one welcome to this regularly scheduled meeting of the whole city council as well as i'm told the say thank you national to say thank you dear mailman day for mail carrier day probably more accurately so we've got that going for us tonight there will be no rodents so at least not planned in chambers tonight certainly none that are capable of biting yours we begin tonight's meeting as we always do first of all with the calling of the roll to make sure we have a quorum to conduct business so an we begin our meeting with two items as we always do the first which will be an invocation this evening led by our colleague in the first ward my crew we immediately thereafter will say the pledge of allegiance to our flag so if you're in chambers tonight i would invite you to rise in join us in those you with me please our heavenly father we thank you for the fresh blanket of snow as we know that in a just a few short weeks the splendor you are working on below it will be reviewed fresh green and spectacular be with our city be with our citizens be with their city employees protect them in their duties be with those that protect us at home  and far keep them safe let us be mindful of those that are sick downtrodden less fortunate than we are and also let us be mindful of the discussions opinions the seething we may not agree but we may be we should be respectful we pray this in your name you meant i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for  thank you mike there are paper copies of this evening's agenda in the rack in the rear of the room if you're in chambers tonight and would like to grab a copy of it you may do so also if you have an electronic device of some sort you can not only download a copy of the agenda but as well as you can also get a copy of all the background material that council has reviewed in preparation for this evening's meeting the simplest way to do so is to go to the city website city of holland dot com go to the calendar page today's date you'll find all of that information located at that site as you look at the agenda you'll know that there are a variety of items on the agenda tonight that have an asterisk next to them these are items that we call and consider the consent agenda which means that instead of handling them individually the plan is to take care of them all collectively with one motion one vote at the same time we do this because we think that there are relatively routine items or there are things we've talked about before now before we take action on those things we're going to do two things first i'm going to ask our deputy city clerk to read for us those specific items and then i'll offer the opportunity for anyone in the audience to remove an item from the consent agenda that you might have come here to talk about specifically so before we do anything further and if you would please read us what presently exists on our consent agenda item five to prove the minutes of the special close and regular meetings held twenty one and study session meeting held to nearly twenty eight item fourteen d one to refer a claim filed shopping district in the downtown development authority to increase court in nation and planning activities with other downtown initiatives i had important hundred eighty two point one to authorize the parks and recreation department in the planning and promotion of multiple evidence to mark the fiftieth anniversary of when my and to approve a proposed budget of twenty two thousand with a fiscal year fifteen general fund transfer in the amount of six thousand five hundred dollars to the wind island gardens budget item fortini two point two to approve the sentence work abatement program agreement with our county for two thousand and fifteen to be funded through the parks and cemetaries division budget subject to approval as a form by the city attorney item fortini two point three to adapt an amended resolution directing the city manager to submit a study for the proposal special assessments of the central avenue snow melt improvements i don't fourteen eat three point one to accept the december two thousand and fourteen monthly financial report as presented by the finance department fortini three point two to declare a surplus of various technology services items and authorize staff to dispose items as indicated in said report item fourteen e three point three to extend the deadline date from april  fifteenth of the proposed fiscal year two thousand and sixteen budget item fourteen e three point four two accept the fiscal year two thousand and fourteen cash and investment portfolio performance and status report as prepared by the finance department don't fourteen ethe report five to accept the quarterly investment report for the second quarter of the fiscal october through december two thousand and fourteen as presented by the finance department item fourteen eve five point two two accept as information the home energy retrofit results recommended homeowner action for the twenty five homes evaluated by shit tonight or a lock trick item fortini five point three to approve an investment grade audit agreement with schneider water and energy services company the energy conservation measures for city buildings in a not to exceed amount of forty thousand dollars to be funded by the municipal capital improvement fund pending approval less to form by the city attorney i don't fortini five point four to authorize staff to seek requests for proposals on the vacant city owned lot at one ninety six six six east sixteenth street was council to take formal action at the march eighteenth two thousand and fifteen council meeting and item fourteen easy five point five to approve the appointment of judy giles to the holland downtown design review board effective for where we are year two thousand and fifteen through july thirty one two thousand and eight ok thank you and so that's what's presently on the consent agenda and again the plan is to handle all of those items with one motion and vote at this time with anybody in the audience care to remove any of those items from the consent agenda if so just to step up to the microphone please so we can hear what you have to say as adjusted to eleven thousand the budget for the fiftieth anniversary the report said twenty two thousand which are we going with it it's the item in the report the recommendation in the report we remove fourteen he five point three from right the other community energy plan item for those not well versed in canadian parlance mayors in us see yes white man yes looks strong yes yes mayor baxter yes motion passes ok thank you very much we then go to item seven eight tonight we're pleased to have a presentation by lecture operating officer person dare to come up with me and share our annual investment guide so this is the piece that i will be presenting i need sight so there's a couple of copy as for the use those to distribute around and i think you've also received a hard copy is that that as well but person myself are here to answer any questions about our organization as you know lake charles vantages primary tactic is to really catalyze resources to support business and economic vitality in our region our focus area is ottawa county and we have a team of over eighty different investors who invest in our organization which the city of holland is one of those very valuable investors today and so i'd like to share with you what we are investing in to move the community forward our competencies areas for the organization our business services talent solutions and innovation so i'll walk through each one of those core competency areas with you today very briefly and then also share a case study that will kind of bring our work to life business services very much the core of what we do and so business services is connecting one on one with primary employers and those are employers who export goods and services out of the region and we connect with over two hundred fifty of those and i will county in the city of holland this past year we've sat down face to face with over seventy primary employers to understand their needs their wants the future of their organization and based on those in depth conversations we identify opportunities or challenges with those employers and bring resources forward to support their growth and those resources money think our incentives or tax breaks oftentimes those resources are support connection to other companies in the area access to talent so we work with over fifty different partners and programs to bring those resources to companies so they don't have to search for what is out there to support the community and so a prime example of our work and the is the role group who has come before you recently with the city for their expansion the role group we worked with on their site search they're swedish based company who are looking for opportunities throughout the united states for where to grow and expand we work to develop the investment case why they should grow here in the community we access them to all the resources that are available here locally and we created that business case and part of that business case was recruitment be to be in or dock ssion of other suppliers and customers here in the region for that company and so they continue to grow and pack prosper and september they came in front of the city council for their second expansion outside of their initial location in this region which would create forty jobs and two point nine million dollars of investment now that's just one of over fifty projects an expansion opportunities and challenges that we work for from the past year our second core competency is innovation so we've been before you a few times to discuss the how and smartphone and the smartphone plan is really focused around creating the entrepreneurial system and which startups can thrive and start ups are very much the future of our community as companies go to mature stage they often look at the next generation and we are continuing to create start up on toomer in oriel efforts to be the next feature for this community and the past year we worked with twenty five startups on their business plan and growth we brought over two million dollars into the region to support those startups and the work of the michigan state by all kaname institute and we collaborated with over fifteen different organizations to pull forth the holland smartphone process so one of those companies that we work with is actually a recent city of holland expansion and growth opportunity which is alice sent us technologies and so i'd like to share with you their story very briefly environments like water and it also overcomes manufacturing variants that cripples other touched so all scientists were started by founder dave caldwell actually met dave in northern california through the international nonprofit world i recently sold  business and was trying to figure out what i would do next and initially i was intrigued by the technologies a day for speaking about even trying to convince him that the technology like this belong to northern california they love this area and this region so we're developing core technology but we actually don't build a whole lot we have an ecosystem of partners that help our technology adopt it so instead of capitalizing every production line for the products that are technology introduced us to some of the partners in advisors that helped get the company off in the right direction the developments in the past year of the pretty exciting far we've replaced three of the top five touch technology companies in the world in applications that are already in production we were herded some top talent to join the small fledgling company much michigan justin is just one of the twenty five entrepreneurs and leaders we touched over the past year and we need more for the future of this community this year we created a new talent solutions team and the town solutions team is really fully focused on that the fact that our companies are growing at an exponential rate but the talent that they need enabled to continue to thrive currently is not available in this community we know that about sixty percent of our companies will expand in the next five years but all of those sixty percent seventy percent cannot full fill their current positions we also are fate's the facing an aging population and we're looking at about a third of our workforce retiring out in the next time years and then only five percent growth in population rate so attracting new people like justin and this community will become critically important to ensure that those expansions those growth for our employers continue to be here in our region so our talent solutions team works to develop future challenge and some of that develop is working with k through twelve school districts the intermediates and immediate school district to really expose kids at a very young age to the opportunities that exist here today to attract new talent into this region we're working very closely with the four hundred in terms that come here every summer and in fact my year dykstra participated in one of our many events that we held this summer to expose our students to the wide array of employment opportunities that exist in this region and then finally to really retain our talent so that's working one on one with employers on talent solutions partners and potential so that could be apprenticeship programs retention opportunities really being their concierges and how they retain and grow their talent there over fifteen organizations that have talent development programs that we're working with very closely to bring those opportunities to a players here today and the benefit you heard from johnson that really there is such an incredible benefit of tracking talent in and i'm not close today with kind of a final story of boyd boyd is actually somewhat of a recent location here to the city of holland and you may or may not know him but after this this video i think you'll be very excited that boyd is here and has invest in the community he's just one of the money examples of the future of our community and like internships and hi my name is boyd feltman and the owner of a frozen yogurt here in downtown holland well i'm a new resident here and now and my journey really began about eighteen years ago when i had an internship for a very large corporation in the area time i was actually dating my wife and we felt holland was such a special place not only to enjoy but also to work and so the opportunities of that internship gave me for absolutely fantastic when i went back to college i had a number of job  literally anywhere in the world that we wanted to live and invest in for the future we kept thinking of our return to see what happened over fifteen years and discovered a very vibrant wonderful downtown the strong sense of community to us it just seemed like the perfect place to raise a family from an investment standpoint i could see that downtown was a place that i probably wanted to that then start this new business coming to a frozen yogurt from there we moved our family back  purchased real estate here in downtown and took a building that was from the one nine hundred fifty s and actually invested in it then modernize then turn it into detroit restaurants investing in your community and helping your community and healthy for years to come so boyd is really the future of this community and there are so many others that are doing all they can to lift up and continue with the forward growth and i want to just say thank you to all of you for your to run is investment in our organization and open to any questions you have about the future of economic development and how we can continue to support you and your needs thank you jennifer and of all the nights to have one of our screens apparently sort of blow up before the meeting this evening  not the night for those really that half of the of the chambers you really couldn't see much except perhaps on the small screen below we apologize for that usually there's a screen that's operational there also jennifer it's you know your first report to us since you're somewhat new in the role and that's been good to work with you want a variety of projects and look for doing so or even more so in the future questions or comments for jennifer yes please come to the club or you know jennifer i want to thank you for your presentation and i know that we've oftentimes given monies and we vote out it goes away but give us a very concrete examples of people but it's affecting you know i thought that was very powerful thank you for that hope to continue on getting those kinds of things and the other thoughts comments questions fill a short vantage at this particular moment right thanks again for being here and we continue to afford partnering with you right we then look to our item ten which is the two items tonight on adoption of ordinances the first of which is deals with a rezoning recommendation that's come to us from  planning commission dealing with section thirty nine dash five rezone from our one of the principal residential district arts are planned residential district and i believe that our kind of love in the community neighborhood services is going to introduce and describe this item for us before we have a public hearing on it very good thank you america indeed the planning commission has a request in for you tonight a recommendation this is actually a second read for you so you you hold your first read it hits discussion a couple weeks ago in regards to this so that the request in front of you tonight is a request from apple dorn assisted living center number two they're also known as a rangers incorporated out a green haven and they are requesting that a four acre parcel on the screen here located at six thirty seven apple avenue that they be rezoned from the r one one family residential district to r p r d planned residential development district that property is currently owned by holland public schools and no longer being used for a school in fact of the schools demolished in remove the building entirely from the property so it is the vacant property today so rangers incorporated has the purchase overall campus plan here all the various to assets housing assets that they have in this area stretching from almost down to a thirty second street at the bottom of the page whether that's a little bit north of thirty second street there but you can see they have a complex uses they have there are there first buildings that went up in this area and these are all assisted living buildings in here  and that went in i believe in the late ninety's then about seven or eight years ago a rangers came in and got approval insight plan approval for a larger congregate care facility hastings avenue which is right here in this is right across from the b p to service center subsequent to that there was a developer who came in before that before the recession and got approved in this area here this was going to be a a single family attached condominium type development and that development actually started there are a few condo buildings out on either red parkway here  then that development kind of fell prey to the recession and that project failed and to the property went back to the bank rangers then picked up this property purchased it from from whatever the bank was and came back to the city and got approval for another larger congregate care building that you can see right here this was just completed in and i believe that it's fully occupied at this time or they're working to fill it right now this is eighty five units in here and then rangers also got approval for i believe it's forty to forty five bedrooms in this building right here this is this is an assisted living building in this is currently under construction right now so you know from the applicant's point of view this is certainly logical for them to to want to purchase this property it's right next door believes that it would fit in nicely with with their campus plans and the type of senior housing that is apparently very much in demand in the in the holland area so that whole or having been said is background to this this commission was asked by the developer to to approve what really kind of amounted to a conceptual development plan and that's this site plan that you see in front of you and the developer does not exactly know what they want to do with well they they know that they want to use it for senior housing but they don't exactly know the building layout and so forth that could go on this property because they're they're not viewing that if they get the property that they would be building anything here for probably several years so they came to the planning commission and asked if the commission would be interested or willing to approve what amounts to a conceptual development plan and in that they've come back in the future with a full on site plan review and that that you know lock into that kind of approval then during the public hearing on january thirteenth there was quite a few residents from the neighborhood that showed up and they had a they had quite a few concerns and some of the concerns are noted in the staff report here most everybody had concerns about drainage existing drainage in this area of apple avenue and so forth concerns that this additional development would exacerbate drainage issues in the area plainly some people who did not want to see the dish and all hired it's the development even of kind of this assisted living nature did not want to see that being approved  planning commissioners did take that all under environment but they did they did notice and i'll go back to one of the prior plans here this is our our master plan a land use plan meant for the area and the planning commission did note that in our master plan and this is really what the planning commission and in city council should be looking at is a primary or one of the primary factors in the rezoning request we need to look at  master plan and you can see the subject properties here again the brown area which should cover which in capsule it's about seventy five percent of this property is master planned for a high density residential  land use the area of the frontage that's shown here in yellow which is about twenty five percent of the property is planned for one family residential uses i mean you can see this that kind of the strip of one family residential planning kind of goes all down apple avenue and it goes all the way down to thirty second street so the planning commission looking at this really kind of view that the you know overall for the entire property the master plan is really indicating that property could in in should in it would be compatible being used for multifamily purposes so a plane commission noted that the request the rezoning request is is in line their master plan they noted that it's it's the request is in line with the joinings zoning in the area you can see the the purple zone districts here are all our de plan residential development districts and a lot of that purple purple zoning so to say is of rangers but there's also the foreign apple condos the development here which is well that single family it's a higher density single family so when they noted that the zoning really is kind of compatible with with that zoning also and certainly the development trend on vacant parcels in this know unanimously voted to approve the rezoning to city council at the same meeting i believe i noted that the plan or maybe you didn't know that the planning commission did vote to deny or not approve the notion of approving a conceptual development plan so this this plan here shown on the screen his is not been approved so the planning commission is basically saying recommending that you do approve this if the applicant indeed moves forward and purchases the property or whoever purchased the property sooner or later is going to have to come back with a site plan and game planning commission approval in the future so there are just one of the note here too in the there are some new items in the staff report for you and the these i believe are kind of person of your discussions that your last meeting you wanted us to clarify what exactly you believe the exact number of single family homes that could be built this property under existing zoning existing are one zoning and that would be about twelve to fourteen dwelling units any say well why not just one number of the other if you if you look at the property in the billable acreage on there it would say fourteen dwelling units that are seventy foot lot with that meet the minimum lot here are the are one district that does not take into account though that they probably would they would have to provide some onsite detention stormwater detentions so that density would be knocked down so that's why i'm saying you know it probably twelve or thirteen units could be built on the i guess that's i guess those are the main items and i'd be happy if there's any other questions to please or any questions for mark at this time ok seeing none this is the time of the place for the public hearing on this particular matter if you're to address counsel on this item i would ask that you step for the microphone so everyone in chambers and at home can hear what you have to say the rules require the you state your name residential address for the record and you have up to five minutes two to address council on any one item the way we monitor that is hopefully relatively unobtrusive when you begin speaking all note to be a little green light that shows up immediately beneath me on the dyess when that turns yellow it means you have a minute left and when it turns red it means your five minutes of expired so i invite anyone to make public comment on this item in the public hearing in the public hearing is open good evening to you mike scott trigger four hundred twenty four st my wife and i also own six zero three appalachia vacant property you've all received an e mail i hope you read them and read some of it now according to the current city of holland masterplan our policy areas number six which is lincoln us thirty one fourteenth street triangle our section of this policy area has never been reassess hundred ninety two even though there have been significant public and private construction projects east middle order public works through an apple ridge apple during development parks and cemetaries building in the former traffic study would show an increase in cars and heavy truck heavy vehicles including buses public utility trucks commercial dumpster trucks construction vehicles and even multi axle fuel tankers because of the increased traffic on twenty fourth many drivers are diverted to apple avenue and at times one might consider the speeds to be excessive on that road even though twenty fourth street is not mapped as a truck route one would argue that it really up in reality it is the neighborhood that we live in is on the border of several important boundaries created within the city of holland we live we're first in six ward meet we live where two policing areas meet we live within the overlap of the howard heights and neighborhood neighborhoods our neighborhood is in many ways a border neighborhood and because all of the studies and reevaluations of the areas we belong to are done on the interior of those named areas our border status frequently puts us in a forgotten position until i  read parkway opens and it's close our block stretches one mile from twenty fourth to thirty second apple avenue to hastings the super block has apartments condominiums nursing facilities for businesses several areas of vacant land and only fourteen traditional single family homes some of us are beginning to call it retirement heights the residents of the traditional family homes are outnumbered somewhere near fifty to one in it to piers that even though the master plan of the city of holland on page seventy six specifically states that existing residential uses should be protected we do not feel that this protection has been considered or even attempt realize that the one nine hundred ninety two master plan of the city of holland clearly states that multifamily housing should be encouraged and that we are destined to have additional high density housing approve what we're standing up for for the following protections protection and planning against additional flooding and water flow across our properties and on the streets protection against the costs that will arise gets the determination that for profit developers have increased the population and traffic both vehicular and pedestrian to the point that would require additional sidewalks and street improvements in other words our neighborhood is being developed outside of its traditional status for the profit of a corporation that corporation should be responsible for the infrastructure improvements that there for profit development has necessitated it like protection and planning against the white noise and traffic caused by the development of high density housing and protection from the opinions and demands of a newly formed majorities lifestyle and their living arrangements which are clearly outside the norms of the existing neighborhood when i was here for the planning commission meeting was interesting to hear the complaints from the condominiums that water would be coming their way yet their pond directly drains across our properties there's a thirty inch drain putting water across our propert dumping into an eighteen inch drain that goes on rappel ave it's increasing look at that the sheer volume of roofs in parking lots and sidewalks and a new road going in our neighborhood is being taken over for others you know our property alone we've got what it doesn't fruit trees but a basketball court for the neighborhood kids who got the agricultural building and started there it's clearly changing  that neighborhood was twenty two years ago when we moved in one of you was taking a walk around the neighborhood with me and kind of interesting when you started mentioning traffic on a semi started coming down apple avenue it's happening it's turning into something that it never was you know three states streets and there are some of you might not even know brookside twenty seventh and twenty eight that little culdesac this is changing the way we live i've got to go like thanks and it just turned red that's that's timing thank you scott the microphone is still open the public hearing is still  seen in the ten years that i've lived in this neighborhood the bigger geisha of of wildlife from wooded area in that area that was open and welcoming the children being in the pre k preschool type still the that used to be there that developed into what's coming down and they are going away turkeys going away other wildlife going away too rambunctious out of control teenagers moving into the school to even worse teenagers moving in when it became wavecrest to finally and now an empty piece of property this certainly is an area that's being developed at the interest of rangers and that's obvious if you look at the map how much of that property is owned by rangers a again a for profit company one that i've seen two of my neighbors to the south into the city demanding that sidewalks be put in two adjoining this campus so that their elderly can utilize this this is an area that neighbors have never asked for sidewalks they've never asked for new drains have never asked for curbing but an area that if not attended to with this ongoing development is going to be necessary and i've seen ringers at this podium talk about how they are in take care of their neighbors when the second three storey project went in and how they would take care of the neighbors and in providing sidewalks yet they have nothing to do with funding any of these in the of these amenities that ultimately is going to be used by their own their own people so for them to be coming in and to develop this area which ultimately you said i believe is going to lead to additional drainage and curbing and sidewalks and for that to be assessed on the neighbors and this can in this neighborhood simply be wrong  for for that to be allowed to happen i think it's the master plan is far from being elevated it's been ignored for way too long and it needs to be brought back up to the surface reevaluated reassessed  so i would entertain a motion at this time movie proof moved by birch support supported by white men ok discussion ok i'll start off last weekend we had a retreat and some of the top items were neighborhood commercial neighborhood residential i think they were  the top five it seems to me that when we talk about neighborhood residential we're talking about pieces of property like this one at one time in the city of holland our one was considered to be almost sacred land that you didn't touch was single family homes and people could count on that that's what they bought that's what they wanted what has happened when you look at the city of holland how it's transitioned when we look at the whole college area of how many single family homes have disappeared there are very few lots south of or north of say fortieth street to build on i realize that it costs a lot of money to create subdivisions we don't see them anymore this is one opportunity however to get some really ar housing in an area that's a really wonderful neighborhood it's a forgotten neighborhood i think it's got as mentioned it's close a lot of things i'm concerned not only about our one disappearance but when we look at this land of water and we look at their play and when you look at all the rooftops and you look at the garages and you look at all the parking you know four acre area there if they would go with that i don't know the exact percentage but it looks to me like the runoff is going to be somewhere between sixty and seventy percent of the water is just going to run somewhere and it's it's to be a huge problem i must a concerned about overbuilding we have an awful lot of senior housing there what if they build more and they don't fill them what happens to those kinds of units so i think to protect this neighborhood tuned to protect the integrity of this neighborhood that it should remain as it is in our one the master plan hasn't been changed since ninety two and i'm going to have to appreciate and i will appreciate the wisdom of the master plan back then there was an obvious reason that they did the strip on the east side of apple avenue i believe that was a buffer for the agricultural land that was there and also the potential development that came later we have asked for buffer zones in many other districts specifically the medical mile down michigan i see this move as sandwiching the last single family residential that we have in the syria that yellow is going to be gone completely specifically between apple avenue to the west that's a pretty precious neighborhood back and there i think we need to protect the tranquility we need to protect what our forefathers back when they set this we're thinking of you know times change people change discussions jeanne so on and so forth but that's what bothers me also about this is that we don't know i mean their proposal right now is single family or i'm sorry single floor we go to p r do we have potential multi stories which they've already built in this complex that doesn't fit in that neighborhood so apple dorn i've got nothing against personally i had a resident that lived there for a while great company i just don't believe that intruding more into this neighborhood  what's right for the neighborhood and right for the city we need to keep that buffer we need to keep this single family residential i'm hoping that when the master plan is redone we realize that realize the forethought that was done back in ninety two and probably before that and stick to our guns on this so the our once got a sta into the whole water issue right yet one because i think site plan would speak to that at least from with i think with other projects we've seen that there's actually potential for improvement so i don't want to necessarily race right into the notion that rezoning and development would would be a detriment in the water aspect i'm kind of curious though and i don't know whether there's an answer that's but the notion that i guess how does leaving this our one do anything about truck traffic or the traffic patterns that were referenced earlier and maybe that answer doesn't lie here at the dyess maybe there is not an answer but i i don't know that one zoning label over another is going to reduce that traffic pattern on apple or on twenty fourth for that matter and so you know i'm kind of stuck where i was stuck a couple weeks ago and that is you know staff does a pretty good job  of taking in the public input in these matters and in making sure that any plan that's brought forth you know addresses water park and green space you know roughs runoff things of that nature  trust with them then with that in the past and i'm inclined to trust them again a little bit of difficulty conor stanley some of the rationale here as well from what i've heard described here tonight about the the characteristics of the neighborhood are feared to be lost my understanding is that if the zoning remains the same if we don't change that here tonight then that parcel is could potentially be developed like the property across the street somebody is going to buy a home you know there's a danger of assuming something but i am assuming that probably scott enjoy or not the guys are going to buy this property but maybe i'm wrong if i'm sorry if i miss calculate those intentions but somebody is going to buy it and potentially it could be developed and if it's even comes close to the property or cross out i would know there's ten parcels at least and i've heard numbers are go even higher than that which i find hard to believe but let's assume that there are ten new home sites that could be built on this property  i'm having a hard time imagining where that tranquility goes if those ten houses are built there i'll grant that there probably will be less hard surface if that occurs  so there's more potential for water to be absorbed into the ground but i think the impact of that kind of a development is is the least in my mind maybe even more dramatic than what might be proposed from our readers i mean you know i'm sixty one years old and if god decides to play a joke on the rest of the world and allow me to get older to the point where i can't find my keys or my socks i would really him and you know i need some assistance in living this is the sort of place that i would hope to go and i'm not the only person in that  at that point of life that's just a fact of of life as we know it now and even you guys are going to get old hopefully so think about that  way i can appreciate the argument about the keeping things and i'm not going to not keeping things the same but preserving some neighborhood  characteristics and the value in those things and i don't want to diminish that but  from what i've heard so far i'm not fighting a lot to disagree with you know read resolving this property things change life changes there's a lot of stuff in this town that's not the same about it like it as it was ten or fifteen or twenty years ago let's not say that everything has to change but change isn't always necessarily for the bad so i guess that's just an observation let me come up with sort i think we hear similar kinds of concerns and justifiable ones at that and primarily it's the question of you know where is the water going to go i enjoy having this open space those kinds of things and again those are justifiable concerns and a completely understandable i know certainly the first house i look first house i lived in in holland we had a wonderful open space behind our home that we didn't own and shortly after we moved they put a fence or a new people bought the property and put a fence around it there's always the danger of having it developed and so i certainly can understand that the point i think we have to always keep in mind is this property will be developed one way or another will not stay the same it will not i suppose it's theoretically possible but i think the real reality is it's not going to remain a school with a playground area something is going there and the something is going to probably be carved up lots or something along the lines  of what rangers has done other parts of the property adjacent to this particular parcel now what we have on the screen right now is the zoning map which shows this as our one obviously which is why we're here please go to the blend use map the master plan which is what the zoning is supposed to conform to because the master plan the land use map is what we're thinking long term is the plan for the property and what you'll see here is that more of the property the subject parcel six thirty seven apple is shaded brown and then is shaded yellow meaning the long term master plan view for this particular part of the city is a higher density multifamily residential area which fits in with really if you look at the little yellow dots in the brown area it did that designation fits in with what is there currently and what is being proposed the question of runoff and the question of  getting out lighting and those kinds of things is very much a site plan review question and one that i think is part of the reason why the planning commission didn't want to approve a preliminary site plan because they didn't want to give any indication that this was ok without having it run through the full gamut of review from our engineering staff to make sure that the water is taken care of and handled from our community neighborhood services staff to make sure like pollution is handled from a design standpoint all those kinds of things so all we're looking at today is the of what type of use ought to occur on this property and when i look at what surrounds it when i look at the fact that it will be developed one way or another and when i look at the fact that the master plan seems to indicate that this is the direction we're headed here i think that the rezoning puts us in that position so while i can certainly and do certainly appreciate the fact that anytime a wide open use changes it's not something that we appreciate to specially as neighbors that's that's how things go and the moment that the school decided to close down you know i'm sure the neighbors more than every else immediately were concerned about what happened next and justifiably they're here expressing their opinions on those items as well so we have a motion before us the rezone it's been moved it's been supported there mark i just wanted to point out something to there we go to my point about preserving the buffer for the most part of the first too busy building or the busy building of the original and here to the setback if you will the twenty five percent of the property going along that strip for whatever reason we allow the building now being built to encroach upon that  one area this other one is going to do that same thing because it's a mere you know the density is one thing the buffer is another to protect that neighborhood but you know i could i don't know that i'd be one hundred percent one hundred percent persuaded but if it was back behind that line with that buffer protection in there it may be a little bit more compatible with the neighborhood unfortunately we've lost that already now do we continue to let that happen i don't think we do and that's why i'm going to be voting no against this but that's we've got to we've got to take a stand someplace if we're going to protect our neighborhoods thank you again thanks to those who took an interest in this project and certainly when a site plan is presented for the planning commission they say that the neighbors if it was a five hundred foot radius will receive three hundred foot radius will receive  notice of that event taking place know what it really relates to and that's overnight on street parking so with a brief introduction of that we turn to the city manager ryan cotton for we have a public hearing on land please thank you mr mayor members of the city council it's times like these i really miss former assistant city manager greg robinson but a year and a half ago he worked with council members and staff on this project and council deliberated and decided to do a trial period last summer on on street overnight parking starting may fifteenth through september thirtieth this trial period was concluded with the assistance of the project administrator from grand valley state university recent graduate and they would and he provided the following data that was collected seventy six percent of the residents signified that they were satisfied with the overnight trial program seventy percent agreed that it's something that should happen during the spring and summer months i stress that  winter was never contemplated by the council to my knowledge and that's not what this is tonight before you the benefit there asked if there was a benefit and sixty nine percent thought there was usage however wasn't as high as that fifty three percent sunni forty five percent used it so it was not used perhaps as much as one might have expected e mail feedback  so these are the average number of vehicles per block and they grew over time up to around between twenty five and thirty before the trial period ended so what we have for you tonight is there an amendment to section eight hundred twenty seven that would essentially continue this program with amendment two i took her fifteenth instead of september thirty also the inclusion of one block of maple avenue from eighth street to one street that was not included in the other period the ordinances has been amended somewhat and attorney to intervene can describe in greater detail if you're interested but essentially it would clarify a little bit from first reading and make sure that any vehicle over forty eight hours would be considered abandoned that's a legal technical term which would enable removal so if you proceed it would you need to make a motion to amend is attached and adopt is revised the last thing i'll say is the council did look at options and study sessions and november and december and those two options there for options don't do it do a permit do an even od or do this slight amendment and this is what survived that public process and your deliberations right thank you ryan the questions for ryan first well before we turn to the city attorney saying none on please would you give us a indication of what the clarification is and what you're recommending if counsel were to choose to approve something tonight what the language would look like from the city attorney's perspective sure thank you section one of the ordinance is a general prohibition against parking  overnight in subsection c and the the version that got on for first reading at the last meeting and staff inadvertently had struck that section c out that prohibits vehicles between two and five a m with a couple exceptions for m the next section is an exception to that we need the general rule in the ordinance first and then we have the exception the exception then that is in the ordinances for smaller vehicles one to twelve passenger vehicles motorcycles  small trucks and so to avoid allowing large trucks to park without regulation we have see placed back in the ordinance the other change to it from first reading is would be would be t include provisions that provided for towing vehicles but didn't really spell out the procedures completely and so what we've provided here is we've kept the forty eight hour time limit the vehicles that are are found to be parked in the same spot over forty eight hours i would then be treated as abandoned vehicles under the most michigan motor vehicle code and then there is a set procedure under that statute for tagging in towing vehicles and then for a procedure for the owner to treat the vehicles those would be the two major changes here writing questions for rob for the public hearing all right seeing now there's a time and place for a public hearing on this item as with the previous public hearing if you'd like to address council laws we certainly invite you to do so we ask that you step for the microphone so everyone can hear what you have to say here in chambers as well as at home as name and residential address please for the record and you have five minutes to address council according to the council's rules of procedure good evening and welcome sharon at cox five zero one central i mean to be talking really quickly so listen up mayor city council member city manager thank you for doing the trial of overnight parking last summer it was much appreciated by myself and many other residents i'm here to ask you to vote yes to make it permanent i live in central holland in this district with older homes and short narrow single lane driveways it can be problematic to park when a different time in age than when the overnight parking ban was implemented not only is it just the dad's park view of parking there it's the moms high bred in the high school children who have part time jobs in their own cars we no longer live in a single car environment this increase in cars combined with near else driveways means that car juggling was happen each day invariably the last person in is not the first person in the morning gets exasperated when residents have friends or relatives who visit and they need to find other borrow others driveways we've saw from the trial results that the trial went smoothly that over seventy five percent support the overnight parking during the late spring summer or early autumn months based on this my neighbor's experience i'm asking you to vote yes but regarding some of the concerns there was a concern with regards to interference with street sweeping and snow plowing the time from the spring summer autumn takes care of that there was a concern that because of the narrow streets that when cars were lined up it would be more difficult to get in and out of driveways this has nothing to do with overnight parking cars are already load under current statute to park on the streets between five am and two am so unless someone is entering or leaving their driveway between the three hours in the middle of the night it doesn't apply there was a legitimate concern that some cars would park in the same place for a long time and forcing the current mexican statute regarding cards not being allowed to park in the same place for more than forty eight hours and also in bringing the band in car policy should address the issue and may address part of the concern about getting into driveways there is was a concern that the air on hope college is more problematic yes and no since hopes fall semester only overlap six to seven weeks of the four and a half months there is a limited time frame where it could possibly in pick presidents but again people are allowed to currently park between five am and two am and enforce forty eight hour parking only in one's budget hope alleviated this is also where the city and hope can work together hope knows which students have off campus county's housing they can educate those students on the new rules we need to work together as a community this is not a first as them it should not be one but also the city of cowen is larger than the just the area around hope college is a hope graduate but a current resident i don't think the around the area around hope college should be allowed to dictate conditions for the rest of the city if a problem continues then the city can carve out one sided parking or some other solution for the hope area there was a concern that this might make the police departments more difficult they have the utmost respect for the police and support them but i do not believe that allowing parking for the extra three hours wouldn't versus the impact of doing their jobs first to follow the logic of not being able to see criminals hiding between cars in the middle of the night one would conclude that the bandage there should be increased from sunrise to sunset dark is dark second i checked the police logs at the hot and powell and central post for the time frame of the trial last year the hauen police department is a very busy one but not as busy in the middle the night and checking dispatch calls between two am and find a home i found the average was between one to three calls and not all were crime related some were things such as well being calls the police department is much busier in the day in the evening i have absolutely no explanation for why there was a spike in calls and father's day weekend there was a concern that this would impact the children in the neighborhood since most children are not out on the street between five two to five am i don't think that's a concern or if they are oh we've got bigger concerns they're also concerned that bicycles might be out and could potentially be impacted by this but again not most by say most bicycles are not actually there between two and five am there was concern that those who come to holland to view the flowers would not be able to do so i don't know many who gave th idea but first let me address the premis and i guess it's the doing this is to accommodate supposedly so modern multi car families i grew up and got my first driver's license in the sixty's and i can tell you in general and there may be exceptions but there were larger families we got full board drivers licenses at the age of sixteen we didn't drive these little munchkin mini coopers and honda civics we had grand sports five hundred horsepower thunderbirds v a g teoh's i had an old buick electra the back seat was as big as a queen size bed gas was twenty seven cents a gallon they were easy to maintain and many kids in high school had more than one more cars per family than today but let's look at the flipside today smaller families smaller cars same driveways so to me the whole premise for doing this that we have to accommodate modern multi car families is just pain we false on its face and if that's all you've got to go on i really have to vote no but let me tell you why the current ban is really a big arrow in our quiver i've been a landlord for thirty years and more in holland and i've seen the growing problem of what we call extended families here in the city you can try and control this with elisa's you know put in no sublet clauses car limits occupancy limits no parking on the lawns all this stuff you can't enforce it often might only salvation is the city's no overnight parking ban no place to park the excess people the extra people they have to go somewhere else park on the street they get a fine him in the pocketbook and it hurts and it's great it keeps the noise down it keeps the crime down it keeps the traffic down now the city recently reviser housing code and you know there was a big discussion about that you can't tell me where you can maybe mr cotton can correct me but  city really have excuse me the resources to enforce that sort of stuff i don't think so i would just like to say that maintaining the current ban is a very elegant simple and passive way to preserve preserve and protect our quiet neighborhoods and i would urge counsel to take a deep breath and take some more time in looking at this because really it is the whole premise for doing this is that somehow things have changed times have changed they have in fact i really think that things are a lot easier for families now to be thank you very much thank you sed twenty fifth street sorry about that no little of any downside to the idea of allowing folks to park their cars on the street overnight at least during this five month window and although you  heard or have just heard stories that may cast the net negative light on this experiment it's so important that this you should be decided in the preponderance of evidence not the least of which i think is the opinions of the people who  have shown their opinions in this recent survey most of whom approve of this idea city services have proceeded as normal the city has not been swallowed up in a miasma of crime we're instead families have been given the opportunity you know a temporary respite from nightly juggling of cars as to who gets to park where in the driveway and indeed who must park in this in the yard i must say personally this is not an issue for my wife and i we're both retired our kids are long gone but we remember what this was like and it's a small thing i know moving the cars around it seems like an insignificant thing and most of us would gladly endure this if a greater purpose were served but in light of the public a lot of the pilot study and indeed the information provided you by the whole college students who spoke to you last year that purpose is difficult to discern the families of this town have enough on their plate without having to deal with that kind of inconvenience surely we can grant them such a small thing thank you thank you good evening and welcome thank you hello my name is matt young i'm a resident of holland at two hundred west twelfth street so i'm just down the street so i live on to a plane my wife and i have four children three of them are currently of driving age and one of them is turning sixteen in one month so we're going to be a six family driver if everything goes well so you can imagine that things can get pretty busy around our house especially in the summer when kids are home from college and coming to visit so on we also my wife is from a large family from ohio they love to come to holland in the summer as many of our relatives do and things can get pretty busy on our driveway not only that but we share a driveway so i live next door neighbors and i share a driveway and so we have quite a bit of competition for the space so i'm here to ask for a yes vote on this ordinance i don't just see it as a matter of convenience but really as a matter of quality of life it's really an issue of protection of our neighborhoods protection of our children let me explain why as i've seen my neighbors deal with their parking problems i've seen people park on their front lawns i've seen them park on their side lawns i see backyards being paved over to create more parking spaces so the neighborhoods get degraded and then there's it's also i think a safety issue that we used to live next door to jack and family in house and they were in their ninety's and then get the car up too much but since they passed away young families bought the house in our share driveway has neighborhoods neighborhood in the summers we call it the nightly dance we have to figure out who's going to put their current first who's going to have to get up in the morning where shuffling cards back and forth kids are running around and having to parker cars on the driveway just to avoid this two to five am window is actually creating a danger for the neighborhood children so i ask you to vote yes for the sake of the property for the secret children's safety there is a concern for ice last time that this would be the start of a slide or a slippery slope in a negative direction we may not be able to foresee where it's going but i would say rather this is an opportunity for the city to put a big plus on a resurgence in the neighborhoods families are moving back in people are buying houses they're fixing them up and having additional parking available in the summer months on the street will help those families to have a better quality of life and make the properties more desirable sharon did a great job of addressing all of the other concerns that were voiced except for one other concern that we might become more like europe i've lived in europe there are indeed parking problems most of the streets where those are problems were built in the middle ages and their solution is to allow evening and welcome i'm ian mcknight and i'm from ninety four west twelfth street well to some people on street parking may seem to be an unnecessary measure to prevent what i have heard called a first world problem this is far from the case in many of our city's central neighborhoods i live about a block from here on twelfth street our house was built in one thousand nine hundred eighty shortly after the great fire at the time of its construction cars as one might imagine were not a concern this shows unlike most of our neighbors we have an unconventional driveway situation our driveway is too narrow concrete tracks with grass in the middle the driveway is so narrow that the wheels of a modern car hang off either side resulting in an unsightly strip of dead grass in the yard in the summer besides the issues of the driveways themselves we have what was once called the car ballet the car ballet occurs every evening in the central neighborhoods and is the result of the simple fact that the last person home at night is almost never the first person to leave in the morning every night the last person home gets to perform the car ballet an elaborate and frustrating dance of cars around the street and into the driveway it occurs at night and involves a great deal of difficult maneuvering which occasionally results in collisions another issue that was brought up in the debate two years ago was the fear that children would jump from behind cars that were parked on the street first i would echo the concern that if we have children jumping from cars between two and five am we have bigger problems than parking perhaps the real risk is children it's not children jumping in front of cars in the street but rather jumping behind cars backing out of driveways every time that a car is reversed out of a driveway there is a risk for anybody on the sidewalk children play on sidewalks far more than they plan to then they play on roads behind parked cars mr peters passion for on street overnight parking is certainly not misplaced well it may not be a major issue in areas like holland heights or the south shore area or even the newer mayberg the newer areas of the the maple wood neighborhood in the central neighborhoods which are covered in large part by mr peters second ward on street overnight parking is truly a solution to a real problem and i would encourage you all to vote in favor of it thank you thank you good evening and welcome to four or five east fourteenth street parking at night hope you go against it if you don't have room in the summer time to park your car is where you park and in winter time we have some very large snow base all over the place last year we sent several pictures of all the trash our trash picked up on mondays street sweeper comes through on tuesday i'm right by the stadium there's a lot of trash it we end up picking up even the came through last year there was a car parked on fairbanks and fourteenth got a sticker because it was there over forty eight hours they moved it across the street two days later they put another sticker on it they moved it to thirteenth street two days later they were living in the car so the is went street to street so if we go against the parking overnight that will solve some of the homeless living there it will get rid of all the vehicles off the street and will help clean up the stuff we have a lot of foot traffic that goes to the stadium especially during graduation soul and hopefully you will be instant all right thank you that address for sixteen years and also i have served six six years on the historic district commission six years on planning commission so i'm very interested in the safety vitality and character of holland i think urge everybody to vote yes for on street parking i think my my son kind of stole a lot of my thunder here i really like that ability we have that grass strip it never looks so good as last summer when it got plenty arraign i'd really like not to have to pave that you know to keep it from from turning to dirt has several of my neighbors have guests definitely a big big issue for us we have grandparents that come to visit and we're three car family i think also just allowing truck you know encouraging people to park on the street axis so it has a traffic calming effect and i thought it was just a very convenient thing as far as seeing the number of cars on the street when i walked over here i saw seven cars i know tomorrow morning there's probably going to be the same seven cars the only difference is there are often those in those late hours so i would just encourage everybody to vote yes for that and thank you very much for your work here thank you anyone else all right i'll close the public hearing and we have had the request of the city attorney to if we're some oppose the motion probably best to propose with the amendments as indicated in the staff report by the city attorney support supported by birch discussion who would care to go first if anyone would care to go at all some middle ground that would be ok for most people so the question has been studied we've charted we've tested it and yet i'm sure that we're not going to totally agree as to the outcome of this and that's not necessarily bad i think it's healthy to get a good discussion i can understand the desire of the overnight parking in multiple vehicles people have in their own driveway is limited garages summer gas returning students from school all those kinds of things and those are certainly very valid things there are also concerns that were brought up to today one would be a vehicles that are not moved  are including a forty eight hour program in here and yet i sort of feel a little bit like maybe your neighbor has to narcan a neighbor in order to get that to go and that's kind of a fun feeling for one to perhaps be involved in  another concern that came did not come up tonight but came up before it was neighbors who parked in front of homes other than their own and in essence the other house becomes the parking lot for that neighborhood and that was talked about last year area students that one could monopolize the on street parking is real i've written around her college and last couple of days there is virtually very little parking and i can't believe how hope college has morphed into larger and larger sizes and parking is a huge huge problem ok that being said where is that middle ground and we we've talked a little bit about you know brian's talked a little bit about getting you know buying stickers or etc we talked a little bit about doing an odd even situation and  i really like the idea of an idea and we didn't we've kind of talked about in sets too complex and hey if we can do i pads and i phones and televisions and all those other kinds of things i think we can remember the day of the week and what side of the street to park on i don't think that's an unreasonable kind of thing and it would get rid of some of these things some of these problems cars that being moved neighbors continually parking in the same place in front of your house safety concerns from the home police department it would force college students to move their cars as well so i would like to throw it out i like to amend this ordinance by adding and add an even parking system to it and if there is a no parking one sided parking thing then the it would be allow park the opposite side of the street even though that might not be in the even kind of thing i think is a reasonable idea i think it gets rid of a bunch of things i think we can educate people to that and i think it's a middle ground idea so i throw it out there support or not support i can't control it so i've got to make the motion ok i've got a point of clarification as to our city attorney  the merits of the proposal or not i don't believe that is a valid offer of an amendment because we don't need specific language at this particular moment we we do what i would suggest is is that if counsel would like to go forward with a not even system that that that should be tabled and then we can present some specific language so that we have the details were accurate i just wanted to make sure that my recollection of robert's rules was what was close enough that one is that understand what what what we're talking about here the fact that the amendment typically requires a specific language to be inserted to vote on i would assume that we could allow the city attorney to develop language that would be workable that's true but that the way that do you know just to the notion of of odd even i've said it before i think that's going to create more fusion specifically considering the fact that that's not exactly what we tested we don't have any experience with that we have no data to rely  on we don't have a survey to rely on really kind of working from scratch there and i do believe quite frankly it would cause more confusion for our constituents i've said it in terms of the whole college neighborhood we have gone x to great lengths in the past couple years to address the issues in that neighborhood whether it be parking congestion changes in ordinance so there's infill and what you can and cannot do with the property who you can and cannot put in a property we've gone to extensive lengths to accommodate some of those issues i would find it hard to believe if there was an issue with narrow streets over there that the traffic committee would address that by coming together bringing us a recommendation for parking on one side of the street this body has a history of granting that by the high school when there were traffic and safety issues we've done in other spaces we considered it two weeks ago for another school area and so we have a remedy for that particular problem my preference would be to see it go that course we have a study before us that reveals some really good data and it's exactly wh anecdotes and hear if i talk about this last time but i i run very early in the morning and spent my kind of boring six mile runs trying to figure out how many cars were on the streets at five am and i literally counted i could count on one hand as i weaved up and down washington avenue or enroll t or harrison or cleveland which is which is my neighborhood and literally there are ten and these are blocks that are from eleventh street you know joes and janes neighborhood down to twenty fourth so they didn't result in the cataclysm that many people said it was also it wasn't overuse  and we look at every vehicles were per block i actually saw far fewer than that to be perfectly honest but i think this is the test when while i think we should proceed that's kind of the attitude i took going into this actually i do stand firm that we should actually find ways to help people build more garages so that people can put their cars and garages but that's not this thing so i'm actually go favoring this as i have through most of this process i think was a good test for the city the city manager for what he did to move this forward and to get us good data to help us make an informed decision  twelfth year of hanging around this place and there are a better number of issues that we've talked about of great import and that people have been passionate about home i don't know that we've taken seven years to talk about any of those the trial period that we went through was sort of a real life test to see if the saying had legs or if you know dire consequences were in the way in the making and i think we found out that that was not the case so i don't want to rehash all of that debt i think that all speaks for itself i guess the one thing that i would like to speak to is the fact that you know whatever decision we come to tonight not everyone is going to be happy and by some accounts that makes for a very sound compromise and i don't think that on street parking necessary is going to be a panacea for you know developing the livability or the desirability of of course  it going to be you know the dire downfall of that same neighborhood but it will play a part in what life looks like when you live in the center part of holland i was driving around a bit today up in the heights and knew some of the outlying areas and i'm convinced that the results of this decision will have very little impact on those areas you know there's two car garages double wide group driveways so that's not going to have an impact and if you've been listening here you know the mcknight versus the shoulder and stories of of reality in holland are kind of  diverse and i am glad that ed brought that up because i think it points out points out the fact that there are other issues here at play beyond just where we park or cars that we're going to have to deal with that stuff so i appreciate those stories  i guess i can feel a little bit for where wiens coming from but i'm not sure that i've even party is going to solve the kinds of the mr sting approach but i don't think it's going to solve the problems that ed was talking about what happened in his neighborhood so i think that we've done pretty good our due diligence in researching this in trying to come to a conclusion more so that we've done other things  pretty confident that i have the information i need to make a pretty solid decision again you know there's there's differences of opinion on both sides of this and we've heard him on to the point where i might lose a vote holland i've done my part to support the coffers of the city of holland and pay certain tickets and stuff and you know when you're sitting in the chair with you jamie's on your popcorn there and you life will go on holiday will be a great place and will adapt one way or another so i think life will continue to be good all right who's next if anyone the disconnect in some lines of thinking seems to be that it is only from two to five that we're talking about but when you require people to move a vehicle between two and five they usually don't get out at one fifty nine to do that in five or one in the morning so when that black is taken out of their evening you make it work that you move the car when it early enough for you to do it and you don't use the car again to drive it out until you need to leave so that that kind of changes a lot of the  arguments that can sound kind of condescending the safety concerns about not having parking are having on street parking come to me from the police department over the years and it's their concern at intersections to have good sightlines both ways and so they tell me that when there are cars parked in the way they cannot find people that they're looking for as well they also tell me that they are concerned when their when calls come into nine one one that if there are a lot of cars parked in the road or along the side they may not be able to park at the house they need to address the safety concerns of there may not be a place for a fire engine or they may not have be able to get there for us like they could if the streets were in the situation they are in now i don't think it's going to look as clean i don't think that people will be as motivated to keep up the area right in front of their house like if they're on to a plane because they know the chances of somebody's parking there for a long time are are pretty possible i do think that another concern that has come to me from the police department over the years is that when there is a rental property and there is unlimited parking on the streets that other police people from other places will just happen to stay at that rental property and they will not be limited by how many cars can park on that property they can park wherever they like and they can overload the rental property with people from where ever i do think it will cost us more money we will have to have signs more signs we will have to have the police department involved in watching over particular vehicles and one watching when they leave and ticketing them accordingly unless neighbors report on neighbors which is uncomfortable to some people have talked to me we will still have to have potential for parking in every city lot so whether it works in the summer or spring summer and early fall for six months for the other six months there still has to be the can create or whatever that has already been established for for parking the rest of the year and i have heard more people talking about year round parking year round on street parking and i think that will be the next step maybe in another couple years that one will come up i do think parking is becoming a bigger and bigger issue closer to downtown in the art museum opens this next september in the jack miller auditorium opens the courtyard by marriott opens the other property cross a street from that is developed more and more parking is going to disappear or chamber events and now downtown has outlawed on street parking but for chamber events we're going to have people parking trying to find parking all over the place through the whole college neighborhood and i do think that could be a bit harder for whatever events happen because people will just leave their car there and it really is hard to believe that the police will be watching over every forty eight hour parked vehicle to ticket it and they have way more important things to so i guess once again i don't think nor does anyone i think the council who has been against on street parking think that  we are in now had it for an apocalypse but i do think that we are saying it's an erosion of the high standard of living and i know i have heard what everybody thinks and so i realize that there are people who have been dealing with hardship that say that having not having on street parking erodes their quality of life and i understand that i get it but you multiply that throughout the whole city and you do change a standard it will look more like anywhere usa and that is a big argument for this doing this is the how come we don't have it what is wrong with us let us get with the program if we're going to really be with it as a city unbelievable we parking why are we so backward and you can look at it two ways whether it makes us backward as a community or whether it makes us one of higher standards and yet it is not convenient nobody has ever said it is so i really appreciate all the people that have taken time to give feedback to respond to surveys to show up for meetings to work out what you're going to say i mean it is really inspiring to have a father and sign a combination a legacy of planning commission people commenting on this and you know i love working with in the high ak i love his passion and i love his love of the city and i'm not saying that anyone here isn't here because a love the city of holland and believe me that is why i am here and it is not easy for me to take this stand it doesn't feel good when you feel as though you're standing for the basket and you feel as though you've been listening to the experts you feel as though this is your position and you need to do the really what you feel right about and i'm not saying that anybody here is doing anything wrong but i just know for myself in feeling responsible in the position that i've accepted that i have to vote no on this and i wish more people would and i hope i am so wrong i really deal i hope this doesn't add doesn't lead to an erosion i know this is going to be a burden on the transportation department and i know it's going to be a burden on our public safety departments i know there are a lot of state city staff that would much prefer that this not pass but they are all soldiers they will all do whatever the council says and the council is working to respond to the people and the other part of this is i feel as though it's not just what people tell me but it's also what those who who we pay to tell us what the best way is to do their jobs here to serve the citizens and i really been trying to listen to them too and there are people that have not been happy about this but they're afraid to come here they don't want to stand in front of somebody they don't want to have to make a speech and they don't want to feel embarrassed so they may just talk to a counselor and i feel like i need to be their voice as well so perhaps this is the sunset of the end street parking discussion in holland michigan but i doubt it it's the kind of issue that keeps happening and maybe the next sunrise will be year round on street parking and we'll probably hear from all of you again mean i've said my piece on this many a time i think this came up shortly after i got on council and i was in favor of precisely we're voting on this evening and i think that when you look at it from well as i look at it from the philosophical perspective what do you see roads as if you seem just for travelling or also potentially parking our view i think most everyone sees that by and large they're also for parking which is why the default position is you can park on the street  now that sometimes gets changed because we say in specific spots you can do so or specific times of the day you can't but the exception for that is because of an overriding concern i see the overriding concern this time of year as we witnessed over the past seven days it's important that the streets are clear so that they can be clear of snow but yet i don't see a huge problem with continuing what we saw last summer last summer confirmed all the thoughts that i have had and as we've said before there are very fine communities that we would be proud to be associated with who don't have overnight on street parking in their very fine communities that we would be proud to sociate with that have precisely what we're talking about here so it's how you interact in a community and i think it's important frankly that we look to be helpful to people who want to live in this town and we not make it in any more burdensome than we have to i'm probably the last guy who should be a planning on this i we've heard from tonight and from other times who say you know the the shuffle the dance the ballet whatever the description is it's under the broad heading of inconvenience and i don't think that that inconvenience overrides  or wherever for communicating with us both now this time around and last summer and years ago and it cetera et cetera ok takes us into we're through with item ten now that's right so we go  for some metairie road in saga tech but i'm here because for the past five years i've been in the museum and gallery manager at the holland museum i think you're all very familiar with and i'm not really here to address or anything like that but just more to ask a question  think everyone's aware of what's been going on financially at the museum and i was wondering if the council could address the reason or reasons for the recent decision not to include the museum on the ballot in may for a millage to to fund the museum and i love that you guys brought up about stetson wanting to represent your constituents because an overwhelming majority of your constituents did vote yes this past ition made that is is there going to be a discussion about that i will tell you there are discussions happening both in the private sector and the numbers of the public sector the three jurisdictions headed on the ballot  in the city of holland about whether or not it makes sense to put it back on the ballot i'll speak for myself i think it ought to be back on the ballot in all three jurisdictions that view i don't think is universally shared by the representatives i've talked with from other jurisdictions and i don't want to say who they are exactly but to the extent there's this rumor out there that the city has decided to not put on the ballot a there's been no such decision made be i think that if if everyone else were all back no problem and i would encourage that tell you know the other the folks who were in the private sector folks who are certainly i would encourage you to speak with some of them to see where some of the pressure points can be about putting this question back up again increase road funding piece that impediment goes out the window so again we haven't talked about it at the council but my suspicion is knowing the group of of the eight other persons up here that you know if everyone else decided to jump back in  would put it differently we would be leading the pack to jump back onto the ballot if we could make sure everybody else did like one because there's a reason that this was seen as a regional asset because i hope that provides some help thank you microphone remains open to anyone else we care to address council good evening well hello my name is stephen dom when i currently reside at fifty eight was fourteenth street a couple blocks away i have lived in home my entire adult life except  one for every compass point except for the great west and i swear when i walked in the door today on the corner my eyes saw paul wobble but then i turned my head he was gone and so with that i come with the inspiration and i have to admit this entire time has been entertaining interesting the way this all works i'm fascinated by it it's something a lot of citizens don't take the time to look at but what i did want to say is that i consider any city worth its  salt they have two very important components in it and one is a very strong library public library and the second is a museum especially one that holds our history and i've been here my whole life and i've seen the ethnicity that i love it i love the diversity our little town is down have now has i've seen times when i used to mow the lawn on sundays and i'd have a fist out of window and shaking mammy and saying why are you doing that you should be a church and i reply word on wednesday earlier this morning i'm going to go at six o'clock tonight but my father won't be the mobile lawn that is changed obviously there's nothing about hound i don't like i think our downtown is a crown jewel i think it's the most beautiful place on earth i really do i have owned a business in downtown so i said i would and i want to for ten years as i was going live downtown and i did for a few years until the parking permit situation made the move back to my beloved historical district where i've lived on the same side of the street in three different places in my adult life i just want to stress that the children of holland need a place like the museum to go to and i know that you're tied in with the other two  districts in order to have this pass i guess i don't know why that has to be i don't know if maybe we why the city can vote on its own i don't have any idea why we cannot now i think i've lived this city long enough that i know the private their whole lives and i look to them we can look to them only for so much they have only given given so much already and i don't know how much we can honestly just always depend on them to come you know write a check or help us out to do with we call bridge funding in this area and i hate doing a major recall it's i'm sorry i just did that i just did a twice but i do think i said i think the populous would support it i think if you just point to the city of holland and you made clear language legal language that yes the other two townships would benefit from this but it be out of your taxpayer pockets just the city of how no pay for it i think they would pass it and i think all you know they would pass it i hate to see the museum closed not just because my significant other has a job there because i treasure the museum like i treasure our wonderful library like i treasure my downtown and it is my downtown and it's your downtown and i love holland and i'd hate to see a little piece go away because if you walk into a permanent gallery and you walk through it and see everything as there you'll be reminded of the great how it is how great holland was and possibly how great how it will be because it will never fall this is an outstanding city with great values an abundance of wealth a very few people really recognise publicly but we're we've bounced against the whole recession we're in a bubble here but it's wonderful bubble and i love it here and i respond to what you said there is nothing i suppose that prevents the city from alone putting it on the ballot but part of the reason we got to where we are is if you look over the past twenty years the public support of the area of that population to a third forty percent of the popular and i think we're three and if you look at the differential in tax rates if you look at the differential of who supports what for years and years and years and years and years the city has  gone far and above beyond what any other of the area jurisdictions have done to the point where in the numbers some years ago i want to say it was among the all the public financing that happened over a let's say of ten to fifteen year period the city was in the ninety five percent range of what it is and part of maturing as a community is frankly understanding that the assets that benefit the community the entire community ought to be funded by the entire community and i think there's broad recognition of that being the case because we see it with other things like the next transit system which used to be city operation only and now it's run by a separate authority the airport which used to be a city operation now is run by an authority everything from nine one one to library district which is which is beyond the city of the community pool or aquatic run on the jurisdictional basis that exceeds that of just the city of holland because to do otherwise is to unfairly burden the taxpayer and resident of the city of holland and  give incentive for people to enjoy all the amenities of the community but live outside the jurisdictional bounds so that they don't have to pay for the amenities of the things that make the community great  the effort to have this this milledge on the three largest jurisdictions in the area remember that home township is larger a little by tax base and a larger and larger a little by population density of holland park township has a little over half the residents of the city of holland but a tax base that probably approaches three quarters to eighty percent of the city of holland the idea is to more equitably fund and a very very important asset so i think that you know your concern about the museum is shared and i can tell you i've spent many an hour in meetings talking about before the election after election what happens and i would like to see it back on the ballot again but i don't believe it is something that frankly the city taxpayer ought to bear alone it's a community asset that tells our collective story not just the city of holland's story in iraq the the costs of doing so and that the benefit of having it is community wide and therefore the support for should be as well so we can talk later if you'd like anyone else care to address council this evening i  don't twelve all right let us then move into our reports think we turn the page at two point three no we didn't there mine two point one oh yes i'm sorry the parks and recreation piece will island mr kenyon the director of the parks and recreation department about exactly what we're asking for and it is actually six thousand five hundred dollars out of this current year's budget to be added to the women island gardens account to help pay for some sellable tory events that are going to be taking place this summer due to the island's fiftieth anniversary the balance will then be put into the fiscal year sixteen's budget which is yet to be determined exactly what that amount so this will be a good opportunity for a plug and we're terribly excited about having it and we're going to put together some really nice momentos to celebrate that event including lapel pins new flower bags with the new logo for now the new logo but celebrating the fiftieth just a little bit ok the report starts out i understand the sixty five hundred dollars from this year's budget the bill is coming out of therefore i sixty no problem with  starts with a budget of twenty two thousand then it goes into twenty two thousand your supporting documentation shows twenty thousand correct  the twenty two thousand was is actually a typo ryan and i talked about that just before and it should have been twenty thousand and the sixty five hundred was part of the i've got no problem with not the question is are we spending or are we budgeting twenty two thousand are we budgeting twenty thousand are we budgeting eleven thousand i've heard all three numbers so i'm fantastic with this whole idea like i said earlier and i was only half kidding it's a golden anniversary probably ought to get gold sales for the windmill sure whatever we need to do we need to celebrate it to spend there it's got a great asset but i need to know and we need to have this budget nailed down as to what it's actually going to cost correct so sixty five hundred dollars is right twenty two thousand dollars was a typo it should have been twenty thousand dollars total our hope as a team of putting this event all these events on is that we can generate some revenue from the sale of the flower from these pens from other momentos that will be able to sell so our hope is that with the sixty five hundred dollars we can find some of the events are already scheduled in this fiscal year as well as by some merchandise that we can sell to generate money to help pay for the the balance of it so the net we hope he's going to be eleven thousand dollars the nine i mentioned one thousand dollars in expenses in our budget sixty five hundred of it now and the balance of it after the next fiscal year so hopefully we generate some revenue to help the event carry our bottom line is you've been to subpoena to twenty thousand dollar event correct through t fiscal years correct you're into supporting but cannot guarantee that you may get some revenue to offset that bottom line is you're going to worst case scenario twenty thousand all wishes and hopes and during else it's going to be down to eleven thousand but correct bottom line is twenty thousand yes thank you all right but the item his four sixty five hundred correct correcting as to the budget transfer correct so if hypothetically the the bottom falls out of the bucket and not a red cent comes in you'd have to come back before us to get this change to twenty thousand will actually put in our current budget year next fiscal year we're going to anticipate that that will be put in the right which will come to us five hundred from so we're approving the whole budget sure but but we're not saying where the money is coming from my point being the is there was an error i want to know this whole budget is twenty thousand dollars ok right but that has been clarified there was a typo the recommendation says to approve the proposed budget to twenty two thousand were not approving that were approved twenty thousand with a f y twenty fifteen transfer of that of from the general fund in the amount of sixty five hundred dollars i'm cooler right i just i don't want to go into this with an ambiguous number that doesn't have an end ok that was my point gotcha but but the hypothetically of no other with no other monies are raised we cannot commit a future council even ourselves to a future vote approving future dollars the balance of f improvements for the digraph nature center received thirty dollars from philip and marian been heis the trail trot five k fun run for the digraph nature center received a two thousand dollar donation from the hauen horticultur society when myron gardens received two donations one from an anonymous donor in the amount of five thousand and eighty one thousand dollars for landscaping from the howland horticultural society the two thousand and fourteen summer concert series sponsorship received i was an dollar donation from huntington national bank it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation in an expression of gratitude nature center trail tracked and so i called them and the highland horticultural society is supporting that which is awesome and it's kind of a twofold event that they are going to have and june eighteen and he said actually the the activity before the trail was even better received than the trail tracked and i'm like what is what was that well they had an actual madagascar kissing cockroach race which i had never heard of they lined up the little mascara kissing hissing sorry up in a little racetrack with four different lanes and you can bet like march madness and people just went wild with it and so they have they're keeping the little madagascar hissing cockroaches and they will be back on june eighteenth so if you'd like to go to that awesome event to make money for the digraph nature center please put that down on your calendars six o'clock is the cockroaches seven o'clock is the trail track and it should be a really fun evening and it's wonderful that the horticultural society supports the digraph nature center in that way by a sponsoring the whole event and they'll have t shirts and all that stuff and also appreciate them supporting the digraph nature center and it's really an scaping as soon as we get that house taken down and redo the whole entrance to the digraph nature center it's amazing when you read over this list of all the wonderful things that are happening and i love sharing the concerts at collin park with the huntington donation for sponsoring all of those concerts on friday nights this summer it sounds so good and are having second thoughts well participating in this but nonetheless it's an important part of the community energy plan it's a pretty important part i think of the georgetown university energy prize effort we're undergoing and it's a great opportunity for i think the the goals of the c e p t and of the georgetown prize planning to to be made known to our community in ways that perhaps people are confused about so with that mr city manager ryan i turn it over to you to that with us in the audience tonight is peter bouckaert who is chair spokes person i guess because of the citizen task force and also a time miller who is with schneider electric who is was the winning consultant for creating a plan for upgrading homes for energy improvements as well as a pilot program so the slides here simply reiterate we expect to get significant energy savings for individuals both lowering their bills as well as for improvement in comfort as well as for competing for the georgia energy prize the actions to date are noted there and we are back at this point in time where you're going to get a status report this week and two weeks from now you'll be in a position to approve authorize actual changes in the infrastructure for up to twenty five homes as the first phase of this pilot program we have ninety two individual homeowners who are interested in this and twenty five been selected and this is our budget which we've got over many times and it's substantially supported by some who's a huge partner in this with the board of public works and the city of holland in terms of your last couple of budgets and the intent is to learn so i'd like to invite tie up to the podium you can choose of measures that we found in the twenty five homes the goal here was to try and put together options for homeowners so every home will receive a good better best option the intent of your also was to see if every home would qualify for some sort of improvement we have about fifteen of the twenty five completed in this good better best option category so far they all have good better best options the goals were in the good to get something that was  less than a ten year payback most of them are between five to eight years the better category that you see there is for up to fifteen years of payback and a little bit of a deeper retrofit and then the best is really everything that we could do that would try to get the home as close to fifty percent energy production as possible that's not impossible in every home but there's no real payback acquirements with the best option so as i said we're on schedule we've  been to fifteen homes we presented the homeowners both last week and this week it will be presenting to the rest of them next week so when ryan mentioned that in a couple weeks you'll get a full report you'll get the full report  twenty five homes that have had these done as well as the homeowners and what they think about them whether they're going to finance the improvements with the good the better the best and how they plan to move forward so that's where we are to date and more information to come that uses energy within the home or the what we call the house on the lope which is doors windows the seat you know the rough anything the exterior of the home and then there's a health life safety section that just advise the homeowner if we find typically will do a blower door test on the home which basically is a way to decide or to measure how much air is coming through the home there's a recommendation under this pressure of test for three or changes per hour the way the test is run a lot of the homes to date are quite a bit higher than that in this case i think it was twelve so four times as much air as going through the home and as is recommended for healthy air in a home but still in being an energy efficient and that's a common finding so far this year page the of all the task forces there's a labeling task force and they have chosen this this label this residential energy performance score so we decided to use that same score for the homes that were  the windows the mechanical systems all those things this next page the homeowner will receive is their actual energy use so the labels not based on actual energy use but this is the previous year of gas and electric  then below that are the measures that are being evaluated or recommended and then below that is what they can potentially save if they if they did all of them as a percent overall percentage in both kilowatt hours which is electricity therms which is gas and then dollars savings as well and they were back to this the table that we spoke to earlier the good better best option all receive those options and with the breakout of cost  you'll savings rebates and then something else at the beginning is a projected new score for the label if they did those improvements of course their label will improve and so there's a projected new score there as well t way or they're not interested at all this will just give us some good data which is program manager we were hired to do to decide what what this program might look like in the future excellent thank you ty questions for ty that's helpful information and i think it's good to see it so people can have an understanding of what we've been talking about for months and months and months what is this retrofit stuff what are these audit things this is what you get this is the result of it and in the process she went through  so very very helpful questions for time at all so the quest of us this evening is to accept as information the status report that schneider has offered to us thing else you'd like us to do this evening that's exactly correct discussion at all seeing none i guess will call the roll on that even though probably don't need to will call the roll please enter fantasy just might mean yes that's true structure become more fish so we're talking about doing an audit of those facilities to make recommendations on the types of energy conservation measures that the city itself can do in the the infrastructure in the buildings the they own  this is a list of some of the buildings others a few that aren't on there but basically any city building will be looked at and we'll see if there are ways to save energy and to make them more energy efficient at a high level  look overall energy savings could fund up to three million dollars in our in our initial look sort of the probably the best option if you think about that or the the good better best for the home we won't know until we get in there and actually make some recommendations and bring bring those back to administration and council and there's also specific michigan law compile laws one seventeen five f allows a city to finance these if they if they wish rather than having to budget the money up front this project of course as you know you guys are well versed in energy efficiency and the value of that but there's carbon reduction there's jobs created there's there's all kinds of benefits too to do in these types of projects and the plan schedule wise is about a three month development so that's that audit phase and then six to eight months of construction so please by the end of the year we're talking about everything that's been done and new energy usage for the city and everything's been upgraded this is that whole discussion of project financing and performance contracting and i built by all those kinds of things come into play with this whole project so the idea is that the payback occurs from the energy savings so we keep paying in essence bigger bills that we have to go after these things are taken care of but that access ends up going to you into the other work that's been done to make the buildings more energy  ones that get paid off you know the city and ultimately the taxpayer saves money on a going forward basis is a classic win win situation that allows whether it's our organization whether it's other businesses whether it's home owners to be able to with families i mean we hear these big can sets of a community energy plan and how we want to bring down our bills and help to make this a better environment and and be good stewards and have a quality community and be creative in entrepreneurs and sponsor good education about how about energy and and have compassion for each other those are the main bal use that were set up by the home energy retrofit people which are just sterling values for our community and we just appreciate you coming alongside the homeowners to say yeah it's a it's a big deal and let's just take a walk and go through the house and figure out what kind of things can be done and and that is just so helpful and when a multiplier that time the one household has another house all kinds another house let me that makes a difference citywide and so we appreciate your patience with our meeting tonight and for all the help that you have been for the community and your continued investment in our community thank you motion passes excellent thank you very much for the appreciative thanks as then i believe down to communications from the city manager this evening right thank you and it's nice to see folks in the audience who are learning and hopefully enjoying themselves as well so i wanted to just appreciate your attendance being here let's not push it learning perhaps enjoying well three items really thank you for recognizing that any canyon is a director parks and recreation and brian white is now also a full director of transportation engineering services so that position employment has been made and communicated and we may see more of it as we go forward in other media outlets second there were forty tickets issued last night with people parking during the winter months on the street and that by no means is permitted and i don't believe will be permitted ever certainly not with any recommendation from from me so that does earn revenues for the city that we hope people would keep for themselves at ten dollars a ticket so it is important for plow drivers we do get people who get stuck in these wind rows and it's important for their fellow community member to to pay attention and be out of the street so the snow blower can do their job lastly speaking of doing our jobs our public safety department does get to hydrants when time permits especially in multifamily areas but we need the community's help because there's seven thousand eight hundred hydrants and when the snow is drifting and has been plowed as you know off the streets and around the hydrants it saves precious minutes and asked people to adopt a hydrant in their neighborhood thank you all right thank you ryan appreciate that and congratulations to andy and  nice little indian eleven going on here that's for sure well for me this evening and i am looking for something specific which is why i'm not looking up like i am right now we want to certainly little video that shows kind of a bird's eye view of what it's like to be streets or more perhaps appropriately and some of those shots to be having yourself be plowed by the plows so it's it's hard work it's grueling it's not terribly visible so give these folks lots and lots of room if you would were available for comment get ahold of us city hall and dot com find contact information for us phone numbers email addresses other ways to communicate with us but we do want to hear what you have to say about what's happening in this community things we're doing that you think we're doing well things they think we're not doing well and things that perhaps we're not even thinking about  and that is an important piece of engagement in community engagement in our community we also like to put as much information as we possibly can onto the city's website we understand that this is a really nice building to come into it's historic and wonderful and in so many ways and the people who work here are uniformly friendly and helpful but there are times either you're always away or it's ten o'clock at night and city hall is not open or frankly you just don't have time or really want to go into city hall we try to put as much information as we can on of the city's website and hopefully you're able to access that as easily as anything else that you might be able to do in person so that's my report for the for the week for this these january thirtieth twenty eighteen and then a resignation regretfully two except of shana keiser from the teen court advisory board she was an f large member of this board and i have not been terribly  privileged to really see team court operate much in action but to a person anybody who i've ever talked with from an adult standpoint who sees team court do their work whether it's the court board whether it's the person appearing before the court board it is a very very serious process and one that i think serves her community credibly well and frankly i'm told many many times that the court board is in many instant it is tougher on the juvenile person appearing before them than what a quote unquote real judge would be so it's a very good learning opportunity and i think the fact of being a judge by peers plays an important role in it and i think is an important piece of hopefully reducing recidivism and seeing people turn the lights around which is ultimately the goal of what we're trying to accomplish with that i would put that before you for your consideration and i hope that you might consider approving it so  motions and resolutions while and look at the city attorney to make sure he's not going to cause us and this will heartache by calling us into closed session and he's not doing so which means that all we have left to do this