Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

My dear colleagues, please. I'd like to call the May 13th meeting of the city of Ben Harour Planning Commission to order. City clerk, would you call the role, please? Commissioner Adams, present. Commissioner Archabald, present. Commissioner Bell, present. Commissioner Henry, present. Commissioner Hensel, present. Commissioner Marshall, here. Manager Little here. Mayor Muhammad, Chairman Reid, present. You have a quorum. I'd like to move to agenda item number three. That's the approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion for approval? Motion to approve. Supported. Um, Commissioner Adams made the motion and supported by Commissioner Bell. Hold the role, please. Commissioner Bell, yes. Commissioner Henry, yes. Commissioner Hensel, yes. Commissioner Marshall, yes. Manager Little, yes. Commissioner Adams, yes. Commissioner Archald, yes. Chairman Reid, yes. Motion carried. Agenda item number four, approval of the minutes for March the 4th. Are there any changes, additions, or deletions? Hearing none, I call for a motion for approval of the March 4th minutes. So moved. Motion is made by Commissioner Hel and supported by Commissioner Marshall. Would you call the role, please?

Commissioner Henry, yes. Commissioner Hensel, yes. Commissioner Marshall, yes. Manager Little, yes. Commissioner Adams, yes. Commissioner Archald, yes. Commissioner Bell, yes. Chairman Reid, yes. Motion carried. I'd like to have a motion to approve the April 15th meeting if there's no changes or additions or deletions. Hearing none. So moved. A motion is made by Commissioner Hensel and supported by support support by Commissioner Bell. Would you call the mo um call the role, please? Commissioner Hensel, yes. Commissioner Marshall, yes. Manager Little, yes. Commissioner Adams, yes. Commissioner Archabald, yes. Commissioner Bell, yes. Commissioner Henry, yes. Chairman Reid, yes. At this time, I'd like to open up the meeting for public comment. If anyone has any comments they would like to make, please step forward at this time. No one has responded. Therefore, I would like to close this portion of the meeting for public comment and move on to item number six, new business. Do we have any business that's new? Hearing none, we'll move on to old business. Old business will be in zoning ordinance update. I will give a brief um update. We came into uh possession of certain information yesterday that uh we

need to add to our agenda and that would be the updating the ordinance. However, since we weren't able to get that in time, I don't have hard copies for everybody. So, I will put on the screen a copy of the uh information that I received. Um, does any of the commissioners have anything that they would like to state before we get started? This is an opportunity to add or uh modify or change any of the existing information that we have. Commissioner Henry, I'm sorry. Uh I did kind of peruse this document, the draft, and there's a quite a few little changes and hiccups in it. So, it's something that we need to diligently look at it and make sure it's in order with the ordinance, the master plan. So, um this draft is truly a draft and it needs to be looked at completely comprehensive. Yes, sir. Commissioner, um city manager Little. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of things that I'd like to make sure that we have addressed. Um, as I look at the plan for our Ox Creek project where it goes under uh where it crosses Empire, there's a automotive type business down there. It's right on the creek.

Um, I want to make certain that the zoning on that parcel is uh compatible with the rest of the zoning up and down Ox Creek. So that if this uh uh business leaves, there will not be any other like that down there. Uh that may be a problem. the one that's there itself with oils and greases and all of that right next to that that creek while we're trying to clean up the creek and remove contaminants and things of that nature. Another concern I have, and I didn't uh get a chance to go through all of the uh ordinance, but I know we've from time to time we've had discussions about containers and tiny homes and whatnot. And my concern from the viewpoint of the uh city manager would be that if we're going to have containers or tiny homes that we identify areas where nothing else is there but those things. I don't want to see containers stuck in the middle of regular neighborhood housing and whatnot because it will create problems for valuation and everything else there. Um they should be in areas that are set up just to handle those. If there's going to be containers and particular areas, let containers be there but not all over. And same with tiny homes. They belong in areas themselves. Commissioner Adams and Commissioner Hansel. Okay. Um first off, thank you uh Chairman

Reed. Um, in regards to something that the gentle lady of the third third ward uh stated, even though it's a draft, it's still uh revisable along anywhere along the way even after it's adopted by the city commission as for Okay. Uh, the commercial property that uh the city manager mentioned, it's been there and I I I'm just needing to know, is that the one that was a taxi? Okay. So, is that deemed a commercial property now? And do we run uh a business out of business? I mean, I don't know what that looks like or what we have to do. Uh or is it something that the commission has to do? I know it needs to be cleaned up and we don't need oil and all of that type of stuff. I mean, do we give them another option to to to move somewhere else if we're willing to work with a business like that? I don't know what that looks like. Um, and thirdly, what Mr. uh what city manager just mentioned about tiny homes and container homes. I've I've seen some container homes in some other communities that dwell within in in homes that were just built. And I think that I I don't think that we should shut ourselves out and off, but there should be a standard of what they look like. And they all have to come through here prior to any building or or setting of such a a a thing, don't they? Uh, city manager, did you want to respond to that? Yes. I I would say

simply that communities make their choices about what they will and won't accept in their areas. This is a city that's in a state of need to of rebuilding and I'm and in the process of doing that. We already have difficulty with properties being able to hold their value. Um, I remember being in a meeting um about a year and a half ago with the new director of MEDC when somebody told him that uh and I'm listening and somebody who was supposed to be a champion for us told him that the problem with building houses in Ben Harbor, if you build one and finish it today and it cost you 300,000 tomorrow it's only worth 180, you know. Uh I didn't like the statement. There's certain element of truth to it. And because of that kind of thing, we can't afford to take the measures that maybe some other community should. If somebody puts down $200,000 to build a house in a neighborhood, he ought to reasonably expect that they're going to be similar houses built within that area next to his. If we vary to where we got containers, tiny homes, even for that matter certain modular homes and whatnot, uh it's not compatible. it will not increase and induce growth that like we want to have it in the community. So I think it's to our advantage as a city uh trying to come back to keep these things separate. Commissioner Hansel um there are a couple things the issue of the

commercial property if it might excuse me we're just trying to on that matter uh change the zoning. It doesn't take the business away from it. So, so yes, on the I just wanted to answer your question about the zoning on that particular piece. According to the latest draft of the map, which we have a printed copy here, but we don't have an I don't maybe there's an electronic copy that Mr. Re could show us, but um that particular piece of property was changed with the last update of the map to parkland. So there is a part a parcel that's commercial neighborhood commercial along Pipstone at Empire, but then there's a little wedge which we thought was the property that you were mentioning uh that has been changed um from commercial um and I don't think it was commercial when we changed it either. I think it had already been changed to residential since those businesses went in. Um, so we're changing it to parkland in order to try to avoid that should the building become available for purchase by the city to add to the park or if it were to be uh reused for some purpose, they would still have to come back to the city and get permission to use it for whatever new use. So there are a couple other things. Um, madam chairman, we have to thank you. Thank you because I didn't know that and it was empty for a while. Right. Okay. Okay. So, a couple of other things we just heard about bungalow courts. Bungalow courts are a middle housing type. Um, they are

currently on the the use table. um they're allowed in the residential group of oops of um districts. So it would be the the residential neighborhood which is RN RM as in multif family MU which is mixeduse and CL which is uh local commercial. So, those are as this draft stands, that's where they would be allowed for a bungalow court. Um, it doesn't the square footage for a an individual house, I don't believe changed in the definitions or in the um in where it talks about the sizes of lots and all that stuff. I don't believe that language changed much to allow someone to build a two or 400 square foot house on a standard lot. Um, and then what was the other thing we were just talking about? Oh, containers. So, uh containers as the again as the draft is currently um would be allowed in local commercial district, central business district um light and heavy and industrial. Um and it it doesn't say containers themselves. It says containers as building materials except for open air storage. So it makes the distinction that you can't just plop a container on a street and call it a building. You have to use the the container as part of a building. It cannot be just dropped there as is.

So I think that helps a little bit with definitions and what's already been raised. Um, so when we reviewed that part about the containers and containers being uh construction material, we meant that that if you're going to live in it, it has to meet the same qualifications as a house that's to be occupied. And no occupancy permit would be given to a container to live in unless it meets all the requirements. Now, if we look at the zoning changes, residential neighborhood is what we were after. And this was one of the reasons that we didn't change the existing housing requirements. But if we're looking to increase taxes, property taxes, we have to look at increase per acre. What's going to give us the greatest return? And when you look at that, you discover putting like properties in an area. Um the um Harbortown would be an example of a neighborhood that maintains its value. So there may not be as many places in the city then that we can do this but this is an opportunity for us to move back into the residential areas but you have to maintain a reasonable amount of density and that's where the mixed uh residential comes in. And if you look at the current zoning, you will see where these uh where you would have an opportunity to do that. One of the best areas would be in your downtown business districts

where you can have multi-use projects where you could potentially do this. And when we start looking at residential properties up to four units, that can be anywhere in the city. But if you go any larger than that, now we have to look at the mixed use and the property tax return that we're going to get from the density of those types of properties. Also, this is an opportunity for us to bring up some of the issues that we're addressing. Now, as we dot our eyes and cross our tees, we're getting to a point where very shortly we'll be ready to forward this to the city commissioners for them to review. And that will be just that, a review. Then, uh, with 15-day notice, we can give the public an opportunity to look at this to see where they fit. So, a lot of these issues that we're bringing up now will be addressed in the future, but today we're looking for what we're actually doing now, things that we need to take a closer look at and perhaps go a little deeper into the um definition of what they are. Now, the zoning ordinance is the way that we implement the master plan. The master plan calls for a lot of things that the zoning ordinance simply supports. So, we'll have to go back to the master plan on many of these things to make sure that that's exactly what we're doing. Yes. Abby, were you okay? Just just just very quickly if we're making distinction between tiny homes and and containers and things, the

question has not been asked because it's happening and I personally want to know what the city is going to do about it because it's going on and been going on for too long. The little bitty home, they're not even houses. sheds that uh are built like the Amish bill for lawnmowers and stuff like that. Are we allowing people to just sit those down and live in them, turn them into homes? No. No. Forgive me for what I'm about to say. I mean, you said a power. Hang on. Hang on. I'm about to open your eyes a little bit. We simply need to read the ordinance. Just about every question that you've asked is answered in the ordinance. Now, the current ordinance pretty much stays the same. What we've added would be the missing middle or the housing part. We're trying to figure out how to get more density and where to put it. Okay. Its intent is to increase the tax base without raising property taxes on the citizens that are already here. Exactly. And and I get that and I understand that. But the question I just asked about these little things, they're not adding to our tax base. And I'm just wondering I haven't seen any discussion or anything about that in our while we have our city manager here. I'm just he knows already. You have a question? No. I just want to make a statement. Tin tiny house districts and containers are completely different. The containers have to have so many

square feet and that is considered a house a a u residence or building. So the tiny houses have different criterias than the containers. So you can't loop them together. Um, so if we're going to look at the missing housing, tiny houses might fit some of that missing and containers will also take care others. So, we can't put them together. They're separate. Once again, the zoning ordinance addresses the issues that you just brought up, and that's where we begin to look at the types of housing, uh, the size of the lots. Um, it's all in the setbacks, you know, the setbacks and so forth. And it's quite complicated for someone who's not familiar with site plans and how to read them and how to interpret them. So there's a lot of things that we are trying to do with the current ordinance so that it's more uh consumer friendly. So we'll show you some of those uh features that we built in it. Commissioner Marshall, I'm just wondering I think I heard you correctly, Mr. city manager when you said you want to put them in separate areas. I agree with that. I don't think they should be scattered throughout the city. That's not the plan. I'm asking you, Mr. Chair, that's not the

plan. Neighborhoods is what you want. Similar types of property tend to hold their value better. uh too many different types of properties. It's harder to establish a um we have the previous assessor here who could tell you why it would be better to put those things all together as opposed to scattering them all over the place. And city managers just mentioned that that's would be one of the things we're looking at. and you have to maintain the um current and existing properties. You know, you bring in a more expensive property into the neighborhood, uh the assessor most likely is going to look at the increased value and you're beginning to raise taxes on those homeowners. Whereas, if you put it where it's in a neighborhood, then you tend to localize it. it'll keep it in one spot or in one area or one part of town. So, it would kind of be like a trailer park. That's what we're avoiding. That's the whole idea to avoid utilizing containers as living uh quarters or living residents or whatever you want to call them. I what I'm seeing the direction of the city I don't think those kind of things are going to go with what's coming into the city. Once again, we need to take a careful look at the existing ordinance and then determine if changes are required to match the master plan or community plan as we now call it to make sure that we're going in the right

direction with the changes that we're making. Mr. Chair, you you're speaking I'm going to Mr. Hson, help me down. You speaking of the master plan, according to the master plan, they're supposed to build so many houses. Are those things going to be considered as houses that the master plan is potentially bringing forward? We need to put the ordinance up to show you how this whole thing is structured and then you can better understand what it is that they're attempting to do. But the master plan is the basis for the changes that we're putting in the ordinance so that they match. They have to go together. The new plan does not match up with everything that they're trying to do with the uh ordinance. So that's why we have to make the necessary changes and when you look at it and read it and we're going to have another get together before we turn this over to the city commission. So just quickly are we are we talking about just districts different districts of different types of housing zones zone zones. Yes. Okay, Mr. Sure. Commissioner Hansel, I just wanted to say um we we do have in this ordinance as in the current draft um a minimum for a single family house of 720 ft. Um so those aren't tiny houses and that's the minimum. That's the the current listed minimum. Also, um we also call out design

standards and I think starting on page 30. Um and it illustrates them, but it also describes them um down to uh how many windows, where they can be, um if it's got a flat roof, certain types of um various things that relate to that. uh horizontal moldings, um materials, um vertical and horizontal alignment of windows, um entrances, um and facade treatments, um for depending on where they are. So regardless of whether it's made of a container or whatever the the materials are, they still have to meet the standard for the the neighborhood and the house will have to start at 720 square ft. Um, so I think we have protections there and this is really complicated to read through all of this and we're going to see some things here. I hope that will be helpful but um you we really have to go through this and read line by line as much as people probably don't want to spend that time. Um there are a number of things that answer your questions. Yeah, I just want to say that uh one of the things is that you have to keep your housing uniform. So you have to keep so that a certain style of home or whatever is in different neighborhoods so that somebody come in and it's not everything. If you're looking for a nice home and you come in and you got those

little bitty homes and those that changes everything and then it makes it hard to keep value. When I was an assessor, uh you you have to have minimal standards and you have to have certain things to go in certain areas and when you everything together it it it affects the value tremendously. So that's one of the things you need to keep in mind. And then one of the other things is that uh you can have it so that uh when they come in with those smaller houses and those in the storage units and stuff that they have to have a special use permit to be able to put those things in certain places. Current currently it's it's even more restrictive than that. I mean there there are places where they absolutely cannot go. So that when I mention where the the building's made of containers go n as as this draft is written they cannot go in in a residential neighborhood. So, if um that that's just what's written in here for your information and then if you have comments about that um we'll need to see what the comments are so we can try to accommodate your positions. Oh, okay. I was turning it off. Okay. There's a whole section on this and it explains the sizes, setbacks, accessory buildings, uh, accessory dwelling units. Now, accessory buildings and accessory dwelling units are not the same thing. A dwelling unit you live in. Accessory building is part

of the main building with additional uses and that's all outlined in the ordinance and and when we talk about the types of structures yards setbacks we're looking to see the size of the house that's to be built and Based upon the ordinance, will it meet all of the setback requirements to fit on a certain size lot? I would also like to add that the subcommittee of the planning commission will be meeting next week and we're going to get into the finer details of the outstanding properties that we need to take a look at. Um, I'm going to suggest that we also walk the neighborhoods to make sure that every opportunity one way or the other can be met under the existing ordinance or if not, what changes do we make to to make sure that they do? Commissioner Adams, thank you. That's a wonderful idea. Uh though I don't think I'll be doing too much walking. Um I'll keep doing as much as I can. My question becomes in the midst of all this building on addition to an existing where are we there when you look at accessory buildings and we started talking about um let's see if we can find it here. I think this would be an

example. One you add to the existing property and the others can be built on the lot next to the properties as long as it's part of the original property. It sounds like I'm talking in a circle, but you would have to read the entire um standards as they're set forth in the uh existing uh plan here where it says measurements and exceptions. Okay, it's quite thorough. And I don't know what that looks like and I have not read it yet and I know I need to because when I purchase the properties around me, the county treasurer recommended for tax reasons that I do not at that time combine them because the taxes would be much higher and he recommended that I kept them separately and he was right. Um, but if I wanted to build on to say one of the properties that's adjacent that I own next to it, um, to add on to the existing, would I have to combine those or would they be taxable taxed at separate values? You can have a pre- meeting with your building officials and you can also talk to your assessor. The best way to resolve. Okay. And I'm asking that question while we're on this for others that may be listening and and thinking about and want to ask the same thing. And shouldn't we have that information upfront for them instead of me as an individual, but it should be on paper for others to read and understand for themselves as well. Mr. Chair, um the the ordinance spells out how far you

have to be off a line. So if you're not if in this case where you're building over a line into another piece of property, you're going to have to combine them so that you have one lot. Otherwise, you cannot build from one one lot to another um because you need to have a minimum separation between buildings of 10 ft. So on on each side, so that would be 20 ft. Do you so uh if you want to build a building that goes, you know, across the lines, you have to combine them. But it does explain too that for for people who want to build on the smaller lots, there are provisions in here so that you would still if it's a lot of record and it's 30 ft, you can still build on it. um the the setbacks are changed in light of the fact that it's a smaller lot. So um that helps people too. Yeah. Plus you don't always have to have to com combine your lots. You build on it separately and that they're going to be valued separately. You have two different bills and two different descriptions and all that. So a lot of people combine them. So you have to deal with all that. Yeah. Commissioner Bell. So, I was able to pull up the ordinance just so when you do go back to read it in case anyone else asks you to. It is section um five. 6.25 25 and it talks about general building additions and connections. So multiple buildings can be constructed on a single lot um if a setback requirement can be

met. So for residential institutional hotel uses building separation 20 ft for one story, two stories are 30 feet, three stories plus are um 40T. So this is everything except where the bungalow court design applies according to the ordinance. Now explain the bung explain the bungalow somebody anybody. It's a housing type. It's just a housing type. Yeah. And and it's meant as as it's presented and was in the master plan. It's also meant to be less than a standard house, but I don't see in what I read in section two where we say that that's a possibility. Okay. Um because if if it has to be 720 ft, that's a little bigger than a tiny house. Okay. So, we're talking about something that could possibly be uh uh what is that side by side? Something like kitchenetses type of thing. Um well in the bungalow court let's see there's five to nine homes. Yeah. So you're really t talking about much smaller homes. Okay. Um but go then going back to section two which is where we were talking about um how how big a house has to be. We don't actually call attention to the to a bungalow there. Um, so I think that's a mistake in the ordinance that has to get fixed because if we're going to allow bungalow courts, um, we have to define what the size of the bungalow is cuz there's no way you

can get five houses at 720 ft on a standard 60oot lot, I don't believe. Well, through stories you can. So if there were I'm sorry, chair. No, go ahead. So additionally the unit size with the bungalow from the earlier earlier discussions were um a bungalow court is a small scale house cluster of homes. Um it features five to nine small homes arranged around a courtyard. So it's five to nine homes in the courtyard that face each other. um it helps increase the residential density, but each unit the has different floors. So the way we looked at bungalows is either there's a upstairs and the lower level basement or a main floor and the upstairs and the main floor was between 400 and 600 480 672 square ft per story. So you had to have two stories with the bungalows. Okay. but they were facing each other in a court. And that is the bungalow cluster. And you can see an example of it on the screen. Okay. I'm I'm I'm not good with that. But page 32. Okay. I I I see it, but I don't see it. Okay. I got on glasses. I'm going to recommend the um zoning ordinance to you and we'll see if we can get you a copy. Okay. uh if you can email it to me because my computer I'd like to get it to read to me and just you know not to get personal but predinazone is bothering my sight a little bit. So um and my computer reads to me when things go to looking a little blurry. But my question is when we go out into the community to take those walks, can we start up there where I

live? because I just heard uh Miss Bell explain something that I had actually thought about years ago upon purchasing these properties. And then along the way when it comes to some of us getting older, uh, fixing things medically where, uh, some of the children that want to come home and take care of an elderly adult, the el the, uh, the disabled parent on one floor and the youth upstairs or in the basement or what have you. That type of thing is what I just heard her say. And I would just like to Yeah. And I'm sorry, correction. It's not the basement. The basement does not count. I misspoke. I apologize. It's the first floor and an above floor. Okay. Multif family housing will be one of the things that we're going to make sure that people are aware of. Uh when you have two families living in a house, uh they both are paying rent or on the mortgage and this could be advantageous for both of them. So when you start looking at three and four unit apartment buildings, this would be one of the ways people who can't afford a house could actually afford income property. And in some instances, you could actually live in a unit rentree while you have your tenants in the other um units paying the bills. So these are different ways that we're trying to set this up so that the residents of the existing neighborhoods are not negatively impacted with new housing or excessive densities. So that's why we are doing some of not we are doing it we're trying to make sure that the ordinance matches the community plan.

Do we have any more uh discussion that we need on this? Commissioner uh Henry, I just wondered if we had looked at co-l livingiving. It's another upandcoming um mechanism that people are using for housing and uh I think that Benton Har is going to be prime for those kind of uh facilities uh because our u younger population uh the and the economics in our community that we find somewhere to share uh housing. So this is happening in big cities right now and it will come to Benton Harbor. So it's something that we really need to to regulate or put um in our in our master plan. If I may, a gentle lady just hit on something that that that we had a discussion about almost 20 years ago when we first started the plans, and that was that a lot of children whose families moved out of the city and moved out into farm rural areas are moving back into the community and making things accessible to those and their families. when you know chairman to answer the question about the group living we did discuss co-l livingiving um and it is in the ordinance under either group living and it's considered either boarding homes or lodging homes and they

are both in the ordinance And they are permitted under um multiple use mixeduse waterfront local commercial and central business district and central. Yes. Mixed use waterfront and multiple unit residential and multiple unit residential. I'm going to recommend that um we be allowed to give classes on how to read and on the examining ordinance and I will walk you through the whole procedure from the beginning to the end. Uh one of the things that we asked our consultant to do was to allow us to put this on the um city's website uh the draft where they can see it and leave it where we can interact with it. And this will give us an opportunity to uh be able to basically have a good knowledge of what it's all about without having to interact with the city staff. So the and we'll make sure that uh anyone needing copies of the ordinance uh we'll see if we can possibly make uh PDF copies of that available to them. Any additional comments, conversation? Uh we're approaching uh about another 10 minutes. I'd like to move on and keep this um be aware of your time. No additional questions. Are we ready to move on to our next uh agenda? This

is trying to show us how. Yeah, we're done. Okay, today is considered a regular meeting. Um, it's not special. So, I believe everyone except the mayor is in attendance today. Okay. I'd like to move on to agenda item number eight, commission comments. Do any of you all have comments that you would like to make at this time? Okay. In the absence of comments, we need a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Motion is made by Commissioner Adams and supported by Commissioner Bell. Call the role, please. Commissioner Adams, yes. Commissioner Archald, yes. Commissioner Bell, yes. Commissioner Henry, yes. Commissioner Hensel, yes. Commissioner Marshall, Manager Little, Chairman Reid, yes. Yes. Motion carrying.