Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone and welcome to the December 17th, 2025 East Lancing Planning Commission meeting. Mr. Bartley, could you please take role? I will. Thank you. Um second, please. Commissioner Chapen here. Commissioner Denult here. Commissioner Hendrickx. Commissioner Leine, Commissioner Overby here. Commissioner Puts here. Commissioner Seilleski here. Vice Chair Wagner here. Chair Sullivan here. We have quorum. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda? So moved.

Moved by Commissioner Putts, seconded by uh Commissioner Overby. Um, seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I. I. Uh, oppose. Nay. Eyes have. Motion carries. Agenda is approved. Is there a motion to approve the minutes from the November 19th, 2025 planning commission meeting. So moved. Moved. Second by Commissioner Overby, seconded by Vice Chair Wagner. Seeing no discussion, all those in favor vote I. I. Oppos? Nay. Motion carries. Uh the minutes are approved. Takes us on to item number two, committee reports. Mr. Bartley.

Uh yes, the age friendly commi uh communities committee um which uh Dr. Tapen is uh representative to um met in November and adopted their uh 2025 uh action plan. We'll be bringing that to council on January 6 to present um that to them for a formal adoption and then we'll be bringing this to the planning commission for review on the 7th of January. So we're looking forward to uh presenting that and also wanted to mention um we uh one of the representatives on that committee is from Age Live at MSU. Age Live is hosting their town gown series. Uh they'll have an event this Friday uh the 19th at noon at People's Church and that's Dr. Dr. Gabriel Roble uh talking about the bioarchchaeology of the ancient Maya. So that's my report for age friendly communities unless Dr. Tapen you have anything to add.

I would just add that Landon and his staff have done a really nice job with the report that you'll hear about at our next meeting and I think it's worthy of uh a review in the packet. I think it's a really nice document and kudos to you and your team. Thank you council commissioner. Um, as far as the community development advisory committee, I I don't have a report for that, but I think uh, Commissioner Puts may. Uh, short and sweet. We just met last Thursday for just kind of theformational meeting. Welcome, getting people uh, acquainted with the process and then we'll kick off the process, the rest of it in start of January.

Okay. Um and and then as far as the green code study committee um of which chair Sullivan and commissioners Denalton Overby uh were on that uh committee hasn't met since September uh when it sent its final recommendations uh to staff to bring to council. We brought those recommendations to council last night uh for initial discussion uh and received some some guidance from council saying yes we like all of these essentially uh please come back to us with with some action items. So um some of those recommendations were uh the highest priority I would say um coming out of council was for storm water standards and mitigation um storm water runoff. Uh we also have recommendations about urban forestry uh tree requirements and tree uh replacement requirements which this uh commission has dealt with several times in the last couple years. Um and then also multif family recycling. Uh we're also looking at zoning changes for landscaping requirements, parking uh requirements in EV spaces. Uh also ground coverage uh and green space and beekeeping. So I expect to bring uh some ordinance amendments uh to you over the next several months uh in that regard. That's my report for the green code study committee unless commissioners have anything to add.

Any comments or questions from commissioners? Seeing none, we'll keep it with you for a staff report.

Uh thank you. So, uh, for staff report, uh, I mentioned we had council last night where we shared the green code committee's recommendations. Uh I also presented with um staff from the MEDC, the Michigan Economic Development uh Corporation about the uh redevelopment ready communities um program. I guess uh redevelopment ready communities or RC is a set of a set of best practices uh that if a community meets uh many of those best practices and I'll go into more more detail at a later date uh when it comes to you but essentially a community can get certified uh as a redevelopment ready community and that bestows a lot of benefits including um access to to financing grant points uh technical assistance and others. So, uh, we had a fairly, um, I would say a positive response from council and we'll be moving forward, uh, over the next couple months with that. Uh, where I do want to mention is that we have had a request from MEDC to have a site visit, um, of their staff and sort of delegation from MEDC to come to East Lancing. Um, Mr. Chair, I had reached out to you about what what commissioner might be appropriate to be on that um, on that site visit. Uh, they had requested a chair and maybe one or two other commissioners. You had suggested Dr. Chapen. Um, so I've talked to Dr. shaping about that. I'll I'll keep informing you guys about the progress as we move forward and I expect to have more for you next time. Um I also want to mention that uh the city clerk's office will be leading a board and commission chair training. Uh they're hoping to have chairs, vice chairs, and council liaison. Uh if they have space, they can take other uh commissioners as well. But uh really hoping on for for those uh folks to attend. They're tenatively planning that uh for the afternoon of Thursday the February 12th uh here in Hannah Community Center. So I'll be contacting uh the chair and vice chair uh about that uh as that's scheduled and finalized and which also I should mention that your next uh meeting in January will be election of officers.

So we'll decide at that point who's going to be the chair and vice chair and send them to the port board uh training in February. Excuse me. Also along the lines of uh upcoming training and learning opportunities, uh we have a webinar that's run by the Michigan Association of Planning. Uh the past and future of planning in Michigan. That's a two-part webinar. Uh we'll be having a shared viewing at our office. So if you're interested, uh the first part is on Thursday, January 8th, um at noon. The second one is uh Thursday, January 15th. So that's sort of a general um my understanding is sort of a history and then outlook for planning in Michigan. Um it was presented at the uh statewide conference in October and very wellreceived. Also the Michigan Association of Planning will be hosting this isn't a an opportunity for you but it's opportunity for our students. They'll be hosting the student uh statewide uh planning conference here in East Lancing on February 7th. So we're excited about that. The transportation bonanza is a transportation planning focused conference run by the Michigan association of planning also being hosted here in East Lancing at the Marriott and that'll be on Tuesday Jan or excuse me February 10th next year. Uh so if people are interested in that please let me know. Um we'll also have a webinar about planning and zoning for inclusive design. Uh that's going to be on Wednesday, February 18th. I'll be mentioning all these again to you next year as well. And then finally, the APA APA national conference uh is is going to be in Detroit at the end of April. And so I want to keep that on your uh in your minds so that as we approach uh more meetings next year, we can decide who's going to represent the planning commission at that conference. That's it for my staff report. Any questions?

Great. Lots of opportunities. Any comments or questions? Thank you. Seeing none, that takes us on to item number four, commissioner announcements. This is also your time tonight to disclose any conflicts of interest on items on tonight's agenda. Are there any announcements from commissioners? See none. I just had a brief one. Um last couple meetings have been um we've been deviating a little bit from Robert's rules and I know we have a pretty packed agenda tonight. So I'm going to try to route questions through me if if we can. So please raise your hand if possible.

All right. Any other comments or questions? All right, great. Takes us on to item number five, communications from citizens. First up is item 5.1, written communication. There was one item added to tonight's agenda packet late from uh Mr. Jason Barers on item 6.1. Uh, additionally, there are several existing written correspondents on item 6.1, both in support and opposition of that item. Um, didn't miss anything, did I? Great. Keeping me honest. Appreciate you. All right. Uh, next up is verbal from the audience. This is your time to come forward uh and address the planning commission on any item on or off tonight's agenda. Um, please keep your comments to five minutes and identify yourself on a card up there. Uh, additionally, if you're here to speak to one of tonight's public hearings, which is items 7.1 and 7.2, we we do ask that you speak at that time if possible. Um, and I think our our mayor is here to address us first off.

Thank you. Uh, Chair Sullivan, I wanted to uh say that I'm Eric Alman from the city council. I wanted to first of all thank you all for your service on this important commission and also introduce myself as your liaison for the next couple of years. Um, I was on the planning commission about 10 years ago and I'm looking forward to cycling back uh to the commission in this new role. And uh in this role, I will uh primarily be working with uh the chair and staff to fill any vacancies that might arise in the course of the next couple years. But I'm also uh a point of contact. So if there are things that you need from the council or would like to hear from the council, uh then you can certainly check with me. And if there are things that um that are important for the council to communicate to you that haven't already been communicated through staff, then uh then I would be the conduit for that. So, thank you again for your service. I'm looking forward to being involved with this commission at this level over the next couple years. Thank you.

Much appreciated and and uh congratulations. All right, I'm going to try to go in order. There's a lot of cards up here. Um thanks Alicia for helping me out there. Uh, up first is Alexis Murray.

Good evening, members of the planning commission. My name is Alexis Murray. I live at 640 Wildwood Drive in East Lancing. I also serve as a member of East Lancing's Historic District Commission. I'm speaking today in support of item 6.1, approval of a special use permit for Sheets Incorporated. I'm originally from central Pennsylvania and was born in Sheets hometown of Altuna. So Sheets is near and dear to my heart. Sheets is more than just a gas station. It truly is an experience. I have fond memories of going to Sheets with my family and friends for weekend donuts, snacks after high school sports, or a quick stop for before a road trip. While Sheets offers typical gas station snacks like chips and candy bars, including many items made in the Keystone State, Sheets is most wellknown for its made to order food items. Touchcreens allow patrons to select customized drinks, breakfast sandwiches, snacks, and even dessert options with millions of potential combinations. I personally love the loaded breakfast tots and the Boom Boom sauce and recommend them highly. They also have healthier options like grab-and-go sliced fruits, vegetables and dips, wraps, and more. It's a place where everyone, even the pickiest eaters, can truly find something they love. Sheets is a community gathering space, a place to meet for coffee, celebrate after a little league game, run into a neighbor, or grab a surprise from your for your family on the way home, not just a place to stop for gas and pop. Sheets is a family-owned business that is committed to giving back to the communities it serves. Sheets partners with organizations like the Salvation Army, the Makea-Wish Foundation, the Special Olympics, and Feeding America to support their missions with donations, sponsorships, and volunteer hours. Sheets is consistently ranked on Fortune's 100 best companies to work for and has been recognized as a retail leader for its sustainability efforts. This values-driven community community focus aligns with East Lancing's interests by caring for the community, its workers, and the environment, and is exactly the

type of business the commission should support bringing to our city. Some residents have expressed concerns about this proposal and the impacts of redeveloping this space, which was once a gas station. In reviewing the application and materials, it is clear that Sheets has taken careful consideration to comply with the relevant ordinances and address these concerns, including things like outdoor light design, storm water management, traffic impact, and others. Speaking to traffic, more specifically, as a resident of the Glenare neighbor neighborhood, improving traffic safety is a top concern. While the city council has taken recent action to address some of the most pressing issues, the reality is that any development on this site will face the same challenges. The city must pursue traffic safety measures and development at the same time. We need both. The planning commission has the important role of evaluating business proposals that encourage community growth in a responsible way. While Sheets is the perfect spot to fuel up and grab a treat before heading up north or to a Spartan tailgate, it's also a business that supports its community and provides a new dining concept that families, students, and all residents can enjoy. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. Thank you for your work and look forward to welcoming Sheets to the East Lancing community.

Thank you for your comments. Uh, I have cards up here from Alex Sawiki and Robert Matco. I assume you're both with the applicant. So, we will um Are you okay going after um staff speaks to that agenda item later? Great. Thank you. Um same goes for Cody Dietrich and John Penorn, the applicant for the advisory Albert. Great. Y I'll call on you at that time. Up next is Richard Kittinden. Yes, please come up. I was going to speak after items 61 or 71 and 72. He's going to talk during the public hearing.

During the public hearing great all of the rest of the cards I have up here for the public hearing. So, anybody else wish to come forward and address anything not on the agenda or Yep. Fill out a card.

Please fill out a card if you can. This is sort of relant relevant to 72, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to stay for the the whole meeting just because I have four kids to put to bed later tonight. So, um, but my name is Nick Paidc. I'm at 196 Albert Avenue here. Uh, I'm the owner of Foster Coffee in downtown East Lancing and I just wanted to share a little perspective. I know you probably hear from developers and city staff a lot and uh I will just say as a former city council member in the city of AASO, I served for six years. I feel like you guys are the unsung heroes of what makes a town what it is. You know, if I think about uh what the zoning packets look like for us of a town of 15,000 people, the amount of work that goes into looking at those, first of all, reading them is is a chore, but then analyzing them, changing them. So, um I guess I would just say if you want to see what the future of a city looks like, just look at the planning commission documents and uh you'll get a taste of it. So, thank you again for your work uh on the planning commission. So, who I am, I'm I'm Nick. I know I mentioned that I've been in the city of East Lancing with uh some skin in the game for the last six years at Foster Coffee. And I just want to just share a little bit of my perspective on some of the development that's happened over that time. Um we were in the the city center project right on Albert Avenue if you're familiar with it. Um also that was uh came before planning commission and went through the whole gamut to uh be constructed. So I would not be here if it wasn't for development that's happened in the city of East Lancing. I've lived in AASO for 39 years. I guess that's on record now um for my age. But uh I've been coming to East Lancing since I was a young kid since my parents would drive me here. and the the building that now houses my business used to be a parking lot for many years, an empty building. So, I'm

very thankful that now I can run a business and feed my family out of that space due to investment and due to partnership with developers. And so, I just want to highlight the fact that development like this, honestly, if this was coming to AASA, I would be over the moon to have this kind of investment in our town. So, I think it's amazing to see the amount of significant investment in the city of East Lancing over the last 10 years, specifically over the last six. I'm sure you guys get a lot of complaints of all the construction happening downtown and all the complications that come with that, but uh it this is this is not an insignificant thing that people are willing to step up and make this investment in a city. And so I just want to highlight that and I think it's the decisions that are made both at planning commission, the the DDA and at city council. And I felt this for many many years and the reason why I ran as a parent and as a business owner and having a lot on my agenda was that the decisions you make impact generations to come. And I know that you don't have insignificant challenges in front of you from infrastructure, for pensions, for all of the things that hit your budget. And I'm sure council members are uh already thinking of the challenges that they have to conquer and address and solve. Um that and that's just multiple groups working together. So investment like this has a huge impact. And then I just want to speak to the to the developer. Um, so Harbor Bay was involved in the City Center project and I would say we're a small business. I'm the owner of the company. We're not a franchise. We don't have millions of dollars behind our name and high fancy lawyers. We're just two guys that started a business in AASO. And so the fact that they took a risk on us and we took a risk on them to come, I couldn't even tell you the amount of turmoil that I had signing the lease for 10 years to

be in downtown East Lancing and basically signing my kids' future away if it didn't work out. And I would just say as we went and experienced a lot of things through the construction process and the development phase, all of the things to getting open and there were significant challenges just on my 2,000 square foot just to get that open. Um the developer was nothing more than super flexible and extremely willing to help us open. And that's the reason why we put so much skin in the game into the downtown East Lancing was because they were willing to work with us and help help the city succeed. That was their heartbeat and they delivered on that from us getting open and we survived. We opened in September of 2019 and it was a great time to start a business in downtown East Lancing in the food industry. Um, and they were nothing more than supportive. they're they're they had every legal right to to stamp us down but did not and they helped us through that process. So I just want to speak you really do get in partnership with developers and so I want to just speak to that aspect. I know you see a lot of packets and long uh proformas and all that stuff, but I think who you get in bed with, who you partner with is a big deal. And that's not a decision we take lightly. And I just want to share that perspective is that if they say they're going to do something, they did it. And they did a lot of things that I won't share publicly uh behind behind the scenes to help us and help us succeed and still do. So, thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Anybody else wish to come forward on anything not on tonight's agenda or on item 6.1 the sheets proposal? Possible. I like to make my comments during the public commentary not to the project if that's okay. Okay, please do. Is there somebody else? No, please do. And then anybody that wants to be in the queue, let us know after.

Uh yes. Uh I'm uh Tim Rosowski. I live at 613 Grove Street. I lived here since 1978. So kind of a longtime uh member here, architect. Um and then uh was faculty at MSU in the construction management program. Um I just unequivocally well first of all I could speak for five minutes on each of the three projects but I can't right so I'm just going to focus my comments on the on the Harbor Vay Ventures uh project. And um first of all I strongly feel uh that uh density belongs downtown. I'd much rather have it downtown than have it spread out um and and consume you know farmland or other other areas. So, I just fundamentally believe that we're better served if we have a more uh dense downtown area. Uh I wanted to echo Nick's comments. I don't think I've ever met Nick, but uh I was thinking back and just thinking about this that if you go back say 20 years, what did we have in East Lancing? We had the surface parking lot. We had the broken down vacant bank building on the corner of Abbott and and Grand River. Uh you know, there was a a one-story or twotory building where the Hopcat building is. I like the energy that we're beginning to see. So, I've just listed some of the things, you know, the Hopcat building. We now have the MSU Federal Credit Union building, we have the Landmark, the Newman Lofts, the Graduate, the Abbott, uh new restaurants, and we have we have Jolly Pumpkin, we have uh uh the um Taco Bario, we have Fosters, we have Hopcat. So, things are happening and I I personally just like the fact that we have more energy now in East Lancing than we ever did before. You know, for many years, East Lancing was, I think, was a pretty conservative area in terms of its architecture, uh, and its buildings. And that, uh, in part that because, uh, we were heavily influenced by, you know, three sort of conservative organizations, MSU, state government, and General Motors. Um, so I think if you look at Ann Arbor or Grand Rapids, you know, there's a lot more kind of excitement in the architecture in the in the building. So, I like the trends that we're doing and I think that this project would contribute a great deal. I

wanted to also comment on just how much I appreciated Harbor Bay when I was the the uh uh director of the construction management program at NMSU. Harbor Bay reached out to us multiple times, worked with our students, came in and made presentations to urban planning to construction management, was very willing to host uh tours. Um the uh they they hosted tours of our for our local architects chapter. So I think that they have legitimate interest in making a strong connection to MSU which as program director I really appreciated it. I made this comment I think to to Mark Bell that I had four decades of my graduates work on that project. So the first one was from the from the early 80s Troy Molton. So it was just a great learning area uh building really right across from our building uh in human ecology um the um mass timber. So, this is a mass timber uh proposal, and I'm sure you're going to hear a lot about the sustainable benefits, and I don't want to talk about that because you're going to get plent plenty of that, I think. Uh, but I want to talk about the community benefits. I'd like to live in a city that's seen as progressive and seen as innovative. And I wanted to speak just a little bit about how innovative mass timber is because you may not appreciate this. We had um up until 1885 primarily we had loadbearing masonry. The first steel frame high-rise building was built in 1885. The first and then the the next building system was reinforced concrete. So reinforced concrete the first high-rise building was 1903. We've had no new materials since then. So 125 140 years, however you want to want to count that. Uh we had variations. So with concrete in the 50s we had lift slab. We have actually a couple lift slab buildings on campus. Hiron towers in Ann Arbor was lift slabs. So that was kind of an innovation. Um and then post-tensioning

where basically what what happens is you introduce uh stresses into the concrete by introducing tension that compresses the concrete elements, reduces their thickness. So that was in the 50s. But by and large really since the 1950s, there have been no real innovations. And wood seems like an old material, but it's really a very new material in terms of its use of mass timber uh for high-rise buildings. I saw my first uh mass timber and actually wasn't called mass timber. It was called cross laminated timber in 2003 in Italy in the mountains of uh Italy in Europe in the late 90s, early 2000s. They began to advance this. Um and then it really wasn't until the late teens that we saw mass timber being used in high-rise buildings. So, I just wanted to emphasize how innovative this system is compared to, you know, what we've been building for the last 125 years.

Um, and I think that, you know, that may not, uh, come out, uh, clearly. A couple of things. Uh, state of Michigan is very much in favor of mass timber. They're trying to grow the mass timber industry. There's a catalyst grant program, an incentive grant program for, uh, for, uh, developers to, uh, to utilize or develop, uh, mass timber buildings. MSU has a really strong I'm not involved with it, but MSU has a really strong research program. They're I think they're considered leaders among universities. I think a project like this would support that uh that effort. So, I'll stop there. Oh, he did. He handed it to me. Appreciate your comments. Thank you. Anybody else wish to come forward?

All right. Anybody online in the queue? No one on the queue. All right, that takes us on to unfinished business. Item 6.1, uh, a request from Mr. Alex Wiki on behalf of Sheets, Inc. for approval of a special use permit located at 111 East Grand River or East uh, Sagena Street. I

think this is you, Alicia, right? Thank you. The public hearing for the proposed sheets was held on October 8th. Uh at that time there were a number of comments and questions that were asked of the applicant to which they took some time to address. One of which was a new traffic study which they did conduct in the middle of November. Uh they do have staff here to discuss that. But um before we get to that, just a little review of the site. It's proposed to be redeveloping the existing Wraid site at the intersection of Abbott and Sageno. The site is 2 and 2 2.1 acres and consists of a construction of a 6,139 square foot sheets restaurant with a drive-thru, convenience store, and fueling station. There are 30 interior fixed seats for the restaurant. It's located in the B2 district where auto service centers require a special route uh special use approval by council with a recommendation by the planning commission. The building will be 26 ft tall and they have done some updates which I will just briefly touch base on. Um, regarding the traffic study, there didn't appear to be much change in the counts for the new study. Um, when they did a recount there, they have addressed the stacking from the two potential left lane turns onto Sageno where the two driveways are next to each other. Um, in addition to the comments that were

proposed and asked uh by the planning commission, they've increased their bike parking from four to a total of 14. So, they've added 10 parking, I'm sorry, bike spaces. So, there'll be eight on Abbott and six on Sagenoth. They will be installing a level two charging station rather than just being EV ready. They've reduced their entrance pole signs from 14 feet to monument signs 5 feet tall. They have also redone their storm water plan to increase their on-site compa capacity in advance of the recommendation from the green code study where that ordinance is not yet created. Um they had done that on their own valition. They had addressed some of the comment all of the comments that were made by staff previously related to um some of the items related to the landscaping. They acknowledge the soil erosion requirement. Uh the final drawings for all storm water and soil erosion will be subject to the engineering's review. The one item outstanding which they are aware of is that their clearance height sign for the um convenience lane is 18 ft for the pole itself and that will require a variance from the building board of appeals which they are aware of. Um but all of the other items related to building lights, canopy lights, foot candles were all addressed and then I have provided a sample motion should the commission be interested in voting this evening. And I would like to note that the conditions are the standard conditions that we see for most developments. There was nothing particular um because they had addressed all of the outstanding ordinance items and I can take questions and then the applicant is here to address additional comments, questions.

Thank you. I have a few but I'll defer to the commission first. Any questions for city staff? Oh, Commissioner Chapen and then Vice Chair talking to me when you said raise your hand or you know I wasn't I was looking just in everyone's general direction.

I get I've been guilty. Uh so I had a few questions and I think maybe some of these are going to be directed at the sheets uh grouping tonight. So I think I'll wait for that. I the only thing that I would want to clarify is I appreciated the new traffic study and I appreciated your report Alicia. was very comprehensive and the the connections with the engineering department, fire department and uh police department. I just I think that's really really well done and here and has been uh throughout. So there was one little issue about sort of an entry way that the traffic or engineering department picked up on and there was a recommendation. I I don't have it in front of me right now. Did that get addressed? Um, I should be a little more specific. I'm sorry. Uh, there was an entryway issue on one of the entrances uh from either Abbott or Sagenov. Uh, that I thought was sort of a hanging chad out there. Did that get addressed?

Do you mean that where the the entrance for the sheets is right next to the entrance for the Yes, that is it. everything got but there was that was in my mind sort of a a hanging chad if you will. So that got taken care of that did get addressed in the traffic study and their engineer will talk about that. Okay. I've got some other comments when for the um for the sheets group but I was that's that's good for me. All right. Thank you. I'll pull should be a little more specific. I like how you called the item that is 400 pages comprehensive. That's a an understatement. That's some good reading, vice chair.

Okay. I just All right, enough said. Sorry. Um but yeah, I agree. It was it was comprehensive. Um so no changes to the zoning in the site. So B2 is going to remain B2. Um, can you talk a little bit about the storm water retention? I think the that they added impervious surface and um on-site water retention. Correct. Yes. Okay.

And they will explain how they've calculated all that cuz I'm not an engineer, but they they're designing it based on an ordinance that's not yet developed or adopted, but it's based off the recommendations from the green code committee that last night presented at city council where they said go for it. So, they've taken that initiative. And is what they're proposing as far as um the the surface lot smaller than what's currently on the the right aid site is that I I believe it's a little bit smaller. Yeah. Yes. But they can give you the actual dimensional because they've reduced Whoopsie. They reduced their paving. Okay. Thank you. I think we're ready for the application.

You know, I I can clarify that question. So, it's page 31 on the recommendations. I'm sorry to do this. Um, construct site driveway number one to permit right in, right out, left in and left out, full access movements of passenger cars. Control this driveway with one stop sign. And then sort of a similar comment on the Abbott Road. Did that get that was from the uh uh the uh the group that reviewed the traffic study. Um, did that get addressed? Do we resolve that problem is really what I'm I believe so after. Okay. And they can speak in more detail.

Okay, that sounds good. All right, fair enough. Great. Mr. Siki and MCO, good evening everyone. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Great. My name is Alex Suiki from Sheets. You could find me at 39300 West 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, Michigan. Um, thank you for having me again this evening. really appreciate it. Um we were um very pleased with all of the uh comments and suggestions that you all provided at our last meeting. Um we took all of those. We went to the drawing board and I think we made some really meaningful improvements to the plan based off of uh some of the things that you guys would like to see. Um so the biggest thing is traffic. So instead of me fumbling through it and all the questions I'm sure you're going to have, I made a point to bring our traffic engineer with us this evening. He's far better and far more versed at uh describing that. So,

traffic engineer extraordinaire Rob.

Could you fill out a card when you're done, too? I don't think I have one. It's there. Oh, is it here? Yeah, you should have it. Never mind. Go ahead. Please proceed.

So, good evening, chairman, members of the planning commission. Yes. Uh we did uh initially complete a traffic impact study for the development. Uh we had originally coordinated that with with MDOT only. Uh we then uh did have comments from the city's traffic consultant. U MDOT allowed us to do traffic counts out there in uh July. So we understand that uh there were some developments that occurred. uh I know specifically the marathon and then also uh school was not in session at that point. So we we decided you know it best to go back instead of applying growth rates and seasonal factors we just went back out there after the marathon was uh constructed and open for business. I think it was the week following the grand opening. um the traffic volumes didn't really change a whole lot and I think the reason being is when you do have a sea store development a lot of those trips are pass by trips or trips that are already on the uh the roadway system. So, a couple of things that we did in the updated traffic impact study um where your your traffic sub consultant who did a really good job reviewing the report, very thorough, we went back, redid the traffic counts. Um I think we were able to then show that uh we we not only redid the traffic counts, but we also received MDOT's updated updated timing permit at Abbott and Sagenov. And one of the things that's interesting there, of course, that signal does operate in the east west direction with per protected permissive left turn phasing. What that means is you can uh turn left on a protected arrow or turn left as a permissive movement. So, one of the big key items and I think what uh you're referring to, commissioner, is uh the

westbound left at AGOT Abbott and Sagena uh along with the eastbound and northbound left into the shared access driveway. There was concern over the cues spilling into each other with the protected permissive modeling and phasing at Abbott and Sagenov that was able to diminish the westbound to southbound left turn movements significantly and there is now sufficient storage space for those backto back movements. Um, I think that was one of your one of your big comments from your traffic subconsultant along with making sure that the marathon uh trips were included in the analysis. Uh so when we did run through that again uh and the the Q lengths have sufficient storage um what also we were able to show and even in the prior study is that the impact at Abbott and Sagenov is really not uh I I think it overall is about a second and a half total delay that this development creates on that intersection. So, in the scheme of things, it's it's kind of a minor impact to the intersection. And again, it goes back to also this type of development does generate a lot of pass traffic. So, uh, with that, I can get into more on the study, but I think those were the two really key issues is doing the recount and then the backtoback Q lengths and what that does um, at the at the site driveway um, on Sagenoth. So again, I can get into more questions. Uh you may have more questions or more of the report, but I wanted to kind of leave it at those two big items here.

So thank you for your time. Questions? Why isn't that here? You've said a few times minor impact. Is there a way a way you could quantify that as a percentage?

Yeah, that was changed. I I think the uh the overall intersection the the worst time of the day is the PM peak hour and uh for instance the no build without the development the overall intersection operates at a D51.5 seconds of delay with the sheets development it is a D52.8 8 seconds delay. So that's 1.3 seconds of total delay added to the intersection. So what is that? Probably less than maybe 2 3% impact or or less. So it's it's really in the scheme of things not um you know a major impact to the intersection. And the AM peak hour of course is is even even less. Um, you know, again, we've got a D, well, it's a D45.2 and the no build that's without the sheets and it goes to a D46.7. So, let me rephrase specifically the the summer and fall traffic studies. You said there was a minor difference between the two. What was that difference?

The the difference, I think, was more in the north south direction. Um, and I would I would imagine that might have been due to possibly the marathon development, but uh there were some movements that increased, some movements that actually decreased. So overall, you know, there there was a negligible uh difference in the the traffic counts. So we do have the prior traffic study and then we have the more current one that was submitted. And if you'd like, I can pull both up and go through each movement, but I wanted to try and save that for uh you know, unless you want me to get into that specific detail. But uh I I can maybe pick one movement out, but uh I I I knew I know in the eastbound direction specifically, the AM peak hour, I think maybe the prior count was 550 vehicles in the AM peak hour and it went to maybe 700. So that's one area where it increased but there are some movements that where it actually decreased. So uh and all in all it kind of balanced out in a way but I would say more of the um the increase was more prevalent in the north south direction than the east west direction.

Thank you. Any other traffic questions from commissioners? Seeing none. Appreciate your time.

Thank you for your time. I think you stole one of my papers. Thank you. Okay, so traffic obviously was uh one of the important ones there. Um Alicia kind of already pointed to some of the other things we did. We uh put a focus on uh pedestrian friendly and bike friendly uh access and facilities. So, we added a significant amount of bike parking and we made sure that our pedestrian accesses on both Abbott and Sageno were designed appropriately to allow for that. Um, we went ahead and decided to install uh that level two EV on day one. Um, there was some comments on signage. Even though our signage package was uh in compliance, we went ahead and reduced that to kind of help fit in with the character of the area. So, our road signage is now significantly smaller than it was. Um, and with that, I think the only other thing that we wanted to talk about was about storm water. And I'm going to have Cave step up and uh talk about that a little bit.

Feel like I'm an MC tonight just introducing one after. He didn't fill out a card, but we get one. Thank you. With your good arm.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Uh, my name is Cab Paxian. I reside at 1043 Anonga Road, Hope, Michigan 4842. Um I did want to say that we have been in coordination with um members of the East Lancing staff uh specifically Steven Clayton, Bob Sherman, Cliff Walls, and have went through an in-depth review over the storm water um requirements. Uh we understand what they currently are today. We understand that there was a um green code study um that was I believe yesterday. U we are aware of the new requirements and we have designed our site to meet the new requirements. Um without getting into too much detail for the 2-year 24-hour storm event and the three um the third level is the 100red-year 24-hour storm event essentially there was a 20% increase. So, um, which is pretty significant when you're talking about, um, area on site. Um, and the current plans do show that. Um, we are aware of the water quantity and quality standards. Uh, they need to meet the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Um, we will be working with staff to ensure that that is met. Um, one of the other things that I wanted to just mention was that the there was a question about existing pvious. Currently the existing pvious is 18,274 square f feet and the increase is about 18,84 ft. So it's not a lot about 600 ft but nonetheless it is uh is increased pvious. Um I think the reason for that is we have the cross access agreement on the north side of the site that we need to remain um and we need to have truck circulation. So any space that we were able to add green space uh we we were able to do that. Um one other thing that I didn't hear that was mentioned today was that we were contacted by the fire department for additional fire hydrant

and we have installed a fire hydrant on the southwest corner of our site. What? I forgot to say that. Almost perfect. 400 pages. That's it. Okay. Any questions? [Applause] Well, Commissioner Chapen, are you asking any questions in general about about the to the group? Yeah, I'd like to make a couple of ask a couple of questions and then we don't have a motion on the table. So, we're going to pause on that. So,

um yeah, I just want to clarify. I remember when you spoke with us in October, one of the first things you said was Sheets is a very good employer. Uh, and you talked about, you know, what you would do for those in our community that would work for Sheets. Uh, could you repeat some of those key points? I thought that was significant, please.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, uh, citizen that came up and spoke earlier, um, they had some very eloquent words, eloquent words. Um, Sheets has been on Fortune 100's top companies to work for list for the past decade. Um, that's voted on by employees. It's conducted by third parties, so it has nothing to do with sheets management. Um, and I think a lot of the reasons why we're on that list is it's really outside of just all the financial types of benefits. Um, it's it comes down to uh the quality of life types of things. Um, but nonetheless, um, so we, you know, have very competitive wages, um, full benefits, top-notch benefits. I always like to get a little anecdotal with the benefits thing. Um, few years ago, um, my spouse had to have an emergency appendecttomy. Um, $20,000 surgery, $25,000, something like that. And I do specifically remember we paid 100 bucks. That was it. Um, they also, um, offer tuition reimbursement. they uh paid for both my bachelor's and master's degrees. Um they believe in um a lot of uh growth uh within the company. So I actually started out uh as an electrician. I'm an electrician by trade. Um and worked through the company. Uh they put me through engineering school. Um so so here I am today. Yeah.

Good enough. Thank you. I just want to hear that back. I could go on forever. I really do love working for me. Thank you for that. Two other quick uh comments here. Questions. Um so we just completed an update to our comprehensive plan and uh one of the notes from several populations uh subpopuls in the community we need more healthy food options. Can you talk about the healthy food options that sheets offers in your I think it's MTO made to order MTO just burgers and fries is it? I'm going to make a fan out of you yet with the MTO.

All right, go ahead. Uh, so it's important to realize with the MTO you can get 1.8 million different combinations out of our kitchen. So you can get it as healthy or as unhealthy as you'd like. Um, so we do have um you all the salads, we have the wraps, we have the rice and bean bowls, we have um uh you know fruits and parfets and vegetables and and all the things. That's good. Thank you. Um the my final question is you must have some trend lines. There's been some discussion about is this a restaurant or a gas station?

So, what are the what are the the financial considerations? What's the balance? Do you make more money off of your store or do you make more money off of selling gas? Our margins on the food are higher than they are on the fuel. Okay. Margins are higher. Do you is that more more income more revenue on the food side than the gas side? I'm not sure I actually have that information to be honest with you. But the margin is higher. Yes. All right. Okay. I'm good. Thank you. You didn't bring an accountant with you? I did not bring an accountant with me this evening. Now,

I think it's a fair question given given, you know, the scenario that we have to vote on. And um so, uh is it a restaurant or is it a gas station is a fair question and where's the balance. So, yeah. Um, well, at a heart we're a restaurant. That was for the first 25 years or so of our business. So, fair enough. Any other questions? Commissioner Subileski. So, you open the door with your question about wages and um a background in labor relations. I'm curious longevity. If you're paying good wages and benefits, is longevity a thing? I mean,

it is. Yeah. So for this is going to seem like a high percentage but for the restaurant industry it's actually really low. So we have like a 70ome% turnover rate. Um in the restaurant industry it's typically like 200%. Um our first location in the state of Michigan over in Romulus it's been open about 18 months. Um it has had no joke 0% turnover. The staff that was hired there on day one local people are still the same staff as there today. And I think you mentioned or I may have read it that there could be other locations in the Lancing area as many as double digits. Is that potentially? Yeah, potentially up to a dozen. Yep.

That would make you or begin to make you a significant employer. And I I can't think of a a gas station or convenience store in the area that is unionized, but do you have any unionized locations? We do not. No. Okay. Thank you. Um, I just want to make a quick point to the uh commission that the questions are very interesting and they're good as far as personal interest, but your decision needs to be based on the land use request. So, you have a a restaurant with uh associated gas station and drive-through lane. That's what you I really just want to sort of narrow the focus down to the land use that's proposed. Although the questions about the company and operations are completely fine. and just wanted to remind you that your land use the land use question is before you tonight.

Fair enough. Thank you. Well said. Thank you. I don't mind talking about it. We can tell Commissioner Denol. Yeah. One of the things that um really concerned me um the last time that you were with us was um pedestrian and bike safety

um since it is um a a big north south corridor between a lot of the apartments on the north side of the city to MSU on the south side. So also it makes sense that we see a lot more north south um traffic in the November study as well. Um, and you mentioned that you reconfigured the sort of pedestrian access points from the sidewalk to the restaurant. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Yeah, so we really just looked at the design that we had um specifically the one on the um Sagena uh side. Um the one on the Abbott side didn't change a whole lot. Um we made sure that they were going to the point of least conflict, crossing the least amount of lanes as possible. Thank you. I'm looking. See no other questions. There it is. Thank you for your time. Thank you. What is the will of the commission? Is there a motion? Oh, I'm so sorry. I did have one more question. I didn't write it down, which is why I forgot it. All right. Um,

I'm here all night. Please proceed.

Thank you. Um the it was the impervious surface. Um so it looked like and this might just be my perception of how it looks um versus in reality but it appeared that there was more impervious surface on the norththeast corner right which versus where the Wraid building sort of takes up space now. Um, and I was wondering if you had considered that as a result there might be more runoff towards the office building parking lot. Um, I'm I I'm not sure of like the different um heights of ground there.

Um, I know there's a better word than heights of ground, but grade. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, but uh is there is there any sort of like grading issues there? I was going to say I I meant to ask this question when when you were up here. Apologies. The answer is no. He'll tell you there is a uh existing transrain there to catch any runoff and perfect. Thank you. Thank you. I'll make a motion if you want. Please do.

So, I'd like to make this in the affirmative. Just because it's easier for us to vote. doesn't necessarily indicate how I might vote personally. So, I would move to recommend approval. Uh, this says by city council, I think by the planning commission. Is that correct, Alicia? Yes.

Yeah. By the planning mo I move to recommend approval by the uh planning commission of a request from Alex Sawiki. Am I saying that correctly? Yes, sir. Uh on behalf of Sheets Incorporated for approval of a special use permit located at 111 West Sagenoff Street, the applicant request is to construct a 6,1 139 square foot restaurant with eight double-sided gas pumps for the following reasons. One, the proposed development does meet all applicable ordinance requirements. Two, the proposal does uh meet the standards of review. identified in sections 5038 of the code of ordinance. And three, the proposed use of the property is compatible with surrounding land uses and will not adversely impact the use and enjoyment of adjacent of adjacent properties. Uh and uh there are following conditions 1 through 7 uh 1 through 8 as noted in the agenda planning commission agenda of city

December 17th 2025 that work moved by commissioner chap and before there's a second hang are we your paper is ruffling over there so sorry the motion should be moved to recommend approval or denial by city council so you're recommending approval Okay. Okay. All right. So, I amend that to read city council, not planning commission. Good catch. Thank you. Have we done that in the past? City council. We have. My apologies. All right. Moved by uh Commissioner Chapen. Is there a second? Seconded. Seconded by Commissioner Pots. Discussion. I have some comments, but I want to hear from you all first.

What pages should I put up? I did a really good job on the items we were concerned on, you know, like I I I just want to say thank you. Like you guys you guys really did a good job on a lot of those things and going above and beyond on like the water retention or the the storm water retention stuff. It's really nice to see. I do Oh, vice chair.

I do think that the traffic is one of my biggest concerns and I understand like the the traffic. I think they're very thorough on the traffic review, but as a citizen who go I used to go to write it all the time and trying to turn left off of Abbott to go south impossible between like four and six. Um I so I don't know. I'm torn

by like what I've experienced as as a citizen for the last you know 15 years. But I I do understand that and I believe the the traffic study was done in full faith and you know good effort. So it's just kind of hard for my brain to reconcile those things.

Yeah, I think I would have to agree with um Vice Chair Wagner. I um one of the things that gave me pause in the agenda packet um right the applicant states that it's a it's a sort of pass by trip generation right it's not going to um draw significant additional traffic to that area but I think in its newness and in it in its novelty it will inherently draw more people to that intersection which is already a dangerous intersection Right. Um our neighborhood association talks about how dangerous that intersection is all the time. Um and I think I still, you know, just and I really commend um the applicants for their work on bike and pedestrian safety. Um that is a really nasty area for bicyclist safety without right um without y'all um building there. Uh, and so it's not not your fault, but it does give me, I think, some pause. But I think also, right, Landon, I so appreciate your comments reminding us really what what we're voting on. We're voting on the land use. Um, and so, um, yeah.

Oh, Commissioner Silleski. Yeah, just reiterate I think the comment I made before that not too uh young to remember when that was the major freeway east west and I 69 did not go around the north with 96 and all that traffic that went through there. In saying that, I also live very close to the Hegodore and Grand River intersection and we all know what that's like and how you avoid that or how you avoid the Fryor area when you can. And you know, I'm glad that you did more traffic study because I think of the impact on the neighborhoods for people trying to avoid the intersection. Um, but I I think a little data helped me kind of move to that next state step and also thinking of historically how that has been able to evolve. And I'm sure the the intersection isn't going to look the same today as it will in five or 10 years. So, it'll be accommodated somehow.

Mr. Mr. Chas.

So, I've I've driven by that intersection now several times picturing what this might look like and what it has looked like and some of the improvements that um Sheets has proposed. I've been sort of back and forth on this personally, but I'm leaning towards supporting this. I think it's a asset for our community. Um it is stacked up with, you know, gas station after gas station, but as one of our speakers spoke earlier or mentioned earlier tonight, that site was years ago the site of uh Sonico Sonokco Sonico Senoko gas station um across the street from the AMO, now a marathon. Of course, we're going to have a Meyer. Uh so there's a little stack, but you know, you know, you know what's going on here. So, I'm uh I'm I'm supportive tonight.

I was torn on it as well at the last meeting. I think I had a lot of questions and um there's a lot of things I'd like to see improved on the site and and I commend them for doing a good job by adding the bike parking and clarifying the traffic issues and the storm water issues that potentially were there on the site. I view it as more of a restaurant than a gas station as well. Um and and in in fact on that kind of quadrant right there, there really isn't any food options for anybody that works at those businesses. So it's nice they have something they could potentially walk to. Um so I'm inclined to support it as well. And again, it's it's it's zone B2, so there's going to be something that's there. It's going to generate traffic no matter what it is. Um, I don't know if it'd be more or less traffic, but I my uh concerns were um answered with that new traffic analysis that was done while the students were here, while the other gas station was open, and I think that's a fair comparison and a more accurate reflection of what the traffic is actually going to look like on that site. So, any other comments? Okay, roll call vote.

We have a motion on the table made by Chapen. uh to approve or recommend approval by city council of this proposal made by Chapen, second by Putts. Commissioner Chapen, how do you vote? Yes. Commissioner Denalt, yes. Commissioner Overby, yes. Commissioner Putts, yes. Commissioner Seilleski, yes. Vice Chair Wagner, yes. And Chair Sullivan, yes. The eyes have it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I think we'll see you back for site prep at some point.

All right, this item is now on to city council at a to be determined city council meeting. That takes us on to the public hearings portion of tonight's agenda. Uh up first is item 7.1, a request from Cody Dietrich on behalf of TDP Acquisitions LLC. Okay. for approval of a special use permit for a new building with height exceeding eight stories at 5:30 Albert Avenue. Okay, Alicia, this one's your two, right? Yes. Hold on. I have a nice easy job tonight. I just How'd you get away with this?

It's the boss's prerogative. Okay, this is the site plan. Bear with me. This is a substantial report. Um hopefully I don't lose y'all. So 530 Albert is proposed to be a 13-story development consisting of 1, two, and threebedroom multif family dwelling units with a ground floor coffee shop and two levels of interior parking on the current surface lot behind the peanut barrel. Uh the special use approval is required for a building height exceeding eight stories. The existing site is 69 acres, which is approximately 30,000 square feet. Um the project is located in the B3 city center commercial district and the purpose of the district is to provide for a wide range of commercial and high density residential land uses designated I'm sorry designed to serve residents and shoppers of the East Lancing city center. The future land use comprehensive plan designates this site as M3 mixed use. This land use category is shown on the future land use map primarily along major streets and gateways to the city or university where there's a mix of commercial properties and single family and multiplex rental units. The category allows four mixeduse buildings with minimum heights of two stories or 35 ft but no more than four stories or 50 feet by right or up to six stories or 84 feet with bonuses. There's additional sections of the ordinance later on talking about the height. The intent of the land use category is to increase the number of housing opportunities in close proximity to the university. The mixed use mixeduse three category however mandates that a retail and service uses be located on the ground floor with residential uses allowed on the ground floor as a special use. Again, this is a

B3 district where multif family dwelling units, which also contains one or more of the principal uses, require special use approval of city council with a recommendation by planning commission. The proposed building is 13 stories tall, 139 ft with a gross floor area of 219,66 ft. Under the development standards, the maximum building height shall be four stories. However, it is permitted up to eight and a maximum building height of 112. And the city council may upon affirmative vote of 3/4s of all members of city council permit an increase in stories or maximum building height of 140 ft for a building deemed by city council to be of significant public benefit subject to approved special use permit as provided in article 2, division 3 of the chapter. The building includes 236 units consisting of 1, two, and threebedroom units with a total occupancy of 505 residential residents. The drawings show areas. Sorry, I have to bear with me. It's an elevation. Drawings show areas on levels one and three with a portion of a rooftop deck to provide amenities such as a business center, co-work, flex work space, club and game rooms, fitness rooms, and so on. The first floor provides for a basketball court next to the lobby and leasing space, but the third floor terrace um I'm sorry, with grilling stations on the third floor stairs. The rest the rest of the amenity layout is not defined. The proposed facade is a brick and stone masonry and a red and buff with metal panel panels and terracotta and black and charcoal and tan. Storefront is proposed to be black matte black at this time. Several murals are proposed

throughout proposed throughout the first floor to comply with the public art requirements and a sculpture may be included near the northeast corner of the development. The applicant is going to the arts commission tomorrow evening to talk with them on the proposal. There are two floors of interior parking proposed which will have its entrance off of Albert Avenue. Interior bike parking is also proposed but the number hadn't been provided at the time this was provided um reviewed and it wasn't possible for me to count. The main entrance of the building as stated is off Albert as well. One door goes directly into the lobby and leasing space and a separate entrance goes to the stairwell which is adjacent to the parking garage. There's an elevator access through the lobby leasing area and a bike parking area is a accessed off the public walkway between the building as well as through the lobby. One thing of note in the B3 district parking is prohibited. However, the planning commission may under certain circumstances grant a stipulation or waiver when the applicant has demonstrated that parking is necessary for the residents or customers of the proposed use and and the municipal parking facility cannot accommodate the use. If it's demonstrated that on premise parking is necessary, the planning commission may stipulate conditions on the arrangement. Uh the existing surface lot is 86 spaces. The proposed development provides for the two levels of 83 spaces which are to be commercial not for the residents of the development. A minimum of two EV spaces are required which were not proposed in the development. Um traditional building and landscaping requirements are to be met. Um there's a few items not shown such as the heights and shielding of fixtures. The street

trees at the initial review was three and six are required. The engineering department on Monday with working with our third party traffic engineer determined that a traffic study would be required. Um so the applicant was made aware of that. A complete storm water management plan is required as well as soil erosion although it's under a half an acre. So they are proposing on their own valition an inistn underground. Um the proposal does meet the diverse housing requirement by mitigating fully or partially on-site with moderate income units at 80% AMI levels. The application and all of its associated documents were routed to all of the departments including fire, police, building and engineering and a copy of each of their comments was included with the report. Some of the points to note of comments and discrepancies which the applicant is aware of and did provide a response. The site plan is incomplete. The should the applicant proposal be approved and the parking proposal included for on-site parking. The applicant would have to work with the city to determine an arrangement and agreement on how that would operate if it is to be commercial city parking. Uh a couple of deficiencies. Site plans incomplete. recycling is not shown or provided. Um there was a comment from DPW that while the development shows some brick pavers, they're not permitted per DPW,

but the applicant has addressed that in their response. There was some concern about the proposed trash staging area where it'll be collected inside and then maintenance people will take it out for collection and depending on how often that'll happen and how can they ensure it doesn't get left. Um the ordinance does have a specific section related to um non-residential uses providing intended hours of operation, expected employee counts, periods of leases, and approximate ranges of prices. Again, the applicant has addressed that there were items related to traffic access, verification of natural features, um the parking again, which they're aware of. [Music] comments related to compatibility with the neighboring uses. Um, the building is 139 ft in how does that how is that height compatible with adjacent development per the ordinance and the comprehensive plan? Um, just for clarification that the applicant does intend to meet the requirements of the diverse housing, but they did indicate that there may be an offsite another site that could produce for sale condominiums or another divi diverse housing type um or partial mitigation, but that site has to be within the DDA boundaries. And I don't know what that is. So, just a reminder that the building height will need additional approval and details related to the coffee shop were addressed not shown in the plan but mentioned and then addressed in their response. And then from the question again, parking is prohibited for development

unless deemed appropriate by planning commission and city council and the applicant has stated that the residents would have to seek their own parking passes. Um, after talking with the city's parking department, our available city network can provide a total of 215 spaces for all new development in the downtown. Um, this may or may not generate that. And we are talking about two different developments this evening within a block of each other that do bring substantial numbers of individuals that may or may not have cars. Um, and Landon can speak to this next point that they're staff is exploring other opportunities with, can I say MSU? With MSU in the commuter lot on possible arrangements for students per se that maybe drive from out of state and don't actually need their car when they're here. They just need it to and from. Um, so there are a lot of items that are still needed to be addressed, but they they have responded to all of the comments. Um, and at the last minute there was an addition response to the engineering and fire which was added to the packet for your publication. a lot of information. I can try and answer questions and the applicant and um associate are here when we when you're ready for them.

Great. Mr. Bartley,

yeah, just I'll just um Oops. I'll just give a little bit of uh detail on what Alicia mentioned about the commuter lot and and also just want to summarize real quick, but uh the commuter lot question. We have a discussion that is happening with MSU. Um because we know that our parking system downtown can maintain can can accept 250 more monthly parking passes and that's going to essentially between uh this development proposed right now and the other one you'll hear about tonight. Uh those the parking numbers would exceed that 215. So we do have that sort of question. Uh but but MSU has been interested in discussing is there an opportunity to create some sort of a new pass to have students who live in downtown East Lancing have a pass for the commuter lot uh lot 89 down by down by Mount Hopen Farm Lane. Uh so that could help sort of uh reduce some potential strain on the downtown parking system uh if both properties are approved and are built. I I also just want to uh Alicia gave you a lot of information right now and that's because this is a site plan review and a special use request. The special use request. So the site plan review there are a lot of a lot of little issues and deficiencies with the site plan. And if you ask why why are we bringing this to you now? It's the same question with the other with the other application. We we we bring an application to you regardless of whether or not we find it to be complete. So there are some some outstanding items still uh but we can generally count that by the time they get they come back to you they should complete this. By the time they get to the point of a council vote they must be complete. These these these have to happen. So this is a work in progress. We expect these these plans to be completed before a final decision is made. Um but I just sort of wanted to do what I did last time and drill down. Your site plan review is one thing and and we're going through those with all the details, but the special use request is for the excess height. So over eight stories going up to 139 ft and city

council and yourselves with that recommendation can approve up to 140 ft. They can go up to 160, but the applicant is requesting 139. Uh so that's the excess height and then the waiver to allow to allow them to provide parking because the B3 district doesn't allow uh an applicant to provide new parking right now unless waved by the planning commission. So your your big questions I mean tonight's a public hearing. You don't have to make a decision, but the the big questions before you are is the excess height above eight stories appropriate and is allowing parking to be constructed as part of these project or part of this project appropriate? That's really it. the height and the parking. You have a lot of site plan uh little little site plan details that we'll continue to work through and we can address at the next time at next meeting as well. Does that make sense?

Yep. Adding that detail, but I just wanted to throw that in there. Is the parking is not for the residents of this of this uh apartment building. That's correct. It's it's for the it's for the commercial business that they have or No, it's not. It's for the businesses that exist already. So, they're taking away commercial parking in a surface lot and then they're providing back commercial parking just in a garage rather than for the residents. Okay. Yeah, I I actually have a clarifying question as well about the parking. I'm so sorry.

It's okay. I'll get used to it. Um the um in the application it says that they will be commercially leased. So if I for example a patron of the peanut barrel wanted to drive to the peanut barrel, those spaces are not for me. Those are for people who work at the peanut barrel. No, they're for anyone going to. So, it'll have a you'll have to pay to go in like the other garages or or have a pass as a business owner perhaps that wants to park there. Okay.

But it would have to be an arrangement if if approved through the city parking system to be commercial and there's a whole administrative situation that would need to be sorted. Okay. Yeah. It was just that phrase that commercially leased that I was kind of confused by. It made it sound like it was for people who work at the businesses and not for me, the patron of the business. But that that makes good sense and they'll correct me if I said it wrong.

I'm going to jump in with a couple questions about parking just because I'm trying to square away a few things. So, I read in your report that um all of the parking is essentially publicly accessible parking. None of the parking is designed for the tenants of the building. Is that correct? like not a single space. So therefore, there's they're not subject to the requirement to build the the two EV parking. Well, new parking requires EV. Are they required to build the two EV EV parking spots unless they get an an unless they go for a variance?

Um, so the the main thing I didn't understand logistically with the parking lot is there's surface parking and then there's two stories of parking in the building. Are those connectable? How do you get into the building? Is it through Albert? So, the entrance, there's actually two entrances or three off of Albert. There's access to the parking garage. There's an entrance that brings you into the walkway to the elevator, which also gets you into the lobby. There's an entrance into the lobby. And then there's a bike access entrance off of the walkway between the surface parking lot and the garage where that act also gets you into the building. stand by.

What page is that on the the site plan?

Um, it looks like maybe 48. Right here is page A101. I've got it pulled up. So, here is I don't know if you can see my cursor. This is the garage entrance. There's an entrance into the walkway to get you to stairs into the lobby and elevators. Here's the lobby space which also has another entrance. Over here is the entrance to the bike parking and that also is connected to the lobby. And I apologize there's another entrance um to the parking access over here. And I believe on the the first floor is still surface if you will. So there are patron walkways from the alley. I believe I said that right. But the surface parking is not connected at all to the

So the surface lot that's over here is city parking. It's an existing parking lot that has Oh, that's right. Because the city owns that portion, right? And there's a walkway proposed right here as kind of a buffer. Okay. And I do believe they have some landscaping buffers over on this side as well. Were they subject to a traffic study?

Yes. So, originally it um had been anticipated that it wasn't going to be required that there was a count um what was it called? A trip generation was acceptable, but after the um our traffic consultant reviewed the plans, they determined that a traffic study would be required. Now, the exact um type of and requirements of that traffic study still have to be identified through engineering with the applicant. Um, but that was just determined on Okay. Monday.

And, uh, two more quick questions. So, the alleyway can get a little congested back there. It do you know how significantly the width of that alley is changing? Is it going to be made wider, narrower? It's not changing consistent with what it is correct. Now, okay. Um uh and then I I was on the city's website and I see they have a live tracker now for all the parking garages which was a cool feature which shows how many spaces are available. Do you know how many spaces the I'll lovingly refer to it as the hamster cage. Do you know how many spaces that fits? No, I don't know. Top of mind.

We can look real quick. And by we I mean Landon. Okay, I have a couple other questions, but I want to see what everybody else has first. Vice Chair,

um I have sort of a general question as I'm thinking about the height um in downtown. Um I was looking at the the emails from uh Blake Colt, the fire I'm not sure what it is, but um the fire marshall. Yes. and then from the police. He said um in the beginning um of his email that he's he's concerned about the availability of water for fire suppression for having two large high-rise buildings downtown. So I'm sort of I'm thinking of this as an infrastructure um issue, right? Larger for our city. So, I mean, if this were were to be built, would we have to have a whole new water system put in or, you know, new fire engines um, you know, to to reach multiple tall buildings on fire at the same time or something. I'm not sure, but I mean, I not I noticed that he notes this issue. And then um the uh Lieutenant Adrien O Yriio says um I would like to highlight the need to consider public safety staffing in a proactive fashion as we consider these large housing projects. So, have there been more discussions with I mean that to me is kind of alarming to to have um both the fire and the police um have I know we're preliminary right now, but just have these sort of large questions about can we, you know, do we need to have larger discussions with the community about this? Can we um do we have enough equipment to have these sort of um things downtown? Um, and height would probably matter, you know, like 14 140 feet is larger than,

you know, so it's my understanding that the height from a fire engine standpoint was not a concern. Uh, being that the plans are preliminary, there still is a lot of engineering that needs to be done and verification of lines and sizes. Okay. And the applicant will be working with the engineering department to determine and ensure that adequate water is available. Okay. And and what about the police the the g the staffing concerns that they have? That'll also be a continuing conversation. Okay. Nothing specific. Nothing specific.

Commissioner Al followup question. It's about it's about parking again. So, with no parking available for the residents of this building, I understand the conversations with the university. Um, but I I live in East Lancing. East Lancing is a student parking lot and and and there going to be significant number of students that will have cars and I'm just concerned about the capacity of the city to to absorb the the the cars that that the students will have and of of the university to help us out. If I live there as a student, I I probably wouldn't want to have to go to the commuter lot to go to the grocery store. So, just a reminder that the B3 prohibits parking in this district and it's only allowed as an exception.

I know. I understand. So, I I'm not arguing for more parking for this Yeah. development. I I'm just stating my concerns about the parking issue. Go ahead, Mr. Chair. Um, Mr. If I may, the the yes, there is I think the police had a concern about the number of parking spaces and the applicant is kind of in a in a bind because they're not allowed to provide more parking unless they're unless you allow them to, right? Uh but there is clearly a potential for a problem. Um I would say that we uh we meet the need as much as we can. Yes, I agree.

In as many ways as we can. And if students need to go to the grocery store, they can go to Campbell's Market. They can go to Target. They can get on the bus and go up to Meyer. They have a lot of of options that they don't necessarily need a car for, right? But it it is a mode shift and a mind shift and uh that that takes a long time. Um but when you have a a big parking strain and you want to find something more convenient than driving, we're going to have to do that, too. And that's coming. Great. Thank you. Sure. M Comm Commissioner Subleski.

So, the parking study I I'm just thinking of the other larger uh or more dense uh intersections tend to have stop lights and turn lanes. Would that be looked at as part of the parking or traffic study or would the would that be a city function to determine how the intersection looks? I'm thinking specifically of Bailey and Albert. That I think is part of the development conversation for what that traffic study would entail with the applicant. Okay. That still has to be

okay. And and then the height concern, I'm guessing this will be another black spot for my serious satellite radio in my car. I guess it will. That's not a condition of requirement from the ordinance. That's a use problem. I got it. I heard them. It's a used problem. And Mr. Chair, I just wanted to let you know that we looked up the number of spaces in the division garage. There are 616 total. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Division garage, you say? Division. The hamster cage. The hamster wheel.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, and then just to be clear, so the the number of spaces that would be on the site if this were to go through would be 83. 83 and there's 86 there now. So essentially it would be unchanged. Yeah. Right. Okay. Any other questions for city staff? Okay. Ready for the applicant? So Cody Dietri and John Penhorn. He didn't tell.

Good evening commissioners. Cody Dietri development partners at 2720 Fair View Avenue in Roseville, Minnesota. I actually have a presentation, so hopefully I can answer a lot of those questions, give you a little more detail, walk you through all of it. Um, is it easy for me to pop through or how do you want to from this presentation? The presentation I sent you this morning. Did you send it to me? Did he send it to you? I don't have it.

I don't have anything. I can forward you another one real quick if that's helpful.

Apologies. I don't have anything. Okay. All I have is from engineering.

My inbox had said, so maybe there was an issue, but oh well. Um, that should be coming in a second as a PDF form. Um I can get started um just with some preliminary stuff while that happens. So um the current property is you uh leased by the city um as an extension of the Bailey lot. So there's 86 stalls. Um overall the whole Bailey lot including a city portion is 121 stalls. As part of this development uh we would then terminate that lease then look to release that with the city or have an operating agreement where we own it and they manage it with a a fee or something like that. So, I know the parking department's open to those situations. Um, the Fabian and Mezer family have owned the property since about 1930, so almost 100 years. Um, and are now looking to, you know, make a change there. There's a proposal in front of you guys, uh, I believe about two years ago with ADC, um, that eventually didn't go through. So, we've tried to learn from their mistakes and do this process a little bit different. And, um, as we get to my presentation, you know, our main focus has been engagement. How can we talk to people? How can we engage them here? What's most important for the site as we keep moving it forward?

I did. Did it come through yet? Yeah, but I'm having technical difficulties. There we go. Great. I'll just tell you next, I guess, with each slide then. So, you can go to the second slide.

Um, just starting from a timeline perspective. So, we had our first um I should step back with that last meeting. They didn't really engage with any of the neighborhood the business owners or anything like that before they came to plan commission city council and eventually ended up getting denied. So our first meeting before we were under contract was in April. We met with some of the no local business owners to talk about what's most important to them. What really came out of that meeting was parking. They did not want to lose their parking. Um we I have a plan from our first meeting. We proposed 30 stalls in this extension of the current lot. That was widely uh not acceptable um in their eyes. And the other piece was activating the alley. Activating the alley, making it more of an arts district, making it more um inviting and walkable. And you want to use that as part of your access point to the local businesses. And there were some other minor things too that included, you know, which way do we orient our building? Do we want more relief on the alley side or the street side? And they said the street side would be more prominent and the alley side be more open. So, a lot of those things started dictating where we're at. So, we had the first meeting in April, went under contract in June. Um, in September we came out to meet with or in August we came back out, met with them again. And then we in September we met with them again to go through these changes. I'll go walk through those quickly. Um, and then we've also met with several council members. We reached out to all the council members and said anybody who's willing to meet with us, we're happy to meet with you to get your feedback on the proposal, too. Um, then we met with the Bailey Neighborhood in October um, as well. I know some of you were on that as part of the Bailey Neighborhood Association. And then we actually met with potential council member candidates um, back in October. uh November as well just trying to hear you know as potential stakeholders in this meeting what do they have to say what would they like to see changed and then we also met with arts leadership to talk about going to the arts commission how can we've improved that and then we've just had a few more meetings and so we're here tonight uh we have the DDA meeting tomorrow arts commission tomorrow um and then a couple weeks ago we were actually out meeting with Al Bay from the wild goose in just trying to you know massage as much as possible to help you know alleviate as many concerns

the best we can and knowing that we're going to be next door to a two-story uh single family home for bed and breakfast versus a 12 13 story building. Um so that's how we got to this point basically if you go to the next slide please. Um again just engagement. So the our biggest focus is how can we engage with people and get as much feedback as possible and that has led to all those meetings along with countless meetings with staff. So again business community, neighborhood association, elected officials, additional stakeholders and city staff. Um you can go to the next slide. So this was our first proposal that we came through with. Um this was where we had about 30 stalls that were going to connect into the uh Bailey surface lot. We had all of our amenities programmed on the Albert side and we're going to keep it, you know, pretty simple on that front and try to give a minimal additional parking spaces and that's where we really ran into a lot of push back from the neighboring business owners um knowing they needed space so they can operate their business and they have people to park who come from outside the downtown area. Um, so currently there's 86 stalls. We looked at how can we be creative to try to get as many stalls back. Um, at this point we had basically the same size building, but we had another floor of residential. We cut a floor of residential off and turned it into parking. So if you go to the next slide, um, we came back with this plan um, where you can see as you come down the left side into the parking garage and then turn slightly over, there's a ramp up to the second floor. Um, and again, this would be all for a surf or a parking structure uh to the public that would go through a leasing or operating agreement with the city. Um, the one other main thing on this plan too is we still had it connected and after a few conversations with city staff, it was probably deemed that connecting the surface lot to the structure wasn't um appealing at that point just to keep them separate. Um, so as we move forward, we decided to take that out. And then I'll note the on the upper left

hand corner of the green we have the community room noted. Um part of this whole conversation has been about retail. How do we interact with the building? And so we started off with our conversations with the city. Is there a way to create incubator space? Is there need for retail? And um we know there's some other spaces for incubator space and office space the city has that doesn't fully get utilized. Um so that didn't seem to be an option. uh at the Baylor Neighborhood Association, we talked, could this be a a co- co-room room shared between our building and the community where maybe they host their neighborhood meetings, maybe we offer other, you know, groups to use this as a free amenity that they can just reserve it for free and come use it. That didn't seem to be get much traction as well. So, we've kind of been shifting through how do we engage our building with the community and you know, find the right source that's actually going to be used versus just being a dead space um has been the main focus there. Um, so then if you go to the next slide, this is our our current plans. Um, so we've kept modifying uh all those things. Our bike parking, we're at around 260 stalls where I think we have 252 required. So we'll exceed that just slightly. Um, on this first floor, we have 30 stalls and then we have 53 on the second level. Um, what we've done then is position our open space, our transformers in the bottom left corner. We'd have a trash room inside where our maintenance person on trash days would bring those out and stage those in front of those transformers. And then later in the morning, they bring those back in and keep those um concealed from the rest of the public. Down in the bottom right hand corner, we have a two-stop elevator. So, that would take for anybody parking on that second level would be able to get up and down there along with that stairwell specifically for that that then opens out to the primary corner of where the businesses are. Um, and then on the front side we have our amenities. And what we've kind of worked towards, you know, right or wrong, is looking at a coffee shop option where we immerse our lobby into that. And so when I think of that, I think of Po Dexter over at the

Graduate Hotel. So we would set up a, you know, a bar lobby bar um that would just have coffee equipment, no range hood or any commercial kitchen equipment, and it would allow the neighborhood to come into our community and see it. and we'd have just security doors behind there for elevators and things like that for access, but we'd share our couches, we'd share a seating and it would just be make a more im immersed space for the community to interact with our building versus being segregated off. So, just really trying to activate that's where we got to. And then we switched our bike parking down the side of the building to try to really activate that. Um, one of the key notes was trying to improve the landscaping around the edges of the perimeter. So, um, one of council member Meadow's comments was, could we push back that first floor on the Albert stride? So, instead of being to the lot line, we pushed that back 5T, um, on the first level to add more landscaping and benches right underneath the building. So, you'll see the dark black line and then the columns outside of there. That's really landscaping space to enhance that public realm. Um, and then on the back side, we also brought in the the lower level, the alley side to enhance that, too. So that's similar to what's there today, but we install planters, uh seat bench walls, um really trying to make sure that that's active um along those sides. And then trying to really keep it open and um safe and very well lit. So when we get to the renderings and everything like that, you'll see how open the back of the garage is. But then we um there's a stigma a little bit about how did people get out of these parking structures to the businesses. So we wanted to make this feel like a service parking lot. So, we have multiple access points between our ADA stalls um to get out from that service parking lot to the alley to then interact with those businesses. Um I think that generally hits everything on that first floor. Though, I want to note too, I just want to make um in the next the bicycle parking in the basketball court, we previously had that angle running all the way down. We cut that back to increase some uh additional landscape area to add art sculpture in that location. So, we just wanted to really more interact and um provide a more

enhanced public realm in that piece. And then on the west side, um you know, it's a zero foot setback, but we wanted to try to do the best we could and you know, work through some of that stuff. So, we have a little over a 5ft set back on the first two stories of the the podium where the parking would be. And then we step back to 10 uh 10 feet when we get to the residential levels up there. Um not perfect by any means, but just trying to relieve the best we can. Um and trying to see if we can enhance that a little more. Um feel free to jump to the next slide. Um second story primarily all parking. Um so we try to make this fully circulating around there. This has 53 stalls on it. Um so we'd have in the bottom right would be the stairwell and public elevator. And then the stairwell up to the left would be able to be used by the uh public as well to get out towards Elbert Street. And then we have some two-story lobby space with the bass court in our main lobby um area. Um you can go to the next page. Here's our third floor. Um, this is typical to a standard residential floor. We do have a couple units removed to allow us for some amenity space that then would tie out to the um, amenity deck or outdoor terrace. And in that terrace, we'd look to have some fire pits, grill station, just some easy hangout area. Um, nothing too crazy on that piece. And then next slide, standard residential floor. And then we can go to the the top floor. And on the top, we looked to put some different amenities that will have views of the rest of downtown and the campus. Um, part of that putting that up top was trying to get as much parking on the first two floors as possible. So, we're trying to find where do we put that? And obviously, we want to take advantage of the the views as well with the rooftops. So, that's how that uh accumulated to be up there as well. So, we have a small terrace up there. Um, a modest terrace to go along with that in any space, which would likely be fitness and uh club room and study space. You go next slide, Alicia. Um, back to the landscape plan. This is just a higher level landscape plan. So,

you can see all the purple areas are where we have opportunities to landscape and enhance uh around the building. We did follow the universal or excuse me, the urban design guidelines. When we're looking at this, there's specifically, I think it's page 19, the urban design guidelines that calls out how to develop the boulevard. And so, from that, we put the pavers in. We've heard that that's probably a no. We don't want the city's trying to move away from pavers. So, we'd look to make that yellow PA section probably into a stamped concrete or a a colored concrete. Just trying to enhance that, make it a focal point. Um, we added a few se uh a few additional street trees on there to get up to six to meet that part of the code. Um, and really just trying to activate all sides on the side next to wild goose in. We've tried to keep that low maintenance. And so, that's just a rock mulch. And then we proposed putting hedges in there with some ornamental fence so people aren't meandering back there and just loitering back there. So trying to block that section off to not create a weird um passage point. Um and then we have art wrapping around the backside. And I think we can go to the the next slide. Here's our our focal point at the main entrance. Um, again we have the the buff uh brick as the main uh material on the first levels, two levels along with a metal facade to really accent the the corner um with the residential above and the residential above also step back five feet from the second level on the Albert side too to provide a little bit of a street wall uh setting there. You can go to the next slide. Here's an overall image uh looking at that. And you can see the recess back in that triangle corner in the uh center kind of bottom where we pull out that back to add public art there. Um and then through this we have openings throughout all the garage for the um open air garage. On the front side we have similar smaller windows similar to you see over above uh or underneath the Newton lofts. On the back side we open up that a lot more. You go to the next

slide Alicia. Um, here's an elevation in that back side where you see those X's in the white space. That's all our open space uh to the garage. So, you can see through there. We'll have uh enhanced LED lighting to make sure that's really well lit, feels safe. Um, and the other part too we really wanted to focus on is activating all this art, hearing from what the business community said and from our other stakeholders. So, we have four mural opportunities here um that we're going to be talking to the arts commission tomorrow of what that could be. Is that city related? Is that universe related? Is it nature related? What what path should we go with that piece? Um, so these are all just placeholders. And then we have a two pedestrian connections through there to to make it easy for people to get through and see. And then we've talked a little bit about how do we, you know, call this something different. So right now we have a little blade sign or we're calling the 500 arts district. Um, people have talked about, you know, do we name this area? Do we not? So looking just for more feedback on that piece. If you guys have want to provide, feel free or arts commission. Um, in our plans, we designed that as a three-foot uh, but we need a variance for that. So, we'd likely peel that back unless we come back later. There's a grander scheme for that piece. Um, you can go to the next slide. And so, here's just some thought processes of what that alley could look like. Um, you know, really trying to work with that festune lighting, keeping it open and make it feel welcoming. Um, you know, one thing too we wanted to make sure um that came up with our our um conversations with one of the council members was a lot of the other backsides of the buildings are all just bare concrete. So, we made sure we really put brick on there and made it feel like a real materials and that it wasn't just an afterthought in the alleyway. So, that was a real focal point we took. I want I do want to make one note too along with paper section. What we've heard from staff is, you know, there's the meandering paver uh running down the central portion of the alley. They really want to remove those if that ever, you know, if some of that needs to come out with construction. It just becomes an issue with trash and

commercial loading. Um those all get um the grading gets all separated and they they are hard to maintain. It just causes more issues. So, they're looking to go back with concrete long term on all those. I'm just noting as a maintenance uh maintenance issue. Go to the next slide. Here's an upper level look at what that looked like. So the relief is right there in the center with that outdoor terrace amenity deck area. Um we really took, you know, the design, we wanted to make it match on all four sides. We didn't want to, you know, skimp on the back side. So trying to carry that throughout the the whole way with the lighter accent color, a lot of neutral material colors, just trying to make it fit in versus anything that's, you know, sticks out like a sore thumb. Um it's I know there's the uh the text of my saying so you can't see the bottom but it kind of shows a little bit more of those render or the um murals and things like that at the bottom as well too. But you can go to the next slide Alicia. Here's a shot down the alley. Um so one of the things that also came up as part of our conversations is between Landmark and the Newton. People call that really a canyon effect. So, we tried to step our building back as much as possible there where we could. And then we also made that offset on that side. Made the prominent side elbert in in response to that. And so, there's it's hard to see a little bit, but you can see kind of where the plane changes. That's the relief there. Um, just to show how that widens out more. Um, there's a little bit more opportunity there. And pushing back those first level to uh get more of those landscaping and that seating in there. You can go ahead. Um here's a rendering we took uh looking over at the wild goose in compared to our property. Um the wild goose in is about three feet from the property line and then uh we're five a little over five feet off the property line. So call it eight and some change. Um and then we step back that first floor 5t as well. Um so our goal is to landscape that as much as possible and really you know create that. And then you can kind of see our column behind the uh the tree there. you know, we'd clad those all in metal panel versus again leaving them

exposed concrete as you've seen in some other uh instances around town. Go ahead. So, yeah, just to focus on some of the main things, you know, this this proposal hits on. So, community engagement, you know, we've we've been listening, we've been talking to everybody, been trying to get as much feedback as possible that's shaped this proposal, as you see in front of you tonight. Um the supply shortage of housing, you know, there's there's different studies out there that come from a few different metrics. I was just checking one of them today per per college house and technically for that there's 22,000 beds short at Michigan State um in the community here. Some of that's a little bit skewed up because of um graduate students online presence and things like that. So it really ends up being about 15,000 students or 15,000 beds short to serve the students. And so you're seeing that pressure on rents, you're seeing that pressure on just the overall downtown system of not having enough housing and not having enough options. So that's a big issue. um replacement of essential business parking. So again, this was the biggest thing for the business community is how do we replace that business parking? So we looked at it really hard and you know came back trying to replace one to one as close as we could on that to serve them. Um whether that's the right number or not, we can talk about that a little bit and I would I would enjoy hearing your guys' positions on parking um as well. I know we talked about a little bit with staff um but just to hear what you guys have to say on that and support of additional parking or not. Um knowing that that's not allowed in the B3 zoning. Um increase tax revenue. Right now the property pays about $20,000 in property taxes. Um the city pays it then to the and then gets back through the lease. So it's a whole thing, but we'd project you know as is this would be about $1.3 million in taxes which would help then with some of those staffing issues that you see from police department and everything like that. So, um, it's a huge piece and then the enriched public realm. Um, so that's touching on, you know, just really enhancing from what's there, trying to interact with the Albert side, trying to interact with alley side and just make it very inviting throughout the whole way. Um, just to I think this is my last

side. There might be one more. I think that was the final one. So, just to hit on a few of the other points that you guys mentioned, we talked about uh bike parking. So, we're exceeding that requirement. So about 260 and 252 are required if I remember right. EV parking we we had agreed to meet them minimum EV so we installed two charters um for those stalls. Um our street trees we updated that to six to meet that code. Uh diverse housing this has kind of been up for discussion when I think you guys have seen a couple different proposals of this. So um we're looking at this several different ways. We can go and we could put moderate income housing in but then we'd request a pilot to offset that decrease in rent. Um we may do a pavement in Lou if that comes through and then we or we may partially mitigate offsite. Um the Fabian and Meder family also own 421 431 Abbott right across from city hall. Um single family home and about a 10 unit apartment building. We're looking at that as we looked at as affordable. We actually submitted a preliminary application to MISTA back in April just to see where we'd shake out for about a 90 unit affordable housing deal. Uh we were not competitive on gap funding. Um, and we're towards the bottom third and very hard to to finance as you guys have seen with the PK properties as well too with those can just be difficult if the the resources don't align right. Um, and right now we're exploring condos. I don't know if that'll go anywhere. Um, we're finishing up some floor plans and we're going to have um Rob Buffington over at Lake Ses take that out and see what interest level there would be in condos. Um, so that's something that could be coming. you know, just trying to explore a few different ways and trying to see how we can provide a few different housing types in the market to help serve all the needs because students not the only need. There's a need for affordable, moderate, uh, for sale. It's all needed here in East Lancing. So, um, we're just looking for, you know, a little bit of flexibility how that happens and we'll have to request how that shakes out as we get a little further in the process. Um, parking, uh, we will sustainability. Uh, so we will have recycling on site. We have two shoots in our plans and everything's well trash and recycling. Um we do have storm water management. We

don't have a storm water management port, but we have a storm water chamber underneath that um slab ongrade at the garage to help with rain control in that piece. Um it's not required underneath an acre, but we want to make sure we take care of that. Especially noting the flooding issues that have been happening in the area. Um and then the last part just depending on timing, we are hoping to do geothermal on the site as well too. And that's going to take about two months to drill. So, it just depends on how the process moves from here and how we address it on our side and how, you know, the a little bit of a wrench getting the traffic study imposed on us on Monday now and having to go through that process. So, we got to figure out how that all lines up moving forward. Um, brick pavers, parking, fire. Um, I did reach out to lieut the lieutenant today just to talk to him a little bit more about that. I didn't hear back and it was short notice on his side, but we'll we'll connect with him more about his concerns of the parking. Um, and the compatibility I I do want to uh take a second to hit on that point. So, when you look at the other projects that have been approved in East Lancing, you know, there really hasn't been a new project like this approved in about 10 years, at least a housing project. I know there's the the credit union obviously uh has been more recent, but um when you look at the the hub, that is all around singlestory and twotory commercial buildings or two or threetory uh apartment buildings, which is very similar to what we have on some of our sides. When you look at uh Abbott where it was before, there's a lot of three and four story office buildings. When you look at Landmark, there's twostory commercial space next door. So, we're in the densest part of the of the city and where we're trying to push density. So, it only makes sense to to push that density at that point. So there are going to be some lower commercial scale uh pieces next to that, but working together to blend those out is the best you can do as the the zoning doesn't change and the the goals the comprehensive plan don't change from one block to the other in the downtown area. It's really, you know, trying to focus some of that in the core to alleviate, as some people mentioned, the rest of

the city. Um and that's what we're hoping to do uh with this proposal and happy to answer any other questions you guys have. Um I really appreciate your time tonight. Thank you. All right. Who wants to lead it off? I have a question. Nobody else does. Commissioner Overby, go ahead. Do you have an estimate for what the rental charges would be for for for for these apartments?

Yeah, so um our studios would probably start out at around $1,400 uh a month um maybe 15 um depending on where that goes. And then it depends on how you look at it from a um I think on a per unit is probably the better way to look at it. The one bedrooms will probably be uh in the mid twos. Uh two bedrooms would be in the low threes and then uh three bedrooms would be um in the low fours. Okay. Thank you. Why the the basketball court? That's very unique for this type of development. Mhm.

Yeah, we just we look for ways to add differentiating amenities in that piece. Um we've seen that work at other places across the country um as well too. And just a brisk rich basketball heritage of of Michigan State. We think that could be a great amenity to add for the the residents who live in the building. How did you land on the the height specifically?

The height? Yeah, I mean obviously we want to, you know, do what we can to make the project feasible. Um, so that that plays into that piece. Um, but after those, you know, first meetings of trying to incorporate the parking, you know, the parking is going to end up costing us more money than we're get back in a lease. So, it's then trying to offset that piece, too. But that additional parking we're putting in is really adding two stories to the the the building as well. So, it's that's what kind of pushed us up to towards the 145 that's that's been around. I might have missed it, but I didn't see any renderings in here from the Grand Riverside to show what it would look like facing north. Uh, there was one. Yeah, I did see one.

It was where that relief was where we looked at the outdoor terrace. Yeah. Any other questions?

So, for the affordable housing component, you have to go through MISTA for approval. that something you guys would need to do?

Uh, no, that' be to be through the city and then be a pilot through here. Um, the the part I mentioned about MISTA was the other site we looked at um the AVID site. So, we applied for gap funding in in April. So, they have once a year they come out with a round and um we as a group do all different uh asset types and housing types. So, um I do affordable housing as well. I actually have an affordable housing 300 unit project in Ann Arbor underway right now too that we're um working on in the entitlement process. So, uh, I met with Misha today, actually, to talk to them about some of their processes, um, earlier this morning. Um, but for that deal, we're looking to potentially offset and mitigate on the 421 431 Abbott. Um, it just gets really hard to to make those smaller deals workers because you want the economies of scale. Um, so there's 4% 9% tax credits. 9% are are super competitive. You know, you could wait around four or five years and maybe not get funded on that piece. I try to typically do 4%. um they're a lot more straightforward and Michigan has uh an excess of taxes and bonds which you have to pay with 4%. So then it's just do your numbers work um and that's where the economy scales work in. Um there could be an instance too where that site or another site that's identified if if there was a payment in L that we pay in and if the following project would pay in we could take those dollars and we could go do a you know 150 unit 4% deal instead of having to go through gap funding and hung up for years we could then take that as like an affordable housing trust fund investment and go do that pretty quickly within a year and get that started.

And you spoke a lot about the interaction with the neighbors and the businesses. How would you characterize the response to the project?

I would say everybody we've talked to has been generally positive. Um, that's a great question because I maybe I didn't hit on every point. So, the businesses had mostly, you know, their biggest thing was parking. You know, if you can hit the parking, we're generally okay with the rest of it. Um, the neighborhood, what we heard is they didn't support the last project because they wanted to support the businesses and follow, you know, kind of ensued, make sure that we're standing unified. Um the main comments we got from the neighborhood association was um there was a gasp when we first said 12 stories by uh one of the women there but then we talked through you know how we got there and why we did and then everybody seemed to understand and be generally supportive. One of the main things they asked is just you know enhancing the public realm the landscaping and then uh metal panel. They were sick of the the metal panel we're seeing on some of the buildings like Landmark and Hub the silver corrugated metal panel. We actually had some of that in our plans at that time and we've changed our renderings and removed a lot of that stuff to try to really enhance that and make it a higher quality looking building. Um, and then staff has been really great to work with on that piece. Um, council members uh that we've met with seem generally supportive. All the potential council members um, one was elected, the other ones were not. they were all supportive of the project, understood the need for it and the the growing demand for the housing shortage and the growing demand and then just the need to, you know, increase the tax base. All these things kind of culminating together. Um, and then we met with Al who's here as well too and um it's just we're not perfect for him obviously and I'm not not going to very transparent about that piece. So, we've been just trying to massage that as much as we can possible to make that better. And you know, we talked about is there a way to um potentially put like a a small little mural outside of one of the windows uh in his building so they're not looking at just a brick wall or do we put vines down that side? Like how do we make sure just to try to you know not have people loitering in that passageway? So that's where we're putting the hedges, the ornament mental fence up, but then do we can we enhance the views a little bit? And so, um, and then again to some of the other

buildings you've seen downtown, like, um, the landmark in the past is a zero foot setback and so they just go all the way up on the property line. We have that five foot at, uh, the first two levels and we step back to 10 to to give that relief there, which um, you know, we want to do and everything like that. And it helps too from a code perspective because then we can have windows on that side. If you if we didn't do that, we couldn't have windows on that side. So, um, hopefully that's colorful for you. Yep. Thank you, vice chair. Um then I'll I Oh no, please.

Sorry. Um I appreciate your your um designs here. I was here for the the um in the whole discussion the last one and the businesses were very adamant about parking. So I I appreciate that. Um and I'm thinking about the avenue the the arts or the engagement. I like I like the idea of it. Um but I I go there all the time and I know that there are big garbage cans back there and maybe even a grease trap or two. I mean smells in the summer like how how I see I saw your plan for garbage collection. How what is how can you engage or get other people to change to change?

I don't I don't have a good solve for their side. Um I think as part of ours, you know, we'll kind of be redoing some of that stuff. I know there's a lot of grease in the in the alley and stuff like that and looking to clean that up um the best we can. Um I we can approach them about is there ways to screening if we can help with that piece. Um I I don't have a really good answer because it's another private property owner that I can't control. So it's kind of a damper to your look at this side, not that side a little bit. But uh you know and and you see it's up and down too and it's a mixed bag as you know there's there's really nice little spots and then there's

stretches where it's not that great. And you know hopefully it's just a stepping stone to a longterm future of you know as that thing um maybe that's where he developed someday. Who who knows? And so um just working towards to keep improving it and then all working together as a long-term stepping stones. Thanks. Yeah. Quick who actually owns the alley city. It's right ofway. So right away I believe is 16 and 1/2 ft wide and then we're setting back our building four or five feet on those lower levels to incorporate some of those benches and landscaping and things like that. that was commissioned at all.

Yeah, that was actually one of the questions I was going to ask was um I I as someone who also uses that alley quite a bit walking my dog downtown um the I my questions I was really excited to sort of see the activation of that alley um because I think it's a it could be a really wonderful space. Um, but one of my questions was more about the maintenance of some of the amenities that you're adding to that area, especially right like the uh what did you call them? Festoon lights. Yeah. Um the so like are you responsible in case like students throw their shoes over the festoon lights or right like some

we would agree to take responsibility for that and so we'd have to and we've we've talked proper or he he's totally fine with it but we'd basically get a um easement or encroachment for him to allow us to put hooks into his belly. We'd each have hooks. Nice. We do that and then we have it connected to our power source and we'd be we'd take care of that and make sure we're covered on that piece. Perfect. But that might take some additional little agreements and things like that from a ement perspective. No, that's great to hear that you're already sort of having those conversations about maintenance and care.

Um, my other question is more about maintenance and care of your own internal amenities. Um, so I'm thinking about the fire pits and the grill stations, right? If people are not cleaning up after themselves after using them, right? Do you have a sort of maintenance plan to be able to keep those clean and safe? Yep.

Okay. So, we're we're thinking through, we haven't picked a management company yet. We'd pick a couple professionally managed companies to do this all over the country um and who are very well um governed, but we'd have process and procedures in place. So, every day the maintenance person is going out to check this and we'd have several maintenance people for the size of this building. Um probably three or four office people along with some part-time student help and things like that with the building. So, um staff will be on site at some point every day and just checking. We encourage all of our um we take really pride in what we're doing and you know, asset management. So, I want my property manager to go walk the building once a day. Like, get up, you know, leave the office, go check it, see what you see in a stairwell, see what you see in a random hallway. Like, go look. So, we encourage that of all of our our property management partners.

Um, and then I'm sorry, I I have just one more. Those were my two questions, but I had just one more. Um you mentioned um talking to the Bailey Neighborhood Association about um offering them a sort of community space um or right not just them but a community space. Um would you be open to allowing community members to also like rent out the basketball court or some of the other amenities rather than just being for residents? Yeah, we we could be open to that, you know, setting up a certain time or something like that. And it like our goal is to again to be immersed in the community. We don't want just be a building that gets set there and then is done and we walk away everybody's like, "Oh, yep. Nothing happened." But

that's where that interaction I think can be really advantageous. And again, our our spin on retail is maybe a little bit different than traditional, but trying to make it something that's sustainable and that's going to be there and, you know, makes people feel a part of the building. And that way, you know, you're sitting in our couches, you're sitting in our chairs, and you know, you might run into resident, you build a connection with them, and it's not just fully separate wallto-wall or dead space if that's what it ends up being. So, undrened like um like in the Abbott right now.

Yeah, that's actually what I was going to say, like we we see a lot of vacant retail space right now. Um and so I appreciate your thinking of like what's sustainable. Mhm. And that's where, you know, all those conversations had is like who who would use this space, who would want it, and we've kind of got a none of us reaction. So, any other questions? Sure. Just one last question about parking. Uh, what is your construction plan? How long would it take to construct the building? And what would the parking plan be for the businesses there while the building's under construction?

Yeah, we had a a conversation with one of the um neighboring business and things too. So, we would likely take um the sidewalk and the parking lane on Albert during construction. Our crane would go up in that open courtyard area. Um and then construction parking would be handled in the ramps andor the surface parking lots during the day. Part of the benefit there is actually too it's going to add more people to service those businesses, you know, the restaurants and things like that. You know, going out for lunch a couple times a week, whatever it is. Um, but then we talk about putting together a signage plan um as well too to make sure everybody knows how to get around. Um, and businesses are still open, whatever we can do to help that. Um, one thing I've also done on some of my larger projects in the past is I try to get, you know, whoever is interested. So, this would probably be the DDA, um, the neighbor business owners, and send out a every Friday or every other week an email. You know, here's what's going on. Even if it's minimal, it's like, hey, we're working on the fourth floor this week or, you know, we're going to have a bigger delivery here. It's going to affect the, you know, the community during the hours of 8 and 10:00 a.m. uh, on this day. So, just trying to have that engagement and keep people up to date as much as possible. But, that will be a whole logistics plan that we'll want to talk about with neighboring businesses. You know, share that, have community open engagement meetings. So,

thanks. All right. Thank you for your time. Thank you. This point we will open up the public hearing. Up first is Richard Kittinden. Kitten. No, you got it right. All right. Shouldn't have shouldn't second guessing myself.

My name is Richard Kitten. and I live at 603 Ardson in the uh Glen Karen neighborhood. Um thank you uh commissioners for letting me speak for a few minutes. I have a question for Mr. Bartley. Um I thought I heard you say earlier that the main issue that these commissioners have to decide is whether or not the building is going to be taller than the standard allow. The issue of whether a building's going to be built is done a done deal. It's just how big is it going to be. Is that am I correct on that?

Yeah. Yes. Essentially, um if the site plan if the site plan meets the requirements of the zoning ordinance, we approve it there. Uh so so the question of can a building be built is essentially a building can be built, how how tall and how it is built and sort of the manner uh is is up for discussion. Okay. To an extent that makes my comments um not very useful, but I'm going to make them anyhow. Please do.

Um this gentleman, you said you've lived here since 1978, I believe. Well, I've lived here since 1966. I was a student here. Um, I've owned my house in Glen Karen for 47 years. And I will tell you that East Lancing used to be a vibrant family downtown in the late 60s and early 70s. And unfortunately, that has changed. And it's changed because now we're not catering to families any longer. We're catering to students and students only. Now, I know it's probably a technical term to call this a multi-family uh dwelling. Well, it isn't really a multifamily dwelling. It's not a family dwelling at all. It's a student dwelling. It's essentially an expensive dormatory which is going to be filled with people that are going to live here for three, four, five years and they're going to move on. and people like me who live here and have lived here. There's nothing in downtown East Lancing for me. There's nothing in downtown East Lancing for my 41-year-old son who has a child. There's nothing to attract them to go downtown any longer. And it's sad that this is where we've come. I understand that these developments are profitable. I understand that they generate money for the city, but it takes away the family nature of the East Lancing community that I used to know and it's unfortunate. Now, I all the material I saw before this meeting uh was in uh Eli's reporting and I found it interesting that um that one they appeared to only talk to students and that was odd. They didn't talk to I'm surprised that Bailey people are enthusiastic about this project both of

these maybe they are but I thought it was interesting because the students said well it's wonderful to have these giant tall buildings because I can go downstairs and go to noodles and get dinner I mean seriously that's what where we are now is catering to students going downstairs to get either a beverage or dinner or something like that there were no family restaurants in downtown East Lancing any longer. It's all bars. U you mentioned somebody mentioned places like Hopcat. That's not a family restaurant. Um the other thing is is that um somebody said in the quotes in Eli that this had community support. And I guess I wonder what community I'm sure it has support among college students and the council people who ran for council that supported it were young people but they weren't family people and I'm sorry but East Lancing is not you want to attract families to East Lancing but you're not doing anything to make it familyfriendly. And I guess that's the point I want to make and it isn't going to change this. There's going to be two big buildings built. It's just a question of how high they are and it's unfortunate. That's all I have to say unless you have any questions.

No. Thank you for your comments, Parker Fischer.

Hello. Can you hear me? Well, sure can.

All right. Hi. Uh hello, uh planning commission chair and members. Um my name is Parker Fischer. Uh I serve as the current chair of the East Lancing Housing Commission. Uh so I've served as a member of housing commission for 3 years now. Um, so for those of you who are not familiar with the work housing commission does, uh, our charge is advising the city and council on matters pertaining to housing, sorry, within the city, including neighborhood preservation, programs for housing production and conservation, review of rental housing licenses, and amendments to the city housing code. Um, I'd like to speak to agenda items 7.1 and 7.2 to generally uh regarding the proposed developments at 530 Albert Avenue and 401 through 427 East Grand River Avenue. Um so I'd like to voice my support for these two developments. So as planning commission continues to deliberate the specifics of these developments and I know there's a lot of specifics to uh deliberate uh we're far from done from getting a final product. Um I thought it would be helpful to share some insights from what we are seeing at housing commission. Uh so the first thing I want to talk about is neighborhood preservation. So over the past 3 years, housing commission continues to see an increase in new rental license applications most often in single four single family homes in neighborhoods across the city. This is due uh part because of the increasing demand for rental housing in the city. uh property owners have high economic incentives to retrofit single family homes into rental housing to capture that unmet market demand. We have heard from countless neighbors in housing commission meetings regarding their concerns over new rental properties in their neighborhoods. Uh they cite concerns over noise, traffic uh and preserving the character of their neighborhoods. Without new rental housing to alleviate that demand, we

will continue to see family homes and neighborhoods be flipped into rental properties. Uh the proposed developments here can help address these issues. Uh by increasing the supply of rental housing downtown, we can ensure that demand for rental housing is redirected out of the city's neighborhoods, ensuring they are preserved for existing residents. Um the other issue I want to talk about is housing costs. So housing commission has also heard from neighbors regarding the increased cost of rent in the city. Uh East Lancing is becoming unaffordable. So prices have grown roughly twice as much uh as average income in Michigan. Uh these patterns reflect strong underlying demand for housing in the city. Uh and I want to give a special shout out to um the study that was provided in the packet from professor Daniel Shog uh from the economics department at Cakes Western Reserve uh in the packet that one of the applicants had provided. Um, in that study they site that housing costs in East Lancing have increased rapidly over the past decade. Um, according to that study, home prices have nearly doubled from 2015 to 2025 and rents grew 13% between February of 2024 and September of 2025, far exceeding inflation and national rent growth. These trends reflect strong demand and limited new construction. Um, so I can go on about, you know, economic numbers, but I do want to kind of give a human case to these numbers. Um, and one case that comes to mind is what happened to our neighbors at Hillcrest Village. So, if you're unfamiliar with Hillrest Village, this is the historic rental community uh on Grand River, west of the Chesterfield Hills neighborhood. Hillrest Village was East Lancing's first apartment community originally built in 1936. Today, it is home to a mix of students, young professionals, some elderly folks, and

families with young children. In late 2023, the property changed hands uh to another large management company. Rents in Hillrest Village began to increase sharply. It didn't take long uh for us to see some of those residents come to Housing Commission to voice their concerns over increased rents. Uh we saw some people see their rent jump from over uh a jump of $135. Uh there was another case where someone's rent uh went over a $200 increase in one renewal. Um there's another East Lancing info article on this uh that goes uh deeper into the specifics of this case. Uh I recommend you guys read that. So these spikes have forced several long-term residents to to reconsider their living situations. Some have moved outside the city as a result. Again, we know that housing when housing demand outpaces supply, it puts upward pressure on rental prices for all existing housing units. The proposed developments will reverse this trend. Uh increased supply puts downward pressure on rental prices, and this ensures East Lancing remains affordable for all residents. So, all this to say, I know the planning process will play out and there's a lot to deliberate and talk about here. Um I hope we incorporate a lot of community feedback. time.

Ah, thank you. You can wrap it up real quick. Um, but um I just want to say that uh we cannot be an inclusive community unless we are an affordable community. So I hope in advocating for these developments uh we can continue to uh give opportunities for people to live in the city. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um I have a card from uh Nat Zoric. I don't know what agenda item this is. It's It's this one. Okay. And and the next one. Okay.

Hello. Um I'm a relatively new uh transplant from Metro Detroit. Well, from the city of Detroit. Um and I've been here about a year. I live in Lancing, not in East Lancing. But when we moved here, um we were told, "Oh, I have a great realtor who can find you a great place to live in Okamus or Hlett or I don't know where any of those places are." I said, "But I'd really like to live in a real city. look at places in East Lancing, drive around, look at a lot of beautiful houses that are a little bit more than I wanted to pay. And I'm a believer in this crazy idea of supply and demand. So, I'm also speaking echoing the points made by the gentleman over here um about reducing upward pressure in rents by adding a lot of housing. I'm somebody who I I do own a car, but I don't require that I have to be able to park in front of every destination I go to. If there's not enough parking, the general consensus that the parking needs to be better regulated, it needs to be better priced, right? And so, it's like this whole thing about like, well, what about the parking? What about the parking lot? What about these things that have nothing to do with the actual development, which is adding vitally needed housing to the market? Those those things kind of confuse me a little bit. Um, so I'm I just I feel like there are many other ways to solve these problems. Um, I also believe in the right of people to like build buildings on property they own. So it sounds like as the gentleman said before, this building will get built in some, you know, ideally in some fashion. The question is how dense? And I I'm just a firm believer in density because I think it's the easiest way to build economic productivity and keep people in a create a vibrant local economy where things can happen. I'm also firmly in favor of converting any parking lot to this because in Michigan we do a pretty bad job of development paradigms. We build sprawl, we build parking lots, we build strip malls. It is an environmental disaster and it's not

economically productive. So I am firmly in favor of I'd love it to be 50 stories, right? I'm sure some people would not love to be 50 stories, but um I'm really excited about the idea of this uh and also the Harbor Vent Harbor Bay Venture one. Uh on the next agenda item, I think these are fantastic and I think we can figure out problems like I think it's a good problem to have to not have enough parking because it can be solved. You cannot solve a problem of people not being able to move to your city because nobody can afford to live there. So, and you you you add more housing, you create more availability, you create more economic productivity. I could talk about that for a long time, but that's that's it. So, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Would anybody else like to come forward on this proposal? Okay. Thank you. Anybody online in the queue? There was no one in the queue. Okay. At this point, we will uh close the public hearing for this item and we will see it at the next planning commission meeting in January with uh hopefully a little bit more uh information. Maybe not January. I know you're looking at me quick potentially at a future uh planning commission meeting. Yes. Can I can I just one last part of debate? So, what is people's take on parking? And then just to so as we're refining our plans like I'm curious to hear what you guys have to say as feedback for us or any other feedback that could be helpful versus the questions.

You know, I think tonight we've had a lot of information. I think we'll we'll digest it um look at the plans more thoroughly and and potentially provide some feedback to city staff. Okay. Anything else on this item? Okay. Uh what is Mr. Chair? Yeah. You should formally close the public hearing. Oh, I thought I did. At this point, I will close the public Oh, I just missed it. I'm sorry. You did. You did. Great job. Thanks, Landon. Uh, all right. Uh, is everybody okay with taking a short fivem minute break right now? For for everybody's benefit. So,

okay. And then we can come back to the last agenda item. All right. Five minute break. We will come back at 9:00. That's right.

I don't have to g I don't have to g back in. get started here. Friendly reminder to commissioners that if you're going to talk, make sure your mic buttons uh on. A couple times we've been getting turned off, so it wasn't me, it was you guys. All right. Uh, that takes us on to item number 7.2, a request from Evan Williams on behalf of Harbor Ventures for approval of a special use permit for a new building with height exceeding eight stories at 401421427 East Grand River Avenue. Alicia One more. 401421427 East Grand River is proposed to be a 15story mixeduse development which would be in place of the existing commercial spaces, former Starbucks, former restaurant and current student bookstore. The development consists of one, two, three, and fourbedroom multif family dwellings with ground for commercial and one level of underground parking. As previously stated for the other application site plan has um elements to be looked at, but the special use portion is for the height exceeding eight stories. The building is proposed as mass timber which gives an additional two stories by right. The property

consists of.7 acres which is approximately 30,550 square ft. This property is also located in the B3 commercial district. The purpose of the district is to provide for a wide range of commercial and highdensity residential land uses to serve residents and shoppers in the East Lancing area. The future land use of the comprehensive plan designates this site as M4 mixed use. The future land use category is shown on the future land use map primarily in the core downtown area and east village where there's a mix of single family and multipplex rental properties and commercial buildings ranging from 1 to eight stories. The intent of this land use category is to increase the housing options and commercial retail and office spaces in the area. The mixeduse 4 category is most anal analogous to the B3 city center commercial district and as it suggests property under this category should be occupied by a wide range of shops, offices and services including hotels in conjunction with residential uses often contained within the same building. Building heights of 10 stories are recommended within the mixeduse four category. The again B3 district multif family units also containing one or more principal uses in the district require special use approval by the city council with a recommendation by the planning commission. The building itself is proposed to be 15 stories tall 167 and 7 in tall mass timber with a gross area floor area of 40 420,535 square ft. The proposed building height

exceeds the possible option of 160 ft by 7'7 in. The applicant has applied for a variance of that roughly 8 ft. The zoning board of appeals will meet on January 7th. The applicant has submitted I'm sorry, back up. They've submitted their application. The minimum development standards for height shall be four stories. maximum number of eight stories as previously stated allowing um mass timber allows an additional two stories by right. City council may upon a affirmative vote of 3/4s of all members of the city council permit an increase in stories or a maximum building height of up to 140 ft for a building deemed by the city council to be of significant public benefit to an approved special use permit. In addition, building height increase within the overlay district established by this division may be permitted to be constructed to a maximum building height of 160 ft if the building would otherwise be eligible to be built to a maximum building height of 140 ft pursuant to the previously mentioned standards. The building consists of 361 1 2 3 and fourbedroom units with an occupancy of 911 residents. Four bedrooms are not a unit are not permitted by right not permitted in the B3 district. The applicant is also seeking a variance to allow fourbedroom units. Drawings show level one to provide a restaurant starting on the west commercial space with an additional restaurant next to that a potential art gallery and a potential fitness center on the far end. First floor also shows utility related building needs. Second floor shows nine residential units with a large amenity area and terrace space.

Narrative originally stated gathering spaces, seating, study areas, green spaces, but those have not yet been defined. Proposed facade includes brick and metal using mass timber construction. Artwork meeting the public art requirement has not yet been defined but has been acknowledged by the applicant. There is one below grade level proposed interior parking with an entrance from Charles. However, the applicant has as of the 5th of December decided that a new parking design was necessary to be undertaken. That has not been completed as of the writing of my report. The proposal requires a minimum 456 bike parking spaces. uh they're pro providing 407 so an additional 49 spaces are required. Main entrance to the residential areas will be off of the Charles Street through a residential li lobby with stairs and elevators. New parking in the B3 district is prohibited. However, under certain circumstances, and I know we're repeating, but it's a different project, prohibits on-site parking except when the applicant has demonstrated that the parking is necessary for the residents or customers of the proposed use, and the municipal parking facility cannot accommodate the use, among other reasons. And if it's demonstrated as necessary, the planning commission may stipulate conditions to allow parking. Building lights are provided, but details related to heights and cutoff angles are not provided. Um, landscaping was I'm sorry, street trees were provided along East Grand River, but an additional four required on Charles Street. Uh, the applicant has provided response to most of the comments and we'll be able to speak to some of them.

Complete storm water management plan is required. Detailed soil erosion wall signage details are required. Um art requirement will need to be established but they've acknowledged that the diverse housing requirement is not met and it appears that the applicant is working with city official. Their statement is that the applicant is working with city officials and stakeholders to sensibly examine ordinance 1384. However, no ordinance exists related to Fee and Lou. Staff is looking at other communities to see if any options might be applied to East Lancing, but currently the proposal does not meet that requirement for diverse housing. All of the documents were forwarded to all of the city departments, including fire, police, building, and engineering. Comments from each of those divisions are included with your packet. Reminder that the on-site parking is prohibited in the B3 district. The original proposed parking was for the residents. However, the redevelopment I expect will still be or the redesign will still be for the students or the residents. However, it is important to keep in mind with 911 beds that the municipal parking system has a total of 215 spaces available for new developments. So, should the planning commission decide that parking should be permitted, they may do so with stipulations. Uh, this project also has comments and discrepancies that I'll just highlight a few of them related to signs. Recycling is required. Um the site plan is incomplete. Trees are required along

Charles. Proposed uh engineering plans were considered preliminary. Storm water management traffic study is required which I do believe they've initiated. Descriptive text related to the non-residential uses hours of operation expected employees ranges of prices and rental per dwelling unit. natural features. um the discrepancy in bike parking lighting. But that's and then the requirement for the diverse housing and for them to be able to provide how their request will meet the requirements for the additional building height. Should council and planning commission find it reasonable? And I think that's generally it. So again, there's site plan requirements which are the minutia details. The special use is for the height. Um but it's twofold because it's up to 140. And then in addition to that, they're asking to go up to the 160. they have to meet the requirements of the 140 and then whether or not the 160 also meets those.

Go ahead.

Essentially, we're looking at essentially uh as Alicia said, we're looking at very similar uh questions to the last one where you're you have a site plan review for a building. Uh but the special use request is to exceed that maximum height that's allowed. City Council in this district can prove app prove it to 160 uh feet and the applicant is looking for 1677 and so they need to get a variance but uh for that additional 8 ft or roughly 8 ft and then to to permit parking in the basement. So essentially the question before you is going to be should you permit this excess height uh above 80 above eight stories or 112 ft and is it appropriate to include parking to provide parking the on the ground floor. We have a lot of site plan review elements that still need to be addressed. Uh but those special use uh requests are sort of the crux of the of the request here that I cover.

Sure.

Commissioner Nol. Um just to Hey, there we go. Um the oh um there was one item in the application packet that said that the proposed fourbedroom units will require a variance. That is not a variance from us. That is a variance from the zoning board of appeals. They are have applied for a variance for the excess height above the possible 160 of they're asking for eight just for coverage and then a variance for four bedrooms.

Um and will will we have any answer from the ZBA before we are required to vote on this? Yes. They're they're expected to have a decision at the meeting. It could change. They could delay it, but the meeting is January 7th. January 7th. Excellent. Thank you. So, there's 75 total parking spaces being proposed underground for the building. Yes, but with the redesign that may change. Okay. Yeah. Do you have any indication if that'll increase or decrease or is that a better question for the applicant? That's a question for the applicant.

Okay. Just trying to square the math on this. So over 900 beds, 75 on-site, and then potentially, you said just under 300 potential rental spots from the cities. City has 215 spaces available between the two four monthly rents between the two new developments. And I'd like to add just one more item to that is that in our discussions with the parking department, they said 215 are available, but they don't expect to assign all 215 to one of these projects. They would expect to split them up in some way. If both are approved to be determined,

uh, the bike parking was a little confusing to me. Could you explain that a little? So, they're deficient by 49 spaces. How do you access that? That's part of the redesign, I believe. Okay. For the parking garage, was public art specified? It's identified as being needed. Okay. But still to be developed. Any other questions for city staff? We're ready for the applicant at this point. Um, can

I just mention one more thing? So, Alicia pulled up the uh the lower level uh floor plan which shows the bike parking up at the northwest corner. Uh, but like she mentioned, this whole plan is subject to change. Uh, and the applicants can speak more to that, but you'd ask about bike parking and that's where it's shown is up at that northwest corner. So, be sort of under the under the ramp that goes down from Charles. Okay. Thank you. um handful of cards up here. I don't know what order you guys want to go in. Yeah, it's lines first. I put them in order. Okay, great. Hopefully they're still in order.

Yeah, no worries. Um I was going to try to make it short and sweet because I know that it's running pretty late right now. Um my name is Evan Williams. You can find me at 3412 Commercial A, Northbrook, Illinois. Um I want to thank everyone for their time. Uh again, like I said, I know it's getting late. Um, we have a few speakers that want to speak to very important parts of the project. By no means do I want to cut my time short to answer any of the questions that you just asked. I just would like to come back at the end to answer any additional questions that you may have from the other speakers. Um, and um, yeah, with that being said, I think the first speaker is going to be Brad Bowen.

Yep. I do have the right order. Perfect. Hi, planning commission guys. I'm sorry it's so late. I know it's one of those nights. So, um, in 1960, I'm Brad Mine from Student Bookstore. My mom and dad started the store in 1960. So, in 1960, Student Bookstore opened December and, uh, we just celebrated our 65th year. So, it's kind of interesting. I never thought we'd be the oldest retail business in East Lancing and, uh, second oldest business actually in downtown East Lancing. From the beginning, my father Howard guided his bookstore with a vision and with heart. Under his leadership, it grew grew larger and larger as the student body grew and the university became more and more vibrant. Today, it stands at 30,000 ft. We started at 2,000 ft in 1960 and became one of those things that throw we had thriving thriving sanctuary for knowledge and for connection with people. My dad's legacy was not measured just in square footage but by the lives he touched and the spirit he fostered. students who walk through those doors and faculty members who collaborated there carried pieces of that enduring dedication. Uh even institutions that such with such proud histories are not immune immune to the challenges of our times. The global pandemic brought unprepedented disruptions leaving the bookstore struggling to remain a viable alternative in our rapidly changing marketplace. My father Howard passed away four years ago, but his vision, dedication, and belief in building something lasting to remain with us. It is his spirit that we now look forward to transforming this historic site into a bold testament to a future a 15-story development called the Howard, named after our father. Obviously, it's not just going to be another building. It's going to be a monument. It's going to be a 15story mass timber building that honors the environment while creating a space that lives all of us. Uh just like Howard nurtured the bookstore from its beginnings. We're going to put make this a cornerstone of our community and we're going to have fun with it and it's going to make you guys proud to be part of East Lancing just like we're proud to be

part of East Lancing. So, thank you. Thank you, Daniel Show.

Uh yeah, I am bring up the presentation. Hi, I'm Dan Shoe. I'm the Mstead professor of economics and the associate dean for research uh at the school of management at Case Western Reserve University. I have a PhD in economics from Harvard and I taught urban economics there for seven years before I joined uh Case Western. And my academic research has focused on housing and in particular how restrictions on development affect both prices and rents and also access to opportunity. And so I'm here today uh hopefully not too to take too long but to talk to you about three things. So first I want to talk provide a quick review uh of the recent data on the East Lancing housing market. Then I want to talk to you about some findings from the academic literature and my research. And last I want to talk to you about um my analysis of the economic impact of the Howard project. So um if you could turn to the next slide. Uh okay first. So on the market, housing prices in this city have uh just about doubled in the past decade, which is more than twice the rate of inflation. The Zillow data for East Lancing show that uh let's say over the last year and a half, rents have risen uh at about twice the national average rate. um measures like time on the market or how many you know clicks a a vacancy gets um show that east the housing market in le lancing is very tight and uh despite all that you know the data on new housing supply shows that when you look at permits or new construction very little has been approved over the past three years and you might ask if there's like a link between rising prices and restricted supply and that's something that I've been studying for a long time and I think there are misconceptions that pop up relative to the academic literature. If you could turn to the next slide. Um so first, you know, many people look to things like rent to income or cost burdens as a measure of affordability.

Um others check whether or not housing supply is keeping pace with population. The problem with those approaches is that who lives in a place depends on who can afford it, right? I mean, the people who live in Beverly Hills are very rich and so prices relative to income don't look that crazy. What you miss with those measures is all the people who are priced out of the market. Um, so that's why you really want to look at what's happening with prices and market tightness. And that's why I started with the data I showed you before. The second uh conception misconception that some comes up is that building new housing doesn't lower rents or maybe in particular that luxury rate or market housing doesn't really help lower income folk. And that's just not what you see in the data. If you could turn to the next slide. We have some really good studies on this this process called filtering where new housing or you know uh opens up units down the economic ladder. So this is uh the graph I'm showing you here is from a paper by uh Notre Dame professor named Evan Mass and he's looking in Chicago. He has really cool data where he can see who moves into you know market rate construction and who moves into the units that are vacated by the people who moved in and who moves into those units after that. And what he finds is that sort of within three years you're really finding uh benefits to people who are really far down the economic ladder sort of at the bottom. They're moving into better units because rents have come down down the chain. Um uh the third misconception if you can point to the next slide is that um you know passing on costs in terms of restrictions doesn't really affect how much housing has get got how much housing winds up being built and work that I'm doing and have done with the Turner Center at UC Berkeley. We try to look at how financially feasible development is in parcels in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. And we if you click to the next slide, you can go to uh this little you know calculator I've made where you can you can go and play with uh changing you know restrictions and costs and see how

different projects stop penciling out once you add these uh uh requirements. And you know as a sanity check on this you can run these calculations in historic data see what pencils out in say 2010 and then see how correlated that is with what actually winds up getting built. And there's a really strong relationship. It's very predictive. So, you know, uh uh it's kind of uh just uh not the case that uh um restrictions don't wind up filtering into higher rents for people. Um sorry, if you can move to the next slide. Um, the last thing I wanted to talk about is there's a a long literature on affordability mandates. And while there's definitely a debate on this in the literature in terms of the effect on supply and on prices, there's pretty broad agreement that uh these mandates are pretty expensive and don't provide kind of a broad solution to the affordability problem. And what I want to emphasize is that creating housing is fundamentally an equity issue. like rich richer people and students with rich parents, I guess, uh are going to find a place to live in this town. The higher housing prices disproportionately affect a lower income households. And while tuition growth has slowed nationally, room and board really continues to rise. That's what's driving costs for students. And research shows that um this winds up affecting who can attend college and who can afford to live near school or in town. High housing costs limit access to high wage jobs and educational opportunities and restrictions on development play an important part of that story. Okay, the last thing I want to talk to you about and I'm moving quickly because I know it's late is uh the projected economic impact uh uh of this Howard project based on sort of the benchmark implant model. So this model uses data from the government along with project specific information to estimate both the direct effect of the project and also the spillover economic activity. And it

really makes sense to think about this in two different phases. During construction, the project itself is $127 million investment and that's going to generate substantial economic activity in East Lancing. But once the project is operational, the new residents and retail activity are projected to increase local tax receipts under a very general uh implant-based scenario of $1.6 million per year at the uh for local and city taxes. Now, uh more detailed and specific tax analysis by Triter estimates even larger fiscal impacts. For example, school revenues from the site, which are now about $46,000, will jump to $950,000 a year. The city operating taxes will increase about $470,000 a year. There'll be some more revenue for waste and for the library. In total, local revenue rises from the site from around 132,000 to $2.7 million per year. Over the 16 years that Triter is looking at $44 million, meaning that the implant estimates are very conservative. I know it's late and I've gone long, but I just want to close if that's okay. And I'm sorry. Thank you for keeping up with me on the slides. Uh with reiterating that housing, providing housing is really an equity issue and that the project can have a meaningful impact on who can access economic opportunity and also has a meaningful impact on the economy of for the city. I'm happy to I'm leaving my email here. I'm happy to talk about this with any of you further. Thanks so much for listening to me.

Thank you,

Bobby Larson. Hello everyone. Um, my name is Bobby Larson. I live at 3242 Main Street in Chicago. And it's my pleasure here to to represent the project and represent DR Group who's the architect here. And uh, the thing I'll be talking about tonight is one of the unique aspects of the building in that it is going to be framed out of mass timber and talking about why timber of all materials that we would like to use. And uh as an architect, we make a lot of decisions about what the building's going to be made out of. And a lot of times that's driven by durability or aesthetics or economics. But when we're talking about mass timber, the the reason why we choose that is a little bit more deep for us and and ties into the ethos of of our design group as as ties into the ethos of the developer Harbor Bay um and the goals that we're setting for ourselves to make a better a better world. If you go to the next slide, please. And uh we've heard some comments about mass timber already about how innovative it is. Um this is one comment that our practice um like to say in that mass timber truly represents one of the best most um ecologically important advancements in construction in the last 100 years. You know, we talked heard about those older um style structural systems that I've used and not that mass timber is, you know, something brand new, but the way that we're utilizing wood um is making a huge impact in the way that we think about our buildings and the long-term effect that those buildings are having on us and the residents and society as a whole. Could you go to the next slide? And when we talk about mass timber, just to kind of get through the basics really quick, we're talking about pieces of wood that are made up of smaller pieces of wood glued together. And uh it's a technology that's been around for a long time. And the terms that we use are up here on the slide. We we talk about glue lamp beams, which are, you know, 2x12s that are glued together and stacked up to on top of each other. Or we talk about um

larger panels that make floors, and those are the NLT, DLT, or CLT panels. um that are giant sandwiches of these wood pieces that are pieces that you could theoretically buy at Home Depot. And instead of using, you know, large trees to cut large pieces of wood, we're using smaller trees and taking better advantage of those resources. Um and by doing these um methods of of putting all this wood together, it's creating robust, strong, durable buildings. Next slide, please. And uh the biggest selling point for us and the reason why we're as excited about as we are and why we'd like to use it on this on this project is um some values that we think that we share with the city of Lancing and and a lot of society in that we need to consider the impact of our buildings not 5 years from now, not 20 years from now, but what they might be doing to impact people farther from now, 50, 60, 70 years from now. And we need to start to mitigate the effects that our buildings are having now. not for myself, but for who's going to be coming after. And I'm sure that as a city, you know, you take that into consideration as well as you're considering all of your um projects that you'll approve and the in the way that you'd like that city to develop. Um and uh as we're talking about those effects, we talk a lot about carbon. Can you go to the next slide, please? Um and we talk about carbon, we talk about a term that's called embodied carbon. And this is the amount of energy and carbon that is required to make something, ship it to the site where you're going to use it, put it in into the building, take care of it over the life of that product, and then eventually um deal with how that product is going to be long term, whether that may be reuse or disposal. Um and uh it's something that as a society we haven't started to address as much as we have other energy and carbon. You know, we talk about energy codes and energy codes have been slowly ratcheting to be more strict over

time and we're seeing a lot of gains in terms of of energy reduction. Um but we we haven't had that conversation as much in terms of of of all this energy and carbon that's used to construct these buildings. Could you the the next slide? And it turns out it has a big impact. So this slide has a lot of information on it. So I'll I'll walk through it just a little bit. So the yellow bar at the very beginning that represents this embodied carbon that is inherent in the building from day one from when you finish construction. And the blue bars that run along the bottom, those represent the expected energy usage of that building. And it takes a long time for a building to run before it even catches up with that initial investment in carbon that it takes to build a building day one. And there's actually two bars. If you squint a little bit, you can see there's a difference between the light blue bars and there's some bars that are a little bit darker at the bottom. And that's reflecting the difference between, you know, a very energyefficient building versus kind of a standard building construction. And so if we as we get better and better at building more energy efficient buildings, this um conversation about embodied carbon becomes more and more important because we're using less energy efficient buildings. And also as we decarbonize our electrical grid and we get away from coal or other fossil fuels, you know, even though we're using a lot more using electricity, that electricity is generated with less carbon. um but it's still not necessarily impacting that embodied carbon number from from the construction of the building. And so it's very important and it does make a a huge difference in the way that we consider the impact of our buildings. Next slide, please. Um and uh when we're comparing our building because of the size of it, you know, we're talking about comparing this timber building to a concrete building. That's how you would typically do something at this height. And uh the

reduction is a large reduction. It really is. Um so we do these life cycle analysis and this is one that we did for a hotel. And the reason I'm showing this is because when we do these life cycle analysis, we have to be pretty detailed with them. And we kind of have to design the building twice. So we have apples to apples comparison. And so for this hotel, we designed the frame of the building and understood the size of all the the floors and columns and knew based off of the total volume of that concrete, the amount of carbon that it would take to to build that um based off of how much carbon it takes to construct things out of concrete. Now we also designed a similar um timber building and we analyzed those and it is one way that and this is for the structure of the building and the structure of the building generally accounts for between 50 and 75% of the total carbon of of a of a building which is why we we like looking at the structure first in terms of of savings. And so by just this one decision to make the building out of mass timber, we can take that yellow bar that's really tall and cut it more than in in half basically. And it's so the decision to to do this isn't one that we take lightly and it is one that we see has a major impact for the the project and uh that goal that we have to um help out the the the effects of our building. So, and we all understand that, you know, maybe the best building might be to not even build the building, but when we do have to build a building because we have to pro provide housing or whatever it may be for um the people in in East Lancing or wherever we happen to live, we like to do so in the the best way possible. Next slide. Um but timber doesn't work for everything. You know, if timber is so good, you know, why don't we just make it all out of wood? Um we use it where it makes sense. And so the ground floors

of this building, there's going to be some parking and some um retail spaces that have longer spans. And uh so we'll frame that out of concrete. The foundations of the building um we're not likely to to develop a a good way to make foundations out of timber um in the in the near future. And so we use it where it's applicable. Also, the the sheer lateral support for the building works best out of concrete. um and we re we reduce where we can and uh try to use it efficiently and effectively. Uh on this project in particular, we haven't performed such an extensive life cycle analysis, but we have done kind of a quick um schematic analysis uh based off of rule of thumb measurements. Uh and the choice that we have made to go to timber for a majority of the structure um means that we'll be offsetting uh up to 10,840 metric tonses of carbon dioxide equivalent. Uh which in terms of of um emissions, we've got a number down there, it's equatable to 271 cars um coming off the the road for a year. Next slide, please. And some critics of mass timber might say, well, what about the fact that you have to cut down all these trees to do it? Um, and uh our understanding of the way that forests are in the country today is that the deforestation ef uh problems that we've faced in the in the past are not the same as they are today. So this is a graph from the US Forest Service that shows that you know back in the 50s we were um well back in the the 40s and 30s we were cutting down more tree or trees than we're able to grow and we were defor actively deforesting the continent. Um but since you know the 50s and the 70s that's changed. Um we're not actively out cutting down forests as much as we used to be I guess. And uh there's been net growth in the forests. Um which in some aspects has been

contributing to the the wildfire issues that we have in the west. Um but we have a lot of trees and we have a lot of availability for this resource uh throughout the country and even in Michigan. Next slide please. And that you know net growth in tree volume throughout the country uh results in you know increased volume of available timber. Um the you know we're talking about carbon and and how it's important to you know long-term benefits to to fight climate change but also wood is a renewable resource. Um wood grows rather than being mined and cooked like steel or concrete. And uh we can kind of see uh visibly how we can create our buildings by growing these trees that they'll turn into these larger structures. Go ahead. Next slide, please. Um and one thing that I wanted to talk about too was if mass timber is so great, then why does it seem so unique and why doesn't it seem like everybody's doing it? Um, and the what we've learned as as architects working on these projects for the last 10 years is that there are, you know, a lot of headwinds um to these projects still. The the technology um isn't complicated, but it's new to a lot of people. And so, as we're working through the ways that we treat these buildings differently than concrete buildings, we have to consider issues of moisture. We have to consider you know local trades people and their ability to um complete these projects. Um we have to consider the finances and the insurance premiums um and various other uh considerations including the acoustic performance and fire protection. And uh there's a bit of a learning curve but it's once you you have a team that's able to to to to do this then um it can be done well and it can be done with all to realize all these benefits. If you can go to the next slide.

Um, and it really will be an innovative project that will set it the the city of East Lancing apart in the region. Um, the map is kind of hard to to see everything here uh because the little dots are a little bit small. I probably should have circled them or something on there. But, um, there's three projects in the region that are mass timber projects that are taller than um, seven or eight stories. And there's one in Milwaukee, the Ascent Tower. There's one in Madison, um, Baker's Praise, and there's one in Cleveland, which is the intro building, which Harbor Bay had previously developed. And, uh, this would be, you know, something, um, that would be a great boon for East Lancing to have. It set East Lancing apart as a leader in this new technology. Um, and the fact that Harbor Bay has done one of these projects before, um, will pave the way for it to be a truly successful project. Next slide, please. And the region itself is starting to gear up towards utilizing this resource and being able to produce it and take advantage of it. Um, Michigan has a lot of forests that are available with uh lumber stock that could be um utilized in master buildings. There's a great culture for manufacturing in the state and nearby. Um and there's this need for um more housing that seems to be part of a lot of the cities in the state particularly here as we've we've um heard today and uh there's also the the plans for the state and the cities to to meet carbon goals that mass will be contributing to. Next slide please. Um, aside from the major benefits of of of the carbon reduction, additional benefits from mass timber include the carbon sequestration. You know, it's less carbon to to build and that carbon ends up being stored inside the building

instead of um being released in into the atmosphere. Um, it can be a shorter construction period with smaller crews. Um the mass timber industry can connect meaningfully into local um trades and manufacturing processes in a way that we're realizing in a lot of parts of the country. Um there tends to be less sight impact. There's a lot fewer concrete trucks that are driving up and down the roads to the site. Um the construction sites end up being um quieter, cleaner than a typical construction site and it ends up requiring you know less foundations for the building. Next slide please. Um this is a picture of of one of the sites uh of a previous project in Atlanta, Georgia. Um and as you can see here, if if many of you have walked a site before uh in a steel building or concrete building when there's concrete forms all over the place or shoring or or metal decks and the the way that you you see a mass timber building constructed, um it goes together almost like a set of link locks. There's pre-fabricated pieces that come in and crews hoist them into place. Um, and there's not as much, you know, uh, banging or sparks flying around as you would see on, um, other structural types. Um, and that's a little something but can be meaningful for the neighbors. Next slide, please. And then another way that we have seen these projects utilize and one that we would anticipate for this project as well, um, is seeing, you know, the excitement that they generate and seeing the kind of things that can be learned from the local community. um on how this this is built. Um and uh could you go to the next slide? And there's already you know a lot of um programs at uh Michigan State in at in Detroit in the San Buford Border Working Institute of people who are trying to develop this as an industry within Michigan. And this project would pave

the way for future projects that could um choose to utilize the structure as well. Um and and uh it would show the the way for those crews to be able to interact with the project. And and we've done projects in the past and and we've talked about this as a team as well of of creating almost like a a a live construction lab where we can um provide tours and and training for a lot of these indust um uh interested parties so that the community can benefit from the fact that we're proposing to do this project out of mass timber and not just the residents. Um next slide please. But the reason we wanted to tech talk about this the the the mass timber as much is we truly see the timber as having a large benefit not just to the people living there but to the society and the city as well. Um and we wanted to be able to to iterate that and um let everyone have a chance to also ask any questions that you might have about the system or or anything related to it. So, if you'd like to ask any questions about this portion of the presentation or if we're all getting tired, we'd like to move on, pass the mic off to the next presenter. Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Mark Bell. Uh Mark Bell, CEO, Harbor Bay, uh 3412 Commercial Avenue, Northwick, Illinois. Thanks for everyone's time. I'll try to go quick. Uh seems to be the the theme here as relate. Um Alicia, could you go to the next slide, please? Um I think as developers, um we acknowledge that often times, uh developers are not from the town. on their developing in right uh seems like an obvious statement but I think sometimes take it for granted. So what we try to do is we try to actually listen um as a father of four kids um I I you know sometimes mistakenly don't do that enough. Uh in this instance we try to listen as to what are the community values, what does the community want. Uh we try to read comprehensive plans. There's also a 2012 environmental plan as well, I'm sure everyone's aware of. Um, and then in addition in this particular project, we had two town hall meetings that we tried to publicize, uh, try to get communications out and try to get as many people out to these town halls to do what? And that is to drive collaboration, drive civil discourse. Um, not everyone um that came out liked the project. Some people did like the project. Uh to me personally that's not necessarily important. What's important is having a discussion to try to figure out how do we find compromise in projects? How do we work together? How do we listen again as developers as to what community values are and then go back to the design team uh that that's behind me and try to implement those things that we learned. Next slide please. So what did we learn? We learned a lot.

Um we don't have to go through them. Alicia could you go back up one please? One slide. Thank you. um talked a lot about mass timber. We talked about uh retail um um some of the retail things. Uh it might be on the following slide, but it was kind of funny. They said no more chicken was was actually the the number one thing we learned uh from from uh the town hall. Um uh we talked a lot about design and how to look at mass timber not only for the residents which often times seems like the overwhelming benefit to the residents but how do we take mass timber and actually drive connectivity to the broader community right how do we take mass timber and and let the the rest of the community the public touch that mass timber um other things like density affordability um people were very um aware of the ball line family which which we certainly are as well. Uh and then obviously environmentally conscious and environmental stewardship. Next slide please. So when we look at kind of where we go from here as developers, uh I'm a big believer of of public benefit and community values, right? It doesn't just stop in a singular form on a project, but the best projects are just that. What do we look at from a public benefit standpoint? If we can't get to a public benefit standpoint, in our humble opinion, I don't know if projects make sense in real urban cores, right? Because it's a very singular, very self-s serving for that building. How do we alternatively look at that building and say, I I wish the gentleman, he had some actually really good comments that talked about, you know, what he thought East Lansancy was as a family, right? And so how do we take that message which actually was um you know in the in the form of listening I thought was was very keen of him saying okay if there's residential units that uh might be serving the student community of Michigan State um how do we take the ground level floor for instance and how

do we look at other design elements in order to benefit not just the the students above or the residents above right um and make it a little bit more diversified. Next slide please. So there's kind of five pillars of of um public benefit that we'll go through here in a second. Um the first is mass timber. I don't want to be redundant on mass timber. Um we've got a lot of good comments already, but just to kind of double down on some quick things is that when we look at carbon uh and we look at global warming, the construction industry contributes to 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. So we talk a lot about about operational carbon um and different things. But what I think sometimes is neglected is is the construction industry. Very hard to solve. Um it's not going to be solved through one project, right? It's not going to be solved in one year. But if we start to look at how we become leaders in sustainable construction, I think that mass timber can be what we call the great disruptor. It's very challenged. Um this is no ego. Um there's probably three developers in the country that could probably do this project right now. The reason why is because, you know, um, unfortunately there's just not a lot of precedent. I had the privilege of talking two weeks ago at the Michigan Mass Timber Conference in Kellazoo. Um, and I often am um, uh, not criticized per se, but um, observed as a very blunt person. I was very blunt at that at that uh, conference. And I said, mass timber, my hope is that in 10 years from now, we look at mass timber and we're not talking about some revolutionary thing. This is this is common knowledge because we're creating positive precedent. Precedent often times has a negative connotation, but dare I say positive precedent where all of a sudden there's 20 mass timber buildings in the region, right? Versus right now there's zero. U I shouldn't say that. There's there's a little there's low-rise mass timber and mass timber is dominating maybe the

public sectors whether it be dormitories or schools or libraries and museums. But if mass timber really wants to move in a what I would call highly highly impactful sustainable um kind of macro environment, it has to really go into the private market. There's lots of reasons why um I want to be cognizant of time, but just as a one specific example, when we built Cleveland, um which still today is the largest residential mass timber building in the entire country by volume, there was not a single domestic American manufacturer that bid that project. Today that has changed. We just broke ground at Ohio State on a 157 foot mass timber building. It will be the tallest. Uh there's a lot of hyperbole, right? But just bear with me. Um and that will be American produced out of out of Alabama, a company called Smart Land. That'll be Southern Yellow Pine. So the Americans are moving. It's it's taken a long time. The Canadians and Europeans probably have a 20-year head start, but we're starting to see the investment into manufacturing. I think Michigan, as as previously mentioned, has a tremendous opportunity. Look at the UP for instance and there was a lot of time spent in Kazoo two weeks ago talking about this but dramatic opportunity for Michigan to possibly tackle the mass timber that's long-winded there has to be manufacturing facilities but you have to start somewhere right so uh Alicia next slide please architectural elements uh next slide please so here uh this is a great example of the town halls um where we have to listen not be stubborn and thought as developers but look at town halls and say what can maybe come out of that out of the one thing that came out of that was saying again how do we incorporate mass timber into more the public benefit rather than just the residents. So here we decided to create a colonade. We pulled the building back by about 10 and 1/2 ft. And you can see we clatted uh the concrete. This gets a little technical but this is uh single ply mass timber. clads the concrete and

then all of a sudden expresses the mass timber into the outdoor elements and into the retail um where people can touch it, they can feel it. It becomes really a public benefit as opposed just to a singular residential benefit. Next slide, please. Third, affordable retail. Um this was this came up in the in the town hall. This came up uh with some other city stakeholders about what type of retail are we seeing in East Lancing. We had the the chicken joke, right? But there's a lot of chicken places. Um, and then in addition to diversity of retail, how do we get affordable retail? Uh, next slide, please. So, as we look at this particular site plan, um, as a suggestion as as a developer coming out of that uh, the town halls, consider for a sec for a second the art requirement, right? The art requirement, as you guys know very well, is a $75,000 requirement. Personally, um, and I'm not trying to steer here, but we see lots of murals happen naturally, right? Mural after mural after mural after mural. What if we take this art requirement, we say, why don't we go deeper? Why don't we take this retail and actually create affordable retail for an art gallery or for artists? So more specifically, if the retail market in on Grand River is, let's say, $40 a square foot, triple net, of which really only nationals can actually pay that rent, we say we're going to subsidize it and go down to $20 a square foot and earmark it just for affordable u art retail. We would suggest that that's a high much more high impact type of way than just a $75,000 art requirement. Maybe we do the $75,000 art requirement in addition to is fine, right? But here is coming out of the town hall saying, "Okay, let's diversify our retail and find a way to help a local retailer basically compete against national that have more uh resources. Right. Next

slide, please. Curated retail. This is the next step into retail. This is big for us. Um the the picture that's up there is at a coffee. This was in our Cleveland uh development that we uh that master project that we still own and operate. Not Tuesday is similar there in Cleveland. We had town halls. What was the number one thing that they came in? They said, "Please do not put Starbucks." No offense to Starbucks if anybody's in the room, but put don't put Starbucks in in the uh in the development. As a developer, that's a very difficult decision because developers are chasing rent and they're chasing credit, which allows us to finance build buildings easier, right? and actually sell buildings because often times developer has to sell a building, right? So the easy thing to do is to pick Starbucks because they're going to pay higher rent, they are going to have better credit and what's called their tenant approvement allowance is going to be less, right? So we have to come out of pocket less money. So as a decision developer, we say to ourselves, how do we tackle that and how do we do it prudently? If you look at Center City, and I'm thankful Nick got got up here and talked. I think Center City hopefully was a good example of that where we found Nick went to AASO and said, "Hey, let's let's go with Foster Coffee." We didn't stop there. We went and saw Tony Grant and John Carlson and Nar said, "Hey, can you bring Jolli Pumpkin over here because we think it's going to be a value ad, right?" Then we went and found uh Jay Collie in Cleveland and said, "Let's bring Bario Taco." What does that really do? It means that hopefully we're trying to avoid a bunch of national retailers that in our humble opinion really erode some of the core um vibrancy that that a downtown's really looking for. So next slide please. How do we do that here? Um out of co from an entrepreneurial standpoint we started a hospitality company. Um, it's a long story, I'll spare you, but bottom line in Cleveland when COVID hit, no retailers would do anything. So, we

started to work with our interior designers. We started to curate uh uh concepts that we wanted to fold into our buildings on a more in a very cohesive way so that design, interior design, retail uh and urban uh economics and urban principles were all kind of cohesive, right? So, why is this important? We mentioned that sometimes in cities we have really difficult times planning because planning takes tons of time to plan right just to plan to plan right uh we have talk about codes we talk about every site's different sometimes the plan becomes stale and in what's going on a lot in a lot of urban cities is vacant retail right we see it in East Lancing if you if you go to the east you go from the 400 block to the 500 block to 600 block to the 700 block I think you're seeing increasing uh uh vacancy We see even at the Abbott, we're saying at the graduate tonight, I noticed that there's vacant retail. I'm not sure if it was ever leased uh in in some of that spots, right? So, how do we avoid that? Number one, right? And number two, how do we do it in a prudent fashion? We would submit that as a developer, we have a unique advantage to actually bring in concepts on the front end, not in speculative fashion, so that we know right away we have a user. What does that mean? It means that our design is cohesive, right? Because what happens often times is that a developer will design speculative retail. So they'll do a very vanilla storefront 60-oot base spacing and then wait for a user to come. Difficult. Is it a restaurant user? How do you do the grease traps then? Is it a non-rest user? Very difficult. Notwithstanding, it lacks cohesion in our opinion from a design standpoint on the storefront. Next slide, please. So, as proposed, we are bringing two, uh, retail concepts that are subsidiaries to ours. Um, the first is Leberger, uh, actually up in Minneapolis.

Is it Is it good? Okay, very good. And the second one is Cafe Yoto, also in the North Loop.

What do these concepts mean? Couple of things. Number one, they are not in a student market. Okay? So, these are diversified concepts. I would encourage everybody, please go on Google reviews. are very proud of them. These are family and this is why I wish the gentleman was still here. Um this is how you take urban design and you look at a building and you say how does this become a public benefit not just for the residents above but how do you have divers diversity of community values uh of the community. Right? So these are two concepts that will be immediately filled be careful in design um integrate mass timber into the first floor. And so now what do we have? We have an entire 400 block going from west to east immediately fully occupied. Um there's cost to this because again from a national standpoint the big guys come in they pay top dollar they got top credit and they don't have a lot of TA. These require enormous amounts of money on the front end but in the end we strongly believe that they're much better for the community from a value standpoint. Next slide please. Finally, um, sponsor credibility and track record. Um, next slide, please. This is not a vanity fair. This is not ego, but I think we have to look at developments and we have to say how do developments get done? How do they get done with a community and with collaboration and what are the chances of success? Unfortunately, a lot of developers um get thrown together, right? and and there's a lot of good developers and there's unfortunately some bad developers. I'm not suggesting who's good and who's bad, but what I am suggesting is that we have to carefully work together to make sure that these projects actually go and they don't become stale. Next slide, please. We look at mass timber um and I said this in the Kalamazoo mass timber conference. Mass timber excites me and it also frustrates me. It frustrates me because

we have these conferences and 300 people show up and really is there's probably less than 5% of those people actually doing mass timber. But how do we do it? We have to have cities and we need to have states because the building official at the state has to work with the municipal building official. The fire marshall has to work with the fire marshall at the at the at the state level. Ohio's done this great by the way. I know everyone probably doesn't like Ohio in this room but um wonderful case studies. And so what do we do? We create that positive precedent. We create confidence in other developers. We train labor forces, right? The entire labor force in the Lancing community has to be trained on mass timber. Now, mass timber via the STEM facility south of Grand River has been built, but we're talking about type 4B tall mass timber. Totally different. Um, and great. It's a great opportunity to to really look at carpenters and iron workers and different things and train people how to build with sustainable construction. Next slide, please. some of the interior finishes. Um, just real quick, I think everyone knows, right? But the big benefit and one thing that we didn't mention, I think, um, Bobby is right, is is biophilia. I did not know what biofhilia was 7 years ago. Um, and maybe the next presentation I can tell you why we got into master, but that's a long story. But biophilia is taking the outdoor elements and taking them inside. And how does that react to you personally? Okay. So when you look at this, when the CLT floor panel in the field is laid, that is the finished ceiling. There's no JIP or or or drywall that goes on there. So your living rooms and your bedrooms are wood. And you have this bofilic condition that um I know this sounds crazy, but it's it's just soothing. And the building just speaks to you differently. Trust me, I was schooled to look at real estate as a commodity. This is anything but. Next slide, please. again precedent um credibility. What is the chances that you know there's can be

a lot of sometimes hyperbole, right? A lot of sometimes rhetoric. Um what are the chances to actually get done? I can tell you as a developer, we're one of few in the country uh that can get this done and we are blessed to have uh just broken ground two months ago on a Lykine project mass timber at uh Ohio State University. Next slide, please. Finally, legacy. When I was driving over today, I I I live in Wisconsin. Um, luckily there was no snow today. It was sunny. It was easy drive. I wrote down two words that kind of came to me. Um, leadership and legacy, right? Leadership and legacy. To me, I think that epitomizes this deal because leadership we have Howard Balline that Brad spoke of came 1960. I mean, just bet on East Lancing and and it was great, right? It was probably has employed tens of thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands of Spartans have have received books from the student bookstore, right? And so, what great leadership that was. And how does that leadership now, what does it look like today? what's the next chapter of that leadership and that legacy, right? And I think that listen, we're just a developer that's passionate about mass timber, but I think if this development makes sense for this community, the community needs to understand the dividends that this project will have far beyond the project itself on a singular level is follow what's the ripple effect beyond just the project otherwise if we don't understand mass timber, let me give you one final thing which is really really interesting. Actually, I should have brought this up earlier in the presentation. Notice that we're asking for 167t 8 in versus 160. Why? Um, and we have an application with the zoning board of appeals on that. We could build the same building out of post-tension concrete, 15 stories and at 159 ft. So, to do the same building at 15 stories out of mass timber, which is immensely more

environmentally conscious, not even close. um because the floor to floors and the beam spacing and it just we can get to another discussion. The same building is effectively 8 feet higher, right? So to reduce it under 160 ft, we have to lose a level of residential which makes the project financially unfeasible. To get the same 15 stories to make it financially feasible, we have to go through the zoring board of appeals. So um I'm glad I remembered that. But anyway, leadership legacy. I would submit to you that this is a community project. This is not a Harbor Bay project. This is a community project that the community decide. And I think that there are seeds of this project, no pun intended, that we can look back and say that project created positive precedent. How to build buildings. how the state of Michigan looks at East Lancing and all of a sudden, you know, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Detroit are looking at this project saying, "Well, how do we do that in our town?" Right? So, appreciate it.

Thank you. Anybody else from the applicant want to come forward? No, I was probably some questions, but I was going to wait till you were done, so not sure who to direct each to.

Yeah. So, again, I know that this is the first meeting we've been to. That's why we kind of wanted to take a little bit of a higher level approach um been working with Alicia uh weekly um over all of the different uh details and and subjects and items and we definitely have a lot still to answer. Um which is why we do anticipate coming back on the 14th and discussing this further. I know it's been a long night. There's been a lot of um details. So, I guess uh any questions we can answer. Um I can answer some specifics. We can ask some of the speakers to come back up. It's really uh up to the commissioners

questions. Commissioner Denal and then Chapen. Um can you share some more details about the reworked parking?

Yes. So, we do anticipate uh the bike parking likely to come up to the first floor to accommodate additional uh bike spots that we need. That was a human error. We missed that, miscalculated it. It also um answer one of the questions that was identified on safety and egress into the alleyway. Um it would reduce the number of parking spots that we had in the application. We don't know exactly what that number is right now, but it's going to pair really well with um our parking study that we anticipate having done by the end of the week by Walker Consultants who did the 2023 parking study for the city. Commissioner Chap.

Yeah, I just want to make a comment. So, uh a while back I was assigned to the mass timber committee and I didn't know anything about mass timber, but I worked with a really good committee. uh learned a lot. Uh Tim in fact was a prominent member of that committee and uh I think really all that's been said about Mass Timber tonight. If we have a developer and an owner that wants to support a building, build with Mass Timber, I think that's a really good thing for our community. Uh and I think I think someone's used the word model. It's a model for others that want to do things like we're doing them in East Lancing. There's a beautiful model already in place on campus, the STEM building, uh, located between the stadium and Ericson Hall. um uh and you know that's built with mass timber and and a really nice example but I would give thumbs up uh to you know the project's a different issue alto together but the fact that we're talking about mass timber in this setting just uh you know really a few months after you assign someone from the planning commission to represent us um I feel obliged to bring that into the conversation thumbs up. So, it's good context. Thank you.

Questions or comments? I think a lot of mine were were answered. It's, you know, I think uh there's still a lot of outstanding items that city staff is is waiting and a few items were noted in the agenda packet. I don't think I need to belver the point on those because it's late. I think that the parking is is something that's certainly going to be a nut to crack. Uh, I don't know if you've explored similar options with off-site parking, not in the ramps, like the commuter lot and those options, but do you want to speak to that? Generally,

I'd say generally speaking, um, it's going to be a combination of the results that come from the parking study, the traffic study that we should have as well shortly after Christmas um, outlined. That won't be completed until after students come back. Um and I would say one further that there is precedent at least again Ohio but in our in our Ohio state project we do have zero parking. Um it's always a tricky subject because it also comes down to the financing and whatever the debt serer and equity partner would like. Um, I know that the metrics we currently have that we've developed in the past with center city, we had a 0.3 ratio at that level here, we need about 275 spots. Alicia has already talked to the fact that the parking department said that there's 215 total. We just have to continue to work at it. Um, that is along the same lines as in the agenda packet. You'll see that there's a two-page Excel document that I put together with all 72 open items. full intent is to continue to address all of those, close them out, track them with all of you as much as you'd like, but more specifically with the planning department to ensure that everything gets addressed in the correct fashion.

Uh, as as far as storm water is concerned, is that something you're working on as well? What do you have any preliminary uh updates on what you're planning for that?

We're still really early in the process of engineering in general. One of the things with Mass Timber that we have to ensure we do is with the community stakeholders that everyone is engaged, that it's what they'd like to see. We kind of have to get through the seventh with the zoning board of appeals first to ensure that they don't want to deny that additional height request because if they do deny the request, we'll be forced into a concrete style building, which doesn't necessarily impact the storm water question. But getting ahead of the engineering right now would then cause rework and delay the deliverables planning commission. So, um I could say for certain we've gone above and beyond um the requirements usually um with local municipalities in Cleveland. Um we worked with the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District um on a bunch of different subjects in order to ensure that we met their requirements um which were above and beyond what the city of Cleveland required for this. It's really not a big issue to me whatsoever. Uh very simple to solve and um when Alicia mentioned that they were looking at proposing the new ordinance to require additional storm water um retain retainment uh it's it's a non-issue as far as I'm concerned.

Okay. Thank you for that background. Um, can you speak to the ask of of four bedrooms? Is that a necessity for this project? Um, how many um what's the composition of the building going to be generally with fourbedroom, threebedroom, etc.

For certain there's 80 total fourbedroom units out of 361. Um, it is uh a financial requirement in our underwriting to uh make this project feasible. Um, so that would be another one that after the 7th, if we received a denial, we would have to go back to the drawing board uh for certain and see if there's any other way that we can meet the requirements for underwriting. Um but I think if you're interested in looking at that application um once it becomes available if it's not already available there is definite um data to back up that ask and uh it helps drive the density that I think a lot of other people have already spoken to tonight. And then for the diversified housing portion for the ordinance, um I I I don't think that was addressed here. I know there's potentially talks about um modifications to that. Um do you have any contingencies if if there were to be no changes for the ordinance? How critical is is that component?

No, it's it's definitely a requirement for us as well. So, you can see there's a lot of different things working in parallel here, which is why we wanted to at least start the conversation. Um, in the agenda packet, you'll see I put together a PowerPoint presentation that kind of outlines some of our thoughts on how we might approach it, utilizing the planning department's um, initial review, I think it was on September 16th, of other like kind uh, municipalities trying to come to what we felt was a very um, reasonable approach um, on this. And one of the things that we'd like to speak to right now is definitely not like an agenda item for it, but uh when 1384 is discussed, um there's a very large difference in what would be an appropriate fianl value between concrete and mass timber. And that's really driven by the fact that concrete is quicker uh I shouldn't say quicker, it's easier um and more affordable to build. that plays into the overall calculation and to what the potential fee and lose that could be proposed would be in terms of value.

Thank you. Um and then I'm going to ask a a similar question that the vice chair asked to a previous applicant regarding construction staging and are there any significant differences with mass timber? My understanding is a lot of the materials come pre-prepared on the front end and do what would be the plan there? It's a pretty tight site. So, I have a unique ability to speak to a lot of the construction side of things because I've been in the construction industry prior to working more on the development side. One of the things that'll be important just to note for the community members who work and live in the area surrounding the property would be that once we get above that fourth floor of concrete, instead of concrete pump trucks arriving every day and doing pores, um we still do have trucks arriving, semi-truckss, but they are just in time delivery from uh a local storage facility where the mass timber is pre-prepared. They roll up, they get rigged, set into place, and they roll right out. So, it'll be important to work with the um building department to figure out what the right uh plan would be in that in-n-out fashion, but it'll be a really quick and easy process and much quieter as Bobby talked about earlier today. So, all sorry,

Commissioner Silleski. Yeah, just spawn kind of a follow-up question. Where does the mass timber come from? And right, great question. right now. Um Mark alluded to it a little bit earlier. Uh our first project we worked uh with Bender Holtz out of Austria. Um the next project in Ohio um at uh Ohio State. We're working domestic um as that's one of our drivers. Uh the only current domestic manufacturer that can support the volume that's required for that project is Smartland out of Alabama. Um, unless there's a massive shift and there's more manufacturing plants that come online before this project is realized, we'll likely have to work with one of those two manufacturers.

Any other questions for the applicant or city staff? I know you like your trees, buddy, but at the same time, I would. All right. I actually Yeah, I actually do have a question. Um the the I was interested in the town halls that y'all held um and if you had a sense of um who the people who attended those town halls were. Were they residents? Were they students? Were they longtime residents? Were they part of the Bailey neighborhood? Did was there any sort of um I think additional context or information that you can share about the where the feedback you received came from

for certain. I was not personally there so I'd rather defer to Mark. Um we you know maybe in retrospect we should have a signin sheet so I can't specifically say that but I think they I don't need like names and address.

Yeah. Right. No it's okay. Uh, Greg and Brad can can speak to that as well, but I I would say they they were they were very diverse. Um, actually there was probably not a lot of students there. Um, come to think of it, um, a lot of professors, um, a lot of neighborhood folks, um, and quite honestly, a lot of people that didn't like the project. Um, to be very clear, I I'm not going to sit here and say the majority, but I I thought that we actually I forget there was one gentleman, we had the second one at the bookstore, um, who was pretty vehemently against the project. And I think we we found, you know, some similarities by really breaking down the components of the project, the different public benefits. Um, I don't know if we won him over, but he we we did talk afterwards and he said he was very surprised. So, I think that um we learned a lot about I mean the whole chicken thing was that was like a 15-minute tangent. Everyone was laughing. Um but um just the different things that that mattered to people. Uh the retail was really big. Um uh spent a lot of time in that. We spent a lot of time on 1384. Broke them all down. Um not saying that I am not here to say that I'm right, but we actually talked about it whether it be condos or senior. Um I think everybody knows we're the the developer that did the senior. So senior to affordable to how do we do affordable to MISTA to 9% to you know 4% tax credits. How does that all get worked out? What are the challenges right? Um I mean PK I I feel bad for them. I I think they got the funding. I I don't know that to be clear. I had heard a rumor about that but it's been two years on their their fourth application. So that's crazy. And I think the federal government's actually cutting funding a little bit that they say otherwise. But you know so it's a big issue. Um and I think that uh we would really suggest obviously super collaboration civil discourse and try to figure out solutions right to to this issue because it is an issue right just trying to find you know diversified housing and really kind of pin down what

does that really mean right there was even some discussion about environmental not just you know no offense to the bikes I love bikes by the way but just lead we find very antiquated right you get points for bike loops or wayfinding signs right and versus a superructure that is really hitting the major driving force of embodied carbon that contributes 40% of greenhouse gases. Right? So that to me is far more important than wayfinding signed, right? And we really tackled that as maybe a form of diversified housing. So anyways, I know that was longwinded, but I would call it a diversified uh group of people between Foster Coffee and the bookstore. Yeah.

Any last questions? Uh if no other questions, I just wanted to underscore I think what you've seen with us is uh we don't want to promise something and then not deliver on it. Uh which is why we're a little bit um you know shy in talking specifics on 1384. We have to continue to work on it. Um the 72 bullet point list, we want to continue to uh truncate that down and be able to come on the 14th with hopefully, you know, 30 or 35 items answered. Um, but we definitely do need to continue an open and honest dialogue and ensure that uh we understand what your thoughts are. So, when you get a chance, um, if you could write, uh, Alicia and let her know if you have any additional questions or any thoughts, anything that you'd like to follow up on, uh, we certainly want to be there to assist.

Great. Thank you for your commitment to the process. Okay, seeing no additional comments or questions at this point, we will open up the public hearing for this item. Uh, first up is Dan Bulman. Good evening, my former associates. My name is Dan Bulman. I'm an architect um, and a practicing professor of construction management at Michigan State University. I stand here fully in support of both this project and the previous project. Um, couple couple of weeks ago, I I spoke um to council about the possibility of expanding the the uh the definition of diverse housing that we find in ordinance 13 um 84. As you know, I said I was on C or on the planning commission from 2015 to 2023. in 2020. In 2016, I supported the diverse housing amendment um because I thought they would be beneficial, but I would submit that time has proven otherwise. Um and I'll get back to that at the end about my idea. Um but when we talk about zoning is sort of your foundational document, we we generally talk about what is the highest and best use of a property. And one-story retail on Grand River or parking lot, surface parking lot in our downtown development authority is not the highest and best use of these properties. and and we've been told by the um the previous uh presenter that we're looking at about $1.3 million of tax revenue, $1.6 million for this particular property in this financially strapped city. I I don't see how we can take those numbers lightly. We don't give away those things. We don't need to obviously, but I think we have to that has to factor into our ultimately our decision. Um the increased patronage that these properties are going to bring will activate the streets, right? gathering that critical mass that ultimately is going to bring people to the businesses that are currently struggling. I'll come

back to that again as well. Um but we also have to acknowledge the fact that um we are facing an absolute housing shortage and that um Dr.

Showa, thank you. Um I found your uh your writing very compelling um um but that we've got effectively no new building in East Lancing in the in the past several years and we're seeing increasing enrollment at Michigan State University. um how can we continue on that path um without providing some sort of opportunity for new housing. Now, granted, it's not it's not reduced. No, it's not submarket housing, but again, going back to the good doctor's report, um the uh basic economics, right, it tells us that if there's going to be an increase in supply, that's going to by definition going to reduce the price, the rents that are going to be asked for in these properties. And ultimately, by the sort of the the domino effect that he described, um potentially could bring more this market to more people. Cities are messy. Cities are incomplete. We've got an opportunity to place these amenities in a in in a location where they really belong. Students want to live adjacent to campus. Of course, they do. Why would we not find a place for them to live on Grand River or nearly in Grand River for the other um for the other property? Um that might actually open up rental space for the small families and the professionals slightly further a field. It might even take the pressure off some of our downtown adjacent neighborhoods and the rental um pressure that's that they're facing. Ultimately, um these these uh this the both of these um potential projects um could potentially reduce the amount of parking that's ultimately needed by increasing the walkability that we all talk about and that we all want to see. Um but that we have to provide that opportunity for people to be so that there can be businesses that are supported so that that sort of works in that that cycle where one one follows the next. again that we're going to be reactivating the street with the people that are going to be provided by these properties, but also um Mr. Bell has talked about this curated retail and this opportunity for a small art business to to open. Um so they're providing not only the people but potentially the places for them to

go. And I'll come back to my my point about um ordinance 13 1384. Um, as you know, through the pandemic, Commissioner um, Christopher Wolf, Commissioner Cindy Williams, and myself all worked on the shaping the Avenue, the formbbased code, which has not seen the light of day since then. But there was a provision in that particular in the code that provided for an opportunity for innovative housing um, solutions or innovative solutions in construction that would provide the very benefits that um, that staff has described in terms of the bonuses. Um, in this case, it talked about sustainable materials such as mass timber and it also required a performance bond that would ultimately ensure that those sustainable provisions were ultimately included in the proposed building. Right? Here's an opportunity for you to potentially take another look at that ordinance and introduce another a different kind of diverse building. It doesn't have to do with the people that live there, but the the materials from which it is made. Um, Mr. Bell also talks or Mr. I had um had mentioned something about the pilot program that they talked about in terms of providing additional financing or financing for low-inccome or um submarket housing. Um anyway, as you as you're all aware, right, and it's getting late and we've served later than this before, have we not? Um your task here, of course, is to provide guidance and advice to council regarding land use policy. And I as I tell you, right, do your homework, show up, speak your mind, and ultimately speak and ultimately vote vote your heart. Those are the things that I asked you when I sat in Chair Sullivan's seat. Um, this is certainly supported by the comprehensive plan. You have an opportunity to to speak your mind, hopefully vote your heart as guided by the zoning ordinance. Um, again, I live four blocks from the previous development live six blocks from this. This is my neighborhood. I want I would very much like to see this this put in place. And so sort of in closing to um the vice chair's question and then followed up by the chair, if these projects do come online at the same

time, that block those blocks will be busy. They will be chaotic. And I think it falls to all of us as citizens of this community to support the adjacent businesses during construction. Absolutely. During construction and not only the fact um and not only that, but to continue to support them afterward. Wrap up your thought if you can. No, that's actually I can end here. Thank you. Okay, cliffhanger. All right, last card. Chris Raicher.

Hi everybody. I know you guys are exhausted. Good evening, chair, commissioners. My name is Chris Richard and I am the general manager of the state news media group which is the independent nonprofit studentr run media organization located in the two-story commercial building to the east of the proposed development the Howard. I'm joined online by some of my board of directors who are on my executive board as well as in person by our secretary Jake Roman. Um the ground floor of our building houses three established businesses. um Panda Express, Detroit Wing Company, Unicha Suite or Ice Cream, and our newest tenant, Foxtail Coffee and Gelato. The second floor though is home to our office, estate news, and our website development company and app company, masinworks.com. First of all, I want to start off by saying we are grateful to the Balline family and to Howard Balline, late Howard Balline, for agreeing to sell the building to the state news when we were no longer allowed on campus at Michigan State University. Um, we've been serving in Michigan State University and city of East Lancing community since roughly 1909. We've been independent since 1971. Um, I'm here as a representative of the organization and on behalf of the state news board of directors to express some concerns about the proposal improposal's impact on our property, our tenants, and our future development of our potential parcel. Let's talk about the compatibility and scale concerns. The city east lancing staff reported included in today's packet acknowledged that the adjacent buildings

which is the state news are much shorter than the proposed 167 ft structure. A building nearly eight times as tall as ours does not meet that standard. This is not a compatible development. It is an overwhelming development. I'm not going to go into the parking concerns and traffic concerns. We've already been through that today. Um, I do want to bring up the fact that if we were to redevelop our property, the Howard would severely constrain what any developer or us can reasonably build. A prospective buyer looking to construct a multi-story building on a site that would face would face significant issues. We're particularly concerned about potential setback constraints. In the current plan, this building would have eastfacing windows and it would be adjacent to our property line. We understand that this provision um is or we understand that this is what the plan is is to build right now, but it would uh effectively constrain our ability to redevelop above our current height without significant setbacks. Um, so we're asking the planning commission to do a few things on our behalf. Um, we're asking for uh any sort of information or um we're asking for, let me rephrase, I'm sorry, consider deferring the recommendation or

decision until after your zoning board of appeals rules. Um, so that you guys can evaluate the project as it will be built. um understand the significance between the two buildings and and the scale structure. Uh confirm that with its east facing residential adjacent windows to our property, it does not trigger setback requirements otherwise constrained to our future development. um require a detailed construction management and adjacent property protection plan before any recommendation moves forward. Let me lastly end with this. The state news or its board of directors are not opposed to this new development.

30 seconds. What we cannot support is a process that ignored us, the most affected neighbor adjacent to the proposed 15story tower. Um, we have not been included in the design process. We have not been uh able to discuss how the project will impact our building, our tenants, and our future. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Would any other members of the public wish to come forward? All right, seeing none, is there anyone online in the queue?

There is no one in the queue. Great. Thank you. At this point, we will close the public hearing for this item and we will presumably see this at the January planning commission meeting uh with updated information. All right. Thank you. All right. As we have no new business, that takes us on to item number nine, commissioner concerns. Any concerns from commissioners? No, sir. It was a good meeting. It was long. That was a good knee. Thank you for your patience with me tonight. All right. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Moved by Commissioner Nol. Seconded by Commissioner Putts.

Uh seeing no discussion. All those in favor vote I. Got a second. I post. Nay. Motion carries. We're adjourned at uh 10:34 p.m.