Good evening, everyone.
Good evening.
Welcome to the City of Warren Planning Commission meeting, June 1st,
2026. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America, and to the Republic for which it stands,
one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty
and justice for all.
She's
here.
We're
ready
to do roll call.
Roll call.
My mic's not working.
Commissioner Ansir.
Present.
Commissioner Heidi.
Commissioner Holowaty.
Present.
Commissioner Hawk.
Present.
Commissioner Douzy.
Commissioner Morris present. Commissioner Binecki.
Present.
Commissioner Smith.
Present. We need a motion to excuse Commissioner Douzy and Commissioner Heidi.
They're both sick this evening.
Chair, I make a motion to excuse Commissioner Douzy and
Commissioner Heidi from the meeting.
Support, Binecki.
There's a motion by Commissioner Holowaty, supported by Commissioner Binecki.
All in favor?
Aye.
Aye. Any opposed?
Item number four, approval of the agenda.
Chair, I make a motion to approve the agenda.
I support it.
There's a motion by Commissioner Holowaty, supported by Commissioner Hawk.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Approval of the minutes of May 11th, 2026.
Motion to approve the minutes.
Chair, I second.
There's a motion by Commissioner Binecki, supported by Commissioner Holowaty.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Item number six is public hearing items.
On the public hearing items this evening, everyone will have to come up and state
their name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to speak.
Okay? Item number 6A.
Item number 6A.
Site plan for new automatic conveyor car
wash, located on the west side of Shanor Road, approximately
156.17 feet south of 12 Mile Road,
28877 Shanor Road, Section 14.
Joseph Paluzzi, JPTH Properties, Warren
LLC, Sammy Patok, Clean Hub
Car Wash,
PSPSL260002,
postponed from April 13, 2026. The petitioner has withdrawn
the site plan application. Thank you.
Need a motion to withdraw the site plan application.
Chair, I make a motion to
withdraw the site plan application.
I support it.
There's a motion by Commissioner Holowaty, supported by Commissioner Hawk.
Roll call.
Commissioner Holowaty.
Yes.
Commissioner Hawk.
Yes.
Commissioner Ansir.
Yes.
Commissioner Morris votes yes. Commissioner Binecki.
Yes.
Commissioner Smith.
Yes to withdraw the application. Item number 6B.
Item number 6B, request for rezoning with condition,
located on the south side of Frazer Road, approximately
316.45 feet east of Shanor Road. From the
present zoning classification of R1C, one family residential
district to M2, medium light industrial district.
13800 Frazer Road, Section 24.
Adrian Lupuleca, Mark S.
Demostrat
Law Firm, PSSPLC,
PR260002. Thank you.
Good evening, sir.
You want to tell us a little bit about your project?
You state your name and address for the record and tell us a little bit about your
project.
I'm Mark Demorest. I'm the attorney for the
petitioner.
Can't hear you. It's down.
Okay. Can you hear me now?
Are we good?
Yeah.
Yep. My name is Mark Demorest. I'm the attorney for the petitioner.
My office is in Royal Oak, 415 Southwest Street.
I have with me today Bob Lind, also from Urban Land Consultants,
and Soren Talaba, who's the manager for the project.
So what we are seeking here is there is a vacant
parcel next to the business owned by Mr.
Lupuleca. He owns a company called Logistic One,
and he has a vacant piece of land
next to his property, which he wants to turn into a parking
lot for empty trailers.
We're seeking to have it rezoned to M2.
And I want to make it clear that this is not an
unconditional rezoning. I've been working with the planning department and
Mary Michaels, the city attorney,
about a conditional zoning agreement that would put a lot of
restrictions on the use of the property.
So one of the comments that was made by the
planning department,
is that they expressed concern that this could be used for any use
permitted under M2.
But that's not accurate under the conditional zoning agreement.
It can only be used for this purpose,
for the empty trailer parking. And if the
use ceases under our conditional zoning agreement, it would revert
to the current zoning. In order
to try
toMinimize the impact on the neighbors
and to
make this project as compatible as possible.
We've met several times with the planning department and have placed a number
of restrictions on this,
such as that when trucks come out, they will only turn right onto Frazeo Road,
not left. There will be no structures on the property.
There will be nothing stored in the trailers, no idling of trucks.
The hours will be limited,
8:00 to 6:00, Monday through Saturday, nothing on Sunday.
And we specifically agreed that no adult entertainment business,
no marijuana-related business, no outdoor related sale of
items. It will be used exclusively for
the parking of empty trailers.
I'd like to
briefly address the comments from the planning department.
One is they indicate that the future land use in the master
plan is for green space,
and the planning staff indicated that it could work
well for multifamily or mixed use.
The reality, however, is that this property's been vacant for 20
years.
There used to be a school there that was demolished.
Our client bought it a number of years ago.
Our client, before
deciding to try to use this for trailer parking,
did meet with potential developers, and they
reviewed it and said that with the size of the property, it just wasn't
feasible to develop it for residential.
So what we are looking at is trying to keep a
business in Warren that's already in Warren.
They have
the adjacent lots on which they already operate and have operated
for many years,
about 20 years.
And they want to expand because they don't have enough
room to operate on the land that they now own.
So one of the comments that was made in here is, well, maybe the city would
get more tax revenue from residential.
But let's look at it this way. Right now, there's
minimal tax revenue because it's vacant.
The other concern is if our client is not able to
get this trailer parking approved,
it may be necessary for them to move out of the city to another
location because they just don't have enough room to
operate their business. They're not a trucking business per se.
They're a logistics business. So what they do, for example, let's say that
General Motors was building a new plant.
They would take their trailers there.
Things would be stored in their trailers for a period of time.
Then they would bring the empty trailers back to their lot.
So this piece of property that we're talking about here
today would not have constant traffic in and out.
An empty trailer would be brought there,
parked, and it would stay there until it's needed again, which might be a month.
It might be three months. So we're not talking about
daily in and out traffic.
We also, in the site plan,
provided for a berm
along Frazeo Road and plantings to minimize
view and noise
for any neighbors. It's an area that has houses
across the street, but a lot of the area
in Frazeo
near this property is already commercial or industrial. I'd like Mr.
Lynn to address that. He's from Urban Land Consultants.
I guess. My name is Bob Lynn. I'm with Urban Land- Sir ...
Consultants, and- Sir.
Yes. Up here.
He did his little presentation. Let us get his correspondence,
then you can come back with your plan. Okay. So just hold on for a second, okay?
Okay. All right. Very good. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Correspondence.
Six. Okay. Correspondence. Taxes current. Building.
Building has no issues. Engineering.
Preliminary review of this site indicates that Planning Commission approval should
be contingent upon the petitioner's compliance
with the following conditions. Number one, Macomb County Public Works office
permit is required for the proposed connection to county storm sewer system.
Number two, the proposed project must meet the current city storm
water management requirements. Comcast.
We have aerial facilities in the area, but we have no conflicts with the
proposal.
DTE. DTE Electric Company has reviewed the site plan for
conditional rezoning from R1C1 family residential to
M2, medium light industrial district.
DTE has no objection to this request impacting 13800
Frazeo Road, section 24, per the site plan provided.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at
586-783-1978.
MCPWO. The Macomb County Public Works office,
MCPWO, has reviewed the site plan
for the project referenced above and has determined this site is
under the jurisdiction of MCPWO. This project is
impacting and/or discharging to a county asset, including
one or more of the following: a county drain, county right of way,
county road right of way, or other.
See table 1.1 in the MCPWO's Procedure and
Design Standards Manual for Stormwater Management,
revised on March 1st, 2024, for
further explanation. Any site disturbance over one acre will
require the proposed site to conform with the
MCPWO's Procedure and Design Standards Manual for
Stormwater Management.Review section five for stormwater
detention and drain easement requirements.
Prior to the site plan approval, it is highly recommended that the design
consultant and landowner schedule an engineering meeting with this
office to discuss how our standards may apply by contacting
Heather Mooring at
heather.mooring@macombgov.org
or
586-307-8280.
With that, I do have a couple of correspondence that I would go ahead and read that
were sent in an email.
Go ahead.
Ashraful Islam sent this on May 29,
2026. "Hello, City of Warren, Michigan.
My name is Ashraful Islam. I'm currently a resident in
13845 Fraso Road. I am protesting M-2
medium-light industrial district because we are living
the neighborhood. If the big lot in front of my house is
occupied truck parking lot, it is not safe for our
family and neighbor. It will affect
our environment."
We have another letter that was sent also on May 29.
"Hello. I live on Fraso Road."
This was sent from Pat
Astron.
There is no name to it. "Hello. I live on Fraso Road.
Logistics One is proposing an expansion of their parking lot.
I live right across the street, and the business didn't give any notice to
almost any of us. We don't want this.
Living on this street is annoying because of them, the traffic and trucks
sleeping on
Fraso to running all night. We don't want this."
We have another one that was also sent on May 29 from
Tyrus.
"Hello, my name is Christine, and I live directly across from
Logistics One on Fraso Road. I only just heard by a neighbor about
the proposed expansion of the parking that is being voted on.
I was never given a letter about this like I was supposed to, first of all.
I'm also disabled, so I cannot come vote Monday.
I didn't have enough time to schedule a ride service either.
I don't want this to happen. That place is already a nuisance
with their bright lights that light my house up
all night and the trucks that already run all night long there,
not to mention the truck traffic that already exists on this road
that is so loud. Our street is already congested with their
trucks parking to rest or waiting to turn
into Lipari and Logistics One. If you approve this, it will
make it impossible to stay here. We had
damage to our
lawn and drive from these trucks."
Okay.
We have another one that was also sent.
This is the last one. "Hello. I live on Fraso Road.
Logistics One is proposing an expansion of their parking lot, which is being voted
on Monday. I live right across the street, and their businesses didn't
give notice to almost any of us about this.
We do not want this. Living on this street is already cumbersome
because of them. The truck traffic and trucks parking on Fraso to sleep
running all night. The bright lights that light up all these houses
like daytime. These trucks are several a minute and
loud. We don't want more. Please don't let this go through." This
was sent from tyrus314@gmail.com.
That's it, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Madam Secretary.
Thank you.
Planning Director's recommendation.
Excuse me.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The recommendation
is... Well, let me get this straight. Is as follows.
The following recommendation is
made to city council regarding the rezoning with
conditions request for the property in question as
described.
It is recommended that the rezoning with conditions request
from R1C1 family residential district
to M2 medium-light industrial district be
denied.
Planning staff recommends the rezoning be denied for the following
reasons.
Number one,
if the 5.56 acre parcel is rezoned
from R1C to M2, this would amount to a
significant encroachment of a new industrial
property into an area that primarily
consists of one-family residential dwellings.
The existing uses along Shanor Road near Fraso
are generally considered local business, not
industrial.
East of the parcel in question, the north and south
and north and south along Groesbeck Highway
exists a significant number of industrial zoned
properties.
Number two, the Future Land Use Map, otherwise known as
FLUM,
in the 2021 master plan indicates this
area a green space. It is the planning
staff's opinion that this property would serve well
for what they call missing middle housing,
such as multiple housing or possibly mixed
use with local commercial or residential uses
combined with green space
or for additional single-family
dwellings.Number three, the planning staff
inquired with the assessing department regarding the value of the
property if rezoned and developed for
truck and trailer parking
per the concept plan.
The value of the property would be significantly
lower if the property was developed as currently
zoned for single-family dwellings or
multiple family dwellings.
The site was
Redwood Elementary School, constructed in
1968.
Number four,
the petitioner has provided a concept plan of
trailer parking.
However, if the rezoning is approved, any use
that qualifies under the M-2 medium light industrial
district zoning designation would be
permitted.
And
reason number five,
the petitioner has made changes to the
concept plan to specifically accommodate the
truck trailer parking.
The planning staff believes that a multiple dwelling use
of the property should be considered.
And so prior to the rezoning request being forwarded to city council,
10 copies of additional concept plans and survey
shall be submitted to the planning department.
So with that, Mr. Chair, the recommendation is submitted. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Worth.
I'm going to give the petitioner
a couple more minutes to come up to explain his drawing, and then we're going to go
into the public hearing.
I can hold this for you.
Okay. My name is Bob Linn with Urban Land Consultants, and I've looked at
this project now for maybe four or five years.
We've had several drawings over the years.
One of the drawings had a driveway out here with some
additional buildings. That got changed
to more like this. We had a driveway here, and then it got moved here,
but I'm wondering if the city would entertain a
consent judgment where we can get this plan
approved
without any more
consideration of
some of the other problems the area has.
This street right here was platted in
1924. Many of the houses are quite old,
not very well kept up. There's a few houses over here, a little bit
newer, but
I would think if we could
come up with... Maybe take some of this berm, put it here and
here.
Come up with a plan that would give our client the
ability to use the property and also be a good neighbor to
the people that live around here.
A berm here is going to screen the headlights.
We can put this driveway over here if we have to.
We don't have to have another curb cut.
So that would be my position, is to come up with a
plan that would give the city the ability
to let us move on to the next step and let the
client use the property as
shown.
Thank you, sir.
We've made a number of adjustments to the site plan
and as a result of meetings with the planning department and Ms.
Michaels to try to minimize the impact on the neighbors.
I would just point out the letters that were read.
I think some of the truck traffic that may be referred to is not our
clients. For example, one of the emails mentioned
Lipari, which is not our client. It's a separate
establishment.
Our client
has more limited traffic than those other businesses.
But the important point, though, for this particular parcel
is that the hours of operation would be limited from 8:00 a.m.
to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
And the only thing that would be happening is a truck would bring an
empty trailer in, drop it off, and then the truck would just
leave. So,
some of the comments, I think, relate to other businesses and
also don't
accurately describe what the impact of this
project would be on the neighborhood.
We'd be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Again, it's a conditional rezoning, so the only use
that would be permitted if you approve the conditional rezoning
is this use, not anything else that's permitted under M-2.
Thank you, sir.
All right. Thank you.
This is a public hearing. Anybody who'd like to speak on this item, please come up,
state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes to speak.
My name's Jerry Schneider, live at 13781 Frazel.
If you look at the length of this room here, that's how far my house
is from where they want to put this parking lot. Okay?
He talks about putting up a berm. The berm they have at the other location
is this high.
Okay?
They have other trucks, that they just don't want you to
know, that are parked over on Hoover and Topher.
Okay? Probably another hundred trucks.
So you're talking about in the area they have right
now, if you were to take that area and
divide the
new one equally,
you could increase his truck traffic by 500%.
He already has 100 and
something trucks and trailers in the little parcel that he has.
I don't want to sit there and look at this thing.
He talks about the
truck traffic. You're not going to fly these trucks in and out of there,
so there's still going to be more truck trafficI don't care what time of day
it is, it's still more truck traffic.
When they come down the street and they hit the holes or
whatever in that street,
my house rattles.
Literally rattles.
I've been fighting this now for the last five years, coming to these
meetings. They keep trying to find some other way to
do it. First thing they wanted was an EV charging station.
They proposed for it.
When that didn't work, they started sending out things that said they would
pay us $2,500 if we didn't vote against them,
just to not give them any trouble. I don't know how many
people might have even taken that or how many they offered it.
There's not only the houses on Frayzo,
there's the houses behind the lot.
I don't know, that's got to be another at least 15 residents.
I don't know if they even have been sent letters.
So
again, I sit here, say I adamantly oppose
them redistricting or this rezoning
this property. Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Hi. Sarah Blackwell, 13755 Herald.
I'm one of the ones that the yard backs right up to, so my
backyard is at the field. So I originally didn't
oppose this so much, but I'm kind of offended how our
street of homes was described because my street is beautiful.
Our homes are beautiful. It doesn't matter what year they were built
or what condition they're in. But I originally just had
questions. Is there going to be a wall?
Right now there's a ditch through that field.
When they tore the school down, our yards flooded.
So how is that going to be if they cement?
How is that going to affect us? I don't want semis back there
either, but I would rather semis than apartments because this
is literally my backyard. I don't want
100 people back there and music bumping and people...
I just don't want all that behind. I would rather have semis than...
And I'm sorry to the Frayzo neighbors because I know they don't want it, but I
don't want apartments.
So if this is my option over apartments, I would take that.
But I really wanted to know, are we going to get a wall?
And how are we going to keep our yards from flooding?
The rats are already insane. I
suppose I do oppose it. I wasn't opposing it, but I
would like to just keep the empty field.
Not my yard,
not my place to call, but I don't really want it either.
But if they're going to build it, I would like to know that we're going to have
some conditions of our yards not flooding
and some sort of wall or barrier between us and
the field. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am.
My name's Matthew Wolf from 13809 Frayzo.
This is directly across the street from my house.
I look out my front window and I see this field. That's all I see.
Right now I see gas lines being dug up, but
the semis bounce down the
road all day. So to say that there's not going to be any added traffic would just
be ridiculous because they're going to add semis.
And I see what you're saying, they're just going to pull empty trailers in and just
leave empty trailers. Well, at some point they got to pull them out, too.
So these trucks are going to destroy the road even more than they have.
It's going to decrease my property value.
I know you don't care about it, but that $2,500 check you sent me that I didn't
cash isn't going to cover anything near the loss that I'm going to
take if I'm staring at semi-trailers. I'm just not willing to do it.
My name's Matthew Wolf. Thank you very much.
Thank you, sir.
I'm getting the hang of this new timer. Sorry.
Anyone else like to speak on this item?
Seeing none, we'll turn it over to commission.
A motion to deny, Mori.
Support commission answer.
Any discussion?
If I may, Mr. Chair.
Go ahead.
If there's a vote to deny, please state reasons and facts to support
your vote. Thank you.
Thank you.
A motion to deny with planning commissioners
from the recommendation that we have received,
keeping the consideration of the property values and the neighbors
in mind.
The reason I supported it,
it is residential R1C close by to R1C, and
we are trying to do M2.
So I don't think it's safe for the neighborhood and for the
neighbor's safety and keeping the
residential value high. As one of the residents mentioned that
it will decrease their house value.
I think that's a good point,
and
R1C,
I don't support that should be M2, any industrial.
That is the reason I supported this
denial.
Thank you. Anyone else want to speak on this?
To the petitioner, can you come up a minute,
please?Yep.
Good evening, sir. Yes, sir. I understand the predicament that the
company's in as far as they need more trailer parking,
and I understand that that parcel would be
beneficial for them,
but then I also understand the residents.
And one of the things I oppose about it
is that I looked at Nine Mile and Hoover.
A company came in there, and they told the residents, "Well, we're just going to do
this, and we're going to put this building.
We're going to have these trucks in there, and you won't have to see anything." So
all these people sold their houses to them, except for a few that stayed,
and then all of a sudden they wanted more parking.
And we turned down additional parking because they wanted to take up more...
They already said they only got 250 spaces, and then they already had 300 and
something, and they still wanted more parking.
But then,
at the bottom line, I don't know what happened, but it fell out.
Now, there's nobody over there. You had all the spaces for all these
trucks, and
the company's not even operating anymore.
So I'm concerned about something like that happening here,
because I can understand the residents not being...
I don't care if you put a berm up there,
and it would maybe shield some of the lights, but just to be able to look
out your window and see 166 trailers, to me,
I'm not really for that.
But
anybody else like to speak on this?
Mr. Chair,
may I please?
Go ahead.
Petitioner,
I have a question for you to ask. One of the resident mentioned
in his speech that you guys offered $2,500 to
all those residents just to not to oppose this site plan.
Is it true?
A couple of years ago,
we had offered a settlement to neighbors for the
inconvenience, that if they wanted
to get compensation for the inconvenience.
Yes, but I think there was only one
person that agreed to do that. So it was
offered as a settlement for the inconvenience that would be
perhaps as a result of the project.
But residents-
Excuse me, please.
Sir-
Excuse me
... there's no interruptions in the-
So-
... audience.
Pardon me. If you want to come up and speak, you have your time to come up and
speak.
Okay. Yep.
But no interruptions when the other people are speaking.
But-
Thank you
... residents mentioned clearly that you guys offer
$2,500 just to oppose this site plan, not to oppose this site
plan.
No. Well, two things. One, that has nothing to do with this
application. This was several years ago.
But it was
offered
as, we understand this project might cause
some inconvenience in the neighborhood,
so we offered compensation for the inconvenience.
So you are saying that that $2,500 offer was two years before,
not recently.
At least two years. I could look up the exact date, but it was several years
ago. Yep.
Okay. Thank you.
Two to three years, I would estimate.
Thank you. So I have another question.
So you are trying to do rezoning for industry.
What type of industry you have a plan
to do it there?
Okay. So,
the only use of this would be to park empty trailers.
The
request to rezone it to M-2 is because that use
wouldn't be allowed under any less
severe zoning. So
it's not that we want to put a factory there or a
warehouse there. That's the zoning that would be required for the
empty trailer parking.
All right. Thank you.
Concerned judgment. Yes, Chairman. It's removal of the parking only. Right.
Right. Go ahead, Commissioner.
Because
I oppose
the plan because if we change from R-1 to
M-2,
and you guys are parking the trailer now,
eventually if you leave some days, then someone
will build a factory here. Industry.
There is a possibility.
Yeah. Actually,
this-
So this is-
What were you...? Oh, go ahead.
Okay.
So, the proposal we made is for a conditional zoning, and
perhaps Ms. Michaels could confirm this.
If this use stops, then the zoning approval goes away,
and it reverts to R-1 C.
Yeah. But still it's
not good place for the truck parking because
surrounding neighborhood are residential
neighborhood, and it's damaging the road, too, and bumping
all day.
So this is not a safe place for the truck parking.
Well, but part of the question, sir, is where
else do we go? And frankly, I'm not
intending this as a threat. It's the reality is if the
company doesn't have enough space to operate here,
then the likelihood is that they'll move out of Warren
entirely, which would
not be good for the tax base here.
They pay significant taxes on the
properties they use now. They provide employment.
And I understand the concerns, and we've tried to address the
concerns by controlling which direction the trucks would go, but I
think it's a misapprehension of what this
is. This isn't going to be constant in and out all day long.
It's literally a trailer
isn't in use. It gets parked, and it stays there until the next time
it's used, which could be
weeks or months later. So it's not constant in and out.
Madam Attorney, do you want to say something?
If I may, I just want to bring to the commission's attention, in the agreement,
they agreed to put up a "No Left Turn" sign
to keep the trucks to drive
only east. What they also did was agreed that the Warren
Police Department could enforce the traffic code and that
sign on its property. What I'd almost like to add, because
this will be forwarded to city council-
Right
... if there's approval ultimately, add that we can enforce the no
idling requirement.
Yes. There is also a provision in the agreement of trucks would
not idle there. There would be no refrigerated trailers.
The trailers would all be empty. So a truck can't idle on the lot.
It just goes and drops off a trailer, and it leaves.
Okay.
So we have tried as much as we can to
minimize the impact on the neighbors.
And I did look up, sir, the discussions we had with settlement
was in November of 2023, so it was almost three years ago.
They have a driveway or two.
Yep.
There's two cars parked there today, but I wonder
why tonight. Right. Okay. Thank you, sir.
Okay.
Any other discussion?
Thank you.
Seeing none, roll call.
Commissioner Mori.
There's a motion by Commissioner Mori, supported by Commissioner Ansari. Roll call.
Yep. Commissioner Mori, I voted a no.
Yes to the motion.
Commissioner Ansari?
No or yes?
No, my motion was to deny.
So yes-
So yes
... to deny.
Yes to deny.
Okay.
And please, as a reminder, friendly please, Mr.
Chair, just to state reasons for the basis-
Yes
... of the vote.
Okay.
It's important for the record.
Okay. Motion to deny, keeping the neighbors
and the property value in mind.
Commissioner Ansari?
Yes, to deny.
Reason,
neighborhood safety, as it's going to be a lot of truck out there, so I think it's
not going to be safe for the neighborhood.
So that is the main reason I'm supporting deny.
Commissioner Holowaty?
Yes, to deny due to I figure it might be more harm to the neighborhood.
Commissioner Hawk?
Yes to deny because
to
keep the neighborhood safe
and property value,
as these are high. Yes.
Commissioner Benake?
Yes to deny because the master plan wants multifamily, and we need the
count. Warren
might not have the most populations in a few years if we don't start putting
people in our city.
Thank you.
Commissioner Smith?
Yes to deny. It doesn't seem like it's a good
fit because, like I said, I know they tried to put
apartments there some other time, and that didn't really work.
But that doesn't mean there can't be something else there.
I just don't like the idea of 166 trailers staring at the
residents.
So I vote yes to deny.
So we all voted yes to deny, so the
motion's been denied.
Thank you for your time, gentlemen.
Item number 6C.
Item number 6C, request for standard rezoning located on
the west side of Burke Road,
approximately 819.7 feet south of 11 Mile Road.
From the present zoning classification of R1C, one family
residential district, to R3,
multifamily dwelling district. 26523
Burke Road,
13-22-204-008,
parcel
13-22-204-003.
The south 221.7 feet,
11200 11 Mile Road,
13-22-204-012.
The south
221.7 feet,
section 22, Muhammad Abdul Wahab
Waheed, Michigan Institute of Sacred Knowledge,
Jamal Khan, Graviton Ventures LLC,
PR-260001. Thank you.
Thank you. The petitioner, good evening, sir.
State your name and address for the record.
Sure. Hi. My name is Jamal Khan. I'm a resident of Rochester
Hills, Michigan.
I represent Graviton Ventures here. I'm a developer out of Rochester Hills.
Okay. You want to tell us a little bit about your project?
Sure.
First of all, I want to say thank you all for hearing me out.
We are actually very excited to share this project,
which has been thoughtfully designed as a residential development in your
neighborhood.
We have 36 modern apartments that we are proposing,
condominiums,
which will have beautifully landscaped public gazebo and a garden area
up front. This project is actually not only designed
to provide high-quality housing, but also foster a stronger, more
connected community,
with amenities like accessible outdoor space from
the street and public EV chargers that we're going to install
up front for use by the neighbors. You can see a little bit of a
pictorial up there.
But the development is actually focused on making efficient use of the
land by rezoning the current R1C
zoning to R3 zoning.The apartment themselves, which we are
proposing, are going to be highly energy efficient and will
attract individuals and families who value quality living
and a sense of community.
Our goal is to enhance the character and livability of the area by
integrating architecture and landscaping that
respects the existing neighborhood while adding more value.
So we understand the importance
of neighborhood harmony, and we are committed to being good neighbors
throughout the construction process and beyond.
And for that reason, before we actually put the plan
together,
we put a little bit of drawing together.
We met the planning commission to bring it to their attention
and showed them that currently, that particular
area is a asphalt parking lot way back in that church,
which is not being used. And on the other side
towards Berg Road is a one-acre land, which is also not being used,
as you can see in the pictures there.
So what we did is, after we met the planning department, once we
draw a little bit of a plan, we actually sent out letters to the
neighbors explaining what we are planning to do.
Order. Nobody
be blurting out in here.
So we did receive addresses from the city
of all neighbors who are within 100 feet or so, or 200 feet
of the development. And we sent out letters, and we
did try to speak to some of the neighbors
at a meeting and showed them the plan.
And few of the concerns that the neighbors brought during that meeting
was lighting.
So we did go ahead and do a photometric plan, which shows that zero
light from the poles will be emitted out of the property.
The other concern was
how the line of sight from these buildings are going to be into
their properties. So we did orient the building in such a way
that wherever there is windows on the building, that's going to be at least
80 feet away from our boundary, plus the neighbor's
backyard. And on the south side of the property there, we have 50
feet from the boundary. So,
we make sure that there are no windows on the south side of the building.
In addition, what we did is after the neighborhood meeting, we went and
modified the landscaping plan to put additional
trees, which you will see in the landscaping plan, along the south side as
well as the west side of the property.
And to also address the light from the
cars that are going to go around and park there, we
proposed bushes
along that line, and we are also going to enhance the fence.
So what you see here, what we're trying to do is do our best
to work with the neighbors,
and try to make the best use of this particular parcel,
which is currently vacant, whether with the parking lot or the one-acre
lot. And the gazebo up front is going to be a public space that they could
use. They could walk along Berg Road and come in there and charge their
cars. While charging, they can use the gazebo.
In addition, we are going to have underground
detention system. My engineering firm who's here,
they will be able to talk if you have any questions about that.
And
as the other point here is that I would like to make,
the traffic was one of the concerns, and we did bring it up
and talked with the planning commission about it, too.
And I think Ron here will address that a little bit.
But the thing is, where this property is located is very close to
11 Mile, so majority of the traffic should go up 11
Mile to get in and out of this development, and they shouldn't be going south
on Berg Road.
And as far as the actual development itself, we did pay attention to
every detail. We have extra parking so that nobody parks on the street.
We also have an entry and an exit point, so there's
no traffic congestion or anything else.
And every little detail that we could,
we've done a lot of work right in this phase.
Yes, we are not into site plan approval yet, but we've done, I would say,
75% of the work to take care of the concerns of the neighbors,
as well as to keep the harmony
of that particular property. So in my opinion, to conclude,
this development will actually enhance not
just the look and feel of that particular parcel and that particular property,
but it'll also give you better landscaping, more green space.
If I'm not mistaken, 25% to 30% of the land
of the 3.27 acres that we're using is going to be green space.
There is a gazebo and a garden up front.
There is buffer area of 15 feet all around the property, which
is a green space. Plus around the
building itself, we're going to have green space.
So
if there are any questions, I'm ready to answer, but this is the
project here.
Thank you, sir. Correspondence?
Correspondence is... Give me a second.
Taxes current.
Building has no issues.
AT&T. AT&T does not object to the rezoning of these
parcels. Comcast. In response to your utility request for the
above project, Comcast has aerial and underground facilities in the
area. Please refer to the attached map for the location of Comcast
CATV and fiber facilities. Each print page has a
corresponding color key for easy reference to the location printed.
If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to contact us by email
at
cccutilityrequest@teamsigma.com.DTE.
DTE Electric Company has reviewed the site plan for standard
rezoning from R-1C, one-family residential,
to R-3 multifamily dwelling district.
DTE has no objection to this request impacting
26523 Berg Road,
13-22-204-008,
Parcel
13-22-204-003,
the south 221.7 feet,
11200 11 Mile Road,
13-22-204-012, the south
221.7 feet, Section 22 per the site plan provided.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at
586-783-1978.
I also have some correspondence that I'll go ahead and read.
Okay.
These were letters that were sent on... Yes.
I'm sorry. If they're letters from the public, maybe during public
hearing.
Okay.
Okay. Thanks.
These are letters shown the public.
Okay. We'll read those during public hearing.
Sounds good. Thank you.
Okay. Okay. Planning department's recommendation.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The recommendation is as follows.
The following recommendation is made regarding
the standard rezoning request for the property in question
as described
formerly there. It is recommended that the standard rezoning
request from R-1C, one-family residential
district, to R-3,
multiple-family dwelling district, be approved.
It is a consistent assumption that given the fact
that the master plan, after much research,
determined that one-family residential dwelling units
account for 75% of the housing stock
in the city of Warren.
It is also a good assumption that a diverse housing
stock is needed,
and in this case, 36 additional dwellings
representing the missing middle housing type
would begin to change the need for a higher
density in the city.
The location is mostly an asphalt parking area
and vacant lot owned by the Michigan Institute of Sacred
Knowledge.
The specific area in question is seldom used, being
part of an overall parking area for the institute.
The site is abutting one-family dwellings on one part of the
north line, along
with the existing parking area,
across Berg Road, and along the entire south and
west property lines.
The future land use map of the master plan identifies this
area
as a potential commercial business area.
The planning staff seriously believes that a more
premium and lesser traffic-generating use
is the development of the proposed multiple
family dwelling
development in this area.
This change in use would prompt this part of
a non-taxable
property to
be taxed by the city in the future.
The master plan also identifies the abundance of
hard-surfaced areas in the city. This development
would provide less hard-surfaced areas,
more landscaped areas,
and much improved stormwater drainage of the area.
Finally, the planning staff did investigate, to a lesser
degree, the issue of additional traffic on Berg
Road.
The assumption is that the majority of the traffic
generated from the site
would travel north to 11 Mile Road, a major
roadway, to gain access to the rest of the local
area.
To a lesser degree, minimal traffic would go south to Engelman
Avenue to access Hoover Road to the east
and Lorraine or Van D**e Avenue to the
west.
So with that, Mr. Chair, the recommendation is submitted. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Worth.
This is the public hearing, but we've got a couple items we have to read
first, and then we'll have the people come up and make their remarks.
Okay. I'll go ahead and read the
emails that were sent to us. This was sent from Philip Bermelay
on May 12, 2026. "Hello. My name
is Philip Bermelay. My family and I are lifelong residents and have
resided at 26520 Berg since
1968, which is directly across the proposed Berg Road
condos rezoning request, 26523 Berg.
Let me start by saying that my wife and I are adamantly opposed to the
rezoning request.
I know you are all busy, so I will try to keep this short.
You should know that I owned and maintained the property in question from
2012 to 2024. I sold the property to the Mifta
Institute so they would have a place for the students during recess.
Their exacts were, 'It's for the kids.' Here are my
concerns. First and foremost, this is a residential neighborhood.
My wife and I are heavily invested in the area with our
beautiful home."The last thing we want to see is a two-story
structure with two driveways coming and going in front of us.
We are already overburdened around here with traffic
flow coming from
the Joseph Coach Stillwell Manor.
Their south driveway is adjacent to our north property line.
Unfortunately, due to the circumstance, this is
expected at times by the frequent fire
department trips to the facility.
Additionally, we receive overflow parking from the facility as well.
The road frontage in front of the facility is always full with
parked cars. This makes it very difficult for everyone who
traverses Berg.
I can't tell you how many times my wife and I have been almost hit by
a motorist unwilling to slow down and wait as we
enter our driveway. Let us not forget that Berg Road in
it of itself is already a busy thoroughfare.
The MIFTA Institute has a stream of cars twice a day that drive down
Berg once they have dropped off their children.
When the MIFTA Institute hosts an event, Berg and Carrier are completely
lined with parked cars on both sides of the street.
What's bothersome about this is that they have the
property 26806 Berg, but they just prefer to
rent it out to people like Consumers Energy, for which the city has
received many complaints over truck traffic.
They are a M-zone contractor operating in a C1 zone
by special permit used by the city.
My suggestion, have the MIFTA Institute utilize the
26806 Berg's property for their proposed
condos. There's already one residential property that would affect, and they
could easily purchase that if they require more space for their project.
This parcel is completely out of the way from the proposed negative impact they're
suggesting we endure. Lastly, we have started a petition drive,
and I have enclosed a flyer that will accompany it. Thank you for your time.
Philip Bermelay, 586-260-8326.
And there is a flyer that mentions about today's
meeting.
We have another one that was also sent on May 17th.
Try to keep them to three minutes. I'm going to try to keep them to three minutes.
Okay.
May 17th from Matt Verde. "I
am a constituent who is against this condo project as it was
proposed months ago. Houses, on the other hand, could work.
I have lived on Richard Drive since 2002.
I didn't buy a house there only for its value to fall and consequently
lose the foundation of my retirement."
There's two emails. This is actually a reply, so I'm not
going to go ahead and read the email.
Yeah,
read the email.
Read the email back to them?
Sure.
There is a reply to the email.
From our Councilman Noonan.
Does that fall within the public hearing?
I think only the statement from them.
Okay.
From the resident, yeah.
Okay. So I went ahead and read them, not reading the reply to the email.
There's another one?
There is the second one.
That's separate from that one you just read.
Yes.
Okay. Let me reset the timer.
Yes, please. This is from David Cooks.
"There is a plan, 36 two-story apartment ventures with 93
parking areas planned to be developed in this area.
If the City of Warren Planning Commission allows a zoning request change from
R1C, single-family residential to
R3C, multi-family dwelling district.
This venture is in the wrong area. Should be placed at hand that Consumers
Energy is currently leasing from owners of 11200
East 11 Mile Road. The sensible logic is that
ingress and egress to and from apartment and condominiums will
be on main road of 11 Mile.
This will not affect residential homes in Capatini
Heights area. The half square mile area has only two North
and South roads from Engelman to
11 Mile Road, both being 25 mile per hour
residential side streets. If
Gravetown Ventures partnering with 26523
Berg Road LLC want to develop said
area, they should be held to the same standards that all homeowners in
the area must abide to, and that is single-family residential
and not R-C3 multi-family residential.
To allow 36 apartments, condominiums with
93 planned parking for vehicles, all according to
proposed layout, entering and exiting on Berg Road, will be
too great of a burden on existing homes,
homeowners living in this area. It is also a safety concern because
of amount of runs that the City of Warren Fire paramedic
rescue squads are called to the City of Warren-owned
Stillwell Manor.
The City of Warren Planning Commission shall not grant this rezoning request.
It is in the City of Warren's best interest for R1C homes,
not R3C apartments. Residential homeowners
spend far greater amounts of money in local area,
benefiting local businesses, purchasing lawn mowers, weed
wipers, grass seeds, weed and feed for lawn,
flowers, landscaping, garden equipment, power equipment,
circular saws, nailers, garden hose, storage
sheds to retain and house equipment, et cetera.
Property tax on single-family homes will be greater value to the city
and local businesses. Property value remain higher without
neighborhood apartments. Build a single-family residential home
exactly what area is currently zoned." Thank you.
Thanks, Madam Secretary.
Thank you
This is a public hearing. Anyone who would like to come up and speak on this item,
you'll have state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three
minutes to speak.
Now, if you have a lot of people saying the same thing, maybe you
could designate one person to come up and say.
My name is Kimberly Shaloo. I live at
26142 Falmouth Drive.
My family has owned the home since it was built,
so I've been there forever.
I don't know what letter they're talking about.
I don't know if it just went out to a few homes right
on Berg. I'm right there. Never received anything.
The only thing I saw was a big sign about rezoning.
Another problem with that, talking to neighbors, I walk my neighborhood
twice a day with my dogs. One of the homes on one side of it had no idea
what that sign even meant. He's not here today.
But he had thought they wanted to put two homes because it is a
bigger property, maybe split it. So just so you do know that.
A lot of people in the neighborhood were very confused by the sign that was
put up.
I wrote something down because I'm horrible at public speaking.
You're fine.
I'm opposed to the proposal to replace a single-family home with a
multifamily apartment development within our subdivision.
One of the defining characters of our neighborhood is its larger
lot sizes, spacious layout, and single-family residential
character. The larger lots and greater distance between
homes are among the reasons many residents choose to live in this
subdivision. The proposed apartment development would not
be consistent with the existing aesthetics and character of
the neighborhood. Placing a multifamily apartment
building between two established single-family
homes would significantly alter the appearance and
feel of our community.
Although I do not live immediately adjacent to the proposed
site,
I understand the concerns of the neighboring homeowners.
If my property were located directly next to the development,
I would have serious
concerns regarding privacy, increased traffic,
neighborhood character, and potential impacts on property
values. Traffic is already a
significant issue in the area. The nearby school generates
substantial congestion during morning drop-off and afternoon pickup
times. School events create additional traffic and
parking problems, at times making it difficult for residents to
access their own streets.
On multiple occasions, traffic conditions have become severe enough that
law enforcement has been called to assist with traffic control.
We already have senior housing apartments located across the
street from the proposed site. Additionally, the school
district or the school, MFTA Institute-
Your time is almost up, ma'am
... Oh, sorry, okay, owns a nearby property that's leased to a utility
company. Unfortunately, that property has not been well-maintained.
It has negative appearances on the area.
If additional multifamily is deemed necessary, using that
land would be smart,
not where they want to place it. Sorry, am I up?
Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Is there anyone from the public who'd like to speak on this item?
I think
everybody has the
same comment. They all say the same thing.
Good evening.
Excuse me one second. People in the audience, can you hold the
conversation down?
If you want to come up and speak, you'll have your turn to come up and speak,
but we don't want any disruptions while the speakers are speaking.
Thank you. Go ahead, sir. Your name and address for the record.
All right. Thank you. My name is PJ Keith.
I live at 11131 Jim Place. My property
backs up to the parking lot of the, I guess, MFTA Institute.
This is concerning to a lot of people in our neighborhood.
We live in a very quiet area that's off the beaten
path of Warren. It's not easy to get to, and a lot of people don't really
know the ins and outs of where we are, down Berg, down by us.
Recently, they have put up LED lights in the parking lot already that
have been blinding in our windows.
If your house backs up to that property, you know exactly what I'm
talking about. I know that there is at least 16 other
parcels of land in Macomb County that have over 2.5
acres available that can be used for this,
that would not have to be rezoned from a single-family
residential unit to a multifamily concourse.
Everything that they say right now about giving letters and letting people know,
it's all lies. They have not let people know.
It was word of mouth because neighbors talk to each other, and we actually found
out because of what maybe one person down the block
got. I don't know about you, but I won't be able
to park my electric car in their parking lot and use that one or two
EV stations that they promised us.
I don't see how that's any benefit to our community, our city, our
area. And just looking at the layout of that land where they want to
take away from that parking lot, I know that there are times at the MFTA Institute
that they have some events that take up the entire parking lot, and then
it actually spills over into our neighborhoods.
So you're going to take away half of that parking lot, and now every time that
these cars park there, where are they going to go?
They're going to go in our neighborhoods because obviously they can't use the...
What I didn't even know was the Consumer Energy lot is actually owned by them.
Why that has not been discussed, that's a mystery to me.
I think that should really maybe take this back a little bit and
figureHow they can utilize that land that has direct
access to 11 Mile and not on Berg Road because they say the
majority of traffic will go to 11 Mile, they're going north of there.
Okay, great. 51% of the people will go north of there.
The other 49% of the people can go south.
If they're going to say it's 36 plus apartments,
let's just say there's two people in each apartment. That's 72 people in there.
Let's say every single one of them have cars.
That's a lot more traffic in that same neighborhood that you are already concerned
with the amount of traffic from the school or the institute.
People have children. We have to now be more careful because of more crazy
drivers who do not respect our neighborhood, do not respect the speed limits,
and I just don't think they respect the community at all.
So that's all I got to say.
Thank you, sir.
Anyone
else like to come up and speak?
State your name and address for the record, please.
My name is Debbie Oliver. I live on Jim Place.
I thank you for giving me a voice, but I'm hoping we
get more of a vote because this affects a lot of
our area, Bougainvillea Gardens.
From what we have just received this
notice just before Christmas, and not all the
neighbors had gotten this at all.
We went around and a lot of people didn't even know what was going on.
We attended the first meeting, come to find out they're building a
two-story condo apartment complex
52 feet from my
backyard fence.
I'm looking at it as a lot of the other neighbors with our
privacy is gone. Our lights are going to be out.
Where's our darkness? Where is our life in our yard?
We're going to have people looking down into our yard.
We have trees there. We've been told that that's been some type of
privacy for what the religious institute over there is,
and that's fine.
But we don't see it. They don't see our backyards. We're fine.
Now we hear that they're going to be tearing all these trees down, and we are
now going to be visible with all this and having a two-story
complex be put up.
We also have,
if you're looking at privacy, besides that, we're
happy our house values have been going up.
Our taxes have been going up. But now, what is happening?
We are now getting a two-story apartment.
Who will buy our home? Who wants that in their backyard?
I wouldn't. I've lived there for over 30 years, and I look
around and people that have lived there from when it began
are very-- they're older. They can't get out to come fight for this.
I would love to be more of a voice, and I'm hoping more people
will show up, but not everybody knew about it.
That was the whole thing. Not everybody's on these
Facebooks where it's at, or these Nextdoor things, or
they don't understand. Our neighborhood
is going to lose all our privacy. We're going to lose
a lot of
our lights. What happened when all the light was shaded, the lights.
We're going to hear noise. We're going to have traffic.
We got one way, Berg, only one way. You have a school
that it's right in front with children. Okay.
Something just doesn't sound like it's right here.
It wasn't taken into too much consideration.
We are Warren residents, and we were happy to be in our neighborhood for as
long as we are, but take into consideration the
residents that are around that area that now what are we
going to be looking at?
I guess it all goes down to
also is our taxes going up? It's a religious institute property.
There is a facility across the street that is being rented by them.
If they are putting it up-
Your time's almost up, ma'am
... they're over in November. Their lease.
Go over there and build it.
I guess that would be it. I think my time is up.
Thank-
But I had a voice. Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Hi.
Please state your name and address for the record.
My name is Francine. I live at 26345 Falmouth
Drive.
I
happened to find out about this rezoning when I was walking my
dog and seeing a big old sign there that's saying "rezone."
Another thing is that we have too much traffic coming from the
school,
Consumer Energy. There's the apartment.
It's only two ways for the peoples that living on Falmouth
Drive to go, either Carrier to Berg or the other
street, Locum to Berg. So I'm just
wondering,
why would they-- I
really don't want this to happen.
Actually, if they want to do something, put a single home there.
I'll go for the single home, but multiple families?
It's already enough traffic that way anyway.
I almost had an accident with peoples coming from the school, driving
crazy. Then they have carnivals, and what do they
do? They park all around in our neighborhood.
I had to call the police
one time for the carnival because they had blocked my driveway.
So when you're trying to go down the street, you can't get down the
street because cars are parked on both sides.
What you have to do, you just sitting there waiting for that other person to leave
or move back, or either you move forward, or either you
back into somebody else's vehicle.
So
really, if they want to do anything,
put a single family home therenot a
condo or multiple family. We already have senior citizen
apartments there.
There's Consumer Energy there. That trust is coming now, and I
almost had the ask them with them one day.
So I don't propose this. Thank
you.
Thank you, ma'am.
My name is George Armstead. I live at 11337 Carrier.
I don't
mind the apartments. I don't. The only thing is, is
location, location, location. It needs to go right where
Consumers Energy is. That traffic from the school, the
senior living home, the DTE guys. We were told the DTE guys aren't even
supposed to go down Berg with those big trucks. They do it all day.
All day.
The street, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. All day.
Nobody's watching Consumers Energy.
So my thing is, if you want to put the apartments, I have no problem with
it. But put it right where the Consumers Energy guys are, right there by the
hotels, and that way they have access right on 11 Mile,
Hoover,
the freeway, everything. But to come down Berg, that's
too much. That's too much. So I totally disagree with it.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Hi, my name is Diana Schipaniuk. I live at 26442 Richard
Drive. I have to agree with PJ, one of my neighbors.
My house backs up to that parking lot, and those
big bright lights that they already have in the lot that they don't turn off all
night long. I had to buy darkening curtains for my bedroom
because I couldn't sleep at night because the lights were all on there.
And we're opposed to this. It's going to go right 52 feet from our
fence. The fence is already falling down.
The church that was there never did anything with the fence.
Now the school never did anything with the fence.
The trees are all
there for our privacy, which we like.
And we're opposed to this, and I don't
want it to be in our neighborhood, especially two stories.
Come on now.
And like the other lady said, you can put two single
houses. What's wrong with that?
And the DTE, that's a
dump.
When you walk by, there's garbage everywhere in the parking lot.
I take walks around that circle all the time. There's garbage.
I'd like to go over there and clean it up sometimes, but I can't do
it. But the city doesn't get on them.
It's just a big dump area.
And that's all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am.
Hello, my name's Ernie Kalikat. I live on Berg Road, about 600,
700 feet south of where they propose to put this project.
The city admittedly said they did minimal traffic studies.
Well, I would like to know why is that? Because it's a major issue.
When Consumers power moved their municipal yard into end of our street,
I called the city about that, talked to a police officer.
He said he would do an investigation. Never called me back.
I won't mention his name. I called again. Never called me back.
At least we wanted some street signs, like no commercial traffic.
I've sat in my driveway on Berg Road and counted 18 Consumer
trucks come down our street from 4:30 to 5:00 because they close
up at 5:00. Sometimes we'll wait for seven or eight trucks to go by just to get
out of our driveway. So they should have done some major traffic investigation
on our street. And we also, as I mentioned, we have Stillwell Manor there,
and we have the Coach Manor there, and any of them park on our
street, so they block half the partial street off, and then we have the school.
So I'm just letting you know that the majority of people in this room, I'm speaking
for them, are opposed to this. We don't need any more traffic or any
more congestion on the end of our street.
Also, I know you're not facility engineers.
Where's our ventilation in this room?
The only time we feel it, I think, is when somebody opens a door.
So has anybody called on this to get a facility manager here or a worker?
Get us some ventilation in here. I know that's aside from the hearing,
but I'm opposed to this. We don't need more traffic.
It's bad enough now, and I'm still waiting for the police department to get back
with me because when they come back at 5:00, they come up our street.
Like I said, I counted 18 trucks just sitting here in my driveway from 4:30 to
5:00 and some days we'll wait for seven, eight cars to go by, truck,
vehicles, just to get out of our driveway.
And now we want to have more traffic down there? Okay.
Well, thank you, and I respectfully hope that you take this
under consideration, what we have to say here today. Thank you. Thank you, sir.
Sir.
Sir. Sir.
Sir.
Sir. Can you come back up a minute, sir?
Can you come back up a minute?
One second. Let me turn-
They need you.
Yes, sir.
You need to sign in.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Can you just identify yourself?
Sure.
As far as the ventilation goes, we have no control over that.
This is a temporary place for us while they're doing work on the auditorium.
So
you have to bear with us because we kind of understand what's going on.
You can open the doors.
Just open that side door right there.
Well, I don't know about all that, so...
But like I say, this is just a temporary space for us until they get the auditorium
done, so
we'll continue. Good evening, sir.
Hello, my name is Philip Brumley,
26520 Berg Road.
Since we're on the topic, I think you guys could do something about your acoustics
in here, too.
It's very difficult to hear back there. I had to move up.
Of course, I got bad hearing, but...
something you guys could probably work on as well.
My parcel is directly in front of this
proposed condo,
so I'm not very happy with
the proposal. I'm going to have two driveways in front of me
coming and going
with this institute. I can't convey enough.
You obviously don't live on Berg Road.
I can't convey enough just how bad the traffic is on Berg Road
already.
You have the Stillwell Manor, and you have the Joseph Coach Manor
there, and I've been here since 1968. I got 58 years here.
I've seen it all come and go here, but this
building with the Joseph Coach and the Stillwell Manor, they got 364
units there. That is a revolving door constantly of
people coming and going out of that complex.
Now, you've got Berg Road, and you've got Lorraine.
Berg Road is a heavily trafficked-- It's the only street going north and south,
and you got Carrier and Logging out. They're all dumping out onto Berg Road.
Not to mention just the traffic that we get from Berg Road in itself,
where people don't even live here.
It's a hazard when it comes to pulling into your
driveway on Berg Road. People want to blow past
you. There's parking. In front of the complex itself, in Joseph
Coach Manor, it's choked off with cars
90, 100% of the time, I believe.
Yeah.
It's 100% of the time, which means you don't have three
lanes there, and it's not that it's a three lane, but it's choked off to two.
Okay? Two cars passing, and it's slowly at that point because it's closed
off. It's choked off. Now, on top of that,
you got the MIFTA Institute in itself.
Now, I got nothing against the MIFTA Institute, but let's just look at the numbers.
Three hundred thousand total attendees,
120 cities, 456 completed
events that they hold,
8,000 students. This is a major
corporation,
and I'm only going to suggest that maybe they're a little too
big for us,
this area. Now, this parking lot that they talk about, that it's
a vacant parking lot and that nobody uses it.
If that were the case, why are we getting choked off on the
side streets when they hold an event?
Mm-hmm.
Explain to me why that's happening.
Because every time they do hold an event, we got problems.
And so this is an issue that I'd like to see somebody address.
On top of that, you've heard it numerous times here.
They own the property at 26806
Berg Road.
Your time's up, sir.
What's that?
Your time's up.
Oh, I can't be up.
You're up.
All right.
You only get three minutes.
The closing thing. The kids. If you take away this thing-- Oh, you
took the mic away, too.
Let him talk.
Can I talk for somebody else?
Yeah.
You already got two chance.
Can't.
Ridiculous.
Hi, my-
Good evening.
Can you hear me on this?
Pull it down to you, ma'am.
Can you hear-
Bring it down.
Can you hear me right now?
Try it now.
Okay. My name is Heather Hoffert. I live at 26841-
You may have to talk a little bit louder.
Speaker.
You gotta talk a little bit louder.
26841 Richard.
I am opposed to this because I live right there on the corner, and to
say that the traffic is constantly going to go
east on 11 Mile is false because the amount of people that
come and drive backwards because they do not want to go do all the way around the
light and loop through. I have small children. We play in our front yard.
And we go for walks all the time and everything.
They go backwards out of that drive-through, out of their
driveway, and they come down the service drive the wrong way to go across the
closer bridge to get out of there without taking
their time to get all the way around.
And then like everybody else is saying, every time there is an event,
I can't have people at my house. There is no parking on our street.
They jam-pack and park all the way-- There's like three spots that you can fit
in front of my house. They will take all of those, and then all of the neighbors.
One of my neighbors across the street, they park in front of their household.
They cannot use any of this. My teenage daughter is supposed to park out in front
of my house. She cannot do that when there's an event. There is nowhere to go.
And then there is so much traffic that I cannot get to and from my own home
sometimes. You have to sit back and wait for all the traffic to
come through so that you can even get to your own home.
That is all. Thank you.
Thank you, ma'am.
Are we rolling? Go with it.
Good
evening.
Hello.
My name is Claudia. I live at 11193 Jim Place.
Sorry, everyone says I talk super quiet.
This would be backed up right to our backyard.
Yeah.
We just moved in just over a year ago, right when I was pregnant with him.
He'll be one on Thursday.
And we had no knowledge that this was happening when we bought the
house.
It would just take away our privacy in our backyard with our
growing family.
And
when I was growing up, I had a
apartment complex behind us that had a eight-foot cinder block
wallAnd it still didn't stop the noise
and everything, and it's just not something that
I imagined when we bought our house.
My mother wouldn't allow us in the backyard without her back there, and that's just
not something I want for my son.
I know every situation is different, but this is just not something that we
imagined when we bought the house.
And
so we're
opposed to it for that reason and just all the
traffic and noise and everything that's going to be going on.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.
Good evening.
Hi, my name is Christine. I live at 11345 Carrier Avenue.
And I just wanted to bring up the
traffic situation on Berg Road, because
even without this here, there's many, many times that I end up
turning left instead of trying to get out with all the traffic
from the school and try to make it on the service drive, because sometimes I'll sit
there for 15, 20 minutes just trying to get out
and get past the school. So I don't think that they did a really
good job estimating the traffic that's going to happen,
because there's other people coming out of the school also going left, and it's
just a real mess over there.
So thank you.
Thank you, ma'am.
Anyone else like to speak on this item?
Seeing none, we'll turn it over to the commission.
No.
Hello, everyone.
Oh, sir.
My name is Mir Ali.
But-
Did you close the public?
I closed the public hearing. It's with the commission now.
I thought it was a public hearing.
You didn't come up when I asked if anybody wanted someone to speak.
Yeah. It's for the Berg Road.
I understand that.
Yeah.
But we
just turned it over to commission because nobody else came up.
You need to come up faster then.
Okay. All right, thanks.
Thank you.
Hold on one second.
Did you hear me say come up? Anybody else wanted to speak?
No.
You didn't hear me say that?
No.
All right, I'll let you-- One last time, this is it.
So go ahead.
Okay. Hello.
My name is Mir Ali. I live on 1235 Monroe Drive,
and I am a resident of this beautiful city,
and I am in favor of this project
because I believe that this new project will bring a
new investment and new families, which can support
our local business in terms of sales, in terms of
workforce. I have seen many small establishment
who are struggling for employment of people.
People are not available. If these families will come to
my city, they'll provide workforce to the local
business. That's what I'm interested in.
And also, I've seen that we are shortage of accommodation in the
Warren city. Google says, and I have seen that the middle
level or the affordable housing is limited.
So I'm in favor of this project because it'll increase the
housing availability in my area. That's my interest.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Now the public hearing is now closed,
and we'll turn this over to the commission.
Chair?
Yes.
Commission chair?
Yes.
Okay.
I make a motion
to deny due to I figure it'll be a detriment and harm to the
neighborhood.
I need a second.
Seeing none, we need another motion.
I make a motion to approve this according to our keeping
the master plan in mind.
No.
Maury.
Support. Commissioner Ansara.
That was a motion by Commissioner Maury, supported by Commissioner Ansara.
Discussion?
Mr. Chair, if I may?
Go ahead.
If we may have the petitioners come up.
Yes.
First of all, I do want to say that we in the city of Warren is the
third largest city in the state of Michigan.
So especially this middle housing that we've been
talking about. We don't have enough houses that we have in the city of Warren.
So first of all, I just want to say the fact that I'm excited to see this, excited
to see affordable housing. I'm interested in knowing,
I know you mentioned it's going to be
36-
Units. Yes
... Yes. So is there any plans to...
Because I'm interested in the affordable housing.
So is there any plans on keeping in consideration what that
rent is going to look like? Or you have any plans in mind?
I'm interested in knowing more about that.
Yes. First of all, these are for sale condos.
Mm-hmm.
So what we had in mind was this is designed for young
families. These are going to be two-bedroom apartments
that are for sale, and yes, new families,
young families are going to move in here.
I don't have a great idea of how they're going to rent out because that's not what
we are planning to do. We're planning to sell these, and it's designed for young
families to come in.
Okay. Do you have how many parkings you're planning on having per-
Yes
... condos?
So overall, we are required to have 72.
I think we have about 18 extra.
93, so we have about 18 or 19 extra parkings.
Andrew here is from NFE Engineers.
He's the one who designed the site plan.So we have a very professional team,
and Ghassan here is the architect who's going to design a beautiful building,
and we are trying to keep everything together and actually give more than what is
required in terms of landscaping, in terms of parking, in terms of the
green space. The gazebo was not a requirement, but we put it up there to
beautify the space.
Okay.
I know you had mentioned that there was a meeting that you had
scheduled with the residents.
Yes.
And another resident came up and also mentioned something taking place
during Christmas time. So when-- I was trying
to connect the dots.
So-
When did you guys have your meeting?
So this was the same meeting.
Okay.
This happened, I think, November- November 19th ...
November 19th-
Makes sense
... is when we had it. So the city sent out the addresses and names
of neighbors who are within a certain feet, and I think there was about
120 people, and we sent out letters to those.
Order.
So we can-
Order
... go back to that list if needed. And we sent out letters inviting all
of them to that meeting. And I think about how many showed up?
Order.
40. Around 20. Around 20 people.
Go ahead.
Now everybody had their turn to speak, so let's keep it down.
If you don't want to be quiet, I'll have the officer escort you
out.
So
we-
Thank you.
Thank you. We sent out the letter and then called for the meeting just to
explain so that if there is any concern, we can accommodate in the design before we
submit for rezoning. That was the main reason to do that,
not to
just undercut them or blind them. And the
letter was sent out, and I think a lot of neighbors saw it and who were not in the
meeting or anything, they
got it from their Facebook page. So a lot of people have seen it.
We are not trying to hide anything. We are trying to do good for the neighborhood.
That's our goal.
Okay. Okay, I do believe you because I know, especially having one resident
kind of mention-
I'm not going to keep talking about disruptions in this room,
because what'll happen is if you keep disrupting me,
we're going to just shut the whole thing down, and nobody can get anything done.
Because we're trying to have an orderly meeting here.
Now, you had your time to come up and talk.
This is between the commission and the petitioner to ask questions.
We want to do our job.
So I appreciate you hold the silence and let us do our job.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Thank you.
I think that kind of covers it. I was very interested in knowing that dates that
you guys had that meeting, and I'm really glad that you had the neighbors involved.
So I'm looking forward to it, and that's all. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Anyone else like to speak on this?
Chair.
Commissioner Binecki.
I have a couple questions, and maybe Ron might have to intercede as well.
As far as the lights they mentioned, are your lights-
Talks into the mic
... I'm sorry, are your lights affecting the neighbors existing and where you're at
now before the building gets put up?
They're supposed to be downward luminous.
Yeah, I'm not sure about the current lighting situation, but what we have done
as part of this development, we did a photometrics study, which is the last two
pages of the zoning plan we have submitted.
So we have zero light emitting out of this property.
The green belt. Even on the green belt, we're going to have zero light.
So all the lights are pointed down so that no light goes out of the
property. And as I mentioned in my initial talk, we also are planning to
put shrubs around so that even the light from the cars is
not going to go into the neighborhood.
This is the lighting study that I'm talking about.
If you zoom in here, what you see when you see a blue and a
zero, that means light is not going out.
All the light, the green is where the light is focused.
So even in the buffer zone, we are not going to have any light.
So for the most part, and definitely not going into the neighborhoods from the
poles. That's what we are trying to design in this property here.
Okay. Also, the neighbors mentioned that they have beautiful trees up now, and they
like them because they are giving privacy.
But I heard somewhere, somebody say they might be removed.
Are they staying, and are you putting additional trees in?
Majority of those trees that are in the buffer zone, we have a tree plan already
updated there as part of our site plan.
Majority that are in the buffer zone, they're all staying.
In fact, we are putting additional trees in the buffer zone just to take
care of the site issue, which
I know some of them mentioned about the two-story building going.
The height restriction is still the same at 35 as a single-family home
feet. So we're not going any higher than what the current R1 zoning
is required.
So the line of sight is still going to be parallel, but we still have trees up
there that are going to block that.
Okay. They also were concerned about your events, which
this is a separate subject, but if there's going to be more people in,
are the events outside or inside?
I'm actually not part of that institute. I'm a developer.
I'm purchasing this property and doing the development.
Okay.
So-
I'm just curious because if they're-- and I was going into the next thing,
maybe a parking structure in your other place where the events are being held,
a couple levels might stop it from being on the residential streets.
Yeah, that definitely could be brought up with the institute to build a parking
structure.
Okay. Thank you.
I yield the floor.
Thank you. Anyone else?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
May I please?
Okay.
Councilman Newnan's here.
I thought you were done. Yes, the answer is-
Did I say something?
I thought you were going to answer the question. I was going to let you go.
Okay.
Well,
Councilman Newnan.
Yeah.
I know you're allowed to speak because you're our ex officio on our
board, but let us try to finish up with the commissioners up here first.
Sure. Oh, yeah.
And then if you have something you need to say-
Okay
... because you are our ex officio.
All right.
As long as you keep it within three minutes.
Right.Go ahead.
Yes. As you heard that few of the residents, they
are complaining about that they did not get any notice,
or any meeting, you guys didn't do it.
Mm-hmm.
So...
So what happened, as I said, we did not know the exact neighbors, their names and
addresses. So we asked the city to give us a list of the neighbors
who we can intimate about the meeting.
So the city gave us a list, which is about 120 approximately names
and addresses, and we send out letters to those
people on November 6th for a November 19th meeting.
And, approximately 20 people showed up for that
meeting that was held right at the Holiday Inn on Hoover and 11 Mile, so
very close to them, so that-
Do you know the date? What was the date?
November 19th.
Yes.
So it's like seven months ago.
Yes.
And after that, planning department recommended this.
That's correct. After that, we worked with the planning department, made changes in
the design with a lot of
things that we solved. As I said in my initial address, we solved majority of
the concerns that can have for even for site plan approval.
For rezoning, Andrew, who did excellent job addressing all
the issues based on that meeting and everything.
Thank you.
Yeah. And we met the planning department too several times during this process, and
they give comments, and we made changes according to that.
Thank you.
Okay.
Mr. Chair.
Okay. Let me-
Go ahead.
I didn't finish yet.
I didn't finish yet. And also,
a few of the residents mentioned that
probably tax going to go increase.
So far, I know that, best of my knowledge, for any
religious institute if around the neighborhood, tax doesn't
increase. Tax increase is different thing.
And another point,
I just want to mention again.
Any religious institute like a church,
Islamic institute, or a school can be any R-1
zoning by the ordinance. So if you see any church, it can be
any R-1 zoning. So normally,
it's a religious institute, the Mifta Institute, it can be in
any R-1 zoning,
like a church. You see any church, by the ordinance, if I am wrong,
you can correct me.
Any religious institute or school, that can be any R-1 zoning.
So normally, we see the traffic. When school
opening or 3:00 PM, usually the traffic
time, we adjust, we just manage it.
So there's traffic issue, yes, I understand that.
That's one of the biggest institute. I've been there a few times.
I personally, one of my non-profit organization, we hosted
a few nice event there.
So I know that traffic issue. And also, I will request, I know that
this project does not include the Mifta
Institute.
Yes.
It's a separate, but still owned by Mifta.
So I will suggest you to, as you know, residents suggested,
I know that is, of course, they're having issue, and
they're suffering these things. So my suggestion will be, request will be-
Sure
... that please talk to the Mifta Institute
about that traffic thing.
Sure. Absolutely.
So find any way that how it can be better, and it
can give them comfort because constituent, as a planning commissioner, we
always care about our constituent, our residents, that how they
can find the comfort. At the same time, we also welcome more
developer, more business in the city.
Absolutely.
So, my request will be please talk to the Mifta Institute and take all
those
feedback or suggestion and find a way how can you guys
improve the traffic thing.
Absolutely, will do that.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
Commissioner Abdul.
Mr. Chair. Yes.
I would like to ask you a few question.
So what is the relationship between Mifta Institute and your project?
So this project is a 3.27
acre parcel that is going to be split out, and once the rezoning is
approved, is going to be bought by the LLC that
I have with Graviton Ventures. So it's going to be independent of the Mifta
Institute. We did not purchase the parcel because we just
wanted to make sure that the rezoning goes through.
And the parcel split also did not happen because the parcel split application has
been submitted to the planning. It is combined with rezoning.
Split will only happen if the rezoning happens, and then we'll purchase that
parcel to do the development. So it'll be independent of Mifta Institute.
So is this lot is using by the Mifta Institute
right now for parking?
The one acre lot on the east side is an empty lot.
It's a green space. And then there is about two rows or three rows
of parking in the back that is being used, which we are going to utilize for this
project.
So most of the complaint we see are parking issues.
Yes.
When they have a programs, big programs, they're overflowing the traffic
and disturb the neighbors.
Yes.
So
how you going to handle these things?
Yeah, that is a thing.
What's that?
We will take care of parking.
Yeah. We will address that with Mifta as
Dilawar here mentioned, and then we'll try to see if they
can come up with a solution, maybe host smaller events and try to
address that and not extend beyond the limit
of what they have.
But they currently have adequate amount of parking.
Yeah, they do have. Right now, based on the parking, I think we have about 800
something-
Yeah,
850
... 850 parking spots, which are more than adequate for their regular use and
stuff like that. And we are using about, I think,
I'm not sure the exact number, but three or four rows there.
Three rows.
Three rows there. So they're still going to have adequate parking over there,
like three rows of parking is what we're using in this development.
SoThat's a MFTA question. We can ask
them and try to see what solutions we can come up with
regarding the parking. But for the building itself, as it exists, they
have more than enough parking.
And we want to make sure that your tenant or
your resident will not bother the neighbor.
Definitely. That's why we put extra parking.
Yes. This is our main concern.
Yeah.
I think it's actually less than two is the requirement, or maybe two is the
requirement for a two bedroom. We put 19 or so extra parkings
in the property itself.
For visitors as well.
For visitors as well as if somebody has another car.
Okay. Thank you.
Anyone else like to speak on this item?
Councilman Noonan.
Three minutes.
Please don't go away.
Okay.
John, just borrow the microphone here.
So, as I understand it,
the
traffic issues that all these people are talking about are very real,
and it's already
overburdening Berg.
If you could consider purchasing the
area being used by Consumers Power, that would be
great, because then you could have people exiting directly on 11 Mile.
Also,
the MFTA Institute has an entrance off of 11
Mile. I don't know whether it's possible.
It seems like it isn't possible, because it seems like there should have
been another access from that property
onto 11 Mile.
Maybe there could be one or two more
from the MFTA Institute onto 11 Mile,
if you're going to have this wonderful,
very environmentally friendly, reducing
flooding
development.
That would be one solution. But it seems right now, it
seems like they would have had to have denied your
appeal until
you came up with a solution. And now,
you might just override all the neighbors' concerns, and that
concerns me.
So I yield.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah.
May I speak or answer to this point?
One second.
Sure.
Anybody else have something to say?
Because I
made my comments.
I have this question.
May I call our director, please?
What?
I have a question for you.
Yes.
As Councilman Noonan mentioned that instead of
using the Berg Road,
the MFTA Institute has another driveway.
Yes.
Is there any way, can we use directly to
the 11 Mile, so all the residents will have
their comfort? They're not going to use this
road. They can directly use this 11 Mile road.
Are you talking about the owner of the overall
property?
Yes.
Providing access from this
new site. I think there actually is a gate
that's going to be provided on the north property line that
goes to the site, but I think that's primarily for fire
department use.
But they
could create anything they want.
Not sure about where it would go. They'd have to get approval for
an individual driveway that went to 11
Mile. They have
two driveways to begin with that go to 11 Mile.
Thank you.
Anyway,
so they have access to 11 Mile.
So if owner decide, they can do it, as you are
saying.
It's a ingress, egress document
that would tell them,
if this goes through,
where they'd have to be able to or be permitted to drive
to get to 11 Mile Road.
I have a question to petitioner. Thank you.
Yes.
Yes. As you see that all the neighbors, and it is true,
I've been there a few times, and it is
so much traffic, especially morning time and evening time.
So if this one added, and as you know, planning
department already mentioned that
they think it's a multifamily, we should approve it.
The planning department suggested us to approve it.
Mm-hmm.
And also, I personally think, City of Warren, we do need a
multifamily apartment.
Mm-hmm.
But also at the same times, we do have to take our residents'
consideration and their comfort too.
Mm-hmm.
So, one
of the residents I see,
she came with a baby, and she bought a house.
So as a commissioner, we have to take their concern
too.
Sure.
So as the director mentioned, that is
there any way you can,
instead of using the other road, so that traffic not going to be there, you can
use that
11 Mile road?
We'll have to look at the layout and the survey and work with our engineering to
see if it's that
That's possible.
Yes. If we approve it today, and still you're going to talk with
the planning department, and is there any way
you can make this thing happen, then our residents will get
their comfort so that their road will not be
traffic. Big traffic will not be there.
Traffic will go directly to the 11 Mile.
Sure. We can look into that.
Thank you.
All right.
Good evening.
No, I can.
I've been listening to all the concerns of all the residents,
and one of my main problems is you claim you met with the
residents, but we've got a lot of people here from the neighborhood that said they
never got any letter, nor any notification or anything.
So there seems to be lack of communication somewhere. Okay?
The other thing is the two drivers coming from this complex are coming out onto
Berg Road,
and you got Stilwell Manor across the street.
You got traffic from that, and a lot of people use that as a straight through from
Engleman. Okay? I think a traffic study needs to be done
on that road,
because if it's too much traffic, and especially with
the school being there-
Mm-hmm
... if the school's got that much parking, there's no reason for them to be parking
over on the street. So if you put this here, you're eliminating part of their
parking.
So therefore, that's going to cause them to park on the street even more.
So I think that,
my personal thing, I think this needs to be postponed until you can have
another meeting with the residents-
Mm-hmm
... talk with all the residents-
Mm-hmm
... get a traffic study about the traffic on that street, talk to the school
about their
meetings and the things that they have,
to where they can work out something where it'll all work out together.
Because if you can't do that, then it's not going to work.
All right?
Sure.
So I would like to see a motion to postpone
to give them time to re-meet with the residents.
I mean, really meet with the residents, because like I say, there's quite a few of
them here, and they all have a lot to say.
Yeah.
So.
May-
We can answer.
What?
No, I think I can answer.
I see. Okay. So-
Mr.
Do I have permission to answer to some of your concerns, Mr. Smith?
Sure. Sure, go ahead.
Okay. So we did speak with MDFTA. We did a survey of this number
of students that come into the school before we
planned on purchasing this part of the lot.
The only time they have extra parking is if they
plan an event. They have two events, or
sometimes even one event planned all over the
year. On days when they have school, there's not more
than five lanes that the cars occupy.
We will definitely get a
traffic study on Berg Road done, but that is the amount of parking
that the institute currently occupies.
As per the requirements for the institute, they need
530 parking spaces, and
after this piece of parcel is being sold out, they'll still
have more than the required number of parkings available for them.
So that is part of MDFTA. The traffic on Berg Road, we totally understand
the neighbors and your concerns, and we will definitely do a
traffic study for that. Now-
Sorry.
It's okay. In terms of the invitations to the
neighbors and for another meeting, we're definitely open to
that.
The reason,
I think we have a list and a
diameter from the development area that neighbors get
invitations to, even from the planning department about
rezoning, and those are the neighbors that we send the invitation letters to.
I believe some neighbors posted it on social media, and that is how
other neighbors came into contact about and got notified
about this. So,
those are the three
points that you raised. We know the traffic in MDFTA.
We will do a traffic study on Berg Road.
Maybe we will even talk to MDFTA if we can open a driveway
from 11 Mile Road.
Thank you.
If I may, Mr. Chair.
Go ahead.
There would have to be first a motion to postpone.
I understand that.
Yes. Okay. I just also wanted to add, this commission makes a report to
city council. City council makes the final
decision.
Okay.
So there would be another hearing.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, that was a motion by Commissioner Moray and supported
by Commissioner Ansara to approve.
Like I said, I'd like to see a motion to postpone, because I think there's a lot
more work that needs to be done on this, but it's up to you.
It's up to the commission.
So you're requesting or suggesting a motion to postpone so the
petitioners can go back and do a traffic study.
I know he just mentioned he agrees to that.
And what was the other thing that we were looking to go back?
Talk about the school, because, and-
Talk to the school, okay
... have another meeting. You got a lot of residents here against it.
Mm-hmm.
So, something that has to be worked out.
Yeah. I think, especially my concern with the meeting with the residents, I think
they're just against the whole idea.
So I think, but definitely, I think the petitioner did agree to all three of that,
so I'm okay with
definitely changing my motion currently to approve, to a motion to
postpone.
And?
Yeah. Same.
I- I'm okay
to postpone it, so that way, they'll get the opportunity to talk
again, and you guys can come up with a better plan.
Sure.
Okay. So that would be changed from a motion to approve
to motion to postpone from
Commissioner Mori and supported by Commissioner Ansara. Roll call.
Do we need a date or?
Can we-
Postpone to a date certain.
Yes. We do have to-
Well, the only postponement is to the next meeting.
We have to have a certain date.
Would two weeks give you enough time?
Do you think two week could be enough time?
No. Two weeks will not be enough.
Hold
it.
Planning department?
No. Two weeks is not enough time for them to do a proper
traffic study.
Okay.
That part of it. Then they have the other parts they have to work out.
So a month would be closer to reality.
So what date do we have a month away?
July 13th.
And the traffic study would have to be done
while school's in session so they can look at all the traffic from the schools.
Okay.
It's part of the criteria.
Part of the criteria. It has to be done because
we had another problem where they said, "Well, it was a holiday," or something like
that. We can't have anything where that's going to interfere with anything.
Sure.
When they have an event, we need to know what the traffic's going to be like.
So
this is going to be postponed
to July 13th.
In the meantime, you can do what you have to do to try to make the corrections or
talk with the residents and work out some agreement.
Sure.
Okay.
That was a motion by Commissioner Mori, supported by Commissioner Ansir, to
postpone. Roll call.
Commissioner Mori, I vote yes to postpone. Commissioner Ansir?
Yes to postponed.
Commissioner Holowaty?
Yes to postpone.
Commissioner Hawk?
Yes to postpone.
Commissioner Binecki?
Yes to postpone.
Commissioner Smith?
Yes to postpone.
Thank you.
Hopefully you can get everything together and make the residents more comfortable
with what you're trying to do.
Thank you so much.
Item number 6D.
We're going to take a five-minute recess to let everybody get re-situated.
You can stand up and stretch.
We have about another minute, and then we're going to reconvene.
So can everybody take their
places?We're
going to reconvene at this time. Everybody take their seats.
We're missing a commissioner.
Item number 6D.
Item number 6D, site plan for expanded
outdoor storage located on the south side
of Maxwell Avenue, approximately
118 feet east of Sherwood Avenue.
6732 Maxwell Avenue, Section 33,
Ronald Scott Gerst.
Should we wait for Commissioner Panza?
I told him five minutes.
I told him five minutes. We're going to move on with the meeting.
We're not going to hold up everybody
because he's not here.
Okay.
Continue.
Ronald Scott Gerst and Sherwood Warren LLC,
PSP-260022. Thank you.
Good evening. Is the petitioner here?
Good evening. I'm Tim Story with Story
Engineering, representing the project for Mr. Gerst.
You going to tell us a little bit about your project?
It's an existing business that's been there for many years.
He is involved in the business of
maintaining forklifts for his customers, repairing
them, and so on and so forth. I think he also arranges for new ones
for them as well. His business has done quite well over the
years, and he's strapped for room.
At one time, he did have some space across the street where he could store
some things, but for some reason, that is no longer an option for him.
He's working to try to clean up the property and make it
consistent with the site plan that we submitted.
I met with him on Saturday and went over that again with him to make sure that he
understood. He said he misunderstood some of the things that we had discussed on
the site plan. So he's going to
continue to clean that up,
the fenced-in area behind the building there.
And he's asked...
The recommendation from the
planning department, I understand, is
for it to be postponed, and we actually agree with this.
Hang on, let me read this. My eyes aren't what they used to be.
We agree with this to allow us more time to continue to clean up the site and get
it organized as shown on the site plan.
The owner has indicated to me that it should be cleaned up by the middle of June,
so we plan to wait for this to happen and to make any necessary changes to the
site plan, and then circle back with the planning department at that time,
determine after that the appropriate date to come back to the planning
commission.
Thank you, sir. Correspondence?
Do you want us to read correspondence?
We're still
going to have a public hearing, let the public speak on this item.
So read the correspondence. Okay.
Okay.
Texas Current Building. "Building has no issues.
AT&T does not object to the proposed expanded storage.
We have facilities in the area,
but they should not be affected." Comcast, "We have aerial facilities in the area,
but we have no conflicts with the proposal." DTE.
"DTE Electric Company has reviewed the site plan for expanded
outdoor storage. DTE has no objection to this request
impacting 6732 Maxwell Avenue, Section 33,
per the site plan provided. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
contact me,
586-783-1978."
MCPWO. "The Macomb County Public Works Office has
reviewed the site plan for the project referenced above and has
determined the proposed site disturbance is less than one acre and will
not require a stormwater review from this office.
If a no objection letter is required, please forward your request to
wesley.jonick@macombgov.org. Prior to
construction, a soil erosion permit may be required from this office.
Contact our soil erosion department at
586-469-5327 for more
information regarding same." Thank you.
Thank you.
Planning department's recommendation?
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The recommendation is as follows.
It is recommended that the site plan for
expanded outdoor storage be postponed for the
following reasons.
The planning staff has inspected the site and provided the planning
commission with current photosThe on-site
inspection and photos clearly verify that the entire
site is in violation of the court
order on March 2nd of
2026.
The planning director recommends that this
site plan be postponed until a time when the
zoning section of the building division and Judge
Bida
are satisfied that the site is in compliance
with the zoning ordinance, other city
ordinances, and court requirements.
The planning staff will perform its own inspection
of the site prior to
July 13th of 2026. And I'll
just comment on what Mr. Story said.
So our inspection may take place closer to being
in June, hopefully.
Yes.
Of the planning commission. Okay.
The staff shall report its findings at
that meeting. That's the July 13th meeting.
Maybe change.
Providing an update of progress for bringing the site
into compliance. If the site is in compliance, then
the item will be rescheduled on a future agenda.
If, however, the planning commission chooses to approve the site
plan,
it will be with the standard conditions of the planning commission, and more
specifically, number one, five copies of revised site
plans shall be submitted indicating the following.
A, the words light industrial shall be added
to the M1 zone designation in the site data
chart.
1B, a note shall be provided on the site
stating all landscaped areas shall be automatically irrigated.
1C, the driveway approach measures 80 feet in
length. The east 20 feet
shall be removed and replaced with straight street curving
and landscaping materials and noted on the
site plan. And obviously, that's because this is too wide
a
driveway that's out to Maxwell.
1D, a driveway approach measuring 25 feet in
length and beginning 50 feet from the east property
line shall be removed and replaced with straight
street curving and landscaping materials and noted on
the plan.
1E, the west 37 feet of the fence
and sliding gate set back seven feet and
parallel to the north property line, that's
Maxwell Avenue, shall be relocated to
a 10-foot setback
from the north property line. This is a
requirement/condition of the zoning
board of appeals.
Condition two,
the petitioner indicates
on the plan that he would like to vacate the north-south
18-foot-wide public alley located along the
west property line of the property and
between Maxwell and Cadillac Avenues.
The petitioner may obtain an application from the planning department to
begin the process of vacating the alley.
Number three, the following variances may need to be
obtained from the zoning board of appeals prior to the release of the
site plan to the building division.
And they are,
A, to have outdoor storage
within 13 feet of the north, and that's front property line,
which is also Maxwell.
3B, to permit all of the outdoor
storage area to have gravel surfaces.
3C, to permit
5,733.5 square
feet of additional
outdoor storage area.
If approved, the variances shall be added to the revised site plan.
And so condition number four, a performance bond
in the amount of $1,200 shall be posted
according to the estimated cost of $40,000
by the petitioner. So with that, Mr.
Chair, the recommendation
is submitted.
Thank you, Mr. Ware.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing. Anyone like to come up and speak?
Come up, state your name and address for the record, and you have three minutes to
speak.
Hi, my name is Violet Anker. I live at 6759 Cadillac.
The back of my house faces
this company,
and I've lived in my house for over 40 years.
I've never had problems until
Mr.
Ron had done all this stuff. We have rats
horribly over there. I actually gave you guys pictures of what my
yard looks like, whether we look through the windows or outside.
It's a junkyard. If he's supposed to be a high
low place, why does he have all those beat-out cars that's been
there for years? And then the privacy fence that he was supposed
to put up, he stopped at my area. I did talk to
him regarding that. He told me the city told him he did not have to
finish.
But the rats are so bad that they've actually ripped our screen-in
porch, and they've come in on our screen-in porch.
We have Ring cameras, we've set them out, and we've seen them.
So it's like this matter it really needs to be clean.
To sit there and have to look at thisDay after day.
Any time. Then they're working at 9:00 at night, I can hear
them out there. I've heard them as late as midnight.
And also,
our houses connect. If there's a fire, how can a fire
truck get back there if they have to get to the backs of any of our houses, and
if they want to start blocking more?
Thank you.
Here you go.
Go ahead.
My name is Barbara Blair from 6798 Maxwell.
My concern is he has
semis coming down the street.
There's hi-los all up and down in front
of his area.
They're leaving trash and stuff on the streets.
The rats are out of
control with all the harborage that he has, the areas
he has for them to live in,
and
it's a disaster over there. I'm ashamed that that is on our
block.
Thank you.
Hi, my name is Megan Vanest. I live at 6779 Cadillac.
My house
backs up to the property
in question. Historically, unfortunately, 6832
Sherwood has proven to be a not great neighbor.
We keep revisiting the idea of some form of outdoor storage,
zoning change, or expansion every couple of years. It's never approved.
The property continues to be used as a junkyard.
It sounds like you guys don't need my pictures.
Despite promises by the city to ticket the owner into compliance, I'd
urge the city not to allow any type of additional zoning, as the
boundaries of the current zoning have yet to be respected.
They have never been respected. Like Violet said, the
entirety of Cadillac Street are row houses.
They are all connected. That alleyway
is
a safety concern. If there is a fire
and that fence is expanded,
we do the maintenance on it, by the way.
We do.
Then
how are they going to get through? A firetruck.
That can't be expanded
either way. Not that way, not that way. So, that is a good point.
But yeah, if we need additional pictures, the same things, an
RV, a party bike
bus that you drive around on your
drinking party bike that you see where
a lot of people get on and drive around the city or whatever.
One of those sat back there for years.
It's already an outdoor storage.
I don't even know what that means,
so
please don't do this.
We already have a not great neighbor. We don't need it worse.
Thank you.
Anyone else like to speak on this item?
Seeing none, we're going to turn it over to commission.
That was a motion by our planning department to postpone this because he's
got things he's got to do. Zoning's got requirements they
have to meet.
He's got court orders he has to meet,
and
he's going to need some time to do this.
So what we're going to do-
Is motion-
... is have a motion to
postpone this.
He says he can have it by June.
I don't really know if he's going to have everything done by June.
So we may postpone it indefinitely-
Yeah
... until we have a certain date that everything's been taken care of,
and then we'll go from there.
Mr. Chair. Part of the motion, just want to make the commission aware that
site plan approval is a part of the petitioner achieving
compliance in court.
So if a date could be set
rather soon, that would be beneficial.
Well, the planning department was planning on going and re-inspecting it on July
13th.
We can use that as a date, and if he gets it done sooner, then we
can have it re-inspected and maybe it can come sooner.
But other than that,
to me, that would be a date that he could stick by for now.
Mr. Chair, just-
Do I turn this down?
... because I've talked about it and I should...
Okay.
You know.
Sorry about that.
Rules, I'm telling you.
All right, she can hear me now. And so Mr.
Story talked about
them or the owner getting it cleaned up.
I don't know if that's going to happen that soon, but by mid-June,
or at least
reasonably cleaned up. We'll see.
But if that happens and it seems
acceptable to us, maybe we'll have one of you guys go out with
us and we'll take a look
at that time and see if we can get it back on the agenda sooner.
But
we can't mark a date at this point in time.
But-
It all depends on what the
petitioner does, and I have no...
You're going to have to have faith in the fact that that's going to happen.
If they clean it up reasonably well, then we can put
it on for another one sooner.
That's the best I can do.
Mr. Chair.
Postpone, like uncertain.
Mr. Chair, I have a question. Can I?
Well, we can postpone it indefinitely.
I have a question to our attorney. So far, I know that when we postpone,
we must have to mention the date. If I'm wrong, can I please-
There is such a thing as postpone indefinitely, but I strongly
encourage the commission to set a date.
Well,
how is our July 13th meeting, Mr. Story?
July.
Let's do it.
We can do it July 13th.
Okay.
I guess.
Mr. Chair, can we do two months out?
Give them enough time, not just six weeks.
Man.
Yeah, I think it will be best idea.
Yeah.
August.
Go out-
August.
So what are you suggesting?
Not July 13th.
Mr. Chair?
Yes.
If it's the 13th, July 13th, it's a date
certain. So if that's what you want to use.
I think we should do a date certain, because if we drag it on any longer than that,
it's not going to put pressure on him to do what he needs to do.
All right, so a
postponement, date certain to the 13th-
Of July
... and we'll expect the petitioner and-
If he can get his reports done before then
I think July 13 is enough for that
... and Mr. Gerst to
do what's right, so to speak.
Right.
And clean that up, and probably set about
50 rat traps out there to try to work on
that problem. I'll also talk to the city about that issue.
Sometimes they can help.
All right.
And I'd also like to request that the next meeting that Mr. Gerst attend.
Because he's the one that we really should be talking to.
I understand Mr. Story. Mr. Story is representing him, but he's the one we really
need to be talking to.
So we want to request that he attends the next meeting.
I totally agree.
All right.
So Mr. Story, do your best. Get him here.
I'll do my best to get him here.
All right.
Okay, so that was a motion to postpone
by-
In July 13.
We didn't have a motion made yet.
We need a motion
to postpone.
Yeah. So I'll make a motion to postpone to July 13th.
I support it.
Maureen.
You support?
Yes.
Hawk.
That was a motion by Commissioner Maurice, supported by Commissioner Hawk, to
postpone to July 13th.
Roll call.
Maurice, I vote yes. Commissioner Hawk?
Yes.
Commissioner Ansir?
Yes. Postponed on July 13.
Commissioner Halawati?
Yes, to postpone to July 13th.
Commissioner Bonacki?
Yes, to postpone.
And Commissioner Smith.
Yes, to postpone to July 13th. Good luck, sir.
Mr. Chair.
Hope that he can get everything together because it's been a long time, and it's
been a long time being that way. So hopefully you can get it together.
Thank you. Have a good evening.
Item number 6...
E.
Item number 6E, site plan for open storage of tires located on the
northwest corner of 8 Mile Road and Eastwood
Boulevard, 14731 8 Mile Road, Section 36,
Bashar Hammo and B Tires, LLC,
PSP260020. Thank you.
Good evening, sir.
Good evening.
Thanks for the delay today.
Hallelujah.
Good evening, everybody.
Tell us a little bit about your project, sir.
Yeah. My name Bashar Hammo. I own the business of B
Tires.
I've been 15 years there. I have that semi-truck for 15
years.
He came, inspector, to me when
soon. He told me, "No, this trailer not supposed to be here."
Why?
"This is storage." Quote. "For three days.
After three days, it's going to call storage." Okay.
We went to the court.
I say, "Okay, just what's the second option I can do?"
They say, "You can do site plan."
I have all manifests for the scrap tires.
It's a big company, first-class
tire
treasure.
My semi-truck
is not mine, like actually for the company.
I pay $1,200 each time I fill up.
They take it, like sometimes fill up of business
goods, one week, two week.
They take the loading one, and they bring me empty one.
And don't bother nobody. My neighbor's very good.
Not any complaint for 15 years. Nobody complain,
nobody
violation or something like that.
And I say, "It's going to hurt my business if
I take that semi-truck from there." It going to hurt my business.
All right. Thank you, sir. Correspondence.
Correspondence. Texas Current Engineering.
Preliminary review of this site indicates that planning commission approval should
be contingent upon the petitioner's compliance with the following condition:
all the parcel must be combined to conform to site plan.
AT&T. AT&T does not object to the proposed open storage
plan. Comcast, we have aerial facilities in the area, but we
have no conflicts with the proposal. DTE.
DTE Electric Company has reviewed the site plan for open storage of
tires. DTE has no objection to this request
impacting 14731 8 Mile Road, Section 36,
per the site plan provided.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at
586-783-1978.
MCPWO. The Macomb County Public Works office,
MCPWO, has reviewed the site plan for the project referenced above
and has determined the proposed site disturbance is less than one
acre and will not require a stormwater review from this office.
If a no objection letter is required, please forward your request to
wesley.johnick@macombgov.org.
Prior to construction, a soil erosion permit may be required from this
officeContact our Soil Erosion Department
at
586-469-5327
for more information regarding same. MDOT.
The property is on MDOT's road, and a permit will be required.
I also have, in the correspondence, a letter from the City of
Eastpointe that I'll go ahead and read.
This was sent on May 20th, 2026. "Mr.
Ward, this letter is in
response to your offer to comment on the subject application.
The subject address is adjacent to City of Eastpointe property that is
zoned MU-3, regional mixed use, modified
by the Gratiot Gateway Overlay. The Gratiot Gateway
Overlay is intended to promote a southern gateway to Eastpointe
and Macomb County, improving perception and creating a
welcoming and culturally rich environment.
Vehicle repair shops are not permitted in the Gratiot Gateway.
We request that as the Planning Commission considers this application,
they and the applicant consider actions to mitigate any
potential blighting influences from the outdoor storage of tires,
such as screening or other visual improvements, as well as
considering addressing the potential blighting influence of
any unshield lighting that trespasses into the
roadway. Black facades and enclosed
trash containers to ensure that if this project is
realized, it is done so in a way that positively contributes to the
public realm along the 8 Mile corridor.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this application.
We welcome further opportunities to partner and collaborate on advancing both of
our communities, especially with regard to built environment on
our shared boundaries. Sincerely, Paul Ulbeck, City
Planner and Zoning Administrator." Thank you.
Thanks, Madam Secretary. Planning Department's recommendation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The recommendation is as follows.
It is recommended that the site plan for open storage of tires
be approved with the standard conditions of the Planning
Commission, and more specifically, number one, five copies
of revised site plans shall be submitted indicating the
following.
1A,
a note shall be provided on the plan stating there shall be no
open storage of tires and associated
materials located outside the building.
1B, the following changes shall be required as
changes to the site plan as follows.
Number one, that's B1,
no parking spaces are permitted in front of the
sliding overhead service door.
B2, a five-foot wide
setback area that is curved shall be
provided along the east and south property lines.
The setback area shall be landscaped with shrubbery
no higher than two and a half feet in height.
The shrubs would be spaced three feet apart.
Four bollards existing along the east property line,
and that's Eastwood Boulevard,
shall be removed from the site noted on the site plan.
B3, a note shall be provided on the site plan stating
the entire site
shall be maintained. All weeds found in the cracks
in the parking area
and along the cracks of the sidewalk shall be removed and
maintained.
B4, six parking spaces are required on the site
plan.
There may only be room for four.
If that is so, then a variance would be required for two
parking spaces.
1C, a note shall be provided on the site plan stating
all lighting on the site shall be shielded and not encroach
upon abutting properties. The light fixtures, pole, and
base shall be no higher than 20 feet as
measured from the top of the light fixture to the bottom
of the base at ground level. All glare shall be
eliminated from all light fixtures.
Upward-directed lighting shall not be permitted.
1D,
the driveway along 8 Mile Road shall be widened
to 26 feet as measured at the property line
and noted on the site plan. The driveway along the
public alley
measures 75 feet in length and shall be
identified on
the site plan.
1E,
no landscape plan was submitted. However, the site
plan shall indicate the following.
The shrubbery placed in the five-foot wide setback
areas shall be indicated on the plan.
Number two, three trees shall be planted
in the right of way spaced 40 feet apart
in front of the building.
One tree shall be planted in the right of way between
the driveway to 8 Mile Road
and the east 25-foot location along 8
Mile Road and indicated on the plan.
1F, a note shall be provided stating all landscaped areas shall be
automatically irrigated.1G,
a green belt or brick embossed
poured concrete wall would be required along the north
property line abutting the C-2 district
and one family dwellings, and the north property
line is the south line of the
15-foot wide public alley.
And you can see it clearly on that picture over there.
1H, a trash enclosure shall be provided on the
site with the following note stating, "A trash enclosure
measuring a minimum 10 foot by 10 foot shall be constructed
of
six-foot high brick embossed poured concrete
walls with a 45-degree angle cap,
have screen gates, and be placed upon a minimum
10-foot by 18-foot concrete pad that provides
an eight-foot wide apron.
Masonry block shall not be used as a construction
material."
Condition number two,
the four
parcels identified as
12-13-36-454-061,
062,
063, and 064 shall be combined into one
parent parcel. An application shall be submitted to the planning
department requesting the approval of the combination.
Number three,
let's see, the owner has cut an opening
for a sliding overhead service door in the east
elevation of the building. The petitioner
didn't obtain a building permit
for this opening. The petitioner shall obtain a
building permit from the building division and provide a copy
to the planning department.
Condition number four, the following variances may need to be
obtained from the zoning board of appeals prior to the release
of the site plan to the building division.
That is, A, the petitioner shall obtain variances for
the setbacks of the billboard sign to
the east and south property lines.
For B, the lot area of the site is
7,579 square feet.
The petitioner shall obtain a variance for lot area
being less than 10,000 square feet in a
C-2 district.
For C,
the petitioner shall obtain variances for the building setbacks
to the north, that's the public alley, south,
that's Eight Mile Road, and the west
property line.
Okay, we're going to 4D.
The proposed tire storage is not
a permitted use in the C-2 district.
The owner shall obtain a use variance.
For E,
six parking spaces are required on the site plan.
There may be room for parking
spaces. If that's so, then a variance would be
required for two spaces.
All right.
And so if approved, the variances shall be added to the site
plan. And finally,
number five, a performance bond in the amount of $0
shall be posted according to the estimated cost of
$0 by the petitioner.
All right. Now, the planning staff
believes that the proposed bond amount is too low given the
fact that a five-foot wide landscaped setback area,
widening of the driveway,
site cleanup work,
and a trash enclosure are part of the improvements.
A new estimate
shall be closer to $50,000,
resulting in a bond in the amount of $1,500.
So with that,
Mr. Chair, the recommendation is submitted.
Thank you, Mr. Werth. This is a public hearing.
If anyone would like to speak on this item, please come up, state your name and
address for the record. You have three minutes to speak.
Seeing none, we'll turn it over to the commission.
Chair,
I make a motion to approve with discussion.
Mr. Chair, I support it.
There's a motion by Commissioner Holowaty, supported by Mr. Hopp. Discussion?
Okay.
Can the petitioner step forward, please?
Yes.
Good evening, and thank you for your patience.
Yeah, no problem.
Okay. I have a few questions up.
As I
understood, you want to keep the used tires in a
semi-trailer?
No.
I fill it up. As soon as it's filled up, I call the company.
They come in, they take the full, and they put the empty.
That's what I'm saying.
Yes.
So they're not going to be thrown anywhere on the lot or anything?
No, I clean it. I see a lot of tires sometimes in the alley.
I take them. I see some neighbors, they got tires in the front of the doors.
I take them. Everybody love me there.
Okay. What are your hours of operation going to be?
8:00 to 6:00, Monday to Saturday.
8:00 to 6:00, Monday to Saturday. Okay.
And you heard all the recommendations that our planning director
gave.
Are you going to be able to meet all those recommendations?
Do you have any problems with them?
I don't have no problem.
Well-
I just need the-
He gave quite a few of recommendations
What are you talking about? I don't know.
Well, he just-
He talk a lot, I can't remember everything
... Well then maybe you should get with our planning director so you can
understand-
Yeah, I know, but it's like-
... before we can approve
... four or five papers. How I can understand all that?
He's asking if you got a copy.
Did you get a copy of the recommendations?
Yes.
Go ahead. Okay. He's on it.
Okay. Well,
no, not the agenda.
Oh, I don't have.
The recommendation.
No, I don't have it.
I have this one. That's it.
Oh, you must have got them. We were told you were emailed.
Did you-
Oh, by email? Yeah, I see the email, but I didn't have my glasses.
I can't read this.
Well, see, that's why it's important that-
Well, honestly, you have to understand
... for the discussion that,
being that, I don't know-
15 years I have my semi
... maybe you can't, because he gave quite a few things that you have
to take care of before we could approve.
Okay.
Can I say something? Because I don't think I've met this gentleman, but I'm
the project architect for Camtech & Associates, and we did the drawing for you.
Mm-hmm.
And so-
Speak into the mic
... Oh.
So I'd like to explain to you, that
they need to have a five-foot... They want you to tear up the concrete
along the edges of the property on those two sides, where the city green dots are,
and make them into green landscape berms
with shrubs. And then you have to add some trees in the front.
And then the-
That's the city, right? Or that's me?
No, that's on your property.
My property?
Yeah.
Okay.
So you're going to lose five feet on both sides of your site.
And then you're going to add trees at the bottom.
And then also you need to put in a
dumpster, which will be a concrete-walled enclosure on three
sides with a wooden
metal gate, or a solid gate in front, with a dumpster in the back,
like a eight-foot by eight-foot dumpster.
The dumpster is no problem, but the trees, how I going to do
all these trees? I going to kill-
That's what I'm-
... the semi truck a lot. I going to kill a lot of these things.
That's why they've asked us to, if you-
Yeah
... you have to agree to doing this-
No
... in order for them to give you an approval.
If you don't want to agree to do this, your options would be to go
and get a variance.
I know about that. Okay. Parking lot, how are you going to do the trees in my
parking lot?
I'll just-
That's what I'm saying, it's going to be too tough for that.
Okay. The semi truck, is it going to be the tree in front of it?
The trees will be
on all... You can see where they are right there.
Those going-
I can do this here, and these four trees, I can do that. No problem.
Okay, but you're saying you don't want to put the five-foot berm,
I'm sorry, the five-foot landscaping, you don't want to do it?
That's okay. I can do that. Okay.
So is there any-
Can I go over there and show you something I can do?
I'm sorry. We weren't hired to do this presentation.
Yes.
That's the reason why I'm not... Wasn't-
Can I just show you, just point what I can do?
Sure.
Excuse me. Excuse me, sir.
I'm sorry.
Go ahead and point, and then I want to make a comment.
Okay. These here, I can do it.
These here, I can do it. No problem.
Here, I can do it up to here, but now it's blocking the semi truck.
How I going to get the semi truck?
Okay.
That's it. I can do that, no problem.
The one thing-
I make room
... I'm just going to make a comment here.
I went by and I looked at the site.
Yeah.
The site is small.
That be all, sir? Yeah.
Thank you, sir, for your input.
I appreciate it.
I understand what you're doing with the semi truck,
and I understand right now the dumpster's in the alley.
I going to take it away.
And it can't be in the alley.
I going to remove it tomorrow.
Can you store your materials inside the building and have them
taken out from that way? That way you wouldn't have to have a dumpster.
I don't got to have a dumpster. I going to take it away.
You take the dumpster away-
Yes
... so we don't need to do the dumpster.
No more dumpster.
Okay.
My trash, I take it to my other business.
So how are you getting rid of your trash then?
I have my other business.
I have a dumpster, I take them over there. What I going to do?
Okay.
I don't have that much trash. Just like one bag a day, that's it.
Okay. Well, if you're going to get rid of the trash on your
own-
Yes
... then we wouldn't need to put the dumpster in.
Yes.
Okay.
Yes.
You've got quite a few variances here. I know it's a small lot.
Yeah.
I also know it's a non-conforming lot.
So I would like to make the suggestion that you
take this to the zoning board of appeals
and let them know the hardship that you're having with the requirements that are
being required and see what they say.
Who?
The zoning board appeals.
Okay.
Okay. They're the ones that's going to write up violations for you not meeting this
and not meeting that. So if you take this
plan to the zoning board of appeals and let them go over it,
they will tell you what you're allowed to do and not allowed to do.
Zoning, I talked to
the supervisor,
the zoning. Huh?
Everett is-
Everett.
Everett?
Everett. Yeah. He told me just the main important, that the
trailer going to stay how it is all the time.
Okay.
When you change it then that. I said, "Yeah, no problem." He said, "Do not move it
like up or down or... Same spot." I said, "Same spot,
I promise you that." And he didn't tell me to put the tree in that.
He didn't tell me that.
Okay.
And he say, "We don't mind if you're going to do it that.
Just do the site plan." I did the site plan. He told me what I had to do.
I did.
I spent $10,000.
Okay. The only thing I'm saying is, if you went to zoning and
zoning told you something, we need to have it in writing so we can see what it is
and apply it to our-
I can go to Mr. Everett tomorrow morning
But
with the variances that are required on this, I see you're having a
lot of hardship because of the size of your lot.
Okay. Mr. Werth, what do you think about...
Let's see.
All right. This is another one that could
be postponed until the petitioner
takes this to the Zoning Board of Appeals and
makes an attempt to get the variances,
especially the use variance for the truck that is
storage.
Yeah.
It is storage.
All right? So
that's what I suggest at this point in time.
He goes, and if he gets all the variances, he can come back to
us, that verifies
the site plan, and you can
give him approval.
And he also has to show approval for cutting in that opening in the side of the
building, too.
Well, you got to give us-
If that wasn't done
... a building permit for that door that slides.
I got everything was approved. Everything was
approved from city. I got the green sign everywhere.
No-
I have my license and everything
... the big door.
Yeah. It was there.
I have everything proof with it. It's green, everything.
Well, you go... All right. You'll have to-
Inspectors, they come in, and they inspect everything.
I have all the signs,
the green sign of the city.
All right. Well, if you-
Mr. Everett, he know that.
Mr. Chair?
You won't let me speak?
You can speak.
Thank you.
Mr. Chair.
All right. So if you have that information, real live
paper, that says that
you got approval 10 years ago, right? About that.
2015, it was, when you got the-
Mm-hmm
... certificate of compliance.
Yes, sir.
We know that.
Mm-hmm.
But it's not just that
piece of paper or a second piece of paper that you had to fill out.
It's that they went and they made the inspection, and that they saw
that door, and they approved it. Okay?
I-
That's what you need.
Yeah, I have the pictures with all the green signs that you guys put them
on.
Oh, okay.
I got them.
Well,
whatever you have-
Yes
... bring to us.
All right?
I bring it to Mr. Everett. He know about it. Mr.
Everett, he know everything, and he's your supervisor. And he said, "That's it.
Just do that. That's it."
You-
And I said, "Okay." I believe him, whatever he told me.
Mr. Chair.
I did whatever he told me.
Well,
we work with Mr. Everett. And
here we are, I'm the planning director, and I work with him, but
I want that information,
or we're not going anywhere.
Yeah. This is city form?
Well,
maybe that'll work. Let's take a look.
Give me pictures of all that so that-
Mr. Chair
... we can read it.
Yeah.
No,
I...
Here. You can read it there. Who's this? City of Waterloo.
I'm not going to do that-
Sir
... right here, right now.
Sir, the thing about it, you can show him the pictures, but we have to
have something that we can go by also.
Yep. Okay.
Have someone make the pictures.
So therefore, what I'm going to say
is maybe we ought to postpone this so you get a chance to show him all
the pictures. You can get the paperwork from Everett for zoning, showing that
everything, he's okayed everything.
And then you just bring it back to us, and if everything's okay...
You're going to have him go to, sorry, the Zoning Board of Appeals.
Right.
Yeah.
Right. You got to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals
because they're probably going to have to give you some hardship on some of this in
order to even okay it.
Okay?
I don't know why I'm here.
So if you're not sure what to do as far as the Zoning Board of Appeals,
talk to Mr. Everett again and ask him what the process is of what you have to
do to meet with them.
That's what exactly he told me, just do the site plan.
Mr. Chair.
Well-
And the trailer is going to be staying here.
But we-
We got a problem.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
We can't go on what he says.
No. It's-
We have to see it
... I believe him. He's a supervisor.
We have to see it, though.
And I ask him to what I need to do. I can do whatever
you want.
Okay.
And he told me, "Do the site plan." Okay.
Well, I-
I did the site plan. I went to city. I give him the money to...
I say, "Okay." Everything I did what Everett told me.
Okay. I believe you.
And I don't have no problem.
But I believe you.
15 years, I never have any complaint.
I believe you, but what I'm saying is we need to see it in writing.
Okay. Tomorrow I go to him.
Because if it comes back on us later, and we approved it, and it comes back on us
later, and they say, "Well, we didn't approve this."
We can't go on he said, she said. Okay?
So that's the reason we need-
Don't believe
... to have it in writing.
Okay.
And it's just a matter of meeting with the Zoning Board of Appeals,
show them what you've got. They'll give us the paperwork on everything, and then
bring it to us, and we can approve it.
Okay.
Okay?
Okay. Tomorrow I go to Mr. Everett.
Okay.
Whatever you want.
Very good, sir.
Whatever he... I say right to tell me, please.
So our next
meeting is when?
July 13th?
We've got a lot on July 13th.
June 15th.
No, they won't get back.
No, they won't. That's going to take time.
He's got to start his application.
I might as well stand right beside you.
Sure.
All right. When you're going to the Zoning Board of Appeals, it takes about
six weeks to get on the board, on there, at the
earliest. So you can start counting out that way.
Mr. Chair, can I ask him a question?
Go ahead.
Yes. I'm asking
Mr. Director
because this is a very small business, I believe, and it's a very small lot.
So can he
sit down with you, and can you
escape the Zoning Board of
Appeal part?To make any adjustment,
to make an
approval?
Because you already spent lots
of money.
At this point, it's better to get
the
approval of the zoning board of appeals,
because there's much here he needs variances for.
So
working hard to improve the
site plan,
he can start work on it, and you'll have time to
work on it,
but
it's not useful. What's useful is that he
get these variances,
and then he also has his site plan fixed
by,
where are you?
By Mr. Graham's
people,
the consultant. All right? But not till then.
So he has no choice.
This really has to-
Okay
... has to be looked at the way it was
put together.
All right?
Okay?
Okay. So
that was a motion
by Commissioner Halawati, supported by Commissioner Hawk
to approve this, but we need to really probably have it
postponed because of the stuff that needs to be done.
So do we have a date?
Well, the date has to be contingent on when he can get
the zoning board of appeals,
and we don't know how soon.
We don't know that date.
Maybe he could... I don't know if it's possible to
post.
Mary?
Oh, I had it on silent mode.
I know we can... We-
Is that right? That's what I needed today. All right.
Maybe it's possible that
you postpone it indefinitely till he gets
the
ruling from the zoning board of appeals.
And once you find that out, then we can schedule him.
Okay.
All right?
You agree with that?
Yep. I agree with that.
Okay, so we're going to make a motion to postpone it indefinitely.
Yes, I was waiting for you to address me, Chair. Okay.
I rescind my original motion
for approval,
and I'll make a new motion of postponement till he gets the
approval from the ZBA.
Okay.
That was Mr. Hawk.
Mr. Chair, I support it.
Okay.
So now we have a motion to postpone indefinitely till the approval comes
through from the zoning board of appeals.
Is that-
All in favor? No. Roll call.
Commissioner Halawati?
Yes, postponement.
Commissioner Hawk?
Yes, to postpone.
Commissioner Ansir?
Yes to postponed.
Commissioner Mori votes yes. Commissioner Burnicki?
Yes, to postpone.
Commissioner Smith?
Yes to postpone.
Good evening, sir.
Good luck,
and we'll do our best to work with you on it.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.
Thank you. Thank you all. Good night.
Good night.
Item 6F.
Item 6F, site plan for conversion of vacant school
into senior living community located on the east side of Marsh
Avenue, approximately 517.4
feet north of Ten Mile Road, 25310 Marsh
Avenue, Section 36, Charlie Rhodus, Center Line Public
School, T. Van Fox, MHT Housing,
Inc., PSP260023. Thank you.
Good evening, sir. Again.
Yes. My name is Jeffrey Graham. I'm the project architect
from Camtech & Associates. I'm representing Mr. Van Fox.
Unfortunately, Mr. Van Fox, who had planned to be here tonight,
had to cancel at the last moment. He called us up and asked us to represent him,
which is why we're here. I'm here with my team.
One of the things that we gave Mr. Fox before he left was our presentation
boards, and he has them probably in his car.
So what I would like to do is, my associate here, Carter, has them
on the computer, and he can walk around and show you the colored renderings.
Is that okay? Can we do that?
Sure. But continue to-
Yeah, I will continue my statements
... continue your statements.
Yeah.
Okay. The scope of work for this project would be defined really
as my client wishes to take the existing vacant elementary school
building and convert it into a
multifamily living for seniors.
The proposed unit count is currently 40
one-bedroom units,
and with some of the units obviously being ADA compliant.
The outside work would include re-striping the parking lot to meet current
zoning code, a new dumpster enclosure at the south end of the site,
south end of the property, a new community patio, and pergola
with community gardens.
Each unit will actually have its own personal private
patio.
As you can see, and then also the landscaping will be enhanced.
If you
go more to the
north, you'll find that... I'm sorry, to the east, you'll
find that there's two large playground areas, which
what we're doing is we're going to keep the playground areas.
We've been working with the city and the school district
to provide access so that residents can
not only use those parks, but also we intend
to enhance them with additional shuffleboard
courts and park benchesWhat we'd like to
do,
I just wanted to make a point about the school, is that the
school's operation never ceased.
What happened was that they moved to a newer facility, which is less than a mile
away on the
streets, Marcy, I believe.
I'd also point out that this is going to be a senior housing project.
Now, it should be
made aware that this facility will be a lot less
active than it was when it was being used by a school.
So therefore, the neighbors should find that it'd be more comforting to know that
the use of the building will be a lot less intense,
especially when we're dealing with seniors.
They're not exactly commuters or
show a lot of access, a lot of driving.
As far as the planning department's recommendation, we have them and I've
reviewed them. Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to talk with our owner
about
them.
However, I've been working with Mr.
Van Fox and MHT Housing for decades, and
I've probably done 20 or 30 of his projects.
So
when I reviewed the recommendations, I do not believe that he'll have
any problem with any of the recommendations that the planning
department is asking. And we thank you for your
consideration.
Thank you, sir. Correspondence?
Correspondence. Taxes current. Building.
Building will require a submittal of a building permit, plan
review application for any modification to existing building.
Engineering. Preliminary review of this site indicates that Planning Commission
approval should be contingent upon the petitioner's compliance with the following
conditions. Number one, correct legal descriptions of
parcels must be
deputated.
Parcel two legal description is missing a distance information.
Number two, both the parcel must be combined to conform with the site plan.
Number three, five feet wide concrete sidewalk must be
provided across entire Marsh Avenue frontage.
Number four, based on the site plan, it appears that a portion of the
existing playground area deputated to be installed by
the city encroaches onto the school property.
If so, there should be an encroachment agreement between the new property
owner and the city.
AT&T. AT&T does not object to the conversion of the school into
a senior living home. We do have facilities in the building and on the
property, but do not
expect them to be affected. Comcast.
We have aerial and underground facilities in the area, but we have no conflicts
with the proposal. DTE. DTE Electric Company has
reviewed the site plan for conversion of vacant school into
senior living home. DTE has no objection to this request
impacting 25310 Marsh Avenue, Section 20, per
the site plan provided. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
contact me at
586-783-1978.
MCPWO. The Macomb County Public Works Office has
reviewed the site plan for the project referenced above and has
determined the proposed site disturbance is less than one
acre and will not require a stormwater review from this
office. If a no objection letter is required, please forward your
request to
wesley.janek@macombgov.org. Prior
to construction, a soil erosion permit may be required from this
office. Contact our soil erosion department at
586-469-5327
for more information regarding same. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Secretary. Planning department's recommendation.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The recommendation
is as follows. It is recommended that the site plan for the
adaptive reuse conversion of a
vacant school, formerly the Roos Elementary School,
into a senior living community be approved with the
standard conditions of the Planning Commission, and more specifically, number
one, five copies of the revised site plans shall
be submitted indicating the following.
1A, add a column to the site data chart
that includes the required setbacks for the R3
multiple family dwelling district.
1B, per a field inspection of the site.
It was observed that the current pavement contains areas that
are not in too good of
condition. A note shall be provided that the pavement be
repaired and re-striped where needed.
1C, provide additional landscaping in the front
setback adjacent to the parking along Mash
Avenue to shield vehicle headlights from
the residential homes across the street.
Condition two, the site plan identifies existing
encroachments between this property and the City of Warren
Busse Park.
The petitioner shall indicate how they plan to resolve this.
Condition three,
the two parcels identified as
13-20-379-002
and 005
shall be combined into one parent parcel.
An application shall be submitted to the planning department
requesting the approval of the combination.
Condition number four, two copies of elevation
plans shall be provided indicating the following.
That's A, the proposed pergolaI hope
I pronounce that right.
4B, the
height dimensions for the existing building.
Condition five, per a field inspection
of the site, it was observed that there were signs along MASH
that read, "No stopping, standing, parking,
7:00 AM to 5:00 PM school days."
These signs are no longer relevant as the school has ceased
operations. The school district should request
the removal of all signs
now that the school
has closed. Condition number six, on August
22nd,
1961, the city council, by formal motion,
vacated the easterly six feet of Lots
124 through 134,
inclusive
of Sharon Subdivision number two.
Note,
as of May 13th, 2026, the
recorded resolution was not able to be retrieved.
The assessing department searched Macomb County records.
The city attorney's office has been
forwarded the information and will determine the
process of recording the document.
Condition number seven, the following variances may need to be obtained
from the zoning board of appeals prior to the
release of the site plan to the building division, and they are,
A,
a use variance to allow for an R3 use
in an R1C district.
7B, to waive 829 square feet of lot
area.
7C, to retain the 21.9-foot
wide maneuvering lane width.
7D,
to retain the drop-off area in the front
setback along MASH Avenue.
7E, to waive 19 parking spaces,
and if approved, the variances shall be added to the revised
site plan.
And finally, number eight, the performance bond.
A performance bond in the amount of
$138,000
be posted according to the estimated cost of
$4,600,000 by the
petitioner. So with that,
Mr. Chair, the recommendation is submitted.
Thank you, Mr. Wirth.
Thank you.
This is a public hearing. If there's anyone who'd like to come up and speak on this
item, please come up and state your name and address for the record, and you have
three minutes to speak.
Yeah, I'm Colleen Kurpinski. I live at 4978 Engelman,
right behind the school, since '85.
How many people are they planning on putting in this place?
The school is small,
and it sounds like they're going to put little apartment buildings in there.
I don't understand. I was thinking it was going to be
more of a nursing home, not a senior
living. Is that like 55 and up?
Yeah,
40 units.
40 units? And then why do they need a playground?
Excuse me.
You address-
Oh
... your concerns to us, and then-
I enjoy the playground there-
We can ask-
... but if it's a senior living-
We can ask-
... I'm not sure what they need a playground for.
You address your concerns to us, and we have to...
The participant-
Okay
... in the audience cannot speak out or talk to you-
All right
... when you're discussing it.
Since-
You address them to us, and then we can have him get into it.
Okay. Since we live on a dead-end street on Engelman,
will they keep that a dead-end street?
That's my main concern, too. I don't want it to...
It's always been a dead-end street.
Okay.
And I think he said 60 units. I don't know what he said, but...
We can ask those questions.
Okay.
Thank you.
Anyone else like to speak on this?
Hi, I'm Laurie Zimmerman. I live at 25331 MASH, which is
directly across from the school.
My concern is the parking on the street.
I know when the school was there, there was no parking allowed
on the school side of the street. But now with the park there,
there's pickleball courts, especially now in the summer and the spring.
The street is lined
all the time with cars, both sides of the street.
The concern is if there's an emergency vehicle that needs to get down
the street, I'm assuming that's why the school had no parking on the one side of
the street, that the buses could not get through.
So the street tonight lined up both sides.
Pickleball court was full, park was full, which is fine, but
when the senior community comes in and they need to get an emergency vehicle down,
the concern is them not being able to access the
street because the car's parked on both sides.
The street is very narrow as it is. So,
I'm not opposed to the community living there.
It's better than what's there now. The school has been damaged.
It's graffitied. It's just constant over there with kids
destroying the property. So the concern is mostly the
parking. You got people blocking your driveways.
You can't get in your driveways. They're lined up there.
So the proposal to maybe find some kind of happy medium
with the parking on that street. I know the senior community itself will
have its own parking, which is fine for the residents, but
for the people that want to access Busse Park and the pickleball courts that are
there, the parking, I don't think should be allowed on both sides of
that street.
Thank you.
All right. Thank
youAnyone
else like to speak on this item?
Seeing none, we turn it over to the commission.
Chair, I make a motion to approve a discussion.
Support, Binecki.
There's a motion by Commissioner Holowaty, supported by Commissioner Binecki.
Discussion?
Okay. Can the petitioner step forward again, please, sir?
Good evening, sir, and thank you for your patience with us again.
No problem.
Okay. You heard a few of the questions.
First of all, I heard you earlier say you had no problems with the majority of the
recommendations our planning director gave.
Right. And then,
one of the issues like parking being a deficit-
Okay
... to be honest, this is more parking than what we need.
Most of the residents don't have cars.
And if
we do need to have... Let's say we-
Okay
... set it up this way, we get the variance, and we do have a parking issue, then
we still have land on the south side-
Mm-hmm
... that we can add more additional parking.
I've been a planning commissioner for years- ...
and I've always found out that parking is a self-controlling factor because if you
don't have enough parking, people don't show up to whatever your business was.
What about that dead end, the one
she was asking about?
To be honest,
our
concentration is on the site and-
Okay
... not the city's circulation issue.
And as far as is this going to be based for approaching
lower-income seniors, or how is this going to be?
May I ask my staff a quick question?
Sure.
Is this going to be...
Is it low income or is it market value or?
Market.
No, sir, it's not going to be low income. It's going to be market rate.
Market value. Okay.
Chair, I yield the floor.
All right, thank you. Any other discussion?
Yes, sir.
I would like to know how many units you mentioned?
40.
So how many residents?
It'll be 40.
40 residents?
They're all one bedrooms.
One-bedroom house, right?
Mm-hmm. One-bedroom units.
Okay, one-bed units. Okay.
So it's a really good
project.
Thank you. We're very excited.
Because this building's been vacant for a while and is getting lot of problem.
It's making this neighborhood the mess.
Sure.
And
one of the resident mentioned that parking is a narrow street
and parking on the both side,
and do we have any-
We
have no need to have any additional parking on the street.
It's like I said, it's not really
in our lane. That's really the city traffic circulation,
and that should be worked out by the city's
fire marshal versus the
city planning and zoning.
So the park is good?
We don't need additional-
Okay
... street parking.
Okay. So who's parking
there? It's packed, the street.
I assume because the lady said there's a
park nearby and everybody's using the park.
Oh, okay. I see. So it's not your project,
the people living in this building is not going to be parked there.
The building's vacant, so-
Okay
... and we have more than enough parking for our residents.
Like I say, most of the residents don't even have cars.
That's why we need the drop-off, is because they get picked up and-
And dropped off
... and dropped off.
Okay. Good. So how long you will take to finish the project, do you think?
That all depends on you.
It takes more time to get approval for a project from
municipal city banks than it does to
build.
All right. Thank you.
Any other discussion?
To the petitioner.
Good evening.
Good eve- Oh, and we also, thank you.
Now, where you going?
Oh, I thought you said good evening.
I did. Good evening.
Did they take it all?
I know it's late. Hey, my time clock ended about half
hour ago, so...
Okay. Well, let's see if we can restart it back up.
I do have a hard time getting in there because there's only one way in, a
mosh to get out through there.
But I did find it, and I think it's a good project.
Thank you.
My only concern now listening to the resident is
the people at the park are parking on the street there.
And doesn't the park have its own parking lot?
I don't know, sir.
Yeah. Yeah. It's not hard to-
I work for Charlotte Schools.
Okay.
And the problem is with the parking in terms of-
Can you come up to the mic, sir? Thank you.
I'm sorry. My name's Mike Connell. I'm from Charlotte Public Schools.
The reason we have problems with the parking is since they put the pickleball
fence up there, or the nets up there-
Can you move the mic, please?
I'm sorry?
Can't hear you. You're not talking in the mic.
So ever since they put the pickleball nets in the park there, we've had
all kinds of problems with people parking in the playground, in the back of the
school, all over the place. So that's been the big
issue with the parking from the city park.
Nothing to do with the school, it's more the city park.
They do have a parking lot off of Fraliano, but it's too
far for the people to walk.
Okay.
Believe it or not, they can play pickleball, but they got to park, you
know what I'm saying? So that's the big issue with the parking
on the street, that we've had since
they put the nets up.
So they park on the street, and then they walk through the property and get back
in?
They'll even park around the back of the school on the playground.
They drive all the way around the building to park on the back.
Okay, so then, all right. Thank you, sir.
Okay.
So then we need to...
Go ahead. The petitioner, can you come back up?
You have to put a no parking all the way down there, and it's done.
Yeah.
You have to put some no parking-
Put two signs there.
Sir.
Thank you.
We'd have to put up some signs where
no people going for the pickleball can park in that area.
I mean, we-
No parking allowed
... we have no problem with that at all. We are self-contained.
Okay. Because it seems like it would be, but like I say, if the people from playing
pickleball are cutting through there, you need to have signs that said they'll be
ticketed or whatever if they park over there.
Yeah, I agree. That's not my
purview.
Well, I'm just saying it's something you might want to talk to the owner about,
to have the city do that.
Oh, you're saying we should get... Which is fine.
You're saying that I should talk to the owner and have him advocate for no
parking along the front of the building.
Exactly.
Okay. I can definitely pass that on.
Exactly. Because like I said, it is a narrow street, and it is
one way down and one way back.
Mm-hmm. No, I agree. Yeah.
I got
lost going down there myself, so emergency vehicles, at least they would know where
to go. But I got all turned around there-
Yeah
... but I think it's a
nice isolated situation, and I think it would be good for
seniors because they wouldn't be bothered with a lot of stuff.
Mm-hmm.
And like I say, if they have to fence off behind it where the pickleball
courts are at, so they can't even get into that area, you might want to even do
that.
Right. Well,
I just want to make a point that we're providing access to
the playground areas, but 90% of the playground
area is
not on our property.
Okay.
But about 10% is, so that's why we would need some kind
of, to allow the
city to use part of our land for the playground because those are our
fields, and we have no problem with that.
Okay.
We'll be more than happy to work with them.
You might want to have an agreement with the city about that, so.
Oh, yeah. We'll get it written down and everything.
Because like I say, you want to have some sort of boundary-
Absolutely
... to where they just can't go walk through there, park over and just walk through
there.
Right.
Okay. All right, thank you, sir.
Can I sit down now?
You can sit down.
Okay.
Any other questions?
Seeing none, that was the motion by Commissioner Halawaty, supported by
Commissioner Binecki. Roll call.
Commissioner Halawaty?
Most definitely approve.
Commissioner Binecki?
Yes, to approve.
Commissioner Ansir?
Yes to approve.
Commissioner Hawk?
Yes to approve.
Commissioner Moore votes yes. Commissioner Smith?
Yes to approve. Thank you for all your time and patience for this evening being
long.
Thank you all. We appreciate it.
Thank you.
Item number seven, correspondence. Seeing none. Item number eight, old business.
Item number eight, site plan for new multifamily development as part
of approved PUD, located on the north side of Ten Mile Road,
approximately 759.1 feet west of
Shanor Road, Section 23,
13041 Ten Mile Road. Lorenzo Cavalier,
Warren Ten Mile Residential LLC.
PSP220018 was approved
on June 13, 2022. First extension
request approved to June 13, 2025.
Second extension approved to June 13, 2026.
The petitioner is requesting a third extension to June 13,
2027. Thank you.
Good evening, sir.
Good evening.
Tell us a little bit about what's going on.
Lorenzo Cavalier, 30078 Shanor, Warren.
The project is a combination of two and
three-story,
multifamily garden-style apartment buildings.
There's 132 one-bedroom units,
132 two-bedroom units.
In addition, we have 40
three-bedroom townhouse style
units with two-car attached garages
and 59 mini storage units,
that are all part of a 15-acre development.
Thank you, sir. Any correspondence?
No. None.
Okay.
He's asking for a one-year extension.
This would be the third and final extension that we can grant
because you can't get extension, extension.
So if we approve this extension, this will be your third
extension, and it'll have to be the final extension.
Understood.
I know the project's taking a long time.
I keep waiting for the housing to pop up, and I keep looking over there when I
drive by there, and I don't see anything, but I know you're working on it.
I know costs have gone up and other things, but
you just have to do the best you can do.
Like I say, this is your third extension, so it would be
your final extension.
Understood.
Okay. That was a motion for extension to
6/18/27. I need a motion.
Motion to extend to
June 13, 2027.
I support.
There's a motion by Commissioner Binecki, supported by Mr. Hawk. All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Item number 8B. Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Have a good evening.
Have a nice evening.
Sorry for the delay this evening, sir.
No problem. Thank you.
Item number 8B, site plan for open storage stack steel
plates located on the northwest corner of
Audrey and East Nine Mile Road, 4965 East Nine Mile Road,
Section 29. Derek Kapelan,
DJP Leasing LLC, Karen
Amberdy, PSP240005.
Approved on July 8, 2024. The petitioner is requesting
a one-year extension to July 8, 2027. Thank you.
Thank you. Good evening, Ms. Berti.
Good evening. Karen Berti, 28225 Mound Road, Warren,
Michigan. Yes, I'm asking for an extension on this site plan,
as my client has completed everything that he was
required to do except for two things, and both involve cement
work. The first one is a driveway has to be
moved a little bit and widened. The second one is he
was instructed that he had to raise the wall height.
And I don't remember the exact amount, but it wasn't much.
He just needed to maybe put a cap along the wall.
When he had the cement company out to take a look at the wall and putting the
cap on the wall, they instructed him that his wall was in such bad
disrepair that it would not
last long, and so it became futile.
To put the cap on it and go get it inspected and then have the wall
not last is not the true intent of what we're supposed to
be doing. So he called me and asked for my advice.
I told him I'd replace the wall, quite frankly, and I'd put it in at the right
height. So he has hired a company, and the company
is called Michigan Outdoor Services.
And they have promised to come out before last winter.
They had promised to come out, and then they kept delaying him and delaying him
because they had bigger jobs. He kept telling them, "We have bigger commercial
jobs. You're just a driveway and the poor concrete wall."
And so he kept getting delayed, and then obviously the winter, and now
this spring, he has been on them to do it.
I did ask him if maybe he could find another contractor, and he indicated
it's very hard to find somebody to do the poured concrete walls.
They all want to do the brick or this new
interlocking brick. They don't want to do the poured concrete walls.
So he's kind of stuck with this contractor that he's found.
They again have promised to come out.
Like I said, these are the last things that we have to do, the two cement things,
and then we'll be able to call for inspections at that point.
So I'm asking for the extension,
please, so that we can get these two matters done.
And one of the reasons is there became an increase
in scope of work when it became not just putting the cap on the wall,
but replacing the whole wall. Obviously, that increased our scope of
what we had to accomplish.
Thank you, ma'am. I have a note here in my papers that says
that you did not get final approval on site plan approval.
So unless you had gotten that, none of that work should've been done.
How did I not get final site plan approval?
Can you help me understand?
Mr. Warych, can you come up and...
What did I do?
Okay.
I don't know if I remember everything from our discussions this morning.
You
needed to submit the site plans.
The five plans.
The five copies.
I have a receipt.
And
the bond.
And the bond didn't get done.
Okay. That I didn't know, because-
Yeah
... usually I tell my people to do that.
I personally have-
But-
... a receipt from submitting the five plans.
Okay.
Oh, okay. All right, so it's the bond.
I guess that was it, the bond.
I'll fix that.
Is that right?
So you submitted the five revised site plans. They've been sitting in the file.
They hadn't been reviewed because the bond had not been paid yet.
So there's a $500 bond that needs to be paid.
I reviewed the revised site plan. I sent you an email this afternoon
with three revisions that need to be made on a new set of revised site plans.
All right. That's-
There's three short, simple notes that can be
done, and then the bond, and then you'll be all set.
Okay. So obviously I
was in court this afternoon, so I didn't see the email, but I will
absolutely follow through on that.
I turned in those five site plans early on.
I didn't know the bond wasn't paid.
If I had known that, I would've told my client.
But I'll get that taken care of. I'll get the bond paid and the site plans revised.
Thank you, ma'am.
Yes.
I know you have a way of taking care of things-
Yeah
... so we know you will.
Yeah.
So she's requesting a one-year extension to
June...
July 8th.
July 8th-
2027 ...
2027. I need a motion.
Chair, I make a motion to approve the one-year extension
to July 8th, 2027.
Mr. Chair, I support it.
There's a motion by Mr. Halawati, supported by Commissioner Hawk.
All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Thank you, Ms. Berti. Item number 8C.
Item number 8C, site plan for a building addition, new accessory
building, and open storage of vehicles located on the west
side of Groesbeck Highway in the area of Prospect Avenue and Topfer Road,
21311 Groesbeck Highway, and parcels north of
Prospect Avenue,
13-35-326-001
through
13-35-326-009,
13-35-327-001
through
13-35-327-018,
13-35-327-020
through
13-35-327-026.
And the north 523.67 feet of
parcel
13-35-352-015,
along with parcel south of Prospect Avenue,
13-35-331-001And
13-35-331-002,
and
13-35-331-006.
Section 35,
Calvin Hermes, Brace Investment LLC, and Adam
Properties LLC. Karen Birdie,
PSP-240006. This was
approved on July 8, 2024.
The petitioner is requesting one-year extension to July 8, 2027.
Thank you.
Thanks, Madam Secretary. Do you want to tell us a little bit-
Yes
... about that one?
Karen Birdie, 28225 Mound Road, Warren, Michigan.
Yes. I'm asking for a year extension on this
matter for two reasons.
The first one, work has not begun yet on this because I'm still in front of the
Zoning Board of Appeals.
And I'm still in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals because some very unique
things have been happening on this.
I took an approved site plan from the Planning Commission, and then went
to get my variances, and then the Planning Commission
didn't like some of the things that were approved on the site plan by the Planning
Commission, and then tabled me so that I had to go and make
changes that they wanted. I then had to have a
meeting with Planning and Zoning at the same time to make
sure that the plan I was now bringing forward was accepted by both
departments.
I have tried to go in front of the Zoning Board of Appeals
several times, and they have not had a full board.
When
I have to get five votes out of nine, or if it's a use
variance, six votes out of nine,
getting five votes out of eight changes my odds of being
successful for my client.
It's not unfair for petitioners to ask for a full
board. And so my item has been tabled till
I can get a full board. I believe that
I will get a full board. I'm on the agenda the next meeting.
I do believe that there's going to be a full board on that
occasion, and I will go forward and
seek to finish my
variances. The second reason
is
this piece of property is at Eight Mile and Groesbeck, and it's huge.
Okay? And it is one of the early
subdivisions that were put in place.
And whereas it was put to be a residential subdivision, it is all
industrial there. And so on my
gentleman's piece of property, we have
vacated utility easements, vacated
roads, or roads and utility easements that need to be vacated.
When I go and I vacate
right of ways of roads,
utility easements, et cetera,
I'm amending a plat. And I have to go to the circuit court, and I
have to have as defendants
everybody within 300 feet of our property.
This often leads to me having lawsuits that the caption is an
entire page, and I have 70 to 120 defendants.
So when I do this, I have to get all of those people
personally served,
and I have to keep track of
who's been served, who hasn't been served, et cetera.
I don't want to bore you too much, but I can only handle one of these cases at a
time. I'm one attorney, and whereas I
have staff that can help me, I can't do more than one
of these cases at once, and I'm currently finishing one in the
city over at 10 Mile and Chene. I am almost done with that one.
It should be done within the next
two months. I should have that done.
And then this is the next case that I'm going to do
the amendment of the plat.
So, that hasn't been started yet because
I didn't have the capacity to start a new one of these while
I had another one going. So in the next two months, I should be able to start that,
and that is to clean up all of the
utility easements and other easements that are there,
and roads that aren't being used as roads, and getting all
of those vacated so that then
my client can be in
compliance with the requirements that your commission asked him
to do.
So that's why I do need another year to get
those two things accomplished.
All right. Well, thank you for the explanation.
Yes.
I know you've been working on it a long time because-
Yes
... it's been going on for a long time.
Yes.
So I need a motion to extend this to July 8,
2027.
Motion to extend to July 8, 2027, Morrey.
I support.
Commissioner Holowaty.
We have a motion by Commissioner Morrey,
supported by Commissioner Holowaty for a one-year extension to
July 8, 2027. All in favor?
Aye.
Any opposed?
Thank you, Ms Birdie. Good luck with everything.
Thank you very much.
Sorry for the delay this evening.
Thank you. What's that?
Sorry for the delay this evening.
Oh, no. No problem.
All right. Before we go any further, I want to recognize our ex officio,
Council Noonan.
Better late than never.
Number nine, bond release. Seeing none, new business.
Seeing none, citizen participation.
Anyone like to speak, come up, state your name and address for the record, and you
have three minutes to speak.
Seeing none, Planning Commission business.
12A, planning director's report.
Make it short.
Unless you're taking another hour.
Oh, no
We need a bed here. The city has to provide a bedroom here
for all of us.
Consolidate.
To drink coffee.
Oh, my God.
All right. So planning director report.
Of course, this is for a couple of weeks' worth of work, but
meetings mostly. And, so on the 12th, I had a meeting,
I was part of a meeting that was with General Motors and the
city trying to coordinate development
programs
and get General Motors more interested
in their home city, so to speak,
and
do things together. Basically, that was it.
Next, on the 13th was Cole Street. That's not too
far from City Hall. That's Vito Castellano.
That name's familiar to all of you.
And he wants to finish his
development that he has on Cole Street.
And so we talked to him. There will be a revised site plan.
He got approval and finally going to move on with
that.
Next,
I had a meeting with the Millstone
Restaurant people after that planning commission meeting that
they had. They were confused about some of the issues on there.
So
got it straightened out.
They were happy.
That's all we're here for, right? To make people happy.
Thank you.
All right, so next.
It was on a Friday, went to the Eckstein
Skate Park,
to have the grand opening. It was a nice event.
I don't know how many people here have been there.
If you haven't, go there.
Just go and take a look. You wouldn't believe. I've never seen a skate park...
I've never seen one anyway,
to tell the truth. But,
it's massive. Did you skate? No.
Ron, you-
No, but-
... City Councilman Lafferty was
trying- I saw that. He was trying. He was trying it out, yeah.
Very carefully, mind you.
And then he was warned he better have a helmet next time.
So
anyway, there was that.
On the 18th,
was the Council of Commissions dinner.
It was a nice
dinner that we had.
Let's see.
All right. Anwar, you were there. And-
Almost ... Merle, you were there. Let's see.
I was there.
And
who else? Paul was there. You were. Yeah, that's right. Mike here was there.
Maureen was there.
And
anyway, so we had a meal and
everyone got to do a little presentation about each commission
or committee or whatever they were doing there.
So that was nice. That was my first time ever
to be involved in that.
Let me see here.
Okay. So next meeting on the 19th. That's
Mound Road right over here,
where Mertham is, where that nice old
looking
house that should be in a historic
district. And Amanda's working on that, right, Amanda? Yeah. Okay.
And, so anyway, it's an entryway to this place,
but it's the retail strip center that's
been there and failed.
And some people have come in, they want to make it work.
They want to put a drive-through, naturally,
in there, but fix up the site
and get the road fixed because it's in terrible shape, as
they told us.
Next,
I think
we did this online, didn't we, Amanda?
The Historic District Commission with Jessica Flores. Yeah.
It was definitely a Zoom meeting. And the Zoom meeting, we had a study.
They're coming in to do some work. We're doing a lot of
work with the Historic District Commission.
So,
we're trying to stretch ourselves just a little bit
here. So we're working with those people.
We're going to get
something else going with
signs and lighting and
other things. And
expanding the districts because there are
other
structures that need protection, needless to say.
Now, I'm not going to go in-depth because then it would take me an hour.
Okay. So,
on the 21st, attended an Esri
meeting all about GIS.
And I'm not going to go into that. That's where Michelle should have been,
but she was on vacation.
Lucky her.
I'm telling you that.
Attended
another
webinar, so to speak. Actually, it was a meeting with Jason
Spiller, our parks and rec director, meeting
with the people from Eocene, all having to do
with the tree study
and theExcuse me, I can't even read.
The tree survey plan that was completed here
recently. So now,
these people are going to help us
figure out what it all means and
create a plan for all the trees in the city of Warren.
And so that's
like we don't have anything more to do. Anyway, so there's that.
Let me look here.
Okay, so finally,
this goes with the historic district, and that's the
DDA expansion, right, Mary? You
attended that one.
And talking with Tom Bommarito, the boundaries of the DDA,
making them longer and wider and capturing more
taxes. But a lot of it has to do with,
we'll call it the village area, that that area continues
to need to expand
and encapsulate
the cemetery out there. And I don't know if anyone here has ever
seen the cemetery that's on Chicago Road.
Have you all
or not? Anwar, have you seen it?
You have. You're falling asleep over there, Anwar.
My house is on there. 70th and Chicago.
Okay.
That side.
All right. Well, anyway, so we wanted to encapsulate.
Why? So that we can get funding from the DDA to help us
fix that up completely the way it should be in
honor of those people that are
in the cemetery to begin with. So with that, anybody have
any questions?
Anybody have any questions for Mr. Werth?
Ron, master plan meeting tonight. That's right. That's on here.
I knew you were going to-- I forced you to remind me.
I want everyone
So on Friday we're going to have a master plan meeting. What time will it be?
3:00 to 5:00. Oh.
There you go.
Well.
How quick was that?
3:00 to 5:00.
When?
Friday.
City Hall.
City Hall. Yeah, these are quarterly.
Oh. We do these.
Okay. The reason we're doing these is that after five
years, according to state law, we need to review
our master plan and see if any changes
need to be made or discover all the wonderful things we've done up to this
point, and there are a lot of them. So all right, with
that.
Okay. Mr. Werth, just one last thing.
I recently went to the Milestone Grille.
Oh, yeah.
And they were beyond ecstatic that we approved their patio
for them. They can't wait to put it in.
Oh, good.
Because I went there for a birthday celebration for both my brother
and my wife.
Okay.
And
one thing is they do serve excellent food there, for one thing.
So they were very happy because they could use the space.
So they were-
Excellent
... happy that we were able to work with them.
Excellent. Good to hear that.
Just wanted to pass that along.
Thank you.
All right.
Only thing I want to mention is, and we should have gotten in our packet about the
moratorium on the car washes-
Oh, yes
... and the gasoline stations, because we're not going to go through it right now.
Just take it and review it and look at it, and
if we need to discuss it later, we can do that.
Any other discussion or concerns?
You know what? We could put it on the agenda next meeting
and have discussion-
Okay
... on purpose.
All right. Very good.
All right.
Any other discussion or concerns?
Number 13, calendar pending matters. Seeing none, number 14, adjournment.
Need a motion to adjourn.
Chair, I make a motion to adjourn in place of Mr. Doucette.
That was a motion by Commissioner Holowaty, supported by Commissioner Ansara.
All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Thanks for having a good
evening. Sorry it took so long.
Okay.
I'm glad everybody's here.
Yeah