Mayfield Village

P&Z: September 16th 2021

PLANNING AND ZONING COMMISSION
Workshop Meeting Minutes
Mayfield Village
Sept 16, 2021

The Planning and Zoning Commission met in workshop session on Thurs, Sept 16, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. at the Mayfield Village Civic Center, Civic Hall. Chairman Syracuse presided.

Roll Call

Present: Mr. Vetus Syracuse (Chairman), Dr. Sue McGrath (Chairman Pro Tem) (arrived 6:03 pm), Mr. Allen Meyers (Council Rep), Mr. Jim Kless, and Mr. Henry DeBaggis

Also Present: Ms. Kathryn Weber (Law Department), Mr. John Marquart (Economic Development Manager), Mr. Tom Cappello (Village Engineer), Mr. Daniel Russell (Building Commissioner), and Ms. Deborah Garbo (Commission Secretary)

Absent: Mr. Paul Fikaris, Mayor Bodnar, and Ms. Jennifer Jurcisek (Council Alternate)

PROPOSALS:

Lot Split & Consolidation
Montebello Subdivision
Skoda Construction, Inc.
Polaris Engineering
1. Kevin & Paly Koehler
  6482 S. Cobblestone Rd.
  PP # 831-10-081 S/L #29
2. Highland Land Development
  6490 S. Cobblestone Rd.
  PP # 831-10-082 S/L #30
Beta Core Commercial District Overlay
Presented by Economic Development Dept
(May 2022 Ballot)

OPEN PORTION:

Montebello Subdivision
Lot Split & Consolidation
S/L #29
S/L #30

Chairman Syracuse states, this is a workshop meeting of the Mayfield Village Planning & Zoning Commission, Thurs Sept 16, 2021. We have two proposals before us tonight. The first is a lot split and consolidation for Montebello Subdivision, Skoda Construction, Polaris Engineering for Sublot #29 and Sublot #30. Tom, do you want to get us started on this?

Mr. Cappello said, we reviewed the lot split and it’s in conformance. Essentially what ends up happening here, the original plat of the subdivision, this pretty much brings it back to what it was before. There was a split for sublots #26, #27 & #28, they did some sharing of property lines and made them a little bigger and I believe at that point they changed these. This just goes back to the original plat. This now conforms to what it was originally done in the beginning. The lot as it was, was fine if he had the certain house that was going to go on here, he has a different one that’s going on S/L #29, that’s why he asked to put it back to the original configuration.

Dr. McGrath arrived @ 6:03 p.m.

Chris Skoda said, we actually sold those two parcels to the same family, we just haven’t transferred S/L #30 yet, and S/L #29 needed a little more room. When we did the original split, we took room from S/L #29 and gave it to S/L #30, we’re just going back to what we had basically.

Chairman Syracuse asked, does anyone have any questions? There were none.

Chairman Syracuse said, we’ll be taking a vote on this at our next regular meeting on Mon, Oct 4^th at 6:00 pm. Chris, you might want to be here in case anyone has any questions.

Chris Skoda replied sure, and thanked the Commission.

********************************************************************

Beta Core Commercial District
Zoning Overlay

Chairman Syracuse said, our next item on our agenda is Beta Core Commercial District Zoning Overlay presented by the Economic Development Department, May 2022 Ballot. Mr. Marquart, you have the floor.

Presentation by;
John Marquart, Economic Development Manager

Mr. Marquart said, thank you Mr. Chairman. All of this information should have been in your packets, it’s probably a little more lengthy than you guys are used to seeing. What we are proposing is an Overlay Zoning District over much of Beta and a little bit of Wilson Mills. The reason we’re coming before you tonight is this; the availability of commercially zoned property in the Village is rapidly dwindling, it’s nearly zero. My charge as Economic Development Manager is to strengthen, preserve and grow the tax base and in order to do that, there’s really no geography left for me to do that.

So, to achieve that, we think we need to sort of strengthen Beta, maybe modernize it, intensify the use on Beta a little bit and this will allow us to compete in the market place for users and it’ll also help us avoid losing some of our larger employers which we currently have. There’s kind of an old saying, the best companies are the ones you already have. What I do daily is work with to save those folks and keep them. We’re about to lose one and I don’t want to lose a few others that are thankfully growing. We think this is the way to help achieve that.

Before we get into the weeds a little bit, I did want to mention this is roughly a year long exercise to get us to this point, working in conjunction with Mayor Bodnar and the Building Commissioner, I think I bored John so much he retired. Also the Law Director has chimed in many many times on what we’re proposing, so it’s not me just dropping something on your lap, it’s been a group exercise with all the appropriate parties in the Administration to get us here.

Video presentation

Mr. Marquart said, if you’re not familiar with it, an Overlay Zoning District is essentially, if you could picture it as a sheet of paper dropping down on the existing zoning map, that’s what we’re dealing with. It doesn’t change the underlying zoning, it’s sort of in addition to the underlying zoning. It will not create any nonconforming uses or nonconforming conditions because that underlying zoning will still apply. Any property owner is not forced to do anything. If you’re a conforming use currently, you’re going to be a conforming use in the future. This is just sort of setting the table for growth in the future.

The conversation that we’ve had many many times with the Mayor especially, is you don’t zone for what you have now, you zone for the future. When we get into the discussion a little bit further, if we’ve got a small office building on ¾ of an acre, he may not gain any benefit from this as is. He can continue to operate as is, enjoy his property, get the benefit from his property. But years down the road, if that user leaves, it could be even decades down the road, someone could assemble more than one parcel, consolidate more than one parcel to develop something more substantial. That’s what we’re setting the table for tonight.

You’re all familiar with this, north is to the right on this picture, Beta Dr. is our Core Commercial District. With the exception of Progressive, this is where the lion’s share of our employees come in and out every day, it’s where the lion’s share of our tax dollars are generated, so this is where we’re focused.

The other good thing about supplementing the zoning here is there’s very very little impact to residents because Beta is 100% commercial. We’re not proposing to throw something in the middle of Thornapple where folks would have difficulties with it. We’re looking to intensify what’s already a pretty intensive district.

Zoning Map

The Overlay language that you see in your packets, there’s Beta currently, this is a zoning map of the same geography. Outlined in dark black is the Overlay District that we’re proposing, it’s essentially all of Beta. It’s basically everybody on Beta except for this residence and any portion of these parcels that are currently zoned single family. If we’ve got a parcel that’s split zoned for example, we know many of these are, the portion that’s zoned single family will remain single family. We’re only looking to modify what’s already commercial. You’ll also see down eastward along Wilson Mills, we’re also capturing some of those properties like the Veterinary Clinic, the Dentist, Austin’s Steak House, National Testing Labs is as far as we come eastward.

What we would like to propose dropping in for this geography is a lot of new zoning language. Again, it doesn’t replace the existing zoning and this is a conversation we had with the Law Director as well, should we attempt to replace it all? The thinking was we’re dealing with 4 existing zoning districts, so it was probably easier not to attempt that and instead, just drop the Overlay on top.

The language that we’re proposing would permit taller buildings on this geography. What’s currently permitted is 35’. There are a few parcels on Wilson Mills that are limited to one-story. We’re proposing a maximum of 4 stories for this entire district. It’s important to note too, that a precedent for this height already exists along Beta, that’s the Hilton Garden Inn, the Holiday Inn is slightly shorter, also the top where Mt. Vernon is, is roughly 45’ as well. We’re not proposing Manhattan here by any stretch but we would like to propose some more intensive and more dense use.

You’ll also notice in the language we’re not attempting to supersede existing stormwater management requirements or existing parking requirements. You can’t just build a 4-story building that takes up your entire parcel, you’ve still got to meet the other relevant portions of the code.

Eating Places & Drive-thru

The other thing we would propose is to permit eating places along Beta Dr. that currently does not happen, it’s currently not permitted unless it’s part of a hotel. We would like to go beyond that and permit free standing dining establishments.

The other thing we would like to permit again strictly on Beta is a drive-thru provision for dining establishments. This is basically in response to some coffee and pastry operators I’ve dealt with trying to attract them to the Village. It’s a nonstarter for them if they can’t have the ability to serve drive-thru customers. The other thing I’d like to mention again, precedent exists here in the Village, while we don’t permit drive-throughs typically, we have one it’s a bank, it’s not a food service operator. If you could see across the street the bank has actually two drive-throughs, one is an ATM, one is a drive up window.

The other thing I’d like to mention with respect to drive-thru. We’ve included some language that would actually pull those drive-throughs away from, should someone approach us with a drive-thru proposal, we’d pull them away from the main streets, that being Wilson Mills and SOM. What you see shaded in blue in these two pictures is the turf that drive-throughs would be permitted in under this Overlay. Again, the rationale for this is to pull them away from any potential residents. We’ve got a few residents along SOM, we’ve got residents across the street from Wilson Mills. We’ve taken some great pains to sort of pull the nuisance of what’s currently considered a nuisance in our zoning code away from those residents.

You’ll see some language that indicates a drive-thru cannot be permitted within 400 feet of the Wilson Mills centerline and 250 feet from the SOM centerline. They cannot operate after 10:00 PM and their speakers cannot be over 75 decibels which is another important factor. Most folks that are opposed to drive-throughs is the headlights and the speaker box that are the nuisances, we’re trying to avoid that as best we can.

Reason being, there’s a pretty decent outcry from the employers along Beta for places to eat. I just spoke with a user a couple of weeks ago that said his employees need to take an hour for lunch because there’s nothing nearby. They’ve got to either drive to Mayfield Rd., wait in line or drive up to Willoughby Hills and wait in line. I hear that pretty routinely and that’s something we’d like to correct if we can. Again, I don’t think this is going to open the flood gates to McDonalds and Burger King tomorrow. But it would provide the opportunity for a breakfast user, a lunch user to operate with their criteria.

Lastly with respect to drive-thru, I’d like to mention, this was a pretty lengthy conversation I had with the Law Director because he actually represents some other fast food users nearby. We put some language in there that would require a certain amount of vehicle stacking, a certain ability for vehicles to pull out of line if they want to bail. In other words, if they don’t want to wait in line, they have the opportunity to get out without backing up. We put some language in there that would sort of clean up the functionality of a drive-thru, prevent them from backing up into the street. That was an important provision that we wanted to add as well.

Area and Setback Requirements

Mr. Marquart said, I’ll try not to bore you too bad with these. The biggest differences you’ll see between this Overlay and the underlying zoning are really the area requirements for a given user and the setback requirements for a given user.

If you drive up and down Beta, you’ll see it here. What’s notable about most of Beta is huge front lawns. What I’ve heard from several users and a few developers is “I’ve got 5 acres but per the code I can only use 3 because of the setback requirements that we have to deal with”. What we’re looking to do is take advantage of this precedent to sort of set the table for the rest of the street. This is looking north from Raleigh Dr., this is Wilson Mills, the Howard Hanna building and the Law Office and Salon building are 35’ from the right-of-way. So we’ve taken that building line as our guide and wrapped that all the way down the street.

Again, we have precedent at the south end of the street. There’re a few other users for either Special Use or pre-existing conditions that are grandfathered in. There are a few other users that sort of encroach into our existing setbacks anyway, Holiday Inn is one of them, you can see their parking sort of protrudes past that 35’. What you see in shading is essentially land that could take advantage of this Overlay to expand their operations. I don’t have the calculation on this, but as you can see it’s a pretty significant acreage that would be opened up for productive use.

Mr. Marquart said, if you’d like Mr. Chairman, I can run through each of the area requirements and setback requirements that we’re proposing, but they’re also in your text if you’d like. Essentially what we’re doing is relaxing the yard requirements and relaxing the area requirements. A good example is our current code, not that I’m trying to attract new hotels at this time, but our current code requires 4 ½ acres for a hotel. In studying the market, modern hotels of the size that we have here 105 /110 rooms can really get by on as little as 2 acres. I’m not proposing to go that small but for example we’re suggesting that be relaxed down to 2 ½ acres.

Restaurants again are only permitted in a few of these parcels. Same thing if you study modern restaurant development. We require 2 acres, I’m proposing ¾ of an acre for that use. There are several of these Use Classifications that we’re suggesting be relaxed and less restrictive. If you’d like, I can run down all the uses that we’re amending and if not, I’d be happy to field any questions as well.

Chairman Syracuse said, that would be great if you could run through those.

Mr. Marquart explains current & proposed schedule.

1175.04 (a) Schedule of Lot Area Regulations

Service Station

Currently require 1 acre Currently require either 180’ or 200’ of frontage
Suggesting ¾ acre Suggesting 125’ frontage

Auto Garage: storage, repair

Currently require 1 ½ acres Currently require 200’ of frontage
Suggesting 1 acre Suggesting 125’ frontage

Motel/Hotel: with eating, assembly, recreation

Currently require 4 ½ acres Currently require 300’ of frontage
Suggesting 2-½ acres Suggesting 200’ frontage

Restaurant, if separate
Currently require 2 acres Currently require 200’ of frontage
Suggesting ¾ acres Suggesting 100’ frontage

Offices, stand alone
Currently require between 3 & 5 acres Currently require between 200’ & 300’ of frontage
Suggesting 1- ½ acres Suggested 125’ frontage

Laboratories
Currently require 5 acres Currently require 300’ of frontage
Suggesting 1-½ acres Suggesting 175’ frontage

Production Plant
Currently require 5 acres Currently require 300’ of frontage
Suggesting 4 acres Suggesting 275’ frontage

Distribution Establishment
Currently require 5 acres                   Currently require 300’ of frontage
Suggesting 4 ½ acres                       Suggesting this remain as is at 300’ frontage due to the
                                                       nature of truck movement.

1175.05 (a) Schedule of Yard Regulations

Mr. Marquart said, this one might be a little lengthy, so I apologize up front.

Service Station/ Gas Station

Currently require 70’ setback (abutting major street) & 50’ setback (abutting secondary street).
Suggesting 40’ and 25’