Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 regular meeting of the Ann Arbor Planning Commission. My name is Donnell Wyche, and I will be chairing tonight's meeting. For detailed meeting procedures, please review the full printed meeting agenda provided at each end of the dais. Manager Kelly, would you please call the roll? Bess Yuni.

Here. Norton. Here. Weatherby.

Here.

Mills. Here. Dish. Here. Noting planned absences from Commissioners Lee and Adams. Hammersmith.

Here.

And Weish.

I am here. You have a quorum. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? Moved by Councilmember Dish, seconded by Commissioner Weatherby. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. May I have a motion to approve the minutes of the July 21st, 2026 meeting? Moved by Councilmember Dish, seconded by Commissioner Weatherby. Is there any discussion of the minutes? All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion carries. Next up are reports to the Planning Commission and written communications. We'll start with Councilmember Dish, if you're ready.

As you know, there wasn't a meeting on Monday because of the election, and we will meet tomorrow, Thursday night. And I was just going to say how delighted I am to be on this body and to be able to report that advocates for housing opportunity and social justice, which has been our work, four of those advocates won. seats, and there were five open. So we won four out of the five open seats. And that will, sorry, that's going to support the work we do here. And it is all the more important that we continue with the work that we're doing here and do it with the joy and pleasure and sometimes long hours that it demands. So thank you.

Thank you, council member Dish. Manager Culley, do you have a manager's report?

Yes, I would like to let the commission or remind the commission of the comprehensive plan request for proposals that is out for bid right now. Those proposals are due on Tuesday, August 11th, and they will not be considered or opened prior to that date. There will be then a selection committee which reviews those and I expect there would likely be some offer made in middle to late August but I'm not sure of the specifics beyond the date of the 11th which is when it closes the solicitation closes and I also wanted to remind you, which you should have via email, that the August 11th working session is canceled, but we do intend to keep the fourth Tuesday 825 working session, and I'm just waiting on some final confirmations before officially announcing those topics.

Great. Thank you, Manager Kelly. Do any other commissioners or committee liaisons have any reports? Written communications, for those of you who are with us in chambers as well as those who are online, are included in today's packet. And the way you would access that is via Legistar. So you'll go to a2gov.legistar.com. You'll click on Calendar. Then you'll click on City Planning Commission. You'll navigate down to today's meeting, Wednesday, August 5th. you'll click on the link which will take you to our agenda and each of the items that we are considering this evening are linked there as well as the site plans the staff reports and any additional attachments that brings us up to agenda item number six public comment and so this is a period of time to talk about items that are not listed as a public hearing or a dedicated public comment period so you can speak up to three minutes during this time and we'll first hear from those of you who are present with us in chambers then we'll turn to remote participants to speak remotely please press press star 9 if on phone or use the raise hand feature for zoom for phone access dial 877-853-5247 and enter meeting id 977-6634-1226 City staff will identify callers by the last three digits of their phone number or by name if on Zoom. You will hear a background announcement when it's your turn to speak. Please move to a quiet area and mute any background noise. For those speaking, whether in chambers or online, please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments. Is there anyone present in chambers who would like to address us now? Good evening, Mr. Garber.

Thank you, Chair Weish. A process question. The unfinished business on 3400 Dexter Road, on my agenda, it's not listed with a public hearing or public comment, so is now the appropriate time to comment on that one?

Is this 3400? So on my agenda, Mr. Garber, it does have a public hearing, so I will hold a public hearing for that.

Okay. It must have been updated recently. Thank you.

I'm sorry for that. Is there anyone else present in chambers who'd like to address us at this time? Manager Kelly, do we have remote participants who'd like to address us at this time?

We do not.

That means I will close this public comment period and go to agenda item number seven, communication from commissioners. Is there any? Moving on to agenda item number eight, public hearings scheduled for the next business meeting. When you're ready, Manager Kelly, can you let us know about our upcoming public hearings?

certainly the planning commission's next regular session will take place on tuesday august 18th there is one public hearing i'm sorry two public hearings on that agenda and one item with dedicated public comment the first of which is 548 south fifth a rezoning and area plan this is a petition to rezone a 7 600 square foot parcel at 548 south 5th from r4c multiple family dwelling to d1 downtown core with a midtown character overlay and secondary street frontage the parcel is proposed to be included on the site of the dean a project to develop a high-rise residential building which is under separate review at the main address 558 south 5th avenue The second public hearing is 525 Detroit Street, special exception use. This is a request for special exception use for religious assembly at 525 Detroit Street, the former Treasure Mart building. A previous SEU request for the same use was approved in 2021 and recently expired. The site is under construction with an approved site plan. No new development is proposed. It is zoned R4C and located in Ward 1. Staff recommendation is approval. AND THE FINAL ITEM FOR DEDICATED PUBLIC COMMENT IS 1000 VICTOR'S WAY AREA PLAN ATRIUM SOUTH FOR CITY COUNCIL APPROVAL. THIS IS A PROPOSED AREA PLAN FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT ON A 12 ACRE SITE WITH FIVE APARTMENT BUILDINGS INCLUDING SOME GROUND FLOOR RETAIL SPACE, A HOTEL, AND TWO PARKING STRUCTURES. The development may provide up to 985 residential units, 19,550 square feet of retail space, 120 hotel rooms, open space, and over 1,000 structured parking spaces to replace the existing office buildings. It is zoned TC1 Transit Corridor. Thank you, Manager Kelly.

That'll take us to agenda item number nine. This is 3400 Dexter Road, SP250021. It is a site plan for city council approval with a company annexation from Sioux Township. and propose rezoning from R4B Multifamily Dwelling District. The site plan for a 4.31-acre parcel proposes the construction of 30 three-story attached townhome units in seven buildings. One three-unit building, three four-unit buildings, and three five-unit buildings. Each townhome will have two garage and two driveway parking spaces. There will also be three guest surface parking spaces. The site plan proposes 2.82 acres of open space and contains some wetland areas. It is adjacent to M-14. It is currently zoned TWP Township and would be in Ward 5. Staff recommendation is approval with conditions. So what we'll do is we'll start by hearing from the petitioner. They'll have up to 10 minutes to give a presentation, followed by a staff presentation by Planner Shake. Then we will open a public hearing. We'll hear from those of you who are present with us in chambers as well as online. We will then read the motion, and then the Planning Commission will have its discussion and will make its recommendation. So with that, if the petitioners are ready, please come on up.

Good evening, Planning Commission. My name is Jason Eikoangeli. I'm a certified planner on staff with Toll Brothers, who's the applicant for the 3400 Dexter project. We were with you last month, myself and Jason Rickard. To discuss this project, it is an annexation. This property is currently in Sio Township, and it's located at 3400 Dexter, and it's, yeah, sorry. It's... can wait you can wait your time is not going we'll give you back some time all right i don't want to rush through anything but yeah try to do my best to just kind of sure go back over it so that it's not belabored at all but if you'll remember this this particular piece of property is located between m14 and ironwood drive and it's right across the street from the arbor landings apartment complex this piece is In the master plan, the current comprehensive plan, it doesn't have a designation in the current one, but in the old plan, the designation was for sort of like low-rise buildings. medium density kind of middle development and that's what this project is so these are three-story townhomes on this four acre site and the last time we were here We were asked by the Planning Commission to go back and work with the Transportation Department on this issue of the connection of sidewalks. So we're providing the frontage sidewalk that will connect our parcel across the frontage to the bridge that leads over into the township. And then the question was, is how do we fill the gap? And so we've worked with the Planning Department, Joshua was very helpful, and then the Transportation Department. to come to an amenable solution to give a contribution that would cover a portion of the cost that the transportation department has assigned to that portion of the sidewalk so we've agreed to contribute and then the the money will go to the transportation department so that they can put the drawings together as a part of their project of filling uh gaps in the sidewalk along uh 34 not dexter dexter road sorry we're looking at 3400 but the dexter corridor itself so i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have um about that or about the project in general. If you'd like me to go on a little bit more, I'm happy to do so, but I don't wanna- It's your time.

So you get to use your time as you choose. Okay. Well, if there's any other questions, I'd be happy to answer them. We won't be able to ask those questions until it's our time, which is three times after. so so i guess i'll yield the floor great questions then okay thank you so much all right uh we'll turn now to a staff presentation by planner shake

Make sure I can get the microphone going. So at the June 16th Planning Commission meeting, the 3400 Dexter rezoning and site plan petition was returned to staff to resolve issues surrounding the proposed sidewalk along Dexter Road. The applicant has since worked with staff to address these issues and meet staff approval criteria for transportation. There is one outstanding issue for engineering, relatively minor. the scheme of things so just wanted to give a brief brief summary of the project again so this is both a rezoning and a site plan so would be for final approval at and annexation so would be for final approval at City Council rezoning this parcel the request is to r4b The petition addresses the criteria found in the UDC, including the extent to which the rezoning is necessary, how the rezoning will affect the public welfare and property rights of persons located in the vicinity, how the rezoning will be advantageous to the city, how this particular location will meet the convenience and service requirements of potential users and occupants, any changed or changing conditions in any particular area which may have any bearing on this request, and other circumstances and factors. Additionally, staff, there was some question staff in our memo. So we, in the packet today, we have the original staff report and we attached an update memo update for a few things, the updated proposed motion statement and a revision to paragraph on page six of the staff report. um that has been revised to or housing is identified as a future type use type in the in great need across the city in the comprehensive plan the future land use map identifies this parcel as township owned the parcel is currently surrounded and proposed to be surrounded by residential uses staff find this rezoning to be advantageous to the city because it provides housing options in a residential part of the city thereby mitigating any potential use conflicts. Given some of the site constraints for development, including wetlands and adjacency to M14 and state right-of-way, R4B is the most suitable zone because it allows for moderate density while still protecting some of the site's natural features. And finally, just to briefly summarize the project, it has been summarized already. It is a I lost my tab. A proposal for 30 three-story attached townhome units in seven buildings. Each unit will be installed with an EVC and an EVR space. aligns with some of the E2 climate, E2 zero climate goals, including window construction and wall construction. About 66% of the site's open space, two wetlands on the site, one will be disturbed and requires a wetland use permit, the other will not. um and then the sidewalk will be installed along the frontage of this entire property and a contribution um that has been uh discussed in an agreement with the transportation division for filling the sidewalk gap between the parcel line of this parcel and the intersection at ironwood which was the preferred alternative for the transportation division was addressing that sidewalk cap But with that, I'll turn things back over.

Thank you, Planner Shaikh. We'll now have a public hearing on this item. This is an opportunity for individuals to speak up to three minutes on this item. We'll first hear from those of you who are present with us in chambers, then we'll turn to remote participants. To speak remotely, please press star 9 if on phone or use the raise hand feature if on Zoom. For phone access, dial 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226. City staff will identify callers by the last three digits of their phone number or by name if on Zoom. You'll hear an announcement when it's your turn to speak. Please ensure you're in a quiet area and mute any background noise. For all participants, whether in person or on Zoom, please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments. Is there anyone present in chambers who'd like to address us on this item? Hello again, Mr. Garber.

Hello. I didn't have to wait long. Ken Garber, 28, Haverhill Court. Yeah, in general, this is a good project. I know at the last meeting commission, you had a really good discussion. And besides the frontage on Dexter, you brought up a couple other issues. as i remember there was protecting or screening the refuse collection area from the neighborhood on ironwood and maybe trying to work out some kind of pathway from the north end of the project to allow so For example, kids wouldn't have to go all the way around to go to the local school. I haven't had time to see what the petitioner has done about this. I'm sure he'll ask about it. My main question is about the sustainability aspects. At the last meeting, Mr. Picoangeli, I think I have that right this time. Thank you, sir. Yes, mentioned that the reason they couldn't electrify these 30 townhomes is because there's a need to pump effluent sewage from the site, and that requires a backup gas generator. and therefore they need a gas line and somehow this precluded electrifying these units. I don't really see the connection there. I understand the need for a gas generator for the effluent pumping, but that doesn't seem to preclude air source heat pumps for the 30 town homes. Most new developments like this are going all electric in the city, so it's If there's any way to avoid that, that would be great. There's no solar on these roofs. I think I remember from the last meeting that the solar ready leases are designed so that if this project wanted to join the seu the sustainable energy utility that would be permissible but it seems to me better rather than leave this to um a decision to do that then we just install the solar as um a standard feature of these units up front. So those are my concerns. The zoning seems appropriate at R4B. I was convinced of that after your discussion last time. And I'd like to see this project built. I'd just like to see it better. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Garber. Is there anyone else in chambers who'd like to address us at this time? Manager Kelly, do we have any remote participants who would like to address us on this item?

We do have one caller. Rich Fine, you have permission to address Planning Commission for three minutes.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Great, okay. I would just like to follow up to Mr. Garber's statement, one of his about the electrification of the units. We're hoping, I'm calling representing Citizens Climate Lobby, and we're hoping that the developer could provide a little more clarification regarding why they've chosen to heat the development with gas. Again, the need for a backup generator shouldn't preclude the use of electrification for heat. Just because there's a gas line in there doesn't mean that the units can't be heated with electric heat pumps. There are multiple townhouse developments that have either recently been approved or are being constructed now, including the Village of Ann Arbor, the for sale units, 416 Longshore Drive, 75 South Main, And now we recently learned that 3420 Glacier Way are all electric townhome units. So we're just hoping that the developer could provide a little bit more clarity on this and hoping that they would reconsider as well to help us meet our carbon neutrality goals. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fine.

There are no further hands raised.

I shall close the dedicated public comment and read part of the motion because these motions are sometimes quite long. Thank you, Planner Shake. So here we go. Motion number one, the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission recommends that the Mayor and City Council approve 3400 Dexter Road rezoning from TWP Township to RR4B Multifamily Dwelling District. Motion number two, the Ann Arbor City Planning Commission recommends approval of SP26-0021 3400 Dexter Road Site Plan Version 7 dated June 25, 2026, subject to... Execution and compliance with the development agreement and the following conditions which must be satisfied through the submission of revised plans within six months of approval by City Council. To it, they are listed in the staff memo. All conditions must be fully satisfied through the submission of compliant plans prior to the city's acceptance and or review of civil engineering plans and prior to the issuance of any associated permits for the development. Moved by Councilmember Dish, seconded by Commissioner Mills. So this begins our discussion. Who would like to kick us off?

Councilmember dish I do have a question so you can come up So you mentioned that you have reached You had a productive conversation and there is an agreement that you will pay a portion of the cost Is that 50% of the cost of that sidewalk?

No, it's it's slightly less so around um so the total cost of the sidewalk estimated by the city's engineer was 75 000 and we're going to be contributing 28 500 um so uh and that's quite sure of what the percentage is but that's um that's the dollar amount that we agreed to contribute, and the transportation felt that was a fair amount.

Okay, that's great, because in transportation review number seven, There's a figure of 35,000, but I will take your word for it that there's been an agreement between you and transportation that 28,000 will be fine. And I'm really pleased to hear this, because filling that gap's really important, because it will enable people to cross at a crosswalk, which is really great that the city is building. And at the same end, there is both a public benefit and a benefit to your project. And so I think it's really important that transportation was able to agree that you would pay a portion and they would pay a portion. So that seems great to me.

I'm super pleased to be able to do that, too.

Well, really, thank you. It's really nice.

From a planning perspective, it's the right thing to do.

Well, it's great. And it's great that when these terrific infill projects happen, public infrastructure comes with it, and developers help to pay that, and the city can also. I mean, I think everybody wins in these kinds of situations. I wanted to verify, to answer one of Mr. Garver's questions, that In the advanced materials, there was a mention that you had raised the height of the waste enclosure fence. And there are additional trees as well to screen light and noise for the neighbors. So thank you very much for doing that. I'm going to let somebody else ask the questions about electricity. I don't know. Should he sit down?

He's not that far.

OK. I'm done.

Thank you, Councilmember Dish. Councilmember Norton. I mean, Commissioner Norton. Sorry. I know. I was mentioning Councilmember, so it was right there. If only it worked that way.

We have limited ability to demand things like that you make your project entirely electric, but could you speak to what kind of heat sources you'll be using? Have you thought about solar or connecting to the utility?

All electric is something that... we've contemplated doing we haven't settled on it completely just yet but if it's so that's actually not been finally resolved you haven't figured out for sure how you're gonna not not just yet but if it's something the planning commission is going to require as a part of the rezoning and the plan approval then it's something that we can look into doing I don't know that we can require it but we can ask you to look into it just out of you know

Just good practice. One thing I've learned, too, from prior meetings is that when we need to have emergency backup generators that If that's the only reason to put a gas line to a development project, then having a diesel backup is actually preferable because then you don't have to connect the gas. So you might consider using a diesel backup for your effluent project and think about adding solar and heat pumps. So again, we can't require that. I'm just asking you to contemplate those things as you further develop your project.

Yeah, I mean, I think as we move towards final site plan, we can have a further discussion with

you know the township sustainability department about that yeah absolutely thank you also i'll just say for addressing the concerns that we raised at the last no problem uh just uh oh okay

So it is the case that you were not able to successfully create an easement with any of the property owners to create an outlet from the property. Yeah, because the school, as Mr. Garber mentioned, and we discussed when you were here last, they'll have to walk all the way out to Dexter and then they'll have to walk all the way down, which is going to invite students to cut through neighbor's yards anyway. And so if there was some way we could get that set up beforehand.

That was one thing I wasn't able to accomplish. The property owner who's allowing us to have easements through their property for the utilities. Still doesn't want to. Yeah, they want to retain the right to build a house. And so it was something where we thought if we could provide the sidewalk along the frontage at the street where a lot of pedestrian traffic naturally goes anyway, Ironwood Drive is... a dirt road in that area so there's really no pedestrian facilities there anyway not that that's an excuse but dexter with the sidewalk and the crosswalk and the bus stop is a more visible safe area to probably go as opposed to try to um negotiate a cut through but it would have you have you never been a kid Okay You know the children will find their way to exactly his path exactly agree with that but um We were hopeful that the transportation and working with them and getting the sidewalk at the street was a good cop now I just wanted to follow up on it and then to mr. Garber's point about electrification Because the site already doesn't have gas lines.

You're gonna have to bring in the piping for that which is at a cost, correct?

Yeah I mean the natural gas extension is there's gas in the area so that wouldn't be something that we would bring be bringing too far.

Okay because I was wondering if that when you go to look at and do your build out that you having to put in all that infrastructure would it save both time, energy, and money to just electrify at that point. And then given the fact that the city has its sustainable energy unit, I got that acronym wrong, but what's that?

Utility.

Utility. That was the U. And the fact that they are interested in working with developers like yourself to either make products available so that you can install and that they can utilize. I would really recommend echoing Commissioner Norton's comment that you check into that when you get to that point because it may just be economically advantageous for you to do it when you actually run the numbers against the gas and then you don't have to bring the gas into the property at all and you could use the diesel to accomplish the things that you have noted. That's a good point. We'll look into that. Sure. We appreciate your consideration. Anything else from the table? Are we ready to vote? Great. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Manager Kelly, would you please call the roll?

On the motion as presented in tonight's memo and moved, Weish. yes hammersmith yes dish yes mills yes weatherby yes norton yes beth's uni yes that motion is approved thank you good luck with your project that takes us to 10 a regular business

We have before us 841 Broadway Street site plan for Planning Commission approval. That means the Planning Commission will make the final decision here tonight at the table. This is SP260007, a proposed plan to remove one level of parking excuse me, one level of the parking deck underneath the residential buildings and replace it with approximately seven units. The parking will be relocated offsite to the adjacent Amtrak lot. The project is part of a larger, of the larger 841 Broadway PUD, SP19-048 and SP24-0003. It is located in Ward 1 and staff recommendation is approval. We'll start with the petitioners again for 10 minutes, then we will hear from Planner Shaikh with a staff presentation. We'll have a dedicated public comment period. We'll read the motion and then Planning Commission will make its, have its deliberation and then make its recommendation. Good evening.

good evening uh commissioners and thank you uh david dorita uh on behalf of the roxbury group in the lower town uh riverfront conservancy i have with me mike decoster our project architect uh i want to just kind of set the context for this some uh um before i turn it over to Mike to take you through the brief presentation because the genesis of what we're presenting you today actually started in this room with this body in October I believe of last year when we came before you for a site plan amendment to add the multi-family affordable housing And we were challenged at that meeting by some of you to consider ways to reduce parking on the site. And it was an interesting conversation, if you recall, because we were before this very body seven years ago when the very parking solution that we are now asking to amend slightly was devised by the rules of our PUD. and so we went back with that because we saw the value of that as well and at its core the the the challenge for us has always been candidly that second level of the parking structure and we'll happy to talk about that in great detail but but eliminating it without coming back to amend the PUD was really the challenge but at that same at that same moment a conversation that had been occurring in the background in our long-standing relationship with Amtrak kind of crystallized so the opportunity to solve for that removal of that concrete parking structure lid open up at least a moderate opportunity to add housing to the project in the short run but get rid of once and for all this unitasker that we knew once was on the site would essentially block out any other potential use in that location was made possible by the fact that Amtrak was making it abundantly clear to us. And as you know, they access that lot on our site through an easement, which we worked out with them, that they were intending to modify, improve that lot, and start charging for it, simply because they understood what everyone else in town understood, which is that they have a free parking lot there, and we're about to build Disney World next to it. And so their point of view was quite simple. We have to start controlling the access to this parking lot. And would you consider incorporating it into your parking system rather than us doing it on our own? So that was a plan they had already developed. We have somewhat modified it based on staff recommendations. to address some issues which Michael can go through we think it is an excellent outcome it preserves for the future frankly all of that land for additional use we are open to continue to evaluate that but it allows the project to keep moving forward and I think improves it physically operationally and and and certainly from the perspective of visitors and parkers frankly so I'm gonna let Mike talk because I'm burning off our time

good evening commissioner so I'm going to go through the the specifics of what we're talking about here as you're familiar with the site at 841 Broadway this is our site plan from PUD it's the same as it has been recently you'll see the area in white on the screen there that's the the parking deck level that we are removing the top level of the parking deck immediately to the south of that you can see kind of off our site that's not colored the Amtrak parking lot that we were referring to there this is what is currently approved in the PUD with this amendment we would remove the top level we would still be have covered parking but there would not be a parking deck per se so we have a one level parking garage if you will on that line behind the parking this also allows us if you'll see between the two options allows us to add a handful of new residential units at the second level that we didn't have before essentially this is a more detailed plan but we are essentially we are adding 118 parking spaces to the Amtrak lot which is the grace boxed in the bottom of the page there we will be adding we will be improving that lot within conjunction with Amtrak to pave the lot and to provide parking spaces and also provide pedestrian access as currently not on the site to our site and off-site in that area and then lastly the area in blue here shows the area where the parking deck used to be and the darker blue shows areas of more residential construction that we will be adding on there so in total we're adding a total of net five more residential units to the condo building and we're actually decreasing our amount of parking on-site by 15 cars to 475 which met which meets the PUD parking requirements.

Thank you, Mike, I would just like since I have a few more moments to address some things that I know would be of interest. The question has certainly come up and we're happy to talk about it more as questions arise. What is the nature of the arrangement with Amtrak? We have entered into a memorandum of understanding. In principle, it will be a 30 year lease with two 10-year options to extend we viewed that as giving us more than ample time to sort out the future of parking in this location it is under the arrangement amtrak would have us make the improvements to the lot and and then we would recoup the cost of that those improvements from revenue generated by the lot but then ultimately after that recoupment share with Amtrak in the revenue I also feel it is important to point out because I know there is an innate sense in the community that somehow something is being lost here from a parking perspective quite the contrary what we are actually creating is an organized accessible parking solution both on the Amtrak lot and on our lot for people who need to actually park overnight or longer and and take a train now the reality is we all want to hope that fewer people are driving to the train and we're finding different ways to get people to trains Amtrak has made it abundantly clear they are not in the parking business this was a vestige of the property that they inherited from DTE They have no interest in maintaining an open parking lot that is basically operated as a car storage lot, at least in principle most days. We have photographs going back three years that still have cars that I can see today in that lot. and so that's an untenable situation it's a misuse of real property and of a public good and and so obviously overnight parking will still be available to the public both on this lot and in our broader public parking system but it will be for a fee and and and we believe that will organize the behavior properly around rideshare mass transit walking and doing all the other things you do, and you have to compare that to paying an overnight fee. So I just wanted to make sure, because I knew there were some questions about how that arrangement was going to work. And Amtrak has been, frankly, I never thought I'd say this, the federal government has really been great to work with on this one, and we're excited to see it happen. And I'll save the balance of the time for questions later.

Sure. Thank you so much. We'll now hear from Planner Shaik with a staff report.

Yeah, so this will actually be quite brief, but just to kind of contextualize things. So getting to this point of submitting a new site plan, there's a couple of complexities with this case since the lot. So taking a step back, the supplemental regs for this project, because it's old under a not by city of Ann Arbor standards but by parking paradigm standards has minimum parking requirements still and it also has a provision that the parking the required parking for the PUD can be provided off-site so both of those things are provisions in the supplemental regs at some point if the applicant And, you know, city and staff want to modify those. That could be addressed down the road. But as it stands now, that's the way they are written. So it provides those two pathways for satisfying the minimum parking requirements for this project. The question of inter-jurisdictionality to get, like, five syllables in almost 8 o'clock at night on a Wednesday. Amtrak as a... separate and superior government entity, we have no ability to look at site plans or make requirements or have them submit site plans for city review. In conversations with the applicant, staff made recommendations based on staff's understanding of the relationship and requirements that Amtrak was giving to the applicant. The parking facility there on the north side has just parts are paved, parts are gravel. There's no marked parking stalls. So staff said that for this to count as required parking, we would like to see these improvements. We can't require them. And we would also like to see more interconnectivity between this parking facility and the Broadway Park project. Again, can't make those requirements because it's outside of the jurisdiction of the city of Ann Arbor, but the applicant has been open to pursuing those improvements as part of their improvement agreement with Amtrak. um specifically under our purview tonight uh is the the image that's still up on the screen uh include the scope is removing the top level of the parking garage and adding five residential units there's a summary in the staff report it's also from applicant memo of this actual details that were updated within the site plan and a brief comparison table between um what we have in front of us tonight and what we saw last fall last fall you recall there was a provision i think the provision last fall was in the development agreement and not in the supplemental regs or maybe it was in both about required affordable housing provision the applicant could either do payment in lieu for affordable housing or provide that those units on site last fall we saw a site plan that changed where one of the building or changed the use of a building and added floors to provide the affordable housing on site so comparing that site plan to today there's minor minor changes to the number of vehicular parking stalls bicycle parking stalls as a result of those additional units the the floor area slightly changes based on just kind of different calculations based on the different uses but no other substantial changes to the site in front of us tonight thank you plan or shake

We will now have a dedicated public comment. This is an opportunity for individuals to speak up three minutes on this item. We'll first hear from those of you who are present with us in chambers, then we'll turn to remote participants. To speak remotely, press star nine if on phone or use the raise hand feature if on Zoom. For phone access, dial 877. 853-5247 and intermeeting ID 977-663-41226. City staff will identify callers by the last three digits of their phone number or by name if on Zoom. You'll hear an announcement when it's your turn to speak. Please move to a quiet area and mute any background noise. For all participants, whether in presence or, excuse me, in chambers or remote, please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments. Is there anyone present in chambers who'd like to address us at this time? Come on up. You don't have to raise your hand.

Good evening. Good evening. First, I want to thank the staff members here who were very kind to help me a couple days ago understand what was going on here. It came as a surprise to a number of people. My name is Clark Chornetsky. I live at 2646 Traver Boulevard in Ann Arbor. And I was on the Depot Study Committee that the city had when this present station was being envisioned. representing the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers, and I will represent them here tonight. We discussed this at a meeting, an executive committee meeting last night, and people were very surprised to find out that this was happening. The number of long-term parking places at this station has remained the same, has not been increased in the over 40 years it has been there. And that has been a real problem. That's the key problem, perhaps. One of the solutions is to do is just mention, and that is to charge for that. And you can easily accommodate the needs by increasing the parking rate. and until you still have a few spaces so somebody can guarantee to have a space as long as they're willing to pay it. The executive committee of our organization has some reservations about this idea. We had a few more explanations today as to what is in the agreement between the petitioner and Amtrak, but the memorandum of understanding is still, I believe, a private matter. So we don't know what will really happen. The Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers believes that if the petitioner's plan is implemented, it should be done with sufficient public input and flexibility so that it can be modified or terminated if it does not work out as planned. We heard a mention of, I think it was a 30-year lease. Also, there should be a way to increase the amount of long-term parking to match ridership growth. If you were to increase by adding additional land to this, this would come from MDOT property, the railroad right-of-way, they would have to be involved in this. One of the only two places that have paid parking is in East Lansing. However, they pay $10 a day, but the station is right next to the parking. Here, you have to climb up the stairs, go across the bridge, go back down. One of the offsets for this kind of convenience is that it's free. thank you looks like the time is done i'll gladly answer any questions if you have them sure and you can submit your comments if you didn't finish uh to our email address planning i've done that perfect it's in our packet i have additional copies too if you want thank you so much thank you very much yeah you're welcome

Good evening, and thank you for holding this meeting. My name is Claire Steigelman. I live at 12 Tulfburg Avenue. I graduated from community high just down the street and now attend Michigan Technological University, where I am majoring in civil engineering and minoring in rail transportation, one of only 10 or so rail engineering programs in the country and the only in the state. I am here to voice my personal general opposition to the proposal for the development off of Broadway to eliminate a portion of its own parking and use the adjacent Amtrak lot. According to Amtrak and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the number of boardings and alightings at the Ann Arbor station in 2025 was 150,296. That makes Ann Arbor the busiest station in the state of Michigan. In second place, we have Kalamazoo at 84,043 boardings and alightings. That is a significant difference for this state. According to the Rail Passengers Association, the most popular city pair for passengers traveling on the Wolverine in 2024 was between Ann Arbor and Chicago. As a four to five hour long trip, I highly doubt that any of said passengers are making said trip in the short term. Data also from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics depicts a stark upward trend in ridership at the Ann Arbor station. MDOT is also proposing doubling the number of trains by the 2030s and there is still the possibility of commuter rail service between Ann Arbor and Detroit. These will put more demand on the station. Currently, only one bus, number 33, serves the station directly in a local capacity and only does so on weekdays. Unlike Chicago Union Station, we do not have extensive external parking and public transit in this area. We do not have many options for getting to the station. Amtrak is also a federally chartered corporation, meaning that the U.S. government and therefore the public is the majority stakeholder. While I appreciate the developer's attempts to create a solution and improve the existing lot, a lot meant to be used by said federally chartered corporation as a service to its passengers, the public, should not be utilized by a private development. The private development should bear the responsibility to provide its own residents and guests with such amenities. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in chambers who'd like to address us on this item?

Come on up. I didn't prepare...

It's all right. We're a friendly bunch.

I didn't prepare anything, but I'm very passionate about this. My name is Diana Bowman. I live in Ann Arbor at 6 South Wick Court. And I'm a rail passenger. I'm also a member of the Michigan Association of Rail Passengers. And frankly, I'd rather be on a train than be here. But... I understand that the lot that we have right now is inadequate for the number of passengers that use the Wolverine. And we want to see more people use the Wolverine. We need the long-term parking lot to be available. Because if you get off of a train coming in from Chicago 11 o'clock at night. I live in the city. I could take the bus, but you have to go to Blake and back out. And by the time you get to Blake, there is no bus to come back out to go to my house. So and that's for someone who lives in the city, but Amtrak is serving the whole state of Michigan. So many passengers are coming in using that long-term parking lot from the rest of the county or even further away. So I have a lot of reservations about this plan. I was shocked when I first read it. I would ask if there is some way that you can table this for another meeting so that we can have a chance to try and get more information from Amtrak and involve MDOT because as taxpayers in Michigan, this is a state supported rail service, which means that the state of Michigan pays Amtrak to provide it. So We need to involve MDOT in this as well so that we make sure that expansion plans are not being ignored. What I don't want to have happen is to not be able to get more service because people can't park.

Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in chambers who'd like to address us on this item?

Thank you, Chair Weiss. Kent Garber again. I also am a member of the Michigan Association of Rail Passengers. And for years, I've been reading Mr. Charnesky's thoughtful articles in the newsletter they put out every six months? Or was it quarterly? Quarterly. Quarterly, right. And honestly, I do not use the parking lot, but I can attest to what the last speaker said, that Wolverine, last Wolverine often gets in past 11 o'clock, and I found myself several times walking with my luggage four miles to my rental condo, which is on the northeast edge of Ann Arbor, getting there like 12.30 or 1 in the morning. And so I don't want... people who rely on um vehicles to have to face that kind of choice um so maybe tabling this and getting input from the various stakeholders would be a good idea i do in principle i like what mr dorita is proposing here in terms of um meeting the commission's concerns about access parking on the site um you know uh If you assume those 118 spots will be dedicated to Amtrak, then effectively they're reducing their parking from 490 to 357 by my calculation, which is Well, I think it's an expression of goodwill, and it's responsive to what the commission has asked. I still think it's over-parked, even at that. I mean, this is 123 housing units, 148-room hotel, and maybe, what, 12,000 square feet of retail. Even if you use that 357 space figure, it's still over-parked, I think, but... I grant Mr. Dorita a certain deference for actually reducing the effect of parking spaces. He mentioned that this was before the commission last August. I think he said October. I think the date was August 19th. And at that time, you approved the four-story apartment unit. And he made a commitment at that time to make that building all electric. So since you're reopening, this PUD. I'm wondering if that could be added to the supplemental regulations. I meant to ask at the time, but didn't get a chance. And finally, on the same theme of electrification, I will point out that two weeks ago, you approved the Spring Hill Suites Hotel down near Briarwood, all electric, including common spaces, laundry, the units themselves, everything. The hotel on this site could do the same thing. I see no reason why. This site received a huge amount of public subsidy from the state and from the city in the form of non-environmental tax capture, and I think they could do better.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Garber. Anyone else in chambers who'd like to address us at this time? Manager Kelly, do we have remote participants?

There are no hands raised.

Great. I shall close the dedicated public comment and read the motion. The Ann Arbor City Planning Commission approves the 841 Broadway Street Site Plan, SP26-0007, version 2, dated June 12, 2026. subject to the execution and compliance with the development agreement and the following conditions, which must be satisfied through the submission of revised plans within six months of the approval by the Planning Commission. There are notes for engineering, for transportation. Jumping to the end, all conditions must be satisfied through the submission of compliant plans prior to the city's acceptance and or review of civil engineering plans and prior to the issuance of any associated permits for development. Moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Councilmember Dish. We are in discussion. Who would like to kick us off? Commissioner Mills. I was just giving Manager Kelly enough time to write down who moved and seconded. All right, good.

I thought I would kick things off by saying I also would rather be on a train right now.

I think we all would.

Yeah. And this is getting into I am a frequent AmTracker when I travel more, particularly towards Chicago, in part because of smart, or appropriate, maybe, pricing of parking spaces in Chicago. The economic calculus says to me that it's cheaper for me to even take the whole family on Amtrak than to pay to park in Chicago. And so I think the idea of smart pricing is really important. to manage kind of use of lots I also my first two times on a train was when I was a kid growing up in a rural area we had to drive into Ann Arbor the big city of Ann Arbor and I remember my parents stressing out about finding a place to park I also remember them circling a lot and like what do we do if there is no space to park in this lot right and so I think that the that because we have lacked good enforcement mechanisms and price signals to say to people, I mean, you need to not use this as long-term car storage. Like, I think that that's one of the challenges. So I'm totally with you. I'm so happy that this is a successful stop and want it to continue being that way, and also have been on the end of the train getting in late and needing to Uber home. And blessedly, I can. But folks who are out of town and not used to Ubering, because they are not Ann Arborites, may not do that. The question that I would have is actually for Mr. Dorita. You're standing up. I'm curious the extent to which the balance, right? In a free market economy, you can't necessarily determine who are apartment dwellers who are using this for car storage and who are Amtrak. Is that covered in what you've talked about?

in the mou well commissioner mills i thank you for the question and i and i appreciated the questions that were asked here too because i think there's some misconception about the nature of this from amtrak's perspective amtrak does not want to be in the parking business in this location any longer they they do not uh notwithstanding the fact that uh the wolverine line uh if you look at the 12 stations in the state of michigan if i've got that right sir along the Wolverine line, there's a parking opportunity at every one of them. Only two of them are provided by Amtrak, Niles and here. Amtrak is moving forcefully out of having free parking near any of its stations. They're working on a similar project in Schenectady right now. I know that's not in our environment. of the 500 stations across the United States, the vast majority of them, if there's a parking solution there, is maintained by a municipality or another arm of government. Amtrak has required, from my perspective, I need to be candid, Amtrak has required no spaces whatsoever be reserved specifically for train travel. The point I'm making here is that I believe the system, for the reasons you just raised, which is the price mechanism, will actually free more spaces. But those spaces won't be free. And I believe it will drive decision-making relative to the mode of transportation for that last mile, or that last three miles, or that last five miles. But the availability will remain the same. And there will be no discrimination between an overnight charge for a guest of that hotel a visitor to a resident or an Amtrak Parker and and the marketplace has to clear on that score. And so I hope that's responsive. I just wanted to make sure everyone appreciated that that If, for whatever reason, this body concluded that this wasn't a good planning answer, which I sincerely hope you don't, because we think this is a material improvement to the current and future opportunity for this location. No one should be disabused or abused of the notion that this thing that Amtrak is asking us to do isn't going to happen. It's going to happen either way. They just saw it as an opportunity to have us. We were motivated to underwrite the cost of it, frankly. But Amtrak had already laid out a plan. Amtrak was already trying to figure out how to pay for it. And Amtrak absolutely knows what will happen, as I said earlier, if this parking lot doesn't become a regulated parking lot one way or another when the rest of our project opens up. Great. So I hope I wasn't mixing too many drinks there. Did you get your question answered?

Yeah. Well, the question was really about whether there were things that were specific for rail passengers. And I get it.

It's day use, overnight, hourly, all of the above.

I would just hope that residents in the apartments are actually charged for, I mean, I understand for their guests, but also for themselves. Like, very often you get a discount if it's on a monthly basis, and I think, like, that sends a behavior signal, too, just for my own two cents worth. Thank you again for that.

Well, I'm going to pause you because it wasn't a question. Was it a question? The fact of the matter is the residents have their own. Mr. Dorita, I'm sorry. I apologize. Thank you so much. Commissioner Mills.

The embedded question in there is, how does parking work for the residents?

Thank you.

And so they have their own parking in the covered area.

In the covered area.

And if they want to park outside of the covered area, they've got to pay the same as everybody else, which is fair.

They pay as everyone else.

Two more questions. One is really quick. Have you talked to MDOT at all as part of this?

No, we haven't. And it just hadn't been a necessary component of this exercise. So we haven't really had the conversation with them regarding any aspect of this. This is Amtrak's lot. It's accessible by our property.

OK. And the other question I have is, you have carports that are south facing. It feels like there is a missed opportunity for them not to be solar carports. This is a DTE site for heaven's sakes.

well first of all they're gonna be prettier than that we have we have updated pictures they're actually timber frame construction and they're really lovely that I do want to remind because it's been a long time that we have tried at every step of this project to avoid what I would characterize as window dressing aspects of green or zero carbon. We are providing 100% of the electrical service that goes to this project, and I understand there's gas, through DTE's My Green Energy program, which is solar and wind. 100%. So adding solar panels here doesn't move the needle we're drawing from from their solar fields in the vicinity so we're already providing 100 of the electrical power to this project through through wind solar and other non-carbon producing and that was part of our original we that was it's been a long time and i recognize that but that was part of our original program it has not changed and the question about whether to put solar panels on there really I have to leave to the developer of those units and whether or not that moves the needle one direction another for them they do have a building permit they have to submit to the city but I personally favor what they're what they were doing here we we didn't require they cover them they wanted to cover them uh there may be some added advantage for that uh with them but but i can't mandate that now on hunter pasture who has agreed to take this i don't want to go any further okay thank you it's just i'm just saying it's a

increasingly. Smart land use does multiple things. This is a missed opportunity to kind of stack land uses is what I would say.

I'm not against the idea. I just can't require it of the party who's developing the condos at this point because it wasn't part of the requirements in the transaction. I certainly am happy to take it up.

With them great. Thank you so much Here's who I have in the queue I have Commissioner Hammersmith then Norton then Weatherby then dish and finally watch All right. Let's go to Commissioner Hammersmith.

Thank you Overall this is great. Thank you for the extra units. I want to confirm because I feel like I read seven and heard five Michael

I thought it was seven. It's an increase of seven to the plan. From the allowed, there's an increase of five from the allowed number. So before we had two less than what were allowed.

So you're adding seven.

We're actually adding seven, but from a permitting standpoint, we're adding five.

Okay. Okay. Got it. That's great. Okay. Now I have some clarifying things for staff and then for you. Okay. Plan or shake. Because I just want to clarify these things. Okay. This is a PUD that we did, feels like 27 years ago at this point, right? It was like COVID. There was a parking requirement in this, even though we no longer as a city require, we don't have parking minimums anymore, but we do in here. parking requirements can be fulfilled on or off site.

Correct.

OK. Amtrak owns that land, but it's accessible through your easement. So you've made an agreement with Amtrak to partner with them and upgrade their current physical parking infrastructure. Is this maintaining the current number of spaces that's there?

It's actually a slight improvement.

It will be increasing the number of spaces that's currently on site. Because it's not marked right now, cars are parked willy nilly all over the place. Once we mark the spaces, we can make the lot more efficient and actually increase the number of spaces in the same amount of area.

OK. And then, as you just said, anyone can use the parking. I mean, I assume it's sort of like how the city manages parking spaces, except it'll be 24 hours a day. Like, you pay and stay for as long as you need to.

if it's a question I can, we're still evaluating the system. We are looking at kiosk based systems, as well as a cloud based systems like metropolis, which is getting increasingly popular in larger cities where you drive in, there's a QR code, it recognizes your car. If you're a regular traveler, it goes on your phone. But we're not but it will be regulated similar to a city system. Yes.

And you're recouping the costs through the fees, and then after those are recouped, you're splitting the revenue with Amtrak?

We're having, there's a sharing. We're still negotiating the sharing, candidly.

Okay, no, that's, I mean, because you also said that they aren't interested in the parking business.

They're interested in the revenue that can be generated from their real property. Of course they are. Believe it or not, they're a business. And they recognized that there was value there after the improvements, which are substantial. This is millions of dollars of improvements to the lot. And you touched on something else I want to make sure I'm clear on. because it does bear on our obligation under the PUD the reason the 30-year plus 20 plus 20 is is essentially a lease arrangement so we are we will completely control the site and so think of Amtrak is just our landlord who were paying a rental stream to over that period they still own it they still own it but we're but we're controlling it a hundred percent okay is there

there any like access improvements like the gentleman mentioned like if you go upstairs and yes yes yes we are playing well we haven't finalized all the details yet but in conversations we are going to add pedestrian walkway along the uh along the north side of the lot there and then access points at strategic locations back into the rest of the parking on our site so that you know pedestrian could come from from the Amtrak lot to our site and vice versa and not have to walk through the lot so it'll be seamless between okay

So if there was additional parking on your site, is that all residential that I'm looking at right there, or is any of that open?

Right now, I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, David, the parking garage is dedicated to the residential. Outside of the parking garage is all going to be metered and open to the public, whether it's Amtrak or a hotel or guests, all similarly.

So a pavilion lot is open to the public?

It is open to the public. Everything will fall into that system that we talked about. And it will, I think, essentially be indistinguishable to people coming to this district when they're on the Amtrak lot or when they're on additional sections you see of parking, but I think this actually does a nice job of identifying where the dedicated residential parking is, which is where it was before. The other advantage and why this parking structure was the bane of our existence, apart from the fact that it cut into the building and made it a complicated build, we build the deck, then they build on top of it, and eliminated the opportunity for those extra units, it's a one-up, one-down ramp. And if you've ever designed or built one of those, they're horribly inefficient. And it's also, by the way, a... structure that would consume energy perpetually. So we got rid of that. And because we don't have the ramps, we were able to park more on that one level and satisfy their one to one requirements plus their additional pop desire to perhaps purchase additional spare offer for their residents the opportunity to purchase additional spaces. I hope that's clear. Yeah.

Okay, so numbers aside, so you're basically consolidating, making tons of parking improvements, removing spaces to add seven additional units, but I feel like in net we're almost increasing the amount of parking in total between... Reducing it, actually. Oh, okay.

If you count the off-site parking, which our PUD does permit to be counted, this plan, when it's done, reduces marginally the amount of parking associated with this development.

Okay. But it's a lot of parking that anyone could use.

Anyone can use. That's the whole point. Okay. And I'm going to just say, listen, I'd like to say we know exactly how this is going to get used. We were satisfying a PUD requirement that still exists. We're not against coming back to rethink that PUD requirement to perhaps open up opportunities for different development on the site at a future date. But we still do worry, not so much about the hotel or the residential, which is accounted for, but we just added a seven acre public space and we're about to add a 9,000 square foot pavilion that will be a major event facility. We want to know that we can accommodate, we can accommodate all the needs of this site with the parking we have here. But we'll know better. Yeah, once we get these things up, then we can take a breath. Go Oh my gosh, you know what people are using cars less people are getting here. multimodally people are taking mass transit. The the traffic. All right, Mr. Dury, I'm gonna apologize.

You're gonna have to shut me up.

All right, Commissioner Norton, please.

We're not done, because I'm still confused about this parking. So if you call up the map again that's showing the parking outlay, the bottom part in gray is the existing Amtrak lot. Correct. You're adding a whole lot of parking in the very center that will be completely controlled for the residents of the structures. Is that correct?

that's already there that's already there we're just taking in that box that you see for residents in our in the current approved plan there's two levels nope just that just just that just that rectangle there but that's part of the approved plan

Which of these units that you're saying that could be open to anybody for any use? Yes. Does that include that? Yes. It includes that? Yes.

It includes that? Yes.

So those could be your accounts.

Sure. Absolutely.

If you're adding more parking than what's coming there, is that just going to be competing with other users who are also looking for parking?

Correct. It's the marketplace.

So this, I mean, it's a little bit... So I appreciate the integrity you're trying to bring to this to say, well, we're adding some more housing, so we're going to reduce, on paper, the number of parking spots, because we're going to share more with the Amtrak lot. But you're also opening up your own parking for Amtrak users. So in a way, you're increasing the number of parking spots that could be available for Amtrak users. I think that's true. So there's a little bit of a wash going on here.

Sorry, was that a question?

Well, I'm trying to... Yes, the question is, am I understanding correctly what's happening? In the original plan, I wasn't here when this was approved originally. Did the PUD call for having those these lots available

The interesting thing is the lot, the PUD just called for a number of spaces and it was based upon a formula that existed in the zoning regulation at the time and it said if you have a residential use you need one per x if it's a hotel use and we worked with staff and got to a number of roughly 485 spaces I believe just to satisfy the PUD requirements. Candidly, Commissioner Norton, you ask a good question. When we were done, would Amtrak train users possibly use these spots? Yes, I think they probably would have, particularly because that lot is usually full of people who left their cars there and walked away six months ago. So I do think of course Amtrak users would be able to use those spots, but by the time we got to PUD, nobody was any longer saying who's using these spaces, who's using these spaces, we just satisfied the parking writ large requirements of this development.

Okay, so but my understanding is the original plan was envisioning that these spots would be used strictly by... Not strictly. If you were envisioning all along, they would be special parking spots.

Yeah, they're public parking. Sorry, you have to be on your mic, because our online.

It's hard to.

I understand. Other than the residential dedicated parking, everything else.

That was always intended to be general parking.

It's just general parking to satisfy the requirements of the PUD and our hope that it satisfies the requirements of the user.

So you are reducing from the total number of parking spots you originally envisioned, you are going to have to reduce a bit. But you're still adding, because those are public spaces, there will be more parking available to Amtrak users than is currently available now on just the Amtrak lot. Is that correct?

I believe so. I mean, there's nothing about the way we will run this system that makes that an untrue statement.

If it's open to the general public. I guess I would point out, so I'm an avid train user, too. Our son is in Chicago. We use the train whenever we can. We have the luxury of being able to just use car sharing. But I recognize there's some people that's not so convenient for. I think the reality is this is kind of a lousy location for a train station. And it's just, that's another problem. And it's site constrained. And so I think that's just a problem we can't get around. and I'm less troubled by kind of sharing some of the Amtrak lot with the residents of this structure when that's all kind of, It's a bit of a paper exercise because the reality is you're also opening up more parking to Amtrak users than what's currently available. So in a way, there's going to be more parking available. And people will use it. I go to Windsor too sometimes and take the train to Toronto. There's very low parking at the Windsor station. And it's pay parking. And so people, it's the same situation. There's probably less parking there to get on the train to Windsor than what's currently available at the Amtrak station. So the reality is just parking is going to always be a problem. I understand the concerns that this seems to be taking away parking, but to my mind, it's adding parking. And what's currently available, I'd get the trade off. So thank you for clarifying what's going on.

Thank you, Commissioner Norton. I have Weatherby, Dish, Bass Uni, then Weich.

OK. So I think I'm just kind of going to be talking out loud here. But yes, AATA probably needs to increase bus service there. That's not under your purview. It's not under ours. The current lot, it's sketchy. like let me just say i we parked there once it was winter it was icy it was dark it was sketchy didn't do that again i think this is going to increase acceptable available accessible parking for amtrak is it going to be perfect no is it going to be perfect for your hotel your amenities you're probably not but it feels like It's not a great spot. It's pretty landlocked. And until something else, which also makes it a great spot, but until I think we all have to do what we have to do and make our amenities what they are. I don't see how you can provide how you doing much more is going to change the Amtrak. This seems like a pretty good combination of things that gets us moving forward, gets a better parking scenario for Amtrak, even if it's not perfect. And I think there may be, I think probably the majority of the time, it's going to be great. And there will be times if you have Taylor Swift in the pavilion that it's not going to work. But I'm also a big trained person, and we We get there in ways it's already the most used spot. And we know there's not enough parking as it is. And you don't have to just go in the Amtrak lot. You can go anywhere in the city. There's structures that are actually only ultimately a couple blocks away by the time you go down the hill. And so I am not, this seems like a really good thing for me. It seems like you've worked together. Hopefully the MOU exists. And this isn't just hand waving and pacifying the trained people. But I think we are taking you at your word. And I think that this seems like a really good thing. And we're adding more housing. And it seems good to me. i did have one question uh somebody wrote in about the floodway implications for the new residences it sounds like they're starting on the second floor and that would not be approved if there were any sort of floodway or floodplain there are no residents in the floodway that's not that's that's not allowed by right so all the all the residents are um up in outside of the floodway And so changing, putting a residence in does not change any of that?

No, it does not. The first floor of the condos is at the 500-year floodplain, and the condos that we're adding are all on the second floor anyway, so there's no issue there.

Perfect. All right, thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Weatherby. I have Dish, Bass Uni, then White.

Okay, I'm going to try math. So please forgive me if I don't have good math. I try.

Well, I brought the archetype.

Yeah, that's cool. So your site seemed like it really had a lot of parking when you had a residential structure with 298 spaces to serve 94 units. located a stone's throw from Carytown. That seemed like a lot of parking. So, wow, so far my math is not objected to. I think the parking ratio would be 1.6, but that could really be wrong. It looks like what you are saying now, what you are doing, is about 150 spaces on your site are going to be metered and open to the public, whether that's the rail using public, the Cascades using public, visitors. Yeah, you have to add up southeast lot, pavilion lot, Oops, I left out on street. So actually, it's 190. I missed on street. Please, architect, fix my math. I'm happy to be corrected. So it's minimally 150 spaces. So then plus, there are the 111 Amtrak spots, which you estimate will become at least 118 once you've improved the parking. So we're looking at it's looking like Well over 170 publicly available spaces. If I should add the on street, then we're up to 210.

Yeah, if I can do the math a little differently, the total number of- You have a computer in your hand, I mean a phone in your hand, I'm not using mine. We have 475 total spaces on the entire site, including the Amtrak lot. Of those 475 spaces, 167 are dedicated to the residents. So if you take out 167, that's 308 spaces that are available for the public.

Okay, so let's do that slowly for the audience at home. 475 total spaces, including the Amtrak. Correct. Of those, 167 reserved for residents.

Correct.

Which leaves 300 and, whoops, leaves, sorry, yeah, 300 and something. 308. Okay. 308, leaves 308 for the public. Correct. Yes, those will be paying spaces. Yes, at times, when you have a show at the Pavilion, which this is a half a mile-ish from my house, so please not Taylor Swift and no fireworks. When you have a show at the Pavilion, there may be no. That may all be used up. On sunny weekends, a lot, but definitely not all, may have some soaked up by the Cascades users. But this is a significant increase in public parking for the area. And those who can afford it or who, say, drive in to go to Chicago for a day or two or a week, if they're driving in from 40 miles away, they're going to pay for your parking. It's like the airport. And $10, or whatever you're going to charge, I'm not prescribing, would be significantly cheaper than airport parking. So I think, I don't know if I'm too close, if I'm too far away from this thing. This actually looks like actually a real improvement And it makes me feel a lot better about your parking ratio, which was kind of driving me crazy when I thought it was over four per unit. I was like, who are these people going to be? Car collectors renting your apartments? So I think I'm understanding that we are not fully addressing concerns that have been raised by the marvelous people who came and spoke tonight. We're not addressing your concerns about being involved in the process and having it be as fully transparent to you as you would like. However, this does not look like a solution that This looks like a solution that is looking ahead to a future of greater use for this station, and that is trying to accommodate much better the current use of this station. Now, you're not obligated to do this, and you and Amtrak went in on this because you all saw an opportunity. And as Planner Shaikh so carefully explained, the city is in the same relationship to Amtrak as we are to the behemoth, my employer, the University of Michigan, and we can't require anything. So you... acting as an intermediary for us have secured some things that are beneficial. So I understand that the transparency concerns are not satisfied, but I feel that some of the practical concerns really have been. And as a representative, I kind of feel good about saying this looks really like a good solution.

Thank you, Councilmember Dish. We'll hear from Commissioner Basciutti now.

Hello, everyone. So, yeah, this is my first time seeing this because I wasn't on commission the first time around, so exciting. All right, thank you to staff, thank you to the petitioner, and thank you to those who've come tonight, including those who've made public comment, especially for the alighting statistics. That was very enlightening, I guess.

I think I have three things.

One is I have a question for planning staff. Another is a comment that I think is a little more educational in nature. And then I do have a question for the petitioner. So I think I'm going to start with a question for planning staff. So parking is clearly relevant for this development. And a lot of thoughts, conversation, hesitation, and worries are around it. And I think, Planner Shake, you'd mentioned that it could be addressed later, the changes in the parking minimums. And so I was curious, I don't know the procedure here. So I wanted to ask, what would be the process to modify the supplemental regulations around the parking minimums? Because it feels like that's kind of an upstream question or modification that might address a lot of the concerns that I think many of the folks in this room have. So if you could share a bit more from my own edification around what that would look like, I would appreciate it.

Yeah. So supplemental regulations, recall, are the site-specific zoning code for any project. Most recently, from my knowledge, I think we saw those for 315 West Huron, at least with the project that I was involved with. So they can be modified. So the applicant would have to request modification of the supplemental regulations.

OK, thank you. So it would be petitioner?

For a modification to those.

OK, gotcha. Thank you. Because I think that's something that might be of interest, maybe. I'm not sure. I think part of it is grounded in, I would love to see more housing. You were like, we had a few more units, and I was very excited about that. Not only architecturally does it look nicer to me, but I think in the words of the Homeless Action Committee from Ann Arbor back in the 90s, it's like house people, not cars. And so personally, I think especially given it's so close to Carytown, to the Amtrak station, that's why I was thinking if that is a mechanism of interest for either the petitioner, that that could be something to consider. So that was a question and I guess a bit of a comment. I can ask the petitioner, actually. I just realized. I should ask you a direct question. Is that something of interest for you?

What is of interest? Sorry.

Thank you. Good clarification. Modifying the supplemental regulations around parking and minimums.

In the long run, the answer is yes. In the short run, and we really started this discussion last year, and I apologize. I was referencing a conversation you were a part of. We knew we had to keep the project moving forward And so there was concern about the process of a PUD amendment in the middle of the development of this project. And so we probably, so if the opportunity afforded by the Amtrak relationship hadn't presented itself immediately, as a as a way to solve for the current PUD while we continue to look at how this site's going to develop over time we might have said okay do we stop the bus stop all no pun intended do we stop all of the development and go through a much longer process which in our experience in a much more detailed and costly process of amending the PUD to reduce the parking amount and and what I would say is The way we viewed this opportunity was it preserves that opportunity in the future. It lets us figure out how the site's really going to work by 2030, 2035, when cars really aren't being used the way they were envisioned when these PUD regulations were being created. And if anybody thinks anyone makes money on parking, I want to disabuse them of that. We have a natural, it's at best a push. We hate building parking. and we do believe that we'll be smarter about that PUD amendment after we've completed this first phase of development and we see how it's being used because I you don't have to be Daniel Burnham and I always refer to Mike as our Daniel Burnham on this project to see that there's an opportunity for considerably more development on this site but we just we gotta walk before we run on that So I hope that's responsible.

That's helpful. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, very insightful, both from petitioner and from staff. Thank you. The comment that I think I wanted to just lay out a little bit, partially because I was excited when I learned this in the last few years. So for anyone who's not familiar, there's variable price parking. And there are a couple of books that have been around for a while now, including The High Cost of Reparking and Paved Paradise. that indicate there is a growing body of evidence that if you change parking costs to be proportional to demand, the better that is in terms of changing behavior. And I say this as someone who partially grew up in a suburb, and I was a commuter for part of my undergrad. So I was eagle-eyed for free parking. I was like, I've got to find it. So it felt quite counterintuitive when I learned that by raising parking costs proportional to the demand, it's actually really helpful to free up parking for those who need it most. And then there's the conversation around induced demand. So if there's just more parking available, even if there is at a cost, it will incentivize people to drive in and to park instead of using the other types of ways to get to the Amtrak station. I have walked with my luggage to the Amtrak station because I don't want to figure out parking. And yeah, in the summer that's nice, not great in the winter. But all that to say, I just wanted to share that for anyone who might want to go on that little journey of discovery as I did. Then the question I have for the petitioner. So this is the pedestrian walkway on the north side. You referenced it. And I wanted to confirm a couple of things. One, will that pedestrian walkway on the north side, so it does connect to the train station, and does that mean that it will then go over the rail? Or could you explain more about what that would look like?

yeah no it's um let me see if we can picture okay i can use this so um it's the north side of the amtrak lot along our property line here and that connects connects the parking lots together um it's not the north side of the amtrak station on the other side of the tracks

So you'd still have to, if you park at the station, you'd still have to walk up, over, and then back down. Yes. Gotcha. Is there any conversation with Amtrak to build a different pedestrian walkway at the far end of the parking lot? Is that part of your conversations, if you're able to share?

again maybe I'm slightly oriented just so we're clear the the dispensation that you know staff asked for and we certainly agreed to and I and I'm quite confident Amtrak is fine with was creating pedestrian uh dedicated pedestrian access both at this end which is the west end of their parking lot because there's an access point that gets added and at this excuse me and at this end where it connects back into the sidewalk condition nothing oh I see yes I was rotated nothing we're doing here will get away from the frankly inconvenient aspect of this parking for the train station that you've got to go up the steps and down again correct and okay thank you because that was my other question that the pedestrian walkway the one that you'll be responsible for I guess will it be accessible for those with physical mobility because I know those stairs No, unfortunately, we're, that's beyond the scope of our effort.

Thank you, but the north side walkway, would that be physically accessible?

Yes. Again, on our site, both sides of the walkway are intended to be accessible, and to get residents, or to get anyone who parks in that lot to the other side of our site, but getting over that bridge is... That's an Amtrak project.

OK, thank you. Those are all my questions.

Before I go, I just want to check back in with the table to see if anybody wanted another time. So I just have a few questions, maybe even comments, but I think they're questions. So first, I do want to say thank you for, it was probably me, asking you to reduce your parking because I still think the site is still over parked. It's a lot of dedicated land to car storage, and we've demeaned the car storage that's abandoned at the train station, but we haven't demeaned the car storage that just sits there. The question that I was thinking that Commissioner Mills was going to ask, but asked in a different way was, is the parking for your residents unbundled? Meaning, are they paying full freight for the cost of their parking? So that's my first question.

Well, and again, the resident portion of this is being developed by Hunter Pasture Homes on the site. The dedicated spaces, I believe they intend to deed to them. So it is not unbundled? So I don't know how to answer the question.

No, I think you did. You answered it. It's not unbundled. Yeah. Sorry, I have a sideways note, and I'm trying to figure out what I was saying there, so I'm going to let that one go. So I heard you say something, and I just want to give you an opportunity to clarify it so that it's correct in my mind. When Commissioner Mills, I believe, again, was asking about electrification, I believe you did ask. Someone asked about electrification, and I thought it was this way, so I'm going to give it to you. your answer seemed to conflate a number of things it seemed to conflate the source of the electricity but that wasn't the question the question as i understood it or as i again was hoping it might have been posed is will the project be fully electric and then if mr garber is correct that at our august meeting You indicated that it was going to be. Did we misunderstand you? Did you misunderstand it? Could you help us understand what is correct and what is not correct?

Absolutely. As approved and as designed and now heavily constructed, the project is not fully electric. There is natural gas. And no parts of it will be fully electric? With the exception of the units that you approved last August.

So only the affordable housing units that we approved will be all electric. Everything else will also have gas.

Because we still have the opportunity to take that on. It was a new project. The hotel and the condos have been designed. We were itching to start construction. And there was really no revisiting that at that point. So that was the answer.

And I apologize if we were late. It's fine, that's why we get to ask and you get to clarify, so it's a wonderful symbiotic relationship here across the tables. The other thing, and again, you didn't use this term, but you were getting close to this term, so I wanted to make sure I understood what you were trying to communicate to us. When we had the parking up covered and Commissioner Mills did ask, are you considering adding solar, it seemed as if you were intending to say that it would be a form of greenwashing. you didn't quite get there, meaning that it would have no material impact whatsoever on anything on the property. And I just cannot imagine that that much square footage, which would probably exceed about 20,000 square feet just looking at it, you know, on both ends, would not be able to electrify lots of things there. I have a building that's 20,000 square feet, and if I put solar in it, I would never have to pay DTE at all. It's just cost prohibitive. So I was just trying to make sure I was understanding what you were trying to communicate to us and that I didn't walk away with an impression that you did not want us to have.

Oh, and I appreciate the addition to my lexicon because I've never used or heard the word greenwashing, so I didn't even know what it was. It's a tokenization of green initiatives. I think the point, Commissioner, I was making was that when we were... committing to the to the various aspects of this project and I I didn't want to bore this group by trotting them all out again but it started by the way with with the remediation of the most contaminated site in the city of Ann Arbor and the removal of 20,000 tons of soil one of the things which the public paid for yeah we paid for quite a bit of it as well and but the point is is that that The green initiative that we put on the table when we did the original PUD was to ensure that all electricity was being brought by wind and solar. My only point was whether or not there are, and I was merely making an observation, whether or not you see solar panels on those to be able to do that. And if we were able to do that, we would be able to do that. And if we were able to do that, we would be able to do that. And if we were able to do that, we would be able to do that. And if we were able to do that, we would be able to do that. To be provided to somebody. Great. So I apologize if I left you with that.

I just wanted to make sure I understood what you were saying. I apologize. And then I think my last question is, and I now understand what I wrote on the side. You said, I hate building parking. I do. Yet you are building it. And you haven't asked us, which is what I said when you were here last, to ask us if we could help you change that PUD. Because there is no one at this table who is, well, I'm sorry, I don't want to speak for Commissioner Dish. She is a representative who have to deal with the neighbors related to the Argo cascade and parking issues. So I will give you a pass. I don't think there's a lot of us at the table who will stand up in support of dedicating this much land to parking when you have an opportunity either with a developer or a partner to build more housing, especially in a time where that is the number one thing that we need. We need more housing and less car storage. So I think Commissioner Bastione asked you around and staff about the possibility of amending the PUD. And I know we talked about this when you were here last, because that was it. At that time, I felt that there wasn't any interest. And I want to acknowledge what I'm hearing at the table today, which is you're singing a different tune. And you're saying that you potentially are interested in coming back to the PUD and I would love to clarify that and then after you clarify I'll have a follow-up question with staff.

Well to be clear I'm we're interested in coming back in the future to amend the PUD not to achieve what we're trying to achieve today. What we believe is once we develop this and we understand the parking needs We believe there will be opportunity for future development on this site, but I've been through a PUD process in this city and in other cities, and I'm not going to unlock that, candidly, Commissioner, just for the sake of reducing parking. Particularly when I can achieve what is in that PUD, which we all recognize, and I think the math that the Councilmember did here, too, reminds us just how much parking there is here. No, I understand you being constrained. Just for the possibility of future development. So just to answer your question clearly, our interest would be to look at that opportunity in the context of a specific additional development on this site. And we're pleased that we now live in a world, which we didn't live in when we first did the PUD, where the commission and possibly council are amenable to that. But I would be the dumbest developer in certainly the state of Michigan if I were to suggest that to achieve what we can achieve here today, which sets up that opportunity, should be tabled and instead go back and change the PUD. Oh, no, I wasn't suggesting that. I know, but I know there were some thoughts in the room. So I was kind of, I just wanted you to, so the answer to your question is, yes, we are interested in that. Great, and that's what I want to acknowledge.

Because we see the value of that land beyond parking. Sure, and that seems to be different, and so I wanted to sort of make sure I understood exactly what I was hearing you say. So then, Planner Shaikh, could you just elucidate for us, just briefly, what would be the process of the petitioner making an amendment to reduce the parking towards a development? Would it have to have a site plan attached to it, or could they come without the site plan with just an amendment for the minimum requirements for parking? And this is a hypothetical, so I know, given all things and all the reviews, notwithstanding.

At the most technical level, Chair, Section 534 of the UDC changes to a PUD zoning district. A change to a PUD zoning district may be accomplished by amending the PUD zoning district by the process provided for the establishment of a PUD zoning district in Section 529.11 by rezoning to a different zoning district pursuant to the procedures in 529.10 or etc., etc., uh so there'd be multiple pathways like modifications to a pud zoning district it depends on the extent so if you're modifying permitted uses in a pud district that's less likely to require site plan or an area plan to accompany it if you're making something that has uh walls yeah um there's a the site plan or area plan requirement to to accompany that. I'm not sure if there's the ability to waiver or like in a typical rezoning, the planning manager can waive the site plan or area plan requirement. I don't know if that holds for PUD since they're a special case.

Sure. If planning manager Kelly wants to weigh in, I would get back to us.

Okay.

Thank you so much. I'm going to give the last word to Commissioner Norton, and then I think we'll be ready for a vote.

Well, just to follow on that thought, amending the PUD would be an amendment that would require City Council action, too, right? It would. Because it's a zoning catch, that's correct.

There would be some level of staff review, then it would go to this body for a recommendation, and then final approval to City Council. Yeah, just for that question.

Yes, Planning Manager Kelly.

If you recall, I forget which month it was. It was this year, though, I believe, earlier this year.

I think we're okay with you all. You can have a seat now. We're just talking like planning nerds that we are.

Yes. Planner Malene Corcoran had the Ashley Muse change of uses for their supplemental regulations brought before you, and that was really similar to a typical rezoning text amendment request.

I think where I was going just to see this answer that you may provide for me is sometimes it seems that if a site plan has to accompany a rezoning, it has to go through all of the gates because the site plan may change egress, it may change fire, it may impact water and sewer so now you have to go through all of these different gates to do it whereas if the petitioner was coming to say this PUD had this requirement of parking but we're now going to convert that parking to open space where there is nothing going to be built on it uh Does that change the calculus? Because there are less applications and reviews and iterations that have to go. So the cost to the developer may be reduced in that way. And so that was sort of the space in which I was holding that question. And you can just abuse me of that and say, nope, it's still going to have to go through all these things. And so it'll be through all these gates. And therefore, it's not that different.

I mean, I think to delve more into the world of hypotheticals, without knowing what the specific changes would be, whether they would need to be reflected on an area plan or site plan, not me thinking back, but from my understanding of the history of this site, the original PUD was created with an area plan and not with a site plan. Exactly. An area plan has a lower bar to It's less detail. It doesn't give you any development rights. So if you get an area plan approved, you will still need to have a site plan approved before you can move on to building permits and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But that's a whole different process. Which is a whole different process. And so trying to reduce the... inertia to make a change to the PUD, which might be advantageous to the reduction of parking. They could still decide how they would want to develop it later, but at least that parking minimum that we currently have at 475 could be reduced. So that's it.

I think I got my answer, but that's what... Yeah, there's multiple orders in which it could be accomplished. At the end of the day, compliance with the PUD regulations, the teeth only... are finally shown when you're moving closer to occupancy? Yes. Yep. Well, thank you. All right, anyone else?

Manager Kelly, would you please call the roll? We did not amend the motion, so the motion as approved and second still stands.

On the motion as presented, Bess Uni. Yes. Norton. Yes. Weatherby. Yes. Mills. Yes. Fish. Yes. Hammerschmidt. Yes. Weish.

Yes.

That carries.

Thank you, and good luck. All right. Do we need a break table? All right. Everybody's so here. OK. Commissioner Hammerschmidt is going to take her own break. That takes us on to 10b, regular business. 2958, Shady Lane Rezoning for City Council Approval. This is A as in Apple, OI26002. A proposed annexation and rezoning. I'm sorry, friends. You all are having a conversation. I'm sorry, friends in the audience. You all are having a conversation, and we can hear it, and it makes it difficult for us to conduct our business, so... I shall stall over. We are now at 10B, regular business. This is 2958 Shady Lane rezoning for city council approval. A as in Apple, O as in Oscar, I26-0002. A proposed annexation and rezoning of a single-family lot from Pittsville Township to City of Ann Arbor, R1D Zoning District. There is no proposed development. The lot is 5,227 square feet. It's in Ward 3. Staff recommendation is approval. And we get to hear from Planner Berger tonight. So, welcome. Is there a petitioner presentation?

No, there is not.

Great. So we'll go straight to the staff presentation.

OK. All right. So this is a proposed annexation and rezoning for 2958 Shady Lane. Staff recommend this petition be approved because the zoning designation is consistent with the comprehensive plan. as well as surrounding zoning. 2958 Shady Lane is located north of East Eisenhower Parkway, south of Packard, and west of Stone School Road. Surrounding zoning districts include Office, R1D, Township, R3, and R4D. The owner is requesting a rezoning to R1D. An annexation petition was also submitted and is being processed simultaneously. The parcel contains a single family home and that home will remain and no development is proposed. The comprehensive plan recommends the transition land use category for this property and the surrounding area. And the property exceeds the minimum required lot area of 5,000 square feet and the minimum required lot width of 40 feet for the requested R1D district. And staff are recommending approval.

Excellent. Thank you so much. We shall have a public hearing for this item. This is an opportunity for individuals to speak up to three minutes on this item. We'll first hear from those of you who are present with us in chambers, then we'll turn to remote participants. To speak remotely, please press star nine if on phone or use the raise hand feature if on Zoom. For phone access, dial 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226. City staff will identify callers by the last three digits of their phone number or by name if on Zoom. You will hear an announcement when it's your turn to speak. Please move to a quiet area and mute any background noise. For all participants, whether in... chambers or remote please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present in chambers who'd like to address us on this issue manager kelly is there anyone connected remotely who would like to address us on this issue there are not Great. I shall close the public hearing and read the motion. The Ann Arbor City Planning Commission hereby recommends that the Mayor and City Council approve R1D single-family dwelling district zoning of 2958 Shady Lane, which is in the process of being annexed into the city. Moved by Commissioner Norton and seconded by Commissioner Hammerschmidt. We are in discussion. Seeing none, Manager Kelly, would you please call the roll?

I was looking at PUDs. Would Norton and Hammers move by Norton seconded Hammersmith? Correct. On the motion as presented, Chair Weish?

Yes.

Hammerschmidt. Yes. Vish. Yes. Mills. Yes. Weatherby. Yes. Norton. Yes. Bess Uny. Yes.

That carries. Great. Thank you, Planner Berger. All right, that takes us to regular business 10C, 3861 Research Park Drive, SP260002. Site plan for planning commission approval. This site plan proposes three additions to an existing gift of life building. The original eastern building will be demolished and replaced. with a new wing for laboratory and medical space. The front center wing of the west half of the building will also be demolished and replaced with a new connector wing that will enclose the proposed internal courtyard. Lastly, a small utility room will be added to the rear of the building. The three additions Excuse me, the three additions total about 22,650 square feet for a total of 91,570 square feet. Existing parking in front of the building will remain. 49 new parking spaces are in the rear. This is in Ward 4. Staff recommendation is approval. We have the petitioner here. You have up to 10 minutes to address the Planning Commission. We will then have a staff presentation by Planner Berger on behalf of Planner Bennett. Then we will have a public comment period. I'll read the motion. The Planning Commission will have its discussion, and then we will make our decision. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. My name's Rob Wagner with Midwestern Consulting. In the house with me tonight, we have representatives from the ownership and the design firm. I'll first go through the mission of the gift of life and the site plan. And then right after that, Betsy Williams with HKS will talk about the building and the architecture. And I think we have a slide presentation. So I just kind of... roll through this okay thank you oops i need more time that's fine sorry about that Tom told me you guys would be flipping through it, so. Okay, thank you.

All right, so yeah. Just one more moment. I'm so sorry. We're not penalizing you on time. Your time will reset. Excellent. All right. So I bet you just use this wheel here.

All right, so as you look through this slide, I'm going to talk a little bit about the Gift of Life mission. So it's a little bit different than these bullet points. I'm not just going to read from them, but I want to talk to you a little bit about what Gift of Life has done basically in my whole lifetime, and also what the did this last year and plan on doing this year and next. So since 1971, Gift of Life Michigan has served as an intermediary support donor, families, community hospitals, and transplant centers. Last year, they helped 478 people become organ donors and nearly 1,800 people give a gift of tissue, resulting in over 1,200 lives saved. And only this year, Gift of Life Michigan is projected to support even a larger number of donors, a record achievement that translates directly into more lives saved. uh also want to point out that gift to life michigan is the owner of this uh the property that they're uh expanding uh next yep so betsy's got the slide open uh just wanted to go over a little synopsis of the um the zoning as uh you know office research laboratory or limited industrial and the green space we're preserving over 70 or over 30 percent green space which is a good thing we this is a two-story building and there's over 91 000 square feet of laboratory non-medical office diagnostic treatment and building support uh parking spaces as we talked about earlier there's 183 spaces that in a couple slides you'll see i'll get to the site plan and talk through those bicycle parking is something i do i don't want to spend my whole presentation talking about it but i was hoping the commission could talk a little bit about the the the ordinance that's going to be passed by council tomorrow night so we were in the timing where we didn't know if we were going to be in the old ordinance or the new ordinance so we have in front of you proposed spaces that meet both ordinances but now that we know that we're you know Assuming we get approved tonight We'll be under the old ordinance and if we look at the calculations, there's a couple things there Well, I should start by saying that when we get to the location of this site You'll see it's not the it's not a really I shouldn't say this in Ann Arbor, but it's south of 94 and east of State Street it's not a bicycable i guess area and also you know gift of life the the mission that they do and the times that they work you know 24 hours a day and what they do they're not riding you know they're not riding bikes uh to there so i'm hoping that the commission could have discussion about the two different ordinances and what we have because we're we're doing a couple things we're we're proposing more than twice as many bicycle spaces that are required under today's ordinance but more importantly we have a 175 000 covered structure that's covering these that's not required by today's ordinance so we're hoping there's some discussion you could talk to staff and ask us more questions i just didn't want to take too much time talking about bicycle parking right now Next, and this is the location, like I said, this is right off of 94 East Estate Street, you know, Gift of Life chose this location, approximately the airport to 94 to do the great service that they do for the community. And then, yeah, the site plan, just I'm going to kind of go from the top around. But at the top, you'll see there's the staff entry, you know, up in that area. It used to be the visitor, or today it's the visitor entry, but we're moving that around to the front. I didn't see the five minutes. I got to crank through this because you need to talk about the building. I can go fast. you can go fast okay i do want to talk about the storm water uh out here what what's serving the the site today um is it was basically yesterday's standards but now we're meeting today's standards and we'll infiltrating the storm water into the sandy soils so that's kind of like a big sustainable improvement that we're that we're making with that as far as curb cuts in the front we are maintaining the three curb cuts there's one difference in the in the middle that's used for the ambulance bay today right now it goes you know out or goes in I'm sorry and we're kind of reconfiguring that mix with the visitor parking and to go out you'll see a couple of spaces a couple of places there we talked about bicycle parking and that's really what we want to come back to but Betsy you better talk a little bit about the building address those in questions good evening everyone Betsy from HKS also very close to this building this building this shows I think pretty nicely from I'm sorry Betsy can you move towards the mic or move the mic towards you

Now louder. Bird's eye view of how you can see we're kind of knitting a new connector and a new lab building amongst some existing buildings built in three phases. So pretty complicated project that we think we're bringing some continuity to. That was the view from the southwest. This is a view from the southeast where you see that connector, lab building, and then those existing parts in between. We're bringing an architectural continuity to those pieces with brick that matches the existing using some of the brick we're taking down and then some metal panels that give some continuity to it. This shows a couple of the service features and the covered bike area Rob was referring to and also how that connector really creates a courtyard for people who use the building both on a daily basis and for celebrations for the very important work that happens to families throughout the state and beyond at this amazing building. Really quickly, this is one of our favorite slides that speaks to...

So that you don't have any anxiety. Manager Kelly, can you extend their time, please?

Thank you. Oh, that's good. We're still going to keep it snappy. This slide shows some of the things that we've worked very collaboratively with the mission of Gift of Life about, and that is how to preserve the things from this building that we can and reuse them, such as reusing existing joists from that building that's being taken down. They're actually going to be reused in the new building. We're using cross-laminated timber planks for the major entry piece and lobby and conference space, so people who visit this building will have a direct connection to that natural material, and obviously improving our carbon footprint when doing that. A lot of passive things, solar shades that are oriented to the sun to allow light in but also keep glare down. That was really important in the area for the lab workers at that end and then again blue represents what's being preserved as a building white roofs represent what's being added to it and then just we'll walk you through this kind of um existing piece if you've seen this project before you'll know this is a fairly solid brick corner we're opening it up with light so a lot of new natural light continuity there's that new piece with the cross laminated timber that you can walk through and see as you enter in that that wood takes you on through the inside as you're seeing here so that those those timber planks actually connect you through the entire site and lead you to the courtyard that's inside there and then that's once you're inside that court looking back to that space that I just described here's where the lab folks work day and night to make sure that the organs and tissue that is is used for life, is verified and tested in that place. And so during the day, the sunlight that goes in there is really wanting to be controlled. And here's the view of that at night. And we thank you for hearing our story and happy to answer any questions you have.

Yes, and we'll get to you shortly. So you can have a seat. We'll move on to the staff presentation by Planner Burger.

Okay, this is a site plan for Planning Commission approval at 3861 Research Park Drive. Staff are recommending approval of the proposed site plan because the project complies with all applicable local, state, and federal laws, ordinances, standards, and regulations, will not cause a public or private nuisance, and won't have a detrimental effect on public health, safety, and welfare. The site is in the southeast corner of the city and zoned ORL Office Research and Limited Industrial District. This is a 6.56 acre site and the site has had a history of making additions to the building to accommodate increasing demand for the service. There are three existing curb cuts, vehicular parking in the front and rear of the building and the site is serviced by a sidewalk. The site plan proposes three additions to the existing gift of life building. The original eastern building will be demolished and replaced with a new wing for laboratory and medical space. The front center wing on the west half of the building will also be demolished and replaced with a new connector wing that will enclose the proposed internal courtyard. Lastly, a small utility room will be added to the rear of the building. These three additions total about 22,650 square feet for a total of 91,570 square feet. Existing parking in the front of the building will remain and 49 new parking spaces are proposed in the rear. The existing curb cuts will remain as legally non-conforming and the applicant has calculated bicycle parking such that it complies both with the standards from our current UDC as well as the proposed amended bike standards going to council tomorrow night. The applicable procedures for this petition have been satisfied, including a pre-submittal meeting, the site plan submittal, and then a community participation postcard was sent in March according to the Type 2 development project requirements that sent a postcard to 500 feet radius of the site, and this was sent in March, and no public communication was received, and staff recommend approval.

Thank you, Planner Burger. Let's now have a dedicated public comment. This is an opportunity for individuals to speak up to three minutes on this item. We'll first hear from those of you who are present with us in chambers and then remote participants. To speak remotely, press star 9. If on phone, use the raise hand feature. If on Zoom, for phone access, dial 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 97766341226. city staff will identify callers by the last three digits of their phone number or by their raised hand or name and zoom you will hear an announcement when it's your turn to speak please move to a quiet area and mute any background noise for all participants please state your name and address at the beginning of your comments is there anyone present in chambers who'd like to address us on this item manager kelly do we have remote participants who would like to address us on this item there are no remote participants at this time Fantastic. I shall close the dedicated public comment and read the motion. The Ann Arbor City Planning Commission approves SP 260002 3861 Research Drive Site Plan Version 4, dated July 9, 2026, moved by Councilmember Dish, seconded by Commissioner Mills. We are in discussion. Who would like to kick us off? OK. Council Member Dish?

I'm not going to ask a question. I'm just going to ask a question on the petitioner, because I think that you had raised a question regarding the bikes, like which regulations you're under, and do you need to? If you want to phrase your question and ask staff directly, that would be great, because unless any of us feels like we have mastered those new bike regulations that are going to pass tomorrow night,

Planner Burger did put these bike regulations in place. It was the very first thing that Planner Burger brought to this table. So thank you.

So I defer.

So who are you deferring to? Are you asking the petitioner to ask their question?

I would like for you to specify the question and for Planner Burger to answer it.

Excellent. Is that all right with everyone? Okay, thank you.

And this gives me more time.

No, no, no.

I had time in that 10 minutes, so... basically what we have proposed on our site plan to get here tonight to hopefully get to an favorable action was to propose a bike parking that met today's ordinance and tomorrow's ordinance well what happens when you do that is like right now we have 60 proposed spaces we only need 27. uh and even so more so than that the covered bike parking that will be required tomorrow which is on the site plan that you have we have 42 covered spaces and we only need five so i guess the ask would be is there any way to This is just a question. Would you be able to approve it with a condition that the bike parking would be able to be resolved by city staff to, you know, something lesser than is shown on the site plan today? Other than that, we do, we would like to get approved and not be tabled, you know, for a month to resolve it.

Before Planner Burger response, Councilmember Dish, can I ask a clarifying question to write on yours? So, to Planner Burger, would this require them to submit a new site plan because this current site plan has this bicycle parking on it, so in order to approve it the way they want to amend it, they would have to revise the site plan?

Maybe. I think staff have talked about this a little bit, not a ton. And I think the consensus that we reached as of now is they can resubmit afterwards to comply with the new bike parking that could be passed tomorrow night, but might not have to go through the full review.

So it would be manager discretion? Yeah. So we would approve it as it is, then they would initiate a new process to go to the planning manager to ask if they could conform to the new policy as opposed to the one that they built the site plan to.

Yes.

Okay. Does that set us? I'm sorry. If you are, yes. Okay.

okay now that created some questions so here we go we're going to start with uh commissioner norton i do not have the new and the old standards committed to memory if they comply with the current standards will they have to build more parking than if they comply with the standards the city council is going to vote on tomorrow which which set of requirements is more demanding in terms of requiring

If complying with existing standards requires them to provide Class A bike parking, whereas if they complied with the new amended standards as of what could go tomorrow, they won't have to buy Class A. So there is less for the new standards.

So the new standards would be less demanding in terms of requiring additional parking.

Commissioner Mills.

I don't disagree with that, but I just want to make sure that I'm reading what's in the staff report right, that no class A would be required, but there's actually more spaces. In the new standards, right? It looks like there's 44 spaces in the new standards because there's a whole bunch of Class B. Currently, only five Class B would be required. And tomorrow or whenever, it's 37. Am I reading that right? You're reading that right, yep. Okay. So it's kind of a trade-off. It's a trade-off, yeah. Here's the question that I would have. Like, today, do they have... So... Currently, what is required is 27. Tomorrow, what might be required is 44. But they're showing us 50, which is more than either of those. And in part, I think it's because of this mix. They're showing us all of the A that's required currently plus all of the B that would be required tomorrow. So in transparency, my husband works very close to here and has historically cycled. But there's not tons of cyclists. I will grant you that. This seems like... I don't think that you necessarily need to exceed the bike parking standards.

Because we're at this weird cusp of changing...

If we approve it because the site plan before us has way more and we can't edit the site plan. I've not seen that ever while I've been here, striking out things here. It feels like an amendment in the future to the site plan that you're saying for staff review? Yes.

But maybe with limited review because of the scope of the changes was my understanding. But yes, it would be an amendment.

But there's nothing that we can do at the table currently. We must approve the site plan as it is presented.

I want to make sure I understand what the concern from the applicant is. You would like to reduce your bicycle parking if you can.

Yeah, what I was hoping, maybe other communities have done this where you approve a site plan with conditions and you would say we approve it with the condition that we don't need so many, you know, Class B spaces because today the ordinance is as such. And, you know, then... uh i know the planning commission's not you know focused on the on the you know cost of things i understand that but it is 175 000 that could go to saving lives instead of wasted parking i mean that's just the reason so the goal is to reduce your class b yes parking yes

From what is required by the potential new regulations?

Yeah, from 42 to 5 or 5 plus something.

So the site plan can meet the existing standards or... it can exceed them to meet the new ones. And I think you were advised that the timing of the bike parking regulation would not be certain. So the planning commission cannot grant you relief from the existing regulations so regardless you would need to meet tonight what is in the zoning code and I you'll have to refresh me on the specifics of your proposal are you not meeting any of the current requirements for example we're meeting all the required the current requirements and the new requirements With the site plan you have in front so you could What the Planning Commission could do is they condition Approval For example if you had shown something that met the future regulations But not the ones that are in effect today They could condition the approval on the passage of those new regulations, but they can't reduce your parking requirements

yep and we do have chart charts of both options on our site plan so if like you know my my way it would be awesome if it could work is okay well we we approve it with these bike calculations because that's the ordinance that's in place today um but yeah it sounds like you you're not able to approve a site plan with con with conditions itself sounds like no we can approve a site plan with conditions it's just if i heard manager kelly correctly we cannot offer relief

against the current zoning. So that is the challenge. So we must, the site plan must conform with the existing zoning. So I understand that you drew a site plan that has both on it in the hopes that we could somehow work it out that way, but we have to approve it so that it meets the existing zoning. You can, after we approve it, seek relief through the planning department, but we can't make that change here.

Yeah, I mean, like if you could say something like, we approve this with the condition that we meet today's bike ordinance requirements, we'd be happy. If you can do that.

All right. Now I'm slightly confused, but I will get unconfused after. Let's go to Commissioner Norton, and then we'll come back to you, Planning Manager Kelley.

My question to you is you're wanting us to approve this tonight and not table it to sort this out because you want to proceed with your project, I guess, right? Yes. And the bike parking is a part of that, but it's not the key part of it.

i mean we were kind of caught in this in this time where we didn't know because the ordinance was supposed to be passed you guys all know months ago and it's kind of dragged on to actually being tomorrow night and and here we are tonight yeah um so i guess i'm not sure if i'm directing this comment to you or to staff but we could approve this as proposed tonight and then once the

bike parking situation gets settled out, they can proceed with everything else on their project because the site balance went approved, they can always come back and ask for an amendment that fixes the bike parking problem, right? There's nothing that would preclude that.

I think the choice is if there's an opportunity to craft language to say with the condition that the applicant is able to adjust their site plan to meet the approved new city council-approved bicycle regulations, I think we could find a way to craft that that would allow them to have six months to update their bicycle parking in a way that gives them the certainty that they didn't have up until this point. the site plan for planning manager what planner burger was referring to it still does have a cost there still are mandatory reviews this would what the applicant is i think i understand requesting right now is the ability to um proceed with adjustments to their site plan through this existing petition which they have already have under um you know has uh stream number it has already it's in our reviewer queues it is a quicker process and for staff and for the petitioner that would allow them to adjust their their site plan to meet pending the outcome of a vote later this week tomorrow so the only thing I'm confused about having heard that and we can put up

an editable document to try to get to the language that you are proposing is, if I'm looking at the staff report table correctly for the bicycle parking, if Council approves tomorrow the new ordinance, their Class B goes from 5 to 37, their Class C goes from 15 to 7, and then their Class A, which was at 7, goes to 0. So it's

The interest is in reducing the Class A parking due to the expenses, my understanding.

So the seven Class A's are the ones that are under the cover, and that is the one that they want to remove.

Class A is the lockers.

I know, yes, which is, but that's not what you are communicating as the relief.

We forgot to have the lockers, but the lockers aren't the...

The relief was the $175,000 of the covered, which is class B, which you have to do, and you're going to have to do more than what the current code requires. The current code requires five. If after tomorrow, it's going to require 37.

That's why we thought if the code was what it is tonight, that it would be able to be approved with today's, you know, BICYCLE ORDINANCE.

OH, OKAY. I SEE.

I SEE. SO YOU'RE ACTUALLY LOOKING TO ADHERE TO THE REGULATIONS IN EFFECT AND TO BE ABLE TO MODIFY THE SITE PLAN POST APPROVAL UNDER A CONDITION THAT AS LONG AS IT ADHERES TO TODAY, AUGUST 5TH REGULATIONS, THAT IT BE APPROVED ADMINISTRATIVELY? THAT WOULD BE AWESOME. Okay, I think I'm understanding now.

I thought that you... No, yeah, see, we all thought they were going the other way. They want to go complete... Sorry. Commissioner Hammerschmidt maintains that they want today's standards, not tomorrow's standards, but they wrote the plan for tomorrow's standards. Okay. Well, I think just in terms of clarity, just... keeping the second clause out would help with the clarity. But, okay, so what can we do? Well, first, let's go to Commissioner Norton because he is not the city's attorney.

I am not the city's attorney, but we do make site plan approvals that leave some standards to be fixed once the staff gets worked out. So it doesn't Can't we approve the site plan on the condition that the bicycle parking standards that are in place right now today are the standards that apply to the site plan and that it be fixed after this to comply with those standards? Can I move to amend the motion to add that?

Well, isn't the issue once it gets, it's going to be, it's going to get applied because it gets approved and they haven't built it yet. So when they go to,

build it they're going to have to build it to the standard because don't we bring everybody up to the standard of the site plan that got approved which we're proving tonight i mean if i may you may there is a there is a very typical pathway that this is done which is to have a different site plan. You're saying if it's tabled that the time in which it would be tabled the new regulations may be in effect. I mean, council can also ask for a delay in the implementation by a time that's after the next planning commission meeting. is one option. I don't know if that would necessarily, you know, you can't necessarily rely on that.

You could... Because if we approve it as it is, they, what I hear Commissioner Mills and Norton saying is These are the regulations that are in place today. And we have the site plan that is in front of us today. However, this site plan actually anticipates the new zoning. So we would be approving a site plan that has the new regulation in it but saying conditionally to apply today's august 5th rules and i like that doesn't make sense to me because this we are approving the site plan and the the developer drew the site plan to include the parking. So they can either, this is what I'm asking, they can either allow us to approve it as it is and then work this out administratively, or they could ask us to table this and they can redraw it exactly how they want it to be and then we would be able to approve this. I think the thing that I'm struggling with is the idea that they're both on the same site plan and therefore we can choose our adventure here.

So I am sympathetic that this applicant was working in a timeframe of changing regulation. Yes. And we are yet to see how well that new regulation even meets the needs of the city. We presuppose that it is better. That is why staff have brought it forward. It has been tweaked. There have been a lot of eyes on it based on different goals for bicycle and active transportation. So they did their best, I think, to craft bicycle parking in a period of regulatory uncertainty. So allowing them to right-size it to meet their needs. I think if you could give some background, Mr. Wagner, on the ways that people visit your site and why you feel so much Class B parking would not be utilized. I believe you've communicated that to staff. I think that would help the Planning Commission to understand. How do people visit your site? What types of bicycle parking did your team consider would be best? And beyond cost, there were operational considerations here, right?

Hi, good evening members of the Commission. I'm Jeff Wisniewski, Vice President, General Counsel for Gifted Life Michigan. At our facility here in Ann Arbor, this is the centerpiece for the state of Michigan for organ and tissue donation. Our staff come in and out of this building predominantly while we have a small contingent of daily staff who work there. predominantly this these are staff members who are working 12 24 hours taking care of donors running lab tests that are being performed our staff come from across the state working here we have staff members who staff our donor care center who drive from northern michigan to come down in my seven years with the organization i walk in and out of the building daily And it is very much the exception to have ever seen any more than five bicycles in those seven years. We have all the lockers. We obviously want to comply with all the regulations. I'm one of the people who said we are trying to be financial stewards and good stewards of our tax-exempt funds. and to invest the money in like the bicycle lockers that I see today that sit empty that collect dust and I say I have to take that money out of clinical operations to fund this we definitely were trying to find what is a happy medium the last thing any of us wants to see are you know some of these you know constructed um lockers that are going to sit empty on our site when predominantly we have ambulances we have staff we have couriers all in time sensitive constraints trying to serve the citizens of the state of michigan Does that help explain a little bit about what we do? If not, I'm happy to answer any of your questions. Commissioner Hammersmith.

Okay, I thought I understood, and then this actually confused me a little bit more. I do understand everything you're saying, but just when we're going back to this table in the staff report. So, and I was trying to look through the site plan, and there's so many pages, and I couldn't find it. You don't have two different plans for bicycle parking, or do you?

No, he has two different charts.

Yes, we separate the calculations where we meet today's ordinance, tomorrow's ordinance, and then to do that, it makes you have more than twice as many spaces as we need today.

Right, so if I'm understanding this correctly, which maybe I am, maybe I'm not. Maybe I was wrong, maybe I don't get it. You would prefer to meet today's standards, today, August 5th, today's, which would reduce significantly your Class B spaces down to five.

And we understand the lockers would be there. They won't be used. No, but we understand.

Okay, because that's where I was getting confused. I'm like, but you would have to do at least seven.

And we are committed to the standards today. We will meet them in the plan.

So this doesn't, I mean, again, like... staff knows procedurally more than me. But it sounds like they drew a plan because they didn't know which standard it was going to be. They prefer to comply with the existing standards. So it's almost like if there was a way in whatever motion that we could just hold them to today's standards and then they could administratively get you know if they wanted to keep Class A at 10 cool but if they wanted to reduce Class B down to five or six like in the future after we've already approved this, then that could be an administrative approval to reduce those class B because we'd be holding them to the standards as of today. Is that what you're thinking?

Yes.

Can we do that, planner Berger or ?

I think that we could do that. I'm going to pull up a Word document so that we can look at the motion with some new language. I don't think that this will be challenging to craft and meet what they're after, because it just would bind them to an update that meets the minimum requirements of the bicycle parking regulations in place today.

Commissioner Mills?

And I just want to note that there's multiple ways to meet those regulations today. You need 27 spaces. You could do it through 12 class A and 15 class C and have zero class B. And so you could also do it through 10 class A, which you have shown, eight class C, which you have shown, and then nine class B, which you have more than that shown. So there's multiple ways to meet the standards. So I think that working, and staff knows that too, and so I think working with them is helpful. I think our standards are written so that you can provide higher classes. You just can't go lower. You have to have that minimum number, and if it's a mix going forward of all B and C, I think you can still provide it.

no we and we appreciate the staff and we've been happy to work with the staff on a six and a half acre site it's amazing i think i've been through every square inch between parking sidewalks accessibility easements and everything else i mean we are definitely open to whatever ideas to try to to try to you know meet the needs and meet the requirements yeah so rather than us talking about that like i think it makes sense to make that or to have that flexibility

in reducing what is currently 60 bicycle parking spots.

Two.

It doesn't feel like it makes any more sense to have more than 44, which might be required tomorrow. But certainly today what is required is 27.

We filed in February, and so we appreciate any clarity, and that's what we're trying to get here tonight.

Thank you. Again, I'm glad. There are cyclists there. You've seen that too. Certainly not 27. This is also, we've just approved housing not too far. So there will be more neighbors in the neighborhood, and that doesn't mean that that's your clientele necessarily.

From a recruitment, we are hiring. Please tell these people we are looking for staff.

So, you know, I think future-proofing this makes a lot of sense, and it's been a weird time. And so...

Okay, Plannenberger first, please.

Yes, if I can just clarify, the new standards that are going to council tomorrow don't let you convert up classes anymore.

Right.

That's one of the major changes, so you can't go up from B to A. Yep. So I just wanted to correct that.

Yeah. All right, Commissioner Norton.

All right, I'm not the city's legal counsel, but I'm gonna read some language from the UDC, which I don't think requires great legal skill to interpret. The Planning Commission shall approve with or without conditions or deny site plan. If approval is conditioned on changes to the site plan, the applicant shall submit a revised site plan with necessary changes to the plan manager within six months of approval by the Planning Commission for it to not lapse. So we can approve with conditions that require changes to the site plan. So one of the conditions we could make is that the bicycle spaces to be provided conform with the standards that are currently enforced tonight. that would fix those requirements on this site plan to those standards, it wouldn't matter how those standards change either tonight or tomorrow night or whenever, because these will become the standards that apply to this project. So I would move that we- Can you pause? Oh, yes.

And when Manager Kelly is ready, Manager Kelly will tell us, and then you may continue.

Oh, sorry, I'm going too fast.

No, it's okay. That's why you get to pause. We have no music. We can sit in silence, everyone. It's okay. So we have up the current motion.

And I'm going to maybe add some potential changes in blue, and you could work with me. Sure. So.

Yeah, a little bit bigger for my weak eyes. Thank you. Yes, sir. With, I would say, comma, with the condition, the site plan being revised, so that bike parking... You can go fast, right?

I'm a fast typer.

Condition on the site plan being revised so that bike parking conforms with bike parking standards in effect on August 5th, 2026. Is that what you were in? So that will, and then that will automatically give you six months to revise the site plan to meet that requirement to the satisfaction of the planning manager. And we can do that as I'm reading the DDC. Am I reading that correctly, Manager Kelly?

I think this would accomplish what, if the commission is amenable to this to give the applicant flexibility to rearrange their site. As I mentioned, they were a good sport with as many other applicants have been during this period of uncertainty in the bike parking. I think this would accomplish that.

Okay. Council Member Dish.

This is just a tiny question, and it doesn't matter because we already wrote a motion to cover the base, but when council passes a UDC revision, doesn't it have to be published, and then it takes effect not on the night that it passes, but 10 days after, which would be around August 16th.

And the next CBC meeting is the 18th.

Yeah, so this makes sense to do it this way. But if planning manager's approving the change anyway, it also probably could be done within that. I mean, not that I'm saying that, but I was just thinking these things don't happen immediately. But this is the thing we do. I like this. Yeah.

And just the simplest for the applicant, for sure.

for my edification we passed and approved the changes and then council sent them back yeah so that was part and parcel because this would have been in place uh as it is today so i'm just noting my mild opposition to this because the the petitioner could have drawn today's regulations through the process. So I'm still likely to vote for this just so that we move this along, but we would have had these in place. And we, this commission, after the presentation from Planner Burger agreed to these regulations. Council asked for changes. We made those changes. And those changes are going to be implemented. But now we're saying maybe those changes shouldn't have been implemented because of where we are sitting today. And it just feels discordant to me. And that's the thing that I am sitting with. And also, I do not accept that no one bikes. People bike all over the place. I bike to Costco. when I want to and I want to be able to park when I get to Costco and they only have three hoops that are there and sometimes they're all taken. So this idea that we do not have cyclists that are actually going to reduce their vehicular miles traveled is not true. And so, yeah, so I'm just a little disquieted with it because this is a regulation we created. And now we're saying, eh maybe we shouldn't have created this regulation i know we're not saying that like in so many words but that's what it feels like and i would be remiss not to articulate it because then i'll be at home saying i should have said that so i am saying it now but i am not blocking okay commissioner mills

In part, because there were rationale. I appreciate that. Thank you for sharing that. There's rationale behind also why we made those changes, thinking about the usage. And I've not built bike parking facilities. And so I'm curious if it's OK if I ask the petitioner about.

Yes, of course you may.

Part of the move was that bike lockers, we found are not. That was one of the changes, is that they're not as accessible to visitors. We're trying to get around the city. And so in particular, the costs associated with the class B that you're talking about, the covered bike parking versus the bike lockers, is class B more expensive for you than the bike lockers on a per bicycle parking spot basis?

We have a cost for the covered structure, and that is $175,000.

That covers how many bicycles? Because there are multiple places, right?

Between 5 and 42.

Well, it's the one in front of the building. Now it's in back of the building. The back of the building? Yeah. Okay. So let me get to that, and I can answer your question. It was in the PowerPoint, too. That's quite a few. 32 spaces. 32 bikes.

Yeah.

So 16 hoops. That's $175,000. The benefit the gift of life has here, we already have existing lockers that we can move or keep in the same location. So we're going to reuse bike lockers to meet the Class A.

So you don't know what the cost of a Class A is? I was just curious. Because you had the numbers on B, I thought...

would ask about we have the number on b i don't have the number on a but i do know that and i i love biking too but um i've been in meetings i'm just going to say it this way i've been in meetings throughout this last year at gift of life where they say that the bike lockers are are not used at gift of life so

which is among the reasons why for situations like this, they're not required in the future.

Right, so that confirms it. Yeah, okay, thank you. We'd be happy to have them, so.

Yes, you may, Commissioner Norman.

All right, well, let me ask you another question.

Who are you asking?

Maybe the you, I guess.

Who's the you?

The general counsel.

Okay, thank you.

Will this project will not be adding new employees to your system, or will it be adding new employees?

We have been on a growth trajectory. We are not forecast to be adding additional employees, but we have really outgrown our existing footprint that we have today.

In terms of the facility space, but not the numbers of people that are working there. Correct. How many parking spots do you have currently there?

What are our current... Bike parking? Bike parking. It was like 20 or something like that.

And how many of those are regularly used by your employees?

would say zero or one in all honesty because you have to remember that so as far as accessibility for our site as much as we have a large presence on Research Park we're really you know we're running a donor care unit tissue recovery center and we have administrative staff for the most part we are not necessarily open to the public the only public who really are coming to our site are oftentimes donor families who are traveling from all over the state and coming to say goodbye to

you don't have local employees who work there regularly who could bike if they wanted to oh they who could bike there there are a handful of of individuals who live my understanding in some of the apartments you know nearby our facility so and and the changes you're making are not going to dramatically increase the number of folks who could likely be living in ann arbor and biking to your so i'm i'm thank you that was a question i'm mindful i totally understand um sure why i share concerns about we're in this transition and we're trying to improve our biking and parking standards um but i also recognize no matter what you try and do the standards are clunky and they don't always fit the situation and um So I understand not wanting to move against the spirit of what we've been doing and trying to modify and improve the parking standards. But this is one case where it seems to me that current standards actually fit better this particular use of the property. And I'm not so troubled that it's an appropriate fit. So I will continue to support the amendment, the motion that I made to amend the motion, which I don't know if we need to ask somebody.

Oh, we're going to have to. We're just now having discussion before we actually take up the motion. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Bass, uni.

I was like, just when you thought I didn't have a question. So yeah, thank you to staff. Thank you to the petitioner. Thank you to Gift of Life for the service that you provide, literally life-saving. I have a question for the petitioner and or the council. Have you surveyed your staff in terms of, like, I guess my question is grounded in what you've been describing around, like, it's very unlikely that people will bike. Most people drive. Is that anecdotal or is that something that you have surveyed staff? I would love to know more how you arrived at those estimates.

Thank you. Some of it is anecdotal. We do routinely survey our staff. Our staff are actually very excited, more excited for charging stations and the ability to charge their vehicles and that is a key component of our site plan. That is where we have heard overwhelming feedback. We've been working on this project now for we started in 2022 so there's been a lot of discernment and process along the way involving our staff because the work that we do is very difficult and we try to provide an optimal environment that provides for staff safety staff satisfaction being 24 7.

Thank you. And can you remind me how many staff you have approximately, especially given that you were saying you have staff from all over the state? So I'm just trying to get a gauge of what does the typical traffic, like people, number of people in and out of that facility looks like.

That's a great question. So we have approximately a little over 400 staff members serving 130 hospitals in the state of Michigan. What we find, I would say we have approximately about 120 administrative on-site staff on a regular cadence. I like to say we were hybrid before hybrid was a thing. but we if we bring in an entire team of say 40 50 staff for a meeting suddenly we have that large influx and so that parking area that seems very large suddenly there are days where it is completely full or we're having to adjust as well we will oftentimes host different groups whether it's tours or other groups in our building that as well can can stress capacity gotcha thank you so that's about 400 employees 120 admin and so then the remainder are lab staff is that correct i'm sorry 120 are i would say our administrative staff lab it depends if we have how many donors we have on site if it may if it's a quiet day we may not have clinical staff on site If our donor care center, which has three beds, if we have three donors there, that means that we would have at least probably 10 clinical staff members there. As well, we have surgical recovery teams potentially flying in from all over the country who are coming in and staying with us for eight to 12 hours. And so we can quickly go from a very quiet setting to a larger intensity.

Thank you. And then you mentioned the donor beds. So does that mean that family and or friends of people who are donors can come and visit as well?

Yes, that is one of our hallmarks. Yes, we allow donor families to be able to come and visit their loved one.

Thank you. So your parking, I assume, anticipates some of that being visitors. You have the designation for that.

Thankfully, you may have noticed there's a front parking lot and part of this new entrance we hope to accommodate. We are actually limited by the size of that parking lot and adding some additional spaces for any visitors who are able to come in, but we did have bike spots there as well.

Gotcha. Okay, thank you. This helps paint a picture of, yeah, what that would look like. And yeah, I think going back to the anecdotal versus survey, you mentioned that you survey your staff frequently. What does that cadence mean? Because frequently to me might be like weekly versus yearly.

We do twice annually. We do a full employee experience. And then on top of that, we have quarterly check-ins, which are just a very short, brief two or three questions, kind of what's on their mind.

Thank you. And that survey goes, sorry to interrupt, to all of the employees, including those that are on site?

Yes. Go, yes. Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

Okay, great. Thanks. That helps because as an epidemiologist, I think about recall bias and just like anecdotally versus what we collect the data. So, okay. I think that has answered my questions. Thanks so much. Thank you.

All right, Manager Kelly, I have a question. So by my calculation, I'm going to get to my question, but I have a preamble. By my calculation, a parking spot costs about $3,500. There's 49 new ones here. It's about $171,000 about the cost that we're talking about the covered biking. So in any other case with a petitioner bringing a site plan, My understanding is the site plan that we are approving is the site plan that is being approved. I understand that we can amend it and allow for a revision here. I think what I'm struggling with is based on your interaction with this petitioner, The petitioner could have written the site plan to meet today's code, I think is what I'm getting at. But the petitioner did not. The petitioner presented a site plan that meets today's and tomorrow's code. And now we are going to amend the motion to revert the site plan's approval to today's ordinance so that they may submit a revised site plan. However, if the petitioner was to present if we approved it as it was and they on their own submitted a revised site plan, they would have to conform to the ordinance that existed at the time of the revision of the site plan.

I get new site plan submittals after the potential, you know, assuming the passage and effective date of the new bicycle parking requirements, new plans that, you know, modified the site plan, etc, or modifications that triggered site plan review would have to have subsequent site plans comply with all so we are effectively providing relief here at the table so i i understand your perspective it's a question yeah again i am not blocking i'm just the question is are you providing relief at the table yeah i mean the petitioner says that you would be right i mean if it considered you know the the consideration of whether or not it's relief or not i think is That's what they're interpreting and saying, yes, this would help us. They could have designed it differently, but it would have been at the risk of having to submit new plans that would rearrange their site, I don't know by exactly how much, and paying their design staff and then potentially adding new reviews to their site. to their site plan. So that's where, you know, like I said, I am sympathetic to the fact that they were in flux as far as their expectations of the regulation.

Okay. All right. Back to chairing. We have a potential motion before us. Could you put that back on this? Would you please plan a manager? Manager Kelly. Put the revised motion back up. Our original movers are Dish and Mills. Are you comfortable with this revision? Okay, so it's friendly to the body. Can we just accept it or do we need to do a voice vote to accept this revision and then I can remove it? How do we want to procedurally do that?

A voice vote is fine. So Dish and Mills, you would like to adopt this amendment?

Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. That's two, four, that's six to one. So the motion carries. Now the motion as amended. Any discussion? Manager Kelly, would you please read the rule?

Absolutely. On the motion as amended, Weish? No. Hammerschmidt? Yes. Dish? Yes. Mills? Yes. Weatherby? Yes. Norton? Yes. Bess Uny? no i i also agree but yeah five votes are required to affirmatively pass and this had five votes okay so it carries good luck thank you yeah you're welcome

That brings us to 11A, Other Business, which there is none. We'll move to agenda item number 12, Public Comment. This is a second opportunity for individuals to speak up to three minutes on any issue. We will first hear from those present, then move to remote participants, if there are any. To speak remotely, press star 9 if on phone or use the raise hand feature in Zoom. For phone access, dial 877-853-5247 and enter meeting ID 977-6634-1226. City staff will identify callers by the last three digits of their phone number or by name for Zoom users. You will hear an announcement when it's your turn to speak. And please ensure you're in a quiet area and mute any background noise. Seeing that there's no one in chambers. I don't know. I think he left with the Broadway group. Do we still have no remote participants? Great. So I shall close the public comment and ask if there are any commissioner proposed business. Yes. No.

If I could just circle back to the PUD item.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. So the PUD process for updating the supplemental regulations would be treated as a rezoning with some exceptions. that it would follow the pre-petition conference to describe how it is being updated. It is required to be accompanied by an area plan or a site plan, but it doesn't have to be accompanied by a new site plan or area plan. I don't see relief in terms of request for waiver, which is sometimes available to the Planning Commission for area plans, area plan requirements. I don't see that relief associated with PUDs, but if Broadway would desire to come and update their supplemental regulations, they would do a pre-petition conference. to describe the amendment the would be a text amendment to remove the minimum parking in their supplemental regulations and then they would be scheduled for this body you would see the red line of the proposed regs you would make a recommendation And it would be accompanied and followed throughout the process by their last approved site plan. And that's what we did for Ashley Muse. They had a site plan from 2000 that was accompanied with your petition that you saw.

So they wouldn't have to do the whole site plan review. And then that cost would go away. So it would actually just be almost administrative.

The only thing that would require that site plan to change in the future is if they act on it.

Right.

But the simple fact of removing it doesn't require a new site plan.

Thank you so much. I will lock that away. All right, Commissioner Bassiuni, sorry.

I just wanted to say thank you to staff for the update on the RFP and the reminder around applications won't be opened or viewed until after August, was it 11th? So looking forward to that with bated breath.

Thank you. Great. Commissioner Norton.

I wonder if I could ask, who will be on the review committee? How do you pick your selection committee for picking the applicant?

Yeah, that was something that Manager Lennert discussed internally with his colleagues and supervisors and with our team. And so it will have staff represented from the planning and development services, and it will also have staff from the Office of Economic Development.

Sorry, could you repeat that question? I couldn't hear you.

He asked if there would be planning commissioners on the review, and the answer is no.

If you just bear with me one moment, I do actually have a list of who will be included.

I guess I should say, I'm not asking for the specific identities of who's on the committee. I'm just more curious about the process. Good, because they're private. yeah i don't i'm not trying to get to that i'm just more curious about the process and who normally staffs these selection committees in terms of um role they're playing not who they are i was just curious thank you thank you any other commission proposed business

With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Moved by Commissioner Mills, seconded by Commissioner Weatherby. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned.