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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPH 2022-03-07 - Rezone - Pet. 2020-08-01-06 - Middlebelt Plymouth Venture, LLC CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, March 7, 2022 ___________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the Livonia City Hall Auditorium on Monday, March 7, 2022. MEMBERS PRESENT: Jim Jolly, President Laura Toy, Vice President Rob Donovic Brandon McCullough Scott Morgan MEMBERS ABSENT: Scott Bahr Kathleen McIntyre OTHERS PRESENT: Paul Bernier, City Attorney Mark Taormina, Planning and Economic Dev. Director Sara Kasprowicz, Recording Secretary The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with President Jim Jolly presiding. This item is regarding Petition 2020-08-01-06, Middlebelt Plymouth Ventures, LLC, pursuant to Sections 13.13 and 13.15 of the Livonia Vision 21 Zoning Ordinance, requesting to rezone parts of the properties at 29707 & 30273 Plymouth Road, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Middlebelt Road and Milburn Avenue in the Northeast ¼ of Section 35, from C-2 (General Business) to NM2 (Neighborhood Multifamily). This item will move to the Regular Meeting of March 23, 2022. The Public Hearing is now open. There were 32 persons in the audience. Jolly: We will start the public hearing with a presentation from our City's Planning and Economic Development Director. Then we'll will have any kind of brief remarks from the Developers, in this case, and then I will open it up to the residents to speak and make their comments. Okay. Mr. Taormina. Taormina: Thank you Mr. President. This is a request to retail property that is part of the Wonderland Village Shopping Center. The land area involved in this request is approximately 10.86 acres it's located between the Walmart Supercenter and LA Fitness. The change would be from C-2, General Business to NM-2, Neighborhood Multifamily. Bordering the property to the south are single family homes that are part of the Bel Air Gardens subdivision. The purpose of the rezoning is to facilitate the future development of an apartment complex that would be called Wonderland Flats. NM-2 zoning does allow for multi- family dwellings and buildings that are not to exceed four stories in height. 2 The preliminary plans submitted with this application show two, three-story apartment buildings, the two C-shaped buildings would mirror one another, similar to the configuration of Haggerty Square. The site layout includes a central courtyard and a common area that would contain an inground pool as well as other amenities. Each building would have a gross floor area of approximately 100,000 square feet. Together they would contain a total of 200, one and two-bedroom units. Ingress and egress would be from two driveways that would be on the north side of the apartment complex. The main point of access from Plymouth Road would be from the signalized drive that is located across from Tech Center Drive. This road runs between the White Castle and the Biolife. It intersects with a road that runs east and west. Across the shopping center. There are two driveways that would serve the apartment complex and these would be located between that and main entrance drive. Parking is shown around the perimeter of both buildings. The plan shows a total of 422 parking spaces, which is slightly more than the required two spaces per unit. In comparison, Haggerty Square, with the same number of apartments, obtained a variance for 323 parking spaces translated to a ratio of roughly 1.6 spaces per unit. Carports for about 100 of the vehicles are shown along the east, south and a small portion of the west sides of the development. At the south end of the property the site contains an existing screen wall and landscape berm that separates the proposed development from the adjacent single-family homes. The width of the berm measured from the masonry wall to the base of the slope is about 69 feet and from this point, the distance to the closest edge of the parking lot is another 100 feet, and from the parking lot to Building B, is another 131 feet. So altogether, the distance between the adjacent residential properties in the closest point of apartment building D would be about 300 feet. The buildings which span a length of approximately 343 feet would all have flat roofs. All units would be accessible from corridors that are located inside the buildings. There will be a network of interconnected sidewalks that would be provided around both of the buildings as well as the courtyard in the common areas. The Livonia Vision 21 Future Land Use map designates the entire Wonderland complex, including the subject site, as a mixed development center. Mixed development centers are intended to have higher densities and massing, be walkable and pedestrian friendly, and be integrated with, and connected to, surrounding areas and neighborhoods. Attached dwellings and apartments are identified as an appropriate land use within a mixed development center, subject to a maximum density of 20 units per acre. Residential options include attached and upper story units, including townhomes, lofts and apartments. The concept plan for Wonderland Flats reflects an overall density of 17.6 dwelling units per acre, which is slightly less than the maximum density provided on the Master Plan. On October 19, Planning Commission held a public hearing on this item and is requesting denial of the rezoning. With that, Mr. Chairman, I'll be happy to answer any questions. Jolly: Could you repeat that last part, Mark? 3 Taormina: The Planning Commission recommends denial based on a public hearing held on October 19. Jolly: Sounds good. Thank you, sir. We'll go to Council first, does the Council any questions for Mr. Taormina? I see none of this time. The Developer, Schostak, or whatever business entity you're proposing to do this under. If there's anything you'd like to state, at this time, please take the podium, state your name and address for the record. Schostak: Good evening. Jeffrey Schostak, Schostak Brothers, business address 1700 Laurel Park Place Drive Livonia, Michigan. I'd just like to say a few words. And then I will hand it off to Mark Schovers, our architect on the project, who will run through some more slides. I wanted to give just some kind of background thinking where we're at and how we've come to this place tonight. So, as I'm sure most of you know, maybe not, we've been doing business in Livonia, Schostak Brothers, for 50 years. We've been long term owners and developers in this town. We're not an out of state developer just flying in to do this project. We've been here a long time and we're here to stay. What we're proposing as Mark Taormina just laid out, it fits in the Livonia 21 Vision, what is called for a mixed-use, and this is multifamily apartments. This is what clearly city leaders have wanted to some degree and matching it with Livonia 21 and saying that mixed-use apartment complex is something that this site, this location, is what the city wants. That's what we're bringing today. This is a $30 million development in southeast Livonia. This is a very big project. It's really good for the owner’s tax base. It is a low traffic use, it is easier on city services than current zoning would allow under Commercial, big box commercial, and generally less traffic overall from a residential development than any large commercial developments. This is completely privately funded. No tax abatements or incentives or anything of that nature are being requested by the developer. This is a high-end class A market rate, low-rise apartment project. I say that the rents that we are budgeting are anywhere between $1,200 and $1700 a month. These are nice places. This is attractive. This is a good investment for the future of Livonia. This is housing for young professionals, millennials, empty nesters that maybe don't want to live in a home anymore, want the more convenience of a brand-new Class A apartment complex. This will help Livonia grow and keep people in Livonia and bring young people that maybe grow up in Livonia, give them another option rather than acquiring their first home when they're younger. These will be good neighbors for the residents. These are good jobs that these people have to live in these apartments, these are nice apartments are not inexpensive, in fact they are expensive to live in. Additionally, we met with the residents. We heard some of the residents at Planning, we recently met with the residents and we heard you, privacy, that was important. And you'll see in the presentation tonight, we added another layer of trees on the berm making that three layers of trees, more than the zoning requires, and also a fence, and that you will see, there is no line of sight from the third floor apartments into the neighbor's yard. It'll be completely blocked, they won't be able to see anything. And I know that was a concern. And by the way, very 4 valid concerns, so we took that, and want to address that. You'll see more of that tonight. But then additionally, we're 300 feet away, as Mark pointed out from the closest residence, which is much further than what the current zoning allows. Even the zoning we're trying to get in does not even require you to be 300 feet. So lastly, before I hand it off to our architect, are excited about this. We think this is a really good thing, this a huge investment in southeast Livonia and you know, we really would like to work with everyone to try and get this done. And additionally, we're here and would love to respond to any questions or comments that people have. We're going to be here all night and we're going collect a response. So, I'm going to hand it off to Mark Schovers to kind of walk through the presentation. Schovers: Good evening. My name is Mark Schovers, Spire Design Group, 115, East Fourth Street, Rochester, Michigan. As Mr. Schostak had mentioned, we have listened to the concerns of the residents we met with them. The main concerns are the security of what's going on there currently and how we can address that. The visibility from the single-family residence to the building and vice versa, the third floor looking at the residence, noise and traffic. As we go through this presentation, I will address those. So, as you can see on this slide, the current zoning versus what we're proposing the C-2 to the NM-2 is Livonia 21, shows that it has this corner, or this development, marked as a mixed-use. This development has everything in it, it's got big box retail, it's got your out lots with restaurants, fitness centers, has everything there. The one thing to make it an actual mixed-use is you got to have people living there. That's what makes it a mixed-use, otherwise, it's just development. So, in order to follow the guidelines of Livonia 21, we’re proposing that this be rezone so that we can provide that mixed-use and everyone wants to help those businesses thrive and stay in business. Also in the Livonia 21, there's a section on missing middle. What the missing middle is, this gap from the single-family to your urban developments, and providing those housing opportunities for people that are looking to downsize for young professionals for starter families that don't have money for down payment. That's what this area is missing. It points out that the key areas that you should be focusing on is commercial corridors and mixed-use centers. That's Wonderland Village, both of those. As Jeff had mentioned, the rent. These are very high rent, $1200 to $1600. This information is from a marketing study. This isn't just us, winging it and saying this is what we think we can get. All this information on here. It's from a marketing study, giving us what the rents are, and also telling us what the target markets are. And those are the young professionals, empty nesters, starter families and people looking to downsize. All these people don't want the maintenance of the yard, or they don't have money for a down payment and they don't want the hassle of property taxes. This solves that issue. It gives them a great place to live in a class A living. These are nice units. There are quartz countertops, the doors have Ring Doorbells, they every appliance, they have heat pumps, which are more energy efficient than your traditional gas furnaces. 5 Then also for the common spaces, we have things that modern apartment buildings have there's packaged rooms, there's mail rooms, fitness rooms, there's common space for people to hang out. There's a pool, there's carports and you can walk to the retail developments. So, everything that you're seeing in here is high end, it’s not the 80’s style where you walk up to your unit. These are essential corridors it gives a high end feel everyone's private, everything's secure. The building itself is fobbed, so only residents can get in. You don't have people that can just randomly walk in. So, it's all monitored their security cameras around the site, the security cameras in the building, there's on site management, leasing, maintenance, they’re accessed 24/7 Everything is monitored and tracked, and we know what's going on in this development. So, this is from the Livonia 21 showing that the population increase is in the age group 20 to 29 and 60 to 69. So that's your young professionals getting out of college with a good job, don't have money for a house or a starter family. Then you also have the people whose kids have graduated from college or moved out of the house, and they don't need their house anymore and they want to spend the winters in Florida or something along those lines, they want to downsize and make life easier themselves. The lower graph shows that Livonia is outpacing Wayne County, and the state of Michigan in your professional jobs. That's the people we're targeting. We're targeting these professional people with good jobs that can pay the rents. Here's an aerial. So, you're seeing the retail, the big box, it's a horizontal mixed use. It's not a vertical mixed, it’s a horizontal. So, you’ve got to walk, you got to get your exercise, but this is the missing component to create that mixed-use, putting the residential in the middle of this commercial district. Jolly: If I can jump in here for a second. I think I can probably speak for all of us up here. We know the Livonia Vision 21, we spent multiple years dealing with it, you want to get to the part where you talk about the architectural renderings or what you're going to do with the site specifically? Schovers: Yes, that's next slide. This is just giving a quick snapshot of the current zoning versus what we're proposing. Some of the current zoning C-2, if we were to build a retail building, we could be about 103 and a half feet from the single family property line, where we're proposing 300 feet, so we're moving all that action, all the noise of semi deliveries, all that stuff, because we don't have semi deliveries, we don't have any noise, we just got cars. So, all that moves away. This is a snapshot of where we started years ago, when there were multiple buildings. This was 130 feet from the property line. So now we're two and a half times that away from that property line. We're moving everyone away from the single-family residence for noise, for security, visibility. So, as Jeff had mentioned, this is after the Planning Commission meeting with the residents. This is how we addressed a lot of those concerns. So, we have three rows of trees, two rows are on the single-family side, we have an eight- foot solid vinyl fence to block any visibility through it and a third row of trees on the multifamily side. We're also proposing to add some flowering trees to 6 add some variety so there’s not just an Evergreen wall. So, that eight-foot wall blocks all visibility, which we'll show you in a minute. We're also proposing to cap the ends of that with a chain link fence so no one can get on the south side of that vinyl fence to where they can look into the neighbor's backyard. So, we're securing our site, preventing anyone from that visibility or being able to look at the single family. The bottom slide came out of the meeting with the residents to where they wanted some kind of a division from the multifamily to the commercial. So, we don't want to visual obstruction here. We just want to give the imitation of some division. So, it's a lower aluminum fence with some plantings that kind of create this division of when you cross on the other side here, you're in the multifamily portion of the mixed-use development. This is the southern face of the southern building. So, this is facing the single family. So, one thing we did hear from the meetings of the rapid response in the study session was they wanted balconies. We held the balconies off of here so that no one was out there to give the privacy to the single family. We do still have the door walls and they have a Juliet as a railing to prevent people from falling, but you don't have people being able to go out there and talk on the phone and create noise and security for the residents. So, this is the revised view from the rear yard. Looking at the multifamily, so the top is what we had before. The lower one is with the ornamental trees, the two ever grow trees, the eight-foot vinyl fence. So, as you can see, there is no visibility can't see the building with this addition. Here's a side section of what we were proposing before where you could see your the line of sight was hitting about the third floor plate for now with that vinyl fence and the extra row trees were well above the building. So, there's no visibility in the building from the rear yards. This is a view from the third floor again, with that extra row of trees and the fence. We're not seeing that first row of houses back there, there's no visibility. They get the privacy. They can't see us, we can't see them. It’s a two-way street. Here's a view of the courtyard showing that it is a high-class development. You do have areas where you can go out there and read books and hang out. There's the inground pool, bike racks. There are activities for people to do that are in the courtyard and not by the residents. Here's an aerial showing the whole development and the landscape buffer between the multifamily and the single family. As you can see, everything is pulled to the north. So, all the residents in the multifamily are to the north and they're hanging out in the courtyard. 7 This is a precedent study of recent, horizontal mixed-use developments with multifamily. These are all in Metro Detroit, same concept they don't have any retail and mixed-use in them, but you got to walk to them. That's how nowadays that's how we're getting these mixed-use developments is when you're not in front and you're not on the main road like Plymouth Road, you can't do the vertical mixed-use, you got to do the horizontal mixed-use make the project successful. Do you guys have any questions, we’re more than willing to answer them. Jolly: Any questions? Mr. Morgan. Morgan: As far as access to this community is it, do they have a key fob or something to get in there, is their access controlled from the main to the parking lot and so on, so people can't just hang out in that parking lot? Schovers: Correct? Well, the building is a key fob. The entry into the parking lot, that's something to discuss whether we provide gates or not. The building itself is fobbed. The leasing office is open during business hours for someone to walk in and sign a lease. but all the perimeter doors are fobbed and locked. 24/7. Jolly: Mr. Donovic. Donovic: Thank you, Mr. Chair. In its current state, if it we went with a typical big box store, which is what this is zoned for, in that, if we kept it that style, it would only be 103 feet from the berm, is that you said? Schovers: 103 feet from the south side of the berm, at the property line of the single family. Donovic: That's where portions of the Walmart and Target, they currently fluctuate. I know the building kind of zigzags around the back, but it's about 103 feet regardless. Schovers: They're like Walmart, I believe is one 125 feet. Donovic: Okay, and now if this should pass, it would be 300 feet from the back of the building? Schovers: Correct? Donovic: Okay. Thank you. Jolly: Ms. Toy. Toy: Thank you, Mr. President, just a few questions. I didn’t think I heard you about traffic and all. We're getting some new developments over in that corner, as you’re probably aware of Chick-fil-A, etc. I also didn't hear if there's any police reports you're bringing forward or fire reports for that area that we could look 8 at as well. Or maybe we need to request that, I don't know. As we look at these mixed-uses, now, when we do them in different neighborhoods, if you will, that abut commercial, I think it's important that we begin to look at traffic, things like police and fire services that we provide, because this adds extra strain on some of those services our city provides. You have a site, maybe you don't, but Mr. Schostak does at Seven and Farmington, that has been very vacant for many years now and we want to see what, in the future here, what we're going to see there. As we look at another development, this Council has responsibility of all these sites in the city. As we look at this mixed-use, it begs of a lot of questions that come up, particularly when it comes to the taxpayer that has to not endure some of the kinds of things you're referring to, while they're young professionals, whether they're older folks, it still changes that area. So, I'd appreciate any help on those kinds of things that you could give sir or that the team could, I’d appreciate that, thank you. Schovers: Sure. So as far as traffic, the nice thing about multifamily is that it's slow out and slow in, if people are going to work from six in the morning to nine in the morning, and then they're coming back, they might be stopping in groceries on the way home, for picking their kids up from daycare, stuff like that. So, it's not like retail to where someone gets out of work and everyone at five o'clock is going to that retail deal, going to Target or Walmart, those are your extremely high intense traffic volumes. This is people going in and out, and they're living their life and everyone starts working at different times and comes home at different times. So, it's a very minimal traffic, if any, traffic. Jolly: Okay, with all due respect to everybody here, you’re the residents, we're here for you to speak tonight, but not to interrupt other people. So, I’m going to ask you very politely to not do that and show some respect, I'm going to ask the same of them, as I am of you. Okay, thank you very much. Schovers: On regards to this site, on Plymouth Road, there is a traffic light. So, you don't have the issue of people trying to make a fast left hand turn out. We have ways to regulate the traffic and get the traffic to move, but with it being slower in and slower out, it's a very minimal effect. As far as the police and stuff and issues like that, one thing to keep in mind about the issues that are happening there, is that it's a dark area. So, when you have people that to just hang out and get off the grid or whatever, they're going to go to a dark area. As soon as you have people living there and they're and it's lit up around the building, those issues go away. You have people watching them. The people that are here, if they see something funny going on, they're going to call the manager and say, hey, something is going on in the parking lot, and the manager is going to address it. Having the 300 set of eyes, looking out the windows and monitoring, the activity around the building is a huge benefit to mitigating crime or people just hanging out. Toy: So does that mean you are going to provide security then, if we find that that area has been troubled, perhaps by some of those kinds of reports of various 9 things, even though it identifies with commercial, but you're mixing residential now in with commercial and you know, and as we know, so the sensitivity of that, I got to be cognizant of as I as I take the vote. That's what I need to hear from you, where you're going to alleviate some of that, as I think Councilman Morgan asked, are you going to secure that parking lot? You got a lot of truck traffic over there, I mean, I pulled up to a red light and got rear-ended by a bus. I’m not saying it’s your problem, I’m just say there is a lot of traffic there. Schovers: Yeah, so like I was saying, there's cameras around the building monitoring the parking lot. There's the on-site managers, there's these measures that we're taking to make sure that we're addressing the security issues. Now, I guess if there's a phase goes on, and it's bad. I mean, it's in their interest to protect the development. So, if there's a crime, people aren't going to live there, they're going to address that with the on-site security. Toy: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jolly: We'll go to Mr. McCullough. McCullough: Thank you. Through the Chair to the Petitioner. A couple of quick questions, the slide with trees showing, different vertical views. Now, the question I would have is obviously, during construction phase, I assume that these trees are not going to be full grown. What can those residents expect? Is that line- of-sight post construction after C of O or is this after many years of growth? Schovers: Well, the first row of trees are already in place. So, we're proposing the second and third row of trees. And as shown in that rendering, those are trees that come ten to twelve foot high. We’re spending extra money to get taller trees. We're not putting in six-foot-high trees. That's very realistic at installation, what you would see. McCullough: Okay. The other question I had were before we move on to the residents. You know, Vision 21 focuses on harmony and creating harmony in the existing surrounding areas. I know you've spoke a lot about it, but you've got a Walmart, you got a Target, where seem to be a destination, people are traveling or parking or going in there. With a Chili's, that's pretty much on the side closest to Middlebelt and Plymouth, how do you, in your words, what do you see as the connectivity to the surrounding areas? As someone would be renting here, I just see, you've got a plasma center in front, you got Bank of America, White Castle and LA Fitness. It's kind of tough to kind of carve everything out. So, I'm just trying to figure out how does that fit into the walkability and the pedestrian use? Right now, I mean, after you travel that site, I have huge concerns of wanting to walk across those roads to get to any of the retail without any wayfinding signs and more safety measures. Schovers: Sure, so, obviously, the east west go to Walmart and Target, that one's easy. To your concern about going out to the out lots, there is a sidewalk by the plasma center that I believe takes you to the north, so you can get to the 10 Chili's, you can get to the Noodle & Company. It is a development where you can walk. Obviously, if you're living there, you know, the path to take. It doesn't benefit from necessarily this treed boulevard, but there is ways for you to go to the out lots, to the Chili's and other outbuildings and also in a Walmart and Target. So, it is it is a horizontal excuse. Jolly: Okay, so I'm going to jump in here and give you my comments real quick, and I know a couple of my colleagues here have some comments as well. To be frank with you, I don't like the last answer that you provided. We have one site here that I believe is owned by one entity, the commercial and this potential residential. If we're going to look at this as a multi-use development, there needs to be connectivity. Walking through a parking lot, knowing that, it's not appropriate. To me, that's not multi-use. So, I would like to see some sort of connectivity, number one. Number two, I understand that people would have to access the site to potentially rent an apartment there during business hours, because this is enclosed and set back the way that it has been proposed at this point, I would want there to be some sort of fob entry to the parking lot in off-business hours. Whether that's after six o'clock, some morning opening, there needs to be some sort of element like that if we're going to look at doing this from my perspective anyways. I think if you look at the development on Haggerty Road that is very similar to this, they do have something like that in place. I think it's a nice feature. In my last comment here question, Mr. Schostak indicated during his presentation that there would be no tax assistance in any way sought, right.? I like to hear that. Are you giving us your word because I can say that, not because I don't trust you, but because we've had people give us pie in the sky ideas for developing sites, and they come back a year later, and they ask for some sort of tax abatement? So, I would want that in writing as well. For my last comments, for everybody in the room here, just to know the procedure. For what we're looking at, what is being proposed before us, at this point in time, is a request to change the zoning. The City of Livonia, this Council, has a long tradition where a request for the zoning change requires multiple steps. You've been to many of them yourselves, at this point. Along the way, there is a first reading for a zoning change that typically happens. We normally hold up the second reading, which would hold up the vote after a second reading until we have a site plan that we also know exactly what the buildings are going to be. Okay? So, at this point, even though they're talking about what the building is going to look like, what their plans are for the building and all that kind of stuff, the only thing that's actually on the table at this point in time is the zoning change. Okay, so it would not be uncommon rd at all, for us to go to the meeting on March 23 and have somebody provide a first reading for the zoning change. No second meeting would happen, and nothing would proceed beyond that before we have a site plan that we reviewed, and we would normally be voting on the site plan and the second read on the zoning change all at the same time. Okay, just FYI. 11 I think Mr. Donovic has a couple more comments or questions, then Mr. Morgan, and then we'll go to the audience. Okay. Donovic: Thank you, Mr. President. So, this project reminds me a lot of the Liv apartments, it's very similar in the way it's designed and in the walkability. I mean, it's next door to Costco, Bahama Breeze, Donut Bar, Tropical Smoothie, Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, the AMC movie theater. I mean, this is essentially what the City Council approved a few years ago for the Liv apartments, identical to what this proposal looks like. I do see the similarities there and the precedent there. The couple questions I had were to Councilwoman Laura Toy’s point on traffic. Traffic is a very important thing. In one sense, I’m thankful that there's investment, I live in the neighborhood. I'm thankful there's investment in the southeastern corridor of Livonia. I don't want vacant buildings. I don't want vacant lots. I don't want another big box store. If you guys wanted, you could install another building the big box store and that might be vacant 10 or 15 years with the trends in online shopping. I'm trying to keep an open mindset here, but that's not what I want and my fear is that if this project doesn't pass, then you're just going to build another big box store, find a tenant, they're going to be there for 10, 15, 20 years maybe, if that, and be vacant, and we'll be looking at another large vacant store like we have at Seven and Farmington. So, with traffic, when you talk about traffic trends, I'm not an expert in traffic trends, would you say that there's going to be more traffic with a big box store? When you look at Walmart and Meijer or Target etc., when they're full all day long cars are coming and going nonstop. Whereas, I would assume, residential multifamily, again, to your point, you kind of touched on a little bit, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how those traffic flows work. You're going to have 200 units, so let's just say there's 250 to 300 people with guests, visitors and vehicles in the parking lot. Could you say that there's less cars with this than opposed to a Meijer, Walmart, Target when there's maybe 500 cars, do you have any evidence supporting that? Schovers: Sure, not in front of me, but you are correct. If you look at that aerial, just the mass size of the parking lot is bigger than the Walmart. They are planning on, I don't know how many parking spots they got there, 550, 600 spots where we only need 380. We're a much smaller amount, and our traffic is in and out slower. They're getting these mad rushes of people coming in, at five o'clock, or when they open, you know, people kind of grab stuff on the way to work. So, you're getting these mad rushes. And yeah, the retail is a lot more intensive on parking. Donovic: Thank you. Jolly: Mr. Morgan. Morgan: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a few questions here. First of all, since I'm not really 100% sure who owns the Walmart area, is that Schostak? 12 Schostak: Walmart owns their building and lot. We sold that to them, and they put their store there. Walmart and Target own their own properties. We own all the surrounding. Morgan: Okay, so you wouldn't be able to control any of the semi traffic that comes in there, because a lot of the complaints of the citizens, when I was a Policeman and even currently, the semi-trucks come in there and it would be between Walmart and the project that you're looking at right now. They idle there, and they sit there all night. We had major issues, rattling off the citizens house, which could be 300 feet away. I know that's not your problem, but it's something that is a concern. It has been voiced to me by the citizens. They've had these issues and we tried our best to enforce it. We've even threatened to sue Walmart several times to make this go away, but it's an ongoing problem. Any suggestions? Schostak: Absolutely. Yeah, we know that's an issue and we put up different blockings to try to stop that. I think it's reduced itself because we've heard that they've been parking other places, but probably not exclusively. Quite frankly, this development stops that because there's nowhere for them to go. Right now, there's 10 plus acres of vacant land that they take advantage of, and they go idle and park there. We can't control their loss, per se. We do have a reciprocal access agreement with Walmart and Target that we obviously all abide to. The biggest thing is there's this tenant 10 plus acres of vacant land that will now be gone, and it just won't be an option for it. That is an advantage just kind of pointed out earlier is that once you have, land is vacant, it encourages that behavior, so to speak, where now its developed people live in there, there's going to be no ability for the semi drivers to park and idle over there. Morgan: Secondly, the berm that's in the back and proposing a fence and the three rows of trees, who is going to maintain that? Schovers: It would be part of our development maintains that berm back there. Morgan: Okay. So, the maintenance, that's connected with those apartments or condominiums, or whatever you want to call them is going to be maintained by the maintenance department? Schovers: Correct. Morgan: Okay. Jolly: All right. I'm going to thank everybody who's spoken so far. As one of you, all of you, whoever will be responding to note any questions from the residents, we're going to listen to the residents speak, and I’ll ask you to come back up and address the questions that have been presented to them. In terms of the residents, as I indicated earlier, this is your opportunity to speak at this public hearing. I presume many of you would like to speak, I would ask you to line 13 up or move this area over here. You are limited to three minutes for your comments. And we'll go directly one to one. I asked you to direct any kind of comments to me as the Chair not to the Petitioner or anybody else. They'll note the questions, and we'll circle back, okay? All set, sir? Good evening, please state your name for the record. Weldon: Hello, my name is Steven Weldon. I'm a 29912 Orangelawn Street, right behind the area where this project is supposed to be committed here. First off, the Vision Livonia 21 plan does not incorporate or anticipate this kind of project. When you talk about vertical, it's it was supposed to be more where all the businesses and the living residences would be horizontal, I'm sorry, vertical versus horizontal. That way you would attract those businesspeople to come into that area. There's no dog park, as you had mentioned before, walking safely across this big busy business complex to retail, there's a lot of potential for accidents, people getting hurt, then if you have, again, with a parking lot situation. This is kind of a fantasy that we're just going to attract high end professionals to this area. This is a low-income area. It's not like over there in the Laurel Park area. They're attracted to areas like that. You can't do this in this area that's not geared that way. You've got lots of traffic, both on Plymouth and Middlebelt. You're going to add another potentially 200 to 300 or more vehicles from the apartment complexes. They're not just going to walk across to the Target or the little pod stores. They're going to drive their cars. They want to be protected from the rain and other things too. They're not going to walk across that, it's going to be very difficult for them trying to dodge cars and those cars aren't paying attention as their driving along. Then you're also talking what has been promised to us by Schostak before. The berm has not been maintained. We get weeds growing all the time up through there. I have to call, others have to call to try and get that maintained. We get waves that are over 15 inches high. As far as people, I've seen it before, when they put the movie theater back behind the complex where we live, that was told that it would only be too long about 10 o'clock at night while they were going on until two in the morning. As far as cracking the snowbirds, and then the young professionals coming, no, you're going to get young kids that need to share their rent. You'll have four or five individuals in one apartment complex sharing that rent. That means more cars. That means more noise. Those type of individuals, they don't care. They don't pay property taxes. They don't have to maintain anything. They'll come out and they'll sit around their cars they'll work on their cars. They'll play their boom boxes. I've been in many places like that and it's very frustrating when you have that kind of noise because it will travel over the berms and the walls. The other aspects, as you mentioned, with the traffic, we've already got way too much traffic through there just on the streets alone and then coming in and out of the retail area. You're going to put an ad hoc? Jolly: I'm going to have to stop you there. Can we have the next resident? Please identify yourself, name and address. 14 Grad: Hi, Jeff Grad 11325 Blackburn Street. Thanks for letting me talk. I think you guys made some great points today. I just want to get back to the point of, focusing on the fact that this is a rezoning request. I think we're getting a lot of details of little things here there, how this compares to the development on Haggerty. The whole point of Livonia Vision 21 was to have mixed-use development. This is not a mixed-use development. Throwing an apartment building in between a Walmart a liquor store, a plasma center and a Target is about as far as you can get from a sustainable and an asset, multi-use development in the city as you could possibly get. I can't think of a worse spot in the city to potentially put this, to be perfectly honest. I mean, I literally thought I can't think of a worse place to put this. I think their lack of vision and lack of effort, that Schostak team shows you a couple things. I probably could have put a better, I'm not trying to be rude, but I could have put a better presentation together myself in a week. The whole thing about who they're trying to attract, you know. I was a young professional relatively recently. I'm older now, but, you know, this would be the last place that I'd want to live, again, between a liquor store, a plasma center, a Walmart and Target where there's already sometimes cars and homeless people living in that parking lot. It just doesn't make any sense. You know, when I look at multifamily housing, when I think of multi-use, I think of townhomes with coffee shops that you guys know, you know, other cities that you can look at and see what the residents will own and you truly want and this is not it. My parents live in Livonia. I lived here my whole life. I have a business in Livonia. I still live here, and my parents are looking to downsize. I brought this up to them and they said, this would be the last place that I would want to live if I was looking for an apartment. So, just my thoughts. I know I've said this before, but it just seems like down to issue, this is a rezoning request and I feel like there has to be a very good reason to rezone something. This isn't a request for an apartment building up in a place that's already zoned for this. It's a complete change, and it just doesn't have substance. So, thank you. Jolly: Thank you sir. Please identify yourself sir. Shimshock: Peter Shimshock, 9950 Oporto. I agree with the Planning Commission, I think this should stay as General Business. Several months ago, I found a dead rat in the middle of my driveway. Currently, Walmart, Target, the restaurants, they all have people hired to maintain the garbage bins, and they do a good job. Yet we still have issues and other people do in the neighborhood. Not terrible, but we still have issues. Livonia doesn't support residents for rodent problems. It's up to the residents now. So, you probably wouldn't have a record of how many complaints there are with issues like this. I think adding a apartment complex now, that would add 20, 30 more dumpsters without one person in charge, but multi-families in charge of making sure that dumpster is handled correctly and hits the dumpster. I think actually, this kind of apartment complex would be like ringing the dinner bell for more rats and more problems. It doesn't take much to start the issue. but if you add a box store or something else in there, you're adding something that's managed by an employee, not 200 separate families. I think this is not 15 something you want to put in the middle of the residential area. I don't agree. I'm sorry. I don't agree that you should make a decision now on something changing zoning, based on what could happen if another big box store comes in 20 years from now. I think on the northeast side of Plymouth and Middlebelt, they're rebuilding it completely. They tore down what was there and they're making it all new again. All of this can be done in the future, but for now, with the situation now, residents on their own with rodent issues, and I understand you don't help, but it's not going to get any better by adding 20 or 50 more dumpsters with 200 families added to it, not managed by one person. Also, the commercial areas empty the dumpsters as needed. I'm sure there'd be a schedule with any kind of apartment building is the ones I looked at, it's one dumpster for 12 units. So, if you have 200 units, that's a lot of dumpsters emptied once a week, full or empty. Thank you for your time. Jolly Thank you, sir. A little bit less obnoxious ringtone here. Good evening, ma'am. Please state your name. Sullivan: My name is Jeanne Sullivan. I live at 29944 Orangelawn, which is directly behind the area that we're talking about. I have a great many concerns about this, but the last few people that were up here have covered just about everything that I wanted to say, other than Livonia zoning ordinances say that the idea behind their zoning is grouping residential, commercial, so now we have all these buildings, the same site, the same architecture so that everything looks copesetic, right. Also, to protect the residents from unnecessary noise and disruption and to preserve the ideals and character of the surrounding neighborhoods. We're not so sure this is going to be a good idea for our surrounding neighborhoods. I'm a little bit concerned about them closing off the berm. Our berm has never been well maintained. We were promised two rows of trees, never got. One neighbor had to call the city last year 34 times to ask them to come the grass, put in the sprinklers so the grass grows. Sprinklers went in, they never got turned on, only when it was their last-minute idea. I know you're big on wanting a new Senior Center, awesome. And I know that the mayor wants more walking and more biking. I don't think this is going to increase any of our walking. I worry more about if you put children in a multifamily. Everywhere those kids would exit the parking lot, no matter which direction they go, it's a parking lot. If they see the berm, they're kids, they're going to walk climb up on the berm. I don't care if there's a fence there or not. They're going to want to climb up there. It would be look here, look here. Then it's, let's see how far we can throw. It happens, because it happened before they raised our wall. People were always coming by, tossing things in our yard, tossing things to the animals. It’s just, it's what we live with, but yes, we chose to live behind the mall in the first place. I actually moved there. I liked the idea of that brick wall behind my yard. I never worried about my children. They could go outside. I didn't worry about anybody snatching my pets. It was more of a security. I think a lot of that security is going to go right out the window. We understand that this is their property. They bought the property. They need to use the property. We understand that. I would want to use it too, if it was my property, but they knew it was a 16 commercial zoned property when they bought it. Now commercial areas are going down, residential areas are going up. This doesn't seem to be a reason for the city to bend over and rezone this property. I know it would be beneficial to them, not so much for us, with all the commercial areas. Jolly: I need to stop you, ma'am. Sullivan: Oh, my buzzer. I'm not going to have any question and answers. Jolly: No, that's not the purpose of this meeting. I asked him to take note of any questions that were relayed and to address them afterwards, but this is not a question answer session. All right. Sullivan: Thank you. Aren't you glad I didn't read all of this? Jolly: We'll take the next resident please. Good evening, please identify yourself. Lupu: Good evening. Cheryl Lupu, 29864 Orangelawn. I've been there for many of years, and I agree with all comments and everything else that has been said. I've called the police numerous times because of the idling trucks. When they say there's a fence, there's a gate going up to this property also. There was supposed to be a gate for these trucks now to be able to go back and forth with certain times, in fact, that has never been used since it's been put in, I believe. That's really a main concern. My other concerns are the garbage and the rats. I caught the brother of the other guy because it was as big as the shovel. I know we're infested with them, but I just think of all the ones that are going to come joining and I think we have enough already. This isn't a good feel at all. I'm sure and I hope you guys will agree, because it's not in your backyard or in your backyard, so that's all I have to say, thank you. Jolly: Thank you ma'am. Good evening, sir, please identify yourself. Smith: Good evening, Merlyn Smith, 30039 Richland. Council, Schostak, let me start by saying, this rezoning, that's what we're after. First off, I appreciate Schostak trying to meet with the residents two weeks before this meeting. I asked around and residents are still pretty mad. Promises were made when Walmart and Target came in. Rows of trees were never put in and stuff like that, but that's not about the rezoning, but the promises that were made and not kept. They already mentioned that about its commercial. They bought it commercial, and you just don't stick a residential in the middle of commercial. I don't know of any place that does that and it just don't belong. I lost track, nervous, you know, not a public speaker, I still got two minutes or less than that now, can I sing? Jolly: If you do, I'm going to leave. 17 Smith: I appreciate your time and the thought is gone. I would recommend and consider you guy's vote for no rezoning. And I asked you, please and thank you. Jolly: Thank you, sir. Good evening, ma'am. Kowaleski: Good evening, Victoria Kowaleski, 29960 Orangelawn, directly behind the proposed project. I know that this is about zoning. First, I want to ask at the beginning, I thought I heard somebody say four floors. Jolly: Ma'am, you can't direct your comments to them. It just works better if you just give me your anger, I mean not you, in particular. Kowaleski: Four floors, because initially this was supposed to be three floors, am I wrong? Did I hear? Jolly: I think the proposal currently is three. Kowaleski: Okay. Thank you. All right. Real quick. A good and decent citizenry is the backbone of any city. The citizenry needs to know that their elected officials will stand up for their privacy, safety, and comfort. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't this developer the largest business property owner in the city of Livonia? If this is correct, this developer owns other parcels to be in our city that will be much more suitable for this project. Here's where I say, hey, go. I heard somebody say that this project will help the nearby businesses survive. That's not what we're supposed to be doing here. We're supposed to be protecting people's property rights. Let me just get to it. In all fairness, I consider, it more suggested that the neighbors should come up with ideas for the parcel, maybe give the developer other options and ideas. He doesn't want our ideas. Okay. I want to know, I heard somebody say that the developer met with people. I was never met with. I was never notified about a meeting. I don't know what happened two weeks ago, but somehow, I was left out of the loop, which I think is a little unfair. My opinion, in this moment, is please do not okay this zoning change. Whenever you reschedule a meeting for me to speak some more, I will absolutely be here to speak, because this is my property. I'm here to protect it and you people are supposed to help me protect it also. Thank you so very much. Have a blessed night and God bless us all. Jolly: Thank you., any other residents like to speak, at this time? Good evening, sir, your name, please. Schmidt: My name is Bill Schmidt, 29688 Macintyre. I'm in the neighborhood. I'm opposed to the zoning change. We don't have any large apartment complexes, even within miles of this area. There's nothing like it. We have single family homes, not huge rental complexes. That's just the truth. This is a complete anomaly in the area. That's it. Deny the zoning request. Thank you. 18 Jolly: Anybody else, last call. Anybody else would like to speak, please get on deck. Vowell: Hello, my name is Martin Vowell. I live at 29720 Orangelawn. I'm directly behind Walmart's loading dock. So, I know a lot about trucks and a lot of things. As a young lady said, this isn't a question answer, I just happen to have a lot more questions than anything else. I obviously do not want to see this go forward, but as the one young lady said, because I know he said that he was four story about looks like the site planning thing showed three stories. So, I guess what I heard and what I think. Jolly: It's currently three floors. Vowell: Okay. I know before I was in on a thing when they started to build because Walmart's directly behind my house. In fact, the loading dock is behind my house. So, I know when winter comes, and I don't say anything, I know they leave their trucks running there, because it's a diesel truck and it's wintertime and it's Christmas. So, I understand, not that it makes me happy, but because I live right there, so I smell it, I hear it, everything. Just out of curiosity, on lighting, also I have that, because they have a dock light there, which a lot of times shines right in my backyard, if the screen is knocked off from the wind. I've gone over there to talk to them. It's taken them a while I understand how they get a lift up there and fix it. I know when they're building Walmart, there were height restrictions and it seemed like they had a lot going on with that because just like signage, I don't know if they changed that but before, he couldn't put a sign if it was too tall in Livonia. They want everything small, low, whatever. So now, all of a sudden, they want to build this three-story thing right behind our homes. It's kind of weird to me. I'm just curious, as far as with the rats, is this place going to be pet friendly, because obviously they might be taking, who knows, their pets to the berm, if nothing will get picked up, and you know what's going to happen with the rats. It's like, oh, free lunch. So those are my concerns because I lived there. I've seen the rats. I trapped them myself. So, that's kind of what I have, more of my things that are more questions because I don't know what's going to happen. That's basically my reason to say I would not like to see that happen, only because the problems I can see that will we're going to have to face further down the road. So, that's my spiel. I thank you very much. Take care. Jolly: Thank you sir. Anyone else? Weldon: I'd like to say one more question. Jolly: Unfortunately, sir, you cannot you exceeded, you reached your time. Thank you. That's the meeting, we got to run the meeting per the rules. Polewski Hi, my name is Dan Polewski, I live at 28500 Cleveland. I'm super nervous but I'm going to say what I think. I get you guys want to make money. Okay. Well also when we're talking about traffic, you're going to bring at least 100 or more cars. Traffic, this is already crazy, I'm a truck driver. I deliver 19 residentials. I deliver to residential apartments like this building. There was already one, Middlebelt and Plymouth. You should go there sometime during summertime, see what happens to those balconies, what these guys are doing. Okay, if you're not going to have security and those buildings, gated security. Anybody can come up there. Anybody could sit downplay music, and you're going to bring young guys or college students. They are what, six months and hey, I don't like this place. I'm out. They're not families, you know reasonable tenant will want to live in a high traffic area. Okay. I just moved here two years ago from Hamtramck and Hamtramck went from beautiful to, you should see it now, it's not beautiful. Okay? What else want to say? Oh, if the market goes down okay, I get, it was $1200, $1500 right now, but if their rents are going to go down, that means we're going to lower, because you have to keep people in there, right? So, now lower to $800, $700. Then you're going to bring people that make less money and then who's going to come in there, not good people. Not good people, I'm telling you. I don't know, something better than this, yes? Honestly, garbage, traffic, security wise, I mean studies nope. Police, show me the numbers. I cover from Dearborn to all the way to Chesterfield anywhere I see I go to apartments, there's nothing good about apartments. There's no, people live there for a minute, as soon as they see the bad stuff happening, they start moving out. They don't care. They don't have to stay. Then guess what, I just bought a house. I don't want to live in this property only for 10, 20 years. I want to raise a, I got a kid on the way. My wife is 8 weeks pregnant. There's no privacy on three story building. There's no privacy. There are no trees because city ordinance is what 10 to 20 feet, I don't know, but it’s not going to cover and you got these developments, so these people are not going to have any privacy any quiet peace and as soon as summer comes, traffic in and out, crazy already. Today, I went to Walmart to buy some stuff. In and out it's like a race. Those people don't care, you're coming out. Who you got coming into those stores? Walmart, Target, all of Redford, all the restaurants. How many folks you got from Redford coming in? It's not Livonia people. Those people don't care. They want to make money. They don't care. To me, I don't know why punish those people. Why punish us? We want to live in a decent city. We don't want what's going on. Go and look at Redford apartments, see what is going on. How many calls do you got? So much stuff is going on. Maybe senior houses, something that's quiet. All right. Thank you so much. Jolly: Thank you, sir. Okay, I see no other residents approaching the podium. So, I will call the public comment closed. At this time, I'm going to ask the petitioner to come back up to the podium for closing, I'd like you to limit that to five minutes, not any longer. Then after that, I'm going to go to the Council for any motions. That's it, we'll make the motions at that time. Your name again, sir. Schovers: Mark Schovers, Spire Design Group. I'm just going to go in order of the comments as people raised. There was a comment raised about people sharing apartments and putting four to five people in a unit. We have ways to mitigate that with a leasing and management. We know who's coming on site. We know who drives what car, we know what fobs are fobbing in. We 20 know how and we can track whether someone shared a room. If that happens, they're evicted. There are ways to mitigate this. Schovers: The scale of the building, the residential is a lower floor to floor than retail. So, if you look at that Walmart, they're like 30 feet, the their peaks and their gables, they're 36 feet. We're proposing a building that's the same scale in height wise, in width wise. We're a junior box size, so we're smaller in width thank what that is, but we're meeting the context of that development on the scale. The dumpsters and the rats. We have six dumpsters proposed on the site. That is the proper amount of dumpsters for this site and would probably pick up every other day. With maintenance there every day and maintained, those corrals are cleaned up and we mitigate the ability for rats to habitat the area where retail development is. The kids that are there clean them out. It has been brought up whether it's a four story, we are proposing a three story. The zoning allows four stories. We are proposing a three story. As far as if there's dogs in the area, we have an onsite dog park, so we have an area for people to take the dog. It’s on the western portion of the site. It's away from the single family. It's away from the courtyard where the kids will be playing. It keeps them in their own way that is also maintained. If residents aren't picking up their poop the surveillance camera will know and we can address that issue. As far as lighting and screening, we will meet city ordinance. The lights will be screened. There won't be any light pollution shining over the top of the berm into the single-family residence. In that regard, especially with the fence and the additional trees, you won't see any lighting. Like I said, we are open to doing a fob system locked potentially at the entrance to the site, if that's, whatever everyone wants from security, that way we know even more of who's coming in and out of the site. The comment about children. So, we have ample area in the courtyard for children, it’s contained. It's not access to the parking lot. They're in an area where they're safe and their parents can monitor them and play with them, and they can run around and be safe. Schostak: Just real quick, I just wanted to thank the Council for all your comments and all the residents for their comments. Well, we, of course, do not agree with all of them, we certainly agree with some, and we will take them to heart, as this process moves along, as generally does. Thank you. Jolly: Thank you very much. So, at this time, I'll ask the Council for any motions. I'll note before the motions are made, no motions will be voted on tonight. Any motions that come out of this meeting will be heard, voted on at the next regular meeting on March 23rd of 2022. Motions that are given tonight, may 21 be the motions that are given at that time, or there could be other motions or some combination thereof. So, any motions from the council? Donovic: Mr. President, I'll offer an approving a denying and committee. Jolly: Okay, so, Mr. Donovic has offered three motions that are pretty typical in the public hearing. They are an approving a denying and referring to the Committee of the Whole. Those motions will be considered. That's pretty much the spectrum of what could be offered here tonight. Like I said, those will be voted on and heard again by the Council on March 23rd at the Regular meeting, which will start at 7pm. I thank you all for being here. I will note for the record that Councilmembers present are Mr. Morgan, Mr. McCullough, Mr. Donovic, Ms. Toy and myself Jim Jolly. With that I will close the public hearing, thank you all. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 8:12 p.m.