City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the July 1, 2026 regular meeting of the Holland City Council. I'm Mayor Nathan Box calling this meeting to order. Brenda, would you please call the roll?

Clump Irons. Here. Vreeman.

Here.

Raymond. Here. Corbin. Here. Schultheis.

Present.

Marikeen? Here. Rowan? Present. Shea? Mayor Box?

Present.

We have a quorum.

Wonderful, thank you. We're going to begin this evening's meeting, as we have for many years, first with the opening prayer this evening, covering for Councilmember Shea as Councilmember Vreeman, followed immediately by the Pledge of Allegiance, and we would invite you to join us if you're so inclined.

If you'd pray with me, please. Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening and we are very grateful for all the many opportunities that you grant to each one of us to serve in this community and our fellow citizens. We would ask that you would grant to our residents in this day much wisdom beyond even their capabilities as they navigate heat and high temperatures throughout this week. We thank you for the beauty of this place, and we ask that you give us enough time to slow down to enjoy it and give you thanks for it. Thanks for this time, and we now put it before you that wisdom and discernment would reign the day. And it's by your name we pray. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. Vreeman. Next item on our agenda are our consent agenda items. These are items that are considered to be fairly routine, and they have been previously reviewed by council members as part of our council packet, and they will be enacted in one motion unless a member of the public or a member of council asks to have an item removed from the consent agenda, and then it will be placed in its regular order on the regular agenda. But before I ask if anyone would like to do that, Brenda, would you please review the consent agenda for us?

Yes, 4A, excuse the absence of Council Member Shea. 4B, approve the minutes of the June 17, 2026 regular meeting and June 24, 2026 study session. 4C, oaths of office. 4D, the April financial reports. 4E, annual discrimination report. 4F, Downtown Development Authority Board Appointment. And 4G, a revocable license agreement for 5 West 8th Street, projecting signs.

Great, thank you Brenda. Is there any member of the public that would like to have an item removed from the consent agenda and placed on the regular agenda? Seeing none, any member of council that would like to have an item removed from consent and placed on the regular agenda? Seeing none there either, what is the pleasure of council in regard to the consent agenda? Move to approve as presented. Moved by Vreeman, is there support? Support. Support by Rowan, any discussion? Seeing none, Brenda, would you please call the roll? clump-arns yes freeman yes raymond yes corbin schultes yes mrakeen yes rowan yes mayor box yes motion carries great thank you next item on our agenda is public comment under the open meetings act of the state of michigan we provide the public the opportunity to address council during our regular meetings our study sessions and every one of our board committee and commission meetings but we do have guidelines that we ask you to follow. Each person may speak one time for a total of five minutes. We ask that when you approach the podium, you please state your name and the municipality in which you live because it's important for us to know whether or not you're a resident of the City of Holland. You may speak on any subject that you would like to, but remember that this is one-way communication. It's an opportunity for you to be able to address us, but we don't answer questions during this time or do we engage in discussion. But if there's a question that a staff member may be able to answer, they may be able to circle back to you after the meeting. Having said that, is there anyone here who would like to address council at this time?

If so, please come forward.

And would you please state your name and municipality for the record?

I'm Karen Howells, and I live at 657 Appletree Drive in Holland, the north side of 32nd Street between US 31 and Lincoln Avenue. I'm the one that's been inviting you to tour fantastic resources here in Holland. Many of you already know about them, but being newer to the community and being impressed with the many ways we help make Holland a better place for all to live, I guess I just like to brag. Since having time to tour often isn't possible, I've decided instead to just talk to you and about these fantastic places at your council meetings. And then if you'd like more information, you can certainly schedule a tour with me. Tonight I want to talk about Community Action House Food Club, which is at the corner of 8th and Pawpaw Street. It's been a challenge lately to navigate that part of town because of all of the row constructions, but it's definitely worth the effort. The concept of food club grew from food drives where you would receive a box of whatever was available and they couldn't get rid of any other way, frankly. Sometimes it would be a number of items that were surplus from something and you may know what they were or like what they were or maybe not. An example would be like a bag full of kumquats or six jars of sauerkraut. FluCub is set up like a grocery store, includes many canned, boxed, bagged staples like cereal, pinto beans, snack items, tuna fish, but also includes fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and frozen meat. And I think you probably know the most important thing, the thing that I hardly can get off the cart before somebody grabs it is the fresh fruits and vegetables. It's less expensive there and it's always in abundance and really good. The advantages to Food Club is nutrition is emphasized. So a large container of grapes or strawberries, fresh, would be priced at one point. And a bag of chips is three points. So we're trying to encourage people to eat more healthily. Healthy at Home is the name of a free, hands-on cooking and nutrition education class offered for all ages. You get to not only try new recipes, but you get to sit and eat them and enjoy it with other people. The Food Club mobile market goes where neighbors in Ottawa and Allegan counties may face transportation issues or low food access. and so we take the food to them, which is really important for lots of people. Nourishing Healthcare Partnerships provides food club no-cost vouchers to local healthcare providers like Holland Community Health Center, where my daughter's a doctor, Holland Free Health Clinic, which provides foot clinics for the people at Refresh. So fantastic people that, groups that are working with the people in town. And it helps get people to fresh fruits and vegetables who might have chronic health concerns. or need to have more fresh fruits and vegetables and fresh items than normally they would get. Food Club is open six days a week, including two evenings, and on Saturday, making it easier for those who work, have childcare issues, or scheduling issues. And an example of one of the fantastic things that I think Food Club does, one of its advantages is there's one time we had a semi full of fresh strawberries. The store couldn't accept them because there was a misprint on the label. So came to Food Club and they gave it away, all of the strawberries. We always have items that are zero points. Sometimes they're not only zero points, but you can have as many as you need because of the excess that's there. It's good products. It's something that people should be able to use. And so that's one story.

Mr. Mayor, that is five minutes. I'm sorry, your time has expired. Thank you.

Bye.

Is there anyone else who would like to address council at this time? And would you please state your name and municipality for the record? Yes.

So hi, my name is Keegan Host. I'm a resident of Georgetown Township and a proud graduate of Hope College class of 2025. I wanted to tell you guys a story today about something that had happened in our state a few months ago. It's about a woman named Lily. Lily was a new mom and she had just given birth to a little baby boy named Andrew. The problem is that Andrew was having a lot of health problems. He had been diagnosed with a condition called spinal muscular atrophy, which caused him to become very, very weak and was going to progress over time to come to a place where he was eventually going to die. The good news is there was a treatment that could help him to be able to survive and get stronger. It's a gene therapy where they go in and replace the gene that he was missing in order to help increase the proteins in his body and give him strength. But the problem is that they were going to do this treatment, but surgery, But the insurance companies, excuse me, got in the way. They repeatedly denied their requests for coverage and only changed their tune once the news media got involved. The mom had gone to talk to the local news out there in Detroit. And once they had the fear of possibly the story getting covered, they said, OK, we'll cover this treatment. And thankfully, after that, this little boy, this little baby boy was able to to start getting his treatment. And this is just one example of people in our country being treated very badly by health insurance companies. You know, they deny treatment to people while breaking in huge sums of money in profit every year when executives getting paid up to the tune of compensation, up to the tune of millions of dollars every single year in total compensation. And this is just really terrible because the purpose of health insurance is to provide care for people. When people get sick, you know, they've been paying into this health insurance system for a while. And when they get sick, it's supposed to be, hey, you don't have to worry so much about the cost of your care because you're covered. But unfortunately, that's not always the way it is and people are getting denied. And I come in front of the council today to encourage you to use the platforms that you have to help make a difference in our community because we all can have a voice in matters like this. But I think that local elected officials have a special, a very unique platform that they can use and a duty to advocate on behalf of their people to the to the people that really have power to make a difference on these issues. I can go to my local representative or senator and call them and say, hey, you guys should really make a difference, make changes on this healthcare issue. But when we have a coalition of local elected leaders, whether they be city council members or mayors or county executives, even state reps or state senators, and they're all going to congress to congressmen and senators and saying hey our people really want to make a change on this issue and they do that with an enthusiastic sense of relentless persistence i think that that can really help make a change for people and can help stop these bad scenarios where people are getting denied coverage that could help save their lives. So I'd encourage you to use the platforms you have to help advocate for people in need. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address council at this time? And would you state your name and municipality for the record?

Anne Henriksen, Zeeland. Last week, I had the honor of speaking at the Holland American Legion. I would like to share that speech with you. Good evening, veterans. A heartfelt thank you for your service. We keep you and your families in our prayers. My name is Anne Henriksen. I was born in 1943, and remember as a child going to the movies and watching the newsreels of World War II and later the Korean War. My family is a member of the Daughters of American Revolution. My dad served World War II in the Coast Guard because his poor eyesight excluded him from combat. My uncle was in the South Pacific Theater. My brother, 1957, was in the Army, 82nd Airborne, Germany. My husband, US Army, California. And finally, my daughter, USA Navy, serving in the Yemen conflict. I'm a patriot. The old glory flag, as it was called in the Civil War, And the pledge is dear to my heart because of those who fought for our freedom. It's hard to believe that there are those fellow Americans who hate this country desiring to replace it with Sharia law, socialism, and even worse, communism. I represent the National April Faith Month Action Organization here in Holland. Holland is the only municipality in the United States where the city declares April as Faith Month. This organization stands for our religious expression found in the Michigan and the United States Constitution. I have for you this evening some significant medals to share with you tonight, given to me by the First Liberty Institute law firm. They represent the Brandenburg Peace Cross. Hopefully you'll share them with your grandkids. Just Google Brandenburg Peace Cross. to recall what I'm about to tell you, the Peace Cross. The 40-foot tall Peace Cross was constructed in Brandenburg, Maryland by the American Legion with private funding in 1925 to honor the local servicemen who died during World War I. The creator opted for the cross shape to mirror the grave markers that were left in the war theaters in Europe to commemorate the dead buried there. At the time it was built, the monument was on private land, but the land was donated in 1961 to the Maryland National Capital Park Planning Commission, making it park owned by the state. The commission provided illumination for the monument at night and allowed the cross to be used as a central point for Memorial Day and Veterans Day parades. 2019, our freedom of speech expression was attacked, American Legion versus American Humanist Association. The case had arrived at the United States Supreme Court with a consolidation of two petitions to the court, that of the American Legion who built the cross and the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission, who owned the land and maintained the memorial. The American Humanist Association was suing on the grounds of the faulty law, separation of church and state, and suggested that the giant cross extended arms be severed leaving a pole. First Liberty Institute law firm argued in favor of keeping the cross as is. The United States court supported the premise with the following justification. The peace cross had added secular meaning quoting the support in Flanders Fields' poetic allusion to rows of crosses that were similar to the cemeteries across the United States, for example, Gettysburg and Arlington. The Army Distinguished Service Cross and the Navy Cross were both established in immediate aftermath of World War I. the court recognized that many of the bereaved local parents would never be able to visit the foreign grave sites of their dead the cross was a place of grieving judge alito stated the cross is undoubtedly a christian symbol but that fact should not blind us to everything else that brandenburg cross has come to represent that the destroying and defacing of the cross that has stood undisturbed for nearly a century would not be neutral and would not further the ideals of respect and tolerance embodied in the First Amendment. I have to say, in the few seconds left, these veterans were riveted to this speech, and when they received their medal, their memorial medal, they cried.

I'm sorry, your time has expired. Thank you, though. Is there anyone else who would like to address counsel at this time? Would you please state your name and municipality for the record?

Yeah, Martha Kapustani Holland. First of all, I want to thank the council again for your service and especially Mayor Box for proclaiming April as Faith Month. I'm grateful that we still have the opportunity to come before this council and share ideas, concerns, and perspectives about our city and our nation. as america celebrates its 250th anniversary this year i've been encouraged by something unexpected during the recent world cup thousands of visitors from around the world experienced our country firsthand and many shared on social media how impressed they were with america's generosity freedoms opportunities and the kindness they encountered those are the blessings that many of us who live here our entire lives can easily take for granted and several also communicated or commented excuse me that before arriving, much of what they had heard about America through news and political commentary painted a very negative picture. While our nation certainly has challenges, so does every nation. They discovered a country with remarkable people, tremendous opportunities, and freedoms that remain the envy of much of the world. And I believe those firsthand experiences remind many Americans that it's okay to love America. be a patriot, and respect our Constitution and laws, which have stood the test of time. Two weeks ago, I spoke briefly about our founding fathers and the tremendous sacrifices they made in establishing this nation. By signing the Declaration of Independence, they knowingly committed what Great Britain considered treason, a crime punishable by death. Yet they persevered through extraordinary hardship because they believed that future generations deserved the blessings of liberty. You see, history matters because it shapes our future generations' understanding of who they are and what they inherit. But alas, to use an archaic phrase, we've been failing at teaching history accurately. And I think this might be by design. And because of that, many of our schools and universities today are actually teaching a form of revisionist history. They leave out proper context and inconvenient truths. Information is misconstrued all to form a narrative that causes derision and division. You see, he who writes the history controls the future. So what are they teaching instead? Many are teaching our history through the lens of Marxism and critical race theory, which focuses on an oppressor and oppressed narrative. These theories only see everything through a power dynamic, and they're likely to accuse anyone in the past or present with some sort of wealth, power, influence as an oppressor, which could include city council, and many of us in this room. America has never been a perfect nation. No nation in history has been. Slavery, for example, existed thousands of years across civilizations throughout the world long before the United States was founded. Recognizing that historical reality does not excuse slavery in America, but does provide important context for understanding history honestly and completely. And I'm also guessing that most of you, like myself, didn't know that eight of our original northern colonies abolished slavery decades before Britain did. Likewise, there continues to be a debate about the religious beliefs of our American founders. While they may have held some differing theological views, there is substantial historical evidence that Christian ideas and biblical principles significantly influenced many of them and the principles on which our constitutional republic was established. One example comes from the First Continental Congress on September 7th, 1774, At the request of Samuel Adams, Reverend Jacob Duchesne opened Congress in prayer, and I would like to read a brief excerpt. O Lord, our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings and Lord of lords, look down in mercy we beseech thee on these American states, who have thrown themselves on thy gracious protection desire to be henceforth dependent only on thee. You see, this prayer reminds us that many of our nation's early leaders publicly acknowledged their dependence upon God. And there's a beautiful painting that depicts many of them on their knees or with their heads bowed in reverence during that prayer. And I'd also like to share a portion of a letter written by John Adams to Thomas Jefferson on June 28, 1813, reflecting on the principles that united the American colonies. He states, excuse me, The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity and the general principles of English and American liberty. I then believed and now believe that those general principles of Christianity are as internal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God. To say all of this is to encourage everyone to get out of our own echo chamber, if you will, as I did years ago, and study historical documents whenever possible and examine the evidence for yourself. As we celebrate 250 years of our nation's history, I hope we can continue to encourage thoughtful study and a two-way respectful dialogue where all people are allowed to debate and share information from an honest examination without the fear of dangerous reprisals. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to address counsel at this time? Seeing none, I will close the public comment period. Next item on the agenda is item number seven, special order of the day, public hearings, termination of amended Brownfield reimbursement agreement with Black River Flats. Mr. Van Beek.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor and council. First thing, just kind of housekeeping detail the way that we're looking at this. This probably officially holding a public hearing might be a little bit more than what's outlined in the agreement or maybe even if you extend that into state law. but we figured better to just be thorough and hold the public hearing. So just if there's a question of that or why we're doing this, because if you leave the agreement, it would indicate that the company would have the ability to request a hearing and it doesn't name a public hearing. So just to clarify, we figured better to do this full step and not be thorough, I guess. I think you knew this was coming. This basically is before we had housing TIF legislation in place for us. As outlined the agreement several years ago, we used basically this as an opportunity to try to achieve some affordable housing. It did go in and it did work for a period of time, work, and the process by which that would occur is that there are very specific things that are outlined in the agreement that would need to be turned in at the end beginning of the end of the year and only if those met the requirements that were outlined and that we reviewed and certified that they were meeting the requirements that we laid out would they be able to go back and get basically the money in the brownfield TIF that was held and then would be reimbursed to them. we're going on the second year now where they haven't submitted reports either that were acceptable or even in this last year just didn't submit them at all so we're really to a point now where the the remedy that we have available to us and definitely that we're recommending is that we would terminate the agreement which would mean that the property would go back on the full continue to pay full taxes they've always paid full taxes but that then administratively here at the city that we want captured that money in an increment and then pay the entity back in exchange for the affordability that was outlined any money that we have held right now is money that would go into the local Brownfield Revolving Fund, which was part of the original agreement and the plan and allowable by state law. So we would just deposit monies on hand into that Brownfield Revolving Fund. And then again, the recommendation is to terminate this agreement moving forward.

Great, thank you. Questions for staff? Ms. Raymond.

What's the cost-benefit analysis for them I'm worried about like this happening how often this has happened will it happen in the future are they actually saving money by backing out of the deal

Probably the largest factor in all of this that probably makes it really impossible for me to answer that question is that there was a transfer of ownership from the original developer and operator of this and who now is operating it currently. In the agreement, it survives transfer of ownership, but I think the current operator really more is in the business, if you would, of running apartments, and I don't think has an interest necessarily in recouping this amount. I will say that we have periodically looked at some of the rates that have been charging the rates aren't that much different uh... but there is a lot of work that goes along with i think appropriately to certify uh... what goes in here and i think just it is a lot of work uh... so I'm speculating a bit beyond what I just said, but I think at some point it was just they didn't turn in the reports, and if they didn't turn in the reports, we certainly weren't going to reimburse them with the amount that was allowable. I think moving forward, I've said several times, we did this kind of before the state legislation was in place, so we kind of... And I don't regret it. I think we kind of took a chance and we learned some things. And now with the state legislation in place, there's some other vehicles that I think are set up that hopefully would avoid this if we did this again in the future. But for now, this is the recommendation to move forward and shut down the staff.

Ms. Klomp-Harns and then Mr. Vreeman.

yes thank you uh and maybe you have to speculate how would terminating this agreement affect the residents that are currently there is there any anything that they should be anticipating i don't think so i mean they would have leases in place right and because functionally it's probably been a year and a half since they've been turning in the reports anyway

It's hard to speculate, right? And remember, it was only a percentage of the units too. So it's kind of across the board. So I would not expect a change for residents out there. And yet, quite frankly, when we turn the disagreement and they're not abiding by it, we really don't have a remedy in that situation anyway.

Mr. Freeman.

And then from the proposal that we've been provided it stated that we have communicated with them or tried to reach out to them and they have not read communicated back correctly We have communicated them with them for the last year and a half that a report didn't meet the requirements what needed to meet the requirements and then that they continued not to turn that stuff in and then by certified mail we've communicated by everyone about this step

Mr. Schultheis and then Mr. Corbin.

I'm gonna ask it's similar to Mr. Vreeman but a little bit different. Do we have any indication from them that they desire to figure this out to continue it?

I had a direct communication with the original developer and knew that he would not be attending and contesting this this evening. Mr. Corbin.

You said this is a new ownership, correct?

From when the original agreement, the new ownership, I think it's been over two years now.

so the new owner would have to agree to the same contract. It followed with the property, correct?

Yeah, it was, yep. There's a technical term for that, but yes.

So we're terminating the agreement because they didn't follow the rules that we laid out. Is it possible they could come back to us and ask for a new arrangement?

Not on the property that's already built.

Okay. All right. Good. And just to clarify, the TIF that we're talking about now is not the same as the TIF that's being newly, the new legislation that's out, correct? So it was slightly different, and it will be slightly different how we apply it going forward, correct?

Yeah, different. Two things. There's new legislation, which... I'm gonna call it similar type approach that we would take. We would use the provisions of that new legislation in a hypothetical future scenario, right? But, What you have before, each and every one of existing or future, you sign a very specific agreement. And that agreement is what we're terminating, recommending terminating tonight.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff? I've got a couple, Keith. Because we all have a pretty good high-level understanding of this, and I don't necessarily know that people at home do. So I want to kind of walk through this. We made an agreement with the developer to help reimburse some of the costs of construction, mainly infrastructure costs, in exchange for them reserving some of the apartment units that are in this development for lower-income housing units, correct? Correct. Correct.

So it was at least 50% of the units would be rented to those with 80% AMI or less.

And the way that they ended up getting reimbursed was through a kind of a property tax reimbursement that takes place over a number of years.

Yeah, and it's very key because a lot of people misunderstand this, so I appreciate the question and the opportunity to answer this.

Absolutely, that's why I'm doing it.

A lot of times people think with this or other types of incentives, they think that property owners or developers or owners don't pay taxes. That's not true. They pay the full rate of taxes. based upon the new building that goes in. It's just in some of these instances, they pay the taxes, and then we actually hold some of those in abeyance for a while until they demonstrate that they meet certain criteria, and then we would turn around and pay them back for very specific allowable expenses of making that development.

And one of those requirements was that they had to be able to prove to us every year that a certain percentage of the people that were living in those apartments met certain income requirements, that they were lower-income individuals, and that they didn't do that reporting to us, correct?

Correct, and it was more about the demonstration of who they were renting to less about the rates they were actually charging.

Right. So they didn't do the paperwork that they needed to do. And one of the things that we need to do and our responsibility as a city is to make sure that they're following through with the agreement that we have with them. And they simply have not been doing that.

Absolutely.

And our only recourse then is to say, well, guess what? you're not getting the reimbursement then that we agreed to initially. And that's what we're doing right now is saying we're done, we've tried, we've worked with you, you're not giving us the paperwork and the reporting that we need, we can no longer provide you the reimbursement.

Good questions in summary.

All right, great, thank you. Any other questions that, yes, Ms. Raymond.

What was the original length of the affordability agreement?

It was more linked I think there was a term but it's more linked the way these work is it's linked to when they reach the dollar amount that they they would be reimbursed and off the top I think it was up to nine years was the scenario that we do. And those are hard, right? Because you're making assumptions before you even turn dirt or anything. And that's where our staff, finance staff, we're always looking in that and monitoring as we go. And in that monitoring, this is obviously where we didn't reimburse them. And also now, because they're not meeting the terms we're recommending terminating them.

Yeah, just a quick follow-up. They haven't gotten reimbursement. They didn't get reimbursement last year, and they're not getting reimbursement this year either, correct? This is not that this is...

It's two years, two years.

For two years now, they haven't received the reimbursement because they haven't provided the documentation. Correct.

Thank you.

Any other questions for staff? What is the pleasure of council in regard to this? Oh, no, we need to do a public hearing. Thank you. I always forget about that. We do need to do a public hearing in this. I even have it circled in big, bold letters right here on my agenda. I'm going to open a public hearing. Is there any member of the public that would like to address council in regard to this particular item? Similar rules apply to speaking to council in regard to this. The only other change is that you can only speak in regard to this item. Is there anyone who would like to speak to council in regard to this particular item? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Now what is the pleasure of council in regard to this item?

Motion to terminate the amended brownfield reimbursement agreement for the property known as Black River Flats.

Moved by Schultheis, is there support? Support. Support by Klumperns. Any discussion? I just have a couple of comments. This council has had affordable housing as one of its top priorities as long as I have been mayor and have done a lot of different types of projects and worked on a lot of different types of things. I don't see this as a failure of that. I see this as the process working the way that it's supposed to work. We are stewards of the taxpayers dollars of the city of Holland and if we enter an agreement with someone or an organization or an entity where we are going to provide incentives for them to provide affordable housing and they don't follow through with that, it is our duty and our obligation terminate that agreement and protect the tax dollars of the people of the City of Holland so that if there is another opportunity that is available where those tax dollars might be able to be used to be able to provide that affordable housing I think that is exactly what we need to be doing and I commend city staff on keeping up with this on making sure and holding their feet to the fire to make sure that they're doing the reporting or that they that they should have been doing and that they weren't and keeping council abreast of that so that we would be able to take this action. Thank you. Any other comments from council members? Seeing none, Brenda, would you please call the roll?

Okay, Freeman.

Yes.

Raymond. Yes. Corbin. Yes. Schultes. Yes. Marikeen.

Yes.

Rowan? Yes. Klump-Barnes? Yes. Mayor Box?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Great, thank you. Next item on the agenda is item number nine, written petitions and communications. In addition to providing the public the opportunity to address council in person at our meetings, we do also provide an email address where you can send written communications. Those are received by all council members and reviewed by council members. And then when we have them, we accept them into the record at our meetings. We don't read them out loud, but we do accept them into the record. We do not have any this evening, but I always like to make sure that people know that that is out there. And that address is publiccomment, singular, publiccomment at cityofholland.com. Again, public comment at cityofholland.com. Next item on the agenda, item number 10A from the Planning Commission, text amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance. It is deceivingly short agenda item on the printed agenda, but much longer agenda item on the expanded one, Mr. Van Beek.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. You are correct, Mr. Mayor. For those that opened the agenda packet, there's a lot of attachments here. I would caution you not to be concerned about that or alarmed. What I will say is a thank you to staff and to the Planning Commission for doing the good, detailed work on an important topic that I feel really comfortable with. Steve and staff also consulted, for example, with the Holland Board of Public Works because when this is introduced, you'll understand why, and just the advantage that we also have with staff there and engineers there, some expertise and some perspective that they were able to bring into the conversation also. So Steve is gonna go through this topic, introduce the topic. I haven't even said what it is yet, because then I won't steal your word, Steve.

All right.

Take it away.

Thank you, Keith. Yeah, sorry about all the attachments, but sometimes you just have to. So we're going to talk about battery energy storage systems. So we don't have any applications in front of us, so that's really not what's generating this. But there really was a public act that came down and said, in summary, certain size projects, battery storage could be could avoid having to go through local approvals. And so we thought it was important enough to put something on the books so that we would have what they call a compatible or workable ordinance so that they would come through our process. So that's really what we attempted to do. In addition to sort of developing this workable ordinance. We were trying to address several other items Let me just quickly go through those we wanted Large-scale principal use battery storage systems to be located in the industrial zoning district we wanted to make sure that these battery storage systems that would be associated with a utility substation would be considered to be an essential service and We wanted to make sure and we clarified that definition of essential service to make sure that that was for municipal and public utility providers. We wanted to maintain the same UDO format, unified development ordinance, our same format that we use in that document. Some of the model ordinances that we reviewed were several pages long. UDO isn't really developed like that, so we wanted to make sure to use that same structure. We used kind of the wind and solar regulations as sort of our model to look at those. We wanted to treat the small scale battery storage similar, the way we do with similar structures in our residential zone. Again, we'll go through this in a minute. And then again, allow for small scale accessory battery storage in all zoning districts. Those were really all of the points that we were trying to hit with this With these set of regulations so and again that's in part the reason why you see so many pages of Udo being updated with all those attachments because we're touching really all of the different chapters and zoning districts that we have um and to key's point uh yeah a special thank you to not only bpw but also to the city attorney's office for their help going through this as well so in true holland fashion it was a team effort as always so just a few slides for you this is some of the model language document that we looked at to sort of help guide us through this process i just have a couple illustrations that i want to point out This first one on the bottom is a picture of a 50 megawatt battery storage facility. That is the threshold, that's the level that the state said, you know, if you had a battery storage system of that level or higher that you could go through a separate process you could go right to the state for approval so again their level when we talk about large and small scale their their definition of this large scale is quite different from the one that you're going to hear about that we developed but just to give you a picture of what that looks like Have a couple others here that I thought were interesting. The picture on the left is a one megawatt battery storage. I think that's down in Kalamazoo. And then the one on the right I thought was interesting because it shows you a really small scale battery storage in a residential garage. And then you kind of see a 20 and 100 megawatt battery storage facility. That one on the right is also attached to a utility substation. So again, just to kind of give you the idea of the scale of what some of those numbers mean. So what does all that mean for us? What are we doing about it? Here is the use table that you're familiar with in the Unified Development Ordinance. The picture on the left is the clean copy version. The picture on the right is the red line version. so what we are wanting to do what the planning commission has recommended on that left hand side you see that bottom row battery energy storage system so we are adding small scale accessory use battery storage allowed in all of the zoning districts and then you see a couple of them that have the S stars on them so then we would allow large-scale battery storage systems as an accessory use and essentially our commercial zoning districts We also included the the high density residential in that so in those districts you'd be able to have large-scale accessory battery storage and then in the industrial column is the only one that has just the S-Star. So again, that's the only zoning district we would allow for a principal use battery storage facility. So again, think those large scale battery storage facilities that you just saw. That would be the only district that those would be allowed. So here's the definition of essential service. You see a couple little cleanups here, again, thanks to BPW. Public and municipal utility service. So I thought that was really important to make that distinction there so that public being defined as the public utilities that are regulated by that public act. So again, trying to avoid a scenario where somebody would try to tell us that they were an essential service because they're providing, you know, a public utility where you have to be a public utility meeting that definition. So that's essentially BPW or consumers. Um, this is the, uh, example of how, uh, the current unified development ordinance, uh, how we have it structured for the wind and solar, um, alternative energy category. So again, this was just really showing you that's how our, how we're trying to model this language that we're putting in here for battery storage. And so this is the battery storage. sections that we want to add so 402 bb that's the section that we would add for those small scale accessory battery storage and so what's important here is the sort of the threshold that we came up with was the 60 kilowatt size And that was really, you know, we really came up with that for a couple reasons. One, we thought that was the size that seemed to be able to maybe accommodate your house like a generator. And also the same size sort of cabinet or unit that we would find for a residential structure. So again, think of your generator at your house or maybe a large AC unit that you would have. So again, In all zoning districts, small scale units allowed in all of those zoning districts as an accessory use. And then there's some regulations about setbacks and height, again, very similar to how we treat other similar type of structures.

I don't want to interrupt you, Steve, but I'm going to. I thank you for that context on what the 60 kilowatt is. And I know we talked about this at Planning Commission, just for some additional context for people, because I know I didn't have any idea what 60 kilowatts was. That's about the typical battery size for an electric vehicle. And my Ford F-150 Lightning's battery is literally twice that size. So we're not talking about a huge battery size. We're talking about ones that are out and about in the public all over the place right now.

Yeah, and again, thank you. And that was intentional, right? So that these would be indeed smaller units. So then our definition of large scale is over that 60 kilowatt and those again would be allowed in those commercial zoning districts and the high density residential as accessory use. What we were thinking is those would be the things like a Meijer, a Menard, it's a large office building that might have a generator, which quite frankly you see out there today. Might not be the size of that one megawatt structure that you saw in Kalamazoo, but you definitely see some larger structures like that even around town right now that just don't happen to be battery storage. So again, those would only be permitted in those commercial and the high density residential. and then adding the principal use battery storage facilities only by special land use in the industrial zoning district. Just a few more slides. And so then we add a definition of battery energy storage system. This really came from some of the model ordinance language that we saw in other places. Simply add that to our definition section. Maybe I should back up. I am so sorry. We did find a couple cleanups to do as part of Udo. You know, that's not unusual for us. In this red line version on the right-hand side, on that top row, you do see a bunch of strikeouts on that wind. Sorry, on the solar line. across there that's not a change that is the way that that the unified development ordinance is written it's just that that use table is incorrect the only area that you can do the special use is in the industrial district so sorry simply cleaning that section up as well And I point that out because this is also one of the cleanups that we're doing in this section just to make sure that that's clear as well, where we have alternative energy that wind and solar need to be subdivided there rather than grouped together as all zone districts. So again, we feel like those are not changes or at least substantive changes. Those are just corrections to the way that the document is written. Sorry to change gears a little bit there. So I told you that we updated the essential service definition. This is the essential service section in the unified development ordinance. And we thought, again, it was important to add this sentence that includes battery storage that are installed or operated in conjunction with the utility substation for the purpose of off-site use through an electrical grid would be an example of an essential service of course we allow essential services in all of the zoning districts so again we thought it was important to point out if you were going to do a battery storage facility with as part of a substation property that is indeed an essential service so I think we could have done that already, but we thought it was important to provide some clarity to that. One of the reasons why you have all of the attachments, again, as I mentioned, we really touched all of the different zoning districts. So each of those chapters had to be updated. I'm not going through all of that with you. But this is just an example of the industrial use table where we are updating it. One, to clarify the alternative energy solar correction that we're making. And then you see on the bottom where we're adding battery energy storage system as a use permitted there, either as an accessory use or as a principal use and then directing you to either of those sections that you're going to use which again is the format that we use for the rest of the document so same way that we do that everywhere this is the picture i kept showing the planning commission just because i thought it was interesting to point out this is a substation that we have on that southeast part of town It is actually in the low-density residential zone district, so you see a substation, you see a water tower. If BPW wanted to do a battery storage that was part of our substation, that would definitely be considered an essential service, just like this facility is out there right now. That is a quick summary of all of the changes that we put together. As Keith mentioned, the Planning Commission has recommended unanimously to approve these documents. It did go through a bit of a meat grinder with all the help through BPW, City Attorney's Office. That is the recommendation.

Mr. Corbin.

So when you speak to essential services, you're speaking to the utility, our utility, not like a hospital who says they would like to do something on their property, correct? That's correct. We're talking about the utility itself.

I guess I just would clarify, it wouldn't necessarily be only our utility. I mean, others could be essential service, but in that example, yeah.

Yeah, we're the only one that really provides, at least to the city of Holland, that there could be other options. Yeah.

Theoretically you could have a utility that doesn't serve us that could Request and we'd have to treat that then under this zoning And you have little things like cable and you know phone that have little boxes around town You know those are those would also be considered essential services So the consumers energy worked with the hospital and said we would like to put something at the hospital they could do that into this these new rules and

We wouldn't put that in the definition of essential service, but they would be able to follow, the hospital would be able to follow these rules and have a large scale accessory use battery storage facility, just like they can have a big power generator out there today. Might be diesel, right?

Another thing I didn't notice, especially residential, is there any restrictions to allowing them or requiring them to have these outside rather than inside a private residence?

We're not requiring them to be inside or outside. If they were inside, they would be regulated by the building code. And so if they're outside, they would certainly have to follow the standards that we put in here about setbacks and height and those sorts of things. But they would be permitted to be inside. You saw that example of one in a garage.

Well, I'm just wondering, was there any consideration for regulating that, requiring them to keep it out exterior versus interior?

I don't think we talked about that so much at the planning commission.

No, because it's regulated by the building code. Yeah. So we would follow those standards that are prescribed by the building code.

And that was the conversation the planning commission had, was feeling like it was covered because the building code already addressed it.

Mr. Schultheis.

I'm not embarrassed to admit I needed to use some chat GPT on the topic so if I ask a dumb question we'll blame the robot if it's a good question that I'm adequately curious is it a true statement that if we didn't adopt this ordinance which we assumed to be compliant with Public Act 233 that the MPSC would be the permitting authority and not the City of Holland that would be the concern yes right so I think like that's an important aspect of this is it that's why we're doing this yeah so that we are the permitting authority thanks the second question is more mechanical and the recommended motion talks about an effective date it's the recommendation is that normal process timeline for change to Udo

There's usually after after you adopt. There's usually a 21 day period before it becomes effective That's kind of ordinance across the board type stuff.

Thank you Mr. Corbin, I think there's one exception I meant heard you mention that over a certain size Large scale would be only permitted by the state. It goes directly. Yeah, right It was the 50 megawatt that has the trigger for for that right would be the only exception to your question I just want to clarify

Other questions for staff? Great, thank you guys, thank you. Thanks, Steve, appreciate it. What is the pleasure of council in regard to this item?

Move to approve.

Moved by Raymond, is there support?

Support, Corbin.

Support by Corbin, any discussion? Seeing none, Brenda, would you please call the roll?

Raymond? Yes. Corbin? Yes. Schultheis? Yes. Marikeen?

Yes.

Rowan? Yes. Clumparns? Yes. Freeman?

Yes.

Mayor Box? Yes. Motion carries.

Great, thank you. Next item on the agenda, item 12, echo 6.1, fiscal year 2026 strategic plan and business plan final report. Mr. Van Beek, one day late. End of the fiscal year was yesterday.

We think a lot alike sometimes, I was going to say. It's the first day of the new year, so we're just closing up the old year, so... Yes. What you have in front of you is not only the fourth quarter report, but because our fiscal year is July 1 to June 30, it also gives us an opportunity to look at the entire year. I'm not going to read everything. I never do when I do this, right? The information is out there, both in the packet, but also under the council page. And we have now multiple years of the strategic plan, not only the work that we do to construct it each year, but then the plan itself, but then the quarterly reports and then the final report. We are periodically encouraged slash criticized sometimes maybe in the city or maybe in the culture that we don't take a moment every once in a while and look back and celebrate our accomplishments and talk about things that we get done. So I'm taking that to heart and I'm just going to give the highlights of what the organization and council and our fantastic staff in the Holland Board of Public Works and larger community accomplished in this past year. Going left to right, goal one in the area of finances, we continue to adopt balanced budgets, supported by long-term financial forecasting the citizens supported overriding the Hadley Hadley override ballot proposal as Discussed a little bit today, and I agree with the mayor. That's not a negative we continue to talk about Housing development support policy and seeing progress in those areas We continue to take active steps to manage costs of the city in this last year we made a major change to health insurance pool system that lowered our health rate our health insurance rates and we also invested significant money and changed our systems to address our unfunded pension liability and And amazingly we seem to always have a community that I think speaks to the trust that they have in us as an organization that continues to give us grant dollars but more importantly private donations to the work that we do. in the area of connections with stakeholders. It was really fun, I need to admit, I proudly admit, going to the celebration at Vista Green this week. that shows a very tangible, really state award-winning example of affordable housing with some fantastic local housing nonprofits. We all get to enjoy the Holland Youth Advisory Council and the wonderful future that we have in our youth that engage with us. we had a second extremely successful Ambassador Academy and as I told you I think a couple weeks ago and I think I caught some of you by surprise we now have two of the graduates from the Ambassador Academy that work for the city in the BPW We continue to have a biennial citizen survey that reflects very high satisfaction in scores and feedback from our community. There's lots of fantastic community events and community organizations that are present and partner with us. And our city media team continues to put out some great stuff. Look at my communication tomorrow. There's been some particularly good things that if you haven't seen it, I'm going to give you the link so you need to watch it. Then improve the organization. Wow, the ice park. I think we've talked about it. We celebrate it, and I think this community, that's going to be something that we celebrate for decades to come. Waterfront Holland continues to move forward. Very successful that we were able to secure an $11.25 million grant. Holland City Fiber continues to just change the economics and the access to our residents to fiber and that will be something that the build-out is completed yet later this year. again have successfully completed union negotiations with our two union groups third time in a row that we've completed that prior to the expiration of the prior contract fantastic relationships with our employees Thank you to council for providing effective governance and adopting and maintaining that structure that you employ. And in the midst of all of that, we continue to have significant development interest in housing, in industry, and other that people, and it creates some challenges sometimes, right, with a smile on our face, but we are a place that people want to be and invest in And then finally, providing quality services. We take very seriously, led by Matt, but also many others, that we've kept a focus that even though we're doing new projects, We're always making sure that we are taking care of the things that we've been entrusted with first, which means taking good care of our infrastructure, our buildings, and making sure that we set aside money for that. Thank you, council, but that we keep up on those types of things. We also had a lot of projects, and this isn't even the whole list of them, but the ice park project. Luger's Park, recycling center we're proceeding with. Don't miss the bike park because even though we just did the groundbreaking for that, it's gonna be done soon because they're not wasting any time. And then made some adjustments in the budget for this coming year, so continue to pay more attention and invest more money in our road, but also our non-motorized networks, which includes bike lanes and sidewalks. And then just an overall culture of the organization, of our staff, that hopefully, as the last bullet, just continues to prove that we're providing consistent results. So not something I typically like to do, but I thought, Yeah, let's brag for at least a minute or two. So that is your year end fiscal year 2026 strategic and business plan report. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions for staff?

I guess that was, oh, Ms. Rowan.

I don't know if this has to do with the highlights but I just noticed all the marigolds around town so all of the tulip lanes or at least some of the tulip lanes have now been replaced with beautiful marigolds and they are as lovely or more Would you explain who planted those Mr. VanBee because I think that that's a another highlight that the public needs to hear

what's cool and thank you kim and my guess is you find the same experience that i and others have said you don't even have to be close to them you could be multiple blocks away and you look down and it's like it glows right the creativity of our staff is that it's actually We call them the tulip goddesses, by the way. It's Sandy and Maria because they're housed more largely in the parks and recreation. They actually had enough requests that they said, you know what, let's have a recreation program where people sign up to participate and pay to be in the program that then go out with Marie and Sandy and they actually plant and take care of our plantings across the city. That doesn't, I mean, that's crazy. And they are thrilled to come in and do it. They just had kind of a program ending lunch where we just came in and celebrated them and had lunch and they had a ball. And the results are absolutely beautiful, so thank you.

Yeah, and thanks for naming names. Because while that was a nice overview of the high level view, It is great to hear names and specific individuals who have the vision and then implement the vision and the results are just beautiful. So congratulations to them.

Other questions for staff? What is the pleasure of council in regard to this item?

Nathan do we need just to receive it or approve it I think we're just accepting it yeah you know go ahead and do that Mr. Schultes I know you were ready to sure motion to accept the acceptance information the fiscal year 26 strategic plan and business plan final report moved by Schultes is there support support support by Vreeman any discussion

have a couple of comments I have to make first of all thank you thank you first for for taking a moment to smell the roses or the marigolds as it were and and share the highlights because I think that's really important for the public to be able to hear especially the highlight that we have people who are asking to pay to work with our staff to work on our parks and our roadways and plant flowers and my understanding is that last year there was one session of that program and it was so successful that they actually had two sessions of that program this year that sold out which is just simply unbelievable that people are are that interested in working with our incredible staff that's that's just it's a real testament to you and to your team and to the people that care about this city and the residents of the city that they care this much about the city. But also thank you for the strategic plan itself, for the process. We have incredible people, but we have great process, and great people and good process creates incredible results, which we are seeing here. For the members of the public that don't know, this is an incredibly mature and detailed and refined process that we have here that starts with coffee with council that then goes to the council retreat that then goes to the budget process that goes then through the strategic and business plan and if you read our agendas and our action items in detail you will see that every single action item that we take goes right back straight through to the strategic and business plan everything connects to everything else and that's what creates great results so thank you for that thank you for creating an organizational structure and following through with it to make sure that the city runs as well as it does that's a real testament to you that's a real testament to your team and that shows in the results appreciate that all those in favor say aye aye all opposed same sign motion carries Next item on the agenda, item 13, communications from the city manager. Mr. Van Beek, that's you.

I'll be quick, I promise. First, city offices are closed on Friday in observance of our 250th birthday. The Macatawa Area Coordinating Council fireworks are on Saturday, and yes, I did say that right. It's the Macatawa Area Coordinating Council fireworks. It's an example of regional collaboration and pooling of resources and money to pay for it. I will say you'll see a lot of our staff out there coordinating it and our police officers keeping people safe, but we are very thankful to be part of a region that does that. Study session next week. You will see and be able to interact with representatives from both Outdoor Discovery Center Network and Lakeshore Advantage. Why? We have lots of fantastic nonprofits in the community, but those are too particular that we have contracts for services in place. So we always try to take at least one study session and talk about the projects that they're doing and that they're working on and just have the ability to interact with them. You may have seen some sad news for us. I'll assume it's exciting news for her, but we're very sad to see that Jennifer Owens will be leaving us and going back to a prior part of the state and a prior organization that she worked with in the Kalamazoo area, that is a loss. So we'll be able to congratulate her and maybe, I don't know, we'll try to convince her otherwise next week Wednesday when she visits us at study session. And then stay tuned. There's been a lot of information out there, including communications, particularly to the people that live along this area. But July 8th is the target date. And there's always all kinds of things going on with weather and everything of when we will have staff out that will be putting out the 17th Street bike lane demo. So that will be going out. And at the end of that, I think it's actually open right now, but people experience it before you comment on it, right? We will have the ability for people to comment on their experience with that. So we'd really love the community to be aware of it and use it. And certainly the people that live right there will experience it also. So stay tuned for that. And that's all I have. Great.

thank you next item on the agenda item 14 appointments and communications from the mayor i do have a number of appointments this evening i'm recommending to city council to approve the appointment of devin galuz to the international relations commission for his first full term expiring june 30 2029 and to approve the reappointment of victoria tori farian to the human relations commission with a term expiring june 30 2029 and to approve the reappointments of Nate Bosch and Dave DeBloch to the Planning Commission with terms expiring June 30, 2029. And I would be looking for a motion in that regard. So moved. Moved by Schultes. Is there support? Support by Vreeman, any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, same sign. And thank you for mentioning the McIntyre Area Coordinating Council fireworks coming up this weekend. Also, if the public has the opportunity to see some of the great fireworks safety videos that the city has put out recently, check those out on social media check them out on YouTube also and enjoy celebrating the 250th birthday of the country and commemorating but also please be do be considerate of your neighbors and be careful with the fireworks and please know that the City of Holland does not control the fireworks hours or days or times that is all controlled by state law we do our very best to try to try to police that as much as we can but That is all controlled at the state level, not at the local level. But we do ask that you be considerate to your friends and neighbors as well. And that is all I have this evening. Next item on the agenda, 15, appointments, motions, communications from council members. Anything from council members this evening?

Just one thing. Yes, Mr. Corbin. So I know this is our birthday, the 4th of July, right? It's our birthday. It's our nation's birthday. And I'm very proud to know that we can celebrate as a union, as a country, as a nation. I know we're not perfect. And this is the great experiment that started 250 years ago, and it's still lasting today. while we may have differences in opinion on how we get there. It's just a wonderful experiment that we're all going through, and I'm very proud of that. I hope everyone can enjoy the Fourth of July, put down, if you will, the barriers between each and every one of us across our nation, and just celebrate the liberties that we have and the belief in ourselves and the belief in each other that we can be one more. We can be a perfect nation at some point in time. We just have to go through a little bit of pain and suffering at times to get there. So hopefully everybody can just put their flags up and enjoy the 4th of July.

thank you mr. Corbin any other motions communications from council members seeing none there's just one more motion I would take at this time move to adjourn move by Freeman is there support support by Rowan all those in favor say aye aye we are adjourned thank you all have a wonderful evening