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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPublic Hearing 10-7-2020 - Rezone - Adams Park Dev. L.L.C. CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Wednesday, October 7, 2020 ____________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held virtually via ZOOM on Wednesday October 7, 2020. MEMBERS PRESENT: Kathleen McIntyre, President Vice President Scott Bahr Rob Donovic Jim Jolly Brandon McCullough Laura M. Toy Cathy K. White MEMBERS ABSENT: None 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 7:25 p.m. with President Kathleen McIntyre presiding. This item is regarding Petition 2020-07-01-04 submitted by Adams Park Development, L.L.C. pursuant to Section 23.01 of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the properties at 14416 Harrison Avenue and 28201 Lyndon Avenue (former Adams Elementary School site) located on the south side of Lyndon Avenue between Inkster and Middlebelt Roads in the Southeast ¼ of Section 24 from PL (Public Lands) to R-1 (One Family Residential). This item will move to the Regular Meeting of November 4, 2020. The Public Hearing is now open. There were 25 people in the audience. McIntyre: We have a hand raised, and I don’t see that Council from anyone from the City, from Atul Kishore, I hope I’ve pronounced that correctly. Kishore: Yes, thank you very much, can you hear me? McIntyre: Yes, I believe we have also received an email from you. Kishore: Yes, thank you very much for giving me the time. Just a little background on myself, I used to live in Livonia and I had moved out to California and 2 then to Bloomfield and now I’m back in Livonia. I love the City and thank you for giving me the chance to talk to you today. Before we discuss about the elementary school, I want to discuss about the current situation we are facing today in our building, this is regarding the home owner’s association for Bishop Condominiums, that is a new condominiums right across from this site. This is built by Soave Homes and I must say that in general, they have been good but I have had a real problem with Mike Soave, the builder, because they are using my sprinkler and my water connection to water the entire subdivision. The Water Department is working with them and they are not getting cooperation because Mike keeps promising that he’ll add another line and its not working, so I would love to have City Council and the Mayor getting involved with Mike Soave to get that resolved and have a successful new line put in. Then we are moving to this area of Adams LLC that is going in. I look forward, I think, on behalf of the Homeowners Association, we all look forward, we are not objecting to having the single-family homes in there as long as they are done right. Right now, Lyndon has a major problem. The road itself is sinking towards Lyndon and water is collecting. Now, thank God, the geese are gone, because the geese were using that a pond in the middle of Lyndon and then everybody driving there is honking. So, as you can imagine, as this subdivision goes into play, we’re going to have some major problems. There is water already coming out from the Soave construction from the expansion joints in the sidewalks. Nobody from Inspection has looked at it or given the ok. So, someone from Inspection needs to come out and make sure this is done. The other thing is, right now with, as I mentioned in my email, this new subdivision has to look at the four items that I mentioned on there. Rather than going into it, I know this is strictly about a rezoning process, but we need to make sure that the rezoning and the builder completely takes control of this project, especially if there is going to be a Homeowner’s Association or not, that they are held liable to the very end. McIntyre: Thank you, Mr. Kishore. Your comments are appreciated and as you know, we require bonds from developers, and we hold onto the bonds until everything is complete and signed off on by the City. I do appreciate your comments and as you know, this is the public hearing and this will move th on to the Regular agenda of October 19, so I would encourage you to also participate in that meeting. That meeting will also be via Zoom, so that will be the Regular meeting at 7pm. Kishore: Yep, I plan to, thank you very much. McIntyre: Thank you for your comments and again, thank you for engagement in the City and your Homeowner’s Association in taking an interest in what is going on in the City and in your neighborhood, so thank you again. Alright, 3 any other to comment? We have Mr. McCabe. Thank you for bearing with us and waiting until we got to the second public hearing. McCabe: Thank you again and I’m a little bit new to Civics so I appreciate your guidance and my interruption on the other meeting. I was on the Planning Commission meeting, I live, again, this is Jim McCabe, I live at 14236 Lyons Street. Lyons is the street directly east of the planned development so we will certainly be affected in many ways. I was on the Planning Commission and I noted my vote against the new building, however, I learned something during that meeting, and that was that this is basically a foregone conclusion. The property has been sold, a developer owns it, he’s not going to leave it as green space, which I know everyone in my neighborhood here would like. So, he’s got a certain investment in it, so shame on me for not being Civically active when the school board sold it to the developer, so shame on me on that. It does seem like it was quite an easy sale, it seemed to happen very quickly. That aside, I’m not in favor of it, you know, there is going to be certain impacts. You going to put forty new houses inside a sixty-four year old infrastructure, there’s infrastructure and traffic problems on Lyndon. There’s many different drawbacks to it, so I don’t know why it was so easily rubber stamped. Again, these guys put a lot of money in to buy that property, so maybe my comments are a day late and a dollar short, but I have to make it known, I’m not in favor of it. You’re going to build forty new homes inside a sixty- four year old infrastructure and there was a civil engineer on the Planning Commission call that said there will be no impact, I just can’t believe that. So, anyway, I just wanted to express my disenchantment with the whole thing and be on record. I appreciate the date of the next Council meeting, I guess I will attend that for no other reason but to make myself feel good. McIntyre: Thank you for your comments and just received notification that the information I was reading is not correct, and that these will actually be on the Meeting of November 4. Mr. McCabe, if you would like to call the Council office tomorrow to get the correct date, but Mr. McCabe, I would like to address your comments, and first of all, I want to thank you again and I mean this sincerely, for taking the time to call in and express your concerns and I’d like to address what you said about the process. You recognized a very important fact and that is that these are properties that belonged to Livonia Public School District, which is a completely separate legal entity which you understand. Sales aren’t generally quick with these and I don’t know with this particular property, how long this was on the market, but these are put on the market and are made available, they are usually working with a broker and these are made available very widely to any developer, to anyone whose interested in purchasing these and the sale is generally contingent upon the rezoning and I think we have Mr. Taormina with us, I know we do because we are sharing his screen and 4 I’m going to ask Mr. Taormina, our Planning Director if he can confirm that. Mark, is the sale contingent upon the rezoning? Taormina: I’ll have to allow the petitioner speak on the specifics of his purchase agreement with LPS, but its my understanding, but yes, this is all a contingent based agreement and at what point they choose to close on the property, I’m not certain on that. Just to speak a little bit on the length of the process, I believe it was around the first of the year that the consultant that was hired by Livonia Public School sent out the proposals, the RFPs, they went out and then following that, there was a process that the school board used to select the buyers of not only this site but also Webster and Wilson. So, it has been a several month process all together. McIntyre: Thank you and I wanted Mr. Taormina to speak to this issue. It is not a quick process, and as far as it being a rubber stamp, its not a rubber stamp. That’s why we go through these processes, its really not for show, these are important, we are legally bound to have public hearings but they are very important to us and the comments we hear are very important to us. Generally, I shouldn’t say generally, but the comments drive us to come into our consideration often do drive us to additional conversations with the perspective developer. Going back through the Planning Commission notes, so your comments are not at all in vain and the other thing that I would like to mention, in the process on rezoning and you may know this Mr. McCabe and I apologize if I am telling you something you already know, but the process for rezoning is that it gets a first reading at a City Council meeting and again, I believe this is November 4, I think I th have just received confirmation that this will be November 4 for this item. There is a first read given by a member of City Council generally and someone can decide not to offer a first read, but generally there is a first read, but before we have the second read, and the second read is where a roll call vote is taken and the rezoning is finalized and it doesn’t take affect until it is published in the paper, but prior to that happening, is when we receive and review the site plan and so we have a number of significant steps to go through here before the rezoning is finalized, so I hope that helps put your mind at ease a little bit and be more comfortable that this is not a rubber stamp, that this is not simply a formality on a done deal. McCabe: I thank you for that. Again, I have never been very involved with local politics and shame on me for that, I’ll say that twice, shame on me for that. I appreciate the education and the opportunity to voice my concern and my vote against the building of 49 new homes, but again, I understand the situation and I appreciate it. Perhaps I’ll run for office someday, I don’t know, I’m fascinated by this whole process. I thank you again. McIntyre: Thank you and again, the thing that we appreciate it, and I don’t usually speak for Council, but in this case, I think I can speak for all of us. We’re 5 always happy when people call us and they like what we’re doing, and they agree with everything, but what we like best if for people to be engaged, even if they are not happy about something or they disagree with something that’s going on, we really appreciate hearing that. It does inform our thinking and our decision-making, so your strong Civic engagement is appreciated, and your voice is heard an its not a voice in vain. McCabe: Thank you so much. McIntyre: Next we will move along to Sean Kelly. I’m hitting unmute, there we go, good evening. Kelly: Ok, first of all, I want to agree with Mr. McCabe in that, I’m not as knowledgeable as you guys are about zoning and all that. I did participate in the Zoning Board Commission and I thought the rezoning had already been approved for Residential 1. Are you saying it’s still not approved, that has to go to the City Council? McIntyre: That is correct. This is the City Council, so you participated at what I think you are referring to is the Planning Commission? Kelly: Maybe it was the Planning Commission, yes. They just voted it to go through to you guys? McIntyre: They are a recommending body. Kelly: Ok, then they recommended the thirty-nine houses? McIntyre: They recommended the rezoning. Kelly: Not the plan that the developer is proposing? McIntyre: We are not to the review of the site plan yet. They process is, I don’t know if you heard what I had explained to Mr. McCabe? Kelly: Yeah, I was watching. So, I don’t know if you guys participated in the Planning Commission’s Zoom broadcast, but there was a person there, Laura, and she was asking why was Residential 1 and not Residential 2. I understand that you want to, this is land and the developer bought it, but it just seems like thirty-nine houses in that small of a space is too much. Especially if the ingress egress is going to be on Lyndon. I’m giving up having the green space, but I think it should be Residential 2, I think it allows for larger lots and they would be less houses. Am I correct in that? 6 McIntyre: You are correct. So, this is a request to rezone from Public Lands to R-1, one family residential. You are correct, R-1 and R-2 specify the lot sizes. Kelly: R-2 would allow for larger lot sizes, correct? McIntyre: R-2 requires larger lot sizes, that is correct. Kelly: Ok, by the way, I’m at 14453 Lyons, I butt up right to it. Our entire strip along just by where the school was, we’re flooded every Spring. I lost one huge, fifty-year-old maple. My neighbor South of me, he floods up into his backyard and I’m really concerned with having thirty-nine houses. At the Planning Commission meeting, the was a drainage expert, I can’t remember his name, he said on Lyndon there’s a huge tunnel on Lydon that you could drive a pickup through. He said we had all this drainage running along our fence line, west of my lot that would handle any subsequent run off. Well, it didn’t handle anything. Then I’m concerned, we’re going to have a retention pond at the bottom of this proposed development and all that run off from thirty nine houses into a retention pond, what’s that going to do to my neighbors south of me? So, I’m not, like Mr. McCabe said, I would love a green space, but I think R-1 is way too much for that small of a property. I would hope you guys would take that into consideration. McIntyre: Alright, thank you. I would like to just address a high-level issue of the retention pond and I’m going to ask Mr. Taormina to jump in here if I say anything that is not correct. Generally, what we find, is with these former school sites, when they are school sites and when they were built, the storm water management requirements were very different and not nearly as robust as they are now. So, when these are purchased and redeveloped, this County’s requirements, requires aggressive storm water management on lots, on parcels of this size. What you generally end up with is an improved situation for the streets and the residents surrounding these schools, when there is development now, the retention ponds are required, and I guess I would term them stringent storm water management capabilities are required. Kelly: Alright, but I didn’t hear about any improvement to the infrastructure underground. I’ve got sewers, I don’t know if they are sewers, but I’ve got sewer caps right at the back of my fence and right at the front of my yard. They came and looked at them while they were doing all this. I don’t understand, are they going to take those drainpipes out and make them bigger or are they just going to do trench drains to run down to this retention pond. How are they going to handle a heavy rain? McIntyre: Answering your question’s specificity is beyond is beyond my Civil Engineering skills, which are very limited. 7 Kelly: I am also very limited on Civil Engineering, so thank you. It just sounds like thirty-nine houses with the pavement and everything that is going to be involved with that, it’s going to cause a lot more runoff than greenspace that this park now provides. McIntyre: I’m not sure that premise is correct, but what I’d like to do, I do know my colleague Mr. McCullough would like to weigh in here, he does have a background in facilities management and development. I’m going to ask him if he’d like to speak and the other thing that I’d like to do, Mr. Kelly, it get in touch with me through the Council office and we will refer this to the Administration and get some information for you from the City Engineer th prior to the meeting on November 4. Kelly: Ms. McIntyre, can you give me that number that I can get to you on? McIntyre: Sure, 734-466-2250. Kelly: 734-466-2250? Alright, thank you. McIntyre: You can also go on the City Council homepage and find an email form that you can get in touch with us. Also, I believe that number is listed there. Kelly: Alright, thank you. McIntyre: With that, I’m going to go to Councilmember McCullough. McCullough: Thank you, Madam President. McIntyre: From the Chair to Mr. Kelly, just in general, so with this Public Hearing this is just for rezoning, I know in the packet, there is a site plan, just a rendering of a high-level, first draft of a site plan so we can get our eyes on it. With the site plan approval process, everything kind of restarts and having managed large, capital projects, there is a lot of engineering calculations that go into developments like this. Everything basically starts over, so the next thing, if this goes through, then the applicant and the petitioner would go through the formal site plan approval process that kind of starts Planning all over. Then, we get another look at it and if it gets approved by Planning, then to comes to Council, so I can assure you that and everybody out that, any infrastructure, there is massive Engineers and Architects that look at these numbers and make sure that everything conforms to our current system, so, I know the whole package gets looked at after this round. I hope that kind of clears up stuff, but just to reiterate, this is just for the rezoning. Thank you, Madam President. McIntyre: I’d like to clarify one thing that Mr. McCullough said, he is correct, and I think I had explained that previously. Nothing happens on the rezoning 8 until the site plan goes back to the Planning Commission and goes through. Things don’t start over in the sense of, this is part of the process to rezone this. This is a public hearing to rezone this to R-1, so there’s no resetting of the rezoning, we simply don’t finish the process until the site plan goes through the Planning Commission and then it comes back through us, so thank you and at that time, that’s when the deep dive is done, no pun intended, into the calculations for the sewer, for the storm water but prior to that, I am happy to talk to our City Engineer and refer this to the Administration to get information for you, Mr. Kelly. Kelly: Ok, great thanks. That’s good to hear, so the R-1 has not been approved yet, right? McIntyre: That’s correct, this is simply the public hearing where the public, and it is exactly what it says it is, the public has an opportunity to participate and share their thoughts and concerns and views about this, then this will come on the Regular Council meeting of November 4th, the Regular meeting is at 7:00pm and this would generally get what is called a first reading. Ok, so first reading is offered, there is no voting on it, its simply a first reading and then after the first reading, before we go on to take the roll call vote on the rezoning to R-1, that’s when we go through the site plan process. The site plan goes to the Planning Commission, just as the initial rezoning did and the Planning Commission studies it, they have their Study and Regular meeting with the Petitioner and the public and then they will make a recommendation to Council on the site plan. The site plan has to be done before we go to the second reading. The second reading is where we take a roll call vote and either vote yes or no on the rezoning. Kelly: Ok, so, I guess, I just want to voice my opinion at the very least, I think it should be R-2 and I base that kind of on the condos that are opposite Lyndon there. It doesn’t concern me, but walk my dogs there every night and I go by there and all the people along Harrison that butt up to that condo site, they are flooded all the time because it elevated and it runs down into their yard. It just seemed like a bad decision to elect those condos. McIntyre: Alright, thank you very much, Mr. Kelly. Kelly: I hope you take my recommendation seriously. Thank you, guys. McIntyre: Thank you. Alright, I will now go back to Councilmember Toy. Toy: I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you, Mr. Kelly? Do we have his address? Did we get his address? McIntyre: I have Mr. Kelly’s address and this is recorded so we do have it. 9 Toy: Could I get that, what is it? Kelly: 1143 Lyons. Toy: I would like to go out and see it. I remember you know, I’ve been passed Adam’s school and the site, but I hear what you are saying about flooding, Madam President, when I was out last year, in some of the neighborhoods, there was a considerable amount of concern about flooding as was pointed out on those new condos over there. So, that’s not to say it should happen on this property or already happening or whatever, but just to get a visionary of this, we have a lot of great people in this Administration that can address that, as you explained, Madam th President, I’d just like to eyeball it, if you may, before the 4. Also, are we going to hear from the Petitioner as well, tonight, who is proposing this? McIntyre: I don’t know, let me see. Kelly: If you can still hear me, Miss Toy, I’d love you come out and look at not only my yard, but my neighbor’s yard. Toy: Ok. McIntyre: Alright, thank you, Mr. Kelly. Mark, correct me if I’m wrong, I don’t see the Petitioner, I do see a number of other people that would like to speak. Taormina: The Petitioner is present. McIntyre: Ok, thank you. Toy: Who is it? Taormina: Stuart Michaleson. Toy: He’s representing the Soave’s? Taormina: No, he is representing the Windmill Development, the purchaser of the property. Toy: Ok, can we hear from him soon or no? McIntyre: I’m going through the people here. Next, we will go to Loraine. Compo: This is Loraine Compo, my address is 14449 Harrison and I would first like to start by saying that many residents in this area are opposed to this project for a variety of reasons. I think at this point, it is safe to assume 10 that this project will be moving forward in some capacity since the property has been sold. I was under the impression as some of the other callers that the zoning had already been changed, but I’m glad to know that is not the case. What I would like to say is that I believe that, as many of the other callers have, that thirty-nine homes is a ridiculous amount of homes to cram into that amount of space. I also think it’s a lot to ask the residents in this area to put up with this. This is a project that is obviously going to cause a huge disruption to our neighborhood for years, because to build that man homes, is going to take some time. Based on that, I guess, I would just like to ask, what’s in it for us? My hope is that we can come to some kind of a reasonable compromise, perhaps a smaller number of homes. Based on some of the comments from some of the people on Lyons, how about some greenspace perimeter around the whole area, around Lyons, around Harrison, so it will lessen the overall impact to our neighborhood and the neighbors and the environment. I realize that the developer doesn’t really care about the impact to the existing neighborhood or to the neighbors or to the environment, their goal is simply profit and cram as many homes in as you can. I feel like this is going to reek havoc on our neighborhood, disrupt our lives, for a period of time, while they make their millions and move on to the next project. If I have learned one thing from living in Livonia for thirty-five years and attempting to have our voices heard. For example, the reconfiguring of our school system, we have these meetings because its to let the citizens be heard because you are required to do so by law. I was encouraged to hear that there’s a lot going into this process, a lot that I didn’t know. In my experience, making changes based on what the citizens in the neighborhood want, generally doesn’t happen. I’m here again, trying to be heard and hoping to make a difference and I respectfully request that you, as our elected officials tasked with the responsibility of representing this community will do just that and ask yourselves how you would feel if this was going to happen in the middle of your neighborhood. I ask that you please work with the citizens of this neighborhood, represent us and don’t merely accept a proposal of the developer. We’re counting on you guys not to and it sounds like you’re really interested in helping us out here. I appreciated your time and attention and the opportunity to speak and I appreciate anything you can do to lessen the impact of this project on our neighborhood. McIntyre: Alright, thank you for your comments. Before we go on to the next member of the public that would like to speak, I would like to recognize that we do have Mr. Jolly with us. Hello Mr. Jolly, I know you were able to listen in, thank you for now joining us as the panelist attendee, so thank you. Alright, we will go to Atul Kishore. There we go, Mr. Kishore? Kishore: Thank you again, you said you were going to come out, I would love to have you come and see me also as part of the six homeowners here. Half 11 of Lyndon gets flooded today on a rainy day and in the winter, it’s going to be ice, its going to be cars that are slipping and sliding into our mailboxes and into our yards. This is why a subdivision having that many homes exiting out of Lyndon should not be acceptable to anybody because it’s a curb on the road and its, right now, its terrible. Todd Zilincik from the Engineering Department came and had the road surfaced, a little bit skimmed off which made it even worse because it was already sunk down so it needs to come up and it needs to come up before any construction starts because Lyndon, half flooded as an emergency route is not acceptable. I would love to have you come and talk to me. McIntyre: Thank you, Mr. Kishore. Kishore: Thank you. McIntyre: Alright, Vice President Bahr. Bahr: Thanks, Madam President, just two quick responses at some of what we’ve heard and certainly appreciated the input of some of the residents. I’ll just reiterate what’s already been said, we do take these public hearings seriously and your input does matter. Anybody that paid attention to the Clay school development a couple of years ago is very aware of the hours and long nights that we went through to make some significant changes to that plan in response to the input from the neighbors. I think our track record on that speaks for itself. That’s not to totally graph what’s going to happen here, neighbor input is one input. Its an important input, but its one input and we definitely hear what you’re saying. The second thing is, I’ll try not to belabor it, because it’s been talked about, with the drainage thing, the drainage retention ponds that are required by Wayne County, which is, historically a relative new thing. Not the requirement of retention ponds, but just the size that they now require is actually, in the minds of many, excessive. More than what is necessary. Without being a Civil Engineer myself, I think it’s safe to say that this development, with the requirements that will be put on it that were not put on your current, existing neighborhood when it was built, will probably, if anything, improve the drainage situation. That’s all I will say about that because that all gets into site plan, the question that is under consideration now is one of zoning, that is just that Livonia Public Schools selling this land to a private developer, is coming before us for the first time with the question of would this make sense to be redeveloped as residential. That’s the question, of course now, all the other stuff will definitely be put through the ringer when we get to the site plan, assuming that happens. Thanks. McIntyre: Thank you, Vice President Bahr. It looks like Mr. Kelly would like to speak again. I’m sorry, Councilmember Jolly, did you have your hand up? 12 Jolly: Yeah, thank you, Madam President. I apologize for earlier, I was on a device that was allowing me to listen but not participate, so I did listen to this and the previous hearing. I have a question real quick. Obviously, this request is asking to rezone this as R-1. This goes to Mr. Taormina and to Mr. Bernier. At this point, are we limited to only considering R-1? Obviously, that’s what is asked for, but if we move this on from this public hearing, are we free after to discussion with the developer to discuss a possible R-2 or R-3 scenario? I remember when we have had those discussions and time to talk about things with other developments, but I’d like to know, at this point, are we limited to R-1 only in this consideration or can we consider maybe and R-2? Then my second comment real quick while I’m on the line, I would like to hear from the developer asking whether or not they have mocked up the site as an R-2 and if so, what would be the difference in the amount of houses. To be quite frank with you, building new houses is very important to the city of Livonia, keeping our housing stock somewhat fresh, or having some availability of fresh housing is important, but I’m getting a little leery, a little questionable when I think about the fact that every single new development that we’ve had in the city is being asked to be R-1. I would like those answers from the developer. We have plenty of R-2, R-3 sites in the city that have been great neighborhoods for fifty, sixty years. I want to know why we are not considering R-2, R-3, thank you very much. McIntyre: Thank you, Councilmember Jolly. We’ll go back to Mr. Kelly. Jolly: Madam President, if I may, I did ask a question to Mr. Taormina and Mr. Bernier. Taormina: Two-part question, the first part was the question of whether or not the Council of the City could take action in any way to change the zoning recommendation from R-1 to R-2, because that would involve a change to a less intensive zoning classification that is generally recognized and accepted. That authority does rest to the City at this point. If it were the other way around, then there would be an issue with the public hearing process and we’d have to go back to the Planning Commission, but I don’t believe that would be the case in this instance if it were up zoned, if you will. Bernier: I agree, that’s my analysis of it too. If we were going from R-1 to R-3, there’s not a problem, but of you go, to say, R-3 to R-1, you would probably have to start this process all over again. McIntyre: Alright, Mr. Jolly, does that satisfy your question? Jolly: The first part, Madam President, I’d like to hear from the developer on that second part. 13 McIntyre: Alright, I do not see that the developer has asked to be recognized. I do see a second hand up, alright, Mr. Michaelson, good evening. Major: This is George Major from Windmill; can you hear me? I think you unmuted me instead of unmuting my partner, Mr. Michaelson. McIntyre: Who wishes to speak? Major: Mr. Michaelson can speak, or I can if you can’t unmute him. McIntyre: That’s who I’m trying to unmute. I’m going to ask our Information Systems Director to help me, I’m having a hard time doing the unmuting. Casey, are you able to help here? I will tell you, occasionally, we’ve had a problem where we’ve done the unmuting on our end. There we go, it looks like we have Mr. Michaelson unmuted. Michaelson: Yeah, hi. My name is Stuart Michaelson, I’m with the Adams Park Development company. I just want to start off by saying, the R-1 was chosen because we’re in the middle of all R-1 zoned homes. All the houses surrounding us are R-1 zoned except for the condos on Lyndon that are across the street, which are attached condos. What we’re proposing to do is 60x120 size lots which we have found to be very successful in previous developments which we were involved in. I’ve been doing this for thirty-seven years, going to Planning Commission meetings and Council meetings and there’s always, you’re always going to get the people that don’t want anything built on the empty land next to them. They want to enjoy it. But, at the same token, they want to live in nice houses. We find that, we’ve done this in Farmington Hills, we specialized, if you want to say that, the last couple of years, the last probably ten years in buying school sites, because they are closing down the schools. The old school sites that are available today, are in the middle of neighborhoods. Nowadays, if you build a new school, its on a main street. The older schools are in the middle of older neighborhoods. What we have found is, the people, when you raise the values of people’s homes, we find that many of the people that want new houses, they don’t want to live in forty, fifty year old houses, but don’t want to leave the neighborhood, are happy to have new housing so that they can move into the new house, have all the new amenities, the energy conservation that we put into all the houses that we build and we also are very careful that we have, and your Engineering Department is very careful about putting in all new infrastructure. Fifty-year-old infrastructure that was built with the school all gone, its going to be torn out. Any remnants of it will be gone, we’ll start over from scratch, we’ll put in new storm sewers, sanitary sewers, water mains. Everything is new and carefully engineered so as not to flood any neighborhoods. The hundred year detention that we’ll put in will have an 14 outlet, so what it does, it takes all the rainwater from all the houses and collects it into a detention so that it doesn’t flood the existing storm drains and then it’s out-letting in a slow manner into a storm drain which will take care of all the storm issues. The people there are having problems because it was a school for fifty or so years that didn’t have it graded properly. The people that surround us, they’re going to find all the issues that are caused by our piece of land will go away. We can’t deal with other City storm sewers, whatever is happening outside of our development, but we certainly will be very careful making sure that our homes will all drain properly, they’re going to have sump in every basement that are out-letting to underground storm sewers. Its very carefully designed. We have to work within the marketplace that drives the prices of the homes, so we find that in this area, to compete with the pricing of the existing homes, we need thirty-nine home. They are 60x120, I’d be glad to take the Council members and have them visit sites that we have recently completed in Farmington, the City of Farmington, Farmington Hills where we did 60x120 and it worked out very well. The other thing as far as traffic, you’re not going to have that much traffic. People come and go at different times, nowadays they’re at home most of the time working, not even going to offices, but that’s besides the point, but even if they were, its not an overflow of traffic. There’s going to be ten homes fronting on Harrison, twenty-nine homes within our development. Believe me, the people that live in these homes and create these nice communities, they are so happy to have the homes, new homes. It saves people from having to leave Livonia to go to Northville or Novi or any other place to find new homes. That’s what the people want. We’re not in this, believe me, I’ve been doing this for thirty-seven years, if I made millions and millions of dollars in every development, I’d be on an island someplace, I wouldn’t be her working. We enjoy what we do, we do a good job, we’ve done it in many communities around, like I said, we’re in Farmington Hills now, doing two communities. We did one in the City of Farmington on an old school site. I’ve built in Troy, Northville, all over, we have a good reputation, we do what we say we’re gonna do and probably 99% of our customers are very happy. So, I know, it a load, you have a piece of land and now it’s vacant, before you had the school, there was nothing pretty about the school, but that’s the way of the world and that’s how you make the city grow. You’d bring property taxes, the school boards get money from the State, you’d have kids living there, they’re nice communities, I’d be glad to take you and show you where we are. Also, our Engineer, I believe is on, Mike Priest or Evan Priest, they can explain a little more about the Engineering issues, but we’ve been doing this for a long time and very successful. McIntyre: Alright, thank you, Mr. Michaelson, I appreciate your comments. Councilmember Jolly? 15 Jolly: Thank you, Madam President. So, just real quick, Mr. Michaelson, I believe what you're telling us, I understand the truth of the need for new housing that people are really craving this type of thing and to be quite frank with you, like I said before, we hear that we need to refresh our housing stock and this is one way to do it. For everybody who’s listening, this zoning will not have a final vote until we also have a site plan that will receive a final vote. I think you’ve explained that before, obviously, yes, but, the reason I’m bring that up now, is, Mr. Michaelson, I want to see a site plan that makes sense, I want to see a site plan that actually fits houses into he property as they should be fit. We have had developments here, even though we’ve gone through the process and limited the houses from what was originally desired, you drive through the finished product and it looks like houses are squeezed in there. I’m going to start to be more skeptical and scrutinize these situations a little bit more to make sure that it makes sense on paper and it makes sense in practice for what we’re looking at. So, I’m just telling you right now, listen, I’m not going to hold up the zoning at this point, it’s R-1 surrounding for the most part, you can proceed at R-1, but I want to see a site plan that makes sense for the property and the surrounding homeowners as well, thank you. Michaelson: Yeah, Mr. Jolly, if I just may add one more, I would like to show you examples of recent housing communities that we have developed and built, because we develop and build, and show you how nice the houses look on a 60x120 lot. Here’s the other thing, I gotta tell ya, people today, they don’t want big lots, because they don’t want to sit and spend their whole weekends mowing lawns. The 60x120 is the perfect size for our customers. Jolly: Sir, if you would provide addresses and locations of those new developments, I’d love to see them, thank you. McIntyre: Alright, I’ll go to Councilmember McCullough and then Councilmember Toy. McCullough: Thank you Madam President, through the Chair to the developer, just kind of looking over the site, I’m kind of reiterating a little bit, tying on to Mr. Jolly’s words, Councilman Jolly. Looking at the site plan that was provided and we’ll obviously dive deeper into it, you have the ability, and I’m not discounting the lot sizes, the retention basins, I think the stormwater management plan, I’m not too concerned, obviously, because when you jump into this, I know how the engineering goes into this, but you have both Dooley Park and Buckingham Park that borders to the South and looking at the original site plan and I know its early, but I think you have a great opportunity to tie in great sustainability features and walkways and pathways from this new development, potentially, to those parks. That’s kind of just, one of my wish list, obviously, we’ll wait and see what comes 16 from the formal site plan process, but I’m looking for some innovation, that would be my request to tie in. Both Dooley and Buckingham are great parks, they get a lot of use, they get a lot of people that float it. I think you have a great opportunity to take it to the next level, so I just wanted to go on record stating that, thank you. McIntyre: Alright, thank you. Councilmember Toy. Please unmute. Toy: Sorry, thank you Mr. Michaelson and Madam President and George, I didn’t catch your last name. I just want to thank you for bringing this forward. The sensitivity to these large lots, I grew up in Livonia, I’ve been at it in this city for sixty-some years. We get out and hear residents, we’re sensitive to our residents as all of us are. When we start seeing various developments go in, we’re considering about three of these right now. I see you’re involved in the Adams school one, I don’t know if you are involved in any of the rest of them, but we’re getting a lot of pushback from neighborhoods on these. While we can always have open space, we understand that, we understand that you are bringing us value-added in many respects, but we also want, as I think a couple of my colleagues said, we want to incorporate some uniqueness into this. I don’t mean to be rude to you, but if you were to buy the property and not be able to do thirty-nine places, you’d need to consider that when you purchase it. I realize that you’re contingent, but by the same token, we have to also measure your needs and the people that live there and pay taxes already in those areas. While its R-1, most of these larger lots that we’re considering with these closed schools, there are R-1s around them, but that doesn’t mean we always have to go with R-1s, just because those are R-1s. Yeah, I get it, that in most of those areas are R-1s, but some people would like a little bit bigger lot, because quite frankly, when they move into the condo or the site condominiums or any of the rest, they’d like to have a little animal, maybe a dog. Maybe a dog that’s bigger thank twelve pounds. So, I’m sensitive to those kind of needs as people age out or people move in with young children. So, it’s a different style of living, I get it, but I don’t want to see it crammed either. I want to see some good creativity in this, and I want to see us address those flooding problems that these people are talking about, thank you so much. Michaelson: Councilwoman Toy if I may just add? McIntyre: Mr. Michaelson, I know this is a little bit difficult because of the Zoom format, but I will ask you if you want to address a comment by Council, if you do use the raise your hand function so I can recognize you. I’m trying to give everyone their due turn here. So, I will this time allow you to proceed in addressing Councilwoman Toy, but I would ask that you do use the raise you hand feature just because that’s how I keep order in the meeting. 17 Michaelson: I’m very sorry I forgot to do that. So, I just wanted to mention that if Mark Taormina can put on the site plan, you’ll see at the South end, we have an egress to the park and a small park area ourselves. So, we try to be creative by creating a park attached to your park and we have an egress so that people can walk through, either coming through Lyndon or our residents can walk through and go to the park. Also, I just want to mention, George just reminded me, the detention pond that we do, we have it with water in it so it doesn’t get overgrown with weeds and its an enhancement, we always put a fountain in it and it sprays nicely, so for people that are looking back at us from the park, you’re gonna see a nice pond and from the residents, especially the ones backing up to the pond, even the residents that live on Lyons will see it, its gonna be a nice feature. We always make sure we do, we take a lot of pride in our developments. Toy: Thank you, thank you Madam Chair. McIntyre: I’m going to go to Vice President Bahr. Bahr: Just wanted to point out in light of the discussion that while it is R-1 here to the north, we have R-U-F and R-2 and I think whatever direction this goes, there is justification to both of them, thanks. McIntyre: Thank you, Councilmember McCullough. McCullough: Thank you, Madam President, I just want to clarify, I looked at the detention basin and I know the fountain is great for keeping circulation of the water in there. The easement that you show on here, me personally, I think it could be a lot better. You tie in two parks, not to discount this, I’ve seen the easement, I appreciate that its there, I just think that when you tie in two greenspace, especially two city parks, I think there’s opportunity to be a little bit better than what’s shown in this. That’s just my two cents on that, thank you. McIntyre: Thank you, Councilmember McCullough. Councilmember White? White: Quick question for Mr. Taormina. Councilman Jolly did ask if any analysis was done as to how many homes would be, with this site support if it was R-2. Has there been any analysis of that? Taormina: No we have not done an alternate plan. I could speculate as to what the impact would be under this same design if you were to increase each of the lots by roughly ten feet in width, you would lose a few lots. What that number impacts in terms of feasibility of the project, I don’t know. There would be an impact, probably at least three, maybe four lots at the most. 18 White: Ok, thank you. McIntyre: Alright, thank you, Councilmember White. I will go back to the attendees, again, my apologies for the difficulties tonight getting everything up on my screen. We’ll go back to Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly? Kelly: Hi guys. I guess that I’m not watching the Vice President’s debates, I think they started. That tells you about my concern. I want to say Councilman Jolly and McCullough, I’m glad you are raising the questions that I raised. Mr. Bahr, I’d like to know where the Clay school was, was it designated R-1 and I’d like to go by and see where it is, do you know where that is? Bahr: Madam President, do you mind if I answer that? McIntyre: No, please, go ahead, Vice President Bahr. Bahr: So, it’s a neighborhood just South of Six Mile and on the East side of Newburgh, so Six and Newburgh on the Southeast corner, facing Newburgh, basically. Just at a high-level, it’s a mixture if R-1 and R-2, it was proposed as R-1, similar to this. Without going into detail of many, many meetings and many, many hours that ended up being a mixture of R-1 and R-2, but by all means, go check it out. Kelly: I will. So, South of Six Mile? Bahr: South of Six, East of Newburgh, entrance is off of Newburgh. Kelly: I was part of the Planning Commission and I don’t know if Mr. Michaelson is still here, but at that hearing, he said you could drive a pickup through the drain that runs along Lyndon and then I thought he said today, all of the underground infrastructure was going to be replaced. I don’t believe that, but does he still say you can drive a pickup through the sewer drain on Lyndon? McIntyre: You’ve made your comments, Mr. Kelly, I think we’re getting into some level of detail here and some he-said, he-said. If Mr. Michaelson would like to address it, I will certainly allow him to, but I think we’re getting a little bit off the track here of the rezoning of the Adams school site. I do so appreciate all of your comments. Kelly: Alright, well I’m done, but that is what he said, and I hope you guys all take that into consideration. Thank you all for your consideration. McIntyre: We do have complete minutes from the Planning Commission and your comments relative to Mr. Michaelson’s statements have been noted, so thank you. 19 McCabe: Yeah, thank you, sorry, for a second opportunity here to speak and I thank you. Again, Jim McCabe, 14236 Lyons Street, the street directly East of the proposed new development. I guess, I’m not a Civil Engineer, and with all due respect to Mr. Michaelson’s thirty-seven years of success, and I’ll keep this in the macro, I promise. I know he’s probably been in front of many City Councils and heard every objection from every resident like me, so I know he knows how to tell us what we want to hear, it just doesn’t, again, not getting into the details of matters, and water is only one of ten problems with this that we, the residents see and feel. I just don’t see it, but my objection, I guess I discount most of what Mr. Michaelson said and I know he’s a successful man, I am not a Civil Engineer, again, I have to get that out there. My hats off to Loraine and Mr. Kelly, they’ve done a great job and I agree with them 100%. Mr. Jolly, I appreciate your very astute and candid thought process here, its helpful, it makes me feel better. I guess I’ll cut it short, thank you guys for hearing me tonight. McIntyre: Thank you again, Mr. McCabe. Again, I just want to stress to your comments and your engagement are very much appreciated. Alright, with that, we will go on to a member of the audience who appears as D0103100 and I will ask for your name and address please. Ellison: Hello and thank you, yes, my name is Belinda Ellison. My address 28154 Lyndon, I’m the property directly across from Adams and directly next door to the new condo units, thank you for affording me the time to express my concerns, I appreciate that. I concur with the other guests that you’ve had from the audience in our neighborhood. I’ve had great concern as this development, particularly with the traffic. If you are proposing, I believe it was thirty-nine homes, the average homeowner has two vehicles per home, so you do the math, that’s approximately eighty cars, maybe more. That’s going to be considerable traffic on Lydon. That is something to consider. Then also, Mr. Kelly was expressing his concerns along the property line on Lyons there, that butts up to the easement. I walk over there all the time and whenever there is rain, it is flooded a lot. There is a pond every time it rains, so there’s no exaggeration there. Then also, when the Engineer was saying that with the new development, there will be sump pumps in all of the basements. Ok, you’re proposing putting new homes in a very established neighborhoods and I’m willing to bet that most of the homes in this neighborhood do not have sump pumps, so I’m a little concerned as to what happens with the homes that do have sump pumps, Where is all this going? Is it going into the new drainage that was being proposed that will hopefully do the job? Just expressing concerns that I have. I appreciate the Councilmembers that spoke on our behalf expressing their concerns as well, they do see that there is merit in what we have to say. So, I appreciate that, thank you so much. 20 McIntyre: Ms. Ellison? Thank you and I want to say there is merit in what every citizen has to say. I don’t know if you were on earlier, but we would love it if everyone who called us all the time thought we were doing a great job and agreed with whatever is before us, but this is how progress is made and this is how you reach, and you never, and I will say this, there has never been a development that I have been part of, and I’ve been on the Zoning Board, the Planning Commission and Council, where everyone was happy. I’ve never seen us get there, where every resident was 100% happy, where the developers were 100% happy, but I do think, I every case that I can think of and there have been a lot, that we do go through a process of negotiation and give and take and listening to the developers who are, at the end of the day, invested in our community and be listening to the residents who are the residents of our community. So, your comments are really appreciated, so thank you. Ellison: I appreciate that, thank you as well. McIntyre: Alright, it looks like Mr. Kishore is back with us, Mr. Kishore? Kishore: Thank you, I heard all the comments, especially from Mr. Jolly, I really appreciate you giving your thoughts on there, as well as my fellow residents and looking at the six homes that I’m speaking for twelve people in this community here as the new condos. We are R-2 and we would at least, and somebody mentioned this earlier, even though there were prior R-1’s, since there is an R-2, the direction is more towards R-2, so we should really look at why this cannot be an R-2, but before the zoning happens or any of the construction starts, please make sure the Council looks at what’s going on with Lyndon. That’s a very important factor. Lyndon is a mess right now, I have cars flying down at 50-60mph at nighttime now that Harrison has been paved. There is drag racing going on with no police out there in the middle of the night. What’s going to happen with Lyndon with the extra cars coming in, the street being flooded already, those things need to be resolved, not when the construction is done, but before the project even starts. There needs to be a band-aid and I’m glad that Miss Toy has agreed to come and see it because I want to take her to the problems that we are facing on our new condos today. McIntyre: Thank you I would encourage you, Mr. Kishore, if there are traffic problems, I would encourage you to call the police department, maybe you already have. Kishore: I haven’t done that, but its pretty clear that there is drag racing going on, on the newly paved Harrison. McIntyre: Ok, thank you for mentioning that and we have a very attentive and responsive police department, and would be happy to follow up on that. 21 Again, the best thing is to do, anytime you are aware of that, is to pick up the phone and call the police and its not a bother to do so, it helps to establish a record of problem areas. Kishore: Thank you very much. McIntyre: Thank you. I’ll get back to Councilmember Jolly. Jolly: Thank you Madam President, I’ll keep this very short. It just dawned on me, normally when we look at these new proposals, the school property itself that’s being considered is surrounded on three sides typically. That’s not the case in this circumstance, so I’m wondering, is there a mock up of the site plan that could be presented to us at a later date that would allow for a secondary entrance into the neighborhood as well? I think sometimes that is something that strikes the neighborhood as something different, because if these neighborhoods were built in the same way they were typically, you wouldn’t just have just one entrance into a neighborhood of thirty-nine houses, or a section of a neighborhood of thirty-nine houses, there would be a secondary egress into the neighborhood as well. That is possible in this circumstance with the West side there on Harrison. So, I would maybe like to see if we could have an access there on Harrison as well. Is that something that you can mock-up for us or kind of put together a little bit here? To be quite honest with you, we’re looking at it as we’re looking at this, we’re looking at it as thirty-nine houses here, I want to go the route that we did when we were talking about the Six Mile and Newburgh site here. I’d like to see some R-2, I’d like to see some R-1 as a mixture in here and make a neighborhood that actually makes sense. More house is not necessarily better for the city. If we’re talking about losing 3-5 houses with having some R-2 in there, I want to see it. Thirty- nine houses, I’m not just going to take thirty-nine as being the most economical option for the developer. Thank you. McIntyre: Thank you. Would the petitioner like to respond, I see that Mr. Kelly has his hand up again, yes, Mr. Kelly. Kelly: I just want to say, thank you, Councilman Jolly. McIntyre: Alright, Mr. Michaelson, I don’t know if you wish to respond to any of Mr. Jolly or to any of the comments that were made. Michaelson: Yeah, I’d be glad to take another look at the site plan. McIntyre: Thank you. Alright, anything else? I do not see anyone else from Council or the City’s side or anyone else from the audience who wish to address the council so I will call this public hearing to a close and I will remind th everyone that this item will be on the agenda of the November 4 meeting. 22 Bernier: A resolution? Jolly: Madam President? I’ll offer an approving for R-1 and also an approving resolution for R-2. McIntyre: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jolly, thank you Mr. Bernier. This is the first time I’ve done this, thanks everybody, good night. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 8:39 p.m.