City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

MEETING OF THE MARQUETTE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION TO ORDER IS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1ST, 2026 AT 6 PM. WE'LL BEGIN WITH A ROLL CALL ON THE END OF OUR BREAKS.

JANE FITKIN HERE. MARGARET RAYNER HERE.

JAKE GOOTER HERE. ALICE WILKINSON HERE. NICO GRAMOTTE HERE. STEVE O'ROURKE HERE. AND KEVIN FITKIN IS HERE. THAT IS A FULL DOCKET BROKEN BAG.

um we need um for our emails uh in addition to our agenda do you want to go over oh yeah this is uh what i'd like to the highlighted part here at item a do you have a second all right um all those in favor of the motion to

minutes everybody we had a very short meeting last time i did not see any mistakes all right by consensus we can approve those minutes um conflicts of interest tonight i personally had a question regarding a community um motion that i don't Just wanted to get that one on the record. Does anybody have any thoughts otherwise? No, I'm fine. Okay. All right. Well, then that's been stated. We can begin our public hearing. 01-PUB-021381. Potential amendment to nestle down bed and breakfast, EUB 975. our public hearing with city staff.

Kenneth and Sue Schallin seek approval of a major amendment to their previously approved planned unit development, PUD, at 975 Lakeford Boulevard. The existing PUD permits the operation of a bed and breakfast within a single-family residence occupied by the innkeepers, including six guest rooms within the home and a second dwelling unit consisting of living quarters above garage available for rental. As part of the proposed amendment, the applicant sees to divide the existing PUD parcel and remove a vacant portion of the parcel from the PUD. Under the original PUD agreement, the parcel contained 44,091 square feet. According to the submitted certificate of service, the property would be divided into two parcels, proposed parcel A containing 34,050 square feet and retaining the existing PUD uses, and the proposed vacant parcel B containing 10,010 square This action would reduce the size of the existing PUD parcel. The application states that if the major amendment is approved, the applicant's intent to pursue rezoning of the newly created parcel B to mixed use. The applicants have indicated that their intent for parcel B is to construct a single family residence. The Planning Commission should review the request and send a recommendation to the City Commission. If the City Commission approves a major PUD amendment, then the PUD contract would need to be revised and the proposed parcel B Attached to the staff memo is a PUD application with support material. You have the applications submitted. And attachment A changes and variances from the original proposal. Then attachment B, the original PUD revised statement. Then the certificate of survey dated 5-6-26. Then the certified location survey dated 6-18-26. The original recorded contract. the area map the parcel is outlined over here the block map again the parcels and then photos of the site it did not receive any correspondence okay um would the applicant like to come to the podium and speak about this

And we're looking to retire. We're looking to retire and possibly build a house.

Yeah, and over the years, we've been in business 11 years. We opened in August 28, 2015. We built it the year before, one full year. And in 2012, we started the process of having a bed and breakfast there. We bought that old industrial property. It learned at the Brownfield. We went to the Brownfield stuff. And it was deferred development, so we needed to find a zone. There was a zone that we could have used, that multi-family residential, but the residents at Lakeshore Parkways Suggested to look into the PBB. So we went with that and developed the PBB in 2013. And then through the years, we were, well, what are we going to do? You have to have an ending as innkeeper. You can't just keep going. We're probably looking a little tired. But Ken said, well, maybe we can build a house on our property that we have this one acre. And no one really uses the property to the north at all. It's like once in a while, someone will sit out in the air. Guests come, they're running around all over, exhausting themselves, I think. And then they come into the inn and they want to just get their feet up and out to dinner. So it's all, everything's happening from the south side. So it doesn't feel like we're really disturbing any breakfast activity. And I thought it was kind of brilliant and land all over. And, you know, how would we put a house there? It's all woodsy. We're getting too old to, you know, do that kind of construction way out, you know, on some property with woods. So I thought, you know, I'd go on down to that area too. Right on the property, cut off a chunk. according to the community, it's a major revision. So then we're back to the process. And hoping it goes well, we're thinking just, you know, work with the design and the shape of the lot and the property. We did ask Lakeshore Park Place if we could enter and exit from their road that, I don't know if it was called Lakeshore Park Place, but the residents didn't want us disturbing and coming and going so but the engineers here the city engineer felt you know in some of our meetings with um we could have a just a regular house driveway on lake charlotte so we don't have a plan yet and then we can just go on through this process we had to do the survey and fill out the application Yes, and I just have to say, our guests love Marquette. They love how clean and how friendly everybody is. And really, you get a nice variety of folks that come and stay, come and go, and eat out. They really love Marquette.

Don't go too far, but you can sit down. Oh, we're right. Yeah. Do we have any public testimony?

Anybody want to speak on this?

Come to the podium and state your name and address, and that's where you're going to speak. My name is Tom .

My address is 1307 .

They're within 300 feet of the proposed change, and so we got the notice.

And I appreciate getting that notice. I do want to say, though, that we have known Ken and Sue prior to moving to Marquette. We stayed at their inn, and we were scouting out places to live. And they've been great neighbors. look forward to seeing this plan get approved and adding another residence to our little community there i think it would be a real good addition to the neighborhood all right thank you you're welcome is there anyone else that would like to come to the podium all right seeing none public testimony is closed Commission discussion motion to suspend the rules for discussion so all right all those in favor say aye all opposed same sign motion passes all right so I guess I'll start. My initial reaction is that I don't really see any major concern from my viewpoint in this request.

I think it still meets the intent of the original P&D.

I don't think splitting this off will impact the function of the bed and breakfast inn. I think it needs to be the master plan intent for the scenario. Those are some initial thoughts that I have right now.

Okay. I agree.

Thank you, Laura. Also, I think it does add additional housing, which would be very important. i do have a few questions or concerns mostly for staff so the emails we received we should probably review this according to the original vud criteria I had asked a question about what happens to the zoning of the new parcel. I think that was answered by staff already. I have a question about utility availability i believe all the utilities are in a public easement on the adjacent property which would allow the city to go into the right laterals to this it may not be well received by the federal association over there across the street but i believe it is public's right to do that

We had to talk to engineering about what we want.

You all talked to them about utilities?

Well, once at one of our meetings, and I think there were a couple of options.

Go to the microphone so we can record it. Yeah, I remember. We were having a meeting with Andrew and Dave and Nicole.

The water and sewer are behind that block. They're available with an easement to get to them.

I think we come from on the property at the corner. We haven't talked to the public company. I think that's available. And the gas running kind of runs through the bed and breakfast property. But the gas company said that we could Um, I don't see another grant agency to make sure I'm being in a particular league conflict. Um, there, uh, the, the, the league's single-family home will, will entail, uh, there are single-family homes directly across the, uh, the private road to the north. So it, this is kind of just an expansion in that role. I don't think we'll be doing all of these things. Like least in order to reiterate what you said They're only a voting on a potential division of this UV or not

additional meaning here.

I think it's all good. Just one more question. The packet labels, or the letter labels, has variances, a couple of things in there that are not really the type of variance that goes to the board of zoning people. Do you understand that there are variations from when the development code was declared?

Correct. I noticed so now we have a minimum size of two acres

I was going to go through

parcel if it is to be resolved or re changed to be reduced in size would you like to sit down sorry for keeping you up there um substantially meet three or more common objectives.

Let's go through these.

To permanently preserve open space or natural features because of their exceptional characteristics or because they can provide permanent transition or buffer between land uses. I think it kind of meets, I mean, it continues to single family residents. and it provides a transition to more desk housing set back and we have mixed use development on the other side and so on. I think it fits in well. And it's the current, if we reduce it in size, the parent parcel will still have that. Does anyone disagree? Okay, yes. um to permanently establish land use patterns that are compatible or that will protect existing or planned uses i think yes um to accept dedication to set aside open spaces open space areas in perpetuity kind of there's less than there used to be

This is where they are setting aside a dedication, like an easement or something that states conservation easement. This has always been the open space. They don't have that on the site.

They don't have that on the site.

This is what they're hoping to... No, this would not be a criteria that's met.

To provide alternative uses for parcels that can provide transition buffers to residential areas. Yes, Justin, that one. Well, that's three, but we should probably go through all of them. To guarantee provision of a public improvement that could not otherwise be required that would further the public health, safety, or welfare. That's not really public. To promote the goals and objectives of the community master plan. Yes. To foster the aesthetic appearance of the city through quality building design and site development. Yes. To bring about redevelopment of sites where quarterly change of use or requirements isn't determined to be desirable. Okay. To bring about redevelopment of sites that have been identified as environmentally distressed for brownfields. There was a brownfield in the past. to facilitate appropriate development of environmentally sensitive areas. Don't see this, that one's really not applicable online.

All right.

That seems like our, if I can go back on this.

There.

All right.

It meets more than three of the criteria of section 15 subsection F5 of the planned unit development district that it still meets the intent of the original PUD. It will not materially impact the function and activities of the existing bed and breakfast inn. And that will add additional housing to the community. I think that'll do. All right. We have a second. Second. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, same sign. The function passes 8-0. Thank you so much. Thank you. Are there any citizens wishing to address the commission on agenda item? Okay, seeing none. Do you have an old business or new business citizens wishing to address the commission on non-agenda items? All right, seeing none.

We'll take this time that comments are over.

You are free to stay, but you are by no means required to at this point.

Thank you. Yeah, I'll speak to this. I talked to Mr. Ray and recommended he send this letter

Somebody inquired about lighting it and whether or not they could develop it into a specific and commercial business.

Can we answer your question? Yeah, we could.

This is the business you could have here. So that was our initial discussion with So he was very upset and didn't know that the property could be resold in 2019 when the LDC was adopted. different from what's there now so um that's where the letter and i had to explain to him that we hopefully some of you recall that i've talked about this northern columbia corridor possibly being the candidate for doing some rezoning of the rezoning's we've done our strategy with the 2015 master plan that created according to our database created over 400 Our major arterial road orders, Wright Street, Columbia Avenue, North and South, Division Street, Holly, Perth. nodes in the city where we have the potential for commercial and residential involvement anyway but i i had mentioned this before that i thought maybe we went a little too far with them or because there are um between fair avenue

i went back and looked at it after talking to mr gray and identified 20 something i think 25 or 29 parcels that would i think be a good candidate for

now haven't had more years years to think about this but this is what the planning commission decided years ago there are other parcels that i've mentioned too that i think really merit to the rezone some on the 700 800 blocks of washington street that are primarily residential that are now commercial um we've had two parties come in and ask you know pay for resuming processes on those we didn't resume those that i would call those work should have been reasonable but anyway so um we i did explain mr ray though to follow up that kind of wrapped us up that after The initial conversation we had with the person that was interested in buying this lot and dividing it, he was quite taken aback when we explained that to develop this parcel for this particular business would require that they meet commercial parking lot standards and landscaping and pretty much everything's commercial standards. And that's going to go forward. That's, again, a personal statement of that. But, you know, up to these code standards. So whether or not that happens, we'll see. But, I mean, it's really, if it does happen, it's not. basically a beauty or other kind of business or something like that. Would it have been in the home?

Would it have been the parcel? There is a home on that parcel, but it's a large parcel. It's 20,000 square feet approximately.

So it could easily be divided into two parcels that are about 10,000 square feet each. there's plenty of room to have a small business on one of those parcels and the homes still have plenty of yard and amenities so that's where we left that but i did tell them that about this because they didn't have a conversation about now because i think this year we've mentioned this the past couple years when we've been doing all these events but i think this time of year maybe a good one to approach students of the streets of sounds like our code requirements and businesses are doing some of the prevention of development that it might be undesirable in this particular parcel um what are our opportunities or availability for fault rezoning is that only upon a master plan approval versus 2019 or like windows version

No, I think it's something the Planning Commission I provided a list of, I think Andrea and I went through an exercise where we came up with a list of properties that we thought merited resumming based on their uses being out of context with the current resuming district they were in.

There aren't a lot of properties where there's multi-family dwellings creating a lot of non-conforming issues. And so, you know, you don't want to create new problems to solve other problems. So some of those were made sense, but some of them didn't. The ones I mentioned on Washington Street, I really do think those are, really should be rezoned.

they're all single family there's only maybe one or two rentals in that whole stretch through there which i was really surprised that they weren't more rentals but they're not yeah um some of those people may put a lot of tape in their seats i mean and then maybe for

I still think the intent of creating an excuse in that corridor wasn't valid.

And there were some opportunities for people to develop some small businesses in there that would probably be .

So that's . then was to try to restore the ability to have a neighborhood corner store or a home occupation beauty parlor where the co-owner has one chair in their home based customers and things like that that had been allowed for decades in the city but had been ruled out by zoning changes. And maybe it's moved up because society has changed and doesn't want it anymore either. But it's still, I think, I think one of the other options we discussed at the time too was to make it a little easier for child care opportunities as well. So there are some businesses that I think are but not necessarily a stand alone business. I don't know if rezoning is the only way to deal with the issue or maybe

every house has come up for sale has gone to families with younger children i was really amazed two young doctors have bought property on there now and um they said that they really wanted it to be a neighborhood and not to have you know more cars and they do a business having more cars. So that was what my neighbor said the other day. So I'm delivering.

Well, to Dave's point, I think maybe a middle ground I would be, especially on the corner lots, to get rid of that opportunity to focus and notice them and see if there's an appetite.

there are some things to do before we take action, but I would hate to resell that without caging the interest of the property owners.

Most of the neighbors didn't realize that it was even resold. So, yeah, they're all for a mace that it was resold. They still thought it was all residential. They, you know, they put their own time and they just, you know, that's not something that they can

probably a reasonable figure that the development could just kind of become commercial from the Washington Street corridor up.

I think that's what this year is. This neighbor is going to be ruined even further.

It might be the right act for the city, having extended McClellan Avenue all the way north.

the truck if the trucks would drive the speed limit i think people would be a whole lot happier but they don't so that that's really one of the big issues and a lot of these like i said the two new the two houses that have come since

at both Gandhi and the doctors, which I'm kind of amazed at. Sure.

It sounds like it was a fear of not knowing, because they weren't notified of what it was. And also, they didn't really know what it was changed to, what it allowed. And the fact that you took the time to help explain it sounds like that reduced the fear of what could potentially go there. I think that's step one, is just the understanding of what is changing and what is the possibility. way we might be able to re-zoning or even re-zoning like mixed use where small businesses are going over and you've got something along those lines where you can't just do anything. But yeah, the first step here in trying to help them out was just to understand what happens. have got to be more receptive to the neighbors.

There are a lot of home occupations that are allowed in anybody's home, in home offices. And now that we can use accessory structures for home occupations, in home office storage,

are allowing people to work off-site too and you know that's always that you don't really need to resolve or do anything for them I think the difference there at the home office is you have people that are coming to no but I mean I just just in general see a lot more people

So, yeah, so there's some options for sure. Okay.

Thanks for looking at it, though. The people around me appreciate that.

They're just, I think, like, notice that they're very afraid that they could end up with more traffic and more cars, and that's what they don't want because the traffic is so heavy.

not just in Poland, but maybe some of the other areas, or perhaps revising the mixed use categories, splitting that up, or any recommendations. I'm going to start with looking at a map, maps of those neighborhoods, and also maybe researching some options. Although there's some of that that's built into it already.

And then there's the buffer requirements. And then the flat side requirements.

Right now, unless somebody assembled several lots, there's really not going to be the opportunity to create a kind of business that's probably going to disrupt the neighborhood too much. Just based on the size of the parcel. But if you need parking and advertising and that kind of stuff, then you probably also need a larger parcel for a lot of things. But yeah, there's a lot of things to look at. But we can start with looking at maps and our list of properties we already know of that may already be rezoning. That may be a work session. Yeah. Any other comments?

Okay. We have no training. We do have a work session with our presentation to the city.

Yeah, so So I just got some placeholder slides in here and nobody sent me any pictures of this. And then I did footnotes in the speaker on the side.

You can't see this. I can see this.

It's on the speaker here. I can see the next slide.

They put a lot of text in the slide, probably more than necessary, and I didn't do these.

This isn't set up yet for transitions or anything, but those can be added. There's a little bit more commentary in here about, you know, the first zoning ordinance got to 19.5 and seven pages long. It wasn't tied to any planning initiatives or documents. communities now almost have a comprehensive plan, but you don't have to say any of this stuff. Land development was largely uncoordinated until that 1950. So many city plans got into this only now. I was telling Andrea, I do know somebody that apparently submitted an application or is going to submit an application to the planning commission. We also know somebody that submitted one who was not approved by the manager's office for the planning commission. Just a, here are these two transitions. Basic stuff here, planning to be responsible for.

um it does kind of those guys really did kind of show a lot of people here that marquette is perceived pretty positively by people that come here

Which is, you know, says something about the fact that Marquis has done a lot of work to make the city really well maintained and attractive. Uh, yeah, just, uh, getting the engagement of the council is part of the action. And then with our proceedings, we left off the last time we did a presentation, which was approximately a year ago, with going through the end of 2024. Now we're almost in 2027. So we're almost two years behind now. So I decided to let's

and almost a year behind.

When these presentations first started, it was four or five years ago when the commission decided they wanted to have all the advisory committees do a presentation every year. Planning Commission was the first one and it was done in January. It's gotten so far behind now that for nine months,

Is this really a good use of your time given all the stuff you guys have on your plate? To put together one of these presentations? When we send that presentation.

We put together a presentation many years ago and I haven't really been tweaking it every year. We're not reinventing the wheel.

It's easy for us.

I don't think it's not a hard

they want us to have these presentations every year. They're overwhelming them to the point that they're now into September. Right, that was my thought.

Yeah, but that's not really . All our boards and committees, every meeting they have presentations. This is what they want.

Okay.

This is their report.

Yeah, well, I don't.

photos that were probably something less definitive than you absolutely have this money but maybe it wasn't actually But that can explain why it takes so long.

I'm just for efficiency, I'm sorry.

Well, I mean, they've tried to be efficient by trying to do that, but it still takes a while to get involved. Yeah, and there's so many things where they've decided they don't want to have a presentation. There's not too much else on the agenda. And when they started this, they said, keep the presentation on 10 minutes. And I've seen some of the presentations go half an hour. And that's part have this presentation on it because they know it's going to be a long presentation.

So Steve gave us some suggestions on what to put in here about what we've accomplished with the LDC and I kind of decided on my own that kind of thought it'd be good to go back and give them a kind of high-level overview of what the LDC is. It was adopted in 2019. And one of the things that I have never really counted up all of the amendments we've done, but we've amended 496 subjects. If you consider each line right here, one of the subjects

down there amended permissions on building regulations use permissions for article 3 that affected all of those pages 54 306 307 308 we're adding a line in each one of those that we're changing this use category now we are adding a use category 496 of those since we adopted LDC and that kind of blew my think that's a good thing to show them and then so one of the things you know we can say okay you missed your zoning districts we have several housing projects that have been started or approved or in the case of chippewa square i'm not sure it hasn't been approved but they've got funding approved they've got all this other stuff basically.

Just for the record, they haven't even submitted. So they're not being held apart.

But they are working towards it.

Yes.

Which one is that? It's in Chippewa Square. I don't know. Isn't that one of those apartments? Apparently, I read an article that said they've already leased several apartments.

They don't have so many.

It would be a yes. Unless it's another building.

We'd have to look. I looked at the building on the first one. I know I popped.

I have a question about this Habitat for Humanities. Are they going to have individual drivers coming on to control it?

Yes.

um should we highlight uh the ability

are having opportunities.

That's just what I had indicated to my health assistant. For the past two to three years, we've really been focused on trying to address the housing shortage by making it easier to utilize the properties we do have in the city to create more housing.

Yep.

Without having additional needs based on that. So many different things all focused toward allowing more housing. That's highlighted those. So I kind of thought, you know, rather than just listing things, showing some things would be a good idea. And this is an example of landscaping, which I think, you know, that was one of the things that was really upgraded in LHC was the landscaping. And then I brought a slide from Andrew's presentation to show the difference in the number of variances. Just looking at this chart, the average, and I got this from the speaker notes, the average four years before the LDC was adopted, the average number of variances is 22.25 per year. but also I think code changes are probably I don't know what else we can do to really maximize the size of what you can do on an existing block. We've kind of maxed that out and put setbacks in the height and mobility. I was really hoping the city would be able to strike while the iron was hot. They got that planned out in June and nothing's going to really happen.

That's a big deal out in the community because there's a lot of people who just don't have the ability to drive and

it's not meeting their needs right and uh city unfortunately doesn't have money to do i mean money sitting available to do any line work to do any markings on the street i mean those things are expensive i'm just glad you added that as a concern because i hear that to add some money to the line budget next summer to do some line work to create pipelines on some of our corridors.

But we still are being told to seek grants.

And we do have another grant source that looks really positive for getting money. I think it will be important to highlight how transportation and mobility can affect affordability in the city. Somebody who's able to live without a car

So whatever we can do to bring down transportation costs.

It seems like the city leadership's kind of abandoned transit as the viable idea, at least in my discussions with the assistant city manager, who is now, I think, still the board chair. And I think this is something as being an answer anymore to people's mobility problems that they're looking at Uber and those other options, micro-mobility devices as a more sensible approach to the situation. But I still think transit's a valid concept here, especially where we have March and already have established basically where it's a lot more convenient for people to jump from one route to another you get to the major destinations in the city so i don't think the city should you know be a direct abandon those plans that we came up with um or those concepts they don't seem very choices is what would make it more viable to reduce the amount of driving people have to do.

I don't think they're going to have a lot of those cars. They're also terrible for families with young children. In our demographics,

so the transit is definitely something that we know the climate action plan is coming along so just put another in there you know and then the landscaping

So then I just thought ending with a few recommendations

I don't know if we can edit it right now. When is the presentation? It's the next meeting. The next meeting, which is the 14th. 14th. Second Monday. organic and it's much more attractive than most of the presentations I've seen in the industry. So I think it really, it's stable. Kind of taking off on Andrea's, Andrea did a really nice job on the BTAs. I think it'll look a little cleaner. Is there anything missing here? Because this is really kind of the last slide with the main content on it. And again, all of the images and stuff. Does anybody else have anything they'd like to add to it?

It is a funny photo though.

It's a funny photo, yeah. It's not real. Oh yeah, I actually thought about that. It's a private backyard sandbox.

like when that OEC was implemented to just kind of show like here's where it started. Like a vertical line.

Yeah. To add to 2019. Yeah. Here's where it started.

I'm assuming the circle portions. That's. All right. Thank you. So nobody has

specific idea of like an image they wanted to include in there that we didn't include?

Take any nice photos at HarperFest? I don't know. I heard it was very busy. Hardwood Fest.

I have some photos of somebody playing it.

Yeah, I meant the text of you, sorry.

All right, moving on to our next item, commission and staff comments. If we can, over on the right.

No comment. No comment.

I'd just like to thank the AMA for their work, helping us get through things, putting this report together.

I don't think we're going to have a meeting in a few weeks.

We don't have any business.

I started looking into battery storage, energy storage, because I learned that the project that we had that we thought was going to be on something else with the parcels. I'm sorry, I didn't think of one thing that I didn't grab. But the loss of Marquette Marine on the waterfront kind of changes the basis of our working waterfront zoning down there. that we might have to look at very soon before we get proposals to put new points on that basis. Because I recall being a guy, creating money based on it, but having to work into other things. Yeah, and there's currently that market marine property, which is a big parcel, is targeted for .

And we won't know for the first meeting of October yet if the deadline for planning is next year.

So that one's going to be .

OK. Would it make sense to start some of these work sessions ?

Great.

Thank you for the presentation.

It looks well done. I'm glad to be back here and happy to see everybody.