Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right. Okay, we do have corn.

We have corn, so I can start calling. I do.

The time is now 4 p.m. I will call to order the Wednesday, May 27, 2026 City of Battle Creek Planning Commission meeting. Can we get a roll call for attendance?

Commissioner Hughes.

Here.

Commissioner O'Donnell is absent. Commissioner Gray. Here. Here. Commissioner Morris. Here. Commissioner Denison. Here. Commissioner Moten is absent. Commissioner White is absent. Commissioner Fermato.

Here. We are expecting the Commissioner Behnke a few moments late. We will welcome him when he gets here. Correct. All right, on to approval of minutes. This being the April 22, 2026 meeting, are there any comments or questions regarding the minutes?

Who for approval of the April 22nd meeting minutes?

I'll second that. All right. It's been moved and approved. Are there any additional questions? All right. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed, same sign. Minutes have been approved. Next on the agenda, any correspondence?

No correspondence.

Any additions or deletions?

No additions, no deletions.

All right. We do not have any public hearings this evening. Old business. We do have on the agenda the zoning ordinance text amendment number A25-01. This was previously postponed at the April 22, 2026 meeting. This is a petition from the city of Battle Creek to consider an amendment to section 1262.02 of the zoning code to require yards to be improved with either natural or living ground cover including grass, plant material, rocks, stones, mulch, etc. in residential districts. Can we get just a brief updated summary and address the questions that were raised at the previous meeting from staff, please?

Yep, so in your agenda packet, you've got an updated staff report that attempted to address each of the questions that were brought up at the last meeting with regard to this item. There's a brief outline in the report about how the typical enforcement process goes, kind of what the steps are for that. Just in the interest of respecting everybody's time, unless there's any specific questions about that, we'll just move to the next slide. the next piece, who would pay for grass seed in the event of a violation. Ultimately, it would be the responsibility of the homeowner. That's typical, I mean, with the exception of kind of the paint program, the city paint program, that's generally pretty typical of most enforcements. Usually it's the responsibility of the homeowner to provide the materials. What sorts of burdens would this place on staff in ensuring enforcement? Realistically, and as the staff report laid out, the intent from a staff perspective would not be to begin proactively essentially patrolling the city looking for these sorts of items. This would essentially be a tool to be used in in the event that a concern is raised and that we have to take enforcement on a property in a lot of ways similar to the way that we deal with a lot of zoning issues within the city i think the staff report Points out the fact that that the planning division is comprised of three technical professionals and We just simply don't have the staffing to do regular zoning enforcement Throughout the entire city as a part of the regular everyday operation However, we do certainly address issues as they're brought as they're brought to staff and Just a quick brief summary of the local media report that was done after this item was presented. Just to clarify that, and as I think the staff report did as well, that while what staff has pointed to would be what we think would be the most practical application if this were to be approved, this isn't. per se, a parking ordinance. This is simply about landscaping in single and two-family residential zoning districts. This item is in front of the Planning Commission primarily as a result of a concern that was brought to the City Commission and regarding staff recommendations. I think we kind of talked about it at the last meeting, but just to sort of reiterate on items where there are strict standards according to what the zoning ordinance says as far as how an application should be treated and And as far as how the master plan would treat items like rezoning or zoning of properties in those instances staff will certainly always make a recommendation to To hopefully help the help commissioners in ensuring that that a decision is in alignment with the standards that are laid out Within the adopted ordinances in instances like this these these are just these are sort of more discretionary items that while staff can, we can do our part to provide as much information as possible, in some ways, we want to stay in the lane that's appropriate for staff, while not sort of stepping into the policymaking arena, if that makes sense, so.

Thank you. Are there any technical or clarifying questions from commissioners? Remember, we will deliberate later. I just wanted to verify the proposed change is striking the words other than single or two-family residential from section 1262.02, correct? Correct. Thank you.

as well as, again, just the minor amendments that go along with it, just simply adding the word planning to planning its own administrator. Yep.

All right. The public hearing was previously conducted, but I will allow additional public comment if there are any at this time. Yeah, please come forward. Just state your name and address for the record, please.

Hi, my name is Dean Warden, 223 Martha Drive, Battle Creek. The issue you're discussing right now was an issue that I had brought up at the city council meeting. Specifically, it was one affecting our neighborhood. I live in Kirkpatrick Knowles' neighborhood. Unfortunately, we had a fire across the street. The house was burned down. Our life was lost. And when they eventually rebuilt, Edwin Allen Holmes came in and built the home. I noticed that they weren't doing anything with the yard to complete the construction. So they said they don't do that. That's not. So if they build around Battle Creek, this is going to be a repeated challenge or problem. So the people that went into the home then proceeded to do nothing. So we have a well landscaped property. neighborhood. It's a nice neighborhood. But then they had nothing but rocks and weeds and other things growing in their yard. So it really stood out like a sore thumb. I don't know if they didn't care or they didn't think that they had to maintain, I won't say lawn, to maintain whatever that was growing there. Then with enough complaints by myself and possibly by other neighbors, it was then taken elsewhere in City Hall to, in the zoning, not the zoning, I'm missing the word. Your enforcement of your ordinance's division. At that point, they did get the yard cut, but then they would let it grow again two foot tall. Again, they would have to be forced to cut the weeds and cut around the rocks and everything that was there. So I'm glad this is being brought forward. I think this is what I know in a neighborhood planning council as we talk about beautiful Battle Creek Awards. But this is something that's an ongoing problem, and if we do grow and we have new construction in Battle Creek, we need such an enforcement. Because some people are either disinterested or don't understand what they have to do. So I'm glad it's progressing forward. Hopefully it will get adopted by the city council. My only concern now that I've been dealing with this problem for the better part of two, going on three years, is will this retroactively go back and affect these folks? Because they still have not put in a lawn. They again did not cut anything as far as on their property until I again called and they were served again. So I just don't think that as a neighborhood who looks out for the neighborhood that I need to be the policeman. And I'm kind of, frankly, kind of tired of being the policeman. But I'll do it if I have to because it's just not appropriate for our neighborhood. So please be aware of this could be at any time all over town. And so I hope that such an action is going to be positive going forward. Thank you for taking this issue up. Thank you to Mayor Benke and the City Council for, you know, relaying this on to you and then hopefully back to them. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for your input and thanks for your comment. Any additional public comment? Thank you.

Jim Marino, 451 Main Street. The addition the staff just shared as far as this not being proactively enforced gives way to the gentleman's statement he just made about having to be the police for the neighborhood, his neighborhood specifically. I think that's kind of a shortcoming of this particular not being proactively enforced because as we know, code is already overburdened with ordinances that are on the book that they have jurisdiction over. Letting this go on a hey, if I get a call, we'll deal with it. That's really not a useful use of city policies, much less the enforcement, because as many people know, things that get into the code community, unless it's a quick fix that the residents are willing to take after and take right away and deal with it, it goes into the perpetual hamster wheel of the courts. There are things that have been out there for over three years in our area. And why? Because it's in a perpetual wheel. The fines are, at best, a joke at the start. Maybe towards the fourth or fifth notification, they get a little bit more, you know, teeth to them. But I think if we're going to do this, there needs to be real teeth involved. Otherwise, people are going to look at it and say, it's a nuisance fee I'm going to pay, or maybe nothing at all. So I think that's something that really needs to be thought out because the two need to work in tandem. It gets to start somewhere, but you can't just throw it out there and say, eh, it's just there now. Good luck, everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thank you to you guys for your input. We greatly appreciate it. All right, we can now go to commissioner deliberation at this time. Are there any questions, comments by commissioners? Remember, as always, we are to put forth a recommendation to the city commission. Any change recommended by the planning commission must be approved by the city commission.

Well, I guess I'll start. I've done a lot of I've done a lot of thinking about this since last meeting and. I I just kind of gotten gotten to the point where if you're a homeowner, there are certain things that you are expected to to take care of, and one of them is your yard. I you know if you own a car, you're expected to put gasoline in it so it works. So I just want to kind of say my two cents. I think it's important that they take care of their property.

Thank you. Any additional comments, questions?

Is it already part of the policy for the city that the grass height needs to be under nine inches or so?

There is. So that falls under the code. Enforcement section, not necessarily zoning, but there is, and I believe it's nine inches. I don't want to say for certain, but it is.

And that's applicable to single family and duplexes, I guess, right, as well?

That would be applicable, yeah, to every property in the city.

I thought a lot about this as well, and I've asked a lot of people living in different areas of Michigan for their opinion on it. And I want a beautiful Bottle Creek, I really do. And I feel for the heart that you guys come here with. But I know, to me, it's a slippery slope. When someone doesn't like something about someone's house, if it was just a matter of parking cars, there's rules against it already, and we'll take care of that. If it's high grass, there's already steps in place to take care of that. But if someone obviously doesn't care to come and argue their point here because they don't care about taking care of their lawn, if they're a homeowner, my opinion is we've got to have some way where we just stop. We don't go beyond a certain point. If I don't like someone's Greek pillars where they painted their garage door bright yellow, I really... You know, I might not like it, and it's sad it detracts from the house or the neighborhood. I understand that. I have a neighbor that, if anybody looked up the police records for the past couple years, has been an eyesore, even with the fire department out, for various reasons. So I know what that's like to have a neighbor that brings down the neighborhood. All I can say is I don't think I'm in support of, or I know I'm not in support of adding an additional... check and balance to something else for someone else to have to pay attention to in their lawn if this isn't what their concern is.

Thank you. Any additional comments?

Questions? Yeah, John, I've got a few things to say. Yeah, welcome. As most of you are aware, we have a new city manager. We're in the process of setting up a period of time that we're going to talk about some of our goals and objectives. And of course, if Cold compliance inspection aren't number one. It's only because we have a lack of affordable housing in Battle Creek, and that'll probably be our number one objective going forward with our new city manager, but it's difficult to look at having to add additional verbiage in our code books to deal with a subject such as this. I question whether or not we have been effective If you look at the older part of our urban city, we've lost substantial housing. And if co-compliance and inspections were doing their job so good, we wouldn't have the amount of vacant lots that we have. So I'm not going to support this. I would prefer that we work with the city commission so that we rebuild and re- empower those people in code and inspections to better understand what we need to do to work with our constituents, with our property owners. I think this is another tool in the bag that's just going to make a lot of the citizens upset. And they may need to be upset, but the fact of the matter is they have personal responsibility to take care of their property. And I just really feel that the city government getting involved in it at this period of time is going to send the wrong message to the people of Battle Creek. So at this point in time, I would like to move that we deny and table this permanently so that it doesn't come back and that we encourage the city commission to... Work to better outfit what we need to do to be more customer friendly and to get our hands around some of the problems that we've had. In cold compliance and inspections during the last 50 years. Because we need to do better and I think our city manager understands that whether or not it's the first hurdle that she has to overcome or the second. I think it's time that we look at it.

OK. There has been a motion to table this with further City Commission workshopping and conversation. Is there a support? Support. All right. It's been moved to table and it has been supported. It was moved by Commissioner Behnke and supported by Commissioner Gray.

I didn't want to call you the wrong thing.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Yeah. So I think definitely thank you to the residents that came out. And one of those residents, I think Mr. Wharton, mentioned that he can be the police, but he doesn't want to be the police. And I think he's maybe one of hundreds in our community where concerns about the culture within a neighborhood not being equal or being equally appreciated or cared for. And then we also heard from staff that we are unable to, capacity-wise, really address all the issues proactively. And so that sets up, to me, that only those who get calls on their property are the ones addressed, and that doesn't seem to be an equitable application of an ordinance. I don't think that we would forward something on to the city commission to be enforced in that way. So if you live in a neighborhood where somebody is more vocal than some other neighborhood that has exact same issues, but they're not as vocal, is that equitably applied? And I think having some additional conversation around this so that we can, with our city commission, so that it can take all of those things into account would be more of a preference for me so that things could not seem like it's always coming down on a certain area of town or because one person makes more calls than another. That just doesn't seem fair or equitable to our residents. Thank you.

I just want to clarify real quick that The motion to table would essentially remove this from future planning commission business instead of, as I just heard the commissioner say, leave it for more discussion. So if it's the commission's intent to remove it more or less indefinitely versus what happened at the last meeting, then the motion to table would be appropriate. If that's not the intent, then we would need a different motion.

Yeah, I'm thinking after that discussion with the city commission and residents takes place, if it comes back, it won't look like this. So that's why I'm fine with tabling.

Okay. I do believe that there needs to be a minimum standard of some sort of ground cover across all zoning designations. The current ordinance has one for everything currently other than single and two-family residential properties. I think having that minimum standard would be great, but given the context of the amendment that is proposed, including a broader aspect to it, I do believe that This wouldn't have efficiently solve the problem, so I will support tabling it indefinitely in looking for further conversation in action and at a later date. Any additional comments questions. Okay let's vote.

Mr chairman, I want to clarify the motion, because I heard deny and table. So are we denying? Was the motion to deny or the motion to table?

I believe it was a motion to table. Could you make it just one more time in the will?

Sure. I move that we table this permanently.

And then we had support from just, again, Commissioner, state your name really quick. Formato. From Commissioner Formato, for the record. Thank you.

Oh, I supported the table.

Oh, you did?

I was the one that supported the table.

Oh, so initially Commissioner Gray.

Yeah.

Okay. All right, let's vote.

Commissioner Gray?

Yes.

Commissioner Morris?

Yes.

Commissioner Hughes? Yes. Commissioner Fermato? Yes. Mayor Behnke?

Yes.

Commissioner Dennison? No.

All right. Motion to table passes. Thank you all very much. Look forward to that one continuing down the road. All right, we have no more additional old business. Is there any new business?

No new business.

Are there any comments by the public at this time? Yes, sir.

My only comment is extreme disappointment. I think you've failed the residents of Battle Creek through this action. I would like you to imagine in your own neighborhood such a condition, especially It didn't help that I was very close to the neighbor who unfortunately had to fire an older gentleman who perished in that, but then to get replaced with this, because I know how he would have felt about it, someone taking his place, so to speak, in the neighborhood, because he was one of the founding members of the neighborhood. I think it's very short-sighted. I think it's... Frankly, I think it's hypocritical because if you were to have this in your own neighborhood It just looks if you can imagine new construction in a complete disaster or lack of a lawn a yard You can't call it any of those things. It's nothing but every every known wild weed that can grow without any maintenance And while we have these conditions for businesses in Battle Creek and for other things other than single and duplex or whatever, we're talking about isn't the heart of our city the neighborhoods? We have neighborhood planning councils, and you've taken action not to support the neighborhood. So I'm very disappointed in that. I understand your process and your positions. I appreciate the one no vote that didn't get consumed by the pressure of the others. And I guess that's all I had to say.

Thank you, sir.

Any additional comments?

Jim Marino, 451 Main Street. I agree with the equitable enforcement comment that was made, because there has to be equity across the city. And the fact that proactivity was absent, you really don't have proactive across. And unfortunately, that is what I believe doomed this conversation. Because yes, there are people in the neighborhoods I've been in my planning council for over 30 years and we've seen these problems continuously. So maybe one of the things we have Mary here today is at the commission level with the city manager discussion is looking at how these things are better enforced and remembering that ultimately it is the commission and the city manager that drive this equation ultimately. And if it means having to put some teeth and maybe upset some people, sorry, but you are a property owner. It's your responsibility, not only to your property, but to the rest of the community. And as such, if the fines have to, you know, have a bigger bite up front right away, maybe it'll encourage some of these bodies to figure out, you know what? This is too costly. This $10, $25, $50 nuisance I can outlive those things. But when it's 75, 100, it really starts to talk to your pocketbook a lot louder. And if it means basically where the commission has to sit and say, hey, we support the work that code is doing. And oh, by the way, judges, we really want you to help with it as well. No more passing back and forth constantly. so that we'll keep spending for eternity, we really have to break the cycle. And I really think it's gonna have to start with the commission and the city manager. Because ultimately, you as the board here can put recommendations forward, but ultimately, it has to boil down to the city enforcing and be able to enforce. Because the law in the books, for the sake of the law in the books, That's not anything worth having at the end of the day if it's not being or being able to be properly enforced. Thank you. Thank you.

Are there any additional comments by staff or commission members? All right. Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned.