good evening ladies and gentlemen welcome to this regularly scheduled meeting of the holland city council our second business meeting of in the month of july and in order to get this meeting  numbers are worse city councillor staff tonight will be led by council member wayne clone parents and following that the pledge of allegiance so in order to get that i would ask you all to your creator of all things we are thankful for this country this state in this city less this community its visitors and the people who live and work here be with our city employees who work to make this city a better place to make it safe be with our employers that create new work opportunities give this council wisdom to help in the guidance of this community of neighborhoods  council to use tax dollars wisely keep our hearts and minds open to what is responsible for all citizens we ask for guidance with on us to open and fruitful discussion help us a the first item of business that we undertake is called the consent agenda if you do not have like a copy of the agenda for the meeting they are available in the rack at the back of the room if you already have one you will notice that there are a number of items on the suggested that are marked with an asterisk and that indicates that those are items that we would like to take care of in the consent agenda  all of these are items that have been reviewed by council in previous sessions or are considered routine in nature and we take them all with one motion and one vote it may be however that some of you are here to interchange with us these items and if that is the case we will we would like to give you the opportunity to remove something from the consent agenda if it is removed it will then be taken up in its regular sequence on the agenda the first thing that we need to do is identify those items for us and for you and i would ask at this time for a court to list the items that are on the consent agenda item five to approve the minutes of the study in special meeting held extension of a current telecommunications service agreement with t d s for a sixteen month term with a twelve month opt out i've done them in the amount of one thousand one hundred seventy two dollars and seventy cents per month pending approval asked a form by the city attorney item fourteen eighty two to approve a contract with reese riley per resurfacing of the water treatment plant parking lot in the amount of twenty seven thousand one hundred seventy eight dollars and eighty cents as budgeted item fourteen  three to approve a contract with parkway electric in the total amount of seventy four thousand eight hundred fifty dollars and three cents which includes a ten percent contingency for the installation of an emergency generator for the wastewater treatment plant pending approval asked a form by the city attorney i don't fourteen a five to adopt a joint resolution for the appropriate be a sion of five million three hundred forty four thousand dollars from the electric utility funds for  contribution to the city fiscal year two thousand and fifteen item fourteen a six to adopt a resolution for two thousand and fifteen insurance claims and ministration to settle claims in the amount not to exceed ten thousand dollars with the designated representative of public works and the city attorney item fourteen a seven to accept as information the fiscal year two thousand and fourteen renewable energy credits sales board report and item fourteen eighty eight to prove a contract with full power international inc and the amount of twelve million one hundred eighty three thousand five hundred dollars for the purchase and installation and technical support of two steam generating sources for the combined cycle power plant item fourteen in nine to approve a sales agreement with the hague of holland for hague l l c and lloyd trust for a purchase price of three hundred ninety six thousand two hundred seventy dollars and to approve howling in the amount of one hundred dollars granting a first writer refusal for the dealership property located at three forty three east eighth street for the development of the new how and energy park item fourteen do you want to refer claims filed against the city to the city's insurance carrier and city attorney for consideration item fourteen eat two point three two approved mbak contract fourteen dash fifty four eleven for the m forty multiuse path projects subject to from october two thousand and fourteen through april two thousand and fifteen i had importing eat three point two to approve the vermeer of michigan bid for a purchased a reverse chipper on the in the amount of fifty three thousand eight hundred  ninety nine dollars to be funded from the centralized vehicle equipment fund for the parks division i don't fortini three point three to approve the rear of michigan bid for a purchase of a stone cutter and in the amount of thirty seven thousand six hundred thirty dollars to be fund from the centralized vehicle equipment fund for the parks division i don't fortini four point one to approve a service contract whereas coldwell banker woodland schmidt for property acquisition services for the site location of the future for your station in the amount not to exceed two thousand five hundred dollars per transaction and this to be funded by the municipal capital improvement fund subject to approval as to form by the city attorney item fourteen to four point two to accept donations in support of the racing through education program with appreciation item fortini five point two to approve the appointment of mark or yours and my foot's harris to the downtown development authority board as recommended by the city manager item fortini five point three to reschedule a public hearing from july sixteenth to a special meeting scheduled for july twenty third two thousand and fourteen to receive public comment for the declaration of public hazards a nuisance for property located at three seventy nine central a and item fourteen east six point one to approve a contract with treble that group for engineering and project management of the elf three network project in the amount of twenty one thousand dollars funded through the technology service capital outlay fund subject to approval as to form by the city attorney thank you rather substantial list of items that far on the consent agenda this evening is there any member of the audience who would like to have one of these items removed if you would so request and ask you to come forward to the microphone state your name and indicate which item you would like removed and then that would be moved to its regular se for a mobile seeing none any members of council who would like items removed from the consent agenda know it gets a stone to item number eight and it will ask indulgence right now so i don't do this very often to make sure that i stick with this agenda this evening  first item under items number eight special order of the day introduction of student guests from the novel the chairman of the international martin i am the chair of the international relations commission for the city of holland and the last time that we chatted i told you about the challenges the goals and the future opportunities faced by the international relations commission and i'm very pleased to say that one of our goals is being met right now the goals of the international relations commission are in part to make the city of holland a hub for international agreement friendship and opportunity in the past couple of months so some of you may have known we have successfully pulled off a multicultural festival in collin park and we have three students from the netherlands that we wish to welcome i personally wish to thank the commissioners of the i r c city staff the public and  which some of whom are in this room right now for making the work of the i o c a success certainly with limited resources yet we manage i believe to impress the city of holland is certainly no stranger to dignitaries both foreign and international i'm sorry foreign and domestic including two american presidents governors and several consulates from the government of mexico and an ambassador from the kingdom of the netherlands we understand why people want to come to holland  but in my opinion it is always the highest honor and compliment when young people want to come to our city because i think young people show us who we really are not what we necessarily see in the mirror and these three young people are going to be with us for two weeks their first week has already exhausted so they have one more week with us they are working on a project which i will allow them to explain in much more detail but they're working on a project that says what is the holland community outside of the netherlands so we have a great opportunity to learn more about ourselves through their observation in research and through the r c i wish to thank the lowery family especially for hosting these young people during their stay on the i o c has extended every possible support and appreciation to the family and we will continue to do so to express our appreciation and so without further ado i wish to welcome not only to these american shores but to these michigan shores you it was a beautiful speech and it is loaded like for thais but that's actually an excellent it's a pleasure to be here it's a pleasure and you were in fido's and have us here in holland michigan so thank you for all your work hard work of the international relations committee that you put into it thank you very much i will introduce myself and my fellow colleagues this is  years ago we started the students company two and a half years ago something like that and my technical skills are not quite good and done this action with anything that has power  eighteen forty seven a group of dutch people came here well we all know how that went i guess you even know it better than i do so i talk about that much but since dan a lot of things ha changed and there are a lot of people from the province of drent in the netherlands who came here now our project is to look for their descendants so in eight hundred forty seven a group of people came here and we are looking for people who are descendants from all those people who came here between eighteen forty seven and eighty eighty and ok we already went to the archives and we did some work but it's  hard because we had some pretty good books and they were saying that all of the people who came to the states between eighteen thirty five and eighteen eighty where they came from but not where they would go to so we know exactly to feel edges and the promises they came from we have no idea where they ended up so the states are pretty big and to find out where these people especially the ones coming from the process of dren ended up that is so hard for us to just do by going to the archives so what we're trying to do now is by networking finding people and making people aware of what the we are trying to achieve and so making them look into their own family history family trees and then if they looking for and we are here now for one week and we will be here for two weeks and we know that that is not enough not even close so that's why we want to establish  facebook office because our company student companies called my face and we want to find people that will keep this thought just under people that will keep people aware of what we are trying to achieve so that when we come back and we certainly planning on doing so next year the project is still running so i think in short that is what we are trying to do and i want to thank you again and also you're very good thank you we wish you the great success with tracking down people who trace their roots presentation from the bank of holland and invite members from that organization and chief messer to participate thank you good evening members of the council mr mayor pro town hall and city staff and citizens my name is rob works and i'm the president and c e o of the bank of home and  i'm obviously joined by chief messer and phil de vries who runs our holland banking business we appreciate you allow us to come in and make this presentation as many or all of you know the bank of holland was founded here just down the street about sixteen years ago the bank was founded on certain principles chief among them that our staff would maintain a servant's attitude and what that has meant is service in our lives and in our business and that is translated into great service to our customers great service in our communities and great service to each other every year our staff donates thousands of hours and significant financial resources to the various non profits and activities around the community that make the lake shore great place to live and that's something that's core to who we are and it's in that spirit or sense of conscience that has kept many of our staff with us for many many years and in fact it's what drew me to this community into this company almost three years ago and it's in this spirit that we would like to present to the city of holland a check for twenty thousand three hundred fifty dollars to fund the purchase of additional an additional ten a d s which would be placed in the city's police powers not a personal note when we heard about the city's need several weeks ago it reminded us of the loss of a good friend and colleague paul on a month to a cardiac event just a couple of years ago so this is something that's near and dear to our hearts and we're hoping that this donation will help save some lives in the future so thank you let me be the first to say thank you to robin field for coming here and i also thank you to the bank of holland one of our goals of the public safety is creating public partnerships and thanks to the miss him dearly as well but i think probably the goal for all of us here tonight is to save lives and i think by having one of these in every one of our units would be easy access for us a quick access and we'll be able to get to scenes very quickly with these and we save one life it's certainly worth it and i think we'll probably save more than one life but if we save one loves to be worth it so again thank you guys of very much thank you to the bank of holland and we will do our very best to use these and to have them out there and this council to your organization to the bank of holland to your to your employees and to your investors for this very generous gift it says a lot about the quality of life in our community and the people who participate in it and we thank treasurer of the county welcome to the podium and we listen with eager anticipation thank you very much super i think i can even manage this it's pretty simple only two buttons forward or backward thanks for allowing me to come and just as a county treasurer my interest is to talk to you about the tax roll piece and i'm hoping to in less than twelve minutes to give you a twenty year overview of the responsibility that i have as a county treasurer to maintain a tax roll so will jump right into that and i'd love if there are questions during the process you make that i ask and i can try to answer those as we go o them i am responsible for the tax roll from the moment that it comes from the finance department here into my hands i get it for the next twenty years for twenty years i'm responsible for maintaining that tax rol just in case the m t t which context right you know or some other organization says hey wait a minute we got the taxes wrong we either need to give money back to those people or we need to get money from them seems like we never give it back it seems like we it seems like we never get it from them we always give it back but that's the way it is so for twenty years i have to maintain that open roll and and keep it after that then we're able to destroy it or whatever we want to we do keep rolls about every ten years we just maintain a ten year kind of thing into perpetuity just for information besides as you can see on the screens that i'm just going through once it comes from jim's area and into mine it i have the delinquent taxes and it stays delinquent for one year then it moves into forfeiture for one year at the end of that second year i foreclose if it's not been paid so taxes are it's a three year process you guys have it for a year then i have it for the next two we live in ottawa county so i can show this screen i'm excited to be able to show this piece you can see that in two thousand and eight and nine we were continuing to go up the recession was alive and well here in west michigan we had the purple bars that go up are the number of parcels that i took in the link went from the local to government so all of our local all twenty four local units of government i took in just over seven thousand parcels in two thousand and eight just just about eight thousand parcels in two thousand and nine the blue line the little data on there gives you it goes to the to the grid on the far right hand side of that thing and is the dollars and you can see that in two thousand and nine we had just over fifteen million dollars that i had to have available on one day to buy in all those delinquent taxes so in work really hard not to take money out of and the county board has been willing to leave those dollars alone where that's not true in many other counties across the state nor is the graph true in other counties in the state where they've seen a persepolis drop like we have in our graph here many counties are are still experiencing almost record level foreclosures tax foreclosures and so they've not had the same kind of thing that we're having and experiencing here were this six million dollars the four thousand parcels has been consistent even before the recession that we experience so we're back to about where we were before the recession  for highland city in two thousand and twelve i took in i bought so that i buy these from the city of bought in one hundred fifteen delinquent parcels the following year so i get them for one year delinquent the next year they become forfeiture so you can see that the two thousand and thirteen number is one hundred six so really only nine people paid off their delinquent taxes in that year that i held it so that two thousand if you go back up to the top two thousand and thirteen i took in one hundred twenty  eight this year there were one hundred eighty three i think that represents that it's even getting better here in our area than it was people are able to make tax payments they're able to keep that process going they're not waiting right till the end and just keeping one year alive at a time there they're actually paying up and pain ahead and stuff where they were not before and in places so we're excited about that for a two year or the two years that i have and i think this is part of the stuff that maybe is news to people i'm responsible for making sure by law to do all of these things that are on this list i send out seven first class notices so if the bank of howland has a mortgage on a piece of property i send the and the homeowner notices seven times first class during that two years if there are multiple owners and i send every owner that same notice so it can be a fairly large expense to continue to do that i also send during that two years three certified notices i send out during that time it's actually happens during july it's in the process right now i have a new person who actually goes around to every single property knocks on the door and or and or posts notices a public notice that taped to window pounded into the ground to make sure that they know that if they don't make a payment it gets foreclosed on so that's in the second year we do that  we have to publish it in the newspaper we used to how uncertain all and the grand rapids are growing even tribune for those for our papers of notice i have to publish it three weeks in a row in december in the year that is going to foreclose and then we also have to have a circuit court hearing so we actually go before the judge with a list in advance in february of everything i'm going to foreclose on the following april i mean if they're not paid so and the people are noticed about that and then we do a foreclosure about six thousand parcels five thousand parcels that we took in three years ago doing when there's only seventeen that went to the foreclosure state which so several things one is we work really hard to get all those people  make sure that they're noticed all of this stuff does work and and we're doing the right kinds of things i think and and it says that in our county we've got jobs coming back we've got people that are getting paid people are are able to maintain their parcels the last thing  list is we have to do two auctions to sell those foreclosed parcels the first auction happens this year in august august sixteenth at ten o'clock in the fillmore complex building if you'd like to be a witness it's a really interesting auction i promise that you wouldn't be bored with it if we only stayed the first thirty five minutes you'd learn a ton about foreclosure stuff and you'd see the first couple auctions and you could walk away and and not feel like you really spent tons of time but it's a really interesting auction second auction and then is a no minimum bid so the first one covers all of the taxes my fees all the expenses that's the that's the minimum bid it can go up from there the second auction is zero bid really and goes up from zero so we have a a piece of property there are two that were foreclosed on here in the city of holland one is a three fifty river it was a had a dwelling on it it's been torn down there's about seventeen thousand dollars in taxes alone on that parcel so minimum bid is probably in the one nine hundred thousand dollars range and it won't sell for that on the market on the first auction it won't sell for that so it'll go to the second auction of the started zero and come up to some some level but it's the it's that kind of thing that's what happens with it these are the these are the fees that i'm required by law to put on the parcel each parcel so i get a four percent of ministration fee as soon as i get it from your finance director and i then start charging one percent a month if it stays that whole first year when it gets to the second year i then go back and from the beginning add an extra half percent a month so instead of being a twelve percent per y like it was the first year is now eighteen percent for the entire time and i charge title search fees i also tara charges site visit fee and a publication fee all those things are that's a fighting statute that we're allowed and supposed to charge so it's very expensive for somebody to be in this in the forfeiture foreclosure state we we work really hard to try and get people to make partial payments so if i can get people to make fifty dollars payments a week that's what i'm into we try and figure out a way to get people to make the dollar so that we don't take the property away that's not my job that is my job is not what i want to do that this is the actual foreclosure that has happened over the past few years so you can see that it went up obviously because the recession way that down one thousand were foreclosed on this year two of them will not be on the auction because one of the local units of government took them which is part of the things that happened in that so you can see and two of those nine of those are yours one on river and one on seventeenth street which is a house that definitely has some issues that are going to have to be addressed there was somebody living it up until just recently but not  anymore and from that then the last piece that i'd like to talk about is we have a land bank and right now there is one of your staff members on it david dinner heidi assessing office is the land bank board so he sits on it helps to determine where we're going with the land bank ryan caton spent lots of time with us as we began that process and helped us actually draft of the land bank board where we're going to go how did it all roll out so and then he sat on the board for a while until he moved here so you've got lots of experience within your organization about what's going on in the land bank land bank really has two things i'm not going to bore you by reading the  mission statement but the land make really is responsible for two things one is taking property that has very little value on the market today and is probably not even being taxed because it has some sort of issue the government ends up with it somehow it's it isn't valuable it's not on the tax rolls so how can we get it back on a textural we've done that once the land bank it's through property that was here in the city it's the old movie oil property which had no value we couldn't go through even it wouldn't to do with the landing second thing we'd like to do with a land bank is we'd like to be able to find ways to partner with organizations that are looking to develop other kinds of parcels and there are special ways that the landing can do that and there are dollars associated with that both from the state other kind of places where where property that's being run through the land bank has special stuff maybe not so much for the city how and because the city of hauen has a facility thought process under the brownfield and other places but for other places in the county it's really important and with that i'm finished are there if there's any questions otherwise thank you for letting me come any questions for the county treasure people to show up for that auction and it the room is really maxed out a lot hundred fifty so the answer is yes it'll be crowded the there are cards so you have a number you put up your card and bid on stuff it is that as well as an on line auction so it's being done on line and live at the same time the on line bids show up on a screen as they come and it is it's it is not i do not have an  that doesn't happen it is somebody who says i've got thirty two hundred dollars worse thirty four i got thirty six now i've got so it just goes like that and it moves really quickly but the auction as a as a whole is just a really interesting thing because the auctioneer is got an incredible amount of knowledge about the foreclosure process and so that is the first twenty minutes or what do you need to know about buying property through an auction  know the question yeah i have one question on the foreclosure properties do you have any idea when the auctions are done how many of these properties become rentals versus owner occupied would you have any guests or and you c statistics on thing i do not keep statistics on that because that's really done at the local level and i don't see that stuff what we've found though is that most of the many of the lower dollar kind of  properties still houses but are at the lower end of that do become rentals lives we've seen that happen a lot where people bid on them or they're flipped houses where somebody buys and does a minimal amount of work and tries to flip it and get it back  that those are the two things that happen one of the things that we've talked about that could be on the that the county treasurer can do in the auction is actually put deed restrictions  those parcels so if the city of holland said we do now want any parcels that go through the auction to be able to be owner occupied that could be a deed restriction it will lower the price you'll have to you have to be able to see that and know that because it will change the dollar amount that comes in but we can make those kind of things happen for the say thank you thank you oh nancy i have a friend who was close to foreclosure and then went through the state of michigan and got part of a program that helped pay the mortgage for them and now that bank was sold out bought out by another bank and the new bank does not participate in that state of michigan program therefore they've been told they have to come up with the entire market payment and it's headed for for closure is would it be wise for them to contact you we'd be happy to talk to him there are multiple programs out there step forward michigan other kinds of things which enables people who are able to make payments going forward may not be able to take care of what they've got in the back and behind them but could make payments going forward there's a program out there that can take up to thirty thousand dollars and actually wipe it off today wow thank you thank you thank you ok that brings us down to item number nine we have some unfinished business right ok good evening everyone just wanted to share with you again this was before you at the last regular session what we're talking about again  is installing a four way stop at the intersection of country club road legion park drive again primarily recognizing the new new development that's going in there at the former golf course property  we did not receive any negative comments on this and i actually did have the opportunity earlier this week to talk with both neighbors on the corners there and they were very positive on the idea and the concept of it so  again hopefully you know this can move forward all regulatory signs is as you know from previous experience need to go through council approval so that they're enforceable and and and so that's the process that we're  it just because of the construction traffic that is out there so i do expect those to go up fairly quickly they may they may go up on a temporary basis initially but then once the work is done out road construction signs up right now so once that comes down they've just been extended till the thirtieth i tell you what i mean it's taken care of so all right very good  it is before us we're ready for a  mr meyer thank you this is your second reading on some proposed text amendments to thirty nine one ninety eight which are the residential infield regulations this is an item that came to the planning commission attention by a resident on thirteenth street with concern about what was happening on the property next door to him the situation  was a residential structure to family residential structure that has existed on that property for for many years was purchased by an individual who wanted to put some additional bedrooms wanted to expand those two units and get a total of five bedrooms in each unit to do that he wanted to utilize the basement space of the building to do that he needed to  rehabilitate the basement and lift the floor of the first floor of the building up above where it was to get adequate head room in the basement in doing all of that as i say the the the the first floor elevation was lifted above the existing probably by about eighteen inches or so i don't have exact measurements on that but it was raised and the building was renovated  fully renovated interior interior and exterior and the concern that was raised was a concern about the height of the building as a result of that novation and the height of the first four we have a set of infill standards those in fill standards cover new construction but did not cover the lifting of a building as this was organization of existing buildings under the  standards there is a high provision as one of the standards that is reviewed by and that standard essentially says that the height of a new building shall be generally compatible with the height of buildings around it and we look at the height of front porches and the height of the first floor elevations as well as the overall height of the building as has all elements of that height examination on a project but as i said renovated homes or lifting of homes are not covered under that portion of the ordinance so that concern was taken to the planning commission the planning commission went through a process actually went through and made a recommendation reconsidered and then modify the recommendation slightly the recommendation that is before you is to include the listing of houses as one of the elements that triggers infield review and also provides for  enduring that review of the listing of a building that the the ability that the distance that they can lift the building would be the average of the floor elevations of the houses on either side the notion being  the the that aspect of the height of the building with then be compatible within the range of the buildings on either side so that was recommended to you there's also a definition of how you measure that height off of the great and it's at the front elevation at the sidewalk in front of the house but it's a relatively simple amendment in that it includes lifting a house as part of the infill review and then set some limits on how high that house can be raised and that comes to you with planning commission eight zero vote on the planning commission ok thank you that was the report from staff this next opportunity is for comments from the audience if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to comment on this particular ordinance invite you to come to the podium state your name and address for the record and you will have up to five minutes to for comment and so we get this out of the way for everybody else who wants to comment later on this istomin that we have here is as i said five minutes you will see in front of the dyess here there's when they start lighting up you'll notice them there's a green light that lights up when your period starts and when you get down to four minutes the green light will go out the yellow light will come out and when you get to five minutes your limit the red light comes on and that means the same thing as it does at a traffic light so mr trap yes good evening welcome i'm paul traffic and the person  talking about i have a thirty to thirty four he's thirteen street tonight you have before you a proposal to make two relatively small changes to the infill ordinance one would a set set a standard for measuring floor elevations that would reduce confusion and conflicts that have occurred in the past the second would require that existing buildings being raised up conform to standards in line with the  states a building is constructed or moved into a neighborhood should reflect architectural styles design features use of materials placement of structures that are clearly indicative of a particular era which help to define the visual character and preserve economic stability of a given neighborhood and preserve and protect property values assure architectural compatibility with the neighborhoods prevent visual conflict and promote complementary design great goals but while the city gives lip service to promoting single family occupancy in the hope college neighborhood its present practices and ordinances fail to protect property in the way of life of the residents who have worked hard to maintain and improve their homes or i believe that in addition to inadequate in adequate in force some of the infill ordinance fails to meet its objective of preserving the integrity of neighborhoods by x looting existing structures in essence once a building is a wreck to the owner can lift it enlarges redesign it in any way without being subject to review by the planning commission is only one exception they can impose a porch the president proposal originated from a letter i sent to the planning commission expressing concern about about a pop up expansion of the house then the most prominent the out of town student landlords purchased a property of forty sixty surtees and demolished it in building a new structure with basement rooms he was allowed to set the standards of measurement because the ordinance was not definitive this structure had a floor elevation of forty two inches about a foot higher than the adjoining joint properties the house next to us had about the same for elevation as ours the same landlord port purchase that house and after being granted a property division that clearly violated the zoning ordinance he lifted the house at twenty four esearch street higher than any house on the block and about double the size of the space of the top floor what had been a two unit house with three bedrooms became a ten bedroom boarding house with no pretensions of fitting into the neighborhood that ports had been the same elevation as ours is now higher than the handrails on our porch and east fourteenth he built a full basement using a forty two inch elevation but this house was more than another foot higher apparently he didn't want t dig down a little bit more the deed is done we have lost our privacy our quality of life has diminished our property value has dropped and he gets richer at our expense it would be good if the city required him to conform to the zoning ordinances regarding a lot size concrete parking fencing occupancy permits and providing contact information however nothing will change that monstrosity next to us we have to live with it but when you have the opportunity to restrict this kind of desecration of our neighborhoods this proposal is not what i suggested to the planning commission but it is a step forward there is a need for clear standards of measurement a point to determine grid there also has to be a limit as to how high a structure can be raised so it does not detract from the surrounding neighborhood i thank you for any other members of the audience that wish to comment on this ordinance peters feel i know the planning commission has spent a lot of time on this but what its eight to nothing you've been involved in all these meetings is there anything that you would caution or any thoughts you've had about any and in this neighborhood all of this makes sense you talk about a city wide ordinance is there anywhere where you could see the application of this ordinance having unintended consequences that that maybe you or the planning commission have verbalized and thought through that maybe just because we haven't been in those conversations we might might not be obvious to us i do not recall any conversations of the planning commission about unintended consequences there was considerable discussion of the planning commission about how high that height should be established the initial recommendation from the planning commission was the higher of the two properties on either side that was what they went back reconsider and then came through with an average height rather than the higher with the feeling that setting that height relative to those does not sort of take that there might be in this particular this isn't this it isn't immediately next to the highest floor elevation in the neighborhood i suppose you could have a situation where that would occur where there's a site or a property that's supposed to be lifted and it happens to be next to the house th out of character perhaps in the rest of the neighborhood so so where you set that it becomes that's i think the reason the planning commission was concerned about it is that you could have those kinds of variations within a neighborhood where where the highest building might begin to set the height and other buildings with and become out of character with with that next building i'm not sure what you know all of that might be unintended consequences  think this is a this is a reasonable approach to looking at at the height of the ordinance itself when you do have the authority to review just simply putting this under the review of the infield ordinance brings in the questions answered i really like the idea of revealing it at some point instead of somebody just making arbitrary decisions based on their intentions for the property and maybe not the best for the neighborhood feel i just wonder if if the two properties continuous to the one you're talking about aren't really the ones you want to compare to in the neighborhood if where can a lacking ourselves into a policy that may not have the flexibility of a good thinking person when you look at the whole neighborhood i i wonder  if maybe it would be best to just leave it with it can mean having to come to review and then that goes to plan a commission or whatever than normal steps would be in order to have it in the context of the whole neighborhood and what all of this is happening at that time in the city would you think that would have some there yeah let me remind you a little bit about thoughts on that that would be an administrative review under the ordinance we would send out notices to those within three hundred feet of the property and if there were an objection that would then send it to the planning commission it would be an administrative review so you know input into that question is is available through that process but if it remains of the ministry to review it's a judgment we make based on the patterns we've made judgments before  when it does go to the planning commission it gives broader opportunity for broader input and planning commission can can use their judgment if it if it doesn't say specifically what the dimension is they could make a determination that maybe a little hires is more appropriate so it gives them a little more flexibility the question then i guess is you know do you want to set a specific standard that is hard to question you know it's very clear or do you want to last of flexibility so if we took this situation we just talked about les paul and that in rewind and had a policy of it had to go to review before the first thing could have been changed how would that have helped us if we had the policy i suspect and i rely on brian as a member of the planning commission maybe to to emphasize or correct me on this but i suspect there would be a lot of discussion of it went to the planning commission if there were an objection from a neighbor went to the planning commission would be a point of great focus on that as it is today the neighborhood doesn't even know that they're raising the height of the floor it's it's just part of the building permit process so that really such effort two different ways of proceeding thanks i just added it i think would depend on the crankiness of marvin's on that indeed i think book came to one of the meetings and one of the januarys when we when we have coffee with council me he brought this up at least to me and this is a lot of time isn't spent on this and i think there's a lot of factors involved in it i'm thinking more about the topography of when you look at the eastern part of town the older section there it seems that it's not as flat when you go to other areas of the city it seems like when subdivisions were made they were just kind of flattened out and it was pretty easy to figure out where these lines were and where homes are going to fit into i'm thinking also about older homes what do we want them to become as their foundations become weaker and are in need of replacement what is going to be the incentive of a homeowner to spend substantial amount of money  this for safety and repairs so you can have egress windows etc and i think in the whole college area than other question was not brought up before is the number of students are we going to have six or are going to have four i think that's a really key issue that we have to think about voting this for whole college so bottom line is this is not as easy as i thought it was going to be your originally  cause of safety repair costs for college just the lay of the lane and so i think we have to really look at all of these pieces of a seven foot basement room we may need to raise some of these houses up i would think baby eight inches at once would be one cement block length would not be an unreasonable number two to give some people so and so the for making some repairs but i  understand paul's concern so it's not it's not an easy issue but a lot of things if you're rich or easy you're not exempt the last time we discussed this i mean i made the statement that i was having a hard time understanding why this was a big deal and much of this i still have a difficult time with i'm not convinced of the aesthetic considerations of what we're talking about here whether our houses you know are twelve to twenty inches higher than the next house or if you know the style is different in my mind that's not such a big deal i guess maybe it's a good thing that my taste and opinion is not the final word on what's allowed in the city i also think that  if i were in your position and what went in next to me was exactly what went in next to you i would be concerned as well because the density of that what's a lot of that structure now  would give me pause to be concerned and i think that's an issue that is very legitimate and that's something that i think i heard threaded through this discussion if that's true i also think that there probably are better and different means or processes in which to address that without allow dormitories to be it's not subject to in full review it seems odd to me that that exception would be there and i guess that's what this is trying to address  so i guess what i'm saying is i have issues with the good part a good deal of this regulation and i think it's something right that that's going to have to be addressed but to allow an existing house  to be exempt from this review just because be raised in other situations which in my mind are more important and more  probable too to spark the kind of redirection renewal really living in our inner city that i would at least hope to see terms of reservations and really getting at what seems to be the the larger issue here and that is you know miniature dormitories if you  will in in some of our neighborhoods i don't know that this particular ordinance or tool really takes that dead on i think what it does is it reacts to a situation where there was a bit of a gap i would venture to guess that regardless of whether the house was constructed there one was moved there or this one raised if it was a three bedroom unit with two and a half baths we wouldn't be having this conversation regardless of height i think that preamble that was shared with us is pretty generic in nature on purpose for administrative review processes because compatibility best i can tell your character of a neighborhood is more than three houses on any given block or in any given neighborhood there's a diversity and probably each and every one of our neighborhoods that has more than three houses on any given block if we want to get dormitories i suggest we get a dormitories with a tool that says we don't want many dormitories i don't think this is the right tool for it i think it it has some of those implications and some unintended consequences i'm not supportive of this i think this is a bit more per script then we ought to be relative to some of these issues now and i think this is an acceptable infill review criteria based on everything else that we do and i think what todd i agree with you we would be talking about this if this was a single family home fact remains that we do want to keep the characters of these neighborhoods we don't want things to get out and we don't want a basement jacked up to twelve foot ceilings  and different style of garden apartments being installed in areas where it just doesn't seem seem to fit so i think that's consistent with what we already have in the infill ordinance and  i agree with plenty commission's decision on sending this our way is it possible for me to offer an amendment to just considering the first part of the planning commission's recommendation that we did that that are pretty go to an infill review and to recommended ordinance and then a motion could be made to and seconded and then we need a motion to amend ok now we don't like discussion for me to make that motion sensor which motion you're going  infill view for property such as this in changing as presented and stop there without the comparison between the two contiguous properties therefore the staff would be able to study that property in the context of the full neighborhood and make a decision that's a little more flexible can i ask for clarification or i guess whatever properties going to be changed than that the staff would have to go to announce that to properties within three hundred feet and if anybody had a problem with that they could come forward and then it would go to the planning commission and we could have hopefully a little happier ending than the situation did but it wouldn't be they would be forced to only compare with the property and either side and come up with an average they could make a decision and different w you want it just to be with the people i'm not i'm not here before we get down the road a lot of discussion we've heard the motion is there support i'm not here to support so motion to amend is and we're back to the motion as presented from the planning commission yes motion passes six yes and two no thank you that then brings us down to item well communications from the audience this is the opportunity for numbers of the audience to address on any item that is not on the agenda i know we've got a couple of people here and i apologize for really missing my estimate of time  much for allowing me to introduce myself tonight i'm cindy gammer at am my address is nine six seven seen if you drive play momus again and i'm a candidate for state representative of the a t f district as you know bob jeanette ski is our current state representative and he is term limited and so i'll be running for his see the primary on august fifth transparency is important to me and i handed out my flyers to you and there's not time to talk about all the issues but i do try to put those in my flyers and on my website and my phone number is on there so if you have any questions after tonight please feel free to give me a call and i'd be happy to answer on so i'll just take a few minutes just to introduce myself my father grew up in germany under hitler and immigrated from germany to united states after world war two so liberty and freedom is very porton to my family he opened a tool and die shop started that in his early twenty's and so and has had it his whole life so my siblings and i we grew up in the tool and die industry and learn how to run a successful business growing up at age of eighteen i started as an independent contractor and did very well working my way through college i attended the university of michigan school  nursing and when i graduated i became an r n shortly after i married my high school sweetheart he went to school western michigan university i worked in oncology hospice and in the intensive care unit and very quickly we had three children i had twins and then another one right after that so i found myself as a young mom working the midnight shift in the i c u with three little ones and at that time decided to stay home and raise the kids and so we you know cut coupons and cut back and went down to a single income shortly after that we decided to homeschool our children and so my twins just turned seventeen just not too long ago they had their first college classes at cornerstone university this past year and my youngest is fourteen i didn't start getting involved into politics until about five years ago and when i was growing up my father would talk about some of the concerns he saw that he saw in our government and i said ahdaf that can't happen here it's america and about five years ago i noticed some things and i thought you know some of those things he said is starting to happen here and it's america and i can't stand by and let that let that happen not for my children and grandchildren so i started reading legislation studying my constitution talking to my representatives and senators and i have been very active in the past five years advocating for and against legislation going to lansing going to state committee hearings and being involved in that  way transparency is important to me liberties important to me fighting for the taxpayer and our families and businesses it is important to me especially our economy my kids are starting to get into the job market and i don't want them to have to move out of state  to find a job and raise their families i want to be a grandma you know near my children and grandchildren and so that's why i'm running for state representative and i don't know if you have any questions for me if you do that here tonight but i thank you very much you're welcome hail hail go blue thinks and the other members of the audience history in childhood i grew up in a family that is you know if you're not by seven o'clock your day a shop and you work hard and make a living prioritize and do everything as wise as possible  similar to cindy have noticed some things have been changing over the past years and i've been getting involved as a precinct delegate for second precinct of the township and so for me it's it's time that we start doing the right thing according to my slogan spin of the people for the people and when it comes the ninety eight district brace on the only candidate that has pledged to have a town hall meeting once a month and also try to meet with you guys at least once here and with all other  could do if i was elected would be some health care reform education reform for its size the budget so that we can use all the gas tax to fix roads and you know a truck driver over the road i definitely know how bad those roads are and the need that they need to fix and get rid of the film industry subsidies and also reform the century twenty one program and the like said earlier set the example for at a lower salary as far as church goes i am the sunday school teacher  the youngest yeah the youngest of that class a deacon chairman for two years my wife and i just finished her first year as a young people's leader with another family also helped out with b b s for seven years of helped out with us for monday that you have a motion to approve the recommendation of the city attorney and b p to have you to file suit to pursue recovery of the loss suffered as a result of the hauen wyoming interconnect facility failure from parties as determined by the city city manager reports number one community in the road services donation of public art the ribbon or river avenue bridge area tonight i really feel privileged to follow the city manager in introducing this this item if i think back over ten years when plans were being put together for the replacement of the river avenue bridge attractive and communicate some of the the linking characteristics of the community north and south of the bridge and tells stories or be interpreted as stories about the things that the community believes in this specific proposal has been presented to council and study session on three occasions initially in very conceptual form and then by april of this past year with fundraising will go and a lot of the specific engineering details we spoke about this intense as precession tonight it will not get into the engineering details mr paulson is here and can answer avenue bridge there were a number of people involved in planning that expressed the thought that bridges can be just pure function or they can involve some public art that expresses some of the aspiration and ideals of  are professional designers and members of the our community had a conversation about the things that make this community special and what some of its ideals are and acknowledge that holland no longer is dominated by dutch families even though it still has very much a dutch culture we have many fine african american hispanic asian central european  families who live here as well that are important parts of the fabric of this community and that a theme of celebrating our diversity that the bridge representing a bridge among our our valued cultures as well as being the functional bridge would be a worthy thing to to aspire to and so the theme celebrating our diversity was jos in a committee which i chair again involves professionals from the art design community as well as engineers like paul and others who are looking at different dimensions of the technical requirements of executing a public art project like this the project has four key elements as in vision the first is a thirty foot high sculpture in titled uniting sun that would be executed by an internationally renowned sculptor name who lives in amsterdam it would occur in the triangle on the south side of the river avenue bridge this picture is shown shows what it would look like i believe approaching from south to north and then there's another one there that shows how would appear if you were coming from the north toward the city the south so it would appear in that triangle there and then  that's the triangle on the south side of the bridge that it would be centered on so as you come down from north to south you basically be driving right straight toward it and then there's another artistic element that  called what we call refer to a sun discs that would line both sides of the bridge there would be a dozen of those six on each side standing on individual poles and the round sun element of those  would play off of the round sun element that is in the main sculpture you can back up you could explain that the main sculpture that has these vertical uprights when it's in thirty mode as a pedestrian would look at that or a driver would look at that those vertical elements would all look like they're there different shapes and different links and in truth they're all exactly the same length and the artist created the sculpture  so that as you look at it from different angles those those verticals look different and yet in in they're the same and he meant to interpret that we as individuals we who come from different cultures may look different but in many respects we're all a done a cool and and the son element is uniting element indicating that at the end of the day we're all part of one community and we need to work together to build it so so the main sculpture is one element the son just called new dawn rising is the name of those big colored in a way to look like a rising sun earth or a new dawn symbolizing awareness of the community of the importance of diversity to our economic and cultural success and then a third element would be going into elementary schools and having elementary school children execute some type of artistic element that would go into van brock park we talked about kids putting hand prints on benches that would go into the park we still have to work out the details of that and then the final four thousand mint is naming the bridge it's always been called the river avenue bridge by default just because of where it is but has never had a real name to it we're recommending that the bridge be name unity bridge with the saying celebrating our diversity and building community together as part of the signage so today with the the total project is budgeted to cost three hundred seventy five thousand dollars the private sector is taking the total responsibility for all the funding to go into the project to created landscape but to build the foundation for it  project is this is executed in a manner that's extraordinarily low maintenance the sculpture itself requires virtually no maintenance of the sun just maybe every twenty years need to be refreshed but it's relatively low  cost the landscaping is low maintenance landscaping first week of the fund raising we've raised about a third of the funds that are necessary we're hoping to finish the fund raising by the end of august the artist  scheduled to come on august first and begin construction of the main sculpture in the sun this and we're hoping to to have it put in place somewhere in late september early october so tonight we're asking for your approval of the overall concept approval to proceed with the for the artist to proceed with the creation of the large sculpture and the twelve sun discs we would like your conceptual approval of the artistic elements that the children will create in bham rock park with an understanding that we would have to come forward to the arts committee and  members of city staff for approval before we actually did executed anything and then finally for the naming of the bridge we said we seek your support for that name the actual  authorization we understand needs to be done by the county road commission as they own that right away and they own the rights to name bridges but they would seek your support that it's something that council would like to do and w have to go to the holland charter township and seek their approval for the same elements so tonight we're asking you to approve the bridge so that the artist can proceed with the with the project and i'm willing to answer any celebrate diversity with an artist from the netherlands doing the work to to say that we're growing beyond just our roots and to a richer deeper culture and  to say that variety really is god's idea not ours it was hitler that only wanted one race in his kingdom and we don't want to go that direction so that is very wise and it of course agrees with our city seal that says in unity is our strength god be with us and that is something that we live to continue to build on with general t at the beginning and so it's a great way to celebrate all of that and to bring it back to the beginning as we go toward the future and i also would want to say thank you so much mr brooks for your involvement you have a lot of choices in your life and they don't have to involve council meetings and committee meetings and all types of levels of government meetings or helping museum meetings are all the other things that you get involved in i just really respect your willingness to use your time and treasure to give back to this community and to continue to work to solve problems to use the expertise you developed in in leading a corporation to help us solve problems today and you're also working to help us avoid problems in the future and that is such a gift to all of us and i know you would be the first to say you're not the only one in that bracket is clearly but a community project it is a lot of mind absolutely but it also takes that one kind of you know the buck stops here person who continues to take the quiet steps one at a time in order to really follow this to its fruition and now our whole community is is very grateful and we are all the benefit from the example that you have set for us even considering the children as having them are part of this message i think that will really serve to inspire generations  thank you thank you for your support one comment just feels like another opportunity for neighborhood of a jurisdictional collaboration and it seems like it's happening more and it happens a bit easier from a lot of work that's happened over the last ten years or so so i think it's great that our township to the north has been supportive of this and some other things lately i just feel like that's a really positive direction we my first glimpse representation of a sculpture i wasn't quite sure what to make it with but as i look at it as you say from a number of different views  the metaphors just start flowing you know it's an incredible statement that this sculpture makes as you view from from different angles the the idea of diversity and city limits so it's to me of extremely apropos in terms of the sentiment it represents i'm sure there's going to be a variety of reactions from the community but good to supposed to do that and i'd be worried if there weren't a variety of reactions to this so i i'm just thrilled to see this year thank you very much for all your work and for everyone who's been allowed to bring this forward and i can't wait for the day to see it up there right david i am i am with you on this piece it is already starting some significant reaction and that's a good thing on both sides and that's of of all of these are get me most excited about this is that you have something that evokes an emotion out of someone at the entrance to our city and i'm a i'm a  huge fan of large scale public art i have considerable background in supporting projects like this including millennium park in chicago and when we opened that space  ten years ago actually was ten years ago this summer when we opened money park in chicago with some very large pieces of art much of which was this really angered and i think this is a great project in our community owes a debt to people such as yourself who believe in this community the way you do th venture if we did not acknowledge that due to the scope and location of this project there are some very technical requirements that have to be paid close attention to and  e will work and will stay put and will not interfere with the some of the significant infrastructure that we have both in and under this area and members of the city council this is a presentation i'm making in lieu of andy canyon who is out of the state and cannot be here tonight we are grateful to the  others a press release righted has awarded the city of holland with a forty thousand dollars grant to make possible a long term prove to this property that has been needed i want you see here is an aerial photo of the see that it's narrow and a bus is contemplating how to get schoolchildren to the facility and just switching through a couple of photos here you can see the difficulty and how the unloading is had to happen in the past more so than probably other places that the schoolchildren are visiting and it can be a hazardous situation and on top of that it can block the roadway if the parking lot of down in different ways and overall we have a visibility problem with viewing where the nature center his it is located that here and for many of us of course spend a lot of time in nature center and drivers by really don't appreciate what's there given that the entrance is so narrow this is the home in question it is available for sale it is something that this family has worked with staff on and it has been appraised to purchased through other budgeted funds and gratefully donations from thirty totaling thirty seven thousand dollars from literally dozens of supporters in the community leaving a gap of nine hundred thousand that plan such that the project could could still move forward and and stabilize and improve the entrance so i think i'll leave it at that and be happy to answer any questions you have the action tonight is for a city council consideration of the grant document and authorization for its execution by the mayor and the city clerk the recommendation from a plea a little while back i made a plea of stairs and i guess i'm going to make a formal request that we get this plea put on an agenda so we can put this to bed once and for all my plea is been that when we designate public property parks so on and so forth that we have a legacy and a perpetual care fund to take care of this we don't have it for this piece of property and we're talking about some other public spaces coming up in the future we've gone through some tough times as of the last few years starting back in two thousand and eight so on and so forth everybody is fully aware of the first thing that goes down the tubes is the parks land we need to have some sort of perpetual care fund to take care of this public property and you know public land is great but it also has to be maintained so if i would make a request of you mr cotton that we get this put on agenda that we can get this up is was so properly pointed out to me a vote of five to make this a policy i will be i was lukewarm on this to begin with  but based on everything i've read and observed and listened to and all the reports we've had over the last one year that we've been talking about this opportunity i i mean i think it was margaret mead who said  never something about only a handful of few people can it can that change the world but in fact in reality that's really how it happens and the digraph nature center has a tremendous support of following that i think is stepped up and and done some great things here and i think that the nature center is is on its way to become an even greater asset in our community and well i haven't i have not been there is often as i'd like i think there's an awful lot of people in this community that have demonstrated just how important this is to rob who runs the place and to the staff and everything we do there it's got to be something pretty special and i would nature center and talking to their friends and neighbors and writing checks and communicating with the council and with others to get them and then this once in a lifetime opportunity to have a respectable and trance to a wonderful nature center so that people can find it and children can safely access it and we can all grow to enjoy it and it will fit with the rest of the amenities that make holland such a special place so it has been wonderful to watch the checks come in and to see the community foundation step up as well and the people there and not in the home to wait patiently for us to line up all of government and and citizens in order to make this happen and it will be a cloris a day when we can have such a nice entrance and then people will drive by and know they're going by the  nature center and want to stop it's really exciting yeah i've been a supporter of this since the get go and have taken many numerable groups of students to the red nature cent where they have come to schools just like to think of an art family for bearing with us as we go through this process i think that also the use of thirty thousand dollars of our legacy phone is a good use of that money has a small section of it but there's certainly this will be a legacy thank you for all the donations from individuals along with the community foundation grant i think this is a worthwhile project and i think we just have to think you know others you know we have a lot of parks that affect a lot of different people different ways there's one bill i love there's the upon the house there is a column or there's you know the civil war an ac a reality so thank you for one and all anyone else i would just say as we wrap this up as a having been a neighbor of the nature center for the last twenty being adjacent to the nature center for all the time that i've lived there and it's amazing the things that i've seen as a result of it from a small herd of three or four deer standing in my front yard one morning to a late night winter walk with my dog and seeing a fox across the road but a block away  it's just a very special place we hear the hear the birds and and the frogs and all the nicest and it's it's an amazing place and i really do encourage you as others have  not been there get out there and enjoy it and while you're there buy a bottle of maple syrup pretty good stuff so this is a this is a great adopt in a month program received donations from nick wilson lauren been wearin harper dickinson and button purchases in the amount of one thousand dollars and for the exhibit expenses cash donations were received for walker's tulips culture a play received a two hundred dollars donation from john clarke tree replacement program received a donation of two hundred fifty dollars and seventy cents from the county tax allocation board city manager for the city manager receive payment produced perform as acting in his official capacity when the island gardens received campaign cash donations in the amount of forty five dollars and six cents am the public safety services for your division received a donation in the amount of seven hundred sixty four dollars and seven cents from vaughn banks it is recommended that these donations be accepted was appreciation and expression of gratitude be forwarded to the donors there we're going to have an introductory meeting to the community that the georgetown university energy prize for the opportunity for the city of holland to win potentially five million dollars based on the work that this type been happening over the last five years and can happen even further over the next two years to conserve energy and make the best use conservancy of the communities dollars as well as provide a higher quality of life so that is at seven thirty it is appropriate because it is the hotel that is known for being environmentally fish and it is also appropriate in that the i challenge you team helping the b p w has is providing an opportunity for us to see their work as a precursor to the competition on friday and it ties perfectly into the need to integrate the school systems into this energy competition so very happy with how it's coming together it will be followed up by in august and a major community kickoff in november the governor's office assistant fact they will be attending as one of the headliners for that event as as is peter gard fourth interested in attending and and also perhaps the author and founder of this competition dr francis slay key church and university physics professor so this is the beginning as we ramp it up you'll be saving receiving and marketing plan associated with all kinds of activities for your review and approval and study session and september so not to worry if you can't make this because there's many other opportunities to play again and of course we need your support and guidance before we actually launch in january thank you thank you communications from the mayor this evening i will echo his usual reminder that information about the city is available from  variety of sources much of it is available on our website at city of holland dot com and if you can't get it off the web you can at least find phone numbers and addresses for various departments of the city and for all of us if you have things that you would like us to hear about or know all about so get involved and let us know your feelings  briefly and said this after the fourth of july i feel comfortable saying this just a mere six weeks away here's another major holiday coming up and there's going to be another major parade well just wet your whistle for that that right now stay tuned for furthe nancy which reminds me of another wonderful walk that will happen on labor day september one that your labor day boardwalk which starts over by heinz and goes all the way to win the island gardens and hopefully be able to enjoy that walk with family and friends and it's just another glorious week in holland on tomorrow night our street performers and friday night are huntington band concerts at collin park and of course farmer's market is open saturday morning with fresh fruits and vegetables from these amazing farms we have around here it is so much to be thankful for living in holland michigan and we're very grateful for all the work that so many people have put in to make this such a wonderful place and we hope to keep it that way by the way we pick stuff up and keep it clean and are kind to our neighbors thank you but you know motions or resolutions