Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hello and welcome to the March 10th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. I need approval of the minutes for the February 10th, 2026 regular meeting. So moved. Support. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? None. Communications from the audience for items not listed as a public hearing on the agenda can come forward at this time. If you please state your name and address and you have up to five minutes to speak. Great. Hi. I'm, Wendell Garvelink. This is my attorney, Kim, Kim Kowtowski. I'm gonna let her do the speaking because. Can you state your address for the record, please? I live in Saugatuck at, 3513 couple Lane. But the property that we're addressing is, 596 Crescent Avenue, which is just west of the pickle factory. If you're going down 16th Street. It's, one of those old cottages along there. So, Kim. Yeah, I'll just give an overview of what's going on. Thank you, Kim, for suggesting we come here today, I appreciate that. So to Lynn Raymond and actually Vince Duckworth, I know Vince as well. So thank you for listening to us tonight. The reason we're here today is my client's own a cottage. On the south side of Holland. My office is actually not far from mine's on 16th, 17th and Washington. So, what we're here for today is, I understand, for any short term rental, they have to get approval and whatnot, a certificate and whatnot. And there's only 25 in all of the city of Holland that are allowed to have short term rentals. So I talked to Vince and he said, Kim, that was way before, you know, I got involved. The city attorney. I don't know how they came up with that number. And yeah, maybe you should talk to the Planning Commission because maybe it needs to be revisited. So we're asking you here tonight to consider revisiting that number. It's also, impossible to to get one of those 25 slots at this point,

because the people that have the 25 are never going to give them up. I liken it to like, you know, Michigan or Michigan State. Some people never give up their football tickets and you're never going to get them. So they've tried endlessly on the website to be one of those 25 people, but it's never going to happen. So we're hoping that, with the growth of Holland, the tourism, I mean, we're obviously not the city we were maybe Vince said it was probably 15 years or more ago that this number was set. So we've changed a lot as a city. So we're hoping that you would revisit that, and or make it a fair process so that anybody can, be in a lottery or some sort to get, the permission to have a short term rental. And, and my clients would just like to say a couple of things, but we'd like to you to possibly revisit it. Vince didn’t, know how they came up with that number? He wasn't sure, but it just seems like a really small number for Holland and the tourism and, everything that goes on in our city. So I understand during tulip Time that that that doesn't apply. But there's tourism all year round in Holland, so we're hoping that you'll consider, you know, expanding that number for other, cottage owners. So thank you. Yeah. And our goal is to become compliant. Can you speak into the microphone? Oh, sure. Sure. Our goal is to become, well this is tripping me out a bit but, to become compliant. And we have used this property in the past as a long term rental. But recently, we put a lot of money into the into the house, and the neighbors are thrilled about it. The curb appeals there. It looks great. Flowers in the flower boxes, lawns cut up and everything. Something they normally wouldn't see with like a long term rental. And in our in our quest to become compliant, we we've gone to the website, we've talked to the building inspector, but there's nothing listed. And only says on the website, we will let check back and we'll let you know. But, you know, nothing's changed. And so maybe if we could have like, at least an avenue that would show us the steps to become, you know, legal and everything.

And the street is, along if you're familiar with Crescent Street. There used to be a Marina there, just west of the pickle factory. Those were built and tended to be cottages, too. So for our particular case, it does fit into its intended original use. So, anyway, something to consider. Was there anything that you thought we might want to bring up? Some of you mentioned the neighbors. Can you speak in the microphone? Sorry. This is. This is one Joe's wife, Tracy. I'm Tracy. The neighbors use, have used, the the property. They're thrilled that it's right there because, like, they'll have a big family, something going on and not enough space in their own house. So they're bummed that that's going away. And it just, several of our guests have said to us that hotels don't work out for them. And, they just, you know, they need the Airbnb type of house kind of situation over, over a hotel and that they have a hard time getting them. And so, yeah. Yeah. One thing I'd like one thing is, you have 30 seconds. Oh, boy. One thing I'd like to add to that, is, we've had no complaints, and we didn't even realize we were breaking the law when we started this, because we saw there were at least that there were legal. We've had no complaints. Neighbors think it's an asset. And, anyway, that's about it. Oh, and the people we rent to our, like, hope college parents come to visit their kids. It's not like Daytona Beach. We vet people we know we don't want to cause any problems. So. And our intention is to eventually move back into that house. Once we have our last kid out, out of the house that we live in Saugatuck. So, you know, we love the area. Thank you very much. That's okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else to speak on items

that are not listed as a public hearing on the agenda? No. All right. Next item is new business, 49 West third Street, Holland board of Public Works, water reclamation facility. Ultraviolet disinfection building addition. The project requires a street vacation, second street, and rezoning of the parcel to industrial. If you'd like to come forward, BPW state your name for the record. Thank you. My name is Alex Craigmile, BPW I'm the planning engineer and the planning department. This project, I'm the project manager. So I think there's slides available. There we go. Okay. So just as a background, on this project and kind of why we're here today, the BPW acquired the southern parcel, just west or just south of the west plant. Several years ago, as part of JDY going away, we installed a new substation, Pine Street. And with that, kept the existing municipal building, our building that was over there and kind of converted it into two halves. One for Magna, who is the existing owner of the parcel, remain as a tenant. And the northern half for BPW staff, with kind of the long term vision that that land would eventually be associated with the wastewater plant as growth was needed over time. So over the years, we've kind of kept that in our back pocket moving forward with the zoning and the rezoning and the master plan. One of the things that came to our attention when we kind of started to look at this project, it was actually two parts.

One, there's Second Street right away that still exists today, both east and west of River Ave. Currently in what we call East Plant. But also between that northern and southern parcel that's now completely surrounded by BPW property. With that, that we also realized that the southern parcel there is not zoned industrial as of today is one of the conversations that Steve and I had as we started to get into this. Currently, that second street doesn't really provide any benefit, besides ours, with what the existing chemical feed is. And we'll kind of talk about that a little bit later on in these slides of the process and where we're at. But we're going to need a new building that will go south of what the existing building is. And so with that, with the second street being there and kind of deadening in the middle of the in the block in that parcel, we are requesting the vacation of that to be able to utilize that for a wastewater utility space, water reclamation space. So what you'll see is what it is today. And yellow kind of defines that second street, that exists. And what currently happens is there's a parking lot, for guests for both the water reclamation facility and also kind of a loop that ties into the parking lot of the Nagna building. And there's also additional access off of Third Street. plan wise and property line reconfiguration. So what we're looking to do is broader figure. There is the substation today, which is the electric utility. There's the water reclamation facility under the wastewater utility. We'd like to separate out the substation parcel itself.

It's helps us on the utility side, getting the property associated with the right utility usage, but also in the future when we go to eventually use that southern parcel, just to combine the two, as opposed to having to do a split later. Also vacating the, second Street right away and configuration of the very North property line, stealing a little chunk of that to the northern parcel to allow for that new building so that we don't need to do a variance for the building. From a site plan perspective. This kind of shows you the layout of where that building looks like in proximity to the kind of green space just to the north of the parking lot there, and how it lines up. So that's kind of where that northern line was created to create that southern parcel and why we need a little bit of, footage there to tie it in. On. Oh. All right. I did, I thought, I apologize, I thought this was the same slide deck that we had for the study session. So, broader topic, but the building itself, the reason that it's there, I can just run through for you guys really quickly. We. Yeah. Go back to the one that just. Yeah, that would be a good one to make that one. Or that probably better that one. So, to the north, there is the existing admin building closest to river and then parallel to it a little bit to the west, on the very south side is the current cam feed building, that we use chlorine to feed into the process as the final kind of step as it outfalls into Lake Mac. Back during Covid, we did a study and an analysis on a high end to see if chemical was still the best path, for treatment for that. And we compared that with, UV technology, ultraviolet light. It's been around for a while.

It's use it a lot other plants in the area. And part of this is during Covid chemical prices got particularly high. And also there was some deliverability issues and concerns about whether we'd be able to get, get, everything that we needed. So kind of in that we did a real high end study and found that it was actually more cost effective to go to ultraviolet light technology. It's cheaper usage when compared to the chemical costs. Also helps as an electric utility that our our rates are relatively low. So, with all of those calculations, it came to a point where it made sense to go down the ultraviolet path. With that, the existing chemical feed building doesn't provide the necessary arrangement and channel to make that work. So the way the UV pilot lights work as a coworker likes to say, if you picture them as lightsabers, very bright, that they kind of sit down at an angle through the channel that the water flows in. That's kind of the general structure of what it would look like. So we looked at doing to allow for backup use and future was we would build that building just to the south, kind of in parallel path that allows the construction of the new UV set up, allow that to work. But then if we ever need to do maintenance or if there's any issues with it, the old path is still in existence and we can still feed that with chlorine. We won't keep all the, the large tanks and but we'll still be able to feed it with totes. So with that kind of went down this path of okay, well we have both parcels for that now. We need a building that's slightly to the south of what the existing structures are, gets into second Street, gets into the the property lines as it is. So that's what brings us here today with kind of, the three parallel requests, rezoning, splitting the parcel out and vacating second Street.

Any questions? Anyone have any questions? Getting a grasp on the project for the vacation. I guess my only question is. So this is not for the site plan with the new UV building. This is just to get the land ready so you can build that zone. Yeah. So this is a rezone. So we do have plans at 90%. Those are in Steve's been looking at those. We've been working with the building department and others through that process. But this specifically is just for the land associated with making it work. Okay. Just to clarify that. Yeah. Thanks, David. Good Question. Any other questions? Not that it matters, but we're getting rid of Second Street altogether. All of it. Right. Or is it? Yeah, we're keeping any part of that. Okay, I was curious. I couldn't tell from the plans if it was, like, going away. Steve wants to clarify on that. Apparently, he's waving his hand over there. Okay. I do, thank you. So. Yeah, a couple things. Hopefully this helps, at least with that vacation request. So you're really being asked to do three things tonight. The recommendation is to approve the site plan. Make a recommendation on rezoning the property, from form based code north downtown to industrial. And then the recommendation to city council for the vacation of second Street. The lot split. A certain, reconfiguration is certainly part of what they're doing. That's a little bit more of just an administrative function. So you guys don't really have to get into that. But those are the three things that you're being asked, to do here tonight. Happy to walk you through any of those details of those three things if you have some questions. But, it might it might be good just to kind of clarify what like,

I understand the zoning, like the rezoning elements of it in the vacation, but the specifics on the site plan, knowing there's kind of some phases to this. It sounds like. Or is it all still are we still just approving? Yeah. So it would be the full plan. Okay. Putting the building in. Yep. So that's that smaller building that's on there. Yep yep yep. That building is about 1500 square feet. Yes. So, that's what you're being asked to approve as the site plan. I know this is a little bit out of the ordinary, because clearly, and I tried to outline that in the staff report that this clearly is what I would describe as an essential service from what they do, this facility as part of their water, reclamation facility. So, but as we've done with other projects, because of the street vacation, the way Udo is written, it says, you know, that the Planning Commission makes the recommendation to council for a street vacation when it's associated with a site plan. Our practice has been when they're here for one thing already, that you guys have then done the site plan approval. So we figured, well, let's do the site plan as well. And then of course, make the recommendation on rezoning, as well. Again, that gets a little bit interesting just because the essential services are permitted in all the zoning districts. But I think we have all agreed that we think it is. It really cleans up, something on our, zoning map to make it industrial, which we believe is the more appropriate zoning district. When you look at the maps here, that area outlined in green is what we're talking about. It is zoned, that north downtown right now. The master plan indicates that that is in that essential service master plan, which of course, because this is part of their overall,

campus for their plans for, doing the work that they need to do. So we just feel like that is also, the most appropriate thing as we're doing all these things together to just do the rezone as well. So sorry for the convoluted explanation. Three things tonight. Site plan approval. Two recommendations to council for rezone and street vacation. Got it. We're going to do three separate votes on those too. That would be great. Yes. Because, yeah, we don't always have a street vacation. No. Yeah. That's a very unusual. Does anyone have any questions on that one? We all understand. Does Magna doesn't get affected by this at all for any reason ok ay. And that's partly why we're keeping that as two separate parcels versus just merging it together. Okay. Perfect. So they won't impact their lease. Any questions on the rezoning. No. Because it matches what we were going for with the master plan. Udo. So this is kind of part of the larger plan. So that makes sense. Any questions on the site plan or comments? All right. Thanks. Thank you. At this time, we will open a public hearing on this item. If anyone would like to come forward and speak to this. No, I will close the public hearing. Three separate motions, three separate votes on three separate things concerning the same parcel. Okay. What order? The order we have. The site plan is first. Oh. Okay. I make a motion that we approve the site plan as presented by and with the recommendations by staff support. All those in favor say aye. Opposed? None. Okay. All right.

Second street vacation? Sure. I move to vacate. Second street support. All those in favor say aye. I opposed. I'm on the rezoning. Sure. I move to rezone 49 West Third Street. Support. Is that. Count it. Do we want to make a recommendation to City Council? That's right. We have to make that work. Well, the vacation does. I'm sorry that the case goes to. Yeah, they both go to city council. It would be nice to clarify that. That's for sure. Yeah. If you could we all those. Are fabulous. There's no over there. Okay. So, Dave, restate the last one. Sure. The last one is that would recommend to city Council to rezone 49 West third street to industrial industrial Okay. I'll support that. All those in favor say aye. I opposed no. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in. All of you. Communications and petitions. Scheduling public hearings. There are none. Communications from commission members. None. Communications from staff. Steve sets no motion for adjournment, so moved, support. All those in favor, say goodbye. Goodbye. Right.