Ordinance & License Committee - Regular Meeting

It's June 24th, 2026. This is a meeting of the Administrative Review Appeals Board for the City of Waukesha. The board members are all present, Richard Hanson, Megan Locke, and Sarah Bondar. So we have a quorum and we're able to proceed. This is the hearing of an appeal of an assignment of an address that was brought by the Boucher Group. The hearing today is in the nature of a certiorari review. As I've explained to the parties already, the proceedings today are not formal. The strict rules of evidence do not apply. The idea is to find out what the facts are and not worry about strict rules of procedure. However, the state law says that they are not allowed to make a decision based solely on unsubstantiated hearsay. I need to make an announcement before we begin, since we are subject to the open meetings law. that we will be going into closed session later on to deliberate pursuant to with stat section 19.85 sub one A. The board will deliberate the decision after the parties have put in their cases and we'll then reconvene into open session to make an announcement of a decision or to make an announcement that a written decision will be forthcoming. We will go in the order of the presentation here today will be the Boucher group, the appellant putting in their evidence first. And then the city staff will proceed with theirs. Each party will have an opportunity to ask questions of the other. It looks as though the city is appearing by staff members. We've got Charlie Griffith and Brad Bloomer. Could we note for the record the appearance for the Boucher Group, please?

Yes. Attorney Daniel Nienhuis, the General Counsel of the Boucher Auto Group.

I'm sorry, I should have told you that there's a button on the side of the base of the microphone there.

Okay.

If the green light is on, then you're good to go.

It's on.

Dan Nienhuis, General Counsel of the Bucciato Group. I'm here with our Vice President, Pat Myers, and Chad Chemnitz from PCI, Professional Consultants, Inc.

Thank you. We will swear in witnesses if you're going to present witness testimony, and we will mark exhibits as we go so that they're identified in the record. So we will begin, unless anybody has any questions about procedure. We will begin with the presentation by the Boucher Group.

Thank you. Attorney Running, I appreciate that. I don't know if you all have received a copy of our appeal?

Yes.

Good. I'd like to, it's been marked as Boucher Exhibit 1.

I need to remind you that since we're recording this, and that will be our record of the hearing, that you always need to be speaking into a microphone. Either at the, yeah, right.

I would just like to offer it into the hearing evidence.

Okay, and that's marked as Boucher exhibit one.

And you have those so I can refer to them.

Thanks.

Well, thank you for being here. Thank you for your public service serving on these boards.

It's important.

This is vitally important to our group or we wouldn't have brought you here today. So it's extremely important for us. And the sole issue for you to decide is, is 1451 East Moreland Boulevard the proper address for our Nissan dealership that has been on the parcel of land there for the last 40 some odd years as a Nissan dealership? We've owned and operated that dealership for the last 20 years. So it's always carried the 1451 East Moreland address, all right? So we're asking you guys to allow us to keep that 1451 East Moreland Boulevard address. In their letter that you see, which is attached as exhibit C, or three, I believe, The city makes an argument, they try to give the impression that the 1610 Manhattan Boulevard is set in stone. That that cannot be altered or changed. And that's giving you the wrong impression. They in fact state in the letter that requests for specific addresses cannot be made. That's not true. The guidelines that are attached as exhibit D, specifically contemplate that request can be made for an address, and we're doing that today, and we tried to do that formally, but that was not acceptable to the city for reasons that escape us. As far as we see it, there's no credible or substantial reason why we should not be allowed to keep the 1451 East Moreland address. In fact, the guidelines that govern this process show that the 1451 East Moreland Boulevard address fits squarely within the parameters of those guidelines. And I'm gonna point out some important facts today. The city makes really two arguments that are almost credible. They say that the life, health, and safety of the people and property are impacted by 1451 versus 1610 Manhattan. And they make the argument that 1610 Manhattan is somehow better, but without providing any true facts to support that. It's almost as if they chose 1610 after the fact, and you'll see documentation in here throughout that 1451 was part of the process. We actually have a building, an occupancy permit for 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. The other argument they make is that there was a prior building there at 1610 Manhattan. That's true, there was. But that building has been renovated to the tune of several million dollars, 14,000 additional square feet. The configuration of the building has been changed completely to face Moreland Boulevard. But let's deal with the life, health, and safety of the people and property. We think that 1451 Eastmoreland is a better choice for many reasons. They point to confusion between the 1610 Manhattan building because a building existed there prior. That building was the building that's been changed and renovated and modified to support an address of 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. The other building that was up near the Moreland Boulevard has been demolished. The entire lot, the entire configuration of the lot is directed at Moreland Boulevard. The signage faces Moreland Boulevard. The entryway, there's direct, clear, and accessible access from Moreland Boulevard to our dealership that has been renovated. It's an open and obvious driveway. And there's a sign there that says Nissan right at the entryway. And everyone for the last at least 20 years since we've operated that store knows that the Nissan dealership is at 1451 East Moreland. Okay? Well, let's go through it. They claim that emergency responders may be confused. I find that hard to believe. Many of the responders, fire and police, they're our customers. They've been our customers for decades. Decades. No one gets confused. If there's a 911 call, they're going to say, hey, I'm at the Nissan dealership. They're not going to say 1610 Manhattan. They're going to say, I'm at the Nissan dealership, and I've got a man down, or someone's having a health emergency. All right? So everyone, all the dispatchers know it's at the Nissan store on Moreland Boulevard. That, to me, is pretty clear. And I think that's compelling. And I think that's almost dispositive here. As I mentioned, the Nissan store, we've renovated it. We put signage on the store to face Moreland. That's an investment, right? It costs a lot of money to build these stores. And we did so with the idea and the intent that the corridor there, Moreland Boulevard, is our corridor. It's where all of our Boucher stores are located. And everything tracks towards Moreland, and the entryway and the access point is Moreland Boulevard, all right? That's pretty clear. And I think the most important point here, again, is that we've operated at 1451 East Moreland Boulevard for the last 20 years. We want to maintain that, and I'll get to some points in a minute here. But the confusion stems from the fact that there were two buildings on the same parcel. And that's why you'll see, and I just, by the way, I just got their submission here. I don't know when it was prepared, but I didn't get the courtesy of a review of this prior, which I understand that maybe that was not required by the rules, but I would think that knowing how important this is to us that you probably should have shared it, Charlie. But having said that, There's a lot of confusion at the outset of whether it was 1451 or 1610 Manhattan. That's an understandable fact because there were two buildings on the lot. So clearly there was confusion by their own documentation. But once that building was done and completed, it didn't represent the old building. The old building, because there was a building up by Moreland, naturally the access point was 1610 Manhattan. But when that building was demolished, the old Nissan building was demolished, the confusion should have gone away. In fact, If there's an argument that there's confusion, it no longer exists, right? Because there's one building, one parcel, it's been the same parcel for decades. And that building faces Moreland Boulevard. I'd like to, I guess, direct your attention to something in our exhibit D, which is a drawing from our engineers. And in that, they point out two buildings And I don't know if you can turn to exhibit D in our materials. I don't want to go too fast here. But if you look at exhibit D. I don't know if you're able to pull that up. Yes. You see that? And it's highlighted. And I think this is really, this picture tells a good story here. So if you look at Moreland Boulevard, and I know you've probably lived in the community forever, you probably know this better than I do, but if you look across the street there, there's two properties. The 1530 East Moreland Boulevard and the 1570 East Moreland Boulevard. What's significant about those two buildings is there's no direct access point on Moreland Boulevard. And yet they got or were assigned a Moreland Boulevard address. Do you see that? I don't know if you have any questions on that. I'll pause for a moment and see if you have questions. Do you see that? I'm sorry? Okay, but I just want you to acknowledge, or you don't have to acknowledge, but it bears repeating. If you look at those properties, they have Moreland Boulevard addresses, but there's no direct access way. So I don't know if a first responder is going to respond to the Moreland Boulevard address and not be able to get in that way. So the safety issue is really overblown and overdramatized, and we don't understand the rationale for it. We really don't. I mean, that to me is almost, I should just say that I rest my case, but here, That makes no sense to us. Our dealership, the 1451, if you look on where you see where Manhattan comes down, there's direct access right where that old building used to be. So the confusion, because that building existed there, no longer exists. And all the prior documentation, and whether it was 1610 at this time or that time, really doesn't matter. What matters is today. And like I'm gonna point out here, our investment was made to maximize Moreland Boulevard, and there's a reason for it, and I'll stay right on this exhibit. If you look at 1451, but then look just to the, it would be to the west there. 1421 East Moreland, that's our Boucher Chevrolet dealership, okay? That's a Moreland Boulevard address. It has direct access from Moreland. Then the 1451, which is a subject dealership, that's a Nissan dealership, that has direct access to Moreland. Then if you look at 1503 East Moreland, that has direct access too. 1537, the same thing. So that's a significant point. I don't know if you have any questions about that.

It's kind of hard to see on the map, so I just want to confirm. There is a driveway from Moreland all the way down to the 1451 East Moreland Boulevard entrance.

Absolutely. And at the intersection there, there's a sign that says Nissan right here, okay? And just to emphasize that point, we designed the entire building with the intent to maximize that corridor and that exposure. That makes business sense, because everyone drives on Moreland Boulevard. They don't drive down Manhattan unless they have a specific reason to. But they may see our dealership on Moreland, and that's why we configured the signage that way, and the entryway, and their delivery bays. All of it is angled towards Moreland to maximize that intersection. And that was at significant cost and significant investment and a lot of thought went into it. But we didn't just haphazard any of this. It was all with the intent to maximize What we've created, if you're playing Monopoly, you want to get the three colors together. That's what we're trying to do here with Moreland Boulevard, to have Moreland be the Boucher, you know, our compound. And that's vitally important for business reasons. That has nothing to do with the health and safety, but that's a significant impact here. That's what's impacting us and our business, and that's why we're here.

Is that a bunch of vehicles, a representation of a bunch of vehicles there in front of the 1451?

Yes, but there's a direct pathway from that. Because you obviously want your customers to drive in the lot and look at all the inventory. So we're not going to make it a jigsaw puzzle where they have to go through a maze to get to our store. It's direct access. That's marketing. They pull in and they see.

If I may be excused for just a moment to make an observation. Sure. Not only that, but there's not only Boucher dealers there, but there's others. I'm not mentioning them, but I'm just saying there are other. There's dealers all along that strip there. And to me, as a customer of some of them, it gets to be very confusing to try to drive in where service is and everything else. And there's really nothing that have numbers on them that I could see.

Well, that's why we have a sign at the intersection of Moreland and the entryway. And that's why we've designed a lot to make that easier for customers like yourself that are driving in. And we want to flow them into our store via Moreland Boulevard because that makes business sense and it's the natural order of things. That's the way most people are going to access our store. They're not going to turn right down Manhattan. And we don't want them to, frankly.

But aren't they going to... access that for reasons other than just looking at a car? Yeah, they may.

Absolutely. And we've designed the store with that intent, too, to make it easy to navigate on the site.

That would be our direct pathway into our service parts sales.

Manhattan Drive?

No, Moreland. Moreland. It's a straight drive-through, straight to the dealership.

Are there any... Traffic control signals along that area are planned to be any traffic control signals.

There's one on the corner.

Just the one in Manhattan?

In Moreland. Yeah, there's a four-way.

But I right now can pass all the way up Manhattan to Moreland if I need to. That's the way it's currently configured, right?

No, our main driveway is in Moreland.

Yeah, that's our main driveway.

You could still access it from Manhattan, but the main focus of our designing the building, building the building, demolishing the old building was aimed at maximizing our Moreland Boulevard exposure. That's the whole point here. 1610 versus 1451, the confusion issue no longer exists because everyone knows Nissan is at 1451 East Moreland. Most everybody knows to access the store you're gonna pull in off Moreland. The proximity to Manhattan of the building itself shouldn't matter at all. And I don't think it does. Especially when you look at those two buildings across the street that were granted East Moreland Boulevard addresses. Even though there's no direct access. That to me is a huge fact.

That's a competitor's dealership on that other side of the road, isn't it?

Well, there is now. They're redoing that, right? What was the question?

There's a competitor's dealership across the road from us on Eastmoreland.

No, where the custard straighter to be. We're the Greek. Yeah, across from our we're on the corner of Genesis. And across the street is the Subaru dealership where the Greek restaurant was. Yes.

I'm aware of that now. I'm just saying that could be, it's water under the bridge already. I could see where all that could be a rather confusing situation. I'm thinking as a driver coming up there, you know.

We have our Chevy store to the west of us, to the Nissan. That's been there for the last forever. Moreland. The Nissan stores, Moreland. Genesis, Moreland. Then we're the Hyundai dealer also on the next property on Moreland.

And... We want to maximize Moreland. If we haven't said that enough already, sorry to repeat myself. But I want to point out that a lot of the documentation, and again, I haven't had a chance to review what they provided, but it's important to point out a couple of documents. In the city's own letter, which was probably the first communication on this one, It said, the plan commission approved your application at its June 28th, 2023 meeting for final site plan and architectural review for a new Nissan dealership at 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. That's always been our intent. And the fact that 1610 got jumbled in here is only because there was another building there. And it made sense, frankly, at the time. for reasons that I think have been articulated. But we have an occupancy permit, and I can hold it up for you, but it's an exhibit here. It basically says, it's Exhibit E in your packet, but it says 1451. That was the occupancy permit that was issued for us. In their letter of April 28, the city gives the impression that the 1610 Manhattan Drive address is final and cannot be changed. The guidelines allow for specific changes. In fact, a change should be made here. And the way the guidelines are written, the address development manager on behalf of the director of public works should make the change and has the authority to make the change. So you, the board, have the authority, I want you to be clear about that, you have the authority to make the change or to direct them to make the change. We've already pointed out the numerical sequencing here, the street names or street numbers. It follows in perfect order, 1421, then 1451, then 1507, 1531, 1535, 1537. It all goes in sequence. So it already exists. That 1451 is already in the system. In fact, when we researched the issue, the post office had 1451. We had the other utilities, city clerk, assessor's office, UPS, everyone had 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. All right. The same can be said for police and fire. They have the 1451 address. So, again, the egress is aimed at Moreland Boulevard. Signage is oriented towards Moreland Boulevard. All of the mapping services, so when you go on Google Maps or Apple Maps or any navigation system and you type in Nissan Waukesha, it'll direct you to 1451 East Moreland. And it'll direct you, because I did it last week, it'll direct you to turn in off of Moreland. I think that's significant. All of the internet searches that you'll do when you type in Waukesha, Nissan, it'll show 1451 at the address. Okay, you all Google, right? And you make searches. Do you know how hard it is to change what's out there in the history of Google? To change our Nissan address at this 11th hour, like they wanna do for reasons that escape us, will entail creating much more confusion than already exists right now. Because when you type in the internet, which people live on the internet, right? We navigated ourselves here today. It goes by what's in the history of the internet. And unfortunately, that's hard to erase if you've ever done it. And I'm going to point out what a test that is with our marketing side of the business. But the developer manager, the address development manager, can notify, to the extent it's necessary, can notify all the utilities, all the other city agencies, everything. It's just a letter. There's no act of Congress that's necessary here. It's just changing the address. And we think that we've presented a compelling reason why we should do that. All right. We haven't even addressed one major issue here. Let's just say for the sake of argument that 1610 versus 1451, it's a toss-up. And I don't think that's true for a minute, but just for the point of argument. If it's like, oh, why is it so important? Well, I'm going to show you why it's important to us right now. Our franchise agreement with Nissan has the address at 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. to change documentation with the factory, with our franchises. And I do it a lot because I've managed all of our dealerships across all of our networks with all of the franchises and all the manufacturers. They have a team of lawyers on their side that will put us through our paces to change documentation. And what happens when that occurs is they have the opportunity to change the terms of our deal with them. They can impose different conditions. And we don't want to open that Pandora's box with our factory. That's hugely important to us. And all of their records and all of their documentation is tied to 1451 Eastmoreland. So that's a very big deal. And I'm wondering if you have any questions on that.

Okay? I was just formulating something here, but you're saying that you have to have this for the factory so they know where to send the cars? Is that the idea?

Well, that's my next bullet point, but the current bullet point I'm on is this. All of the documentation, they have a lot of conditions. Shareholders, ownership, dealer principal, staffing, capitalization. There's a bunch of conditions that they have in their dealer agreements, okay? And like I said, they have a team of lawyers drafting them. And then the address that's tied to the dealership is very important because they assign areas of primary responsibility for dealers based on their address. So all of the documentation that the factory has issued to us has 1451 as that address. Now if we go to them and say, hey, Nissan, the city is trying to shut us down, even though we've operated on this site for the last 20 years, because we have to change the address to 1610 Manhattan, they're gonna look at us and say, well, we gotta change all of our documents here. So we now need to redo all of your dealer paperwork, And it's a 50-page agreement that imposes a lot of conditions. And when that happens, they have the right to change the terms on us. So we have a 10-year agreement, now we gotta renegotiate some points there. That's a huge deal. And that's something that's lost on everyone in this room. But who knows that the most is me, because I'm the one who has to deal with it, with the factory and the lawyers. And that's a huge consideration, that is. You know, you mentioned the parts and delivery. It's a simple fact. They could probably change it, but everything is tied to 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. All the delivery paperwork, all of the logistics, there's logistics companies, there's transport companies, they all are tied to 1451. You see the big trucks with the 10 cars on it? Well, they're all in their systems. Nissan, factory, all that. That would all be disrupted here.

Can I just make a facetious point for just a moment?

Sure.

How do they know where to drop them off now? Because they've been dropping them off here for a while. Well.

It's the same address, 1451. Yeah.

You're looking to change the address then.

No, we want to keep the same address we've always had. They're the ones who want to change the address, not us. We want to keep 1451. They've, after the fact, changed the address for reasons that escape us. And we think, with all due respect, we think there's some vindictiveness here, I'm just gonna say it. And we've had some issues over the years with parking and this and zoning, but this is vindictive in the first degree. And I'm gonna say that especially based on not getting any of this paperwork and feeling like trial by ambush. I don't appreciate that. And I feel like we have a decent relationship for the most part, but I don't understand The fixation was 1610 Manhattan because it makes no sense whatsoever. When you really think about it, you look at the maps, you look at the paperwork, you look at the occupancy permit, and you consider the business considerations that I'm just going through now, I don't see how you can reach any other conclusion. I really don't. Like I said, all of our digital marketing with Google, internet searches, Yelp, Facebook, BBB, All of that marketing that we've developed over the last 20 years for our Nissan brand is tied to the 1451 Eastmoreland Boulevard address. Changing that with Google is like getting the Titanic moved around six times in a bathtub. It is a very difficult thing to do. And that's a huge problem. If we have to now market all of our stuff with a new address and can't represent that we've had 1451 for our Nissan dealership that we've done for the last 20 years, that's a big problem. That's a big problem that I think we can overcome that problem very simply. All right? Again, I'll mention the website again. The electronic world, the digital world is all tied to 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. That history doesn't go away because we've made a change in the address. That's out there forever. That creates more confusion. That's the problem. All of our marketing materials developed over years of effort are tied to Moreland Boulevard. for Boucher, for the Nissan brand. And you, as a customer, I think can attest to the fact that if you're a dealer, you wanna be on Moreland if you're in Waukesha. That's important.

It's vitally important to us. They stretch Moreland pretty tight. Yeah. Just go down the other end, you got a store way down at the other end, you can hardly get to it. And I've been a customer of it, so I know.

Yeah. So you know why the importance of Moreland. You know, all of our legal contracts are tied to 1451. I don't know if we need amendments to those. I know that we have vendor contracts like our alarm companies are tied to 1451. They're set to respond to 1451 or fire. our own alarms that we have, our burglar alarms, that's intent. We've got our fire inspection, for example, passed, that was 1451, for our new dealership. Our DOT license, and they're all in the materials, they're all exhibits in my Boucher exhibit one, but I'm just gonna point out a few. And this is a sampling. Our DOT dealer license with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation has 1451 as our address. Our Department of Revenue seller's permit has our 1451 address. Our tax registration documentation says 1451. Our DFI DBA trade name that says Boucher, no, Boucher, Waukesha, Nissan of Waukesha. That's 1451. Our vendor contracts, again, 1451. But I'd like to pause here and reflect on the investment that we made in the property. It's a lot of money to build these dealerships and to build them to the factory specifications. Chad can attest to this. They tell you exactly what to put in in every spot of the dealership and it's not cheap. And we had the design of the building approved based on its configuration towards Moreland to maximize that corridor. And on top of that, we tore down the existing building The one that was towards the front of the lot there. That building, we tore down. We might not have tore it down if we knew we were gonna have all of these issues over 1610 and threatening to shut us down. That's what I don't understand. That's a huge investment that we made, both in the new building and in tearing down the old building. Largely because we wanna, again, maximize our goodwill that we've built up over decades. Goodwill, business goodwill, is tied to Moreland and our brand. Changing that now impacts everything. It's a bigger deal than meets the eye. And if I haven't made that point clear, I'm sorry. But I think, the final thing I wanna mention, and I think you've hit on it, and that is the community, the continuity in the community matters. It does. And I think maintaining that continuity with 1451 tied to the Nissan brand is important to us and I think it's important to the community. And I'd like to again emphasize that none of the arguments that you're gonna hear here in a minute are controlling. There's nothing, there's no granite tablet that is, marked with 1610 Manhattan or vice versa. This is all subject to change. 1610 will harm our business. I think I pointed that out. And I think 1451 is the better, safer, less confusing alternative here. So for all these reasons, we respectfully ask the board to agree with us that we should be able to maintain the 1451 address for the Nissan dealership as it has been for the last 40 years. It was a Nissan dealership before we bought it. We've operated it for the last 20 years, but it's always been tied to that address, and we would like to continue that for the reasons that I've said. Thank you for your time. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

I just have one question. You've talked a lot about the investment that you've already made. Have you looked into what the investment would be in the change of the address?

Well, I have not done that study, no. But I can represent to you that it's significant. Just the printing alone. And again, changing the infrastructure of the internet is beyond, we can't change a lot of that.

The history won't disappear. Yep. And we'll be finding that all the time. Just getting Apple Maps, Google Maps, they're not going to change it because we filled out a form. Right. It's going to hurt our business.

It will.

And then the other follow-up question I have is, I was looking on here, I don't see any pictures of the actual building from the road. Do you have any documentation showing the building itself from Moreland Road? It's hard to see from the map how far of a driveway we're looking at. Is it obstructed, anything like that?

There's no obstructions.

Is there not an alleyway in front of that Nissan dealership?

No, it's a street off Moreland. It's a street shot right into our Nissan.

If I'm coming in as a customer, it's kind of like a pass-through for me, right? If I turned in there off of Manhattan onto what's paralleling Moreland there?

Well, you access it from Moreland. That's where the signage that says Nissan dealership. So you turn left, you pull right in this door. You go right in direct, it's not that long. It's, I don't know, we could probably do the math on that.

It's a straight. It's a straight shot. Constructive view. And actually, we were able to take telephone poles out because we put them underground. Now it's just a straight view right to the Nissan. You don't have to turn left or right, it's straight. And you'll see the brand sign, but you'll also, on the building facing Moreland, you'll see it says Nissan. There's nothing else in front of it.

And the showroom is facing Moreland. So at night, when you drive by, the lights show Moreland. The lights don't shine at Manhattan. So it was never intent to have Manhattan.

But you could still do it if you wanted to. I mean, I'm not saying I would want to, but I get the idea. I'm driving around the parking lot looking for a car.

We wouldn't want to do it. We wouldn't want to do it. And it's going to take a lot more. We're not doing it.

I have no other questions.

Any other questions from the board?

The only question I have is, I just wanted to clarify how were you officially notified that this is taking place from the city?

If you look at their April 28th letter, it's the 28th letter. Okay. That was the 1st notice we got of it. Okay. And that's after we have been issued an occupancy permit and we, we thought we were good to go. And. And the letter itself, if you take some time to really read it, again, focuses on those two issues, health and safety, which I think we've demonstrated that don't apply, okay? And then the other is the confusion because it was an existing building that was assigned, but that was before the other building was demolished. That whole issue was on a house of cards and it's been eliminated. So...

But we've been operating since. There's been no confusion. All our deliveries, police, mailmen, they all, it's the same address. That's what we don't quite understand.

Thank you.

I don't have any further questions.

Anything else from the board? Does city staff have any questions they would like to ask Boucher? Does Boucher have anything else they would like to present to the board?

No, we just would like to reserve our right to respond to anything.

Is that okay with the board?

Yes, yes.

Okay. All right then, if you're ready, city staff can present their position.

Just got a couple things. Mr. Grant, is this one? Oh, this is just the property records. This one we just had .

Which one are you going to use first?

So I've just got a kind of a presentation on just kind of going through the history of the review. It would be this one, I guess, the timeline. And then the letter. Yeah, we just we got that to them just now.

So we will be marking as Exhibit 2.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you.

And then the letter from the fire marshal, he basically, he wasn't able to be here, so he just wrote up a letter kind of explaining his position.

Letter on fire department letterhead dated June 22nd will mark as Exhibit 3.

That's the only one we got. Yeah, that's the only one we got.

I gave you another one.

Thank you. And then Brad had written up his analysis too, and he was just going to

I wrote on this one.

That's okay. Yes. Hang on to this.

All right. Are you guys ready for me to start?

Ready.

All right. So this is an aerial photo of the property, just kind of to show You know, it's it's a 1 property with 3 buildings. 1421 East. Moreland is the Chevy dealership. 1610 Manhattan was previously it had been used for a number of different things and then 1451 East. Moreland. Previously located closer to moreland at the corner there that was the Nissan dealership. Um, so this is from, I think, April 2025 was the last time these, these, uh, photos were taken. Um, the construction had been started, but that's really that's how it's looked for. A very long time, and this is just was submitted with, uh. 1 of the plan commission reviews, so just to, you know, so you've got another way to just to see it there. So, 1421 again, the Chevy dealership 1451 was the Nissan dealership and then 1610. Immediately before they had moved. Before this construction, it was, it was a, you drive it now dealership another another use car dealership. So, in 2023, they submitted an application to the plan commission. For approval of plans to demolish the. The dealership at 1451, he's more on and rebuild another dealership in its place. So this is the plan that was reviewed. And approved by the plan commission, it was approved on June 28, 2023. Um, and, uh, that 1, you can see was, uh, had an at entrance directly out towards. Moreland Boulevard, it was more logically the, the entrance from Moreland was more logically directed straight to it. And then the, this is the building elevation facing north. The building was facing directly towards Moreland. So, at that time, there was an addressing review that was done as part of that plan commission site plan and architectural review application that went through the. You know, that went through the, uh, the addressing guidelines. And determine that it was appropriate to to continue using 1451 Eastmoreland Boulevard for that new building. And that approval letter from 2023 that was in the in what submitted. Uh, is that is referencing that plan. So they had determined, I think they had told us that they had determined that that it wasn't feasible for them to have. The dealership closed feeling the amount of time it would take to do the construction. To demolish the building and then rebuild it in its place. So they decided instead to to move the dealership to the other building. And then leave the, the, the existing dealership open. Until that 1 was completed, and then they then they demolished it afterwards. So this is the plan that was reviewed by the Planning Commission in 2024. I think it was approved on August 28, 2024. And at the time, there wasn't a formal request to change the address for 1610 Eastmoreland. There wasn't a formal review done because it was an existing building. Chad Chemnitz from Professional Consultants, who's the person that Boucher has applied for all of these building projects, He had mentioned it during 1 of our preliminary review meetings that would like to keep the address. I mentioned it to to Brad and to the team, and they did an informal review. And what they came back with was basically. They felt that the direct address was to Manhattan drive. So you can see, I had the circle there, the. That primary address, there's also a secondary 1 for their North on Manhattan. Um, the customer parking is right there. The building, you know, it is angled, but if, you know, if you follow the line out straight out, it still is angled towards Manhattan, not towards the intersection. And it's the direct. The direct pedestrian and vehicle add access is there. Also, it's about 350 feet back from the. From the more on Boulevard entrance. So, this is, it's just a close up of the plan that was approved again. This is the addition. So the, the. Hashmark is all the new sections of the building that were added, and then the rest of it had been existing. The interior, I believe, was gutted and redone, but it was a... That was the addition to the building. So these are some photos from previous code enforcement cases. We've had a long standing issue with not specific to Boucher, it does include Boucher, but basically every car dealership in the city. You know, our understanding is they have a hard time controlling their inventory. So they get a big shipment in and they have to kind of find places to park the vehicles. And they tend to get parked all over the lots. Sometimes, as in this case, this is from the other, the property on the other side of Manhattan. They're parked in ways that block access to drive lanes. which can cause an issue for the fire department. Or again, this is also the other side of Manhattan. They're parked in customer or employee spaces, and then a lot of the time the employees end up parking in the neighborhoods surrounding them. Again, this is not specific to Boucher. It's every dealership, but it is an issue that we've had in the past with Boucher. So between the 2023 site plan review and the 2024 review, the city had changed the zoning ordinance to make car dealerships a conditional use. So that's when they came to redo with the new plan, to move it to the new building they they had it was reviewed as both site plan and architecture review and a conditional use permit so that this is the approval letter for that which was issued august 30th 2024 it does identify the address of the building as 1610 manhattan drive that's for the approval on august 28 2024 I really do hope they have a copy of this, because it has some conditions of the conditional use permit, which involve the operations of the dealership. And for the building permits, the building permit was, we received the application on October 23rd of 2024. It included that cover letter, that plan commission approval letter, as well as a concurrence letter from the engineering department. Plan examination review letter and building plans, which all identified the building as 1610 Manhattan drive. The permit was just was issued February 6 of 2025 when it was submitted. There were some, some comments from the plan commission approval that hadn't been addressed. So it took some time to get those addressed and then it was issued under 1421 East 1 Boulevard. And the reason for the discrepancy we've looked into the into the records that we have. It looks like that was a change that was made. Basically, it was made on February 5th, 2025, right before the permit was ready to be issued. There was a conversation between somebody at professional consultants and. Our our permit tech who had not been involved in any of the discussions. She doesn't remember the what what the conversation was. We don't think there was any. Any malicious intent or anything like that on anybody's part. You know, certainly not on the part of the. The staff of professional consultants, we just it was there was confusion over the, you know, the multiple addresses on the property. So it was issued under the. Under the address of 1421, he's more on Boulevard. So that's that's the permit placard that was issued. On February 6th of 2025. And then they received occupancy February 26 of this year, under 1451 Eastmoreland Boulevard. We think it was a similar case where they had submitted for occupancy under that address. Whoever submitted that application had not been privy to the previous discussions, and neither was the person that was reviewing the occupancy permit. So that was submitted, that was approved February 26th of this year. Since the discrepancy has been discovered in our system, those occupancies have been changed so they do reflect 1610 Manhattan instead now. That's the change in the, when it was submitted isn't an addressing review or anything like that. We received a demo permit for the building after that occupancy was was approved. So that was issued on. March 18th of this year, we had some issues with the demo permit. With some materials that weren't secured and they were blowing down the street. So that came to the, the attention of our. Property maintenance inspectors, and they didn't know what to do with the address. They weren't sure what address to put it under. So that so it came to the attention of myself and Brad. And we started discussions with at that point. We actually had contacted them at the beginning of April and that that letter was the. Formal decision after we had met with them and talk to them a little bit about it. So, I just have some photos of the dealership as it is now. So this is. Taken from Manhattan drive the, the, that's the secondary access on to Manhattan, which is currently blocked. That's a violation of the terms of the conditional use permit. So we'd like that to be fixed. um this was from earlier this week so we and we haven't had any uh contact with them about it at this point but um this is the the what we would consider to be the primary entrance uh uh from manhattan drive uh our understanding is that the the the garage doors there the overhead doors are the service entrance and then the you know the uh The pedestrian access is there. And then this is the entrance from. From Morland Boulevard, so you can see the, the Chevy dealership. The Nissan dealership is there in the background. And then here is straight down that straight down that that driveway. So it does go directly to the Nissan dealership there. There is currently. Vehicle parts in the, in that drive lane. And again, that was that was 1 of the reasons that we had. Made the change to require a conditional use permit is so that we have some enforcement capability to. To prevent vehicles from being parked in the drive lanes there. So I also have a letter from the. The fire Marshall, he's he's on vacation this week, so he wasn't able to be there to be here. I can read that to you if you'd like or. Or you can read it yourselves, whichever you prefer. And then Brad has some more information on the. Addressing analysis. I guess just one thing to note, there wasn't any, we just got the documentation to them. Some of it was, I put together this timeline literally this morning. It wasn't really, we didn't have any understanding that we needed to provide any of this ahead of time. It wasn't because we were intending to foist it on anybody or anything like that. There wasn't any vindictiveness. So I don't know if you want me to read the letter from the fire marshal or if you would...

I think we can take some time to review it at some point.

Okay. And then Brad has...

Also provided is a letter titled Analysis of Addressing Lineage at 1610 Manhattan Drive and 1451 East Moreland Boulevard. I just want to take a little bit of time to go through the first few pages just to summarize the process of addresses in the city of Waukesha and the history at this location.

Can you tell us who you are and what your position is, please? Yes, my apologies.

My name is Brad Bloomer. I'm the GIS coordinator at the City of Waukesha and the de facto address development manager, which is a title that's been passed down through history in the Department of Public Works. So to introduce you to addressing at the city and in the state for that matter, the assignment of addresses is a decentralized process in the state of Wisconsin. It's handled by local authorities. So in the city of Waukesha, addresses are assigned as an administrative function and communicated to other agencies as needed. A good analogy to that would be, you know, parcel, uh, parcel numbers or tax key numbers. Those are assigned administratively by the city, uh, and distributed out as as needed to assist with the address assignment. Various iterations of the street naming and addressing guidelines have been developed. The origins of the guidelines predate the city's transition to a digital addressing database, but they continue to be used as a reference when assigning addresses. So the primary purpose of an address number and a street name is to identify and locate a building consistently for public-facing and government functions, including navigation and emergency response. In the city, addresses are assigned to buildings, not parcels. And more specifically, an address is assigned based on building orientation and access. generally by reference to a straight line extending perpendicular from the primary public entrance to the building. And we choose that methodology because it's the most consistently applied to any building that's being reviewed. Exceptions can be made where primary frontage does not have practical access to the street which it fronts, such as limited access highways. So if you picture a Costco that's facing I-94, in that scenario, we would not address it to I-94. We would address it to the closest access that somebody could practically take. So when applied impartially and without regard to outside factors unrelated to the building itself, this method provides the most consistent and objective basis for assigning addresses. And to go through the generalized building and address life cycle as we see it at the city, the life cycle of an address is intrinsically linked to the building to which the address belongs. Lots, tax parcels, property boundaries, et cetera, can change as there's surveys or parcel combinations, deeds, trading land, and similar actions that could happen outside of the city's control or involvement. Buildings, however, are built, altered, and occupied and demolished through processes that involve city review. So to create a new address, what we call an addressing review, is performed at various stages in the life cycle of a building. The second page in here has a simplified life cycle, starting with site plan and architectural review, which Charlie has touched on. During that process, if there is a new building proposed, the plan and layout for that building will be reviewed, and it will be assigned an address based off of the intersection of that straight line out the door with the addressing range along the street which it fronts. That only occurs if there's a new building proposed. Then the address is said to be preliminary. So in the case of the 2023 site plan and architectural reviews, those were preliminary addresses stating that should that building be built, that is the address that we would approve. Next, the building permit would be issued. And at that point, there's no addressing review. It is simply changed to pending, meaning the address is being actively built, but so far that building has not been occupied. At the point of an occupancy permit, we consider the address active, and it continues that way through the lifespan of the building. There may be alteration or additions put onto the building. The address remains active. And if there is an addressing review, that only tends to happen in situations where new suites are added. And suites are, if you can think of businesses within a strip mall, those are suites. So if there is a alteration permit, that would add additional units to a building that would trigger an addressing review. But for single occupancy buildings, we do not review alteration permits for addresses. And then finally, at the end of a life of a building, there's a demolition permit. And although there is an addressing review, there's really no reviewing happening. All that's happening is that the address is removed, or the address status is changed to removed. So the address isn't ever really deleted from our systems, because there's still history tied to that address. But it is delisted from our public GIS website and thought to be removed. So under this framework, an alteration permit for an existing single occupant building does not by itself create a new address unless the project creates additional occupancies, as I had stated. Next, just a history of addressing at the subject site. The appeal characterizes the city's action as an address assignment made during the planning and construction phase of this project, but our city records instead indicate that 1610 Manhattan Drive was the pre-existing address of the renovated building, while 1451 East Moreland Boulevard was the pre-existing address of the separate building that was later demolished. The city did not take formal action to alter the pre-existing addresses of the two buildings involved. And as reflected in the workflow that I just went through, the alteration permit applied to an active address and building and did not involve the creation of additional occupancies or suites. So no address review was performed. The address of 1451 East Moreland Boulevard was assigned originally in 1968 when the building was originally constructed, and that address was retired in 2026 when the building was demolished. During its 58-year history, the structure underwent at least three alterations or renovations and housed a variety of occupants, originally Spencer Cadillac, Wild Honda, Wild Nissan, Wild Nissan and Suzuki, and finally Boucher Nissan. That might not be comprehensive. We have two systems that keep records of buildings, one of which is Laserfiche, which for 1451 East Moreland Boulevard contains 315 pages of archived records, which are available as an addendum to this exhibit, and 28 records in TrackIt, which is the permitting software. So the end of the life for 1451 was when the demolition permit was issued, and that address was deactivated. The address of 1610 Manhattan Drive was assigned in 1990 when the building was originally constructed and has not changed since that time. During its 36-year history, the structure underwent at least three alterations or renovations, housed the following occupants, originally Gordie Boucher Nissan, excuse me, Saturn, the Gordie Boucher Service Center, and finally Boucher Nissan. Because those changes involved alterations to an existing structure, no address changes were made, either because of this alteration permit or any of the previous alteration permits. So attachment two has a more detailed timeline of each building. Again, it might not be comprehensive. 1610 Manhattan Drive had at least 278 pages of archived records and 29 records in track it, which would include permits, projects, and cases. All right, I'm near the end here. I'm not going to go through the site plan because Charlie has already covered that. Just to summarize the The addressing situation here the city acted consistently in retaining the long-standing address of the existing building and retiring the address of the demolished building No formal action by the city transferred the address 1451 East Moreland Boulevard from the demolished building to the separately addressed building at 1610 Manhattan Drive the applicable reviews occurred at the expected stages and the address records are being maintained in a same in the same manner as for other projects and So we would recommend retaining that address of 1610 Manhattan Drive for the structure. If the appeal is upheld, city staff would benefit from clear direction regarding whether and under what circumstances an address associated with a demolished building may be transferred to a different existing building, and such a decision may establish a precedent for future address requests based on applicant preference, operational burden other considerations such as 3rd party Internet sources and these are not previously treated as part of this city's standard addressing review processes. After that summary the rest of this letter does respond to individual inquiries about the addressing guidelines and will not go through those right now, but I can answer any questions we have them.

Questions from the board in reviewing the.

Exhibit that Boucher provided, they provided a map. Can you speak to the addresses that they refer to on the other side of. Moreland Boulevard, the ones that don't have an egress from Moreland, but still have moreland addresses.

Yeah, Charlie, do you have that?

I'm trying to... I can share it. Yeah, just trying to pull mine up.

Thank you.

Can you zoom out a little bit?

Visible on the screen is the... Oh, thank you.

Oh, that's it.

Yeah, I have it.

I'm sorry. They're referring to these two. On the north side.

I'm sorry, which address are you referring to? It was it is it. The properties on the South side of Eastmoreland no on the on the North side.

Yeah, so 1530 and 1570 specifically where they highlighted those.

I see it's like those are retired also.

Yeah, it looks like some of those addresses are retired.

Those it was a number of buildings that were replaced with the wild Subaru fairly recently. That's address is 1560.

Okay, so those have all been removed now with that new construction.

1560 remains and. It is accessible off of Manhattan drive there. the proximity of the building to Moreland and the nearby access on Manhattan is consistent with how that site was accessed in the past and Similarly on the south side of East Moreland Like 1533 and 1537 those buildings were built originally with there was only a limited number of those buildings in front of it so they retain they retain their address from their original construction and

15 or 315 or 3 Eastmoreland is the push a Genesis dealership, which was built a few years ago.

Correct, so the ones behind it, I know that used to be like a rainbow foods or something like that. But that still maintains the Moreland. Boulevard address, right?

Okay.

But that still has access from Manhattan drive and Moreland.

don't think i have any other questions anything else from the board i don't have any further questions no okay uh does boucher have any questions for city staff yeah well i can appreciate the history but i don't think it's relevant um and i understand that you're applying the addressing function currently trying to even though during the pendency of our appeal without our input, I think, is a bit disingenuous. But I think everything that they've stated in this addressing function applies to the 1451 Eastmoreland address equally.

Do you have questions for city staff?

Well, yeah, I'd like to point out a couple things. City staff, GIS is tied to a physical location, not an address, is that correct?

In what manner do you mean?

Well, the GIS system is a point on the map. It's not tied to an address, or is it?

In our GIS, an address is represented by a point.

And that can be changed, right?

There is no technical reason that an address point cannot be moved or the attributes, including the address number, can't be changed, correct?

Right. Everything in here, the history, can I make a statement?

Well, I think we'll allow time for a closing statement, but for now I'm asking about if you have any questions before the city staff rests.

Okay, but if we could pull up that photo, I think it's kind of a misrepresentation almost. It's as if you stood at the worst possible location to depict it.

But you'll see it's angled. It's angled away from the entrance.

See how it's angled away from the entry?

This one?

Yeah. No, the Manhattan entrance. That's the one right here. No, right here. It's angled away from, you know, and there's a Nissan, yeah, there's a sign there, you can see it, but it's directed towards Moreland. When you come down Moreland, you see it. You know, when you come down Manhattan, you don't see it because it's angled the other way. But there's also a Nissan sign on the, if you go to the drawing, Oh, I think you haven't. This one right here.

That's right. The one before that.

Can you make sure you're talking to the microphone too, please? Thank you.

Yeah. The one right before it. Right there. You didn't talk about that one.

Right here?

That's a bad answer.

That's like, let's stand in front of the 1421 building and not even show the Nissan. That's a misrepresentation. If you stand right here at this entryway, you see nothing but the Nissan dealership. See, it says Nissan right there, that signage. That's where we want people to come in, that way.

All right? Can I interrupt for just a second here? If you want to make a summation, you will have an opportunity to do that. But right now, it's the city staff's case. I'm wondering if they are ready to rest, and if they are, whether you have any questions for them. Otherwise, you will have an opportunity to refer to these exhibits in a summation.

The history when you talk about 1610 Manhattan. That building was never the Nissan store, was it? In your history, I think you say that the 1610 Manhattan Drive was assigned in 1990. And then you go through Gordie Boucher Saturn, Gordie Boucher Service Center. But prior to this issue, it was never Nissan.

That would appear to be correct.

Yes. In the timeline, all of that was when there were two buildings on the lot, right? So. all of the records and the timeline and all that, there was always two buildings on the lot. Does that change it, your opinion now when you apply the addressing protocols, which I think you've attempted to do here, but doesn't that change your thinking? Because I think some of the arguments or the way you've applied it, are because there are two buildings on the site. I guess my point is, I'd ask you to not conflate the two. Is that a fair question there for you?

Yes. We review building plans as they come in as independently as possible to any other building around it. So the address lineage that was developed for this appeal is not a typical part of an addressing review. An addressing review is a simple administrative function of looking at a single building if it's just one single building or multiple buildings and the direction that they are oriented on the plans. And in the case of addresses, it is when it is a new building. So in this case, no addressing review occurred.

Are you saying we can ask for an addressing review, correct? Is that something we can ask for?

In the guidelines, there's a mechanism for an addressing review. This has happened in a few cases, one of which is where we had addresses that were causing issues with residents going to the wrong polling location. We assigned new addresses in that situation. Also there is a situation where there is similarly named streets so if you can imagine one two three main street and one two three main court there are situations where somebody would call emergency services and they would go to the wrong location. In that case, we could perform an addressing review, which would essentially wipe the slate clean and assign a new address to the building in question. The specific address, it will be determined based on the new addressing review. So this building, and as we responded when we were informally asked in 2024, is that correct? Yeah. is oriented to Manhattan Drive. So while we may issue a new address that might not be 1610 Manhattan Drive, it still would certainly be a Manhattan Drive address.

Well, let me ask you this. When the city issued the April 28 letter, no addressing review had been done.

Correct.

And to my knowledge, one hasn't been done.

That is correct.

All we're asking for is an address review that takes into account the fact that the building has been demolished. Because all this history is clouded by the fact that there was a building there. There isn't one. And would you agree with me that the sequencing of the Moreland addresses would include, naturally, 1451? That's a fair statement, is it not?

If there were a building that was oriented towards Moreland on that location, yes.

I would dispute that it is, in fact, oriented that way. That's the way it was designed to take advantage of Moreland. That was designed that way. It's angled one way, but the point is we want folks to come in on Moreland. I've made that clear. The sequencing goes 1421, then 1451 with a single building, which we're asking, and then it goes down the line, 1503. So it's all in sequence. Would you agree with me that it would be easy for the city to assign 1451 given the dynamic that that sequencing already exists? That's what the guidelines state.

Easy, I'm not sure what.

Well, the guidelines say that you should create addresses based on the sequencing of the neighboring properties.

It is based off of the, yes, the linear sequencing of numbers along the frontage which a building faces.

Thank you. The GIS mapping. Would you dispute that 350 feet versus whatever the Moreland or the Manhattan distance, that that's inconsequential. 350 feet makes no difference whether a fire truck can access versus the other access. That's correct, is it not?

Proximity is not the primary factor, but when we are reviewing plans for addressing reviews, there is usually a page that shows the ingress and egress possibilities for emergency vehicles. And in this case, there was ingress and egress off of Manhattan Drive and off of Moreland Boulevard.

So you acknowledge that there's ingress and egress from Moreland to the building? Certainly, yes. Yes. And it's a direct shot, is it not?

If you drive down that road, yes.

And there's more room to navigate.

And if there aren't vehicles in the driveline. Charlie, wait until you're asked a question, please.

So it is, in fact, a direct shot, and there's more room to navigate if you're driving a big fire truck.

I am not qualified to answer that.

GIS maps aren't tied to addresses. They're tied to location, correct?

Well, the location in this case is the address point.

But it can be tied to the location, isn't that the accurate system?

Well, it needs to be tied to the location of a physical object, in this case, the building.

But the fire truck would be able to get there to 1451 as equally to 1610.

I can't speak to the abilities of a driver, but the routing should not be impacted.

In the letter here, you're saying that it's just a convenience for us. You use the word convenience several times in here. Business convenience. Our preference. What do you base that on?

I would say that we don't know who the applicant is when we're reviewing addresses. We are simply looking at the building. So requests made by the applicant, if they're established or not, are not currently part of the addressing guidelines. It's simply an administrative function, similar to assigning a tax key number to a parcel.

All right. It's an administrative function, so why are you referencing convenience of business? It seems like you want to reach a result as opposed to applying it objectively.

I believe we are applying it objectively and it is the, we can't take into account factors from the applicant.

You know, I want to go back to that exhibit with the buildings across the street. Because that to me doesn't seem like it was applied consistently. because you've mentioned direct access. I don't see direct access from Moreland to those addresses. Would you agree with that statement?

Charlie, can you pull that back up? Is that still open?

I BELIEVE IT IS. I JUST WANTED TO CHECK THE PLANS.

I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION WITHOUT KNOWING THE CURRENT DISPOSITION OF THE FRONTAGE.

THAT'S A HISTORICAL, BECAUSE, LIKE, THEY'RE BUILDING THE DEALERSHIP THERE. BUT THE POINT, I THINK I MADE THE POINT. THERE'S NOTHING PREVENTING THE from applying the addressing guidelines to assign 1451 to our Nissan dealership that has been there for the last 20 years. There's nothing preventing the city from applying the standards that way, is there?

There's no technical limitation, although there could be impacts to systems that do derive their information from the address points.

Would you agree that the address development manager could notify any agency of the change? It's that simple?

We do regularly communicate that information, yes. I don't know the amount of time it would take for them to process.

So there's nothing standing in the way, so to speak, to assign 1451 Eastmoreland to our new building. There's nothing preventing that other than the administrative function. Correct.

Correct. The only thing standing in the way is applying the same standards here as we do with every other project of the same type.

But those city standards could be applied equally to 1451. I think you made that clear. I have nothing further.

Any further questions from the board? No. City staff have anything to add before we close the testimony? No.

No.

Okay, thank you. Then the testimony is closed. The evidence is in. What we need now from the board is a motion to go into closed session pursuant to with stats 1985 sub 1A to deliberate.

No, you can just say so moved. So moved, thank you.

And is there a second?

I will second, yes.

Okay. All in favor of that motion, please say aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Okay, we are in closed session. We will come back after closed session.

I hate to interject, but I think our vice president would like to address the board. Would you mind if I did?

Then I won't.

Yeah, at this point we've closed the testimony.

I thought you said closing and we'd have an opportunity.

Well, okay. No, that's true. That's true.

Did I just put up that one picture of the straight line into the dealership?

No, you're true. You're correct. Mr. Nienhuis had kind of provided a summary in his cross-examination, and so I probably jumped the gun and should have offered you an opportunity to do a summation if you like.

of the street. Thank you. That's fine.

I apologize for jumping ahead. I'll stand for that.

Really appreciate everyone's time while he brings it up. Our history, just I'll make it quick. Our first, second store of our group was that Chevrolet store. So we're very proud of the development and our partnership with Waukesha, with the police department, the fire department, with the charities that we're involved in. And during this growth of our Genesis store, the Hyundai store that you've mentioned, and now the Kellex store that's under construction, there's some give and take, obviously, in working with our builders and working with the city and on these projects. And they're all a little different. And on this one, there are some reasons why it is 350 feet. And the reason I know that 350 feet is because when we're doing these buildings, there's also some cooperations of sometimes we clean up some title issues that needs to be done that miss through. But there was one important one that we did on this project on the west side and then on the north side is, We were asked to participate in stormwater retention. So the reason that it's such a straight shot and that line there is underneath that asphalt are ponds. What's the right word? Storage on both sides. That was 750 grand. Doing just that so there's some cooperation that we did for that long pathway. That's why we know it's 350 feet because underneath that That wasn't done in the past. There was a building there and there were some issues So we cleaned that up and with working with the city working with the county on Both sides that dealership we put in storm retention so we could help manage that for all our neighbors and for the street so we're proud of that and During that process though, there's sometimes a dust up, but since it got mentioned, I'm gonna mention it. I don't know why. This should have been an easy issue, I believe. But talking about our violations on the other property because of snow removal in cars, I don't know why you brought it up, but you did bring it up. And then it was brought up that when we demolished that building, that building that we didn't build originally, and that history is the truth. It was a Cadillac dealership, it was a Nissan dealership, and then it stayed as a Nissan dealership. That was an eyesore. And we were so happy, we thought you guys would be happy to crush it. It only took a week, but then you come and say, there's dust around. We did that, but I found that a little humorous of the dust, knowing that the history of, was it Span Creek? We live every six months with Span Creek that used to be there. So I really don't know why that was all brought up. And I'm not bringing it up now, but it was brought up. So I think there's some hesitation. I don't know why that is, but this is a slam dunk because this picture that we're seeing right now, I got to ask you, fire department, police department pulls up, Where would they go? There's only one property. It's the Nissan store right there with a sign that says Nissan lit up 24-7.

Where else would you go? Where would be the confusion?

I don't get it. And we cleaned it up. So that's why I still get why we're here right now is where would they go? The Chevy's clearly marked. There's not another building on the lot. And it's only 300 feet, and it's straight through, and it's the safest route for police, fire trucks, not Manhattan. It's too small over there. This is the best shot they have. And I don't know who would be confused. I really don't. Where would they go? Except straight to the Nissan store. Thank you.

Okay, one more time. Do you have anything else? Okay. Anything from city staff?

I just wanted to clarify the reason that the, the previous history of violations was relevant is because. The dealerships, not just, but dealerships all across the city. Have we have regular code cases related to vehicles parked in drive aisles. And as you can see from this photo, there was a vehicle parked there just earlier this week. So that was part of the reason that we felt that the closer exit was the safer, the closer access was the safer one.

Okay, then could we renew the motion to go into closed session, please?

Seconded.

All in favor, aye, please?

Aye.

Okay. We are in closed session. We will return either to announce a decision or to announce that a written decision will be issued. Seconded by Ms. Locke. All in favor of reconvening an open session?

Aye.

That motion carries. Go ahead.

Are we waiting for a representative from the city at all, or are we moving forward?

I guess we move forward. Nobody said they were going to come back. I can try texting.

Okay.

Should we do that?

Yeah, if we want to just quickly give them an opportunity to be here.

I think I'm dialing the right number.

I'm surprised they didn't stay.

Charlie, did you want to be here when the board announces its decision? Okay, good, thanks. Well, sure, yeah. Tell them to get down here quickly if they're going to come though, okay? Yep. All right, thanks. He's going to check and see if anybody's coming down, so let's give it a minute or so.

Do you want all this paperwork back?

Yeah, I'll collect that.

Do that in court, too. After this? You have a meeting after this? No, tomorrow. From the city? Okay. Somewhere else? At the county.

Oh, okay.

Okay, let's go ahead.

All right, so the board met and carefully reviewed and discussed all of the evidence and information that was presented to us, both today and in the very hefty packets that we reviewed. We relied heavily on the guidelines that were presented to us. In reviewing those, we were able to note that the city has discretion in interpreting these guidelines. And in using that discretion, we then turned to section 16C2, which addresses grandfathering in addresses specifically. In reviewing that, I'm not gonna read the whole section, but the section we relied heavily on in making our decision was the part that states, in ordering the modification or reassignment of addresses slash units for occupants in these situations, it may pose an undue burden on the occupant. If the structure slash unit was constructed and occupied using valid permits and the invalid address does not pose any sort of health or safety risk by making the unit difficult to locate, the address slash unit may be grandfathered in at the sole discretion of the address development manager. We discussed a little bit as to what the undue burden here would be. Boucher's presented evidence as to the amount of money and investment they've put into building this building as well as the potential of the cost of changing the address. And frankly, there is the potential that there could be a cost regarding this address shift to the city as well. We also reviewed the city's argument as to a safety risk or potential safety risk. And in that review, we didn't find a credible dispute or health or safety risk. Overall, everyone knows where Boucher is located in the city, regardless of the address. It has been there for 20 some odd years. Further in our discussions, we then reviewed Exhibit D, provided in the Boucher Exhibit 1 packet, specifically the map regarding Manhattan Drive and East Moreland Boulevard. And one thing that we pointed out or we noticed was the application or rather the non-application of the change in address from 1537 East Moreland Boulevard. If you look at that on the map, 1537 is located a little further back on the map than the 1451 East Moreland or potential 1610 Manhattan Drive address. It has a significant parking lot located in front of it. It looks like there was a building at one point in front of it that may have been demolished and is no longer there. And there is also a second street which looks like it may be Jennifer Lane with an entrance as well. So in evaluating the application of this change of address standard, we looked at the fact that that address had not been changed. It has an entryway from Moreland Boulevard and an entryway from Jennifer Lane. and yet it still has the Moreland Boulevard address. Therefore, we believe that there's a non-universal application of this address change standard currently being applied. All of the evidence presented to us in a whole here today shows that there is a likelihood of an undue burden to both parties. And since there was or is no reason for the city to have not allowed the address to remain the 1451, I think it was, East Main Street address, And there is an unreasonable burden to for sure Boucher, likely the city as well, in changing the address to the 1610. We do find that the decision to change the address to 1610 is arbitrary and we are reversing the decision of the city. This will be followed up with a written decision of the board probably in a few short weeks here to come.

All right, motion to approve the board decision.

Moved.

Seconded.

All in favor? Aye.