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Home My WebLink About1,215 - June 18, 2024 signedMINUTES OF THE 1,215th PUBLIC HEARINGS AND REGULAR MEETING HELD BY THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF LIVONIA On Tuesday, June 18, 2024, the City Planning Commission of the City of Livonia held its 1,215th Public Hearing and Regular Meetings in the Livonia City Hall, 33000 Civic Center Drive, Livonia, Michigan. Mr. Ian Wilshaw, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. Members present: David Bongero Glen Long Peter Ventura Ian Wilshaw Members absent: Wafa Dinaro Sam Caramagno Mr. Mark Taormina, Planning Director, Jacob Uhazie, Assistant Planning Director, and Stephanie Reece, Program Supervisor, were also present. Chairman Wilshaw informed the audience that if a petition on tonight's agenda involves a rezoning request, this Commission makes a recommendation to the City Council who, in turn, will hold its own public hearing and make the final determination as to whether a petition is approved or denied. The Planning Commission holds the only public hearing on a request for preliminary plat and/or vacating petition. The Commission's recommendation is forwarded to the City Council for the final determination as to whether a plat is accepted or rejected. If a petition requesting a waiver of use or site plan approval is denied tonight, the petitioner has ten days in which to appeal the decision, in writing, to the City Council. Resolutions adopted by the City Planning Commission become effective seven (7) days after the date of adoption. The Planning Commission and the professional staff have reviewed each of these petitions upon their filing. The staff has furnished the Commission with both approving and denying resolutions, which the Commission may, or may not, use depending on the outcome of the proceedings tonight. ITEM #1 PETITION 2024-05-02-09 Kneaded Relief Massage Mr. Bongero, Acting Secretary, announced the first item on the agenda, Petition 2024-05-02-09 submitted by Kneaded Relief Massage & Spa requesting waiver use approval under Section 6.37 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to operate a massage establishment at 32003 Plymouth Road, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Merriman and Hubbard Roads in the Northeast' of Section 34. June 18, 2024 31430 Mr. Taormina: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Kneaded Relief is a massage establishment proposed at the southwest corner of Plymouth Road and Ingram Avenue. The property is zoned as C-1 (Local Business), which treats massage establishments as a waiver use under Section 3.7. The ordinance requires at least 400 feet of separation between massage establishments and from any school, place of worship, state -licensed daycare facility, library, playground, or public park. In addition, the ordinance limits the operating hours from 8 am to 10 pm. Kneaded Relief is in a multi - tenant commercial building that is two (2) stories in height and approximately 6,600 square feet in size. The tenant space is roughly 1,200 square feet, located on the ground floor of the building. It includes a lobby, three individual massage rooms, and a manager's office. The operating hours would be 10 am to 8 pm on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and from 9 am to 5 pm on Saturday and Sunday. The proposed location complies with all the separation requirements. No modifications are planned to the building's exterior. Massage establishments require one (1) parking space for every 150 square feet of usable floor area. Accordingly, Kneaded Relief requires seven (7) parking spaces. The other uses in the building require eleven (11) spaces for a total of eighteen (18). The property has fifteen (15) spaces, with additional on -street parking available along Ingram Avenue. There's also a city owned parking lot located two (2) properties to the west, midblock between Ingram and Blackburn Avenues. With that, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Uhazie will read the correspondence? Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Uhazie: I appreciate that. The first item is from the Engineering Division, dated May 24, 2024, which reads as follows: "In accordance with your request, the Engineering Division has reviewed the above referenced petition. We have no objections to the proposed waiver use at this time. The subject parcel is assigned the address of #32003 Plymouth Road. The legal description submitted with the petition appears to be correct and should be used should the waiver use be granted. The existing parcel is currently sewed by public water main, sanitary sewer and storm sewer. The submittal does not indicate any changes to the existing utility leads, so we do not believe there will be any additional impacts to the public utilities with this proposal. Should changes to the existing building leads be needed, the owner shall submit proposed drawings to this Department to determine if permits will be required. Also, should any work be required within the Plymouth Road right-of-way, the owner may be required to obtains permits from the Michigan Department of Transportation." The letter is signed by David W. Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Bongero: Mr. Taormina: Mr. Bongero: Mr. Taormina: Mr. Bongero: June 18, 2024 31431 Lear, P.E., Assistant City Engineer. The next letter is from the Livonia Fire & Rescue Division, dated May 28, 2024, which reads as follows: " This office has reviewed the site plan submitted in connection with a request to modify a commercial building on property located at the above referenced address. We have no objections to this proposal. Noted on review that grid area 16, 32 on the plans has a door that appears to be leading to the exterior (egress door) of the building. The plan set shows this as opening inward. Egress doors shall have an outward swing. An actual site visit was not completed to verify. A further detailed plan review will take place when this division receives an official plan set." The letter is signed by Brian Kukla, Fire Marshal. The next letter is from the Division of Police, dated May 23, 2024, which reads as follows: "1 have reviewed the plans in connection with the petition. I have no objections to the proposal."The letter is signed by Paul Walters, Sergeant, Traffic Bureau. The next letter is from the Inspection Department, dated June 18, 2024, which reads as follows: "Pursuant to your request, the above -referenced Petition has been reviewed. This Department has no objections to this Petition." The letter is signed by Jerome Hanna, Director of Inspection. The next letter is from the Finance Department, dated May 21, 2024, which reads as follows: "I have reviewed the addresses connected with the above noted petition. As there are no outstanding amounts receivable, general or water and sewer, I have no objections to the proposal." The letter is signed by Connie Kumpula, Chief Accountant. That is the extent of the correspondence. All right. Thank you. Mr. Uhazie. Are there any questions for our planning staff from any of the commissioners? This could be for the petitioner, but they're requesting to open up a massage establishment, right? That's correct. But if you go there, there are signs up. There's reserved parking for Kneaded Relief Massage and Spa, and a sign in the lobby says Kneaded Relief Massage and Spa. Are they currently operating this business? I am not fully aware of the status of the business at this time. That would be a question for the petitioner. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31432 Thank you, Mr. Bongero. Any other questions for planning staff? If not, our petitioner is in the audience. Please come forward. Good evening, sir. We're going to ask that you start with your name and address for our record. Michael Malecki, 32003 Plymouth Road, Livonia, MI. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Malecki. And what would you like to tell us about your petition? Mr. Malecki: So Kneaded Relief Massage and Spa originally located in Southgate, where it still remains, was opened in 2006 and I took over ownership in 2020. During that time, the Spa has flourished in Southgate, and we'd love to bring it here to Livonia to give the same level of quality service. It has been named the Spa of the Year by the Free Press for the last three years. Channel Four has recognized us a top three spa, as well as numerous other awards. If you have the opportunity to go online and see our Google reviews, you'll notice we're at over 850 Google reviews at a 4.9 star. We are certainly the antithesis of some of the concerns that have been raised in previous Planning Commission's for issues with similar types of establishments. We are a professional environment. We give outstanding professional service. My background has always been in health care. I'm a firefighter, nurse and paramedic, and we bring that same level of service to the Kneaded Relief Massage and Spa today. Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Malecki: Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Malecki: All right, thank you, sir. I believe there's already one outstanding question. from Mr. Bongero in regard to your business. Is it currently operating at this location or not? It is. We were not aware that we needed a waiver request until most recently. So, as soon as we were made aware of that by the building inspector, we submitted our petition to make sure that we were in compliance with all the codes within the City of Livonia. Okay, thank you. We'll see if there's other questions for you from our commissioners. Is there any other questions for our petitioner? From any of the commissioners? I don't see any questions. Is there anyone in the audience wishing to speak for or against this petition? If so, please come forward. I don't see anybody coming forward. Mr. Malecki, is there anything else that you'd like to tell us before we make our decision? So, in a previous commission, when a massage establishment has come before there was a question about the number of massage establishments here in Livonia and I think that what sets Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Malecki: Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31433 us apart is first of all, we are licensed massage therapists. We are not doing acupressure, and unlike many others who do acupressure, our staff are licensed. They're employees of the spa, they receive a regular paycheck. Those paychecks in this packet I submitted to the Planning Commission are there showing that benefits are extended to our employees. They are professionals and they are licensed by the State of Michigan. We go through all the appropriate background checks, including the State Police, and various other checks that we have to go through, and those were also included in the package we submitted. Thank you, sir. And I will note for those in the audience who think we're not asking many questions on this item: this petitioner submitted a very extensive packet of information to us with background information on his business, how he operates his current facility, his staff, and everything. So, I appreciate the extent to which you gave background information to us in advance. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions or comments from any of the commissioners before we make our decision? If not, if there are no other comments, I'll close the public hearing, and a motion will be in order. Approving motion made by Long. RESOLVED that the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 2024-05-02-09 submitted by Kneaded Relief Massage & Spa requesting waiver use approval under Section 6.37 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to operate a massage establishment at 32003 Plymouth Road, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Merriman and Hubbard Roads in the Northeast'/ of Section 34, be approved subject to the following conditions: 1. This waiver approval is limited to this applicant and can only be transferred to another user with approval by the City Council. 2. The petitioner shall comply with all the special waiver use standards and requirements in Section 6.37 of the Zoning Ordinance and Chapter 5.49 of the Livonia Code of Ordinances; and June 18, 2024 31434 3. The Petitioner shall not engage in any form of solicitation for business within the public right-of-way of Plymouth Road or Ingram Avenue. FURTHER RESOLVED, That notice of the above hearing was given in accordance with the provisions of Section 13.13 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended. The motion failed due to a lack of support. On a motion by Ventura, seconded by Bongero, it was RESOLVED, That the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 2024-05-02-09 submitted by Kneaded Relief Massage & Spa requesting waiver use approval under Section 6.37 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to operate a massage establishment at 32003 Plymouth Road, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Merriman and Hubbard Roads in the Northeast % of Section 34, be denied for the following reasons: 1. The petitioner has failed to comply with all general standards and requirements outlined in Sections 1.02 and 13.13 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance. 2. The petitioner has not adequately established a need for the proposed use in the immediate area. 3. The petitioner has not sufficiently demonstrated that the proposed use would be compatible with and in harmony with the surrounding uses in the area. 4. The proposed use is contrary to the goals and objectives of the Zoning Ordinance, which, among other things, are intended to ensure the suitability and appropriateness of uses. FURTHER RESOLVED, that notice of the above hearing was given in accordance with the provisions of Section 13.13 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended. The motion failed due to a lack of a majority. A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following: AYES: Ventura, Bongero NAYS: Long, Wilshaw ABSENT: Dinaro, Caramagno ABSTAIN: None On a motion by Ventura, seconded by Bongero, and adopted, it was #06-23-2024 June 18, 2024 31435 RESOLVED, That pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on June 18, 2024, on Petition 2024-05-02-09 submitted by Kneaded Relief Massage & Spa requesting waiver use approval under Section 6.37 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to operate a massage establishment at 32003 Plymouth Road, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Merriman and Hubbard Roads in the Northeast Y4 of Section 34, the City Planning Commission does herby table this item to a date undetermined. A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following: Mr. Wilshaw, Mr. Wilshaw: AYES: NAYS: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: Bongero, Ventura, Wilshaw Long Dinaro, Caramagno None Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Sorry, sir, that we are not able to come to a resolution tonight, but we'll schedule you to a meeting to be determined when we can have a fuller group of the commission here to get your vote resolved. Okay. Good. ITEM #2 PETITION 2023-06-02-07 Meijer/Town homes Mr. Bongero, Acting Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Petition 2023-06-02-07 submitted by Seven Mile/Farmington Venture, LP requesting Special Waiver Use approval under Section 5.02 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to develop a Planned General Development consisting of a 75,466 square -foot Meijer grocery store and a 102-unit multi -family residential townhome complex on the property at 33500 W. Seven Mile Road, located on the Southeast IA of Section 4. On a motion by Ventura, seconded by Bongero, and unanimously adopted, it was #06-24-2024 RESOLVED, That the City Planning Commission, on June 18, 2024, on Petition 2023-06-02-07 submitted by Seven Mile/Farmington Venture, LP requesting Special Waiver Use June 18, 2024 31436 approval under Section 5.02 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to develop a Planned General Development consisting of a 75,466 square -foot Meijer grocery store and a 102-unit multi- family residential townhome complex on the property at 33500 W. Seven Mile Road, located on the Southeast '/4 of Section 4. is hereby removed from the table. Mr. Taormina: Thank you. This item was tabled at the petitioner's request on July 25, 2023. New plans have been submitted, including several design changes to both the residential phase of the development and the grocery store. I'll start with the residential phase. The four-story apartment structure has been eliminated and replaced with 12 buildings. These are townhomes. The previous plan had 199 apartments; the new townhome development shows 102, so there's been a reduction of 97 apartment units. Nine buildings would be two stories in height, including the four adjacent to the Windridge Village Subdivision, identified as Buildings C, E, F, and I. The other three buildings would be three (3) stories in height. These are the buildings along Seven Mile and the one facing the grocery store, identified as Buildings A, B and K. The density overall would be 15 dwelling units per acre. For Mixed Development Centers, the master plan recommends no more than 20 dwelling units per acre. Building lot coverage would be approximately 30%. The plan includes 72 two -bedroom units and 30 three -bedroom units. Unit sizes would range from 1,050 square feet for the smallest two -bedroom apartment to 1,480 square feet for the largest three -bedroom apartment. All units would have attached garages —one car for the two -bedroom units and two cars for the, three -bedroom units. The four interior buildings, identified as Buildings D, G, J, and L, form a 100-foot by 150-foot landscaped courtyard that would include sitting areas and a fenced dog run. There would be a one-story leasing and management office at the south end of Building D. Along the west side of the development, Buildings E, F, and I would all be 40 feet from the property line abutting the residential district. Building C would be 45 feet from the residential district. The three-story buildings would be approximately 37 feet tall, and the two-story buildings 27 feet. Under the previous design, the apartment building was over 50 feet tall. There would be one driveway on Seven Mile and cross -access to the grocery store. The drive approach on Seven Mile would be 42 feet wide, accommodating three lanes, including a lane for incoming traffic and dedicated right and left exit lanes. The ordinance requires 219 parking spaces. The plan shows 258 parking spaces. This includes 132 garage spaces, 95 driveway spaces, and 31 additional spaces, resulting in an average ratio of 2.5 parking spaces per townhome. The exterior of the buildings would be brick veneer and composite June 18, 2024 31437 siding with metal accents. All the buildings would have peaked asphalt shingled roofs. The three-story buildings show brick covering the first floor and portions of the second floor, with balconies on the fronts of each unit. The remaining areas would be finished with horizontal composite siding. The elevations for the two-story buildings now show brick covering most of the first floor and portions of the second level with two colors of horizontal composite siding. A revised landscaping plan has been submitted. It shows various plant materials throughout the site, including a continuous row of evergreen trees where the site borders residential along the west and north sides. The trees include three species of spruce and pine. All trees would be eight (8) feet in height when planted. Stormwater would be handled underground. Two (2) trash enclosures are shown. One is in the southwest corner between Buildings B and C, and the other is between Buildings K and H on the site's east side. Site lighting would be limited to 20 feet in height, and the average illumination for the courtyards, paths, and porches would be 1.2-foot candles. Moving on to the grocery store. The building has been moved 30 feet closer to Seven Mile Road. The setbacks would now be 237 feet from Seven Mile versus 267 feet under the old plan. This alters some of the site features, including the parking layout, the number of parking spaces, landscaping and buffering, and the location of the customer pickup area. Overall, the site circulation remains unchanged, including the locations and arrangement of the driveways and drive aisles. The parking has been reduced by 24 spaces from 306 under the old plan to 282 under the new plan. The corner feature, which previously included a sitting area, has been reduced and now shows a decorative landscape wall. Along Seven Mile, the frontage landscaping at the west end has been widened from 20.5 feet to approximately 42 feet, creating a small community plaza. Closer to the store, the redesign incorporates a larger sitting area across from the main entrance. At the north end of the property behind the store, the distance between the 20-foot-high sound wall and the property lines has increased from 50.1 feet to 77.2 feet. The eight pickup spaces are now shown on the north side of the building instead of the east side, along with the pickup doors and propane sales. Previously, the eight spaces dedicated to customer pickup were shown on the east side. Moving the building further south allows them to move to the north side. Other features remain unchanged. This includes the pharmacy drive -through in the southwest corner of the building, the cart storage, bottle return area, and outdoor sales display area on the east side of the building, and the truck wells, fire pump, employee shelter, fenced mechanical yard, compactor, and recycling closure on the north side. The building's appearance has also been modified. The portions that will be June 18, 2024 31438 visible from the roads include three types of insulated precast concrete walls. A split face pattern would be along portions of the bottom half of the building. Other parts of the facades would include stucco and brick patterns. As you can see from this rendering, the new colors mostly include shades of brown and beige versus grey under the old design. The traffic impact study has also been updated to reflect the site changes mostly due to the reduced traffic generated from the development's multifamily phase. The improvements recommended include timing adjustments to the signals at Farmington and Seven Mile, as well as at Seven Mile and Gill Roads, and then installing a new signal at Farmington at the north driveway across from Gable Street. Lastly, new pavement markings and signage would be provided at the south driveway along Farmington Road. Mr. Chairman, that is a summation of the changes. I'll let Mr. Uhazie read the departmental correspondence. Several letters were received from residents, which you should have copies of. Mr. Wilshaw: Yes, please. The correspondence will basically cover both petitions. I believe you're gonna have similar correspondence for both. Is that correct? Mr. Uhazie: Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Uhazie: That is correct. There is one additional one for the SDM license, okay, but the rest of them will cover both. Okay, go ahead with the correspondence. The first item is from the Engineering Division, dated May 24, 2024, which reads as follows: "In accordance with your request, the Engineering Division has reviewed the above referenced petition. We have no objections to the proposed waiver use at this time. The subject parcel is assigned the address of #32003 Plymouth Road. The legal description submitted with the petition appears to be correct and should be used should the waiver use be granted. The existing parcel is currently served by public water main, sanitary sewer and storm sewer. The submittal does not indicate any changes to the existing utility leads, so we do not believe there will be any additional impacts to the public utilities with this proposal. Should changes to the existing building leads be needed, the owner shall submit proposed drawings to this Department to determine if permits will be required. Also, should any work be required within the Plymouth Road right-of-way, the owner may be required to obtains permits from the Michigan Department of Transportation."The letter is signed by David W. Lear, P.E., Assistant City Engineer. The next letter is from the Livonia Fire & Rescue Division, dated May 28, 2024, which reads as follows: " This office has reviewed the site plan submitted in June 18, 2024 31439 connection with a request to modify a commercial building on property located at the above referenced address. We have no objections to this proposal. Noted on review that grid area 16, 32 on the plans has a door that appears to be leading to the exterior (egress door) of the building. The plan set shows this as opening inward. Egress doors shall have an outward swing. An actual site visit was not completed to verify. A further detailed plan review will take place when this division receives an official plan set." The letter is signed by Brian Kukla, Fire Marshal. The next letter is from the Division of Police, dated June 7, 2024, which reads as follows: W have reviewed the plans in connection with the revised petition. I have concerns about the proposed new traffic signal to be installed at the northeast corner of the proposal at Farmington and Gable. The previous business complex when at its peak usage never had a traffic signal at this location. During our previous contract with the Transportation Improvement Association, they examined the proposed development as presented at that time and the traffic study completed by Fishbeck Engineers for the proposal. Below is an excerpt of their response. With regard to the proposed traffic signal on Farmington Road at the Gable Street/Proposed Development North Driveway, the volumes used for the signal warrant study do not directly correspond with the volumes for peak hour traffic as reported on the 2025 Future Improvement Traffic Volumes. Further explanation on the volumes used in the warrant study should be justified. Furthermore, installation of a traffic signal at this location will have an effect on the egress driveway of the McDonalds restaurant development directly to the north of the proposed development. This is not mentioned or discussed in the TIS. Left turns from the McDonalds restaurant driveway will be in conflict with southbound Farmington Road traffic stopped at the signal. Egress traffic attempting to find a gap in queued traffic will be in a heightened potential crash situation. The installation of an additional Stop Bar and traffic control signs could potentially improve these conditions. The final decision on a traffic signal installation is the responsibility of the road agency having jurisdiction, in this case, Wayne County Department of Public Services should review the warrant study and determine the need. In the request from the City of Livonia for TIA to review this TIS it was mentioned that the Farmington Road and Proposed Development South Driveway would have no left turns onto northbound Farmington Road. This condition was not mentioned in the TIS and the site plan shows full ingress and egress access. If the traffic signal is approved for the Farmington Road and Gable Street/Proposed Development North Driveway location, consideration should be given to making the Proposed Development South Driveway a Right Turn-In/Right Turn Out June 18, 2024 31440 condition only. This would force egress left turning traffic, and ingress left turning traffic to the traffic signal location. I agree with their findings and believe further analysis of the proposed traffic signal at Farmington and Gable is warranted. Please feel free to contact me, should you have any questions," The letter is signed by Paul Walters, Sergeant, Traffic Bureau. The next letter is from the Inspection Department, dated June 18, 2024, which reads as follows: "Pursuant to your request, the above -referenced Petition has been reviewed. 1. The barrier -free parking spaces and access aisles shall be sized and marked in accordance with the current Michigan Building Code and ICC A117.1. 2. An accessible route shall be provided from the public sidewalk to the entrance of the building in accordance with the current Michigan Building Code. 3. All parking spaces shall be 10' x 20' and double - striped. 4. There are no construction details on the proposed 20' high sound wall. 5. A variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals would be required for any excess number and size of signs. This Department has no further objections to this Petition." The letter is signed by Jerome Hanna, Director of Inspection. The next letter is from the Finance Department, dated May 21, 2024, which reads as follows: "1 have reviewed the addresses connected with the above noted petition. As there are no outstanding amounts receivable, general or water and sewer, I have no objections to the proposal." The letter is signed by Connie Kumpula, Chief Accountant. The next letter is from the Treasurer's Department, dated June 17, 2024, which reads as follows: "All taxes and water payments are current with this property. Thank you" The letter is signed by Susie Nash, Treasurer. The last item is from the Division of Police, dated June 13, 2024, which reads as follows: "We reviewed the plans submitted by Seven Mile/Farmington Venture, LP requesting special waiver use approval to develop a Planned General Development under section 5.02 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, consisting of the construction of a Meijer store and a 4-story apartment building on the property at 33500 Seven Mile Road, located on the northwest corner of Seven Mile and Farmington Roads in the Southeast quarter of Section 4. Meijer is also requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 6.03, to utilize an SDM liquor license (sale of packaged beer and wine products for consumption off the premises) in connection with the operation of their new store. The review of the plans has determined that the request does not comply with the prior separation requirement guidelines. The proposed establishment is inside the separation requirement distance of at least five hundred (500) feet from any existing SDM liquor licensed establishment. Wine Castle at 33415 Seven Mile currently has SDM & SDD liquor licenses and Primo's at 33521 Seven Mile has an SDM liquor license and are both 112 feet from Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31441 the proposed Meijer sit e. Livonia Italian Bakery at 33615 Seven Mile has an SDM liquor license and is 477 feet from the proposed site. Also, the Wintergarden Bar at 33320 Seven Mile has Class C and SDM liquor licenses and is 143 feet from the proposed site. We would recommend that the Planning Commission and City Council maintain separation requirement guidelines. It is our opinion that these guidelines are good for local establishment businesses and maintains Livonia's family atmosphere." The letter is signed by Paul Ronayne, Detective, Special Services. That is the end of the correspondence. Thank you, Mr. Uhazie. Are there any questions for the planning staff? If not, Mr. Ventura, one second, I'm just gonna do a housekeeping item. This item was tabled. Both these items have been tabled. Before we discuss anything regarding this petition. Let's first remove it from the table and then we can have a discussion. Would someone like to offer that motion? Mr. Ventura: I'II offer a motion to remove it from the table. Mr. Wilshaw: All right. Mr. Ventura, is there support? Mr. Bongero: I'll support that. Mr. Wilshaw: If there's no objections, I think we can safely show four to remove this item from the table. I will note that in our records, thank you, Mr. Ventura. The floor is yours. Mr. Ventura: Mr. Taormina: Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Taormina, if this piece of property were not already zoned C- 2, and we were rezoning the portion of the property for the residences to residential and the portion of property for the Meijer's to commercial, existing Livonia ordinance would require a wall and a substantial planting berm between the two developments, would it not? The screening requirements between residential and commercial can vary. It could be a wall and landscaping, just a wall, or just landscaping. That is up to the Planning Commission and City Council on a case -by -case basis. But yes, there are requirements for buffering between the two uses. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ventura. Any other questions for our planning staff? If there's no other questions for the planning staff, I'm gonna go to the petitioner who's in our audience tonight. I do want to remind, again, sort of a housekeeping item that we are in the pending Items section of our agenda. These items on this agenda have been discussed at length at prior meetings, so there June 18, 2024 31442 will be limited discussion tonight, but we're going to have our petitioner come forward and tell us what's new with your petition. Good evening, Mr.Shostak. Jeff Shostak, 17800 N. Laurel Park Drive, Livonia, MI. Good evening, commissioners. Nice to see you all. It's, as noted, ifs been almost about a year since we were here last time when we tabled the discussion. In that process, and this last year, we took the time to perform more market studies to further study the plan, taken and listened to everything we heard from the commissioners a year ago, everything we heard from the residents a year ago, as well as we listened to the residents at a recent neighborhood meeting that we had, and we really completely transformed our plan. So, as you will see from our presentation tonight, part of what Mark Taormina has already showed that the rest of our group will go in with a slightly more detail. But we really did our best to incorporate the townhomes within the neighborhood that currently exists. By the look of them, by the size and the distance and all that sort of thing. As noted, you know, the townhomes are about at minimum 40 feet from the fence line to the single-family residential neighborhood behind it, which Livonia ordinance really only requires 30, so we really tried to create more buffer distance but show that, you know, ifs almost an extension of the neighborhood. Then just a little bit about the townhomes is these are you know, high end of the market, top of the line. The square footage has been noted. The two and three bedrooms, these are rents starting at $2,500 a month. So, these will be very nice high - quality renters and a true, you know, we've believe good residents coming to Livonia, whether they're already here and looking to get an apartment or they just want to check out Livonia and not immediately jump into a home. We think our townhouses will provide a really good option for that. We also made changes to the Meijer facade as noted and the location of the Meijer some of the things we heard at the last meeting from the residents and the commissioners, and just sort of high level a couple of things worth noting before I hand it off to the architects and engineers is you know, this is a $60 million economic development project in Livonia, and this is a big project. It's going to add significantly to the Livonia tax base. It's completely privately funded, we are not asking for any abatements, incentives or anything of that nature. You know, we're happy to be back here. You know, unfortunately it took a year, but we needed to do what we needed to do after everything we heard. So, with that, we are looking forward to the feedback tonight from commissioners and the residents and I'm going to hand it off to Dave John's who's going to kind of walk through some of the changes in the plan. June 18, 2024 31443 Mr. Wilshaw: Good evening. David Johns, Schostak Brothers, 17800 N. Laurel Park, Livonia, MI. Tonight we have a presentation that I think will be overall informative. We'll try not to be repetitive and try to cover the new information in a little bit more detail. I have with me this evening our team Mark Shovers from Spire Design Group who worked on the architecture for the project. I have Chris Jones from Meijer Corporation. I have the team from Fishbeck and from PEA, as well to speak on the project if needed. So, we're prepared to address, hopefully, whatever questions come up for the group, from the group, but if we could just go through the slides real quickly, Mr. Wilshaw: Sure. What you've done, as far as changes, there's been quite a few. Mr. Johns: Yep. So, I have the same slides, but I'll certainly be looking at the screen up there. That's just a slide of the existing center that's out there which has the former Kmart building and the furniture store. Those buildings are about 110,000 square feet in total, and then a westerly retail building that's about 40,000 square feet. That site has about 820 parking spots on it with very little green unless you're talking along the frontage of Seven Mile and Farmington. So, our second slide here, which basically is a compilation to the plan here. We tried to highlight on this where the three-story buildings were, which are the three buildings with the pink.dot on them adjacent to Seven Mile. There are two buildings there, and the third building that Mr. Taormina is pointing at as well. Building K over there near Meijer so. And then the other nine buildings are all two stories. And Mark Shovers will go through the architecture of these buildings and then the Meijer site is on the easterly portion of the site as well. So just to highlight a few of the changes that were made that weren't talked about in great detail yet. Between the two sites, we've really looked to increase the connectivity between the sites and the green space. We felt that there was a lot of input and the prior meetings, both with the Planning Commission as well as all the other interested parties, that we need to do that. So, you'll see some other slides as we work through that. And then we wanted to effectively improve the buffering of the overall site between our project and the adjacent single family residential. So, we have about 130 trees that are proposed that border between our project and the adjacent residential to serve for buffering. So, a variety of species are planted in a continuous fashion along all the property lines that border as well as between the Meijer's site and the building there as well. So, you have a couple of aerial views from the back of June 18, 2024 31444 the site and that shows some of the tree buffering. The four buildings that are adjacent to the residential, those buildings have the fronts that are facing towards the single-family homes. That was done intentionally so that we can take all the noise activity from the garages within each of the units and integrate all the activities for the drivability of the site, internal into the site, away from the single family residential. All lighting is self-contained on those buildings along the perimeter of the site. There are only a few light poles within the townhome development that are adjacent to the driveway out there along Seven Mile. As you can see in this slide, we have one driveway point now on the townhome development where before when we were looking at the other multifamily option, we had two driveways for the multifamily, so we've tried to improve the driveway access as was defined the community entrance to create a neighborhood feel. We felt those are all important elements related to your ordinances and tried to listen to that. So as it relates to the Meijer site, just a quick focus I...Mr. Taormina covered a lot of the changes that were made in his review, and we appreciate that, but if we could just recognize that there's a community plaza area, here we go Mark...a community plaza area, that's the east side of the townhomes and the west side of the Meijer that's connected between the sites. When we were listening to the input that came from the Planning Commission meeting last year, there was not much interest in sitting on Seven Mile and Farmington for a seating area. So, we've relocated it between the two sites and created a nice gathering area. We put some benches around it, put a large greenbelt area and buffering around it and increased the greenbelt along Seven Mile against the Meijer parking. If we were to jump back or two, Mark, the buffering that is immediately along Seven Mile on the west side of the Meijer's site, that has been increased to 40 feet. So, after that we just kind of have a connectivity plan. We've looked at the connectivity between the sites as shown in the blue is all the sidewalks that are around the townhome development and then the connections out to the public sidewalks, which I believe is shown in a color of yellow. Green. So there's multiple connection points both from the townhomes. One adjacent to the drive at the west end of building A and one at the east end of building A in the community area. And then also along the Meijer site midway in the easterly parking towards the center there. And some of the changes that show on this plan is our new seating areas. We've created the seating area and the triangle area off the Meijer entry point. That's the top view of that slide. And so, a couple benches, some plantings around there that's directly across from the main entry to the Meijer grocery. That's a corner of view to the south, of the Seven and Farmington corner. We've created a placemaking wall around June 18, 2024 31445 there. We've shown Livonia on there because we figured the city would like to see that. Certainly, we're open to input on that. We've put low plantings in front of the area. All this was done is to try and address the green space, the community spaces and the connectivity between the sites. Also on the top view, there are some bicycle racks in there so that you could actually bike to Meijer. You could go through the community Plaza along the west side. We could jump back to the site plan real quick, Mark. Along the west side of building or east side of Building K right up there and actually make a connection all the way from the Seven Mile. public sidewalks all the way along the front of the Meijer as well as out to Farmington or back out to Seven Mile through the two connection points. On the Meijer's site, the building has shifted 30 feet further south from what it was last year. That 30-foot shift, although it's only 30 feet, it had a lot of changes that were effectuated throughout the plan to reduce the parking area that's in front of the Meijer site. We only have 282 parking spaces which is a drop of 24 spaces from where we were before it took the entire building and moved it as a whole 30 feet south, it took all the delivery operations, the sound wall and pulled that all further south away from the residential so now that delivery area is further than it's ever been. It's moved as much as 60 feet from the Meijer originally. Started looking at the project and were able to create green space behind the wall and plan it out more appropriately, so it's over 50 feet back there. We have 20 trees just in that area and it's open and connected to the townhome that sits in the back adjacent to that. The grocery pickup has been relocated to the northeast corner of the Meijer building and is now accessible from Farmington Road. We're still proposing a traffic signal on Farmington Road and working with the county on the review of that to make sure that operates properly. The driveway connections, if we could just quickly look at the slides after this, Mark. Actually, that one you were on was good for just a minute...before that please. That's just an outline to where...the red dashed lines is where the existing buildings were on the site. You can see that the Meijer building has shifted substantially closer to Seven Mile, as well as slightly further east from the Kmart limit that was towards Farmington road, but much further west, almost 150 feet further west from where the existing Kmart building was, that westerly wall. So, all that should promote an improvement towards any sort of lighting or other issues that just deal with operational with the Meyers. There's a perimeter sound wall that goes all the way around the back of the site at 20 feet on the west side, 20 feet on the north side, and 15 feet on the east side and then we also have sound walls around the truck docks as well. So as far as the townhomes, there is a courtyard. Mr. Taormina mentioned that between the four buildings that are June 18, 2024 31446 clustered around the center. Within that we view that as a socialization and recreation area for our tenants. That would be within the townhomes. We have a small dog park there so that residents could actually, if they have a dog, have them in that courtyard, take them off leash. It's small, but we envision only a few dogs and smaller sized dogs. So there'll be some brief limitations on that. Those are just some of the highlights. All of this was done and we certainly feel that we were complying with the ordinances that are out there for us from the Mixed Development Center creating these two uses. We tried to create a neighborhood feel within this new project here, especially as you're along the frontages of the sites and the connectivity are townhomes and I know Mark Shovers will go into that more with the building and the architecture along Seven Mile and talk about the neighborhood feel. But we tried to really look at, you know, the mixed uses and how to work them. So that there was strong connectivity, strong walkability between the sites, and increased green space. Overall, this site has about a 20% decrease of paved area. So that 20% decrease really went towards green space. So, there's a lot of trees that are proposed for this project between the two sites. It meets all of the landscaping ordinances, extensive frontage trees, extensive buffering, lots of shrubberies, lots of tree variety. So, the site lighting within Meijer, of course, when the building shifted, and the site shifted, all that site lighting shifted as well away from the residential and the back of the site. So, with that you know, certainly, we've tried to listen to all the input that we received and present a project that we think is really a great project for the community. Complies with the Mixed Development Center requirements and the goals for density and the connectivity and, you know, deal with the parking as best that we could work the design and you know, just make it work. Our access points, there's a couple of slides, take less than a minute to look at, Mark, if we just flipped through them. Just to make sure we show that where these access points are. Keep going. Up, go back to that one real quick. That's the connection of the site between the Meijer and the townhomes. There is a cross connectivity at the front of the site right behind the two buildings that front Seven Mile, basically next to the three-story heights near the community plaza area. So next slide. A couple of elevation views of the overall site. So, you can see Meijer in the backdrop and the sign on the corner for the City of Livonia, as well as the three-story views of the townhomes along Seven Mile. You can see one defined entry in there. And that defined entry would line up across from Myron Street and go directly towards the leasing center for the property so we would have onsite leasing, onsite maintenance for the property, and certainly we feel that that's beneficial. The community's not that large that June 18, 2024 31447 we're proposing. It's only 102 units, but there would be people there. So, couple of the access points, that's the Southerly access point on Farmington Road lined with the main entry. So that's the North driveway on Farmington Road where we proposed the traffic signal and the lines on the surface area for Meijer's as well as the grocery pickup on the north side of the building. And then that's the drive connection on Seven Mile, the existing place. It's there right now, and it lines up pretty much about the center of the building. So, I think there might be just one more site slide after that. Yep. Sight access point into the townhomes. So you can see the leasing building in the back. That's one story and it's attached to the end of one of the two-story buildings. One more slide. That's all I was looking to cover from a site perspective. So with that, I'll bring up Mark Shovers to present some of the architecture. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Appreciate your presentation, Mr. Shovers, you're next up and you're going to talk about the architectural elements. Correct? Mark Shovers, Spire Design Group, 115, East Fourth St, Rochester, MI. (Inaudible — technical difficulties) The split face base and castle tops and stuff like that from the study. Next slide, please. From the study meeting last week, as is input, analyzed, edited and further integrated additional elements into the facade, which I'll start getting into. So, some of the major changes from that is the increased height of the split face, so that you're getting that visibility further away from the building, just not when you're walking next to it. We use that same element as an accent band halfway up on the brick that kind of frames those and also at the very top at the parapet to act as almost like a capital detail. Some other changes that came out of this are the signs. The sign got relocated to integrate better with the pilasters. The accent band terminates at the pilasters to accentuate the depth of those pilasters. The pilasters had been brought an additional two inches to make them more defined. The key point to how this facade is designed is almost a... public customer touchpoints are the areas where you had the split face and the brick elements with the accents. So, if you look at where the pharmacy is, this front area at the entrance and the pickup area, those have this raised element of the facade, almost notifying the public that that's where you need to go. And then we had the relief of the darker, stucco finish. That kind of gives relief. So, there's just not the same finish across the whole building. So, it's breaking this up into smaller manageable sections that are perceived from the public. The pilasters are creating framed openings for the storefront, much like you'd see in a downtown, an old downtown June 18, 2024 31448 you'd see on the storefront facade, you'd see pilasters and B glass in between those. We're playing that using that same technique that they've used. We also have the cable hung awning which is a classic historical element at storefronts where signs would hang off of and stuff like that. So, we've added the cable hung aspect of that, and handset canopy from the original proposal. And again, having that canopy and the sconces and all that...as a pedestrian walks down along this storefront, you get a sense of walkability. If it's open and you don't have those elements, you don't have the same security level that you would have if you have those human scale elements along the way. Next slide, please. These are just some images of the inside of other Meijer stores and what they're proposing at this location or their deli and their entrance element. Next slide. This additional ones of like the butcher and the food to go, pharmacy on the interior. So now I'll talk about the townhomes. So, when we designed these, obviously the previous design was scrapped, so we wanted to look at like what makes something have a residential feel but also a streetscape. What are like popular elements so we kind of looked at like the craftsman style and arts and crafts style. So, you'll see elements of that replicated on the facade here. One of the benefits to the three story along Seven Mile and along the Meijer's parking lot is the first floor is parking and there's a flex room. So, the second floor is your living space. So, people driving down the road, they're not looking in the second floor, like if it was on the first floor. They can't look in and see someone sitting on their couch watching TV and vice versa the people living there, they're looking out aren't looking at cars zooming by, they're looking above it across the street. So that that was kind of intentional. It creates a street facade. All the units have either on the three story they have a balcony. The two-story units have a grade level patio. So, of the three stories, about 50%, maybe a little bit more of them, are covered. The other ones are uncovered. But as far as the facade design is concerned, we did elements of different window sizes. They're not all the same windows. We got ones that are single casements. We got doubles. So, we played the game of different size windows. It's just not all the same. We integrated accents just like Meijer did of accent bands like we are citing. We break up the siding with accent bands just like they broke up their brick with an accent band on the split face. We have Box out Bay elements, which is popular in Arts and Crafts. We put architectural brackets under the roof on those elements to enhance those which also creates roof interest as well because those are boxed out and that roof is raised in those areas. So, we're just not creating a flat facade that has no interest to it. The brick goes up and down. There are areas that are two stories. There are areas that are single stories. This June 18, 2024 31449 is because you don't want everything so linear in a residential component. On the building on the right there it's kind of hard to see, but it's got a cool kind of lay -on gable that enhances that with a bigger, larger covered porch area that also is popular in the Arts and Crafts era. Next slide please. So, this is a view of the two story, two bed. Again, these elements carry throughout the development, but you see areas where people have enlarged covered patios. You see the movement in the facade as you get the standard units and then larger units. There are gables to break up the roof. We were using the Box out Bays. Like the corner bores in the accent on the blue jumps off... all those moves are intentional and meant to play homage to the historical myths of an Arts and Crafts era. Next slide please. So, here's a view of the leasing office. Just like the Meijer facade, we integrated additional glazing in these areas. So, when you pull into the site, everyone knows that's a commercial area. That's where the leasing offices...that's where the maintenance is. They know where to go. It's not like we just have a unit that they're operating out of. There's a defined operational part to this site. Again, we have heavy overhangs to accentuate that we got the architectural brackets. We have pilaster framing the glass just like Meijer does, and awnings at the entrance. So, all these things are what things that you would see in downtown's, these elements. You also see on the very far left and the building on the right those two stories based on our meeting last week, we have increased the brick on the back the garage side of the buildings. So those are like kind of under the gables we've kind of emphasize those gables a little bit more than just have the blue siding. So we did listen to you and add additional brick to the back of the buildings. Next slide. This is kind of showing the front of a two bed in the back of a three bed unit. Again, on the three bed we did increase that brick on the back to add additional interest to the facade as you drive through the site. (Member of audience yelled out) Mr. Wilshaw: Sir, sir, please let this gentleman speak. Go ahead. Go ahead sir. Mr. Shovers: Next slide please. These are just elements on the building which we've already talked about. So, it's high end, durable materials. Brick veneer, cement board siding, metal trims, these are elements that are going to last. They're not aluminum siding that are going to dent. They're not vinyl siding that's gonna crack. These are high end, durable products that will last a long time. Next slide please. I mean these are...we just submitted the elevations of the change of the brick but I think if you go yet to the night shot...so night shot of the Meijer. So again, you can see Mr. Wilshaw: Chris Jones, Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31450 what the clear glass curtain will illuminate a night. It creates this great entrance element. With that wood backdrop on the back wall. It's very inviting. It's well lit. It lets people know where you enter the building. It will make the pedestrians feel safe. You can see our elements of the signs that moved, which are self - illuminated in the accent bands and the sconces lighting under the canopies. Next slide. Just kind of a view of what the townhomes would look like with a if some windows or some lights were on and units and the leasing office lit up. And then just a corner view of the night of the site as a whole. I think that's it unless anyone else Thank you, Mr. Shovers. Appreciate your presentation. Good evening, sir. Senior Real Estate Manager for Meijer. I'll be really brief. But I wanted to say we're excited to be back in front of the committee again. We're proud of our changes that we've made. We've listened to the public, their comments, Planning Commission's comments, neighborhoods comments. We've had a rapid response meeting with the city. We've had a work session with the city. So, we've really tried to listen and incorporate that and make this an even better project than it was a year ago. Just really quickly on Meijer, as most people know, we're a Michigan based company. We're family owned and have been in Michigan. We're celebrating our 90th year. We've been corporate citizens of Livonia since 2005. This store is unique to Livonia. There's not another one in our six - state footprint. It's been specifically designed for Livonia. Its architecture is specific to Livonia. There's not another one like it. We view this size, this format store, 75,000 square feet to be a future Meijer store in multiple locations. Throughout our footprint we can only do so many supercenters. We're at 266 supercenters in our chain now and we've opened two Detroit area 90,000 square foot stores in Macomb and Lake Orion, but this is...we've scaled down that store to 75,000 square feet and it's intended to be...the merchandise inside is intended to support the family, pets, infants, pharmacy, food. So, we hope we'll get a favorable outcome tonight and we can move towards City Council. Thank you Thank you, Mr. Jones, for coming tonight. Is there anything else from your presentation? Okay, let's see if we have some questions from the commissioners, for you based on your presentation. Is there anyone on the commission with questions for the petitioner? Mr. Bongero: Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Johns: Mr. Bongero: Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Shostak: June 18, 2024 31451 This is in regard to the privacy wall in the back. I don't know who this would pertain to. There's currently a brick masonry one there. And I think the plan said it's to remain. I brought this up last year. The current fence is only about four foot nine tall and typically what we see is a minimum of six. There was a neighbor that said they attended the meeting that was at the Winter Garden, a Bill and Alicia Fettener, and they said, they talked to Mr. Shostack, about removing the wall and putting in an eight -foot privacy fence. They felt it would make it better for safety and look better. Have you guys given any consideration to that? Mr. Johns? Do you want to be the initial spokesman for the group? And of course, you can go to one of your experts if its relevant. Sure, the existing wall that's out there typically five feet or above. It's in good shape. You know, certainly, we felt that with the 130 trees that we're planting in that area that would be adequate for a privacy perspective. You know, so those trees are initially proposed at eight -foot height, we don't feel that we have a security issue where we need to build a taller wall or a taller fence. Just to build that, especially when we're planting so many trees from a privacy perspective. If there's a interest by the Commission to increase some of the heights of those trees to 10 feet, we could do that. Certainly, that would provide even more privacy initially. But just to put a fence in front of the wall, or to take down a wall that's in good condition. We didn't see much benefit to that. So, your answer is no, you don't want it, you're not going to do it. Mr. Shostack.. Yeah, just to add to that, is everything Dave stated, it was correct. With adding the trees, we think that solves a lot of that, but we don't see a reason to take down the wall. But if its needed, if its thought by the commissioners, to just add on to the size of the wall. I think at one point it was higher, and then as the surrounding area was developed the grade and it's sunk a little bit on one of the sides. But we would certainly be open to adding on to the wall and Dave could specifically state ways that we've done that just to make it more like six feet or seven feet, whatever it is that's discussed. Mr. Wilshaw: Alright, thank you. Mr. Bongero: June 18, 2024 31452 I think that would be the minimum, I would think is to extend it to sir, because in some areas...1 went around and measured it and it's not even five feet. I don't think that's unreasonable. Mr. Johns: Okay. We would be prepared to extend it up to six feet. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Bongero. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Is there any other questions for the petitioner Mr. Ventura: I guess I'd begin by complimenting the Shostak organization, and their sensitive redesign over the residential portion of this development. You did a good job of listening to the comments that all the residents made a year ago and came back with a plan that's far Tess intense, and far more reflective of the residential product that already exists there. So, I offer my compliments to you for exhibiting that sensitivity. However, a couple of comments. As Mark pointed out, when I asked the question after the petition was read, I feel like there needs to be more of a barrier between the three-story residential building on the eastern edge of the residential development and the Meijer store. And Mark if you could put their landscape plan up there. There's really a dimension there's a plan that's got some dimensions on it. Mr. Johns, it appears that the three-story townhomes are 70 feet away, plus the width of the planting bed you've got there from the wall of the Meijer store. Do you know that by any chance with the dimension of the planting bed is? Mr. Johns: That planting bed I would say that the building C, which are all part... Mr. Ventura: It is Building H 13 on your plan, at least the one I'm looking at. Mr. Johns: Okay. All right. So, if you're referring to Building H, it has 20 foot parking spaces in front of it. And then a 24-foot drive aisle, so that is 44 feet. That planting bed, I would say is approximately 20 feet to maybe 26 feet, in that range, total. And it's planted with double trees all the way through. So, there's 30 trees that are buffering from the south edge of the sound wall all the way to the Meijer and for Building H specifically that's the garage side of the units. Mr. Ventura: And the trees that are planted according to your landscape plan in that strip are eight -foot conifers, correct? Mr. Johns: Generally, eigh- foot Yes. June 18, 2024 31453 Mr. Ventura: Yeah. So is there any reason that you couldn't mound that planting bed and make a better barrier between the townhomes there and the blank wall of the Meijer store. Mr. Johns: I mean, certainly we could do some grading in there and create a small berm area. Mr. Ventura: Make them more effective size barrier. Mr. Johns: Yes. Mr. Ventura: That'd be great. My only other comment, and I addressed this at the study meeting is that I'm disappointed in the fact that Meijer wants to build a precast concrete building. All the homes in this neighborhood are brick, or brick and siding. Recently, Gargaro Company across the street took a 60-year-old building and put stone and brick and architectural metal in front of it and did a beautiful job. The Hellenic bakery east of the Winter Garden bar got to be an 80- or 90-year-old building, just refaced entire brick building with brick, and I don't think precast concrete building, in fact, I probably been on the Planning Commission for 10 years and I can't remember us ever approving a project like this with a precast concrete building. They've always been brick and as I pointed out at the study session, I drove around and looked at every other Meijer building I could find within the immediate area. And two things were obvious to me. Number one, no two of them look alike and they are all brick, and so to Mr. John's or to the Shostak organization or whoever makes this decision, I'd really like to strongly urge you to make this a brick building, number one. And to take another step with the modifications that you've made, and I think those are those are good first steps. But take another step and make it...change the architecture a little bit so that it's more residential looking so that it's not so stark a contrast between the very, very nice design that you've done with the townhomes and, you know, admittedly very commercial kind of industrial strength Meijer's building there, so that the whole site fits together, more compatibly than it appears to at the moment. And those are my questions. I appreciate you agreeing to enhance the landscaping between the townhomes on the wall and the wall of the Meijer store. And I'd like you to take another step and I'm willing to...l really don't want to impede your progress any more than you've...you've already spent a lot of time on this. I'm not suggesting that we stop and go back and do another redesign, but I would like you to work with the Planning Department in taking some further steps to make this a brick building and to make it more compatible or harmonious with the residential development as you've done. I know, Mr. Jones Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Jones: June 18, 2024 31454 commented at the study session that this poured concrete wall or simulated brick wall was the least expensive way to do it, and it probably is. But I'd suggest that any incremental increase in cost that you might incur upon the construction of this business over the 30- or 40-year life of this building is going to be inconsequential, it really won't matter. But it will make a difference to the quality of the environment here and it will make it more harmonious with the residences that you're going to build there. And so I'll conclude my remarks. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw. Thank you, Mr. Ventura. Mr. Johns, is there anything that you'd like to say in regards to...or Mr. Jones? I want to thank Peter for his comments. And I think we're...1 know you closed by saying you don't want to impede the progress and I appreciate that. I think when we attended a study session back in, or we call it a rapid response, I believe, in January, there were about, you know, a couple of City Council members, a couple planning members, most of Mark Taormina's staff attended. We took a lot of notes at that meeting about making the building more industrial. Make the building more hip. Make the building more earthtones. Make the building look like it's been there a long time. Make the building look like you did in Royal Oak. So, that's what we took away from the meeting in January. I think, perhaps, Mark Shovers could speak a little bit about how we've tried to implement some design elements from the apartments into the design of the Meijer more eloquently than I can. But I also wanted to comment on the brick veneer versus brick forms. The technology in the forms, has improved immensely. Over the last 25 years, they can pour these forms to look like rock. To look like wood. To look like brick. You know, we could, Peter, if we could look at maybe painting the mortar joints so they're not all one color. Maybe painting them a grout color, but I also can take back to corporate...there's a...it's not the least expensive method of construction with these preforms, they just go up quicker. They are insulated. They're structurally sound. They have a lot of integrity. So, there's some benefits to the forms, but I will take back your comment about a veneer brick finish to our corporate accounts, to our corporation. It's, you know...there's four sides to a 75,000 square foot building. So, it's a lot of brick. I don't know where the brick would come from. But there's a lot of it. I will take that back, and perhaps we could, you know, come back with some ideas, but I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Jones. Any other comments from any of the commissioners? Mr. Long: Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Shovers: Mr. Long: June 18, 2024 31455 The apartments that...when you had the map up there, we had the courtyard and the dog run, are there any other amenities? Is there a workout center, community room, anything like that? Would someone like to address the amenities of the townhomes? So when the unit count drops some of that those benefits that the previous design had are eliminated. So, like we had the courtyards. We got a couple of city centers with grills. We got dog parks. There's an outdoor or there's a package center, mail center so your packages just left on the porch to get stolen. But as far as like gyms and pools and stuff like that, this unit count doesn't lend itself to amenities like that. How does that affect your target marketing? I know that I heard these we're going to start at $2,500 a month. Who's gonna live here? Mr. Shovers: Yeah, so these are young professionals. Families that have moved to Livonia and don't know what neighborhood they want to buy in yet. They know they want to be here, but they don't know where they want to go yet, or someone saving up doesn't have the money for a down payment. Also, a lot of people that live in town houses of this style are empty nesters are tired of cutting the grass, taking care of the house, and they just want to go visit the grandkids and stuff like that and not have to worry about the maintenance on their house. So, you kind of get this younger demographic and an older demographic. Mr. Long: And I guess I have just a similar question for the Meier representative. Just you know, obviously, as it's been pointed out, in a lot of our correspondence, we have our share of grocery stores and places where we can get things in Livonia. What was your market study on this? Where do you intend to, you know...obviously, you've got 102 new residences here, but that's not going to be all the people that you expect to shop there? Mr. Jones: That's a great question. I mean, we certainly have competitors here. We only have the supercenter, we have actually two that kind of serve this community. This is a convenience play, you know. It's kind of like we take out of the store, you know, the general merchandise, the sporting goods, the electronics, books, magazines, clothing, so it's more...we feel...we see a demographic and a shopper for this product that's a very busy, time starved, which is what we call it, you know, they have two working parents and a family and they have, you know, they almost are shopping three, four times a week for their meal June 18, 2024 31456 preparation and the supercenter tends to lend itself, I mean, it's certainly not...there's certainly exceptions but it tends to lend itself more to a weekly shop. Very busy on the weekends and all the other things you may pick up on a trip to Meijer for your home improvement items, paint, you know filters, whatever the case may be in, you know, we get into these... it is very interesting how the electronic commerce, you know, becomes more and more prevalent. And we see this, this size of store that you can shop in 30 minutes instead of an hour. For time starved people we offer curbside pickup here. We offer home delivery here. We have a drive thru pharmacy, so you're still getting some of those time sensitive conveniences. And that's what we see for the next 90 years. We will certainly continue to build super centers, but we'd like to add these stores and compete with Kroger, Whole Foods. I really don't think we will compete with Joe's. It's such a service point store. We'II still have value here. The gallon of milk will be the same price here as at a Supercenter. And we can only do that with Supercenter in the market that has that kind of buying power. I hope I answered your question. I may have danced around it a little bit, but I hope. Mr. Long: That's okay. I think you got to the heart of it. Um, that's all I have for now. Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Long. Thank you. Mr. Jones. Is there any other questions or comments from the commissioners? If not, this is a pending item. Commission rules state that pending items have been discussed at length at prior meetings and that discussion from the audience requires a unanimous consent from the Commission. There have been a lot of changes to this plan and I'm gonna see if any of the commissioners have any objection to opening up audience communication on this petition. Mr. Ventura: Mr. Wilshaw: No, I don't, keep it to a minimum. Yeah, so I think what we'll do is we'll open it up and I appreciate my colleagues offer of that. We will open up the meeting for comments from the audience. but we are going to ask that because it has been an item discussed at length, that comments are limited to two minutes and that you try to focus on new information that you present to us. Because we have heard your comments previously, we do have those in our record. And we do have a number of emails that have also been sent to us that we have in detail, but we would like to give an opportunity for any new discussion from any of our audience members. So, anyone wishing to speak please come to one of the podiums. And we'll give you two minutes. Good evening. June 18, 2024 31457 Kathleen McIntyre, 14455 Fairway Street, Livonia, MI. In my past life I've been a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, the Planning Commission, Livonia City Council, we appreciate you and I've followed this development through its long, very long history and many, many revisions including the very first proposal which was for Kroger and certainly this is a tremendous improvement from them. And I'm watching my I since unfortunately, we still don't have a clock. And that's not on you, that's on the council. This is a quantum leap forward. All the comments that I've heard have been at the Winter Garden and followed this tremendous improvement. I think...and whatever gets decided here is going to be there for the next, you know, 2,3,4,5 decades. So, this is a big decision, and I appreciate the weight of this decision from your perspective and the council's perspective. I appreciate the work that the developers and all the parties have done. I think there's still room for improvement with the townhouses. I, you know, I hear a lot of things about Arts and Crafts. I know there have been a lot of improvements. They're still improvements. The community space is small. It's not...in order to call it a community square, I think is an exaggeration. I think there's room to make this look much more befitting a residential development that should be at a prime piece of real estate. The second comment is the Meijer needs to look like a neighborhood Meijer. It needs to look like the Meijer that is at 13 and Woodward and the minute you put the giant, and I don't know all the architectural terms, and I should after all my time on these bodies, but the minute you put the big whatever you call it with the Meijer, red and blue signage, you've now got a corner with a giant parking lot and a big box store, and that's what's going to be there forever, and I think the concept of a smaller Meijer is great and I am out of time, but that facade and the signage need a lot of rework. Thanks. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Miss McIntyre. Hi, good evening. Jan Stevens, 19585 Pollyanna, Livonia, MI. My first comment is to the City of Livonia. I live in Windridge but the people across Seven Mile for me have not been notified about what's happening. The people on all four corners have not been notified and it seems to me like the City of Livonia should be notifying the residents that you serve about what the plans are for that corner, and I know people on all of those places that have not been notified and have no idea. The other thing is that the traffic flow is already bad trying to make a left-hand turn and they're planning on putting another driveway on the Seven Mile. You talked about Farmington Road but Seven Mile is going to be having the same issue as what Farmington June 18, 2024 31458 Road has with all the traffic flow. It's already really bad. And the roads aren't really good. And I think the traffic flow needs to be a whole lot better when you're adding 100 homes with 100 cars along with maybe 200 cars because there's two people living in those condos, each with a car and addition to Meijer's traffic flow, especially at McDonald's. The backup already at McDonald's can go to the light and without anything on that corner. The other thing is the lights and the trucks coming and going at all hours of the day. Even during the heyday of Kmart and all of those establishments being there. You didn't have that many trucks coming and going as what you're going to have with the grocery store in that corner and having the lights on at all hours. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you man Good evening, sir. Joe Maiorana, Joe's Produce, 33152 West Seven Mile, Livonia, MI. Hello, my name is Joe Miranda and I own chose produce quarry market in Livonia. 33 152 West Seven Mile My family is owned and operate Joe's produce gourmet market in Livonia for 79 years my grandfather started the business as a roadside market in 1945. In 1968, the first version of Joe's produce gourmet market was opened in its current location. As a third generation owner. I've been fortunate to expand our market, bringing additional business to Livonia and the adjacent center and provide jobs for 150 employees. Over the years Josias chose produce gourmet market has been heavily invested in the community supporting a variety of charities, US sports community events, our customers have become our friends. We have been fortunate to share with them in a supportive role countless generations, graduation parties, weddings, birthdays, special events, we worked hard to become part of the fabric of the community of Livonia where we live and work every day. From our perspective, as the longest serving grocer in Livonia, there already exists a number of shopping options for Livonia residents, Kroger on Eight Mile, Kroger on Six Mile, Meijer Supercenter on Middle Belt, Walmart Supercenter on Plymouth Road, Walmart Supercenter at Seven Mile Road, ALDI at Schoolcraftt, Costco on Middle Belt, Costco at Haggerty, Bush's at Newburgh Plaza, Cantoro's Market and Westborn Market on Middle Belt. I'm sure I might have missed a few smaller markets. But at least including Joe's produce market, there's 12 significant shopping choices for consumers. No one is clamoring for another grocery store. At Seven Mile and Farmington Road is proposed a 75,500 square foot Meijer store, which will be one of the largest grocery stores in Livonia. At Seven Mile and Haggerty, a 50,000 square foot store located at Schoolcraft College, is Nino Salvaggio's has expressed interest Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Maiorana: Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31459 at Six Mile Haggerty there is a proposed 50,000 square foot Whole Foods store. Can you please summarize? I think I'm kind of summarizing my point. In the three -to -four -mile radius, there's going to be 175,000 square feet of retail established and is in any established market. That's pretty much my whole point of it. Finally, always coming down to support business expansion and bringing jobs and economic vitality or community, however, I need to stand up for my 150 full and part time employee's livelihoods are tied to Joe's Produce Gourmet Market. Adding new jobs is one thing but preserving existing jobs should also be important to the city goal. I ask you to please take this factor into consideration during your deliberations on the proposed development. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Maiorana. Good evening, ma'am. Ginny. Krenz, 34075 Pembrooke, Livonia, MI. I just basically have bullet points here. Things that were not mentioned this time. High rent. $2,500 for a two bedroom. Who knows what a three bedroom is going to be? Where in this? Did they read the room? Did they read the neighborhood to see if they could get tenants constantly getting tenants at that much rent? If you can pay that much for rent, you can pay that much for a mortgage. He did not mention the hours that the store was going to be open. If you are at the corner of Seven Mile and Farmington at nine o'clock in the evening, the neighborhood is asleep. Everybody has done their shopping. The square footage, 75,500, I think this is a larger store than he initially presented last year and that store offers no more than any of the stores Joe just mentioned. There's nothing special about this Meijer. He did not mention the number of bays. If this is going to be a smaller store...the last time he mentioned he was going to need seven bays. If it's a small store four bays should be enough. The truck lights. What time of day do those trucks show up? What time? In the middle of the night? In the morning? How disruptive. People in Windridge complain about the noise that's a deliveries over at Primo's. Open and closed. We don't know. At one time he said 24 hours. We don't need 24 hours. If we've shopped, you know, during the day, we're done for the evening. Staff. How many people does he expect to have work in this store? How many times do you drive around this city or anywhere and see now hiring or Help Wanted? How does he figure he can staff this store to make it run efficiently and be customer friendly? He talks about trees and the apartments in the surrounding area. He did not mention the sprinkler system. Who's going to maintain Mr. Wilshaw: Ms. Krenz: Mr. Wilshaw: Ms. Krenz: Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31460 that with these condos or townhomes is their, you know, when you have a group of... association fee. Who's going to pay for the maintenance of those grounds. Ms. Krenz, you've ran out of time. Oh, can I just say just one more thing. Go for it. They talked about the brick. Now I think what they're suggesting, because of the size of the building, is probably about this thick rather than real brick. If he cut the size of this store in half. He could afford to do real brick. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Krenz. Good evening. Steve King, 33950 Coventry, Livonia, MI. I was just watching at home. And, you know, they put together a great presentation. I know they modified the plan, and I know the city is desperate to put something there and I think that Council is going to approve this plan. That's me speaking, not the Council and so I think the best we can hope for is to make this as good as it possibly can be. And so I like the question about brick veneer, because for people, the uninitiated, if you want to see what brick veneer is, when you walk out of here today, look at the old city hall, the big chunk of brick veneer that is missing from that structure. I built a house on Surrey, 45,000 brick on my house that I put on, so I can get you the brick if you need it, and all of the building materials. I have an issue with petitioners coming into Livonia I don't know where they're from. If they live in West Bloomfield, Birmingham. They couldn't use these facades in their own home communities where they live. This wouldn't fly in Northville, wouldn't fly in Plymouth, wouldn't fly in Northville. Don't give us fake brick, give us brick and stone and something that really, really lasts. That is a brick. I lived in Windridge village, those are brick homes in there. It's a beautiful subdivision. and so it should be conforming. I mean, at least the hardy board is better than vinyl siding, but still we need brick and stone. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. King. Hi, good evening. Fabrizio Pesce, 30508 Munger, Livonia, MI. I have a quick question. I want also to say that for45 years I was in the consulting engineering business. I'm a builder for over 25 years. I've been project lead engineer and a lot of these shopping centers and things. I guess one of the questions that I have I'm not going to be neutral, whether or not June 18, 2024 31461 that demographic works out there or whatever. We understand we need some stuff over there. It's been dead for a long time, but the question is, the technical question is, what are we going to do about construction noises, traffic, dust debris, and how we deal with general pollution? I think this is something that all the neighborhood is concerned too, and how much that traffic is impacting the local business on Seven Mile from Farmington. Mr. Wilshaw: I will see what we can find for you. Thank you, sir. Hi, good evening. Eric Young, 19356 Pollyanna Drive, Livonia, MI. My property is adjacent to the new development. My comments are probably more related to the development as a whole. I've written two letters advocated. Met the Shostack team in person at the Winter Garden event. I'm really concerned about the adjacent business solvency. That's one of my biggest items here overall about this new development. I'm also...l've written to you all about the city utility infrastructure. The impact that's going to have in our subdivision with 102 new units potentially there and what that does. I also am concerned about the traffic study. I know there was comments about that from one of the city departments, but the issue I think there is this is it... when the Kmart property was at its prime, the development for the housing was not in its prime. They never matched its peaks, so now you've had a peak housing growth up and down on Gill Road when you've had a depreciation of that property. So, this new investment of 102 homes and a new running business of Meijer. I don't think you've got a true mesh of what the impact of the traffic's going to be to this community is my honest assessment. A few things about Meijer. I spoke with the show stack team. I've also written about it, there's a missed opportunity to really reorganize this Meijer so that really is organized in a way that helps the community and they demonstrate good citizenship, I'd really like to see that a building rotated 45 degrees counterclockwise and brought to the corner of Seven Mile and Farmington. That gives great set off to the community and also to the residents that are going to be occupying those 102 homes. It gives you that buffer zone, Peter, that you were speaking to about earlier as well, too. But it also does, I would ask that you move all of the arteries of that new Meijer to the northeast corner adjacent to the commercial business and McDonald's. Anything with trucking, anything with compactors, chillers, coolers, whatever that building needs to operate, put it to the Farmington roadside, please and get it away from the residences. That would be great citizenship to the community. While you also still have the opportunity to put something in the place which is desperately needed in that area. I get that. As a longtime resident, as I June 18, 2024 31462 mentioned before, as a legacy owner of this home that I currently have. I'm concerned also about basically, air conditioning on the townhomes. Where are those going to be? I haven't seen that. Are they in the back of the units that are adjacent to the new homes? Is there noise protection for those? Are they roof mounted units? And I have the same question for Meijer. I see on some of the plot plans some silhouettes of devices up on the unit. Is there noise protection for those also? if there is heating and cooling units up there, what that's going to be is there a privacy screening up there too, for the building aesthetic, everything everybody's advocating for to really upgrade this community, which is what we all really want to see. Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Young, your two minutes is up. Mr. Young: I'm going to speak just a couple more points. Thank you. About the knee wall that somebody raised, it does depend on what side of the wall you stand on, whether you're on the asphalt side, or whether you're on the property side. Also, putting some kind of cap on it would be great, you know, metal corrugated steel that goes along this or something along...it doesn't have to be masonry that adds on to it, you know, maybe just a capped wall that has some architectural prevalence to it would be fantastic to see. And I guess the only other comment I have based on the presentation is I don't understand why the townhomes are connected driving -wise to the Meijer property. I see that as a shortcut for people to get through and the owners or the renters in the townhomes, I don't think would appreciate that shortcut traffic as well, too. So, I would ask you all to please look at that in your review process. But thank you for the time. Sorry for running over and thank you for allowing me. I appreciate it. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Young. Good evening, sir. Tim Kilroy, 20148 Stamford, Livonia, MI. I am just a little bit north of the property of the proposed microsite. I had some notes prepared but I think two letters that were read by I think it's Mr. Bongero earlier this evening, I think you read it, yes. kind of stole my thunder, especially the one from Paul Walters from the traffic bureau. I am especially concerned about the proposed traffic light at Gill Road and Farmington. I live on the north side there and I would have to travel through that every single time I want to go north or south on Farmington Road and be stopped by that. A couple issues that people who live on the east side of Farmington Road on Gable, Haldane, Westmore and Shadyside, those are very narrow roads and that's already a cut through and that's going to be a new cut through more traffic on those roads. No sidewalks they live close Mr. Wilshaw: Dawn Soave, Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31463 to the (inaudible) or close to the roads. He mentioned also McDonald's with you what's the impact of that gonna be? Alright, if you want to look for a similar situation, go to the looney Bakery down on Farmington and Schoolcraft they are close to a traffic light and they have signs up says Do not block the driveway. They dropped the word please many years ago. Pardon me. Then also the traffic, you know, it doesn't meet the warrants for new traffic light at that intersection. It's barely an eighth of a mile long between the two. The light at Seven Mile is not a smart light and cannot be linked to the traffic light to Gill, and so, therefore, if you go north traveling north and south on Farmington Road, you could be trapped in the no man's land there. And so please revisit the traffic study for that area and take into consideration Mr. Walters comments. Thank you. Appreciate your comments Mr. Kilroy. 19201 Gill Road, Livonia, MI. I moved here when I was five. It was farmland, it was gravel, all that good stuff. Please get rid of a Seven Mile and put gravel down, it would be a lot easier to drive around. That's one point I have to make. Two. I wish I would have knew you guys met at Winter Garden. I had a lot to say. Today, I felt like we're still at where we were last year. We are renting townhouses. Sorry, we're still renting. We're not owning it. Why can't we have a cute little community of condos at Hunter Grove at Five Mile and Newburgh. Beautiful, complex, low just ranch style stuff. We're still back at three stories and two stories, come on. No, not here and not on the corner. I still feel like you didn't listen. Want to put a Meijer in. We have too many grocery stores. Put something else on the corner. I'm just not happy. I feel like we're still back at square one, thanks. Appreciate your comments. Thank you. Good evening, sir. Khris Beers, 19448. Stamford, Livonia, MI. I live in Windridge Village. Most of mine are selfish because I back up to the wall. I get to see the apartments and a 20-foot wall where the trucks will be coming in every night. I thank them for what they did the other day at the Winter Garden. They were very informational, but it still doesn't...and again, it's selfish of me, because I'm going to see the trucks coming in. I'm going to hear the trucks coming in. It's going to take my property value down and I'm concerned about all my other neighbors. And you know, I'm on the board at Windridge village and everybody is telling us about traffic. Traffic is horrendous there, and I know you guys, it's a broken record here, but somebody is going to die coming in or out of there, and unless we can figure something else out...l give them credit for June 18, 2024 31464 trying to develop something on that corner because it's been barren forever. I want it something just like everybody else does but I'm not...like the woman who just spoke, it's still not there. There's still work to be done. And we've got too many great stores around. There is something that we need here, but I don't have the answers. I hope they come up with the answers and I hope we come up with the answers and hopefully you guys can come up with the answers. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, sir. Good evening. Dipakkumar Parikh, 19393 Pollyanna Drive, Livonia, MI. Three bullet points I like to talk about. One is the traffic congestion. During business hours we have enough hardships turning left from Norwich to Seven Mile Road. More traffic lights will not cut it while adding new Meijer store and one 100 plus townhouses. Can we live with Eight Mile and Haggerty traffic corner where the Northville Meijer is located? Nothing against them. But I think there are lots of people like me who are worried that particular corner where Meijer's is located, Eight Mile and Haggerty, in particular, we don't want to turn Farmington Road or Seven Mile Road into another Haggerty Road just for your information. While driving down Gil Road today between Seven Mile and Eight Mile I saw a sign today and this is true story. I saw a sign. The sign said drive as if your children are living here. This is a sign you can witness it. So, we like I like to request along with my neighbors from the Windridge Village and Deer Creek and other subdivisions, we request Planning Commission to plan and they will have this particular corner in keeping in mind that as if your family is living in the neighborhood. Another point I'd like to make is safety and security. The last meeting in July and I don't want to repeat it. There was a 92-year- old lady and she told that and it says these townhouses are known as new name for the apartment. Nothing much has changed since the last proposal, and she said that time and I quote her. She said that every day there are police calls. I think this particular new community of townhouses is not going to be any different than apartment buildings. We have to cut the size and I think is not right. We feel this is the same proposal which was and which has been whitewash or dish up and concerns are same. Nothing much has changed on the proposal. Within a three mile radius, two to three mile radius just like our friend from Joe's produce said, we have Kroger, Joe's produce, Meijer's, Trader Joe's and lots of other grocery stores. Why we want to bring another Meijer's store on the corner. When I can go down to Haggerty Road and Eight Mile Road. I certainly don't see any need for it. So I just want to vent one more point if you allow me. June 18, 2024 31465 Mr. Wilshaw: Yeah. Mr. Parikh: So, I'd like to take liberty to refresh the Planning Commission to cancel this proposal. Thank you so much. Mr. Wilshaw: Hi, good evening, ma'am. Susan, resident of Livonia, MI. I have lived here for over 30 years and I love our community. I also want to say thank you to each and every one of you for the calling you've accepted to help us enforce building development in Livonia. I'm asking tonight for your consideration and support to the Mayor's message for Vision 21. That vision incorporates multi use opportunities in our community. I look at the Meijer/residential property development, not as multi use, but as residential, and commercial, and commercial in an industry where we are well populated with stores and opportunities to shop. I'd really like to see Vision 21 supported in a way that incorporates multi use facilities. Incorporating open space, taking structural things like parking lots for 200 cars off of the main street, and showing Livonia for what it could be, is a small, tightly woven fabric of a community that works together, and also encourages people to be together. My voice tonight is really for Vision 21 and really supports the Mayor's message at the groundbreaking ceremony for the senior Center, which was the catalyst for Vision 21 and supported by US representatives, our Michigan senator and our Michigan representatives. We were proudly given grants for this project and it really is the catalyst to start this change. Please consider that in this project of multi -use, or commercial and residential. Thank you for your time. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you. I don't see anyone else coming forward. So, I'm going to close the comment period for this meeting and appreciate everyone's comments and cooperation through that process. We did receive everything that you said, and we are going to take those comments into account. I'm going to first go to the petitioner and see if there's anything else that they would like to say, based on anything that they've heard or any other comments that they would like to make before we make our decision. Is there anything from any of the petitioners' representatives? Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Shostak? Mr. Shostak: Excuse me. Thank you for all the comments from all the residents. We heard all of them, we think we've made a lot of changes. Obviously, we did not satisfy many of the residents tonight. But we've worked on this long time. And we'd like to try to continue to move forward. So, there's too many for us to come Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31466 up here and answer every question. I think a lot of them somewhat have been answered. Some are in different reports and can certainly be talked about. So, with that, I would just like to thank everyone for their comments. And you know, let you guys have your discussion. Thank you. Alright, let's see if we have any additional questions from any of the commissioners for the petitioner before we close this item. Is there any other comments or questions from any of the commissioners? If not, I think we've concluded the comment period. Thank you, everyone, and a motion would be an order. On a motion by Ventura, seconded by Bongero, and unanimously adopted, it was #06-25-2024 RESOLVED, That the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend to City Council that Petition 2023-06-02-07 submitted by Seven Mile/Farmington Venture, LP requesting Special Waiver Use approval under Section 5.02 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to develop a Planned General Development consisting of a 75,466 square -foot Meijer grocery store and a 102-unit multi -family residential townhome complex on the property at 33500 W. Seven Mile Road, located on the Southeast 1/4 of Section 4, be approved subject to the following conditions: 1. The Preliminary Site Plan, identified as drawing C-2.0, dated May 17, 2024, as revised and prepared by PEA Group, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to. 2. The Landscape Plans, identified as drawings L-1.0, L-1.1, L-1.2, L-1.3, L-1.4, and L-1.5, all dated May 17, 2024, as revised, prepared by PEA Group, are hereby approved and shall be adhered to. In addition, the Developer shall work with the Planning Department to expand and raise the planting beds between the townhomes and the grocery store as discussed to the extent possible. 3. All disturbed lawn areas, including road rights -of -way, shall be sodded instead of hydroseeding. 4. Underground sprinklers shall be provided for all landscaped and sodded areas. All planted materials shall be installed to the satisfaction of the Inspection Department and then permanently maintained in a healthy condition. 5. All parking spaces, except the required handicapped spaces, shall be double -striped and ten feet (10') wide. June 18, 2024 31467 6. The revised Exterior Building Elevation Plan identified as Meijer LVA (75K) - Grocery Format - Formliner, prepared by Fishbeck, dated April 12, 2024, and received by the Planning Commission on June 18, 2024, is hereby approved, except that the west side of the grocery store shall be modified to include the same features shown on both the south and east elevations and the Developer and Meijer shall work with the Planning Department to produce a brick building of such an architectural design as to enhance its compatibility with the townhomes and the surrounding residences in Windridge Village and south of Seven Mile Road. The submitted building elevation plans are not approved with the precast concrete construction. 7. The townhome elevation plans identified as Sheets A201, A202, and A203, all dated June 18, 2024, prepared by Spire Design Group, are hereby approved and shall be adhered to. 8. Installation of the traffic signal on Farmington Road shall be deferred until after the grocery store has been open for at least one (1) year The developer shall provide a traffic study with actual counts to be reviewed by the Wayne County Traffic Division, the Livonia Traffic Bureau, and the City of Livonia Engineering Department within 45 days following the one-year period. The Petitioner shall install the signal if warrants are met as determined by the traffic study and confirmed by Wayne County and the City of Livonia. However, if traffic conflicts or excessive delays result after six (6) months related to traffic patterns after the store has opened as determined by the Livonia Traffic Bureau based on observations, accident data, or complaints, then the developer shall install a traffic signal within a reasonable time frame upon notification by the City. 9. The maximum height of all pole -mounted light fixtures shall be twenty feet (20') and shall be located and shielded to prevent light trespassing and glaring on adjacent properties. 10. The walls of the dumpster enclosures shall be constructed of masonry that matches or compliments the masonry on the buildings. The enclosure gates shall consist of steel or durable composite panels. 11. The design of the stormwater detention system shall meet either the City of Livonia engineering standards or the Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Taormina: June 18, 2024 31468 Wayne County Storm Water Management Ordinance, whichever applies. 12. The developer, all contractors, and subcontractors shall employ best management practices to prevent, reduce, and mitigate the problems associated with soil erosion and airborne dirt and dust from migrating off -site. 13. Only conforming signs are approved with this petition, and any additional signs shall be submitted for review and approval by the Zoning Board of Appeals. 14. Under Section 13.13 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, this approval is valid for one year only from the date of approval by the City Council. Unless a building permit is obtained, this approval shall be null and void at the expiration of said period. 15. The existing privacy wall shall be extended to a minimum height of six (6) feet and repainted. 16. Under Section 5.02(5), a Development Agreement shall be submitted and executed between the City and the developer/owners that addresses items pertinent to the construction of the project and its long-term operation, such as but not limited to land divisions, project phasing, timing of the construction of the apartments in relation to the occupancy of the grocery store, parking, site design standards, permitted and prohibited uses, store hours, delivery hours, truck idling, and outside storage including trailers. FURTHER RESOLVED, That notice of the above hearing was given in accordance with the provisions of Section 13.13 of Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended. Is there any discussion? If the maker of the motion would consider an additional change, and something that we failed to put in the prepared resolution, and that's the approval being subject to the petitioner submitting a development agreement that would be executed between the city and the developer, and this would address certain issues that are pertinent to the construction, including hours of operation permitted and prohibited uses, truck delivery hours and all of those things. So that's something that would be submitted back Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Ventura: Mr. Bongero: Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31469 to the City Council for its approval prior to any construction on the site. Okay. And maker and supporter both be in agreement to that? Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Taormina. I think that's an excellent addition. Is there any other comments, additions, corrections? discussion on the motion? If not, before we take the vote, I do want to...I'm not going to be able to say anything in terms of my opinion on this as chairman, but I do want to say that...so folks in our audience understand this has been a long road and that this petition has been on, as you folks are fully aware of, and have followed along it has gone through many iterations, many changes and incremental changes that we've seen just in the last few weeks. The petition that's before us tonight that you saw, the buildings did not look the same as last week in our study meeting. Comments were made at that meeting, the petitioner made adjustments and presented new plans to us for tonight. You've now heard some additional corrections based on comments that you made at the meeting tonight in terms of traffic lights, and other and other requests. So, this goalpost keeps moving and it keeps hopefully making the proposal a little bit better each time. There's still going to be one more step to go. This is an approving recommendation that's been offered. This will then go to the City Council and the City Council will then see this item. They will have to deliberate this in front of the public. You'll have an opportunity to speak at the City Council and the City Council will ultimately make the decision on this so there's still another opportunity for changes and improvements and movements on this petition. So, what you're hearing tonight is not necessarily the final package. And your input definitely helps that process. So, I just want to thank everyone for that and just make those comments, so you understand how this process works. We are just a recommending body. If there's no further comments, there is an approving motion on the floor. And I'm going to ask for a vote on that. Mr. Secretary. Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. It will go on to the City Council with an approving resolution. ITEM #3 PETITION 2023-06-02-08 Meijer SDM License June 18, 2024 31470 Mr. Bongero, Acting Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Petition 2023-06-02-08 submitted by Meijer, Inc., requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 6.03 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to utilize an SDM liquor license (sale of packaged beer and wine products for consumption off the premises) in connection with the operation of a new Meijer store at 33500 Seven Mile Road, located on the northwest corner of Seven Mile and Farmington Roads in the Southeast'% of Section 4. On a motion by Bongero, seconded by long, and unanimously adopted, it was #06-26-2024 RESOLVED, That the City Planning Commission, on June 18, 2024, on Petition 2023-06-02-08 submitted by Meijer, Inc., requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 6.03 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to utilize an SDM liquor license (sale of packaged beer and wine products for consumption off the premises) in connection with the operation of a new Meijer store at 33500 Seven Mile Road, located on the northwest corner of Seven Mile and Farmington Roads in the Southeast Y4 of Section 4, , is hereby removed from the table. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Taormina, the planning staff has already given us a presentation on this item and read the correspondence, is there any additional information you want to provide? Mr. Taormina: I would just point out that the zoning ordinance regulates the sale of beer and wine products for consumption off the premises. This item is for a Specially Designated Merchant (SDM) license issued by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC). It is regulated under Section 6.03. There are two (2) separation requirements. The first deals with the minimum distance between other SDM-licensed establishments. That was addressed in the letter submitted by Detective Jeff Ronayne, stating that three (3) other licensed establishments are within 400 feet of the proposed Meijer grocery store. The City Council has the authority to waive that requirement. The ordinance also requires 400 feet of separation between any church or school. No churches or schools are within 400 feet of the proposed Meijer store. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Taormina. Are there any questions for the planning staff? And just to reiterate, Mr. Ronayne's letter was recommending not approving the license, or he had at least reservations. Mr. Taormina: Mr. Wilshaw: June 18, 2024 31471 He thought that it would be best to adhere to the city's current policies. Thank you, Mr. Taormina. I'll go to the petitioner. Is there anything you'd like to add on this element of the petition? The SDM license? Good evening, sir. Jason Vandercote, Fischbeck, Civil Engineer for Meijer. With me tonight is Chris Jones. Do you have the three -slide presentation...thank you it's on the screen, I see. We would just like to respond to the distance comment offered by the city, and to note that Wintergreen Tavern, Wine Castle beer store and Primo's Pizzeria are all also within the same distance of each other. And so, applying that distance to Meijer solely and not to the existing establishments would be unequal protection. So, we're asking for the same opportunities that the existing businesses have in the district. Chris, is anything like you would like to add? Mr. Jones: Obviously, this is an important category in the store. It would be for any grocery store that would come before you. Given Livonia has a really strong stance about no liquor, this is just for off premises, beer and wine. Maybe that's an obvious point, but I just wanted to make that clear. We appreciate your support on this item. Thank you. Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Jones, for your presentation. Is there any questions from any of the commissioners in regard to the SDM license? If not, this item again has been discussed at length at prior meetings. Comments from the audience would require unanimous consent from the commissioners. I don't know that there's anyone in the audience really wishing to speak directly on that, but I think that this item has been discussed fairly well already. If there's no further comments from any of the commissioners, a motion would be an order. On a motion by Long, seconded by Bongero: it was: RESOLVED, That the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Petition 2023-06-02-08 submitted by Meijer, Inc., requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 6.03 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to utilize an SDM liquor license (sale of packaged beer and wine products for consumption off the premises) in connection with the operation of a new Meijer store at 33500 Seven Mile Road, located on the northwest corner of Seven Mile and Farmington Roads in the Southeast ' of Section 4, be approved subject to the following conditions: June 18, 2024 31472 1. This approval is subject to the City Council waiving the requirement under Section 6.03(2)(A) of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, which states that there be at least 500 feet of distance between SDM-licensed establishments. 2. The subject site has the capacity to accommodate the proposed use. 3. An SDM liquor license at this location will complement the grocery store by providing an additional service to customers; and 4. This waiver is granted to this petitioner only, and any new user shall first require the consent of the City Council. The motion failed due to a lack of a majority. On a motion by Ventura, and seconded by Bongero, and adopted, it was: #06-27-2024 RESOLVED, That pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held by the City Planning Commission on June 18, 2024, on Petition 2023-06-02-08 submitted by Meijer, Inc., requesting waiver use approval pursuant to Section 6.03 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to utilize an SDM liquor license (sale of packaged beer and wine products for consumption off the premises) in connection with the operation of a new Meijer store at 33500 Seven Mile Road, located on the northwest corner of Seven Mile and Farmington Roads in the Southeast'/ of Section 4, the City Planning Commission does hereby table this item to a date undetermined. A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following: AYES: NAYS: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: Ventura, Bongero, Wilshaw Long Dinaro, Caramagno None Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. ITEM #4 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1,214th Public Hearings and Regular Meeting June 18, 2024 31473 Mr. Bongero, Acting Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Approval of the Minutes of the 1,214th Public Hearing and Regular Meeting held on June 4, 2024. On a motion by Bongero, seconded by Long, and unanimously adopted, it was #06-28-2024 RESOLVED, That the Minutes of 1,213th Public Hearings and Regular Meeting held by the Planning Commission on May 14, 2024, are hereby approved. A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following: AYES: NAYS: ABSENT: ABSTAIN: Bongero, Long, Ventura, Wilshaw None Dinaro, Caramagno None Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. On a motion duly made, seconded and unanimously adopted, the 1,215th Public Hearings and Regular Meeting held on June 18, 2024, as adjourned at 9:21 p.m. ATTEST: lan Wilshaw, Chairman CITY P i NNING COMMISSION Sam Caramagno, Secretary