This regular meeting of the city plan commission to order. It is 04:50 on Tuesday, August 18. We'll start with a roll call.
Lindsey Pettenham. Rachel Dodson.
Chilliang, manager guard, deputy staff.
Megan DeSanto, legal counsel.
And I am Michael Gazzako, chair. Next up, we will roll to the approval of the minutes from the 07/28/2026 meeting. Hopefully, you've all received them and had a chance to peruse them. I did. I didn't see any edits that were necessary.
You do. Please speak now. And if not, we'd entertain a motion to approve amendments as drafted. Motion
K. All in favor, of approving the the minutes as drafted, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any extensions?
The minutes pass. Director's report. Mister Hazel.
I really don't have anything for you this month.
Well, it's the end of summer. Let's, let's kick it in the gear then. Before we go into the, first agenda item, we should point of clarification. There was a a an agenda circulated prior to the finalized agenda, which had a major land development project for 31 Dyke Street. That has been removed from this agenda.
So if anyone is here for that agenda item, we are not hearing that agenda item this afternoon. With that, we will go right into the first agenda item on the current agenda, which is the case number 26 Dash 046 U D R 14 Cargill Street. Now this item, do you wanna explain?
Yeah. Very simply, the applicant has withdrawn. This was one you'll recall that came before you as a unified development review. The there was actually a two to two vote on the zoning variance, which our attorney has opined means that the zoning variance failed. It was a denial.
And so the applicant has now withdrawn. They are, revising their plan, and they should be back before us in the coming months.
Okay. Thank you very much. Then we'll go right into agenda item number two, which is case number 26Dash047MIL. It's 203 Douglas Ave.
So this is a request simply to continue this item to the October 20 meeting. This is at the applicant's request. This was originally going to be on this docket. My understanding is that they're still working out some of the details on the plan, so they simply want to be heard in October. And this is the
one we continue to this date last month?
a motion to continue this to the October 20 meeting.
Make a motion to continue to the virtual meeting.
A second? Mhmm. Alright. We'll we'll just do a voice vote for this. All in favor of continuing to the October 20 meeting, say aye.
Aye. Aye. Opposed? Any extensions? The ayes have it.
Alright. Next up is a request for extension case number 23Dash065MI125TobyStreet.
Okay. This one was approved a couple of years ago. And last August, you granted an extension for a year. They had originally asked for two years. You granted an extension for a year, and this approval is set to expire on 09/16/2026.
This is a minor land development project. It's a multifamily in the R 4 zone, and this was approved at a time when we had not made the major updates to the zoning ordinance that we did following the adoption of the comprehensive plan. This was at a time when we had a practice of spot zoning R 4, for multifamily, and this is a project that fell under that. Since then, the the zoning the underlying zoning of this lot of all the lots around this lot have been changed to r four. And, therefore, the project that was originally presented and approved, based on my analysis, is pretty close to something that could be approved under the current zoning.
There might be a couple of issues with with setbacks, but really not not that much. The density would fit within the current zoning. So, you know, even if this project did approve did if the approval did expire, they would be able to come in with a with a a project very similar to what was approved, and it would be a a simple staff approval as a minor land development project. Last time they came before you, one of the arguments was that they were waiting on on clarity from the city about tax treatment, either tax stabilization or or the 8% tax treatment. And so I don't know really what's changed since then, but the applicants representatives are here, and they may be able to further explain.
As I recall, my my memory doesn't always bode well, but they they asked for two. We said one because they kept saying they were really close to finalizing all of these things. Right?
Yeah. They came in with a few projects that were requesting I think there were three of them that that they were requesting all at the same time, and that was among their arguments that they
were they were close. Okay. Well, the applicants here, let's let's hear from them.
Is the mic on? Alright. You got it?
Is also representative of the.
So we are here today to request another, one year extension.
reason is there have been some new sort of funding liabilities for affordable housing, which that is the goal with this project is to provide affordable housing. In particular, there is a grant program with, EOH where they're in the midst of the second round of funding. They had $20,000,000 worth of funding for this year. The first round, they awarded sex, and then fellow one has to move on. We were hopeful to sit and qualify for this round of funding, but there were answers submitted to, from questions last Friday, just simply five days four or five days ago that sort of complicated things a little bit.
And one of the issues is on this project is 14 units. So to qualify for this program, it's focused on, homeownership, which does include condos. And they would be deed restricted to help, provide affordable, housing units. And one of the issues is once this project is, you know, ready for, to go on the market, there's gonna be 14 de restricted condo units with, not one to one parking. That is a difficult thing for the market to to absorb.
So one of the hopes was to qualify for this program, but still be able to rent out any units that don't sell immediately. But we have just gotten answers from EOH on Friday that says that the program is not, does not allow for that. So what we've done is we have already, you know, spoken to the governor to try to, get the next round of funding, have some sort of changes to it to allow these sort of scenarios to qualify for it. Like I said, we're in the second round of funding. There's, $25,000,000 slated for the next calendar year.
As of right now, for the first two round of funding, seems to be every six months that this, seems to be happening. And so the applicant is very interested and focused on providing, you know, affordable housing, the de restricted, units. And it so we're very hopeful, and confident that, you know, we will be able to get the EOH to and secretary of housing to amend the program to allow, you know, renting the units while you're waiting for, you know, the common units to sell because it has to be, you know, single family type, type unit to qualify for the program. So as of right now, the the for the current round of funding, the deadline to apply is at the beginning of September. So based upon how it has been allocated so far, we would expect, you know, another six months from September for be when they could they could apply for the next round of funding that is already been, you know, been slated for the next.
And and the applicant hasn't moved the plans forward enough to file final plan because
It's trying to figure out the the financial viability of of the project given that it's gonna be an affordable housing project. It it does need to have some sort of grant funding or subsidy to to help it become a viable project, and the the risk of having, you know, an unknown amount of the fortune units be, you know, on the market for an unknown amount of tonnage, it it does make it a little a little difficult, a little bit of a little difficult for them to be moving forward until they know for sure, you know, kind of plumbing sources that they have to make sure that that will not be an overall problem for them.
I'm not saying to build it, just to move the drawings along a little bit more and spend all the money that they're spending on these applications on the project and finalize it so you don't have to come back to us for a continuous that we said we didn't wanna give more than
I I don't believe that anything has been submitted for the final plan approval, but we would just ask for another year to to have that time to to do that.
