yes all right let's go all right welcome everyone to the june ten twenty fourteen planning commission meeting calling the meeting to order and you get an approval of the minutes for a march all right moving on unfinished business and table items the one and only is the proposed only ordinance text amendments to section thirty nine dash one ninety eight presidential infill regulations the planning commission is the applicant came in to build a new structure one of the things phil looked at is how that first floor level was compatible with the neighborhood however not covered under the infill policy was if someone came in and purchased a house and then started picking it up in the air and so effectively placing out wherever they wanted that anomaly became an issue so we thought we'd have to handle this by  saying i don't actually know how we got there we did in the meeting but we basically effectively created a situation where the anomaly was what we were going to be using as the standard going forward for properties when we said the highest on the block so if we had a house that was picked up that was not under the infill ordinance and was up but it is specific i now that becomes the benchmark for either side of it for the height of those houses and so we would be continuing the anomaly that we are trying to fix the problem with in the first place and so rather than the phrase of the highest which is what we used in the ordinance we almost the council i'm going to suggest that get changed to average although i'd like to see the lowest but don't go with average so they're quick question average of what the property isn't either side by side that doesn't that have the same effect that you're trying to avoid well it has less of the same  ok but similar to some of the similar effect but less thereof and because it is as i recall the concern you raised was that we'd see eventual creep if one house yeah they could go to the highest which would then reset their neighbor's house which get their rose up a neighbor's house the same thing arguably could apply in this instance where you have the average but you're right it's just a lesser lesser amount kamin i'm one hundred pros lowest but y next is new business the first one is plan review for a new subway restaurant to be located at ten eighty six south washington avenue rob allen is in the west coast properties l c is the applicant area map here to orient the commission and those of what you viewing you can see yes south washington avenue is going right here which is a public street and then there is metal lane drive which is immediately to the north side of this site and this indeed is a public street that axises metal lane apartments in there so on the subject property right now there are two buildings hundred eighty square foot restaurant you can see where they're looking to locate there right in the central part of the site obviously this is a kind of an auto oriented highway commercial strip so it's it's it's catering to the motorists lunchtime crowds the evening crowds and so forth staff is recommending approval of the site plan up subsequent to your holding a public hearing tonight staff does have the revised report for you and i'm just thinking now that need you know all of you received that up on our website so but we in talking with the applicant over the past couple days we were able to whittle down so to say a number of the  previously they were proposing to have a two one way driveways one about in this area here and then one down in this area here in talking with the city engineer and  we kind of made the determination that there was going to be some left turning problems with the south washington avenue here that would be much safer for people coming into this site here as well as going to  think it's the united federal credit union across the street if there was one one way or two way drive when this location here so we're happy to see that the applicant is the change that they've added some other features putting in  a a high back curb along the south property line to kind of better dumb arcade their property from the used car lot to the solve they're looking to have a pedestrian kind of sidewalk through this area here to provide better access to for the residents of the metal lanes apartment complex to get here on foot and ride bikes and so forth we do still need a kind of the final landscaping plan from the we need a final lighting plan from them the city engineer needs to sign off on this driveway configuration on soft washington avenue and we need to just kind of work out some final details of this kind of public private sidewalk connector open up in the north part of the site here so b p w as well as transportation services have some kind of some of their standard conditions that they're looking to be approved in here so with they go if you have any additional questions please to answer them if not you can go to the public here where we're looking to propose the sidewalk area well it's actually shown on the plan to be right in this area here and there there's a logic for it there  is a handicapped handicap space is looked to be right in here so as a part of that design they kind of have have to have the striped area right next to it so they're looking to kind of have this sidewalk connector line up with that striped area the handicaps however i mean i don't believe that a brian white his has seen this alignment in this would require sidewalk going in and metal lanes right away also so i think we're going to want to take a look at this and whether it ends up being here or tweaked a little bit one way or another but i've offered you know aligning sidewalks with other areas of non motorized motorized motorized areas however it's a sidewalk to nowhere i mean that's the i guess that's what what i'm looking at right here is it doesn't go anywhere so right now we need we need to kind of look at the plan here a little bit further and see what's what's going on with the apartment complex to the north there in see once where might be logical to bring or to walk there is a sidewalk on the north side of metal lanes drive i mean it's kind of off the map here let me bring up the aerial photo and maybe you can see it why don't we let them defer the sidewalk for like a summer season all the way through and then when they see where the path is what them paid that do right from the drive that's a cost that has a sidewalk attached to it but that's just me so when i i guess what we're suggesting here is that a week staff be given the opportunity to look at this with the epic and try to figure out the best does the retention basin have any issue cause any issue in that as far as getting a pedestrian if you did a walk way on the west side of the building yeah that there's a detention basin all along the west property line so that kind of takes that out whose responsibility would that be you're saying so if there was a sidewalk put on the inn on the south side of yeah well i mean you as a part of the site plan review you can require the applicant to put that in in can it go all the way around or technically you could probably require them to go all the way around to there are a lot line extension on the west side here but that would be a sidewalk kind of to know where so my thought process is putting five walk in and then doing mine ends to the entrance into some of those apartments where the sidewalk is on the other side here but i'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been encourage or of having midland crossings in a controlled intersection especially with a curve just to the north so you know cars coming off south washington on to that street whipping around the corner being invisible to pedestrians going across that mid block crossing as well as the pedestrians being unable to see the cars coming around the corner will be very confusing people think they're going  he's here all week folks all right we actually talked a lot about the stuff i mean there is concern with having a sidewalk right on the curve we don't want to do that so the notion was if there is private sidewalk connector that it's somewhere on the street course right here where there's better visibility so right as a commission you can decide i mean you could order and sidewalk all along both front is if you want it is going to require you to actually waive the requirement for sidewalks to not have them go in but staff is recommending that you do waive the requirements for sidewalks but that it just looks pretty ugly right now that's why i was wondering ok i guess before going to the public here we do have a civil engineer here for the epoch and he can take your questions if you would like to do t sort of show people right i said like with holland engineering you know i guess the franchisee who purchased the property and is moving the building here has the existing subway restaurant kind of kitty corner across the street and you know old that franchise for a number of years i think he said in the upper teens number of years of been very successful there and just got as i'm i don't grow the building so purchased this property and wants to put the modern got a subway the modern face of subway there which is the drive through in which is a little bigger facility you know the new modern look he's very optimistic about what's going to happen with this business you know the amount of business increase he's going to see by just having a new better facility so he's very excited you know likes the area and wants to stay there and he's you know very willing to work with work with the city you know getting the site to try to meet as many of the city ordinances and recommendations as possible we are look at limited ad space it's it's a tight layout we've got a lot of stuff going on on a little piece of property  we're we're really limited in what we can do especially along that south property line there was talk of wanting more separation between this site in the car lot we are really only just able to squeeze a couple of feet  there just because of setback requirements and such and the need to to have as much parking as we have that the city ordinance only requires ten or twelve spaces and he's saying based on the current business he does and the business model he sees for for this site he needs he really like twenty five or twenty eight spaces he says during lunch hour he feels he needs that my true self you know we've we've tried to get as much parking as we can and still make it a usable site so he's based on that he's very optimistic about is business plan here so how many spots and they putting in we have twenty three i think or twenty four on the site plan and sixteen or eighteen other restaurants and he said i don't have any of them without sight seeing right now but he says if you know we've got the space there or if it if it you think's it'll be usable that be something he would he would add in the future potentially as a table or two space i'm assuming that at this point based on your comments you're ok with the conditions of the staff was put on those for approval yes  i think it'll be a real improvement that spot and improvement over the facility they're in now not that it's a bad one but it is showing its age  right and your comments or questions you're right this does require a public hearing so i will open the public hearing at this time concerning the new subway restaurant since there are no comment that will close the public hearing i would offer a motion that we approve the site plan as proposed with the conditions as set forth in the staff memo support next is the proposed vacating of public streets and right of way from the vicinity of the holland board of public works new electrical and generating plant planning commission is the applicant q of a map here for  as a component of the holland moving forward with their development of their new electrical generating plant which is to be located in kind of the generally the north fair banks avenue area i'm in the city how and they have to vacate a number of streets that are in the area and just to back up a little bit from that we shared it the study session this whole area in the on the map here that's aligned in the blue is an area that is is the newest area to the city of holland and it was just annexed into the city via four twenty five agreement with holland township and they came into they're looking to purchase a few more of them yet they need to be purchased the overall b p w electrical generating site is going to be generally in this area in here but the greater site is going to with its green space and so forth will actually be going down to a seventh street which is right in this general area here the b p job is looking to gear up and start a big  demolition phase of all the the homes and the other commercial and industrial buildings that are in this area and while they're doing that they also need to demo all of the streets and all the utilities overhead underground utilities also all the sanitary sewers and the public water lines and everything else it's all got to come out and but before they can do all of that certainly before they can a demo the streets and so forth those streets actually need to be vacated and right now these while this property has been formally annexed into the city  a county road commission still has a legal right to those planted streets later on this week i believe it's on thursday the adult county road commission is going to be voting on a resolution that will be sent to our city council that basically will be vacating the the road commission's interest in those properties and handing them over to city council and the city council will be subsequently i believe passing a resolution to accept that resolution and that bundle will all get a forwarded on to the state but let the part of the process that we're going through here tonight is is having a public hearing and ultimately a state law requires that the planning commission send a recommendation to city council in regard to the vacating of these public right of ways  so that is what council is looking for the commission to do tonight and once council receives your recommendation then presumably at their next meeting they will be said in another form a public hearing date probably about a month from that on the same topic in regards to a vacating those public streets so the streets that are are in question for you today are sixth street which is right in this area believe there's i should grab my ok so it's a sixth street fifth street and a fourth street for street i believe is is while it's planted it has never really been developed  at least in full it has not been developed fair banks ave located north the seventh street seventh street is right in this area so this whole segment of fairbanks avenue going north of that  on the docket to be vacated as well as court it's a little right of way that's right in this area here just south of the old atmosphere processing plant which you can see  here then there's two other streets sycamore street to believe is right in this area here and then there's a lowland avenue it's called which is right in this area here kind of heading up into the  the wetlands area down by the river so those are all the public right of ways that is the subject of your puppy hearing tonight and ultimately a recommendation to city council have any questions at all be happy to try to answer them you know what dan daly of believe is in the audience here tonight too if you had questions mark this is purely procedural because we are tearing up the roads correct yes well in alternately yes or tearing up the roads but ultimately the b p w wants to assemble all of this land up here the right of ways and all the private property into one parcel which then they can come in with for their construction plan has the streets are not be existing anymore the streets will not be there a wind generated with wind power generation somewhere else at another site is that correct that would probably be a question for b p w or i can i can address it to there's a there's a couple of sites in indiana that we're working with that or we have bought a certain percentage or a certain amount of blocks of power off those sites for a period i think of fifteen years or something along those lines oh ok so yes so there will be no wind turbines on this particular site what's going to happen to the site where the where the current power plant is the in the short term it will change slightly as we transition from the use of that is the principal generating resource in the b p debby's arsenal over time the coal pile will go down units there are three active units in that facility unit three is the one that's take being taken offline units four and five are we're presently configured to also burn a natural gas so the plan at the moment is to utilize those as to basically sell off that capacity for peaking purposes based on probably natural gas burning they may be used a week maybe ten days out of the course of a year the b p w has no no no need for its portfolio to include that peaking power but there's value in the marketplace for it it's completely paid for an opportunity for p w to generate additional revenues to help pay for other kinds of expenses all tamil a we will see that site removed from any sort of power generating on it and reused in some other way which is as of yet undefined but there's sort of a three step process the first step will be to remove you know use up the coal pile it's there and have part of the site be ceased being used for power plant purposes mid term they'll still be probably some power so you don't have it at a time line for when it's going to be demolished not know not not for alternate demolishing we anticipate maybe you you know looking out a decade maybe before the road if part of it has to do with whatever what other  competing uses might come up for that site so let's say hypothetically with the b p w generates i'm just making numbers up now but a couple million dollars a year and selling off that peaking power and there's a competing use that comes in that has more economic value then it's in the b you mean right exactly eventually you know with within a certain window of time which is relatively short in the whole scheme of things you know a decade maybe to that site will no longer be used for any sort of power generation  motion if you're ready go ahead i would move that we approve the vacation of these streets as recommended in the staff report support i was in favor all right i suppose right thank you next item under new business is an amendment to article four point two on the planning commission bylaws regarding monthly regular meetings do you really need an explanation i guess before we are in the bylaws it was we changed it  once a month until this month yes back in january took a vote to kind of do a pilot program first a six month pilot program to we go from meeting twice having two regular meetings in a month down to one regular meeting so now we're just checking back and saying ok the pilot is is going to be done as of the end of this meeting and what would you like to do so it's it's that your prerogative staff is recommending that if you do want to continue just to have you know one meeting a month that you should kind of formal a schedule that then for a formal review during your next meeting it into a formal vote on it and that would be changing your bylaw so to applicants that are somehow slow on the draw if you will hear that you know and also if we have an opportunity for a study session necessary that's necessary for more involved looking at something i wouldn't be you know posed to having you guys pause and for a second meeting but i wouldn't want to become routine that we're having second meetings we get put on our next meeting yes all right moving on to communications and petitions there are no public hearings to schedule are there no communications from commission members communications from staff motion for adjournment support favor