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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPublic Hearing 9-28-2020 - Rezone - Pet 2020-07-01-03 - Leo Soave Bldg. Co., Inc. CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, September 28, 2020 ____________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held virtually via ZOOM on Monday September 28, 2020. MEMBERS PRESENT: Kathleen McIntyre, President Vice President Scott Bahr Jim Jolly Brandon McCullough Laura M. Toy Cathy K. White MEMBERS ABSENT: Rob Donovic OTHERS PRESENT: Mark Taormina, Director of Economic Development Todd Zilincik, City Engineer Paul Bernier, City Attorney Sara Kasprowicz, Recording Secretary The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with Vice President Scott Bahr presiding. This item is regarding Petition 2020-07-01-03 submitted by Leo Soave Building Company, Inc. pursuant to Section 23.01 of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the property at 37855 Lyndon Avenue (former Webster Elementary School site), located on the south side of Lyndon Avenue between Newburgh and Hix Road, in the Southeast ¼ of Section 19, from PL (Public Land) to R-1, (One Family Residential - 60’ x 120’ Lots). This item will move to the Regular Meeting of October 19, 2020. The Public Hearing is now open. There were 19 people in the audience. Bahr: I want to clarify for those joining us, Council President would normally be running this meeting, but she has asked me to run this meeting tonight. From the location she is in, it seemed to make more sense and so I am happy to do that, although I will eagerly welcome her back when she’s ready for the next one. With that being said, the public hearing is now officially open for comments. When we go to audience members, we ask that you clearly state your name and address before making your comments, but before we go to the audience, perhaps we go first to Mark Taormina, our Economic Development Director. He can take us through the particulars of this proposal. Mark? 2 Taormina: Thank you Mr. Chairman. This is the request to rezone the former Webster Elementary School property, as was indicated from the current classification of P-L, Public Lands, to R-1, One Family Residential. This Petition is one of three involving former school properties. The other two include Adams, which is located on the South side of Lyndon, between Harrison and Inkster and then Wilson, which is located at the Northwest corner of Harrison and West Chicago. This property is about 9.34 acres in total area. As you can see, it is on the South side of Lyndon and the North side of Mason Street and its between Nola and Blue Skies Avenue, both of which contain single-family lots that border the property. All the surrounding area of the subdivision is part of the Castle Gardens subdivision. The proposed rezoning and subsequent residential development involves the entire property, which is currently owned by Livonia Public Schools. LPS is in the process of selling the land to the Petitioner. The subject site is surrounded by R-1 zoning. All of the lots in the area measure at least 60 feet by 120 feet and 7,200 square feet is the minimum required for the R-1 zoning. A conceptual plan was presented with the rezoning application, it shows a total of 31 lots and as you can see from this plan, the majority of those lots would be served by a cul-de- sac street that would extend North from Mason, providing access to lots 1 through 21. Lots 22 and 23 are in the Southwest corner of the site and on this plan, that would be the bottom left. You can see those two lots would have direct frontage on Mason. Adjacent to these lots is a small, open- space park and then at the North end of the development, lots 20 through 31 would all have frontage directly on Lyndon. Other features of the plan, as you can see, include a stormwater detention basin, which is along the West side of the property and then a second, larger open-space area, which is located in the Northwest corner. The street, in this conceptual plan, would be the minimum required 60 feet in width. The diameter of the cu-de-sac would be 120 feet, also in conformance with our design guidelines. The future land use map would show the site as parks and community, reflecting the current ownership and former use of the property as a school site. Planning Commission reviewed this rezoning request two weeks back and is recommending approval to the R-1 zoning classification. Thank you. Bahr: Thank you, Mr. Taormina. Council, do we have any questions for the Planning Director? Council President McIntyre? McIntyre: Vice President Bahr, I just wanted to follow up on something that Mr. Taormina said that in the past, has sometimes been an issue of confusion and that is, that this property is owned by the Livonia School District, Livonia Public Schools, that is a separate legal entity from the City of Livonia. We have no jurisdiction or no control over the decisions they make regarding their property. This is a sale by Livonia Public Schools, not by the City of Livonia. Thank you, Vice President Bahr. 3 Bahr: Thank you for clarifying that, let me clarify, which may have already been said, but Mark, has this property been sold already or is it a pending sale? Taormina: I believe it is a pending sale, you’ll have to verify that with the applicant. Bahr: Ok. Councilwoman Toy? Toy: Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I may just ask a couple questions to Mr. Taormina. Did you say that the Castle Gardens subdivision that surrounds it are mostly R-1 lots if not all R-1 lots? Taormina: Yeah, if you can see the map on the screen, that is the surrounding zoning, its denoted R-1 and that includes all of the surrounding developed properties have the same zoning as what is proposed for this site. Toy: Ok, so these aren’t site condominiums or detached or anything, they are actually homes? Taormina: They are detached, site condominiums and homes, all three. Toy: All three? Taormina: Yeah, these are site condominiums, they would be detached. All single- family residential homes, that’s correct. Toy: Do we know the square footage of the proposal or should I wait to ask that to the Petitioner? Taormina: Well, the plan is showing that all of the lots would meet the 7,200 square foot minimum requirement of the R-1. This is a conceptual plan, but I don’t believe there would be anything other than conforming R-1 lots proposed with this project. Toy: Ok, may I also, Mr. Chair, one last question. When you talk about the open park area, I’m not sure if this question should go to you or the Petitioner, what is that proposing? Playground, slides, pools, or what? Taormina: Madam Toy, I’ll defer that question to the developer. One thing, and again, these are site plan details that we’ll be getting into later on in the process, should this move forward. The way this plan is illustrated currently, those would be general common elements within the condominium complex, they are not intended to be public open space park. The stormwater detention basin would also be a general, common element within the condominium. Whether or not there would be any improvements to the 4 open space park, in terms of play equipment or anything else, again, that’s something the Petitioner would have to respond to. Toy: Certainly, I just didn’t know if that was discussed in the matter at this point. Taormina: Not yet. Toy: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Bahr: Thank you. We have a couple of the Council people with questions, but before we get to that, I should clarify at this point too, what we are dealing with tonight is a rezoning request so while its typical to get some questions related to site plans, at this time, because it does inform the zoning question, I just want to make sure the public knows and that we all remember that what we are talking about is rezoning and not a site plan yet. With that being said, Councilman Jolly has his hand up, go ahead Jim. Jolly: Thank you, Scott. So, a question real quick. On the left-hand side of the road coming in off of Mason, between the fifth and sixth lot, is that a walkway that shown there accessing the basin? What is that, exactly? Taormina: No, Mr. Jolly, that question actually came up at the Planning Commission meeting, and while it gives the appearance of some type of a narrow parcel, possibly a walkway, its actually a dimension that’s shown on the plan. If I zoom in, I think, really close, you’ll see that its an actual dimension. See that 120 feet? That’s indicating that this dimension from front to back is 120 feet, that’s all that is. Jolly: Ok, so my other comment here is less of a question, but more of pointing out. With a condominium site plan such as this, there is required to be a certain amount of open space to make it work and get it conforming with the law, but I think a site plan like this, even though, like Scott said, we’re not discussing the details of that tonight, but I’ll just put this out there, this open space that’s provided on her is only going to be accessible by two of the lots, which I think, kind of goes against what the spirit of a common open space is supposed to be in condominium plans such as this. So I won’t make any further comments, but I look forward to, if this does go to the next level, working this out a little bit more to make this a little bit more useful. Thank you. Bahr: Thank you, Jim. Any other questions or comments from Council? I have one more for Mark. Mark, can you again, just for the benefit of primarily the audience, anytime we have a public hearing like this, its likely that we have a lot of people aren’t typically on these kind of meetings so, can you explain the reason why we call these site condominiums? I know that’s pretty common anymore, but do you mind just briefly talking through that? 5 Taormina: Sure, well, the term condominium really refers only to the form of entitlement that is used to establish the legal descriptions for the properties. For decades, the subdivision planning process was used and then I believe in the late 70’s early 80’s, the State created what is referred to as a Condominium Act and it provided an alternative means by which land could be subdivided, parceled off and sold. That can be in various forms. In this particular form, it emulates very closely, the planning process. These are individual lots, but in the condominium statute, they are referred to as units. They’re sold to simple ownership, just the same way as a platted lot would be. Probably one of the more unique features of these are the way the limited common and general common elements are established, but that’s really applied to various features within the site. All in all, it looks like, and it treated almost identical to, a regular platted subdivision and the land around the street. In this case, would be a public street. The open space park, if its not dedicated to the City, it would remain a common element within the development and would be maintained by the association that is created for just this development. The same goes for the stormwater detention basin, that will be, eventually turned over to the association for management and maintenance. We have provided Mr. Zilincik, if he’s still on this call, or this meeting, he’ll tell you, there’s a fall back if that detention basin is not maintained, then the City has all the right to go in there and maintain it and bill those maintenance charges back to the co-owners of the condominium. I hope that helps people. Bahr: I think that’s helpful and primarily for the people from the public that are on here, I wanted you to have a chance to explain that and I’ll just add this. In my time on Council, in 4 ½ years that I’ve been on Council and even back to Planning Commission, I can’t remember right now, the last time, if ever, we’ve had a new home development that wasn’t classified as site condominiums. A lot of times, people hear that and think its something other than single family homes, and I’ll just say, I believe any new homes you see going up in the City right now and there’s a number of places that its happening, all of those have been classified as site condominiums. So, don’t get too concerned about the language, its more of a legal designation. These are single family homes that have been proposed here. Thanks for explaining that, Mark. I see Brandon McCullough has his hand up. Go ahead, Brandon. McCullough: Thank you, Mr. Chair. To the Chair to Mr. Taormina, I just got a question. I’m not trying to get too far, obviously into the site plan that’s going to be something completely later on. When we look at the detention basin, from a stormwater management plan, I know that we’re looking at a private road type of a set up. This gets integrated into the City’s stormwater system, right? 6 Taormina: It does, and if I heard you correctly, you said private road. From all indications, this will be a public road. The stormwater basin, the same thing, it will be integrated into the public storm system, whether it’s a drain that is owned and maintained by the City or one that’s owned and maintained by the County. We don’t have all the details yet, but that is absolutely correct. McCullough: Thank you. Bahr: Ok, any other questions? I believe we have the Petitioner with us tonight and this would be a good opportunity for him to introduce himself and see if the Council has any questions for him. That’s Leo Soave, right or is there someone else that’s representing him? We can unmute Mr. Soave. Thank you, Mr. Soave, go ahead. Is there anything you want to add? Soave: Leo Soave, 37771 Seven Mile. I guess Mr. Taormina pretty much said everything I wanted to say, and I’ll answer your questions. Thank you. Bahr: Council, do we have any questions for the Petitioner? Councilwoman Toy. Toy: Thank you very much, if I may, to Mr. Soave. Mr. Soave, do we know how large your proposal will be with the site condominiums on it? The square footage. Soave: From 2,000 to 3,000 square foot. Toy: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Soave. Bahr: Council, anyone else? I do have a number of questions, most of which I will save for when we get into site plans, but this one I do want to ask tonight, Mr. Soave. One of the big things that stands out to me here, is the fact that we’ve got this cul-de-sac opening onto Mason Street and I’m thinking about, first and foremost, from people living there, the added driving that causes versus coming in off of Lyndon and then for the people that currently live there, it seems from a traffic standpoint, that would make more sense to use Lyndon as an entryway and use that thoroughfare as its designed, versus making people come around to Mason to get into the bulk of these homes. I guess what I’m asking is, why is it this orientation and not essentially flipped with the homes fronting Mason Street and the cul-de-sac coming off of Lyndon. Soave: Yeah, Mr. Bahr, I don’t see a problem doing that. That should probably work just the same, we could do that, thank you. Bahr: That is a site plan question and I won’t go any further with that, but thanks for answering that. Mr. Jolly? 7 Jolly: I’ll just add that, by the way, great question, Scott. If that were to be accomplished and the site plan to be flipped, potentially that green space would be in a different location as well, it would be more accessible to more of the potential home owners and potentially other surrounding people as well, so I think that’s a very good idea as well, thank you. Bahr: Ok, Council? Anything else? Alright, with that, we’ll go to the audience. I’ll just take this opportunity to say this project, I’ll be honest with you, it even stirred my emotions a little bit this morning as I was looking at this, I went to school at the old Webster Elementary School and there’s hardly a corner of this property that I don’t feel a sense of personal connection to. There’s even, I think, there’s still a King Crimson Maple sitting out there that my fifth-grade class planted that survived the fire still. Sometimes you get projects like this that just hit you from a personal standpoint and this is one of those for me. So, anybody from the audience, if you want to speak, there is a button on there to raise your hands, if you can do that, I will do my best to call on you, we will get to everybody that wants to speak, we do ask that you clearly state your name and address for the record. So with that. McIntyre: Vice President Bahr, if people are joining us by phone, I don’t know if anyone is, they can participate by star 9. Thank you. Bahr: Thank you. Star 9 by phone if you can hit the raise you hand button that you should see in your ZOOM, if you are not seeing that, I think if you click on participants, you’ll see it. I don’t see any hands currently, but I’m guessing we have people that want to speak so I’m going to give this a minute. Alright, there’s one, we have Megan Evans. Go ahead, Miss Evans, please introduce yourself and state your comments. Evans: Yeah, hi, my name is Megan Edmonds, obviously as you said, my address is 14441 on Blue Skies, I’m obviously one of the properties that’s going to get a new neighbor in my back yard, so I’m not extremely happy about that, however, I understand the need and I think most of my questions and concerns are actually more geared towards the site planning. I did want to let you know that I was here, not super happy about the situation, but I think most of my questions are about, I know it’s the developer that’s doing the Six and Newburgh new homes in the Heritage Park and I’ve heard that there has been some flooding as a result of the build up of new homes that are there, into the new homes. That’s one of my major concerns. I just want to make sure that there’s extra considerations being taken cause I know a lot of people in this area have already issues with water in their basements and flooding. I just want to make sure that’s a consideration in the planning of the new homes and making sure that its take into 8 consideration so that we don’t have the same issues that the people surrounding Heritage Park new neighborhood have. Bahr: Thank you, Megan, I’ll give, if he want’s to, our City Engineer a chance to say something on this if he wants, but I’ll just say this in general. Your concerns are noted and you’re right, that is more of a site plan thing, but that’s fine that you brought it up tonight. When we get to the course of the site plan, its typical for us to ask some of those kinds of questions and our City Engineering Department is responsible for weeding that information. I’m not personally familiar with any flooding problems as a result of what’s happening at Clay, I know they’ve had some problems going back before that development, so I’m not personally familiar with that, I’ve made a note of it here and I’ll see if I can get smarter about that, but yes, your concerns are definitely something that will be addressed when we get to site plans. Todd, you don’t have to, but is there anything you wanted to add to that, our City Engineer? Zilincik: Just like this proposed development, there’s a detention pond on the Northeast corner of that development and again, I know of one issue of where that detention pond is at, but again, it was more related to trees. There was some discussion, maybe one or two residents that were along the south side, but again, when a development is made, there’s rear yard storm drainage put in for the development itself that conveys the storm sewer run off, leading to the detention pond and then to a restricted outlet to an existing system itself. Again, with everything else, the perception is, there’s a development here, now they cause flooding, but ultimately the goal is to make it a better development overall for the residents. Now they have a location for the storm sewer in the rear yard to actually convey that water, as it was an open land before. Each case is different, so are conditions and things of that nature, but ultimately, when you develop a piece of property, you want to make sure that stormwater is conveyed to a known point and then restricted so that its clean and detained, but there may be some instances again, during development, the with the fence or during the berms that were put there, that have to be addressed again. We look at the final site development before they get their retainage back and review it so again, it’s a work in progress, but at the end we want to make sure everything is take care of and properly working. Thank you. Bahr: Thank you, Todd and there will be more opportunity for more public questions but Councilman McCullough has his hand up. Brandon? McCullough: Thanks Mr. Chair. Hey, just a quick question to clarify and this is to the Chair, Mr. Taormina, really quick. There’s another site plan that’s listed in the packet and I think it refers to exactly what Councilmember Bahr and Councilmember Jolly are referring to as that main strip that runs through. Is that just the first revision or first take on the deal? 9 Taormina: yeah, that layout that you are looking at is the conceptual layout that was presented as part of the school districts RFP, so when they sent this out for proposal, they included the information about the site as well as a conceptual layout. Again, a recommended layout. McCullough: Gotcha. Alright, thank you, and just to what I just spoke, I would keep an eye on the planning meetings coming forward, because obviously, if this goes through, that whole site plan process will kind of kick up, there will be times to get more in detail with the site. Thank you. Bahr: Thank you, Councilwoman Toy? Toy: Thank you, Mr. Chair. While I understand about site plans and rezoning and things like that, I am personally a little apprehensive about not asking questions if it refers to the site plans because I am considering the rezoning because of several reasons and I won’t go into great detail, but a Petitioner in the Soave family is not known for this at all and I’m not asking discouragingly in that regard, I’m just saying, somebody could come in and rezone and then sell the property and take it over without us having a hammer on that as well. I think it behooves us to ask some of the questions as it relates to the site plan. So therefore, one of my questions would be, and this kind of concerns the zoning. If it wasn’t site condominiums an R-1 with 60x120 or even 70x120 lots, I realize that proposal is not in front of us, but that would also be a consideration as well. So as we look at these different zonings that are coming up in these neighborhood, and the Soave family does a great job, I don’t want anybody to misinterpret what I’m saying, we do have a couple of other schools and some of these folks have lived there a long, long time and I’m sure all of us have gotten a few calls on some of these and their concerns. I know when we were in the election last year, it was a foregone conclusion that things were gonna happen and open space is very valuable in Livonia, I mean my sister just sold her house in 4 days, little brick ranch kind of home, attached garage, you know the scenario. So, its not for not a need, but I think as we establish these newer areas in the vacant lots, we have to be very cognizant of what we’re doing. The appreciation for those area and the Soave’s are great developers, I’m not saying they’re not, but I’m also concerned about when we get into sizes and structures and what those are all about, before I start rezoning places, I want to make sure of what I’m really going after and that could change, I get it, but by the same token, I know on prior Councils that I’ve served on over the years, we always ask questions when it came to rezone. I don’t think its out of line to ask those type of questions, in all due respect, to all my colleagues, so thank you very much. 10 Bahr: As I think we’ve seen here, there’s plenty of questions related to site plans and that’s fine, its just important for us to remember what the purpose of this is and any of us that have had new developments on adjacent, privately owned property to where we live, understands the heartburn that can come with it, certainly understand that concern. Are there any other questions from the public? Again, if you would like to speak, just raise your hand on ZOOM and I’ll be watching for that and I’ll call on you or if you are on the phone, you can hit star 9. I don’t see any more, I’m going to give it just another few seconds here. Ok, I guess that’s all we have and I guess, I’m sorry, we do have one that just came up, give me a moment to unmute you. Just a minute. There you go Tom, you are unmuted, go ahead, and please, if you would, state your name and address for the record. Tom? Tom, you are unmuted, you can speak now if you like, but we are not hearing you. Tom’s hand is up again, Tom, you should be able to speak, Casey, does everything look ok with Tom? O’Neill: Yes. Bahr: Ok, Tom, can you try again? Alright, Tom, you are unmuted, but we’re not hearing you, I’m not sure what’s going on. If you are trying to speak and not able to, please contact us via email or something after this meeting and we’ll be certain to try to handle your question or concern. Not seeing anyone else from the audience, I guess I’d ask Council. Councilman Jolly has his hand up, go ahead. Jolly: Thank you, Scott. I apologize if I missed this, but was it explained that although this may receive a first reading, the rezoning itself would not receive a final vote until there was a site plan that went along with it? The process that the City normally has for these type of things, I would expect that as has been the practice, this will move on to a regular meeting where will probably receive a first reading, but a second reading and an ultimate vote on the zoning would be held back up until we had a vote on the site plan as well. Generally, those two things go together so that if the site plan was not ultimately at the place that we thought we could approve it, we probably would not vote, and I don’t believe we have voted in the past, on the actual zoning. So, they kind of go together, hand in hand. So, I don’t want to discourage anybody who’s listening or anybody in the Castle Gardens neighborhood at this point, because this is a process that’s beginning, its not a process that is, by any means, a foregone conclusion, we have open ears and we will work to see what is the best for the neighborhood, what is the best for this site and the property being used here as well. I’ll also note too, that we find ourselves as we approach these situations from the City’s perspective that as Councilwoman Toy indicated earlier, Livonia is largely built up, there is very little open green space left. That’s a problem on one hand for multiple reasons, but there’s also a desire and need to have new housing in our city as well. Often times 11 people wonder, why the schools are selling this property, but they look at it from a short term perspective of gaining some funds for the school system but ultimately, I think they are trying to attract families with young children as well, who will be populating the schools as well with that property. So, its kind of a balancing situation that’s kind of going on here, not only from our perspective, but the school’s perspective as well. Again, the start of the process, we’re all listening, and we are going to be working through this together. Thank you. Bahr: Thank you, Jim, for explaining that. I have a question for my colleagues, he’s exactly right with his point of the first meeting. Do we usually take a motion at public hearing then, not a motion, but does somebody offer an approving? Kathleen is shaking her head. Ok, with that being said, thank you everyone for attending this tonight. This will be put on the agenda for the Regular meeting scheduled for October 19, 2020. As Councilman Jolly has explained, what would be on the agenda is a request for a first reading and then this would pause from our perspective until a site plan came through, which we would handle all together with the second reading so if we were to get that first reading, that is the next step for rezoning this property for residential, but there is still more to come through Planning Commission to Council to clarify the site plans, so there’s a ways to go on this. That will close that item. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 7:35 p.m.