City of Ferndale Planning Commission 03-19-2025

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Hey. Looks like we have six commissioners here. So I would like to, call the, the March 19 planning commission meeting to order at 06:32PM. First, let's do a roll call.

Commissioner Musccelli? Here. Commissioner Azar? Here. Commissioner Brazen?

Here. Commissioner Subhakatani? Here. Commissioner Hall?

Here.

And vice chair Sholwelter?

Here. Can we have a motion to

Motion to excuse chair Foster, Newman, and Polica.

Second.

I have a motion, motion from,

from

commissioner Brazen, seconded by Azar. Commissioner Azar?

No call. Commissioner Amos Chelly?

I mean, it's we can

Yeah.

All in favor Yeah.

All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Next, let's move on to the approval of the agenda. We have one discussion item and two administration administrative items.

I move to approve the agendas, set out. Support.

Motion by Brazen or motion by commissioner Zarr and seconded by, commissioner Brazen. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Okay. Moving on to the approval of minutes, from the February 19, planning commission meeting.

Mister chair, Roger, you said you picked up the one, item that I noted?

Correct. All fixed in the draft version I have.

Motion approve the minutes from the 02/19/2025 meeting.

Second.

I have a motion from commissioner Brazen and a support from commissioner Moshely. All those in favor?

Aye.

All those opposed? Okay. Now, it's time for the call to audience. And during the call for audience, we have two minutes to for anyone in the audience who has two minutes to discuss, discuss with the planning commission anything that is not on the agenda. So anything that is not related to the food truck or the administrative items.

So I'm going to open the public comment at 06:35. Seeing nobody, entering the approaching the podium. Gonna close the public comment at 06:35. K. Let's move on to section part eight, which is the mobile vending discussion.

So do do we have a intro from city city staff?

Sure. A small intro, Vice Chair, Walter. So, I wanna thank everybody for being in attendance today, and coming for this discussion item. I think, commissioner Mosccelli might describe some of it a little bit more, but we have a planned evening where we'll have each person come up, introduce just what food truck you're associated with, the vendor, and then feel free to take a seat, because there'll be some live questions. And so the microphones are live, just so you know.

There is a QR code when we load it up, that'll ask you live questions. You know, do you have bathroom facilities? Do you have trash enclosure? Do you like where you're located? Would you like a a a food truck zone?

So there's a variety of questions. As the questions are asked, we'll go 1 x 1. Feel free to ask any questions. So there's a couple that say other. So if anybody wants to ask somebody why did you select other or any follow-up questions, we can just run through it.

It's meant to be very informal. This is just a discussion item. I think the commissioner is gonna speak a little bit to that, and then at the end, we'll have everybody come up and, describe their food vendor experience a little bit more working in Ferndale, what works well, etcetera. So with that said, we can start this. If anybody wants to go first.

Hello, everybody. My name is Zach Topinski. My wife and I own Urban Restaurant Company. And while I'm not a food truck owner, our business is heavily, heavily dependent on food trucks. We have more than a hundred, plus every year.

So happy to answer any questions, and thank you for considering.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Lynette Rogers, and I am the co owner of the Nacho Grill food truck. We operate currently down at, Ferndale Foods and, happy to be a part of the discussion.

Thank you.

Good evening. Cindy Jackson from Jackson five star catering. We do catering right here in Ferndale. Been here for twelve years and, we also have food trucks as a side business and be more than happy to answer any questions, as how it relates to how we got set up in our parking lot.

Thanks. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Sam Fadil. One of the franchisee for the I represent the burger truck in a friend of location. We got a multi location throughout Michigan. We've been here, like, year and a half in friend of the.

We love the city. The our Friend Hill neighborhood, they love us, and, we love to stay and provide more for the community. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. This is Kamal from Hashihibachi located on Woodward Heights and Hilton Road on the corner, located at a gas station mobile, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you guys have.

Perfect. So with that said, do you kinda wanna introduce where this came

from? Yes. Thank you all of you for joining us. I hope we've got we've got a couple others that joined us, if he

wants to join. Here for

the food truck discussion? No. What What we're doing is just introducing what food truck you're with and then have a seat. There's a QR code poll.

If you want, please come up to the podium and introduce yourself.

Bob

And then, Bob, did you wanna take a seat and take the poll? No. Okay.

So, again, as Roger stated, I wanted to thank everybody for coming tonight. So the the city recently recently went through a zoning ordinance rewrite and, it was published, late last year. And one of the as we were reviewing the ordinance, there was a section a draft section on food trucks. And as a as a group, we felt that we we needed to pull this section out of the ordinance, because we really hadn't had any feedback or or consulted anybody who was dealing with food trucks and really wanted to understand, just how how food trucks operate in Ferndale, get a good idea of of what our business owners go through. And this is related specifically to to private property owner, that that'll have a food truck on their site.

So it's not related to public food trucks. It's specifically when a private owner has somebody on their site. So that was sort of the impetus for this, and and we we felt like if there was gonna be anything that came out of this, we wanted to make sure that there was a a forum to hear from everybody that is working in the food truck industry. So I appreciate everybody coming tonight to to to contribute. So there's no there's no ordinances or anything like this that are coming, that we have on the table right now.

We're really just using this as a kind of fact finding and understanding and learning from you, and and really wanted you to be part of the the process and so we could hear from you. So as as Roger said, we've got a series of questions that we're gonna have up on the screen. It'll be a QR code, and you're gonna be able to vote live basically on the answer. And then as we go through that, the the the dais will probably ask why somebody answered one way or another. It's a it's anonymous, but if you feel like contributing to the conversation, we'd love to hear.

Especially, there's a few questions that say other or something like that. We'd love to hear sort of that perspective. So, we've got some property owners here, which I really appreciate as well as as as vendors. So, ultimately, the the planning commission is dealing with property and sites, and and that's sort of the ordinance. The zoning ordinance is really related to that, and that's all that we're really focused on as a group.

But this has really been gonna be helpful for us. So, I'll I'll invite Roger to kinda bring up the first question here for everyone, to vote on.

So everyone should have a a paper in front of them with a QR code. This is our first time deploying this, so I don't know how it's gonna go exactly. I think it should go fine. But if you log in, it should tell you to hold for a second for the presenter. I see some.

Everybody else good? Perfect. Alright. So the first question is, in your experience, Ferndale's Food Vendor regulations are, and it doesn't include the fire marshal health department, less cumbersome than other cities, more cumbersome than other cities, similar to other cities, or I don't operate in other another city.

What are what are some of the things that you guys are dealing with if you operate in other cities? What are some of the issues that you're dealing with in other cities?

My name is Omar. I'm calling with the Metro Grill here with my wife. So we also have a food truck in Warren. And, Warren you know, some some of the some of the pushback that, we got from Warren was that was not so much that, you know, running into restrictions and regulations with current ordinances. It's just that they didn't have ordinances at all pertaining to the food trucks.

And so, you know, they kinda fell on the, on the side of the coin. Well, since there's no ordinance that we actually have, then, you know, we're we're not quite sure what to do with that. So in order for us to be able to operate, you know, we kinda went to city council meetings and spoke with the mayor and and, you know, kinda was part of the process for about, you know, a a two month period, before they kind of, you know, gave us, you know, permission to operate. So, you know, I guess you could say we kinda played a part in them moving forward with, you know, kind of welcoming food. There were there were already food trucks in the in the city of Warren, but, you know, it was just a real gray area as far as it was concerned.

But, ultimately, you know, through some discussions at the city council, they wanted to, you know, welcome more business owners, have, you know, just, have more variety for, you know, residents and workers in the area, gave us, you know, permission to operate. So, you know, not so much, you know, the challenges, but it's it's it was no click nothing there that, you know, allowed them to say just automatically, alright, come on in. You know? So we we kinda had to talk about it and and discuss it.

Say, you may not know, Omar, because I don't know how many other Warren food truck people you're in contact with. That was something that, like, every person operating a food truck had to, like, go through the same process that you did talking with them.

Okay. You're

I'm I'm asking. Sorry.

Oh, oh, a question. That, so to my knowledge, from from like I said, you know, I've spoken up with, you know, the mayor and and the chief of staff on it. To my knowledge, other food trucks there did not go through those channels. You know, it it was just more of a they're there. You know, it wasn't being heavily enforced.

And, you know, we wanted to set up, but, you know, we promote pretty heavily, and we just didn't wanna risk setting up something that could be dismantled or taken away. So we just wanted to make sure we went through all the official channels first. And, you know, that's how we were, you know, even able you know, able to obtain the permission to operate. So to answer your question, I'm I'm fairly sure that, that there you know, there were other food trucks that were interested, of course, in in in in the issue, but I I think we were the most proactive as far as, like, trying to make sure that we were you know, have permission to operate, you know, in in in the in the city.

Thank you.

I can just add. We typically don't, operate other than events and festivals. So for all of our food trucks, we basically just decided to set up in our parking lot when COVID hit. So we had the truck sitting there when they started to regulate that restaurants could open up and we could social distance and everything. That's when we decided to open up, on our own premises.

So we kinda just made, like, a little, you know, l shaped food court. We have plenty of parking. We have trash. We have everything we needed because we're, you know, licensed by the health department, fire marshal, and everything. So fire marshal even did come over a couple times and check on us and, you know, long as we were everything was up to code, we had our fire extinguishers and stuff, then he had no problem with us.

So to answer that question, I don't have experience on operating on other people's property, except for events and festivals in which we do quite often.

Hi, by the way. I'm sorry. I didn't get to introduce myself. My name is Abdullah. So we're partners, so that's why I didn't really stand on the podium.

But I actually have, I'm the owner of the franchise of the burger truck, and we actually have currently seven locations in different cities, and we operate every single day open to like, from a size designated time. And I guess the biggest problem we have, which I have I guess I'm going through right now in Dearborn, is for the last four years, we've been operating in the city of Dearborn. And now just now, they decided to release an ordinance that we're not allowed to operate in certain zones and this and that, which really killed us because for for the last four years, we've been investing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars into the property, and then suddenly it's, like, it's all gone. So one thing I did tell Osama, I was like, be careful before you invest so much money into the property is make sure that we're allowed to be here and make sure the ordinance is friendly for us to be here because to be to be truthfully honest, even us food trucks, we wanna invest a lot of money. We wanna make it look beautiful.

Like, we we just invested last year about $10,000 just to do asphalt for

our food trucks

so customers have, like, a nice clean look when they come into the parking lot. But I I wanna make it concrete, and we wanna make the whole area concrete. But what we're really scared of is one day the ordinance is like, hey. You're not allowed to be here anymore, and then we get kicked out. And then we have another, we have our license in Troy.

That's pretty friendly. There as long as we keep our fire inspections, everything's up to date, we have enough parking for our customers and all that good stuff, Troy is really friendly with that. Honestly, all the other cities are pretty cool about everything other than like you said, Warren was one of the biggest issues that we had. We put a food truck in Warren, and then out of nowhere, they're like, hey. You can't be here.

Like, well, you don't even have an ordinance. So I think the best thing to do is to have a really, really good ordinance, something that we can easily follow. It doesn't even have to be easily followed by as long as we can follow it, you know, something that we know. Okay. Here's the rules, one, two, and three.

Just do this, do this, do that, and we will be more than happy to comply with all the ordinances, all the regulations. And we love the city of Ferndale. We love the community. We love the people. And, yeah, that's that for that.

Did you have issues with Hazel Park? I know you guys were located off the freeway.

In Hazel Park, I the only issues I had in Hazel Park was with the property owners k. Not wanting to give us a contract. Oh, there's the other thing. In the city of Ferndale, I always tell someone, we wanna sign, like, ten year contracts with our with the property owners, but we're hindered from doing that because we don't know what's gonna happen with the ordinance in Ferndale. We wish we can be told, like, hey.

You know, you can operate for the next ten years. Renew your license at this day and this day and this day. Make sure you do this, do this, do that so we can sign ten year contract. Because here's what property owners do. We operate for one year.

They charge us $2,000 a month. We bring a lot of business to the property. After that one year lease is over, hey. We want $6,000 a month. So that really kills us a lot.

So as long as Ferndale can guarantee us, hey. You can stay here. Make sure you don't have crazy bright white lights. Make sure you don't have crazy designs. Make sure you follow this rule, this rule.

Don't have this kind of signage. Fine. Fine. We follow all that with no problem as long as, you know, we can sign at least a ten year contract with these property owners because those property owners really screw us. They come back.

Hey. We want this much money. This other food truck now wants to come here for this much because they saw how busy you are, but we did that. We built that. You know?

And we put our love and our energy, and we spend so much time, you know, like, perfecting a location. And then before you know it, either the city or the property owner kicks us out. So it's nice to have that safety and that safety net knowing that the city is happy with what what we're doing, and the property owner can't come back to us because we signed a ten year contract with him, and he can't sit here and say, hey. Get out of here. You know?

So that's one big thing. And, oh, also the licensing too. It's a lot of cities are kinda messed up with their licenses. The health department license expires on April 31, and a lot of cities don't know that. In a lot of cities, their license expires December 31.

So for four months, food trucks can operate in the city because they're licensed within the city without a health department license. So I think the best thing to do is to have your the city licenses become get renewed with the health department license April 31. So that way when people come back to renew for 02/2025, you ensure that they have the health department license for 02/2025. You know? So that's a big problem that a lot of cities don't have.

And then they give us issues when we try to go back and do this and do that. Oh, you didn't do this, but you guys don't have it structured properly. So, yeah, we've been doing food trucks for about forty five years now. And, I mean, we've went we went through a lot of rough patches and a lot of easy stuff, but for the most part, it's pretty nice. You know?

It's great feedback. Thank you.

Yes. Of course.

So So the next question, if you put your phone, it should, automatically populate, I hope. When operating in Ferndale, where do you find the most success? Residential neighborhoods, special events or festivals, industrial neighborhoods, transportation corridors, or other.

Seems like a good mix between industrial and residential. Can can someone speak to, industrial neighborhoods or residential neighborhoods and talk to like, how's that been? What's the traffic like? That kind of thing.

So, we're we're located, again, in the, Ferndale Foods parking lot. That's, you know, I guess I kinda would classify that a a little more residential because it you know, everything is residential to the back, to the side, and to the front. And, you know, just as far as what we found, you know, the success really comes from the sweat equity that you put into a location, and that just kinda, speaks to, you know, what he was saying as far as the amount of sweat equity that you do put into seeing a location. You know, for example, you know, we we experienced, success. We we've had all of the news stations in the Metro Detroit area.

You know,

Fox, Channel seven, WDIV, you know, the popular bloggers. Everybody's coming to do coverage and, you know, marketing and so forth, and all of that has compounded into, us finding a successful location. We've had other trucks that come to that same location, and they were out within two, three weeks, you know, which just kinda shows that it's not you know, people see us doing what we do, and they assume, hey. It it's a great location. It is a great location, but, you know, for us at least, it's not the location that necessarily generates the success and the traffic.

It's just a lot of, you know, sweat equity and marketing that we put into making it the location. You know, the fact that we are, on, you know, a a street such as 9 Mile with, you know, slow moving traffic, curious, you know, travelers in in a huge residential neighborhood of people who has back and forth from work every day. That that is a benefit, but, you know, no doubt they've probably seen us, you know, also on social media. By my house, I think I'll stop here and check it out sometime. So, you know, that's that's been our story with, you know, how we generated our success in that area.

Yes. As a follow-up question, I'm familiar with all of your food trucks, not that personally been to all of them, but have any of you ever operated somewhere else in Ferndale other than where you are currently?

I've done most of the events here on 9 Mile Woodward. Pig And Whiskey, the, you know, the art fair. Anything that takes place, we usually get in, just because it's so close and convenient for us. So, but other than that, we just, like, stay there in our corner. And, to piggyback off what he said, most of our success is through the social media, and the fact that our item, being the elephant ear as our prize item, is not really, it's a unique item.

So you can't go to any restaurant and get it. So when it's a little warm out, the kids in the neighborhood, they come up and they get something, or the parents will say, okay. When you get out of school, we'll go by and get an elephant ear. And then, you know, like I said, especially when COVID hit, there was nothing going on anywhere. So we was, like, the only game in town.

So social media was our best friend at that point. But that's how we continue to stay there and be successful because it's not really high traffic. We do love when the train stops everybody so then they do get out and come and get something to eat. But, other than that, we find it, the residents are great. They always come up and thank us for, you know, doing a good job.

And thanks for coming and picking up the papers at the end of the night, not letting the trash blow all over the residents houses. So, you know, we haven't had any complaints on that side, but that's pretty much how we, we just promotely, you know, do events.

I think second base enjoys when the train blocks the traffic too.

Yeah.

I do have a follow-up for you. I actually live two blocks from your location.

Okay.

Will you

be doing that event again? Yeah. I did walk by and see that, and I did stop. And I, a lot of my cousins went to that event as well.

What event are you supposed to?

The one during COVID when you had all the food trucks out.

Yeah. We well, we do now. We have them out. We typically will put them up and down depending on our event schedule. Like Dream Cruise, for example, all of our trucks are on the corner of 13 And Woodward.

So everything goes from the yard. When we do our Speeds and Eats and Jazz Fest, all the trucks are out at those two festivals. So just depends on what events we have as to whether we're up and operating on that corner. And we do post it on our social media page at, you know, Jackson five star catering, any Facebook, Instagram. We post on there when we're gonna be open.

We usually do that a couple days in advance so people can gear up and, you know, and usually we do it based on weather. Like, it's gonna be 40 this weekend, so all the staff's like, are we gonna open? I'm like, no. Let's wait till next weekend. But as soon as we know when we're gonna open, we just post it on our page, and we get traffic based on that.

And then the residents in the neighborhood see that we're open. We have, you know, a little a frame that we post out there, and they come and ask us. Or they start calling our kitchen, when are you guys gonna be open? I see the truck's out. It's like, okay.

Well, we're gonna post it on the page. We'll let you know. But our problem is being consistent, as far as, like, you guys are there every day. I know you guys operate every day. Our problem on that corner is not really having consistent hours.

So I told my staff with we're really gonna try to work on keeping the truck up and running and being consistent with our hours so we can kinda build and keep our customer base.

K. I think we do have, like, 19 questions to get through. So

Oh, shoot.

No. You're okay. You're okay. I just wanna tell everybody. Next question, if you have your phone, would you rather locate in a food vendor zone or on private property?

So if the city were to create a vendor zone on a specific property, would you wanna join everybody else, or do you like just doing your one offs on private property?

Seems like a pretty clear answer.

I

don't know that we need to talk about it. I think

Do you

prefer to be on a vacant property or a property that is shared with another business?

It's pretty clear there too.

Can I ask, what's the benefit of that? Four foot traffic? You share any, amenities?

That's gonna come up.

Oh, okay.

Just real quick. I honestly I don't really think it matters because from all the other cities that we're in, I have a location that's with an arcade that performs really well because arcade and the food truck go really well together. But we have some locations that are on their own properties, and that also performs really well because we just market that, and we have a bunch of people coming. So it really doesn't matter whether we're on a vacant property or another person's property. You know?

Good. If you're in a stationary location, what is your approximate to the nearest residence?

One to fifty, fifty one to a hundred.

K. Let me

So when just to clarify the question, we're saying the nearest residence, not the nearest home, not the nearest business or or,

Yeah. Not a business, but a nearest

A business. Yeah. So, like, residential home.

Yep. If we have a follow-up. There we go. Have you ever had a complaint for a neighbor?

So what's the typical complaint that you guys might get from a neighbor?

That would be us, parking. They were taking up too many spots, on the street.

Did you do anything for that? Or

we did. We put up signage, because on one side of the street, there's no parking. And the police would never give us a problem, but they did come by one time because the one resident complained. So he was like, okay. Can you guys just clear the path?

So, you know, I went out and made announcements to anybody standing in line. Please remove your vehicle from the side. And, we put up signage. There's no parking fire lane. And they respected that, and we didn't have any other problems.

And the other person?

Yeah. So when we first started, we were definitely newbies, and we had a complaint about our generator. Mhmm. But it definitely put us in a position to do some, investigating and research on generators. We had a loud generator, and now, we know a lot about generators.

So, really, once you get one that's quiet and kinda purrs like a kitten, it's no problem. And that's kinda you know, there's just a certain,

what's the Decibel.

Inverter, type of, generator that we have now. And, you know, the it's it's fine. So it's the key is do not have a loud generator for us. Yeah.

And and once we bought the new generator, we also had the police department come out with the decibel reader meeting to make sure we were we're within compliance.

And for that, was that just folks, like, in the parking lot for Ferndale Foods being like, this is loud, or was it even, like, further into the residence the first time? Obviously, you've fixed it since.

Probably uncertain where the complaint came from. You know? We we just had it. And like I say, it was allowed general. Well, like I said, we were new to the business, and it this was a construction site generator.

You know? So it it it was not a good thing. You know? But, you know, the difference between that and one that actually designed to be a quiet generator for, like, RV use and food truck use is night and day.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next question. What drew you to Ferndale? Friendly local government regulations, that's always the one to select. Lack of food options nearby, proximity to downtown, foot in traffic volumes, reasonable rental rates, or other.

Could could somebody talk about what are the others?

I can definitely speak to why I I wanted to make sure I was in Ferndale. I'm from Ferndale. Graduated from Ferndale. Most people who are from Ferndale never leave. Our family, children, you know.

So I'm from Ferndale, and I love the area. I know a lot of people. I know the businesses. I partner with the schools. So it just it's home for me, and, I really get joy.

Like, again, we have another food truck, but, you know, I wanna make sure that Ferndale is, like every time someone is calling us to do another event, I'm like, but what about Ferndale? So, we just have a really good relationship with the, community and the residents, so that was really the main thing for us.

And, I checked other as well, being that our main, business is on-site there. That's why we chose to promote there as well.

K. What specific days are you most busy? Is there a certain day you find?

You could check multiple a year.

Mhmm.

K.

That's about what we anticipated. Yeah.

It's kinda what we thought. I think we have a time. Do we have a time one?

Not sure if we nixed that or not.

Didn't we say, like, afternoon?

Oh, we probably have that coming up. Yeah.

We might have a time one. If not, we'll come back and ask that. But, do you have or want outdoor dining? K. So one can the who wants outdoor dining?

I selected outdoor dining, because we have a small space area where we can pull, like, a few, tables and, benches for people to sit down and eat.

Yep. But it's tight.

Yeah. It's kinda tight.

So we're back

I I was gonna say, can we go back to that one? The

We might have a question coming up, but we'll just ask it. We had answer what days are you most busy, but what times? If everyone can just go around, is it, like, mid afternoon, after work rush, late night rush.

And so is the evening?

Yes. Same.

Evening? Yeah.

Ours is all day, kinda.

All day? We have lunch and a

Lunch and a evening rush.

Your evening. Yeah. And then for the burger place, when's that usually busy?

Friday, Saturdays. Lower weekends are are pretty really

What time though? After work usually?

Honestly, on Fridays from morning all the way till night. On Saturdays, I would say after, like, 3PM, we kinda start picking up because a lot of people are sleeping in. And even Sundays, it starts getting busy a little bit too after three, 4PM. And then the weekdays Monday through Thursday, I would say, busy. Pretty busy in the morning because the business is around and stuff like that.

People taking their lunch breaks between, like, eleven and two, and then it slows down between two and five. Gets gets busy again between five and eleven again at nine.

Okay. Just a

quick follow-up to that. Does that also include Uber Eats, DoorDash, and other platforms that you guys use as well? Okay.

Great.

Do you have access to a restroom for you or your employees? I think we originally said you have an official agreement that might come later. But this is related to an official agreement, not just, yeah, they can use the place down the street. Does anybody have a official agreement with a nearby restroom? You wanna follow-up on?

Yeah. I think, you know, this one is important, for us is just trying to understand is making sure that, that there's an arrangement with either a property owner that that you guys have access. If, you know, a lot of you talked about having a business that you're tied to or on a on a property. Is this or have you do you have an agreement with the business owner, some of you are the business owner, to use during your operating hours? I think one of the things is maybe if the business closes before your business closes, like does that cause an issue, that type of thing?

Let's run around. So for the gas station, I assume bathrooms are inside?

Yes. It's open to the public and our customers.

And that's always open when you're open? Yes. Okay. And then I don't know what

We've got it. We're open outside. We keep the bathroom open.

There's just an entrance they can go in. There's a bathroom off there?

Freely, we let them in.

Okay.

For us, yes. We make sure our hours are kinda conducive to burned our foods and the businesses that have, we have an agreement with. Most of the businesses close at nine

Mhmm.

And we close at eight.

What business is the coffee shop or what?

Well, definitely Ferndale Foods. That's our main, you know, and then Bigby and Red Olive allowed. You know, we have,

agreement with them as well. K. Urban Rest, we know you have bathrooms. I think you're good.

For us, the building next door, they allow us. And Cross Street also we can like Meijer, they allow us. And they just build the bus station across, this day, it'll be twenty four hours. Also, we've been talking to them.

Nextdoor, the kitchen place?

Nextdoor, the is, like, a restaurant cleaning service. The this company, they clean the hoods, they clean everything. Mhmm. And they have their, like and they let us they give us permission to use it back.

Are they generally only open eight to five? Or they

these guys, they open eight to five.

Yes. Okay. Probably similar. If you have outdoor dining, do you have an official agreement to use a nearby business businesses bathroom?

For your patrons? For customers.

And just the the word it's official. So, you know, written agreement or something. Do you have a written agreement that someone can use in your bathroom? 33. No.

I need to follow-up on that one. It's pretty basic. How do you currently handle trash disposal, official agreement with a nearby business, a dumpster on-site, or removed from the property by you or an employee. K.

How do you deal with, if you're if you have a dumpster on-site, that's one thing. How do you deal with grease traps and, then and and cleaning the, because I know a lot of times restaurants, if they operate, they have to have, grease disposal. How does is that just taking care of off-site or how is that taking

care of For the gas station, do you wanna start all the way around and just quickly what do you do for grease trap, if anything?

We have grease. We have a grease trap on-site.

Same thing. We have a grease trap on-site too.

You just have an interceptor that intercepts it and then you

Yeah. We just dump it in the it's like a little, like a dumpster.

Okay. On-site? Yeah. Okay. And same you something collects it and k.

You don't generate grease, really? At all. K. People collect it and you have a little dumpster. Okay.

They'll take it with them. Okay.

Just for the record, count councilman Polica entered the meeting at, 07:15 or 07:13.

Same thing. We have it on-site.

A little little container you put it in. Okay. We just threw this one in here. What type of containers do you utilize? Styrofoam, plastic, paper, compostable?

We're talking about, to go containers here. Right, Roger? Like, things that they provide food to customers in, not just things on-site used.

Correct. Right. Yeah. The things that they put food in and give to the customer. There's a follow-up question from staff going back to the grease trap or grease collection, dirty water.

How do you collect dirty water?

K? Yep. We, we have, gray water tanks. So there's an, spot we go to in Livonia. There's we just dump, they take all the disposed water.

Our gray water is disposed of nightly at our commissary kitchen, which is about a month.

And do you just take it in a container of

We we have a sealed container drum that's collected in during the day, sealed during transportation, and disposed of at our licensed commissary.

K. Dispose outside. You take it with him. K.

We have wastewater tank. We dispose the water daily. We take it to other locations, the restaurant, Warren Telegraph, and we dispose properly over there.

What is your electrical source, generator, propane or on you connect to on-site power? Think I know who the generator is. How often do you move your truck or trailer? Once a week, once a month, or it's pretty stationary? Is there any follow-up question on that?

For the stationary trucks, how how do you make sure that they can be moved at a certain like, it because, I mean, a food truck need a mobile food vendor needs to eventually move. How do you test it to make sure it still can move?

So, yeah, for our food trucks, they can still move. However, we're not classified as mobile food vendors. With the health department, we have a license called an STFU license, which is a stationary transit food unit license, meaning we can prepare all of our food on-site and everything we do can be done on-site. And it does not it only applies to STFU licenses, not the mobile food vendors, which mobile food vendors must return to a commissary to properly and safely prepare their food. But stationary transit food units, we have a three compartment sink.

We have everything on-site. We don't need to return to a commissary in order to do that. However, if we ever did need to move to our truck for anything, we do we can just, you know, hook it up, empty our oil, and just take it off-site if we need to.

Ours as well. Ours are trailers.

K. And then this was kind of for property owner. I think we have one, kind of. Would it be valuable to you if the city had a one time site plan approval process, everybody can answer this, versus a seasonal or annual approval? K.

I'm sorry. Through the chair.

Which are they answering yes to? The seasonal or the annual? Because you're asking them one or the other, but you're saying yes or no.

It's would it be valuable for one time instead of a seasonal or annual?

Yeah. So you you ought a site plan approval for one time.

Oh, gotcha.

The answer is what I expected the answer to your which is I'd rather just do it one time and get my approval.

But also as a follow-up for, like, city staff in terms of the point of the question, it would be a one time site plan approval, but then there would be some language that if anything were to change dramatically. Right? Like, if Hashi were to come up with some agreement with Mobil to, like, take part of their parking lot and, like, redo, like, they would have to go back if there was, like, a significant change. Right?

Generally, it'd probably be a site plan approval for that specific truck. So if they leave and another truck comes on, then they would need to get site plan approval. Or if they change their operations, they might need an amendment to the site plan approval.

I think part of the thought too is, like, maybe a property owner knows that they wanna have multiple food trucks come onto their site, but they've got it set up to we we already know where the food truck is gonna go. It's already passed site plan approval to have whatever outdoor seating or whatever. They could swap out food trucks, whatever.

But Correct. If someone wanted to rent to create a food zone themselves, kind of. I think everybody's gonna say never to this one. How often do you want to change food vendors on your property?

So is this this is for the people who own the properties, not necessarily

Generally speaking, it is. So I don't think it applies as much. But Really? I guess they're gonna say we should stay here with a ten year lease.

Yeah.

Which one of the

A twenty year lease.

I think everybody else here would prefer nobody else encroached on there.

If your food vendor has outdoor seating, do you have working agreements to allow their employees to use your bathroom? You kinda answered this for the opposite side. If you have if your food vendor has outdoor seating, do you have working agreements for patrons? But, again, you kinda answered that one.

You have

a working agreement to allow your food vendor to use your dumpster. Some of you have it or have said you have an agreement with the property owner if there was someone separate. And you can look at this one. Has the parking and egress pathways in and out of your property been congested? So has anyone had issues with traffic circulation, walking, vehicles coming in and out?

It's also the expected response. Nope. No. There's no issues. Alright.

So that that concludes that piece. I think we've learned a lot more about you, but if you wanna go around and say anything else about your operations in general, we might be missing things. So water came up that we're not thinking of any

Yeah. You can see the sort of the line of questions that we had here and kinda kinda see where things that we're thinking about. But, what are the things that you wanna make sure that we all understand about how you operate, that you wanna share? I think it's all really helpful to us. I think you guys have had a lot of really great insight for us so far.

Just that you continue, with your, you know, clear, friendly policies. You know, to be to be quite honest. That's why we started our brewery, in Ferndale and have all the food trucks, as many as we do, because of the friendliness of the city, because of the clear rules that we need to follow, just as he was saying. You know, obviously, there are different restrictions and regulations everywhere. But, just to come out of this meeting, making sure that there's that same tone would be, I think appreciated by by all.

For you, for your licensing for the brewery and things you do, do you have to have food on-site?

So we are a food service license. We are a food service establishment. So we have a food service license. Each of the individual trucks has a food service license as well. And that's just so that, you know, in the occasional event that we have a a pop up or someone who doesn't have a food truck, that they can use our facilities for the things they need.

Since I know that there's a lot of, urban rest, there's a lot of turnaround on food trucks, like, as you get a new one every day. Every single time a food truck parks and a new food truck enters Ferndale, do they have to, go through the process of getting the fire marshal approval?

Yeah. So the the fire marshal approval has been rather difficult, and someone could probably speak a little better to this. But, the the jurisdictional confusion, if you're licensed, by the fire department, in Royal Oak, It doesn't carry over to Ferndale. They each individual entity, obviously, that's great, but, their, qualifications are different, you know, and so some streamlined, city to city. I know you can't do too much about that, but, yes.

We have someone in the back who might be able to speak to that.

Oh, you were the one with her on the spot? I did. I did. You value your life.

Alright. So for anybody who doesn't know me, I'm fire chief Theresa Robinson.

So I sorry.

I was late coming in tonight. And I do wanna point out that so NFPA standards, which is national it's the standards that govern the fire service and fire safety and everything to keep our community safe. There is a standard for food trucks. Now every community can choose their fee schedule, their staffing, their capabilities of what they can and they cannot enforce. You know, you can go into a community that has a lot of staffing that does a lot more building department stuff, department stuff, and others that don't have as much resources.

We offer a food truck rally at the beginning of every year where any vendor and we try to any vendor has been in our city, we notify them of it. They They can get discounted, inspection. So it saves money, so it's cheaper than the regular one. It's good for the entire season. And so it's good for the whole year.

We do have reciprocity with other communities, and our fire marshal and the other fire marshals can tell you exactly which other communities will accept their inspections. So you can get inspected in one community and be accepted in others, but not all do because some still want those fees. They wanna gather their fees. Our fees, if you come to, like, food truck rally, I think it's I apologize with Justin.

It was 35?

It's like 35 or 40. In comparison, Detroit charges a hundred dollars. Okay? So our fees are very we're actually out of Oakway. Oakway's eleven departments.

We have the cheapest, fees for food truck inspections, but they are good for a full season. If somebody misses that rally at any point in time, somebody comes in that's never been our community, they contact us. We always work with food trucks to try to get them inspected as much as possible. The frustrating thing for us is when businesses that might have that we deal with or have rotating food trucks or maybe know the rules, we keep we get called by people in the community or other staff members saying, hey. There's this food truck over here.

They're not on our list. They're not inspected. So where you might feel frustrations with us, I apologize because that's not the relationship I wanna have with you. I if you know me, you know

All the other communities, not not this community.

Because if you know me, I care I care about working with my businesses, and I want business to reach out to us as a resource, But it it's very important for the safety because we do come on-site. We find things that are unsafe. That just like the health department has, there are things they have to do to make sure food is prepared safely. So we wanna work with you, but the rally at the beginning of the year is a great way. It's coming up.

I don't remember the date. I can look it up. If you don't know about it.

Is it around April?

It is. It is. So we try to catch yeah.

Information on that because I never heard of it. Fire department.

Okay. So so everything comes out of the main fire station, which is over on Livernois. But, yeah, if, you're not getting that, I'll I'll find out why you're not getting that, and we'll go ahead and get you on that list. So we try, like, even vendors that come in for a festival. It might be the wrong time, but they get on our mailing list and then they get it.

As long as we have a valid email address, that's how we notify everybody, and we kick it back out, everybody we have in our system. We want to work with you as a partnership. So if you have food trucks coming in, notify us ahead of time. If you have a list, notify us. We will take care of reaching out to them and work with them, get their inspections done.

So you don't have to do that lift if you're a business owner. But the biggest thing is we have to have compliance. We can't have food trucks doing things unsafe or in a way that, you know, could potentially harm your workers or anybody in our community.

But I

can answer any other questions yet. But we our inspection sheet follows it's the NFPA standard inspection sheet. It's not something that it's not a Ferndale fire department specific one. It's not something we made up. We use the standards, inspection sheet as our sheet.

Chief, you you did mention Oakway, the 11 communities that are part of Oakway. Do all of them agree with one another on food truck inspection? So, like, Southfield is part of Oakway. If does their inspection carry over into Ferndale

So or so? Our fire marshals got together and had the idea of saying, let's agree who will accept reciprocity. Like, you might be able to Rochester Hills and they charge $75. We only charge this much, and it'll be up to Rochester Hills if they say, yeah. We'll accept that or if we want our own.

And some do. We, talked about creating a sticker. So, like, when you get your inspection for one of those communities, it'll show all the ones that accept us. So you can have it right on your window, kinda like off road, if you ever do off road vehicle permits. So something like that.

So you'd have it. So you'd show 2025, and here's the communities you're all inspected for. So as inspectors, we can walk up and say, hey. I by the sticker, we know you're good. We just check make you know, a couple of things we have to check each time, and you're you're good to go.

There's no additional inspection from us. It's it's getting trying to get all the communities to agree and then us move forward. So I gotta check with my fire marshal where the latest is. There's been turnover of some personnel that may have slowed some of the progress down, and I can check to verify where we're at on that. But if you can't ask any of the fire marshals or when you're getting inspected or just call us, my fire marshal can tell you which ones offer the reciprocity.

I just don't wanna tell you incorrect community, so I'd wanna check that list for you.

Well, and I would also suggest that we all come to the same price agreement because I don't want everyone coming to Ferndale because we're the cheapest.

Yeah. And, I mean, that's not gonna happen.

Well, the only way we're gonna

do it is if we raise our prices. And and we thought about that, and we were worried about if that was gonna happen, and it's not. So it's vendors will go kinda wherever they start, and, you know, Detroit's right there. I'm not that they accept ours, but I think Rochester Hills is one that would they're $75 and we're, you know, we were 35. We're increased a little bit now.

We did close that gap some, so it's not so making their communities look bad like they're money grabbing, but we all have to try to cover the cost of the service we're providing. So the gap is smaller, but there's we are still the cheapest. City. It's my fire department. My personnel.

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So if some if, we come out for the fire department inspection, it's one of my personnel doing it. Yeah.

I'm not sure if it's subcontractors or if there was personnel, but maybe you just thought they were subcontractors. Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. I've been here for four years. That's not how we do business since I've been here. Any other questions for me?

Thank you

for your chief.

Yep. Thank

you. So I apologize for coming in late. I was, in Lansing at a conference for the city, but I was listening on, on my way in. I appreciate your input. What really I never thought of was the dates.

I believe you're the one that talked about the the aligning the dates of renewal with the inspections and and all of that. That really makes sense. I hope that anyone here today, as you go through, you know, the night and all of a sudden that, you know, you wake up in the middle of the night and go, oh, I should have said this. Please contact Roger and and share your thoughts and ideas because, I know a lot of people are probably worried about, you know, we're we're gonna, you know, create these rules so that we make it harder for you to do business. That is not our intentions at all.

If it was, we would just create the rules without having this conversation and just say, we don't want food trucks. We want food trucks. We think that you provide a great service to the community. We wanna make sure that we don't do anything that's going to, you know, greatly impair your ability to do business.

Thank you. There was a follow-up question, for any property owner, but could be the tenant. So do you require or does your landlord require, liability insurance or health department licenses be provided to them?

We have liability insurance and, they each have their own individual.

Do you make them show it to you before they come? Okay. Does your landlord make you liability issue. K.

Yeah. We we we covered and we've presented it to our team.

Okay. So going back to it, just any last minute thoughts about your operations, things we missed that we should be looking at. Any thoughts at all?

Yeah. I wanted to mention one thing. Earlier, I was talking about, I think even it was a question when it said site plan approval or annual renewals. So I just hope we could do it in a way where our food truck, where we're parked, we have that personal guarantee that once you guys leave and there's a new council, chamber of commerce, we're not gonna get kicked out eventually because they somehow say, okay. We wanna change the ordinance now, and we don't want food trucks in this line anymore or whatever.

At least for us to have that safety and for us to say, okay. We don't mind investing a hundred thousand into the property. We can we can invest 200,000 into the property. We can make this property look so beautiful. I'm I know I mentioned that earlier, but that's one thing that Dearborn really killed me.

It's I basically have two months in Dearborn after all the money we've invested in the last four years, and now I knew, you know, there's a lot of political things going on and a lot of, you know, sit thing people saying, oh, the this guy is paid or this guy is doing this or this guy is doing that. I just wish we were grandfathered in because we've been there for four years. I you know, there's so many things I did, and I just hope that in ten, fifteen years, we plan on being in Ferndale until until the day we die, to be completely honest with you. You know? Like, we want our food truck to be running and we wanna give it down to our kids and our kids' kids, and we don't we this is like we wanna make this business a business business, you know, where it's not even a it's not a one year thing, a two year thing.

It's a for a lifetime and a general generational thing, and we wanna make sure that our food truck is grandfathered in, and three years down the road, hey, you need to get out of here. We don't want that to happen. If you guys can somehow make an ordinance where, you know, give us that security, give us that safety, and give us the leisure to invest into the property as much money as we want because we know we're not gonna get kicked out. And, you know, maybe if somebody else comes later on down the road and wants to change the ordinance, sure. Go ahead.

But we're grandfathered in because, you know, we're here. We've been here, and we did it all. And that's that. That's my biggest concern, I guess, I would say.

K. Nothing? Alright.

Could I ask one follow-up question? I guess, because we it's about on-site bathrooms because we had everyone had an agreement for employees, and then it was kind of split for, guest, like, patron use. Would having a requirement for a patron available bathroom excess, would that be, like, a prohibitive thing?

Are you saying permanent or, like, a

porch on? Or

I guess

Or or nearby.

Like, would would a requirement for on-site or, like, easily nearby patron bathrooms prevent you from operating?

Like, just like, for example

you currently are.

Not not to say this is anything that we're proposing just to rattle off a few examples of such, like saying that within x amount of feet of your property, there has to be a business that you have an agreement with during your operation hours that is that allows for employees and, and patrons to go or just, just to just to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the community so there's so and the workers. So the workers aren't having they have a place where they can cleanly relieve themselves.

If the distance is too far, you have a porta john or something.

So that would relate to kind of the natural, but you say you kinda have an agreement in the burger place because you have something on-site, you're the property owner, you're got the property under control.

Yeah. So, like I said, we, you know, we we are fortunate enough to have, you know, the Ferndale Foods, right there. But that could be kinda prohibitive depending on, you know, the scenario. You know, it it's a food truck, you know, and, it it could be prohibitive. It could, you know, do you know, depending on on, you know, how how the the situation plays out.

You know? We we do outdoor dining probably about, yeah, five months of the year. You know, we're we're not outdoor right now. But, you know, when when we do like I say, I I'm I'm sure that, you know, you know, Sal's great. He works with us, whatever, and it it would be nothing, you know, you know, as as long you know, that's how our customers operate, you know, anyway.

A lot of our customers are Ferndale Foods customers anyway.

Mhmm.

But, you know, I'm I'm just saying, as a rule in general, I I could I could see where it could that could be prohibitive for, you know, either, you know, new food trucks or, you know, you know, should a situation change or or something like that. So that's honestly

Sure.

Yeah.

And I guess kind of as a corollary for I guess, UrbanRest is kind of excluded from this because they have a reason for people to spend, like, multiple hours there. But do you the rest of you generally see people come in, they order, they leave, or they come in, they sit at the table for, like, fifteen to thirty minutes and they leave? Or do you see people that, like, for example, come, like, order a burger, have fries, like, hang out for a couple hours where a bathroom might be more necessary?

With the with with the expectation, you know, when they go to the food truck, the expectation, you know, is pretty much what you said. You know, it's a brief experience. You know, you either you're coming, picking up where you're going, or, you know, it's not intended to be a hangout spot. It's just intended to be a spot where you can sit, eat real quick if you don't wanna eat in your car or you don't want your food to get cold. But it's, you know, it's just intended to serve as a quick place for you to enjoy your food and then, you know, leave.

And I'll say something else to that. In our experience, in the summer when it's beautiful out, we throw up some picnic tables. People come, they bring their children, they grab a elephant ear, they sit, and we put a little, you know, boom box out there. We have the music on. So we try to make it a quick dining experience to come in, and if it's nice out, sit down at the picnic table, eat.

There are instances where people will ask, do you have a public restroom? I will let them in and use the restroom, or if you have a child who's jumping up and down, of course, I run them in. But I don't advertise that I have public restrooms available, only because it is really to just grab and go, which is probably 80% of our customers. They do just grab something, we put it in a bag, and they get in their car and leave. So that's primarily how we operate is that it's just grab and go.

Well and the customers are only one half of the equation. I understand that your customers have I mean, you're but the employees are also the other.

Oh, yeah. Our employees go in and out.

I mean, because employees need to be able to cleanly relieve themselves. And because if you don't have a bathroom nearby or a bathroom that's available and they need to go to the bathroom, they'll find a spot to go to the bathroom outside. And that's what that's one of the things that we're looking to avoid by having some access to a bathroom when when, when the business is operating. Because, I mean, shifts are eight hours and, I mean, during the any hour any eight hour shift, most people have to use the restroom.

Well and you brought up a point that, a couple months back, someone sent me a picture of someone, and I don't know if it was a employee, it could have been a customer, it could have been just someone walking down the street. I don't know. But someone near one of the food trucks was, outside urinating. And they're like, why is this happening? So that kind of, you know, was one of the questions of, you know, why aren't there, you know, availability to to restrooms, you know, for food trucks?

I can't answer that, but I do know we have a dumpster on our property. The the the residents in the neighborhood, for some reason, they come by and urinate next to that area, and it drives me nuts.

They got

it wasn't mine, but I see it

for myself. So I can't

answer why people urinate out in public. But, to answer your question about the employees, we do offer, you know, our employees, they come in and out all day and use the restroom. And like I said, we'd lay we don't publicly say, hey. Come and use my restroom. But if somebody asked, do you have a restroom I can use?

I'd let them in. So that's my scenario.

So for everyone, next steps. We we don't really have next steps. This is just information, finding. I think the planning commission will probably talk later on in publiccom in their comments, and then we'll talk at the next planning commission meeting. What I commit to is if we are to come up with a permitting process or regulations or anything at all, we will call you and see if you wanna come back in or run them by you and say, how does this look?

But if there's no other questions, I do appreciate. This is probably the most I had more turnout here than I had the entire code rewrite. So I appreciate it. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you for your time.

Much. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, guys. Yep. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Moving on to the next, the the next topic, administrative items. We have the 2024 planning commission annual report. And so does would staff like to speak on that?

I will a little bit. So Kyle put together a presentation for you. I'll be honest. I've I've barely reviewed it. I just put it in this one.

It was in the last one. What's that? Oh, that's what it said. So, but running through it, it's in your, packet. Why do we compile in your report?

The Michigan, Planning Enabling Act and the Ferndale City retire city charter require all planning commissions to compile a report of all operations. The, Ready Redevelopment Communities program under the MEDC requires a planning commission compile annual report, and then it really is for record keeping. Yeah. Staff talking. It's really good for record keep keeping, because we don't really have a centralized document where we track everything.

So this is good to go back and look at the projects we've approved. A commission the for the planning commission is a commission dedicated to ensuring the health, safety, and welfare of Ferndale through your, process review of site plans, special land use, planning developments, rezonings. You're also tasked with drafting and reviewing the master land use plan and amending the zoning ordinance ordinances, and you meet every third Wednesday to see commissioners, one city council liaison. Members of the public are always welcome. Many items for the master plan are in progress or, have been completed.

So we're looking at, prioritizing physical accessibility and ADA standards, considering crafting adopting a specific sustainable checklist, creating promotional materials for residents and businesses describing the various sustainable practices.

Hi. Sorry, Roger. Through the chair, would you guys mind taking your conversation out to the hallway? It's not super long, but it's, like, just enough that it's hard to, like, read and listen to Roger at some point. Thank you.

So going forward, planning commission cases. You, sometimes have discussion items a lot less lately. Site plan reviews, although now a lot will be administrative review. Special land uses, a recommendation to city council. Rezonings, recommendation to city council.

And plan unit developments, a recommendation to city council. You do have a variety of, abilities in the zoning code to waive parking spaces, some landscaping requirements, or building material deviations. These are the type of projects that do not require planning commission or city council approval as long as they don't have another application with them. So as long as they don't have a special land use or rezoning. Those small scale businesses reoccupying vacant storefronts, residential construction of single families, duplexes, and ADUs only.

Triplexes, you come to you. Fences, sheds, and garages. I'd have to look up the triplexes. I guess I don't really have off top of my head. Minor site plan amendments and mod modifications for ADA accessibility.

And then sometimes projects that receive approval are not constructed. And we're gonna go through some projects that were approved last year. 1120 East 9 Mile Road, which is, I think, at the corner of Bonner And, 9 Mile. 19 upper level residential units with some retail, including, bicycle parking in a front parking area. I if this is the one I'm thinking, there's no movement right now.

So I know that they're looking around for a developer talking about selling it, but as as of right now, there is no, big movement.

That's the one next to the the vet to veterinarian. Correct. The Fire

State's right there. Burnedale.

Oh. They're pedophile. To veterinarian. Correct.

The Firestone Rape. Ferndale?

Oh. They're pedophile.

Okay. Thank you. And that's where the Comerica Bank is vacant currently? Okay. Thank you.

That's where the Comerica Bank is vacant currently?

No. That's That's further there. Other it's Okay. Never very close.

I think east of there. I'd bomber in

it's across the street from

the fire station.

Old farmhouse right now. 3101

Bermuda, which is the, self storage. I have no news on this one as of right now. The, commercial building at Woodward, right across from Saint James, I believe, they are moving forward. So this is the Ghost Burger, which is part of Ghost in Detroit, the second best and all that. They are moving forward.

And they recently, there's craft paper on the the windows, and so it's things are

things are happening, it looks like. Detroit Axle is looking to expand, so a 318,000 square foot expansion. And, importantly, the installation of the sidewalk, there's no connecting of the sidewalk from the West Side of Livernois Pine Crest down to some point. So, I know they're talking with the MEDC. They did get approval the other day for, I think, a grant from the MEDC that we wrote a letter of support on.

651 Livernois, that's 26 resident residential unit vacant property. That's the one that went to the BZA on for the 80%, but then we looked at it again. They were okay. Okay. And, Aflac's construction used to be here.

I have no update now, but we hope it to move forward soon. This one, just south of Aaron's on the east Side. This is the conversion of the existing building. Allied printing used to be in here, to a medical office surgery center with removal of the antenna up top up top.

That's it. Seems like there was more.

There probably was more. I think those were just highlights of some of them. Kyle put it together, so I'll I'll wave in defer to him. The Ferndale zoning ordinance, you did an overhaul of the city zoning code, and that was pretty progressive. It had accessory dwelling units allowed options for housing density, changed on some landscaping stuff, a lot of environmental sustainability options, parking flexibility, and just better improved accessibility and graphics.

That was big. And then the goals for 2025, which I think maybe Kyle talked with you late last year, maybe on, I believe so. Monitor the implementation of the new zoning ordinance, which I already have some recommended code changes that's in my next admin item. Adopt the planning commission bylaws, so I do have to get that done. Consider amendments related to the mobile vending section, and I know tree preservation was an issue too.

There was a discussion of holding a joint meeting preferably with the FESC, so I'll work with chair Foster on that. Continue to work at the planned Ferndale action items. Since we are done a staff member, that will take a little bit of a back seat, but we hope to to get through some of them this year. Review education and communication procedures, study and explore solutions for South Woodward vacancies. I know the DDA is talking about, Woodward vacancies, and continue to ensure that new developments in Ferndale are aligned with the master land use plan, harmonious with surrounding developments, and in compliance with the zoning ordinance.

Any other questions on the 2024 annual report? Alright. Coming up, I do have, I think, three admin reviews in my folder to approve this Friday. Most of them pretty basic. The, event center on Drayton, the banquet facility event center, the holiday market people or guy did it.

It's just a small change to a canopy. There is, the West Marshall, next to the commercial building at maybe La Prairie. Somebody wants to do something at one of the houses, and I have another one.

Does it turn it into a, like, a wine store? Yeah. Oh, it's not a store, but a A gathering spot for friends and family and whoever knows about it. Yeah.

For the next for the next meeting that does

Why can't I think of his name?

Eli. Eli. Eli.

Eli. There you go.

There you go. For the next meeting, that has that's the wedding venue spot, just keep in mind that we'll need quorum plus one because I won't be able to speak on that if it's being done by the same architects.

No. It's add in review.

Okay.

I'm just saying I have a number of add in reviews in my end. There's another one I can't remember what it is, but it is likely you will see the car wash at the next planning commission meeting.

Still l car wash still same location?

L car wash.

Okay.

Could be the next one, but I'm gonna probably just save time and get it before.

We only do one a month, so it's either April or May.

There's another attachment in here.

What amendments? Let's move to, are so are we right are we moving to item nine b, the discussion related to potential code amendments?

Yes. Okay. An Excel spreadsheet together, but I guess I didn't put it on this desktop. So as we talked about, I was pretty confident that implementing a new code will quickly, have me finding things that we should clarify or correct. And I found a couple of things, and Scott Worthington found a couple of things.

Just wanna briefly talk about them. In section three zero three, we talk about architectural features on a building, and we say they can impede into the setback three feet as long as they are three feet from the property line. Well, if you have to be three feet from the property line, for most, setbacks to our side, it really should have a maximum of two feet. But then in another section, we say cantilevering your building, you have you can be two feet as long as you're three three feet from your property line. So Scott recommends combining them and just saying, you know, any architectural projection or cantilever can be two feet into the required setback as long as you're three feet from the property line and, keep it simple there.

There's also he wanted to write in there, clarifying that eaves can extend one foot past whatever projection. Three, section nine point o five e point one, I just noticed in here it says, or the CE director may determine the property owner must seek planning commission subject to and it really should be seek planning commission approval subject to the provisions.

In two point o eight d,

if a detached garage is provided, the side yard setback of the primary residential structure must be a minimum of nine feet with a driveway at least seven feet in width. So this is an interior lot. You have a detached garage. Wanna make sure there's a driveway that can get you back there wide enough. But we didn't think about how does that work in a corner lot or an alley that you're not accessing it from the front street.

So we wanna put something in there that exempts that. I also wanna just make sure and review the approval standards. The approval standards are in every application. So site plan, there might be, like, seven approval standards. PUD might have 15.

Just wanna make sure they all make sense. Vacation standards, I've talked with the city attorney on. We do have an application process for site plans and rezonings and PUDs. We don't have one for vacation. I know that falls a lot to state law, but there's no findings in it or anything.

So I wanna talk with Dan to see if we should codify that. I do have a vacation request before us. And then, we are section two point o six. I'll specifically talk about MXD 1, but in the MXD 1 district, if you wanna build a single family, single unit, a duplex, or a single unit, or two to four, your front setback is an average of the five on either side of you. But if you are a, commercial use or five or more, you must be 15 to 20 feet back.

So it doesn't make sense that it's like, take Marshall Street, for example. If someone wanted to build a single family home and all those buildings are up close, we would say, single family home can be up close. But if you're building a commercial building, we want you to be 20 feet back. So I think we need to take a look at all those setbacks, and just make sure they're correct. I don't know if anybody has seen anything in the code.

So if you have, feel free to email it.

Are any of these items that you brought up kind of urgent items that we need to address really quickly or else it's going to create huge hiccups later or, or are there are they kind of just smaller things here and there?

No. The front setback one in particular is related to the Marshall Street project. And, you know, I wanna be very careful because the code will not work perfectly for everybody. Right? We have 9,000 parcels, and we don't wanna be reactionary to one person and then change the code, and then over here, it doesn't make sense.

But in that case, it really does make sense, and they can't move forward at all with their application until we make it correct.

Would they be able to approach the zoning board of appeals?

They could, but what's your hardship? You know, it's really a code thing. The code it would make no sense that commercial is 20 feet back, but a single family home can be five feet. Just I think we just didn't think through some things. And, really, the single family, the duplex to four, the five in the commercial should probably all just be the same as as an average of your neighbors, and that's your front setback.

So it makes sense in the plane.

Would you be able to get us a list? Just hearing that was I'm having a hard time visualizing what some of these

code, I have a list right here that I meant to pull up, but I will email it to you.

Perfect. Yeah. And just and just a a list of things in the the the proposed amendment language. And, and then, like, if if so one of the things that helps is, like, if you explain to us the problem with the existing, just so that way we're not reviewing that in a vacuum. Well advanced.

And then, since I do have a month to do this, I did plan on reviewing it again from front to back because now my mind is a little clear from all the reviews. So I hope to create an Excel spreadsheet like this and then give it to you probably a week before the agenda is set and then set it on the agenda.

And so so we will in the next PC meeting will be in the next planning commission meeting, we'll vote on that and then it will go to council to codify that?

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Then the same thing with the eve issue. Technically, it can't impede in, so we have we have a number of building permits that we wanna get it done quickly.

The rest of them are smaller, but if I'm taking them all, I might as well just take a group of them together. With that said, that is all of staff's items for today.

Thank you, thank you for pulling all that together.

Thank you.

Do we have any, commission items? K.

Well,

I guess I don't know if it's appropriate question, but so we're down one step person, so presumably we backfilled either Christine or Kyle's position. Do we have anybody in the pipeline for interviews, or are you guys

doing okay? We conducted open houses last week. We selected six people to move forward to the open house. Of the six, we've selected five to move forward for in person interviews. In person interviews are next week on Tuesday, nine to one or so.

So we'll see what comes of that. Okay. More to come.

Great. Not seeing anyone else, jumping in. I will, adjourn the meeting at 07:58PM.

Hi.