Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Now I will start the meeting of the Planning Commission of the city of Battle Creek, Wednesday, August 26, 2026.

Melody, can you please appear?

Presentation is registered.

Let's go to the approval of the Act. This is the meeting of July 22, 2026. Any comment or question about the Act? There is none. I will accept a motion. I present a motion to approve.

I will support. All right. It was moved and supported. All those who are in favor, manifest yourself by saying I. I counted. Same signature.

Act approved.

Any correspondence?

No correspondence.

Any addition or exclusion?

No. That's it. No exclusion. All right.

We have no public hearing tonight. Back to the old issues. Now we will return to the special use license request, issue number 260002. This was postponed in our July meeting. The public hearing was held at this meeting. The subject is before us tonight for continuous deliberation and recommendation to the city committee. We can start with a quick report from the team to update us on anything added or included since our last meeting. Yes.

So, if you take a look at the meeting agenda package for this meeting, the acts of meeting number 2 of the July NPC are included, which summarize the presentation of the requirement to the NPC on that date. In addition, there is an updated report from the team that basically summarizes the postponement of the previous meeting and the request for a recommendation at this meeting. The applicant is also here this afternoon and tried to make additional contact with the NPC.

So nothing has changed in the request.

We're just deliberating again. There was...

I know we've already asked before, but for this specific item, was there any new correspondence from any public? Or... Right. I found on... page 13 of the team report, a list of links. There's something I wanted to clarify there. I believe the number of the petition is incorrect. Can we confirm the number of the petition for this item? It's at the end of page 13. I think if you confirm to register the number of the petition that clarifies... I think...

Just an administrative error.

Yes, EPSWP 260002.

Thank you, sir. All right, Mr. Aoud. Would you like to add something from the postponement here? Yes, you got me.

My name is David Aoud. I'm representing the applicant and... My address is 306 Beach Farm, SWP 5, Highland, Michigan, 4357. Two things. There were some questions about the viability of the business and the business, you know, we had them closed and comments like this one. I don't believe that any other type of business would go through the scrutiny to know if it will be competitive or not. And I believe that, you know, it probably is not the role of the city to determine if a company will be competitive or not. This is the role of the company. One of the other parts was to search a website. Where is their website? We want to see their website. I can give this if it is still necessary. If it was not visualized, their website is operating on topcannabisoutlet.com and has all three locations where they are currently operating. I want to reiterate that they were never mentioned by the State. They are regulated by the State. Many of these businesses were not only mentioned but also closed by the State. or were closed because of the fines that come from the state. They never had this problem. The other part was that I had continuous communication with Pastor French, who headed the NCP, in an attempt to get a vote or some kind of comment here. And her answer to me was that she never had to go through this before. She didn't have to go through this with a drink store that recently opened. I tried to look, but I couldn't find it on the street. So she basically said she wanted to communicate not only with some members of the council, but also with the mayor to discuss why this was going through so much scrutiny. This was directly to me, I am reiterating what was said to me. And so the last thing I wanted to mention is, well, first of all, the other thing I want to record is that recently, because of these delays, a fraudulent e-mail was sent to them requesting the S$ 5,000 in the name of the city. That's why I keep running out to try to clarify this. So, as this is a public record and is available, it caused difficulties for them and now they are trying to recover or prevent the transfer that they thought they were sending to the city for US$ 5,000 recently. If we had approved this at that time, or voted at that time, we probably wouldn't be there today. And the last thing I want to mention is that there is something called Access Vision that reports and records this and puts it on public record on social networks. And there were 17 comments in total. Everyone questioned why this was being postponed. They were like, can I read them?

But...

You know, where is the viability of a company becoming a council or a city determination, etc. So I'm not saying anything negative about the council, I apologize if it looks like this, but it was approved by an operation that was regulated for that. It was built for that. At the time of the request, it was still under current approval and all they were trying to do was transfer the property and due to the use of zoning, special use, it has to go through this committee again.

If it were any other business, it wouldn't have to go through.

And that's basically what I want to put and leave my comment.

So, I thank you. Before we move on to the deliberation, any technical questions from the commissioners to the team or to the applicant?

Travis, could you clarify the US$5,000 that the fans were asking me?

In the last year, or so, and this practically stopped here in the last few months, but we were informed that... fraudulent e-mails that were sent, requesting additional payments to those in need. This happened in several requests from the council and commission. So it seems very clear to us that someone is analyzing the agenda packages, obtaining e-mail addresses and then, I presume, is reading some of the requirements and inserting them into an e-mail and... and requesting payments When we are notified about this, we usually ask the applicant to send us an email immediately and we send it to the IT department. This is how we deal with it. A few months ago, we published the version published on the website, editing all the information of the applicants to try to prevent this from happening. It seems that although it has decreased and we have not received any reports about it recently, we will probably have to start doing it again. All right. Before we proceed to the deliberation, I want to highlight two officers. On page 11 of the package, essentially provided For us, this is the basis for the determination that comes directly from the doorman. This is what we need to review, deliberate and report our discoveries and recommendations to the city commission. Therefore, these are the eight standards, if preferred, listed in this chapter, which are used to guide our deliberation. The team also reports this and all our team reports to this specific instance, YNC, They said that this requirement meets all these standards. In addition, there is, in the port, permission to impose additional conditions. In this case, the team presented three conditions to be included in our recommendation. I would like to highlight this before we proceed. Any questions or comments from the commissioners about this? I will also add, as I always do, when it's time for a motion, please have a specific motion for this item of the agenda, including your intention, linked to the 8 standards I mentioned and any conditions, and then remember that it is always a good practice to make the affirmative motion for the record.

Do you have a clarification question? The reason why we are going through a special use license is because of the use of the installation.

The new use of the installation, regardless of the transfer of property, etc. is not really a new use, right?

So it will essentially be the same use. The difference between a special use license and a legal use is that the special use license requires a new license if the use is not maintained and basically because they have closed the doors and ceased operations for about a year. This is really the section, I would say, of use, and at this point a new special use license must be requested.

Thank you.

The previous owner had a lapse in the previous owner's license. They had to write again. I understand, but I don't have it, but it really doesn't matter in terms of the real part of the special needs.

Any other question or comment? Any deliberation? Contribution on the standards provided for the basis of determination. I will consider a motion.

Propose to accept.

Excuse me, Special User Kersup. For recommendation to the Municipal Council or Commission or Commission.

Just to clarify, confirm if the conditions included in the team report are included in your motion.

I propose to accept the request for special license PSUP 2002 for the municipal commission.

So the motion on the table is this. The approval of PSUP number 2002 for the municipal commission based on the conclusions of the municipal team and the conditions provided by Commissioner White. Support.

I support this.

I was supported by the commissioner. Format. Any questions or additional deliberation? I have an order question. Is there any way to turn off the fan?

I'm having trouble hearing.

Of course. The time is changing. I will repeat so that it is registered. There is a motion made by Commissioner White to recommend the approval of PSUP number 260002 to the City Commission based on the conclusions of the team report and the conditions and was supported by the Commissioner formed. Any additional comments, questions or deliberations of the Commissars? I would just like to add that if any commissioner decides to deny or vote in this particular motion, articulate your reasons for it.

Normally, the justification to vote against an approval that otherwise meets the team's recommendations

It is necessary.

Therefore, it is based on these standards, on these standards of assistance, whether or not there is any evidence in the record as well. All right, we voted.

Commissioner Formato?

I approve.

Commissioner Hughes? Commissioner Morris? And your determination? Your determination for this?

Your determination for this? Your fact to say no?

Commissioner White? Mayor Bink?

I would vote no, because I am not convinced, in addition to any reasonable doubt, that G was articulated in the vote.

All right, a vote of three to two that I believe is approved. All right, thank you all.

Any news? No news.

Any comments from the public? No comments. Any comments from the team or the members of the commission? Do you have a comment? I believe that I will be on vacation for our meeting next month. So if we have something on the agenda, you will have to excuse me.

But what is more important? To serve in the planning commission or go on vacation?

My four-year-old son would love to discuss this. All right. Meeting closed. Thank you very much everyone.