City Council - Regular Meeting

10 bucks. He's not going to be able to hear me. Hey John, this is Dave. Can you hear me? It's on.

John, can you hear us? One, two, three. John, Dave, can you Dave? I did hear you. It's uh, but I can hear you. All right. I may have to use text so I don't get like the I get the big echo here because I'm using my phone. Gotcha. Do do you want me to call you or anything, Dave? Would that make it any easier? No, it's fine. Okay, very good. Okay, great.

It's our wonderful sound system that we have in here. We'll make do. It's been a

It's been a rough day. A case of the moon days. We good. Uh so President Keell is not is unable to be here this evening. So you you guys are stuck with me to chair this meeting. Um so I apologize in advance foration. Um first order of business for the committee of whole. I'll go ahead and call it to order for uh March 30th, 2026. First order of business is the review and approval of the March 16, 2026 committee the whole uh without objection they are approved. Great. Uh the next item of business we have is the only item of business we have this evening uh which is a communication from the planning department regarding the Madison Hillyard intersection study uh that was completed by a terrace and I believe we we also have someone from my terrace uh available to answer our questions. I know, you know, obviously there's a fatality at this intersection. Um, and then it's, you know, if you counter the Facebook and social media comments about this intersection, it probably eclipses every other intersection in the city. Um, so interested in really uh, you know, things that we can do that are grounded in in sound and engineering practices. So, at this point, I'll throw it over. I don't know. It's if it's uh, it looks like it's public works and planning. So, I'll I'll let you all

Mr. Chair. Yes. Uh, councelor, before jumping in, I emailed um the planning staff and director Gordon this question beforehand, but the report refers to something that I wanted to just make sure we understood what the stop the Madison Avenue I I infer there's a soon to happen Madison Avenue wide schedule, excuse me, traffic timing recalibration. Is that is that what that is? But maybe if you could just give us the sentence prior to jumping into this study of this one part of Madison, that would be great.

Uh yes, Councilman Bulock. Thank you. Um so as part of the Hillyard Madison intersection study, um a complete separate project is the Madison Avenue stop study. So the Madison Avenue stop study is basically a signal timing optimization project. We have not implemented that yet on Madison because we're waiting on everything to do with the Hillyard Madison intersection. So, a brief quick summary will be yes, the Hillyard Madison intersection will be included with the stop study, but anything in regards to that specific project has not been done yet because we are waiting for the next steps with Hillyard Madison.

And Mr. Chair, we follow. So, so are you saying the study that's going to be Madison Avenue wide, the separate study that partly overlaps, has yet to be completed or it has been completed? We have results, but we're not going to implement the results until we talk about what we're talking about tonight. Has yet to be completed? Okay. Best guesstimate. Would it normally independent of this, would that normally be a 2026 or a 2027 thing or what? It would have been completed already. Okay. Okay. So once that's rolling, that'll be multiple months.

Yeah. I mean, there there's no set time for that right now. There there's prior to us getting into the to the roots of the Madison Hill intersection, there's a lot of things to consider and the stop study is certainly one of them. I would say out of everything, that's probably something that's going to happen no matter what. Um, but the the entire process for the Madison Hillyard se intersection is going to take some time. um I would say months on end and that's going to include this study as well. So sorry for all the followup but so the the Madison Avenue full length study your your your thought is that's going to be on hold until we know what we're doing with Madison and Hilliard.

Yes. Because you don't you don't want to comm you don't want to what word am I looking for? You don't want to commit to doing a traffic signal optimization study all the way down Madison, stop at Hillyard Madison, don't do anything, start over again, and then do the rest of Madison all the way down to Riverside to then go back and have to redo the study all over again to now include whatever it may be at the Hillyard Madison intersection. Um so what it was decided upon by its public works and engineering all of us in general all on the same page is when we implement the recommendations at Hillyard Madison we will then include doing the stop study on Madison from 117th all the way down to Riverside as well.

Okay because it's best to knock it all out at one time than to alle cart and piece meal everything together. that that's helpful context. And once we're ready to rock and roll, that'll take what 18 months, 24 months.

I don't have an exact set time frame right now. There's a lot to consider. Um, as you can see with the short-term recommendations, there's equipment that needs to get in. There's equipment that needs to get put up. There's upgrades that need to be performed. There's a lot of there's a lot of floating parts right now. And with lead times and things of that nature, I I don't want to commit to a set time frame. um understanding the sensitivity of the intersection. All intersections are sensitive. I understand that. But we will certainly look to get this completed as soon as possible. I just don't want to commit to a set time frame right now.

Sure. It sounds like it could. Normally you've gone for one season to do the study. Sometimes it might go into two seasons if things aren't perfect. I'm not talking about the Hillyard Madison. I'm talking about the whole I would suspect we should be able to get everything completed before the end of the year. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thanks. Now it's your turn, Dave. Or assistant director boss. I think I'm done. I'll see you guys. It took Chris Gordon or Director Gordon nine minutes to say probably by the end of the year. Thank you, Chris. That was a great prequel. I just appreciate the thoroughess. Yeah.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, members of council. Um, appreciate the chance to come back. Uh this will be the fourth presentation for this study since it was completed in November. Um we submitted it to council uh I think believe before the end of the year. Um we reviewed it with planning commission u and then we spent two meetings with the new case board reviewing this um and and now we're here. Uh and we do have Mr. John Albeck uh formerly of iteras. He's the traffic engineer that conducted the study on our behalf. Um so I can follow up afterwards with kind the results of planning commission and case. Basically both both organizations recommended that we implement the short-term recommendations. Um both were supportive of the long-term recommendations. Um I believe if I'm remembering correctly that just the language out of planning commission was that obviously they were interested in implementing the longer long-term recommendations as soon as possible. Um but but knowing that and we can talk through some of those just the inherent complexities with some of those things like curb bumpouts and things especially the value of having we had one of our new commission members is an RTA planner and we spent about 30 minutes uh walking through the complexities of uh curb bumpouts and how complex it can be given RTA's 25 route down there, the bike lanes and and all the other things that you have to consider. It's not just as easy as redesigning and redrawing the curb lines. There's an awful lot to be considered. Um, and then the secondary implications that those long-term recommendations would have on traffic flow. Uh, when you have a bus that's stopping in the primary and only through

travel lane. Um, and so, so there's I say that as we consider short-term recommendations. um to kind of jump quickly to put in your head that we are supportive of the short-term recommendations. I believe our approach now is to is to get those out as quickly as we possibly can, get those things rolled out and then then allow them to have an impact an impact and an effect um before we then look to jump to make additional changes in the intersection because a lot of the changes that we'll walk through tonight are signal changes. There's signal timing changes that are going to significantly change the level of service in this intersection. And that when you talk about changing the level of service, complete streets and everything else that we have, it is this is a rebalancing of priorities if you will for all modes of transportation. And that that happens across a lot of different ways to do that. And we'll talk you and you're well aware of some of the physical changes that we've made to the intersections to highlight pedestrian, bicycle travel, those types of things and better physically delineate or or highlight those modes of travel. But the signalized changes that are being made are kind of part and parcel to that. When you implement something like leading pedestrian interval, it has an impact on all the other signal of those of the phases of that intersection. And so what Mr. Albeck will walk you through is kind of the impacts of those as you consider those. And so it is not I I guess my point is that is not an insignificant thing to roll that out and allow it some time for people to kind of adjust and get and see how it works over time without having to without jumping to to the next thing or those long-term things too quickly. um before we've had a chance to kind of analyze and assess

how the short-term recommendations have had their impact. And so I guess with that is just kind of a quick aside um prologue. I will hand it over to Mr. Albeck um and he can walk you through kind of the summary of the study and answer any initial questions you have and then if that's okay, Mr. Chair, we can go from there. So sounds good. John, if you can hear me, if you want to just start just provide a quick overview or a summary of the study. Absolutely. Dave, I didn't know did you uh plan to share a screen or anything, Dave, or just would you like me to verbally go ahead and give an update?

Uh I could the the the uh study is up um and so I can just I can go to whatever you want or if you want me to share the screen so you can see it too, I can do that. Sure. Sure. That would be great. Thank you. And and maybe we could just focus on figure 21, Dave. I think that might be the easiest way to just kind of summarize uh the the changes that are proposed.

Looks like it's coming up here. There we go. I can see it. And first while Dave scrolling to those uh that page and everything really do appreciate the opportunity to work with the city. It's been a great study. It's it's been great working with the staff and everything. And I do think that we have some shortterm types of improvements that can be done in a relatively quick time frame to really make some tangible benefits for the operation. As David mentioned, there's always a cost to this in terms of if we're going to improve safety here, we might be impacting the efficiency and some of the delays. Now, we've done studies, we've done modeling to show what those impacts are going to be, and I'll kind of touch on those as we go through here. So, this is kind of our infographic that lays out the short and the long-term recommendations. I know David mentioned some of the long-term and through some of our other meetings, we've got a couple other recommendations that could be looked at in the future and have kind of been added to the list of those things. But the short-term recommendations are truly things that can be implemented quite quickly to make some of these effective uh safety improvements. Um because I heard before, yes, this is a a highly visible location. Clearly from what you can even see uh on the screen there with the skewed angles and the five legs, there's a lot of challenges there. So the first item, if you're looking at the list in the lower leftand corner, the shortterm recommendations, this has the most dramatic impact. first in terms of safety, uh, which is what we're we all really want to achieve, but it's the one that's also going to create more of that delay for our vehicular traffic, um, in in these cases. So what item one is is right now as it is today if you are

making a left turn off of Madison either onto Hilliard or even if you're a I'll call it westbound left uh to go onto Caribel pedestrians uh uh you you you at some point will get a green arrow and then a green circular indication and during that green circular indication pedestrians could be crossing in that crosswalk. walk. You can already see from the length of the geometry, uh the the size, the skew of this intersection, it can be very hard to judge the gaps in the traffic, where the pedestrians are, where the bicycles are. It can be very difficult for drivers to navigate that. And in fact, one of the accidents that occurred, not the fatality, but one of the accidents did occur was a westbound left striking pedestrian in that crosswalk on Caribel. So, what this improvement is going to do is going to greatly improve the interaction of left turning vehicles with bicycles and pedestrians. So what will the the the indication will change from that five section signal head to a three section signal head that will be a red arrow, yellow arrow, green arrow. So the only time a left turner can go is on a green arrow. When that green arrow is on from them, the pedestrian will be in a solid don't walk and the opposing through will also be red. So they'll never have to look to yield to anyone. dramatic improvements on the safety. They won't have to judge that and guide it. Now, what's the downside? The delay in the waiting time for that left turn will be more. Now, instead of being able to continue, you know, on a lower volume time of day when there's not much traffic out there, uh you're not sitting there waiting for a green arrow. You're

able to proce as it is today. You are able to proceed on that green circular indication. The downside though is again what I said before, you're having to judge gaps. This is really going to improve safety. Our levels of service and our delay and the stop program that was talked about earlier that's going to be implemented somewhat concurrently with this. uh uh we're we're redoing the timing uh with uh uh the other intersections nearby to help mitigate the uh uh the delay increases that we'll experience there. So that's item one. We will show some significant benefits uh for the safety of the u uh the multimodal forms of traveling out there. The second item is another signal timing change. So, real quick, item one can be implemented quickly, relatively quickly quickly. In-house staff, there's a cost associated with it. The staff to be out there will spot uh locate these uh indications, but a signal head can be put up. Other things need to be changed, move some of the other signals. Can be a relatively quick implementation. Item two is a signal timing change, which your current equipment can do. It doesn't require major equipment updates. What that is is it's what's known as a leading pedestrian interval. So, as an example, pedestrians crossing from I'm going to say the northeast corner to the northwest corner. Uh going from I forgot what the office uh I think it's a u uh gosh an insurance agent's office over there over to the park. If they're crossing like that, what will happen is prior to the westbound or the eastbound getting their green light for the vehicles, there'll be a pause. There'll be a four to 5 second delay, and the

walk signal will come up for that westbound pedestrian first. give them the opportunity to get into that crosswalk, control the crosswalk, be more visible for the right turning vehicles in these leading pedestrian intervals. LPIs have shown dramatic significant improvements in safety for pedestrians, giving them that head start. Now the downside is once again we're holding up those uh vehicles for four or five seconds and that of course will create some a little bit of extra delay. Now if a pedestrian doesn't push the button the LPI doesn't activate every single time. So it's when the pedestrians are are present which again this is a a pedestrian uh uh uh location like much of Lakewood. So they they will be there, but we'll give them that leading pedestrian interval. That will be done for every single pedestrian crossing you see there. I gave an example of pedestrians crossing Hillyard going westbound. However, this will be for all of the crosswalks that you see there. Couple of the things the city's already done, but these are strategies that have been proven to show safety improvements. So I'll just kind of quickly hit them. Item three, high visibility crosswalks. those crosswalks that you see there today, those fit that need much uh more easy uh to see. Adding the green pavement markings to clearly designate that where the bicycle lanes um even on Hillyard in the northeast and southwest, if you will, uh directions. There's even delineation uh those delineators that are out there to separate uh the bike lane from uh uh the uh uh uh the the the vehicular traffic also. So that's uh item four there. Item five, again, these are in place, the no turn on red signs when

there when you're a vehicle, you will not be allowed to turn on a red indication uh for a lot of the reasons. these skewed angles, lots of issues going on there. Through one of our other meetings, it came up and we're going to as we are implementing some of these strategies, we want to do some field spot locations again of hey, maybe that sign could be relocated just a little bit just to make sure it's clear that that's for this direction. Now, the no turn on red is for all five directions. Okay, that will uh uh and those are in place. Item six is what you have at Detroit and Warren right now is um an accessible pedestrian signal APS if you will. This is generally intended for the visually impaired. It'll have tactile uh it'll have a button with the tactile arrow with a locator tone. The visually impaired then can use that to hear audible uh cues to say okay to cross Madison Avenue. So they'll get those audible uh cues when the walk signals on. Walk signals on for Madison Avenue or to cross Madison Avenue. Uh don't walk. They'll get this kind of information. Even for the nonvisisually impaired, it helps with compliance because there is some kind of f positive feedback to that pedestrian that hey, I know my pedestrian when I push that button, I know that it recognizes me. Um, it's not just pushing this silver button that's out there and you don't know if it even has registered you. So APS helps with compliance. Also, when I say compliance, I don't mean that in a derogatory. I don't but cuz pedestrians will cross against the don't don't walks this will help them let them know yes I have been registered I will get my walk indication so that's an APS it's a

special kind of equipment a special button that will also be for all of the directions um so that that will be implemented uh in the the near also um during the stop program and even during this item seven there is updating all of the timing intervals to meet the most current standards. What do I mean by timing intervals? How long is the yellow interval for the vehicles? How long is a red clearance? Uh some may not be familiar with that term red clearance. Forgive me for uh defining it. A red clearance is simply a portion of time when all directions have a red interval. No one is going. The intention there is if a vehicle has crossed into the intersection right when their signal turns red, we don't want any conflicting movements getting their green until that vehicle has cleared or walk or walk until they have cleared that intersection. So there is at all these intersections a red clearance interval and we'll update these to the latest Ohio manual on uniform traffic control devices standard. So uh that's the item there and that will be done through the stop program also. Uh by the way that item seven will be done at all intersections along Madison through stop. Okay. So uh just just a quick side note um signal coordination. I kind of mentioned this. This again goes back to the stop program. So the adjacent intersections to this. What we don't want is this Madison and Hillyard running in isolation. What can then quickly happen and what I mean by isolation just doing its own thing. If we do that, then vehicles westbound uh uh might back up into the adjacent intersection there if it's not working in conjunction with that and the other intersections around there. So we'll

provide coordination system operation where we try to provide smoother flow for vehicles traveling and that's the big intent of the stop program is to to provide that smoother flow have positive reinforcement to try to maintain uh 25 miles an hour. You you know we're timing it for 25 miles an hour. You go 50 miles an hour. Don't don't do that. But if they do they're just rushing down to a red light sooner. uh you do 25 miles an hour, you you should get a smoother ride through the system with fewer stops. So, this signal coordination that will be implemented to enforce positive speed. Uh uh now I say that and I've watched drivers my whole career just drive and stop, drive and stop, drive and stop. But, uh hopefully maybe some education through these programs uh will help too. So, that was uh item eight. And then item nine is because we've converted item one back to one. Because we've converted the eastbound and the westbound left to that protected only left, we anticipate and we model that the length of the cars. I'm sorry, not the length of the cars, the lengths of the cues, the cues of the vehicles that are stacking up into those left turn lanes. We need a little bit more room. So what we don't want is uh for uh Orchard Grove to be turning left and having to turn left out of the queue. So that will should be converted to a right out only if you're exiting a right out only type of operation and those are the short-term recommendations. Dave, would you like me to hit the on the long-term ones right now?

Yeah, you can go ahead. That's fine. Thank you. Perfect. I don't want to get longwinded on you. I know it's uh late and all the long-term and again there's been some other things here. Dave kind of mentioned this. The bullouts uh item 10 if you're looking at the graphic there. That's to tighten up those curb radius to slow down the vehicles to turn right to give those pedestrians a shorter crossing distance which really helps with a lot of things. If that was easy, it would be shortterm. That has a high cost. There's utility coordination, there's water flow, there's so many things. It's a lot more than meets the eye. Um, it can have some very positives, but that's something we don't want to not do the short-term things while we're waiting for this yearslong project to do curb bullouts. That takes time. It takes design. We would like to get these short-term ones, but keeping on our list, hey, as you're programming out your improvements, this is something that can be looked at because now we're starting to get into the potentially millions of I won't even give cost, but much more cost uh costly. Um, item 11. Now, your control equipment doesn't currently do this, but there are systems out there where you can have intelligent systems that, as an example, if a pedestrian was in the crosswalk while the don't walk was on, which I know we we don't want them doing that, but they will do that. We could have some detection equipment that will uh uh uh sense the presence of with radars and other detection systems, quote unquote see that a pedestrian's in there. It's that that detection equipment is communicating with your control equipment. It knows, hey, pedestrian's there, but their walk light is off. What I'm going to do is I'm going to illuminate a sign for the conflicting

vehicles that say pedestrian and crosswalk. I'm also going to illuminate an LED light to really spotlight that crosswalk because there's a pedestrian there. Yes, I know they're not supposed to be, but they are. Let's give that driver that type of information. Pedestrian and crosswalk illuminate the light. Could even take it another step. Again, this requires new equipment detection. uh potentially even a new structure because the way the structure is out out there now with diagonally into the street, we'd have to look at even new structures because we could be into the hundreds of thousands at some point. But as you're updating systems, it's something to consider uh uh moving forward with some te technology. So, some cool things that we can do there, but it it does come with a cost. Item 12 is just something to keep on our list. I like the idea of item one, which was the protected only, that would be the green, yellow, red arrows. If in the future it's discovered that that's a little bit too painful for the left turners during certain times of the day when the pedestrians aren't present, there is a signal indication out there being used throughout Ohio. Uh ODOT's kind of a fan of this which is known as a flashing yellow arrow. And I won't go into great spec uh details on that right now, but it is a mode of operation where you could at times of the day run the left turns as it as what suggestion one is protected only. They get a red arrow, yellow arrow, green arrow. That's it. But during other times of day and or even when there's no pedestrians presence through detection, we could allow them to go with a flashing yellow arrow. Now, I do not want to see the first flashing yellow arrow in Lakewood go at this location. It would have to be

tried at other locations prior to ever doing it at such a visible highprofile, but as it potentially gets implemented at other locations, it is a strategy that yes, it's good for safety and can help minimize a little bit of the impacts of the delay. Um, and then the last one here would be auxiliary uh signals uh on the up on the uh uprights. And right now because of where the structures are, it's not a real good fit for this. But all that really means everyone, sorry I kind of glossed over that is additional signal indications for the vehicles that are not on the overhead mast arms. These are actually on the vertical upright portion. So, for instance, if you're behind a truck, you might not see that signal indication that's up on the mast arm. You can though often see the one that's off to the right on that upright location that's on the side of the road. Um, because of the skewed angles and because of where the structures are, we would we would like to look at this in the future, but it's not as easy as just saying, "Hey, just go throw some up there today." But there are some benefits to uh doing that. Um so yeah, that's that's a highlevel summary of what we're uh looking to do. But I I'll just reiterate these short-term recommendations are things that can be implemented in a very relatively short time frame.

Anything else, Dave? Nope. I think Mr. Chad pending any questions we can go into discussion. So

yes, and I um I do want to make sure we get around to case and planning commission's comments as well. Um but thank you. This is really helpful and I'm sure my colleagues will have questions as well. I three or four come to mind for me. Um by the way, thank you. I think you know data and kind of a plan are a good place to start. Um and this intersection has always been challenging. Um the question I have is is kind of the short-term versus long-term number 10 uh which is the kind of curb bulbouts bumpouts whatever you want to call them is so I understand that you know doing new curbs uh running new sidewalks you know cutting in looking at storm water drainage patterns where storm water catch basins are those kinds of things are are very complicated. What I am curious about is I know at the Detroit Sloan Valley Parkway intersection there was some paint and planters that kind of necked it down to start. I believe there was uh some of the casino funds, the county casino funds funded that project and it it kind of started with a non huge investment. You know, I think it was uh it was an investment $100,000 $200,000 of of paint and planters that kind of started the process of necking it down and and then you don't really have to mess with storm water flows. Um you know, they're removable if it doesn't work. Is that something that could work here in your experience?

No, very familiar with the intersection that you uh pointed out that uh had the uh treatments there. Yes, there can be some improvements uh uh to doing things like that. Unfortunately, I feel that the pedestrians still feel kind of vulnerable out in this area that's just a painted area. The painted requires a lot of maintenance even if we put in temporary objects. Now, I'm not suggesting that it can't be tried. That comes with it. It's certainly never as good as saying I'm sure what everyone knows is obvious if clearly do the uh the full buildout. There are some things that can be done uh like you had mentioned at the previous location. Um I'll kind of defer to uh uh uh Chris and Dave for their experience on how they thought that the Detroit Avenue uh operation worked. Yeah. Um I think there's this is Dave uh John just there I think there's obvious benefits to to testing out those long-term recommendations especially on bumpouts with something temporary. Um my my concern at this point is just the primary thing is the interaction of the um bus bus transit lines the stop especially on the westbound line that stop is right at the intersection of of Hillyard and Madison. Um it's kind of an awkward location. Um and so I would just I think even before temporary measures that is something that we would definitely need to get worked out is the interaction of transit and the bike lanes. Um there but no I'm I'm all for you know working through the temporary measures before you do anything permanently. I think it makes a ton of sense.

Yeah. And even I mean, you know, planters or planter boxes could be removed during snowplow season when you want more room on the road for, you know, that type of behavior. Dr. Gordon, look like you're going to speak come.

Yeah, I I I would also keep in mind that there's a there's a lot of things that that are considered here. And you got to look at at turning radius as well. Um, you know, you got fire trucks, you got refuge trucks. Again, not not that I'm all about safety because I am. Um, but there's a lot of things to consider specifically in this intersection. Um, perfect example, if if you're driving eastbound on Hillyard and you want to go or excuse me, on Madison, you want to make that turn on a Hillyard, that that's that's going to be a tough turn for a large vehicle um without going in oncoming traffic. Um, and you could you could argue the same potentially going westbound on Madison looking to make the turn on the Hillyard. Um, again, not that that paint or things of that nature aren't uh, you know, you're able to drive over it and things like that, but I I also have to take into consideration maintenance. Um, you know, what are we looking at with maintenance? How frequently would that need to be addressed? I understand planter boxes. Again, it goes back to who's maintaining these planter boxes, who's putting them out there, who's removing them. Um, things of that nature. Um, so again, not that I'm not against anything like that. Um, I just my personal opinion, I just think for this intersection itself and looking at the data, looking at the crash data, looking at a lot of things that are going on, I'd be anxious to see after the short-term recommendations how that goes. Um and then if there's additional steps to take at that point if these issues are not corrected with that um you know taking those at at at that time again that's that's solely my opinion.

Yeah it sounds a little bit like there's a little hesitation with the recommendation in general less you know because you're discussing you know turn radiuses and such. I'm assuming that these that number 10 takes into account those things if I'm mistaken.

I I think number 10 coming from John was just an in general type thing. I mean a lot of this would need to be surveyed. If you were to look into something permanent, you got to look at drainage. Um you would have to look into the bike lanes. You got to look into RTA. You got to look in other utilities that are there. As I said before, you would have to look into to turn radius. There would be a lot of things that would need to be considered. I think this was just a general overview. John can correct me if I'm wrong. Um on potentially what could be done there. Um I will say that for for the curb bumpouts that we proposed on Northland, that took a lot of work. Not that we're not willing to do the work. Of course we are. That's what we do. Um but it took a lot of work. It took a lot of changes. Um it took a lot of looking into um just for a curb bump out there. Um and and that took multiple discussions with police, with fire, with refues, with uh ice and snow, snow plows being able to make the turns and things of that nature. Drainage. We had we had to add a catch basin. There's there's a lot to consider than what's on paper.

Yeah. And you guys got the experience from Northland. I'm No, I we do. And that's why we're patiently waiting to see how that one goes. Yeah. being the first in the city and we wanted to see, okay, how does this what do we learn from it? How did this go? What what could we get better at with it? Is it working? Is it not working? Um, similar with with with the LPIs that are going in on Buns Road and all of the elements that are going on Bunts Road. We want to see how all of those work, learn from them, see what was successful, which we suspect a lot of it will be. That's why we're doing it. Um and then looking at potentially implementing a lot of those complete street elements in other places.

Yes. And I I I think my comment on on paint or planter boxes for number 10 is any of these corners, right? So let's take the southwest corner for example. That one is the one where you're kind of on a little little bit of an island and that that has to be the longest crosswalk in Lakewood going from the south side of Madison to the north side of Madison there. Um, and so, you know, even just doing that one, you know, one corner of the intersection, I think would help. So, I I just I I would encourage us to be creative and and maybe I know there's lots of grant opportunities where you come up, you can get 50 grand to do something. And so, I would encourage us to look into that.

Yes. Uh, and also this is pedestrian. It's about driveway behavior, too. I mean, the fact that someone can get 45 miles worth of speed in this intersection is a challenge. We should design it so they can't get that fast, right? Um, the second thing I I I will ask, and this is more for the traffic engineer, do we consider hardening those rules at Caribel and Orchard Grove, meaning um Carsonite markers, some sort of curb so that someone couldn't turn left out of either one. Uh, signage is important. It drives behavior. it, you know, Google maps won't take you that way, ways won't take you that way, but it doesn't stop someone who wants to turn left. I is is that a common practice in traffic engineering to like put carsite markers up or like have a harding hardening so you can't turn left?

So, I believe I caught most of the question and I will apologize to everyone for uh sometimes the the microphone sounds really good and then there's other times it gets a little bit garbled. So if I misstate something or I I don't answer your question fully, please don't hesitate to follow up. But the question on some of the uh uh things that can be done to try to prevent and keep vehicles coming off, I believe the question was about carabel and the right turn only uh movement there. Um yes, those types of things have been considered. One thing that was actually considered too was uh potentially making it a one-way southbound. Um there was not a big desire to do that through uh andor closing it off completely, but then looking at other routes and such. Now uh uh all of that had been considered through a research of the the the study. the accident uh uh the accidents didn't show that that would provide that big of improvement and because of the desire for the emergency vehicles to continue to use that uh that was I'm not going to use the word discounted but was was not considered. Are there things that could be done to preclude uh uh left turners from uh you utilizing that? Absolutely. Uh I'm I'm going to lean on Chris a little bit again here too, just because each and every one of those then and and again I I love the thoughts. Um and and don't get me wrong, uh I I think there there definitely are some things that can be done. Uh there are maintenance sides of the house that come into that too. So uh uh Chris, I might have missed part of the question. Sorry to lean on you a little bit. Is there anything you wanted to add to that?

No, you can lean on me, John. Um, again, I mean, I from a public works perspective, we have to go back to not only maintenance, but snow plowing, street sweeping, things of that nature. Um, this is a conversation I've had with with a lot of folks in regards to adding physical barriers to the road. Um, and and the indirect consequence is that in certain situations, adding physical barriers to the road give to give to specifically my department. Um, not that we're against them. We're we're all in favor of safety. Again, I wanted to reiterate that point, but but in certain situations, there are indirect consequences. So, if if you're going to add a physical barrier to the middle of the road there, that is going to implement ice and snowplow service. Um, the trucks are certain widthwide, um, I have to look out for their safety as well when they're coming down the road. Um, so if there's a physical barrier in the road, we need we need to take that into consideration. Um, again, not not that that that wasn't considered here. Again, it goes back to emergency services as well. Um, as John said, um, we did consider uh making Caribel one way in each direction and emergency services was not in favor of that whatsoever. That was a main artery. I was told I am no fireman and I am no policeman, thank God. Um, but again, Caribel was seen as a main artery to get back to that neighborhood. So any type of quote unquote physical barrier that was going to be put there to make it one way was not um I would say agreed upon with emergency services.

Yeah. And and I think there are ways to allow for emergency services access but not general traffic. But I I do think that what is proposed here is excellent and will make this intersection safer. The last question I have because I've monopolized a lot of time and I apologize is was there any consideration for the width of the road going from the southwest corner to the northwest corner on Madison is doubled with that crosswalk I think um because it's diagonal for some reason. Uh I think because it it wants to mimic the sidewalk of Hillyard. Was there any discussion of just 90ing it a better verb? uh basically making it straight across Madison. I understand that would require a different signal arm for the walk signal. Uh but I just didn't know if that was ever studied or thought about.

Yes. Yes, it it it definitely was considered. Uh there's no doubt of making it a 90. The issue starts to become well with this intersection. There's always lots of issues as we're already discussing here, but making that more of a 90°ree uh intersection really pushes that crosswalk quite a ways back to the west. If you're going, I'll call it southwest on Hilliard, you're making that right turn. Now, that crosswalk is that much further away from you. The the pedestrian is not nearly as visible to you. So the anything we can do to shorten that crosswalk like what you recommend or suggested there definitely was looked at just wasn't seen as an ideal situation to be pushing that crosswalk uh back that far unfortunately. So uh we we did not recommend that for this.

Thank you. And I'm sure my colleagues may have questions. Uh Councilman Evans.

Uh thank you Mr. Chair. Um, just first of all, thanks for all the hard work. Um, I agree with uh, uh, Councilman Baker. I think these are very well thoughtout improvements. I'm really happy to see the hopefully do all these short-term things in the truly short term. And certainly I'm looking forward to um, um, the curb bubble, things like that um, after we see how this works and when it makes sense. But two questions. Um, one, um, I've heard from some folks and it's an interesting perspective, but it was anything talked about with the speed, uh, speed limit differences on these two streets. Madison's 25, Hard's 35. Um, so people talked about I I've heard some residents talk about kind of the kind of it's just kind of an interesting dynamic coming together at such an intersection that's already problematic. And then uh my second question is um with the walk lights, I know there'll be LPIs, but um and this goes for citywide as some people in this room know and hear from me a lot. Um will the walk lights automatically come on every time a pedestrian is allowed to cross or will will it be you have to use the um indicator button each time? Um I I'm of the opinion that this citywide if you're able to walk it the walk signal should go on automatically. Um so just thoughts on those two things.

Absolutely. So let me touch on first the question number one was the speed differential. Um we did we clearly know that uh slower speeds are much safer. You know there's lots of studies that will show 35 versus 25 has a an impact on you know safety. Did we specifically look at reducing the speed on Hillyard for this one? We did not. But uh I I and I don't want to speak policy for the city folks here, but that wasn't something that was looked at for this particular intersection at this particular time. Um but certainly something that could be considered. Again, I don't want to set the policy on what it could be um other than, you know, we'd want to go through a little bit more of a study on uh the speed limit changes and such. the uh uh the the second one. Um and why did I just draw a blank? Uh oh my gosh. I'm sorry. Uh what was the second?

No worries. Yeah, no worries. Ensuring that the the walk the pedestrian walk signals come on automatically any time they're allowed to walk and not just by the pressing the uh button.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So in general, what will happen at an intersection like this and along Madison is in general what will happen is pedestrians crossing in the east and west direction uh adjacent to or moving with the Madison Avenue track traffic. What we'll do in those cases is we'll run those pedestrian walks to come up every single time so they won't have to push the button. Um, here's the challenge. And I if if we bring up the walk indication to cross in the north south direction every single time when there are no pedestrians, what really drives the amount of time needed for the north south direction is that pedestrian timing. So I'll give you an example. At any one of these intersections, if one vehicle pulls up late at night, early in the morning, whatever it is, and the walk comes up, we need to give them their full walk time, which could be 7 10 seconds. No big deal there. But then they need to be provided certainly their full amount of flashing don't walk time and the buffer time that's necessary for the pedestrians based on those intervals. And at this intersection, we're talking an extra 28 plus seconds. So we're at 38 to 40 seconds of time ne and that's prior to turning yellow. That would be Hillyard would be in a green state for one vehicle for 40 seconds and there's no pedestrians. And what we start to get is a lot of non-compliance with the vehicles also and frustration. So we don't like to do that. We like to provide that time when the pedestrian pushes the button. Secondarily is whenever we have the walk indications come up each and every time and and by the way there's great locations where we

should be doing that short smaller intersections in particular in downtowns and some of those things. However, the problem then also becomes because we bring up that walk and then flashing don't walk and then yellow and all red. What that does is it increases the overall amount of time to service every movement. That includes the opposing or the different walks on the different uh uh crossings. So now we get pedestrians waiting a lot longer uh uh for a pedestrian uh phase that's come up on on a direction that doesn't have a pedestrian. So they start to get impatient and they're non-compliant also. So we've really started it's term we use is the cycle length the amount of time to cycle through all of the intervals. Um and and and if we bring up that walk each and every time we do we do need to increase that cycle length. Third thing I'll mention about that is if we want to have any kind of I'm going to use the term cooperation or system operation between this intersection and the intersections around it. What they need to do is they need to run with a compatible cycle. I know I use the word compatible but generally you could think of as an equal cycle. How long does it need to run? So if we are going to drive this intersection to need a longer cycle, the ones around it often get driven to a longer cycle also. I if if we want to provide that system flow which again has positive speed uh uh control and everything also. Um so uh uh the the easy answer is to cross in the north south they will push the button. I hope the APS provides better uh

better not just again I hate to use the word compliance because I I don't want to sound negative here that's not what I mean but that more positive reinforcement and feedback that yes I did get my indication uh uh so there there is a better there so the recommendation would not be to bring up the uh the walk indication each and every time uh all around now I'll add one quick thing as technology advances and we get better things out here, there is passive detection technologies that would say, "Hey, I the pedestrian doesn't push the button. I see a pedestrian here. During my next opportunity, I will bring up that walk." They didn't push the button, but I am passively seeing that uh pedestrian out there. also that kind of goes along with the uh the item 11 that we talked about is also uh uh doing those types of things.

Great. Thanks. And one quick followup just and this is an observation. Maybe item 13 speaks to this, but this intersection in particular um if you're pedestrian, you can't see the um traffic signals. So, you have no idea where in the in the cycle you are. So, if you're just walking up to that light and it says don't walk, you could wait there for like two whole cycles to be able to walk once you press the button. So maybe if those if those sidemounted ones can at least help you see what the traffic light is doing because you literally cannot see from any corner what the traffic light doing. You have no idea. So thank you.

No, that's that's a great comment and and it's it's another value added to the auxiliary signal heads. Appreciate that comment and uh uh as as things change because us as pedestrians, we like that PO. We want to know what everyone else is seeing also. uh it's just makes us uh uh more more um comfortable with with our condition there. So, no, love the uh the comment. Thank you uh Council Person.

Thank you. Um thank you, Mr. Albeck, and thank you to the planning department and uh public works department for working on this so um we can uh make this intersection more safe for all of our residents here. Um I had a question, Mr. Albeck and I'm hoping that you'll you'll start the conversation and then possibly planning um can jump in afterwards and possibly um public works as well. But I wanted to talk about Mr. Albeck the um the comment you mentioned briefly about education and how we start to help our citizens realize that this intersection has changed. Um, I know I've seen um in some instances where they say cha, you know, signal change, you know, coming soon or or what have you. Have you seen anything else in other communities uh that they're that they're doing? Can you talk about that?

Absolutely. Absolutely. So, one of the things signing uh definitely is one of those things. Um you could see signs that changes are coming. I forgive me on what the the actual verbiage is. You know, we'd want to look into that. So there there definitely is signage that can uh uh uh be presented. One of the signs that uh uh likely will be put up even with these short-term implementations will be now this is more I'll use the word reactive when the changes are made and I'll have to look up what the language is again but it's uh uh phase changes have been made. I'm paraphrasing the language, but telling these drivers and these pedestrians, hey, changes have been made. So, there is some education that can be done with signing. Certainly, I know, and I'll use ODOT as an example. Um, when there's changes that are made, they try to, pardon me, uh, also have their videos and their their, uh,formational brochures to kind of present to the citizens. Uh, FA, you know, social media groups and such can get the word out about some of the changes that are coming. Um, so there's all kinds of ways to provide that information. signing has some success, but you know uh some of this is anecdotal. I don't necessarily have a study to show this, but uh in in my past when you ask someone what did that sign just say often like what sign? Um I'm not saying that they don't notice and it doesn't help. Uh but there's there's limited benefit. So there's all kinds of things that can be pushed and promoted. Um I'd be curious maybe Dave and uh Chris have some other ways that you've done well the committee that Dave you've got going on right now is is an education thing too. Did did you want to add anything?

Uh I can John I would just say that that is kind of uh as we start to look to the time frame of rolling these things out that is kind of the next step is an important thing and it's even as simple as um you know trying to keep it short concise and simple like one topic it could be like a brochure or onepage like one screen thing on LPI on reminders about no turn on red like reminders about like please don't walk when the like when it's not right the white white guy walking across the street like that those things like it's just reinforcing as I as everyone here you know lives and drives and walks around the community it's like those little things as we get into kind of the the 100 days of summer of reinforcing just basic behaviors um the number of times that I'm at the Detroit and Andrews uh heading south or trying to make a turn that people just walk against like the red because exactly what John is talking about because it's a it's a three-phase intersection and so you get like the Elmwood traffic then you get the Andrews traffic and people don't get it and they just get tired of walking and it's his denying compliance he's talking about and so they just go and then you end up with a whole family or three people in front of a whole line of traffic that's trying to that gets the green and it's a very limited green and so I that that is a challenge that we need dance are up and working I think with the mayor's office and the communications officer and things just to come up with those short concise topics that that I think just as as I'm thinking through it they're they're not necessarily specific to this intersection a lot of them but but they just need to rein to reinforce those basic behaviors but they they can be done in the guise of these things coming out too but they apply more broadly so but it's a great point taken because it we are at least in my view we are not

great at that right now and we need to get better. Thank you. I agree. Uh and I think you know for those you know and it's easy to say well we we have the videos online and you walk around in the neighborhood they don't even know that we have a website. You know what I mean? So maybe even door hangers to to let people know and you know this is another area where we could start working with block captains to to keep educating their neighbors and and putting out door hangers and talking to people. and we've we've got a beautiful park there and maybe we meet there on a sunny day and talk about, you know, what what the changes are. Um, but thank you. I appreciate that.

Uh, we're we're a little bit over, but this is important. So, assuming uh Councilman Evans will give us a couple more minutes. Um, do you have Council Bullock? Yeah. Uh, Council Bixenstein.

Uh, thank you very much uh Mr. Albeck for the presentation. And I I really appreciate especially you laying out kind of the safety verse efficiency trade-offs and thank you to our representatives from public works and planning for helping to make this intersection safer. I have uh one comment and two quick questions. Um I I do appreciate that this uh this study analysis took place during last April because that gave the opportunity to see both peak school hours and then also spring break where you would have had more of a a summer environment whereas maybe there were less uh kids going you know of course kids not going to school but the perhaps the wager park was more crowded. So I do appreciate that. Um however I think um you know as the study states there are four four schools within one mile of this intersection including of course Harding Middle School being in very close proximity. So I think as as we um you know go through through these and and an analyze um we need to do it through through the lens that um this looming redistricting is going to result in more vicular traffic during our rush hours as well as um more kids having longer um walking commutes to schools. So um I just ask that we we keep that in mind as we are going through this. Uh my two quick questions um with regard to the Orchard Grove right in right out uh you know certainly that makes sense from a safety standpoint but I'm curious as to what we anticipate as far as indirect consequences from that uh you know for instance will people end up pulling illegal U-turns if they want to go east on Madison or will they know to to go to Woodward and you know make and make a left and and use a kind of a a triangle to get back in the right direction um Hillyard back to Madison. And my second question is um from looking at the data um you know of course with our east west commercial corridors uh sun glare is a major factor or at least it is when we're not in winter and I haven't seen the sun for a few months and

um I guess I'm you know when I look at the crash analysis and the timing it doesn't seem to suggest that sun glare has been a a major factor in in most of the crash data um we have um can can you confirm that that is indeed the I I'll start with the second one first. Yes, we didn't see any and I I totally agree with you on these east west roads that sunlare can be an issue at certain times of the day, certain times of the year um depending on uh some situations. But uh we did not see from the crash data that sunglare was any kind of because we'll look at time of day, what's the year kind of dig into the data and the reports and and nothing none of the evidence was showing that sunglare was an issue creating some of the crashes. Um but no, great comment. The first question about the uh conversion of Orchard Grove, there certainly are always concerns about uh again non-compliance of vehicles uh andor that quite frankly, you know, the the inconvenience that it's going to uh create for some of the vehicles that do then make the turn and then have to kind of rework them what their uh themselves uh through the system a little bit different certainly is recognized. I don't know if this is the good news or the bad news, but that volume that tra the amount of traffic that comes out of there is relatively low. So, we hope it doesn't impact uh people significantly. We suggest I suggest that uh as you hear of non-compliance, um other things could be looked at and addressed to tighten that up. for instance. Uh again, I I I don't want to hold up short-term recommendations for things that potentially may not be an issue. Uh uh uh and again, I'm not

against even doing them, but I I I really want to see I would really like to see these things that we can do like within a month uh get implemented. Uh but if if there is some issues with vehicles continually trying to make that left turn out of there, uh another study could be looked at to do some more counts, uh gather that data, uh get that information and then more physical types of barriers and such could be considered um for that uh write out only. But as it is right now, it's a quite low volume. So we'd like to see how it operates with this relatively lowcost um type of sign in and pavement marking.

So to add on what what what John was saying uh to you Councilman Bixenstein is the convert Orchard Grove to write in right out would that that one is one that we're going to similar to what he's saying. We're going to implement these changes. We want to see what these how these changes do. Um see how Orchard Grove continues to operate after these changes. if it becomes a problem, look to make it right in, right out, but see how these changes affect it off the start. I would say that would be probably last on our list. Um, because it has a very large impact on that entire neighborhood. Um, so we want to make sure it is an issue. Um, so similar to what John said, kind of see how this all plays out. See if traffic is backing up, um, or you know, longer legs, um, making that turn onto Hillyard off Madison. Um, see if it if it is an issue with folks coming out of there trying to make the left, um, and things of that nature.

Thank you both. And I I agree it's not worth holding up some of these short-term um, changes in the meantime. Uh, Councilman Bulock, then council person has a Hamilton Center. Um,

so this is this the intersection we're talking about is my neighborhood. I go through this intersection every day and I come out through Orchard Grove. Um, and so Councilman Bixenstein did a great job of anticipating two things that were already, in fact, I've already kind of emailed you guys um because I know we're short on time here. Um, my my punchline is I support the short-term recommendations, including that change. However, I'm going to hear about it from my neighbors and my family. Um, and I think the most the first step is going to be to do an illegal U-turn. And the alternative path is to go all the way to Woodward by Harding School, which is a long detour going north to Detroit where Detroit is quite uh slow because downtown is already quite activated. There is a construction project for the West Line apartment building. We're very happy that's coming with 120ome apartments

at both Rosewood and Orchard Grove. And so John um Al Mr. Alrech on on the phone here that Orchard Grove is the exit for two streets, not one. Right now I

take the point of the safety improvement of the left turns through Hillyard and Madison and I think that's the priority and so the stacking issue that you've anticipated I think is exactly correct. So we'll have to do it but I I think you know Mr. Gordon I going to tell you right now it's unrealistic to think that people are just gonna happily do this. This is a little bit like saying there doesn't need to be a cross a crossing light at Mars in Madison. It took us years to get Mhm.

the Hawk signal installed and it took our utility company months more to get it turned on. Uh I'm glad it finally is operable. So, um I I I guess the point is not to fail to make safely implementations, but let's let's also um think through the the ripple effects, which I think is the point of your study. Now, now I I want to back up a quick step first. I've emailed some questions because we don't have time to go through it all. Um but one of my questions was going to be on sunlare. Sun glare is an issue, especially during the go to school in the morning hour. So, Mr. Albertch, I'd encourage you to double check the data. Also, there was a car that hit a bike trailer with two children in the bike trailer and the driver cited sunlare as a factor. And on your slide for on page 22 citing the frequency of crashes by hour, I don't see the eight or nine pm, excuse me, the 8 or 9 a.m. hour when that crash would have occurred because it's on the way to school. So I I wonder if you're missing that very visible traffic incident which was alarming to us all. Um and and a sad thing. I'm sure nobody involved in that accident wanted that to happen. But I do think sun glare is an issue seasonally. Um, and it's going to be, you know, during the school year when the sun is low in the sky. So, one of my questions was, did we analyze the idea of of allowing left turns or requiring left turns on Westwood, which is on the slide to the far right in our view. It's not analyzed in this analysis, but you could have eastbound traffic that wants to turn from Madison eastbound onto Hilliard. Instead, proceed straight through the intersection, turn left on Westwood, queue at the light. That's a signalized double intersection, and then turn right on Hilliard. I don't honestly

know if that's a great idea or a terrible idea, but that is an option, and that's a workaround that, you know, we have all the time in Lakewood. People make cutthroughs and find alternative routes. But but that would avoid the left turn. Maybe you do that during the sunglare uh season. I don't know. But um but the tone and ten of what I really want to say is I I'm glad you're doing this. Um are is the recommendation of the administration that city council approve this without changes? Um, you know, I think I can support the short term without changes, but on the long term, I'd like to see us um get to them more quickly rather than late later because I I think rather than avoid all mistakes, I think we should have some risk tolerance and and have the approach of gaining the safety benefits as soon as possible. Um,

yeah. rather than try to wait in three years from now. We haven't really gotten to much. The the one that's a sweet spot would be the um the real- time anal analytic data. Maybe that gives you the best of both worlds where you can do some short-term things, but put in the LAR and the thermal imaging cameras um and the predictive modeling and then that way you could get the volumes of for the vehicles um through smart switches. um not being as impacted and and you get this pedestrian safety improvements actualized.

Um thank you and council person Hamilton Center. I will say that I I think um receive and file recommend whatever we can do as our formal action out of this committee and I will say to your longer term point council bulock I think this is right for budget. Um so I think we talk about it budget. We already have the case case has some funds allocated.

Yes. Um, so yeah, I think that's a good point. So, council person Hamlin Steiner. Okay. Uh, well then I think uh the question then becomes uh you know I I think our actions are receive and file. Um but to the point of I think it's incumbent on all of us to you know work with the administration uh to see that these and help them and and make whatever resources are necessary to implement the short-term recommendations. Doesn't sound like many resources but you know sounds like is the administration committed to the short-term recommendations?

Yes. Yes, we are um committed to the short-term recommendations. Um, again, we will we will as soon as this gets through here, we will we will begin working as quickly as possible on it. Um, I would be I would be lying if I didn't say we've already started to look into many of these. Um, and necessary equipment that needs to be ordered. A lot of it has already been ordered. Um, so we're we are trying to stay ahead of it. Um, but again, you got some lead times on some things in here and supply chain and stuff like that. So unfortunately in certain situations with some of the items that are listed here, we're at the mercy of that. Um but as soon as we we are able to get all the necessary uh equipment in, we will look to make the changes as soon as possible.

Great. Thank you. And then um secondly on the long-term recommendations, Councilman Bulock's point, we've appropriated some money for case recommendations. And then also I'd be interested in, you know, figuring out during the budget, working with the administration on on how to maybe fund some of these things. This is an intersection that is is not W specific. Everyone in Lakewood interacts with this intersection largely. Um and so, you know, certainly willing to do what we can to help fund it. Uh, I did want to make sure we made time and I I will say that the clerk's office did a great job of explaining planning commission's input to us uh via email. I was not able to attend the case meeting although I am your uh fa faithful case exficial member. I had jury duty last week in Judge Lauren Moore's courtroom and I was the uh the jury foreman so I was unable to attend the case meeting. Uh assistant director boss, can you give us a high level of of what their uh analysis was? The three notes that I walked away from the case meeting um last week was that they concurred to move forward with the short-term recommendations. Um if and when we get to the the uh right turn only of the restriction on Orchard Grove, which I think Director Gordon described it, you our the approach and the recommended approach and our approach to the short-term recommendations is um largely they're intended to be kind of sequential. they build on each other from from 1 through nine. Um some of them obviously have already been done but there are um things that have to happen before other things have to happen. The convert Orchard Grove to right in right out is the last um thing. And I think to to Director Gordon's point is that you want to get the majority of all the the signal changes and everything in there. see how the actual stacking and the queuing for that left turn actually turns out before you make that final. And I think

it it's well taken that that is probably one of the most impactful for local residents of anytime you put a restriction down there. Um and so I think that's what director Gordon's point earlier was that we made weight on that. Um, and so Case's I think Case's point given that discussion last week was that if and when you're going to do it to make sure that that there is some um outreach and positive notification to residents, kind of how we do the other public works projects on a street or something if it's a letter or something that actually goes out to every house so they know this change is either is being contemplated and and and when it's going to go into effect. Um and then and I will say the long-term recommendations with case there is it it is a topic and a discussion for another time. How that board fits into the existing processes and planning and programming is very unclear. Um and so they view them the long-term recommendations. They're supportive of them. They recognize the long-term time frame, but generally those any time that those recommendations would actually be programmed and budgeted for, they would likely go back to case for review um and input at that point in times in terms of the specifics of what's being proposed. And so we had the same discussions um in terms of you know what's being shown and everybody largely gravitates towards the physical interaction and the interventions of the bumpouts. exact same discussions we had at planning commission in terms of ha how you design and deconlict transit with with bike lanes and the actual and the and everything else. So it the discussion kind of devolved into that the same kind of that you kind of get wrapped around the axle a lot of these things and

sometimes you need to rely on professionals to actually do the design of those things and interaction with RTA and uh with bike lane best practices and so so I would I would bring that back to case when we actually have a a time frame the programming the budgeting and the and u and confirmation that we're going to move forward with those whether temporary or permanent and So those things need to to be flushed out a little bit more in terms of uh the inner workings of public works and the director of public safety. So

um thank you. Sounds like planning summer intern may may be having a lawn chair at this intersection after we put some of these short-term recommendations in and uh doing little counts. Um so thank you. We we've gone a little over. Uh appreciate Yeah. Uh yeah, Council Porer.

Thank you, Chair Baker. Um uh dire assistant director boss is there any plan to um communicate an essentially status update to the community regarding these short-term recommendations and what are the next steps moving forward since this is something that I think a lot of the community has been very worried about and concerned about. I think an update um would be might be good to just disseminate some information out. Yeah, I think that's fully within the intention of the mayor and public once we make makes the final decision on on the kind of the when and the what. I think I think we're all coalesing around the short-term recommendations that we talked about, but again, I don't I have to lean on public works in terms of the actual when that's going to happen. Um,

so again, as I as I said before, um, you know, we we're going to look to get this done as soon as we can. I I again I'm I'm waiting on equipment to get here. Um you know we have to coordinate the exact uh stop project with this with John. Um there there's a lot of floating factors that are going in right now. Um so I I know I had said before before the end of the year and John saying yeah we can get it done you know within a month as soon as we get everything. And yes that is correct but I have to have everything physically here. I have to have I have to obligate employees to doing this work, which we will. It is at the top of our list. Um, but again, it goes back to making sure that I have everything to get the work completed. Um, and on top of that, you know, Dave and I had have a laundry list of other intersections we're looking at as well. So, there there's there's a lot going on right now if I were to be straight up. Um, and and this is at the top of our list. So I think it needs to be made clear in here that you know we are focusing in on this right now especially as it gets through council. So some of the other requests that are coming in are going to need to be put on hold until we can get this completed.

Don't don't fully understand that. Maybe we could talk about it offline. Um but but to the the point of this particular action um I I I appreciate everything the administration's done here. Um and and to the point uh council person Hamilton Steiner made I think the public's very interested in this. So I would encourage administration to have some outreach about this study. I think it's good work. Uh and I think we should uh applaud the administration um you know for doing it and and I I certainly so with with that I will make a motion to receive and file this report. Second motion made any discussion? Yeah, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Uh so um one comment on the I think the point of some of my colleagues to the public works director and the planning department is communication public education is your friend and so whatever physical or timing or smart uh circuitry we install and and eventually I hope curb bumpouts also um it all works better and more effectively the more communications that we have and we've got the potential for quite a lot good content. In fact, I wanted to thank the police department who's not here tonight. They put out a anti-glare advisory including just simple things like clean your windscreen, uh, clean your windshield and I did it, you know, and it helped. So, um, so we've got a lot of content and a lot of people. I think that city hall's footing should be when in doubt, let's communicate and overcommunicate and that that probably can help. Process question, Mr. Chair, why is our action receive and file? Maybe just a quick recap. I think the formal process here is the planning commission approves and the case board uh also approves or denies and and so what the status of that is is is what?

Yeah. So th this is um I welcome I I earlier I welcomed input on that point and and the way I view it is is I actually think you know it's not something that's this is a study of importance in the community. Um, so it was it was reflected in a correspondence to council, something that would typically go to planning commission and planning commission would either like recommend or not recommend or have comments to it similar to case. I think in this instance, our action is to receive and file. Um, you know, I I suppose we could receive them file with approval or receive or file, but from I'm not sure Robert's rules of order has those actions involved in them, but I would welcome any thoughts of yours as to how else we would handle it other than receive and file.

Well, just to clarify, so the planning commission has taken what action regarding this uh proposed plan? Do we recall? I would defer to uh assistant director Voss. I believe they M they rec or they received and filed a recommended with some comments. It was I believe that the action from planning commission was to receive and file a report with the recommendation to implement the short-term recommendations and look at implementing long-term recommendations on a shorter time frame than normal long term. So as soon as possible.

Great. Okay. Thank you. And then you just recaped what case did. It sounds, as a matter of fact, it sounds like there's significant consensus between all three bodies, which is pretty remarkable. You know, we want to we all want to improve and we want to try to get to it as quickly as is prudent and and practical. Um, so thank you. Okay, that answers my question. I, you know, I I don't I don't know if there is a receive and file with with a recommendation. probably isn't because it's just ending in this committee, but Councilman Bixenstein looks creative and he might have a

No, I um Yeah, I I I think that we can keep it in committee and bring it up later if we want and not receive and file it. Um but I I think that's pedantic. Um I think that that we should receive and file, but I I I'm one person in this committee, so I think receiving and filing is fine. Okay. All right. So, the motion is made on the table. Uh any discussion? Further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Uh. No further business coming for committee of the whole. We are adjourned. Again, thank you, John. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Yep.

Thank you so much. Have a great evening. Yeah. You too. have a great evening. I'm gonna log out. All right, without further ado, given the time, we're going to roll right into um the March 30th uh 2026 meeting of the housing planning and development committee. First order of business is approval of the minutes of the March 9th, 2026 meeting of the housing planning and belly committee. Um I'll make a motion to approve. All those in favor?

I motion carries. Um first order of business and uh only order of business today um communication from assistant plan director boss regarding the zoning refresh standard update uh development standards. So when whenever you're ready, assistant director boss can hit it. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just pulling it up. So shift here. All right, Mr. chair, members of council. So, this is a uh these are the slides from our uh zoning policy advisory committee meeting number four uh that we held that was held back in January, mid January. Um so, um as you're all aware, just in terms of a quick recap, so as we've been working through the zoning refresh effort, uh which is supported by House Lavine is the primary consultant uh on that. It is it is a long-term project. I think everyone recognizes that we have been working on it for a long time. Um, but we are working towards uh finishing it up by the end of this year. That was that was kind of the general intention. Going into this, we knew that it was an 18 plus month um project. Um it's it's an awful lot of work. So this is the uh this is the fourth meeting of this committee um that includes both uh council members uh Baker and Keell uh as kind of our two primary council adviserss. There's two members of the planning commission and then there's kind of a a variety of stakeholders um across resident, developer, real estate, chamber of commerce. Like you kind of we we get a smattering of a lot of different folks from different walks of life. Um that are generally familiar with zoning, design review, the different kind of functions that zoning

drives. Um and so because it is so process heavy um in terms of the advisory committee um there has been it's it's been a while but there there has been community engagement involvement upfront to kind of identify the issues and the recommendations that we move forward on. Um and so but now uh for this we are we are well in the the weeds and and and doing the work of of actually revising of drafting and revising the new chapters of code. Um and so this one uh this meeting and these four chapters that I'll advance here so you can see. Um so it's chapter four, five and six and seven. So these are your basically what the architectural border review as well as the planning commission a little bit kind of delve into in terms of uh that's fun the uh the your development standards. not something that I will say right now is a strong point of our current code. Um the pieces of this are are very smattered across a million different places and have been developed over the last 15 to 20 years through different uh commercial design guidelines. uh front porch guidelines, uh a portion of our local building code in 132508 that talks about parking lot design and then like the individual lines of code that are in supplemental regulations, district regulations and everything that talk about parking, um screening, landscaping, like all these things, sign standards, another section under local building code. um pulling these all into the zoning chapter and put and and and organizing them in a in a much more user friendly um and I when I say user friendly it's not only businesses and developers but also our own department of knowing where to find

everything and it's it's it's logically organized um this is probably one of the hardest efforts in the in this um in this larger effort of this refresh effort you know looking at use requirements and commercial districts and stuff like that. Like we have that chapter now. It's just revising that chapter and and but this was pulling a million puzzle pieces from different rooms of your house and trying to put it into some form. And then those puzzle pieces often are the most difficult to nail down when you're talking about uh building design and design guidelines. It's hard to get 12 people to agree on the right approach. You know what is because largely this drives what will basically be allowed by right in terms of building development and design versus what has to go to a board for review. That's that is one of the overarching kind of intentions of this effort is clarifying and streamlining design development review processes that right now pretty much everything if you read the code uh on face value would have to go to architectural border review to go through. It is a frustrating point for lots of residents, architects and everything that everything from a garage to the downtown development goes through the same process. Um, and yet there are just not very objective standards in terms of what they're asked to meet versus, you know, the subjective review of five architects that are like, I don't like that, I like that. And then you go to the next guy and he's got three other things that he doesn't like or likes. And so it's very hard. We did work over the last two years to come up with new residential design guidelines. So there has been some work recently that's that's really informed a lot of these things and will continue to inform this process. Um but so I'm going to try to in interest of time I'm going to try to step through these things pretty quickly

kind of highlight the main points of each um of them just and then we can so we can get to some questions. This is where we are seven uh in terms of the broader refresh effort step uh five. Um and so or this is where we were with the Zpack. Now we're I'm talking to you about five. We're we are working right now concurrently step six and we'll hopefully come back and see you on that like in the June time frame. Um and then we will very quickly in July before the the projected recess of council, we will provide you an introduction into seven and then work on seven once you come back in kind of September, October, November and hopefully get through because that is going to be the review of all those other chapters. We're going to the intention is to do that if we can concurrently with committee the whole and planning commission at the same time so that everybody's kind of in the same room working through the same stuff. Um so general development standards um on this this is this is kind of the the junk drawer um if you will of development stuff. So right now we have like a section and a chapter on fences. We have a chapter on landscaping and screening. So this kind of brings it all into one chapter of all of those kind of miscellaneous and broad development things. Um, so you can see like fence wall standard screening, a vision triangle standards, trying to get back to if someone is going to, if there is a vacant lot, which doesn't happen a whole lot, but if someone's going to scrape a lot, especially on a commercial street, how are we going to want them to design that so that we we do it smartly with with proper intersection triangles for visibility of pedestrians and vehicles and all those things that are pretty bad about a builtup city-like. outdoor lighting, buffer, and landscape standards. Um, so fencing, uh, some of you are aware, we updated the fence code not too long

ago. It's, from what I understand, it's working pretty well. But this is everything from defining what is a front yard, what is a sideyard, what is a rear yard, and then looking at something that we don't have in our current fence code right now is general terms like opacity, how much is is a how much visibility or visible light moves through a fence. So is it um and then where is that um most appropriate? So, taking a stab at something like this chart in front of you, um, that defines, you know, the type of fencing or the opacity, really not getting into the design of the fence, but the opacity of how much light and visibility moves through a fence and where do you want, you know, uh, less visibility versus more visibility. Um, and so you can kind of see on there, um, as you get towards like 50%, 20% the top, 20% would be like the the most visibility on this chart of opacity. 100% would be the least. And so in rear yards, in most districts, we really don't care about opacity. And most of the times, you want the most the maximum amount of screening like in the rear yard between uses. Um, but like in the front yard of if for the for fencing that is allowed in the front yard of the residential areas, that's like 20% is like the the lowest opacity or the most visibility. You would want that on front yards, some of the side streets so that you can you may get some visibility through those fences um as you're at at corners and intersections. And so this was something that we will re obviously revisit. They got comments back from the Zpack because this was a relatively new kind of concept for us to define in our code, but it does help when it gets into like the administering it. And you know, when you get to what's in the front

yard, what's the sideyard, what are all those things mean? And then if someone proposes a fence, does it meet the opacity requirements that support our our broader goals? We talked with them about uh screening standards. Um there's another area that uh I believe you have to go to our sanitary code to get the screening requirements for dumpsters. Um so that is like chapter 17 in our current code. It's way buried in there and it's something that you really got to pull forward on a development or something that a lot of folks miss. Um and so this was a general discussion in terms of what needs to be covered by the code in terms of screening requirements. All of these cases were informed by prior planning commission and ABR comments and cases where ABR had seen something or planning commission had seen something and said in the past we would like you to include screening in that. And so these were just again a lot of these are kind of brain teasers for the Zpac for that committee to say is this something worth putting into permanent code. Um and so I think what came out of this one is that most of them yes they want some form of screening to be defined um in terms of that general development. Outdoor lighting was something we have a current section again it's in the it's it is buried in our local building standards. Um it's not a bad chapter. It just this is an update and and a consolidation with all the other development standards of that and using from what I understand to be more contemporary terms in terms of actually using like the Kelvin color temperature and those things to get the type of light that we want. So this was a big debate. Kelvin color temperature tells you is it like bright white or is it more yellow? like what color do we want for like parking lots and that type of stuff so that it's not like the xenon

headlights like blinding everybody in a parking lot that's next to a residential area but maybe it's a softer color. It's things that we've never contemplated defining that, but now you have the ability to define that. And it's not just lumens and spillover, but it's actual color and other more context landscaping and buffer standards. Um, so they this was a topic that actually surprised me. So looking at like larger commercial and multifamily buildings, is there a percentage that you would want the code to require them to have like planting beds and stuff in and around the building? The Zpac actually pushed back on this and said that they didn't think it was necessary. Um especially with most of these buildings on where the focus that they from their viewpoint, the focus would be like the Detroit and Madison streetscapes. A lot of times you don't have or nor we have room for planting beds that you build in there. And so they didn't really want to make this a hard requirement that people had to make. They were satisfied kind of with the most approach of the major development approaches that you get where this kind of comes about some through the design process where depending on the the design of the building and and how and so you all may feel differently on this. It'll come back up for discussion. But I will just that's one thing that I did note with the Zback kind of pushed back on it. They didn't feel like they they wanted to define that um or at least not define it to the um the minimums that were here like for a requiring that a home you know in the RM1 or RM2 those multifamily or the commercial buildings there um have an 80% required planting along the facade. So that could be a lot I guess in terms of 80%. Um so that may be something that that they revisit. The other buffer standards was actually

defining different types or densities. And this is really you're getting after a density of of buffering um and transition zones based on the usage uh the the zoning district. And so kind of from the top to bottom there, less dense versus more dense and and defining that. Um, a lot of time your buffers are going to depend on the distance that you have to plan with, but it can also be however they define the density of the landscaping or the planning in relation to the usage around. It's kind of like the same thing as opacity on fencing. Is it is it okay to have, you know, a less dense um buffer? Um, and it's just something that right now we just don't even have this level of context in terms of defined in our code. Is it required? I'll I'll put that out there. Maybe not. Is it too much specificity? But sometimes this level does help because right now like the next following up on the next one is do you provide like or you could provide kind of those top down standards. Are there different options that we want people to conform with? This is something that has come up more often in terms of ABR and planning commission of um an assumed kind of buffer design or transition from a commercial property to a streetscape. It's not always intuitive to a developer or designer to come in with, oh, you would want a fence and then you would want this and you would want this and sometimes they have to like walk the dog through exactly what they want. Whereas if you present them different types of options, um, and it's just really elements that kind of goes with the densities from the previous slide versus kind of elements like fencing, then a density B before you hit the sidewalk. It provides ready options for someone to look at and say, well, I can do that. This is permitted. And so again, if I meet that, I don't have to go through

review or that piece doesn't have to be delved into. Quick quick interjection. Sorry. Go ahead. Maybe maybe uh Mr. Boss just hit on something. So, in some ways, we're writing the code or the improved standards in the planning code for the the applicant, property owner, developer who needs the support

because there will be, you know, I guess that's a fair point. I kind of assume that the experts who roll in know what they're doing and maybe that's true for the larger projects, but we also want to support new developers, new property owners, the lay person who's doing a project. I think that that's exactly because you like the the Castos of the world, they have landscape architects that that come in, they do those plans, but the um you know, third generation property owner of a parking lot on Madison who just wants to get it done or you know or I just want a parking lot, but right now our code does require you know like five foot buffer or something like that. And that's what it tells them is you must have a five- foot landscaped buffer. And then you leave it at that. And it's like, okay, well, a little bit more guidance in the code of different options that that that developer or that propertyer might be able to select from to meet that requirement based on the the different uses around them provide it just points them in the the right direction of where we want them to go rather than just saying come up with a design and come to ABR and prove why it's the best. And then he gets that person who's not necessarily set up for success of going before a board of five architects feels like he gets his knees shut out from under him by being like, "Well, I'm sorry. I'm not a landscape architect. I don't really know what I'm doing." Um, and so having that these types of things, if we can if we can define it appropriate at the appropriate level, you don't want to be too detailed, but I think will help people rather than cause a burden. So, it's kind of like we're going to try to achieve higher quality by addressing the middle and the trailing edge of the bell curve and the the industry best practice folks will always kind of bring their own knowledge

but even then it'll give them the an appropriate level of guidance. Uh rather than assuming what we want we will they will be able to read kind of generally the box that we want them to design within. Thanks as well.

Um, getting into parking lot a little bit, landscape and buffer designs as it relates to parking lots. Um, this doesn't happen a whole lot here, but it it it is a matter uh of discussion with certain folks that have been on planning commission since I've been on involved with planning commission as it does come up. And so this when you start talking about like endcaps and median standards and this is within larger parking lots where this stuff comes up. Um so rather than leaving it to the subjectivity of a certain expert on planning commission or a designer or something like that of having the standards that when a parking lot is a certain size certain number of spaces or certain uh you know acreage or or size and square footage which I know is in Lakewood is hard sometimes once you pass different thresholds you should look to incorporate incaps at this size a median strip at this size like so that it may take of parking and there's a balance between like the park required parking but the instate that we get out of it are common things that we have asked people to do rather than just having a large square of asphalt of actually having the kind of the green infrastructure and some of those other things that are incorporated and so when you get to that size of parking lot that we would want those things to be incorporated you build them into the code so people are pointed in that direction but I'm this this largely will not happen a whole lot just based on the size of development that happens in Lakewood. And so that's kind of the general standards that just kind of touches on a lot of those the desperate pieces of code that that are kind of spread throughout building design standards. This is probably one of the hardest chapters to get right. Um and so these are your design guidelines. Um and so there will be general provisions. And so basically these are as you work your way through and again the slides this is

a very broad summary but um so these would be for multi-unit mixed unit and non-residential or large like commercial buildings. So we're there's two basic steps that we would ask kind of developers to look at in terms of that and this is for materials. So you would define the different tiers of materials that we would like to see in our basically your commercial buildings in Lakewood. We have this right now right with our commercial design guidelines that were they're 16 years old. But those things say what we don't want to see in Lakewood is that there's like there's discouraged or prohibited exterior materials. So this is leveraging this some of the expertise some of the architects that are on our Zpac and that have served on APR for a long time of trying to and and this is an incomplete list and this list was was hammered pretty hard uh in the Zpac meeting and but to try to nail that in there to say that you do have prohibited materials but then what are kind of the premier or the tier one materials that we want to see when they're able like and realizing that it's primary highest highest quality, highest cost. So then what are the tier 2 materials that are secondary that are uh you know that are also acceptable and then are there tier three materials that are also acceptable probably because of the lowest cost. Um and then you'll see how these are then applied. The second step in that reading that process is you kind of tell them what materials um are defined, what materials are allowed, which ones aren't. And then this is also new and it it takes a little bit and we're still working this out. But then based on the district, what percentage of the facade of that

building can use those different tiers of materials. So the challenge is balancing this with kind of our current approach to architectural border review is that we like to hammer home like four-sided design, those types of things that so you don't end up with like a building that has brick on the front that faces Detroit and then vital sighting on the sides. So this this was the subject of an awful lot of discussion in terms of that like for-sighted design, but this is a this is a national kind of regional best practice that other communities use to help developers kind of get in the box of having the right types of materials um you know across the board. And this this is where you can you can balance these things by having you know banding and a way that our you know buildings with the storefront level and upper floors can have different materials. And there's lots of ways that you can kind of attack this. But basically, as you work your way from kind of what we viewed as the what I would call the premier kind of district or building type for this, which is your multifamily buildings down through like C1, C2, C3, all the way to what would be like the most flexible as industrial uh or municipal at the bottom. Um you can see how kind of the sliding scale of tier one to tier two to tier three. Again, this is not so that like lower cost, lower quality materials are more acceptable for industrial uses than they would be for like multifamily that you would see on the far the other end of that spectrum. This is by far not a final product, but it what I I guess the intent of a lot of these things is just to show you kind of the different types of tools that House Lavine is pulling from regional and national best practices and trying to expose them here in Lakewood and say you don't have anything like this right now. Would you like to go down the road with this? Um

because it does it is a way that other communities and municipalities use to provide this design guidance to developers and and even you know homeowners that are that are doing renovations to their house because it's a hard thing um to to get people in the box on you get into glazing quick. Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah. Uh going back to that slide and I and and I'm sure this will be interwoven and we did have a lot of conversation with the architects on like the primitive materials and those things and um

I am curious if this overlays with like the affordable housing issue and like maybe um if you're serving an affordable housing kind of bucket, you get certain like um you know kind of dispensations from certain standards. And so I I would just ask that we think about that and try to be creative with it because you know the tier one's material costs the most, right? Um and it is aesthetically pleasing, but although that is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but then that drives up, you know, per square foot cost to build the building, which drives up rents. There's a that's a great point, Councilman. I is actually one of the things that we were talking about today is uh as I'm working through the next step the definitions of all these in the processes house had a definition that I'm sure we will debate into perpetuity for affordable housing. So without getting into the details of like debating the definition of that, my question back to them was that by defining affordable housing in your zoning code, you would assume that it is then used somewhere in that code as in terms of which is not typically within zoning like in terms of so to your point that is a way that you could use that definition in terms of building design and then lowering the you know not lowering the standards but lowering allowable or the higher cost things to try to incentivize that. And so that's a a point well taken. Um, Council Person Hamilton,

thank you. Uh, thank you, Chair, for for allowing me to ask this question only because it does piggy back off what um, Councilman Baker had said and and just wondering and just questioning um, you know, you stated earlier that the goal, one of the goals is to, you know, clarify the design, development, review processes. Um, and along line what Councilman Baker was talking about with affordable housing is my question is, um, is this also an opportunity to look at the zoning codes and thinking about how we can address some of our community issues such as housing affordability and also, you know, economic development. As you said, you know, we're sort of spaced out, um, but also keeping Lakewood um, a livable and accessible community. So, I'm hoping that those things are being thoughtfully considered as, you know, the codes are as everything's being looked at and examined and hoping that everyone in the that room and of course, Councilman Baker's, you know, a part of this. Um, I'm hoping that that's the mindset and that we're connecting it and keeping it connect back to our our vision of of our community. I think just to address that quickly and I know we have another thing with affordable housing I think next month that we'll talk through but

quickly in terms of zoning that there's you know the two things of my knowledge of to to address that point of trying to and this is the first one is not going to be easy and with affordable housing is you want to address the supply and and the way you do that through zoning is allowing more dwelling units on the same land that you have. That is something that this code going back to the residential and creating the new standards of the RS districts like allowing more of the three and four family units. I think when we talked like that might have been two times ago or what when we covered that but that that is something that we are actively trying to find a way to allow more density in the existing thing and that I think that is going to be a could be I'm just kind of looking forward that might be a a hard hurdle to get over that may produce some community reaction um for a variety of reasons and you're all well aware of those. The second thing um is is that is the process itself of trying to streamline the process and the process costs is another thing for usually for the larger developments of trying to get them through so that you get those um the the more housing units that are out there because the longer a process takes the higher the cost of the project. So that by having defining these development standards better it we're hoping and and and the process with the next time we meet in June we'll talk about processes and trying to streamline like the plan development process and things to get developers appropriately reviewed but through quicker so that because for time is money for them that that all translates to those two things I think are the two of the main things that we can do to address that through zoning. So just

Mr. Chair. Yeah. Real fast. Uh can you tell me what Dave what RM2 MD and M is. Is that I'm trying to are are you new standard? So that's it's uh one's the multif family. RM is the multif family I believe and and then MD is the municipal district is a new district that we're creating to for like schools, city buildings, those types of things. Okay. So that currently is um C4 commercial public school I think just for schools right now is yeah C4.

I'm going to go quickly to city hall on this map is also C4 anyway. Okay. So that's what M is and then RM2 is going to incorporate um what is currently now wait a minute MD would be mixed used to overlay becomes MD is that the idea and then RM2 incorporates residential multifamily high density and low density something like that yeah there's that the multif family is this new defined multifamily that a mixeduse overlay is something separate from the district that that rides with the the underlying districts, but there's still going to be a mixeduse overlay, I think, in the final form of the chat.

Well, so I mean, I like where you're going with all of this. I just, you know, of course, the the answer to the question, do we like this or not depends on what it applies to. And I think I follow the logic. It probably does make sense, but I just it would be great also to make sure we understand h how the current zoning um districts are being crosswalked into what whatever we anticipate in the new

I think that's that's the important point. when we get to the the final review, we will walk the dog back through all those chapters again because I that there was a slide that might have been the first time that I came through that like when we talked through zoning districts um and it has been a long time since we since we reviewed that. But yeah, you and I were in the weeds on this very issue about a year ago.

Okay. So, but we're going to we're going to revisit everything again. I know as painful as it sounds. No, it's it's good work and you guys are doing very important stuff because it sounds like we're finding gaps, we're adding quality, we're adding clarity so that quality can actually be attained in the real world. I think that's the general theme. And then we're trying to make it

um a little more consistent and rational after you've inherited a hundred years of miscellane. So anyway, thanks Mr. Chair. I'll just keep going as quickly. So, we looked at like even glazing like the amount of glazing on the side of a building. Um, and so the different percentages now these were again they threw out do you want to have a minimum percentage of glazing and I the ZPAC kind of pushed back on that. They felt like even these amounts of the example amounts was way too much for a Lakewood building. How about opaque spandro glass?

Something like Yeah. And so that that's something that they're going to revisit kind of look at the the uh I hate that I'm going to even say the vernacular of Lakewood buildings and commercial districts in terms of the percentage of glazing and maybe revisit this table. But this again helps a developer looking at larger projects and stuff of, you know, it can't just be a a blank brick wall. Like there's got to be and that creative uh application to that, but also having potentially having a maximum amount of glazing so that someone doesn't come in with a building that's totally out of character um for the area that's all glass. um talked about different types of entryways and and kind of uh different elements um on the fronts of buildings. Um and this is these are things that you can get into more illustrative and and pictures that tell a thousand words and kind of dimensions in relation to the right of way. Um and different types of designs uh different types of facade articulation. This comes up a lot in ABR. Um, again, uh, you may not be surprised the architects that walk in with what, you know, someone considered to be a very bland design and and and and the discussion just goes around and around the boy on how to break that up with bands and stuff like that. And so providing them pictures and examples and and guidance helps kind of get them into the box of what we're looking for in Lakewood. And again, these pictures were not designed for liquid, so I don't want to, but they were just examples from other codes. Um, and that's like the um, so now we're getting into kind of restarting back again. So, if we looked at So, those were all like the main commercial buildings and multif family. So,

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry, real real fast. the the Dave the um have you gotten as far as the how many faux windows versus actual windows that you can see through and see product that's a future thing that that could be discussed in that glazing in terms of

okay that that is I believe incented under our current design guidelines but I don't know if it's required I know that for example the CVS at uh Arthur in Detroit did a nice job with that and there are other um earlier your uh drugstores that use the windows to be the they have big pictures up, not always maintained to be the stock area or the cash register area, you know. Um

that can be that's an example of yeah, use of glazing to make it more uh appropriate for the the character of the neighborhood, but doesn't may not necessarily functionally fit in with the layout that they want to design, but it keeps it that way. See, uh, the Chase Bank was another one. Alth not very popular of having almost a false second floor, um, in that building. Um, that's that's how you can make it look like it does fit in with the other storefronts on Detroit. So, it sounds like we're trying to hit the middle point between flexibility and not enough detail.

We're coming from max, you know, more relatively more flexibility and less detail. But the proposal here is to provide detail but options. And what is the what does the ABR and the planning commission do? They they have some discretion. So if if there's a you know a drugstore that really wants to have Spandro Glass and not use the windows for actual windows that activate the the walking street frontage. you know, would would the end point of this have enough ammunition for our boards and commissions to actually require or strongly incent because I I would lean towards the quality myself. It

I think the intent of this of this section of these chapters is to provide a a stronger more defined baseline for that discussion to then happen. um rather than just leaving it up to the developer to you know to to assess the character of the neighborhood and come up with a design and then throw it in front of ABR with no guidelines and ABR has nothing but their own personal experience to base their their criteria and their comments after which can be frustrating. Thank you.

Yeah. So these are all this is all just getting into different like very similar topics like cladding materials and and tiers of materials for uh you know smaller residential town homes. You have to address town home development. It's something that we don't have right now uh in terms of like how you approach town home development in terms of units per cluster the internal layouts the requirements for layouts those types of things. Um residential porches is a huge thing here. We're going to make that part of the code rather than a flyer of guidelines. Uh, and this is probably one of the biggest areas um that where we can make guidelines in the code that allow people to repair, renovate or replace their front porches without having to go through ABR. But just by following the guidelines, it becomes an administrative review process. Um, this is this is kind of the one of the the big highlighted pilots that we want to we want to make this an admin approval that's part of the code parking and access standards. This is basically your parking lot design from local building code pulled into zoning. Um, and it goes through all of the things that you would in terms of how you design a parking lot. Um and and the elements that are there from internal access drives um you know different uh these are some of the changes in terms of who approves curb cuts of making that more uh upfront in the code. You don't have to dig to find it. Setbacks from property lines of access and alleys. Um where parking lots are allowed. This is a huge thing right now. Um it is not easy in our code to find the prohibition on parking in a front yard. And so you always got to dig and find it, especially for people with residential homes that want to put a parking lot or

a parking space in a front yard. Clear, informative tables to say where parking is allowed based on the zoning district. Um, and then you get into the the parking uh requirements. And so this is something right now that and we can delve into this deeper into the future. They came in with a whole bunch of recommendations that were based on regional and and national best practices and I I went through them in detail and I basically told them to replace them with our current code. Um the national and best practices are so automobile centric and driven that it would make it untenable for someone to build anything in Lakewood. the parking the minimum parking requirements were so high. Um, and I just feel that our current code right now and and we obviously can debate and discuss this when we get into actual like the final review. I feel like our current code generally gets it about right 95% of the time. And the other times is that those those requirements for exceptions to the min and maxes that allow when you don't meet this or you want more, you want less, then it kicks at the planning commission review, which usually there is a favorable outcome for that. Um larger developments, um the flexibility of going to, you know, if it's more appropriate to a space per bedroom or whatever the requirement is, but to require that as a baseline is I I felt was a little adverse. um towards streamlining development. Um and so this is something that that we did discuss a little bit. I pushed back on it and we left them kind of as is right now. Um there there were a couple areas that I will just say that we do need to define better. Right now, our code lumps a lot

of uses under what's called public assembly. And that is hard um for theaters and things often to meet this like one space per 80 ft requirement. The public assembly, a church has a hell of a time meeting that requirement. That is something that they are helping us define some of those public assembly uses and breaking them out as their own true defined use. And so that that is one thing that we are updating. Bike parking uh contemporary standards for bike parking important. And then sign standards. Um much of this is kind of our existing uh chapter 1328 local building code for signs and bringing it into the contemporary in terms of sign types and designs. Um, so there's an awful lot in our sign code, but again, bringing this into the zoning chapter rather than local building chapter.

Council person, thank you. Um, c can you go back? I'm sorry, a couple uh slides here, too. The um the garage requirement for uh multi. Yes, thank you. That's the one. the um one space required in a garage is um that still applicable in our city. So that will be a great topic of discussion. Yes. Um so

because I I have heard from both sides is in terms of recommended to drop it and I've heard from almost an equal number of people to keep it and so I will I can I can continue to push House Lavine to give us more kind of clarification. I think the the general national trend is that it's that it's removed. But but I get almost an equal amount of people to say that, you know, for a city like Lakewood, you want to I don't know if it's property value driven. I don't know if it's the the the notion that if you have a garage that people are going to park in it, which I know generally doesn't happen. Um so that is going to be a key debate going forward in terms of if we keep that or not.

Thank you, Council Baker.

Yeah. Yeah. And and Mr. Chair, the the um Lakewood Alive um so from a Cleveland Bridge Builders, which is a program through Leadership Center in Cleveland, uh has a group of mid-career professionals looking into kind of like Lakewood's requirement that you have to rebuild a garage, particularly as it relates to seniors and some of the struggles that they have to to do that. and they interviewed Councilman Evans and I um and we were on the spectrum where I would say that I'm like I I think there's a lot of room in the middle on this argument to create kind of a sliding scale. It's not like yes, you need it no matter what and no, you don't need it. Um and so I think like there's a lot of wiggle room in the middle that I think we'll we'll get to and because because I think there are good arguments on both sides. Um it's I I think an easy way is to say you don't have to do it in a easy way to say you have to do it. Um but there's a lot of flow there.

Yeah. Thank you. And and I have seen um in my own experience neighbors that have never had a garage. Um rental properties that have never had a garage. So then do you go back and say, "Hey, you got to put a garage up." I don't think you do. And also I I see neighbors keeping garages up that definitely should come down and I'm not quite sure what they're harboring in some of these um in some of these garages that definitely should be coming down. So I'm I I'll be very interested in that conversation. Thank you.

Trying to think if there's anything of note with science. there's not a whole lot of, you know, major shifts in terms of our sign code. Um, I think the just outside of the incorporation of some of the newer things that our sign code doesn't talk about, um, one of them being like the, you know, the big banners that are on fences. Excuse me.

Yeah. the the question I have and we didn't get into this in Zpack but I you know they did say that the so the commercial speech supreme court lot of rules about what a city can regulate as as it relates to so content neutral all those things I am I really want to get this right so I would push house of lavine and particularly as it relates to some of our commercial storefronts sign pollution that some of these stores have is overwhelming I don't know how many like super bright marijuana leaves I can stare at at certain places. Um, and that's not I'm not that's not a content uh specific issue. It's it's more so just uniformity. Um, so I'm sure we'll get into that.

I think that is one area that we need to um our sign code right now does not really discuss in great detail or regulate well bright like brightness glare. you have to I think there's like one line in like the sign design that talks about glare and traffic visibility, but it you definitely could get as in the weeds as we wanted to in terms of the lumens and other things of of how much they project out there and and at the end of the day it also goes into the enforcement side which I hope we are getting better at with our zoning inspector and things about window coverage and and things like that. But it so well taken. But that's uh Mr. Chair, I think that's um outside of next steps like I like I mentioned, we have the next Zpac meeting that we're going to be reviewing the subdivision standards, zoning procedures and definitions is going to happen in May. It's the 19th of May is that meeting. So, my intention is to hopefully get a quick turn, get on the docket for June at some point to kind of go through the the points from the Zpac meeting there, and then hopefully I will be back on the docket before the recess, probably end of July to walk through kind of our plan for the review of that, the final zoning ordinances. And that's intended to be kind of a rehash of these steps of going through and really kind of starting at district and new standards, development, building and science standards, zoning procedures and definitions. Hopefully have about a month to a month and a half with each step of working through those. Um so because it is we just want to get it right and it's um and even for us the value of that final review is immense because we've been moving through this at at a at a steady

clip and a steady pace and it's impossible to get everything kind of your arms around everything. Um, and so it's it's very valuable to that we're going to go through this and and like I mentioned, our our intention is to try to do that uh between committee the whole and planning commission at the same time so that it's not a we're not doing the two-step process with planning commission and then coming back to you all, but you all can have the opportunity to discuss it collectively at each step and work through it. um so that everyone is hopefully in a much better place come November to to to move forward with this. So, uh thanks uh thanks for walking us through this. Um I'm very encouraged by this work as I've said in before and thanks for I know it's been a long and detailed pro I wasn't even on council when this started so that's that's how long this has been going on. Um, as an as an ABR alum, I um, certainly appreciate that taking those steps to make sure that we can eliminate some of that kind of just back and forth by making some simple rules that I mean that'll be very efficient for everybody, especially folks who were coming in here before that body who a lot of them are not used to it at all. Um, I really like the prohibit prohibited building materials. I'd love to see that in the signage section as well, like LED strip light. I mean, there's any number of things we could do on that and because simply how many arguments have we had with contractors and we you can't use EUS. Why not? Because we said so. I mean, no, it's actually prohibited in the code. Um, so that's like a really quick way to start knocking things off the table. So, I appreciate that. Um, I know I have a gazillion questions about this that are detailed. I'm not going to get into it here. Um, I encourage I encourage my uh fellow council members to um go through this um in detail and do the same and follow up with planning. But if there are any larger um questions, comments um Councilman Bulock.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I do appreciate this uh to the planning department. Thanks for continually reporting back. it it you know we have a couple of us on the committee or on the council that are in the planning and legal profession and do property and real estate and design a lot of us don't. So I find it helpful um one or two comments back to the sign thing and then a process comment. on the signs. There's both the new who are using casino level cartoon-like vivid colors and very bright um lighting and then having no screening at all on their front windows so that their whole store interior essentially is functioning as a sign and it's typically vape stores that I'm thinking of. Um the so so in in in effect that because there's no screening or requirement, the interior is activated as a billboard. Uh and that seems excessive. And then on the flip side, you've got legacy stores, beverage stores often, who are using the back of a vinyl sign to screen the fact that they've got shelf of stock, whether that's, you know, snacks or alcohol, and they're above the the storefront. Uh, excuse me, what's what's the term? The maximum amount of signage in windows that are allowed. Now, that definitely will have an impact on those interior operations of those of those businesses, but they're supposed to figure that out. And um I do think it's it's good if we're spending more time on the enforcement side. Um but the fundamental point, the reason I'm bringing it up here is that the the rules for the

the frontage that are that is approved by the ABR has a ripple effect on on all these issues that I'm talking about. And then of course it's in the hands of the building department to to to chase, you know. But I do think I mean I have gotten those are not hypotheticals. Those are real constituent complaints and I've done some followup over the years and probably should be doing more of it on that. Now on the process, um I I doubt it's going to be realistic or desirable to do a seven council members edit and amend in whenever the final version of this is final draft is coming through and then much less with ABR and planning commission here too. So and I also don't claim to to want to go through every issue with a fine tooth comb. other council members might, but I might be more like Councilwoman Freebig who's got several key points that have come up in in in our experience in the neighborhoods. Garages for sure are one of them, and there could be some others. So, you know, how do we work through that? I mean, ideally, probably we we identify and get those somehow into the hands of the Zpac so that the Zpac's expertise can give us a chance at being successful at those things.

Okay. I just to to make this um efficient as chair of this committee if people want to get me their individual um thoughts and ideas where they have concerns or they really want to concentrate I can compile those and share them with planning. Okay. That way we're not all hitting them with from all different directions. So I'm happy to do that. Okay. Thanks Councilman Bixenstein.

Thank you chair. Um, I I want to echo Council Person Hamilton Steiner and Council Vice President Baker um in appreciating that um affordable housing is a consideration uh through this process. So, thank you both for bringing that up. I'm going to ask a question that um perhaps is common knowledge to everybody else, but it's not to me. So, I'm going to ask with regards to signage. Um you know, sometimes I've noticed that temporary signage um on our commercial buildings lingers, sometimes um becomes permanent signage. I was just curious um in so far as how much um what rules are in place and what's um considered with with this particular um update as far as um limits to how long a temporary signage can be in place.

So again, that's another area, Councilman, that needs clarification and more just uh putting it more in bold. Um temporary sign, our current code talk has like one line that talks about temporary signage. Um, other than that, just through practice and experience, you're basically referred to the building department to get a temporary sign permit. And it's on them for the And and this this tells you how it's in the code. I don't I can't even remember how long each temporary sign permit lasts. Is it like 90 days? Is it 180 days? And you're supposed to go get another one. I do know they were $15. And there's nothing in the code that that that applies any standards to temporary signage. So through practice and experience, we've basically come to the point of just saying that well, you have to meet the same standards for your district for a permanent sign for temporary signage. But it's a point well taken. It is trying to define where and when temporary signage is appropriate for use, duration, the approval process. A lot of times our our code does not prescribe an approval process for temporary signage and so you do end up with kind of everything under the sun. Um and then again an area that we are actively working at getting better at um enforcement around temporary signage was sporadic at best up through about six months ago. And so because it is it sits in that uncomfortable space between planning and building, property maintenance and zoning. And so it's like the I don't know the ugly thing that nobody wants to touch. So among many things ugly things. Thank you. I I appreciate that that consideration. And I, you know, I think sometimes I'm probably overthinking it, but psychologically sometimes until a bu

a storefront has a more permanent sign, I I have to wonder if if they're uh their intention is to be permanent. And I'm sure again I'm overthinking it, but um I always appreciate when there's uh permanent signage in our store. Whatever you like. There's nothing more permanent than the temporary. Um any other comments? Sorry if I've rushed everybody. It's my wife's birthday today, so I'm trying to spend a few minutes before uh Yes. All right. If there's there's no more business before the committee, this meeting's adjourned. Uh thank you to the planning department. Uh really appreciate the update. Looking forward to what's coming next.