HomeMy WebLinkAbout1,250 -September 22, 2026 signedMINUTES OF THE 1,250th PUBLIC HEARINGS AND REGULAR MEETING
HELD BY THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
OF THE CITY OF LIVONIA
On Tuesday, September 22, 2026, the City Planning Commission of the City of
Livonia held its 1,250th 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 7:02 p.m.
Members present: Wafa Dinaro Patrick Droze David Bongero
Sam Caramagno Peter Ventura Ian Wilshaw
Members absent: Glen Long
Mr. Jacob Uhazie, Assistant Planning Director, Stephanie Reece, Program
Supervisor, and Eric Goldstein, City Attorney, 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 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 2026-08-01-04 Farrukh Moghul
Mr. Caramagno, Secretary, announced the first item on the agenda, Petition 2026-
08-01-04, submitted by Farrukh Moghul, pursuant to Section
13.15 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, requesting
to rezone the property at 15150 Levan Road, from C-1 (Local
Business) to C-2 (General Business), to allow for the
development of an electric vehicle charging lot as the principal
use, located on the east side of Levan Road between Five Mile
Road and Jamison Street in the Northeast'/ of Section 20.
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Mr. Wilshaw: Okay, thank you, and Mr. Uhazie. Any other information other
than the fact that we've received a letter asking that this item be
tabled?
Mr. Uhazie: No, they just asked for some more time.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Okay, and so the petitioner has requested this item be tabled to
October 13th. Is there anyone in the audience here for that item?
Okay, just want you to understand, thank you for raising your
hand. Again, I just want you to understand that the petitioners
asked that this item be moved to October 13, 2026. So, we're not
going to discuss it tonight. That way, you'll have an opportunity to
hear the whole thing at that meeting if you want to come back for
that that night. But otherwise, you can watch good government in
action. So, thank you for being here. Do any of my colleagues
have any comments before a motion is made? Would someone
like to offer that motion to table?
On a motion by Dinaro, seconded by Droze, and unanimously adopted, it was
#09-62-2026
RESOLVED, That at the petitioners request, Petition 2026-08-01-
04, submitted by Farrukh Moghul, pursuant to Section 13.15 of
the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, requesting to rezone
the property at 15150 Levan Road, from C-1 (Local Business) to
C-2 (General Business), to allow for the development of an
electric vehicle charging lot as the principal use, located on the
east side of Levan Road between Five Mile Road and Jamison
Street in the Northeast % of Section 20, the Planning Commission
does hereby table this item to October 13, 2026
Mr. Wilshaw: Is there any discussion?
Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
ITEM #2 PETITION 2026-08-02-23 Brome Modern Eatery
Mr. Caramagno, Secretary, announced the first item on the agenda Petition 2026-
08-02-23, submitted by Afor Concepts requesting waiver use
approval under Sections 3.10 and 6.51 of the Livonia Zoning
Ordinance, as amended, to operate a full -service restaurant
(Brome Modern Eatery) at 19450 Haggerty Road, located on the
east side of Haggerty Road between Seven Mile Road and Eight
Mile Road in the Southwest'/4 of Section 6.
Mr. Uhazie:
September 22, 2026
32680
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a request to construct a full -service
restaurant for the Brome Modern Eatery, located on the east side
of Haggerty, between Seven Mile Road and Fox Drive. The
current zoning is C-1 for that site. The petition site measures
about 29,000 square feet in size, and it has about 200 feet of
frontage on Hagerty Road. It has a depth of about 150 feet. The
petitioner is part of a larger parcel that measures about 47 acres
in size. The site is part of the Pentagon Center Condo
Association, and it is the home of the former PNC Bank building
that measures 3,483 square feet of gross floor area. The building
does include a drive -through teller canopy with lanes attached to
the north of the existing building, and the property is governed by
the Haggerty Road Investment consent judgment. This allowed
the subject property to be developed as a bank originally, and it
prohibited any curb cuts to the Haggerty Road corridor. It was
previously zoned OS for Office Services. That zoning was
eliminated under when the zoning ordinance was updated in
2021. All OS zoned districts were converted to C-1 local
business, which is why the current zoning is C-1 surrounded by a
sea of C-2. To the north is the BJ's Restaurant Brew House,
zoned C-2. To the south is J. Alexander's restaurant, zoned C-2.
To the east is the AMC and their associated parking lot, zoned C-
2, as well. Then west across Haggerty is the Home Depot located
in Northville. The zoning ordinance does define a full -service
restaurant as an establishment where food, confections, frozen
desserts, and beverages are served and consumed at tables and
chairs, primarily within an enclosed structure with a minimum
seating capacity exceeding 30 people. The restaurant would
have 64 interior seats and additional 40 patio seats outside. A
fenced -in patio is shown on the site plan to the west of the
building, facing Haggerty. It's adjacent to the main entrance, but
no further details are provided on the proposed fencing materials.
Site access is provided from the east. There is egress only, and
then there is an entrance and exit down to the south. People
visiting the site would have to come in off of the existing curb cuts
out of Hagerty to the south or to the north, and then follow internal
drives through the existing access points. Section 6.51 of the
zoning ordinance does require full -service restaurants to have
ingress egress to a public street with at least two driveways 40
feet apart. As I noted earlier, the site is part of the amended
consent judgment, which does specify that the development is
not to have any direct access to Haggerty Road. Parking for the
site requires one space for every two internal interior seats and
one space for every three outdoor seats, and one space for each
employee. There are expected to be a total of eight employees at
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the restaurant. The required parking would be 56 parking spaces.
The site plan does show 56 spaces. Additionally, as I mentioned,
since it is part of the condo association, it does have access to all
the parking in the adjacent areas as well. The petitioner has not
submitted any landscape plans, but they have stated that the
existing landscape will remain unchanged. The floor plan shows
a dining area, a sales area containing the point -of -sale system,
shake station, a newly constructed vestibule, cooking and food
preparation areas, a walk-in cooler, walk-in freezer, dry storage
area, wash area, electrical room and an office with adjoining
restroom. The petitioner has stated that the existing drive -through
lanes and canopy are to remain, but no drive -through service
would be offered at this site. They also mentioned at the study
session that there is a phase two plan for that drive-in area, where
they would wall in the canopy and convert it to a second retail
space. They did provide a rendering that I will show later in this
presentation. Here are the proposed elevations for phase one
that we're reviewing today, the existing brick would remain.
Portions would be painted yellow, while existing limestone panels
would be painted white with yellow accents. The existing standing
seam roof trim storefront frames doors would be painted black.
The rooftop mechanical would be screened by decorative
perforated metal panels with perimeter LED striped lighting. One
thing to note, since our study meeting, the dumpster location has
been moved to the northeast corner of the site to one of the
angled parking spaces shown here. It was previously shown in
the northwest corner. It would be enclosed by a dumpster
enclosure with doors that does appear to meet the zoning
ordinance requirements. The petitioner also submitted a
photometric plan. The proposed lighting provides illumination for
parking areas, drive aisles, pedestrian walkways, and building
entrances. While limiting or while limiting light trespass among
the property boundaries, it does appear to comply with the zoning
ordinance, and then here is a rendering of the proposed phase
one. No detailed sign package was provided, so there are signs
shown on there, but any of the signs would need to fall with under
the sign regulations in the zoning ordinance, and anything
beyond that would need to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals for
approval. And then I also have...this is the phase two rendering
for reference. So, this is what they're currently proposing, and
here is the build on to the what would be the existing canopy for
reference. Here's the current proposal, and then what would be
proposed under phase two in the future. With that, Mr. Chairman,
I can read out the departmental correspondence.
Mr. Wilshaw: Yes, please.
Mr. Uhazie:
September 22, 2026
32682
The first item is from the Engineering Division, dated September
4, 2026, 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, but would like to note the following items:
1. The subject parcel is assigned the address of #19450 Haggerty
Road. 2. The existing parcel is currently serviced by public
sanitary sewer, storm sewer and water main. There is no mention
of utility revisions with the proposal, and we do not believe there
will be any adverse effects on the existing systems based on the
proposed usage. 3. Due to the proposed change of use, the
owner will need to provide a grease separator on the sanitary
sewer service as required by our Fats, Oils and Grease (FOG)
Ordinance. 4. Should revisions to the utility services to the
building, or any work within the Haggerty Road right-of-way be
required, the owner will need to submit drawings to this
department and/or the Wayne County Department of Public
Services for permitting." The letter is signed by David W. Lear,
P.E., Assistant City Engineer. The next letter is from the Livonia
Fire & Rescue Division, dated September 8, 2026, which reads
as follows: "This office has reviewed the site plan submitted in
connection with the modification and use of the property located
at the above referenced address. - Required Emergency vehicle
access to west side of structure to be 20 feet in width. - Permits
and plans are a required submission for hood and duct
suppression in the kitchen along with fire alarm details in permit
and plans. - Perhaps an oversight on my part, please provide
location of nearest fire hydrant. 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 September 10, 2026, 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 Brendan Adams, Sergeant, Traffic Bureau. The next
letter is from the Inspection Department, dated September 21,
2026, which reads as follows: "Pursuant to your request, the
above -referenced Petition has been reviewed. 1. The structure
for the drive-thru lanes from the previous use does not appear to
be used in any way for the proposed restaurant. This structure
should be removed or renovated to align with the proposed use.
2. Exterior lighting sources shall be designed, constructed,
located, and maintained in a manner that minimizes light trespass
onto neighboring properties and public ways. The light trespass
from a property shall not exceed 0.5-foot-candles at the property
line, measured five (5) feet from the ground. 3. Signage shall be
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Uhazie:
September 22, 2026
32683
conforming to the ordinance or a variance from the Zoning Board
of Appeals would be required for any excess number or 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 September 10,
2026, 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, 1
have no objections to the proposal." The letter is signed by Ermon
Sims, Chief Accountant. The next letter is from the Treasurer's
Department, dated September 4, 2026, which reads as follows:
"The owner of the property is current on property taxes." The
letter is signed by Susie Nash, Treasurer. That is the extent of the
correspondence.
Any questions for planning staff:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Uhazie, just a question on
encroachments and exempt structures for site setbacks. Are
dumpsters among those? Are they permitted within setbacks?
It would need to follow the setback requirements.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Droze. Any other questions for staff, Mr. Ventura?
Mr. Uhazie, it appears that the parking for the restaurant, as
proposed, consumes the parking on the site. Is that correct?
Of this portion, yes, but they do have cross access to the entire
AMC parking area as well.
So, if the drive -through area is converted to another restaurant or
expanded, then there's not parking on the site, but they'd have to
rely on the cross -agreement parking?
Yes, they would have access to that whole area, though. Yes.
Alright. So, on the site, there's inadequate parking for that entire
structure with this use.
There is adequate parking for this use. Yes.
Mr. Ventura: Alright. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Sam Abbas,
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Abbas:
September 22, 2026
32684
Thank you, Mr. Ventura. Any other questions for staff?
One additional, and this might have to be something answered
by the applicant, but just looking at the site plan that's been
provided, in the GIS parcel lines, it appears that they are not
matching. You can see on the GIS maps they're more
perpendicular, and these kind of seem to be askew. So that's
something that maybe the applicant can share a little more detail
on.
Yeah, I think they will have to. One thing to note, as far as our
records are concerned, the parcel setback requirements would
only have to be along the Haggerty corridor, just because the rest
is all one parcel.
Okay.
At the study session, the dumpster was encroaching on the
setback, but that was along the western edge. Since it is now on
the eastern edge, there is no property line to encroach on.
Okay. So, what is the boundary that's on the site plan? Is it just
some sort of cutout of the condominium?
That will probably have to be answered by the petitioner.
Okay, thank you,
Thank you, Mr. Droze. Any other questions for staff? If not, our
petitioner is in the audience. Feel free to come forward to our
podium. Good evening, sir. Thank you for being here. What is
your name and address for our record?
1165 Monroe Street, Dearborn, MI.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Abbas. What would you like to tell us about
your proposal for a eatery here?
I'm going to have our architect take over from here.
Mr. Wilshaw: Okay, excellent.
Azher Matty, J&A Architectural Engineering, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
Mr. Wilshaw: Welcome back.
Mr. Azher:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Ms. Dinaro:
Mr. Matty:
Ms. Dinaro:
Mr. Matty:
September 22, 2026
32685
Thank you. So, a little bit about this project. This was a former
PNC Bank that we're going to transform into Brome Modern
Eatery, which is a quick service type restaurant. We're
maintaining the existing form of the building, but we're giving it
that new modern Brome identity, and then as far as phase two,
we're planning on developing that phase, not right now. The
owners don't have a tenant or official plan set for that phase two
section. But we do plan on enclosing that space for phase two.
Another thing, I know the grease interceptor comment came up.
That is on our plans, and we do have that as part of...we've
already finished the CD set for this, and that is part of the CD set.
It is kind of...l don't know, Jacob, if you could see it, it's labeled
on the newer site plan. But anyhow...and then the GIS, a lot of
times that does get skewed. So, our property line is based off of
what a surveyor gives us, so GIS, I wouldn't for any project...I
wouldn't follow that you know 100%. Just follow whatever, you
know, the surveyor comes up with because they physically go out
there and measure it. And then any other questions or comments,
we're more than happy to address.
I'm sure well have some. Let's see what my colleagues have for
us. Any questions for our petitioner, Ms. Dinaro?
Hi, can you tell us a little bit about how you're going to fully
enclose the drive -through? Because we talked about it at study
session, and we don't like it open like that. So, is it going to be
enclosed? What's the timeline on when it would be enclosed?
So, we plan on doing that as soon as we finish the renovations
on phase one, and we plan on tackling phase two. But the way it
would be enclosed is...basically we'd follow that same line and
that same kind of overhang that you have on the phase one of
the project, and we're going to try to match the brick so it looks
like one cohesive, you know, building instead of looking like two
separate buildings.
So, what's the timeline on that? So, is it going to...will Brome
open up with that drive -through still intact?
That's the plan for now, yes, for Brome to start construction first
and then phase two of that project the drive -through gets
enclosed.
Ms. Dinaro: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Abbas:
September 22, 2026
32686
Thank you for the question. The answer is very similar to what he
said. It was to get us onto a more expeditious timeline for opening
the restaurant itself as soon as we get our construction
documents approved, construction underway. He already has
directions to begin the construction documents for that second
phase, and we're going to submit those as soon as we get started.
So, it was really just a timing issue. Yeah, they were just trying to
overcome.
Ms. Dinaro: Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Abbas. Any other questions for our petitioner?
Mr. Bongero: So, is the intent to have a completely different tenant in that
space?
Mr. Abbas:
Complementary tenant. We've also talked to the HOA to get input
from the Darden Group, AMC Theater, and others on the
property, the hotel. So, we're talking with them. Every two months
we jump on a call and just discuss the center overall. I do want to
go back also just to the parking comment. So, the parking is
entirely shared. Every spot within the entire association is shared,
so we have a sea of parking because AMC Theater is at a point
where they've seen a massive decline in a need for that excessive
parking.
Mr. Bongero: We struggle a little bit with this being open ended. Like, what's
the guarantee of this is going to get done for that drive -through to
get converted. I mean, at a minimum, I would think you should do
the removal of those canister tubes. You know what I'm saying?
Mr. Matty: The bollards.
Mr. Bongero: Yeah, and get rid of the all the electronics and disable all the
power to it. What if it doesn't get done, that's where we're at right
now.
Mr. Matty:
Mr. Bongero:
I totally understand. So, we'd be more than happy to make that a
condition on approval. You know that we're going to follow up with
phase two. I mean we don't have it fully figured out, but we're
more than happy to make it a condition that like hey we're going
to develop phase two as part of this approval.
But expanding on that, at least set it up so it's kind of like prepped
for it. Because I mean, I drive in there, it looks like a bank. You
know, I can't imagine you guys can open up this new Brome and
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Abbas
September 22, 2026
32687
these drive -through canisters are still going to be in there. I would
say at least get rid of those. So, it's four column supporting a roof
structure. Do you know what I'm saying? That would be my
thought.
And to just to go a little bit further on, you know, a sense of
urgency on the project, we bought 4,000 square feet at an
extremely high price per square foot. So, it's in our absolute best
interest to act on this in the fastest way possible, so there is
nothing that is stopping us from going. It's not funding; it's just a
administrative process that we're going through just to get the
plans through and then resubmit for that phase two. So we're
definitely...
I understand the plan. I do. I get it. I'm just concerned about once
this goes through. What if it never comes around? What if you
guys never do get a tenant there and it just stays the way it is? It
just...it's unsightly. It doesn't look like it belongs at all.
That wouldn't be aligned with the rest of our properties. So we're
well experienced in real estate development. We have several
other centers, and I'm not going to keep a center without a tenant,
and I certainly won't have any trouble on Haggerty Road finding
a tenant. So, we'll have close to 2,000 square feet, and pipelines
already full with LOIs. I have zero issues filling our tenancy. So,
our...right now, every one of our centers, we're looking at a 90
plus percent occupancy.
Mr. Bongero: Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Abbas: Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Bongero. Any other questions, Mr. Droze?
Mr. Droze: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had a couple questions about the facade.
I guess I'll start with the first one, and I'm looking at the one that
we have on the table here. At the study session, we talked about
what appeared to be almost like a screening for the...I'm
assuming it's for the HVAC system, and one of our concerns was
removing the LED lighting, which, based on what we have here,
looks like that screening is taken away. So, I guess the follow-up
question to that is: Are there going to be rooftop units that we
should be screening for that maybe aren't accounted for with this
design?
Mr. Matty:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Matty
September 22, 2026
32688
No, there's the...we're still proposing the perforated screening,
the cut sheet that I showed you guys at the study session, and
there is on that flat roof part there is rooftop equipment, makeup
air, RTUs, and whatnot.
Okay, I just I'm looking at what appears to be it's kind of like the
existing facade, but there was definitely a you know some sort of
I'll call it like a rectangular gate on top. That I'm just wondering if
that needs to be in the design. Should we be planning for that to
provide proper screening? I don't know if Mr. Uhazie, you're
showing a two dash two, and I'm going between the two buildings.
The rendering has a, you can see it there. Yeah, that's the old
rendering.
So that phase two was from us earlier, a rendering. It was just
something I sent because we didn't prepare something. You
know, we couldn't do it fast enough. But the latest rendering.
That's what phase one will look like, and then phase two will look
like what it shows on that second part where it says phase two.
Mr. Droze: Okay.
Mr. Matty:
Because if you look at this one too, it's just I mean something that
was a little older. But if you look at the signage, the signage is on
the building limestone part, and then you can see that it's moved
up. But that screening will still be there, and there is still
mechanical units on that flat part of the roof, and they will be
screened.
Mr. Droze: But probably the main question, will LED lighting be part of that?
Mr. Matty That was the idea, but I think last time we talked about removing
it, so we're more than open to removing it.
Mr. Wilshaw: Great.
Mr. Abbas: If I could elaborate on the LED lighting. So, the LED lighting is not
going to be this bright, flashy. It's going to be an indirect light at
3,000 kelvins with a warm tone, and it actually mimics many of
the businesses that are up and down Haggerty. So it's not the first
time in use in the City of Livonia, and it will be, I mean, it will be
very nice and comparable. We know we're up with the Darden
Group. We're up with J. Alexander, so it's not going to be anything
that is, you know, too flashy or you know bright lights or anything
like that.
Mr. Droze:
September 22, 2026
32689
So, I'm thinking of the...we had the Mercedes-Benz motorcycle
place that came in, but it sounds like it's going to be more like
backlit, so you won't actually see the lights.
Mr. Malty: It's like a wall wash. If you ever seen a light that like washes on a
wall type, I don't know if you've seen that before.
Mr. Droze: Okay.
Mr. Abbas: You won't see the light. The light will be behind this metal piece,
and it's going to be washing the perforated metal. So ifs really
indirect lighting, and it's very soft, 3,000 Kelvin, extremely tasteful
in design.
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Abbas:
Okay, that helps. And then my, I guess I'm gonna go one more
design question. I was just looking at your West Dearborn
location, and then you have what looks like one in Novi and
Westland, Sterling Heights. And so I've seen kind of...you have
that...I'll call it your brand with the horizontal yellow stripes, and I
think it makes a lot of sense on like an E.I.F.S. type surface. But
I guess I'm a little more concerned about on the limestone.
It' not going on the limestone. It will not be. That was an email
about seven emails ago to remove it from the rendering, but we're
just not catching up to get everything submitted.
Mr. Droze: What about the brick?
Mr. Abbas It will be on the brick.
Mr. Droze: Okay.
Mr. Abbas: We do want to stay consistent with the rest of our with our brand
identity.
Mr. Droze: Okay, I'm good. Thank you.
Mr. Abbas: Thank you so much.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Droze. Any other comments, questions, Mr.
Ventura?
Mr. Ventura: Mr. Chairman, good evening, and thank you for coming here
tonight, Mr. Uhazie, .we had a rendering on the monitor showing
the canopy being finished. That one. Thank you. Following up on
the comments of my colleagues, I too am uncomfortable in
Mr. Matty:
September 22, 2026
32690
leaving the drive -through just kind of hanging out there. So my
first question is, how would your final product differ from what's
being shown here? These, I'm assuming, these are your
drawings. How would it differ from what you're showing us here?
So, I think it would depend on, obviously, what tenant occupies
that space. You know, they'll have their own brand identity and
whatnot. But as far as material -wise, we're going to try to match
that same brick that's already in use for the rest of the bank, and
we're just taking it through around that perimeter of that bank and
enclosing it. So almost like it's like a new wall, new footing, new
wall, and everything. Sometimes it's hard to match that existing
brick because you know that came from some brickyard, you
know, seven eight years ago. I don't know.
Mr. Ventura: So, it really wouldn't differ from what I'm seeing here, other than
the brand identity of whoever becomes your tenant.
Mr. Matty: Yeah, it would be pretty good.
Mr. Ventura: Matching the brick and matching the glass, and the roofs going
to be the same, and so that's all going to be there.
Mr. Matty: Correct.
Mr. Ventura: Alright. Given that, and given that you're this far along, would it
be...would you be comfortable with our placing a requirement
and our approval tonight if it gets approved that construction
begin at least on the shell version, or the shell of this drive -
through, prior to opening the restaurant. In other words, you get
approved, you get moved forward, and I understand your position
here with regard to your investment and beginning cash flow. But
we, and I understand my colleagues, and I wasn't here last week,
but I hear them clearly that everybody, including Mr. Hanna, the
chief of my Building Department, is unhappy or uncomfortable
with leaving that thing just hanging out there. So that would, I
think, solve everybody's problem. Once you start construction,
get your permit for the drive -through, you get out there and start
working. Then, bang, you get your permit for the...you get your C
of 0 for the restaurant, and you're off and running, and that
provides some assurance that this is really going to happen, and
gives you, since you're this far along, you don't really have that
much more to do other than do construction drawings to submit
to the...
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Abbas:
September 22, 2026
32691
The most important aspect for me is it takes us...our interior
buildouts are pretty elaborate, so it takes us probably six to eight
months on a typical fresh casual. You know, it might take four
months tops, so that gives me a little bit of time, a little bit of a
jump start. So I don't mind absolutely doing that and having that
as some sort of conditional approval. But I do want to preface that
with, there was a conversation at one point with some at the
building department that after getting the survey back, the
building envelope might be a little bit larger in depth than the drive
through itself. So, if that was the case then it would be, it would
follow the lines of the building, so that's why I just...and that would
actually make it even more cohesive, and much easier to design.
It would give us a flat roof, you know, through that second part
instead of it going up, you know, up down up again, to that angled
roof.
As long as you're comfortable with that kind of a condition, then I
think that's satisfies me.
Absolutely, I mean, our intent, and I'm willing to you know put it
on the line.
Mr. Ventura: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Ventura. Any other comments or questions,
Mr. Caramagno: Mr. Chair? I've got a couple.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Caramagno:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Caramagno:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Caramagno:
Mr. Caramagno.
Let me first ask you about the parking. I think we talked about
this. These parking spots are single striped. Are they double
striped? On the plan, they're showing single striped.
Currently as they are, they are double striped. I'm assuming that's
just...
Just an error in the drawing.
Yeah, because that amount of parking spaces already exists.
Okay, thank you. So that answers that. Secondly, I've got to
certainly comment about the drive -through myself. I personally
think I'd rather see a full thought-out plan here. In our study
session we heard about a taco truck parking under the canopy or
something like that. Listen, I heard what I heard, and I'm certainly
September 22, 2026
32692
no fan of that. Secondly, I really think you had an opportunity to
really come forward with a...you got a half a beautiful building
here, a half a beautiful building, the other half not so much, and
I've been here in this Planning Commission fora number of years.
I've seen a lot of things come before us and say here's one half
of it, and we're going to do this on the other half. Never happened.
Never happened, and I'm concerned about this. So, as it sits now,
conditions or no conditions, this is a half project in my mind, it's
not a full project, and it deserves to have a full project. So that's
where I'm at. Just letting you know. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Caramagno. Mr. Abbas, would you like to say
something?
Mr. Abbas: Yeah. So, there will absolutely be no food trucks on the property.
I don't have food trucks on any of my properties, and I don't even
allow it for other tenants, so that wouldn't be the case here. I don't
know what was said or misunderstood or what the conversation
was. I wasn't at the study session myself, but I am very
comfortable in telling you that it is also one of our conditions with
the bank. So, we have a building line of credit, and part of it is for
me to increase that square footage. So, if it means a condition
and you stopping me from opening, then so be it. I'm willing
to...l'm here telling you, if I don't follow up on my end, shut it
down. Take the property if you have to, but we're not going to get
to that point and not continue further to finish it out in the most
tasteful and beautiful way possible. And you're going to be
extremely impressed with it when we're done. I'm very confident
with it. I serve on downtown development authorities, on the E
boards for chambers. This year we were selected as top 50
companies to watch in the State of Michigan. Close relationships
with many at the MEDC. Graduated from the Goldman Sachs
program. I'm a CPA and an MBA, and everything that you
explained, I understand the anxiety it might give, or you know
questions around it that might arise in your head, but that does
not align with anything that I stand for. So, I hope that gives you
comfort that you know we're gonna do our part.
Mr. Caramagno: Thank you. I've heard what you said. I've seen similar. I'm just
telling you what I've seen and it didn't come through. So, my
concerns are still there. Thank you, though.
Mr. Abbas: I appreciate it. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you. Any other questions or comments from my
colleagues? Just to beat this horse one more time, in regards to
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Ms. Dinaro:
September 22, 2026
32693
this drive -through, the question I haven't heard yet, and I'm going
to try asking of you, is the how important is that phase two or that
drive -through to your to your business? What if we say just
remove it and operate using the existing building that you have,
with the Brome Eatery that you're proposing. How does that look
in your business plan?
I would say I would package that bad boy up and sell it tomorrow.
Okay, so this...
I would say nobody would buy it at the price that we bought it for,
without having to add that additional square footage to have it
make sense at this point.
So, that phase is essential. It's essential to you.
It is essential to the success of the project. Not only that, I also
met with the president of the association and people from the
Building Department ahead of time, as I was in the process of
purchasing the building, and part of the conversation was that the
city wouldn't want to see a drive -through food service operation,
and that's actually part of my business model. So, I've already
made my concessions to try and appease to the building
department and you know the Planning Commission and Zoning
Board if I have to go up against them too, but I thought I was
easing my way into the project rather than making it even more
difficult, which seems like that's kind of...that's where we're at
right now.
No, I just want to understand how important that is to you, so that
we can think about that as we decide how we're going to proceed
with this.
I appreciate it.
Alright. Any other questions from any of my colleagues?
I have a follow-up too. How open would you be...l think the
problem all the commissioners are having is having that drive -
through. It's unsightly. It's going to be problematic in the time that
you're going to open up Brome and the phase two. Are you open
to other options, whether ifs removing all of the center columns
so it no longer looks like a drive -through in the meantime.
Mr. Abbas
Ms. Dinaro:
Mr. Abbas:
Ms. Dinaro:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Malty
Mr. Droze:
September 22, 2026
32694
I'll make it even easier. I will demo the whole thing, contingent
that I have something that says that I will be allowed per survey,
per building department approval, to add the additional square
footage. If that's what it takes to get my approvals today, I will do
that, but I have to have some assurance that I'm going to be able
to move forward too, because I know once you take down a
structure, at that point sometimes it's you can't put another
structure up, and I don't want to come to that.
A follow-up to that: Are the center columns, are they structural?
They are structural so they can't be taken down.
All the mechanicals have been taken out already. The tubes are
gone. I think the tubes at the columns where the car would drive
through those are there, but everything inside us gone already.
Everything that connects you from the window all the way
through.
Got it. Okay. Thank you.
All right, I think Mr. Droze was next, and then Mr. Ventura.
Last quick one. We did also talk at the study about going back to
drive -through. The part, the pavement in front of it, and you know,
if we can't remove the columns, could we basically convert all that
pavement in front to green space for you know future dining or
whatever that might be to kind of, I mean it's pretty evident that
the group doesn't want to have a lingering drive -through because
this is going to be a citywide issue as banks continue to close we
don't want these relics around. We want to look forward to what
the next use is of these buildings are going to be. So, is that
something that you would consider? Basically, adding curb and
gutter around to redefine that space so it's so you can't drive a
car right up to it. You know it looks like something's going to come
there at some point.
So, he's talking about in the front of it where kind of we have
seating. So if you look at the updated site plan. We actually do
have a curb and gutter, and there's like a five foot walkway, with
a ADA accessible ramp to get into that new part of the building.
But is that the next phase? And I think, you know, picking up on
Commissioner Caramagno's comments, you know, we are
usually a pretty...a commission that works with the applicants,
but this is stuff that literally showed up on our table as we walked
in tonight, and to some extent, I feel like we're being a little bit
Mr. Malty:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Ventura:
Ms. Dinaro:
September 22, 2026
32695
pressured to make a decision on this, and you know, there's a lot
of...the renderings are changing. We're talking about changing
the paint on the buildings and adding this or adding that and
pulling things together. It's not feeling like an overly cohesive plan
set, and you know, I think we're reacting as it's coming to us. But
these are things that we talked about at study pretty clearly, I
thought so.
So, everything we talked about the study has been addressed as
far as the screening, as far as moving the dumpster, and then as
far as showing you guys our phase two study on what we planned
on doing. I do understand it was kind of quick, but you know, like
a week long for us to design something is kind of quick too. So
we sent you what we had existing, and that's kind of what we
talked about at the study. Is that I would send the existing
elevations that we had planned to develop that you know phase
two, and again, we're more than open to make that a condition.
Approval that you know we do that phase two part of enclosing
that drive -through.
All right, I'm good.
All set, Mr. Droze? All right, Mr. Ventura, I believe you're next.
So, I don't think this is quite dead. I'm going to be on it some more
to try and address Ms. Dinaro and Mr. Caramagno's concerns.
The question I asked the petitioner was, would he consent, would
he be agreeable to a provision in our consent in our approval
resolution tonight, should we approve it, that requires him to begin
construction on the...can you put that drawing back up there
again, please, Mr. Uhazie? That would be what A 2.2 looks like
prior to the issuance of an occupancy permit for the restaurant,
so that he's in a hurry to get his restaurant open, we'd like to have
some assurance that this drive -through is going to get handled
and not be hanging there for another year or 10 years, and I think
that accomplishes it. At least I hope that accomplishes it. And if
you are both comfortable with that, I believe the petitioner
answered that he would agree to that. Am I right?
Absolutely.
Okay. Are you both comfortable with that?
I'm good with that.
September 22, 2026
32696
Mr. Caramagno: I can listen to that, Pete. I don't see any detail on this covering of
the drive -through. It doesn't show any detail at all. Shows three
windows and a door. Doesn't show what kind of coverings.
Ms. Dinaro: They'll have to come back to us. to come back with a detailed
plan.
Mr. Abbas So this wasn't a fully executed set of plans, but more importantly,
it's clearly outlined that it's a cohesive structure as it's shown
here. It's we're going to continue with the same brick, the same
facade, following the existing overhang -that's the existing canopy
line. The only thing that I was saying was, if it makes it easier,
tear the whole thing down. If that would make you happy, in the
process of my construction, come back to you with a full set of
drawings.
Mr. Caramagno: When you say tear the whole thing down, tear the drive -through
down?
Mr. Abbas Tear the drive -through canopy down. Yes.
Mr. Caramagno: I like that.
Mr. Abbas: You like it?
Mr. Caramagno: I like that.
Mr. Abbas: No problem.
Mr. Caramagno: I like that. My question for you is, I don't know why you didn't come
to us with a full plan in the first place. And again, the fellow next
to you was at the study session, and we talked about a lot of
things in detail, and we come back with a lot of more questions
and answers on this plan. If you ask me, we talked about the
lighting on the overhead, and we still got lighting on overhead.
We talked about moving the dumpster. Dumpster got moved, but
not to the area we wanted it. We wanted it in the back of the
building where the others are. We talked about closing this drive -
through or something else. It's not what we see here. It's just not
what we've seen here. And you're investing a lot of money. I get
that, and you want to be successful, and I want you to be
successful.
Mr. Matty: Thank you.
Mr. Caramagno But I don't want to approve a half a plan.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Abbas:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Abbas
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32697
Is there any other questions or comments from my colleagues?
Mr. Chair?
Mr. Bongero.
I feel comfortable with Mr. Ventura's proposal, being that the
petitioner is in agreement with it. I think it kind of answers our
concern. If you tear down that structure, would your intent be to
make it a bigger addition then? Once you get a clear, follow the
full building
Yeah, so...
You'd make it even bigger.
I'd make it more cohesive with the building itself. So, following the
building lines, the same depth of the building. So, it's more of a
rectangular pattern, and it gives us it's easier sight lines for
anybody passing by, so it looks better.
So if you tore it down, now when you disconnect it from the
existing building, it's going to be pretty tore up.
It's not the way that it sits. We've already looked at all of this. So,
you have one brick building, and then the overhang kind of comes
and sits. That parapet is still intact. It sits over the parapet. It's a
cinderblock parapet.
Yeah, I'm looking at it. I'm fine with Peter's proposal on my end.
That would be my case.
We'll see what happens.
Okay.
We've had a lot of discussion on this. I do want to give anyone in
the audience an opportunity to speak on this as well. There is a
number of people in the audience. I'm sure they're all here for the
Brome Modern Eatery. Is there anyone who wishes to speak on
this item? No one. Gosh. All right. Well, that was easy. Then I
guess I'll go back to my colleagues. Is there any other discussion
on this item? It's been very discussed. Anything else that you'd
like to say before we make a decision?
Mr. Matty
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32698
No, just that we're more than open to...We'd like that condition. I
think it works out for everybody, and we hope that we can move
forward with this project.
All right. As I hear it, this sounds like there's a couple different
options that have been thrown around. One is to basically finish
the walls as is. Another one is to tear it down and have them start
over. It's going to be up to my colleagues, whoever makes the
motion, to decide how they want to proceed. A motion is in order.
On a motion by Dinaro, seconded by Ventura, and adopted, it was
#09-63-2026
RESOLVED, That pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held
by the City Planning Commission on September 22, 2026, on
Petition 2026-08-02-23, submitted by Afor Concepts requesting
waiver use approval under Sections 3.10 and 6.51 of the Livonia
Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to operate a full -service
restaurant (Brome Modern Eatery) at 19450 Haggerty Road,
located on the east side of Haggerty Road between Seven Mile
Road and Eight Mile Road in the Southwest % of Section 6, the
Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City
Council that Petition 2026-08-02-23, be approved with following
conditions:
1. That the Site Plan marked Sheet C1.0, received September
22, 2026, as revised, prepared by J&A Architectural
Engineering, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to.
2. That the Elevation Plan marked Sheet A2.2, dated March
26, 2026, as revised, prepared by J&A Architectural
Engineering, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to.
3. That the site's landscaping shall be restored to the
satisfaction of the Planning Director and thereafter
permanently maintained in a healthy condition.
4. That any facilities for the outdoor storage of refuse shall be
screened by means of an enclosure constructed of masonry
walls with metal enclosure gates which shall be properly
maintained and, when not in use, closed at all times.
5. The trash enclosure shall be relocated, to minimize its
visibility from Haggerty Road. Placement shall be adjacent
to the east side of the building to the satisfaction of the
Planning Director.
September 22, 2026
32699
6. That all light fixtures shall not exceed twenty feet (20') in
height and shall be aimed and shielded so as to minimize
stray light trespassing across property lines and glaring into
adjacent roadways.
7. That no LED lightband or exposed neon shall be permitted
on this site including, but not limited to, the building or
around the windows.
8. That a trash receptacle shall be provided for the outdoor
patio area and shall be emptied regularly as needed.
9. That a greenspace buffer should be planted around the
outdoor patio.
10. The petitioner shall return to the Planning Commission for
review and approval of the canopy infill building with the
following items:
• Detailed building elevations and architectural renderings
depicting all sides of the canopy structure , including
material specifications and color schemes.
• Sign location details, including size, placement, and method
of illumination.
• A utility plan identifying water, sanitary sewer, storm sewer,
and other public or private utility connections.
• A circulation plan demonstrating adequate on -site
maneuverability for service vehicles, including garbage
trucks, delivery vehicles, and emergency apparatus.
11. That construction of said canopy infill building shall be
started before any Certificate of Occupancy will be issued.
12. That the specific plans referenced in this approving
resolution shall be submitted to the Inspection Department
at the time the building permits are applied for; and
13. Per Section 13.13 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, this
approval is valid for one (1) year from the date of approval
by the City Council. Unless a building permit is obtained,
this approval shall be null and void after the one (1) year
period.
September 22, 2026
32700
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.
Mr. Wilshaw: Is there any discussion?
A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Dinaro, Droze, Bongero, Ventura, Wilshaw
NAYS: Caramagno
ABSENT: Long
ABSTAIN: None
Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving resolution.
ITEM #3 PETITION 2026-06-06-01 Data Center Ordinance.
Mr. Caramagno, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda Petition 2026-
06-06-01 submitted by the City Planning Commission, pursuant
to the referral by the City Council, to determine whether to amend
Sections 2.02, 3.03, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, and
6.61 of the Livonia Zoning Ordinance, as amended, to define and
regulate Data Centers, including establishing the zoning districts
in which they can locate and any special requirements.
Mr. Uhazie:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So currently, data centers are treated as
permitted use in all commercial and manufacturing zones. We are
proposing 10 changes to the zoning ordinance that would help
address those concerns. This was referred to the administration
by City Council. These changes would include changes to
Section 2.02, which defines data centers and accessory uses.
The definition is shown on the screen. It basically delineates a
clear difference between what a data processing center is and a
data center. The data processing center is the way the ordinance
currently treats both data centers and where the data centers
would fall under the current ordinance. But it clarifies what a data
center is versus what a data processing center is. The section
three amendments are to establish the districts that the data
centers can be located and/or prohibited in. The new section 6.61
of the zoning ordinance is intended to establish specific
development standards and special requirements applicable to
these facilities. These specific requirements include location,
which would be for any data centers over 100,000 square feet or
more that have a maximum electrical demand of 15 megawatts
or more would need to be 1,000 feet from any residential
September 22, 2026
32701
properties. Anything that is 100,000 square feet or less with a
demand of less than 15 megawatts would be required to be at
least 300 feet from any residential area. The cooling systems
would include... in addition to the amending the Code of
Ordinance under Chapter 13.04, the cooling system would be
required under our zoning amendment to be a closed -loop
cooling system. The applicant would need to demonstrate to the
satisfaction of the city that the proposed cooling systems
minimize potable water consumption, and it would not create an
undue burden on existing planned public water infrastructure.
The power requirements would need to provide written
documentation from the applicable service provider, showing that
there is adequate power available. It would also require that the
data center have a reasonable use of renewable energy when
possible, and that generators would only be used for emergency
power and for testing or manufacturer required testing, not on a
continuous basis. There would also be provisions for sound that
the data center would have to conduct a sound survey to be
performed by a third -party acoustic engineer to document the
baseline sound levels and then monitor at the property or 1,500
feet from the property line of any residential areas to abate any
noise concerns that would come up, and they would also need to
build in incorporated sound mitigation systems. Any equipment
used for cooling or ventilating or powering the facility would need
to be shielded and encompassed on three sides by an opaque
barrier extending at least 12 inches above the mechanical
equipment and screened from view, and then finally, it would
require a decommissioning plan as well as written notice to the
city. The plan would include 12 months after the notification, they
would remove all generators, fuel storage, batteries, cooling
equipment, and related accessory structures, and leaving the
building in a condition suitable for occupancy by another
permitted use for commuted use or for demolition. The applicant
would need to provide a written removal plan and financial
guarantee in the form of the amount applicable to the city attorney
to make those guarantees happen. As I mentioned, additionally
not approved here, but the city council would be reviewing
Section 13.04 of the Code of Ordinance that would amend the
regulations governing water use for the data center. Additionally,
we have from our study session gone through and done some
land analysis, showing that the data centers, the larger data
centers that would require 1,000-foot buffer from the M-2 district,
there would be about 600 acres of developable land with that
1,000-foot buffer. There would still be large contiguous
properties. The five largest properties would be 112 acres, 44
acres, 34 acres, 33 acres, and 31 acres in size. The smaller data
September 22, 2026
32702
centers requiring the 300-foot buffer in M-2, there would be
approximately about 1,000 acres of developable land for data
centers at that size. The five largest parcels there would be 187
acres, 60 acres, 58, 55, and 48 acres. Some of the research in
this has shown that about 25 to 40 acres are required for a
500,000 square foot facility for reference.
Mr. Wilshaw: Jacob, while you're on this map, can you just explain what the
coloring is that we know what we're looking at?
Mr. Uhazie: Yes. So, the yellow areas are residential areas. The quasi -
transparent tinted areas is the 1,000-foot buffer. This shows
where in the city... basically the darker blue is the M-2 districts,
and the black is the existing building footprints. To give an idea
of where data centers...the intention of this one is to show the
amount of land that's still available. We're not excluding data
centers totally from the city. There would be 600 acres available
for something that meets the conditions, but this gives us an idea
of where and how close they are to the residential area and what
that buffer zone would look like. Okay, thank you,
Ms. Dinaro: Jacob, these are currently available, or would be available if
like...
Mr. Uhazie: This is land that would be buildable for a data center in theory.
Ms. Dinaro: Okay, so and just so we're clear, all of those parcels right now are
occupied.
Mr. Uhazie: Correct.
Ms. Dinaro: One of those parcels is Ford. One of those parcels...these are all
in the industrial zones, and they are all currently occupied?
Mr. Uhazie: Correct. There are no data centers being pursued under the
ordinance as of now that I'm aware of, but this is just to show
where they could go under this ordinance and where they would
be prohibited.
Mr. Wilshaw: Okay, I don't want to completely distract you from where you're
going. If you want to continue.
Mr. Uhazie: That was basically the presentation anyway.
Mr. Wilshaw: Oh, well, that's ideal. Is there any communication from any
department heads on this? Okay. Alright. So that's a lot of
September 22, 2026
32703
information. Thank you for that. I do want to stress, though, that
Jacob did not go through every single element of the proposed
ordinance, the draft ordinance that we have. He's hitting
highlights. It is a lot of pages and a lot of items scattered
throughout our zoning ordinance. I certainly suggest that anyone
interested in this take the time to read through those so that they
can understand all the elements of it. But we're hitting the high
points in this presentation that Jacob just gave us, and I do want
to explain because the city is the petitioner on this item. The way
that we're going to handle this particular ordinance request is a
little different from the item that you just saw before. Typically,
what you would see is we'd ask the petitioner to come forward
and speak to it, and then we'd ask questions, and then we give
an opportunity for residents to speak on that item before we make
our decision. In this case, the format is going to be a little bit
different because we are the petitioner. So first, I'm going to ask
my colleagues if there's any questions that they have of Jacob
and the presentation that was just given. I want to focus mostly
on clarifying questions at this point on anything that was talked
about. Then, after that's done, I'm going to give an opportunity,
we're going to go pretty quickly to audience communication. This
is a public hearing. We want to hear what you have to say about
this particular issue. Once everyone's had a chance to speak, I'll
close the public hearing, and then I'm going to let my colleagues
deliberate on the draft ordinance that we've been able to read so
far, that we've had presented tonight, and the comments that
we've heard from you, incorporate that into their deliberation, and
then hopefully a decision will be made by the end of this evening.
It's entirely possible that this item could get tabled for further
study, but those are the options. It can be approved. It can be
approved with modifications, or it could be tabled. I do want to
give a little bit of background on this item because I do know that
this has a lot of public interest in both the city and beyond. If you
are interested in this topic, I do suggest that you continue to follow
this item through to the end because we are just one step in the
process. There have been several weeks spent by city
administration to prepare this draft ordinance that we hear
Tonight, we are going to discuss it. What we do as a Planning
Commission is we make a recommendation to City Council. The
City Council will then go through a similar process of having
meetings. There will be opportunities for people to speak at those
City Council meetings, and the City Council will ultimately make
the decision on enacting this ordinance if they wish. I do want to
reiterate a couple things that Mr. Uhazie said. One is that Livonia
has not received any requests to build a dedicated data center at
this time. However, I also want to be clear that our ordinances at
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32704
present don't currently distinguish the difference between a little
network closet that's in a office building, a server room, or a
hyperscale data center. So, if something were to happen to come
to us right now, we don't have any controls in place for that. That's
why we're here tonight. The City Council has asked that the
administration and our body and themselves to try to craft rules
around these dedicated data centers. What we're going to do is
try to define what, where, why, and how these things can operate
in the city if they do happen to come to us. Livonia is definitely
going to be better off prepared with a solid ordinance before this
request comes to us, rather than after, if one ever even comes to
us. But, that being said, it's not far-fetched to believe that at some
point a company or petitioner may come to us and want to build
out a small to mid -sized data center of say 50,000 square feet,
100,000 square feet, 200,000 square feet. We have buildings in
this city that can accommodate that kind of use. We're not talking
the 2.2 million or 2.5 million, you know, Saline data centers here
in Livonia. I don't think we will ever see anything of that scale, but
that's not to say that smaller scale data centers may not wish to
come into the city. They do exist in other cities. They have existed
in this city in various formats in the past. So, we're not trying to
prevent that use with this proposed language. What we're trying
to do is control that use by having sufficient controls in place when
they currently aren't in place. The administration has spent a lot
of time on drafting this. Our law department, our planning staff,
our DPW have all been involved in crafting the ordinance that is
drafted before us tonight, and I do appreciate all the time that they
have put forth in this. But it's still draft. We still have a long night
ahead of us. We still want to hear from all of you, and then we
need to make our decision as well. So, as I've said, this is just the
first step in the process that we're seeing. So, again, first step for
us is to see if there's any clarifying questions. Anybody has any
questions for Mr. Uhazie at this point, Mr. Ventura?
Thank you, Mr. Wilshaw. I just want to clarify something you just
said. So the information we've been given in our packet tonight is
not the language of the proposed ordinance, but the language
that does exist.
Our packet contains the draft ordinance that was prepared by the
administration. It's been updated over the last few weeks as
feedback has come back from various department heads. We are
prepared to approve that tonight as it is, or we can modify it if we
hear of other things.
Mr. Ventura:
September 22, 2026
32705
That's not my question. Is this packet that we received the sum
total of the copy of the language of the ordinance we're being
asked?
Mr. Wilshaw: Yes.
Mr. Ventura: So, what reference did you make when you said there are a lot of
other notes that are not here?
Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Uhazie's presentation did not detail every single element of
the proposed ordinance. Yes, he was just giving highlights in his
presentation.
Mr. Ventura: All right. So, everything that's proposed to be...
Mr. Wilshaw: You have everything in front of you.
Mr. Ventura: Okay.
Mr. Wilshaw: Yes, and that is our packet, which is also available publicly, so
the public could read this as well.
Mr. Ventura: I apologize. To be to be clear, the acreages that Mr. Uhazie talked
about don't exist in terms of land that's available to be developed
today.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Uhazie
Mr. Ventura:
I'll let Mr. Uhazie address that.
Say that again.
Vacant land, the areas of the acreage that you pointed at within
the zoning M-1 and M-2 zoning categories, do not exist as vacant
land today. That some developer could come in and say, I want
to build a data center here.
Mr. Uhazie: Yeah. All I was referring to is that the land is currently M-2 zoned,
and it is.
Mr. Ventura: But your answer is no.
Mr. Uhazie: No
Mr. Ventura: It does not exist as vacant land.
Mr. Uhazie: It is not vacant.
September 22, 2026
32706
Mr. Ventura: Someone could come in and say, "I want to build a data center
here.
Mr. Uhazie: Correct.
Mr. Ventura: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Ventura. Any other questions to clarify? Ms.
Dinaro?
Ms. Dinaro: I have a couple. So, Jacob, can you explain just so everybody in
here understands where we're at right now? If a data center
comes in, there is really no way for the city to turn them down with
our current rules. We can't tell them you can't be in this area. You
can't be in this area. We have no legal authority right now to be
able to turn down or to be able to regulate where they go.
Mr. Uhazie:
Ms. Dinaro:
Mr. Uhazie:
Correct, as Mr. Chairman mentioned, they are a permitted use.
We don't delineate between a hyperscale versus a server closet,
as you mentioned. So, they would be able to go into any of the,
as I mentioned, the commercial or industrial areas currently
zoned. This would offer us a chance to actually regulate that and
set up some barriers and guide, excuse me....this will allow us to
set up some barriers and regulations to guide, or excuse me, to
not prevent their development, but to have say on how where and
how they are developed,
Then my second question is: We are proposing that they can only
be in M-2. Can you tell us what M-2 means and what is
currently...what kind of industries do we currently have in M-2?
M-2 is our heavy industrial. That is where the most intense land
uses are going to be. That is allowed for higher intensity
manufacturing, storage yards, things that we want to keep more
separate from the general public, and for health and safety
reasons.
Ms. Dinaro: Great, thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw:
All right, thank you. And on that particular subject, most of the M-
2 zoning, -not all of it, but a lot of the M-2 zoning that exists in this
city, several of those parcels were auto plants previously,
correct?
Mr. Uhazie: Correct.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32707
There were five auto plants in the city at one point. So, some of
those are examples of sites that would be M-2, correct? Okay.
Any other questions from Mr. Uhazie?
I'd like your guidance as to how you'd like to proceed. I have a
great number of questions. So, do you want us to go through all
of the questions that occurred to us as we read this package, or
would you like us to defer that until after the public has had an
opportunity?
I would like to let the public speak to us and then what's going to
happen is once they get a chance to tell us their thoughts, then
we can deliberate as long as we need to deliberate.
Mr. Ventura: Great, thanks. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Alright, thank you. Any other clarifying questions for Mr. Uhazie?
If not, you're all set, Mr. Uhazie. Thank you. Now, what we're
going to do is move on to audience communication. This is the
time when you have an opportunity to speak to us about your
thoughts on this proposed ordinance. I do want to set some
ground rules because there's obviously a lot of folks that haven't
been to one of our meetings before. Anyone interested in
speaking on this item can come down to either podium on either
side of us, line up so we can keep the meeting moving along. I
see you already started. Thank you, sir. To be fair to everyone,
each person will get two minutes to speak. This is the same time
that you're going to get at the City Council meeting. I know that
doesn't sound like a lot of time, so I'm going to try to give you a
few tips just to try to make things a little bit more effective for you.
If you have a particular point that you're trying to get across, I
suggest you start with that. That way, you can get that point
across, and we can hear it, because a lot of times what happens
is people get bogged down talking about their background and
explaining why they're up here and so on, and then the two
minutes runs out and they've never got to their point. And I don't
want that to happen. Please speak to us because that's why we're
here. We want to hear from you. If you have any questions that
are simple that we can maybe answer on the fly, we might be able
to. But more often than not, what's going to happen is any
questions that you ask us are probably going to get written down,
and well wait till we hear from everyone. And then, if we need to
ask those questions of our staff that are here or what have you,
we'll do that kind of afterward. That way, we can keep the meeting
moving along. Anyway, with that being said, we want to hear from
you, so feel free to come forward. We're going to start with this
September 22, 2026
32708
gentleman that's on my left, and we're going to ask for his name
and address, please.
David Underwood, Richland Street, Livonia, MI. You said two minutes. I'll get right
to the points here.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Underwood: Mostly, I have concerns about things that have already been done
in other data centers and the statistics that they've generated.
The main three, is the water use, electricity use, and the noise
factor. The water regulated here by the Great Lakes Water
Authority says that Livonia currently uses 14.3 million gallons a
day. So far, looking at other average data centers, they require
about a million gallons per 100,000 square feet is what the East
Coast came up with. Now, currently, the Great Lakes Water, the
Authority, is running improvement lines, improvements on some
of the major water lines. They're in Oakland County right now,
where they've had four breaks, four catastrophic breaks in the last
seven years on the 48-inch water arteries. Now, there's no
planned improvements in Livonia currently for the Authority. So,
a million extra gallons coming through our lines currently, what
kind of strain is that going to put on our current system, with no
improvements in sight. Moving on to electric, any company that
would come into the state, I guess I would ask you to ask them
why they're here and not in a different state. Michigan currently
ranks 14th highest in the nation for electric rates. We are five
cents per kilowatt hour higher than the national average. I'm not
sure what the draw would be to this area, but I suppose you still
have to have the zoning prepared. Looking at other areas, you
had mentioned the hyperscale, and...
Mr. Wilshaw: Your time is up.
Mr. Underwood: Okay, let me make one point just for his hyperscale reference.
The hyperscale data center in Dojiac is currently...they've got
lawsuits between the city and the company, and they have
even... the City Council is allied with the public and is still tied up
in court. And they've been out there for five years. So, my concern
is, once they get in here, you can try to get them out when they're
not complying with regulations, but it becomes an issue. Last
week on the 17th, National Congress voted 417 to three to require
data centers to sustain their own power, so there would not be an
increase to the public. I would hope you would support that as
well.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mark Ayres,
September 22, 2026
32709
Alright. Thank you. Okay. Good evening, sir. You're next.
Livonia, MI. I would like to raise concerns regarding the economic
factor of data centers. While the gentleman before raised the
ecological factors that data centers propose, the economic
factors are, in my eyes, more severe. So, if you're going to look
at how many jobs and how much money the Al industry is
currently worth, they are falling off incredibly rapidly. The current
Al industry is fighting for investors, which is why they're drumming
up the fact that it's all going to kill everybody. The short-term
economic benefits that you may encounter are not long-term, as
opposed to the ecological damage that these things will cause, I
think it's great you guys are currently proposing regulations and
getting ahead of the bell curve on this, however, I think whatever
regulations that do end up getting passed need to be way stricter,
just for the water quality, the water quality problems. The sorry, I
lost my train of thought. The water quality, how it affects daily
people, how it affects daily life, how it affects the surrounding flora
and fauna -all of these are concerns that will be that will forever
outlive any again any short-term benefits that the data centers
provide. That's all I had.
Mr. Wilshaw: Alright. Well, thank you for your comments.
Jim Corran, Edgewood, Livonia, MI. I am the pastor at St. Paul's United Church of
Christ in Saline. I am about 10 minutes away from the Al project
in Saline, but I want to be very careful with what we talk about
here because this is not the place to argue do we want a data
center or not? This is the place that says we're going to look at
what the regulations would be if a data center came to us. They
came into Saline Township, which has a whopping budget of
$160,000 with a $6 billion proposal. So, they can get fire trucks,
they can get police cars, they can do a lot of stuff for $6 billion.
But the point is, that's not the decision. That's our fight at another
time. Now it's just what are we doing... what would it take for
somebody to even bring a proposal to, and I want to be very
careful on that because we could be here till 1o'clock in the
morning, arguing the points against or for a data center. Thank
you very much.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for your points. Thank you. Hi. Good evening, sir.
Trevor Wilson, Hillcrest, Livonia, MI. Okay, it's great that you guys are trying to get,
you know, guidelines on, you know, what data centers can and
cannot be, right? I think we can all agree that some data centers
are okay based on the size. The questions I have, right, and the
Mr. Wilshaw:
Kate Higgins,
September 22, 2026
32710
confusion that people seem to have is the size, right? We're all
against the hyperscale, right, big data centers that we see taking
up all the resources and water and power, right. I think going
forward, right, there needs to be some clarity on what size would
be okay, right, you know, because like you know, like you said,
like a network closet versus the big ones, right. Make that clear,
right, because obviously summer, okay, right? Because
everyone, every company's got a server, which is technically a
data center, right? So, we need some of those, and what size is
okay? And then, like I said, those hyperscale ones. I think
everyone in this room was against those hyperscale, I would
venture to guess. You know, and like you said, like you
mentioned, the. economic impact, right? There's all this space
with very few employees, right? So, it's not a huge economic
impact for in terms of job creation, right? There's the initial
construction boom, but after that, it's like 10 employees to run this
massive hyperscale thing, and they just scale skeleton crew. So
then, I would say you know in future presentations, just kind of,
like you hear like 15 megawatts, right? I don't know what that is.
I don't know what size that is, right? Make that clear so people
can understand the size and your concerns better. And then my
other concern is, is 1,000 feet clearance enough, right? Like for
the reach...for the sound abatement, and then clarify what sound
abatement is, right? You know, because like we've all heard the
horror stories of this loud, constant, pitched, high-pitched whine
that people hear, right? So, you know, just make it easier for the
crowd to understand what your guidelines are, because these
numbers don't mean a lot to us.
So that's very fair. I appreciate those comments. Thank you for
coming. Hello. Good evening.
Melvin Street, Livonia, MI. I think we should propose regulations to
make sure...limit the use of water that data centers use. A lot of
data centers do use water as their main source of cooling the
computer systems. There are other ways to cool the computers.
Just water is the cheapest way, and I think putting regulations in
limiting the water usage so they're pushed to use more alternative
cooling systems that aren't so harsh on our water systems would
be beneficial. I also think that, you know, it's not crazy to think
that an Al company could buy up multiple lots of land in the M-2
section and make a hyperscale data center. I think we do need to
define what like a server room from a big data center is. Just the
room, like not having the whole building be the server room, but
a little room off of the whole building would be a server room
compared to a whole data center. But yeah, that's just really my
Mr. Wilshaw:
Ms. Higgins:
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32711
concerns: is regulating it so it can not be so harmful on the
residents of Livonia, especially with the sound, I don't think 1,000
feet is enough. It will also bring down the property value of all the
residents who live around that area, and I think that'd be very
harmful to everybody in Livonia. So yeah, I guess that's all I have
to say.
Thanks for your comments. Appreciate you coming.
Thank you.
I know it's not easy for sometimes if you've never spoke publicly,
so it's great to see people doing this and feeling comfortable
doing it. Good evening, ma'am.
Laura Hufschmidt, Greenland Street, Livonia, MI. I come from a very highly
regulated industry, so everything I hear that you guys are talking
about is determining what we can do to allow a data center in,
and what I want to understand is what are we doing to not allow
a data center in here?.
Mr. Wilshaw: You're cutting into our time, though.
Ms. Hufschmidt: We don't know what we don't know about the long-term effects of
a data center in our community, and because of that, there is no
reason for us to be a first mover when it comes to data centers.
There's no rush, and so I want to know what this council is doing
to prevent one from coming. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Alright. Thank you for your comments.
Michael Wheeler, Park Street, Livonia, MI. First, I just want to congratulate our
audience. They have a wealth of knowledge. I'm very impressed
by that. I am in the technology business for a long time. I do know
a thing or two about the data centers. Just so you know, the full-
size hyperscale data centers require more power than two
Atlanta, Georgia's. A half -scale data center is one Atlanta,
Georgia. What's that going to do for us that continuously lose
power today? In Finland they actually bury the data centers three
stories down. They use the heat to melt the snow on the streets
and sidewalks. Why we don't do that here in America, I don't
know. It's beyond me. I'm not going to judge that. But the
humming that comes from a data center. There is residents that
live near data centers currently across the country. One lady said
she lives a mile and a half from a data center, and the constant
humming is making her want to move. It doesn't stop. It's 24/7,
September 22, 2026
32712
365. It's a loud hum. So, these are just some things we need to
consider when we look at the data centers in our area. All right,
thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for your comments. Mr. Karasinski.
Jerry Karasinski, 1948 Bainbridge Avenue, Livonia, MI. I did a little bit of research
based on CEDS, they're showing for the kind of size data centers
that would even be possible in Livonia, given the way we have
built out parcels, 500 feet might be adequate instead of 1,000
feet. One of the issues with noise is actually if they use air cooling
on the roof instead of water cooling, so we probably need to
address the issue of air cooling. Another issue is the backup
generators. So, most data centers, most large businesses rely on
diesel generators for backup. Those are typically tested every
month, if not more frequently. We should ask for sound
deadening around those, regardless of whether we're looking at
300 feet or 500 feet. I would also add restrictions. Someone
mentioned the federal government was looking at requiring power
plants. We don't have any restrictions on power plants in Livonia
that I could find from the ordinances that were included in the
packet, we probably want to eliminate power plants in the size,
given how much residential property we have in this city. So those
are the things that I was looking at and considering when
reviewing these. Thank you very much.
Mr. Wilshaw: Appreciate your comments. Thank you. Hi. Good evening.
Naz Cimsit, Aspen Drive, Livonia, MI. It's an honor to hear about Livonia making
these revisions because this is truly to protect the people. I have
been a part of these discussions since we started researching
how to restrict and how to not so much restrict, but to protect the
people of Livonia, and I obviously still come with questions. So I
would like to address that 1,000 feet for 15 megawatts is just
about under a quarter of a mile, and that's important because in
a quarter of a mile, infrasound can still travel. Infrasound can
travel up to three miles, and infrasound might not be audible, but
it is a low frequency wave that can travel through walls and into
the ears of Livonia residents, especially children. It is proven to
disrupt their heart health, their cognitive health, and can even
cause insomnia. So, it's important to consider that. It's also
important to consider controlling the water in a closed -loop
system. That water can get polluted very quickly and ensuring
that that water quality is staying at a maintained level ensures that
we are never reintroducing pollution into our fresh water in
Michigan, and then as a third point, I would like to address that
September 22, 2026
32713
the heat does need to be recycled as we are in a wet bulb climate
in Michigan. If heat is not recycled from this data center, the heat
that happens within servers from being overworked so long goes
straight out into our air and will slowly increase temperature over
time, contributing to rising temperatures. So, those are the three
points I'd like to address. And thank you for your time.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Naz. I just want to note Naz was involved in the
preparation of a really good paper that I read from University of
Michigan. I believe you had some involvement in that, and one of
your colleagues sent it to me, and I appreciate that. Thank you.
Hello, Mr. Biga.
Jim Bigal, Livonia, Michigan. I want to say that it was really informative last week
at the study session. Too bad Zach isn't here to present about the
water, and everybody find out there's only one waterway into
Livonia. That's along Haggerty Road. That any other entity would
have to build new water mains on any of the other water mains
coming into Livonia, and that would have to start at Eight Mile and
run all the way down through the city, and the cost and finding
right of ways is nearly impossible, according to Zach, and he's
our water guru in Livonia. So, it would be really nice if you had
had that presentation here as well. Also, about the power and
usage, and he even pointed some things about that. That would
have been nice to have been here, and also the map that Jacob
showed would have been really nice if you highlighted really what
1,000 feet looked like and how small the area is in the M-2 that
really would be usable. That would have been nice for people to
see. So much information was there last week that I don't think
people got a chance to see. Also, the city is reducing the amount
of sound that can be in the noise ordinance, and I don't know how
that plays into all these ordinances and about the sound with the
things going on. The same thing with generators and everything
else like that. I don't know how that would play because if
somebody's hearing that, they call and they go out with the sound
meters day or night, and if it's there, the city can start fining and
closing things down, and I'm thinking that a lot of that's not in what
I'm seeing here, so I don't know how that's going to play into all
these changes that need to go into this ordinance. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Biga.
Mike Hubbard, Six Mile Road, Livonia, MI. I'm really impressed by the knowledge
and details that people have. I'm not. I don't have that much
knowledge and details. What I do have is my own concerns when
it comes to hyperscale compared to the CAFO farms in Toledo in
September 22, 2026
32714
that area that contribute to all the Lake Erie mess down there.
They got around that by just making their big farms just a little bit
smaller, and that got them out of those conditions. So, I think what
is going to happen as there's community pushbacks against
the...that you're going to see them come and be more rather than
hyperscale. They're going to make them smaller, but more of
them in the same area. So, I think you should take that into mind.
The other thing is electrical costs, of course. I looked at my bill.
I'm still paying for Fermi II. Yeah. So, I don't trust that that we're
not going to get the cost. I don't trust that at all. Electrical
generators, as we know, Musk and all these people are
putting...they're running theirs off of generators, and they're not
following any air pollution standards. So, what's that? The noise
level, the low frequency noise levels. Well, okay, I'm on Six Mile.
You know, I can hear the rumble of 96. So that that says a lot
right there. The other thing is Livonia is a middle class community,
and it was primarily manufacturing. It has a lot of good paying
middle class jobs.
Mr. Wilshaw: Can you wrap it up?
Mr. Hubbard: I hear it, and I'll close it up. I don't think Al does the middle class
any good.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for your comments. Hi, good evening, ma'am.
Emma Erickson, Livonia, MI. My family has been in Livonia for three generations.
One of my greatest concerns regarding data centers is their
potential to drive up housing costs and increase homelessness.
It's been shown that data centers do bring an initial influx of jobs.
However, those influx of jobs and workers has also been shown
to drive up housing costs in the areas where these data centers
are being put in, and that drastic increase in housing costs from
a potential increase, drastic increase in jobs, tends to lead to an
increase in rates, that being the housing costs, which has been
shown to almost guarantee lead to rising homelessness in the
cities where these are being constructed. I think, if possible,
something needs to be included to ensure that longtime Michigan
residents are not priced out of their homes, if God forbid, a data
center is proposed in Livonia. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you. Hi. Good evening.
Sandra Reklinski, Vacri Lane, Livonia, MI. I've been there 45 years. If it wasn't for
a Facebook post, I would have never known about this meeting.
And I think the city needs this room. This room should be jam-
September 22, 2026
32715
packed going out to the street. The city has to find a way of
notifying us of these things, these kind of meetings, and I'm not
really sure why we're talking about developing parameters for
data centers. I think we should be talking about not allowing them
in the city and making ordinances. You need to develop an
ordinance to stop them. Period. We don't want them. Let them go
somewhere else. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for coming. Hi.
Jason Amos, Terrance Street, Livonia, MI. 1 moved here in June from Saline, and
since June I've been out of power for eight total days. So, I think
when developing the ordinance, I think you need to really hammer
in on a public benefit requirement, like improving electrical
infrastructure, stormwater management, requiring that the
workforce is only hired locally. I really think that the setback needs
to be increased to at least a mile. I don't know if that means that
ifs no longer available in the city, but increasing the setback
distance really should be a note added to the ordinance, as well
as decibel limits, both nighttime and daytime limits, as well as
requiring a sound study submitted by the petitioner. There should
be screening standards for data centers like Evergreen, so that
all year round they're screened. And finally, there should be
decommissioning and a site restoration bond, so like an
irrevocable letter of credit, something that basically guarantees
that if the data center goes under that. That money is paid for
restoring or returning the site to what it was. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for your comments. Hello. Good evening.
Natalie, Livonia, MI. That's all the information you need identifying me, correct?
Mr. Wilshaw: That's fine.
Natalie:
I was able to purchase my first home in Livonia. My sister
purchased her first home in Livonia. Livonia is very dear to our
hearts. Part of the reason why we initially chose Livonia as
products of an upper middle-class upbringing was that we were
honestly priced out of the city where we grew up in, priced out of
the cities where we worked in. It seems a little bit strange
considering the rhetoric for people my age, and I'm not sure you
know, when it stopped kind of making sense at all to say, but we
hope that the next generation is able to live a better life than us,
right? I always was under that understanding growing up. So
when my life, when I did everything that my upper middle-class
upbringing afforded me, when I did that, when I was educated at
September 22, 2026
32716
a prestigious university, I thought, okay, great. I am firmly within
what they call the middle class, and I was more than happy with
that. We are getting squeezed beyond belief, and this is a small
facet of it. I am a critical care nurse. I have been one for 10 years.
I operate in razor thin margins. Everything I do or say has a direct
and immediate impact, and I want to remind you guys, no is a
complete answer, and it's the one that we're all looking for here
today. Anyone here who would like a data center, a hyperscale
data center, please raise your hand. Okay, I mean you'll probably
still make something about the fact that two people out of I don't
know how many people here raise their hand, but listen to us,
please. We are asking or following the proper forums, and it's not
just one demographic of people; it's all of us. Okay, thank you so
much for your time.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Natalie.
Danny Comstock, Livonia, MI. I'm a heavy industrial electrician. I got out of the...1
worked in data centers. They're everywhere. We're talking about
the size of them. The more we're using our...everyone's got a cell
phone here. I mean, every time you get a different streamer, they
all take different servers to produce. We're not going to stop them.
I mean, they're here. But thank you for getting ahead of it and
putting some rules forth, because you know, right now I've
worked on them all over the country, and some of them are in
sight. They're blocked buildings with a barbed wire fence around
them. I mean, if you have the rules, the set rules for where they
can put them, how far they can put them from people's houses,
good, you know. But to say we're not going to have them here,
they've been here for decades. I started my career in 1990
connecting towns with fiber optics. It's a giant grid. More
information we need. All your 911. No one's using you know
hardline phones anymore. It all takes information. They're here,
but you have the foresight to put rules on it and say, hey, not right
here, not this size. Let's make this thing look better. Let's...and
the humming. There are a few things that cause it. Just the
amount of power coming into it that creates, you know, that
creates a magnetic field. That causes your high pitch humming
noises. It's all...there's different things you can do. You can give
them offsets. You can make them do sound enters. You can
make them put those transformers in sound restricted areas. But
again, thank you for getting ahead of it. That's all I have to say.
Mr. Wilshaw: Well, thank you for your comments. Hi. Good evening.
September 22, 2026
32717
Michael Oakes, Ventura Court, Livonia, MI. I'm also a geography professor at
Madonna University, and I've listened to everybody here, and
there have been some overwhelming comments made today that
I'm really impressed with. I wish my students talked that way, but
I've got kind of like two concerns that a lot of people have versed.
One are the environmental issues associated with this. Has an
environmental impact statement been done on this, and when will
one be done? And the other is an issue that some people brought
up about, you know, these companies come in and they promise
all kinds of big, high -paying jobs. What are these high -paying
jobs, and how much will they pay? I mean, are we going to have
a bunch of minimum -wage jobs replacing middle-class jobs? Or,
you know, just like a lady just passed me commented on. You
have to have an income of over $100,000 a year to save money
anymore. So I leave that to the following person.
Mr. Wilshaw: Well, thank you, Mr. Oakes. Good evening.
Kelly Houtteman, 18547 Southampton, Livonia, MI. I am a teacher, so I kind of
want to start by asking a question, and that is, do you know your
city's motto?
Mr. Wilshaw: Families first.
Ms. Houtteman: Families first. Come home to Livonia.Sso I would like to come
home to a stable job. I would like to come home not being
replaced by Al. I would like to come home to my autistic son not
having a meltdown over the sound from the data center, his
noise -the noise -he can hear every airplane that goes over our
house. I will be talking to him as I'm tucking him into bed at night,
and he'll be literally stop mid -sentence and say, "Airplane". I can't
imagine what a data center is going to do to him, and that's
something to consider. At least an airplane makes white noise,
you know, and it goes quick, you know. But I that's just something
I want you to think about is the noise for sure, and if that's
something we could even put into the ordinance, like if you're
gonna put a data center here, it can't make any sound
whatsoever. So, if that's impossible, then maybe the data centers
aren't for us. That's all.
Tom Karabltakis, 35221 Vargo Street, Livonia, MI. First of all, thank you everyone
for taking the time to do this. It is very important that you guys get
ahead of it, and I'm sure everyone appreciates that. But also, that
a lot of times when people are for data centers, they'll kind of
argue you're just a nimby and say in a derogatory way. You know,
not in my backyard. I just want to say that shouldn't be a
September 22, 2026
32718
derogatory word. That that's why we have planning commissions.
That's why we have zoning commissions. That's why we have city
council is to make these decisions for this kind of a thing, so that
we do have, you know, it protects the people, it protects the
environment, it protects the investments of our homes. So, I
mean, I think that not my backyard is okay to consider when you
guys make these decisions. That's kind of what you're here for is
to help protect us because you're our representation. To make
those decisions that does that do protect those things that we that
we need. Yeah, so I don't think NIMBY should be derogatory.
Chris Sobachinsky, Norfolk Street, Livonia, MI. I do want to thank you for getting
ahead of this and not waiting until somebody comes before we
don't have anything in place. Two things I would like you to
consider addressing is when you're talking about the noise, to
also consider the noise that the generators will make when
there's a power outage. So that that it needs to be an additional
noise consideration when you're looking at this. Also, for you
know the whole decommissioning, possibly needing to
decommission if they don't follow the rules, consider having them
needing to set up an escrow, with maybe the cost of
decommissioning and putting a new business there and add 20%
or whatever on for inflation to include that as part of their petition.
So, thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Very good. Thank you for your comments. Hi. Good evening.
Betsy Calhoun, 33023 Grennada, Livonia, MI. Thank you for addressing this
because good zoning is critical to our way of life, so that we have
a good quality of community in in all different fronts. That said,
there's still a lot of work to be done to really strengthen this kind
of thing or prohibit them altogether. You might want to consider
passing the thing number four on moratoriums, so to give yourself
more time, if you need to say we're working on that. So, the other
thing is to listen to the people. As somebody has said, there's a
lot of knowledge here. People have done their research. You
know the big three: water, electricity, and noise, and thinking
about the future. So, again, this listen to the community. Thank
you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you.
Mike Hayes, 18798 Norwich, Livonia, MI. First, I'd like to thank the gentleman, the
electrician, who brought up some very, very valid points. And I
just went to a website. There's currently 37 data centers located
around Metro Detroit, they're in Troy, they're in Rochester, they're
September 22, 2026
32719
in Grosse Pointe. So my suggestion would be they went through
a similar process as you all have, and that you could reach out to
them and get the feedback that they received from their
neighbors. They went forward with the projects in a way that was
acceptable to those communities because those data centers are
currently in work and functioning, I'm not for necessarily a hyper
center, and I won't go into all the other topics that were brought
up. But because there's a lot of very good points, but I think it
boils down to also once you go through your work, it's a matter of
what contractor you select to build the data centers if it even
comes here, because they can address a lot of these questions,
and some will do it better than others. But the electrician earlier
made a very valid point. These things have been around, and it's
just the NIMBY, not in my backyard, is what's driving this right
now.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you very much. Appreciate it, Mr. Hayes. Okay, over this
way. You're next. Good evening.
Michael LeForge, 35135 Lynn, Romulus, MI. You've probably heard of us because
recently we made national news for a protest for a proposed ICE
detention facility, nobody was happy about that. I have never
seen more people in Romulus than I did at that protest. We were
outside for hours outside our city hall. It was freezing. I only got
in three hours after the meeting started, and I had to stand in the
back because we only have 20 seats in our city hall, they're
selling that facility. It never got opened. It's being abandoned. And
what I want to say is, you can say no. We can say no. Even
pervasive things like ICE, they will leave if you say no enough. If
you attend meetings, if you make your presence known, if you
make what you want known, they will leave.
Mr. Wilshaw: Hello, good evening, sir.
Justin Sinkbill, Livonia, MI. I wasn't going to speak, but I'll say I spent nine years
working in the utility industry, training utility workers for ITC
Holdings, working in switchyards, gigantic massive switchyards
of power units, power plants, that kind of thing, and so to give you
an idea of what they're gonna... the output they're gonna put is if
I if you find the biggest switchyard in Livonia here, which is really
around Newburgh and Haggerty area, if you were to take a
halogen bulb, and go out there with it; it will light up. It will start to
get light, and so you're going to deal with that. And if we're going
to deny things like a Sheetz gas station and places that also serve
or Taco Bell that serve our community as well as provide jobs,
those places also provide about the same exact kind of jobs,
September 22, 2026
32720
about the same exact kind of jobs. Once that data center is built,
then I don't know why. Like we're talking about a data center
because those are two things that could actually help the
community in terms of having instead of having abandoned
buildings, we would have a gas station or a Taco Bell or
something like that where kids can go to, kids can get jobs, that
kind of thing. We're talking about putting a data center in. Like I
know I lose power. I live over in the Greenland over by Holmes
Middle School, and I know we lose power if the wind blows, and
so that's only going to get worse because the power grid is not
designed to handle what we currently have. So, until that's fixed,
I can't even imagine why we would put that there because it's only
going to soak up our resources only further. So,
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for coming.
Teresa Allen. Savoy Court, Livonia, MI. I just wanted to say that most people asked
my questions already, so this is just a great bunch of people.And
I just wanted to ask, how do I get a copy of the minutes from
today's meeting,
Mr. Wilshaw: They will be posted online after our minutes are approved, which
is at the next meeting. So, they will be literally word for word. This
is the minutes from the last meeting that we have. They're quite
thick, so every word that's being spoken is getting recorded, and
will be in those minutes. You can get those online on the city's
website, Livonia.gov.
Ms. Allen: Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you for coming. Good evening.
Lynn Mills, Livonia, MI. I'll be quick. Livonia doesn't have any pot dispensary
centers. How about we say the same thing to data centers?
Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: I think that takes care of everyone in our audience. I do want to
thank everyone for coming forward and speaking, and we took a
lot of notes, and there's a lot of great comments that were made.
So, thank you, everyone, for being orderly and coming forward
and giving your comments. It was a lot of good information, so I
do appreciate that, and my colleagues, of course. I'm going to
close the public hearing section, so you guys are all set. And now
it's an opportunity for my colleagues to discuss what they've
heard and ask questions if they have questions, talk about this
Mr. Bongero:
September 22, 2026
32721
ordinance, and decide what we want to do. So, this is our turn.
Anyone like to ask anything or speak?
I just can't help thinking it would have been nice to have an expert
here to maybe present and answer questions. Zach, last week,
we had the privilege of having him in our study meeting. He was
excellent. He answered a lot of my questions, and I think a lot of
the fears is just the knowledge of what these things are about,
and when I left the study meeting, I had a lot different perspective
on data centers. I just think it would be nice to... if we could have
provided that.
Mr. Wilshaw: Understood.
Mr. Bongero: That's all I got.
Mr. Wilshaw: Appreciate those comments. Yep, Mr. Ventura, I believe you had
some questions that you said you wanted to ask.
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Uhazie:
Excuse me. Yeah, I guess my first question is in the drafting of
this ordinance.I guess I think I know the answer to this question,
but I'll confirm my question. Who drafted it? Number one and
number two, what data center builders or developers or what data
center expertise, as it represents the current state of the art, was
consulted to help us draft this ordinance so that we can
intelligently regulate data centers in Livonia. Does anybody know
the answer to the question?
I will defer to Mr. Goldstein. The Planning Department did draft, I
think, the bulk of it, working with the law department off of
basically the latest best practices they could find, but the details I
will refer to the law department. How we got to the iron those out.
Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Goldstein.
Eric Goldstein, City Attorney, Livonia, MI. Thanks, Jacob. The Law Department,
the Planning Department, and DPW put our heads together.
That's the Zach that he's referring to. We studied things that were
given to us by some well-informed citizens, which was very
helpful. We identified lots of problems that some of these other
communities, both in this country and other countries have
addressed and recognized that some of them are very pertinent
to us, and some of them likely are not. We're not going to be
giving any tax abatements to anyone building a data center here.
I just can't see that. So, you know, just to make a quick
acknowledgement to Naz's research and how helpful it was, but
Mr. Ventura:
September 22, 2026
32722
we put our heads together there. We did some consulting with
OHM. We had a number of meetings, and there were a number
of run-throughs at the drawing board. There were a lot. There was
a lot of language, a lot of drafting, and then a lot of thinking about
unintended consequences, and trying to address as many of
those as we could. I put a lot of credit on the Planning Department
for carrying a lot of that weight and that burden, but lots of ideas
were coming to us from our three departments, and each of...1
can't speak for the research the others did in detail, but it was
done. This this was not cut from whole cloth, and from my
standpoint, I was paying attention to litigation brought by data
center manufacturers against communities. If we're going to fight
that war, I want to win, and I don't want to invite a war that were
going to lose. I'm looking at what's going on in Wixom County and
and in other places around the country, and what we're
constructing here speaks to many, it can never speak to all, but it
speaks to many of the concerns that have been raised here and
we're doing the best we can to create a regulatory system that is
mindful and protective of the public health and safety, but without
opening us up to a lawsuit that we will lose. For example, it may
be over simple to say, but I think it's a profound statement that
needs to be appreciated. If we had a no data centers here rule
and got sued, that's when we would lose. And if we lost that suit,
we would probably lose the ability to regulate entirely. So, what
we want to do is protect the city and have a set of rules that would
survive a constitutional challenge by making it possible. If we
make it impossible, that's where we lose. But what we're trying to
do is come up with a reasonable set of regulations that we can
point to and say this speaks to the public health, and this speaks
to the public health, and this speaks to the public health. And with
those rules in place, if the rules are challenged because the data
centers want to do more than that, well, we've built a castle we
can defend. That's my best way of answering your question, Mr.
Ventura, about what went into this and who went into this and
how it came up. This was not arbitrary. This was not capricious.
This was trying to think it through as well as we could with the
available information, and I don't have the skill set that Zach from
Water or that Jacob and Mark from Planning do. But the three of
us, we worked all well together, and I've just given you my input
and my considerations, I can assure you, a great deal of thought
and care was put into this.
Mr. Goldstein, thank you very much. I think that's an excellent
dissertation and representation of the effort that's gone into this,
and I'm sure that everybody's here is appreciative of the
description of the pains you've gone to to draft this ordinance.
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
September 22, 2026
32723
And I think you've done a service. Thank you. As regards the
language of the ordinance itself, I'm concerned that the distinction
between a hyper center and the run-of-the-mill data center is not
made clear in this ordinance. And I think it needs a better
definition. For example, I don't know what you'd call it. I think
you'd call it a data center at the corner of Six Mile and Haggerty.
That was owned and operated by Comerica Bank. It was there
for decades. Nobody knew it. It didn't bother anybody, and every
time you went to the bank and it didn't have to be Comerica, you
used that data center, whether you knew it or not. There were
homes built within well within 1,000 square feet of that data
center, and nobody was bothered by noise or anything else. I
don't know what happened with regard to electricity and cooling,
but the cooling was not disruptive because nobody ever
complained about it. So there, and to the point that the gentleman
that's worked on these data centers made earlier, I'm told that
there are a great number of data centers similar to the Comerica
data center already existing in Livonia. And Mr. Uhazie, have we
done an inventory to determine how many there actually are in
Livonia?
No, we have not done any sort of inventory of like that. I don't
even know if we would have the... if that would be possible, just
because they are in...
I think it would be instructive to find out how many exist, where
they are, and are they causing any disruption? As one of the other
speakers here said, and I thought it was a very interesting
comment. Everybody here's got a cell phone. Every time you pick
that cell phone up and you do something with it, you use a data
center somewhere, whether it's here or somewhere else, you're
using a data center.
Mr. Wilshaw: Ma'am, don't yell out from the audience.
Mr. Ventura:
And so, modern life depends on data in virtually every aspect. So,
an intelligent way to, in a positive way, to regulate data centers
that are essential to everyday life, and to eliminate those that are
the hyper center, which is never going to happen here. Jacob, our
industrial corridor is a mile long and a mile wide and six miles long
is that correct?
Mr. Uhazie: Yes.
Mr. Ventura: Okay. And can you put the map of the M-2?
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Goldstein:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Goldstein:
September 22, 2026
32724
So, this is a map showing M-2 and M-1.
Just M-2 at this point.
This is just m2. The blue is the M-2, and the overlap, the red is
the buffer area, and the overlap is where they would not be
allowed currently or under this proposed zoning ordinance.
So the blue is the M-2.
Yeah, the blue and then the overlapping is where they would not
be able...
Okay, so for example, there was somebody here from Saline. The
Saline data center is on 1,000 acres, and the building itself is 1.65
million square feet. There's nowhere on that map where there's
ever going to be a hyper center in Livonia, we just don't have the
land, ladies and gentlemen. So, what we're really regulating here
are the data centers that are the functional data centers, like
Comerica Bank and like perhaps many of the others that already
exist in town. And I'm and I'm fully in favor of doing that, but I I'm
also concerned that we don't provide for the essentials, and data
centers are essential. That everybody in this room uses every
day. Thank you, Mr. Wilshaw.
Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Mr. Goldstein. 1
I don't know if it's my place, but I think I can speak a little bit to
Mr. Ventura's concerns.
It's always your place.
Well, thank you. We have struggled to come up with definitions
distinguishing between, you know...every institution has
computer servers, and technically speaking, every computer
server is a data center. Now, if we're just going to speak in basic
human common-sense language, we know what we're talking
about, and we're not talking about you know the little closet in the
office. It has all the decks in it, all the server decks in it. But we
live in the law, not in common sense. That's a dangerous thing to
say. I know, but it's true. We have to be down to the details
because, and we can't rely on common sense as a general term,
because I think if we interviewed everyone in this room on details,
we'd have about 20 or 30 different opinions on what common
sense is. So, we we've tried in this draft to avoid the common
sense trap and to make delineations of what's covered, what's
Mr. Ventura:
September 22, 2026
32725
not covered, and I believe we have two categories of sizes that
are regulated in this thing. I don't have a problem if we need to
go sharpen the pencil and make the definitions more conspicuous
and clear. I think seeking greater clarity in a complicated situation
is always a good idea. But I just wanted to let you know that's in
there, and if your impression is after a first few reads is that it's
not adequately addressed, that just tells me we've got to go back
and sharpen our pencils.
Thank you. I appreciate you're pointing that out. There are two
size categories in the draft that we have. My concern is the
terminology, and that's, I'm sorry. I apologize. My concern is the
terminology, and you're right. I mean, these things are
amorphous terms that change meaning virtually in the context of
every conversation. So, I think it would behoove us to make sure
that the language that we use is as precise, and from your
perspective, as defensible as possible. Thank you, thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Ventura. And to your point, there is, I do want to
kind of address that because there is a section of the ordinance
that is specifically for definitions of terms. This is 2.02, and what
has happened in the ordinance? I'll attempt to explain this as best
I can. Mr. Goldstein can slap me if I'm wrong, but because I'm not
a lawyer, but at present, our ordinance contains the terminology
that data processing was a permitted use in a number of zonings,
commercial and industrial, and what have you in the city. And
data processing was this sort of nebulous term that was referring
to computer services and computer systems and repair and so
on, which kind of encompassed you know a computer repair
facility. You know, if you were you know used to be Canton
Computers was a store you could go to and have your computer
repaired. It would encompass a lot of those types of things, and
it was, again, sort of this nebulous term that didn't really focus on
these dedicated use data centers. What was changed in this
proposed ordinance is three terminologies. There's one that's still
called data processing as a permitted use in commercial and
office zoning and so on, and that encompasses, or what sounds
like basically what we're talking about with server rooms, you
know, the network closets and these sort of small ancillary or I
wouldn't say ancillary, but secondary uses within an office
building or a commercial building, not the primary use. Data
processing is not a primary use, and then we define a new term
called data center, and these are going to be for buildings and
structures that their primary use is for data processing and for
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32726
data, for servers, basically a room full or building filled with
servers, is what we think of.
Such as Comerica Park was.
Comerica Park was an office building that had a data center in it.
I don't know if its entire the ...
Majority of it was data center.
Yeah, I can't speak to what was in there, but you know what a lot
of people are thinking of tonight in terms of data centers, the
things that that they're worried about in Saline and so on, are a
building that solely houses servers, just rows and rows and rows
of servers. There's nobody works in them, or you know, half a
dozen people work in them, and that's the thing that has the most
concern around. Power usage, water usage, coolings, noise, and
the other factors that that have been discussed tonight. So, we're
defining that as a new term, a data center. What it is, it's a primary
use. We're allowing those sort of secondary use, little server
rooms and closets that are located within schools and office
buildings and the city hall. I'm sure has one somewhere, to remain
as a permitted use, but now we're saying, hey, these data
centers, these dedicated data centers, these are waiver uses.
These are special uses that now have a special set of rules
applied to them. We're defining what those rules are in terms of
the sound and the power and the water and so on, and distance
from residential, and we're saying that these have to go through
a waiver -use process. This is a special use. This is not a
permitted use. Only in M-2 zoning, and these because it's a
waiver -use That means anybody that wants to have one of these
has to come through the entire waiver -use process. Meaning they
have to come to us. They have to get a recommendation of
approval. They have to go to City Council. They have to present
there. There are public hearings just like we're having tonight. So,
it's a very vetted process for if one of these uses happens to come
forward, as opposed to right now where there's no rules and they
would just be a permitted use. So that's one of the terminology
changes that we're working on now. What a data center, which
clearly says in in the ordinance that it's a structure primarily used
for housing computers, and a data processing. Maybe that term's
a little harder to understand.
Mr. Ventura: Hard to make the decision.
Mr. Wilshaw: I certainly would agree.
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Goldstein:
Mr. Wilshaw:
September 22, 2026
32727
So, I appreciate your explanation.
My attempt to explain it.
The concern I have is that the computer rooms of the past are
very rarely being built today, because the data centers, those
buildings that are nothing but computers from top to bottom,
whether they're 60,000 square feet or a half a million square feet,
is where it's all happening these days. And I'm sure, based on
what I know you do for a living, you've seen the computer rooms
and office buildings with the false floors and the heating, cooling
units, and those are all gone. Those are not built anymore. I
mean, that's my business, and I haven't built one of those in 20
years. So, it's all happening, ladies and gentlemen, in the
industrial buildings, in the industrial corridors, in the communities
all across the United States. The real flashpoint has come with
the hyper centers and the hyperscale's, which are a whole new
animal and have been. Witness the gentleman from Saline, very
disruptive. So, I think it's important that we make a very, very clear
distinction in our ordinance to allow the server buildings that
industry needs, and to make sure that, to Mr. Goldstein's point,
we we leave room for a hyper center that is never going to happen
because basically we just don't have the land, but we don't open
ourselves to a to a lawsuit we can't win.
Well, yeah, and you know I want to certainly second the point that
Mr. Goldstein made in regard to exclusionary zoning. That is a
that is a very very bad road to go down from a legal perspective
because as Mr. Goldstein pointed out, what happens is if a
petitioner was to come before us and we say no you simply just
cannot do these things because we don't want them, and they
sue, then if they win in court, now a judge is determining where a
data center goes, how a data center is laid out, how big it is, how
much noise it makes -all the things that we are putting into this
ordinance to control these uses and provide reasonable controls
around them, are thrown out the window, and a judge can decide
whatever the heck they want. Is that correct, Mr. Goldstein?
Pretty much. Yeah.
So, you know, that'... we don't want that. This is, you know, not
in the world of data centers, but in the world of other
developments that have happened in the city that have been
denied, and judges have had to rule on them. We've ended up
with some things that we don't necessarily like or want in this city
September 22, 2026
32728
because a judge decided that, and we certainly don't want that
when it comes to data centers. That's for sure. That would be bad.
So anyway, that's just my thoughts, and I do want to say that a
lot of work has gone into this, prior to it coming here, I have had
a chance, and my colleagues have as well, to see this draft for
several weeks now, and I've included and tried to suggest several
things as well, including the comment that I heard from several
people in the audience in regards to decommissioning of these
sites. That originally was not in the ordinance, and I suggested
that actually, that language, which was put in there, and I think is
excellent language that was written up to make sure that if these
sites stop being used at some point in the future, that they're
remediated in a way that allows that site to be reused for
something else, be it a warehouse or another manufacturing
facility or whatever, without us having to do brownfield credits and
tax abatements and so on. Because there's a bunch of fuel tanks
and batteries and generators and you know industrial equipment
in there that that nobody wants. So, I think it's important that that's
included and that does include a bond as well. I know that a
couple of people mentioned that point, which is an excellent point.
It's a very very good point that they prefund that decommissioning
so that we're not left holding the bag if they leave town, so I just
want to throw that out there, Mr. Goldstein.
Mr. Goldstein: Just for quick attribution, you're saying that, you know, these
specific portions you just listed are great and important additions,
and I want to credit the Planning Department for preparing that
language. That wasn't me. You were looking at me a lot when you
were saying. I just want to make sure planning gets credit.
Mr. Wilshaw: Yeah, they did an excellent job. Thank you, Mr. Goldstein. Any
other comments, questions?
Mr. Droze: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple questions, and maybe I'll
start right there with the decommissioning. I guess to the Planning
Department, Jacob, is this something that we have in any other
uses? The only time I've seen it is, I think, on cell phone towers.
Sometimes they'll put up a bond. Is there any other uses in the
city where we have that?
Mr. Uhazie: Not that I am aware of.
Mr. Droze:
Okay. And then the definition that we arrived at, it's the blue one
that you had at the bottom there, where we added the data
processing to try to provide a little more clarity of what's already
on the books. I guess I wanted to ask because everywhere that
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
September 22, 2026
32729
we cite this in section six, where we basically list by use what is
permitted, what's a waiver -use etc., we have the term data
processing and computer centers, and what I'm, I guess, going
back to trying to make things as clear as possible, so we don't
rely on common sense, to Mr. Goldstein's point, do we need to
pull computer centers into that definition as well? Because that is
not really defined anywhere, as best I can tell, in in the existing
ordinance, and could that go right with data processing as we
have it, or is there potential conflict?
I would probably, because of the way it's currently worded in the
existing ordinance, I feel like they're kind of lumped together and
under the same definition. We could, I would say, we would
probably put data processing and computer center, and then
maybe add on another sentence, kind of incorporating what that
is. But if the body felt it was relevant to split it out into two to make
it more concrete, we're happy to do that. I think it, but I think it
could fit into that same general term.
Okay, I like it together because that's how it appears everywhere,
and it makes to your earlier point as administrating the ordinance
that much easier when this type of stuff comes up. I did have a
couple questions, and these are probably getting a little maybe
nitty gritty. So, we also have the section where we basically talk
about how we're going to consider these uses as they come in.
I'm sorry, I'm just kind of scanning through here. We talk about
power and sound, water use, that sort of thing. And I did want to
talk about the sound considerations. So, obviously, we have a
noise ordinance in the city, which we refer to often as plans come
in. But this definition goes, you know, a little bit further to address
a lot of the issues that were raised tonight about some of the low-
level sounds, you know, determining what the baseline is and
whatever is needed to do to mitigate that. There's a comment
about a third -party acoustic engineer, and I know sometimes we
see this. I'm like, I'm going to use an example. If a site comes in
and there's a traffic study, oftentimes the developer will select
that. That consultant. Then there's a back and forth with
determining the scope. Would that follow that same type of
process, where maybe the developer offers the sound consultant,
or would the city kind of procure that, you know, as these come
up? So the city's a little more in control, I guess, is what I'm what
I'm getting at.
Mr. Uhazie: The way it is worded here, it would be the applicant providing that.
Just that's how it works with most of the other studies that we
September 22, 2026
32730
currently deal with. But if that's something that you feel it would
be a conflict, that maybe that's something we could consider.
Mr. Droze: I think as long as you guys are setting the scope, I mean, I guess
that's what we do on the traffic studies too.
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Droze:
I think that's why it is included, you know, the baseline study, as
well as the low frequency. We do call out that it is not typically
included in a normal sound study. So, we did want to stipulate
that they include those low level frequencies.
Okay, and then also I guess dictating where around that, you
guys would...
Yeah, we specify that within 1,500 feet of residential areas is
specified in there.
Then I did have a question on the building facade section and I
see the way we kind of have this phrased, is that we are going to
surround any sort of external uses that might supplement that. So
I think that gets at like generators, if there's any sort of cooling
equipment that it would be screened, and we go so far as to say
encompass on three sides, and I guess my concern with that is
that potentially that third side could cause some sound migration,
and so I might just suggest just saying encompassed and just
deleting three sides in case they use a Pentagon or something,
you know.
So I believe the intent was kind of like the dumpster enclosure
that was still having access, but we could either do that or even
just add something where something that must be closable and
opaque, similar to the dumpster requirements.
And I was on opaque. I was almost thinking maybe you might use
opaque, but also sound dampening or something speaking to the
fact that it's really, it's not just there to block view. It's really there
to dampen sound. So, I think that covers most of my detailed
questions, thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Very good, thank you. Appreciate that. Any other questions,
comments? I did want to...sound is a obviously a very important
part of one of the pillars, I would say, of this ordinance in terms of
the, as some of the residents referred to, sort of the big three, you
know, power and water and sound, and I just wanted to see Mr.
Uhazie, if you wanted to discuss a little bit more in depth what our
sound requirements are as proposed because I think they're
September 22, 2026
32731
pretty good, and I think they address a lot of the concerns that
some of the residents have. If I was to summarize this and as
best I can, you can tell me if I'm right or wrong. What we're
requiring is that any proposed data center would have to measure
the existing ambient sound at the property line and also at 1,500
feet away from their property, and measure what those levels are,
including low frequency tonal sound before they construct the
facility.
Mr. Uhazie: Correct.
Mr. Wilshaw: Then they would have to provide a study that shows, and also
actual readings, after the facility is operational, showing that they
have not increased the sound from that baseline at both the
property line and at that 1,500 foot point, is that correct?
Mr. Uhazie: Sound levels that are established in section 8.31 of the Code of
Ordinance, but yes.
Mr. Wilshaw: Okay. So, in our case, because we're really looking at the
industrial belt more or less, where these things are potentially
going to locate. You're talking about ambient noise that includes,
in many cases, close proximity to train tracks and the freeway.
Mr. Uhazie: Correct.
Mr. Wilshaw: So, there's already pretty high level of ambient noise, so they're
not going to...it would be difficult for one of these centers to
probably contribute anything above and beyond what's already
there at that at that level, most likely.
Mr. Uhazie: I would think so. Yes.
Mr. Wilshaw: Okay, that's kind of my interpretation of this as well. Obviously,
you know, we're talking about a hypothetical future situation, so
we don't really know how this is going to pan out in terms of a
practical application. But it seems to me that this is a pretty darn
good start. Is it addressing everyone's concern exactly in the
specific frequencies, I don't know if it is, but I think it sounds like
a pretty good start in the sense of saying, hey, if you put in one
of these facilities, basically you can't increase the sound level,
either at your property line or at 1,500 feet.
Mr. Uhazie: Correct. That's the intention. Yes.
September 22, 2026
32732
Mr. Wilshaw: Okay. So, I just want at least folks who are interested in that to
understand that's kind of where we're at right now, which is,
again, is it perfect? 1 don't know, but that's where we're at. So,
any other thoughts or comments?
Mr. Droze: One additional. On that, how does that work in real life, so say
something gets built, and you know we're promised that the
sound levels are going to be at a certain level. It gets constructed.
We get complaints about there being an issue, and they go out
and they find that there's you know decibels that are above the
permissible limit. Is that, I mean, is it...what hammer does
Inspection have to make sure that gets done?
Mr. Uhazie: I don't know what the legal framework would be. The ordinance
language specifies that the owner shall take immediate steps to
lower the sound levels by implementing additional abatement
measures or by reducing the data center sound output to all
predetermined acceptable levels. Beyond what levers we have to
pull, what tools we have to enforce that, I don't know beyond
what's being established.
Mr. Droze: It seems like maybe there's something missing there to really
compel them to do that.
Mr. Wilshaw: Yeah, I agree with that. I think ifs a good start. It certainly would
address the fact that we're saying that. if there is a violation of the
sound, that we would, you know, obviously give them an
opportunity to put in corrective measures if they can put in sound
baffling or other things. There are, you know, there are panels
and things that are available to reduce these things, but if they
can't and it's not getting addressed, then what do we do?
Mr. Droze: I'm just, you know, a very probably not a great example, but you
know if a restaurant is contributing fats and oils to the sewer
system, I think you guys have the right to, you know, issue a
citation to make sure that gets corrected, and it seems like
something to that level to make sure it happens would be helpful.
Mr. Goldstein: There are a variety of approaches, and we tailor our specific
approach to the specific circumstances. For on the one hand, it
could just be a warning notice, and that can escalate to a violation
notice. That can turn into a show cause hearing at the Inspection
Department to demonstrate why you haven't addressed it. It can
turn into legal action at the courthouse, prosecution of
misdemeanors. It could lead to actions at the circuit court, where
the city seeks a nuisance abatement from the court, and those
September 22, 2026
32733
can take various forms, including one of which is, well, the court
orders them to come into compliance, and if they don't come into
compliance, then the court authorizes us to go onto the property
and make them in compliance, and then send them a bill. I don't
know how that would work in this specific situation because I don't
know what this particular problem is. We live in the land of details,
but we do have various tools in our toolbox, and you know, am I
representing to you that oh, don't worry about it? I'm not saying
that. We have tools in our toolbox that we can use to bring a
property owner into compliance. Do they always come into
compliance? No, but we just keep escalating.
Mr. Droze: Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: All right. Any other thoughts or comments,
Mr. Bongero: Mr. Chair? Just to piggyback that, so is that a thing that the
Building Department will do, like biannual inspections for sound,
like the ordinance? How do how do you check this, or who does
it?
Mr. Uhazie: That is not specified in what...in the language of the ordinance,
the zoning portion of it.
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Bongero:
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Bongero:
I mean, it seems like it would be something to have to be
addressed. You know what I mean. We're going to do this, set
these restrictions, but who's going to check it?
Excuse me. Actually, let me correct. The owner shall perform
periodic sound monitoring as directed by the Inspection
Department. We do not lay out like what that...
So, they have to submit it every so often?
Aat the request of the Inspection Department, essentially.
Okay, thank you.
And the Inspection Department would likely initiate one of those
if they received a complaint from.
It seems like it should be on a rotation once or twice a year. They
do commercial building inspections every year. You know, you
get a notice. They've done it to me. You know, it would be pretty
easy to do.
September 22, 2026
32734
Mr. Wilshaw: Sure. Alright. Any other thoughts or comments, Mr. Ventura?
Mr. Ventura:
Mr. Wilshaw, two quick things. Mr. Droze piqued my interest in
talking about decommissioning, and as I read the language, it
says ceases operations. It would seem to me, and a cessation of
operations requires them to remove all the infrastructure that
makes a data center a data center, which, you know, in my
experience, costs millions of dollars. So, it seemed to me that we
would have a time frame during which the owner of the building
could seek another user. We've already approved a data center
there; it's been operating. We should provide a time frame after
which the infrastructure needs to be removed to give the owner
of the building an opportunity to re -tenant the building and to
continue to use it. I mean, if you take the Savannah Center
building and you tear out all the infrastructure that supports the
activity there, you substantially devalue the property, and affect,
you know, the way we can levy taxes and the amount of money
that we can collect based against that activity. So, I'd like to see
the ordinance reflect that. Second question I have is, I asked a
question about existing data centers, and we know they're in
the...built they're in the city somewhere. If we pass this
ordinance, do all of the existing data centers become non-
conforming?
Mr. Goldstein: I don't understand. Can you repeat that?
Mr. Ventura:
If there's a data center in the city, and we pass this ordinance,
and they're not in the M-2 zone, they're in M-1 zone. Do they
become non -conforming?
Mr. Goldstein: It's an interesting academic question. I do not think they do exist
at this time. Jake?
Mr. Uhazie:
I agree. I don't think they exist. That's the...in the way that it's
defined as the data processing center. The example that's come
up with Comerica.
Mr. Ventura: We've determined that.
Mr. Uhazie:
Mr. Ventura:
Well, Camerica, by our definition, there I feel would fall under the
data processing center, not as a data center.
Okay, but I'm told that there are data centers in the city. I'd like to
determine whether there are or not, and whether or not, if they
are, do they become non -conforming, and what do we do about
September 22, 2026
32735
that when that happens? I think we should know if we're going to
take this.
Mr. Goldstein: I think it's an important thing.. I think it's an important concern,
and I'm not trying to dismiss it. But I think the message that Jacob
and I are trying to articulate is based upon how the data center is
defined in this ordinance, as distinct from the secondary uses in
existing businesses right now, they don't exist. Are there data
processing centers that are secondary supports for existing
businesses of various sizes throughout the city? Absolutely. But
have we taken a survey of how many and what size they are? No,
we don't have that. But what we do know is that with regards to
the data centers we're trying to create zoning regulation for, we
do know those do not exist. Jacob, am I misspeaking?
Mr. Uhazie: No.
Mr. Goldstein: I don't know if that addresses your concern or not, but that's what
I can tell you right now.
Mr. Ventura: I'm concerned that that we don't know what exists in the city that
may or may not be a data center, or versus a data processing
center. And the ancillary use question: Over 50% of the Comerica
building was data processing, a computer center. So, does that
make it? Which is the ancillary use there? Was it office space that
was an ancillary use to the data center, or was the data center
just by definition an ancillary use? I'm simply suggesting, Mr.
Goldstein, that we be specific about this so that we don't
disadvantage somebody that's already in town and already
operating.
Mr. Goldstein: I think that's a very legitimate concern, and I'm not trying to
dismiss it, as I said, but I think, and I'm going to invite Jacob to
confirm or correct. But if we have like the Comerica Center, 50%
is office and 50% data, or hey, 60% data, the fact that they are a
commingled use, working together in that building, I think that
excludes them from our definition of a regulated data center
under this use.
Mr. Uhazie: Is that correct, Jacob?
Mr. Uhazie:
That's correct. It's not the amount that is being dedicated to data
processing. It's about that the Comerica is using their data. It is
not collecting like third -party information. That's not the product
that they're providing. The product is the information for
Comerica. If you are looking at a hospital, you're using the
September 22, 2026
32736
information for that hospital to process the data, or for that
manufacturing facility, you're using your data processing, not that
you're importing third parties and processing it for them.
Mr. Ventura: Sometimes that's true. At the case of a hospital, that's true
because of HIPAA laws. At Comerica, that was not true. They did
data processing for a whole host of financial institutions that
couldn't afford data processing centers, credit unions, for
example. And Mr. Goldstein, to your ancillary use point, so if
somebody came along and built 100,000 square foot building and
put a 5,000 square foot office in it, and said the 100,000 square
feet is ancillary, or the 95,000 square feet is ancillary. Does that
qualify? I'm just throwing out some things here that I think need
to be tightened up, and so that's my last question.
Mr. Goldstein: I don't think you're wrong about needing to tighten them up.
Sitting here right now, I remember having that discussion with our
work group. I don't know that I can point to something in this
product that speaks to that specifically. I don't think Jacob does
either. So, I think, like I said, I don't want you to receive my
comments as pushback.
Mr. Ventura: No, I'm not.
Mr. Goldstein: Thank you. I think that's another area where we can sharpen the
pencil.
Mr. Ventura: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wilshaw.
Mr. Wilshaw: Thank you, Mr. Ventura. That's an excellent point. You did nail a
possible loophole in the process, which we don't want to have,
where someone can do something like that. So, thank you. Any
other questions, comments, discussion, Mr. Droze?
Mr. Droze:
I'll just add one more item for thinking through, and it's probably
not valid at this moment because I don't have an extensive
knowledge of the telecommunications infrastructure across the
city, but, you know, I think a there's a former AT & T building on
Merriman Road just north of Plymouth Road, which I think was
basically a center that basically processed phone calls and data,
which does, you know, that does sit in a zone that would not allow
it, and it's...I think our definition, because we have a lot of ands
and ors, it feels like you could say a building or buildings and
structures that are occupied primarily by computers and or
telecommunications and related equipment, where digital
information is processed, transferred, or stored. It just feels like
September 22, 2026
32737
there's probably some of those uses that maybe, to Mr. Ventura's
point, just to verify and make sure we're not creating an issue for
those existing uses. And again, not knowing the
telecommunication infrastructure across the city, maybe checking
with the fiber optic companies and AT & T to see what they have
and make sure we're not creating an issue for them going
forward, because we all, you know, to the point earlier about our
cell phones and computers were...those connections are vitally
important to our daily lives, and we don't want to I guess limit that
ability to be able to stay on networks.
Mr. Goldstein: Well, I think there's a short, a halfway, answer to the concerns
you're raising, and that's about the grandfathering. Right now, to
our perception, no one is using computer data processing in this
city in a way that's bothering anyone or causing any harm to the
public health. There's nothing. That we know about today, so if
that's a baseline of satisfactory, then perhaps we can craft
language that expressly grandfathers it, and what we need to
wrestle with, I guess, is regulating incoming future uses that are
similar to that, that don't meet our definition of data center, but
then if it doesn't meet our definition of data center, I guess it's it
should be okay with our sharpened pencil definition of data
center. That is, I think we get the concern, and we can keep
working on it. Thank you.
Mr. Wilshaw: Alright. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? Quick time
check. It is 9:47. I just want to say we've been at this for a little bit
of time. I like the discussion. It's definitely good. Keep it up. If
there's, if at any time anyone feels comfortable enough to make
a motion, that's always in order as well.
Ms. Dinaro: Is the motion just to take it to City Council?
Mr. Wilshaw: You could make an approving resolution, which would take the
existing language that was provided to us to Council. You could
make an approving resolution with any modifications you wish to
make based off of the discussion tonight, or you could table it,
and we could do this all over again.
Mr. Uhazie:
One thing that we did include is for the tabling resolution, we
would ask that you include some of the areas that you specifically
want us to...
Mr. Wilshaw: What things need to be improved upon.
Mr. Uhazie: Yeah.
Mr. Wilshaw:
Mr. Droze:
September 22, 2026
32738
That makes sense. Also, just as a note, if this item is tabled, that
now becomes a pending item on our agenda because it's one that
we have already conducted a public hearing on. We would not
conduct a second public hearing. It's not like we keep resetting
the clock and doing a public hearing over and over again. So if
this meeting was to...if this item was to come back after tabling,
the discussion would be limited, basically to just us to review
whatever updates were made and then make a motion from that
point on. So, it's a little bit of a streamlined process. And also, of
course, I want to reiterate for everyone's benefit that we are
making a recommendation to council. Council will be also
conducting their own meetings to review this ordinance, discuss
it, listen to the audience, and what their thoughts are. And they
may also make updates and changes to what we're
recommending. But we're trying to do the heavy lifting and the
homework for them. That's our purpose here.
I would like to offer the tabling resolution, and I think kind of the
thought is that we are the applicant here tonight. This is our
ordinance that we're handing off to the council, and I think we've
had a lot of good discussion here, and maybe a couple weeks
just to further think through this and make sure we're good with it.
And you know, to your point earlier, Chair Wilshaw, there's been
you know, sharing of information between various commissioners
and the Planning Department. I think we're close, but let's get it
right. So, I'm going to propose that we request to amend section,
we're going to table the request to amend sections 2.02, 3.03,
3.10, 3.11, 3.12, 3.13, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, and 6.61 of the Livonia
zoning ordinance as amended to define and regulate data
centers, including the establishment of zoning districts in which
they can locate in any special requirements, and is hereby tabled
for the following reasons and following recommendations. And
those reasons, like to first note that under the definition of data
processing, that we also put data processing in computer centers
as one term. We had some notes that, relative to section 6.61,
under item five, that we specify. I'm sorry. Under under item six,
that the building facades section specifies, rather than saying
three sides, that we just say shall be encompassed, and then the
opaque barrier, opaque barrier is sound dampening. And if
there's any other items that commissioners would like to add.
On a motion by Droze, seconded by Caramagno, and unanimously adopted, it was
#09-64-2026 RESOLVED, That pursuant to a Public Hearing having been held
by the City Planning Commission on September 22, 2026, on
September 22, 2026
32739
Petition 2026-06-06-01 submitted by the City Planning
Commission, pursuant to the referral by the City Council, to
determine whether to amend Sections 2.02, 3.03, 3.10, 3.11,
3.12, 3.13, 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, and 6.61 of the Livonia Zoning
Ordinance, as amended, to define and regulate Data Centers,
including establishing the zoning districts in which they can locate
and any special requirements, the Planning Commission does
hereby table this item to a date uncertain,.
Mr. Wilshaw: Is there anything else anyone would like to add to the tabling
motion that's been made,
Mr. Caramagno: Mr. Chair?
Mr. Wilshaw: Mr. Caramagno.
Mr. Caramagno: I think our discussion alone should be included in the tabling. Just
all the items we talked about tonight, there was a ton of it. Okay,
but I realize you want specific items but there was considerable
discussion tonight about a lot of things, the protections that are
out there, fine details, rewriting some of the specifics, sharpening
the pencil, just these general terms about all the things we talked
about tonight should be recognized. That that's why it's being
tabled, so these things can be tuned up.
Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
ITEM #4 PETITION 2026-08-06-02 Moratorium Ordinance
Mr. Wilshaw:
ITEM #5
Thank you, everyone who's still here. Appreciate you hanging in
for this. We do have one item. Again, we've moved item number
four off the agenda, so that one will not be called out tonight. That
will come at a future meeting if you are interested in the
moratorium ordinance.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES 1,249th Public Hearings and
Regular Meeting
Mr. Caramagno, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Approval of
the Minutes of the 1,249th Public Hearing and Regular Meeting
held on September 1, 2026.
On a motion by Dinaro, seconded by Bongero, and unanimously adopted, it was
#09-65-2026
September 22, 2026
32740
RESOLVED, That the Minutes of 1,249th Public Hearings and
Regular Meeting held by the Planning Commission on September
1, 2026, are hereby approved.
A roll call vote on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Dinaro, Bongero, Ventura, Caramagno, Wilshaw
NAYS: None
ABSENT: Long
ABSTAIN: Droze
Mr. Wilshaw, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
On a motion duly made, seconded and unanimously adopted, the 1,250th Public
Hearings and Regular Meeting held on September 22, 2026, was adjourned at
9:54 p.m.
ATTEST:
Ian Wilshaairman
CITY PANNING COMMISSION
Samaramagno, Secretary