Planning Commission Minutes

Planning Commission
Regular Meeting
December 21, 2005
7:00 p.m.

Present: S. Versluis, D. Brown, M. Houseman, C.Gornowich, J. Hickey, Chairman; M. Huizenga, C. Rypma, T. Greeno, M. Ferris-Young. Also Present: F. Wash, Planning Director, Scott Conners, Engineering and B. Antcliff, Secretary.

Chairman Hickey opened the meeting and C. Rypma gave the invocation.

C. Rypma moved and M. Houseman supported the motion to approve the Planning Commission minutes of December 7, 2005.

There was an opportunity for general public comment and none was offered.

Chairman Hickey read the request for final area site plan and preliminary site condominium approval for the Cambridge Grove RPUD consisting of 145 units and located west of Wilson Ave. on the south side of Richmond St.

Planner Wash stated that the Planned Unit Development process in Walker consists of three steps. The first step is a preliminary area site plan, and this project has received that. The second step is a rezoning decision by the City Commission and this property has now been rezoned RPUD 1. The third step is where we are tonight, which is the most important step from a site development stand point because it deals with a construction plan and a land division plan. What we have before us tonight is a final area site plan, which has details on it and there are staff comments. The other item for review tonight is the preliminary site condominium and that is the way the land is proposed to be divided. It may look like a platted subdivision but is being proposed as a site condominium with public streets. He went on to say that he recommends tabling this plan but you have the option of conditionally approving the plan because there is one more step for this plan which is final site condo approval at the City Commission level. The staff would like to have a solid deadline so we can ensure that the details of the plan are taken care of in a timely manner.

Scott Conners stated that our standard procedure is to show sidewalks on both sides of all public streets. We came up with some compromises with the developer during site review process. One of the compromises was to allow the sidewalk to be up against the back of the curb for a short distance along both sides of the road but at that point the sidewalk will have to be widened 8 ft. instead of 5 ft. This is a standard variance that may be allowed in an area where there may be wetlands where we cannot have a wide road section. The applicant wants a sidewalk on just one side of the road. Our rules do not allow that. The sidewalk has to be on both sides of the road.

Scott Conners went on to say that we are trying to maintain Kenowa’s alignment to the south. It is an important road. In all of the meetings that we have had on this project, this has not been adjusted.

Tom Greeno stated that he felt this change on Kenowa would be a good one as it would straighten out Kenowa without having a turn.

C. Rypma asked what difference does it make if it is straightened or if we leave it as it is?

Scott Conners replied that it is a transportation continuity kind of thing. Kenowa is a name that we all know as a north, south street and what we are doing here is to allow this street to vary from our county line alignment. We want to maintain the street name and the continuity down to Leonard St. because it does pick up further south in the south part of the City.

Mike Houseman stated that when we went through the original rezoning, didn’t we talk about the likelihood of Kenowa going through was not going to happen because of some of the obstructions down toward Lake Michigan Dr.?

Scott Conners replied there was some loose discussion about this but no decision was ever made. That decision could be made today. He went on to say that his recommendation was to adjust the alignment and have it go through. On Piccadilly we need to have a temporary cul-de-sac or a hammerhead built at the west end so that garbage trucks, mail vehicles, can turn around. We have a built in compromise that if the developer does not want to build a full size cul-de-sac there for temporary purposes, we can build a hammerhead which is a T at the end and that will allow snow plows, etc. to do a three point turn and get out of there. In this case we are willing to accept either one of these options. We have had a meeting with the Ottawa County Road Commission and we talked with them about the alignment of Kenowa. We have some issues to work out with the right-of-way from where it is a straight north-south right-of-way. We can work through these issues. Ottawa County has shown us a willingness to let us take over that short piece of road so that we have continuity on that section of road. When Phase 2 goes in, and that Kenowa portion is constructed, Ottawa County and the City of Walker will have an agreement to rework our borderline street agreement so that the short piece of Kenowa that is a gravel road right now could become jurisdiction for the City of Walker.

J. Hickey asked if that would be improved and be a public street then?

Scott replied yes. He went on to say that we have spent a lot of time on the drainage study here. We are going to have a 100 year storm detention center provided. If we have a really bad 100 year storm without any development, that flood level will not be raised at all with the post development, when all the streets and houses are in. There are 5 detention ponds here. We try to work developments like this into one or two ponds but in this case the detentions ponds are built to preserve the drainage courses that we looked at in the beginning of the project. These detention ponds are spaced upland at wetlands areas so that they can treat the water before it goes into the wetlands. Because the detention ponds are in backyard areas we cannot really get at them with City vehicles so we would look to the Association to take care of those and do the maintenance. The wetlands will not be used as detention as we would see in a larger plat. The issue is maintenance and we do not want to have any more of those than we need to.

M Ferris-Young asked if these ponds will be fenced?

S. Conners replied no, he did not think so. He stated we want to make sure the drainage easements are mentioned in the association by-laws. One point that we noticed during the drainage study is that there is a deficiency at the down stream outlet and Dave Hendershot, who is the engineer, went with me to Ottawa County to talk to them about trying to fix that deficiency. Once we do get that worked out and we have the right size pipe down stream, it would be constructed as part of Phase 2 in this plat. It is an easy condition. Right now we have a 24 in. pipe leaving this site and it goes into a 21 in. pipe and that goes into a 15 in. pipe and we would not expect to see something like that. We want to make sure that the 24 in. capacity is maintained so that we do not have a new road built that floods every two years. He went on to say that in the past we have had a lot of questions about the drainage on most of the houses on Richmond. You have maps that show the natural drainage course. That illustrates that most of those houses are much higher than this development area and you can see the catch basins in the Orchard Ridge Development across the street. Only a very small portion is not being picked up in their backyard that would include the sidewalk along the north side of Richmond. Their drainage should not be impacted by this development.

Scott Conners stated that the proposed grading for lots 8 – 11 is another issue that we have discussed before for quality building sites. We have questions about those because there is not much of a flat spot for those homes to be built on. We would like a conservation easement over those wetlands to make sure that the builder on that site does have to preserve those areas and knows he has a very restrictive area to work in.

Ms. Ferris-Young asked how the developer works around these wetlands without affecting it?

Scott Conners replied that they would have to safely slope down to it but not go within that area. He went on to say that the next area to discuss is fill. There are some areas that have as much as 10 ft. of fill and there is a concern about the additional volume of material coming in, what the time frame would be for depositing that material would be, and the routes for trucking. The engineer here has said that the site is going to be a balance which means no additional material will be brought in except for the sand and gravel to build the road which is great news. We want to get a statement to that effect. The park access in Phase 2 should have 2 accesses one on each side of the open park areas. It would be very easy to add a 10 ft. easement on the east side between lots 53 & 56 to provide additional access to the area. Because this project is a PUD, there will be a unique process on how the property for right-of-way is going to be designated for the City. When a project is platted, the right-of-way process on how we obtain that is easier. We want to make sure that the solution for us to accept the property is as close to the right-of-way that we can get.

Scott Conners stated that the last item here is the sanitary sewer. We did send this project to Moore & Bruggink to have a review done and how it relates to the sanitary sewer. We have not gotten into this aspect of the project because the developers have been working with Tallmadge Twp. side of the project. There is going to be a new pump station built in Tallmadge Twp. that is going to serve Phases 2 through 5. That pump station has been designed for some down stream restrictions, which has a limit on what can be built here. As designed, there were 128 lots proposed to go to the west through Tallmadge Twp. The pump station design that they have in place will only allow for 113 lots. We have two choices, either the development can be reduced by 15 lots or they can go back and look at Phase 2 or 3 and see if they can route the sanitary sewer from those areas to the north to Richmond where we do have additional capacity. That will be a technical decision. After a plan like this gets approved, we look at very detailed road construction plans. We will work out more details through that process.

Chairman Hickey asked when Tallmadge anticipates building this pump station?

Scott Conners replied that he thought it was being built now. There is a gap between the down stream sewer and this property. Things will have to be worked out between the different governmental jurisdictions.

Chairman Hickey stated that if we approve 128 lots here, there will be a problem right?

Scott Conners replied that he did not feel that we could approve 128 lots in light of the news we have received from Tallmadge Twp.

M. Ferris-Young asked about the logic of having sidewalks on both sides of the road.

S. Conners stated that we cannot have sidewalks that just stop at a point, this is going to be the main entrance to a plat of about 140 homes, and this entrance is the funnel into that entire area. It is where all the vehicles and pedestrians are going to go and they are going to come out to Richmond. Hopefully someday Richmond will have sidewalks. We need to separate vehicles from pedestrians. The last thing we would want to do is to have a sidewalk simply stop there and promote pedestrians crossing the road at the busiest point for this whole development. That is why we want sidewalks on both sides of the street. We try to be flexible and we feel this is a flexible solution to allow that sidewalk to be built right up against the curb. We think in this case it will provide additional space for buffering for the existing homes that are there.

M. Ferris-Young asked why is this a public street?

S. Conners replied that the City has not required that this be a public road. It is something that most developers want to see. Then the association does not have to worry about a fund to pay for road repairs in the future or to make sure that the plows get out there. That is taken care of when you build it to the public standard in the beginning.

Chairman Hickey stated that if we move Gordonshire a little further to the west, since we are talking about buffering, that home is a long way from the lot line, and the home to the east is very close to the lot line. If we gain an extra 4 ft. and put the sidewalks on the one side closer to the curb and the other side standard, it would be good. He felt perhaps it could be adjusted.

Scott Conners stated that he did not think that this could be approved with more than 113 lots in future Phases going in a westerly direction.

M. Houseman stated that we are dealing with the first 17 lots in Phase 1 and they are going to have to come back for each Phase.

Frank Wash stated that you are first looking at the entire final area site plan, if nothing changes down the road. You are looking for construction approval for the first Phase of final area site plan, which is 17 lots. Also the site condo is for only Phase 1.

C. Rypma asked can we go ahead with Phase l or do we have to look at Phase 1 again?

Scott Conners replied that now is the time to look at the design for Phase 1 to see if it can be adjusted or tweaked to allow for additional homes from Phases 2 or 3 for sewer to come in that direction. If we wait until Phase 2, they might miss the opportunity to adjust the grades in Phase 1 to take into account more lots. There is a danger in simply approving it, but if we point it out, we can probably move past that and let the solution be worked out in Phase 2 so that they have other options to look at. There are a couple of ideas on how they can reroute the sewer to let some of those lots go to the north. Do I think they can get all of them? I do not know. It depends on the details and we have not talked about those details yet.

Steve Versluis stated that in looking at lots 8 – 11, they are talking about conservation easements to protect those wetlands. At what time is that imposed or negotiated? Do we mandate that as a condition? He went on to say that he is concerned about those wetlands being encroached upon. He asked who polices wetlands and encroachments?

S. Conners replied it is typically the neighbors. MDEQ is the regulatory agency.

M. Houseman stated that when you look at the wetlands as established by the DEQ and the surveyors it often looks much bigger on the plans than what is really impacted on the site. He went on to say that he is not alarmed about lots 8 - 11.

Scott Conners commented that signs could be put up that say conservation easement do not disturb. That happens all the time.

C. Gornowich felt that would be a good condition for approval.

Carol Gornowich moved and Curtis Rypma supported the motion to open the public hearing. Motion carried.

Frank Wash commented that Deb Brown should obstain due to an ongoing conflict of interest as determined by the City Attorney.

Mr. VerWoert commented that this plan has been approved by this body twice. He then showed the site plan with explanations. He feels it is redundant to have two sidewalks. He proposed moving the road 4 ft. to the east and wants to add pine trees as a buffer. He stated they are trying to work with the adjacent neighbors. Phase 2 will connect to Kenowa Ave. so this will not remain the main entrance.

Frank Wash stated that the City standard cross section for a public street shows sidewalks on both sides of the road and there is no variance procedure for that. We could dovetail down the sidewalks to the road edge for 200 ft. from Richmond to get past those homes.

Scott Conners stated that we did talk about taking advantage of the 4 ft. extra on the west side of the road, instead of being 33 ft. from the east side, we could be 33 ft. from the west side and pick up an extra 4 ft. and have quite a buffer area on the east side with that short stretch of 8 ft. concrete sidewalk up against the back of the curb on the east side. Those were our suggestions.

J. Hickey, Chairman stated that we are saying that both sidewalks have to go in and we would like to move it as close to the west as we can.

Dave Hendershot, project engineer stated that if we add sidewalks to both sides we are going to have trouble fitting the grading of the road and sidewalks in. We may have to look at a retaining wall. By designing it the way we did, we are able to grade that area out and fit everything in there.

Mr. Ver Woert stated that one of the main concerns of this body was the traffic on Richmond. We have tried to alleviate traffic on Richmond to get traffic to Wilson Ave. We are trying to get a road that will connect off of Wilson Ave. and that makes for a nice gentle bend for traffic flow. He stated we have done a lot of drainage studies here. The desire for this design was drafted here with you.

Scott Conners replied that we get into a dangerous situation here with staff because we allow conditional approval. especially on tentative plans. This is exactly why we have that danger. That is why we are apprehensive about giving conditional approvals because we see minor items that need to be worked out, and we say we can work it out between now and the final plan. We get to the final plan and nobody wants to work it out. All of the professionals that the City has on staff, have agreed that they want to see this happen. It was brought up before and brought up again and now the Planning Commission can decide what they want to do. He stated he felt it was important to note that this is something we have been looking at all along. The professionals on staff are of a consensus on this idea.

Mr. VerWoert stated that he never got any paperwork on this.

Tom Greeno stated that the bend in that road was discussed right here.

Mr. VerWoert stated that he felt we were all in agreement on the drainage study and detention pond and there are no issues with the association by-laws and maintenance. We have had a meeting on the downstream outlet and improving that. There are some areas here that have wetlands. There are 4 to 8 inches of water here in the wettest time of the year. In a wetland like this you are allowed to mow and maintain. You are not allowed to dredge or dig or to fill. This will be backyards and will not be nasty, wet stuff. As Phase 2 is constructed, there will be grading for the backyards. We are not allowed to fill or cut into that area but as the project gets under way, the water will drain from the backyards. Part of the DEQ permit will require us to put up signage to say no filling as well in some areas to have a split rail fence to prevent some of that happening. It will also be recorded in the deed with the site diagram of the lot.

Steve Versluis commented that he would like to see some kind of delineation that there are wetlands here.

Mr. Ver Woert replied that state law requires conservation in these areas. It has to be recorded as wetlands. The DEQ requires signs in some areas.

T. Greeno stated that he felt the Planning Commission would like to see each lot individually signed where needed.

J. Hickey, Chairman stated that we have a letter here from Mr. Conners, our Engineer who has 15 items on this letter that need to be addressed and Frank Wash has a letter here with 9 items under the final site plan that need to be addressed and two items under the condo plan that need to be addressed. He went on to say that we have heard enough until you come back with the answer to these 26 items, we do not want to hear any more and you were told that the last time you were here. You have come back with the same identical plan. We are going to table this until you can back with an answer to these questions so we can make a decision that will benefit you and the citizens of Walker.

Glenn Deckinga, 4684 Richmond asked if this project is going to be limited to 145 lots?

J. Hickey replied that is one of the questions in the staff letter that we would like answered.

Mike Houseman moved and Carol Gornowich supported the motion to close the public hearing. Motion carried.

Tom Greeno moved and Carol Gornowich supported the motion to table this request until the staff is satisfied with the 26 conditions listed in these two letters. Motion carried.

Chairman Hickey read the request for site plan approval for a 10,000 sq.ft. addition to the existing building located at 2943 South Wilson Ct.

Planner Wash stated that Ultimate Tooling was approved originally in August 2004 for a building of 20,000 sq. ft. and now they are requesting an addition that they showed on their original plan. The site plan shows the addition to be south of the site and there is a conservation area to the southwest of the property. The site is completely designed and built out according to the standards of the ordinance. There is really no staff report on this property but if this project is approved, we will need 5 sealed copies of the plan to be distributed to the city departments prior to the building permit being issued.

Scott Conners stated that we went to site plan review with this and we had some very tough issues to work through and within a few days the applicant made some good decisions, and got us a revised plan.

C. Rypma asked if the building was signed?

The applicant replied no it is in the process.

C. Rypma moved and M. Houseman supported the motion to approve the site plan for 2943 South Wilson Ct., Ultimate Tooling as it does meet the standards set forth in the City of Walker Zoning Ordinance with the following condition:

1. The applicant agree to all of the conditions in the Planning Director’s letter dated 12-13-05.

Motion carried.

T. Greeno moved and C. Rypma supported the motion to adjourn the Planning Commission meeting at 9:05 p.m.

Motion carried.

______________________________ _______________________

Administrative Approval Carol Gornowich, Secretary

Walker Planning Commission

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