Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

heard and then staff an opportunity to give up but we'll restart the meeting shows up. So, um, with that, okay, um, welcome everyone to not quite yet the March 25th, 2026 East Lancing Planning Commission meeting. Mr. Bartley, would you please give uh any committee reports and or staff up staff reports?

I will. Thank you. Um and we will get to items such as the role and agenda approval and minutes approval when we have full quorum. Um for committee reports uh the only committee that has met since your last meeting on uh February 25th was the age friendly communities committee. Uh it's a committee of the seniors commission. Um and D uh Commissioner Chapen is your representative to that. Uh the the committee um adopted their updated work plan in November of last year and the uh city council adopted that in January. Um mostly the committee wanted to meet again to discuss what now uh and they determined that they're going to go back to each of their individual boards and commissions that they represent. Each member is uh representing a city border commission. um they're going to go back to those individual uh boards and commissions including the planning commission for Dr. Chapen and uh essentially work on individual action steps within that action plan with that with that commission and say we want to what what makes most sense for this commission to work on how can we implement the the steps in this plan uh and then we would just check back as a committee um with each other basically every quarter. So, um, our intent is to that we'll have the next meeting in May. Uh, and I'll have a report for you at that point as well. That's all for my committee reports. Um, any questions about that before I move on to staff reports?

Okay. Nope.

Um, staff reports essentially, uh, as you know, we had a commissioner last last time, uh, Commissioner Hendricks, uh, resigned from the commission. So, we have on on February 25th uh which became effective in March uh March 16th. So, we do have a vacancy uh I'm aware that we have an applicant um but we still are welcoming applications if there's interest and people can apply online at city of east lancing.com. Look up boards and commissions and there is an application on that page. Uh I wanted to bring up two items uh two reports for you today as part of my staff reports. I'm going to put these up on the screen in just a moment. Uh the first item is and these are bothformational items. So there's no there's no need to uh take any action tonight. These are not business items. So we can certainly go through these um at this point. So what I'm pulling up right now is our uh 2025 annual report. Um I'm not going to read any of this, but I'm just I just want to point out a couple things. Essentially, um, in 2025, the planning commission, uh, saw several cases, special land uses, uh, site plan reviews. You adopted a comprehensive plan update. It saw two zone changes, and you, uh, considered four ordinances. Um, not all of which you made recommendations on, but, uh, you met you had 26 public hearings. uh you made recommendations for uh 10 actions to council during 2025 for land use requests which are the special uses site plans or zone changes. Of the 10 uh 10 recommendations that you made, you recommended approval of nine and recommended denial of one. Uh that was the Meer gas station. City council approved nine uh of the applications and denied one. although they approved the fieldhouse uh and excuse me they they denied fieldhouse and approved Meyer gas stations uh both of which were contrary to your recommendations. So I have the uh planning commission recommendations and city council decisions uh up here on

the screen that's it's a very uh short report uh just sort of checking in here's what we have and then I just wanted to have a geographic uh breakdown of where the applications are coming from. uh this year the majority of them were in downtown I should say plur alley but most most of your applications that you saw were in downtown in 2025 many uh just weren't in neighborhoods or were ordinances so uh before I move on to the next report the parking report can answer any questions about your annual report questions yes sir vice chair so thanks for this report it's kind of nice to see I don't know if we've seen these before but um

can you talk about the the priority for 2026 and how that affects us and what we should be doing or thinking about.

Oh, thank you. Uh, yes, I I listed in there that it's a staff staff priority um to seek redevelopment ready communities uh certification. this a pro a product, excuse me, um certification is is uh done by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and is essentially a set of best practices that if cities uh adopt a certain number of those best practices across I want to say six different domains. Uh if you adopt a certain number of best practices, you can get essential certified or fully certified as a redevelopment ready community. uh certification under that RFC program uh gives a municipality some benefits uh specifically access to some grant programs that we wouldn't otherwise uh be eligible for. extra points for those that we are eligible for right now. But most uh state grants have an RC uh I guess extra points if you're RC certified. But it also sends a loud message across the state uh to prospective developers essentially that hey we've adop we've adopted these best practices. Uh this town is now essentially more redevelopment ready, more open for business. Uh come develop here. So, um, that's the that's the goal of ROC program. We're very interested in, uh, adopting as many of those best practices that make sense. Um, and so my intent is to, uh, bring some of those changes to you, uh, over the next months, um, and to to council. Uh, specifically, one of the changes that has come up in the past and was some concern is the decision-making process for site plans or special uses. In many cities, uh, land use approvals such as those don't go to the council. They're as a legislative body and the planning commission is is the authority. Uh, in this city, it it's not been that way for some time or maybe ever as far as I know. Uh, but um if if by allowing

essentially if if the council were to empower the planning commission be to be the final decision-making authority on at least site plans, uh we could get a point under the certification process. um special uses could be worth considering. However, the the the reason why city council sees site plans as special uses right now is essentially to guarantee that there is a public there's ample opportunity for the public to review and respond to development requests. And so we want to make sure that whatever change we make to the process, if we do make those changes, that that public opportunity for public feedback remains. That's that's very important. So, as another step with an RSC certification process, um it gives you points if you have a public participation plan. Uh we have one. It was adopted in 2013. It's a little bit out of date. And one of the exercises that I was doing as part of the comprehensive plan update last year or last couple years was to try a bunch of different public participation methods and see what we could do as far as community engagement with the intent of finding out what works, what doesn't work so well. And so my intent is to update that public particip participation plan as well uh this year hopefully this summer. Um bring that to you, bring that to council and then with the update uh to that plan where we say this is here are some methods that we recommend for what works in this community for land use uh review. uh when when you update that plan to me the the outcome of that plan should be here's how we make sure the public has that opportunity so we can change the process without losing uh that that opportunity by the public. So I I see that as part of the ROC process. There are several steps involved. Um we talked to DDA very briefly. They're going to hear from METC in fact this week. This week or next week?

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Yes. They're going they're going to go see the DDA tomorrow. Uh I I know that DDA is going to talk about Main Street as well and also RC and you'll you'll hear more about those in the future as well. But um we are talking with the different boards and commissions about it. I expect to have action steps for you to respond to in the next several months and then probably make some uh or at least propose some substantive changes to our process by the end of the year. So that's the short version of maybe a long version of a short question, but that was a short version too. Um to the RC question. Any other questions about that process or anything else in this report? That was a great question. Thank you. Um then I will close this and pull up the next uh item which is a downtown parking report. Again, this is anformational item. Uh no action is required. So, in the zoning ordinance, there is a requirement that I, as the planning and zoning official, annual annually prepare a report on the utilization of parking spaces within downtown. Uh, and so we did this last year for the first time that I could find since at least 2002. Um, this year is a 2025 parking report. Very little has changed uh from last year. And I'll I'll go through the numbers in a second. I am going to be presenting this to council at their April 14th discussion only meeting. So, it'll it'll be a little more of a deeper dive. Um although we can certainly talk about any of the items that are presented here tonight. Uh essentially, there's about 3100 spaces in the downtown system. Uh most of those about 85% are within the garages and then a few in about 9% in surface lots and then on street parking for the last 6%. Um the downtown parking system jumped uh from about 2018 from about uh 2500 up to its current uh in 2018 2019 when the Albert Avenue parking garage uh was constructed. It was about 2750 and then it dropped when this big service lot that was replaced by the garage uh

service lot closed. So the number dropped by 250 and then the garage was constructed so it went up by 600. So we ended up with um our our current about 3,088 spaces in the system. Um I have a a lot of tables in this in this report talking about what's in what uh facility. The major um I guess the major update for each year is based on the parking counts and those start on page four of the 12-page report. So you can see on one column spring uh counts, the other column is fall to the to the right. So, spring to the left, fall to the right. Uh, and the parking department goes out and does this for about a week every year. Uh, this year they they had their spring count in April, mid April, and their fall count at the end midocctober, but they ended up picking up a few more days. Uh, they had some errors or some issues with their counts. So, they did them again uh for a couple days in November. But essentially um what you can see in these report or in these graphs is essentially the darker lines the the dark bar is the number of parking spaces that are used uh in spring. So that's over the course of the day that that the count was taken. Uh and then you have historical numbers as well of the percentage used in the different colors on the graph. So you can see that things aren't changing too much on a daily basis. We saw a little bit of a difference in uh on the Tuesday count in the fall where it tended to drop a little bit more um towards the end of the day in the evening whereas in fall 2024 it was a little bit higher in the evening. Uh we found but generally across the board we're seeing very similar patterns to what we saw in 2024 earlier. Our peak times tend to be let me see here there's Saturday and Sunday uh for peak usage um on the the left

hand side you can see the spring and fall uh peak usage of this of 2025 which is what this report is for. The highlighted graph to the right is the peak usage for the previous year. So we wanted to show how things have changed. Um not too much as far as the total amount of utilization. uh slight changes. Um we see a little bit higher uh afternoon and evening peak use in the fall versus uh in 2025 versus 2024. Um that's the major difference I would say a little bit lower numbers for spring especially in the evenings uh versus 2024 but um our peak in general our peak usage of the downtown parking system on on days our typical peak usage is 65%. Uh, and why I say typical peak is that we kind of throw out the outliers, which are typically home football game days. On Saturdays, the system fills up, but that's about the only time that it fills up. Uh, we have a little bit of a towards the end of the um of the report on page 11, I have a little item showing the VIP home football game day passes, which are also used. Um, those are basically just for ease ease of parking for just for the game days. But otherwise, I'm going to scroll back up. Those peak usage points don't really count game days. This are our typical peak use over the course of time. Uh the historical comparison uh at the bottom of that page uh page seven is showing this general increase over time. uh those those trend lines uh running through the graph are just showing that it's generally increasing from about 45% peak use in 2012 up to roughly 60 65% uh in 2026 that we're at now. Um daily space utilization by facility, we have that broken down on page 8. Um in bold you have the 2025 numbers. Uh unbold is 2024. So you can see how things are

generally increasing across the system just just barely. Um, not no huge uh changes to any of these. Our lowest, excuse me, our highest uh used facility was a CVS parking lot under Charles Garage. Um, and that's consistent with 2024. Our least used our loading zone spaces on Elbert uh near Grove right in front of uh Newman Lofts and also uh spaces on Ant Street between Charles and Division sort of northeast of the um Mered Hotel which is also consistent with 2024. So, um, we saw some minor increases in parking fees in a couple of the, uh, couple of the facilities, some some decreases, uh, in division garage, for example. Um, but generally the prices stayed roughly the same. EV chargers, uh, we have eight across the system. In some facilities, uh, in general, we have at least one charger in use about 90% of the time at any time. Uh, which is impressive. uh two to five of the chargers are generally in use at any given time. Uh you see a peak during daytime and then a fall off at at in the evening and night. Validation multi-use discount. We sold about 175,000 validation tickets and um about 75% of those were used uh which was consistent with what we saw in 2024. Uh and then finally, I just mentioned our special event rates where we see some football game day passes and also these VIP all access permits uh which give access to any any city permit or any city parking uh facility for 200 bucks a month. Um and we see about 30 uh excuse me 34 that were issued in 2025. So not uh particularly popular program but there is some use. a little bit of look at bicycles, mopeds, and motorcycles had about 85, excuse me, 86 bicycles registered, which was um higher than 2024. We had three mopeds issued by the

treasur and that was a little bit lower. Um that's it. So, I guess that's the parking report. Uh any questions for you? It's just againformational so you have an idea. We've had some uh questions recently, some proposals come through and uh including soon proposals for downtown uh residential structures um with some parking or without. Uh so this certainly been a a discussion point which is why I think it's great timing uh that we're talking about it now and also we'll be presenting this to uh council in April. So any questions?

Great timing indeed. Uh any questions, vice chair, and then commissioner Ruby? Mine's just more a comment. So it seems like we're there's a lot of capacity for parking downtown is sort of my big takeaway from this. So we could add several hundred more cars per day and wouldn't be wouldn't really we wouldn't be over full.

Yeah, I would I would say we have parking. The issue isn't necessarily do we have enough is is it in the right place. Um we tend to have less use uh toward the east end of downtown and division Charles. If if the project that's proposed at 530 Albert or a project that's proposed at the corner of uh Charles and and Grand River uh the Howard if either of those are built um we'd see some some change uh where we see more parking usage in that that east end. Otherwise, we tend to have a lot more demand on the west end by uh especially in the Albert and Grow garages. But yeah, I mean we have space uh except for those game days. Commission Overby. Yes.

Landon, do you believe that we have adequate parking space for the two new high-rise student apartment buildings that are being proposed? Uh do I believe so? Yes, I would say I would say yes. Yes, we do. And a qualified yes. Um both both projects are kind of offered as student housing. I think that's the intent. Uh you know, it it doesn't have to be students, but it will likely be students in both of those projects if they go through.

Students tend to have a lower parking requirement than non- students. Uh a good rule of thumb for student housing developers is generally 02 or.3 spaces per uh student and which is lower uh than parking requirements in many places. Uh but that said in the downtown we also prohibit new parking. Um our zoning ordinance doesn't allow new parking to be constructed if there is space in the in the existing downtown facilities. the planning commission can wave that or stipulate that there may be parking if if requested and sort of proven by the developer that there is a need. Uh and when you saw recently in 530 Albert, the developer said essentially yes, there is a need based on what we've been hearing from our neighboring businesses, uh nearby residents, etc. So, they're proposing parking uh as part of the project and the planning commission recommended approval and and waved that uh to allow that parking. Um but otherwise without that waiver a new project could not uh provide new parking on site. So it's it's a interesting balancing game. Um I guess I again my qualified yes is that again I feel like what we're seeing from the parking report is that we tend to have peak even at peak use times not the outliers but in general peak uh we still have significant amount of vacancy in the parking system. To me, it's a question of again, is it in the do we is the vacancy in the right place? Uh we have parking is in the right place and when it's not, it's not always the right move to provide new parking when you could maybe move people around, get them back and forth easier. So, I've been looking at different options. Could we have some sort of a shuttle system downtown? Um that that's a long ways away. It it takes a lot of SARS Sulan to do something like that, but it's usually much more cost- effective than building new parking, which tends to be expensive. There was a great discussion at the city council on um this mo most

recent meeting if you go through to about I want to say 12:20 a.m.ish. Uh and the mayor had some great comments about uh the work that he the research he's been doing about um parking and sort of the needs and the the trade-offs um when you're trying to provide new parking in a new construction. And I would I would recommend listening to that. Um you'll just have to go just go all the way towards the end and then back it up about 40 minutes. Uh so I think that I think there's certainly it's a it's a tough it's a tough that's a tough one to answer. I would still say qualified. Yes. That's my opinion. Yes sir. Quick followup question please.

How does parking work at the hub? I don't my understanding is that they have no tenant parking. So, uh, the hub has parking within the building. There is some there is some structured parking. I believe they have a lower level and a ground level of parking and then the residential above. 158 spaces. Thank you. They have 158 spaces uh on site of the hub. Okay. So, and for what it's worth, we did do a little uh we tried to find out the parking tickets and I think since 55 55 since construction since the hub opened.

Okay. So the hub opened I believe in 2019 there have been 55 tickets issued uh which to me says that's not a significant number uh in the last seven years. Um so I'm not I'm not certain the data would support that there is a a significant problem. Thank you. Sure. Okay. So park and code enforcement reported those numbers. All set. Thank you.

I think you teed up uh nicely what I was going to say. So, just reading through this, I I think it'd be great to have um you know, a logical followup of policy recommendations. And I don't know that that would come from planning. Probably not. Potentially a working group or maybe even just city staff. Um because when I was reading this, the things I was curious about is can we come up with some creative solutions to sort of solve these parking issues that keep kind of popping up for every single application. It seems like that's before the commission. you know, some folks want more, some folks want less. Um, so it'd be nice to have some alternative ideas. I think some of the things I noted were, you know, potential use of of on street parking and how that works and whether that should be revised. Um, you know, maybe the setup for on street parking or the permissible hours or how the permits work or just,

you know, anything and everything to sort of um see some beneficial policy changes there, especially if we're going to see some new development. Um, you noted expansion areas. I think every time I look at this, what what pops out to me is just kind of the centralized location of all these ramps and how if development continues on the the western portion of downtown, you're really going to need to see some solution for parking there. Uh, I don't know exactly what that is and I know ramps are very expensive, so it might not be a possibility. Um, and then just kind of the big thing for me, I think you noted the spaces in front of um an Albert right there were like the least utilized. I suspect that's probably because of illegal parking, right? Like people just park there and

do something quickly and you're not registering those as official um parking use. So, and then you know, uh, also Grand River, just like the the far right lane, people parking there and and blocking that entire lane is infuriating to everybody that lives here. So, curious if there's any policy solutions to that. I know you don't have any today probably, but those are things I was curious about. Oh, I have all kinds of policy solutions, but All right, let's hear. But I I I I uh as we're waiting for

I guess I would say though it it is probably worth a a bigger discussion and I think that it if the if the planning commission has uh suggestions I I think that it would be good to uh pass those along council but also parking task force parking task force meets quarterly. They met last Wednesday. Um, and we presented this to them as well. Uh, so they're they're aware. Um, but I think that they're very open to different ideas. Um, and I think we could have that we could have the discussion. I think it is probably better actually for a an agenda item um to discuss in more detail. But I mean I I can tell you that um, you know, there are uh, downtown officers I mean officers being assigned to downtown. I don't think that's necessarily for parking. Uh but Pace has been also I mean I talk to PACE literally every day about the issues that you're talking about on Albert um delivery trucks blocking stop signs for example or blocking parking garage entrances. These are these are issues and so we're constantly going out and and uh trying to figure out how do we deal with the delivery uh delivery vehicles issue in particular. Um, we've had some discussions with DA staff, uh, with PACE staff, police about can we can we propose some some, I guess, solutions in that sense. I'm I'm very interested in, um, whether we could have some sort of delivery window, essentially, a very early morning delivery window where, hey, all rules are off. You need to deliver your stuff, just do it. Uh, but then 7 a.m. or something like that, now the rules apply, get out. uh because right now we're we are seeing traffic issues caused by delivery vehicles and uh including on Grand River, but I have been told that on Grand River there is a zero tolerance policy. Uh they're far less lenient or I should say not lenient at all. If there's somebody stopped on Grand River, they will go out and tick them or tow them immediately. So, so anyone who's watching on on online or on TV,

there you are. Don't park on Grand River. I think that's that's it for me. I can check that one off the list. All right. Any other questions or comments on this item? Okay. That's just atypical. We have several public hearings on the agenda, which we can't do because we don't have quorum yet, but we can take some public comment if anybody wishes to come forward and uh address the planning commission on anything on or off the agenda. All right. You want to go now? Yeah. All right. Yeah.

Mr. Chair, can I mention that if we don't have quorum, if we don't end up with quorum tonight, we will renotice and rehab redo all the public hearings. Okay. But the public hearing also for 601 Abbott will be next time on on April 8th because there was a change where they noticed it for eight units. They actually want nine. So, we'll have that public hearing already on the April 8th agenda for that request. Thank you.

Thanks for the background. Uh uh Tim Rosowski, I live at 613 Grove Street and uh the uh I'll just I wanted to comment on the mass timber um uh ordinance, which is 1567, I think. And then also uh just provide some comments on the 1384 discussion. But before I start, I didn't look at the agenda, so I had no idea the parking report was on here, but I was just peppering Landon with a bunch of questions, and I was so impressed that you knew all these numbers. Uh but I didn't realize that you had the report there. So anyway, I'm still impressed. But uh yeah. So anyway, okay. Uh first of all, I support the mass timber uh height uh one. Uh that's 1567. So I'll save the discussion on that. I just think it's a good idea to support uh that. And uh we served on the mass timber committee, so we were uh supportive of that idea. Um on uh uh just the second point is um I'm I'm generally opposed to pilots. So I know that's not really on your agenda for today, but I'll just get that comment out there. So in terms of uh 13uh 84, uh I'm not a big supporter of that ordinance to begin with. Um I think it was probably well intentioned, but it hasn't really worked well. Uh it's left us with nothing basically. Uh so we don't have any more diversified housing really in the last what six years or so as a result of that. So, so anything uh that uh it wouldn't bother me to rescend it completely, but I know other people feel differently, so that's probably not going to happen. Uh so I did have some comments uh on uh that u I know there was some discussion at council about uh possibly lowering the 25%. So I would support any reduction in that. You know, 10% 15% I think would be uh an improvement. Um I do support the fee and loo program uh or idea. Um uh but if we have it, I think we, you know, have to have some very close controls. You know, I wouldn't want to see, uh one developer, uh pay into a a fee and loose system and another another developer tap

into the fee that was just there to support uh constructing affordable housing. So, I think there needs to be some administrative work on that. Uh, one of the things that I really um have been thinking about is if there was a fee and loot program, could it be used for a buyback of rental houses for some of the transitional uh areas where maybe you have four or five rental houses and and it's maybe creeping uh towards um towards owner occupied houses that maybe uh neighborhood associations could identify target properties and then there the grants issued. they'd have to be applied for a grants issued to offset the the the price value between when it's valued as a rental home versus an owner occupied. And I think, you know, on a typical basis, a rental house probably has has more value. There'd have to be controls. It'd have to be some limitations on we wouldn't want people to inflate prices, that type of thing. But I'd really like to see a buyback program as a way to sort of recapture some of the some of the neighborhoods. Um, in terms of the fee and loo, uh, if there is a fee and loo, I think it needs to be a realistic value. You know, I read a month or two ago when the, uh, report was done by the consultant and, uh, it was interesting. I think there were no homes sold in East Lancing that even came close to what they said the affordable, uh, home should be sold for. I think it was like $60,000. And I think the out of the 184 homes, there was only one that was, I think, less than 200,000. So, we're so far off of that. So, uh, and I think it was based on Ann Arbor, was based on single family, uh, dwellings, and the conclusion was $170 a square foot. I don't know exactly what that means, $170 supplied to what square footage, but I did some back of the envelope calculations to try to put it into practical terms. And so, an apartment project with 300 units, uh, having to put in 25%, that would be about 75 of these units. if you I think his um value was 1450

square feet and $170 a square foot. It would be like the developer of one of these buildings having to build more than 40 houses at probably $350,000 and then turning around and selling them each at $60,000. I mean, that's a that's a very big burden applied to uh the project. somebody's going to pay for it and basically what's going to happen is that the the either either it won't be feasible, it won't be financable or the tenants who actually live uh in that building will have to end up paying for it. So, I think it's unreasonable. Uh in terms of the transfer, um I think the I would support a transfer of one to one. So, if somebody transfers outside of the B3 district, I think they should be given full credit kind of regardless of where it is. Um I would expand the transfer area. Uh, basically I'd include everything from Harrison to Hagedorn, couple blocks north of Grand River. I'd go the Abbott corridor to Sagena. I'd probably include maybe even Hannah. Uh, basically whatever is reasonably walkable to the downtown. Um, and my time is up.

Okay. Yep. Thank you. Just noting for the minutes, Commissioner Denalt arrived at 7:40 p.m. So, we can start the official meeting. Um, so Mr. Bartley, would you go ahead and please do roll? I will. Uh, Commissioner Chapen, Commissioner Denalt, here. Wonderful. Commissioner Lein, Commissioner Overby, here. Commissioner Puts here. Commissioner Seleski, Vice Chair Wagner here. Chair Sullivan here. We have quorum. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved. Moved by Commissioner Pototts. Second. Seconded by Vice Chair Wagner. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I.

I. I oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Agenda approved. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the February 25th planning commission meeting? Second. Moved by Commissioner Overby. Seconded by Putts. Seeing no discussion. All those in favor vote. I I oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Uh minutes approved. Uh Mr. Bartley, would you like to give a quick rundown of what you covered in the committee reports and staff reports?

Absolutely. Quick rundown is we had the committee report of the AF uh age friendly committees age friendly communities committee on February 26th. They will be meeting uh quarterly to coordinate their action on their individual boards and commissions. uh staff reports. We had the 2025 annual report of the planning commission which showed about 10 uh 10 recommendations to council um which council essentially uh found in in in uh I guess found the same uh followed followed planning commission's recommendations in all but two of those of the 10 uh decisions uh one of which was reversing denial recommendation and one of which reversed an approval recommendation. Uh we also and we discussed the 2026 uh planning staff's interest in pursuing redevelopment ready communities uh certification and we reviewed the draft 2025 downtown parking report where we found that there's generally a 65% peak use of the 388 spaces in the downtown parking system uh which is goes up to about 100% peak use on uh home football game days but otherwise the 65% is the peak usage over time uh of the whole system. So, we discussed whether or not there should be some additional policy changes uh proposed and if planning commission would like to do that, we'll make the agenda item uh send recommendations to the parking task force and to council. I think I covered it. Was there anything I missed?

I think you crushed it for the second time. All I do is crush. All right.

All right. Any comments or questions? Seeing none, uh that takes us on to item number four, commissioner announcements. This is also your time to disclose any conflicts of interest on any item on tonight's agenda. All right, seeing none, takes us on to item number five, communications from citizens. Uh written communications. There was a couple uh letters in there for item 6.1. Uh I didn't miss anything else, did I, Mr. Barley? Uh, no. We received uh I should mention that we received a spreadsheet with some research about um requirements in different cities. That was just added to your packet today. That was from Mr. Dietrich who's proposing the 530L uh proposal and that's been added to your packet if you refresh, but otherwise that will also be in your packet uh next time.

I see it in there. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Uh takes us on to item number uh 5.2 verbal from the audience. Uh again, this is your time to come forward and address the planning commission on any item on or off tonight's agenda. Please identify yourself in a card if you have yet to do so. And if you are here on a public hearing, we ask that you speak during that item's public hearing if possible. Um with that being said, would anybody like to come forward and address the planning commission? All right. Uh that takes us on to our first public hearing for tonight, item 6.1. uh a public hearing by the planning commission to receive comments on ordinance 1559 which would amend section 50-94 of the zoning ordinance which defines adverse housing requirement in downtown East Lancing. Mr. Bartley,

uh thank you. So this ordinance uh the the planning commission discussed the diverse housing requirement at some length last summer I think for three meetings uh and was determining whether or not uh there should be the question was should there be alternatives to meeting this requirement. Uh the council had a request to the planning commission to discuss that and send back recommendations and you discussed several different items and sent back recommendations on many of them. Essentially, the council uh decided that they're interested to move forward on potential recommend or potential changes to the ordinance uh that would allow a fee and lumen transfer. And so, I want to discuss those uh in some detail before we start the public hearing. Again, this is a public hearing, so you don't have to take action tonight. Uh but want I want to at least uh sort of outline the requirement, what's proposed uh by the current ordinance and what else we can we can change. So, the current requirement um an earlier speaker, Mr. Mazowski mentioned ordinance 1384. That was the ordinance that established the diverse housing requirement in 2016 um and essentially created this requirement that when you have uh within a certain area of downtown and specifically that's the DDA area uh west of Collingwood Road. So essentially your your core downtown area um if you imagine uh north of the big the the buildings in downtown when you start to go into residential then the DDA area has stopped right. So, it's the commercial district within downtown west of Collingwood uh that extends essentially out to the west end of of Valley Court Park. So, within that district, uh when you have multif family residential uh proposals, uh which in most cases are a special use, not all, but in most cases are a special use in the downtown district. Uh then your multif family residential units, you have a requirement to make 25% of those diverse housing. and diverse housing in in accordance with this ordinance is uh

defined as uh affordable to low to median income uh low low to medium uh income individuals which is 80% AMI area median income uh it's designed for seniors 55 plus or it's designed to be owner occupied so that's uh according to this ordinance that's the definition of diverse housing uh so that was uh implemented in 2016 um and we've seen uh some some applications uh use that specifically the Landmark and Newman Lofts uh and the Abbott and there was a PK uh proposal for affordable housing uh just next next door to that across uh Abbott, excuse me, Albert uh but that hasn't come to fruition yet. So, and I should mention I I sort of mentioned two projects in each of those. There is currently a transfer mechanism where if for some reason a building the building that's proposed can't or for some reason won't meet that requirement, they could transfer credits from a different project within the diverse housing area on a onetoone basis. And credits being units. So if you uh are going to meet that ex excuse me exceed that diverse housing requirement for another project those excess units can then be transferred as credits one per unit to the other uh project. So the example that I use is you have a 100 unit building two 100 unitit buildings proposed in downtown East Lancing. The the 100 built unit building that's the original proposal needs to have 25 of those units meet this diverse housing requirement. At the same time, the other 100 unit building is being built and they're going going to provide 50 uh units that that are diverse housing. So, they have 25 units that are in excess of the 25% requirement. They can then transfer those over to the other the original uh property which would then meet its requirement that way because we're still getting the same number of units essentially 25% of both

properties. They're just happen to be all in one in one building. So, that's the current requirement. uh what you sent to the city council last year was let's consider a fee and loo program and that was uh requested by a developer and let's also consider opening up that area of from where we can transfer credits um the fee and loo uh so so since that time essentially the the council I'm sorry you sent you sent that recommendation as many as well as others but that's what the council came up with is yes do a fee and ll and yes look at transferring credits from other areas so the ordinance that we introduc the council introduced and referred to you proposed a uh a fee in lie of $170 per square foot. And that was sort of the the first draft recommendation or first draft uh number that came out of our equation that we created and our our consultant uh mayor coster created essentially based on or similar to Ann Arbor's ordinance uh which is is similar in Ann Arbor in in certain circumstances essentially there's a fee and new that's allowed to to meet affordable housing requirements and essentially you look at affordability gap what is what is your average cost of housing versus what your uh area median income of of this level what level whatever level whatever level whatever level that 50%. And I'm going to share my screen at some point but it's showing up blurry right now so until it clears up I can't really show it. Um essentially that the proposal said if we have 50 someone who has 50% area median income uh low income and they want to purchase a house a typical home sales price in East Lancing what's that gap between what they can afford and what they can actually and what the housing cost is and that gap is some dollars in this

case I think it was in the range of $200,000 to still can't read it sorry my thing is blurry but you guys have in your packet those numbers. Um, try refreshing. So, that's how we came up with the initial $170 per square foot, which I think took a lot of people by surprise because this ends up uh, yes, when we looked at 50%. Now, it's now it's clear. Let me share this on the screen real quick. Okay. So, I'm showing the one page of the staff report. I want to say the third page of the staff report. Um, that's showing this little table. Uh, and that was showing at the left hand side you can see three projects that are currently constructed. And then we wanted to see under this scheme of $170 per square foot as a flue, what would those projects have had to pay uh to meet their to meet their requirement instead of providing those units on site. The Abbott would have had to pay almost $6 million, Landmark a little over $7 million, the hub a little over $8 million. So we would have seen about $21 million from those projects, those three projects put into some sort of fund. And that will also be a question that you can recommend to council or council is going to need to determine what are we going to do with this money. Uh $170 was was like I me mentioned was met with some surprise, some shock uh from developers uh people who work with developers saying that we think this is too high. Uh we looked at $87 per square foot which is what the affordability gap sort of works out to for a person of at 80% area median income which is considered medium low. uh income. So that's that's sort of the 80% AMI is the level that we look at right now for diverse housing to be considered affordable, which is why it makes a lot of sense for this recommendation. Again,

this is a initial recommendation takes it deserves more time for discussion and I'm also talking far too long that I think I need to, but I really want to make sure we we have at least the basics out here. So if we have $87 per square foot, which is 808% AMI, uh consider these sort of affordable the the person we're trying to make housing affordable to, we'd still see about $3 million uh for the Abbott, which is about half of what we saw for the 5.8. We still see uh almost 4 million for the landmark, 3.75 million, and we see just over four million for the hub. So again, these fees are getting essentially cut in half from what was proposed at 50% AMI level considered a start. And we've heard from developers, we have some information in your packet about what's a a good fee in LU. uh our community economic development staff has been working day and night on research. I had an intern that was coming up with a lot of work last summer. Uh they've continued that work and uh our director of CED is here tonight, Heather Pope, if we have questions about uh the research they've been doing about the FEL program. But sort of this is where we're at right now. Um and we included uh some just under uh under that table. I I talked a little bit about, hey, you could potentially propose a fee, a fee in L that could be reduced by providing certain amenities. Uh do you want to see lead certification? Do you want to see mass timber? Do you want to provide car sharers on site or uh provide with transit passes or have a green roof or whatever it might be? Uh you could certainly recommend uh that that could be introduced into the mix where you could reduce your fee by doing certain things like that. I mentioned that the approach is somewhat similar to Ann Arbor's uh but our staff, the CED staff especially had looked at all these different communities uh particularly including u big 10 college towns and and similar college towns to East Lancing but also looked at places like

Minneapolis, Seattle and others. So that detailed uh report from their excuse me research is in your uh staff packet. I'm going to scroll all the way down so I can show you. Uh there is a an an item in the attachments that says examples of fee and lube calculations for illustrative purposes only. That's right under the fee and lube report from mater. Uh so that is available so you can check out that that research and take a deep dive uh when we have more time. So before I move on uh to the other item which is essentially transfer uh are there any questions about the fee and loo as as I'm showing it as the initial proposal. Again, this is intended to be changed if you feel that it should be changed. And also again, Heather Pope is here if you have any questions for her uh CEO director about the calculations.

Any questions for me at this point? I'll chime in first. I you know, I that's the component of this that I'm struggling with the most, trying to find what's appropriate. Um I think the context is important. You know, my preference would be before I really chime in with my what my thoughts are about what that should be to just to open the public hearing and and and hear what um the rest of the public has to say about that, including you know, potentially some developers if they're in the audience about what impact they see. Um but, you know, I kind of want to address this component by component because there's a lot of different aspects to this. So, appreciate you doing it in that manner. Any other comments or questions on this bit? So,

okay. So, Mr. Chair, I'm sorry. Do you say you want me to wait on discussing until we take I said I'm not going to throw out any numbers or tell you what my opinion is until I hear uh from others in the room. Um, you know, I guess that the number one question I have is why is it calculated on a square footage basis and not a per unit basis? Would that be a more appropriate way to do it? um how did we land on not only the numbers that were landed on but the mechanism that was landed on and I can I can give some some color to that but do you have anything you want to mention about that? Okay.

Um but I'll just say that personally I I thought that a per square foot was a good way to do it. Uh just because unit sizes can can range so widely and you could have a giant studio in a tiny fourbedroom. I mean, you have maybe not that, but uh you have minimum requirements based on the housing code, but beyond that, there's a lot of uh flexibility as far as unit size. And I felt like by per square foot, it's the lowest common denominator. So, that'll be the easiest way to sort of shake it down to exactly what we're talking about. And then we could also cut out things like uh common area or utility space if we if we felt like that would be important and just stick to the residential floor area or not. But that was why I preferred per square foot. I don't know if you have anything to add.

I guess not.

So, um to your question about why we use the approach, you know, similar basically took Anna Arbor's. Um we had the same questions. We're like, why are they not comparing rental, you know, units and things like that? Um, after we met with them, it it really made sense. And it's to Landon's point about how do you calculate that if it's just that apartment, how many square feet and how do you that when you have everything from a studio to um a fourbedroom apartment and getting that average. So then you take a look at what else is included, what's excluded, are mechanical rooms excluded, is roofs, you know, janitorial closets, all those those types of things. So it makes it very complicated to get to through a methodology using that approach. So that's why we went back to Ann Arbor's approach had several conversations with them about you know how would this work and that's why we went through the this process and had them look at 50 you know 50% AMI and then the 60 and then the 80 taking the information from our sales from our city assessor and working with them. Um then we did look at all these other communities and we've taken a deep dive and we've had conversations. I've got a meeting next week with um Columbus, Ohio. Uh their development director there. I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple others. We want to talk to them a little bit how they do their approaches. Um and you know, we tried to really simplify this. There was a lot of information behind the spreadsheet. Um but I'll give you some highlights of it. Um, again, Columbus, Ohio, their fee per unit, um, is just over $40,000. Um, we're going to speak with them of how they get to that number. And so, we couldn't really get that off the information they had available on their website. So, that's one of the things that we're going to look at. So, is it a square footage? Is it based on sales? Those types of things. Um, State

College, their fee is set annually um, based on actual construction cost of a unit. And so again, you know, looking at what's been constructed in the past year if or you know 12 months if there has been something that's the other, you know, we might not have a development for a couple years. So what are you looking at and how is that calculated? So again, doing a little bit deeper dive, but they actually do it on construction cost. um Iowa City um there's it they take in consideration the value of 100% of a market rate development um of that development with 10% affordable units and then again there's a calculation they use for the value between the two scenarios based basis on the fee. So they're looking at affordable and market rate and what that gap is. So, similar approach um without the sales. Um and then, um Bloomington, Indiana, their fee is $20,000. Um I talked to their development director and they said they realized that's too low and it's going to be increased to 50,000. So, again, I'm going to have some additional conversations of was just that a number you pulled out of the air um or how did you get to that amount and how are you justifying increasing it to that $50,000? And then there's Evston, Illinois. Um, substantially higher from what we can pull. Um, and again, this is someone I'm waiting to hear back from. Um, they, you know, a one-bedroom, um, you pay $481,000. I mean, and I know it's very expensive to live in Evston, um,

Metro Chicago.

Yes. And so, you know, you look at the spreadsheet and look at some of these numbers of what these developers are paying. Um, but theirs is a mandatory also. So, it's it spells right out. Um, but if you look at the numbers we came in with at that 80% calculation using the Ann Arbor and you look at Columbus, you look at State College, you look at Iowa City, um, and even even Bloomington, they're all right in the same range, you know. um of what that would look like um here in East Lancing for those projects at 80%. So that does give you some you know I think we're in the right area. It's just how we want to approach it, what methodology we want to use and as um Landon spoke about what incentives to offer some offset to those. So

right, so they're in the range of the $170 per square foot. It's really the range of what the total amount they would pay. Okay.

So, um for example, 233 Abbott um using the Ann Arbor approach at 80% it's 2.9. If we use the op um Columbus, Ohio, 233 Abbott is 2.3 million. So, we're not off a lot. Um same with the landmark, it was 3.7 using Ann Arbor, it's 3.2 um you know, using that same. And then the same for the hub is 4.1 and using the Columbus model is 4.1 you know. So they're every it's just based on their calculating but we feel like we're in the right range of seeing what these other communities are charging whether they're doing by per per square foot or cost we're in the same you know same feet in lie of what we could expect from this.

That's helpful. Thank you. Any any questions or comments on that? Okay. I'm sure I'll have more later. Commissioner, we can wait till after the public comment. I guess that's fine. Yeah. Um I I I was just thinking like the idea of having like a annual review of what our rates are seems really appealing because, you know, everything's changing. So it it doesn't make sense to lock us into, you know, a finite rate when literally everything else about the process changes aside from obviously ordinances and stuff. But yeah,

if I could just add one thing, um you'll notice also on the spreadsheet I have little notes and most um most all of them do an annual adjustment based on the CPI or some other calculation. So yes. So that's why Yeah, I was like this this seems really well thought out. Thank you. Mhm. Okay. Thank you. I'm sure there'll be more questions as we as we move along, but uh I think we're we're good for now. Lane, do you want to cover the other components? You'd like me to go ahead move ahead, please? Yeah.

Uh so the other um proposal, I guess initial proposal from this this ordinance is to change that transfer uh mechanism slightly. Um, so I mentioned that right now you can transfer on a sort of one to one basis units as on per credits from a building exceeding the diverse housing requirement to a building that's not meeting the diverse housing requirement as long as both of those buildings are within that diverse housing area which is again the DDA area west of Collingwood Road. Uh so there was some interest in uh sort of allowing transfers to be sent uh to another from outside of downtown to a project that needs them. Uh within downtown. Um the question is should there be should it be a onetoone basis? Where could those transfers be made from? Um my initial uh re or proposal had been 2:1 uh sort of as a disincentive so that if you had if you were building something outside of downtown uh and wanted to transfer your excess credits. So again this the intent would be that that the other project would meet the diverse housing requirement to be eligible to transfer these credits and then they could transfer the excess credits. So again, similar thing where that you would have as you'd have downtown only those excess credits or excess units would be transferable. So to the earlier speaker's point, uh Dr. Mazowski, perhaps that 2:1 uh ratio might be difficult to meet if you're trying to exceed those units uh or exceed that requirement already and you're outside of downtown. And we heard that from several developers saying, "Whoa, this is going to kill the project. you know, if we're if we have to build another building, but now we have to put suit so many more units in, it's not going to work. Uh, I understand. So, we wanted to drop that ratio. Um, it's it's hard to come up with that number, honestly. Uh, we're looking at sort of different

mechanisms, but it I I think that it's I I see it being appropriate to have some some change, some difference. Uh, because we still want to encourage the diverse housing to be downtown. Uh and the way to do that is either you could lower the number and make it a 0.9 to one or something if you are in downtown and one to one outside or keep it one to one inside and have slightly increased in in the staff report. I'm proposing one point or 1.2 to one. So there's still a 20% sort of you're not quite getting as much. uh but also the the idea behind having them out outside of downtown. Downtown has essentially the most expensive land prices in the city. So your construction costs are going to be higher in downtown than almost anywhere else. Uh so it's going to be more difficult to construct affordable units downtown versus outside of downtown. Now owner occupied or senior is going to be a different story. Um but the idea between that behind that ratio is to essentially slightly disincentivize the transfers but still allow them to happen outside of downtown just make it still as valuable to transfer downtown. So that's sort of the one the one uh item about that. The other question is where should we allow these transfers from? Uh our initial recommendation is the B2 and EV zone districts. Uh B2 is sort of our more common uh business district outside of downtown. Uh where we have sort of business centers that tends to be B2 zoning. Uh what comes to mind immediately is the north side of Grand River Avenue between Hagadorn and uh probably um Orchard or Kenzie um maybe Bogue. Uh and then uh Harrison and Michigan that that district is B2. Grand River and Delta just on the west end of downtown is B2. Also, uh for the north uh Abbott and Sagenol, you have an office park in the northeast corner there. Um you recently approved a

council improved sheets. So there's a gas station there. That's a B2 zone district. Uh further north at Lake Lancing and and Abbott or Lake Lancing is Chandler is also B2. Um generally these these sort of smaller business districts around town. Uh those are B2 zones. Oh, and I should mention also like Merit Road, Costco off on the northeast side. That's B2. Uh EV zone district is the East Village zone district. That's the area on the south side of Grand River. Uh currently between Hagadorn and Bogue, that's all the EV zone district. Just mentioned that the the I mentioned that because we're also doing East Village. East EV stands for East Village. We're also doing an East Village plan update. It doesn't quite have the same boundaries, but the EV zone district is the south side of Grand River between Hagedorn and Vogue. uh down to the red seedar. So uh I it was it was my call to have the initial recommendation of B2 and EV. I felt like those are sort of reasonable places to start. We've also received feedback from uh developers specifically saying, "Hey, what about RM32 and what about RM54?" And those are RM32 is a city center multif family zone district. You tend to have those closer to city center. Uh along Abbott going north, uh we have some RM32. Uh, also MAC, uh, running north from Albert all the way up to Birchham is RM32. We have some, I would say, a decent amount of RM32, uh, around downtown. So, that could make a lot of sense to also include that. Same thing with RM54. That's a university oriented highdensity or higher higher density multif family residential district. We have relatively few of those properties. They all tend to be clustered closer to the university. I'm thinking of Collegeville like um east side of Harrison between Michigan and Grand River that tends to have some RM54 zoning. There are a couple uh properties elsewhere in the city. I think about the northwest corner of Abton and Sagenoth there there is an apartment complex near

there that has RM54 zoning. Otherwise, it's it's relatively rare. So, I think that RM54 certainly probably wouldn't make too much difference if you were to include that as well, just because there's relatively few properties that have that zoning. RM32 would be more impactful. Uh, if you're interested in that, I would suggest taking a a closer look at where all the RM32 properties are in the city. Uh, and certainly if you're interested in that, I can provide next time like a map of, hey, here where all these zone districts are or only this district, we should help you identify where those places are. So, I guess um I'm still interested. I think it it makes a lot of sense still to look at at business districts. I I personally like the idea of incentivizing uh construction of diverse housing in business districts just because uh at the end of 2024, we made a change um ordinance 1536. It talks about mass timber that allows upper story residential uses in business districts essentially by right. Now, depending on what's in the ground floor, I mean that you could still require a site plan and such. And if you're doing new construction, that will generally require a site plan. And I should clarify, we have a question about that right now, and I'll be stating this to the council, but uh all new construction essentially requires site plan review right now. And that's the case. Uh so, so there were questions about uh construction of a building downtown, an eight-story building is you can construct that up. That's your maximum essentially without additional approval. Uh because we allow this upper story residential by right now or with with a building permit. The question is does that even require your your approval. Uh but it does because the principal use still requires on the ground floor still requires site plan review. So I wanted to clarify that. All of this said is that we have significant opportunity as the as the office market continues to evolve where

it may end up with upper story uh vacant space if if office if the office market has trouble that could be fairly easily converted into residential which could be used uh to help support these diverse housing requirements. I tend to like business district residential because you tend to have an easier parking situation where the residential parking spaces are used at night and the business parking spaces are used during the day. So, it tends to be easier to share parking between those land uses, which is part of why we made that change in 2024. So, those are the big two questions for the transfer. Should we should we allow transfer outside of downtown? If so, where? And then if so, should we have a different ratio than one to one? And if so, what should that be? Can I answer any questions about this part of this ordinance?

Questions? I also have comments, but I'm going to chime in with those later. But is it's something I strongly believe we should consider. So, I'm glad we're considering it. Um, but I would love to hear what the public thinks about what the solution is to what that ratio should be and and what uh what areas of the city should qualify. Right.

And just one more comment before you open the public hearing is just I want to talk about the the timing the process for an ordinance amendment like this. Uh tonight this is the first step the planning commission public hearing. You make a recommendation to the council and I know all the commissioners notice. I just want to make sure that uh we're aware for the record. Um we make a recommendation to the council. Uh I think for this one you'll probably make some quite specific recommendations about how you want to see this ordinance uh changed or not. Then it will go back to the council. they will schedule their own public hearing. They'll hold their own public hearing. They typically don't make a decision the same night. Uh but they could, but then they would have another meeting where they would decide whether or not to adopt or not adopt this ordinance and and whatever amendments are proposed. So realistically, I I don't really expect an a decision on this to happen until this summer, probably June or July. Uh so I just wanted to give an idea of what we expect for the timeline. That's all. Thank you.

Appreciate that. Uh, any other comments on this questions? All right, this point we will open the public hearing on this item. Would any members of the public wish to come forward and address the planning commission? Somebody has to, I think, at this point because I've teeded it up. So,

nobody It's been a night, guys. All right. Well, I'm left to my own devices then on my comments. Uh I'm going to start with the you know I again just first off just to level set I I I'm glad we're Oh, let's close the public hearing first before we uh No one's on the queue. Are they? No one on the queue. Okay, we'll close the public hearing. Mr. Chair, I'm so sorry. I I I meant to mention one more thing. Uh we did receive a comment at council um from the council members. Uh, Council Member Whan said he's very interested in exploring even whether the requirement at 25% is still the right requirement.

So, kind of wanted to open that discussion with the planning commission as well. Should we be considering the 25%. And also, we heard recently um, hey, is this really the right name? I don't know if that's the right or not. They just said, "Hey, diverse housing has some some connotations that it seems like you could change the name to be more clarifi clear about what actually do we mean by diversity." So, that was just a comment. And I just wanted to pass both those along to you uh for the record because I forgot to include those in my staff report. Those have been recent comments. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. Um comments? Yeah. Um I Commissioner Pots.

Yeah. I overall I think this is a really good thing for us to be looking at. Um I think like obviously we've been at a bit of stand at a standstill in you know housing development in the downtown area for a variety of reasons. some of them completely outside of our control. Um my my biggest thing is you know what whatever we select for our AMI percentage, whatever we select for our you know credit transfer ratio and I would say even what districts maybe should be included in that transfer range like we should have some sort of mechanism in place to review that on an annual basis for a set amount of time because you know we we may not get it 100% right the first time that's okay But if we don't cover our, you know, give us an opportunity to review and revise, it'll hurt way more down the road to make changes to it. Um, or at the very least be just massively inconvenient whether it's actually, you know, impactful or not. Um, otherwise like I I think this all seems really approachable. Um, you know, we are we are listening to feedback from a number of different groups on this. You know, sounds like obviously the developers are the ones that are going to be kind of starting the process for, you know, are are they building a new building? Um, so it's makes sense that we're listening to them as well. Yeah. I I just I'm not I'm kind of in the same boat as as chair that I'm not quite sure what that right number looks like. But, you know, I I do appreciate all the work that staff has done, you know, laying out the examples and laying out like what are the hypothetical situations because that's that's really helpful cuz like, you know, even if we, you know, with with the staff's

recommendation of $87 per square foot, that's still, you know, a substantial amount of money coming into a fee of Lou. Um, that was my other thing was I know we need to decide, well, not necessarily us, but city council or I'm not sure if that's staff or city council needs to decide where is this fee and loo money going to and what are the mechanisms for using it because

you know it yeah you know the the really simple part of my brain's like oh just general fund but I don't know what that impacts you know I'm you know not versed in that whatsoever. So I I feel like maybe that's I don't know if that needs to be in place for the adoption of the ordinance, but it needs to follow very close on the heels of if not. So yeah, thank you. This is this is a lot of really good information. You guys down here, Commissioner Denal.

Thanks. Um, I think I really what Commissioner Putts um shared really resonated with me too. You know, I one of the comments that was made was um that we wanted to try to be in alignment with several other cities um who have similar policies. Um, and I think when that was said, my first reaction was, but are those policies as they're being enacted in other cities actually successful? Right? Are we actually seeing demonstrable development in the direction that those cities want to see? Um, I right, it's one thing to align with with multiple cities, but it's another thing to align with measured success. Um and so I think um that was just one of the the sort of questions that I had um in that in that line of thinking.

You know, I I think we have to be able to self-reflect on how successful the the current ordinances and whether we want to change it. And you know, I guess it's it's somewhat subjective. if your goal is to not have development the last 11 years. I think it's it's been pretty successful by that metric, right? So, I'm just just being blunt. So, I I think I I like the idea that we're creating a lot of options, but we need to be cognizant of what the policy outcome is. Um I've never really been convinced that um the diversified housing has to go in the the core of downtown. So, I'm really keen on expanding the area that is eligible. I think in particular we should focus on areas that are along transit corridors that potentially haven't developed for years and years. I keep going back to um uh Grand River um west of Hagadorn between Spartan right there and kind of that that block like

there's a lot of opportunities I think that don't need to be in the court of downtown. I mean, is that where, you know, young professionals, um, potentially families really want to live is in the core of a college downtown, or is there other areas just outside of downtown that give, um, access to good amenities, maybe closer to Hannah Center? Um, you know, maybe closer to the high school potentially. Um, I think this is also incremental. I think we're kind of biting off a lot of different options, which I just said I like, but also like, you know, I don't know what the solution exactly is to all these. I was hoping for a little bit more feedback tonight to help inform my decision. At a minimum, I think 25 needs to drop down to to 10. Um, you know, and I think a decade from now, if it's overutilized at 10%, you could bump it up closer to 25 to achieve whatever your policy goals are at that time. uh on the fee in Lou um you know I don't want to have it set the same as Evston right so I think that's I I I I think maybe we look at and it sounds like we're doing a lot of really good research in that space to see um what other communities have done I think maybe on the lower end of what that average is is a good landing spot something that's still attainable but yet gets us some potential good investments for uh affordable housing um expansion area. I liked how you you tied that to zoning. I think that's a a creative way to do it. Um you know, agnostic to zoning. I tried to think about what areas would be a good location. And you know, Merit by Costco. I hadn't thought of that. That's a potential good one. But I think again transit corridors, Hagadorn, um Burchham, obviously Grand River, Michigan Avenue, Sagenov potentially, maybe some of Lake Lancing up Abbott. Um, those are all good kind of spots we

could put some of this. So, I'd like to see those included and I'll I'll take a longer look at specifically what that zoning impacts. You said B2 and RM32, right? Primarily, uh, my initial recommendation was B2 and RM or excuse me, B2 and EV. Um, there have been questions or interests in RM32 and RM54.

Yeah. And transfer of credits, I don't know, one to one sounds good. I don't know how much we want to complicate that. Um, you know, we didn't even talk about like I know um Tim mentioned um like pilots and tax that I don't I don't think that falls into our purview at all. So, I don't really want to delve into that. Um it's just kind of my high level thoughts as we begin this conversation on a more fleshed out thing. So, uh, I guess my number one question is what guidance do you need from us to give you more direction on how to steer this to adding these to to the ordinance?

Yeah, I think that um I mean it'll be good to have more discussion at the next meeting. Uh, unless you're prepared to move on tonight, but I don't I'm not getting that sense. Um I think specific if if there are if there is specific interest or things that you would like us to explore between now and the next meeting. I mean I think that we can look at uh you're talking about is it worth dropping the requirement for example. I think if we maybe we can do a similar table that we did for the 25% requirement at different levels for a 10% requirement and we can provide that next time. I think if there are specific areas I mentioned um I can provide zoning maps of just maps of those each individual zone district so you can see uh where those are if if the zoning sort of approach makes sense I can certainly provide those maps next time um or if there are other things other criteria I guess that you want to explore for where those transfer areas could be if you want to have have hypotheticals I mean scenarios that you wanted us to explore and bring back that that that kind of feedback feedback would be very very helpful. Uh if you're if you're considering that you'd like council to consider some change, you have that in mind right now, you could say that and then we can explore that in between now and the next meeting, which again will likely be April 8th, uh which is two weeks from now. Sir,

um Commissioner Pots, quick followup question. So if we change diverse housing requirement like hypothetically down to 10%. Would that impact the 80% AMI fee in lie of as well if we did both? I think that the So you're saying would you change if you change the requirement the base requirement from 25% to 10% how would the 80% or 50% etc ami be affected? Yeah, I would say that if you um if you drop the requirement to 10%, you're going to have a lower total number lower lower total fee that's going to come if you keep it the same AMI.

So, I I think we could explore that and say what would result from an 80% AMI with 10% requirement. Yeah, that might that's kind of what I was there. If we do that, can we expand the table we have to conclude that as a variable? Because you know it it's nice to see like if we have 80% AMI, here's how much we have, but if we also decide in the future to change the diverse housing requirement, suddenly that number is substantially less and that could have an impact on people's decision- making as well. Sure. Yeah, we can be good. Thank you. Sure. Um,

do you have any historical information about why the how we got to the number 25% diverse housing? I mean, it'd be nice, I think, to hear just how we came up with that number. Um, I mean, we're sort of throwing out 10% like I don't know like 15%, 20%, 22, like I don't know. I don't have enough information to sort of make a recommendation on that, but if there's if there's some if you had some way to know the thinking of council at the time for that number and then if we could go by 5% in I I I don't know. I just don't know what to recommend for that.

Yeah, we can do a review of minutes and video. I'm not sure what's available, but we haven't done that yet as far as understanding I guess the rationale at the start. So do that. Want to go back to something that Commissioner Putts raised. So, sort of the authority to appropriate the funds generated by the the fee in lie of I don't know if we've done research on how other communities have handled that and um if that would need to be specified uh in the ordinance or just you know at whose discretion typically is is that handled by is it a new commission that's created? I see some nodding in the

Okay, please. So yes, we've done some research on that also and um looking at Ann Arbor and having conversations with them. They have a separate commission and there's an application process, there's intake process, there's certain things that um the funds can go towards, but it's all geared towards affordable housing, you know, and are just kind of brainstorming what we could use these funds for. or affordable housing can mean everything from providing supportive housing services to those who are at risk of being evicted, um providing funds to support the development, um partnering, you know, the Ingram County um um housing trust fund has a substantial amount of money. So maybe we could partner with them on projects, you know, um because housing affordable housing is just not in East Lancing. It's county, you know, Ingram County wide. So looking broadly at what those funds could be used with all on the focus of providing sustainable housing for individuals that are affordable. So in saying that yes there would be a review process a criteria would have to be established but then there would be a review process where applications would come in um and then a recommendation would be made by city council because these funds would be come in under the city's um budget.

So be approved by city council. Correct. be like an application application process. That's what our thought is, just looking at what other communities are doing. So, yes. So, there'd be a list of eligible items that the money could be spent on and then council would approve it. Um, so I guess in theory, the ordinance would have to be revised every time there's a new kind of creative project that's thought of to spend the money on. Is there a catch-all that's put in? Generally, I'm getting too into the weeds, I think, but

we can talk to the city attorney about that, what that would look like. Um we have we're starting to get examples of what other communities are doing. So we wanted to get this information for a starting point for you and then we're still working on the research of what other communities how do they implement it and going back to your question earlier about is it successful that's information we can get from other communities also. Fantastic. Thank you.

House buyback program. I think that's a wonderful idea to explore uh in more detail. Any other questions andor direction for city staff? Uh, you know, my recommendation is to take an even closer look at this and um come up with some more definitive policy recommendations for the for the next meeting if possible and um you know in the interim reach out to city staff if you have any questions. Mr. Bartley, need anything else from us? I don't think so. Okay, great. So, we will see this at the next planning commission meeting. Should be April 8th.

April 8th. Thank you. Uh, that takes us on to item 6.2, 2 uh which is a public hearing by the planning commission to receive comments on ordinance 1567. An amendment to division 8 building height overlay district of the East Lancing zoning ordinance to allow council to approve a building height exceeding 160 ft when doing so is necessitated solely by the use of specific construction materials including but not limited to mass timber. uh does not result in additional floors or units and is subject to the review and approval of city council under the specific use procedures of section 50-94. Mr. Bartley,

uh thank you. That that basically explains it. The the ordinance this was based on um a recent development request that was withdrawn has come back. Uh this is the Howard uh basically has has has come to us with um with plans that have since been revised and they'll be coming back to you we expect on the 8th actually they'll be coming back to you also on the May on May 13th. But uh this that is an example of a development proposal that would a a a uh a planned version that they had shown us. They wanted to do mass timber under under an early uh early concept for this building that is no longer proposed. Uh that would have exceeded the maximum height of 160 ft because of the use of mass timber. So right now in the downtown district, we allow up to eight we have a minimum height requirement of four stories for new buildings, a maximum allowance of eight stories, but the planning commission and council can approve uh additional height under certain circumstances. So essentially in all of downtown it could go up to 140 ft. Uh if council and planning commission uh approved that uh within specific area of downtown essentially more core than that I want to say Abbott to Bailey between Albert and Grand River there is this extra height area where it could go from 140 to 160 square or 160 ft feet tall. Again, if if planning commission council approved that in this case with the Howard's early concept, uh had they they wanted to use mass timber, which would have required at the height they're proposing, it would have increased the height of the building up to 167 square or 167 ft. Uh they're not allowed to request that by our current code. They went to the zoning board of appeals for a variance, but they they couldn't meet the standards to to be granted the variance, so they didn't receive that. So really what we're doing here is is as I mentioned the Howard has has then gone back to the drawing board they'll be bringing new concepts back to

you and you'll see those soon. Uh so this wouldn't really affect that but this is the basis for why we brought this. We wanted to allow for flexibility if needed in the future. We have a similar request where the the developer says look I can go up to your 160 feet but because I want to use this material and it could be mass simmer it could be something else that due to its nature has a higher essentially floor to floor height then it necessitates a greater height but this isn't going to result in additional stories or additional units. It just happens to be bigger like taller stories. In that case, we wanted to give the planning commission, city council the flexibility to allow that building if you if you want to see it happen. Right now, you don't have that flexibility and this would provide that flexibility. Uh, one other comment that just has come up this week uh was well, we're considering how council and planning commission look at excess height requests. Uh, currently there's a requirement that council uh has to have a supermajority vote. to twothirds of council uh with a five person council that means four or five members need to vote affirmatively to allow excess height. So uh there's some been discussion of whether or not supermajority requirement is still necessary or if it should be changed. So I suggest sort of con considering that as well in your in your thoughts on this ordinance uh whether that should also be um I guess proposed to council as a recommendation but that's but that's not including the ordinance right now. um that just came up recently, but I wanted to mention that. Any questions about what's proposed in language right now?

Questions? I think I'll wait till after public comment if you mind. Okay. All right. Let's open the public hearing on this, you guys. All right. Uh we'll No one's on the queue, right? There's no one in the queue. Okay. At this point, we'll close the public hearing. Commissioner Puts.

Uh, yeah. So, two questions come to mind, and I'm sure you guys have done your due diligence on this. I'm not questioning that, but I just wanted to put it in record. So, by allowing a taller building, do we have number one fire trucks that are tall enough to reach the extended height? Mhm. And do we have fire trucks that can get water up to the extended height? Uh, essentially no. And they don't care. Uh, we we've asked them about that and said essentially they said that no, ladders can't necessarily reach that height, but it's it's not generally a problem because of the way the buildings are constructed. Okay.

Um, they don't have concerns necessarily about about that that they can still address the fire in other ways. I I guess that's more my question is like is is the fire department feeling like they can appropriately respond to you know a problem on a top floor of one of these buildings if necessary. Yes. Which I mean maybe not a question directly for you but I guess I guess I'm not sure if I can answer that the exactly the way I should except that the fire chief said essentially we're not we're not concerned about this. Okay. for Yeah. Yeah. I'm

I I think overall for me like I'm not necessarily opposed to this. Um it doesn't really um I I don't claim to be like a structural engineer enough to know that, you know, to necessarily understand why mass timber necessitates a taller floor height, therefore necessitating an overall taller height to the building. Um, maybe that's just the dimensions in which the timber is manufactured. Although, you know, my my brain also goes to you have saws, don't you? So, you could adjust the floor height pretty easily. But again, I I do not claim to understand all the moving pieces in an architectural design. Um, it it just it's a little interesting to me that we're making this or looking to make this exception based on the materials used, not necessarily on like what's the function of the building. Um, and this may be a little off base. It's just kind of what's, you know, since I've been reading this the last couple of days, um, had some time to percolate on it. I'm not quite sure what it necessarily I want it to look different, but it it is interesting to me that making as an ordinance based off of materials used in a building. I'm not sure what the precedents for that or if there's like a lot of examples of that in East Lancing or even in other communities that do that. Um, I'd be interested in seeing if there if there's other example ordinances and maybe you guys have already done that and that's how we got like the sample.

Um, it it' just be interesting for me because like this is a little new ground for me. I think Leon is is it and then I'll kick it over. I just want to get this thought out while I'm thinking it. Is it is it fair to say that this is less designed to benefit them for for building and it's more designed to not punish them for building the same type of material that would be built with standard materials if they're going to be building it with mass timber. So a hypothetical scenario and and again I like that this doesn't say mass timber. It just says materials. So it could be could be other things too. So they the onus is on them to essentially pitch to the city council to come in and say, "Hey, okay,

we can only build 160 ft if we build this building the the typical, the normal way, whatever you want to call it." Um, however, if we build it with this new innovative building material that has environmental benefits, they have to pitch exactly what those benefits are. Um, we're not adding floors, we want to build the same amount of floors, same everything, but we can't do it with this material. Would you give us an exemption? And then it's not automatic. The council would still have to That makes sense. That makes sense. That That makes a lot more sense. Thank you for the rewarding on that. That helps. Is that Is that Am I off base with that? It's kind of No, I think that's exactly right. Just Just to allow for the flexibility if needed.

Okay. Okay. No, I think that I think that that puts a lot of my anxiety to ease. So, it's good. Thank you. Of course. I I think Commissioner Chapen was telling us about I mean I I don't remember all the details but it was something like for every you know 10 feet you have to add let's say 6 in or 8 in or something because of of the density of the wood that's needed to Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I mean there there is there is logical reason. I I had I had no doubt there was a logical reason. It was just you know my brain trying to assemble it.

Right. My my question for Landon is what other it says here other materials or certain materials I mean is there anything other than mass timber that that you that we can are is there considering I don't I don't know I can't think of anything else no we just um mass timber is was proposed which is what sort of originated the ordinance I guess or the proposed amendment uh we just wanted to include if there are other materials I mean there's construction construction innovation happening all the time. Maybe there's a new material that comes up that goes, "Oh, that's amazing." But it happens to have a larger floor to floor height. So, we just wanted to allow for that hypothetical.

But if someone wanted to construct a building that said and they their their design was European style floor, so it was a I don't know 20 foot story instead of a 10-ft story. And they wanted to build like that wouldn't be acceptable, right? It has to be something a unique material, not a unique design. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Correct. Mr. Overby, it it seems to me like this is an exception authority that we ought to give to the city council.

We're encouraging different types of construction. There's there's university buildings that use mass timber. Um, we've had we've had people come into the to the planning commission and talk to us about mass timber, what it is, how it works. Um, and and I too had the the question of of why is it higher? And I think I think Vice Chair Ed Wagner gave us that that information. And this just simply says the city council can can make this exception and it's then up to the applicant to prove what they want to do, to explain what they want to do. And and and I it almost feels technical to me

that this is something that that that I think we we we should encourage. Well said. Um can I just say one last thing? I was on the ZBA uh board where they we had this discussion and I think we're all super frustrated because it seemed like the project was approved and everyone wanted it but we couldn't grant um you know the appeal because of a technicality. So um I I agree. I think this should be something that council should be able to do. Yeah.

I do have one other quick question. Landon, do you know if the the developers of the Howard they made this as an initial proposal to use mass timber? They're revising it. Do you know if they will want to move back to their original proposal? I believe there's an interest in that. Um I I haven't done the the detailed review to understand that for sure, but I believe yes, I think that is our interest to bring back mass. Yes. Okay. So, I'm hearing from our senior planner who's in the audience that uh what's proposed now as a 12tory mass timber building,

but you'll be seeing that at your at a future meeting. Solid foreshadowing. Thank you, Lena. Okay. Um no other comments on this item, right? Okay. I think we'll see this at the the next planning commission meeting on April 8th. On April 8th, April 8th, which keeps reminding us of Okay, that takes us on to the last public hearing for tonight, uh, which is more of a formality, but item 6.3,

a public hearing to receive comments on a request from 246, uh, E equities, is that yeah, Equities LLC for a site plan approval located at 601 Abbott Road. The applicant request is to convert the existing office building to an 8-unit apartment building. Uh, Mr. Bartley. Yeah. Uh so just very briefly the this is 601 Abbott which is at the corner of uh Forest and Right.

I'm sorry was it Forest? Yes. And uh Abbott you you recently saw a similar request but that was to reconstruct the building for I want to say 30 30-ish uh condo units. That request has been abandoned. The a new applicant is requesting to convert the building into apartments. Uh however they their plan that they showed for tonight's uh public hearing had eight units. They intended to have nine units instead. So, they've changed their plans and we'll be bringing that request for a public hearing at your next meeting on April 8th. But if there are because it was noticed for eight units, if there is concern or any comments from the community, we wanted to allow that that opportunity this public hearing. Great.

But this will be coming back with nine units at the next meeting. Okay. Thanks for that background. Um, any questions on that? Just I wanted to make sure I understood how many condos were they proposing originally that we approved. Um yeah, it was a different developer and I want I want to say it was 30 or 32. Um sorry 32 32 32 from our senior planner Alicia in the United. So they had originally proposed 32 condos uh but again withdrew that application or abandoned it um right for various reasons. Yeah. We could talk about it in greater detail when it's before us, but they're not tearing down the building now. That's the difference. They want to keep the building and retrofit it. Okay. I didn't understand that.

I just have a quick question. What's the status of the building right now? Is it occupied? Um uh my understanding is it's not and they've been doing some interior demolition. Yeah, I was just going to say I've seen some demolition going on, which which they can do uh at their own risk essentially, but we can't use it in the future. No. Okay. Okay. At this point, we'll open the public hearing for this item. Maybe everyone's here from the second. They are. Yeah. All right. It's the last public hearing. All right. Anyone in the queue? There's no one in the queue.

Okay. We'll close the public hearing for this item and we will see this in a different format. You said at the April 8th. Yes. Okay. It's going to be a busy agenda. At the April 8th planning commission meeting. Sure. Will be. Yes, it will. Okay. As we have no unfinished business, that takes us on to uh new business. Item 8.1, discussion of current future land use map categories and potential changes. Mr. Bartley.

Uh thank you. So this is really this doesn't have to be business tonight. The but it can be if you're interested. Uh essentially I'm going to share my screen real quick. Um just sharing just the categories in the future land use map. So our most future land recent future land use map was adopted in uh April of 2018 um with the comprehensive plan that was adopted that year. Uh and there are several categories 15 uh as you can see on the legend that's up on the on the uh screen. Uh anecdotally we've heard some confusion uh from casual users but also some non-casual users including staff saying hold on these these categories may not still be appropriate. Maybe they were appropriate in 2018, but are they still that are they still at today? Uh with the goal of updating our future land use map as an implementation step of a new comprehensive land comprehensive plan update. Um so without necessarily bringing up the future land use map itself because I think that that could uh affect the conversation but I kind of wanted to take a first look just at the categories. So separate from the future land use map because the future land use map I think will will distract you and get you thinking about individual specific parcels which we also will look at the future land use map later on this year but I want to start with the categories. So the reason this could be business is if you have some ideas right now and want to act on this and say we want to propose changes you can. Uh I would like to see that down the road but I I think it requires some discussion first. Um and right now we have five residential districts. We have four mixed use districts. We have three commercial use districts, a special study area, academic districts, parks, schools, open space, vacant uh and then rivers and lakes. But essentially everything above rightway and roads and railroads, the parcel lines, rivers, all those above

those uh are future land use map categories. So those first and I noticed that schools is misspelled misspelled which I think is ironic and terribly but we we will make sure to uh correct that in the new future land use map and and its categories. So so really just wanted to open the conversation see if there are any initial thoughts. We can do a much deeper dive in the future if you'd like. Um, essentially though, the biggest thing for me as staff is that these these categories don't necessarily have direct analog zone districts. So, it's very difficult. Uh, we've noticed this recently uh up in the northern tier, especially where we have um we're talking about re redoing some uh zoning from Dwit Township zones to East Lancing zones uh for properties that are in East Lancing but were transferred and have sort of this remnant Dit Township zoning. So, we want to change that. The future land use map currently shows C3, which is commercial three. We don't necessarily know what that really translates to. And it and when you look at how it transfers into the zoning ordinance, it could be B4 or it could be B5, which are very different zone districts. They're both kind of office, but B5 allows different uses than B4. So, the comprehensive plan categories right now don't necessarily translate to zone districts, which isn't necessarily a problem. It's It's always better though to have too many zone districts. Excuse me. It's always better to have too many categories and not enough zone districts than the other way around. Right now, we just have a lot of both. We have like 15 of these categories. We have about 30 zone districts. Uh in my opinion, we could reduce these. Um, but I wanted to start the discussion and get your initial thoughts

with the with the idea that in the future I would come back to you with new categories and the map and we say great now how do we apply these categories to the map? Initial thoughts for Mr. Bartley?

You're teeing it up. Vice chair. Well, I'm just I'm just interested in hearing your thoughts about um especially mixed use and commercial use. Like how many different categories do we need? I mean, could we have two of I don't know, one of each? I I don't know. Um what what do you think about those? It's it's difficult. And what I'm doing is scroll scrolling through the descriptions. There about 55 or 52 pages, I think, of

descriptions. And so if you go down to the mixeduse districts, you'll start to see that it's saying, okay, essentially like I got to get through these residential real quick. The idea is that mixed use is going to have housing and so it's going to have residential and commercial. Um, and that M1 will tend to be sort of lighter intensity. M5 or M4 would be higher intensity. Generally, you're going to see that a commercial district would not be mixed use. So it would only be commercial uses and not residential uses. Uh modern planning tends to say there is no need for a commercial only district. Always have mixed use in every commercial district. Uh just because there's there's no there's there tends to be value. Uh I mentioned earlier that the parking shared parking can be very easy uh when you have mixed use. Uh you tend to have residents that are can support businesses. Uh you need residents to support a business district. So if you have mixed uses with the retail on the ground floor, for example, you'll have residents right there to support those businesses. So I tend to tend to say, do we even need a commercial only uh designation? Now there might be a case in which that makes a lot of sense, especially in sort of suburban style commercial strips. Um like we might see along Boy, I don't really have a great example here honestly. um maybe Michigan half uh along sort of west of Harrison you have those residential and then it opens up into commercial much of that area is not east lancing I mean our our our boundary essentially ends just before the big buildings of red cedar development but um I could see that well and that's all mixed use too so what am I saying

I'm having trouble coming up with a good commercial only I mean I mean I cut my teeth in Grand Rapids and I can say 28th Street is a commercial only right not mixed use so that comes to mind for me but we don't really have the that exact analog I guess in lancing area as much. Yes, Commissioner Pus.

You know something that comes to mind is like what about an area like let's take for an example a gas station where you know there is a potential for something hazardous just because of the nature of what it works works with. you know, is that something that we want to zone as allowing residential even in a mixed use capacity? Because I mean, I'm throwing the question out there. I don't know the answer to it, but you know, to me, it's like,

you know, if this is a gas station, you know, is is there really an opportunity there for mixed use? You know, are you going to do a first floor gas station with two stories of housing above it? Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a reasonable hypothetical to talk about, but you know, I think there is some room for,

you know, maybe a a a category of commercial only where, you know, there just isn't a possibility or even a desire for people to live, you know, over a mixeduse in a mixeduse situation like that. I mean, it's it's possible. I guess I my only response to that would be that um master or comprehensive plan categories, future land use categories tend to be general and so the whole the whole thing the comprehensive plan is all guidance. Yep. And the and the categories be guidance as well. Um and so it doesn't necessarily translate to a zone district. Sure. Requirement. Sure. Makes sense.

Gas station uh example is a great one. Um that and that's sort of the basis for I guess originally the basis for zoning is you separate incompatible land uses. Yeah. Um, in that case, I mean, sure, if you have a safety concern, most modern gas stations, you don't have that much concern. Sure. But, you know, do you want to have residential immediately next door? So, there there might completely be a good case for a commercial zone district. Makes sense. Then it makes sense. Uh, we could say, are there other needs? We we have very little industrial use uh zones in this in this city. Do we want to have an industrial district on the map? Maybe, maybe not. We don't have one right now. um do we need do we need this range of five residential districts based on density?

Um it could just be low density, medium density, high or something like that. So I think I think the the goal is just to sort of start thinking about it and my intent too is to have a community meeting. Um we certainly have a public hearing before we change an ordinance. This doesn't require change to ordinance, but this would be a change to the comprehensive plan that we can update.

Yeah. um which requires a public hearing and waiting period. You know this from last year. Uh so we will have an opportunity to have people come in and talk to you and the council before we make that change. But I also intend to have a separate uh community meeting to discuss just this and say hey what do you guys think? So, I think before we do that, if planning commission has some thoughts or hey, yeah, let's start let's start with this framework or I don't know um I'd love to have your recommendations or or similar what what feedback do you have now to give me so I can help inform you to make a better decision in the future. Thoughts down here?

I got one more. Oh, Christian pots, go ahead. So on on the inverse question, what granularity or control or like what benefits do we lose by reducing the number of categories and or districts? I guess if the if the if the number of sort of categories if the categories are differentiated enough uh you you'd lose some some detail by getting rid of those categories. But if there's very little difference between the categories, yeah, you just combine them. Um, yeah, it makes sense because like I and maybe this isn't some this isn't necessarily something you have to answer tonight, but like what is that

balance point of where complexity is still a strength versus it being a hindrance? Yeah. I mean, which I'm sure you guys have had endless discussions about, but some discussions. Yeah. I mean I would say the the the bigger change the categories are important uh because essentially it it gives you a good idea when you look at the future landings map of what do we want to see here. So we want we want them to be specific enough that you can understand that uh but big enough that you have some possibilities to change things in the future.

Uh what will be very important though is when we do actually apply to the future land use map. we're going to want to make it not parcel specific and that's it currently is uh and that's generally not a good practice for a future land use map because it's essentially setting zoning for perpetuity unless you change your future landings map. You can point to it and say well that parcel is designated as this but you have to have a little more flexibility than that. So I will be recommending that. I think a little bit of vagueness in a comprehensive plan and future landings map is all right uh for that reason because it's meant to be guidance not law. So the specificity is all right whereas it's not all right in the zoning ordinance. Yeah, exactly. Okay, makes sense.

I don't have any granular feedback for you on on uh policy recommendations. I think it sounds like a a really good summer project. Um you know, with uh the comp plan in mind about how exhaustive and deliberative and long that process was. I'm hoping this doesn't turn into something similar, but um I'm hearing you want to streamline the categories. I think it's a good opportunity if by then ordinance 15 or proposed ordinance 1559 is some version of that's through that changes what areas are eligible for that, it could be a good idea to align those those two.

Um but I'm curious just in general what other areas you have in mind. And I know you mentioned northern tier and there's some other areas I'm sure that we could take a closer look at. But um I think it's worth looking at. It's been you know almost a decade. So let's do it. Just not tonight.

Yeah. I would say from my perspective if if the commission goes back and and thinks on this. Um take some time over the next couple weeks before the next meeting. Uh dedicate a little bit just to sort of to do the thought exercise and then if you uh come up with specific ideas, you can bring them to the next meeting or even better would just be let me know in advance because if I hear from you and I hear from multiples then I can say okay we're all thinking this. Let's I can respond to it uh in time for the meeting. So, I'd love to hear your late night thoughts on this topic. Sounds good. Any other thoughts on this?

All right. Uh, that takes us on to item number nine, commissioner concerns. Any concerns from commissioners? First off, want to thank Commissioner Denal for for bailing us out so we could get our quorum tonight. So, thank you. Apologies that I couldn't come sooner. I know that's work stuff. Appreciate. Um, any other concerns or last minute comments? All right, looks like we're ready to move. Uh, is there a motion to adjurnn? So, move second. Moved by Commissioner Pud, seconded by Commissioner Overby. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I. I oppose. Nay. Motion carries. We are adjourned at 8:59 p.m.