Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Uh, it's 5:00. We can try and get started. I'll call the September 24th, 2025 meeting of the planning commission to order. Did you have a something you wanted to say, Mr. Yes. Sorry, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to remind the planning commission that for any absent mo uh members um that a motion to excuse would be in order if you so desire because we as you know in particular we changed the rules recently for all of our boards and commissions.

Yes, I I was going to call for I know Mr. Miller called in to be uh well he he let the planning staff know he wasn't going to be here so I would assume that would be an excused uh I don't know about the others who aren't here. I'll I'll have uh Miss Rambo call the role and then we'll sort sort that out. Okay. Jade Castile here. Jim Jackson here. Pete Mcgory. David Miller. Steve Pali here. Connor Whan, Mike Zul here. Okay. Can I get a motion to excuse uh Mr. Miller?

So moved. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Mot motion passes. All I didn't hear what you said. All in favor? I I. Anyone opposed? Motion passes, Mr. Chairman. Yes. Motion to excuse Mr. Well, so I'll defer to Mr. Hastings on this. Did he Did he call in and ask to be excused? I did not hear from anybody else. I did not either. That is up to this commission. Is that a prerequisite for excusing the absence? They don't have to call in if you want to excuse them anyway. Right. So, my motion is to excuse Mr. Willer.

I'll second it. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? Is there a motion to excuse Mr. McGori? So moved. It's been moved. Is there a second? I'll second it. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? Motion passes. Did I leave anybody out? No, we've got a quorum. Hope you guys stay.

So, uh, since we got that out of the way, I will move to approval of the minutes from August 27th, 2025. Everybody had a chance to review those. [Music] If so, I would ask for a motion to approve those minutes. Motion to approve as presented. Mr. Chair, it's been moved by Mr. Zulof. Is there a second? I'll second it. It's been seconded by Mr. Jackson. I wasn't here.

Any discussion? I wasn't here. All in favor? I I. Anyone opposed? Okay, motion passes. We move into new business. Uh tonight we have a site plan review 1319 and 1321 First Street. Mr. Pass.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh the property owner um has applied for site plan approval uh Fox Architectural Design has submitted on behalf of Pollant Composits USA uh for property it owns at 1319 First Street and 1321 First Street for new construction projects. uh one per each property. Um the property owner Pollant operates at these subject properties and is headquartered in Chicago. Their Sandusky location has about 20 employees and the company ships numerous resin products internationally. Among the products they make in Sanduski are gel coats uh for fiberglass which are used for boats and tubs among other things. On the left hand side of this slide is a picture um from an arrow perspective of the zoning. Uh we can see all the parcels uh that are being discussed today are zone CR commercial recreation district. Um these properties uh there's technically five of them and they're split between two addresses although it functions it's proposed to function as one cohesive site and it's all under common ownership. Moving uh to the right of this slide, we can see an aerial image uh taken from the auditor's site. All right, moving on. On the left hand side of this slide, um is a picture from First Street uh looking north uh for at the entire development with 1319 First Street on the left and 1321 on the right. Um on the left is the former beer bait and moore building which was also home to a local ice house as well as the old east side restaurant if I'm not mistaken. Uh the building was constructed in 1955 and is in serious structural disrepair specifically on the inside of the foundation. Uh this portion of the development sits on three lots with a total area of 42 acres. Uh

within that same left photo on the right of it, you can see the front entrance for employees and delivery traffic to the rear portion of the facility which contains pollen's manufacturing and warehouse uses. The photo on the right of this slide is the existing eastern elevation of the building showing some of the existing parking lot as well. Uh moving on on the left of this slide, you can see the existing southern elevation of the building as well as other existing parking. Um on the right of the slide, we can see a different angle from that same viewpoint. Uh staff included an approximate location of the proposed Sanduski Bay pathway relative to the existing site for context. Um the applicant has been working diligently with the city's public works department ahead of submitting their site plan approval application. Of course, this is this location, as we'll continue to indicate on these slides, is approximate. It's just to give us an idea. Um nothing's final yet. Uh on this slide, these next two photos show the western elevation of the existing building relative to the proposed pathways location again. So the plan for this portion of the development is to demolish the existing building and replace it with a new office building. The main difference from the existing layout would be that the longer wall of the new building would be parallel to the road, First Street, instead of the shorter wall being parallel. Uh this will result in the proposed building having a smaller footprint than it does now. Uh lowering the coverage of the lot from about 30% to 18% which is obviously under well under the 50% max. Uh the parking lot would remain mostly intact as you see it today. Uh with the main change being the layout and the location of spaces. Uh the biggest change in the layout will actually be the elimination of two out of three total curb cuts on the

development which will reduce traffic congestion on First Street and make on-site circulation more organized and therefore safer. Uh the office use requires 13 spaces, one being required for every 250 ft of gross floor area. Uh the applicant proposes ample parking at 24 spaces including 188 space. Uh you can also see proposed landscaping on the bottom of the screen and right below that um the proposed industy bay pathway which if I'm not mistaken the applicant got directly from the city. Um so accurate proposed placement there and sufficient lighting is also proposed throughout the parking lot. Uh if you look at either at this image or on the packet or in the application materials, you can see perhaps a little better the periodic dotting of those. We're going to move on for now. Uh proposed elevations. The front elevation is on the top facing south. This is the part that will be facing the street, visible from the street. And I I I want to take a moment to really thank the applicant for um being willing to What they did is they added a door. it didn't have a door and staff was of the opinion that it looked a little like the back back of a property and the applicant was really receptive to that and added a door. Um because on the rear elevation on the north uh facing inward to the parking lot that's where employees are actually going to be going in and out and there's uh maintenance garage maintenance door there too. So, next are a couple of the side elevations facing east and west and the little green outlines are proposed landscaping uh as well. So, uh this slide shows proposed lighting. Uh it's compliant with dark sky guidelines. It's warm enough and staff had the following observations of this portion of the development. Uh first is that the applicant uh told

staff that re rehabilitating the existing building was thoroughly considered but ultimately bringing structural elements of the building up to code would make the project cost prohibitive. Uh the applicant also stated that the new office building will relocate Palance offices from the rear of the property uh to this new building. Third, staff notes that the new building and proposed pathway will create a more attractive streetscape in this uh sort of industrial section of First Street. Um fourth, staff re recommends after the pathway is complete, additional landscape be planted on the western side of the parking lot, same bottom area of that previous image. Uh and the reason is just to deter future pathway users from cutting through the parking lot. Uh the timing of it being after the pathway is complete is being recommended just to avoid accidental destruction on our contractors uh behalf of their landscaping. Uh fifth, staff notes that a variance is required for the proposed front yard setback of 5 ft, which the applicant has already applied for and will be considered next month with staff support. Sixth, the city engineering department will require storm water drainage plan to be submitted and approved prior to the issuance of building permits. and seven all other planning and zoning code requirements will be met by this proposed project. So, planning commissioners, this is this was the denser one. I led with that first. The there's a second part of it for the other address 1321. Would you like me to continue or uh do you want to Yeah. Go ahead.

Yeah. All right. This is briefer. Okay. So, here's a photo of uh 1321 First Street. Um, this is taken from that existing driveway which will be maintained and be made the only uh curb cut. On the left, if you look at the image on the left side, they're both orange buildings, but the left one is where the manufacturing of the resin products takes place. And on the right, the side of the building closest to us is where the offices are right now. There's a couple buildings behind it, which you'll see on the site plan. Um all of those are used uh for warehouses except for the manufacturing and the office part. Okay. Um this portion of development sits on two lots with a total area of 1.47 acres. So this is zoomed out. We'll zoom in in a moment, but this is a proposed site plan showing the addition of a about 3,800 ft² warehouse building. The building has been expressed to us as being paramount to the business's continued success as right now Palant is currently paying to store large skids of material offsite. Um, in terms of parking, this building will displace several existing parking spots, but as noted throughout the plans and the the numbers with circles around them, applicant has more than enough space to create new spots uh to make up for that. So zooming in here we can see the red um proposed structure manufacturing use requires 10.25 spaces with one space required for every 1300 square ft of that use. Um warehouse and storage uses actually don't require any parking. They're uh on a list of exemp exemptions from that. Uh so in total applicant has to maintain 11 spaces including one ADA space and they've proposed uh 23 including an ADA space I believe. So the proposed building will slightly raise

coverage on the lot from 30 to 36% which again is below 50%. Um this next slide shows the proposed floor plan of the warehouse building. We note five bays for delivery and later removal of material to the orange building for manufacturing. Um this slide shows proposed elevations again noting the bays um and the rear and side elevations as well as and proposed lighting is included just for reference uh which will be uh dark sky compliant. Uh before giving the recommendation there's just a couple more points staff analysis. Um first is that the entire floor plan of the new building will be dedicated to storage and therefore does not add to the required number of spaces. It'll be used to store manufacturing materials, not actual manufacturing. Second, the current land use of manufacturing and warehouses respectively are actually um non-conforming within the commercial recreation zoning district. So um a zoning variance will be needed to expand the use which will be on next month's BCA agenda as well um and with staff support. Third, city engineering will also need to see a storm drainage plan for this portion as well and all other planning zoning code requirements will be met. Last slide is staff recommends approval with the following conditions. One, all applicable permits are obtained through the building department, engineering department, and any other applicable agency prior to construction. Two, the owner or applicant work with the city engineering department for all required storm water approvals. Three, for 1319 First Street, uh the owner applicant obtained a zoning variance from the Sanduski Board of Zoning Appeals for the reduced front yard setback prior to applying for building permits and similarly for for 1321 First Street. The owner or applicant obtained a zoning variance from the Sunduski Board of Zoning Appeals to expand the existing non-conforming uses prior to

applying for building permits. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a mouthful. Good. You done, Mr. Yeah, I am. Yes, Mr. Chair. Well, thank you. That was a mouthful. Uh before I bring it back to the table for comments, I wondered if the applicant uh would like to come up and and add anything to the report. State your name and address for the record, please.

Afternoon everybody. Joshua Fox, Fox Architectural Design, 1717 East Perkins A here in Sanduski. Uh the as the architect and uh Brian Lake is the contractor design build for the projects for both projects. We've been hired by Pollen to come forward with these two two projects separate essentially, but we're kind of going in together with their uh physical year process. I'll start with the front one. Uh Adam did a great job. I just wanted to throw a couple key points at the front building on 1319. Uh just so you know our understanding and design of the project. The we did do an abatement of the project. It has been abated already for asbestous. And during that process, getting into the crawl space and stuff is is kind of where everything kind of went sour for everything cuz they were originally going to just change us into offices for their uh facility. And uh highly recommended not to do that for their long-term use and staying in Sunduski and and their maintenance and issues with that facility. So that's one reason why we we stir steered them in the direction of doing a new building. Uh the the second reason of turning the building is we're trying to keep this the streetscape forward so that we can keep everything in the back kind of tucked away. It's kind of private with all the employees and then try to maintain that that uh facade going down the street. Uh but again, we're trying to coordinate with the path. So that's why it's getting pushed to the uh east a little bit more. And the owner's aware that we're losing we're basically losing two driveways on this property. So, they're going to maintain their existing driveway, the main driveway to to function for this entrance and exit through this area. And then I think it'll function really well for them because they'll be checking in at this office and then they they walk back to the to the warehouse manufacturing facility. Uh we tried to maintain all

the dumpster and everything in the back. uh obstacles that we had to go by also were there's a a main power line going through there and right in the middle of the property where the gray line is if you see there's a main uh power pole sitting there. So we had to create some obstacles and and get parking to align with that as well. So and then as far as 1321 uh project uh we're we're complying uh with pretty much everything there. I think our only obstacle at that one is it's zoned commercial recreational and we got to go through a variance for that. It is just storage for their facilities. They will stack pallets inside two two high and four deep and they they'll run a their tow motors. The tow motors currently go in and out of the existing warehouse on the back side the offices and they feed into the manufacturing facility. So we're going to be just that's why the overhead doors are on the front. We're gonna they're just tow motor in that we made them a lot wider so they don't hit them. Uh we tried to to help it as much as we could so they don't damage us the property. So that's all I had.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Fox. Are there any questions for Mr. Fox around the table? I've I've got a couple uh and you may not be able to answer them. Do you know how many employees are employed then? Uh yeah, Adam and I were talking about that earlier today. Uh the last time we talked I think she mentioned 20 people is about where they're at. 20 people. Yeah. And that and that's in the in the manufacturing facility and the offices. So the offices are only about um I think the office part only has about six people in it.

Uh so they'll have conference rooms offices for each individual, but then they'll also have a uh there's a gentleman that comes from Chicago. He'll have a separate office here and he'll he goes back and forth among other people. So, but it's right around 20 to 24 people. And what will happen to the existing office space? The existing office space is directly behind the the new building. It's it's the one sticking out. That'll turn into a warehouse space. Okay. It was originally a warehouse space originally. It was designed with the masonry structure, the steel uh roof trusses. Uh so, it's going to be converted back and it'll it'll probably have a couple garage doors added on the side so they can load the same exact way, same product. Okay. Y

and uh the do you have an estimated project cost? Uh I do not. Okay. Yeah, I do not at this point. Do you know what the the demolition of that the old east side is? The cost per demo? Yeah. I I don't I don't know. Yeah, we we haven't got to that level yet. Okay. Yeah, we're we're trying to get through this process first, but uh we're more than happy to share it with you. Uh just just out of curiosity. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Fox. Any other questions, Mr. Chair? Mr. Chairman, Mr. Zula. Yeah. Um, so basically is this distribution you bring in by the truckload and ship it out to ship out orders. So the the products that they're actually bringing I'm trying to understand the nature of the business here.

Yeah. So they're bringing in it's I don't know if it's resins. It's it's a dry product that they're bringing in currently. Right now they're storing it in Norwok area and they're trucking it every day to this facility. It comes in on truck and they drop it and then they bring it into this facility. So this is going to allow them to actually have the actual deliveries directly here at their facility without secondary. Is this is this okay? So is there manufacturing going on here too or is this just warehousing where you bring in in in quantity and then ship to customers or I'm trying to get the a sense of the nature of the business here that well the new building that we're doing the proposed new building is strictly storage. There's there's no manufacturing in that facility at all. Of course,

the main existing building with the loading docks on the front and the back, that is a manufacturing. Okay. So, this is this is warehousing for product you're using on site. That's correct. Right. Not for distribution. That's correct. That's what I was trying to get. Yes. Yes. Correct. Thank you. Yep. Um All right. I I did Well, I had a question for staff or the applicant. Yeah. If we're done with Mr. Fox, we can come back to the table. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Fox. Thank you, Mr. Zulof. Uh you can ask your question. Uh the setback, how does that compare with the other buildings like uh you know what what's down the street? I I think I'm seeing five ft proposed. Is that from the rightway?

Right. Which doubles as the front lot line. Yeah. We're and we're pretty confident on the it it should conform with the existing um right building line on that street. Good. Yeah, that and and I like your uh uh you know, I think it's a good call saying, "Hey, let's not make it look too much like the back of the building." Uh might even, you know, if it was my building, I'd want a little portico set the door back a little bit or something or maybe not depending. Um all right, that's all that's all I had. Thank you, Mr. Zulof. Any other questions for staff? Mr. Chairman?

Yes, Mr. I would like to make the motion that we approve the application subject of course to the uh recommended uh or or the uh uh requirements as outlined in the staff conclusions. Staff recommendations. Well, they recommended conditions. I'm I'm I'm placing I want to place those conditions on me. Okay. Very good. Is there a second? I'll second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Miss Rambo, will you call the role, please? Jim Jackson, yes. Jake Castile,

yes. Connor Whan, yes. Mike Zulof, yes. Steve Pali, yes. Motion passes. Uh I I'll just I'll just uh just to comment. I I think this is going to be a good project. I I like the reuse of that site. You know, I when the east side went out, I think a lot of people were disappointed that maybe something else didn't go back in there, some sort of eery, but uh it doesn't appear that that's going to happen. I think this is a good use and it it built up that business there. So,

and they they've reiterated to us, they're permanent. They're not going anywhere. Uh, we talked about the lot combinations and that at this point they're permanent. They don't ever want to go anywhere. They just want a nice office building and I think this will give it to them and it'll give a nice facade on the front. So, everybody everybody's excited about it. All right. So, yeah. Thank you guys. All right. Is there anything else for the good of the order? Not from start. Our next meeting is Wednesday, October 22nd at 5:00 p.m. And I think uh we may have the PUD, the final PUD coming from Maruse at that.

Yes. Yes. And uh we just received a other uh site plan application uh for a building addition at LUCO. Uh we'll see if that ends up being ready and sorted uh by the meeting deadline, but Okay. Yeah. All right. If there's uh no further discussion, we'll stand adjourn. Okay. Oh, is there a motion to adjurnn then? Yeah, got it. We're out of here now. All in favor? Motion pass.