Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

6 o'clock. Let me know.

Good. Okay. I call the regular Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 in the City Hall Community Room to order. Roll call. Detmer.

Present. Cronberg. Present. Meridian. Here. Moss. Here. Newman. Here. Hall. Here. Robson. Present. Smith. Here. Okay.

Good morning. Maybe waiting for Max, maybe not. All right. Approval of minutes, July 15th, 2026, regular planning commission. Take a motion to approve. I make a motion to approve the minutes. July 15th, 2026. Any comments, instructions? I'll take a second. Second. Okay. That made the motion to approve through on second and all in favor of approving, say aye. Aye. Okay. Everyone said aye. All right. Moving on to the city council and planning commission joint meeting on August 17, 20.6 minutes. Take a motion to approve. So moved. Any corrections changes? Not that I can see. Okay. Take a second. Second. Okay. Rick made the motion, Bob made the second. All in favor of passing these minutes? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

We just got a notice at the last minute that you're going to be talking about flat cameras. Is that?

Okay, that's next on the agenda. All right. So I'm going to close public comment for now and go to the email regarding. Oh, the first one is. Those two emails are under public comment. You're right. So I didn't close the public comment. So the first one, first letter we got. was accessory buildings, and they were requesting that the new zoning ordinance would include, for accessory buildings, a 20-foot, two-foot height and a two-story provision. And it is, the maximum line is 22 feet or not to exceed height of the principal building. So rest assured that's not an issue. Well, congratulations. Well, that's true. It is in the draft. That's a better way to put it. All right. Then the next one is get flack out of our communities. Anna Bellew said, I urge you to pass legislation that reigns in the use of automatic license plate readers. She said to either ban ALPRs or create strict regulations. She recommended guardrails to limiting data retention, two hours or days, limiting data sharing by prohibiting local law enforcement from providing access to any other government entity, limiting usage to felony investigations, missing purses, identifying unregistered, uninsured vehicles, and electronic toll collection, and requiring annual usage reports. I checked with the city. We do not have FLAC, and there is no intention of having FLAC.

Is Lowe's outside the city limit? Is Lowe's outside the city limit? Yes.

Yes. Yeah. Bear Creek Township.

All right. Moving on to new business. Case number PD-226, major PUD amendment request for Crestview Commons, PID 2-19-07-100-013. John? Yeah. Thank you. Uh,

Bobby Lobby through their architectural component is requested to locate on the property two cargo style storage containers behind the building along Sheridan, which would have frontage on Sheridan. They already have one there. I provided some photographs and staff report to show you where they're located. where the current one is located. Their site plan is they want to put one right next to it so they have two storage containers behind the building for adequate storage. The site plan is fairly straightforward. However, there's some elements that the Planning Commission needs to take a look at relative to PUDs. One is setbacks, green belts, and buffers. The other one is traffic circulation. And then the third is accessory structures. In terms of traffic circulation, what they're going to do is two of the containers would take up approximately 10 parking spaces. When Lisa and I computed the parking, they have That's 606. Sorry. They have sufficient parking for the facility. Actually, they have A surplus of parking for the facility. Any numbers on that, John? No, we ran the numbers internally. Lisa ran the numbers. I looked at them and she said, John, they got so much surplus parking.

So it was a plant, not even close. Not even close.

In fact, when I did my field survey, when I went over to do a site survey, take the photos and take a look at the site plan, With all the cars that are parked, all the spaces behind the building along Sheridan, and then they also go behind the building adjacent to the residential or the behind it or the other part of Crossview. There was only three cars parked back there, but they must have had, I don't know, 50 parking spaces.

Of course, the mall is not full.

No, the mall is not full. I assume this parking in the back was intended to be employee parking, right? Maybe employees generally don't park there.

They park in the front. In the front, yeah. The only thing that was back there was the storage containers, three cars, and they happened to have a semi-truck that was docked at the loading dock on the other side of the building. From the street, you can see the containers. The container that's there now, they want to pull them next to it. So I think, you know, a green belt should be warranted pretty much to screen it. We did take a look at the trees that are kind of like lollipop there. Tim took a look at it from the office. He thinks that the damage to the trees was probably they were too close to the curb. And it basically snow storage where they push the snow over. It just over a period of time, it busted the limbs off the trees. And that's why you're not, if those trees were pushed further towards the street, They probably would have provided an effective screen, but now they don't. The storage containers are kind of visible from US 131. You can see the picture on the third page of the review where, you know, they're looking from the parking lot. You can see Gordon's and see the intersection. So, you know, these things are kind of, they're out there. From an accessory structure point of view, The containers are eight feet wide, they're 40 feet long, and they're eight and a half feet high. The accessory structure is greater than 14 feet in height, have to be set back no less than five feet, so they don't meet that requirement. What I found is just part of the review with the plane mission allows the two storage containers. I just think we just need to make some effort to provide some additional screening on the site.

John, when you say setback, what are you referring to? Well, their setback is all the way down by the sidewalk. There's a 50-foot setback, right? Yes. And they're within that.

Accessory buildings. Accessory buildings. So that's not even a concern because they have a 50-foot on the side there. We're suggesting that if you want to allow the extra storage container that we require them to put some screening up. They have the screening at least 10 feet back from the curb so it doesn't get impacted by snow storage. So they've got some place to push the snow, but it's not going to damage the landscaping. And they have plenty of room to do that. So other than that, it's a pretty clean review. It's not going to have any impact on internal circulation. The trucks can go all the way around the building pretty much unencumbered right now, semi-trucks.

Okay. That's what I couldn't understand. Offset 10 feet from the curb. I thought you meant the unit, the storage. Yes, I thought that would be bizarre. Now I understand it's actually the landscaping. Okay. All right. I open it up to the planning commission. Questions, Rich?

But he's temporary and if so, the one that's there has been there.

Not temporary. It's pretty much almost permanent.

And okay, with not really being allowed by us, but they just put it there.

Yeah, that first one they just put there, yes.

And are they going to change? I mean, are we going to see some really rusty one at that time?

We'd have to, I'd have to ask on, we suggested that a representative be online because they, you know, their architects are out, actually, I think out west. I'll just ask, is there a representative online on Zoom that's representing the Hobby Lobby?

Yes, we are. Jason Snook. I have Rob Luke here in my office as well.

Hey, Jason, did you hear the question from the planning commissioner?

About if we were planning on putting like rusty kind of containers out there?

Well, that and basically are these temporary where they're going to be picked up and a new one dropped off? Are these more or less going to be permanent on site?

They would be permanently on site so we don't disrupt for storage of fixtures and things like that. and then they wouldn't be moved off, you know, back and forth. It'd be whatever container's there. We can absolutely make sure that the unit that they drop is in a condition it should be in.

And would the color match?

I mean, we could match the color of the container that's there, yeah. Because it would be less noticeable if they matched. Yeah, and I read through the report, and it looked like it kind of blended, and so the other one would need to match that to blend even the same way. Excellent. I have one more question.

Go ahead. Is there any available storage space in any adjacent buildings in the center there that would be an alternative?

We don't know specifically. We would have to get with our real estate group and have them get with the landlord and evaluate those options. Not that we've been made aware of, though, at this time.

Albert? We had a discussion. I can't remember what meeting it was. I tried to look back at minutes. About the storage container, shipping container that was on the back lot. with a few, probably at least. And at that time, I believe that Marty Vamberlo from the Emma County Building Department was concerned about those. And so I kind of tried to see if they'd done anything at the Emma County level. I can't find anything. Well, it had to do with the footing. Yeah. So that's what I found here, that Michigan enforces the International Building Code and the And the residential and it says when repurpose for structural commercial or residential use containers are held to the same standards as conventional construction. This requires professional engineering approvals for foundation anchoring and low bearing capability snow winds and any structural modifications so I would like to make sure that they are meeting that.

Well, technically, these aren't going to be used for any type of occupancy. No, but they are being used for a commercial purpose. Well, yeah, for storage. But the issue over at Backlot was the storage containers, and they were on gravel surface, and they weren't on a hard surface. That was one of the reasons why Edmonton County had a concern over it. But is this something we should talk to Edmonton County about to make sure that they're... No, we can run it. issue because these are on the parking lot itself, which is already a hard surface area. But we can certainly make a phone call over them before the permit is issued. Okay.

Did you want to respond, Jason?

I mean, we've had to run into issues like that previously when we've put stuff like on the grass area and such like that. I've not specifically had to address issues like that when we've had to put them in parking lots in other areas. But I mean, our goal really is to find out what you guys are requiring of us to be able to do this. So I mean, typically we We look to do what is requested of us from the cities when looking at doing these items. And ultimately, if you guys approve it, we move forward with whatever your requirements are. And if you don't, we go back to our group and let them know what we've found out. But that's typically what our goal is all the time on that is to meet whatever codes there are, whatever requirements you guys may have from a local jurisdiction and kind of go from there.

I just had a question about the location, like why that location, why not put them on the east side of the building where there's the steps and the stoop going into the east side.

Off the top of my head, I presume that's where our back rooms are and there's a door that may open up back there to that to make it easier access. I don't know specifically. I'd have to look further into that to verify for you. But typically that's where we locate the containers is where we may have a roll-up door possibly out of the back rooms that creates easier access to that.

And my second question is, why not just put the containers next to each other so it minimizes your landscaping screen that's required? Like, take out five spaces instead of 10. Like, put them side by side.

To where they both open to the same site. I don't know that. I think it was just to take up less space from the drive area, possibly to make sure it stayed within the parking spaces. I'm not suggesting that we couldn't look at doing that possibly.

Okay, thank you.

If it still remains with the traffic area and flow, maintaining that.

Right. Yeah, my concern was the same as Richard's. There's a lot of empty retail space in this mall, and I wondered if you would be setting a precedent to allow another storage container outside, particularly when we just denied the request to have the Kmart property turned into a U-Haul rental facility that had storage containers out in front. That was one of the main reasons we turned down that request was because of the storage containers in front. Granted, this is Sheridan. It's not, you know, US 131, kind of the main entry into downtown. And it's set up a ways above the elevation of Sheridan. So you're looking up a hill. So it's less visible, I think. But still, I'm just concerned about the fact that we turned down a request that might be considered similar to this? And would we be setting a precedent for other businesses that might want to do the same thing in the future?

Carol, I would agree with Rick and also the fact that we don't allow these type of storage unit containers in any of our districts in town would want to be allowing something that they're not going to allow anywhere else.

Yeah, that I'm going to piggyback off from both of you. Thank you for bringing that up. Because while it's what we denied was a different use group, but they're storing things in the parking lot, and they're also going to telegraph into the asphalt over time, not to mention they are so ugly. Right. Even if you screen it with landscaping, it doesn't match the building typology. And there's so much lease space there. Are we setting precedent to where the entire back parking lot can then be storage containers at that point? I mean, it would be great if you guys would take the old Kmart and something. lobbying, you could expand.

I just will caution you that there's nothing that I can tell you definitively other than inquiries that we have received from potential tenants to Crestview. But the inquiries that we have received are all with the They're all contingent upon if the Kmart facility is eventually converted into a whole racks. Just with that out there in the public now, we have gotten calls from people saying about the vacant spaces. So let's hold off on our enthusiasm to put storage in some of these vacant buildings until we we actually understand what's going to happen with the balance of the shopping center. Because that project alone could change the complexity of that entire property. So...

So, Johnny, first a couple of questions. Is the one that's currently there legal? I mean, is it...

I don't know how it got there. Lisa doesn't know how it got there. It's there, okay? We don't know if it was... Should it be there? I don't know. We have nothing on our record, but we don't know if somebody previously had told them to go ahead and put it there. I mean, we don't have anything on our record. It's just been there for, you know, it's been there for a while.

So I get, we're using that, obviously the current zoning ordinance, not the one we're working on, which may be different in this regard, because you do talk about, didn't we talk about storage containers not being allowed in town? We're calling this an accessory structure. I think it's being called an accessory structure because there's lack of a definition of a storage container, which is what this is. It's not an accessory structure. It's a storage container. We just don't have it. So we're classifying it, I guess, to the next best thing. It's not a home. It's not a, you know, so I get that. I'm The fact that the color, I didn't notice this one so much. Honestly, part of it's because the back of the building is basically a wall. And it's almost the same color. And it's the same color. And if this were not the same color, it would be very obvious and really stick out. And we would certainly have to regulate that, which we don't love to do. But that's an essential part of this. But aside from that, I had some of these same concerns. I mean, I think the planning commission just disallowed or didn't like U-Haul putting storage containers in a parking lot. And this seems like kind of the same thing to me. Things in a parking lot, there's cars in parking lots driving around. I know they'd be in spaces that are technically the driving lane, but there's no curb around this thing. I don't think you should just put things in a parking lot where normally we talk about curbing things that you can hit with your car, right? So- Well, that's the nature of a parking lot, but you don't expect there to be a building or a storage container in a parking lot. I would submit that I would be fairly surprised if the Planning Commission, if this were a new proposal to put in Crestview, and they wanted to put two storage containers there, if we kind of jumped at that and say, yeah, that's a great idea. We talk about this being the back of the building. Back of the building, it's kind of like street frontage, I think. So I guess it's the back in terms of where their front entrance is. But in terms of the street presence, it's the front facing part on Sheridan Street. So I do have problems with this for several reasons. There's obvious storage in the, there's availability of spare footage. Now you've made your comments about what could or might happen. I don't know what could or might happen. They don't need a ton of space, these two storage containers. But that's neither here nor there. I'm concerned about setting a precedent and putting storage containers in basically what amounts to a frontage, street frontage, that has some commercial likelihood. parking lot, but I'm not sure if comments have been made. This might not even be the best location for it.

Well, you've got right next to the one, if you look on the site on SB 1.1, there is an electrical transformer and a couple of bottlers that are right next to one that there's a lot of electrical stuff that's adjacent to one of them. And those aren't curved. And those aren't curved either, so

Let's say, Albert, you wanted to speak. Yeah, maybe not a good idea.

I'm having trouble with this too, and it goes back to both John and Max's comments. We don't know what Horrocks is going to do, and we don't know what the future people may or may not do in that mall. But to allow, if one tenant is allowing storage growth, it needs to be on the back of it, and that's their very hierarchy. Other tenants are going to want to do the same thing. So I'm really concerned about setting a precedent that we may not want to live with. So I'm having a lot of difficulty with this. Max?

Our dumpster enclosure regulations are a little bit more stringent, I think, than what is being proposed here. And if you look at the site, the water drainage to further my comments about the telegraphing in the alcohol. The way that this site is pitched prohibits, I'm gonna assume I'm not, the skids, the way that the water drains. I think it flows this way and that it's pitched to the culvert. And 40 feet seems really excessive for one, let alone two. um and i would think that it would need bollards number one around it for the traffic concerns even though you know it's kind of it's really pushed out of the way but also to be screened with like materials just like a dumpster enclosure about 40 feet is extensive all right bob did you have any comments no

Well, I'm inclined to agree with the concerns.

I mean, if you accept the fact that there is one there now, if everyone's idea about aligning the two next to each other rather than end to end would certainly alleviate the additional screening or the additional presence along shared inhabitants. They were side by side. But that's sort of In doing that, you're sort of recognizing that possibly one approved one is already there. It's legitimate by approving the second one, unless our approval was somehow contingent on something like that or had a... You know, again, kind of what I said, kind of what we've been so far drafting, at least for our zoning ordinance, really doesn't envision this kind of thing.

No. So that's what we're planning on doing. Right, but we can't rule on it based on what's in the future. But we can know what direction we can apply for the city, and we have to make a decision to allow this change in this PUD. So we think the changes we would make would be consistent with our direction we're going. John, you want to weigh in?

I think stacking them together, we'd end up with an eight feet in depth to typical parking spaces, 18, pushing them out more into the maneuvering lane. They do have semi-trucks that do come through there. That's my concern. The other thing would be, you know, we took a look at the idea of screening with something a little bit more than landscaping, but candidly, I think putting a, a dumpster type of facility around this to screen it would actually accentuate it more than trying to just soften it up with landscaping on the slope, trying to fit it in that way if you're so inclined to. I think the other part of it is, maybe the reason why you haven't really noticed it is, I think Ted pointed out, it's true, it's not exactly the same color of the building, but it's awful close. So when you're driving by, if you're not really paying attention, you don't really see it. So If you're, you know, like I said, if you're inclined to do the approval, then, you know, one of the conditions I would add to it would be that the storage units have to be painted the same color as the back of the building. So they kind of, they more blend in. But, I mean, I get where you're going with the storage issue with the U-Haul. So it is what it is.

I'm inclined to deny myself. Option one.

I feel like they could place them somewhere else on the site. I think just south of the loading ramp.

And I'm concerned that I don't know what the internal layout last time I was in the Hobby Lobby. I think that their storage area is back here. That's where the loading ramp comes in. So I think their storage is already in the back of the building and there is a door And somebody could walk out and go right to the storage units. I think that's when I looked at it, that's what they were doing.

But the loading ramp must have access. Pardon me? The loading ramp must have some access up the back.

It does. The loading ramp has a door back there as well. But I think they're bringing stuff into the back of the building. And then there's also a door that comes out into the parking lot that somebody could walk out in. Go right into the storage containers.

That's least like when I was a couple of years there. There's more than one because there's see that there's a couple students along the steps and go down right I mean like these green boxes can work for location.

That would be just south of the loading dock going to be hidden behind the loading dock wall and then screen by the building.

So you think the distance between the wall, this little gray area that's cemented is where you're suggesting to tuck them in?

I mean, if it's possible, I'd rather see them there than out where you can see them driving up the road in the residential houses across the street and see them.

Well, where the red ones are shown makes more sense than where the green ones are shown.

Yeah, I mean, That's for them to decide.

That's a loading dock. And there's two dumpsters. That is not closed. Is that on the aerial? There's a street behind this. But it doesn't fit with the overall context of what we want our neighborhood to do. But me, I mean, I the back of my house.

The other option would be, to be honest with you, is if Hobby Lobby got rid of the storage containers and just built an accessory structure back there.

Right. It would just seem to me that again, in the future, are we going to let every business along there put in a storage unit?

I don't think we want that.

And then we also have that other development that's in the city. I mean, you know, they, they might want to put the, what is it? Bay mall or whatever. You know, they could get on the bandwagon of putting these things out. So, you know, it's almost like you kind of need to nip it in the bud.

So what about the existing one? If one is, if two is not conforming, it's the one non-conforming. It's already there. We have no records. It's grandfathering it. It wasn't part of the PUD. It wasn't part of the PUD.

Technically, we could issue a citation and ask that if you're in.

Any more discussion?

Cynthia, I do. what was envisioned for this PUD, what we envisioned for neighborhoods, the direction we're going. I have no basis, and maybe that's not the only way to make a decision, but I have no basis for what their storage needs are, what they're trying to do, what their options are. So it seems like a big thing for me to grant without feeling there's no other solution. That's what bothers me.

I think we have consensus.

I need a motion. I'll wait for a motion. Motion to deny the site plan and request for additional storage.

Okay, so Albert made the motion. Max seconded. But shouldn't we reference things from the zoning ordinance? Or can we just say we deny?

We're opening PUDs.

Oh, that's true. All right, well, I'll come home to you. Roll call with Detmer. Oh, is there any, would the public like to weigh in?

Yes.

Okay.

I agree. If we're going to allow somebody to do it, everybody's going to want to do it. And also how much more room does Hobby Lobby need? No offense, but that store is humongous.

Anybody else?

It is a very pleasant booking.

Yeah. Okay. Back to us. Is there any more discussion at the table? Anything on Mike? Oh, is there anything online? Would anybody like to comment online? Okay. I bring it back to the commission for more discussion. Roll call. Denver? Yes.

Breed?

No.

This is to deny. To deny. Okay. I'm sorry.

Yes. Yes means no to having a storage unit. Okay. Deny.

Meridian? Yes. Moss? Yes. Newman? Yes. Paul? Yes. Robson? Yes. Smith? Yes. Motion carries. All right.

Moving on. Oh, here we go. Now we are to election of officers. This is for the chairperson and vice chairperson. Current chairperson is me, and Rick has been the vice chair, secretary. And so for candidate selection and procedures, it's based on Robertson Rules of Order and the process currently used for the Pulaski War Convention. City Council candidate nominations, this format is being suggested because the regular election procedure is not specified in the bylaws. And so the selection rules are chair opens the floor for nominations, a person going to nominate themselves. Any board member can nominate another board member. Nominations for officers do not require a second. A member can decline the nomination during the nomination process. Not hearing any further nominations, the chair will declare the nominations closed after confirming there are no more nominations forthcoming. If a candidate for office is unopposed, a simple voice vote is allowed. If there's more than one candidate for an office, it will be available. So I opened the election. for chairperson?

I'll nominate Cynthia Robson for chair.

OK. Any other nominations?

I'll nominate Rick Newman for vice chair. Oh, we're going to do one at a time.

So remember what you said. Hold that thought. All right. Then any more nominations? All right. I close the nomination process. And because there's only one candidate, a simple aye vote. Aye.

Thank you.

Yeah. All right. Now I open the nomination for the vice chair.

I would nominate Richard Newman for vice chair.

Okay. Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Rick, are you willing to do this?

Yes, I'm willing. Okay. I'm perfectly willing to let somebody else do it.

All right, I have an aye vote. Aye. So unanimous.

Thank you.

Thank you both for serving, yes.

All right, moving on to capital improvements program. If you didn't get the amended one, I didn't even know about it until today, but that was on the agenda, so I'm glad I discovered it if it works too late.

John? We have a cover memo in the packet. Most of you, if not all of you, were at the special meeting. The CIP was presented by the city manager and several of the department heads relative to the 2027-2032 CIP. We've been through this before. As stated in the state statute, Public Act 33, 2008 planning Commission reviews to see IP and they have to make a determination or they make a motion. Either to approve or to approve with the changes were to deny, but then that recommendation would proceed on to the city council for their review and their approval as part of their budget process. So it's at this point in the CIP process that the Planning Commission has an opportunity to review and comment on the plan and make a recommendation. Make a recommendation if you want to save time.

I open it up to the Planning Commission for discussion.

Anna, Jane, if you would. I had a question just kind of parallel to this. There was supposed to be a RFP for non-motorized transportation plan, I think. How are we doing on that?

Yeah, we opened up bids yesterday, actually. Nine responses, so I'll be going to City Council on the first meeting in October with a recommendation. Very good responses, very good, capable, specific firms that specialize in this field, so scoring these bills.

I really had no other comments on the CIP except just in the future, Shane, I think it's a really good time, maybe, I don't know what point in it, but to get up our kind of sidewalk plan and we'll typically see in these CIPs, we're doing some streets and we're going to do the sidewalks on the streets. Some of these streets already have sidewalks and it's just a good time once a year to look at the whole city and I'm trying to remember. We kind of prioritize some areas near schools, but are there some areas that aren't in the plan that should be? So I think it's a good time to take a look at the sidewalk map once a year and say, how are we doing? Is this enough? Do we need to do more? That's my comment. I appreciate that.

Rick? Yeah, I thought we had a good meeting with the city council. A lot of good input was made. The next year is most other years going through 32. I would make a motion to accept the plan as presented to us. And those comments might have, comments made at that meeting might have modified it slightly. But I would make a motion with the city planning commission to accept the plan and pass it on to city council.

Rick made the motion. Do I have a second? Ted makes the second. But I'd still like to continue discussion if anybody else has any comments.

Rob? Also at the joint meeting, it was brought up the request to really prioritize additional sidewalks around schools.

For example, Lindau and Hoffman and getting down to the high school and all of that to

been at all. So.

Anyone else? I would just agree with that. Fuck English sidewalks doesn't.

Thanks. Mr. Shane. So what was the number to redo all of our roads? Was it like 80 million? I think it was 40-ish. Was 80 the cumulative number for all of the water infrastructure?

Um, I think that was cute about everything.

Yeah. Okay. Everything in the book. And I'm just so curious, I guess, because you obviously don't have the funds available to, you know, provide this infrastructure and the upgrades necessary. Like, are, do you foresee a mail coming to help address these needs? How,

Um, I don't foresee that one thing we may try to do. And we did this, what I was told we did this like 10 or 12 years ago, we grouped a bunch of street projects up and bonded, went out for a bond and tried to address a number of streets during one season through a bond. And then obviously pay back our bond payment over the course of whatever the length of it was. So I think we're at that point to do that again. Um, It's easy if it's simply, not easy, if it's just a mill and resurface, those are fairly straightforward. The cost, and you guys all understand this, the cost is the infrastructure underground, the water, sewer, storm. I certainly don't want to get in the habit of putting lipstick on a pig where we're just paving over undersized infrastructure or infrastructure that we've had recurring issues with. So in my opinion. If we have a situation where we may be slightly undersized, but the condition is okay and it can get us through another 10, 15 years, maybe resurfacing makes sense in that way. But we are going to redo all of our streets from a rating standpoint this fall. but we'll have that updated PACER study done. And then likely we'll try to go back to city council and put a package of projects together that would allow us to go ahead and bond for them and address them much quicker than in a six-year plan, if you will.

Yeah. I just, every time I look at these studies, I feel this looming dread. Oh, I know. I hear you. Does anybody else feel that way? Yeah. Okay. Are we in a good standing? No, we're behind.

There's no question about it. The challenge is we have a number of areas where we have infrastructure issues. So it's not just simply bringing a mill in and going crazy with milling and resurfacing. That's pretty easy. We can do those pretty quickly. But if we really want to address the core issue and go for invest in our water sewer undergrounding, obviously with electric. Those take time and they take a lot of money. The next reconstruction, Bay Rose area, it's over $3 million when you add all the components to that project together. So It's a big chunk of money.

So you have a guesstimate like, what percentage of streets we need to do really about underground.

Infrastructure yeah, I know Jason's got a handle on that. I don't have it to the top of my head, but we are tracking significant, like, maybe 50% at least. Yeah. In another community that I was in, the state has a revolving loan fund for water and sewer infrastructure needs. It's 1% to 2% interest. From a financial standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. You put a project plan together, you address a lot of infrastructure needs. through that program. We've never done that here. So that might be something we explore as well, trying to take advantage of some lower interest revolving funds through the state to maybe try to address some of our infrastructure needs more quickly.

It's my understanding that they select municipalities that are under-deserved. Distressed, yes. Yeah. So more than likely. we will not be selected.

We won't score well in that category. There's other things besides that, but we certainly wouldn't score well there.

I think Petoskey, though, is on the cutting edge of a lot of communities in terms of undergrounding electrical signals.

I mean, when you talk about dread, go somewhere else and your dread will go away, in my opinion.

Someone my seward back up.

The fact that we have clay sewer, it's over 60% is clay piping. I have clay piping in my yard. I know what happens when roots get into it. You just can't imagine the city. The problem is that it was one yard. If our whole street gets roots in it, you're going to have several. That infrastructure alone, the sewer, clay, you can't put clay pipe in since the Late 80s, I believe. Yeah.

Thank God we have a lot of Sam, right? Yeah, sure. Play another person. It doesn't absorb it that fast.

All right. Any more discussion? Did the public like to weigh in? Would online they like to weigh in? OK. Roll call vote? Denver?

Yes. Breed? Yes. Cronberg? Yes. Meridian? Yes. Moss? Yes. Newman? Yes. Hall? Yes. Robson? Yes. Smith? Yes.

All right, next is a discussion on data centers. John has provided a template for data center zoning ordinance. Well, Dan, you want to introduce it and let us know what you're looking for.

Okay. Well, Commissioner Paul had sent me an email and asked me about what are we doing with data centers? And at this point, we haven't really discussed data centers. We've been more focused on the proposed new zoning code. However, I think as you all are aware nationally within the state and here in the county, data centers are a hot topic. The ordinances are very complex. What a lot of communities are doing, working on these ordinances are requesting their elected officials to put in place a moratorium in order to give them the opportunity to actually delve into it, prepare the necessary regulations. I provided you a copy. of the Michigan Township Association data center template that they're recommending. Although we're not a township, a lot of the stuff in there is pretty much applicable. But I don't think, if we're concerned about data centers, some of the communities that have been working on these codes, these ordinances, have been taking between three to seven months, eight months to go through the process of review, drafting, public hearing. So if it is a concern here, um, I would certainly recommend that the planning commission asked the city council to put in place a moratorium, at least for six months to give us, give us the opportunity to take a look at the ordinance. There's three types of data centers that need to be aware of. There's ones that are referred to as edge data centers, which are relatively small. Now you have what ones that are called co-location. which we do, you do have one here in northern Michigan, which is in Alpena, which is in their downtown. And then you have the Hyperscale, which are the large ones that are getting all the attention right now here in the state, especially down in like Saline Township, where one of the Hypercenters is going in on 600 acres of property. The ones I'm concerned about are the co-location facilities because They can go definitely in a downtown on the second or third floor. They're primarily servers. There's some internet hubs that are co-location data centers as well. But we're going to need time to put the ordinance together. Why roll the dice? If we're concerned about it, ask the council to put a moratorium on place so we have time to work on it. That's my best advice.

So basically now we have nothing, obviously. We have nothing. Right. And you talked about edge co-location as a hyperscale. I don't see that in this draft or mock-up ordinance.

It's just part of my research that I've done on data centers. They kind of group them into three, basically small, medium, and then the hyperscale are the very large ones.

So do you think moving forward that ordinance might discuss each of those scenarios?

And then the other part right now, Emmett County has a moratorium on data centers for the townships they represent in their ordinance. Based on internal discussions in the office, we know that resort township is potentially looking at it as well as West Traverse and Little Traverse are looking at it as well. So right now it's basically on an individual basis. There's no statewide moratorium, unfortunately, to give everybody an opportunity to put these in place. So you have to do it at the local level. I haven't talked to Laura, who's the city attorney, but a lot of the law firms are recommending that the moratoriums are put in place by ordinance, not by resolution. So it would take an actual ordinance with two readings before City Council.

Right. So, John, if we were to ask the City Council to consider an ordinance to put a moratorium on data centers for six months, I guess one crucial part would be, or helpful, is going to be, how are we going to, do we have a good definition of data center, exactly what we're?

Well, this is, you know, I gave you this template, which is one that's being passed around the state. We'll pull some other data together. But I think once we get into the process, the zoning committee or the whole planning commission, if you want to get involved, we do some additional research, have some additional models to take a look at, plus some basic just literature that's being written on it. So like the Urban Land Institute has come out with a document on data centers and how to approach them at the community level. So there's some other publications out there that we need to educate ourselves on. But we're not going to be able to do this pretty quick. My suggestion is, again, I'll have to defer to the attorney, city attorney, but some of the moratoriums are six months with an option for an additional six. Some of the moratoriums are for one year. But again, each attorney, corporate attorney, has their own preference on how they want to do it. So that's my suggestion.

Well, we could suggest, the city council would make the decision. We could discuss, we could suggest a minimum of six months for consideration. Yes.

And that moratorium, who would create that document? City Attorney?

Rob? John, you mentioned the county is looking at this too. If they... Suggested a recommended moratorium time.

I think the county is, I think they did theirs for one year. And the county did. But it's only for the townships that are under the county zoning code. Correct. So there's a number of them that are not. And each of those townships are looking at their own potential moratoriums.

Let's see, Rick. Well, I was just thinking an example in the city might be the Michigan Bell building. That building, I think, is largely empty, you know, with all the movement, technology movement to cell phones and everything, all the stuff that used to be rows and rows of equipment in that building. When things were all done, you know, in a more mechanical way, I guess that's the word, I guess. So, you know, that's a building that's here in our community that's might see a candidate for the other thing.

Okay, Albert? I was just glad that John pointed out the different sizes. Because when I thought about this, I thought, Cindy was asking, we don't have acres and acres of land. And then I pulled up the same thing you were referring to. I mean, an etched data center could be one and a half acres to 10 acres. I would be in favor of the year moratorium. If you have the city council, you have two meetings and everything else. I would be in favor longer.

Max? Wouldn't it be zoned industrial or S use, which we don't allow. I'm looking at the parcel ID right now for the Bell building. That's

To sort of that's zoned. You know, in Bonney Land, I don't mean to suggest that I would be against that building being turned into that. You'd have to know more of the details and what's being proposed, but because that might be an ideal location for something like that. I don't know. Well, I don't want to put the cart before the horse. Right. Right.

So when you think about our new zoning ordinances is you know, what, 75, 90% there, but it's still got to be adopted and put in and all that. So he might be right. Maybe a year is what we need because we're, we couldn't get bogged down with some details in this new zoning ordinance.

I'm trying to make sense to be parallel to it. That's where my thought is.

It is a process where you just define it in the ordinance, and then our listed regulated uses, you list it, and then you just don't allow it in any of our districts? Is that a possibility?

Yeah. What's that? It's stay home. This is listed as office service.

You would want to have it defined in a district, but then you would want to have standards that you have to follow as a special land use.

So no matter what, you have to allow it, but it has to be a regulated use.

It's kind of like mobile homes.

It's like adult businesses, right?

Yeah, then I would suggest we needed to do a 12-month moratorium just based on wanting to get forward with what we're working on.

I think you're going to need a year, but like I said, some of the attorneys go six and six and some go one year. Really, it's how the corporate council for the city wants to structure. But it should be structured under an ordinance, not a resolution.

So we just recommend that they do it and then the details up to council.

Details up to council and to the city attorney. Or the moratorium.

And then we'll be handling the writing of the ordinance. And that will go um I was wondering where it would, where that section would end up in, in here.

It would, the section would probably end up in the new ordinance would be under, because it would be supplemental regulations. So if we did it, we classify it as a special land use. Yes. But then we'd have its own group of regulations. It would be under supplemental regulations. So that's article nine, special land use approval.

Yeah. Site plan. Okay. All right. Um, I think we're in agreement that we would like to request a moratorium of one year on data centers. And that's, we'll have another project for 2027. Do we need a motion?

Yeah, we need a motion, right? Yeah, we need a motion. I'd like to make a motion to recommend to the city council that they put a moratorium on data centers for six months to a year, depending on the city attorney's advice. Did you say the ordinance?

The ordinance, yes. I think that's weak. I would really like it to be a solid one year. I'm fine with that. I couldn't change my motion to a year.

Second to a year. Okay. Albert? made the motion. Bob made the second. I think we can just do it all. Oh, was there any comments from the top? Thank you. All right.

So the current motion is for six months to a year, depending on what the attorney says.

I think they correct.

They changed to a year. Okay. Let's get out of the city council.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Right. All right. Now we're going to talk about principal shopping.

Yep. I put together a memo for you. It's a couple pages long. This happens, this came about based on conversations that we've been having with two things. City manager and I have talked over the last couple of years about taking a look at some type of organizational structure to revitalize parts of the business district, primarily outside of the DBA, and that would be on Mitchell Street from the Bear River over to Charlevoix Avenue in that area because it's looking somewhat depressed. We got some issues there with setbacks. It's not all that pedestrian friendly. We banded around some ideas on how we could approach that from, like I said, an organizational point of view. Then came along the proposal to convert the big lot and the balance of the Kmart building into a Horak farm market, which would really start redeveloping, again, the Crestview shopping site. And in the city's master plan, Crestview Commons and the Bay Mall are identified as potential redevelopment sites, primarily because we all know that retail has been evolving and transforming. You know, some stores close out. Some stores are vacant. Some of these shopping centers are being converted into mixed-use developments. And the master plan that was adopted in 21-22 basically lays the groundwork for this. We took a look at the principal shopping district because it comes with a unique feature. PSD is considered a redevelopment tool by the state of Michigan and also by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. So if you have a principal shopping district, anybody within the district can qualify for a redevelopment liquor license, which is above the typical quota that's assigned to a community by the state based on population. So as of right now, there are no liquor licenses available in the city for use. The Horrocks Farm Market Project requires a liquor license because obviously they want to sell beer, wine, spirits. Part of their footprint, part of their program is they also have an internal restaurant. where they serve wine and beer and spirits. So the establishment of a PSD goes a long way of creating an institutional organization on part of our business corridor, where a board that would be constituted by the city council, much like a DDA, would put together plans for its redevelopment and revitalization. At the same time, it also opens up to some of the businesses in the corridor, the opportunity for redevelopment liquor licenses, which are then managed by the state based on a quota of reinvestment in the community. For example, doing some research on this, the city of Traverse City, based on the amount of investment that they've gone through since they've set one of these up, they're entitled to over 250 redevelopment liquor licenses. They've only used 17. Now the difference between this type of a liquor license versus a regular liquor license is these licenses are site and business specific. So if the business closes, the liquor license expires. It's not marketable, it's not sold on the market. So it's very specific to the business that has the license. In discussion with city manager, we came up with the idea that the PST for the city would extend from the Bear River Bridge along Michigan Avenue all the way up to the end of the South City limits where we're at by Hainer or by Anderson Road where it comes in. And all of the properties that have frontage on that corridor would be within the PST. And that would include all of Crestview Shopping Center and all of the Bayview Mall properties, as well as some individual properties, obviously, along the corridor. So it would allow us to do some revitalization based on actual physical improvements that would be funded in part by special assessment districts in the future. But it also would open up some of these businesses or these sites that are sitting there They have access to a redevelopment liquor license which will encourage additional restaurants group hubs and some of the other activity that's ongoing in these right revitalization areas. This has to be created by resolution by the city council. But we wanted to bring it for the planning Commission because it is consistent with the master plan. And then it kind of sets up this area like I said redevelopment and revitalization in the future. So with that said, I'm happy to entertain any questions.

I have one. So say Horrocks gets that liquor license and they put in the millions of dollars that they're required to invest to get that. And then they sell the business. So they're gone. So that liquor license is taken away. Well, can the next people, do they have to spend millions to be entitled to that liquor license?

The redevelopment is not only within the corridor, but it's almost citywide in terms of redevelopment dollars.

Okay. But if whoever buys this and wants to keep it open, how do they get a liquor license?

Well, once this is established, we would monitor what the redevelopment is within the entire district.

Oh, so it doesn't have to be by the individual who is applying for it. It's just you have to spend that much money. And then you get credit.

Well, for example, if this district would have been in place and then we went through the redevelopment of the Rite Aid, that investment would have counted into the pool for the redevelopment. Same thing with like Spring and Port where we allowed them to build. It wasn't a big investment. It probably was a big one for them. But in terms of putting in an outdoor patio and then reorganizing and all that, whatever they spent, that would go into the redevelopment pool.

Okay, so one of the reasons why you include all these is because.

you'll get investment dollars when they need to expect stocks. So it's not just that you think these should be at liquor licenses, it's just, it can stimulate this area.

Yeah, it's like right over here on Mitchell, remember we did the project, approved the site plan for the gentleman that wanted to convert the house into a contractor. I mean, he's, you know, they're putting in new wind, they're doing it right now. Well, that would get part of it. So it's like you're you're starting to build momentum within the district, but then one of the benefits of this is the redevelopment liquor licenses that would become available in order to facilitate more business development.

So, John, why are we stopping at the Bear River? Because on the other side is the Downtown Development Authority. So they can't, they could not participate. They're their own entity. Yeah, it seems like just when I hear the term, the term is like, you know, shopping district. Well, our shopping district, our big one is downtown. It certainly needs some redevelopment too. So I was hoping that there was something where they really can't participate.

They have their own board, Downtown Development Authority. PSD wants this established. You'd have your own board of directors that would be working on this project.

And so if I understand this right, we're not saying that every place in the green can have a liquor license.

No.

We're saying that any development within the green contributes to this big pot of money that we have pre-developed. So we have, you had to spend what, a million dollars per thousand? Yeah, it's in my narrative. So we'd have to spend $5 million in that to qualify. And so you're looking at where we get them. Okay, so like Horax, we have to put in $5 million, Anything in district?

Yeah, investment not less than the amount equal to $1 million per 1,000 people in cities. So we need to do $5 million because we have 5,000.

Rick? So there's no public financing mechanism as a part of this like there is in a TIPA? No, the public financing mechanism in a PSD is a special assessment district.

OK. So some of the PSDs, for example, the board would create a budget an annual budget on what they want to do, promotion, marketing, maintenance. That budget goes to city council, city council approves it, and then that amount of money is spread along the frontage or whatever the methodology is, either by square foot or frontage feet. And then the money is put back into the district. That's the primary funding mechanism for it. So it's similar to the downtown management board, kind of. Kind of, yes. They have their own assessment system.

And would they still, like, much of this is in the viewshed overlay, that still would apply, correct? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. All the current, where at this zoning, at the zoning we are now, and all the zoning in the proposed zoning, this would not?

No. This is an organizational structure focused on revitalization and redevelopment. The use of the property still have to conform to the code. Okay, yeah.

So this would not go in the zoning work? No. This would be city council?

City council.

Okay.

Yeah, I just, it was kind of what was envisioned back in 21 and 22 when you guys, when the livable Petoskey master plan was put in place, the two large commercial properties, the Bayview Mall and the Crestview Commons were specifically identified as redevelopment sites. And then the corridor was, was looked at as a potential mixed use development. So this is kind of right. This is like an implementation of what the vision was five years ago. So I thought it was appropriate to bring it before the planning commission that if you think it is consistent with the master plan that we would pass that along to the city council as part of their due diligence.

It seems like a mechanism that has been lacking for this area kind of like what was lacking for downtown before the management board or the DDA was created to redevelop downtown?

I mean, you know, we've done some incremental things along the last few years to try to tie this corridor together. I mean, if you take a look at what we did with the Rite Aid, and then we required across the street with Jimmy John's that they use the same plantings and fixtures and whatnot. And we're doing the same thing with Spring and Porter. We're incrementally trying to tie this corridor together to have its own image as you come into the community. So, but this is like, Rick, like you said, this is kind of like the next, this is like very, very similar to a DDA, but a little bit different in terms of how it's funded.

Is this required for ORX to go through?

This is one of the avenues that we could look at relative to providing access to a liquor license. Yes.

And the other question is if we have these redevelopment liquor license that come available, can like spring importers sell the liquor license they have and apply for a redevelopment?

I don't know why they would. Because if they close their business, they would lose their liquor license because they're site specific. Gotcha. Okay.

They can resell theirs. They can resell there. Spring and Porter County.

Yeah, they can resell there.

Is there any way we would consider the Talberg property in this, or does that be contiguous?

That's a good idea. Like the whole highway.

From the other city limits. Yeah, what kind of be the whole highway?

I couldn't think about doing it that way. I mean, I'm trying to, part of it would go through the DBA, but it's not all that much. Shane, what's your thought?

It's possible. I mean, that's a good idea to think about that on the other side of... That could be some money.

Yeah. Does the DBA have control over that area?

No. So it doesn't have to be contiguous. That was one of my questions. I mean, you just elongated all the way up 31 to the city limits to the Bayview. So it goes from south to north city limits on 31 and 130. Makes sense. It gives you more opportunity to do it.

So John, yeah, I had that question about Horrocks. So this would be an avenue for them to get a liquor license. Are they stuck otherwise? Is there a problem?

Yeah, they're stuck right now. They've tried to buy a license on the market. It's not available.

So I don't want to say is being driven by that.

Well, a little bit, but Shane and I over the last couple of years have been trying to, you know, we have talked about extending the DDA, but then that comes with some cons too. So when this came up, it was like, yeah, this really makes sense. We've been looking for kind of like a state statute to create an institutional organization with a focus on revitalization. It seemed like that everything kind of just fell together That's what we're doing.

I just got to, you know, when I started reading through this, the master plan quote you have in that second paragraph talks about recommended redevelopment, appropriate, improved pedestrian accessibility and the addition of residential uses is the statement. And then the rest of this whole discussion is about liquor licenses. So I was trying to tie together pedestrian accessibility and residential uses and the whole discussion being liquor licenses. It seemed exactly the same thing. But I get what's going on with the corridor, the structure not unlike a DDA and what that would do. One of the questions I had was about downtown there's been redevelopment liquor licenses that have been used. Is there a limit on that Shane?

There's ten licenses. I think we have executed six of those

So one question I had about this district was to what extent would it be competing with the downtown for these kind of establishments? I don't know. And maybe that's good and maybe that's bad. I don't know what people don't think.

I don't necessarily see the downside to it, but I want clarification.

So the liquor licenses that get collected as you spend money, the liquor licenses are for this region, not anywhere else in town.

Despite the DDA, DDA has some redevelopment liquor licenses, but they have to be used in the DDA. Okay.

I mean, my understanding from that, back when I was on the DMV is that was a self-imposed limit on the number of licenses and that it was project specific. I mean, you know, the person that was granted or the entity that was granted a liquor license was because they did personally spend that money on that project. This sounds a little bit different. amongst that district. Is that correct? Or it being a liquor license. So it's a little bit different from the downtown DDA or the development licenses.

Right. But from the sounds of Traverse City, of course, they've had a lot of redevelopment. Yeah, and a lot of that's been residential, I think. Right. So they have a ridiculous amount of liquor licenses, you wonder.

You know, besides in this corridor, who gets the licenses? Is it this board? Or do you just get one if you apply? You apply to the Michigan.

I think the city council had to approve it, though.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think.

The city council has to approve the application. But the application goes to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. So. It's not like free liquor license.

No, no, no.

Actually, there's a cost to the redevelopment. I think it's $20,000. $20,000.

So in addition to doing fixing things, anybody who wanted one of those has to pay $20,000 out of pocket.

Yeah, and then they have to go ahead and raise a sixth council. Okay.

And they have to meet the spending thresholds of how much they're spending to redevelop that property. Now I'm confused.

No, we're talking about this principal shopping district. The $20,000 threshold for this application only,

millions of dollars that this area would collect, but there is no threshold for their development. It's a pool. Of all of these businesses.

Within the district, how much money has been spent within that district over a period of, I think it's three years.

So is this air miles? So many miles, you get a plane ride.

So this district, those kind of rules are spelled out by the state. This kind of district?

Yeah, there's a state stash that goes back to 1961.

Okay, so we don't have to worry about that. That's all set in stone with the state. That's state stash. Yeah, so that we just comply with state stash.

Again, we've talked about liquor licenses, these redevelopment liquor licenses with regard to this principal shopping district. i don't quite understand i mean i understand to a degree that there's now a board uh overseeing this district has a potential the board to maybe need city council approval to uh level assessments yes council has to approve that and then what about the plan or independently do things on this quarter in terms of the, where, is there a difference? Now, like, where's, like, the planning commission's role versus the board, like, the look of the district, like, rules and regulations, zoning. We're obviously in charge of zoning, I think, but.

Well, we are. This probably involves, I can't remember, but these are going to be in different zones, right? Right now, these are PUDs. There's PUDs and then there's the business support.

I'm just trying to ask, John, what powers does this board have?

Well, the board has the ability to, of course, everything has to get approved by city council. So boards approved by city council, budgets approved by city council. They can facilitate investment in streetscapes, sidewalks, lighting, landscaping, wayfinding, any other improvements that basically attract

Businesses to the district so they can if a council approves it they can assess the businesses in the district to get revenue Yes, and then they can do improvements. Yes the design and look of those improvements Do they have to they just probably the PSD would hire somebody to do a plan?

You know plan would be done like Oh, yeah, you know if there was like a plan for for the refund, you know to improve the character I'm just assuming it eventually it would come to the planning committee a few too. I think it should be required. Because it's part of a sub-area plan.

That's what I wondered, how we don't have one group doing one thing.

Typically a plan for this corridor would be considered a sub-area plan as part of the master plan and recommendations would come with plan commission. The more people that are involved in it, the better it's going to be.

Wouldn't a good example of how this works with the different layers is the cohabitation that we approved downtown. I mean, that was under the downtown development authorities over downtown. They still had the person who wanted to develop cohabitation leals had to come to us to do that. So I would think it would be if something came in that district that was different, we'd still have to come to the planning.

Well, yeah, anything that happens on any of these properties that would require special use approval or site plan,

that no it's not any different than what we've done well when you get to uh streetscapes and things like that we don't actually i'm not sure that we shouldn't be doing it but we don't uh the city the city makes decisions on the look of that that design to that um well a linear district like this i would think that would be a consideration that the plan would look at as part of some overall plan for this principal shopping district yeah it would be nice if we would but i'm not sure we get to.

Well, it seems like there'd have to be a plan. Yeah, that's how you decide how the common money is going to be spent. Just like the TIFLA, you know, there had to be a TIFLA plan approved ahead of time, and then it was split up into, you know, sections to be done in years. Bob?

Just need clarification. This is basically, we would be recording, or if this is developed, it's not actually creating money or budgeting money for anything. It's just recording the improvements throughout the district that as it meets certain thresholds, it would allow liquor license within that district. But we're not... There's not a bank of readability. It's just a recording on a spreadsheet, basically what's being spent in there. And when it meets certain thresholds, it kicks in these different allowances.

Correct. Okay. That's one part, Bob. The other part of it is the PSD, the Principal Shopping District Board, would create a plan, how they envision to revitalize and improve the functionality of the portal. That becomes a tie-in. And that ties in.

Oh, we did that with Emmett Street. Right. Yeah. And we were involved in that.

John, so this entity is created by the state of Michigan?

State statute. It's Public Act 120 of 1961. So this predates the Downtown Development Authority Act. So some communities that have PSDs had these in place before the DDA. The DDA Act was created in 1975. So this predates the downtown development.

I don't know how massive this document is with the rules and regulations, but it would be nice to see them or as some kind of a summary of what's, you know what I mean?

Why get you a copy of the state statute? Is that what you're looking at to get a copy of the state statute?

Yeah, so you'd know all these questions would be answered and they'd be laid out.

So I guess the question is... Yeah, what were you planning first?

Well, I'd like to get a recommendation from the city council to establish it, but before that, there was the discussion about do you want to extend it up 31 to 80? Yes, sir. So you want to extend it so I'll have to make changes to the map before it goes to council. Okay. Jane, you good with that?

Yeah. Good. I guess my only comment, John, is I would like to see more information on the specifics of the district. I actually feel like I'm recommending it because I don't exactly know what I'm recommending. But what do you... Like the legislation with the public act.

I get you got the public negligence, but functionally, it's the same thing as the DDA. The city council creates a board. The board of directors is required to develop a plan for the district in terms of what they see as redevelopment options, maintenance, promotion. And then based on that, they put together, if they want to actually implement it, they have to put together an annual budget, which then goes to city council. City council, if they agree, then they assess each of the property owners, their pro rata share in order to make the improvements. So it's, Pretty much the same thing which happens with the downtown management board. But instead of downtown, it's along the corridor. It's virtually the same thing.

Well, it would be nice to see that.

So it's something we can look at right now?

Well, it could take a little bit to reach.

I feel comfortable with the fact that this is a redevelopment tool like other similar ones that is allowable by the state for municipalities to use. legislation or enabling language that we could make a recommendation.

I can get you a copy. I can send it. I'll tell you tomorrow, the copy of the state statute. I agree with you.

Me too. Okay. Any more discussion?

I'll make the motion that we should recommend the city council. Oh, that's true.

Does anybody have anything they want to say? Anybody on the screen there? Okay. Rick, does your motion? I'm sorry. There is? Okay.

Well, I have a public comment, but not on this issue about data centers. Okay. Well, we need to focus on those.

Rick, you want to include in your motion to amend the map to facilitate new Yes.

I move that the Planning Commission recommend that the Maskey City Council establish a principal shopping district encompassing the Mitchell Street, US 31, and Spring Street, US 31 corridors. Why isn't Mitchell and Spring Street yet? And Mitchell Street extended to the boundary of the city. redevelopment and long-term economic vitality of these important regional commercial corridors. Also, I'm going to reach out to Rich.

Yes, Rick made the motion.

Rich seconds. The way that was created, that included the Tallbrook properties, right? 31 to the north of that. Okay, that's one picture.

Okay.

Brokham?

Can I make a comment? Yes. I just want to make a comment for the record. I'm going to have to vote no because I just don't feel I have enough information on the specifics of this district, which it sounds like you'll get to us soon, but I'm not comfortable with reading that.

Okay. Freed? Yes. Moss? Yes. Meridian? Yes. All? No. Smith? Yes. Yes, motion passes. Okay.

So zoning ordinance update.

We have the open houses scheduled for next week, next Tuesday from 4.30 to 7 in the City Council Chamber and then on Wednesday from 1 o'clock until 3.30 and then again from 4.30 until 7 o'clock. And that's with attendance for myself and members of the zoning committee. And then the display will stay up until the following Monday. So Tuesday and Wednesday, there'll be open house that's staffed Thursday, Friday, It'll be basically a self-guided tour if anybody wants to come up and take a look at the boards. Is this going to be in here? City Council Chambers. It's been advertised twice in the paper. We've had informational board down at City Hall and lobbying at the public library.

John, once these are up in the Council Chambers, is there any chance of having those boards also available online for people that can't come down I understand we don't want to reveal it until we reveal it. Once they're revealed, it would be nice to have those right up on the zoning website so that people can look at them and really take a look. A lot of people do better at home.

Then on the 24th, which is Thursday, on the 24th, the draft will be posted online in entirety. Then you will probably get an email from City Hall to come in and pick your books up. As everybody's getting a book, plus the city council, the zoning board appeals as part of the community review process. And the draft will also be... And the draft will be posted on the 24th.

Can you state those times again on Tuesday?

Tuesday, it's 4.30 to 7 o'clock. And then on Wednesday, there's 1 o'clock to 3.30.

And then 4.30 to 7 p.m. Is the Zoning Ordinance Review Committee members getting the draft prior to our? No.

We'll have to work with our work spirit. Yeah, but when we have now.

I need the Zoning Committee to hang back after the meeting because I want to get some time slots from them.

Okay, I'm going to take a break here and You had a comment you wanted to add about data analysis?

Yeah. Hi, everyone. My name is Ellis Pohl. I'm an attorney in Charlevoix. I'm an activist on the subject of data centers. My wife and my husband were there. We worked together. We have an application for a leave in the Michigan Supreme Court trying to stop the data center in Saline, Michigan, the biggest in the state, and also to stop Oracle from separate to stop Oracle from getting a tax break amounting to one and a half billion dollars. What I'm here to tell you about is if I have a memo I'd like to circulate it to Bernie or if anyone else is interested that Any municipality has the right to, even despite the zoning ordinance, has the right to prohibit data center in your municipality. It has to do with the concept of Euclidean zoning, which is a technical concept in zoning law and also a need. You can do this unless there's a need demonstrated by the developer. for that land use in your township or in your municipality or surrounding. So if you'd like to receive a copy of my memo, a 21-page memo, I've been circulating it in the state since May. I've not heard of any one trying to force a data center since I started circulating it on the basis of exclusionary zoning, but this is something that interests you. I'd like to send it to whoever would like to hear about it. Rowan?

It's on our website. know charlevoixdatacenter.org it's there it's also on the rural michigan defense fund.org website which is the saline township group it's an exclusionary zoning paper so yeah this be a link added to the minutes on your public comments

they could be directed to it instead of including a 21-page memo as a public comment. Yeah, sure. Thank you.

Yeah, I had one little tidbit of info about data centers also. One interesting thing that happened with the Saline Township Data Center that a lot of people have not caught, maybe you've read about that that data center, the big one, they are building it. Their zoning ordinance actually prohibits conditional rezoning, which is what the application was for. And the zoning ordinance still says today that the application shall be returned to the applicant without review or consideration. And instead what happened was the planner from a company called Carlisle Wartman used a 2013 draft of the zoning ordinance that was never passed into law and passed it off as the actual zoning ordinance. Nobody caught it. Some people knew, but, and it's been put into the, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty bombshell. Okay.

Commissioner comments.

Well, let me ask. So the zoning ordinance. So John, you've got these, many of us as possible to come.

From the committee, because you're familiar with the code. Have I seen the poster board? Have we seen those final? You guys approved them at your second meeting.

Okay. And they had minor changes. We don't have the current, what's going to actually be displayed.

Can you resend this? Yeah. Just so I'm fully familiar with what I'm going to see. Sure. Okay.

Okay. So everybody knows who's on the zoning, on the SOAR committee, right? You remember? Yeah. Yeah. So you guys hang back and we'll get that set up.

Okay.

Updates? Good. All right. Well.

Did you do commissioner comments already?

Yeah. Well, go ahead. I'll reopen it. I saw, and I just don't know what the position really is. The city is looking at, a city planner. Is that your position? Yeah, it's mine.

Yeah, I can brief you on that. We've had some change in Shifting personnel. I think you all heard that Lisa DeNoyer is transitioning from her zoning administrator position to the finance department. So taking a front counter position. So we have a void in the zoning administrator office. So it was always the thought that once we're done with this zoning rewrite, that we go back to our Um, and it's certainly nothing, nothing against John. John's done a great job for us since I told him even, John, if you're hired, if you're interested in jumping into this full time, and I know he's trying to, uh, ride off into the sunset at some point, but, uh, um, so we do have a planning and zoning administrator combined position out right now. Um,

So it's going to be one person doing all of it?

Yes. That's the thought. Now, we may not achieve that. Right now, as I look at the few applications that we've gotten so far, probably not. But we've got a ways to go still. John, Ruben in John's office is filling the void for the zoning administrator position, Ruben Schell. So Ruben's here half days, four days a week in the office, functioning as our zoning administrator currently. Lisa's in her new role downstairs. And this was 100% her decision. She just felt like she was at a point where getting a little burnout with zoning, as you can probably imagine. If you know of any planner looking for work, certainly send them our way. We'll take a look at them.

Rich, do you have a question? Are we a go-to person for agenda packets and if we're going to be here or not? We used to talk to Lisa about it. Yeah.

probably me at this point. So, you know, you're not going to make a meeting or you have an issue with the agenda packet.

Well, I didn't, I never got my agenda via email this last time and I was out of town. So I didn't get my agenda until today. So I left messages and whatever. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah, get a hold of me if you have any administrative issues or concerns, and I'll try to facilitate as best and quickly as I can. Okay, thanks. I would like to say that I really regret Lisa leaving.

She was wonderfully competent, knowledgeable, always informative and helpful, and she did a great, great job. I'm going to miss her. I'm sure well in her new function. Yeah. She wants people to smile. She wants to get smiles, not just goals. Cynthia, go ahead.

Are you done? I'm just going to say, I always try to tell staff, you know, we're always not going to be able to give people a smile when they leave this building because there's sometimes we have to say no on issues or things, but I want to make sure that they feel like they've been heard when they've been in this building. Lisa does a great job of that. certainly, and all of our staff do that well.

John, I just had a comment in the being of Commissioner comments. Someone brought to me this, I wasn't actually on the Commission at the time, totally, but the Jimmy Johns thing, how problematic it was this summer, and I did look at, went out there and kind of looked at it, and it seemed like most of the fast food, you know, they have that the drive-through kind of lane to the window all the way around the building, but their building is small. So it doesn't take many cars to stack up. But I think every other fast food establishment, it's not just a driving lane and then parking spots. There's almost like two lanes so people can back out and can go out. But the way that's narrowly set up, if there's cars in the queue waiting to go to the drive-through and you're in a spot, you cannot get out of Jimmy John's. So... I don't know for the city, and I don't know that's something we talked about, but how that happens?

It met all of the requirements of the code. The issue that may happen over there is that people are, when they drive into the Q lane, they're staying, they're not in the Q lane, they're partially out into the driveway.

So every other establishment must have figured this out, because

Are there lines?

No. I don't think there's lines. No, they should do that. I honestly don't see the room to do that. When I look at the physical space, it's like I don't see how you could back out of the regards in that. So I don't know. Is there anything future? I'm just thinking future way we can look at those. You may obviously maybe not be here.

Well, I mean, we use the zoning code in terms of the angle of the parking and the maneuverability. lane requires in metal dimensional requirements. Small site, but I think they were very efficient in how they laid it out.

They might be efficient, but it totally didn't work and there were cars backed up on the highway.

They put striped lanes on it.

If it's that simple, because it's a mess. I don't think it's a mess. There were cars backed out on the highway this summer. People come around from Charlevoix Avenue swinging in there.

Oh, yeah.

35 miles an hour. There were people who were parked, who were done eating. One of the city council members said she thought her life was going to end in that parking spot because she was there so long. You could not get out.

That must have been traumatic.

It was a long time. Yeah.

It's not a bad place to get stuck at, Jimmy Johns.

They're stuck here for a couple hours. It's not freaky. So the code is specific to that kind of establishment, or how does it?

Went through site land review. They had angle parking. They had a maneuvering lane behind it. Okay. I think when people come in, you know, they're not, it's not striped, but I think some of the people come in and then they kind of are in the maneuvering lane. Okay.

And that's what caused the problem. I just wondered how that happened.

I think it's, Rewind and remember what was there before Jimmy John's and what's there now. To me, it's a win. What was there versus what's here now.

I get it that there's some... We can't be defensive. When you go out there and you see that and people say it doesn't work and you see it not working, it's pretty hard to go to people and say it's working just fine.

I'm not saying it's working just fine. I'm just saying what was there versus what's there now.

The question is, if the space is there, it should work. So maybe we need to just send an enforcement officer there or require that they strike the lot.

And mine's just about the future. What can we learn? What can we do differently? That's right. problem is.

Well, if you draw lines and it's still a problem, then maybe we have to... We should try to do that.

I mean, that would be a public safety issue. Cars parked in a traffic lane waiting to queue into a store. That's not a minor issue. On an highway, that's a pretty big issue.

What's on the far right as you're going, if you go around the cars, what's right to the outside? To the east, I think it's just that way.

Oh, I see.

On the south edge, you turn around, gets the playground, and come around the building.

So the cars can't back, is what you're saying, to get out.

Right. And then if it's really busy, just... Well, you know, that does happen at McDonald's. Does it happen there, too? Yes.

And they actually, it feels much more spacious between the drive-up lines and that, and you can still have to wait.

I don't know if I've heard of cars out on the highway wrapped up in McDonald's. Yeah, there's more Q in the space. Right. Okay. Just thought I'd bring it up. Yeah. Lessons learned.

Okay. I guess that's it. So Zork people stay. And the meeting is adjourned at 7.50 p.m. Wednesday, September 16th. Thanks for coming.

Thank you, Cynthia. For another year. You're earning your angel wings.

It's possible it isn't much.

It's so inconvenient because there's no way to get to it. Here's the sign-up sheet right here.

I can do Tuesday, but I can't do anything on Wednesday.

Okay. Put your name on Tuesday. Do what you can. But yeah, I don't have to be there.

I mean, I just need who's going to be at what hour for hours besides myself. Well, you can do Tuesday.

Nobody fills in. What about you, Cynthia? Because I'm real flexible, so I can fill in with self-involved. I'll see you on T4.

Yes. Tuesday, no, we'll be on issue because Tuesday. Okay.

So it starts from 1 to 3.30 and then it goes on through 7 and starts this week. Let me take the 1.32 home. Yes. 1.32.

Let's see, we have.

Oh, those are just the times. All right. So it starts at 4.30 and then 6 to 7 on Tuesday.