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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPUBLIC HEARING - 2019-03-18 - REZONING - PET. 2019-01-01-01 CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, March 18, 2019 ______________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the City Hall Auditorium on Monday, March 18, 2019. MEMBERS PRESENT: Laura Toy, President (Arrived 7:02) Jim Jolly, Vice President Scott Bahr Brandon Kritzman (Arrived 7:10) Brian Meakin Cathy White MEMBERS ABSENT: Kathleen McIntyre OTHERS PRESENT: Mark Taormina, Director of Economic Development Paul Bernier, City Attorney Bonnie J. Murphy, CER-2300, Certified Electronic Recorder The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with Vice President Jim Jolly 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 2019-01-01-01 submitted by Schoolcraft College, to rezone a portion of the property located on the east side of Haggerty Road between Six Mile and Seven Mile Roads (18600 Haggerty Road) in the Northwest ¼ of Section 7, from PL (Public Lands) to PO (High Rise Professional Office – Maximum four (4) Stories). 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. There were four people in the audience. Jolly: We’ll start off with Mr. Taormina. Taormina: Thank you. The land here involved in this rezoning request is approximately 8.3 acres and you can see from this map located in generally in the northeast corner of the campus and it is immediately adjacent to the I-275/I-96 Expressway and immediately south of Seven Mile Crossing Office Complex. The purpose of the rezoning is to allow for 2 the development of a three or four story office building, the Professional Office Zoning classification does allow all permitted waiver uses in the OS District including Professional and General Offices. Buildings in the Professional Office District are required to be over two stories with a maximum height of four stories. The Future Land Use Plan does designate the area as Parks and Community which corresponds with its current use as part of Schoolcraft College. The Planning Commission th held a Public Hearing on this matter on February 12 and unanimously voted to recommend approval of the rezoning. Thank you. Jolly: Thank you, sir. Any questions of Council? Seeing none, would the Petitioner like to approach? Is there anything you’d like to say, sir? Cerny: Glen Cerny, 18600 Haggerty Road, Livonia, Michigan, the VPC of Schoolcraft College. We’re very excited about having you entertain this motion for rezoning. The college is involved in looking at ability for us to continue to develop revenue and resources to continue to promote our programs at the college and so we’re here to answer any questions. Meakin: Mr. Chairman? Jolly: Mr. Meakin. Meakin: Good evening. Why are we doing this development at this time? Cerny: So, we’ve been involved for probably the last year and a half, Mark actually has been helping us with different suitors to the property, that land on 275 is very valuable. The college is trying to continue to develop resources, obviously we did a millage in November that passed, but we’re still 70 million dollars short of where we need to be. So we continue to look at how we develop our assets. Every asset we utilize, we try to not only develop revenue stream but we develop friendships, collaborations with other people, businesses and opportunities to make sure that we can get our classrooms, and make sure we have students develop experience within those collaborations. And also the partners that we work with are bringing back information to our program so we can better suite the community at large. Meakin: I was going through the Planning Commission meeting minutes and it says that you’re putting the land development out for an RFP? Cerny: Yes, we have an architect, we went through an RFP process for that, we’re not involved with a construction manager process, so those are both in existence right now. Meakin: Do you have a contract for the tenant? 3 Cerny: Very close. Meakin: In land development for me that means nothing. Cerny: We’ve been working with this group for about six months so we’re going to be signing contracts next week more than likely. Meakin: Do you foresee this as a future problem for the institution by landlocking itself in? Cerny: No, because what we’ve done is we developed Ring Road if you’re familiar with our new Ring Road that we’ve developed. We now have the ability to egress traffic from Seven Mile, off of Seven Mile, off of Six Mile, off of Haggerty. Property to the east of Ring Road, is considered what we call development property which is more community based property. Everything to the west of the Ring Road is more what we call economic parcels which we contain for educational purposes. So, the Sports Dome, the Masco, the TCF Bank Buildings, and this parcel are all considered, and Seven Mile Crossing, would be considered our partners and collaborations for the community. Meakin: So do you still run educational learning or are you a land development firm? Cerny: Well, we’re both. Because what we do is we leverage every piece of our assets and move it back into our educational mission which is to make sure we have enough resources so that we don’t charge exorbitant tuition fees to our community members. We keep our tuition very low so if you go between us and you go to U of M or private schools, there’s a significant difference and we want to keep it that way. We want our tuition low, but we also want to serve our community. And by doing the collaborations that we’ve done with Masco, the Seven Mile Crossing, we’re partnering with businesses that allow our students to experience and we’re also partnering in terms of getting education for our folks. So each one of our collaborations help us develop more programs that are more intuitive for the community and they’re going to serve the community. Our IEK Urgent Care now serves community members here, that’s located on Jefferson. The Sports Dome serves about 200,000 users every year between the ages of eight and almost eighty. Same with our PE Building with our community pool and our business center, so we think we’re doing the right thing in terms of educational mission. Meakin: One of your trustees asked us if we did a traffic study for the development on the north side of Seven Mile and you have to add that to adding 400 more employees to your Ring Road. 4 Cerny: Yes. We will be doing a traffic study. The traffic study we did back in 2015 when we put the light on Seven Mile, at the College’s expense, allowed for development of that parcel. So when you saw the Ring Road being developed, you saw the curb cuts that went into our parking lots, our north parking lot, our south parking lot. It’s all moved traffic outside so it’s very free flowing and it allowed for that to work really well within the confines of our campus. We can’t control Seven Mile, that’s not what we can do, but we sure did help Seven Mile with that light. Now what’s going on to the north is what I think the trustee that you’re talking about may be referring to, from the south we’re doing fine. But we will continue to do another traffic study when the papers are signed to make sure that anything internally within the campus that we need to do, that will be done as part of the project. Meakin: I’m going to put forth two resolutions, one for approving and one for denying and wait for the two weeks to see if you have a tenant signed up. Toy: Mr. Cerny, I want to thank you for all the hard work you guys do out there. You said this is going to be a land lease as well, so you’re not selling the land, correct? Cerny: Yeah, we’re not selling that. The college is in a position and I think you as a former trustee, we will never sell land. Toy: That’s what I wondered, if that philosophy is still going. Cerny: Yes. Toy: I think it’s a wise move, especially with public land. I see in the notes that they’re probably going to be creating 300 to 400 jobs? Cerny: Yes. Toy: Wow, that’s great. And salary range? Cerny: I think they’re above the median average. Toy: Meaning minimum wage? Cerny: No, no, no. Toy: I’m teasing you. Well, thank you very much and I support an approving as well and a denying as Councilmember Meakin offered. 5 Jolly: Anything else from Council? I have one question. Mr. Taormina, when they do have a contract signed, we have ultimate approval of the site plan, correct? Taormina: That’s correct. th Jolly: This will be heard on the April 8 meeting. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 7:12 p.m. SUSAN M. NASH, CITY CLERK