HomeMy WebLinkAboutPUBLIC HEARING - 2018-07-30 - LANG - PET2018-05-06-02
CITY OF LIVONIA
PUBLIC HEARING
Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, July 30, 2018
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A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the City Hall
Auditorium on Monday, July 30, 2018.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Laura Toy, President
Jim Jolly, Vice President
Kathleen McIntyre
Brian Meakin
Cathy White
MEMBERS ABSENT: Scott Bahr, Brandon Kritzman
OTHERS PRESENT: Mark Taormina, Director of Economic Development
Paul Bernier, City Attorney
Todd Zilincik, City Engineer
Bonnie J. Murphy, CER-2300, Certified Electronic Recorder
The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:01 p.m. with President Laura Toy presiding.
This is a Public Hearing on Petition 2018-05-06-02 submitted by the City Planning
Commission pursuant to Council Resolution #165-18, and Section 23.01(a) of Zoning
Ordinance No. 543, as amended, proposing to amend Sections 21.01, 21.02, and 12.03
of Article XXI in order to provide for the appointment of alternate Zoning Board of
Appeals board members.
The Public Hearing is now open. There were five people in the audience. This matter
will be heard on the Monday, August 20, 2018 Regular Meeting of Council.
Toy: Who would like to present this?
Jolly: Madam President, I won’t be presenting this necessarily, but I’ll make a
motion to approve it, it’s an opportunity for us as a Council to appoint two
alternate members to the Zoning Board of Appeals, to avoid potential
situations where there is not enough people present or a full board present
to hear all matters before the Zoning Board of Appeals. I think the State
legislation allows us the opportunity to do this, there’s no reason not to do
this, to provide a better service to our constituents and the residents here
in the City of Livonia.
Toy: Thank you.
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Taormina: The only thing I would add to that, alternates will be called to serve in the
absence of another board member and in cases of conflicts of interest.
Councilman Jolly pointed out that this is provided under the Michigan
Zoning Enabling Legislation, this is something that is very common
throughout the state, other communities take advantage and having
alternates to serve.
Toy: Thank you. Other comments? Yes, Councilman Meakin.
Meakin: How did this get to a Public Hearing? I thought we had voted at a Council
meeting that we were sending it to Committee to discuss options, whether
we should do this or not and have a meeting on this. Now we’re changing
the ordinance and appointing two people based on what.
Taormina: In the case of Council Resolution #165-18 wherein Council referred this to
the Planning Commission and we had a Public Hearing and thereafter
submitted a report and recommendation, so maybe the Council has this is
committee in addition to the referral to the Planning Commission, I don’t
know. But it was referred to the Planning Commission and we held the
Public Hearing as requested and the Planning Commission is
recommending approval.
Meakin: I’ll go back to the question who will then appoint, how we’re going to
appoint people, when do they get notified, in the morning when they know
someone is not going to be there, I think there’s more to this then saying
we’re going to appoint two people.
Jolly: Mr. Meakin, the ordinance provides that the president and the vice
president each appoint an alternate and in terms of the day to day
operations I think that would be appropriate for the Administration,
knowing whether or not they determine there are going to be absences. I
don’t think we necessarily need to get into the daily operations of this
other than the fact that if they know there’s going to be an absence, that
they will contact the alternates and make the appropriate arrangements.
Meakin: We have to sit through a meeting like everyone else, unless there’s a
financial condition that you’ll be hearing. I think this is reactionary to a
problem that I’ve heard over the year, I don’t think this is a problem, I’m
going to offer a denying resolution.
Toy: Thank you. Was there someone else? I guess, if I may, we were looking
at this and I called the then City Attorney Don Knapp and Don’s
experience of both being on the City Council and dealing with some of the
accusations if you will that were hinted at at that time as Councilman
Meakin just pointed out, there have been in the past some issues with
members being absent quite a bit, probably more than we would like to
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see. And when we had an issue come up in this City that was probably a
little sensitive, if you will, there wasn’t a full board and Don and I had
discussed and then I called Jim and several others on the Council to say
what would like to do, if anything, about this. And there was a suggestion
that under State laws that Mr. Taormina alluded to, that it is within our
purview to appoint alternates and we thought the easiest way was to let
the President and the Vice-President would do it and then it would change
depending on what we needed. We discussed members that might be
familiar with the Zoning Board, Ken Harb’s name came up, several other
names came up that have been on that board before and are familiar with
the kinds of things that go on. How long are they appointed, is it four
years?
Meakin: Three.
Toy: A lot happens to your life in three years and you can’t get your arms
around it sometimes so subsequently you miss meetings, they’re there
once a week usually, it used to be that they didn’t have as many, I think
when the economic times were a little bit down, but now that they’ve
picked up, we’re seeing more meetings but we have absences from
certain members. Now, each of us have an appointment, you know, we
don’t try and get involved with the Zoning Board because they are kind of
their own board, and correct me I’m wrong, Paul, and so subsequently we
kind of stay away from that because under law it goes to Circuit Court if
there’s a problem, etc. etc. So that’s kind of the solution we came up with,
we had contacted the Administration to try and get some of answer around
it and our arms around it and I guess we could say shame on those
members that aren’t appearing and their absence. It makes it hard on the
rest of the board as we all know that have served on boards when you
have decisions. So without getting into further kinds of issues on it, that’s
kind of the simplistic kind of thing or some of the background that I can
lend to it. Mayor Wright was eloquent enough or good enough to loan us
the attorney as well to look into it and he was in the middle of that whole
craziness as well, fortunately or unfortunately, when it all came about. So
it was a glaring situation that I think that needed to be addressed and I
think it still needs to be addressed in some manner. If this isn’t it then we
need to discuss it. Go ahead, I don’t know who was first on this.
White: Well, one thing I know about the ZBA for a Petitioner, if a case comes up
and they want a full board they can get it adjourned and so this might
eliminate those kind of adjournments when a Petitioner does want a full
board and they find out when they go to the meeting that all of the
members are not there. So it might move things along a little bit, I think, it
might be a good change.
Toy: Councilwoman McIntyre.
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McIntyre: I, too, am confused how this ended up on a Public Hearing because I
thought it was either going to committee or had been in committee. Mr.
Jolly is shaking his head no. Anyway, I think this is a knee jerk reaction.
We’ve had a large issues in the City or contested issues, people have
gone to the press, there’s not really been an attendance problem, there’s
one member who has a hard time making meetings and that distorts the
view of how often we have a full board. I understand we’re going to
appoint alternates who know the process and know the work of the ZBA,
but they don’t know the specifics of the ZBA issues that are going to come
up in a week. So I understand and support Mr. Meakin’s offer of a
denying resolution.
Toy: Thank you. Vice President Jolly.
Jolly: I just want to say one more thing. I think my support for providing an
opportunity for alternates is not being a response particularly to one case
but I think one case, however whether or not we want to admit it, there are
quite a few absences across the board for whatever reason, whether it’s
warranted or unwarranted. Not to say it’s not understandable but if we
have the opportunity to provide a full panel I think that due process
towards our residents is only helped and only provided in a greater
respect when we can provide a full panel. We have had situations where
we have given Petitioners the opportunity, if you would like to have a full
panel, come back next time. And they come back the next time and
there’s not a full panel. That alone in terms of assured ease for our
residents would make the process quicker and less controversial across
the board regardless if it’s a fence or a bigger project or who knows what, I
don’t know why we wouldn’t do that, it’s a missed opportunity to provide a
better service to the residents.
Toy: Go ahead, Councilman Meakin.
Meakin: Your points are valid, I don’t dispute that. But a move like this, to change
an ordinance, I haven’t heard a groundswell from the community that
you’ve got to have seven people at the ZBA meeting. We can still have a
meeting if there’s only six of us up here. Is it State law that they have that
option?
Bernier: No. That’s the policy of the Zoning Board of Appeals. It may be a
problem with their policy, but their policy is if they don’t have available a
full board, they can adjourn it and put it over.
Meakin: Do we have any authority to not have that policy then.
Bernier: The Zoning Board of Appeals policy? They could eliminate that if they
wanted to but that’s not the policy, as Mr. Jolly put it, it’s not very common
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that a Petitioner walks in and counts heads and determines they have a
better chance if they have a full membership than if they only have five
people there. It’s not that there’s been outcry about this, but there are
matters that do get adjourned because of this. Another thing I wanted to
say, too, because the President mentioned it, it’s appointed by the
President and Vice President, it is appointed by them but it’s a vote of
majority of the Council to approve the appointment. It’s in the ordinance, I
just wanted to point that out.
Toy: Go right ahead, Vice-President Jolly.
Jolly: I think if we’re going to impanel to hear cases on any particular night, then
we’re not wasting the time of the ZBA members that do appear, then come
to find out that someone does not want their petition that night, they want
to wait for other people to attend. It is an efficiency that we will be
providing. Livonia prides itself on a wide history of good government, and
I think this is only an opportunity to make that better. It’s different from
how we’ve done things, but it’s not a bad thing. Sometimes it’s okay.
Toy: Anybody else on Council? No. Anyone in the audience wishing to speak
on this one? Seeing no one, now we have an approving and a denying
and if that’s all from the Council we can close that hearing and move on.
Thank you.
As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared
closed at 7:14 p.m.
SUSAN M. NASH, CITY CLERK