A pair of zoning amendments – one concerning building heights and one that would affect four properties on Garfield Avenue – are on the docket at tonight’s regular meeting of the Traverse City Board of Commissioners. How the commission votes on those two matters will impact the future of a proposed hotel development in the Warehouse District (pictured), as well as facilities on Garfield that belong to State Savings Bank and Aspire North Realtors, respectively. Other key items on the agenda include a discussion about approving up to $60,000 in funding for a volleyball court expansion project at West End Beach, the city’s annual winter snow maintenance report, and “consideration of establishing an ad hoc interview committee to make recommendation regarding appointments to the Board of Zoning Appeals.”

Perhaps the biggest question heading into tonight's meeting is whether commissioners will vote in favor of a consequential text amendment to the Traverse City Code of Ordinances that would change building height requirements within the C-4a district. C-4a zoning denotes commercial “regional center districts” along the outskirts of downtown. Specifically at issue is the Warehouse District, where developers are planning to build a new four-story Marriott hotel. 

Developer Jeff Schmitz of J.S. Capitol Group initially sought a height variance from the Board of Zoning Appeals that would have enabled him to build to a height of 48 feet, eight inches on the 211 and 221 West Grandview Parkway parcels. Schmitz argued that historic contamination in the soils at the properties made excavating and building underground a major risk. Schmitz also said that being held to a 45-foot maximum without being able to build downward might make it impossible for the hotel to stick to its four-floor design, which could in turn impact the feasibility of the project.

But the Board of Zoning Appeals denied J.S. Capitol’s request, with some members noting that similar requests kept coming through for Warehouse District properties – including Hotel Indigo, which was approved for a similar dimensional variance in 2011. Variances are intended as a way to address conditions unique to a specific property that render zoning requirements onerous and difficult to meet. Some zoning board members felt that multiple variance requests in the Warehouse District indicated that the issues in question weren't unique to specific properties, but were characteristic of the broader district. As such, the board decided that updating the zoning code entirely would be a more proper course versus continuing to grant variances. Schmitz subsequently submitted a proposed text amendment to the Planning Commission, which approved the proposal.

The text amendment on the agenda this evening “would allow an additional five feet in height to be approved by the Planning Commission (for a total of 50 feet in height) within the C-4a district if there are subsurface soil conditions, elevation of groundwater, or other environmental conditions which impact the depth of subsurface structural or foundation systems, below grade parking, or basements.” If approved, the amendment will go into effect August 15 and will effectively give the Traverse City Planning Commission the ability to approve taller buildings in the C-4a district than have previously been allowed without variances. The tweak would likely give J.S. Capitol Group an open path toward approval of their hotel design, and could also affect future developments in the Warehouse District.

Tonight's meeting will also see the Commission considering two separate applications for “conditional rezonings” of four different properties on Garfield Avenue. One of those applications comes from Aspire North Realtors (formerly Traverse Area Association of Realtors, or TAAR), which is seeking to split a property it owns at 833 Fern Street and combine some of the land with another property it owns at 852 S Garfield. Aspire North also wishes to have part of the Fern Street property rezoned from its current R-2 designation (two-family dwelling) to C-3 (community center).

Similarly, SSB Real Estate LLC (State Savings Bank) wishes to execute a land division of a parcel it holds at 837 Fern Street, rezone part of that property from R-2 to C-3, and combine some of the land with a parcel it owns at 862 S Garfield. The properties that SSB Real Estate owns on Garfield and Fern are adjacent to the properties owned by Aspire North on those streets.

Per a memo from Planning Director Shawn Winter, the purpose of these requests is “to create a larger shared parking lot” for the joint needs of Aspire North and State Savings Bank. Aspire North, Winter noted, regularly hosts trainings and other events for realtor members from throughout the 10-county region. Given that reach, Winter wrote, Aspire North events “often bring many people to their location and their current parking area is insufficient for their current needs."

As for State Savings Bank, Winter noted the company is planning to demolish the structure that currently sits on the 862 S Garfield parcel and construct a new building that would eventually serve as its headquarters. “Given the amount of employees they intend to have onsite and the customers they will be serving, [State Savings Bank] too feel their site is inadequate for their parking needs,” Winter wrote. Splitting and rezoning some of the property it owns at 837 Fern would allow the bank to add additional parking to the west of the new headquarters.

While the easternmost parts of the Fern Street properties would be rezoned to C-3, the portions further west that abut Fern Street would retain their residential zoning. As the zoning request is “conditional,” it also comes with voluntary conditions offered by the property owners to minimize impact of the rezoning on residential property owners along Fern Street, such as agreeing to a more substantial tree and landscaping buffer than is officially required by C-3 zoning.

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