MINUTES OF THE CLAY TOWNSHIP PLANNING COMMISION REGULAR MEETING HELD WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2013 - IN THE CLAY TOWNSHIP MEETING HALL, 4710 PTE. TREMBLE ROAD, CLAY TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN 48001 1. CALL TO ORDER: Chairman Dorothy DeBoyer called the meeting to order at 7:30 p.m. 2. ROLL CALL: PRESENT: Anthony Antkowiak, Edward Keller, Charles Miller, Kathie Schweikart, Whitey Simon, John Blair, Christine Holcomb, Lesly Cahill, and Dorothy DeBoyer A quorum was established. Also present: Artie Bryson, Clay Township Supervisor Dave Keown, Community Planning 3. AMENDMENTS TO AGENDA: None. 4. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF AUGUST 28, 2013: Motion made by Cahill, supported by Schweikart, to approve the Minutes of August 28, 2013 meeting, as submitted. AYES: All NAYS: None MOTION CARRIED. 5. SITE PLAN CONSIDERATION: Second Floor Dining - 7479 Dyke Rd. Sunset Bay Restaurant Chairperson DeBoyer: We have tonight, a site plan consideration, which is actually an amended site plan for Sunset Bay Restaurant. The original restaurant was approved by this Commission back in April and at that time we learned they desired to have a second floor on it and therefore we said they had to come back for an amendment approval of their site plan. So that s what we have before us tonight. Is there anything you would like to tell the Commission about this? Norman Rhodes: I think that I ve talked enough. I can answer any of your questions. Basically when it was approved, it was for storage only. Because of some miscommunication and some reconfiguring stuff, we were able to switch that around on our end with the State, things of that nature. Now we re asking to have that changed from storage to restaurant dining also. So that s basically what we re asking for here. Cahill: What about exits? You only have the one stairway down? Rhodes: Yes. But it is in compliance with the code. That has been checked out with the state as well as with your building inspector. It has to do with the size of the staircase, which is a little over 4 wide and its location to the closest exit door, which is about 12. Chairperson DeBoyer: Our chief of police made the comment that if alcohol is going to be served upstairs then the business will have to have permission from the LCC. The plan also shows a restaurant and not a bar area upstairs.
Page 2 Rhodes: There is a bar area upstairs. We understand that and we have talked to our representative from the Liquor Control Commission. Chairperson DeBoyer: Okay, so you have been in contact with the LCC. Rhodes: Yes. They have not been out to do an inspection, which is what they have to do and the health department has not yet. We can t go to that extent until we get approval from the township. Antkowiak: Mr. Meagher brought up the consideration of parking calculations. His question was The applicant shall provide parking calculations including the existing boat wells for marina use. This may change the number of required parking spaces. Rhodes: I was not aware of any parking requirements for the boat wells, because basically marina material. We, in talking with the building inspector and going through the code, it is one parking space for every 15 sq feet of building, which we have met and as you can probably see from that site plan we can probably meet most any requirement for parking, yes. What we have done is, we have dedicated five parking spaces behind the restaurant specifically for restaurant use that we didn t have before. Antkowiak: For your employees? Rhodes: Well no. We have that plus 5 for patrons. That plan should show the 40 parking spots. Schweikart: I guess do we have a requirement, because he uses the word shall I didn t find any shall do this because you have a boat well and I m just asking. Rhodes: Your parking ordinance is based on sq footage of building area. Bryson Keown: The comment that we have from community planning is that the boat slips that are there that are going to be used for the restaurant would not require parking. But those additional boat slips that are put in, do have a specific requirement for one for every two slips. So that would have to be provided but if he designates that the boat slips being put in are for the restaurant only and not to be rented then they would be exempt. Rhodes: That has been the policy there. All the ones in the front to the back of the building there, those are all transient wells. The resident wells all have parking right directly in front of the wells, which is right there at the marina building all the way back. Chairperson DeBoyer: Ordinance requires in-water boat wells at marinas one space for each two boat berths plus one for every two employees in the largest working shift. I don t believe you have employees working just the marina. And then for the restaurant it s one for each 100 sq feet of usable floor space. I don t know if my calculations are correct, but I come up with 34 parking places, which they have. MOTION BY MILLER, SUPPORTED BY SIMON, TO APPROVE SITE PLAN CONSIDERATION FOR SECOND FLOOR DINING AT SUNSET BAY RESTAURANT, TO INCLUDE THE ENTIRE SITE PLAN INCLUDING THE SECOND FLOOR DINING AREA, AMENDED SITE PLAN FROM APRIL 1, 2013 AUGUST 20, 2013. Roll Call VOTE: AYES: Antkowiak, Keller, Miller, Schweikart, Simon, Blair, Holcomb, Cahill, DeBoyer NAYS: None MOTION CARRIED.
Page 3 6. SITE PLAN CONSIDERATION: Mobile Office Building - 1876 Fruit Rd. Auto Craft Tool & Die Chairperson DeBoyer: Next on our agenda is a site plan consideration for the mobile office building at 1876 Fruit Street, Auto Craft Tool & Die. The only way this is addressed in our ordinance is as a temporary occupancy permit for this type of a trailer that is generally used during construction. But that is not what is being requested. There is no further construction being planned, this simply is to bring in this double wide mobile office for permanent use. It appears our ordinance does not allow for it. I m thinking that possibly this is something that may end up with the ZBA. Schweikart: Is there a reason why you don t want to do a permanent? David DuVernay: Cost and if we ever did any other expansion, we d be moving it. Chairperson DeBoyer: This says a temporary permit may be issued by the township zoning administrator for a commercial or residential building to be occupied for a period up to six months while either a permit building or related construction is being completed. Such temporary permit may be extended by the zoning administrator for like periods of time but not after the original cause of need for the use shall cease to exist. The township zoning administrator shall require sufficient bond or cash as set by the Clay Township Board which shall be returned in its entirety once the temporary use has been removed from the premises in accordance with the provisions of the temporary permit. Such temporary permit may not be granted or extended beyond a maximum of two years provided the building permit is also extended for the same time period. The temporary structure must be removed within 60 days after the expiration of the permit or the bond will be used for its removal. That is section 3.19 of the zoning ordinance. DuVernay: So if I was to put a modular home and use it for an office, what s the difference? Bryson Keown: You can use a temporary office as a permanent office; it would just have to require that it follow the site plan requirements for materials, and get site plan approval. So you could use a modular office like this, it s done all the time. The fact that it s modular is just a type of construction rather than the fact that is movable. Sometimes they want to be able to move them, but you can put them on a foundation. It s done all the time and then meet the requirements of a site plan. Chairperson DeBoyer: It just would require a foundation under it? Bryson Keown: It would require a foundation, you d be at grade, and you d have material for brick or better, something like that. The requirements of the zoning ordinance would have to be followed. But again, it s done a lot. Chairperson DeBoyer: As far as setbacks, right. DuVernay: Our plans were to put it on a foundation. Miller: I have a semantics problem, it actually goes back a week. The Board of Trustees took up your question on the recovery zone request extension, as you re probably aware. We had extensive conversations about that and you re aware of your extension so on and so forth, but digging beyond that and looking beyond that as to the purpose of the whole thing in the first place, which is to encourage folks like yourself to build your roots in Clay Township. We like to see businesses grow here. We like to try to help you to the extent that we can. Are we on the same page? So then I look at the narrative here and I see that you want permission for a mobile office, which means it could be moved. I visualize that as something with wheels. DuVernay: That was not our intent.
Page 4 Miller: Good. Because I come back to the last sentence and it says our office space is needed to make 1800 Fruit Street our centralized headquarters. DuVernay: It is our centralized headquarters. We re looking at centralizing purchasing and estimating here. We have it in Marine City and we have it in Algonac both and we re looking for room to bring them both to one spot. Miller: Which we certainly would be only too happy to try to make happen. What I m really looking for here is if the centralized headquarters is here, it s not mobile, you re not going to take it to Marine City. DuVernay: If I was going to take it to Marine City, I don t need the office space to take it to Marine City. I have, as I stated during our previous meeting, I have more office space in Marine City than I do in Algonac. But right now we have our engineering in Algonac, our project managers are based in Algonac and it only makes perfect sense to keep my purchasing and estimating in Algonac also. We have had thoughts of putting a large building up. Last time we did a site plan on that, the cost of the greenery and the drainage and everything else was almost more than the building. So we ve decided to keep our size about the same but if we can centralize things we re hoping that we can push more work through the building, with the required office space for project managers and purchasing. That seems to be our bottleneck in our work, is the office people, the engineers, the purchasing, the project managers. We seem to be able to push the work thorough the building quite easily, the problem is the office space. As you know, we have the building on Smith Street also, right now we re just using it for storage. Back before 2000, we were manned with 8-9 guys in that building at that time. At one time we had close to 100 guys. We re back up to 60 right now, but our office seems to be our bottleneck right now. Chairperson DeBoyer: On this site plan, it s showing 6 reinforced color impregnated-concrete with embossed pattern on a 12 wide x 42 deep trench footing. It talks about the trench and footings, it sounds like you re planning on putting in a foundation under this building. DuVernay: Yes, we are. Chairperson DeBoyer: That makes it a permanent building. DuVernay: Yes it does, but it also is less costly to put in and if we ever did do an expansion I could sell the building and it d be much easier to move the footings. Chairperson DeBoyer: As you know, my years in banking, if someone came in with a modular or mobile home and they were going to set it on the lot, the bank would not do a mortgage on it. But if they put in footings and foundation and set that on the foundation then it could be mortgaged. DuVernay: We re planning to hook it up to water, there s plans for a bathroom, and we were planning on doing all the greenery shown in the site plan. Schweikart: Maybe we got sidetracked because on your site plan it says temporary office. DuVernay: I probably used the wrong wording. Antkowiak: Unless the company is advertising mobile offices, but then they also talk about permanent structures and space solutions as well as temporary. DuVernay: I don t have a problem changing it to modular or mobile. I think the reason I got that is when I was looking on the internet at those types of buildings, that s what they called them. Antkowiak: So if it s on footings, and on a foundation, it s no longer a mobile unit. Bryson Keown: It would be a site plan. It s done all the time. It s just a type of construction. Chairperson DeBoyer: So we re not looking at a temporary building. We re looking at a permanent building.
Page 5 DuVernay: When I came to talk to the building inspector, he told me a temporary building was not going to fly, that it wouldn t meet the requirements. That s why we put it on footings. It would be nice to do a temporary building because then if I had to pick it up and move it, I could. Miller: I guess this bring me back to our planner, my question is the note that I saw from Patrick in which apparently he had reviewed what we re looking at he said it was essentially a mobile thing and he was recommending denial on the basis that it s mobile. And yet the very plot plan I m looking at is completely 180 degrees opposite. Blair: When you put the skirting on there are you leaving the wheels and axels under it? Chairperson DeBoyer: No, they don t. DuVernay: No, we re going to bring water and electricity to it. Miller: There s the big difference right there. No mobility period. Simon: He shows water service right there on the plan also. Miller: I don t know how Patrick arrived at the conclusion he arrived at if he looked at this plan. DuVernay: Probably because of the terminology. Bryson Keown: If you look at the site plan, this is a typical modular office because it s elevated. He could lower the building, meet the site plan requirements and resubmit it as a site plan. Blair: So if he changes the verbiage from mobile to what it is here, he takes that verbiage out of there, there s not an issue, right? Chairperson DeBoyer: No, and like I said on the site plan we received, here are the specifications for the footing and foundation. Bryson Keown: The building materials and the other parts of the site plan are really what you would see for a temporary use. If it was a full site plan you d have your full requirements of your site plan. Chairperson DeBoyer: I think that on this site plan everything that we need to know is here as far as setbacks, landscaping, driveways, walkway, water, two entrances, where the water service is coming in, the fire exit is designated. MOTION BY SCHWEIKART, SUPPORTED BY SIMON, TO APPROVE SITE PLAN CONSIDERATION FOR A MODULAR OFFICE BUILDING FOR 1876 FRUIT RD, AUTO CRAFT TOOL & DIE, SITE PLAN RECEIVED DATE STAMPED 07/31/2013 AND 08/26/2013, WITH A REQUEST TO REMOVE THE WORD TEMPORARY FROM VERBIAGE. Roll Call VOTE: AYES: Cahill, Holcomb, Blair, Simon, Schweikart, Miller, Keller, Antkowiak, DeBoyer NAYS: None MOTION CARRIED. 7. PLANNING CONSULTANT'S REPORT: Bryson Keown: Pat apologizes that he couldn t be here tonight.
Page 6 8. Z.B.A. REPRESENTATIVE S REPORT: Antkowiak: Nothing new. 9. CHAIRPERSON S REPORT: Chairperson DeBoyer: I did compile our comments and spoke with Amanda up at County Planning and then I faxed it out to her, so they know what we think about it all. Something else, we have been talking about rentals attached to commercial properties and in talking with County Planning and the County Supervisor the two biggest problems in Port Huron and Algonac, and Algonac is really declining, because Port Huron is sending people on public assistance to Algonac. They are renting. Whether it s a house or an apartment or whatever, they have no vested interest in that property and therefore, they don t care. Take a look at Detroit, same kind of thing. So we have to be careful with our rental property. Do we want Clay Township to turn into that? Just a thought. Schweikart: What happened with the trustee and all that stuff, did you take back what we did, any reaction? No reaction? Miller: The rental agreement that we re working on is in the hands of the attorney and I told them what we would do and actually they didn t seem to think there was any problem whatsoever because you re gong to refer to whatever other ordinance is propagated so they re going to be mutually inclusive. I find it completely, Dorothy, this statement you made about they are sending those people to us. Is this another example of the north trickling down to the south? Chairperson DeBoyer: I mean Port Huron is more than 50% rentals in Port Huron and they have no place to put anybody. And I read recently in the papers, they re coming from Macomb County to Port Huron. Miller: But why are they selecting Algonac? Chairperson DeBoyer: That s a good question, why here. Probably because cheaper rentals. Miller: Algonac can t do anything about it through zoning? Or they don t want to or what? Chairperson DeBoyer: I think a lot of it is going by what is the cost of the rent. If I have the option between paying $450 and $700 because Social Services is paying for it, they re going to go with the $450. Unfortunately, Algonac is not the community it once was. Miller: Well no. Not since Chris Craft left. Chris Craft left, up came the railroad, no more transportation vehicle component. It goes on and on. You can just see the spiral since the early 60s. Chairperson DeBoyer: Algonac Foundry, out on Stone Road, I don t know exactly what their workforce was, but I put it between 40-50, maybe 10 now. So many things, as I mentioned, I worked at the local bank. We had just in the Algonac Savings Bank 150 employees. It was sold to Old Kent. We were told at the time it was sold, of course Commercial and Savings was sold too because it was all in a holding company and Mr. Moore was the president and the board of directors didn t feel that the employees could run it without Mr. Moore there. However, truthfully, they had been running it, Mr. Moore hadn t been running it. So, within six months 100 employees lost their jobs. Now, look at Fifth Third s office, what do they have, four or five people? And here in Algonac we had the Algonac office, the Pearl Beach office, the Fair Haven office, the Marine City office, the Harsens Island office and we had 150 people. So those things
Page 7 that happened in the area, there s not employment like there used to be. I personally, as a senior in high school went to school half a day and worked at the bank half a day. That doesn t happen anymore, so there s nothing here to hold our young people. There are no jobs. That s why Algonac has gone the way it s gone. One other thing, I would like to suggest and get your thoughts on. In our agenda I would like to add an item where our board rep makes a report to the Planning Commission. Holcomb: I think that s a great idea. Miller: You don t need anything from us except what s absolutely relevant to anything we re doing here. Chairperson DeBoyer: Right. 10. PLANNING COMMISSION MEMBERS COMMENTS: Holcomb: I had a question about the proposed park that St. Clair County was supposedly looking at the property across from Kroger? It was in the paper last week I see they approved a park in Cottrellville. Does that have any effect on this? Chairperson DeBoyer: No. Cottrellville had applied for a grant and they got the grant and then the old board was voted out. So nothing has been done over there and finally something is being done. 11. PUBLIC COMMENTS: None. 12. ADJOURNMENT: Motion made by Simon, supported by Holcomb to adjourn the meeting at 8:34 p.m. AYES: All NAYS: None MOTION CARRIED. Respectfully Submitted, Victoria Brobst Recording Secretary Dorothy DeBoyer, Chairperson Clay Township Planning Commission