Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Yep. He's good whenever. D meeting of the Seline Planning Commission will hereby commence. Please stand for it. Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Will the secretary call the role? Is absent. Carol here. Fod here. Marl or Marl, excuse me. here here. Heft here also. Um um Aken is here and is there a motion to approve the agenda? Uh Mr. Chair, I'll move to approve as amended. I wanted to add one very very brief discussion item and that is the annual ZBA appointment. So I'll move to approve the um um agenda as amended.

All those in favor? I How opposed? Motion passes. Is there a motion to approve the meeting minutes from September 10th? So move. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. If there's any public comments, um you may address them at this moment. Seeing no one present, we'll move on. Public hearing 2510 application from the Slane Area Soccer Association. I'm sorry. I apologize. You're all good. You're just right there.

I apologize. New business. Uh election of officers. Is there a motion for a chairperson? Um Mr. Chairman, um if there's no objection from our current slate of officers, um I would move to um elect the same individuals in 2026 that served in 2025. So that would be Young as chair, Carol as vice chair, Fosdic as secretary of treasur. Second. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. 2025 annual report.

I can make a motion to um unless I hear any objections, I'll move to uh um uh accept without conditions. Um and hopefully there's a second so we can hear from Mr. uh so Mr. Atkin, Director Aken can give a an update. Um I'm sorry I was writing. No, I just I I move to accept your report without um without amendments or changes. I think it was seconded by Leffort and just wondering if you can make a brief comment for the commission's benefit. Um I did the report. Oh, you did. Excuse me, Danica.

That's okay. Um, we had one final site plan application, um, one zoning map amendment, one zoning text amendment, three special land use applications, and the PUB plan unit development was the same thing as the final site plan, which was Bridgewater. Other than that, no site plan changes, no extensions, no sign exemptions. A motion's been made and seconded. support. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes.

Discussion. 1080 East Michigan preliminary site plan.

Okay. So, this was scheduled to come before the planning commission tonight for preliminary site plan review. However, there were some issues in the site plan that I was not comfortable with. uh some which were setbacks, others were parking count and um just certain aspects of the layout. So I have been in conversation with the designer of this. I sent him five pages of notes the other day of things to address and where they would be uh shown. So, I know that the print out that you received is small, so I have it on the screen here in front. I'll just walk through some of the areas of concern. Get it up. Excuse me. Okay. So to start, we're dealing with the SPA zone here on East Michigan, which has set of requirements. We also have the East Michigan Gateway Corridor, which has another set of requirements. And we're also dealing with the uh sock trails declaration of covenants and restrictions which some of their requirements are more restrictive than the ordinance. Some are less restrictive than the ordinance. So there's a lot that's happening here. So to begin with the setback standard setback uh for the zoning district is 50 50 ft from the rightway. Uh the declaration also states 50 ft. The gateway corridor is 100 ft. So they there's a few easements along east Michigan Avenue here that they're

dealing with and the 100 foot setback line. Switch screens here hopefully. Set back the 100 foot setback line is about right in the middle of these parking spaces that are parallel with East Michigan Avenue buildings. There we go. So, I've kind of outlined these here. So, this is where it falls. Now, in addition to the declarations, there cannot be any parking. The parking can be available anywhere on the site. However, parking cannot be within the buffer or the setback. Now these are about say those are those are 20 ft. So they're about 10 ft within the setback. This over here is in setback. I can deal with that. Uh I do have them removing this entire area parking and designate that as deferred parking because right now there are two buildings with two units each. Each building is 4,000 ft. Each unit is about 2,000 square ft. The buildings on the right, the outer buildings on the right hand side are both drive-thru fast food type buildings. Uh the other ones, they're not sure, but they're going to set those up for either restaurant without drive-thru or retail. Those are two different parking calculations. So they an excessive amount of parking out there in the event that all four units serve as retail. They still don't know. So I requested them make some different parking. Let's

take this one out on the east side. So that one will be removed. U probably get one up here. Remove two. That would be in the front. And then now these parking spaces across the front had the 100 foot setback line. Half in, half out are no further in than what the vacuum spaces were provided over at the car wash. This yellow line here is a 60 foot wide DTE. Uh there's been a lot of back and forth with DTE. They did not want them to build in there. So, right now it's just going to be for uh drive. Now, this lot down here, before I go too far, this is lot 13. There's language in place for the uh sale of the property when it was sold 5 years ago. Um they're interested in purchasing that property now to put uh four more um I think there's uh 14 condo units on their four buildings. Now, starting down here, the declarations, this will need to be reszoned to SPA to allow for the residential use. It's already going ground in front of the Sock Trail Committee approval for the uses on there. But the declaration, their side and rear yard setback is 20 ft or the height of the building, whichever is greater. Which leads us to another problem. These buildings from ground level to peak are 32 feet high. The declaration states nothing can be over 30 ft tall. Uh little less than a year ago, we amended

the definition of how building height is measured from ground level to peak. whereas it used to be ground level to the average distance between uh on the roof line on the gable that has not been updated uh online in the zoning ordinance. So they looked at the existing which is the old measurement and the measurement per what the old requirement was is 25 ft as measured that they show even though now it's 32 ft. So, it's kind of a gray area and because it's not at the fold of the designer, um admittedly I didn't give provide them with this new information. It was it wasn't brought up. So, there was no concern to me for they are meeting the R3 standards. The height for R3 is 35 ft. So again, what's what they're permitted is less than what is permitted in the underlying zoning district, what it would be. So my request is to allow them little leeway for 30 ft. uh they can make the 30-foot setback by adjusting a few um these buildings without having to uh mess with the detention basin or the layout or anything of that nature. They're still at about uh they're 20 ft right here. And they're willing to move it up another 10 ft if based on building height, which would it's about it's a two foot difference between what they have and what is permitted. they meet

all the setbacks down here. This one has to be at least 50 feet or excuse me, this one has to be 30 feet also. They didn't meet that in to begin with. So, this is just going to take some rearing of the buildings and number of units. They might lose one unit um depending on what is accepted. They do have another easement down here that is overhead utilities. There is a storm sewer easement that runs that bisects that little portion there. And down here there's another 60 foot wide easement that is uh city utilities. There's water storm and sanitator that run in there. They got permission to go within 10 ft of in 10 ft from the overall width of the easement. since the all the utilities run within 20 ft of this uh property line. So, they aren't going to change the size of their detention basins. Uh they did oversize them. um they're going to be relatively deep, but with the reduction in the parking, my plan was to get them to eliminate parking, which would then downsize the size of the detention basins and then they could shift these around a little bit more, but they do not want to downsize in case the deferred parking comes back and they need it. uh then they would have to redesign um the detention basins to where they are now. They did have conversation with the neighboring property up here, this detention basin to tie into theirs. They were willing to increase the size of it so it encroaches a little bit onto

their property then reducing the size of their onsite. Um that owner was not willing to uh do that with them. when even now didn't want to share detention based the I didn't send you the entire plan set conversation about the building design. Crap. I'll have to pull up a different one. Um, they did give me they sent in the uh elevations. Yeah. Good thing. Sorry, got too many. It's not either. I know. I know.

Okay. So, these will be the commercial buildings. There's going to be a little bit of ease up here. This will all be uh on the side here, this Hardy board. And there's going to be a little brick ledge. And underneath the overhangs will be this. And you see in the bottom lefthand corner that's a composite style. Um that looks like wood. Um that'll be on the overhangs. I'll ask them see if they can't get us full color renderings of these. Now for the residential. These are twostory. There's going to be enough room for park two two parking spaces in the garage, two parking spaces in the driveway. And this here, um, even though it looks like siding, all this where it's a little more narrow, that is all brick. Then it's going to have this soldier row brick here. And everything here will be uh the hardy board. And then it'll have a kind of a accent color up here before it gets to the the roof line. These are going to the colors are similar to what will be on the other building. So this will be the brick, then the uh hardy board and the garage and the front door. Each will have a patio in the back. Um now as far as the parking goes, the requirement for residential parking in R3 is uh two spaces per unit plus one space for guest parking for every 10 units, which means they would need four guest parking as well. These are considered multifamily residential by definition because

there's three or more units. In reality, they're single family attached dwellings. So, they asked um instead of providing off street parking areas down like putting a little parking space down here or over here. Um that they just be permitted to have the county before parking spaces per year. So, the act recommended that they um place no parking signs on the road because it's only 25 ft wide. These will be private roads. Uh so, the city will not be maintaining them. Uh they're working on there's already an easement here for access out into the rear of the hotel and they're working on an easement here just so they keep commercial traffic separate from residential traffic. We try to get the neighbors of the west to allow them access into there. The only way he was willing to do that is if the city took over um all the hopper I have going coming from East Michigan, the other entrance and then everything that goes between the restaurants and the shopping center there. Um we do have engineering looking at this. uh they have they I'm kind having them do that outside of uh us looking at the requirements for the detention basin. The engineer that designed the detention basin has worked with the county has worked with uh the engineering consultants. So they're getting all that hashed out. Uh but on the final site plan I'll make sure that they provide all the calculations and the uh agreement or comments from from engineering. So, that's kind of where we stand right now. Um, I did talk to them about eliminating the left-hand turn on

Michigan Avenue or not willing to to do that. Um, we just kind of don't think legally we can say no. It's not our road. It's not our right away. Um, I tried to convince them to relocate these buildings. Uh but with the way the parking and the easements, it's difficult without sacrificing a lot of parking um in the actual flow of the traffic through throughout the site. So just looking for some feedback that I can provide them mostly for how we're going to account for the building height since they were looking at holding the ordinance and which then would uh keep their setback at 30 ft. Um I did talk to them about the gateway. They're going to put some burdens in there. They're going to continue the sidewalk connected between the east and west properties. Uh they're going to put in the fence. uh that match everything to the west there or excuse me to the east. Um I haven't done a landscape count yet uh that they are going to provide that at some point but just looking at it. One of the drawbacks is down here they can't put any trees in because of the overhead power lines that run along that. So, there's going to be not sure what these shrubs are that they're putting in, but they're doing what they can um to create some sort of buffer in in between there and the existing industrial site. So, comments, questions, suggestions, some absolute nos. Can

I ask what is the It looks like there's an existing drive on the opposite side of where they're What is that drive to? Is that the tractor supply? That would be to the for plant. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, I'm talking on on the north side of the swamp here. Yeah. Cuz I was trying to figure out like, you know, it's already bad enough for like people turning left out of the car wash with Right. So, I was wondering if there was a way to like maybe

get the car wash exit to be able to sort of dump into there and then maybe a light. I don't know if that's if that I don't I can't think I can't envision what that looks like. But if there's things on both sides directly across from each other, maybe it makes sense for there to put a you know, if there was the ability to put a light there and then the car wash traffic coming out could go there too instead of coming out from that other driveway. And um

I'm going to suggest that, you know, in the drive-thru area where where they exit um that there's signage for them to turn right and then go through the hotel parking lot. uh for anybody who wants to turn left to go down to the stoplight and industrial app. Uh whether or not they do that, it's left to be seen. Um but we can suggest that that those are that that signage is put in place.

Dan, um well, Chris and I have talked about this. I will not I will not support this with that left-hand turn lane there. The drive the way the traffic flows through there is going the wrong way. it should be going the other way so it drives out to the drive so it goes towards the car wash and out the other way. That um the way they have it laid out now um doesn't isn't conducive for that. This makes it a worse problem at the Michigan Avenue. There's ways this property can be reconfigured to support the needs that to make it safer and so forth. We do not need to give them that lefth hand turn lane. We have the ability to deny that. Um this lot we know has got a lot of problems with it, but there's a better plan than this. And I know this is proposed. There's way too much parking out here. The car wash is not a comparable thing. Gary Rubble didn't do that correctly. There wasn't supposed to be the parking and such in front of that planning and council made it quite clear, but he somehow allowed it to happen. Um, when I look at this, it's just a lot of traffic problems and concerns. And so there's a lot going on here. I think the height thing is not an issue as much as the concern for the commercial piece and how everything else happens on there. It can be done better than this and I know it can. I'm not sure why this, you know, is at this point where they brought it forward. I just feel like this is just like a simple approach to, you know, make it as easy as they can do it. I can suggest in in lie of taking out the parking spaces along the east boundary here that the front ones are taken out and shift the buildings forward. Um because the goal should be at putting the buildings more towards I mean we're making more of a walk of community and everything and this was supposedly kind of designed differently. We're still applying the what would be a industrial approach to what is commercial and residential now and so how to phase that in make it differently. Um are there any

common areas for like playground or any of that nature for any kind of amenities for any of this in the residential areas? No. Um, I mean, I suppose they they might be able to offer something in the easements that's not permanent, but and sidewalk that allows you to walk through the whole

Yeah, there's sidewalks up front on both uh sides of the building. Um, I can request a sidewalk in place somewhere here that would connect the commercial, the residential because there should be the flow from the hotel and all of the commercial businesses that walks all the way over to this. Um, there's just a lot more that needs to be considered in this to make this a I mean a viable living community, but also a commercial community that links everything together. Yeah, I can I can play around and manipulate this a little bit and I started doing it a little the other day with the building the residential building layouts, but I can scale this to provide options, preferable options if they want to get this through.

I mean, and then we look at the detention ponds. How deep will those be? Will those all have to be fenced? And yeah, fence. There's a fence around them. This is I think a screen wall along the north here. I just I guess I'm looking at this from even a visual appearance and aesthetical. And then I look at the building. A lot of this is still subject to the covenants. Um and then also um have we gone back and looked at the oaks original site plan to see if there wasn't something that required them to? Um there wasn't. There wasn't anything.

I went as far back as I could. The only uh documentation I found were uh handdrawn sketches of proposed connections. Nothing uh official. That's why I requested that he'd be amenable to creating that, but it came with high conditions. And then the only other one, um, I guess when you were mentioning some of the the height thing, I'm not so much as a concern. I mean, that was our mistake by our staff not updating that information properly on the city website. So, when we look at this, we made we made considerations for the hotel and such, except those made it taller. I think this one's making it trying to make it more attractive. So, how we approach that should be something. I don't know if it's going to need a variance, but being is this sort of a plan development or does it require some type of variance to do that kind of height thing?

There a couple ways we could go about it. Now, with the declarations, those the declarations would have to be amended um and amended through all parties involved that have stake in the business area. Uh so that would be the car wash hotel ace gateway plaza and actually the entire site from the west property boundary to industrial then from east Michigan a to be road is all part of those declaration. So everybody excuse me that is uh falls under that has to be agreeable to it. The other option is the builder can submit for uh some reduction of the requirements then it has to be recorded but those reductions would only apply to this property not all of them. Go ahead. It seems like that would be a more meaningable way for this development because you're never going to get everybody to agree.

Not likely. Not likely. There's no I I again dealing with a couple of different layers of requirements here. Um, so there I did see anything where that gave the planning commission the authority to allow some concessions

whereas like in in for the parking the city can permit a reduction in parking if it's unnecessary. Um, they were like a big box store, you know, they're city of asphalt and they're rarely ever full. So if meeting the ordinance requirements is excessive, planning commission could allow for something like that. Whereas the setbacks based on, you know, in this case based on the height of the building um that would either require the amendment or a variance and I'm not comfortable uh them going for a variance. There are unique features to the site because there are so many um easements that they have to contest with. Uh but I can still see it being a self inflicted hardship because they're trying to maximize the you know we allow we allow variances for almost every every uh

not as a play not as as a play. Well, in the past. Uh, yeah. No, I Yeah, I recall. So, you know, I I I'll talk to them about that. They did raise a question about our variance. I wasn't uh overly enthusiastic about, you know, saying, "Yeah, go ahead. Slip off." But since it's a new build, I couldn't imagine that uh it would get favorable reception. What is your feeling about these detention ponds being so large?

They made them this is this meets all the requirements uh for the capacity based on the uh impervious surface. uh they made them deeper uh just for the sake of space and this this vortex thing they're they're when I spoke with the designer they will contain water uh to a certain level they're considering especially in this bigger one to put a some sort of fing type system in it to keep the water flowing and then for you know aesthetic purposes But I I don't other than uh underground which isn't going to really free up a whole lot of space for them. It'll just still be like they wouldn't be able to build on top of it and they'd only be able to possibly paid over.

Would they be allowed parking on top of an underground? Yes. Storage facility. Yeah. But not that it's our problem. the expense on those is significant significantly more. I know we've done that on other developments in town. So it'd be interesting to see if that could not be considered. I mean that would solve a lot of the problems of moving stuff towards it parking and getting it off of the street instead of making it just another sea of parking like the Ford property.

Mr. Chairman, if Mr. gear bus uh concluded. Um can we stick on the detention pounds for just a moment? Can do you have any insight as to why they were unable to broker an agreement with one or more of the adjacent property owners to connect into the existing detention bonds because that was part of the genesis for our meeting I believe this past summer or spring to try to develop some uh consensus and cohesion amongst the adjacent property owners. combining detention ponds would be a tangible benefit for for this particular project. I know that the owners of Zippies was not favorable to it. One, because um it's at capacity for that site. Okay.

Two, he felt that it would be a hindrance if he someday decide to sell the property because there would be shared agreement for that. And he also said mentioned something about expansion which I didn't understand. Okay. This this is I received this from you know somebody who had a direct conversation with them. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The expansion I I don't understand cuz anything expanded out there would have to increase the size of the detention now for the one behind the hotel in Ace. Yeah. Um

that might be the same reason. uh it's not big enough and there's really no room other than if they cross that shared property boundary. Um that would be the only way to expand because private property south of there. Yeah. Okay. Chris, can you educate me a little bit on detention ponds? Uh h how are they emptied? We just let

have an overflow in them. So when you if you see a detention basin out there, a lot of them will have these yellow cone shaped and that's so high above the bottom of the detention basin. So it's a controlled release. So once it fills up, then it starts to infiltrate in there so it doesn't uh overload this the storm system. And they're designed in a way that some of the water will actually infiltrate in and filter itself out through nature and then everything else will get will evaporate infiltrate or go down the pipe.

So most of it goes to the waste water I'm sorry the uh storm water. Yeah, it's possible. I mean

just two more comments if I may, Mr. Chair. Um I at first blush this I I would concur with some earlier statements. It seems like we have an excess parking um uh adjacent to US12 and aesthetically I don't I don't find that appealing nor do I think the amount of parking is is necessary. So I think some additional landscaping would be would be beneficial there. Um, to the point about a a a community gathering space or a little uh park or play area for for um for the young residents of this neighborhood, I think that has some merit and value to it. And it again, from the the visual that I've been provided, it seems like there could be space there um adjacent to the the easement that runs through the back of the property um dividing the um the three units to what would that be the west and the three units to the east. So, just another comment perhaps worth articulating to them when you have a follow-up conversation with them later this week or early next.

Yeah, you know, there's there's a lot of easement space throughout there, you know, especially with uh the city easement that's in total 70 ft wide, 60 ft on this property, 10 on the other that again, if nothing's permanent, those structures are built on there other than maybe playground or just an open area.

Yep. I don't see that as being something that'd be difficult to overcome with some sort of agreement between uh their association and the city. Hopefully we'll make some headway with them and look forward to reviewing a a formal proposal either in two weeks or in a month's time.

Yeah. So that said, um they would like to do this on the 28th which is our second meeting of the month and we generally have a year marked. Um would there be quorum or if not if if people already have other plans because traditionally we have been cancel these have been cancelled. Um so I don't know how they're going to make enough of the changes that we're talking about in a twoe period. they need to seriously consider those and to basically just come back with this plan in two weeks is insufficient. Okay. I'll let them know then that uh the

Yeah, because the the issue becomes really the the posting and noticing and getting all all caring for this so it doesn't No, but getting all the support material and documents prepared to disseminate to this body a week in advance. So I I think two weeks is probably too tight of a turnaround. So we'll just stick with the 11th on the 11th. Yeah, I'll I'll let known what would be acceptable and what won't be. So, this is why I didn't want to bring it tonight because I knew we'd be back next month anyway looking at it again. And I appreciate your consideration that way. That's what we want to make sure when we move forward these plans are being evaluated that way before we make a lot of

um decisions. Thank you. It's it was it's a difficult review. That's all. Thank you. Any other discussion? Any discussion on the date change for the November 26 meeting?

Um, after we had approved the 2026 meeting calendar, I realized that the November meeting would fall on Veterans Day, November 11th, which um, city hall is closed. So, um, I just propose that if we did have a November meeting that it be Tuesday, November 10th, so the day before. And I already confirmed with staff that there wouldn't be any other meetings here that day. So, if anyone have to find somebody else to man the tech booth. Well, we'll have a link. Schoolboard meeting will be on the YouTube channel. Say that again. The YouTube channel will be used for the schoolboard meeting. and we could still record and stream it after the fact.

Okay. Is there a reason we couldn't do it on the 18th? There's a there was another meeting that night, I believe. What day of the week is that? Wednesday. It's probably environmental. Environmental or HDC? I don't know when HDC's meeting. Environmental is Wednesdays. HDC is on Thursday. Looked at the calendar. That was I think your your proposal is fine. I mean, we going to get into this. I say we've got a few a few months to figure it out. Well, one, we don't know that we're going to we don't always have a November meeting, and two, at this juncture, anytime any uh attempt to reschedule is going to conflict with something else.

So, I'll look at it again and see what we can come up with. We'll know well ahead of time at that meeting whether or not we'll have an application. So um if somebody does submit an application no because I'm not 100% sure about the time either try to push until October or December. Do I have to film this? Okay.

And Mr. Chair, I got one last item if I may. Um the annual ZBA appointment. I did confirm with director Aken and um while the policy indicates that a member of ZBA may be appointed to the planning commission is not a formal requirement. I'd love to have representative from the planning commission on ZBA. I believe Mr. Fosdic was gracious enough to fill in uh during the 2025 calendar year, but I believe you're no longer interested in continuing that. Um so I'm going to leave it up to this group. If there's anybody who's interested in the ZBA appointment, please reach out to me in the next week. It cannot be uh either council member Gearbal or myself because we already have a council rep on the zoning board of appeals. Um if you're not, I'm going to proceed with a um an appointment of a private citizen who I've already vetted and screened. Um but the the appointment regardless will be made at our next regular council meeting which is on February the um 2nd. And by way of um just to edit to to inform you as to the the ZBA meeting schedule, they probably on average have between four to six meetings per year. It is not every month. Um and they're the first Thursday um of the month at 7 PM here in council chambers.

Yeah. So I know that conflicts for that presents a conflict for for some of you. So if you're interested in available um please reach out. Uh otherwise I'll proceed with um uh appointing a private citizen to the one vacancy we have on the zoning board of appeals at our next regular council meeting and we do our best to usually won't accept an application to public hearing notifications that need to go out. We don't accept anything within a month of the next meeting. So when we do get an application, we know we're going to have a meeting. We let everybody know at least four weeks in advance. Mr. Chair, I'd move to I'm sorry, Chris, did you have Okay. Um Mr. Chair, I'd move to excuse the absence of our um regular chair, Adrien Young. Second.

All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. 7:42. Second. I Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting at 7:42? Dear Bon Heft. All those in favor? I opposed. Motion passed.