City Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I can call this meeting to order. Tuesday, September 2nd. It is 6 p.m. for us. The city planning commission. Um we'll start with roll call and [Music] here

is here. Um can is either a motion on the board or can we get a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Everybody. I'll motion to approve the agenda as presented. Support. All right. Um all those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed same sign. Motion passes. All right. Um let's go to minutes. Um, I saw that there was no um names associated with the motion regarding the street planning. I don't remember. I believe Commissioner Lowry was the one that was the first motion. I do not remember who seconded it.

Yeah, my notes I didn't I didn't have a second for it. I didn't catch who made it. Okay. I know that there was a second. Okay. There's another um not an omission but an error in the first on the first page where it says at the top a video of the meeting is available. We didn't we weren't able to capture that video. There were some problems with the internet connection or something. So, okay, that's going to get struck. And then um the spellings of the public commenters are off. I can Oh, we didn't know.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can like but it was like had question marks so I know the correct spellings. So, okay, if you can pass them on to me, it' be good. Okay, sounds good. Thanks. Are there any other things that people catch? All right, then by consensus are we I was just going to move to approve the bids with those corrections. Oh, sure. Perfect. We just got consensus. Well, if they're okay, we usually do, but yeah. Okay, I'll second it. All right. Um, all those in favor of the changed minutes say I.

I.

All those opposed, same sign. All right. The motion passes. Um, are there any conflicts of interest this evening? All right. Seeing none, going to move on. Um, we have no public hearings. Are there any citizens wishing to address the commission on agenda items? All right, seeing none, we move on. Um, old business or we have no old business. Um, new Bennett business. We have a final site plan review for 070925 01B 0325 man town homes. Um, Andrea or Dave, you want to run us down on a packet?

All righty. The planning commission is being asked to review an application for final site plan approval for a mixture of town home types located at the south side of West Magnetic Street between Lean Street and Fourth Street. This portion of the property received PUD approval from the city commission on June 30th, 2025. Attached in the packet was the staff file review analysis recommended action. The planning commission should review the site plan and support information provided in the packet and determine whether or not the site plan for the construction of a mixture of town home types one unit, duplex, triplex, and sixunit for a total of 36 units and site improvements for 07 SP0925 is in compliance with city of Marquette land development code. More specifically, the PUD final site plan standards in section 54.323J and K and site plan review standards in section 541402E. Staff also recommends that the planning commission should consider appropriate conditions of approval to ensure that any comments provided by staff and which the planning commission concurs with and have not been answered by the developer are addressed. We um provided recommending two conditions of approval if that's how the planning commission would like to proceed. Um so please take a look at that. On screen is the staff review report which outlines the PUD process in the land development code and the site plan review standards and per the PUD. The applicant requested and received the variances that are stated, all the attachments, the PUD application, site plan review application, the applicant's responses to the preliminary PUD and site plan review staff comments,

then the applicant's responses to the final site plan review staff comments, the area map, the block map, photos of the site. the submitted site plan. Lighting cut sheets. per one of their comments. If they're using that to meet the lighting requirements in the code, it actually has to be in the site plan set. Then also a draft of the PUDA contract. I don't have the final contract because I don't believe it's been recorded yet, but this is the draft that is partially signed with the exhibit B of the city planning commission meeting minutes of June 3rd. and the city commission meeting minutes of June 30th. And that is it. Do you guys have any questions for staff? Just follow your comments regarding fencing.

Basically, is it just that city can't give them permission to encroach past a lot line and on someone else's? But if they can work with the neighbor and keep the fences attached in some way. Yeah. We don't we don't have a thing where we allow for it to go over the lot line. So, they'll have to show it on their property. It'll have to be relocated to be on their property or the neighbor has to have a permit to and it has to meet the neighbor's code to be able to have that type of fence and all that there.

Okay. Just it seems like we could be creating problems by opening up gaps and fences that aren't presently connected. Well, the neighbor could always add an addition onto their fence if they wanted to do so, but we can't allow for any encroachments. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Questions for staff? All right. At this time, I'd like to hear from the applicant about any substantial changes from the final site review or from the final review. Hi Michelle Thomas. Do you need my name and address? 203 Sharon Marquette. There are no substantial changes from the approved PUB. Um and I regarding the fences, I think our plan is to just put them back exactly where they are now. Then that should be what's shown on the on the site plan. It shows it's encroaching over your lot lines.

Oh yeah, we're not going to do that. We'll move back. That's what this that was the responses to the staff comment is that you are going to put the fences on your site. They will be on our site, but where they are now is on our site when we only know this because the BLP for some reason went out and st the corners. So the corners of the neighboring lots that fence is probably like five feet off of the corners. Okay. So it's shown incorrectly on the site plan. I think there's one not all of it had been staked. I think it's more the west end. Okay.

Where it falls on top of the retaining wall of the neighbors right now. So that one would have to be moved in, but that's in late phase three. We certainly will work with the neighbors to make sure that they still have the same level of privacy that they enjoy. Now, thank you. Are there any questions for the applicants? All right. Thank you. Thank you. I'm assuming this no notice, no correspondence. Correct.

No testimony on this one since it's not public hearing. Um, start off commission discussion. Um, does anybody want to have anything to say? All right. Oops. Commissioner Vickens,

I guess I'm not sure if I'm saying this at the right time, but I just want to make sure it seemed like staff comments made sure that the landscaping plant materials are current current with the current code. Is that the case? Because they are it does use the old ones in the this site or in this site. But then I saw your comments where it was like, "Oh, actually these few are actually prohibited and they said they'll change it." Correct. Okay. Okay. So that's Yeah. So this new site plan is submitted under the code now. So yeah, we have to follow the code now. Okay.

Um no substantial changes to this uh PUB. So we go through our site plan review standards. Um number one, public safety health, safety and welfare. Um uses proposed will not harm the public health, safety or welfare. All elements of the site plan shall be designed to take into account the site topography, character of the joint property and the type and size of buildings. The site shall be developed so as to not be the normal and ordinary development of improvement or improvement of surrounding property permitted in this ordinance. I don't see any problems with that one. All right. Um, safe and efficient traffic operations. Safe, convenient, uncontested, well- definfined vehicular and pedestrian circulation within and to the site shall be provided. Drive, streets, and other elements such as walkways shall be designed to promote safe and efficient traffic operations within the site and at its access points. Um, anybody have any questions on that? Um, I do appreciate that the site plan was altered from one to two. Um, they got rid of the access points on I think that was a great call. Um, that one um, topography and landscaping. Oh no, sorry. One, vehicular and pedestrian circulation. The arrangement of public or common ways for vehicular and pedestrian circulation shall be connected to existing or planned street and pedestrian or bicycle pathways in the area. There shall be provided a pedestrian circulation system which is separated from the vehicular circulation system or ensure public safety. Special pedestrian measures such as crosswalks, crossing signals and

other such facilities may be required in the vicinity of schools, playgrounds, shopping centers and other uses which generate considerable amount of pedestrian traffic. We have no schools or playgrounds or shopping centers near there. I think that's good. Um um topography and landscaping. Landscape shall be preserved in its natural state in so far as practical by removing only those areas of vegetation or making those alterations to the topography which are reasonably necessary to develop the site in accordance with the requirements of this ordinance. speaking shall be preserved and or provided to ensure that proposed uses will be adequately suffered from one to another and from surrounding property. We've got some landscaping that we've seen and comments with anyone we're good. All right. uh storm water management. Um appropriate measures shall be taken to ensure that removal of surface waters will not adversely affect neighboring properties for the public storm drainage drainage system. Surface water on all capes areas shall be collected so that it will not obstruct the flow of vehicular or pedestrian traffic or create standing water. Um applicants storm water system of underground storage chambers remove storm water runoff to the city system with that anyone else. All right. Um emergency and vehicle access. All buildings or groups of buildings shall be arranged to permit emergency vehicle access as required by the fire department and police department. Police and fire department have no comments. So I have no comments.

Um outdoor storage and loading uh unloading areas.

Yes. Um, just a comment I had earlier on our initial review project as far as making sure the addresses for the buildings that are in the back are going to have on the ones that are that behind the on. All right, I think that's reasonable. All right. Um, storage um for the applicant, wait, all outside storage areas, including refuge storage stations shall be screened from the view of the street and or adjacent residentially zone properties. All loading and unloading areas shall be reasonably screened. Um, roadside collection, you guys are using a garbage can system. So must be necessary lighting. Exterior lighting shall be arranged so that deflected away from adjacent properties and bodies of water so that not impede the vision and traffic along adjacent streets or pair navigation on the waterway. Flashing or intermittent lights shall not be permitted. I have no thoughts on the light city code. Um, location of building entrances. For consistency in areas where adjoining properties face the street, commission may require that primary structures shall be oriented so that their main entrance faces the street upon which the lot there. If the development is on a corner lot, the main entrance may be oriented to either street or the corner or to the corner. Um, I don't comments on that one. All right. New No noise, vibration, dust, fumes, or

other nuisance shall leave the property in a manner that affects the surrounding areas. Um, I did have a comment or question on that one. Um, during the construction process, the people, the neighbors had made some comments about vibration and commissioner Primo who was here before was talking about using compactors. Is there any way to reduce the vibration that those people are going to experience when the concrete is removed?

I would be pretty surprised if it was as intensive as what they experienced with the demolition of the hospital because those were massive buildings on huge footings that were going underground. And what we have here is asphalt there. They're only parking lots right now. So they'll mill up the asphalt. They'll take it off. They'll level the ground, but I don't think that there'll be like a lot of smashing and compacting and that sort of thing any more so than you would see in routine construction like a home.

Okay. So significantly less than your expectations. That would be my

Yeah, we have to do Yeah, we have to do compaction over the new utilities we put in just like you do when you're putting in the street, you know. So, it's that typical thing. The other thing to know, you know, we're doing this in three phases. So, we're not going to demo the entire site out at once and leave a bunch of dust and, you know, we'll leave part of that for lay down area and then we'll have a temporary storm area in between construction locations too that'll that'll have additional runoff area and that will get temporary CV so that uh so you're not getting the dust disturbance. That satisfies me. Any other questions on that one? All right. Uh, number 11, City of Marquette Engineering Design and Construction Standards. The site plan must comply with the city of Marquette engineering design and construction standards. And we saw in the packet the applicates response to engineering comments. And anyone have any questions on that? All right. All right. Um per my review uh it's met after review of 01 PUD 0325 and 07 site plan review 0925 final site plan dated and received. August 5th of 2025 in the staff file review analysis of 07 review 0 commission finds substantial compliance

Marquette land development code and hereby approves the site plan with the following conditions that an amended site plan is submitted to meet staff comments particularly concerning lighting, landscaping, fencing and engineering detail. details and then as built plan be submitted after construction is completed. Do we have a second? Second. All right. Second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed, same sign. All right. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you.

Can I add one comment on the record? I just wanted to say that city staff has been extremely helpful throughout this entire process. And I'm not just saying that to butter them up. They have been very helpful. And I'm sure um a lot of people don't know that they are a resource to help us and not get in our way. And so I just wanted to to say that both Dave and Andrea mostly Andrea Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

All right. Moving on. Are there any citizens wishing to address the commission on non-aggenda item? Right. Seeing none. Uh we have no correspondence reports. Maybe we should You mean the PowerPoint?

Yeah, I got to open that presentation up. Okay.

Um, did uh did any of you all send Kevin ideas on changing? Okay. Okay. So, I haven't changed anything since the last time we looked at it, but uh we need to finalize it. I think I need to get it to the manager's office tomorrow. So, take another look at it. [Music] [Music] Okay. So, um I didn't uh I I think I had a picture that I had in there previously, but I don't Maybe it's in the um Yeah, that was good. You'd want to leave it in there.

That would be pretty funny to tell the city commissioner Sam Wise Gangi. That's right. Um yeah, this is a that's a picture I took from the stage at Blueberry Festival um this year, which is pretty cool. That guy waving is our former um city f chief financial officer who moved out of town this summer. Um so uh back to this I don't know what happened here. your opinion. [Music]

Um, so yeah, the uh I I do need to remove Wayne unfortunately. You know, Wayne just abruptly decided he was done. Can I add to that though, just because I think that he might reach out. So, I don't have taken that off right now just on the other night. Yeah, he's resigned though. I think there may have been some confusion and I'll talk to you after. Okay. Well, we he sent us an email saying that please accept this as my resignation and that's been submitted to the clerk's office and all that. So,

reappointed. Reappointed. Yeah. at this point he's not

if he had said I'm I'm gonna quit the planning commission but he didn't say this is my I'm resigning immediately in his email that would be different but he did say that. So anyway, um I I was gonna say I I'm Wayne has told me just, you know, for your information, Wayne has told me several times over the past year or so that he was thinking about quitting and just, you know, he's he was on the planning commission for I don't know, seven seven or eight consecutive years and then he was he Before that, he was on the planning commission for at least two terms

and he was on the BZA as a member as well. So, he has served through all the different boards throughout the years.

But just on the planning commission alone, I think he was 15ish years, probably 16 years. He was the chair at one point about seven or eight years ago. He he was the chair for a couple of years. Um, and so I'm he's um, you know, in his early mid80s, believe it or not. Um, I I think we probably, but moving on, I think we should probably take the slide of Sarah out of here, unless we're going to put one of Wayne in here, too. Wayne doesn't have a band, so it won't be as interesting.

Are we going to send a letter of thank you to Wayne for all years? Yeah, hopefully the city commission is going to recognize Wayne. Uh, yeah, you put a lot of time. Um, so again, just uh we have the I guess that this isn't negotiable, but the concerns certainly are. So if anybody sees things that they they want to change here, speak up. I understand there last minute um there was an ebike accident on Fourth Street. Somebody was walking on the sidewalk about 10 10:30 p.m. and a drunk person on a ebike came flying down the hill and hit them.

I heard about that.

So, it's a good thing they got a task force going for this that issue right now. Um yeah, the the draft micromobility plan um it's not it hasn't been made available for committees yet that I know of. Um so that still applies. Staff has provided some comments on it. One thing that's come up uh in the past just this week, I think just today, so that would be just today, is that um we found out the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which um funds the Redevelopment Ready Communities Program, which Marquette has, you know, uh earned their recognition for being redevelopment ready community by meeting several standards um that they wanted uh communities to meet to get that require that uh status. they have money for uh some I think they're called fellow or post I I think they're postgraduate students that are um going to be there's I think there's 12 that are going to be placed in different communities to help with um I think principally with climate action planning. So, we're evaluating whether or not we are going to be able to take one of those one of those fellows on for that position. I'm not I I won't get your hopes up, but I just wanted to mention that it's a possibility. Uh it's not free. It's something the

city's got to come up with some funding for. So I I that that would probably be the biggest hurdle for us is to have uh is to get that funding lined up. But um is that something that we could advocate for um funding on this document in the presentation? Uh well, you might just mention that you know if it would help to have an intern or something like that. um whatever the city should probably take whatever action they can to so that we can get the plan created.

Um we're we're probably looking at doing that inhouse. Um either way, I mean, we're we're probably not going to hire a consultant to help us do it because we had a consultant create a guideline basically to create a plan already. So, it's something our staff could do. Although I honestly the the biggest impediment to getting that done is probably staff because there's some staff that probably thinks we're doing enough or doesn't necessarily want to um go any further than we've already gone um in that direction. Commissioner

just related to that if the city's going to do one I think it needs to be more inclusive than what the counties did. It was very disappointing. I think the counties had focused on just just a fraction of their operations and didn't mention most of the county operations

like the airport. Yeah. And the road commission. Yeah. um the the stuff about lawns and natural landscapes, this that really doesn't belong in the planning commission's um set of concerns because it's it's not strictly a planning commission concern. It's more of the city commission's concern um how they're going to deal with this. Uh obviously I think all of our staff u that's um so our staff is involved because we have to enforce certain portions of the city code that uniform police officers are not going to enforce. So, um, between public works and mainly our our office does the enforcement, but public works will end up, um, mowing some people's property if they don't comply in a reasonable time that we provide. Um, so it's it's not really a necessarily a public works issue either. It's a it's a city policy. It's in the city code and the planning commission has no say over the city code, how the city code is written. Um, but if you feel compelled to say something about it, you can, but it's it's not really a planning commission issue. It's not something addressed in the community master plan or in zoning. Um, it's not a zoning issue. uh mowing lawns is is a issue of the city codes creation.

Do you think that this is lawns? Is this about creating uh natural landscapes? I think that that would be what you're with the community members would be more upon, right? Right. That's still not

it's it's the community's responsibility to uh inform the city commission what they think about it, not necessarily the planning commission, which is an advisory board for the community master plan and zoning issues. That's kind of my point. It's doesn't neatly fit into the planning commission's um realm, but we had people here to talk about this. So, I put that in there as a as an item that we could use to reference and when we were talking about this at the last meeting with the people that came to talk about it. Um,

do you think though it might be good because you are asking for clarification if we do have community members come here because I think that was the issue. they didn't know where to go to and what the rules were. And so, um, being a part of the community that, you know, the city's receiving information, whether it be planning, zoning, going to the city commission, somebody's got to have it's got to rest somewhere.

Well, that's that's a good point. I mean you can you can we can you can do whatever you want. Um it you could take this back to if if to your point to clarify um it would look something like this right just this is the PDF um just to maintain adjacent terraces uh the first part clarify what can be planted and the responsibility to maintain but that's already in the city code that is it there's not a whole lot of Um th this is the trouble for for our staff is it's pretty clear what it says.

Yeah. But at that point in time what they had spoke of was the certification and because of the changes that happened there is no longer certification and so the community members don't know who to go to. Yeah. and those that are coming to give the site, you know, review or ticket or whatever it is are like, I don't know what certification you're talking about. And so there's a disconnect. Yeah, that that may or may not be true. Yeah, I think that is true. I

I'm not should have been sent back to the city commission because there would be that's where the buck stops is with the city commission and by bringing it to us it almost looks like then it's our responsibility and it really isn't our responsibility. This could be this could be an opportunity to get it off of the planning plate and say, "Hey, we've had some questions about this. We'd like you to review this. The paper certification that is being requested in your city code in the city code is not available. So we need it needs to be addressed

and communication between the different people and there needs to be because we can't really solve it for them because we're the wrong place. I would advocate for deleting it from the presentation because uh bring it to them. they're likely to assign it back to us whether we have responsibility or not

and create more confusion and clarity and uh I think anybody with questions can go to the planning department's office maybe the police department needs to be updated on it if somebody isn't there asking questions but I don't go to commission meeting I don't think we want to any more that there's provisions in the ordinance or there were I think they've been removed at this point but I'm not sure and say you have to shovel your sidewalk by certain time

I it's I think it's confusing I understand their plight but they need to be able to get answers not just sent to another meeting you know and and I think they're you know it's matter of educating the city staff who might encounter them in day-to-day business, not during the meetings. Uh I think that I think Dry can send out an internal memo or something if you need to, but uh um I think if we present it to the commission, you're likely to present it back to us. That is a fair point. I I agree.

I I I totally agree. I think it's just not good for our consumers. I mean, I want to make sure they get their problem addressed and we can't address it. Didn't they say they were going to the city commission next after they were here? Yes, they did. They didn't appear at the last meeting. Maybe they'll go to the one next week, next Monday.

Yeah. the issue. You know, I've advocated, we talked about this a few couple weeks ago, um, and I I advocated that our staff and the engineering department and the superintendent from public works ought to meet and talk about uh what we are allowing in the rightway and how to describe it. Um, because really from time to time it actually changes. I I hear people say different things over time um in different ways. So, it really needs to be described in a policy because the city allows people plant flowers in in the terrace areas in the rightway between sidewalk and the streets. Um, they've even allowed people to put in some minor uh what we call kind of permanent structures like landscaping timbers to create little small retaining areas for flower and soils. Those are super simple that like that city engineer isn't worried about that. That the thing they like it's not hard to remove. What's difficult sometimes is if they have like Steve brought this up at the last meeting, if they have to go in an emergency situation to get to a valve or a broken water man that sometimes they have to tear that out and they don't have time to give people notice. So, I mean that's and that's I guess that's fair, you know, for everybody. uh you know, you take your chances if you're putting it in the rightway, but some people don't understand that that's, you know, it could be taken out at any given time. Um, but we have people that want to put a lot more more on the permanent type of stuff in the rightway. And then there's a there are procedures for that. You can get a license sometimes if you're willing to pay a price and go through the process uh to put something more permanent in the

rightway, although that's really limited what you can do there. Um, and even with the license, it states, if the city has to remove it, you're the one at Yeah. Yeah. We're not liable for that.

But, and I tried to create a policy on this, like I I wrote up a six- page kind of thing like to to say what is, you know, what should be allowed over the right of way, under the rightway, on the right of way, depending if it's permanent or temporary. Um and um it was not successful in getting you know I I wasn't given the permission to present it to the city commission. Somebody you know one of the department heads was tasked with that and it never was even brought to the city commission. So that's the kind of challenges we have internally.

I would just and maybe it's no longer an issue since we don't seem to be putting pictures anymore like it used to. But um historically the city has gone in with large equipment and removed all of the snow banks from those right away areas, boulevard strips and you know it's a front end loader mounted blower that basically scrapes log. If there are large rocks or boulders put there for landscaping or timbers, you're talking about damaging a half million dollar machine uh or better. And I mean, it was big issue. right in the department. He would go out in the fall and find those, tell people they had to take them off right away for the winter or if it was something they couldn't be moved, we had to put stakes in market and then couldn't remove snow from that section and then they, you know, the neighbors would get all their snow hauled away and those people wouldn't and they call we couldn't do it because of what they had there in the snowb It's there as a snow storage area. It's there as a utility placement area. And yeah, you want it to look nice and you're asked to maintain it to look nice, but it's a shared responsibility thing and it's serving multiple purposes and some of them are going to be in conflict with each other. So the part of this that does apply to private property, you know, we are having I Steve has said this has been an issue, you know, since he worked for the city. Um it's always been an issue, but really seems to have exploded uh in the past couple years with the natural landscapes. And maybe part of that was,

you know, we did want to encourage it and did work with the county conservation district to to provide some certification. We were never informed that they weren't doing that anymore. Um, when this lady came and said that at the last meeting, that was the first I've heard of the fact that they have told somebody that they're not doing it anymore. Um, but we did know that they were just basically giving people the signs that said I'm I'm a pollinator garden. Our understanding was they wouldn't give those to them unless they came out and looked at their lawn and saw that they were managing it for invasive species and making sure they weren't, you know, harboring any spotted napweed or wild carrot or whatever is on our our list. um or their list and we've tried to work with them on creating a more upto-date list of noxious weeds than what was in the city code because city code noxious weed list probably went back to the 1940s or something like that. Um anyway, so it's it is problematic for just today our you know we had somebody come in and get in a long argument with our enforcement officer about the fact that his lawn got his flowers got mowed because he didn't I don't know what I I don't know the details. I I didn't listen to the whole conversation. But it's it's really becoming a a problem as more people seem to think that they don't if they just let it wild stuff grow that it's natural and they don't have to maintain anything. So hopefully the city commission is hearing about it and they know that we need to do more work on it. I know they're hearing it from my supervisor um department head

Dennis. Um, so anyway, um, it sounds like the consensus is to remove this from the the presentation.

Okay. Um, the the item below here is, you know, our request um, as staff because in the past we've had to deal with a lot of people and, you know, just that basic reminder. Um, it's good to say this and I think we've been getting a little bit better with people calling in uh a little bit better uh compliance from the community with at least calling to find out if they need a permit um before they do things because we've been sending out the reminders in the water bills now for a few years and uh we did have a pretty I think bad year last year with uh some particular cases that were pretty tough for people to deal with. But um that's that's why we want to say it because if if it ends up you build something big and it's illegal and you there's no way to get a variance for it, you're faced with having to tear down something you might have spent thousands of dollars to build. Um so the other things here are um that's what they say they are. Um, again, all this is up for whatever kind of uh amendments you'd like to to make.

Oh, yeah. I This comment was in here last year about winter walkability. It's kind of a snarky, sarcastic comment. It's improving because winters are getting warmer. Um, I should probably take that out. They've heard it before. I like it. It's still true.

Okay, leave it there. But, um, yeah, what Steve said about the, you know, the that's another thing the city code uh, says, and it's not enforced that you're supposed to rem remove snow by 10 10 a.m. or something the day following a snowstorm or within so much time. Um what would be nice to see enforced is that people who plow snow into the sidewalks are actually ticketed. Um and that's something I've been advocating for with changes. There's been lots of changes to the city code in the last year or so. I I keep poking we need to uh enforce the part about not um obstructing the sidewalks and maybe specifically say with snow. Um there are rare situations where you know people the snow comes down so heavy in such short periods of time that this the sidewalk's like your only place left to put snow. And actually in our zoning ordinance we we do um or the land development code there is an exception for that like with even with the clear vision triangles because there was a situation like four or five years ago in February where we got 70 inches of snow and it was like every other day we're getting six inches of snow and people ran out of places to put it and it just wasn't fair to you know ticket people for that um for a while. I would like to know um how is it decided um which streets get the or which sidewalks the city staff

Yeah. the plow routes. Plow routes. Maybe Steve can answer that. The other side of my street does, but not my side. Yeah. Initially, um for a while we were doing one side of every street in town that had a sidewalk. Okay.

Uh that got to be expensive but budget cuts and everything. So policy was back to we were to allow two routes into each school and business district. And so basically I went out and took the machine to determine what obstacles were in the way where it would fit between the power pole and the retaining wall or whatever where the curves were too high for it to climb over a lot of yet. And basically I mapped out a route with the school transportation director at the time and it hasn't changed a whole lot since then. I'd say that was that was probably around 1990 or thereabouts. It's been expanded a little bit as things change, but uh it was where did it fit best and where did it make most sense that you weren't creating extra problems for people or having to cross traffic too many times. There are places where there just is no place between the sidewalk and the curb to stack the snow. So if there's better spot on the other side of the street or undeveloped property on the other side of the street that you can blow it onto it's, you know, not going to generate complaints or something.

Sometimes that was the basis for it. including the there have been a lot of sidewalk improvements since then, particularly with the installation of ramps at the intersections because that was an issue back then. We had some douge curves that couldn't go over the option just wouldn't do that. But for the most part, I think the roads have changed very little since then. Okay. Gota move to the other side of the street. I think that had something to do with where there was south and north facing.

Well, there which one's gonna melt faster? The ones on the north do melt faster and you get more storage space on the on the boulevard. That way as it melts down there place to store the stone south generally. So yeah, it was something that was one of the factors in there, but very farmer says it's going to be a horrible winner. So there you go.

I I will add to that that about 10 years ago, our department did um organize uh what became a city commission meeting called us. We we wanted to organize as a snow summit to have all the big transportation agencies uh NMU, MAPS, school district, um the city and uh some other some other folks in the community um to talk about how snow removal is done and see if there are any ways that we could kind of combine efforts or economize on our efforts and get more done and it really was it really didn't result in any changes unfortunately. Um what was the city commission analyzed the financial part of it and they they really came to the conclusion that you know we're at that point where the money spent uh doing sidewalk clearing is um accomplishing it a you know what it's accomplishing couldn't be improved with a small amount of extra funding. It's that we're at the point where you've got to put a lot more money into accomplishing a little bit more.

It was kind of, you know, an unsatisfying outcome, but um yeah, we're hoping to see if, you know, we could really accomplish more without having to spend a lot of money, but that wasn't the outcome. The recommendations for you, we talked about snow removal. Could we add on there that maybe um enforcement of people to remove the snow from their sidewalk or I'd be in favor of it? Also, it sounds like you were just mentioning that the notices that go out with the bill

help people to become aware. I mean, I've noticed it when it's time to get brush removed and stuff. Appreciate that. So, I don't know if this would be something you could add in there to be able to get people to know that there might be some enforcement if Yeah,

I guess I had a rule that I should bring this up, but um one of the reasons that that the uh ordinance regarding removing snow from sidewalks, you know, requiring property owned on the books, but it's never really been enforced. Um there have been court cases in Michigan don't state where it was done and basically the court determined that it was slavery theory moment and

it was uh they they did quite a ways back but I can't recall the age but um and basically the same criteria could probably be extended to requiring the maintain right away. But um the case involved requiring people to to move slow and especially when um you have elderly or disabled populations that can't do it themselves. You're requiring them to have an outlay of money basically that isn't uniform. So it was was considered an extra tax and it was also it wasn't termed slavery but I think it was in the judge's decision that he his terminology was it was slavery something I recall from a long time ago it was Michigan case law and really I think um I know resources are not what they were when I worked there. Um, but I still think that internally the city could devote more effort to the sidewalk clearing, whether it's the having regular assigned operators or a different shift or whatever. That was one of the ways we've accomplished uh the most sidewalk plowing was to um had two people on an afternoon shift and two routes and that was their primary duty was to show up for work and get on the machine and go run their route unless it was really coming down to where it was going to do any good and they were needed on street clouds or sanders instead. earlier they shift stayed over to carry streets and to dedicate sidewalks.

Okay. They weren't always ready again to get through in time for kids to get to school, but they got them once a day and it really made a difference, I think. So, what about this line I added here? enforcement of obstruction should be increased. That's not really in the same the same as uh removing expand on that and say that people make sense. Yeah.

The police will respond and and talk to uh ticket operator said Paul was still out into the road. Um, do you know if if they are being asked to take the ones that are blocking sidewalks or not? I I I don't know that. I just see it all over that you know I mean but I know I mean even just seeing the police report in the paper. Yeah. They do follow up on the ones that are pushing it out into the road, right? I don't see where they've been asked to. Right. deal with the ones on the sidewalk,

right? So, yeah, emphasizing that it's a good really good idea.

Okay. I don't know that we can do any more with uh public transportation. um you could offer that you know planning commissioners could it could be brought into uh any kind of effort that the it's being made by the manager's office or the city commission. Um but we have uh a route that we've you know adopted into the master plan a a draft route that we've tried to get um some movement on for several years. It's been about five years, four or five years since we're actually really active with talking to Mark Tran about it. Went to some of their meetings. At the time, we're basically told, well, look, the the pandemic's gutted our organization. We're having a hard time hiring getting drivers back up. They they weren't running all the routes yet. And uh the other thing is they said they were saying well you know Ishma and Nagani have would like to have more service too. That's true but I I don't think those cities have nearly the demand that is now kind of bubbling over in

Marquette. I I hear it a lot from people that they they want to see Marquette have some kind of better transit service. I've been seeing new vehicles. They got like Sprinter vans that around maybe it's time to Yeah. Open that conversation, right? Investing into the transportation.

Um yeah, in some communities they've they've done a created effective transit without being part of a public transit system. I mean, they've had people do private efforts where they they bought a van and started, you know, uh their own service. Um there's some communities that that's where their transit started, you know, is these private efforts. Um and maybe that that could be what what's going to happen here. um because I don't know how much uh how much longer we can hope Markran is going to going to help us out. But the thing about Mark Tran is they do get federal transit authority funding and if if there's any of that left um I mean it was a pretty good source for both capital like buying actual equipment buses and vans and operating funds. I mean that there was quite a bit of money available for that stuff.

If it was five years ago that that was presented to them a new director. Well, this was after Bill was the director. Okay. Probably different board members. Who is the city's representative? Well, right now Taylor Clip is on the board. So is Sean Hobbins. They should be advocates for this. I know. Taylor was I think on this commission when we originally developed that route.

Yeah. And he was the chair of the planning commission for a while and um I think he went there with great uh optimism but I think he was beaten down by the pandemic like everybody else. I mean that organization really did get beaten down by the pandemic. There is one source of money that they get every like every third or fourth fifth year whatever there's a special category F I think it is

they share it with the city with the road commission um a few other agencies but it's grant money that comes every year to be split among those agencies and it's it's like $375,000 or used to be anyway per year. And so it's not enough to really do a project with. So everybody takes turns getting there's a there's a committee that meets once a year. Yeah.

Decide which project they're going to do. their own the transit authority gets a seat at that table and is supposed to be shared in here. So they they're kind of left. Okay, we're going to do this road project, this road project. Oh, now by that, you know, by the third year, fourth year, we had to give it to the transit authority to do something. They usually apply it to equipment. But

I'll tell you a little story real quick about that. The last time they had that money, there was some leftover. There was like $20,000 or no it was 70 around 70 or 80 and I thought well okay if we can match there's a 20% match I was I was trying to get interest in getting a match and getting that money and building bus shelters on the route that we had adopted into the master plan right across the street here there's a space that'd be perfect for a bus shelter And I even had them priced out and had five locations for bus shelters, but the end decision was we can't come up with $12,000 for that. I mean, the city's been in austerity mode for now like five years.

I mean, I think that's how the original bus shelters were around town. Yeah. There's a might be one left on Lincoln Avenue, I think. Yeah. But uh there was probably 10 or 12. I think that's how they were originally funded. Actually, I think that's how the the bike racks and ski racks and the buses were that money. Um so it's not available every year and they I'm sure they have their own wish list for it, but it's something that we could suggest, you know,

right? maybe even uh align things, you know, with them in the city budget and see year or two down the road when they are eligible for it progress to be made.

So if anybody wants to uh go to a Mark TR meeting this winter, um that'd probably be a good idea. We could go to a meeting and sit in and ask some questions. Um, I I really think that would be valuable for people from the city that are really interested in transit to start going to their meetings and asking some questions. Uh, so this is one of the things that uh, you know, when when Sarah was here, we talked about this just asking for a regular meeting to be scheduled in the fall. And so that's the last of those recommendations. Um this isn't there's really not a next steps thing unless there's some kind of project we were doing. But um so um anything

the only thing I would say is that I like the meeting the idea of the meeting if we have specific things that we are planning on intending to work on for the LDC. Yeah. But it felt pretty general last year and not directed. um he didn't seem to come prepared with questions for us. The feedback it was kind of disjointed a little bit. It was kind of a shame. It was disappointing. Yep. Because I kind of thought there would be some questions for the planning commission and I didn't I didn't experience that. No. When they were there, all right, you ask us questions.

Well, that's why we're at we're here is you ask us questions, right? and and I was felt like I don't know it it didn't feel as effective as it could have been right oh yeah um and maybe asking them for questions of us is almost too much for them right so so maybe the planning commission needs to formulate some conversation points talking points for the meeting right questions for that right yeah it's a good use of both groups time. Yeah. Yeah.

But it I mean this is one of the things the back to that re redevelopment ready communities program. That's one of the things they recommend is that you have at least one meeting every year between the city commission and planning commission. In reference to what she was talking about, maybe a sheet that has questions or whatever, so when people get called to the city, they can look down and say, "Oh, you know that." And know which department to send it to or who to defer it to so that people aren't running around in circles. You know, if not, I think we should get Oh, go ahead.

What about talking about the recommendations that we have? I was just gonna say that you can always fall back to those and those would be good. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's important to keep I think that just because it was the first one and I don't think anybody knew kind of round at each other like okay first. Yeah. And I think that keeping a good idea.

Go ahead. Do we have a time frame where we would be asking for that maybe? Well, uh, sometime in the fall. I mean, just probably before the holidays or, you know, at least before the Christmas, you know, mid December. Probably be good to do it before Thanksgiving.

Okay. you know, and that might be they they seem to have a lot of meetings. You know, of course, the budget meetings al those have been pushed farther and farther into the year uh since I've been here. Um but yeah, everything seems to be a little more last minute um on the budget issue, but they seem to have a lot more of these special work sessions in the spring and the and early summer than they do in uh the fall. So, and we're we're going to be starting work on LDC stuff in the fall pretty much. I you know, we have we have uh some issues lined out that we want to start working on. And I think from our experience this last time where we thought, "Oh, this isn't going to be as much as we've had in the past and it ended up being more than we ever did before." Um, we want to start even earlier this time on on getting those lined out.

Maybe we if that's the case, if we're starting in um we have like an agenda of what we're looking at before that meeting. in early November before Thanksgiving and talk about those LDC proposed amendments and the stuff that's on this. Yeah. Anything want to add to this? I don't have anything else. I think on this last one maybe just mentioning that we want to focus also on these topics that are session. Okay. So that they have an understanding of what we want to discuss. Okay. good with that. Okay.

Well, I don't have anything else. All right. Um, that's the end of our work session then. Um, commission staff comments down. Thank you to Wayne for all. [Music] Uh, no comment. I just second the comment. No comment.

I have two things I guess I'm curious about for future meetings. the answers tonight, but um the new northern housing projects on Preskyle um do we know exactly what they're planning there in the way of pedestrian crossings of Preskyle in particular? Is there going to be a bridge of any kind or different traffic controls in place or

um I I think there has been some agreement on um uh crosswalks at center and summit streets. Uh I don't know if they're enhanced crosswalks. I can't remember details about those have been there for a while actually. They took the one out at center I think. Yeah. took the the flash for it anyway. Okay. But yeah, I mean that if that was a project that came you under our group, you would came through here, we'd we'd have had I think a lot of concerns about pedestrians crossing with the traffic codes that's there

and we didn't really have the opportunity to look at that. I think before they're completed, um either this body or the police department or the traffic and parking committee or somebody really needs to make sure that they whatever safety measures can be taken, they're taking their late. Okay. And secondly, I think you mentioned that uh in a past meeting that Habitat for Humanity is uh proposing to build homes on the north parking lot of American Medical Center.

Mhm. If I recall correctly, the city um bought the access rights to Mlullen Avenue through much of that corridor and that's why that parking lot had to have its driveway approach on Center Street. Do we know or is that changing? Are they going to put individual driveways out onto Mlullen or is Is that going to be serviced by an alley in the back off center street or you're going to be individual driveways directly onto the colon?

Yeah. Right, Andrea? That was the concept plan. Oh, I think might have to go back and yeah, do some legal work because I I don't know if it applied to that frontage exactly or not, but I think there were some restrictive covenants put in place on some of that frontage to ban driveways. Okay, those might have to be reversed. I said, I don't know if it specifically applied to that section right there or not, but Okay. We'll uh let the city engineer know and it might have been tied to the federal grant money that paid for building that section of the roadway.

Okay. All right. Good point. Okay. It's

Yeah. Um sorry to see Wayne go. It was great to see his perspective on a lot of the discussions that came through here and decisions. Um learned a lot from him just by being on the board. So think be part of that and um was really excited to see the changes and the developments that came through today um with the new housing the that they took the time to listen to the community and make the changes that the community wanted to see. So it was wonderful um and I'm happy it's going through very well. Welcome. Any staff comments?

Just would like to thank Wayne for his many, many, many years of service to the community through being on the board of zoning appeals in the planning commission. Uh we are going to have a meeting uh we have a something for the next what is that coming up? The 16th. Yeah. Two reszonings,

right? So, we will have a meeting. Uh, there will be public hearings. Two public hearings for reszoning. One of them is the PUD. Let's see. One of them's Dave Olo's PUD Shop House Park expired. It's got to be reszoned back to He has a plan for a new development up there under the zoning that's going to go into place. But what's the other reasoning?

1700 Division Street. Yeah, stash or not stash Logan Stabber who was here talking to us a lot during the LDC has got a plan he's going to be working on if he can get it reszoned for the storage. He wants to do some storage use out on that property in South Marup. So, uh, thanks everybody. Appreciate you. Um, my comment is done, but I'm sad to see Wayne go. I think you provided an invaluable perspective. Um he's going to be difficult to replace. Um and with that uh adjourn this meeting at 8:18.