8.19.19 MEETING MINUTES - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, August 19, 2019 Page 3 would have been a good time to talk about it. I think before a resolution is passed, I would ask that you get some input from some residents back there. There are two different Wards that live back there. I think it would be good to discuss to see if anything should be done or shouldn't. Maybe just a couple trees and then some fencing and a bench. I don't think you need anything bigger than that. My other item on the agenda tonight, Ordinance 2019-17 and 2019-18 with regard to rezoning residential property to commercial. SOM Center should stay residential. We have had this discussion before. 730 SOM Center was looked at before in regards to potentially adding a retirement building. I think the feeling then with the Council and Planning and Zoning was to keep it that way. I don't feel too kindly about the gentleman who owned the property and decided to sue us and cost us time and money. The other option they could have had was to pass out petitions to residents to get it on the ballot that way as opposed to going through Council. I hope you could work with us a little better if they want to potentially change the property. My personal opinion would be to keep that residential. Thank you. Council President Pro Tem Meyers stated, thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to speak? Mrs. Mills stated, I would like to respond please to Mr. --. Anyway, about Thornapple and SOM on the northeast corner which is Mayfield Village's property. A history, about 15 years ago plus there was a street monument at the corner of Thornapple and SOM which was built by a Thornapple resident. A Meadowood resident became the keeper of the landscape around the structure. Time went on and after the resident passed away, no one took over the charge of the plantings. The structure was removed about the time of the SOM widening. There was an Eastgate Homeowner's Association but it has been dissolved. In the past three years, residents have talked to me about another monument. On October 25, 2018, Victor Gattozzi contacted Mayor Bodnar regarding the corner and other construction problems. E-mail was forwarded to me. On October 30, 2018, I contacted Mr. Gattozzi. A meeting was discussed with a committee of three people, Mr. Gattozzi, John Ranallo of Meadowood Drive and Dona Kless of Thornapple who I asked to be on this primary committee. November 20, 2018, present at that meeting was Mr. Gattozzi, Mr. Ranallo and Mrs. Kless and myself. Discussion: What could be done with the corner? Requested opinions from Doug Metzung and landscape architect. Also discussed was the properties east of subject property as the Smakula property. May 21, 2019, drawings for the corner sent to Gattozzi, Ranallo and Kless. Information regarding the gas company repair station. No meetings will be held until gas company problem is resolved. Mr. Metzung has been in touch with Mr. Gattozzi. We have had no meetings and when we were having our meetings, we were discussing many things about putting a monument up with Eastgate Estates' name on it. The committee didn't want that. All they want to do is have a nice bench and some trees put up there. However, we had decided that whatever we did we were going to definitely inform all of the residents in the area. We tried to cover all bases on this. We had to start somewhere and this was a good start, I believe. Thank you. Council President Pro Tem Meyers stated, thank you.