Plan and Design Commission - Regular Meeting

Running up and down, Carl. Oh, good evening everyone, thank you for coming. I would like to declare this meeting of the Design Planning Commission of Island Tark of August 18, 2026 open. Director Fontin, could you please make an appeal?

Commissioner Hynek. Commissioner Fentner. Commissioner Henry. Commissioner Mantis. Commissioner Moore. Vice President Anis. Dente Kersh. President, we have a legal number. I would like to recognize the connection with the municipal council of Ross, who is here, as well as the legal advisor Marcus Martinez and the student representative Chloe Pilot.

Fantastic. The first point in the order of the day tonight is the exam of the verbals of the ordinary meeting of July 21st. Four corrections to the votes that have been made. The verbals indicated that all the votes of that meeting were votes in voice. I hope four of them were actually votes for nominal appeal. It was about the points A, B, F, C, D for the end of the day. You need a... A knight, besides that. Okay, like this. Any other corrections or additions? In case of contradiction, a motion.

Proposed to approve.

A motion to approve. How much is amended? Second. Proposed by Commissioner Mantis, supported by Commissioner Ull. Do you know who I am? Someone with three... and I'm an extension. Uh, as it is becoming my habit, I will ask for the commission's indulgence here to change the order of the day. You know, there are only two points, so number two will be dealt with first, number one will be dealt with second, if everyone is fine. So, first point, tonight's agenda, public hearing, SUP2026-000012. For a special use permit and a revision of the design with variants for a storage container at 5.71 Roger Williams Avenue. Of Roger Williams Avenue. And it turns out that this point has been taken by the applicant. Is it correct? A planer B, planer C in the blue? Oh yes.

So the applicant has taken this question via email and therefore is not subject to the examination of the planning and design commission.

and will therefore have to proceed to comply with the regulations on storage containers. And so, having been withdrawn, it means that we must take action and that the point has been archived. I'm sorry if someone was here to comment, but it doesn't seem to be the case. The next point is the public hearing on 1026-00011. to modify a special use permit for non-conform uses and the revision of the design with variants of the S32. Green Bay Road.

This is the new one.

A new public audience, so I had to read these words. Welcome to the ordinary meeting of the Highland Park Commission for Design Planification. My name is Steve Kirch, quorum of the Commission for Design Planification. Being present, the members of the Commission will now present themselves for the verbal, starting from my extreme right.

Tristan.

Danny Mantis.

Karen Moore. Josh Nannis. The Commission for Planning and Design is in charge of examining the requests for re-classification, development plans and modifications to the senses of the urban planning and regulations of Highland Park. For all issues, we make recommendations to the Municipal Council on the basis of the testimonies presented during the hearing. We have decided on cases within 45 days from the reception of the transcription. All testimonies have been submitted. or, if required, that the other subjects who wish to speak on a specific case should present concrete evidence on why a proposal satisfies the standards or the standards for non-request evidence. To clarify our records, one person will speak at a time and all questions will be answered by the President We ask you to make every effort not to be repetitive in your testimony. Finally, we will do everything possible to respect the program prepared for tonight's meeting. If further time is needed for a question, this will be sent back to the next order of the day available. And with that I give the floor to the staff of the commission to read verbally the proof of publication and ownership.

The publication and ownership test is available for consultation at the Community Development offices, 1150 Half Day Road, Island Park. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you.

Senior Planning Officer Borrop, it's your turn. I see you're the only one here. Thank you, Mr. President. Just a brief presentation for this point. So, good evening everyone, my name is Carburo, I am a senior planner in the city of Highland Park, Community Development Department, Planning Division. This is a presentation for the purpose of special use for this site. It is a corner lot on Green Bay Road and I think it is Glenview South. Is this a public meeting? The staff recommends to the Commission to examine this request to allow a different non-conforming use. The Commission can adopt the conclusions that recommend the approval, if desired, as indicated in the package. The staff has not entered any approval conditions in the box. The Commission can also take into account the conditions as appropriate. So, is it an existing building? The request is to convert the first floor of this building to two floors in a personal training structure. Several years ago, the Municipal Council provided an interpretation through a specific rule in article 4 of the zoning code, stating that the personal training structures must be considered as use of the ground for medical offices for the purposes of regulation. So when the staff examined the issue for parking, for example, we evaluated it based on the requirements for medical offices. The second floor will remain an office space in line with its current use and approval of 2008. The property is currently empty, but previously it was used as a generic office space. The overall structure of the main building will remain unchanged, no external modifications are expected, so a revision of the projects is not necessary. There is no revision of the project! They are not making any external modifications. This is purely a request for a change of internal use destination presented to the Commission. This is an aerial view of the site. You can see the parking lot there. I think there are 19 car parking lots. It is a non-conforming parking lot, but it is pre-existing and they do not propose any changes.

Perhaps you will remember that immediately south this will become a complex of left-handed houses.

Context.

In 2008 this site was approved.

The way in which the non-conform uses work is that in 2008 presumably there was a non-conform legal use although at the time they had remained empty for more than two years. So the applicant of the time presented himself by asking two things. They asked for the clause of abandonment or cessation of two years in Article 9 to be passed for this site. It was a variant that had to pass through the commission of resource for zoning. It is a compromise that passes through the commission of resource for zoning. Then the municipal council and also had a special use permit that, through the section on use, not conforming to Article 9, constituted a change of destination of use. It has been approved. It has been approved. So this site now has that variant, the two-year abandonment clause, which is related to the land. Then there is the special use permit, but this is valid only for generic commercial offices. So this request modifies such a permit to allow use as a medical office, which, I repeat, is required for the personal training structure. I believe that this new use does not involve any landscape revision of lighting or design. It is purely an internal intervention.

have provided a study on the traffic that has been sent to Civil Tech and Civil Tech has provided comments that were in the package.

The applicant has responded to those comments yesterday or today. Our staff will provide to send them to Civil Tech. Staff consider the comments of Civil Tech of a minor nature more than anything clarifications? If the commission has doubts you can certainly adopt them as a condition of approval. From the point of view of parking, and this was in the report, even with this change of destination and proposed use, the parking requirements will be met off-road with, I don't remember, one, two or three free places, so the parking requirements will be met. I still have a comment to make, since this is the last slide. It was in the report, the Commission should use the standards for the special use permit, for approval, but you are using only You are using only 1, 2, 4 and 9. So you are using only 4 of the 9 standards. All those standards are important, but I will read them here. It says that a non-conforming use can be replaced by a non-conforming use of equal or lower intensity. And this is really one of the critical conclusions that the Commission is making. If you adopt the conclusions that what is proposed is a use of equal or lower intensity, there are different ways to get there. A way to get there is through off-road parking. Of course there are other things to consider and the staff still emphasizes that the site itself is according to off-road parking with the proposed use with one or two extra places. I can't say anything else, but I agree. So that's it. I can answer any questions if there are any.

Questions for the staff. Commissioner Mantis.

I appreciate the context, Carlo, on the evaluation of this medical study, because I looked at the zoning code and it seems that we have something called a sports training school, which seemed more in line with what I proposed compared to a medical study. There are further explanations on why it is not a sports training school and why the municipal council decided to define it as a medical school.

Yes, I can talk a little more about it. There was an entire resolution about it. It happened a few years ago. There have been many reasons why the municipal council adopted this interpretation on the use of soil. But one of the main reasons... Personal trainers are a bit like physiotherapists. Physiotherapy. They can speak better about the proposed use than me, but my understanding is that you are sometimes oriented to individual sessions or to small groups and it is very similar to physiotherapy. I don't think I want to say that this is the essential point, it is what the staff thought several years ago. I don't really have anything else to... There was something else when it was done a few years ago, but this is my main point and the thing I remember best. We thought they were very similar. Physiotherapist or personal training, and a physiotherapist would be a medical office.

Makes sense.

Thank you. Other questions for the staff?

Requesting, do you want to make a presentation or come up? Just to answer the questions. Welcome back, lawyer. I hope we won't waste too much time with this specific issue. It's always a pleasure to be here. Do you want me to project up? If you don't mind, I'll be very quick. Good evening everyone. I swear to tell the truth, all the truth is nothing but the truth.

For the recording, I'm Katie Jenny Dale from the legal studio of Alea Piper. As usual, Carla, our senior planner, took my word for it and did a very exhaustive job in presenting the request. There were only a couple of points that I thought I would add on behalf of my client, the owner of the property, who was presented here tonight by Leslie and Brian Burrish. They acquired this site, which, as has just been shown, is located at the northwest corner of Green Bay and Glenview Road, or rather Glenview Avenue, about three and a half years ago, in December 2022. Since then, they bought it from whoever was then the tenant of the building's office, who left the premises after having sold them. Since then, they have actively promoted it for the use of the office already allowed, without success. Without success. As you can imagine, the office market is not incredibly solid at the moment. And often, when they have found interested users, many times the user has replied, oh, it is not allowed, I will go further, I will find something else. So, for, you know, this user, this operator, who agreed with this use, to take the honor of approving the use in the hope of finally being able to reuse the building. As already mentioned, before being an office, it was actually an office, which is quite noticeable looking at the planimetry. And we usually expect, I know that the study on the traffic that we have prepared has conservatively hypothesized the worst scenario as regards the movements towards the site. But in reality we expect that it is mostly individual training, maybe individual training if a couple or two friends want to train together, sessions of about an hour but with a rather limited impact. These are the planimetry. I repeat, we are not, as defined, making significant changes to the building, but we are setting up the ground floor for that space of personal training and physiotherapy and keeping the offices on the second floor. And I think this illustrates better how the personal training area on the ground floor would appear, but don't ask me what to do with all that equipment. And then another thing that has been outlined in the staff report is that we have worked with Quilino and we have proposed the signaletics as part of this. A preview is detailed in the package, since we are on the corner lot. You can still see the previous use as a workshop in the building. And then I can add a fact this time. So, as for the parking, as outlined, we have two extra places, compared to what was asked by the code, and an increase in traffic, very nominal, estimated again in a conservative way, lower than 1%. These are the four standards just applicable in this case, and we have outlined both in the package and in this slide how we think we conform. Having said that, we are available for any questions. We respectfully request your careful consideration and approval. Thank you very much for your attention. Questions for the interviewee.

We have members of the public who wish to speak about this issue. This evening there is no one who wants to intervene.

Since there is no one from the audience who would like to speak... What is the will of the Commission? Would you like to discuss?

Would you like to present a motion?

Or can we order a pizza?

For me, for me it's fine. So for me I propose to approve.

I would say that motion.

So it's just a recommendation of approval.

The conclusions, in fact, as presented in the package.

It has been proposed and presented.

Some discussion about the mission. Sorry, I was... I was almost doing it alone.

Please, let's do it. Commissioner Eineck.

Approved.

Commissioner Mantis. Commissioner Moore. Vice President Anis. And President Kerch. Approved by the majority. The motion is approved. And this point has been recommended for approval. Thank you.

I'll call you back.

See you at the table.

Are there any updates on the administrative revision of the design?

Yes, President. I have two updates on the administrative revision of the design. Both on Roger Williams Avenue. So, the 572 of Roger Williams Avenue has been approved. I think they changed the color of the tents. Then the 473 of Roger Williams Avenue. A revision of the design on the front side for, I think, new windows along the footbridge. And then on the back, I think, a screen for a mechanical unit on the roof and perhaps also a container for the waste on the back. So these are the two updates on the administrative revision of the design.

There were new tenants in those spaces or just changes?

Roger Williams' 463 will have a new tenant, and for the other I'm not sure. I think so, but I don't remember immediately. Maybe it reminds you of Planificatore 1, Antonin Mreda. He takes care of many of these. I just wanted to point out that they have been approved. The next meeting is on September 1st, the regular meeting, here at 5 p.m. We have some anticipation. Well, since nothing has been sent back this evening, there will only be one point for the long-term September, and it will be a request from the city for an amendment to the test of the zoning code to evaluate what to do. I forget the technical term. It is rather long in the soil use table, but fundamentally. They are structures for cell phones without towers, therefore antennas, boxes for devices to be installed on roofs, looking only at the B2R View overlapping area.

Thank you. Any update on the cases, Director?

Yes, Mr. President. So, the Municipal Council met last night and a point in the order of the day concerned the modification of the zoning text relating to the data centers, approved with six votes in favor and zero in opposition. Another point in the order of the day concerned the 147 of Central Avenue, the lottization of the development plan. The council sent the staff to write down the approval documents to submit them at the next meeting. These were the two main points in the order of the day. There was also another point, regarding an adherence to the requirements of the reviews for the album at Highland Park on Green Bay Road, 1850. was part of a transactional agreement. According to the ordinance, the transactional issues related to zoning go directly to the municipal council, which voted 6 to 0 to approve a 12-feet high recintion, an absorbent phonoacoustic wall, if we want, for a length of about 100 feet, among the properties at Green Bay Road 1850. and 1853 by Schincourt. This is all I have to say.

May I intervene, President?

Yes, Councilor Rossi.

I was just asking that Director Fontaine would give an update on yesterday's evening. I want to share that the vote was 5 to 1. Was the mayor out of town? and I was the only one to vote against the lottage. There was a question about whether the entire site was a reference point and the staff was very clear in confirming that it is entirely. I declared that obviously for the conservationists It is an inestimable site, probably one of the most historical in the city. It contains the first ever built Island Park house and it is a wonderful site overall. I just wanted to share what happened, I think another surprising aspect is that in the Debit Course the practice will return to the HPC for a certificate of appropriateness. If everything is approved, the zoning allows a house up to 15,300 square feet to one or two floors in total. So I think I know that there are a whole series of passages at this point and as you know it was approved last night. I wanted to explain my role last night and thank you for listening to me. Certainly. So it was about the 147 Central, the Cornelius Sports Center. La propietad.

a few questions from the public that have not been dealt with previously and this leaves only one last point to the order of the day, that is, an update.

I propose to close.

Opposed by Commissioner Moro, seconded by Commissioner Winek.

All those who are in favor? I am against.

Non venendone nessuno, ci vediamo tutti alla riunione prefesta del lavoro di quest'anno.