Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Chairperson Togo, Vice Chairperson Brown, Commissioner Whitehead, Commissioner Tungate, Commissioner Mlen, Commissioner Eiselman, Commissioner Celixson,

Commissioner Tatch, Commissioner Walters Gill. We have Corum. Come communications and correspondence. I don't believe there is any

uh no the letter we received the letter concerning the resoning report, the resoning request and I would like to enter it into the record. Copies are available in front of you. All right. Would you tell us what that letter is for the audience before? Uh it's a letter uh about the reszoning request. Okay. Thank you. No other correspondents? No. No other correspondents.

All right. We're trying something new so that the audience can stay involved with uh what we're going to do with the public hearing. Like to do the review of what the two items are. Who's going to take that? Thank you.

So the resoning request before of you tonight is related to the site plan review for the Elcar Wash project. I will briefly summarize both the project and the reasoning. The applicant proposes retrofitting the existing right aid building at the 10mi and green field intersection into an automatic car wash tunnel with seven enclosed vacuum spaces. The site is designed to provide 36 car stacking spaces, eight additional parking spaces, and 11 additional vacuum spaces. The project includes site improvement, especially landscaping, an expanded landscape buffer between the property and the adjacent residential district to the west. Substantial greenbuilt landscaping along 10mile and Greenfield. The primary access to the car wash will be from 10mi road. The property is zoned currently PCD planned corridor devel development district and car washes are not permitted in the PCD district. The applicant proposes to resone the property from PCD to B2 general business district which permit permits car washes. Properties to the north are zoned B2 district and to the south is PDC PCD district. Um I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Mr. Chair, city manager. So I want to thank you for the overview. Microphone. Could you could you give us a little bit of a background? Why was this initially zoned planned corridor development in the first place? I'm curious. Why not just B2? So, neither of us were here when that occurred. Um, from my understanding, it was just zoned that way because of the residential district behind it so they would have better control over the site as it was redeveloped with the right aid and the strip center adjacent to it.

Do you happen to know approximately when that zoning was done? I would say the 90s.

I think it was in the 90s. Question would be would you say in your opinion that that zoning the PCD zoning is a narrow zoning meaning allowing less uses? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. I'm going to open the public hearing. Public hearing is open. Uh anyone who would like to address the planning commission, we have rules. Uh please, five minutes is the limit to how long you can talk. And please uh understand, Mr. Chair,

do we want to have the applicant come up and speak before we get questions here? We can he's going to be available to ask qu answer any questions that we have. Where is he? Was the applicant.

Very good. Do we have I see your hand. Please come forward. Give us your name and address please for the record.

Good evening. My name is Sherman Park. On the surface of things at that park, when you look existing car wash. There's one full service car wash at 11. There's a self car wash on 11 mile, another one on 9 mile and one exactly across the street from where you develop this car wash. So I don't understand why Oak Park needs to have a fifth car wash with the population of the city of Oak Park as what it is. I know that there's not any kind of moratorum on the number of car washes that the city can have. But I think just like we did with the self storage units at Oak Park when it got to be too many and you proposed and pass a ban on those types of businesses. I think you should do the same things with this type of business. I just don't see the need to have a car in the city of park even though it's another business coming to park. I think it would add congestion to the 10 mile green field area which is a highly traveled um area both in Oak Park and Southfield. So again I'm asking you to vote against this proposal. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Any other please come forward. Julie Edgar, 14731 Manhattan Place. Um, I'm going to confer with concur with Mr. Sherman here. Um, we do have a lot of car washes already in Oak Park. There's one right across the street from where this one is proposed. And I would say for a few reasons, you should vote against reszoning the property. One is aesthetics. We just This is to me this is just not this is not a good addition. It doesn't enhance our city in any way. Um car washes tend not to be so pretty. Um we do have a lot of car washes including the full service wash on Greenfield, the Jack's car wash, which already has traffic issues. cars out on Greenfield Road as people try to turn into the car wash. I would say um don't accept the first marriage proposal that you get. Right. Aid basically just closed. Let's wait for better development to come along. Thank you.

Any other comments? I see no other hands before I close this public hearing. Are we sure? Before I close close the public hearing, you want to hear what the developer wants to say?

I would like to. Yeah. Would you mind giving us a brief over Everybody here today I'll start again. Hi, my name is Gabriel Shookman. I'm with Alcarwash. It's it's very nice to meet everybody here today. I've uh you know brought a bunch of different people here uh to you know talk about the project what we're proposing to do. So I'm excited to be here. So thank you very much. First we have Mitch Harvey. He's with Stonefield Engineering. We also have Eric Meyer who's with Creger Clatt. In addition in the audience today is Ark and Jonah. Arin is a I'm going to call one of the most prolific developers in in the Metro Detroit market. He's going to get mad at me for saying that because he's you know such such an incredible man. But he can also talk to you about the history of the Wraid. talk to you a little bit about the um leasing efforts as well and and how we came about, you know, working on the car wash as well. So, I'm excited to talk about a lot of those different things. Um Stephen, were we able to pull up a presentation about El Carwash?

Okay, so I don't know if we can pull up an electronic presentation about the company. I'd like to do that to, you know, introduce to you who LC Car Wash is and why we're excited to come to the community. While we're pulling that up, one of the um notes in the staff report today was um that we read was talking about the residential property behind that's the base kabad of North Oak Park. I'm been a bas of West Bloomfield and I was able to meet with Rabbi Levi Gordon who's over there as well and he's in support of the project. So that would be the group that would be most affected I think by this project and our goal is to have zero effect on any synagogues or neighborhood in neighborhood areas. We've also reached out to Yeshiva Beth Yod Yehuda. I'm the board president of Hill Day School. So I do a lot of work with different u different um synagogues and uh schools here in the Oak Park community. We've reached out to Shragi. We've reached out to Yeshiva Beth Yehuda. We've reached out to these different groups and they're aware of our plan, what we're trying to do over here. Um in fact, we looked at a lot of different alternative uses with Mr. Turgo, with with Shragi to try to figure out different things to do with this building. And after working on various different things, we came up that this car wash would be a great thing. What separates El Car Wash from a lot of different groups is we have almost 100 locations. We're in Florida, Michigan, Chicago, Jersey, Philadelphia. But what really separates us out is a few different things. Number one, we're very community oriented. You know, before we even started this project, even before we came here to present to you tonight, we went to different groups that are right on the 10 Mile Road area and said, "Are you okay with this car wash here? Is this something that you're going to be opposed to?" And as you can tell, you know, they're not here tonight, you know, opposing the project. In addition, there was one letter that you received about the project. It's from Mauricio. Mr. Mickham is a wonderful man. I've actually bought a car wash from him. He's develop He owns 30 car washes all throughout Metro Detroit. He was disappointed by the fact that I didn't want to buy his car wash. His car wash is past the point of reusing. He's he's not reinvested in his business. He's not

reinvested in his equipment, and he hasn't not reinvested in his community. So because he hasn't reinvested in his community, he wants to hold that against me. He doesn't want to see a new project, you know, come to come to fruition. A lot of the car washes that you currently have in Oak Park, the the people haven't reinvested in it. They haven't tried to bring the best quality to the city of Oak Park. So I'd like to talk to you today about our car wash, how we're going to be different than anything else you've seen in the market. I want to address traffic. 95% of the people that come to the car wash aren't new traffic trips. They're passed by traffic. They're going to as part of their daily needs. So we're not generating any new traffic. That's a common misconception about car washes. So, I want to talk to you about that today. So, I'm going to hopefully not talk too much, but I really want to give you all the details of this project. Talk about the architectural elements, talk about the engineering elements, talk about traffic, talk about noise, and talk about the fact that we're enclosing the vacuums and give you all these different points. And then after that, hopefully you'll see this is going to be a great addition to the community. So, right now, I'm going to turn it over to Mitch Harvey. Mitch Harvey's with Stonefield Engineering. He's going to start talking about the project. Then I'll turn it over to Eric Myers and I'll come back up afterwards and give you a little bit more about Elcar Wash and why we're going to add value to the city of Oak Park. We're going to be great residents and we're not going to send out letters about new businesses that want to reinvest. We're going to put our money where our mouths are and continue reinvesting in the city of Oak Park. That's who we are and we're excited to be here. Thank you so much. Go ahead.

Thanks, Gabe. Good evening, members of the commission. My name is Mitchell Harvey. I'm with Stonefield Engineering. Are you able to hear me? Yes.

Perfect. Um so I'm just going to briefly go through the uh existing site and then the proposed site some of the and highlight some of the changes that we're going to be making to the site today. Um so the existing site there's a 14,500 square foot existing building. Um the site is largely paved about 10% of the spite the site is dedicated to green space and there's roughly 25 trees across the site as it sits today. Access to the site is through shared access to the south here and then there are two curb cuts to the existing site to the north along uh 10mi road. So kind of some of the things that we're proposing to improve on this site. It's ultimately going to be an adaptive reuse of that existing building. So we don't have to completely demolish the building, haul all that debris off to some waste facility. We're actually able to reuse and kind of reutilize a large portion of the building. Um cross access to the south will remain but we are also going to be shutting down the western most curb cut on 10mi. This is at the request of RCOC. We submitted plans to them. They evaluated our site and found out that the most safe safe traffic pattern that they feel comfortable with would be just utilizing this one intersection or driveway to the east all the way to the east of our site. So kind of their thought process and our thought process is you pull that curb cut away from the intersection, you know, you're you're moving these traffic movements further away from the intersection so vehicles are able to operate a little bit more safely with more time before they're going into the intersection. Uh general flow through the site site the vehicle flow will be kind of in a counterclockwise direction. Up to the north here we have our stacking. You enter into the stacking. We have three pay stations to circulate down into the exist into the existing building which will be the tunnel for your automatic car wash. From there, you can leave and take a right and enter the enclosed vacuum spaces. So, you know, in a day like today where it's pretty miserable

out, you still want to vacuum your car, there is an enclosed area where you can actually vacuum your car out, which pretty unique to our car wash. Um, in the summer months when it's nicer, you can also take a left and enter some of those vacuum spaces up there. Um, the the the building is going to be retrofitted with a pretty modern water reclamation system. So, there's going to be three settling tanks into an oil water separator that um ultimately goes through a reverse osmosis system. So, we're actually able to reuse about 90% of our water from car wash to car wash. So very good reuse of the the water and very low demand on the overall uh municipal system for from a water standpoint. Um kind of the last thing I want to touch on is we also took a look at how we can improve the site landscaping. As I mentioned, right now the site is about 10% landscaping. This plan is a substantial improvement to the landscaping on the site as it sits today. We're going to be roughly landscaping 30% of the site compared to the 10% that's out there today. One of the big keys that we thought was a huge improvement is right now kind of on the east side of the property, the pavement goes pretty much right up to the property line. We're going to be pulling that pavement back 25 ft and providing a substantial landscaping buffer along that east side. We're also going to be put planting evergreen trees along this east side of the property intermixed with a lot of the existing trees that we're able to keep. So, um, on top of the 25 trees, we'll be able to keep most of them that are existing today, but we're going to be adding an additional, um, 47 new trees to the site. So, a uh, big increase in green space, big increase in number of trees, and uh, ultimately we feel like this is ultimately going to be a very good improvement to this this corner, and a good opportunity to reuse, you know, an existing building. Um, with that, I will

pull it over to Eric to talk about the the building itself. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Eric Meios with Creger Cry Autoex. As mentioned, this is an existing building as it stands. Obviously, the typical alcohol wash does not look quite like this. We have a different corporate branding, but we wanted to make use of the existing building instead of tailing it down, having all this uh waste product that then has to be recycled some just thrown in the trash heap. We want to reuse the building as much as possible. And that's why if you look at this overall design, you're not going to see many changes outside of the rebranding of the building to match up with the corporate identity. Um on the south facade of the building, as you'll see here, we did add some windows to provide a little bit more uh light into the space that will have the um enclosed vacuum areas. Um, and then on the two ends, the west and the east end, we did add two overhead doors to each facade to allow for that transition in and out of the space. on the um the north side. We're maintaining the existing uh window fenestration, the doors, everything's remaining as is and we're just reusing the existing materials, the existing masonry uh brick um by repaint it to be that corp branding and then replacing some of the existing metal panels um just to clean it up a little bit um make it align with our standards. The height of the building is not changing. The footprint of the building is not changing with the exception on the east end where there was a drive-thru window. Don't need that on this type of product. Um, so we got rid of that. Um, but yeah, the project remains pretty much the same building just with a different overall use. And I'm more than happy to answer any questions about uh the materials, anything that may come up. Thank you.

Questions? question. Go ahead, Gabe. I have a question for you, please. Can you give examples? You guys have done I don't know how many projects in Metro Health and Detroit more than a handful. Yeah, correct. Can you give an example of another project where you reused a former, you know, right or something like that, something close to This is the first This is the first project in Metro Detroit we're going to be reusing. Can you Louder?

Louder. I'm sorry. I apologize. This is the first project in Metro Detroit. We're going to be uh utilizing a building reuse and we wanted to be in Oak Park Badley and we thought it was a great opportunity to do so. So, this is a it's a unique product project. It's a creative project. Um we had a lot of conversations, you know, of how to make this a great project and this is what we came up with is how do we make this something, you know, stand out and be unique. Oh, wait. I have a little bit of an unconventional question, please. So, you you do for more than just this organization, correct? Correct. And in your I'm asking your opinion piece here a little bit. So um is it mostly retail or

so most of so our business so the company that I'm that I'm part owner of is a company called USA. We do development nationally. We've done a lot of development in the Metro Detroit market. Uh we own a lot of medical and office space. And then my background is retail brokerage. And retail brokerage led me to retail development. So, I've developed for companies such as Aspen Dentl, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, Chipotle, and been one of their larger developers nationally over the past decade. Okay. So, I have a two opinion question to ask you then. Your opinion could if this building wasn't being reused as a as this development, what could it be?

I think the person that I would, you know, defer this question to the the most is, you know, Mr. Jonah. Um, you know, he's a little shocked. Could you answer that question though?

Thank you for having me. Um we've tried all we we started remarketing the the Wraid building as was vacant land and we started off with uh all this all the particular retailers and nationals and we just didn't get any we didn't get any anywhere with it. Um, this was a tough one as far as taking the building down, even looking at reusing the building, rehabbing the youth. We went out of our way looking for uh more grocery retailers, more and we just got mainly I don't want to say lower end, but just the tenants that just didn't meet the the right uses that we wanted to put in into the property. We spent a considerable amount of time going through a whole slew of tenants um to put in here and it just it at the end of the day it just had difficulties.

So is it safe to say that you Excuse me. I know everybody said they knew you but for the record I need the name and your address. Oh, Ark and Jonah with AFJ Jonah Development 4036 Telegraph, Bloomfield Township. Thank you. Go ahead. Okay, so just just to clarify, so between you and Gabe and the others involved, is it safe to say that you looked at a variety of different possible development ideas for this site specifically? We spent over a year and a half so far looking at reusing this building.

It's just we haven't gotten anywhere. We were the largest developers of drugstores in the state. When Right Aid closed, we ended up owning 14 different buildings that had Right Aid in them. And this was one of them. And we've gone through out of the 14, we've got nine used. This will be the 10th if we get approvals here. Reusing these buildings with the amount of retail tenants that are available today is a very hard task. Okay. So, part B here for me. I promise this will be done soon. Um, and you're part correct of this of this property current.

Yes. So, as you look at this, um, and this is your opinion, I I know, but where will this propert if we don't do this, where will this property be in five years? Very difficult property to develop, but where would it be in five years if we didn't do something like this in Oak Park? Uh, you you'll get a lower-end tenant, lower end user to to use this building. The value of this property will plummet. little antennas. Is that because just retail less retail in general? Madam Mayor, would you like to be recognized?

Absolutely, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Absolutely. The retail world has changed dramatically in the last uh 5 to 10 years. Um, everyone orders online. the the retail world. Uh you you think about what's out there, it's mainly food, uh services, and medical. You you develop a shopping center today and you're not going to get very many. There aren't any retailers. And the retailers that are out there like to go in a cluster, you know, just like what happened down the street in the old Kroger space. You get two, three, four of the midsize boxes that will go, they all go together. One won't one won't go by themselves.

So, we have Kroger and Aldi. Is that what you mean? No, the Kroger to the south in Southfield. Uh on Greenfield and is it nine and a half? Eight and a half. Yeah, that's now that's now here. That's north. Yeah. No, south. moved. It moved from the Southfield location. That's right. They moved from Southfield to further north. Yes. The old the old Kroger space. It sat vacant for how five, six, seven years till they finally. So, you don't feel that we're giving up a better opportunity?

Absolutely not. I know for a fact. What's your the how do you react to the um objection that there's so many car washes right nearby? Um like Gabe said, the one the car wash across the street, there has been no investment. Uh capitalism in my eyes works really well. when someone comes in and puts in something new, the person across the street is going to be forced to upgrade uh what they have in order to be able to survive.

You have more than one option. One option that they have is to go out of business because one of the things that you've just told us is that you don't plan to bring in more traffic. You plan to use current traffic. So now the question I have is the viability since we have as many car washes as we have is that how viable will that be and if one of the consequences is as we bring this in that the across the street goes out of business then I've got the problem with that building.

I I don't think that they will I don't think that they'll go out of business. There's always room for a lowcost provider and they will become the lowcost provider. Um, you've got a quality wash in the Elcar Wash. Um, we've had this situation before and in other areas where they survive just as well, but they're going to have to upgrade in order to keep up even as a lowcost provider. They they do a car wash for four or five dollars. I don't know what else car wash is car wash. But it's a monthly

monthly membership of 30 bucks a month versus a four or $5 car wash going in one time. That's the difference. We understand the other big car washes are giving which some of us belong to uh where you they charge you $39 a month and what that does for us is I can go there 10 times a day if that's what I choose to do and wear out and that works real quick then they wax it. Yep. So okay. Any other? Yes. I like I'd like to know what you say low-end uh people will come in there. What do you mean by that?

I don't mean low-end users as u and please don't take this in any way. Uh you're going to get one user that'll take up a a flea market operator, a uh a a lower priced lowerric retailers that'll come in. It's not the quality of retail that we would like to have to complement what's next door and what's in the area. I believe we've rejected some uses that we're trying to go in there on that that same vein.

So, okay. I have I have I have a question just on the on the I noticed on the drawings that in the building there's like it looks like there's one ent one entrance going this way and one entrance going that is there two I'll defer to the right

so the Uh, can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. Yes. All right. Great. So, people are entering here. They come into the tunnel where they're getting their car washed. They can either decide to exit back onto 10M Road or exit back through the shopping center or they can come back in and use the covered vacuums that are within the building. Oh, within the the Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, that's So that's So that's what So that's what this entrance entrance back in is. So they're actually coming back in the building.

Yeah. If they choose to. Now, usually 10 to 15% of people vacuum their cars. Um, you know what's unique about this, and we've all been through the weather this past January and how cold it is. So, this gives people the opportunity to vacuum during the winter, February, January, February, December. Um, can I can I can I make a point about the traffic? You brought up a great question. Um, regarding Go ahead.

Yeah. So what what I was trying to say about the traffic is is that you know you know we look at a market we look at a one mile three mile five mile radius and we look at how many people actually have memberships car wash memberships in in that market right so that's how we decide is there enough of a market for us to come in and make a significant investment we're going to make a $10 million investment in the city of Oak Park and we're excited to make a $10 million investment in the city of Oak Park we want to make sure there's enough 90% of our customers are members so we're we're we're a membership driven model across the street it's um wash as you go type of you know type of business. So it's it's so so it's a different business than us even though we're both in the car washing business. But what I was trying to say about the traffic is that is is that we're not creating new traffic. So there's 30,000 cars a day that are going on green that are driving on Greenfield Avenue. We're going to be pulling those customers is what we're going to be pulling. We're not going people don't make a special trip just to go to car wash. It's part of their daily trips is what they the traffic consultants call it. And and and they're going to be they're going to say, "Hey, I want to be an LC carcass member. I'm going to get value for it." You know, it's part of this, you know, you know, membership. I have unlimited car washes. I'm getting value for my car wash. I'm getting value for my membership. I can go every day, you know, whatever it may be. So, it's part of their daily trips. We just don't create new traffic to the area. But, we think there's a there's a large enough market share that we can absorb and have people become an Elcar Wash member. I hope I answered the question. I'm not sure if I did, but

No, you did. You did. But the concern is when we got nasty weather like this and I got all my members. I I am concerned about what one of uh our residents made the comment. Yeah. Because on a sunshiny day and it's time to get the snow and the salt off, there's a traffic problem. Terrific. And I because everybody wants to go and get the car washed if it's before a Sunday then they got to do all of that on Saturday,

right? And I have not seen one of the places that I am familiar with on all fire that they do a good job of controlling it because the system can't run but so many cars per hour. So it backs them up onto the street. this it's a great and I'd like to talk about that for a second if that's okay.

Our total stacking is 36 cars. So from the pay stations all the way through here, we can third we can fit 36 cars. That doesn't include the cars that are between between the pay stations all the way to the tunnel entrance. And this tunnel is 155 ft, which is a long tunnel. And that's another six cars that are inside the tunnel. So at any given moment, we can have 35 plus probably another 6 12 47 cars on site that we're processing on Sunday. And I can show you the numbers. Sunday was our busiest day that we've had in the state of Michigan. We have five car washes open. the most cars that we were processing an hourly brace basis between our Brighton, Novi, Madison Heights, Warren, and we had no cars backing up to our streets on any of our locations. I'll bring the video, you know, the video footage of all of our locations. The most cars we watched was 90 cars, 90 to 100 cars. So, if the 50 onsite spaces that we have here, and we process cars in 90 seconds once they once they come into the tunnel, we will not back in the street. 36 stacking spaces a is a tremendous amount of stacking spaces. The other part of it is we're investing $2 million in the equipment. We want to process cars quickly. So with this new equipment investment that we're making, a lot of these other car washes are old. They don't process his cars, you know, quickly. They're on old conveyor systems. We're processing them in 90 seconds. They're processing them in 3 to four minutes. So we get them in through the tunnel in 90 seconds, sometimes 75 seconds. These other groups takes them 3 to four minutes to get through the tunnel. So given the fact we have 36 stacking spaces, given the fact that we have the equipment and the technology to get them through quickly, we're not going to stack back up on the road. That that will not happen.

Very good. Any other questions? Any questions from the audience before I close the public hearing? Yes,

you have to go up to the mic. uh Julie Edgar. So we are trying to make Oak Park a transit friendly community, right? Limiting cars, that is our goal, overall goal. This is not going to do that. And I doubt very highly that this isn't going to cause a traffic issue. at Jack's Car Wash when they cited here in Oak Park, my guess is they said the same thing, you cannot drive down Greenfield Road going north on an afternoon without encountering cars in the middle of the street. Um, I don't think our city needs another car wash. It might be a pretty building. It's great that they're talking about reusing the existing building, some of it, but we just the question is, do we really need a car wash? And my answer would be no. We already have five in the city. And um you know, I'm sure the profit margins really high for these developments just like they are with the self storage, but you know, they just don't look good. And after a year, it's not going to look good. And I'm wondering too, you know, you talked to um Mr. Shookman said he talked to Yeshua Beeta and Rabbi Meyer, etc., But have you talked to the residents who live just north?

And I would ask you, do you think they'd want that car wash right there? My answer is no. And I know lots of people who were really surprised to hear that there's one being proposed. So, thank you. Yes.

Thank you, Chairperson Brown. Um, one thing I would like to point out is that this is a public hearing. So every resident within 300 ft of the project, even into the city of Southfield, was notified that this public hearing was occurring tonight. So if there was opposition, they could either write a letter, email, or attend tonight's meeting in opposition. Um, two other things, the stacking spaces, we only require 21 per our zoning ordinance, as Mr. Shookman had mentioned, 36 is what they are providing. And last, although I understand that we tr we would like to be able to regulate the actual uses based on not giving competition to our current businesses legally. Um that is not a reason to deny a site plan. It has to be for other reasons that are in reference to the actual zoning ordinance if they're not not meeting the requirements. So I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of that.

Thank you. question. Go ahead. Why is it limited to only 300 ft when you notify people if it's going to impact other people that further out? That's the state law. But I mean, can that be adjusted so that people who might be interested in coming to a public hearing meeting? It's published in the local newspaper um for the wider network of people, but law only requires 300 feet. If we were to extend it beyond that, the cost would be so substantial that you probably wouldn't get people applying for any use that requires a public hearing.

Very good. Two points. I wonder if a traffic study, a formal traffic study has been done and if they can share the results of that and if it has not been done because we're just going by what they're saying about traffic. So far, I haven't heard any official statistics to support or refute one way or the other. And then my other point is, have we asked public safety for any input from public safety about this proposed project? Thank you.

As just was explained very good, Kim. by Kimberly, we meet all of the requirements that we've done and they're meeting all the requirements and their presentation. Madame Mayor, you have something?

I I did I was um not in favor because of the number of car washes that are nearby, but I am concerned that a low-end option comes. It's not the car wash or something wonderful. It's the car wash or something worse. A worse use, a low-end retail, not not something that we really want to bring to Oak Park. Any other comments? Yeah.

Yeah. I just I I just want to reiterate what what the mayor said because I kind of came in here not wanting to approve this,

but after hearing what everyone has said and based on Mr. Jonah and his stellar reputation in the real estate industry that um I think while I am very reticent about changing zoning unless there's a a a very very good business reason and I I don't and I don't think necessarily there there's a great business reason. I don't think we need another car wash here even though I understand yours is far and above the one across the street. But based on Mr. Jonah's uh testimony and the uh the degree of effort he's made to try to get a different type of of business in here. Um I agree with the mayor. I think um that um I'd rather have the another car wash here and maybe like Mr. Jonah said it'll improve the car wash or or or you said it'll improve the car wash across the street, but I'd rather have a this use that is questionable whether we need it as opposed to a low-level use. And I think the neighborhood would be far better off with the car wash than taking a risk of a uh a use that we would not be happy with.

Understand why we're here. We have a legal requirement and we have a situation where I don't hear a definition of what a lower quality or lower anything is that can go in that space. We are captive of the environment at this point with everything that seems to be falling apart in some of these places such as drugstores which they should have never had one on each corner like they thought they were going to have to take all that money. It's the same way that they did with gas stations. They had one on every corner.

So everybody's using those same things. But we have a requirement and what how we take care of our business. So I don't believe that there's any other comments that we have not heard. So I'm going to close the public hearing and I need a roll call vote. Public hearing is closed. May I have a roll call vote? May I have a motion in a second? May I have a motion? The motion is to allow the reszoning. Is that correct?

The reasonzoning request request.

I don't have to read it for her, please. Okay. I can I can do a Go ahead. Okay. I move that we approve the proposed reszoning of 24850 Greenfield Road from PCD Plan Quarter Development District to B2 general business district. Second. It's been moved and second. May I have a roll call? Commissioner Tongate. Yes. Commissioner Eelman. Yes. Commissioner Selixson. Yes. Commissioner Waters Gil. Yes. Yes. Commissioner Mlullen. Yes. And Vice Chair Brown.

Yes. All right. Motion carries.

Uh, I had one question for you. How quickly you going to do this? I don't like as soon as possible. Very good. Thank you to all the audience for all the information that you brought with you and opinions. We appreciate the help from the public. Moving on to other master um site plan review for either two to

it's it's the site plan now portion. The first part was the reasonzoning. So we still need the approval. Okay. So we're doing site plan review for is that EI car wash? Isn't that what we just l car wash? We did the resoning. Now it's the site plan itself. Okay. Any comments? Any questions? I think I think we covered most of it in the uh prior. I thought we did. So, may I have a motion? So, moved. It's been moved. May I have a second? Second.

It's been moved and second. Mayor Roco. Commissioner Selixson. Yes. Commissioner Waters Gil. She said yes. Commissioner McClullen. Yes. Commissioner Tungate. Yes. Vice Chair Brown. Yes. Commissioner Eisman. Yes. Motion carries. So that I'm thoroughly confused now. This is number two.

Yeah. It's a site plan review. um for stepbystep pain management building addition 15301 West 9 mile road. Uh in front of you tonight a site plan review for a building addition for the existing stepbystep physical therapy at West 9 Mile Road. The applicant proposing constructing a new 1300 square feet building to the west to house a a pain management clinic. The existing building will remain occupied by stepbystep physical therapy. The new addition meets the site development standards for landscaping of street parking and architectural standards. We recommend approving the site plan subject to the 10 conditions of approval. I'm happy to answer any questions uh you have and um Alex Abdullah the architect, he's here uh to answer any questions you have.

Would he like to come forward? Not quite 40, but 30 30 something. Name and address, please. I don't know how many million Alex Abdullah from AAA consulting. Alex Abdullah from AAA consulting representing Tim Fat Architect location in Southfield. Very good. Do we have any questions for him? Go ahead. I don't have You don't have anything? No, sir. Anybody else?

Can you um summarize what you plan to do? Uh I will remind the building he couldn't make it so I'm going to represent him. He own uh stepbystep therapy physical therapy and uh he start his business I believe couple year ago in this city and he find out he need to make an addition for a pain management uh uh building next to it because it go together with uh with physical therapy. This is why we propose to add a small addition to the building for pain management. Mr. Chair, can I just ask one question? Of course you can.

Uh, thank you for being here by the way. Um, approximately how much investment dollar capital investment would this be? I am the designer. I can't answer this question. They estimated $250,000. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Kimberly. Any other questions? Appreciate you adding to Oak Park. We appreciate that. May I have a motion? So moved. May I have a second? Second. May I have a roll call? Commissioner Mlen? Yes. Vice Chair Brown?

Yes. Commissioner Tungate? Yes. Commissioner Eiselman? Yes. Commissioner Selson. Yes. Commissioner Walters Gill. Yes. Motion carries. Moving on to item three. Thank you. Moving on to item three. Site plan review forgotten harvest building expansion.

Yeah. Thank you. In front of you tonight, a site plan review for a building expansion for Forgotten Harvest headquarters and food distribution facility. The applicant proposes constructing 7,000 square feet to house their client choice market for Giten Harvest received administration approval last year for operating a temporary mobile trailer for the client choice market and now they want to build a permanent location for it. Uh this addition was part of the original original uh site plan approval. it was uh indicated on the original site plan approval. Uh the new addition meets the site development standard and architectural standard and we recommend approving the site plan subject to the nine conditions of approval. And we have Eric Kandell, the director of government relations with Forgotten Harvest is here to answer any questions you may have. First question I I have is is are the trailers ever going away or are they going to be permanent?

The trailers um that we use for storage. Yes. Um those are probably going to be permanent. Okay. Very good. Any other questions? Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um this uh the purpose of this is to give the uh people receiving the food more choice in what they're getting uh as they would if they went to a regular grocery store. Is that correct? That's correct. Yes.

So it's um is that a new idea in the area? It's a relatively uh recent um approach to serving people experiencing um you know food insecurity and it's felt that it um you know naturally it allows them to select food that they want to have as opposed to just what they're given. Um and it you know creates a more dignified experience. So instead of getting a box put in your trunk, you get to choose things that you would prefer. Correct.

It sounds like another wonderful idea from Forgotten Harvest, which is a um highly respected nonprofit. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. Please. Um Mr. Candella, I just want to thank you for your partnership, and I absolutely concur with the mayor and her comments that she just made. Uh you guys are a great community partner here in the city of Oak Park and this project I'm particularly elated to see come forward as I know it's going to improve the operation down there. Thank you very much. We enjoy being in in Oak Park. Um we enjoy that you're here. Thank you.

May I have a motion? Motion. So moved. Subject to the conditions. Hm. What conditions am I hearing about? Um, they're listed by the city. Okay. May I have a roll call, please? Second. Who Who was the second? I second. Here's the second. I believe Celic was the first. No, she made the motion. Okay. Well, we just want to clarify who did what exactly. All righty. Um, Commissioner Waters Gill,

yes. Commissioner Mlen, yes. Vice Chairperson Brown, yes. Commissioner Tungate, absolutely. Yes. Commissioner Eiselman, yes. Commissioner Celix, yes. Motion carries. All right. Moving on to item eight, planning commission matters for discussion. Are there any? I don't members only. I don't believe so. Unless the city manager who's moving around must have something. I do not, Mr. Chair. Okay, Celson, remember it's not me. Moving on to public comment.

It takes you that long to think about it. Okay, I understand. Moving on to item nine, public comment on items not on the agenda. I don't see any hands or any fearsome people. So I move on to item 10, adjournment. We're journ. Thank you folks. Thank you. Good night everybody. Good night. I was babysitting. She got caught up in traffic on the way back.