HomeMy WebLinkAboutPLANNING MINUTES 1998-09-15 16343
MINUTES OF THE 771st REGULAR MEETING AND PUBLIC HEARINGS
HELD BY THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF
LIVONIA
On Tuesday, September 15, 1998 the City Planning Commission of the City of Livonia
held its 771st Regular Meeting and Public Hearings in the Livonia City Hall, 33000 Civic
Center Drive, Livonia, Michigan.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. with approximately 300
interested persons in the audience.
Members present: Robert Alanskas Daniel Piercecchi Michael Hale*
Elaine Koons William LaPine James C. McCann
Members absent: None
Messrs. John Nagy, Planning Director;Al Nowak, Planner IV; Scott Miller, Planner II;
and Jeff Bryant, Economic Development Director were also present.
Mr. McCann informed the audience that if a petition on tonight's agenda involves a
rezoning or vacating request,this Commission only makes a recommendation to the City
Council who, in turn, will hold its own public hearing makes the final determination as to
whether a petition is approved or denied. The Planning Commission holds the only
public hearing on a request for preliminary plat approval. The Commission's
recommendation is forwarded to the City Council for the final determination as to
whether a plat is accepted or rejected. If a petition requesting a waiver of use or site plan
is denied tonight,the petitioner has ten days in which to appeal the decision, in writing, to
the City Council. Resolutions adopted by the City Planning Commission become
effective seven(7) days after the date of adoption. The Planning Commission and the
professional staff have reviewed each of these petitions upon their filing. The staff has
furnished the Commission with both approving and denying resolutions which the
Commission may, or may not, use depending on the outcome of the proceedings tonight.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the first item on the agenda is Petition 98-7-1-
15 by First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. requesting to rezone property located on
the south side of Plymouth Road between Eckles Road and Alois Avenue in the
SW 1/4 of Section 30 from RUF (Rural Urban Farm) to M-1 (Light
Manufacturing).
Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
of the surrounding area.
Mr.Nagy: We have a letter from David Lear, Civil Engineer 1, dated August 12,
1998 as follows: The Engineering has the following concerns regarding
the proposed construction: 1) The Developer would need to dedicate the
appropriate amount of right-of-way, 60.00 feet, to the County. 2) The
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developer would need to bring a water main across Plymouth Road to
service the building. The water main located along Hines Drive is
privately owned by the County. 3) The developer would need to get an
easement from the abutting apartment complex to tap into the existing
sanitary line or find an alternate method to bring sanitary sewers to the
site. There is a letter from Michael and Renee Meeker of 39201 Plymouth
Road: Please be advised that we oppose the rezoning of property from
RUF to M-1 (as described in above referenced petition). We built and
moved into our new home within the last year. We chose this area
because of the rural surroundings. Industry exists across the street from
us--we do not want it right next door. We enjoy living in the "country"
within the city. Please keep it as it is. There is another letter from Ron
and Bev Lamerand of Livonia dated August 28, 1998 as follows: We are
opposed to the property change in Petition 98-7-1-15 from RUF to M-1. I
would be an eyesore to look at a building instead of trees and urban
country, which we have in this area. Since we do not want to move at this
time, we would like this property to remain as classified at this time. This
change would also cause more traffic, of which there is enough, and also
excessive noise. This would be literally at Barry's back door. Please help
us to keep our little spot of country we still have in Livonia. Lastly, there
is a letter from Barbara Kobelia of 39291 Plymouth Road: I am opposed
to the property change in Petition 98-7-1-15 from RUF to M-1. It would
L be an eyesore to look at a building instead of trees and urban country
which we have in this area. Also, it would cause our homes to lose their
value. Since we do not want to move at this time, I would like this
property to remain as classified at this time. This change would also
cause more traffic, of which there is enough and excessive noise. This
would be at Barry's back door. Please help me to keep our home at
present value, and a spot of country we still have in Livonia. That is the
extent of our correspondence.
David Thurmon,30067 Fox Grove, Farmington Hills: I am with First Industrial Realty
Trust. Our firm has entered into a purchase agreement with the two
owners of this land subject to the rezoning. The M-1 zoning would be for
the purpose of constructing an industrial building approximately 110,000-
120,000 square feet in size similar to the three buildings we have done
across the street. We would be using the same contractor, essentially the
same building techniques.
Mr. LaPine: Directly across on the north side of Plymouth Road is a vacant parcel.
Have you tried to purchase that for this building?
Mr. Thurmon: We have talked to the owner, but at this time he is not willing to sell that
land.
Mr. LaPine: Is that parcel big enough to build what you want?
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Mr. Thurmon: It is smaller. We could not build a building on it.
Mr. LaPine: You could probably get a building about 80,000 square feet on it?
Mr. Thurmon: Yes. The owner of that land is a developer himself who has done other
types of industrial developments.
Mr. Alanskas: Across the street you have a huge medical building. How many truck
wells do you have in that building?
Mr. Thurmon: I don't know the answer to that.
Mr. Alanskas: How many would you have in this building?
Mr. Thurmon: Proposed are between ten and fifteen truck wells.
Mr. Alanskas: What type of facility would it be?
Mr. Thurmon: Whatever type of business that would come along to fit that zoning.
Mr. Alanskas: What hours are you looking at?
Mr. Thurmon: Again, that would be determined by the occupant of the building although
if you look across the street,the hours there are generally 7:00 to 7:00.
Mr. Alanskas: Have you considered contacting the people at Millennium Park?
Mr. Thurmon: We talked to them, but our discussions did not result in anything.
Ron Lamerand, 39115 Plymouth Road. This to me, with the vacant land across the street
that could be turned into office, and the other vacant property in the city of
Livonia, they don't have to take residential and turn it into M-1, light
manufacturing. You have enough property without that in the City of
Livonia. There are five houses to the west of that property. You only read
two letters. I think there was more.
Mike Meeker: My wife and I just built a house recently to the west of the property where
you want to change the zoning. We oppose it and we would rather see
stay. When we built this house, we expected it to stay residential.
Mr. Thurmon: Regarding a point that the first gentleman made, actually there is not a lot
of land in Livonia that is still available in Livonia for development. The
development that is all around this is C-1, M-2. We felt that this was a
good use for this land.
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There was no one else present wishing to be heard regarding this item and Mr. McCann,
Chairman, declared the Public Hearing on Petition 98-7-1-15 closed.
On a motion by Alanskas, seconded by Mr. LaPine and unanimously approved, it was
#9-141-98 RESOLVED,that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held on
September 15, 1998 by the City Planning Commission on Petition 98-7-1-
15 by First Industrial Realty Trust, Inc. requesting to rezone property
located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Eckles Road and
Alois Avenue in the SW 1/4 of Section 30 from RUF to M-1, the Planning
Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 98-
7-1-15 be denied for the following reasons:
1) That the proposed change of zoning would allow industrial zoning,
which heretofore occurs only on the north side of Plymouth Road in this
area,to encroach into this residential neighborhood;
2) That the proposed change of zoning is incompatible to and not in
harmony with adjacent zoning districts to the east, south and west;
3) That the proposed change of zoning would allow for uses that
would be injurious and detrimental to the adjacent properties in this
neighborhood;
4) That the proposed change of zoning would represent a spot zoning
situation with respect to land located on the south side of Plymouth Road;
and
5) That the proposed change of zoning is contrary to the Future Land
Use Plan designation of medium density residential for the subject area.
FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 23.05 of Zoning Ordinance
#543, as amended.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. It will go to City Council with a denying recommendation.
Mr. LaPine: I agree with the petitioner that there is an extreme shortage of decent
industrial land in the city, but I don't think this is the right area to rezone a
piece of property right next to a residential complex an industrial site such
as this, especially since, according to the notes, where you will have a
large concentration of semi trucks. I don't think that is a good move for
the city. This is spot zoning and I don't think it is needed.
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Mr. Piercecchi: I am also going to support the motion to deny because I have a real
problem with developing the south side of Plymouth Road into industrial.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-8-2-
15 by Michael Palazzolo requesting waiver use approval to construct a car repair
facility on property located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Stark
and Farmington Roads in the NE 1/4 of Section 33.
Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
of the surrounding area.
Mr. Nagy: We have a letter from David Woodcox, Sr. Building Inspector of the
Inspection Department dated September 3, 1998: Pursuant to your
request of August 17, 1998, the site plan for the above subject petition has
been reviewed. For your consideration, the following issues are being
brought to your attention. 1) The proposed wall sign is conforming in
area (30 sgft.proposed, 35 sq.ft. allowed) but would need to be relocated
to the north elevation to be conforming for location. 2) The ground sign
as proposed is conforming. 3) No wall section is provided to determine
the type of construction. 4) The site plan does not indicate if the lawn
areas are to be sod or hydroseed. 5) There is no indication if the
landscaping is to be irrigated. 6) Parking spaces are required to be
double striped. I trust this has provided the requested information. A
letter from Rockney L. Whitehead, Fire Marshal, dated August 31, 1998
indicates they have no objections to this proposal. A letter of August 24
from John Hill, Assistant City Engineer, states that the Engineering
Division has the following concerns regarding the proposed construction:
1) The Developer would need to dedicate the appropriate amount of
right-of-way, 60.00 feet, to the State of Michigan. 2) The developer may
be required to have on-site storm sewer detention. A letter from John
Gibbs of the Traffic Bureau states that the Police Department has no
objection to the site plan as submitted. That's the extent of our
correspondence.
Mike Palazzolo, 31900 Utica, Frazier, Michigan 48026: I own a company called The
Brake Shop and we are already located in Livonia. Our lease is coming to
an end and we are looking to relocate just west of our site we have now
and construct our own building that we will own and occupy.
Mr. Alanskas: Where is your brake shop at the present time?
Mr. Palazzolo:It is actually part of a motor mall which is right on Merriman just north of
Plymouth Road next to Taco Bell.
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Mr. Alanskas: Speaking of a motor mall, there is another motor mall west about 3/4s of a
mile. Have you looked at that? There are about four or five empty
buildings there now.
Mr. Palazzolo:Yes, we have. There is a conflicting use. There is a muffler and brake
place there right now.
Mr. Alanskas: Are you leasing this property, or will you be purchasing it?
Mr. Palazzolo:I will be purchasing it. I will own and operate it.
Mrs. Koons: Do you have other brake shops in other cities?
Mr. Palazzolo:Yes, I have 20 in the Detroit area from Ypsilanti to Shelby Township.
Mrs. Koons: Is the name The Brake Shop other than what you own? Is it nation wide?
Mr. Palazzolo:Yes, we franchise them and also own and operate the stores in the Detroit
area ourselves.
Mrs. Koons: The suggestions that Mr. Nagy brought up,the double-striped parking lot,
the sod,the irrigation, are you willing to cooperate?
Mr. Palaizolo:Yes, actually I wasn't aware of that, but I talked to Mr. Nowak a week or
so ago and hopefully you have the new site plans with all of the changes.
Mr. McCann: John, we do have the new site plans here. Did they comply with
everything?
Mr. Nagy: Yes.
Mr. LaPine: This is a vacant piece of property and you are asking for a waiver use.
Plymouth Road has a number of vacant buildings along the corridor.
Have you looked at the possibility of purchasing one of those buildings? I
can't see tearing up a piece of property when there are vacant buildings. I
would like to get these buildings cleaned up and renovated or torn down
and a new building built instead of taking another piece of property,
giving it a waiver use and then if something should happen, we have
another building to worry about.
Mr. Palazzolo:We have been looking for about a year now. Everything we found was
way too large and we couldn't make the numbers work. I also have a
problem too because I own a store in Westland and in Dearborn Heights,
and if I go too far east or west, I will encroach on the other store, so that's
another problem I have.
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Mr. LaPine: You indicated to us this evening that you own most of these stores. You
may take the business from the Westland store or another store, but it is
still going into the same corporation.
Mr. Palazzolo:Yes and no. If you get too close to another store,then I will have two
overheads surviving on the same sales and then I have two problems.
Mr. LaPine: Some of the locations you looked at were too large. Have you thought of
the possibility of building a larger building and leasing out part?
Mr. Palazzolo:The way the banks are for us who are owner occupied, they really don't
want you to get involved in a separate development and multiple
developments like that.
Mr. Alanskas: Why did you flip-flop the building?
Mr. Palazzolo:It wasn't going to be visible that way.
Mr. Alanskas: So you are looking to see most of the traffic coming from the west instead
of the east because it is on the south side of the street?
Mr. Palazzolo:I just thought the front of the building would look a lot nicer because we
use all glass garage doors. If it were reversed the other way you would see
a brick wall.
Mr. Alanskas: In the summertime when you have your doors open, would you allow your
employees to have loud radios playing when they are working?
Mr. Palazzolo:No,not at all.
Mr. Piercecchi: What are your normal hours?
Mr. Palazzolo:Monday through Friday 8:00 to 6:00 and on Saturday 8:00 to 3:00. Closed
Sunday.
Mr. Piercecchi: The construction will be brick?
Mr. Palazzolo:The exterior will have dryvit and decorative block.
Mr.Nagy: The material is split-faced block on all four sides.
Mr. Piercecchi: There is a bowling alley and florist shop next to you. What are the
materials on that bowling alley?
Mr. Nagy: The bowling alley has a brick facade on Plymouth Road and the other
three sides are block.
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Mr. Piercecchi: Do you have any objection with it being all split block, or do you
think the area facing Plymouth Road should be brick just as the bowling
alley is?
Mr. Nagy: Given a choice I would take brick, but I think given the nature of the
business and the surrounding businesses in the area, the dryvit and split
faced block would be complementary and make a handsome building.
Mr. LaPine: He has split faced block marked and painted red. Once you paint those
blocks, in a few years they start to peel and once they start peeling, no one
wants to paint them and they become an eyesore.
Mr. Nagy: They do tend to fade and sometimes peel, although the product has been
improved other the years.
Mr. Palazzolo:We paint our buildings every other year.
Mr. LaPine: I notice that between your doors you have white split-faced block. Up
above I assume it's the same block, and you are going to paint it red.
Mr. Palazzolo:That's correct.
Mr. McCann: John, there seems to be about 95' green space between the residential area
and the property that is proposed to be used?
Mr. Nagy: Yes.
Mr. McCann: That will be just the existing planting that is there now?
Mr. Nagy: Yes.
Mr. McCann: He has four evergreens in here. Is that going to be sufficient? It seems to
me that we need to put a little more than four evergreens back there.
Mr. Nagy: It would certainly be improved with additional plantings given the size of
the space.
Mr. McCann: And for noise abatement. We have 80'. Would eight be enough?
Mr. Nagy: Doubling it would be adequate.
Mr. McCann: Do you have any objection to putting eight back there instead of four?
Mr. Palazzolo:No,not at all.
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There was no one else present wishing to be heard regarding this item and Mr. McCann,
Chairman, declared the Public Hearing on Petition 98-8-2-15 closed.
On a motion by Mrs. Koons, seconded by Mr. LaPine and approved, it was
#9-142-98 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a public hearing having been held by the
City Planning Commission on September 15, 1998 on Petition 98-8-2-15
by Michael Pala7Jolo requesting waiver use approval to construct a car
repair facility on property located on the south side of Plymouth Road
between Stark and Farmington Roads in the NE 1/4 of Section 33,the
Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that
Petition 98-8-2-15 be approved subject to the following conditions:
1) That the Site Plan marked sheet 1 of 2 prepared by ARC Design
Services, Inc., as received by the Planning Commission on September 14,
1998 is hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
2) That the Exterior Building Elevation Plan marked Sheet 2 of 2
prepared by ARC Design Services, Inc., as received by the Planning
Commission on September 14, 1998 is hereby approved and shall be
adhered to;
3) That the landscaping shown on the Site Plan is hereby approved
except that the number of evergreen trees in the area immediately south of
the rear parking lot shall be increased from four to eight trees, and all plant
materials shall be installed to the satisfaction of the Inspection Department
and thereafter permanently maintained in a healthy condition;
4) That all disturbed lawn areas both on-site and between the site and
roadway in the Plymouth Road right-of-way shall be sodded in lieu of
hydroseeding;
5) That the dumpster enclosure shall be in accordance with the detail
on the Site Plan and the gates shall be maintained and when not in use
closed at all times;
6) That all light fixtures as shown on the Site Plan details shall be
shielded from adjacent properties and all light standards shall not exceed
20 feet in height;
7) That the Ground Sign shown on the Site Plan detail is hereby
approved;
8) That the wall sign shown on the exterior building elevation plan is
hereby approved subject to the granting of a variance by the Zoning Board
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of Appeals to allow this sign on the west elevation rather than the north
elevation; and
9) That there shall be no overnight outdoor parking or storage of
vehicles on the site.
For the following reasons:
1) That the proposed use is in compliance with all of the special and
general waiver use standards and requirements as set forth in Sections
11.03 and 19.06 of the Zoning Ordinance#543;
2) That the subject site has the capacity to accommodate the proposed
use; and
3) That the proposed use is compatible to and in harmony with the
surrounding uses in the area.
FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 19.05 of Zoning Ordinance
#543, as amended.
Mr. Alanskas: On your other shops, do you ever put any sandwich signs out on the curb
side for advertising?
Mr. Palazzolo:No, none whatsoever.
*8:04 - Mr. Hale arrived at this time.
A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Alanskas, LaPine, Piercecchi, Koons, McCann
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN: Hale
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. Your petition will go on to City Council with an approving recommendation.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-8-2-
16 by Dale T. Culver d.b.a. Culver Custom Homes requesting waiver use
approval to construct a detached condominium project on property located on the
north side of Schoolcraft Road between Park Avenue and Fairway Drive in the SE
1/4 of Section 20.
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Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
1 of the surrounding area.
Mr. Nagy: We have a letter from John Hill, Assistant City Engineer, dated August 24,
1998, stating the following concerns: 1) The cul-de-sac with the island in
the middle is deficient in size to accommodate the turn-a-round of large
vehicles. 2) Unit 1 is being placed directly over an existing easement
which may have existing utilities such as phone, electrical, cable or gas.
Should the easement have no utilities, it would still be necessary to vacate
the easement prior to Unit 1 being built. A letter from John Gibbs of the
Traffic Bureau states the Police Department has no objection to the site
plan as submitted. We have a letter from Rockney Whitehead, Fire
Marshal, dated August 31, 1998 as follows: This office has reviewed the
site plan submitted in connection with a request to construct a detached
condominium project located on the north side of Schoolcraft Road
between Park Avenue and Fairway Drive in the SE 1/4 of Section 20.
Provide hydrant at or near cul-de-sac. Due to exposure distances being
less than 30 feet, the dead-end hydrant shall flow 1,000 G.P.M. with a
residual pressure of 20 P.S.I. Provide additional hydrant at normal
spacing for residential area(s) between cul-de-sac and Schoolcraft Road.
Due to lack of parking facilities normally associated with condominium
projects and a proposed width of private road under 27 feet, it is
requested that the side of the roadway opposite the hydrant/main side be
posted "NO PARKING" OR "FIRE LAND-NO PARKING"per City
Ordinance. We have a letter from the Szado family dated 9/13/98. My
name is Dennis Szado and my family and I live at 14168 Fairway. Let me
say that my family and I are very opposed to the idea of having homes or
condominiums directly behind our property causing a sandwich effect with
a road in the front of our house and now with one behind our house. I'm
sure you would not like a road behind your property if the situation was
reversed. The present owner of the property we are talking about,just
purchased the land about a year ago. Within a couple months of his
purchase of the property, he sent out letters to the surrounding area
stating that he could not afford the payments of the property. To me,
anyone who just purchases property knows whether or not they can afford
the payments of the property. In this case you can see the buyer was just
in it to make a quick profit o his investment, not considering the
tremendous impact it has on the surrounding neighborhood. It also raises
the issues such as will the fire trucks, sanitation trucks and other
emergency vehicles have the maneuverability in a safe and timely manner.
The road that is to be built is only 26 feet wide. In the latest proposal, the
one in front of you, 11 homes are to be squeezed into this small area of
land. The last proposal only had 9 homes, and that was to many as
agreed upon by the City Planning Commission. There's also the problem
of how the drainage will work, the relocation of the power lines, and the
list goes on and on. There is a saying that says "Buyer beware". City
Planning Commission, you did the right thing before by rejecting the
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proposal, do the right thing again by rejecting this proposal. Lastly, we
have a letter dated September 11, 1998 from Gerald L. Rzeppa of 14096
Fairway: I am the homeowner of lot 77 which is property bound by the
proposed Petition 98-8-2-16 by Dale T Culver. I would urge the
Planning Commission to review the previous proposal for developing this
site. As you can determine the previous owner of said property withdrew
his proposal, because after hearing neighbor complaints and objections by
the Planning Commission the owner knew it was a hopeless situation.
Due to a conflict in meetings, I am unable to attend the September 15
meeting, but I would ask that this letter be read aloud and become a
record of the meeting minutes. I object to this particular development
plan because essentially there is very little difference between this and the
previous plan. In fact, this plan may b even less appealing. The "old"
plan proposed 9 homes, this "new"plan proposes 11 detached
condominium homes. A house is a house is a house, no matter what you
call it. If 9 homes was unacceptable, how can 11 be better? Secondly, my
main objections the road which is proposed to be placed 30 feet beyond
my property line. This road is separated from my yard by a 3 foot berm.
We have Schoolcraft approximately 1/2 block to the south, Fairway Street
in my front yard and, I strenuously object to a third street in my back yard.
Even if I didn't have a pool in my back yard I would object. There are
many other reasons why this proposal should not be approved, but rather
than listing them all in this letter, my neighbors will I'm sure offer their
opinions in person, which will coincide with my views. Thank you for
your time, and I look forward to dismissal of this proposal as in the past.
We also have a petition dated September 9, 1998 signed by 63 residents
opposing this detached condominium project: We the undersigned advise
the City of Livonia Planning Commission that we object to Petition 98-8-
2-16 filed by Dale T Culver d.b.a. Culver Custom Homes requesting
waiver use approval to construct the captioned detached condominium
project for the reason that the same is detrimental to the adjacent lots to
the west (which would become double frontage lots) as was previously
determined by the Planning Commission when a preliminary plat for Pine
Meadows Subdivision was submitted for subject property in 1996. That is
the extent of our correspondence.
Charles Tangora, 33000 Five Mile Road, Livonia: I represent the petitioner, Culver
Homes. The petitioner of this particular piece of property is also the
owner having bought the property a few months ago. He is a taxpayer
within the City of Livonia. He has engaged the firm of Basney & Smith.
Mr. Roskelly of that firm would be here tonight, but he had an untimely
death in the family and had to go up north. The site plan and engineering
plan has been drawn up by Mr. Roskelly. I think the Planning
Commission is well aware that with detached condominiums, and you
look from one development to the other, you can't tell the difference
between subdivisions and condominiums. The type of home that would be
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put in here would be identical as what you would put into a single family
subdivision. The homes would be in the area of$200,000-$220,000 in
value. It would be a very nice residential structure for people who bought
them. I think the Planning Commission also recognizes that this is a very
difficult site. I think Mr. Roskelly looked into a single family subdivision
and it was almost impossible to have a decent subdivision go into this
particular site, and that is why he is going into detached condos. We have
some renderings of the site plan. We have a rendering of the landscape
plan on the west side of the street which I know is a concern to the
neighbors that live over there. We also have some renderings of the type
of homes that Culver Homes would like to build there. Some of the things
that we are going to present to the Planning Commission tonight have
been included in a letter Mr. Culver sent to the neighbors. (Mr. Tangora
passed some renderings to the commissioners). Two types of homes
would be put in here. One is a ranch style, and the other is a two story.
As you can see these are the typical type of homes that you see in single
family subdivisions. There is really no difference from a home that would
be built in here from a home that is built in a subdivision. There are 11
sites in this particular development. There is a private road that would be
built from Schoolcraft Road north to a cul-de-sac and a turnaround at that
point so that there would be no ingress and egress from any other
adjoining subdivisions that surround this particular piece of property. I am
not an engineer and I cannot use the rational that Mr. Roskelly would use,
but I have Mr. Culver here and he's been working with Mr. Roskelly to
develop this.
Mr. Piercecchi: What is the berm width that is being proposed on that screen for
the homes on the west side?
Mr. Tangora: My reading is that on the south end is 30' wide. The road is 26' wide.
Mr. Piercecchi: Have you made any estimates as to how far the homes on Fairway
would be from that road?
Mr. Tangora: The homes are not on this drawing here, so I can't tell.
Mr. Nagy: The homes on Fairway would have a typical rear yard of 40', add the 40'
to the berm of 30', plus the roadway 26'. In the setback requirement you
have another 30' from the private road to the proposed detached
condominiums. You are looking at 130'-170'.
Mr. Alanskas: Where lot 72 and 73 are,that#1 home, why didn't he extend the
landscaping to go all the way across so that 72 and 73 would not see that
house? How many feet do you have between 72 and 73 and the fence line
and that property?
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Mr. Culver: We could probably extend that landscaping somewhat, but I think short of
putting something in there along the lines of a hedge which probably
wouldn't look good either, you are still going to see that dwelling.
Mr. Alanskas: Why couldn't you put some more trees?
Mr. Culver: We could do that. I don't know if it would completely block out that
house.
Mr. Alanskas: You have done a good job of screening all the way from#74 to #79, but
that#1 is completely exposed, and I would like to see some screening
there so that lot 72 and 73 couldn't see that house.
Mr. Culver: We could add some landscaping in there. Keep in mind that the landscape
plan we are showing you here is a starting point. We knew the road was
going to be a concern for us and that is what we were dealing with
primarily at this point.
Mr. LaPine: John, this came before us approximately two years ago. At that time the
road was almost abutting up against the residential property to the west.
He was going to put up a small berm. The homeowners on that particular
property would see the cars coming up and down the road.
Mr. Nagy: The road at that time was going to be a public street, 31' back to curb
within a 50' right-of-way, and in this area they were also going to provide
for a berm, but it would be within that right-of-way area.
Mr. LaPine: So this is really an improvement.
Mr. LaPine: My understanding is that this berm will be all on your property and will be
maintained and cut on both sides by the homeowners association.
Mr. Culver: Yes. When we drew this plan this time (I was not the petitioner last time),
but we took those minutes from that meeting and we tried to incorporate
as many of the changes as we could into this plan to try and make this as
appealing as possible and as safe as possible and still get that road back
there, which of course we have to have for development. In doing so, one
of the reasons for making this a condominium development was so that the
berm would be maintained because we realized that was one of the
concerns last time. Also by doing it this way, we could make that berm
larger virtually eliminating the sight of that road if you are at ground level
looking back at it.
Mr. LaPine: You are going to have the berm, you are going to have some landscaping
on top of the berm. That will be all irrigated with underground sprinklers
so that will all be taken care of.
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Mr. Culver: That's correct.
Mr. LaPine: My question is on parking. On one side of the street there has to be no
parking because of the width of the road and the Fire Department has to
have access in there. Are the attached garages one car garages?
Mr. Culver: They are two car garages and they are slabed.
Mr. LaPine: So approximately four cars can park at each parcel. So there is no other
common area. Say someone was having a party with ten or twelve people.
What happens in a case like that?
Mr. Culver: They better invite their neighbors.
Mr. LaPine: A lot of these places have a common area. There is no clubhouse or
anything of that nature.
Mr. Culver: There is no clubhouse and no swimming pool.
Mrs. Koons to Mr.Nagy: Do we have other streets in this city that are this narrow and
have no parking
Mr. Nagy: We have other streets that are this narrow,or even narrower, such as
Merriman Woods condominiums on the west side of Merriman Road
south of Eight Mile Road, Bayberry Park north of Five Mile west of
Harrison.
Mrs. Koons: This property zoned R-2 could have taken 15 units?
Mr. Nagy: Correct. The maximum density permitted by ordinance would be 15.
From a practical standpoint, this seems to be the best balance.
Mr. McCann: If you read the minutes of the last meeting, I think you have done a nice
job with everything, but you have two problems. One,the City Fire
Department is going to require 45' turnaround and you may lose your
island. My other concern is, if you read the minutes, the northwest lot that
you are proposing has a 15' setback. What you will have is that the home
along Fairway is going to be facing the side of a house. That was a
concern of the neighbors at the time and basically it is very tight there.
Did you work out the numbers? Could you do this with 10 lots? It would
avoid the problem with the Fire Department and it would avoid the
problem of having the neighbors looking at a side house.
Mr. Culver: It would be very difficult to do with the 10. To be honest with you,this
situation that you are talking about here, although it may not be the most
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desirable, is not at all uncommon. You have the rear of a house facing the
side of another one in many cases where you have two streets intersecting,
you have one house facing the side of another. Mr.Nagy mentioned a
couple of developments, and I know of at least 3 more that I doubled
checked on myself personally. I realize it is not necessarily the most
desirable, but I don't think it is much different than the people in these
homes here looking at the backs of garages. Granted those homes were
there first, but the vision is the same. To eliminate a whole unit out of
there would make things difficult.
Mr. Nagy: The only thing that I would like to clarify regarding the Fire Department's
comment on the cul-de-sac, what they are saying is that if the landscaped
island is to remain within the cul-de-sac, then they need 45'. If they
remove that cul-de-sac, then the fire truck can go around and back up
through that area and proceed around. If they want that cul-de-sac within
their private drive, then to accommodate the fire truck, it needs to widened
to 45'.
James Borrusch, 14048 Fairway: I am lot 75. I am the one who circulated the petition. I
am against a road behind my backyard. It would give me a double
frontage lot. I am 96' on one side of the house with Fairway in front. I
am concerned about our children in the backyard. On 3/27/96 a similar
proposal was brought forward to the Planning Commission with 9 houses
and it was denied. Now they have 11. The former proposal was denied
because the right-of-way width did not meet the standards, and it still
doesn't. In fact this road is 2' less. The proposed preliminary plat will
have a detrimental effect on abutting properties. In the true spirit of
Livonia Planning Commission, it should be denied for the reasons stated
before. On 3/27/96 Mr. McCann said "I would like it to be known that the
Chair's position is that this is in compliance with all the ordinances,
however it is my position that it does not comply with all the standards of
the subdivision rules and regulations and subdivision control ordinances.
It does not comply with the open space ordinances and right-of-way
ordinances." And that berm is only 30' from my backyard and I worry
about the drainage into my backyard.
Eric Haupt, 14120 Fairway: My biggest concern with the property is the abutting road in
my backyard. I do not begrudge the property owner to build homes or
other structures on that property consistent with the City rules and
planning, but the original owner of that property chose to retain that
property. They chose to retain it knowing the building practices and plans
of the city, and subsequent buyers have done so with the intent of making
a profit in developing that property. While that is perfectly within their
right, I would request this council deny that petition because its use is
inconsistent with the practices and building of our subdivision. I too have
children, three of them, the youngest being 2 years old. I am very
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concerned about turning her loose in the backyard and having her fmd her
way into another street that is not in the front yard. I am sure that any
future owner of my home would be concerned with the same thing and
would make my house more difficult to sell to families who have young
children. It is my opinion that other uses for the property could be had if
the developers of the property were very serious about putting up homes
on that property, they could approach the owners of the homes on
Fairway, buy those homes, demolish them and build homes on that
property consistent with subdivision planning and the rest of the general
area.
Gerard Grysko, 35733 Middleboro: Over the years I have been impressed with the time
and attention Livonia has devoted to developing its property. Historically,
Livonia has been precise in its direction and clearly focused relative to
land development. In its development projects,the City of Livonia has
increased its tax base but not without regard to the people the city serves.
A few examples that come to mind are the old George Burns theatre site
and the vacant properties at 96 and Middlebelt. The city certainly has a
great deal to gain from the development of this property. The city has
clearly evaluated those proposals with regard to financial advantages,
esthetic considerations, as well as its overall value to the community as a
whole. When examining this proposal today, it is clear that the builder is
most interested in maximizing his property. If this development were in
the best interests of all parties concerned, I would not object, but this
proposal has innumerable requirements, including lot sizes, even rezoning
for condominiums which is not in the best interests of the existing
structures including the SMB Estates Subdivision. This proposal would
require a variance for the 26' road constructed behind existing homes
leaving these homes with a road in the front yard and the back yard.
These are not just lots that this road will abut, but they are homes with
some children. If this proposal passes, then we are telling these families
that money is more important than their investment in their homes and the
safety of their children. This land was purchased not as a resident, but
with the intent to build. It was the responsibility of this developer
This would also lead me to the question whether Culver Custom Homes
has previously built in Livonia. Mr. Culver, it is my understanding that
you intend to keep submitting proposals to develop this property until we
become tired of fighting. I understand that is what he told one of the
residents. I am not unreasonable, but until he can submit a proposal that
addresses these very serious issues, I will never sit back and let him
jeopardize the safety of those children and the investment of these homes.
Jerry Pfeifer, 14515 Ronnie Lane, President of the SMB Civic Association: Our
subdivision association covers approximately 436 homes between Five
Mile and Schoolcraft and incorporates the Biltmore Middlebelt and
Sunnyside subdivisions together. The proposed new plat would actually
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fit completely within the Biltmore Estates Subdivision. Our Board of
Directors met, discussed this plan as we did two years ago when you
unanimously voted to support the resolution to object to this particular
plan. In particular we don't think it fits into the general norms of the
subdivision developments in our surrounding area and meets the general
norms of the subdivision planning within the City of Livonia. In
particular, we have a major concern over the location of the private road to
be put in on the back side of the lots, in a sense sandwiching these existing
lots that were built many years ago, between two roads. This is not a
normal practice in the City of Livonia. We also have several concerns
over the existing utility lines that are behind the existing property right
now. These may be encroaching on the right-of-way where the road
would be put in. It might mean that all the utilities would have to be
moved and there might be some additional expenses incurred by the
existing home owners and disruption of the existing services. Also, when
you put in this berm, it may also disrupt the natural drainage in the
existing area. There is some concern that when you put in the road,the
elevation of it and the existence of the berm, what will happen to some of
the water drainage. Will this cause some potential flooding in the back
yards of some of the existing homes. One of the other major concerns we
have is the two story structure which would probably be the dominant type
of home put into this complex. This is not consistent with the normal
ranch style home completely surrounding the proposed plat layout. This
plat plan is very similar to what was proposed two years ago, except now
they have put in two more units, from 9 to 11, the road has been narrowed,
there is a little bit of manipulation on the turnaround, but there are still
safety issues concerning that. Just to reemphasize, I hope you take into
consideration all the concerns that have been expressed tonight by all the
residents and the concerns of the Civic Association and particularly how
that road will affect the back property lines of the existing home owners
there.
Mr. Piercecchi: Obviously, your Civic Association has looked into this quite
thoroughly. What suggestion do you have?
Mr. Pfeifer: That is a very difficult site to develop. I think that is the primary
responsibility of the people who want to develop the property. There are
all kinds of possibilities. I don't know if the City would be interested in
buying it for a park site or something like that. You might have to
purchase some of the existing homes and make another side street that
could go through that property and open it up. I realize that this is a very
difficult property to develop. Granted the property owner has the right to
do that, but at the same time, we have to honor and respect the existing
homeowners around there and their rights and not disrupt what they
bought.
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Mr. Piercecchi: I share that opinion myself. To the developer- Have you tried to
work at all with the people in that area to see what would be more
acceptable to them?
Mr. Culver: Yes. In fact I forwarded a copy of the letter or packet to your office that I
mailed out that detailed what our intent was to do with the property. It
included a copy of the site plan, the rendering of the two homes, and the
landscape rendering, the berm from three different views. Along with that
was incorporated a cover letter which gave them my name, address and
phone number stating that if they had any questions, or wanted to discuss
this in any greater detail, I would be happy to sit down and discuss it with
them. I heard from two. One was over the telephone and we had a rather
lengthily conversation and there was some constructive criticism that
came out of that having to do with landscaping that I told them I would
take into consideration. The other was in the form of an anonymous letter.
I did extend my hand. I did try to sit down with these people in the
neighborhood and talk to them. I didn't get much cooperation. I would
like to say we are trying to make it a very attractive, very stylish project,
that we can all be proud of and the changes that we made we feel are for
the better. We would try and maintain it in an appealing and desirable
fashion after I am gone. That's the reason for making it a condominium
project in the first place so that all of those grounds would be maintained
and there would be a certain standard set and maintained from this point
forward which is more than what is there now. As far as the site itself,
there are numerous sites in Livonia that are done in this same manner, so
this is not setting a precedent.
Mr. Piercecchi: They did bring up some legitimate concerns. One was the drainage
off of that berm into those back yards on lots 73 through 79.
Mr. Pfeifer: They will be graded and landscaped in such a way so that the runoff would
not go into their yard. It would flow around the berm or down to a catch
basin if there were a heavy rain. We do know there could be a problem if
not handled properly. That would be left up to the engineering firm doing
this project.
Mr. Piercecchi: Another point brought up was the easy access that the children that
abut that have of climbing over and approaching a street. Do you have an
idea how that could be addressed?
Mr. Pfeifer: I have walked those sites numerous times. I would like to point out, and I
know this isn't a cure-all, but every lot there, with the exception of two,
have chain link fences. The homeowners have taken it upon themselves to
put gates in those fences which they may want to close off if this passes.
In addition, that berm that we are proposing will be heavily landscaped.
That will be 3-1/2 to 4 feet high. Then you have our plantings which will
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be in addition to that, so you will have a minimum of 2 feet in height and
it will be densely planted. We plan on incorporating a rock scape as well
so it would be virtually impossible for a car to go through it.
Mr. Piercecchi: We are not concerned about a car, but kids going over it to the
road.
Mrs. Koons: Mr. Pfeifer, how many people sit on your Board of Directors?
Mr. Pfeifer: Twelve directors and four officers.
Mrs. Koons: Mr. Nagy, the people with 63 people signing it, was that from the Board of
Directors?
Mr. Nagy: General circulation in the area.
Mrs. Koons: The letter did not come together with the petition?
Mr. Nagy: No. They are mainly from Fairway Drive.
Mrs. Koons: So your 16 people are representing 436 homes?
Mr. Pfeifer: Yes.
There was no one else present wishing to be heard regarding this item and Mr. McCann,
Chairman, declared the Public Hearing on Petition 98-8-2-16 closed.
Mr. Hale: I would suggest that a tabling motion would be in order so that both sides
could come together to see if some of these issues could be addressed in
greater detail.
On a motion duly made by Mr. Hale, seconded by Mrs. Koons and approved, it was
#9-143-98 RESOLVED,that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held on
September 15, 1998 on Petition 98-8-2-16 by Dale T. Culver d.b.a. Culver
Custom Homes requesting waiver use approval to construct a detached
condominium project on property located on the north side of Schoolcraft
Road between Park Avenue and Fairway Drive in the SE 1/4 of Section
20,the City Planning Commission does hereby determine to table Petition
98-8-2-16 to September 29, 1998.
FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 19.05 of Zoning Ordinance
#543, as amended.
A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
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AYES: Piercecchi, Hale, Koons, McCann
NAYS: Alanskas, LaPine
ABSENT: None
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-8-2-
17 by Kole Zekaj requesting waiver use approval to remodel and expand an
existing building in connection with a proposal to operate a full service restaurant
on property located on the north side of Plymouth Road between Farmington and
Stark Roads in the SE 1/4 of Section 28.
Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
of the surrounding area.
Mr. Nagy: We have a letter from the Plymouth Road Development Authority dated
July 20, 1998. At the 75th Regular Meeting of the Plymouth Road
Development Authority held on June 4, 1998, the following resolution was
unanimously adopted: Resolved that, the Plymouth Rod Development
Authority does hereby support the concept plan for the renovation of the
restaurant at 34110 Plymouth Road provided that below the steel band on
the proposed new addition,full brick will be used and panel brick or
dryvit only where the existing footings would not support full brick, and
the entire area between the front building wall and sidewalk is to be
landscaped.. There is a letter from John Biggs of the Traffic Bureau dated
August 31, 1998 stating the Police Department has no objection to the site
plan as submitted. Another letter dated August 31, 1998 from Rockney
Whitehead, Fire Marshal, states the Fire Department has no objections to
this proposal. A letter from the Engineering Division states that the
Engineering Division has no concerns with regards to the proposed
construction. That is signed by John P. Hill, Assistant City Engineer. A
letter dates September 1, 1998 from David Woodcox of the Inspection
Department reads as follows: Pursuant to your request of August 16,
1998, the site plan for the above subject petition has been reviewed. The
following is noted 1) The site plan provides for only 2 barrier free
parking spaces where 3 barrier free parking spaces would be required. 2)
The traffic lane servicing the drive-up window is required to be 12' in
width. The site plan only provides 11'6"from curb to curb. 3) The drive-
up turning radius is required to be 15 feet. A 14'radius is provided on the
plan. 4) The elevations on sheets 7, 8 and 9 are opposite as shown (i.e.
East is West). 5) The petitioner has received a variance from the Zoning
Board of Appeals for the deficient front yard setback (Appeal Case #98-
8-106 is attached) I trust this has provided the requested information.
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With regard to the report from the Inspection Department,the plan has
been revised to address all those issues and they are now in compliance.
Kole Zekaj, 29714 Guy Street, Southfield, Michigan: I have been in business for 20
years with my family. We have acquired this property that was
abandoned. We are trying to make it as best as possible for the City of
Livonia. I think you have everything in front of you. It is going to be a
family type restaurant and a family type environment that will suit
everybody's needs. As far as the business is concerned, for fast traffic,
people can come in, go through the drive-thru, pick up their orders and
leave. When people have more time,they could come in, sit down in a
more suitable atmosphere with menus from liver and onions to
hamburgers and french fries. It is going to be a very, very suitable
atmosphere. I have the color renderings. My architect was sick and he
wasn't able to attend. We have tried to make it as beautiful as possible.
My architect did all of National Coney Islands and I think this one looks
even better than theirs.
Mrs. Koons: Do you have other restaurants in the area?
Mr. Zekaj: I have Legacy of Detroit at Seven Mile and Evergreen.
Mrs. Koons: Will your restaurant be called "Legacy" or"Legacy Coney Island"?
Mr. Zekaj: It is going to be "Legacy of Livonia". This is going to be the anchor store
that I am going to be franchising. I have Legacy of Detroit, now I am
trying to have Legacy of Livonia and so on and so on. I need this property
to look as best as possible being that this will be the anchor store.
Mr. Alanskas: On your rendering, on your dryvit, is that a red color?
Mr. Zekaj: No, sir.
Anton Zekaj, 29714 Guy St., Southfield: It is not going to be red. It is going to be off-
white or beige. The metal strip is going to be red or maroon. The brick is
going to be 10%or 15% darker than the dryvit color. We will try to
coordinate the two.
Mr. Alanskas: Your sign shows it is going to be Legacy Restaurant or Legacy of Livonia.
Which is it going to be?
Anton Zekaj: Legacy of Livonia restaurant.
Mr. Alanskas to Mr.Nagy: John, are they in compliance with the signage?
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Mr. Nagy: They were approved by the Zoning Board of Appeals for 38 sq.ft. as
shown on their rendering, "Legacy Restaurant".
Mr. Alanskas: They would never get Livonia in there with 38'.
Mr. Nagy: They would have to go back and amend their application.
Anton Zekaj: On the front side or the other?
Mr. Alanskas: On the south elevation.
Anton Zekaj: I'm sorry. I misunderstood. "Legacy Restaurant".
Mr. Alanskas: You are going to have another sign somewhere else saying "Legacy of
Livonia"?
Anton Zekaj: The ground sign will have that.
Mr. Alanskas: He is not in compliance with signage, is he John?
Mr. Nagy: He is going to reface the existing ground sign. Within the existing ground
sign panel he will replace that with"Legacy of Livonia". That is in
compliance as long as the cabinet is not made any larger.
Mr. Alanskas: It also says here that you can drive up and order whatever you are going to
order like McDonald's does?
Mr. Zekaj: Correct.
Mr. Alanskas: What percent of your sales are carryout at your other restaurants? I will
rephrase that. What percent at this restaurant are you looking for at this
restaurant?
Mr. Zekaj: I am targeting the factories where they have probably 25 minutes for
lunch. They can order their food on the telephone, or fax it in and drive to
the window and just pick up their order.
Mr. Alanskas: That should be a pretty good percentage of your business. What will your
hours be?
Mr. Zekaj: 6:00 AM to about 11:00 PM and on weekends, 12:00. Seven days a week.
Mr. Alanskas: Is there any neon on this building?
Mr. Nagy: Six feet of enclosed neon allowed by the Zoning Board of Appeals.
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Mr. Alanskas: You are only going to have 6' of neon for your entire building, is that
correct?
Mr. Zekaj: Yes.
Mr. Piercecchi: The pillars here, did I hear that panel brick is going to go in those
areas?
Mr. Nagy: We put in the recommendations that our recommendation be full brick.
Mr. Piercecchi: Where is the encased neon going to be?
Mr. Zakaj: In the front.
Mr. Piercecchi: Is there any reason you have to have that? We generally oppose
neon.
Mr. Zakaj: On our last meeting we had neon practically on every corner of the
building. We complied with the last meeting for 6'.
Mr. Alanskas: Is there any reason why you can't eliminate that?
t, Mr. Zakaj: The neon is a very big factor, especially since this will be the anchor store.
That will bring a great deal of beauty, especially with the environment
around and also to the building itself. I am not asking a great deal. It is a
limited portion just to give a little flare to the building and appeal to the
environment also. I have been in compliance with zoning. They told me
to have it encased. I have. I tried to tell them that Michaelangelo has a
vision in his head how the painting should be, but I can only put it in front
of you and hope that I can go ahead and try and build on it. The building
right now is abandoned. I have numerous problems with the property,
people throwing debris inside. I have right now cars that have been towed
away, couches I could probably sell to anybody right now. I am trying to
make this property as beautiful as possible.
Mr. Piercecchi: The bottom of your columns is brick, correct?
Mr. Zekaj: Correct.
Mr. Piercecchi: Above that is dryvit. Are you going to coat that with the special
product that is available now on dryvit to keep it from getting destroyed?
Anton Zekaj: Correct. We did our last building with dryvit. It is heavy duty. We took a
hammer and pound on it and it did not go through. We don't want our
building damaged either.
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Mr. LaPine: I am glad to see someone has bought that property. It has been abandoned
for a long time and this is going to be an improvement, but I have some
problems. You have on your plan, "menu board for drive-thru". Is this a
menu board where people come up and order from this board and then
drive through to pick up the order?
Mr. Zekaj: Correct. We have several products like coffee, beverages.
Mr. LaPine: They can call in their order, drive up and it is ready. Where is the window
where they can pick it up, how many cars can you stack?
Anton Zekaj: The entrance from Plymouth Road and go around. I would say over ten
cars could be stacked.
Mr. LaPine: You said they could call in or fax an order. They can pick up at the
window or go inside the building?
Mr. Zekaj: They can pick up from both sides of the building, or stay in line.
Mr. LaPine: That pick up board is open from 6:00 to 11:00 just like the restaurant?
Mr. Zekaj: I believe so for now. We don't know what the exact market is until you
get in. It will not be 24 hours or extended hours.
Mr. LaPine: John, I have a question about the free standing sign that is out there now.
Most of the signs that we have allowed in the past, we are trying to get
away from the high sign. If they only change the panel, we can't do
anything about that?
Mr. Nagy: That's true.
Ray Tent, 18051 Deering, Livonia: I didn't intend to talk, but I heard this petition and I
would like to make a couple of comments. The thing that disturbs me is
that for years we were against neon signs on our buildings here in Livonia.
I realize this is just a public hearing and you will probably refer this to
study. I would hope that you will take this into consideration. No neon on
the buildings. We don't want a circus town. The dryvit they are talking
about--remember the F&M drug store, Target drug store up at Grand River
and Farmington,they had the same thing on their columns. Now they
have reinforced their concrete. When you are talking about making
columns with dryvit, you can take all kinds of hammers and you are going
to break them up. You can take the tips of your shoes and break them up,
so I would look at that very cautiously. From what I gathered here, all we
have is this could be the color,this could be a portion of, it might be a
little darker than this. I think we should determine exactly what color they
are going to have on the building and how it is going to be striped, how it
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is going to look. We all remember the fiasco we had at Six Mile and
Newburgh with the great big red NBD bank. It certainly wasn't
compatible with Laurel Park. I would say color is very important.
Everything I've heard here is "we may", "we could", "we'll look at it",
and I think that before any action is taken by this body this should be all
firmed up. I would like to see this go to a study and get all the T's crossed
and all the I's dotted so that we will get a quality development. I am all
for this building being developed, but let's not hurry up and get it through
and have this thing look like a Chinese circus wagon.
Mrs. Nicholas Kobane: I have been in Livonia since 1960. 16957 Farmington Road. I
really don't care what color this restaurant is going to be. I tell you it is
going to look a lot better than concrete blocks, abandoned cars and rag
weed.
Mr. Zekaj: I don't even know this lady, but I will tell you one thing - she will have
her own booth. The colors are very, very, very important. I have to go
down to the brick factory where you can exactly match the colors. Once I
pick the colors, it is going to be permanent. I am not going to put
something flashy, something out of the ordinary because it is going to be
my business, my family, my sweat, and everything else around it. I'm not
just throwing something in there. I have taken this property and put a lot
of consideration into it, a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money. I
am not going to just throw something at your feet and say this is it. It is
my livelihood.
Mr. McCann: You would have no objection to bringing it in and showing it to the staff
before you go forward?
Mr. Zekaj: Absolutely. I am not exactly to the color scheme yet, but I will not give
you something that will be out of the ordinary where it is going to be blue
or dark blue or dark red or light green. It is going to be appropriate for the
environment.
Mr. LaPine: In all due respect to the petitioner, I have to agree with Mr. Tent. In all
other cases, we have asked the petitioner to bring in samples of colors, and
I don't think this is any different. I don't feel comfortable until I see what
I am getting. Therefore I will make a motion to table this until such time
as the petitioner brings in samples of the materials and colors he is going
to be using.
On a motion duly made by Mr. LaPine, seconded by Mr. Piercecchi and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-144-98 RESOLVED,that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the
City Planning Commission on September 15, 1998 on Petition 98-8-2-17
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by Kole Zekaj requesting waiver use approval to remodel and expand an
existing building in connection with a proposal to operate a full service
restaurant on property located on the north side of Plymouth Road
between Stark and Farmington Roads in the SE 1/4 of Section 28, the
Planning Commission does hereby determine to table Petition 98-8-2-17
to September 29, 1998.
FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 19.05 of Zoning Ordinance
#543, as amended.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. Hale: Also bring us samples of the neon.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-7-3-
4 by Cliff M. Alcantara requesting to vacate a portion of Harrison Avenue right-
of-way located north of Six Mile Road and west of Carol Drive and further in the
SE 1/4 of Section 12.
Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
of the surrounding area.
Mr. Nagy: We have a letter from the Engineering Department dated August 24, 1998
as follows: Pursuant to your request, the Engineering Division has
reviewed the above referenced petition. The Engineering Division has no
objection to the vacating of right-of-way at this time. However, because
there are overhead wires on the easterly portion of the right-of-way, we
believe the City should retain full rights of easement, not just the westerly
20'as requested. We trust that this will provide you with the information
requested. Respectfully, John P. Hill, Assistant City Engineer. We have a
letter from John R. Turner, Sr. Customer Energy Specialist of Consumers
Energy as follows: Consumers Energy has no gas main distribution
facilities in the area of the above street vacation located between Six Mile
Road and Carol Drive. We therefore have no objection to complete
vacation without easement retention. That is the extent of our
correspondence.
Cliff Alcantara, 28046 Six Mile Road: I would like to do some improvements to the area,
and maybe put in a new driveway and before investing all the money I
would like it to be considered mine.
There was no one else present wishing to be heard regarding this item and Mr. McCann,
Chairman, declared the Public Hearing on Petition 98-7-3-4 closed.
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On a motion duly made by Mr. LaPine, seconded by Mr. Hale and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-145-98 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held on
September 15, 1998 by the City Planning Commission on Petition 98-7-3-
4 by Cliff M. Alcantara requesting to vacate a portion of Harrison Avenue
right-of-way located north of Six Mile Road and west of Carol Drive and
further in the SE 1/4 of Section 12, the City Planning Commission does
hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 98-7-3-4 be approved
subject to the retention of a full width easement to protect existing public
utilities as recommended by the Engineering Division for the following
reasons:
1) That the subject right-of-way is no longer needed for public access
purposes;
2) That the subject right-of-way can be more advantageously used in
private ownership;
3) That vacating of the subject right-of-way will place the property
back on the City's tax rolls; and
4) That no reporting City department or public utility has objected to
the proposed vacating.
FURTHER RESOLVED,that notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 12.08.030 of the Livonia Code
of Ordinances.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-7-3-
5 by William&Lisa Flinchum requesting to vacate a portion of Oporto Avenue
right-of-way located west of Melvin Avenue between Morlock and Norfolk
Avenues in the NE 1/4 of Section 2.
Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
of the surrounding area.
Mr. Nagy: We have a letter from Consumers Energy dated September 11, 1998
stating that Consumers Energy has no gas main distribution facilities in
the area of the above street vacation, located between Melvin and Morlock
Avenues. We therefore have no objection to complete vacation without
easement retention. That is signed by John R. Turner, Sr. Customer
Energy Specialist. We also have a letter from the Engineering Division of
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September 9, 1998 (indicating that this is a revision for their letter of
August 24, 1998)as follows: Pursuant to Mr. William Flinchum's request
and based upon preliminary design for the development of Oporto Avenue
as a dead-end cul-de-sac coming up from Norfolk Avenue, the
Engineering Division wishes to say the Engineering Division has no
objections to the proposed vacating provided 1) Full rights of easements
are retained for the purpose of placing water main. 2) The adjacent
homeowner, William Flinchum,places no fence or landscaping in the
vacated Oporto right-of-way prior to the road project south of him being
completed or withdrawn. 3) Mr. William Flinchum agrees the City will
not be responsible for replacement of any objects placed in the right-of-
way, should it occur. That is signed by John P. Hill, Assistant City
Engineer. That is the extent of our correspondence.
William Flinchum, 30063 Morlock, Livonia: We bought the home on a dead-end street
for the wild life and trees and how beautiful it is. This cul-de-sac that is
going to go in, this is the second thing that's been proposed behind us for a
sub site and this will give us peace of mind that a road cannot go through
to Morlock.
Mrs. Koons: John, I have a question about what you just read-no fence and landscaping.
Mr. Nagy: We will put that as conditions in our recommendation.
Mr. Piercecchi: John, do you thing we are acting a little too quickly on that? Do
you think it would be wiser to wait until the street was in until we decide
whether it would be appropriate to vacate this property?
Mr. Nagy: The prior letter from the Engineering Division indicated that they felt that
at that time vacating the road right-of-way prior to the actual cul-de-sac
being constructed was premature, but based upon further review of the
matter,the Engineering Division is now satisfied so long as they have the
full width easement and that they do not place any fences or that the
Flinchum's take advantage of that vacation and occupy that space prior to
the road,then they would be willing to allow it to go forward. I think
Engineering shares your concern, but they are satisfied based upon the
meeting and the understanding they've reached with the Flinchum's. It
can go forward so long as the water main is not in jeopardy.
Mr. McCann: John, as part of the vacation can we restrict the building on the property
and development of the property as the departments agreed. A verbal
agreement is one thing, but is there any kind of deed restriction we can
quote?
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Mr. Nagy: Again, we are retaining an easement so that permanent structures cannot
be built because of that water main. You can't put a garage or shed or any
kind of out building, or part of their home on any part of it.
Pam Pokornicki, 31641 Bobrich, Livonia: I am a landowner on Oporto also and our
major concern, and the other landowners on Oporto is about the vacating
is that the request for improving Oporto Avenue is a bigger issue than
simply just vacating. We have 12 lots along Oporto that all the owners
that own the lots on Oporto want to build on and we proposed that cul-de-
sac idea to kind of answer all the people involved problems. If the people
on the end don't want to have a building or an access to Oporto,then that
is fine, we are all ok about vacating, but we are not willing to accept
vacating it before we can work with Oporto. We want to be able to build
our homes on Oporto. We need access, but we are afraid if we allow the
vacating ahead of time, then something can happen with Oporto because
things happen once things are locked up like that. With regard to Oporto,
all the landowners on the west are willing to deed and give to the City of
Livonia land for that right-of-way and there is quite a bit of land between
all of us. We are going to pay quite a bit for our share of that road if
everything goes as we are hoping. We have been patiently waiting our
proposed request for that since May all of us 12 lot owners on Oporto and
we are waiting for it to go through its motions and we know the City is
busy with all other more important things, and this vacating is too
premature because we requested to further look into that cul-de-sac idea
and improvement of Oporto in May. We are not opposed to vacating
whatsoever. It is fine, then they'll be happy, we'll be happy, we'll all be
happy, but if you tie it up first then we are setting it up for possible
problems for all of us. We would ask that you consider the concerns of
the 12 lot owners on that road and recommend that the vacating be
contingent upon the development of Oporto. We are for it, but we are for
it upon Oporto being able to be worked in like that.
Steve Pokornicki, 31641 Bobrich: We plan to build two homes for our family members
there as soon as possible, Again, we are in favor of it,the vacating
contingent upon a concrete plan of development for that road and a cul-de-
sac before we close that off being available to the Engineering Department
or any of our building plans that we have.
Sonja Styles, 20224 Purlingbrook, Livonia: I am one of the petitioners for the road to go
through on the west side of Oporto. I have property on the west side of
Oporto. I am not opposed to vacating the property at the end of Oporto for
Mr. Flinchum, but I would really request that the Livonia Planning
Commission hold that until you review our petition regarding our road
being put through and the cul-de-sac. I would hate to see something
started and making a final agreement to vacate and then something
happening down the road where we could not get to the back of our lot. I
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have no access to my property at this time. I live at the front of 20224
Purlingbrook. The vacant lot back there, we eventually want to for my
son or daughter build on there and of course we cannot do that without a
road. I am willing to deed the necessary property over to the people to the
City to put the road through and of course pay for share. Again, I am not
opposed to the vacating, but we do have another petition and I would
seriously like you to look at the overall picture.
Steve Smigulec, 20325 Melvin: I own lots 155, 179, 180 and 181. I do have a garage on
181which backs up to Oporto. As of right now we are landlocked because
of the barricade there. Four years ago when we bought the property, I had
access to it and now I don't. As stated before, we are going with another
proposal that way the gentleman can have his thirty feet there, but until
that time I really would object to actually having it done. As I said, I can't
even get to my garage.
Mr. Flinchum:The discussion I had with John Hill,just to make clear, there would not be
any development to this land until it was completed or withdrawn with this
cul-de-sac. Also on top of that, if I am not wrong here, this road is not
improved which means there is no access to anybody through there. It has
been denied. We have also talked with all of our neighbors and if we did
know if it was right or wrong we said there was no problem if they needed
to get to anything if they had to right now versus taking the barricade
down. The road isn't improved right now so it has been denied for them
to have access to anything that they need to come down to Oporto for right
now.
There was no one else present wishing to be heard regarding this item and Mr. McCann,
Chairman, declared the Public Hearing on Petition 98-7-3-5 closed.
Mr. LaPine to the petitioner: Why do you need this now? Can't we wait until such time
as these people have their petition heard for the road? It is not going to
change your petition as far as I can see.
Mr. Flinchum:There are two things. First of all there is peace of mind and second this
has a big persuading way in some PMI we are waiting for. We are
remortgaging.
On a motion duly made by Mr. Piercecchi, seconded by Mr. LaPine and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-146-98 RESOLVED,that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held on
September 15, 1998 by the City Planning Commission on Petition 98-7-3-
5 by William&Lisa Flinchum requesting to vacate a portion of Oporto
Avenue right-of-way located north of Six Mile Road and west of Carol
Drive and further in the SE 1/4 of Section 12,the City Planning
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Commission does hereby determine to table Petition 98-7-3-5 until
October 13, 1998.
FURTHER RESOLVED,that notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 12.08.030 of the Livonia Code
of Ordinances.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. LaPine: I am curious to the people who have the petition on the road, do you have
any idea when this is supposed to come forward?
Mr. Nagy: Since this is going to be a special assessment, it is handled between
Engineering and City Council. I do attend most of those meetings and I
don't think it has been given a hearing date yet.
Mrs. Pokornick: John Hill of Engineering was working on the figures to present back to
the petitioners of that road so then we can sign and deed that property over
so then he could move it to the next step. We have been waiting for that
process.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-7-1-
16 by Ward Evangelical Presbyterian Church requesting to rezone property
located on the southeast corner of Six Mile and Farmington Roads in the NW 1/4
of Section 15 from RUFC to C-2.
Mr. Miller presented a map showing the property under petition plus the existing zoning
of the surrounding area.
Mr. McCann: I received approximately 9 letters which I forwarded to the Planning
Department to make sure they do have copies of them. I asked all the
Planning Commissioners if they have any additional letters. John can
summarize the gist of the letters without spending an hour and half reading
them before we start. They will be put as part of the recommendation and
forwarded to the City Council.
Mr. Nagy: We have a letter from the Engineering Department dated August 17, 1998
stating the Engineering Division has no objections to the proposal at this
time. That is signed by David Lear, Civil Engineer 1. We also have 30
letters from residents opposing this rezoning, plus 2 petitions with 27
signatures opposing the petition. I will read the petition. Re: Rezoning
application for southeast corner of Farmington and Six Mile. We live in
Nottingham Woods, within a mile of Six Mile and Farmington. We are
totally against rezoning the corner in question especially for another
unneeded grocery store and strip mall. Farmer Jack could not stay in
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business one mile north of Six Mile (in the Kmart shopping center).
Danny's is in Chapter Eleven. Stan's market, one mile south, is barely
holding its doors open. Three grocery stores located at Five Mile and
Merriman folded after Chatham went out of business. Traffic congestion
now at Six Mile and Farmington is backed up two streets to get through
the light at the peak of traffic. Why can't we at least keep the Farmington
Road area--close to city hall, court and the police department--a more
dignified area of Livonia? Two miles south of City hall on Farmington
Road we have lovely offices, houses, etc. We wish the same for our
prestigious neighborhood and professional city buildings. Don't we have
enough vacant stores in the adjoining strip malls? Let's keep this part of
Livonia professional looking. Let us leave Livonia a beautiful city, not an
unending chain of strip malls that within a few years after their creation,
become a string of failed businesses and vacant eye sores.
Tom Litzler, Director of Real Estate for Farmer Jack, Detroit: For the record, we are the
petitioner and Ward is the owner and that is how we filed the application
in conjunction with Ward. I also have my architect and planners here
tonight who will briefly give you an idea of what my intentions are after I
give my statements. As part of Farmer Jack's ongoing research and
merchandising plan, we evaluate our position in any given market place.
We have stores in Livonia, we have stores in neighboring communities.
What interests us about this site is that we can put a first class facility on
this site similarly to what we built in Northville without affecting or
having to close any of our other stores in Livonia. I think that is
important. We are not here to challenge the City's Master Plan. We are
not here to challenge a traffic issue. We are here to request zoning,
period. In the spirit of cooperation, we have met with the neighbors and
we will continue to meet with the neighbors in an attempt to facilitate this
process as quickly as possible. Our intention is to preserve all the
landscaping around the Ward church, in fact beef it up, add walls, add
fences, to do whatever we can to screen and make our potential presence
on the site as palatable as possible. We can do this in a number of ways.
We intend to build a first class facility here using brick and copper to
compliment the existing structure that is on the site and not come in with
something the committee might find gaudy or appalling. We want a free
standing situation. We don't intend to come in and have a video outlet
and a restaurant outlet, but maintain this in a first class manner with just
ourselves on the site. This would be self developed by Farmer Jack. We
would be responsible for it. We wouldn't have a third party developer
coming in here who is going to make promises to a community and then
turn around and lease the facility to us and then leave the situation. We
would own this facility. We know there are some concerns out there about
traffic. We have just conducted a traffic impact study and we believe we
can improve the traffic situation and work on some situations with the
County. We do have stores in the area and have no intention of closing
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any of our stores in the area. This would be to build a first class facility
similar to what we have in Northville. We don't have a store like that in
Livonia. When the time is appropriate we would certainly be willing to
talk about hours of operation, about site considerations that will make our
presence as palatable as possible. With those comments being made, I
would like to turn the podium over to Mike Ray, my architect, who can
show you a few pictures.
Mr. Alanskas: You said you had a traffic study. Was that presented to the Planning
Commission?
Mr. Litzler: No, it was not.
Michael Rein, Bowers and Rein, 3915 Research Park Drive, Suite A-4, Ann Arbor: You
were at that informal meeting we held with the neighbors at the church
and one of the things that came up that evening was traffic, and rightfully
so because it is a big concern. We at that juncture had the traffic
engineering firm of Goodell-Grivas prepare a study. We literally picked it
up this morning.
Mr. Alanskas: We are here to possibly make a decision and we don't know what that
traffic study says.
Mr. Rein: I understand that and we tried to expedite it as quickly as possible. Let me
back up a little bit. The gentleman raised a good point when he said this is
about rezoning rather than a Farmer Jack itself because as the Planning
Commission knows, and what I think his point was, if this were successful
any commercial use could come in here which is why it is so important
that Farmer Jack is so prominently involved here. With any kind of
rezoning, it means a transition or a change for the neighborhood. There is
a lot of concern now that there is an institution such as Wards that has
been in Livonia for 25-30 years is now going away. Not everyone did get
used to them dominating the corner of Six Mile and Farmington. The
reason that this is a valuable corner is that this is such a solid community.
I spent 26 years here. My parents still live at Plymouth and Middlebelt.
They are watching tonight. In fact I told my dad to keep the car running
on the side here. He told me I was on my own. It is important to know
that we are trying to work with the community. We realize that this is not
an easy thing to adjust to. Ward went from a 70,000 sq.ft. facility to a
210,000 sq.ft. facility in Northville. The mixed blessing is that they didn't
try and do it right here at this corner. A lot of things that came up at the
meeting with the neighbors was traffic. Also they felt that there were too
many grocery stores in the area. We took a look at that and prepared this
drawing. These are full service grocery stores. The interesting thing
about this, and one of the reasons it is so valuable, is that it is literally right
in the geographical center of the City. There's 100,000 or so people in
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this community, we are drawing from Farmington Hills with 80,000
people, from Redford with another 50,000. Between I-275 and I-96 there
must be a couple hundred thousand that travel through this city on a daily
basis. In a nutshell, that is why they want to be here. It is a solid
community, it is a good place to work and live. Let's talk about the
competition. We have everything from a Farmer Jack to a Kroger off
Eight Mile, Stan's was mentioned, a Danny's close to us, a brand new
Busch's going in. I would like to point out two case projects that is really
the strength of the market here. One of the concerns of the neighbors was
that there were too many. With this type of population, When Food
Emporium decided to locate in a different area,Busch's took down the
golf shop and Wing Yee's and expanded there. Another recent change is
the introduction of the Westborn Market, right next to the Farmer Jack at
Five and Middlebelt. This is Westborn's third store. They are a specialty
market out of Dearborn. They replaced another institution, Thomas'
Nursery. They were there forever. It is important to locate and keep in
mind these full service grocery stores, again in relation to the residential.
You can see the large area in Livonia that is in fact zoned residential, and
that is what these grocery stores are feeding on. They count on this
market, they count on the traffic, they count on the various different
communities. That's why this property is valuable. The reality is that
Ward's plans have been known for a while. Because they have been
known for a while, there have been different interests shown by the other
churches, other non-profit organizations, but because of the prime location
and the asking price, those other interested parties have not been able to
reach an arrangement with Ward Presbyterian. This brings us to Farmer
Jack's petition, a commercial petition. I think it is important to keep in
mind that this is a commercial petition because we have to start thinking
about what is going to become of Ward's site. There's been a lot of
articles in the local papers. This Observer newspaper came out and said
this should be residential. The problem with residential, especially with
an RUF district,those are half acre lots. On an 8 acre site with a road, you
are only talking about 12 to 14 lots, and this parcel is between$4-5
million. You simply can't justify a residential use in that small of a scale.
So then you are talking about multiple family, perhaps office. Either way
we are inching closer to commercial. An important consideration is that
this has been off the tax rolls. If it were to come on and be successfully
rezoned to commercial, Livonia would benefit from the highest tax base
possible under a commercial designation. It is important also to note all
the commercial corridors in Livonia. Seventy-five percent of the corners
in Livonia are zoned commercial. Now that is a double-edged sword. The
double-edge is that you don't need another corner zoned commercial, but
the other side of that is that there is a reason they are zoned commercial.
Because of the traffic generated, a solid residential base and the amount of
the citizens who live in this area and shop in this area. It is quite a bit of
commercial activity as you can see. Seventy-five percent of the corners
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are already zoned commercial, this subject property couldn't be more
geographically located, and that means it is geographically located to a
number of houses. One of the things we tried to point out to the neighbors
is that this is a work in progress. If we should be successful in the
commercial rezoning, we would love to go over this in more detail. I
would like to point out that we are planning on saving the large
landscaped areas at the corner of Six Mile and Farmington. We are saving
the corner closest to the neighbors in the opposite corner. The Ward
church took up quite a bit of impervious surface. It was a large, spread-
out building. Because of that building, it is going to be very tough to
develop. I can show elevations to the Planning Commission, but I'll cut
my presentation short. We are available for any questions the Planning
Commission might have.
Robert Thompson, 16832 Bell Creek Lane, for 30 years: I apologize to the Commission
for making any previous interruptions, but I felt it necessary to state an
objection early. After listening to this presentation of Farmer Jack, I am
reminded of a quotation by Henry David Thoreau: "If someone comes to
you with your best interests at heart, run for your life". My opinion is that
not only should our neighbors, but this commission, should run for our life
away from this petition. I have several reasons to give you why this is so.
First of all, the petitioner, who is really Ward Church contrary to what has
been stated, only approved the petition by the Law Department as of
yesterday. It was a petition by Ward Church, not Farmer Jack.
Nevertheless, the petition should provide this Board and the people of
Livonia with sound, rational reasons for making any kind of a zoning
change, especially a zoning change that seeks to change it from residential
to commercial. The statute is clear, we all know that. For example, this
statute says that this body is supposed to make policy which promotes the
public welfare. It is to promote a wholesome and attractive city. It is to
promote safety and security of home life. It is to enhance property and
civic values. As I listened to the presentation here, Farmer Jack comes
before us and they say something like we want to rezone the property.
Give me a reason why we should have this property rezoned. If Farmer
Jack or Ward Church presented any possible public interest reason for
subject this to a rezoning request? Have they promoted any wholesome
serviceable, attractive city? Is that in their interest? Are they interested in
stabilizing and enhancing the property values of our homes? I haven't
heard any of those reasons. There's more. I believe the people of this city
have a right to rely upon developed properties in their neighborhoods.
You have a Master Plan and in my judgment the only way a Master Plan
can be changed is if there is a compelling interest that is in the public
interest to do so. I haven't heard a single reason. Let me comment on
their claim that somehow the tax rolls will be increased. Members of this
commission, this is an illusory subject. Any tax increase that would result
from a rezoning from RUFC to C-2 is going to be more than offset by the
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petitions of 100 to 200 homes in the surrounding area who will
undoubtedly seek reduction in their taxes because their home values have
been declining. In summary, I urge you to reject this petition for the
reasons stated. Don't rezone, we value our homes.
Lorraine Kornegger, 16927 Surrey: I have lived here for 25 years and have contended
with traffic and congestion on Sundays. Now we are being asked to
contend with this traffic 7 days a week for no good purpose. There are 4
Farmer Jack stores within 1 mile of that corner. We don't need another
one. I would also like to point out that the $5 million appraisal value is
based on commercial zoning.
Mr. McCann: That's an estimate Ward put on the property, not the Planning
Commission.
Mrs. Kornegger: If it is not rezoned commercial, it is not worth$5 million. Perhaps
another church can pay what it is worth. One of the councilwomen stated
that we had an obligation to buy that property for$5 million and we
objected to it. I don't think it is worth$5 million.
Ed Moross: I represent Remerica Realtors and I am representing an organization that is
very interested in purchasing the church as a church. In regards to the
architect's comments that no one was coming in with a legitimate offer,
we were very close on the price and terms for the church until some
developer came in with something more agreeable to them.
Mr. McCann: Can you tell us what organization you represent?
Mr. Moross: I can tell you it is called PSS. It's a long name on all three initials. It is a
Hindu organization and I can tell you that when they do build churches,
they are in the process of building one in Chicago right now for$50
million, and it is an international organization. In London, England, they
built one that is over$120 million and it is on tour at all times. So when
they do build something, it is for the people. In regards to congestion on
the corner,the organization at this time is approximately 50 families, so I
don't think that will add to the congestion problem. We have withdrawn
our last offer, but the church organization is still interested in it. The
members are from the area, from Canton, Livonia, Plymouth and
Northville.
Mr. LaPine: Did you make an offer to Ward's?
Mr. Moross: Yes, I did.
Mr. LaPine: If you can build a$50 million church, you can pay whatever Farmer Jack
is asking for that property.
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Mr. Moross: The commercial value is what they are shooting for and we came in with
what we thought was a legitimate offer to start with. We went back and
forth several times until we came to a point, but they didn't want to go
with a land contract. From then on the developer came in obviously with
a deal better than ours.
Mr. LaPine: So you are saying your organization is still interested in buying it?
Mr. Moross: Definitely.
Mr. Piercecchi: Are you planning on tearing it down and building a new one?
Mr. Moross: No. Just doing cosmetic work. There are different parts to the buildings
ranging from 1969 to 1979, so the inside needs some cosmetic work.
Other than that there are no plans to do anything to the exterior.
Mr. Piercecchi: When you build a church, you must have some people who want to
occupy this church. Who are these people?
Mr. Moross: It is a Hindu organization. Since the facility is so large, they would also
rent off space if the community needed to use classrooms, or if the
community needed to use gymnasium. They would have no problem
leasing it out to accommodate Livonia.
Joe Saylor, 32924 Bobrich Ct., Burton Hollow Woods: I attended the City Council
hearing last week where the Mayor himself recognized the problem with
traffic on Sunday morning. Sunday morning traffic is OK though because
it's people going to church and we need more of that. As the lady before
me mentioned, we are opening ourselves up to traffic for a 60,000 sq.ft.
store, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. What does that do to the kids who
are walking to Stevenson High School, or other schools in the area? No
one has shown a reason why this should be rezoned. I have lived in
Livonia for three years. I moved here because I liked the city. I like what
you guys have done with it. It's a great city to live in, don't change it.
Another point, we have Danny's right at Six Mile and Farmington. A
businessman who has been in business for awhile. Farmer Jack's would
put him out of business immediately. He's been paying taxes for years
and he is an established part of the community. We are going to drive him
out to put someone new in. If this area is rezoned, there is no guarantee
that Farmer Jack is going to stay there. What is going to keep Farmer Jack
two years down the road from leaving and selling to whoever they want to
as long as it is commercial property. I wonder if Farmer Jack's counsel
made the same promise to Farmington's residents in the area where the
Farmer Jack is now closed. If my camera had been working, I would have
shown you pictures of an empty building where weeds are now growing.
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Also,the Council talked of a transition time that we would serve in the
neighborhood. Well, we are the neighborhood and we don't want it.
Council also talked of"we" as if we are a group. When he shuts his
briefcase and goes home at night to wherever he lives, we stay there. This
is where I live. He's making plans for where I live and telling us we are
going to do this? No. We is non-existent here. It is me and the neighbors
you see here.
Bruce Genga, 16750 Farmington Road: I am the first house south of the church. One of
the problems that we have had throughout this whole thing, there is a time
factor. Our time has been very short. We just found out about this the
second of August. We kind of threw together a petition drive and I have
not submitted it yet and I would like to know if I can submit it at this
point. We have had a number of people who have worked very diligently
on this. I have here the signatures of more than 1100 residents of Livonia,
but also a sheet filled up with Ward Presbyterian Church members who
are also opposed to this rezoning.
Mrs. McCann:Absolutely. Pass it over to Mr. Nagy to read the caption and we will
verify the number of signatures and put it into the record.
Mr. Nagy: "We, the undersigned, do petition the Livonia Planning Commission and
the City Council to deny petition#98-7-1-16. Specifically, we stand
opposed to the rezoning of the property located on the south east corner of
Farmington Road and Six Mile from RUFC (residential) to C2
(commercial). In support we offer concern in one or more of the
following areas: 1. We do not need another grocery store in the area. 2.
Rezoning will compound traffic congestion. 3. Noise and light pollution.
4. The city's master plan provides adequate commercial property. 5.
Rezoning will diminish residential quality of life. 6. Additional
individual concerns."
Mr. McCann: If you would like to put this in the record, it will not prevent you from
obtaining more signatures when you go to City Council, but this will
become a part of the official record this evening and be passed on to
Council with the minutes of this evening.
Mr. Genga: So that people understand, our conflict is not with Farmer Jack per se, we
are being shown a plan here to propose a major change in our community.
I moved to Livonia four years ago and one of the reasons we moved was
because we liked the area. We also liked the idea of having a church as
our neighbor. Now this is all being changed which is not in accordance
with the Master Plan. You can drive down almost any main street in
Livonia and you see strip mall after strip mall, and half of these places
aren't filled, and I find myself wondering when we have this much
commercial property that is not being filled, why do we want to rezone
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property that is zoned for residential and make it commercial. Also is this
going to be setting a precedent for the City of Livonia? Is this going to be
happening wherever people decide they want to make commercial
property? We could certainly use some answers. I would also like to
thank everyone who worked so hard on this petition drive.
Kathleen Nemecek, 32815 Six Mile Road. We have lived there since 1973. I have
watched Six Mile Road go from a two lane, to a four lane, to a five lane so
I remember what that is like. I have watched all along Six Mile being
developed. When I walked to Stevenson High School, Francavilla
Subdivision was not even built yet. So we have seen progress, and
progress is good for the most part. However, I don't see the need for
another grocery store or any other commercial development on that
corner. A perfect example tonight for traffic reasons, I waited for three
lights to get out of the Danny's supermarket to get on to Six Mile to go
home because traffic is so heavy. When they put in 275 and they put that
entrance to Six Mile, they did not put one on Five Mile and we are getting
all the traffic, all the people getting on and off 275. A Farmer Jack or any
other commercial development that is open 24 hours a day in that corner?
You think that is not going to create traffic which raises a question Mr.
McCann, did Mr. Nagy indicate that the only city inspection was the
engineering department? The Police and Fire did not respond?
Mr. McCann: John, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think we forward to them on a
zoning change, do we?
Mr. Nagy: By policy we send rezoning notices only to Engineering for a legal
description.
Ms. Nemecek: So the traffic issue, as far as the Planning Commission is involved, is not
addressed.
Mr. McCann: We look at it ourselves. As to whether the individual departments respond
and send a statement for or against, I can't comment as to why we didn't
get anything on this particular issue, but again, this is a zoning change, not
a site plan.
Ms. Nemecek:The traffic study that was provided tonight, would that be available in the
record, or as part of the record tonight?
Mr. McCann: That will be available at the City Planning Department for review.
Ms. Nemecek:One last thing. People mentioned supermarkets. We do have a
supermarket at Six and Inkster. We have a supermarket at Six and
Farmington and now we are going to have Busch's. I would prefer not to
live on a street that is known as the Avenue of Supermarkets.
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Debbie Sotzen, 18672 Sunset, Livonia: I have a different reason from most of the people
here. I live near Seven Mile and Merriman. I would like Farmer Jack to
come to Seven Mile and Middlebelt. We are in the area that is the most
concentrated with young families, it is concentrated with starter homes. It
is proven in the elementary schools if you checked the school district that
we have 21 elementary schools. In that area is Coolidge Elementary. It is
the second largest elementary school. Marshall, which is near Ward
Presbyterian is the least populated. If Farmer Jack were really wise, it
would look in the area most wanted. I would be more than happy to get a
petition together of people that would love to have Farmer Jack on that
corner where Builder's Square was. I have lived in Livonia for ten years.
I have been very involved in that corner before even Builder's Square was
built. We went to Council regarding Builder's Square. We knew Kmart
was in hock with Builder's Square. There is really a need for a grocery
store. We really need a grocery store, and if Farmer Jack really needs a
place, that is the place to be and it would solve the problem of having a
vacant lot. I want to remind you of what happened on Five Mile and
Merriman with Kroger and LaRose, and after LaRose went out of
business, we got two other grocery stores that went out of business
because of that competition. I am sure Danny's and Farmer Jack would
have the same story. Also,I am a member of St. Aidan's Church which is
also a neighbor of Ward Presbyterian. I am not sure if the Association
has been approached, but since Plymouth and the Canton area have been
successful in getting a Catholic school for the first time in two decades in
the metropolitan area, and since there is a high population of Catholics in
this area, I would like to see if Fr. Norocki could see if a petition could be
put together to see if we could have a Catholic school over at Ward
Presbyterian.
Manson Taylor, 33630 Grove: The first sign of urban blight is when you tear down a
church. I am a member of Presbyterian Church USA of which Ward was
a member. If Ward were now a member of Presbyterian Church USA, the
presbytery would own the church and this would not happen. However,
about twenty years ago, Ward left the presbytery and paid the presbytery
for its church. With that money, we gave it to missions. Now I want you
to know that Ward said we are not Presbyterian USA, we are evangelical
Presbyterians. So I wrote a letter to Ward about it and I believe their
session meets tomorrow night. I propose that they assign a minister to
Ward Church and take some of the members of which they say they have
petitions that are in Livonia and have these members and ministers run the
church and build it up and have a big Livonia Ward Presbyterian church.
When I see that,I will believe they are an evangelical church.
tie Richard Hay, 16512 Farmington Road between Five and Six Mile: I watched that church
grow. We keep talking about the traffic in that area. Did we worry about
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it when they keep building on to the church? I am here because I believe
it should be rezoned. I have heard these guys say they have lived in
Livonia for twelve years, I have heard them say they have lived here three
years, I have heard them say I have lived in it four years. I have lived here
38 years. I have watched Livonia grow. I was a young man when I came
here. I watched Danny's go in there. I watched that church being built. I
was a builder in this town. The Building Department didn't turn away all
the building. They weren't thinking about the traffic. If you go down
Farmington Road in the last two or three days, I don't see the paving they
propose. I come down in the left hand lane to turn into my home, it is like
riding in the Smokey Mountains. All I hear is "we are going to do
something". I believe that rezoning that would not hurt in any way. We
all keep talking about the stores that close. Think of yourself when you
shop. Where do you shop? You shop in the big Super Ks, you shop in the
big supermarkets. You won't have a chance to shop at Danny's because it
is in Chapter 11. You are going to have to go to another store. I believe it
should be rezoned because it would help everyone around there. You
have Six Mile Road, you have Farmington Road that are the only ones
exposed to traffic. If you put a buffer wall with the proper landscaping, I
don't mean two little bushes stuck up there and called landscaping, I am
talking about trees on the east side of that parking lot. How many homes
back up to that parking lot? I go down that road all the time. There's
maybe two homes. I believe it should be zoned commercial because
everything around there is going to be commercial in time. Think about it.
When I told you I have lived there for 38 years, I have seen the zoning
change from Five Mile south, I have seen the zoning from Six Mile to
Seven Mile. You talk about churches—I think we have enough churches
around there. Look at Six Mile—you have churches all around there.
Look at Farmington Road, you have churches there. I go to church. Quit
trying to blame it on the kids and the traffic and think about it realistically.
It is time Livonia took some of these properties and put them back on the
tax rolls. I have heard about the Mai Kai, I've heard about Bentley High, I
have heard about this church, put some of this property back on the tax
rolls so that we don't have to worry about paying taxes for land that
Livonia owns. I believe that if Farmer Jack moves in there, it will put
millions of dollars back on the tax rolls of Livonia.
James Rumon, 16693 Bell Creek Lane: The balloons are representation of the empty
commercial properties that are in the city which is approximately 30% at
this moment. As you can see now in the auditorium, we have
representation here of 96 balloons and we will have a few other empty
commercial properties which would be Danny's, possibly Arbor Drugs
and probably the Farmer Jack located at Five Mile and Newburgh Road. I
need to point out that I live fairly close to this property. I am the newest
one on the block. There are good neighbors and friends in that area.
(ipe Basically, I bought that piece of property for the safety of my family. It is
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a nice undeveloped area, it is peaceful and quiet. I have spent a lot of
money that I thought was deserving for that kind of house, and I would
hate to see something like that go in when we have such a fine building
such as Ward church that is there. It is a useful building that still have a
use and purpose in life.
Robert Walters, 16219 Alpine: I am with the Burton Hollow Civic Association. As a
Board member, we submitted a letter earlier from our vice-president. We
took a poll in the last seven to ten days of our active membership, and
85% are against this petition, 10% are undecided and 5% said yes. We
believe that from our poll and based upon what was said tonight,the
majority are against this and it is not in the best interests of the residents of
that area.
Mr. McCann: Your letter will be made a part of the record.
Kurt Kinde, 16556 Bell Creek: We have been blessed over the last couple of weeks
having first an initial meeting with the Bell Creek folks in our home to
discuss the rezoning option. Because of the high interest there, it was
moved to a nearby church with about 80 people. Throughout this process,
I think two things have happened. Initially, a number of people kept
sharing the feeling that it was a done deal, that people who can draft
beautiful drawings, the attorneys that can formulate the appropriate papers
are all on line, and we as citizens could do nothing. My effort from the
get-go was to thwart that plan because I do believe in the process.
Coming here this evening has confirmed my belief. I appreciate your
willingness and openness to hear our point of view and take so much time.
I admire the dedication that city officers bring to their job. The one thing I
would like to communicate is the height and breadth of the sentiment in
the community. We have been the recipient of incessant phone calls,
people saying "don't tell anyone, but I believe very strongly.....". People
are very shy, but people are coming out from all over the place with true,
heartfelt convictions. The presence of a Farmer Jack, C-2 commercial, on
the corner of Six Mile and Farmington Road would be the worst possible
thing. The absolute height and breadth of that is unquestionable in my
way of thinking. As I look at the arguments brought to us very eloquently
by the presenters, first of all it is not our desire to challenge the Master
Plan, the zoning specifically does that, so to me that is a smoke screen.
Obviously, they wish to challenge that,they wish to change it. We believe
in the Master Plan, we bought our homes based on the Master Plan. We
are very comfortable with our environment. I feel safe walking around
Bell Creek. I am not sure I would feel the same way once a 24 hour
facility opens there. A number of times it was mentioned that if we were
to facilitate neighbor input to make it palatable, and clearly it isn't. We
have done everything we can to cry out that it isn't palatable to us. Those
people who live next to the property fmd it hideous. People who are just
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outside of that ring, the Bell Creek folks have been to my home and
testified strongly just how absolutely they fear that development. The
phone calls ripple in every direction back down Six Mile west and Six
Mile east, north and south. The signs are a very small reflection of the
amount of concern. It is more of a reflection of our inability to get to
yards to put them in. If I had 500 signs I am convinced I could get them to
go in the ground with the absolute belief that that is the right statement.
Because you heard the phrase "first class facility like our Northville
store", it does seem important to allude to a recent newspaper analysis that
gave Farmer Jack consistent Cs and Ds in terms of health and hygiene. I
would suggest that they don't know what a first class facility is. They said
they felt they wanted to create a free standing facility. The world is full of
good intentions. Once it is changed to C-2 it could be turned into anything
they wish in terms of commercial. Although they may have those
intentions, it is certainly not a guarantee. I think because of that,there is
community fear. They indicated they wish to expedite the decision, and I
appreciate that, but wouldn't it have been more of an expedition of the
event to provide that traffic study ahead of time, so that not only you could
check it, but perhaps the community could. The gentleman brought out,
and I think that is important, at the intersection of Plymouth and
Middlebelt Road. I went to that area and I asked myself, "would I want to
live on the corner of Plymouth and Middlebelt Road". No. It is highly
commercialized, highly congested and I don't blame them for moving.
This is an emotional issue for so many people, and it is important that you
have the level-headedness to make an intelligent decision. At the same
time, while there is passion, I think there is honest reflection on the part of
the community. We look to you as our leaders. I suggest that in your
opinion to the City Council, a recommendation would not be in order. I
have been overcome with your sensitivity tonight. There were some
gentlemen who wanted to build a restaurant, they were humorous in their
decor,they seemed like wonderful people and I felt in the room a clear
sentiment that we support that. This is something good for Livonia. It is a
derelict building. Let's make that improvement. I could just feel here,
let's back that. So it is not that we want to stand in the way of progress.
We don't want to impede someone who has the interest and support of the
number of years of the gentleman who spoke earlier. I think his passions
are true. To him. But, so are ours. They are valid even if we have lived
here six months, 3 years, 5 years or 35 years. Our passions are deep
because we moved to this community because we care about it as you care
about it. We pray that you will protect our interests.
Colleen Sievicki, 17510 Loveland in the Burton Hollow Subdivision: There are many
factors that make up a strong community: churches, schools, parks and
hospitals. Ward church was one of the reasons why this community was a
desirable place to live. It is a dynamic church that provided a moral and
spiritual lifeline. As the church grew, its members felt the need for traffic
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control. The City of Livonia was willing to absorb the cost of the police to
insure safety and order. We lost a good neighbor. Therefore, Ward
church has a moral obligation to see that another church comes in and fills
that void. Secondly, I have my children with me. They represent
approximately 80 children who live in our subdivision alone, 20 of them
attend Stevenson High School. These children do not take a bus to and
from school, they walk. As you are well aware, Six Mile and Farmington
is one of the worst intersections in the city for traffic accidents. That
intersection is the only one of its kind in this city to have gas stations on
three of its corners. To rezone that remaining corner that now houses a
church building to commercial, is unconscionable. You,the members of
the City Planning Commission, also have a moral obligation to the safety
and welfare of the students, and to the students yet to come. For these
reasons, as a voter and taxpayer of this city, I am opposed to this rezoning.
Gail Zatirka, 16831 Bell Creek Lane. We are adjacent property owners to the Ward
church property, in fact our house would be just about opposite from
where Farmer Jack would like to put their truck docks for their facility.
Thirteen years ago when we moved to Livonia, we took every penny we
had to buy a house in an area we thought we were backing up to a
neighbor that we thought enhanced our community. On the very first
morning we woke up, it happened to be on a Sunday, and we listened to
the Ward buses fire up at about 7:00 in the morning. As we lay there and
thought about it, we thought about the fact that this was good for our
community. This was a neighbor that was a church. For the thirteen years
we have lived there, we timed our lives on Sunday morning around the
traffic that it caused. That was OK because it was a mission that we
believed in. I don't know that we could ever feel the same way about a
Farmer Jack when refrigerator trucks are running behind my house 24
hours a day because they want to keep their lettuce fresh. That to me is
much harder to live with than school buses firing up once a week. I drive
down eastbound Six Mile Road every night at 5:00, and I wait through
seven to nine traffic lights to get through. As I sit there contemplating
what that would be like when there is a Farmer Jack, or any other
commercial property at that corner, it makes me wonder where Farmer
Jack thinks that the current traffic is going to disappear to. It is not going
to evaporate, it is only going to get worse when they start to filling that
parking lot at 5:00 in the afternoon. We also sit and listen to the
ambulances go to that corner where there are accidents, and there are lots
of them. We also listen to our fire and police go up and down Farmington
Road all the time. I wonder what happens when the traffic backs up
almost to Stevenson, or past Bell Creek Lane past Farmington and they
can't get through because it is gridlocked. I wonder what adding a full
parking lot of cars is going to do to that. I also wonder what it is going to
do to my quality of life when I listen to their air conditioners on the roof
and I put up with their halogen lights and I can't hear the birds sing any
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more. That was one of the reasons I bought this property. We believed in
it and in the past three years have invested more than$50,000 more in this
house. I wonder whether I am going to be able to sell it. The traffic in
terms of people cutting through on Bell Creek Lane to avoid the light on
Six Mile has gotten worse and worse and worse over the years. They do it
in both directions and they do it at a very high rate of speed. I have a child
I can't allow to play in the front yard because I am afraid that without
curbs and without sidewalks, they are going to end up in my front lawn. I
can't believe that isn't going to get worse as well. I ask you to take these
things into consideration. We have lots of commercial property in
Livonia. We have commercial things on three corners at that point.
Earlier in the evening you denied a petition that was to make commercial
on one side of the street that wasn't already commercial. We ask that you
make that same consideration here. We think that there is another
religious community, in fact we know that there have been several that
have bid on this property. We ask that you give them a chance to come in
and make our community the best place that there is to live and make us
be glad that we used our last penny to move here.
Thomas Neu, 17610 Loveland: We have lived there almost 21 years. We have enjoyed
very much living in Livonia. I think you can see that this is a very, very
strong position that people are taking. I would like to mention that I
represent not only myself and my family, but the Burton Hollow Woods
Civic Association which represents 100-110 houses in the subdivision.
Our officers and board voted unanimously in opposition to this proposal.
We circulated petitions within the subdivision and also on Mayfield.
About 90%of those we approached were with us and signed our petitions.
So you can see that the feelings are very strong in opposition to this
proposal.
Barbara Tyson, 34257 Woods: I am a Ward member and also Burton Hollow person. I
wanted to just point out one thing I thought of tonight and that is that there
have been many good points made. I do want to say that not only does
Ward own the church, but God owns the church. Ward has a firm
commitment to be a good steward of the Lord's property. What we have
to consider is the best property for people as well as Ward, and I think
there have been many valid points made tonight that I think you have to
consider. Personally, I think a church or school would be the best option,
however, again keeping in mind that Ward cannot give this building away,
that would not be good steward, as the CPA in me comes out, it says that I
really have a lot of skepticism about an offer for a church coming in that
only has 50 families. Ward had 4000 members when it was here in
Livonia. I just want you to be aware that just because an offer is made, it
is not necessarily going to be the offer that Ward can take. I think there
tar are many valid points, especially about the parking that should be
considered.
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Chris Modetz, 32525 Six Mile: I am a sophomore at Stevenson High School. Where I
live is on the north side of Six Mile and I am not a bus student so in order
for me to get to school every day, I have to walk past where Farmer Jack
would like to put their shopping center. I know it is a very busy
intersection. I know a lot of kids walk past there. Coming home today I
saw 8 or 9 cars in the turn lane just waiting to turn. I hate to wait for all
them. I can't imagine what it would be like if there was a shopping center
there and the building is vacant now.
Anna Peterson, 312421 Bobrich: I am also a member of Ward church. We are concerned
about the neighborhood even if we don't live in the immediate vicinity. I
personally oppose a commercial zoning. I would ask the City Planning
Commission to consider the City buying the property. We have the
Livonia Symphony Orchestra that would need good acoustics, good
auditorium. The youth need places to meet for activities. The senior
citizens' building is a sorry building. We were voted one of the 10 best
cities to live in by Money magazine. I don't think they visited the senior
citizens' building. The church building is people oriented. The church
provided a unique service to the community. We had about 5000
members and about 2000 additional people came there for Single Point
ministry. When we talk about selling to another church, we would need a
church that could support a building of this size, and support some
L
activities for the local community. I would urge you to please consider the
City buying this property.
Mr. McCann: We don't have that authority.
Bruce Modetz, 32525 Six Mile: My career is in the food industry and I have almost 30
years experience in the industry. I wrote everyone on the commission a
letter. I just want to point out one thing when you talk about square
footage for grocery stores. I haven't even taken into consideration
Westborn Market. When you take the two Kroger stores,the two Farmer
Jack stores, the new Busch's, Larry's Foodland, Stan's Market, Mike's
Market and Value Foods, you are looking at approximately 293,000 sq.ft.
of grocery store in this city. If you go one mile outside of Livonia's
boarders, you will pick up another 4 Farmer Jack stores, 2 Meijer's, a
Danny's and Hiller's market which I assume is another 325,000 sq.ft.
You are looking at an excess of 600,000 sq. ft. of grocery stores. We do
not need another grocery store in this city. I am the 13th house east of the
Ward church, and I was used to Sunday mornings working around the
Ward traffic. We are all accustomed to that. Ward was a great neighbor.
They kept beautiful grounds. I have no complaint with Ward. If you put a
Farmer Jack in there, you are looking at approximately 20,000 cars a
week. That is a conservative estimate. When you people shop, why does
LKroger advertise one of their big deals "prime time express"? They want
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to get you in, 4:00 to 7:00, during the week, and on weekends it is longer
because that is when people are coming in. Right now traffic backs up
starting at about 4:00 in the afternoon until approximately after 6:00. I am
on the corner of Six and Fairfield, traffic will get back to Six and Fairfield
in the evening. That is how far it comes. I am totally against any
commercial zoning. What I would like to see this city do, I would like to
see a moratorium on any C-2 in this city. We have enough vacant
property. Let's start filling some of these sites up.
Michael Zatirka, 16831 Bell Creek: At the meetings Farmer Jack with the neighbors, the
gentlemen from Farmer Jack and the architect kept telling us, it is not as
bad as you think, look at our other stores. We decided to do that. In the
last few weeks they have opened a new store on Mack Avenue in Grosse
Pointe,just south of Eight Mile and my inlaws live there, so we went there
Sunday afternoon at 3:00, which is not a particularly high traffic time, and
it took us over 5 minutes to get into the parking lot. All we did was to
drive by the front of the store to see what it looked like, to see the trash
dumpster,turned right around and went back out and it took 10 minutes to
get out of the parking lot. That was commercial property before, nothing
like a major grocery store, but it was commercial. Their traffic plan back
then in Grosse Pointe was that the increase from small commercial to large
commercial was no big deal, but they were wrong. So how can they go
from non-commercial to big commercial. They said look at their other
stores, we did, and we didn't like what we saw.
Elizabeth , 15971 Farmington Road: There was a gentleman named Michael up
here earlier who was building a brake shop, and I think you asked the
question why he wasn't going to build in the auto mall down the way. His
answer was that it was competition. Why would you want to build right
next to something that was exactly what you have? I shop at Danny's all
the time and my question is Why? If I want to go to Farmer Jack, it is
only a couple of miles down the other way. I don't have a family yet or
kids or anything to say about the schools or traffic, but I see it as a
beautiful corner and it is beautifully landscaped, and I would hate to see
that torn down and put in concrete for another parking lot.
Robert Smith: I represent Springhill Missionary Baptist church in the City of Detroit,
Michigan. The gentleman that you see with me is the pastor of that
church, Reverend Ronald Author. I deliberately wanted to be the last
person to speak because I felt it was important for you, as a commission,
to hear what the citizens had to say. We are a church. Farmer Jack is a
store. The land is currently zoned for a church. We would like the
opportunity to be a church in your city for the following reasons: In the
past two weeks,we have had an opportunity to see history made. We have
seen a man from the Dominican Republic and a man from the United
States of America engaged in the nation's pastime of baseball. They
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joined their hands together even though they were competitors. They said
we are friends first, and competitors second. We are the greatest
nation in the world, and Pastor Author is a retired military chaplain. That
is why it means something to him. It means something to this commission
and it means something to all of you. We saw the leader of the greatest
nation in the world meet at what was known as a prayer breakfast. We
have heard no one speak of the food that was served at that prayer
breakfast. We have heard leaders of religious communities, be they
Hindu, black, Catholics, Presbyterians, Evangelical Presbyterians, or
whatever, say that they felt the spirit, a divine spirit of whatever particular
persuasion they chose to be, be present in the room when the leader of the
greatest nation in the world had to humble himself before the entire world.
What we would like for you to do is this: Allow our church to sit with
Ward Presbyterian. To sit with your city. So that we can come to your
city as your neighbor, as your friend. Open the doors to the existing
church under the banner of our church so that you can make history here.
We talked about the balloons. Look at the people who are holding the
balloons. When you come to Springhill Missionary Baptist Church to
worship with us at that church, if we have the opportunity to do that
providing you keep the zoning as it is, you will see people not holding
balloons, you will see people holding each other's hands and embracing
each other no matter what your religious persuasion is because we are all
good children of God.
Pastor Author:This is one of the few times as a minister that I am at a loss for words.
Very briefly, I am the pastor of the Springhill Baptist Church. We are in
the vicinity of Eight Mile and Greenfield where the City of Detroit, Oak
Park and Southfield merge in that area. I am not a retired chaplain, I am a
little too young for that, but I am the former Brigade Chaplain for the 504th
military intelligence brigade. I am the pastor of an active membership of
800 and we carry 1100 on our roll. We have badly outgrown where we
are and we are prepared to buy and build somewhere. Certainly your
facility with, as I understand your zoning, you need one off-street parking
space for every three members. Our congregation fits those demographics
perfectly. As a former chaplain of the United States Army, I have seen
some of the greatest cathedrals in the world, Notre Dame Cathedral, the
Cologne Cathedral, and St. Paul's in London. I will tell you that the Ward
Presbyterian site, if we don't get it, please leave it where some
congregation can get it.
Connie Roberts, 16711 Bell Creek Lane: I apologize; I know you wanted to be the last,
but I wanted to get my nerve to come up here. I have lived in Livonia for
17 years. When moving 5 years ago, I chose to move within the city
because of city services. In my research, I became informed of the city's
Master Plan. With it, I bought my new home on Bell Creek Lane wrapped
in the security of rural status held by Ward Presbyterian Church for years
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and years. If you vote this property from residential to commercial, this
city's Master Plan will be considered meaningless. Livonia's taxpayers
will be betrayed by our elected city government. Many negative factors
surround this proposal. Financially speaking, the city's tax base will not
increase significantly. The new Farmer Jack will restart a pattern of
opening and closing Farmer Jack stores. Consider the past history of
Farmer Jack strictly in our city of Livonia. The Six Mile and Inkster
market used to be a Farmer Jack. The Frank's Nursery store at Five Mile
and Levan, used to be a Farmer Jack. The Seven Mile and Farmington
retail space, used to be a Farmer Jack. So in addition to the Danny's store
closing as a result of the Farmer Jack opening, which Farmer Jack on Five
Mile will they close? They said they won't do that, but that is just a
promise here tonight,that is not a guarantee. Will it be the Middlebelt
store or the Newburgh store? Both are old and need repairs and
improvements. Think of the future--one new store minus two closed
stores equals not a big profit for your revenues. Also Ward Presbyterian
did have buyers for their property. As we've heard here tonight, we had
two congregations come and speak up that they did try to buy the property.
There have been at least five that I am personally aware of, but the fact is
that the cash hungry Ward Church opted to go with a commercial buyer
knowing full well that that property should never have been sold
commercial. The city doesn't need another grocery store. We are already
served very well in this area as everyone has said. We have all talked
about the negative factors of increased traffic. The noise pollution and the
air pollution; we have to think about all these running cars. Don't
underestimate the crime this venture will bring. Livonia is not immune to
crime. We try to hide it in our newspapers, but there is crime all over this
city. People don't know about it. A 24 hour store will be a magnet for
crime. It is a real thing. The back of this store would border two
residential streets with virtually no buffer. The back of the store is on our
property. There is no other commercial grocery store in this city that
backs up so close to houses other than Danny's across the street. Is the
city going to protect my children as they walk from Stevenson High
School? We have no bussing. I have a 14 year old daughter. She will not
be walking parallel to an alley on her way to Farmington Road and there
from Farmington Road turning right towards the light walking along the
side of a building. There will be strangers, it will be a dark morning, and
the majority of our mornings are dark in Michigan. Will Livonia give her
a bus to insure her safety? What about the increase in rodent population?
This is a rural area with Bell Creek down the middle. We have lots of
wild animals. In addition we don't need any more mice or any more rats,
not that we have rats, but they will come with a grocery store. There is no
need for a Farmer Jack. Our quality of life will decrease for all
surrounding residents, not just our Bell Creek Lane residents. Finally, our
Master Plan that our city forefathers drafted years ago does not include a
commercial zoning site on this corner. Ward church is a residential site
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and the subdivisions surrounding it were built with that in a partnership.
Don't sell this city out to big business and slick lawyers. We pay the taxes
in this city. Ward never has. Don't let them dictate our needs.
Mr. Rein: We have certainly listened to a lot of comments here. As far as the traffic
study goes, I don't believe that is a requirement of rezoning, we furnished
it for your benefit. If you would like to take it under advisement and table
us,that would be fine with us. We could come back and have another
meeting. In terms of some of the other stores we have closed, those are
with leases that expired, or about to expire, and I would like to reiterate
that this would be an owned facility and we would control it. It doesn't
necessarily need to be a 24 hour store. There are a lot of considerations
that if it is rezoned can be negotiated at the site approval time.
There was no one else present wishing to be heard regarding this item and Mr. McCann,
Chairman, declared the Public Hearing On petition 98-7-1-16 closed.
On a motion duly made by Dan Piercecchi, seconded by Mr. Hale and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-147-98 RESOLVED,that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held on
September 15, 1998 by the City Planning Commission on Petition 98-7-1-
16 by Ward Evangelical Presbyterian Church requesting to rezone
property located on the southeast corner of Six Mile and Farmington
Roads in the NW 1/4 of Section 15 from RUFC to C-2,the City Planning
Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 98-
7-1-16 be denied for the following reasons:
1) That the proposed change of zoning is not supported by the Future
Land Use Plan;
2) That this area in the vicinity of the Six Mile Road and Farmington
Road intersection is currently well served with a variety of commercial
uses;
3) That there is no demonstrated need for additional commercial
zoning in this section of the City;
4) That the proposed change of zoning would provide for uses that
are not needed in this area;
5) That the proposed change of zoning will provide for uses which
will generate more traffic and add to the traffic congestion in the area; and
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6) That the proposed change of zoning will allow for uses that will be
detrimental to the use and enjoyment of the surrounding area particularly
with respect to the residential neighborhood to the south and east.
FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of the above hearing was given in
accordance with the provisions of Section 23.05 of Zoning Ordinance
#543, as amended.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. Hale to Farmer Jack: I think that your presentation was professional. I am supporting
the motion that the zoning in this area is more suited for a different type of
use.
Mr. Alanskas: I have lived here for 21 years and before that in Dearborn for 17 years. I
can recall in Dearborn when my wife had to drive at least three miles to
get to a store like Farmer Jack. Here in Livonia you can almost walk to a
store. I cannot in good conscience approve this rezoning. We have heard
from a lot of people with good reasons, and I think that rezoning to C-2 is
not proper.
Mr. LaPine: When I came here tonight I had my mind pretty much made up to vote for
the rezoning for a number of reasons. Let me say first,I have been a
resident of Livonia for 45 years. When I moved here, Wonderland
Shopping Center was an airport. I opposed Wonderland Shopping Center
being built because I thought it would be detrimental to my neighborhood.
At that time I lived between Plymouth and West Chicago off of
Middlebelt. Over the years I have served on the Zoning Board of
Appeals for 26 years and I have been on this Planning Commission for 12
years. If we voted for every issue that came before us over the years that I
have served here, based on how many petitions we got, how many people
were for or against them, believe me Livonia wouldn't be what it is today.
No matter what goes in where, somebody don't like it. You talk about
traffic. Today I live between Seven and Eight Mile Roads off Gill Road.
We have traffic problems up there. There are traffic problems throughout
the City of Livonia. Cities are not built on how many people are for or
against something. Cities are built on getting a consensus on what we
need for the city and where we need it. Secondly, I don't think you can
condemn Ward Presbyterian Church for trying to sell their property for the
most they can get for it. You people would sell your homes for the top
dollar you could get for it. So don't condemn Ward's for trying to get the
most they can get for their property. I am going to vote to oppose the
rezoning because I think there has been enough information given to me
tonight to change my mind. But you people have to understand that this is
a great city. A lot of us have been on boards and commissions in this city
for many, many years. This city was built trying to do what we thought
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was in the best interest of all Livonians. Everyone worries about their
own little neighborhood, but what affects the people in the south end of
the city affects the people in the north end of the city. This is one big city.
We can't always look at everything at our own little corner of the city.
Therefore, I am going to support the motion, but I am going to tell you
something right now. This property is going to be sold. It is not
necessarily going to be a church. Maybe the next thing that comes in you
are not going to like as well as Farmer Jack. Somewhere down the line
this property will be sold, and I hope that we can get a consensus that we
will all be happy with.
Mrs. Koons: I really think that the C-2 zoning is drastic. I hope that we can do
something within the zoning that stands now, but there may be something
between the RUF and C-2. I am going to support the denying motion. I,
along with Mr. Kinde, who I thought used words very well, have a
heartfelt conviction that this is the wrong thing for that corner and I share
in the passion that those of you who feel that it is not a good spot for a
grocery store.
Mr. McCann: I want to thank everyone tonight. Overall I think we have had a very
successful meeting. I think there are a lot of people out there who put a lot
of work into the presentations that were made tonight, collecting the
signatures. One of the neighbors said that he had meetings in his house. I
think this did some good for the residents in that area. I live on Mayfield.
I live in this area, I have lived in Livonia for 43 years, my whole life. I
think it demonstrated that we can work together. Sometimes petitions help
bring people out and we get to see our neighbors and say hello to them. I
think overall this is a good process. Myself, as chairman, has to make sure
that everybody has the opportunity to be heard. That is what our society is
about. Each person who owns a piece of property has the right to come
forward and bring a petition, have a public hearing and let the information
be brought out so that everybody can hear it and make a good, educated
decision. I want to thank everybody tonight. I think you have acted
honorably and have given the due respect it deserved.
Mr. McCann: We will now proceed with the pending items of our agenda. These items
have been discussed at length at prior meetings, therefore there will be
only limited discussion tonight. Audience participation will require
unanimous consent from the Commission.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Sign Permit
Application and Landscape Plan in connection with Petition 98-1-8-2 which
received site plan approval to construct two office buildings on property located at
19400 Victor Parkway in the North 1/2 of Section 6.
Mr. Nagy: There is no new correspondence.
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Robert Yurk, Ghafari Associates, Inc., 17101 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn: As
previously, I have John Krueger here of Krueger Partnership, our
landscape architect, and also Mr. Norman Hyman representing the
petitioner from Honigan, Miller, Schwartz& Cohn. We have made some
revisions since the last time we were here. We have met with the Mayor
and the neighbors in an effort to solve the concerns of the condominium
owners. Most of the changes are concentrated on the east portion of the
site. We have added a berm in the buffer area. It extends some 390' back
from Victor Parkway. What it does is extend through what is now the
open area and into the area of the trees where there were lower, less
established trees, right up to the area where the trees make a significant
jump in height. On that berm we have planted it significantly with
evergreen trees, as well as some deciduous trees and flowering trees in an
effort to create a screen in that area and also soften it with the flowering
trees and whatnot. Also, after much discussion with the neighbors, we
added Canadian hemlock trees and evergreen trees that would be green
year around. There was some initial concern about headlights from this
drive area that would shine north toward the condominiums. Since our
previous meeting with the Mayor and the neighbors, we have extended
those further so that they go fully behind all condominium units again in
an effort to screen that when the deciduous trees loose their leaves. We
have a board that shows the specific area where the changes are.
On a motion duly made by Mrs. Koons, seconded by Mr. Alanskas and approved, it was
#9-148-98 RESOLVED,that the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend
to the City Council that the Sign Permit Application and Landscape Plan
in connection with Petition 98-1-8-2 which received site plan approval to
construct two office buildings on property located at 19400 Victor
Parkway in the North 1/2 of Section 6 be approved subject to the
following conditions:
1) That the Landscape Plans marked Sheets L1-10, L1-11 &L1-12
prepared by Ghafari Associates, as received by the Planning Commission
on August 26, 1998 is hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
2) That all disturbed lawn areas shall be sodded in lieu of
hydroseeding;
3) That underground sprinklers are to be provided for all landscaped
and sodded areas and all planted materials shall be installed to the
satisfaction of the Inspection Department and thereafter permanently
maintained in a healthy condition;
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4) That the Sign Plan marked Sheet A2.03 prepared by Ghafari
Associates, as received by the Planning Commission on August 26, 1998
is hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
5) That the brick base of the ground sign shall be constructed out of
the same brick as the two office buildings;
6) That the mechanical equipment screen wall on the roof shall be
changed from brick to metal panels;
7) That the metal panels shall fully screen all roof top equipment and
shall be complementary in color with the buildings.
A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Alanskas, Piercecchi, Hale, Koons, McCann
NAYS: LaPine
ABSENT: None
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving recommendation.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Approval of the
minutes of the 769th Regular Meeting and Public Hearings held on August 11,
1998.
Mr. McCann: All members of the Commission were present at this meeting with the
exception of myself.
On a motion duly made by Mr. LaPine, seconded by Mr. Hale and approved, it was
#9-149-98 RESOLVED, that the minutes of the 769th Regular Meeting and Public
Hearings held on August 11, 1998 are approved.
A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Alanskas, LaPine, Piercecchi, Hale, Koons
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN: McCann
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Approval of the
minutes of the 770th Regular Meeting held on August 25, 1998.
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Mr. McCann: All members of the commission were present at this meeting.
On a motion duly made by Mr. Alanskas, seconded by Mrs. Koons and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-150-98 RESOLVED,that the minutes of the 770th Regular Meeting held by the
City Planning Commission on August 25, 1998 are approved.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is approval of the
minutes of the 380th Special Meeting held on August 25, 1998.
Mr. McCann: All members of the Commission were present at this meeting.
On a motion by Mrs. Koons, seconded by Mr. Hale and unanimously approved, it was
#9-151-98 RESOLVED, that the minutes of the 380th Special Meeting held by the
Planning Commission on August 25, 1998 are approved.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
Mr. McCann: We will now start with the site plan portion of our agenda. Persons in the
audience may speak for or against the petition.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced that the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-8-8-
26 by Promus Hotel Corporation, on behalf of Homewood Suites, requesting
approval of all plans required by Section 18.47 of the zoning ordinance in
connection with a proposal to construct a hotel on property located at 39900
Seven Mile Road in the SW 1/4 of Section 6.
Mr. Miller: This site is located on the east side of Haggerty Road between Seven Mile
and Eight Mile Roads in the North'/2 of Section 6. It is part of the AMC
entertainment campus. They are asking for approval to construct an
Homewood Suites hotel. The hotel would be four stories in height. It will
be constructed in such a way to have a court yard. Based on the size of the
building and the units, they are required to have 159 parking spaces and
the site plan shows 159 parking spaces. They are required to have 15%
for landscaping and they show 25%. The landscaping is well done around
the perimeter of the site and around the building. The elevation plans
show the building will be constructed out of a combination of brick and
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dryvit. There will be brick on the first three stories of the building with
dryvit on the fourth story. The Inside the courtyard will be brick up to the
first floor and then the next three floors will be dryvit. For signage, they
are allowed a pylon sign and a monument sign; one monument sign at 30
sq. ft. and a pylon sign of 150 sq. ft. They are proposing one monument
sign at 10 sq. ft. and one pylon sign at 112 sq. ft., so they have a
conforming sign package.
Mr. Nagy: The Engineering Division reviewed the petition and they have no
objections. The Traffic Division indicates that the Police Department does
not recommend approval of this site. The total count which was totaled
from the site plans is 157, not 159 as indicated in the development
summary on the site plan. Additionally, only 80 of the spaces are 10'x20'
as required I the zoning ordinance. The remaining spaces are only 18'in
length. The spaces which are not in conformance are those which are
located on the outer perimeter of the parking plan. Should these spaces be
increased to 20', then the aisle widths would decrease from 22'to 20'.
The minimum distance for aisles with parking spaces at 90 degrees is 22'
(per section 18.37 Off-street Parking Requirements; Zoning Ordinance—
pg. 64.01 table). We also have a letter from the Senior Building Inspector
as follows: Pursuant to your request of August 10, 1998, the site plan for
the above subject petition has been reviewed. The following is noted. 1)
The property is in the process of being rezoned to C-4, High rise
Commercial. The site plan was reviewed under C-4 district regulations.
2) Ordinance 543, Section 25.06(a) allows for a maximum of 20%ground
coverage by the principal structure. Ground coverage is calculated at
22.5%. A variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals would be required
for the 2.5%over ground coverage. 3) The light standards are proposed
to be 30 feet in height. 4) The two shown ground signs; the pylon sign
and the monument sign appear to be in conformance with the Ordinance
Section 18.50H(2)(A) and(B). This signage was not reviewed as part of
this proposal. 5) A ground mount satellite dish is proposed for the
southeast corner of the property. That is signed by David Woodcox. The
Fire Marshal in his report of August 17, 1998 states that the site plan was
reviewed. Hydrants shall be at or near the following locations: SW
corner of building entrance; SE corner of building;North Center side of
building. A fire hydrant shall be located between 50'and 100'of the
F.D.C.for the required fire sprinkler system. Fire lanes shall be
established and posted per city ordinance along west side of building, east
side of building and north side of building at west end. That is the extent
of our correspondence.
Gary Jonna, President of Jonna Realty Adventures, also Pentagon Properties Limited
Partnership: Although everyone is probably familiar with this site, I
thought I would take out the big picture and frame the subject site. The
site is approximately 11 acres. It is immediately east of Haggerty Road
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and north of Seven Mile. The site has significant frontage along I-275 and
1 it slopes gently from east to west towards the entertainment campus. It is
bordered by the Costco Club, then Haggerty Tech Park, which is primarily
R&D and office, and then the technicolor video services in the
manufacturing district. In terms of infrastructure,the site has sewer and
water. The sewers run around the western boundary of the site, a water
main along this access drive. The access drive also services the
technicolor services, moves through the site and terminates at Seven Mile.
You can see some of the other neighboring uses with the Home Depot,
Macaroni Grill, J. Alexanders, Champps, Costco, Target and UofM. This
is a significant commercial development to the north. We view this
project of the two hotels as the fmishing touch on the Pentagon Center
Entertainment Campus. The theaters are getting ready to open next
month. There is the 20 screen AMC theater,the AmeriSuites Hotel(128
all suites), the Macaroni Grill, J. Alexanders and Champps, all operational,
and then there are two additional sites planned at the northwest quadrant
of the entertainment campus. Basically, this northern roadway leads back
to this site. This site again has frontage on I-275, but does not have any
frontage along Haggerty Road. The single means of ingress and egress is
this north service drive. We have made a significant investment in this
roadway that was originally just a paved road that has now been paved and
guttered. It will be tree lined. We have created water features. We have
added a tremendous amount of landscaping and embellished this entire
entrance. We also have a sign that was approved at this location, a ground
monument sign that would be for these particular projects. So you can see
what we have tried to do is tie the entire development together. It is a
single developer and we are going for a unified approach to the project.
All the common areas have been designed by the same landscape
architect. We really see this as an extension of the campus with uses that
are reciprocal in terms of cross draw between the food, beverage and
entertainment, and certainly the lodges, that would certainly be very
attractive. There is a C-2 parcel that would be subject to the discretion of
the Planning Commission and Council since it is in a control zone. In any
event,the focus of this presentation are the two hospitality products. The
representatives of those two hotels will get into the type of product and
what they offer and why they believe they belong in the Livonia market.
So to wrap up, we have tied everything together in a harmonious fashion.
The treatment of this major roadway leading back, the good news is that at
that part of the campus, that is really in place. So this is something that is
already being completed and will provide a wonderful sense of entry to
this eleven acre parcel. During the rezoning petition that was under
consideration by the Planning Commission, you should have gotten a good
deal of detail on the hotel companies. We also went through the traffic
extensively. Overall the traffic is somewhat less than it would be with a
proposed mid-rise office, so probably a little less congestion. Also, I think
there is a lot of momentum for a traffic signal at this location, the north
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roadway and Haggerty Road. We don't believe the traffic is creating any
burdens. We believe that we have done this in a unified fashion. We have
brought top hotel products. We believe this particular site is ideal for
hotel development with the visibility and recognition that the hotels can
gain, and also the transportation that favors this located between the two
interchanges. There would be signage at Haggerty Road, certainly
prominent signage along the freeway. The secret of success of these
products is the market, but of course visibility and access are terribly
important.
Mr. McCann: What is the current approved site plan? When the theatre went in, the road
was approved in there. Isn't there an island road at some point distant to
that?
Mr. Nagy: It is planned accurately.
Mr. LaPine: How come on the courtyard side, the brick only goes up one story and on
the north and south, it goes up three stories?
Brian Moulton: I serve as Director of Development for Promus Hotel Corporation
at our corporate headquarters located in Memphis, Tennessee. As many of
you may be aware, Promus has over 40 years of experience in the
hospitality industry. Basically, Promus acts as a holding company for 4
different hotel brands, many of which you are familiar with: Embassy
Suite Hotels located here in Livonia, Doubletree Hotels, Hampton Inns
and this particular project our newest hotel project called Homewood
Suites. Our portfolio nationwide includes approximately 1200 hotels
principally located in the United States with some of our properties
located in Canada and Mexico. Homewood Suites is an all-suites, upscale
hotel concept, residentially designed, geared principally toward what is
talked about in the hotel industry as the extended stay market. The way
we typically defme it is that we are targeting the concept for business
travelers principally and leisure travelers that are staying in the
marketplace for an extended period of time, what we typically defme as 7
to 10 days. In other words, a hotel designed for and targeting a typical
business traveler that typically is just in town for a night or two, a traveler
that has the need to stay in the marketplace longer. Our target markets are
addressing a traveler attending a seminar,training, a family relocating to
the area, etc. All of our units are all-suite units and actually is defined in
the dictionary as a true suite, by that meaning two separate rooms, and
including essentially a galley kitchen. I oftentimes draw the analogy for
people that this is our answer to Marriott's Residence Inn product,which
looks like it is going to open any day down on Six Mile. The concept is a
limited service hotel, what we talk about in the industry as limited service,
basically meaning no restaurant, no lounge, a nominal amount of meeting
space. We do however offer our guests an upscale complimentary,
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continental breakfast in the early morning. We also offer our guests two
hours of complimentary beer and wine in the early evening and light hors
d'oeuvres. Essentially what we have tried to do with this concept is get
away from the use of brass and marble that you see in most full service
upscale hotels, and introduce residential elements to make someone truly
feel that they can feel like the hotel is a home away from home. We use a
lot of wood elements in the interior design, a lot of residentially styled
carpets, for example. Again, trying to create the ambiance of a home. We
have approximately 70 operating around the United States currently with
another 30 either under construction or in various stages of design. Our
goal is to have 100 open by January 2000. Our price point currently is
about $95 a night. In this particular project, we are projecting a price
point of about $100 a night. Again, that is after discounting for volume
users and the like. This particular project includes 140 suites in a four-
story configuration. Out total turn key projected budget is approximately
$14 million. I would now like to introduce Gary Tushie. Gary is the
founding principal of the Minneapolis based architectural firm that we
have engaged for this particular project, as well as any others we are doing
across the Midwest.
Gary Tushie, Tushie Montgomery Architects, 3300 Edinborough Way, Minneapolis,
Minnesota 55435: I am going to briefly go over the site plans. You are all
familiar with the location. We are directly adjacent to I-275 with Embassy
Suites directly east of that on the other side of I-275. The main entrance is
in this location, and as you enter the site,the porte cochere is here. Inside
the building is the 24 hour registration desk. Off of that is the lodge area
which is the gathering area for the residents for the continental services
and for just getting together with other residents of the building. The two
guest wings are on either side. They create an interior open courtyard. In
the back of the courtyard is the enclosed swimming pool. To the south of
us is the Homestead Village. The site landscape was designed for all
different seasons, having both flowering trees, flowering shrubs, annual
plantings in the summertime and coniferous trees on all sides of the site
with the exception of the south,the I-275 side, to give a sense of a buffer
to the freeway. Parking completely surrounds the site. We have several
entrances into the hotel. They are all secured by guest keys so nobody can
get into those entrances. The porte cochere entrance, the main entrance,
the registration desk,the lodge that goes out to the open patio and
courtyard and the swimming pool which is on the east side of the side. It
has entrances to both guest wings. The guest wings are on the north and
south side. There is some limited meeting space in the center on both the
first and second floors. This is the perspective you would see upon
entering the site from the primary entrance. We are using very high
quality materials, brick, stucco with the pitched roofs and a high quality
shingle roof to simulate a shake look and several windows to give the
exterior appearance of a high quality building. We have shown the plant
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material in a 7 to 10 year growth period so you can see what it would look
like a few years down the road. This is the perspective you would see
from the freeway side, the two guest wings again with the same filling
materials, the pool in the middle and landscaping along the freeway.
Mr. Alanskas: You mentioned earlier that the Marriott is about to open the same type of
business, and we have one almost completed in the complex, and we have
one on Plymouth Road, the Quality Inn that is being remodeled, and now
with these two we are talking 147 and 136 rooms. I am really trying to
keep an open mind on these two projects, but where are you going to fill
these 283 rooms? We just keep adding more and more hotels,just like
drug stores and grocery stores, and the questions is how many do we
need?
Mr. Moulton: First of all, we went into the northwest market here in Detroit with more
data to base our business decision on then any project I have worked on in
the last several years, principally because of our other hotels in the
marketplace. Obviously we know in great detail how our Embassy Suites
Hotel is operating, our Doubletree brand is represented as close as up in
Novi. We have the data on how our Hampton Inn is doing in the City of
Northville, plus all of our other properties. We looked at the performance
of our existing hotels, all of which are doing extremely well and have been
for a good 4 to 5 years now since the country started to come out of its
recession. We felt from all perspectives, this market was drastically
underserved with an all-suite concept geared towards the extended stay
market. We were actually pushed by our operations people to spend a
little more time up here trying to find a site that would pass our tests.
Beyond that, being a publicly traded company, our internal due diligence
is quite rigorous before our senior officers will allow us to spend our
shareholders money. We not only have an internal analysis staff that goes
into the field, spends several weeks with interviews, talking to other
competitors in the area to see how they are performing, etc., but also in
many cases, including this case, we reach out to local consultants to
double check our work.
Mr. Alanskas: Can you give me a percentage rate of what your fill rate is daily for your
extended stays?
Mr. Moulton: I would rather not quote specific numbers because we consider that
somewhat proprietary, but we feel that our projected stabilized occupancy
level after getting into the marketplace for a year or two, we feel very
comfortable that there is adequate market support for this particular
project, even factoring in some of the new hotels that you say are coming
on line.
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Mr. Piercecchi: I just came back from a two week trip out west starting in Vegas and
ending up in Denver, and I will tell you in all honesty, if it weren't for tour
buses, every one of the hotels we stayed at, and we stayed at Holiday Inns,
etc., and the only one that had any traffic at all was Adams Mark in
Denver. Even the Hilton in Vegas was empty. One specifically, because
it was very beautiful, in Salt Lake City, was only 34% and that included us
and another tour bus. I share my colleague's opinion about adding more.
Mr. Moulton: Let me say, being in the business for 20 years, be very careful in making
any judgement in how a hotel is performing by being there for one night.
The hotels are like any other business in that it is seasonal. Obviously in
the summer, all of the hotels in Vegas run a very small amount of
occupancy. Very few people want to go to that market in the summer.
Secondly, there are weekday and weekend demand patterns that drastically
affect how a hotel does. As an example, as I always say, hotels are
typically filled Monday through Thursday night, Monday and Wednesday
being the strongest nights. If you go through any hotel parking lot on a
Sunday night,you will wonder how anyone is making any money, versus
the restaurant business. Obviously, all of the restaurants do most of their
business around the weekends, Thursday through Sunday, with the peakest
periods being Friday and Saturday. In the airline business, most airlines
run empty on Tuesday and Wednesday, yet on a Friday and Sunday, on
most airlines you can't get a seat. There are significant seasonal and
weekday, weekend patterns to monitor in the hotel business. So I just
suggest a bit of caution when you look at how hotels are performing.
Mrs. Koons to Mr. Jonna: Being a relatively new member of the commission, I just
wondered if this 11 acre parcel was a part of the original Pentagon
property?
Mr. Jonna: Yes. The history of it actually is that it was all under the ownership of an
entity that developed at that time CBS Technicolor Video Services. They
manufactured videos, as they do today. Back in '86 or '87,the entire
facility was used for video cassette production, and their manufacturing.
We acquired the approximate 49 acres, including Macaroni Grill, as a
single acquisition by Pentagon Properties Limited Partnership in 1987.
Mr. McCann: The drawings of your building, you go up three floors with the brick and
then you stop. I guess I get the impression of a military or dormitory look
because it is straight across, row to row. What we have done before on
many of those things is brick up every other peak and then some white so
that you don't have a long row of white. Have you looked at that? Is this
a standard in your industry for the Homewood Suites?
Mr. Moulton: No. Actually the standard for Homewood Suites is one level of masonry
and the rest would be a stucco-type material, so we are actually showing
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substantially more than what the prototype is. The reason we have the
stucco at the top is to give some relief to the elevation, making the base of
the building feel more heavy and the top part of the building feeling
lighter.
Mr. McCann: Do you have a north or south view?
Mr. Moulton: Not in perspective, but in elevation.
Mr. McCann: How long is the building?
Mr. Tushie: 300'.
Mr. Tushie: What we have done before is go a little lower, maybe one story in between
and go all the way up on the peaks just to break it up instead of one
complete line of dryvit going across.
Mr. Moulton; I think that was how the Residence Inn was done, where some of these
peaks the brick went all the way up to the top and dropped down to one
story in the center.
Mr. McCann: I think we had something to do with that.
Mr. Tushie: I might add that after having a preliminary meeting with some of the
planning staff members, we looked at a variety of schemes. We felt that
this one gave the building the most upscale look. However, I must say
that if the Planning Commission would like us to,we would certainly look
at reconfiguring that brick if that would be more acceptable. We felt that
this gave the building a real nice foundation. The last floor finishes it off
in a nice fashion versus some of the vertical schemes, but if the opinion of
the commission is the other way, we can certainly look at that.
Mr. McCann to the Commission: Do we want to look at the other hotel at the same time?
Mr. LaPine: Before we go on,I am curious about something. This drawing I have here
shows brick only on the first floor, is that not true?
Mr. Tushie: That is only in the courtyard.
Mr. LaPine: So because this is internal, you don't put that much brick on it?
Mr. Tushie: That is right.
Mr. LaPine: I don't agree with you.
Mr. Tushie: If you look at the site plan and the back perspective, what blocks the
courtyard is the pool building. It is difficult to look into that courtyard
16406
1 because the pool building is really blocking the view inside, plus the
freeway is down some 20' from the elevation of this parking lot. We
don't think that anyone other than the hotel guests are really going to see
inside the courtyard.
Brad , Development Manager for Homestead Village, 1320 Redbud Drive,
Arlington Texas 76012: Homestead Village is very similar to the project
you just heard from Brian Moulton in that we are an extended stay
property. Since the early 90s we realized the demand in the extended stay
niche and from that time started developing for extended stay hotel
projects. Since roughly 1990, late 1992, early 1993, we have opened 4 on
a national basis. Last week we opened our 103 property with projections
to be in the 120 range by the end of the year, and next year an additional
25-30 properties nationwide. These properties are truly purpose built
extended stay for the market that we have identified as our base customer.
We own and operate, we don't franchise. We look at these projects very
closely in terms of what we see that the demand is and what we see that
the potential is in that particular market. In addition to that, we have only
focused our efforts in primary major markets across the country. We are
not going to go into the secondary markets. We are looking at the primary
markets only, those markets being the major metropolitan markets that
have a large demand for extended stay customer base. That is mainly your
large corporate users in cities like Detroit and particular in sub markets
like Livonia. We go out and identify the demand generators through the
corporate users. Since our demand is very similar to Homewood Suites, it
is based on 7 to 9 days. It is the travelling business person who is out of
town on relocations, business travel for the corporation, training, etc., etc.
That is what we see as our demand and accordingly we have designed our
hotel project that hopefully satisfies the extended stay customer demands.
We do have amenities of less than Homewood. We are more in the mid-
range extended stay market niche. We do not have pools, we do not have
meeting rooms. We have gathering rooms for the guests. We have juice
and coffee in the morning and then in the evening we have a
complimentary affair for the guests. We have in-house guest laundry
services, ironing boards, coffee makers, things like that that is really
needed for the extended stay user so that they don't have to go out every
night. We do have kitchen facilities where the guests could actually shop
and make something light for themselves in their room. I would like to
draw your attention to the elevation study that we have here. That is a 136
unit hotel property with a porte cochere that allows guests to check in,
park close to the proximity of the porte cochere, check in and then park in
the periphery of the hotel. This particular project is 100% brick, 3 stories
with a tower sign over the front entrance. It is probably 270' in length. It
is a linear project in that we don't have the legs of a U-shape or L-shape
building but what we have is this lineation on the vertical face between the
various types of rooms. We have some architectural detailing on the front
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and back and ends of the buildings. We are also protected by exterior
doors that are only accessible through key cards. Once a customer checks
in they have to access the property through a key card door entrance. This
site plan shows you the landscaping for the project. We have looked at the
regional types of planting, the colors,the trees the seasonal changes, etc.
to make sure we have a landscape plan that is consistent with the use of
materials and the size of materials that are consistent here in Livonia.
Mr. Alanskas: If a couple went to the movies and wanted to stay overnight at the hotel,
could they go there just for the one evening?
Brad: We do have nightly stays. We typically sell by the week, but we also offer
nightly stays for some of our guests.
Mr. McCann: It is hard to tell from this distance the treatment around the windows. Is
that dryvit above the windows?
Brad: No, it is not. We have built several hotels similar to this in that they are
100% brick. The header is actually done with masonry, different color
masonry brick, different coursing that we apply. What we would propose
here is probably a buff color brick 100 % masonry, or in some cases we
use a cast stone material like a limestone. It is a molded product as
opposed to a quarried product, but it is a stone cementitious material that
gives a limestone header effect.
Mr. LaPine: I notice it says here you have to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals for 18'
deep parking spaces around the periphery. Why don't you have 10'x20'?
Brad: We have our civil engineer here tonight, Jon Kuczynski, who did the work
on this project from a site planning layout.
Jon Kuczynski: It is our understandings that in your ordinance that in the greenbelt
areas a 2' overhang was allowed, thereby reducing the parking spaces
down to 18'. If I am incorrect in that assumption, we can reduce the size
of the greenbelt.
Mr. Nagy: If we were to provide for the additional 2' to make it the full 20', it would
not diminish their 15% requirement for landscaping. By allowing them to
have only 18', that actually increases the site area devoted to landscaping.
We only allow that from a staff standpoint where you actually have
sufficient room to overhang into a landscaped area as opposed to a
sidewalk or a building area. The other concept is to put a full 20' bay
there, put a wheel stop at 18' so that you have 2' between the wheel stop
and the curb, but it becomes a catch-all for wind blown debris and so
forth, so rather than allow that, as long as they meet the 15%,we allow the
16408
curb to come back to the normal wheel stop area and increase the
landscaping accordingly.
Mr. LaPine: That is reasonable. How many of those spaces will you need?
Brad: I don't have the exact count of the parking spaces here, but I believe we
have a one-to-one plus and then additional parking spaces for employees.
I would guess about 140 spaces.
Mr. LaPine: How many 10'x18' spaces?
Mr. Kuczynski: I would estimate 50 spaces.
Mr. Jonna: Most of what I had to say was concerning land use. We had the rezoning
petition, so I think it would be redundant to go through a lot of that again,
but obviously we feel very strongly that this is a stellar hotel site and that
these two operators are certainly accomplished and strong and operators
with a great track record behind them, so from a land use perspective, we
feel it is appropriate, and we feel we have two premier hotel operators that
will build quality products.
Mr. LaPine: I was opposed to the rezoning, so I'll make a denying motion.
On a motion duly made by Mr. LaPine, seconded by Mrs. Koons and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-152-98 RESOLVED,that the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend
to the City Council that Petition 98-8-8-26 by Promus Hotel Corporation,
on behalf of Homewood Suites, requesting approval of all plans required
by Section 18.47 of the zoning ordinance in connection with a proposal to
construct a hotel on property located at 39900 Seven Mile Road in the SW
1/4 of Section 6 be denied for the following reasons:
1) That the petitioner has failed to affirmatively show that the
proposed use is in compliance with all of the general standards and
requirements as set forth in Section 19.06 of Zoning Ordinance#543;
2) That the proposed use fails to comply with the Zoning Ordinance
standard set forth in Section 18.37 with respect to parking requirements
and the standard set forth in Section 25.06 with respect to maximum lot
coverage;
3) That the area adjacent to the freeway, as well as the City as a
whole, is already adequately serviced by this type of use;
16409
4) That the proposed development of the site, for hotel purposes,
would overburden the site and adversely affect the surrounding area;
5) That the nature and intensity of the proposed use, including the
site's layout and its relation to streets giving access to it, would produce
hazardous and inconvenient traffic patterns to and from the use;
6) That the relationship of the proposed use to main traffic
thoroughfares and streets would unduly conflict with the normal traffic of
the neighboring area;
7) That the petitioner has failed to comply with all the concerns
deemed necessary for the safety and welfare of the City and its residents.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. You will have ten days in which to appeal to the City Council.
Mr. Alanskas: If I really thought these two hotels could exist, but we have three—the
Marriott's opening now—and I really think we have too many hotels. I
am really concerned about all these rooms being taken care of. I have
been to these extended stays and they are wonderful, but they aren't that
full. I don't think we need another two hotels in Livonia and for that
reason I am going to support the denying resolution.
Mr. Piercecchi: I was very much surprised that the proposal for the hotels we are
acting on tonight have advanced to this stage. I believe it is essential to
review some of our concerns which resulted in our overwhelming
objection to these new structures some time ago. To begin with,
information and articles that were presented by Commissioner LaPine
stated that occupancy rates have reached a four year low. That in itself
should have been sufficient to put any new construction on hold. In
addition, his report emphasized that franchisers are being urged to build
primarily by financiers. Another red flag since it is no secret that the
industry is dominated by old franchisers who profit from licensing new
property and need no prompting. Looking back I recall that our current
supply of room select was 948 with another 564 in the pipeline, giving us
a total of 1512. For the purpose of perspective, I am going to equate these
figures in terms of Livonia. That's approximately one room for 66
residents, or one to about 22 households. An argument could be made that
we are already beyond any need now or in the immediate future.
Remember we have an occupancy rate according to Paragon of 78%,
leaving us 22%of our available space, on an average, empty. I don't think
it is very wise to add another 283. Using the rosy industry prediction
again of a 3% increase in demand per year, I am going to double it. Our
projected space would extend well into the year 2006. Is it essential that
we increase our supply at this time beyond the 1512? I really don't think
16410
so. Making matters worse, to place these new additions in the proposed
site, it requires the rezoning of prime professional office space. Not a very
good deal for Livonia in terms of upscale high pay career opportunities. I
share the bottom line of many that this city doesn't really need to add
more commercial low pay zoning. We need more professional office,
industrial and high tech zoning which offers compensation two,three and
four times than that of commercial facilities. Irregardless of the financial
feasibility or the appearance of the proposed units, Livonia comes up short
with the tradeoff. I will support the motion to deny.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is Petition 98-8-8-27
by Homestead Village, Inc. on behalf of Homestead Hotel, requesting
approval of all plans required by Section 18.47 of the zoning ordinance in
connection with a proposal to construct a hotel on property located at
39900 Seven Mile Road in the SW 1/4 of Section 6.
On a motion duly made by Mr. Alanskas, seconded by Mr. Piercecchi and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-155-98 RESOLVED that,the City Planning commission does hereby recommend
to the City Council that Petition 98-8-8-27 by Homestead Village, Inc. on
behalf of Homestead Hotel requesting approval of all plans required by
Section 18.47 of the zoning ordinance in connection with a proposal to
construct a hotel on property located at 39900 Seven Mile Road in the
SW'/4 of Section 6 be denied for the following reasons:
1. That the petitioner has failed to affirmatively show that the proposed
use is in compliance with all of the general standards and requirements
as set forth in Section 19.06 of Zoning Ordinance#543;
2. That the area adjacent to the freeway, as well as the City as a whole, is
already adequately serviced by this type of use;
3. That the proposed development of the site, for hotel purposes, would
overburden the site and adversely affect the surrounding area;
4. That the nature and intensity of the proposed use, including the site's
layout and its relation to streets giving access to it, would produce
hazardous and inconvenient traffic patterns to and from the use;
5. That the relationship of the proposed use to main traffic thoroughfares
and streets would unduly conflict with the normal traffic of the
neighboring area;
6. That the petitioner has failed to comply with all the concerns deemed
necessary for the safety and welfare of the City and its residents.
16411
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. This will go to City Council with a denying resolution.
Mr. McCann: I do like this one a little better. It is all brick, but I am not convinced that
the subject area would be best served with this use.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is Sign Permit
Application by Schostak Brothers&Company, Inc. requesting approval for an
exterior wall sign for the food court(Boardwalk Cafes) at Wonderland Mall
located at the southwest corner of Middlebelt and Plymouth Roads in the NE 1/4 of
Section 35.
Mr. Miller: The sign approval request is for one wall sign to be mounted on the north
wall elevation over one of the mall's entrances. They are proposing one
wall sign of 52 sq.ft. A regional shopping center is only allowed wall
signage if it is for identifying the principal tenant, building or center itself.
This signage does not. Also signage for that elevation cannot exceed 500
sq.ft. and the north elevation already has 500 sq.ft. of signage. This is in
violation of the sign ordinance, therefore they have to get a variance from
the Zoning Board of Appeals. They are going through that process. They
do not have that variance yet, but to help expedite it, we decided to see
them before going to the zoning board.
On a motion duly made by Mr. Alanskas, seconded by Mr. Hale and unanimously
approved, it was
#9-156-98 RESOLVED,that the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend
to the City Council that Sign Permit Application by Schostak Brothers&
Company, Inc. requesting approval for an exterior wall sign for the food
court(Boardwalk Cafes) at Wonderland Mall located at the southwest
corner of Middlebelt and Plymouth Roads in the NE 1/4 of Section 35 be
approved subject to the following conditions:
1. That the Sign Package submitted by Schostak Brothers& Company, as
received by the Planning commission on August 27, 1998, is hereby
approved and shall be adhered to;
2. That this approval is subject to the applicant being granted a variance
by the Zoning Board of Appeals and any conditions related thereto.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. This will go to the City Council with an approving resolution.
Mr. Piercecchi, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is a Request for a One
Year extension of all plans in connection with petition 97-5-8-14 which
16412
L received site plan approval to construct a narthex addition to the church
located at 9601 Hubbard Road in the NW 1/4 of Section 34.
Joseph Obidzinski: We are requesting an extension of our unanimous approval from
the Zoning Board,the Planning Commission and the City Council last
year just through architectural and financial developments with the church.
It took until the middle of July until they were able to get to the point
where we were able to approach the Building Department for review of
our drawings. At that time we were told we needed to have an extension,
so that's what we are here for tonight.
Mr. McCann: You are ready to go?
Mr. Obidzinski: We are ready to go.
On a motion by Mrs. Koons, seconded by Mr. LaPine and unanimously approved, it was
#9-157-98 RESOLVED,that the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend
to the City Council that the request for a one year extension of all plans in
connection with Petition 97-5-8-14 which received site plan approval to
construct a narthex addition to the church located at 9601 Hubbard Road
inthe NW 1/4 of Section 34 be approved subject to the following condition:
1. That the request for an extension of Site Plan Approval by Joseph
Philips Architect, on behalf of the Rosedale Garden Presbyterian
Church, in a letter dated August 28, 1998, is hereby approved for a
one year period and shall be subject to all conditions and
requirements set forth in resolution#603-97.
Mr. McCann, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
On a motion duly made, seconded and unanimously adopted,the 771st Regular Meeting
and Public Hearings held on September 15, 1998 was adjourned at 12:35
AM.
CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
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Daniel Piercecchi, Secretary
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es C. McCann, Chairman
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