00122nd 2020 Planning Commission meeting will begin the meeting with a roll call good evening commissioners commissioner woods commissioner briggs commissioner mills commissioner Milstein here commissioner give Randall Commissioner Ackerman Commissioner sauvé here commissioner aprons here commissioner hammerschmidt we do have a quorum of 6 members however I would note that based on bylaws it would take a unanimous decision to affirmatively advance any petitions this evening do we have any introductions this evening joining us later will be Deb Gosselin of the system's planning unit will be regaling you with all of the Wanderers of the capital improvement plan welcome we look forward to that do you have a commissioner who move the agenda move by Commissioner Sauve seconded by Commissioner hammerschmidt any changes to the agenda all those in favor please say aye aye opposed it is approved
002minutes from previous meetings before us we have the January 7 2020 meeting sure move those move by Commissioner Gabrielle seconded by Commissioner Mills any discussion or changes on the minutes all those in favor please say aye opposed they are approved we move on to reports from city administration City Council Planning Manager Planning Commission officers and committees written communications and petitions item 6a City Council Commissioner Ackerman is not here this evening so we will move on to mr. Leonard for your report no report this evening great planning commission officers and committees written communications and petitions we have a couple of items that are in our packet and now we move on to audience participation at this time I invite anybody who is here at our meeting to address the Planning Commission in regards to any item
003that is not on the agenda if you are here to address any item that's and the agenda please step forward state your name and address for the record and you'll have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission my name is Adam Hughes my others 2-1 to East Washington Street it's like the first and foremost thank you guys for hearing me out tonight I'm here to kind of speak on the short-term rental agenda item that got passed last two weeks ago at City Council not going to spend too much time talking to you about how much I disagree with moving forward with option three but rather I'm going to spend time focusing on something I feel is a little bit more important and that I think that there is kind of a negative rhetoric
004being painted at least that's what I'm sensing from City Council when talking about short-term rentals and those who operate them the vibe I'm getting is that most people are assumptive that short-term rental owners are absentee owners that don't participate in the community and don't care about their neighbors and I feel like it wouldn't I wouldn't be serving you know the company that I worked for and put so much time and effort into if I didn't speak up and kind of share with you guys a little bit about how we operate so we have Reynolds long-term and short-term and I'm just here to tell you that there are property owners in Rena and rental owners that take this seriously and operate them with honesty and integrity we engage our community we like being active members of
005our neighborhood you know this I think all this stuff has kind of been brought to light and has this negative cloud over it because of some unfortunate events that occurred and on you know whether it's parties or things that have happened with the short-term rentals and in them I think that just taking that negative clout and pushing directly into a full outright ban which option three kind of what essentially option three is I just think that it doesn't give a fair shake to the people out there that are doing it correctly we're kind of being put in this situation of guilty until proven innocent rather than innocent until proven guilty and I just think that it's not quite fair so yeah should we regulate it and put some more parameters around it sure I mean
006for the people that operate these properly and care about their neighborhood it's not going to be an issue for them to make sure that they're doing it that way and hopefully it can weed out some of the bad apples but moving forward binary you know with option three and taking these out of commission completely just it doesn't make sense and yeah I just I want you guys to know that there are people out here that do it properly that care about being active members of the neighborhood and we provide a pretty sweet and pretty cool experience to people that come into Ann Arbor and want to experience this place just like the citizens who live here so thank you so much thank you is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to address I
007have to tell you that we met with Elizabeth Nelson at her Sunday Coffee Hour this past week and I was really shocked to hear her comments I asked her you know I said back in October when we first started talking about this Carlisle report and what was going to happen and I got an email from her or she said oh I don't think you have to worry you know you non-owner occupied host councils not going to go in that direction it's not our intent to put you guys out of business and basically that's what they did there or they're trying to do so I asked her at the coffee you know what what caused this change of heart because you voted for it and she said well you know we really didn't have a lot
008of information we we don't think that the report was very good and you know a lot of members on council just sort of feel that you know this is not a good thing to have in your neighborhood well that was shocking to me you don't have a good report you don't have good data you're gonna go ahead and push something through that it's gonna put people out of business and for why because you have a feeling that you don't want these people I am those people I am a host we host primarily families in our home I have a family coming from Iraq in a week to stay for five weeks while their father gets a stem-cell transplant at U of M I challenge anybody to say that I'm a bad neighbor I know my
009neighbors we had a family come in this past week to meet their great grandchild for the first time the woman came out and helped me shovel the walk and engaged my neighbors who were out shoveling their walk she said you know how it was so great to be here lovely neighborhood if that's being a bad neighbor I don't know so I'm really asking you guys to start thinking about what you're doing here rather than just acting on the mandate from counsel because I think that the mandate from council was ill-prepared ill-advised small-minded and rushed to judgment thank you thank you hey guys Heidi poster 1204 Brooklyn I'm just going to add on quickly to what Carol said the other the other thing that Elizabeth informed us was that because we we were really concerned about
010option 3 being the the option that was put into the ordinance as opposed to one of the other options that was less I'm gonna say trakone Ian hope I don't offend anybody by saying that but the response that we got was well we had to go with option 3 because that was the only option that the city felt that they could enforce we've heard a lot about enforcement and the give-and-take in the back and forth about how hard or easy that might be you know I'll volunteer my services I'll volunteer my staff services we will roundtable this with anybody who wants to talk to us we as my employee Adam mentioned we abide by all the rules you know we we don't get we don't have police calls we don't have issues we don't have
011complaints we're good neighbors as he mentioned I think that the way we do things and the way most short-term rental owners do things are you know 98% of what would need to be incorporated into a set of bylaws that would really enable everybody to get along well and to eliminate the issues I will just I will just say I'm not here to dispute anybody's issues that they've had I'm not here to judge them or downplay those you know we've had one air B&B where complete strangers stay together and they share a common area but they have six different Suites we've never had a problem with people not getting along or anybody feeling threatened so I'd like to chalk that up to being prepared beforehand having a good set of rules having codes of conduct being
012available 24/7 having those guests know that they are accountable to a set of rules all of those things working together I think you can you can use those to really run up a productive business that doesn't in danger harm or threaten anybody else so we are we are here we are ready to work with the administration we are experienced we've been doing this for a long time and I just I want to make that offer now because I think we can be helpful so thank you very much thank you is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission regarding an item that's not on the agenda and I don't want to repeat a lot of what they said but I guess in terms of the report I also had gone
013to Elizabeth coffee and her words were the report from Carlisle was pathetic and that was a direct quote my concern is that there's going to be a lot of emphasis from your group I think it got sent to your group to really look at option three is a starting point and I would really like to make the suggestion that you look at option one and start there as your framework in terms of how to regulate short-term rentals as Adam said I think everybody's okay about getting got the permit the certificate occupancy do whatever you need to do most of the people have done that and I think right now there's a lot of data that needs to be collected in terms of they go well we don't know how many are out there we don't
014know where they are well in my opinion that's not rocket science you like you know in July you come up and you say when you have your final report you need to be registered or whatever it is by a certain date and those are the people that are in us so you're not all of a sudden changing the rules on people who've had this business for however many years three four or five years it might be longer there was some concern about you know you're operating a business in the residential area well this was a concern then how comes some of these certificate sees that actually said short-term rentals were allowed I know there's some differences in the zonings but I guess my my point is is I'd really like you to make your starting
015point option one definitely get handle on how many of these short-term rentals there are and yes there are some bad instances that have been getting a lot of notoriety but there's a lot of good experiences that are being sort of pushed to the side because of these few that are rather extreme I'll say so anyway I thank you for your time and hope that you'll seriously look at option one is being your starting point thank you thank you is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission seeing no one will move on our agenda and the next item is public hearing scheduled for the February 4th 2020 Planning Commission meeting we have three petitions scheduled for the for that meeting one is the garnet to plan unit development and site
016plan this is a proposal to rezone 8.2 acre parcel from c1 B to Planned Unit development to can start 210 unit condominium building with 14 lower-level parking spaces at 325 East Summit this was a petition that came through previously it was denied by City Council and the petitioner is seeking approval of the project through the planning development zoning category then a proposed request for annexation and Zoning by a property on a single-family property owner to annex the property from Ann Arbor township into the city at 1780s IO Church Road and then finally proposed amendments to the city's requirements for site plans area plans and required plan information specifically to clarify the required site plan information for special exception uses thank you now we on to unfinished business the first and the only item in our
017on finished business is MSG see you credit union site plan partial rezoning for City Council approval and a special exemption used in landscape modification for City Planning Commission approval will begin this this item with a petitioner presentation you'll have up to 10 minutes to address the Planning Commission we'll then head on to Miss Thatcher for a staff report and then a motion and discussion and a vote good evening my name is John Vitali and I'm with the firm Stuckey and Vitali architects I had a question before we proceed with the presentation understanding that there's only six commission members and that we would require a vote of all six to pass our proposal is the ability to table this at any time during your presentation or is there what what if we can we go ahead
018with a presentation and then table at a later time or so the table if if we decide to table it would come from the Planning Commission so if one of the Planning Commission members moves the table it will come to vote the table and then we'll go from there okay to be clear initiating the presentation doesn't forego that operate that that's why I appreciate that that's what I wanted to clarify well again this evening we're presenting a new facility for Michigan schools and government credit union so the credit union of course has been a very successful credit union and is very interested in locating in the Ann Arbor community on our firm stuck in vitaliy architects we have been in business over 50 years our firm is well established has done a lot of work
019in the in our community as well as throughout the United States myself personally I've been on a Planning Commission over 25 years personally and I so I have a feel for sitting behind the desk as you do tonight included in our team is don't feel engineering a national engineering firm with experience again in various states throughout the throughout the country I'll talk a little bit about the history of the project project we started engaging with the city of Ann Arbor in genuine January of 2019 that's when we started our pre semental discussion Planning Commission meeting that that we went to on December 3rd 2019 Oh actually almost 11 months after we started the process introduced the idea that no drive-throughs might be considered so you just wanted to make the point that you know throughout
020the process working with the Planning Department that that's never really come up and although we've gotten full approval from planning's to happen planning and engineering that the discussion about no drive through to reduce the carbon footprint was the first time that that was presented to us so our our client has really put put forth a lot of due diligence and hard work money and time invested in getting this project to this point and and you know there's really no written ordinance or written directive or anything that really talks about reducing that carbon footprint so that that's the first time we remain aware of it is that that meeting so I would like to talk a little bit about drive throughs in general so for credit unions that Drive thrus an inside essential piece of their
021business model it provides convenience to the members it provides accessibility to people with disabilities and the elderly people that are caregivers people with children young children it provides convenience for them and the idea that less Drive thrus creates less carbon footprint I think is a little bit unfounded as well because less Drive thrus provide longer waiting lines more lines a lot more cars so the idea of reducing the amount of Drive thrus is not really helpful I think in the idea of the reducing the carbon footprint but even even the idea of a carbon footprint reduction by no drive-throughs is not really totally proof in fact a quote in one of our slides we have a quote from our wdi which is a international engineering firm and they're their specialists in environmental consulting a quote
022from them suggests just the opposite the congestion that occurs in parking lot together with the start-up emissions and emissions from Express travel distance to and from the space all contribute to produce somewhat higher emissions per vehicle compared to a business that has a drive through and this is an international firm and so I guess I'm saying that the idea of just eliminating drive throughs is not really thoroughly vetted and thought-out and so I mean the idea of lowering the carbon footprint is admirable and I I think that we can't dispute that we all don't disagree with that that effort but I think there are other things too that might be even a higher priority in reducing the carbon footprint that might be considered besides removing a drive through so credit unions are not a high-volume
023pedestrian destination either and so credit union members need the convenience of a drive-through so I'll let Mike planting from our firm we did listen to the Planning Commission and we made a number of revisions at at your suggestion so we resubmitted a lot of these revisions and Mike Mike can go through those right now so if you go to the next slide the site plan from the meeting we had in December the revisions we made it one of them was the landscaping so we've taken the landscaping that's right at the entrance coming off of west stadium boulevard we pulled the tree back and we also have trimming notes on the tree to keep the branches at a certain height we added pedestrian walk up ATM to the front entrance so it was concerned about bicycle
024travel coming to the rear with the ATM or walk-up so we've kind of given both opportunities for walk-up and bicycle and our bicycle you know stations there are right next to the entrance and that's right at Stadium Boulevard so it's good visibility so we've provided for that there was another about adding a sidewalk on the south side from the Arbor Farms for that people that may be parked there would run over to the ATM or to the credit union so we've got a sidewalk that runs the entire length there on the south side to allow for that occurrence too for them to have a path to get to the front of the building or come out of the lane go over to our farms so if we've provided for that we also reduced the amount
025of asphalt paving we pulled the site in we got rid of the loading zone and we've actually reduced it from 36 percent coverage to 32 percent coverage so we've reduced the pavement on the entire site by the 4% we also I know there's a discussion about trying to get cross access to the adjacent properties both to the north and the south we realign the South so it's not directly in front of the drive-thru so when you come out of the drive-thru and make a turn and then you go around the site to exit if we can't have that cross access at this particular moment but as planning staff provided for you at the last meeting we're showing in our plans so if the future properties develop we would have it in place and there was
026also discussion we would provide across access these been through discussion you know through working at the planning and the final version of this so that's no problem but we also provided a North now connection potential and we've lined them up so those are two-way is twenty four foot wide so you can have traffic on both ways through this site so that's another change that we made so we you know we tried to tighten this as tight as we can get it we've tried to align the parking and the driving areas so they make sense and hopefully that cross access will be available to us in the future so those are the changes we made to the site plan based on your feedback from the last meeting thank you hi i'm steve brewer i'm the chief
027financial officer for michigan schools and government credit union i just want to let you know that we're really interested in being a part of your community we have 15 branches you know 13 other communities and we were very good community partners every every every city that we do business with would give us a good reference as far as our community our commitment to the community our involvement in the community keeping the property up in excellent condition just like john mentioned for his firm we're 50 plus year old company we're the largest credit union headquartered in Macomb County and we're the top 2% of all credit unions in the United States we have excellent financials and we would be a very good partner for your community we would really like to be here I have some
028information about our efforts in the different communities from 2019 I'd like to pass out to you as well Steve if you have any question so you'll be glad to answer those great thank you so much we will now move on to miss Thatcher for the staff report I don't have much to add the one obvious big thing that wasn't addressed in this revised site plan was the concern about having drive-thru lanes in the first place but they have chosen to resubmit with three drive-thru lanes and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have great thank you alright at this time I'd like to open up the public hearing if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission and regards to this item you will have three minutes to address the
029Planning Commission you'll want to step up to the podium state your name and address for the record seeing no one I'll close the public hearing and I will read the three motions that we have before us and without objection we will take all three together great motion number one the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission for sorry we have four have to flip the page we have four motions is everyone okay taking all four of them together all right thank you motion number one the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the Michigan schools and credit union rezoning petition to see three French commercial district based on the proposed zoning and recommend commercial land use designation motion number two the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission after hearing all interested
030persons and reviewing all relevant information finds the petition substantially meets the standards in Chapter 55 Ann Arbor unified development code section 5 29.5 special exemption use and therefore approves the Michigan schools and Credit Union a special exemption use for maximum of three drive-through lanes as part of a financial services use the pool is based on the following findings number one the proposed use will be consistent with the c3 fringe commercial district zoning district which provides commercial activities access primarily by automobile to the proposed use will not adversely impact traffic pedestrians bicyclists circulation or Road intersection based on the location West stadium boulevard provides access to the site and the proposed use is consistent with other surrounding use traffic impact motion number three the in Arbor City Planning Commission hereby approves the proposed landscape modifications according
031to chapter 55 unified development code section 53 dot three dot B dot seven to require zero square foot square feet of bioretention area due to the condition of contaminated on-site soils and motion number four the Harbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the Michigan schools and Credit Union site plan do have a commission that will move that move by commissioner Mills seconded by Commissioner get Brandel and we are in discussion Commissioner Agra Brandel I'm a little confused that it's the plans that we're seeing show bioretention but then that in the staff report and and what was just read it said that there isn't any bioretention so could you clarify what we're seeing versus what were they here yes the petitioner please I don't want to go come on sorry
032good evening Eric Williams don't field engineering and design 607 Shelby Street Detroit to elaborate on that so the site was previously a gas station car wash facilities there were underground storage tanks that had previously existed since removed there's some elevated ground water levels in certain areas that were found to be contaminated so that's the reason for the waiver now the detention pond that you're seeing we've worked with city staff to ensure that it's going to be lined with a plastic liner those liners allow for small planting as we wouldn't put any trees on them or anything like that that could potentially have deep roots and then on top of that that all allow for easy maintenance should a problem arise where the liner is punctured for one reason or another they can usually come in
033remove and replace whatever needs to be taken care of as opposed to having an underground detention system that you would typically see in a more urban environment so by row attention obviously allows for infiltration the city of Cup the city code allows for or they require infiltration to be accounted for in this case there's a 20% increase in the detention requirement so we are providing that increase by not allowing water it's an infiltrating to the system how deep is the liner I'm just curious it's either a 40 or 60 ml plastic there's we're working with the particular supplier I think they usually put a six to eight inch cap on top of it of clean soil and then from there you know we'll have perforated piping to get it into the the outlet system I'm
034just curious how much what's the section of soil on top of your your liner it'll be like six to eight inches it's not gonna be a significant a significant cross-section so you're planting plants in a six to eight inch soil profile now she's asking for the narrow section of the attention bond so we would like we're gonna work through those particular details with the manufacturer if it you know we've we've had discussions pull em in early with local manufacturers and if they deem that we can't put any sort of shrubbery or anything like that we would obviously maintain in the manner necessary to meet the requirements so then the the plan that we see in front of us that's what we're it's it's basically all herbaceous in terms of what's planted there there's no shrubs
035and they're sitting in a 6 to 8 inch soil profile on top of a liner basically correct and that's the soil cross-section I'm not a hundred percent sure on we would defer to the manufacturer and we do if you'd like I could provide you the sections that were looking at but I just don't have them off the top top of my head I guess what I would say so I do this for a living so I'm probably gonna beat this part a little bit more than you would be used to for something like this but you know as a planting media that is really thin in terms of a plant surviving and so you may just want to work with staff to figure out what is a viable section for survival with your natural features
036person because that doesn't seem like we would end up with a bio retention full of green things to me in terms of sort of what the end game would look like and function and so so basically you're you just purely have a detention system that it's filling up the water and it's bleeding out correct through perforated pipe at the bottom so I would just think whatever species you have in there think long and hard about what's actually gonna work given the soil profile that you have so it's just not a not a situation that many plants are used to growing in in this area they have just kind of a cap it's such a short you know distance yeah so okay so I understand how its functioning now that's helpful but you know should things
037go forward I think that's something that should probably be reviewed a little more deeply because I think if it's six inches of soil I think the plants just aren't gonna live and it's gonna look bad and I don't think anybody wants that you know so they have well right and so let's set them up for success by having enough of the soil profile and and weather that the liner can be deeper so that there can be something that has a chance of survival I think is a would be important if it were to move forward to make sure that that technical piece is gonna work so okay so was did you ever explore brownfield remediation as part of the project or no well we have the due care plan that the environmental there's a quite
038a bit of history with the site so the do care plan was the way we're kind of following your falling when there's an okay fall on the plan okay all righty Commissioner Mills I know last time I was one of the people that was really concerned about the drive-through and the criteria that we had to evaluate the drive-through which was effectively safe movements of pedestrians and vehicles and I want to applaud you for taking what we said and making this way safer I think that the way that the outlet from the drive-through works is a little bit more logical it's kind of clear what to do if I'm a pedestrian like where I go the I was going back and forth in my mind like imagining walking then through your sight because again mostly I
039would be on on foot or on bike and trying to figure out like do we do you really need a sidewalk all along that southern border and I think I think you kind of do because some people might not they might be not there to use the eighty or it might be after-hours right there coming from the shopping mall after-hours and so they want to use the ATM and so the back door is not open so you kind of do need I appreciate that you are providing a path for them on your site I think that that's really helpful I really appreciate showing the where the connection points would be if some day as I think our plans call for and what we would hope other property owners get on board with is connecting the
040neighboring sites I think that that's really really helpful I thank you for putting the an ATM on the front I think that that again is really helpful I'm a little bit nervous that people it's going to be your members that are using it and so the first time around they might walk up to the back ATM if they again depending on where they're coming from but maybe they'll learn walk in through the door and some of the same comments that I had last time I appreciate that the bike coops that you have are the most convenient parking spaces here and so kind of minimizing doing dual-purpose with your if the the asphalt that you do have in terms of the requirement for the trash pickup kind of you the driving path for that I I
041think that I hope that you also feel that this is an improvement to the site plan like I know that it must be nerve-wracking right to hear a whole bunch of people say well I wish you would have done that but I think I believe looking at this that this is much safer for pedestrians and so this is something where I appreciate the research that you've done on the impact that it has on our carbon emissions I really appreciate that I don't dispute I'm a researcher I don't dispute the research I think that you know on on corridors like this I mean this is where we really hope to see multi-story buildings that's not what our code calls for right our code I think allows for this we have discretion to make sure that any
042drive-throughs conform to those standards that we set forth in our code and so this might be something that we want to take up in the future in terms of what's applicable but I feel like the criteria that we have right now that this meets it so I plan to support this I've recognized that I recognized that the petitioner was asking potentially for a postponement and so I don't want to move that right now but I because I was one of the more outspoken people last time I just thought I would put it out there that this is something that I do plan to support mr. Leonard I just wanted to do a quick housekeeping note that in reviewing it I was I was made aware that the past site plan was included in the link
043to the staff report an attachment so the staff report reflects the changes the presentation from the petitioner is accurately reflecting the changes and I have provided you an updated link to the most current staff report my apologies for that Myron's so I apologize I unfortunately missed the December third meeting I was absent that day so I've been trying to catch up on the back and forth and maybe just anecdotally when I saw the previous plan which I thought was the updated plan this plan is so much better so I really I'm incredibly encouraged by that I had one question about the parking so I noticed that the minimum parking is 18 spots the maximum is 21 and you've chosen to do the maximum and given that there was a concern about the amount of asphalt
044I wondered if you could speak a little bit about that decision and I can try to answer if I have to I can defer to the credit union but the number of staff that'll be at this branch they have there's three offices there's three what they call member service representatives those are MSRs and there's three teller at the you know you walk up to a counter so that's like nine up to nine people would be at this branch because this branch is farther away from their headquarters you know they'll be doing mortgage closings and the closings at this branch so you'll have you know potentially aspire seller real estate people doing a closing here at times for home mortgages and such so with the nine and we went with the maximum because we're gonna give
045up eight to nine for that that'll leave us eleven ten to work with ten eleven to work with on a daily basis you get a you get three or four members now you're down to three or four spaces a couple of those are handicaps so you know we need that we need enough for them for obviously the employees new members the team members to park and that's why they'll be in the back half of the site and then they'll leave the front for them for the members to occupy and so that's the reason we want with the higher number just because there's gonna be closings here and on lots of other kinds of you know financial type loans and such so and maybe people will come from the adjacent parking lots too which is potentially
046possible but we gotta support that design for that I understand right no I understand that it seems like a lot of parking for a credit union but okay thanks you're welcome further discussion I did have a question in regards to the special exemption use mr. Leonard how do we tie that into this site plan I know we've had some conversations in the past about special exemption use uses for drive throughs that were put in and then ultimately it wasn't tied to the exact site plan it was came back with another site plan is there a way that we can tie that this special exemption use is tied to the site plan approval absolutely the ordinance provides that you can add conditions to any special exception use that you grant if so desired you could add
047a condition of that this special exception you use be granted and reference the specific site plan I would say that yeah I would simply add the condition to that it is based on the functionality and anticipated operation and impact to the site neighboring properties as represented on that specific site plan can I move that I think you just did seconded by Commissioner Mills any discussion on that amendment all right all those in favor on that amendment please say aye opposed it's proved we're back to the four motions with one of them being amended further discussion Commissioner so they thank you for the redesign I think it says a lot to the expertise on this board and the reception of the team in terms of evaluating it and pushing for a stronger design right the default
048design might not be the best and we can do a little bit better and so I appreciate that because depending on how the conversation went last time we might have been stuck with a mediocre site plan for several years and I think that's part of my position on this one I'm going I go back and forth about the drive through but frankly I am NOT interested in the tenant so much because this building can live beyond whatever tenant exists in it so we need to consider what this does to the fabric of the corridor and so that's where I'm trying to evaluate this property in terms of what what we're approving is you know highest best use but still matches our ordinance and what you know falls within our guidelines we do have our master
049planning ordinance and sustainability mission like art in there so I do talk about drive-throughs it is within our master plan guidelines so it's with due diligence of reading all of those documents you would discover that and we know that special exception use is in the ordinance so that would have been discovered this should not have been a surprise from the last time around so I think I think it highlights a lot from our side in terms of us being diligent and holding an accountability and pushing those conversations forward and so this is a precedent to keep that conversation forward I think is important I think it keeps the professionals on the other side has the count of both to actually do their due diligence and prepare and push the best work forward so I do
050think that this is a much better fit in the site plan and how it connects to the other fabric so I don't like the drive throughs but we have three other banks like on that block with drive-throughs I get that that is the current fabric and we there's a lot of moving parts and maybe those three banks go away in the next 10 years so or something and this one's the last one left but as as the city evolves you know I imagine that the site might evolve differently to and while it's set up as a drive through now there are also existing buildings along that corridor that used to have drive throughs that the building's remain the drive throughs disappeared so the emissions of it it just is if we if the tenant and
051Able's them to work or not so I support it through that mr. Leonard well something you talked about about the evolution of this and Jill I don't know if you went away in this to this special exception use now that we've tied it to the site plan is very specific to this geometry it's also specific to financial services use I don't know what if to that intention of flexibility if you are interested in as a commission linking it to both financial services and this physical configuration or you're less concerned about the you space but more about the physical configuration of it personally I'd be open to keeping it tethered to financial because we did see reports that Food Drive thrus actually do more emissions impact and so tethering it that way means that it adaptive
052reuse if it's food based would remove and I would have it would have to come back in yes yeah I just want to be clear or and part of the other reason why I wanted to tight to the site plan is I don't want the drive-thru moving to the front of the building down the road with another hammerschmidt I also missed the previous meeting where you guys presented the initial site plans I apologize for that but I'll just sort of echo what some of my fellow commissioners said I very much appreciate that there is a walk up ATM I wish my bank had that I also I like seeing it about the orientation where it's closer to the street so it's not just separated by a sea of parking I guess one question is there
053a reason why you need three lanes and the drive-through well the reason behind that the first lanes in ATM lane so that's totally not not a not an interaction land and then we have the other two so part of it is if one breaks down we still have one operating and they do break down it's like mechanical type function and then also you know if you have one lane and you have more car stack they more time waiting so we thought if you get two lanes and at the last meeting Steve Brewer had mentioned they have a daddy because of their member makeup and the other branches this would be number 16 for them they do have a person that's allocated to the drive-thru function so it's a faster transaction members aren't waiting they want
054to service them as efficiently as they can so that's the thinking behind the two lanes and I expect that other branches you actually would have data on the I guess I'm just asking me who's the bank that I go to I do use the drive-up atm because there is not a walk up ATM but I never see anybody else at the drive-thru so they as was presented last time Steve Brewer had mentioned that their members want all func so they want ATM they want to come in the branch they want to drive see function they want online so they're looking for a you know all of those options and you know the clientele is varying so everybody kind of picks what they like to use so that part of the reason we do approximately 5,000
055transactions a month in the drive-thru Wow anywhere from from four to six thousand a month in the ATM okay thank you you're welcome so I appreciate all the changes that been made I think you took our feedback and you did great things with it so thank you so much for that with regards to the drive throughs I am gonna support this site plan and what we have before us this evening but I guess this is more of a you know a cautionary tale to the development community that that might not be the case forever this commission may not approve drive throughs in the future and it's at our purview because this is a special exemption use so with that is there any other discussion Commissioner Mills I'm just wondering asking the petitioner if you would
056like me to move postponement or if you would like us to proceed voting tonight all right seeing no further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed we are approved thank you very much all right we now move on to our regular business and before us this evening is the fiscal year 2021 through 2026 capital improvements plan CIP for City Planning Commission approval and this evening we have a report for Miss Gosselin I'm sorry I just wanted to say thank you very much referred for considering our revisions in the plan we're looking forward to being part of your community and miss Hammersmith if you'd like to be a member we do we do have like the services that you're looking for thank you thanks again thank you miss Gosselin welcome back thank you
057very much I promise not to do too many bells and whistles so I basically tonight just want to hit some of the highlights we did have the work session in December which most but not all of you were able to attend and of course it's as a public hearing so I want to kind of hit the highlights of what we're doing also in case there's anyone here for the public hearing so what we're here for tonight is looking for a resolution of approval for the fiscal year 2021 to 2026 capital improvements plan in effect what we're doing is looking at changes to the first two years of that plan but you always have to approve a six-year plan at a time so when we hit these odd-numbered years what we're doing is keeping the capital
058improvement plan in alignment with the capital budget so in May city council will be approving the 2021 budget so if we needed changes to the capital improvement plan that's where we insert them as in this modification plan so the things that we incorporate into the plan our changes in budget changes in schedule sometimes the combination of the two and then there always be a few plans that are added or deleted usually in response to something totally unexpected in the nature of a needed capital maintenance sort of project so within the plan itself that you have I went very you know elementary school level and used colors so you could see which kind of change was being proposed and I think that just helps in terms of navigation it's a little over 77 million it's now
059116 which is quite a difference and I'll highlight some of the things that drove that so part of it was simply delay a fiscal 2020 projects into 2021 so it's not really that much additional money but we had several projects that went to bid and they came in too high and we decided not to award them and to kind of go through the cycle twice we also are making a technical change when we line sanitary sewers the big ones we had been using a styrene project or product I should say in them ABS very the odor is very unpleasant there are a lot of complaints and also in terms of storm sewer linings we decided we're just done with it because ultimately it could end up in the river but we decided to also make
060that change for sanitary and at this point is quite a bit more expensive however we feel environmentally that's justified and we had a couple of big lining projects in 21 so that was one of the increase also the Allen creek berm opening project that we're very excited we'll be starting here shortly many of you know has two tunnels under the railroad kind of behind North main one for pedestrians one to carry stormwater took a lot of time to get to this point very unusual project for a contractor to bid and so came in pretty pricey and that was part of the increase we had some things happen at the water plant that required immediate attention I'm kind of the positive side of things going up the DDA is doing additional investment in the downtown kind
061of accelerated some of their streetscape projects so that's good news kind of extra and similarly in the street system council had a loud use of some fun balance to help catch up with our street condition we also got a little bit more at fifty one money than anticipated so those are the basic reasons for things that increased so just quickly net we have 37 projects with funding adjustments 36 with schedule adjustments 28 that had both and then 14 projects that were actually added and as far as the type of assets that had the most number of changes the water system was the number one with chains followed by sewer so we're seeing lots of funding shifts in the utility pricing that we're getting contractors are not hungry and so the prices have been going up
062way more so than like streets or parks or some of the other asset groups so those are some of the highlights of the change I apologize for my froggy voice I'm at the end of that horrible respiratory thing that's been going around you do also have just a simple listing of things that are changed so if you prefer tables to colored in things you've got both to look at but with that that's basically the gist of what we're doing and so I'll be able to answer any questions you have or any that arise from the public hearing where you might want my assistance in answering perfect thank you so much at this time at this time I'd like to open up the public hearing on the CIP if there's anyone in the audience who wishes
063to address the Planning Commission plus please step up to the podium seat your name and address for the record you'll have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission seeing no one I will close the public hearing all right the motion reads as follows whereas section one colon 185 of the Ann Arbor City Code requires that the City Planning Commission annually prepare a capital improvements program for the ensuing six fiscal years whereas the fiscal year 2020 through 2025 capital improvements plan CIP was approved by the Ann Arbor Planning Commission on January 15 2019 as a supporting document for the city's master plan and whereas the fiscal year 2020 through 2025 CIP was approved with minor adjustments by the n Arbor City Council on May 20th 2019 as a basis for the fiscal year 2020
064capital budget whereas the second year of the fiscal year 2020 through 2025 CIP has been adjusted based on current conditions as related to the adjusted fiscal year 2021 capital budget to be considered by the City Council and where as a duly notice public hearing was held by the City Planning Commission on January 20th 2020 resolved the City Planning Commission hereby recommends recommend hereby approves sorry the fiscal year 2021 through 2026 capital improvements plan as a supporting document for the city's master plan move by Commissioner Mills seconded by Commissioner so they do we have discussion I'm sure Sylvain and that motion should the public hearing be dated January 22nd and we will would you like to make that the date today state friendly okay thank you for their discussion mr. hammerschmidt just clarification I think I
065know the answer to this all the funding adjustments those are all higher right none of them in here have been decreased they're all adjustments up there actually are a couple that went down and what I try to on the printout like this there's a couple that went down that's pretty rare mr. Mill's thank you very much when we talked about this at our work session one of the things that we noted is that the city's carbon neutrality commission there's a whole lot of people involved in this including myself and Commissioner Gabe Randall who are right now working furiously to come up with a prioritized list of projects that are to be delivered to City Council by the end of March in time for budgeting that are nowhere yet in this plan and I am on
066the energy task force within this and I can tell you right now we have 36 different energy proposals in there some of them are not capital projects but there are at least a few that would be capital projects or that would likely involve a pretty big engineering study similar perhaps to what is being conducted right now for the landfill or that was approved to be conducted for the landfill so can you talk us through I know what that was one of the things that you were gonna potentially look at is how we handled that I've got a whereas clause that I could amend it but I just curious what the what we you said what because because this is a recommendation to council about how they should spend their allocate the budget and I think
067it would be beneficial to let them know hey this is not well I would say from my perspective this does not recommend I I would want the 20 whatever you're wearing 2021 budget to reflect the things that we know we have to do in the next decade if there are the immediate actions that we need to take so that's long how do we handle this well without knowing the specifics I'm gonna give kind of a general answer but I think it'll still pretty much address it so as you said those things that come out of operations and maintenance type of budget which I suspect a fair number of them will still have to be discussed but they'll be not part of the capital budget and therefore not part of the capital improvement plan now those
068that are capital in nature depending on what the funding source is if they are general fund asks that would not be unusual because even like the administrator or the financial people can have capital asks that are general funded because they don't come through the same kind of prioritization if they were utility related then the mechanism we could use if there's something that really has to go forward we do have what's called the Sipan group which is like the oversight group for the CIP so if this is passed tonight and there's some water need on your list that you really want to push forward then we could potentially in the Sipan group say what would we move out because the utilities are really funded as a bucket of money equal to that amount and assuming those
069projects are in it but we can have some flexibility generally that doesn't happen a lot but in this particular case I think we could make it work through that mechanism and as I said the general funded projects ultimately finance administration kind of make the calls because it's the administrators budget that's put forward so I believe we can work through it but the sooner I would know what some of those are that our capital the more specific I could probably come up with the best mechanism to achieve it and if something in here had to wait we could make the adjustment on that Sipan level because that does happen like when projects come in too high even after they're approved even after budget something has to get moved around a little bit we try and keep
070that to a minimum but it does happen okay yeah so I again because the city declared the climate emergency right and and we're treating it like an emergency are trying to pulling things together like it's it's fast and furious so I mean I know that our group has a list of things I think that your group does too so some of those projects may be known and so I think it's now or at least that they're under consideration whether they make it into the final plan is yet to be seen right that's the purpose of this process but because we're seeing this now and not three months from now when that plan is known right we can't do it so so the one thing I forgot to say also this fall even though it would
071be a full year we still modify existing years if we need to so I'm thinking there's quite not going to be a lot of things that you absolutely are going to commit to for fiscal 21 by budget time so any of the others that you know you want soon but maybe they're 21 maybe they're 22 we have an opportunity again in just a few more months when we start the modification or the the full-blown next plan that we could ultimately still make adjustments to 21 there again it seems the lawyer it's harder because then we have to sacrifice something to make way otherwise you know it can go to an eight votes thing in which is an impossible in Council but that that is the one thing that's when they're not in capital improvement plan
072not in the capital budget at that point it becomes a little harder to implement a boat we'll have I think major work this fall based on the results of this committee so I suspect the amount that will impact the immediate capital budget that our capital are gonna be fairly limited am i yeah well I don't want to presuppose the outcome right and so I would imagine that if the probably the biggest capital outlays right away are more of the studies yeah any studies go through operation and maintenance budget that came down from federal Accounting Standards like three years ago now so we report them in the capital improvement plan because they lead to capital but they're actually funded through operations and maintenance so they don't know they're in the capital improvement plan but in the
073not in the capital budget there's always quirks got it so okay that's that's helpful um thank you very much I think this whole idea of like there's gonna be difficult discussions decisions yes like there's limited resources there's gonna be different difficult decisions and so I'm just you know this is one of the things the key things that they use to try to figure out what those how to make those decisions because we have a good process but we have these parallel tracks so I'm gonna I maybe will read like my where a statement that and you can see if anybody thinks that we might add to it again I from my perspective I think it's helpful to reiterate to counsel that like we're thinking not just about what's before us right now but all the
074other things that we know especially since we have representatives to Planning Commission on that so my whereas statement is to be added I don't know maybe second as the second from last whereas statement whereas the work of the city of an airburst carbon neutrality Commission is still formulating recommendations some of which maybe consider capital projects to let notice that there's something coming and then the I would edit the result I can have typed up if it's helpful free mr. Leonard okay then I would recommend that the resolve statements say that the City Planning Commission hereby approves the as it reads right now as supporting documentation for the city's master plan contingent upon learning what the recommendations of the city of the carbon neutrality Commission may be I don't that that's the part that I'm not
075sure about personally but I welcome additional ideas on that for survey to it it feels very open-ended in terms of putting a deadline you know like it requires a date for something to be delivered so it can't be contingent on an open-ended delivery date possibly maybe with maybe instead saying with the recognition that this that that council may want to reconsider this in light of the recommend recommendations from the carbon neutrality commission pending recommendations from the carbon neutrality commission are we thinking that the recommendations will come back and City Council will move fast enough that they're gonna it will happen before we go through this process next year I think that that's definitely the intention that's the deadline that we were given that we have been by the way adding extra meetings to our lives
076like nighttime meetings to our lives volunteer time and that Commission is like many dozens of people we are working towards a deadline so that it can be incorporated so I have I sure hope so okay I was just I meant that we want to be careful in the wording that council does not approve the CIP itself they approve the budget that goes with it so there was something about yourself or perhaps Commissioner down here to set that implied like their approval of the plan well your when you approve it it's approved then they use it for the budget so maybe if the wording could be tweaked a little to say I know what you're concerned about right now in the immediate short-term as if there's anything that your group actually advances to the point where
077you wanted to prove as part of the current capital budget is that correct right do you think there are any that are actually going to be capital projects ready with a budget because you have to have a specific budget to ask for funding break in this may budget I because I am one lowly person on the Commission I don't know all the details but I think that there's a consultant that they've hired to put together some like more rigorous economic analysis of this but I mister okay well just an observation as as indicated you have authority over this capital improvements plan and it's based on the information you have now the City Council is gonna take this as one one piece resource that they're gonna utilize and setting the city's budget they could they could
078put a lot of stock in this they could also consider the balance and prioritization of other recommendations that are coming out of those recommendations I I wonder if it's not so much about amending this but a bit of the Planning Commission is sort of communication to them I think what you're saying is we we're not in a position to know how this might change I think what I'm hearing is you want to convey something that if there's one thing we had to predict now these projects some of these projects might have to go because resources are finite in favor of prioritizing carbon neutrality and so you don't I don't the City Council has the opportunity to make those priority decisions independent of that whereas claws are that resolved claws I would I just wonder if
079that's if that's the intention it could be through whereas claws just simply say as Planning Commission we think that these projects may very well have to evolve if we prioritize carbon other carbon neutrality projects or think about the Planning Commission could entertain how it wants to communicate that through some other means be it a resolution or other or other means testimony for that matter a member of the Planning Commission could attend Council and sort of convey resolution that Planning Commission endorses so just some some ideas that I think are getting around what you're discussing I'm gonna show you Brendan's I just want to make sure I understand correctly so what you're saying is that we will we can we vote to approve or not approve a plan that plan is for a certain amount of
080money but it doesn't mean that then City Council is bound to actually fund at that amount each of these projects great okay so there's so what you're saying is that there's room for them to then prioritize other projects as they arise if they come from recommendations from carbon neutrality or even other things absolutely okay and maybe it would be helpful for me to just review the timeline so that budget gets adopted in May you said right okay what what happens between now and May the Mr Lennard jump in if I'm saying things not quite on point but the whole the administrator and all the financial people actually start back in November to begin to dive into this they want the CIP done but they already have seen what's in it so they've already got rough
081stuff framed out anyway but they will work pretty much non-stop from now until I think April is usually when it the administrators budget goes out publicly and there's and all that so well means the action date really they're substantially complete wouldn't you say by the end of March so the window is very narrow so again there could be things that come out of this that are ready for incorporation and I think that could happen I guess is what I'm saying because they have some flexibility my experience this is my eighth time through is there might be one two three projects that they add or do something different than what's here so they very much use the CIP as the mainstay of the budget but they do have some flexibility so I believe they could fund
082that and then if they thought something else had to go they would probably simply turn to staff and say how do you think we've been adjust for this that has happened before no worries I think we can make it work and what kind of timeline is the neutrality Commission on like when do you think those recommendations would be coming down the pipe I know draft recommendations are I've been working with the sustainability office and we are tentatively looking at presenting those recommendations to the Planning Commission as a body in March so I think and there's there'll be a bit of a roadshow for numerous boards and commissions around that timeframe so I think the goal is sort of late March to have most of that feedback assembled and ready to present to City Council that's
083exciting the the scoring that we're doing internally to vet them is like February 8th it's super like a week from now yeah exactly yep and just also for the audience who's watching - there's a big public input session that's happening on February 22nd at Pioneer that's like a half-day event and so that's where you're hearing all kinds of ideas and you're voting on things so it's not the only way that you can things but that's one very powerful way you can because you can hear all these things pitched at the same time so we didn't have a formal motion to amend because it wasn't seconded do you want to give a final chemistry how much more clarifying questions since I was not I was not at the working session said anyone give you guys strep
084throat um so we are asking so all City Council can approve is like that top line number like the hundred and sixteen thousand that we would send out million exactly let me let me take let me take so uh Michigan planning loss sets forth the Planning Commission was responsible for adopting the capital improvements plan and ideally you are shaping that capital improvements plan based on development trends where new infrastructure might be necessary where upgraded infrastructure may be necessary in a way you are while you are still the authority to do that in state law the city is really fortunate to have a pretty robust network of staff around these very disciplines whereas some other Planning Commission's is sort of more actively having to make some of these decisions so the Deb quarterbacks this process where
085a lot of feedback and scoring and evaluation happens ultimately that's where we are now the Planning Commission is sort of faced with its responsibility to either adopt or reject this plan that goes to City Council then and then City Council again takes it as advice that their advice is that it's been it's gone through the evaluation process to correctly identify projects to prioritize projects and that gives them the ability when they are then taking the resources that are available to them and the various weather their systems are general fun and to use this as a tool to decide how to prioritize the expenditures of those but it is a plan for them to consider if for some reason on the day of the budget somebody comes in and says you know what this is ridiculous
086if there's one thing we should do is convert all of the streets to cobblestone they could then elect to prioritize that and allocate those dollars to that project so the goal again the combination of staff work other agency work coordination with other agency improvements we are trying to deliver the best sort of reasoned and informed prioritization of projects to them so that they can use that but but it is a plan that you adopt and they they're not limited by these projects they're not limited by the amounts they have in short but most flexibility as to decide how they prioritize we would certainly advise them to look at this as a resource and they as indicated they do there is usually here's my question if they come back and say no like it was 77
087now it's 116 that just doesn't fit in the budget we have to cut it to a hundred thousand are they prioritize or a hundred my six thing 100 million are they prioritized within heat like who comes back and says we're presenting prioritize projects to them they're scored within here yep okay so if 16 million dollars was cut we'd know what was okay yes unless City Council was like but I want to keep this project that you or or it frankly in it could happen that way it could happen where they go and say this is really important and they task our engineering department with reconsidering scope so that maybe they can accommodate a really critical aspect without some of the more comprehensive aspects of the project that was originally intended maybe it becomes aligning instead
088of a replacement if appropriate sorry I'm gonna share with you my dilemma like and so this is what I have right now which I think kind of gets at this idea that we're not we don't want this to be contingent that understanding our world versus planning or vs. councils are all in this so the whereas clause now that I would suggest or if it's better as another thing and like another communication I just think we've got to whereas clause before us so or we're a resolution before us so whereas the City Planning Commission recognizes that the recommendations of the city of Ann Arbor's carbon neutrality commission may include capital projects which City Council should consider funding like I don't know that we can say City Council should do something but I want to send the
089message that we know that there's more things that City Council considers than this and we want to ping them like hey don't forget about that list that we don't have right now but that might be coming that's my right that's my rationale behind this but I don't know that we should say she should consider funding so friendly amendments or if we want to just give up on this entirely I understand and I will go to a City Council how about so I I don't know if you want to restate or I could you got whereas the the Planning Commission recognizes that the recommendations of the carbon neutrality recht committee could result in capital projects that should be considered in the context of this capital improvement plan the projects there and and the prioritization of those
090projects oh that sounds so much smarter so you know so it's aware as clause it's clearly being communicated that you're taking action on the information you know but you're just sort of putting a note out there that aspirationally this may very well need to be reconsidered quickly yes is that a friendly amendment I don't even remember who moved her seconded but as long as nobody objects I mean it's up to you this is the 21 to 26 plans so it's in that time period what are some of the things that you guys are considering with that Commission like for potentially in the next year maybe Spencer just sometime in the next five years it's comfortable enough I don't know that we there's no at least the stuff on my subcommittee there's been no like timing
091put on it but if we're gonna get there by 2030 needed to happen last year right like so yeah sure so vain you guys are scoring February 8th is that your prioritization or recommendation of prioritization towards the capital improvement plan Hey different groups are in different time we're all aiming for this March thing but if that's her group I got it we're all vetting things internally and then it goes to and and things are also going out to the community too but there's there's going to be a consultant that comes on board to be able to look at the greenhouse gas fallout basically in terms of what these different strategies are and not quite sure when that and that's soon I know but I'm not quite sure when that happens in the scheme of that
092kind of next a couple of months but so it's being vetted with these small groups and and there's input from the community as well it goes to this greenhouse gas kind of like bang for your buck basically in terms of that but not bang for your buck in terms of greenhouse gases not in terms of a budget because none of these things have budgets attached to them right I mean that's the thing it's great that's the thing that I think that could happen is the study part because that's something that really could be turned around pretty quickly so and that could very well happen you know so that that's but again it sounds like that may not be a CFP issue if it's it's a study so but again I don't think either of us
093feel comfortable enough to know like oh it's not this or it is this you know at this point in the game and that's going to all have to filter through this staff people that are associated with our groups to be able to determine which pathway it takes in what pot it comes from and then I have the other question is does emergency status have a score when it comes to prioritization in the CIP not directly but indirectly because there's like level of service scoring and often that it's kind of interpreted that way in there so certainly in council can would accept emergency as sort of an entity unto itself in their consideration because they have done that in the past right like if we're talking about low scores drop out for budget how do we
094make climate emergency those scores get to the top of that list and I mean stay in the budget so I guess that's what I'm curious about they're not we don't have a plan now but we want to kind of be able to get them scored last minute like it and then they have to score high enough to maintain I'm just curious what that process is well again so they're talking about projects that are not even in here at all that's an independent scoring system they would simply present these are the highest priorities they don't think of the 70 some staff that work on yeah this main plan that anyone would see that as contradictory because it's a unique goal of the city that was articulated very recently I think it's very important that by fall
095we figure out how to incorporate the equivalent of that score into the overall CIT very explicitly and I know Twitter's new Brandon Mills brought that up at the works and I think it probably will end up being an explicit NewsCorp rest or taxation criteria what I anticipate happening okay Oh mr. lonner um I would ask you to as members of that committee to help maybe both I am not particularly involved in that project and the rest of the Planning Commission I'm I'm just thinking about the context of the capital improvements plans over the course of master plans that have been generated over time with long and winding community input versus the prioritizing projects out of this process which is on a pretty truncated process with while you know I I have no doubt that the
096aspiration is to have wide public input but it's it's a different conclusion than a master plan so as we're going through that I think it'd be helpful to help well just everybody to understand when we're making those trade-offs on what I'm the basis that that's happening I appreciate that and when I think about the things you know right now I bring this up because we're talking about capital improvements and again on our on the energy sub teams list of 36 projects there's only a few that I can think of that are actually be counted as capital per capital projects there are a number of things that our land use and zoning related a number of things and so how that gets through our process right like and how much additional public input that requires I
097mean these are things actually that have been on our to-do list for a long long time increasing housing density right like it's there a lot of the things in terms of like requirements for energy efficiency things that are on our you know how to change planned projects so I think that that that's really going to be a key I mean the built environment the built environment in our city is the biggest contributor right it's the the power that we use the natural gas that we use in our homes and workplaces and the cars that it takes the emissions that are generated from the cars to get us to and fro and we're not just considering those cars we're also considering the cars that come here every day because we don't have places for those people
098to live or they don't want to live here which is legit but there's a probably some that do want to live here rather not be stuck in traffic so there are a whole lot mean they're a whole bunch of planning and things that are implicated in this so deeply - people don't want to live here what all right further discussion on the amended motion see no one all those in favor please say aye aye opposed it's approved thank you miss Gosselin for all your work thank you and we look and we will see you next December this December thank you all right at this time we are an audience participation members of the audience we address the Planning Commission in regards to anything at all for up to three minutes if you could come up
099to the podium seat your name and address for the record and you'll have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission I'm here in support with some of my colleagues as a short-term rental host I went to Michigan I graduated a few years ago and decided to return back to Ann Arbor and I basically invested my savings in a few units here in town and you know we do a great job to be great neighbors I take it upon myself to bring people to this town to show them something that I just I discovered when I was in college and I've really grown to love since I've been here and you know we did this above board we looked at all the rules that were on the books we said you know can this
100be done is there you know framework for getting a certificate of occupancy and making sure that we follow all the rules and we did you know to the letter and so you know in this discussion about regulating short-term roses came up it wasn't a huge surprise to us this has been happening you know in many many cities and and I think contrary to some beliefs were very much on board with that we think that it should be permitted the city should be aware of them and that we can be helpful in that process and so really I'm kind of coming before you for the first time to kind of introduce myself and say you know we'd be happy to help and most importantly that we think that there's a kind of common sense solution to
101come to but as some of the you know colleagues behind me said you know we heard from Elizabeth nels nelsen you know to our faces that said hey there are some you know nuisance concerns yada yada but we don't think that you guys who a responsible host should be penalized for that and that we can come to some you know understanding and ultimately that's not what was proposed in the option three from the Carlile report and the way that we see it now is you know there have been a lot of advocates for regular Ric there have not been any advocates that I know of for this you know measure to ban and so kind of ultimately it's you know before you guys to come to some understanding of what's really gonna function the right
102way for our city and so I think that the best way to do that is to net to analyze what's actually going on what the numbers actually are which as they've said this report really did not do and so ask that that information be brought forth in any kind of pragmatic that sense that makes sense and I think that we're all on board for something like that but right now that's not what's you know on the table and so it's a very big concern for us you know as neighbors as Ann Arbor residents and as you know small business owners who share that with many other businesses via coffee shops or restaurants or you know vendor stands at any time this is something that's a big big benefit to the city and to us as
103individuals and Michigan graduates and I implore you guys to kind of as this process develops really think about kind of the impacts that it will have because it may be you know very positive or not thank you let's just see if there's anybody else shirkuh if you don't mind just saying your name interstellar yeah you want my address too sure 15:24 Marian so one of the things that kept playing over and over at the council meeting was that neighborhoods the residents of our neighborhoods have the right to expect that when they buy a house and they move in that they are moving into a neighborhood and they're not moving into a hotel zone and I totally agree with that I I don't feel that my house is in any way a hotel we don't have
104that kind of traffic but but there's also the flipside is that my expectation when I bought my property was that we were gonna upgrade the property improve the neighborhood by doing that and my expectation was that that I would have the right to rent that property and I go and I get the CFO and I spent all this money with all fixing all these little things that that are required and and everything is done aboveboard and so there's expectations and rights on both sides of this issue and I hope that you will consider that you know we all there's a solution here for a win-win I believe and and I know that we want to work with you to craft a solution that is in everybody's best interest the other issue that came up was
105the issue of zoning violations and there was some discussion about you know we were running businesses and neighborhoods well I made the point at council meeting that there are all kinds of businesses being run out of homes all over this city that generate far more traffic than my once a month or twice a month guests that come in and out so I just don't buy that argument and I think that we need to be very careful about talking about zoning because if we're gonna start talking about zoning for we're in a college town we have student rentals we have sublets in the summer that are three months those are far more disruptive than somebody's Airbnb house in a neighborhood we know this the police department knows this so there's a lot of things that need
106to be thought about and I think what needs to happen is we have to have a comprehensive plan that's put forth that's not specific to short-term rentals but that includes all types of rentals and what are we going to do with them in the city and how are we going to regulate them to create a win-win for everybody and if that requires better ordinances in place to deal with the problems then that's what needs to happen thank you thank you really quick Commissioner Mills I appreciate what you said tonight about all the fish that we have to fry as a community they're very obviously is a housing problem in this town that deserves comprehensive housing plan and I would think being a person that works in I'm a consultant that works in the strategy world
107what makes sense to just to me is articulate the housing issues first then the next layer down is articulate the zoning plan that supports the housing issues then then you can get to things like STRs and ltrs and where things are and how do you mitigate transition if you have to make tough decisions but I I understand again you know that there have been complaints and that's what prompted all of this but to make a decision that in fact that affects any particular group of people that are paying taxes not just with property taxes and their substantial to focus on one group of people that have actually made an investment in this commune for the most part is is tremendously unfair but even more than that it's unfair to the people that really are suffering
108because of that housing problems that we have that have not been corrected it takes at the attention away from where it needs to be and it's just it's just doing things out of order so I appreciate you saying that because I feel very very strongly that that you know this whole thing should be tabled until those first two steps are our work through and I for one am planning on attending as many Zoning meetings or anything like that that I can because I think that's part of the part of the issue and you know we now have expertise to add to the table for what it's worth in terms of how zoning regulations could be changed again to address the biggest problem which is affordable housing in this town not STRs and the behavior of
109a very small subset of guests so thanks again for your time I certainly appreciate it thank you sir anyone else wishes to address the Planning Commission please please do mr. Gabe Randall can I ask a question and this I know is gonna be completely anecdotal but if you'd come back up since you own several of these I'm curious about the level of occupancy that you achieve through the year over the the several that you own because I'm just curious about affordable housing and how much you know having it as a year-long rental for somebody versus having it as the short-term I think that what effect I know is there's some cities in the world that are grappling with that sure huge areas of vacancy because the short-term rentals are filled 20% of the time and
110so I'm just curious what kind of occupancy rate you have I would do would you be patient with me if I gave a two-part answer absolutely I I will answer your occupancy question but I will do it with a little bit of prejudice because I think I can make a very convincing argument based on my experience that depending on how funds are applied and depending on the condition of the specific house or unit or property that we're talking about that the STRs actually help affordable housing more than they harm it so I'm going to give you an example I my company has probably purchased you know 20 houses and with the exception of a few that we just bought on South State Street most of them are not habitable what I mean by that is
111and we buy in for a low price I mean they're there at the lower end of the market because there are things like floor joists don't connect into the sides of the foundation or their mechanical issues there is asbestos that you could see from outer space there's black mold places where if you could scrape if you were in a situation where you have limited funds and you could somehow scrape together the money to and get a mortgage to buy those it's not a place where children should live so these are my company primarily buys houses we renovate them you know we pay an extreme increase in the property taxes and that all goes into the general fund and you guys do with it whatever you do I would hope that there is you know the
112marginal difference between what used to be the taxes on that house and the new taxes on that house at least some portion of that could be paid into a housing plan affordable housing plan so if you take a look at the specific houses that we buy that we put money into and these are expensive renovations that your own employee just said contractors aren't motivated right now and it's been that way for a long time for the last at least you know since the since we got past the recession so so you know like it's just it's false logged it paulus logic to say you know unless we're gonna say people that have need of affordable housing have to live in crappy houses you know I'm not prepared to say that but I know from my
113own experience that you know the houses that possibly you could afford if you're in that financial circumstance you wouldn't want your kids living there it wouldn't be safe so if we can stipulate to that based on my experience you don't agree with me but but that's my experience it it's very much dependent on you know where it's located what the time of the year it is it's very cyclical you know December January February very low times but we do have one property that is at bassist Stadium it's on White Street it's busy all the time because the way we have it set up is there are six Suites in there so the people that stay there are willing to share common space but they get their own suite but then it's very competitively priced and
114the people that end up staying there are you know kids that are coming into town for grad school interviews or they're here for something other than like a football game so our occupancy is on most properties is probably about 60 to 70 percent most of the time that that is more in the April to October November time frame and then it's pretty empty they're much less you know booked during the winter months because there's less reason to be here but I will say too that on the bigger properties we do a lot of business with people coming to the hospital and I think the thing that I passed out kind of just tried to share some some of the information about the different people that that you know unfortunately are in Ann Arbor for that
115experience so of course on the football weekends we're gonna get partying and and but you know we have people abiding by by the rules but people are definitely there for a football game they're not there for any other reason and I don't want to make it seem like it's it's just a hotel for the hospital or anything like that so you know I I don't know what anybody else's occupancy is I hear people talk about the fifty to sixty percent range and I think that's that's roughly what it is I just really think we need to separate the issue of affordable housing from strs they're the only common the only overlap in the Venn diagram is both things involve a house or but now that it's midnight thanks thank you all right we are on
116to Commission proposed business and mr. Leonard is gonna give us an update on where we stand with the short-term rentals you're probably wondering what all these people are talking to you so the City Council directed staff to put together some information about the regulation of short-term rentals there wasn't specificity in what what or how or the goals seeking to accomplish to that end we worked with a consultant Karla workman to hold a series of workshops throughout the city where we they're just open opportunities to see sort of what was on people's minds regarding short-term rentals in the community and what their experience was some sort of preliminary discussion at those at those meetings about should the city regulate them should they regulate them significantly should we ban them should we not touch them so that
117infer the information from those sessions was gathered I think that the majority of feedback at that those sessions were that these are good for the community and if you regulate them regulate them in significantly to summarize there were other voices but I would say the majority it was in that for the former that information was presented to that we also looked at example ordinances from other communities that we were that we believed were representative of that some of the different approaches the way that they are that communities are grappling with this three options were included in that report staffs recommendation was option 3 which is sort of the most a aggressive and regulatory framework it would do things like probably limit non-owner occupied short-term rentals to non-residential zones it would require registration an annual permit
118of some on some basis that could be in addition to our normal rental inspection requirements for properties in the city those options represented City Council's to be honest had a lot of differing opinions even in directing staff to start crafting ordinance in response to option three that would do so so that's where we are now we do not yet know frankly how those ordinances are going to look or where they will be housed to the extent that they end up in the UDC from a zoning perspective you will be involved I think a lot of the registration and licensing will not be zoning and so you will not be involved in those requirements one of the things that had formulated staffs perspective on this is a notion of tenancy in residential areas is different for
119short-term rentals versus longer term rentals or owner-occupied and so the example was brought up that there are home occupations obviously we do allow home occupations in our residential neighborhoods those are premise Thanh a primary use of that unit as somebody's home be it as a rental home or as an owner-occupied home we are from a stabber speaking for myself I don't speak for staff from my perspective changing the tenancy of those units in a residential neighborhood has the potential to feel more like a commercial enterprise I'm not saying it always does but the nature of that tenancy and the occupancy and the tenure of those individuals in those areas is potentially differs from the intent of our residential districts which is about people residing in those neighborhoods and the services to live their daily lives
120those you can argue that those are desired for people on a short-term basis that's I think part of the benefit or to sort of appeal of these units in the marketplace but nonetheless from a land-use perspective I think that that is a distinction and so we will see how that manifests and the ordinance in any proposed ordinance as far as enforcement enforcement is I think particularly challenging it's I think there there are a lot of different scenarios in which we can successfully enforce registrations gonna be a help I think where it becomes more challenging is when we start putting guidelines as to maybe like a number of days or the like which is just very difficult and for us to ascertain so thus far the city's always really looked at these is is it an
121owner-occupied home is it a rental home the all the sort of balance of uses that would be available to those uses would apply so I think that there are different ways that we can enforce whether it's the full range of option one or two or three but that is where things stand so now staff is in the process of working to develop some drafts of those ordinance make some of those determinations as to what should be licensed what should be zoning if any and then will be progressing with that in the coming months just for some data points some of the data that we surveyed as part of that we counted about 1,400 short-term rentals in the city that were rented for at least one night the previous year and of those that reported financial
122data the average per night cost was about 96 dollars per night Shari Bruns so you mentioned that the primary sentiment from the public meetings was light regulation or insignificant regulation can you maybe provide some insight at then as to why staff recommends what I understand to be the most extreme regulation the nature of the use I think that I think that attributing home occupations or tenancy of a residential property is appropriate in neighborhood zones if you look at the intention of our neighborhood districts I think that's suitable once that occupation of that property starts transitioning to a more shorter term more frequent more numerous people's people basis I think that can be successful but I think it has a greater potential to have sort of less stewardship connection with a neighborhood which is values that
123typically the intent of our zoning districts in our neighborhoods have value traditionally and so that can occur through a traditional rental model it can occur through an owner-occupied model once the tenancy of that is more cyclical it's not to say that it's gonna be problematic but I think there's a greater potential for it to be problematic and I think that's more of a commercial type Enterprise than a residential business than a residential use I mean one of the difficulties that I see in this conversation is that it's so anecdotal so it's my experience versus your experience or I have a I have a nuisance next to me but I I have an air B&B next to me and I've never had a problem right so it just seems like data would help I don't know
124you know data points so I don't know if that's like serving people and asking them do you feel that your neighborhood is changing do you feel attendant a shift in tenancy do you see a problem I don't I just don't I don't know if this conversation is arising from you know some very vocal opponents to STRs who have had some problems or whether they're it's actually like a widespread problem that needs to be addressed and if there is the problem then I I would if anything comes before the Commission I would really want to know what the evidence of that is and I would want a lot of data I don't think but kind of I think this I think that conversation is gonna get us very far because we all does have personal experiences
125and they're gonna they're gonna be so different yeah Commissioner Mills and just in terms of process so to back up to the beginning of this this was initiated by counsel this is not something that staff initiated is that right yeah City Council passed a resolution directing city staff to start this process got it which end the and by this process that was both the public engagement process so then the the consultant and the staff recommendations about what the policy approaches might look like to move forward I think that their direction specifically was research potential regulations about how other communities are doing so and present present those options both from a legal and from a sort of a policy perspective I think city staff in performing that thought that by opening up that discussion to the
126public helped us why I wouldn't say that we have all of the detailed data by any stretch it gave us more feedback of some of the community experiences that's occurring with these helps us frankly learn a little bit more about the different ways they can manifest the different types of operational and ownership models that that can exist and so yeah to be clear I think my perspective is not sort of democratize accounting of the majority of feedback from those sessions it's my perspective it is I think it's a difficult thing to parse in a way and I think one way to do that is to to delineate it as a different kind of use depending on the different models of how it might occur I think I think that and again I think a 1,400
127in the city the one thing I can guarantee you is we don't have 1,400 nuisance complaints about Airbnb or short-term rentals I just you know I do think that that the vast majority are operating smoothly my approach again is that I think the nature of that that use Wow I think that cases can be made that it is totally appropriate in a residential area I think the transactional nature of it and the turnover is it is a different use than the traditional residential uses and in our community just one follow-on comment to that in my mind what you said about like what happens in our residential areas I mean for better for worse this makes me think like it raises questions about what what happens like not just this use but other things in our
128neighborhoods this is this had come in before it in multiple places as we've looked at you know what we allow and don't allow in our residential districts so I think that's why it's like that that because we often hear about wanting to protect that and like is that is that really what we want to do and so for better for which that might open up a whole nother can of worms about what that's all about just to let you guys know the the where the committee as a whole we meet twice a month but there's a separate committee on ordinance revisions committee so some of that might be at the subcommittee of this I'm imagining yeah it's certainly if it ends up again though I I can't I can't say with certainty that there will
129be UDC if it is strictly if if the eventual recommendation is that it's more about registration and understanding the extent and sort of some sort of self policing if you will of these units that would have no place there you see and therefore it would never appear on on your table if it becomes sort of identified as a use and we do want to use zoning districts to say where you can or can't do it that will of course come for your recommendation Commissioner Ritz that's it it makes me wonder does my lift driver have a chauffeur's license what exactly all right any other Commission proposed business how do you have motion to adjourn move a Commissioner millisecond and back Meshuga Brando we are adjourned thank you you