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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPLANNING MINUTES 1993-03-23 12745 MINUTES OF THE 661st REGULAR MEETING HELD BY THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF LIVONIA On Tuesday, March 23, 1993, the City Planning Commission of the City of Livonia held its 661st Regular Meeting in the Livonia City Hall, 33000 Civic Center Drive, Livonia, Michigan. Mr. Jack Engebretson, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. Members present: Jack Engebretson R. Lee Morrow Brenda Lee Fandrei William LaPine Raymond W. Tent James C. McCann Robert Alanskas Members absent: None Messrs. John J. Nagy, Planning Director, and Scott Miller, Planner I, were also present. Mr. Engebretson informed the audience that if a petition on tonight's agenda involves a rezoning request, this Commission only makes a recommendation to the City Council who, in turn, will hold its own public hearing and decide the question. If a petition involves a waiver of use request and the request is denied, the petitioner has ten days in which to appeal the decision to the City Council; otherwise the petition is terminated. The Planning Commission holds the only public hearing on a preliminary plat and/or a vacating petition. Planning Commission resolutions become effective seven days after the resolutions are \r. adopted. The Planning Commission has reviewed the petitions upon their filing and have been furnished by the staff with approving and denying resolutions. The Commission may use them or not use them depending upon the outcome of the hearing tonight. Mr. McCann, Secretary, announced the first item on the agenda is Motion by the City Planning Commission, pursuant to Council Resolution #54-93, to hold a public hearing on the question of whether the three lots located on Northfield Avenue, west of Hix Road in the Southwest 1/4 of Section 31 should be rezoned from RUF to R-1. Mr. Engebretson: This is an item referred to us by the City Council for consideration of other zoning, as you have heard. I am looking for a motion to set a public hearing. On a motion duly made by Mr. LaPine, seconded by Mrs. Fandrei and unanimously approved, it was #3-66-93 RESOLVED that, the City Planning Commission pursuant to Council Resolution #54-93, and pursuant to Section 23.01(a) of Ordinance #543, the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Livonia, as amended, does hereby establish and order that a public hearing be held to determine whether or not to rezone three lots located on Northfield Avenue, west of Hix Road in the Southwest 1/4 of Section 31 from RUF to R-1; and 12746 FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of such hearing be given as provided in Section 23.05 of Ordinance #I543, the Zoning Ordinance of the City of Livonia, as amended, and that thereafter there shall be a report and \.. recommendation submitted to the City Council. Mr. Engebretson, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Mr. McCann, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is Motion by the City Planning Commission to hold a public hearing on the question of whether or not to amend Sections 9.07, 10.06, 11.06, 25.07, 26.07 and 30.07 of the Zoning Ordinance regarding protective walls to acknowledge greenbelts. Mr. Engebretson: Again, we are looking to set a public hearing to clean up the language and the Zoning Ordinance to correspond to the new ordinance that was adopted recently where greenbelts can be substituted in lieu of a protective wall. On a motion duly made by Mr. Morrow, seconded by Mr. Tent and unanimously approved, it was #i3-67-93 RESOLVED that, the City Planning Commission, does hereby establish and order that a public hearing be held to determine whether or not to amend Sections 9.07, 10.06, 11.06, 25.07, 26.07 and 30.07 of the Zoning Ordinance regarding protective walls to acknowledge greenbelts. FURTHER RESOLVED that, notice of the above hearing shall be given'11110. accordance with the provisions of Section 23.05 of Zoning Ordinance #543, as amended. Mr. Engebretson, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Mr. McCann, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is approval of the minutes of the 660th Regular Meeting & Public Hearings held on March 9, 1993. On a motion duly made by Mr. LaPine, seconded by Mr. Tent and unanimously approved, it was #3-68-93 RESOLVED that, the minutes of the 660th Regular Meeting & Public Hearings held by the City Planning Commission on March 9, 1993 are hereby approved. Mr. Engebretson, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Mr. McCann, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is Sign Permit Application by Metro-Detroit Signs, on behalf of Pizza Hut Restaurant, requesting approval for one wall sign for the building located at 33233 Seven Mile Road in Section 10. 12747 Mr. Miller: This is a new carry-out Pizza Hut. It is being revamped right now. I went by there today and they are redoing the inside. It is just east of Farmington Road, south of Seven Mile Road, more precisely it is between Westmore and Shadyside on the south side of Seven '41111. Mile Road. They have a frontage that is 20 linear feet and they have a 20 square foot sign they are requesting, which is in conformance with the sign ordinance. Mr. Engebretson: I guess you underlined it as a conforming sign Scott. On a motion duly made by Mr. Tent, seconded by Mr. Alanskas and unanimously approved, it was #3-69-93 RESOLVED that, the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Sign Permit Applicatin by Metro-Detroit Signs, on behalf of Pizza Hut Restaurant, requesting approval for one wall sign for the building located at 33233 Seven Mile Road in Section 10, be approved subject to the following condition: 1) That the Sign Plan dated 2/2/93, as revised, submitted by Metro-Detroit Signs, for the Pizza Hut Carry Out Restaurant at 33233 Seven Mile Road, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to. 2) That the sign shall be illuminated only during business hours. Mr. Engebretson, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Mr. McCann, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is Sign Permit Slaw Application by Beacon Sign Company, on behalf of K-Mart, requesting approval for one wall sign for the building located at 33400 Seven Mile Road in Section 4. Mr. Miller: This is the K-Mart that is located on Farmington and Seven Mile Road. Right now they have four existing wall signs on their building, which they received a variance for, for excessive signage, and they are requesting an additional sign at 64 square feet for Little Caesars Pizza Station. Because it is another excess sign, they have to get a variance from the Zoning Board of Appeals before they go on to City Council. Mr. Engebretson: Would the petitioner please come forward and give us your name and address and add whatever remarks you feel are appropriate. Sam Haddad, 400 Pinehurst Dr. , Rochester Hills: I am with Beacon Sign Company. Basically what they are asking for is some identification indicating that they have a pizza station in there, which is Little Caesers. It is the only exterior ID that would indicate that they have this particular department within the store, that I am aware of. It is an unlighted sign with individual plastic letters with a plaque of the Little Caesers. They are non-lighted and they fit flush against the wall. We would like some consideration in putting that up. 12748 Mrs. Fandrei: Mr. Haddad, where is the pizza station located inside the store? Mr. Haddad: I have never been in the store. I am pinch-hitting for someone tonight. `fir Mr. Engebretson: I can tell you where it is. You walk in the front door and it is way, way to the left. Mrs. Fandrei: Is the company planning on attracting business from outside or is this mainly just to service the people that are inside the store? Mr. Haddad: I am certain they want to attract people from outside as well as people shopping within the store. Mrs. Fandrei: There is another Little Caesars just within a few yards, just west of this mall, right behind the Perrys. Mr. Haddad: I can't respond to some of these questions in regards to what the criteria is for setting up the pizza stations within the K-Marts. I don't know what kind of contractual situations they have with K-Mart in regards to other free-standing buildings that are within close proximity. Mrs. Fandrei: One of the problems I am having is there is already a Little Caesars within walking distance of this store and my concern is we are looking at giving them competition. Mr. Alanskas: Mr. Haddad, are you aware that at the present time there are two existing signs in the parking lot promoting the Little Caesars 411. Pizza Station? Mr. Haddad: No sir I am not. Mr. Alansskas: They are about two foot by one foot high and they have these cart stations where they put the carts and over these stations are these big signs saying visit Little Caesars Pizza Station and also our camera shop so you do have two signs already. Mr. Haddad: This is in the parking lot? Mr. Alanskas: Yes, so being over-excessive and then still having two already and wanting one more, I find it could be a problem with this Commissioner. Mr. Tent: Mr. Haddad, can you speak for K-Mart or are you just strictly the sign man? Mr. Haddad: I am the sign man here on behalf of K-Marts and again I am pinch-hitting for the individual that should have been here this evening. Mr. Tent: Can you tell me why he couldn't be here? This is pretty important. Why couldn't an individual from K-Mart be here? `rr. 12749 Mr. Haddad: I don't believe anyone was scheduled to be here from K-Mart. Mr. Tent: I am going to ask you a question and I would like an answer. What is the principal business of K-Mart? Is that a retail store or is `94r► that going to be a shopping type of mall because serving pizzas in there is an accessory to their principal operation. Are they going to be getting into the food business and pizza business and having signs all over the exterior or is K-Mart, as I have known it to be, strictly a retail store, a discount type of operation, a department store? I agree with my colleague here that we do have a Caesars Pizza Parlor close by and if they were going to have those pizzas in there and hamburgers and hot dogs just strictly for the customers within the establishment, I can see that, but to pull from the existing businesses in that area is something that does concern me. I would like to have K-Mart tell me what their intentions are going to be in this location. As my other colleague indicated you already have signs on your shopping carts. It is going to look like a circus wagon out there with all these signs. I was just hoping K-Mart could address this and tell me what they are doing to that corner. Mr. Haddad: The only reasonable response I can give you, obviously the reason is two-fold. They do want to participate in the profits of the pizza sales. Hudsons has a restaurant within the confines of Hudsons Department Store. Mr. Tent: But do they have a big sign outside J. L. Hudsons? Mr. Haddad: They attract people that are aware of it, that have been there 'taw previously. Mr. Tent: I am glad you brought up Hudsons because you beat me to the punch. Crowleys also has a restaurant inside and they don't have a marquee outside their building. It is just to accommodate the people that are shopping in the store and for us to run every little guy out of town just because we want to go ahead and capitalize on the pizza business, to me I don't think that is right. I don't want to take this out on you. I hope the K-Mart people are listening. Mr. Haddad: The only thing I can say is not all of the K-Mart stores will have this particular department in them, and the ones that do, they want to identify that they do carry pizza in that particular store. Mr. Tent: Well you take the message back to them that as one Commissioner this is how I feel about it. Mr. Morrow: Mr. Haddad, I realize in good faith you came tonight to present a sign that you would like to put up on K-Mart, but as you sense from our Commission here we have some concerns about doing that. I am going to make the assumption, and you can confirm it or not, that Little Caesars is a leased department, and we are seeing a trend more and more in our retail commercial stores where they are beginning to lease more and more departments, whether it is Montgomery Wards or Sears or K-Mart, and we don't want to begin 12'50 starting precedents of putting signs up for every leased department that goes in there. We are already a couple of signs over the ordinance and it is operating through a variance. Now we want to add to that variance. I am not here to beat up on you tonight but firr one of the messages that you can take back to K-Mart for me is that my concern is we are adding to the variance and I don't want to start a precedent of adding a sign on the exterior wall for every leased department within the store and that does not go against Little Caesars or K-Mart, it just comes under the heading what I perceive as good planning. We have sign ordinances and that is part of our responsibility to establish the sign ordinances and try to live up to those unless they can establish a hardship through the ZBA. That is where I am coming from tonight. I realize you are here in good faith but that is my concern and I will probably vote against it. Mr. LaPine: I think Mr. Morrow probably made the best point of all. The problem we have here, as I see it and I brought this up at the study meeting, is the precedent we may be setting. If they start leasing other portions of their store, those people, in my opinion, would want to have a sign too. The other thing that bothers me is they have always had a restaurant in there. They used to have a little restaurant as you came in the front door, and then when they renovated the K-Mart store, they came in with the Little Caesars and they moved it down to the west end of the building. At that time, we okayed the renovation of the store and they were coming in with a sign package, two freestanding signs. Schostak Brothers got two additional freestanding signs that said Seven Mile/Farmington and then K-Mart came in with their sign package. At that time, the "or. pizza restaurant was in there. It has been in there over a year since it was renovated. They must not have thought that was very important at that time because they did not include that as part of their package for the signs. Now to come back at a later date and say now we need a sign for Little Caesars is not living up to what they told us was the signage they needed at that location. It was my understanding, and it is still the way I feel, that Little Caesars was primarily in there to service their employees and for a convenience for their customers. Most of the people that go to that K-Mart are repeat customers. I live in that area and I go there so we all know it is there. I think it was Mr. McCann that brought up at one of our study sessions that if they need a sign, they can just put up a sandwich type sign inside the door. I don't think they need a sign on the outside to push Little Caesars because that is not, in my opinion, what it is there for. Mr. Alanskas: I would just like to make a correction so Mr. Tent would not be wrong in saying this. The sign I saw was not on a cart. It was on a fixed area where they park the carts. Mr. Engebretson: Let me clarify another point, that being that the Little Caesars that is just to the west, is a carry-out facility. There is no sit-down eating in there but there are five or six pizza stores within a pitching wedge shot of the area we are talking about. Sir, we had advised the representative of your company that was `'rr. 12751 here last week that it would be advisable for your client to be present here tonight because there was some resistance to what was being proposed and we didn't know if that would make any difference or not but we wanted to make sure they had a fair opportunity to `'r•► present their case from their business point of view. We realize you are not here to speak for the K-Mart Corporation from a standpoint of what their business strategy is. I just wanted to let you know we were hopeful that someone would be here from K-Mart so whatever may have been directed toward you may have been better addressed to K-Mart. John, I would ask that we request the Inspection Department tomorrow to visit that site and issue violations if there are violations found regarding inappropriate or illegal signage within that parking lot. The signs that Mr. Alanskas was talking about. I want to give the petitioner the last word here before we close the issue if there is anything you wish to add. Mr. Haddad: I have nothing to add. On a motion duly made by Mr. Tent, seconded by Mrs Fandrei and unanimously approved, it was #r3-70-93 RESOLVED that, Sign Permit Application by Beacon Sign Company, on behalf of K-Mart, requesting approval for one wall sign for the building located at 33400 Seven Mile Road in Section 4 be denied for the following reasons: 1) That the applicant has failed to comply with Section 18.50H of Zoning Ordinance #543; 'tor 2) That the petitioner has failed to justify the need for the excessive amount of signage at this location over what is permitted by the ordinance. 3) That the existing signage on the building is already in excess of what is allowed by the Zoning Ordinance both in number of signs and in sign area. This proposal will only add to the problem. Mr. Engebretson, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. Mr. McCann, Secretary, announced the next item on the agenda is Sign Permit Application by Sign Art, Inc. , on behalf of First of America Bank, requesting approval for two wall signs for the building located at 39209 Six Mile Road in Section 18. Mr. Miller: This is the green glass building that is on the southeast corner of Six Mile and Haggerty Road. They are requesting replacement signs, which they have existing signs at the same total square footage. They are requesting one that would face Six Mile Road and it would be 64 square feet and one that would face Haggerty Road and it would be 36 square feet. They would have to get a variance because it is over-excessive signage but basically they are replacement signs. 12752 Mr. Alanskas: Scott, they are making that sign facing Six Mile Road six feet smaller and the other one six feet larger, correct? Mr. Miller: Correct. Nur Mr. Engebretson: So it is conforming with respect to what was approved previously but because they are changing it, they need to go through the process? Mr. Miller: Yes. On a motion duly made by Mr. Alanskas, seconded by Mr. LaPine and unanimously approved, it was 113-71-93 RESOLVED that, the City Planning Commission does hereby recommend to the City Council that Sign Permit Application by Sign Art, Inc. , on behalf of First of America Bank, requesting approval for two wall signs for the building located at 39209 Six Mile Road in Section 18 be approved subject to the following conditions: 1) That the Sign Plan dated 2/25/93, submitted by Sign Art, Inc. , for the First of America Bank, 39209 Six Mile Road, is hereby approved and shall be adhered to; 2) That this approval is subject to the applicant being granted a variance by the Zoning Board of Appeals. Mr. Engebretson, Chairman, declared the motion is carried and the foregoing resolution adopted. On a motion duly made, seconded and unanimously adopted, the 661st Regular Meeting held on March 23, 1993 was adjourned at 7:54 p.m. CITY PLANNING COMMISSION James C. McCann, Secretary ' (,) /1 ATTEST: ii( L1 i l�°l�C `,c/h--- Jac Engebr4tson, Chairman jg 'rr.