good evening it is march what we're that much closer to spring and we're glad to have you here this evening we would like to start with the roll call please and bird and after that we will do the pledge of allegiance we ask that you stand with us if you are willing causes such people are often reasonable irrational and self centered forgive them anyway if your kind people make you feel selfish ulterior motives because anyway if you are successful you are when someone faithful friends and some genuine enemies succeed anyway if you're honest and sincere people many people may deceive you be honest and sincere anyway what you spend years creating others could destroy overnight create anyway if you find serenity and happiness some may be jealous be happy anyway the good you do today will often be forgotten do good anyway give the best you have and it will never be enough give your best anyway in the final analysis it is between you and god it was never between you and them anyway thank you david the family has so much truth in her life thank next we'll go to our consent agenda which is a list of items that we will approve with one motion at the end of the list however you may have come here because you wanted to speak about one of the items that is read as a part of that consent agenda should that be the case at the end of this paralysis reading of these consent to gender items i will open it up and you may come to the podium give us your name and address in which i had him you would like taken out of the consent  genda that was that way we will handle that item when it shows in its sequence otherwise it will go as it's planned here so am i please read the consent agenda item for b to approve the minutes of the feb fifteenth  development district application submitted by l g chem michigan at one way item twelve a one to approve an additional capital recovery amount of eleven thousand eight hundred seventy two dollars and eighty six cents per month for the district thermal energy rate effective january one two thousand and seventeen through december thirty one two thousand and twenty two at which time it will be calculated to recover the remaining capital  over a twenty year period at it interest rate applicable for twenty years a double a rated municipal bonds twelve b one and seventeen aid to accept in place on first reading a zoning ordinance amendment to rezone fourteen forty two and fourteen fifty do link any avenue from an age agricultural district to the i one industrial district with final adoption scheduled for the march fifteenth two thousand and seventeen regular meeting item twelve the one to refer a claim filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier in city attorney for consideration to remove item twelve d two from the agenda item twelve ethe re point one to authorize the parks and recreation department to apply for a grant in the amount of seventy five thousand from the michigan department of natural resources recreation passport program which will be used for construction of the new dog park to be located it b january two thousand and seventeen monthly financial reports as presented item twelve eve four point three to adopt a resolution approving seven neighborhood enterprise certificates for fifty u s condo kind use i'll see also known as g d p construction for the project at the south side of eight street west of river avenue four point four to schedule a public hearing for march fifteenth to create an industrial development district requested by l g chem michigan inc for property located at seventy five n one o one east forty street and to direct the deputy clerk to handle all notice requirements including publishing eve five point one to approve the donation of a two thousand and fourteen from crown motors for their greed upon me straight of a dollar per month for the period of twenty four months and twelve effective point two to reject all bids for the kitchen renovation and building improvements to the car in part by your station and to direct the public safety administration and staff to develop a comprehensive capital improvement plan inclusive of all for your stations and associated grounds item twelve east explained to to cancel the wayne state april fifth two thousand and seventeen city council meeting and rescheduled to wednesday april twelfth two thousand and seventeen at seven p m eastern point three to approve the lease agreement with mcdonald jeweler solutions inc for the temporary office trailer for the hauen farmer's market cost includes a one time charge of nine hundred forty five dollars and a monthly charges of one hundred sixty dollars subject to approval as to form by the city attorney item twenty six point four to reject the bids for the city's downtown parking identification zine and item twelve east six point six to approve the appointment of transportation director bryan white to the city of hallam board to review thank you and that wasn't easy but your throat made it thank you now perhaps one of those items was something that you wanted to talk about and that's why you came so if that's the case please come up to the podium give us your name and address and which item you would like taken off that consent agenda seeing man will turn to the counsel is there any item that you would like taken off of consent yes white yes yes yes merely thank you so we will move and we come right away to public comment is anyone here who would like to talk we've got the thunderstorms last night thank you does anyone have anything they would like to comment and that is not on the agenda later ok thank you will close public comment then we move on to the adoption of ordinances at this point we would need a motion to suspend the rules to be able to combine both items has ten a and twelve he six point wisconsin where the general kava group has built projects like this and have been in existence for some time as city staff would make that journey as well as any members of the community who would like to be part of this as you heard suggested and anyone else who's interested from planning our council so tonight we do have representatives from the general kava group here mr josh have from who may have something to say i'm not certain we do have a property owner and also members of the public so before you act on this matter perhaps you'd like to see if anyone would like to add anything if you would like to if you feel you like to go forward and definitely i will go through a fifteen minute presentation ok ahead go ahead we need your name address you're free to speak for five minutes a green light means yellow light means you have one more minute and a red light means it's all there ok thank you my name is alan hoekstra i work at one ninety the river avenue in holland and i would simply like to start by saying i'm fully supportive of providing low income housing in our community i think it's critically important i also want to make sure that it's done well and when i say done well meaning in terms of the location of the project as well as the tenant structure of the project and we need to do it well for the residents in the city of holland the proposal will have the granting of this pilot will have a significant impact on downtown holland for many years it's a thirty year deal so i simply want to make sure we think it through thoughtfully and make sure it is the right project for holland if the first question or comment i would have is does the development specifically concentrated all low income in one location development aligned with the city's strategic plan secondly i'd just like to note that the the viability of the project really does seem to be dependent upon significant tax incentives from the city of holland and i'm just wondering if the magnitude of these tax breaks have been clearly defined in other words what is what is the present value of the tax breaks that are being given  and then also is the tax breaks are the tax breaks be contemplated are they equitable to the other tax payers in the city we have a somewhat significantly reduced tax base due to the number of large number of non profits in our city already i also have some questions about diligence that may or may not have been done regarding the developer and there are other developments my review of their website does not indicate that they've completed any other projects in michigan i'm wondering if we have visited any of their completed and seasoned housing projects i think visiting a project that's been up and running for say a minimum of five years would be very helpful to see what it looks like at that point also have we received any references on this developer you know either from other other cities where they operate or from their bankers or other professionals that they work with when i reviewed the information i didn't see information regarding the resident selection criteria which i think is very critical i did see a general document but i'm not sure it was tailored to the specific project in then just in terms of the chop of project that is being contemplated all of the tenants in the project will be low income based on the way the project's been presented in and again just wondering if we've visited other developments that have as the tenants all low income and compare those to projects where you have a mix of income with some market rate tenants as well as low income tenants so given some of those things my requests should be that you consider tabling the pilot until you can work through some of these and i certainly understand the pressures of the mish the application process and deadlines and dates but i think really our objective should be to make the right decision for the city of holland  my last comment would be is that this is a great city we live in a great city we have a great downtown and it didn't happen by accident it took a lot of people working together collaboratively giving a lot of good thought to what is the right decision for the city of holland for the long term thank you thank you we can't clap sorry pass a pilot ordinance and also agree to it m s a and i strongly believe this project will be an asset for the community for many many years to come before i get to the project i think be worthwhile and i can do this without the sides of them come up with while they introduce general capital general capital was founded by two brothers michael and david weiss in the mid ninety's it started out as a grocery anchored shopping cent developer for kohl's work through about ten kohl's foods deals and then kohl's got out of the food business and general capital began doing in later years working on round these deals we built the first mariano's which is a higher end around these product in chicago in the illinois rather their first project in illinois in arlington heights the commercial side of our business which include includes the shopping center development business also includes build to suits four we've done three for the g s a we've done student housing we've done market rate housing we've done industrial built to suits and value add retail acquisitions the side of the business i work on is the residential development side where we develop residential apartments one of the tools we used to develop residential apartments is tax credits we've developed or twenty three tax credit projects in general capital  know it was formed for those projects or i should say we have four awards for tax credit projects in michigan we just completed construction on our first project in michigan we opened on february twentieth it was a forty two unit building downtown pawpaw we are already forty eight units of the forty two units thirty eight already spoken for we will be probably will be fully least up by the end of march the project is viewed as a although it's still in its infancy i think is viewed as a great success by the city of papa we had tremendous support from the city council as we landed on the reliable sports site we went through probably two to others had the contract had the property under contract it fell through and then the seller decided to go with us we think it's a tremendous location for housing it's obviously the community values the spot as i can tell from your comments at the last meeting but just to reiterate it's across the street from a park next to city hall down the street from the library in the immediate thanks so it'll be a fifty four unit apartment project thirty nine thirty nine of the units will be one bedrooms fifteen will be two bedrooms to be fifty fifty for indoor parking spots will have a fitness room a business center a leasing office and a community meeting room they'll be a full time manager on site there also be a maintenance engineer working at the building there will be residential screening and the building will be a lead so over a building being skipped the next like we're this project will be a workforce housing project is comprised of one and two bedrooms which is somewhat dissimilar to other attacks where projects where there are more oriented towards families where you'll have a larger number of two bedrooms and a larger number three bedrooms and possibly four bedroom units the project will be targeted toward millennia project is the marketing of the marketing of the building which we can skip a slide we've actually done to work force housing projects in milwaukee and from the discussion below earlier it sounds like some of you are we making a trip up to milwaukee and we were more than happy to have have you visit the first project is beer line b which is one hundred forty unit tax credit project located on the milwaukee river in a high rent condo area of milwaukee property was very well received and was it was a target market was millennial so if you skip to the next i please you'll see that the advertising in the marketing for the project was geared towards a younger audience the second workforce housing project we've completed is on the next slide called height house loss there's a sixty unit project in bayview which is a kind of artsy bohemian you know area of milwaukee  that's you know experiencing a renaissance because people from the east side of milwaukee are moving here because of the lower rents and in the next slide you'll see as well some of the creative marketing that we use to attract millenniums to to the  to the project so when you come to milwaukee we'll be happy to show you these two projects which are relatively new or vintage hyde house might be and i don't know maybe four or five years old your line might be about that's in there maybe a little little little younger but then we can take you to some of our older projects and you can see how those have been maintained and we're very proud of the product projects we've built and it's coming into a spot where the centennial park apartments is to be the location and how it is not something we take lightly the design of the building the way will consist of materials we used to construct a building will be something that you know we will certainly be proud of and will take pride in and it's hopefully something that we can prove to you through your visit to milwaukee and through the information we share with you that you will be able to see vote on hopefully and then  that i hear is going to be adopted at the march fifteenth meeting and i looked at the housing section of that plan and specifically on the housing section of the plan there are three bullet points that i think are extremely relevant to our project and i've listed those bullet points on the slide and you know the first the first one is promote higher density development and a mix of housing you types in redevelopment and in field development projects adjacent to and in downtown on major thoroughfares the next one is work to promote the design and construction of affordable housing the changes the perception of the quality it makes are desirable in that unity the third one is promote housing diversity to account accommodate different household income levels housing types and density i think centennial park apartments will accomplish these goals per you know to a t this is exactly what we're doing the fact that the and i'll get if you go to the next slide i'll get to the discussion of the concentration of of fordable units in one place right here it sounds like a lot of people in the community are familiar with alice asset limited income constrained employed  these are the people we're trying to trying to help with this affordable housing thirty five of our units will be it will be for people below sixty percent in my that's twenty one thousand nine hundred fifty for one person household and thirty three th three thousand for a two person household eight of the units will be for people at fifty percent am i or less and it's twenty four thousand three hundred twenty seven twenty seven thousand for two person households and then eleven of the units will be a thirty percent which is for less than fourteen thousand for one person in sixteen thousand roughly for two people my eyes are i didn't realize my eyes are getting this bad but i can see the screen but anyway the point is that that the the  is we have sixty's fifty's and thirty's there are no met market rate units in here because unfortunate these at this point in time in the tax credit world market rate apartments in tax credit deals are infeasible because of the declining credit pricing as with the talk of corporate tax reform so you're have it's not unusual i would say it is usual to have one hundred percent affordable housing complexes and the people that were serving are these people that the alice alice study is focused on people who are employed who are paying rent and i can make this more clear this is not subsidized rent these people are paying these rents with jobs they have to help them live in an area that is a desirable place to live we have you know point is you know the important point on this is that once a person moves into the project it is a complex we or she will not be forced to move out if their income rises above a certain level so it truly is  can be a starter rental apartment where you can stay for as many years or as long as you want let me talk about rents for a second and this will this it feeds into the alice as well the rents for the one bedroom apartments will range between three seventeen and seven zero seven and for the two seven for the two bedrooms will range between three seventy nine hundred forty seven and we you know these are the dictated rents according to the u nix we have we also think we're helping holland meet the needs of the target about market analysis that was done last may the study completed may of last year illustrated that there were a eight thousand renter units to be built over the next five years from two thousand and fifteen and we're only a small sliver of that and specifically that the study documents there's five hundred forty five apartments needed in the downtown the five downtown neighborhoods so we think we're hitting hitting three major areas that we perceive that the city is concerned about the the the new comprehensive plan we're getting housing goes there we're hitting trying to help people asset constrained asset limited income constrained employ people live in holland who specifically will target millennialists who are please i don't so you know want to we don't take this investment lightly we're we're not we think this is a this is a is a stable and long term viable apartment complex we're will own the projects this project for at least fifteen to seventeen years and in those people being principals  general capital only myself michael weiss david weiss and then four or five other employees of general capital will have an interest in the property as well michael weiss david weiss and myself will provide personal guarantees to the tax credit investor on the deal so that if anything goes wrong in construction in the operations of the project or we you know there was some concern earlier in the study session about renting to people who might not be in the affordable buckets we could be called on that and that could trigger a recapture of the credits and the investor could come to us or will come to us to repay  them and that's a personal guarantee will provide for the life of the first fifteen years of the project that's why will own the project and be invested in the project to make sure that it runs correctly the the in the investors in the mind here is that these institutional investors who are investing in the deal are also watching the deal and they're inspecting the project probably once you know once they're out there during construction monitoring the construction so there's a third party construction m there there then at stabilization then they probably the visit the project once every two years if everything's ok everything's not ok they'll come out more often the lender will also visit the project and will visit the project so there are lots of layers of oversight on the project it's not a typical apartment deal where you have a lend part in the developer and and there's no oversight from an institutional equity investor or per se a state agency the other thing at the other protections built into the deal are that we will capitalize on operating reserve at completion of the project and that's a requirement of the of the equity investor so we'll have close to one hundred eighty five thousand close to two hundred thousand dollars sitting in an to be used in cases of emergency the other thing that we do and are mandated to do and we happily do is we reserve three hundred dollars a unit per year for replacements so if there is you know appliances or capital repairs are needed we'll use that replace draw on that replacement reserve which is an addition to the operating reserve to fund needed capital repairs and then the other think the important thing is that although we're to only for the first fifteen or seventeen years once you have a tax credit deal in a location like this it becomes possible after year fifteen or year seventeen after the initial credit compliance period expires to rescind a kate the deal and what that means is to apply again for tax credits receive a capital infusion and basically redo the building so we would like nothing more than general capital that we build this building we hold it for seventeen years it performs you know great and seventeen years from now we go back to mr and say mr look we need to do and we're not expecting this but or this is the type of this we would go back to mr and say the building the building will be fine and i don't want to upset it with but we'll go back and say look we want to we want to spend thirty thousand dollars a unit rehabbing the building to make it look new will apply for tax someone we are someone else could apply for taxpayers again it's already a tax credit it's in a well located area it has a you know fifteen years seventeen years and i don't know what's going to happen but that deal if it were today if today were fifteen years from now or seven years from now we'll get credits again you know if we're successful  so there is a there is a possibility of significant capital infusions in my point is there's a possibility of significant capital infusions in the deal fifteen to seventeen years from now based on recent occasion and that means applying for credits again and i should mention that doesn't harm the the affordability of the building the building will be if and when we apply the mission of the building will be affordable for at least the next forty for the next forty five years  so you know the point the point the point i'm trying to make is that the to the credit world offers u checks and protections that aren't in traditional real estate deals because of the nature of the investment so i'm suggesting that this deal though it seems a little out of the norm and it's a you know you've got mi n you've got tax credits and we're talking pilots it's and it's it sounds you know as so tara it's actually builds into a very solid transaction that is different than what you find a market rate deal so weird for you tonight asking for it tonight we're asking for a pilot but for things in general are asking for from the city the four things are is the plan approval which the planning commission is working on a zoning letter from the planning commission which they're working on as well we're asking the city council for the pilot agreement which is a four percent and we're asking for an m agreement if i could talk for a second about the pilot and the impact of the pilot and the city and city finances right now the project the reliable sports buildings are paying the city are paying i should say paying taxes and special assessments of thirty six thousand dollars a year of that thirty six thousand dollars only seventeen thousand dollars goes to the city and that's because milage goes to obviously different agencies under our proposal with a four percent pilot the city would receive twenty four thousand dollars a year in real estate taxes municipal service fees so net and the municipal service fees and pilot will escalate over time because the pilots based on a percentage of rents less utilities so as rents climb the pilot will climb and then the m s a has a feature as a c p i price adjuster feature in it that will increase it i think it's a two percent a year going forward so the city if nothing were to happen to this project in the real is to the side the reliable sports building were to stay there the city you know would would be net down you know seventy thousand dollars a year we understand a pilot's a special request and it's and we understand in this case it's a very special request given the location of the city but it's critical to our project for a couple reasons one is that the process to apply to misha is extremely competitive there's probably three or four applications for every award a pilot gives an application points and without those points our application would not be competitive the second reason it's critical is that the affordable rents we're charging would not allow us to pay or would we could hard to be feasible to to run a building at those rents that's why we get the credits and get the pilot i would say though that that it's it's we do market rate development too and in other communities and you know there are other incentives available to market rate developers that are available to us for example and in another project we're working on in michigan we have commercial abatements from commercial commercial baby and certificate which will on a new construction building will cause the commercial zero commercial real estate taxes for seven years the second incentive that we are receiving in that deal because it is  earth that i that is available is that there is the possibility that there is a residential enterprise or a neighborhood enterprise zone where the effect you know my understanding the effectiveness of that is that the real estate taxes for a market rate building are century cut in half so we're we understand it's a special class and every developer you know comes and asks for what they ask for we think we're asking for it for a very good reason we think we're developing a project that we're proud of that we hope you're going to be proud of that we think is a statically pleasing that's going to help me city objectives help people live in a great area and b be an asset for the  for that for years to come so we've enjoyed working with the sit with you the city council today we've enjoyed working with the city staff with ryan and mark have been great we welcome you to to milwaukee to visit our propert s to have a more to get to know each other better to have a given you no longer even take and we think we're confident i'm very confident that when you come up and see what we what we've done in  yes before you run away you have a one minute or less definition between section forty two which is going to be in a section eight which most people are familiar with you is a is a is a project's subsidy in the form of tax credits that helps a developer build a building with that comes low income restrictions section eight is a government subsidy program run by hud section forty two isn't run by her and section eight is run by hard where a tenant pays thirty percent of their income and the government makes up the difference between their thirty percent of income and the rent paid to that building so there's two forms of section eight there is project a section eight where a building will have  units that have a project based contract associated with that unit so if a tenant moves in an out the section it stays there and then there's travelling vouchers which is a section a travelling voucher that that a tenet can take to live anywhere he w different section eight no longer there are no more new section eight contracts per se section forty two is the way the country has developed it is since eighty six has moved towards developing affordable housing it's been considered i think by all stretches republican democrats government agencies a huge success because it creates a public private partnership and gets away from subsidized housing it's older ones do you have but by name our oldest project is silver now which is in waukesha we built was our first tax credit i wasn't there but they built probably sixteen seventeen years ago it's built with winter  brothers that project is interesting it just came off of its fifty its fifteen year compliance and the partnership with her brothers and general capital decided to buy the building back from the tax rate investor so we'll continue to own that building another i looked up bare line and the ratio for you have one hundred forty total units then you have fourteen low income for white house you have sixty total units and then you have fourteen low income and you're talking about doing one hundred percent lower income here correct correct and i don't mean to dispute what you're saying but i don't have the numbers in my fingertips of the number of units but i can assure you that the percentage of affordable units and when you say low income do you mean thirty percent you know or that i don't know for sure got it so you know so i can assure you that and i get your information but at least eighty five eighty six percent of the units at your line and white house assure you ninety nine point nine percent are affordable units meaning they are less than sixty percent of them otherwise because that they are tax credit deals and otherwise they would have worked without it but i will get you the exact numbers in the ratio or the not the thirty five i consented to run the thirty forty s and fifty's in those buildings ok know it was as well it was also so we have a project in rockford a project in port byron and then the one in popeye's open using mr how old are the ones in chicago the ones in chicago are a little different because they are section eight projects so they were acquisition rehabs so we bought the buildings rehab and those are ones probably four or five years since to really have the others a couple years from the rehab  jurisdictions so the you have chances of getting deals so we do illinois michigan and wisconsin the reason we do michigan is for is a couple reasons one is geography obviously i live in chicago i live in northern suburbs of chicago and it's close to two to me and it's close to the wisconsin guys as well the other thing is we particularly like michigan of the three states we workin michigan's q a p with its focus on qualified allocation plan which is the way they allocate the credits has a focus on developing good real estate versus some of the illinois wisconsin and focus is not so much on developing real estate in great sites so we think the residual value of our projects in michigan whether we hold of her selves or sell and seventeen years will be will be strong because of what mr forces developers to do in the way they allocate the credits ok thank you jay mike mike you mentioned the competitive nature of these tax credits and sometimes years through maybe two or three or four groups think we're the you know the smartest guys in the world and we've picked the best deal and we pick the high scoring deal but you never know what's going to go in against you what kind of score they're going to have but what we do to mitigate that because we're spending doubt we're spending the dollars and we run the economics on the deal and we think the deals we work on we think we have a very high likelihood of getting credits otherwise we wouldn't do it you know be foolish and  and good projects and you know hopefully will everything fits together at the end so if you don't make it with mischa would you consider a market rate building with some percentage of affordable housing or you know other other city benefits coming in to help the dealers well thank you anyone else thank you for your presentation you so we have to we have ten and twelve east six point five so i think we need to start with a motion for twelve east six point five as the doing the contract first was affordable housing and we're all talking about of affordable housing and you know what of the high value that is for us in this community at this point and truth be told i guess when we talk about affordable housing and who takes advantage of it sometimes i guess there's a temptation to conjure up certain images of who takes advantage of that kind of housing but in the course of this conversation the other evening it was  brought to our attention that there are persevered teachers who are coming into holland to teach in the school system and you know they don't make as much money as you d initially i guess i don't really know but even that even at the wage level of incoming teachers at holiday schools they're not in a position to afford or find housing in this town that they can afford so they have to go to grand rapids or some other place to find a place to live that they can that's affordable for them and i thought that was rather odd it was not the sort of clientele that i would initially think of who might be able to take advantage of a project that you're describing so i understand that there are some some questions and concerns about the project and i'm certainly open to be enlightened if there are things that i am missing but in my mind certainly this is not you know it's not the the best scenario would be great if we could have a building where there were market rate apartments as well as a lower cost if the lower level were  businesses and so forth there surely are better and more ideal iterations of a building like this but as we've come to understand too a lot of that's just not possible with this kind of a project so in my mind this is fulfilling a need that exists that we all recognize and that we're all wanting desperately to find a solution to  who will take whatever course we decide it's going to take your it decides it's going to take and i certainly am open to more ideas and things that i don't understand or haven't heard or a greater understanding of the cosmos as a result but  l the next business meeting which is two weeks from today my colleagues i learned a long time ago from craig rich that someone needs some time to better understand if we need to get this a little bit farther and makes us feel better about it and i think that's a fine thing to do so  i just want to say i'm ready to go but i'm ready to wait as well ok thank you rob actually a motion to postpone does set off debate ok just all right but but the motion to postpone has to be voted on obviously first  link fee discussion we had up stairs i do think there's something to be said here about process and i was enthusiastic about what this what this building represents is anyone in the  room but we also have a planning commission who has yet to completely weigh in typically they do those things to give city council people talking about a little subtleties about the building that they could improve it i believe there's the p s d or the d d a is also going to look at this subsequently from tonight later than this evening in way again and help apply those  subtle things that they look for to make sure these projects are as good as they can possibly be and for me it's kind of a process situation where we find ourselves voting here tonight on something that some of the subsequent boards whose job it is is to help us make good decisions are down the line and to me that doesn't speak well to them and that would certainly send a signal to me to say well you i volunteer my time to sit on this commission but the city councils already pretty much voted with the financial package so i'm wondering how much my my views and my thoughts are going to weigh into this and and i have always i've from the get go i love the project but i right next it's going to create a pretty big shadow on our city council and there's a museum right down the street and this is kind of a very important part so if just tabling it for a couple weeks allows the to support the motion which the discussion should be once the more she was there two things first of all because brother peter said the process don't want to put the cart before the horse there are a couple of big committees out there that should be making recommendations second of all i would like to request of staff this two week period if in fact this passes the offer has been made to go take a look i'm not so interested in taking a look because you can look at pictures on you can be shown the taj mahal we got sold the same thing when we were up in the heights with the project up there i don't think it's the look of the project i'm sure you do a fine project there are some other questions that are out there i would ask staff to contact the our counterparts staff counterparts and councils counterparts the mayor the councils those involved with the projects in the other cities i think we're going to get a truer detail of the process that they went through some of the potential hurdles some of the potential pitfalls that i don't know let's i think we're going to get a better read and i had i think those are going to help if we get that stuff we're going to have a few more answers to our questions i believe in in a recap of what you're finding and i know staffers started that i'd just like to go a little bit deeper in maybe a few more places a broader range now we need a motion for number ten which is our pilot any other discussion but that when i stepped one question i think the gentleman referred to if it would stay as a reliable cycle that would be something like thirty six thousand dollars collected more than he gave another seventeen thousand dollars so i guess i'd like to find out somewhere who's not going to get some of their tax money that they haven't just paid is that going to be schools is it going to be where's that other money not going that's something we should at least know about ok add that to the staff's assignments thank you any other questions so ryan did you like to talk to us about that i thank you have there this item is to make some improvements to calm park fire station as per budget related to the kitchen that as you know we've upgraded our fire stations in ways that are appropriate in the last several years and we have a sinking fund to do total renovations on the site in the long haul but in the short term there are some some needs so this item was put out to bed and the results came back although the specifications were thought to be sufficient they were found to be ways insufficient so have just one question on this how are we going to make sure that we've got the specific ations going forward  and not i cannot answer that other than to as that staff be as thorough and involve experts as necessary to ensure that this  that the next bids can be accepted one way or another their support for that support supported by white and those in favor say  it's you know i just so mike mike mike pulled it off we talked up stairs we don't need to drag it out but just the fact that there was two or there was a rejection of the bid and it comes down to just process it was just we just wanted to pull that off to say there's a concern about that identify it not let it just slide through and they can set agenda and identify hey there's an opportunity for us to address that process and making sure that one we're representing the city well into were respectful of the business owners that took time to to put together these bids and all the work they're  doing and have already performed in terms of trying to you know run their businesses and so yeah i just wanted to say thanks mike for point off and identifying them thank you brian any other comments yes way thank you very much the huckster whiteman combination is working in sync you're divorced yes motion passes seven yes two no thank you and i could you read you have to read us the gifts  the city manager's office is a place to report the following gaps parks and recreation digraph nature center for the lay and improvement projects and exhibits received two donations one from frosty fun day participants in the amount of two hundred dollars and another one from in the amount of fifty dollars again parks and recreation for the recreation division received kind donations from ryan cotton for the ninety dollars and purchased tickets given to the community members to promote the civic center final concert  proceeds in the amount of sixty dollars and communities in bloom program from sarah symonds in the amount of one hundred hours community human relations department for the two thousand and seventeen mayor's roundtable received two donations one from herman miller cares for five hundred dollars and david and jennifer roseman for one hundred dollars it is recommended that these donations be accepted with appreciation and an expression of gratitude be forwarded to said donors two six six point four which is about rejecting bids for the downtown parking lot signs ryan thank you way finding signs i had fifteen years experience with this so apparently when we did the way finding the gate once gateway signs there was a lot more detail that was put into that before they actually went out to bed and we can thank our former distinguished the neighborhood services director joe di for  navigating that process such that this scenario did not occur so to me we went forward without that detail and i've been through this process in other communities and i know exactly how these things evolve finding signs are not your typical sign that you can manufacture easily there's expectations as to quality and thickness of aluminum the color choices that and it's very it's necessary that they be precise in not not very in a way that would seven years later not look like the way they were originally installed  denying all beds and what's the recommendation reject the beds and enable some additional design work to take place such that the actual apples to apples can be achieved and you will thank you and so is their motion  yeah he asked for six six point four yes for five five point two and six six point four  thank you through no problem we're going to go on ok so where were we mike i think we're looking for a motion to get this on the table when i think i made my point i will make a motion that we adopt recommendation support move by to through the supported by stress is there any further discussion i think we got the point across ok and would you mind calling the roll pl that the celebrations have been exciting and robust that's been greatly appreciate all the hard work that went into planning those events definitely we have an appointment for the neighborhood improvement committee  raymond is asked to be appointed for a term that ans in january twenty twentieth's what's recommended city council approve the appointment of land raman to the neighborhood improvement committee very final thing at the civic center unless you're wearing a suit to take care of a spouse is is march three and four this weekend are going to have three on three basketball tournaments with adults and i guess students third to eighth grade in high school i've heard all different reports on who's involved the last i heard was it's just adults so you might want to check to make sure and it is been going to be well attended should be exciting march three and four also there is an opportunity to go to the library to brother to city hall to learn about how we are creating a sustainable community tuesday from six to eight at the training room on the second floor in the city hall and that's all a part of the living sustainably along the lake shore initiative so that sounds good to you please come on down we also have a coffee klutz these are get togethers and when my island gardens where they talk about different things that have to do with dutch culture and today there that on the eighteenth they're going to meet at ten am to talk about how the protestant dutch dealt with the st patrick's where into the green which should be  monday night that the round table that we had was a different kind of topic this year and it was about handling adversity how do you handle adversity and we had some great people come in and talk to the students and the adults that were there from the area we had high school students from out throughout the region but we had keith smith and former mayor el mckeon pet bird dying he did used to be in charge of ready for school sarah julius was just awarded by the athena foundation jane armstrong was avoided by the seven over seventy group and mike harris who's a one of the co founders of work cited each one talked about the adversity that they had faced in their lives i didn't know any of the stories but i figured they are very successful people and they must have gone through some really got wrenching experiences and that was the case it was very exciting to hear what they had gone through and how they came through it i think was very inspiring for the students i heard when i walked by the small groups wow you know you look at somebody successful and you don't realize what they've been through and also through the generosity of herman miller carers and dave and jennifer rosa and lori boss and i think esther felt ski help also in order to support having run a alexander come in she is an internationally contracted artist who listens to a presentation and produces it in art so i wouldn't think the power of adversity with that baby that be that beautiful but she did a great job of encapsulating it in inspiring the students and one of the student groups came back with a very similar look in their presentation to the group about adversity and the kind of things they were going to take away  to help them in dealing with disappointment in life so it was it was a lot of fun and i think i that the students enjoyed it and i know the adults did as well so it was wonderful to have that support  from the community we also have a highland rec has their summer registration is open already just because they're redoing the civic center doesn't mean all sports step in holland so please look on line for city of highland reckon and roll your students for this summer the farmer's market this saturday and next from nine to noon are still going to be open outside they'll have apples and honey and maple syrup and dried winter produce and also de graff nature center is doing all things maple sugar so it's very maple sugar time in front of the farm and march eleven and twelve and sixteen through eighteen from eleven to three on saturday and  new to three and sunday they have all kinds of events and also march twenty five the city's birthday they're going to be havin mabel palooza party so you can get irish they'll have a local irish band there you can get maple craft beer maple syrup homemade maple big big good so they do everything mabel over at the graph nature center it should be fine on the twenty fifth of march so any other motions and resolutions from council members specific procedure to review norden that we passed some time ago leader earlier this last summer i think and it has to do with  for owner occupied residences you know i listen to i think we were presented with a lot of information that suggested that that is that there's there's more downside than maybe good side to that and i voted against it i think we all did and but i got a call from one of the ladies who runs an air b n b and she's really wanted to understand more about why we did that i went and visited her house and i have and i was really struck by the quality of the house or the money in the investment they made in that house in that specific neighborhood most of the eleven  residential houses into these investments these were already done and they're on the run eighteenth street through the fourteenth street through twenty first street so i visited those lady i just told her you know we just voted not to do it well and i got a call from another one and i got a call from another one so i did a visiting i think six of the eleven and i went to the houses and i looked at the investment they made and i want residential housing as much as anybody but the fact of the matter is some of these houses and these investments were in fact they brought them up to be the best house on the block so then joe di and i went to a  some cities were handling it well they liked it others were trying to limit it because there were hundreds of these grand haven i think it's hundreds of these so but what i heard the attorney say and said ok if you're going to get into this business it's really good to understand what what you want from in so i just i think i i i made a pitch to my colleagues a couple months ago just saying you know there's there's  n people who've made a huge investment and i think they're providing a legitimate opportunity for economic development in an alternative to just renting out a hotel room  all of them have guest books the people they're renting to our hope visiting for the weekend out of town couples and families visiting friends and families for the holidays for colored tours folks who just want to stay in holland for the weekend and then stay here and then drive up to the muskegon and stay there for two days i just did some traveling all we did was air b and b and this is a way of the world so i don't want to just carp say have people come down say wow doesn't do that just skip it and move on so i was wondering if it wouldn't make some sense if i went if we could go back to the planning commission which we should do i'd be happy to go in there and explain you know what i've learned maybe do a road tour maybe go to some of these places see the contributions they're making into the neighborhoods but also see the types of people that they're renting to that the picture of wild parties and all that's happening is that's not what's going on in these particular homes and i would also highly recommend that if i were if we were to go back to the planning commission and ask them to reconsider it limiting  the number of these which listening to the attorney at the conference i wanted to if we just limited them to fifteen or the eleven that currently exists it doesn't number of things one it legitimately provides people an opportunity to do something other than a hotel room it allows them to cook it allows them to have a for a backyard it allows them to have bicycles and again all of these almost without exception are in our downtown close to us in tonio park because they want to walk because they want to see the community can't do it in a lot sure though because we're downtown with a lot of times your book and i think they'd rather stay at a air b and b on fourteenth street and walk around centennial park in downtown than stay out of us thirty one so i do think there's an economic economic development piece do you understand the notion that man it could get out of control i do think there's a way we can limit the number of permits we have for now an order occupied air b and b s so i'm understanding the process is that if we could if i could get five votes i would be able to do the legwork and take it up with staff and go to the planning commission and just to share with them what i've learned and i think if all of us did a road trip and went to these eleven homes and saw what they offer and how they're doing  live and the going about of what they're offering that was not what i was presented as city hall so i voted on something and i feel i just feel like we owe it to those people to maybe give that a second look because i heard the information that just wasn't true about what was happening in our community about these here because i don't know what the performance procedures here we just need to i think what i appropriate to move that forward would be a motion to refer the air b n b ordinance to planning commission for further review and recommendation of any amendments i liked it so moved supported moved by peter's supported by white men that any discussion yeah i like discuss this i think this is a pointless exercise and for all the reasons j you seem to support this i don't see it as advantageous to our neighborhoods in any way where these are like you said popping up are in our downtown area there in our traditional residential neighborhoods and furthermore i feel that our neighborhood should be for our neighbors and not for investment properties by outsiders who don't live here and i feel like it is a it's a challenge for us to maintain the stability of our neighborhoods as it is with the rental properties that we already have  seem to dominate many of these areas are downtown and i say downtown i mean not to do additional eight st but the core central neighborhoods my neighborhood my neighbors neighborhoods i think this is just putting profits before people and i just i think it's disgusting and i don't like it i think you're going to end up getting from planning commission you're not going to like because planning commission looked at this idea of limiting and it is against the law you cannot do it so you either have to legislate it by his own district you have to put an overlay district and there's i can speak i can't speak for all the planning commission but i can speak for one and you know we look that maybe putting it just in the historic district which could be an option it's very very nice very large homes that would work out pretty well so if that's what you would like then i'm sure it's a need to plan a commission would would be just fine so there you go i also i'm empathetic to what you're saying brian in terms of process that it went through the planning commission they came here we talked about it but this is one of those things for me that's it's it's so complicated because of how much it seems to make sense but yet at the same time a lot of the things that you're talking about brian aren't off at all of concerns about protecting neighborhoods i just think it's worth going back and give it a second look  to fully evaluate that's my piece mike although mr peters a little bit like a brother like you not support this i don't see the difference i don't see the benefit i i was in support of the owner the the meeting that dave was talking about that we had monday evening was very pointedly asked of us you know you're looking at affordable housing what are you doing to help my answer to him was we're trying to get the perfect balance and i think to brian's point here we're not going to get that perfect balance i'm i'm sorry that they made the investment they made it illegal i'm sure they're absolutely gorgeous i don't need to see him to know that i take your word for it but it's a business it's a bottom line if you're not living there it's a business and why should that be treated any differently than the hotel that's just on the street that's their same business you know i have sympathy for the investment to a certain extent it's it was illegal when they did it it's done can't do a whole lot about it now they may have brought the neighborhoods up great fantastic but it's a business if they were there in their own home and doing  they had a little apprehension but i went along with it do what you want right personal property rights but this is no longer personal property rights this is a business and that's that's the sole reason jay that i could support wh get the money my understanding is that as a business they are there maybe looking at it like a little hotel or something but they do they have every intention of paying whatever businesses pay for the chamber or for the hotel tax or for all the things that they want to do i mean you know they they want to be treated like a business so i guess it's just it's just a philosophical thing about fifteen houses no more we're permitting it we're limiting it it allows us to say how it's one of those places one of the few places on the planet the doesn't do air b and b and we got plenty of that kind of stuff going on here so my only thing is dr that if no one else has been in one of these places i don't think you totally understand what they're offering to the community and who's staying there i think it's a better i think it's economic development i think it's good for our neighborhoods i think it's good for the hotel industry i think it's good for people it's fifteen houses how many houses do we have in the city out and you know what it's in and it ok to say that this there are already rental properties there are already rental properties  so you know again i i'm just pitching for them i if we can vote on this and if it if i got five votes i'll do it i don't well never own never bring it up again i'm just doing what my communities that have that we are looking for a lot of different kinds of styles for people we're talking about the many houses we're talking about but there are law suites or whatever kinds of things and we got it we  thinking differently we can't just say we've always done it this way this is what we did in one thousand fifties in the one nine hundred sixty s we're talking about the reliable thing downtown we're talking about six three doing it differently we're talking about washington school looking every we're talking about a street looking different we've we've got to get on the cutting edge of moving forward and not being so backward about locking ourselves  mirror just one final thing we have a tussle up here all the time about trying to balance our neighborhoods with the rental in the individual loans now we want to go into affordable housing let's make up our mind folks we can't have everything if you're going to open up all these b and b s you're going to take away from the affordable housing you're going to take away from the affordable housing in the statement that i just heard b that's not a correct statement because we want some to think about that some to think about we're trying to balance our neighbors but yet we want to have the small businesses in there we want to have the rentals we want have the low income housing we went have this we don't have that and we're going to give up our neighborhoods just a question thank you mike right to jeff something yeah i guess i just one other little a list of really cool cities  that have banned air being b because of what they do their cities by reducing housing stock and eliminating opportunities for families new york city has banned air b n b san francisco banned air b n b which by the way is where air b n d was founded santa monica san diego amsterdam and london berlin barcelona in paris all major tourist destinations and yet air b n b is bad for the people who live there that's what those city councils decided and we did it but i don't know that we could compare holland michigan to barcelona new york city we're talking about let's compare what our cities along the lake michigan shoreline are doing this as a as a unit about a big part of economic development for the state and i'm saying we're going to do a lesson eleven i'm not saying it's going to ruin our cities we're talking about eleven existing businesses that are already do what you can't restrict it that way yes i can i would do the i was there did you go to the conference did you talk to the attorney no so what you get your ducks in a row before we go too much further with this let's full well order is there are there any other points but i do think it's really important to have invested residence in your city and when it is more beneficial to have a business than a residence it's a it's a difficult thing and i do think it's true that  the wonder of holland is for season residencies if we're not just a tourist town and so i do think it's really hard when you start offering a business and it's easier to live somewhere along the lake and rent out houses down near downtown highland which are promoted by this t v it's very hard to collect those kind of things i've been told i think it does create competition for the hotels that we appreciate investing intercity i love the concept of air b n b but the more i study it the more i'm wary of what it could do to what is so precious about holland as the invested residence where we're going to find members for boards and commissions if they all stay here for two weeks and leave so i do think it should give us pause and it did give us pause and that's why we voted the other way before so thank you if any other comments from members communications from council members