Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

all right good evening and welcome to the june 10th 2026 east lansing planning commission meeting mr bartley could you please take roll uh i will uh commissioner chapin here commissioner zanald here commissioner greening here commissioner lupine ray commissioner overby here commissioner putz here commissioner ramirez roberts here vice chair wagner here chair sullivan here and we have quorum thank you

All right, is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda?

So moved.

Moved by Commissioner Overby, seconded by Commissioner Donal. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor, vote aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carries, agenda approved. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the May 27, 2026 East Lansing Planning Commission meeting?

So moved.

Moved by Commissioner Putz. Second. Seconded by Commissioner Ramirez-Roberts. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor, vote aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carries. Minutes approved. That takes us on to item number two and three, committee reports and staff reports. Mr. Bartley.

Thank you. Very briefly, the committees-wise, we've had the data centers committee did meet for the first time this week, yesterday. Commissioners Greening and Putts are on that committee and we'll be meeting next on June 23rd. Also the Zoning Board of Appeals, which Vice Chair Wagner is also on, met last week but did not take any action. I think the applicant deferred the case to the next meeting in July. So that's basically the committee and commission reports. I didn't know if either Commissioner Potts or Groening wanted to mention anything about data centers, or if Vice Chair Wagner wanted to mention anything about the ZBA.

Not at this time. Not at this time. Okay. Thank you. I was out of town, so I wasn't happy. Perfect.

Okay. So you know the item got deferred to the July meeting. As far as staff reports go, not too much to report today. No council, there was no council meeting last night. There was a discussion only meeting that was canceled. The next council meeting will be next week and then after that on July 21st. Next week we'll have our public hearing by council for Ordinance 1559, which is a diverse housing ordinance that this group recently recommended adoption for. Council will also consider the application at 401 to 427 East Grand River, the Howard, which you recommended approval for at your last meeting. They'll also see the graduate proposed rooftop expansion, which this commission saw last year, it's been a while, in July. Thank you. So they'll see that again next week. And then we may see a decision from them on Ordinance 1567, which was the excess height ordinance when it's required or needed because of construction materials. We're also scheduling several public hearings by council for July 21st. We're gonna have several. All ordinances that you've seen recently, we'll see public hearings for ordinances 1564 and 1570, which are those DeWitt Township zoned properties that are within East Lansing but have DeWitt Township zoning. So we'll be seeking to change those zones, those property zoning. with a public hearing on the 21st, also 3859 Stoll Road, which is associated with those properties. We'll see a public hearing for Ordinance 1572, which is the potential amendments to the zoning ordinance around residential rental restriction overlay districts. We'll have a public hearing for ordinance 1573, which is a rezoning of 825 West Lake Lansing proposed to change from RM22 to RM14. And we'll likely see planning or we'll likely see council public hearings on that date for some items that you'll see this evening, which is ordinance 1575 green code study committee amendments to the zoning ordinance. that Grace is going to present, and then also Ordinance 1576, which is sort of a clean-up ordinance that I'll be explaining later on this evening. So, we'll have a lot of public hearings in July at City Council, but not for Planning Commission. In fact, right now I don't think we have any applications for July 8th, so we can be looking at canceling that meeting, but I'll let you know for sure at our next meeting. That's my staff report.

Great. Thank you, Mr. Bartlett. Any comments or questions, Vice Chair?

Landon, I'm not sure. Did you give a specific date for the 1572 ordinance for public hearing at council?

Yeah, we're going to schedule. So council will schedule their public hearing for that next week. We expect to have that on July 21st. So I just mentioned all those different ordinances. Those would all be intended to be on July 21st. It'll be a nice, busy meeting.

Great. Any additional comments or questions? All right. Thank you, Landon. Thank you. It takes us on to item number four, commissioner announcements. This is also your time to disclose any conflicts of interest on tonight's agenda. So any commissioner announcements? all right moving along to item number five communications from citizens up first 5.1 written communications i did see a few letters in the agenda packet submitted for item 6.1 so that takes us on to item number 5.2 verbal from the audience this is your time to come forward and address the planning commission we please ask that you keep your comments under five minutes identify yourself on a card if you have to do so. And if you are here tonight to speak on one of tonight's public hearings, we ask that you speak at that time if possible. But I'm going to read the cards I have right now, and then we'll go to the audience. First, Matt Hagen.

Good evening. Matt Hagan, Hagan Realty, 927 East Grenner. I apologize. Normally I would stay and speak at each public hearing, but I do need to get to some family event tonight. So thank you for allowing me to speak early here and get me in first. So thank you very much. Just real quick. I haven't spent a lot of time with you, to be honest with you, but I don't come get my two cents. I just can't get it off my brain, and I don't sleep well at night, so I gotta come get my two cents when I see something that I wanna come at done. As a smaller local developer, I typically try to avoid speaking against other developments. Just find it kind of to be bad policy, quite frankly, but having our office across the street from the hub, and a development that was approved with not enough parking, in our opinion, and having to deal with constant parking problems in our parking lot. With 530 Albert being proposed with limited parking, in our opinion, again, and owning the buildings directly across the street from that, and just trying to avoid, I guess, our tenants having to deal with a nonstop headache of people parking in their parking spots and stuff, I guess I want to briefly say that we would be opposed to that type of development in that location with such limited parking. For 1576, if I read it correctly, I think I'm on the same page as staff and would prefer not to see it approved in all business districts, if I hopefully read that correctly, Landon, if that's the case. Okay, all right, cool. So in favor of what staff is suggesting there, we would like to not see it expanded to all business districts, so opposed to how it's proposed. 1575 I guess is the one that I spent a little bit more time going over and I apologize I don't have page numbers for you but just real quick as I run through in support of the permeable pavers counting as a 50% ratio of the actual coverage I think that's a good idea I do like that the tree thing some of you probably know I'm not a huge tree guy unfortunately but I Just the landmark tree thing and limiting development there, it's a little bit tough pill for me to swallow. There's a piece of property on Spartan Street, which I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, the old Tasty Twist, that probably should have been developed 10 years ago that is still sitting there because of a tree situation. And so if we're a city that's wanting to see more development and have projects go forward, this type of stuff is going to limit some of that. There's always places for trees. I just don't think that that should be hampering development in that regard that lots of vacant for a long time could have been producing income for the city for all these years. And it hasn't because of a tree. And at the time to build around the tree, it was like $5 million to change the project to accommodate the tree. And we always call I think my memory serves me correct as a $5 million tree. I just don't see that as the proper move there. Again, maybe this is me just not spending enough time with it, but on the parking ratios under multifamily structures, it talks about 1.5 spaces per one bedroom unit. I just, I wasn't quite sure why it would be more than one space. It seems like we're trying to get away in a lot of this stuff from having more cars and I don't know, I just seemed like one person, one bedroom, one car. Like I said, I didn't study that a whole lot to see what the ratio was there, but it seemed a little bit different for me. Now we get to bike storage. So we've done a number of smaller projects and have not a lot of small apartment buildings, but enough small apartment buildings to have some experience with bikes and the demand for bikes. Currently, the code is one spot for every two people. And we don't even see that demand in our apartment buildings. We have one on Grove Street, which has 30-some people. We have a strip of bike racks behind the dumpster and maybe six bikes throughout the year are there. We have one at 911 East Grand River that three or four bikes out of 14 people. I mean, it's not something that we see in our current apartment buildings that... have a huge demand. So not only is it going to be a cost thing, but you're also talking about ground coverage. Every bike space requires more coverage. And your trash can has to be sitting on a concrete pad. Your bike stuff has to be sitting on a concrete pad. All that stuff adds up. So when you're trying to design a building, you're limited on your coverages. It's just more difficult to get something built that makes sense if you have that additional space. to go along with the fact that, in our opinion, it's just not needed. And then in the canopy, I mean, again, it's not a huge expense, but all of our projects we've paid for, we don't have brownfield and all that kind of stuff. So I just don't think the canopy thing is necessary. I only have 30 seconds, so I'll get into the last one. I had a couple others. But the bond is, I guess, something that I'm really not in favor of. We've dealt with bonds and sewer replacement, that kind of stuff. It's always a challenge to get that money back. And I think once your certificate of occupancy is issued, you should get that money back. If there's a problem with something dying, the city has ample other options to try and get you to replace something that's died rather than holding onto money for two years and just not something I'm in favor of. Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you for your comments. Jeff Horan, do you want to speak now or you're here on behalf of the applicant, right?

No, I'm for TDP development.

Okay. Do you want to speak on the agenda item or now?

I'll do it now.

Okay.

As long as I can. Do I need to wait for the actual agenda?

I would suggest you wait for the agenda item. If you're here on behalf of TDP, that'd be preferable.

Thank you.

Anybody else in the audience wish to step forward and address the Planning Commission? Mr. Mirzowski?

Yes, Tim Rosowski, 613 Grove Street. And I just wanted to comment on two of the conditions, or conditions that were placed on the Harbor Bay project, but then also one of the conditions I think that's proposed here in the ordinance. And that deals with when the certification would allow for the certificate of occupancy. And so I've been the lead AP for two projects, so I understand how that works. But typically, you have a staged certification review, so I think both of the projects have been pre-certified. That doesn't guarantee certification because you have to carry through both with the design and the construction process. Generally, there are design stage credits which flow really from the configuration of the plan, and then there are construction stage credits that flow from things that happen during construction. So technically a developer could submit for a final certification at substantial completion. And you may or may not know what that term means, but generally substantial completion is the point where the building is ready to be occupied. but it's not fully complete. So there could be elements that wouldn't affect safety, for example, that need to be completed. A tree, for example, would be something that could flow from substantial completion to final completion. So you have to understand there's a time lag between substantial completion and final completion. And we can't really submit any of the certification documents until everything has been wrapped up. So there's that gap. Once the project is submitted for final certification, USGBC has 25 days to review. And then the applicant typically has 25 days to respond. And there could be a second round where USGBC asks for more clarifications on a credit and then they would respond again. So my experience is that certification, final certification comes maybe within say six months of when substantial completion might occur. So I would encourage you for, I think you've already, I don't recall exactly what the condition was that was placed on the Harbor Bay project. I read this one. And I think a solution would be to allow for occupancy under the basis of a temporary certificate of occupancy until the certificate of occupancy is finally granted or approved. Also, because I have some experience with USGB projects, I would be happy to volunteer to help staff in their kind of review of these projects and kind of with that whole process if that would be helpful. So those are my comments.

Thank you, appreciate the comments. Anybody else wish to come forward? Okay, anyone online in the queue?

There is no one in the queue. All right, easy enough.

That takes us on to tonight's public hearings. Up first is item 6.1, a public hearing to receive comments on a request from Cody Diedrich on behalf of TDP Acquisitions LLC for approval of a site plan for a 10-story mixed-use development consisting of one, two, and three-bedroom dwelling units and ground floor commercial space located at 530 Elbert Avenue. The property is zoned B3 City Center Commercial Business District. Ms. Wrighton.

planning department. As stated, it is a 10-story mixed-use development. The project consists of 205 units, 436 beds within those units. I would like to preface the entire conversation to remind everybody that this zoning district, B3 zoning district, prohibits parking. It means it's not allowed. An applicant may request it, but they would have to provide substantial findings to have the Planning Commission waive the requirement to allow them. But it is prohibited in this area. The property is, the design has changed, obviously not including the parking as before. It is set back 10 feet from the western boundary and providing landscaping, maintaining I think four or five mature trees along that side to buffer for the property to their west. There's a setback on the front off of Albert, three or four feet, a foot or so also on the east. They've provided for substantial landscaping throughout the site. They've got a first floor interior courtyard that's provided for amenities for the occupants of the property. That also includes landscaping. reached out to, I believe, done an RFP for a variety of considerations for art. They've been in contact with the art department or art commission. They're also proposing a potential sculpture in the northwest corner where it is carved out with additional landscaping. They have met the requirements for the parking, I'm sorry, the bicycle parking. on site some of the amenities that they're providing include the business center there's a game room fitness center wellness area basketball court which from the previous iteration that you saw it was in the north east corner now it's in the south east corner off the alley They tried to take into consideration the concerns of neighbors of having that. The commercial component on the first floor which allows for eight stories by right is a coffee shop. They're also proposing LEED certification and they have provided their number basis for obtaining the LEED certification which is an incentive that allows them, an additional two stories by right. So eight stories by right with a principal use on the first floor, which is the coffee shop. The LEED certification gives them additional two stories for 10 stories total, which with that incentive becomes by right. It's not a special use requirement. They have been working with the engineering department on a few items related to technical issues with the traffic study and storm water management. They have provided on their own volition an interior storm detention basin and provided calculations to the engineering department related to those. They do actually reduce the overall impervious coverage by 834 square feet. As mentioned, some of the items for verification with the engineering department are technical in nature. The plan set doesn't, indicate recycling. It was left off inadvertently, but throughout their narrative and other documents, they do provide that recycling is going to be offered, and it'll have commingled and cardboard collection. They provide all their lighting requirements. In their narrative, they added that the retail component will operate from, which is the coffee shop, 7 AM to 2 PM. They'll have standard lease terms of 12 months and rates subject to market conditions ranging from 1900 to 4,400. They address the existing ordinance requirements and how the project meets the ordinance, land use statistics, meaning size, setbacks, and so forth. They do have a draft schedule for their construction and the staging plan, these are requirements and can be conditions for approval. As mentioned, they do have a 10-foot setback. And I think the applicant would like to talk a little bit about some of the amenities that they've offered on the outside to try and address some of the concerns of neighbors and so forth. There are adequate general parking spaces throughout the city system. We have 215, which has been up to 210 spaces for developments in the downtown to allow monthly parking passes The calculations that the applicant has provided would indicate that they would need 111 parking spaces. The parking department said 220, so they get 110 and the Howard would get 110. Those are the two current proposals downtown. There are still opportunities for individual tenants to obtain individual permits from the city. There's also the MSU commuter lot that may allow a student or individual to obtain a pass from that location. I mentioned previously their stormwater that they're offering on their own collection, so their discharge rates on both the alley and the Albert sewer is reduced for the two-year, 10-year, 25- and 100-year storms. They meet the environmental requirements. meet the public art requirements. In the staff review, I had provided the details related to site plan requirements under Section 50-38 with general site conditions, which is the 10-story building utilizing LEED Gold certification. Natural features that they're providing a 10-foot side yard setback as well as additional landscaping in excess of the minimums required Traffic access that they don't provide any on-site parking. But again, it's not allowed and They do however propose to add So there are two temporary parking spaces for loading and unloading on Albert Avenue right now. They're proposing to increase that to 10. It will require Transportation Commission approval, but it is an improvement and was also suggested and supported by our parking department to allow for those additional spaces to be added, loading and unloading at short-term intervals. I guess if you have any questions in particular, I could answer.

Questions for city staff?

One other thing is I think the applicant would like you to consider a decision this evening. And we will have a sample motion for you should you be interested.

Thanks for letting us know.

Vice Chair? Can I ask a question about the parking? Two questions. So the first question is about, I think I read that there's 111 spots for this project and they have to purchase them in bulk and then even if they don't have the occupancy, is that correct? Regardless, for both projects, the city will be renting out yearly 220 spots. Is that correct?

Yes, and the agreement for the parking still has to be developed. We've been working with our city attorney and the parking department to develop an agreement that would be renewable and reviewable by both parties every five years, I think, is the standard. It may end up being three. It'll depend on what case law provides for. But it is $110 per... if that's what the applicants are each asking for at this time.

And the loading and unloading was nine spaces. Is that right?

So it's actually 10 if you count them on the plans.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. I do have some questions probably for the applicant about that because it seems there were two. I'm having trouble imagining 10 there.

So they just will head straight towards Bailey.

Okay.

The parking space is 9 by 18, so there's plenty of space for it.

OK. Questions down here? I thought I saw a hand. Could you explain a little bit about what's permissible on this site by right and then with the LEED certification? Could you provide some more context for that?

So in the B3 commercial district, commercial uses such as restaurants or fitness clubs bookstores, salons, retail spaces are first floor by right, but it still requires a site plan approval through planning commission and then city council. With the ordinance amendment that was done in 2024, it allowed upper story residential by right subject to principal use on the first floor, principal use being one of those that I just mentioned as a use by right. So it's a little bit of a conundrum because they're by right, but you still have to come through the site plan process to ensure certain site conditions are met. So eight stories by right, first floor has to have a commercial component, and then the upper seven stories can be residential. The LEED component as an incentive is designing the building to meet certain parameters of environmental requirements, which the applicant can talk to a lot more detail. That gives them an additional two stories by right if they meet that incentive, meaning it doesn't need a special use. It allows it to exceed the standard 112 feet that goes with the eight stories by right. In this case, their design proposal for two additional stories puts them still under the next level if we're requesting a special use permit, of 140 they're still under that maximum height if they were well it's actually not the maximum second maximum height because it could theoretically go up to 160 but it's still under the 140 providing the two stories by lead that answer or did i make it more confusing i think that helped me vice chair

pre-certification so that's just not something we really I guess we well we dealt with it with the Howard but we've never dealt with it before so I don't know I mean I take their word they're they're getting pre-certification but how do we will we have a checklist that says they are I mean is there some sort of how do we know about what I don't I'm not a pre I'm not a lead certification expert so I don't know

There's an agency that actually provides for certification, and there are certain parameters that they get points for. If you do this, you get this many points. If you get this, this many points. And then that agency, and I forget, the name escapes me.

The U.S. Green Building?

Yeah. they then verify that all of those components are met in order to get that final certification. And it is newer that we've been dealing with it. It was initiated in 2024 with the ordinance amendment to allow for incentives for additional stories. But there's a separate third party agency that verifies the information, verifies the construction, verifies that they meet all of those numbers, and you have to have a certain number, which I think is 60, to be able to achieve LEED Gold certification, which is what they're going for. Their initial numbers in the packet is 69. That's giving them some room for their mechanical units. There may have to be some realignment of things that such, so they have plenty of a buffer to still reach that Gold certification.

Great, so if something happened to one aspect, they would still have some backup. What if they didn't need that? What if they only had 30 points or 20 points or something like that?

Then we have a problem.

Do we have any safety measures?

So that's why the condition proposed, which I know... was spoken to earlier by Mr. Rosowski that getting the certification before occupancy may be challenging because they have to go through the process after the fact.

The certification process after the fact?

Yeah, so once the building is substantially complete, in order to submit that and the applicant can talk about it in a lot more detail. Once it's substantially complete, I'm thinking that the motion could, or the condition could be such that it's substantially complete subject to a temporary occupancy and then that temporary occupancy would be for a certain period of time to allow them to get that. If they didn't get it, then they would have to remove those tenants from that space and it becomes an enforcement issue.

And can I ask one more question? Please. So I know we're not experts on geothermal systems.

That was on my list.

And I know, at least I'm not going to quiz you on that, I promise. But I'll ask the applicant. But I just want to ask you about the risks. Like, is the city willing to take or the business willing to take? There are risks associated with it. Do we have any other examples of, I mean, I think, Maybe Holland, Michigan has geothermal that heats the sidewalks in the winter or something, but do we have any local examples of geothermal?

What is it?

Oh, steam is, okay. So, I mean, is this revolutionary? It's something that hasn't been done in Michigan. Are there risks associated with this, that sort of thing?

So I don't know of any here in East Lansing. There's risks with everything. The Capitol building is. Capitol building? No, right? Okay. Thank you, Chair Sullivan. Okay. The applicant, there are requirements that they have to meet with state levels as well, perhaps, for ensuring that they're not contaminating groundwater, things like that. So the applicant can speak to how the geothermal works. I will defer to him.

But no other buildings around other than the Capitol? Other than the Capitol. No private?

I'm not familiar with any. Is Tim still here? He would know.

Great, thanks.

circle back to some of the commissioners Roberts you go ahead parking what is it that made the parking allowable what was different last time that the parking was allowable versus this time where it's not

So they asked to be given permission to put back commercial parking because the proposal will remove a surface parking lot that is for the public. That parking lot that they were proposing or the parking levels of two stories was to provide parking for the businesses, not for the residents. I think that the applicant can speak to the costs associated with the construction that made it not super feasible to actually be able to construct that. It would have become a public parking space that the city would administrate. There had to be an agreement on capital improvements provided by the applicant, the city's costs associated with operating the garage. There were a number of things, but they were trying to fill the gap of what concerns had been relayed about taking away a surface parking lot by providing it And so they demonstrated the need according to the way the ordinance was. But again, it's prohibited otherwise. And if they don't want to offer it, we can't require them to have it. Does that answer?

Yeah. Couple quick questions for me. Going back to the retail on the first floor, so it's essentially just that small coffee shop, right? So that meets the requirement. What is the requirement to, not retail, commercial, I'm sorry. What is the requirement to have commercial and how can that be met? Is that qualifying?

It is qualifying. It's like Poindexter's in the graduate first floor.

Okay.

And a coffee shop meets the requirement of a commercial component. Because it's open to the public.

Got it. So it just has to be a commercial space open to the public and it doesn't specify the size of it or the capacity of it or any other metrics? Okay. Just curious. And then for the remaining parking lot that's going to be there, so essentially the building will be on approximately two-thirds of the existing parking lot with then another third that's going to remain public parking. That'll still remain public parking. It'll be sort of gated off from the rest of the building and inaccessible. Is there any other structural changes that are going to take place in the site there?

So that Bailey parking lot that'll remain belongs to the city. It is not included nor proposed or intended to be developed. There's also a walking path that will separate the parcel from the parking lot and it'll be its own entity as it is now. The space that this project is on is actually privately owned.

And then you outlined a couple outstanding issues with engineering and other areas of the city. I guess how would you characterize the significance of those outstanding issues? Are they mostly technical in nature or are there some pretty significant hurdles that we still need to overcome with the project?

Technical in nature, minor that can be addressed during permitting.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions for City Vice Chair and then Ramirez-Roberts?

I have another question.

Sorry, I don't mean to pepper you with questions, but is the notification process for site plans the same as for a special use permit?

No. So site plan requirement is a public hearing at Planning Commission. City Council is just an approving body. There is no public hearing. So when it goes to City Council, it'll be placed on the business agenda for their consideration without a public hearing.

OK. Sorry.

Are you asking the notification itself, the sending of mailers in the paper? Yes, that process is the same. Oh, OK. Between special uses and site plan, like Alicia was saying, for site plan, there is no second public hearing by council. Got it. And that's the difference.

I'm just wondering, because the first time you heard this, it seemed like 100 years ago, every single business on 500 block of Grand River came and said this would negatively, adversely affect their, no parking would affect their business. And I'm just a little surprised to not see any of them here tonight to talk about a new building going there with no parking.

So the ordinance requirements or the statute requirements is that we put it in the paper, no less than 15 days in advance, which is the same as for a special use and that all property owners within 300 feet received that notice in the mail. We do 350 just to make sure that we don't miss anybody. And that is done and confirmed prior to, so it actually ends up getting in the paper. We send it to the paper. So it publishes actually almost 20 to usually 20 days in advance and the neighbors receive it as well. Okay. Thank you.

Ramirez-Roberts. Yeah, I had a quick one going back to geothermal because I know we have these incentives for solar and solar specific ordinances and all these things. Do we have those types of incentives or I guess what presence does geothermal have in our code at this point?

It's an option that the applicant is proposing on their own. And it's reviewed by our environmental department, which I'm going to defer to the applicant to address. But we don't have any incentives for it. OK.

But it's part of LEED certification. OK. It's like one component.

Any other questions for city staff or are we ready for the applicant? Commissioner Overby.

If I understand correctly, you're saying that the parking that was eliminated in the second proposal, that that was a financial reason why that parking was eliminated.

Well, it may have been one of the reasons, but I'll allow the applicant to really divulge the information related to the change and finding the benefit of the project proposed before you.

Okay, seeing no additional questions. Some cards up here. Okay. Jeff's with you, right?

No, Jeff is on the block.

Okay, got it.

So Cody's the applicant.

Okay, I was thrown off by the address.

Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for having me back. Just to set some of the groundwork and talk about how we got to this point and everything. So we last saw you, I want to say in January, and we originally saw you in December. And at that time, I remember we had nobody in the room. I'm surprised actually it's a little bit later than I was expecting. But we were intentionally listening to the business owners as part of that first proposal that we had, not the ACD development a couple of years ago. There's a lot of heartburn about that because there wasn't the parking for the neighboring retail businesses to be able to support their businesses. And so our intent the first time around was to put that back and try to help support them. We got through the process a little further after you guys. And as we went through it, we also talked about the diverse housing and our different options for that. If there's a fee in lieu coming, if there's alternate offsite mitigation. And through our meetings at the council, there didn't seem to be an interest in supporting through a pilot for the diverse housing if it was put onsite. When you compare that along with the cost to build the public parking, we were looking at basically taking a $7 million tax hit that would be a burden on us that we wouldn't have any offset to. So that became an extreme financial burden to try to put the parking in and also satisfy the diverse housing. In addition, we were running up against time barriers that made it really difficult to try to break ground on the project this fall. By adding the parking, having a couple more stories, the building was just that much bigger and would take a few more months to build, especially with the parking ramp itself. along with a couple of the intricate details of trying to design that parking ramp gets a little bit tougher and negotiating out the lease with the city and everything and the constant maintenance and back and forth. So looking at all those, looking at all the risks on the table, we made the decision to then switch to a zoning compliant project, which you have in front of you tonight. And so we didn't take it lightly. It's unfortunate that we don't have the parking in there. We understand that. But at the same time, we had to look at something that we could actually move forward and that was actually feasible At the city council meeting, I noted that it was unfeasible if we didn't have any property tax relief for the affordable housing units. So that's just the spot we were in. So the proposal you have in front of you, we looked at how can we reduce it and still be zoning compliant. So we took off three stories of the building. We took off our rooftop amenity level. We put all the amenities on the first floor. We took off one residential level and then the second level of parking. So with that, we were able to get that down about 25 feet. And then we additionally lost about 11 to 12% of our density in the building. So we cut our occupancy from 505 down to 445. So this was also in reaction to the, at the last city council meeting, the neighborhood came a little bit more intense on the project. Up until the second council meeting, none of the neighbors had shown up to the meetings, except for Mr. and then a few of the other business owners. So that caused a couple other pieces. And the main thing there was with the heightened density. So with this zoning compliant project, we looked at how can we decrease that and be in a better spot. So we got to a point where we feel like our project is feasible, but at the same time, we're able to reduce and help satisfy some of the neighbors' concerns, but then we also sacrifice some of the business owners' concerns. somebody is not gonna get exactly what they want in the situation unfortunately and we're very upfront about that so but there are some benefits to the project and I didn't put a presentation together I know you guys have seen this multiple times really the building's the same we just slightly pushed and pulled on it but We were able to increase our setback on the lower ground level on the west side next to the wild goose inn from five to 10 feet. So we doubled that. On the east side, we had 440 square feet of open space. Now we're at 1700 plus open space with more additional landscaping there. So overall, we reduced our building footprint by about 20 to 25%. So we are now at 73% of the site where before we were almost 100%, we were 94 or whatever it may be. So we are likely one of the most open spaces, one of the least building covered spaces of a property in downtown. I don't know if we're the exact least, but we're one of the least at that point. Another piece we did is we were able to move the retail to the corner. So now the retail is the focal spot. That's where you're gonna enter. It's going to add more vitality to that corner. And we have some outdoor seating and it really ties to where we have our colored concrete section that accesses to that right away to the east of the property. In addition, we have the LEED Gold, which will be making the building more energy efficient. We're putting additional dollars to increase that. We put the geothermal back into the project. When we first saw you, it was in the project, but then we ran into some timing issues with the engineering department and traffic studies, so we took it out. So that's now back in. And then just all the additional parts with that of just looking to increase the efficiency. With our lead points, we were at about 68, 69. We were actually just talking today about going fully electric where we get another three to four points and trying to get above 70. So we're trying to ensure we have plenty of excess so we don't have an issue when we go to get certified after the fact. I did send evidence to Alicia the other day, but we are in for our pre-cert review. They're expecting to have that by July 2nd or 3rd at the latest, so that is almost complete. I think that's primarily it, and I'm happy to answer any questions you guys have on that piece, but I know you guys have seen it. The architecture looks generally the same. We feel like it's actually an improvement to the project. I know we're losing some things with the public parking, but there are also other benefits that are coming from the project. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

I had two questions about the geothermal. The first one, do you have other projects that you have done geothermal in that you could point to as precedent?

We do not, no. We're working with a couple of people who are very experienced. We have potentially two drillers we're talking to right now. One is out of Ann Arbor, and they have a ton of buildings in Ann Arbor. They've worked with the city down there and done some city projects as well. And the other one is, I forget exactly where they're out, but they'll be a local Michigan driller here too.

Okay. I think it would be really helpful, especially since some of my fellow commissioners have expressed a lack of familiarity with geothermal systems, if maybe we could get some information from those prospective companies about other projects they've done. Yeah. And then I think my other question is, I was really surprised, not surprised, but I guess surprised to see that you had both geothermal and a stormwater detention tank area underneath the building. And I was just but I didn't see any sort of design about how the tank and the wells would sort of fit in with each other? Can you share any more information about that?

So there's a couple of different geothermal systems. We're going with a Darcy system, which is going to do larger wells. So we're actually going to have two wells on site. There's a conventional system where we would have like 50 underneath the whole building. So the Darcy system ties into the aquifer, which we're perfectly aligned from a geotechnical piece here. We don't actually affect the water or anything like that. We're in a closed loop system, but is able to take that as more efficient than taking it from the ground. What happens in geothermal basically is you're sucking the air up from the ground to provide cooling and in the summer you put back the heat into the ground. But if you don't do that correctly, then you can cause issues with the ground surface. So this actually is a more safe version. There have been actually people that have come out in the past or the conventional method, so like schools for example, they had a new facilities manager in Minnesota and they turned off the whole geothermal system for the summer and if you don't balance it out throughout the year you can screw up the whole thing because you have to put the heat back in and take the cooling out and if you have it go too long you screwed up the earth and it can't properly accept that so we're very cautious about all that we've been we've checked a couple different properties so we've been some in Minnesota and some here too as well to look at and make sure that we're comfortable with it excellent thank you yeah And just one more piece on that, I guess. So with the geothermal, the geothermal is the most energy efficient piece for LEED especially. So we get more points for that. We're gonna be a higher energy efficiency by doing that. The next highest when you look at a actual system in the building, it'd be a variant refrigerant VRF, I forget the F stands for. And then you go down to your typical furnaces or magic packs or anything like a central boiler system. So we're looking to do the most energy efficient to get the most LEED points.

Commissioner Chapin and then Ramirez-Roberts.

Yeah, stepping back from some of the detail here, thanks for being with us, thanks for the adjustments you've made, appreciated, noted. I'm curious about the relationship between this project and the Howard project that just was approved by the Planning Commission a week ago. Conversation between the two developers, some market analysis about who's going to be where, pricing, to the extent possible, I'd like to hear you just talk about that. That's an elephant in the room for me. And I think we should flush it out a little bit, please.

Yeah, no, we've had several conversations with Mr. Balline, more so when he was coming to our meetings with the neighboring business owners to talk about the project, and we had some good conversations. We haven't had too many since the start of the year. There was some other parts where I didn't agree with some of his decisions he made, so I'll leave it at that. But we haven't talked too much further about that piece. I don't know if you have a specific you want to ask of like how they'll work together or anything like that.

I think it's just kind of, you know, I'm a citizen now. I'm asking a question as a citizen and I'm seeing these potential two big projects. Who's going to live there? Are they affordable? I'm sure you've done a terrific analysis as the folks that are building the Howard did. I'm just sort of just curious about how that plays out in the mind of a developer. So to the extent possible, just speak to that and maybe you've done as well as you can.

Yeah, no, I mean, I welcome the competition if that's like part of the answer too. I think the part here is there's such as extreme housing shortage that all housing is gonna benefit. We are typically targeting the same people, primarily students or mercury apartments is what it is. But I think there's about 20,000 beds short of all the beds needed in this market. And even when we were at city council, there was one of the letters that I found fascinating is the kids for some of these property management companies, they'll go to their business offices and they'll compete in a lottery to try to get into a house. So the kid mentioned in one of his support letters that he competed against 60 other potential people to get into a house by rolling dice. And they did three or four of these in a day. And they were lucky enough to get a house. But if they went to, they would have to live over a mile from campus to try to afford something. So I think that's just this extreme housing shortage has really just pushed it that way.

OK. And student housing is primarily what you're thinking here? I think you've said that before, but I wanted to watch it out again. What year? No. In your development, you anticipate students will occupy. That's correct. Yeah.

OK. That's all.

Thank you.

One thing, just to clarify, you said we have a 20,000 bed shortage? Correct. OK. So I did the numbers. Given that the university is only 50,000 to 60,000.

Yeah, there's only about 25 to 28,000 beds in the market between the on-campus, there's about 17, 18,000. Then when you count off campus, you get another 12-ish thousand. So 10 to 12,000. I was doing the numbers because I wanted to have this ready. Between all the other cities that have big 10 schools, since 2021, they have built or have under construction over 65,000 beds of the 17 others where there hasn't been anything built here since COVID. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Ramirez-Roberts.

Yeah, so I had a couple. I think you mentioned something about the affordable units. So I don't see anything about affordable units in this project. So was that just the past project? That was the past project, yes.

The diverse housing doesn't apply to the site plan approval.

and then um i had a just geothermal question i don't know the exact name of the system but the new horizontal drilling method if you know what i'm talking about is that even feasible in this kind of no it isn't okay you're not in an urban setting you need like a field or something next to a school or supporting a commercial building um there's big um power companies and things like that who have excess land or campuses that can do the horizontal but not an urban setting okay and then i'm sorry i just have like a lot of quick ones yep um i was trying to go through but The iPad wasn't working. What's the square footage of the commercial space, do you know?

It's our whole lobby, so it's about 1,500 square feet.

Okay, 1,500 square feet.

And to quantify that, our whole lobby is open to the public, and then we'd have a security door behind there that blocks that off. But during those hours, they're able to share couches and intermingle with the people who live in our building.

Okay, and then last one for the moment is... Oh, yeah, I think Alicia mentioned this during the presentation, but I just couldn't hear. What's the rent, I guess, like slider of minimum to maximum that you were looking at for current market rate?

Yeah, so it's studios that start in the 1900 range, and then our three bedrooms would be in the mid-4,000, 4,400 or 4,500 in today's market. Okay.

Vice Chair. This is just new to me and I've learned about lust today. The leaky underground storage tanks. So can you talk about the drilling part? I think the underground contained system is fine but I think the dangerous part is drilling it and especially with potentially leaky underground storage tanks. And since we never had one of these in East Lansing before, what are your safety precautions? How are you going about doing this project?

Yeah, so we don't have any specific things on our site. What we're seeing is from our environmental reports, there are nearby former dry cleaners and gas stations that have contaminated some of the soils and gotten down into the groundwater and everything like that. So what we would have as part of that, so we did our phase one, which is just our initial environmental report, or report to look at any concerns there are. And if you have concerns, you do a phase two. So we've done a phase two, that's all completed. And now we're filling out a baseline evaluation assessment that'll go to the state agency in Eagle. And we'll do a due care plan, which will basically tell us how we will respond if we run into any contaminated materials. And we have an environmental specialist on site during all that excavation to make sure if there is anything that we haul it off to a proper landfill. So that'll be all monitored during construction. The benefit of not doing the conventional system is we're not actually drilling up the whole site. We're going to have just two larger wells likely on the east side that will be able to do that and then they'll take that and they'll store it on site as they can and then they'll take away any extras that they have. Does that answer the question or?

Yeah it's just I don't know very much about it so I it just seemed like there were some risks involved and I went to

So in Michigan, there's no pre-approvals by EGLE. EGLE will, I shouldn't say that. From an environmental standpoint, there's no pre-approvals. You basically submit your documents to EGLE or if we start construction as a disclosure. Like in Minnesota, the MPC, which is our governing pollution agency, they need to approve anything before you can even start construction so eagles differ that sense but eagle needs to approve our wells because geothermal create wells and so they need it's about a three-month process to approve the wells which our contractor will apply for those permits and they'll have all the environmental things on on tennessee i'll pivot back over so commissioner greening you got you okay okay you're good so thank you uh commissioner over me

So you talked a little bit about the need for student housing and you said that this development would help satisfy that need. What data and information can you point to that would help us understand the need for student housing?

I mean, there's market reports out there and everything like that. We could share some of those. If you look at enrollment trends back in the late 20-teens, the first year undergraduate enrollment was about 7,500 to 8,000. Now it's up to about 9,500 students per year that are coming into the campus. For reference to, there's been about 8,000 to 9,000 private beds built at Ann Arbor over the same time for the same size universities. And what you're seeing is the housing prices are going extremely high. The Abbott recently sold a year or so ago and the new owners came in and raised rents $500 and nobody blinked an eye. So I think that's pretty telling of where the market's at because they can charge whatever they want and there's no stop to it because there's not enough supply for you to go anywhere else. And I think back to, I forget if Mr. Fisher from the Housing Commission was at the Planning Commission, but he was at City Council as well, and he mentioned some of the stats of people moving about a mile away from campus to, I'm gonna blank on the name of the apartment building. It's west of here, but towards Lansing. But they were starting to price out the general workforce people who were living in those apartments and seniors because they were paying $150 to $200 more because there was just no place to live near campus.

Ramirez-Roberts?

Yeah, I just had a quick one. Going back to the geothermal, not a question, but you had mentioned that it was the same developers who did the Ann Arbor public utility project?

Our contractor might be. We're decided between two of them.

Okay.

And they have not, they've done some city buildings, they've done some private buildings in Ann Arbor. They're based in Ann Arbor.

Okay, okay. And then my other one there is I think the overall figure, if I'm remembering right, It's like the student population has increased by I think 30% since the last time a new bed was constructed on campus in terms of dorms. So it's, MSU's definitely not doing their part in helping the shortage here.

Commissioner Nolte.

By the way, Tillcrest Village is the apartment complex. I live near there. I was going to say village. So my question, I think one of the things that really impressed me, at least when we first saw this project, was the engagement that You really prioritized with the business owners in the nearby community. And I just wonder, can you talk a little bit about how you've continued to do that with this new iteration, feedback that you've gotten, especially about the parking situation, which I know is really important to them. I know that's a really difficult part of this new version of the project, so can you talk a little bit about that and how that's been going?

yeah so after we made our decision we pulled our last application we sent that letter talking about the burden that we'd be taking and why we were changing the plans and then i came back out um i believe it was towards the end of april and offered to meet with any of the council members that wanted to and i was able to meet with a couple of the business owners in person that are nearby and over virtually and was very transparent my goal is to be transparent it's hard news but want to tell them face to face and It wasn't necessarily going to change our decision, but I wanted to just let them know and answer any questions they had. So we're happy to go sit with the neighborhood if they'd like to sit with us. We put that into our notes with the city staff. So we're happy to have any conversation that anybody wants to have and explain further or show more information. We're not trying to hide from it or anything like that. We're taking it head on.

Yeah, which I appreciate your, I think, transparency about the situation.

Thank you.

Okay, I have a couple questions I was gonna hit you with. So one of the things I've been trying to square since you first proposed this project is the basketball court. You're trying to make the numbers work with the space that you have available. It seems to me like it's such a big dedication to space that could be used for something that could be more beneficial to the rest of the project. So could you just talk about it and kind of explain the financials of that for me? Is it just like a driver to try to get people to to rent there, and if there's such demand, why would you even need that?

Yeah, we still look for things that are leaseable. And actually now that we have more space in the first floor, it works better than the last time around actually. But that would be a multi-use system too. So we'd be able to have pickleball in there. Potentially we're going to stripe it off differently and be able to put nets out. So we look at that as a community gathering space if we want to host a little event for somebody, a little party, whatever it may be. So it can be multi-use in that facet. So we see it as just a community gathering space. And what we try to do is create these social spaces So people aren't just segregated, especially here after COVID. People got so used to being by themselves or if we have opportunities to bring people together now, we find it very unique.

But would it be better used as like more apartments or more commercial space or, you know, I guess just as a follow-up?

Yeah, no, we can't build apartments on the first floor. That's not allowed. Got it. And then the retail perspective, when we were trying to go through the first time, we were having all these conversations with the business owners, we met with Citi and we asked, is there any incubator space? Does the neighborhood want some space? We looked at the 14 or 15 vacant spaces near here. We just didn't see the retail demand to really drive that and unless you have a curated user, I know Howard talks about that a little bit that they've found some different users and I think it's a little bit easier on Grand River than the back side of the block. We think it'd sit vacant and we look at like the Abbott has a great space right on the corner and that's vacant so that makes us nervous if we had too big of a commercial space.

That's helpful. Thanks for explaining that. The only other question I had was, can you talk a little bit about the remaining third of the parking that will be public parking and how that will commingle and operate with your building?

Could you slide to the site plan? So right now there's right of way down the east side of the property that's 10, 12 feet wide or so. And so that is the sidewalk that bifurcates this private property versus the publicly owned land by the city on that side of the parking lot. So what would happen is we'd basically just block off the cross axis through the sidewalks and that would just remain on that side as is.

but you don't envision your, well, I don't know how you'd restrict your tenants from parking there with such a limited space. It seems like the main concern of the businesses is access to the parking that they have available. And if you have so many beds there and there's a parking lot right next to it, what's to stop that from being sort of the drop off and delivery for the building?

Yeah, so I mean, we have the nine stalls out front now for drop off and delivery. So with Caleb and the parking department, those would all be likely free 15 minute stalls that would then get metered after that. So all each other individual meters. So it's not just loading and unloading. We have loading in the backside of the alley as well too, for the commercial portion of the building. But somebody could park there. Daily parking is not,

monthly parking is not allowed so if there's cars there or you know too long the city's really good at enforcing that and they would likely tow them or ticket them so okay thank you any other questions vice chair yeah i was wondering the same thing about that about access to the parking lot for non-residents and people using the businesses and i sort of think the same thing i like people are going to use it for who live there or in the part of the apartments it'll just be there'll be fewer parking spots for the businesses. I also want to ask you about the, we haven't talked about the alley very much. So I know, you know, my son loves Chipotle and every once in a while I would pick him up and we wait in the Bailey lot, but I see all the cars that Uber eats waiting there. like that's the business, the livelihood of these businesses. What's gonna change in the alleyway? I remember at one point, I think there was gonna be like an arts sector or something for the residents, but I mean.

Yeah, no, and we actually, you know, when we were going through this, when we were revising the plans, we didn't want to throw the baby out with bathwater and, you know, start over. We want to take the good things and keep them and try to improve off them. we are still putting uh public murals and everything on that back side to really activate that and then actually now our our courtyard is at grain so there'll be more trees back there we're gonna add more benches we actually have a little bit more space uh deeper right there to add about four or five trees in the back side so that'll be there we're not encroaching on the alley i think we did end up pushing out the building about two feet from where we previously were um on that side so it does get a little tighter but still on our property um So from a functioning standpoint, it really shouldn't change anything in that piece.

OK. Ms. Wrighton, did you have something to add?

Yeah, just for clarification, the Bailey lot that remains is a public lot. It's an hourly rate. So there are no monthly permits available. It's unlikely that somebody is going to park there long term just because of the cost. But it is separate from this project. And there is also the garage two buildings to the west of where this proposal is that is underutilized currently.

I'm not thinking about overnight. I'm thinking about people visiting friends or going there, just using that lot for the building rather than the businesses.

Which they could do because it's a public lot. And the land use that we're looking at prohibits parking on site. So we have to remember that we're looking at a site plan for land use of a multi-unit building. Gotcha.

And some people might use it for the coffee shop, too. So, I mean, it's additional. It could take some stalls. You're not wrong about that.

Quick comment on that and then Commissioner, but in theory if this building were to go through, I think the city would have to analyze how the parking lot's being used and evaluate things like whether or not there's a 15 minute grace period if it becomes bogged down with delivery drivers. And I think ultimately there's just a lot of hypotheticals and we're not gonna know how it's gonna be used until a building is potentially built and we see how the public uses it. But at that point, I think we'll have to reassess it. But I think the concerns are valid, and there could be a risk to that parking lot and its availability for the businesses.

Deliveries are not in the parking lot. They have to be in the alley or the street. You mentioned deliveries.

But it's a public lot.

Yeah, but a semi can't fit in there. Yeah. Well, I'm not talking about semis.

You're talking about like a card. I'm talking about door dash.

Yeah, that sort of thing. But yeah, no, semi, point taken.

It's hard to control any of those people. Yeah.

Yes, we're all aware of that up here. Commissioner Nutt.

yeah um one of the other questions that i had i'm glad i flipped through my notes really quickly i was looking at the plans on the first floor and one of the things that i didn't really see indicated was elevators especially like freight elevators i know i know that was a big concern that we had with the howard was How are you going to handle move-in, for instance? So can you talk a little bit about that?

Yeah, so our two elevators are 4,000 pounds in size for free out of the gate. So they both can work for that piece. And then we are also furnished apartments. So there's people are bringing their clothes, their toiletries, all that stuff. So it's not major furniture moving in and out.

Okay. And do you anticipate, this is probably like a, you know, to our chair's point, you don't really know how the building's going to work until the building is built. But do you have a sort of anticipated for big move-in days? Are you going to push people to those front 15-minute spots? Are you going to have people going through the alleyway? Are you going to close the alleyway?

No, we won't close the alleyway. We'll work to likely try to get special permitting those days and block off those stalls at the police department and the parking to buy those in front is the plan. We'd have to work through all that piece. typically move-ins run on 15 to 20 minute intervals. You come, you pull up and you move everybody and then you go to the next one and then the next wave 20 minutes later comes in and just keeps moving throughout the day or two day period.

Any other comments or questions, Commissioner Overby?

I have a question and then a comment. My question is, the remaining parking, I assume it will still be available during construction. Will construction take up some piece of that parking lot? How will that work?

No, we will not utilize any of the Bailey lot remaining that's city owned. We will condense ourselves to the site and then we'll likely have to close the sidewalk in the parking lane during construction on Albert. And then all of our people will be directed to park in the ramps basically during construction. So that's gonna be part of our construction contract and everything that don't have your people park here and take away from the retail parking, go park in the ramps.

Well, and my comment has to do with parking. I'm a member of the Bailey Community Association, as is Vice Chair Ed Wagner, and a couple of our members live in the neighborhood that's right near the hub. And their description of the parking in their neighborhood from the hub is that it's extremely busy and they park everywhere. And I, just as a comment, I anticipate that that will happen with this development. And I live in the Bailey Community Association, in the Bailey community. And as a comment to the mayor who is here, We're gonna have to count on the city to increase in police enforcement in our neighborhoods so that the spillover parking doesn't clog up our neighborhoods. And we're gonna have to count on that. So I make that as a comment to the mayor and the city.

Mr. Bartley.

Commissioner Overby, I think your concerns are valid, but I also just want to remind you that Parking is not allowed in the B3 district unless the applicant requests a waiver and the planning commission allows that. Right. And it's not a site plan review standard. So it's good to discuss, but you can't use that as a standard for decision making.

I understand. Thank you.

To that point being valid though, you know, and I understand that the situation with the parking not, you know, not being permitted and we have to essentially grant an exception. But I think At some point, especially if we increase the development in the big buildings in the city, we're going to have to do a comprehensive review of how street parking works, especially if there are impacts of people spilling into the streets, and maybe review things like limiting certain areas to permit parking and making other adjustments. So I think it's a valid point, but I think it's outside of the developer's control to a large extent.

And to add note to that too, although we're parking the ramp, we will likely be one of the, we'll have more stalls than the other properties currently in downtown. So Abbott has about 80 residential stalls for 400 beds. We're at 445. Hub has about also 80 parking stalls for just under 600 beds in their piece too. And then when you compare us versus the Howard as well, I forget, I think they're around 750 beds and have 110 stalls where we're 445 and have the same 110 stalls. So we're kind of in that ratio where we feel really comfortable and we're then able to push those people there primarily.

Thank you. I'd like to open the public hearing unless there's any other comments or questions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Please sit close by. There might be more questions later. Appreciate it. First, I'm going to open the public hearing. Jeff Horand, now is your time. You threw me through a loop with the PO box on there.

Jeff Horan representing Phipps, Horan & Horan. We own the Grand Plaza, 515 East Grand River. I'm here to talk about parking. A few years ago, there was another project proposed here for affordable housing, and it was going to eliminate all the public parking in the lot behind the Grand Plaza. And due to that concern and other concerns from neighbors, that project was not approved. The recent proposal that TDP had kept two levels of public parking, and we all supported that. And all the neighborhoods supported it, all the businesses supported it, but for some reason, The city and TDP were unable to reach this parking agreement. I urge you to revisit that 12-story proposal and work towards a solution. The new proposal, once again, eliminates the public parking that the businesses in the 500 block rely on. We generally support development and we're not inclined to oppose projects like this. In fact, student housing behind our center will definitely be a benefit. However, we can't support a development that removes needed public parking, include adequate public parking, and we would support the project. The city's apparent lack of concern for existing tenants and landlords and businesses is troubling to me. Failing to address parking needs is short-sighted. All these new developments, you have to address the parking needs at some point. I encourage the city and the planning department to find a solution that supports new development while preserving the parking that the existing businesses rely on. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Would anybody else like to come forward and address the Planning Commission? Please step forward. And also please fill out a card up there if you can.

Sorry, first time here, so.

Oh, no worries.

Danita Brandt, 714 Linden. So, Bailey resident. I want to talk about how our city has an identity crisis. And as a resident of one of the neighborhoods affected by this development, my bone of contention is not primarily with a developer who's striving mightily to stay within the bounds of the rules, But with the rules and application of those rules, in this case, the exception to the eight-story height maximum for using the LEED Gold Certification Exemption, which allows for two additional stories. We have a comprehensive plan to help us answer questions like who we are today and years from now. The city printed these really nice postcards that have 10 takeaway points on the back. And of the 10, at least half of them are relevant to housing. And just briefly, development should be equitable and seek to address historical injustice. Students and senior citizens alike are an integral part of the city's population. People tend to like the neighborhoods they are in and want to maintain the existing neighborhood character. Diverse housing options are desirable. More housing is needed particularly at an attainable price. Does the current proposal get us closer to realizing the comprehensive plan? The folks I talked to say no. I was not able to print out all 420 pages of attachments from the agenda item, but I'm working from the 15 page staff report. From page seven, item 50-38, standards of review for site plan approval shall be consistent with the objectives of the comprehensive plan. One, general site conditions. Quote, the site shall be designated and developed to be reasonably compatible with surrounding properties. On page two of the staff summary, the surrounding land uses that are listed are town homes to the north, peanut barrel and kimchi box to the south, city parking lot and Albert Place condos to the east, and Wild Goose Inn to the west. Surely a 10-story building is not reasonably compatible with these surrounding properties. Now in response, the developer in his narrative rightly says the comprehensive plan does not call for a transition down and other developments that have been completed like the landmark are adjacent to two-story buildings. The hub is next to two-story or less commercial. The TDP did not address the properties that were listed by staff on page two. From a neighborhood perspective, the hub is a poor choice to make in support of the argument to build big on Bailey, as in fact the hub has created a living nightmare for area residents, we've heard some of that, with spillover parkers blocking driveways and a pace and police force unable to keep up with enforcement. The landmark backs up on parking and commercial properties. The proposed development faces two-story townhouses and residences. These are very different settings, requiring some finesse on the part of the city in doling out exceptions to stay true to the principles and values outlined in the city's comprehensive plan. The standards of review for site plan approval include six items, general site conditions, natural features, traffic access, utilities and public services, environmental protection, and public art, but incredibly omits what I submit as an absolutely essential item seven, community input. I can partially remedy this omission by referring you to the email communications from the Bailey neighborhood residents that are included in the written communications of the March 17th city council meeting. And our concerns are largely unchanged from that time. The BCA meets tomorrow night, not in advance of this meeting. And the second part of this identity crisis I'll call mission creep. Our developer makes the case that this project will supply more housing, excuse me, more housing in a desperately undersupplied market. By that, they're referring to student housing, not affordable housing for seniors or other underserved populations. Incredibly, Michigan State University and the city of East Lansing has seemingly swapped roles, the city taking on the responsibility of housing MSU students and the university proposing to fill in functions of a dynamic downtown with newly proposed non-student housing and entertainment venues. Let's take another look at what's being communicated on this nice postcard. A cityscape with the newest high density boxes, a line of traffic stopped at a light with a hint of an orange construction cone. The street is tree-lined, but the scariest aspect of this photo is that there are no people, not a single pedestrian, no bicycles, no public transit bus. This photo is a deliberate choice and could just as easily have been a picture of kids playing in one of our many parks. Time. We've spent a lot of time and effort to craft the vision for our city. Let's stop eviscerating it piece by piece. Thank you. And I'll fill out my card.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else wish to step forward?

Hi, I'm Ali. I own the Wild Goose Inn Al Bay. I live at 512 Albert, East Lansing. First of all, I think a lot of the reason people aren't here today is people really don't know that this is happening. Channel 10 News just today said that the proposal is going to provide commercial space on the main floor, two stories of internal parking, and then whatever. I haven't seen any of this. I really don't know what the development is going to look like. I just don't understand having a public hearing when no one really knows what you're even going to be talking about. It would make sense to me that we need to be a little more informative so that people can really understand what you're up to and then come to make a comment. Okay, that being said, what we've been saying, as we've been saying for a couple years now, we're headed for a major parking problem at the east end of town. Our community acted in good faith working with our developer that constantly told us that all the area businesses, he spoke with all the area businesses, told them and all the neighborhood associations, the city planning department, that they would work with the city to preserve needed on-site parking. only to have them pull the rug out from under us at the last minute. That's what happened. Possibly two major developments are to be added to our downtown with a simultaneous major reduction in available parking. Does that make sense? I'm wondering, could they disapprove this based on the impact that this would have if it has a negative impact on adjacent businesses? Is that a legitimate reason to deny this under the city rules?

Yeah, generally questions should be addressed to the commission, but I'll ask Landon the same question to save you the time. Thank you.

Same question, Landon. I mean, certainly you want to consider the impacts to nearby businesses, but this is a site plan request, which is generally limited to the site plan itself. Impacts to businesses are typically considered more, if land use is going to be especially impactful to a business or to a surrounding property, then it should be considered a specialty use.

but could they use that as a basis for their decision not to support this? Would that be legitimate?

That would require special use approval standards, which this does not fall under. This is a site plan specifically on private property. So they have a task for parking.

What I'm getting at is if you go to the hub, they've provided spaces on their property so as not to cause a negative impact in the neighborhood. If you go to the Abbott, they've provided parking spaces on their property, not required to do so, but it has a major impact in our downtown in that people are parking in the building and they're not causing traffic jams everywhere. So these are major developments that are occurring in our downtown and also outside of our downtown where the developer has decided that it's important to his tenants and also to the businesses in the area that they would include some type of onsite parking and request that. This is really going to negatively impact us. I can't overemphasize that. And I would hope that you wouldn't approve this this evening so that we can get the word out. Thank you.

Thank you for your perspective. Anybody else wish to come forward? Anyone online in the queue?

There's no one in the queue. Mr. Chair, did they fill out cards?

I don't know if everybody did. Yeah. If you did just, um, can you hand it to city staff please? Thank you for the reminder.

Thank you. Okay. No one's online in the queue, right? Um, correct.

Okay. At this point we will close the public hearing and kick it back over to the commission for any final comments. Well, not seeing a, Ms. Wrighton, did you have something to say?

There's a sample motion if anyone was interested.

Yeah, I don't see any interest in doing a motion tonight from anyone given the significance and scale of the project that's typically reserved for much smaller items on the agenda. I think at this point we still have a couple questions and maybe some more community feedback that we're waiting to hear back on, so we'll, presumably see this at a subsequent Planning Commission meeting. When's the next meeting, Mr. Bartley? I know you said we're potentially canceling one in July.

Our next meeting is June 24th. June 24th, okay.

I might just comment if I can.

Please.

that I know this is cumbersome, this process for the developers. And I think the city of East Lansing wants to be responsive to projects like this. Yet at the same time, there's this balance between community input, which has been central to our conversation tonight. I just think it needs to be said that I am in full support of delaying this a week. or two weeks until we have another opportunity to discuss this and broaden this public hearing. But I appreciate the tension in your court, Cody, in that this is a cumbersome process. I think you know that. You don't need to hear that from me or the commission, but we hear you wanting to move forward. We appreciate that. I personally, and I think I speak probably for the Commission here as well that public hearing has to take place or another meeting has to take place after this public hearing. So that's sort of why where I land on this.

well said with one minor clarification. We're not delaying it two weeks. It's just holding it to the standard process that's outlined in the bylaws. But point taken. Okay, seeing no additional comments or questions or guidance for city staff. Please, briefly.

Yeah, no, I just wanted to say, if you guys, do you guys have specific questions you want us to come back and answer? I feel like we've, Happy to come back in two weeks. I'll be here for the DDA meeting the next day anyway, no problem. But is there specifics?

There was a question on geothermal and the potential contracts you're going to be doing with those and their history of projects, I recall from Commissioner Denault. And I think there's still a few outstanding items in the staff report that were characterized as more technical in nature, but still I think those are the key issues. Got it. just, you know, lack of public comment and, you know, an opportunity to do the, we generally don't do. No, I understood it.

The only reason I requested it was because you've seen it already. It's pretty similar to what you saw last time. So that's.

I understand that too. But yeah, typically it's, you know, because there's significant enough changes. I think that's the position of the planning commission at this point. Thank you though. Okay, seeing nothing else in this item, we will move on to the next item in the agenda, which is item 6.2, a public hearing by the Planning Commission to receive comments on proposed ordinance 1575, amendments to chapter 50 of the city code, the zoning ordinance, and to chapter four of the city code to modify requirements related to electric vehicles and charging stations, parking ratios for automobiles and bicycles, landscaping, green space, trees, and the keeping of bees and chickens. Ms. Whitney.

Hi. So this set of ordinance amendments came out of the Green Code Study Committee that met over the summer and fall of last year. So the chair was on that, as well as Commissioner Chapin, Commissioner Donnell, and Commissioner Overby, and also Mayor Altman was part of that group too. This set of amendment suggestions came out of that group. I'll give you kind of a brief summary of what those were. There's a full red line and clean version in the packet. That committee kind of came out with the suggestions with the anticipation that a lot of it would probably be fine tuned at the planning commission level prior to adoption. So there were some things that there wasn't a consensus on, but they agreed that this was for the most part, the framework that they wanted to go with. And some more details would probably be incorporated at the planning commission level. So the first thing that we looked at was landscaping requirements. So there were some changes to that based on feedback that to increase some of the landscaping requirements for screening, to just update to a larger variety of deciduous ornamental and evergreen trees as well as shrubs instead of, it's kind of vague as it's written now. Um, there was also a suggestion to add the preservation of landmark trees to a, uh, as an important site design element and the standards of a site plan review. Um, and then there's a definition of landmark trees based on the size, um, for each species. Um, there's also a suggestion to require plantings to be, um, consistent with species that are, um, listed within the city's tree manual and also limit the percentage of the species genus and families of plants on one site to promote diversity and then with regards to landscape bond one of the suggestions was to have we currently have a landscape bond that is collected at the time of building permits and then is refunded when the certificate of occupancy is issued this version would require that bonds to be held for two years, find the completion of construction. Um, that would help to guarantee that required landscaping survives that initial planting period. Um, even if there was not a bond that would have to be replaced because it was part of the approved site plan to have those plant materials. However, having the bond allows us to do, to be more proactive with it than pursuing an enforcement mechanism because currently our zoning code enforcements are a misdemeanor. So it's a pretty serious enforcement issue if it gets to that. So this would allow us to be a little bit more proactive with that. The committee also looked at parking requirements. So there were some instances where they looked at lowering parking requirements. Specifically, one of those examples was the class A multiple family, which is typically a standard apartment. Class B is a fraternity sorority style. So for units with two or more bedrooms, they reduced that requirement. For units with just one bedroom, it's still one and a half. That's what it was previously. And then there were a couple of uses where the requirement was kind of a weird metric. It was based on the number of seats in an auditorium, and that can kind of be... harder to quantify. So there was some more standardization in that as well. And then the committee also recommended providing a process for waivers to parking minimum requirements. So there are sites where those parking minimums don't always make sense. The example that the committee went through was with Crunchy's. That site would be required, I think, to have 20 to 30 parking spaces if it were built with today's code. But there's a lot of public parking available nearby. you know, the commission in that case could review and say whether or not they feel that it needs that full 20 to 30 spaces. There is also a suggestion to require sites requesting more than 10% in excess of what they're required to provide for parking to also receive a waiver. to try to reduce the amount of impervious parking area. The committee also looked at bike parking and there were some increases that they suggested for the number of bike spaces required as well as requiring at least half of them to be covered either with like an awning or they could be located inside a building. We also talked about EV charging requirements. They looked at requiring a mix of EV capable ready and installed spaces, which that's just essentially different levels of how far the conduit is installed within the space. So the installed space has an actual EV charger there. And that, was incorporated into the parking table that we have in our ordinance. That was a model that we took from the ordinance in Ann Arbor. And that was specifically one of the items that the committee anticipated there would be some refining to the actual numbers that are in there at this stage of the process. But that kind of framework was what they thought might work best for, so that there's different uses that might warrant more EV chargers, such as like multiple family where people are parked for an extended period of time. We also discussed ground coverage requirements and allowing permeable pavers to not count fully towards the amount of ground coverage. And then lastly, we talked about beekeeping. We don't currently have that as a permitted use in our ordinance, but I am pretty sure that there are people who keep bees and we would like for that to be something that has a good framework set up so that we can allow people to do that in a way that It makes them good neighbors, and it would be similar. The committee decided that they thought it would make the most sense to have it be similar to the way that chicken keeping is permitted in single family residential districts, and then certain licenses to be obtained from the clerk's office similar to chicken keeping.

So I think that's pretty much a summary.

Thank you. Appreciate the summary. Recall spending a lot of time in that green code work group. So a lot of pizza.

Yeah. A lot of Oreos.

Yeah, Oreos. Any questions for city staff on this? I did want to raise one item that Mr. Hagan brought up earlier, and it's about the Spartan site with that landmark historic tree that's there. I'm fine with the provision generally, but I'm wondering if we have such a strict provision and it prevents anything from ever getting cut down, you'll end up with blighted site like that. It's been like that for at least a decade, right? Like I don't recall the exact history of it, but seems to me nothing can get built there because there's a tree smack dab in the middle of the site and it's a great, beautiful, big, nice tree. But there should be some sort of appeals process for developing a site and removing a tree if you need it. I don't know if that's in the ordinance. I was trying to find it as you were giving your overview.

Yeah, so the way that it's written as drafted says that site design should consider landmark trees as defined in section 50-840 as an important site design element and should only remove them if other alternatives are not feasible.

They can make an argument that...

Yes, that it's in the middle of the site and there's not a way around it. And that would be part of the site plan review standards that you all review for, and that would be at your discretion to say, yep, that's... That's not a feasible alternative.

Yeah, others may disagree. I just thought it was an interesting anecdote. Oh, Commissioner Dinnall.

Yes, you would assume that I would disagree.

I never assumed anything.

You're the one talking. You know, I think... I appreciate Mr. Hagan coming and sharing his perspective on why this particular site maybe hasn't been developed, but I don't think, A, we should blame it on a tree. I think we should blame it on people who are creating developments, and I think we should blame it on the financial aspects that make it, not lucrative for a developer to develop there, right? I don't think it's the tree's fault. I think it's people who aren't creative enough or not willing to put forth enough money to develop something creative around the tree.

I have no response to that, yeah. Vice Chair? Spartan, Grand River.

I haven't been here long. Over there?

If I may, Vice Chair Wagner, you were talking about lust earlier. And there's a pretty significant lust under this site, which has been a significant barrier to development as well.

All right.

Commissioner Ramirez-Roberts.

I have some questions about the landscape bond. This is just my first time hearing about them. I guess, how much would be collected for that?

So right now we collect a bond that is one and a half times the cost of installation. So, um, of, of the landscaping. Yes. Sorry. Not the entire site. Um, but the applicant, when they apply for building permits, they submit an invoice or a estimate from a landscaper to us that has their, um, installation costs. And that, uh, bond collected is for one and a half times that cost.

I'm still trying to formulate. Sorry, I'll come back with something later.

Sure. Any other comments on the Commissioner Dinnall?

Yeah. I know that we on the committee had discussed a landmark tree ordinance, and I clearly like the landmark tree ordinance. But I think... One of the questions that I had was how it was determined what a landmark tree would be. Did you look at other ordinances that other cities had? Was this maybe a suggestion of the city's arborist? So talk a little bit about that.

Yeah, the size requirements that we have in the draft came from the city's arborist. We now have a different arborist, but they've also looked at it. And they did get that from another city's ordinance. I'm not sure. I don't remember exactly who, but they did take that from another

municipality excellent thank you mr. greening did you have a comment on on this at large now would be a good time to raise it up and it was a good comment so oh sorry me or her um

This particular ordinance started a thought process that evolved over a couple of weeks, actually, with respect to other issues that have been popping up in East Lansing regionally, nationally, internationally. So I'm going to do today, or in the next few minutes, demonstrate why economics is called the dismal science. But on the other hand, I'm going to try to offer a solution that we could create to these issues. The dismal part of my message is that prices, retail prices, prices you and I pay for electricity and natural gas are going to go up. We're through the low price time in this particular decade. century, whatever. My reasoning for this, we're all part of a regional market for both of these energy types and we can't insulate from those regional markets. For example, Natural gas prices have risen by roughly 200% over the last decade. And they have been maintaining lower prices for electricity. We've been shifting our generation fuel from coal to natural gas. we're also experiencing an increase in LNG exports And that's expected to increase by something like 30% by 2027. So we're moving from an oversupply in natural gas to maybe a balance between supply and demand, if not a constrained supply. Then in terms of Electricity. We buy our electricity from the Lansing Board of Water and Light. How does that entity get the electricity to sell to us? It happens to be that they generate about 55% currently of the electricity they sell on the retail level. in their facilities. The other 45% is bought off a regional market. In our case, that regional market is operated by the mid-continent independent system operator in Carmel, Indiana. The mid-continent, the MISO, to make it short, includes not only the state of Michigan, but Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, half of the Dakotas, up into Canada, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Prices have been going up nationally. In fact, prices for electricity have increased between 2021 and 2025 roughly by 30%. You don't probably think about that realizing it, along with gasoline, is going up. Actually, prices increased 12.5% between January of 2025 and October of 2025, less than a year, 12.5%. Now, the thing about it, we know this upward trend is going to continue. The generation by natural gas is getting more expensive, but then we've got a very great unknown that is coming down the pike. That's in terms of increasing demand from data centers. Within the MISO, we know there's development going on in Indiana. quite a bit up in Wisconsin, in Illinois. We have no idea how that demand growth is going to affect the MISO. But we can look to another independent system operator, the one that serves Ohio eastward into the mid-Atlantic states and happens to include a large cluster of data centers in Virginia. In one quarter, three months, wholesale prices on that market increased by 75.5%. There's been some speculation about how that's going to translate into a consumer's bill. That speculation has included rate increases by as much as 15%. And some people are saying that's conservative. When we get down to regulatory hearings and so forth, that picture will become clearer. But we can say there's going to be an impact on energy prices and you are not immune to it because you live in a city that says a moratorium. on data center growth. Now, this is leading me to the statement that beyond not having a control on energy prices, we do have control over something. We have control over our total expenditure for energy. To control our total expenditures for energy we need to plan for energy efficiency. In other words, conservation, which leads into goal number seven, which is the subject of this particular ordinance. thing that is particularly noticeable, if you look at our building codes and so forth in our city, we don't touch on energy efficiency. The only place where it sort of bleeds in is that the Uniform Energy Code for Michigan was upgraded in August of 2025. But that's the only place where it penetrates. And I think we ought to think about coming up with a comprehensive plan which is planning commission and the planning department about how we're going to increase energy efficiency in our city. Now I will say this. Michigan law in 2023 indicated that energy efficiency should be part and parcel of our overall clean energy strategy. Where we're looking at renewables, we're looking at nuclear, we're looking at a number of quote unquote clean energy. Under the state RPS, utilities are required to reduce consumption within their service territory by 1.5% annually. Now, to meet this requirement, utilities have in the past offered various energy audits, they've offered rebates, they've offered informational programs. But those, the results out of those types of programs have been mixed. Now I'm going to go ahead and make the argument that we ought to be expanding our view of increasing energy efficiency from just new builds to across our entire housing stock. And the reason I'm saying that is East Lansing is fairly what they refer to as fully developed or fully built. We don't have much vacant land that will be developed. Further, the average age of our housing stock within the city limits is 1978. That's the average. A house built in 1978, I'm taking that as representative, uses between 30 to 60% more energy than one built in 2006, which is kind of the benchmark that we're comparing against. And so there's a lot of room for improvement. if we develop a comprehensive program to interject energy efficiency into our existence. Like we've done with recycling, making energy efficiency important, we can do that. Now, there's an economic reason. for thinking about improving energy efficiency. And that buyers of homes that have increased their efficiency are willing to pay between 2.8 and 8% premium or an increase in the price that they're willing to pay. Now that comes from analysis by Freddie Mac and they have a good staff of economists. So there's not only the idea of working to reduce carbon emissions, reducing or at least keeping constant the share of a household's budget for energy. We have this one too. So what I started doing was looking around What have some of the other cities in Michigan done in terms of promoting energy efficiency? One of them is what's referred to as a home energy rating disclosure. And it's implemented at the time a house is listed If the owner does, if that component is not met, then there's a fee at closing which is collected. The city does not have to get into the idea of whether a house meets the requirement. Now, there are a couple of organizations which provide home energy ratings. This is a very simple process. This is currently implemented in Ann Arbor and what they actually have is a website showing properties that have been listed and their ratings. So a consumer can go in, just like you do when you go into Lowe's to buy a refrigerator, they can say, yep, I want that house because it has a better rating. That's the whole purpose behind it. Now there are also things like energy efficiency audits that once you have an incentive mechanism set up where people realize it's going to cost them on their, on profiting from their house, they're going to start paying attention and pointing them in the direction of where to look. Now some municipalities offer these audits for free, others charge a nominal fee. Another thought. Informational support. That one's Very cheap to implement. We have every week an email with the dialogue in it. Well suppose every week we start saying you can make more money on your house or your house will sell more rapidly if you consider thus and so. You can also get information out about various options. For example, on water heaters, tankless hot water heaters are more energy efficient than water heaters with a tank. But when most of us go shopping for a hot water heater, we're doing it in an emergency. The tank has burst. I don't have hot water so I can't shower to go to work. That sort of thing. And they will grab the quickest thing they can do to replace the existing appliance. So providing information that people start shopping in advance for major additions. Then there's also the idea of a green rental initiative or incentive that, as part of the existing rental licensing program, not only do we incorporate safety and health considerations, but we also include energy efficiency. regulation. Then there's the idea of aging in place efficiently. People who have an environment which the temperature is well regulated, heated, cooled, and that's going to become more important as climate change occurs they age better, they remain healthy longer. So this would be an area to explore and see what we can do there. I could probably keep going for quite a long list of places where we might take a look, but the point is it's a for planning and implementing an energy efficient program, efficiency program. It has to be an ongoing process. It has to be part of the planning process. It's not a one look, oh we've got the key and we're ready to go, we're done. Does not work that way. So I'm requesting more or less after this long spiel that we give some serious consideration about how we go about the process of initiating this and getting a series of measures before the council that promote energy efficiency, expanding the audience, the target audience to the entire community and not just one small segment.

Well said, I think you raised a lot of good points. We had a lot of thorough conversations in the green code committee. I don't think we ever touched on these specific points of energy efficiency really. The scope was a little bit more focused on other items. I think we never officially disbanded it, did we Landon? I think at the last meeting we sort of kept it alive for future consideration of other topics. So maybe we're due at some point for a round two and a comprehensive review of things, maybe more focused on the energy space and energy efficiency space. But I think you raised some good points and I think we'd love to find out more about that. Sure. As for next steps, I think that's purely what it is, is trying to review the existing ordinances we have in place and bringing stuff to city staff's attention for consideration and potential agenda item down the line. So any other comments on that?

I appreciated all that you said and actually I like your follow up there Chairperson Sullivan. So I would just say very much appreciated, noted, respected and worthy of more follow up. I think in my mind the data center element really rings here. and that's a new consideration as we plan and we develop ordinances because you cited some interesting data and that is connected with my thinking. I'll leave it at that, thank you.

Thanks everybody. Any other comments on item 6.2? Yep, we got to do the public hearing still. At this point, we'll open the public hearing. Does anyone from the audience wish to step forward?

Eric Altman, 702 Snyder Road. I will fill out a card. I wanted to pick up on a comment from Mr. Hagan about bike racks, which I thought was pretty interesting. So we had this discussion about bike racks. And his comment was that he doesn't see a lot of use, a lot of demand for them on his properties. And that's not real surprising to me as somebody who rode a bike to school and to work for decades. I learned that bike racks that are not covered are not very useful. Because bikes rot, ROT, in weather, in ways that cars don't. And unless you're somebody who depends on a bicycle to get around, it wouldn't necessarily be obvious. And a point that Mr. Hagen made, which I thought was pretty important, is that bike racks have to sit on concrete pads, which increase impervious surface and take up land coverage. And if they're not useful because people don't use them because they're not covered, then maybe we need to scale. Maybe there's a way to scale those back and a way to I'm not sure how to go about that, but I think what we did from the Green Code Committee, which is proposing at least a 50% covered bike racks, was a good step. But I'm wondering if there's more that we could do on that to ultimately, to do what might at first blush look like increasing the cost of the bike racks, but actually maybe decreasing the cost of the bike racks in terms of decreasing ground coverage. So that was my comment and I'll fill this out.

Thought I had on that too is we're essentially adding more housing with less parking, but we can't also simultaneously reduce the bike parking that's down there because that might be an option that people are relying on more often if they're not able to park their vehicle on site too. But I think that it is something deserving of a more comprehensive review. And I had thought of the covered parking angle to that since we deliberated that in green code. Commissioner Dinnall.

I think too, that it's not necessarily true that bikes need to be on a concrete pad, right? They can be on permeable pavers for instance, which this ordinance also addresses. Um, and so I think that, um, that assumption by Mr. Hagan is maybe inaccurate.

Or on a wall, even, maybe, right? Right. Yeah.

Exactly. Or it can be on grass. You just have to cut around them, right? I think there are alternatives. I think of a false assumption to say that they must be on a concrete pad, right?

You get to hit on bikes entries tonight. Good night for you.

Big night.

Yeah. Okay. At this point we'll close the public hearing. Thank you for the reminder. Um, and what is the will of the planning commission? Any comments, questions for city staff recommendations, motions.

Well, I'll speak for, yeah, I'm sorry. No, I appreciate the follow-up as a participant in the Green Code Committee to see this as a potential motion. I think there's going to be some reaction to this, some detail. I like the fact, Mr. Mayor, that we are doing some things here connected to supporting bike riding in our community. And I think it's clear that we're talking about that. So I'm thumbs up on that. I'm comfortable with making a motion and approving this tonight. I don't know if I'm jumping the gun, but if I am, so be it.

So before we get there, I do have a question for staff about this. Why bees and chickens? Was this something that you've seen a lot of What about goats and pigs?

I don't know. We already have an ordinance related to chickens. Just part of this was moving it from a different section to zoning because it really should be in zoning. It's related to regulations for private property, so it should be in the zoning code. And another part of that is to be consistent with the bee aspect that those kind of go together as in they have a similar process set up. For the bees, that kind of came about because I've gotten a number of calls from residents asking about if they could put in beehives. Really, if it's not permitted in the ordinance, it's not allowed. But that's something that I think there was a lot of interest from the committee on when I said, hey, is there any interest in talking about bees? Is that something? So there was quite a bit of interest in that. So we took reference from some other cities' ordinances about how they handle bees and went with that, that it's kind of a... that people would like to see them allowed, but it's better if we have some kind of framework to make good neighbors out of those who have bees in their yard.

And I think what's unique about bees too is they have a positive impact on the environment and crops and a number of other things too.

Okay, is there a motion? Mayor Roberts? So I was just looking through. I don't see a sample motion in the packet.

My computer died, too, so I can't.

I don't know if there was a printable one or just a preferred wording.

Yeah, we didn't put one in there. No.

Honestly, we didn't really expect action tonight. Okay. If you are inclined to take action, a simple motion of I move to approve recommend adoption of ordinance 1575 would do it. Except, or excuse me, by city council. Except that if you have any proposed changes or that you'd propose to what is shown in, I guess, in the ordinance that you would include those in the motion. So you could make a very simple motion right now and just add changes if you'd like to.

I'd like to make a motion to recommend approval of ordinance 1575 to city council. Second.

Moved by Commissioner Ramirez-Roberts, seconded by Commissioner Dinnall. Any discussion on that motion? Okay, I think we've had thorough, good discussion so far, so appreciate that. So let's do a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, nay. Motion carries. Ordinance 1575 is now on to city council at a to be determined council meeting. Up next is item 6.3, a public hearing by the Planning Commission to receive comments on proposed ordinance 1576, amendments to chapter 50 of the city code. The zoning ordinance to require special use approval for multiple family residential units in certain business districts, clarify requirements for retail sale of alcohol for off-site consumption, and add requirements for use of certain building incentives.

Thank you. So the Ordinance 1576 originated from essentially a concern about a loophole for want of a better term that opened up in December of 2024 when we approved Ordinance 1536. The loophole was essentially a way around the diverse housing requirement. We've talked about it to some length at this meeting and others, but just briefly stated Essentially at the time that Ordinance 1536 was adopted, one of the actions that 1536, or one of the changes that 1536 made to the zoning ordinance was to allow upper story residential uses in all business districts, essentially by right, with a site plan versus special use. So generally with a site plan, in most cases, the intent was sort of to allow upper story residential uses in business districts by right, especially if they were to be a conversion instead of new construction. However, what happened is that when, essentially we weren't really aware that By changing those uses from being a special use to a site plan, requiring a site plan approval, we were essentially removing the diverse housing requirement because the diverse housing requirement is located within the special use section, so it applies to special uses. So by changing the use from a special use to a site plan review, or to one requiring site plan review, we unwittingly removed the diverse housing requirement. So the intent is to reverse that change to bring the diverse housing requirement back into force. And the way that's proposed by this ordinance is to change upper story residential uses back to a special use in all business districts. I have a note from staff that we recommend not changing it for all business districts. Kind of from a pure planning perspective, it's a good thing to allow upper story residential uses where there might not be a a significant impact surrounding properties. So we certainly had some concerns that have come up about residential, multi-family residential uses in the downtown area. So we think that it might be appropriate to change at least temporarily while we're figuring out diverse housing or if we have changes to make to those ordinances. we're suggesting that yes, it's probably worth changing upper story residential uses back to a special use within the B3 district, but from the staff perspective, we're not so keen on all the other residence districts. So any questions about that specific part of the ordinance before I move on to the others? Okay. The others are quite simple, I would say. Well, the second one's quite simple. Also, 1536 had made some changes to how we approach alcohol. We've gotten some more clarity since that time, especially for alcohol for offsite consumption. And so just some minor wording adjustments to sort of shore up how we approach alcohol sales in the zoning ordinance. And finally, we have required... There was some discussion about the incentive structure that was introduced by Ordinance 1536. The upper story residential was one part of that, but sort of a major part, I would say, sort of the major driver for 1536 was to allow and incentivize certain building elements, especially mass timber in all business districts. And sort of late in the process, I think it was at the council meeting that was where it was approved or adopted, we added an incentive to allow LEED certification or to sort of change the points around. However, at the time, we didn't really have a provision to confirm that initiative or that incentive. And there was a question about this earlier that came up with a discussion about pre-certification for the green building proposed at 530 Albert. Excuse me. So we wanted to include, to add language that would sort of specify how do we, how can we, how can I as staff sort of confirm that they're actually gonna build what they say they will. And then before the process, to allow them to be approved for the additional stories. I'm sorry, I should say, essentially the incentive is, I'm good, thank you. The incentive allows additional stories or more units if you meet, if you do what the incentive requires, which is be LEED Gold certified or Platinum, have mass timber, allow a certain number of affordable housing units, et cetera. So we wanted to make sure, essentially for the lead incentive, that we had some way to confirm that. And so we would like to require pre-certification essentially at the time of approval. Generally we've been finding there was some concern among developers, how long does this take? Generally it doesn't take more than a month or two, we found. In fact, we recently received a pre-certification from the Howard who's seeking to use the same incentive. and they received their pre-certification about a month after they applied. So we don't think this is a significant barrier or significant potential for slowing down the process. But we also wanted to have some sort of a requirement so that after the fact, when the building is built, if it doesn't meet the requirements for LEED Gold, for example, and they said it would, that we have some sort of a provision to say, well, you didn't do what you said you were gonna do. So that's where we came up with the idea that we wouldn't issue the certificate of occupancy until certification was granted. You heard some comments earlier about that's too late or maybe it could be a temporary certificate of occupancy. I think that's okay. But we do want to essentially have some sort of outcome that if an applicant has has gotten to use the incentive, has built their extra two stories that they have to do what they said they were gonna do. So I think that there's some value, honestly, to saying no, you can't use those floors if you didn't meet the requirement. I think that's sort of the intent of this ordinance change. It has some sort of a penalty for not following through. I should mention also that an early developer had spoken about, hey, there's some difficulty. Or I think it was an architect that was talking about there's some difficulty through the process. Honestly, though, if you say I'm going to pre-certify and you get pre-certification and you follow through with your pre-certification, you should be getting certified. And if there are concerns, I guess... The concerns about the transition from pre-certification to certification can be addressed with good planning on the part of the architect and builder. So I don't think there's a real concern about penalizing not doing what you said you were gonna do, I think it would be okay to say, yes, we'll issue a temporary certificate of occupancy if you're permitted until you get certification, but at some point there has to be a point where you stop and say, no, you didn't do it. So that's the intent of the third change. Any questions?

Commissioner Ramirez-Roberts.

Yeah, so you said that they wouldn't be able to use those additional stories. So would the certificate of occupancy, if they don't reach that LEED certification, would it apply to the whole building? Or were you saying just those additional stories that they added on?

So my, I guess, concern, and I should pull up the exact ordinance language to make sure I'm referring to it correctly. Okay, it just says, essentially, so the idea with me saying, we would say no, you can't use those stories because those two incentivize, or those two stories that are the incentive, you get two stories if you certify your building as LEED. The whole building would be certified as LEED. And so if it's certified LEED Gold for the whole building, those two stories would be great and they can use them. if you don't, you can't just certify the two stories, though. You'd have to certify the whole building, if that was your question.

Yeah, it was just that, essentially, if they didn't reach that LEED gold certification, they would still be able to rent out the other units in the building that aren't under, that weren't a part of LEED gold certification, I guess.

Yes. Okay. Yeah, the intent would be that they could use the rest of the building. And honestly, even saying, no, you can't use those two stories, isn't part of this ordinance. We still sort of have to It just says, like this doesn't specify really what happens, it just says you must do this. You must have pre-certification and certification. So I think it, we do need to sort of consider what would happen if they don't. I think that non-occupancy or saying, perhaps we say, well great, make those diverse housing. You know, if you didn't meet it. Make those affordable. That would be something that we'd want to eventually clarify. We don't necessarily need to for this ordinance. Although if you have suggestions, I would say include those as recommendations.

It's helpful. Thanks for walking us through that. I had some questions about that certificate of occupancy. So you think there's maybe a middle ground we could meet with a temporary certificate, but that's not in the language that you're proposing, right?

I mean, we could, no, it's not really, it's just sort of how does staff respond to this. And I think we could issue the temporary certificate of occupancy to help them with their timing. We just have to have some sort of clawback at some point in the process. If they say, well, we're getting certified, and it becomes clear they're not going to get certified, then we have to have some sort of response.

I think it makes sense with the recent history of somebody not following through with the obligations that they're supposed to meet.

And sometimes it happens for very good reasons. It may not be malicious or intended, but still you have the end result. I see another hand down here.

Sorry. OK. Please proceed.

So same thing I think as last time, I think I may have included a brief, a very brief sample motion if you're interested in acting. Oh, I guess I didn't. But if you are interested in acting, it would be a very simple motion of I recommend approval or adoption, excuse me, but you certainly don't need to tonight, especially if you have changes that you'd like me to make.

Landon, my computer died, so I had to borrow Chuck's, but there was one bit of language on page 18 that looks like it was maybe a typo or maybe I'm just misreading it for section 50-806, I believe. Okay. Yeah. So I think that there's an and struck that I don't think should be.

I don't mean to wordsmith this, but I'm trying to figure out what that's trying to say. This section allows for points to be earned by providing building or site elements that address certain community priorities. And currently it says, and to be spent in ways that benefit the project. And what's proposed to change would be that address certain community priorities, which points may be spent. I think you're correct, actually. I think that it should say, and which points may be spent in ways. that benefit the project, so we can make that change.

Okay, thank you. I was just trying to make sense of that.

That makes sense.

Okay, what's the, well first we gotta open the public hearing on this one. Would the person in the audience wish to step forward? No one's online in the queue still, right?

No one is on the line.

Okay, at this point we'll close the public hearing and then kick it back to the commission for potential action or action at the next meeting.

I don't have any recommendations to modify, edit, et cetera, so I would be comfortable, you put a lot of work into this Landon, so I would be comfortable deferring to what we have in front of us here and approving this tonight be one person's input

May I, Mr. Chair? Please, Mr. Bartley. If someone does make a motion, I would suggest that NS2 adopt. I would suggest, so you make the motion to adopt or recommend adoption of Ordinance 1576. I would ask for the following amendments. That you would make the amendment that the change to change of multifamily residential units changing to special use be limited to the B3 district. If that's the will of the commission, that's staff's recommendation. But if you're not interested in that, I certainly understand.

Maybe I don't understand, but I agree with you.

I would just suggest that if you were to make the motion to adopt or to recommend adoption, that you would also perhaps recommend an amendment that would say the change of multifamily residential becoming a specialty use would be limited to the B3 district and not all business districts. That's my personal recommendation as staff. If the commission is not interested in making that recommendation, I'm not gonna quit, but I wanted to just mention that. I think that that would be a good recommendation to make.

Are you comfortable with the motion?

Would we be okay with me making the motion? Yes, that's... Okay. So I motion to recommend the approval of Ordinance 1576 to City Council with the amendment that the requirements for special use permitting apply only to the B3 zoning district when in... when in reference to multifamily rental, right? That's okay? With the additional amendment that, let me find it on page 18, that the line under section 50-806, building height incentive point structure, be changed to from which points may to be changed to and which points may.

All right, motion by Ramirez-Roberts. Is there a second? Seconded by Commissioner Putz. Discussion?

Thank you.

OK. Vice Chair?

What about any sort of penalty for pre-lead certification not following through? and not granting occupancy license for the extra levels. Do we want to add that here or do we want to not add that to this motion? It's up to you.

How would you phrase that? Sorry. Commissioner Nolte, did you have a comment?

Yeah, I think there's been several enforcement options offered, and I think I would prefer to leave it undefined so that we can defer to staff to ultimately decide what enforcement mechanism works best for them.

okay let me ask another way would you have that capability under the the current language or the language that's being proposed is it sufficient not necessarily um i think that if if i mean i think that a recommendation could be you know explore uh penalty options and or explore and that you'd recommend that there be penalties, and even leaving it at that might be okay, if that's how you're inclined. You don't necessarily have to state what those are, but I think that if you feel strong enough that there should be a penalty, then I would recommend saying that. And that could be done as an amendment.

Is that a friendly amendment? So motion by Ramirez-Roberts with a friendly amendment suggested by Commissioner Dinnall. Are you receptive to that amendment?

Wouldn't we have to? Yeah, I'm sorry. If I may, as far as preliminary procedure, it should be a new motion by Commissioner Denault or others to say, I would like to amend Commissioner Ramirez of Roberts' motion with the following, and then a vote on that.

Okay, let's do a separate vote on, would you make a motion again?

Sure. I move to add language adding some sort of penalty for the LEED certification, or not for LEED certification, but for not meeting the requirements of LEED certification as promised by a developer.

Is there a second? Second. Moved by Dinault, seconded by Vice Chair Wagner. Discussion on that amendment to the main motion? Seeing none, all those in favor vote aye. Aye. Opposed nay. Motion carries. The main motion is amended with Commissioner Dinault's suggestion. All right, back to you Commissioner Ramirez-Roberts. Is there a second to the main motion?

I second.

Second main motion made by commission and all seconded by Commissioner Chapin any discussion on the main motion That is revised.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I earlier when their motion was made. I had Commissioner Potts a second. Oh Never mind I appreciate the gesture, but your motion second Okay any additional discussion

Seeing none, all those in favor vote aye. Aye. Motion carries. Ordinance 1576 is now on to city council for a to be determined city council meeting. As we have no unfinished business, that takes us on to item number eight, new business, 8.1, rescheduling October 21st planning commission meeting to October 28th.

Yeah, thank you. I mentioned this at the last meeting. We had, at the, I guess, last meeting of last year, when we set our schedule, I had requested that we reschedule the October 21st, October 28th meeting to October 21st to accommodate a conference that planners were hoping to go to. The conference dates have been changed now, so we're looking to just change that back. So the next, the second October meeting would be on the 28th instead of the 21st.

Any concerns with that, Commissioner Ramirez-Rapids?

Not a concern. I was just going to say it for me. I currently have no plans for October 28.

yeah i don't i don't know what i'm doing tomorrow right so um works for me are we doing it we don't need a motion on this do we oh yes okay we do okay well let's uh who wants to make the motion just reading i'll do i'll do the hat trick tonight um commissioner i motion to reschedule the october 21st 2026 planning commission meeting to october 28th 2026. All right, motion by Ramirez-Roberts, seconded again by Commissioner Putz. Any discussion on that motion? Seeing none, all those in favor, vote aye. Aye. Opposed, nay.

Aye. Nay.

Wait, was that a new vote now?

No, no, that was a late aye. That was a late aye.

All right.

And one nay, because I won't be able to make it.

All right. Commissioner Nolte says no. Trees.

We'll talk about trees.

Seven to one vote. All right, motion carries. So that planning commission meeting in October is now rescheduled from the 21st to the 28th. It takes us on to item number nine, commissioner concerns. I got to say something, I'm not making this up. My wife texted me about an hour ago, a tree fell on my house. So you were to blame for that. The trees have attacked. With your avid defense of trees, yes, and the power lines are on fire and the fire department's in my house right now. Sorry if I seemed a little bit distracted.

I'm going to get out of here. We're almost done.

I move we adjourn. They're good. So sometimes we can blame the trees. Anyways, somebody else had a concern, right?

Yes, I did.

According to the pictures I see, the transformer's on fire. There's a bad storm going on right now. Is there really? Is it? What's the damage? I don't know. She's too... Hopefully it doesn't result in a complaint to Debs. I know, that's what I was thinking. Any other concerns?

I had a concern.

Okay, Commissioner Dinnall.

Did you have something?

Just real quick, are we confirmed on July 11th for the retreat? Yes. Okay, that's a confirmation.

Yes, thank you for that reminder. July 11th is Saturday, and I'm still confirming the times. My intent was to start at 9 a.m., but that's for our Planning Commission retreat, so July 11th. Thank you for that reminder. Thank you.

Yeah. Um, so I just wanted, um, to make a quick statement. Um, my yes vote on the Howard proposal at our last meeting has really weighed heavily on my mind since then. Um, I've been skeptical of this project since it first came to us last year and, um, continued, I felt to bring a critical eye to bear on it as it progressed through the process. And I really felt like voting for approval didn't align with the values that I've tried to bring to my work on this convention commission. And I really felt moved to address it today. Um, so right. If I was so skeptical about the project, why did I ultimately vote? Yes. You know, as sometimes happens, the discussion with my fellow commissioners, uh, that I, that we engaged in reminded me that our new comprehensive plan update does call for increased density and more housing in this area of downtown. Um, but having in having served on the plan committee, I really stand by that recommendation, but after further reflection, I do not believe that this is the right project to accomplish this end. Um, you know, ultimately my one additional no vote would not have impacted the overall fate of this project as it still would have been approved by, um, a vote of six to three. But I still feel like it's important to make this statement for two reasons. First, I know I would be frustrated with myself for not upholding the values that I endeavor to bring to my service on this commission. And this project does still await review by city council. And I hope that by expressing my skepticism of this project, members of city council might approach their own decisions with a more critical eye. And so I know we have houses on fire right now. So thank you to my fellow commissioners, at least for the opportunity to share this reflection.

That's good. That's good.

Fair enough. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for coming. Fair enough. Yeah, I have a brief. So any time one of us gets a message that our house is on fire, we should. It's not on fire. The power line is on fire. We should break that up. And whether we have a quorum or not, you should leave to address that issue. Second.

We're almost there. Okay, is there a motion to adjourn then? So moved. Second. All right, I lost. Go home. Moved by Vice Chair Wagner, seconded by Commissioner Overby. Okay, seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote aye. Aye. All right, motion carries. We're adjourned at 9.04 p.m.