Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Township Planning Commission meeting will come to order and acting secretary, please call the role. Called to order at 6:30. Uh Dennis Sabolski here. Tim Boyd here. Steuart Pop, he's be coming in late. He'll be arriving late. Yeah. Sandy Growth, present. Did I say it right? Yes, you did. Okay. Uh Dan Callahan here. Bill Ikes uh was here just a moment ago and will join us. Ashley Krueger here. Thank you. We have a quorum. Thank you. And is there a motion to approve the agenda as submitted? Yeah. I make a motion to approve the agenda for the March 18th meeting as as submitted. Support. Second.

Moved by Commissioner Grath and supported by Commissioner uh Boyd. All in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries. And is there a motion to approve the minutes of February 18th? Uh, Mr. Chair, I move we approve the minutes of the February 18th, 2026 planning commission meeting as submitted. Support. Moved by Commissioner Boyd and supported by Commissioner Callahan to approve the February 18th minutes. All in favor signify by saying I.

Before we do that, can we have just a little discussion on it? Oh, okay. With respect to the minutes, there were several points I made in that meeting saying I want this on the record. They didn't get reflected in there. The reason I wanted to do it is this would pertain to car wash. There are things that they could do for safety. They chose not to. I specifically said I wanted on the record that the planning commission is looking out for the safety of vehicles. Right. Those comments, I think, are pertinent here to put on the record so you don't lose sight of the fact that if they choose to cut corners, it's on the developer. It's not on the township. Okay. That had to do with the uh turning the radius

that heating extending the heated pavement, right? As you went in the turn because people will fish tail, particularly pickup trucks, which is over half the vehicles on the roads, right? That was one. They accepted the rotating the garbage, right? want to make sure that was in there because it just makes it easier to get in and out because otherwise they get a lawn job. But when we ask these questions, right, and they say, "No, I just want to make sure we capture that stuff in the record so it's not lost on the residents." A so they have more confidence in us than they ever have had before. That's all. Okay. Hold on just a minute. Um Laura, do you know if they've made any modifications that address those issues?

At this time, they have not submitted for final stamp. So, uh, the the site plan is still with them to be worked on and then they will submit it, uh, to us. It could be in the next couple weeks. It could be a couple months. You might want to bring it to their do you meet with them or they just submit something to you or they will submit when ready and we will review it. Okay. It still should be. I agree. I think it still should be in the minutes. But we have an update as to Yeah. where we are with it. Yep. Okay. So, if the secretary would please note that. Thank you. Uh so uh does we'll we'll take that motion off the floor. Commissioner Boyd, do you support that or take it off? Yes. And

if it makes it easier, I'll just put the comments in writing and send it to Laura so we can whatever. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So we have to uh a new motion to approve the minutes as amended. Yes, Mr. Mr. Chair, I move we approve the minutes of the February 18th, 2026 planning commission meeting uh with the comments from Commissioner Iikes as amended. And Commissioner Callahan supports. All in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries. Are there people here that wish to speak to us on a non-aggenda item? Yes. If you'd have to come up agenda item.

Oh, it's an agenda item. Uh what a what item is it? What what uh agenda item is it? Okay. All right. It's not a public hearing, but we'll ask for your comment when we get to that part of the Okay. Sure. Anyone else on a non-aggenda item? I actually had a non-aggenda item. Okay. I didn't know if it was okay for me to speak. Uh well, do you want to do it now or under commission or comments? I

I want to do it now, right? because it really is non-aggenda, but it affects zoning, which affects the planning commission. Right. I actually took the time to call Matt Kolasar this morning to express dissatisfaction with two state laws that are going through that change local zoning laws and basically rip up what this township stands for. Attacks the culture, right, with homes as small as 500 ft, minimum lot sizes of 1500, duplexes and single family neighborhoods, mobile homes and residential subdivisions, in-law units, your neighbor's backyard. Right. I understand there's a housing crunch. We have to find solutions. This is a knee-jerk reaction and it's dangerous to the character and culture of Plymouth Township. So, I just wanted to go on the record as as sharing that. I would encourage anyone else to give Mr. Kolasar a phone call as well if they so feel compelled. That's all.

Okay. Thank you. All right.

I'd like to make a comment on that as well. Um, Commissioner I was um referring to eight bills that are in the Michigan legisl legislature right now under the category of missing middle housing. This is a project that's been led by the Michigan Association of Planners over the last 5 years. Um, it is a very specific proposal. Um, it is pushing an agenda which I believe is totally inappropriate for Plymouth Township. It certainly could be appropriate for major metropolitan areas, urban areas that are older than than we are. There's a lot of good suggestions in there in that in instance, but for Plymouth Township, these suggestions are completely, in my opinion, out of line. Um, this is going to be a major discussion this year in the legislature. I urge you all to find out about it, uh, to form your own opinion. You may like it, you may not like it, but it's a situation that we're going to be facing. And if it goes through as all eight bills, it will fundamentally change the character of Plymouth Township um from now on. And and in my own personal opinion, it would have a much bigger impact on the township than the racetrack um issue of a couple years ago. So, I just want to reiterate um Mr. strikes comments on this and from my perspective I'll be saying more on this later on

and to further I would also like to comment that I agree with both of you gentlemen um and and one of the things in some of these bills allows for the placement of mobile homes actually in residential units subdivisions and and that type of thing and it eliminates setbacks that that are you know that that are required now so it's important to let them know that they're out of touch I what they want to do does not go here.

One of the other key points is it would allow um duplexes in all single family neighborhoods by right, which means that a planning commissioner or a township could not challenge it. And if you think about our community here, think how that would impact some of our um subdivisions, it would have a significant impact. So again, something to be looked at. Agreed. Same way.

Okay. Just to just to elaborate on that, I you I I certainly support what was being said and if you watched the news last night, you'll see where that it appears that the city of Ann Arbor has adopted some of these already. So, they're going to be the first uh folks that are going to have to uh live with this. It is being uh promoted by the Michigan Builders Association. It's also being opposed by the Michigan Township Association, the MTA. Um, I've read several articles that uh I've shared with this group and um I I can't give you a single source on where to look for it, but you might want to try to go to the Michigan Township Association website and they may have something posted there. Um, or you can contact our legislators in uh M at the Michigan level and and uh ask them to give you some information on it. So,

I would make one other comment. The goal of this effort is to try to um make more affordable housing for u the community at large. Um in missing middle housing is housing that fits between single family, traditional single family homes and large apartment complexes. So, it includes duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, town homes, condominiums, small apartment buildings. Um, again, you know, there's points to be made in favor of this, but the point is Plymouth Township is already way down the road in offering these types of options to our homeowners and to people, potential residents. So, my view is we need to be very clear about articulating where we stand on this spectrum and we are already very well placed. We offer a much wider range of housing types than most uh townships like like this. So, we're not ignoring the issue. In fact, we've already addressed the issue uh with a lot of what we have now. And there's other things that we're looking at as a planning commission that we can further enhance missing middle housing without changing single family zoning in Plymouth Township.

Okay. So you have your homework uh one way or the other how you feel about this. All right. Uh first item under new business is application 2593 uh the 15,000 Ridge Road Warehouse building and we have your planner report.

Thank you. Um good evening commissioner Saj Mcross with McKenna. This application is for tenative site plan for 15,000 Ridge. Um, the applicant is proposing a new warehouse building for and storm water detention on a previously developed 100 acre parcel. The property is zoned industrial. As far as site design and zoning in use, um, the proposed development complies for site appearance and coordination. I want to note that the speculative warehouse size is detailed as 195,364.

I'm sorry, I can't hear you. It's either you're speaking too fast or you're not getting in the speaker. I know the sound system is horrible. My bad. Thank you.

For site appearance and coordination, the proposed facility scale and location are adequate. I want to note that the speculative warehouse size is detailed as 195,354 square ft on the site plan. However, details on the floor plan and elevation documents size the warehouse um a little bit smaller. So, the applicant will need to provide an updated site plan um with those details. I also want to note that the proposed building height 45 ft exceed exceeds the maximum height for the industrial district. However, as maximum height may be increased by 1 ft for each additional 5 ft of setback in excess of 75 ft. Um the proposed development complies for preservation of site features. Um there are three regulated wetlands present. It is not expected that these wetlands will be impacted by the development. The applicant provided a tree survey indicating the removal of 41 non-heritage trees and 15 heritage trees as well as the preservation of 44 trees greater in DBH than 8 in. The site requires 425 um DBH replacement and they provide 426. So they comply in terms of pedestrian access and circulation. Um I want to note that the current proposed conditions do not comply with pedestrian infrastructure and circulation requirements. Internal sidewalks are required between the parking spaces in the building to provide a safe route. The applicant will need to provide an interior path to doors that may be accessed by the east and west parking lots. It is also recommended um to provide parking lot pedestrian crossing hatches in the

parking aisle for emergency access and vulnerability to hazards. The initial fire review failed to comply um for a uh turning radius as there was a dead end. Revised site plans include a hammerhead turnaround and the township fire marshall has approved um and provided comments for landscape screening screening and buffering. The parking lot landscaping islands um require 27 trees and they are provided um for for streetyard landscaping. There's one tree needs to be planted for every 40 ft of frontage. Trees have been provided along the private drive on the landscape plan. However, the trees are designated as replacement trees. Um, landscaping requirements may not be double counted. So, these would need to be updated to accommodate the extra 28 street trees that would be needed to meet that requirement. Additionally, for off- streetet parking and vehicular use and service areas, um the Village Greens Alcoa trees on the southeast corner and the Redmond Lynon on the northeast corner will only block a small portion of the vehicular use area and will not provide screening during non-flowering season. Um staff is recommending additional landscaping in the area between the landscape island and the street to better meet the intention. A general comment from the township engineer um notes that no landscape will be permitted in the utility easement unless approved by the planning department. Um trees shall be located directly adjacent to the right of way in a manner acceptable to planning commission. Staff find shrubs to be acceptable within the utility easement but no deep rooted plantings of any kind. Um, please update the landscape plan to remove any deep rooted plantings.

I do want to note the planning commission may approve alternatives to these conditions for parking and loading. Um, the total required parking spaces on the site are 411 and those are provided including nine barrierfree parking spaces. However, I want to note that the current site plan on sheet C1 um notes that 142 required parking spaces um are recommended as per developer historical data for propo the proposed use. Um were an applicant demonstrate this to the satisfaction of the planning commission that this is adequate for this use. Um the planning commission may approve the construction of a lesser amount of parking spaces and in loop provide uh banked parking spaces building and design. Um based on ordinance requirements, the proposed building facade is tilt up uh concrete. Um however it is requested that the applicant provide a list of materials that are minimum 75% masonry products. Um the floor plan and elevation details must also be revised to have these as finished materials. Um and additional architectural details need to be provided to break up the blank walls. I do want to note that the previously approved building one on the property has similar architectural design to building 4. So the planning commission may modify the above listed requirements um if the project is found to meet the objectives of the ordinance for exterior lighting. a phototric plan was provided. Um the pro the project uh overall light intensity complies and the highest lens light intensity complies at

the property line. The pole and mounting heights also comply as well as the correlated color temperature. For the waste enclosure, it's located at the northwest corner of the site and is proposed to be surrounded by three evergreen trees. The en enclosure is not visible from Ridge Road. However, the applicant needs to provide details on the proposed waste enclosure building materials. Staff is recommending approval of tenative site plan with the nine listed conditions in engineering conditions and any other conditions set forth by the planning commission. The applicant is here to take your questions and I'm happy to take any additional questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have the engineering report.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Melissa Chilani with Spalding Decker. We have reviewed this tentative site plan. Um, and at this time we uh feel that because there are no associated utilities with the project and really that's just the storage expansion itself. Um there is a a overall proposal for the surface storm water to essentially sheet flow um into a temporary proposed retention basin that eventually overflows into the existing wetlands. Um we are aware that they've worked with both um Wayne County and Eagle in regards to this process. Um and we are very comfortable at this time recommending final approval conditional conditionally based on the comments we had made in our most recent final letter. And the applicant has the U question in the back.

Oh, well, we normally don't take questions at this point, but quickly, what is your question? That's for our store. We're talking about this.

Oh, okay. You'll have an opportunity in just a few minutes. Any applicant has received the comments from the fire department. Um, so with that, is the applicant here? Okay, come on up. So I guess just

uh just to start the uh smolding and decker report that was for our storage lot that we have approved already. Oh the outdoor storage that the five acres that report and we were talking about building four. So that's all I was trying to say. All right. But uh yeah, two two different projects. Did you have comments on the other? Um no, my understanding was it was this one. Um I can double check where you guys are going and speaking about this project. Yes, because we we did receive your guys's comments from February 5th on this project and responded on March.

We need we need you our sound is horrible. So, we did get the comments from February 5th from you guys and did respond on March 6 with hard copies as well. Do you want me to go ahead and run through so we're on the same page um as far as what you want to address or did you want to speak to that first?

Uh if you guys got com additional comments from besides from the February 5th. So, I know you guys haven't had a chance to review those comments yet that we we've resubmitted yet. So, so that we have not um we don't have follow comments with us. Um we have one from the February 5th comments, but you're saying she had something Yeah, we resubmitted on the 6th with nine hard copies to the township. Right. So, she also has the same documentation I do with the February 5th um with the February 5th comments. So, um I don't have the ones from the six.

Okay. But it is still showing an approval of tentative site plan with items addressed um before the final final site plan approval. So that's I mean that's still the same. Okay. Um h how do we address the comments and um is that outside of this meeting with staff?

Well, in the planners report you'll see the underlined portions of the report. Those are uh really the outstanding issues. So I don't know if you want to go through those individually. We usually go through this right now because if you disagree with something or you don't want to do what's being suggested then we need to discuss that. Sure. Yeah. Maybe it's more um clarifications and I'd be happy to um kind of go through those different points and I think um David mentioned we've replied to some of those. So, some of them have already been addressed or will be addressed, but there's um three or four that are on there that um we haven't addressed yet so that maybe we can talk through. Um

well, let me go through the underlined items and guide the guide the discussion that way and then see if if you agree or if there's some uh question or confusion about it. Uh yeah. So you you're going to provide an updated site plan and floor plan pan elevation detail with the updated square footage. Is that an issue? No. Uh that's not an issue. Okay. Then the next section and I would tell you one through three or there's no issue. And I think we're just

Well, the next the next set is on page five. It's about the internal sidewalks are required between the parking spots. It deals with that. Do you have any confusion or questions on that? Nothing. Okay, good. The next one on that same page is the street yard landscaping requiring a tree to be planted every uh 40t of frontage goes on. Do you have any issue to that? You'll need to provide an updated landscaping plan that accommodates the required 28 street trees. Correct. Yeah, we don't have any issue with that.

Good. The page after that six talks and again a bit more about the landscaping about the trees on the southeast corner. You can read that.

Um only thing there is just kind of what the expectations are kind of what's what's envisioned. I I guess we would ask for some um I don't want to say relief, but understanding that it's in the back of the development. It's really not um where somebody's going to, you know, the public's going to go past and see that those areas and and see the vehicles. So, just kind of a if there's a a sense of what would be required. Well, there is a concern about how this building is going to look at from uh uh uh Howard uh because you'll be able to see that building from Howard.

Uh I I guess you could from Howiard. Um I mean you'd have it's two streets over Howiard would be the main thoroughare through the existing industrial park. I'm not sure you would really be able to see that. I don't think it's Is that all you're down here? This is a This is a private road going to the the back of our park. There's a sketch in there that showed it to you. I can't find it right now. Laura, or do you know what? Do you recall that? I remember seeing the elevation and where it sits when on Howard.

Yeah. Um the building should likely only be visible from Anchor Court. Oh, is it Anchor Court? Anchor Court. Yeah. So that's that comes off of Howard. Yes. So that's where the utility easement is and then it'll be and you really wouldn't have a clear view off of Anchor Court. I mean you you might see the the vertical portion of the building, but I don't think you'll see the ground from Anchor Court. Yeah, I think I think the elevation actually goes up from Anchor Court to your property, doesn't it? Yeah, it does.

Yeah, but there's a pretty healthy buffer. So, you've got a you got an easement from our private road to Anchor Court. Um, so you're going to you're going to come up Anchor Court. So elevation is coming up, but you're I without really kind of going through the the the line analysis, I can't answer for sure. But I would suspect that between the the trees and kind of the um existing uh surroundings, you wouldn't be able to see those corners. But um maybe that's part of what we could do is kind of show what would be seen as you you come up through that easement area.

Talks about the uh southeast corner of the site and the northeast corner of the site. The northeast corner actually faces the railroad tracks and correct I'm not I don't see that as a priority for landscaping, but the southeast corner um will be on your the extension of your street. Um I don't know what you're calling that street. What What is the name of the street that goes that starts with the Chuck um building and it goes back into your storage? Um, we actually haven't named that road. Our park entrance right now. You turn into there to access the first building and then it's a dead end.

Let's call it the unknown or unnamed street. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Off a ridge road. Yes. Yeah. As you drive in the unnamed street past your building, the southeast corner will be you'll be able to see the building from the southeast corner. So, adding landscaping there makes sense to me. I'm not sure that it makes sense on the northeast corner because that faces the railroad tracks. That's a typo. I apologize. It's the two bottom corners that are on the street. So, it' be the southeast and the southwest. Okay. Okay. So, the planners report should say southeast corner and the Redmond Lyndon on the southwest corner. Mhm. So, that's an error. Okay. So, it's southwest and southeast corner.

Yeah. Okay. So, it's the bottom two corners that are along that private drive. It's for the vehicular access screening. So, if someone's driving on that drive, um in a non-flowering month, um the parking lot areas and the storage areas won't be screened from that drive.

And that's over and above what we've already provided per the township requirements. uh township requirements require screening of those vehicular use areas and as the trees that you have chosen um are non-flowering and aren't deciduous they won't block fully for those seasons. So if you chose a deciduous tree or some kind of evergreen tree that um flowered during non flowering seasons then okay yeah that's helpful. I was trying to understand kind of what was the expectations of it's just changing out species. I think

yeah we just want all all year round coverage or additional shrubbery to kind of meet the intent of the process of is that just us submitting um that design to you the staff just included in the revised final site plan and then we'll review that.

Okay, great. Thank you. Now it continues on about the rightway and that comment so you're aware of it. And then on page seven um talking about the required parking spaces uh you need to demonstrate uh that the minimum number of parking spaces exceeds the amount necessary for the proposed use. But this is a speculative building, correct? And you have you're proposing banked parking. I'm I'm sorry.

You're proposing banked parking. Um I'm not familiar with that term, banked parking. Just Well, you say that we don't need all of the required parking spaces, but you'll leave room on the site for those spaces to be developed at a later time. My only concern is since it's a speculative building, I don't know the timing of when you lay out everything for that parking lot and all of a sudden somebody comes along and says they need more parking than what you're providing. So you need to have some consideration about the parking.

Correct. Yeah. And typically um what what we've found is you know if you have a heavy auto use, you don't have a heavy dock door use. So you're typically putting those cars behind the building and what would be the the truck court. Um so and also in this case we have land to the west. So if we really had somebody come in and say, "Boy, we need all of that truck court and we need your car parking plus additional, we can expand it to the the west." um you know today of course until there's a building built there. But that's kind of our thinking internally is that um we could handle the car parking either through the truck court or expansion to the west if if there was a a real big user. But I think a good example is existing building. I don't have the counts um exactly today, but I think they're only using a quarter of the the car parking that we installed. So, um, you know, and that's probably more typical, uh, than the exception. Next on page eight, uh, the proposed building facade is concrete wall panels would reveal and texture paint. It's requested that the applicant provide a list of materials and um excuse me that are a minimum 75% masonry products with a calculation of how much each material is used on the building and the main colors of the building facads are varying shades of gray. It also helps if you bring samples in when you come back.

Okay. Uh for that I can tell you right now most of the commissioners here uh like the building that's in the front. you did a wonderful job with that. Uh, and if you can replicate those same that same concept on on this building and any others that you may build in the future on that site, I think it'd be much appreciated.

And that's the design content is really to take that that building. I think we've we've lessened some of the over uh the second story windows just cuz we we personally don't like that look. Um, but everything else is really the same. Uh, colors, uh, materials, um, uh, the overlapping of the panels. So, really that design content went into building four and would go into the rest of the park. Um, and and to bring in the materials, is that really uh, is that like a color board or is that

a a color board is is good. And where you can, you know, if it's these heavy concrete things, uh, you know, if you usually they do bring in a small, uh, sample or pictures of buildings that have that if that's not available, uh, to give us a better idea and and visualization of what you're planning on doing there. Okay. Is is it okay to reference the the first building, too, and just say Sure. Yeah. same materials as the first building. Here are the colors. Yeah. Like I said, you know, if it can replicate in many ways what you've built already, it it would be appreciated cuz uh I know we all seem to like it. Every time we drive by, my wife tells me, "I love that warehouse building." So,

well, we appreciate that. Thank you. The the only comment I would have here is that most of the planning commission members um have been appointed after the original building was approved. So, it would be good just for them to be able to see the samples up close. Um, so if that's a possibility, we'd appreciate that. Okay. Um, do can we bring in a concrete piece and some the window? I know we can bring windows and a color board, but Okay, we we'll figure that out. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, workout and a

So finally on page 10 are the list of nine recommendations and you can just look at those right now and if you have any issues with any of those you should tell us now.

No, I think the only um one is this number eight and under the recommendations which says provide additional architectural articulation to reduce blank wall areas. Um, again, our design intent is really the building one and that's where we have some of those features and we're just going to carry those forward. And I I think they're shown on the current elevation. So, I guess the question is, is it something different than what we're showing on the elevations or is that more of a general note? I I actually have a comment on that. Okay. Um, this building is obviously very long.

I don't know what's requested for these folks. The north and south very shallow east and west, but the east and west is the piece that actually faces the unnamed road. And if I'm reading this um elevation, I'm I'm sorry. The um it it would be the north and south that are facing the unnamed road. Right. Yeah. So, so the the long elevation, the west elevation is really facing um today the ex existing facility and would be parallel to that existing facility. So the concern I have is that the south elevation is which faces the unknown road is very plain.

It doesn't have any of the windows. It doesn't have any of the architectural interest of your um elevation along the west side which is you know very very attractive. Personally I would be willing to give up a little bit of the architecture on the west side at the very north end of the lot where it faces railroad track if you could move that to the south elevation that faces the unnamed road. So because most people coming down there are going to see the south elevation. they won't see the the far end of the west elevation up by the railroad tracks.

Um yeah, I think on that short side it it would just I'd have to look to see what we've done. I think uh the focus on building one the elevation change um the the height change on the elevations on building one was along that ridge road frontage. So the west frontage um and I don't recall exactly what we did on the the south side. We typically will just it gets staggered as the the roof height goes from high to lower. It'll we just kind of stagger it down. But we can certainly look at that um that building end. It's it's only 260 ft on that building end. We can look at doing something there like a panel overlap or try to continue the design feature that we have on the west elevation to the south.

Yeah. Okay. I think that would be a plus. Okay. Any other commissioners on that topic? On the appearance, I agree with you. I agree. And then one final um minor comment is when I look at your site map here and you list the adjacent property owners, you have Adant here and giving the address in Milwaukee and um their address is right where they are right now. They have no connection there. Probably um just another office of theirs or or maybe it's their their headquarters. Yeah,

sure. headquarters are here cuz right next is the headquarters. You can look at the property records uh search on our website and you'll find that information right there. It's all there. Okay. Doesn't seem to match up with what's on your site plan. Okay. Yeah, we can make that. It might have been because they were once uh uh they were a spin-off of JCI which is in uh Milwaukee. So that's right. Right. The seat division, right? Got spun off. The battery division is still Yeah. the old company. Any other comments or concerns from the commission? Um, I had a question. Okay.

The, um, the layout, the front page shows the extension of the unnamed road all the way past the building number four. It also shows the addition of of a road down to Anchor Court. Correct. Are you doing that as you're building the building? We are. Okay. Correct. Are you paying for that or Okay. I'm very happy to see that extension to Anchor Court. I think that adds considerably to the whole layout of the north northwest end of the township. So, I'm very happy to see that. Great. Yeah, that's that's part of this this phase of work. I have a single comment. Yes.

Um, so the project doesn't currently comply with pedestrian circulation requirements. Can you explain what you intend to do to resolve that? Um I think it ties into the the sidewalks. Is that correct? So we'll we'll just um um yeah. So from this I I and I don't have the plan in front of me and and do you have the floor plan here, David? And maybe you can comment to that better than I can, but but typically we're going to tie parking sidewalks into the to the storefronts of the building. Um,

connecting these. Oh, connecting these. Okay. Yeah. And I think that's simple enough is adding just the sidewalk on that north and south side of the building or sides of the building. So, between kind of the the back of the building to the front of the building. Is that the east and west parking lots? Yeah. So, it would tie the east and west together. that I that's the way we're interpreting that comment. Um it's it's for the walkways from the parking spaces to the doors on the east and the west side.

Okay. Yeah. So so we would have sidewalks along that whole frontage, the west frontage, very similar to the the front building or the first building out there. So there would be a tie in and the site plan I'm looking at it's not clear that it shows that but that that is the intent. Um that back side we typically won't have a sidewall because that's all truck court. So the the intent is that you're you've got dock doors back there with with semi-truckss backing up to them. So the only kind of connection to the building is stairs from the truck court up into the building. So there wouldn't be sidewalks on that um east side of the building. But on the west where employees enter and and visitors enter, there would be um sidewalk along that whole frontage that connects to the office areas.

The current uh site plan for parking does show uh car parking on the east side of the building. Um so that's where we would be talking about that sidewalk going, not necessarily in the truck docking area. Do you have um do you have the drawing that we could look at? We we just have the the elevations and the floor plan. We don't have uh a good site plan. Oh, wonderful. Thank you.

Yeah. So, those are actually um uh dock spaces. So where you against the building where you where you see these uh lines, those are all just uh where we envision trailers backing up to the building to a dock door. So for every kind of set of blinds or pair of lines, there's a dock door there. And then opposite that, these are all trailer staging spaces. So where they potentially um can put a a trailer that's not in use.

So there's no auto parking back there. Um, your original plans had that design, but uh, we sent in initial comments for the parking requirements and then the revised parking in that uh, site plan shows uh, spots to comply with the 411 parking spaces which took away those docks and added parking spots. So, um, with planning commission approval to reduce the amount of parking spaces, if there were to be truck docks on that side, you would not be required to have sidewalks. But currently, to comply with the ordinance, those parking spots would need the pedestrian walkway. So, uh, if the banked parking is approved by planning commission, then you could make that work and you would not need it on the east side. But as of now, that's

okay. Yeah, I I think the the simple answer would be if we had to put card parking spaces back there, there would be sidewalks um you know, directing uh pedestrians to the building and and to the office entrance. Okay. I mean, obviously public health and safety is important. So, Sure. Yeah. And and and what is the process of understanding the parking requirement? But um is that something that will for the for the banked parking? Yes. Um so banked parking can pro be provided.

Um it just shows where any future parking would be put. If you get I think it's uh three different notifications that there's a lack of parking spaces in the area then you would be required to build out those parking spaces. Um, but the banked area would need to be landscaped and put away, set aside as green space. So, you'd have to show that on your site plan. So, the banked spaces and the parking spaces spaces would still have to add up to the 411 required spaces, but you wouldn't need them to be done right away unless you need them. And the sidewalks would come into play if they were built out. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Any other comments from the commission?

Yeah, I I actually have a couple. Thank you. One is pertaining to to safety. There is preservation of trees, right? With respect to the safety, I was concerned when I looked at the plan here and this yellow building is a rectangle building. There's no circular drive. There's no plan to put a drive or road around the north face, which is actually the easiest to get a fire truck in there, right? And then I basically took the time to contact Jeff, our fire marshal, who's actually pretty good at what he does, and he said, "Hey, I put two hammerheads to back up the fire trucks. I'm not worried. It's 35 ft tall." I said, "Time out." If you look at page three, it's actually a 45 ft, which means you can't get a normal ladder up there, which then means you need an extension ladder to try. So, I'm concerned for the landlord, that's you guys. A, the lease, B, the safety employee, C, you're going to have a hard time getting to put out a fire if it's on the north end of that building. Right. I see truck docks there that are right by the fire hydrant on the northeast corner, which means it's very crowded and very jam for a pumper truck to get there to go try and spray something. All right. So, your your roof is too tall. the building doesn't have a road and the grade there does slope down, but that's solvable with a retaining wall A and compacted soil B to actually put a road in there. So that that's my first concern, safety for everybody, you guys, your shareholders, your leasees, your employee. The second concern is also on page three. It's titled the preservation of site features, right? And and the beauty of being on this committee is we all have very good memories. We're all kind of aging. Some of us are great, right? The last time uh your your teammates were in here speaking to us, we got in a big discussion. We actually pulled out the topographical maps and it was on the rectangular extra 5 acres, right? And I

pleaded to save the life of 10 trees and said, "Please rotate that 90°. It was no harder to do that." But the reason it wasn't done, right, the excuse that was given was, "It's too hard, it's too steep." No, the gradient was no different, right? The reason it wasn't done that way is because you want to stick another building in there, right? So, we've lost 10 trees. Those trees are residents. They earn their keep every day. They take the CO2 that I'm breathing out. They they they grab the sea, right? And we all get to breathe the O2, too, right? So, the trees are taxpayers. They're earning our keep. When I looked at this plan, right, and I think you've had some good selections of trees and shrubs. There's open assignment still to be done. And when I looked at this very closely, I was very discouraged to see that there's 14 trees that are going to give up their life here that don't necessarily have to. Okay? And I actually took off my colored pencils as I tend to do cuz I want to make this easy for you all. Okay? You see where I have red on the far east basin? If you change the contour and the shape, you can save two trees on one corner. To the far east, you can save four that are on the the north west corner of that basin. Okay. If you then move over to the six trees that are between the semi-trail parking area, that's going to get excavated. There's nothing that's going in there. I'd like to save those six trees. And then you see the two trees that are by this the storm drainage. Again, I marked it in red and I don't want to be disrespectful to the rest of my colleagues here. That was not my intent, okay? But I color this stuff just to make it easy. And I'm willing to give this sheet to you so you guys can take it back and come back with a better plan. and

I'm not a tree two-dimensional and you really need to look at it in threedimensional. So yes,

there's a lot of cutting in that area. So you know, we did look at that other site to say, "Hey, can you save those heritage trees?" And you're cutting so much and I don't remember off top of my head, but it was like 10 feet of cut. So you you you know, you've got a tree up here and you got 10 feet of cut. So you I mean there's there's no way to save them. And I'm suspecting that it's the same thing there, but we're certainly open. We're not not, you know, trying to cut them down or trying to um, you know, not consider those trees, but unfortunately that that land has a lot of topography change. It does.

And and a lot of it's cut um versus filled. So you you know, you end up having, you know, trees that would be hanging. So that that's the only piece to that that I would have to verify versus kind of the the two-dimensional um analysis of it. I

I hear you. I understand. Please verify. Please come back with a better plan because the 10 trees that were in that 5 acre temporary storage lot you could have protected too. The decision was not to. So now we have pipes and storage meters from consumers power living on land where 10 trees were. Okay. On those five acres. Okay. That's what the plan said. And what I'm trying to do is save 14 trees here, right? And I'll go through them very quickly. 1365 is 44in red maple. 548 is a 30-in red oak. Well beyond the 18in heritage trees, right? Those are two on the outside 5 acre storage by that little extra storm drainage. The four on the northwest corner. 563 is a 26-in white pine. It'll be green all year long. 581 is a 24-in rock elm. 582 is a burr oak at 25 in. 583 is a red oak at 27 in the two that are on the far east area by by this contentious 5 acres that I'm still obviously disappointed about. One was a 31in walnut 558. The other was a 28 in elm 560 and the six that are by the east trailer storage area between the retention pond. Those range from as much as 28 in to 11 in. Right. Three of those five blue spruces which are green all year long. And there's a 14-in black walnut. Please come back with a better plan. I'm willing to give you this page. I marked it up, right? So, you can take it back and show people. I don't think it's being excessive or or disrespectful to the residents, our trees. And I say that to the rest of the residents because the number one thing that came back in the survey that we did was maintain the greenery. Please treat our trees with respect, which is why I do that. And I'm a simple mechanical engineer. I'm not a tree hugger, okay? But I understand the job that the trees do and I understand what our residents want. That's why I'm asking you guys to please do better.

Now I have a question for you. When you had this discussion with the fire department, did they agree with your assessment?

Jeff said no. He was not aware there was 35 in. He said I put hammerheads on both sides. Right. And he said uh I can live with it as is. Which is why he signed his name on it. Right. Originally he had flagged it. Right. If you go back the very first time they were in there, so he added the hammerheads on there. But when I took a look at the fire hydrant that's on that corner, when I took a look at the the trucks parking in there, right, if there are trucks on those docks on that far northeast corner, Dennis, I'm concerned that the fire department can't do what they need to do. It it it harms their way. But that is my concern, right? And our our fire marshal disagreed with me. He was polite enough to take my call and share. And I basically said, "Well, Jeff, I disagree with you. Okay. I think it could be improved. I don't think it's too much to ask to get rid of five extra docks or shrink the height of the building from 45 feet to 35 feet. So, it's not a problem at all.

Three ways of skining a cat here. We We don't want to assume any liability from the fire department. So, for me personally, I would go along with whatever the fire department says. It was good that you raised that issue, particularly when he admitted that he didn't realize it and you brought that to his attention, but now it's his issue to resolve. Well, I'm hopeful, Dennis, right, with all due respect, that if there are parking spaces being added, I hope it's along that far northeast, right, to unclutter an area to make it easier for fire trucks that have to have extensions to go up and and shoot water a long distance. Share that, but I would always defer to what the fire department says. Duly noted.

Okay. All right. Any other concerns? I just have a question on the parking lots and I don't know if you guys talked about it while I wasn't here. There's 411 or 13 spaces, right? Are those do you feel you need that that many spa? I know that's the that's the requirement or whatever. Do you need that many spaces? We talked. Okay. Okay. All right. Sorry.

That's okay. I see. Any other questions? You know, this unnamed street reminds me of a story that I was aware of for quite a few years where a developer went over to Wayne County to register streets and they discovered that there was a short little street that had no name and they were in a hurry to get everything passed. So, they named it Iman, which is no name backwards. We'll take that into consideration. I wouldn't take that name, but that's that's how one developer would had solved it. This is much too nice for Yes, I know.

I know. I know. All right. Are we ready for a motion?

Excuse me. Just uh real quick just to add on. I apologize Melissa with Baldin Decker, the applicant and the engineer while we do have them here. Um we were in coordination uh communication last week. So, I do apologize. It was fairly recent. Um, we did send you a document over um that does kind of outlier our concerns um just for the next um both what you would need for the engineering review and the final site plan review. Um so, I'm I'm hoping you did receive that. Um so, the commissioners are aware. Um, there is a water service that will be provided by an 8 inch and a 12-in extensions from the existing 8 inch along the east side of Anchor Court and the existing 12-in water man along the north side of the private drive. A domestically identifier service will be provided to the building along with additional hydrants on site. The sanitary sewer service will be provided from the existing 8-in sewer along the south side of Anchor Court. Service leads will be provided to um building number four and future expansions. Storm water, as I mentioned earlier, which we're working with you on a separate engineering plan, the storm water would be collected by a single storm sewer collection system and discharge to proposed detention basin on the southeast side of the site. As far as general comments, just to get you to that point of that, um, site plan approval, um, the we discussed earlier, um, the landscaping, um, please be careful that you are not allowed to use any kind of landscaping and the utility easements unless it is approved by planning, um, which they addressed a little bit earlier. The water man, the only thing that really stuck out was um, it needs to be constructed outside of paved areas ideally. um every effort you can make to go ahead and reroute the water man um under green belt areas. Um for the sanitary sewer, we did do a preliminary review of this uh and we do feel that there at this time there's enough capacity on the existing 8in sewer along anchor anchor court for the

anticipated flows. Um during the engineering review at that time we'll go ahead and reassess and further review um to make sure the capacity is okay. Um if the if it does exceed at that time the available capacity then a connection along Ridge Road may be required. Um obviously with regards to the storm water you're working with Eagle and Wayne County already. Um but at this time there were no storm water management calculations provided. So we're unable to determine that the storm water is sized properly. Um this is something you need to work on with Wayne County public department of public services. Um just in order to confirm that no additional detention capacity and storm marter pre-treatment will be required on site. Um it should be confirmed that the outlets the existing drainage easement is acceptable. Uh and it should shall be demonstrated that the existing storm sewer along anchor court was designed in order to accept this additional runoff. The proposed dension system overland overflow is directed to the existing wetlands as we mentioned earlier while the primarily pond outlet is directed to the existing storm sewer along Ankor Court. And then we have been working with you as far as getting the correspondence for both the Wayne County DPS and Eagle. And then finally for the paving, it was brought up earlier. We are we did not have a maneuvering plan for the emergency vehicles around the proposed building. That is something that we will need at the time of um site plan approval. Then the fire department may also require a 26 ft drive connection between the proposed parking lot area on the north side of the building to allow complete traffic circulation. Um there may be a future extension of the private drive in connection with Ankor Court that is proposed. No private road easement or requirements will be requested as long as the parcel remains a single parcel and under single ownership. Um, yeah, that's all we have. So, at this time, we do feel that we are okay

moving forward in approving the tentative site plan review. Thank you. Are we not looking at a tenative and a final site plan review? Correct. Sorry. Yep. Well, my agenda says building for tenative and final. So, you intend this to be the final? No, they they applied for tenative and final, but we're only recommending tenative at this time because there's items to be Yeah, because addressed I think we're still a little ways away from final. There's there's so much that needs to get corrected, updated, revised, including the basic drawings that we're asked to look at, right? That I just materials, final elevations.

I think we're remiss to be approving anything that's tenative because it's not tenative enough to have the correct content based on all the things that are our plan. recommendation is tenative. So, okay. Wait, are you saying that there's two approvals? Tenative and final. They're recommending tenative here. No, they didn't recommend it. Oh, on the on the sheet on on the planners report. I think they did. Yeah. It is recommended by commission grant tenative not just tenative, right? The tenative and final is their request, but the recommendation is only tenative.

I I just Dennis, I just think we have so much that needs to get updated correctly. There's no no argument about that. So with with a tenative with all these asterisks and all these open I mean this is like a a loose it's like pulling out a piece of spaghetti and five more keep coming out every time we look at something. So you're advocating not to give them tenative. Correct. Oh okay. I am advocating not if you'd like to make a motion I would do that. Um typically Laura in this type of situation the amount of unresolved things is it normal to grant tenative and then expect the applicant to come back and clarify the concerns particularly given the trees etc. Is that the typical process?

Yes. And they they may um depending on those revisions they may need to come back for um like a a third time. Um it may not be quite final. There may be some additional items to flush out next time, but the purpose of tenative is really to determine can the site be developed in a manner that can meet the ordinance requirements. And I think for purposes of that, we can determine that the site can be designed to meet the ordinance standards and that they do not require a variance to move forward. But Laura, haven't you also met with them on occasion uh with the developer if they still have questions or they want some confirmation that they are on the right path to a successful uh approval?

Yes, that's very common. Yeah, I think we also in this particular instance, we have experience with this developer in the building number one and as we've all commented, I think we're pretty satisfied with that. that would give me a greater degree of confidence that some of these open issues would be addressed if we go ahead with tenative site plan. Whereas if it was a developer we weren't familiar with, I might be more concerned about granting tenative at this point in time

based on the exchange here today right on the trees and the challenge right there's a lot of work to be done. Okay. And with all due respect I disagree. So and it's okay to disagree and I respect you for not being in agreement with me. You're you can you're certainly authorized to make a motion. Maybe that's You could make a motion if you want.

Yeah, I I would like to make a motion to clean up the open issues that are unresolved. Okay. Specifically, the parking a the trees cleaning up the truck bays that are back on that northeast corner to improve the fire access. I don't know what the right answer is, right? And I will defer to our our fire marshal. That's his job. He's the expert. I'm not. But he didn't know why it couldn't go. and the north, right? Because it's a challenging terrain, but the terrain could be fixed. And I'd like to see them come back with a better plan that cleans up most of what's here. So my motion is to defer this not approved tenative or final tonight and have them come back with a better plan specific to what's listed here as well as the trees as well as the fire access lane on the other side which our engineering team and other pointed out and uh the materials that Tim talked about on the plan with the facade. Okay, that's your

Okay. moved by Commissioner I and supported by Commissioner Grath uh to um not grant you know to not grant tenative site plan but to come back to work out the issues as noted uh for an additional uh discussion. Uh let's take a roll call. Can you take uh the roll call? Oh, I sure can. All right. So, you will be voting in favor of Commissioner D's proposal not to grant tenants. Right. To vote yes would be to to deny the tenative at this point.

Okay. Roll call. Dennis Sabolski. Uh, no. Uh, Tim Boyd. No. Uh, Steuart Pops, no. Uh, Sandy Grove, yes. Yes. Dan Callahan, yes. Bill I Yes. Ashley Krueger, no. Okay. Well, there you have it. The motion fails. So, uh, is there another motion someone wishes to, uh, make?

Mr. Chair. Um I recommend that the planning commission uh grant tenative site plan approval for application number 2593 1500 Ridge Road new warehouse site plan as presented with a condition of all engineering items to be addressed final stamp. Um and with the conditions listed below numbers one through nine which I will not repeat. uh as well as a specific request to come back with um the the developers uh response to the issues that were raised by Commissioner Iikes. Okay. Is there support? Support.

Okay. Moved by Commissioner Boyd in support of Commission or Commissioner Krueger. And let's take another roll call. Yep. Uh Dennis Sabolski. Yes. Tim Boyd. Yes. Steuart Pop. Yes. Sandy Growth, no. Uh Dan Callahan, yes. Uh Bill Ikes, no. And Ashley, yes. Okay. Okay. Motion. Motion. Yeah. Okay. 52.

Motion passes. So come back and address those issues. If you need some further guidance, you can make an appointment with the planning department. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah,

everybody's light is on red. I think those plans are interfering with Yeah. Yeah. And I kept turning to It's really confusing out there to listen to us. And then you turn off to put it back on. I was shutting it off cuz I was crinkling a lot. Yeah. Okay. We're on to uh application 2582 hidden uh in C clustered housing option review. And who has the report?

Thank you. Evening commissioners. Laura Mangan with McKenna. Uh the application before you is a cluster housing option. This is the first step in the cluster housing uh review process. The specific property is a vacant site south um of Powell Road just before reaching Napier. You are um many of you are familiar with this application as uh it came before the planning commission in December of 2025. At that time, a public hearing was held and a uh recommendation to table the application for up to one year was made and we included our original memorandum from that December meeting just for reference of some of the outstanding issues at that time. A full cluster housing um report was not given at that time um due to the number of serious outstanding items. Um so since this time the applicant has revised their plans, they've worked with engineering and they have resubmitted. Um so this is still step one within the cluster housing process. The next step for this um whether a motion to recommend approval or a motion to recommend denial is a recommendation to the board of trustees. They are the ultimate deciders in the cluster housing option. Um should this project continue um and be approved by the board of trustees then the cluster housing option would be um cemented and the applicant would need to go through the site plan review process which would also require both planning commission and board of trustees review. Uh there's just a quick flowchart on page three that shows the process, the linear process um that is followed in the cluster

housing. Our review starts on page four. Um the first part in determining eligibility for a cluster housing is to um see if the site even qualifies um under this uh zoning um article. Um so it does qualify to be considered as a cluster housing option. It is zoned the R1S, one family residential district and it is um less than 40 acres. That is a requirement for a cluster housing. Um it is just over 3 and 1/2 acres and the applicant is proposing 11 parcel lots um on this property. Uh that results in a density of 3.03 dwelling units per acre. Uh you'll see that on page four. We do note that this density is aligned with the current 2025 feature land use uh designation of residential low intermediate density which is intended for single family residential development which this is at densities between one and three dwelling units per acre. So they are at the upper end of that uh recommendation but they are are still right within that range. Um with the square square acreage of the um uh property the maximum number of dwelling units that they could possibly request is 11. They have provided a parallel plan which shows um under the existing zoning regulations what could be developed without the cluster housing option. um that has um they have demonstrated that nine uh single family residences could be um on the site. So with the cluster housing option, they are essentially asking for an additional two units. um with this process. Um when the cluster housing option came

before the commission in December, uh we had concerns that um the the proposal um didn't have enough um design benefits to meet these requirements. Um those benefits could be open space preservation, natural features retention, or some innovative site design um topography um considerations. Since December, the applicant has revised their plans to now show a community park um area, which is lot B on their plans. Um this would be a shared space, shared private space uh for the subdivision. Um and they have proposed a gazebo, picnic area, and a pedestrian pathway. Um the applicant has stated that the intended um buyer for these homes um is a uh a se senior um specifically targeting 60 years um in age um with first floor uh primary suites. Um in terms of the access and circulation to this site, uh this is a smaller parcel. Access will um be only from Powell Road. Uh the applicant has pro proposed a culde-sac Kane's Court. Uh given the width of the proposed culde-sac, uh on street parking will be allowed on one side of the street. Um and that would handle potentially any guest overflow parking. Uh they do meet the zoning ordinance standard for required two uh parking spaces per dwelling unit for each home. Uh in addition to that on street parking. Uh their plan shows the uh sidewalks both internal to Kane's Court, the new street and along Powell. However, um this is just a a standard um zoning ordinance

requirement in the ordinance to provide that connectivity. Um so while that is important, um it does not represent a unique or specific benefit to this project. Um the table on page eight helps to clarify the dimensional requirements that are necessary in the current zoning the R1S district. Um and then what is allowable under a cluster housing option which does allow for flexibility um in some of those dimensional requirements that is a benefit of the the CHO. And then the proposed uh dimensional standards in that far right column. And you can see that they are requesting um slight deviation to the front yard setback uh to the rear to the perimeter setbacks which is also um part of the the rear but the perimeter as it applies as well to Powell Road. um a reduction to the minimum lot area for each of the lots, which we do break out in another table on the previous page, more specifically each lot. Um the minimum lot width, uh some increased lot coverage, and um a slight increase in the livable floor area for that that first floor um more than what the ordinance requires. The overall building height and number of stories is not proposed to change with this cluster housing. In terms of natural features, their tree survey did identify 65 trees that are either with within the subject property boundaries or that fall um just outside those lot lines. Um it appears that 32 trees are located within the subject property, but it is still uh a little um questionable um as to which trees are fully on the

property. Of those 32, they are proposing to remove four. None of them are heritage trees. Um however, um they uh are still of a significant um size and species. uh replacement of these trees would just require the 25% replacement requirement. Um there are a number of existing trees that would remain along the southern property line. So out of those 32 um give or take four will be removed. So the preservation of the trees along that southern property line does represent a benefit to this project. Um and then lastly uh we note that this is um there there are utilities to the site and the applicant has demonstrated that they can um appropriately um maintain the storm water uh within the site. So we do not find that a development whether it's nine units or 11 units would adversely impact the capabilities of public services or fac um public facilities. Um we are recommending approval um to the board of trustees. Um but a lot of these items are discretionary for the planning commission to discuss um and provide feedback uh to the applicant. But the resulting motion from the planning commission is a recommendation to the board of trustees either for approval or denial. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And the engineering report.

Good evening. We have um reviewed preliminary CHO cluster housing option review plans for the project that was discussed prepared by the um group. Um we have the following comments and observations. Um, for the water man, there is an existing 12-in diameter water man located along the south side of Powell Road. An 8-in extension off the existing 12-in diameter water man is shown on the site plans. Um, please keep in mind the proposed water man is located within a 12t easement. So, no plantings will be allowed within 6 ft of the water man on either side um for a combination of 12 total feet. For the sanitary sewer, there is an existing 8-in diameter sanitary sewer located along the north side of Pow Powell Road. The proposed project shows extending this sewer south to serve the site. Again, the proposed sanitary sewer is located within a 20ft easement, so no plantings will be allowed within 10 ft of the sanitary sewer for a total of 20 ft. The storm drainage and grading storm water runoff is to be captured by catch basins and drainage. proposed retention basin on the southeast side of the site with a pumped emergency outlet to the ditch along Powell Road right ofway. The prelim storm water management calculations were provided and these do appear at this time to meet the county standards. Pre-treatment will be required, however, for the storm water management systems. The storm water control system and outlet will require approval and a permit from Wayne County DPS. for the paving. The lots are going to be accessed off of Powell Road as she had mentioned by an approach in a 27 foot wide um 20 foot 7 foot wide roadway with a culde-sac. The rightway of the private road is 60 ft. The proposed drive approach shall be approved by the Wayne County Road Commission and please note that the minimum radius of surfacing and culde-sacs is 55 ft permouth township

standards. Thus, based on the ava a availability of existing utilities around the site, it appears a residential development can be designed to meet the engineering requirements of Plymouth Township at this time. So, moving forward, we do recommend approving the CHO option review plans as submitted. This is not an approval for final engineering. Please note, thank you. Okay. Thank you. And the applicants received the report from the fire department. There needs to be some corrections made. The applicant is here.

Good evening, commissioners. I feel the owner's representative and Mitch, my colleague, um the uh the planner did a great job uh presenting the project. Um I would just want to make note that uh at the public hearing, we we uh we listened to that. the gentleman, he wanted a generator with the with the pump station that's in that's in the um basin. And we're going to also plant six trees along the south line of not not six trees, but we're going to plant trees along the south line of unit six. Um and with with that, I'm here for your questions.

Let's see. Um, I have a Oh, sorry. Sure. Go ahead. Go ahead. She got her hand up. It's all right. You can go first. Okay. Thank you.

Um, so just in plain terms, can you explain why you think the site should be approved as a cluster housing development with 11 units as opposed to the nine? um the um to get the uh density uh uh that we need uh for the for the housing that we want to present on the on the project. Uh 11 worked 11 worked good. We we wanted to fit uh fit them and we and we we were able to um that that would be you know plain spoken way to say it. What do you mean by what we need?

11 units is what we need. Yeah, you you you need certain amount certain amount of uh setbacks and and uh and um that that type of thing for uh cluster housing and we were able to achieve that and and and uh four four open space areas, two in the front and uh a park in the back. I understand like the setbacks for the cluster housing, but why why do you want to put 11 units here instead of a traditional nine nine unit subdivision? Why do you want a cluster housing development here? You that's part of your ordinance and we're following it.

I understand that. But why why do you want to do that in this location? What is the driving force behind this request? to maximize units. Okay. Thank you. With with within the constraints of the the development. Okay. Thank you. So for these additional two homes, uh we we asked you through the planner uh some innovative uh uh innovative uh benefits to the community or to those people. So, do you think the park and a gazebo and a picnic shelter is innovative?

Do you think just having a park, you're giving up one lot that really you could put a house on it possibly? But I I find it difficult to to imagine what is so innovative about a a shelter or a gazebo and a picnic shelter and a walking trail. Well, these these units are are uh they're created for the over 60. Um the the houses are somewhat smaller and have a first floor masters and that's the market that we're going for. And so 11 seemed like a good number to us.

Okay. So again, what's so innovative about the design? Could you come up with anything better than a gazebo and a picnic bench? Um well you give it a lot more than that. What what do you do you have suggestions? Well that's not my position that it's your application and we're not going to design it for you. Well we thought of jungle gyms. We thought of all the things that you put on a little a little pocket park like that and uh we'll we can expand on that.

Okay. I don't know if jungle gyms would serve a community of 60 plus people, but your thing age 60, right? Yeah. Yeah. Right. I think uh a gazebo we we could add to it, but um it's still a small pocket park. Okay. I I think Commissioner Grath, you had your hand up.

Uh I did. I one of the things that I want to say in relation to what um Commissioner Krueger said and um Chairperson Sabolski when I look at this plan what I see is an effort to maximize profit and I understand that we have to do that that's you're in business to make money but I don't see the justification particularly for making it a cluster housing unit with all the variations in, you know, the the lot areas are smaller, the lot width is smaller, the coverage is a little bit over the I I just see so many variations that I'm not comfortable approving it as a cluster housing option. And my other question is when I look at the fire department report, it says fail action required on the access road. Can somebody explain to me what what this means? It

means the diameter of the culde-sac isn't to code. It's too tight and the fire trucks are going to have trouble going around the culde-sac and probably run on the lawn. Uh, we just revised the culac. Yeah, we we can't hear you from back there. It's it's the meetings are being recorded otherwise we won't have and we have a horrible sound system. Yeah, it is. It's it is 60 ft uh diameter. I said last time we were here uh we I believe it was either from the engineer or the planner got a note that we need to expand the culde-sac and we expanded it to match their recommendation. So that's already been addressed if

so. So so what was it before? Do you recall? Uh I don't recall what it was but I know we have updated it on this plan that you had in front of you to whatever we were told to make it last time we were here. I do see something about a requirement of 26 ft road and 96 ft culdeac. Is that what you're talking about? Let me grab my plant.

Yeah, I don't I don't understand that we we we meet the township standard. Um let's see what's the date on this. 11:25. Uh we Yeah. Okay. We've uh we we changed the the the culde-sac uh in December or January to meet the township standard of 55 ft. So uh that that ladder appears to be a little old. So does it now meet the 96 ft requirement for fire marshall? We just don't have a drawing that reflects that.

Uh it is drawn Were the Were these plans given to the fire department so they could look at it because they're just using a November report? Yeah, they were given to the fire department, but he hasn't reviewed the new site plan yet. Well, we we uh we expanded it uh at at the request of him, but through the planner. So, on sheet three of seven, you actually do have a radius of 48. I just saw it. I have star the fire department report asked for the 96 ft diameter photo sack and they show a 48t radius to 96t.

It's a pretty busy drawing around the culdeac. So I missed it on chief dre on the site plan referring to this. Yes, I missed that. I mean I looked and looked and looked and didn't see it till literally right now.

This is now resolved. That's good. I'm glad you guys are here to answer that question. I'm happy to be wrong and we were because our eyesight wasn't good enough to pick it on all the dimensions on that page. Plus, we were looking at a fire department report that was old. Yeah. Yeah. Happy to be of service.

And did you have any other comments? Um I I just wanted to verify you said that um as a result of the public hearing um you have included a generator for the pump station. Is that what you said? Yes. I just want to make sure I understood that. Thank you. You're welcome. You have something?

Yeah, I did. I had a couple things. Right. When I went through the the attributes on page eight, okay, on the setback, the RS1, the the CHO, the CHO, and the proposed, I I know that six of 13 made it. I could be wrong. Maybe it's seven, maybe it's eight. Okay? And, you know, we we need better, right? So, when I look at this CHO with the 11 units, I I just see everything crammed in there. Okay? Um I don't want to be negative here. I will be positive. Last time you were in, we asked you to do something more with the trees and save and you saved all but four. So, it is better and I'm very appreciative of that. So, I wanted to take the time to thank you guys for actually listening what we said and doing better. Um, we could improve this if you had a place to push the snow or extra parking, right? Because I live in a site with 25 units and we've got nine extra spots and those nine spots are used all the time, not just holidays when kids come home from college. So you really have no overflow in here and it's tight, right? So it just be nice to get yourself three or four more spots near that out lot that maybe go 20 feet to get a pickup truck. It's it's it's a point I wanted to bring to your attention. I did not notice the uh the 9 unit plan. And I'd love to know on the 9-unit plan on these same 13 attributes, how many become in compliance? And it looks to me like at least two. Okay. On the perimeter setback, you make 50 ft. It also is on the minimum lot of area 12,000 ft² and the lot width I think is bigger. That one may So I actually I know we want this housing. Okay. We know we want people to downsize, move out of big homes and there's nowhere to go and they need first floor masters cuz they can't climb stairs and it's dangerous. You fall and you're done. Okay.

So I'm more satisfied with what I see in the 9 unit plan than the 11. And if you really had to even make more room to get stuff even more compliant, you could probably make an offer to buy a little bit of land cuz there's a huge eyesore to the west. When you pull out two of those four trees, those people be staring at, you know, the the the mess that's in the backyard. So, it's not our job to tell you what to do to how to do it to Dennis's point. But at my age, hey, I'd love to see a little indoor driving net there, an outdoor fire pit with a refrigerator and a barbecue grill. Those would be the innovations I'd want to see if I was moving in here, okay? Not a jungle gym or a playground, right? But certainly a heck of a lot more than a a gazebo with a picnic table and a sidewalk, right? I mean, that's kind of like a D+ effort, right, of just trying to to do something, right? And I'd rather see you guys, you know, do something more if you're going to do that. But if you go with a 9 unit, you're sticking a house that's in there and it changes the plan. But the 9 unit might be the best way forward compared to the 11 which just looks like uh you know Thomas Gecko greed is good here. Right. Um that that there's so many shortcomings on these attributes right of the 11 unit plan that I don't think an 11 unit plan would it wouldn't get my vote. I'll tell you that right now. Right. But I I do think you may be on a better path now that you get the 96 ft diameter and the fire marshall signed off which we didn't know till this discussion. So thanks for coming. uh the nine might be the way to go and I'd love to see clean attributes right on what it really means. So those are my thoughts

and to and to and then to build on your thought about the parking which I agree uh there's should have some plan as to where you're going to put all the snow because when you tighten this up and I've seen this in other u cluster housing options the snow is everywhere and don't pile it on next to a tree that then leans over for the rest of its life. Well, this is a straight road going south that they're just going to push the snow outlaw B and outlaw basin A. U that's that's where the snow's going to be piled. They're not going to that's this is such a short road that'll pile put there.

If site 11 were to live, okay, and I have my own doubts that it's going to live based on the conversation we're having. You'd have a place to put it on the out lot, right? But if Yeah. We got two outlets right at the end of the culde-sac. Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't want to picnic or use the gazebo in the winter time. Right. So that's where the snow would go. But the 11 is just so crammed. It's it's problematic from most of the setbacks. But the 9 unit might survive. It's going to end up in somebody's front yard is where it's going to end up. Right. The three units on the end by the culde-sac because the culde-sac is too small. Number one, and there's usually a fire hydrant that goes there for for fire reasons and they have to have access to it. So, you can't be dumping snow there.

Other thoughts? Wait. So, so I don't mean to be um I don't know. Why is the two such a big deal? Cuz you want everyone to have a bigger lot or you want more parking or what? I'm we're we're we're trying to I mean when I started the meeting Stuart and and when we had opening comments I made a comment about two bills that are going through right now on a Michigan planning association Michigan planners to basically throw all the old rules out on width and depth and square footage and all this stuff, right? So this CHO is really it's a backdoor attempt to try and shoehorn things in. We need the housing give credit there. and you're all the way almost to Nape Napier Road. You're not at 275. I mean,

I don't know, but with the CHO, there should be an inherent benefit to the to the township and there isn't. And I I haven't heard a benefit to the township in this, right? So, he could add something in that little

outlot or whatever, but I don't think two extra lots is such a big deal. But I I don't know. thought there's also to build on your your thought, there's been some conversation in the past about when we do this and they it's typical response, a gazebo and a picnic bench. Um, but there's been some thought about perhaps something that benefits the entire community. Uh, there was one that unfortunately they didn't uh complete the development as they wanted. They were putting a historical marker uh at their expense, a nice little plaza area. Uh, but they decided to go in a different direction. So that never happened. Um and there was another uh development that came through where where they were going to put a gazebo and then um when the people moved in they voted they didn't want the gazebo. So

Oh and my daughter lived in a in a development that had a gazebo. All it was is a bunch of 2 by sixs with a couple slats across. Not very architecturally interesting. Okay. And then the residents in the in that uh development are paying for that and they're not using it, right? And my concern Yeah, they'd be paying for that. I assume someone has to maintain the price. Yeah. My concern is like it is just two units here, but in the future like if we're just I don't want to be willy-nilly about a decision on a development like this because I think there needs to be some community benefit. There needs um to be some you know public benefit for it

for two units and two if we approve it here just for the two units and without any good in my opinion justification then the next developer comes in asking for five additional units and so on and so forth and I just want to have a clear communication that there has to be some type of public benefit well to approve a CHO a small a smaller Uh it it has lower maintenance costs. Um but won't they be paying the association for the park areas? Well Well, how's that going to be maintained?

Yes, but there's there's le less leaves to clean up, less less to mow. Um that that's you know that's very um uh you know sought after by the over 60 crowd. We have a first floor master and that fact and the fact that that it's lower maintenance, lower man maintenance costs, we we think it's good. We think think 11 11 would do and nine wouldn't wouldn't nine.

Well, nine would do. Yes. But we're asking for 11 and and we and uh and it's part of the master plan and we can get that number. So the what we're doing isn't really like that controversial to for the township.

I mean I'm supportive of the nine. I think this is a great idea for that um segment of the population. Um the smaller units downsizing I think it's great but I don't think approving a CHO is appropriate. And that's a broad like whether it's two extra units or five extra units. I don't think it's appropriate here. And the key is that it's making it a cluster housing allows the variation in the smaller lots area, the smaller width. So you really are jamming more into a limited space.

U ML Mrs. Planner, uh uh do the board makes a or the planning commission makes a recommendation to the board. Does it matter if it's if if it's that recommendation or uh we postpone? Um the planning commission has the option to recommend approval, denial, or to postpone the application for okay a set amount of time.

I I have some comments. Um first, um as Commissioner Ike said, I commend the proposal. you're now removing only four trees and we're saving um it's a those of you familiar with a lot most of it's vacant but there is a a fair amount of trees along the the the western and the southern boundary and now you're keeping all but four of those. So I could probably argue that is a benefit that's provided by the cluster housing. Um the second thing is that the view of the township I believe has been that the desire to get single floor masters um is a justification for having smaller lot sizes and higher densities. So it's something the township wants. It's something we hear from the community that there's an interest in u first floor masters for our older residents that want to downsize. So one could argue that's also a benefit of the cluster housing option. um and provided by this development. I would also point however that on the um alternate plan I believe is page seven

the par parallel plan parallel plan says sheet one of one I'm sorry hidden on anyway the bottom line is on the alternate plans most of these lots yes are 100 ft 100 ft wide

the benefit of having a 100 foot wide house uh uh lot width is that it's very convenient for a developer to put in a side entrance garage. Um most of Plymouth Township um west of Beck Road, the single family housing is almost exclusively side entry garages. There's a few exceptions. The development immediately to the south, um the old PY development does have front entry garages, but again, that's a a cluster housing development with very narrow lots. So this going with the nine would be very consistent with the lot size at least widthwise for much of the housing in far western Plymouth Township and it would also enable the side entry garages which most people believe is a premium um elevation.

So that that is one of the considerations uh of the nine lot alternative. Um, I think my my takeaway on this is I I you know, I'm in favor of a development that preserves almost all the trees. I'm willing to grant some um consideration of the fact that to get or the presumption of the township board and others has been that um to get single family or I'm sorry, first floor masters, you probably do need to have a smaller lot or you need to consider a smaller lot.

Yes. Um, but I think that the the comment that's being raised um by our commissioner over here is one that the township probably hasn't fully addressed in the past and that is to more clearly understand what the expectation is for a community benefit that justifies the tighter density of a cluster housing. So, in the past, I think some of our developments haven't been as clear as they should be in defining what is the benefit or what is the requirement to justify cluster housing. I suspect what we're running into here is an awareness that we need a better understanding of what those benefits would be that would justify the cluster housing. Am I

I I agree with you. Uh, you know, I I could be convinced to uh be more supportive of the cluster housing option. I'm uh disappointed in the community benefit. This is not innovative. You know, we had asked you when you were here before some kind of innovative design and I don't see that happening here. I was going to suggest that perhaps you get rid of that one lot and have bigger lots for the for the homes that would remain, but the point about the older folks that would want something smaller with less maintenance uh I think is true. I think and when you get older, you probably don't want to have a lot of lawn to cut and trees to trim and all that kind of stuff. Uh but it's just it's a precious resource getting more precious in the township. We don't have that much land left and we should receive some benefit from uh granting a uh these two additional homes.

Well, go ahead. Go ahead.

Hi, my name's Joe Manson. I'm with uh the developer. I'm a builder. Part of the the benefit of having the 11 lots as we talked about is having it the smaller lot which I'm 59 turning 60. I don't want to have a a 100 foot lot and a larger lot to take care of. Um I don't the side entry garage is nice but what that's going to do it's going to drive up price. The nine lots as opposed to 11 lots is going to drive up price. And with the 11 lots, it's it's a more affordable firstf flooror master housing project in the Plymouth area than what it would be otherwise. Now, as far as the public benefit, you know, we could we could go back and obviously look and come up with something better. I'd be happy to do so. Um, but to to answer your question, 9 to 11 again gets you smaller smaller lots, less to take care of, and it's more affordable for people to, you know, move into at, you know, as you're aging in 60, 65, 70 years of age.

What is that price point difference you're speaking of? My just off top of my head, it might end up being $100,000. the the the h the the the housing with the first floor master if we go to nine probably goes away and they're going to have the larger lots and and it'll be a fine development but uh I that this first floor master in the smaller unit is probably going to go away. What what would replace that? Well, just, you know, side entry garages, uh, a bigger more more of your, uh, you know, more of what you see with typical housing.

What do you think the price point is for the 11 unit? You probably have some kind of idea, done marketing studies. Where do you think it approximately could be? Um, I I think about 650, 600, 650, something like that, which is affordable housing in Plymouth. Yeah, affordability is a relative term. Depends on uh your wealth and income. Yeah.

I mean, to be very positive here, I loved your floor plans. Okay. I mean, the the drawings you guys, the floor plans, the 1300 that took, they're incredibly well done. Those are A+es, right? It's just the CHO is a back door and it's there's really no innovation or no benefit. That's what I struggle with on the 11. And there's so many shortcomings to setbacks that the nine the parallel plan just looks incredibly like the the path forward for this this this plan.

Now the selling the selling point to this is the first floor masters uh two additional housing uh units. There's a shortage. I keep hearing there's a shortage of housing. There's not much we can do about the price point. We understand the cost of land and putting in infrastructure keeps going up and up. So that's that's an issue. Uh but I would expect something more than what you're offering for to those two homes. Well, we we we did the CHO cuz we would we would we would do this housing. If uh if we go to nine, I I could only see we're going to go conventional uh um type of subdivision and it'll it'll be fine. It'll look great, but um um it's going to be conventional houses and the CHO we we we went there because we get two extra and we can we hit the we got the the maximum density you know uh we we didn't think we were doing anything uh controversial here but uh you know we can go to nine and we can go to the different housing product. I mean, we just will, you know, because you'll have side entry. You've got Well, you know, we'll have to

Yeah. One thing that there's definitely a desire for single first floor masters and for products for older folks. But I would also comment that the survey that we did, the resident survey, the single biggest desire listed on that people voted for was traditional single family homes on large lots. And Plymouth really Plymouth Township really hasn't had a development like that for quite a number of years. I think probably the last one was the PY one on Ann Arbor Road across from a picnic basket. So there's still a desire for single traditional single family homes. Okay.

In Plymouth Township. Um, I think the thing that the board in the planning commission has to deal with is are we so focused on getting um homes for older folks that have first floor masters that we're prepared to grant a higher density to get them.

Well, the the hope is that uh if you went with this, you know, the the CHO approach that the older folks would live living in Plymouth would move out of their bigger homes and newer younger people would move into those. But often they're people from other areas, not in Plymouth. So that sort of falls apart after a while. I mean, to go on the record, this is the only plan I've ever showed to my wife, and I've been doing this for almost a year and a half now. That's how well I think the the layouts are, right? But the CHO, it's a back door and we're going to have other people coming in here. And I just hate to see a precedent of all you need is a picnic table and a gazebo and it's a CHO because people are going to be running here with CHO proposals.

Well, is it a matter of adding spunk to the park? I mean, uh, what if we do that? We, you know, the the there's two two places for open space, uh, up up at the front, but those are all landscaped. and the outlaw be, you know, we could we could spruce up the park and uh you know, we we have to keep it, you know, um we don't we don't want to make make it all active in some passive and all that, but we could think of something down there. Um Laura, just again for purposes of number of our commissioners are new on in Western Plymouth Township. Didn't I read somewhere that most of the developments were done under the cluster housing option historically?

Yes. Um most of the township subdivisions uh are either a result of a residential unit development in RUD which requires there to be 40 acres or more of land in which you know you you can be more innovative and provide you know private green spaces that link to one another and pathways. You have that flexibility. The cluster housing, it is throughout the township and is widely used and it is for parcels that are 40 acres or smaller. And as you get smaller, it does become more difficult to provide those those benefits. So, at this point, it's kind of weighing um your preferences for additional older adult housing um or another benefit to or asking them to to provide another benefit or just resorting to the nine units that they could legally do today under the ordinance.

I have a question as it relates to you mentioned older adults um housing. So, when you are uh proposing this 11 unit development. Are you marketing it towards people 60 and older or is it going to be a 60 and older? No, we're not marketing towards that, but that's what's going to gravitate there with with that size of a lot. The the assumption is is that it will be older people. Yes. Okay. That is this is what you're looking for. And how many bedrooms in total will be in these? Uh the

No, there's u there's a m uh there's the main the main bedroom down and two. So it'll be three bedrooms on a ranch and be three or four bedroomedroom option in the um the master down and three up or two three up. Yeah, two up or three up depending on what they pick. And how many square feet? Uh they range from Give me a second. 1300 and 2500 is what's in the plan. I don't have my glasses with me. Me neither. They're not that small.

Yeah, there's there's two plans at the end of their deck. One is a um threebedroom all on a single level. The other one is a story and a half. the primary unit on the first floor and then two bedrooms and a I think I I believe the ranch is like 2,300 ft and and uh the Cape is like 2500 ft. Again, downsizing is a relative term, but I mean that's bigger than the house I live in with four people. So, noted. Thank you.

I do have a question. And uh Laura, is this something that can be um tabled to look for a better public benefit or is there something that has to be actually voted on tonight? And Commissioner, thank you for the kind words on the the product. I designed it myself. So, um it's something that we're selling in other areas and it's it's it's a good product that people enjoy. So,

yeah, I I think no matter what you build there, the bigger homes or the smaller home, they're going to sell. So that's not the issue. But for the commissioners that don't like the CHO, you is it a matter of 60 foot lots when most of the other homes have 90 100t lots or 120 foot lots and you just think the 9-unit design fits better with the that area cuz it's two homes. It's not like a giant thing, but it's sounds like it'll be a different subdivision with the 9 unit versus the 11. And one's more

traditional. And then this is more, I guess, for potentially older or or people that don't want a big lot but want a first floor master, whether it's a threecar side or a two or three car front. Okay, these guys can come back with something. So, if this were to be tabled or delayed and we gave 90 days or 60 days, we could make a motion to to defer it, right? Because they've got enough stuff that's good here to come back with the parallel plan, right? That works. The 9 unit. The nine unit, which is the parallel plan. Okay. That doesn't need the innovation. Doesn't even need to be a CHO most likely. No, it doesn't need anything.

It doesn't need anything. The thing is, you know, we keep talking about diversity of housing. And if the goal is to attract older folks, there's no guarantee these older folks are going to be relocating from an an existing home they live in in Plymouth Township, you know, maybe their kids have moved here for a job and they lived somewhere else and they say, I want to be closer to to my kids and grandkids and all of that. So, you're looking at that aspect of it. You know, who who's marketing this? I'm not necessarily opposed to the 11 homes. It's a little tight in my opinion. But if we're going to give that um benefit to them, what are they returning back to us? Essentially, the residents,

okay, uh for that, what really makes it attractive? Um you know, for me, a gazebo on a picnic bench is not it. But do you see other people from the subs around it using it or this is just for them just for them? And we've had discussion about okay community benefit should mean that community should be more than just that but it's difficult to do this with this size of a of a lot. Yeah. And you're way out on the west side. But yeah. Okay. And and folks, you know, like country club village there, they have they have a pool and they have their own recreational Yeah. That's a different thing. Yeah. Yeah. So,

are you in opposition of of the nine or I mean

I I like the nine. I think the nine is the right foundation for this team to to proceed, right? And most of the the discussion's been on the 11. Why not the 11? Right. And and I don't think you have to do threecar garages, but you could do two on the side. They're very creative guys. they can come back with something they're given the time to come back with something on the nine that knocks our socks off that has innovation of content right of buyers right that we'll downsize too and not worry about the CHO because you're going to have a whole bunch of people with I think less vision and excellence and content like they have right they try to come in doing a CHO back door

and I don't think what what they tried to do here but yeah if you can get 11 you can bring the price down and there's still profit in there. But I want to get it right. We have such limited free space left in the township that we got to hit three-point shots and two-point shots at 80% of what we do here. Right. They're going to attract two different kinds of population. It's different. So, what kind of group of population do you want to

I'm happy having single family homes. I'm happy having something that people can downsize to. And it really depends on the price point, right? And at 650, you're going to have both. Sandy, do you have some thoughts on this on what's appealing to you and what's not? I just um I I the variation in in this in the standards between the single family the R1 R1S and that to me they're they're pretty substantial. So I'm not comfortable with it. I think it's jamming too much in into a You think it's jamming too much?

I I do think too much. And I will tell you honestly that every time I go somewhere and I see new developments and I see this I know I say I would never want to live there. Yeah. Because I don't want to reach my hand out to be able to hold hands with my neighbor. I don't like that small. Okay. Right. But but some people do. And this is catered to them. Um the the uh the 11 lots uh that people they they look for lower maintenance and that's what this is going to give them.

I think you're going to see I think you might be surprised. I think you're going to see more families buy into that. Young families too. Young families could do that. Yeah. So all I'm saying is that younger families aren't necessarily going to want to be closer. This is not exclusive to senior housing, but we just made a affordable more affordable housing for them though. That's why they that's why they're going to gravitate to young and and it's strictly a matter of choice. He asked me what my opinion was and my but I wouldn't like

I I love the product as well. I I looked at that. It's it's awesome. I wish we could tear out my subdivision and and build these, but um it's not it's not going to happen. So, could we Well, you have a very nice subdivision. Could we could we table this and come back with Yes. with with something new? I I kind of think you might be what I'm hearing. We I want to What kind of direction we want to give them? That's why I'm kind of pulling the group.

I I think what I think what I think what we're hearing is we'd like to have you come back with two options. One is show us what you could do with the nine nine lot option. That probably is the preference I'm sensing of the group here. But then also show us the 11 option. But knock our socks off with a community benefit. So you can come back with two two or something in between. Something in between like a 10. Does that mean capture the thought? A 10 could be something possible as well. I mean, is there always something in between like a 10 unit 10 units instead of 11?

I mean, we're willing to look at look at anything, but again, it's our belief that the 11 units at the affordable pricing is is the best for the community and you should probably do a Franklin T- chart listing the pluses and minuses of each alternative because you're right, it is a lower price point. It's part of the consideration matrix. But is that does that alternative kind of sound Well, we're we're pulling to see what each person What do you say?

I'm fine with 11. I mean I I mean it's but I know I also agree with what Sandy said. It's it's tight and you have you're surrounded by subs that are a little bit bigger. Now the one right on the corner though of Napeier and North Territorial, those aren't those aren't big lots. I don't think this this borders to the south multif family home. What size lots do you know like Carl Drive and all that? They're not terri North territorial and Napier at the end. North of M14 or south of M14. That's right on the corner. Right on right on the corner. North territorial.

Those are 90 foot lots. 90. Cuz they're all front and almost all of them are front and two garages. Boy, Trailwood's 90. They seem a little smaller than that, but okay, maybe they're 90. Um I I mean that's the only negative with the 11. I mean, I'm fine with the L1, but the the negative is you're surrounded by subs that have a bigger right be right behind us is that uh is multif family development and then there's nobody on our our sides across the road. I can't remember what's there. Okay.

Directly south acreage parcels. Uh directly south of this, and you can see it on the front page, is the PY U development. And those are um single family, but they're story and a half masters. And it's a it's a cond is not a condominium development. So it's Yeah, it is. It's just condos on the Yeah. So it's not Yeah. It's not individual lots. Dan, what are your thoughts? Yeah. What do you I like nine. You like get a better deal. I'm a ner just plain just regular sub ninth uh 100 foot lot. Okay. Well, not 100.

Well, what? Well, that's what they are about, you know. Okay. I'm not in support of the CO unless they can come back with some good benefit. Yeah. And I think that's that's where I stand. I mean, I I'm not opposed to 11 or 10, you know, but the the benefit it's got to be something that really blows our hair back that, you know, uh otherwise then I think, you know, we're looking at the the traditional development uh there. And so, have you you've built several homes? I presume over the years

have you seen what caters to the younger folks, you know, younger families or middle families? Well, younger families again.

It comes down to affordability once again, but this is a little different because a younger family is going to be looking for a larger community with more with more kids like 30 40 lots. So, a division was going to have more kids. Um, I know affordability right now is insane across the country. Nothing's affordable. I understand that. Um, you know, I have four kids, 28 to 22, and when when they were growing up, that's what we looked for as a subdivision. We had 52 lots I believe was in there, and there was a lot of kids, but yet it was affordable back then. It was, you know, 250, 300,000, whatever the price point was. Nowadays, unfortunately, with the property, the prices of property and development just skyhigh, it it's the only way to keep, you know, keep prices down is to increase density. Um, could a 9- unit development work? Um, it might, but um it's just going to increase pricing, threecar garage, increase pricing, bigger footprints inre, you know, people are going to want bigger homes. I mean, it just starts flowing up again into what you're seeing around Plymouth, you know, which 89 million $900,000 million, which I don't think, you know, is what's going to happen.

I would like for us to postpone this to give you an opportunity. I mean, you've heard what we have to say. Give you an opportunity. Look at the community benefit thing. Look at the potential for 10 as opposed to 11. I'm not saying that I absolutely am totally opposed to 11. I'm just saying that that's not it's not as desirable to me. Um so if we can postpone this Laura is that the word postpone? Yeah. Yes. Postpone table. We would have to take take it up at that same meeting. So postpone.

So I would make the motion that we postpone this. Um, I'm looking for some some good words in here. I I would just like us to postpone the approval the um postpone the application. Yeah. How much time do they think they need if we postpone it? Cuz we're going to make a motion to postpone. How many months do you need? Well, postpone is open-ended, right? Well, you you were given, I believe, a year. So, you're shorter than a year. So 90 days 120. Well, we don't have to put a date on it, do we? No, no. We can we can say for up to 6 months, 10 months, and you can come back early. Five.

Okay. How much? How many months? Up to six. Up to six. My motion would be that we postpone this uh cluster housing option um for up for a period of up to 6 months. I'll second it. Okay. Moved by Commissioner Grath in support of by Commissioner Iikner to postpone the application 2582 for up to 6 months. All in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. Motion carries.

We like the product. I think you know we like the approach. It's just uh figuring out what exactly the community benefits should be and what is what segment of the population do we want to see moved in? Young. I think it boils down to younger people or older people or both. Who knows? Or both. We want you to build Natasha. I mean, my you guys get that.

My daughter lived in in a development here in Plymouth and uh there were retirees there. There those homes ran about 1,700 square ft. There were some larger ones cuz they had the two stories. She lived in a ranch and they had uh younger people, they had older people, single people, retired people, people with families and it seemed to work. I was she was very happy to see the diversity of family types. So, good luck. So, we look forward to hearing from we appreciate your comments and we will be back. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, these were the easier two topics tonight, too, by the way.

We'll see. the one everyone's waiting for. I'm not going to put my Okay. I don't have

I'm only going to crinkle phase two because there's contentious items in it. So, my crinkling will be cut in half, Dennis. I promise. Okay. Application 2560. The Chevy Corvette Mantine dealership. They're here for tenative and final and the planners report. Thank you.

Okay. Um you are familiar with this application having reviewed the special land use um almost a year ago in April um which was granted. Um there were a series of conditions that were attached to that special land use approval which are um restated in our report on both pages one and two just for your reference and the current compliance status. Um this project uh consists of two different phases across three different parcels. The image on the front page shows in red phase one which consists of um a 3 and 1/2 acre site altogether with a proposed 52,000 ft dealership. And then the yellow parcel which also includes Massie Drive. Um that is phase two. That's 9 and a half acres and it um a 22,000 square foot detailing and storage facility is proposed. Uh the majority of the phase 2 site is for parking as a requirement um of this project. These two these three parcels will be combined ultimately. Um but for right now they are broken out into phase one and phase two for this report. So under each of the site plan review items you'll see that we have noted compliance um for either the site one along Ann Arbor Road or site two or phase two um along the rear of the property. So going through our site plan review letter um the first condition zoning and land use uh there there is compliance. The special land use was previously granted last year. Um it complies with the uh direction of the current master

plan for commercial regional commercial in this area. Uh criteria two site appearance and coordination. This is where the dimensional standards um are listed for both phase one and two and they both comply. They have met those and in in some cases they have greatly exceeded some of those minimum setbacks and requirements. Uh item number three, preservation of site features. This may be an item for the planning commission to discuss further this evening, especially with um before you is uh just a citizen comments um that were recently received. Um in phase one um the applicant is proposing uh to remove a total of 368 in um of DBH that is uh regulated um for for replacement. They are not proposing any replacement trees on that phase one property. Um they are requesting a waiver to pay into the tree fund for those 3 um 68 uh DBH.

What is DBH? Diameter of breast height. Okay. 4 feet off ground.

And that's determined based off of the existing trees that are on the site. Um they're whether they are a heritage tree or not. And you apply the replacement ratios to that. So if a 16inch tree is to be removed um it's not a heritage tree and you would have to replace 4 inches of DBH. And for phase 2 um they are also removing um a significant number of trees 87 in total which is 681 DBH and they are required based on that replacement ratio to replace just over 250 DBH. They are proposing um to replant 40 new trees on the phase 2 site and then they are also requesting to repay into the um township's payment and l tree fund for the remaining DBH. So across both of the two phases they are requesting payment in L option. They are not um as they've designed the site, it is not feasible to add additional replacement trees. Item number four, impact on public services. This is on page six. Um the engineering's report of course is included. Um but based on uh the quick assessment, it's not expected to create additional um negative impacts on public services and can be so designed. Um in terms of vehicular access and circulation, so the sites themselves will have direct access onto Massie Road. That's that north and south um uh roadway. The front parcel itself will not have direct access onto Ann Arbor Road. Although Massie Road leads to both Ann Arbor Road and Hagerty Road. So

there are two different outlets um for this. They are not proposing any new curb cuts onto Ann Arbor Road. Um the applicant has demonstrated that there is adequate space for the internal um drive aisles and truck traffic um for maneuvering. In terms of pedestrian access and circulation, um there exists a sidewalk along An Arbor Road today. Uh between these two properties is a the hotel site which is of course under different ownership. There is a sidewalk along um a portion of that frontage that the applicant is proposing to tie into. Uh doing a sidewalk directly along Massie Drive would require the removal of um a number of existing street trees. And so we are not recommending that, but more of an internal sidewalk network so that they could still safely go between the phase one parcel and the the phase 2 site utilizing the current uh pedestrian access on the hotel site. In terms of a emergency access, um the fire department has found no deficiencies. Their report is included in your packet for landscaping um screening and buffering. This is another um related to um the replacement trees and is an item for the planning commission's consideration. Um, parcel A complies with the Ann Arbor Road Corridor streetscape landscaping requirements and it also complies with the interior parking lot landscaping requirements. Phase two um also complies with the parking lot screening requirements from Massie Drive, that internal drive. Um and for um that rear parcel phase two since it does abut residential um the

residential buffer requirements uh apply and the zoning ordinance requires a solid wall plus a 6 to 9 a 6 to 8t excuse me wide planting strip um that is uh landscaped um including trees every 35 ft. So, what's required is a solid wall plus at least a 6ft landscape buffer with 21 trees. The applicant is proposing a 60 foot wide planting strip along that south property line um with 13 new evergreen trees, six new shade trees, and for 45 trees to remain. So, the requirement is uh exceeded um in this. However, we did hear from the public during the special land use that screening in the adjacent residential is important um and is a consideration for the commission in terms of parking and loading. Um the the phase one site where the dealership is um because of the number of employees on the greatest shift uh is requiring 267 spaces per the ordinance. They are proposing 192 spaces to be located on that that front portion and then to um add those 75 spaces to phase 2. Uh there are a total of 555 parking spaces on the phase 2 property. So because this is a um a storage and detailing facility, only 18 spaces are required for that rear site. So they can accommodate the necessary 75 from the phase one. Um and they are, you know, significantly overparked overall. Um

part of that is the request to have um the the storage of vehicles in that rear phase 2 lot. One item that they are requesting a waiver for uh this is on page 12. Uh based on the square footage of their dealership building in phase one, two loading spaces are required by ordinance. The planning commission has flexibility to reduce that um based on the specific need and they are requesting one loading space is um necessary for their operations. So they can um clarify that in further detail um if necessary for the planning commission. We do not have um an object objection to one loading space in that area. And in terms of building design and architecture, the primary um dealership building in phase one is a contemporary design. Um it is proposed to be constructed of similar materials that um mirror the Cadillac and Lincoln dealerships um just to the west. Um the applicant has provided um or has brought this evening some material samples um to be passed around during their presentation and they also have a a material board um to share with the commission um for phase two. In contrast, the the building as a storage um facility is more utilitarian um in design. It is more of just a solid rectangle um 30 ft in height. There are some uh longer blank walls that um are proposed and we do recommend some additional architectural detailing at least on that south facade where it may be because of the height visible to the adjacent residential. Um, just to break that up, the ordinance does require some

architectural variation within every 100 feet um of the wall facade and um there are some spans of of 30 300 ft in length. So the both both buildings um need to be found acceptable to the planning commission and we are recommending some additional modifications on that rear building in phase two. In terms of exterior lighting, um the applicant large largely meets the zoning ordinance standards, including the latest dark sky provision ordinance standards. Um there are a couple uh points within the phase one site that are just slightly too bright um that need to be lowered. But uh overall uh there is compliance met with this and compliance met on phase two which is especially important where it abuts adjacent residential. Um so our recommendation uh for both phase one and two um is to grant tenative and final. Um this is uh subject to three conditions which are listed there on page 14 of our review. This is also contingent however that the planning commission finds that the building design is acceptable. um the the residential buffering that they have proposed is um acceptable and that uh the planning commission grant the waiver to have a um reduced loading space for phase one and the applicant is here this evening um again with those material samples to um discuss with you. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have the engineering report.

Yes. Hello. We have done our review of the um site plan submitted by Norc and Frost and we offer the following comments. Um so planning commission is aware there is a water service that would be provided by an 8 in extension from the existing 8 in and 12in water manes along the east side of Massie Drive. 2-in domestic leads and 6-in fire service would be provided to serve the buildings along with additional hydrants on site. Sanitary sewer service would be provided from the existing 8-in sanitary sewer along the east side of Ann Arbor Road and 8in sanitary sewer within the parcel south of the hotel. 6-in leads would then be provided to serve the buildings. Storm water would be collected by a single storm sewer collection system and discharged to an existing on-site and off-site regional detention basin. We do have the following general comments. Um, and this is just as a means to help with the engineering review. There is no landscaping as a reminder to be permitted with any of the existing utility easements unless it is so for approved by the planning department. Um for the storm drainage and grading, we do have a comment um that the calculations of the respective sites for sheets C C6 and C8 um south of the hotel was designed to prov provide sufficient storage for parcels um listed in the following notes. Massie Drive in the parcel south of the hotel. A current review and approval will be needed from Wayne County, which you may have um been granted since this note, um will be needed from Wayne County DPS, and that will be required to confirm that no on-site storm detention or additional pre-treatment or or upgrades to the regional detention basement basin will be required, including maintenance access to the pond. Uh there was a traffic impact study that had been done. Um, one of the results

was a traffic memo was provided in response to the study submitted on October 16th. We recommend that the traffic report recommendation of providing a sign that states do not block intersection for eastbound Ann Arbor Road at Massie Drive be implemented. Any upgrading of the signal intersection of Ann Arbor Road and Hagerty Road would need to be evaluated of course by MDOT and Wayne County. We went on to list the um necessary permits and agreements required based on our evaluation at the time. And we do feel that um given the plans and what we have to date that we can go ahead and approve um the it is our recommendation to approve the tentative site plans and I do know that planning went forward and re u approved the final as well. So we are comfortable just resolving some of the issues with our engineering review. Okay, thank you. And then we have a report from the fire department that's dated last June. They had no deficiencies, but Laura, I have a question. So on these fire uh reports, this one goes back to June. So obviously they they reviewed the plans at that time. Have there been substantial changes since then? And do do the fire does the fire department have another go at looking at whatever might have been revised that's substantial?

Yes. When when uh revised plans are are submitted, they are forwarded to the fire department for review. If there are no other concerns, then typically another letter is not issued. Oh, okay. Great. Thank you. And the applicant is here. Sure. Yeah.

Hey, good evening, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. My name is Gary Landro with LA Development, part of the La Fontaine Automotive Group. I have uh Tim Wood with me with Noak and Fra tonight. Um Annie Hall is my project manager on this project and uh Ashley is our sort of our real estate uh development director. So I brought the boss with us too. Um I think we've we've listened to a lot of the comments. We know you've had grave concerns with the trees with the neighbors. We met with the community to the south of us. Uh we had some sitdown meetings with them. We listened to their concerns. um that seemed to be a big a big factor in this whole program, right? So, um the fact that we were required to have a 6 to 8 ft buffer with a screen wall, um we do have a screen wall there and originally we had a almost a 50 ft setback uh buffer that we were leaving there. That's uh been increased to 60. And um the the reason that we don't have more tree count in that southern uh buffer is because there's so many existing healthy good trees that should be preserved that would take years and years and years to to get to that stage. Um we're not opposed to um doing some thinning as necessary to promote health and and wellness of those species. Um we are doing some heavy density um um along where the proposed building is to to help screen that. We've added bushes. We've done some undulations in our plan uh to break that up and to to create a more sineuous appeal. Um I think it's uh I think it's a much better program than it was. We had um the dumpster enclosure originally on that southside that's been moved to the north. um you know to help with the noise

factor. Uh one of the issues um that Laura talked about was the sidewalk uh connectivity between these two parcels. So Annie has had extensive discussions with the hotel group. Um they're they're anxious as as heck to see us going in there. Um, and they have agreed to allow us to, they have a small section where they used to have a pool in there that doesn't have sidewalk along their west parking west of the hotel. They would allow us to pave that for them and then just put some cross striping in so that our employees could have the ability to just walk through their parking lot to get over there. Um, we we don't have much of a a rendering on that yet, but she sent that drawing up there for you to take a peek at it, too. It's kind of hard to see. Um this is a contemporary um

dealership building that does follow a lot of the dealership plans. Um we've got the split face block the um this is the bow tie blue that is Chevy's color that's spec this aluminum composite material that goes on there. There's a darker gray aluminum composite that's on there. Um, it's got the silver ACM. Um, there's some gray paint in some of the back area in the service garage and there's gray spandro glass on the front which just so that you don't see building structure through in the roof area. Um, just to be clear, our plan for phase two is just for the building in the back. The parking lot itself would be done along with phase one for us. We we really can't even function in this building without um you know without that additional vehicle storage and employee parking back there. So it's the building itself that was we're proposing for a phase two.

Are they the same building? And we actually had a discussion with um who was the planner we were with? Sort of like Liz, not to throw her under the bus, but she kind of indicated that we would um add time to be able to revise um the building streamlined solid that we could make it more architecturally appealing visually at a later time.

She yeah sort of indicated that it would be more during the per permitting process there. Um, we do have some plans of adjusting roof heights and trying to create some different materials or something to to create that to break up that linear look that you were referring to. Um, you know, just it sounds terrible to to to hear that, oh, they're not doing any replacement trees. It doesn't mean we're not adding landscaping to the project. We are. We are compliant with the landscape requirements. So um that's why we would like to uh buy into the tree fund for the replacement of I don't remember the number it's almost 600 right DBH um and I guess we'll we'll we're open for uh comments and questions.

Let me start off with uh some questions that uh came uh in the communication. I want to make sure this person Jacqueline are you here? Is this Jacqueline here? Oh, okay. Well, I'm not sure what you want to do if I can go through your questions or would you prefer to do it yourself or Well, you would go through those questions and then

Okay, let me let me start with these and let and then we'll see where we go. Okay. All right. So um she's saying that the existing southern property line wall is about 54 years old. When it deteriorates, will La Fontaine provide repair or replacement? I don't know who owns that wall. You know, Bradberry, you're from Bradberry. Do you don't own it? No, we don't. Is it is it a state MD dot or

I don't know. I think it's on our property line. Regardless of the fact it is a requirement for us to have that there. So if there is any uh disrepair of that wall, we would be maintaining that. Yes. Okay. All right. Um the phase two includes a one-story facility. The floor plan shows two floors. She's questioning it's a two floor I believe is there's some storage upstairs parts or something right there's just a mezzanine yeah I think it's just a mezzanine area it's primarily one story yeah I think there was a Isn't there a break room on the second floor I I looked at it it's a small area

just for yeah just employee services right right so I remember it was a break room and maybe a restroom uh during the meeting And in April 16th, we talked about uh retaining part of the natural area along the south border of phase 2. That is not reflected in the tree preservation plan. Only a few single trees are planned to stay in place. Well, again, what was required was this 6 to 8ft buffer. So, we've maintained a lot of that natural green space that's there. Um, and we are adding additional trees to that and and we're putting a pretty pretty heavy hedge along there, too. Right. We need 52 trees to remain on its property.

52 that we're adding existing to remain existing 40. So there's going to be 53. So there's 52 existing my engineer is telling me and we're adding 40 to that. And and are we doing bushes as well? And any kind of burming or anything that we're doing?

No. Um not sure if you had the latest plan on there, but we we substantially did try to increase that. Um we also were were cognizant of the existing healthy trees that were there. We didn't want to overfill them and and you know choke those trunks out or cut and and destroy roots and and harm. So we wanted to protect the u the integrity of those existing trees. I don't know if we're are any shown to be just thinned out or something if they're not desirable. There's probably some

some underbrush that could be cleaned up or whatever to again promote the better health of them. We know that you'd like to have a dense screening there, right? And uh and we we tried to do that with this. All right. Uh she lives in Bradberry build in a the Bradberry building along the wall that faces north viewing the wooded area. The tree preservation plan shows the tagged trees to be removed. Can trees be preserved that are not located at the future building or parking? And then she puts in a attaches a plan where I mark trees green color which many could possibly be preserved. This might reduce the number of trees that L Fontaine is supposed to replace and doesn't find space for on their property. We prefer retaining established trees instead of contributions to the tree fund. Uh she would appreciate if more tree preservations would be considered and I can give this to someone and you can make a comment.

Yeah, sure. Um I I believe um I I don't know the exact You need to speak into the Thank you. Sorry, I heard you guys referencing that earlier too. I apologize. Um I don't know if this is the exact number, but when I was doing my counts, I had calculated about 73 undesirable species as well, which those being removed from that site would help preserve the integrity of the desirable species in that area. Were you able to hear what she said? No. Okay. She's saying of those trees that are being removed, 73 of those are on the undesirable tree list.

So, um, but they haven't harmed the wood so far. Well, are there seed pods blowing and are they spreading? I mean, I don't know why they're not desiraables. I didn't call them undesirable, but the township did. They're on their list, right? So for whatever reason, and she would also like to see that the existing taller shrubs be preserved, especially inside the southern buffer zone where there are residential buildings right across the newly planned building and parking area. That would add to the visual and noise buffer and protect existing habitat.

Are those shrubs along that wall on that southern Yeah. Yeah, we intend that we totally are keeping the shrubs that are there.

Can I show her a little? Yeah. That's the Yeah. Then there's just a comment that that the screening will be provided that accurately buffers loading and unloading areas from the adjacent residential areas. And then the phase two, the loading and unloading areas is located at the rear of the building. And does that mean the east side of the building?

Oh, yeah. That's the far east. That's all the way next to the freeway. Are you able to predict uh the uh unloading times? I know that sometimes varies.

It's supposed to be during business hours. It's hard to regulate because they're independent contractors. They're not actually employees of the manufacturers. Um it's been a little bit of a challenge just, you know, just being able to control those guys. We do our best with that. We do have um and and maybe the plan was updated since Laura saw that last, but there are two uh loading and unloading zones on the front parcel next to the building. There there's two side by side. Are there uh operating hours for the phase 2 building? Uh same as the dealership. Okay.

Closed on Sundays. They're they're closed earlier on Wednesday. Um basically it's 7 to 6 except for Monday and Thursday. They're open till 9. building.

We would have to reference what was outlined originally in um my narrative with our application and I believe the rear building this uh detail out I believe the we would have to reference the hours from our original narrative for that but I believed that they were reduced for the rear lot. Um, I know there was a concern with the dryers, um, especially for that and that's why we took extra liberties. Um, as you can see on the floor plans, we actually created a vestibule of sorts just outside the blower. So, there's actually a second, it's like a containment, if you will, for sound. Um, people will be entering the or our employees will be taking vehicles into the wash. There's a door at the end. When the blowers are done, that door opens. they are in a vestibuled area and they can exit that way. That was a measure we took to try to preserve the peace and quiet of the site.

So the entrance to that wash is in the south of that building. So they'll drive in the door closes, they drive through the wash. Um as that first dryer is going, the interior door opens, they get into this space, that door closes where the dryers are, and then the outside door opens. So, we've done this extra layer of sound protection. That's the exit side where the blowers are. That's where the noise is. The blowers are facing the hotel site. The blowers are facing the hotel site. They're not facing your site.

The entrance. Yes. So, the entrance is on the south um closest to your property limits and the actual blowers themselves are closer to the hotel side. Is there a wall between your unit and and this development? There is a wall. That's what we talked about that older people because then you raised this issue about the facade and and you're saying that you're still going to look at the facade, but but there's isn't there a wall between your view? Very high wall and anything that's being built.

Oh, I see. in a building that where all the rooms but one bedroom that now area can I speak on that part? And she's concerned about the facade on that second phase building. Um we hope you hardly see it with the existing 54 trees and the additional 40 that we're planting there and the bushes that will remain. Um, but we'd like it to be uh, you know, aesthetically pleasing for you. Of course, what you can see of it. Um, I think that's a 6ft screen wall that's back there currently. That

Well, I'm just saying I think that's what was required probably way back when whoever put that in there, right? And that's the same thing that would be required today from for us. They meet the ordinance. So, they're meeting what is the expectation by the township. Um, on the lighting, she doesn't want to see anything more than a 4,000K. Um, but there's no lighting. There's no spillage of light off your site.

No, there's not. Um, we have a.5 foot candle max at the property line. Our lights are so far away from that, it's completely dark there. Um, we're putting lowerheaded shielded fixtures on that southern property line that are directional LEDs that push the light into the lot, not not just flood it. Um, and I I believe we talked about having these on a timer where they could be actually turned off at night. So, if a car drives through there when they're not supposed to, they'd be picked up on a motion sensor. Those lights would turn on for like 7 minutes. Um, the idea there is if a police car drives by and sees there's a light on that back parking lot, they know somebody's in there who shouldn't be there. So, it's a good safety measure. We find that law enforcement really likes that and it keeps the the lights and the glare. It promotes the black sky effect. It's it's not glaring in uh residents windows who are nearby. They're we're very self-conscious of the very conscientious of the light pollution in the spillage. um any interior lights are just there for security and safety. If you think in terms of this as being an inventory storage lot, we're not like trying to display and sell cars. So, we we're just interested in security and safety in this back parking lot. So, it's really easy to be good corporate citizens and good neighbors and in a residential lot like this. The front lot is where any display will be and that's where we'll want to show the cars, but we still have lighting ordinances that we have to comply with. Um, current review and approval from Wayne County DPS will be required to confirm that no on-site storm detention or additional pre-treatment or upgrades to the regional detention basin will be required. Has that been provided? Not yet. Um,

okay. We're still in a design phase and uh until we know that we're moving forward with the project, we we'll apply. We've got Wayne County Storm to right for approval. Uh, MD dot we have to get approval for as well.

Yeah. And any water is not is not supposed to flow off the site. So, that's a township ordinance. um you're going to lose 251 trees. We would like to see a higher contingent contingency of the payment into the township tree fund. And you want those trees to be provided by uh to the Bradberry Park homes, but I believe that that those tree fund is only for public areas. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. So, did you have any few more additional questions or just one comment from the last apply to

I think that's another fund, isn't it? Yes. And and that that is allowed as long as the the tree residential tree planting program continues. um a portion of the tree funds are used to uh support that program, but the payment in L directly cannot be applied to a specific HOA. Okay. Hey, we wouldn't oppose donating some additional trees to Bradberry if it would help you. I don't know if there's green space there that could accommodate trees between your unit and where the wall is, where our property is. Unfortunately, not. Pardon me.

Between them. Unfortunately not. Well, but if there is some space, I mean, aside from the tree fund, like I said, we're not totally opposed to something like that. We we'd like to contribute if it helps you. Um, that wouldn't be a problem for us. And we do appreciate you meeting with the residents and sort of doing your homework. We always encourage developers to do that. We think it solves and resolves a lot of problems.

We really like to hear what their concerns are and we try to address those. And we and and again, we do want to be good neighbors. We we understand that people live here. This is your home. It's your sanctuary, right? I get that. Um you don't want to have a a battle with some obnoxious neighbor going on, you know, forever. Um remember that we've had vacant buildings there for 10 years. Um that last building we just tore down, the one I was Benigans, whatever the restaurant was. Um there was kids party in there. There's doing some drugs. There's beer bottles. There was a homeless uh somebody broke in was in there. You know, a homeless person or something. I mean, it's blight and it's not safe and it's, you know, it's dangerous. So, um that kind of was something that had to be done. And of course, Annie went through the whole process of of getting the utilities disconnected and the clearances and and the um demo permit and and bonding, whatever had to happen for that. Right.

Sounds like you're on the right foot here. So, I'll turn it over to questions from the commission.

Maybe I can start. Um, first of all, you may have saw at the beginning of the meeting this issue of so-called missing middle housing was raised. Bradbury Park condominiums are a real showcase for the township and it's a perfect example of how we are already in Plymouth Township addressing the missing middle housing issue. So, we're very concerned that we do everything to continue the desiraability of this neighborhood because we do really think it's an asset to the township. Um, I'm particularly interested in trees. No surprise to anybody here. Um, I'm looking at page L L1 of the uh deck for the second building, and it appears to me there's no dimensions marked on this, but can you tell me what is the uh dimension between the fence, the Bradberry Park fence, and the very edge of the southern row of parking?

60 feet.

60 feet. Okay. So looking at that, it appears that about 30 ft of that, the first 30 ft next to Bradberry now appears that you're not taking out any trees at all. And I've walked that piece of land and it's pretty dense. You know, again, it's not all desirable trees, but there it is a nature area. And then the next page, page L2, it appears that you're adding additional trees, new trees on that next 30 feet. So in other words, the first 30 ft next to Bradberry is stays exactly as it is. The second 30 ft, you're now adding new trees in to create additional vegetation before we get to the very southernmost row of parking.

Correct. Is that am I reading that correctly? That is correct. Yes. Okay. So, some of the some of what you the underbrush that you walk through, it's it feels dense in there. There's picker bushes, there's malberry, there's some uh some of these undesirabs. And I think that um there is some grading issues, Tim, is there in there? Correct.

So, we're able to stay outside of the grading to some degree where we're keeping the existing trees. the we're proposing the additional 40 trees as replacement trees for the heritage trees um and desirable trees that are being removed from the site to aid towards that uh to provide the maximum number of trees uh as possible towards that. So we are asking for the minimum amount for payment in lie of um just because of site limitations and we are providing all the uh additional landscaping items. So basically past the existing trees to remain uh there we do need to grade to provide positive drainage. Um and then we're going to be grading and then planting the new 40 trees replacement trees in that area.

So so some of that undesirable underbrush does get removed with the grading. So that to his point so we have to have the storm water grade in the right way. That is where we're planting heavily for replacement in that section to create the biggest buffer for you residents. Okay. So, just to reconfirm, if I'm hearing this correctly, the first 30 ft from Bradberry North is untouched. Correct. The second 30 ft has to be regraded to meet the requirements for the parking lot. But after you regrade, you're going to install those additional trees. Looks to me like there's about 25 of them or more on that page L2 on that new banked area. Is that correct?

He said 40. There's 40. Okay. 40. Okay. Yeah, I see that. But that's not right. What I read in the map

will be right. Uh not in the back near the the first 30 feet. No. No. and and there's also uh very dense rows of bushes being planted and we've done offsetting of these rows so that they could still get mowers in for maintaining it and and taking care of that. It's like a park almost right in that setting. Okay, I do see that on the on the Do you see those on there? That's hard to see them. Maybe we could have somebody

show you the plan so you can see what we're talking about. Um, specifically it's page L2. Um, the only other comment I would make at this time is that um, I I do want to reiterate the request from the planning department to add additional visual interest to the southern wall of building 2 because even even with all the additional planning, there will be people in Bradbury that will probably see the back of that building, particularly in the winter when the trees are down.

Certainly. So really would like to see you up the Annie on that a little bit. Okay. If I may just interject, you know, you're talking about the that part on page 13 of the planners report, the underlined sections under phase two. Are you able to Excuse me one second, Ashley. Yeah, that's we can't hear what's going on up here. Sorry. I don't want to sound like I'm stupid, but I'm not I'm not able to hear you. Yeah, maybe you cover that with them when we're done. We Yeah, we'll we'll be glad to go over this with you folks. Okay, good.

So, on on page 13, uh there's a discussion about phase two, the underlying section and a little bit at the end. Uh you're able to meet those expectations that are in the planners report. Yeah. Yes, we are. Okay. Do we have Anyone else want to chime in on Yeah, I just I just have a question on the on the concept. So, you're are you shutting down the dealer on Plymouth Road and moving to this one? No. Uh we're going to keep that primarily for pre-owned vehicles and for additional service.

Okay. Um you guys know what's happened even since CO, right? the used car market has just gone in the cost of cars. So, people are maintaining their used vehicles quite a bit longer. Um, it's still a pretty hot trend in the industry. So, u we're finding the need for additional service um based on our projections for this current location and new vehicles that will be serviced here. So, uh, that's primarily going to be for used cars and for the medium duty trucks, like the pickup trucks that have a dump bed or something like that. Y Okay. And it'll be full service Chevrolet. Correct.

Yeah. Okay. One additional uh question that this has come up in the previous application. I almost hate to bring it up. So uh Laura in the planner report you say no major repair or major re uh finishing is permitted. So how do we define major repair? Again there is a definition in the zoning ordinance um when this be when this uh was before the planning commission for special land use. I do remember um going over that defining it and I believe Kevin Bennett was here that evening and and spoke to it as well. That's that's the official definition. Okay. Okay. All right.

Yeah. So, typically that means like um body shop work where they're taking off fenders and Right. And it it also means that um they're not really dropping engines and transmissions and all that major stuff that where a vehicle sits there for a long time and you got all the fluids and um and this is more for um you know just general service work, routine maintenance. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. But you guys are replacing a lot of the six 6.2 LERs though. Yeah. But anyway, those are all modular these days. It's It's amazing. They just drop the whole front and it, you know, it's Oh, okay. So, it's not so bad to

It's It's not like you used to have to disassemble everything out and pull them out the top and it's it's kind of scary, but Okay. mod. Modular. Yeah. Bill, you must have a comment or two on I wanted the right side to go. Oh, okay. You saved me the best for last. Yeah. Um I have some questions about parking. So obviously your parking far exceeds the the um minimum required. So I just want to be sure like what percentage is going to be used for actual parking of cars and what is for staging and overflow of vehicles?

It's probably 20% for actual um parking um employees. you know, a little bit little bit higher for employees as well in the back. Most of that parking, the vast majority, highest percentage is for inventory storage. So, it's basically like an large outdoor storage function, correct? Rather than accessory. Yeah. And it's hard because they're cars and people think it's parking, parking lot, parking standards. It's really product storage. It's inventory is what it is. So then that's Oh, excuse me. I

I guess that's a concern of mine and just a question to the planners. Is there other considerations to take into account given that this is storage, outdoor storage and not just parking? Well, the the outdoor storage of the vehicles was approved as part of their special land use, right? That was identified on the plan and um expressed to the the commission at that time and approved. Okay. Was there a number or like a parking space limit for that outdoor storage? There were no parameters on that. Okay.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there is a zoning uh vehicle parking zoning that we did for um the Hines Park Lincoln that is off of Hagerty. You'll see it almost empty now, but I you know, it's hard to predict sales of of cars. I know during CO you could drive by these car dealerships and there were virtually no cars. So um but I don't think it would be inappropriate to do reszoning for that just small portion. It would be better just to call it outdoor storage. Right. Okay. Okay. That was all. Thank you. From you Dan. No we're wait we

I had a couple things Dennis. Uh the the first one is uh on previous discussions you guys were in here and I made a little diagram here. I had a couple of frown faces on it. Number one, the commercial zoning, you know, the the buffer is not enough. Going from 50 to 60 is is a pittance. Okay, it's disingenuous, right? I mean, when the first time the Bradbury residents showed up one by one, they said, "Please extend this. We want as much of buffer as possible." Right? An additional 10 ft doesn't even come close. Okay, you did get the dumpster moved to the far north side, which was a specific request. So, I give you credit for doing that one because that is loud. But to Dennis's point, which is a great question about 25 minutes ago, these car hallways show up all throughout the night. They have to get somewhere and they want to go to bed. So, they drive, they park, right? So, you will have trucks, maybe not unloading, but they'll be rolling through with their diesels. The noise analysis that was done, right? I pulled this up because I used to be an NBH supervisor. I did that for two years, which is noise, vibration, harshness. That's the study in noise. They pay us a lot of money to make vehicles quiet, right? You got to pass legal noise, which is 80 dBs, right? Um, this subdivision is bombarded by noise already, okay? And and it's it's it's additive. Okay. The noise that comes from the dealership during the working hours. Um, you guys did a 24-hour noise study. you know, it says where it was done, whether the microphone was 8 feet up, it was, you know, x feet north, uh, y feet away from the 10-ft wall, but the point I'm trying to make is there's a 10ft wall already, and they're bombarded by noise. The wall that's there is nowhere near enough. Okay? It needs to be higher and and they really want a heck of a lot more. Okay? So, as people were talking here, I went back to doing my my coloring, right? And I'll share with my peers here. The same page Tim looked at. I went in and did the hockey stick curve and said, "Shove the 60 foot

buffer to 160 ft. Go do something these people really want." By doing that, I counted up 174 less parking spaces for for your floor plan of extra inventory and you'll save close to just under 100 trees. Some of these are scruffy trees, okay? Most of them are not the beautiful oaks and the red maples and all the things people really like to see, but those trees do more than act as a deflection to bust up the sound pressure waves. There's two types of noise. There's structure born. You feel the vibration in your seat when you're driving down the road. And there's airborne. It's what you hear from the exhaust through your windows. Most of this is going to be airborne noise, okay? Which is tough on people that are already seeing approximately 60 dBs. So the noise that comes in this facility is additive, right? So the fact you have 55 dBs and the the drying right on the exit to the north side, it's good, but I really want to ask you guys to go back and do a heck of a lot better than 60. I marked this drawing up, so I want to hand it to one of you guys. If you went 160 ft, you'd lose 174. Those 422 parking spaces, you would keep almost half the trees that are there, right? And this is a a beautiful 9 acre site of nothing but trees that's doing a job for the air that we're breathing literally right now because it's less than 500 yards from where we're sitting in this building. So please do better on that. Okay, that that's and and I say this being a GM driver. I have nothing but generalized vehicles, okay? I'm one of the biggest proponents of of Chevy driving the Motor City here and my son works there, which is why I support that. They're great vehicles, okay? So, I want you guys to to listen and do better because we asked the last time. 10 ft is not doing service. The fact you guys met with the owners is great. I personally thought they were way too polite when they came in and spoke to us the first time. Right.

They were being civil. They were I mean, they were very civil, which I I applaud that. But the emotion we got on the opposite side of the street here on 55 dBs of noise, right, was just everybody was just angry at us. So, they're very polite and civil. I give you guys a lot of credit, but you guys should do better for these residents because it is the missing middle housing. It's not missing. It's already here. And those properties are valuable. It serves a need, right, for people that have downsized. And your hearing gets bad as you age, including mine. And we don't need to make it worse.

So, I mean, you're singularly focused. This is your major concern and everything that comes before you. It's like primary, right? We are doing something good for these people. We're we're taking our sight lights down and we're directing the light away from them. We're leaving 30 ft. We're required to have 6 to 8 foot of landscaping behind the wall. We've got 60. That's not like it's nothing. It's huge. We're leaving 30 ft untouched in its natural state as dense as is as it is for their benefit. We're adding all of these trees for that reason. Yes, there's 55 dB at the car wash. That's why we put it on an inside door. It's not 55 dB when the outside door is closed. We did that for their their comfort, their concern. What business is going to go in and occupy this space and not be open till 11:00 or midnight or have people drinking beer or partying or doing whatever? We are not a a terrible neighbor to have. We're closed on Sundays. We're closed early on Saturdays. Our our dealership opens at 9:00 a.m. A couple of service guys are in there at 7. The public comes in at 9:00. So, we're a low impact, right? And our our sound study that was done was the noise survey was based on a dealership usage. So they accounted for car haulers, dumpsters, car washes, service equipment, right? All of that had to be considered. This isn't like just, oh, we're going to throw in a shop over here. So, um, 175 spaces. How many vehicles do we need to have in an inventory to carry a 55,000 ft building with 150 employees? How many car sales is that? How much service is

that? Do you know we can just lose 175 parking spaces? Like, it doesn't have an effect on a business. It's a formula. a Chevy dealer of this size in another location, the manufacturer made them have 980 parking spaces, right? This is greatly, this is half of that. Um, Cadillac has 7 how many? 15

711 spaces next door. I mean, if you look at the density of these other car lots, look at the planting of all of these other businesses in the they're not even a fraction of what we've got here. You've got a few interior trees. I drove past the hospital on Ann Arbor Road coming here and the whole front of that has got a few interior landscape trees. I I think and that's not been there for 30 years. That's a newer facility. So, I almost feel like there's double standards going on. And man, I understand ordinances change and this is what the concern is. And you've been on the commission for a year and a half. Fine, but we're not being terrible neighbors here. And we're not proposing some some dastardly, obnoxious, you know, project. We're we're trying to be compliant and and um considerate of the neighbors that are in here. And um no, we can't give up 175 spaces and put 170 ft buffer. I mean, that's absurd. I don't I don't even know how you can ask for that with a with a clear conscience. It's 9 acres and what are we using, Tim? What's being developed? Is it seven?

Yeah, it's like 7.7.

It's in the report. I I just think that these are um I think we've done a really good job at listening to what's important. Um we've we've moved interior islands to help preserve some of the mature heritage trees that are in there. We've created a island buffer around those. Um we're not taking down trees that aren't necessary to grade this site. You have to have storm water flow. Um, the detention pond's being improved and of course we'll be compliant with Wayne County standards and pre-treatment if it's required. Um, so I I I think you're overreaching and I think your expectations are not reasonable or fair.

Are you done? Yeah.

Wonderful. All right. So noise sound level decreases the distance from the source increases. So with all due respect to the Cadillac dealership, it's further away. I'm not challenging your phase one. It's the phase two. This is nothing more than a floor plan parking lot, right? At the expense of a buffer that's been there for a long time that the neighbors have asked you to maximize and you gave them plus 10 ft. Didn't say anyone was a bad neighbor. Didn't say it's a horrible plan. I asked you to do better because they asked us to ask you to do better and we're trying to do our job. So with all due respect here, right, as the distance increases, right, every doubling of distance decreases sound by six dB. They're bombarded by noise to begin with. They're going to get more. That's a fact. What noise are you talking about? The cars sitting in the parking lot. These aren't customer cars. There's not people opening closing doors. They're not, you know, it's not like it's um an active business where there's people coming and going like going in and out of the grocery store or whatever the case is. These are cars parked there. I mean, it's it's pretty quiet. The business, the building itself is for vehicle storage and detail. It's not, again, it's not air tools. It's not a high-end thing. Um, we purposely did the car wash entrance to the south with the blowers on the interior of the middle of that building with an outside door that's still closed. So, it's it's as quiet as you can get possibly get for a car wash. Um,

when you say that uh the the building is for inside vehicle storage, what are what are you referring to? Are you talking about just for vehicles that are waiting that have been serviced and are waiting to be washed? Are you talking about actual physical storage of vehicles in the building as well as the outside physical storage? There's there's a lot of high-end souped up expensive cars that people have but don't drive in the winter and they look for a place to store them. That's primarily what that's going to be used for. Oh, okay. I certainly didn't. Did you understand that, Laura? Yeah, we discussed that in the early.

I've also noticed it's a Chevy. It's a Chevy, you know, which which has Corvettes and Yeah, I know. They're pretty high-end. And nowadays, I used to be able to buy a house for what it costs for one of those. Yeah. Nowadays, you you don't even want to take it on the road because people drive crazy. I'd take it on the road if I could, but I don't have one. Michigan road. Just to to talk about the parking spaces. Last time I mentioned that um the automotive dealer dealer networks have Ford calls it a planning volume

and it's a forecast of what a dealership does in a normal business year. Um and then that planning volume dictates requirements for building space and number of parking lots etc. Correct. Um this again I think you're proposing a total of 555 spaces. How does that compare to Chevy's I don't know what Chevy calls it, but their their planning volume

our planning volume on this point is a lot higher than 555 spaces. We're using the Plymouth Road Chevy and we got General Motors to agree to consider that parking lot as well for our total. That's why I said there's another Chevy dealer that had a similar size building. He he had to have a thousand parking spaces. So, it's based on number of salesmen that are in there, what your what your projected volume is that you're going to be able to do. You have to have x amount of inventory to to carry in order to, you know, sell and service x amount of vehicles.

So, so what you're saying is that Chevy's planning volume requires for that dealership requires roughly a thousand parking spaces. And the way you're satisfying that is by counting the spaces at the existing facility on Plymouth Road. That's correct. And the new one. Yes. Okay.

And and we did consider the neighbors concerns. We sat down and we met with them and we listened to them and when and we showed them this plan and we talked about what we were doing and planning to do. They didn't have the same reaction you do. you act like you're um looking out for their interests and and telling us what they wanted you to tell us, but that's not what they told us directly. Yes, ma'am. People you talk to none of them. Well, that's the representation who was

live. We have a different interest than people who live. I understand that. I understand that the board is an elected body by you. You voted those people in. Right. I there job is to represent your interests as an association. So, you know, we listen to them and they talked to us and they gave us their feedback and they told us their concerns, many of the same that you had. Um, and one of them lived right by the wall there. as I recall. It's getting too someone in that proximity. Yes.

Anyway, we we did reach out to them and did try to get their input and did try to um hear their concerns and address their concerns. Okay. Are we ready for a vote or is there any further discussion on anything?

I would like to just ask one more question and again it's because I'm new to this. Why is it that you want to put money into the township tree fund instead of planting the required um 505.08 in of DBH? Uh so we've provided all of the required landscaping for interior parking lot for road frontage for buffer screening all the township standard requirements that are there uh we've provided um due to the size of the site the grading the other factors that is the maximum that we're able to place. We're providing the 40 replacement trees and we're we located those on the southern property line uh to assist in the buffer, but there is literally not space to plant the additional replacement trees that are there.

Okay. I just wanted to know. Anything else? No. Okay. Are we ready for a motion? Yep. Not yet. Are you going to make it?

I can. Oh. All right. Uh Um let's see this is uh I make a motion to for tenative and final site approval uh for planning number 2560 the Chevy Corvette Plymouth dealership and de and detailing at 40427 Ann Arbor Road uh with the uh with the conditions that the applicant submit a revised phototric plan for phase one to meet the property line maximum height light intensity. Uh, all exterior lighting fixtures shall have a correlated color temperature of 4,000K or less and the applicant shall pay into the township tree fund in lie of planning the the required 505 in of DBH in replacement trees. And do we need to add a fourth item about um asking that the southern elevation of the phase 2 building be uh architecturally enhanced.

That's that would become number that's point number four. And yeah, why don't you you want to repeat that?

Yeah. that um that the applicant will um enhance the appearance of the 300 ft of elevation, southern facing elevation of building number two per the planner's suggestion. Laura, we don't need to include the comment about the do not block sign on Ford Road in the mo motion, do we? We don't need to include the recommendation about the do not block traffic sign on Ann Arbor Road. No. Okay. Okay. Is there a second? Yeah. Is there a second?

I'll second it. Okay. Moved by Commissioner Pop and supported by Commissioner uh Boyd to approve to grant tenative and final site plan approval to application 2560 subject to set conditions. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Opposed. I I. We do have roll. Two eyes. Want a roll? Yeah. Let's do a roll call. Roll call. Okay. Dennis Sabolski. Yes. Tim Boyd. Yes. Steuart Popsa. Yes. Sandy Growth. No. Dan Callahan. Yes. Bill I And Ashley Krueger.

Yes. Okay. seven or five to two. Okay. And the motion carries. Thank you for meeting again with the with the residents. So, we welcome you to the township. And we'll reach out to Bradberry and we will ask if you guys would like us to to add some additional trees for you on there. We don't have an issue with that at all. And if you'd like to step outside and talk over any more details. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. and and thank you all for your input.

Thanks for all of your efforts to uh appease the residents neighbors and you don't know them yet.

That's that's absolutely correct. Next is the master plan update. So, the floor is yours.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for coming and staying. So, I have the updated draft um on the screen here and we can briefly go through the areas um that have been highlighted in yellow. Those are changes since the study session. if that would be helpful. Um, I think we should talk about the uh opening statement and vision that is on page seven.

Yeah, actually um I have some comments on that. Um, thank you. Thank you all for anybody who provided input into the new opening statement. Um, my my take on this is that it's a it's a somewhat generic statement. I don't believe it addresses what really makes Plymouth Township unique. Um my idea of the key residency proposition would be that it would be something that would be evident of what what one of our residents would come up here and say why they think Plymouth Township is so special. Um, I think it also needs to be a signal to our residents that that we, the planning commission, understand why our residents feel so special about our about our township. And I also want to have it be something that begins to build the case that Plymouth Township is well along the path of addressing missing middle housing without having to change our single family zoning. And that's one of the reasons I spent the time calling out all the wide variety of housing we have in Plymouth Township, including manufactured housing, as well as a point that our low property taxes make housing more accessible to more people, whether it's single family or condos or duplexes, whatever it might be. So I going through this I think what I thought the best approach would be is to um uh begin with the opening statement of Bob Dorvitz's version which basically says what sets Plymouth Township apart what inspires such pride loyalty and patient in the people who

live and work there. And then the second piece would be the piece I articulated which goes into much more detail about what it is that's Plymouth Township that is unique versus other uh communities in western uh western suburban Detroit area. And then number three I do think the last two paragraphs of this document up here are a much better summary than what I had written in mine. So that I think that those those two paragraphs summarize very nicely what we're trying to say with this. Now I I feel very strongly about this, but I'm I'm also one of seven people on the planning commission and I also very much include Laura's input on this. Um so I'm not dead set on this, but I do want to have us take one more look at this. So, I'm going to give out to each of you. This is if you pass that down. This is my draft of the Plymouth Township key residency proposition. And it was my original draft revised plus also Dennis had set with me at I was le or something. We went through this in quite a bit of detail and I incorporated almost all of his comment. The second one I'll pass out is the version that Bob Dor Chevitz did by taking my original draft and running it through AI. And looking back at this, I almost think this is too commercial. Um I I think it almost reads like

it's like a brochure. Like a brochure. Exactly. But I I don't Yeah. Yeah. But again, I think the opening statement up there is better than the one that I came up with. Yeah.

And then the third one, which I'll hand out, is what you're seeing on the screen, which was the the latest version that's included in Laura's draft. And again, I do believe that the last two paragraphs of this are are better, more spot-on than the last two paragraphs of what I'd written in my orange version. So I I don't know that we can resolve this here tonight, but I guess I would like to get a read from the commission. Are for this opening statement, are we better off to take the very um kind of I don't want to call it generic, but broadly summarized view on the screen, or do we want to articulate some of the things that really make Plymouth Township unique? Um, for instance, there's no mention in this version of the town of the New England Square downtown Plymouth that we know is so important. There's no mention of low property taxes. There's no mention of the wide variety of housing that we have all the way from manufactured housing to multi-million dollar estates. Um, and you can go down the rest of it. Some of it is captured in this, but my version has a lot more detail. And there is one actual uh bullet point that I think we should add if we go with the version of mine and it relates to a comment that um Commissioner Sabowski sent in on this last week. Um he mentioned the need to talk about Miller Woods, the Township Park as being uh areas of nature. And I actually think that the bullet could also talk about um uh our subdivision common areas which are nature areas. um our active uh tree preservation in um program here and particularly our features around um uh Nankan Park, Nankan Mills, all of the Hines Park area, the the Lur Rouge River, um the

creeks. So we could come up with a two or three sentence summary that summarizes in broad terms the fact that part of Plymouth Township is its nature areas, too. So, been a bit of a dialogue here, but could it could we get some read? Are we better off for a a very summary statement there, or are we better off with a statement that actually goes into more detail about what makes Plymouth Township unique? What's location?

What's typical in these master plans? I I haven't read any others. So, should it be like like you're trying to sell the township or should it be just like a matterof fact thing or should it be something in the middle? It should be aspirational, but this isn't a marketing brochure either. It should speak to the existing assets and character of the community and where you want to go in the future. But is it more like this or like this or or there's just a wide variety?

There's a variety. It depends on how detailed the community wants to get.

I just had um at at our last board meeting, I had a resident come up to me and speak about why he moved to Plymouth Township. And he and his wife planned this move for 30 years. and they lived in Westland. And he's explaining what it is about Plymouth Township that makes it in his mind better. And he's grateful to be living here versus where he used to live. So, Plymouth Township is special and um the low taxes definitely is part of it, but aside from that, it it is a special community. And I like the idea of expressing what makes it special, just like the city of Plymouth expresses what makes them special, that downtown, that downtown area. I'm not crazy about the use of the term missing middle because to me that's kind of like when people used to say duh and yada yada yada yada. It's a word that so many people use without really defining it. And I've done some research on where it came from and I I I I don't think it's impressive. I I don't think the use of that word is impressive. And a lot of people would tell you that we don't have a missing middle. The middle is Plymouth Township. And I've heard that from several residents. The middle is Plymouth Township because we're not the extreme wealth and we're not the extreme poor, but we're we are the missing middle. We are a community of with the wide range of housing options. And we're not um we're not identified by million-doll homes or $10,000 property taxes. were identified by a the diversity,

all of the different things. So, I like the idea of expounding on some of those differences. Yeah. I I don't think we have a missing middle housing issue. I mean, I we have if you take the whole township, not just the west side, the whole township, there's a huge range of homes. Yeah. I mean, to me, I mean, you know, there's that's part of the idea is to actually call out the facts, right? So, Yeah, you're in favor of more like a selling kind of a doc document, which is which is fine. I mean, this is a this is a master plan. That's my thought. It's a master plan. Is it is the intent of this to to sell the community or is it to say how we envision it for the future?

Yeah, we acknowledge what we have today and where we see it in the future. Master plan, right? But a master plan needs to recognize what the assets of the community are, right? And that we need to build on those, which is why I I think the last two paragraphs of the statement up here fit in well to say this says here's what makes us unique. And now this is saying we need to continue that and go forward. But like low taxes, is that is that something we is that appropriate for a master plan? I don't know. That's what I I don't I'm not a lot of people came in very

We got to say relative low price because my taxes are 7,300. They're not that cheap. Well, just wait if this if you were in Northville Township. But well, I'm just saying I think to to your point though, low property taxes came through very strongly in the community survey that we did.

No, they are. And um this I kind of drafted this from I've been you know 8 years first on the ZBA and now this and listened to a lot of people comment some in the public comment some one-on-one like like you've had with me Sandy. Um and it's kind of summary of what I've heard from from people in the township as well as you know what we heard out of the out of the survey and low property taxes were one of the things that came through in the survey. So I in this particular case, ordinarily I would agree with you, it doesn't belong in a master plan, but in this particular case, I think it does because it also speaks again to the affordability of Plymouth Township and we have more affordable um ability that makes some of the actions that are being proposed at the state level as mandatory actions not appropriate for Plymouth Township because we are more affordable and we have more choices. But again, this is I want to hear every I don't want to defend myself too much here. I want to get a, you know, a consensus if there is one.

Well, to Ashley's question, I think it it can do both. Okay. And that was really what the in the intent was of take credit for what we've done and where we want to go to preserve and build upon it is what the the intent was. And I think it's like 90 pages or 80 some pages. 100.

It's 100 now. Okay. So, it's got a lot that's in there because we included the parks, right? I think we used to have maybe four sentences on schools and now that's been enhanced a little bit because we're the only people that have like we're one of three high schools that have auto tech shop where you can become a technician to work on potential dealerships that move here. Right. So, it's a it's a unique school district. I'm a product of it. And I've seen the difference between North Hill Public Schools and PC. seen the difference in the property taxes on what you get versus what you really get and it's unique in many ways. So it it could do both. The only concern I have about the property tax and like everyone else appreciate the property tax, but when people come, they have come before us in the past and they're against something and they say all you guys are interested in is the taxes and we say we do not take taxes in consideration whether or not we're going to approve something. I I think for sure a mention of that should be here. I think I don't know maybe that needs a little bit of a polishing up or whatever term you want to use. I think those are we can say those are qualities and it says it to some extent that that people appreciate but it's not something that is a goal or a mission of the planning commission. I agree with you

and that's important too because one of the other issues that we talk about and I hear it all the time people who say I don't care about low property taxes I want this service or I want this service or so you're right we should not focus on the fact that we have low taxes mentioning it is one thing but we don't want to overdo it as an as an attractive feature that that the township has to offer but it's not we're going to make decisions based on how much taxes we can keep to keep those prices low.

And you don't need to include in the master plan that people ask what is in the water in Plymouth Township because we have the craziest political people of anyone in the state of Michigan. We'll add that to the national plan. Okay. Very clear. We can tweak that the property tax piece. So it's not so much as a marketing tool. It's just that people appreciate, right? Appreciate appreciate as they appreciate downtown Plymouth. Yeah. Kim to understand are you trying to say hey use this the preface with one of these two behind it. I wasn't sure what what to ask is

yeah what I what I'm suggesting and again this is a lot to dialogue tonight so I need to take all the feedback back and take it in basically I just want to say from this version the first two sentences what sets Plymouth Township apart what inspires such pride loyalty and passion in the people who live and work here. So that's the only thing from this. Then we pick up this one and we disregard my first two sentences because we've just adopted that one. Then we take the rest of this. We add the bullet point that Dennis had recommended about um all of the natural features of the township including Miller Woods, etc. And then we wrap up. We get rid of my last two paragraphs on page two and we use the last two paragraphs from this the version that is in Laura's update.

So, you're recommending this one here with the blue? No, only the first sentence of it. The first two sentences. The Oh, okay. Did I circle right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, Stuart, if you look at it, it's the first two up here. Yeah. With this right below it. Which one? The orange one. The orange one. Dennis wants to add a bullet point in the the body of the orange one on the parks in the woods. This part is posing. Okay. Do you have an orange one there? Yeah. Yeah. And then No, you should. I have an extra one. That's This is Tim's original, right? This is your original. Yeah. With some updates. Oh, okay.

Okay. And then on the orange one, just get rid of the last two paragraphs in page two. Use the last two paragraphs. Yours just doesn't have the one. Okay. You know, I will rewrite this for you. Okay. And I'll um you know incorporate a couple of the comments, do a little bit of polishing. Maybe Dennis, you can help me with that. Yeah. Well, send it to me or all I You and I can. Right. We can do that. And send it to the group. What? He's going to copy and paste it. Yeah. Yeah. Copy because this this is this is like a brochure. It's It's a little bit too much. So get rid of everything, right? Except Right. Okay. Because I agree with you. That's exactly

Yeah. So, let's do that as a proposal and we can send it out to everybody so you can see what it looks like. Okay, I agree. That makes sense. That's fine. Thank you for concocting it and creating it and editing it and Yeah, cuz ideally it's a combination of all all these. Yeah.

And and Laura, what what meeting date is this going to be put before the b? It's scheduled um for the April 14th board of trustees meeting. So that's still a couple weeks away. So there is an option if you were interested in having a meeting on April 1st, this commission and having one more look at it, but that that's up to the committee members.

Um that leads me to another concern. Um what Laura is showing us um has quite a number of updates, but for whatever reason um my updates and suggestions weren't included in this draft that you're looking at tonight. Um, so I read copies for everybody and my suggestion is that um, some of these are um, editorial comments, but a number of them are actually mistakes in the plan, the percentages that aren't calculated properly, typos, etc. So, one thing we could do is for those of you that weren't around originally when we put this together, we had a working team and it was basically Dennis, u Dave Ladawick and myself and um Laura and we made a lot of progress that way. My recommendation to the board is that you would um empower now the three of us, Dennis, Laura, and myself to go through review these add any add these in if and when they're appropriate and then look at all of the other changes that Laura's made tonight and come back with a final final version that we could look at at um April 1st working session if that's what you guys want to do. And I would like to ask because I was planning to ask this anyways. Um I would like to get it not two days before a meeting because I what I find happening is you guys are putting stuff out the day of the meeting or two days before. When I worked in the clerk's office, we had a deadline for anything that was going on the agenda. And if you didn't have it in by a certain time, it's not part of the

packet. It's not part of the meeting. I I struggle with the last minute additions and changes because and I don't even work full-time, but I don't have a lifestyle that accommodates looking at all of that and comprehending it the day before I come to this meeting. So, I I would like us to to set up something that says, you know, this is the deadline for anything that's going to go on the agenda. And if people don't have their stuff ready for it to be distributed to us, then maybe we shouldn't be looking at it.

And I think we can I mean, is there a is there a date we're trying to I mean, is there a date we're trying to meet or not necessarily? The 14th is when it goes because this has been going on for No, I know. So then that starts the 63 day uh comment, right? Okay. Cuz I I crawled through it once. I got to crawl through it again now that I heard some of these weren't done because it and it Yeah. Okay. Well, so we really owe the planning commission a final final version, right? And Yeah. Not the day before,

right? Yeah. Because we need time to look at it and so compare it. I guess what I'm what I'm asking is if you all would empower the three of us to do the final edit and get it to you. The three is Tim, Dennis, and Laura. Okay, that's fine. No issue in guys. Then I'm going to send my comments. I mean, who should we send our comments to? To the whole planning commission or what? Well, we would we would put this together and then then there's supposedly the final final that we would meet on April 1st with enough time to think, you know, comprehend it all

and then have a meaningful last discussion at the April 1 meeting. Okay. Well, I don't have a problem with that because you're leaving the door open for us to look at it and say, you I'm I'm not comfortable with what you've done, but it allows you the authority to go ahead. I mean, you've been on the planning commission longer. You you know what this is all about. So, I don't have a problem with that at all. Empowering Dennis and Tim and Laura to kind of put this together. I support that as well. 95% there. But I'm not available on April. I'll be out of town on April 1, though. You're not available either. As far as I know, I am.

Oh, okay. We might need to talk to you before the meeting and get your comments over the phone or something. I mean, I I I wouldn't feel comfortable sending the final version to the board until all of you had a chance to Oh, we have to. When When will you start being out of town? Um, afternoon of the 25th. The about March 25th. Next Wednesday. Oh, a week from today. And then when will you be back? April 4th. So we could even make it April 7th, which is the week before the township board meeting. Would that work? I won't be here April 7th.

Well, that's not going to work. Yeah, I'm I'm actually thinking, Laura and Dennis, that we meet this Friday morning or next Wednesday or next Friday, but preferably either this Friday morning or next Wednesday morning. And it'll based on prior experience, it'll take us at least a half day to get through this. And you're leaving on the 25th, which would be Thursday. Wednesday. Wednesday. Okay. So, that kind of says we need to meet either Friday. We kind of need to be Friday. Would you be available Friday morning? Yeah, I'm just checking. I Yes, I think so. Laura, would you be available? No.

Okay. I can't I can't do Monday. Can we do Tuesdays? Tuesday. No, I'm not doing Saturday. Sorry. I mean, do I have to be here on April 1st? I mean, I I trust the others. They just want you to have input. Yeah, we just want to have something to give. We don't want to deny your input. We could give it to you so you can go on a trip to class or something with Tuesday morning work next week for you, Laura. Will you be have access to your email when you go on vacation? I'm gonna be out of the country. It'll be more challenging, but

I I will have access. It would be really I'm not planning to bring a laptop or anything, so it would be hard to read the master plan on my phone, but yikes. You mean you don't want to plan your whole vacation around this? Just wait. Well, have you do you have any comments that you you want to share tonight or or in the next few days prior to that you've seen already? Um, I have provided comments to the planning staff and it appears things were incorporated. Okay. Um, I guess my only comment about the the vision statement is I have concerns with saying we have low property taxes because it's such a relative. I know. Exactly.

A relative term. If we can rephrase that somehow. Yeah. We're going to reward it. Okay. Absolutely. That's that stood out to me. Have a plan. So, can we let's let's do next Wednesday morning. Um, if your comments have already been incorporated in what Laura is showing us, then the only thing you need to do is look through this and see if there's anything you agree, you know, really disagree with or agree with. And if you could just let us know before we meet next Wednesday and then you'll send the revised to everyone. Yes. Not just some before before April 1st with enough time to look at it. Look at it.

So April 1 can be our Final final review before we send it to the board. Okay. All right. Thank you all. Sorry for Thanks for all your efforts. And and we it comes back to us right after it goes through the public comment. Yes. It's not it's not we're not it's not final final. It's final draft and and the board could the board change it. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Absolutely. Yeah, it's got time. It'll get changed. But I mean, some of this they're just misspells. There's percentages that don't work.

It's it's a it's a statement to the board about how much effort we put into this. And God knows we put a tremendous amount of effort in this. I don't want us to fail on the last, you know, rounding third base going. No, I I I think a lot of the points are valid. I I just Yeah. I just didn't want it to sound like a like a marketing brochure. That's all for like Frank and Mood. I I don't either. Yeah. Yeah. And this last paragraph I think is really good. Find a way to incorporate it somewhere where it makes sense on the middle middle. It's very thoughtful. You like it better than what's up there. The last paragraph's up there. Oh, I'm sorry. This is this is Yeah, this two page notes that last paragraph is

insightful and valid. Yeah. Okay. Where it goes either master plan or up front, I don't know. Yeah. Right. But I know you probably have two or three ideas where you Yeah, we could do a text box just like we've done in other parts of the study. Um, and again, I think we have a we have a good story to tell on missing middle housing. Um, we can identify there is a I'll include a definition, Sandy, that's much more precise that I think kind of draws some boxes around it. Okay. But we have a story to tell and we should be on the offensive telling the story upfront as opposed to having to react to what happens in Lancing. I agree.

But is anyone saying like bad things about us? So we have to sell ourselves. That's what I don't understand. No, but when you have a master plan like that, that kind of speaks to the community, the community structure, where where we've been, where we are, where we're going. Okay. And so you want to sell people uh you're not selling them, but you want them to understand what makes this place special. They're they're values that uh that we continue to support. They're important to the residents. Yes. And we continue. Now, how that's accomplished? Well, then you you move into the master plan as a guide, right? St. I think the point you may I don't hear anything bad at all.

Okay. But the issue is the state at the state level there's been eight bills. That's what I thought you were going right what they're selling. Yeah. The and that would fundamentally change the whole perspective. No, no, I know. Yeah. So that's what that's that was what that piece is addressing. That's what I I thought. Okay. We've got a better plan. No, no, no. I I I know or I had a feeling where Tim was going. I like look we're we're good. See? Okay. Well, let's move on. Um, so we've received and filed the monthly planning report make a motion to um

meeting on April 1st as opposed to voting on this tonight since it's on your agenda. It's probably not a bad idea just because it makes it official. Okay. You mean on the April 1st meeting? Is that what I'm hearing? What she's saying is it's part of the agenda for us to review and potentially adopt or agree to the master plan. So, she's saying we we need to say something that kind of says we're postponing it until our we're going to rework some things and then meet on April 1st. Okay. So, that raises another question. So, then the April 1st meeting it will really be what I would call a business meeting because we would take action. It would be a special meeting.

Yeah. be a special meeting because we don't take action on anything at a study session.

So, let me make a proposal. I propose that the planning commission appointer Sabolski, Commissioner Boyd, and Planner Laura Mangan to do a final edit of the master plan um to be submitted for approval on a special meeting dated April 1, 2026. There's a second move by Commissioner Boyd and supported by Commissioner Popp uh to empower this special uh committee. All in favor signify by saying I. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Laura.

So, okay. So, we have the monthly planning report. Anyone have questions on that? Okay. I I have I have a couple. Okay. Sure. First of all, on the um Olivewood condominiums, that sign is still flapping in the wind.

We need to ask them to fix that. Um the second comment related to the uh courthouse grill um approval at the board meeting and I was not able to actually review the meeting. Um but my question was we as a planning commission we reviewed that plan twice the original plan and then there were some amendments made to it and we approved that u based on the changes that were made to get approval for the extra money to remediate. Are there enough changes to that plan that would require the planning commission to do another review or are the changes not significant enough to make our previous approval still valid

as part of the brownfield plan? Yes. No. Yeah. Um minor immaterial. Okay. But the the point that I heard when I looked at that meeting was it was the um the subsidization issue and the applicant or whoever he was it does it does change your right he he said we're playing around with the units so I don't know now what that means because we said so many units so many uh single so many you know single beds you know or so anything yes you're right so so that perhaps does need to changed or reflect that we're on the same page. So, does that have to come back to us? No.

No. If anything, they they reduced a unit or two. If they were increasing it, then yes. But reducing it, they're just larger units and you have less parking requirement. Are they still going to uh they've done away with that top level where was going to supposed to be like a work place? So, are those becoming units or what's happening to that top level? No, it's just a roof. It's just it's just a roof structure. Yeah. So, they're not putting a business there's no uh before there was like an outdoor roof area and there was a business.

It was Yes. It was people at that time, you know, it was people working from home and and I think they viewed it as sort of like a uh uh no well workspace and how they have these club rooms, you know, if you're having a big party, you live in an apartment complex or condo, that's gone. Correct. Yeah. It's just a roof. So only if they're increasing something does it have to come back. Yeah. And that wasn't a requirement of their their plan to have those amenity areas. So that's it. Anybody else?

I had one. It it's not on her. It's the the original Elcarwash site, right? I mean, that parking lot's got a manhole that's probably 4T deep. Someone could fall in there, rip out a suspension. There's potholes everywhere. And and I don't know where that's at and progressing, but the sign's still up there. It says it's on the agenda for I think it was March of last year, right? So, whatever the plan is, right, it'd be nice if El Carwash would at least try to fix it and bring it up to whatever the code is from a safety perspective because if anyone tries to drive through that green light to cut around, they could really cause trouble. I don't teach them not to try to make that cut through.

Well, and one more question. you know, the um the Spars greenhouse. Um is the litigation completed on that or is there an appeal in process or what is the status of that? I I'll have to inquire with Kevin Bennett. Oh, okay. I'm not part of that. Okay. Anybody else? Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn at 10:21? I make a motion to adjurnn. Second moved by commissioner supported by commission commissioner Iikes to adjurnn at 10:21. All in favor signify by saying I. Opposed. Motion carries. Ajourned.