0012019 City Planning Commission meeting will begin our media are meeting with a roll call good evening Commission Commissioner Milstein here commissioner Mills here commissioner give Randall Commissioner Ackerman yeah Commissioner Briggs Commissioner sauvé commissioner should go yeah Commissioner whether it be yeah questioner woods here we have quorum thank you do we have any introductions this evening no sir all right approval of agenda do you have a commissioner who will move the agenda move back mr. mill seconded by Commissioner Sauve any changes to the agenda all those in favor please say aye aye opposed it's approved moving on to minutes of previous meeting before us this evening will we have November 20th 2018 and December 18 2018 minutes I would like to take those together unless there's an objection I do have someone we'll move Commissioner Trudeau
002seconded by Commissioner woods any discussion or changes on the minutes all those in favor please say aye aye opposed all right there are approved moving on to reports from city administration City Council planning manager of Planning Commission officers and committees written communications and petitions we will begin with our city council representative mr. Ackerman Thank You mr. chair I was actually gone from last night's City Council meeting for medical reasons but the one City Council meeting I don't attend produces headlines such as City Council passes resolutions to boycott wendy's and prepare for nuclear emergency on the agenda last night not too many items of particular interest to this body an annexation of a property we had previously previously seen on Orchard Hills also of some tangential relevance a series of contracts for supportive services to to
003affordable housing related functions and the releasing of funds to for contracting the work for infrastructure both roads crosswalks as well as underground infrastructure like sewer and water main great Thank You mr. Leonard Justin Vance we've got a working session scheduled for next week I anticipate bringing you language following up on our previous session regarding proposed changes to the accessory dwelling unit or nents you'll recall that the city council directed Planning Commission to evaluate one specific and other changes so based on preliminary meeting I'll be bringing some proposed language that working session and time permitting hopefully kick-starting our transit oriented development zoning district as well right thank you Planning Commission officers and committees written communications and petitions we have we have received some written communication so please take a look at the packet all right moving
004on to audience participation is there anyone in the audience this evening who wishes to address the Planning Commission and regards to an item that is not on the agenda this evening so if there's anyone who wishes to address the Planning Commission in regards to an item that is not on the agenda please step forward scene it is it is and we will have an opportunity to review the later on alright moving on to public hearing scheduled for next business meeting yes we have one new public hearing scheduled two proposed annexation and zoning for council approval a request to annex a 1.19 acre parcel at 2705 Newport and zone it r1 a and then we'll have to returning old business items we will have reconsideration of the bright dawn proposed housing development on Burton Road and
005a proposed a special exception use medical marijuana provisioning center located at 202 Miller thank you alright moving on to our regular business our regular business this evening our procedure will be to allow the petitioner ten minutes to present the project to the Planning Commission we will then get a staff report followed by public comment on that on the petition and then we will go into discussion so this evening our first item is 9a Bristol Ridge site plan for City Council approval good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Scott bad saled I am a civil engineer with Midwestern consulting we built most of the site plan with me tonight is Brad more he is architect of the project and our client is in the audience that has Sean the fear of Norfolk hoax and so
006tonight we have a PowerPoint presentation and Chris how do I start it just click it all right okay we'll go through this Bristol Ridge is a condominium development the owner is commercial properties investors of Pontiac trail which is a wholly owned subsidiary of north folk development Norfolk is no stranger to this town they develop the property to the north of this the north side Commons blue heron pond many commercial properties in town as well the project team also consists of Midwestern consulting and Jay Bradley Moore & Associates an overview of where this is at the site is located on the east side of Pontiac trail just south of devarnè and just south of the north side cams development that Norfolk development also built in nineteen 2000 to 2002 approximately across the street is the polti
007development north north sky and to the south immediately the south are vacant and residential properties and to the south west is the Barton Greene property this property consists of two existing buildings one light industrial one residential the property is owned our for a we did an annexation and rezoning of this property in about 2005 the tricky about 2005 and ex with an area plan and Ruiz owned the plan is to demolish the two existing buildings and construct 69 new condominium units in 11 buildings all work would be done in one phase the buildings would go up in an order not all at one time but generally in one phase these units are the same units that are found at the blue heron pond development on the west side of Ann Arbor as I understand somebody
008lives there on this know someone told me that somebody on the Planning Commission may be someone who's City Council lives in blue heron pond but okay anyway at the corner of maple and Liberty Blue Heron pond with been a very successful development Norfolk took it over it was a product of failure during the recession one building was built and they recite planned it and put these buildings on and it's been very popular and for all intents and purposes is sold out or fully reserved at this time so these units are going to be essentially the same buildings that were that have been built over Blue Heron pond the site is owned our for a as I said and conforms to all the requirements associated with setbacks height open space lot area and bicycle parking a
009variance is being sought for automobile parking currently 69 under unit spaces and 25 surface spaces are recognized by code on this site plan which is short of the ordinance by 44 spaces however 34 under unit spaces exist in the form of a tandem space one in front of the other hidden from public and not creating any new impervious surface and 69 other regulation-size surfaces exist in the driveways that are in front of the garages of each unit and they're full sized spaces there's at least 20 feet there so they can park in front of their garage door without being out in the aisle or anything and without creating any additional impervious surface the code doesn't recognize these as legal spaces so we are seeking a variance for those on the north side of the of
010the property and the south side is a heavily landscaped conflicting land use buffer as well as existing mature trees that will remain we are dedicating an additional 17 feet of right away on the east side of Pontiac trail and traffic we probably will get into a back and forth discussion about traffic but in general this is a relatively small development at 69 units it doesn't generate enough traffic to warrant a full-blown traffic impact study we performed traffic provided a traffic impact statement to the city traffic engineers which they accepted the impact shows very little impact on existing intersections less than 1% increase at the nearest intersection of Barton and Pontiac trail and we could talk about that more I'm sure there'll be discussion on that because Pontiac trail obviously is has a traffic issue and
011I'm sure there's many residents here that are here to speak about that Brad you want to talk about architecture for a minute here yes so the buildings are organized with parking tucked below the living space so we minimize the amount of parking at surface that's reducing the amount of impervious area the entrances to the units are generally at a mid level between the parking level and the first living level so there's a parking level it's a kind of a pedestal in each building followed by two full floors of living space and then we have an occupied attic in the gable of the unit that is an option that people can purchase and finish off if that's what they decide to do so these are some of the two-dimensional drawings that were submitted with so that's
012a no to planning staff so you can see they each have a garage door there's a half a flight up to the entry and then once you get inside the entry there's another half a level up to the first floor some of the units on the site because the topography will have the opportunity for a walkout basement level again that'll be finished at the purchasers request the exterior siding materials will be the same as on Lou Herrin there'll be a mixture of brick in siding there are outdoor decks for each dwelling so they have a private outdoor living space they can put outdoor patio barbecue grills play structures for the kids whatever they want so this is another type of unit this accentuates the internal circulation of the stair and an across gable to the
013main range some of the buildings because of the topography step down the hill so it rather than one continuous Ridgeline there it's segmented or step to Ridgeline and then we're back to okay so now the fun stuff comes water main we have a water main network that connects to Northside Commons on the north extends through to the south leaving a stub for any future development to the south as well as connecting to Pontiac trail and stubbing out to what is known as the brewer property to the east the case of that development the sanitary sewer we take sanitary sewer from a stub that was purposefully left therein in 2001 to serve this property because my clients owned it at that time when they developed Northside Commons and so we bring that sanitary sewer through the
014development and down also stubbing to the south for future development their stormwater management we have two ponds on this site there's a lot of topography you'll see a grading plan shortly the site basically through the middle is a humpback and it drains east and west from there we have great infiltration in some of the ponds so we don't even have to have an outlet in one pond it's all like very clean sand and so it'll recharge the groundwater and this is the grading plan which is presented a lot of challenges when you're dealing with like a denser development and and a lot of topography but it's very interesting and it will definitely not look plain we are very happy with the project I think we feel this is a very good project for the area
015our petitioner mark client has provided an efficient compact design that minimizes the impacts and natural features and removes no landmark trees there are a hundred and three under unit parking spaces in total that provide no exterior impervious surface and we are proposing to utilize driveway parking to minimize additional impervious surfaces to further reduce runoff we're also utilizing infiltration to enhance the groundwater recharge and we are very happy with what we've presented to you tonight and and here to answer any questions thank you thank you I will now turn to mr. Chang for the staff report the petitioner did a very good job of explaining the project I would only add that if this is approved tonight then it would move on to the Zoning Board of Appeals the variance later this month and the approval
016is also conditioned about combined upon combining all the three laps before permits would be issued thank you we will now open up the public hearing on this item is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission um those who wish to address the Planning Commission you will have three minutes to address the Commission we step up to the podium and state your name and address for the record hi my name is Vince Caruso five five six Glendale circle I'm here representing Alice Creek Watershed group coordinated member for the owl screech watershed group also a board member of the Coalition for remediation dioxane the car group at two points I'd like to make one is I'd like to see these developments consider using porous pavement we've had the city do a couple
017projects and porous the university did a poor slot down on fuller and they're infiltrating 1,300 inches of water an hour that's like many many hurricanes at once at you know going down full the road it's a reduced the heat island it will detoxify the contaminants on hard surfaces much less slip and fall the snow melts readily two inches of snowfall generally will melt away before the plows arrive very little salt is required actually cheaper than regular pavement Minnesota is looking at porous highways saying they're going to save 30% of their construction costs using porous on their highways I think we'll find the same in Ann Arbor I think the potential for porous pavement is great on these kind of projects where you don't have a lot of heavy traffic but where you have roadways the
018watershed group is proposing porous pavement for all these reasons plus porous pavement is very quiet and now we are pretty clear that noise in cities is very stressful for residents I live off Liberty Street like another member here of the board that's very noisy and we could reduce the noise tremendously with porous roadways so I think you know we need to look at that as an opportunity the other thing I want to bring up is councilmember Jane Lum made a point to me last year that I've been talking about and others have been talking about the green belt and when the green belt was voted on and passed by the city 33 percent of the green space was supposed to be purchased in the city last year she told me that her calculation showed only
019nine percent was spent in the city and since its inception it's only been 21 percent so I think we need to live up to the vote that the people made and that we need to look at the some of these green spaces this one in particular others in this area that are ripe supposedly for development we need to keep some green space in the city you know green space is tremendously important we saw that with the vote on the library lot tremendous support for green space in the downtown and we have a millage we have the money we should be spending it in the city even New York City with all of its density has green space pretty regularly spaced around in the city and the Central Park is a very popular area to go
020to because people want to get away from all the hard space and get into some green space I think it's a very uplifting and the added you know people's moods you have ended their own study showing that green space walking in green space is probably better than antidepressants without side effects so we need this green space we passed the millage I think we need to start looking at City Council and the planning commissioners and others to support preserving green space in the city and that we shouldn't be looking at all these spaces for development because green space provides great opportunities if we want to infiltrate stormwater we want to reduce heat island and so I think you know we need to change our attitude on that I think we're way too interested in developing all
021the green space in the city thank you thank you anyone else in the audience wishing to address the Plan Commission in regard said Bristol Ridge condos anyone else wishing to address the planet Commission in regard to this agenda item hi I'm sandy Wylie I live at 29:20 North Knightsbridge which is one of its Northside Ridge so it's not the immediate kind of Association north of this property but it's the next one the one that borders on Devoran I have some concerns about the number of developments that are happening right there long Pontiac Trail and the density of them I appreciate the mention of the need for green space there is Olson Park but it's not that accessible to this kind of a property to the ones across the street if you have young children it's
022a little bit dangerous to cross Pontiac trail and then to prostitue Barron it's not that accessible for younger families I'm also concerned about how this will look when you're driving down Pontiac trail I'm not right now where it looks like that first building is on the north I'm not sure if that's roughly equivalent to where the house is now but it's on quite a sizable Hill and I'm wondering how much that hill will be destroyed to put this in you mentioned I haven't seen the elevation map to understand that but that's a concern of mine that we not totally destroy the topography that's there if it is developed because I think that's part of the beauty of going up and down the hills and dales there on Pontiac trail and when you look out now
023for what has happened on the the other side of Pontiac trail it's been very flattened and it's it's really made it a lot uglier and that development the houses are right next to each other there's no green space at all in that so when you look at you step back and you look at this in a bigger area it's it's very highly it's very densely developed just in that area but it my concerns are having it fit within the topography that's my main concern and then figuring out how to manage the traffic in that area because this particular one may not add a lot of traffic but all the ones around it they are already adding a lot of traffic and locked in there do voron goes between Nixon and Pontiac trail those are your
024only two options Nixon and Pontiac trail and it's a couple of mile length there and there are a lot of new developments that are going in there and then they're coming out on Pontiac trail it's a 35 mile an hour speed limit that's pretty fast for this dense of development so I'd really like the planning committee to step back and look at how this fits in with the rest of that that corner of of our city thank you thank you is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission regrets this agenda item all right seeing no one I will close the public hearing and read the motion the in Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council approved the Bristol Ridge townhome site plan and development
025agreement conditioned upon combining the lots and zba approval do you have a commissioner they'll move move by Commissioner Mills second I bet Commissioner good Brandel we are in discussion get Brandel pedestrian connections could you describe just the context for us I know there's a bunch of new developments happening across the road but will this obviously the site now I'm sure does not have an existing sidewalk maybe it does is there a pedestrian connection between this site and Olson Park to the north I know that there are pedestrian crossings at the at the roundabout sorry yeah did you hear me yes no sorry yeah well we will be providing a sidewalk across the frontage of this site that will connect to the sidewalk that's off the frontage of Northside Commons and that goes also down devarnè
026and there I don't think there is a dedicated crossing like any kind of a specific at the park I don't believe so no there's no roundabout here no okay so so you can't walk the sidewalk up and and get to there and cross the road okay mr. Mill's Thanks a couple questions for the developer one is the color photos that are here I guess I think that what I see from the elevations at least have the garages entrance in the front rather than in the rear like this is that right just that I'm looking at that correctly yeah okay so these are from the existing one there will be a garage door bulla or multiple garage doors below all of those living room windows or whatever that is okay got it can you also walk
027us through the grading plan just because it was great that you had a mat but we're not used to reading those and there is a lot of topography here so tell us what you're doing like how much leveling are you actually doing there's a crosswalk into Olson Park so bran did you take a look here as I saw you looking at the great of the hill the hill that was referenced is right up in this area here there it is and it looks like we are probably taking about eight feet off the top of that hill it's a very it's a sharp pronounced Knoll I mean it is not it's not a big gentle thing I mean it's a it's a very it's a ridge so at the highest point who are taking about eight
028feet off of the top of it but that is one of the buildings that as you enter for off of Pontiac trail and then you make that right-hand turn and you head back to the rear units that first billing there that overlooks their detention party is one of the buildings that steps down with the topography we're using it to bog refuted because it goes with the land so that is a descending driveway as you come in up on the trail and go to the back of the property how resumed ibly or can you walk us through like if I Drive in this and I'm going around your finger sticks there how is that all level or am I going up and down I understand that the buildings you know are kind of Levi's fall coming
029you know falling a bit but what's going on with like the the parking lot and drive so what you do when you come into the if you come in off of the drive you're going up and then you will rise up as you follow my cursor around at this point then that's about that's the high point if you were to go continue to the east you're falling down to the east now if you were to go north you're rising up you're rising up about one two three four five six seven feet from this intersection of the drives up to here you guys can see my cursor right okay all right and then from here you are going down you're going down 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 almost 10 feet to this
030dumpster enclosure so right through here is the high point of the existing topography it's and it's it's quite severe actually I mean almost it's so severe it almost looks like it was man-made because it just drops off when you get halfway through the site and it just falls off that's there's no development on the backside here the existing buildings are all on the front side before that drop-off so you're shaving I mean in order to get through there to level it you're shaving that I'm just trying to understand like how much dirt you're moving right we're shaving 8 feet off the top here at the North property line almost almost nothing down at the at the south end where my cursor is right now yeah and then we I thought right through the middle of
031the site you were suggesting that there was a sharp bridge are you not right through here here it it's a ridge that falls from west to east yep so your sheep you you're having to move something yeah and in general like this this whole area here is being is being graded and as much as eight feet at the north end is being taken off and it's being moved around the site a little bit but for instance you know the this big long building up here where my cursor is right now that's great but pretty much within a foot or two of existing grade so it's just that over in this area where my cursor is is just a sharp razor back got it yeah it's not a flat site got it so I mean we
032can't expect a lot of girth moving in order to make this development work greatly right I mean it's it it is but it's not I mean it at the end of the day it's a seven acre site so it's really not a lot of Earth I mean it's just it's it's some radical a little terrain got it all right thank you mm-hmm I will I'm sure that there are big questions about traffic so I'm not gonna ask about that um but I I just want to make Mohammed but I what I like about this is that they are asking for variance for less parking and the idea of being able to use driveways to piggyback I mean that's how most many of us park if you have a driveway anyway that seems like something that
033we should just allow this is like kind of note to self maybe this will come back at the Commission proposed business and I appreciate that rather than meet our code and over park the site that that you're going through the effort of asking for the variance clearly that's not something that we can grant but I think it's why isn't warranted this is a situation where I think there appears that there's plenty if you you know Park in your driveway plenty of parking here there's also gas parking because I know that's raishin throughout the site so I really appreciate that I think that this is one where we are helping to protect we are limiting disturbance of natural features to the minimum necessary and so I really like that approach mr. Ackerman Thank You mr. chair
034similarly I appreciate the approach to the parking any ways in which we can reduce the amount of impervious surface the better it is for neighboring properties for water quality and quantity I had a question in reviewing the notes from the citizen participation meeting one question stood out to me and that was the history of the site there was reference to a dump that previously there had been dumping occurring on the site and it there's a the answer says Sean attempted to show on aerial on his laptop unfortunately that doesn't translate very well under there I was wondering if someone could discuss the history of the site to talk about the dump that's in the neighboring properties yeah it's not on this property okay it's let's see if I can get back out I'm very familiar
035with it because I've investigated it years ago in multiple times okay it's I'm the big the big one not not this blow up one and say the dump is way over here Oh across Pontiac trail yes okay I know what they're referencing well it's it's south of davar it says it's in the brewer property it's right it's behind the Chinese Christmas oh oh not not the naughty I use the big telephone do not let the blow up one yes it's not on this property could you try it one slide forward so it's over you got it all right there thank you think yeah it's not on this site okay [Music] okay and then have you guys done any testing on site to ensure safe to the podium just for the record and for the people
036watching at home all three or four of them yes we've done a phase one environmental and it's everything's clean there okay thank you thank you and then I think you'd probably get time to dive into traffic our memo internally kind of said that the scope of this project doesn't trigger a full-blown traffic review so I was hoping if you could discuss a little bit about the traffic impact produced by the site yes we issued a traffic impact statement to to Sydney traffic staff who accepted it we basically we determined what the peak hour trip generation would be and and in which direction they would be going and that's all that's required for a development of this size I knew there'd be questions about it about traffic because panic trails obviously it has some issues with
037with traffic and so I went a little bit further and I brought you some numbers just so you understand the magnitude of what impact this development will have on Pontiac trail so we calculated that with the 69 units there would be 34 peak hour trips leaving the site in the morning and there would be 42 peak hour trips entering the site in the afternoon I'm sorry not it's not just entering it's going both ways there's 40 there's 34 total trips 8 entering 26 exiting in the morning and in the afternoon there's a total of 42 with 26 entering coming home and 16 going out for suma bleah to the grocery shop or go to dinner the distribution generally in this area is regarded as about 80% of the people will be heading towards Martin Drive
038area intersection and eventually to to Plymouth Road with 20% going north and probably there continuing north are turning most likely onto Devine road to go over to Nixon down to the retail developments that are there so using those numbers we would have 27 trips in the morning going down to the problem intersection of Barton and Pontiac trail and in the afternoon 34 trips coming through that very same intersection which is the which is the problem intersection currently the combined total of morning and afternoon trips through that intersection is three thousand six hundred and fifty-eight our total would add 61 trips through that intersection both combined morning and afternoon trips which is less than 1% increase through that intersection so it's it's probably not measurable I guess is my point Thanks while we're on the subject
039of traffic and I understand this is a drop into a much you know deeper bucket in terms of total trips the safety of your entrance exit mid site could you talk a little bit about the site long distances and anything you took into account to ensure yeah safety we originally our original sim it'll if you looked on on track it actually did not make the sight distance as we as we learned as we evaluated it again so we move the the inference further south there's a hill to the north that obstructs view so we moved it to the south to conform to the letter of the law now the letter of the law is a two-component issue for sight distance there's what's called intersection sight distance and stopping sight distance stopping sight distance is the
040distance that it takes you to react when you see something to hit the brake and your car to stop at a given speed and these distances change with every every 5 mile an hour increment so that's the distance it takes you to see if you if ball came out in front of you that's how long it takes you to recognize there's a ball there I got to do something I hit the brakes my car stops that is a smaller distance than intersection sight distance intersection sight distance is what we conform to inner sight intersection sight distance is that distance I just described and the distance that it takes you pulling out of the driveway to accelerate to the design speed of the road so that if a car was coming up they don't have to
041put on the brakes if you understand that so they don't they don't have to slow down you you pull out at an under normal situation and you're up to speed so they don't have to slow down so that distance is a larger distance that's what we conform to and that's what's required what was the impact to your sight and so did you you were moving your driveway South Asia yeah wasn't much basically see this stub right here mm-hmm that's where the driveway was it curled out and hit the road right there I understood yeah that's what happened it we just had a simple like driveway that came up and curled around and came up to Pontiac trail there when we realized it didn't mix we just like put it down here and came up and
042you get you get some parking this way and you turn this way to go into the site okay while we're on the topic of the vehicle circulation can you discuss single point of entry exit with respect fire the fire department and review this and approved it we actually made a lot of changes for the fire department this development was a little bit more elongated and you know for instance we had development all the way out to here but it was a dead end and maybe you're aware maybe or not but the fire department has a requirement that they can't go down a dead end more than 150 feet so we can't have like a dead end that comes down here so that compacted it as well but as far as circulation goes nobody's expressed any
043concern about the about the circulation patterns or the single point of entry you know anytime you've got private drives and aisles having connectivity becomes a issue because then there's an issue about who's going to pay for cross traffic maintenance and wear tear that sort of thing so I was just gonna mention that Commissioner woods was on this board when we were processing cyclone on an ever saline Road where the fire marshal was asking for a two-point connection even though the project was below the 100 unit count which was the threshold he had about 75 units and it was eventually determined that based on neighborhood concerns we've removed that second flight of engine so as long as you're under that hundred unit threshold that's really not an issue thank you yeah so we can discuss the
044wisdom of you know unit count being how you determine what sorts of you know space and and roadway firetrucks need to get in and out but that's a conversation for another day I think that satisfies me for now thank you commissure whether me so mr. caruso brought up the poorest pavement and i just wanted to see your thoughts and if that was something you'd thought about or had interest in thinking about to be honest no we did really didn't think about it I mean there there's we all know the issues with porous pavement and the climate that we live in it's difficult because of the freeze-thaw it's it's also it's also only suitable for a parking lot to be very honest with you because a parking lot you can keep everybody off constructions done have
045you guys ever gone out to a construction site at a condominium development and seeing what the roads look like during construction it's nothing but mud which means porous pavement is no longer porous and that's that's the next honest truth about porous pavement porous pavement is porous and then it's not porous and there's nothing you can do about it it will become impervious because it just it has it has pores to fill up and you can't do anything about it I mean you can vacuum it and vacuum it but sooner or later it just doesn't become porous as much as it used to be so a lot of course pavement designs incorporate storm sewers because the inevitable is gonna happen and the waters not going to soak in and you need to collect it just like
046you do a conventional paper so it's porous pavement has it has its places but unfortunately in Michigan it's not a very good candidate down south and the moderate climates it's a lot better but for what we have up here and for a situation where you've got you're going to be building homes and using roads for access they're just gonna be covered with mud I mean they always are it's just a fact of life and so I mean to install porous pavement would be something you'd basically have to rip out the entire road system after you built all of your housing and then install porous paper because if you've ever been out to a construction site it's it's boots only so I just want to point out as Scott mentioned before the porosity of the soil
047at occupation basin is such that all the water that is being collected by this storm sewer and they posited in the basin is all going to go into the ground anyway soggy branding so so I disagree about the reasons why you wouldn't use it but I agree that it's actually not appropriate here we've put it in in several places in Ann Arbor it's fine with the freeze/thaw the issue is that you pretty much have to do porous pavers in order to have it work because it dilemma Nate's with salt application that's what happened to the lot that's at the library lot so they have not done well in places where there's a lot of public traffic coming in and out because they will fail in those areas so porous pavers are a lot more expensive
048than porous pavement the thing that I feel like Trump's this more than anything else because you can clean it you can deep impact you can take stuff out you can make it more porous I don't really agree with that but for me it's a water quality issue because by running the stormwater into the systems that you are proposing your water quality is going to be better than if it's through porous pavement because you have the treatment of the plants in the organics which actually bind up heavy metals in ways that the aggregate alone is not as effective with so I think porous pavement is better in places that are highly urbanized where you have very little space you don't have the space to put a detention basin and you have good soils you have good
049soils here but they have room here to be able to put their detention basins so and they're going to infiltrate tenants an hour I think is what you know that's great especially around here so I feel like it's kind of like a nice nod to doing something green but they're actually dealing very well with the stormwater that will be coming off of those by treating it in a living system that has living soils and bacteria and microbiota that will be helping to deal with the pollutants in ways that the plain old aggregate underneath the porous pavement system would not address it's better than nothing like in a downtown space but here they actually are going to end up with better water water quality with the system that they're proposing than with doing porous pavement so
050that's my opinion I think we differ on some of the strategies and the climate things whatever in the end I feel like this is probably a better system for this site then porous pavement would be as long as they're not taking down a whole woods to put in there and and from what I see it looks like the quality woodland is on the far west of the site and you're keeping those you're doing very little grading you know over on that side of the site so that's what I would say about the stormwater a porous pavement piece where Sherwood's just a couple of questions one is about the slope of the entrance Drive as it's going out on to Pontiac trail can you talk a little bit about that because as you've talked about the
051elevation of the site and I'm thinking about coming out of the site and making sure that you have enough space to stop [Applause] yeah it's a it's a slight hill going down I mean we we kept it within the city's guidelines which is less than six percent and it does level out at the bottom but you know at the end of the day it isn't a flat site and and making it flatter making the entrance flatter would require more soil removal of the of the Knoll that I spoke about like through the center of the of the site so I mean yeah it's not it's not flat I agree is that a point where you might want to think about some other kind of pavement or something sort of with I don't know ridges or
052something that's what it would help with the stop quality stopping I think they're probably just going to have to be mindful of it and keep it keep it clean I mean ridges aberrations to pavement wreak havoc on snow plows like then snow plowers fillings as well when they hit them and so generally they haven't been very widely accepted and then they tend to fill in with with water and and become then ice so I think I think you know there's a concern I mean the residents there are going to going to have to be careful because it's not a flat site but you know Ann Arbor has a lot of a lot of hills and areas that people just learn to deal with unfortunately never nothing is a perfect condition they may have to put
053up some sign that says Road gets icy they might they might just put up a barrel sand where people like we've seen that around people like like sprinkles of sand out there so the other question I was curious about is you've indicated where your dumpsters are going to be so will the residents be going and dumping their own refuse or will they have or will it be that they'll sit out their compostable and their recycle bins and all those kinds of things on trash day I think the intent is use the dumpsters as a central location this is too many units for people to have individual carts oh really and that was also the case so we have Corral's you know periodically through development that have both the recycled trash container in there there you
054walk it back over and put it in or they walk through a cycle so then are those serviced by a private companies the city what do you know - the city's contract waste hauler waste management I was just curious about the stopping distance and everything bike I assume you've already checked all that out so you won't have any difficulty with that I'm a stretcher dad I took a look at to the master plan land-use element for this area we've there's a bunch of specific notes about this particular area including the the adjacent Breuer property behind this and some of the other undeveloped pieces here I just wanted to highlight the plan does call for seven to ten units per acre of density and this is 69 on seven acres so it comes in under ten
055so I just wanted to note that this is what we have planned for in in that document through that process so this is this shouldn't be a surprise one of the other things also observed the landfill is very clearly mentioned on the adjacent property so that will be something we'll all be well aware of if and when that property comes up for development another thing that this area of this area specifically mentions is as if these parcels are developed separately and not combined as a single development that they should be interconnected with pedestrian and roadway connections that hasn't been that something the master planner says is in a few areas and it's not something we typically do we're typically sort of in force but I'm wondering what the potential is or whether that has come
056up during the course of planning this for stub connections of various kinds of plans to potentially connect to the future development around here to the development to the north there really there isn't any plans to connect this development to any of the other developments to the east is the brewer property and through that is the woodland that were we're basically protecting and so we're not anticipating a connection through there to the south is such a small parcel of land that's mostly consumed by a wetland that there's really no value to to provide that that those properties down there are most likely someday just going to be a connection from Pontiac trail to the brewer property because they're choked off by a wetland and basically undeveloped about there I think there's four two acre properties that
057are south of us and the front two of them are almost entirely consumed with a wetland and only leave room for for a road to go into the brewer property so there really didn't seem to be any real benefit of connectivity in this particular case so the larger parcel to the north also developer Norfolk does have stub to the brewery property that is and when I just wanted me it's not a question but on the the unit density to sort of reinforce Commissioner Mills point that I do appreciate that the development has kept off a significant portion of this property on the east side and as also Commissioner give Randall pointed out where the higher quality woodland is located and so that is I think a benefit of this particular layout design where it sits
058meeting the master plan but it's preserving a whole lot of open space that we wouldn't be required with with a different layout Commissioner so they so I appreciate all the comments from the commissioners especially when we talk about parking the reduction of parking I think I support that and what it also does is it reduces traffic would be the next assumption so one thing leads to the other I think in a productive way to solve two problems at once I have just a couple I think smaller questions to the overall one is lighting there's you know the lighting that doesn't have that doesn't trespass beyond the boundaries but is there anything in the condo agreement about lighting on buildings and what those might be to the residents and the property owners to make sure that
059outdoor lighting is a mountain to trespass beyond the property lines I know the pedestal pole-mounted lighting conforms to the city ordinance with without long trespass of lighting outside but can you tell us they're gonna I there there have to be coach lights outside of doors I think by code for safety reason correct but those are only activated at the at the demand of the homeowner occupant and so generally they're not taken into account in the photometric plan nothing is going to beyond its program to be on a you know a sensor or anything like that so I don't anticipate that there'd be any huge amount of lighting and there's there's porch coverings for at the porch where those lights would be I guess I'm more concerned like if these become condos for sale and somebody
060ops to put outdoor lighting on their back porch and they're at the edge of the development what kind of terms in the condo agreement regulate that to make sure that it's still compliant to the site in trespass a lot is it hard to do something in a condominium that is inconsistent with the ownership documents I don't you have you encountered anything at Blue Heron pond or any other developments you know we've never really I guess encountered putting additional lighting on the back of units yeah this got mentioned by code you have to have a light outside the door but they're typically just a coach light that lights up the deck you know I can actually say we've never had anybody you know without tearing into the drywall in turn you know put any additional lighting
061on there so it's it's just a coach light outside though okay I would just recommend like if it's not in there specifically and you're kind of agreement to make sure that it follows that as part of a site planned review project this site would ultimately have to continue to comply with the lighting standards so even though they're not reflected on the photometric study would still be required to meet the light trespass levels at the performance that the ordinance identifies okay I think the other thing to that is that there's been a lot of discussion with the Commission about dark sky compliance so if we tip one step further so what that lighting compliances making sure all lights are dark sky compliant so beyond the property line for zoning that is required that we also say
062that it doesn't shut up word yeah I think we've pretty much done that seems like all our developments nowadays are all the dark yep dark sky like just want to make note put it on the record and then my other question I think it's part of my duty here's what it seems is let's talk about HVAC and their units and where they're situated on site well the depending on the building they will typically be on the far end of each building so I guess looking at the site plan their degree they'll either wind up on you know one of the long ends of the building I'm not sure exactly what side each one will be on but are they behind each you will be all on one occurrence in CF for instance like this building
063right here they would be like there beyond that yeah on the short end all the short end okay the gas meters and things girl yes they're on the short ends of the building we get I'm just looking at a couple of them especially on the north end and if they're meeting right up to the the landscaping that's there or if they're going to be in between between those buildings and if you have any they'll be will stay out of the landscaping hey we could put a note on the side it yeah I mean they'll be obviated the landscaping out of the setbacks and then I think my last kind of like minut detail thing is for the traffic study is that based on occupancy the parking requirements or the parking proposed that you have on
064the site when we talk about the 34 peak in the am 42 peak in the p.m. it's based on the number of units and and there's I don't know what the trip generation is for a condominium unit but I would suggest it's probably six or seven trips per day and they have a formula that says how many people live in a this type of a they take a demographic of what type of person lives in a development like this and how many are going to be leaving in the morning at a certain time and coming home you know there's single-family residential areas operate differently from a trip generation standpoint then that apartment buildings do and then condominiums do as well and senior citizens homes there's literally like there's a hundred and fifty different categories you
065can choose when you have a development and to look at like what the what the distribution and the predicted number of peak hour trips in the morning or afternoon are and those they're all based on empirical studies and a little bit of Voodoo - yeah I just want to confirm that when we're talking about the reduced parking counts and then the impact of traffic what we're comparing those study numbers yes number of spaces I mean we could have one space per unit and the trip generation and peak hour the generation would be exactly the same it's just the the unit and the type of unit that it is mr. woods I'm just one last thing and I'm not sure who gets credit for this whether it's the staff or the developer but as we were
066as you were going through this slides and we could see the site layout and then you have the green and the red lines indicating sewer lines and those kinds of things that was very helpful so thank you I don't know that comes from a 23 year old di T who knows PowerPoint better than I do that's pretty cool we've never done that before having a grading plan of the kachoris is very thanks I thought again I'll tell Jonathan you like it I have a question in regards to construction so you'd noted that condo construction is not easy it's very muddy and inconvenient can you talk a lot about where construction we begin and what the plan is for construction sure this isn't the easiest site in the world to construct so essentially we will be
067probably starting with this building here so we'll kind of work our way around and we'll this first building up front units one through four essentially we'll probably make a we will make a temporary construction access point so the hope is we will continue to build residential traffic will come and go to the right construction will go to the left we'll just kind of come in and chase ourselves out of it so the first building here one through four will actually be the last building that we build because we'll from a construction standpoint we'll make a a loop there to keep as much traffic out of the residence site as possible right and then realistic question what's your price point there's a crystal ball we're hoping to be in the low to mid force you know
068we're blue-haired product right now is right about the same price point and it seems to fit you know the market very well there thank you further discussion mr. Ackerman yep thank you all right it looks like we are ready for the vote all those in favor please say aye opposed it's approved thank you very much moving on to item 9b which is in regards to the rezoning of seven parcels at six oh six through six to eight South Ashley Street from C to B business service to r2 a two-family dwelling we will begin with a staff report if I could just jump in both these next petitions as a reminder in addition to what Commissioner Milstein just referenced these were to city council initiated rezoning so city council directed both the city administrator as my
069ultimate boss and you as the Planning Commission to consider these so we'll have we've split them up and those will compromise these next two agenda items mr. Connolly thank you I'd like to present a staff port and I do have a few slides to show afterwards most of the buildings on the west side of this block were built in the late 19th century early 20th century and by this block I mean the west side of the 600 block of South Ashley Street between Mosley and Madison the army cleaner building was built in the middle of the 20th century commercial uses exist on the northernmost property which is the Washington dairy and the southernmost property armen cleaners the central area plan recommended that the seven parcels in the middle of the block not the parcels with
070the commercial uses in the north or south ends of the parcels B rezone from C to B to residential zoning to encourage residential use and character the block is within the OSI historic district on September 4th 2018 City Council directed staff to study portions of the west side of the 600 block of South Ashley for a possible rezoning from see to be to our to a which is a two-family dwelling district the study area generally corresponds to an area called out in the city of Ann Arbor master plan Landis element where the zoning designation quote should be changed to protect the existing lower density development unquote there are seven Lots in the study area all but one are non-conforming Lots having less than 4,000 square feet of lot area staff conducted an analysis of the
071proposed rezoning and is recommending that the zoning remain C to be the staff report provides information on the soil contamination issue it provides some analysis regarding the rezoning and discusses some of the pros and cons of each zoning district C 2 B has the potential to incentivize redevelopment and therefore brownfield cleanup more than the archway archway zoning is not in our in staffs opinion dense enough to incentivize redevelopment of the site which in which would include brownfield cleanup down zoning to are to a would decrease the likelihood of a brownfield cleanup the historic district currently discourages any type of redevelopment any redevelopment would need to be sensitive to maintaining historic character and scale staff recommends keeping the C to B zone in place for the entire block to provide an opportunity for future site cleanup
072staff recommends denial of the proposed rezoning of seven Lots from C to B to R to a because it reduces the likelihood of remediating contaminated soils would create a nonconformity related to use and would result in the parcels becoming more not conforming with regard to lot size I do have a few slides that I brought with me I don't know how clear they are this first slide illustrates what the current zoning situation looks like C to B exists throughout the portion of the site the yellow area straights the seven lots that are in question this is the proposed rezoning which would leave the commercial uses at the north end and the south end as c2b but would convert the seven parcels in the middle to our 2a this is an aerial view of the study
073area 618 South Main is just to the east and just on the other side of 618 is the new residential complex called the yard and this is a zoom aerial image of the study area and that's my presentation thank you this time we'll open up a public hearing on this item there's anyone in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission regards to these seven parcels from six oh six to six to eight South Ashley please state your name and address for the record and you have three minutes to speak yes my name is a deal you know people and I live on 531 served I was not sure why the reasoning was going to occur I had a feeling that people maybe wanted to develop he develop this site and make another big
074building there and I feel we just had very big building on each side of South Main Street and that we didn't need another of big buildings there and he would start to encroach into the Old West Side so I came to kind of listen and to learn why this reasoning was occurring it seems that you not recommended that you would not recommend that it would be developed that's what I understood from the presentation that so we'll we'll discuss that during our discussion okay well I would like - ear mouth so I can speak to my neighbors who are kind of worried about it thank you great thank you hi Vince Crusoe again five six Glendale Circle I would like to urge you to support City Council's vote on this I think we have seen a
075change in our city from density at all costs to more reasoned approach we're looking at affordable housing potentially these sites have affordable housing in them I would say in a lot of ways a lot of renter's in there I think we need to step back and look at what happened to some of these cities that have very high buildings have canyons for example in Manhattan New York people are living in very squalor departments because they're trying to get Sun and so they have a Sun map now that you go online and check how much Sun your apartment that you proposed renting how much Sun you'll get different parts of the year so now people are spending large amounts of money to get a very marginal apartment that has some Sun because there's so little Sun
076with all the tall buildings and I think you know we're getting a canyon effect in Ann Arbor I think that that's unfortunate I think this the residents in this area would like to maintain a more customary neighborhood that they've you know lived in for years I don't know that we need to develop out every community every neighborhood that is close to Main Street they have a large building there now already I think we found we're finding that an MIT study showed that high density doesn't necessarily and generally doesn't reduce prices that actually increases prices reduces affordable housing we end up with more cars you look at the old west side is subsidizing these developers by allowing cars be parked in their streets because a lot of these homes a lot of these condos have multiple
077cars they don't have one car door they have two cars per person in some cases because they're wealthy people and there's more driving and then when we build these expensive condominiums we're displacing middle-income people so I think we need to maintain diversity in the city and not design our cities so that the university can have expensive condos for their out of country students to come and live that will not last forever we need to decide how these apartments will be used in the future a six bedroom apartment is not going to be amenable to anybody I think we're making mistakes in that regard as well so I would hope you support City Council on their vote thank you thank you hey Jeff Ben code 213 West Madison just next door to the Washtenaw dairy let's
078see I spoke with Jeff Cohen earlier today or he responded to some questions which I appreciate is very helpful in trying to fully understand what's going on read the report several times and I think general is a little bit of confusion just as far as where that is and I hope you can address maybe some of the points you know part of it being the denial against the master plan and then also some of the scenarios of redevelopment both with the different zoning options was kind of mixed together and it was a little bit tough for my layperson to understand what could be going in on those different elements basically though I'd like to just echo the concern just as far as how to preserve the existing character of that of the area there as
079said we've had a lot of recent development in there and still having that you know what mechanisms can preserve that existing character when continued to be Zone C to be obviously it's not a change in the status quo it's a continuation but you know in the reports mentioned 30 to 40 units four stories tall potentially you know that fits in the general code but again you know if you guys could just you know it seemed to me like we're trying to put that both leave it as C to be you know for potentially clean up the environment but I wasn't really apparent to me why developer would then go in and redevelop it and with that additional cost in maybe all those mechanisms are leaving to kind of a status quo in that area but
080you know is just like I said you know if you can come in on the exists you know how do we make sure that the existing character can be preserved in that area appreciated in general I think Jeff the discussions with Jeff helped me become fairly you know can see the agreement or see the reasoning why the City Council or the Planning Commission is reaching but just I think you know that additional discussion was needed in order to achieve that thank you thank you I'm Lucy Miller I live at 319 West Mosley we're a second ants at Westminster so I've lived in very close to this for a long time and also spoke with Jeff today I guess what I would just want to augment what this gentleman was saying because I think most people
081don't I mean that's been c2b for a long time I would say most people don't know what that means and if so I wouldn't want you to think in terms of if tomorrow something showed up that allows that what people would think because there is a lot of encroachment we're not all together happy with what's happening on Main Street there's not a lot of diversity going on on Main Street so just to think about where people would really think when they woke up to what it meant so that's all I ask I don't know what the right answer is I know that sites contaminated I've known it for a long time I know it's very contaminated you know it's kind of an unusual little small block but just to be really thoughtful and not make
082a quick decision because people don't know what you're doing and this is the room where it happens so I want to just be in the room where it happens thank you all right I'm Pat marts I live 5:14 South Ashley so I'm less than a block away my concern twofold it would be nice to keep it so that we have a chance for the cleanup of the perc that's one thing we have floodplain encroaching from the north so it kind of complicates things it's going to complicate things in the long run that line is moving south the perc is moving north on the other hand it's very important to me we've had so much building going on around us it has really it hasn't destroyed our quality of life but it has reduced our quality
083of life they have done the demolition just this week on Jefferson and South Ashley they're starting the crazy time of year to start the gallery but that's what they're doing so we are now into the noise and then the spring and the molds will come and be allergies and it's going to be awful we've had all that noise we have 6:18 we have a canyon you drive down a canyon I Drive home at night down Main Street down the canyon which has increased traffic speed okay not not reduced it they've put up 25 mile-per-hour signs but it hasn't reduced anything so my big concern I would love to say leave it the way it is because I'm that's really where I'm inclined I want to see those buildings stay there but my concern with leaving
084it at the current zoning is read em redevelopment it's a camel's nose in the tent I don't want to see four-story buildings there because then first Street becomes the edge of the Old West Side that's being encroached on and we're really feeling pretty beleaguered that we have not only the gallery we have the crazy bar going in across the street and that's right across the street from me Ashley Otto it's becoming that we're not even going to go there but so that we have hammering and sanding and all sorts of stuff going in all going on all the time so there's a lot of construction already having this site potentially redeveloped which is a possibility if we leave it at the current zoning makes me nervous I would want to know what the real plans
085are in the future if the site is left at this cars owning versus the down zoning is that the term you use to move it down to our 2a yeah that's what I'd like to know and I think that would make people more comfortable in general because we feel over done thank you thank you is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to address the fire Commission routes this I don't see no one I will close the public hearing and I will read the motion the in Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council rezone seven Lots on the west side of the 600 block of south ashley between six zero six to six to eight south Ashley from C to B business service to are to a two-family dwelling
086district after studying the area as directed and as recommended by the future land-use chapter of the city of Ann Arbor master plan last land-use element Commissioner who will move this move by Commissioner Mills seconded by Commissioner gear and all we are in discussion commissioner Ackerman Thank You mr. chair just a little bit of background as it seemed like there was some basics that people were looking for and I think that I'd be helpful so in September 2018 council member Smith who represents the fifth Ward on City Council brought forward a resolution directing this body to explore a rezoning of two areas of the Old West Side these seven parcels and then additional 58 parcels to the South which we'll discuss later in the evening speaking directly about these seven parcels they're currently zoned c2 B
087which to the to the woman's question what does that mean if something happened tomorrow right so C to B is one of our commercial zoning districts it allows for mixed-use development probably a ground-floor retail or office use and then in an area like this likely you'd see residential above it our zoning says that it can be up to 55 feet high or four storeys so if you assume ten feet a story it's 40 feet you assume 15 you know you're hitting your maximum of the 55 feet so it's potentially an impactful redevelopment the the intent of the resolution was to down zone it or bring it from this commercial zoning down to a residential zoning the the benefit of that if you you enjoy the character of these seven parcels today is kind of twofold
088on the one hand if you actually live in one of the seven parcels it actually frees you up to add on additions because we just have a very expensive process of adding additions if you live in a commercial zoned property the second benefit is that it ensures that you're either having a single-family home or a duplex being built that's what the r2a zoning is a single family home or duplex and that was the intent of the council resolution now what would be the the benefits of a redevelopment just to kind of expose that side of the conversation as mr. Khan you know correctly pointed out there is serious contamination here armen cleaners was you know dumping really dangerous stuff into the ground as it turns out all dry cleaners and gas stations for the last
089half century have been doing that and we have some really serious issues surrounding a lot of our gas stations and dry cleaners today that is moving north as water does in this area towards the watersheds and as it heads north it you know exposes other properties the reason that we would look to the city could look to redevelopment as an opportunity to address environmental issues is through a brownfield program brownfield the brownfield program is something established by the state and regulated by the county in the city that allows any redevelopment to essentially create a TIF district which is a district in which the building would capture a share of its own taxes back into the property to allow them to pay off certain line items of their construction and those line items are very strictly
090regulated so it's pretty much environmental cleanup so instead of the tax dollars going into taxing authorities it would go to cleaning up the property and SAP has identified the possibility of as much as 2 million dollars of cleanup being necessary so it's it's like a tax incentive to do the cleanup faster than you'd see it done otherwise and it only is triggered by redevelopment so that's one of these the the incentives of redevelopment or I guess one of the benefits of a potential redevelopment the reason that staff identified that c2b would perhaps be better than an r2 a is that c2b would be more lucrative to a potential developer and so the likelihood of a potential developer coming in sooner and prompting this brownfield process and so prompt and cleanup could happen sooner so a
091lot of trade-offs at play and it's not easy and you know there's risk in every direction that you look at this I guess leaving it there to kind of summarize the background and why were why we're here I'm grateful councilmember Smith you know is having this conversation the old West Side is in a sensitive state where there's been of change and we have to figure out where is the transition boundary right where do we transition out of a d2 or you know downtown fringe district but you see it's 618 into the old west side and we make those decisions and we need to make it easier for the immediate residents to you know add additions if they want to however the environmental contamination is very real and scary and private redevelopment is the best way
092to deal with it on private property and that's what living in Michigan means the United States means if you have a scary chemical on your neighbor's property so I guess a question to staff in the analysis which I'm very grateful for and I appreciate you raising the environmental concerns were other zoning types so did we examine so you know this immediately was prompted by trying to change the zoning from commercial to residential or their other residential zoning types that were explored in this evaluation staff was asked to focus on the arch away however we did spend a little time looking at the r4c it would be a little island since everything to the west is our 2a our 4c allows up to 20 dwelling units per acre this site is 6/10 of an acre so
093maybe you could get 12 units here whereas the r2 8 could allow approximately 5 dwelling units the r4 C would more likely attract a student housing developer because you can get up to six bedrooms with an r 4c and so six bedrooms times 12 would be a lot more bedrooms and if they're providing one and a half parking spaces per dwelling unit they're they're really not going to be covering the number of vehicles that are likely going to be drawn to a property like that which means I think you'd get even more folks parking in the OSI so we did look at the r4c as a comparison any examination of the r3 allows the same kind of density which is ten dwelling units per acre so you would result in a total of six dwelling
094units as opposed to five in the r2a and then you're still looking at the same sort of incentive or lack thereof as you would with the r2 a so the rr3 doesn't get you much more in the way of density okay well I I just don't want to be lost we in some ways I really apologize the Planning Commission that we and we really struggled with this as you see from our staff report we saw both sides of this this aspect and I just want to I just want to be clear though by the nature of this in the Old West Side historic district in addition to sort of just the fundamental zoning density restrictions that may or may not apply to many on the district's I just want to be clear and I have
095we've not presented the prospect of any large-scale redevelopment these homes the Historic Preservation ordinances first lens is going to be protection of these resources probably there are some ways in which you could petition to demolish remove but I just want to be clear that to further box you in and from our recommendation that is another limiting factor to either are to a or C to B as to the potential so it's even more challenging in a way and so and in from working with with Jeff and I and our analysis based on our recommendation we we struggle with that as well and ultimately erred on the side of well let's keep the door open for more opportunity on the environmental cleanup side recognizing the challenges inherent but again I think as as we heard comments
096and I think you're sure you're wrestling with it's it's a really challenging conversion so circumstances here Commissioner so they so kind of running down the column of C to be in our to a and the question of compliance and if it goes to our to a the lot size is even more out of compliance but the recommendation the switch to our to a was to help people with additions and things like that so if the lot size is still out of compliance with this would property owners still have to go through the same procedures excuse me if a property owner on this block had a zoning district of an r2 a and they wanted to build an addition they would not need to go through the site plan process to do that if their parcel
097is non-conforming with regard to lot size which all but one is are all but one are they they would need to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals which is a far less cumbersome and expensive process but there's still a layer process there's an extra layer right and my understanding we're looking at both of these conditions have a 30-foot rear setback yeah we're looking at up to 15 feet more in height between the two actually up to 25 feet more in height okay the the are for the are oh yeah to a allows up to 32 the midpoint of the pitch and they are in the C 2 B allows up to four stories or 55 ratio of parking we're actually looking at a ratio of parking per unit as higher for our to a
098our to a requires one and a half spaces per and the c2b requires one and then can you elaborate a little bit more on expectations with the historic district and any of those sort of civility requirements so we understand if it stayed CTV what that process would look like right and kind of what pressures or requirements but right if it remained c2b and I presume you mean if a developer to come in what would that process look like the developer would be required to submit a site plan we would review that site plan we were taking for your body and then ultimately City Council but it would also go to the strong District Commission which is very sensitive about neighborhood scale and character and it would be hard for me to imagine a developer coming
099in with something so far out of character that the historic district Commission would say this is completely out of character I think an astute developer would be would recognize where they were that this is in the Old West Side historic district and would want to come up with a with a development project that they felt had a good chance of success and success I mean success at City Council and success at historic district Commission so my guess is that they might be more inclined to come in with something that looked like a row home product as opposed to a four-story mod you know a fancy-pants condominium complex that's a fancy-pants further discussion Meshuga Brandel especially for people that may not be familiar with the situation can you explain where the toxicity is right now and
100just kind of the pattern of what is predicted I know there's you know there's two generally to the north business but just so people have a sense of what is looking red-hot out there at this moment in time so that this is a hard things like we're basically trying to choose between neighborhood character and environmental health yep those are really hard no I mean like both it comes down to it where we want people right I mean that's hard both are big values yes and so but having a more person or not precise but at least some sense spatially of what you're talking about in terms of where the contamination is right now I can give you my sense based on my interviews with Matt nod but I'm gonna ask Brett to join me so
101my understanding is that the that the perc chemical leads into the soil from the cleaners what was very common was for cleaners throughout the last century to dump their extra perk in in their you know down down a toilet or in a sink and that would make its way to the to the sanitary lead that would go out to the street while sanitary leads can be compromised maybe they're made of clay or maybe the made of Orangeburg or maybe they're made of another product that has cracks in it and so that was a common way for perc to get into the soils what we do know is that around the year 2000 the EPA got involved with this site because the contamination had hit the property immediately to the north and need to remediate a
102current significant problem and so the EPA was involved and it's my understanding that they determined at the time that the perc was in fact flowing to the north I'm not aware of any more recent study that flagged where it was you know the precise location of it and neither was Matt Matt did say that he suspects because of the high water table it's hitting the groundwater here in this area and flowing into the creek getting into so you're you you are right it is a significant problem we don't have a ton of information I think councilmember Ackerman hit the nail on the head that local governments County government state federal governments don't have the resources to deal with a problem like this the one resource available to us is the brownfield process which allows cleanup
103through development and that's that's basically what we have to work with this site is quite small not likely to become a soupy a Superfund well no I think that's a great summary our our expectation generally is that if you imagine sort of a an elongated teardrop with the focus being underarms and cleaners at the south end of that block and that is it we anticipate that it is moving basically parallel slightly to the east as it moves to the north along with the watershed and we my understanding is that's been verified through some of the sampling and some of the adjacent properties as well through both interconnectivity of stormwater systems and through some gas gas vapor monitoring of some of those enclosed spaces so so generally my understanding is that there is some level of
104confirmation that it is definitely moving under the adjacent houses i jeff said i don't have an exact sort of rendering that show was the extent of it but based on that and the sort of hydrology in the area we anticipate that it's if it's not already along that corridor it's probably on its way and just and I think from some other past history I think that Matt nod had said something about for sure that first basement if not the second one though the levels weren't as high so just in terms of getting a sense of where that is that I think for sure those first two Lots have recorded issues based on the environmental toxicity that's going on and what we don't I think have a sense of is sort of how fast it's moving
105or you know things like that so I think we don't know that it's all the way up to Washington area or anything like that but it definitely is in those first two Lots but it seems like the intent the most intense is in the basement of the one to the north I think is commissure Trudeau thank you one thing I wanted to clarify that came up in public comments was that this is the room where it happens I'm just to clarify people on the process so we are voting tonight on whether or not to make a recommendation to City Council to approve or not approve this zoning so this isn't the final final hurdle so if this is a interesting concern keep keep up with City Council because they do not have to go along
106with whatever we recommend and I guess I had a little bit to say about affordability since that came up I had a question related to that and I'm wrestling with this I live in a 120 year old house in a very non-conforming lot and I would like one day if I ever can afford it to add a little bit more space on so I can definitely sympathize with people who who live here who would like it to be a little bit easier it's already Challenge so I can see that side of this so and given the likelihood of change with the historic just the historic district Commission involved like I bury very much to see that side as being beneficial on the other side from an affordability angle these are already four hundred to five
107hundred thousand dollar plus houses so I don't really buy the argument this is affordable housing in any way in the sense of the term and so redevelopment wouldn't likely be significantly affordable either but I don't see that as a really strong argument but one question I had was with the zoning would it be possible for accessory dwelling units to be added on means if an existing parcels if that we zoned it to our 2a or now I can't remember let Brett take that with a proposed amendment you'll recall that of all of the feared unintended consequences of the adoption of the unified development code unfortunately one of them was realized is that accessory dwelling units were only provided in the are ones and inadvertently left out of the art 2a so that'll be one of
108the proposed amendments I'll be bringing to you so if presuming that that is reinstituted as the accessory dwelling unit ordinance was originally adopted in 2016 then yes I see so we actually when it was first adopted they were allowed in our 2a and then with the redraft it was oh okay good good to know and I know we'll be talking about those soon so maybe that that'll be on our plate to address but as it's written now no because that that sort of also is another way we get you know more more units and so a different mix without redevelopment but but I really like I mean like the community character versus health I think is sort of the big tension and I appreciate staffs highlighting the issue I do think the fact that this
109is at an historic district gives me a lot less concern about there being a potential dramatic change to the character I think that's a pretty strong backstop whether or not the zoning changes I also think it would be like I have a hard time imagining a development that would pass that bar that would also be valuable enough to trigger the money we would need to do the cleanup so I'm kind of inclined to leave the potential on the table even though I don't think it's gonna happen because I think the thing the things that were most worried about are still pretty well protected so if I'm kind of leaning in the direction of status staff but anyway that's kind of where I'm at but is it this is a tough one Commissioner Weatherby so this
110is a question for staff right now a couple of those houses are used as commercial properties for commercial businesses what happens to those if we rezone it residential whether these businesses or the potential for a future business on that strip we know that one at least one of the homes includes a business use it would become non-conforming with regard to use so if they wanted to sell that as a business they it would it would you know or even you as an existing non-conforming use but you might have trouble changing that use currently I think there's a home that's being used for an office use if it were rezone to two are to a and somebody wanted to lease it for residential they could but they could not go back to the office so once
111it changed then okay thank you because Sherwood's so in in reading the notes that staff provided it looks as if one of the property owners they're contacted their City Council member and that sort of started to initiate this process so do we have a sense as to the other six property and their uses and owners and what what they're thinking is about this I have spoken with a couple one was the the owner of the home that is being used for a business and they did not want to see any reasoning they wanted to keep the C to be the previous speaker whose name is Jeff indicated that he has an ownership interest in one of the parcels so we did hear from him tonight I did speak with one additional person who just wanted
112to mostly know what was what was going on most of the there's only one owner occupant along this along these seven parcels they were the ones who initiated this process since then they've expressed an interest to not build an addition but to build a second floor deck he's dead which would not require site plan approval so just as comments for me so I would be in favor of rezoning if we didn't have the contamination on the site now that we have the contamination there I do agree with staff that c2b is the best chance we have for this to be for that to be cleaned up at some point in the future where I get my comfort in keeping this c2b and declining this this motion is that we have this short district to protect
113us if we didn't have that then I would be all in favor of rezoning but I feel like that's there to protect us so that any future development would have to go before the Stork District Commission and their approval would be needed before it would show up on our desk here so I will be voting against this motion this evening further discussion commissioner Ackerman Thank You mr. chair and thank you for those comments I think that is where my head is tonight I originally voted in favor of the resolution to explore the rezoning to our 2a and at that time it seemed like a no-brainer that this was a reasonable step to ensure we you know to give more predictability of what the neighborhood would look like down the road I think that's reasonable and
114neighbors deserve that knowing now the environmental state I have a lot more pause and with the knowledge I have tonight I think I have to be firm on environmental public health first and character second so I think tonight I'll be voting no but I do want to give assurances that I'll keep an open mind I'm the only one at this table who will vote on this again at the City Council table and I will make a promise to sit down with councilmember Smith and councilmember ROM Wally to talk to talk through these these concerns but tonight with the information presented in the environmental state of the properties you know with again the assurances that the historic district has first pass at allowing any any redevelopment of the site I'm inclined to vote not to recommend
115the rezoning on this set of rezoning are you ready for a vote all right mr. Leonard if you can do a roll call I'd be glad to all right so the motion is to rezone from recommend rezoning from C to B to R to a so EA would be in support of our 2a and they would be to recommend keeping the zoning as it is se to be commissioner most een no commissioner mills commissioner get Randall no commissioner Ackerman no commissioner so they Commissioner cheeto no Commissioner Weatherby no commissioner woods no and unanimous recommendation thank you moving on to West Hoover Avenue and West Davis Avenue area rezoning so let's take a five-minute break you I'm moving on to item 9c in our agenda in regards to the West Hoover Avenue and West Davis Avenue
116area rezoning we'll begin with our staff report when we have miss still here this is the West uber Avenue west Davis Avenue area rezoning closer this is a study we conducted at the direction of City Council they passed a resolution in September for staff to study the area and the Planning Commission to make a recommendation on whether it should be rezone to r1 d or r 1e the area is currently zoned r 4c you'll see that we've come up with a slightly different recommendation than a straight rezoning for the entire area and I'll explain our recommendation and our rationale the study area is about 13 acres it has 70 Lots in it most of the Lots have a single-family home but there are some multifamily buildings and there's including one large apartment building there are
117currently nine conforming Lots seven nine of the seventy are conforming the area has about one hundred and twenty seven dwelling units that's approximate it wouldn't be too much off but I can't vouch that particular number assuming that number though it's about nine and a half dwelling units per acre as I mentioned nine of the Lots are conforming 61 are non-conforming there are just three conforming multiple family developments there are more in the neighborhood probably upwards of 10 to a dozen but only three of them are conforming these Maps here the top map are the conforming Lots in the study area the middle map are the lots that are between and there 52 of them lots that are between 4,000 square feet and 8,000 499 square feet those numbers are the 8500 is the minimum lot
118size of the our 4c and 4000 square feet is the smallest single-family district that we have the r 1e so those are the Lots those purple ones in the middle map those are sort of the swing Lots those could become conforming depending on what district we pick but the bottom map has nine Lots those are less than 4,000 square feet those lots are would not be conforming no matter what district they were rezone to they have less than 4,000 square feet and we don't have a zoning district a residential zoning district that is that small so we focused on the the middle group the 52 Lots that we could make more conforming this is a map of the existing zoning in the study areas you'll see the study area is our 4c immediately to the
119north is mostly our 4c the west side is our 2a and on the south and west sides of the district is our 1 d across the street on south main you've got some some more our 4c and a little corner of office we are proposing because it became apparent in the planning process that just entirely rezoning the district would to either our 1 d or r 1e would create some new non-conformities and really the goal should be reducing the nonconformity is as well as preserving the existing character we found that if we just focus on the best fit and maybe consider not rezoning all of the properties that we can achieve those those goals so this is what we recommend we recommend that actually 58 of the Lots be rezone to our one D identified
120in yellow on this map here and four of them be rezone to r1 e giving those the getting as close to conformance as possible there is an address by address list in the staff report for convenience here we go what this rezoning scheme does is make the Lots that are in the new r1d district 45 of them 78% would become conforming the Lots that would be zoned r1 II one of them would be conforming 25% but that's up from 0% the 8 lots that are kept our 4c six of them would be conforming 75% and non-conforming 25% that even better than flip-flops the numbers right now 82% are non-conforming that would go to 25% no conforming lot is made non-conforming and no conforming multiple family use is made non-conforming any existing non-conforming uses whether they
121be a duplex in the neighborhood or a multi-family would remain non-conforming so there's basically no change of status there I would note that the occupancy limits would be reduced in the new r1 d and r1 e districts multiple family district allows up to six unrelated persons and the single-family districts allow up to four unrelated persons both districts allow a family of any size family is defined as persons related by blood marriage or adoption and those would be take effect upon a change in household type if there is a existing dwelling there that is currently occupied by six unrelated persons and it's registered and certified with the rental housing services as have as four six occupants it can remain as it can remain as a non-conforming or grandfathered and that would continue as long as that
122certification is valid for that number of occupants it's if there was a change if say it if say a family lived there or if it no longer became a rental its owner occupied was not sort of certified as a rental and then it became a rental again but it would need that trigger nothing about this rezoning change would would automatically trigger a required change in occupancy in our staff report we've gone I've gone through some of these part some of this data analysis we've also listed in the staff report some of the the benefits and the pros and cons as with any policy decision there would be pros and cons this would serve to preserve the existing character the study area is basically a neighborhood of single-family homes there most of the multifamily units there
123are converted from those single-family homes there are a handful of what were tear downs and new builds in a more multifamily style but it's basically a single-family neighborhood but the current zoning designation threatens the character because of its inherent requirement to combine lots you need to combine lots in this neighborhood to get that eight thousand five hundred square foot lot size and then you can develop a multi-family use so rezoning to single-family would remove that pressure to combine the lots in order to redevelop this is sort of a current situation of go big or go home you need to go big by come by tearing down the existing homes and developing multi-family a new construction there is no way to work with the existing buildings and the existing zoning but a con to this scheme
124is that the is the criticism that we are we are going to single-family zoning when many other progressive communities are up zoning but we are down zoning there are some mitigating factors to this now that it would be single-family zoning these homes many of them most of them would be eligible to have an accessory dwelling unit which effectively doubles the density on a lot not all would take advantage of this because they either can't or don't choose to so it's not that automatically the density would double but it just it's a point of note that there are still opportunities to increase density even if it is down zone 2 to single-family I'll say a little bit about a process that we undertook after a council passed that resolution in September we did our our planning
125work and we developed our findings and preliminary recommendations we held some informational meetings we held three of them everyone within the study area and within a thousand feet were invited to meetings open house style meetings that were held we had three meetings a morning and afternoon and an evening meeting in December and then for this public hearing tonight red notices were mailed to residents and property owners within the study area and one 300 feet surrounding in my staff report I've attached the council resolution as well as my preliminary findings and recommendations in that document I go through some more of the history of the area I also went through what does a non-conforming mean a conforming mean I've also attached some study area Maps the same ones shown here and they are provided in the
126staff report I would welcome any questions and in case I didn't already cover it but staffs recommendation is to rezone 58 specific Lots from our 4 C 2 R 1 D and an additional 4 2 r 1e as listed in the staff report thank you at this time we'll open up the public hearing on this item if you'd like to address the Planning Commission please step up to the podium state your name and address for the record you'll have three minutes to speak hello again Vince crew so five five six Glendale Circle I would make some of the same comments I made to the previous proposal I would hope you'd support City Council's desire to vote for the resolution that they proposed I think you know there's a lot of concern with this site in
127that there's a lot of pressure to develop for the athletic campus area I don't know that what we've gotten with athletic campus development is really beneficial to the city a lot of these sites become dormant most of the time during the year and become only active during football games or occasionally basketball games I think community this community and others are fearful of how developers can come in and and change dramatically the character of the neighborhoods and I think they're worried about the city of Ann Arbor you know maintaining the character other neighborhoods and I'll just make an example you know to cite the one you're talking about are meant cleaner I was with the card group I was a founding member we had discussions with the county about the one for dioxin contamination and this
128Armand cleaner site came up my wife's a toxicologists at the University we had a lot of discussion about the arm and cleaner site and how dangerous it was and my impression from County discussions I had was that the city was dragging his feet on dealing with that arm and cleaner site and that the city was supposed to do a appraisal and it just dragged on forever and the county was very upset that that did not move quickly so they could deal with it and try and get some resolution on that site and so I see you know that was an indication to I think that community that they need to step up for themselves and make sure that they look for out for themselves because I think the army cleaner side is particularly bad I
129think it's it's dangerous for that community I think the chemical and the chemicals that are vapor intrusion into those homes is very negative and EPA came in and did the test and show that they were being exposed so I think you know we need to make sure that we maintain the quality of life in these neighborhoods not just go for the quick bang you know and and hope for the best that you know that long term that those six bedroom apartments will you know work out in the long term and that the football Sunday condos will turn into you know regular families moving in because I don't think that that's a beneficial development for the city so thank you thank you my name is Abraham Mars bar I own one zero zero two Myron Court
130which is one of those Lots that proposed to be r1e and that Myron Court Street is if you look at that map I've don't know if you can show that everybody can see it it's gonna be sandwiched between on the east side Main Street houses which is our foresee on the west side with the apartments on the south side with another r4c sophie reason that Darwin II and at at some point these are four C's buildings that are going to go up and Myron court people residents won't just like the other gentleman said yeah you're not gonna see the Sun so that's the I object to being rezoning to urban he Myron court that's the OB are sandwiched we will be sandwiched between our four C's thank you thank you good evening Joe Hubert I'm
131at 3:02 West Hoover I've been a resident in the neighborhood lived in neighborhood own home since January 2005 I just want to state that I fully support the rezoning good evening I'm Savannah Heller I live at 128 West Hoover which is in the proposed rezoning area I already submitted a letter to you earlier today that has more extensive comments but I just want to offer my strong support for rezoning the neighborhood r1 d or r 1e depending this is a neighborhood of modest homes they're not fancy for the most part but those of us who live there care deeply about it and about preserving the character of it someone who spoke earlier about the ashley neighborhood said that they have felt a big negative impact from all the construction and that also applies to our
132area we're feeling buffeted and threatened first by the the two large buildings that have gone up on either side of Main Street but closer to home recently the two condo buildings that have gone up on West Davis in your main one of which is actually directly behind my backyard we really feel that the character of the neighborhood is being negatively affected by office construction it's produced a lot of anxiety and we're just concerned about preserving the character that remains I want to thank you again for considering this my one I guess concern about the the proposal which I also mentioned in my letter is that again those houses that flank the the beginning of West Hoover where it meets main I think one is 916 South Main and the other one is maybe 1,000 or
1331,200 selfless corners those are currently single family homes although they are zoned r4c they're quite old they're both over a hundred years old they're beautiful and I would hate to see them razed to make way for a new development that might not be so aesthetically pleasing if you haven't done so I'd urge you to just walk our neighborhood and see what the impact of the new condos on Davis has been we don't want Hoover to end up looking like that so again thank you for considering this proposal thank you a good evening man Ely 300 West Hoover in the study area homeowner since 2010 strongly in support of this rezoning thank you thank you is there anyone else in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission regards to this petition seeing no one
134I'll close the public hearing and I will read the motion the Harbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the mayor and city council rezone 58 Lots in the West Hoover Avenue West Davis Avenue area from our 4c multiple family dwelling district to r1 the single-family dwelling district and four Lots in the same area to r1e single-family dwelling district as map and listed in the February 5th 2019 staff report after studying the areas directed and is recommended by the future land-use chapter of the master plan move back mr. mills seconded by Commissioner Trudel discussion mr. Ackerman Thank You mr. chair similar to to this last piece came about through a resolution the councilmember Smith put forward in September of 2018 I'm glad to see it coming forward I think this exercise with this particular motion underscores
135better than anything that zoning really is a modern creation and a very imperfect one that a lot of these properties predate our city's zoning code and that's why some of them don't fit any of our definitions excuse me of what can be built today or what is conforming today ultimately I intend to support this I was excited about in September and I'm excited to see this coming back with with staffs recommendation of rezoning and also the the very delicate balancing of this is quite the complicated jigsaw so so I appreciate appreciate all the work I think just a couple clarifying questions with respect to 1,000 for Seth main it's not highlighted nor is I think that's 211 are those gonna be our 4c yeah okay there'll be are those are the two our four C's
136that will be non-conforming yes okay thank you so kind of speech start to speak towards the the gentleman who had concerns about the r1e being surrounded could you share what the r4c side and rear setbacks are so that if 125 Hoover wherever redeveloped as an R for C or 1000 and 1000 for main wherever redeveloped as an r4 see what that interaction would be like certainly give me one second I will just say that the fact that the the segment of our 1e is being inserted certainly decreases the likelihood of large-scale redevelopment just because you you all act as kind of a firewall between the two sets of properties so anything very large-scale you know the chain of the odds are reduced but certainly something good so be built so just want to get a
137better sense of what that could be the r4c district has a 25-foot front setback requirement or the average of the block and it has a 12-foot side setback on each side additional is required for a particularly long or deep building 50 feet is the threshold for long and it has a 30 foot rear setback okay and again that 30 foot rear setback would be increased for a particularly long building got it so if I'm interpreting that correctly for 1,000 1,000 for South Main Street this setback from any r1e potentially r1e neighbors be thirty feet however for 125 West Hoover that setback could be as little as 12 feet could be 12 feet on the side but from its neighbors on Pauline it would be 30 feet it is r4c take into account i guess what
138is it the rear setback for our 1e I recall it being our 1e is 20 feet that's the rear what's the side for Arlen 3-3 okay and what's the side for our 1d 3 as well okay D as in dog got it yeah so okay so our 1d neighbors could build a house much closer to the property line than any r4c neighbor however in our Farsi building could be larger exactly okay okay that's helpful um I know we have a commissioner who lives in the neighborhood so I'm sure she will have more targeted questions but I'm really glad to see this coming back and I really appreciate the delicate balancing act that this was I too am glad that we had an opportunity to look at this but I am open to listening to discussion
139but I think it for me it highlights that there's a big part of our code that's broken and that is our 4c because one of the things that miss Aleeah said early on is and in her exercise which was fantastic like I cannot compliment you enough I think in terms of doing the analysis and the jigsaw puzzles and and how many properties we would bring into conformance from one scenario versus another I think it's fantastic but one of the criteria was minimizing 1940s and right now all I don't know exactly the like percentage of land area but is it right to say over half of our 4c properties are not conforming I think specifically 82% 82% of our 4c properties are non-conforming so it is not just this neighborhood that has this problem it is
14082% of neighborhoods that are zone this way that have this problem and so I I want to try to remedy things for this neighborhood but I don't want to lose sight of the bigger picture and I and I think that we really need to think about this systematically so in terms of your analysis like I think that you're absolutely right there's we can think about density here a couple of different ways and this on the books maybe a down zoning but with ad use which could bring it almost into parity but that really assumes that everybody building a to you if everybody builds an ad you we could get something like 16 units per acre now each of those units because in our one district our functional families are smaller each of those units are
141gonna have fewer people one of those units at least is going to have to be owner occupied according to our thing and we know just given the uptake of our edu so far like for not gonna see all of that in our foresee right now you could build 20 units per acre but in order to do that because our first see is broken you have to combine lots and tear them down but turned out houses and combined Lots that's what's happening here that's what's happening in our force be in many places in order to get a look big enough lot to actually do something and achieve that density so the the problem right now is that we can't achieve that density which is which we know has many benefits for our community and this is
142right on great transportation lines this is this is the place where you want people to live they can walk to campus still they can walk to downtown they can hop on the multiple buses we can't achieve that right now because you have to tear down properties and combine them and the people who want to stay in a single-family residence in this neighborhood but you should be able to stay in a single-family residence can't do anything to their property either because it's not performing and so it's like the worst of all worlds and it's not because it's because our force fee is broken and by the way we've known this for a while actually maybe Commissioner whether people like Phyllis Planning Commission she was I the Commission trying to figure out how to fix our four-seat
143like this is an ongoing problem that would just kick the can down the road and we need to stop kicking it off road because like this is really this is a challenge one of the best things that I think came out of Alexis's research honest is looking at an early version of our foresee that actually show that there was a scale and the allowed to build on a property and potentially even you know I don't know if it included to the setbacks but was based on the sides of your property it's not like now where you have to have 1200 what is it 8,500 square feet in order to do anything back then it was a one-bedroom unit oh you know you needed this much square footage and a two-bedroom you know give you this
144much square footage I think that's very cool piece of history to uncover but I think that it's something that we need to consider and going back to that I in looking at you know the analysis that was emailed to us earlier Thank You mr. on it for like what kind of variances have been applied for in this district there's not tons and there's not times that would be necessarily affected by this I I want to use this as an opportunity to say we need to do our foresee and so I really I hate to downzone this and then turn around and like fix our first scene that I was on it I just don't think that that will happen and so that's why I'm really uncomfortable supporting this at this point commissioner whether we okay
145so I have a lot of opinions about this there are many of them conflicting I agree with everything that commissioner Mills said however I first started working on the r4c zoning nine years ago I'm also now on the Zoning Board of Appeals and a lot of lots in this area I think people there a lot of them are small houses people would like to add on and they're not gonna be able to do that now I think our foresee is broken I don't think it does what we wanted to do I don't from the CBA side the Zoning Board of Appeals the fact that these are all out of compliance to a lot a large part of I I think I would be okay rezoning these all into compliance but with the understanding that that
146could change soon ish soon on a city scale because it's been nine years and we haven't even really touched it I think any sort of large-scale rezoning or even fixing of our foresee is going to be years and I think we need to have a lot of conversations as a community about where we want to go is owning and how we want to do it miron court I love Myron court Myron court is awesome and it would be great if we could have more places like Myron court that would allow a lot of density in in areas but single-family homes and some of the things that we want we don't really allow Myron ports no and I think that's that's a problem because I think it would be great if we if our city was
147set up to in some of these areas allow more building like that I think people would love those areas so I'm really conflicted here because and yes I look out at this this is exactly what I see out my front yard I live on Main Street my front window looks out on this this area so I see the changes I I am less upset by the changes than I think some people but I've had a while to look at this in a while to get used to these things I know a lot of people are looking for housing we need to discuss affordable housing we need to discuss a lot of housing issues in our city and we can't say everything has to stay the same what we need affordable housing that's just not going
148to happen we're gonna all have to make some changes and some of those changes may be hard and people will be affected in different ways so I guess I'm inclined to support this I think a lot of work has gone into this and I never thought that even this many would be conforming I think you've done yeoman's work trying to get these conforming I I'm okay with making these more conforming it's also they line up with the other half of their block which I think has some it's a little strange to be on one side of a block in one zoning and once I have a block in another zoning so I think this fixes some of the problems but it it fixes a tiny little problem in this tiny little area it does not
149fix the issue of zoning across the city and even in the downtown area I think it it helps some people for a short period of time and I think the fact that we can bring some it you know a large number of these houses into compliance I think is a good thing but I don't think zoning this and crossing it off the list is being done I don't think that's true I think these areas are going to change i I think the the safest way to keep your house in your area the way you want it is to continue to own it and then you can do what you want with it I mean within the zoning code but I think Ann Arbor is going to change for better or for worse and I'd like
150to see it change for better and be accessible to more people I think most people in the this neighborhood thought and they were fairly reasonable houses I know I didn't pay a lot for my house and the fact that the houses across the street from me are now selling for 10 times what I bought my house for that's a big problem in our city and and we're going to need to address it we can start here as commissioner Mills kind of wants to start now instead of kicking that can down the road I'm okay with kicking the can but we can't do it very much and we can't do it for very long because I think we're causing a lot of problems by ignoring this and by by not looking at our zoning in a
151wholesale way so so I'm willing to rezone this particular area as because I think this does help I think they've bringing it into compliance helps but but it is a an issue and I'm not saying that I'm done with zoning in this area can we stretcher down yeah I've got very similar feelings that we've already heard so I'll try to keep it short mostly agree we're previous commissioners have agreed and and that thinks for me also the big takeaway was that looking at this was it just highlights all the things that I don't like about our zoning code and the tools we don't have because we like these neighborhoods are great people love them and we don't let ourselves build this way anymore it's illegal to like build them this way and because the zoning
152is so broken and in addition to our foresee I think even just going back to my report which I agree is awesome and I love those little courtyard pockets in our neighborhoods and our 1e is a relatively recent addition to our zoning ordinance which was Lou the intent was to make it easier to build small houses on small lots which are more affordable and can adapt to sort of our quirky so your environment even here only one of them would come into compliance so you still can't build a my rent court I think that's also something to think about like how can we get that like small house small lot kind of infill quirkiness without creating big massive projects to get the density and I very much sympathize with with Commissioner Mills like we need
153to fix this but I like I think I kind of agree with with Commissioner Weatherby like it's gonna be all and I'm like I have my thoughts as our force again I'd love disowning to change things that I might neighborhood ago differently but it's if we just lived with our foresee for a while we're gonna see I think we'll see more of the Terran islands more of these which are I don't think are great like that they're either the million-dollar condos or they're the really boxy kind of ugly apartment buildings surrounded by mode of parking you know and there's things we could change the ordinance to get something different but more of that I don't think this is really gonna be like I like actually I'd love to see more density but I don't necessarily
154want to see a march of that kind of density into the hood but yeah but I think Sony changes are big and if we change this is unlikely to change back even if we think we want to if we can fix it later so I would like I'm on the fence on it but I think I mean I think I'm leaning towards supporting about half we hear what other commissioners have to say I'm sure so they so I'm looking at two Maps I'll taste the rezoning but then the overall r4 see an 87% conformance 82% going the other way this this neighborhood 87% overall if we start this process do we start converting more our four C's because 82% are out of compliance in the r1d and now do we go through this process of
155giving attention to down zoning instead of giving attention to solving our 4c so that's actually what I'm looking at is distracting ourselves from the larger problem that we have Amazonian by fixing pieces at a time into a down zoning scenario I understand the problems with it I come from a more commercial architecture you know background where we deal a lot with out of compliance and you see a lot of tear downs and adaptive reuse isn't a very friendly area in Tony and we saw it just even even in the previous one of the houses that were businesses adaptive reuse is very hard in zoning and so trying to protect character and trying to enable more density with similar character I think I looking citywide at what this movement would create with this vote to 82%
156more I don't want to support movement in that direction so that's my position and I am equal mindset although I'm incredibly supportive of this rezoning we have a much much bigger problem in this city it's a huge problem and I plan to oppose this and with a message to City Council get us the funds needed to hire a consultant so that we can fix this problem it's a big problem and it needs to be fixed you know hearing those numbers 87 percent that's huge so this definitely needs to be fixed although I'm supportive of what what the plan is and what what's being proposed I'm very supportive of it but this is a much greater problem commissioner Ackerman thank you mr. chair I would advocate strongly that we still support this change tonight and ultimately
157I would expect that that's the direction of council I you know this is this came forward for the council resolution trying to address specific needs voiced by residents and I think that's an appropriate thing to do along major transit corridors it preserves denser zoning while bringing in a lot more existing houses that we've all expressed you know appreciation for into compliance if there is interest in this body I I mean I guess careful what you wish for I mean the next city council meeting is on the 18th and I'm happy to introduce a resolution that directs this body to get to work on our 4c mr. miner it's already on your work plan I think there was a deadline I can give us a prompt to to explore potential budgeting if we do need external
158support or whatever I can explore budget applications I guess I would we have a broken system residents came forward asking for a solution you know systemic change takes a little longer I would rather alleviate the effects of a broken system or group of people who came forward and then you know do the hard work of fixing the system as well commissioner whether me just another little note this area is specifically called out in the master plan for this sort of action so just as a note Commissioner Mills this is I had early on so first I think I'm very concerned about a slippery slope right and and so I think I was thinking that in my mind but I appreciate commissioners so they saying that I mean I think that that if we Rizzo in
159one neighborhood it's easy but it's easy to go down that slippery slope so commissioner Ackerman I wonder if that's even possible like I don't I don't want us to see any more of these rezoning x' while we're undertaking r4c like is it possible to have a something no never mind okay bad idea that's what I'm really concerned about I think that I think that it's a little bit concern it's gonna take some time and I think that there are there are people who would rather have their neighborhood potentially zoned to single-family and act like I don't like the message that this sentence especially because this is not the only neighborhood in this situation I take Commissioner Weatherbys point about the master plan specifically calling for it I think that's helpful and that certainly gives back
160up here even then there's this is this is a great place for I mean this has really great transit access and so in terms of like density of any like if we're trying to densify generally right I think that that's something that maybe our our master plan revision is going to consider overall and so that seems to be moving in the wrong direction I really don't like the idea of this serving I also recognize that there are people in the community in this neighborhood that have asked for this it's like I want to be respectful of that but this is this is a system look this is a problem across the city not just here in that I don't want it to be the slippery slope it looks like mr. just - just two quick
161observations I think that there are many our four cities across the city that don't have that sort of specific recommendation in the master plan so I think that is relevant I'm not saying it's the only determinant but it's relevant and I would as as it relates to another rezoning because if hypothetically this is recommended one way or another by Planning Commission and council takes action on it I want to caution you from getting too far down a precedent so when we are considering zonings we are considering it from the master plan language we're considering context as you talked about this area you're considering specific aspects of its relationship to other areas of the city - transportation networks both motorized and non to be more clear because this area is deemed appropriate for a rezoning doesn't
162mean that all other areas might reach the same conclusion so all it's not to say that it might not spark other applications but they are really considered in their individual context so I I wouldn't be fearful that by taking action here that it is somehow paving the way for a predetermined decision for the next petition that you have it's not to say it might not cause more such applications but they are really uniquely analyzed and determined and you you and ultimately the City Council might find conclusions on someone asks Sherwood's I was gonna say something similar to that but he put it so much better but there there is sort of a tension between what we as a Planning Commission do and what Council does in in responding to what residents are asking them about
163so I think this is a this has been a good discussion to have for us to see that sometimes there are not perfect solutions but sometimes you do have to go with what with what works in that case I am going to support this and I want to thank mr. Leo for all of the charts and all of the information and everything I think that was really helpful and we can use that as we perhaps may look at other areas of the city and this kind of information is really helpful Thank You mr. Trudeau so I'm gonna do with mr. Leonard advised us not to do which is worry about precedent in future consequence which the other side of the slippery slope that I would worry about is not only are we gonna see more
164locations like this but related to that like is that going to accelerate interest in in redevelopment of tear downs in other parts of the city you like if there's a if there's anticipation but that's gonna happen the opportunities for for infill will be reduced even more dramatically in the downtown adjacent neighborhoods are we gonna see my neighborhood get even more relief giant really expensive condo buildings and you know multi-billion dollar single family homes on d2 blots which is coming soon like things like that because there's yeah we're taking that step and potentially releasing the dam so I mean I and I very much still on the fence I think I'm still inclined to support this although I don't really like it and I'd really like to get to fixing our foresee yeah anyone anyone I
165think I'm going to support this but barely is the way I feel I'm conflicted as well the fact that is called out in the master plan is a separate thing does make somewhat a big difference to me and I guess I feel a little bit like commissioner Weatherby this this isn't the last don't don't think that this may not change I just think the pace of the change is going to be City pace which is you know it's gonna be a long time but I feel like don't hold me to it in terms of the the bigger context but that it makes sense for now is kind of what I'm feeling like but it's it's a hard this is a hard one for me so I want to vote yes very much so but I'm
166going to vote no for one reason and that is in hopes that some City Council members will look at the minutes and really read them and see that there's a greater problem mr. Ackerman I'm happy to express that thank you all right ah let's do a rolecall thought that might be coming so the motion has read an affirmative vote would be a recommendation to rezone in the scheme as presented in the staff report that 52 personals to r1d and for parcels to r1e commissioner Milstein no commissioner Mills Commissioner I give Randall yes Commissioner Ackerman yes Commissioner sauvé Commissioner Trudeau yes commissioner Weatherby yes Commissioner woods yes the motion fails without six supporting votes thank you this moves on to City Council one will be before City Council I would estimate about a month from now
167give or take okay thank you very much all right moving on to audience participation is there anyone in the audience who wishes to address the Planning Commission in regards to any item and you a time at all seeing no one will move on to Commission proposed business are there commissioner Mills clearly r4c but that's already our I don't wanna lose that thank you very much mr. lang if I could um I was fascinated by this sari from the 1970 census to the 2010 census which is the last two hard data counts in the city the city's population has increased by thirteen thousand eight hundred and ninety nine people that's about 0.95 people every day over that forty year period almost one person before 1970 I was just doing best I can yeah yeah but from
168so for the last forty years about one per person or one person per day U of M enrollment has gone up steadily over that time period I'm still trying to pull some of that data but I suspect it's a big chunk of that so I suspect that some of our resident population has been even flatter over that time period I think I don't know yet I don't know yet yeah technically a student should be counted where they spend the most of their time so in theory the census should count a resident on campus resident or at school resident here as opposed to maybe their hometown students count towards our poverty rate as well yeah another data point that I want to have back I shared with you that we had approved three hundred four units
169in 2018 I think that was overly bureaucratic of me that is the number of units that have not only been approved by a board but it's like satisfied all execution of any conditions development agreements and the like it's been gnawing at me ever since then I think that it's more interesting to you as a commissioner and ultimately to the City Council are the decisions that you're making at that tape this table relative to those units so I'd like to amend that report to reflect the amount of projects that actually have been approved at either the Planning Commission or City Council table is not 304 but it is 757 and 2018 7:47 excuse me so again that reflects some that we're still putting finishing touches on a development agree or something like that and I think
170that's a more valid data point for you as commissioners and generally to the public for some refer to a large extent as well so that is residential units not bedrooms number of homes the amount of non commercial non-residential square feet was the same at a hundred and fifteen thousand so and then lastly there are four things that are sort of in various states of analysis of the Planning Commission all on your work plan we have accessory dwelling units where we've got I anticipate bringing you some proposed language for consideration of working session and then for future schedule then we have transit oriented zoning we have parking require and we have now in our 4c is on our work plan and so I'd like to spend some time perhaps at our working session prioritizing which of
171those is how we allocate our time and our resources to to those initiatives that seem like a good plan okay consulting to be able to like I could but to be clear right now I don't I don't have those resources so anything we had a minimum anything we would want to make progress on from now until July 1st I don't I don't have that budget it's not to say we couldn't take something this accountant to counsel and ask for it I'm my senses that might be challenging in the context of the overall budget discussion that's also happening right now so but I will I can try and frame that I I actually am coming to this more of the sense that I don't know how many resources may be available and so I'd like to
172have that conversation with all of you to say in if if we are resource constrained which one it seems most compelling for us I'd love to do them all and maybe that is the answer but I think if we're gonna do that I think we have to acknowledge that it's going to be a very longer project more protracted process if one of those sort of rises to the level of this has to be done first then I would really like us to consider putting more resources into that so we can make some more progress it would be helpful to know how much staff time is required these four items and in general you expected this that it would take sure and whether or not you foresee a need for a consult yeah I will try
173to frame all that um it'll be speculative but fortunately we've got some history with at least one of these where we can look at how much time was involved in that case and I will try to bring some some ideas to that meeting for that purpose sure what I mean so I think parking is gonna be part of just about everything in that I know it was a big big big topic of conversation for our foresee so I don't know that but I don't know that we can take parking separate problems and I mean I think transit oriented zoning and stuff is all gonna include that so as much as I'd like to say hey our forts the Air Force the Air Force II I think parking is gonna be a huge part of all
174of them and maybe shouldn't be taken as a piece of but rather a kind of a whole mature Mills this these are the ordinance changes in addition to the master plan that we are scoping out as well we have issued a request for proposals actually for a master plan but one of the so the timing of that is really great that I am looking forward to seeing the proposals we get and the anticipated range of costs with that I have that we have requested that as part of the budget process um it's challenging for everybody with their hands around until we get a better sense of what the scope of those costs might be so so it's I say that to say it's beyond scoping we have I've put together scope I shared it with
175the master plan subcommittee and we've actually issued it it's available on the website and we would like to see it proposals are due on March 7th go through an evaluation process that will then dovetail with a budget process and and again similar to my comments on other resources obviously the city is balancing a lot of resources I can't I can't sit here and say for sure that we'll be able to do that but at a minimum will I feel like we'll have the information to know what the scope and the scale might look like I think that's I think that's helpful to know and I think that might factor into our discussion too if we're going to go through a large planning process or anticipate going through a larger planning process which of these might
176benefit from that planning versus what might make sense regardless of what that planning process says so thank you for the update and I'm sorry that I failed to update on what the master plan committee did we did meet but I already did I think you mostly even liked it yeah yeah all right any other commission proposed business motion to adjourn mr. Gibb Randall Commissioner once we are adjourned thank you you