Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hey. Hey. Hey. [Music]

[Music] [Music] 2025 Elgen Planning and Zoning Commission to order. And we're going to start by welcoming and swearing in uh the new commissioners. Can you state your name starting at the

left? Do you swear that you will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Illinois and that you will faithfully discharge the duties as a member of the planning and zoning commission for the city of Elgen, Illinois according to the best of your ability? Thank you. All right. Will staff please call the role. Commissioner Awali present. Commissioner Boske present. Commissioner Jones here.

Commissioner Olsen here. Commissioner Rubel here. And Chairman Willerwood here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Um, now we're going to go on with the approval of the August 4th, 2025 meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve those minutes? I move to approve. I'll second. Will staff, please call the role. Who was the first? Jones. Commissioner Jones. Yes. Commissioner Abali, yes. Commissioner Boske, yes. Commissioner Olsen, yes. Commissioner Rubble, yes. and chairman of Yes. the minutes approved six to zero.

Thanks. Um, now it's uh my turn to make the chairman's opening statement. So, good evening and welcome to the September 25th September 25th. I've already messed up on my first day of chair. September 8th, 2025 meeting of the Elgen Planning and Zoning Commission. I want to reiterate my thanks to the former members of the commission and special thanks to former chairman Cox for his leadership. Uh before we move on to the agenda, I want to briefly discuss the role of the planning and zoning commission and the procedures of tonight's meeting. As a reminder, the planning and zoning commission is an advisory and recommending body to city council. The job of this commission is to review development proposals and determine whether proposal meets the applicable standards of review. There are three petitions on the agenda this evening and anyone wishing to testify will need to be administered the oath by the court reporter. The process we will go through tonight is we will first hear from city staff followed by questions the commission have for staff. We will then invite the applicant to provide a brief overview of their proposal and the commission will then ask questions of the applicant. After that the we will open the hearing to public uh comment uh for questions and comments. And during that time, um, for those that are wishing, uh, to testify before the commission, please come forward, state your name and spell it and provide your address. Public comments should be addressed to the commission who will keep notes on the questions concerned raised, and then city staff and the applicant will have the opportunity to address those questions. In the interest of time, we ask those testifying to not reiterate points that have already been made. The commission will then deliberate, vote, and pass its recommendations to city council. In all cases, planning and zoning uh meetings are the forums for public hearings for each project. It's where the public can provide comments and show um and we ask

well, it's it's the opportunity for you all. We want to hear your thoughts um on uh the petitions before the commission tonight. Um, and most importantly, we just ask that all attendees maintain appropriate decorum and show mutual respect for all parties participating in the process. At this time, we'll move ahead with the agenda. Um, and those of you who wish to speak tonight should now stand and take the oath from the court reporter. Will you raise your right hands, please? Do solemnly swear or affirm the testimony about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you. Perhaps at this time,

perhaps at this time we would u allow the former chairman to speak and address the commission. Yes, we would

and family. So, I appreciate this.

All right. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for giving me a few minutes to uh to address the commission and all of you here tonight. Uh, it's been my pleasure to serve on this commission for 17 years and nine months. Time's gone quickly. Over that time, I've been fortunate to work with two community development directors, Jerry Daring, Mark Meot, and uh, beyond numerous petitions with our planners, Lydia Trigenza, Dave Wadeen, Denise Madu, and of course, Deir. Um, it's a team like no other and I think we all know it and I appreciate all of you on city staff and uh how we've worked together and in a sense grown together as well. Uh, Chairman Wildermouth, congratulations. Um, I know you got this. I know you will serve with veracity and positivity. I've seen you display that as a as a commissioner and I know you'll bring that to the to the term of chair. You have my support. Um, Berto um is also done. I was going to address him as well, but uh Karen and Nancy, I would say um I've enjoyed serving with you and I would count you as my friends. It's it's been a a good number of years that we've been sitting next to each other and u and I very much enjoyed that. Uh to the new commissioners, I'm glad you're here. Um my advice is ask a lot of questions about the process of city staff of the petitioners and um I'd say if there's something that comes to mind, ask it. just know that it might be better handled between meetings. City staff's here for that. Um, I can brag on this one. As an architect, I've presented in front of numerous planning and zoning commissions. Our staff is the best I've worked with. So, as new commissioners, you should know that. There's no doubt. You can go into your term knowing that our staff, I will use, is the term phenomenal. Um, they're here for you. They will take great care of you. They will answer their phones for you, answer emails. It's it's incredible. Um, as a commission, you should push into gray

areas. That's something it took me a little bit to learn. Staff's bound by a black and white reading of of ordinances and codes. Um, this commission is the opportunities to interpolate that. So, definitely take that opportunity. I had a project early in my tenure on the commission where uh there was some awnings that were being approved downtown Elgen and I wasn't a big fan of the graphics. I was fine with the awnings. staff came forward and it was different staff at the time came forward and said, "All right, based on these following recommendations, we're go ahead and approve it. I wish I had spoken up because I wasn't the only one that had to comment about the graphics." Now, we live with that and it's right downtown. So, I would highly encourage you in that. Um, read the entire packet when it comes out. I know it's 400 plus pages sometimes and for those of you in the audience that knew that or not, it it can be it can be challenging, but I highly encourage that you come to the meeting. so much more prepared and you won't ask questions that have already been presented. I think that's uh it's it's very important. Um still come to the meeting with an open mind. There's multiple times I thought all right I'm ready to go came to the meeting it's like what testimony has been presented I changed my position. So just always be flexible in that. And then of course focus on the things in the purview of the commission. Um, if someone wants to put a daycare in a community that's already got two other daycarees and they've worked out the the density and the business proforma, that's up to them to worry about. This one uh takes a little bit is try to put aside your personal opinions and agendas. Um, we're thinking what's best for the city 20 years, 100 years from now. And remember, you're working on the fabric of the city for the long term. That's that's a lot of power that's in your hands as volunteers. Um, don't be swayed by the emotions of the public or developers. There'll be times you hear charge petitions and that's healthy. Uh, Chairman Wildermouth will walk you

through that that process. I think that's a great thing. Um, if you come into a full council chambers means we got great public engagement. I've always appreciated that. Um, seek to listen to both sides. React based on zoning staff report factors. If you don't want the know what the LEL factors are, talk to staff. And um remember emotions are good, but they're not good guides. Um be ready to weather some storms too. To many people, you are the face of Elgen. So you'll hear thanks a lot, but you may hear some negative comments that are thrown your way. I had the pleasure of that as chair. Maybe walking out of the meeting sometimes. Just be a rubber duck, float above it. Remember that's not directed at you personally. It's just maybe frustration uh with how things went. But just remember your purpose for being here. This is something else I've seen in front of other um communities. Be kind, respectful, and courteous to your fellow commissioners and the public. As you said, uh Chairman Wermouth in in your opening statement. Um I've been in front of other communities. doesn't always work that way. But um this commission has received praise numerous time from people who didn't like the outcome of our recommendation to city council. But they stopped me on the way out and thanked me because they felt this commission heard them and respected. So please continue that tradition. And as my wife reminded me as I'd be sitting up on the dice listening, smile, smile, smile, smile. I'm so thankful she reminded me of that. Sometimes you're sitting up there listening and concentrating, right? Trying to hear what's going on. But be welcoming. And then again, thank you to all of you for doing this. Make the most of it. I know I enjoyed it and um and I know you will as well. Saving the best for last. My wife and kids, uh Jen, Megan, who's not here tonight, Marcus, Hannah, and Emma, thank you for your support over the years. uh this

commission and service on it has been part of our family's monthly routine for the majority of our 18 years of weded bliss. So I did the math when I say majority it's 95.4% of our our our marriage we've been coming to these meetings. Um my other metric standing here is our uh as our 17 almost 18year-old daughter. She was uh came to our first meeting two weeks in uterero. So my wife brought her and uh very pregnant and glowing Jen came to that meeting. So and our daughter as as we got older when Jen had to work, Emma would sit up there at the end next to where you are, Commissioner Olsen, and uh color or eat Teddygrams or do homework and and that was before we were televised so we could we could pull that away. Um and now she's a high school senior. So, to all of you, you're rushing home to get dinner before after our meetings, staying up late, sometimes until after 1:00 a.m., which I know a few of you have been here with me on, uh, sitting in council chambers, watching, listening, or sometimes catching up later as a family on YouTube, um, and coming tonight has been noticed. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate all that support. So, I know some of you just meeting us tonight, but please give my family the round of applause. [Applause] And I know you're partly clapping because you know I'm done. But anyway, with that, farewell. I know we'll see you around the city. Thank you. Have a great evening.

Thank you. Thank you for your service. Yeah. Once again, thank just thank you so much, uh, Chairman Cox. Um really I've looked to to model my chairmanship and leadership over the what you've said before. So really appreciate all of your work and dedication to this commission and to the community. So thank you so much. Don't go. He's like I'm done. I paid my dues. Thank you sir. Yep. All right. With that we will u move on to the first um petition to be considered. um petition uh 07-25.

Okay. Thank you, Chairman Wildermouth and good evening everyone. So the first petition before you tonight and for the record we have provided the required notice in this one. The first petition is the application by Muhammad Sufian as applicant and active property holdings incorporated as property owner who are requesting approval of a plan development as a conditional use with departures from the LG Municipal Code requirements to establish a motor vehicle detail shop within an approximately 1100 square foot tenant space that is located at 1048 Dundee Avenue which is part of the multi-tenant commercial building commonly known as 1048 the 1050 54 Dundy Avenue. So, as usual, we'll start with the uh general site location of the property in question. Uh the entire property is outlined here in red. It is an approximately 18,295 square foot property that is located on the west side of Dundee Avenue just south of Congden Avenue. It is zoned AB area business district. That's why it has the the red shade over it as are all other properties along Dundy Avenue that have the same shade. Uh so that would be to the north, south, and to the east. As you can see, to the north is a one-story multif family building, excuse me, multi-tenant commercial building. Uh to the south is a one-story commercial building that includes a signed contractor shop. And then to the east across Dundy Avenue is a one-story commercial building home to Beef Villa Restaurant. The properties with the yellow shade over them are zone residential RC 2 single family residence conservation district and all those properties are improved with single family homes. Here is the bird's eye view of the subject property. This as you can see

the property includes the the multi-tenant building that's approximately 4,800 square feet and the includ includes a parking lot that includes 24 parking spaces and here uh is the proposed site plan. So, um, I will mention that the two tenant spaces in the front are known as 1054 Dundy Avenue, which is approximately 1500 square f foot tenant space that currently is home to a tobacco store. It's called Smoke and Vape Shop. And then the one to the south that also front has frontage on Dundee Avenue is known as 1052 Dundee Avenue. That's an approximately 2100 square foot tenant space that is uh occupied with a consumer financial loan services company, Prestige Loans. And then the subject tenant space that's subject of this petition is in the back of the building. That's suite 1048. It's also known as 1048 Dundee Avenue. That's approximately 1100 square ft. So, the applicant is proposing to establish a car detailing shop within this rear tenant space at the back of the building. Uh, a car detailing shop is part of a land use category that's known as car washes, which are classified as conditional use in the AB district. And therefore, the applicant is here requesting that conditional use approval. uh they have actually already started operating when they were notified that a detailing shop requires this conditional use approval. They've been allowed to continue to operate as they uh go through the approval process to obtain that uh conditional use approval. Uh the proposed car detailing business would offer deep cleaning car services uh polishing, washing, waxing, vacuuming uh as is typically associated with those

types of establishments. All services would be uh inside the the the two service bay tenant space. Here are the two detail bay service bay areas. Although they they have indicated that they would be working only on one car at the time. The hours of operation are 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday and then 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Saturdays. The applicant indicates there's only one employee working on one car at a time. Uh all services are are scheduled by appointment only. Uh the proposed business is required to have two parking spaces per bay and one per employee. So with two service bays and one employee, the tenant spaces require five parking spaces. The other two tenant spaces in the building require 15 parking spaces. So altogether all tenants in the building are required to have 20 parking spaces and that's within the 21 parking spaces that are proposed on site. uh the three parking spaces uh directly in front of the service bays indicated right here. Those would essentially be lost and cannot be counted although they would remain and would be used uh either as stacking spaces during the operating hours or as normal regular parking spaces after the um the detail shop is closed. So the applicant is required to uh provide an enclosure for the existing refuge or you know dumpster that's generally located in this area. Uh so that refuge collection area has to be 6 ft high and a masonry wall that matches the building. The wall is generally in line with the the back of the building and it's approximately six feet from the west property line right here that's adjacent to the to the single family home to the west. That is the one

departure that is part of this application. Um because that property to the west is residential, there's a 50-foot transition landscape yard requirement from the west property line. Of course, the existing building is about six feet from the west property line. They're proposing to just build that wall in line with the building. So, a six-foot setback is proposed. Uh the proposed uh the proposal requires is required to meet standards for plan developments as well as standards for conditional use. We have provided our overview of the standards in the packet and staff finds that all applicable standards are satisfied and therefore staff recommends approval subject to the conditions in the packet. There's one condition uh that simply prohibits any type of u motor vehicle repair as part of this business establishment. those those types of motor vehicle repairs um are generally prohibited along arterial roads such as Dundee Avenue. But other than that, staff recommends approval subject to those conditions. At this time, I'm happy to answer any questions. The applicants team is is here as well and can address the commission.

All right. Thank you. Uh we'll start on my right with Commissioner Olsen. Any questions for staff? Uh just one question. Do you know how long approximately they were in operation until this process started? I think they were notified about a year ago in August of 24. Okay. Thank you. No questions on that. Commissioner Wallally, that um 50 foot that is normally required um is there a reason for it? Is it the smell? Is it what is it that

So, normally the transition landscape, excuse me, transition setback is for buildings and other similar things. uh that that's the setback that's required from a lot line that that is shared with a residential residentially zoned property. The purpose of that is simply because commercial properties tend to have bigger impact in single family or other residential properties. So you want those types of uses that happen within the buildings or in this case, you know, a dumpster trash enclosure to have a somewhat of a distance from residentially zoned properties where people are probably enjoying their backyards. So it's it's a it's a transition to to ma make sure that there is um no negative impact that the commercial business would have on the law.

Right. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Rubble, Commission Commissioner Buske, I just want to start out by saying uh giving the uh city staff a big thank you for taking into consideration the small things like the uh water uh the uh oil and sand separator that uh could create a bigger problem down the down the line. Um, so my question would be is are they operating with a oil and water separator at this moment or

that's probably a question for the applicant. They still have to obtain the permit. They made some uh changes to the space. It appears that that was one of the changes. Uh, was it done up to the code will be determined when they apply for the building permit and they also have to obtain a permit from the Fox River Water Reclamation District for things like that. Uh I I believe the the applicant is here and his architect and they can certainly uh provide some answers on that. Perfect. Commissioner Jones,

well, we Yeah, we're not. We're going to wait till we're going to ask the applicant when the applicant comes up, then we'll ask the question of the applicant. So, we're going to continue asking staff questions and then we'll get to we'll get to uh applicant. All right. Uh, Commissioner Jones, any questions for staff? Uh, yeah, Deir, I I'm curious, you know, I'm always curious about how the petition comes to be. Was it did they come then and ask for assistance? Did they did the neighbors turn them in? Did um was it discovered by the code department? How did that come to be that they're here?

Uh I believe it was discovered by the code enforcement officer who has this area under his radar. So they noticed that the business is in operation. They generally know when they have occupancies and and in this case they did not receive an occupancy permit. So upon investigation they was turned out that they did not start operating properly. So that's how it started. Is it possible to include that in our packets? Uh like the source of the petitioners how that came to be. Is that is that possible? other than I mean we can certainly provide No, I guess you it it's not pertinent. I'm I'm just curious. I can ask you about everyone.

Yeah, I it's I mean we can certainly it's not part of a we can certainly provide more information about that. Uh there isn't anything tangible that we can include in the packet, but we can certainly elaborate on that within the staff report in terms of how it is brought up and all that. We can certainly Thank you so much. I'm always curious about that when we have some of them. Um that's all. Thank you. I don't have any questions. Thanks. Um now we'll invite the uh applicant to come forward.

Good evening. Thanks. And if you could please uh state your name and spell it for the court reporter. Uh my name is Steven Silva. I'm the architect for the project. Um, my residence or my my office address is 168 East Highland Avenue, sweet 102 downtown in Elton here. And I'm almost applicant. If you want to spell Spelling, please. Sorry. Spelling. Uh, my name spelling. Yes. M U A M M A D S U F Y A N. Thank you.

Okay. Right. Thank you. So if you want to go ahead and tell us give us a brief overview of the project, anything that you want to uh stay that in addition to what staff provided?

Yes. Uh we are working as a car detailing uh shop and it's just we do the interior and the outside of the wash, nothing. Uh we don't do any oil changes, nothing automative works, just the wash of the working uh washing the cars inside and outside and just doing the vacuums on the car. That's what the detailing is anything if we could have the audience please uh maintain be a little quieter in the back please. Thank you. Sorry about that. Go ahead.

Yeah. So that's that's the main thing that we work with the appointments. Uh we don't block any of the parking in spots in the for the neighborhoods and all these things. Uh like we have a 30 minute window for the uh customers to come in, drop their cars and the customers just when the car is done, we call them, they pick up their cars in 15 20 minutes and then we line up the next customer to get in. And uh if the customer wants that hey I will come after 1 hour or so we ask them to bring your car after 1 hour. We don't ask the customers to drop off the cars from the morning till the evening so that we can block the some of the parkings of the other tenants in the building and we're just working inside the garage. It's a closed garage. We are not doing anything outside so that it can affect any uh audiences or any customers in that parking lot. Um uh we'll go uh if there's any questions of the applicant by the commission. So I'll start on my left with Commissioner Rubble. Thanks. Um no questions. Commissioner Boske.

Yeah. The uh the question I had was uh are you operating your condition conditional use car wash with an oil and sand separator at this moment? No, we are not operating with this moment. But we like uh uh as the city of uh the water recreation department recommended us that um you going to have it. So we are waiting for to get a permit from the city to install the three binary. Okay. What what steps are you taking to mitigate uh without that?

Right now as we are not using any oil or anything uh we're just using the waters to remove wash the cars and but it's the requirement from this to for the per to get the permit for to install these three bin separator. We are waiting for the permit to get it from the city so that we can install that permit. Do you have a time frame for when you will once the permit we are get uh we are approved to get the permit from the city we're going to start working on that thing. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Jones. So, I'll just ask you out of curiosity when when you opened up um

did you did it did did you ever think about coming to the city or asking the question or your your landlord did they tell you what those uses were or anything like that? The garage was already there. We were just in the start we were not working as a complete we were just washing our own cars also. But then the city asked us to apply that you you cannot use these things. The court officer asked us to you have to get the permit from this. So we applied for the conditional permit last year and then from after they getting the conditional then we were working correct. But before that we were just washing our own cars our cars. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Olsen.

Uh a couple questions. Um is are any vehicles parked overnight if customers don't come and pick them up? Sorry. Are any uh cars parked overnight in the parking lot if customers don't retrieve them by the end of business day? Uh no, we don't park anything in the outside. If the customer somehow says that, hey, I can like I cannot come in today. So, we park inside the garage. Okay. Once we close our shop, we park it inside the garage so that the next morning the customer can come and pick it up. But it doesn't happen anything. That's the precaution we have made that the customer comes in. Gotcha. Okay. And then um if I wanted to add to that um there was going to be signage on on the parking lot that you can't park overnight.

I'm sorry. Uh that there's a tow zone if you're in the parking lot overnight past certain hours. I don't recall what they were exactly, but the car will be towed. Gotcha. Okay. And then the only other question I had was um I was just curious about obviously you guys have been in business for a little bit now, so um you probably have a pretty good idea of this, but the sustainability of the car uh your detailing shop in that location. Um it's just a little bit of a strange location to me with it not really having any street view um from Dundy Avenue there. It's also in a lower income area. Just curious if you guys have had some good business and foresee that to continue.

Yes, we we are mostly right now working without the signs, nothing. We're just working through the social media, Facebook, Instagram and people like our service. They just come to us. They just give us a call. I want to make the appointments and uh set up the of car wash or so and that's how we are operating and people are people are coming to us with the phone calls and everything. Okay, great. Thank you. I did see your Google reviews. They're all really good. So, that's great to see. Um thank you, Commissioner. I'm excited about the location. Super close to me. So,

you're most welcome. You can come anytime to have your question. But my question is um they mentioned that you only use one bay at a time. Is there a reason for that? Is it just because of employee staffs or do you just not want two running at the same time?

It's because of the employee staff also. And it's because uh if we get the two car there, there's not much space. If we make the two cars inside, we don't have the much room to move the equipment like the vacuum and car wash machine and everything. So we utilize mostly one of the bay for washing the cars and other bay to move the equipments and all these things so that we have the employees have some space to work on the car exact perfectly. Okay, thank you. No more questions. All right, thank you. Um we'll now uh you can have a seat and we'll now uh

open the floor to public comment. Is there any one wishing to testify on this petition? All right. Seeing none, um I will uh accept a motion on the petition. Yes. I move to recommend that city council approve petition 7-25 subject to the conditions outlined within our packet and to adopt as the findings of the co of the commission those findings also within our packet. Is there a second? Second. Will staff please call the role. Commissioner Awali?

Yes. Commissioner Bowke? Yes. Commissioner Jones? Yes. Commissioner Olsen? Yes. Commissioner Bugal? Yes. And Chairman Wermouth? Yes. The motion is approved. Six to zero. All right. Yeah, thanks. The city will be in touch with next steps. Thank you so much for coming forward this evening.

All right, we'll now move on to our uh second petition. Petition number 26-25. Okay. So the second petition before you tonight and again we have provided the the required notices on this one as well for the record. So, this is the um application by Karen Dodge as applicant uh and CD Elgen LLC as the property owner requesting approval of an amendment to the special regulations for street graphics within a portion of the Randall Road I90 area of special character established by ordinance number G2908 as amended by ordinance number G410 and ordinance number G30-22 to construct a 10-ft high and 122 2.5 square ft monument graphic with a 65 square foot electronic message center panel along the portion of the property facing the I90 tollway at the property commonly referred to as 2125 Point Boulevard. And again, we'll start with the general location of the property. In this case, this is a 5.2 acre property that's as you can see on the north side of I90. uh and is generally east of Randall Road just off the screen here. Uh the property has frontage along and access from Point Boulevard on the north side and again visibility and frontage along I90 on the south side. The property is improved with a approximately 52,000 square foot building. It's a one-story um office light industrial building and

an accessory parking lot. Property zone P O R I plan office research industrial that dates back to 1999. Uh that's the purple shade over these properties. As you can see the properties to the north, west, and generally to the south across the tollway have the same purple shade over them. So they're all zoned the same P O R I. That's planned office research industrial. To the north is a one-story office building that has multiple tenants. To the to the west is a one-story uh class A office building that is home to u fabricators and manufacturers association. And then to the south across the tollway is the John B. San Philippo campus that includes the manufacturing facility and the fourstory office building that's visible on the screen. And then to the east the property that does not have a shade over it. That property is outside of the city limits. It's currently unincorporated open space in Kain County. Here is the bird's eye view of the subject property looking north. The existing building has two tenants. Uh the southern 75% of the building u are occupied by white one tenant that's tech ambulance a medical service provider. And then the northern 25% of the building is currently vacant. And here are a couple views of the property from from I90. So the applicant is proposing to install one new monument sign along I90. The sign would be 10 ft high, 122.5 square ft in total sign surface area and it would include a 65 square foot electronic message center or this electronic message panel. The property does not have any other signs on the property and the applicant is not proposing any other wall signs or any other freestanding signs.

The code currently allows 110T high and 120 ft sign with a 40 square foot electronic message center. The proposed sign, as you can see, would be approximately 10 ft from the south property line along the tollway. And the primary reason for the proposed sign and the sort of larger than permitted sign surface area is due to the partial obstruction uh by this channeling fence that has kind of overgrown with some uh landscaping that is on I90 property. The applicant will have to uh slightly move the sign to the west closer to the parking lot to allow for storm water surface flow between the sign and the fence. But generally the sign will will be in that location as proposed. The sign will uh the applicant will provide the required landscaping around the perimeter of the of the base of the sign. This sign is part of an area of special character that dates back to uh 2008 that included uh other properties within the same office park east of Randola Road and some other properties along I90. Uh that area of special character which is generally special regulations for signage that are provided to these properties within within these areas of special character that once they're established. In this case, the the special sign regulations were established in 2010. And those special regulations allow allowed for this subdivision to have one larger than normally permitted monument sign that would serve the entire subdivision. Uh that sign was allowed to be 200 square feet and it was allowed to have a 103 square foot electronic message center. And it's actually just two properties to the west from from this one. uh but that that area the the regulations for for for signage within

this area of special character was then amended again in 2022. Uh this was when another monument sign of similar size was allowed at the property at 2205 Point boulevard. Over the years the city has uh modified its overall sign regulations that affect all properties within the city as well as these within these areas of special character. Uh, as you can see, these are some of the signs that were approved over the years along I90. Uh, this one that's shown on the bottom and in bold appears to be the one of the smallest signs that we have approved in in recent recent years. The proposal is required to meet the standards for map amendments and uh the standards for the area of special character. We have outlined um our analysis of the standards in the staff report and we do believe that all standards have been satisfied and therefore staff recommends approval subject to the conditions in the packet. U no conditions to note those are pretty standard. Um the applicant is here as well and can address the commission.

All right. Thank you. I'm going to start on my immediate left with Commissioner Jones. Any questions for staff? Is this for staff? Yeah. Um, sorry, Jordan. Um, with that section there, uh, with the overgrowness and you said that belongs to I90. The fence is generally right on the property line. So, the landscaping that's on this on the image to the left of the fence would be on the subject property. And then obviously the fence and everything to the right of the fence would be in the I90 property.

And so the part that's on the um petitioner's property, they're not maintaining that. Uh it's just nobody's maintaining it. Yes, they should be the the property owner would be maintaining it.

The lawn, the shrubs and the overgrowth there. Uh I'm not sure that if that's overgrowth. That area generally the the area between the fence and the parking lot primarily space closest to the fence serves for uh the drainage for the storm water flow. And those areas generally are planted with native plantings. Uh they have some rock usually on the bottom. So they have specific uh native plantings that are planted in that area to allow the water to go through and kind of infiltrate. So if that particular shot shows overgrown weeds or native plantings, I'm not sure. But yes, the property owner is generally responsible for maintaining that.

No, no, it I can't I wear tri focals. I can't see real good. I love native plants. I love what you just described to me and they do look like that on occasion in different times of the season. So thank you. I'm glad I asked. Thank you for pointing that out with the natives. I appreciate that. That's important. Commissioner Buske, no questions. Commissioner Vubil with regard to the plantings. So, what we're seeing there um for the new landscaping, would that just be like cleaned out a little then and something?

Yes. So, generally the landscaping that grows on the fence is the problematic part that obstructs the view. And it's probably better seen in the other image that I had. Uh so as you can see, so so so the top image, so all of this is on the inside of the fence. Uh so this is the landscaping that that belongs to the the tollway property. It's kind of hard to see in this image. So the top of the fence is generally and the fence itself is overgrown with with landscaping and that's what obstructs the view partially. And that's why they felt the need to go with a larger than normally permitted electronic message center. This the height of the sign is within what's what the code allows. That's 10 feet. Um but it's just that electronic message panel that they chose to make larger for that enhanced visibility, I guess.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Wallally, um I can ask the petitioner, but do you know if that sign will be constantly changing? Uh I had I had a similar question for them. I think the the applicant is is uh very well positioned to answer that. So so typically there are I guess apps that come with these types of electronic message center signs. Uh the city code regulates how quickly this the message can change but they themselves regulate the message that they want to display. Uh the frequency of that change just has to comply with the code. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Olsen.

Uh yeah question. Does the city mandate at all how bright these can be, especially at night? I don't think it's particularly an issue with this sign being along Interstate 90 with as many lights as there are there, but just in general, is there any kind of We do. Yes, there are there are limitations on brightness and the the frequency of change. Great. Thank you. No question. We'll invite the applicant to come forward now.

Good evening. Good evening. And if you could state your name and spell it for the court reporter, please.

Karen Dodge, D O DG. Um, I'm representing a Tech Ambulance at 2125 Point Boulevard, and we would like to install a 5 by 12 electronic message center ground sign. They would like to install it on the south end of the property facing I90. It will be set back 13 ft, which is similar to the other two building signs to the west with similar signage. There are four other companies within 1,200 square feet that have similar signage. No other ground sign or wall signs are currently on the property. The building is 56,000 square ft and is set up for two tenants. A tech occupies 75% and the other 25 is not occupied right now. But that other tenant would be able to use this sign also. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Great. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Olsen, no questions. Thank you, Commissioner Wally. No, I don't have any questions. Thank you. Commissioner Jones, no questions. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Biske. No questions. Thank you, Commissioner Rubble. No questions. Thank you. Not have any questions. So, thank you so much.

Thank you. We'll now open public comment on this. Um I have uh Ms. Dodge's name, but there's no other names left on the signin sheet. Um are there any other folks out in the audience that wish to comment on this petition? All right. If not, um we will close the public comment portion and uh look for a um motion for petition number 26-25. I move to recommend that state council approve petition petition 26-25 subject to the conditions outlined within our packet and to adopt as the findings of the commission those findings also provided within our packet.

A second. Will staff please call the role. Commissioner Olsen. Yes. Commissioner Jones, yes. Commissioner Abuali, yes. Commissioner Boske, yes. Commissioner Rubble, yes. And Chairman Wermouth, yes. Uh, motion is approved six to zero. All right. Thanks so much. Thank you so much for coming this evening and staff will be in touch.

All right. We will now move on to our final petition of the evening, which is Petition number 25-25. Thank you, Chairman Wildermouth. It's going to take me a while to get used to this. Chairman Wildermouth setup chair. Me too.

Caught myself twice already almost saying chairman Cox. Uh, okay. So this final one is the uh and again we have provided the required notice on this application as well. Final application is by school district U46 as both the applicant and the property owner requesting approval of an amendment to the master signage plan that was established by ordinance number G52-01 and a plan development as a map amendment with departures from the Elgen municipal code requirements to construct improvements to the existing outdoor athletic field at at Larkin High School, including but not limited to new stadium seating. uh new concessions building with locker rooms, a new scoreboard, an outdoor gazebo, fencing, landscaping, and other miscellaneous improvements. All at the property commonly known as 1475 Larkin Avenue. Here is Larkin Avenue or Larkin High School campus outlined in yellow. Uh this is a 42.7 acre property that's generally located on at the southwest corner of Larkin Avenue and South Mlan Boulevard. Uh it stretches down to Erie Street. It is owned CF Community Facility District and Arc Art Arterial Road Corridor Overlay District and it is home to obviously Larkin High School that was completed in 1960. Uh as you can see the properties uh on to the west, south and east have that yellow shade over them. So those are residentially zoned properties most of which are improved single family homes. To the north however are uh a mix of uh uses and zoning classifications. The red shade uh means that's the commercially zoned AB district and properties which are mostly uh fast food restaurants and um and such serviceoriented uses. And then at the northwest corner of Larkin

and South Mlean Boulevard is a multifamily development that's zone MFR that includes a cluster of two and a half story multif family buildings. So here is the general site plan of the high school campus. The high school building generally occupies the northern portion, northern half of the site while the outdoor sports fields and recreational amenities are generally located on the southern half of the site. Uh the property, the high school has a total of 540 parking spaces which are generally located on the north and south sides of the high school. There are four access driveways to the campus. There's one to on Larkin Avenue that is an inbound driveway one indicated here on the map and then there are three access driveways to South Mlan Boulevard. Uh driveway two is and driveway four are exit only driveways whereas the driveway three is an inbound entrance only driveway. So, the applicant is proposing improvements to the main athletic field that would make it into a formal stadium. Uh, the the improvements in the stadium would be located in the same location as the existing field. These improvements consist of new synthetic turf field and an upgraded track around it. New bleacher seating both on the north and south side of the stadium. The south side would be the home side and would include the press box. The new bleacher seating would have a total capacity of uh 2,250 people. The applicant is proposing a new 7,627 square foot concessions building that would also include locker room locker rooms. Let's see if this works. So, this is the

concessions and locker room building. To the south of it would be a 1500 square foot outdoor pavilion that will be covered by a metal canopy roof. Other improvements include the installation of new fencing. Currently the stadium complex and the entire uh outdoor recreational area is enclosed by a 6ft high chainlink fence. The improvements require u removal of some of the fence and then reinstallation of the six-foot chainlink fence generally shown here in blue. Uh there will also be a 3-ft high chain link fence directly surrounding the the running track. The applicant has agreed and will install a 6ft ornamental fence on the east side of the stadium that would extend all the way down to Erie Street. There would be two ticket booths. There's one here and then one east of the stand on the north side. And then generally there will be new landscaping throughout the site. Oh, and also the new scoreboard that's going to be on the east side of the of the of the stadium. The applicant is not proposing any changes to the existing access driveways, the parking or other buildings and facilities on site. The concessions and locker room building would be all masonry. It would include um the public restrooms. The masonry would complement the existing masonry of the building. I apologize for the low quality image, but that's kind of all we had. Here's an image of the proposed bleacher stadium on the south side that would include the press box. Uh the press box would have the peak height of 40 about 44 feet above grade. Uh but it would be about three 300 feet from the east property line along South Mlan Boulevard. Here are the details of the proposed

fences. On the top is the the six foot high ornamental fence with couple gates um along the that would be along the east property line along South Mlan. That is currently a chainlink fence. So they've agreed to install this. And then the the bottom detail is for the proposed six foot and then the three-foot chain link fence that would be around the northwest and the south sides of the stadium. You can also see the new scoreboard that would be installed on the east side of the stadium. That scoreboard would have the peak height of 20 ft and 2 in above grade. It would include a 189 square foot uh panel or the sign panel on top of it. Uh the the scoreboard would not include an electronic message center such as the sign that we just had for the previous petition. And then the backside of the scoreboard would not be illuminated. It would just have a Larkin High School logo. The applicant is proposing extensive landscaping throughout the site, particularly on the east side of of the stadium surrounding particularly surrounding the uh the scoreboard. They would be installing two shade trees and 10 ornamental trees all around the scoreboard to sort of uh screen and buffer the look of that scoreboard from South Mlan Boulevard. They've also uh agreed and will install additional trees along South Mlan all the way down to Erie Street. The applicant has submitted a traffic and parking analysis. uh and the applicants team here can also address any questions in regards to it. Uh in general, currently Larkin High School football games and soccer games which are the the most attended events are held at the Elgen High School because of the the stadium and the size that they have over there. Um and they anticipate that the the biggest attendance would occur for the Friday night football games.

If you're familiar, Friday night football games include a freshman and sophomore game that's scheduled for 5:00 p. a.m. and then the the varsity game that's scheduled for 7:00 p.m. The parking and traffic analysis indicates that the the busiest time for the for the events would be that hour before the 7:00 varsity game, so between 6 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. And during this time, the the study indicates they would expect about 355 vehicles or trips entering the the facility and then there will be about 235 vehicles or trips exiting the site. Uh those are probably vehicles that are associated with the uh freshman and sophomore game that happens at 5 5:00 p.m. This however is generally the same type of traffic uh that is expected and happens every morning and afternoon during the school uh start and dismissal times. And during those times, u the, as I mentioned, the driveway to Larkin is the only one used for entrance and then that there are two driveways that serve as exit only to South Mlan. And those are uh only right turn exits during that peak time. And the applicant has indicated they are willing to and will implement the same uh traffic circulation and parking arrangements that they have during the the school start and dismissal times. That is something that both the visitors, staff and students are familiar with and the neighborhood is also familiar with that and should have minimal impacts on the surrounding areas during the during that peak hour between 6:00 p.m. and 7 p.m. Now, in regards to parking, the the city's ordinance requires a certain number of parking spaces based on the number of employees for the school and then based on the capacity of a largest facility on campus. And prior to the

stadium, it was the gymnasium. Now, with the stadium and the the additional uh seating seating capacity, the stadium becomes the biggest facility. And with that capacity at 2250 and 205 employees, the school is now required to have a total of 430 parking spaces. As I mentioned, they have 540 on site. So, the school will continue to meet its regulatory parking requirement. However, they have the the traffic and parking study does address the parking needs during both the typical Friday night for the busiest football games and then um and then for the the rare and and few occasions that they would anticipate the biggest attendance such as the homecoming game or the first game of the season. So, uh during those busiest football games, uh they anticipate up to 1,000 uh attendees for the games. This is based on their observations at the Elgen High uh where they counted exactly how many visitors are coming. So during those times uh they uh they estimated that if there's about 1,000 people attending the game, they would need about 400 parking spaces, which obviously they have on their site that has 540 parking spaces. So uh during the busiest football nights, they should have plenty of parking on on on premises. If the facility is filled to capacity, which is 2,250 um attendants, that would lead to a parking demand of approximately 900 parking spaces. In those instances, the school has indicated they would utilize parking uh on at nearby a middle school, a Kimble Middle School up on MLAN, and then two elementary schools, the Highland Elementary and then Creekide Elementary School. uh with those uh parking lots at those schools, they can have um more

than 900 parking spaces available and during those times they would arrange shuttles for attendees that would park with those those remote facilities and they would uh send notifications in advance of the meeting with the anticipation of the high attendance. So with that um I will touch on the required departures for the proposal. uh the the fences that are proposed. So everything south of the building is generally considered the street yard where only a 4ft high open design fence is allowed. Obviously they're proposing six feet high fences and some of those are chainling fences which are generally not allowed in the street yards. That's one of the departures. Um again this is an improvement from what's there because the chain fence is already existing. They are proposing ornamental fence um in the most visible part along South Mlan. uh the number of signs generally because of that uh master signage plan that was approved in 2001 they were allowed two total signs which they currently have the one at the corner of Larkin and Mlan and then there's a second sign that is just northeast of the existing athletic field. Those two would remain as they are. Of course, the the scoreboard sign is the third one that is larger than what's what's permitted and that's one of the other departures requested. And then finally, uh this plan development approval would allow all other accessory buildings south of the of the main high school building. So, anything like the concessions building, u dugouts, the the ticket booths, all those things are considered accessory buildings which are not allowed in the streetyard. And again, anything south of the high school building is considered a streety yard. So they need a departure to construct any of those buildings, all of which are customary and traditional for a high school campus.

So the applications required to meet the standards for map amendments and those for the plan developments and we provided our overview of the standards in the packet. We do believe that all applicable standards are satisfied and therefore staff recommends approval subject to the conditions in the packet. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions the applicant deems here and they can address as well.

Great. Thanks, Demir. Um, are there questions for staff? I'll start with Commissioner Vel, sorry. With regards to um the landscaping by the um scoreboard, um do you have any specifications set for like the height of the trees that will be planted?

So, they've really enhanced the landscaping there. I mentioned there are 12 trees total that are proposed to be um on the east side of the scoreboard. So ornamental trees usually grow up to a peak height of about 20 25 feet depends on the on the on the type of the ornamental tree and then the shade trees are obviously much larger. They are actually proposed to flank the scoreboard on the far north end and then on the south end and then the ornamental trees are sort of in between. So when fully grown it should be very well obscured from south. Okay. I was just curious as to the time frame like fast growing trees because I mean it could take years for these trees to reach an adequate height.

That is true. Um I'll let the applicants team perhaps touch on the the the choice of the landscaping. The city does not have specific requirements for which tree needs to be installed. And in fact, as a as a plan development, we've we've kind of worked with them to enhance and put as many as possible. Uh but we haven't gone into the details of the specific um the specy. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Commissioner Bruske. Uh no questions. Commissioner Jones.

I think this is more a question for the petitioner. Do we know what the capacity of the parking lot is on a school day and what happens with the other folk? Would that more for the applicant? That's probably for them, but I think the traffic study indicated that it's that it's I believe fully occupied at the time when the the consultant went out there to observe it.

Yeah, that's my concern. Um, so I had a kid at Elgen and I had a kid at Larkin and we did drop off and we did pickup and the Larkin student, um, I was not ever going to pull into that parking lot because it's a mess. It's hard. It's not easy to navigate these school parking lots. So I would drive over in the neighborhood and drop off my kid and he had to walk. Um and what I observed during that time that he was there and sometimes it would be on the um Larkin Avenue side and sometimes it would be on the other I'd go in there and it just depended on what I needed that day. Um but something that I observed for four years is that during the school day there are a lot of cars parked in the neighborhood. Um, the issue came up at Elgen High when my son was there and the neighbors were losing their minds and they're parking there because it's easier and quicker. Not so much at Elgen High School because that's like its own campus, but at Larkin High School, it was easier for the students um, and faster to just pull onto those little side streets, park their cars, and get out. And the one thing that I would notice is that they overhang people's driveways and they were blocking cars and because they're they're young. They're young. That's a nice word. They're young and they're learning and we're shaping them, right? Um, and then we had to install that big long because if you would get there, and I don't know if those of you who have not been there at um, dismissal at Larkin High School because it is so dense in that neighborhood. Um, the kids come out of the building and they they would go everywhere. I mean, they just stop traffic, they don't look, they just are in the streets. So, the fencing has solved that problem. At least they they can only go one, but they

they're teenagers and um teenagers can be really really humbling. And I'm just I don't know if they can't I I feel like there's not a good handle in the daytime parking and the nighttime feels like it would be even worse with families home. Everybody's home from work. Maybe we've got multiple cars in a household over there. It's a very dense neighborhood. This is denser than most neighborhoods even on the east side. It's just very compact and I have some real concerns for those community members there to be able to get in and out of their homes during these sports. Um the other thing that I will comment is my son was the um the mascot. So I got to attend a lot and when we would go to the um Elgen Larkin games and there would be five squad cars there and there was fighting in the park and there was you know there's that conflict of that rivalry that cross town rivalry. Um, it made me feel very uncomfortable, made me feel like it wasn't a safe place, but I always thought, well, at least it's on a campus, you know, like they can't it's not going to be in anybody's neighborhood. Um, so those are just my observations and I will follow up with the petitioners to see how we plan to address it because busing to other parking lots sounds comical to me. Nobody's going to do that. I I don't I don't believe I don't believe because they how would you I don't believe so we'll follow up with that but that's my concern about that area. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh Commissioner Olsen.

Yeah, definitely. Um uh echoing what Commissioner Jones said about parking and everything and it looks like uh the neighborhood has already had a lot of problems with that as it is. Um, I guess my question would be, I mean, is there anything we can do on we're surrounding side streets in that area, uh, with a parking ordinance? I mean, looking at, yeah, there might be enough parking in the parking lots, but looking at an a cross town game that's probably way more attended than even a homecoming game is, uh, you know, what happens at that point when you have all these teenagers that are, um, filled up after a game leaving on these neighborhood streets? I mean, is is there anything that the city can do to kind of help with that as well?

Well, I'll let the applicant speak to the frequency of high attendance at these games. Um, so it it it I've been to high school games as well. So, typically these things, you know, high school teams have maybe five five to seven home games per year. U the rivalry game is obviously once per year, perhaps the the first game of the season, maybe homecoming. Uh so so in our observation and analysis of this project everything's already there. Uh their their proposed traffic plan is such that everybody should be familiar with and there's really no other way to do it. Uh everybody will be directed to Larkin Avenue entrance and then they'll have to exit on South Mlan. Uh will there be people that would choose to park in the neighborhood? Possibly. Uh certainly the onremise parking is a lot closer and probably more convenient. Uh but that's not to say that some people would not do that. The city does have the parking and traffic committee that's that's u that is a staff only committee that consists of public works, police, etc. that individuals can bring up concerns. Um again the good thing is that this this is very infrequent occurrence not like school that happens every day but there may be solutions depending on what the what the specific challenges are. If it is speeding through the neighborhood versus parking that that obscures driveway people that can't get out of the driveways. Those are two different types of issues that the parking traffic committee would then suggest solutions to that. Uh and those things would have to be then taken care of. But it's best to be at.

Thank you. No more question. Commissioner Abali, can you just repeat and confirm that there's a field already there? These are improvements to a field and the baseball field is separate. Correct. That is correct. As you can see on the on the screen, uh the the other recreational fields are south of the main athletic field and there's no changes to those. Thank you. That's all.

You're welcome. No, no questions from me for staff other than um I appreciate that there's procedures in place for the traffic circulation and pattern, but still have some of the same questions I think for the um petitioner once they come forward. So, I will uh invite the petitioner to uh come forward at this time, please. Sorry, we have a large group. It's great.

Um, thank you for seeing us tonight. My name is Jolene Linaman. J O L N E L I N E M-N. I work for school district U46. Um, address 1460 Sheldon Drive in Elgen. Um to give you kind of a recap on why we brought this project forward, Larkin is the only high school that does not have a formal stadium. So they share with Elgen. Um Elgen is kind of nameless. So it's only a visitor home. Um it's never been branded because as a Larkin student, your school spirit, we wear blue. We don't want to be the maroons. we don't want to have the maroon color. Um, this was an opportunity for us to um bring the students spirit forward. Um, it's something that I know the school district is very proud of. Um, we have been looking at some of these um concerns also that you have as a committee. Um, I know we've talked in a large part and I'll let our team of engineers and architects speak as well. Um, but the parking on the streets has been brought forward. Um, the idea of the shuttles is to keep Larkin is a very um walkable school. Um, we have a lot of walkers that walk to that high school. having the shuttles. The idea is then that you would walk to your home elementary or middle school and then be a continuous shuttle um to the Larkin. Um I know people had concerns about pickup and drop offs. Well, what happens if you want to leave the game early? It is a continuous flow. Um we have over

300 school buses as you know, all U46 staff, all U46 supplied. Um, so we're ready. Um, that director of our transportation has already um gotten on board with everything and is very excited about offering her drivers more opportunity to drive our students. Um, and just to see the kids' faces about when we kind of brought this idea forward, they were so excited. 1960. It is 2025 and we are just bringing this to um the the city to try to do the stadium. It's welld deserved for these students. It's it's so exciting for us at U46. Um but I'm going to let my other people speak. Um Brad, I don't know if you want to talk more about landscaping.

Yeah. Hi, my name is Brad Hovanic. I'm with uh Cage Engineering. Um, I think the only question that I can answer here is for landscaping. Unfortunately, our landscape architect could not be here tonight. Um, but based on my experience with him in the past, uh, he typically uses trees uh that grow and fully mature within about three three years, three to four years. So, that's what I think we can expect uh near the scoreboard sign off to the east. I don't know Kyle anything.

Hello, my name is Kyle Sant. I'm a licensed engineer with a uh consulting firm called TY Lin. Uh and I uh put together the the traffic and parking study. Um I know that uh Oh, I'm sorry. Kyle K y last name Sant S A N T. Thanks. Sorry about that. Uh I know there was concern about parking. So I'll I'll say um we went out to the school and we performed observations during a school day. Uh, and you're right, with many high schools, um, dismissal for a brief period can be can be chaotic. Uh, we did parking, uh, occupancy counts before school was dismissed, uh, to get kind of like a maximum parking sense and then again afterwards to see how the parking lots cleared. Uh, during the school day, we counted occupancy at about 65%. mostly uh students park on the north side and um staff more on the south side although just there's mixing in there. Uh afterwards after dismissal we counted the parking lot at 20%. So you know and we observed that you know that's staff staying after probably that's uh students that are staying around for um practices that kind of thing. U and that's at 3:30 4:00 and you know we expect most of these uh bigger events to happen much later than that. So, we'd anticipate even fewer parking cars uh parked cars in the lots when those events are happening. Um I'll elaborate briefly on um the maximum scenario that we that we looked at. So, um a typical kind of football game we understand from the district would max out at about a thousand attendees. Um we assumed a vehicle occupancy of two and a half people per car. um which we base that off of observations at other sporting events at Elgen High School. I'll know in in my professional experience that's

pretty low. Um and we might expect actually a bit higher. So it'd be fair to say that these parking estimates for an event like that are probably a little conservative, a little high. Um so with a thousand attendees using that number um we estimated in the three to 400 range for parking demand and that would fit within the existing parking lot. That 25 or 2250 number we looked at that as kind of a absolute worst case scenario. If every seat in this new stadium is full, what would the parking capacity or demand be? And that's where we were estimating you'd push over the uh the on-site capacity. And that's where overflow and um the shuttling came in. So, just wanted to emphasize that we did assess that and we looked at what the parking demand would be. We would expect that to be very rare um based on what we've heard from the district. Did that answer all of your questions on parking?

We can uh we can we'll go back and go down the line for additional questions. Sure.

All right. Anyone else? or we'll open the commission up to questions. All right. Um we'll uh start with uh on my right Commissioner Olsen. Okay. Um for the stadium itself, is the bleachers all ADA accessible? I know at Elgen High they built that extra little platform on the side. Is this more included in the general stadium bleachers or is it more off to the side like at Elgen High? Uh VP Tren with Archon Associates. Tren T R I N H address is 2050 South Finley Lumbard. Um were the architects? Yes. So it's going to be more integrated in the um visitor side and on the home side.

Great. Thank you. Um is the lighting setup similar to Elgen High 2? Very directional LED lighting to off try to offset any light pollution to the neighboring correct. Yeah, same uh lighting setup to Elgen High School. The height's about 80 ft. There's going to be a screen on the lighting to kind of help with uh light pollution, but more direct into the field.

Okay. Um in terms of the view from the Clean Boulevard driving by, uh I know currently you guys have a lot of uh Larkin High School branded um fabric on those fences. Is that going to be something we're going to see in the future as well? Uh my concern with that is kind of passers by being a distraction with a football game going on that close to McLean Boulevard. Um, is there anything to help kind of offset that other than the landscaping? I think with that ornamental fencing that kind of takes away that branding. So that's why they wanted to brand the back of the scoreboard. That would be your only branding then on MLAN.

Okay. Um, last question regarding the traffic. I noticed um the south parking lot is directly next to the stadium um and then along with the north parking lot too. Everyone leaving the game more or less or even coming into the games has to cross the exit pathway for both parking lots. Um little concerned about that is traffic exiting these parking lots at the same time that people are trying to cross those drive lanes to get to their cars. Is there anything in place to kind of help with that? Uh you know I know that there's people directing traffic during the day at Larkin High. I don't know what that looks like specifically. I've never been there uh to that extent but is that something you guys have thought about with that traffic? Um, I know I had a conversation with the AD at Larkin, the athletic director. Um, there's eight police officers usually at any event at Larkin and they do help um with traffic as well.

Okay. Uh, no further questions. Thank you. Commissioner Bali,

it's pretty easy to identify the certain days that there could be an excess. Are those the days that you plan the shuttles? Because you said you won't use them unless you need them. So, they won't be at every game. They will potentially only be at certain ones that you expect a big turnout. Correct. Yeah. Um, typically there's only about five games per season. Um, and one of those games is obviously the rivalry which will switch years. So, that'll be like an every other year at Larkin. And then you'll have homecoming. Homecoming um is always going to be at your home. So on those particular days or events, we would plan on the shuttle.

Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Rubble, I'm wondering if you have anything in place to promote the shuttle parking because sometimes people won't know that um you know that that's available. Yes, thank you. We actually have a whole communications department. So, they'll make sure that that goes out on the marquee that's on the sign. It'll go out on email blast. It'll go out as a flyer. Um, we'll make sure that we communicate that the shuttles are available. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome, Commissioner Buske.

Thanks for coming out, guys. This is uh this isn't so much a question. It's just an observation. I uh was looking at uh page five of the TYN engineering memorandum and um you have uh whole programming for all the athletics. Um and I didn't see anything for arts programming. Larkin Larkin is known for its um uh performing arts academy. Um the marching band practices at Larkin but uh performs their halftime show at uh Elgen High and uh you know they use markers on the field to you know perfect that performance during the halftime. Is there anything has there been any conversation with um the that portion of the students who will be using that field itself to accommodate them or anything?

I'm not sure I follow, but um I know the band actually has markers in the uh parking lot as well. So when they're practicing, they practice in the parking lot. Um, and then for advance, um, the markings are exactly the yard lines. So that's how they line up, the tick marks and the yard lines. Not sure. I'm not a football girl. Sorry. I'm not a football girl, so I don't know what the ticks are, but the yard lines and then I think it's the um, spot markers.

Okay, thank you. Um, but that's how they actually line up. So when they go from practice on the parking lot to the field, um they will be playing obviously um during football games, probably a halftime event or two. Um does that answer your question? Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Commissioner Jones.

Thank you. When I initially saw this project, I was so excited about it just like, you know, and then I started driving. Um, so you have the historical data of the attendance of these football games that they've been holding at Elgen High School. How does that compare to what you're proposing to the attendance numbers? You have all the history of it. Now we're moving forward and you're predicting. So you are you predicting more people, less people? No, the stadiums will be about the same size. So, so the attendance of the Larkin games at the Elgen High School stadium, what's the attendance there?

That I don't know. Um, honestly, off the top of my head, I would have to research that. Do you know that number? So, that's not where So, that's not where we got these numbers. So, the the we estimated between 750 and a,000 attendees. That's not based on any formalized attendance because there that kind of attendance isn't taken at games at Elgen High School. No, it's not. Okay. We couldn't get any. So, um that's based off of I I believe it was the athletic director's estimates.

Oh, okay. Because I would assume that more people would want to come to a brand new stadium and support Larkin, right? because that would I would um and then when you guys were doing your parking surveys, I'm sure you surveyed the whole neighborhood. How did that look during the day, school days? We actually didn't do an on- street parking inventory. You did not. No.

Okay. Um, I would not be in favor of supporting uh ordinances to do any kind of modifications to street parking because I think that penalizes the community, the neighbors, rather than, you know, you're trying to fix a problem, but you're causing more for them. Um, okay. Yeah, that's all I got. Thank you so much. Sorry. Um, have you engaged with the neighbors at all during this process?

So, we did. We did a neighborhood event. Um, we had uh some people show up. Um, their biggest question was about um littering. So, we addressed that with our grounds coordinator and that department. Um, and he's pledged to make a sweep after the games. So they clean everything up. Um so they're going to sweep the neighborhood as well, do a sweep, make sure that there's no um debris left behind. Um and then again, they have Saturday crews too, so they'll come on Saturday as well and do another cleanup. Um and then just curious um my last question, I'm assuming there's um like musicals, other events, large events that take place. I'm just wondering about kind of I guess past experience with large events and your I guess feeling on on the the traffic flow and and how that works and maybe the the max attendance that you see at those um events that you know could be fine arts related or or not like kind of what's what are you looking at in terms of attendance there so I can kind of get a scale of

Sure. Um I think our auditorium seats uh 210. Um that's a guess because we just redid the seating. So I know it went down a little bit. Um any events that we've had we it's the same as a school day. So we really haven't had any major traffic events um other than you know like our daily in and out. Thank you. You're welcome.

All right. Um, with that, we Thank you. You can take a seat. We'll invite public We do Do you have one more? All right. Commissioner, we'll we'll allow it. Uh, Commissioner Jones, one one question, and then I'll I'll let everyone else have one final shot at it, too. Commissioner Jones, I am so sorry. Thank you so much, Chairman. Um, how many people attended that neighborhood meeting? Four. That's what I thought. Thank you. We sent out 200. Oh, I know how it goes. That's that's that's why I as it's so hard to get any kind of engagement for for stuff like that. Thank you, though. Thank you for doing the meeting. Any other questions from any other commissioners?

Uh, yeah, sure. Uh, I guess I don't foresee a lot of people using the shuttle service, you know, compared to the people parking at the stadium. Is there any cause for concern of what happens when they get off the bus at that neighboring elementary school? What happens then? You know, there's no police officer station there in the event that there is any issues, you know, anything like that that we've kind of looked at. I do not know that we looked at that. Um, but I definitely will bring that back to you 46. Thank you. Anyone else?

All right. Thank you. We'll open it up to public comment and then um if there's any other if there's any questions that stem from that, we'll invite you back up to address those. All right. We now turn to public comment portion. Are there any members of the public that wish to testify? going once. I see a lot of not eager faces. Um, not this face. Um, with that we will uh close the public hearing portion of Yes.

Check. Ah, wonderful. Thank you. I just wanted to re uh ask Miss Linman, could could I get you back up to the podium just so I can get you into the microphone? I want to make sure I understood the frequency of events correctly because there was a lot of discussion back and forth about the numbers. Five home games a year, right? Typically, right, unless perhaps they make playoffs, right? Correct. Correct. So generally five with the hopes of of one or two more and then one of those could be one of those would be the homecoming event where there where there could be the need for shuttles. Correct. And then every other year one of those could would be the uh uh rivalry game with Elgen High. Correct.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. You're very welcome. All right. Um with that we will uh close the public comment portion of the hearing and we will now move to um if there's a motion to approve uh petition- 25-25. I move to recommend that the city council approve petition 25-25 subject to the conditions outlined within our packet and to adopt as the findings of the commission those findings also provided within our packet. Second. Will staff please call the role.

Yes. Commissioner Olsen. Yes. Commissioner Abuali. Yes. Commissioner Jones, no. Commissioner Rubble, yes. And Commissioner or Chairman Wilder, yes. The motion is approved. 5 to one.

All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you everyone for your time and your um work and continue working with staff on the application. All right. Now we will uh move on to uh summary of uh or any other business.

You have other business. Well, let me look here. Okay. My apologies. Um Demir, uh you have offered a couple times in my time on this. Uh the city has offered training um for the commissioners and I I always appreciate it. I always learn something new um that I maybe missed and I attend every one that you offer. Um I find it valuable. So maybe we could add uh if there's an opportunity to add some kind of commission training um with all of our new commissioners, I think that would be really helpful.

Yes, appreciate the comment. We do have um you know we have the training for the new members. Uh there's a American planning association offers training for commission members because every city has a commission like this and so they provide some training and we had invited them to come in and provide a more formal training. Was it maybe a couple years ago or something like that?

And we do have their slideshow. I'm not sure if we have a recording, but if we do, if the our great, you know, video crew has that, I'll certainly share that with the with the team and especially with the with the new commission members, but we will also be on the lookout for any other additional uh opportunities. As I said, the the American Planning Association sends emails every so often about all kinds of training. It was something for the chair recently that uh that I mentioned to Chair Wilder. So, we'll we'll keep an eye on that. We we are still short on one member as you guys know. So we may wait until the we're full. We anticipate the council is going to appoint the seventh member and then maybe at that time we we look for something that's more formal that we can kind of then invite everybody to attend that. So but yeah

sharing the if there's a video recording that would be perfect. It was a great presentation. Um what was I gonna say? Thank you. Thank you very much. Sure. Any other business? Is there any public comment? [Laughter] We ran them out of town. Um, you know how to clear a room. They were tired of hearing me drag on that. Um, uh, now we'll we'll move on to the summary of pending development applications.

I don't believe I have much to add on this. Um there's a council meeting in two days. They're going to consider the uh the Subaru parking in front of Russo and then the uh the wrestling facility on 633 East Chicago. Those are both up for consideration. Um other than that, I don't think there's anything of substance that that has changed since last time. So, um I'll take any questions if there's any questions. All right, seeing none, uh we will now move on to adjournment. I move to adjourn. A second. Staff, please call the role. That is Commissioner Awali. Yes. Commissioner Jones,

yes. Commissioner Boske, yes. Commissioner Olen, yes. Commissioner Rubble, yes. And Chair Bildermouth, yes. We are journ. You did such a good job. Thank congratul