Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, I would like to call this Tuesday, nope, Wednesday because of the election. Wednesday, August 5th, Traverse City Planning Commission regular meeting to order.

My land acknowledgement. The land on which we gather is the territory of the Ottawa and Chippewa peoples who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. Thank you for your strength and resilience in protecting this land and inspiring us to uphold our responsibilities to do the same. And then we'll move on to roll call please, Katie.

Commissioner Anderson. Here. Commissioner Swanson. Here. Commissioner Cameron.

Present.

Commissioner Riordan. Here. Commissioner Holtry? Here. Chairperson Duteri? Here. Commissioner Hershey? Here. Commissioner Treadwell?

Present.

Commissioner O'Brien?

Present.

And Commissioner McGillivary is absent and excused. He's not feeling well.

Thank you. So we're moving on to announcements and I do have an announcement. I don't historically start with those. But I would like to take a moment to address the termination of Sean Winter as the planning director. This body has a duty to take a moment to publicly thank him for his dedicated public service. He was a thoughtful and intentional leader and a genuinely kind person. I wanted to make the space for this body to say anything that they may want to get back to Sean, any acknowledgment of any kind. We, again, can't answer questions. We can put questions out there maybe, but it's not our responsibility nor our purview. But I did just want to make that space for us as a group before we moved on.

I'll say something. Thank you. acknowledging Sean and thanking him for his service. What I personally would like to thank him for as the previous chair on this body, this is a really hard commission to serve on and often we have had commissioners who've had no prior board experience. When you come on here you are suddenly hit with very complicated terms, legal documents, things that are very hard to understand. And one of the things that I'd like to thank Sean for is he was always there to answer those questions and make sure you understood what these things meant so that we could make good decisions based on knowledge. And he was very knowledgeable, so I want to thank him for that. That was very important for all of us, and I wish him well in his future.

I wasn't planning on saying anything, but I would echo everything that you both have said. If you agreed with him or disagreed with him, Sean was always willing to meet with you at the table, which I think is super important. It's really sad because a lot of that historical knowledge that he brought to the table is now gone. So it's gonna be a huge hole to fill.

Okay. Thank you all for giving us that space to just make that remark.

Okay.

Any announcements from staff?

Yes, we just want to remind the planning commission that there is a state planning conference coming up in the fall and we can sign anyone up who's interested and there is a more immediate deadline of September 1st to get the better early bird rates. So, if anyone is interested, you can contact Katie and she can get you signed up. Thank you.

Moving on to approval of minutes, approval of the June 2nd and July 21st, 2026 meeting minutes.

I make the motion to approve the minutes of June 2nd and July 21st

Second.

We have a motion in support. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you very much. Moving on to old business, we have two items. A, the first one is the public hearing and possible consideration of a rezoning application for 314 East 8th Street from C2 to R3. Just calling out that Maxwell is a non-voting member of our body and he will not be at the dais while we have this conversation because he will be needed to answer questions. So he will be in the audience with everybody else. And I'll move to Leslie to start this one off. Thank you.

Sure. So the planning commission saw this last month. This is a request for rezoning again from C2 to R3. This is about a third of an acre. it's currently where the copy shop is or was it's a vacant commercial building this property is being considered with a little bit of a reconfiguration of the property lines re is being considered for a public-private partnership with the Housing Commission as a workforce housing development. And in order to most efficiently work within the zoning ordinance, the proposal is to rezone the property to R3 There's a lot of similarities between these two districts. This use is actually allowed in both of these districts. Some of the setbacks are a little bit different and the height restrictions are different. They are the R3 zoning allows for a taller building for residential use. Other than that, of course, rezoning applications are not subject to any specific proposed future use or tied to a specific site plan. There's a separate process for that. So tonight's consideration is really just for the rezoning. So it should be made with the consideration that there, you know, things could go a different direction and this property could be developed under whatever is the current zoning and it may be with a different group. So any of the uses that are allowed in that district should be carefully considered and the implications of what that might mean in regards to the dimensional standards within that district. Having said that, you know, The staff report, although it doesn't really include a direct recommendation, does indicate that this is a down zoning of property from commercial to residential. Again, these are very similar districts. All of the properties surrounding this piece on the south side of 8th Street are all zoned R3. This is kind of a strange island in the middle of some R3 zoning. And given that there is discussion about changing some property lines, this will help to consolidate all the property within one zoning district. Because when there's split zoning that creates some other complications in administering the zoning restrictions on the property. In addition to that, this is generally consistent with the master plan and the uses allowed here are consistent with those in the surrounding area. So generally, you know, I would say that this is zoning, a rezoning request that there's broad support within this staff recommendation. to do that, to recommend the rezoning. So this rezoning request, the process is that tonight is a public hearing and then this goes to the city commission as a recommendation to them. They introduce it at one meeting and then at a subsequent meeting they will take final action on that request. So this is in the form of a recommendation to them. And certainly happy to answer any questions about this or if you want to go through any of the specifics about the differences between the two districts.

I do know we had a moderately thorough discussion about this last time. I think we were all here for that with the exception of Debbie. Any thoughts, comments, concerns before we just go straight into the public hearing and then bring it back? Okay. Seeing none, I'll go into the public hearing. We don't need the motion before we go into the public hearing, correct? Or do we? To open a public hearing? Yeah. I can just go straight in and we can do the motion after. Okay. So I will open the public hearing for this item. Katie will have the instructions because I can't find them. Oh, I found them unless you need them. Do you want me to give them? Yeah, okay. So public comment is that we ask that you state your name, address, and indicate whether you're a city resident, a non-city resident, and or a city business owner. We have a three minute time allotment per speaker. When your time has elapsed, the clerk will notify you or you'll hear the timer beep or both. It's usually a combination of both. Please address your comments only to the Planning Commission and we request that all language be respectful to all parties. And we ask that we do not have any reaction or applause during public comment in any way. It's important for us to hear everyone's opinion and we don't want to discourage people from sharing their ideas.

Hello, my name is Doug Hickman. I am a Riverine property owner. I'm also on the Riverine Condominium Association Board of Directors. I'm the treasurer. I am also a downtown Traverse City business owner. And I do reside elsewhere most of the time, but I'm here a lot. on this sort of project for a number of years because the land bank was really gracious enough to help us out. Several years ago when we redid our parking lot and spent nearly three quarters of a million dollars upgrading it, new everything, lighting, everything else like that, and the land bank people were kind enough to let us use, brought us a lot of the space that we're talking about tonight plus a lot more behind McGough's and down where the Olson people brothers are. So we've had a history with them. This project, I knew it was coming. And what I didn't know was the scope as far as the size of the building, not so much in square footage, but the fact is it was going to be 45 feet tall. And that's a lot for what's around the general area. That's concerning to me. But the biggest thing that concerns me about it right now is I was allowed to share some of the site plans that I got from the planning commission. And the biggest issue I have, or we have, a lot of us, is the potential curb cut onto 8th Street for that development. I mean, right now, Copy Central, that curb cut is there or similar. And the copy central traffic was like zero to one or two cars a day. We already, at River Rain, are cuts right next door to it. We have a heck of a time getting in and out a lot of the times. And I mean, it's almost impossible in the summer months just because of everything else going on. And then when they decide to shut down an airport or something for construction, it's a parking lot out there, and you can't get in or out. And to have that amplify even further with the potential additional curb cut for 40-some cars in and out every day, that's a bit much. Something not directly tied to this but I think is a great idea that somebody should consider is we really need one of those crossing things right there. We've got people on bicycles on the Tart Trail fighting traffic. They're sitting out in the middle of the road trying to get across because they can't. You've got Pedestrians, you're going to have more pedestrians with these people, this new development going in, our people trying to get in and out. And I think if not here, somewhere, put it in the notes to have somebody look into that and see if we can get someone like they have down east of us where they got all those crosswalks. They're fabulous. Anyway, thank you very much.

Thank you. I do apologize, the applicants are here and I forgot to let them speak first. So do we want to let them speak first or do we want to keep going with the public hearing? I'm fine either way. Do you want to say something?

I'm Carl with the Housing Commission. I figured let them speak. Okay. I might be able to address.

Answer some of the questions. I think that's great. So my mistake benefits us all.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Gary Lipson and I'm an owner and a resident at the 525 Riverine Complex. And I sent some comments to the planning board earlier today and I just want to summarize them here. And so I recognize that the city's interest in increasing the housing supply However, the question tonight is whether the R3 zoning and the additional residential density it permits are appropriate for this particular location. My principal concerns are about traffic, public safety, parking spillover, emergency access, and the burden on the city's infrastructure and services. I routinely observe the traffic on 8th Street at Boardman, backing up all the way to Cass. This new zoning will add stress to that situation. It's not adding traffic to an uncongested area. A substantial multifamily project would add resident vehicles, visitors, deliveries, rideshare traffic, service vehicles, and moving activity to the streets that already experiences a significant congestion. I'm concerned about the parking spillover onto the Riverine property. It's a convenient access to both downtown and it will be readily available and readily accessible to any new residents of this property. The on-site parking is full. It's insufficient for a 45 person complex, 45 apartment complex. It's foreseeable that residents, visitors, delivery drivers, and service vehicles may use Riverine as an overflow. In addition, I've seen people coming into the Riverine parking complex to gain access to the river itself. So with 45 new residents in the area, I would think that this is going to be exacerbated. So before recommending approval, I would ask that the Commission have objective answers. For example, the current peak hour traffic at 8th Street and Borden hasn't been measured. How many additional vehicle trips would the development generate? Has access to the riverine been evaluated? Will the parking meet actual demand rather than merely a minimum zoning requirement? Has emergency access been reviewed? Can existing roads, water, sewer, police, fire, and snow removal services accommodate the additional density? So the general benefit of the additional housing would be distributed throughout the community while the immediate traffic, noise, construction, and safety burden would be borne primarily by the riverine complex. So I therefore ask the Commission to deny the rezoning or postpone action at least until the necessary traffic, parking, pedestrian and other examinations are evaluated. Thank you. Correct.

I know. Hi, good evening. My name is Susan Cacciarelli and I live at 545 Riverine and I'm a city resident. I'm just gonna read this so I can get, I will be more succinct. So the land bank staff and developer is requesting permission to rezone this property from C2 to R3. And rezoning would change the current use as a C2 which has minimal impact. A structure, business or residential building within C2 zoning has obviously building height and parking spot requirements. The current building meets those requirements and has 11 parking spots. The land bank could use the current zoning as you've already stated to build housing. The request to rezone the property is to accommodate a structure that could be 45 feet high, enable 45 living units and 47 parking spots. I just want people to envision that in, you know, this much and a little oval. So my question is whether or not the request for rezoning has been prompted by a study that has determined that the development would have the same impact to the surrounding infrastructure as a C2 zoned property. The current property abuts the neighborhoods on Lake Street, 9th and 10th, Riverine, Midtown, commercial places, and residences along 8th. I'm talking about a stretch where all this vehicle and pedestrian traffic flows. We all know 8th Street is a thoroughfare east to west for utility trucks, construction vehicles, delivery vehicles, workers, garbage trucks, school buses, public transportation, and those using the parking structure just east of Riverine and the county building on Boardman, not to mention that the Tart Trail flows into 8th Street adjacent to this property. A building of the proposed size will cause an increase of daily traffic entering and exiting onto an already congested two-lane street with no designated crosswalks. I am asking that the rezoning request be denied. There is recent evidence that any thoroughfare in Traverse City and 8th Street is a major one, that any construction, unforeseen weather events, et cetera, traffic backups are long, time-consuming, and truly dangerous for emergency vehicle flow. can the land bank demonstrate that adding 45 units, 47 parking spots, which is a 400% increase, will not create a significant impact to pedestrian and traffic safety, flow of traffic, and we in Traverse City, a quality of life for hundreds of residents who already live in that area. Thank you. Thank you.

Just as a reminder to this body, we are deciding on the rezoning from C2 to R3, and a reminder to the public. So we can't take into any consideration the specific future plans that might be in the works for this project. That is a decision that will happen later on, that will have to go through rigorous review by all staff departments, like safety and everything, traffic. But so in this moment, it is specific to the rezoning. Just wanted to go back to that. But feel free to continue with public comment.

My name is Charlie Kern. I live in Midtown, 283 Midtown with my wife Susie. back there so I just like to offer support for the well articulated that these three people spoke about because we live right on a street I believe a street has about 20,000 cars per day registered if that I thought I heard somebody say it's a third of an acre I'm all for housing housing is a great idea however that road is unsafe to cross and I you know, we stare right at that, right across from Copy Central and, you know, there's numerous people that, I mean, many that cross right there and, The danger of getting hit is very high, and they're dodging cars. So I agree it would be good to have some sort of crosswalk. I know it slows traffic down, but that adds a lot of pollution. All these cars are stopped. That high density that these guys talked about is true. I mean, if there's 45 units, maybe one or two cars per family, I mean, Man, I don't know how they're going to do that, but I'm just concerned about the danger. I like the housing idea, but it probably should be spread out, and thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Trisha Hoyt. I'm also a resident of Midtown Drive 263. And I'm here simply to admire the eloquence of the previous speakers and say, please accept all of their recommendations. I hear you when you say that it's just about rezoning. It's not about what will be done subsequent to the rezoning. They run away with each other. You get it rezoned and the projects will just take off like a tidal wave, or the project as it's, as it's, as it's described right now. It'll, it'll take off too fast. So my firm recommendation is that you deny the rezoning, which is hard for me because I share the same desire for adequate housing in Traverse City. And so it's not because it's near our homes, it's because it's not the right safety place for the kind of project that will undoubtedly follow. So I respectfully ask that you deny the rezoning request. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Paul Kenworthy, 514 Lake Avenue, and I'm a nonresident owner. And I would also like to thank everybody for all their thoughts, and I appreciate your clarifying what the purpose of this meeting is about. I would echo really everything that everybody has said and the way it's been said. Our concern is also primarily about traffic and the current plan as it's proposed also has an egress onto Lake Avenue, which is very close to the corner of 8th Avenue. And not only is the traffic high on 8th Avenue at Lake, but also the alleyway there. And their kids play. They play basketball. you know four five six years old and you know they don't play in the front on eight they play in the alley and it's already used as a cut through because of the backup at cass and eight and lake and eight um so my that's that's our primarily primary concern i i really think it's it's good to have housing but I also echo the other sentiments that this may not be the right time to, or at least the right proposal to have the rezoning committed to. Thank you.

Any other public comment on this item? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to the applicant. I'll close the public hearing. We'll go to the applicant because we don't want a back and forth. As a reminder, this is for the rezoning, which I am sure you know. And you're more than welcome to answer any of the questions. We can't, but you're more than welcome to if you want to, and I don't think you have to necessarily.

Hi, good evening. My name is Maxwell Cameron. I'm the Community Development Coordinator for Grand Traverse County. Tonight I'm also representing the Grand Traverse County Land Bank Authority. I help staff our authority and this is one of the most important projects that we're working on. Before you tonight is a consideration for rezoning of a property we recently purchased at 314 East 8th Street. And not to talk too much about the project, but I do want to talk a little bit about our philosophy as a land bank. And what we try to do first and foremost is be a good neighbor. runs the gamut from helping those who have lost their homes to tax foreclosure to try to remain in their homes to securing grants for blight elimination. And in this case, working with a great collaborative partner in the Traverse City Housing Commission to meet the need of housing in our community. Even with this property, and it was previously mentioned tonight, I'd like to thank everybody for their comments, but when there were needs within this part of our community, we helped out with some parking with riverine condominiums. When there was an opportunity to ensure that there's great trail access and fitness court, which is located on the other side of this property, We worked with Traverse City to make sure that we were, again, able to leverage our resources to make a community impact. And so that's really the thrust of why we own property and what we intend to do in this case, given our track record, again, of supporting community needs. I do want to turn it over to Mr. Fulmer with the Housing Commission. If you want to make any sort of introduction or answer any of the questions as well. Again, just thank you for your consideration of our request tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Maxwell. I'm Carl Fulmer, Director of the Traverse City Housing Commission. I want to thank the general public for coming too. Certainly giving some feedback about potential housing development on the property. I'll deal with some of your concerns directly. I won't get too lost in the weeds tonight because it is about the rezone. Give you a little bit of history. We were approached by the owner of Copy Central, meaning we the housing commission, just about two years ago this past July. His family wanted to do something for the community. So he asked the housing commission, hey, we'd like to see workforce housing or something on this site. The site was too small for the type of housing that we can build and get proper financing for. So we worked with the land bank and the city. The city had two small triangular pieces adjacent to Copy Central. The land bank, the old railroad right-of-way that stretches back behind McGough's was of interest to us as well. And so it's taken about a year and a half of trying to cobble together properties, also dealing with consumers' energy, their high-powered lines that run through the old right-of-way that have to be relocated for any sort of safe housing development. And so it's been that long that we've been undertaking this. I've met with planning staff a few times in early spring of this year, and their recommendation was to rezone Copy Central to R3, to down zone it. They thought it was, not putting words in their mouth, but I think they used, it appeared to be almost spot zoning of Copy Central's property. So that's where we've come as far as the application for the rezone. We do intend to submit an application for low-income housing tax credits on October 1st of this year. That's a relatively long process. We probably, if we were awarded funding, we wouldn't start construction until the spring of 2028. It's a very long process for the funding mechanism. Incidentally, the plan right now is 43 units. It is 47 parking spaces. We've gotten some feedback from planning staff. It doesn't appear that we would have a drive out onto 8th Street at this point in time. The plans that you might have seen were draft plans from a couple months ago, but I'm more than happy to meet with residents of the neighborhood to kind of discuss what our intentions are. To give you an overview very briefly, it would be workforce housing. 80% or less of median, most of the units would be 60% or less of median income. Excuse me. So, we do know there's a need for this type of housing. We would be applying for seven section 811 vouchers which would be to subsidize rents for people with permanent disabilities as well on the property. Unit sizes range from 725 square feet to 1,050 square feet. They're predominantly one bedroom units and some two bedroom units as well.

So that's kind of a brief overview of where we've, how we've landed here.

I certainly share concerns about safety and traffic. I've been doing this for over 25 years. I've heard those concerns for almost every project I've participated in. We certainly would work with city staff to design a project that doesn't pose a threat to the neighborhoods surrounding it. But that's all I have to say right now. I'm more than happy to answer some questions.

Thank you. Does anybody on this body have any questions for the applicant? Jackie.

thank you for being here i appreciate the details that you're able to share at this point one of the traverse city housing commission projects that we're familiar with because it's completed and i think fully occupied is the parkview building further east on 8th street and i wondered if you could give us a little compare and contrast in terms of

um not only the the number of units but maybe the the mass and the footprint and and the parking and so that we can better visualize the direction that you're headed well i can tell you this we made a mistake at parkview parkview's 46 units one and two bedroom units i wasn't here when parkview was designed or approved but i director of the housing commission so I'll take responsibility. They put 26 parking spaces for 46 units. That was not a good idea. And so we've been struggling with Parkview from a parking perspective. That's why we would not build another project without at least one space per unit. We're about Parkview's senior housing. So the use of cars is not as great as it would be for workforce housing. Parkview, we're about 11 parking spaces shy of where we should be for Parkview right now. Maybe 10, it fluctuates but it is an issue at Parkview. The building footprint for this building is about the same as Parkview. It does have a community space planned. The site's a little bit larger on the copy central property. Once we put the parcels together, it's about 0.15 acres larger than Parkview site which I think is 0.7 acres if I remember correctly. So the biggest lesson learned at Parkview is don't under park a property. And we deal with that at Riverview, downtown, the high rise. Not so much that we're short of parking, but we're always either towing or chasing others out of our parking. So I understand Riverview's concern. We tow a lot of cars.

And the height of the buildings, will that be similar also?

I don't think that's pertinent to what we're discussing actually.

I don't really know the specific height now because I know that we're probably going to lower the first floor from the draft plans that were produced if we're not having a pass-through drive onto 8th Street. So that's something we'll approach further down the road though.

Thank you.

Just to be clear, that is on a C1 property. I did look that up just now. Thank you. I think it's C2. No, C1. I just looked at it. That whole chunk between like Hastings and the fire station is C1, right?

I think Copy Central is C2.

I'm talking about the one that she was in. I'm so sorry. I should have clarified. I think Jackie knew what I was meaning. I was trying to. I got it. Yeah. Sorry. No. Sorry about that. I know what one we're here for tonight. Yeah. Anything else from this body? I would just say that I do think it looks like spot zoning to me. It is a little orange spot in the middle of all of this R3, doesn't make sense. It can be confusing because there are a lot of nonconforming uses. But just to say that we cleaned it up and made it make sense and

it just doesn't make sense that we have that use there in the middle of our three personally mitch yes well first uh in the interest of disclosure and our city's ethics policy i am the vice chair of the housing commission though i have no financial stake in this project as i am required to uh per housing commission rules i cannot be invested in any projects uh but This is, as you say, an island unto itself surrounded by zoning that no longer matches that character. We are at this point looking at a rezoning, which is going from any conceivable use under the current zoning to any conceivable use under the proposed zoning, which, as Leslie said, is in strict terms a down zoning. We would be allowed a greater intensity of use as a commercial property than it is right now than it would as a residential property. You could have, yes, it's a small copy shop and has been for many years. That building is older than either Midtown or Riverine condominiums. It's been there for decades, but through various uses. And as a coffee shop, it didn't have very many people pulling in and out. But if, say, it was a restaurant, which can be allowed in commercial zones, it could have 500 trip ends a day without requiring any additional site plans or approvals. and with the concerns raised about parking and increased traffic flow, those are concerns, but those concerns would have also applied to Riverine and Midtown as developments unto themselves since both of them have more units than is proposed here and have more parking spaces than are proposed here. Plus the fact that In part because of concerns, the draft site plan has been since amended so that it no longer has a driveway right next to another driveway. Right now, there is the Boardman Lake Trail separating them and that trail will remain there. It may have to shift a few feet, but there will exist some separation and there won't be two driveways right next to each other just for practical concerns, that is a valid issue. Also, I do see a need as somebody that has literally biked through that intersection three times today for additional either crosswalk or lane markings that would allow people to get across 8th Street somewhere between Cass and Boardman since you've got a trail on one side, you've got Lake Street coming in at now two different parts. How that will work, I don't know. It is supported, though, by our city's mobility action plan, and I wouldn't be surprised if when 7th Street gets slated for a mill and fill in the next year or so, but it is slated for a rebuild in a few years down the road, and that could include extending the contraflow bike lane that starts at Division and goes to Maple. It could extend it all the way down to the end of 7th at Union and then extend it through Lake to 8th Street and connect it to the existing bike trails. But if that does, we will be installing a crosswalk there because you have to have throughput. But that is not something that's part of this project now. Right now we are looking at going from one zoning classification and anything that could fall under it to another zoning classification.

Thank you. Mitch did remind me that there is a traffic committee that can hear any and all sidewalk requests or concerns or requests for like a crosswalk, I've submitted in there before. If you just Google Traverse City Traffic Committee, a little form pops up and you're all more than welcome to go fill that out and blow up that form. Because I do think it's a missed opportunity in this area. I totally agree as somebody that walks through there very often. We should. do something about that area. And this might be the right time where they coalesce in a nice little timely fashion.

Shay. I'm going to make the motion that 314 East 8th Street be rezoned to R3 as supported by the master plan and initiated by a representative of 314 East 8th Street be recommended for approval to the city commission.

We have a motion. Support. And support. So we will vote. Oh, and as a reminder, if we're voting no, we're trying to get in the habit of documenting why we're voting no. So all those in favor? Aye. All those opposed?

No. Would you like to know why? Yes, please, Jackie. I thought there might be some discussion before we went directly from motion to vote. I'm sorry. The reason that I'm voting against it has to do with the difference in residential height limits between the two zoning options. I have deep concerns about the 45 foot maximum height. I am sensitive to the condo canyon that's developed on West Front Street and I know it's a different different zoning and different situation, but I am very concerned about How this impacts higher buildings and taller buildings impact people's access to daylight, for instance. So anyway, I will be voting no. Thank you.

Just to be clear, the commercial purposes height can always go up to 45 feet right now in C2.

But for residential purposes in C2, it has a 30 foot max. Sure. Am I misinterpreting that?

Nope, that's how I interpret it. I'm just saying as of right now, if we kept it C2, it could always go up to 45.

With a mixed use development? Correct.

Thank you. With any development? Except residential. If it's residential only, yes. Okay, thank you for that. So we have a motion on the floor, and we already, now we have to do roll call because we did have, I'm sorry, Katie. We should have done roll call before that.

Okay. Chairperson Duterte? Yes. Commissioner Hershey? Yes. Commissioner Treadwell? Yes. Commissioner O'Brien? Yes. Commissioner Anderson? No. Commissioner Swanson? Yes. Commissioner Reardon? Yes. Commissioner Holtry? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you.

Okay, that was old business item A. Thank you very much. We are moving on to item B, childcare regulations. We can give it a couple minutes. Maybe we'll welcome Maxwell back up. I just said maybe we'll welcome Maxwell back up for item B. Okay, I am going to turn to Evan for item B tonight, childcare regulations.

all right and leslie feel free to jump in if i missed something so last planning commission meeting there was a fairly comprehensive discussion on child care zoning amendments and there were four actionable items that uh amendments that were the The planning staff have put into a final draft for potential public hearing in September. So starting off, one of those items was replacing the term childcare organization in the zoning ordinance to childcare center to more closely align with state, the terminology in state law. And we also changed the text so that all types of childcare facilities are permitted by right in every district. um so in the staff report you can see highlighted the amendments that we made and those would be to open space r1 r3 hr c1 gp nmc and h districts and because our zoning ordinances is stacked so certain districts reference other districts the uses in other districts this would include all of our zoning districts having these child care uses um we the the one of the amendments was removing the land use permit for group child care homes along with all special standards associated with this use, as there are licensing requirements for these type of childcare homes through the state, so that would be redundant to also have that with the city. And we also removed restrictions in residential zoning districts that childcare centers would be associated with a school place of worship. And again, the staff report has all of the highlighted changes included. So anything I missed, Leslie?

I don't think so. I think that covers all of it.

I think it was great. Upon second review, is there any other comments that we have, ideas, thoughts? before we decide to see this for a third time in September for its public hearing. Any questions for Evan? Just to keep him on his toes.

No questions.

Jackie. Sure. Thank you. That was a lovely summary. I'm going to reiterate my concern or question about use by right in open space, which of course is primarily our parks for the city. And it appears to me as I know Parks and Rec is creating an inventory of our city parks and everything from size and history and dedication and so forth. As I picture the various parks and how many different sizes and configurations we have, it seems to me as though some could be highly appropriate. for year-round childcare, and some might not. And so making it a use by right in all OS zoned areas seems to me to maybe not be a great fit with the parks themselves. And I didn't know if you had had any staff conversation about how we might differentiate those.

I'll go ahead and field this one. So by and large, the OS district is city owned property. One exception is the Civic Center, which is owned by the county and there is a proposal to have a daycare there. And there, I think I could be wrong but I think there have been other programs in that district as well and I don't know that it ever you know wasn't in a new building or anything or necessarily a change of views it was kind of an accessory so I think that there's kind of a history of that happening anyway in the OS district and given that other than the county property, all the property is owned by the city, they would have to be a party to that use happening and would you know it would have to be a decision on the part of the city to do that I don't think there's any opportunity I can't conceive a situation where a private party could come along and open a child care center in the OS district you know without city approval or without some you know agreement with the city uh so i guess i i failed to see exactly where the risk is here um other than allowing and you know it could be that if the city decided to um uh get rid of some property, they could add a deed restriction to it if there was a concern about any of the potential uses under that zoning, or they could rezone it. And given that every other district already would be allowed to have a childcare center, it seems unusual to single out the OS district, but maybe I'm missing something.

Well, maybe I could give you a for instance. East Bay Park, great facility, wonderful outdoor recreational opportunities for all ages. If there was a year-round childcare proposal for a childcare center to operate out of East Bay Park for 24 children, Are there other approval steps or guardrails in place that would allow additional review? I mean, my concern is we make it, you know, a use by right and they move in and there we go.

So are you saying it would be like a program without a building that would just operate there?

Maybe. I think the state would have something to say about it.

Yeah. Without a building associated with it.

So we're saying that Lara would be our go to.

This use by right is only part of it because it does require state licensing for any of these uses I think.

you know for any kind of operation especially a for-profit operation a license issued by the city would be required on city property so you know i could see a one-off where somebody is having like a yoga class at a park or something and I do believe they need maybe Katie knows that they would need a license or permit to do that and you know approval from the city and certainly a daycare could bring a gaggle of kids to the park for you know an afternoon at the park but getting licensed to you know operate a a daycare on property not owned by the provider and without permission of the property owner and with no building that they're operating from i don't see that as a risk okay good and and we are coordinating because i believe the parks and rec commission is reviewing park use guidelines

And we're convinced that we're all headed in the same direction and have the same vision.

Yeah, we can double check with them and make sure that that, you know, isn't something that might be an unintended opening for somebody. Maybe we're giving someone some ideas right now. I don't know. Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you. If you could just complete that loop with parks.

Yeah, we'll check in with them.

Thank you. Mitch, then Jerry.

Yes. I see it as something that can nest within parks but again it would only be possible in places that have a dedicated space which would have to go through multiple layers of licensing by the city or county or both as well as the state. uh currently we allow child care centers to have field trips allow schools to have field trips in parks many of them do we allow a summer camp to operate at hickory hills which is a traverse city park we allow traverse area community sailing to operate in hull park we allow multiple other groups to operate summer programming on city park land, but this is a slightly different category of slightly younger kids. Both the summer camp and the sailing program are youth programs. They just have slightly different licensing than childcare, but they are caring for children. They are operating through the summer. Looking at Our general publicly owned categories, we've got both OS, but we also have GP, which this building is. We have got a nice little park-like area along the riverfront here, and there is not a childcare center in this building, but I could see a way, especially if the city and county decide to partner on something for that, let's say the basement could be converted into a childcare center for city and county employees. don't see that in our current building plan but i don't see a reason why that couldn't be a potential opportunity i have seen that in other cities or other county buildings that they have a child care center built into the building so that uh people that are staff can have their kids literally two floors down from them jerry

Well, yeah, Mitch kind of touched on it, but yeah, like Hickory, even though it's not in the city, if it was, it'd be OS, and it's not a daycare. But I think it's a matter of if there's already a facility, which Pacific Center is an example, on a park, there would still need to be rigorous licensing to allow it. But we don't have a whole lot of buildings on a lot of our OSs.

Jackie? And just to comment further on Commissioner Treadwell's question, I suspect that the risk management profile for care of children six years and under might look a little different than some of the other risk management profiles. So hence the need to be sure that we're baking this in and are in alignment with the park usage guidelines. And I'm sure they're evaluating that aspect of it. Shay.

Yeah, someone who worked in child care that had infants all the way up through high school kids, the margins on child care under the age of like 10 is like razor thin. So the only way for organizations, whether they're nonprofit or for profit, to make it work is public private partnerships is the way forward, I think. And I think we have one proposal. So that's one organization right now we're not getting an influx of organizations coming to us looking to build buildings on our parks for childcare facilities because they don't have the money for it. So, but I think this opens a window like a part of a window for people to make the numbers work.

An egress window maybe. Exactly. Yeah, I think this is a use by right conversation. At the end of the day, I think it truly boils down to me like we have a need for childcare and why would we not? Again, I think it goes back to planning. We're supposed to be planning for future iterations. We can consider present day impacts, which are currently not enough childcare. We're not supposed to be thinking about like, well, what did childcare look like 30 years ago? So it is a need and I think it makes sense. I'm excited. Frankly, I'm excited to go to the public hearing and see what this stirs up. We received an email or two about this and I think that's great and maybe we'll hear more because maybe we're missing something. But I don't see the harm in any of this at all. It makes sense. I think it cleans it up. I'm excited. Anything else from this body? Great, well we can expect to see that on the September 1st meeting, is that the?

Do you guys feel, do we have a motion and a vote?

I don't think we need one. Okay. I think it's just a, right? Yeah, we don't need a motion.

We can just bring it back on the, at our regular, next regular meeting. Yep, and then we'll have a public hearing at that time. Yeah.

Yeah, so let's have it on that Tuesday. Okay, let's do public hearing, I'm sorry. It's not public hearing, but I'll do public comment on this item. I like to try to do public comments on every item and then a general one at the end. okay okay great so there's no public comment on this agenda item so that moves us back to the agenda and we are now into the report section we have progressed through the big items tonight any update from the City Commission Mitch and Jackie no meeting yesterday because we had an election

and no meeting on monday we had a study session scheduled but apparently there are two or three commissioners who were had conflicts for scheduling so um we are waiting to hear i believe august 17th is our next regular city commission meeting and then not until september the 8th which is the day after labor day will we be meeting again

Usually ours fall on that. So I'm very glad. It fell really weird this year that we get a normal Tuesday meeting in September. Usually we have to bump it to Wednesday.

Did I get the dates wrong? No. I think you're right.

I think it's because Labor Day fell later. Never mind. Planning department update. Anything we didn't cover yet?

I don't think so.

Other than I think we won't have a study session this month because we covered it all. We don't need to keep talking about the same item.

And then if that's the case, this will be Evan's last meeting. Oh.

Thank you, Evan.

Second and last.

Second and last meeting. Second and last meeting. Well, we appreciate it, Evan.

Well, there is currently, at least on paper, a vacancy for planning director at the city. We'll have him apply.

He's expected at Wayne State in a couple of weeks. Yeah. That sounds more important.

Plans change. We have no update from the Joint Planning Commission. Just a reminder that I did say at the beginning of the year that I would love for somebody to replace me on that. So if Megan or Michelle are interested, just keep your eyes and ears open about that one. That one only meets four times a year. So it's super chill. It's a really great group.

I feel like Megan just said yes.

I did see a nod, but I wasn't going to say anything. You've got to be careful with that body language.

Are the Board of Zoning Appeals that rarely be?

Already canceled for next week.

Which is next. Thank you for so brilliantly moving into that segue. So we're going to skip straight to Repairing and Buffer Committee, which has just not.

Yeah, the committee itself has not been meeting anymore. Yeah, correct. And I did give you an update at your last meeting, I think. Mm-hm, you did. And nothing has changed since then. Great.

I think we can probably remove this from reports, Katie.

Yeah, it's not really a committee that's still meeting. Yeah, we can take it off. Whenever you want updates on the various low progress, I'd be happy to get those.

We can cover it in announcements. Let's just remember to cover it there.

Unless it's actually on the agenda.

Correct, yeah.

Which it will be sooner.

Soonish, maybe. Update from Grand Traverse County, Maxwell?

I don't really have anything tonight. I do want to share our thanks with the planning department for working with us on submitting a grant request to AARP for our home share project. So excited to be partners with you on that and really appreciate supporting that effort.

Thank you. We have nothing in receiving files, so now we'll move on to general public comment. Seeing none, this meeting is adjourned. AARP has how to learn poker videos in case anybody is ever interested.

That's why we wrote the grant.