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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-09-27 - Rezone - LAG Dev. - Pet.2021-07-01-06 CITY OF LIVONIA PUBLIC HEARING Minutes of Meeting Held on Monday, September 27, 2021 ___________________________________________________________________ A Public Hearing of the Council of the City of Livonia was held at the Livonia City Hall Auditorium on Monday, September 27, 2021. MEMBERS PRESENT: Scott Bahr, Vice President Jim Jolly Brandon McCullough Rob Donovic Laura M. Toy Cathy K. White MEMBERS ABSENT: Kathleen E. McIntyre, President OTHERS PRESENT: Mark Taormina, Planning and Economic Dev. Director Paul Bernier, City Attorney Sara Kasprowicz, Recording Secretary The Public Hearing was called to order at 7:00 p.m. with Vice President Scott Bahr presiding. This item is regarding Petition 2021-07-01-06 submitted by LAG Development pursuant to Section 23.01 of the City of Livonia Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended, requesting to rezone the property at 34801 Plymouth Road, located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Stark and Wayne Roads in the Northwest ¼ of Section 33, from C-1, Local Business to C-2, General Business. This item will move to the Regular Meeting of October 18, 2021. The Public Hearing is now open. There were 20 people in the audience. Bahr: I’m going to as Mark Taormina, our Economic Development to give us a little introduction to this site please. Taormina: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again, this is rezoning petition regarding property located on the south side of Plymouth Road between Stark and Wayne Roads. The parcel in this case is roughly a little over half an acre in size. It has 173 feet of frontage on Plymouth Road. The depth is 147 feet. There is an existing building on this site, about 2100 square feet. It’s the site of the old Doughboy Donut shop, before that, it was originally built as a gas station and converted to the donut shop in 1975. This site, as you can see from this map, it is completely surrounded by commercial zoning and land uses. This site is zoned C-1, Local business. The surrounding parcels are zoned C-2, general business. The request is to rezone this to C-2. Immediately to the east and to the south is the LaFontaine/Hyundai of Livonia auto dealership. This is the former Ralph Thayer dealership and farther to the west is the Burger King restaurant as well as a Dunkin Donuts. The site was more recently acquired 2 by LAG of Livonia, LLC, which is part of the LaFontaine Auto Group. The objective is to expand the auto dealership operations, presumably for vehicle display and vehicle storage. The use of the property for one of these purposes would first require waiver use approval, should the rezoning move forward, in order for the property to be used for vehicle display, they would have to appear back before the Planning Commission as well as the City Council for a waiver use. As you can see from the plan that was submitted, the site contains two driveways. The building is positioned in the southeast corner of the property. As far as the land use, the future land use map goes, this site is identified as corridor commercial, so it is suitable for both the zoning as well as the use. I will point out that, again, should this move forward, and appear before you as a waiver use for vehicle display, that is regulated under Section 6.05 of the Livonia Vision Zoning Ordinance. One of the revisions in that case, is that no vehicle shall be parked within 20 feet of the front lot line, so this plan does indicate parking within that 20-foot front lot line. So, that is something that would have to be taken up at a later date, as Planning has pointed that out. Thank you. Planning Commission is recommending approval of this rezoning. Bahr: Thank you, Mr. Taormina. Any questions from Council? Councilman Donovic. Donovic: Thank you, Mr. Vice President. That was one of the questions I had, if there was some stipulation there that vehicles were not to be parked within that certain boundary. So, your say that this has to be handled at a different time. How would it be handled, through ZBA, is it Council? Taormina: No, it gets special requirement, a waiver use. The City Council can waive or modify any requirement, special requirement of the waiver use or special land use by means of a 2/3 majority vote by separate resolution. Right now, this plan is showing roughly 32 parking spaces. If we apply the 20-foot setback requirement, it would affect 7 parking spaces Donovic: Was the building, the old donut building, was that supposed to be torn down and a new building built? Taormina: There’s no indication that the building is going to be removed, in this case, they are showing it on the site plan. So, I’m assuming they are going to try to reuse the building. We’ll let the Petitioner explain their intentions. Donovic: I will say, since I got this packet, I’ve had the LaFontaine family deal song stuck in my head for the last few days. Thank you, Mr. Taormina. Bahr: Thank you for putting it in our heads now. Councilman Jolly, did you have something to say? Jolly: Thank you, so, Mr. Taormina, if this were to be approved, the waiver usage would be limited to the usage that is defined in the request, correct? 3 Taormina: No, it would not. If the C-2 zoning is approved, then it opens the door for any other use that’ permitted in the C-2 zoning district, but it’s clearly the intention of the new owners to use it for the purpose they indicated, which is vehicle display. So, we’re only considering zoning at this time, the waiver use would be a completely separate process. Jolly: So, when we have done this in the past, have we not at certain points, requested that they consent to use it for the purpose they are defining to provide us a guarantee as to that? This makes sense to use it as they are requesting at this point, I don’t necessarily feel comfortable with giving a broad C-2 zoning going forward here, because who’s to say what goes on, what happens later down the road? There are obviously things that wouldn’t make sense there. Taormina: There are a couple of ways we could suggest you address that concern. One would be to a conditional zoning agreement, the other might be, as you indicated, a limitation that the waiver would only be for this petitioner, if they want to transfer that to another user, they would have to first be approved by this body. So that’s something that we would have to discuss with the Law Department as to what would be the most appropriate under this circumstance. Jolly: I take it there are representatives here from the LaFontaine Group. You don’t have to address it just yet, but when you do get up, I’d like to know your feelings in regard to those two options. Bahr: To just be clear, we’ll get to you when we get through the questions for Mr. Taormina then we’ll ask you to come up. Councilwoman Toy? Toy: Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair, if I may to Mr. Taormina? Mr. Taormina, I’m failing to remember the zoning on that, as it precedes into the Thayer Automotive Sales, how is that zoned? Taormina: All C-2. Toy: All C-2, so it would be continuous then. Taormina: Yeah, let me just describe map. So you can see that all the dark red around here, that indicates the C-2 zoning, this is the lighter shade, which indicates the C-1, or Local Business District zoning. When you look at aerial photograph, what you’ll see here is the former Ralph Thayer dealership, now LaFontaine. There is right next to the Burger King which is immediately to the west, Dunkin Donuts farther to the west and then you can see the vehicle display as part of the dealership, immediately to the south. Toy: Thank you very much, Mr. Taormina. 4 McCullough: From the Chair to Mr. Taormina, quick questions, I’m sure the petitioner will want to answer the questions, but do we know of any site improvements that are being proposed for this change? Taormina: Yeah, the site plan that you are looking at here is the only, this is conceptual. It only indicates at this time, restriping the parking lot in a manner that would have the vehicles displayed or stored in the fashion show. If you go back to the aerial photograph, you can see how the current striping is much less efficient in terms of the number of vehicle spaces. I think what they are attempting to do here, is maximize the number of vehicles that could be parked on the site. McCullough: The second question I have, is, in the original packet, there was one rendering and then there was new information, forgive me, but it doesn’t seem like any change with the aerial overlay. It looks like someone had asked for a more in-depth rendering. This might be what the petitioner would be able to answer. Taormina: Yeah, I think this the plan that you are referring to. This is the plan that was reviewed by the Planning Commission, and you are right, this is newer information, and it would appear to be identical in terms of the layout of the lot. Bahr: I failed to mention earlier, I should have noted that we do have new data on this item, a conceptual plan received by the petitioner. Any other questions for Council? I have one quick one Mark. With that C-1 being surrounded by C-2, just curious, do you know the history of that? I doubt it was always that way. Did this used to be C-1 and its going to be a patchwork approach to adding C-2 in there? Taormina: I would have to go back and look at that. My guess, I do recall when the parcel to the south was expanded as part of the dealership operation, prior to Ralph Thayer. That may have been C-1 zoning at the time as well. I think there was a larger C-1 zoning. This was part of a larger C-1 District and it’s the only remaining parcel at this time in that general area. Bahr: Thanks. To the petitioner, is there anything you wanted to answer to add? If you could please give us your name and address for the record, we’d appreciate it. Laundroche: Good evening, Council. My name is Gary Laundroche, I’m with LAG Development, which is actually a division of LaFontaine Automotive Group. So, we’re here tonight seeking what seemed like the most natural progression to take this small, C-1 parcel that is surrounded by C-2. Obviously, with the acquisition of the Thayer Group, this was kind of, not only frontage along Plymouth Road, but sort of right in the middle of our group of stores. Our intent is to initially use this as additional parking display. Really, the reason you’ve gotten the second, was just our Engineer was finally catching up, everybody is so busy right now. He just did an overlay just to identify what 5 was originally submitted. At this point, we are seeking zoning change, so we haven’t really worked out many of the details for the site that would go through Planning. Clearly, the intent would be to improve the landscaping that’s here. We would incorporate the brick pier wrought iron ornamental fence theme that I think is running down currently on Plymouth Road here. We haven’t identified the 20-foot setback either, just again, we’re not at the planning stage, just seeking to rezone this parcel. Right now, we don’t really have plans to take down the building, but we kind of feel like the ultimate intent, I think that’s how we’re going with this, but we just don’t want to limit ourselves yet, being new, our operation is new to the community here and we’re not really sure how much we can evolve this, what use it could have for us. One thing we do know is that the cost of building is currently exceeding what you can find existing buildings for. We did a full environmental assessment, knowing it was a gas station before, full phase 1 and phase 2 and we did ground penetrating radar and there were no contaminants, which was really a nice surprise for us. We’ve had plenty of other circumstances, just historically used with the auto dealerships, traditionally with little things that they used to have. We certainly would consider a conditional zoning agreement for this. Our intent surely is to utilize it within our operations, that would be the intention from us. We are currently picking up the pieces of everything that we’ve acquired there, through Thayer. There’s fencing that’s getting repaired, we’ve got evergreen trees, we’re replacing along the Burger King side that had come down over the years or removed or whatever the case was. I think that, again, we feel like its natural progression, seeing that it is almost spot-zoning at this point, being that it is such a small parcel surrounded by C-2. I’ve got Matt Chambleau the General Manager of this complex with me here tonight in case you guys have operation questions for us and I’m available for any other questions. Thank you. Bahr: Council? Mr. Jolly. Jolly: No other questions, at this point, this makes sense. I’ll offer an approving. It helps me to get there, knowing that you are intending to invest in the property to make it nicer. That was one of the things that was kind of left out originally here, but with that being the intention, you have no reason to not do that, to be honest with you. So, I’ll offer an approving, it makes sense with the area. At this point, I don’t I wish we could proceed with the consent agreement or anything like that for usage. That’s it. Bahr: Thank you, Mr. Jolly. Mr. Donovic? Donovic: Thanks, Mr. Vice President. Just making a comment. I’ve noticed that since you have acquired the property, you guys have been adding some things to it, making it nicer to clean it up. It was starting to fall apart there for a little while with weeds, a lot of trees were dying that you mentioned. I will say that I am concerned if you keep it the old donut restaurant, I am hoping that, regardless, if you do initiate the tear down or just rehab it, I hope you do at least do a facelift from the outside so its not just a parking lot with a bunch of cars sitting in it. I know, like you said, we are early on in the process, this is 6 just for rezoning, but I hope you do take that into consideration. At least a facelift, spending a couple of dollars to make it not look like an old donut store, or may be a little odd. Thank you, I’m looking forward to this. Toy: No, I just wanted to say thank you for your investment in Livonia on Plymouth Road. The road is a great road, I own a business down there as well and you are a welcome addition as the Councilman has just stated. I really hope though, as well, that you do something to improve it. Fancier, if you will, to coincide, not that everything is pristine in that area, but certainly, people are trying, in light of everything. Thank you and thank you Mr. Taormina for all of your help too. Jolly: Will we expect to have a site plan, in regards to this property and will we hold up the zoning for the site plan? Typically, that is the way we do things when there is a request for rezoning, is we start that process, but we don’t give a final vote on it until we have a site plan in front of us and then we vote on them together. So, is that the intention here? Will we see this come back as a package? Taormina: Yeah, I think it would be appropriate, once First Reading is given to them, it would put the rezoning on hold to allow the petitioner to submit the waiver use application. That would be reviewed first by the Planning Commission and that will find its way back to Council and then you can vote on the rezoning and waiver use as one package. Jolly: So, that’s the opportunity for everybody in the room, the process is to understand what your intentions are for the site and that way, we’re exercising a little bit more judgement, in regards to the whole package as well. Laundroche: Ok, just so I understand, so we would be working with the Planning Department next for our site plan development, correct? Jolly: Correct. Bahr: Mr. Donovic? Donovic: Thanks, Mr. Vice President. I think you alluded to, while you were talking, the building is already purchased or is under contract? Laundroche: No, we already own it. Donovic: Ok. You already own it, thank you. Bahr: Thank you. Does anyone from the audience want to speak to this? With that, we’ve got an approving resolution on this. I do want to note too, I’m guess it will be taken care of, but this was brought to our attention, a water and sewer bill on this property? I just want to make sure this is taken care of before we take this up. We have an approving to go to a First Reading. Sara, would that be, not the next meeting, but the one after, probably? 7 th Kasprowicz: October 18. th Bahr: That makes the October 18 agenda. As there were no further questions or comments, the Public Hearing was declared closed at 7:18 p.m.