part of an in-person meeting would still be compliant with the open meetings act right now this is compliant specifically because of the governor's order and if that order were to expire without any extensions or modifications my understanding is that we have to go back to in-person meetings but i i'll follow up on that question and if i don't share it prior i'll definitely share it with the next uh commission meeting the also

127just some perspective um mr linder i don't know if you caught but mr poston of the city attorney's going to be providing the city council with advice on that subject and hopes to give us an update by friday oh great um uh mr leonard i can't send that to you without permission but if you want to request that same feedback uh we should be getting it soon okay and then i can also just float to city council colleagues we have like a policy agenda committee that writes resolutions advocating for certain state level policies um and while i can't convince governor to do anything we can at least kind of formalize our support for that with a letter an official letter or something if city council wanted to take that up um so i'll forward that

128because i i you raise a very valid point that just because the laws go away doesn't mean that the virus does and in the meantime i just said we've really tried to expand our method so we now have our e-comment which previously was only provided for city council agendas in addition to email and public speaking that is it's modest i'll i'll provide you but we have regardless of how well how the meetings conducted we've tried to open up the ways that we can hear from people for feedback on particular petitions commissioner yeah i just wanted to echo commissioner wood's recommendation also around public input even if it doesn't work out for us to to not be there in person i think having this open for public engagement there's you know is something that we could

129do and actually something i think we should consider doing for a long time even if even if we don't get a lot of folks that end up taking advantage of it i i've noticed as i've been watching more public meetings that it's nice to feel like you have an option to comment at one o'clock in the morning should you choose to do so not that we meet until one hopefully it hasn't happened in a couple years but it has happened um any further discussion on our calendar for 2020 through 2021 seeing no one um mr leonard are you okay with the voice vote for this one all right all those in favor please say aye aye aye any opposed all right it is approved uh we now move on to audience participation and at this

130time um this is an opportunity for a person to speak for up to three minutes in regards to anything at all public comment may be made by calling 877-853-5247 and then entering meeting id 921 this information is also displayed on the meeting agenda and video feed uh 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 after dialing into the meeting please press star 9 on your phone you will hear an automated announcement that 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 for the record at the beginning of your

131comments do we have any comments all right no callers online thank you um moving on then to commission proposed business and i believe commissioner mills had something for us mr leonard could you please add a discussion about drive-throughs and as special exception uses to our list of things ordinances to consider and i it what excellent i'm thinking i mean this is something that you know ultimately would be an orc decision but it's i think that there's there's enough interest that maybe it's a working session thank you guys um further discussion or any further commission proposed business uh mr loner uh i just wanted to tell you i i really appreciate uh the conversation i uh continually to be impressed by the time and the fact that you're committed to the public service and taking on

132this role which is very challenging and i just wanted to say that i really appreciated the discussion tonight everybody i thought brought a lot of thoughtfulness and passion and i just um kudos i really appreciated hearing you work through some of those issues i know a lot of you were uh torn as you said on a couple of the aspects of that but um i'm just reminded what a terrific commission that the city has so thank you thank you and thank you for your leadership mr leonard we couldn't we couldn't do this without you so thank you um any other uh commission proposed business seeing none i will take a motion to adjourn moved by commissioner gibrandal second by commissioner abrams um all those in favor please say aye aye and we are adjourned thank

133you very much have a great night bye you