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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPUBLIC HEARING - 2019-04-17 - REZONING - PET. 2019-02-01-02 CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Wednesday, April 17, 2019 ______________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the City Hall Auditorium on Wednesday, April 17, 2019. MEMBERS PRESENT: Laura Toy, President Jim Jolly, Vice President Scott Bahr (Arrived 7:24 p.m.) Kathleen McIntyre Brian Meakin MEMBERS ABSENT: Brandon Kritzman Cathy White OTHERS PRESENT: Mark Taormina, Director of Economic Development Paul Bernier, City Attorney Bonnie J. Murphy, Certified Electronic Recorder, CER-2300 The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with President Laura Toy presiding. She stated this is a zoning petition, Petition 2019-02-01-02 submitted by Etkin Management, L.L.C., to rezone the property located on the north side of Seven Mile Road between Newburgh Road and the I-275/96 Expressway (37640 Seven Mile Road) in the Southeast ¼ of Section 6, from R-U-F (Rural Urban Farm) to R-8 (High Rise Multiple Family Residential District – Maximum four (4) Stories). The City Clerk has mailed a notice to those persons in the area affected by the proposed changes, and all other requirements of Ordinance No. 543, the Zoning Ordinance, have been fulfilled. The Public Hearing is now open for comments. Please state clearly your name and address before making your comments. There were 11 people in the audience. Toy: Mr. Taormina. Taormina: Thank you, Madam President. Again, this is a request to rezone property located at the Northeast corner of Seven Mile and Victor Parkway. There are two addressed involved in this request: 37640 Seven Mile Road, which is a 6.3 acre parcel; and then 19290 Victor Parkway, approximately 3.8 acres in size. So, altogether the property comprises roughly 10.17 2 acres. The parcels are separated by a drainage creek. Please note that the north 100 feet of the property at 19290 Victor Parkway is excluded from this rezoning request. So, the total area affected by the zoning change measures 8.82 acres. The reason for the rezoning is to offer a development of a multi-family residential complex. Apartments are treated as a permitted use in the R-8 Zoning District. Buildings are required to be over two stories in height with a maximum height of four stories. Immediately to the north of the subject property are residential homes zoned R-U-F. To the east is a child care center, zoned R-C, Condominium Residential. Across Seven Mile is a small office building zoned OS, plus the Mission House Medical Center zoned PO and other single family home. And then west across Victor Parkway is an office building as well as a pond that’s used for storm water detention for the office park. A little bit about the history of this property, in 1997 there was a Consent Judgment entered into between the City and Oakwood Health Systems. This Consent Judgment divides the property essentially into three distinct parts. So Parcel A includes most of what is now 37640 Seven Mile Road and it’s located south of the drainage creek. And despite the current R-U- F Zoning of this property, the Consent Judgment treats this parcel as if it is zoned Office. Parcel B encompasses a portion of what is now 19290 Victor Parkway and this contains roughly two acres north of the drain at the west end of the property. This parcel is also zoned R-U-F and it is a requirement in the Consent Judgment to remain as open space in the subject Open Space Preservation Agreement. Parcel C is mostly on the west side of the creek and that’s at the east of the property and it includes a portion of the 19290 Victory Parkway. Originally this parcel was intended to be developed consisting of multi- family housing under the R-8-C, Condominium Zoning classification, however in 2006, the Talon Development Group sought and obtained approval for an Amended Consent Judgment in order to develop the easterly portion of Parcel C as a child care center and that’s what is there today. So the Consent Judgment that was issued also required a 100 foot wide landscape buffer along the north end of Parcel B and a portion of Parcel C, all of which is included within the legal description of the Petitioner’s property, but as I mentioned earlier, it is excluded from the area that is proposed to be rezoned as the developer intends to maintain this area as 3 a buffer between the new development and the existing single family homes along Northland. Over time there have been three amended Consent Judgments with the latest version allowing the current owner of those properties, Etkin Equities, to construct a one-story 54,000 square foot office research building. The current proposal, however, seeks to rezone Parcels A and B and a portion of C, for the development of a multi-family housing project under the R-8 classification and as I mentioned the R-8 does treat multi-family housing as a permitted use. There are a number of conditions related to this zoned district, there’s a maximum ground coverage on principle structures which is 20%. Density, which is the minimum lot area for dwelling unit is determined according to both the height of the building which is expressed in stories as well as corresponding number of bedrooms per dwelling unit. So, as an example, the minimum land area that would be required for a two-bedroom unit in a four-story building would be 3,000 square feet. Yard and setbacks are also determined by the height of the building where the minimum front yard setbacks for a four-story building is 80 feet and the rear and side yard are 60 feet. There is a plan that was submitted, it is preliminary, it shows two buildings that you can see with the main apartment building located on Parcel A which is south of the drainage creek, and then a second smaller apartment building located on Parcel B and part of Parcel C. There’s parking both in the form of surface lot, but the majority of parking would be located in the parking structure that the apartments would actually wrap around the structure and it would not be visible from the exterior and that’s the area located in the center part of the main building as you can see it says three level garage and roof parking. There are in this particular example there are setbacks shown that would be deficient as well as extra density allowance. This is something that would have to be reviewed and approved either as a variance or as a special waiver use for a Planned Residential Development which is permissible under Article 20. Those are issues that would be reviewed by Planning when the site plan is submitted. The Future Land Use Map does designate the area as a Commercial as well as Parks and Community and the Planning Commission in reviewing this matter a month or so ago is recommending approval of the rezoning. 4 Toy: Thank you, very much. Any questions from Mr. Taormina? Councilman Meakin. Meakin: Mark, you mentioned that the Future Plan said this was a conforming use, what about the Master Plan that we’ve been working? Taormina: They’ve identified this, the Future Land Use Plan as recently amended, it shows the parcel at 37640 Seven Mile as Corridor Commercial and then the one parcel at 19290 Victor Parkway as Parks and Community. So there is some conflict between the current Master Plan and the proposal this evening. Meakin: Thank you. Toy: Anyone else? Is the Petitioner here? State your names for the record. Suardini: Josh Suardini with Etkin and address is 150 West Second Street, Royal Oak. I also have with me John Woods from , our partner on the project. Happy to answer any questions. Depending on the question, either one of us will answer it. Toy: Questions, Council, at this moment? Do you want to tell us a little bit about your project then. Jolly: I have a couple of questions. Toy: Go ahead. Jolly: You’re asking us to make a big change in the zoning, tell me why. Suardini: Well, for the rest of you, we’ve had this property for quite a while, so it’s a two-part answer. You know we’ve marketed this for office for about five years and we haven’t been able to be successful to land a deal that would warrant expenditure that we would make enough to make it make sense. And going through the Planning Commission’s standpoint and City Council, and with Mark we worked on alternate uses that might be a potential to put this property into play. So, there’s a couple of things that are demand generators for this property that we see. Number one, we foresee that the population in the United States is shifting as far as how people go about occupying space for their residential needs from the perspective of owning versus renting. And John can talk more about the statistics, but we believe the demand is there such that this type of dwelling within this type of complex would be very much in demand and would also be a very nice amenity for the City as well. 5 There’s a couple of other factors involved here that we can talk about, too, and that is that construction costs and development costs have been rising and they’ve been rising rapidly for the last couple of years. So in order to be able to do something like this, we need to garner the rents and we need to build the type of product that would garner rents and make it be financially feasible. And those are really two of the main reasons, but also we just truly believe that this is the right product, and the highest and best use at this time for this property in your City. Jolly: Do you have any photos of what the building would look like on the outside? When you say it’s a proposed building/parking garage? Suardini: Yes. Jolly: I’d like to see that. Suardini: Mark, do you have that, can you put that slide up? Jolly: That’s what it would look like from the outside from Seven Mile? Woods: If I may, just to continue to answer that question, my name is John Woods, I’m with DTN. From our perspective, we’re a corporate developer owner, we have about 8,000 units in Grand Rapids and East Lansing. And from our perspective, we really see a real transformational shift, really housing, across the United States and in particular what we really call surban communities, and those are what we refer to as kind of suburban/urban communities that really offer walkability and high level desirability by people that don’t necessarily want to live in a large metro area, whether it be a Detroit or Chicago. But in Metropolitan Detroit, that would be a Livonia. So we think there’s probably four or five communities like this that this type of community would be quite attractive. From a housing standpoint, 79% of new household formation between now and 2030 is going to be in the suburbs. So from all the talk about people migrating back to the Metro areas, either the Metro corridors, whether they’re millennials or whether they’re retirees or for whatever reason, the statistics really don’t support that. And we’re also seeing just a preference towards renters, rental household formation. And so it’s provided an opportunity given what’s going on in retail, we certainly haven’t seen a retail development with what Amazon and that sector and the consolidation that’s going on. And so there are sites, whether it be retail or office, that really lend itself to this type of community. And it’s hard to explain looking at the building but people that live in these buildings are not just there to live in their units, they don’t just come home and live in a 1,000 square foot apartment. 6 This particular building as illustrated on the site plan has a relatively large courtyard and we probably have somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 square feet of community residence space in the building. So, this building would be wired with one gig ethernet wi-fi, which is about three times faster than what most people have available at their residences today. Because many of the residents that live there, we found about 30% of our residents also work from home and have a home office so they need high speed internet, they need technology. We’ve got conference rooms, we’ve got a couple different physical fitness centers in the building that include your traditional as well as either on demand yoga, Peloton bikes or what have you. The courtyards have both what we call passive and active programming, where there are grilling stations, kitchenettes outdoors, in some cases there’s some park space where there’s gaming areas, there’s what we call a reflection or quiet areas. It’s a very different style, it’s not traditional suburban apartment development, It is really more consistent and these buildings are fairly popular and more common in various, like the outskirts of Austin, Texas and in other areas, and are becoming more prevalent here as well. There’s one going up in Novi, there’s one going up in Brighton, there’s one under construction right now in Royal Oak. Of course Royal Oak is probably more synonymous with this type of construction. But it is not what we refer to as a traditional apartment community. Toy: It’s beautiful. I just wondered if you had a chance to speak to any of the residents or the commercial because those areas are pretty well situated with residential homes. Woods: Sure. Toy: And that concerns me very much because you’ve got some beautiful homes that will sit behind this piece of property. Woods: Right. Toy: As well as that whole area up there. Woods: Sure. Toy: Have you been able to talk to any of the residents and/or commercial folks? Woods: We have not. We talked to our commercial neighbor who is building next to us and he was here at the last meeting, Jeff Baker, I don’t know and he was quite supportive. We have not talked to all the residents. 7 Toy: Pardon me, is that the day care center? Woods: No, other side, the other side of Victor Parkway, it’s the medical office building. It’s right on the northeast corner of Victor and Seven. Toy: Oh, okay. Woods: You know, but the location is what is also quite appealing so, job creation clearly creates housing and so Livonia has a lot going on and this particular location, the I-275 corridor, is an extremely vibrant commercial area right now. It’s twenty minutes to the airport, there’s a lot of new hospital, medical research as well as what I’ll call day jobs that are within driving distance between Farmington and some of the things that are going on on the other side of 275, it’s a quick throw to Southfield, it’s a quick throw to Ann Arbor. It’s a really ideal location and from a traffic perspective and I know that’s been a concern as well, a building like this doesn’t have nearly the traffic activity as either an office building, even at 54,000 square feet they’d have to propose, more than likely a 200 square feet per employee, you’re going to have 200 cars there. You’re not going to have 200 cars here; you’re not going to have anybody everybody in and out every day throughout business hours. There’s typically small windows in the morning, commuter traffic times as well. So these buildings are usually a little lighter on traffic. Clearly they aren’t as many children in these buildings so there’s not the stress on the school systems. As far as the residents, we have a building very similar to this in Lansing, it’s a little bit smaller, we have three of them in Downtown Grand Rapids and our resident profiles are very similar, we’ve got people from their late ‘20s to their ‘70s. Their median incomes in all three buildings hover somewhere between 89,000 and $100,000 a year. So these are primarily, in some cases we’ve got more retirees in some buildings, and that would be our 70 year old, with they’re typically single professionals or their couples. Toy: Thank you. Vice President Jolly. Jolly: Two questions with regard to Planning. And I have to be direct with this one because in the past we’ve had things pulled on us at the last second. Would you at all with this project be seeking any kind of tax incentives or any kind of borrowing from the taxpayer or the community here? Woods: I think it’s safe probably to say we’re not at that point yet, we are – our next step if we get approval on this will be we’ll be looking at the cost of the building to make sure that it fits because at this point there isn’t anything supporting the building but we need to get through what we call the schematic design base. So this is a sketch, we’ve got the building laid 8 out and now should it be approved, it takes us about twelve weeks to get through the next level of design to be able to engage our construction manager to give us some preliminary pricing so we know. Jolly: Okay. Now my second question is, you detailed who would potentially live there based on past experience what their incomes might be. What rent would you be looking for? I mean, we’ve heard some broad numbers, are you able to throw that down a little more specifically or no? Woods: Sure. So, the building is going to have about 60 percent one-bedroom, so a one-bedroom will range probably average somewhere around 700 square feet, from 600 to 700. The rest will be two-bedrooms, there will be a few three-bedrooms. Rent will be from about $1,350 to about $2,500 a month. The average I believe in our last go around was around $1,750 or $1,800 on average per unit. Jolly: From our perspective, from the community’s perspective, we’ve gone a long time without building large apartment buildings. Recently we approved a site on Haggerty Road next to the Costco over there, and to be honest with you probably not as nice as what you’re presenting here, but that was a big step for us. And then to turn around and look at another one which would be the same section of Livonia Public Schools as well, potentially where you’ll have other people who don’t have a buy-in with the purchase of a house, being able then to purchase into the Livonia Public Schools. Not that it’s a bad thing, it might be a great thing, right? But it’s clear, within the last six months or so to look at a new apartment building, which we haven’t done in a very long time, I don’t know when the last time we approved an apartment building, but then to have two right off the bat. Again, understand we are kind of approaching this in a way that we just through this and we did one, I don’t know if we’re going to do it for a second time yet, that’s why I started pushing back on, we’re just trying to understand what this would largely do. Suardini: And I think part of that, too, is you probably haven’t seen before but as John was mentioning the shift in how people are securing their housing needs is changing. And you’re seeing that current shift and people reacting to it from a development world standpoint, but you also have your job creation and different things that are happening here in Livonia, there’s been a lot of recent announcements, and I think it be well-served to be poised to react to that and be out in front of it so that people have access to somewhere to live. In the market shift going to rentals is something, there’s a lot of back-up to that statistical analysis that goes into it. You know something of this type of investment is something that we wouldn’t take lightly and we really think that it’s something that southeast Michigan in general hasn’t seen and will and continue for the foreseeable future. 9 Jolly: Just a couple minutes ago we heard this would be more of a walkable community. Where are you proposing people would be walking to? We had a City election in 2017 and a big issue is what would we do with the potential redevelopment of the K-Mart that is at Seven Mile and Farmington Road. And I was one of the people who put something like this out there but I kind of envisioned there would be some kind of retail on the first floor like a Starbucks or something of that nature, kind of make it that walkable community and there’s also existing businesses that you could walk to around there as well. The site that you’re at right there, I don’t really see there’s a whole lot to walk unless you walk to a gas station. Woods: No, this one is more of what I’d call semi-walkable, if that, maybe that’s a stretch, I wouldn’t worry. But for this particular location it’s accessibility, this building is very accessible. It’s no different than the Jonna property across the highway, I don’t know if that’s what you call walkable or not. When I talk about walkable, it’s not walkable to Costco. I’m talking about walkable to entertainment venues, restaurants, that is more traditional. I’ll also tell you those buildings and those markets get 50 cents a foot more than what we’re proposing. We’re kind of mid-priced as opposed to your downtown Detroit, your downtown Royal Oak, because you can walk to ten restaurants down the street, you’re going to pay $2.50 a foot and not $1.94 a foot. You know, it’s a slightly different tenant here. Our tenant isn’t necessarily looking for that, our resident is not. The other thing I would mention is and I certainly understand all of a sudden you’ve got two larger buildings in your community; the suburbs have been largely underserved from a supply standpoint for the last twenty years. Nobody has been building suburban apartments, largely, over the last twenty years, particularly in Oakland County. The other issue is the inventory that is there that are in some communities, is largely two-bedroom, so you’ve really got an unbalanced inventory in some communities. I’m not saying I know the exact number you’ve got in Livonia, but I’ve got them on some of the other communities that are surrounding. But there’s one of your neighbors that has got 19,000 apartment units in it and it’s 11% one- bedroom. That’s not right now what tenants want, wants residents want that are looking . It’s changed extremely over the last --- it’s been what I call transformational in the last ten years, the people that --- these are not tenants by necessity, these are renters by choice. And there’s a huge difference. They live by themselves, they’re not here because they can’t afford to buy a house. They live here because they’ve made the decision they’re going to spend two grand a month on an apartment as opposed to $2,000 a month on a mortgage. So, it’s not just the fact that you’ve got a couple of new buildings but I would tell you that you’ve got an inventory issue in your community that is going to hold back, the existing inventory back from significant investment 10 or allow --- not that you’d have something like this through a renovation program but things out of kilter in this industry. Toy: Go ahead, Councilwoman McIntyre. McIntyre: I have a question actually for Mark. So Mark, could you expand a little bit if you can about Parcel B and the Consent Judgment. Taormina: So, first understand that – McIntyre: Do you have the one that shows the different parcels. Taormina: This is the original make-up of the three parcels from the Consent Judgment so you’ll notice what we are considering this evening as far as the zoning request, includes all of Parcel B as it was described in the Consent Judgment as well as a portion of Parcel C. And as it relates to Parcel B specifically, the Consent Judgment and you can see there’s a plat that identified it as Open Space. And it’s restricted to Open Space in the Consent Judgement except for it could be used for stormwater management purposes and then in addition to that, you can see how that landscape buffer, 100 foot buffer affects the northerly part of not only Parcel B but also a portion of Parcel C. So that’s pretty much what it is. I think we provided the language of the Consent Judgment in your packets so you can get the full details of it from that. McIntyre: So does this comply? Taormina: No, this would be, this ultimately is going to require amendments to the document. McIntyre: That’s what I wanted, thank you. Toy: Anyone else at the moment? Thank you, gentlemen. We’re going to go to our audience then and anyone in the audience wishing to address this issue at this point, please come to the podium to my left or to my right and give us your name and address. Rooker: Good evening. Steve Rooker, 37605 Northland Street, the street directly north of the proposed development. First I’d like to say this. I’m glad to see that there’s actually some interest in that property. So I appreciate the interest in Livonia, we’ve got a beautiful community. However, I don’t feel that the apartment style, walking type community as proposed is right for that location, especially I don’t think it’s right long term for our community. I think as our community has gotten older, we’re I think we’re seeing some youth start to move back in to our traditional brick ranches here and I think for long term sustainability of the community you need to look at the 11 permanent housing or condo style or brownstone style that’s over there at Six and Farmington. So that’s my comment, I appreciate your time this evening. Toy: Thank you, Mr. Rooker. Anyone else? Rondy: Yes. My name is Rick Rondy, I live at 37793 Northland Street, that would be one house south of Victor Parkway, so these apartments will be directly behind my house. You know, I concur with a lot of what said here, I’m sure this is going to be a very profitable investment. I’m a realtor, and as a professional identifying land and real estate all the time and I’m sure these gentlemen are going to make a lot of money here as possible. I also question whether it’s appropriate for Livonia because I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. I’ve lived here my entire life. I was raised here and went to Franklin High School. I built this home about twenty, twenty-five years ago and have lived there happy since. I just am --- I can’t imagine how my life is going to change when I look out my back door and stand in my backyard and there’s a four-story building there. It’s so incongruent it’s hard for me to get my arms around it. I never envisioned anything like this being in my backyard and it’s hard for me to think that anybody in the City would think that this is a good idea for our community. You know all of us built our homes there, we’ve been good citizens and moved to Livonia or stayed in Livonia because of all of the amenities that are here. I just think this is so disruptive and so incongruent and what the City is all about, I’m just appalled with the thought of this being built. What happens to the property values to the people that built homes here, I can’t see that being a positive thing, right. So, those are my thoughts. Toy: Thank you so much. Anyone else? Fitch: Hi. My name is John Fitch, I moved into Livonia about almost ten years ago. I live at 37773 Northland, actually Rick is one of my neighbors. My wife and I worked a long time to get the money to move here, we bought a beautiful home, beautiful are. Like most of the people I think that move to Livonia they move here for the single family home. I’ve seen them going up all over this City as we make them on every square or little piece of ground there is, so I guess I’ve never met so many people that want to live in an apartment building. We have a real nice quiet neighborhood, quiet street, nice neighbors but I’m not ready for 250 neighbors in my backyard, I mean I’m really not. I’m also concerned about that area along the creek and that whole back, the northern section, all that property is borderline wetland, it’s full of deer, all kinds of animals back there all the time. Where are they going to go when we put this in? Out onto Seven Mile, out onto Victor Parkway and get hit. I’m really opposed. I think the City of Livonia is a single family home area, it has been forever, it’s what attracted us to it and I really would like to see it stay that way. Thank you. 12 Toy: Thank you very much. Good evening. Baker: My name is Jeff Baker, I’m the owner of 19111 Victor Parkway, which is immediately west of this proposed development. I’m not emotionally involved here and I do understand all of your concerns. But what I will say and I don’t know this builder other than I did meet him at the last meeting. This project is unique, this is very distinct. If you’re familiar with southern California, Orange County, Irvine, Newport, this is this kind of product. And as Five Mile explodes now with all the infrastructure that’s going in along Five Mile, all the technology jobs from Ann Arbor, are going to move up M-14 to Plymouth and Northville, Livonia, and those people, this is the product that they want. This is what attracts them, this is what they’re looking for and it doesn’t exist anywhere else. There’s some stuff like this I guess in Royal Oak, not really, Troy doesn’t have anything like this. You guys will be the first community in southeast Michigan to have anything like this. And so for people who have high paying jobs that preferably don’t want a home, and that’s a lot of people under the age of 40, there’s a lot of people that this is the lifestyle they want, they want to be able to rent but don’t want a mortgage payment. They want a nice place and I think you need to consider it. Like I said, I’m not emotionally involved, I have a normal home. But that is a mixed use area. You have restaurants, you have office space, the road goes all the way through to Eight Mile. And this seems like there’s homes that are immediately adjacent to Victor Parkway and this seems like a logical next step for that area. Toy: Thank you very much, Mr. Baker. Councilman Bahr. Bahr: Actually I have a question for Mr. Baker if he has a minute. And I apologize that I was unable to be here in time this evening. But can you tell us from your perspective as to what it is about this that people with tech jobs and the young professionals, etc., would like to live there. Baker: I have two sons, one who just moved back to this area from southern California and this is the product that he was used to and it doesn’t exist. That was one of the problems in convincing him to move back to Michigan. Bahr: That’s what you say doesn’t exist in the state --- Baker: In southeast Michigan. Bahr: We have plenty of apartment buildings in the state. Baker: So what I’m trying to say this is a lifestyle, this is much more of a lifestyle then it is just an apartment. You know most apartments people they shop 13 for price, every year their lease comes up, how much does it go up. If you’re looking for quality and something that will take the place of a home. If you don’t own a home and you have the means to afford a home. I live in Birmingham, I grew up in Troy, that’s not where you’re looking. You’re looking for something that is the home equivalent of in an apartment. I don’t know how else to describe it but if you do look at some of the stuff in Orange County and with a lot of high tech stuff, a lot of high paying jobs, those people have no desire at all to buy a home because they live in areas like this where there’s not shopping nearby but you can walk to Dave and Buster’s or whatever other restaurants that are in that area. There are a lot of things to do in that area and this might spur more development along that corridor. Bahr: Thanks. And again, I apologize if this was covered already and I won’t ask too many questions because I was late, but through the Chair to Mark, would you say that this proposed development is similar to what we’re talking about at Haggerty Square, is it a similar kind of concept to that? I know we talked about that property being something unique for the City and be an opportunity to see how that worked out/ Taormina: I think there are parallels, some of the amenities that they’re offering in both developments, the Haggerty Courtyard as it’s called now, will have many of the same amenities provided there that Etkin is proposing here. Its style is somewhat consistent, more modern, many more common areas in that development that are shown here. I think they speak to a certain lifestyle; I think there are a lot of parallels between the two developments. Bahr: Thanks. Toy: Councilman Meakin. Meakin: Thank you, Madam President. This is a very unique property that we’ve tried to develop for the past twenty years. The last three proposals we’ve had for this property if you ask me were horrible, I wasn’t excited about them. This project I’m actually excited about and I’m trying to keep an open mind about the proposed development. I have a close friend who was looking for a place to live. He is an executive who is living downtown or he’s working downtown. It was already overpriced in downtown Detroit. So with zero available units in downtown Detroit. So this is a unique opportunity for us, I mean people come to Livonia for freeway access and this is ideal for that, right off the freeway. And we are only talking about the zoning change here, we can always get another site plan and work on keeping distances from the surrounding neighborhood, I’m all about keeping that as wooded as possible along the residential line. I believe the young people today want apartments. They don’t want to live in a home. They want to be able to pick up and leave to the next town when 14 they get an opportunity to. Detroit’s full already, Royal Oak is at capacity, Novi is building a lot of apartments. We just haven’t built anything in fifty years but we’ve had four potential groups who have approached the City about apartments. We haven’t built an apartment in thirty-five years so our inventory is not acceptable. They’re just not up to date, they weren’t attractive to the young person or even the executive who doesn’t want a home anymore or do the yardwork associated with home ownership. But I want to keep an open mind about this and move the process forward. We can work on site plan at a later date but I’m going to offer an approving resolution. Toy: Yes, Vice President Jolly. Jolly: Thank you, Madam President. And I apologize, Mr. Baker, if I cut you off there. I have a question, just by a show of hands – Meakin: You can’t do show of hands at a Council meeting. Jolly: I’m curious in general for the people who live on Northland, how many of you know that the Doc’s property is going to potentially develop into a hotel that are several stories tall. Audience: We heard rumors. Jolly: As close as you are to this property here, you’re equally as close to their property and I don’t remember a whole lot of you coming out for that. Audience: I never heard about, never heard anything about it. Jolly: Again, that’s a multi-story building that’s going to be going on the Doc’s site. Mark, did we do a final approval for that. Taormina: The site plans have just been submitted for that development so we’ll be approaching on it shortly. Toy: Councilwoman McIntyre. McIntyre: I’m empathetic to the concerns of the homeowners and how this is going to impact your backyard, that’s why I asked about the Consent Judgment. So I very much want to be sensitive to that and understand that you did buy this home and it was Open Space and there was a Consent Agreement on the land, but I’ll go with Mr. Meakin said about the comments about we don’t have anything like this. That’s not a bad thing. Because we don’t have anything like this to dismiss it out of hand because this isn’t what we have, that’s not how communities grow. You know, people’s tastes evolve, what people want, housing stock of all, we see that 15 in a lot of places, it evolves. When I was a kid Royal Oak was a bunch of bungalows and nobody wanted to live there. And certainly Royal Oak has had problems with their explosive growth. But in terms of financial growth and vitality and tax base, it’s been a winning proposition. And someone I know well in another City made a comment that he’d rather deal with the problems of growth then the problem with decline. And if you don’t continue to move in a direction of new things and where things are going, your community doesn’t grow, it starts to decline. So I want to understand a lot more about how this would look from the backyards, I can’t in my head figure out the angle to know from 100 feet what a four- story building looks like and I want to understand that. I would like to offer a resolution to put in this in Committee of the Whole because it is something that I think requires some consideration. Toy: Thank you, Councilwoman. What we’re doing right now is going through the Council people to start to make some resolutions or motions that will th be heard on May 8, that’s Wednesday evening. We should have a full Council by then with seven of us here. As you can see, there’s different feelings coming out on this at the moment and that’s what public hearings are all about. So hang in there we’re going to go to Councilman Bahr and then go back to the audience. Bahr: Just one comment, I appreciate all that’s been said, I think it captures a lot of the angles of this. There’s one principle that I think need be reminded, Livonia, the idea whether to move the downtown, this conversation comes up or when it comes about more mixed use or high density, I like to be open minded about these kind of things and whether it makes sense for our community. But I do think we can start with the principle that part of Livonia’s niches as one of the resident’s said, is single family homes. You know that’s not for everybody. But Royal Oak is not for everybody, Northville is not for everybody, Detroit is not for everybody. Each city is like a brand name, it’s a strategy of each city of something that they offer. Livonia’s brand for many, many years has been predominantly single family homes and it’s a place to raise your family and live happy with great services. So I don’t necessarily see it as a bad thing that we don’t have one of these apartments. That being said I have a hard time thinking if there is a market for that kind of thing, if we’re going to have any of that in the City. I have a hard time thinking any site in the City is better suited for that than this. Being right there on Victory Parkway, you think about the jobs that are available there, the potential that somebody could really walk to work, the freeway access as has been mentioned. And then also just looking at that site from a single family home perspective, I mean to my knowledge of the different proposals that have come to us, that’s never been proposed. I’m not familiar enough with that business, I’m not a real estate 16 investor myself to explain why that is. But there’s two things, one I will start with, I don’t feel an urge as a City to somehow get a bunch of these apartments. But having this proposal in front of us I do think that site is well suited for it and this meeting is dealing only with rezoning, and once we move forward to the site plan we’ll have an opportunity to make sure if this were to go forward as it is that we can take into account something that makes sense to the surrounding neighborhoods in our community. Toy: Thank you. Councilwoman McIntyre. McIntyre: Just one final comment I’d like to make about the wildlife, the homes that you are all in were built in 1995 and guess what that property was before the homes were built? It was Open Space and there were deer and there were rabbits and raccoons and everything out there. So we do get into a problem when there is open land that everyone kind of wants to be the last one in and we see it in Livonia. We see that there’s open land and there are animals there and then houses get built. And then the people that build those houses say well, we don’t want anymore houses to get built because we like looking at the wildlife. So that’s always an issue and it’s always something that kind of a natural response to when you’re adjacent to open land. But I too am concerned about open land and that’s why I did ask about Consent Judgement and that’s why I suggested putting it in Committee of the Whole because I would like to understand this better. Toy: Thank you, Councilwoman. From my perspective at the moment and growing up in this community for many years, after now 39, no, we don’t have a problem selling houses here. We just don’t. I mean people put up their house and they’re gone in 24, sometimes 48 hours, maybe a little bit less. I mean we are known as families come first, we’ve prided ourselves, we’ve branded ourselves. I realize Lansing has these types of things, I worked out of Lansing twenty-some years, you build beautiful stuff. Grand Rapids, I had to go there for my job as well and there’s some unique things going on. This side of the expressway bothers me for that kind of intensity if you will. Not that it’s not a beautiful building, not that it doesn’t have amenities that people now young and old want, but that side has our residents in it and a lot of folks with homes there and I walked into the commercial building over there and they said whatever you do, we’re not real happy about these apartments going in. And I was shocked. In all my years of service, I’ve never had a retailer approach me on something like this. More, it’s a transient kind of thing, people, they don’t have ownership of these. So those kind of things give me pause as an elected official of this community. And some of the land that’s left is so precious in our community right now. Now when Jonna put his in on the other side, I don’t have a problem with that. There’s a lot of commercial over there, there’s a lot of people over there that live differently if you will on that type of street 17 with that kind of an environment. There’s not a bunch of homes there with residential, but certainly on that side of the street you kind of expect more intensity on that side of the street. Costco, that’s got to be one of the number one Costco’s in the universe because it’s just quite packed all the time. I don’t want to continue on. I think Councilwoman McIntyre has a good point in Committee of the Whole. I’d like to express Committee of the Whole is where we meet upstairs on the second floor, we have the Petitioners in, we have the residents that want to be there, we study this in depth a bit more. We get some new ideas, maybe some other kind of issues that haven’t been brought up in this short of time that we can hash over. Other Council people that may feed into this that aren’t here tonight, and in fairness to them, that would be nice to have as well. So that’s kind of where I am at the moment. I’m not jumping up and down with all of the residential in that area, sir, I’ve got to tell you that right now. So if you convince me otherwise, or if you want to find a piece of property maybe on the other side of the expressway which is few and far between, I get that. But by the same token we do have some people here with some lovely, lovely homes up in that area and not that that would degrade them, I don’t mean it that way, you’re building a beautiful product, I’m just not sure of that intensity in that area. That’s kind of where I’m coming from at the moment. Again, I can be open to change but that’s my feeling on it tonight. Is there anyone else that wants to speak to this before we leave it? Yes, please approach the podium. Name and address. G.Patterson: My name is Greg Patterson, 37745 Northland Street. Everybody is talking about how beautiful this building is. I was in Chicago last weekend; they have these buildings all over the place. I wouldn’t want to live in Chicago, I moved to Livonia, I grew up in Dearborn and moved to Livonia for one reason, R-U-F. I bought at Six Mile and Farmington, we had about two acres there. We moved over here because we wanted a bigger home. I’ve got three boys that are attending Livonia schools. The gentleman, I can’t remember your name, I apologize. Toy: Sir, just address Council. G.Patterson: Especially about there’s not many kids, this is more about business and things like that. Our school system, that’s what we pride ourselves in Livonia about. And we’re not priding ourselves in this complex to bring more kids in Detroit or bring more business people in this area. I bought in Livonia because I want to raise my family here. I have three boys that go to Livonia schools and we pride ourselves in the school system that you have here. So I hope you guys thing about this when you put this forward. But my pride myself in this is community based, and it’s about families not just about business people coming in because they want a nice apartment. Go to Royal Oak. Go to parts of Northville, go to Novi, 18 things like that. This is about community and about raising a family here. Thank you. Toy: Thank you very much. Anyone else? Yes, ma’am, go right ahead. Don’t feel shy. She hasn’t spoken yet, sir, so we can allow her and then sir, please get back up if you wish. J.Patterson: Jenna Patterson, 37745 Northland. I agree with my neighbors and everything that it’s just very disheartening to see something like this being proposed for our City. I grew up in Livonia, I obviously liked it here, I stayed here, I’m raising my kids here, I work in the City, it’s just a good community and I feel like this type of apartment complex is going to take the community feel away from everything. I also have concerns of what happens when the economy falls, which you know over time things are going to happen and these people can’t afford these buildings. So then we’ve got this big eyesore building sitting there empty. My other concern is why don’t we wait and see what the apartments on Haggerty do before we jump in and put another apartment complex here. If that’s being let go after two years, well, what’s this one going to be. Again, they’re not exactly the same from what I understand but this is more of a thought. And if we’re doing something like this in Livonia, Seven and Farmington I think would be a perfect place for it, where you could expand and you could put some things, put like a Starbucks, put some other amenities that these people are looking for. Because from what I understand, that’s what they like, that little community feeling, walk down and get a coffee or walk down to the little special market. I just don’t feel it’s something we need in the City that we need to market to people here, most of the young people that I work with, they either want a home with some property or they want to be in the busy cities of Royal Oak where there is all that stuff for them to do. That’s my opinion. Toy: Thank you, Mrs. Patterson. Anything from the Council to wrap it up? Sir, is there any last words you’d like to say? We have direction on an approving and a Committee of the Whole, if there’s no others. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 7:53 p.m. SUSAN M. NASH, CITY CLERK