Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

I'd like to call to order the East Point Planning Commission meeting for 7.06 on August 6th, 2026. We have no secretary, so... Do we have somebody over there? There we go. It's hard to see you. Ms. Holman, please call the roll.

Member Hall-Rayford. Here. Member Moody? Here. Member Naylor? Here. Member Sassick? Here. Member Stokes?

Here.

Member Ulinski is out. Chair DeHunt?

Here. Moving on to the approval of the agenda, do we have any changes or anything needing to be requested? All right. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda, please?

Move to approve the agenda.

We have motion. Do we have support?

Support.

We have motion by Ms. Rayford. We have support by Ms. Moody. Please call the roll.

Member Hall-Rayford. Yes. Member Moody. Yes. Member Naylor. Yes. Member Sassick.

Yes.

Member Stokes.

I'll abstain.

Chair DeHaan.

Here. Yes. Sorry. I'm sorry. Can I approve that? The parking has me a little disheveled.

Moving out of the first hearing of the public, if you are here to speak on items in the public hearing, item five, I would request that you keep your comments for that time, otherwise you have three minutes to speak. Does anybody wish to be heard? Does anybody wish to be heard?

Hi, Jennifer Nicholas, East Point resident. Just to comment on public hearings in general, I know that it doesn't seem like there's very many people here today. I think, again, that the notices of public hearings, that it is posted in all the normal places. He mentioned the newspaper, he mentioned the website, but again, he's referring to the notice that's in your agenda packet that is posted on the website two days before the meeting. And he said that it was also posted on the door of city hall. I've not seen a public hearing notice on the door of city hall. It would have been a great time, especially with early voting. The last couple of weeks, there was a lot more traffic in city hall that maybe people would have been able to see it and be aware of it. Um, And in general, I think all public hearing notices, the more people that you try to let know, at least you made the attempt. Chances are a lot of people aren't going to participate anyways, but they can't participate if they don't know about it. My other comment, I know I emailed a couple of you driving by 8 Mile and Kelly. This is the view that I see coming from Grosse Pointe. Taking 8 mile from the lake through Grosse Pointe Shore St. Clair Shores Harper woods and then we get to East Point and we see a building with a giant Cannabis sign on it You know, I'm not a fan of that type of business but honestly if it said liquor or ammo or even if it said florist for bakery that size sign on a building in bright red and white lettering I just especially on Kelly road. That's an area that we're really working on in the master plan to revitalize. That seems to be where TPMA is focusing. And this is the end cap. This is the gateway to McComb County is this giant cannabis sign. So I don't know if they're, um, I know they did go before the ZBA last year regarding signs. I'm sure this is probably in compliance size wise. It's just the lettering. Um, seems to be a little excessive to me. That's it, thanks.

Does anyone else wish to be heard?

Good evening, commission. John Solera. I would like to talk about blight in East Point. And I believe this commission and... and the administration is completely ignoring blight. And by blight, I mean trees along fence lines inside the neighborhood. I'm personally surrounded on three sides where you could probably hide a body if you wanted to. I mean, the shrubbery is so thick. And people, these are mostly rental properties. The trees along the fence lines are what I call weed trees. They were never intentionally planted along the fence line. Yet some of them are 25 years old and the city does not hold the person who rents accountable to keep his fence lines cleared. They not only destroy fences, But they're a great place to hide if you're looking to sneak into a backyard, rip somebody off, whatever, I call this blight. And the city makes no effort to make these renters clean up these fence lines. And it's a big problem for me. It's way worse than the, uh, we're going to debate, uh, number five tonight, which has to do with backyards and stuff. But to me, this is way more, way more, uh, important because these, these fence lines, we're going to look like Detroit in five years. If you don't clean these fence lines up, that's all I got to say.

thank you does anyone else wish to be heard. Anyone else wish to be heard.

parking ordinance issue coming up yet, there's a truck parked on the sidewalk that makes it pretty impossible to come off the side street and gain entrance into the City Hall Yeah, there's Ridiculous blight that is going on in this city I bought my house 19 years ago and I have watched the city go to hell in a handbasket Nothing has improved. It's only gotten worse I've got tenants next door that they had a broken-down refrigerator in the backyard For over two months as soon as that was removed They dragged out some ugly disgusting ratty looking mattress that sat in the backyard for over a month and They don't clean up the dog excrement. They've got one dog that I would consider to be a vicious dog. Whenever I'm in my backyard, the dog charges at me through my fence. The most recent thing is is there was people in this house three adults Seven children the youngest being a baby the oldest being 13. There's possibly even more kids living in that house in addition To three dogs a cat and there's only one bathroom. I guarantee you that's unsanitary And whenever you get around to doing the rental inspection, I can pretty much guarantee you're gonna find the inside of that house is trash. In fact, I would be surprised if it's even suitable to live in there anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a health hazard. We need a city that's going to be proactive and give a damn about the animals and kids being abused in this city instead of turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to that and the endless blight. Please walk from here, go down some route, head towards Kelly. You're gonna see nothing but endless trash and trees growing through the fence.

Does anyone else wish to be heard? Anyone else wish to be heard? Seeing none, we'll close the first hearing of the public and we'll move on to approval of the minutes. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes? So moved. We have a motion by Mr. Sasek. Approved. We have a second by Ms. Moody.

Second.

Ms. Holman, if you please call the roll.

Member Sasek.

Yes.

Member Moody. Yes. Member Hall-Rayford.

Yes.

Member Naylor.

Abstain.

Member Stokes. Abstain. Chair DeHaan.

Here. Yes. Still here. Abstain. So before we open any of these public hearings, I want to know, have appropriate notices been made? Yes. They were in the newspaper for two weeks? Yes. Why are they not posted on the door?

It's not required by us. It was a guideline that we were allowed to do.

Okay. And when did it hit the website?

I haven't seen it on the website, but then again, I don't look at it. Okay. I can't confirm it's on the website.

Can we please look into that? Because I'm concerned about having a public hearing.

Mr. Chair, there's some explanation as to why the publication notices. We don't, we almost never get them before the hearing. So that's not something we can post. So they, they've changed. The Macomb daily has changed the way they do things. It used to be they would send us literally a clipping and then they would invoice us at the end of the month. Now all we get literally could be a day before it could be a week later is the full affidavit with the official publication notice that would be in the paper and the invoice all in one document.

Okay. Yes. Push your button.

That would, that would really help with it.

Usually does.

I want to say something with reference to the public hearings. we are doing a disservice to our residents if we are not taking every viable step to notify our residents. We would discuss this at when we started to work with the master plan and different things. We always say we need, we need community support. That's what we always say. We need community support, but then we stand by the fact that we followed all the guidelines, but we always, I believe this is, I believe that we have to go an extra mile to get our residents involved because this right here, this, Ordinance chapter 44. It's very important to all of our residents to know what is going on and just to say, yes, we, we put it on the website or yes, we did this. That's just not enough. We're doing a disservice to our residents not to take an extra mile step or whatever you want to say to give them that opportunity to come out to voice their opinion. That's all I have to say.

All right. Thank you, Ms. Moody. I concur. Let's move on to the least controversial of these two public hearings. One would hope. Can I get a motion to open a public hearing for item A, receive comments on a request for a zoning map amendment rezoning at 15145 Topher to facilitate the development of a vehicle sales and repair establishment.

Approved.

We have motion by Mr. Sasek. And support. And we have support by Ms. Moody. Ms. Holman, please call the roll.

Member Sasek.

Yes.

Member Moody. Yes. Member Hall-Rayford. Yes. Member Naylor. Yes. Yes. Member Stokes?

Yes.

Chair DeHaan?

Yes. Do that again. Mr. Myers, is there anything you wish to, any background you wish to put on this before we open it up?

There's nothing that is added that you would need to know that would change your conversation. Okay.

Does anybody wish to be heard about this item? Anybody wish to be heard? I'm sensing nobody wishes to be heard on the hearing of the public hearing on this item. So we will close that public hearing and we'll move on to the second public hearing, which is going to be ugly. Can I get a motion to open the public hearing of receive comments on a proposed amendment to the code of ordinances, chapter 44 traffic and vehicles, article three parking, stopping and standing. We have a motion by Ms. Rayford. So I'm going to throw it to Ms. Naylor this time. You've had your time. Second by Ms. Taylor.

No, I was going to say something else.

Discussion.

One discussion.

All right.

This discussion? We will. I would like to, I don't know if I can or cannot, make a motion to table this once again. And the reason I say that is because I again state that it is our responsibility to do everything humanly possible to allow our residents to express their opinion about the things that we are doing.

How about we go you one better? How about we hear public comments, but we do not close the public hearing and we adjourn it for the next meeting. So if anybody else wishes to be heard, so we have two things going on. First thing is there's no parking out there. So if somebody wanted to come and they came to city hall, there's no place to park. True. So you've got that strike. and whatever questionable dissemination of information, however, whatever the reasons are, I think we should just open the public hearing, hear whatever comments we hear, and then my thought is to table it and pick it back up next month unless you guys feel differently.

I could go with that.

I'm open to that. All right.

I'm open to it, absolutely.

So let's take a vote on opening the public hearing. So we have motion by...

From the street The rest of it you just throw out it's useless as I said in my last comment the city is the backyards in this city are a mess and We're not addressing that There could be bodies in the corner of the yard behind me and I wouldn't know it unless I smelt it. So we need to get these people that rent houses, not the renters themselves, the people that own these houses and rent them to clean up their backyards. It's not up to the renter if they move into a house and it has a 25-year-old weed tree growing on the back fence. Trees are expensive to remove, and these trees climb the fences, they climb to the wires, and... if we're not doing that, nevermind what else is in the backyard. There's enough blight in backyards in particular to go around. And so pass the first part of this and throw the second part just right out.

Does anyone else wish to be heard? Yes.

So I have a neighbor who's pushing 80 and she's extremely concerned about this. Um, her daughter is in the hospital and the car is inoperable. My neighbors on a fixed income and she's extremely worried about getting hit with a $200 fine. Um, you know, yeah, there, there is, there's just a ridiculous amount of blight going on, but you know, we also have seniors living in the city here that are on fixed incomes and they don't necessarily have the ability, you know, and it's going to devastate them to get hit with a $200 ticket for an inoperable vehicle. There's insurance. There's you know, a lot of different factors going on that, you know, they they're struggling to Address the issue. And so how is the city going to? help these homeowners who Want to do the right thing, but they're struggling financially to be in compliance Parking you know the The police department needs to, you know, stop ignoring that there are those parking in fire hydrants, you know, flat out. It's against the law. You don't just, you know, drive by, see that the car's parked in front of a fire hydrant and you just keep going. That's absolutely ridiculous. Mean it just begs the question. What the hell is the city doing? there are so many other more pertinent issues going on here and This is it. It's all about nine mile and taking away parking spaces from businesses along nine mile and now this with inoperable vehicles and Private property, you know, what about going after the tenants creating all this blight? I mean, this is ridiculous Homeowners we should not have to be looking at neighboring rental properties that are nothing But an absolute eyesore and these tenants do nothing to pay their water bills What the hell is the city going to do to start holding these tenants accountable? It's their responsibility when they sign that lease they are charged with the responsibility to maintain the property Inside and outside. It's their responsibility to pay the water bills yet 400 to $1,400 in every six months. It just goes on the county taxes. So that's it The city is just going to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to all these freeloading deadbeat tenants.

Come on Does anyone else wish to be heard

Jennifer Nicholas at the June 4th Planning Commission meeting Mr. Myers gave a more in-depth explanation of the timeline for correcting violations of the proposed inoperable vehicle ordinance. He stated we would grant a 30-day notice for them to remove or make operable the vehicle and If it is not done in that manner, then they have a five-day notice giving them a final warning that they have another five business days to give us a directive and a plan of when they plan to get that thing done. Each of our notices do not say 30 days or else. It's 30 days and you need to be able to tell me what your plan is and be able to prove that this is a strategy of correcting the violation. At the July 9th Planning Commission meeting, and again at this meeting, the timeline has changed and become less forgiving. After 48 hours, a violation notice can be issued. The owner has 14 days to remove or repair the vehicle, or they can apply for an additional 40-day extension. After that time, the fines and penalties kick in. So we've gone from 30 days and you can still work with the city to 30 days or else. Hearing that this ordinance is much stricter and less reassuring than when it was originally explained to the Planning Commission For many people 30 days or even 60 or 90 days is not enough time to repair or remove a vehicle on their private property I think it's an overreach by the city to tell people when and how they can afford to fix something or move something or on fines and penalties or possible towing which really serves no purpose except to burden them even more again for a lot of people. They don't want to have a vehicle that's not running they would love to be able to afford to fix and have a running vehicle. but they're in a situation where it's maybe going to take some time or they don't know what to do. They don't know what alternatives there are. I understand when it's a vehicle that is, there are weeds growing through it. It is dismantled. It is trash to me. That's that kind of falls under blight. Um, the same as if you had a, Washing machine sitting in your backyard that wasn't working that had animals living in it 30 seconds like that But again this this ordinance the way that it's worded Well, it's going after the things that I think we all agree that we might want It is also leaving it wide open to penalize people Seniors whomever that can't afford to get something done on the city's timetable Thanks Thank you, does anyone else wish to be heard I

Anyone else wish to be heard? Seeing none, we'll close the second public hearing. Oh, I'm sorry, I apologize. Thank you. Can I get a motion to table the public hearing for the next meeting? So moved. We have motion by Mr. Sasek. Second. We have mutual support by Ms. Moody and Ms. Naylor. Please call the roll.

Member Sasek? Yes. Member Moody? Yes. Member Hall-Rayford? Yes. Member Naylor? Yes. Member Stokes?

Yes.

Chair DeHunt?

Yes. Moving on to new business. These gentlemen probably want to get going. Mr. Myers. Item A.

In consideration of motion regarding the recommendation of the City Council for the request for a zoning map amendment rezone of at at 15 1 4 5 Topher to facilitate the development of a vehicle cells and repair establishment Anything to insert add? They have met what we've asked them to do by the state and the local and we're asking that to be considered as an option.

All right.

As a motion.

Does anybody have any questions or concerns about this item? Do we have a proposed motion Mr. Albright that you would care to read?

I'm getting there Mr. Chair. There is a recommended motion that's attached to the planner's report. Does the commission want me to read that into the record? Yes, please. Okay. I move to recommend approval of the rezoning from MU1 neighborhood mixed use. the MU3 regional mixed use for the property at 15145 Topher, parcel ID number 02-14-31-155-020 to city council based on the following findings. And there are five. Number one, master plan goals 3A, increase tax revenue and quality of investment, and 3C, revitalize East Point's commercial districts are supportive of a rezoning such as is requested. Number two, if developed according to zoning ordinance standards, the future use of the property can be compatible with the basic intent and purpose of the zoning ordinance. Number three, the requested zoning district is similar to other property along Gratiot. If combined with the lots fronting Gratiot and incorporated into the larger development, the property can meet the dimensional regulations of the MU3 district. Number four, this proposed use is not expected to generate additional utility or services demand to the extent that it is detrimental to the city services. And finally, number five, the requested rezoning does not constitute a spot zoning.

Thank you. So moved. We have a motion by Mr. Sasek. Do we have support? Support. We have support by Ms. Rayford. Ms. Holman, please call the roll.

Member Sasek?

Yes.

Member Hall-Rayford? Yes. Member Moody? Yes. Member Naylor? Yes. Member Stokes?

Yes.

Chair DeHunt?

Yes. Look at that. You'll be out of here by 8 o'clock. You're lucky. Congratulations. All right. Moving on to this big, hellacious item. Unfinished business item a consider a motion regarding a recommendation to City Council on a proposed amendment to the Code of Ordinances chapter 44 traffic and vehicles article 3 parking stopping standing so Since we're going to kick this can down the street to the next month No, I'd like to have a little discussion But you don't need to go into your full-blown presentation But I do have, I have a series of questions for you. And then I would like to, you know, any other discussion the table has, and then we could probably table this as well. So pretend you're in school. I come to your counter or Mr. Sasek or Ms. Moody comes to your counter. They have financial issues. They've got a car that needs to be repaired. What does the person at your counter say to that person that they got tagged for it?

They say, I'll leave you as a scheduled meeting to meet with the building official.

Okay. And then what is the next step? So I come back, we have a meeting. I come back, I still don't have the money.

Three weeks later there's a lot more questions involved before money comes up. Why is the car sitting? Why has it been there so long? What's the problem with the vehicle and what then would be your projection to need to get it? Operable opera to operate. All right Those three questions have to be answered with the ability to have some idea of the the issues that are making that car inoperable so if the person doesn't have the finances to do the job and What's the next steps? We didn't get to that money process. We have to find out what the cause of why that's an inoperable vehicle. One of those inoperable vehicles is it's not tagged anymore. Okay. So are you saying you don't have the ability to put a license plate on it or you don't have the ability to put a current sticker on the license plate? Those are as part of the issues as much as anything. So it's not as simple as just randomly asking what is the mechanical problems and why can't you get it fixed? It might be the fact that it's been sitting so long that it just has two flat tires.

All right. So then I have other questions. So the only way that you are going to see a vehicle behind a fence or in somebody's backyard is if a neighbor has Ratted them out. That's one way to say that. Yes, or well if the rats running out from under the car Or if you are doing an inspection on a rental property That that owner has allowed you to go into the backyard and you have seen something of concern Correct. So essentially there is only two ways that an inoperable vehicle would be reported to the city legally. And that would be visual line of sight or three visual line of sight. Somebody has turned you in or you have seen it in the inspection of a rental property of another property of another property rental. So that would be the only three instances where That could bring that to our attention. That would bring that to the attention. Now if it is in front of the house and it hasn't moved and Lord knows how long or it's in front of a drop, it's in a driveway and it hasn't moved in how long. Yes. All right. That helps me. Anybody have any other questions or any?

I think we have to tread lightly. I think I'm in an operable car. should not fall on the same classifications as a half wrecked, half dismantled, half whatever else that we have noted. And I did mention that in some notes before. Inoperable is pretty broad. And secondly, it is someone's personal property, the car and the parcel of land that they own. I could understand it besides we were going to quantify this if we see two or more We may say we want to do something, take action. I just think this is too broad of someone's personal property on their personal property, the neighbors or someone coming to inspect their home. If I'm a homeowner, I own my home. My home is not subject to inspection. If I have a car that has come to the point where weeds are growing out of it or something of that nature, And that's beyond inoperable. That's just straight abandon and neglect for multiple years. Where is that threshold that we define when we take control of someone else's personal property as a municipality?

That's always something that I'm a little bit hesitant to do.

Because I think people, I'm sorry, my thing is not even on for the recording back office. My apologies. But I just feel that we should, you know, really consider some more parameters. It should just be one vehicle. Maybe there's multiple vehicles. Whether a license is tagged. No, I'm not going to spend $278 for some license plates and my car is not running and I don't have the money to get an opera ball. I'm not going to pay insurance. So why would I pay for a tag as long as it's on my personal property? I am not subject to any violation that you know, I'm not on public property with Unlicensed vehicle. I'm on my own residency unless I don't know the law pertaining to that on my own residency in my driveway there are some homes that may not have a garage and They only have their backyards for this vehicle. So I think there's a lot of parameter just to make a blanket Law or amendment. I think it needs a little more consideration And I think it should be falling more under the terms of blight versus inoperable. It should be a situation of blight. We talked about trees growing through fences and things of that nature that are not addressed. I think this should fall under the guidance and any laws or regulations we pass should be associated more so with blight than just inoperable because inoperable is just way too broad for me. And I've mentioned that before my notes, an email I think is just too broad. Thank you.

Mr. Myers. I would support that no matter if you put it under blight or you put it under an inoperable vehicle. Our ordinance has a blessed gift of broad brushing the answers and then everybody gets to interpret them as they feel comfortable by the situation. So I do agree with you that there has to be distinctions and a better definitive of what the word means and how it's implied inside a violation. The concerns you have on the other side that have to be considered is the economic I would like to thank the declaration of nuisance that might not be paying attention to because sometimes when the vehicle or multiples which oftentimes is the case They're not sitting on concrete. They're sitting on gravel. They're sitting on grass They're sitting on soil and if they've been up inoperable for a length of period of time now we're wrestling with the issue of EPA and the issue of soil erosion of chemicals going into our ground and causing a bigger problem So we know that we have to do C2s when we do other buildings that are going to go from a car repair shop to some other building or a brand new road. We know we have to get EPA, we know we have to get the state eagles approval of what the soil samples are. same thing happens in our neighborhoods and we're not paying attention. So I agree with you very much that there has to be a tighter line of definition and tighter line of guidelines, whether we put it under a blight or we put it under an operable vehicle. But there's other issues that make that a dangerous vehicle besides how badly it's smashed up. And if it's depending on where it is parked and what kind of leakage it could be possibly producing or having. And without those pieces, we all may as non-mechanics not know what's going on. But all of a sudden when we move it in half a year or two years, then we find out everything has been burned up and soil erosion underneath because of Three chemicals that are going to come out transmission fluid oil fluids and the one that's most contaminant and most destructive is your Your radiator and your that temperature that the chemical that goes for keeping your air cool so those are the things that we don't know and And that's what sometimes should be considered But I absolutely agree with you that the definitions and the terminologies are wide enough that they don't explain all the needs or responses that should be taken care of. But to leave everyone choose to that, we may be bringing harm over the next few years, 10, 20, 25, where we have soil problems because we've chemically caused damage to our soils for an entire neighborhood because we've allowed it to happen for long periods of times, respecting a privacy. The problem is with safety, as you know as well, is that sometimes People don't understand how to take care of a life or a house or a building With the issue of life safety involved because they're just comfortable with that they have and they get satisfied with it so example many many people who have Air Force heat furnaces in our houses have for years and years and years used them but never got them inspected and they don't have a realize until we bring in a Rental property and we have them have those inspected every two years and we discover the heat exchange has been cracked and it's it's producing point two zero two and or now it's doing 0.24, but it's producing a carbon monoxide poisoning at a very small rate for the people that live in that house. But residents that have their own homes do the same thing. They don't for years inspect their furnaces because they're comfortable that it seems to be working. They change the filter every so often and they go on their way. I think sometimes we're forgetting the limit of education some people may have when they put a car on a not hard surface and it sits there for a long period of time because they can't do anything with it. And they may be causing damage to our soil property and all the growth that goes around it. And that's what we should be also in those parameters being conscientious about.

The question is, do we state non-hard surface or not in the ordinance right now?

I didn't hear the question.

Do we clarify whether the car is on a non-hard surface or not?

No, it's wide open. It's not definitively tight.

Mr. Albright you had I did sure I just had a couple of comments in making its recommendation to the City Council who will ultimately vote on this ordinance the the Commission could simply remove the word inoperable under the title and remove the word not operating under the various sections of the proposed ordinance or commission could keep both of those words in the, uh, in the proposed ordinance, but also include under the definition section of 44 dash one 50, a definition of inoperable slash non-operating vehicle. And the commission could come up with a language that it believes is appropriate that protects residents interests. and make that recommendation to the city council who would then look at the recommendation and ultimately vote on the, uh, on the ordinance at a future meeting. So they're just throwing out there just a couple of different things to consider. Um, if, and this ordinance, if it is ultimately passed, it can always be amended at a future date as well. But if the council or if the commission, uh, really is, uh, has an issue with those words in there. And I know that some of the residents have expressed concerns about those words. Those words can simply be stricken and the rest of the proposed ordinance then would move ahead in a re as a recommendation to the city council. And again, or the commission could come up with some language in a definition that everyone's happy with. So just putting that out there, Mr. Chair.

Maybe I'm happy that we are considering tabling this again for more discussion because there's a whole lot more to this than meets the eye because I don't want to start striking words and creating ambiguous ordinances. Cause when you start striking words, then you, you know, I don't disagree with what you're saying, but we need to see what, how it reads and how it lays out because does that create a bigger issue potentially than what we have now? You know, I'm looking so many years, what the hell? Many years ago I had a car that I, it was operable. I had gotten a new car parked in my street. I was young. I didn't know that you had to have a license tab on it. So I turned it backwards cause I had planned on selling it. My neighbor at the time turned me in. I got a notice that I had to go and get a license tab. It is what it is. Um, I was a kid. I didn't have the money, although it was much more reasonable back then. Um, but I did it. And then some years later I had a car on the street. I didn't move it enough. I got cited. These are the cars in the street, that's all managed, but it's what's on the property to Ms. Naylor's point about personal property, but I just really wanna have a stronger discussion on this. In the hopes that maybe other residents will come out Maybe not as many as come to City Council and complain But other residents, you know, we have the faithful group that always come but there's more people than just the faithful for And I'd like to think that we could get some more people and some more input and hear what they have to say so Now I'm off my soapbox. Does anybody have anything else to add? I do, Chair. Please.

Yeah, so I can see this from multiple perspectives too. I too have had vehicles when I was younger that I worked on myself or I didn't have tags for. I parked them on the street and I know that I didn't I didn't fix those vehicles until I got tagged and I think that's important too. So I agree that in the ordinance, it's probably important for us to figure out and be clear on what we consider You know what we want to remove and You know, I agree. Someone might have a car that they haven't driven in five years, but it works. And maybe it's an old car. How do we know? How does the city know that that car in particular should be removed? What if it doesn't? What if it doesn't drive at all, but it looks fine, you know, and nobody's driven in five years. So what do we do there? But I also understand, too, that if we have a lot of vehicles that that don't look so great, right, where there's not such a gray line, and the city doesn't have any means to enforce anything, Then we have a city full of old broken cars that probably aren't gonna get fixed because no one's gonna tell anybody to fix them Because I I know I had a Dodge Ram I just sold and I had plans of fixing certain things on it ran took me five years. I finally sold it It was always a task that I was going to get to I never got to it So I see both sides of it. I think we could probably solve it with clarity on What sort of vehicles you know when they cross that threshold? I know it's tough but You know, maybe we can have a broader focus of, again, are there vehicles, if they're collectible, if they're collector's vehicles or it means something to you or it just needs a battery, is that truly inoperable? You know, but I understand the city too. Maybe the city just wants to have a tool to open the conversation for vehicles as well. And is that so bad for the city to say, hey, we've noticed your car's been here for five years. What are you doing with it? You know, so that's just my piece.

It's not unreasonable to ask the residents to work with the city and it's also not unreasonable for the city to work with the residents So there needs to be a happy medium Yes, I think I I don't know if do we need to have a I know we need ordinances and guidance But if you know it is seen that a property is that you know, why can't the city just talk to individual? My other second drawback was about this cost. If somebody already can't fix their car, now they're going to get these fees or towing costs and citations and a civil action. And now to lean on their property. I just think this is far fetched because we're talking vehicles. Yes. Safety is important. As we mentioned, appearance of our community, but there's a whole lot of, as even said earlier tonight that we really need to tackle. And this fencing thing is really bad. I live off of eight mile and, going across eight mile from where I live to Gratiot. There's so much shrub in the fencing. You can't even have walk on the street or the sidewalk. And that's visible because it's right off the eight mile and there's a sidewalk buried there somewhere that if someone was taking walks, they can't. And I just think those things are, have a little more priority to me that we talk about the parents when people are driving down our streets and our main thoroughways, We don't have just wild brush and shrubbery and trees and no one's accountable. I would like to see some action on that. We don't put liens on people's homes for their trees. That's crazy or through the fence. And now a car can result in a lien on someone's property who's already challenged economically potentially. So I just think this, I like the fact that we're tabling this. give it more consideration, having this type of dialogue. So we kind of explore more of those things that we should be considering that we might not have thought about. But a lien on my house, I'd be pissed. I would be pissed.

Anyone else? No, I just agree with everything that everyone is saying. For example, like I have, my husband, we have a 1999 Cadillac Sedan Ville. that's in my driveway on my property and it's operable. However, it's just sitting there because we are going to work on that car to make it to one day have an integration cruise. That's what we want to do. So if my neighbor was angry at me, they will report me for having an inoperable car. We have, I agree with everyone. We just need to take this and dissect every little portion of it because every time we say something, we think of something else. So it takes a, yes.

Yeah, I mean, Is it so much to ask to clearly define what an operable is if the city's pursuing? I mean, so we we started with broad strokes Right, and we're saying we'll give broad strokes and then we can leave it up to interpretation But that's almost it's almost better to define exactly what where that crosses the line even if it's difficult it would take a lot of words, but I'm sure that there's some sort of definitions that you know, okay, well, if it's got flat tires, that's a definite violation at that point, you know, that the city should be able to say, hey, you've had flat tires for a month or two. What's going on? Yeah. So now we better see that in the cruise, by the way.

All right. So how about we put a motion out there to table this bad boy until the next meeting?

So motion.

We have a motion. Do we have support?

Yes.

Did we? We tabled the public hearing, now we're tabling the conversation. Don't we need a motion to table the conversation as well? Hey, I might screw up once in a while, but I got this one. All right, motion by Ms. Moody. Support was down here somewhere. Support was Mr. Sasek. Please call the roll.

Member Moody? Yes. Member Sasek?

Yes.

Member Hall-Rayford? Yes. Member Naylor? Yes. Member Stokes?

Yes.

Chair DeHunt?

Yes. Do we need to give you a few minutes to get the TPMA people up? It's 8 o'clock. How long are they going to take?

The who?

The planners.

20 minutes.

20 minutes? At least.

No.

No.

Please tell me they're not going to regurgitate the same data that we've seen. I'm sure you'll want to ask them some questions. If they've shown something new, did I say that?

Mr. Chair, may I speak while we're waiting for them to turn to come on? Sure.

Sing a song if you like.

Are they ready? Go ahead. In regards to amendments, I'm gonna propose to bring another amendment to your table in the next month or so. We've talked about this, but this is part of this, Taking care of you we've spoken pretty aggressively again tonight that nothing's being done about overgrowth and In our city, we have a number of large trees in our back properties That again somebody cannot take care of yet are now becoming according to definitions dangerous or dead and therefore at risk of causing a larger problem The problem we have in our city at the moment is that broad brush definition. And so it's allowed to be identified as a dangerous tree or object that is not permitted to be in existence. In other words, if it's dead or diseased, it's required by the here's the definition used in our city. declaration of nuisance in other words It has a issue that could affect more than the person's property that's there in the long run of time The reality though is our ordinance presently says the only one who can control the choice of taking that tree down even though it's already dead and so many and so many many many feet in the air is the wrecks parks and wrecks director That means this ordinance was written prior to the changeover when we've shared the relationship with RARE between the two cities. And so RARE cannot and has no jurisdiction in our city to go to a private resident and correct or remove an unsafe tree that is blighted into the community. So I'll be proposing that we discuss those deep definitions and potentially give that responsibility of those trees to be instructed to be removed by the city building department. So that's back to this subject of a lot of broad brushes. And that one was actually designed and not been able to be managed. It was written in 2005. So the theory of it is these trees that are now become unsafe, at 2005 would have been between 25 and 49 feet smaller than they are presently today. So the question is how do we address and assist some of this overgrowth that has now become dangerous or what is defined in our definition of this city declaration of nuisance. In other words, it reaches out beyond the risk of taking danger to only that home or that property. So we'll be bringing that to the table as well as cleaning up definitions, cleaning up definitives, and how do we take an unsafe growth in our community and remove it from it so it does not injure the person of the property or properties around it.

Just one more point before we allow Aaron to speak. So again, we run into that old chestnut unless it's seen from a clear line of sight or somebody complains about it or you see it in a rental inspection. Nobody's gonna know what's going on in somebody's backyard That is correct. So we can talk about wine to clean up blight but but until your neighbors are about ready to turn you in or It can be visibly seen there is no legal grounds for somebody to go on to your property and Check out your overgrowth, but a 75-foot tree is pretty visible.

It's dead. That is yes I'm just saying there's one more fourth one. You should put in your list. We're talking about rentals We're talking about a call of complaint you're talking about we're looking from somebody else's property across to yours or the fourth one is if we're on somebody's private property that is a vacated property and

Yes, I sure can. Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay. Good to go? Good to go.

Thank you. Ten minutes. Okay. Ten minutes.

Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Lovely to see you all. I know you've already had a lot on your agenda today, so we do have a good amount to cover, but I will try to be concise. Although, as I know you all a little while now, sometimes I struggle with that, but I'll do my best here. We are going to get started. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen here. When we last met, I believe that Chair requested that we come with some actual strategies to put in front of you this time. And so here we are. We are going to take a look at two of the three pillars in the draft economic development strategic plan that we've been working on. I am going to ask, we will be sending these to you. I believe that the first pillar was sent to you for review about a month ago. And then we're going to look at a second pillar. We're going to look at the first one. and another one today, but we do ask that if you do have the time to review some of these and then provide us some feedback. I will be open for questions today, of course, but some of these, we're gonna cover a lot of ground here. So please, if you do have a chance to review some of this material after we get it sent around after today's meeting, we'd love to hear some feedback. Not only will this material be, as you see here, a part of the economic development strategic plan, But a lot of this will also be important for the master plan that we'll be turning our attention to creating a draft for that here shortly. So we are working on kind of three pillars of the economic development strategic plan as we're putting this together. They are pillar one, which is ecosystem, as we're calling it, with the goal of being creating a modern and responsive economic development ecosystem Pillar two, we're kind of centering around the people of East Point with the goal of unlocking East Point's potential or the potential of the everyday economy, as we've been calling it. And then also pillar three, which are about activating underutilized spaces throughout the city. Now, we're going to be looking at pillars one and three today. We just went over a draft of pillar two with city staff this morning, and we'll be looking forward to presenting some more information on that in the future. So as we look at pillar one, that ecosystem pillar, here's a quick overview of the strategies. We are going to go through each one of them today, but I'm going to spend a little more time on the kind of highest impact, maybe our higher priority recommendations as we think about these strategies. The first one being to establish an East Point Improvement Corporation. And we did send a memorandum again. It looked like this. This was about a month ago, actually. We sent this around. And we'll give more detail. into the research and rationale and best practices that surround this recommendation. So do please look for this in your email box and we'll get sent around again after today's session. But as we look at establishing, this is a, we're talking about a nonprofit organization that would kind of operate as an umbrella organization for economic development efforts citywide. So those would include efforts around corridor redevelopment. It would also be an umbrella organization that would assist. It would not remove the need for the DDA, but actually would be able to work in tandem and coordinate efforts with the DDA with other citywide activities and also hopefully be able to solicit and also kind of identify and pursue funding opportunities. So we are, again, seeing that central coordinating entity there for economic developments that would have a board and would also coordinate the activities, as you see, of the DDA, of businesses, property owners, lenders, community and philanthropic partners as well, kind of across the board there. So I won't go through each line of these for all of our strategies, but then we have put together some step-by-step kind of action items. to see these strategies from concept to realization. In this case, we will be looking at establishing a steering committee for this organization, and then also kind of help make sure that there's a good transition plan to help the DDA also kind of become part of and coordinated with this opportunity. We feel this is a really high impact. This is kind of really one of our top priority strategies that we put together for the EDSP for you. Again, you'll have the opportunity to review that memorandum if you haven't already and we'd be happy to answer any questions or collect feedback about this. Looking at our second strategy in this first pillar is to execute an economic development communications and marketing plan as we think about economic development efforts in East Point, while it is true that maybe we are not necessarily looking at some of the more traditional economic development opportunities that you might see in other communities like site selection and courting, industrial opportunities, businesses coming into town, those kinds of things, we feel strongly that the economic development in East Point is really going to be a kind of focused heavily on a grow from within environment and set of initiatives. We're going to see a lot of that as we look through these strategies today. But nonetheless, there will be the importance of creating this kind of storytelling, right? This market and communications plan focused on East Point, which would be targeted towards attracting new businesses and encouraging redevelopment, also bringing in new residents to the city. Item three here, strategy three in the first pillar is to unlock the city staff with some capacity building opportunities that we see and also some professional development, ensuring that the city staff elected officials, appointed boards and committee members and partner organizations all have the kind of same working knowledge, are working from the same playbook, if you will, and also making sure that the skills are in place to support these modern economic development efforts that we're putting in here. Some of the strategies include potentially implementing a basic CRM and business tracking system, kind of establishing some clear job and responsibilities, also potentially exploring the possibility of maybe adding some part-time staff here and there to help out with capacity in some of these critical, with these critical tasks. I will pause here just to note one of our, the kind of core principles or core understandings that we had in putting together these plans are that some of these things, of course, especially as we think about scaling them in the long term, do have the potential to require funding initiatives. We understand that. But in all cases, our intention here was to create an opportunity where we could start small and then hopefully allow the flourishing environment to create more funding opportunities and think about scaling these things as we look long term. So while we say things like looking at the possibility of maybe adding some part-time staff, as opposed to saying create four or five new full-time staff positions, just as an example. So we've really tried to focus on identifying strategies that are relatively low cost and cost effective in the short term, and then hopefully lead to an environment that might allow for scaling and growing some of these initiatives over the longer term as well. Again, the rest of this pillar, the first pillar, I'm going to move a little quickly, but we have recommended kind of creating a business concierge and navigation system within City Hall. We have heard from some of the business leaders. some really positive things about working with the city, but also some opportunities for kind of improvement and maybe breaking down some of the barriers, creating more efficient opportunities for communication, feedback, and those kinds of things. So again, not necessarily a high cost item. Mostly it's about kind of creating a website, looking for opportunities to be transparent and allowing free flowing information in and out of city hall. focus on strengthening regional partnerships and collaboration networks. The goal here is just to increase that ability for business owners to leverage these regional resources and attract external investment potentially and just participate in the broader economic development initiatives. We know that in some cases, some of these relationships have what I like to call the kind of weight of history on them, but still think there's some opportunity to continue to forge and try to continue to build out new partnerships and participate in some other regional initiatives that have been going on. And finally, on pillar one, maximizing our funding opportunities. There is, when we look at the draft that we're putting together, we've done a a decent amount of research looking into some funding opportunities that might exist that we hope are good opportunities for the city of East Point to pursue in economic development activities. So I will pause there. Any questions, any feedback, anything about pillar one as I'll go back to, oh my goodness. not what i wanted i'll go back to that front page where we can see those strategies overall and i just wanted to pause to give an opportunity for any questions or feedback here thank you safe so again pillar one was really about kind of creating that modern ecosystem building out that kind of uh uh fully operational modernized ecosystem that touches on a lot of components, but really kind of hopefully creating a fertile ground through which we can hope to see growth and the city flourish. Again, we're skipping pillar two today, which is going to be a lot about kind of focusing on the people. And we'll come back to that in our next sessions. But I do want to talk a little bit about places here.

Aaron, can I interrupt you for one second, please, before you go into pillar three? I just wanted to back up on one. You had mentioned about a transition for the DDA. So is this EIC going to be a replacement or the DDA is going to... fall into their jurisdiction. I just remember seeing something about that. You said a transition in the one, 1.3. I'm sorry.

Say that again.

That section 1.1.3 develop a transition plan for the DDA. Are you blending that with the EIC? So,

The DDA would not be replaced. There still would be need for the DDA. It is possible that maybe some of the members of the DDA would also participate in a steering committee. Again, how we would structure this. We do have a memorandum that kind of goes through other examples of this kind of efforts that have taken place in Michigan. A lot of the purpose here is not to supplant or get rid of the need for the DDA or even the authority the DDA has over the DDA. But, you know, because the DDA has, you know, very specific boundaries that it operates in, and therefore its funding mechanisms, right, the TIF there, and decision-making processes are somewhat limited as far as kind of citywide impact that can be had. This would be an opportunity to allow the DDA to continue to exist absolutely, but create an organization that does oversee multiple aspects of the city's economic development, And then let's say hypothetically, and this is a little bit of a teaser, I guess, for Pillar 3, but let's say hypothetically there was another economic improvement district that was created somewhere else in East Point. That would also be an entity that would exist with some level of independence, but could also have its activities coordinated differently. with the DDA, with the new business improvement district or something like this to make sure that all of these points economic development activities are coordinated moving forward. It could be opportunity to maybe share funding or something like this across the board, but it would not impact the DDA's funding or the DDA's ability to kind of continue to administer the activities within the downtown district there.

Thank you.

If that answers your question.

Yes, thank you.

Yes. So looking here then at pillar three, which is again about kind of activating underutilized spaces or places within the city, the first pillar here I'm sorry, the first strategy here is to really focus on corridor identity improvements. When we did have our joint session, it was something that came up a number of times, was thinking about those corridor identities, opportunities to kind of create specific maybe destination places or at least corridors that have some kind of connective tissue, I guess, if you will, and really focusing on some of that corridor identity. So we do think there's opportunities to do this. Um, and as I turn to the next page here, you're going to see just, we've actually had, um, uh, one of our partners on this project, Eric door with Perkins and will, uh, actually do just some kind of design mock-ups so we can talk about some of the impacts we're talking about there. But before we get there, think about creating these kind of small area plans for specific commercial corridors. they can have different focuses, right? Not everything has to be focused on the same thing. The DDA could be focused on a particular kind of business attraction, whereas maybe, you know, you might think about creating maybe even a social district or something like that in the line that you see in some other Michigan communities. So then along those lines, thinking about brand identity for each corridor, installing some gateway wayfinding features. We're not talking about massive changes to the streets necessarily or anything like that, but just maybe some banners, some signage, some corridor specific design guidelines potentially. And so as we think about that, again, we had Eric who's been on the team and has been there to present to you with us a number of times. take a parcel. Now, this is actually a parcel that specific in East Point. So this is not just, you know, something that we kind of pulled out of our hat. This is a specific East Point parcel. It is on Kelly Road. And we just kind of gave some, I wanted to give some ideas about what it might look like to think about creating some spaces and kind of reactivating some of these parcels. So in the first case, if you can see this on your screen, you see where the kind of color has been added or where some of these changes made. We see some facade improvements, maybe some consolidation of storefronts or something like that, some signage, some building lighting, some canopies and audience. These are what we're going to call our kind of minor enhancements relatively. low hanging fruit, but still can create some corridor identity, some cohesion along the way. And then if we think about upgrading to what we're calling these kind of mid-level enhancements, we've not gotten rid of all the parking. I'll go back and forth. Oh, I can't go back very easily. Here we go. But you can see also some of these, maybe the occasional parking spot is maybe reutilized with some greenage Greenery rather and just try to kind of improve some of the aesthetics without kind of removing or getting rid of significant amounts of parking, which we know is, of course, is important to a lot of business owners. But then there are possibilities, maybe down the line or as we think about scaling this up for some enhanced paving and sidewalks and crosswalks. maybe even a pedestrian bike lane, some of these things that were in the Kelly Road plan. We wanted to make sure that we were also kind of adhering to a lot of the work that's been done. But even this case, just with Three or two parking spaces here have been removed for maybe a small maybe a pocket Park. I'm sorry the pocket Park in between these buildings where this was underutilized space in between. These are opportunities to create these kind of third spaces and we'll talk about things like that. But maybe even some outdoor dining possibilities again. This is a next level. These are just examples. So we're not necessarily recommending all of these things take place, just kind of wanting to paint a picture to give an idea about the kinds of corridor identity and marking things that we're talking about. But then, of course, if you did want to think maybe longer term or more kind of major, I guess, enhancements, This is the possibility of maybe taking some of those spaces and what it might look like to reimagine some of our commercial spaces as residential, if that's something that was interesting, kind of changing the footprint and the layout here to create more housing. Or you can consider a mixed use alternative, which would have still the commercial on the First floor, but then potentially again, maybe down the line opportunities for residential on floors one and two. And then, you know, kind of weaving all of these things in together in this case. We have retail frontage directly on the main road where we wanted to give an example that didn't look like it was on Kelly Road and had all that parking right out front, but actually had the frontage of the buildings. For instance, in the DDA, there's some buildings that are right up, right on the sidewalk there, the right of way. So anyway, those are just a couple of examples. Keep clicking the wrong button. Just a couple of examples of the things that we might think about when we think about redevelopment. Not all of them are directly recommendations we're making, but wanted to have some visualization there for you. So this is another one we think is potentially one of a major impact. I've had conversations with some of you when we were there in person about some of the things we were thinking about Kelly Road. We do have a recommendation here to designate a portion of Kelly Road as a pilot redevelopment district, hopefully something that can be relatively achievable, but also set an example of what might be possible as we think about other commercial districts. Part of that is creating a critical mass of activity. So instead of looking at all of Kelly Road, right now our commercial corridors kind of expand the entire length of the city on all fronts. Maybe trying to focus a little bit of those redevelopment efforts to create a little bit more gravity, a critical mass of activity as we have here. And then think about how we might expand that incrementally if these are successful. So we do recommend Kelly Road as a potential site for this. We're gonna get to the kind of boundaries that we might be recommending here, but thinking about also maybe the addition of a corridor improvement authority, as I mentioned earlier, or maybe even a social district as an opportunity there, and then some tasks to do that. Our recommendation, our kind of draft recommendation for this Kelly Road corridor, if you will, only as you can see here in the map, I'm not sure how well you can see that on the screen over there, but this is Kelly Road. We're looking at from Ego, which is just three blocks up from 8 Mile to Ash on the west side of Kelly Road that does kind of have that intersection with Topher and Kelly as the kind of center point, which of course, you know, as Topher got known to that kind of neighborhood mixed use, this would also continue to further facilitate potentially some growth in that area and leaning into some of that award-winning rezoning that was done. But also one of the things that this does, if we look at Ego to Ash, we talked about creating a more focused destination district, but this would actually include some of those East Point legacy businesses that we know are so important to the city. In this case, it would include the Village Shoe Inn, Burke's Sports Haven, Giuseppe's Bakery would all be included in this A block area. redevelopment district. There's plenty of parking. As I think we've talked about before, as many of you might know, a lot of the parking lots, I think maybe all of them in this stretch, but certainly most of them that are in the front of those buildings are kind of in the right-of-way area. Those are that city-owned land. So you do have some opportunity to maybe utilize that or maybe even have a little bit of leverage in talking to business owners or something like that. We do think this is pretty walkable. Most of those streets are very crossable since we're only sticking on one side of Kelly. But even as we think about all of the commercial corridors in East Point, Kelly is, I think, the most crossable. There is a lot of residential on the east side of Kelly there. And I think this is a good opportunity to allow people to walk in a lot of cases to your residential district. There is, of course, a bus line that stops at 8 Mile and Kelly, just three blocks down from the kind of southern gateway to this recommended district. So it doesn't go all the way necessarily, but could create, it's very accessible still by public transit. And then because there is already a restaurant that in the past has had a liquor license there, it would also be something that could lend itself down the line, potentially the creation of a social district, which requires, I believe, two active liquor licenses by law to allow those social districts. And we're not locked in necessarily to this. We wanted to put this in front of you for feedback, but we have tried to be very thoughtful about where the location of this redevelopment district would be. I will pause there because I know these first two are the kind of big ones in this pillar. Any questions about this redevelopment district or this concept? Anything that I can answer for you before we go forward?

I have a quick question for you. Do anyone have an update on what's happening on Kelly with Harper Woods and Detroit? I know a couple of years ago, early in the year or something, something was in the works.

I can't really hear you.

I'm looking at John. I'm forgetting that. I'm not sure if anyone remember early in the year at the beginning of the master plan or at some meeting, it was mentioned that something was taking place with Harper woods in Detroit. Okay.

Um, so in line with this redevelopment district, there's also been a lot of, uh, kind of movement already and he's pointing around this kind of concept of these third really Civic Point would be an example of this. But really kind of continuing to lean into these opportunities to create more social infrastructure with these third places, opportunities to host recurring public engagement events, maybe even commission local artists to commissions, create public art there, maybe activate underutilized either parking lots or alleyways as we've done there in the DDA with a mural there in that activated alleyway that right by Civic Point Rainmaker mural, something like that, I believe, or even some pop-up retail opportunities, which again, we'll be talking a little bit more about when we look at pillar two. And we've also, again, identified a couple of potential funders for these kinds of third spaces Third place is if you're unfamiliar with that kind of concept, the third place is not where you live and not where you work. It is that kind of third place. Create those opportunities for some social environments, public spaces that we can share together. And you can kind of see, you know, anyone can answer. There are regulars, but it all comes to newcomers. It's near, hopefully, your home or work where people can just get together. And these are good opportunities to create social cohesion and things like that. So a lot of times what they're kind of calling these lighter, quicker, cheaper, these pilot projects where maybe we've seen examples where you know, a single parking lot just for a couple hours on a Sunday gets taken over for an event with some picnic tables or maybe some food trucks. Not necessarily requires wholesale removal of that parking lot, but we can have these pilot projects where maybe we can have little pop-up opportunities that are not requiring huge changes but can give hints As to the kinds of things we can do if we did want to take on some larger kind of changes to some infrastructure or something like that to create these spaces. Again kind of strengthening these regional partnerships and collaboration networks, which we talked a little bit about in pillar one. And I think. I'm looking here. Oh, I'm sorry. So a lot of this is thinking, focusing on redevelopment specifically, um, and kind of allowing your kind of local real estate, uh, development capacity. We're going to train up opportunities for local developers, create some regional networks and really think about how we can build up again from within East Point, a, um, opportunity to focus on redevelopment from within. We're not necessarily always looking for outside money or even outside redevelopers where there are opportunities to create these kind of regional partnerships and kind of train a new kind of generation, I guess, of local developers. We've talked to some of the local businesses around there that are contractors and builders and plumbers and all these kinds of things. And I think there are opportunities to really lean into building out those networks and thinking about how East Point We've found and research shows that when the local residents are involved in redeveloping their own spaces, there's a lot greater direct benefit to the community, not only because the investment kind of stays at home, but also those efforts tend to meet more directly a community's needs than always looking at the big national developers or something like that that might not be as competitive to the community um this is one of the things that would maybe require the identification of some funding to potentially partner uh maybe with a lending institution on a commercial gap financing program to help bridge the gap between what those total investments costs are and then the the financing that's available through traditional financing which you know Oftentimes, again, available to the big developers, not always as available to small-scale developers. So trying to think about ways to bring banks to the table, bring funding opportunities, lenders, excuse me, to the table, maybe structural revolving loan fund to help some of that local investment, that local redevelopment efforts to be focused, again, in the city as far as building out those networks and those opportunities. And I think, yep, I think that's it for today. I know it was a lot of stuff to throw at you. And I know you've already been at this for at least an hour before I started talking. So I'll pull the slides down here. Happy to open this up to conversation or questions that you have. And again, we'll be sending this around for you to review if you do have the time to look at it, maybe some of those details more in depth. That's something that you have the time and opportunity to be with us. Otherwise, we'd be happy to share that with you at the September session. But we just have the last third of this that we'd love to get your feedback on as well.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Have a great evening.

Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Myers, you have an update for us. Thank you moving on to the final hearing of the public does anyone wish to be heard Anyone wish to be heard So close.

maybe next time. Um, Jennifer Nicholas, um, thank you for tabling the vehicle ordinance. I do think that there needs to be a lot more specific language. I think everything needs to be in writing the whole process of what transpires, who figures out, um, who's has a legitimate reason for taking longer than somebody else moving a vehicle and that I, you know, my concern with it again is that, um, you know hearing things uh verbally doesn't necessarily translate into what is in right with a copy of what you provided them to begin with i i really just i really think that there are many many opportunities many ways of putting this information out there right now all that is required is it being posted one time in the macomb daily 15 days before at least 15 days before the public hearing and that's it, they're not required to do anything more. So yes, they are following the guidelines, but I think that you're just leaving out a lot of people and that's why when things change, when ordinances are approved, people start freaking out because they had no idea that this is what happened and they wonder why they didn't get a chance to voice their opinion. Um, the third thing is, uh, the city council meeting this coming Tuesday, August 11th, AEW is going to be having a presentation on phase three of nine mile road, Tuscany, all the way to I-94. They are actually going to present what the design is that we haven't really seen before. We didn't have it. on the website until about a month ago. This includes any changes in parking for businesses along Nine Mile. And it also includes the median that they are putting in between Kelly and I-94. So if anybody's interested in seeing and hearing how this is all going to work, it's

August smoothie. You're right there. They need to do much better at, at advertising these things. Uh, regarding that, that demonstration we just saw, I'll just quickly say the word tax decreases were not involved in any of that planning. And we must recognize that at eight mile and Kelly, there was a triple shooting, I think, uh, six months ago, not to be negative, but that's just a fact. Any more police, You need more police coverage in East Point. And I think we need to agree what the word blight means. I think Mr. Myers here has got a set notion in his mind that a car is blight, but maybe these, you know, maybe I've, you mentioned some upcoming thing about trees and whatever. I'll believe it when I see it. Thank you.

Does anyone else wish to be heard?

Good evening, uh, chairman and, uh, members. Uh, name is Larry Edwards, East Point residents. Um, as Aaron was speaking, um, I was just wondering, uh, I know we have a council representative here, uh, up on the podium and whatever, uh, uh, uh, can you, hello?

Yeah, there you go. That's better.

Uh, I know we have a council representative, but I'm just kind of wondering, uh, with all the other council and as well as the mayor, uh, are they informed on what he was talking about as well? I mean, I think this is a very important, uh, uh, observation of concern that need to be looked at, uh, by them as well. So I don't know if they're being informed with that information or not as he was speaking a few minutes ago. and what have you. So they can make an educated decision or, or make, uh, and the coat of sack, uh, on the other behind me, uh, have a light at the end of the coat of sack. And so I don't know who was in charge at that time when they put one up at that On that side, and they're identical cul-de-sacs, but didn't put one up on where I am. At night, you can't see your hand in front of your face and what have you. That looked like your hand in front of your face and what have you. That looked like a big, and I've been fighting this for some time and what have you, just not bringing it back up kind of currently, though, and what have you. And that's looked like something. 30 seconds. There needs to be a concern for more so than we're talking about the drive situation. As well as I haven't heard anything in regards to the trailers trailers sits on Drive They sits in the back of people's houses and stuff So there's Address others at the next hearing.

Thank you Thank you Does anyone else wish to be heard?

for the parking, try paved surface instead of parking on the grass in regards to private property. Anyway, shifting gears. So this fireworks litter need away from houses, okay? Look at the houses around here, it's not 25 feet, no way. Then it's supposed to be off of a driveway or a paved surface, not a tree stump. I got fireworks that were aimed at my property landing on my front lawn on fire. So no, the city is not going to just sit there and turn a blind eye in a deaf ear about this. They need to be ticketed. I supplied all of the pictures, all of the video. It came from that rental. And I seriously doubt the certificate of occupancy. the dog would still be alive. And I believe there's an order. They're not supposed to have dogs. Thank you.

Moving on to commissioner comments.

Mr. Chair, if I may, I just wanted to clarify a couple of things and then ask a question. As it relates to the publication, the Macomb Daily is the newspaper of record and we are required to publish. It is very expensive, but we have no choice. That's state law. So we have to publish it in that. Also, if it's regarding a specific property, such as the Genesis, not only do we publish, but letters are mailed to everybody within 300 feet of that address. And I'm happy to put up notices about happy to put up notices. I don't want to put up a draft document. I think that's unprofessional, but I could put up something that relates that information. But it's just not a draft document that we send to the paper if that would suffice and we can do the same on the website and social media.

Thank you. Thanks. Moving on to Commissioner comments, Mr. Myers, if you're talking to any of us after last time.

Thank you for your services. It is a hard toss and many people will not like we are allowed and until then we'll continue to do everything inside our power and inside our staff and inside our authorities to make this a healthier, safer, more productive place to live.

Ms. Holman. Councilwoman for Shadlock. Councilwoman for Shadlock.

You know, I was just going to piggyback on what President Jennifer Nicholas had mentioned about the notice. I see it's the fifth page from the last in our packet, the notice of the public hearing right here. I believe Kim referenced it as a draft, but perhaps that's something that we could at least post on the door for the next public hearing. But in the meantime, I'd just like to mention that there is written comments may be submitted to the planning department until 4 p.m. the day of the hearing via email. And the email address is until 4 p.m. the day of the hearing via email. And the email address is planningandzoning at eastpointcity.org. Or by writing to the East Point Planning Department here at City Hall 23200 Gratiot Avenue, East Point, Michigan 48021.

thank you Mr. Albright. thank you a chair like to maybe throw this back to you John about six months ago we approached the judge Galen and also the court administrator of the 38 district court about designating a specific day during the week for building and blight cases only

I'm a prosecuting attorney to bring resolution to whatever the cases are. My responsibility is to bring photograph and written documents of confirmation of present inspections and violations that are still outstanding. The standard that we have set, once we discover and they have confirmed that they have not met the obligation before they have arrived to have the hearing of the ticket, then our maximum date is 45 days to make a completion or a goal and a plan with the building department how to meet the violation and correct it. And once that doesn't happen, we go from there to continue to write another citation and bring them back to court for a decision of... Whether we're going to dismiss or prosecute further so that happens like it'll start on Monday and right now my court docket for Monday's Blight cases and court cases. It's 56 cases for something for Monday afternoon That's it mr.

Chair to edit out the Commission was aware of that particular program that's been implemented So I I've been told that it's been very successful.

I

It has improved the quality of results and resolution to people who have stood in the way of seeing things coming over the fence in their yards.

And so that was just one of the blank things we definitely want to address for those residents who live behind the sheets facility. Cause those, uh, receptacle bins for the volunteer donated items was re located. Um, other than that, um, it's good to see everyone. I know I had a couple of sessions where I missed conflict of schedule. But we're here to serve and to make our city the best it can be. So thank you for everyone who's contributing to that.

Mr. Sasek.

There we go. Everybody that sits up here is trying to do the best that we can do. And at the same time, I'm sure we, as many of our neighbors don't want to be that neighbor. We have a significant number of rental properties in the city. We have a significant number of businesses in the city that are there to benefit whatever way they can benefit without giving anything back and by giving anything back I'm talking about keeping up all of their properties whether it's residential or business and we do have to make decisions sometimes that. don't appeal to everybody, but we're trying to do the best we can. And we all need to take an active part in taking pride within the city. The other thing I'd like to address is public hearings are standard public hearings at any of the meetings are a good way to vote, voice your opinion on something.

But at the same time, I think that time could be best utilized expressing those using this council chamber as a launching point sometimes whether informally or not. I'm seeing a set of individuals t-shirts all over the community on public land, which I don't know is appropriate. I'm not even going to bring up anything else about said individual, but I will say that I find it incredibly inappropriate and distasteful to see politicking on city property. Let's call it the way it is. It's politicking. It's bad enough we have politicians in this world, but we don't need to see politicking on city property. So, Mr. Albright, if there's a way that you can voice my indignation to said individual, you're more than welcome to. I find it wholly distasteful.

It's also against campaign laws, isn't it?

Let him dig into the individual that I believe you're speaking about Was warned at a City Council meeting about doing that very thing Well, I could have swore.

I saw a whole bunch of yellow shirts out there and I serious it out. It was a family reunion So it's inappropriate shirts, whatever it was. It's not a family reunion. So So that is just it's wrong completely wrong and Going to dovetail off of what Commissioner Sasek said. We will be the first ones to rise up and revolt if we think that the city is impeding on our personal properties and anything. But we are the last ones to raise our hand unless people start stepping up. So, you know, we're going to beat this ordinance to death and we're gonna bring something forward that hopefully people will be happy with, but there's always gonna be somebody who's not happy, but the ordinance is only as good as the people that follow it. So with that, may I have a motion for closure? We have a motion, do we have support? We have motion by Ms. Moody and we have support by Ms. Rayford. Please call the roll.

Member Moody? Yes. Member Hall-Rayford?

Yes.

Member Naylor?

Yes.

Member Sassick?

Yes. Member Stokes? Yes.

Chair DeHunt?

Yes.