Zoning Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

Okay, all right, we'll get started. Look up the date, oh, 7-13. Good evening, I am calling to order the July, excuse me, August 13th meeting of the City of Kalamazoo Zoning Board of Appeals, a volunteer advisory board appointed by the city commission. Would staff please take the roll call?

And we've got Han. Here. Work. Here. Poehler. Here. Harrington. Present. McReynolds. Here. Sylvester.

Here. Excellent. So looking at the agenda, are there Are there any announcements or changes that need to be made?

No changes to the agenda, just one announcement. Attorney Bear is not with us tonight. He had some family stuff to attend to, but we talked in detail about this case and thought we could get by without any legal counsel. But I do have him on speed dial if needed.

I think we probably can get through it without him too. Excellent, so now we move on to approval of the minutes. Are we gonna need to vote for these separately?

Yes, and just a voice vote?

Yes, so let's start with the May 14th minutes. Wait a minute. Yes, sir.

Pack it in front of you, say May 14th.

Do I have May 14th? I meant the April. Well, it says May 14th on the agenda. What's the date of that again? April 9th. We're good. I think I'm good now. Remy's got the right date there. Yeah.

No, that's not the last meeting. So we had a little... No, I understand that.

I just read the wrong date. Otherwise, I think we're good. Okay. The April 9th minutes, thank you for at least catching that out to my attention. Obviously, when we're looking at the minutes, this is are they an adequate or an accurate summary of what occurred at the meeting. I will say before anybody else wants to say anything that I think that the revised minutes were based mostly on the submitted changes that I made to it after listening to the meeting itself that, no. Either way, they agree with what it was. They may not be the same, but what I'm getting at is I reviewed them today, I had looked at the meeting before, and I think that they are accurate to what occurred at the meeting. Having said that, did anybody else need to make any corrections or additions? Hearing none, can we take a vote on approving the minutes?

I move to approve the minutes.

Thank you. A second?

I second.

Thank you. You said voice vote. All those in favor of approving the minutes of the April 9th meeting, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, excellent, those are approved. Now, the July 9th is the correct date for the last meeting. Any corrections or discussion needed to the meeting minutes from July the 9th? These I didn't look at in quite as in-depth, I'll say that, but they looked accurate to me.

Yeah, I move to approve.

I second.

Thank you. Let's take a voice vote. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposition? None. Those are approved. Excellent.

All right.

So this is generally going to be the procedure for tonight's hearing. For each application, the secretary... Is that going to be you tonight, Remy? will read the request into the record. The applicant or the representative will have up to 10 minutes to present on that request. Please begin by stating your name and address at the podium, and please keep your remarks brief. Public comment will follow from that. Speakers at the podium will also sign in, give their name and address, and limit their remarks to three minutes. Those in favor speak first. Those opposed speak second. I don't think we're gonna have any of either of those tonight from the crowd. Calling comments will then be played. Callers may dial 888-382-9556 during the designated period. Remarks are live, not recorded. The public hearing will then close and the board will state and vote on a finding of fact. Please be aware this is not a decision on the request itself, just on the finding of fact. The board will say vote. Okay, and then after that, the board will deliberate and may ask follow-up questions of prior speakers. The board will then take a roll call vote to approve or deny the request. A full board is six members. Four affirmative votes are required to grant any variance. One, two, three, four. Do we have six? We got six. You only need four of us. Excellent. Whoever's playing secretary tonight, would you please read the application into the record?

Yeah, so an application for a variance for provisions of the zoning ordinance have been filed with the Zoning Board of Appeals by IMR Realty for 4423 West KL in the commercial community district CC-2. The applicant is requesting a variance from chapter 50-4.5 D3A3 to authorize a drive-up window in the front yard. window in the front yard, West Michigan Avenue frontage, where drive-throughs in the CC-2 district are only permitted in the side and rear yards. Please note that this request will not change the zoning classification of the property. This is a request for variance only regarding the terms described above. Excuse me. All right.

Thank you. Would the applicant or the representative come forward, sign it, although I think you might have already signed in. Just state your name and you can go ahead and present your request.

Good evening. My name is Marcia Rasheed. So as stated, I am seeking variance for the property at 4423 West KL Avenue. Currently, the current state of the property, the west side of the building or property is very restricted. So we are looking to add a drive-through window on the southwest side of the building. Currently, it would be for a laundromat, and so we are looking to provide a quick service, so that is why we're looking to do the drive-through window. I do know that notices were posted on July 27th in the Kalamazoo Gazette, as well as the communication to the nearby properties. So with the variance, this would allow us to route cars through. I think each of you have the diagrams there, but we would allow guests to come through, drop off, or pick up their laundry, and then keep going. So it would be probably at most a three-car stack, but there's plenty of room on the southwest side of the building.

Okay.

And then as stated on the adjacent side, the west side, there is no room. So that is why we're seeking it at the current location.

Excellent.

Thank you.

If you're done, you can sit down again. You don't have to stand there the whole time. You're fine. Thank you. All right. Does staff have any comments they wish to make about the request?

I do have a few comments to make about the request. And in this case, as you've seen, staff is showing support for the requested variance. In particular, looking at the history of this property and the positioning of the building, which is quite close to the west property line. I was trying to uncover as much as I could. It looks like this at one point was a gas station, so the convenience store portion was the north-south portion of the building along the west property line, and then that the more narrowed portion of the property to the east was where the gas pumps were. Then when those went away at a later date, the addition was put on the building that extended to the east, which is now where the tattoo shop is. That's the second tenant space. So the first practical difficulty or hardship identified was the positioning of the building. And the reason that that creates a difficulty here is that in the CC2 zone district drive-throughs are not permitted, excuse me, drive-throughs are permitted in the rear yard and side yard if properly screened, but not the front yard. And because this site has frontage on two public streets and then the building is roughly four to five feet off that west property line, there's really no side or rear yard area to put a drive up window or drive through lane in. So the positioning of the building and the fact that the property is a double frontage lot creates some difficulty here. I do want to comment that I did measure that lane behind the building and it was like 14 and a half feet from the corner of the building to the curb. adjacent to where the sidewalk is. So there's ample space for a one-way drive to come through there. And then, of course, as you go to the west, the property widens out, so there's room to put some screening in as well from Michigan Avenue. And speaking of Michigan Avenue, which is a very low traffic street, so if you're going to put a drive up window or drive through in a front yard, placing it on what is still deemed a public street, but not very heavily used because it dead ends at the railroad tracks, that would be the right side of the building to put this window on. Other comments, let me just take a step back here. There's a parking layout that's shown and I just want to mention that that parking layout is in concept only. This project will still need to go through site plan review and make sure that traffic circulation meets everything and that there's the ability to get a fire truck onto the premises. So that's the next step after this meeting if this project continues forward would be you know, to finalize plans and go to the site plan review. Other than that, I think I have covered all the bases. I did mention the screening. Yeah, so when this goes to site plan review, we would look at some sort of landscaping between the drive up lane to the window and that south property line along West Michigan Avenue. So that would be addressed at that point in time. So I don't have any other comments at this point. As I mentioned, staff is supportive of this because of the unique circumstances here. And I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. I will open the public hearing portion. Those in favor in the crowd who wish to come up and speak in favor of the request may do so. Seeing none, hearing none. Any opposition speakers? Seeing none, hearing none. Are there any call-in comments?

And I'm checking right now to see if we have any call-in comments. We have no call in comments for this request.

Excellent. Seeing no further comments, I close the public hearing on this request. Does the board need additional discussion before the finding effect? We can discuss the proposal substantively, I suppose, in a bit. But does anybody need any more information to go into the finding effect? I don't. Who's doing the finding effect? I guess that's you.

I move for the finding of the facts for 4423 West KL Avenue shall include all information including in the notice of public hearing dated July the 27th, 2026 and the agenda packet staff provided for this request. There was no public responses, along with the no public call-ins at the moment. Some of the things that we had addressed, oh, yeah, it was 17 notice of public hearing was sent and zero responses. Let me get that correct. And then the other part of it, the position of the property was, you know, before they had it. And then it's a double lot. So, you know, that's some of the issues here where the drive-thrus don't go through. And I don't know if there's anything else. Is there anything else?

Well, just that, yeah, it's a double frontage lot because it has frontage on two public streets. Excellent, thank you.

I think that's good.

I think, I don't think it was anything else.

Nope, I think it's good.

I support.

Thank you. There was the finding of fact motion. Gary made the second. Do we need to discuss that or can we just vote in favor or not? I think we can vote. Is this a roll call or a voice vote? Voice vote. You'd think after all this time I'd remember this. I'm going to write these down. Voice vote. And update my notes. All those in favor of adopting that as the finding of fact, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposition? None. That is your finding of fact. Now we need a motion on the variance request itself.

I move to approve ZBA 2608-124423 West Kalamazoo, West KL Avenue.

Excellent. Is there a second? Excellent. Thank you. So then now we can discuss it. There's probably really not a whole lot to discuss because I think that the staff report essentially gets it right. And if Pete had not mentioned the double frontage aspect explicitly, I was going to basically ask, hey, this has got two front yards, right? So we need to pick where's the side. It's actually got two front yards out of three sides. And we need to pick a side yard in there. Similar to other requests we've made that's ultimately what it to this comes down to me But anyway, I didn't disagree with anything in the staff report and that seems like a better place to put a drive-through than them asking us to put it on the I Cannot think I'm blanking. Oh Yeah, on the other side of the road Yeah, the West KL front end. Yes, the West KL. I was blanking on the name of the street. Yes, putting it on the, it's a, when I was like, West Michigan, what is over there? And then I start looking at, oh, it's that like dead end spot where the train tracks just slice us straight through it. Yes, that, the request is perfectly fine and I think the staff report gets it right. I don't need to say anything else. Oh, I probably said too much.

I support.

Excellent.

Yeah, and I don't think you said too much.

Does anybody wanna take an opposite position or I'm amplifying anything? No. It seems like we can just take the roll call vote then.

And we'll start with Han. Yes. Warwick. Yes. Fuller. Yes. Harrington. Yes. McReynolds. Yes. Sylvester.

Yes. I believe that's six nothing. The request is approved.

It's a good idea.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I'd say we proceed to the next agenda item, which we definitely can do because that would be the end of our agenda.

Still time to get those boys back into football practice.

Excellent. Thank you. We need many more, like, many more easy meetings. No more about, like, no more about signage.

It feels so easy. I was like, is there more?

Yep. No, you might have redone them, but when I looked at my notes, I'm like, they are... I looked at the meeting minutes. I'm like, those jive with what I had, like, called from that meeting. And I'm glad. Good. Oh, we're adjourned. Here, do you want me to make it official?

Make it official.

Excellent. Nice.