Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

That's good to know. I'm always terrible. I'm afraid I need a little bit more time.

So that's good to know that, you know, I can quickly Is this your lady? Is this your lady? That's nice. Yeah, stay in touch with her. No, I do remember I do remember seeing that. Yeah, that'll be helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Okay, just one more minute.

Hey, Mark, can you shut the door? All right. Hello and welcome to the December 9, 2025 planning commission meeting. Need approval of the minutes for the November 13, 2025 meeting.

So moved. Support. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed? None. Communications from the audience for items not listed on the agenda as a public hearing can come forward at this time. Okay. New business. 620 South Point Hotel Drive. Amend the PUD to allow for a new 115 room True Hotel by Hilton. The applicant is here. You can come forward at this time.

Good evening. I'm Bill Mast of the ownership group Holland Hotel 2 LLC. Very imaginative, but uh the first one worked well. I guess the short answer is we've owned this land for 22 or three years now and finally built one hotel on a lot bigger than it needed and enjoyed that. Uh gave us a chance to overdo the landscaping and amenities on the backside and it's been very well received. We've got uh Angela Man, Rob Carter, and Lisa from runs the hotel here with us in case you have operational questions or that way. I'm the contractor and and one of the owners, but I don't run it thankfully. And um short I just the short answer is we've are doing as well or better than we expected to be out there. Much thanks to Lisa and her team. And we u are eager. We own the lot next door or the lots next door and haven't had much of any other success with them and so we want to build another hotel. So we're going to go with Hilton to have some synergy with the flags. Um they like that we like that and then tie the properties together with some sidewalks but for the most part this is will be a non-extended stay hotel serve a slightly different market but still largely catered towards the business community in the surrounding area. And in Holland, as we learned 20 something years ago, it's also nice in the summer, even though we're not on the beach, we do pick up some uh sports team business and and summer vacation as well. So, we've proposed 115 room uh true hotel by Hilton. I guess I've got a clicker. It's site plan is little more developed than it was when we came in with the uh than than in our application. Uh, and we had a design team meeting last week. They're

actually progressing way faster than our last round. And um, and our engineer sent this over just before 4:00 yesterday that has some of what we decided or we asked him to incorporate uh, on the plans, but he hasn't had time to make all of it. So, the landscape plan that we submitted initially was generic perspect minimum. That's not what we intend to build. We're going to do better than that and we will following up with a full landscape plan for approval. So, we're not asking for landscape plan approval on that, just site plan approval. And um dumpster enclosures are always a a question. We're going to do the we lifted the plan. We plagiarized ourselves on on the things that worked well next door. So, the dumpster enclosure with the enclosed storage for offseason chairs and snowblowers uh enclosed that worked really well. We're going to duplicate that here and site it on the perimeter of it with sighting to complement or match some materials used on the hotel. Uh pool designers are hard to find and you design it and then whoever your pool contractor is always does it their way anyway. So we are just lift duplicating the pool at this hotel as well. We've got a little extra land um on the back side of the hotel next to the pool. I guess that would be in the northeast kind of inside corner there. And um we're going to do something there that will be kind of a nice little amenity there. Greenish. Otherwise, all it'll ever do is just get mowed and ignored. And latest idea we had was a little putting green or something like that. So, um that'll help pretty it up a little bit. Got EV stations, handicap spots, little extras land. The green garden will be on the whole south perimeter. We're going to run the sixoot sidewalk down the entire length of the

MD DOT frontage and our intent on ground signage would be to mimic or mirror the uh Homewoods sign on the north side of that main drive. And that's where we're going to that's where we anticipate pulling most of our traffic in is right off of M40 there on the off of U South Point Hotel Drive. Right. So, uh, we've taken largely the prototype hotel. We inserted a stack of of four rooms. So, we went from 98 to 115 in doing that. Added the pool on the backside. Oddly enough, the franchises like to not have pools on the franchise, even though almost every hotel has one because then they can tell all their franchises our their hotels are the cheapest to build. So, we're But nobody's no kids stay in it. if you don't have a pool. So that's

that's so true. That's what we're doing there. Yeah. My kids want nothing to do with them if they don't have a pool. No. No. I learned a long time ago from my partners that the kids make get on the internet and make the choice and if you don't have a pool, they do now.

They don't stay. So that's dumpster enclosure. Just same details as before. And then this is the color scheme exterior. Um I guess largely just the color scheme from the prototype true hotel. Uh the prototype calls for the whole thing to be done in Ephus which we despise as a ownership group and me I do as well as a contractor. So we are doing like the dark brown will be brick and then um I think we are we doing two tones of brick. So the whole first floor is brick in either the dark or the light. One of those bricks is the same brick next door.

If you you want to come to the microphone and describe this that's fine. Teamwork here. Teamwork. Teamwork. Yes. Because we'll have the two different color stone, but we want to complement the homewood suites next door. So, we have a taupey color of brick and then we have a little bit more dark brown brick that'll be on the exterior as well. So, that that way it'll tie in so that the buildings will kind of complement each other but not be exact. And then we'll have a nicer facade brick all on the bottom all the way around. And then we do have um it's that wood material plank and the hardy plank. And then what's what's the Nisha Nichi? That is going to be the big uh triangle piece. That's the official name.

That's Yes. Don't ask me to spell it. You can spell it but you can't pronounce it. Can you state your name for the record? I'm sorry. Yes. Angela Man. And I'm with Hospitality Specialist. They'll be the management group and also representing part of the ownership. Okay. Good. Thank you. And I don't I think we said we weren't using metal panels and even the bright colors are going to be they'll still be in that. Yeah,

but they'll be the there will be some of the bright some of the bright blue color is their brand color, but we can get those colors in that board. So, it it almost looks like wood, but it's a more high-end product. And then it'll also be nice as far as being able to weather because we know what the weather here is going to be uh six months of the year. So, we wanted to make sure that we had higherend products for the the facade and the the look of it, but also to be able to sustain what we'll go through weatherwise. Okay.

No non-operable windows. It's just nicer that way. Safer and more energy efficient. So, I guess that's kind of what we'd like to build there. and we're happy to answer any questions or if that if you'd like to hear more from us, we can talk all night, but I don't know that it's not much different. It's a it's a it's a hotel and it's next to a hotel and done a little better than it needs to be, I guess, is the short answer. And does anyone have any questions from the applicant? I I have a couple about the EV charging stations. I see there's four spots there. I'm assuming that's two chargers.

That'll be two chargers. So that you have the two chargers for the the spots. So we have a four initially. We'll wire for additional spots. So as we grow or as the need becomes more, we'll already have the wiring there for at least an additional four spots. Okay. What kind of speed are you looking at for those? Do you have the spec? Do you know is it premature to ask that? Okay. We're work we've got the spec that's the Hilton spec. So we've gone with that. Um and we have the same ones next door. Okay. that are already there and they will have the credit card where people even our guests will pay for the use of them. And do you do you contract then with one of the major major companies with that? Yes. Which charge point. Charge point. Charge point. Okay. Just curious. Thank you.

We do. And we've also made sure that we've got them next to one of the handicap spots. So with that has the lines for it so that it accessible uh spot would be available as well for the charging. So it will fit for everybody. Wonderful. Yes. Great. And be inclusive. Um, bicycle parking I saw it was on there as well. We do. We have We will have the bike ramps along the side on the end. We also on the south side southwest corner and we also have that over at the Homewood as well. Okay. And then um the sidewalks or the six feet wide connecting with the other hotels right there. Correct.

Okay. Yeah, we're connecting to to the north to match up with a sidewalk coming south from our north hotel. And then we're also going to the east in at least one spot to connect with that kind of center walkway that'll be right between the two around the roundabout and then across to the other ones. Okay. And along M40. And how many parking spots? I did not catch that one. You can per room. Is it 1.1 per 128 which is 1.1 per guest room times 115 127 required 128 supplied.

Okay. Have you had any issues do you think with the other hotels in that area? No. Perfect. 12 bicycle racks, five hand five handicap, four electric vehicle. So you're planning for four but you can expand to eight. Correct. Okay. Anyone else have any questions from the applicant? Anything else you want to add?

We're excited to be here. We've been happily in Holland for many years. Our company's the one that built the original Holiday Inn back in opened in the 80s. So, we've been in and around Holland. We built the residents in next to this project. Uh we've managed the country in, we've managed the double treat. We've been all around and love being part of Holland. So, we're just happy to be here, happy to be able to bring a new product that we think is a complimentary product and will really fit that end. And of course, the explosion of business down there is just fabulous. And hopefully that south corridor will continue to grow and have even more business for us. So, we want to be there and ready. You've been pretty full on the We have We have We are doing great. Bill even asked for a room tonight so he didn't have to drive back and we said, "No, Lisa said we're sold out. Sorry. Find another one." Right.

Yeah. No room in the inn. Too bad. It's an appropriate month for that. Okay. Wonderful. Well, thank you. Okay. Thank you, Steve. Is there anything you wanted to add? Of course. Just a couple. Yeah. Sorry.

So, just a couple things to kind of talk about real quick. This is in the PUB. So, the yellow area is the highlighted parcel that we're talking about. So, as Bill mentioned, they're combining these two properties. So, there'll be one piece of property left in the PUD that again I think Bill touched on a little bit further to the north and east will be the last piece of this PUD that's yet to be developed. This PUD is from the late 90s. Hotel use is obviously a permitted use. You guys have talked about parking. The PUD provided a lot of flexibility for the planning commission to look at things. Among those being parking where we could kind of set the um level of parking. The 1.1 calculation is really what we require in our zoning ordinance right now for public lodging. So obviously they meet that. Um the way the PUB was written is you guys could have even been um you know provided an alternative from that. Um but they are already meeting that. You've talked a bit about um sidewalk. I wanted to mention that too just to sort of highlight in this particular stretch of M40 just in the past few years we have added um as a result of the development out there or the developers have added about a half a mile of sidewalk on this side of the road. So this will really complete that segment almost um all the way to Waverly to 48th Street. Um and um so I I wanted to highlight that because I thought that was kind of a nice uh piece of this as well. Um the recommendation is that you approve the project. Um you've got the staff report with all of the conditions. There really isn't anything in there that is out of the ordinary. Um maybe the one comment from the assessor's office as a result of combining this property. They will end up with a different address than what is on the parcel books today. Um but that's the same address that we that

we used in the uh noticing for this. So it'll be the 620 South. Yeah, the 621 was when all these these two, the hotel and the other vacant lot, all four were lumped into as if they were one. They were always four condo units, but they were lumped in as one parcel with one address. Mhm. And so we've also been asked when we combine these and then get 620 assigned to this one that we reassign an address to the kind of the orphan piece in the northeast corner because it is off it is now address it will be addressed then off of a road it doesn't even touch. So we'll do that in You didn't want to do AB C and D, huh? No. No. Okay. No, this is good.

So we're recommending approval with the with the notes that you have in the staff report. Appreciate that. We've reviewed all the conditions and we're happy to have those as conditions if we're granted approval. There was something about landscaping plan would be approved later. We're not asking you to approve the landscaping plan that's in the packet that just met the site plan approval minimums. We'll be in with a a nicer landscape plan. Okay. Yeah. We don't feel that it would change the site plan. So just having allowing staff to review their detailed landscape plan um seem like a a reasonable um condition to add to it. So we've got the list of trees and we'll be incorporating those.

Okay, great. Thank you. 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. And I will close the public hearing at this time. discussion, motions, or questions from the planning commission. Uh, move to approve with staff recommendations and conditions. Support. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Great. Well, thank you everyone for coming in. You had a good team to show up today. So, that's wonderful. Thank you very much.

Have a wonderful holiday. Thanks.

All right, Steve. Skip to communications and petitions.

I just have a couple things to put on your calendar. So, I know we have the January meeting coming up, but February we will do uh the election of officers. So, I guess just a reminder that that's coming up. and next month we will bring to study session the uh work plan items um in hopes that we will establish that work plan at the February meeting. So I guess I just wanted to get you guys thinking about u those things. I'll bring your favorite chart or at least my favorite spreadsheet. Um so we'll talk about those but I guess I just wanted to give you the heads up on those two things. Okay. Any communications from commission members? I'm jumping back to B.

We do have a new commissioner. Absolutely. Would you like to say a few words? Stand up as the new student in the classroom or this is Kim Rowan. Yes. Thank you. Um well, if I stand up, it just looks like I'm sitting down. That's my husband's joke. Kim, stand up. Uh you know, whatever. Anyhow, uh I'm very delighted to be a part of the commission. I I have not participated with this commission in the past. Um but I look forward to u being a part of um the the movement to shape the city. Um great. And it sounds like I have a great group of people to work with. I hope so.

Hopefully you'll be patient as I ask silly questions along the way. Um but thank you. I appreciate the staff members too that um give excellent guidance always. Thank you. There are no silly questions. Yes, we're all learning together. So, wonderful. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you. Any other communications from commission members? I don't want to stifle anybody. All right. Motion for adjournment. Support. Everybody say merry Christmas to say goodbye. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.