001the city of Ann Arbor City Planning Commission meeting for Tuesday December 3rd will begin our meeting with a roll call Commissioner a Bruns Commissioner Ackerman Commissioner Briggs Commissioner give Randall Commissioner hammerschmidt Commissioner Mills Commissioner Milstein here commissioner swab a sauvé okay mr. woods yeah you have a quorum excellent thank you do we have any introductions this evening approval of agenda do have a commissioner they'll move the agenda I move back Monsieur Mills seconded by Commissioner woods any changes to the agenda all those in favor please say aye opposed it's approved before is this evening we have the minutes from our November 19th 2019 meeting do you have a committee there in there Oh probably just postpone them to the next meeting all right do you have a commissioner well actually let's move them second them
002and then postpone them move by Commissioner Mills seconded by Commissioner and Gabe Randall any discussion moved by Commissioner Mills to postpone second by Commissioner woods any discussion all those in favor of postponed please say aye aye opposed it's postponed now we move on to reports from city administration City Council's planning manager Planning Commission officers and committees written communications and petitions we'll begin with our city council representative Commissioner Ackerman Thank You mr. chair city council met last night only one item of note and that is the approval of to site plans in the d1 district 616 East Washington and 212 South State together these two sites represented a to proposal for two buildings when a 19 story building one a six story building together 259 units of housing 19 of which will be affordable for those
003making under $48,000 a year or $36,000 a year depending on the unit thank you um do we have anything from our planning manager this is just a reminder that there will be community open houses the 350 South v formerly the Y lot and 415 West Washington's these are December five six seven eight and nine and if you need any more information on them let us know and I've got the times here if anybody's interested thank you Planning Commission officers and committees Commissioner Mills I just thought I'd report out that Orci eat last week right before Thanksgiving and we actually had a couple of items of interest on the agenda we talked miss Thatcher talk walked us through some reorganization effectively sorrowing what's required in site plans so making the code the atoning ordinance easier to
004read we also got a presentation and talked a little bit more through an Eevee in electric vehicle ordinance that will go into parking and I expect that that's gonna come back both of these things will come back before the full Planning Commission I don't know if in a work session or directly to public hearings and then we also talked about two different ordinances that had to do with solar panels one about changing whether or not solar panels count towards your overall height requirement on roofs rooftop solar panels and the other one was the ability for solar to go on carports without having to totally redo but like reopen the requirements for parking lots so lots of interesting things I thought stay tuned it will come to this full body soon thank you any other Planning
005Commission officers or committees reports all right written communications and petitions believe we received one letter so please take a look at that we now come to audience participation this is a time for audience to address the Planning Commission in regards to an item that is not on the agenda this evening if there's anybody in the audience this is your time to address us regarding any item that's not on the agenda items that are on the agenda will have a public hearing after the presentation anyone seeing no one will move on to public hearing scheduled for our next business meeting which will take place on Tuesday December 17 2019 at 7:00 p.m. we have three items that will be on our agenda REE notice of sign ordinance amendments for city council approval proposed amendments to chapter
00655 unified development code section 5.2 for signs to update to update and modernize requirements for signage a25 north maple road rezoning area plan for city council approval a request to rezone this point nine acre site from our 1c single-family residential to our to a two family residential and item number three to two six zero traver Road annexation and zoning for city council approval a request to annex this three point five six acre parcel with single family with a single family home and zone at our 1b single-family dwelling we now come to our regular business in the first item before us is the MSG Cu credit union site plan partial rezoning for City Council approval and a special exemption use for City Planning Commission approval our procedure for this evening is we will begin with a
007petitioner presentation the petitioner will have up to ten minutes to present before the Planning Commission will then get a staff report and then we'll have a public hearing and then discussion and a vote so I will let the petitioners step forward and start their presentation oh I'll introduce myself first I'm John Vitale with the firm stuck in Vitali architects and we're here this evening Jay introduced a project of Michigan schools and government credit union so we're proposing approximately a 3,800 square foot credit union with three drive-throughs on this site we're we've worked very closely with the the planning department with a number of iterations on plans and revise them and I I think we've evolved into a satisfactory plan that promotes the pedestrian access as well as the via killer access that we're looking for
008so we're here to answer any questions that you might have on on the plan and also like to introduce Steve brewer and Mike planning from our firm Steve is with Michigan schools and government credit union and I'm Steve roar the chief financial officer for Michigan schools and government credit union we don't have any branches in your area so you may not be wondering who we are we're at two point three billion dollar state chartered credit union based in Macomb County we're the largest credit union headquartered in Macomb County we have 16 branches we have 350 employees we are we've been recognized for the last seven years as a top workplace and all the communities that we do business in we're a good partner to the communities and we glad to answer any questions about specifically
009about Michigan schools government credit yen thank you my name is Mike blanik and with the firm Stuckey vitality architects to 7 172 Woodward Avenue in Royal Oak as John had mentioned this would be a new 3800 square foot Credit Union we worked extensively with the Planning Commission department to work this plan out we've even moved the building around the site a couple times the drive-thru component the first Lane is an ATM lane next to the building so that's a 24 access Lane typical you see and financial institutions and then we have to drive through lanes that would be operated during business hours for the convenience of the members the materials that are on the exterior of the building I brought a little sample board there it's brick and stone also we have some trim and
010some accent colors that go with it as you can see on the site plan the site you know because the site was a former gas station car wash there are some environmental x' that we are dealing with with the site so we worked extensively with the engineering department to try to work out all the retention and everything in the plan to see is if the evolution of all that work because of that issues with the former uses of the site we have to be cautious about how we drain are proposed to drain the stormwater and management so this site plan that we've evolved to has taken advantage of some of the opportunities to keep the stormwater management above-ground with that detention area in the back of the site also we have a significant jazz you
011go back to the site so the development really needs to stay close to the frontage because of that great change in the back makes it difficult to develop anything back there we also had the community meeting we had 417 cards that we sent out we had two comments one was why the building was so close to the road which is your ordinance so we explained that to them and they were gonna call the city I don't know if they ever did and the other gentleman was in favor of was fine with the project we are proposing an access Drive to the adjacent property to the south for convenience we have reached out to them to try to work that out I mean we are still talking so maybe that can evolve but right now the
012Planning Department asked us to show it which we are and we're all certainly open to that cross access to the adjacent properties if that can evolve in the future we'd be more than happy to accommodate that requirement you know that the department wanted us to try to to meet so with that I can certainly you know we can answer any question you have about the development we also have our engineering team here so we're able they answer anything that you might have thank you right thank you this time we'll head over to miss Thatcher for the staff report just a couple of things to add there's a nice rendering in here I think that's also in your packet but there are three components to this we have the site plan zoning of half of the
013parcel and the special exception use photo of the site you may know it to the left is Arbor farms and the ACE Plaza to the right is Belle's diner and in between is nothing right now it's if you look way off in the distance here you can see a high very high sloped retaining wall and the property line actually probably includes that car right there is on this parcel so if you look at the site plan and you see that there's nothing going on back there that's what's back there it takes at up home have to understand that the here's the site again it's been completely cleared it previously had two buildings on it the zoning request is for the back half of the parcel to be rezone from C to B which is this
014squarish rectangular area you see here to c3 which is the larger area surrounding it that area on three sides why they ran it on the middle of the parcel no one will ever know over time we'll probably do the same thing with these two parcels should they come in for site plans but planning did request that the applicants request the rezoning so we appreciate that they did that because the site plan has gone through a couple of other iterations without doing that and it's never good to have a split toning district on a site so that's going from C to B to C 3 the special exception use is for the three drive-thru lanes and I want you to know that that originally it came in with the drive-through lane circling the building and parallel
015to stadium Boulevard and then coming back into the driveway here and exiting back out onto stadium and staff did not recommend that the that the driveway go all the way around the building because of potential pedestrian conflicts they'd have to have a raised walkway and and things like that and I do want to compliment the petitioners I'm being very accommodating for that it wasn't their first choice but they were happy to work with us on something that that the Planning Commission might be more amenable to I know that that's been a problem on past site so staff does recommend approval of all three proposed motions thank you thank you at this time I'd like to open up the public hearing if anybody's in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission you may step
016up to the podium state your name and address for the record and you'll have up to three minutes to address the Planning Commission in regards to this petition seeing no one I will close the public hearing and I will read the three motions unless there's an objection I'd like to take all three of them up together see no objections I will read them a motion correct okay so we will would you like that to be first or second how about we do it first yeah let's do that first all right so the motion reads as follows the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission after hearing all interested persons and reviewing all relevant informations information finds the petition substantially meets the standards in chapter 55 zoning ordinance section 5 : 104 special exemption exemptions and therefore approves
017the Michigan schools and government credit union special exemption use for a maximum of three drive-through lanes as part of financial services use move by Commissioner woods seconded by Commissioner gear and all the master Ackerman Thank You mr. chair generally supportive of the project credit unions are a social good cooperative financial institutions are important they protect consumers and public servants in your case so appreciate the business model I think you'd be a welcome neighbor a few very specific concerns around traffic safety so I want to look first to and I'm not sure if these are questions for staff or the petitioner either welcome to answer as I look to your site plan up I was curious about so it looks as though you have easement to the alley behind this room all to your south is
018that correct does that easement been secured so your your exit for the drive-throughs empties out into the alley of the neighbor we have proposed it to the adjacent landowner and we've talked to them but it's not secured things that there may be open to it right now I would say they're not but we are not giving up on the Opera okay so his staff wanted us to show it for the middle tonight which is our desire to try to make that happen I know their concern was the way they bring truck traffic through that side they were concerned about mixing cars with trucks and we understand that but so but we're still open to trying to maybe work somehow if you're not able to stay the easement what do you plan to resubmit with a
019different design no we would keep the traffic goes around the building so it doesn't nest it would just be a curb there we wouldn't be able to put that in soon be one entrance and exit matter at the stadium yes correct in your consideration so knowing that it's challenging to this to this next question but generally as a community we're trying to reduce the number of curb cuts it's safer for pedestrians and cyclists and while stadium is mostly car friendly today our hope is that in the future it'll be more pedestrian and cyclist friendly any consideration or thought into eliminating the stadium side curb cut and having all your entrance exit traffic come through the alley I'll note that Fifth Third Bank and CVS across the street have that arrangement which i think is probably
020beneficial to the two west stadium as a whole and he was there consideration given to that planning staff didn't discuss it but that was because with the petitioners of the property owner but that was because the adjacent property owners were not amenable to that open area so it didn't seem like that was gonna go anywhere if they weren't happy with the exit they probably weren't happy with the entrance and exit yeah fair enough fair enough all right that's all for now thanks commissioner Briggs so I concur that we're happy to see you know credit union coming another Credit Union coming to Ann Arbor and generally have a few concerns about the proposal but I do have concerns about the special exception yes they are we do have drive-throughs as a special exception you so I
021think for good reasons and it's notable to see a trend national trend now of cities prohibiting drive-throughs Minneapolis being the most recent one of banning drive-throughs in the entire city and that was due to our climate crisis and so you know other places have done it for public health reasons in the past but increasingly there's a move towards you know rethinking how we get around and I think we're gonna have to be more aggressive than just limiting drive-throughs this is a pretty baby step for folks to think about parking their cars and walking into an establishment but I think we're gonna have to ask folks in our community to to think about making small shifts in their behavior so I don't think I'll be approving any drive-throughs that come in front of us ever so
022it's nothing about your project specifically but I do have one question specifically about the one drive-through lane if you don't mind you mentioned it being a drive-through lane for atm is there another ATM that is on sort of the sidewalk face of the business or is that the only ATM currently that's the only one so I would hope that that could be corrected even regardless of whether or not the special exception use gets approved or not tonight I would think that we wouldn't there are gonna be people who are gonna be visiting this on foot and on bike regardless and so you'd really not want them to have to walk through a drive-through ATM to be able to access funds and non-business hours so I would hope that something could be placed more straight front
023on that respect I don't know if others I'll just share where I'm thinking on this the other piece that I think that's important we've been talking about t1 transit friendly development obviously we have nothing in the plans right now for stadium but I think that we could all imagine what we would hope Stadium Boulevard might look like 20 years from now which is likely to have more housing more foot traffic in this building hopefully is going to be coming in to Ann Arbor and the banks can be well used for generations to come and so I think that we're not planning just for today but for tomorrow so I see no reason for joiners Sherwood's just a point of clarification perhaps because of our numbers this evening miss Thatcher do what how many votes in
024favor of this special exception use are required in order for this to pass we only have six here this evening but no we have seven yeah I think we need sex yeah we could if we could check on that we'll get back to you shortly okay and then I guess related to the special exception use can you explain to us does that go with the property the way a PUD would would go with the property yes the special exception use stays with the land it does not it's not tied to this project though the way that the motion is proposed it does say that it would be used for financial services mm-hmm so if another Bank came along and wanted to occupy that building they could in the future say it was built they could
025potentially occupy it using the exception use but if a fast-food place came in they could not use drive-thru lanes for a restaurant use does that make sense yes yeah and did you oh you're still looking it up I guess only six affirmative notes okay thank you and that particular vote goes with that's the Planning Commission that makes the says up or down on that it doesn't not go to City Council it's all right okay so it's a pretty important vote I have also of course concerns about how pedestrians are able to get around and I and I live in this area so I'm really familiar with how CVS works and Fifth Third Bank and the others as well but I guess my thought at this point is I would not say no to a to
026a drive-thru I'd have more concern about approving it if the adjacent land owner is not yet amenable to to this situation and so I guess I would ask the petitioner how close are you in terms of talks with the adjacent landowner in that case we have presented it to them in a couple because we've changed this plan so it's been a couple of gyrations that we presented the last conversation was maybe there's an opportunity in the future but I mean I can't speak on a percent for them but mm-hmm we were were open to it so if let's say they came to the Planning Commission for a reason some project then we could obviously you could get it in there for us but their concern is the traffic of the trucks that deliver to that
027side of the building that's been always the discussion they have semis and smaller trucks to come through there I don't know what the hours you know when they come in and all that so they they look at as a safety issue mixing cars coming through with their traffic for the loading zone because their loading zones on that side of the belly right so that's the challenge with this parcel is and also they have people who are just come in to that establishment using that entryway as well sometimes that's the way we go in there as well so what is your alternative if you cannot use that can you just maybe use the arrow - yeah you Lu continue around the site around the island there's the green at the island there you would LA you
028would you know make a turn coming now and come back out where you came through come back out okay so we only have one access onto the road okay now does anyone know whether or not there was any kind of traffic count that went along with this no traffic impact study was required because it doesn't generate enough traffic didn't exceed the threshold okay could I clarify one thing back on circulation again yes I want you to know that it was planning that requested that a connection be shown to that south to the side that side to the south because if it's shown on their plan even if they're not allowed to build it right now mm-hmm when the plaza to the south comes in for something some day we can say look it's already ready
029and waiting we'd like you guys to make the connection now you've got no more excuses at that point but if it's not showing on their plan then we might have to potentially drag them back in too so it's it's more of a looking ahead thing than anything we also requested on the on the on the north side but that didn't work as well because they needed they needed space there for trash truck access and turnaround and stuff so at this point it's not shown there at all and the parking set up a little bit differently there's not a drive aisle right there the plaza to the north has just a bunch of parking spaces that might be a similar situation it would be a little bit more cumbersome to go back in the future if
030the properties to the north come in for something and we want them all hooked up but at least this one to the south made a lot of sense because it's opening on to that alley there and if we can get in the future great if we can't they're their site is set up to be self-contained anyway okay thank you thank you for that explanation have you shown your site or on any of your other credit union sites do you not have drive-through know all the sites that we've developed I'll have a drive-thru component mm-hmm sometimes it has a few more layer like an additional lane that was shown here but the staff when we first came in they said no you know we don't we want to minimize that so we did take a lane
031out in in you know it through the staffs recommendation okay so we have two lanes that are active if one of those goes down you still have one available the ATM usually that's that's a 24-hour type situation thank you I will listen to more discussion among the commissioners thanks Commissioner Mills thank you I really appreciate that staff is requested that connection to the south and I think that that's really important for us going forward in part 2 in terms of pedestrian friendliness maybe when the shopping mall or what's to the south is redeveloped it'll move you know our code requires that it would move closer to the road or at least portion of it would move closer to the road but right now all of that development is farther back and realistically pedestrians are not
032going to walk to the road to get on the sidewalk to then walk back like that's that's a a path that pedestrians I think will actually use that actually raises a safety concern because there's no accommodation right now for pedestrians I mean I I have been a pedestrian in that shopping mall to get my kids haircuts right like that I think that that's realistic and there there are people I'm I am happily surprised pleasantly surprised by how many people I do see on foot on this corridor already and I think that we're only moving in a direction to have more people that way and so I'm worried about the drive-through posing a pedestrian safety risk there because I think that there will be pedestrian crossings there and that's not accommodated for in in the arrangement
033that we've seen the other concern that I have is that assuming as I hope someday there is this connection to the south it bothers me that at least as striped and and the best I can see from this plan that it would only be one way in it's not you can't go from the bank to the shopping mall you can only go from the shopping mall to the bank because of because there's all of the and it's actually not because of where the building is it's because of where the drive-throughs are and so I I think after the last time we saw a drive-through I did a lot of soul-searching like how does this fit with our goals to be carbon neutral and I I think I have a perhaps a softer approach than what
034Commissioner Briggs has and though I absolutely respect it I think that there are places particularly at our interchanges our interstate interchanges where there might it might be appropriate but generally speaking a bank drive-through is not a destination at an interchange like this neither of those two things fit here and so I this is one where it just seems superfluous to park your car and go in that and you know like that it's not totally needed so I I wouldn't put the hard line on the and the no Drive thrus personally but in this one I'm I'm concerned that it does pose a risk to both pedestrians and that it limits those vehicular that movement that could happen between sites which is what we ultimately want to see I know that we often get pushback from
035some landowners but that's what we want to see here and this arraignment doesn't allow for that so I look forward to the conversation but this is something that I don't think I can support either that particular element the rest of it like moving the bank up I think that's great I think that this is a use that we need here I honestly wish that there had been put like push to have a connection shown to the north but that I think is not about the drive through so much as like I'll talk about that more in the site plan discussion what I guess I'll I'll ask a question at this point since nobody's jumping up so my office is located next to a traditional bank as well as a credit union as well and I've
036been in that office building for almost five years at this point and the one thing that I've noticed is that first I've noticed that there's not many people going into the bank these days but mostly what I've also noticed is the drive-through sit pretty much empty without too many people coming through them and I guess this is more for the bank why why Drive thrus today and I guess if you can talk a little bit about the usage of drive throughs and what you're experiencing these days our experience is that we will provide as much convenience to the members that want to come into business with us and they're asking for not only for activity in transaction through internet through mobile apps but also through brick-and-mortar and through drive-thru they don't want anyone over the
037other they want all and so for our business model to work and be successful the drive-through is this thing to become part of that just as much as the app or the internet or the brick-and-mortar can you talk a little bit about the usage how it's changed in the last five years I've throughs all the branches that we currently have our drive-thru activity has grown over the last over the last ten years and if you I don't know how you base it but you know percentage of how your how your members interact with you what percentage of the members interact through a drive-thru and if you don't know the answer that's totally fine this is no I don't know the answer to that I would say approximately anywhere from five to eight thousand transactions per
038month at the ATM that can give you that statistic but we do have we have we have enough activity in the drive-through to have a permanent employee of the credit union that is did a kid in full-time to serving that that source of transaction okay thank you certainly further discussion can I get Brandel I'm feeling mixed about the drive-thru thing I feel like it's the way I would like our future to go but I do have somebody who submits plans and we have nothing that really says to these people who came through this thing you're six months ago saying you know what this isn't the way to go and I feel like there's been a lot of for things I just feel like we need to give people a clear expectation and I feel like
039this is changing it at the very end of the game for these people and I am completely at peace with moving forward with saying we are not about drive-throughs but I feel really I do not feel good about people that are already in the pipeline without us giving a clear expectation that this is what we're about now and I think that it's I think it's unfair to people that have come through the process this far again I'm totally fine with moving forward that way but I just don't think it's fair to a petitioner to just change it at the very end because it's a lot of time and money and energy and I know it's not our job to think about that but as somebody who's on the other side that sometimes I think that
040we do have to think about that and I think that we just I again I'm all about changing it because I think that that's the right thing to do I think there's also a whole lot of other things we can do as a city to try to encourage people to not idle because it is happening all over the place you go to any school our police cars sitting outside of our city hall we have so much work to do on that in general that I feel like we could be doing things as a city that that are much more comprehensive and this is a piece of it that I feel like it's like a little piece of it and that we could be much more have much more effect on it then then this one
041thing so you know I I just feel funny about rejecting something that I feel like these people have been working on and been getting you know the staff hasn't told them anything otherwise it's not like they have another plan up their sleeve so that's how I feel I feel like I I would feel strange about voting against it given it's just strange that we've had two in the last months because we have had so few of them which I'm glad you know because I kind of feel like you do it like it at the interchanges I feel like it makes sense and in places like this if you'd had an my plans had by side that had another version of it that didn't have it that I'd be like let's go for it but I
042just feel funny about doing it so that's kind of where I am with that so well catch up in a second but I would at this point because we have were short two commissioners and taking your comment commissioned Gabrielle it might be worth us to table this or postpone it so that the staff and the petitioner can work further on this I understand Commission Berg's your standpoint and they I'm pretty sure they've got you understand where some of us and so I think it'd be worth worth it to table let them work with city staff to come up with something that we might be able to approve so I I will eventually ask for that in motion Commissioner breaks hey I understand what you're saying however it is a special exception yes and so it's
043not a guarantee and I think that they heard when they were coming through the pipeline from staff that there is concerns and I really respect how much you were willing to work with staff to try to make it accommodations on the drive through I can see that that was happening and I appreciate all the revisions that that happened but we have as a city declared you know that we want to reach quiet you know carbon neutrality by 2030 and that's a recent policy thing but we've been working in that direction regardless I know it's a change for them but honestly citizens of our community are going to have to make shifts in their behavior businesses that operate in our community are going to have to make shifts it's this is a movement for all of
044us and I don't think that honestly I understand that it is part of their business model in terms of how you kind of operate right now but I don't think that denying a drive-through is it's gonna fundamentally be detrimental to the business their business operations otherwise I would have to think a little more deeply about it but I appreciate what your thoughts are commish Rackham Thank You mr. chair and I appreciate the conversation I think if part of the modern reality of running a retail bank is that you need to meet the consumer you know in every scenario online on their phone through drive-thru through a walk-up ATM through a teller then and we've been offering you know drive throughs to commercial banking institutions for decades we're kind of at for this case picking a
045loser and picking a non-profit cooperative owned banking institution as the loser against for-profit major commercial banking institutions and that doesn't sit right with me on the other hand at some point if we have a value as a city to move to reduce our carbon emissions and cars are a big part of that at some point we have to you know draw a line in the sand and say no more so I appreciate both sides of the angle I'll just say whether we vote to recommend approval denial or we do postpone it which I hope we do just by the count I'd say I'm meeting with the city administrator the week of December 16th to discuss how to kind of kick start taking care of some of the low-hanging fruit and our zoning codes with respect
046to sustainability and I'm happy to add this one to the list and so that we can kind of more formally draw that line in the sand if that gives people any reassurance Fisher woods I'm going to certainly be supportive of postponement and just in terms of our discussion in terms of if we're going to have a moratorium or just say no to drive-throughs I think that certainly is a discussion that will need a lot more input from our citizens to see if they're actually on board with that as well for many of the drive throughs that I've seen recently including the credit union where I think many of us around the table belong you know they're out in the townships and I don't know what the discussion is about their drive through lanes but I
047know that they're well used and I have to raise my hand as someone who uses them as well but I do think that we have to be careful about I guess we're not really making policy here at this table per se but we're you know indicating the City Council and letting them know what our best judgment is but I I just think we have to be careful if we have not had enough citizen input to to make certain decisions and in this case I think the gentleman said that you had two people that maybe came to your citizens participation meeting and believe me we have a lot of people in Ann Arbor who come out to citizen participation meetings and so I want to also think that this postponement might allow us to even hear
048from from a few more people out there but I appreciate what you said commissioner Ackerman about I hadn't really thought about it in terms of choosing winners and losers and that kind of thing but a lot of times there are some social justice issues attached to some of these decisions that we're looking at and in this case I'm willing to vote for the postponement so I can really consider a few more of those things so I'm supportive of it as well mr. söze whoa so but when looking at this portion of the criteria a couple things I looked at were kind of vicinity for Vic Euler we had transit corridors as a discussion point of rezoning and what that looks like - and kind of postponed that for a lot more public input and what
049a transit corridor and transit oriented zoning would look like and so I think when we talk about transit it is multimodal and so thinking about those sorts of modes as it relates to this plan and looking at drive throughs and other drive throughs especially 24 hours I have seen site conditions where they have to safely accommodate for a pedestrian and a bike so thinking about sight lines and turn lines with that landscaping and area between the parking spaces and then the Iowa for the drive through I'd be interested to see blind spots right somebody turning to approach that aisle way to come to the ATM and somebody's standing there what are those sight lines that there's a biker a person actually standing at the ATM and what sort of curb cuts are paintings and signage
050can you accommodate if this goes forward looking at the previously approved but expired site plan for the building prior to this the amount of paved area so you talked about stormwater so I would actually like to see what what is the condition with a special exception and I would ask for a postponement in this additional information how much more surface area is required to have a drive-thru versus if this building exists is just with the required parking and I always so all of a sudden we're not just getting into idling cars we're also talking about paving more areas and access and flow and safety in those regards as well so those are like how these things converge to the idling car as an environmental condition I don't think we're picking winners and losers in terms
051of banks we're talking about highest and best use and our ability with a special exception to decide if this is the right place to allow a certain use to happen and so if we don't think that this is the place in the city for drive-throughs then maybe there's a better use and building and site plan that will come forward that will build on this site that doesn't require such convenience to the automobile and I think that is actually where I'm landing at this moment convenience to customer is not the reason to approve on this side of the table for me and so we need to look at convenience of land use for the city at large and that land use kind of quality and so it comes back to the vehicle versus all the transit
052uses I live along this corridor I walk to Arbor Farms I walk to bells like I am on this sidewalk and so it's not me in a car a lot of the time so though that's just kind of my approach to evaluating it so if we postpone and you can give us more information about those trade-offs that we're looking at when we're looking at the drive through in terms of the multimodal safety the amount of paved area that would help me resolve some of those details a bit better to know if we're actually providing a very special exception use or we're gonna get more of a similar footprint and idling cars and some other circumstance so that's where I sit right now mr. Mill's first chair a point of clarification are we if we move
053to postpone this item will we still be discussing separately the site plan so my plan is that I will that will come up so we'll move those and then we'll discuss the site plan and then I'm assuming you'll also be postponed great okay because I do have things that are inside plan and that would improve through postponement but I'll hold those so the only thing that I would reiterate and I think that this is great because this is one where right now the criteria the we have right to evaluate whether or not this meets the special exception use is about the cry the via hick Euler circulation to enter and exit the facility and may not impair the general vehicular circulation on this site which that's where I'm talking about the the people who are
054not in the drive-thru being able to get to the south or the pedestrian circulation on and off the site and so in coming back I think my decision about about the special exception use will hinge very heavily on that those particular criteria because those are the criteria they're in the code and I believe that right now this what we've seen do not pass that do not meet those criteria like I'm worried about this the particularly the pedestrian access that could come and and as somebody no one noted the the sight lines like if someone's walking through from one market or whatever no it's not pull market performs thank you in my mind of the Zoe and Joey from there if they're walking through they're gonna walk effectively probably of the ATM lane and so like
055that's that's what I'm worried about so I would welcome a postponement you know I think that's a good all right any further discussion so my comments on it are so I really think you know one of the biggest offenders is the ATM because that's where chances are someone is gonna be idling most likely they're not gonna char off their engine it's fast move around I would hope that when this does come back to us that the ATM is sitting inside the building or at the front of the building also just you know long term wise for pedestrian access I'm not a hundred percent opposed to drive-throughs but why do you need three three lanes worth of Directors I don't really see the need for it maybe if you have one and there's too many cars
056parked you know like when I run into a scenario where as the Starbucks line is too long I park and get go inside and grab my coffee so maybe that would be my hope is that someone will walk inside if there are too many cars parked but at the same time when the time comes that we are no longer driving cars which we knows when that will be you don't have to then convert three lanes worth of a drive-thru it's only one lane so those are my thoughts um do you have a motion to postpone move back mr. Mill's seconded by Commissioner woods any discussion on postponement Fisher woods yes are we postponing to a date certain or just leaving it open so that the petitioner can work with staff I think two for the
057petitioner to work with staff and then for the staff to bring it up on our agenda you okay thank you any other discussion on postponement all those in favor please say aye opposed so that motion is postponed and reverts to the special exemption use I will take the next two motions together if that's okay all right so this the Ann Arbor city planning Commissioner hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the Michigan schools and government credit union rezoning petition to see three French commercial district based on the proposed zoning and recommended commercial land use designation motion number two the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and the City Council approved the Michigan schools and government credit union site plan moved by commissioner surveys seconded by Commissioner Mills and we
058are in discussion Commissioner Mills so I think with regards to the rezoning that this is staffs recommendation and to be consistent and to not have the zoning district line run through the center of the property makes tons of sense and choosing C 3 over C 2 B I think I defer to staff on this I think both because there's adjacency of both of them that seems fine to me my and I she ate this is one word like I appreciate that you worked with staff to bring the building up to the sidewalk as you can tell like that's something that we're driving like going for along particularly along this quarter and really throughout the city and so I I like the location of the building I know what from when we had seen this building
059in or this a site plan for this site previously like better challenges in the back half anyway so that makes a lot of sense given given what you had said before about the use like the balance of people using a drive-thru versus coming in it's a bit surprising to me to max out the parking here so this isn't this is one of the districts where we do have a parking maximum rather than a parking minimum and I do you have any data or anything to show that you would need 21 parking spots so the basis of the parking the so the branch will be staffed with eight to ten people on a regular basis plus they also will do closings here you know for mortgages and such so if you take away 21 take ten
060that leaves 11 available for if you have a closing you might have to two or three people coming in for the closing depending on the property is being sold because this is kind of like a farther reach for this for the credit union coming into this area so they're gonna do the closings here they're not gonna do it another another County or something like that so they're gonna need those extra spaces to accommodate all the services they can provide and you know they're also do financial planning and such so if you're giving up ten spaces eight to ten for staff that only leaves you eleven for the public to you know the members to use on a regular basis so that was reason behind though the parking okay I mean that's one of the things
061that we often ask for right is just being able to defer some parking so that's something again I expect that we would defer yeah I mean we could certainly work with staff down that and we talked through that process as well so we can look at you know something to that effect as well yeah so I think that plus you know the Hat were there not imperviousness associated with the drive-thru lanes there you know there's just a whole lot more imperviousness here then then what 21 parking spots would imply because of all of the you know the traffic link whatever I don't know the right lingo but the traffic lanes to the circulation patterns throughout here so perhaps in thinking through what the drive-through facility looks like you might have some flexibility you know I
062mean effectively the way your drive-thru is right now that's six vehicle parking spots right and so I think that there's as you go back in this time that's something that I would think about yeah we will and I know part of the study we had to do a to have the refuge trucks coming in out of the site we did a traffic study for that that drove some of the dimensions that we had to to accommodate that traffic pattern of those trucks coming in out to the trash container but we can certainly look at tightening it up in to your point and try to reduce that down we had some other plans that had less but this is the one that everybody kind of thought this was the best solution at this time from through
063all the staff meetings in size so got it thank you we'll take a look at it this is fine the and this is a question I think maybe more first staff um that there is a huge area there that's striped in the north west corner and that's associated with the trash trucks is that yeah it's there I mean that doesn't that doesn't happen all that often how often do you have any idea how often you have trash pickup twice a week right um I'm just wondering if that's not a place I don't know what our requirements are but well that would be fantastic and I think in addition to that conversation if there's any way that that might be the place to put a connection to the north to at least put it on a
064site plan because in my mind again if it's just twice a week that it may be blocked by a trash truck there's another way out right anyway but but to provide a place that there could be some connection between these sites I think as we were talking about earlier is really important for the future so I don't you know that maybe that's this bad but I don't know what the rules are thank you mr. Briggs so I was wondering about the landscaping that is along the street front which I appreciate that there is landscaping there but I was wondering about sight lines it looks like there trees but could you describe them a little bit better so that I can understand if that would I'm sure they'll smart start out as small trees but I'm
065wondering what those trunks might look like in terms of scurrying to use in the future just introduce myself Eric Williams with stone field engineering designs so we are the civil engineers on the project the tree species that I believe we're looking at there is gonna be a Red Baron crabapple so I think everybody's probably really familiar with the size of those they don't get the extremely thick trunks they stay a little more they're a little broad and fairly short so what we'll do is we'll make sure that they're cut above what your typical site level would be which i think is plus or minus five feet okay so that when people are exiting or entering the site they can clearly see if there's cars also exiting so they can safely cross the one that I'm
066most concerned about is on the sorry I can't do my directions upper right-hand corner of the the picture that we're looking at right now that one just looks like it's particularly close in terms of being able to you know look left absolutely and I think that's one of those I went could that be pulled back a parking space there okay full disclosure so I think what we can do is we can move it back and make sure it's still within that landscape okay that's that's the only one that seemed and I'll leave this stuff down the way for more detailed questions around so and then the other piece that I've been struggling with but I this is not a landscaping question is just thinking about pedestrian connectivity now and and between the two sites you
067know I don't anticipate the cars are going away anytime soon and I'm not trying to I'm just thinking about how we want ideally we want our city to operate but for folks ideally at some point the you know the Arbor Farms complex will be pulled close to the street front but that'll be a long time in the future looking at folks kind of going between the two sites I'm sure that Miss Petra I'm sure that you you guys thought about this a lot in terms of what the good pedestrian patterns are there it's in some ways I want to see that sidewalk like but I'm just skeptical of folks kind of going out to the main sidewalk and then going back in but just talk me through maybe why that is the best pedestrian pattern
068and I'm sure you've you've thought through it mr. Briggs are you concerned about a particular area well how people are gonna disarm your arms oh yeah I'm just kind of from that direction from folks kind of coming that way that are kind of parking and trying to run over there ideally yeah you know yeah I just kind of see a V pattern I don't know I may be overthinking this in terms of thinking about the connectivity between those two sites but I understand exactly what you're saying people are going to do that there is a walkway on the south side of the building because there's a back door there so if if it were convenient a reason for them to get up to the front door they could at least get off of the parking
069lot surface there to get around the building we didn't consider pedestrian walkways near the drive-thru lanes because you don't want to encourage interactions so that may be something that we should talk about with the location of the ATM this comes back to my shrink your Brandel another landscaping question so I think the code is actually that when you have Street trees that are close to the drive like that they need to be free of branches up to eight feet and so it may be that you want to add one of your red oaks down there instead of one of the smaller crabs because I think you might have a hard time finding something absolutely that would that would have that kind of clearance underneath it but I think that the idea of bringing up so
070it's the the sight distance is important and on the one side on the north side your shrubs are pulled back but on the south side they're right up next to the sidewalk and you might consider pulling some of those back just to have the cone be more open it's I mean I know you all are from out of town but it's traffic is just super dense and tough and through there and it's often kind of like well we're see if I can you know pull out in the middle of a big sea of cars and so I think just giving people every advantage I do like it that you've got all the landscaping in front so thank you for doing that because I know the that's not required but if you could just think about
071pulling back and making sure that your site cone according to whatever the speed limit is on the street I think that would be great if you could tweak a little bit in that way so be sure so they so the point of the building hits the ten-foot minimum of the front sight back I'm trying to figure it like what's the average of that front facade as a setback or that next parallel plane to the setback line how what's our distance I couldn't find dimensionally in kind of about where we're at is that at the 25 feet if we because yeah so just that point of that kind of protruding piece is 10 feet or is it 25 yeah is that 15 and 10 are we right at 25 I'm just curious do you guys have
072any dimensions so you can provide additional okay I think if I understand you correctly so obviously the point of the buildings at 10v and that's where we set it um where it steps back and then kind of flattens out there I believe that's gonna fall between 18 and 20 feet 18 22 okay like I don't want it like that were just hitting a set Peck requirement and then backing off you know to a point that we're really not actually approaching the sidewalk you know if in the Atlantis Lane I'd rather let Mike talk about it the way the entry is set to the road front is one of the things that they really yeah the design as you enter the facility you come into the main lobby it's coming off where there's you know if
073you look at the frame oh there's a floor plan there yep in the packet and that also gives us a little more opportunity to do some landscaping in front to soften that you know so it's not just a square building right up against the sub bank it's kind of cut in and out and so it softens the whole appearance to the building and your entrance there so you can see you're entering at an angle into the building from the industrial sidewalk and then I guess it gives us more opportunity for landscape beings in that zone that's beyond mm-hmm as opposed to just having 10 feet you'd be limited on what you could do there and it'd be kind of yeah you know is it like there were no demand it was like 10 feet and
074then nothing so I'm like okay are we just making the mark and then backing off from it or within the margin so that yep for our brand the branches and we can give you other examples of where this is this is that's good as long as kind of all of it is around the 25 foot part mark and we're avoiding that other question architectual e that rear door that was kind of brought up as an alternative entry is that going to be unlocked or is that just going to be a panic door egress know it so it's available for entry members to come in that side entrance those six are parking in that back area and the employees to it goes right into a hallway goes right into the main part there's a couple toilet
075rooms off of that little corridor okay I would like to rewrite the large patch to the north I see that there is a snow storage zone that takes up about half of that hatch when I look at the garbage traffic path it doesn't intersect that hatch at all so I'm not I don't know what the eastern side of that hatch is a placeholder for so I would ask you and staff to like really look at it and decide and determine if you need more paving there or you know we can bring that back to grass connections or connection but you know right now it says it's needed for proposed loading right can you also clarify why we need a vehicle turnaround area for those back for spots with the 22-foot aisle I think this all
076plays into the site circulation can you put us back this yeah so if we again it's not zoomed in so it's a little hard to see from here but all currently all of the drive-thru traffic if we assume that we don't have cross access to the property to the side right everybody's gonna be forced to take a right-hand turn out of there right so there's not gonna be any two-way traffic so if for some reason I believe and I can't see but I think it's three or four parking spaces if all of those parking spaces are full we're gonna need to provide an area for people to turn around because there's not two-way traffic got it back through the drive-thru so again it's one of the challenges you know it's a narrow deep site so
077it's trying to make this site function for you know what were you know what obviously like we've talked about the business model and kind of the bank has had success with similar styles of layout and I can say this one's by far I guess it's different because we haven't pushed so close to the roadway so it has presented its own challenges but I think the biggest thing is that were forced to have one-way circulation on the drive through we can't provide two-way access unfortunately got it okay uh-huh I mean it just reiterates why the drive-through is the puzzle piece that's causing some conditions that aren't working so smoothly um I think those are my questions for now thank you I have a quick question for Miss Thatcher and that is in regards to so currently
078the way the potential easement down the road easement is set up is for one-way access is that correct that was not my impression okay that it was ever intended to be one way there's there should be enough width there that it could be a regular two-way access yeah so okay to be to wait okay the width you can see it's okay we have the arrows there because we don't have the conditions to connect but we've anticipated it would be too late okay we drive out or you can drive in ain't coming around okay sounds good the reason I ask that is it sounded like it was a one-way access and I'd want to make sure if down the road the site to the south here comes to us that we can open it up in
079two ways right further discussion Commissioner Gabe Randall just one thing I noticed in your rendering that there's up lighting in the building and just in terms of our direction we're actually trying to get rid of up lighting and just only down lighting to be able to encourage dark skies I don't think we've actually officially passed it yet well we're so close so it would be great if you all could um comply with that okay that's exactly what I was gonna say - yeah just look for dark skies compliant lighting and not up lighting please if it's possible further discussion do I see a motion to postpone move back missioner or yeah move back mr. Mill's seconded by Commissioner get Brandel any discussion on postponement all those in favor please say aye aye opposed it is
080postponed moving on to the next item at a regular business oak wood nature area Edition and rezoning 3,200 Green Road we will begin with a staff report a whole lot on this one for you it's a 25 acre parcel that was acquired by the city as part of the Owl Creek Development nextdoor this is the piece that is being annexed onto oak woods nature area which is these these two southern sorry my mouse is slow this is the existing oak woods nature area this is the piece that's being added this is the future Owl Creek development I think it was called the annex when it came through a couple of years ago so this is just a proposal to rezone it from its existing residential zoning designation to public land thank you is there anyone
081in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission and regards this item seeing no one I will close the public hearing and I will read the motion the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the oakwoods nature area addition rezoning from our for a multiple family dwelling to pl public land move the high commissioner survey seconded by Commissioner Mills do we have discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed thank you it has approved we are now in audience participation this is the time that anybody in the audience can address the Planning Commission about anything at all so if anyone would like to address the Planning Commission please step up to the podium seat your name and address for the record and you'll have up
082to three minutes to address the Planning Commission anyone seeing no one we are at Commission proposed business mr. Mill's I appreciate Commissioner Ackerman taking this to the city administrator the drivers but I think as a backup it doesn't hurt to miss patcher you could ask mr. Lerner to add this to our list of potential things to change particularly looking at what districts we allow drive-throughs in and even as special exceptions and so yeah I think that that makes sense for the future thank you mr. Ackerman no matter what conversations that I have with the City Administrator it has to be routed through the normal process to update the zoning ordinance so we all will see it one way or another so stated on the short story not actively yeah mr. woods not Commission proposed business
083but I'm curious about the many younger members of our audience this evening and I'm just wondering whether or not you happen to be from high school or college or if you could maybe have someone it's extra credit if you step forward and speak and so don't she's professor Wayne use policy class ii environmental studies class at the university and a meeting okay dr. Norton's class this you have lots of good things to write about in your write-up i teach i GS ID that class before welcome please come visit us anytime yes please consider serving first second and third Tuesday of the month at seven o'clock there you go all right any other commission proposed business alright do you have a motion to adjourn moved by Commissioner survey seconded by Commissioner Gabrielle all those in favor
084we are adjourned thank you