City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the meeting of the Mark City Planning Commission June 3rd. Um we will call this meeting to order. [Music] Margaret Rainer here. Kevin here. Alex Wilson here. James here. Steve here is here. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? So vote second. All in favor? Any oppos? Okay. Um motion passes. Uh the minutes from our last meeting, May 20th. Are there any additions or corrections to the meeting? Seeing none by consensus, we're good with those done. Excellent. All right. Um any conflicts of interest that people would like to declare tonight? All right. Seeing none, um no public hearing, we will go ahead and go into our preliminary PUB plan review for West Magnetic Street. Um we will begin this with city staff comments about project. Hello everyone. The planning commission tonight is being asked to review an application for a preliminary planned unit development PUD approval. The planning commission determined that the proposed PUD met the criteria for qualification as a PUD at a public hearing on March 18th, 2025. And the project application is for a proposed PUD of a mixture of town home types, one unit, duplex, triplex, and six unit for a total of 36 units to be

located at the three existing parking lots on the south side of West Magnetic Street between Lee Street and Fourth Street. The planning commission is now prepared to conduct public hearing for preliminary site plan review and then draft a recommendation to the city commission who will determine whether to approve or deny the PUD at a public hearing to follow. If approved by the city commission, the city attorney will prepare a contract. After the contract is recorded, and that's a contract between the developer and the city. After that's recorded, the applicants can submit a final site plan to the planning commission for their determination of conformity to the contract and compliance with the land development code. Only after these steps are completed and any conditions of approval are complied with can staff issue permits for the development of the PUD. So in the application packet that the planning commission has uh we'll go over that here. There is our staff review analysis staff report. Um and that covers all the applicable land development code sections, provisions, site plan review standards. uh details everything that's attached which includes the applicant's application, the narrative responses to staff comments and staff comments. Um the um let's go through those. This is the application the narrative from the

applicant uh about how they are meeting the different sections of the code. Staff comments and replies are included in here as usual in bold. Um, then we have the area map with the parcels, subject parcels outlined in blue. Um, sorry. Nope. Right to the end. Not supposed to do that. So, I'm going backwards through this material. Um, back to where I was. Sorry. Uh block map, zoning map. This is all uh in the yellow medium density residential. Across the street we have mixed use photos of the site that were taken last fall, it appears. And then we have the site plan set, preliminary site plan set showing the various uh phases of [Music] development and details um renderings of the site and the layout of floor plans, building elevations and renderings. um some plat information and that's that's it. Great. Thank you, Dave. At this point, I'd like to call the applicant up to just talk us through a little bit um some of the changes we saw when you first come state your name and address. Hello, Bob Mahaney, three timeship. Thank you commissioners for

the chance to be here tonight and for considering our PUD application. Um, we were here back in March and we got a lot of uh a lot of good feedback out of that meeting both from yourselves and the public. And um the plan that you have before you reflects our efforts to address some of that feedback, revised plan. In addition, we had a neighborhood meeting on April 14th. Um kind of a town hall format where we went through we invited all the neighbors from a three block surrounding area of the master site. We had about 100 people there and again that was a very productive session. Um a lot of good feedback. Um, and we're going to that I'd like to go into that in a little bit more detail in terms of how we've addressed the the public's concerns and and comments. Um, first I should introduce our team that's here to to help if you have any questions. Um, Michelle Thomas is here. She's our director of commercial real estate physiology as well our director of construction management. Uh Mike Corby is here, president of integrated architecture, the architect um engaged on this project. Uh Mike has 30 plus years of urban planning. We've been very fortunate to have the expertise uh impact this uh this project. And of course, we have Brian Savine, our civil engineer, who I'm sure many of you know from his long track record of working here in the city of Marquette. Um, in brief, our our PUB covers 3.1 acres. Uh, as you saw, lines south of Magnetic Street. This is the former staff parking lots for Marquette General Hospital. It's currently pretty much 100% asphalt and surface. Um, our I want to start off quickly by

just talking a little bit about the overall layout of the town homes and and our intent on building design. Um, we've the the buildings themselves have a very traditional brownstone design. Obviously, a lot of modern features, but we really wanted to try to um carry on and continue kind of, if you will, the color palette from found in many of, you know, our historic buildings and carried it up here to the site. kind of again from a color palette standpoint um try to bring those historic elements of Marquette uh into this into this site. That's where you'll see that reflected in in the brick we've chosen and other things. The other thing that we're trying to do is create strong pedestrian connectivity both within the PUD that we have before us, but also connecting to the north where we will have some significant green space and and the large park as part of the development that goes on north of Magnetic. The current plan in front of you shows 36 town homes. I believe our previous presentation had 40. So, we've reduced the count uh by 10%. These are mostly three-bedroom, twocar garages units. All are two story in height. Um previous plan had some that exceeded two stories. Um green space, we've increased the amount of green space. We now have almost 30% of the ground area is green space. Pretty close to an acre of the 3.1. um like to quickly touch on some of the issues that were raised by the public in the two meetings that I referenced in no particular order but obviously a big one as you all heard in

the March meeting was the access to Pqua the use of Pa Street we've eliminated the access drives to PE to Pqua there's no connectivity to Peekqua all access will now be off of Magnetic um some residents uh south of Pico expressed concerns concerns about vehicle lights shining into their homes. Should we use that the pea drives? Well, in addition to removing the pea drives, our intent is to add landscape BMS or fencing to further block any lights from being directed south uh into those uh into that area. Um some people expressed concern about the density as I mentioned. Um we've reduced the total number of homes from 40 to 36. Um, I would note that under current zoning, um, we could construct up to 46 homes, um, under medium density residential. So, we're at 36, um, less than would be allowed if we went the conventional route. Um, I'm not suggesting that 46 homes is appropriate. I just thought it was an interesting um, element in the code. Um, someone claimed that we did not have taken into account garbage dumpsters. There there are no garbage dumpsters. That's not the intent. Instead, garbage will be picked up curbside and bins will be kept inside garages. That'll be a requirement of the HOA. This is a condominium development. So, there'll be condom bylaws and HOA. Um, I don't know what to call, what do I call that? HOA. Here we go. HOA from the expert. Um, uh, there was a concern about snow storage space. We we've added additional green space. Uh, we feel we have plenty of space for snow storage, and if it

gets to be too much, like we do in a lot of our commercial buildings, we'll have it we'll we'll have it uh hauled off site. Um, another concern was expressed about are we going to have short-term rentals such as Airbnb. We'll put in the bylaws um language that effectively will prohibit short-term rentals. That's the same thing that we did at Han Park with our single family development down there. Um, and others had concerns about um the impact of demolition on their properties. Um, we heard some people talk about foundation's cracking or movement their buildings aren't I feel for those people um who are that's not our responsibility uh that's the responsibility of the foundation and Donald we take ownership of the property or the demolition took place once the don has completed all the demolition work so I'm not trying to pass the buck but that's just how that works we're not part we're not part of the demolition activity the demolition contracts um and and we explain that to people that you know the people to talk to on that would be the foundation and the um and the last thing I would close with before to answer any questions that you might have is just that in the public meetings um especially the April 4th 14th neighborhood town hall meeting there was a lot of positive feedback as well and we really appreciated that um hopefully we've improved the plan to as much as we can to everyone's satisfaction. One thing I've learned in this business is that while we try to take into account and address concerns of everyone, it's pretty darn tough to, you know, add a thousand, but we've tried and hopefully that's reflected in the plan that you have. And so with

that, um, be happy to answer any questions you might have. Right. Thank you, Mr. Um, does any have any questions for at this point? So, um, that was doing the demolition on the hospital site, but all of adding additional green space to what is currently a parking lot. I'm assuming that they or you are going to remove that. Who's doing that? Sorry. The asphalt. The asphalt. We will. Okay. Yeah, we own the site that you're looking at. Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Questions later, but thank you. That was very thorough. We appreciate that. Okay. Um, so at this point, we um would see any correspondence, take correspondence on this. No. Okay. All right. So, then we'll move on to public testimony. If anyone would like to come up to the microphone, please state your name and your address. Yep. Go ahead. My name is Grant and I live at 365 West Park Street. Um, which is out my window. And that's why I need to make the comment. First off, I want to say thank you that we're actually going to have something there rather than empty space or parking and I we're not looking for a large

[Music] development and for folks, but I'm really glad to see it something happen. Um, and I appreciate uh that my comments uh were taken into account from the public meeting. Um because my main concern was not only the traffic on people but also um if you had the site um plan up here I would refer to that the color. Thank you. Uh I think this is the existing drive coming in into a magnetic. I'm not sure how it lines up. Um but my house is directly across this side. And what we experienced uh before was uh when the hospital had had that parking lot is every day um light coming there's a 20 20 foot difference between my living room window and cars coming in magnetic and so every time somebody came in the lights just shine right into the house. Um so they took that into consideration and said they were going to be put uh one of my consideration was that well we don't want to put in a banquet room so they're going uh but my question for them that hasn't been answered was with the sixplex the way it's citrine and the

u I guess they're calling triplex uh just to the side of it. If part of that could have been turned slightly so that there actually be blocking with the building rather than a firm. Uh and I don't know if that was directed in your comments or not or part of the sixlex would be a 42 L shape or something along that line. But u I I don't know I don't know if they looked at that when they did the plans or not. We did look at that and short answer is we couldn't make it work effectively. Um I I forget the exact I'm not trying to pass the buck here in life but I forget I know a staff looked at it and we concluded that it wasn't well the other possibility was a sixplex this way and triplex this way. I didn't know that any of that was could be a possibility. We we can address that. So I just wanted to make that Yeah, thank you for that comment and for your um productive uh thank you sir. Um anyone else have any public comments? We can because we'll have a discussion as well. We have so I'm aware of all words. Yeah. Okay. Uh, anyone else from the public would like to share their thoughts? Yep. Come on up. Please state your name and your address. Jack, 720 WestK here in Marquette. Um, I was one of the uh participants in the April 14th meeting and I've also been watching this project and I would like to thank the developer

for incorporating feedback from the different public meetings to make this a better overall project for the neighbors and the community as a whole. So, it's clear that they're very vested in making this happen in a responsible way. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Anyone else like to share thoughts? Last call. Okay, seeing none, um we will close that portion of the the public hearing and we will move on to commission discussion. So, are there any planning commissioners that have questions or thoughts they'd like to raise? Commissioner uh question basically for staff. Um do we know our is the proposal to have a magnetic street at Chris for all these buildings except perhaps those on Le Street? Yeah, I would think so. That's the front edge for most of these buildings. Okay. Then I would just as there was some concerns about identifying it by for emergency personnel down at Hammock. I guess I'd encourage that we put a condition on it that the uh the building address numbers be posted on the north wall of buildings putting those that are set back in the parking lot easier for emergency responders. Yeah, that's an excellent point. Um I think I had one more here. There is quite a bit of landscaping proposed.

Um, most of it to me coded. I guess I'm wondering um will an irrigation system be included in here? I didn't see it on the on the water utility plans, but I can answer that. Yeah. Would you mind coming up to the microphone just so we can get it recorded? That would be nice. Thank you. Definitely. Because I I know some of it is just conceptual, but it does show, you know, plants also on the balconies and and things realizing that's conceptual. But people see the concept, they want to adhere to it. they'll need access for outside water as well if if they're going to do that. That's something we don't often see in these type of developments. So, one of the things we've learned, one of the lessons I've learned over the years is that even though in a monsoon day like today, um for the landscape to continue to look good, you have to invest in irrigation system. So, that's kind of we just do it now. Okay. Thank you. And I did note too in in response to Mr. Salitch's uh concerns, the landscaping does show evergreen hedges um or tree plantings at the ends of those driveways that block the headlight clear going to the south. Yes. I add one thing to that. Yeah. If you don't mind describing the fencing too because I think there was fencing mentioned. Yeah. the type of fencing is yet to be determined. But the uh um in addition to the screening of the idea is like hedges there. But one thing you you don't see on this overall plan, there is a significant grade change from Peekqua

out to the front of the road. Actually, where we dead end, we have about a 4 foot cut from what's there right now. So that's, you know, where the grade was at the floor, it's now or where it was at the podium height, it's now down at the floor. So the headlights will also be, you know, that'll help create a more of a natural burn for your area when we put that together. No, after you dig down. Yeah. So yeah, the floor will be set forward. Yeah, we'll be starting four people, but we still I hear you. Okay. I don't want to get phone calls from you saying we want to build a firm that looks nice on both sides and accomplishes what you need, which is, you know, no coming [Music] into hopefully people coming in and out as well. Thank you. And I commend the developer for being responsive to the comments that they receive. Thank you. Great. Uh, any other questions or comments from the planning commission? Yeah, I've got one comment on someone's concern about their foundation getting practice stuff. So after we spoke about it's the other guys that did the demolition. So I'm assuming they're not going to use any rollers or anything when they're building the roads that are going to shake the ground a little bit. Correct. Well be a normal construction compaction. That's right. There's a lot of shaking of the ground and normal construction.

There's no blasting anticipated or anything like that that had to occur on the deep fation. You put a big roll of compactor on that road and it's going to shape things. Even a small compactor shapes things. And then the other thing is in this narrative here, the thing I don't like at all is where they're saying the city commission or they kind of refer to the planning commission, but I don't do not believe at all in these performance guarantees. I mean either developer is a repableable person or I don't see why they should have to come up with a guarantee that they're going to complete the construction. And I have one other question Brian might know. This is going to last over a period of years. And we know that the new code is coming out very shortly actually sometime in the fall supposedly. But when that code comes out, it's going to change requirements. And I don't know if you can get a permit now and it can be good for four or five years. I'm not sure what the length of a building permit life is. Yeah, I would think that in terms of the city code that'd be more of a question for Dave. But um it's our understanding, you know, at this point we're under the code that's under law right now. And when you submit at that time, that's what you're you're meant to follow. It doesn't change as the the

time frame goes through. You know, we have a phasing plan uh that's been developed over, I believe, a fiveyear period. you know, that's part of the agreement that will be with the city of Marquette, you know, and the uh and the code that we're under right now is the only code we can follow. We don't have, you know, we don't know the future. We haven't seen the boat yet. We don't know what's there, but you know, I think Dave could probably give me give me a little more information, but we we fall under the current code right now. Correct. But I'm just asking how long building permit been for. I don't know how long the building permits are good for Mike Corby with integrated architecture 840 auto Michigan will be subjected to the code that's in place at the time each phase will have to get a separate permit. So for instance, if the code the code was actually supposed to change this fall and it didn't pass off, right? So if it changes uh if we submit and the question how what's the duration of the building is a good one. I don't know if typically they last 12 months. You have to start construction within 12 months or you have to reapply. But the future phases of the code change, those will be subject to that code. So they won't be able to use the code that was on the first phase. So That's a good point and it's it's not going to change anything that you see here at the conceptual level, but it gets into insulation and there's a lot of there's some electrical things that um will affect construction costs obviously. I guess just to kind of follow up on your Primo's point about the performance guarantees, Dave, I know that's something we've talked about about other projects in town. um doing something to make sure that the site plan gets implemented as presented. Is that something that's been discussed um

with the Afghan or with the city on this one or is that not that I'm aware of? Okay. And that's really a dis uh at the discretion of the planning commission on approving um a site plan, special land use permit or a PUD is to uh require you can require a performance bond but it hasn't been done in a long time. We talked about it um in relation to the fiasco at the Gaines Rock Town Homes that in certain large project circumstances going forward, it might be a good idea to get a landscaping bond beyond what's required by the engineering department for rightaway work. But there it's totally at the discretion of the planning commission is what was decided when we were talking about it with the land development code amendments that we spent months working on recently which by the way have nothing to do with the code change for the building code that the city does not administer. All people have thoughts about that. I know the language is there, but we would have to put that into motion. And yeah, well, I just like to give Bernie credit for the fact you've done well over a dozen projects in the community without any issues that I'm aware of related to them. But I think they've done a lot to establish a very good track record in completing contracts. and they think we should credit them for that and see no reason to do this. Um, I guess if there's a concern that because it's a such a longterm

project that they might at some point um transfer the project to someone else. we could reserve the opportunity at that point to reconsider, but I think their intent is to finish it and I think they finished all their other projects quite well. Thanks, Commissioner. Anyone else have thoughts on that? Yeah, I also think it's at the discretion of the city commission to write that into the agreement with the developer if they so choose because at this point we're just making a recommendation. Yeah. Okay. Um any other thoughts discussion or is anyone ready to make a motion? [Music] I'll make the motion after review of the PUD site plan uh including pattern book items dated May 5, 2025 and the staff file review analysis for 01 PUD 0325. the planning commission who previously established that the PUD met seven out of 10 required objectives and the criteria to be eligible for a PUD of section 54.323F of the Market City Land Development Code and the preliminary PUD plan meets section 54.323H of the Market City Land Development Code. recommends that the PUD be approved by the city commission with the condition that um an amended plan be submitted meeting

the uh city staff comments for final site plan review particularly with regard to lighting, landscaping, fencing and engineering details and uh this include the variances for the larger multifamily unit and the reduction in front and rear lot setbacks to 10 ft. Okay. Is there a second? I'll secondly. All in favor? Any opposed? Any abstain? All right. The motion carries. Thank you um for your work to listen to the community and adapt to the feedback. I think that was a great I think that's why we have this old public forum. So it's a good example of an adaptive decision making. So thank you all for your work. We look forward to seeing the project. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Um are there any citizens wishing to address on non agenda [Music] items? All right. Seeing none, we have no business wishing to address on any non agenda items. Okay. Uh we don't have any correspondence reports or any minutes, but we do have a training on micromobility devices which I found very interesting. Hopefully you guys got a chance to read some of the materials that David sent to us. Um certainly I think we've seen very rapid uptick in scooters, electric bikes and all kinds of new ways of getting around. So I think this is something that's become increasingly important for us to address. Dave, did you want to talk about the micro mobility step? Sure. Uh did well start with a question. Did anybody have a chance to go to one of

the public input sessions that tool design play? Kevin. Yeah. So, this active transportation plan they're helping us develop uh will have some recommendations for how to incorporate those devices into our current network of multi paths and streets in a hopefully a better more system systematic way. Um, right now there is quite a bit of conflict going on with the especially the multi path system and uh I I can't speak for the police department or city manager's office, but I I think that you know it's going to the the bad behavior problem is probably going to have to be resolved through enforcement and ticketing people. I I don't know how else it gets resolved. Um, and um, you know, that's the goal really for a I think a good pedestrian and bicycle system is to make people the center of the city, what the city's designed for, and not cars. And that's that's kind of like the utopian vision we have, right, of cities that they're designed for people and we can all get around safely, not have to worry about getting hit by cars or getting run over by a bike or motorcycle or anything else. Um, so getting to that point from where we are is going to be a long road. Um, no pun intended. Um but um yeah there's there's a lot of work to do um because right now we have you know

some serious behavior you know writing behavior or operational behavior problems. Um, but you know, not only do we want to get put people at the center of what we design for, but we want to free up the city from cars taking up so much of our space, too. Because right now, streets take up a third of the space in most cities. So, streets and and then you add parking lots on top of that. So, rightways take up about a third of the space. you had surface parking and we've got, you know, some 40 50% of our public space is devoted to vehicle storage and and access and mobility. Um, which, you know, you're you're going to need space for people to get around, but it's really um not sustainable if our population is going to continue to explode like it is. Um and uh cities are really hampered with the cost of all that infrastructure and facilities to accommodate vehicles. Um so there's potential for cities to have better places for people for uh you know development that serves people more than cars. environmental gains come out of that. There there's a lot of upside to this planning for for this. Micromobility devices though, if you read any of this stuff, are very a very challenging issue. Like most of what these articles address is these fleets of scooters and and bikes. Bikes haven't really been a problem. We've got a little you almost call it pilot pilot project with the bike rental thing that

goes on down. I think it's been it's third or fourth year now. Um but scooters um we've kind of shued them away. Um they've tried to get a foothold in the city but we've kind of said no we're not interested because we've seen I don't know I when I get those calls that's what I do. I mean, I I'm not interested in the problems I've seen in other cities where scooters are laying in the streets and, you know, left for dead in certain places and, you know, uh, create hazards and all that. These scooter companies though have responded to that. They they are responding and doing trying trying to do better from what I'm reading in some of these articles and they have done better in some places. So anyway, there's there's some stuff to learn here that, you know, is going to become more of a public conversation as we get into hopefully creating a better network, you know, after we figure out how to move forward with hopefully we'll get some good advice, good recommendations out of this planning effort, which should be wrapped up by the by the fall. I think by the end of the year we'll have a plan and take it from there. What is the current police ordinance on? I know there's a speed limit on the bike path and I know it's you know just not enforced really but like is there other police ordinances or Well, there there is um the police are trying to enforce the state recommendation or state law. I think it's now built into the vehicle code that on multi-use pathways um that are, you know, have any state funding. This kind of the if you build anything with state money, you you have

to follow the rules. So, the rules are that class 2 and three ebikes are technically uh not allowed on those pathways, but there's no way to really gauge what's a class 2 or 3 ebike. Aside from is it going more than 20 m an hour, then it's probably not a class one ebike, which are capped at I think that they're designed to be 20 mph top speed vehicles. So, that's the challenge. That's why it's really a behavior issue. It's not a design issue. You can't really design the facility or the vehicles. I It's kind of like a Corvette on the streets. You You can't really just say a Corvette is going to be a problem itself because it can go 60 miles an hour or whatever. It's the driver that creates the speed problems. So, you have to enforce the rules on the driver, not the vehicle. Did you have any closer? Um just a um a reminder that we had a gentleman here um during one of our master plan hearings who was asking that the micromobility plan which we weren't talking about at that time include the provision for type of skateboard that he rides with the onehe big snowmobile in the city. My husband and I I guess um I have seen several of them around the community. So just thinking that you know there there is another group out there besides bicyclists that are looking for alternatives. And when Nate mentions um the behavioral problem I was in Paris last year and

to a warning us that you know even though there's all special bike lanes and and provisions that are very heavily used there. He said the traffic stops you know the automobiles stop at the stop lightss and stop sites. The bikers will not do not step off car to a crosswalk because the bikers ignore the stop signs and that we found that to be very much the case. So maybe that was the article said they banned electric scooters and stuff in Paris and a few other cities which I thought was interesting. I mean that's one way to go they're saying is like different cities are taking different approaches to do this. And I don't know I just think it seems like biggest violators of all this stuff is like middle school or teenage boys. I don't know, not to stereotype, but I wonder if there's like again it comes down to enforcement, but maybe education incentives or something. I don't know. It's been some near misses on the path behind me. I can see scooters taking advantage of that, which I'm not sure that's legal for them. Yeah, um I uh I don't really I don't think any of us know the solution to it. I've also I mean I have a I have a class 3 e bike. Um I try to keep it on the street as much as possible. Um I was also going down and make sure uh it's been a week or two ago and I was going 25 and that's the speed limit through there and I was kind of looking to just to be on the street and keep up with everybody. But I looked back and there were a dozen cars behind me and they're like riding one like the one closest to me is riding up right behind me. So then at that point I was like, "Well, I'm not gonna I didn't feel safe, so I got on the bike path at that point." Um, and then I rode slower and like I was trying to be respectful, but uh, as someone who's trying to follow the rules in place, I have found myself not feeling safe. And I I do like

to use the stop signs. I try to be a good user of the roads. Um, so that's a that's just something that was on my mind. Oh, it's I get it. And it's like why I don't correct my kid when she's riding on the sidewalk. But I know you're not supposed to ride on the sidewalk, but there's certain streets where like it's not safe to have a bike on that street. So then you do what you got to do. And I was also on Sorry, you're No, I was just going to say I think I agree with like that issue like it makes more sense to me to have a speed limit than uh restrict certain types of bikes because it's about the driver. the uh only prohibition in riding on sidewalks is in business districts, but in general like Yeah. You know, yeah, pedestrians should have the rightway, right, on sidewalk and you have fixed objects which are more of a hazard than you do. I mean, it's a lot easier to run into something and hurt yourself on a sidewalk. So, um, but I just at one of those events last week, uh, I went to the one at well, I went to a couple of them, but one at Black Rocks. I was talking to a couple people that one of the guys lives real close to Third Street and he said, "We've been telling our kids to ride on the sidewalk because they don't feel safe and we don't feel safe riding in the street." So, that brings up a whole another issue about, you know, changing the layout of the street potentially. But um yeah, there's there's a lot. It's a wicked problem. Yeah, I just had a a question. Um I don't I have only been in the city for a few years now. So I I have heard that Third Street was at one point a oneway. Uh what why did that change? Just out of curiosity. Steve was here in those days.

I wasn't. It used to be paired with Front Street. Third Street was one way south and Front Street was one way north. And um basically the uh business association felt that it deprived them of a lot of their trade um because they couldn't get to any traffic, especially coming from the downtown area. They were not part of the BDA at that time. they had a separate organization uh the village business association but um it was one way for probably well at least 10 years I'd say maybe closer to 15 um and eventually they convinced the city to uh change it back um it did I guess it uh didn't necessarily function any better because even it as one way, it still had parking on both sides and two lanes of traffic headed south and so it was still taking up the entire pavement and it created issues if any kind of so many build up that people had more difficulty getting out of the cars whatever. So they they made a stated case I guess enough to convince um the commission that it should be changed back I would second interest in third street one way once again. But that's interesting. I didn't know that it was paired with Front Street in the past. I would suggest like paired with Fourth Street and yeah, do it like that. But that might not be super relevant to this competition. But I just thought that was an interesting suggestion for the future. and have one lane of traffic in each un oneway street and then like

angle parking on one side and you can have the other side like pedestrian or like just bikes or something. The idea of one way on third is gaining momentum again. it when we did the corridor plan in 2013, the uh you know the consultant that led that project for us was a retail expert and he interviewed all of the business owners on the street and at the time there was no interest in going back to one way but I talked to one of the business owners recently who said I would support it and I've talked to other business owners that are feeling the same way at at this point and I know that just from some discussion with the DDA director that they would be more inclined to see it re refigured as a one-way street than to take parking off of one side of the street. They see that as like that's a non-starter to to remove parking because that that was the biggest issue with the business owners is what Steve said. It's still the same and the data supports that. The there's like our retail expert who led that project in 2013 said the data, you know, absolutely supports that once you make a street one way, there is going to be less vehicle traffic and likely less than retail traffic. Um, so and even removing parking is the other part of that equation. May maybe it's it's a little bit mitigated if you at least have parking on on both sides of the street. Um, just wouldn't there be if there was

angle parking on one way, wouldn't there actually be more because right now they're parallel parking and you can get a little bit more if you're bladed or am I just like thinking of math incorrectly. Yeah, I don't know. And and you Yeah, spatially there might be more space, but it depends on what you want to do with the pedestrian and bicycle space. It might be harder to accommodate that with an angle parking situation. Sure. Yeah. I think see you can correct me if I'm wrong, but use angle parking. You got an 18 foot parking spot and you have to have 18 ft behind it. That's 36 ft of a 32 foot wide street. So it' be difficult to do. You're right. Another question for all the bikers. Has the law changed or don't bikes still have the same rights as an automobile? They used to have and you you ride down the road, you sing, I'm going to turn right, you single I'm going to turn left because all that changed. I mean, now you have to have your own designated path to drive on. You should be able to drive down any road without any real problems. Yeah, that's the law. You can except for limited access highways. Yeah. So, I don't see the real problem. And the other problem we've got is it used to be now, of course, with global warming, we're going to have constant bare streets and warm weather, but if it doesn't come to fruition in the near future here, we still got a lot of winter and you don't see a a lot of bikes. Yeah. Out there. So, I mean, I got nothing against bikes, but the other thing, the only other suggestion I would make, and I don't know, maybe they do

it, but are they still teaching bike safety in school, telling you your hand goes out straight, your hand goes like this, or do they give that all up? Not teach it at the bike rodeo, though. They teach it not. I well, one of the things that I've done for my school is start a bike bus where I've been taking it upon myself to uh lead kids that I know that are on my route with my own kids to school. So, um we sent text messages to their parents and said, "Hey, if your kids are in in the street, they can ride with us. We teach them how to travel on the the road in the roadway, how to signal, when to stop, and how to get safe routes to school. There is funding through the safe routes to school program and the League of Michigan Bicyclists to fund those programs into expanding into other schools, but haven't gotten that far yet. Sounds like you need to go see the superintendent. Yeah, that was just every year you got that in school. No. And if it is a problem and we can see that manifesting in the way that uh middle schoolers and high schoolers are using ebikes on path at way too fast speeds and they're not being courteous and knowledgeable riders. Um we've been having um city outreach through like thing programs like the bike rodeo in order to uh mitigate that loss, but it is still lost. And we're kind of hoping the school resource officers will pick that back up as something they could put on some, you know, short trainings. That's what they used to do in schools. Police would come officer friendly. come visit the school and teach kids about how not to get hit by cars as a pedestrian or a

cyclist. I had bike license in fourth grade tak but just Wayne's Wayne's uh comment about you know it's legal to ride on the street in a bike. That's true, but a lot of people aren't comfortable riding on the streets with other vehicles, and a lot of people driving the motor vehicles are not courteous to bikers. It's a two-way thing. You know, there's a lot of people riding bikes that don't follow the rules. There's a lot of people driving the cars that make the bikers feel very uncomfortable. So, and winter does make it challenging for those of us that bike attempted to bike year round. You know, it's like when you get to snow banks that are encroaching, then you know through there are there are a lot of great street designs out there in places where they have money and they have where they're re they've redesigned the streets in ways that make it a lot more comfortable for people to ride bikes. I mean there's a lot of cities in the world where people are very comfortable riding bikes and you have a lot of people as a percentage of the commuters using bikes to get around. I mean in Japan there's garages for bikes where you know people have hundreds of thousands of bicycles stored you know on the where they end up for their travel to work or whatever to school. this action plan if anyone hasn't had this taken the survey I got their QR code here but this could be a good like catalyst maybe for the next phase yes that might involve the planning commission I would think at some point to take these recommendations and then figure out where we're going from there um any other final thoughts on microability yeah you're talking about

obstacles the biggest obstacles that I could see right now for automobiles and bicycles of the garbage containers all over the streets. I have seen people weave and and turn and trying to get around those things. It's just crazy. Now we got mandated too and you get up in the morning and they're all over. They're not on the side of the road anymore. Yeah. The city's dealing with waste management right now uh over a lot of problems with the contract that seems to have increased just lately where the street and on their sides and and my street doesn't have sidewalks so it makes it doubly hard the kids are trying to walk around those to get over to the high school and it's not a safe situation like otherity addressing that for sure. Okay. Any other thoughts on breaking mobility? Okay. Um work session. So that brings us to staff comments, do you have any comments? The only comment I want to make is when I brought that up about the bonding requirement or you know cash bond whatever it said in this packet unless it meant the upper level it said to be determined by the commission three or four items there that said to be determined by the planning commission. That's why we brought it up. It didn't sound like I asked people to know. That's why I brought that up. Yeah. But we did have an opportunity to do it. There was not an appetite for it. Okay. Okay.

actually did talk to just I did talk to the city commission or the city um attorney about it before the meeting just to to clarify like what can we do performance on and what was it because one thing that had come up was about piqua pua or pua which is it Steve I don't know for sure but I I've always heard it pronounced [Music] pigua lumber company which was muting wood products sitting where the high school is and they used to make wooden spoons, wooden bowls and that type of thing. Bowling pins. So bowling pins. It was it was more of a handle factory or whatever. My father worked there when he first got out of the army after World War II. No, all this knowledge. I know, man. I wish I had the memory, but you know, wow. I like the new plans. I think they're they utilize the space more effectively and I liked having the a little bit more green space with lots of vegetation. I was glad to see that took into account public comment in their new revised plans. I thought they were good and I thought Peeka was a bird. Little did you know um yeah I like the the radio. Um definitely took uh took some of the notes from the community post school. Um also new housing is awesome and I appreciate everyone indulging bicycle talk. I agree with everyone else that um I appreciated Veridia's consideration of the public's thoughts and then neighborhood thoughts. Um and I just wondered I apologize if this is like a

lack of knowledge that it is a lack of knowledge on my part. Um but the process here that was like preliminary site plan review. Will they come back to us again with final site plan review? Okay. So that was just us saying yeah keep going and making your current plan. Okay. All right. But when they come back, it's not a public hearing and there's no performance, you know, no adding on. Okay. Well, just um I feel there's some sympathy to the neighbors because they're projecting this as a about a fiveyear project just for this development. Not even talking about getting across the street yet. I know. And so it looks like it's a perpetual construction zone uh for as long as most of us will be around. Um so um I'm not sure we can tell the neighbors they're not going to be affected by construction. I think that's the case. And it is a little bit frustrating when you read repeatedly that the market econom needs a thousand new housing units a year and they're saying that they're going to put up three a year, three units a year. Um maybe a little more if the market provides but um I understand we have to follow the market but it just u just adds to the frustration that we're we're seeing development but it's nowhere near what the target study says is right and that that analysis did say this is the type of housing that's needed too that's like town hall more dense stuff, not the single. So, it does align with that for

sure. Um, Dave, did you have any comments? Um, not really for the record, but just on what Steve said, just to tell a lot. I had a little conversation with friends and my wife that made this comment that uh, you know, I think we'll be seeing a lot more snowbirds in the f summers was a term she used. And that that's probably already happening to some extent, but it's really that that is uh another thing that's really just going to be uh com compounding the issue. Uh people coming up here for the summer from Texas because you're already seeing license plates around Texas and Georgia and whatnot. Yeah. All right. Well, if you haven't had a chance to take this um active transportation survey, please take that. Also, thank you Dave and Eric from the city um who organized the bike rodeo on Saturday, which I thought was a great success this past Saturday. Um it was a great turnout. It was really neat to see some so many city staff and volunteers there to help teach bike safety. So, it went really well and um just yeah, to see the city come out and do that. All right. And at that, we will adjourn the meeting at 73.