Zoning Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

. . Let's call this meeting to order. Good evening and welcome. To the April 9th meeting of the city of Kalamazoo zoning board of appeals. Appeals a volunteer advisory board appointed by the city commission. Will staff please make roll. Call. Make Reynolds. McReynolds. Yes. Brandon Hamburg. Humberg. Yes. Work. Yes. And shareholders absent tonight. Harrington present. And Han here. For each public hearing public comments will be accepted during. The times as indicated on tonight's meeting agenda. Community members that wish to provide public comments over the phone can call. 8 8 8, 3 8 2. 95 56 during the public comment period. There will be a cue. And they will be prompted. To offer their comments in turn. Callers will be commenting to the board live. And no longer be able to leave. A recorded message. Are there any announcements or changes? Changes Pete. I do have. Both actually my, the announcement is. That this past Monday night we had. Three reappointments approved for the zoning board of appeals. Appeals vice chair, Gary work. Was approved for an additional term. Alison Hahn was approved for a. Full first full term and alternate Jack urban was approved for his first full term.

As far as changes to the agenda. We do have a change to the agenda for those. Viewing from afar tonight. Two 11 east water street has been withdrawn. By Plaza Corp. Corp. So we are not going to be discussing. That case tonight, it has been withdrawn. So the only case left on the agenda is 4 0 1 east Michigan avenue. Thank you. Thank you, Pete. We'll move on to the acceptance of last month's. Month's minutes. Are there any changes to the minutes? I don't, I'd like to get a clarification. About something that happened, I think was on page seven. In nomination. Of the announcements. Is this the time to do that now? Is this the nominations. I have some, I would like to get a point of clarification. That was outlined here in the minutes. Is this the time to do that? Yeah, it is. Okay. So Mr. Work you outlined outlined here. It's noted. That my attendance. Was is the catalyzer for. Your nomination of secretary of and Humberg. And I was curious to understand. What if you pulled my attendance record. Like in contrast to the other members of this board, I did not pull. You did not? No. Okay. And so if that's a point of public record now, that's like embedded. Into, you know, the records in our city. Then I think that that should have been. A part of the due diligence, if that was. Your rationale for nominating secretary VIN and Humberg, because. Because it discredited me and

my participation on this board. So, if you are going to make that nomination. For, they did make that. No, sir. If you were going to make that nomination. For Beth to serve in that role. Mm-hmm I don't understand why I had to be poised against her posed against her. For your rationale for nominating her in that position that was divisive. And so if you're going to call into question, my attendance. On this board, I would like to understand. Why your due diligence was not. Like why you didn't bring that forth. And the other people that voted in that way as well. I'd like to understand that I didn't like that to be a part of the record. Well, tell us how many absences you had. Well, I think that that's up to you, like in contrast to the people, like I didn't, I didn't call myself into question. . I'm asking, asking you, you called me into question and you prepare for that meeting. Okay. So is that the reason why? Because chair holder isn't here today. And so like people miss meetings. And so if that was your reasoning, like, I don't understand why you had to bring me up. If you wanted to nominate Beth over the last four months. Prior to that you had missed several meetings. Okay. Do you have that on record? Like, do you have that? Did you pull that. Shelby. Can you tell us? Which meeting she missed. I would have to go back into all of the meeting units to do that. Yeah. I would like that. If, if that's gonna be your justification, I think that needs to be a part of the record. Because it was an attempt to discredit me the way that you said that. And it shouldn't, I shouldn't have been, I shouldn't have been raised up. You should have just said what you had to say about Beth. If you weren't gonna do your due diligence. I think that. It was again divisive. I don't think that's the way that I wanna do community,

if that's the way you wanna move forward. But I do appreciate. Your commitment to attending every single meeting for the. Duration of your term since you're holding me to such rigidity. And I think that you're statement the way that I sensed it. Was rooted in the reinstatement that has been happening. Over the past year and a half of creating a level of homogeneity on this board. That by me. Well, I think that there's efforts to make that happen. And I think that it was just really an unfortunate way to do community and I don't appreciate. That approach, if you don't have my, my record of attendance, I will have your over the course record at the next meeting. I appreciate that. Okay. And, and in contrast to everyone else who serves on this board specifically, you're talking about your, I'm talking about mine in, I'm talking about mine in contrast. To the other people that are serving in officer positions, if you are using that as a rationale. Rationale call me into question. Then you should do that in contrast to everyone else who participates on this board, specifically, an officer positions. Positions. I remember one meeting where you were going to be late. Okay. And it was very late and then you just didn't show. Okay. And so what I'm trying to understand what that means to. Why that is your position. You were you're the secretary. Okay. Okay. And so what does that mean? I think if, and I don't, and I don't think that's true. I don't think it's obvious. What, like, what are you defending here? Like, if you felt like that Beth should be in that position or anybody else, then that's what you should have said. I don't understand. This is a volunteer constituent board. And sometimes people come and sometimes people don't. I don't think that you have to be divisive with me. I'm not an elected official. I volunteer in this capacity.

And when someone's not able to come, that's why we have alternates. Alternates. And that's the way that we that's the system of order as it is here. And that's the bottom line. I should not have been post against Beth in that way. And that was an attempt to discredit me and it was divisive. I think if you want to talk more about this. After the meeting here. So. We're not holding up. Okay. But you said that on public record. And so I wanted to as well, and that's fine where we can do it or we can do it at the next meeting. That's fine. We don't have to do it at all. I'm just saying you made a statement. I wanted to make a statement. If you pull my record, you can Foy it. You can do that. I just will like for you to do your due diligence. And I would like for you, if you're going to be. That way about my participation on this sport. Emergencies happen. I had an emergency. That's not been what my. Traditional way of doing things has been, and you should not have put me pit me against Beth in that way. That was not cool. I didn't pit you against Beth. I had an emergency. What I did is mm-hmm I thought Beth was cure. Okay. Pretty much all the time. Okay. Well let's, let's pull everybody's record. That's why we said Beth. Okay. Well, you didn't have to say anything about me. Okay. let me see, where was I? Let's see we did we do we need, we need a, a, a motion. For to, yeah. To approve the, the meeting minutes and then a second and then voice vote. And I still enjoy working with you. So there's that. I make a motion to approve. Our minutes. I guess second. I second, that motion. For approval. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Okay. I'll now explain her procedure for tonight's public hearing. Preach request. The secretary will read the application into the public record. The applicant or representative will have 10 minutes to provide their comments. Comments following that the public is invited to step up to the podium. Starting with others in favor of the application. Clearly state your name and address and present your comments within a three minute limit. Following all comments for those. In favor will then have those opposed? Speak next, any calling comments will be aired. For the board and audience. After this we'll close the public hearing. Once the public hearing is closed. The board will then conduct what is called a finding of fact. Where the board states, what they feel the facts are. The board will, must approve the finding of fact, therefore. When the board discusses the request in order to determine the ruling. It'll be for the finding of fact. We also reserve the privilege to ask questions of persons who are already, who have already spoken. Even after the public comment portion is closed. One discussion. Once discussion has ended, the board will move on to a roll call vote. A full board consists of six members. We only have five tonight. And it requires for to grant the non-use or use variance. Beth will you read again? Sure. All right. An application for a variance.

For pres an application for a variance for provisions of the zoning ordinance has been filed with the zoning board of appeals. Appeals by AB mark B. On behalf of the Larry J bill. Bell bell library foundation for 4 0 1 east Michigan avenue. Located in the downtown three district D three. The applicant is requesting a dimensional variance from chapter. 55.6 C. 4 24. To authorize three entrance doors on the street. Facing facade along north pitcher street. Where five entrance doors are required. Required, please note that this request will not change the zoning classification of the property. This is a request for variance only. Regarding the item described above. Well, the applicant, please step up through the podium and explain their request. Good evening. My name's Larry Bell. I'm president of the Larry J. Bell library foundation. And just quickly to let you know, the, the project. In front of you here is basically involves a renovation of, I think what we all. Generally refer to as the food dance building at 4 0 1 east Michigan. That's a remodel project for the purpose of display galleries. And then a new a new building that would be attached to that. For the purpose of a library archives, a small auditorium. And a bell tower. We have about I mean the library portion. There's probably 60,000 books that we have right now. That will go in here as well as. Large collections

of many other items. To be available. For researchers. Students and galleries to be open to the public. For display and my architect will tell you all the serious things about this. Thank you. Thank you. Good job. Good evening. My name's Michael Flynn. I'm an architect with elbow marsh architects, and we have the honor of working with. Larry Bell on this real exciting project. And what I wanted to first start with is in Pete. I don't know if I, how do I get to the floor plan? The, the overall site plan. If, if you just reduce the view that's on the screen. You'll you'll have the list of. Your PDFs. PDFs. Okay. That's if you, why should reduce that one as well? In the upper right hand corner. Yep. There we go. Okay. And that should, yeah, so it should be the second PDF there. There we go there. Okay. All right. Thank you. So if everybody can see that, just to explain the variants that were asking for is the floor plain. You can see, see. East Michigan here. That is the primary street. And then we have. North pitcher running along left to right on the sheet or on the west side of the building. And then east water street on this side. As is stated in the, the, the background for the application on the primary street, we meet the requirements for the number of, of doors and openings along here, but on the, the secondary street. What we have is the. We have a total of five entrances, but two of them don't face directly onto. The street they face into the courtyard. So this is

the existing building. Of the, what we call the four oh one building. That had the food dance building in it. We actually have the, the pleasure of the architect from that project with us tonight, too. We have a courtyard between the two buildings, the existing renovation. And then the new building here with the 200. Seat performance center and then the archive or research library here. Part of the nature of all three of the functionalities of the gallery. Which would be in the, the existing building, which is to be remodeled. The courtyard. And then also the performance hall in the library is they each from their. Sort of essence of their functionality require control points. Of access and control and security. So that's the primary reason why we have. One main new entrance here and we're keeping the existing entrances on the existing building. The other part, portion of that is we have a courtyard that we need to keep secured for. Access to the two buildings. If I can zoom in on that a little bit. I don't know if I. Can it looks like I can't. Can't the courtyard is here. We have existing entrance here to the north. And then we, we match that with another building facing south on the new building. So those are the. The, the two buildings that are. Near the front elevation, but face actually onto the courtyard, but they do have gateways. Gateways off of the street onto that area. Part of the reason for that is we do have a grade differential that we have to, to, to meet, to have those doors. Aligned there in the great differential from the existing building to the new building. You can see this in the front elevation here. The existing building there, the courtyard and the, the new buildings at that location. The variance that we're

asking for is for an reduction of two doors. And, but in working with. With Mr. Aldridge and staff, we were able to sort of minimize some of the other variances. Variances that we're requiring by adapting the design. And one of those adaptations is. The idea that with the form-based zoning code, that it. We understand that the intent of that is to have active streets, active entrances, and also adaptability. So what we have in the elevation, I don't know if you could see it better on your own screens. There there's opportunities for the building in the future. If the functions change. That more entrances could be added. I know that's not the purview of us at this point, but in the future, it's a future consideration that could be adapted to the therefore have additional entrances on the street. Facing north pitcher. Pete, did I miss anything? Pertinent to this. I think you covered it. Quite well. All right. Thank you. Which staff like to make any comments related to the request? Yeah, I'll just make a few. Quick comments here. You know, speaking to the review criteria and the special circumstances. As was mentioned, there are three street frontages. Frontages the primary street is east Michigan avenue. You know, given the, given the. Status of that in our. Our hierarchy of street types. So that makes north pitcher street a secondary frontage as well as water street, but there's still three street frontages. And. The requirement for one entrance, every 60 feet. Applies to all the street facing facades.

Facades. So you know, and the other sides. Comply water street and Michigan. But it's just north pitcher. Where, where, where, which is the long side of the lot, where we've got this. Street facing entrance door. Issue. We were trying to overcome. So you have the three street frontages. You have the unique nature. Of the building usage. Which the form standards are. Are intended to allow current uses. Uses and create a building or building envelope that can easily be adapted for other uses in the future. So that's, that's a big part of the form-based standards. Standards and that I, it was, goes to Mr. Flynn's point of you know, that there are. Alternative locations that doors could be put in. But, but what I wanted to focus on was the fact that there, you know, the north pitcher street size required to have three street facing entrances. Entrances the existing building, the former food dance. Has two doors. One is street facing. One is gonna be facing the future courtyard. And then the building edition. Addition that will have the archive library. And the concert hall. Will also have a door facing this courtyard. And then there will be a, a main entrance further down north pitcher street. With two forward facing doors. But the, the doors facing the courtyard. Are technically not street facing. So don't, can't be counted as meeting this requirement, even though there are these two additional doors. That are close to the north pitcher street frontage. So

with, with that being said, I, I don't have any other comments to. To mention, and we did not get any public feedback from the notices that were mailed out. So I'm available for any questions. Thank you. We'll now open the public hearing and invite those to speak in favor. Any against Pete is checking for calling comments. And we do we do not have any call-in comments for this request. Okay. Does the board have any. Further discussion. Can, can you restate Pete? Why there's three versus five doors? Like why does the PRI why are we doing that? I'm still not clear. So maybe they're can the microphone. So the requirement is. One street facing entrance. Each 60 feet for the STR for the facade facing the public street. Okay. Wait. There's. There's 1, 1, 1, 1 entrance facing the street per 60 feet of. Building frontage facing the street per 60 feet of frontage of, of building of, of

the building facade itself. So the longer your proposed building is the more. Entry doors you need. Build into the project. Right. There's not enough building for that requirement. And there is. Because of the utilizing the existing who dance food, dance building as we'll call it. And then they're adding onto to. With a connecting passageway and then building the new building in the current parking lot. So they're, it's almost like a horseshoe shape with a little courtyard in the middle. Sure. And that's where the other two doors are onto the courtyard versus. Facing towards pitcher street. Okay. And, and one of those two is an existing door. It was the primary entrance for food dance. Yep. Yep. We'll clear. Thank you. Mm-hmm . Any further discussion. Oh, the. Adversely affect the adjacent land. Where did you in the staff report? I'm not seeing that in here either. So if, yeah, I, I can comment on that as well. So the surrounding properties, the Y w C a facility that's across the street. Is an older building. And does not meet the form-based standard. So it does not have. Any entrance door facing towards pitcher street. So it, so it it's fine. Some of the, yeah, so the surrounding buildings. Buildings are their grandfather. They predate the form-based standards.

Standards. Okay. Okay, thank you. Not that that's a reason to. You know, to throw the farm-based standards out, but, but yeah, it's. It's it, this will not be out of character with what is adjacent to it. On the other side of north pitcher. Thank you. Anything else? Remi? No, I'm fine. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Can I get a motion for the finding of fact. All right. I moved at the finding of facts. 44 0 1 east Michigan avenue shall include all information and included in the notice of public hearing dated March 25th, 2026, and the agenda packet staff in the agenda packet staff provided for this request. 60 notices of public hearing were sent in zero responses were received. A public hearing was held before the board comments were accepted. As for additional documents and voice messages as follows, there were none. In addition to all the, in all the things that I've just mentioned, the finding of fact will also include the following the facts presented regarding circumstances or conditions of the property or structures that are special circumstances or conditions, not commonly found on the other lots or structures and

the same zone district that make this request. Unique. Are that Larry J. Bell, the Larry J. Bell library foundation is requesting a dimensional variance from chapter 50 dash 5.6 C 4 24 to authorize three entrance doors on the street facing facade along north Piter street were five entrance doors are required. Required. The three street. The three, three street front. Front frontages. Am I saying that correctly? Are aligned with the form-based are not aligned with the form-based standards, but they're easily adaptable for future use. This particular new development. Is going to have a courtyard. And this particular building, which is formally known as the food dance building. Is being reimagined. To have a courtyard and the forward facing frontage doors. There's gonna be add-ons to this particular building. And the building adaptations just do not. Align with they don't align. With the current ordinance and that's why the variance is necessary. The facts presented regarding whether the applicant is denied rights, enjoyed by other property owners in the same zone district. By the application of the ordinance, again, are the shifts in the form-based standards. Standards and this building. Has not been grandfathered in. Is that right? And so this variance is necessary, but I, is that an accurate statement? I, I would actually, I'm really glad you

put that in there because it's. It's you know, the, it is an older structure. That now has an, a building addition being, being attached to it that has to meet the current form-based standards. So, yeah, that was the best way I could say that. Okay. Is that so that's okay. All right. Cool. All right. The fax presented regarding whether they action or requested is the minimum action, which will make it possible for, excuse me, to use the. Lot or structure in a manner that does not negatively impact public the public. It means the spirit of the ordinance are. Are I guess the question of. The, you know, the three, I wrote that the three doors versus the five that are required. Required and I guess it's not negative. And. Again, this building is it's adjacent to the Y w C. A, that also is an older building. That does not, I'm not gonna say it the way you did. That the it is an older building. That also does not have doors that are facing. The food, the food, the Blair J. I wanna say his name, not the food dance building. The Larry J. Bell found library foundation building. And so it is not going to. Disrupt the spirit of the ordinance and adversely impact the Y w C a. I could say that differently or better? No. Is that fine? Okay. . All right. Moving forward. The facts presented regarding whether the granting of the variance will adversely affect adjacent land and material way. I just said that. Y w Y w C a does not meet the form-based standards. Standards. I just said that.

All right. And it is also grandfathered in the facts presented regarding. Whether the granting of the variance will generally be consistent with the purposes and intent of the ordinance are these variances will align with the spirit of the ordinance and creative development in our city that will expand. Just the enjoyability of this, of our town. From a major fixture and contributor of our community. And so it's aligned with the spirit in my mind. And so, yes. All right. That's that? Okay. That's the end. That's finding a fact. Can I get a second? I second, that final facts. All those in favor. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Can I get a motion? To approve the variance. I make a Mo I make a motion to approve the variance. For 4 0 1 east Michigan avenue. Can I get a second? I second. Any more discussion. I'll be voting for the variance. There's a building right across the street that. Has something similar to what Mr. Bell's requesting. So. That's why great. Yeah. I also agree me too. I think it's a cute idea. I think we all agree. Yeah, it's a good one.

okay. Can we get a roll call? Yes, you may. My apologies for that. McReynolds. Yes. Vanden Humberg. Yes. Work? Yes. Harrington. Yes. Han. Yes. There you go. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. And feel free to grab your yep. Your thumb drive. Thank you gentlemen. What an exciting thing to have in downtown Kalamazoo. Congratulations. Yeah. It's good. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. All right, bye. Yeah. What a gift? We were just making sure the. The median minutes were act, correct. As far as who was, who made the motion and who seconded the motion, so, okay. That was the sidebar. I do have one other item to mention tonight before we. Close things out and that is, we are working on a training. A joint training with the city of Portage zoning board of appeals members. Some of you might have been involved years ago. We, we did this. And this will again, be down at city Portage city of Portage city hall. Is where we're looking to hold it. They would like to do it. Monday May 18th at 7:00 PM. So, if you could check your calendars, what I'll do is I'll send out an email to everybody tomorrow and you can. Let me know if that's a good date or not. This is not set in stone. This is just the, the first. Iteration. We came up with. But, but yeah, so that would be Monday.

May 18th is what we're looking at. Okay. It would be 7:00 PM. Then we'll have refreshments and snacks. Snacks, but yeah, and, and this will be done. The trainer will be. Brought in by the Michigan association of planning. So it'd be one of their professional trainers that will go through. The zoning board of appeals, you know, essentially the zoning board of appeals basics, and kind of. You know, go over some situational understanding of how to handle various. Requests and hardships. So it, it was a really good training where we did it years ago and we just, we realized that we should be doing this more regularly. So anyways, more to come on that, but I just wanted to make that announcement. Thank you. Thank you. Have one more thing, Remi. Yeah. I was not trying to pit. You or Beth against one another. I think that the one thing that sticks in my mind was. When you were going to show up. And, you know, we waited around for like 30 minutes. And then you just didn't show, but Jack urban was watching on television. And he ended up showing up and filling in because we didn't have any extras. Extras. So that was, that was kind of a. Sticker for me. And I just sure we didn't have any. Feedback from you as to what happened? I think I did have communication with Pete and I had. An emergency. And so those things happen, unfortunately, mm-hmm and so. Again, like, I think that that's a valid. Concern. I think that that's valid. Again, but to pit me against Beth, like, well, Remy

has to come. She has to show up. I'd like for my attendance, to be, if you're going to call my attendance into question, I'd like the full compliment of information to be available to the public. Just in and, and again, do it in contrast to. You know everyone else on the board. Well, and moreover. Again, if there's an emergency, like that's one thing. But, you know, let's just, I don't, I don't get why, like, I think that like I said, I, I have an opinion just based on the way that. You raised the nomination. And I feel like that the bottom line, as it relates to me, it's like less about my attendance and more about what I represent on this board. Absolutely not. Okay. Well, thank you. Okay. Well, thank you for that clarifying point, but that's what it feels like because. You didn't bring up my attendance in contrast to, I did bring up attendance, everybody else's. Oh. And so that feels really interesting to me. And I just again, you know, this is a volunteer constituent board. I don't think that anyone can call into question. My contribution to our community. My love for Kalamazoo. It wasn't bother desire to be no, I just, I mean, so, so what I'm, what I'm saying is, is that when we're talking about people, and we're dealing with people and we're like respecting what they represent. Represent then there's under no condition. Would I ever, like we can have banter on this board. Like I mentioned, I enjoy being on this board and I don't agree with so many things that happen on this board. I don't agree with so many things that happen with city staff. There's so many things that I call into question

about how we run and operate here with the city of Kalam. Kalamazoo the hierarchies of human value and how that materializes in the quality of life for the constituents in this community. Yeah. But can we just, so what I'm talking about, what I'm talking about is that we're talking about representation on a constituent board. We're talking about the way that we're presenting ourselves to one another, and for you to frame me out like that. In the public domain and call me into question. Is problematic for me. And it puts me in a situation that makes me look like I'm being discredited. If you wanted to raise up someone else because of whatever your reason is, you didn't have to say anything against me in my contribution to this board. Because again, it is a volunteer constituent board and anything else that I do when I come that is gratis. Gratis. This is free. I'm not being paid for this. I'm doing this because I care about our community and I'm serving for free. And so that's why we have. Alternates to come. And if there's emergencies. Then we compensate for that because we're a community and that's it. There's nothing else. I'm not like, what are you trying to, what were you trying to say when you made that comment about me? Excuse me. I'm going to interject. Okay. At this juncture. Sure it seems to have gotten really negative, really fast. And a lot of big words being thrown around. And shade being thrown. At other people. And other side issues being brought. Into this situation. So I'm gonna suggest that we table this. And that for our next. Meeting. We have city staff. Have an attendance sheet. And have the data. And go from the, the, let the data, tell the story. Correct. I agree with that. And that's what I suggested. Okay. Meeting adjourned.