Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. [music] [music] you all hand. Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Congratulations, sir. Yeah. Welcome to the November 13th meeting of the city of Moskegan's planning commission. I wasn't. Get everybody started. We're going to do roll call. We are. Planning Commissioner Simmons. Blake here. Mazade here. Here. Cipher here. Keys here. Johnson here. Loy here. Okay, we have a quorum. And may I have a motion for the approval of the minutes? Some moved. Support. Moved and supported to approve the minutes from the special meeting of October 23rd, 2025. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. Motion's approved. Today we have three public hearings on the agenda. Item A, case 2025-40, request for a special use permit to operate a gas station at 2021 Marquette Avenue by Jasmine During and I believe we have a staff report. Yes. Uh so the properties at 2021 and 2033 Marquette will be combined. It's the location of the current Sunny Mart, which will also now have a gas station,

uh, including the addition to the convenience store. And the self-operated car wash will, um, be started back up into business. And, uh, the current convenience store is about 2,700 square feet and there'll be a,920 foot square foot addition. special use permit is required for the gas station. Uh it'll be an eight pump gas station with one canopy with a storage tank uh to the south of the existing car wash and uh there will be a fence to the south of the property uh which is required to screen from residential properties. There will be an opening however uh so that car traffic can utilize um the alley as well. Um, we do also have an exercise to go over for the special use permit uh once we handle any questions. Okay. And I believe we have an applicant here. If anybody from the applicant would like to make a statement or give us any additional information, let us know. I'll speak. My name is If you just come right up here. Sorry. Thank you. Um, my name is Matthew Schwalenberg. I'm with Spicer Group. We're representing the applicant um for the gas station and car wash. Um and I'm here to answer any questions that you may have regarding the materials that I've submitted. Great. Thank you. We will Hello. Um I will see if we have any additional questions for the applicant at this time. We have a public hearing. So we're going to do some initial discussion and then we'll open it up. Yeah. I I your plans look really good. I'm curious about electronic vehicle charging. Are you thinking about any of that in the future or accommodating that down the road? I'm sorry, what was that electronic

electric vehicle charging? EV charging that I would need to um talk with the applicant about. I don't know myself. We have it hasn't been mentioned in our design discussions. Okay. [snorts] It's not contemplated at this time. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions at this time? Just for the sake of being able to see the map um on the screen, if we could, can we clarify the ownership of the alley between the um property and the storage unit to the south? The city alley. Okay. Just checking. Um that while we're there, that's going to need some attention in order for this to be successful. It's pretty terrible. Drove through there today. Um, okay. And then for landscaping, if I could if we could look through kind of the back end here, we have some trees that are already on the corner, this southwest corner of the property. Um, do you have a plan already for landscaping in place? Yes, we do have a a landscaping plan. It is on the should be the last sheet of the plan set. Yeah, I was very impressed by their landscaping plan. They kind of went above and beyond. Yeah. Back up a little bit. Scroll right. Oh, I'm sorry. One before. Right there. Yeah. Okay. So, I thought so. We have these um circles here on the bottom right hand corner. Um those are intended to be deciduous trees. Is that right? That's correct. Okay. Um is there any capacity for any of them to be non-deuous trees? And I bring that up because I drove by today and it's now November and the trees that are there are already have no leaves. And so that really removes kind of any screening between that property and the neighboring there's like a volleyball court and some residents there. So that was uh the landscaping plan was done by our planning department. I

personally do do not see any issue with swapping out some of those deciduous trees for other trees, coniferous trees. Keep that conversation open if we could. I think that would make an impact to the neighborhood. It's very close to the residents just to the south as I'm sure you're aware. Um so that would help the character of the neighborhood as well. Okay. Any other questions at this time? If not, I'm going to go ahead and open up to a public hearing. Thank you. We'll come back to you in a moment. Um I don't have anyone in the audience, but there this is a public hearing. So if anybody would like to come forward, they may. Therefore, I will go to the phones. 2317246721. Give it a minute. Anybody? Nobody. I will take a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Support. Moved [snorts] and supported to close the public hearing. All those in favor? I. Those opposed say no. Public hearing is closed. Okay. Any final discussion from folks? Uh just one more note, I did mention in the staff report that's the engineering department was still working with the applicant. They met last week. They've agreed to some changes about the entrance off of Marquette. Uh since it's only 25 ft setback from the intersection, which is our standard, so they did meet that. However, I do believe we might want to readress that and make that a little bit larger. Um the engineering department did feel like that was a little too close to the intersection for that large of a curb cut. So they are willing to work on that with us. So I would just ask that another condition on the approval would be that staff will re will approve the final site plan based on those discussions with the engineering department.

Um in just in that regard again I drove by 3:00 this afternoon on my way here. It was a very busy time, the college and other folks kind of coming and going and so it is a very busy space and I think any additional capacity for people to travel through that space would be welcomed. Um qu question on that for director Franic the so 25 ft back from the intersection. So would that so that's obviously the one on Marquette. What about the one on corridor line? Is that was that one they're looking at? I guess they couldn't move that cuz the building's there. Never mind. Yeah. Um that one is a little close to um I'm not sure they can move it with the building there. Yeah. Um Yeah. Okay. So, in order to move this item forward, we're currently [clears throat] looking at a potential condition on the final site plan to contemplate a further setback of the of the curb cut. Curb cut. Yeah. Um, good job. And could you kind of just describe kind of how you'll finally review that landscaping plan if they're willing to make some changes to the tree style? Yeah, we could review that as the same time as when we review the curb cuts. So, if you want to make that a condition that deciduous trees or evergreen trees get put back there, I think that would be a good idea. the first. Okay, I'll attempt to take this away. Thank you. I move the request for a special uh use permit to operate a gas station at 2021 Marquette Avenue be approved based on the findings and facts in the exercise in the staff report with the following conditions. One, a storm water permit is obtained from the engineering department. 28 site updated site plan reflecting

modified curb cuts is approved by the planning or planning department and three the landscaping plan is updated to include a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees. I will so support that moved and supported. May I have a roll call, please? Um uh prior to going to the roll call, just so that it's on on the record in the discussion, can we run through the test? Yes. Oh, yeah. Sorry. So, I answered our typical questions under the section for special use permits, which would be would the proposed expansion be considered offensive or a nuisance because any of the following? Increased traffic? No. Increased noise? No. Increased vibration? No. Increased light? No. Does adequate water and sewer infrastructure exist or will it be constructed to service a special land use or activity? Yes, it currently exists. And then there are the five criteria for a gas station for a special use permit. And that's that the curb cuts for ingress and egress shall be at least 25 ft from the street intersection. Uh they do meet that and they'll be looking to uh increase that for us. The minimum lot area shall be 10,000 square ft and so arrange that ample space is available for motor vehicles uh which are required to wait. Uh also agree there shall be provided on site abuing adjacent residential district a 4ft completely obscuring wall or fence also uh on the plan. All lighting shall be shielded from adjacent residential districts and from abuing streets. They do have cut off lighting and there are no restrooms outside that face the residential district. So that condition is met as well and this just a consensus if the planning commission agrees on these. Is there any discussion of opposition to any of those?

Seeing none other it just ask that that be included in the minutes. So you just pull it reflected that there's no objection or opposition. Yep. One actual actual last last question. Do we know if the Excuse me. Um do you have a plan of whether the restrooms will currently be available to the public? I I do not. I was just involved with the the civil planning and not the architectural plans at all. I should say. Are they the restrooms are currently facing the exterior or are they in the interior? They're on the interior. They're not seeing a door to one. So, probably inside. All right. Just It's pretty normal question. [clears throat] All right. Roll call. Commissioner Wat Laoy, yes. Johnson, yes. Montgomery Kee, yes. Yes. Gan, yes. Made, yes. Blake, yes. And Simmons, yes. Motion passes. Thank you for coming. You're welcome to stay. [clears throat] Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you for investing in Moskegan. We do have two additional public hearings on our agenda. Item B, case 2025-41, staff initiated request to amend section 2307 of the zoning ordinance to modify the permitted yard encroachment criteria. So, this amendment is to clarify some information in the permitted yard encroachment section of the ordinance. Uh the amendment will clean up some language regarding porches that encroach into the front setback requirement and also allow steps to encroach even further into that requirement. It also eliminates number four in the section that describes regulations for subdivisions that were 90% developed prior to 1940. I've never known why that was put in there and I can't even [laughter]

locate the area they were talking about. But the good thing is zoning reform replaced the need to even have this wherever it is. So So it it does mention you have a redline version of the amendments in the attachments. Um so there will be some changes to the language. Do I have any initial discussion? Otherwise we'll go to a public hearing. Okay, this is a public hearing. However, there is currently no one in the audience. So, again, I'll go to the phone. [laughter] 231-724-6721. You're so popular. I know. I got my hair done. [laughter] I am seeing none. I have a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. moved and supported to close the public hearing. Jump in there. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed say no. Thank you. Okay. Any further discussion? I moved the request to amend section 2307 of the zoning ordinance to modify the permitted yard encroachment criteria be recommended to the city commission for approval. Moved and supported. Item B. Seeing no interest in further discussion, roll call, please. Commissioner Simmons, yes. Blake, yes. Mazade, yes. Gan, yes. Cypress, yes. Montgomery Kee, yes. Johnson, yes. And Mat Laroy, yes. Motion passes. Final item on the agenda, item C, public hearing, case 2025-42, staff initiated request to amend section 2319 of the zoning ordinance to modify the residential design criteria. So, these minor amendments are to

address some incorrect information in the zoning ordinance that was created from the zoning reform being approved. Uh, we can simply just take these out now. Uh, also want to add in a new requirement that the house must have a door on the front, which [laughter] we never realized that we needed to specify that, but we have two new houses that do not have doors on the front. Uh, but actually it works out where they are. I think it's Is it Walton? Yeah, it's just south of the old farmers market. They're up on a hill, so you can't even see it. So, no one would come in that way anyways. I think that would have been a good case for a variance if this had been a rule. Um, so it really didn't really mess anything up. They're fine looking houses, but we thought it would probably make sense to make that a requirement going forward. Is that for aesthetic reasons? Yeah. [laughter] Okay. Eyes on the street, you know, safer neighborhoods, stuff like that. I got a I got a crazy question about that though. There are a lot of houses where the door I mean there's a front porch but the door doesn't actually face the street. It's like sits like this and the streets right here and you know you come up the porch and you go on the door in [clears throat] the side. Is that still going to be allowed because I guess I can't I guess picture that you instead of Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Faces a different cardinal direction than the street perpendicular instead of parallel. As long as it's on the front facade that like it's just like front facing. The way I read that it was like it's got to face the front street and I'm like thinking to myself Frank Wright didn't build that way. I mean there's like a corner store that has the door on the angle on the side. Yeah, you could do that. And we have the architectural offset anyways which requires the porch it's a certain width. So they would have to at that point do something. Actually, my my parents house, the door does not face the road, right? To think it's but the house but it's on the front side of the house. It's just that the house is deep

and so it's on the and actually they've got an identical house on Lakeshore Drive to my parents house that same thing. So, do you guys read this that way that it's got to be front facing to the street? I hate to put like be super restricted on that. I understand putting it on the front of the house. No, it says directly accessed from and face the front street. So I think Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think the access point is what as long as you feel good about it and the front one thing we wanted to make sure we did is at first we had it written that all doors but we don't want that because if it's multifamily we would like to encourage having them around the house. Right. Unders well understood. Um and that being said it does mention house um versus multifamily. So, can we look at that one more time? Make sure that would still be considered a house housing structure. Great. Thanks for answering my question. And it is located under the there's two sections under 20 319. There's the ones that talk about single family houses, duplexes, and row houses. And then there's the one that talk about above six units. And we're also reing these because they used to be 1 through 12 and 1 through 12. That also doesn't make any sex makes any sense because it's section whatever 2319 and then there's two number twos number three. So it's actually incorrect the way it was written. Can we look at the main language? Okay. Can you pull the main language up one more time of the actual motion of the motion? Motion or the modification? Just say to recommend the change. Sorry. Okay. Yeah, I wanted more details there. Um, I was just trying to make sure. Okay. So, we've got the facade issue, which we've clarified that we don't think there's going to be a interpretation concern if the door doesn't actually hardly face the street. But my question is is do we need to determine again

getting a little into detail the street of the address? That would be that actually that's the issue. Yeah, I think that's that's a good point from the street from which you're addressed. I'm trying to think of how we already define that. When we create an address, we do go off of where the door is. I'm trying to and if they have no front door, [laughter] right? So, we have to associate those two things together that there needs to be a entrance door along the facade of the home which it's addressed. I think right they sign the address they give the house a front or the lot of front have a definition. Well, it's usually when if if if it's a corner lot, it's usually the the wider section is the front. Usually that would make sense. Sometimes the not the one that's off of Steven's home by that church in Marquette. An emergency response thing, right? You want wherever the address is is where emergency vehicles are going to go. So, one presumes that that's the what we want to call the front. Yeah. Is there anything for addressing? I just assume that she went by the numbers and picked Well, they get to pick which side their doors on. So, that would be the front. So they have to pick which one's their front and that's going to affect what their rear setbacks and side setbacks are. Yeah. So they get the choice. Mhm. That's true. Either side and most houses don't have really have a choice. The corner and keeping that option open helps us like that one Steven's home. Um we actually ran into a problem where it would have not met the setbacks had he chose the door on the other side. So that [snorts] question has more to do with corners, right? So this it's already been addressed. Therefore, that's the front and that's where the door needs to be.

Or either corner can have a front door. Yeah. E they can pick either. As long as one of the sides of the street has a front door is fine. Okay. And that gives them the option of what they want to choose as their front and side and rear yards. Okay. So, does that translate to this? Well, yeah. I don't think there's anything more. I think leaving it open is going to give people more options. Okay. I would rather have it more open than too descriptive. Yeah. My my only thought there was again just emergency response vehicles and being able to know wherever the address is. There's a door um somewhere. I mean and and for the most part for us it we're doing infill. So it's not like we're having new huge house well winward point but um right not huge new housing developments going in where we're going to have a lot of new lots that are trying to decide. So yeah yeah it's going to be very limited that does um prevent although there might already be another caveat um aware the garage cannot be the only entrance to the front. It's not a front door. Yeah it's a garage. All right, public hearing. This is a public hearing. Again, there is no one in the audience, so we'll go to the phones. 2317246721. Nobody. Oh, I moved to close the public hearing. moved and supported to close the public hearing. All those in favor say I. I. Say no. Hearing none. Public hearing is closed. Any final discussion? All right. Roll call, please. Oh, do we need to do motion? Yep. I move the request to amend section 2319

of the zoning ordinance to modify the residential design criteria be recommended to the city commission for approval. Support. Moved and supported. Roll call. [clears throat] Commissioner Simmons, yes. Blake, yes. Mazade, yes. Gan, yes. Cipher, yes. Montgomery, yes. Johnson, yes. Mlette Roy, yes. Motion passes. That concludes the public hearings for today. Do we have any unfinished business? Nope. Nothing from staff. Any new business? Seeing none, any other business? [laughter] I have a question. Um, Commissioner uh, Montgomery, uh, had a great question earlier with regard to the prospect of EV chargers being installed at the gas station. I'm just wondering, is it reasonable for us to contemplate going forward requiring gas stations to have some level of EV infrastructure? Um, just something to for us to mull over and think about as we're transitioning. Yeah, I'm a little worried about that in space. Um, not necessarily where the tanks are, but you know, starting to think about where they would put EV chargers. And I wasn't talking about this one specifically. I'm just general. I hear like same thing. And it might not even be EV, but I'll I don't even know. I'm just thinking out loud here because that that that beg the question of like should we be looking to uh induce, you know, more of a transition or support the transition whether it's to um EV infrastructure or hydrogen um infrastructure or some other alternative um infrastructure to to support that. You have go down here because we haven't had I I agree. I think that's something that is important. It seems to me that if

we're going to look at um trying to get um places of business to put uh EV charging uh stations in, it seems to me that it might make some sense to look at places where somebody is going to go for a period of time, like a grocery store, places like that. And you know some some in um if you notice I think it's out at the Meyers um in Norton Shore out by the mall. I think they have a number of charging stations. I think places where somebody is going to go for a period of time. I know the uh newer EVs can charge in a short a relatively short period of time maybe 20 to 30 minutes. Um, but still whereas it used to take a a long time. Good point. You know, I I had two EVs uh early generation and they would take a long time to charge. Um, but now that's not the case, but you still need probably a half an hour or so. So, the gas station might work, but you know, most people or convenience, so most people aren't going to be there very long. And so that would certainly add in things like hotels, places where people are expected to come and stay and park their car. So those would be great places. Um question. I was going to say that some some of the same things as Commissioner Mazade. Uh the other thing I would I was going to say is that it might be maybe not something to require, but to try to incentivize through some zoning uh to add those in in in different locations. Um, and as an FYI, we're adding four charging stations in the Chamber parking lot across from the Delta and four on Webster uh between second and third in front of the museum and library. So, and we're going to add a couple more at the I think two more at the beach. Yeah. So, um so we're kind of stepping

into that. There's been some changes in and how we can step into that realm. So, that's good. So, yeah. Um, and I think just on the topic of things that we might be considering in the future, just for my timing, forgive me if I missed it, but we generally do like an annual review of planning. Yep. Uh, I'm actually working on uh an update to our checklist for our master plan. We've done a lot of impressive things and I want to show everybody that that we've done. So hopefully maybe next month, but definitely January. In January, we'll have a goal setting as well. That kind of got away from us this year, but we'll make sure to do that. Can you throw it on the schedule ASAP? In January would be great. I think that it's, you know, we have to continue to go back to the master plan and there's lots of action items and goals in there that we're we're charged with checking in on. So, any other other business? Technically, this is general public comment time. Again, seeing no one in the audience, I'll go to the phones. 231-724-6721. Jingle. We had to plant some people in the audience one time. While we're waiting, uh Steve Garan here hosted a great workshop uh meeting with the Strong Towns. Oh, cool. and it was very informational and they kind we got a chance to show off all the things we've done a lot of the things that they were promoting things we've already accomplished. So we were kind of tasked with telling the other participants some of the stuff we've done. So planning organization that just promotes you know progressive and um items that folks should consider when they're looking at master plans and city planning. Okay, we've been on the forefront of that for a while. Thank you. I do not see anybody calling in. So, I would take a motion to adjurnn. So, move.

Support. Moved and supported. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed stay here. Thanks. [laughter] Very true. Yay. Wow. That was a