Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Looks like it's 7 p.m., and we're going to call this meeting to order. I'll start that by doing roll call. We've got Ketchum, Baxter, Biles, and myself, Clark. I would entertain a motion to adopt the agenda.

Does anyone see any changes, any additions they wanna make to the agenda? If not, I'll make a motion to approve as written. Support? Go ahead.

All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. All right, next on the agenda, we have the election of officers.

all right uh so yes again we're you know in that we only have four here tonight so we do have a quorum however we can still move ahead with election of officers um you know as as everyone's aware we we did uh lose our former chairman and greg latch so we need to elect a new chair for the Planning Commission. We also need to reelect the other positions as well. They can stay the same or change, whichever you prefer. And just as a, typically the process is someone would would nominate someone you don't necessarily need a second but it's typically a courteous thing to do as we were just discussing so um and our officer needed our chair vice chair and uh so i guess we'll start with the uh the chairperson and um we can go from there and so someone would like to make any nominations i have polled i have polled

the various members and Our last choice would be my nomination, which is Jeff Baxter. You guys don't know Jeff, and I would have done that the last time we did that, but I thought he was new. You two especially have the seniority here and so on, so that should be the first choice. But Jeff was on the planning commission with me, Lo, a decade and three quarters ago, and did a real fine job. And I think he'd do a fine job, so I would like to nominate Jeff as our next chair. Thanks, Jack. You're welcome, Jeff.

I hear any support. I'll support. I'm very supportive of that.

Okay, great. So all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, so Mr. Baxter, thank you for accepting that nomination.

Thank you for the trust and confidence. I expect full support from you guys going forward. Good.

So we can finish our nominations through the process and then you guys can switch up chairs if you like or you can stay in. Okay, sounds good.

I will remain as acting chair for the remainder of this meeting. I hope so. Okay.

So with that, we would be looking at vice chair. And so any nominations for vice chair?

Anyone here who's interested or would you like me to nominate someone who's not here? That's often what happens. Are you interested in vice chair?

I was vice chair the last go around. Yes. So I have no problem being vice chair. You're not going to be on vacation a lot, are you, Jeff?

It depends on the wife. I don't keep that conversation. So same answer I would give.

Or my kids. Right. Yeah, I have no problem being vice chair.

In which case, I'd like to nominate Russ as our vice chair. Sport?

Okay, great. All those in favor for Russ Tiles being vice chair, say aye. Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed, same sign? Excellent.

While I'm on a roll, I'd like to nominate Kelly Clark as secretary.

I'll support that fully.

Good. Okay. Great. All those in favor of Kelly Clark being secretary? Aye. Any opposed? All right. Great. Thank you all.

You're welcome. Thank you. With the friendly amendment that she closes this meeting as chair.

Sweating up here. All right. So moving on to D on the agenda. is the adoption of our June 17th meeting minutes.

Oh, yes. They look good to me. I did not see any additions. I would make a motion to accept as written. Court.

All right. All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Motion passes. And now I would like to open up the general public comment. You're able to come up and address us for up to three minutes on any topic.

Here we go.

Please introduce yourself.

My name is Michael . I live at 18246 Lost Creek Lane. And I just want to say that I'm very pleased that Kelly is once again the Secretary for the Planning Commission. She does an extraordinary job at recording the minutes, and it's a pleasure to read them. Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Kelly and her friend, AI.

I have a lot of help. Anyone else? All right.

Do we need a motion to close public comment?

May I just close public comment? Yeah, you can just close public comment. Thank you. I'm closing public comment and moving on to F, accessories, structures, and fences in the mobile home park district.

so hopefully you've had a chance to review some of the changes uh that have been proposed and and really in you know we again we did discuss this a bit last month and kind of introduce it to the planning commission um you know we've had a chance to work with the park owners on on this since the last meeting and they've had a chance to look at some of my uh my revisions What I can do is summarize those and just kind of walk through some of the comments from Mr. Zylstra who made some comments via email. I'm sorry I didn't get them to you sooner. But one of the concerns he had was on section 2C when we're looking at a 10-foot separation from an adjacent home or adjacent accessory structure. Sometimes on corner lots, there are some concerns there as far as the layout of that. And so would there be an opportunity to have some flexibility on corner lots for accessory structures? He also brought up the building height and was a bit concerned about the 10 foot maximum and that they have 11 and 12, they have a few in their park that are about 11 feet. So he's requesting the building height be increased to 12 feet to be safe. um in his in his email he states that this would still be substantially below the peak of a mobile home roof so it would be aesthetically comparable And as far as deck square footage, the proposed language had a 200 square foot maximum. And that was really kind of based on building permit requirements and that if you're, in general, if you're building a structure less than 200 square feet or less, you do not need to get a building permit. Now, if a deck is built adjacent to the home, so it's integral to the home, you open your sliding door and you step out onto the deck, it may not have a structural attachment, but at that point it is integral to the home and you would need a building permit at that point. But the idea here was say 200 square feet, 10 by 20 deck that seemed more than reasonable to me and kind of that 200 square foot threshold seemed, whether that's attached or detached seemed to be a logical place. But as Mr. Zylstra pointed out, he's looking to increase that to 350 square feet for that as well. An increase there. And then with carports, there's a requirement in the draft ordinance that talks about or requires a carport to remain open on all sides. And the... The comment from Mr. Ziostra is if, you know, what if the sides had windows, that that would seem appropriate. So I think, you know, when it comes to carports, I was just trying to reflect the intent of the state laws. And, you know, when they say carport, I mean, carports aren't, of course, they're not defined in the state and things of that nature. If a carport just has a roof and no sides, I think there's a different type of bulk and mass that it creates on a site. So if it's just open air versus, let's say, an enclosed garage with walls or shed with walls, it creates a different mass and bulk on the site. So that was really the intent of that language. Whether you like that or not is certainly up to you, but that was the intent on that one with carports. And he also brought up that this language didn't bring up garages. And I think that was really intentional to avoid garages and just really allow sheds, decks, and carports. A permanent garage on a permanent foundation If we're gonna consider that, I think that that starts to go a little bit in a different direction than possibly what the intention of a mobile home park is for. There are a few out there in the parks and some of them you can tell are permitted and some of them were carports that kind of evolved into garages and sides were added and things of that nature. But for the most part, I think that's a little bit of a philosophical on the garages and we would maybe need to talk about what is that, a detached garage. And right now we're just talking about allowing sheds that are, where's my comments here? 168 square feet, which is something we bumped up from Mr. Zylstra's comments previously. So that's really a shed. That's not a garage. That's not something that's like a 12 by 20 type garage. But I think that the challenge after reading all of these is the lots are not well defined. And that's the, when you look at what we typically have, whether it's a meets and bounds lot or a lot within a subdivision, we can say, and our ordinance says there's 30% lot coverage. And maximum, we have certain stipulate or certain requirements for accessory buildings. And so this one's, if there's one thing that's really unique, they don't have these defined lot boundaries and they may have existed at one point in time when the park was originally developed but I think the records basically don't exist or the ones that do exist are fuzzy and so they're not really helpful and that's kind of if there's one One way, I mean, I'd almost like to say that if we could define the lot coverage within each one of those lots, we could say, well, if you want to cover 50% of the lot, put whatever you want on that 50%. At least that other 50% is going to remain open and grass and maybe a driveway and things of that nature. So at least you're controlling how built out each lot gets so it's not... doesn't become too much bulk and mass and not enough airflow through the lots and things of that nature, which is why we have setbacks and lot coverage maximums and things of that nature for all of our other districts. Getting into the nitty gritty, I think it is important in those comments from Mr. Zylstra, but that lot coverage question really is, I think, where it's important to look at that closely and say, okay, where is that line where it starts to feel like you're overdeveloping a lot? So that's kind of thoughts to start with tonight.

The lot coverage thing kind of sticks with me because, in theory, we don't really need to know their lot boundaries. If we wanted to look at it and say, okay, 50% lot coverage is too much, well, the way that these... John Potter, Development areas are laid out right if you start encroaching on the lot next door well that starts taking away from the lot next door, then. John Potter, Right, so I don't know if i'm explaining it well, but if I put up two sheds and there's a vacant property next to my property and that goes over a non existent lot boundary well that counts against the neighbor. And that's on the park to enforce. So, because I'm consuming space on the neighbor's property, theoretically, even though there's not a lot boundary. So I think we could set a number, and it's still enforceable by the park. We could say, okay, 50%, and we could still enforce it without fully defined lot boundaries because... If you take six lots and say, okay, these are all relatively even, well, these three are developed. Are any of those three over 50%? And if they push a shed onto the neighbor's property to get away from the 50%, that's fine. But they've consumed that on the neighbor's property. And eventually, if they want to develop that with another house on it, that has to go. So it doesn't kill the aesthetic. Did I explain that? Okay. I think we should set it.

It seems hard to believe that the park doesn't have some sort of boundary. Living on a lot, it appears that people know where their yard ends and the next begins. So is there any way For them to draw that up. I mean, does that seem like the step that needs to happen versus us?

It had to be a part of something for the approval for it to go in. There has to be. And if somebody were to bring a mobile home in and say, I want to put it on a lot, they have to give them a boundary to be able to live with it.

mean it's all it's all built out completely with slabs it's not like these are new parks so there's there's slabs so i mean you don't know even if they had a plan did the slabs go into plan and if they didn't then the plan's out the window anyway because most i mean almost all of our mobile home parks are completely built out there's a few vacant lots and that are in there but So sure, you could make assumptions on what that lot boundary is, but I think you could, you don't need to. Like, I think you could just average out, you know, one run of lots that are already laid out and say, okay, well, this is a square footage that can be covered if that lot or that home is there. Otherwise, we've got to move off. And we can do that by the setbacks from those slabs that are already there. Because we know where the slab is. We already have a setback for what the house has to be. So draw a rectangle from that back corner of that property and say, okay, that's a three foot on each side of that piece and extend it out the other direction. I would think that the property owner

Mr. Zylstra would be doing that. It's just so contrary to how we're all brought up. We have lots. The old line of good fences make good neighbors. You know what I mean? The string drawn in the sand can make a good neighbor. And this is where I mow my lawn to. That's where you have to mow your lawn to and so on. So I have a problem with that. I don't know if that's ours. I think that problem probably deals with the owners of the lot. And I think there's also, I've not been to the third part, but on those two that are on that, is that 148? 148. Yeah. I mean, one is real. I don't know how you'd even determine that because there's nothing even on the west side of the road that's not the case. It looks pretty uniform and so on. So I can see a percentage, but also when you think you've got a, what are those, 24 wide? Aren't they double 12s? Have any of them put together? Some on the other side of the road are just 12 footers. There's even a couple of 10 footers. And you're probably 60 foot long. You probably have 50% lot coverage. Just put that on there without putting a shed in the back and a carport in the front and so on. They're covered. And then when you have a Mobile home is actually built in addition onto it that's integral with it. It's incredible. The lot percentage might be more acceptable at 75% or something. I don't know. That was a comment. And the issue with the Carports and sides. I think that's asking for trouble along that because I think that then just gives an area for more junk. On my zoning board of appeals lawyer Miley is always talking about well the one thing about letting people build a little bit oversized accessory building then all that junk's been the yard now at least goes in there or whatever. I think that I'm not comfortable view shed with what we do in terms of setbacks and view sheds and stuff. I don't think there should be any sides on anything in the front yard. I mean, we're already allowing a structure if you're putting a carport in the front yard, which is contrary. You should have to go to the ZBA to have that happen. I'm not real strongly in favor of that. I don't think we should have that.

I think that's a good point is that maybe a carport with sides could be possibly considered, but that would need to be in the side or rear yard instead of the front yard. Do we have language?

The shed should be in the rear yard. Is there some? Yes.

Okay. I think that's in there.

Yes. What constitutes a side? Because they're kind of that kind of mansard roof anyway, where many of them are. The aluminum ones come down. A side would be anything from the ground up to six foot or so.

Well, is it a corrugated panel? Is it a, because a lot of the carports you can buy screens that go on the side. Oh, yes. So is that a side? That to me would be a side.

Because if it impairs vision, it's a side.

We would need to define that in the ordinance.

We use the word carport. What does that mean? I struggle with it because when we look at the 12 foot height, I did the math, it's a 412 pitch with a seven foot sidewall, right? Right. Roughly, give or take a little bit. We have a seven foot sidewall. it's going to keep the snow and rain off your car, but not the sun. So, you know, I would love a shade tarp sidewall on, and I don't know if that's,

If it's a wall, if it's in the front yard, I think a view shed is important. I think you just then begin constricting the whole development and you take away. I think in the front, they move the side yard, I'd be more amenable to some, whether it's screening or shading, whatever they want to put, you know, icing glass, tinted icing glass. It's just, I don't think it should be in the front yard.

Yeah, I think probably very few lots are going to ever have backyard capability to put in a 20 by 20. No. Or a side yard.

And we don't have a defined lot, but we're saying it can't be in the front. It can't be in the... We don't have a defined lot.

How do we say... What do you count as front yard? That's between the dwelling and the street. Yep.

Aerials have looked in some of the spots. There's not enough space in the front to even support that in certain areas.

Right. Right down the bike path, there's one right when you come in, and it is like... right off the road right there the water's going right onto the road off the roof of that thing but i mean again you know those was six right there on the bike path i mean i think we could set 75 percent lock coverage and they would be above it already over it oh yeah some of them and aesthetically yeah right they're I don't think it's a bad aesthetic for what it is, but they are much larger homes, much larger lots. And if you look at River Haven and Grand Haven, which is obviously far larger than anything we have, they have all kinds of weird lot configurations and carports, and I wonder what their language is.

What their lot coverage is too, although they're bigger lots, right?

That's kind of a newer, I don't want to call it newer because it's like 30, 40 years old, but it's newer versus like Village Green. Yeah, right. So then again, carports, are carports prefab structures? Is that how we're defining a carport?

Well, we haven't gone down that road of defining that at this juncture, but So it could be prefab or it could be maybe home built type thing. I think defining that maybe from an area perspective and just saying it has a roof that maybe comes down around the sides by one foot, but other than that, there's no side wall or end walls, something like that. And the only reason we're even saying the word carport is because we're referencing the state law that brings that brings that word into the mix. But again, they don't define it either. So that's not super clear.

Well, some real icy ground here, aren't we?

I don't know. What i'm hearing is that is it is it I should go back and talk to the owners and and maybe say okay what is there a way to define the lot better those lines better and is there. And what I'm also hearing is that there is generally support for lot coverage maximums. It might be 50 or 75%, but there's still general consensus that there should be a lot coverage maximum similar to other districts that we have. Maybe we can continue that conversation in that realm. The other thing I'd like to do is, and I think if we can get those two things resolved, I think a lot of these issues that we're having with the square footages start to go away because they start to regulate themselves. If I want to use... all of my square footage for for a deck well okay you know that's that's your prerogative but you know you only have 50 that's given to you maybe we still need to have some other limitations in in there but um i think the lot coverage aspect you know we don't see property owners push that lot coverage requirement in other districts very often. It's 30% lot coverage in a typical lot, and we rarely get to that point. Now waterfront, sometimes we get there, and that's a 25% lot coverage maximum. In the village of Spring Lake, it's a 50% lot coverage maximum there, and we're just talking rooftops, decks, and structures above grade. We're not talking about driveways and sidewalks and patios and things of that nature. It's just structures. And that's always an option that we often talk about. It's like, hey, I've maxed out my lot coverage and I want a deck. Well, you can have some steps down to a patio and put in a nice patio and there's no permit required and it doesn't, yep. So there's different ways to do it, maybe close to what you need, but yeah. I'll continue to have that conversation. The other thing I'd like to do is just update the township board on this before we do any more work, really, and just make sure they're comfortable with the direction we're going. Same with the next subject and with the waterfront decks.

Before we go to that, though, 350 square foot deckage on now already a lot, which is covered at 75% with the carport. and the 10 by 10 or 10 by 12, whatever storage building, and a 28 by 60 foot home, 350, now you're pushing 85% lot coverage. I'm taking a guess there. So I have a concern with that big a deck. And waterfront, we only allow a 200 square foot without a ZBA approval. And those are much larger lots. And then also that, If you're going to write any rules, there has to be a grandfather clause, I think, for things that are there. It could be a legally nonconforming case.

Okay, thank you. Russ, did you have something?

So, additional to this, so this is going to go in with our standard zoning ordinances. Like, there's all kinds of stuff in here. like when we start talking about fences, that it's very specific to the mobile home district. How are we going to put the wording in there at the start of this section to make sure that everyone understands that all of these things differ from somewhere else? They pertain only to the mobile home district. Yeah. And is there anything that we currently have that's going to overlap?

i think jeff brought that up at the last meeting as well and and then the so what i will do and this is this is this is really been this is drafted more for philosophical discussion and it's it's not laid out as it would be inserted into the ordinance so um i can envision chunks of this like the fencing section would actually be in the general provisions under fencing so that would land there um because In any other district, we don't talk about each one of our residential districts. We don't put the fencing requirements there. It's all in the general provision. So we would land that there. So I think it'd be a little slicing and dicing to put it in the appropriate locations. And Section 306 as well, that talks about accessory structures too. So I don't think we're near completion on this. And I always... when we get to something that we like, we always send that off to Mr. Bolchee for, you know, okay, draft this and catch all the, you know, errors that you might see and put it in ordinance format. And then he brings that back to us and tells us what he likes and doesn't like and has it formatted properly so it works. But does that answer your question?

It does. I like it. I think that, if you're looking for some of this stuff and you're in the mobile home district if it's peppered through i would be extremely frustrated so it can be peppered through that's fine because that's our structure but we need to make it easy or a a map so they can find all these things okay

Then jump into the next one, Waterfront Decks.

All right, moving on to G, Waterfront Decks.

All right.

Thank you, Lucas.

Yes. Jeff asked me to provide a graphic for you to look at. Hopefully you had a chance to. It's not perfect. AI helped me, my friend AI. And so I tried to make enough modifications to it before I got timed out, basically. But as you can see, you know, with that example, you know, what we're trying to, the home that's in the middle, oh, here, I want to bring that up on the screen here as well.

And thanks for the graphic. I think it's helpful.

And I'm also sorry your friend timed you out. A true friend will give you the towel the time you need.

The what?

A true friend. I know, right? Right, yes.

Sometimes you have to pay them, though.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So like I say, this example's not perfect, but in the sense that the way the ordinance is written today Average waterfront setback is measured from the water's edge to the enclosed habitable portion of each structure on each side. As you can see, the structures on each side, the habitable portion of the structure is in line with the deck in the center. that's illustrating the result of that averaging. And it always feels kind of unfair when we're applying this administratively and saying, um you know the way the ordinance is written the average is taken to the the habitable space which is more or less the foundation of the home not where the deck is but to the foundation of the home so when you average those out it pushes you know in this case it would push the the deck you know 10 feet back from what the neighbors have And now they could pay the $650 and go to the ZBA and probably have their waterfront setback determined differently to allow the deck. I think the question is, is that a little heavy of a process to go through just for something like this? And I think in the past, when we see the ZBA continue to say yes to certain things, that means, well, maybe the ordinance isn't working and we can change it so people don't necessarily have to go through that process and we can write something up. And of course, once we start applying things, whichever option we pick, We might say, oh gosh, this isn't working because of this, and we can always change it again if necessary. But coming up with something here to essentially make it more fair, really, and consistent, I think would be helpful. provided a couple of options there for you to look at, you know, either one of them. I think one is, option one is a little... I kind of like that one. The only trouble I see there maybe is getting the average depth of the two adjacent decks. But going out on site with a measuring wheel, I can do things pretty quick and using GIS as well. I do that an awful lot in different sites. So option one is administerable. And option two, which is basically saying, you know, in a case like, you know, basically kind of every, it's opening the door even more saying, look, if you're on any house that's waterfront, you can put a 10 foot deep deck on it within the waterfront setback. kind of open that and that's kind of where the village, the village of spring Lake wind is like, you know, if you have, if you've got a house and you want to put a waterfront house, you want to put a deck on, that's fine. As long as it's off that main level, it's not off the top or, you know, a pie, it's just off the main level. And that's kind of what this is mimicking an option to one railing, no walls, no roof. Um, It's very simple, straightforward. So I think either one of these would work and would ultimately not create a negative impact on viewshed either situation. So with that, we'll open it up for comments or questions.

I liked how you went with option one. I was thinking more that that would be part of the permitting or request for to enter that watershed that they should be able to bring a dimension drawing like a survey. They're gonna need it anyways. I'm thinking a lot of cases for other permits are gonna need from DEQ or EGLE or whoever else. The easy option, the easy button is option two. which I think is a lot easier on all involved, looking at you, Lucas. So, yeah, I mean, I understand what they're trying to accomplish. I think, as I said at the last meeting, there's still legal considerations in certain areas, especially along North Shore and other areas that we have critical dunes and other pieces that make land not equal. So I think that's just a consideration to have had that anything we do move forward with, I would like to see it say subject to permits and everything else from other, other required organizations. Sure, sure.

I thought number one, in some cases had the potential to be, could be a little bit too restrictive. I particular, from my perspective, and then we're dealing with, I liked option two a little better. Either would work. I just felt a little bit more comfortable with option two. Easy one, yes.

We've actually stumped Russ. My mind is going devil's advocate in 10 feet, right? It just doesn't. I don't think that 10 feet is going to be enough for most people, especially in waterfront locations with decks. They're going to want to push that.

I think that is the current standard.

No, it's just that we just take the average waterfront setback, and you have to be behind that. And then so your deck can be as big as you'd like it to be. It just has to be behind that waterfront setback. And I think, Russ, maybe you've watched a few ZBA meetings, but... There's always a desire to have a larger deck. The reality is if 10 isn't enough, then they can still have the option to go to the ZBA and have a determination and prove that it's there's a unique circumstance maybe that would say, yeah, we really feel we deserve an additional 10, more than 10 feet for X, Y, and Z. And then you're going, what I really like about that is then you're going through a public hearing, your neighbors are invited and it gets everything out in the open. So I think there's a way for someone who wants more to go through that process.

An interesting observation, guys, in the 20-plus years I've been on the ZBA, that concept, when I was growing up, if we wanted to do something big in our yard, we went and talked to our neighbors and told them we had mine, just to at least let them know. It's becoming a lost art. If you didn't see it on Facebook, what do you mean talk with neighbors? So that's usually an initial question that I ask. Have you discussed this with your neighbors? So that's just a side point. I understand what Russ is saying.

I think this is a good start. So sounds like maybe either one might work and I can we can just continue to think about that and we'll we'll discuss it with the township board and then maybe in the meantime we have For some reason, something comes up where we come up with, we really need to do option two. So what I'm thinking is for the August meeting, we'll have had some input from the board. We'll try and dial this language and say, yeah, let's have a public hearing on this. And I'll have a chance to talk with Marcus and Tracy as well from the parks and set that hearing for September. That works for you guys.

When you're looking at this setback thing, I wonder if it'd be worth our while for you to contact Holland City, Fruitland Township, Holland City on Nakatawa, Fruitland Township, almost the whole south side of White Lake with a lot of homes and a lot of decks, just to see how they handle that situation.

Great, thanks for your guidance.

So we're going to move on to a master plan discussion.

So just kind of getting off the engine started, but wanted to bring the master plan back into the fold. And it's something I always kind of kick myself and think, you know what, we really ought to be talking about this every month or every other month and making sure we're looking at it and it's not getting dusty on the shelf. But we are heading into the five-year, or coming up on the five-year review requirement, which is part of the Planning Enabling Act. We're supposed to look at it every five years, and I think that's important, and I think it's a good law. The seed I'm planting here is hopefully when we are done with the corridor improvement plan for M104 that's part of the corridor improvement authority who's kind of leading that charge that we'll be able to kind of dovetail right after that into a master plan update. and hire a consultant and really dig into this and use the information that we have from our existing plan, from Vision Force, do more community engagement. Michael Cross and I were talking about that before the meeting, and we really don't wanna lose that energy that came from Vision Force. and the outcomes of that. So I think it'd be perfect timing to look at that in five or six months in 2027 and get that ball rolling. So what I provided to you tonight are the action plan items that were out of the master plan. Bring that up on the screen as well. And of course, there's a master plan future land use map that we can start to look at. But this information is on our website. And if you'd like hard copies of what we have, just let me know and I can print that out for you. But keep in mind, this was completed. This was an update to the larger plan that we have in place. So this was an update in 2022. So we really, back in, and I think Jeff, you were even part of that original, when I came on board, and Jack, when we did, I'm not sure, Russ, if you were on quite at that point, but in 2007 or so, that's when we went into a major master plan revision. We hired Beckett and Rader and Williams and Works to help us through that process, and So this is really an update to that plan, which was pretty comprehensive. So as I go through a lot of these items here, there's some we've accomplished, there's some that we haven't. We're really looking at, like number one, consider improvements to the zoning ordinance, enhancing sustainability. That's really looking at the sustainable community assessment. And so that's been on my back burner since 2022. Would love to get through that. and prove that because at this juncture, I mean, I'm not sure it's really, it's a cool concept, but I'm not sure it's really functioning as intended. And we'd like to make that more useful. Two, which is roads and streets. and really bringing the Ottawa County Road Commission into the fold to help us maintain our tree-lined roads and minimize road widening. Much to the chagrin of the fire department, they really like wide roads. standards to improve screening and landscaping along public road frontages. So we did change, amend the ordinance to require more landscaping along and screening along public road frontages and PUDs. I think we kind of learned that lesson when we looked at the Arcadia development. And so that was a pretty quick change that happened. So we can really check that one off. We also went through, Pam Blau, our landscape architect, go through the landscape ordinance to help us devise some new language that was adopted. I think that was in 22 or 23 when we did that. C, require private streets and new developments unless offering a clear public benefit. We already do that today. Position new housing developments in such a way the rear side of a home is not facing a public street. So those were, again, that's another one of those concerns that came up with Arcadia. Glad to see that they're planting some additional trees along the roadway. And I think as time goes on, that'll mature and start to feel better. They're out there on 148th. So we're pairing in wetland areas, looking at enhancement of development standards for repairing in wetland areas and so we've already done that in the sense that we've required all wetland and wetland setback areas to be within the common element so those those will know when you're going through that type of process it's it's um less likely to be impacted if it's owned in unison with all of the other property owners and they can kind of just The idea there was that it'd be somewhat self-regulated. And so those who appreciate wetlands would look after them and they were not necessarily gonna become mowed down or filled in or used as dumping grounds. So we did make those changes. Number four, the M104 corridor Explore tools to enhance the visual appearance, efficiency and safety of the corridor. So that's what we're going through right now with that corridor plan. But we also did do the, we adopted the architectural standards that help to I guess create a better form, building form. And wasn't sure if we were gonna need that, but then Dollar General came in and we applied that. So we're lucky there. Rural areas, amend the zoning ordinance to promote the preservation of rural areas that are not served by municipal sewer, including increasing minimum lot sizes. So I think when I read that, I hear the vision force outcomes resonating with that. And so municipal sewer, that's the gatekeeper, so to speak, of development. So paying very close attention to where sewer where sewer goes or where it's installed is a key factor. And part of that master plan update in 2022 had a big focus on sewer capacity, especially out on the West Spring Lake Road area. So looking at utilities is definitely key. And I think that's not only a Spring Lake Township matter, that's a county wide matter. If you're looking to control or direct growth, then you need to have good policies on, especially sewer. Water's important, but sewer is really the main factor in where development can and can't go. So getting into open space here and so identifying lands around Little Black Lake, which we did, we've identified those. We've even worked with some property owners. Nothing's come to fruition yet, but it's on the radar screen and it is on the master plan map. So, you know, the Wilson road property, which is where the disc golf course is now. And plus there's another 40 acres adjacent to that. So that's, that's really a, that's on the township board, uh, 2026, um, I guess the goals for 2026 is to kind of work out what is it that we wanna do with the Wilson Road property? So I think that would probably be part of the community ambassador process and helping us devise a community engagement process for that and fit that into a template and see how that would work out. There's also within the township board goals was looking at a possibility of an open space plan. So those two kind of dovetail together. C, develop higher standards for open spaces within PUDs. So we've done that as well. Define that.

Lucas, I think actually 6A, you have a partial completion on that because of what you worked with the Norton Shores in developing that part.

True, true. We did acquire that 30 acres.

So you actually preserved some of that open space. Yep.

So there's 30, well, there's a total of 42 acres with Norton Shores involved. So it was a good chunk. Yep, yep. So number seven, that's a big one, but developing an overarching development analysis process that reviews fiscal, environmental, and social impacts of new large-scale development. So that kind of falls into, maybe that's a little redundant with the sustainable community assessment, but I think those are one and the same. But looking, doing a bit of a return on investment approach to development. and making sure that what's being developed is at the end of the day and for the long term is going to be something that our community is willing to accept. Water quality. I think water quality, I think that came up as well in the vision force process and maintaining and improving water quality. So there's a lot of different items here to improve water quality. I think tree canopy goals is one that I get a little excited about because As we've continued to develop, we're losing tree canopy, but then you look at places like Grand Rapids, places that are really developed out, and they're trying to go the other way. They wanna add more tree canopy, slow that stormwater down, cool the city, create the shade, and create the aesthetics. So keeping an eye on our tree canopy is important. Part of that, I think we did add tree canopy requirements within our PUD ordinance as well. So that's helpful. I think the watershed plan is also something we need to dig into and reference into the master plan because there's some really good goals within that that just, I mean, talk about gathering dust. I mean, the lake board might be looking at that on a regular basis, but it hasn't really made its way into our realm here. Modify the rural residential zoning district to better reflect the goals of the master plan designation. We did that. That's where we did the down zoning of those spaces out in the western part of the township. Lastly, remove the Ag zoning district and replace with rural residential since Ag does not exist. So we basically got trumped on that one if you recall when we went through the master plan. We did retain some of the, I think we called it light ag within the future land use map. So anyway, that's a quick summary. Just wanna feel free to look at the update on the plan, look at the future land use map and we're just gonna start heading in that direction and hopefully in 2027, we'll have a kickoff.

Yes, sir. Yeah, so it's nice you have a little legend. Unfortunately, on seven, you don't tell me legend. What does S stand for? P-C-T-B-S. Self?

That's a good question. I don't see it. I don't see it.

You might want to research that. Just let me know later what that S stands for.

Seven. It says Planning Commission, Budget Board, and then S.

Staff? We'll have to come up with something for that one. Staff. Staff. And we're going to probably just go with staff on that. Probably the nicest staff. That's probably a safe one. That's a safe word. Yeah, the safest option.

Right. Good call, Kelly.

So that's all I have on these comments or questions. Thank you. Thanks, Lucas.

Well, I'm remembering back to discussing the sustainable community assessment. We did have a meeting where we went over that. And I'm just trying to remember sort of where we landed. Were we going to possibly talk to a consultant?

Yeah, so basically, just basically due to time, I pushed it to the back burner and I had a chance. So the good news is that we are looking to hire a new assistant. If you guys remember the assistant we had before. So hopefully there will be somebody sitting next to me very soon and helping. So that'll loosen up some of my time where we can get through these and accomplish some more changes there. Yeah, it's a unique ordinance. Not many communities have what would be considered a scoring type ordinance. And it was meant to evolve too. That was, we're gonna see what worked, what didn't work and not necessarily be a stagnant type of process. So we'll see if we can come up with something new that's a little more effective.

Yes, I love the principle of it. So figuring out what would work would be great.

Yeah. I mean, some of those items that were optional, I mean, in the SCA, it was envisioned that some of those optional items would then become, you know, solid requirements, for example. And then there might be new optional requirements that come in. It's a fun one and I really like it. We just, I think just need to work on it and improve it.

Anyone else or shall we move on to commissioner comments? And our township board liaison.

Andy is not here, but... And maybe you guys can help me. Yeah, you were all here. I know.

The state girls track team was recognized. That's right.

The track team was recognized, which was awesome. And I think from what I could tell, they felt pretty excited. They were pretty excited about that. And then the Citizens Academy graduated. And so that's, I think, our fourth year in doing that. And it's such a cool program. I don't know if anybody else does that. And I'm pretty sure it's free. And you learn about every facet of local government in, I think, six sessions or something like that.

It's the first year of graduate city right here. That program.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Joanna, you were the first, you went through the first year? And Ken, you went through the first year? Yeah, yeah. So, pretty cool, and that's just one of those.

Now they're working on their master's. Good one.

And, yeah. And that's, I mean, that's one of the things that I think Gordon Gallagher, our manager, I mean, that was his idea, and it was just one of those great things to say, you know, we're going to try and be more engaging in the community, and so if you're interested in learning about everything we do, let's do it this way. So... One of the other things that was, I was there at the work session with Beth Peel, who's our new communications department head, and we just talked about the Culture of Kindness, which is the bike path initiative, and Russ can talk about this more too, but the community ambassadors and recreation committee have supported this, and now the township board as well. You'll see stuff on our website about the July 23rd kickoff. We're gonna put a tent out on the side of the trail in North Bank Park, and we're gonna have some signs out there, some giveaways, t-shirts, bike bells, stickers, but really we're just going to start this process of promoting the culture of kindness on the trails and it'll evolve into modifying the current bike path laws that we have in place as well. So these are things, as I mentioned at the board meeting, wouldn't be possible without having someone like Beth on board because she's created logos for it. She's kind of taken the ball and ran with it on this one. So her and Andy Kemp, Andrea Kempf, or assistant there in that department. So that's a fun thing that's coming up on July 23rd. That'll be from 10 to 4, and feel free to come out and hang out as long as you want. We'll have staff there. We'll have elected officials, appointed officials, even some village. Hopefully some village folks will be out, and we'll have some maps. fun stuff like that so we're not sure where exactly it's going to go after this we'll you know we'll take a breath and say what worked what didn't work but um you know I think the some of the things and you know like Michael and I talked about before the meeting you know we're up with some friendly signs out there the pokey signs that'll come and go and they'll be strategically placed and But at the end of the day, we're trying to reduce conflict and just improve trail etiquette. And someone asked me, well, how do you measure success with this? Well, and I think Beth said it best in, well, okay, so if Wendy's puts a flyer in the newspaper, hamburgers are for a dollar, how do you measure success with that? How do you know if somebody read that and actually went out and bought a hamburger because of that flyer? I don't know. So it's maybe a difficult thing to measure. But at the end of the day, I think improving signage, more presence on the trails, the fun signage along with the more permanent signs that really lay down the law, things like that. Because again, as Michael and I were discussing before the meeting, you go drive on the street there's signs everywhere telling you how to how to behave as a driver we don't have hardly any we have a few stop signs that nobody pays attention to on the bike paths but other than that we really you know there's like there's like some old worn out ones but we really don't we don't have anything so if we increase that that level of signage maybe that'll help too And then speaking of trails, the North Bank Trail with the land bridge where that eroded away. And so it's turning out to be more expensive and more time consuming than anticipated. I didn't get the impression that the trail would be open this year, reopen this year. And it definitely won't be. I think the approach the engineers are looking at is to... restore the the land bridge try and get things solidified but not put pavement on it right away let things settle in and see how how that works i mean there's a lot of loss of vegetation there there's a really steep slope all that fun stuff so they put some surface down like that crushed It'll probably be passable in some form.

Will it be rideable?

To be determined on that one, I think. So I think it's kind of a learn as you go kind of process with that. So unfortunately, I think it's going to be closed all summer.

Because I'm getting questions from my bike riding friends out of town about that, about getting through there. Alternate route.

But there are, yeah, there's some signs. There's some signage. I think there's something on our website. So, but yeah, let's say the good news is we've got a great detour and I've been using that a lot. And it's, you know, you're not out in the countryside, but really, you know, I mean, you're not, even on the North Bay Trail, you're going through neighborhoods and buy houses and stuff and whatever. Yeah, yeah. So it's, yeah, we're lucky to have that nice detour. There was also, they're working on painting fire hydrants, which is kind of like a, they do it in, I think we've like 1,200 hydrants in the township. So they're just going around and maintaining those, basically sandblasting them and painting them with their special paint so they don't lock up. Miss anything, Kelly?

Those are the ones I can remember. Thank you. And then CBA?

Yeah. So I couldn't help Russ while we were discussing this about lot lines and so on, fences making good neighbors. We've had an ongoing application before the ZBA at 16210 and 16218 Highland Drive, if you know where Highland Drive is. So this nice young family, well, they're not really young, but they have young children, bought a home there that two years prior, the owner had put a Without a permit, built a twice the size allowed waterfront structure on the water and managed to have it 2.8 foot onto a neighbor's property. So I really do like having lot lines. And while we all emotionally feel really bad for these people, they were really taken. They do have some legal recourses. It was not disclosed to them. They were giving false information actually about it being okay. It was grandfathered in. Grandfathered those in as unpermitted building oversize. So we finally, and we tried to be as gentle as possible, but we're honest and said, no, it has to move. Whatever you do with it, it has to move. And of course, it's all now integral with a potential erosion that's a very steep hillside there as well. So it's unfortunate, but someone's going to pay, or I don't know what's going to go on there. So we've asked for a resolution of denial, and it was unanimous. In the ZBA, we have criteria, depending on whether it's a variance or whatever, and They didn't meet one of the criteria. There was absolutely no way you could justify it. So that's our next meeting. We'll be bringing that up. We'll see if there's any changes, because there have been last minute things that have come up as these people in negotiation. What is really fun to see is their neighbor is the old time neighbor. It's a gentleman named Mr. Sluca. That's his property. It's on Mr. Sluca, who's probably pushing 100 years old. He ought to be getting up there. Just as you would want a neighbor to be. It's okay and so on, but he doesn't see the long term and then the bigger picture as well. But it's been an interesting but sad app. So that's going. And then I think we have that and then two other new apps coming up a week from tomorrow. Correct. Stay tuned next month for the further information on this saga.

And just to add on to that, if I may, The Township Board on Monday, one thing I forgot is they did appoint Jack Schroeder as the Township Board liaison to the Zoning Board of Appeals. So replacing Carolyn Borisma. So we'll see him next week at that meeting.

The committee hopes that you really get a chance to talk with Mr. Schroeder and prepare.

I hope so. And I've thrown that invitation out there to have a cup of coffee and talk about things in general and talk about

the items that are on the agenda as well thank you i've discovered bb coffee has a great cup of coffee nice place to meet you have some privacy that's it for the zba thank you rec committee well we had a nice meeting out at risinga and as always

E-bikes took forefront. The culture of kindness, as Lucas so nicely brought up, moving forward, but there was some interpretation of comments by Jerry and others that I think the community has not received well. And that was expressed. There isn't much we can do at this point. We'll just continue to work forward and revise any ordinance for the bike paths as we go forward.

The comments were regarding the culture of kindness?

No, the comments were regarding a I guess the assumption of whether or not you're illegal on the bike path with a motorized vehicle, which, I mean, Jerry said it in the interview with Fox 17. It was pretty clear when he said it there. And I caught that interview. I thought it was an unfortunate comment. But it just was interpreted. by everyone, which it can be. I mean, it's hard to interpret. The state doesn't see it as a motorized vehicle until they're 750 Watts.

So. Kind of like us messing around with the mobile home park ordinances.

Thanks Jack. So then we looked at the new pickleball courts, which there are, I don't know if they have the nets up yet They should be ready to play Friday. With fencing? I think it's all done.

I think it's all set by the end of this week is what I've been told. If everything's working out the way it's supposed to.

That was the major improvement out at Risinga. We walked the trail, walked the whole piece. Kind of fun to walk it. There's only four of us left over because I think there was a World Cup game that night.

Some great trails through there, too.

I think the—and Russ is the most familiar with the trails out there, so he is kind of our— our tour guide on that. And one of the things that we, I think, discovered, especially out on the west side, which is the portion that's the 40 acres that's owned by the Freeport schools that we lease, A lot of offshoots kind of throughout there, but doing something like what Ottawa County does and having the posts with the numbers and you are here and you know if you want to go to, you know, post six, you know, with an arrow you go that way. Distance to 0.6. Distances and things. Yeah, so it just makes, you know, elevating the comfort level of the users out there. So it's not a huge space, but it's still. Get out there, and you feel lost.

That's that's not a good feeling so That was a good observation Plus crisscrossing on trails when you're trying to go for a walk and ended up back at your car six times is not I Said been discussing that At this point, I think we've all considered them multi-use trails. Maybe we could add a sign to the major boardwalk that goes down, no bikes, but I think the stairs take care of that for most people.

For some of the younger folks who would love going down those stairs.

Never ridden down those stairs, Jack.

Not once.

Okay, I'm going to move on to community engagement.

So basically on that one, the community ambassadors continue to meet and kind of evolve. So I think the big one that's on our list right now is determining what to do with their remaining new bike path funds. So Boom Road and looking at other spaces like up on Apple Drive near the trailer park there and connecting them into the bike path system. There's a long list of places that we're looking at and our engineers is updated estimates so we can kind of see where things might fit in. And after that, we're just gonna continue to follow that engagement template There's a significant interest in the culture of kindness as well as the new process for revising the existing bike path laws that are outdated. The culture of kindness kickoff on the 23rd is a great way for us to be out there engaging And again, we still have, oh, we do have a new website that's underway right now. So excited to see a new website come about. I kind of like the one we have, but I think the one that's underway is gonna be even better. In house development or out of house development? It's out of house, yep, yep, yep. Margaret was here, she could tell you more about it, but Margaret isn't here. And hi, Margaret, because she's probably- Yeah, hi, Margaret. Margaret. But I think- She's probably yelling right now. And then with the Corridor Improvement Authority, they're still working on their new corridor plan in conjunction with the Village. There's a survey that's out, so please look on our website or Facebook page and fill out the survey. It doesn't take that long. The questions aren't that complicated, but we're really trying to learn more about the How people feel about the corridor and what types of things you know from safety and aesthetics, you know we want to really make it make it a place more than just a roadway through town.

I filled out that survey already and it was much to my benefit that we'd taken that walking tour and checked out some of those intersections because you have such a different perspective when you drive your car than when you would ride your bike through there on foot in there, so that was good.

Definitely, definitely.

Anything else you wish to share with us?

We get to number six here. I'm usually done, right? But otherwise, I don't think there's anything that is... I think one interesting thing, and you guys may not know him, but Peter Vandenberg, he's the village assistant manager. And so he's going to be leaving the village, and he took a job as the head administrator at the city of Kentwood. So nice step up for him. He's the son of Al Vandenberg, who was the former Ottawa County administrator, who's now in Kent County, the Kent County administrator. So walking in his dad's footsteps and taking steps up. He's a young man? Yeah, he's probably in his mid-30s, somewhere in that range. Still a kid. Still a kid. Well, just some of the changes that are happening in the township, so.

All right. Do you entertain a motion to adjourn? I would. I'll make it. All in favor? All in favor. Aye. Aye. Thank you, audience.

Thank you and good night.