HomeMy WebLinkAboutPLANNING MINUTES 2005-09-2022523
MINUTES OF THE 913° PUBLIC HEARINGS AND REGULAR MEETING
HELD BY THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION
OF THE CITY OF LIVONIA
On Tuesday, September 20, 2005, the City Planning Commission of the City of
Livonia held its 9W Public Hearings and Regular Meeting in the Livonia City
Hall, 33000 Civic Center Drive, Livonia, Michigan.
Mr. John Walsh, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m.
Members present: Robert Alanskas William LaPine R. Lee Morrow
Dan Piercecchi H. G. Shane Carol Smiley
John Walsh
Messrs. Mark Taormina, Planning Director; At Nowak, Planner IV; Scott Miller,
Planner III; Ms. Debra Waller, Clerk -Typist II, and Ms. Marge Watson, Program
Supervisor, were also present.
Mr. Walsh: Welcome to the 913th Public Hearings and Regular Meeting of the
Livonia City Planning Commission. Thank you all for being here tonight. We
have three related items on the agenda tonight: two public hearings and a
request for site plan approval, as well as the approval of our minutes from the
August 23rd meeting. All items on the agenda will be subject to a vote of the
Planning Commission this evening. 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. Please note that the Planning Commission is a
recommending body. Final determination with regard to the first three items on
the agenda will be made by the Livonia City Council. Resolutions adopted by the
City Planning Commission tonight will become effective seven days after the date
of adoption. We will begin with our meeting with the public hearing items.
Consistent with Planning Commission roles and procedures, and to
accommodate all who may wish to speak this evening on any of the items before
us tonight, the following procedure will apply. Each item on the agenda must be
introduced and voted on separately. The Planning Staff will present each item
upon its introduction. Commissioners may or may not have questions for the
Planning Staff. The Petitioner will then be introduced and allowed the
opportunity to present its petition. Because Items 1, 2 and 3 are interrelated, the
Petitioners have indicated that they will provide a comprehensive review of all
items during presentation of Item 1. The Planning Commission will permit the
presentation to better our collective understanding of each item. The Planning
Commissioners may ask questions of the Petitioner during this presentation. The
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questions will focus on the individual item, but may venture to other items if it is
determined that tie answer is vital to understanding the item under discussion.
At the condusion of questioning by the Commissioners, the Chair will open the
public hearing, or audience participation in the case of Item 3, with regard to the
item under discussion. In order to hear from everyone who wishes to speak,
members of the public wishing to address the Planning Commission will be
limited to two minutes each. Three groups, namely the Devon -Aire Civic
Association, the Citizens for a Better Livonia, and the Clements Circle Civic
Association, have each requested a block of time to provide a presentation,
based on the representation that they will be speaking on behalf of residents in
their respective organizations. Each group has requested the opportunity to
address various aspects of all three items during the Public Hearing on Item 1.
They will be allayed to do so for the same reasons articulated with regard to the
Petitioners' desire to address all during Item 1. Citizens for a Better Livonia has
requested 20 minutes for their presentation, with an additional 5 - 10 minutes for
several individuals to address additional items afterward. We will accommodate
that. Devon -Aire has requested 15 minutes and Clements Circle has requested
10 minutes. These accommodations have been granted in the interest of greater
communication on behalf of each organization. As such, it is the Planning
Commission's express understanding that members of those organizations have
agreed to the collective presentation and will refrain from individual comments
throughout our proceedings this evening. Upon conclusion of the group
presentations, the floor will be open to the audience for additional commentary
from individuals presumably not part of the groups that I have identified. Again,
each individual will be limited to two minutes. Comments will be restricted to the
specific item before the Planning Commission. The Chairman will dose the
public hearing, at whidi point the Petitioner will have a brief opportunity to offer
any dosing comments and respond to any additional questions from the
Commission. Given the anticipated length of the presentation from Item 1, the
Petitioners dosing comments and the Commission's discussion will be limited to
the specific item in question. A motion would then be introduced and voted upon,
and the next item would then be read into the record. Public participation on the
following two items will be limited to new information only. In addition to the
foregoing procedure, please note the following. The Planning Commission's
responsibility begins and ends with the laws of the City of Livonia and application
of the same to the petitions before us. We will address only those issues that are
within our authority and will reach a condusion based on reason and law.
Debate between the public and the Petitioners will not be permitted. This
meeting is for the Planning Commission to learn more about the petition and to
receive public commentary prior to its vote. We expect that all participants in the
meeting this evening will proceed in a respectful manner. Please respect others
while speaking, refrain from commenting unless recognized, and refrain from
cheering or jeering comments throughout the evening. Rude, personal and
offensive remarks will not be tolerated and may result in a person being ruled out
of order. As some of you may know, a few residents and the media have raised
the issue of race. This is unfortunate. The issue of race has not, and will not,
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have an impact on our decision this evening. I think I can safely speak for my
colleagues, the Council and the Mayor as well. We consider it a shame that the
few can malign the reputation of our entire City and its citizens. I recommend
that those harboring racist fears keep such thoughts to bemselves. With that, I
am going to turn the floor over to Mr. Morrow who has asked to make a couple of
comments.
Mr. Morrow: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because there is probably a lot
of people here new to our procedures here tonight, I just want to
go over a couple of the items you mentioned because you were
feeding them a lot of information. Basically, I just want to say
that tonight we'll be asking a lot of questions, in addition to all
the other input we will receive. Some of the questions we ask,
we already know the answers. Others we do not know the
answers. This is how we keep the public informed and establish
a public record. Secondly, our personal feelings are not a part
of the process. This Commission applies the appropriate
ordinances and conditions of approval or denial. And as the
Chairman said, the only decisions made here tonight are the
recommendations we send to City Council, either a resolution
recommending approving or a resolution recommending denial.
The City Council makes the final determination. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Morrow. With that understanding, I would ask
the Secretary to please read the first item.
ITEM #1 PETITION 2005-08-0244 TARGET
Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the first item on the agenda, Petition 2005-08-
02-14, submitted by Schostak Brothers & Company, Inc.,
requesting waiver use approval to construct a new Target store
containing a gross floor area in excess of 30,000 square feel,
located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Middlebell
Road and Milburn Avenue in the Northeast 114 of Section 35.
Mr. Taormina: The first item on tonight's agenda involves a waiver use request
to construct a new Target store as part of the proposal for the
redevelopment of the Wonderland Mall property. This property
is located in the Northeast %of Sec. 35, which is a square mile
that is bordered by Plymouth Road to the north, Middlebelt
Road to the east, Merriman Road to the west and Joy Road to
the south. This map shays the site under petition and its
relation to the surrounding parcels and adjacent streets. As you
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can see, immediately to the south of the parcel in question is a
single family subdivision. This is the Bel -Aire Gardens
Subdivision which is zoned R-1, One -Family Residential.
Immediately to the west of this site is the former Kmart building
and Quality Inn Suites, which are zoned C-2, General
Commercial, and to the east across Middlebelt Road, is the
Livonia East Townhouses, which is zoned R-7, Multi -Family
Residential. The total scope of the redevelopment plan for
Wonderland Mall includes the demolition of the entire shopping
mall building, including the existing Target store, and the
construction of a new Target store, a Wal-Mart Supercenter, a
third big -box store, and revisions to the site plans and
reconfigured site area for the previously approved Village Shops
of Wonderland. Overall redevelopment plan for the total 60
acres that comprises the former Wonderland Mall can be
divided into 5 major components: First and the item under
discussion, is Item #1, the Target which is proposed near
Middlebell on an 11.32 acre parcel in the southeast portion of
property. Immediately to the west is the proposed Wal-Mart
Supercenter on a parcel that would be 20.32 acres in size. A
third big -box, which is identified as "Major A," is located between
the proposed Wal-Mart and Kmart and that is on an 11.56 acre
site. The Village Shops comprises an area of approximately
13.02 acres, which is along the frontage of Plymouth Road.
And last, there is a Storm water detention basin that would
service the entire developed area which lies in the southwest
comer of the property and comprises an area of approximately
4.08 acres in size. The proposed Target building is 126,842
square feet. This is about 25 percent larger than the existing
Target, which is just over 100,000 square feet in size. The
majority of floor space for this building would be devoted to
display for the sales of general merchandise. There are other
accessory uses included within the building that include a
pharmacy, a photo processing center as well as a food court.
The overall building dimensions are 393 feel in width by 344
feet in depth. The setbacks for this structure are 100 feet to the
east, and that would constitute the front yard, which is adjacent
to Middlebell Road. There is a minimum setback of 100 feet
required and they comply with that setback. To the rear, which
is the west side yard adjacent to the proposed Wal-Mart, the
setback would be 43 feel, where the ordinance requires a
minimum setback of 25 feel. And on the south side, which is
the closest point of the building wall to the adjacent residential
district, the building would be 107.4 feet. The ordinance in the
case of buildings in excess of 30,000 square feet requires a
minimum setback of 60 feel where ifs adjacent to a residential
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distad. This southwest comer of the building induces a
receiving area, which consists of three screened truck wells.
These wells are depressed approximately 4 feet and there's a
70 foot wall that would be 12'-6" in height that would screen the
proposed truck wells. By comparison, the setback of the
existing mall from the south property line is about 250 feet. The
parlang required for the Target store 634 spaces and the site
plan provides for a total of 674 spaces, all of which would be 10'
x 20' spaces in compliance with the ordinance. So there would
be surplus of 40 parking spaces provided on this site. Lighting
for the parking lot would be located in the front of the store and
would be provided by means of 35 -foot high parking standards.
The Landscaping required by ordinance is 15% of total site
area, which would equate to 1.7 acres. The landscaping
proposed for the Target store is 20.23%, which exceeds
minimum. The site plans shows a total of 2.29 acres of
landscaping. As you can see from the plan, a large percentage
of this landscaped area would be provided by a means of a 73
foot wide bene which is adjacent to the south property line
abufling the single family residential district. This area
comprises about 40% of the total landscaping. The remaining
60% would be provided in the numerous parking lot islands,
which define the main drive aisles around the perimeter of the
front parking area and along Middlebell Road. The proposed
bene would be 10 feet in height and would contain a double row
of 7 fool to 8 foot high Serbian Spruce trees. All landscaped
areas on the site would be fully irrigated. This is a rendering of
the building elevation plans. As you can see, the building
contains primarily a flat roof design. It has several offsets and
varied parapets heights that range in height anywhere from 26
to 32 feet. The high projecting feature on this site is 46'8" and
will require a variance by virtue of the fact that the minimum
height requirement for a building in this zoning district is 35 feet
except under special circumstances where the height is allowed
to be increased where the setback is increased. But in this
particular case, because the building is at its minimum 100 foot
setback from the right-of-way of Middlebelt Road, it is required
to be 35 feet in height. As I'll point out on this elevation, this
feature that is adjacent to the front entrance of the building and
contains some of the signage for Target would be about 46'8" in
height. As you can see also from the rendering, the building
contains a mix of neutral brown and tan colors, contrasted by
the use of Target's characteristic red around the main entrance
as well as the wall -mounted signs. The same exterior finish
materials which include integral colored split face concrete
masonry units, cast back, precast panels with textured paint
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finish and manufactured stone as well as some EIFS, which
stands for exterior insulated finish systems, sometimes referred
to as dryvit. Those would make up the primary building finish
materials on the exterior of the building and would also be used
not only for the front, but for the rear and sides of the building.
We have not reviewed the signage plan in any detail. It is the
understanding that it would come back to the Commission at a
later date for a detailed review. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Toarmina. Normally, at this point, we would
have all of the correspondence received read into the record but
we're not going to put Mr. Nowak through that. We have
received a great deal of information and any correspondence
that has been sent to the City has been distributed to all the
members of the Planning Commission. We also have received
correspondence at our homes. Mr. Nowak, is there anything in
parficularyou would like to point oulforthe record this evening?
Mr. Nowak: We have four items of departmental correspondence. The first
item is from the Engineering Division, dated August 23, 2005,
which reads as follows: "Pursuant to your request, the
Engineering Division has reviewed the above -referenced
petition. We have no objections to the proposal at this time or to
the legal description for the Target parcel. No additional fight-
ofmyis required. The overall plan indicates storm water
detention facilities, which will be required in accordance with
Wayne County's storm water management ordinance. The drive
approaches and deceleration lanes in Middlebelt Road will
require a permit from Wayne County. While there art= many
utilities that will have to be replaced or abandoned in
conjunction with this project, our records indicate that the water
mains, sanitary sewers and storm sewers on site are private.
However, we will require that the proposed detention facilities
be constructed in conjunction with the first phase of the
development" The letter is signed by Robert J. Schron, P.E.,
City Engineer. The second letter is from the Livonia Fire &
Rescue Division, dated August 24, 2005, which reads as
follows: "This office has reviewed the site plan submitted in
connection with a request to construct a new Target store on
property located on the south side of Plymouth Road between
Middlebelt Road and Milbum Avenue in the Northeast % of
Section 35. We have no objections to this proposal with the
following stipulations: (1) An on-site hydrant shall be located
between 50 feet and 100 feet from the Fire Department
connection. (2) Adequate hydrants shall be provided and
located with a maximum spacing of 300 feet between hydrants.
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Most remote hydrant shall flow 1,500 GPM with a residual
pressure of 20 PSI. (3) Access around building shall be
provided for emergency vehicles with turning radius up to 45
feet wall-to-wall and a minimum vertical clearance of 13M feet.
(4) Fire lanes shall be not less than 20 feet of unobstructed
width, able to withstand live loads of fire apparatus, and have a
minimum of 13 feet 6 inches of vertical clearance." The letter is
signed by Donald F. Donnelley, Sr. Fire Inspector. The third
letter is from the Division of Police, dated September 6, 2005,
which reads as follows: We have reviewed the plans in
connection with a proposal by Target located at 29501 Plymouth
Road. We have had numerous traffic crashes at the northern
most exit at this location. Almost 90% of the traffic crashes on
Middlebelt Road at Elmira involve vehicles turning left onto
northbound Middlebelt from Target's proposed northern egress.
The Police Department would recommend a'No Left Tum'sign
at the northern most drive onto MiddlebeH Road. This would
virtually eliminate crashes at this location." The letter is signed
by David W. Studl, Sergeant, Traffic Bureau. The fourth letter is
from the Inspection Department, dated August 30, 2005, which
reads as follows: "Pursuant to your request of August 22, 2005,
the above -referenced petition has been reviewed. The following
is noted. (1) This site is setback 92.85 feet where 100 feet is
required. This special requirement may be waived by a super
majority of Council. (2) Target is allowed one sign of about 330
square feet. A zoning variance from the Zoning Board of
Appeals will be required to have two signs. (3) The restaurant is
allowed 30 seats, 34 are proposed. Either the seats must be
reduced to 30, or a super majority of Council may approve the
excess seats. (4) The landscape plan details seeding or
sodding of lawn areas. The Commission and/or Council may
wish to address this. (5) Light poles at 38 feet tall are detailed.
The Commission and/or Council may also with to address this
issue. This Department has no further objections to this
petition." The letter is signed by Alex Bishop, Assistant Director
of Inspection. That is the extent of the departmental
correspondence.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Nowak. Before we go to the petitioner, are there
any questions from the Commissioners for the staff?
Mr. Alanskas: To Mark Taormina, you said that all landscaping would be
irrigated. Does that include also the small islands in the parking
lot?
Mr. Taormina: That is correct.
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Mr. Piercecchi:
Mr. Taormina, I'm pleased that you changed the notes here in
reference to the height of that building being 46 feet and our
ordinance calls for 35 and the method to resolve it. If I can jump
ahead a little bit, Mr. Chairman, has the same type of notation
been done for the Wal-Mart store, which is 52 feet high for our
official data?
Mr. Taormina:
There is a provision in the Zoning Ordinance that allows the
Planning Commission and the City Council to grant a waiver or
an exception to the minimum building height standard for major
business buildings, but that is only where the setback of those
buildings is increased in an amount equal to one foot for every
one foot of height that is being exceeded. In this case, the
Target store is proposed at its minimum setback of 100 feet
from Middlebelt Road. In order to exceed that height restriction
by an approximate 11 feet, they would have to increase that
setback from Middlebelt Road 11 feet, which they cannot
comply with.
Mr. Piercecchi:
I'm aware ofthat.
Mr. Taormina:
So for that reason, they would be required to go to the Zoning
Board of Appeals.
Mr. Piercecchi:
I brought that point up. I'm fully aware of that. My question was
here, getting into Item #2, which is Wal-Mart, that's 52 feet high.
Mr. Taormina:
Correct.
Mr. Piercecchi:
Are our notes going to have a solution for them loo?
Mr. Taormina:
Yes, the setbacks ...
Mr. Piercecchi:
But they haven't got the problem.
Mr. Taormina:
They do not have that problem because their setbacks are in
excess of that.
Mr. Piercecchi:
That's right. They don't have that problem.
Mr. Taormina:
That's correct.
Mr. Piercecchi:
It's Target that has the problem, but they're 17 feel in excess,
but I just think the records should list this type of information on
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it for future reference and things of that nature. This is a good
explanation of it, and I compliment you for it.
Mr. Morrow:
The excess is confined to that sign. It's not the total building is
it? is just confined to the one architectural feature there with
the sign on it. Is that correct?
Mr. Taormina:
Yes. Its this portion of the building right here, which is a
monument of some sort or a wing wall, if you will, positioned
near the front entrance to the shopping center. As you can see,
its primary purpose is just an architectural feature and also to
include with it the Target sign.
Mr. Morrow:
But the balance of the building conforms?
Mr. Taormina:
That is correct.
Mr. Morrow:
Thankyou.
Mr. LaPine:
Just one question, Mark. The Target store that's there at this
Iocafion today, when it was built, was our waiver use ordinance
in effect, and do they have a waiver on that particular building
that's over 30,000 square feet today?
Mr. Taormina:
Yes, that waiver use was granted in 1988 for a slightly smaller
store.
Mr. LaPine:
Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Are there any other questions for the staff? Seeing none, at this
point we will go to the petitioner. As I indicated in the overall
comments, the petitioner will be addressing the Target issue,
but for our understanding, they will be addressing all three items
that are up for a vote this evening, as will the community groups
when they are completed and after our questioning. So I'm
going to start with Mr. Schostak. And I'm going to ask everyone
tonight, please state your name and address. We need to
maintain a record of all those who have spoken this evening.
We will ask the folks in the control booth if they can tum up the
volume a little, and we'll try to be better by getting doser to the
microphone.
Robert Schostak, Schostak Brothers & Company, 25800 Northwestern Highway,
Suite 750, Southfield, Michigan 48075. Good evening and
thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Planning
Commission, citizens of Livonia and especially those residents
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who live near Wonderland. Tonight, we are here to proudly
present what we consider to be a very important investment and
critical component to the future of the Plymouth Road retail
area. After many, many months of careful study, input from City
officials, City staff, Plymouth Road Development Authority,
neighborhood associations, individual neighbors and
neighboring business owners, we have a presentation on the
final and direct approach we plan for the redevelopment of this
very challenged property. But may I suggest that for a moment
we lake a step back and look at where we've been and where
we hope to go. Wonderland opened in 1958 as the area's first
multi -anchored shopping center. Some people have suggested
that this had significant historical significance in the shopping
center industry nationwide. It was one of the first times a multi -
anchored shopping center in a suburban location at the time
when Montgomery Wards and Federels opened in a new
suburban location. Some might remember Hughes & Hatcher,
Kresge, Woolworth. They were all part of this new and different
exciting retail environment. It thrived through the 60's and the
70's. And if we all can look back, I know I can, that the 70's
brought forward a huge expansion and new concept - the
enclosed super -regional mall in America. Many have looked
back at that as the malting of America. New larger four and five
department store anchored enclosed malls popped up
everywhere in all markets broughoul the United States. Right
here in metropolitan Detroit, it included Twelve Oaks Mall,
Fairlane and Lakeside in Sterling Heights. Then in the 80's, the
older malls that were built in the 60's or before, like Wonderland,
had to go through, in order to remain viable, competitive,
renovations, expansions and enclosures. We bought
Wonderland in 1983 with that in mind. Enclosure and
expansion was approved in 1985 by this Planning Commission
and the City Council. Target stores came to Detroit with their
entry into the market in 1990 and opened at Wonderland in
approximately 1991. Wonderland was seeing a fresh day.
However, retailing began taking several significant paradigm
shifts. The delivery of retail goods and services changed. Brick
and mortar stores were replaced with catalogs and intern(.
Category dominant retailers with stores for the home,
electronics, books, office supplies, sports, pets shops and the
like were replaced with stores like Bed, Bath and Beyond, Best
Buy, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Staples, Office Max, Office
Depot, Dick's, Sports Authority, PetSmart and the like.
Following that, a new formal for department stores or anchor
stores landed throughout the country. Stores such as Kohls and
Mervyn became the new J.C. Penney and the new
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Montgomery Ward. Hypermarkets such as Meijers, Bigs and
Wal-Mart Supercenters began appearing across the United
States. Then the advent of the power center with high volume
destination stores, which included all the anchors I've
mentioned, category dominate stores like I mentioned, began
cohabitating shopping centers in these new specially designed
centers. These dynamics all contributed to this paradigm shift in
retailing for the consumer. It began the nationwide failure of the
mid -priced mid -market department stores located in those early
generation malls such as Wonderland. These properties
became known as the B and C malls that were located across
America. Wonderland Mall, Livonia Mall, Tel -Twelve, Universal
are just but a few examples here in the Michigan area. The
question, what to do with these aging and soon be obsolete
properties? De-malling and adding these category stores was
one option commonly seen around the country. If you recall, we
at Wonderland tried that option. We added Service
Merchandise, For Your Entertainment, which was a multimedia
book store, Jeepers, a new food court and Old Navy. The
thought being, add family merchants, entertainment, food,
restaurants and create a more dynamic place and a community
place for the consumers near and around Wonderland.
However, in the mid -90's, retailing itself went through shrinkage,
mergers, and finally bankruptcies. Shoe stores like Bakers,
Butler, Kinney filed for bankruptcy. Women's apparel stores
such as Mary Ann's, Jean Nicole and hometown favorite,
Winkleman's, fled for bankruptcy. Service Merchandise and
Montgomery Ward for the second time filed for bankruptcy. The
food court operator, Ogden, fled bankruptcy. That led to a very
vacant and very difficult situation at Wonderland. Old Navy then
closed, FYE dosed, and Jeepers dosed. Over and over again,
we tried and brought flesh direction to the property, but that
paradigm shift that we spoke of continued to affect the future
retailing and the future of Wonderland. We were not alone.
Developers around the United States tried to make their mall
properties competitive via adding these destination stores,
sometimes fitting them in within the framework and physical
structures of the real estate. Example - Tel -Twelve. In other
instances, a complete tear down of the shopping center like we
are doing at Wonderland. Please recognize that we have been
involved in Livonia since the 1950's. I'm a third generation
family member in a company that was started in 1920. We have
built, leased and managed five major retail and office properties
in this community. We have owned Wonderland since 1983,
more than 22 years. In each and every instance, we engaged
ourselves with the community at every level, the neighbors, the
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City staff, the planners, the Council. In the case of Wonderland,
we recall clearly the concerns that our neighbors have had
about the property. We recall clearly the concems on the rear
property line. The wall, some wanted it sealed up. Some
wanted it opened Lip. Some were concerned about the parking
against the wall, the trucks, etc. We take those concems very
seriously. This plan we take very seriously as we and our
partners, Wal -Marl, Target and the Village Shops, incorporated
everything possible to make this the very best plan for this
community. We listened carefully to the Planning Commission.
We listened carefully two years ago when we submitted a site
plan when the Council and the Planning Commission said, do
better, work on that plan, upgrade it, create more of a sense of
place. We went back and studied it. We had delays. And
we've come up with an answer that we think makes good sense.
It presents all of the project at once, which was a desire of both
the Planning Commission and the City Council. There were
questions what would be in the future phases. We have
outlined that. This plan includes two of the world's top retailers.
It provides a plan that meets or exceeds any project this
community has seen in our humble opinion. We, Schostak
Brothers, are the owners, developers of the site. We listened to
the concerns and those concems, as you will see, are reflected
in this plan. The project as we propose it is an important
concept in our industry called sustainability. It has
sustainability. It has longevity. It is built to Iasi. The Village
Shops, anchored by Wal-Mart and Target, could not be
imbedded in more sound development practices. The
Wonderland properly today, the mall site, has nearly a million
square feet of gross building area, including all the shop space
and the common areas. The new plan has half that square
footage and will do lots of business. It will invigorate the
Plymouth Road corridor. It will create a sustainable
environment for all businesses located nearby. It will give a
shot in the arm that the PRDA has worked so hard on over the
years to create a pedestrian feel for this community. We have
been on the PRDA. We have chaired the PRDA. We share
their values. We share their goals, and it is in this plan, whether
it is streetlights, landscaping, curbing, all the materials. We are
setting the bar for the future of development on the Plymouth
Road corridor. We are proud of that. We are proud to be able
to say that, and we are proud that you can point to it when other
applicants come with a plan for redoing their properties on
Plymouth Road. There is no doubt that the new Wonderland
Village will service this community in the fullest possible ways.
Not only will Wal -Marl and Target and the future third anchor
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space be present, we hope to have clothing and shoe stores,
electronic stores, men's and children's apparel, restaurants and
cafes, a fun place to shop, relax, dine and entertain. We hope
we have presented a plan that will feel like a village. It will be a
true community center. We have known for years that the rear
of the shopping center was a problem, and this plan deals with
that. There is no parking in the rear. You will see a berm. You
will see a greater setback than the ordinance. You'll see rows
of trees and no parking against the wall as in the past. A
coordinated traffic control system for safety and egress has
been carefully coordinated with the Traffic Departments here
and at Wayne County. The retention area for the storm water
system will be landscaped, fenced and safe. We assure you of
that. A system for management of the maintenance of this
properly by a single entity is in place, that being our firm,
Schostak Brothers. We manage millions of square feet of
commercial property both for ourselves and others in many,
many communities in metro Detroit, especially here in Livonia,
and I think our track record reflects quality. Please understand,
redevelopment is a very complicated endeavor. These are old
buildings that we are tearing down. There are basements
throughout. There's old infrastructure utility systems. There are
a lot of ways to do this project, less expensively for sure. We
are going back in, removing everything, resetting the base,
creating a new beginning starting from ground zero and allowing
this to be the best it can be. A first class property, from a tax
base standpoint, from a job standpoint, from a construction
standpoint, from who's anchoring the property and who our
prospective tenants hopefully will be. It will be first class.
Understand, it's a package. We must do it all. We must do it all
at once. We are ready to proceed. Target and Wal-Mart are
here, as well as representatives of our company to present and
describe, answer questions on the retail spaces that they will
occupy. The delays are behind us. We are ready to go and
ready to move onto Council and receive our approvals next
month. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Schostak. Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate
your enthusiasm. I would appreciate if we could refrain from
clapping and cheering. Politely, I just ask so that we can
continue our meeting. Mr. Schostak, how do you wish to
proceed?
Mr. Schostak: I believe the first item on the petition is the Target site. Would
you like the staff to present Target?
22536
Mr. Walsh:
Staff has presented Target so this is your opportunity to present
on Target.
Mr. Schostak:
Okay. Then I would like the Target representatives to present
the store, then followed by Wal -Marl.
Mr. Walsh:
Yes. Mr. Piercecchi, we're going to allow the petitioner to
complete their presentation.
Mr. Piercecchi:
Well, I was going to ask our developer a few questions like, you
know, just a couple.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Piercecchi, if you don't mind. If we could let them gel
through their presentation then we could ask questions freely.
Mr. Piercecchi:
As I mentioned to you earlier, I thought we should do this all in
one package to begin with because there's three separate
owners ofthis property and three separate petitions.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Piercecchi, we're going to hear all three right now.
Mr. Piercecchi:
Okay.
Mr. Walsh:
Sir, if you could give us your name and address please.
Thomas A. Bonneville,
1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402. I'm
Senior Development Manager for Target Corporation. I've been
at the company for 40 years. I recognize one gentleman in the
audience, Jim Lamphere, who is with the Schostak Company
who I've worked with over the Iasi 25 years. There are many
others in here. I've work with Bob Schon when he was in a
private business. I wonder if I could have you tum on the site
plan? Thank you very much. I'd like to point out some things
here that the audience might not recognize right away. We
have our screen wall at the dock right there. That screen wall is
placed on top of the retaining wall and its about 10 feet high.
Then I would wonder if we could go to the picture of the cross-
section. Have you got that, Mark? The cross-section of the
bene to the rear?
Mr. Taormina:
If you give me just a second, I will locate that.
Mr. Bonneville:
Sure. Then we can go back to the site plan ifyou don't mind
atter that.
Mr. Taormina:
Here it is.
22537
Mr. Bonneville: Right. When we get to the building, then I'm going to have
another one of our gentlemen present that. This is a cross-
section shaving a typical house looking at the back over the lop
of the bene. They can see the top. I believe it's seven feel of
the wall of the building. However, there will be landscaping
placed in here that will screen that too, and the trees will go in at
a larger size as much as we can. And as you can see, they will
not see trucks because the sight line will go over the tops of any
trucks that are in this location right here. So we've covered that
particular aspect. Maybe we can move back to the site plan if
you can jump to that. As you can see, once again, here is the
bene with the trees on lop of it, then we have this landscaping
along Middlebelt. Then we have additional landscaping in this
particular row right here, which is picked up on that side, and
then we have all this landscaping in these islands around here.
We have a handicapped ADA location right in there for handicap
stalls. This is the main entrance to the store right there. We
have landscaping across the top in those locations. When
trucks exit here, they go up here, and as you can see, this is
designed so the trucks are not able to make that tum and go
out. They have to go up here to gel out to the top, and then
they'll go out to Middlebelt in this direction or they can go the
other way, but primarily they would go out to Middlebelt in that
direction. We're set back a little ways from Wal-Mart primarily
because we wanted to get enough parking to be able to serve
our store property and because of the fact that they're a much
bigger building and our setbacks off the back are approximately
equal as you can see in that location. The tower that we were
talking about is a tower right there, I believe. We will be talking
about that when we talk about architecture in a minute. That
location is in a place that will not be seen by anyone from the
rear. No houses from the rear would be able to see that. Even
though it's about 15 feet taller than the building, the angle is
such that you will not be able to see it from back there. You will
be able to see it from Middlebelt and from down this direction.
Regarding our site lighting, I'd like to bring this up as a security
issue. Our employee parking will be primarily in this
northeastern part of the site. After hours, as employees are
exiting the store, just like in our current store procedure, we will
have a lighted pathway of lights that lead out that direction to
that location so no employee will be able to exit the store
without being in that path all the way out from the store leading
out to that location. The last people out of the store have to be
in a group of about three so that theyre protected, and they're
also watched from the front door by our security people. We
22538
also have a security system that we have installed so we will
have cameras watching the parking lot. There are certain
security cameras inside the building to keep shrinkage and
trouble to a minimum as much as possible. We currently have
that in our store. Maybe many people here wouldn't know that,
but we do have it there. We have some landscaping islands
right here, and we'll probably end up connecting these two
islands right here together so that we can have some carts in
there. These are cart comets that are used to hold carts on the
site. The sidewalk on this side has also parking that belongs to
Target, and we have parking right here that belong to Target,
but as you know, most people shy away from the side parking
just because it's the nature of the individuals. They tend to park
in an aro out from this entrance, so most of the parking, when
we have our lowest amount of parking, will be concentrated in
this area right in here. And as it builds up, it will build out in an
aro generally like that. And so therefore, employee parking,
perfect spot right out there. We are obeying the site lighting.
We expect that our lights will be mounted inside cubes so that
the light source is mounted in a vertical way like this, and there's
a parabola around it so the light shines on the ground. You will
not be able to see the point sources of light unless you are in
the parking lot. So the lights have a cutoff angle, and they come
out about 60 feet on either side of the light. They will be spaced
around the parking lot on the spines and taken care of that way.
Regarding drainage, we're going to have not just the retention
pond, which is way over the left here on the southwest comer of
the entire site, but we will have our drains in the aisles rather
than on the spines. The reason for that is because we would
prefer that our customers do not step out of the car and into a
pond if it is raining. We want to make sure they can walk behind
their car but not into a pond, and we are also not going to have
those deep cul subs that you see on some parking lots in this
area. You will see that there is a smooth transition, and we will
have enough drainage, catch basins, to make sure that the lot
drains fairly rapidly. I think with that we can probably bring Jim
up. Maybe you can explain some of the architecture of the
building, and then were readyto answer questions as well.
Jim Miller, Project Architect, Target, 1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, Minnesota
55420. Mr. President, members of the Commission, and I
would say studio audience but there's no games to be played
tonight. We will take this seriously. I want to go through the
architecture of the store. There are three areas that I want to
cover: design, structure and materials. When we looked at this
opportunity, being a relocated store, this is somewhat of a
22539
phoenix for us. Here is an opportunity as Mr. Schostak alluded
to in his overview of the retailing history. Our present store is
trying to meet the needs of our guests and the community of
Livonia. It can't. And this is an opportunity to our
merchandising direction and our brand direction to finally meet
the needs that we're seeking, and at the same time serve the
guests and the citizens of Livonia. What you're looking at
initially as a structure is what we unfolded in June as our new
base brand prototype store. Basically, there were some
dimensional enhancements in width and depth. The main
difference though that we incurred is at the entry. What we've
done here is we've enhanced this whole composition of the
entry and the mass at this location. Two things, we've opened
more glass in the high mass, which we call our food avenue.
That is where we have the Starbucks, the Pizza Hut and then
your basic Target hotdog and popcorn. We've introduced the
glazing. We have seating that can accommodate up to 34
guests at any one time. We tried to activate the street with
people seeing in and people seeing out. The other major
component of that is we've increased the amount of glass at the
entry. We've raised the glass oiling in that area by about five
feel. We've widened it. There are two reasons for that. One, it
brings exposure to the guests from outside of the parking lot
and helps draw them into the store. The second, but probably
more importantly, is that by protruding a glass safety, we are
dealing with the issue of safeness. Not safety, but safeness. It
is very important given the demographics that primarily shop at
our stores that as you leave the store that you have a wide
range of vision to the parking field. You feel much safer exiting
the store. We try to minimize the amount of dark comers,
creating shute -type environments that make people more
comfortable. They can see where they're going. They can see
who is out there. So those were two of the major changes into
the architecture. And then the third, which is acting as a
branding element and as a structural element, is our red wall. It
is just an architectural element that we've incorporated in all our
stores. There is a circle right there that incorporates a bench.
Al the opposite end, we've also added more glass at this
location. This is where our team members, our employees,
work. This is their lounge, training facility, offices and break
room. It has become a bit longer as a result of this. As a
structure, our basic building is a 33 foot high parapet. The main
box typically sits at 26. It turns the comer. It transitions from 26
to 24 until we get to the rear elevation at 21. In this case, we
have modified that, which takes me into the design aspect.
When we initially engaged with Schostak talking about the
22540
design, we looked at their initial images of what their architect
was proposing for their shops. So we looked at the, which you
will see later, the idea of creating a base in a top portion of the
building. Theirs is on a much smaller scale. Ours is on a much
larger scale. It presents hard challenges in how to take a mass
of this size and break it down. This is always a challenge. But
given this and with the redo of this store and given the redo of
this development in Livonia, we felt it was important to
architecturally try to articulate this building to break its visual
mass down into a series of architectural components using
materials that are more typically found throughout the
community, throughout older historic commercial districts. So
with that, we've created on the front and on the sides, we have
done this upgrading on all four sides. We've layered it with the
use of split face masonry with a cultured stone or a
manufactured stone base. The whole ring is based with a cast
brick band at the bottom. And given the transition that this
development is going to go through and to help expedite the
efficiency of time, we are constructing this building out of a pre-
cast architectural panel in which everything that you see here is
then layered onto the top. The beige color that you see is the
exposed precast panel that we articulate with reveals and that
we will finish in a textured type paint that will resemble or look
like stucco or an EIFS which will be similar to that seen on the
shops' buildings. I'll just quickly walk around. Again on the
front, to break down the apparent visual mass and the physical
mass with the guests, the building steps back about 15 feet from
the front entry mass. What we've done here at this location and
down here is a series of piers, which we call a pergola, that just
brings it down more to a person scale. They are 8'8" high. As
Tom alluded, we have planters in this area that are landscaped
with bushes, shrubs and then smaller trees. We use that as a
temporary or intermediate staging area for carts. As carts are
collected from the parking lot, they are placed back in this area
to keep the sidewalks clear, to allow our guests free passage in
and out, not to create hazards, and the landscaping assists in
the screening of those carts in that area. As we tum the corner
then onto Middlebelt, we've created another panel that ties back
to the front mass at this location with the Target bullseye based
in the manufactured stone. The cast brick element is continuing
around back, and then mimicking the panels that we put on the
front. We have two panels at this side. We tum the corner then
onto the rear, and onto the rear facing the residential area, the
same thing - cast brick running along the base, two articulated
panels on the surface into this area. This is where the dock
area occurs. This is the screen wall, the 70 foot long 12 foot
22541
high screen wall which will shield the trucks. So once a truck is
parked back here, visually it cannot be seen behind this. This
material is also the split faced CMU that is also found around
the rest of the building. Similarly then on the last elevation,
we're doing the same thing. The last feature I'd like to address
is the architectural vertical element that has been brought up.
We discussed this internally for quite a while. This is an
opportunity not only for us but for Livonia. We looked at this
store. That simply rebuilding this store, we felt here is an
opportunity, this being an exclamation mark, not only for us.
We're going to be providing a new and better store for our
guests. Its going to be a better shopping experience. It's going
to be a better working environment for our team members, but
it's also going to symbolize kind of the revitalization of this retail
development in Livonia. We looked at and are not totally
unaware of the rules as far as the height limitations. We
purposely pursued doing a vertical element that kind of
celebrates this change, both for the development and for our
store. And so we're looking at it at somewhat of an iconic or
landmark feature that can come to represent that type of
progress and success. We are proud of constantly looking
forward into the future without stores from a merchandising
standpoint. We do the same with our architecture, and we are
looking at being a symbol of looking into the future.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. Al this point, we're going to take questions from the
Commissioners regarding the Target presentation, and then the
petitioner will be allowed to continue on with their overall review.
Mr. Pieroecchi: Good evening, sir. I received this package on Friday. This is a
new design.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. Piercecchi?
Mr. Pieroecchi: Yes.
Mr. Walsh: Could you speak to the microphone? The people can't hear.
Mr. Pieroecchi: I just received that package on Friday, and I was very glad to
start looking at it. I said to my wife, "I want you to see it" You
know what she said? Where are the windows? You really are
windowless almost except for the front.
Mr. Miller: Well, for the front.
Mr. Pieroecchi: Is that for theft and safety?
22542
Mr. Miller:
It's the nature of our merchandising. There are a lot of areas
where we would not have windows. We could not have
windows. If you could pan out.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
You don't have to elaborate on R. I just wanted to let you know
there was a comment.
Mr. Miller:
Sure.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
I don't believe in micromanaging.
Mr. Miller:
There's always a desire and we have looked in other situations.
It's very difficult in the merchandising industry to incorporate
windows into a store like ours. We have storage that is
occurring along the side here and of course along the back.
We've almost doubled if that is any consolation from where we
were.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
The interior will be the open concept?
Mr. Miller:
It's all tolallywide open, correct. Its whalwe call the race track.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
I may comment on that wall which the ZBA will permit you to do,
but you really meet our specs fairly well. There's only one area
where you've got some smaller parking spots on the western
wall that you pointed out. Those are only nine footers. Theyre
supposed to be 10, but our motion will coverthat.
Mr. Miller:
Okay. I'll let Tom address that. I'm passing the buck.
Mr. Shane:
I think this would be for Mr. Bonneville. I'd like you to discuss, if
you would, the truck deliveries.
Mr. Bonneville:
Truck deliveries?
Mr. Shane:
Yes. How many would there be? How big are they? When are
deliveries taking place and that kind of thing, if you would.
Mr. Bonneville:
We operate the truck dock 90 percent of the year from 7 a.m. to
1 p.m., one hour after lunch. And during the Christmas season,
we will operate until approximately 10:00 at night. That's the
Target operation. That's our typical Target operation. We have
approximately 27 vehides of that size per week and those are
the WB67 sized trucks. That's the 53 foot trailer behind a 17
fool tractor, and then the smaller truck vehides are brought in
22543
either to the front during the early morning hours, although
some, like with pop, will come to the man door separate from
the dock and stop for moment and there will be one of these pull
carts. They're pulled by the driver himself and taken in the
store. All those trucks turn their engines off during when they
are doing that. Diesel trucks in the wintertime, it makes it very
difficult for diesel trucks in the winter to tum their engines off.
I'm trying to answer questions that I'm anticipating your
question.
Mr. Shane: Do any of those trucks have refrigeration units which have to
con?
Mr. Bonneville: No. This is not a Super Target. This is a regular Target store.
Those are called reefer trucks because they're refrigerator
trucks. We rarely have that, but we do have that once in a
while.
Mr. Shane:
Do these trucks have to use the beeper when they back up?
Mr. Bonneville:
Most of the trucks these days as a safety measure are forced to
have that beep beep sound and I apologize for that, but they are
backing up into a dock that is all screened, so most of the sound
is absorbed the second the truck gets into that position.
Mr.Shane:
Thank you very much. That's all l have right now.
Mr. Alanskas:
What are the hours at your existing store?
Mr. Bonneville:
I believe we're operating from ...
Mr. Alanskas:
Can you hear me now?
Mr. Bonneville:
The hours of the store ... I'll repealyour question if itwill help.
Mr. Alanskas:
All right. Thank you.
Mr. Bonneville:
The hours of the store are generally from 7 a.m. to about 10
p.m.
Mr. Alanskas:
Is that on Sunday also?
Mr. Bonneville:
I think Sunday we're a litlle bit shorter hours than that.
Mr. Alanskas:
Now that you're going to be going into possibly a such larger
store, are you looking to expand your hours?
22544
Mr. Bonneville:
I'm sorry. What?
Mr. Alanskas:
Are you looking to expand your hours because you're going to
have a bigger store?
Mr. Bonneville:
No.
Mr. Alanskas:
Okay. Question number 2, on your most northerly sight of your
parking spot, how long a length from the parking spot to the
store entrance is it?
Mr. Bonneville:
The most distance parking spot from the front door would be in
the employee part of the lot. I'm going to estimate that to be
about 700 feet. Gary? 500? I'm asking my Civil Engineer here.
Mr. Alanskas:
The reason why I ask is because your store, of course, is doing
verywell.
Mr. Bonneville:
Yes, sir.
Mr. Alanskas:
In your Christmas hours, are you expecting people to walk 700
feel to gel into your building?
Mr. Bonneville:
Well, I guess Gary says its 500 feel.
Mr. Alanskas:
Five hundred feel even?
Mr. Bonneville:
Yes, we would.
Mr. Alanskas:
You are? Okay. Because you know, I go to your store quite
often, and I see a lot of senior citizens in your store. I've talked
to quite a few in the past two months and I say what are your
likes and dislikes about this store. And they said, mainly, the
most easy things that we want to buy for a senior citizen, like
paper towels, toilet tissue, cosmetics, not cosmetics but ... are
in the back of the store not towards the front of the store. Is
there a reason for that?
Mr. Bonneville:
It's done by store planning and it's done with adjacency
planning, as we call it, so similar merchandise is near other
similar merchandise. We don't put the tools next to lingerie, for
example. We wouldn't do things like that.
Mr. Alanskas:
Is that planning done for younger people or all ages?
22545
Mr. Bonneville:
Our store is designed for all ages.
Mr. Alanskas:
All right. Thank you.
Mr. La Pine:
I have a number of questions. First, how many trucks did you
say come in there per week.
Mr. Bonneville:
I believe its approximately 27 of the big ones.
Mr. La Pine:
Twenty-seven of the big ones. Now, is that broken down for six
days, so we have approximately five trucks a day?
Mr. Bonneville:
If you had to average it, I would say yes, but it changes on a
daily
basis. Some days, we might have 50 percent more than
an average day, and other days we might have say 20 percent
less than an average day. It varies a little bit depending on
when they leave. If it's a Target warehouse theyre leaving or if
they're coming from distant places like Dallas or wherever they
might be coming from, we have to time all of our distributions so
that it arrives so that we always have spaces for them.
Mr. La Pine:
You said the trucks will be loading or unloading between the
hours 6 a.m. and 1 p.m'?
Mr. Bonneville:
Seven and 1 p.m. generally.
Mr. La Pine:
At any time, do you have trucks that are coming in from out of
state that may arrive at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 o'clock in the morning
and pull into the back of your establishment and wail for the
7:00 a.m. opening?
Mr. Bonneville:
That has happened, yes. Generally, it happens when they gel
hung up in traffic, but we ask those truck drivers to turn their
trucks off, and we are willing to ask the trucks to remain either
off site or ask them to remain more toward the front until the
7:00 hour if that's what you desire. We'll bend to ft. We're
flexible, sir.
Mr. La Pine:
That's one of their problems. I don't want the trucks in the back
of the building. We're trying to keep everything as humanly
possible away from the back of the building so not to have any
problem with the neighbors in the back. If they come early in
the morning, I'd rather see them out in the front of the building in
the parking lot because then they're facing Plymouth Road or
Middlebell Road and we don't have that problem. So that's
good. I'm glad b hear it. The next problem I have is, is there
22546
Mr. Miller: Lel me just follow up on what Tom was saying. What we do
provide in a base store is two benches that sit along one of
these planters right here. We also provide a bicyde rack. But
also part of what we were looking at with the tower element was
incorporating a bench right there so there is an immediate
association with the front entry. So with the development of this
sidewalk plaza area, we could incorporate more benching in this
location as well.
Mr. LaPine: Do you have any provisions so if somebody comes with a
wheelchair, that they can unload right in front of the building
without impeding the traffic flow?
any way we can get any more landscaping in the front of the
building? It seems to me we're very, very shallow on
landscaping.
Mr. Bonneville:
On the sidewalk are you speaking?
Mr. LaPine:
No. Between the sidewalk and the building or I don't care how
you do it, but I just dont think there's enough landscaping in the
front of the building.
Mr. Bonneville:
Do you want to turn it back on again? What we have here is ...
Mr. LaPine:
Can I interrupt you for one second. In conjunction with that,
have you got any benches or anything out there where senior
citizens can be dropped off by somebody lheyre coming with to
the store and they can be dropped off in the front of the building
without impeding the tow of traffic and have some benches so
they can sit while individuals go and park the car and come
back and pick them up and go in the store?
Mr. Bonneville:
You know that one of the procedures that we have is to attempt
to do some micromarkefing, it's called, which allows us to look
at demographics of our customer base here. If Livonia has a
little larger percentage of the population that is my age and
older ... I happened to be a senior citizen. I'm 66. We could
probably arrange for there and here as some places to put
some kind benches. Maybe we could put them there in such a
place that they would be safe so that people wouldn't trip over
them, that sort ofthirig. And it would be a pickup point.
Mr. LaPine:
I think it's very important. We do have a large senior citizen
population in the City of Livonia. I think it's important that we try
to accommodate them as much as possible.
Mr. Miller: Lel me just follow up on what Tom was saying. What we do
provide in a base store is two benches that sit along one of
these planters right here. We also provide a bicyde rack. But
also part of what we were looking at with the tower element was
incorporating a bench right there so there is an immediate
association with the front entry. So with the development of this
sidewalk plaza area, we could incorporate more benching in this
location as well.
Mr. LaPine: Do you have any provisions so if somebody comes with a
wheelchair, that they can unload right in front of the building
without impeding the traffic flow?
22547
Mr. Miller:
The entire length is what we call a waterfall curb. The enfire
length of the sidewalk in front of the store is handicap
accessible. We typically provide the location at this juncture
where you can park and people needing assistance in getting in
and out of a mobility vehicle to load at this location in front of the
store.
Mr. La Pine:
Okay.
Mr. Bonneville:
Gary, do you have some comments you can make on this loo?
Gary Tressel, our civil engineer with Hubbell, Roth & Clark.
Gary J. Tressel,
Senior Associate, Hubbell, Roth & Clark, Inc., 555 Hulet Drive,
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48303. As Jim pointed out, this is all
ramped so that you can cross here at any point and gain access
to the walk. I believe another question was, can this field of
parking be broken up. We cannot do that because this just
meets the parking code with a few spare spaces. We've
concentrated our effort in putting our landscaping to the rear to
increase the buffer as much as we can. The only way to
continue to maintain parking is to move the store backwards,
then move the rear landscaping to the front.
Mr. La Pine:
So you cant gel any more landscaping in the front of the
building than what's there now.
Mr. Tressel:
I believe that's what I said, yes.
Mr. La Pine:
I have a couple more questions. Another question I have, out in
the parking lot where you have the cart comets. My wife goes to
Target quite frequently. I go with her, and I'm always initated at
these carts. I don't know haw often they go out there and
retrieve the carts, but I don't think it's very often. When I do see
them, they're out there with a line with 50 - 60 carts the guy is
trying to maneuver. And what happens, unfortunately, people
don't put the carts in the comets. They just drop hem where
they want and they roll into your cars, bump your cars. How
often do you go out there and retrieve the carts? And number
two, can you do it more often?
Mr. Tressel:
We can ask our management to try to pick up carts more often,
but generally, ve have cart pickups when we start getting law
on carts inside the store.
22548
Mr. LaPine:
See, that doesn't make sense to me. You'd be better off to go
out there and pick up the carts on a periodic basis instead of
waiting until such time you're almost out of carts. Number one,
it helps the people ...
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, please if we could ...
Mr. LaPine:
Number one, it helps the people out there who have nice cars.
People don't care and just drop their carts when they load it into
their cars and take off and dont put it in the carrel and a lot of
people do it.
Mr. Tressel:
This is our opportunity to ask the public to please put your carts
in cart correls. Thank you.
Mr. LaPine:
You can ask them all you want. I'm going one further on that.
Mr. Tressel: Yes, sir.
Mr. LaPine: Going one further on that, coming out of your store, as I
understand it, your snack bar is right by the front door. Is that
correct?
Mr. Tressel: Fairly close.
Mr. LaPine: Fairly close. That's a problem because when the people leave
and come out of there with a big glass of pop or whatever
they're carrying and some food, they go out in the parking lot.
They eat it. And what do you think they do? I don't see any
barrels out there or anyplace to throw it. They throw them on
the ground. Nov, here's my solution for you.
Mr. Walsh: Ladies and gentleman, please, if we could keep it down.
Mr. LaPine: If you had people going out there picking up these carts more
often and they see this debris in the parking lot, couldn't they be
used to pick up this stuff when they go out there? They could
use one cart and throw it all in and then take it and put it
somewhere instead of leaving it out in the parking lot?
Mr. Tressel: Those are suggestions that we can take to our operations.
Mr. Walsh: Please. Let's be respectful of those who are asking the
questions and the responses. Thank you.
22549
Mr. Tressel:
Those are items or ideas that we can bring forward to our
operations. There are guidelines that our operations define and
then it's up to the store team leader to enact those. And how
they set those standards and the frequency of collecting carts or
policing the grounds is inevitably left up to them. You can set
standards. I'm not trying to dismiss your concem. You can set
standards but once they get busy, if store shelves start to get
low, they are directed to start stocking or do internal things.
Many times then they will have to avoid doing one thing in order
to meet another. But we understand your concern. With our
new stores we do provide trash barrels out and into this area. I
believe there are two or three in the new stores schemes, but
we can forward those ideas to operations and let them respond
accordingly.
Mr. Bonneville:
There's one on each side of the entry doors.
Mr. La Pine:
That's fine, but when they leave the store, they're going to their
cars and haven't had their drink and haven't eaten whatever
theyre carrying. I've been over to the store. I use the one on
Eight Mile and Haggerty. I've seen people just drop them in the
middle of the parking lot. They're not going to sit there and
drink their pop and drop it in the can. I'm only saying there's got
to be a way that you can police that better.
Mr. Tressel:
We can bring your concerns to our operations and share with
them.
Mr. LaPine:
Okay. Thankyou, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Morrow:
Yes, I'd like to go to the back of the building again. Just a few
things here. I did look at your store over on Haggerty Road and
observed a truck backing in. It almost appeared like when the
trailers slide in, they look like they hit a padded area so It's
completely sealed from the outside. It almost becomes a part of
the building.
Mr. Bonneville:
That's correct.
Mr. Morrow:
So it's not an open truck dock. All the noise would be contained
within the building.
Mr. Bonneville:
We provide that for two reasons. One is to seal it from the
weather. Another reason is because truck docks are generally
sloped and not more than about three percent, which means
that the lop of the truck tends to touch the building before the
22550
bottom. So it seals the whole thing and keeps out everything,
including people, from trying to get into the building thatway.
Mr. Morrow: That's good, but my concern is with the noise emanating into
the neighborhood. I'm glad those other things have happened.
Also, is there any lighting in the rear of the store?
Mr. Bonneville: Any lighting in the rear?
Mr. Morrow: Yes.
Mr. Bonneville: Oh, you mean outdoors?
Mr. Morrow: Outdoors, yes. In other words, I want to make sure there's
nothing going into the neighborhood. With that berm, it probably
can't but I don't want a big glow.
Mr. Bonneville: There's two. One right there. That's a fire exit door. That's a
fire exit and a man door for the dock. And then there's a light
over the dock right there.
Mr. Morrow: But they're downld?
Mr. Miller: Yes, theyre dovnlil wall packs, and we place them there for
safety purposes for those exits.
Mr. Bonneville: They have a cutoff angle so the Ight will spread out to about
that line rightthere.
Mr. Miller:
If this is the wall, the light is going down like this.
Mr. Morrow:
Okay. Now, I'd like to go to the berm. When you were showing
the sight line to the store, I couldn't see what the height of the
spruce trees where. In other words, what will be the height of
the trees going in?
Mr. Tressel:
The height of the berm, because of drainage, because we want
to make sure we drain the backside, varies from 8 to 10 feet
high. The height of the trees at planting will be about 10 to 12
feel. At full maturity, they will be about 24 feet high.
Mr. Morrow:
I know you have a double now there.
Mr. Tressel:
Staggered double row
Mr. Morrow:
Right, and that is to provide better screening?
22551
Mr. Tressel:
Correct.
Mr. Morrow:
Just a side note. I know our ordinance requires that we have a
wall where commercial abuts residenlial. Sometimes we're
asked to waive that wall and put in a bene. I notice we now
have both. I'm not sure there's any other place in the city where
we have a bene and a wall. Mr. Chairman, have you ever heard
of anybody that has it?
Mr. Walsh:
I have.
Mr. Morrow:
I would suspect the reason you're doing that is to further buffer
the abutting property owners?
Mr. Tressel:
Yes. This is a current wall and it will be maintained. This will be
drainage, and then the berth is to further buffer.
Mr. Morrow:
So we're talking 22 feet maybe at the beginning and possibly 10
or 15 more feel at maturity?
Mr. Tressel:
Yes. This will be 10 - 12 feel high at the initial planting, plus the
berth height will make it about 20 - 22 feet high. It will grow to a
height of about 32 - 34 feet.
Mr. Morrow: Okay. That's all I have, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Pieroecchi: I just have one thing, Mr. Chairman. I listened intently to the
gentleman's presentation on the lights. The lights that you
talked about, what part of the standards are they?
Mr. Miller: Cooper lights.
Mr. Bonneville: He wants to know what kind of lights we are proposing?
Mr. Miller: Thirty feet.
Mr. Pieroecchi: Thirty feel high. That's all theyre going to be?
Mr. Bonneville: No, no. The wall packs.
Mr. Miller: Oh, I'm sorry. The wall packs. They're going to be above the
door. I don't have that specification, but they're going to be in
the range of 12 -14.
22552
Mr. Piercecchi: We have a spec. Thirty-five is the max and they've got to be
shielded away.
Mr.
Miller:
They're not that high. Theyre placed 14 feet upon the wall
above ground.
Mr.
Piercecchi:
Are you and Wal-Mart going to share the same type of lighting?
Mr.
Miller:
I dont know what Wal -Marl is using.
Mr.
Walsh:
We II gel to that part of the presentafion shortly on their lighting.
Theyre going to continue on alter Target.
Mr.
Miller:
They may be using a different type of fixture on their building
than what we will be specifying.
Mr.
Piercecchi:
On the back of the building. you had lights and theyll be
shielded down. I'm talking about the ones that are out in the
parking lot.
Mr.
Walsh:
Are the lights common throughout?
Mr.
Bonneville:
It's a common type light, and those are on poles and those are
35 feet high.
Ms.
Smiley:
My question really goes to Mark. Is there anywhere in the City
that we have bene a even close to that that I could look at?
Mr.
Taormina:
I'd have to check.
Mr.
Bonneville:
We have a berth, ma'am, on our Deerfield Heights store that
goes around.
Mr.
Miller:
Dearborn Heights store.
Mr.
Bonneville:
Dearborn Heights. What did I say?
Ms.
Smiley:
Deerfield.
Mr.
Bonneville:
Sorry. The Dearborn Heights store. I should remember; I did it.
Ms.
Smiley:
Is it similar to this?
Mr.
Bonneville:
Yes, it's very similar to this. The trees may be planted in a little
bit different zigzag pattern and they might be a little further
apart, but we do have it on two sides in the rear of that particular
22553
store, and on the side, as far as we could do it on that particular
store. We did that store back in about I'm going to say 1991 -
1992. Somewhere back then. But we were real close to the
houses there.
Ms. Smiley: Have you had any feedback on something like on a berm that
size?
Mr. Bonneville: They loved our berms when we built them. We had people
come to us and compliment us on it, and it was really nice to gel
emails and letters from various people.
Ms. Smiley: Just what I've seen in our city, I have not seen anything like this,
at Laurel Park or any of the malls or buildings or anything with
that size of a berth. Am I right?
Mr. Taormina: There's one berth at Cambridge West, an office development,
but it does not include a wall in combination with the berth, and
@'s probably not as tall as this one.
Ms. Smiley: And those size trees?
Mr. Taormina: Today they are that tall, yes.
Ms. Smiley: Thankyou.
Mr. La Pine: Just one more question. Him many employees do you have on
each shift, and how many panting spaces are you allotting for
employees?
Mr. Bonneville: How many employees do we have on each shift and how many
parking stalls do we have for them? It's typical, I'm going to say
an average store has about 75 employees in a store per shift,
and generally there's approximately three shifts per day.
They're not necessarily full eight-hour shifts obviously, but they
overlap. So therefore 75 stalls are the employee parking
location. That's the special lighted area that we have that
walkway that I explained earlier going outthere.
Mr. La Pine: So you're going to have 75 parking places designated for the
employees, or are you going to have 150 so that when the shift
change, they dont have to worry about waiting for somebody to
leave before they gel a parking spot?
Mr. Bonneville: We designate it without marking it on the ground, so therefore we
provide more light than what's required for the 75. Light spills in
22554
each direction from that 75 out there in that northeast comer of
the lot.
Mr. LaPine: Do you have those spaces somehow designed so people going
to the store won't park there?
Mr. Bonneville: No, we dont prevent customers from parking there if they want
to park there. Generally the only lme we have any troubles with
needing to have those stalls specifically, is if they are working
after hours. Then in those cases, we are not having a full
complement of 75 people working the store unless its a really
big sale. And on lop of that, not all employees drive a car.
Probably about 30 percent get picked up by their spouses and
are delivered back and forth to the store.
Mr. LaPine: So 75 spaces are really all you need designated for your
employees?
Mr. Bonneville:
Yes, that's a maximum.
Mr. Alanskas:
Just one question for clarification. The existing wall on the south
now has openings in it. Are those openings going to be closed
off'?
Mr. Bonneville:
Jim?
Mr. Miller:
The south wall?
Mr. Alanskas:
Yes, where the residents are so that there's no way to go
through to the stores.
Mr. Tressler:
The wall along the south property line of Wonderland Mall will
be fully closed off.
Mr. Alanskas:
It will be closed off fully. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Morrow:
Just one final comment. Back to the truck well again. When I
was field checking the truck wells, a truck was backing in and I
didn't hear it beeping. I turned off the radio, put down the
window, and there was no beeping. So I don't know if I'm telling
stories out of school.
Mr. Bonneville:
I must have been lying then.
Mr. Morrow:
No, but I didn't hear it and I had heard the same thing, that they
were supposed to do it. I didn't know if that was an option.
22555
Mr. Bonneville:
I thought it was it was the law in Michigan but maybe it is an
option.
Mr. Morrow:
The guy might have been breaking the law, but it was not
beeping. That's just a comment. If there is an option, we would
like the option to have it off.
Mr. LaPine:
You show six locations where you can bring in trucks. Is that
correct? You have six truck wells, so you can accommodate six
trucks at one time. Is that correct?
Mr. Bonneville:
We have three on Target plus one compactor spot.
Mr. LaPine:
Justthree. Okay.
Mr. Bonneville:
And then one compactor position.
Mr. LaPine:
Normally speaking, how long does it take to unload a truck?
Does it depend upon what's onboard the truck?
Mr. Bonneville:
I think its about an hour and half once we get started with it.
Mr. LaPine:
And as soon as they're unloaded, they pull out and another
truck is probably waiting.
Mr. Bonneville:
That's the general idea. Now not all trucks are full trucks either.
We don't unload a whole truck because sometimes the trucks
come in that have a fourth of their load for this store and maybe
another fourth for one out in Westland or other places.
Mr. LaPine:
Thankyou, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, Mr. LaPine. If there are no other questions, then the
petitioner will continue with the presentation, turning to Wal-Mart
and then the shops. Commission questions will be deferred on
those items until they are called. When they are done with their
presentation, we will go into the public hearing portion on this
item. Mr. Schostak?
Mr. Schostak:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think Target has expressed their
design, the unified manner that we're hoping to create the
development. I think you'll see when Wal-Mart joins me at the
podium and ultimately the Village Shops, how it is that we've all
built off of each other's qualities and the finish of the proposed
stores. I want to point out that the common parking agreements
22556
that exist between the three petitioners, Target, Wal-Mart and
the Village Shops, allow for amongst each other joint parking
and sharing of the parking areas. I also pick up a common
concern about the parking of trucks in the rear, and again, I
want to remind the Commission and the audience that our
property management company will be managing the entire site
for Target, Wal-Mart and the Village Shops. We assure you that
we will be making every effort to insure the trucks that are not
there to do business are moved off the site, not waiting in the
rear, or the southern portion of the shopping center abutting our
neighbors.
Mr. Walsh:
Please, ladies and gentleman. No comments. Sir, you are
interrupting the meeting. We are going to continue without
these interruptions. Mr. Schostak.
Mr. Schostak:
Thankyou. I'd like then to proceed with Wal-Mart ifwe may?
Mr. Walsh:
Yes, sir.
Mr. Schostak:
Thank you. Will the Wal-Mart representatives join me?
Roderick Scott,
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 702 Southwest H Street, Bentonville,
Arkansas. Chairman Walsh, Commissioners, citizens, good
evening. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about
this plan tonight. We're very proud of this store and community
concept, which will be a shining star in your community. With
your input, we spent a considerable amount of time and effort in
creating a state-of-the-art store. From our meetings, surveys
and outreach, we have adjusted, made every opportunity we
can to make this a store that you can be proud of. I will be
answering some of the questions as the Target representatives
were on some of the issues for the store. As well as presenting
with me are Chris Breshears of PBA Architects and John
Nadmtowski ofAlwell-Hicks. If they could approach please.
Mr. Walsh:
If they could come forward, please.
Mr. Scott:
In addition, we would like to have the opportunity at this
moment, while they're setting up, to show a video that we put
together if we could have that opportunity.
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, the petitioner is entitled to make their
presentation in total.
Video presentation.
22557
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, Mr. Scott. You can confinue.
Mr. Scott:
We'd like to start with a review of the site plan, if possible.
Mr. Walsh:
Very well. Do you want that on the screen? Mark, if you could
bring that up please.
John Nadratowski, Atwell -Hicks, 500 Avis Dr., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108.
We're the engineers for Wal-Mart. Mark, do you have sheet
three of our submittal?
Mr. Walsh:
Sir, if you could speak a little closer to your microphone, I'd
appreciate it.
Mr. Nadratowski:
Okay.
Mr. Walsh:
Sorry its a little short.
Mr. Nadratowski::
That's okay.
Mr. Walsh:
Thanks.
Mr. Nadratowski:
That's fine. I just want to go around the site and point out some
of the highlights of the store and the site itself. This is the
proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter. Square footage is 203,819.
As we move around to the upper right hand comer and we'll
work our way counterclockwise. Up in the right hand comer
here is a proposed drive-thm pharmacy. This gives the
customer an opportunity to drive-thru the pharmacy instead of
getting out of their car such as a little later at night or in bad
weather to pick up any prescriptions they might have pre -
ordered. We walk around through the front. We have the two
vestibules: the main vestibule for the grocery side and the main
vestibule for the retail side. This section over here of the
building is a garden center that features a drive-thru area for
customer pickup of heavy bags or heavy planting materials.
They can drive through here and get loaded and pull out. One
feature again that came up with the Target store is the
oversized berm in back. We saw that detail earlier with the
Target presentation and that detail and that sight line would stay
consistent with our portion of the project. Out in front, this front
area here, we'll provide 1,023 parking spaces for customer and
employee parking. Employee parking will be planned to be up
in this section, approximately 100 to 150 spots for employee
parking. These dark rectangles that you see throughout the
22558
parking lot are the cart correls for the store to collect shopping
carts such as on the Target site. As we come around back, the
store features a TLE, which standards for Tire Lube Express,
which offers oil change services and tine changing services as
well. And finally in the back area is a double sided truck dock.
Each dock is screened by a wall on either side with areas for
three trucks on each side to deliver goods. With that, I'd like to
introduce the architect of the store.
Mr. Walsh: Good evening, sir. If we could have your name and address
please.
Chris Brashear, PB Architecture & Engineering, 710 Roseland Avenue, Rogers,
Arkansas. I would like to pass around a sample board depicting
the materials on our building to the Board. While you're passing
that board around, we have worked with staff on this design to
try and create something the City would be proud of, what the
City really wanted to see in this development. We've added
elements since our study session per discussions with the staff,
and Wal -Marl has agreed to add these elements. On front of
the store, some of the major elements are the glass areas.
We've added that to kind of break up the entire elevation. The
glass sample is depicted on that board of what it will look like.
We've also, at the end here as it's depicted, added a tower. I
spoke with staff and they wanted some more articulation in tie
building. So we added this element pursuant to the ordinance
where we're allowed to go over because of the increased buffer
area. The materials in this building are colored block so there's
not going to be paint peeling, anything like that. It's all the way
through the block. We added these window elements; we've
added awnings; we've added architectural shingles; things to
make the building richer. We've varied the building heights
throughout. We've added elements also around the rear of the
building to help add to the overall view all the way around the
building. The biggest change since you last saw is that tower
and also the vestibule entry areas. We've also added more
glass above those entry areas. We've also added the big
architectural shingles, the windows above the entrances and
then we redid the garden center entrance to flan better with the
rest of our elevations. We also will have a drive-thru garden
center as pointed out by the civil engineer. That will be an area
that will be screened. It will have an ornamental fence to screen
that area from the sides.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. Scott?
22559
Mr. Scott:
I'll turn this over to you for any additional questions you may
have.
Mr. Walsh:
Are there any questions from the Commissioners?
Mr. Shane:
Would you please discuss for me the delivery truck question as
we did with Target? Tell me him many trucks, when theyll be
there, etc.
Mr. Scott:
Approximately, sir, there would be four to five trucks a day that
would come into our store. This would be on a daily basis. It all
depends on the activity of the store.
Mr.Shane:
What are the hours that they would deliver their goods?
Mr. Scott:
We have a very advanced delivery system. We can custom
tailor that to work with the community for our delivery system.
But we like to get our trucks there obviously in the daytime and
before heavy traffic, but sometimes due to traffic, sometimes
that happens a little bit later. Of course, we do not want to have
trucks delivering in the night or early in the morning. Its not our
practice.
Mr. Shane:
Do you have trucks with refrigeration units that have to sit?
Mr. Scott:
Yes sir, we do, being that this is a supercenter. It would have full
grocery. There would be refrigerated trucks, but we would not
have our refrigerated trucks running on the properly. We would
have those trucks on the property. Those materials would be
unloaded from the truck into the store. Our practice would be to
drop a trailer and unload that merchandise and then have
another truck pick that up.
Mr. Shane:
Okay. I believe another Commissioner asked the question, if
you had trucks coming from out of town and they arrived early,
what would you do with those trucks?
Mr. Scott:
When you say anive early?
Mr. Shane:
Yes. I don't know what time your deliveries start. Let's say it
starts at 7:00 a.m. and they get there at 4:00 a.m. Are we going
to have to have those trucks sitting there idling or would you be
willing to store them somewhere else on site, offsite, orwhat?
Mr. Scott:
Ourtrucks on the site would not be left idling, sir.
22560
Mr. Shane:
Okay. The other question I have is with respect to the tire sales
and lubrication area.
Mr. Scott:
Yes, sir.
Mr. Shane:
In the wintertime it might not be a problem because you could
probably keep the doors dosed, but in the summertime, we
know they're going to be open and with the equipment they use
to install and remove tires, its gets rather loud. I would be
concemed about that particularly with the location where that
fire center is. Have you thought about either removing it or
moving it somewhere else on the site to alleviate that problem
because a bene, or no berm, noise travels.
Mr. Scott:
To some degree, I have to intedect that a berm of this degree,
which is quite significant, its a significant berm with vegetation,
with a wall on the other side, would mitigate noise
tremendously. But we would also do whatever we could to
mitigate the noise at its source.
Mr. Shane:
I'd be interested to know what you would do if that were the
case, and how significant a part of your business is that
particular facility?
Mr. Scott:
How significant is Tire Lube Express?
Mr. Shane:
percentage of business, for example?
Mr. Scott:
The percentage of the business, sir, I do not have for this
particular site, but I can tell you that Tire Lube Express, TLE as
we call it, is an added service for our customers.
Mr. Shane:
All right Thank you. That's all I have right now.
Mr. Alanskas:
I was also concerned about the noise level in the summertime
when you're changing tires because you use air compressors
and the lug nuts. One big way to solve that problem would be
air condition that facility inside for your employees so that you
could keep the doors closed at all times. Could that be done?
Mr. Scott:
I would have to take that back to our people, but I'm sure it's a
possibility.
Mr. Alanskas:
Because believe me, a berm, even with trees, in the
summertime, when you pull off these tires, these lug nuts, does
not buffer that noise. It goes right through and I don't want our
22561
neighbors to hear that noise. So I would like to see you air
condition the building where they work, and then you would
have no reason to have the doors open.
Mr. Scott:
All right.
Mr. Alanskas:
Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, please let's try and refrain, and we're
going to keep moving. Mr. Morrow?
Mr. Morrow:
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. On that same vein, since I've been on
this Commission, we've done a number of fire stores and one of
the things we condition the approval on is keeping those doors
closed so there is no impact tool sounding, no loud radios
playing, and we also try to stipulate that there shall be no
outside type of intercom system, communicating with the
outdoors. Its not uncommon to stipulate they keep the doors
closed at all times. The next question goes to the hours of
operation at the Wal-Mart store.
Mr. Scott:
Our supercenter concepts are throughout the nation a 24-hour
operation.
Mr. Morrow:
At the study session, your representatives there, I had
requested that they think long and hard about the hours of
operation because that's really one of the major contentions of
the abutting neighborhood and certainly, as one Commissioner,
I respect that. Are you in a position to state anything less than
24 hours?
Mr. Scott:
Not at this point, sir.
Mr. Morrow:
Is it something that can be considered?
Mr. Scott:
It is something that I can Ging back to our team and we can talk
about, but I can tell you that our concept, quite clearly
throughout the nation, is our supercenters are 24-hour models.
Mr. Walsh:
Gentlemen, please.
Mr. Morrow:
Well, we are considering a waiver use here and sometimes we
can take a little liberty here if we feel that the hours of operation
are not in harmony with the neighborhood. I'll leave it at that
seeing you can't say it, but if this is approved, it might contained
a condition with less than 24 hours. Thank you.
22562
Mr. LaPine: I'm kind of curious about something because the last time that
Mr. LaPine: They are stored within the building and you don't know how
many you store, how often you have them picked up and hauled
away?
Mr. Scott: Thalwould be a question I would have to pose for operations.
we met, the question about the operation came up about 24
hours. I asked the question, why do you have to be open 24
hours? Can you tell me from 12:00 midnight to 6:00 in the
morning, how much business you generale at your stores that
are super stores opened 24 hours a day? You were going to
gel backwith us and give me that information.
Mr. Scott:
Al this point, I do not have the percentage of business that we
do between those hours. I can tell you that it is something that
works very well in our communities and for our concepts and
obviously for people that have different work hours, shift work.
It gives them an opportunity to come in and use the services
that we have.
Mr. LaPine:
Let me ask you this. During that period of time, do you do 100
people an hour, 50 people an hour, 1,000 people an hour? Do
you have any idea how many people go through that store
between 12:00 midnight and 6:00 in the morning. You don't
have any idea?
Mr. Scott:
At this point, sir, I do not have exact numbers. I know that is
part of the concept that works very well.
Mr. LaPine:
It's the question I asked when you were here before and they
told me they would get back with us and give us that
information, but apparently you haven't. So that's fine. The
other question I have, with fire operation and the quick lube, its
another one that bothers me. I wish we could eliminate it. I
don't really like it here, but that's something else I can look at.
But let me ask you this: what do you do with the old fires? How
do you store them? How often do you gel rid of them?
Mr. Scott:
The disposal of tires is regulated not only by stale but federal
government. It's stored within the building. To the degree in
which they are removed, I would have to inquire about that, sir,
but they are stored within the building and we dispose of them .
Mr. LaPine: They are stored within the building and you don't know how
many you store, how often you have them picked up and hauled
away?
Mr. Scott: Thalwould be a question I would have to pose for operations.
22563
Mr. La Pine:
The other question I have and one of the things that bothers me
a lot is, Mr. Mornow and I have been out to your store in Canton
at least three times. In front of your building in the Canton store,
it's beautifully, beautifully landscaped and has a nice area. You
have a drive-in where people can drive in and drop off and drive
out the other end and there's about eight foot of landscaping in
front of the building. Because this is one of your newest stores,
why can't it be incorporated - that type of an operation here with
all the nice pavers theyve got out there. They have beautiful
pavers and all that out in that store, and I dont see any of t in
this type of operation.
Mr. Scot:
With this particular store, sir, as we have worked through this
process, that would adversely affect the space for parking on
the site, as well as we have quite a bit of vegetation on the site
for the store.
Mr. La Pine:
Yes, but the vegetation is not in front of the building. Most of it
is in the rear and a lot of it is back over where they're using as
part of their office. Let me ask you, maybe what the problem is
here, maybe you have to scale the store down a little to gel that
additional landscaping in front of the building. I would love to
see it. I think the store out in Canton is beautiful, dean, a
beautiful operation. I cant say enough about it. I'd like to see
that same thing in front of this building. I mean, have you been
out to the Canton store?
Mr. Scot:
No, sir, I have not.
Mr. LaPine:
That's all I haw for right now.
Mr. Morrow: I think this ties in with your operation, but I think its Mr.
Schostak's responsibility. We haven't talked about security yet.
We've talked about the cleanliness on the site as his
responsibility, and I'm thinking primarily the security of this site
on the outside, in other words, for the conflicts in general, could
we address that at this time because one of the concerns of the
neighborhood is the security. I believe you're responsible for
that. Are you not, Mr. Schostak?
Mr. Schostak: Yes, Mr. Morrow. We have an agreement with Target and Wal-
Mart and the Village Shops, that we're the property managers of
the entire site, which includes the security, maintenance,
landscaping, irrigation, snow plowing, etc. While Wal -Marl and
Target will each have security cameras for the exterior of the
building and the parlting areas, we will be in coordination with
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that and have security in the Village Shops together through us.
It will all be coordinated with man security as well as digital
cameras and lighting and so forth.
Mr. Morrow:
The Laurel Park center, which for many years you ren, certainly
was a wonderful operation. I notice they have security trucks
and cars driving around the site. Is that something that would
be anticipated here?
Mr. Schostak:
Yes, there will be security vehicles, man personnel, throughout
the site.
Mr. Morrow:
Would that be a 24-hour operation as far as security?
Mr. Schostak:
Consistent with Wal -Mart's operation, yes itwould be.
Mr. Morrow:
Okay. Thankyou.
Mr. Alanskas:
I would just like to go back to the question that Mr. La Pine
asked you in regards to what kind of business you do from
midnight on to 6:00 in the morning because I, of course, was at
that meeting also, which was over two months ago. You told
the entire body at that time that you would definitely come back
with that information for us for tonight's meeting, and you
haven't done that. And I, as one commissioner, in our packets
tonight we have two resolutions - approving and denying, and
tabling, of course, is always in order, but I'm really concemed
about a 24-hour operation. That's why we asked you that
question: how much business do you do between midnight and
6:00 in the morning? And we don't have that information. So
him do you expect us to vote on something this evening if I
dont have the full information?
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, again please, we would like to continue.
We will have a public hearing item. We are here as long as we
need to be.
Unidentified audience member: Lel us voice our concem.
Mr. Walsh:
You will have an opportunity. We will be here as late as we
need to be to hear from everyone of you if you wish to speak.
Mr. Scott:
I apologize for not having that information. I do not remember
this request, sir. I know that we spoke, but as far as having
additional inquiries about that, I did not have that.
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Mr. Alanskas
It's awfully funny that two commissioners here recall us asking
for that information and you saying that you would be giving us
that information. I don't see how you can forget such an
important item. Thank you.
Mr. Morrow:
Mr. Scott, were you at our study meeting?
Mr. Scott:
Say again, sir?
Mr. Morrow:
Were you at our study meeting?
Mr. Scott:
No, sir.
Mr. Morrow:
Your representatives might not have gotten back to you with
that. Whoever was there, if I'm correct, that request was made
at the time. Now, at least that's when I made my request to
think about the hours. These gentlemen - I'm not sure when
they made that request, but I didn't think you were at the study
session.
Mr. Scot:
No, sir. I was not at the study meetings.
Mr. Morrow:
And l think at least my word didn't gel back to you.
Mr. Schostak:
The question was asked at the study session. The question
was asked at other meetings. The store manager of the Wal-
Mart store here in Livonia is with us. He understands the
operational side of the business in obviously a lot more detail
than we would, Schostak Brothers. Mr. Scott is not an operator
of the store so perhaps hearing from the store manager might
help answer the question.
Bobby Warren,
32035 Washington Street, Livonia, Michigan. First of all, I'll
answer one of the questions that presented. It was to the TLE,
how many lire pickups are there. There is we fire pickup a
week, depending on the volume. If it's necessary for two, there
will be two. If its necessary for three, there will be three, just
depending on the volume of the tine center. Each tire center is
different throughout the United States. Sales -wise, each store
is different, but on current trend and currently what we would
believe the store would do, it would do anywhere from $125,000
to $175,000 a week on third shift, considering the sales that we
have right now and considering adding the food and adding
other aspects of business that would come to it.
Ms. Smiley:
Your tine operation, is that open the full 24 hours?
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Mr. Warren:
No, ma'am.
Ms. Smiley:
What are the hours?
Mr. Warren:
Generally, the lire centers close, most of them close at 9:00. 1
do not have the exact limes for our facility yet, but most tire
centers dose at 9:00 p.m. throughout the United States.
Ms. Smiley:
And they would open at....
Mr. Warren:
They open up at 7:00 a.m.
Ms. Smiley:
Seven to nine?
Mr. Warren:
Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Smiley:
Thank you, sir.
Mr. LaPine:
Just to clarify what you said. Are you telling me between
midnight and 6:00 in the morning that the store on Middlebelt
and Schoolcraft does $125,000 worth of business?
Mr. Warren:
No, sir, that's not what I said.
Mr. LaPine:
Clanfy that for me.
Mr. Warren:
Okay. No problem. What I'm saying is, on current sales that we
currently have, and we judge our third shift from 10:00 p.m. lilt
7:00 a.m. in the morning, so we do have a little extra hour in the
evening and a little extra one hour in the moming, on our current
sales trend, we're budgeting this is what we would do. I came
from Kentucky. I worked at a Supercenter down in Kentucky. I
worked at a Supercenter in Indiana, and I can tell you some
nights, depending on the time of the year, we could do in one
night alone $50,000 or more in one night.
Mr. LaPine:
Well, I can understand that type of an operation. Like for
instance, my daughter went to Central Michigan University.
There's a Wal-Mart up at Mount Pleasant, and a lot of students
went there at night. We don't have that situation here. Its hard
for me to believe, really hard for me to believe, even Meijer's,
and I go by that store in the middle of the night, and they're a
24-hour operation. I don't see any cars out in that parking lot.
So I can't believe that type of business is generated. Now
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maybe its true. Maybe you've got the figures to back it up. I'm
juslsaying, its hard for me to believe.
Mr. Warren: I will tell you this, that we are trying to meet the needs of our
community and meet the needs that ... we have folks that work
on first shift, second shift and third shift. I can tell you some of
our folks in the community, when they get off on second shift,
they would like to go do their shopping. They're still wide
awake. They still want to go shop. We have consumers in the
community that may get oft a third shift that come in the morning
or come in beforehand to go in because there's different hours a
lot of people work in the community. And that would go as well
with our associates and as well as the community itself.
Mr. La Pine: Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Alanskas: On the other side of the coin, I've been going to your store on
Middlebelt Road for I'd say at least once a week for the past two
months, and I would like to commend you people how you
cleaned up the store inside. It's very clean now. No, it is. It is.
But the question is, lel me speak, please. You'll gel your tum.
The question is, for the past five years, why couldn't you keep it
clean?
Mr. Warren:
The only thing I can say is that, unfortunately, we made some
mistake in the past. We're trying to rectify that. We're trying to
provide a new store that will be an awesome asset to the
community. Yes, we've done some things wrong. I will tell you
we're in a building that is extremely old. We spend an
enormous amount of money on it every month just to keep it up.
That not no one's concern. We're trying to do what's right for
the community. We have folks out in our parking lot every hour
on the hour picking it up. To your answer, why didn't we do it
five years ago? I'd say that we just dropped the ball. I'd have to
say that.
Mr. Alanskas:
Like you just said, everyone deserves a second chance, but are
you telling me now you're going to guarantee that the store
inside of the building would be kept clean at all times?
Mr. Warren:
I can tell you this ....
Mr. Alanskas:
Merchandise not being on the floor and on the shelves where it
belongs?
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Mr. Scott:
One of the complicatons that we have with the current store, sir,
is that it is what we call over -shopped. When we use that term,
it means a store should have a certain volume. The volume of
this store is more than what was expected. It is beyond
capacity. So the building, the store, the Supercenter, from
ground up, what we're building here is built for the capacity that
we'd need. So you wouldn't have this problem of it being over -
shopped because it has the capacity and is built in a footprint
and a design for how our stores operate.
Mr. Alanskas:
But what I'm saying is, within the past two months with that high
capacity of sales, the store now is clean with the same amount
of capacity that you had five years ago.
Mr. Warren:
I just want to say something real quick here, and I understand
what you're saying. You've come into the store the past two
months. My challenge and unfortunately you've not been able
to do this, would have been to be in there the past two years
and see what the associates have done in that building to make
a difference in how much they care about the community and
care about the customers and how much theyre cleaning to
make a difference. And yes, we clean every day. We paint
every day, and we're confinuing to do that, and we will continue
to do it in the building we're in until we are given the chance to
go to this new facility.
Mr. Alanskas:
All right. Thank you. That's a good commitment. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Alanskas. Are there any other questions for the
petitioner? Mr. Schostak, I know that we had discussed a
complete review, but it is getting late and we've completed
essentially the review of our two public hearing items. What I
would like to suggest to you is that we go to the audience an
these two items and then return to the Village Shops as item
three, unless there is something you think is essential that we
coverrightnow.
Mr. Schostak: Let me suggest this if I can. In order to put it into context,
maybe if l briefly went through the drawings. Fiveminutes.
Mr. Walsh: Yes, five minutes and I'll give you whatever time you need when
we get to Item 3.
Mr. Schostak: Flash the red light at me.
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Mr. Walsh: Item 3, by the way, is the Village Shops. So what Mr. Schostak
is going to do is quickly go through so we have a
comprehensive review. We're going to go to the three
organizations that I indicated to you earlier to speak, and then
we're here to hear what your comments are. I'm sorry. We'll
hear your comments until we are done, essentially. Mr.
Schostak.
Mr. Schostak: Thank you. Mark, could we put the overall site plan up first and
then come back to this one? I am not going to go into any of the
details of the building materials and that sort of thing. I just want
to, in the Merest of time, give the audience a feel for the entire
site. As you know, Target and Wal-Mart each will occupy their
own sites, park their own buildings and be responsible for
constructing their own buildings. The Schostak Company will
be responsible br developing, building, leasing all of the space
along Plymouth Road. If we can go to the next slide. The
concept here is to present a cohesive shopping environment,
take advantage of the large format stores of Wal-Mart and
Target and to have a grand boulevard entrance, multiple shops
facing each other, parking close to the door, lots of landscaping
and community space, and repeat that starting from the western
segment of the property moving east as I'm doing now. When
you gel to the comer, many of you will remember that's where
the Montgomery Ward's auto center was. This is a very special
area of the property. It's kind of the flagship statement that
we're trying to make for the Plymouth Road corridor. And in
each and every case, we're taking the lighting that's been
developed, and the brick pavers and the landscape along the
entire corridor running throughout the City and bringing that into
the site and making this and the other sections in the previous
slide a very important entryway and gateway both into the
community as well as into the site. What we're hoping to do
here is take the fine designs that Wal-Mart and Target created,
take the materials that they're using, and present - I believe you
have a rendering of that. And bring that into the elevations of
our property with stone, glass and awnings and canopies and
the like, varied roof lines. Do you have another rendering?
Continue with the next one. Is there more Bill? You can see at
the gateway, at the entrance to the center, we're building this
clock lower to give a focal point to the shopping center from the
road, kind of a cornerstone piece on the boulevard entrances.
Next slide. That's an example of the lighting in the property
that's coming of of Plymouth Road.
Mr. Taormina: That's pretty much it
22670
Mr. Schostak:
Thats it? Where are the boards from today?
Mr. Taormina:
Are you talking about the oblique? I'Illookforit. Idon'tknow.
Mr. Schostak:
We can begin and we'll shoe that one later one. I just want to
get the general feel. We'll go into the details later.
Mr. Walsh:
Yes, I think that was important and you'll have all the time
necessary when we gel to Item 3 to address those details as
you wish. Al this point, I'd like to ask if any Planning
Commissioner has any questions on Items 1 or 2 and then I'm
going to go to the public for commentary.
Mr. Piercecchi:
Would you repealthal?
Mr. Walsh:
I'm asking for any additional questions before we go to the
public.
Mr. Piercecchi:
You mean like to Mr. Schostak?
Mr. Walsh:
That would be correct.
Mr. Piercecchi:
If I may, sir? I didn't gel a chance to ask many questions. This
Board has been very well participating in it.
Mr. La Pine:
Speak into the mic.
Mr. Piercecchi:
All right. You know they tell me that every meeting. You'd think
after 10 years I'd learn, wouldn't you? Just a comment. Have
you ever in all your life encountered so much citizen interest in
any of your previous projects? With their interest basically be
centered on one of your tenants and they wonder why is this
tenant so important to this venture? Why you couldn't substitute
it. It seems like all the hassle is over Wal -Marl, right? I'm not
saying it isn't important to us and I'm not saying that you haven't
mel our specs, but you are aware that a structure can meet all
the setbacks and everything, but it also must go through the
waiver process which Commissioner Morrow alluded to. In
regard to that for the sake of time I won't go into that, but 19.06
is, and I mentioned that to you I think at the study meeting, and
it covers a multitude of areas. Lel me find my notes here. I'll
just look at B, C and E. B covers traffic and the question that I
have on that is, sir, why haven't you prepared an independent
traffic study for that area?
22571
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and genfiemen, please. You will have the opportunity to
speak. Mr. Schostak?
Mr. Schostak:
Is the question the traffic or is the question encountered as
much controversy or where do you want me to ...
Mr. Walsh:
Mr.Pieroecchi, is your question related to the traffic study?
Mr. Pieroecchi:
Yes, sir. It's not unusual for us to receive them. With that AMC
package, we had more than one. Its just not usual. An
independent one, which should be approved, of course, but by
Mark, we wouldn't want it to be internal. These studies are
made.
Mr. Schostak:
On a development, it's not unusual to have traffic studies. I
acknowledge that. The Wayne County Road Commission
dictates the loads and the analysis of the roads, curb cuts,
access, egress. The Livonia traffic has input. Public Safety has
input, and we complied with all the requested information,
supplied the data. They have their own data. Wal-Mart, Target
supplied data, and I guess when you say an independent study,
the study was done by the County and the County shared ...
Mr. Pieroecchi: Well, they have to count cars, don't they? How many cars that .
Mr. Schostak: Whatever information the County requested, the County
received.
Mr. Pieroecchi: Every study that I've every seen, they're difficult to follow. It
shows every hour him many cars go by here, how many cars
go by there.
Mr. Schostak: Right.
Mr. Pieroecchi: And they project that. Wal-Mart having such a long paper
record, it should be easy to fit that type of action in. And then I'll
go on just for the sake of time here. Then Section C seems to
be a very big concem of our cfizens here and it concerns
property values. As of yet I haven't received an impact study.
Are you planning on making one of those? I mean its loo late
to give it to us, but you could give this traffic and impact study to
the City Council. Obviously, Council is the only one that can
approve or disapprove. We're only a recommending body. Can
you put those two packages together?
22672
Mr. Schostak:
An impact study that would indicate ...
Mr. Piemecchi:
Well, it shows how this is going to affect the market, housing.
Mr. Schostak:
Housing values?
Mr. Piemecchi:
Whether they go up, whether they go down, how far it spreads.
Al one of the
presentations, it was said, I don't know if you did,
but he said this
is going to be a magnet for the area. Well,
there's only so many dollars you know, and it could put some
office out of business and a lot of people fear Wal -Marl for those
reasons. They're so powerful and they drop so many people,
that a lot of downtowns, as you know, just die. An impact study
- could you gel that ready for Council?
Mr. Schostak:
We could look at that - an impact study. I'd be very specific as
to what information we're trying to gamer from it. You're talking
housing values. That's one kind of study. Impact on retailers,
that's another kind of study. What we do know is more of the
economic aspects of the development, for example, jobs, taxes,
that sort of thing, but we'll certainly look into other information.
Mr. Piercecchi:
The businesses that may not be able to compete with the
pricing structure of a Wal-Mart and they're important to us. The
ma and pa stores are very important.
Mr. Schostak:
They're very important to all of us.
Mr. Piemecchi:
And we hate to see them go down, but those are some of the
questions I had. Part E of this 19.06 deals with hours of
operation. As Mr. Morow said, we would like to see those
hours cut back. I dont see why you can't operate in the same
time frame as Target.
Mr. Schostak:
I understand that but the Wal-Mart company operates their
Supercenter stores in this manner. Meijer, half a mile away or
less, it's a 24-hour store.
Mr. Walsh:
Gentlemen, please. Please respect the ....
Mr. Piemecchi:
If I could have a last comment, then I'll shut up.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Schostak, are you finished speaking?
Mr. Schostak:
I didn't finish answering the question or my comment, I guess.
22573
Mr. Walsh:
Okay, please do.
Mr. Schostak:
The Wal-Mart Company determines their operation. I don't. I
don't determine that for Target. They each evaluate what suits
their customers and their operation for their own internal
reasons best. As to us deciding their hours, that's an
impossibility. The Meijer store, which is their key competitor in
this trade area, is a 24-hour store. However, it was approved.
Heretofore it was approved. I don't know the history of that.
That is something that is important to Wal-Mart, critical to their
operation. This entire shopping center package we're
presenting you is being presented with Wal-Mart as a 24-hour
store and Target and the Village Shops. If I were the operator
of this store, I could comment in more detail. Wal-Mart has
already commented that that's their mode of operation in their
Supercenters.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
Perhaps so, but to me, it looks like the tail wagging the dog.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Pieroecchi, do you have any further questions?
Mr. Pieroecchi:
No, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Schostak:
I might comment that this Commission during previous meetings
did ask for concessions for a variety of things on this site, from
Wal-Mart, from Target, from the Village Shops, and we really
have tried to accommodate all that is possible. We really
worked this site and worked this site and listened closely to
every single person on this Commission's comments, staffs
comments, as well as the community meeting and the
community comments, both individually and collectively. We
really have done all that we can do.
Mr. Piercecchi:
Sir, we want you to be very successful, but hopefully not at the
expense of our citizens.
Mr. Schostak:
I appreciate that. I reallydo.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. You will have the opportunity to speak at the
conclusion. We are going to open be public hearing at this
point in time. We have effectively covered the two first items,
both public hearing items, Target and Wal-Mart. Now
procedurally, we are still under the Target vote. We have to
take a number of votes this evening. What I'm going to do is
honor the commitment that was made to various organizations
to speak. We're going to open for all of you to speak as well
22574
immediately after that. We have two neighborhood associations
and we have a citizen organization that will speak, and then it
will go to the public. We will vote on the items following those
discussions. We are going to start with the Citizens for a Better
Livonia. Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Larson? Is that correct?
Michele Larson,
11422 Cardwell. Yes.
Mr. Walsh:
I'm sorry we haven't met but we certainly spoke on the phone.
Thirty minutes in total we agreed on. Is that correct? Twenty
minutes for a presentation and 10 minutes for your members to
speak afterward.
Ms. Larson:
We will do our best, yes.
Mr. Walsh:
You may proceed.
Ms. Larson:
Good evening. My name is Michele Larson. I live at 11422
Cardwell Street, and I have lived there for almost four years. I
am the chairperson of Citizens for a Beller Livonia, and on
behalf of our group, I would like to lake this opportunity to
introduce Citizens for a Better Livonia. We are a grassroots
organization made of residents from the City of Livonia who are
concerned about the negative impacts the proposed site plan
will have on our peaceful neighborhoods and our community.
The goal of our presentation is to explain to you what we've
been doing, why we oppose the current site plan, alternatives
that exist, and City ordinances that should be enforced when
deciding whether or not to grant waiver use approval for this site
plan. I would now like to share with you our mission statement
which is as follows: To work with government officials,
developers, residents and others to insure that any
developments within the City of Livonia enhance the character
and beauty of its residential neighborhoods and the vibrancy of
its commercial districts without detracting from them, hence
creating a better Livonia for future generations. Over the past
month that we've been in existence, our group has been
researching issues involved with the current site plan informing
residents through web site and in the media, raising community
awareness through informational pickets and lawns signs, and
most importantly, conducting petition drives. I will now introduce
to you our treasurer, Andrea Kolhoff, who will share with you our
petitions and their results.
Andrea Kolhoff,
9903 Flamingo Street. I've been a resident of Livonia for 12
years. We have been circulating five different petitions. First,
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the informal petition we've been circdating for five weeks. This
petition asks for denial of the current site plan. The next three
are ballots petitions which have only been circulating for four
weeks. The first, a moratorium which seeks a nine month halt
on new retail buildings exceeding 40,000 square feet in the City
of Livonia. The next, special assessment, asks to expands the
City's code for special assessments, deem the Wonderland
properly a business improvement zone with the PRDA acting as
its authority, and that a special assessment be used to fund
security services contracted with the Livonia Police Department.
The fourth petition is for a Brownfield Authority. This seeks to
create a Livonia Brownfield Authority to give local, and not
Wayne County, control over Brownfield financing plans in the
event that Wonderland property is found to be qualifying for
Brownfield funding. The final petition is a business petition.
Owners and managers of businesses ask that the waiver
petition be denied. Our petition results are as follows. As of this
morning, we have gathered 4,398 signatures on the informal
petitions, which this is the binder right here and I'll present this
to the council here. The moratorium, we've gathered 4,009;
special assessment 2,990, Brownfield 2,872. And just over
yesterday and today, we have gathered 18 signatures of our
business people. This chart shows that the residents from
throughout Livonia signed our petitions. Almost 40 percent who
live more than a mile away from Wonderland and with their
neighbors in the 48150 area code, still care about responsible
development of the property and want the current site plan
denied. I will now yield to Donna Mulcahy who will address our
reasons for opposition.
Donna Mulcahy, 30850 Robert. I have lived at 30850 Robert Dnve for the past
12 years. Before I speak about why we are opposed to the
plan, I need to make one thing perfectly clear. We are not
opposed to the redevelopment of the mall property. We want it
to be redeveloped. It needs to be redeveloped, especially since
it is part of our neighborhood. However, we feel that the site
needs to be redeveloped in a responsible way that meets the
needs of our local community and that does not detract from our
neighborhoods or city. Whatever goes there will affect our
community for generations to come. That's why we need to
plan wisely for the future and why not just anything will do.
Also, I should point out, our opposition isn't all about any one
entity. There are many problems with the current site plan.
First of all, the project is loo intense for its location. The
developer has said this is not so because the square footage of
the new buildings is less than what is already there. However, a
22576
good deal of the old mall square footage is devoted to long,
wide concourses and a good number of its store fronts were
empty for a long time before the mall eventually closed. So you
can't say that the new project will be less intense. In fad, it will
be more intense if a 24-hour big box store is allowed to locate
there. No 24-hour store has ever existed on the property,
especially not one of the enormous size, 204,000 square feet,
that is being proposed. Such hours may work well for the
concept of some retailers, but they don't work well for our
concept of a neighborhood. On paper, the big boxes and the
smaller strip malls may look like they are a good distance away
from each other. In reality, they will look like they are right on
lop of each other. Al the shopping center at Six Mile Road and
Haggerty, the buildings are close together but they look farther
apart than they really are because some of them have been
built up on hills. Here the buildings will be on flat land and will
look crowded. Also, the size, number and type of stores being
proposed make the sustainability of the project questionable. It
is not unreasonable to think that we will be left with a lot of
lesser quality or empty store fronts on Plymouth five years from
now if this project is approve as smaller businesses contract or
close altogether along the Plymouth condor. Interesting to note
that some of the biggest backers of this plan are companies that
wont be competing. Then there is the proximity of the buildings
to the homes. If this project were completely surrounded by a
residential or industrial area, I dont know that many of us would
be here tonight. But Wonderland does border a large, densely
populated, peaceful, residential area, and under the plan, the
commercial buildings would be much closer to homes than they
currently are. In some spots, the big box stores will be less than
100 feet from the backyards of people who live on Orengelawn.
So we'll be going from 250 feel to that. The area between the
back of the big box stores and people's backyards will be
reduced to an alleyway for semilruck deliveries. Since one of
the big box stores wants to be open around the clock, that
means people could hear trucks idling and backing up at all
times of the day and night. The plan does call for a berm and
some trees. However, sound and vibrations carry. Residents in
the subdivision behind the mall can hear the train going by at
night and beeping of some sort of machinery in the industrial
district that starts every night about midnight. You can't tell me
we won't be able to hear noise from those trucks. Furthermore,
the semitruck turnaround will be near the southwest comer of
the property where there will be less of a buffer because no
berth is shown there on the site plan. The people who live by
the buffer will also live next to the detention pond. Talk about
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the taking of property. This shows you him dose the current
mall building is to the wall that separates the commercial from
the residential. Next slide. Then there is the proximity of the
proposed detention pond to homes. According to the site plan,
the pond will be nearly four acres in size and 9 to 20 feet deep.
Its purpose will be to hold stonnwater runoff from the shopping
center until it can be absorbed into the ground or slowly fed into
the sewer system. The pond not only will be located in what is
now the parking lot behind the old Kmart, but it will jut westward
into a small field that is located west of the Kmart parking lot.
This field is located where Henry Ruff dead -ends. It is directly in
back of homes on Hillcrest, the side and back of the home on
Omngelawn, and to the side and front of a home on Henry Ruff.
On the site plan, the pond is open and unfenced. I hear it could
be fenced, but even if it were fenced, it would be a dangerous
attraction to children who live in the neighborhood. I've seen
them climb very tall fences. As their worst, detention ponds are
stagnant, smelly, litter -filled habitats for insects and rodents.
Usually when they are located at the back of a development,
they are at their worst. When they are located toward the front
or center of development, they are at their best with fountains
and a flesh water source to keep the pond filled during dry
weather and benches and things like that. The retenfion pond
needs to be moved to the front of the property. And if you could
do the next slide. You can see the detention pond on the lover
lett comer there and him it juts out into the field at the end of
Henry Ruff. And if you'll do the next slide you can see in the
yellow box, that's where the pond will be. It juts out into a field.
And if you could do the next box. This photo shows the dead-
end where the field is located at the end of the residential street,
Henry Ruff. And the next one. That's a closer view of the field
where the detention pond would go, and to the right you see the
wall of the Kmart parking lot. And the next one, okay, that one.
You can see the front yard of someone who lives on Henry Ruff
and the backyards of people who live on Hillcrest. If the
detention pond is put in that field, this is the kind of view that all
of those homeowners will have. We'll you can read R. Its of the
detention pond at Millennium Park. And next I would like to
introduce someone who would have that as his view, the man
who lives in the house I just showed you on Henry Ruff. His
name is Steve Plafchan.
Steve Plafchan, 11021 Henry Ruff. That was my house next to the field which is
going to become the detention pond. First question I'd like to
ask the Planning Commission is, I've seen paper drawings of
the detention pond and I've seen slides of the detention pond,
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and they keep changing. Which drawing is correct? Where
exactly is the dimensions and boundaries of this pond going to
be?
Mr. Walsh:
I'd like to, Mr. Schostak ...
Mr. Plafchan:
If you look at your paper prints and you look at your slides,
they're different.
Mr. Walsh:
I don't want to get into a debate. We haven't addressed this. I
want to ask Mr. Schostak to show us where it is, and we're
going to enter that into the public record as the location.
Mr. Schostak:
I'm glad that the gentleman asked that. The slides that theyre
using, the PowerPoint, was the slides that I believe were
presented before the study session a couple weeks ago. That
detention pond has been moved from the area that I guess
backs up to his property and moved easterly.
Mr. Walsh:
So the major...
Mr. Schostak:
The major landscaped area there is not the detention pond. It
was until you folks asked us to do something else, and we made
that change.
Mr. Walsh:
All right. Thank you, Mr. Schostak. So that's entered in the
record as the location of the detention pond.
Mr. Plafchan:
Another question I have asked up at the Planning Commission
Board is, exactly where is the western end of the wall? I hear a
lot about the height of the wall. I hear a lot about the berms on
the wall. Where is the western end of the wall, and I have not
been able to understand where that is either.
Mr. Walsh:
Okay. Mr. Taormina?
Mr. Taormina:
I'm going to respond to that question because that was an issue
that was discussed recently with the design representatives for
Wal -Marl. We informed them that, in fact, because this portion
of the property here, identified as Major B landscaped area, falls
within their parcel boundaries, that they would be obligated
under our ordinance to construct a wall for any portions of that
commercial property that abut residential property. So their
latest plans do show a continuation of the masonry wall from
where it presently ends right here at the northeast comer of
Henry Ruff Road. That wall would extend west along the
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boundary of the property and then north to where it would
connect to the existing brick wall that dead -ends at the
southwest comer of what is the Quality hn and Suites property.
So that wall would be continued in this direction to fully
encompass the area of commercial property where it borders
the residential property.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Taormina.
Mr. Plafchan: And the only thing I would say in conclusion is I would urge the
Commission to make sure they are held accountable and stick
to these plans if this is so. I'd like to introduce Stan Anderson at
this time.
Stan Anderson, 28428 Elmira. Although I am a member of the Plymouth Road
Development Authority, I am not speaking on behalf of that
organization. I can share with you, however, why I want to see
a pedestrian friendly development there and why I feel that this
plan is not pedestrian friendly. I would like to talk about the
village idea. What does a village mean? First of all, it means
that a village is a small town. There is a main street, some side
streets. There is a variety of businesses on the downtown
streets, and usually close by there are homes. The residents of
these homes do a lot of their day -today shopping with the local
merchants. You can easily walk from one store to another for
your purchases. Frequently, the merchants know their
customers and the customers know the merchants. It is a
friendly and comfortable relationship. In many villages with
updating occurring, trees are being planted, sidewalks being
modified with brick pavers and landscaping and attractive
lighting being a part of the mix. We have heard about the
Wonderland Village being a pedestrian friendly location. Tell
me how that is being accomplished? Are there unstructured
sidewalks connecting these buildings? Will there be an
attractive park? Appropriate lighting that will make strolling the
village easy and inviting? Will the pedestrians feel comfortable
and safe from incoming and outgoing traffic? Will there be well
lit areas to just sit, relax and chat with an acquaintance? Will
there be a coffee shop and an ice cream parlor close by to the
commons area? Will the walkways be provided with
landscaping and adequate lighting? Will there be lawns and
flowerbeds? Can I walk on the walkways from the west end to
the east end without taking an extensive detour? What has the
developer offered to you and what have you demanded of the
developer to make our village a place we can all be pleased to
visit, to shop and just plain relax. If this has been accomplished,
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then I would say you have done your job and you have earned
our sincere thanks. Next I will introduce Jacqueline
Zabkiewiecz who will speak about other problems with the plan.
My apologies, Jacqueline.
Jacqueline Zabkiewicz, 8930 Fremont. Thank you. Good evening. I'm here to
speak about the traffic. The project, of course, will attract
additional motorists in the area. That's a good thing. However,
there are some bad things that come along with the good things
and that's the additional traffic at those intersections at
Middlebelt and Plymouth and at Merman and Plymouth.
Today during rush hour traffic, the motorists routinely sit at
those lights waiting through three lights or more to get past
through the intersection. With the additional traffic, its going to
cause even further congestion, of course. We may have had to
accommodate the Wonderland Mall traffic in the past, but that
was back in a time when we didn't have to contend with the
traffic that we have now with the new developments down the
street, Home Depot, Costco and the Meijers site. Its an
inconvenience not only from a traffic standpoint, but concern for
the increase in traffic accidents and a concern for the students
from Emerson Middle School and Franklin High School that
need to cross the road at Middlebell and West Chicago. This is
not a 9 to 5 issue. Its not a 9 to 9 issue, but it's a 24 hour a
day, seven day a week issue with a 24-hour store. This
concerns me. I'm not prepared to live with that down the street
from me. I don't know if you are. The other thing about the plan
is the existing traffic control devices that are in Livonia now
around that site would not be sufficient for this plan. So the
existing traffic control devices would not be sufficient for this
plan.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you.
Ms. Zabkiewicz: Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh: We had set the timer to 20 minutes. You have 20 more
minutes.
Stacey Dogonski, 11181 Haller. I live approximately four blocks east of the
proposed site. The first problem I'll speak on is parking. The
site plan is deficient in parking no matter haw you look at it.
Next slide please. The zoning ordinance that talks about the
number of parking spaces that are needed is Section 18.38.
However, that section is divided into subsections and one of the
two subsections could apply here - Subsection 25 or Subsection
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31. What makes it a little confusing is that number 25 uses 15
percent of the building's gross square footage to compute the
total number of needed parking spaces, but number 31 does not
specify whether to use gross square footage or the square
footage of the retail space. The largest big box store would
have a gross square footage of 216,734 square feel and
203,819 square feet of retail space. The bottom line, though, is
that no matter him you look at it, the plan is deficient in parking.
If you go by Subsection 25, it is deficient by 287 parking spots.
If you go by Subsection 31, the use retail space is short by 202
spots. Next slide please. Then there are questions that have to
do with sewer and electrical issues. It looks like there is a major
water pipe for the Devon -Air Subdivision underground where the
detention pond would be going. Is that going to be moved?
Does it exist there? We have not gotten any clanfcation where
the water main goes through the property, if it does at all. Also,
a transformer is put on lop one of the proposed berms behind
the homes on Orangelawn. What will the effects be of that on
their health and safety and does not exist on top of a berm?
Next slide please. Finally, does anyone have a crystal clear
picture of how all of the different aspects of this project are
going to fl together? On the site plan, nothing is shown
regarding the third big box store or what is planned for the
Kmart building and what is in front of it. This project has been
brought to the City piecemeal over time and what makes it
difficult for the public, and I imagine City leaders, is to fully
understand how everything will fit together and what exactly is
the future vision. Next slide please. In light of all the problems
I've mentioned, studies need to be done regarding the impact
the project will have on nearby residents in the form of light
trespass, noise and vibrations, crime, lower property values, soil
and air contaminants, health problems and environmental risks,
not to mention traffic issues. The waiver uses should not be
approved, especially when so many questions remain. Next, I'll
introduce Troy Reed, who will speak about alternatives to what
has been proposed. Thank you.
Troy Reed, 29655 West Chicago. Good evening. I live at 29655 West Chicago
in the families still first City of Livonia. We understand that
shopping patterns as Mr. Schostak has talked about earlier
have changed and we understand this. But we don't feel that
this should be an excuse to begin to chip away at the laws and
the rules that we have in place here at the city to gat around
that. We still think there are ways to make the site more family
friendly and still meet the needs of the merchants. So in talking
with a lot of the people that are here tonight, signed the
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petitions, people have asked me to put together a plan that
represents the ... it doesn't look like you're going to see it. But
basically, we put together a plan. I spent a lot of time on it and I
really can empathize with the developers and with the designers
of the site plan because I wasn't able to find enough room for
parking either. So that tells us that there's a couple problems
with the site plan. Number one, you either have not enough
parking or you have loo big a buildings. So what we've done is
a couple things. We proposed a parking deck for the two big
box stores. That would allow them parking space that would
free up some parking space for them to fulfill the requirements
that the city has in place. Number two, we've taken the
underground retention pond and moved it into the center of the
site, or taken the retention pond and proposed an underground
retention pond so that you can also park over the top of that.
That also increases your parking. A couple of the other main
features of the proposal, and I'm sorry you can't see it tonight, it
looks like my software is not compatible, but basically, we've
taken the two big box stores and put the site plan - big box
stores away from the residential area along the border of
Plymouth Road. That does several things. Number one, it
allows you to create a true village -type atmosphere towards the
back of the site plan. A couple things, some of the things that
people have really said they like about Mr. Schoslak's proposal
is, they like the boulevard approach. They like the way that
comer looks in some of the illustrations. But the problem is,
those two pictures that are routinely shown in his web site and
what were shown here today, are the only two places where you
see buildings actually together. The site plan that he shows has
really essentially a string of strip malls thrown together with
parking lots in between. What we would propose is to put those
shops together in a village -type arrangement, have a boulevard
between, have walking spaces that are easily walkable between
the two buildings and to provide that true downtown village type
atmosphere. I guess since we don't have our drawings here, I
can't really explain loo much other than I made an attempt to
take an entire look at the site plan and throw all of the seven
strip malls and four of the big box stores that he has in there
and unfortunately you can't see it, but it is extremely congested.
There is really not enough room for parking. There is not
enough room for traffic to get in and out. Its really a horrible
mess when you look A everything all in one picture. So with
that, I'll introduce Michele Larson.
Ms. Larson: Can we go up a couple slides? Alternatives. Beautiful. Next
one. Other alternatives that we would like to talk about are
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new urbanism. And Kellogg Park in Plymouth is a great
example as well as Michigan Avenue in Dearborn and
downtown Royal Oak. What is new urbanism? It is a town
planning movement away from the spread out car -centered
suburbs that have come to dominate the American landscape
over the past 50 years. New urbanism is based on principles of
planning and architecture that work together to create a human
scale walkable community, street shopping districts, downtown
parks and grid streets. Now that we've told you why we oppose
the plan and about some alternatives that exist, we ask that you
enforce the following provisions from Livonia Zoning Ordinances
and Code of Ordinances and recommend that the City Council
deny the requested waiver uses. I would now like to introduce
Jowella Messing. She will share with you a very applicable
ordinance.
Jowella Messing, 11342 Hillcrest. I am a lifelong resident of Livonia. I have lived
at 11342 Hillcrest for 11 years. The detention pond and village
would be just east of my home behind the six fool brick wall by
the hotel there. As you decide what to do about the site plan,
keep
in mind the sections of Livonia's ordinances and Code of
Ordinances
that my neighbors and I are going to speak of. I'm
going to speak about Section 19.06a listed under General
Waiver Requirements and General Standards. It says that a
waiver, that for a waiver use to be approved, the proposed
location, size and character of the use must be in harmony with
the surrounding neighborhood. Over 4,000 residents have told
you by signing petitions that were shown earlier that this site
plan would not be in harmony with the surrounding
neighborhood. The big box stores, detention pond, and
semitmck alley are loo close to homes. We've never had a 24-
hour store on the property, much less a 24-hour big box store
with a grocery and auto center. This brings all kinds of new
problems to our neighborhood and nuisances. These nuisances
will put undue burdens on us homeowners, and in some cases,
we could argue that it's an adverse taking of our properly. We
live in peaceful neighborhoods right now. My family and I put a
lot of hard work, money and time into our backyards.
Mr. Walsh:
All right. Ms. Larson, how much longer do we have?
Ms. Larson:
I've got about 20 seconds.
Mr. Walsh:
No, I mean in total, Ms. Larson?
Ms. Larson:
Oh.
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Unidentified audience member: Let them talk.
Mr. Walsh:
We just have a lot of people. If people are comfortable ...
Unidentified audience member: Let them talk.
Mr. Walsh:
Sir, you don't have to get angry. I want to make sure everybody
gets a chance to be heard tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, the
petitioner has paid a fee and is entitled to speak for as long as it
is necessary to present. What I've tried to do with these groups
is organize with them, and Ne worked very hard with them to
arrange for this. I'm not culling them off. I'm trying to find out
how much time they have. Everyone will speak.
Ms. Larson:
Mr. Walsh?
Mr. Walsh:
Yes.
Ms. Larson:
We have approximately eight more speakers, but due to the
slide incident with not being able to explain the site plan, I do
believe that has added time.
Mr. Walsh:
Okay. Why don't we do that. We'll complete that and then we
have two more neighborhood groups that have made
prearrangements. Just so people understand that, and then
we'll go to the general public. Thank you.
Ms. Messing:
I'll quickly go on here. My family and I put a lot of hard work,
money and time into our backyard. We created our own green
barrier by planting 12 -foot trees because of the six foot, which is
only six That behind our home there. Our family developed a
new quality of life. Nighttime, we can enjoy quiet. We enjoy
sitting in our hot tub, roasting marshmallows, listening to
crickets, cicadas and gazing at stars. Wonderland closed at
nighttime. We've never had a 24-hour store, much less a 24-
hour big box store. This will directly diminish our existing quality
of life and have an negative impact on our family and the
intended use of our properly. The character of our
neighborhood will change with this proposed project. I would
ask that this be denied. Thank you.
Ms. Dogonski:
Again, my name is Stacey Dogonski. Zoning Ordinance Section
19.06b says that for a waiver use to be granted, the project
must not be hazardous or inconvenient to the neighborhood nor
unduly conflict with the normal traffic of the neighborhood. It
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goes on to say that applying this standard, the Commission
shall consider, amongst other things, convenient routes for
pedestrian traffic, particularly for children. It has been mentioned
that there's a middle school very dose to the site. A lot of
Devon -Aire Subdivision children cross at the main road. That is
an issue for a lot of people. The relationship of the proposed
use to main traffic thoroughfares, which is streets and roads
intersections, vehicular turning movements in relation to routes
of traffic flow, location and access of off-street parking and
provisions for pedestrian traffic, with particular provisions
minimizing child vehide contact in residential districts, and the
general character and intensity of the existing and potential
development of the neighborhood. Next slide please. Then
there's Section 19.06g of our zoning ordinance. It says for a
waiver use to be approved, the project must provide for proper
yard space, parking facilities and protective walls among other
things. Again, must I state the plan is deficient in parking. The
wall that is proposed for the screening of the existing or for the
proposed site plan is going to be a seven foot high wall. The
bene next to it is going to be eight to ten feet high with two rows
of mature trees. This concems a lot of neighbors who live along
that wall. Where they do appreciate screening, they do have
some concerns about people, if they felt like it, standing on lop
of the berm and looking down into their backyards and houses.
There is also a concern about the upkeep of the green space
between the bene and the wall. How will that be kept up and
the drainage? Thankyou.
Mr. Reed: My name is Troy Reed again from West Chicago in Livonia.
Talking about the zoning ordinance for buildings, walls, fences
their effect on property values, which is Section 19.06c. We
believe that this proposed site plan would have a detrimental
effect on the neighboring residential area. Also in regard to the
location of the dividing walls, I've come up with a sight line that
shoes why we feel it's inefficient. You probably won't be able to
see it. Probably the same problem with the other one but if you
remember the sight line study that Mr. Schostak showed you
before that showed the view looking from the residents toward
the building that showed just the top of the building, imagine that
same view if a person were standing on top of the berm looking
back toward the houses. You actually get a full view of 60
percent of the backyard and the entire house from the top of
that wall. So what we're proposing is that, and maybe this is a
win-win situation for the residential area, is to put the wall
possibly on the other side of the bene to prevent people from
mounting the wall, or mounting the berm, to be able to see down
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the other side and possibly allowing maybe a chain link fence on
the other side so that the people who are abutting that property
have a view of the landscape rather than of the wall.
Ms. Mulcahy: Hi, Donna Mulcahy again. One thing that people have been
asking over and over, is where is a comparable site where you
have a 24-hour big box store located so dose to homes, and
we've tried, and tried and tried. The best I could come up with
was in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Bethany Home Road store. Its
on Bethany Home Road in Phoenix, Arizona. Its in an old mall
called the Spectrum Center, which is kind of like Wonderland
Mall. They have a very similar history. Anyhow, I read an
article dated May 19, 2005, in the Source Weekly on line. It
quotes a woman who used to live just a few houses away. She
lived across the road but a few houses away from the mall. And
she talked about what it was like when a store there became a
24-hour supercenter. Could I have the next slide please?
Okay. You see the store there, the 24-hour store, and you see
about where her house was. Ifs kind of comparable except that
there are roads all the way around the mall property, but you
can see she didn't live very far away, and here is what she had
to say. She said that the problem started when the store was
being constructed. About 2:00 in the morning, you'd hear loud
metal grinding and construction work going on because they
were trying to meet a deadline apparently, she said. After the
store opened, things only got worse. She said, associated with
the 24 operation of the store, there was 24 hour noise and light
pollution from the comings and goings of the shoppers. The
delivery trucks were there at midnight, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning.
The windows in our house would ratlle from the vibrations of the
idling trucks. The opening of the store also brought other
problems to her neighborhood, she said, including litter,
vandalism and graffiti. There were shopping carts that people
left in our neighborhood, the ever-present blue plastic bags
blowing in the breeze, a lot of vagrancy, she said. After the
supercenter opened, they had to have 24-hour police patrol
there because of all the crime. She said that at the neighbors'
request, the Phoenix police checked their statistics and found
crime had increased 18 percent in the vicinity of that store after
the supercenter opened. Cars speeding through neighborhood
streets at all hours of the day and night were a particular
problem she said. We'd have drag racing down our street.
We'd have a lot of overflow partiers from the parking lot. A little
boy in the neighborhood, some woman who was drunk and
speeding, hit and killed his dog. A lot of families didn't feel it
was safe to let their kids play in their front yards anymore. They
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didn't let their kids out on bicycles. She and her husband
decided to move to Oregon to gel away from those problems
recently only b learn that a similar store is being proposed for
their new community. After reading her story, I decided to try
and find her and I did. I called her on the phone and we had a
very nice conversation. Not only did she confine saying
everything in that atcle, but she told me about other problems
associated with the store that weren't even in the article. For
example, there was supposed to be a provision where trucks
wouldn't arrive at the store after a certain hour, so they all
arrived then, but then bey waited in long lines and idled all that
time until it was their time to unload. And she said the grading
of the parking lot was a lot higher than what was proposed so
that people could stand on the parking lot over there by the side
of both her house and the store they faced north. So if you
looked down her street to the left, you could see the side of the
store. Anyhow, she said that the parking lot was higher so that
people could stand on the parking lot and look down across the
road, over the wall into people's homes. It was a very good
view. Her story is proof that our concems are not baseless.
The current site plan as submitted would change the character
of our neighborhoods and bring many nuisances to our lives, but
there are provisions in our zoning ordinances and Code of
Ordinances that can be used to slop this. Cindy Snoes will now
talk about what some oflhose provisions are.
Cindy Snoes, 9919 Middlebelt Road. I live two -tenth of a mile away from
Wonderland Mall. Nuisances are defined in Section 8.24.010 in
our Code of Ordinances. Pick any one of the negative aspects
of the site plan that have been talked about tonight and you'll
find that it fits the definition of being a nuisance. The current
site plan as proposed would create a whole lot of nuisances for
the people who live near Wonderland. But Section 8.24.020 of
our Code of Ordinances says plainly in black and white that no
owner or corporation or property management company is
allowed to create or maintain a nuisance in any building,
structure, excavation or business pursuit or on any public or
private street, alleyway or any premises whatever in the city.
There are other ways the elements on the site plan could be
configured and there are other altematves for redeveloping the
property that would not create the high level of nuisances that
this plan would. In light of this, it is not unreasonable to require
the developer to reconfigure the site plan or to explore and
present another altematve for redeveloping the properly that
would cause far fewer nuisances to the community. Light
trespass slide. There it is. This section of our Code of
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Ordinances, Section 8.24.030, is a reminder that the projects
lighting must be designed and implemented in such a way that
no light from the project falls upon the yards, homes or property
of the people who live near Wonderland. It shows why a study
regarding the risk of light trespass onto the surrounding
properties needs to be done and why the proposed site plan
must be denied. Next, Sandy Richards will address the noise
ordinance.
Mr. Walsh: Ms. Larson, I'm going to allow just five more minutes and then
we're going to move on to the next group.
Sandra Richards, 29830 Robert Drive. I've been there for 52 years. I'll mention
the city's noise ordinance and Sections 8.32.020 and 8.32.070
because of the close proximity of the proposed semifruck alley
to nearby residences. Also, according to Section 8.32.070a in
the city code, no person shall make, cause, continue, or peril
to be made any unreasonably loud ruckus, janing, or disturbing
which causes or threatens to cause a noise disturbance.
Hearing the sound of trucks backing up, especially when it's the
middle of the night, is very janing. In Section 8.32.070(9)(a)
under prohibited acts, letting a truck idle in a manner that
creates a noise disturbance is prohibited. Under Section (9)(b),
it is prohibited to permit any motor vehicle with a registered
weight in excess of 10,000 pounds or equipment attached to
such a vehide to idle for longer than five minutes each hour
while the vehicle is stationary and within 100 feel of a residential
area between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. The following
day right there you have the beginning of a basis for limiting the
project's store hours. Section 8.32.070(2)(1) deals with
vibrations. Remember the story about the lady whose windows
shook from the noise. That's a possibility here and that's why
the proposed site must be denied. Now Joyce Marlon will speak
about the zoning ordinances that apply to the detention pond.
Thank you.
Joyce Marion, 11058 Hillcrest. I've lived there for 34 years. My backyard is one
of the ones that will back up to the detention pond. To meet the
required landscape percentage, the site plan counts the nearby
four acre open detention pond as part of its landscaping. If it's
going to count for landscaping, require that it be moved to the
front or center of the site plan where it can be monitored more
easily by security and make it an outstanding feature of the
development, put fountains in it and low level decorative lighting
and benches around it. Make sure there is a fresh water source
to feed it when there is a dry spell so that it's always filled with
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water. Make sure the water is treated so the pond doesn't smell
bad and put in pellets at the proper intervals to prevent the
spread of West Nile Virus and other diseases. Speaking at
Section 8.24.080 of our Code of Ordinances, talks about the
sanitary drainage of premises. If the detention pond is to be
drained and cleaned, which it should be regularly because it's
going to be an open sewer, how often would it be drained and
cleaned? What would that involve, who would pay for it, and
what risk would there be to residents when the debris is
removed?
Mr. Walsh: Okay, ma'am. You're the final speaker for this group
Ms. Kolhoff. I am for the Citizens for a Better Livonia.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you.
Ms. Kolhoff. Okay. Next slide. Keep going. We're skipping. Okay.
According to Section 19.06(2) of the zoning ordinance, the City
Council has the authority to attached any conditions to the
approval of a waiver use application that it feels are necessary
to accomplish the reasonable applicable of the special
requirements and the foregoing standards. You, as the Planning
Commission, have the power to recommend to the City Council
any conditions that you feel are reasonable to this project.
Therefore, we ask that you make further consideration of the
wavier use request associated with this site plan and the
approval of the site plan dependent on the following conditions.
Comprehensive studies. The following conditions should also
be part of any waiver use agreement that might be given to this
project: restricted store hours, restricted store sizes, nothing
past 150,000 square feet is reasonable, move the detention
pond, push the buildings and delivery routes so they are at least
250 feel away from the residents' rear lot lines, require that the
smaller stores be built first so that the developer will not just put
in big box stores and then abandon the rest of the project,
prohibit the site from having ever liquor sales or a gas station,
put in provisions to limit the nuisances to residents during
demolition and construction, and get all these covenants in
writing four the petitioner. Next slide. In closing, we ask that
you pay careful attention to Livonia's Land Use Plan which says
that the future land use for the City of Livonia is intended to
provide a guide for day -today zoning decisions and land use
problems, goals to create, preserve and enhance a living
environment of the residential areas by encouraging superior
site planning, architecture design, landscaping, and well
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conceived and coordinating signage by establishing a
compatible relationship between commercial centers and
adjacent residential properties. The current site plan would not
be compatible with the adjacent residential properties, and for
that reason and for all the reasons we have given you tonight,
we ask that you recommend that this plan be denied. On behalf
of the thousands of residents of Livonia who want something
better for Wonderland, I thank you for your time and your
considerations.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. Sir?
George Kosnich, 11070 Hillcrest. I think she said it all.
Mr. Walsh: Sir, sir.
Mr. Kosnich: My name is George Kosnich.
Mr. Walsh: Sir, sir. As I indicated in the beginning, we're moving to the
Devon -Aire ...
Mr. Kosnich: Icant hear you.
Mr. Walsh:
We are moving to the Devon -Aire Homeowners Association and
then the Clements Circe and then we'll be moving to ...
Mr. Kosnich:
I only got about three minutes. That's all I have.
Mr. Walsh:
I'll give you the two minutes I'm giving to everyone and then
we're going to go on to the Devon -Aire.
Mr. Kosnich:
Can I go ahead now?
Mr. Walsh:
Two minutes.
Mr. Kosnich:
Okay.
Mr. Walsh:
Two minutes. There are a lot of people thatwantlo be heard.
Mr. Kosnich:
My name is George Kosnich. I live at 11070 Hillcrest since
1955. 1 was living in Livonia when Livonia was nothing, almost
a township, and I've seen Livonia grow. And what this thing is
being proposed is ridiculous for a residential area. We've got
one of the finest cities in the country and you want to min it by
having a commercial place in residentials. Number one, the
water detention pond, I don't know how deep it is. He doesn't
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say how deep it is, but 15 feet behind my house is a raw
sewage line and its only 15 feet in the ground. Now that
sewage line takes care of the hotel and all the residents on
Hillcrest, Omngelawn and everything else and Henry Ruff Road.
How deep is that retention pond? Water weighs eight pounds a
gallon. If that retention pond is going to hold 10,000 gallons of
water, that sewer is going to be busted and we're going to have
raw sewage in our homes. Number two, we don't need gas
stations on Plymouth Road. It just adds more traffic. Number
three, all the money you spent on Plymouth Road putting fancy
iron gates up, putting fancy brick corners up, you've spent
millions and millions of dollars. In six months you're going to
have a boarded up Plymouth Road.
Mr. Walsh: All right. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Kosnich: Proof of the pudding is, why did Wonderland go out in the first
place? Because Bakers and the small stores could not compete
with the big Target stores. Now with Wal-Mart in there ...
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, sir. Sir
Mr. Kosnich: Just a minute.
Mr. Walsh: Sir, you're limited to two minutes. We're moving on to Mr.
Bagazinski.
Mr. Kosnich: I've got news for you. You gave these people 35 and two hours
Mr. Walsh: Sir, you are out of order. We're moving on. Sir. We will ran this
meeting ... Sir.
Mr. Kosnich: I'm entitled to say my piece.
Mr. Walsh: Sir, I will have you removed. I'm ruling you out of order. I will
ran this meeting according to the rules.
Mr. Kosnich: I've only got one more item I want to bring up.
Mr. Walsh: Sir, we have many people in this audience, not all of whom
agree with you. We're going to move on. You had your two
minutes. Thankyou. Mr. Bagazinski.
Mr. Kosnich: You know what? You don't listen very well.
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Mr. Walsh: Mr. Bagazinski is here representing the Devon -Aire
Homeowners Association. He has requested 15 minutes.
Jerry Bagazinski, 3110 Hathaway. Good evening. I'm the president of the
DevorvAire Civic Association. Our civic association voted 149
to 1 to make a presentation at this meeting tonight. We also
surveyed our residents who live on Hillcrest and who live on
Orangelawn who are most impacted by this particular
development. We also asked a local realtor to give us an idea
of any transient property values and the increase in number of
listings. And I'm sad to report that there is a decline in property
values in this neighborhood and there's been an increase in
listings. People in our neighborhood are also concerned about
rumors that our elementary school in the neighborhood,
McKinley School, is going to close at the end of this year. I'd
like to begin by talking about why my family lives in Livonia.
Livonia is the seventh safest city in America. We are also the
second most kid friendliest city in the United Stales, and a big
part of that reason is because of the fad that Livonia is a great
city because of the work that the City Planning Commission has
done over the years. Our Mayor served nine years on the City
Planning Commission. Over the years, I have watched the
members of this Commission obsess over the smallest details of
the location of a garbage container, the driveways that are
providing ingress and egress to the major roads to and from this
site, elements of landscaping, parking. I personally observed
you guys go to different sites that are being considered to
examine it. There's a lot of work that you guys put in behind the
scenes. And the end result is that Livonia is a very desirable
place to live, work and shop. The burden on you guys tonight is
that you guys have to approve this site plan if it meets all the
requirements of the ordinance. But if it doesn't meet all the
requirements of the ordinance, you can reject it. The goal of
any development is to attract residents and maintain property
values. Some of the concems that the residents have
expressed to us are the piecemeal approvals that have taken
place at this site. They are very concerned that nobody has
seen the entire picture. One of the things that is on the
residents' mind is that part of this site plan was approved in
2003. Some of the concems that they have are whether or not
that the site plan that was extended, half of it was extended. Is
that a valid extension? Is it legal to take half the site plan and
say we're just going to extend this part and not the other? What
is the date that this expires? Many of our residents have talked
to different people. I've talked to different people and everybody
has their own opinion and a different answer. Residents of our
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neighborhood are concerned about the deficiencies in the
petition. Is this a site condo? Is there a lot split taking place
here? What are the common agreements? What are the
easements that are going to take place between the different
property owners? I think that's all missing from this, and as a
result, the site plan that you guys are looking at is very deficient
in that matter. The major concern that we have in that
neighborhood is that the site plan has a dispersant impact on
our neighborhood. The site plan is too intensive as it backs up
to the neighborhood. In our survey that we took, we asked the
neighbors, and almost universally, they were extremely
concerned or very concerned about light shining into their
property, about the increased noise from trucks, car alarms and
from the stores' boxing operations. They are concemed about
crime. They are concerned about property values decreasing.
They are concerned about additional traffic. They are concerned
that the detention pond is an attractive nuisance for children.
They are concerned that the detention pond is a breeding
ground for pests, rodents and mosquitoes. They are concerned
about noxious odors from the detention pond and they're very
concemed about the berm and the wall configuration. In fad,
one of the best proposals that I've seen was from one of our
neighborhood members, Troy, who suggested that we move the
wall and put it before he bene and then replace the wall with a
cyclone fence. They are also concerned about pollution. The
site plan, we believe, we asked the neighbors what should be
done to minimize the impact of the development here. The
more prevalent comment was the 24 hours of operation. We
took the time and did a little bit of research and we discovered
that in west Des Moines, Iowa, Wal-Mart agreed to allow a store
that would operate from 8:00 to 10:00, and then they sued to
extend the hours. Council members were very disgusted that
the agreements were merely lip service, but I think that this is a
reasonable constraint. The location that they've selected backs
up to a neighborhood. There are other locations that they could
select that don't necessarily have the same issues. Truck traffic
was a major concem. One of the things that was said today,
and I think needs to be brought out, was Target mentioned that
they'd have approximately five semis per day. At the meeting at
Joy Manor, it was said that the Super Wal -Marl would
accommodate 10 to 12 semis per day and 20 panels trucks and
that these deliveries would take place between 4 p.m. and 10
p.m. and that changed today. They said it was only five trucks.
But you know what's interesting about that, is that if that store is
twice as big as Wal -Marl or Wal -Marl is twice as big as Target,
that only makes sense. If they say that there's going to be five
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trucks at Target, then there's going to be ten trucks at Wal-Mart.
The third big box store would bring in approximately the same
number of trucks as Target by our extrapolation of the numbers.
And then there's the store at Kmart which is approximately
114,000 square feet, and by extrapolation, that would have the
same number of trucks as Target. So we're looking at
approximately 25 to 30 semis that would be going against that
back wall. In addition to that, there would be approximately 50
panel trucks making deliveries there and that would be on a
daily basis. One of the issues that we also see is that the entire
site has 74.5 acres. If 15 percent of that had to be used for
landscaping, we think that it's reasonable to believe that some
of that landscaping should be gathered and put together so that
there are park -like common areas. We don't believe that the
detention pond should be part of the landscaping. We believe
that the West Village approval uses the same landscaping that
the Wal-Mart uses. And that's a problem. We believe that the
parking is deficient. If they're going to bring 1,000 employees to
this site, why not put up a parking structure for their employees?
That way theyd save the parking in front of the store for their
shoppers. There are a number of issues with regard to the
Wonderland Village. We're concerned that there are four
separate islands of retail strip centers. And what are we going
to get in these retail strip centers? We're concerned that we're
going to get a wireless store, a pizza place, a tanning salon, a
smoke shop and a dollar store, and then the next strip mall,
we're going to get a dollar store, a smoke shop, a tanning salon,
a pizza place and a wireless store. The problem that we see
there is that there's no vision. There's no cohesive formula that
puts all this stuff together. Universally, our survey showed that
most people want these stores flipped. They would like to see
this village concept developed. They'd like the big box stores
pushed to Plymouth Road. Theyre concerned about security.
Some of the covenants that people suggested that we should
seek here is that we should ask for the re -implementation of a
mini -station there. There used to be a mini -station at
Schostak's request at the old Wonderland. We would like to
see that put back over there. We'd like to see limited hours of
operation. We'd like to see no gasoline sales at this site. We'd
like to see the demolition of the Kmart building and that whole
area reconfigured. We'd like to see the relocation of the
Standard Federal Bank onto that particular site. One of the
things that has made our neighbors the most upset is the
detention pond. One of our neighbors, Joan Zamenski, her
property would back right up to that area, and she'd like to take
a couple seconds to speak to you about that particular issue.
22595
Joan Zamenski, 11046 Hillcrest. I represent my neighbors on Hillcrest, Henry
Ruff and Orangelawn Streets and the people of the City of
Livonia who are opposed to the detention pond of the
Wonderland site proposal. When we purchased our home 32
years ago, the empty lot, which is the dead end of Henry Ruff,
was filled with trees. Over the years, the trees fell and the lot
became a grassy field. When Wonderland was operational, I
had to make several phone calls to management to cul the
grass. The last time I made four phone calls to Schostak to
maintain their property and cul the grass. If they're unable to
perform regular lawn cutting maintenance on the property, how
can we trust them to maintain a detention pond? I have visited
other detention ponds, one of which is located behind Arby's at
Plymouth and Inkster Roads in Redford and was disgusted by
the appalling stench and site of overgrown weeds and debris. I
also visited another detention pond located at Ford and
Haggerty Roads in Canton where the new Ikea is being built
and was also disgusted by the stench and site of overgrown
weeds. This detention pond was filled with a ladder, sheets of
insulation and floating boards, and that was on lop of the water.
What is lurking below the water? Maybe popcorn and cups loo.
Remember you said the cups in front of Target? Mr. LaPine?
Remember, Mr. LaPine, you said the cups and the popcorn,
where does it all go? It's going to go into that detention pond.
Now, along the same property were two kidney shaped
detention ponds that presently hold a shopping cart. At the end
of the pond, are cement pilings which are pieces of cement.
They go five feet high and there's a grate on top. Now that
grate opens and collects the water when it gets that high. But
what happens when the water gets that high? What about the
rainfall? Where will the water go? Will it be mixed with the
sludge of the standing water and flood onto our property?
Bacteria, mosquitoes, birds, rats, West Nile Virus, are just some
of the dangers lurking in the water with holes that are dug 12 to
20 feet deep. Inquisitive children could drown and cars driving
down Henry Ruff could skid into the pond. I don't want my
grandchildren or my pet exposed to the chance of getting a
bacterial or viral infection caused by the overflow. And every
day on TV, they tell you: studies show the best way to prevent
West Nile Virus is no standing water. Now, I have one little bit
and I'm done. We need to change the situation and make an
improvement that will enhance the site. We need to have a
pond that is surrounded by flowing fountains and water that is
continuously flowing. We need to beautify this site. We need
boulders, beautiful trees. We need to place this pond at the
22596
comer of Plymouth and Middlebelt Roads or on Plymouth Road
in the middle of the new said businesses, or right in the middle
of the Wonderland site to be seen and gazed upon by all. We
need an inviting, attractive development to increase customer
traffic and it looks just like the one that's located at Six Mile and
Haggerty in Northville, and you can call that your flagship
statement. We need this plan changed and we need it changed
now. Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh: Thankyou.
Mr. Bagazinski: Joan should have given my whole presentation.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. Bagazinski, you have about two more minutes
Mr. Bagazinski: Okay. You know, on the issue of the detention pond, we did do
a survey, and one of the things that most of our residents said,
they wanted to see that underground. Alternatives that people
suggested was moving it off site b the industrial area or again
making a fountain out of it that would be a thing of beauty for the
site. We were talking about covenants before I stepped aside to
lel Joan speak for a few minutes. We did look at a number of. .
. what a number of different communities have received in terns
of covenants. Westminster, Colorado, the big box retailer, Wak
Mart there agreed to an escrow account to assure residents that
they would maintain the property. In the packet that you guys
have, there is a reference to the arlide from the Rocky Mountain
News. They also, in Medford, agreed to change their monolithic
design that they had. One of the things that was very attractive
to a lot of our residents was the Meijers building that's located
at Millennium Park. If this was moved to Plymouth Road, that
this could be done with a zero setback and that it could adopt
the same type of facade and that would be harmonious with the
whole notion of having a downtown development district. There
are some crime statistics that are being cited. Councilman
Meakin had requested some crime statistics for the area. We
got that as part of our packet that we requested from the
Planning office. It shaved that crime was eight times higher at
Wal-Mart than at the Wonderland grid. The study in Phoenix
showed an 18 percent increase in crime in the vicinity of the
store, which we presume is probably the neighborhoods.
People's biggest concerns are public safety, as I mentioned
earlier. What I think needs to happen now is that we need to
take and look at the ordinances, make the determination that
this site plan does not meet the requirements of the ordinance
and invite the developer to come back with a new site plan. I
22597
don't think that we'll run into any problems in Paragon v. the Cily
of Novi there because there's no issue of finality as long as we
confinue to work with the developer to come up with the very
best possible plan thatthe City of Livonia can have. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, Mr. Bagazinski, that was perfect tirring. I appreciate
it. We have one more homeowners association. It is the
Clements Circe Homeowners Association who is speaking.
They had requested 10 minutes on behalf of their membership.
Mr. Anderson:
Thank you, very much.
Mr. Walsh:
Good evening, Mr. Anderson.
Mr. Anderson:
My name is still Stan Anderson and I haven't moved. My first
comment is to state that the Clements Circe Civic Association
Board voted unanimously at our regular monthly meeting of
September 19, 2005, to not support the waiver use petition
submitted by Schostak Brothers, Inc. for their proposed use of
the Wonderland properly. The overwhelming feeling by the
Board was that a much better long Tenn use that would benefit
the entire City of Livoina, businesses and residents alike, should
be provided. Now I have just a few points that I would like to
make. Point number one, I believe the proposed development
is quite a stretch. But let's look at this village. I dont know what
the developer has in mind for his small stores, but I hope it will
include merchants that would be typical of a village. For
example, a bakery with a coffee shop, a produce store like Joe's
on Seven Mile, a barbershop, a butcher shop like Byrds on
Seven Mile, a doctors office, an insurance office, clothing and
accessory stores, that buyers will want to patronize and with a
type of attractive frontages, sidewalks with brick pavings and
attractive landscaping that many small towns are now
incorporating into their downtown development projects. Are we
going to have that in our village? Point number two relates to
both the big box stores and the small boxes. The way they are
planned with parking on all sides of the small boxes, if I want to
walk to one store to another in different buildings, I must cross
the path of parked and moving cars. If I was to go from a big
box to a small box, I have to take my chance on walking through
a series of parking lots. The plan does not show connecting
sidewalks that would make my trip with packages in tow safer.
The merchants need and will generate much traffic - cars, SUVs
and pickups. It will challenge pedestrians. This problem is
something I wish you could take another close look at. Point
number three has to do with big boxes and taxes. The point has
22598
been made that we need development at this location to
generate tax dollars. Very true. No one disagrees. However,
what we put there results in the anticipated higher crime with
greatly increased traffic with resulting noise, pollution,
opportunities for accidents and traffic tie-ups, plus the possible
resulting decrease in home values. You have to ask, do
families really come first as our City slogan claims. Point
number four has to do with the position of the big boxes. The
claim is that these buildings will be about 100 feet plus or minus
from the south boundary line and the townhouses directly
across Middlebelt Road. Well, we all know how that space will
be used. That is where the necessary semitrucks with their
trailers will be entering and leaving as described by the prior
speakers. The delivery vans will be entering and leaving. The
pickup trucks will enter and leave. Builders' trucks for new
construction and building modifications will enter and leave and
garage trucks will enter and leave. All this is going on in that
open space putting the action literally in the backyards of the
adjoining homes. The designated hours that this will be allowed
is critical. Point number five has to do with the planned water
detention pond. I'd like to bring up something I looked at
recently. Has an underground facility been considered? This is
done by other developers. TRW has used this method when
faced with a similar runoff from their multiple parking lots,
sidewalks and buildings. The initial drainage of the stormwaler
goes underground and only the excess need go to the pond. As
a result, they claim there is nothing in their pond since they
started and nothing to be exposed in that matter. And
incidentally, parking lots can be placed over these drain fields.
Finally, before this goes forward, I would like to see a
brainstorming session be held with the developers, the Planning
Commission, the Traffic Commission, the City Council, the
Mayor, the City Police Department for traffic experts, the City
Engineers and the affected homeowner groups. This group
could combine their knowledge and experience to present a
visionary and practical plan that would make this project the
very best possible village that the entire City can be proud of.
Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Anderson. At this point, we've concluded the
organized presentations. This is now open to the public. What
we heard from were three organizations that had come forward
on behalf of their membership. What I'm going to ask is that
individuals come to my left and right, stand at the podium, and
i's two minutes per person.
22599
Leigh McBain, 11216 Harrison. Was that ten minutes for Clements Circe?
Mr. Walsh:
That was 10 minutes for Clement's Circle. Bob,didthatgooff?
Mr. Alanskas:
It was nine minutes.
Mr. Walsh:
Are you speaking on behalf of Clement's Circle?
Mr. McBain:
Yes, I am.
Mr. Walsh:
You have another minute or two.
Mr. McBain:
Okay. We as a City need to be careful not to be
shortsighted. My goal as a citizen is not to stop the
development of the Wonderland property but to make sure that
we do not act rashly and put something there just to have
something for short term financial gain. Doing so would be
detrimental to our city. After all, this is a retail development that
will forever transform our community. We must Team from past
mistakes such as Millennium Park, Livonia's $200 million, 194
acre shopping center industrial park. This was held up to the
citizens to be an upscale pedestrian friendly with restaurants,
ice cream parlor, movie theater and other consumer friendly
areas. It is neither upscale nor pedestrian friendly. The vision
and the development have fallen flat there. Learn from other
cities. We must Team from other cities. Northville, Plymouth,
City of Farmington - all have downtown areas and are family
and pedestrian friendly. West Dearborn's Michigan Avenue is a
destination for young people, families and is pedestrian friendly
with park -type areas. Royal Oak is a destination for young
people and pedestrians. Allen Park just developed two new
shopping centers. They are being created as the Fairlane
Green, which was once the Ford quarry turned landfill, and
Independent Village, which was once the old VA hospital.
Mr. Walsh:
Sir, if you could wrap up, please.
Mr. McBain:
Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
I'll now open the floor to members of public. We'll start on the
right and we'll go to the left. Sir, if you'd like to step forward and
give us your name and address.
Albert Mughannem,
30909 Roycrofl. Thank you. Lifetime resident. First of all,
I'd just like to make a brief statement. I'm shocked and
22600
embarrassed at the conduct in this hall. Is this City Hall or is
this a middle school auditorium?
Mr. Walsh:
Sir. If you'd speak into the microphone, sir, we could hear.
Mr. Mughannem:
Okay. On with my comment. I don't believe that major retailers
are beating down our doors to occupy Wonderland Mall at this
point, otherwise it would have already been developed. Listen
to what they have to say. This is a total package here. Okay?
We run the risk of having Wonderland vacant for another five
years or longer. Okay?
Mr. Walsh:
Let's respect his comments. And sir, if you'd direct your
comments to us, please.
Mr. Mughannem:
Okay. If this package isn't accepted, I feel that Schostak has
addressed the concerns of the cifizens and of the Commission.
I have no relationship with Schostak. I care about Livonia as
much as everyone else. I plan on retiring here and reising my
children here.
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, let's be respectful of each others
comments, please.
Mr. Mughannem:
Be careful of what you wish for. I'm looking at this auditorium
and I see a whole lot of empty seats. Obviously, the passion
dwindles with fime. It seems ...
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, please. He's entitled to his opinions.
Mr. Mughannem:
It seems that with over or just under, at the last census count,
100,000 residents here, there's less than 'hof 1 percent still
remaining in this auditorium. I believe that I speak for the silent
majority. I do stress, however, that the Commission please hold
Schostak's feet to the fire on every element of the proposed
plan, that they don't let the ball drop, and that we don't have
another Millennium Park situation. Ifeel also that plan has also
fallen flat. Thank you very much.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, sir. Sir, can you give us your name and address
please.
Raymond DePerro, 29361 Elmira. Good evening. I've lived in Livonia for 10
years. I can solve Mr. Schostak's problem. I have a thing from
the Traffic Commission. I apologize for not having copies for
everybody but if you'd like to see it, basically what it says is on
22601
Middlebelt and Plymouth Road in the last 20 months, we've had
18 accidents. That concerns me. Every morning when I go to
work I have a hard time getting out and when I come home at
night, I have a hard time getting in. Also, I'm president of the
Livonia East Townhouse Association, which is those
condominiums that are adjacent to the Wonderland property.
We are concerned about the traffic. We're concemed about
came, and we're concerned about whds going to clean up the
mess because it's costing us money. We pay association fees,
and we have to have somebody come out there to dean up the
cups and paper wrappers and everything else that blows.
That's all I have to say. Thank you.
Tom Marlin, 8969 Danzig. I've lived in Livonia my whole life, 42 years. I'm in
favor of the development of Wondedand as I believe are the
majority of my neighbors. Living near a dying and deserted
shopping mall for the past several years has been detrimental to
our neighborhood in many ways. While we're pleased to finally
have a site plan for the redevelopment of Wondedand, we are
very disappointed in the particulars of this plan. Like the old
saying, the devil is in the details. There are plenty of devils in
this site plan. My neighbors will speak for themselves about the
specific objections that they have with this plan. For myself,
there are four main objections that I request the Planning
Commission consider carefully. One, the proposed big box
stores are too close to the backyards of the neighborhood. The
proposed 100 foot distance will destroy the value of the homes
abutting this development as well as create a noise nuisance in
the neighborhood. Two, the proposed 24 hour operation of Wal-
Mart is unprecedented in our community for a store of this type
and size backing up to a residential neighborhood. Three, the
proposed detention pit is a potential magnet for animals,
children and trash. No landscaping is proposed to keep out
children in this area for this four acre, 20 foot deep open sewer.
Do we need to wail for a child to drown before we realize how
foolish this was? Al other locations in Livonia and elsewhere,
this has been made safe.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, Mr. Martin. Good evening.
Ms. Dogonski:
My name is Stacey Dogonski, again. My address is ....
Mr. Walsh:
Stacey, you look very familiar.
Ms. Dogonski:
Oh, really?
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Mr. Walsh: And Ms. Larson made a commitment. She made a commitment
that the leadership would not speak because I ...
Ms. Dogonski: Oh, well, I'm not leadership. I was just reading for them.
Mr. Walsh: She made a commitment that everyone that spoke would not
speak. That went into my calculations. Thank you.
Melissa (no last name given), 9567 Pierson, Detroit. I do work at the Livonia
Wal -Marl. I only have two minutes, so if you're going to boo and
hiss go ahead. I have worked at the current store on 96 and
Schoolcrett for over six years, and I have witnessed great
improvement over the years. Some of those improvements are
better customer service, cleanliness of the store, a better safety
team. I am the head of that safety team, and with the help of
our associates at that store, we do try to do our best on a daily
basis to keep the store picked up and clean as well as the
outside areas. Wal-Mart as a company, generally as a whole, is
a great company. I wouldn't work for any other company. It has
competitive wages, and we don't need a union to speak for us
because we have mouths of our own and we can speak for
ourselves. We have great benefits inducing a 401k plan as well
as great health benefits as affordable to all of our part time and
full time associates. We also have excellent community service,
which was addressed already earlier. The only other thing I
have to say is that I shop at my Wal-Mart store, my family shops
there, my friends shop there, and we are very excited that
Livonia is going to hopefully let us in with the Supercenter with
full foods, which is only going to better the community. Thank
you.
Joan Gebhardt, 35248 Leon. I've lived there for over 26 years. First, I want to
thank my fellow residents for coming out this evening and
stepping to the plate. They're not politicians. They do this on
their own time. I'm proud of each and every one of them. I
would hope that our Planning Commission and City Council
would do the same. First, I want to make it clear that I have
been to every meeting and every forum concerning this issue
since the beginning. It's been because of this issue that we're
all here tonight and the reason I've decided to run for Council.
Understand, I'm not an"evelopment. We're in a physical crisis
in our community, and we must attract new businesses and
developments to Livonia to enhance our community, but this
does not mean that we need to put developers before our
residents. We must not put the wants of the developers before
the needs of our citizens. We need to protect the rich character
22603
of our neighborhoods, which Livonia was built upon and
hopefully will confinue to grow and our community will continue
to grow and ft the needs and the wants of our residents. This
development does not meet the needs of our residents and the
requirements of our City ordinances. This City Council doesn't
have a plan. There's not been any foresight and a serious lack
of planning. I hope that the Planning Commission will listen to
the responses, to listen to the residents and respond
appropriately. We need a City Council that will listen to the
concerns of the residents. We can do better. I love this city,
and like you, I'm frustrated. Let's stop operating without an eye
for the future. If I'm fortunate enough to be sitting on the City
Council seal when this plan comes up, I will have a vote and
thalvole will be a resounding no.
Dale Engel, 30856 SchoolcmR. I think one fact that we've missed tonight is that
the Schostak Brothers are in this to make a profit. That's what
they're here for. They picked Wal-Mart. They picked Target,
the Village Shops. They have to live with it and they have to die
with it. I haven't seen or heard of loo many of these people in
these Village Shops that are already signed up. Who are they?
Who are they going to be? Are they guaranteed? I like the idea
of them putting an escrow account out to guarantee some of the
things that they're telling me. They showed us all the fine sluff.
What I'm woried about is the stuff they didn't show us, where
things don't comply. And that's what I want to know about. I
mean I hope they're successful. Mr. La Pine had a good thing.
Maybe you need to scale back one of the stores to get their
parking spots where they're supposed to be. Maybe they need
to go to the east, I mean to the west, and buy the bank and the
White Castle to get more. Everything is for sale at the right
price. Now that may hurt their profit margin, but we have sets of
rules and I think that you people, it is your responsibility to make
them live by them. I have to live by them. I just built a house.
The guy told me I couldn't make my garage two feet bigger
because I didn't have the ratio to land. But I didn't have the
money for Australian Pines either and berms and I know that's a
funny analogy, but it was my garage. And these people should
have to live to the same standards, and I think they have a good
proposal, but there's a lot of things I think aren't being brought
out, and we do need something there. Whatever you guys put
in there, I hope we're successful. But I think the big lot stores
are just a little bit too big. Thank you.
Victoria Kowaleski, 29960 Orangelawn. My property abuts the Wonderland
property. I have a question. First of all, just throwing it out and
22804
the answer can come back to me at any lime, Mr. Schostak. I
need to know, someone needs to inform me how will those gas
tanks that are in the ground near Montgomery Wards be
removed safely? That set to the side. Okay, I think I have more
information than anyone could imagine about this situation. I
was doing some research and I happen to ran across Council
meeting minutes from Bristol, Tennessee. A lady in the same
situation as I am. Wal-Mart moving into property behind. In the
minutes, the lady wanted to know ... Wal-Mart offered a fence.
So some of the citizens went to the Council meeting and said
yes they would love to have a fence and the bene, which they
offered also. But Wal-Mart said it had to be, the fence had to be
on their property, separating, instead of on Wal -Marls. They
couldn't give up three inches of their property for this lady.
That's not the clincher. The clincher is, everything that we're
afraid of happening in my neighborhood is going to happen
because, guess what, it's happening down there right now. This
woman has lights blaring from the Wal -Marl all night long in the
back of her home. When she goes into the rooms in the back of
her home, she has to shield her eyes. She's an elderly woman.
I'm not elderly but obviously ... I think I should be able to have
another moment.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, ma'am.
Unidentified audience member: She can have a minute of mine.
Mr. Walsh:
Its two minutes for everybody, ma'am.
Ms. Kowaleski:
Okay, so, can I go back in line then?
Mr. Walsh:
No. No. Its two minutes per person.
Ms. Kowaleski:
I'm telling you, you people need to know what's going on. This
is ridiculous.
Mr. Walsh:
Thankyou. Sir.
Gregory Gonyou,
8901 Hugh. I've lived in Livonia for 15 years. I've heard some
of the same repetition tonight that I heard at the town meeting
by Mr. Schostak. When questions were proposed to him by the
council here about certain store hours, security, things like that,
and I'm hearing the same thing about, we'll take it to our
operations department. Wal-Mart, Target, they both said the
same thing. I'm little concerned on the security. I'm hearing
Target say that they're going to have plenty of cameras to
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survey the stores and the parking lots as you're entering and
walking through them. Don't forget, it wasn't too long ago little
Dwan Sims disappeared from Target here and still hasn't been
found. Security cameras aren't showing him. I'm concerned
that security cameras aren't the answer. Mr. Schostak said that
his property will be taken care of - security and trucks and
people in the area. I've been to Wonderland for years, and
when I was there, I seen the security people in their trucks with
the lights flashing behind the building talking to a bunch of
people in cars. I don't feel that's safe security. I hear a lot of
promises. I hear a lot of families from Livonia voicing their
opinions saying how concerned they are talking from the heart.
I hear a lot of stuffed shirts saying a lot of nothing. Thank you
for your time.
Thomas Weldon, 29912 Orangelawn. I live right behind this project. Remember
one thing, the homes were there first. Take that into account.
Second thing, I'm proud of the cilizens of this coming out
against this proposal. I'm not embarrassed. We need to get out
even more. Rembemer one thing, these gentlemen act ... to
the Mayor and the Council. We vote them in. We answer to
them. They answer to us. We do that with voles. These
developers answer to this. Okay. That's what it is. Wait lilt
their campaign contributions come out. We'll find out how much
theyve given. Okay. Just vole. We'll put them out of office if
that's what it takes. If they don't listen to the needs of the
citizens who we elected to represent, Wal-Mart didn't elect
them. Schostak didn't elect them. We elected you to represent
our needs. Overwhelmingly, this community has told you our
position. Act on it. Demonstrate why we put you in office.
Thankyou.
Lynn Berger, 30863 Robert Drive. Good evening. I live in the Devon -Aire
Subdivision and I've lived there 28 years. I am a proud Wal-
Mart associate. I am the Community Involvement Coordinator
as well as working in the garden center and many other areas
when needed. I have been with the store, not the store, the
company 12 years, and if I didn't think it was a good company, I
still wouldn't be there. Our stale is one of the highest with
unemployment right now as you all know. Our cilizens need
jobs. Citizens needs benefit. Building the development will
create these jobs and benefits. With our City still in a hiring
freeze, the tax revenue will certainly help our City. This will help
Livonia grow which its not doing now at this end of Livonia.
Businesses around Wonderland I have talked to. They have
suffered since Wonderland has been dosed, and they are
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welcoming Wal -Marl, Target and the other stores, such as I
would, with open arms. As you seen in the newsletter, or if you
haven't, when you get home please read it, that Wal-Mart has
given back to the community $44,336 to date this year. That's
just this year. And we will continue to give back to the
community with the Supercenter. Now you've heard from about
maybe 600 people here, but there's about 98,000 other citizens
in Livonia that have not come out to talk, and I have a feeling
that they either don't care or they dont have a problem with it.
So think about the entire community. I urge you to revitalize our
city.
John Murphy, 30572 Elmira. I've lived here 53 years. I worked for the City 30
years. Okay. My Dad was a water/sewer supervisor. My
complaint is where you're putting that little water hole. There's a
30 inch storm line capped there. That's why they picked that
place. It leads right into the subdivision. We already have a
water problem for drainage in that section. Also, we have a low
tolerance on the sewer over in our area. I have one of the
lowest basements. If my basement gets flooded, guess who I'm
going to be calling? Also, my dad set up with the City of Livonia
the noise level for all of the trucks and all that. If you need a
decibel I tester, I've got one. I'll be able to tell you how to work it
too. That the trucks got loo loud of muffler. Most of the time,
the trucks are loo loud. And also, coming off of the highway,
you blow out the mufflers on the big trucks. You have to realize
that coming down with a jake brake on in the parking lot, you'll
hear it because when Chrysler opens up, I hear his truck drop
off the parts and they start their jacks.
Terri Lowe: I live on Farmington Road. I have been with Wal-Mart now for
13 years, 5 years at the Livonia location. I am extremely proud
of our associates at Wal-Mart, and I'm extremely proud
especially during Hurticane Katrina how Wal-Mart has taken
care of its own associates. We didn't wail for FEMA. We didn't
wail for Red Cross. That's the kind of neighbor that you're
getting. I've heard a Id about character this evening. Our
associates have gone out when there were neighbors that
needed wheelchair ramps and they got together and they went
out and they built those ramps. We got together when there
were children that wanted to come in for job shadow day, and
they couldn't afford the bus because it wasn't in their budget.
Our associates got together and we gave up something else out
of our associate fund so that we could pay for that bus and we
could gel those students so they could come through Wal-Mart
and see what Wal -Marl is all about, and that's what Wal-Mart is
22807
about. Wal -Marl is about the community, its about its
associates, and its about its customers. With the new facility,
Wal -Marl would be able to employ approximately 250 more
people. That's my job. That's the best part of my job when I
can call somebody up and say, you have a job. And you have a
lot of people here tonight but like Lynn said, there are a lot of
people that are not here. Maybe everybody here has a job, but
out of those 98,000, not everybody has one and that's what
we're about. Wal -Marts about the community, its about our
customers, and we'd be able to give better customer service.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, please let's be
respectful of comments.
Kristin Cable, 9851 Fremont. Directly behind the mall. I wanted to thank a lot of
people this evening. You guys have been very attentive, taking
notes and hopefully listening and taking a lot of what we've said
and concerns that we've had to heart. Members of the
audience, we've been respectful, listening, listening to Mr.
Schostak and all of his representatives, representatives from
Wal-Mart and Target, and I'm proud to be a Livonia citizen
tonight and almost tomorrow morning. I have two questions or
concerns. The Target rendering that we've all seen does not
look anything like anything else that's at that properly that's
proposed. They don't have the windows, the awnings, the
hometown feel that the rest of it is supposed to have. That's
just a concern as a Planning Commission that I'd like you to
know about. And also, didn't see anything on any of the
drawings for dumpsler location. We're going to be getting a
grocery store there. Where is the rotting meat and vegetation
supposed to go? I'm concerned about the smell in the
neighborhood. I mean we've heard about the trucks and the
noise and the semis, but I'm concerned about the smell from the
food, animals that its going to attract, and what's going to
happen with that. So thank you, and I'm taking less than two
minutes.
David Schulz, 38029 Parkhurst. I'm quite a few miles away from this site. I'm
near Five Mile and Newburgh so it wouldn't impact me directly I
guess in a lot of ways, but it does impact me because of taxes
and things like that. I know that the police are going to be called
there on many occasions to handle whatever comes up. So
these things still do impact me. Just a couple of points I guess I
want to make fairly quickly. I think Mr. Schostak had mentioned
about Wonderland and Wards previously and they did have an
auto center there. Yeah, they did. The auto center there was
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doser to the comer of Plymouth and Middlebell Roads. It was
really no where near the residential neighborhood behind there.
Secondly, some things about Wal-Mart. The gentleman from
Wal-Mart said that the current one is over -shopped. Well, I
don't know. I guess he meant that they hadn't planned on that
many customers being there. Well, I don't know how he can
trust their figures now as far as planning how many customers
are going to be there for parking and traffic and everything else
and what kind of crime figures there are. Wal-Mart should have
crime figures for all the rest of its stores. I'd be especially
interested in the figures for each hour of the day, and I think that
gets into the 24-hour operation thing. You know, is crime higher
there between 12 midnight, 1:00 in the morning than it is at, you
know, 1:00 in the afternoon and 2:00 in the afternoon? Things
of that nature. I know there was issue recently with Costco and
I think they were trying to get a waiver use.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Schulz And that went to court and you know, let's nip this in the bud.
Steve Weldon, 29912 Omngelawn. I also want to thank the Council for some of
your questions that you've asked very pointed about the
responses and lack of information you've gotten. I'm kind of
surprised though at Wal-Mart wanting to leave a site where
they're complaining lheyre too successful. The additional
space that they could gel is granted to them now through the
U.S. Supreme Court. You can actually take that land owner
now and usurp that land and Wal-Mart will have more property
there to do with what they need than what theyll get at
Wonderland Village. So that's what we have now. We have a
new means, a new tool, to provide Wal-Mart with something that
they've been complaining, they can't expand. Well, they can
right where they're at, which is not in a residential area. Its in a
business area. That site has all the traffic lanes, everything
else. I don't know if you people can consider it or if that's the
city commission, but I think that needs to be looked at. I've
been a resident for 48 years. I have, as Mr. Schostak said,
since 1983, we've had to deal with his nuisances and lies since
1983. That's about 28 years, so I have first hand experience of
dealing with the kind of lies and misdealings that they'll put in.
So without stipulations and fines, he won't live up to his
agreements. And if he won't live up to the agreement, we don't
have to move right away on this site plan or anything else. Let's
take our time and do right because I've been living there again
for 44 years, 28 of them under his bad guidance, bad direction.
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Mr. Walsh: Sir, we dont need to be personal on this
Mr. Weldon: I'm sorry. So, in the same vein, if he's not going to improve that
site, lets take the land from him loo and find another developer
thalwill. Thankyou.
Craig Singer, 121 Westlawn Lake, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. My grandfather
built the building across the street from the mall, 23850
Plymouth Road in 1958, and my grandmother and aunts
continue to own the property today. I have a slightly different
perspective than most people although I do understand people's
fears and concerns about change and share those as well.
Over the Iasi 10 years, I've witnessed this area's decline quite
quickly and this building was always leased to very good
tenants. In the 10 years, we've had a constant changeover of
tenancy. We currently have a liquidator in the property. Our
rent today is 60% less than it was 10 years ago. It's dearly the
dedine of the area attributed that the mall has closed. The
businesses have closed. The traffic is down considerably. And
I think there's very negative ramifications for that for the
community, for the neighborhoods. Somebody mentioned in one
of the neighborhood associations that they are already
witnessing property declines. I would imagine that is true and
that will continue if this property and neighborhood and area
isn't improved. I hope that this Planning Commission sees fit to
protect the interests of the neighbors and see that a great plan
like the one theyre proposing gets approved and gets
implemented as quickly as possible so this area will stop
declining.
John Klein, 9886 Flamingo. Lifetime, 44 year citizen of Livonia, union member.
Not trying to scare you away over there. They haven't
mentioned loo much about the Wal-Mart business like the
practice of punch out keep working. Only 39 states has that
been I guess caught doing that. Their slant against women,
him they dont like to pay them as much as the men. I didn't
hear that today. I did hear the fact that, I dont know if they even
have full-time employment. Is it 38 hours so they dont have to
pay the....
Mr. Walsh: Sir, we are unable to respond to that. Do you have site plan
issues or ...
Mr. Klein: No, just Wal-Mart issues. They say they gave forty some
thousand. I mean she did say they gave forty some thousand to
22610
whatever in the community, but how much welfare do they give
to the community because I don't think they make enough to
make a living wage. Isn't it $6,000 they pay for their benefits,
and they only make $17,000 if $8.23 is their actual average
wage.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. Morrow?
Mr. Morrow: I would like to stick to zoning and ordinances
Mr. Klein: Okay.
Theresa Monea, 11400 Arcola. I'd like to try to make two points. First, I urge
you to not approve the waiver uses needed to make this
development happen because the nature and intensity of this
site layout does not, to use Mr. Schostak's own words, create
more of a sense of place, especially not a place the surrounding
residents would want to be. This site layout does not create a
true community center as Mr. Schostak suggests. There is no
true pedestrian atmosphere. Secondly, a 24-hour use of this
site so near homes is totally inappropriate. It is the intention of
this plan to operate a 24-hour store. This, in and of itself,
should be enough to say no to this plan. There will be
increased crime, noise, traffic in our community because of it
This development does not serve our needs.
Joel Jacob, 1925 Seaway Drive. With the bottle crew. We're a local Wal-Mart
supplier. Long before Wal-Mart ever came to Livonia, you see
I've been an advocate for folks with developmental disabilities
for over 20 years, and long before Wal-Mart ever came to
Livonia, I went down to Bentonville, Arkansas, and asked them
if they would please work with services to enhance potential in
Livonia. They were kind enough to work with me, and the result
has been provided needed jobs here in Livonia assembling
products that have gone throughout the United States. For our
company, though, the opportunity to have a Wal-Mart
Supercenter is a practical matter.
Unidentified audience member: Slick to the issues. Talk about the site plan.
Mr. Walsh: Sir, sir. Can you draw some conclusions to your comments,
please?
Mr. Jacob: Okay. It's a practical matter. We'd like to locate our distribution
center near a Wal-Mart Supercenter. The closest one is Howell,
and when I found out that we could have one here in Livonia,
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we started to look at the vacant distribution centers that are
available, businesses that have gone out in Livonia. Besides
the jobs that would come to the Supercenter, we provide jobs in
the distribution center that we would con right here in Livonia
that in a vacant building with good benefits, good for Livonia.
Martin Vowell, 29720 Orangelawn. My house backs up. It will be right behind
Wal -Marl. The biggest thing is, I dont want to see a 24-hour
store. I have to live with that every day, not six or eight hours
that's somebodys going to be in the store working there. It will
be great to bring in more business to the neighborhood, but I
have to be there 2417 for the next umpteen years. I've been
there for 13 years, now in Livonia for 19 years, and I dont want
to see something like that come there and with the noise, the
lights and everything else. I mean I was just thinking today,
sitting here, I'm going, geez, I haven't heard the seagulls in a
while. That's kind of nice, you know. Sit out in my own
backyard and flocks of seagulls. That's annoying as heck, you
know. Trash being thrown over the wall into my backyard that I
have to pick up. The things like that. So you know, a 24-hour
center, the congesfion as you've heard umpteen limes trying to
get home for myself, living right there. What's going to happen
to the value of my home, you know, the taxes that I've paid all
these years? I mean is that good for me? Absolutely not. I'd
like to see I not happen, but you know, its up to you people.
Thank you very much.
Brenda Wallot, 30636 Elmira. Members of the council, thank you for letting me
speak. I live right behind Chrysler Livonia Jeep dealership. If
you want to see light and noise infringement, come spend 24
hours at my house and bring a tape recorder. I guarantee you,
you'll be wanting to pack up and move in about 48 hours. By
the way, my son is Brandon, the one that did quarters for
Christmas a couple years ago. He wants to know what we need
to do for trash to remove the trash back out to the Silverdome
where it belongs, but again, and thank you very much for some
of the awesome questions that you were asking, because it was
some of the same ones that my family were asking, not to
mention the fact that we have elementary school kids that are
walking three quarters of mile by themselves with no
supervision to McKinley Elementary. If a 24-hour Wal-Mart
goes in, I'll yank my son. He will not go to that school. He will
not walk by himself in l l'Vears, and I guess I'll have to go to
jail for not allowing him to be in a non -secure area and not
attending school. But thank you and I hope some of you take
that into consideration. It's not just families first in Livonia. We
22612
need to think about our kcs, that next generation coming up
and mine is one of them. And he's already shown the Council
what he's thinking of, of improving Livonia by donating his hard
earned time with Youth Making a Difference, and it takes
parents supporting the kids. Now we need to support our kids
back and give them something better than what is on the
proposal board. Thank you very, very much.
Tim Puchalsky, 14322 Cranston. I'm about a half mile from here. And I'm sitting
here tonight and I'm trying to put myself in the Council's shoes.
And I'm looking at this proposal and I'm trying to figure out what
they are actually really looking at. And they're looking at a site
plan with two buildings, one large empty building and 40 empty
stores. No store names were mentioned, no commitments. I'm
more in the industrial end of the world and we've got a whole lot
of empty industrial buildings in Livonia. I just can't see how you
can pass judgment on a plan that has two stores and 41 empty
stores or more. Lel your conscious be your guide. I hope you
vote no.
Kathleen Lancaster, 10066 Hartel Court. Good evening. I've been a resident for
eight years. In the eight years I've lived here, Wonderland has
been a dump. I understand that Mr. Schostak has paid for his
required ... he has paid for his fee required by the City for this
meeting, and so have we with our taxes. On the building
comments from the Commission should require the developer to
submit an independent traffic study in regards to the impact it
will haw on the neighborhood subdivisions to include the peak
hour traffic counts the middle school, which I have a child at
middle school, high school and grade school, the arrival and
dismissal times in the area of the major intersections. It is my
personal opinion that I oppose this preliminary site plan, does
not meet these requirements set forth by our city for the future
vision of the mission. I don't believe there is anything
harmonious and compatible with the design and the relationship
to the adjacent neighborhoods. You can ask almost any person
in this room if they believe this site needs to be developed and
they will tell you yes, but please, let's hold ourselves to higher
design, landscaping and architects standards, and I am from
Allen Park and I'm very proud of what they put in Allen Park.
Erin Trainor, 31125 Lyndon. I'm a lifelong resident of Livonia. I'm here
representing my entire family. And we have three main
concems with this development. One is, I travel to and from
work along Middlebett, and right now its a terrible pain in the
neck getting through that intersection on rush hour starting from
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4:30 up until as late as 7:00. Its very difficult getting through
there. Also, we don't see the sense of putting a 24-hour
supercenter less than a mile away from another 24-hour
supercenter. We already have one. We don't know why we
need two so close. And third also, the problem I have is with all
those little shopping centers. How can anything, whether it's a
smoke shop or pizza place, compete with Wal-Mart because
their prices are so low, and I won't gel into the politics of why
theyre so low. But him can anything we put in there compete
with Wal-Mart which means we're going to end up with a lot of
vacant stores which we already have in Livonia. So I don't see
how the plan could really be beneficial to that intersection, which
I would love to see developed. I shop at Target. I'm there at
least twice a week, and I'd love to have more shopping there,
and I love Millennium Park. I love all the green space and how
wide open it is. I'd like to see more of that on that comer, not
what they have proposed. I think we can do so much better.
Thankyou.
Donna Murphy, 30572 Elmira. Good evening. Does Livonia have a dive and
rescue team? The detention ponds have been barred in cities
like Ann Arbor. My sister-in-law lives in Ann Arbor, and I look at
as our kids would be in danger if we had a detention pond
there. I don't think we need the Wal-Mart for there.
Nicole Williams, 29130 Sunnydale. I live with the Taylor family. I've lived on and
off with them for the past two years. In that time, I've seen the
Wonderland Mall dilapidate and I've learned Livonia to be a
really neat area and it's kind of sad for me to see that happen.
So in considering the issue of approving or not approving this,
people have talked a lot about the crime issue, and I really urge
you to consider what's going to cause more crime, a vacant mall
with no supervision, you know, plenty of grounds for shady
dealings, or a developed mall with employment opportunities
and chance for economicgrowth in Livonia. Thank you.
Nathan Storey, 9631 Deering. My neighbors have done a very good job at
addressing why this development is not harmonious with the
neighborhood surrounding it. I want to call attention to the fact
that the Wonderland Mall site has always been a regional site, a
regional destination and the developers are talking about it
being, with the new Wal-Mart and the Kmarl and the village
being a regional destination. So I think we need to consider, is
this good for the region as well. I think this. We do need to
address the Wal-Mart politics questions because the trend of
retail stores providing very low wage jobs does not help this
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region. We need a living wage and Wal -Marl and this
development does not help it. I'm singling out Wal-Mart
because there is a big case against them. We can look at their
track record in other communities and what wages they provide
and what health care they provide. We can look at their track
record in our community, and I think we owe it to this region to
develop in such a way that we are providing a better life for
other people, and this trend of putting more and more retail
stores to provide low income wages is not the answer. I think
the real question here is, we need to have broader vision. We
need to really imagine what this site can be. We need to do
something with it. I'm not against doing something with it. I
think there can be something a lot better there. I would like to
see more of my fellow citizens involved in what do we want to
do with an important parcel of our land. Now like I said, I think
the issues of how the site is not harmonious with the
surroundings areas, I would echo the concems of my fellow
neighbors. That's already been addressed, so I think that is
evidence enough to vole not on this, but looking into the future,
let's see if we can do something better. Let's see if we can
really do something innovative, noljusl build more stores.
Mari McGrabe, 29961 Curtis. I've been in Livonia for nine years, recently moved
about three months ago from behind the mall, because I heard
this was going to happen. A few things I want to stale that I
haven't heard tonight is, has it ever been considered to rezone it
into residenfial? I spent six months looking for a home between
Plymouth and 96, Middlebelt and Farmington, to keep my kids in
the same school district, that was a newer home, 2,000 square
foot. Looked for six months, ended up over on Curtis. Couldn't
find one. I think that section of Livonia sorely needs new
housing and some good stores. We dont need big box stores.
We don't need dollar stores. Some housing. The village is a
good idea if it's scaled down quite a bit because we do have a
lot of empty stores. The other thing is, at one meeting on a
Wednesday night when we mel at the Joy Manor, Mr. Schostak
spoke about putting in a little police station there, and I was
wondering, who's going to pay for that? Is that going to come
out of our taxes, and I dont know if we have an answer for that
tonight or not, but that's something I'd really be interested in
knowing. And thirdly, Meijers. Tonight it was stated that Meijers
is Wal -Marl's competition. Meijers is a Michigan-based
company and I would like to support Meijers, and I don't want to
put a Wal-Mart in there to compete with them. When the lease
is up on 96, 1 hope they go away. Thank you.
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Stan Kline, 9945 Hillcrest. I have a lot of concerns. Being a new resident, I've
only Leen in my house for about 15 months. Moving into the
neighborhood, I noticed a lot of kids playing like mine. They
really enjoy the parks. They enjoy the schools being so close,
walking distance. And I've two boys, both of them walk to
school. I have a lot of concems about one of them walking
across Middlebelt to Emerson School. With all the increased
traffic, the 24-hour operation, I just think that's an accident
waiting to happen. Thank you.
Julie Roach, 33306 Hampshire. I've been a Livonia resident my whole life. I'm a
homeowner there now for the last three years. A great
neighborhood. I love the city. My only concern is that you are
planners and I just, I'm hoping that you can think more
progressively about what our city needs. I think it needs to have
a little bit of revitalization. It's an aging community and the cities
that are moving places are the cities that are the cool cities,
Plymouth and Royal Oak and things. You have an opportunity
to have a progressive site here and maybe get a developer
who's a little more progressive that could put a really cool spot
in there with some condos and restaurants and things, because
right now, I go to Mitchell's and the things up at Haggerty where
everybody else is going because there's no where to go. My
other concem is that, why do we always have to kind of crap on
the south side of Livonia? I feel bad for those people.
Eileen Way, 10478 Stark Road. Actually, I'm going to be honest. I have been at
home listening to this program for about two and half hours. I
decided that I needed to gel up, and I am a professional and it is
way past my bedtime. And the only reason I came is because a
few people made comments that affected me, and those
comments were: if the people are not here, they must not care
or they're silently agreeing. That is untrue. I am at home
because...
Mr. Alanskas: You know, I think we could get out of here a lot quicker if we
leave the applause to the very end of the meeting. Thank you.
Go ahead.
Ms. Way: That is untrue because I am at home because I have to be up at
5:30 in the morning to be at my job, which leads me to Wal-
Mart. I have worked for a public school, and I am against Wal-
Mart completely because of how they treat people. But that's
beside the point. The point is, I've lived in Livonia my whole life.
I've lived on Stark Road my whole life in three different houses.
It was my goal to buy a house on that road, and I have. It took
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me 32 years but I finally did it. I will not shop at the Wal-Mart at
Middlebelt and 96. 1 go to Canton because the treatment is
better. The clientele is better. The Super Wal-Mart won't
change it. It will be the same people, the same treatment, and it
will be just moved down the road. And I agree with the people
that it would be better off getting residents versus a business
where all they want is a profit. They are not out for Livonia's
best interest. If you want Livonia residents to stay, and a lot of
them are elderly, and you want to draw young people to the
community, you have to have things for young people to do, not
big businesses.
Allison Drake, 27010 Southwestern, Redford. I actually live in Redford. I'm on
the Redford/Livonia border. I grew up in Livonia unfil I could
buy a house 10 years ago. Sadly that couldn't be in Livonia.
But anyway, I care enough even though I dont live in the actual
community, that I came out here tonight and spent how many
hours sitting here, and one of the things that I wanted to say is,
beyond all the zoning things that everybody has said, you don't
pressure a community or your planning commission or a council
into approving a development because you're afraid you're not
going to find something else, and that's what several people
have menfioned. Oh, well, we dont know if we're going to gel
something else. That's sort of like that old saying, marry in
haste, repent at leisure. And all of those people that live behind
that site and across the street should be listened to because
they're the ones that are going to have to deal with it more than
anybody else sitting in this room.
Mike Pavlichek, 9403 Lamont. I'm with the property management firm that
manages Livonia's townhouses that are leased right across
Middlebell from Wonderland. When Wonderland was in
operation, we paid somebody three times a week to come out
there and pick up trash, and it was generally two of the big black
garbage bags every time. Since Wonderland has been closed,
we're down to like half a black garbage bag once a week. I
would like to go back to tie site plan and the green space and
everything that's between the parking lot and road and see that
area doubled, if possible, or at least built up with enough
vegetation to prevent the trash from blowing into the subdivision
into our area. Just as an example, last week, since no one
shops there anymore, we're picking up sheets from all the cars
they're parking there. This is just stuff that's from all those jeeps
right now. Theyre coming out of the cars. They're blowing right
across the street. So Id like to make sure that the site plan has
22617
the vegetation to stop this and that they actually police that area
tokeepitclean. Thankyou.
Ralph Leggat, 9890 Seltzer, in the Clement's Circle area. I have a question. I've
heard mention of the Plymouth Road Development Authority
being contacted and officiating or in some capacity, but I don't
know what they're official position is on this development.
However, my personal opinion is that a big box store belongs in
a big box neighborhood. That was established some time ago
over at the old Detroit Race Course site or at another alternative
site, say for example, the General Motors distribution site over
there at SchoolcreR and Newburgh or at the old Chevrolet
Spring and Bumper site up there at Haggerty near the railroad
tracks. There are other large acre sites available for a point of
destination store. If it is a real point of destination store, it will
be successful. Therefore, I would suggest that this authority not
issue any waivers for the development of this project. Thank
you.
Craig Wasen, 30947 Dalhay. My concern is crime, the Meijers location which is
open 24 hours. Al our house, we don't go shopping there at
night. Its around 12:00 right now and apparently that's one of
the critical hours that Wal-Mart needs to have a 24-hour site.
You don't feel safe in your car. There's a lot of car jackings, and
I don't want my family going there during the hours, you know,
the after -hour operations with 24-hour site just for safety. And I
would invite anyone to have their family go there and actually
feel safe during those hours. Thank you.
Carolyne Dwyer, 9348 California, the state street area. I bought my home three
years ago and prior to that grew up in Livonia from the age of
12. I've also been watching with my parents, who also reside in
Livonia, by the Millennium Park, and my sister and her family at
Six Mile and Farmington. They are not here tonight but they
share my concems as well. I think some of our concems are
based in fear, and I apologize for that, and some are legitimate,
very legitimate, and some maybe not so legitimate. I guess
you'll be the judge. But what I ask from you tonight is that you
don't let your fears make decisions for you. I think that we can
do better in this location. I think Livonia deserves better. I
myself am in the construction/architecture industry. I actually
was involved in the early planning of Royal Oak when I was at
Lawrence Tech and people laughed at that city at that time, and
look what they've done. I just ask for vision, kindness and your
test. Thank you very much.
22618
Matt Deadlier, 11770 Camden. I just read in the paper today that Redford has
just brought on an inspector whose sole purpose is to combat
blight. It seems like Redford is right on our doorstep. I look
across the road from me, where I live, and I don't know what the
strip's called, it used to be where Professional Tool is and
Continuum LLC, whatever the company is there. And I see
more and more vacant businesses going up the Plymouth
corridor and it's starting there on the east side. What I know
about blight is it tends to crawl. I've actually seen it on the other
side of Middlebelt Road where the old Salem Lumber is. The
business there. They developed that business and is just sat
there vacant. Eighty five thousand square feel of nothing. I
hope that this development would end that, but I fear that this
development will fuel it.
Mr. Kosnich: I'm up here for the second time. First of all, I'd like to thank the .
Mr. Walsh: Sir.
Mr. Kosnich: Planning Commission for being patient with all those people
here talking and giving you our views on this project that is
coming up. You're gentlemen. You sal there. You listened to
everybody, and I'd like to thank you for your patience. Its just a
shame that Mr. Walsh has got a fast watch and wouldn't let me
finish my free speech. Thank you.
Ray Krause, 31041 Grandon. I've been a resident of Livonia for 14 years. I had
a few comments. They said 30 trucks a week. Well, Target
said they'd have 27 trucks, but they're twice the size and so
you're talking probably 60 to 70 trucks a weeks. I used to live
200 feet from a main street. I knew when a truck went by every
time in my basement. I could feel the vibration. These houses
are half that distance. Currently, I avoid Middlebell because it's
such a traffic snarl. The retention ponds, we look around other
areas and they have retention ponds that are decorative and
scenic and enhance the areas, not hidden in the back comer.
You say stores aren't beating down the doors to come in. Look
at Schoolcrett College, next to them. Many new stores went in
there. Many new stores went in at Six Mile and Haggerty.
Many new stores went in to Westland and Dearborn. So don't
say stores aren't knocking down the doors to come in. Just
have to be a little bit creative. Look al the condos al Farmington
and Plymouth Road. How many are available for sale? I think
they're all sold by now. This is one mile, two miles away, so I
guess there's a need for that. With some creative zoning and
22619
building, we could really build a nice neighborhood with retail
development there also. And the last thing, zoning laws were
put in place for a purpose. They weren't created over night.
They're put there to protect our residents, our city and gotten
our city where it is today, one of the lop in the country. Let's not
lose that. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh: Is there anybody in the audience wishing to address this item
before I close the public hearing?
Unidentified audience member: I just want you to say, no, please.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, ma'am. We'll vole on the two items and then get to
the Village Shops separately. I'm going to close the public
hearing. At this point, I'm going to grant the petitioner the
opportunity to address both the Target and the Wal-Mart. The
commissioners will have the opportunity to question, and then
we will proceed to motions. Mr. Schostak?
Mr. Schostak: I know the hour is late. I'll try to be brief. As mentioned, we
presented a plan that we feel has a great deal of merit. It has
two of the world's best retailers. It has a site plan that has been
carefully thought out, adjusted, addressed in many, many ways.
Target moved their building. They adjusted their light poles.
Wal-Mart increased the size of their area so they can put more
landscaping on their site, increased the parking stall size,
revised their building elevation, as did Target. All towards the
end of giving a higher quality project to the community. The
detention basin was moved, fenced, landscaped, because we
too share the concern of safety for everybody near and
surrounding the site. Change is always difficult. There is
change. But not all that has been proposed is change. This
development is for property that is zoned for this use. It's been
a shopping center as we know since the late 1950's. The site
plan in every material way meets your ordinances. It is a
buffered site. It serves the community with top retailers, high
architectural standards, and streetscapes that are consistent
with the Plymouth Road Development Authority goals. As I said
before, redevelopment is a challenge and it's very difficult. This
redevelopment, which has been requested, is designed to
service everybody involved, the community at large, the
retailers, the consumers that will visit it. We all know that we've
accomplished a great deal from the time of the initial meetings
and introduction of this plan, to the study sessions, to tonight's
meeting. We know that the site today is a drain on the
community. It will produce fresh taxes, new jobs and new
22620
economic stimulus to the corridor, something that Livonia has
worked hard to do in terns of retaining jobs, retaining
businesses and promoting growth. I'm proud to be a partner
with Wal -Marl and Target in this endeavor, and the City should
be as well. I think you should acknowledge, which I know you
do, their hard work in this plan and vote favorably. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Schostak. Now procedurally what we have
before us is the Target item, but we certainly have had plenty of
dialogue on both. I'd like to conclude the discussion because
we have item one on our agenda. So the commissioners can
continue our discussion on Target, and then we have b open
the agenda item for Wal -Marl so that we can vote on that item.
Are there comments or questions for the petitioner with regard
to Target?
Mr. Alanskas:
I have one question for the Target officials. Yes, I just want to
know, the Target people, where you are working now, what
percent of your employees are full-time and what percent are
part -lime?
Mr. Bonneville:
Sir, I'll answer that question. What percentage are full-time and
what percentage are part-time?
Mr. Alanskas:
Correct.
Mr. Bonneville:
In a store like this, typically about 140 full -lime equivalent
positions and the total number of employees in a store like this
are going to be running about 180 to 200 if you count both full-
time and part-time positions.
Mr. Alanskas:
So that's a high percentage of full-time people. Thank you.
Ms. Smiley:
Could you tell me again what your hours of operation are?
Mr. Bonneville:
Eightto 10:00.
Ms. Smiley:
Eightto 10:00.
Mr. Bonneville:
I said 7:00 to 10:00 earlier and that was a mistake.
Ms. Smiley:
That's why I was confused. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Are there any additional questions or comments regarding the
petition before us? Hearing none, a motion would be in order.
22621
Mr. La Pine: Mr. Chairman, I'm prepared to make a motion to approve this.
This has been a very emotional issue for all of us. As you all
know, somebody said here tonight, we're elected. We're not
elected. We're appointed by the Mayor. We're all individuals.
We haven't got anything to do with building or anything else.
There are lawyers up here. I was in the graphic arts business.
Mr. Piercecchi was an engineer for Ford Motor Company. Ms.
Smiley works for the school system. Mr. Shane worked for the
City in the Planning Department. Mr. Alanskas sold auto parts
for many, marry years, and Mr. Mor ow was in the graphic arts
business. So we're all laymen. We're here trying to do what we
think is in the best interests of not only the area that's involved
here. We have to look at these issues on an overall basis.
What's good for the whole 36 square miles of the City of
Livonia. I lived in your area for 23 years. I moved in this town
when Wonderland Shopping Center was still an airport. I've
been in this town for over 51 years. I know this city like the back
of my hand. I've served on the Zoning Board of Appeals for 26
years, on the Planning Commission for 17 years. I would do
nothing, nothing to hurl the City of Livonia, but I have a job to do
and I have to look at what I think is in the best interests of all the
city. In this case here, unfortunately, not unfortunately, but 90
percent of the objection we have is on Wal-Mart. Nothing about
Target. Target had very few bad things said about it on the
letters we received. Target has been at that location for a long
time. When they originally went in there, they had waiver a use.
That waiver use is no longer because they're moving to a
different location so they need a different waiver use. But if
they were staying at their same location, they could go ahead
and build and we couldn't stop them. So I believe they meet all
the requirements for the waiver use. Therefore, I'll make the
following motion.
On a motion by La Pine, seconded by Alanskas, and adopted, it was
#09-02-2005 RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Pudic Hearing having been
held by the City Planning Commission on September 20, 2005,
on Petition 2005-08-02-14, submitted by Schostak Brothers &
Company, Inc., requesting waiver use approval to construct a
new Target store containing a gross floor area in excess of
30,000 square feet, located on the south side of Plymouth Road
between Middlebelt Road and Milburn Avenue in the Northeast
1/4 of Section 35, the City Planning Commission does hereby
recommend to the City Council that Pefifion 2005-08-02-14 be
approved subject to the following condifions:
22622
1. That the Site Plans marked Sheets C-1, C-2 and C3
prepared by Hubbell, Roth & Clark, Inc., all dated
September 12, 2005, as revised, are hereby approved and
shall be adhered to;
2. That the Landscape Plans marked Sheets L-1 and L-2
prepared by Hubbell, Roth & Clark, Inc., both dated
September 12, 2005, as revised, are hereby approved and
shall be adhered to, subject to the following stipulations:
That all disturbed lawn areas shall be sodded in lieu of
hydroseeding;
That an automatic underground inigation system shall
be provided for all landscaped and sodded areas, and
all planted materials shall be installed to the satisfaction
of the Inspection Department and thereafter
permanently maintained in a healthy condition;
That the berth along the south properly line shall be 10
feet in height with two rows of offset 10' to 12' high
evergreen trees;
That the height of the planted trees shall be measured
from the top of the root ball to the mid -point of the top
leader;
3. That the Building Elevations Plan prepared by Target Store
Planning & Design, Architecture & Engineering, dated
September 12, 2005, as revised, is hereby approved and
shall be adhered to;
4. That brick used in the construction of the building shall be
full -face four (4) inch brick and precast masonry unit
systems shall meetASTM 216 standards;
5. That all regular parking spaces shall be 10' x 20' in size
and the required number of handicapped spaces shall be
properly located, sized and signed;
6. That all parking spaces shall be double striped;
7. That all pole mounted light fixtures shall be shielded to
minimize glare trespassing on adjacent properties and
roadway and such equipment shall not exceed 35 feet in
height, and rear yard lighting shall be by means of
22623
downward -directed lighting fixtures attached to the
building;
8. That all rooftop mechanical equipment shall be concealed
from public view on all sides by screening that shall be of a
compatible character, material and color to other exterior
materials on the building;
9. That truck unloading dock facilities shall include dock
seals;
10. That the maximum seating capacity of the restaurant use
shall be established as 34 seats, provided that the 30 seat
limitation for a restaurant located within a building of
30,000 square feet or more is modified by the City Council
by means of a separate resolution in which two-thirds of
the members of the City Council concur;
11. That no signs, either freestanding or wall mounted, are
approved with this petition; all such signage shall be
separately submitted for review and approval by the
Planning Commission and City Council;
12. That all existing freestanding signs shall be removed at the
time ofdemolition ofthe shopping center building;
13. That a "No Left Tum' sign shall be installed at the northern
most drive onto Middlebelt Road as recommended by the
Traffic Bureau in the correspondence dated September 6,
2005;
14. That the petitioner shall comply with the following
stipulations listed in the mrrespondence dated August 24,
2005, from the Livonia Fire and Rescue Division:
- An on-site hydrant shall be located between 50 feet and
100 feet from the Fire Department connection;
- Adequate hydrants shall be provided and located with a
maximum spacing of 300 feet between hydrants; most
remote hydrant shall flow 1,500 GPM with a residual
pressure of 20 PSI;
- Access around building shall be provided for
emergency vehicles with turning radius up to 45 feet
22624
wall-to-wall and a minimum verfical clearance of 13'6
feet.
Fire lanes shall be not less than 20 feet of unobstructed
width, able to withstand live loads of fire apparatus, and
have a minimum of 13 feet 6 inches of vertical
clearance.
15. That the petitioner shall secure the necessary storm water
management permits from Wayne County, the City of
Livonia, and/or the State of Michigan;
16. That site clean up shall be conducted on a daily basis;
17. That 24-hour outside security shall be provided for the
entire site;
18. That hours of operation shall be limited to the time period
between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.;
19. That the hours of deliveries shall occur during the time
period between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., except during
holidays, during which the hours shall occur between 8:00
a.m. and 10:00 p.m.;
20. That trash pick up shall occur in daylight hours only;
21. That there shall be no idling trucks parked in rear or side
yards;
22. That the specific plans referenced in this approving
resolution shall be submitted to the Inspection Department
at the time of application for building permits; and
23. That the petitioner shall seek any needed variances from
the Zoning Board of Appeals relating to building heights;
Subject to the preceding conditions, this petition is approved for
the following reasons:
1. That the proposed use is in compliance with all of the
special and general waiver use standards and
requirements as set forth in Sections 11.03 and 19.06 of
the Zoning Ordinance #543;
22625
2. That the subject site has the capacity to accommodate the
proposed use;
3. That the proposed use is compatible to and in harmony
with the surrounding uses in the area; and
4. That the proposed use will provide a viable altemative use
for the subject property.
FURTHER RESOLVED, that notice of the above h=aring was
given in accordance with the provisions of Section 19.05 of
Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended.
Mr. Walsh:
Is there any discussion?
Mr. Pieroecchi:
I have a comment here. Since the petitioner all along, Mr.
Schostak, for the Wonderland project has insisted that this is
really a package, I wonder about the wisdom of doing these as
individuals. For instance, they even will share parking. Without
the excess parking from ...
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Pieroecchi, we dont have any discrefion over the manner in
which they were filed.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
Pardon me?
Mr. Walsh:
We have no discretion over the manner in which they were filed.
We have to accept the petitions. We'll be voting on the next
item immediately after this.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
But the point I'm trying to make is, I find it difficult to vote for one
and not the other. So I'm going to be consistent, and I'm going
to vote "no" on this one.
Mr. Walsh:
Is there any other comment? Mr. Alanskas?
Mr. Alanskas:
Yes, I would also like to thank Target for always maintaining a
very clean store inside. In fad, like I said, I go there so much
that if you look on the floor, you can see the reflection of your
face on the floor. Sometimes it's so clean that if you dont be
careful, you could slip and fall, but your people do a very good
job and I support the resolution. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Is there anybody else? Mr. Taormina?
22626
Mr. Taormina:
Just to the maker of the motion, whether or not it was his intent
to rested the delivery hours to 10:00 p.m. during only certain
times of the year as was indicated by the applicant. They
restrict their hours to 100 p.m. most times of the year other than
holidays.
Mr. LaPine:
Yeah, I have no problem with that.
Mr. Walsh:
What's the suggesfion, Mr. Taormina?
Mr. Taormina:
As the motion reads now, "Thal no deliveries shall occur during
the lime period between 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m" That would
apply.
Mr. LaPine:
Well, the same thing could apply, Mark, in the fad that the odds
are, they may be open later during the Christmas holidays
anyways. They may be open from 8:00 to 12:00; they may be
open from 8:00 to 11:00; they may open 7:00 in the morning.
Mr. Walsh:
They wouldn't be able to. They are limited on their hours by the
resolution, 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Mr. LaPine:
I have no problem if you want to put in ...
Mr. Taormina:
The suggesfion would be if 8:00 a.m. is the earlier hour, then
allow the deliveries between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. except on
holidays and that would be from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Mr. LaPine:
I have no problem with that being inserted.
Mr. Alanskas:
I have no problem with that.
Mr. Walsh:
All right. We have a revised motion on the floor then.
Mr. LaPine:
Can I just say one other thing? It isn't in the motion, but I think
Target heard what I feel about the deanup of the parking lot,
about picking up those carts more often, and doing something
about making sure the garbage isn't lett in that parking lot from
8:00 in the morning to night, and then somebody cleans it up at
night. It should be done everyday,
and I ask you to do it. It
really should be in a motion, but it isn't, so I'm going to lel it fly.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you. Any other comments? Seeing none, would the
Secretary please call the roll?
A roll call vole on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
22627
AYES: LaPine, Alanskas, Shane, Morrow, Smiley, Walsh
NAYES: Pieroecchi
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: None
Mr. Walsh, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving resolution.
ITEM #2 PETITION 2005-08-0245 WAL-MART
Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Petition 2005-
08-02-15,
00508-02-15, submitted by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. requesting waiver
use approval to construct a new Wal-Mart store containing a
gross floor area in excess of 30,000 square feet, located on the
south side of Plymouth Road between Middlebelt Road and
Milburn Avenue in the Northeast 1/4 of Section 35.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. Now we did accept a presentation from our staff on
this item. Mr. Taormina, there's nothing else to report?
Mr. Taormina: In the interest of time since this issue has been discussed
thoroughly, I'll just make myself available to answer any
questions that you may have.
Mr. Walsh: And we certainly had a presentation from the petitioner with
respect to this item. I also permitted extensive public hearing
discussion. I will open the public hearing for this item for new
information only and for individuals who haven't had a chance to
speak. I was free with time for all concerned, but if there is
something new you would like to bring to our attention before
we turn to the petitioner for additional questions ...
Mr. Taormina: One point I would like to make is with respect to the parking.
The Zoning Ordinance, requires in this, case a total of 1,053
spaces, which includes 1,019 spaces at the 1:160 ratio for
general merchandise sales and 34 spaces at the 1:500 ratio for
the garden center. So a total of 1,053 spaces are required. The
plan as presented this evening provides a total of 1,003 spaces,
all of which would be 10' by 20'. So there is a deficiency of 50
parking spaces. However, the Target site had a surplus of 40.
Therefore, there would be shortfall of only 10 spaces for the
combined total requirement of both stores but would require a
cross parking agreement with Target and a variance of 10
spaces.
22628
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. As I said, we will open the public hearing for new
information. Al the close of that, the pefitoner would have the
last opportunity to speak and be questioned by the Commission.
Good evening, sir.
George Bageris, 37771 Sunnydale. I've been a resident of Livonia for more than
30 years. I had a prepared speech but I wasn't going to give it
because of the admonition about zoning and this being only a
zoning issue. I believe also that there are moral and ethical
questions that really have to be answered, and so I will speak
today even though I expect to speak also at Council. It appears
to me that we are talking about a corporation now in the name
of Wal-Mart which has not been a very good citizen, not a good
corporate citizen. Mr. Schostak earlier referred to the fact that
he was a good citizen, and I would expect that companies that
he's going to support would also be good citizens. But you are
talking about a company which has been successfully sued,
successfully sued, for violations of U.S. trade law, civil rights
law, immigration law and labor law. For you to think about
putting that kind of a company in Livonia is a shame. The fact
that you lel them in in the first place is a shame. And so I would
ask you to think not only about the zoning requirements, but
also about the moral and ethical implications. This is an 800
pound gorilla and he will eat you up if you lel him in for this kind
of a project. Thank you very much.
Unidentified audience member: Yes, but l cant get up. I'm sorry.
Mr. Walsh: Ma'am, ifyou could just speak loudly, I would appreciate R.
Unidentified audience member: Under the 30257 Grandon. We're willing to
give them something but he's not willing to give us anything.
We're willing to let him go if he would close at 10:00, but they
can't do that. Wal -Mart's not willing to give us anything.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, ma'am.
Unidentified audience member: That's all I want to say.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. I appreciate it. Ma'am, you're part of the
homeowner's group?
Ms. Kolhoff. No, I'm part of the civic association.
Mr. Walsh: That's right.
22629
Ms. Kolhotf.
But the two things I have are completely separate from this.
They are dealing with environmental.
Mr. Walsh:
When I spoke with Ms. Larson, I had specifically requested that
if your group would be speaking on all items simultaneously and
that was the commitment given.
Ms. Kohli
Okay.
Mr. Walsh:
Seeing nobody else coming dose to the podium, I will close the
public hearing on this item and tum the floor over to the
petitioner, which will be followed by questions from the
commissioners.
Mr. Schostak:
Again, I'll be brief. We understand the comments that were
presently thoroughly this evening heretofore as well on Wak
Marl. We remind the Commission that, as we've said in the
past, the redevelopment of this center includes Wal-Mart and
Target and the Shops and it is one cohesive development.
However you may look at it, fortunately or not, it is a package.
It's a single unit and it needs to all be approved in order for it all
to go forward. Without an approval of the Wal-Mart, the project
is dead. So I know it sounds perhaps difficult, but the reality is,
is that number one, going back over a course of time, it's been
requested that we get all of this submitted together. We've
done that. It's been requested over time that we give a clear
indication of everything that's going to go on the site. The site
plan before you is in all that detail and it is a package, and we
ask for it all to be approved. Thank you.
Mr. Alanskas:
Mr. Schostak, are you saying that if we do not want, or let's say,
I do not want to give you a 24-hour umbrella to be opened, do
you want me to say I want to deny your project?
Mr. Schostak:
I'm not sure I follow you.
Mr. Alanskas:
You're asking Wal-Mart to be open 24 hours.
Mr. Schostak:
Wal-Mart is asking to be open 24 hours.
Mr. Alanskas:
Yes. I dont want 24 hours. Are you saying now that if you will
not go down for less hours, you want me to deny this petition?
Mr. Schostak:
No. I don't want you to deny the petition. I want you to approve
the petition.
22630
Mr. Alanskas: I know, but I don't want 24 hours open.
Mr. Schostak: That's . . I understand. That's your opinion and that's your
comment.
Mr. Alanskas: Correct. But what I'm saying is, if I give approval and its only
say like to 11:00 p.m., are you telling me not to do that? You
want me to deny it instead?
Mr. Schostak: I'm telling you that I want you to vote for the approval of the
Wal-Mart site plan.
Mr. Alanskas: Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. Alanskas, it's within our ability to condition it in any way that
we see fit.
Mr. Alanskas: Right
Mr. Walsh: Any additional questions for the petitioner?
Mr. LaPine: Getting back to the Wal-Mart, I never got an answer about if
we're going to look at the Canton location about the landscaping
and the pavers and the way theyve got that store in the front
resolved. Are we going to be able to do anything?
Mr. Schostak: On the entry into the store?
Mr. LaPine: Yep. I want the entrance of the store, the landscaping that they
got out in Canton, which is beautiful. The way they can drive in
and drop off people and get out and sit while people park their
cars. The curb they got all landscaped. They've got eight feet
of landscaping in front of the building. I want to know why I
cant gel that at this location.
Mr. Schostak: The site can't afford to lose any parking as we've explained
before. We've made all the adjustments that we can make.
Mr. LaPine: But then I get back to what I said before, maybe we're building
too large a store there. What if we cul the store down a little?
Would that help the situation or are they so locked in to the size
of the store that they can't budge from that?
Mr. Schostak: It's 203,000.
22631
Mr. La Pine:
Well, whatever it is.
Mr. Schostak:
That's the prototype.
Mr. LaPine:
Okay. Verygood. Thankyou.
Mr. Schostak:
They'll do the best they can.
Ms. Smiley:
Would you just go over that retention pond again one more
time? It's a fenced in area that will be landscaped around R.
Will there be standing water?
Mr. Schostak:
The storm water system for the site drains through storm drains
and storm pipes. A good volume of the water is in the pipes and
then flans out to the retention pond, you know, for the heavier
min falls. That overflow from the pipes drains into the retention
area where it's held and eventually dissipates. It's designed for
the rare occasion of the heavier rains.
Ms. Smiley:
So lwould be a regular standing smelly ....
Mr. Schostak:
It's not anticipated that it's going to be on a regular basis filled
with water, high levels up to the fence line, or anything like that.
Ms. Smiley: Okay.
Mr. Schostak: Its been engineered by the County, approved bythe County.
Ms. Smiley: Okay, that was my next question. Thank you.
Mr. Schostak: And you do know that it was moved so its away from that one
lot?
Ms. Smiley: Yes. Thank you.
Mr. LaPine: Maybe Mark can explain a little to the people in the audience.
The retention basis isn't one of our requirements. It's the
County's requirement. Is that right, Mark?
Mr. Taormina: That is correct.
Mr. LaPine: They set the criteria how that has to be designed and so forth.
Is that correct?
Mr. Taormina: Yes, that's cored.
22632
Mr. LaPine:
And I understand just lately, that now they you've got to keep so
much water in that pond. Is that correct?
Mr. Taormina:
As an open water pond area, yes, the County does have certain
requirements in terms of permanent water levels, primarily for
the purpose of pollution control. As the water from the site
enters the basin, the thought being that some amount of
preexisting open water will allow the settling of certain solid
materials and other nutrients into that area more quickly and
thus reduce the likelihood of those pollutants being discharged
into the open storm systems, which in this case would be a
storm pipe that leads eventually to the Rouge River. So the
basin has two primary functions: one is pollution control; the
second is flood control.
Mr. La Pine:
Thank you very much.
Mr. Schostak:
Perhaps Mr. Taormina could put the Wal-Mart site plan on tie
screen.
Mr. Walsh:
Mark, could you do that please?
Mr. Schostak:
Mr. LaPine, if I may ask you a question.
Mr. LaPine:
Okay.
Mr. Schostak:
And to clarify. The site plan as presented this evening meets
the landscape requirements, and I understand your seeking to
create and asking Wal-Mart if they can create what sounds like
to be something closer to Canton but particularly a more inviting
and higher end materials at the entrance. What Wal-Mart is
prepared to do, because they want the store to be as nice as
possible, they can't give up parking spaces and they can't make
the building smaller, which would facilitate the parking spaces.
But if your request is for brick pavers or, you know, a different
material that upgrades this area, they've indicated they're
prepared to do that if that's your desire.
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, please.
Mr. LaPine:
I guess at this point, anything I can get I'll take. I really think
that they should have went out and looked at the Canton store
to see how that looks as far as the landscaping is involved.
Mr. Schostak:
And let me address that. The gentleman that is speaking on ...
there's several people here speaking from Wal-Mart. Some are
22633
Bentonville based and some are up here in Livonia. Mr. Scott is
from Bentonville. He's been flying back and forth to meetings
here. Many Wal-Mart people that are here this evening are
familiar with the Canton store, and it's not that anybody hasn't
seen it. They're obviously well familiar with it. I think it was
portrayed to you that Canton being 10 minutes away, why didn't
somebody gel out there and look at it. I think that was just not
properly conveyed to you. But they do want this store to be
nicer than Canton in every respect possible and they're
prepared to continue, as they submit their drawings for the
construction documents, to address that. And if you're making a
motion and you want to include that where possible the brick
paver kind of feel to the Wal-Mart store is added, they have
every intention of honoring that request.
Mr. LaPine:
I appreciate R. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Are there any otherquestions forthe petitioner? Seeing none, a
motion is in order.
Mr. Morrow:
I'm preparing to make an approving resolution. Before I read
the resolution I'm going to make, I listened here tonight from the
input from the community. I think the conditions I'm going to
place on them will address most of the concems that the
community has. Also, there are some current concerns that
really were not germane to this resolution. Other things I heard
tonight was impacted by other city departments which will
appropriately take care of those concerns, such as engineering,
and we heard concerns about sewer lines and things that.
Engineering will get involved in that. So with that preamble, I'm
going to read the resolution. We also know it's a recommending
resolution. There will be one more bite at the apple and that will
be at the City Council. So if Shostak hears something they
dont like or the city people here think they can improve on what
this is, they'll have another opportunity to do it. So here we go.
It's going to be long and tedious, but if you'll bear with me to sift
out what I'm saying.
On a motion by
Morrow, seconded by Smiley, and adopted, ilwas
#09-93-2005
RESOLVED, that pursuant to a Public Hearing having been
held by the City Planning Commission on September 20, 2005,
on Petition 2005-08-02-15, submitted by Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
requesting waiver use approval to construct a new Wal-Mart
store containing a gross floor area in excess of 30,000 square
feet, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between
22634
Middlebell Road and Milburn Avenue in the Northeast 1/4 of
Section 35, the Planning Commission does hereby recommend
to the City Council that Petition 2005-08-02-15 be approved
subject to the following conditions:
1. That the Site Plans marked Sheets 2 and 3 prepared by
Atwell -Hicks, Inc., both dated September 12, 2005, as
revised, are hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
2. That the Landscape Plan marked Sheet 4 prepared by
Atwell -Hicks, Inc., dated September 12, 2005, as revised,
are hereby approved and shall be adhered to, subject to
the following stipulations:
That all disturbed lawn areas shall be sodded in lieu of
hydroseeding;
That an automatic underground irrigation system shall
be provided for all landscaped and sodded areas, and
all planted materials shall be installed to the satisfaction
of the Inspection Department and thereafter
permanently maintained in a healthy condition;
That the berth along the south properly line shall be 10
feet in height with two rows of offset 10' to 12' high
evergreen trees;
That the height of the planted trees shall be measured
from the top of the root ball to the mid -point of the top
leader;
3. That the Building Elevations Plan marked Sheet 1 of 2
prepared by PB Architecture & Engineering, as revised,
received on September 12, 2005, is hereby approved and
shall be adhered to;
4. That brick used in the construction of the building shall be
full face 4 -inch brick and precast masonry unit system shall
meetASTM 216 standards;
5. That all regular parking spaces shall be 10' x 20' in size
and the required number of handicapped spaces shall be
properly located, sized and signed;
6. That all parking spaces on the site shall be double striped;
22635
7. That all pole mounted light fixtures shall be shielded to
minimize glare trespassing on adjacent properties and
roadway, and such equipment shall not exceed 35 feet in
height above grade, and rear yard lighting shall be by
means of downward -directed lighting fixtures attached to
the building;
8. That all rooftop mechanical equipment shall be concealed
from public view on all sides by screening that shall be of a
compatible character, material and color to other exterior
materials on the building;
9. That truck unloading dock facilities shall include dock
seals;
10. That the maximum seating capacity of the restaurant use
shall be established as 60 seats, provided that the 30 seat
limitation for a restaurant located within a building of
30,000 square feet or more is modified by the City Council
by means of a separate resolution in which two-thirds of
the members of the City Council concur;
11. That a "future fueling station," which will require a separate
waiver use application, is not a part of this approval and all
references to such a facility shall be removed from the site
plan;
12. That this approval is subject to the petitioner being granted
any needed variances from the Zoning Board of Appeals
for deficient number of parking spaces or, in the
alternative, that the petitioner shall present evidence of a
cross parking agreement that provides for sufficient parking
on the overall Wonderland site;
13. That the three walls of the pallet/bale screened storage
area shall be constructed of masonry units to match the
building and with steel gates which, when not in use, shall
be closed at all times;
14. That no signs, either freestanding or wall mounted, are
approved with this petition; all such signage shall be
separately submitted for review and approval by the
Planning Commission and City Council;
22636
15. That all existing freestanding signs on the site shall be
removed at the time of demolition of the shopping center
building;
16. That the petitioner shall secure the necessary stone water
management permits from Wayne County, the City of
Livonia, and/or the State of Michigan;
17. That the petitioner shall comply with the following
stipulations listed in the correspondence dated August 24,
2005, from the Livonia Fire and Rescue Division:
An on site hydrant shall be located between 50 feet and
100 feet from the Fire Department connection;
Adequate hydrants shall be provided and located with a
maximum spacing of 300 feel between hydrants; most
remote hydrant shall flow 1,500 GPM with a residual
pressure of 20 PSI;
Access around building shall be provided for
emergency vehicles with turning radius up to 45 feel
wall-to-wall and a minimum vertical clearance of 13A
feet;
Fire lanes shall be not less than 20 feel of unobstructed
width, able to withstand live loads of fire apparatus, and
have a minimum of 13 feet 6 inches of vertical
clearance;
18. That the drive -up service facilities for the pharmacy shall
be permitted only under the circumstances that the
requirement for at least four (4) waiting spaces for each
drive -up service unit is waived or modified by the City
Council by means of a separate resolution in which two-
thirds of the members of the City Council concur;
19. That the bagged goods storage area shall be permitted
only under the circumstances that the prohibition of
outdoor sales, storage or display of merchandise is waived
or modified by the City Council by means of a separate
resolution in which two-thirds of the members of the City
Council concur;
20. That outside speakers shall be prohibited anywhere on the
site;
22637
21. That there shall be no outdoor storage of auto parts,
equipment, scrap material, debris, waste petroleum
products or other similar items in connection with the auto
service facility; that the hours of operations for the Tire
Lube Express shall be limited from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.;
that the overhead doors, when not in use for vehicles
entering or exiting the facility, shall be closed at all times;
and that the auto service facility shall be equipped with air
conditioning;
22. That sufficient area for customer drop off and pick up shall
be provided, and this area shall include additional
amenities such as brick pavers, landscaping, benches and
shall be covered if possible;
23. That site clean up shall be conducted on a daily basis;
24. That 24-hour outside security shall be provided for the
entire site;
25. That the hours of operation for the supercenter shall be
limited to the time period between 6:00 a.m. and 12:00
p.m.
26. That no deliveries shall occur during the time period
between 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.;
27. That trash pick up shall occur in daylight hours only;
28. That there shall be no idling trucks parked in rear or side
yards; and
29. That the specific plans referenced in this approving
resolution shall be submitted to the Inspection Department
atthe time of application for building permits.
Subject to the preceding conditions, this petition is approved for
the following reasons:
1. That the proposed use is in compliance with all of the
special and general waiver use standards and
requirements as set forth in Sections 11.03 and 19.06 of
the Zoning Ordinance #543;
22638
2. That the subject site has the capacity to accommodate the
proposed use;
3. That the proposed use is compatible to and in harmony
with the surrounding uses in the area; and
4. That the proposed use will provide a viable altemative use
for the subject property.
FURTHER RESOLVED, that notice of the above hearing was
given in accordance with the provisions of Section 19.05 of
Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended.
Mr. Walsh:
Is there any discussion?
Mr. Shane:
Would the maker and supporter of the motion consider adding a
couple things? With regard to the tire sales and lube facility,
could we add in there somewhere that air conditioning would be
required so that the doors could be closed at all limes?
Something of that sort.
Mr. Morrow:
Well, we've stipulated that they keep the doors closed at all
times, and I would think in the interest of their associates, that
they would want to air condition it. And so, I have no problem
making thalstipulation.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Morrow, you have no problem with that?
Mr. Morrow:
I have no problem.
Mr. Walsh:
Ms. Smiley?
Ms. Smiley:
No problem.
Mr. Alanskas:
I agree with Mr. Shane because I think that if the shop area is
air conditioned, Wal-Mart will make sure that those doors are
closed to save on the heating bill because there's no way we
can control or patrol that these doors are closed when not in
use. And by putting the air conditioning in, I think that will take
care of that problem.
Mr. Walsh:
So we've added an Item 30, then.
Mr. Shane:
We've already addressed the doors. We'll just add the air
conditioning.
22639
Mr. Walsh:
Okay. Very good.
Mr. Shane:
The second thing is, with respect to Mr. La Pine's comment
about additional landscape materials to be added in front of
Wal -Marl. I dont see anything in Condition #2 to speak to that,
and maybe we should add some language in there.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Morrow did address that.
Mr.Share:
Hedid?
Mr. Walsh:
He did under Item 22.
Mr. Shane:
All right. It's getting late.
Mr. Pieroecchi:
Again, Mr. Chairman, to be consistent in a package, you know,
perhaps I should say a reason why I feel that way. I see many
open citizen questions and concerns. The city does belong to
the citizens, and I think we should listen and try to comply the
best we can. For instance, I've always thought the detention
pond should be underground. I never thought it should be open.
I mentioned a traffic and an impact study. I dont have anything
like that to really judge this thing and how it's going to affect the
neighborhood. The 24-hour Wal-Mart will be here, believe me,
and most of all, I dont like big boxes sitting on top of houses.
All the others are away from houses and that's the way it should
be. Thank you.
Ms. Smiley:
In addition to providing the air conditioning, if we could limit ...
you're very generous with the hour of operation. If we could
limit the hours that the tire center is open.
Mr. Morrow:
I think they had addressed that as part of the presentation.
Ms. Smiley:
They said from 7 to 9.
Mr. Shane:
7 a.m. to 9 p.m., yes.
Mr. Morrow:
What did they say?
Mr. Shane:
7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Mr. Morrow:
You want to limit it further?
Mr. Walsh:
Do you want to do 7 to 9 and have @ in the resolution?
22640
Ms. Smiley:
Yes, l want that in there.
Mr. Morrow:
If you want to add that, that's fine.
Mr. Walsh:
So the maker and the supporter have agreed to further
modification to Item 26. Is that 26 oris that ...
Ms. Smiley:
Item 21.
Mr. Walsh:
To specifically address the hours of the lire shop. Anything
else, Ms. Smiley?
Ms. Smiley:
No, thank you.
Mr. Alanskas:
This is discussion on the approving resolution, correct?
Mr. Walsh:
That's correct.
Mr. Alanskas:
Okay. I would just like to thank Mr. Schostak for ... I know
personally of all the hard work and hours that he came up with
this plan. And later on after we get through with the Wal-Mart,
when you see what theyre going to do with these 40 shops, I
think everybody here will be elated. Earlier this evening, I gave
Wal-Mart a pretty hard fime by talking about the old store, how it
was not clean. And I like what they said. The manager said,
You know what? We dropped the ball." And he also said that
in the future, they would keep this facility clean at all times. I
think everyone deserves second chance, and that why I will be
supporting this resolution.
Mr. Walsh:
Ladies and gentlemen, please. Please. Mr. Alanskas is entitled
to his opinion as you were. Thank you, Mr. Alanskas. Mr.
LaPine?
Mr. LaPine:
Mr. Morrow, on Item 23, to be consistent with my motion on the
Target store, that the site clean up shall be conducted on a
regular basis. Id like to change the word "regular' to a "daily"
basis.
Mr. Morrow:
I thoughlyou might.
Mr. LaPine:
With that, Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to say that I'm supporting
the motion. I want the residents to know why I support the
motion. Number one, I lived in that area when Wonderland was
first built. I was out there, just like all you people were, the City
Council, saying we don't want Wonderland, Wonderland is
22641
going to bring all traffic, Wonderland is going to devaluate my
home, Wonderland is going to do this and Wonderland is going
to do that. I lived there for 23 years. I sold my house for four
times what I paid for it. It didn't devaluate my property. We talk
about traffic. Let me tell you about traffic. I live in that area so I
know what I'm talking about.
Unidentified audience member: No, you don't.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. LaPine has the floor. Mr. LaPine has the floor, ladies and
gentlemen.
Mr. LaPine: Let me finish, ma'am. Back when I lived down in that area,
Fisher Body on Plymouth Road was going full blast. There was
all kinds of cars going in and out of Fisher Body. Ford Motors
parts plant was a lot more viable than it is today. Wonderland
was at its top. That store was doing great. As a matter of fad, I
was just like some of you people said tonight. I'm not going to
shop at Wal-Mart. I said the same thing about Wonderland, but
I ended up shopping at Wonderland. My wife enjoyed it.
Besides that, across the street on the northeast comer, there
was a big store in there called Topps, discount store, a big store
too. It took the whole building. That was there. Besides that,
there was all the racetrack traffic that was there when the
racetrack was there. That was before the expressway was put
in. Plus Plymouth Road was the main road brough Livonia to
go to Plymouth and places north. There was more traffic there
back in those days than this, in my opinion, than this proposal is
going to generate as far as traffic, sir.
Unidentified audience member: Wrong.
Mr. Walsh: Mr. LaPine, anything else? Ladies and gentlemen, please.
Mr. LaPine: Let me go on. I'm for this. Basically, this was an original
shopping center since 1959 with a million square feet of space.
Now we're down to 500,000 square feet. This replaces a vacant
eyesore and it will become a shot in the arm for the Plymouth
Road development area, and it will generate new tax revenue to
help the city and schools. Now let me just say one other thing.
If we deny this, say the Council denies this, and this is taken to
court, that shopping center will stand there empty. And let me
tell you, when its empty, it will be vandalized. There will be all
kinds of things. And I'm going to give you an example.
Unidentified audience member: inaudible.
22642
Mr. Walsh:
Please lel Mr. LaPine complete his comments.
Mr. LaPine:
Are you finished? Okay. Let me finish. I've sat here and
listened to all you people. Have the courtesy at least to listen to
me.
Unidentified audience
member: inaudible.
Mr. LaPine:
Lel me ... have the courtesylo listen to me.
Mr. Walsh:
Sir, Mr. LaPine has the floor.
Mr. LaPine:
On Farmington Road and Eight Mile Road, there was a
psychiatric hospital. It took four years, four years, for us to get
rid of that hospital that was in there. Three of those four years,
the place was set on fire three or four times. There were
druggies in there. There was drug traffic in there. The police
department was there constantly. The same thing could happen
here. When a building is empty for a long period of time, one
thing happens - it gets vandalized. You're going to wish the
building was out of there and we had something that viable to
bring tax dollars into the city. For that reason, I support this.
And Mr. Chairman, lel me just say this: I want to just make this
statement before all these people leave. I commend you for an
excellent job of running this meeting tonight on some very
difficult situations. I can't say I'm happy with some people who
just don't understand we're here trying to do a job. We're not
trying to hurt anybody. Someday, someday, some of you
people may be sifting where we're sitting, and you may have a
different opinion. I might be sitting out there with a different
opinion. So at least have the courtesy to listen to us and we
listened to you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Unidentified audience
member: inaudible.
Mr. Walsh:
There is no public hearing. The public hearing is dosed. This is
a discussion ofthe Planning Commission.
Mr. Morrow:
Aside from what I've said here, for the last couple months it's
been on my mind.
Unidentified audience
member: We can't hear you.
Mr. Morrow:
Oh, I'm sorry. I apologize for that. I kind of lost track. You
know, I've been doing a lot of thinking about that thing. I've
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been over to the site at Wonderland and I've been to other sites
checking other stores and that. We've heard a lot of proposals
about what might happen on that site. This group of people is
willing to take, if I follow them correctly, tear down the whole site
and start from scratch like it was a brand new piece of
undeveloped land. I wouldn't have any idea what that costs, but
the price of land goes up tremendously for any development.
We've heard they might fail. I respect the three people here
tonight. They're the most successful people. They're not going
to invest, I've heard as low as $80 million to as high as $120
million, in this site in Livonia. If we can make this thing work, we
should be thrilled that somebody comes in and tries to develop
that comer.
Mr. Walsh: Ladies and gentlemen, please.
Mr. Morrow: So those are some of the thought processes I went through.
Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh: Any further discussion from the Commissioners?
Mr. Pieroecchi: I'd like to echo Bill's comments on the way you handled the
meeting.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you, Mr. Piercecchi.
Mr. Pieroecchi: You've done a heck of a job.
Mr. Walsh: Thank you. If there is no further discussion would the Secretary
please call the roll.
A roll call vole on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Morrow, Smiley, Alanskas, LaPine, Shane, Walsh
NAYES: Pieroecchi
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: None
Mr. Walsh, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving resolution.
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ITEM #3 PETITION 2005-08-0845 VILLAGE SHOPS
Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Petition 2005-
08-08-15,
00508-08-15, submitted by Schostak Brothers & Company, on
behalf of The Village Shops of Wondedand, requesting approval
of all plans required by Section 18.47 of the Zoning Ordinance
in connection with a proposal to construct multi -tenant
commercial buildings on the former Wonderland Mall property,
located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Middlebell
Road and Milburn Avenue in the Northeast 1/4 of Section 35.
Mr. Taormina: Without providing all of the details regarding this aspect of the
petition since much of it was covered in the previous two ...
Mr. Walsh: Mark, if you could please lean to the microphone.
Mr. Taormina: Sure. I'll just go over a couple of the important aspects of this
portion of the development. These six buildings, Retail
Buildings C, D and E, which are located on the easterly portion
of the site, and Buildings F, G and J, which are located on the
westerly half, altogether comprise a total floor area of
approximately 98,280 square feel. The parking required for that
amount of retail space would be the combined total of 629. This
plan provides adequate parking in terms of the number of
spaces. The plan shows 697 spaces, so there is a surplus.
However, with respect to the size of the spaces proposed,
they're all deficient. They're showing 9 foot wide stalls instead
of the 10 feet that's required by the Zoning Ordinance. In
addition to that, another deficiency occurs with respect to the
lengths of the parking spaces where they're adjacent to the
building walkways. They are required in all cases to be 20 feet,
and in many of the cases on this plan, they are shown to be only
18 feel in depth. Lastly, this portion of the plan does include the
storm water detention pond. I'll just go over this again quickly.
This overhead shows the details of the basin. The upper portion
is what is called the forebay. This is where most of the water
would enter the basin initially and then overflow into the main
portion of the storage basin which is on the southerly half. This
basin is designed, as it was indicated earlier, to allow the water
to pass through the system but at a restricted rate. And when
the rate of discharge is restricted, it allows for the water level to
build up to a certain point within the basin and then flow out.
They are designed to accommodate certain design storms. In
this particular case, a 100 year storage volume is the design
storm event. Anything above that reaches a certain elevation
and there is an overflow valve which allows the excess water to
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go directly into the storm system. So that's some aspects of the
design of this basin. Maintenance will be the responsibility of
the owner of the property and, in fact, if there's a problem with
the detention basin and the owner does not fulfill his
maintenance obligations, the City would step in and perform
correction and then bill the owner. That is a requirement of
Wayne County. We would also ask that the Commission, in
considering any approving resolution this evening, induce the
following two conditions: (1) That the owner of the property
shall be responsible to perform regular maintenance and other
necessary application of larvicides to control the breeding of
mosquitoes in the stormwater retention pond, and (2) That the
owner will submit for approval an ongoing mosquito control
program describing maintenance operations and larvicide
applications to the City of Livonia Inspection Department pnorto
the construction of the stormwater retention facility. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh:
Mr. Schostak, is there anything you'd like to add? I know we
covered this earlier, but I kept you to five minutes. Is there
anything on the Shops you'd like to add?
Mr. Schostak:
I need about two hours. How about two minutes?
Mr. Walsh:
It's your petition, sir.
Mr. Schostak:
Mark, I'm puzzled that the rendering that we sent by email...
Mr. Taormina:
Actually, I did locale those. So if you want those shown, please
be patient. I'll show the first one.
Mr. Schostak:
That rendering shows the boulevard. One of the Commissioners
mentioned that the design of the boulevard and the design of
the shops were important, an integral part of this, and they are.
We're very proud of what we're doing here. This is one of the
renderings. If you could go on to the next. That's looking in the
site towards the Wal-Mart store, Target in the background. Go
ahead. This is Ioolting from the comer from the old Topps store.
I think Mr. LaPine pointed that out. I knew about Federals. I
grew up doing back to school shopping at Topps, but I didn't
know that was a Topps across the street.
Mr. LaPine:
It was.
Mr. Schostak:
That one got me.
Mr. LaPine:
It was there.
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Mr. Schoslak:
Was Topps before the airport?
Mr. La Pine:
No. It was after you were built.
Mr. Schostak:
After, okay. Looking across from the drugstore on the opposite
comer into the Target and Wal-Mart, but there is another
rendering, or that's it? Bill, is our other rendering here or not?
That's everything?
Mr. Taormina:
That's all I have.
Mr. Schostak:
Okay. Anyway, you can see that we've taken a great deal of
care in putting together a nice design that's going to be inviting
to pedestrians and consumers. We've got a lot of different
variations in our shop spaces, parking up close to the door,
room for cafes and restaurants, and we really think we've got a
great plan there that will complement the design of Target and
Wal-Mart and be a great addition for the Plymouth Road area. I
really hope all the neighbors, once this is built, will enjoy
shopping there.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you, Mr. Schostak. Any questions for the petitioner?
Mr. LaPine:
Mr. Schoslak, it looks like the area in front has big windows like
they used to have in the old days in downtown Detroit. You
walked up Woodward Avenue, you could look in the windows.
Is that how that's going to be?
Mr. Schostak:
These were some preliminary designs. We've got specific
drawings now that are detailed out. This is the general feel.
The dock tower is there. The boulevard is there. The lighting,
the storefronts, the awnings and canopies. I cant comment to
the specific window bays, but they are varying in heights and
shapes.
Mr. LaPine:
Okay. Now, if you could put up the site plan for the Shops, I
want Mr. Schoslak to walk something through for me. Here's
what I want to know, Mr. Schostak. We talk about pedestrian
friendly sidewalks, park benches, wanting paths and a public
gathering area. Walk me through. Now, I come into this area
and I'm in Retail C. How do I get to Retail D? Where is the
sidewalk?
Mr. Schostak:
Retail C, D and E?
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Mr. LaPine:
Yes. I want to go to all three of those different stores just
walking. How do I get around?
Mr. Schostak:
That red area is the plaza. Excuse me.
William Cole,
Middlebelt Plymouth Venture, L.L.C., 25800 Northwestern
Highway, Suite 750, Southfield, Michigan 48075. Ms. Smiley,
gentleman, good morning. My name is Bill Cole; I'm with
Schostak Brothers. Lel me walk you through this. What we've
done is, we've taken the exisfing brick paved area that the
Plymouth Road Development Authority has created and we
continued and added sidewalks on both sides of that. So Mr.
LaPine, if you start in this area, you could walk over to this
building, and you could walk over to this portion, this comer of
the building D, walk across the main sidewalk, cross back over,
and you could also go back over here and walk on the public
sidewalk, which is all decorated by the Plymouth Road
Development Authority, their fences, their flowers. And you
could take it down an area right here and take a concrete walk
across to this building, back onto the main public sidewalk, take
it down to here where the clock tower vitt be. That will all be
stamped concrete brick paver simulated type thing, and walk
across this brick paver simulation to this building or walk back
across over to this building. We've taken advantage of the
Plymouth Road Development Aulhoritys improvements. No
one walks on them right now. People will walk on it then and
you can walk from store to store.
Mr. LaPine:
You're using the public sidewalk on Plymouth Road to get to the
different buildings?
Mr. Cole:
Correct.
Mr. LaPine:
That means you're going to cut in from the landscaping that the
PRDA put up there to get into the different areas from the
sidewalk?
Mr. Cole:
Well, actually ....
Mr. LaPine:
Or are they in there?
Mr. Cole:
This area right here used to be a drive approach. Am I correct,
Gary? I had to ask the engineer. And what we'll do is, we'll
take advantage of that old opening, the old curb cul, so that's
that part of it. This area over here, we dont have to cul through
the walls. In this area, we'll do a little bit of work, maybe a little
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bit of cutting, but we can restore or replace the same type of
wall or wrought iron fence they have there now. So we're going
to introduce that. We're also carrying the period light fixtures,
light poles, that are up and down Plymouth Road. We're
carrying those into the site. You'll see it on one of the other
drawings. That will take those right down the middle of the
boulevard and we'll also spot them in different locafions
throughout this area, so have those same period type light
poles.
Mr. LaPine:
Is that boulevard wide enough? Are you going to have flowers
planted there or things of that nature?
Mr. Cole:
Yes. There will be light poles. Mark, could you go to the
building elevations? Actually thafs a blow up of the dock lower
and those areas. If you go to the building elevations, we've got
some picture of light poles. We've got some pictures of the
fence. Keep going. These are the different elevations of the
buildings. This is the dock lower, a blow up of the clock tower.
It does have a light fixture. Right down the middle of the
boulevard, we're going to landscape on both sides of that, and
this is the typical fence and piers that will run around the
building, which are similar to whafs on Plymouth Road right
now. Also, if you go over to the ... Mark, the landscape plans .
.. there's blow ups of landscape plans and the boulevard, the
Hubbell, Roth and Clark drawings. Here's the boulevard.
Here's landscaping down the boulevard on both sides of it, trees
and shrubs and flowers. We have the same type of thing out
here. This is the existing Plymouth Road Development
Authority improvements.
Mr. Schostak:
The divided boulevard, there's a middle section. Thafs 16 feet
wide so the question about landscaping in the middle boulevard,
flowers and sod and trees, the answer is yes.
Mr. LaPine:
Now, one other question. All these little retail buildings, we will
have any duplication of services, like if G has got a telephone
store, will one of the other buildings possibly have a telephone
store, or are you trying to get 40 different stores and
restaurants?
Mr. Schostak:
Our goal is to have a selection of different shops and not a lot of
duplication whatsoever. We're trying to theme each building to
get stores for the home, apparel, clothing, shoes, accessories.
Buildings that will have restaurants and cafes. So we're trying
to get some variation. Will there be more than one coffee shop?
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Perhaps. I don't want to say that there won't be, but the idea is
to bring some fresh retail into the area.
Mr. LaPine: The last question is, you talked about park benches and
gathering areas. Where are they located?
Mr. Schostak: Do you want to pant out where that ... what slide do you want
to use?
Mr. Cole: Well, actually, this area in here if you can blow that up.
Mr. LaPine: Gel a colored drawing ifyou've got it.
Mr. Cole:
We've got some areas in here, which could be possible fast
casual restaurants, we're calling them, with pavers in this area,
and then further aer ... we've got the area down in here as a
gathering area. We're going to have wrought iron fences with
spot benches in different locations.
Mr. LaPine:
The stores here, like Retail J, to get in those stores, they come
in from this way, from the west?
Mr. Cote:
Vehicle -type access?
Mr. LaPine:
Yes.
Mr. Cole:
They could come in off the main boulevard back over to J or
they could come down from the other part of the site over to the
east.
Mr. LaPine:
So if somebody is parked here and then they want to go over to
Wal-Mart or Target, they can drive out through the middle?
Mr. Cote:
Yes, they can. This will be open.
Mr. LaPine:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Alanskas:
I just have one question. Mr. Schostak, at this time can you
sharewith us any tenants thalyou do have forthese 40 shops?
Mr. Schostak:
I would love to be able to. The leasing process is just at its
early, early stages. We have not started it.
Ms. Smiley:
You weren't talking just about retail. You were also talking
earlier about services like a barbershop or things like that. Do
you still intend to go ...
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Mr. Schostak:
Absolutely.
Ms. Smiley:
To give it more of a village ...
Mr. Schostak:
Kind of a complete feel to it of shops, service areas, the salons,
barbershops, shoe repair, dry cleaner, that sort of thing. That's
what I'm saying. The buildings are going to lend themselves to
certain types of businesses. There are areas, like the comer,
that would maybe have a lot of pedestrian feel, an ideal
opportunity to do the restaurants. The Building J, for example
will lend itself perhaps more to the service shops, and that's
what we hope to accomplish. The leasing business is tricky.
It's an art. Its not science. So we have to get in there and
merchandise the space, meet with the retailers and bring the
best outthatwe can, and that's what our intention is.
Ms. Smiley:
Thankyou.
Mr. Shane:
Mr. Schostak, I wonder if you would just comment for a minute
why you're using 9 fool bays instead 10.
Mr. Schostak:
Parking stalls?
Mr.Shane:
Yes.
Mr. Schostak:
The site plan for retail on this site has had various size spaces
over the years. What we're trying to do is balance out a lot of
things, landscaping, Target's needs, Wal -Mart's needs, and the
kind of stores that we expect here. We want to get the most
amount of spaces and we would limit ourselves if we went to the
10' x 20' ordinance size. Shopping centers throughout Livonia,
this site in particular, have operated with the smaller stall size
and we're asking for fiat here as well. It will allow us to do the
most with the retail, the most with the landscaping, and really to
dress the site up the best we can.
Mr.Shane:
Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh:
Are there any other comments or questions for the petitioner?
Seeing none, we do permit audience participation at this point.
For all those who did remain, you're welcome - Ms. Larson, you
and your group as well. I mean you stayed late. You worked
very hard. We will keep to two minutes per person. If there is
anybody in tie audience that would like to address this, please,
we'll con it the same way. Come to either podium and you will
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be recognized. Comments, please, refrain from anything except
for the site plan before us.
Albert Mughannem, 30909 Roycroff. I do have a question regarding the site
plan. The retail developments, as lettered as they are, J and so
forth, in other retail step -type developments, the back of the
stores are very unsightly having the utilities coming in, the fire
doors, etc., etc. What is the plan for a visual buffer, if you will,
for the back of the stores as you're cruising up and down
Plymouth Road and having to see those unsightly doors?
Mr. Walsh:
Consistently, with what I'd like to do if you'll refrain until the end.
Well collect the comments and the petitioner can respond at
that time.
Mr. Mughannem:
Thankyou.
Mr. Walsh:
Thank you. Hi, Mrs. Kolhoff.
Andrea Kolhoff,
9903 Flamingo. Hi. This has to do with the environmental
impact of this site underground. We know that this site
previously was used as an airport. What contaminants exist in
the ground, the soil, the ground water, etc.? We had used oil
generated from Montgomery Wards in their service center, in
the bays, along with the hydraulic oil used for their lifts. And
then also the underground gas tanks that were located and may
still be there. I'm asking for the Commissioners to ask the
petitioner, what his remediation plans are for this site as far as
the cleanup of the site of the soil and ground water because I
know from professional experience it makes redevelopment
very difficult, and it's extremely timely and expensive.
Mr. Walsh:
We'll ask the petitioner to do that in the closing comments. Ms.
Larson?
Michele Larson,
11422 Cardwell. My question goes to Schoslak regarding the
Village site plan. You staled that there wasn't going to be
duplicated use. We are going to have a proposed Pizza Hut
and Starbucks and Target, and then we're going to have cafes
that are going to try to open and coffee shops in this village -
themed portion. My concern is the big box stores drawing in
customers to shop there. They're not going to come to a cafe
when there's a Starbucks at Target more than likely, and this is
an assumption. My other concem with the village aspects is,
there are not a lot of park benches and gathering locations. In
order to walk from Retail C to, I cant even read what letter that
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is, but the second to the last one on the left, you would have to
walk all the way around on the main road to get to it, or walk
through parking lots with cars moving. My concern also was
with the Target store. They stated that they would be taking
their semi -trucks from in between Wal -Marl and Target and
they'd be coming up the middle of the boulevard. That's not
very pedestrian friendly for those that would like to cross from
Retail C, B ... I can't really see the site plan again, from the
right across the boulevard all the way over to F, if I wanted to
shop there. I'd have to get in my car and go over there. Thank
you.
Jerry Bagazinski, 3110 Hathaway. I have a couple issues looking at the site
plan. First of all, the existing traffic control device is actually on
the east side there. Its not lined up with the boulevard, and
that's an issue when we look at the site plan because we're
adding an extra traffic control device there if we put one at the
boulevard. The second issue is, then you have traffic then that
will be leaving the site on Middlebelt Road that would be very
close to the intersection there, and I don't think the traffic flow
pattern there is very well thought out. If you look at Livonia Mall,
they wouldn't allow anything like that. They divert most of their
traffic from the parking lots to a point further north on the lot to
allow traffic to get out, and I think that's an important
consideration here. One of the questions I'd like to ask the
developers here is whether or not they intend to make a
Brownfield application and what types of increased tax revenue
will be captured by the tax incremental financing plan for this
development. I don't see this as a very pedestrian friendly .. .
it's not cohesive. I think we're still looking at the West Village
issues. All the people are asking is that these pieces get
rearranged here so that they are part of a cohesive
development. For those reasons, I think that this plan should be
denied.
Donna Mulcahy, 30850 Robert Drive. I just want to make an observation and ask
that you pay particular attention to how cars would actually go
through the parking lot. I'm sure you'll be a better judge of it
than I am, but it just amazes me that the parking lot and the
traffic patterns at Millennium Park were passed the way that
they are. For example, at Millennium Park, when you go out the
entrance to Middlebelt, between Costco and Meijer and you
have Home Depot in the back, there's not a very clear-cut thing
as to who has the right of way. You know, getting out of there is
a crap shoot, so please ... I dont know if you understand what
I'm talking about if you've ever gone there, but when you're
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coming like out of the Costco parking lot, if you wanted to go
say over to Meijer or if you wanted to make a left to go back to
Home Depot or a right, the people who are coming from like the
Home Depot area, you know, they just come and they don't
know who is supposed to go where or anything. It just didn't
seem like it was very well thought out. So I just hope you pay
particular attention to him this is laid out. Thais all. Thank you.
Mr. Walsh: Is there anybody else in the audience that wishes to speak for
or against this item? Seeing no one, we'll go with the final word
to the petitioner and any remaining questions.
Mr. Schostak: Just to answer a couple questions that were raised. The back
of the stores that the gentleman raised, the Planning
Commission reviewed the plan, as did Council, when we
submitted it a year and a half ago. That plan had extensive
study on properly screening the delivery, the rear doors and the
dumpster areas of those buildings. We duplicated all of that
activity again and made sure that this plan reflects all of those
things that the Planning Commission and Council wanted. As
far as the environmental question, the lady is correct that there
are, from the former Wards fire center, there were tanks
underground. The tanks will be removed. We've had both the
Phase I and Phase II environmental study, which showed that
the tanks are there, and the tanks will be removed as part of the
development, one of the advantages of again scrapping
everything and starting fresh. There is some asbestos in the
buildings, and the buildings have been tested and of course will
be under proper administration to have the little bit of asbestos
that remains removed. Someone mentioned about the Target
and Wal-Mart having certain restaurants, a Starbucks and a
Pizza Hut and the duplication. I want to clarify. I did not say
we're not going to duplicate. There may be some duplication.
There may be two coffee shops in our retail area, just like
there's a Starbucks store in the Target store. We're going to
endeavor to have a nice mix of restaurants that don't overlap,
that are complementary to one another, and that same theme,
that concept, will be carried through all of the buildings. We've
got to create variety and selectivity. Cant guarantee there isn't
competitive businesses out there, so we will do our best to offer
the best that's available.
Mr. Walsh: I think the last point was the Brownfield that Mr. Bagazinski
inquired about. There is no petition from you and the City has
indicated that it would not support one, so there is no
Brownfield.
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Mr. Alanskas:
Mr. Schostak, when you go to City Council and if you gel
approval, when would the mall be demolished?
Mr. Schostak:
We'd like to get started right away. The time, the delays that
have taken place, no fault of this body or anybody in this room,
the last couple years have been not good for the community and
not good for us, so we're anxious to get going. We've got
demolition bids. We've got a demolition contractor. If all the
approvals go and everything is acceptable to Target, Wal-Mart
and ourselves, we'll start immediately.
Mr. Bagazinski:
Did he say there will be a Brownfield?
Mr. Walsh:
There is no Brownfield.
Mr. Schostak:
There is no Brownfield application.
Mr. Bagazinski:
Will there be one?
Mr. Schostak:
We're getting our site plan approved and proceeding as we've
described this evening.
Mr. La Pine:
If everything goes fine, once the building is tom down, does the
Target store get built first and then after that, does the existing
Target store get tore down? Is that the way ifs going to work?
Mr. Schostak:
If you want to put the overall site plan up, Mark, since you're so
good with that Powerpoint. Beginning from east to west, we will
begin on the eastern edge of the site including the tire center of
Wards, move our way east, get this area demolished where the
Wards is today. Target is approximately in this area. As we
continue to demolish and make this site ready for construction
for the Target store, Target plus the Plymouth Road shops will
be the first construction. Then, as we continue down and
prepare the Wal-Mart area, Wal-Mart will be the next to
construct as will be the next phase of the Village Shops. So
there's a lot of coordination. Target has got to gel built, we have
to demolish, prepare the site, Targets got to lake possession,
build, get open, turn their present site over to us. By then, the
buildings in this area will have been tom down and we will be in
position to start removing the old Target store.
Mr. LaPine:
When will the screening oflhe south side be done?
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Mr. Schostak: The landscape screening? That's going to be done immediately
with all the work that goes in. When the Target store's open,
that screening will be in there.
Mr. LaPine:
The only reason I bring that up is because, as you well know,
during construction there's a lot of dirt. With the trees and
everything, that going to help relieve that, because I can assure
you, you'll probably hear about it.
Mr. Schostak:
Sure. Lel me ask Bill to address that.
Mr. Cote:
In order to have the bene in place and the landscaping in place,
has to be irrigated. And to be irrigated, we have to have the
infrastructure in. So I guess the best way to answer the
question is, the berm and landscaping will go concurrently with
the construction of Target and Wal-Mart as they progress and
are completed, inigated and landscaped, when they take
certificate of occupancy and open up.
Mr. LaPine:
So you're saying, when Target is completed and they get their
occupancy peril, trees will be planted behind Target, and then
when Wal -Mart's done, they will be planted behind Wal -Marl. Is
that the way you're going to do it?
Mr. Cote:
Yes. And that would be a requirement by the City for us to gel a
C of O to have that berm in.
Mr. LaPine:
Okay. Thankyou.
Ms. Smiley:
Is the traffic light that's up there now going to be where your
boulevard is, or is it down more, or where is it?
Mr. Cole:
That will be determined by Wayne County Road Commission.
There's a point in time when we have to provide studies to
them, and gain approvals by Wayne County.
Mr. Walsh:
Are there any additional questions for the petitioner? Seeing
none, a motion is then in order.
On a motion by
Shane, seconded by Smiley, and adopted, it was
#09-94-2005
RESOLVED, that the City Planning Commission does hereby
recommend to the City Council that Petition 2005-08-08-15,
submitted by Schostak Brothers & Company, on behalf of The
Village Shops of Wonderland, requesting approval of all plans
required by Section 18.47 of the Zoning Ordinance in
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connection with a proposal to construct multi -tenant commercial
buildings on the former Wonderland Mall property, located on
the south side of Plymouth Road between Middlebelt Road and
Milburn Avenue in the Northeast 114 of Section 35, be approved
subject to the following conditions:
1. That the Site Plan marked Sheet C-1 dated September 12,
2005, as revised, prepared by Hubbell, Roth & Clark, is
hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
2. That the Enlarged Site Plan West marked Sheet C-2 dated
September 12, 2005, as revised, prepared by Hubbell,
Roth & Clark, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
3. That the Enlarged Site Plan East marked Sheet C-3 dated
September 12, 2005, as revised, prepared by Hubbell,
Roth & Clark, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to;
4. That all parking spaces shall be conforming at a minimum
of len (10') feet wide by twenty (20') feet in length and all
two-way aisles shall have a minimum width of twenty-two
(22') feel;
5. That this approval is subject to the petitioner being granted
a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals for deficient
parking and any conditions related thereto;
6. That appropriate recordable legal instrumentation, such as
a cross parking agreement, that gives notice and outlines
the terms of how the subject properly(s) would share
parking, be supplied to the City;
7. That the Landscape Plans marked Sheets L-2, L3, L-4
and L-5 dated September 12, 2005, as revised, prepared
by Hubbell, Roth & Clark, is hereby approved and shall be
adhered to;
8. That the height of the planted trees shall be measured from
the lop of the root ball to the mid -point of the top leader;
9. That all disturbed lawn areas shall be sodded in lieu of
hydroseeding;
10. That underground sprinklers are to be provided for all
landscaped and sodded areas, and all planted materials
shall be installed to the satisfaction of the Inspection
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Department and thereafter permanently maintained in a
healthy condition;
11. That the Exterior Building Elevation Plans marked Sheet
A2.1C, A2.1D, A2.1E, A4.11F, A2.11F, A2.1G, and A4.lJ
dated August 19, 2005, prepared by Schoslak Brothers &
Company and Wah Yee Associates, is hereby approved
and shall be adhered to;
12. That the Clock Tower Elevation Plan marked Sheet
A4.l SA dated August 19, 2005, prepared by Schostak
Brothers & Company and Wah Yee Associates, is hereby
approved and shall be adhered to;
13. That the brick used in the construction shall be fulkface
four(4)inch brick;
14. That all rooftop mechanical equipment shall be concealed
from public view on all sides by screening that shall be of a
compatible character, material and color to other exterior
materials on the building;
15. That the three walls of the trash dumpster areas shall be
constructed out of the same brick used in the construction
of the buildings, or in the event a poured wall is substituted,
the wall's design, texture and color shall match that of the
buildings and the enclosure gates, which shall be of steel
construction, shall be maintained and when not in use
closed at all times;
16. That the petitioner shall secure the necessary stormwater
management permits from Wayne County, the City of
Livonia, and/orthe State of Michigan;
17. That the Developer shall submit for approval an ongoing
mosquito control program, as approved by the Department
of Public Works, describing maintenance operations and
larvicide applications to the City of Livonia Inspection
Department prior to the construction of the stormwater
retention facility;
18. That the owner shall provide annual reports to the
Inspection Department on the maintenance and larvicide
treatments completed on the stormwater detention pond;
22658
19. That the exisfing masonry wall along the west boundary of
the detention basin shall be removed;
20. That all light fixtures shall not exceed twenty (20') feet in
height and shall be aimed and shielded so as to minimize
stray light trespassing across property lines and glaring
into adjacent roadway;
21. That the pefitioner shall correct to the Fire Department's
satisfaction the items outlined in the correspondence dated
September 9, 2005;
22. That only conforming wall signage is approved with this
pefition, and any additional signage shall be separately
submitted for review and approval by the Planning
Commission and City Council;
23. That a Master Sign Plan establishing ground signage for
the entire "The Village Shops of Wonderland' development
shall be separately submitted for review and approval by
the Planning Commission and City Council; included in the
application shall be the location and graphics of each
Business Center Sign, all Identification Signs and any
directional signage;
24. That no LED Iighlband or exposed neon shall be permitted
on this site inducing, but not limited to, the buildings or
around the windows;
25. That the specific plans referenced in this approving
resolution shall be submitted to the Inspection Department
atthe time the building permits are applied for.
Mr. Walsh: Is there any discussion?
Mr. La Pine: Mr. Shane, on 15, we talk about the enclosed gates. We want
to make sure those are steel gates. Get the word "steel" in
there. We agreed on that.
Mr.Shane: Okay.
Mr. Walsh: Is that acceptable to the maker and second?
Ms. Smiley: Yes.
Mr. Shane: Very acceptable.
22659
Mr. Walsh: AIII right. Its so amended. Any further discussion? In the
midst of running the meeting, I haven't had a chance to say
much. I would just like to say that it's always difficult when we
have commercial property abutting residential, but that's the
reality we find ourselves with. This is an existing commercial
parcel. It is privately owned and subject to the development
that's legally before us. What I hope that we have done is
listened to the comments that we've received tonight and
beforehand and done our best by the petitioner, by the
neighbors and by the city as a whole. We do have an obligation
to the city as a whole, and I believe that we have done that to
the best of our ability. For that reason, I will be supporting this
as well as the others that I've supported.
Mr. La Pine: Mr. Chairman, can I ask Mr. Schostak one question? On the
shops along Plymouth Road, the 40 stores, we restricted the
hours for the Target and the Wal -Marl. Are any of those stores
going to be open 24 hours that you know at this time?
Mr. Schostak: We don't have the stores leased and identified but as far as I
know, they are not 24 hour.
Mr. Walsh: Are there any additional questions or comments? Seeing none,
would the Secretary please call the roll?
A roll call vole on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Shane, Smiley, Alanskas, La Pine, Morrow, Walsh
NAYES: Pieroecchi
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: None
Mr. Walsh, Chairman, dedared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted. It will go on to City Council with an approving resolution.
Thank you for being here. Thank you everyone.
ITEM#4 APPROVAL OF MINUTES 912th Regular Meeting
Ms. Smiley, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda, Approval of the
Minutes oflhe 912"' Regular Meeting held on August 23, 2005.
On a motion by Smiley, seconded by Pieroecchi, and unanimously adopted, it
was
22660
#09435-2005 RESOLVED, that the Minutes of 912" Regular Meeting held by
the Planning Commission on August 23, 2005, are hereby
approved.
A roll call vole on the foregoing resolution resulted in the following:
AYES: Smiley, Pieroecchi, Alanskas, LaPine, Shane,
Morrow, Walsh
NAYS: None
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: None
Mr. Walsh, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution
adopted.
On a motion duly made, seconded and unanimously adopted, the 913" Public
Hearings and Regular Meeting held on September 20, 2005, was adjourned at
148 a.m.
CIN PLANNING COMMISSION
Carol A. Smiley, Secretary
ATTEST:
John Walsh, Chairman