Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Let's begin with the pledge.

Pledge to the flag, the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Welcome to the Anakama Township Planning Commission. REGULAR MEETING. WE'LL INTRODUCE OURSELVES FIRST SO YOU KNOW WHO IS LISTENING TO YOU. TED ELLIS. DAVID GLEESON. CHRIS FORD. I'M DAVE WALLACE. I'M THE CHAIR.

CINDY WANN-BUCKLER, TOWNSHIP TRUSTEE APPOINTEE TO THE PLANNING ADMISSION.

THANK YOU. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion to approve those. I mean, the agenda, excuse me. Getting ahead of myself. Make a motion. To approve. To approve. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

Who was the second? Sorry, I didn't hear you.

Now we're down to the minutes of the June meeting.

Did you get those via email?

Yes, sir. So you see the minutes? Yes. Okay. Are there any additions or corrections to those minutes? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion to approve those. Motion. Support. Moved by Gleason, second by Forth. All in favor say aye. Aye. Minutes are approved. Okay. That was over there. This time, do we have any public comment? Seeing none, we'll move ahead. First item of business is the Little Eden Special Use Permit Amendment approval. And Little Eden came to the Planning Commission in 2017 to get a special use permit to do some demolition and reconstruction. And in that process, they ran into some code requirements, I guess might be the best way to describe it. that required some adjustment to locations and footprint sizes of buildings. And this is a, in Planning Commission speak, it is a minor amendment, which means it does not need to go through public hearing process, which is long drawn out. This is something that we can say This is, these are non-substantive changes. Don't change the overall scope of the project. And we should be able to move on, on that, that request. Wayne Faber is here from Little Eden. Do you have anything you'd like to.

I can just explain what. what the differences are and what was approved to what we're asking for. Well, you know them better than I do. So there's two buildings we're looking to do. The one square footage-wise meets the same square footage that was previously approved in our special use permits. The larger of the two buildings, which is two cabins, was approved at 1,620 square feet. We've had to eliminate a loft that was in that cabin because of state requirements and also commercial code has changed since the original approval. So we've had to put fire suppression in it, which is adding 187 and a half square feet for fire suppression. So the cabin is gonna be, we'd like to do a cabin that's 428 square feet larger than what was proposed. and approved back in 2017. So questions.

And some slight changes in orientation.

It's going to be, yeah, because of the addition that we have to put on the larger building, the smaller building is going to be tweaked off to the side, like 20 feet. And the front building that was approved on the site plan, We're going to center it between the stream a little bit better than it shows on the plan. So our plan is to put it right between the two. It's one stream, but it circles around the cabin. So we're going to center it so it's equally spaced away from the water.

Questions from commissioners? Well, it's you, Mike. Anything. I would entertain a motion to approve this amendment. I'll make a motion. Second. Moved by Aaron, seconded by Gleason to approve the SQP amendment. And We'll do a roll call, though, just for fun. Aarons? Approved.

Aye.

Yes. Leeson? Aye. Forth? Yes. VanBickler?

Yes.

Wallace? Yes. Thank you. Don't put out fires now.

Hopefully they paid your old boss. Thank you, Wayne.

The next item on the agenda is a brief update on Forage Point Inn. I was very pleased to learn the other day that Forage Point Inn is making application to EGLE for installation of a private sewer, which would utilize the existing tanks. I believe we'll utilize the existing tanks by the end and then do an underground pipe to the ball field where the rain field would be. This is not something that comes under the authority of District 10 because it's a private sewer. And so Eagle takes over. And I don't know that it's a quick process, but what is with them? And so, but this would be a major step forward and would open the door to the rest of many of the things that Bob Gazan would like to do. We can also report that The gas dock is now off the table. The boat ramp is off the table. And the boat barn, which was going to be on the ball field, there will still be a... They'd still like to do a maintenance shed there, but it would be more of an office for Duncan and a storage building for... storage point in equipment, tractors, um, lawnmowers and the like. Um, but it's not being looked at as for both storage. So that's what we know. And, uh, we will vote that, uh, this, uh, plan will work. Um, Mr. Guzon's already had, uh, Nordland Associates to do the design work for that system. And they have another company that they're working with who knows about how this type of a sewer system can function well.

Has there been any more dialogue about the lot and getting things removed from the lot. And now I understand there is concern about ablated property at the end, at the board meeting last night.

Yes. Well, the biggest problem at the ball field is the sheet steel. And I I think Mr. Gazan still intends to replace the existing seawall because it's only eight foot pilings. And I've heard rumors that it's perhaps washing out. And I haven't heard anything about anything on the, let's say the end property property. I do know that I'd like to encourage uh, them to look towards, um, a PUD, which, um, in the original DeVoe permit a long time ago, um, the planning commission said, um, Oh, you want to be a waterfront resort? Fine, you're a waterfront resort. Oh, you want a PUD? Oh, fine, you're a PUD. And that's not the way the PUD process works. There's paperwork involved. And most of that paperwork Gazan already has. The biggest thing you would need to do is a site drawing with dimensions on it. But I've spoken with county planners and We think it would be a good avenue for him to proceed with to give him the flexibility to work with the old casino location without difficulties. So that's what I know. Any questions out there from anyone?

Yeah, if you're inviting him.

I'll invite a question. Well, we can wait until the public comment.

Well, it's on your mind. Well, I'm just wondering, you said flexibility to work with the casino. What normally do you want?

Well, without a PUD, any kind of new construction has to meet zoning codes. Um, he's in our three and, um, now most of his property, his grandfather has been there forever, but if, but new construction would have to meet road setbacks and all kinds of things, a PUD offers some flexibility because you you're doing some open space and some, um, and he's got plenty of, he's got enough acreage that he can. meet those requirements, I believe.

So at what point will he need a major amendment to the SUP? I mean, these are positive changes, but I mean, they're major changes.

The SUP will have to be looked at to remove some of those things which he's no longer planning on doing. I mean, it's got a gas dock in the SUP. If he's not going to do that anymore, we need to get that out of the SUV.

Well, another consideration, too, is a big issue back, what was it, 2017 when this was approved, was parking. And so part of the parking, there were like 100 spots in the boat barn. So, I mean, that's always going to be an issue over there, depending on how much more he plans to do. So I'm concerned.

He's got plenty of room. I've seen preliminary sites, and he's got plenty of room for a drain field. It's not like a water treatment plant that takes acres and acres.

I noticed over there that the utilities have all been, at least the gas lines, all been flagged. Spicer was over there surveying the right of way.

I have no idea what that's about. I assume it has something to do with him.

Really? If it goes all the way, it goes all the way from the ball field and stuff.

He wouldn't be doing that work this soon, I don't think. Not without a more positive sign from Eagle. He's got to have it. I have a question. If

If he were to be able to put in his dream figure into the septic system, would this allow him to put in a culinary school like he talked about?

No, the culinary school is history. He'd still like to. He has the drawings for the hotel renovation. And of course, that renovation hinged on a septic system. and he'd like to put in a restaurant and a kitchen for that restaurant and not the 4,500-square-foot kitchen he was going to put in for the Culinary Institute.

This would allow him to have a restaurant.

Oh, he'd still have the restaurant. Regular restaurant. Regular restaurant, no.

Okay.

Did he say, is this like a, I don't care. Stay tuned. Did he say what he's, is he, has he got permission from the road commission or what's the status of that? I don't know. Stay tuned.

Okay.

I'll go over and ask them.

Be my guest. Okay. Moving right along. Um, we were approached by, um, Networks Northwest, who was working up in this area, as many of you may have read in the newspapers, that Manistee County is kind of a daycare desert. And they were looking at ways that they could make communities more accessible for daycare opportunities. Networks Northwest has uh, drafted language for a, um, an amendment to our zoning ordinance. Um, and there's grant funding from community foundation, um, which will pay for, um, the publication of the, of the public hearing notice. It'll pay for the drafting of all the language, um, Uh, and so we only cost, we would probably incur would be, um, a review by our attorney, uh, just to look at this and say, you know, yeah, I've seen, I've seen about 10 of these come to my desk for all the other townships that are doing it. And I think, uh, um, the, the villages.

Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're, we're done with our draft and the public hearing is scheduled for next month.

See. Well, so we have this definition and then amendments to all the different zoning classifications. And I'd like to see this move forward. We would have a public hearing on it and then recommend action by the Township Board to add it to our existing zoning ordinance. Any reactions?

I mean, I see that Networks Northwest struck out the location requirements and nothing was added back into that about separation. between the group daycare homes, which can be up to 14 kids. I'm not sure why I did that. I know in the village, we left it. We did modify it a little bit. The village also had, obviously the village didn't have anything when it came to this other than allowing them. But we put in there that one licensed group daycare home had to be at least 1,000 feet travel distance from another or 300 as a referral applies. And from my experience, you get two group daycare homes next to one another, or even one, 14 kids out in the backyard screaming during the summer months kind of disrupts the neighbors. And especially if In this area, there's a lot of retirees and older people. You might want to separate them a little bit. I don't know if you'll get a group daycare home in this area. It's possible. I know there's, from what I understand, there's a waiting list to get into the daycare facility of the schools. So we know there's a need in the area. But that really, at this point, is my only comment on it. the village's draft language. I'd be glad to send that out in the email.

Well, and we could check with Mike Sokoa as to what his reasoning was for deleting the township.

And I know it's to encourage these types of uses, and they are a very valuable use, but I think it's important for the communities to be sensitive to the neighbors and where these locate i'd like to see the reason and then we also put in language that if the proposed daycare facility didn't meet the spacing requirements that is the planning commission could approve it anyway subject to a public hearing and getting input you know from the neighbors so if it wasn't it wasn't a slam the door if you don't meet those those black and white numbers but i'll send it out All right.

So. Has Jody been involved in any of these so far?

I am. I am very involved with child care, but I don't know why it was excluded. I think it's a good point, but I also think the ability to waive, you know, if If it's not included as a good one, I'm going to ask Mexico myself, too, or at least let them know that you'll be reaching out. But we'll see. But, you know, being a parent in the area, it was very difficult to find a job there. Just because we lift the regulations or make them easier to get through doesn't mean that we're going to magically have more daycares in the area. It just makes it a little bit easier for anybody who would like to.

The other thing that the village did was substantially reduce the fee, or at least recommending it right now at $150, because in speaking with Mike, we said our notification requirements for something like this through the local newspaper is about $90. And so we just set up a little $71.50 budget and have mailings and then a little bit for staff time. But I think the township is $750 for an SUP. Yes, that's correct. That's pretty steep to ask a homeowner or a mother who might be staying home with their two kids to spend $750. I think that's pretty hot. Work for free for our first month. Watch these kids for free. I think we should get a cut. Yeah.

I do wonder, since I've been invited to speak, I do wonder if there are suggested distances between different daycares so that we could find. If we do decide that we want something, if there's a standard set, so it's not just an arbitrary distance.

Yeah, I mean, it's tough. I mean, when you look at model ordinances, you're going to see a lot of 1500 and recognizing the need. in the community and you know even 1500 a thousand feet that thousand feet is still quite a bit spacing and as a crow flies you'll see a lot of 500 we decided well let's let's let's lower it down to 300 because a travel distance you could just go right around the block and you could have the two rear yards above one another if you don't have in there something about property line to property line

So would you like to wait for some clarification on some of these items before we push it forward? Or would you like to get it in the hopper and assume we're going to get some answers and we would still be able to modify it at the public hearing?

How much lead time do you need between now and the next meeting before you have to notice it today?

15 days. 15 days. So we have two weeks after this meeting to get everything put together before we notice it. And that's coming in at the last minute.

I'd say go ahead with it because you can always modify it. Or if you have a public hearing, you don't have to make a motion to either approve or I guess deny. You can always just table it to another meeting as well.

But if we were wanting to incorporate some of the village language, wouldn't we have to have a new public hearing? No.

One required public hearing. At that public hearing, discuss what the changes may be.

I'm listening.

Yeah. I'm fine with moving it forward as long as we would have the ability to possibly incorporate similar language that the village is using. And I think my thought process with that is if in fact it was acceptable, I just feel any time the village and the township can mirror each other on a lot of different issues, especially something like this, it makes sense to me rather than having the village have one standard and the town should have another. So. Okay.

One thing that with this ordinance amendment Mike tried to do is unify it across the county. They looked at it as a county project, which is why we're involved. And they looked at everybody to try to bring it all to the state regulations that are out. So it is very close. Other than the comment that Chris made. Because everybody had their own Take on that.

Right.

Yes.

So. Do we need a motion on this, do we? Well, actually, you can do it. I'll offer a motion that the Planning Commission accept a public hearing and ordinance with regards to CONSIDERATION OF ZONING CODE AMENDMENTS INVOLVING CHILD DAY CARE. SECOND.

OKAY. WE NEED TO SPECIFY A DATE.

YEAH, I THINK THAT'S A GOOD IDEA. SO IT WOULD BE THE

Any other discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. So we need you to do a little homework. And as we get answered, we'll keep you all informed. So we could still make minor adjustments up to the publication date.

You can make adjustments. I know.

But when we publish, if we could publish with some of the answers to some of these questions, it would be nice.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. The next thing on our agenda is Article 1012, which is a section of the ordinance, um, dealing with, um, roads, um, public roads, local roads, minor roads. Um, and, uh, this was on our agenda, um, largely for, um, a, uh, uh, a residence or a local residence issue with access to his property. which we've since found another avenue to address. But Jodi, you still have concerns about 1012?

I do. It's an every summer activity that I have to try to apply 1012. And it's really difficult for property owners to get through. First, we use private roads and undeveloped platted roads in the same context, but they're different. Platted roads are owned by the township and private roads are owned, obviously, by the site condos or the deed holders or whoever owns that private road. And so applying standards for both of them is difficult.

is very difficult.

And a lot of times, like this would work really well if it was a brand new road. If we were creating a brand new neighborhood with a brand new private road that ran through it, this would make sense. But we don't have a lot of that development happening, especially in the resort residential. We have flooded roads that people have two-tracked and built beautiful homes on along the lake shore. And then we have the last person who wants to develop the last parcel on the road and um they're caught holding the bag per this ordinance to develop the road and establish a maintenance agreement with all their neighbors that have already been using the road and you know maybe don't want to enter that maintenance agreement and or like you know they see that if they enter this maintenance agreement their neighbor gets to develop it gives a lot of control where um and a lot of difficulty for that last person wanting to develop. But there's been numerous examples. Ivanhoe is one, if you guys have ever driven on Ivanhoe, going towards the water. I ran into the UPS truck out there. I couldn't even believe the UPS truck could get out there. But there's a new house out there. And then we see it on High Street, which is up in Pierport, which is a platted road. And so there's a lot of difficulties getting through this. So I think if we read it as a whole and thought about separating private from unflatted roads and what we really want people responsible for and what maybe private road owners should just be responsible for or new roads. And then also the township attorney wants us to look at this because there's flatted roads. roadways on the beaches and then there's the new riparian rights um new it's you know 20-ish years old now that the private property owners have riparian rights out to the water whether there's an undeveloped road there or not and so especially on the lake michigan side they want to put out their lake michigan um boardwalks to get down to their beaches and things but it has to go over this public slatted roadway. And so the township attorney has some opinions on how we can make it possible for the riparian rights to be acknowledged and then also remain in compliance with the zoning ordinance. Because right now it's not as clean as we'd like to see it. I have some suggestions. I have a marked up copy. You guys don't have a copy of that. But If we're doing text amendments, you know, or if we're thinking about it, I know we're going to be starting in October. So I'll be pushing my wishlist of amendments that have been an issue as probably next year as we move through it. But if this is the one that continually comes up and we kind of, we want to administer exactly as it's written, but It's just very difficult to find a way through. Everybody gets caught in that and then we just don't see development. They just fall off. They just stop communicating with me because at some point there's no reason, there's no way to get through it.

So what are the top one or two issues that potential homeowners would have with it that makes them walk away from it?

The private road maintenance agreement is one. And then the difference between unplatted roads and private roads if it's an unplatted road I'm not sure this is where we would want to talk to our township attorney but can a citizen develop do we want a citizen developing platted roads that are the township property you know or does the township want to be involved in that do we not care do we Is it okay? Do we want to see two tracks back to mansions? Because that is the way that the resort residential works around here.

Well, from a first responder perspective, I certainly wouldn't. want, you know, a two-track going back to a large home, you know, 500, 600, 700 feet off a main road.

Yes, yeah, and some are treacherous. I've been stuck in the Fort Escape in the winter at the bottom of a hill. Luckily, the property owner there has a shovel for me, but I've been stuck out there in the winter trying to get out, and So I don't know how we want to look at it. We need to look at it and figure it out, but I don't know what the right answer is. I don't expect you guys to know either, but reading it and trying to apply it and see all the different scenarios, I'm available for those types of discussions if you guys want to get into it deep.

Do you want to send us your markup?

Yeah, I can do that.

Yeah, I'd like to see if you rule the world. How would you write it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If I could speak on that, I've talked to her. I'm one of those property owners that has five acres that's off of Clark Road, and there's a paper road that the township owns there. And I've been for one year trying to talk with the township and try to access this. That's the only way to access this property of mine. is to access it through a paper road that the township has. And moving forward, you know, according to the regulations, you basically want to put a road in that is like better than the county road that actually goes into this paper road that the township has, according to the regulations that were written in this, you know, these ordinance. So for an amendment, like she was talking about, to make it where it's, it's accessible for EMS or whatever is obviously very reasonable, but at the same time to have a 20 foot wide road with a foot of gravel, and I'm the only one that's going to utilize it because all the other property owners that would actually even touch it, have deeded easements from roads somewhere other than that paper road. it really doesn't make a lot of sense. Like she said, why somebody's going to develop it according to an ordinance that you have driveways all over the township that are two tracks that are basically the same thing that I need to do is access my property through that township paper road. So, I mean, like I said, I've been dealing with the township and we're talking with David and everyone about this. So we can try to, you know, come to some kind of,

I remember hearing the discussion about your property at the Township Board meetings, and I think probably your property would be one that would be part of the discussion of how we can modify 1012 to try the best we can to address situations like this one. the difficulty in making adjustments to the ordinance is it affects everyone. Just because we fix this problem doesn't mean we're not creating 15 other problems somewhere else.

Are you going to talk about the...

I was going to bring it up. We received...

an opinion from an attorney and unfortunately we got it very late at our meeting and there is another issue that rose up with that because the belief is that that is not a paper road. That it is privately owned. Well, like I said, I mean, you're still well taken.

Well, my, my point is, is you have, when you have these, I mean, when you talk to the township supervisor and you talk to the county road commission manager and you know, you're kind of in this gray area that you guys are talking about, but you're being told that, yes, this is, you know, a township road. And so you move forward on purchasing property. based on what is being told to you by the people that are, that should know this stuff. And then all of a sudden, you know, you find out something totally different later, you know, there, there's gotta be kind of, you know, I mean, why does it show that it's there if it's not really there?

You're letting, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, you should get a copy of that. It's not, it wasn't attorney client privilege. From the clerk on Monday, or maybe you can send it to him. I think it basically says Richard Wilson wasn't able to figure out who actually owns it. Somebody from 1887. It's not on the... I mean, to a point, the first part of it, my opinion is it's part of the Forge Park addition. But beyond that, kind of where that first driveway peels off, who owns it? Well, you have to look at the dedication page on the plaque.

Typically, it'll tell you that there's right-of-ways and so forth, walkways, whatever might be is dedicated to the public. Correct. And then in that case, then the private individual doesn't own it.

That's a different discussion. But this property is not within a plat. Well, it's not within a plat.

It's next to. It's like dead, unplanned space that does appear to look like a paper road. And divisions have been based off from this dead space, which is what Lenny is referencing. But then when we do some really deep research, we have discovered that it's just dead space. Mm-hmm. dead, unplanned space.

Well, it's kind of like the old way. I mean, honestly, a lot of people would just put a road in and never even tell nobody, and then it just kind of like is a road that's there, and you utilize it, and nobody says anything. But that's not the correct way of doing things.

Okay. Well, hence the need to look at 10-12. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you, Jody. You're welcome.

Move on. Any public comment? I just had a question on the daycare ordinance because I don't know anything about it. Are these, these are in homes? Is that what we're talking about? The daycare centers. Those that are in people's homes. So are those like licensed, regulated number of kids per square foot, all that stuff?

You want to see what these, what these I'll say these moms that want to run a daycare out of their home, what they're up against when they start looking at the state regulations for these things, it was like 37 pages. Huge.

It comes with its own handbook. Basically, these regulations just say, we say what the state says. If the state says it's fine, we say it's fine.

I'm looking at those regulations, and I didn't see anywhere that the state would require in writing that the outside clearing has to be fenced. It's suggested. Yeah. I didn't see that it was an actual requirement though.

Well, my daycare doesn't have a fenced in, but she's in the middle of the woods. So I think it could be like situational if the kid runs away into the woods.

Public comment? Any? That was it.

THEN WITHOUT OBJECTION, I'M GOING TO ADJOURN THIS MEETING. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. John Gerstle, yeah. John Gerstle, yeah.

John Gerstle, yeah. John Gerstle, later. John Gerstle, Right. John Gerstle, Okay.