Report on Non Conforming Use Committee for the B.C.A.

Sally Silver, Feb. 10, 2016

As B.C.A. board members know from our January meeting, I have been appointed to the Non Conforming Use Committee which is to examine how the city might deal with the many non conforming properties throughout the city, and especially in the Bailey neighborhood. I am attaching the “Bailey Newsletter” article I wrote that gives general background on the issue (/DocumentCenter/View/308). I do not have time now to comment on the substance of the 2 committee meetings we have had so far (though will do that in the next week or two), but will make some preliminary comments about the process.

This committee was set up on December 15th. Before that, on November 17th, the council had already referred a new draft ordinance on this matter to 3 commissions: Housing, Planning, and the Student Commission. The Non Conforming Use Committee includes representatives from those commissions and others (as outlined in the article).

Each of these commissions will send its own recommendations on this issue to the City Council for consideration. My committee can come up with its own recommendations and is not required to come up with some ‘blended’ recommendation (somehow combining the different features of each commission, for example). In addition, it is not clear to me that representatives from these commissions feel free to make recommendations that differ from the views of their commissions. Moreover, at the same time that ‘my’ committee is just taking up this matter for the first time, some of the other commissions are on the verge of making their formal recommendations. Some committee members thus have more background on this issue than those, like myself, who are just examining it, and probably more settled views.

At our first meeting on January 22nd, at the recommendation of Chairperson Douglas Jester, we decided to take up a series of topics, one for each session, and only towards the last few sessions to make recommendations that would be forwarded to the City Council. Doug also suggested (and the committee accepted) that as we discussed final recommendations, the names of each member who agreed with a particular view would be recorded, and that we would not have a minority report instead. That indicates to me that we aren’t necessarily aiming for a consensus recommendation, and perhaps anticipates that such will be difficult.

I see this process as somewhat confusing: three members of the committee may feel bound by decisions of their commissions; those recommendations may differ from each other; our committee’s recommendations may in turn differ from the recommendations of the other commissions; and our committee may even present an assortment of views. The city council will then have to sort through these various recommendations and perhaps pick and choose from what is presented. That isn’t necessarily ‘bad,’ but it does limit the impact of any one committee’s or commission’s views.

We meet on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month at 7 pm. The first meeting was held in Conference Room A (second floor city hall), but our last was on the first floor adjacent to the court (and fine payment windows). Members of the public are welcome to attend, but Doug Jester requested that most people hold their comments until the final meetings where we discuss general recommendations. Since the other meetings take up discrete topics, it would not be appropriate to make general recommendations at those meetings. There is not a lot of room for observers, and so far mostly landlords have attended.

At the first meeting we reviewed background materials including Darcy Schmitt’s memo of 2012 giving background on Ordinance 900, non conforming uses, and many other related matters. I’ll forward that memo to you (/DocumentCenter/View/307) and recommend that you read it. We were also given a map showing nonconforming rentals throughout the city, most of them in Bailey. The points raised by the landlord and neighborhood committee that took up this matter a year ago was included, and a few pages by the city attorney explaining what structural and other changes are allowed under our current ordinance on non conforming uses (Section 50-583) and by the ordinance put forward by the Council last November. However, I stated that I did not understand that proposal, and learned that it had also been confusing to members of the Planning Commission. Samples of similar ordinances from other Michigan cities were included, as well as Michael Lawrence’s article on how the state might amortize non conforming uses. Most of this was given me in hard copy, so I cannot forward it to you.

The second meeting topic was ‘maps.’ These maps were given to us at the meeting, which made it difficult for me to comment on them (other than to ask questions) since I had not seen them before. These maps were not available in electronic form. These included future land use maps, maps showing rental properties in different neighborhoods, and illustrative sheets explaining the meaning of different future use categories. These categories show ‘units per acre,’ but in some cases replicate the names of current zoning classifications, which made them confusing for me. For example, R1 is a current zoning classification for single family homes with large lots, but on the maps we received, it refers to “Residential up to 5 units/acre.” It covers many parts of the Bailey neighborhood that are now zoned “R 2.” A unit is a dwelling unit (a house or an apartment). These maps evidently form part of the work on the new Comprehensive Plan, which has not yet been finalized or approved. These categories are not ‘new zones,’ but if adopted, may lead the city to try to rezone parts of the city to coincide with the densities suggested by these categories.

Our next meeting (Thursday, Feb. 11) was supposed to take up building modifications, but some information requested for that session at the last minute could not be readied in time. Instead, Chairman Jester has indicated that “This meeting should be used to make sure everyone understands current practice, areas of potential agreement, and areas of conflict.” Then presumably our next meeting would be modifications, then transitions (amortization), then formal incentives/programs, and then license transfers. These topic meetings would then be followed by meetings to come up with more general recommendations. Meetings had been scheduled through March, but it looks like they will go into April unless we increase the rate of our meetings (2/month).

I’ll aim to make comments in another posting on some of the substance of what we’ve discussed, but will not give general rundowns of the meetings. Action minutes are taken for each meeting and they are recorded, but I can’t locate these online.

If you have questions, please email me at: sallytsilver@hotmail.com