Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, let's get started. Welcome to the August 11, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. Approval of the minutes for the July 14, 2026 meeting.

So moved.

Support. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Communications from the audience, you can come forward for items that are not listed as a public hearing on the agenda at this time. New business, 93 West 7th Street, construction of a five-story building with parking and commercial space at street level and four stories of residential space, 62 units. The applicant is Sloan Avenue Group, if you'd like to come forward at this time. Who gets to come up, right?

Great. OK. Perfect.

State your name for the record.

My name is Patrick Jackson. I'm with Integrated Architecture. And I appreciate the chance to present this project that I feel like we all feel like is very much in alignment with the master plan of the city of Holland and the UDO. This project is mixed use. Four stories of residences on the first floor. We have 1150 square feet of commercial space and program space. The location is in a little bit of a unique area. It's on 7th Street to the north. We have the railroad and river is going to be to the east. We feel like given the scale, given the materiality, given responding to setbacks, we're providing one-to-one parking ratios. We've taken into consideration a lot of the direction that Steve's been really helpful in giving us. So we have 62 units. They're mixed between workforce housing, single bed, and we have two beds as well that are about 1050 square feet. 630 is the square footage of the one bedrooms. So the first floor is where all the programmatic elevator stair commercial is. We have the 62 spaces. We're also responding to sustainable issues. We're providing some rainwater runoff, some green space in the lower left corner. We've been working to provide the, I can show you in the elevations, we're providing the massing that's in accordance with the UDO regulations. On the first story, the materiality is, it's a brick, it's a heavy, it's a solid base that provides a lot of fenstrations, openings, negative space to really activate the pedestrian interaction and experience. So there's a lot of glaze in there. We're providing 57% of the transparency the requirement is 60 so we're close to that that's one of the variations that we're asking for so we're close there um the four upper stories are where all the residences are so the proportion is the 81 the typical slab is about 16 units 81 of those are going to be the uh the one beds and then we're going to have three other units that are two beds And that's the case except for this floor on the fifth floor where we enhance the social and recreational aspects with the corner green area. We're going to have a lounge, an exterior lounge that also has some landscaping around the perimeter, satisfying some of the green and sustainable requirements there. per what I had mentioned about glazing. The typical slab that you see, or the typical floor that we see from the second story to the fifth story, it has 32% glazing, and so 30% is what's required. So we're really activating the views, the sunlight, cross ventilation. We're also utilizing low flow plumbing, really energy efficient appliances. So we are definitely leaning towards sustainable practices here. Here's some diagrams that are just showing some of that transparency that I mentioned on the first floor. We have a 16-foot height for that first level that was required from the EDO as well. And that was a minimum, so we're satisfying that requirement. Fundamentally, we believe that even though it's a difficult site and the shape of it is quite challenging, we feel like we've created a compact floor plan that provides a dire need for some workforce housing in the area. And it's kind of in a transitional space in terms of it being industrial and shifting from the commercial to industrial. So we feel like we're addressing both of those characters in this overall design. So these are kind of just some pretty pictures that we've developed to give you an idea of what the scale and the massing is like. We're using fiber cement, ribbed siding. Some of the other materiality is soldier course and running bond brick, a lot of glazing. We really want to interact the storefront systems. And you can see there's some speckled intermediate balconies that we have scattered there just create a play of depth and character so we really appreciate your time and you've all been extremely helpful in giving us some ideas to respond to and we feel like we've taken a consideration several of those things in this design that we're presenting do i see the balcony above the parking too

recessed it's above the parking it looks like above the parking on the west corner of the development and then it looks like there's people up there so I'm just asking if there is actually like a balcony area over there above the parking right there right there

yeah okay that's a flat area yeah okay so then you've got that and then you've got the stair step up to the exactly above the third story of the housing yeah so the floors two through five responds to that six percent depth so those are pushed back that exact level so we wouldn't need any extra variances Also, Steve had some recommendations with the first floor plan that we responded to. You can see how the sidewalks flare out slightly at the entries of the parking structures. So let's just add a level of safety and some extra time for the pedestrians to circulate throughout. So we really tried to create in the massing these punches and these voids and these sort of this ambiguity of what's parking. We didn't want it to seem like a parking structure and we've addressed that with these different plays of negative and positive spaces and with the glazing and with the materiality.

Are there storage spaces for the units or no? Additional storage or no?

In the typical floor plan there isn't yet. There is not.

But there's 62 spaces, you said, since there's 62 units. Yes.

That's correct. And we do have the ADA spaces as well. And we hope to include some EV charging spots too.

Is there bicycle parking?

Yes, absolutely. We have 32 of the permanent ones that you can see. It's in the gray area. Yeah, there we go. There and to the left a little bit. Yep. And then the temporary ones are to the right where that stairs, yes.

Okay.

Yep. And those are the exact numbers that we had to hit with there as well.

And are there two green spaces kind of on the property?

Yeah, that's a good point. So there is sort of the urban garden. That's going to be a water filtration rain garden. And then to the north is going to be a dog park. where there will be some landscaping and also excess snow that needs to be pushed aside. We were able to use that area there as well.

Nice. We can get that here sometimes.

Yeah, exactly. So there's the upper right parking is the only one that's open to air. So that's open to above. So it really wouldn't be that much snow, but if we needed to push it aside, we've predicted where we could put that.

Great. What kind of screening do you have planned for, like, along the property line, along the railroad tracks?

Yeah. In our landscape plan, we have some vertical – oops. It's vertical lattice metal fencing.

Gotcha.

And sort of similar to what we're doing with the handrails, similar with that picture there.

Great. Any comments from commission members, questions?

I just want to initially compliment what you're able to do with this spot. I mean, this is a crazy spot, crazy shape, crazy location, and that's a really nice place to live there.

I've got a great team that's done most of the work, I would say. So our civil engineers here as well and the developers.

It takes a lot of creativity. Absolutely. It takes an army.

I wanted to give you guys kudos as well absolutely unique spot unique location shape the slope and I think that this is this would be a great addition to the downtown area I don't know how you fit 62 units into there but Congratulations on being able to do that and to be able to get 62 parking spaces in there as well. I know every time that there's a project in the downtown area, everybody's concerned about parking and adding 62 spaces for 62 units for the public that may be watching. Not everybody has two cars, especially with smaller units like this. There are a lot of times that people just have the one vehicle or share a vehicle or don't have a vehicle at all. One of the great things about downtown Holland is its walkability and this is gonna be a great walkable location to a lot of great amenities downtown.

this proximity to downtown and being that we're leaning towards workforce housing or even students, the walkability and riding bikes is absolutely a viable option.

Or going ice skating.

Or going ice skating.

But when I think about the people that work downtown, I mean, we're talking about $13, $16 an hour. We're talking about people that are cutting hair. We're talking about sales, retail, and this would be something that they would be able to afford. And there's not a lot of that downtown for them to be able to walk to. Absolutely.

I do have a question about the land itself. Maybe you covered it already, but do you have any issues with... I mean, I know it's slopes and I know that presented some design challenges with it being on a pretty severe hill for developing.

Yeah, so it's about eight feet from the west to the east.

Okay, and then what about the land itself? Is there any need to remediate any issues like with the soil or with the ground itself? Is everything of the same component or do you have to do anything special in order to build on that actual site?

Yes, we're doing soil and boring testing. And so that's something that we're going through in the process now. And those have actually been done. It's currently it's it's a parking lot and it's just slab. We're hoping to recycle that. So in terms of the demolition of what's there, it's really not much.

um but we are currently in the process of seeing exactly what the character of that of that and you're not you're probably not expecting anything huge or unexpected i would assume you would have in terms of character of the soil yeah yeah okay thanks yeah compliments i'm still excited about it

Yeah, I'd like to say, too, you did a great job really having some green space with the dog park, having the outdoor gathering space. That's going to be huge, especially for, I think, the population, the community that you'll have in that building. You know, watch the sun set outside. Absolutely. That's great. So nice job. Thank you.

What's the square footage of the retail space in there, and do you have any –

idea or plans of what it could be or does does it have to be just one thing or do you think it's since it's a blank canvas not built yet you think it could be pretty much anything yeah so we're looking at about 1150 square feet and that might be able to be divided up a couple times maybe three times we don't have a particular character quite in mind, we would like it to be something that's useful for the tenants and also for the public. So maybe fitness oriented or maybe a coffee shop. You're running down to your car and you're late for work and you need to grab a latte or a sandwich maybe. It could be, it's generic enough in terms of its layout that it could be quite a few different things.

Okay, thanks.

The police departments across the street, you just never know. Right. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate you guys, thank you. Steve, did you have anything to add to the application?

Yeah, if I could please, just for a minute.

And then we will do a public hearing just for clarification for people from the audience that would like to comment on this item. So that will be in just a second here.

Great, thank you. Yeah, so just real quickly, so Patrick touched on a lot of things that I wanted to mention too, but certainly want to remind you guys what you're being asked to do tonight, approve a site plan and two waivers. Patrick mentioned one of them the amount of glazing along 7th Street 60% on that first 10 feet is what we require they're at 57% and so we're suggesting approval of that waiver we just granted a similar waiver not too far from here recently the second waiver is for so you've mentioned parking a couple times is for their parking inside the building so we would Require our standards are a minimum of a setback of 20 feet there at about 10 And so in order to get those 62 spaces, there is a couple spaces that are within that first 20 feet and so again we are suggesting that they can get a waiver and For those in order to get all of those 62 spaces underneath and behind this building so Staff is recommending approval of the site plan and approval of those two waivers. Those are in your packet Those standards are in your packet as well It's kind of unanimous that everybody agrees this is a unique piece of property. So yeah, we give them a lot of credit for what they've been able to come up with. If you remember some of our early conversations, we talked about possibly the need to rezone the piece of property. So again, giving them credit of finding a way to meet really all of the requirements with the exception of these two waivers, which are normal, to not even need to do the rezoning of the piece of property. i guess again i just remind you of that because i know those earlier conversations we were talking about the possible need to excuse me do a rezone to accommodate the project the only other thing that i think i wanted to mention just because i thought it was interesting they mentioned a lot of the sustainability effort that they put into here there's also some rooftop you know green space as well that give them credit for as well so with that staff's recommendation is approval again of the site plan and the 2 waivers.

Thanks to you. All right at this time I will open a public hearing if you'd like to comment on this item you can come to the microphone. You have up to 5 minutes to your name and address for the record. Come on up.

Hi, Paul Elsick. I live near the River Place. I don't understand quite what the elevation is at the corner of 7th and Pine. It's parking deck. Is that new parking deck at that spot?

I believe so, yeah. If you have a question about the site plan on the screen there.

Yeah, is that two-story parking deck? New parking deck.

Is that your only question?

Yeah.

Okay. Steve, if you can bring up that picture of that. So Seventh and Pine.

Maybe this one.

is right on the corner.

So it doesn't quite get to Pine because you've got the railroad tracks in between.

And the green space, too.

Yeah, and you have that green space. So this driveway, this garage entrance would be the closest to Pine, sort of still east of the railroad tracks. But that is one story. So you would pull in on 7th Street into the garage space here, and then they have a similar garage space up the hill a little bit. They aren't connected on the east side of their building. So again, one-story parking in both locations.

At different elevations because of the eight foot change.

At different elevations, so that's why those two don't connect internally because of the grade change, the eight foot drop.

Okay.

But both of those are just one level of parking.

Right.

Okay, but the farthest west section then has a 16 foot high ceiling as opposed to the east section that has an eight foot high ceiling or am I not seeing that correctly?

No, they're the same 16 foot elevation, the whole frontage of the building.

Okay, but the deck above is level.

I mean if you want to have their architect describe that a little better but it's the same I mean I don't know if that drawing helps you a little bit it certainly doesn't shrink to eight feet on the on the east end of 7th Street The parking garage you're talking about the entrance to the parking yeah The street does not the street drop eight feet from east to west

So the internal, it's the question, sorry, we're still in the public hearing, correct? Yeah. Okay, just one second.

I know, we can't ask and answer questions in the public hearing.

True, yes. Sorry, guys. We'll get you some extra steps in today. If there's anyone else that wants to come forward for the public hearing, we can do that a second. I will close the public hearing then and then Dave did you you had a question about the number of feet between the two entrances of the parking garage Help me understand because the street is dropping eight feet from one end of the building to the other what happens with the parking garage That is the question It's just the elevation of the inside of the ceiling or of the entryway.

Because above you've got, let me try, a usable space that's at one level.

So this one kind of, this drawing might help a little bit. So, yes, that 7th Street is dropping, but as you go west... you end up with, I guess, an even taller first floor on the very west end of 7th Street. That was my question. But it doesn't create a second-story parking area. It's still just one story.

I think that's what you were saying, right, Dave?

Oh, yeah, I understand that. It's just a bigger open spot, yeah.

Just a higher ceiling in the parking garage.

So the minimum is the 16 feet, not the maximum.

Right.

Gotcha. Gotcha. And then we've got that green space on the west end of the lot.

Right.

Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? No? No. Any comments?

No.

Or motions?

I would move to...

I would move to approve the site plan as presented with the with the suggested additions by staff as well as approving the two waivers that have been asked for waiver number one which is the parking site back on Along seventh and the second is the amount of glazing on seventh for clarification with the public the Planning Commission Shall grant shall grant a waiver request if in the opinion of the Planning Commission the following criteria are met One of the following two I won't go into a but I will go into be the building or property is subject to a unique circumstance Not caused by the owner developer or designer that renders compliance with the standard of this article impossible or not practical And I believe that we have we've talked about that both in this meeting and at previous meetings About the shape of the lot the grade of the lot the size of the lot the location of the lot all of those things Creating a unique circumstance with this lot that was not created by the owner developer designer with the property and then also if both of the following criteria are met A, the building or site design clearly still meet the intent of the form-based code, even though all standards will not be met. I believe that it has definitely been designed to meet the intent of the form-based code. The details have been provided to address those requirements. Again, odd-shaped lot, grade change, mixed-use building. They've done a great job of responding to our suggestions and our comments and our concerns. And then under B, the waiver will not create an unsafe or unwelcoming pedestrian environment I do not believe that it will create an unsafe pedestrian environment and actually I believe that it'll create actually a fairly welcoming pedestrian environment in the way that it's set up just a couple of comments to go along with the motion that we've been complimenting the developer and the designers on this I think that this is a testament one to them to to the fact that the City of Holland is a very very attractive place for development and people are looking for places to be able to develop and and to come upon a unique and difficult lot like this and to take the time and the expense and the effort that you guys have to turn this interesting lot, let's put it that way, into something that can be a real benefit to the downtown says a whole lot that you're willing to take that effort in this community. Also to our unified development ordinance, I don't believe that something like this would have been possible prior to UDOE. So kudos to the City of Holland in forward thinking with development and providing opportunities for developers to be able to do things with properties that might not have been able to be done before. So that is my, again, very long and extensive motion. Support.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign? None, okay, great. Thanks for your time and effort in coming in. You guys have been here a few times, so we just really appreciate it. All right, next item, 211 Lincoln Avenue, 760 square feet addition to existing building. Applicant is Eric Payne. If you'd like to come forward at this time.

How are you guys today?

Wonderful.

Excellent.

You are Eric Payne?

I am Eric Payne with PR Design Build and representing 211 Lincoln. Give me a second to get my notes up here. Perfect. All right. Love it. Think. Got it. Feeling good. All right. So now that all the buttons work, we are looking to do a 760 square foot addition on the east side of the Lakeshore Home Builders Association building. that addition is to house four additional office spaces we will be removing some of the office existing offices to increase the conference room space Regarding this building, it kind of is similar to Hope College and the post office. It doesn't meet the 60% glazing requirements. It's a brick building. So what we're trying to do with the addition is have it match the existing building. So we would need a waiver as we are short of that 60%. We also sit back from the road further than what current requirements are requesting. So we would need a waiver for the maximum setback for the building. We are going to match the existing frontage. So there's no change by building the addition to the setback. Going through the memo that was put together, the only other item to speak to is that by building this addition, we're not making any changes to our traffic in and out. I mean, currently, we really only have five vehicles that go in and out. And if they go in and out three times a day, that's 15 trips in and out of this parking spot once a month. but not every month. It's technically eight times a year. We have a board meeting where there will be 16 people for one day. We do hope that maybe someday we can have a few more events, but even then, I'd still say our average of 15 trips a day would hold for the calendar year. This is the site here that you have in your packet. That's kind of what the addition will look like. We are going to tweak those two windows per Steve's request. He's got his mouse right there. Yep, so we're going to tweak those two to match the other three to the left. Thank you, Steve. I might need glasses, but that is the addition foundation. Lower level. And that's it. Rather small project in comparison to the last one.

Great.

Any questions?

You're keeping it simple. Try. Yes. Does anyone have any questions of the applicant? No. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Steve, do you have anything to add on that one?

So just real quick again you're being asked to approve site plan and the two waivers that Eric mentioned Just real quick about those. Again, I think I put in my staff report, it's a little similar to what we had with the dollar store in South Shore Village a few years ago, where they did an addition that kept it in line with the existing building, but was beyond the maximum setback that we typically want to see. And so that's one of the setback waivers, to simply build it in line with the rest of the building. So they're exceeding the maximum setback that we would normally see for a downtown building. And then the window requirements. So I think in the staff report, we put it in here that this is about in the 15% rather than the 60% glazing requirements. I guess I was suggesting that they'd still be short of the 60, it's probably in the 45-ish percent, but to simply match the existing building so that as you kind of went down 9th street it would look the same and that would get them to maybe 45 so that's the second waiver that they would be asking for in addition to upgrading i guess from the current site plan to to match At least that was my suggestion to match the other windows, even though that was still gonna have them under 60. Hopefully that makes sense. Because this is downtown, they did have to go through the public workshop. They did have to go to the DDA. The DDA has recommended approval of this project as well. It's in a little bit of a of a unique spot in downtown There isn't a whole lot of buildings right next to it to kind of you know Evaluate whether it was gonna fit in or not. You probably noticed that the materials on the addition are a little bit different They mentioned the existing buildings brick. I believe this addition is going to be a fiber board kind of a vertical siding so it will look different and But again, without there being a whole lot of other buildings down there, in my mind, having a few different things still is appropriate. There's just not a whole lot of other buildings nearby. I should also mention that they are doing a little bit of work on that entrance on 9th Street. So what you're seeing here is just a little bit of rework of that entrance off of 9th Street as well. But really, it's the addition that triggered the Planning Commission review. And again, staff is recommending approval of the site plan and the waivers. that are being requested with the upgrade of the windows.

It looks very similar to the other brick building on the same block, even, the one that's sitting behind it. That's more along 8th Street.

The space source building or the priority? Yeah, I think I was commenting more about the addition itself since that's not brick. That's a different material.

I guess I was speaking more of the glazing even. When you look at the glazing of the building at 240 along 8th Street, it's more like windows.

I think the other side has more.

it might yeah it's it's that's a very unique spot and then you've got DeVos across the street yeah okay Steve I think that was a great suggestion to make the windows uniform and I think it's great that you're on board for that that was a good catch

Any other questions from Steve? This does require a public hearing, so if anyone from the public would like to come forward on this item, they can do so now. Okay, I will close the public hearing. Any other comments, questions, or motions on this one?

I move to approve with the conditions suggested by staff, as well as approving the two waivers. And again, to go through the waiver process, Planning Commission shall grant a waiver request if, in the opinion of the Planning Commission, the following criteria are met. If one of the following criteria are met, the building, which I think is the important part here, or property is subject to a unique circumstance not caused by the owner, developer, or designer that renders compliance with the standard of this article impossible or not practical, as was mentioned by staff. I don't believe that it's practical to have the addition moved up to meet the maximum setback. It makes much more sense for it to align with the current standard. Building and keeping and keeping it in line with that existing structure makes that space much more usable Also the idea of the glazing getting have the glazing matching what the existing building ends I think is going to meet that criteria as well and then also if both of the following criteria met the building and building and site design clearly still meet the intent of the form-based code even though all the standards are met and The site is designed to meet the intent of the form-based code. Details have been provided to address those requirements. The existing building is going to be the same setback that we granted, and we did grant a similar waiver to Dollar General. I will note that we did require Dollar General to increase their glazing, I recall. even though they weren't that excited about doing that, but that was to match the existing building, which is what we're asking them to do here. And then second, the waiver will not create an unsafe and or unwelcoming pedestrian environment. I don't believe that these waivers will create An unsafe environment and it will certainly not be any less welcoming than it currently is It's a nice-looking building in a in a relatively unique location Lots of drive-bys. They're not a ton of pedestrian traffic other than across the street and on on 8th Street But we'll meet those requirements as well Support all those in favor say aye opposed Great Thank You mr. Payne

Have a wonderful evening. You as well. Communications and petitions, scheduling of public hearings. There are none. Communications from commission members. No. Communications from staff. None. An administrative site plan review.

Yeah, that was just the new one that came in, so we'll add it to the list next time we do our annual update.

All right. Motion for adjournment?

So moved.

All's in favor, say goodbye.

Bye-bye.