Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

e see you all here commissioners in public I will now call to order the Wednesday February 26 2025 city of Battle Creek Planning Commission meeting can we get a roll call for attendance commissioner Hughes here commissioner odonnell here commissioner Godfrey here commissioner gray here commissioner Morris here commissioner Dennison here commissioner moton here and commissioner whites absent mayor Banky here thank you on to approval of minutes this being the December 18 2024 meeting are there any comments or questions regarding the minutes Mr chairman I make a motion to minutes be approved as presented support Second it's been uh moved and supported uh let's go ahead and vote all those in favor signify by saying I I I I oppose same sign all right minutes have been

approved next on the agenda any correspondent no correspondence any additions or deletions to the agenda no additions no deltion Perfect all right now we are on to public hearings uh as a reminder to all with public hearings we'll hear from the staff we'll hear from the applicant then open the floor for public comments we ask that when coming forward you state your name and address and please complete the the signin sheet um once comments are completed we'll close the public hearing if you want to comment on something not specific to the public hearing you will be provided time to do so later in the agenda and we will take comments at that time as a reminder Commissioners the role of this body today is to hold a public hearing on the resoning review the proposed changes and put forth a recommendation to the city commission any change recommended by the Planning Commission must be approved by the city commission uh with that I would like to start um I do not have to my knowledge a conflict of interest on our public hearing today um but I do want to make it known that in 2018 2019 I did list this property for sale I am a a licensed real estate agent um but there is no financial interest the agreement is long been expired and I have no involvement with uh the petition before us today so Marcel is there any concern there I have none is there any comments or questions from Commissioners all right seeing that I will open the public hearing for consideration of rezoning 80 North 20 Street this is a petition from Titus LLC specifically Michael gothberg requesting the rezoning of property located at 80

North 20th Street um from its existing r1b single family residential district to T3 neighborhood commercial District staff report please thank you the applicant has entered into a purchase agreement with Bronson uh Battle Creek Hospital the owner of the property the applicant before the Planning Commission is requesting a rezoning without conditions um from the r1b zoning designation to the T3 zoning designation this type of rezoning proposal does not require a site plan be submitted um with application and even if one were submitted um it would not restrict the applicant from submitting completely different plans in the future um if this resoning were approved um the property is approximately 16.54 Acres which under the r1b zoning designation would allow by right for a typical single family residential style neighborhood with up to 143 single family homes with individual Lots under the proposed rezoning T3 um up to 330 dwelling units could be developed by right in a way of single family units duplex units or townhouse type dwellings um the term by right means that a if a rezoning like this were to be approved that the applicant could either under the current zoning r1b could submit a plan for a 143 single family home development and it would be submitted to the uh City staff and they would approve it if it met all the requirements and this would not require um input from the community if it were to be rezoned to the T3 the

same would apply anything that was allowed by right under the T3 Zone would be allowed to be submitted in a site plan it would go directly to City staff they would review it for compliance with the TZ rezoning designation and if it met it would be approved for um to move forward for construction um that being said um the city staff understands that this property has been vacant for a long time and that um some type of residential development uh would benefit the community in the future um but we also recognize that it has been vacant for a long time and there are a lot of residents that live in close proximity to this property that um probably somewhere between the r1b and the T3 zoning um would find some type of residential uh development that would be appealing to them as well as be good for the community and under the current application um it is a straight resoning without conditions and staff for several reasons that were listed in the staff uh report um feel that the difference between the r1b and the T3 if it were to allowed to be developed at full capacity would not necessarily be compatible with this neighborhood and the surrounding uses however um and we have recommended in the staff report that the Planning Commission denied this application as it's in front of you tonight however um a conditional resoning If This Were recommended for denial tonight a conditional resoning

could be uh submitted by the applicant at any time during the this process but it would always have to come back to the Planning Commission for consideration um staff has had a conversation with the applicant and they'll speak to what their decision is but staff would be happy to work with the residents and the uh potential developer to find out what their concerns are and see if we there's a happy medium between there and allow the applicant um to continue forward with this property without um being fully denied um with that being said I would be happy to answer any questions that the Planning Commission may have thank you very much are there any technical or clarifying questions of the Commissioners at this time for the city staff commissioner Godfrey we're noted in here that the presentation was made to the NPC and we have the minutes of the NPC but there were no suggestions uh either for or against by the NPC as listed in their minutes have we followed that up do we have any recommendation from the n PC we did not get a specific recommendation because they did not have a quorum so they basically provided the minutes as what the conversation was and not only that conversation but staff has received several calls um from people concerned not necessarily that they're they don't want a development there but concerned that they a development go there without any understanding of what that development could be um there were a lot of questions I don't think there was a

significant number of residents from that area that attended that meeting um unfortunately and so that was not really a good indication of the residents in that areas this is this is a really good learning experience for our citizens in Battle Creek that if there is an action within an NPC they should Proby try to get enough people at that meeting so that there can be an a recommendation for approval or disapproval to assist the Planning Commission in making their decisions very good commissioner gray thank you um I just wanted to um elaborate on the question that I mean the statement that you made regarding the number of calls that were received um it seems like those same concerns were being voiced in the MPC discussion regarding um not knowing what's uh going to ultimately take place on that space um can you give an idea when you say several did you say it wasn't significant enough uh as far as the numbers um or cuz just trying to get an idea of the scope that came in um of of concerns because I don't see a summary yeah of any of those calls or emails that may have come in right and the calls that I received um were mostly from people that were going to gather gather the neighbors and wanted to know specifically why um the application did not provide a site plan and so basically the explanation was unfortunately it does not require one and I suggested they attend the neighborhood planning

council meeting so there was mostly conversations uh specific to clarify why there was not more detail and that the applicant was going to the neighborhood planning Council to uh offer some description but that it necess did not necessarily mean that that's what would end up there because they would not be held to that plan under a straight rezoning and were they they asked um was a recommendation for both the planning um I mean excuse me the neighborhood planning Council and the um Planning Commission meeting or just the one when no for both it was for both yeah they were already aware of the Planning Commission and we're just needing more understanding why the what what our notice processes and um why there wasn't a site plan thank you commissioner Odell yes I was wondering about the um unit size I caught that if it got changed we could go up to 330 units is that what the maximum was for that what was the one when it was a 1B or currently a 1B 1B I believe it was 148 can I quickly um let me look at the notes I have here my my clarifying question might provide some context here um so previously before consumers purchased and split the southern portion I believe it was 16 Acres the existing parcel I believe is 13.42% thank you thank you for that

clarification um one other question is is that um without a site plan or any type of knowing how many units we going to have how much uh traffic or uh congestion would we have in that area adding that many units in that area you know that's something that we typically um look at when a site plan is submitted but um in talking with several of the residents here um if this application is denied tonight and we work with the applicant and the residents that is some information that we suggested that we would talk about like if we can get from the Department of Public Works a range like if it were the lowest density to the highest density so we could kind of interpretate in between see what would an acceptable yeah and I know there's schools nearby and other um facilities that have uh Young ciens that use that area so I'm just thinking the safety of that under a conditional type of change thank you y any other questions I had one more just clarifying that conditions cannot be placed on a rezone a straight rezone correct the only conditions that can be part of a rezoning have to be given by the applicant okay so that's why staff is recommending that um this particular application as a straight resoning be denied tonight but a a conditional rezoning request we could place conditions on no the only the only conditions that can be placed on a conditional resoning have to be placed by the applicant um and in speaking with the applicant um we

discussed um having the ability to hear What the residents are concerned about and what their threshold of capacity would be and allowing them to present an agreement based on that conversation but it would be it would be their conditions to offer and the Planning Commission and City commission to recommend or approve or deny okay um that doesn't mean that if the conversation with the residents in the planning Comm mission is um going in a direction that they feel that they want to amend they can amend the conditions as well okay so if it's if there's a conditional rezoning application conditionally rezoning it to T3 um if it if all the conditions were met and it got rezoned they let's say they sell it the the new owner could do anything essentially in the T3 District there's no limitations to that no not true the conditional resoning would go with the property um there are deadlines so basically there's the ability um it's only good for one year the applicant has the ability to extend that for I believe three different one-year periods okay um if it's not extended it reverts to the the underlying zoning okay so that's um conditional rezonings um that I've experienced have been very beneficial when there's an area that's maybe not quite right for the underlying zoning but not quite right for the next zoning up to kind of meet that Gap okay thank

you all right seeing no more questions we will now go to the applicant um please State your name address and relationship to the applicant if you are a representative um we would appreciate if you could uh explain your request and present the reasons why you should feel it feel it should be approved um okay um Mike Michael gothberg um my address is 121 West Michigan Avenue um unit G if you're going to stop by but uh it's the Anson building um and uh so our um pres or our request I guess was based on the idea that we haven't bought the property yet we've been working with them for a year and a half to kind of decide to find a balance on the property that even for taking it over had a lot of old um hindrances I guess basically some there was conditional use that it had to be a hospital and some things and so that's kind of why they backed off from selling it in the first place it was for sale but that was holding it back from being that so we kind of took a chance on I was driving we were look we've been looking for places that seem like they could use it and instead of building way out we thought if we infill a little bit better into the city maybe that's more convenient for people than that so that was kind of our idea and I I drove past this property you know hundreds of times and it sort of became an issue to like well maybe we should call found out who owned it got a hold of them they're like oh somebody's interested and then they went through the process worked out a number and whatever of for the um to make a proposal and then the conditional you uh the deed restrictions I is the word I'm look for came into play and was like well we're not really planning to build a hospital so let's see what that can be so they took their time and they did what they had to do for that that was all kind of on on their attorneys and so now it's reopened back up for us the opportunity to buy you know to proceed with our due diligence time and

um uh in looking at it it doesn't really behoove us to and I'm not sure it's really that well suited for building new residential lots like like it's zoned just because I'm a I'm a builder that's I mean I've been doing that for 25 probably almost 30 years now um and you know new homes cost a lot to build individually and there's a lot of expense in that so I don't see it financially feasible or we didn't see it finan even 143 would be insane to try to pack a bunch of houses on that property or whatever the number is now 120 um so I didn't see that as a very practical use to just take it as it is we kind of all along thought we would have to maybe do some kind of multif family or something um and then in the discuss with the city was like well T3 is a good idea or is a good option for that kind of thing so that kind of led us down that path and um you know it's mostly about trying to find the right balance of it but we don't really want to take over the property and purchase it as an r1b with the maybe they'll change it maybe they won't because then it really just stays almost as useless to us as it is to Bronson um to just buy it and really there's not a lot of value in that so um for us to make it something that was worth having it needed to be something more dense um T3 was a recommendation because there was some options of being able to put um some retail use you know not a not a Best Buy but a something that people nearby could use some smaller things uh if we just went multif family you really can't do that um so that was kind of in the plan along a lot of our discussions we've had discussions with Cody and um different other people about you know trying to make this a well-rounded piece of property and not just that but obviously we don't own it so we weren't going to go to the multi- tens of thousands of dollars of expense on a gamble that presented a bunch of plans for something we can't even build we don't even know if we could build so we just really didn't so that's kind of what led us into this and the idea was

let's find out if we can get it rezoned to that T3 and start there we really have no problem with a conditional use because I don't believe what we're asking to do is that outrageous we don't even probably want to do the things that the concerns are you know we're not trying to jam the neighborhood we're not trying to crowd the traffic none of that makes any value in what we do so that was already the thing it was just our process was well we don't really have a plan yet because we don't own it and we're not going to you know we can't invest a lot of things we know we'd like to build some multif family and you know or not I say some whatever would would fit of course the maximum is a large number 270 or 260 um you know if that's if that can be reasonably placed there and the traffic isn't insane and it doesn't cause a lot of problems with utilities and things then that's cool that's the number we just don't know that until we you know go forward so even and then now you know I wasn't sure how it would gauge anyway we were just trying this is where we've been kind of at this we're a little bit hesitant to kind of get information from every we want to get all the information we are in kind of a time crunch of like well we got to decide if we're going to buy it or not so it's kind of both of those things so um the idea of having resident local resident input has does not scare me we aren't asking asking for something that's impossible I know it's just a little unclear right now because it's unclear to us because we can't say oh we definitely want this and find out well we can't do that even if we wanted to and so there's a lot of effort to go through to do that and we were just trying to gauge things so in talking with Darcy and and that know we had a meeting with with stand back we had a meeting with them and it was um you know like well let's try this T3 request um because it's more straightforward and um it's kind of hard to make a request for conditional zoning on a property you don't have to do this thing until we kind of know where everybody's at so that got us back in the door but um like

I said I think our decision has been in conversations with this um you know that we have no issue at all with setting up real meet you know community meeting or some or neighborhood meeting or whatever it needs to be obviously just going to the um the neighborhood meeting was just a let's see if we can get some feedback on what we need to do here but we we do need obviously a more elaborate version of it and that's what Darcy said they would help us facilitate some things like that to put something together with the actual people who live around it and have a you know a concern about it our intent Is Not to cause their lives more chaos that's not the intent but try to benefit something for the city and you know for residential uses and things like that it's good for us to do it if that's not what anybody wants if it turns out hey we all hate this idea we don't want anything there we'd like a park that or an empty plate of grass that just sits there so be it that's where we go you know we just won't take it um and it'll sit there and continue to be what it is that's fine but we were just trying to find some way to go forward with it and I think this is um where we are um Cody has some input on what we would how we would probably put things together because we've been talking to him about site planning and things like we've talked with him for you know a couple months on and off about this part of it but um he was going to say a few words on that too if that's all right if Cody can yeah all right my name is Newman I'm a driven design we're located at 117 West Michigan Avenue downtown um we we did just have some preliminary conversations we have not put together a formal site plan on this uh we thought that this site was a great site suited for residential we have a housing shortage in the city everyone knows that at this point we we need more housing um the reason that we thought that the T3 District was the most appetising this has been a long time commercial property just recently in 2020 when we went through the resoning process was changed to residential um on 20th Street a significant portion of the businesses along here are commercial businesses um so that's just

why we looked at this it's a a four lane road uh any commercial would be facing 20th Street it wouldn't be towards the residential side of it uh we had just preliminarily kind of sketched out that three kind of buildings could fit on this they were kind of thinking they could build one at a time uh just to get some density we had talked again preliminarily about 90 units per building so that'd be 2 70 total which is under the 300 and some threshold sorry we keep forgetting the specific numbers but so it was under that threshold and it would keep it all in the northwest corner so of um 20th Street and Highland Highland right there Alid so it would be in that corner uh is where there kind to be like you know a building there maybe just an all Residential Building if we do get to the final building you know on the side there but the two along 20th Street the intent was is there could be potentially some sort of commercial on the first floor and uh residential up above a typical mixed use building uh restaurant Coffee Shop grocery store again things that are already found along that 20th Street Corridor uh just kind of bringing that in there there's four lanes of traffic uh the there is a retention pond on site right now that would obviously stay as part of this that's a community kind of retention pond so that they're already is storm water plans for this uh there is how uh there's a little like wooded area there again and that could stay we talked about having a little park around that that'd be accessible to any of the residents as well so it'd be kind of a community park and then just kind of densifying that versus if they did go the housing route obviously that gets split into a lot and no one gets access to it other than the people that are building homes on that this was just a way to kind of make this more of a community space uh and more Central with that with hopefully a few businesses in there along the area perfect anything else you'd like to add um yeah so the overall basically what I was

we kind of we did kind of come at it from a smart angle but we just didn't provide in we didn't have plans to provide because we really aren't there yet and I felt like that was kind of a commitment to say this is what we're doing and then we know that we might not buy the property we might not do it so it was kind of that wasn't the angle we came from now I think if we were very interested in you know having the input because obviously it doesn't hurt to have 80% of the people who surround you being like this sounds like a great idea we're good with it 100% it's awesome but even if it's not that so our idea was to do something like that still um you know I just didn't have anything great to present I don't want it to seem like we were trying to withhold some information that we have we just weren't ready for it um had we owned this property already obviously we would have already come with something like that to ask for this because it would have been justifiable but we just haven't yet but I'm hoping that we can put together something in the near future and you know we can re submit um in the other way so I think that was kind of Our Hope but okay any questions or uh any questions of Commissioners of the applicant commissioner Godfrey Cody about how many square feet per apartment it's early you know to estimate that we were estimating a mixture of one and two bedroom apartments is what we were thinking at this point so the one bedrooms would be 750 square ft approximately the two bedrooms would probably be 1,200 something in there um it wasn't meant to be really high-end housing this also isn't just a straight affordable housing either it's just you know kind of market rate for the area thank you any other questions from commissioners of the applicant okay seeing none we will move on to the public are there any public comments for resoning 80 North 20th Street if so please come up state your name and address this is a time to share your support concerns or suggestions let

us know what aspects of The Proposal are most concerning or what modifications you would recommend please remember that this time is for public input not back and forth debate thank you for signing in good afternoon I'm Mark husa May I respond to a statement that was given about the NPC meeting of course okay it said there weren't a lot of people at the NPC me meeting Rick Barnes and I were there and we told our people we would represent them Michael was very helpful and gave us all the detail that he could at the time and there was quite a bit of discussion so it all went back to our neighborhood this happens to be my neighborhood right here even though I am talking today I hope that they will get up and everybody has a little bit different opinion and I did not mix mine with theirs knowing that they may have something good that could come through here today our goal in being in the Planning Commission meeting is to make sure we do not degrade our neighborhoods in the process of developing the hospital property especially since our neighborhood is in the middle of the commercial growth from both Columbia Avenue and the intersection of goak and 20th Street 20th Street has been a major Corridor for many years what do we mean by degrading our neighborhood a neighborhood should have have low traffic low noise level no obtrusive lighting good security affordable well cared for homes grounds streets and sidewalks all conducive to good family living several of the people in the area attended the neighborhood meeting on February 13 our job was to get an adequate get adequate information on what was the plan for the property and then provide it to all of our neighbors

so they could be ready to make com ments in this February 26th Planning Commission meeting there were no handouts that we could copy the detail received was a minimum of units to be 100 and I've already heard it's a lot more what they're talking about three buildings were to be 60 feet by 100 feet and we were aware at that time from Michael that this was a pending sale uh and we're here to to go from T3 to go to T3 zoning which includes the den density of the property and Commercial the density for T3 is 20 units per acre and there's 16 Acres so the max is 330 units I'm not sure that the neighbors in the area will be able to perceive the scope and size of this project without visual aids with 100 units you are looking around 200 people 100 to 200 vehicles in the parking lot with Associated traffic and activity I would think that a traffic signal would be needed at 20th Street in eldrid and I think our we're even thinking it should be done right now but that's not that's not for here um I cannot perceive of an apartment complex in the area that size currently and what I did I took a look at apartments that would be typical uh Forest Forest Hills on South Capital has 136 units Liberty Commons on Street has 120 Fairlane apartments in Springfield on Avenue A has 244 units Mingus Creek Village which is 66 and Glen Crossroad has 192 units Brookside uh out in Springfield on Dickman Road has 408

units winry town homes on Dick Dickman Road have 160 units so what they're doing if they go the full amount they just won't be they'll be in the top number of apartment units that we have in the city they'll be right up there so it will be a big uh uh a big complex we understand the business case for Stephen and Michael with a 100 units you're looking at $100,000 per month Revenue based on $1,000 uh rent when you compare that with a single family density with a current zoning of it's actually 16 Acres but you're talking roughly 50 some families living in that property if it were single family residential please give due consideration to the welfare of our neighborhood in your thoughts and decisions regarding the use of the property at 80 North 20th Street and I would encourage my neighbors to to come up if they would like to thank you thank you are there any other comments thank you for signing in good evening Rick Barnes 177 Cameron Drive we've discussed with our neighbors and stuff we're not opposed to something happen on that property we're not saying don't bring anything in we'd like to like what she said put in the conditional permit could you please speak into the microphone okay we're not opposed to having something done in that neighborhood we just don't want to see complex from wall to wall sides fall up because you can see right in their houses that live on Cameron

Drive we haven't had anything really and writing from these guys and I understand why do when you have when you don't own it yet okay so I support that that's your problem but I would like to I shate with you guys and the city and get something that everybody can live with um Rex at the corner of uh Highland and 20 Street for some reason they're happening quite often I was going to bring it to the city before this but we talked at the neighborhood Council the other day there's been a wreck since then at that corner something's wrong with the design of it because you don't have that kind of reck on 20th elsewhere so the traffic is a little bit of a concern but like I said we would go along definitely with a conditional type permit to what can be regulated because if they bought it today and built the three units they're showing and it gets rezoned the new owners can do whatever they want there's no help in our neighborhood that way so like I said we're not a group trying to oppose something we just like to have some input into what's going on there and right now most of our group here we're scared because of the unknown we have not seen anything in writing like I said I don't blame you guys for not having writing because you don't own it but to help us if it could go along the system farther before we would get the conditional things into the thing we would appreciate that thank you for your time thank you any additional comments from the public thank you for signing in good afternoon my name is Chuck churny I'm a 41 Lenwood I'm here representing the uh the owner of one of the adjoining

Parcels where we had a 50 60 unit senior facility that burned down and uh and he owns the rest of the uh senior housing next to it what his response was after I told him and I I did go to the neighborhood uh uh Council meeting was that and I I just learned tonight that you don't need to have a site plan but the question was a site plan and what could be built there and what could not be built there I mean if is it going to be a parcel of land that's own multif family and and then put out for sale to whatever I uh I did talk to Mike after the meeting and we talked about these three buildings we talked about 100 to 200 units and it's it's kind of uh uh and I understand it's a work in progress um I think the uh other concern in my experience in real estate is that that pond back there handles a lot of water and I and I've seen much smaller things than that get involved and I think there ought to be some kind of report report may be the wrong word but some kind of agreement from the DEQ that this can be done because there will be additional asphalt draining water into there and it's going to be coming from all four directions so I think uh well I know my my recommendation was to to maybe table this uh request and and let the board ask for some of these details and get a response from the DEQ get a response on uh on uh what their what their thoughts are and uh and some kind of idea of a preliminary site plan which I know it's an expense uh everybody's done it in real estate

though uh and kind of lay out a number uh it's it's uh it's a tough business to be in today construction costs are expensive but I just think you can't go into this speculative uh uh without having a few answers and I and since the uh approval is not binding on anybody else particularly or not Bing after a year maybe uh I think the idea of asking to table it for 30 days get some kind of preliminary feel for what's going on would be a reasonable request and that's what was asked to pass on from the people from from Vel perzo which which have a large investment on on Territorial Road there AB buding this property thank you thank you any additional comments this this young lady here was coming up first I'll call you up [Laughter] afterwards well I'm glad you're here so thank you thank you for signing in hi my name is Sharon Heisler I live at 173 Cameron Drive and I really just want to reiterate what um Rick has said and what Mark has said um I've lived on Cameron Drive for over 30 years and it's um at one time l view General Hospital was our neighbor rather quiet neighbor um that Building closed that um they tore that down and really it kind of

became a green space um so I watch every night I watch Neighbors going walking their animals over in that lot I watch kids sled down the hill I watch kids play soccer over there um it turns into a a green acre Zone because I watch deer wander and feed over there and they tend to wander through our neighborhood which is always kind of nice so um it's always nice to be known as a as a quiet neighborhood and I want to reiterate again that I'm concerned about the higher density of traffic um again we talked about um 170 some apartments and now we're talking over 250 cars going in and out all times of the night and um the noise level um the parking areas I'm concerned about the retail the conditional part that we talked about um earlier I think is important to us because we would like to see a site plan we would like to know where those buildings are going to be put so they're not against some of the residents um houses they're not overlooking into our backyards so um I'm I'm just essentially agreeing with everything we've talked about and that we need to to make sure that we if there is a provisional Zone that we need to see some kind of a unconditional plan where we can see what that site's going to look like and have again some kind of an input so that we make sure that we maintain our um quiet neighborhood thank you

thank you for signing in hello my name is Chris Humphrey I live on 604 Elder Street um uh along with my neighbors the concern of the higher population density going into that property uh with the increase in traffic and all that I see a lot of people walking uh along our streets taking their dogs out and there's no sidewalks on eldrid Street what would it take if something were to go in there to get sidewalks on both sides of the street to protect you know my neighbors and everybody that walks up and down those streets is there an answer from staff uh if there were to be a development there we do require uh sidewalks but only on the development side um we do have a non-motorized transportation plan that we do look at areas that need sidewalks and bicycle lanes and things like that um it could definitely be placed on that plan for future opportunities for Grants and um if any road work is done or anything of that nature um it can be placed in but it would definitely have to be placed on the development that's part of a requirement for any development okay um that's all I had thank you thank you any additional comments all right thank you all uh thank you to all who have provided input

we do greatly app appreciate your engagement in this process we appreciate it at this time I will open the floor for discussion among Planning Commission members uh Commissioners please share your thoughts ask questions provide any input on how we should proceed with this petition commissioner gr thank you and thanks to all the residents who spoke and came out today appreciate you and um to the applicant um from I believe your presentation your open to having discussions and trying to uh come up with a win-win for this um can you kind of talk about any timeline um that or the city that this pace would need to happen at to is there any deadlines that we need to to be considering in this um there so and that's if it was denied and we moved to that right yeah if if the Planning Commission would recommend Denial on the straightforward zoning um the applicant it would be really based on what the applicant wanted to do going forward there would be no um specific time requirement for them to turn around and uh place a conditional resoning just the fact that he if he states that he would like to do that we would not forward it to the city commission for the next uh step we would hold it here at the Planning Commission level um again staff has uh discussed with the applicant we'd be happy to work with the neighborhood um set up a meeting somewhere that would be a good location for all of them um staff would be there to answer any questions and then we would help the developer with any thing they needed to

put together uh conditional rezoning um I don't anticipate the need for a site plan per se but locations General locations of buildings and general um density ranges uh you know and conversations with the residents what they would be concerned about as far as retail and Commercial uses that um so really it the timeline is based on the What the residents can um help us pull together for a meeting and what the applicant can um pull together for an agreement then I'll give the question to the applicant if you can step to the mic um I know you were saying that you uh have been working with Bronson about purchases or any you know timelines on that decision making uh yeah so we'll Pro we'll discuss it after this regardless but probably you know our intent would be to get started right away with planning a meeting to talk about it um we're trying not to keep extending the time that we're dragging Bronson out on the decision um and I don't know that if we say hey we don't want it if they're going to suddenly put a sign up and list it again or if they're going to be like all right we'll just sit on it for longer we don't really know their intent they went to a lot of work to get us to where we could so I don't know what they'll do they might put a sign in front and say next but um if we continue to say that we'll um you know we want to work on it we do have another period of time we could extend it it's just a couple months we you know their small little window so obviously we don't want to drag this out another six months only because our St it's okay I'm talking with my hands I'm sorry um so the biggest thing with that is going to be that um you know for us to decide do we want to buy this or not and close on this is entirely dependent on whether we can do

something on it that isn't the way it's zoned now so uh so that is our urgency I guess is to to have some plan um even if it's a sort of a commitment of yep with this rezoning plan we like it we're going to do this we're going to send it up it'll probably be something that might be good enough for us you know to say but obviously our you know we can't even really come up with what I would consider a conditional plan until we've had some more input on it I think the discussions in some of our meetings before was just like let's go ahead and try for this T3 see if it's reasonable um and just do a straight T3 there's precedent for why it might work but you know obviously um we knew it could come back to needing to be more specific and we were like well we hope we don't because we don't really know because we can't say because we don't own it but we will do that we'll go to that process so I think we would probably get right on it immediately we'd probably try to plan something as quick as everyone could do it and um you know I'm sure I can get some kind of General block planning at least to say this is what we'd like to do and maybe say hey this area we definitely don't even want to worry about we want to leave this alone you know and maybe Comfort some of that concern that we're trying to build up against fences and things like like that that's not our intent now maybe somebody else's intent if we don't do this and somebody else buys it then they'll have to argue that themselves but that wasn't our intent in what we were doing was not to do that so um we in general you you you'd like to move this along you don't want to drag it but there's no actual deadlines that you're working on with Bronson yes our deadline is only in that you know they're going to get irritated with extending more and more but other than that that's not that's not our thing and um so we would like to have it we wanted to have it decided here within you know by March whether at least from this level um but if it isn't gonna happen we we've still got a little bit of time but I would like to get through this process and maybe be able to reintroduce it within 30 days or 45 days or something and reintroduce something through where we've had a meeting with

them and and everyone else and I'm curious in listening to the conversation reading through the packet um it are you I know we're talking about the up two so many units 260 plus units those kind of things um it sounds like there's some and probably in your conversations with neighbors as you have these conversations this will come out but in general are you open to a a lower number uh that kind of you know looking for a sweet spot where people don't feel that the density is is much of an issue absolutely I mean we're open to that number it's the problem as was already mentioned in cost to build things and do things you know it wouldn't do us any good to put too low a number of units because then it's just not financially practical and honestly all this is still technically about whether it's financially practical from everybody's point of view really in some way shape or form um so uh if it's just too low a number and it doesn't work but obviously we also have the limitations of what even the city building requirements are going to do for us so we can say That's How many fit there if they're like well you don't have enough room for drainage you don't have enough room for this and you don't have enough room for that so you're going to have a number so we're going to probably be limited a lot of our things would be limited when we got to a real building plan stage anyway we're not going to be able to point lights at the neighbor's houses and we're not you know going to have there's certain things we wouldn't be able to do no matter are you able to estimate those numbers I mean have General ballparks where your break even is where your you know profit margin line is as you talk I 200 to 26 or 150 to 268 is that something you can calculate prior to those discussions or no some of it probably yes but a lot of it is sort of like if you had opport if you were if

you creating a business you wouldn't want to say how little could we possibly make to keep the lights on so that's not what you're trying to do you know like if we only sold 10 products a week we could just keep our lights on so you don't normally think that way so we're trying not to think that way uh but obviously again maxing it out isn't necessarily good for everyone either so I can't I can't say we can do a calculation on we can we know what a rent could be we know what our cost to build can be we know what our cost to buy the property is so there's there's a certain number but I wouldn't want to do it at is certain range or something okay yeah we can I can probably come up with that is there a way that you could calculate your economics and then present a couple options or scenarios hypothetically if if we end up into more Community engagement that shows you know here's kind of typologies different typologies this is what it could look like and kind of get some input and feedback on that uh probably yeah if I understand what you're asking me yes I think so okay I I know it's it's really difficult to have this conversation so we appreciate you engaging we appreciate the the resident patience but thank you so much are there any uh other questions or comments from commissioners commissioner Odell thank you um I drive by that area a lot too I've seen it it's it is a wonderful area to develop and thank you for your interest in that uh especially even down uh territorial there a lot of old empty businesses and if we could just get some kind of spark over there to revitalize that area I I really appreciate that and I and I U appreciate the residents all coming out um I knew something big was happening because it was hard to find a parking space when the way in so I really do appreciate you all coming so thank you um what it sounds like is we're almost there but I I believe that we do need this conditional to to seal the deal my

question is is if this is we're just voting on just a straight up zoning change so if we have to come back with conditional we have to vote uh no to approve this tonight correct that's correct okay just wanted to make sure that that was couldn't couldn't we table and allow them additional time to put in a conditional zoning application and then we postpone thank you for the correction and then that would allow them the appropriate time we could put in a time period and then we bring it back um they can they can bring in the conditional rezoning at any point that they would like on the same same application but you would have to make a recommendation there would be no reason for them to bring in the conditional Reon zoning if you made a recommendation to approve and approved right the the straight rezoning so what I hear you saying is if we did postpone there's no guarantee that they would bring it in right that would yeah but then at at the next meeting when we brought it back onto the agenda we then would vote to deny if that was still no you you would actually if you you would either make a recommendation to approve and you would either approve or deny the straight resoning okay okay and and that is staff's recommendation the conditional rezoning um the applicant has already stated that they would be willing to come forward with that um because of all of the input um that you've heard today and that um yeah was discussed on top of the fact that there there is a significant change in what can be done with our the underlying

zoning District in in the proposed even though I think some of the residents at least have expressed to me they're not necessarily concerned about something happening some of the yeah something happening um and they don't necessarily want or don't want single family residential right um they would be willing to consider you know other housing options but it's more of how the property is used and the traffic that it's generating and what I'm getting at is is that though for like if we want I do want them to back with the condition I do want them to build there it's beautiful it's a great thing but prob possibly privacy walls or some type of uh structures that would make it comfortable for everybody in the area to be welcoming to this is what it sounds like to me done Commission Godfrey I have a question for the City attorney yes sir for the proper protocol we would go ahead and make a motion to approve this and then vote it up or down is that correct that is the the request today I can't hear you that is the request for today by the this matter being brought before you unless you're choosing to go some other course of action such as adjourning to another date so if you're just looking we're just voting on the straight on the straight and there it would be a motion to approve approve and voted up or down up or down and then and again the motion to approve being in the affirmative so we don't get any confusion whether your yay is truly a yay or a a right okay thank you you're welcome any additional comments from commissioners

I I would oh go ahead I was just going to add that my one concern was this and I'm in agreeance I want to see something done here too um it's just the not knowing if this was straight reson to T3 for long-term future that we open the door for all of the approved uses under T3 um that is kind of my biggest concern with this so again my my kind of stance here here is in line what I think everyone else is saying um certainly want to see something done but there is that kind of long-term concern there commissioner Godfrey I would make a motion okay I would make a motion to approve petition r- 0124 for the request to reone the property located at 820th Street currently zoned r1b single family residential to T3 neighborhood commercial District I support that okay there's been a motion by commissioner Godfrey It's been supported by commissioner O'Donnell are there any additional questions comments from Commissioners commissioner gray um just going on the record probably for all of us that that uh I will be voting this down for the reasons discussed during this meeting today um pending that um conditional rezoning um process thank you any additional comments questions all right let's vote commissioner Odell no pleas if if you vote no please give your reason why reason is is I'd like to see more conditional return on that mayor Banky yeah I'm I'm not satisfied with what I've seen so far I think it's important to protect the

Cameron Drive neighborhood um this neighborhood is a long time um established community in Battle Creek and I I I feel that um we've got to do it right on this particular piece of property I think the developers can if they reveal to us where they've developed other property before I think that's important to me I think it's also important to understand whether this is going to be Workforce Development or if this is going to be a pilot development um so that the commission understands their responsibilities when it comes to that with that being said I'm voting no commissioner moton no just need to see more on uh site plans a little bit more specifics um to the beneficial you know what it be benefit of the community um more so if it's going to be residential or commercial too just in that aspect because I see it can go either way commissioner moris no reasoning it's not transparent enough uh there's so many unfor scenes here uh a lot of questions need to be answered not only for us but um for the community and it's one of the most important things that we can do is to study the subject before we just go out there and vote Yes or No we need to be more transparent commissioner Denison um I vote no also um I guess my reasons are I agree with everybody else here I think that we need to know a little bit more about the density I um I agree with all the neighbors you that's where you live and if we have um this area is a lot more dense they're going to have noise there's going to be a lot more

commotion um and one of the things been being in real estate is there's there is time you know if Bronson wants to sell it they'll give you the time so my answer is no commissioner gray um my answer is also no and um for the reasons I stated earlier I think um it's great that the um applicant is willing to work on a conditional resoning with the residents and interested parties in the area um that's very very important um I also have some hesitations around that as uh Darcy stated the conditions can only be placed by the applicant and so um it you know it's really going to have to be very clear um and uh thoughtful process to make sure that um everything is is uh covered and agreed to uh by both parties and and that you know that will be a tough um process but I appreciate both parties wanting to go through it commissioner Godfrey no uh I think it's a great idea in the concept I think there's work to be done between the applicant and the neighborhood uh I would like to see uh a much more detailed plan brought back to the neighborhood and I'd like to see the neighborhood get much more involved in that that they can bring us much more feedback to the Planning Commission before we approve going forward to the city commission commissioner Hughes no as well uh my answer is because if if we

approve the straight reson into T3 today and if if your interest goes away there's no control beyond that to limit any of the the approved uses under that designation um and I think that it's not entirely long-term harmonious with the existing uses in the neighborhood um I do support and suggest to seek the conditional resoning and and continue along that process okay then it is no it does not pass um thank you everyone who participated in this discussion your input is invaluable in guiding you know responsible development in our community and we greatly thank you all that concludes if I could just ask the residents that are here tonight I've given you all a business card if you could email me or someone give me a list of emails so we can reach out to you to get a date and work with the developer to get something set up as soon as possible thank you very much Mr chairman if the res don't want to hang for the rest of the meeting could we take a a moment of pause for the residents to leave certainly we can take a a five minute recess here thank you we'll be in touch soon yes it yeah it's really refreshing to see

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sending this off to the city commission if you vote to do that tonight the city commission will have it on their March 4th uh commission meeting to um send vote to send this out to the neighboring communities utility companies Transportation companies um and so forth so we do have the consultant here tonight um that will be presenting the plan uh Eric kho um he has been working on this plan since last October and we've had uh several workshops um and open houses to get input and several meetings with steering committee members um the lake view uh uh Business Development uh and different departments so he is here to present it to you and so we can get the final process to adopt the plan awesome all right thank you so much so I am going to uh just walk through with you all um a little bit of what we found and what our recommendations are for implementation in the uh ldda Lake View District uh it's been an amazing really fun process um challenging in the best ways because we're trying to figure out what we do with you know something that was built Auto oriented in the early 80s um and now it's ready to be revitalized and reinvested and how we do how do we do that in the best way for the community right so um just real briefly about me I'm Eric kho so I'm a senior planner with Progressive companies formerly Progressive AE so a

lot of my work really focuses on Redevelopment um land use planning Urban Design and that sort of thing so um yeah if you go ahead to the next slide at the bottom there you should be able to there you go so uh yeah just real briefly here the agenda just going to go through quickly kind of the um analysis that we did to lead to these recommendations but then I want to spend a little bit more time on the recommendations and the impementation plan so go ahead to the next one and as you know this is the Lake View District um this is the study area just for everybody's kind of familiarity so mostly bounded by Capital Beckley um Glen cross and a little bit portion to the South but then also uh m66 go ahead so you know we we started looking at what things were happening in the in the ldda right and uh did a little bit of research on the history of the mall um believe it or not from the get-go back in the late 70s early 80s the DNR which is now under Eagles purview but at the time this was under under DNR they actually opposed the shopping center to be redeveloped due to the water quality issues that could be happening from that site right so now this process has kind of gone through we did see an initial boom with the mall and the when it opened in the early early 90s that that uh kind of excitement has declined over time and obviously now we have aging retail um aging infrastructure uh some vacancy within the mall site and we're going to figure out you know how best to Target reinvestment in the area so if you want to go ahead to the next slide um you know there's a lot of research in the plan that you'd be able to see but one of the things that we think is really

interesting is that uh the parking that's uh required by the city there's three times as much parking surface parking in the ldda than what's actually even required by code today so obviously zoning has changed over time but just something to keep in mind there's a lot of opportunity for reinvestment if you think about those surface parking lots that are across the ldda go ahead isn't that Trend changing though across the United States a lot of municipalities aren't even requiring parking for developments yep and that's a that would be a recommendation that we'll get to for sure and um keeping maximums and either reducing or eliminating minimums especially in these types of environments yep um so Community engagement we've we've reached uh at least three 3,000 community members uh 2,000 of them were through surveys and online responses so either open comments Facebook uh comments and then our digital survey that went out to everybody then we also had six focus groups that were part of the process those were um actually a a mall site Focus group so we met with all of the owners on the mall site believe it or not there's maybe six of them on the site so um met with them several times met with governments that are surrounding so the county and also the townships that are nearby we had a Mobility focused group and a housing focus group and met with several of them um on more than one occasion as well so we also had virtual q&as uh through the city's um Facebook channel uh three popup events where we just kind of marketed the survey and told people about the planning process two open houses one at the mall itself and then one next door in horox and then a walking audit which is really fun so uh that picture on the left there is some volunteers some City staff literally just taking a one mile loop on foot of the ldda to to kind of experience like

what does it actually feel like to walk in this area and what might we need to change if we do want to make it more comfortable for people to walk right um and then if yeah if you want to head to the next slide there so out of all this kind of data collection and Community engagement we really boiled it down to three key themes so the things that we really want to Target are placemaking green infrastructure and reducing car dependence that was really the feedback from the community and from the data that we you know kind of land use analysis placemaking to us is really um creating places where people want to be and spend time outside of their cars green infrastructure is really looking way looking at ways to um leverage the existing Creek that there but also um a little bit more technical stuff related to like storm water management and who owns the drainage um areas that are over there the Retention Ponds how do we best uh manage those and then reducing C dependence um you know making it easier one of the quotes that we have in the in the study is that you know if I live in the uh apartment complex in the southern kind of by ABC Warehouse Target is maybe a 3 minute walk but there's literally no sidewalk between where I live and the target you know it would be much more comfortable for me to get in my car and drive for 30 seconds to get the Target right so we're think when we're thinking about Healthy Lifestyles when we're thinking about quality of life attracting new residents right I mean even in that last discussion I was thinking about the the street and that they're on the 20th Street and thinking about if that felt a little bit more safe to drive to walk along maybe neighbors would be like oh it'd be nice to have a little corner store across the street I could walk over grab my things um so that's some of the challenges that we're facing those decisions that happened in the 80s that were really Auto oriented now we're really working to try to undo those and attract more residents through quality of life so yep let's keep on going here um so these are kind of the Target locations we do have like kind of

districtwide implementation recommendations but these are the four sites that we really looked at um what could fit on the site what's actually possible to do on the site so if you want to go to the next one let's get into the some of some of the fun renderings here so this is a site plan for Lake View Square Mall and like I said working with the mall ownership we tried to make a plan that's actually implementable for the current owners so it's a little different because this isn't a city- owned site we don't have cart blanch we have to work with the owners a little bit to say what would actually pencil from a development standpoint so what we're showing here is actually a partial demolition of the uh Northern portion of the mall and and a complete demolition of the Sears so the kind of the biggest feature that we're this is kind of the audacious kind of bold vision of the site is to bring back bring back the creek from where it originally was so remove Sears and daylight the creek um along because Sears right now is currently sitting on top of where the creek used to run so instead of having the Culver around the mall site we actually completely open up the creek create green infrastructure but also a park an actual Park in the area cuz one of the things we found besides the library there's really uh the library and basically the cemetery site there really isn't any other public space in this entire ldda so that's an amenity that we want to help create uh if you want to go to the next slide question yep on that slide that we just lost yeah the the retention Pond M that currently is a little bit to the west of the the stream that's buried under Sears y would that be retained it doesn't look like it yeah so the the two Retention Ponds are kind of on the very far edge of the picture that those are the ones that are currently existing and those would we have those maintaining yep okay thank you Yep this is just another image of um

what we're thinking about here so existing Mall site um we do propose relocating the theater so one of the things that so one of the things that came up with the mall owners just so you guys know there's basically the person there's a company that owns the mall like with all the kind of smaller outlot developments and then there's a owner or sorry the smaller kind of interior um uh tenant spaces and then there's a Sears owner a horox owner a self storage owner and then the outlaw the pot shop owner and those there's completely different entities that need to work together here we talked quite a bit with the we call him the M we'll call him the mall owner so the person that owns the biggest portion of it but they have a 70% vacancy rate inside but they do have some solid tenants right like the Applebees Buffalo Wild Wings um the movie theater so what we're showing is is really trying to consolidate those strong tenants remove some of the interior space that's basically Obsolete and replace that with a residential and a hotel component so that's kind of what you're seeing yellow is residential and then a hotel component on the other side you want to keep going there uh so then this is uh a site plan now we're traveling south um toward the target area there's two options in the in the plan this is kind of the more bold one I would say this is assuming that we would be able to get somehow acquire the ABC Warehouse and um be able to do some with work with that this is really focused on leveraging um uh the creek because we would actually also move whip Mark Drive so we would replace the Whit Mark Drive I don't know if you can picture it but it kind of runs alongside the creek we would swap that out with housing and try to put housing that like kind of has you know views of the creek and then fill the rest of the

area in that's all parking right now with different types of housing so town houses fourplex Cottage courts and then we also saved room for a what we were calling a neighborhood amenity but we white boxed an area to potentially be a spot for a school uh daycare um Community Center that sort of thing and just quickly there is a city maintained walking path in that area right yes y most people don't realize yep so if you look to the um far west of the picture you'll see a little indicator that says Brickyard Creek Trail there's a trail that runs from Taco Bell down to Capital along the trail and it's really it's nice honest it's nice and this is actually what you know when we first started we really I think our design process was really centered on that like how do we really maximize that because that's a great feature of the area right is um so if you want to go to the next one this is what a potential neighborhood would look like uh replacing the current surface parking um and we really want to focus on traditional neighborhoods so traditional neighborhoods to us you know a lot of times I think of the neighborhoods that were developed before the cars were dominating right so um but with new housing so it would be a walkable a little bit more tightly packed different housing options so I know right now the city is overwhelmingly single family housing I think that's great for a lot of people but there's also some people that might want more choices in the housing market right so how can we provide these different types of housing there so we we filled that in now we just got to get the ABC Warehouse owner and the target site owner and all them to to make it happen but we're going to going to we're going to work on that it's possible yep the next one just a kind of a light touch here but this is North Capital

Avenue right above right north of 94 so there's a lot of um I I can't remember is it Texas Roadhouse that's abandoned formerly the former Texas Roadhouse yeah so we're showing um just additional housing um in there with a parklet that's off of nap Drive yep exactly yep and then if you want to scroll down a little bit we're also showing some traffic calming measures so right now on North Capital um we have I believe five Lanes when you get off at I94 and it's it's way too much road for um cars so we a lot of times when there's too much road for cars we want to take that and move it toward Road for people walking and biking so uh the other thing to note currently on the sidewalk in capital the telephone polls are directly in the middle of the sidewalk so again when this was designed uh probably close to 50 years ago the engineers and designers were really only thinking about how do we move traffic through they weren't thinking about how do people walk around and get around when they're getting off the bus that sort of thing and then this is the uh Riverside Drive intersection so behind us is if you go this way on Beckley you would hit m66 um to to the left of us would be the Taco Bell we really want to just support a better bus stop but then also continue the Trail North so if you're getting off the trail at the Taco Bell you can walk down the sidewalk cross at the light and then be able to continue on your way either on the Riverside Bike Drive uh the bike lane or through the potential um Park that would be at the Sears former Sears so what strategies do we adopt to get us there so this is kind of where we're talking about implementation how do we how do we make this Vision a reality so you go ahead to the next

slide uh I'll just go through real quickly some of the real first steps that we would want the city to focus on and this is one of the things we'll be actually helping with is to restart the DDA so once the DDA is starting to capture Revenue uh they be able to either fund improvements directly or bond for improvements and there's a lot of creativity that can go into that um fin in to make some more investments in the in the area um so that's really the next step on the DDA side is to create a new DDA plan and figure out what the actual capture amount would be that they would be capturing from City County uh KCC and then go to town and and carry out some of these other ones so you want to keep calling here zoning reform um so this would be another strategy we have a detailed memo that um Darcy's team has there's recommendations in the plan but it's really to um create that mixed use vibrant neighborhood that we're showing it's really kind of backing into that through the zoning and making sure that the zoning allows that by right so um relaxing some of the setbacks that are over there mixing uses in certain spots um again reducing or eliminating parking standards those are things that are we're seeing across the country um and I think this is a great look for those types of um changes because it's again predominantly commercial right now so it's a way to kind of start to change mixes and and uses so we're going to put together uh we would recommend putting together incentive materials just so developers can have a good understanding of what they're getting into so um again just having a packet of here's our zoning here's what incentives we have available for you come build here and reinhabitation so these would just be

like once the DDA is up and running uh and the city staff could potentially assist with this just very quick lowcost ways to like get more people down there right because there really like I said there aren't many public spaces down there how do we just get people there outside of their cars not just in the buildings but kind of seeing what's possible on the site so you could do a food truck little food truck rally um you know popup spaces like the popup Park and then if we go to the next page here um that gets into what we would call tactical Road design so uh Glen Cross Road um is a perfect example of where we could do this right now it's four lanes it's built for the amount of traffic that Beckley Road has but there's probably a couple hundred cars a day that go down it so we could do a tactical Road design where you uh measure how many cars are going before we do the road design throw up some barriers and make half of it into like a bike path pedestrian path and then see what what the changes are so just we've used hay bales to like do Road diets we've used um potted plants that sort of thing but just some cheap and easy ways to show what the potential changes how they might impact traffic and then these are some of the other priority uh development um policies that are available obviously tax increment financing is a big one along with the Brownfield program but then there's also Misha and mbdc have grants that Developers might be able to tap into um and we also we do make recommendations in the plan or through a technical memo to Ted's staff about litec so in a litec scoring there are things that the location in addition to kind of developers criteria there's also things in the location that can raise a score so having access to daycare is a big one being close to community services like a Michigan Works office that sort of thing so we do make

recommendations on how these areas might boost their litec score too and then as you get into it more there's more detail those are kind of the first things that we would recommend starting with and these are some of the longer term strategic actions that we would take related to Green infrastructure if you can keep scrolling through these um Place making and then car dependence on the third one and those are outlined in the plan as well but it's really focused on it's really strategies that will make those visions of those designs of reality um through policies and and kind of attracting investment so yep that's that's kind of the end there um you can scroll down to the end we wanted to make sure that we saw this picture because the guy in the picture is given of the P sign in the in the convertible we thought that's a good it's like a sign of things to come in in the ldda so um again thank you so much I'm happy to take any questions are there any questions of Commissioners I have a couple um first of all do you uh recommend any Acquisitions of uh certain properties major pieces of property along Beckley Road so that um the city controls the economic development or do you allow or do you recommend that we not go that route I would recommend that you do um I think acquisition would be a great way to jump start things um and we do go into that in a little bit more detail in the plan because there also there are also some private roads down there that you might know of that are um we got feedback from the city staff there just you can't maintain them because they're not publicly owned um but you also don't want to take them on because they have a lot of deferred maintenance so it gets into the more negotiation of figuring out how we kind of do some horse trading around that but short answer yes I think acquisition would be um a key part of

Redevelopment all right and then your recommendation on the capture of some of the millages did you guys think outside the box and see what those entities how they would react or did you just wrak down the recommendation well no we've we've been talking with that quite a bit with Ted um and we've worked on DDA plans kind of across the state we're all we're seeing a lot of negotiation between cities counties LDA um community colleges so there's definitely it's going to be a discussion um the DDA can capture quite a bit because of when it was started to where the tax revenues are now but there's also it's clear that the other jurisdictions wouldn't feel comfortable just losing all of that but if we're able to show kind of the opportunities that you could get through bonding and and really raising the tax revenues in this area then hopefully there's some light at the end of the tunnel there all right my next one is kind of weird but um for some reason there's like four or five different new restaurant establishments locating on Beckley got the Olive Garden you've got the Jack in the Box got the um Jimmy John's drive-thru Y and finally you have the Texas Roadhouse what's driving that is it really that the number of cars still is up there on Beckley or is there another item that could be driving the development of those investment that's a to me that's a clear um market demand driver so Auto and I spoke with a broker who does a lot of work in this area and auto oriented um sites are in high demand along beckly still um we took that into account on the site plan because we know that the mall owner is spinning off some of those out lot developments um and yeah that's long story I mean short answer is yeah there's just it's just market demand for

auto oriented drives uh establishments and you would know we didn't make any very like bold recommendations for changing the design of Beckley itself because that really is an auto it's a through rout you know and there really isn't a a reason or it wouldn't make sense to try to like turn that into like a more pedestrian Zone what we do recommend is limiting actually access and actually turning it so right now it's like half a through route where you're trying to get through and then the other half of the folks are trying to get in and out of places right so we to make it safer we' actually limit access along Beckley maybe add some medians here and there and make it more of a through route um but yeah the back to the drivethru thing that's really just it's market demand yeah finally um did you on purpose not U incorporate any automo deal dealership auto dealerships in terms of like future future uses yeah on on Beckley um we hadn't really we didn't really consider that I guess as far as a use yeah I I know that we have the Miracle Mile downtown MH but um at some point in time if a car dealership would want to uh locate to Beckley yeah with all the property available I mean I I don't we don't really make strong recommendations on changing the zoning along Beckley so if it's a it's if it's an allowed use right now it would probably remain so um more of the zoning changes that we're looking at would happen in the parcels right off ofly and making that you know what we're really trying to do there's so many corridors that look just like this and we want Battle Creek to reposition so you're sticking out in the housing market a little bit and not going along with what the other corridors are showing so while the corridor itself like right along Beckley might stay as it is once you get into the neighborhood that's really what we want to highlight and and build off

of yeah do you think there'll be any casualties on the hotel motels that are being constructed will some of those old ones go by the wayside or do you think we'll see a continuation of new hotels efficient being built on Beckley I do think some the way that I've seen the the hotel Market Trend in this area and I'm not a I wouldn't say I've dug into the market of that super closely but some of the older motels and hotels that are actually being used as basically housing right now right um I think our recommendation is is to really formalize that so figuring out ways to work with Community Services um in the city and the current owners to you know if it's if it's the housing is in demand in those sites and it's affordable housing that's in demand then we need to really push for that and formalize it um and then we might see newer um I would call them Class A or just new hotel developments elsewhere like on the on the mall site yeah good report I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did oh good thank you so much yeah it was it's been a lot of fun thank you any additional questions um yeah I was just kind of interested on the Beckley Road Traffic how we would make those changes uh to me it's probably one of our most traveled and most accident prone roads uh especially up towards the Walmart and I know that's not part of the area but whatever we do there would affect all that traffic flow uh recently I was in another town somewhere in the country and they only allowed entry onto a like a Beckley Road like that only you can only enter on the right to prevent traffic accidents how how would we come about that or is that going to be on a different study yeah so it's it's not in the scope of our study but I I'm happy to talk about it because it's kind of a passion subject of mine but these types of roads are the most dangerous roads in America okay and the reason for that is because half the

people are trying to use it like a freeway or just a through a through route that's what we're saying yeah and the other half are they're using it as a two rout where they're trying to get to a place right when you're mixing two rout and through through route with each other that's very dangerous so our recommendation is to really you kind of need to choose one or the other we would want to push this more to a through route where it isn't there's less access to all these establishments um I wish I could show it but there's more like entry from the sides instead of off the main thorough far is what you're trying to say with with exit dumping back into Beckley Road like a rightand turn only typee of structure been seeing lately yep and there's quite a few designs where you've seen and you can actually see it starting to happen already so if you think about pulling into one of the one of the businesses a lot of times there's like a connection off Beckley where you can just kind of drive through the parking lots yeah we would actually like the long-term vision would be to formalize that and actually make that maybe like a 15 mph road that connects all the businesses but to get on and off of that little road you need only like one or two access points so Beckley is a through road but then you have these kind kind of very calm streets to access it's similar to like a alley open alley surface road yeah one other thing I I I'm really excited about those the housing especially over there by the ABC Warehouse empty parking lot with a lot of um especially doctors on that side of town Specialists yeah it would help with our elderly citizens to be closer to their doctors and uh convenient for them also so I I really like that idea back there is ABC Warehouse going to stay there there you don't are they so we have a we have an option in there that's a that actually shows ABC Warehouse remaining um so that's that's kind of a site plan option too it's just it's going to get into discussions with the

site owners and kind of seeing how that all shakes out well thank you y any additional questions I just had a quick question regarding um conversations with the uh business owners that are currently in the mall I think you were saying there was six focus groups maybe or something um involving them and um has there been conversations with them around this proposal to like remove Sears and um create some Living Spaces in the back Etc um I just well they know who they are thank you for sticking it out and staying with us all this time um as uh some people come and go out of the mall y but just your overall feeling and feedback from them yeah so we got feedback from the mall owner the Sears has been up for sale um off and on so they're looking to dispose of the property at some point the their sales price is probably the question mark right now um the mall owner we've gotten feedback with them specifically on these site plans so um I think they're excited that the city's thinking about them and wanting to work with them on something um we actually had an initial plan that looked at potentially doing some sports facilities um maybe pickle ball courts and outdoor indoor like maybe a dome for activity and they said we've already kind of looked at that and it just won't pencil we want to see housing on the site so we reworked the site plan to show housing and we're really happy with with the initial vision and hopefully we can get something implemented with them thank you y I was going to say I forgot the part I was going to say something's going to be with the indoor pickle ball court somewhere yeah along yeah yeah there's I think something in the mall you could see that happening in the mall for sure yeah all right if there's no further questions for Eric uh

we do need to send this to the city commission so we'll be looking for a motion so moved what was your question so move what what call the name of the motion yeah can you state the motion um motion to approve and to send to the city commission the Lake View District quarter plan thank you it's been moved and supported uh it was motion was made by commissioner Banky it was supported by commissioner Morris um I think all those in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign okay moves on to the city commission thank you Eric excuse me any comments by the public see none any comments by staff and Commissioners all right we are adjourned you why didn't you C the other way