Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutPLANNING MINUTES 2016-01-26 MINUTES OF THE 1,082nd PUBLIC HEARINGS AND REGULAR MEETING HELD BY THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF LIVONIA On Tuesday, January 26, 2016, the City Planning Commission of the City of Livonia held its 1,082nd Public Hearings and Regular Meeting in the Livonia City Hall, 33000 Civic Center Drive, Livonia, Michigan. Mr. Lee Morrow, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Members present: Glen W. Long R. Lee Morrow Carol A. Smiley Gerald Taylor Ian Wilshaw Members absent: None Mr. Mark Taormina, Planning Director, and Ms. Margie Watson, Program Supervisor, were also present. Chairman Morrow informed the audience that if a petition on tonight's agenda involves a rezoning request, this Commission makes a recommendation to the City Council who, in turn, will hold its own public hearing and make 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 and/or vacating petition. 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 approval 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. ITEM #1 PETITION 2015-12-01-13 MICHIGAN PROPERTY Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the first item on the agenda, Petition 2015-12- 01-13 submitted by Michigan Property Group, L.L.C. pursuant to Section 23.01 of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the property at 28900 Schoolcraft Road, located on the north side of Schoolcraft Road between Inkster and Middlebelt Roads in the Southwest 1/4 of Section 24, from C-2 to M-1. Mr. Taormina: This is a request to rezone property from C-2, General Business, to M-1, Light Manufacturing. The property is located January 26, 2016 27399 on the north side of Schoolcraft Road approximately one-quarter mile east of Middlebelt Road. The size of the parcel is 5.5 acres. It includes roughly 846 feet of frontage along Schoolcraft and has an average depth of 285 feet. This is the site of the former Cloverlanes bowling alley which opened in 1962 and closed last year. The bowling alley building contains a gross floor area of approximately 60,000 square feet. Looking immediately to the east of this site are a variety of commercial and office uses, zoned C-2, General Business, the same classification of the bowling alley. To the west is the Henry Ford Medical Center which is zoned C-2 as well. To the north are residential homes that are part of the Mar-Git Subdivision No.2, zoned R-1, one family residential. To the south is Schoolcraft Road and the 1-96 Expressway. The reason for the rezoning is to construct an indoor, climate-controlled self-storage facility and utilize the surplus parking lot space area for outdoor storage of recreational vehicles. The indoor self-storage building would replace the existing bowling alley. The structure would sit roughly where the bowling alley exists today. It would be two- stories in height and contain a gross floor area of roughly 116,000 square feet, and that includes both levels of the facility. Between the proposed self-storage facility and the property's west lot line, the conceptual plan shows a small outdoor paved storage lot with a total of 17 covered RV parking stalls. Each parking space would be protected by an open-sided RV or carport. The larger RV storage lot is shown on the east half of the property. This area contains a total of 39 covered parking stalls in a "U"-shaped arrangement. The covered RV-ports on this side of the property measure roughly 12 feet by 50 feet. The lot and RV storage areas would be fully enclosed by a 6 foot high fence and access to the site would be controlled via a gated entrance that would be centrally-located along the site's frontage on Schoolcraft. There would be a controlled access or exit gate located on the west side of the building. The Future Land Use Plan currently shows this property as General Commercial. With that, Mr. Chairman, I can read out the departmental correspondence. Mr. Morrow: Yes, please read it. Mr. Taormina: There is one item of correspondence from the Engineering Division, dated January 8, 2016, which reads as follows: "In accordance with your request, the Engineering Division has reviewed the above referenced petition. We have no objections to the proposed rezoning at this time. The included legal description that was included with the petition appears to be correct and should be used in conjunction with this petition. (The January 26, 2016 27400 legal description included with the drawing is missing information and should not be used.) The existing property is assigned an address of 28900 Schoolcraft Road. The included drawings do not indicate any existing or proposed utility information, but this office has been in contact with the owner to discuss requirements for the proposed renovations. The lot is currently serviced with public storm and sanitary sewer, and water main." The letter is signed by David W. Lear, P.E., Assistant City Engineer. We received a letter dated January 13, 2016, which reads as follows: "Dear Planning Commission Board, I, Georgina Lebbos, the owner of 28473 Gita, don't agree and will vote against changing the indicated property on the other side of this sheet to M-1. We have kids and love this area. Please keep it as business unless you want this part of Livonia residents to move out and relocate. No to M-1." The letter is signed by Georgina Lebbos. That is the extent of the correspondence. Mr. Morrow: Are there any questions of the Planning Director? Seeing none, is the petitioner here? We will need your name and address for the record please. Ernie D'Ascenzo, Michigan Property Group, L.L.C., 34355 Glouster Circle, Farmington Hills, Michigan 48331. We're here tonight to recognize the concerns both for the neighbors and the community and the City of Livonia. We believe the concept that we have works really well for the community. I'll go through that in a minute and show it to you. I just want to introduce you to a couple of my other partners. Jeff Johnson. I just want to speak and give you a little background. This is our team. Jeff Johnson, Safety Mini Storage, 2610 Dawes, Shelby Township, Michigan. We've done over a million square feet of mini-storage between building and owning them, and have a couple sites that come to mind real quick that have had residential situations like this, and we've had absolutely no problems with them. We dealt with the community. We love dealing with communities and the neighbors. We interact with them very well. I've personally gone to the neighborhood and talked to the majority of people and have had great support with that. I believe some of them are here now. We'll get into that later on, but again, thank you for your time. Mr. D'Ascenzo: And then I'd like to introduce Kelly Denha. Me and Kelly are partners are some other real estate that we've done in the past. When I originally saw the bowling alley in the condition it was, I work with a number of different banks to clean up property like January 26, 2016 27401 this, and so the bank kind of tossed it out to me and approached me on it. I did a little homework on it, and then knowing that Kelly's family's party store is close by, I went and talked to him, and said, hey, give me some background on this and what have you. With that being said, Kelly went through the project with me and then after that, he said, can I get involved with you guys. Well, we were already previously involved in other parcels on different parts of town. So I'm going to let Kelly speak. Kelly Denhas, Wine Palace, 13971 Middlebelt, Livonia, Michigan 48154. My family has owned the Wine Palace for 32 years. And Ernie, my friend and partner, when he approached me and he was visiting Livonia a while ago, okay, what do you have going on. And he showed me the parcel. I was gung ho about it because I think the bowling alley is an eyesore. I told him that I would not put my reputation on line here in the City of Livonia, I've been here for 32 years, if I don't like the project. And I saw it. I saw the renderings. He alleviated a lot of my concerns because I live in Livonia, not technically, but I do. I spend 12 hours a day here, and I like developments that make Livonia clean and nice and just think it's a fantastic project because it eliminates a lot of the crime element. I don't want a bar there because of the location. And where the hotel is, if you talk to Livonia Police, and I do daily, they have to make runs to the bowling alley a lot and to America's Best Hotel. So I think this project, short hours, beautiful building, it looks like an office building, easy use, closed at 8:00 at night. It meets the criteria of a nice development in Livonia and I like it. Ernie and I have been partners for at least 20 years. We developed a CVS together in Shelby Township. I approached him on that one and I brought him in because there was only one person that could clean up that site. There was a gas station with contamination, and he went through hoops with EPA and everything to get everything perfect. By the way, it's one of the busiest CVS's in the State of Michigan. He took a junky car wash and what he did to it, absolutely amazing. When he says he going to do something, he does it, and I'm vouching for him. I've been here for 32 years and proud to be in Livonia doing business for 32 years. I'm excited to get involved with this project. If there's any questions, I'll give it back to Ernie. Mr. Morrow: You've heard the presentation. Is there anything you'd like to add to it? Mr. D'Ascenzo: I put together a quick slide show. I don't want to get too in depth but I just want to let the panel know what we went through in the process. I'm a commercial developer by trade. I brought the first January 26, 2016 27402 Chipotles to Michigan, the second Pei Wei, new companies coming to the State of Michigan. There have been concerns on this site with the highest and best use of the site. When you see the site up there, it's on the north side of 96. There's no other retail in the middle of the block other than the ends on the north bound of 96. All the retail is down on the south side. So if you're McDonalds, you always want to be by Burger King, Taco Bell. There's a co-tenancy that works within that. So we looked at that because the site is six acres. So we said maybe we could do a development, but we can't find any co-tenancies because there's no retail on the north side. Additionally, when you look at the freeway exit off of 1-96, it's after the site itself. So you'd have to go all the way down, turn around and come back. It would be very hard to put any type of impulse or any type of traffic pattern as far as commercial real estate would go. If we could go to the next slide please, Mark. With that being said, I know there was talk of a hotel on site at one time. There's currently a new hotel going in at the southeast corner of Inkster and 96, and I believed there's proposed two more hotels going just south of this on the south side of 96. That would put five hotels and there's a hotel next door of the parcel. That would put five hotels within that one mile radius. Additional, if I was the neighbors and it was my house and I do look at that when I develop, I don't just look at what I want to do but there has to be a feel for the neighborhood and the community. Whatever I've developed, I've never sold. I own everything I've developed. With that being said, if there was a hotel there and I was the neighbor behind that hotel, I wouldn't be real happy because it is 24 hours of constant traffic. What we're looking to do is, because of the neighborhood and because of the location, is something very low impact to the neighborhood. We considered all these things for highest and best use. With that being said, this is a picture of the building. To some degree, you have an obsolete piece of property based on the location as far as it being commercial or retail. And you also have a building that's obsolete that was, in its heyday, probably a beautiful bowling alley. It was a beautiful thing. But in today's standard, there's no way to redevelop this building the way it's structurally engineered and the way it is, but there are, as Mark stated, utilities there, water mains there. All the major necessities are there to redevelop this parcel. This building is almost 45 feet tall. This is from the back of the neighborhoods, back of the houses there. Our development would be two stories but it wouldn't even be this high. The next shot is a rendering of what we propose. It's a very vanilla building. We can dress it up; we can dress it down. It's two stories. The building is 58,000 square feet on the footprint. Two stories is 116,000 square feet. It basically looks like an office January 26, 2016 27403 building. It's very soft. Glass windows. So if you see where the garage is in the middle of the building there, and to the left, you'll see the double doors, which is where the office is. So conceptually, you would go into the office, handle your paperwork, and then you'd pull up to the garage door once your paperwork was handled, and there's a keypad there. You'd hit the keypad and you could drive into the building. This puts you secure in the building, out of the environment and secure because both garage doors are shut. Seventy percent of decision making on self-storage is made by women. For this reason here where they feel secure, it works really well. I know there's a lot of storage places around, but they're done in row garages. It's outside in the climate. It has security issues, all kinds of traffic, what have you. This is done within the building. Very low impact. This is the overall of the property. Again, the footprint is going to be the existing building so we're not changing anything. We're using the same footprint. The property to the right there, which is all the parking lot, we would like to do outdoor storage with recreational vehicle parking. Now most of that is seasonal parking. So you park your RV in the winter, you come back and get it out in the spring. It's very low impact. Very limited traffic. This is it on the site plan here. What this creates with the outdoor parking there, with the carports and the RV ports, it creates a buffer between the sound of the freeway and the sound of the service drive and the lighting that comes off the freeway. So this creates a great buffer between the residential and the street and the freeway. With that being there, you hold that sound back. You hold all the light back, and again, it's seasonal parking. It's boats in the wintertime, RV's and then they come in and out. This is the rendering and this kind of shows the carports, RV carports, recreational vehicle parking. The height is 14 feet tall. The back wall currently on the property is between 8 and 9 feet tall. So this is a little bit taller but what it does, again, is it takes that light and that sound and keeps it forward and not into the houses behind. This is one we've worked on in Plymouth and just finished. Very soft looking building. It looks like an office building. It's mostly all brick and block. We usually do a little bit of E.I.F.S. just for accent or to dress it up a little bit. Again, you can see the office right there, the double doors in the middle and you can see the garage to the left. This is the building a little bit up closer. So again, you can see the block; you can see the windows. It's very soft. It's not stand out hard. This is where you walk into the office. You walk in, see Bob there at the desk, do your paperwork. Bob would give you a tour of the facility, explain how it works. You can see above Bob in the back. You can see the cameras and all the pictures are up there. Everything is recorded outside, January 26, 2016 27404 inside, secured. To the left we have P.O. Boxes for businesses to have a P.O. Box. On the far right, we have conference rooms. So we find a lot of people working from their house, which this helps relieve this. Medical reps. So they'd have their stuff stored in a five-by-five. They pick up their mail. They can go to the conference room. They can make calls. They can do what they want. They can go to their unit and get whatever they're getting, salesmen what have you, and it takes some of that business stuff out of the neighborhood and gives it a place to do business. We get great reception from this. So once you're finished with Bob, you have your keypad and you can see the keypad is on the left up there by the poles, punch in your keypad, the garage door opens and you can drive in. When you drive in, you pull over to the left. Again, you're in a secured area. It's climate controlled. It's vented for carbon monoxide. There's alarms. There's fans. Everything is on automated stuff, and it's very clean and secure. So you unload your stuff from the car and then you can go down the hallway to the elevators and go to the second floor or down the hallway to unload. In the concept that we have, there would be three main hallways running north and south and you just roll to those hallways and unload your stuff in your locker or in your unit. So here on the left is the elevator, here's the carts, here's the hallways. You can see the hallway looks dim. As you walk down the hallway, the motion detectors kick on and all the lights turn on. After you leave, 10 minutes after you leave, they turn off. Again, secured, cameras, everything. This is the RVs and we're looking for Class A RVs. We're not looking for the broke down tires and all that. We don't want to do that. We're looking for Class A boats, RVS, recreational vehicles, those types of things. So this is, don't know if you can read this. I'll read it. It's a little fuzzy. It says, by the Self-Storage Association of America, overall, as indicated in the current self-storage almanac, the average number of vehicles entering a typical facility is 21.1 cars per day. So basically, 21 cars on average are what's going to be on that site. That's how low impact it is. The other one is, the U.S. Self-Storage Facilities pay a total of $3.25 billion in property taxes to local government agencies. Nine and a half percent of all households have a rental unit or rent a unit. Eight percent of the public has a recreational vehicle of some type. I don't know if you can read the very end there. This is one of the receivers. Like I said, I work with a number of the banks, a number of the receivers, and I'm just going to read the bottom there. On June 8, this is from the receiver. On June 8 I took over the property and I've entertained offers and other purchases, all of which have displayed little promise of any ability to close the sale with the exception of Ernie D'Ascenzo. Mr. D'Ascenzo has invested January 26, 2016 27405 resources, time and energy into what appears to be a promising development opportunity for Livonia on this difficult site. I support his plan and hope the City of Livonia shares my enthusiasm. Mark also mentioned to mention some of the people in the municipalities that I've worked with. I've worked with Bill Wild, the Mayor of Westland. I've worked with Carlos Santee, both at the Wayne County Road Commission and both as a planner at Clinton Township, and we currently had the same project going on with another bowling alley in Clinton Township. I've worked with Steve Cassin, who is the Planner for Macomb County. I've worked with Mike Viazanko, the City of Sterling Heights. We've done some developments out there and own some shopping centers. Back in the day, I worked with Mr. Leo Snage quite a bit at the City of Redford. Back in the day we worked with Skip Marone in Shelby Township, was the CVS that Kelly referred to. My understanding of going from C-2 to M-1, the concerns of the one letter that was written is probably more of a concern because there's that fear of the unknown of we're going to put a stamping plant in, we're going to put some type of industrial development in and what have you. That's not what we want to do and we want to go from C-2 to M-1 along with the statement of conditions. It would be used only for climate controlled indoor storage, storing of recreational vehicles only, operational hours from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Class A facility both interior and exterior and control of lighting as to not migrate into the residential neighborhood. Those are the biggest concerns that we saw. We're willing to work with the City of Livonia if there's other concerns we haven't recognized or we haven't thought of, both for the community and the neighbors and for the City of Livonia. That's about all I have. We're open to any questions, support, anything we can help that there's a concern with. Mr. Morrow: Thank you. Mrs. Smiley? Ms. Smiley: I was wondering what can be stored there and how do you know what they're storing there? Mr. D'Ascenzo: In the contract, we have conditions within the contract what can be stored there. Jeff is more or less the operational guy. Mr. Johnson: We're very aware of the neighborhood and all that. So typically what we store is no hazardous materials, no gasoline, no open containers and it's pretty much standard in the industry as well. It's in the contracts as well, what they can bring in, what they can't bring in. It's very explicit. January 26, 2016 27406 Mr. D'Ascenzo: Sixty seven percent of the customers are household, 26 percent are condos and apartments and 16 percent are businesses. That's the breakdown. So most of it is household items. It is in the contract. No chemicals, nothing like that. No band can rent a unit and practice in there. You see all kinds of it, but it's all in our contract. It's just normal storage. Ms. Smiley: I just want to confirm your hours of operation and what kind of personnel are on site. Mr. D'Ascenzo: Our hours of operation are 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. We usually have anywhere from two to three people on site. Initially, when we first open, we have our office manager, and we also have a couple people around to help people unload and help them get their stuff to their unit to help them out once they're there. But other than that, we have our maintenance crews that go by weekly and take care of all our own stuff. We manage all our own properties. Normally, there would be one to three people there. Mr. Johnson: We clean our sites daily. We recognize the outdoor situation. We pick up any bottles or papers. We clean that continuously. It's around the clock cleaning in that sense, both inside and out. Mr. D'Ascenzo: And again, everything is on camera. Ms. Smiley: Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Just a couple questions. The photograph of the facility that you showed us in Plymouth, where is that located? Mr. D'Ascenzo: I can get the address for you. Ann Arbor and Lilley. Mr. Wilshaw: Ann Arbor and Lilley. Okay. Mr. D'Ascenzo: I don't know the address. Mr. Wilshaw: The appearance of it looks like it's similar in appearance to what you're proposing here conceptually. So I want to take a look at that. Mr. D'Ascenzo: And that's not our site. That's conceptual just so you can have an idea of what it would look like. Mr. Wilshaw: Sure. I understand. January 26, 2016 27407 Mr. Johnson: We poured some of the concrete there. We have our own concrete crews. It's a friend of ours. We helped them pour some of the concrete. Mr. Wilshaw: That's fine. I appreciate that. And the other question for you is, we're dealing with a rezoning so we can't dig too deep into the site plan type issues because this isn't a site plan. This is all just conceptual, but just to understand, you have an area that you're proposing would be covered RV parking. What would you do with the space in the middle of that section? Would that be outdoor storage of items as well? Mr. D'Ascenzo: Yes. Covered has a premium price and then regular parking outdoors without the cover has another price. So in the middle of that would just be parking. No covered parking. But again, it's contained within itself, and I agree with you, it's not a full site plan. This is on the east side of the property. On the west side of the property, we would like to do the same thing to a certain degree so that you have the buffer on the residential on the west side there. So we would like to put those against the back of the property so you have a buffer on the residential and then same thing coming down the side so that you have that buffer so it keeps it nice and quiet and the light stays out. Mr. Wilshaw: If we get to the site plan, we'll get into those details of the layout and so on. My other question to you is, you gave us a statistic based on national averages of vehicles that come in and off the property on a daily basis. Mr. Johnson, based on your experience operating these facilities, how many vehicles per day would you expect to come in and out of a facility like this one? Mr. Johnson: On this particular site, we calculated about 75 vehicles would be on it. Again, once they come in, they pretty much stay. Mr. D'Ascenzo: He's referring to daily traffic. Mr. Johnson: Oh, daily traffic. The average is 20 to 30 cars on a daily basis, but again, once the site is full, the traffic is really cut down and that's very low impact at that number as well, 20 to 30 vehicles. Mr. Wilshaw: Definitely, for a commercial facility it would be. All right. That's all I have for now. Mr. D'Ascenzo: Just to let the board know, we did go through the neighborhood and spoke to a number of the neighbors. I didn't get the name of the lady that wrote the letter, but I'm sure there's a little bit of the January 26, 2016 27408 fear of the unknown because that was the response we had. M- 1 is stamping and it's industrial. But again, we read the stipulation and we have no problem and we're open to any of those too. Mr. Taylor: Did you happen to have anything to do with the new storage unit on Lilley and Ann Arbor Road? Mr. D'Ascenzo: No. We just poured some of the concrete. Mr. Johnson: Actually, not at that location. Mr. Taylor: Again, like I told you at our study meeting, I don't have any problem with the building you want to put up. It looks great, but I do have a problem with outside storage of cars in that particular area, and the problem we've got is M-1 zoning. Unfortunately, Livonia doesn't have any kind of a waiver use for C-2 where we might be able to put something like this in. If we get through this all right, I'm going to ask the Council to take a look at that where it could be a waiver use in a C-2 zoning, the type of facility you want to put in. But again, I have a problem with the outside storage. I just don't think that fits on Schoolcraft in that particular area. Hopefully, I don't know what's going to happen, but like I say, the building you're putting up looks like an office building. It's great, but I just can't help not voting for an M-1 zoning in that particular area, mainly because of what can happen after. You can put a stipulation that only that will go there, but then we have a fight in court, maybe, because of that. Well, it was that way before and why can't it be now? A question through the Chair to Mark, you were going to find out how many storage businesses we have in Livonia. Did you ever do that? Mr. Taormina: I did do that and I apologize if I did not forward it to you. An inventory of existing RV storage lots is something that we've recently compiled. I believe there are six with the seventh one under consideration right now. The six existing RV storage lots are mostly concentrated in the industrial portion of Livonia. There's one along Eight Mile, but the others are mostly concentrated along Inkster Road and Stark Road. I don't show all of the mini-storage units. There are some on Eight Mile Road. Those are similarly located in the industrial belt as well as along Eight Mile Road. There's a couple of mini storage facilities and, of course, the one that we just recently approved at the corner of Eight Mile and Grand River. Mr. Morrow: Thank you, Mark. January 26, 2016 27409 Mr. Taormina: Those are not climate controlled. I just want to point those out. The majority of those are of a single story nature with customer access available from the exterior of the units. We do have one climate controlled facility that I can think of at Merriman and Schoolcraft. Mr. D'Ascenzo: If I could recognize your concerns real quick. Number one, this is a new concept per se for self-storage. It's not the row of garages. So when you say self-storage and you look at that, this is a new concept. It works much better and more efficient and it's climate controlled. Most of them aren't climate controlled. They are just garages you store stuff in. Number two, we did do all of our own feasibility studies before we even considered this and there is a shortage of RV parking. And there is shortage of climate controlled storage. Almost every climate controlled storage you have in the City of Livonia is 100 percent or 95 percent full currently. Additionally, with the RV, I understand the concerns and we will stipulate to RV only, no heavy machinery, no trucks, none of that. We will stipulate to recreational vehicles only, plated, tired, what have you. Additionally, I've never sold anything we've built. This isn't the type of building Class A that we intend to put up to sell, but I understand the concerns, but even when we stipulate to that, we stipulate it for that use for that zoning. Thank you. Mr. Long: Just a couple quick questions. You said that the wall in the back of the property is 8 or 9 feet, but the top of the carports will be 14 feet. Mr. D'Ascenzo: Correct. Mr. Long: So what happens in that gap then? You have five or six feet in there. Will the carport bend down over that? Will the residents get a view of the windshield of the recreational vehicle? How does that work? Mr. D'Ascenzo: It would be metal. It would be the same metal that's on the roof that would come down to meet the wall all the way across. Again, that's the sound and the lighting barrier that would stop the traffic from, you know, the sound or the lighting from the freeway or the service drive. Mr. Long: And then the other question that I had was, you mentioned earlier that it's in the contracts that you can't bring hazardous materials into the facility. How is that enforced? Are your employees watching for that when people are unloading? I January 26, 2016 27410 mean, it's fine that it's in the contract, but what's to stop somebody? Mr. D'Ascenzo: Again, everything is on camera and everything is recorded. Cameras are great because you can see that, and also it's a great way to help and train employees because we can see everything from our cell phones or from our offices too. So it's great to say to the employee, hey, you didn't catch that. Hey, you missed that. So we do reviews on all our own stuff too, but that's exactly right. Thank you. Mr. Morrow: Any other questions? Is there anybody in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the granting of this petition? Mr. D'Ascenzo: If you have any others questions, I'd love to recognize them. Martin Van de Velde, 28658 Buckingham Avenue, Livonia, Michigan 48154. I'd like to speak on behalf of Mr. Johnson. I appreciate the fact that he actually walked through our neighborhood on a very cold day, went door to door to door to door to every resident. My house is actually on the north side of Buckingham Street. However, I put up for the last 12 years all the things that went on at that bowling alley. Gun shots, domestics, cars running into each other, cars out in the parking lot doing donuts. At one point two years ago, I even went to my neighbors houses, got a petition. Sat down with Mr. Taig at the Police Department and said, hey look, you guys got to understand when we call the police that we can't see what's going on, we can only hear it. So that was one my concerns was the lighting issue, which you already answered. So that's a good thing. One of the other concerns was the wall. I beg to differ on that point because at some spots the wall might be four feet tall, that wall might be eight feet tall. I don't know who the wall belongs to but it's falling down in some places. We've had people climb over that wall. We've had people throw beer bottles, syringes, you name it over that wall. We've had people enter people's houses coming over that wall. So that's one of our concerns is either a bigger wall or a wall that meets . . . it sounded like the wall is actually going to meet the roof, so that's a good point. But I know it's slanted at certain points where the height is much different in other places, and there's also places on that wall where there's actually bricks falling out. So that's my big concern. Mr. Taylor's concern about what kind of business should go there. This sounds like the ideal thing for the people that live here because that bowling alley, or whatever business that could possibly go there, the bowling alley let out at 11:00 and people just hang out in the parking lot until 2:00 a.m. in the morning. I mean, this place is January 26, 2016 27411 going to close at 8:00. Everybody is going to be gone. It's going to be locked up. Sounds like a pretty good deal to us. My last point is to the person who lives on Gita and complained about this. That road is not even near this place. It's in the neighborhood, but you see the addresses on Buckingham. That's the people that should have the say, not somebody who lives around the corner and down the street. That's about it. Thank you. Mr. Morrow: Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else? It would speed things you if you could come down and sit by the podium. Jeanne Boron, 28705 Buckingham Avenue, Livonia, Michigan 48154. I am directly behind the bowling alley right now on the corner of it. I can see the parking lot, see Schoolcraft. I have lived there since '71. My husband and I got married. We bought a house there. We have had nothing but trouble. I have called the cops I think about 20 times. Recently, we heard gun shots there a few years back. My mother-in-law lived down behind the back of the bowling alley. There was a disturbance between a man and woman, gun shots. They jumped the wall. They beat on her bedroom window. She was by herself and scared her half to death. This has happened repeatedly. We've had people jump the wall. We've had kids walking on the wall. My own yard is with a wall and we complained several times to have them fix it. There's cracks everywhere. It's wobbling. There was a hole this big in it now. For about five, six years we complained to the City about it. They just plastered it up two years ago. I've been in touch with the bowling alley owner. Nothing was done to fix it. We've had garbage thrown over. When we moved in, seven of us owners from the bowling alley down toward Middlebelt paid $200. That was cheap then. To have it raised two bricks because when they walked by, it was like this low. They just see everything you're doing. I've had people throw beer bottles over the wall while I'm doing gardening when I had gardens. But we have had pretty nasty deeds going on behind there on the bowling alley, cussing, swearing, screaming, fighting, squealing of tires. The police have come to my house several times asking me what was going on, and we told them. There was guns several times, bullets, and it is scary. It's very scary, and we've had a lot of fights in the alley. I'm not on the alley as much as the other people, but I'm close to it. And I want to know what they will do about fixing our wall. We have asked them. They did fix part of it maybe 15 years ago, but they stopped at a certain area. My wall, you can actually see through the cracks. I'd like that taken care of and if kids do start running across there like they did 25 years ago, it is wobbling. And I want to know how January 26, 2016 27412 much clearance there is between the wall and where the buildings will be. Mr. Morrow: Let me respond to you right now. This is a question of zoning tonight. Should this petition prevail, they will have to come back with a site plan. At that time, the condition of the wall, the height of the wall, the distance between the wall and the structure, all those things will be addressed. But this is just a rezoning request. If it goes through, then it will be followed by a site plan where all the details you heard the Engineering Department, they've got a lot of questions about it, which they will have eventually, but right now it's just zoning. Ms. Boron: And we were wondering too, if there is an alley behind there, will they have like speed bumps or something like that in case people do speed through there? I talked to the neighbors right behind the bowling alley and one of their concerns was the big air conditioning unit that is there now. They can't even sit out in their backyards barbequing for only about an hour when that thing would come on it was so loud. Just wondering how they're going . . . Mr. Morrow: As you've observed and heard, we're dealing with professionals in this business. Your concerns, I'm sure, are their concerns. I doubt if speed bumps would be required based on the use they're proposing, but again, that can come up at the appropriate time. Ms. Boron: I'm a little bit more settled with the idea of having the storage rather than, I heard at one time that the bowling alley guy was saying the owner was saying something about it was going to be like a recreational place for kids and families, which we were dreading, but I'm kind of like for this project if they would steer our way a little bit and do a couple things. Other than that, I'm pleased with it. Mr. Morrow: Thank you very much for your comments. Anyone else? Tony Randazzo, 28655 Buckingham Avenue, Livonia, Michigan 48154. Our property abuts the bowling alley and the parking lot area right now. What I've heard tonight, I like what I've heard as far as the conceptual site plan goes. I think this is a better alternative than most uses that could come to this property so I think that's a positive. Most of my concerns are site plan related and we talked about the wall. The wall is definitely my concern as it is in disrepair and that's just something to think about going forward. The gentleman mentioned something about an 8 or 9 foot wall. January 26, 2016 27413 It's no more than four feet and there's holes in it and so forth. The only other concern I have is with the RV storage, what type of setback there will be for those RV ports and, once again, I know we're getting into the site plan, but as far as this project goes as presented tonight, I am for it. I think it's a much better alternative than some of the uses that could come to this property. Thank you. Mr. Morrow: Thank you. Anyone else? Ron Rozen, 28631 Buckingham Avenue, Livonia, Michigan 48154. I've been a resident there longer than a lot of these guys. Anyway, I agree with the planning, but I understand this is a zoning for the property itself. But before we approve this, we'd still like some answers on how far these storage units on the outside are going to be from the wall. I know the people have discussed all the things in the past that's happened at the bowling alley, which has been a disaster and we begged and pleaded and whatever, and I do agree this will probably be better than some things that could happen. But before I can say I'm approving it, I heard somebody say, and maybe they can answer the question, and I know this goes before the actual planning of it, but how far are these storage units going to be from the wall? I'm sure that could be answered. The other question is, since the Wine Palace is involved, are we going to get a free case of beer? Mr. Morrow: You can work that out on the way out. Mr. Rozen: But that's my only concern. Now, I'm sure there's some preliminary things they're showing on that plan. We don't want it right up against our property. Now how much of a buffer is in between and I didn't understand what he's talking about a buffer. Well, a buffer is usually a hunk of dirt or wall blocking whatever. Now I don't understand and I'd like you to explain what kind of buffer or how far these storage units are going to be from the actual property line from the wall. The only question I have before we approve this, 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. that's fine. Now, if anybody is in there, now somebody has an RV, what happens if they want to spend the night in there? Parties happen. Is this going to be Livonia Police going to kick them out or how is this going to be patrolled? Mr. Morrow: Again, that's kind of getting into the site plan. Mr. Rozen: Yes, I understand that. January 26, 2016 27414 Mr. Morrow: The petitioner has asked to come forward and respond to some of the comments he's heard tonight. So he will be invited back to the podium and if he chooses, he can address that if he's got the plans finalized. Mr. Rozen: Oh, I understand this is a preliminary thing. Mr. Morrow: That's exactly right. Mr. Rozen: We can never predict the future, but all in all, it's better than what could be in there. Mr. Morrow: We like to cut our citizens as much slack as we can give them. We'll see if he will respond to that. Mr. Rozen: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Morrow: Is there anyone else wishing to speak from the audience? If you could just come down and take a seat closer to the podium to help speed things up a little bit. Shannon Randazzo, 28655 Buckingham Avenue, Livonia, Michigan 48154. The property abuts up to the wall of where the old Cloverlanes was. believe that what's been proposed tonight or what we're looking at is more appealing than what has been there. As a mother of a five year old and a one year old, that has been very difficult living behind Cloverlanes with syringes being found in my backyard, with beer bottles and things like that and having to not let your child go out freely outside to play in the backyard. So if we're going to look at the big picture of this and the security, the quietness, the less worry of gun shots, which unfortunately I was present alone with my one year old when that happened. For me, I am more for this and I appreciate the things that they're trying to propose. So hopefully this is something that the Council will consider and move forward with in a positive forward motion for the City of Livonia and for us as a community as well. I think we deserve to have Livonia start building stronger and keep your citizens inside the city. Thank you. Mr. Morrow: Is there anyone else wishing to speak. I see no one else coming forward, so Ernie you could please come to the podium. Mr. D'Ascenzo: If I could real quick again, when we get to site plan, we'd be willing to work. I know the wall is a concern. I think I spoke out of our concept was to have the wall eight feet high, clean the wall up and then have the carports come down to the wall to meet the wall so that they had that quiet area. Currently right January 26, 2016 27415 now, the cars park against the wall. That's how the parking is set up. So we were looking at setting the carports up the same way. I know there was discussion with Mr. Taylor concerning the outdoor parking. Again, we stipulate RV only, got to be plated, no flat tires, all that stuff, Class A. With that being said, and know there was some talk of rezoning a portion of it based on this stipulation and possibly keeping the outdoor storage area as C-2. If we do keep that as C-2, then we're looking at restaurants, some type of retail that has hours a lot more than what we would have I would think. We really feel this is a very low impact for the neighborhood and a great buffer from the street and from the sound and noise. I thank you for your time tonight. Mr. Morrow: As one Commissioner, I just want to make a couple comments here. I think the concept that I've seen here tonight, I'm pretty much in favor of, but I have two concerns. One is spot zoning, which this would be dropping a manufacturing district in a commercial residential area, and secondly, as we talked at the study, to give us some protection on what would be used that M-1 zoning for, would require conditions. As one Commissioner, I don't feel it's my prerogative as a commissioner to condition zoning. It's either the right zoning or not the right zoning. So as I pick up the gavel, I'm going to ask for a motion. I wanted to get those remarks on the record before the motion is made. Mr. Taylor: I'm going to ask for a tabling motion because of the reason I told you. I think we should hold a public hearing and send it on to the Council as to whether we should have something like this as a waiver use in a C-2 zone. I'm asking for tabling. On a motion by Taylor, it was RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on January 26, 2016, on Petition 2015-12-01-13 submitted by Michigan Property Group, L.L.C. pursuant to Section 23.01 of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the property at 28900 Schoolcraft Road, located on the north side of Schoolcraft Road between Inkster and Middlebelt Roads in the Southwest 1/4 of Section 24, from C-2 (General Business) to M- 1 (Light Manufacturing), the Planning Commission does hereby table this item. Mr. Morrow: Do we have a second? The tabling fails for lack of support. I'll ask for another motion. January 26, 2016 27416 Mr. Wilshaw: This is going to be a difficult resolution to offer because I think before us we have a developer and a team of people who are very skilled in what they're doing. I think they're offering a very good proposal to the community at this particular location which, as the residents have pointed out, has had a history of issues. I'm going to offer a denying resolution on the rezoning of this property, and I'll speak to that a little bit more after the vote if that's okay, Mr. Chair. On a motion by Wilshaw, seconded by Smiley, and unanimously adopted, it was #01-06-2016 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on January 26, 2016, on Petition 2015-12-01-13 submitted by Michigan Property Group, L.L.C. pursuant to Section 23.01 of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the property at 28900 Schoolcraft Road, located on the north side of Schoolcraft Road between Inkster and Middlebelt Roads in the Southwest 1/4 of Section 24, from C-2 (General Business) to M- 1 (Light Manufacturing), the Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 2015-12-01-13 be denied for the following reasons: 1. That the anticipated industrial use would unduly tax and conflict with the established and normal traffic flow of the area; 2. That the existing C-2 zoning is more consistent with the established pattern of development and character of the area; 3. That the proposed change of zoning is inconsistent with adjacent zoning districts in the area; 4. That the proposed change of zoning is inconsistent with the established pattern of the development and would adversely alter the character of the area; and 5. That the proposed zoning change is not supported by the Future Land Use Plan which shows this site as General Commercial. 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. Morrow: Is there any discussion? January 26, 2016 27417 Mr. Wilshaw: As I said, this is a difficult thing for me to offer, denying on the rezoning, because I think the site plan, the conceptual use that we see for this property, is actually very ideal for this particular site, but what we have before us is not the use of the property. It's the rezoning of the property. As the Chairman stated in his comments, a manufacturing zoning while being the only option currently available for this particular petitioner, is not necessarily the appropriate zoning for this site. If for some reason this petitioner was unable to go forward in the future with the development or perhaps the development itself was not successful for some reason, now we're stuck with a piece of property right behind residential houses that is manufacturing zoning, which is not appropriate in my mind for those residents and for that particular area. If this resolution that I've offered to deny this is successful, what I will do is follow that up with an additional resolution, Mr. Chair, to have us seek to add storage facilities to commercial zoning districts so that we can allow this petitioner to move forward with his plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Morrow, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. It will go on to City Council with denying resolution, which we want to do to expedite getting this to the City Council because we understand you're in a certain time constraint, but it will be a denying resolution. Before you leave, I'm going to give the floor back to Mr. Wilshaw. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Chair. In addition to this denying resolution, I'm going to offer a motion to hold a public hearing on the question of whether or not to amend the C-2 District Regulations to allow indoor, climate-controlled self-storage facilities. On a motion by Wilshaw, seconded by Taylor, and unanimously approved, it was #01-07-2016 RESOLVED, that the City Planning Commission, pursuant to Section 23.01(a) of Ordinance #543, the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Livonia, as amended, does hereby establish and order that a public hearing be held to determine whether or not to amend Article XI, C-2 District Regulations, of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance No. 543, as amended, to allow indoor, climate-controlled self-storage facilities as either as permitted use under Section 11.02 or as a waiver use under Section 11.03. FURTHER RESOLVED, that notice of such hearing shall be given in accordance with the provisions of Section 23.05 of Ordinance #543, the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Livonia, as January 26, 2016 27418 amended, and that thereafter there shall be a report and recommendation submitted to the City Council. Mr. Morrow, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Basically, what we've done here is address the problem of the zoning. Every now and then in the performance of our duties, we come across uses that, based on what we see, should probably fall within either a permitted or waiver use for the property because right now the only classification we have for this type is in the M-1 District. However, we feel it is a use that is compatible with a C-2 zoning and that's why we want to address the ordinance. We will take action on this at our next regular meeting and send it forward to the City Council for their consideration who will subsequently make the final determination as to whether or not your project goes forward. Based on that, good luck. Thank you for all the information. You handled it very professionally and we thank everybody for their comments. ITEM #2 PETITION 2016-01-01-01 9309 NEWBURGH Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Petition 2016- 01-01-01 submitted by the City Planning Commission, pursuant to Section 23.01(b) of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the west 134.10 feet of 9309 Newburgh Road, located on the west side of Newburgh Road between Joy Road and Ann Arbor Trail in the Southeast 1/4 of Section 31, from PL (Public Land) to R-1 (One Family Residential - 60' x 120' Lots). Mr. Taormina: This is a request to rezone the back portion of an existing residentially-developed property that is located on west side of Newburgh Road between Joy Road and Ann Arbor Trail. This property is roughly 1.28 acres in area. It includes 163 feet of frontage on Newburgh Road and has a depth of 340 feet. The front portion of this property, the easterly 206 feet, is zoned R-1, One Family Residential, whereas the westerly 134 feet of the same parcel is zoned PL, Public Lands. This is the area of the property that is the subject of this city-initiated rezoning petition. This petition is intended to "fix" the boundaries of the zoning map on what is an error that was discovered during a recent request by the owners of the property to split the subject site. Records show that in 1988, a previous owner of 9309 Newburgh Road purchased one acre of land from the City of Livonia. At that time, the property in question was zoned R-U-F and was part of a larger parcel (9400 Stonehouse Avenue) that was January 26, 2016 27419 previously designated on the Future Land Use Plan as a proposed park. So the area on this site that you see shown as PL is the 9400 Stonehouse Avenue property that is owned by the City but does not include currently the area that is highlighted in the red box. The red boxed area is owned by the owners of 9309 Newburgh Road. They purchased that land from the City back in 1988. Unfortunately, after the sale of the property, the new parcel boundaries and descriptions were never properly reflected on the City's records. Subsequently, the City amended the Future Land Use Plan to show the land as a future park site, unbeknownst to the City that it included the property that was sold. In 2006, the City rezoned the Stonehouse Avenue property, including this portion of the site, to PL, Public Lands. We relied on these old legal descriptions that included this 134 foot portion which is now under private ownership. Since PL zoned property is intended solely for public use purposes, it is recommended that the land area in question be rezoned to R-1 to reflect both the current use as well as the ownership. There is a house located on the north half of this property. It would be split from east to west to create an additional building site on the south half of the property. That split would fully conform to the R-1 district regulations. With that, Mr. Chairman, I will answer any questions you may have or read out the correspondence at this time. Mr. Morrow: Please. Mr. Taormina: There is one item of correspondence from the Engineering Division, dated January 8, 2016, which reads as follows: "In accordance with your request, the Engineering Division has reviewed the above referenced petition. We have no objections to the proposed rezoning at this time. The included legal description on the recorded quit claim deed that was included with the petition appears to be correct and should be used in conjunction with this petition. The existing property is assigned an address of 9309 Newburgh Road." The letter is signed by David W. Lear, P.E., Assistant City Engineer. Mr. Morrow: Are there any questions of the Planning Director? The City is the petitioner. Is there anybody in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the granting of this petition? We'll need your name and address for the record. Larry Piatek, 9328 Eastwind Drive, Livonia, Michigan. I live in the condominium complex just north of where that road is. We bought a condominium in that complex about two and half years ago. One of the reasons we bought in there is because we liked the January 26, 2016 27420 idea that there was park land there and that was kind of a buffer, and that's really the only natural area surrounding our entire complex. To the north of our complex, we have an apartment complex, which has a chain link fence between us and them. So that's not very pretty. To the west of us, we have homes. If you scan to the west, you'll see homes and then we have a fence there as a barrier between the condominiums and the homes. To the east, we have Newburgh Road which is not really a pretty sight either. I was hoping that more of our residents would be here, but a lot of our residents are old and they can't get to these kind of meetings. I am on the Board, and I've talked to a lot of residents in our complex. They all agree. I mean, obviously, if you're living in a complex and you have a home near or adjacent to park land, you want to keep it that. I'm concerned about the value of my condominium unit going down because of homes there, and I'm concerned about the view. I guess that's all I can say. Mr. Morrow: Okay. Thank you. Mr. Taormina: Mr. Chairman, if I can maybe just again clarify what is happening here. The property that you see highlighted in yellow, which is the area where the zoning will change from PL, Public Land, to R-1, is really being done simply because the City no longer owns that property. In fact, we sold it in 1988 and for reasons as I described earlier, the zoning didn't change when it should have back in 2006. This property is now owned by the people at 9309 Newburgh Road. We discovered this error during a petition that they filed to split the property to create an additional home site, not anywhere closer to the condominiums but actually further away from the condominiums and closer to Newburgh Road. So what we're looking at this evening is really to fix the boundaries on the zoning map which should have been done back in 2006, if not even earlier than then. Mr. Morrow: So we never did own it after that date. The map never changed. Mr. Taormina: That is correct. Mr. Taylor: Through the Chair to Mark, this is just housekeeping more or less. Mr. Taormina: It is more or less a housekeeping matter. This is privately owned property and it should reflect the R-1 zoning. Mr. Morrow: Is there anyone else wishing to speak for or against the granting of this. January 26, 2016 27421 Mr. Piatek: I have a couple questions concerning that. So you're saying this property is owned by the house east of that property? Mr. Taormina: That is correct. Mr. Piatek: Why are they being allowed to put homes on their own property if they already have a home on that property? Mr. Taormina: They would have to comply with the Zoning Ordinance in order to create a new parcel of land. They have to go through the parcel division process and demonstrate that they can comply with all the ordinances, which they have done quite frankly. They comply fully with the R-1 district regulations. They will be allowed to split this and build another site, provided they can meet all the setback requirements for the house when those plans come forward. Mr. Piatek: So the City is going to allow them to build on that site? I don't understand that if I owned a couple acres of land in Livonia and I decided I wanted to put houses up, I can just go the City and say I want to put a couple houses up? Mr. Taormina: With the proper zoning and in compliance with all the codes and regulations, yes, you could. Mr. Morrow: Basically, what we're doing here is, let's say, I don't know what his intent is, but let's say he wants to build a house. He has to go to the bank to get a loan. And they would say, well, we can't give you a loan because you're building on what is recorded as public land. So we're putting the public land in the property zoning, which it has been right along. Subsequently, he will come back, if he has building plans, he would have to meet all of our ordinances in the R-1 district.\ Mr. Piatek: Is he like building another house? Is he knocking down his house and building another? Mr. Morrow: We don't know what he's going to do. We're just putting it back in the proper use. Gerilynn Piatek, 9328 Eastwind Drive, Livonia, Michigan. I don't know that much about building or anything, but I do know that when we bought the condo, we're at the end of the block so it doesn't affect us that much, but there is going to be a condo at the very end that's going to be right next to that house. And by putting that one house in that you're talking about, it's going to kind of ruin January 26, 2016 27422 that whole section. And we bought that condo, and so did everybody else on our street, with the pretense that it was going to stay the way it was. I mean that's why we paid what we paid and we thought we were going to have a little bit of privacy. Right down on Newburgh Road, right as you pull out of our condominium, there's a house that is like the biggest dump in the world. They don't even take care of the property and I'm just wondering if this is the same people that are planning on putting something else in there. That's all I have to say. Mr. Taormina: Mr. Chairman, actually the way this property is going to be split, it's going to be split from east to west, and where the house would go would be on the southerly portion of the site away from the condominiums, not adjacent to the condominiums. So this may be a little misleading. This actually highlights the area of the property where the zoning would change. It would go from PL to R-1. There would be a north parcel, which contains the existing house, and a south parcel, which would be available for future construction of a house. That house would be constructed closer to Newburgh Road as opposed to back where that highlighted area is. Does that make sense? Mrs. Piatek: Well, there's a whole wooded area. Mr. Piatek: It's kind of misleading because it says . . . at the end of this, it says 60 foot by 120 foot lots. So it makes it sound like there's going to be . . . I mean I don't know how big this parcel is. Is it 60 by 120? Mr. Taormina: Mr. Chairman, I would be happy to show these people after the meeting just how this is being done. But it is a length-wise split. Mr. Piatek: So the parcel is 60 by 120? Mr. Taormina: That's the zoning requirement. The parcel that is being created would be 65 feet by 340 feet. Mr. Morrow: If that doesn't clear it up, please see the Planning Director after the meeting. Mr. Piatek: All right. So I understand. When I first read this, it sounded like, well, it says lots, 60 by 120 lots. Mr. Taormina: I understand what the gentleman is saying and how that could be a little misleading. I'll clarify that with them. January 26, 2016 27423 Mr. Morrow: Yes, because basically all we're doing here tonight is putting it in the zoning it should have been in years ago. Mr. Piatek: Yes, I understand that. Mr. Morrow: I'm sure you could get the information you require. Is there anyone else wishing to speak on this petition? Seeing no one coming forward, I'd like a motion please. On a motion by Smiley, seconded by Taylor, and unanimously adopted, it was #01-08-2016 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on January 26, 2016, on Petition 2016-01-01-01 submitted by the City Planning Commission, pursuant to Section 23.01(b) of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the west 134.10 feet of 9309 Newburgh Road, located on the west side of Newburgh Road between Joy Road and Ann Arbor Trail in the Southeast 1/4 of Section 31, from PL to R-1, the Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 2016-01-01-01 be approved for the following reasons: 1. That PL zoned property is intended solely for public use purposes and R-1 zoning is a more appropriate zoning; 2. That the rezoning would correct an improper zoning district reflected in the City's records; 3. That the property involved in this request would be in full compliance with R-1 District regulations; 4. That R-1 zoning is compatible to and in harmony with the surrounding zoning districts and land uses in the area; 5. That the proposed change of zoning would allow the subject property to be developed in a manner that is consistent with a recently proposed lot split; and, 6. That the proposed change of zoning is supported by the Future Land Use Plan which recommends low density residential use in this 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. January 26, 2016 27424 Mr. Morrow, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving resolution. ITEM #3 PETITION 2015-12-02-27 VALUE CENTER MARKET Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Petition 2015- 12-02-27 submitted by Value Center Market requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 11.03(r) of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, to utilize an SDD liquor license (sale of packaged spirits over 21% alcohol) in connection with the grocery store at 27428 Six Mile Road, located on the north side of Six Mile Road between Inkster Road and Dolores Drive in the Southeast 1/4 of Section 12. Mr. Morrow: I have a letter that was furnished to me requesting that this be delayed. Does that still hold? Mr. Taormina: That is my understanding. Mr. Chairman, maybe you can go out to the audience to see if anyone is here on this particular item. Mr. Morrow: That's what I plan to do. I'm going to go forward with the public hearing and then go from there. Is there anything you want to present? Mr. Taormina: I can give a full presentation on this item if you'd like. Mr. Morrow: Just so if there's anybody in the audience, they know what it's about. Mr. Taormina: Okay. I will provide some background on this. This is a request to utilize an SDD liquor license at the Value Center Market, which is at the northwest corner of Six Mile and Inkster Roads. This is a four-unit shopping center. It contains roughly 50,000 square feet of gross leasable area. Value Center Market occupies the largest space. It is the anchor tenant at about 37,000 square feet. Other tenants include a Family Video, Fantastic Sam's and Smokers Emporium. The site is zoned C-2, General Business. Value Center currently utilizes an SDM license at this location. This is a request to utilize an SDD license. The SDM allows for the market to sell packaged beer and wine products for consumption off the premises. The SDD license, a Specialty Designated Distributors license, would allow them to sell packaged spirits for consumption off the premises. This request to utilize an SDD involves the acquisition and intracounty transfer of an existing license that is currently in January 26, 2016 27425 escrow and was formerly in operation at 40522 Ann Arbor Trail in Plymouth, Michigan. This would represent, if approved, the City's first transferred license from another jurisdiction into the City. We currently have a quota of 34 licenses. This would represent the 35th license in the community. There is currently one license in Livonia that is in escrow, but that is tied up and pending a review right now for an operation at a Kroger store. In fact, this was an item that the Planning Commission reviewed back in June, 2015, and denied, but it is still pending before the City Council. There are a couple special requirements that apply to these licenses. One is that all alcohol products where the total gross receipts derived from the sale of the SDD products is less than 35 percent of the total gross receipts in the store, then those products have to be displayed in a secured area behind a counter with no direct public access. Basically, in the case of grocery stores and drugstores, these products cannot be available to customers out in the open. They have to be back behind a secured counter with no direct public access. Plans were submitted that do show that the products would be placed behind a service counter and would not have direct access to customers. The second requirement is the separate requirement which states that these licensed businesses cannot be located within 1,000 feet of any other SDD licensed establishments. Of course, there is one existing license located almost directly across the street, Belly Busters. It's the former Trade Vine party shop and that is roughly 480 feet away. So in order for this SDD license to be approved, it would require City Council's super majority vote in which two-thirds of the members concur. That is the only way the separation requirement can be waived. Lastly, there is a requirement that the business not be located within 400 feet from an existing church or school building, which this does comply with. With that, Mr. Chairman, I'll answer any questions. Mr. Morrow: Thank you for that fine presentation. I assume there is no correspondence. Mr. Taormina: There are two items of correspondence. The first item is from the Engineering Division, dated January 8, 2016, which reads as follows: "In accordance with your request, the Engineering Division has reviewed the above referenced petition. We have no objections to the proposed waiver use at this time. The included legal description on submitted petition appears to be correct and should be used in conjunction with this petition. The existing property is assigned an address of #27416 Six Mile Road, with the address range of #27416 thru #27428 Six Mile Road for individual suites within the property." The letter is January 26, 2016 27426 signed by David W. Lear, P.E., Assistant City Engineer. The second letter is from the Division of Police, dated January 26, 2016, which reads as follows: "I have reviewed the plans in connection with the petition. I have no objections to the proposal." The letter is signed by Brian Leigh, Sergeant, Traffic Bureau. I believe there will be another item coming from the Police Department but that will probably be submitted when this item appears back before you. Mr. Morrow: Are there any questions of the Planning Director? Is there anybody in the audience that wishes to speak for or against the granting of this petition? Colleen Pobur, Pobur Consulting, LLC, 240 North Harvey, Plymouth, Michigan 48170. Good evening Commissioners. I'm a consultant who has been hired by the owners of Belly Busters, David Arafat and John Arafat, who the Planning Director referenced. I'd also like to just point out that the reason I do this consulting business, served as a Liquor Control Commissioner for the State of Michigan for four years and I also sit on the Plymouth City Commission. I'd just like to say, this is totally off topic. Don't let this influence anything about this decision, but the action that you took on the first matter was really good government to look at a zoning thing like that. You don't often see people handle things that thoughtfully. I was very impressed by that. And seriously, I'm not trying to curry favor. That was fun to watch. So I'm going to have my client speak first about their situation, what they'd like you to know about the proposal that's before you, then I'm going to bring up a couple more facts when he's done. Mr. Morrow: Okay. Thank you. David Arafat, Belly Busters, 27455 Six Mile Road, Livonia, Michigan 48152. Good evening. I own what was once Trade Vine liquor shop and is now Belly Busters liquor, which is located directly across from Value Center on Six Mile. I'm here today because Value Center is attempting to acquire a liquor license in the City. I'm a small business owner. I recently bought the store not only for the potential that I saw, but only because of the city that it resides in. It's a great city. If Value Center does acquire the liquor license, it will not only hurt my business, but probably take me out of business. A lot of people that shop at Value Center do come across the street and they purchase alcohol and other things that they want. I've been there 19 months. I've remodeled the whole building inside and out with your help, with the city inspectors and everyone. I put a lot of money into it. Value Center is big business. With or without the license, it will still be January 26, 2016 27427 big business and still very busy. I can see it right across the street. They are always busy. Any declines in my sales will hurt me tremendously and another thing was, the neighborhood was very happy with what I did to the building, inside and out. I got a lot of support on my grand opening day, which was in 2015 in February. Just like I said, I put a lot money and all my heart into it, me and my father. Just again, please and thank you and support the small business. Mr. Morrow: I appreciate your comments. Ms. Pobur: I'd just like to point out that when these gentlemen bought the business, they bought it in June of 2014 and spent the time until February 1 of 2015 doing renovations to upgrade the building. They paid $465,000 for the business that did include the liquor license at the time, and then they spent an additional $160,000 on renovations to the business. As the Planning Director pointed out, all premise licenses, the difference as you all probably know, there's off-premise licenses for packaged sales and on- premise licenses for sales of alcohol by the glass. The quota that the state allocates is one license for every 3,000 residents for an off-premise license. So in the City of the Livonia with your 97,000 residents, which is the number I found on your website, the quota is actually 33 licenses and you do currently operate 34. Of those, 20 licenses are within one mile of Belly Busters. I've got a sheet that if it's all right with you I'd like to share with you. Of the 20 that I refer to, this is between Five Mile and Seven Mile and just Inkster and Middlebelt because I didn't go to Beech because I just wanted to deal with what's in Livonia. The off-premise licenses in there represent 40 percent of the off-premise licenses in the entire City of Livonia, in your whole 36 square miles, are represented in just that block within a mile of my client's area. It's interesting to note too that Value Center did own an SDD license in the past and they sold it to Trade Vines, which my client bought. You guys knew that. I just think that's an interesting little tidbit. The only other thing I'd like to point out, as my client mentions, this is an impact on small businesses. They run a really good business. As a former Liquor Control Commissioner, I'll tell you that Value Center has been found responsible for the sale of alcohol to minors three times and Belly Busters has been found responsible for the sale of alcohol to minors zero times. We'd be interested to know what the correspondence, Mr. Chairman, says about delaying or rehearing this, having another hearing so we can be prepared for that. January 26, 2016 27428 Mr. Morrow: Let's put it this way. He sent us a letter. He paid the money and his attorney could not be present tonight and he asked for the delay. So we granted him the delay, but we decided to go forward with the public hearing. I'm going to ask that it be tabled. I'll ask the Planning Director if we have a date certain. Ms. Pobur: That would be lovely. Mr. Morrow: If necessary, depending on who is here tonight, if we have to send out and re-notify everybody, he'll be required to pay for that. But your remarks are now part of the record and you'll have the opportunity again to run us through the same thing again. Ms. Pobur: I wouldn't want to bore you, but thank you. Mr. Morrow: But if you show up and we see you, we'll recall everything you said. Ms. Pobur: That's great. So we'll just listen to what you have to say. Mr. Morrow: Okay. Is there anyone else wishing to speak for or against the granting of this petition? Seeing no one coming forward, I will close the public hearing and ask for a motion. Mr. Wilshaw: I'm glad that we held this public hearing as it was published. We want to give residents or concerned business owners an opportunity to speak to this item, which we did, and I think that's good government as well. With that, because the petitioners themselves have requested to have this item delayed, I'm going to offer a tabling resolution to table this item to the next public hearing date, which will be February 23, 2016. On a motion by Wilshaw, seconded by Taylor, and unanimously adopted, it was #01-08-2016 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on January 26, 2016, on Petition 2015-12-02-27 submitted by Value Center Market requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 11.03(r) of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, to utilize an SDD liquor license (sale of packaged spirits over 21% alcohol) in connection with the grocery store at 27428 Six Mile Road, located on the north side of Six Mile Road between Inkster Road and Dolores Drive in the Southeast 1/4 of Section 12, which property is zoned C-2, the Planning Commission does hereby table this item until February 23, 2016. January 26, 2016 27429 Mr. Morrow: I know there is no discussion. Mark, do you concur with that date? Mr. Taormina: Yes, Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at the same time, 7:00 p.m. Mr. Morrow, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. ITEM #4 PETITION 2012-04-02-10 PELAGOS ENTERPRISES Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Request to Amend Petition 2012-04-02-10 and Council Resolution #221-12, adopted May 23, 2012, submitted by Pelagos Enterprises Inc., requesting to extend the use of a Class C liquor license to the new owners and extend the operating hours of the Class C license from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in connection with a full service restaurant at 34110 Plymouth Road, located on the north side of Plymouth Road between Farmington and Stark Roads in the Southeast 1/4 of Section 28. Mr. Taormina: This is a request to amend a Council resolution in connection with the operation of a Class C liquor license. A Class C license allows for the sale of beer, wine and other spirits for consumption on the premises. In this case, the waiver for the use of a Class C license was granted in 2012 to the operators of Tony's Kitchen restaurant located on Plymouth Road. The resolution adopted by the City Council placed restrictions on the use of the license, including a limitation on the hours of operation as well as limiting the use of the license to only the original permit holder. This petition seeks to extend the use of the license to the new owners as well as extend the operating hours of the Class C license from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. In 2012, Tony's obtain the waiver use in connection with renovations to the exterior of the restaurant. Under a separate filing, Tony's received approval to operate the Class C liquor license. The resolution limited the serving of alcoholic beverages to 11:00 p.m. and required the petitioner to enter into a conditional agreement limiting the waiver use to Tony's Kitchen only, with the provision to extend the waiver use to a new user only upon the approval of the City Council. As you know, Tony's Kitchen closed last summer. In December, Pelagos Enterprises, Inc. received site plan approval to remodel the exterior of the restaurant. Since waiver of use and any conditions attached "run with the land," all of the conditions that were previously imposed under Council Resolution #221-12 remain in effect. This includes prohibiting the selling of beer, January 26, 2016 27430 wine and other spirits beyond 11:00 p.m. So the petitioner is seeking to amend the conditions of approval to allow the serving and consumption of alcoholic from 9:00 a.m. through 2:00 a.m. on a daily basis. They are going to request a separate action by City Council to extend the waiver use of the Class C license to the new user, which is Pelagos Enterprises, Inc. Mr. Morrow: He wants to go from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. Mr. Taormina: That's correct. Mr. Morrow: Is there any correspondence? Mr. Taormina: We do not have any correspondence related to this item. Mr. Morrow: Are there any questions of the Planning Director? Is the petitioner here this evening? We will need your name and address for the record please. Greg Marsolis, Pelagos Enterprises Inc., 6929 Norway Drive, Troy, Michigan 48085. I'm one of the owners. It's going to be called Black Label Tavern. We just came out with the name finally. When we purchased the property, we knew there was a Class C liquor license. We weren't aware that Tony only wanted to serve alcohol until 11:00 p.m. I've been doing this since I was a little kid. My family has been in this business for a long time. Primarily for Christmas parties or somebody has a function, we don't want to tell them we can only serve you until 11:00. So if you can extend the hours, that would be great, especially for Christmas parties, Valentines night or day. I think it would be great if you can do it for us. Mr. Morrow: I think Tony closed at 11:00 p.m. and he didn't see any need to extend it. I think that's how that got modified. Are there any questions of the petitioner? Ms. Smiley: When are you going to be open? Mr. Marsolis: We're hoping the end of April. It's a slow process for us but we want to make sure everything is . . . we just finished with all the plumbing and we're starting the construction as we speak. We promise you it's going to be a really nice looking restaurant. Ms. Smiley: I drove by there today. I had a feeling you weren't going to be open for Valentine's Day. Mr. Marsolis: We wanted to but . . . January 26, 2016 27431 Ms. Smiley: We wish you well. Mr. Wilshaw: This also is not overly relevant to the particular petition, but your name, Black Label Tavern. Can you tell me a little bit about what kind of restaurant it's going to be? Mr. Marsolis: It's going to be a nice casual dining restaurant. I think you've seen the floor plan. We're going to have a nice rectangular bar but it's going to be isolated with a wall so it's not too loud for the people that will want to sit in the dining area. We're going to have anything from appetizers. We're going to serve salads, a few entrees, a couple seafood pasta dishes. We also have a nice brick oven that Tony had. Actually, it's a very nice oven. He brought it over from Italy or something. We are going to have pizza but that will not be our main purpose but we will have it as an option for our customers. Mr. Wilshaw: It sounds great. Mr. Marsolis: We're excited. I think a couple of you have been out to Northville. It's a beautiful restaurant. We're going to do the same with Livonia. I think it will be very nice and enhance the area. I mean it's a nice area. It's the business district of Livonia but it will be a good addition to the district. Mr. Morrow: It reminds me of the old Carling Black Label. Mr. Marsolis: We're excited. We like the area. We like the traffic. Mr. Morrow: Any other questions? There is no one in the audience. I will close the public hearing and ask for a motion. On a motion by Long, seconded by Smiley, and unanimously adopted, it was #01-10-2016 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on January 26, 2016, on a request to amend Petition 2012-04-02-10 and Council Resolution #221-12, adopted May 23, 2012, submitted by Pelagos Enterprises Inc., to extend the use of a Class C liquor license to the new owners and extend the operating hours of the Class C license from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. in connection with a full service restaurant at 34110 Plymouth Road, located on the north side of Plymouth Road between Farmington and Stark Roads in the Southeast 1/4 of Section 28, which property is zoned C-2, the Planning Commission does hereby recommend January 26, 2016 27432 to the City Council that Petition 2016-09-01-07 be amended as requested subject to the following conditions: 1. That condition #2 of Council Resolution #221-12 which reads, "That no alcoholic beverages shall be served after 11:00 p.m. and alcoholic beverages may be served up to 11:00 p.m. as long as food is also served" shall be modified to read as follows; That the hours of operation for the bar area shall be limited to 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.; 2. That all other conditions imposed by Council Resolution #221-12, which granted approval to utilize a Class C liquor license (sale of beer, wine and spirits for consumption on the premises) in connection with an existing full service restaurant, shall remain in effect to the extent that they are not in conflict with the foregoing condition. 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. Morrow, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving resolution. Thank you and good luck on your new venture. Mr. Marsolis: Thank you for your time and Happy New Year to everybody. ITEM #5 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1,081st Public Hearings and Regular Meeting Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Approval of the Minutes of the 1,081st Public Hearings and Regular Meeting held on January 12, 2016. On a motion by Taylor, seconded by Long, and unanimously adopted, it was #01-11-2016 RESOLVED, that the Minutes of 1,081st Public Hearings and Regular Meeting held by the Planning Commission on January 12, 2016, are hereby approved. January 26, 2016 27433 A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following: AYES: Taylor, Long, Wilshaw, Smiley NAYS: None ABSENT: None ABSTAIN: Morrow Mr. Morrow, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. On a motion duly made, seconded and unanimously adopted, the 1,082nd Public Hearings and Regular Meeting held on January 26, 2016, was adjourned at 8:40 p.m. CITY PLANNING COMMISSION otea_edr Carol A. Smiley ecretary <-)(\ ATTEST: . `� - 9 R. Lee Mo row, Chai an