Zoning Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

All right. And we've got an agenda in front of us. Do we have any changes to the agenda? No changes to the agenda. All right. Um, can I get a motion to approve set agenda? So move. Motion by second. Second. All right. All in favor? I opposed. Excellent. Um, we have the minutes from last time. Uh, I'm sure there's some notes about that meeting. Where are all the people tonight? Um, any changes or anybody see anything with the minutes they want to address.

Sure. We got the full list of everyone who spoke last week. I'm sure it's fine. All right. In that case, can we get a motion to approve said minutes? Move. Motion and second. Seconded. All in favor? I. Motion approved. Minutes are set. Any communications and announcements? Look way update about the safe streets for all.

Yep, that is correct. Uh joining us um this evening to give us an update. Um sounds like things are rounding the corner on the safe streets for all initiative. Uh community planner Nolan Bergstrom uh is here. You probably remember him from the recent training between the NFP, the ZBA, and the planning commission. So, Nolan's got a presentation on the work that's been going on with that and the uh um final plan that's coming forward. I'll let Nolan take it from there. Thank you. Welcome, Nolan. Just as a reminder, you have three minutes and then your micro I'm kidding. Nice. Keep me on my toes. That's right.

All right, we'll get this hooked up and presenting here. All right, everybody can hear me. Okay. All right. Well, thank you planning commissioners for uh having me here at tonight's meeting. I'm just going to give some pretty broad updates uh on our safe streets for all safety action plan uh and what it is and um what we're going to be using it for. Um I did meet some of you at the most recent board training we had. Um, if you don't know, part of my role is the NFP board liaison, but the other part is pretty heavy into transportation projects here at the city. Work a lot with our public services team. So, myself and uh our former traffic engineer, now public services division manager, Dennis Randolph, have been the two city staff connected to this project the most uh and working with our consultant teams to get it across the finish line. So, let's jump in. So, I'm going to start just first very broadly with what Safe Streets for All is. It's usually called SS4A. That's what we usually shorten it to. It's kind of a mouthful to say. It's also uh fortunate unfortunate. It shares that uh tagline very closely with our streets for all initiative, which is all the downtown related street conversion work. But it's all good. Um we we got we had it first, but we won't dive into that tonight. Um but what is it overall? What's the program? So back in 2023, the city had applied for um a planning and demonstration grant with the federal government. Um so this was funding that was brought forward by the Biden administration at the time um through IIGJ. Uh, and this is pretty much um safetydriven work. Um, and the end goal for the planning and demonstration grants is to have this safety action

plan for the city of Kazoo. And I'll jump into what the components of that plan are. We have a lot of plans at the city, a lot of plans and policies. Um, but this one really serves a a very dedicated purpose for us. Um, so that's one aspect of the program. It's the planning and demonstration grant part. The other part is implementation grant dollars, which come after you develop a safety action plan for your community. Um, and the focus of it all really is on what's called a vulnerable roadway user. Um, and the safety projects to help enhance our transportation network for vulnerable roadway users. For this type of work, a vulnerable roadway user is basically anyone outside of a motor vehicle. So, um, every type of pedestrian, anyone on a bike, anyone rolling, just anybody, you know, outside of the motor vehicle. Okay. What's the elements of this plan of a typical safety action plan? Well, one, um, there's a couple components, right? There's upgrades to uh intersections, safety upgrades. There's an overall pedestrian safety improvement plan, which also involves bus stops and bus stop enhancements. There's a sidewalk safety component. There's also a lighting safety component. All of these kind of coales. They're basically their own chapters or sections of the safety action plan. And altogether, that's what makes it, you know, what it is. Um so you'll see um how our consultant team worked on identifying and developing these different uh sections of the plan and just generally what those are going to entail for us.

Um what did this look like kind of structure-wise? There's a lot of moving pieces in terms of who the project team was. So there was the city of Kalamazoo obviously kind of the one that applied for the grant was awarded the grant and is now tasked with you know implementing these grant dollars and developing the safety action plan nested under that we have two primary consultants. We have Alta planning and design who were working on just the overall building the whole plan in its entirety. They also were working on the intersection upgrade portion and the pedestrian safety portions. Then we had AECOM, other consultant working on sidewalk safety, lighting, and bus stops. So, it's kind of fun at first because we had these two consultant teams. We had some subconultants that worked with were working with them for different components of the plan. and Dennis and I were basically tasked with like, all right, I guess we got to kind of wrangle them and get them to play nice with each other in the sandbox. Um, and then the safety task force uh was basically a small group that met uh three or four times during this entire process that comprised um of some different community groups. Um so we had a in invited different community leaders or groups to these um to this task force. So, we had a couple um neighborhood association board members or directors involved. We invited Open Roads um mode shift and we also had reached out to Dignity in Motion, Judy Lowry, if you've uh heard of Judy and the work she's doing. So, they were kind of a echo chamber for the community and for the consultant team um during the process. So alto together that's the kind of tree of the project team. Um what's the basis of the action plan? Um the basis of the action plan is this

um new approach to transportation engineering and safety and design. Uh it's called the safe system approach. If any of you are familiar with Vision Zero, which has been around for kind of a long time and has its roots in uh Europe, but basically Vision Zero was that lofty goal of just completely eliminating um fatal crashes and serious injuries on our transportation networks. Um that's still the goal ultimately, right, of this work. But the safe system approach also is a little unique in the sense that it acknowledges um how vulnerable humans are and basically the human body right there's only so much um just physics wise that the human body can take in terms of force right and um one of the key components of a lot of these safety projects for transportation is speed. speed is really the number one factor that you know makes us vulnerable when it comes to fatal or serious crashes. Um so this is an approach that really tries to acknowledge hey humans are vulnerable. Um a lot of these factors that lead to fatal or serious crashes make us vulnerable as well. Um and then also acknowledging that humans make mistakes. Um none of us are infallible. We all make mistakes. Sometimes we make mistakes or accidents happen while we're behind the wheel of a vehicle um or a pedestrian or using our transportation network and that can cause um you know those crashes as well. Uh and it looks at promoting systemwide changes and also being proactive. So, um, no longer are we just waiting for, you know, someone to actually die on our transportation network or an intersection or along a a roadway before we make changes. If we know we could

make changes proactively, we want to do that. So, that kind of encompasses the safe system approach. Um, why does this plan matter just in the grand scheme of things for um the city? Uh well, safety for our transportation projects is a a big priority. It's a shared priority. Um specifically when we think about our planning teams and our um public services teams, uh we work a lot in tandem like I mentioned and safety with these projects is the key component. Um the other uh reason we wanted to implement this plan or create this plan was to really prioritize our higher crash corridors and also look at areas in our neighborhoods where we can prioritize projects. Um and the bigger piece of the puzzle too is that this is something that is required to basically unlock future federal funding related to these projects. So, a lot of the pilot projects that you've seen around town were a part of these, you know, planning and demonstration grant dollars that we had. So, that was where you saw like out on Rose Street, even right by Bronson Park, you saw different paint in the street for a midblock crossing. It didn't have any curb, but there were the flexible delineators or ballards there that have the reflectors on them. That's a demonstration project for SS4A. Um, now with the the next step, getting the plan adopted and then being able to go after and chase some of those funds, it allows us to to basically unlock that pool of money to try to implement more permanent changes when we don't really have, you know, in our local dollars, you know, very little of our local money um, actually pays for this type of work. So, that's why these types of initiatives help us go after state or federal funding to do this uh, in the future.

Uh and then some statistics. Uh and these are 2023 values. So I haven't looked at 20 2024 or so far 2025. But Kalamazoo as a whole kind of when you compare it to the uh fatal crashes in the rest of the state. We had about 2.8% of the fatal crashes uh here within the city. We had 1,218 injuries from crashes in 2023. Uh and of course with all this the most vulnerable or high highest risk users of our network are everybody that is walking or biking or anyone's that's a vulnerable roadway user. So all of that to say this this is really focused on that element. Um so again what does it mean for Kazoo as a whole? You know, the hope with a lot of these safety projects is a better and more improved quality of life for everybody. When you account for the lowest common denominator um or in this case like designing our networks um for the safety of our most at risk populations, it should benefit everybody, right? Um should be that um trickle effect. Uh and then being able to prioritize um our neighborhoods and areas within the city with the greatest safety needs. Uh, and then also hope hopefully having economic and community benefits like being able to better support local businesses and um some of our commercial corridors outside the downtown in our neighborhoods if they're more walkable and pedestrian friendly. Um, you know, gets more people to those businesses um allowing for better access. And then I like to use this um this chart about who has the greatest power and who has the greatest responsibility. Maybe it's a little bit of a cliche. I'm not trying to be, you know, Uncle Ben from Spider-Man, but um if you are driving in a vehicle, right, you do have a lot of responsibility.

It's not necessarily by right that you are able to purchase or operate that motor vehicle, but you do have the ability um well, not everyone has the ability, but movement in general through this, you know, the world is something that uh people should be able to do safely. Okay. Okay. And so what are some of the funding and fiscal impacts? I talked about that a little bit, but it helps us unlock, you know, federal and state grants. Um, also helps us leverage whatever local dollars we do do have or might have that can act as match funds for state or federal grants because often those larger grants require some type of local match. You know, sometimes that comes from FFE, Foundation for Excellence dollars, sometimes other sources. um hopefully integrating safety more um you know uh from a higher level in all of our current projects. Um it says for cost efficiency, but generally you know as a practice we've also just been looking at every project we have through that safety lens. Um and then looking at different ways to approach projects. So, we've done a lot of pilot projects um in the community, but you know, can we lean on those quick build projects and be tactical about how we deploy them and then be able to help bridge the gap to the more firm, you know, hard infrastructure changes later. Again, trying to be proactive. Um and then you know looking ahead to once the plan's adopted you know what what are we going to do to help support it over the long term. Um again adopting the plan itself is a form of support being able to unlock all that funding and showing that commitment. Um and then it really is going to lean on um city staff and then you know residents in the community. We're try to stay engaged.

The plan itself does talk about like gaps with education. Um, which is something that we've known for quite a while. We do need to do a lot more education type work just to let people know more about what we're doing and what things are. A lot of people know what speed humps are, speed bumps are, or even maybe a road diet at this point, but there's a lot of other tools in the tool chest um for these safety projects that aren't necessarily brand new, but they might be new here. And so trying to get people more involved in understanding what these things are, what they aren't. Um, okay. Real quick, I want to talk just a bit about existing policies and plan alignment because that was a key um aspect to developing the plan. We asked the consultant team to really look at a lot of what we have already, make sure that's integrated into the plan itself. So of course the master plan and also considering you know we are working towards the update to the master plan with 2035 um looking at that vision zero commitment integrating our current complete streets policy which in and of itself kind of needs its own update. Um we do have a non-motorized transportation plan uh last adopted in 1999 and there was an update in 2015 so it's also in need of an update. um but reviewing that and trying to incorporate some elements from there. We also have our sustainability plan incorporating some transportation elements from there. Of course, we have our neighborhood plans which are reviewed and touched on and then some of our regional transportation plans with the Kazoo area transportation study. Um and then of course with Metro of with the bus stop work. Um what were some of the takeaways from looking at and aligning this work with

what exists already? Um just looking at the that overarching um idea that safety is going to be a shared responsibility. We're all going to have to share that within the city, each department. We're really going to have to keep that in focus. Um continue to look at how equity drives the prioritization for investments. um looking at how our the data we have can help inform decisions but also looking at how community voices can help shape our priorities. Um so really a qualitative quantitative um balancing act speed management is going to be critical for reducing um severe crash um severe crashes and serious injuries in the city. That that's going back to that humans are vulnerable. Um so even 5 mph reduction on a roadway overall for an average speed can really really help um reduce those numbers. Um looking at layered strategies. So engineering isn't doing it alone. Enforcement's not doing it alone. Policies and plans and programs aren't doing it alone. We have to really look at it from a systemwide perspective. Uh and then right still looking at how we can use quick builds um type projects to be tactical and do things sooner without having just you know all the funding secured for more permanent changes and then just keeping ourselves ready for funding. Um try to you know channel my inner Dennis here but he's always you know we've done a lot of chasing of the funding that's available. We've had a lot of unprecedented funding that's helped enable us to do a lot of this work that we wouldn't be able to do otherwise. So for that we're very fortunate and we're trying to keep ourselves ready. Um transitioning a little bit into the engagement piece. Um it's kind of interesting. Transportation is a very

political topic um in the city. So it does get a lot of engagement. Um during this process we had um over a thousand residents who participated over two phases of engagement. We used a couple different methods. We used an online mapping tool which had a lot of engagement as well that had some social elements to it where people could comment on what people were mapping. So that was really um quite interesting. We also brought the consultants to um a community event over the summer during National Bike Month. Um so that kind of engagement helped us um you know shape the priorities, shape some of the um feedback that we were getting or not the feedback but shaping the plan itself. Uh and then again leaning on that qualitative and quantitative approach. Um, I find it interesting, but a lot of times with this type of work, um, I don't spend as much time online anymore. But if you look at some of the comments, um, and feedback that we do get, sometimes people say, well, I really want you to focus on how long I've lived here. I've lived on this street for 40 years. You know, please take what I'm saying seriously. And the other part is what about the data? What data are you using? you should be, you know, justifying decisions based on data. And when we do one or the other, we get the opposite effect of if we use data, people don't trust us with the data that we're using a lot of the times and they tell us that we should focus on their lived experience. If we focus on lived experience, we'll get people who say you really should be justifying your decisions on safety related matters based on your professional expertise and the data that you're finding and using. Uh so that's why it's hard to sometimes balance what the priorities are. So you know integrating both is really um I think the best approach to do it. Um phase one

was a lot of listening and learning and phase two was the validating and refining. What happened in between was a lot of the data analysis portion. So um we did a citywide survey like a classic survey and the online map for phase one. They did the data analysis. They the consultants did the data analysis. We came back did some similar activities to kind of look at the draft plan confirm some focus areas and help you know see if there's any correlations between what the data is saying and what people are saying. Um so very interesting approach. Uh and then we had the safety task force again to kind of help guide with some of that local expertise doing some collaborative review. Um and then just helping um at least the consultants who aren't always in the community and even staff who aren't, you know, do not have the capacity to be everywhere all the time, but again can kind of help be an echo chamber for what they might be hearing in their own uh neck of Kazoo. So key findings, this is the the meat, right? Meat and potatoes. Um so couple different things like I mentioned the plan's got different sections um intersections, bus stops, lighting, sidewalks and then for the pedest pedestrian safety portion um the consultants did a pedestrian a pedestrian safety study looking at low stress and high stress corridors. Now, uh, on the one hand, they were able to determine that 74%, so about threequarters, uh, of the streets in the city could be deemed as low stress, but we do have a lot of high stress, uh, corridors that are isolated or run through significant portions of some of our neighborhoods. So you think of Park in West Edge, you think of Kalazoo A and Michigan AB, you

think of West Main Street, Stadium Drive, uh even things like Oakland Drive, Kilgore, right? Um intersections, they looked at a lot of intersections. Um at the end of it, um we had 50, um intersection list, but we also had five high priority intersections that had detailed cut sheets. And you'll see some of that um in a second. But uh and actually the there were a couple or there were also some community identified uh intersections. So West Main and Drake Stadium and Howard, Michigan and Rose, Riverview and Gull and Portage and Lovers Lane. Uh and then for the five that were given detailed treatments, it was West Michigan Avenue and South Howard Street, which is over by campus. Um it was Gull Road and Riverview Drive which is um a a key one. We had East Michigan Avenue and Amvets Memorial Parkway on the east end of town. Um Kilgore Road and Lovers Lane was another big one uh that was identified as a a real high priority. um particularly probably more pressure on that one just given that we're doing the road diet soon on um a small portion of Lover Lovers Lane, Cork Street and Portage Street. So that'll probably be another key area. And then West Main Street and Piccadilly Road. So um those were the the five kind of big ones. Um then there was also just an overall um look at the bus stops in the city. So, this was a lot of coordination with Kamazoo Metro. Um, really determined that we have a lot of bus stops that lack safe crossing points, that lack shelters, and lack some ADA boarding areas. So, there's going to be a lot of work that's going to have to go into this to make our bus system look and feel the way we want it to feel. And

that's going to be a lot of partnerships with Metro in the long term. We do partner with them a lot already, but how can we maybe find ways to leverage this document to go after that funding that maybe Metro and us as the city don't have and we can partner and then really go for more funding to beef up our bus stop network. Um lighting um kind of interesting we had on those same high crash corridors there did seem to be um inadequate lighting conditions. um that that again will be another partnership that we'll have to you know work very closely with consumers energy to understand how we can improve that over time. And then we looked at sidewalks uh particularly sidewalk gaps. So, um, this was both a good and bad thing in the case that we have a lot of our sidewalks mapped, but we don't have a lot of condition data on, you know, that sidewalk's good, that sidewalk is very bad. Um, and so what the consultants did was pivot and really look at the areas where there's gaps in our sidewalk sidewalk network. Um we'll have to do future work probably to fully map out all the condition of our sidewalk network that exists. Um but uh that'll be for something beyond this plan. So the plan really focused on those gaps especially near transit or schools. Um, so again, kind of zooming into intersections in particular, some common issues that were found, high turning speeds by vehicles, visibility challenges at the intersection itself, and then some complex signal phasing for some intersections. Uh, and then there were several high-risk intersections that over overlapped with deficiencies with bus stops and lighting. So that we

did look at like where some of this overlaps. Um, there was also this dual index scoring that the consultants used where they looked at all the crashes and pedestrian crash indices to identify what those high priority intersections were um to try and help us say like, "Yeah, we got to hit these ones first." Um, so instead of like, you know, shooting the arrow at um a giant wall and just hoping it kind of hits the center. This plan is hopefully going to help us shrink the wall down to the target size we need it and just really get precision on these are the intersections we need to really focus on. Um sidewalks, I talked about that, right? Um being able to look at the gaps um and look at um where we might have um that pedestrian level of stress value where it's high gaps in the sidewalk network. And we can also look at crash data to help correlate lighting again. Um, looking at crashes from uh intersections and some corridors on the map, you'll kind of notice uh the section of 94 that cuts through the city is also listed on there as a high uh priority area for better lighting. Um 94 is also kind of its own animal, so that's something we're going to have to think about. But we also have like Drake Road, right? some sections of Drake Road that need lighting improvements. There's the other uh section of Howard um that's sort of east of Stadium Drive as you head towards the schools, the Monasuri School and the middle school, the Y down towards cross town. So, this is going to help us again where do we really need to focus, what intersections and what corridors. Um, I think there's also some information about

uh what type of lighting exists already and if we've seen crashes in unlit conditions. Uh, and then um bus stop prioritization there, you know, um, number, you know, there was some weighted metrics here and scoring to help us understand how to prioritize. Um, so you can see here the table shows ridership activity, fatal and serious injury vehicle crashes, uh, bike and pedestrian crashes, etc., right? To help us, um, weight the scores and get that prioritization. Um, one of the things that was kind of shocking was that um, for bike and pedestrian crashes, we were seeing about 62% uh, of those within 250 ft of a bus stop. So, you know, we really want to be able to prioritize these safety changes for again our most at risk users, right? People who are using our non-motorized network or transit, not in a motor vehicle. So, we really want to and I think that really emphasizes it too. So, what about recommendations that have come out of this work? Uh like I mentioned for intersections we have an intersection countermeasure toolbox. The toolbox is basically an appendicy of here are all the tools available to maybe utilize at some of these intersections for the five um priority intersections I mentioned earlier. We've got the cut sheets. So this is West Main Street and Piccadilly. This isn't like a final design, but this is like, hey, this is how you could reinvision this intersection to be more pedestrian friendly and safe. Um, it also gives us cost estimates, which are good and bad. They're kind of a snapshot in time because those fluctuate quite a bit, but it does give us a starting point to say,

well, this is maybe going to cost this much. um sidewalks, we've got our recommended uh project list and we also have um those mapped out. Again, this is looking at gaps in the sidewalk network um as you know present present day lighting. You'll see this um this map uh on the screen and you'll see this sort of by it's called by variate uh key um that they used. That's those different color squares. Uh, and that's basically looking or comparing, you know, different variables to see where there's overlap between the two. So the red is kind of indicating high values of overlap. So basically both are kind of overlapping. So um, in this case it's the worst intersections, total crashes, street light frequency, and then worst segments, you're looking at total crashes in the street light frequency. So, um trying to understand um to the best of our ability how we, you know, what intersections need the lighting the most, what are the corridors that need those light lighting enhancements the most. And then bus stops. Uh again, we have that focus um location list and those are also mapped out to show um you know, unsurprisingly with bus stops, a lot of the biggest ridership we have are on some of the the really big routes. So you think of like um West Engine Park, you know, you'll see it dotted all the way from downtown in the Vine all the way south. It's just a very there's a lot of ridership on those routes, which is why it's kind of peppered around uh along those two big streets.

Uh and then just overview of plan recommendations for just a lot of our hard infrastructure in general. So, you know, continuing to add things like curb extensions and high visibility crosswalks. um looking at our pedestrian signals and doing leading pedestrian intervals and adding um median refuge islands. So with the road diet projects as an example, those will take four lane roads and bring them to three lanes with, you know, one lane in each direction, center turn lane, they'll also include a lot of safety improvements like those median uh midblock crossings and those will actually be hard curbed, right? uh and have the um most likely some push button like rapid rectangular flashing beacons, the ones that you push the button and it flashes at you. We've also been looking at technology like illuminating pedestrians at night that when they push the button at night, LED shines on them or on the on the street where they're going to cross and it makes them highly visible. Um so things like that. again, upgrading fixtures and the spacing of our lighting on those top 10 high crash corridors. Looking at our sidewalk uh gaps on some of our priority um like priority um segments of street or especially intersections. Um, we've done a lot of that type of work like on Whites Road and Park the Avenue, taken some of those weird pork chops out of the the intersections and added actual, you know, proper ADA ramps and and better uh crossing situations. um adding those ADA uh pads and and um upgrading bus shelters and having crosswalks near some of those priority bus shelters maybe paired with things like median um or pedestrian refuge islands and then continuing to look at

how we can lean on those quick build uh opportunities. It is a really good way, you know, if we keep leaning on those and beefing up our education with um residents. The hope is they get more familiar with some of those before they're more permanent. We're also able to adjust them a bit more. So, we can think about kind of in real time like that needs to be adjusted, we can adjust it. Oh, these needs to the radius of that needs to change. We can do that versus permanent infrastructure. It's permanent, right? We don't want to put curb in and then take it out. So, um it is really good for us. We can um not experiment really, but like understand the implications of minute changes in those projects before we go to permanent installation. Uh the recommendations related to policies and programs and partnerships. So continuing to integrate that safe system approach and building in those um you know smart metrics into our capital project program. So our capital improvement program um developing safety performance reports. That's something that goes towards that educational aspect. Um expanding safe routes to school opportunities and community safety programming. um pursuing those SS4A implementation dollars like I mentioned maintaining cross departmental coordination um can be difficult but we also um are doing a much better job I believe than we were in years past and we're also still very close with partners that we will need to be close with to do this work. Uh and then continuing to build on long-term relationships and partnerships with, you know, neighborhoods, nonprofits, and town and institutions um to help us with

outreach. Um we do try our best to um do a multifaceted approach with outreach. Um it is very difficult to do and um as many of you might know. So it's a continuing process. Um lots of trying things and seeing how it works. um and seeing what resonates with people and then the implementation roadmap how this kind of looks overall you know it is very cyclical and these bubbles have bubbles have bubbles have bubbles right there's lots of layers to this but in a very simplified approach leaning you know having um these quick build projects leaning into leaning that into capital investments monitoring the performance of these projects. Um, continuing to have that funding strategy, lean in our community partnerships, and continue to coordinate with each other. All of these pieces are going to be needed. You take one out and it's almost, you know, you're taking like a, you know, imagine if your uh bike had square wheels. It's going to be kind of a bumpy ride. So yeah, just overall again um it's been two or three years. I think the um the actual implementation or planning dollar grant was accepted in 2022 kind of um I think the RFP and everything went out in 23. We started in earnest in 24 and here we are at the end of 25 kind of you know almost with this complete package. Um this is kind of one of the stops. We did a presentation earlier today with Kazaria transportation study folks. We'll have this today and then the the next step will be you know looking to city commission um to uh discuss this

and hopefully adopt it. But it's been a lot of work um to uh to their credit, Alta and ACOM did play well with each other in the sandbox. uh you know Dennis and I were the parents on the edge of the playground just kind of like all right uh you guys are going to play nice what they did and I think the product uh is really good and they also mentioned that they have had one of the more positive experiences doing this work with us. So, um, for what it's worth, you know, hopefully they'll maybe I'll see them, you know, in the community peeking around a tree or something, watching us install a pilot project or, you know, but it's been a good experience and, uh, I appreciate you guys listening and hearing more about the project. Um, didn't know if there was any questions, Mr. Chairman.

Yeah. Any questions? Yeah, two quick ones. Nolan, thank you so much. Absolutely worthwhile goal. Uh I have a perfect evening to bring up ice and snow. So two questions. One, does uh ice and snow removal and key corridors especially and anecdotally tonight any of us can go out there and watch people walking right in the middle of streets as sidewalks do not get the attention for snow removal and ice removal. People go to where it's safer walk where they have traction. So, number one, how much does ice and snow removal in pedestrian corridors come up as part of your uh um conversations?

Yeah, I'd say it doesn't come up in July. I got now, but tonight Yeah. So, uh I haven't been as involved in the past with some of the the work that's been done with sidewalk uh snow removal on sidewalks. We've done a pilot project where we worked with um Bloomberg to identify some key corridors and then city staff would go out to those corridors and try to keep them clear. Sure.

Um right now I know a lot of people are probably feeling um like, hey, my side street or my neighborhood street is still, you know, kind of full of full of snow. I think the timing uh for this snowstorm was not the best with it being Thanksgiving. there was some of that like vehicles and equipment needed to re be retoled away from

picking up leaves to now plowing snow and staff are away for a holiday. So, we'll I think we'll continue to monitor um how that how that um what the needs are over this winter season. Uh I don't know the status of the pilot program if we're continuing to do it. So, that's something that have to ask about. But, yeah, that is an important piece. We don't want people walking in the roadway during the winter time. We want to have those clear sideways.

And yet, of course, they do. We all know this anecdotally. So, one quick follow-up question is, do we have data? Is there any spike? It's one thing if people are walking in the streets because the sidewalks are impassible. It's another thing if they get hit by a vehicle. Do we have any data on any spikes during the snow ice season, which is can be long and unpredictable, granted, But do we have any data on is there any spike in people getting hit? I don't know off the top of my head what the numbers are. We do have da d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d da available though. So we have access to the state of Michigan's um police reporting system. Right now the limitation is these are only for incidences that get reported sure

by an officer who may or may not be on scene at the time of an event. But what we do get from those reports are things like the narrative for any type of crash or incident. We get uh a graphical representation of where vehicles were in relation to potentially a a pedestrian or another vehicle. And we get conditions like was the road wet, was it dry, what time of day, was it unlit, was it lit, what's the speed limit, number of lanes. There's a lot of data points that go into that. So

yeah, I don't want to take up too much time with this. It's this one's dear to my heart and I'm a snow removal guy and some communities do this very well. I don't think we do a very good job at all. So, especially we see early in the morning, we see kids out in the middle of the streets in the winter because the sidewalks aren't passable. Uh the worst thing for me is to see an one of our elderly citizens struggling on a some of our uh ice and snow formations migrating then into some of our main corridors uh in the street. But again, most important to me is so whether that results in an injury. It seems like we'd want to have that seasonal data.

Yeah, it's something we can definitely get. Okay. Thanks. And the consultants may have uh had that data. I just haven't looked at. Okay. All of our uh appendices with the data tables themselves. But and I have a perfect night to bring that up. Thank you. That is a good night to bring up. Yeah. Tacking on to the data question. Uh I think it was around like 1,200 crashes it said in Kazoo. So is that inclusive of like cars hitting pedestrians as well or is that just cars hitting cars? Yeah. Hold on. Let me go back. You're talking about right here. 128.

Yeah. I believe it's probably uh all-incclusive. When we looked at like the bus stop um chart right here, that's just for pedestrians and bicyclist crashes. Um okay,

this right here, this 1218, uh is probably all of the the crashes in the city that resulted. It says injuries. When you look at like the crash reports, they break it out into different categories. There's um you know the fa obviously the fatal category there's serious injury and there's possible serious injury I believe or possible injury. So there's a couple different buckets. I'd have to ask them exactly what the injuries in general means. If it means serious plus

or you know if it's just the serious injuries themselves. I think the question I'm getting at too is like as a pedestrian or biker, if that's the same category, like in Kazoo, where do we rank relative to other communities as far as like our safety? Cuz I know as someone who lives downtown, I don't feel very safe walking around, but I'm curious what the data is. Yeah. Uh Dennis isn't here. He usually carries his chart around that's tracking uh our our crash numbers for this year. I think we are on a downward trend compared to past years. That's but that's o for you know overall for the city

um which is good overall right but that doesn't always equate to there could still be specific areas where we are seeing um crashes still like as an example you know unfortunately we have still had fatal crashes this year I think one or two of them were on portage street um close to where we're going to be doing this the road diet in the future you know this upcoming year. Yeah, I do think there's been considerable improvement in like the 5 years I've lived here. So, I do want to commend that. Um, I do think part of like what I'm noticing the first I don't know if any other commissioners feel the same. Anytime I mention someone I'm on the plan commission, they're like, "Oh, can you get rid of the bike lanes?" To which every time I'm like, "Absolutely not." I'm a big proponent of them. And the my point with that is like uh we live in a very car ccentric culture for better or worse. Um I'm just curious how can we help like communicate this to people that the bike lanes have actually like reduced fatalities and injuries to pedestrians in this community cuz a lot of people don't know that. I think

to me that's like the the biggest thing of all this is how do we actually message this is helping our community. It's not to make driving more miserable for everyone because I think that's how the community at large sees it in my experience.

Yeah, the educational piece I mentioned is going to be a key component. Uh I think we learned the hard way just being honest, right? Like when we when we did implement um the cycle track on Michigan Avenue, a two-way cycle track is not something everybody's seen before. they've seen the conventional bike lanes before and kind of have an understanding of what that is and how they should react to it. Um, but it isn't we do need to beef up our messaging around what these things are and how they help. You know, I keep using the road diets, but they're front of mind. Um, those projects in particular are safety projects first. So, we're just reducing those lane widths within the existing curb to curb space of that um street. It costs a lot of money to move curbs um because you have to basically move all the underground infrastructure next to the curb when you make a road narrower. So yeah, I don't know what it would cost to say like for Portage Street to make it more narrow with hard, you know, movement of the curb. Probably a lot more than I am thinking in my head right now. But it's easier uh or cheaper or you know you get a lot of similar benefits by retooling that space to have the narrower lanes so that people hopefully will drive slower. And then you introduce things like those pedestrian islands and light lighting conditions to make it safer to cross. So they have that lesser distance to cross. They also have a safe landing space. And then we do hear a lot like people pass me in the center turn lane all the time. They're just using it as a passing lane. Well, those midblock crossings also act as another buffer or layer to mitigate people doing that. Um, and that's somewhat of that like in self- enforcement by design. So, some of that helps curb that behavior down. Um, but

then like you're saying the the other result of reducing that space is that we have space left over. Um and instead of just labeling it as no one's going to use that space, sometimes we label it as parking um on street parking and then other times in these cases like Whites Road, Park the Avenue, Cork Street, Portage Street, we have those additional uh bike lanes. We do hear a lot from the motoring public like the Sicily. Um but the goal of those projects isn't to just add bike lanes everywhere. We have the ability to do that because we're having extra space and we have a lot of streets in town that are just really overbuilt. They just like to build everything wide. Um some of that's based on land use um in the past. Um other things, you know, like Michigan Avenue and Kazoo Avenue have kind always been wide streets. If you looked at pictures from the 1800s, they're still as wide as they are now. Um they were dirt then. they're not dirt anymore. So, but yeah, so I think a lot of the messaging and what we've tried to lean into is like we're there are some projects that are dedicated like non-motorized projects, but we aren't like a community like Portage that has a lot of off street or space available to add that sort of off street like bike path network. Um so for us when we're strapped for space, physical space, we retool the street space. Um, and then we do, you know, we have like the KRVT, which is a rails to trails project long ago. So that's old railroad right away that we retoled for that. Um, and then we have like sidewalks, right? So you can also legally ride on the sidewalk in the city, just not everywhere. But yeah, so I guess it's more or less they're here, but a lot of these projects are

focused on the safety and slowing those speeds down. Um, and the speed is that number one contributing factor to, you know, slower you go in that motor vehicle and vehicles are getting bigger and heavier as EVs are adopted more and more. Um, it's better to have those vehicles go slower. I like to joke, but if you looked at the specifications for an electric Humvey, it's like the size of a an elephant driving around on the road, but it can go 0 to 60 in two two or 3 seconds. So,

yeah, I've been full support of the effort. I think all my comment is just that I know many in this community are not, which is sad to me because I think they just don't understand the benefit that this brings to our community as a whole. And I think as part of this project, it'd be very impactful to show how this is helping make our community safer for everybody and just thinking of creative ways to communicate that I think would be very beneficial. But I don't want to take up any more time here. So

I just want to very quickly piggyback on that because I completely agree and I would say that the education component is not just the city's responsibility. Like all of us have a responsibility to participate in educating people. So like if if we like the bike lanes, being able to say my lived experience is that I like them, I find them useful, it makes me feel safer, it would be awesome to be able to couple that with and here's some data about how since these projects have been in place, this is the reduction in crashes or this is, you know, speeds are slower and so as you guys go forward, assuming the plan is adopted and if there's the ability to create, you know, like infographics or like whatever you want to call it, but just little bits of data that everyday day people could use to to talk to their neighbors who might not understand a two-way cycle track but might be more receptive to hearing me say, "Hey, I'm your neighbor and I actually like it and here's why and oh, by the way, it also has this like there's this data to support the effectiveness of it." I think that could be um a helpful component to the education piece.

Yeah, absolutely. And we've had some uh discussions about uh not atypical but just unorthodox, I guess. uh tools that we could use for outreach in the future if we chose to go that route. Some things like reaching out to other communities who have like a citizens academy type of program or residents academy. We have that with public safety. They have that really great program where you can do um you know get to know the officers, ride along, do all that. What if we had that for understanding transportation and everything that we're doing? And um yeah, and it's definitely not a case of, you know, some behavior. Yes, we definitely do not want people driving recklessly or speeding, but not every driver is doing that. There's a lot of drivers that, you know, do follow the rules of the road and are good drivers and are aware and cognizant of that. And we just want to kind of bridge the gap in certain ways and bring people to the same table and just have those conversations. So, easier said than done. I just said it in like four minutes. I fixed the whole world by doing that. But, um, no, it's tough. I mean, we got to figure it out, but this is kind of a nice first step. It helps us at least prioritize those projects and then we can work on, you know, like, yeah, we education was called out in this plan. We really need to focus on it. We know we need to Oh, there's this uh funding available that might help us do that. Um or we can bring someone in to maybe help us do it. But yeah, that's definitely those are good questions in regarding that educational piece. I think it'd be easier if we didn't have to eat or sleep or, you know, drink water, be human beings. We could just be 10 places at once. But, uh, so I wanted to ask real quick because I know you were saying we don't have the physical space to like make separate standalone bike lanes like would be very cool, but we're not Copenhagen. That hasn't been built like

that. So has there been any discussion though of on the existing bike lanes or on the existing sidewalks to add maybe like physical barriers at least in between pedestrian passageways and especially hightra uh corridors and roadways because I you talked a bit about filling in gaps where there aren't sidewalks but was there any discussion on improving widening separating from roadways the existing sidewalks because I know there's a lot of spaces where pedestrians walking alongside the road in Kazoo are passing like pretty fastmoving vehicles and many lanes of traffic and it can be a little bit weird and feel like you don't belong. And is there any was there any planning about like putting walls of trees in between sidewalks and hight traffic corridors or was that not a priority?

Uh I'd have to go back and and look. Uh it's definitely sidewalk is uh a lot of it can be case by case especially if you well it's somewhat easier to replace the sidewalk that's existing that put new sidewalk in um cuz a lot of those gaps um either the right of way with can be very uh weird. So if you are in an area of the city where there's no sidewalks currently it kind of all just looks like that would be someone's front yard and there's actually a portion of that that isn't their front yard. And you know, maybe they've been tending to a tree for a long time. It's a really old tree. Uh say it's an oak tree cuz those are really important trees to our region. Um they take on u kind of a personality of their own. Um the tree that is. And then if we want to install sidewalk, there's like right ofway acquisition we have to do and sometimes we can't avoid the tree for you know ADA accessibility and grade standards. So, but not installing sidewalks as much as like installing barriers between sidewalk and road.

Yeah. So, um for those gap areas, we we might have some flexibility in like where the how big the buffer might be like you know the curb lawn that you would normally see. Um but my point was that sometimes we're constrained by like how wide how much space we do have like what the right of way is without having to maybe like go and acquire more of it. So, we'd have to like talk to adjacent property owners and say, "Hey, like we're trying to access more space." So, there's like negotiations that have to happen there. Um, existing sidewalk, there might be a little more wiggle room, too, if we're able to maybe shift it. Um, so maybe it gets it shifted out of conflict with a tree that exists already, so it gets it a little further away from the street. Um, it's case by case, though. It depends. It's it very much can depend on like what part of the city you're in and uh are looking at in terms of how the sidewalk gets installed um and what that buffer space might look like. So uh probably doesn't answer your question fully, but um you know, if you were like in a perfect world, we'd have enough space to have that bit of buffer. We're not going to put the sidewalk right up against the the street. Um there's going to be a lot of other considerations that work into that first to get a little further away from the street. Some of our existing sidewalk might be closer to the street too than we'd like, but it was also installed however many years ago. So when we come through and do like an upgrade of it, we might be able to move it a little bit. There might be some wiggle room there. So yeah.

Okay. But so definitely not uh in in the immediate planning to put any kind of like real not just the little buffer like yard space but any like kind of physical wall or tree or hedge or anything. There's not been anything like that that's not um likely to go forward. Part of it too is you want to have um some of that space visible to drivers. Mhm.

Um some uh street trees and um other elements like can can add some passive friction to the side of a street. So it can it can help slow people down. And so if we can work within the curb to curb area and maybe slow people down that way, um it would make that stress level for a pedestrian walking on that sidewalk less. Um and hopefully make it safer for them as well. So um not saying it's out of their own possibility. and just have like a wall of a hedge, you know, hedge row of um like cedar or something right in the curb lawn. Okay.

And then just real quick, one other thing. When you said when you were listing the top five most dangerous intersections in town, one of them was Gull Road and Riverview, right? Uh it's just a intersection to prioritize for safety improvements. So, okay. I don't necessarily know if it was it probably was one of the uh intersections or segments of street that had a lot of crashes but also probably had things compounding factors like the lighting conditions um some other things but that but that is a high priority for uh it's on our list as one of the high priority intersection that that may be jumping ahead a little bit to something we have later but that might be foreshadowing. Thank you. All right, any any other questions? Any other questions? Yeah.

Okay. Awesome. Thank you. Well, thank you for your time. That's very interest very helpful.

All right. So, with that, we'll move along to the public hearing. We've got two of them tonight. Um, we will be taking calls in addition to public comment. I'll just give the number out now. It's 888 3829556. So, we'll get started with 20 20250, a request for a special use permit to develop a gas station at 918 Riverview Drive. Just one moment to unlock my computer here. All right. Thank you for your patience there. Uh, good evening, planning commissioners, and thank you Nolan Bergstrom for that presentation. A lot of good questions, and I didn't go into it as deep as I wanted. He mentioned the appendices. There's a website with a lot of those drafts up and there's a few to dig through there. Um where you'll probably look up some of those questions. Um so the first special use permit request tonight is um for a new gas station at the intersection of G Road and Riverview. Uh planning commission number 2025.07. Uh that image there is a rendering of the building proposed there. And we'll get right into it. Um I'll go over the zoning uh areas, some brief statements about uh the ordinance with each one, then walk through the the decision criteria. Um the special use permits have 10 decision criteria by the ordinance, and I will go through those as well. Um so I I can touch a little bit on the zoning in the next slide. In the current chapter 50 zoning code, um there's a category called vehicle service. And within vehicle service, one of the uses is a gas station. Um on that use table you would see it's PD permitted with development standards and

some you know could use a special use permit. Um that's meant to simplify the definition give you the details in the use standards. When you go to the zoning code you'll go table and then it will reference the standards uh in the next section. And then those development standards are uh put in 50-4.4 for and I'll spare everyone the rest there. Um those are the standards that uh for example it has the requirement for the separation from um beer and alcohol sales and I believe one of the other requirements is it can't be on uh their lighter um traffic uh road types. We'll get into road types a little bit later. Um are some examples of there there's only three or four and this site meets all of them. Here is the current zoning of the area. Um, we could see Gaul is the diagonal road there and Riverview is the road uh going north and south in the middle. The light pink is CC zoning. If you think of that intersection, you have the public safety station with the doors for the fire trucks, muffler shops, gas stations, the current former pharmacy that was there. And if you notice a little further south on Riverview, it goes to CC2. And I'm only highlighting that for the zoning map highlights uh the land uses pretty well in this vicinity. We could see the residential off uh to the east there up on the hill and all along the river there is zoned live work. Um here's the the current land uses. Uh a lot of commercial and some of those residential uses show up as commercial. And to the west over there when you get near the river you get all sorts of different uh land uses popping up. some of the publicly owned properties. And here is the future land use map. Um there's not a bunch of different commercial categories, for example, but it shows this parcel as remaining commercial. Um so no long-term change seen here. Some images. Here's the the

current site. We can see the the vacant Walgreens. Um you know, thinking of Nolan's rightway discussion. And I know on this site, I think the sidewalk's a little bit on the private property, so there's always unique situations. Uh we can see the hightraic and commercial aspect of Riverview looking down there. Um here is a view behind the site. Uh past that wall from about that wall back, um the property line is 25 ft. Um and I believe that there's more than 25 ft on their property. And if I recall correctly on the survey, there's I think it's even reserved to be left alone. Uh so there is a setback from the 20 from the residential zone and it meets that and the plan shows it and I thought it highlighted uh it's a big hill too. It really helps separate that site from uh there there's a church and uh some other uses residential uses up there. And this is kind of turning back the other way looking up G towards Burgess Hospital. You can see the big parking lot in the building right there. And so something that I tried to prepare for the planning commission tonight is, you know, this is a special use permit. It referenced the development standards. You know, there's all these site plan documents. Um I will reference the site plan review committee and the site plan review process. Um and reviewing this with the staff report to prepare. um staff looks at it to ensure does it meet the code and then recognizing this far more engineered review will go into play. So I perform a highlevel zoning review u make sure everything lines up. So I wanted to highlight those and of course I can ask any specific questions on these or that during uh your guys's deliberation. So the setbacks are met. They're very easy to meet in the CC zone. the only one that's a little unique that applies um in the CC zone on

a corner like this, you have to provide entry and door standards if you're closer than 15 ft. Um the design team ran into that section and that's where you know it clarified since it's back far think of the form standards. The form standards don't apply. So, it meets the setbacks. That's a long way of saying that. Um, it's less than 80% impervious coverage, which is the maximum. The parking count does not exceed the maximum. Uh, the dumpster is more than 25 ft from a residential use. Um, there's loading area standards and on one of the sheets they show a landing a loading area there by the dumpster. It's out of the way of the primary traffic. It's a convenience store. Don't expect a lot of delivery. So, um, it meets those standards. and the drive lanes and widths. Um, oftentimes there are minimum and maximum oneway, two-way widths. Um, on a gas station, a site like this, public safety reviews it, so those final details may uh wiggle a little bit um if there's an emergency vehicle access requirement. And the uh ability to meet the landscape standards, there was a simple landscape plan with this and you know, I they have the open space and all of that. Staff's confident they can meet those standards. So from there I I will go on to um the the decision standards on the screen there I put the just the uh separate number two there um the standards of staffs and then I'll read out as well the the standard. So the first standard is that the proposed special use is appropriate for its proposed location and compatible with the surrounding land uses and the uses permitted in the zone districts of surrounding lands. So, a gas station with a convenience store is an appropriate use for this location as uh hightraic autooriented intersection servicing commuter traffic in and out of the central parts of the

city on the busy Gallro commuter corridor. Um, this location is a new use that services a different need in the CC zone district than the former retail drive-thru pharmacy. It's a little unique here. We've got two pretty intensive land uses. Um there is a buffer on the property to the east of 25 ft on a wooded slope. The parcel to the east is zoned residential multif family RM15 and is above the site with a retaining wall. This helps rem maintain a buffer from the potentially busy commuting corridor. Gro is a city connector street type and is also the most intensive street type. and Riverview Drive is a commercial business street which is intended to support the commercial uses that lean towards access by automobile. The street types and commercial use are in alignment with the Imagine Kalamazoo 2025 future land use map. Second criteria is that the special use complies with uh 4.2 use standards of the zoning ordinance. That's way it's written in the zoning ordinance. This one would apply to those chapter 50 use standards I referenced earlier. Uh the gas station will comply with the standards of the zoning ordinance both for the use of gas stations uh that require special use. Um they're not permitted in Live Work 2 and can meet the package liquor sales when the site meets the liquor requirements, which this site does not. and for a site layout which will be confirmed in site plan review. Um what that's attempting to say is this use um applied for a variance to sell beer and alcohol because it was too close to a nearby party store and this gas station um one of the use requirements for the special use is that it adheres to that separation. So between the denial of the variance in

the floor plan um and permitting and construction there isn't plan for that uh according to this plan. Number three, um the the criteria for this one is that the location and design of the proposed use minimizes adverse effects including visual impact of the proposed use on adjacent lands by one avoiding uh significant surrounding lands regarding service delivery, parking, loading, odors, noise, glare, and vibration and does not create a nuisance. Retaining to the greatest extent possible the natural features of the landscape where they provide a barrier or buffer between proposed special uses and adjoining lands. Locating building structures and ent entryways to minimize impacts and providing appropriate screening, fencing and landscaping and setbacks. So the the location and design of this proposed project works to minimize the adverse effects. The residential areas to the east have the wooded slope on their land. in addition to the 25 ft of slope and wood cover on this parcel which limits the impact of the commercial development at this intersection on the adjacent properties. The new site includes a new planting schedule featuring street tree street trees and landscaping and will help enhance improve the aesthetics where planting and trees are currently limited. The new building is pushed back and allows easy access on three sides and removes the drive-thru traffic around the site with no way to cross through the site behind the building. With the increase in use and intensity, the new use maintains the same entry and exit points to the road with no new changed conflict points for vehicular traffic. The loading area is to the south of the building. It provides adequate space for loading and removal of goods to the service of store without impede impacting customer traffic to the

store or pump islands under the single canopy along Riverview Drive. The proposed special use minimizes environmental impacts and conforms to all environmental protection standards of this ordinance or any other state or federal requirements. The application and site plan demonstrate the ability to conform all relevant environmental protection standards, including groundwater protection, spill cleanup, chemical storage, employee training, and the ability to adhere to the current groundwater protection standards of the city of Kazoo. The final details and submitts will be completed through the site plan review process before the start of construction. The site is also near the flood plane in Riverview Drive. In addition, the storm water containment and spill protection, the site plan review committee will confirm that the site design conforms to the applicable impact flood plane impact standards. Number five, the that there is adequate road capacity to serve the proposed use. There is uh sufficient road capacity to service the use which is located on two intensive street types. The design team has consulted with the city traffic engineers and design team on preliminary layouts, traffic demands, demands and other criteria to ensure feasibility. The sixth criteria is that the proposed special use is designed to ensure safe ingress and eress onto the site and safe road conditions around the site. Uh there is safe uh ingress and egress on the site. The design team as I said has consulted with the traffic engineers on the prelim preliminary layouts, traffic demands and other design criteria to ensure feasibility. Um, city traffic engineering staff have provided the applicant with favorable feedback on the design assumptions for this site. Uh criteria seven is that there is adequate potable water, wastewater, solid waste, park, police, fire, and EMS

facilities to serve the proposed special use. There is existing capacity uh utility capacity to serve this use. There's public water sanitary and the capacity to contain storm water on site with allowances for existing sites per the storm water performance standards of the city of Kazoo through options such as underground treatment or containment structures. The size of the dumpster and loading area of the south is sufficient for access clear from customer traffic. The existing public sidewalk network will be maintained. Directly across the street on street on G road is a city of Kalamazoo public safety station and with gorgeous Ascension hospital is just down the road on G road and is very close for any emergency response needs to this gas station use. Three more criteria number eight that the proposed special use is located and designed that adequate access on site is provided for fire, police and EMS services. the vehicle lanes to access the pump island, storefront parking, fuel loading areas areas provide adequate access to zoning standards and site access for responding police, fire, and EMS services. The city public safety department reviews and approves all site plans prior to any construction permits being issued and where the zoning ordinance specifies lane width requirements in article 7 of the chapter 50 zoning ordinance, which the plan demonstrates. Number nine is that the proposed special use complies with the appropriate development standards of chapter 6 general development standards. Um the special use proposed complies with the development standards of the chapter 50 zoning ordinance including landscaping code the development standards for vehicle service land use and gas station land use pending approval of a special land use permit. And the last decision criteria is the proposed special use complies with all standards imposed on it by all other applicable provisions of this ordinance for use, layout and

general development characteristics. Uh the material submitted for this application for special use permit demonstrate the ability to comply with all applicable laws, layout and general de development characteristics of a gas station special use permit in the CC zone district. And that is uh the end of this presentation. Um the um Robert from the applicant uh is here uh from 7-Eleven and he's going to give a a presentation on the request as well. Thank you. Um do you want to do that before questions or do you want to do questions first? I'd say let it let's let him give his presentation.

Okay. All right. Hopefully you can all see that. Yep, we can. All right. Thanks. Go ahead. Thanks.

And uh Robert Matco, CESO. I'm representing 7-Eleven Speedway this evening and uh address is 1360 South US Highway 27 in Dwit, Michigan. And first of all, good evening chairman, members of the planning commission. Uh what I'd like to do tonight is just kind of go through a fairly brief PowerPoint presentation. Uh probably have some discussion to go over. I know uh commissioner I know some of your questions uh the reason that I came before you this evening rather than uh my site engineer I also do site development but my main specialty is traffic engineering so I know there's going to be some questions not only potentially from the planning commission but also maybe from some of the residents in the audience so I felt uh and we all felt best that I provide the presentation tonight and answer any questions and if I knew the gentleman before me was really going to, you know, talk about some of the safety which I thought was an outstanding presentation. Um, you know, I would even had more information, but again, hopefully I'll be able to answer your questions. But let's walk through the site at least. And again, this is a fairly brief PowerPoint, but I at least uh want to just introduce you to some of the site aspects, uh some of the building elevations and what exactly we're doing there. So again, uh this evening we're respectfully requesting approval for the special use permit. And uh again, I'll kind of go through here so you can see where the existing site is. What we did here, and I know you you all may have received a uh a letter from a resident with a few hundred signatures on it. So what we did is we tried to be proactive and try and provide some answers to maybe that letter um or at least some discussion

topics that hopefully we can answer. So uh what what this slide shows here is just some of the existing uh fueling stations in the area and of course where um our fueling station is proposed to be located. So you can see there it's kind of right in the center. Uh so what we have is a 1.44 44 acre site and again we're in the southeast corner of Riverview and G Road. We are zoned community commercial um which recognizes the appropriateness of automobile focused uses at this intersection. Uh gas station requires a special use permit in the CCC district which is why we're before you. Uh this is a vacant Walgreens building. I guess that's a key word to vacant. Uh there is a vacant McDonald's that's further to the south with a cross- access parking easement. Uh we we did conduct a traffic impact study. Uh that study was dated uh in I believe it was in August, but it was reviewed by your city uh traffic staff and was ultimately approved. I will uh towards the end briefly talk about the traffic as I know some of you may have some questions on that. So, as we move along here, you can see again, this is just uh again a few other pictures here just showing the current condition of the site. Uh the existing Walgreens vacant building that's there. Um you can see here there is some deterioration uh even though it's only been vacant I think for about a year, maybe a little more than a year. And uh you know one of the disadvantages of having a vacant building is obviously not only can it ultimately become an eyesore but uh you know it has potential for just uh I know we have down increased crime risks but whenever you have just anything vacant again it can be it can just become

unsightly over time. Uh redeveloping the site we think will eliminate um you know eliminate the blight, provide job creation, increase tax revenue, uh boost some of the economy by applying uh by forming some new jobs, and also increase the property value. This right here just shows uh the plans, the the pavement is uh what's going to be paved to the left. You can see the orientation of the building which does sit kind of uh to the eastern part of the site. The fueling capan canopy is more towards the west. What this shows is we will be utilizing the two existing uh driveways. We will be redoing the curb cuts, but they're approximately in the same location. So the curb cut on the north uh which is Riverview is uh actually Uh that is a right in right out location. Uh of course I said Riverview, it's uh Gull Road and uh the curb cut on uh Riverview is actually a full access curb cut. Again, those are in the existing locations uh of the Walgreens curb cuts. This is the elevation view of the uh Speedway development. So, even though this is a 7-Eleven, but it's going to be branded as a Speedway, this just uh provides an interior rendering of what the store will look like. Very clean. Uh also, again, would like to reiterate that the beer cave will actually be called a drink den now. It will have no beer and no wine sales. That variance was denied. And uh you know obviously Speedway 7-Eleven will

move forward, but it will be just with uh what they call a drink den. Again, signage will be Speedway instead of 7-Eleven. Even though 7-Eleven a while, what is it about four, five, six years ago purchased Speedway? So 7-Eleven is actually, you know, the owner. The reason they go with the Speedway branding is because it's the most common in the uh Midwestern area. That's just a brief presentation of what we have before you, but I'd like to again get into some of the traffic just anticipating some questions that that may come up. So, we did do a traffic impact study. We did traffic counts out there in April while school was still in session. Uh the traffic counts that were done out there, we used my vision which are video collected, widely accepted throughout the United States. Um, so we do 12-hour videos and then out of that video, 7 to 9, four to six is processed in any additional hours that city staff may have deemed, you know, necessary to review. Uh, once we did the traffic counts, of course, prior to that, we even had meetings with city staff just to make sure we were all on the same page, what was going to be required in the traffic study, what locations we were going to study. Again, did the traffic counts. We did apply a growth rate to bring it up to 2026 which is our build year. Um so the analysis very conservative. We use the IT trip generation manual to generate trips. Uh for this type of development is very very conservative. Um I know our studies are very conservative in nature. We'd rather error on the conservative side than be a little less conservative. Um, so maybe we overdesigned a little, but we feel it's better that way. Um, so we we have our traffic counts, we have our

trip generation. Another thing to point out with the trip generation, a development such as this, a fueling station, uh, up to 70 76% of the traffic is pass by traffic. And if you uh think about uh and what pass by traffic is. So if you're traveling home from let's say work, you don't specifically say in your mind, I'm going to that speedway at Riverview and Gull Road. What you're doing is driving by and all of a sudden you look at your gas uh dial and it might be towards empty and you're like, "Oh, I need to stop and get gas." So, you come off the existing uh traffic and you turn into the site, fuel up, and then you uh exit back out and continue on your way, say, to home. Uh that's a pass by trip, and as much as 76% of the the traffic is passed by. It's a key point. So, it's not a big generator of traffic. Obviously, we're still going to have trips at the site driveways, but we're not going to be a big attractor of new trips. That's important for the overall operation of the existing intersection and it's why whenever we do run the analysis which we use highway capacity software again standard uh traffic software and tools that we use you know we can see here in the AM peak hour that existing intersection overall is operating at a C uh 20.0 0 seconds of delay and the 2026 build we go to a C 20.2 seconds of delay. So now there are some individual movements. So I'm not going to tell you the intersection is perfect out there. There are a few intersection movements where you know you get closer to a lower C level of service. In the PM peak hour we still have um or I'm sorry am peak hour in the build. We still have all C and B levels of service. When we do go to the PM peak

hour, which is the worst of the two study hours, we do get into um still overall level of service is a C. Uh so we have a 24.4 existing. It goes to a 24.7 in the no build. That's without the development. With the development, we go to a 25.5 overall. the there there are a few again movements now in the PM peak hour we do hit a D as in dog level service um those are more in the eastbound direction um really uh southbound we also have uh a D level service southbound left it's uh important to note that uh you know our southbound left traffic will be somewhat minimal because traffic will not only be going to the drive on Riverview But some will turn left and go to the G road and make a right in. Uh so but we again feel our impact is minimal to the actual intersection because of the pass by traffic and I think that's important to note. So although we do have a few movements that do operate at a D as in dog level service, our impact actually at the intersection is not as significant as you may think. uh say this would be a fast food restaurant that might be a little more of an impact because it's more of a primary trip generator and uh people you know or say it's a Starbucks coffee or something which is more maybe of a destination where people might be more inclined to make a primary trip. Um so I I wanted to point that out again. I'm sure there's going to be f even more questions potentially on traffic. I am here to answer any of those. Even after some of the potential um members of the audience speak, I can certainly answer any of those as well. So, I thank you for your time this evening and uh again can answer any questions you have. Thank

you. Thank you. Uh do we have any questions for the applicant or for city staff? Uh yeah, just really say one more one last uh thing I do want to add before questions is I didn't uh mentioned the applicant sent a notice on uh what do you call that like a 3x5 card to neighbors within 300 ft as well. Um and he did mention the petition which was provided to you guys uh by email and should be here as well. So wanted to make sure mention that for the record. Apologies.

Here's the We've got the the sent the binder flying. Um, okay. So, we do have a few questions, so I guess we'll start. Uh, yeah, I was wondering just on the uh the overhead layout. We have I'm seeing along both roads just landscape buffer. What exactly does that entail? Um, cuz there's obviously not any existing buffer on the current uh lot. So, what would you guys have there? You're you're talking on the east side. Looks like

I'm sorry. It looks like on on both uh road road fronts you have marked uh yeah, landscape buffer along both uh sections of parking lot facing roads. So, would that be uh tree planting or bushes? What would landscape buffer entail? Yeah. And I and I do have uh landscape planned with me this evening and there are a fairly significant amount of plantings. I did not include it in the PowerPoint presentation. Trying to pull it up here in my information, but uh we do have plantings. Just find it here. We've also got it in our packet that

we go shows canopy trees and Yeah. Yeah. We'll I'll pull up the landscape. I guess May I provide a comment?

Yeah. I I did mention in the the staff report they did not provide a full landscaping plan. Maybe Robert has one. Um the ordinance will require u a percentage uh account of trees and shrubs per linear feet along each street frontage. Um and at least with with the information provided the ability is to fit to meet those minimums. Uh but if they have a more substantial plan, they could probably give us more details.

Yeah. And I'm I'm looking for it here. I don't see it. But I know uh I did look at our landscape plan earlier today. I know we're looking to maintain and keep the obviously retaining wall to the rear. We will have landscaping along the front and along the north sides of the property in the green space area. Actually, I think on this plan right here, if you look to the right, you can actually see some of the trees and landscaping along the north. Um, so I can't point to it, but if you look to uh actually on the right or the lighter color on the screen and maybe it's in your packet, but there are trees along the north. So along a gull and along river view, you can see what is there five there, six deciduous trees and then several shrubs planted along river view. Um again that important to note any of the existing trees retaining wall to the east that will all remain as existing and it you know even during the spring that's a pretty heavy buffer. Um even during the winter right here you can see I think there was a picture that was showing up there. It's it's pretty dense. Um and then even along the south we'll have uh some some landscaping along there. So, we certainly intend not only to meet the the city's code, but work with city staff to make sure we provide a more than adequate landscaping plan.

Thank you. Thank you.

Uh the only other comment I'd make is obviously um you know the the concerns about the flood pain, but looks like that's being fairly well addressed um both in site plan review and what we've got in front of us. So, that's reassuring. Obviously, we're somewhat close to the river and it's going to be installing new tanks where there weren't before. Yes, sir. Um but it looks like that's there's a plan for um making sure that's all that's all sealed and secure. Great. That's great to hear. And it should be noted too during construction if anything on the site is found it will, you know, it will be taken care of properly.

Yep. Um and you know from the petitions obviously there's some concerns about the left turn. Um the the the GO road is right only um it sounds like and then the I mean there was a Walgreens there before which had a lot of traffic in and out. So I mean it's a commercial zone. It's a commercial area. side. Do we have any and it sounds like there's some plans to work with um you know both to ensure safety from the site review and then the city's got its own plans to ensure safety at that intersection. So is there any other comments about that? Okay. Um All right. So, if there's no other comment or questions for the applicant or for uh city staff, we'll open it up for public hearing or um we'll take uh any inperson comments if folks could could uh sign in and then come to the podium and then state your name, um where you live more or less, and then you'll have three minutes to speak.

Yeah. um just to sort of whatever. Um and then anyone who wants to call in again the number is 888 3829556. So did anyone want to speak um on this proposed special use permit? or call in. Okay, I guess I hear nothing. I will close that public hearing. Um, with that, I will take a motion on the special use permit request. So moved.

Motion and a second. Second. Motion is made and seconded. Um did you have any discussion or points you'd like to make?

Uh just I I think it's significant that the community felt felt it important to get a petition going and get that many signatures. I think that the plan makes a lot of sense and I like the precautions being taken, especially something this potentially volatile this close to the Kazoo River. I think none of us want to see more uh gas and oil get get in the Kazoo River. We've had enough of that in our past. But I like the plan, but I am just worried about the impact on the community who are not speaking tonight. So, I feel like I should speak for them since a lot of them did send in a petition with their concerns. So, that's really my only Yeah, that's quite a a stack of papers you got. And that that does give me some pause.

Yeah, I um agree that it it is um always uh worth pausing when you have so much community um concern expressed. And I appreciate all the community members taking the time to to get involved and get engaged. I also want to thank the applicant. I think you did a really nice job um explaining um I found it particularly compelling to understand that most of the trips for this type of use are passed by and so not necessarily generating um additional traffic. Um and I think also um you know the the trade-off if nothing happens on the site and you have a building just sitting here vacant is also not beneficial to the community. So, I I certainly want to acknowledge and lift up the the neighbors and the folks that took time to sign petitions and express concerns. Um, but it does seem like the applicant has done a really good job with the plan that's that's before us. Um, and it to me makes sense um, you know, to approve the special use permit tonight.

Thanks. Any other folks want to speak to the motion? Um, in that case, I'd just like to add once again, I agree that, you know, there are certainly some concerns with this site, but um, the applicant, I think, has done their diligence more than somewhat um, both in terms of traffic and environmental mitigation to address the concerns. Um, and again, I I'd like to acknowledge the effort that the residents have gone to voice their concerns, but um, in my opinion, in this case, you know, this is a previously developed site that's been sitting vacant. There was traffic in and out of the Walgreens before. Um, and it's not great to have an empty building on a hightraic corridor like that. And so, um, I think this has met all the the criteria for the special use permit. So, if no one else has any other comments, I think we can go to a roll call. Wilson Wilson,

approve. Audit Balman, yes. Patelco, yes. Swan, yes. Costa. Yes. Besette. Go for it. All right. Motion is carried. Thank you for um thank you for your patience tonight. Thank you for coming and presenting and all the work you've done to um prepare this application. I think you know they're excited to be here. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. And with that, our next one, PC 202508, request for a specialized permit to develop a utility building on the property of Consumers Energy for East Alcott. Once again, we'll hear from city staff and then the applicant and then we will take any um any public comment or um concerns. Thank you, Chair Patelco. Um, as you said, this is a special use, another special use permit request. Um, in this instance, it is a consumer's gas company utility building uh in the RS5 zone. Um, could probably have a whole other discussion about the limits of zoning authorities. Some, you know, often times utilities don't fall under it. Um, but some things like this do through the the use category. Um, so that was a picture of the building looking down. Um, uh, Elcott there. And here is a view of the back of the building there. There is an alley there. Um, it is a regulator building, so there's a gas line that runs under there. Um, and then there's just valves in there that have to adjust for pressure or whatever. I trust that the team needs to take care of. Um and then uh with this a utility building like this um particularly in a residential zone, a special use permit, we've got a balance of um utility structured requirement versus a residential character and neighborhood uh conflicting land use. Um which is why often times some substations just go right into site plan review when they're in industrial or commercial zones because they're permitted say in those areas. And um this is uh maintained by Consumers Gas and Energy as part of their infrastructure. The building was built in 43. And here are some photos of the site. Um there it is. Uh

it should be Alcott Street, not Bryant Street. I get those southern Edison streets mixed up. And then um there it is uh on the side road there looking up north down James Street. And for a comparison here within those packets of plans um to kind of give a scale of uh the layout and I will end the presentation on this so you guys will kind of have that before and after as well. You can see the one on the left is the current. You see the larger building, no fencing, no driveway. Uh we're on the current proposed there. Um I I should stop here and explain um with a special use permit there are some considerations that the planning commission has such as impervious coverage. The planning commission can wave the impervious coverage requirement um in the discussions with the applicant um on a utility regulation. Sometimes in site plan review, a landscaping standard, for example, could get trumped by a gas code um standard where you don't you can't have a tree over it. Um so there's some there was some discussion in this plan development knowing it will go on to site plan review and the level of detail to show. Um and that will tie into some conditions that staff recommends. Um, so that's a way of saying we do have a plan in here, but between the plan notes, site plan review, and the limits of the ordinance, uh, I think, you know, staff, there is a way to have this meet. Um, starting from this, you'll see stamps on there 60%. So, as the plan is getting more and more, uh, developed. Uh, with that said, on the right there, you see the the new building, which is to the south, it would be brick as well, like the other building. And you see a darker gray which is a gravel alley off or a gravel driveway off of the alley for the personnel to park. And um coming up a little bit off of the alley pretty much right to the property line is proposed uh fencing. On the drawing it shows it

is uh 6ft fencing and then the other gray is a is a a gravel surface and covering the rest of the property. And that is how how it's shown there. And then those darker lines you see are some of the uh underground pipes. And if you went out to the site or saw the photos, you see these big metal doors. All of those would be removed um once this is done because those go underground. And what you would have are some smaller ones up but contained within the the fencing where some of the and some of the staff uh I can explain later is the the staff conditions are to have the fencing for example align with the residential district standards. So there that either reduces it to 4T or it brings that 6 foot way in. And I could be glad to explain that detail further. Moving forward on the site itself, here is the uh aerial view. Um you can see it's tucked right there in the middle of an intersection. Um you'll even notice too some of the other properties, the houses are further back. So even this corner has a little bit of space with the building moving back. Um and up there in the upper left hand, you can see the new station 2 um uh public safety station 2. Give an idea for context to location. There's the the uh current zoning map. Yellow is RS5 single family zoning. So, this is a solidly single family um lowintensity residential area and the current land use reflects that as well. You can see some of the industrial uses over by Aunt Milliey's there in the gray and some of your uh multifamily and uh commercial properties down there along Miller Road. But again, this location is a very solid residential intersection. And that should be the the future land use map. and the uh future land use map does show this is residential as well.

So from there I will get into the uh the decision criteria and um the applicant are here as well and they'll have a presentation. So the first decision criteria again is that the uh proposed use is appropriate for its proposed location and compatible surrounding land uses and the uses permitted in the zone district surrounding land surrounding lands. The proposed use is appropriate for this location. It's a small unoccupied utility building on a residential lot at a corner in the Edison neighborhood. The replacement building is smaller within the setbacks and proposes ornamental fencing with gravel surfacing within the fence and a 6-ft brick wall for the house to the east. With one or two visits a month, there is little activity associated with the site. Due to utility land locations, system reliability, the pro proposed building and site design maintains the smallcale intensity with it focused at the intersection instead of midblock. Other corners at this intersection um include homes set far back from the corner and the new building will retain setbacks with the open yards at this corner. The entryway of the new building faces James Street instead of East Alcott. Entryway being the door. While the entryway faces another roadway, the building is still within the building envelope and the entry location is seen as secondary to the use related to the managing of the regulated gas utility. Second criteria is that the proposed use complies with the 4.2 standards of the zoning ordinance. Um, this one is in uh section 4.2. 2, but it's not because there are no development standards for utility buildings in section 4.2 in the zoning ordinance. That's not unusual. Lots of uses are just retail store. It nothing to it. It is understood that a utility building may have unique um safety and code restraints that are

unique for the operation of this use. Um the third criteria is that the location and design of the proposed minimizes adverse effects including visual impact to the proposed use on adjacent lands by one avoiding significant inverse adverse impacts on surrounding lands regarding service delivery, parking, loading, odors, noise, glare and vibration and does not create a nuisance. Two, retaining to the greatest extent possible the natural features of the landscape where they provide a barrier or buffer u between the proposed special uses in adjoining lands. Three, locating buildings, structures and entryways to minimize impact and four providing appropriate screening, fencing, landscaping and setbacks. Uh the location and design of the proposed works to minimize any adverse effects. The new building is made up of a brick exterior which will help reduce noise and the cement wall with the brick veneer uh for the house to the east is proposed. There's no driveway off- streetet parking on the site currently. With the redevelopment of site, a single lane gravel driveway is proposed. This will provide an off- streetet space for personnel who visit the site and includes a gate for the truck and personnel safety while servicing the site. Due to it doing due to it being a residential corner lot, there are no natural features of substance to preserve. There is a plan showing tree showing trees on the neighboring properties and the removal of growth or of overgrowth or brush. There are no trees on the site and staff recommends um a tree in the roadfront yard to contribute or to contribute a tree to the neighborhood tree canopy type per 50-8.4B 4B of the chapter 50 zoning ordinance. And the reason I said one instead of two is because in conversations with the design team, um the code only requires one. Um staff

went with the residential landscaping standards. Um figured anything commercial institutional would be glaringly out of scale. Um and the code only requires one. So that was uh why that is changed to one instead of two. Um the fourth decision criteria is that the proposed special use minimizes environmental impacts and conforms to all relevant environmental protection standards of this ordinance or any other state and federal requirements. The special use will maintain compliance with environmental protection standards of this ordinance. Volumes, management, and spill containment of any chemicals to be held within the building will be reviewed in the site plan review process. The applicant does not anticipate the storage of any chemicals or hazardous materials on site and consumers energy is equipped to manage the risk and safety uh of the replacement regulator building. The fifth criteria is that there's adequate road capacity to serve the special use. There is sufficient capacity to serve this use. Um and a new gravel driveway is proposed off of the alleyway. There is no currently off- streetet parking on the site and both roads uh that adjoin it are wide and very low traffic. The fifth uh number six the six review criteria is that the proposed special use is designed to ensure safe ingress and egress onto the site and safe road conditions around the site. The redevelopment site includes the addition of a vehicular access drive from the alleyway. The ability to park and secure the truck behind fencing is an additional improvement to the site. And the seventh criteria is that there is adequate potable water, wastewater, solid waste, police, fire, park, fire, EMS facilities to serve the proposed special use. Um there are adequate potable water, wastewater, solid waste, police, fire, and EMS facilities to serve this special

use. Um there is facilities for water and sanitation on this site. Um there is no water or sanitary needs for the structure and there is an electrical utility existing which will be reconnected also consumers which the new building will utilize. The site is one block from public safety station 2 and the road frontages extend to the primary road network for capacity for any responding personnel whether towards uh Fulford or Miller Road or station two. Decision criteria 8 that the proposed special use is located in design that adequate access onto the site is provided for police, fire and EMS services. The proposed use is uh located designed to provide the adequate access onto the site for fire, police, and EMS services. The proposed driveway on two street frontages provides adequate sight site access to gates and entry gates are provided to the fence enclosure. Public safety can utilize access to the building and the gates through the use of the Knox key vault system to ensure um access. Item nine is that the proposed special use complies with the appropriate standards of chapter 6 general development standards with no use sta standards for a utility building and a longtime user on this site related to a gas utility service. Staff believes that these uh proposed standards align the site to the scale and form of a residential neighborhood. The development standards that would apply to a new residential home are appropriate instead of commercial or industrial screening adjacent to residential use standards for consideration of the special use. And the last review criteria is that the special use complies with all standards imposed on it by all other applicable provisions of this ordinance for use layout and general development standards with the staff conditions for the

special use permit and reviewed by the site plan review committee. The use will comply with all other appropriate provisions of this ordinance for use, layout, and general development characteristics. And really quick, there is the elevation of the replacement building. It's quite a bit smaller. I think it's only a third of the size. And then I will stop it. Well, there's that. I'll go back. Um, I will get to the conditions. So, staff recommends approval of this one with a a couple of conditions. be glad to discuss with you guys. Um the first condition recommended is that gravel surfacing only be permitted within the proposed fencing surrounding the regular building and not in excess of the maximum impervious coverage of the RS5 standards. Second condition um is to provide one tree in a street front and uh or to contribute the tree to the Edison neighborhood tree canopy. And then lastly, that the fencing shall conform to 50-8.5 A and B of the chapter 50 zoning ordinance, those being the residential fence standards. And then I will leave it there for that. The uh there are some individuals here from consumer energy and they will be giving a presentation as well. Um I suppose this time I will stop and ask if there's any questions.

I I I do have a couple, but did anybody else want to? Um, well, I So, just to be clear, it looks like So, there's a 6 foot high fence all the way around the property now that's concrete with a brick veneer. Is that the plan? Um, it's three-sided, the decorative fencing. What's proposed on the east side is the the concrete wall with the the brick veneer. Okay. And for example, the meet the residential standards that would that wall could not go past the house next door. So it can't go to the sidewalk. That's part of the condition. So

okay, that's that. So I guess the fencing was and then are um we're insisting on planting trees at a property where they're going to be burying a lot of natural gas.

I think that is a great question and where the question of does this meet all the standards of the ordinance? Well, if it doesn't have a tree or it can't have the ability to provide a tree, it does not meet the standards of the ordinance. when this goes on to site plan review and we'll get environmental review all of our utility personnel public safety um and if they're when their design team places a tree if there is a conflict it would come up and what we have encountered on some utility buildings is um a landscape standard is run into electrical code on substations so I think for this special use permit um there is an ability to meet it and then exactly for that concern concern. Um if there was a tree and that risk, whether consumers or our own staff, um there's laws and codes with those utilities and usually the utility would trump the tree. Okay? So, that's a long way of saying there's a process for it, but if you guys want to vote to meeting all the standards of the ordinance, there has to be some landscaping in theory.

I Okay. All right. I I have like kind of a related question. So, if we were to um approve the special use permit without conditions because there's no use standard for a utility building, what would happen? Like what hap those three conditions if those aren't there then what standard will the project be held to? That's a great that's a great question. Um and we had I had this discussion um with the applicant as well. There are some options and you know I'll let them speak because you know with that 60% design

I would interpret the fencing and some of these conditions apply regardless um if it was on there the planning commission

could ask for an updated plan. Um but I believe those conditions um the ordinance would still trumpet insight plan review. So even though the record we do have those you know staff I'm confident that insight planner review review comments hey you have to reduce that or apply for a variant so okay um in some discussions because of consumers is a large organization um changing these plans and all the different people they have to talk to um depending on what their needs are when they talk with their team um I did say we could suggest if there's something out of it um a condition could be that they would have to obtain a variance for something that doesn't um align with the code.

And so if we approve it with conditions and then they find out they can't meet the standard of planting any trees, does that necessitate them then having to get a variance because the special use permit had this condition in it or is it just you can work that out at an administrative level? that would be worked out in an administrative level based off of past past experience because right now the there's no not a condition tied to well there is one tied to the tree right good point um then you know that leads me towards removing that condition yeah okay y great questions thank you yep that was that's yeah thank you

and it's this is a little bit of a we got a weird chicken and egg here utility though. Yeah. Wasn't there an either or on that tree though? There was a plant a tree or put two trees in the Edison neighborhood.

In the current zoning code, there is statements about um achieving the standard for tree canopy. And some neighborhoods are below that where the city would like to be or whatever the you know resilient number for an urban area is or percentage I should say. So there is in our landscaping code if you can't meet something you can um meet it by planning it somewhere. So in conversations with consumers maybe the Edison neighborhood association a city park um somebody in their backyard. Um I I figured consumers had the ability and network to get a tree if if Thank you. Yeah. For if we couldn't get it there it could be done that way.

Yeah. I'd be happy if consumers planted some trees not over their buried gas lines. Yeah. and and it somewhere else would be great and it was a little unique where the two was looking at each street um but our again aligning with the code it said only one so good point all right all right in that case do you have a question uh yeah I had one just about laying conditions in general uh so we can vote to approve this with these conditions or without can we just add conditions to proposals as a planning commission when they come before us can we say mo can we motion to approve prove something if XYZ or do these conditions have to be recommended by uh you?

Nope. The the recommendations are that and even now you know one I would recommend removing. And to answer your question, yes, the planning commission can make uh can request conditions. Um typically those may come up during discussion of something that either came up during the review or something. Uh but yes, you guys can create um conditions. So, and you know, if something is a little off the ways or the code, I will let you know. Huh. Thank you. All right. In that case, there's no other questions for staff. Well, we can hear from the applicant. It's just plug in. It'll pop right out.

Good evening. Uh while she's plugging and getting her computer working, I'll go ahead and introduce ourselves. So, my name is Anthony Stepppky, project manager for Consumers Energy, uh 2500 East Cork Street here in Kalazoo. I'm the project manager on the job. Amy Galpin. I work with Consumers Energy supporting this project um permitting and zoning and I um actually live at 955 Elm Street in Newego.

I'm Katie Gres. I'm with Sidok Group. I'm the civil engineer of record. All right. So closing. All right. Uh, so I'll just give a general background of this project. Do you want me to wait till the clock starts? Sorry.

Oh, go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, I'll start again. Uh, good evening everyone. Um, as I mentioned, I'm the project manager for Consumers Energy. Just want to give a little bit of a background as to what we're doing here and the general use of this facility as well. So this is a gas regulator station as um Bobby had mentioned previously did a good job kind of uh identifying what it is. Uh so what it does though is it regulates high pressure distribution gas down to medium pressure distribution gas. And what that means kind of in layman's terms is you have a 400 lb system and a 50 lb system. The 50 lb system is the medium pressure system which essentially services homes and businesses. There are some uh customers that receive high pressure gas, but your typical resident or small business would be using the medium pressure gas. So, this station is what cuts the pressure down in order for uh a customer to receive it up to their home and then there's a final cut at the uh place of residence. So this facility is providing that we do have a number of these across the city of Kazoo and ultimately 700 of these across the state of Michigan. Um also not it's hard to describe here in this picture zoom in in there a little bit. There is a uh on the east side of this property, there is a high-pressure line that runs uh north to south um close to the property line on the east side that then ultimately continues on here to downtown Kalamazoo and it serves the the you know major businesses closer uh to the downtown and then also the the hospitals as well. So um I just wanted to point that out. There is a uh near the resident to the east, there is a valve just off of that tree on this highpressure line. It is a 16 16in

pipeline that then reduces uh north of this to 8 in. Um so as as we're proposing here, we are modernizing the station. Yep. Just uh bring it up a little bit so we can see the whole So, we're modernizing this. We're replacing all the valves, the regulators, the building as mentioned, uh, and adding the features such as a security fence, um, a driveway. There is communication equipment that is being brought in that will be monitored by our gas control in Jackson, Michigan. Um, we're reducing the size of the building. It is going from a old brick concrete mix building to a a steel with a brick facade on the outside to match the character of the of the neighborhood. The fence we're proposing is a 6ft ornamental fence. It's one of those black, you know, kind of like steel looking fences. Um we are proposing to have it close to our property line. Um I did want to mention uh the the valve again on that northeast corner. We would like to have that within the boundaries of the facility uh fence. And so our fence is being proposed as you can see that valve is that um the two triangles there um just under the black dot and uh we would like to like I said have that within the facility. It is a uh a valve that someone could you know effectively uh tamper with. Um, and then also likewise, another reason for adding fence uh is to obviously upgrade security measures. We did have a couple pits, just big metal boxes that are sunk into the ground. Those are now being replaced with valves that are above grade. They're not in boxes. It's about 3 and 1/2 ft tall. Um, you can I don't know if you guys can see what is on the

screen here. Um, but that is what essentially stops gas coming in and out of the station. Um, we like to have that secured with the fence. Um, we also are proposing to have uh limestone gravel added as the surface as opposed to grass. It helps to reduce maintenance um and also prevent uh stuff growing up around around the stuff that's now above grade. Of course, if we had grass there, we're worried about people uh contractors essentially coming in and mowing and then damaging coating on the above grade assets that we now have will have as part of this upgrade. So, we'd like to keep that away from that and ultimately further damage. Um, so outside of that, this is just part of a consumer's plan. We do plan to modernize, you know, our entire fleet of these regulatory stations across the state and provide with brand new equipment. And so this station has been around as mentioned from the ' 40s. Um, so there is some age equipment there we like to, you know, bring in and get new. There was previously on the uh the report there was uh some work that was done by our gas construction group previously. They are in the city of Kalamazoo. We've had a lot of standard pressure pipe which is piping that is like under a pound of pressure is really old. There's been leaks and consumers has done like I said a lot of work over the last couple years to replace that with the medium pressure system which is a more reliable system. Uh they're also adding plastic new plastic pipe all across the city. Um and so in this effort this station had standard pressure. It's being now being removed and replaced with just medium pressure gas coming out and uh serving the the neighborhood there. Uh other than that, I think we did have a couple comments in regards to uh we believe there's uh two potential uh differences we have. Uh of course, first

with the tree, we do believe that yeah, we're happy to install a tree somewhere in the neighborhood. We would prefer it's not on the site where there is natural gas and causing one potentially for something to fall in the future and damage equipment nor having roots grow into pipe and causing a leak that way. So in necessity for having uh customer safety, we'd like to prevent that, but we'd be more than happy to provide a tree in like I said in the in the neighborhood itself. The other issue was the 4T versus 6T. We'd obviously like to have a 6ft fence as a 4ft fence is not really going to be that much of a barrier uh as far as security is is concerned here. This fence also does have finials uh on the top and having those lower just wouldn't make sense. Um, so having those at a higher, we usually typically install eight foot fences for this type of this style of fence. But in this case, uh, being as close as we are to the residence, we're happy to to side with a sixft fence. And I think there I'll let Katie speak to the, uh, I guess we did find somewhere in the code that would uh, we would classify this. In our mind, this is a nonresidential use of this property. It has been since the ' 40s. And so I think there is some language within the code that would suggest 6T is proper in a non-residential use even though we are in a neighborhood. So I'll let Kitty speak to that. Thank you. All right. Um, so we're looking at the same 50-8.5 um, standard that uh, was referenced um,

in the staff review. Um, but when we did our design um, be because uh, obviously our our site is it's in a residential zone but it's not it's a non-residential use. Um so we actually followed um C which is fence and wall standards for non-residential uses. Uh fences and walls installed on non-residential use properties shall adhere to the following requirements. In front and corner side yards up to 6 ft is permitted and then inside and rear yards up to 8 feet is permitted. Um so we just kept with the six foot. Um but when we were going through the design process, this was the part of the code that we referenced. Um so that's uh we we think that the the 6oot ornamental fence would be appropriate. We actually follow the TSA guidelines and the guidelines call for a 7ft fence with 1T additional barbed wire. And so we're already coming off of those guidelines by going to six feet. And so um just for safety and security of this facility, we would um like to at least do 6 ft. 4T, like Anthony said, doesn't offer a lot of protection. And we do have some pictures of similar uh styles that we've installed at other locations that do have um brick facade or it you know both styles of this fence. So if if you're willing to if you want to see those I can happily show those to you. Go ahead please.

So this, if you can see your screens, this uh we're showing here would be an example of one of these buildings. I don't believe this is the same exact footage dimensions, but it would be a similar brick facade looking uh as this. I think the color that we're proposing is a white wash as opposed to this is a little bit darker. Um but this effectively would be what it looks like. We do have a kind of like the brown tones on the roof and uh the lighter color doors and um gutters as well. This next picture is a picture of one of our concrete uh fences that we've done recently this year. Um the one in our current site plan is from a different manufacturer and textured, but it is essentially a concrete post followed by uh just 18-inch panels that do slide in. And we do plan to have those as a doublefaced uh setting with the subject to change as far as like the texture on those those uh concrete panels. This is just an example of what they look like going in. Here's uh another facility that we've done. This is in the Detroit metro area of a building that does have the brick facade with the ornamental black fencing uh as shown here. We do not have the other equipment which is a in the center here is a is a heater. Um but likewise we will have equipment uh communication equipment which is this rack here in the back uh right and then the building will be very similar to this as well as the texture of the ground and uh and fencing. Here's a closer look at the ornamental

fence for the facility. And you can kind of see the how the valving would effectively look behind that in this picture. This is this is an 8ft fence that I that I'm showing currently. And just another view of that that same facility. one more uh of of the facility with the concrete uh wall and then ornamental fence as well. That's all I have. All right. Thank you. I think that that that provides a pretty solid idea.

All right. Um any questions then for the Yeah, I did have clarification. I think though for Bobby um so in our recommendation here it says the fencing shell conformed to 50-8.5 A and B. I noticed in the document it was like point C. So I just want to make sure we're like talking about the same um I guess conformance for this. Yes. The um the difference is C is nonresidential. I reference the residential and the nuance here it's in the ordinance it says use

so um they reference C and then the question becomes what is the use but that's why they reference C I reference the residential use standards in my uh condition recommendation so the residential standard is 4T and what you guys are asking us is to modify the condition to reference C to allow you to go to six feet.

There is an ability to put six foot fence within the setbacks um which would be the house next door um or the 12 1/2 ft on on the side. So that's that was the intent of the openness of the the condition. So um so the condition as it's in our packet would allow 6 ft between the house that solid fence the concrete that could be 6 ft but the rest of it would be 4T or would be allowed to be 6 ft because it's because it's far enough back correct. Yeah. Okay. So it can be 6 feet with condition as it's in our packet.

Yes. There is a way to place that B6T tall on that site just not at the property lines. And there's also a clear view triangle in the fence standards and uh fair matches. And there there may be something here. Um just thinking out loud. Um we we are very in the weeds on you section and all of that. Um maybe during discussion um we come up with a a condition to address um the unknown. And I've got a few ideas for that. Okay, that would be helpful. or or or I I I I will I don't know if the public would want to see the dayto-day of a planner of of that part of it. Sure.

Um but I mean I think we're just as concerned about the safety and security of the site and making sure that everything is is secure and that nothing is going to fall on the building or grow into the pipe. So or or or that or and that all the valves are protected adequately. So, so the uh zoning ruling on the fence changes how close to the property line the fence can go, not the height. Or is there any difference with with if the fence will include the valve that they were worried about or not?

It looks to me like the valve could still be covered behind the 6ft fence. It looks, you know, right on the line with the house. You know, cover the valve. Um, as far as location, all the ordinance says is it has to be on a property. So, fortunate part about it is the city doesn't get into property land disputes. They've got surveys. It's not going to be a problem here. And there's this is a unique property because it's got right ofway on three sides, which makes it the most restrictive type of residential fencing. And but you also because where the house is, you can put a tall solid wall. So that's why over there it could be a wall, a picket fence, whatever the case may be. But just a little bit of an explanation on that nuance why something so heavy could show up there on the east side. And um yeah.

Okay. Okay. So

All right. So let's open the public hearing. Um we'll take any additional comments in person. Anyone wants to come and sign in and then or call in at 888 3829556. No one seems to be lining up. It's changed from last time, but um and no one's on the phone. All right. With that, we will close that public hearing and make sure we are understanding what we're making a motion for to ensure that the property is the neighborhood is as safe and secure as we can

we can make it.

Okay. Um the what I what I think the way to suggest this I I think the design team has brought up really good questions. Use versus zone is something very common in the day-to-day. Um and I think that that's worthy of a discussion before you know I'd give an answer. And I think uh in this situation where we have some design standards, we know the impervious coverage but we have some items which may not align with reference to a condition. I think uh a possibility could be um adding a condition that if when it goes into site plan review a zoning conflict is created by the fencing or any other item that they would have to a condition obtain a variance if during site plan review a condition of the location of the fencing and then that would be the planning commission can't wave the standards for the fence. Um so let's say there the situation in site plan review they can't meet the clear vision triangle it needs to be whatever it may be um then that site plan wouldn't advance and then they would have the option to appeal to the zoning board of appeals recognizing there is that safety issue but the the relief valve in that case is the the zoning board of appeals um

and can the planning commission declare it the cype non-residential use in a residential area the way that they requested.

That's a a great question. Um, sitting right here without looking into it further, I I would not want to make a call on a vacant uh what do you call that? Utility building in a fully residential area. So, I I think I can't answer that right here right now. I can't say definitively. Okay. What if we just remove that condition alto together? What happens? Like they just go through the the condition about the fencing. They go through site plan review and you guys have to work it out administratively, right?

Like if we don't have any condition about fencing whatsoever. I think the fencing is automatically there, is it not? The fencing conditions are auto the fencing standards no matter what, there's some sort of fencing standard.

Yep. Or maybe it is um the final fencing design shall adhere to site plan review and ordinance standards. Hold on, I I lost my train of thought there. Uh yeah, I think that the condition becomes because you bring up a good point, meeting the fence standards is part of it. Um where maybe instead it's a reference to the submitted site plan with the special use permit is not definitive and that the site plan to be approved. You know, maybe you make the condition that um upon approval of the site plan review committee. as something the NFP does and you can make the same we've had the same argument internally. Do you really need to mention it? But perhaps I always like to think I look at a lot of old files. Someone in 50 years would go, "Oh, they meant this and not that." So just thinking out loud there, that might be a good reason to put something in a condition, particularly when they read these minutes. So the condition would be the final fencing standard

for site plan review as a Yeah. As approved by the site plan review process. Yeah. It seems to me there's going to be a fence there. Yeah. Right. There will be a fence. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think it's up to us when I'm listening to this. It's not up to us to say that's going to be administratively or uh in the site plan review. We don't have to micromanage exactly what that fence looks like knowing full well there will be a fence there. No, I just want to make sure that we're not blocking by by accepting this. I want to make sure that we're not blocking a a fence that adequately protects the site. I I like this per site plan review idea. Yeah. And I say we're doing our due diligence

creating a situation where they're forced to go to a variance for something that everyone agrees should happen which is a fence that is safe and fits the neighborhood character to the best the ability to preserve the safety of the site.

And this is really good feedback for me because my initial thought my day would be site planner v will figure this out. Um, however, with newer members, newer process, very complicated thing, transparency, so and years of managing site plan, I tend to go in the weeds. But, um, that is good feedback because I I I think reasonably that is an advantage of our site plan review process is lots of things come up like this in an old dense city. Um, and site planner v gets complicated. You're not disparaging an old dense city. No, that that just means it's complic Oh. So, are we clear then? Passing on that condition.

So, there's no condition and if there's no condition, then it will be it will just automatically revert to the site plan review process. I had the condition for fencing and what were the other two? Can you uh gravel surfacing being only permitted within the proposed fencing and providing uh at least two trees to the tree canopy? Yeah. Which you changed to one, but we should make it two because we can both of those two conditions. But I'm only talking about the fence. I think you just removed that. Yeah, I I I would recommend at least uh a condition that uh obtain site plan approval from the site plan review committee. Uh a body that you guys give the authority to just gives it a little bit more.

Yeah, sure. But they wouldn't need to reply for any sort of additional variance. Site plan review committee can. Yes, I I think we could or it is entirely possible. A 16in gas mane high pressure is incredible. I mean there might be some overriding law over the zoning ordinance authority at play here which is way beyond. Yeah. So that is a possibility and keep in mind with the site plan update list you know we can follow this along or I can always provide an update uh to show how we sorted it out because we will sort it out. The team will sort it out. All right. Yes. We're not trying to create more friction here for No, no. This is this is good good discussion for me. It's uh trying to create less

we're trying to create less friction for the applicant less. So I'm I'm guessing this is this new facility would be considerably safer than the one that's that's 80 years old. Great. Let's let's make let's make sure that that happens. Yeah. Okay. All right. So what is our our final consensus on the addended condition? What is the exact wording? Have you guys made a motion? No, no one's made a motion. We wanted we wanted to make sure we made what the motion says here. I'll give you a real motion. A motion um with the condition that the final site plan will be the site plan approved by the site plan review committee. Great.

You got to say that three times fast. Okay. And that will not require them to get a dozen variances for Yeah. Right. It's all No. when it it and I I always say in project management all the pre-development or pre-planning you can do site plan is is if it's going to pop up surprise anywhere because the gas station they mentioned the fuel tanks sometimes an environmental item moves a building and then creates a variance so it's not unusual for a project to need a variance in site planner view due to some unknown constraint

okay motion to approve the special use permit to redevelop the utility building on the property for consumers energy at 1204 for East Elcott Street with the following conditions. Gravel surfacing only permitted within the proposed fencing surrounding the regulator building and not in excess of the maximum impervious surface of the RS5 zone district. Provide one tree in each street front yard or contribute at least two trees to the tree canopy of the Edison neighborhood. And the final site plan will be the site plan approved by the site plan committee.

Second. Hooray. All right. Any further dis further discussion or do we think we covered it all in our pre- discussion? We're good. Great. Please contribute a tree somewhere else. Um, all right. With that, we'll take capital or roll call, please. Oh, sorry. I was lost in the dialogue. Um, Besonette, yes. Castrava, yes. Swan, yes. Wilson, yes. Audit Bowman, yes. Patalco, yes. Thank you. Uh, all right. And there with the um city planners report, I will have one more presentation for you guys on May.

Okay. All right. You guys,

nice. Nailed it. Nailed it. Good job, gang. Good job. I'm done getting them.

I kind of miss it. All right. Thank you for your patience again with our other computers here. It's actually you and trying to get them all on one computer beforehand. Um so tonight, um for the city planners report, I know it's been pretty quiet with Imagine Calamazoo. Um tonight I wanted to provide an update on where things are at, where things are going, and what has been done um leading up to here. And I'm going to go grab my notes here real quick. All right. So, here's our our quick agenda. Um, probably about 15 minutes here, 20 minutes. Uh, see if you guys have any questions as well. Um, it's going to be first covering the imagine Kalamazoo 2035 engagement and outreach done uh up until now. the analysis and initial results of the input received um covering the strategic network uh strategic framework um on a happy healthy city and then next steps a little bit as we're going to talk about the strategic uh vision as well which is going on pretty close to it. Um so here is the timeline right now and you'll notice we're not exactly lined up with it. We're we're a little bit uh delayed. Um one of the benefits is um we are on a self-imposed timeline. the uh current city master plan is you know it wouldn't even expire until I believe it's it's October of 27. So we're not if you know we don't do it by May um we still have a lot of uh wiggle room and just the volume of everything you know it's turning into a lot of work and I think in these next phases it's really going to gain momentum. So there on the timeline you see the the imaginate that

was the early stuff back um back in September of last year through January and the planet work that went on a lot through the spring and summer here and a lot of that information um the intern teams and uh you know compiling all the sticky notes to create the information clouds that they got online. So um you know through the different phases you know what what did we do at the city um or or the whole community I should say um one of the methods was meetings on the go that was uh having you know trying to elevate our champions for the process um Mitchell Curtis is the liaison from the planning commission uh who does that for this body and that's meeting people at different places that's coffee shop u homes parks um just encouraging people to go out and meet in their own networks Um, imagine Kalamazoo Reads. Um, the city staff and city planning. We did a a read of Happy Cities, encouraged the community to read it. There were a number of book reads. Uh, very um interesting, great book about, you know, the the mental health and the the built physical environment. Uh, something, you know, where we don't think about and it it encouraged you to think about that built environment and how it impacts your mood. Communitywide surveys, virtual, in person. um that was very heavy uh in our last uh master plan. And then even a community road show where staff, planning staff would kind of bring a larger presentation to different neighborhood groups or even internally um staff would um bring these to the different departments and divisions working on our internal communication as well as our external as an organization. Um so it's the big broad question um what's transformed over the last 10 years? uh what remains an obstacle. Um how are we going to use this information? The attempt is to empower residents and you know how do we get as much authentic feedback as possible not just a form or an email. So that's where

the meetings on the go the um other champions of the process where it isn't just city staff talking about it. It's a bunch of uh different circles whether it's the universities uh business entities things like that. During the uh planet phase um we use the information we heard in the imaginate phase um and then started to review and discuss it loosely to try and figure out you know I think a good way to describe this it's a it's a big funnel you know we we're familiar with public feedback you know Nolan talks about the the comments out there online um how do you take all of that and work it into some constructive thing that works as best as it can for a community I think all of this is we're starting up high right now in the big and planet is a a little closer. So that's where in the spring, you know, we had five public meetings back in March and April. Um these were open format, everybody welcome and then those were broken up into small discussions focusing on goals and outcomes and at the same time there was an online uh companion survey. So taking the larger things and hey what is starts to coales what what starts to f come out of that. In addition to those public meetings, um focus groups, eight topic specific groups with community subjects and subject matter experts to talk about that and really, you know, that quantitative qualitative part Nolan was talking about. Um a meeting with staff experts um to discuss goals and outcomes and reporting out a summary of all all of that and then some peer facilitated exercises based off of all of that data. Now, that sounds like a lot. What did it actually produce? Um, first off, there was almost 4,300 points of contact. And to highlight some of those, um, before I get into some of the, uh, results and what's coming next, um, 735 meeting on the go participants, um, 256 popup engagements. We had 942

participants in the happy city book read and, uh, 50 partner activities and even, uh, 118 youth projects. um really showing just here kind of at the midpoint um casting another good strong net hopefully getting as much uh feedback at this early part as possible. So, this is the lens that we're going to use to move um from engagement. What does everybody think? What do we want to do to actually uh refine it into something? Um we're using multiple data sources, target market analysis, national community survey, the safe streets for all plan, um community voices, all of the points of contact, best practices, and staff expertise. And then you got that, you know, this nice nice ven diagram here of the best practices and staff expertise, the community, and then the data. Um, obviously you don't want one outweighing the rest of them. And somewhere in there is that best spot to get to that through our plan to get to that point and pull out the best stuff that translates the greatest result. So, as we continue to um bring it further down here, uh imagine Kalamazoo 2035 is inherently a public process. Um but the work to make it a success, a coder is both in-house internally and externally. That's getting back to it can't just be city planning staff coming up with their ideals. Um the community vision is crafted by the public and staff and um the organization proposes uh values developed by city staff to help um identify shared expectations. So the um strategic vision is that internal master plan for the entire city administration and through management retreats and staff feedback trying to we're updating that at the same time. The last one was done around the time of Imagine Kalazoo. it'll be uh in front of

you guys probably here in the next couple months. Um so here we see um those different things. The community vision which is um describes what the community will look and feel like in the future. Um the org purpose org being the city in in its administration. It's the why do we do what we do and then the values of uh the city which is uh shared expectations of ourselves and others and how we operationalize our purpose to implement the community's goals. It's kind of you know how do you start to administrate that into a process if you will and then um guiding principles and goals defining our future direction directing resources and projects for the next 10 years. So with that and the limited capacity, where do we want to go and what can we do trying to get all brought in a little closer. So through this, you know, um statements and guiding principles were were developed. Um so the vision statement is in 2035 all Kalamazoo neighbors are supported by sustainable, responsive, and accessible services that lift people up and bring our community together at every stage of life. Um this was developed from public comment and staff review is is um this and that is you know the encapsulating statement right now and this is the organizational purpose. Why do we do what we do at the city? Um our purpose is to provide essential resources, services and exceptional customer service to ensure the well-being of our residents and the sustainable growth of our city. And then from there, you know, organizational values were developed. Um, and those are integrity, learning, inclusion, customer service, accountability, teamwork, and safety. Um, integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody's looking. Um, I'll leave it up there a little bit

longer so you guys can look through those, but each of those, that's how do you develop a a synchronized um, well- missioned workforce? And each of those values really encapsulate a lot of that. These were developed from staff conversations at retreats and this internal organization will again help us set us up for success and this forms the foundation which why we're working to do what we do something to keep printed in front of the desk. So moving forward the the strategic framework um we do not have the full strategic vision document ready to present um but I I would predict you will start to like I said just in a couple months here. So, how do we go from, now that we talked about that funnel, how do we go from where we're at from engagement to actual plan implementation? Engagement talks about, you know, covered in that ven diagram already. Um, uses the lens, we go from raw input to actual comprehensive vision. The strategic vision there is being is our is our northstar. And in uh 2035, we want to be set up internally to be a success with implementation. And this occurs in two ways. Um it work it lives in the the city manager's office and that looks at the action plan and the larger budget capacity and all of that and then in department goals where in each department shorter term plans and more specific goals through each department with recognizing their budget and capacity to achieve the vision. So what I'm talking about here is you see the internal um engagement process to formulate from city staff and city feedback how to build the strategic vision and then from there the implementation becomes here's the northstar for city manager's office and then each department having their own working from the same one. It's probably much more relevant for those of us um working for the city, but this is that

strong um making sure we check in internally, not just externally for um what the master plan um could develop to call for. Um so right there you see the IK 20 um 35 vision and it's just a visualization of it that leads to the strategic vision plan which goes over to government strategy documentation. That's that CMO, city department. And then the um communitywide, much bigger than just administration is the master plan. And then to our city's master plan, we have neighborhood plans and sub plans. That whole entire uh web of network where a lot of it for for this body and group is going to be related to the master plan and all of those downstream of it. All right. Now, how do we align Imagine Kalamazoo 2035? Um, again, this is just a closeup. I I should have looked at that ahead. This is a closeup of that breakdown. We're developing the plan internally that will be solidified and approved in early 26. And then the imagine Kalamazoo 2035 plan coming later in 2026. So what are the you know the the guiding principles that have arisen out um in the imagine kazoo process? We started to formulate those as well and those are that the city of Kalazoo is committed to um diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility um to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility um through planning of services and decision making. Making sure that um a DEI lens is in all aspects of what the city's doing. Economic mobility, expanding access pathways that lead all to stability, opportunity, and prosperity for all residents. Sustainability, supporting the long-term health and resiliency of community and environment. Operational excellence, city services,

amenities, and places that excel at compassionate customer service and delivery. And then um lastly, continuous engagement, prioritizing meaningful engagement with residents and community members in the decisions that affect their lives. That would be the continued conversation once the the plan is implemented. And the um strategic goals um highlighted as well. Um you see the the five just listed there off to the right. And then in the strategic goals, you know, those eight that have really percolated topic are arts, culture and placemaking, community, trust and safety, economic vitality, effective city operations, environment, housing, transportation, and youth and family. So you can start to see those uh you know the master plan uh real large buckets start to start to form and you see how they relate to the strategic vision goals. So getting back to that that timing. Um any questions there? I I realize this kind of a we got a little bit of our current master plan update and we haven't talked so much about the strategic vision which is getting close to being put out to for drafts and public uh um digestion. So kind of two at one here. Any questions right now? Great. So um the strategic vision as I said would go first. Um there would be a presentation of the draft at the city commission. Um the planning commission we would do a presentation to you guys as well. And then it's um February is what we're looking at for approval of the final document. So I would expect to see something by January, February in front of you guys with that. And now to the the master plan, the uh the design it part of it. The that's going to start this winter. Um that's where we have all the information and everything. Now we're going to start

formulating a document, getting drafts out there to start to then comment on the drafts to really finesse it. Um what to look for ahead? More focus groups. Imagine Kalamazoo reads. Um keep growing and in in learning. Um, I would expect probably another book read to come out or if you have book read suggestions, please share them. Um, 13 to 15 neighborhood meetings. There'll be online activities and you know, I'll provide updates to you guys as as uh more meetings as stuff start to roll out. I would imagine our um new neighborhood activator C mall would be in involved in these steps. And then uh on the city's web page, there's an imagine Kalamazoo page. Um, so I think very quickly this winter, early next year, you're going to start to see um more meetings, engagement, and stuff rolled out there showing what's being developed with the the master plan. So, I know it's been a little quiet for a little bit, but um we're going to really expect that momentum to pick up here. Um, and I was here through the last um master plan and that's that's the exciting part because now you're seeing real documents, real maps, real things for people to comment on. So, uh, I think that's when we'll start hearing a lot about our master plan. And if there's any questions on next steps or this presentation, I'll be glad to answer them. All right. Well, the that presentation I well, you guys have in the packet, it's online. And uh, yeah, thank you. That's it for that presentation.

Thank you. Um, from the site plan review lists, I don't know. Is there anything we need to discuss with that? Any questions? Any questions? No. All right. And then moving then on to the Do we need to approve the meeting schedule or is this just the meeting schedule? Um you guys should at least do a a what do you call that? Um a a voice vote um to to set it. Um did you guys get the I distributed one today and here's a current copy. Yeah. Got it. I think for on the original one I sent I think I was looking at my 25 calendar. Oh, right. Okay.

So, I had to just move them all over a day. 98. These are the same. Yeah. No, these are December the December meetings. The December Oh, no. The 5th. Oh, no. They're all Okay. And currently I I learned doing this, we already had the January meeting set, but it's the same one on there. Okay. May. So they're all So the only the two that were adjusted from the Thursday was uh the 4th of not No, it wasn't Fourth of July. It was the April one for spring break and I don't think we had to move the January one. I end up on the 7th. January 7th.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're good there. Yeah. So in the packet it's October, November, and December. So October, November, December. We're updating those by day and the one the one published on the packet should be updated already. I didn't want that to be confused out there and to help ensure you know that record there's an amended date on the current one. Apologies for the mixup. All right. Apology accepted. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So with that, can we I guess can we get a motion? Motion to approve the planning commission meeting schedule for 2026. Second. Second. Approved and seconded. All in favor? I. All right. Motion carries. Schedule approved. Put them in your calendars tonight.

The eyes have. All right. Public comments, which um looking a little thin, but we we'll still take any calls on general non-aggenda items at 888 3829556. Again, Collins on any non-aggenda items. 888 3829556.

Yeah. Yeah. Listen, if anyone is casting for voiceover work, I am available. Just happens to be watching. Anyone who is watching a planet, that's it's nicer than saying you have a radio quality face. I'm not saying I've never done a radio spot, but it's been a but it's been a while. All right, take it there's none. Nope. All right, see commissioner liaison comments. Chris, who's been sitting so patient with you, Chris?

And staying away. Commissioner Commissioner Pradle, apologies. Sorry. I love these weeks. It's city commission week, parks and wreck week, planning commission week. So, three meetings. So,

thanks for the chance to to update you quickly. Just wanted to make sure that you knew that the city manager's office has released our proposed fiscal year 26 budget. It's a $344 million budget, which has all kinds of goodies in there to check out. Um it's uh typically released uh by December 1st. Uh the plan is to um vote on it on uh the first meeting in January. So if you do have a little bit of time uh to check it out um and definitely encourage you to do that, you can go to kazoo city.org/budget. It's a great um kind of management tool you can check out where you can sift through different parts of the budget or areas of the departments that interest you the most. Uh so definitely would encourage you to check that out. Uh, also want to make sure to plug it is holiday season time and uh, if you go to discover calalamazoo.com/events, you'll find all kinds of uh, activities happening on and around Kalamazoo and downtown. U, but particularly want to remind people to make sure to support our uh, local small businesses uh, this time of year as well. And I also wanted to just make sure to put a plug in and thank our public services team. A lot of people are not aware of this, but uh they're working really hard to keep our streets cleared and uh actually our sidewalks as well in many places. And uh they're also the same people who help remove our leaves or pick up our leaves. They're also the same people who put up our holiday decorations. And so they are working uh triple hard uh this time of year for our residents. Want to make sure to also recognize our public safety team and our public services team who are also out there doing things like water main repairs in this kind of weather. So, we appreciate them and I know you do as well. So, thank you very much. Hope you all have a great holiday season.

Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Commissioner Pradle. Apologies. Um, sorry. Okay. Any planning commissioner comments this evening? I feel like we nailed this one, guys. Okay. Okay. All right. Well,

go ahead. Just one thing. December 10th, Wednesday, next week, we've got our global ties. Last year, we hosted over 600 international professional visitors in California. Even in these this tough season, we almost hit 400 of which was difficult, but we're going to have a little celebration on this coming Wednesday. Martini second floor, you know, any invitation. All right. Thank you. All right. Well, if nothing else, we are adjourned at 9:53.

Thank you. Yeah. Let's see.