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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPUBLIC HEARING - 2018-01-22 - REZONING 13335 FARMINGTON RD CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, January 22, 2018 ______________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the City Hall Auditorium on Monday, January 22, 2018. MEMBERS PRESENT: Laura Toy, President Jim Jolly, Vice President Scott Bahr Brandon Kritzman Kathleen McIntyre Brian Meakin Cathy K. White MEMBERS ABSENT: None OTHERS PRESENT: Scott Miller, Planner Paul Bernier, Assistant City Attorney Bonnie J. Murphy, CER-2300, Certified Electronic Recorder The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with President Laura Toy presiding. This is a Public Hearing relative to a request for a change of zoning within the City of Livonia on the following matter: Petition 2017-09-01-05 submitted by the City Planning Commission, to rezone the City-owned property located on the west side of Farmington Road between the CSX Railroad right-of-way and Schoolcraft Road (13335 Farmington Road) in the Northeast ¼ of Section 28, from M-1 (Light Manufacturing) to PL (Public Land). The City Clerk has mailed a notice to those persons in the area affected by the proposed changes, and all other requirements of Ordinance No. 543, the Zoning Ordinance, have been fulfilled. The public hearing is now open for comments. There were nineteen people in the audience. Please state your clearly your name and address before making your comments. Toy: Mr. Miller? Miller: Thank you. The subject property is situated adjacent to and in front of the existing Department of Public Works yard, it measures approximately 200 feet in frontage along Farmington Road by a depth of 270 feet. There is an existing two-story building located on the parcel. This building is going through the process of site plan approval to renovate, expand and 2 repurpose the building into the DPW’s Administrative offices and Water and Sewer Maintenance Building. The building and site would be incorporated as part of the overall DPW complex and the Planning Commission recommended this petition be approved and that’s the extent. Toy: Questions for Mr. Miller? Mr. Miller, what is the purpose that you’re proposing therein? Miller: Well, I’m sure Don could explain better but basically the City bought the property and they would like to be able for it to be renovated and expanded into the Department of Public Works Administrative offices and then a Water and Sewer Maintenance Building. Toy: Okay. Council? Meakin: Madam President? Toy: Yes. Meakin: This is a long running project that we have studied for probably two years now and I’m glad to see a little action taking place here, I’ll be happy to offer the approving resolution for a change in zoning. Toy: Thank you. We have an approving resolution. Were there other comments? Anyone else on Council before I go to the audience. Hearing none and seeing none, we will go into the audience. If there’s anyone that would like to make a comment on item number one, I think most of you are here on item number two. Mr. Rohraff, is there anything you’d like to say at this point? Rohraff: Good evening, Council. I’d like to give you a small update of what I can up to this point. As we are here before you we are looking to have the property rezoned to Public Land so that we can move forward with our purchase there and the reconditioning of that building and adding onto that for the purposes that were already stated tonight which would be the Admin building and the DPW Water and Sewer Division in there. Up to this point, we’ve hired the architects and we’ve done, we worked all last summer going through the design process and getting floor plans and we’re getting to a point where we thought we would actually be a lot further along than we are currently. Unfortunately, with the budget that they were given at that particular time when I was working with them, pretty much all summer long trying to get numbers back from them so that we could have an idea where we were so we could come back and keep the process moving. They actually came back with two proposals that were more than double than what our anticipated budget was at that time. 3 So we’ve been working not as much as I would like but we’ve been working at trying to refocus their attention on where we were at. We’ve got one new floor plan back and with persistent emails and phonecalls, I’m trying to get a number with that new one which at this point I still do not have. My last communications with the contractor were actually today, but th prior to today they were on December 4 and that was the last email exchange, I’ve left a couple of phone messages wanting to know where we were at. With those numbers that we were seeing, I also asked them to just give me a complete tear it down to the ground and give me a brand new structure from the ground up, give me that number to give me a comparison. We’re trying to reuse the building that is there, we’re working on existing footage and permanent walls and things of that nature. I did have the opportunity in mid October to sit down with Councilman Kritzman and go over some of the details of what was there and some of the things that maybe he could see that were way off line or where we were at with that. To make a long story short, we’re working at this point, I talked with him today, they told me they were going to have the numbers by midweek, so that’s not the first time I’ve heard that unfortunately but that’s the best update I can give you at this point unfortunately. I was hoping to have construction underway by this point where we were originally planning on a date. Toy: Thank you. Okay, we have an approving by Meakin, were there any others before we move on? Kritzman: Madam Chair? Toy: Yes, go right ahead. Kritzman: I wasn’t certain if we were going to get into all of this this evening but as Mr. Rohraff has indicated I think this puts us into a situation where we need to potentially revisit how we pursue major construction projects in the future. We’ve executed a number of capital improvement projects that have gone exceedingly well in the last --- you know, certainly in my time here. And we have other members of Council here who have been involved with other capital improvement projects that have gone well. I think that maybe we need to move that matter into the Capital Improvement Committee which is not my committee but rather Cathy White’s. So I believe that we need to have a discussion around how to move ahead as a Council to address capital improvement projects and we may be looking at this one as one to modify as we move forward. There is a whole lot happening here with things that we need to wrap our arms around it. Toy: Council, do you want that as a resolution as well? 4 Kritzman: Yes. Toy: So we have two on the floor now, we have a resolution to go to Capital Improvement Committee and we also have Councilman Meakin’s approval, so those two will be – go ahead. Meakin: Madam President, is that in addition to the original motion? Kritzman: Yes, in addition. Let me clear about that. I believe the rezoning should move forward, I believe this is a great project, it’s a great project for the City of Livonia, I think we’re experiencing some hiccups by virtue of the magnitude of the project and it’s just not something that we’re interested in doing on a year to year basis and I think this is something that requires a little greater scrutiny from the standpoint of Council but I would support the rezoning moving forward. Toy: Great, super. So you have those two and then this will be heard at the th Regular Meeting on Monday, February 12. Does that meet with your timeframe? Rohraff: Absolutely. Thank you. Toy: All right. Thank you, Council, thank you, Mr. Kritzman, too, for your insight as well. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 7:08 p.m. SUSAN M. NASH, CITY CLERK