City of Aurora Planning and Zoning Commission met March 2.
Here are the minutes provided by the commission:
CALL TO ORDER
Chairman Pilmer called the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.
ROLL CALL
The following Commission members were present: Chairman Pilmer, Mrs. Anderson,
Mr. Choudhury, Mr. Elsbree and Mr. Gonzales. Mr. Chambers and Mr. Kahn called in
and excused themselves from the meeting. Mrs. Owusu-Safo was absent.
OTHERS PRESENT
The following staff members were present: Mr. Sieben, Mrs. Vacek, Mrs. Morgan and
Mrs. Jackson.
Others Present: Kellie McIvor (Redwood), Mazie Harris (Leafing Life Dispensary),
Bernie Harper (Wayside Cross), Clara Diaz (Balderas Beauty Salon), Mark Hogan
(Tavern on Broadway), Dulce Vargas (21 N. Broadway), Rigo Pouce (Bella Jewelry),
Nancy Grey (14 N. Broadway) and Scot Bode (Knightsbridge Global, LLC).
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
22-0160 Approval of the Minutes of the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on February 16, 2022.
A motion was made by Mrs. Anderson, seconded by Chairman Pilmer, that the
minutes be approved and filed. The motion carried.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Chairman Pilmer said if you are here for an item that does not appear on the agenda
as a public hearing and you wish to speak to the Commission, we can give you 3
minutes to do so.
No one came forward.
AGENDA
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
21-0949 A Resolution Approving the Final Plat for Redwood of Aurora Subdivision, on vacant land located north of W. Indian Trail and east of N.
Randall Road (Redwood USA, LLC - 21-0949 / AU08/4-21.335-Fsd/Fpn
- JM - Ward 6)
See Attachment for Items 21-0949 and 21-0950.
A motion was made by Mr. Choudhury, seconded by Mrs. Anderson, that this
agenda item be Forwarded to the Building, Zoning, and Economic
Development Committee, on the agenda for 3/9/2022. The motion carried.
21-0950 A Resolution Approving a Final Plan on Lot 1 and Lot 2 of Redwood of Aurora Subdivision, located north of W. Indian Trail and east of N. Randall
Road for a ROW Dwelling (Party Wall) (1130) Use (Redwood USA, LLC -
21-0950 / AU08/4-21.335-Fsd/Fpn - JM - Ward 6)
See Attachment for Items 21-0949 and 21-0950.
A motion was made by Mrs. Anderson, seconded by Mr. Choudhury, that this
agenda item be Forwarded to the Building, Zoning, and Economic
Development Committee, on the agenda for 3/9/2022. The motion carried.
Attachment for Items 21-0949 and 21-0950:
21-0949 A Resolution approving the Final Plat for Redwood of Aurora Subdivision on
vacant land located north of W. Indian Trail and east of N. Randall Road (Redwood
USA, LLC – 21-0949 / AU08/4-21.335-Fsd/Fpn – JM – Ward 6)
Mrs. Morgan said I will just briefly introduce this and then turn it over to the developer
who does have a presentation. If you recall, this came before the Commission for a
rezoning and a preliminary plan and plat late last fall. So they are coming back with a
Final Plan and Plat, which is consistent with the preliminary. Here is the preliminary
plan. As you may recall, the project is for 50 buildings, 198 units that range in size
from about 1,200 to 1,600 square feet. These are all 2 bedroom, 2 baths, patios, a 2
car driveway and a 2 car garage. This will be a rental townhome development and it will
be managed by the developers, who are also basically managers for all Redwood
projects. As you recall, we worked a lot with Redwood before they even came in to get
this nice layout with the roads kind of circulating throughout, several detentions, and
we have paths that go around those detention facilities. What we didn’t see at
preliminary was the landscape plan. The landscape plan they submitted included a lot
of heavy clustering with canopy and evergreen trees around the perimeters that border
the single family homes to provide some buffering. There are also 3 detention
facilities in that area as well, and it has their own vegetation, so a lot of buffering for
those. The elevations, and the developer will go into more detail about that, but we’ve
also worked with them to make sure we could get some changes to variations so it is
not all static.
My name is Kellie McIvor. I’m with Redwood Living. We’re at 7007 E. Pleasant Valley
Road, Independence, Ohio 44131. I just want to give everybody a brief refresh
because it’s been so long since I’ve seen everyone. I’ll talk just briefly about how
Redwood is and what we build and then we’ll talk specifically about what we’re going to
build here. Before I start, I did want to thank Jill and Tim DuSell. Both of them gave a
lot of time and attention and guidance to the project and the reason it looks like it
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
does is in no small part to all their efforts. So first a little about who Redwood is. We
are single story apartment neighborhood developers. We build one thing and one thing
only. It is single story apartments, each with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, a 2 car attached
garage, a 2 car driveway in front of that and a 10 by 10 patio on the back. So if you
drove past it, you might think it was a single family ranch condominium neighborhood.
We have over 13,800 actually, 13,800 homes, CO’d and occupied right now. I’ll just
talk very briefly about who our residents are a little later, but I do like to talk about that
13,800 number upfront because I’m going to give you some pretty specific facts and it
means one thing when those facts come from a sample size of 50 home or 2,000
homes. When you start to get up to almost 14,000 homes, there are outliers, but it
gets hard to move the average on either side. We own everything that we’ve ever built.
That was very important to the Councilmen because the neighborhood will always
remain under Redwood ownership. We have about 470 employees now. What I do is
the smallest part of what we do, acquisitions and development, about 50. The rest of
the company is all in the property management side. Everyone of our neighborhoods
has at least 1 dedicated Property Manager and 1 dedicated Maintenance Technician
and that is what we do. We build neighborhoods for our property management side to
then maintain and that is how we grow our company. So we do own everything that
we’ve ever built. This is just where we are over the Midwest. You can start to see a
little bit of our standard elevation. They’re a little bit of differentiations than what we’d
like to build in Aurora, but you can see that one of the ways we vary the roof elevations
here is with the dormer on the top there. You see the upgraded garage doors with the
windows, the carriage details, the stone accents. Again, you can see that. If you
looked at it or drove past it, you wouldn’t necessarily think apartment home when you
looked at it. Just to stress again, we have 1 owner. We are actually structured around
perm loans with private lenders. We are structured to remain to keep our portfolio in
hand and to remain under that common unified ownership. The Plan Description
language actually insures that. It was not a problem for us to agree to that because it
is what we do. Just a little bit about our residents. Across our portfolio, about 70% of
our residents are empty nesters. The average age is 51 years old, so you’ll find people
on either side of that, but right around 51 is the average. Most of our residents do
come from within a 3 mile radius of the neighborhood, so they are people who are
already in Aurora, coaching softball teams, volunteering at the library and their kids
have moved out and they would like a place to stay. They don’t want to mow the lawns
anymore and this is a place that they can go. We are not age restricted and we are
not assisted living, but we build the inside of our homes in a way that’s attractive to
empty nesters, so there is zero entry between the garage and the home. The light
switches are at wheelchair radii, plumbed for grab bars. We are all ADA accessible
on the interior. Again, just a way to make ourselves really attracted to people who wish
to age in place. We’ve got about 7 children per 100 homes. It was 11 school children
per 100 homes when we started this project, but we updated our information at the end
of last year and it is now at 7 children. More homes in the portfolio, fewer children in
those neighborhoods and that just, again, bears out that empty nester demographic.
A lot of times when you hear the word renters, there can be sort of a knee jerk
negative reaction to that. What’s going to happen to my property values? Are these
people good people? Whenever I get their reaction, I just want to turn around and ask
everyone in the room who here has ever lived in an apartment, right? I would hazard a
guess to say in any given room, most people have rented an apartment at one time in
their lives. I would also hazard a guess to say most of us are pretty good people, but
we don’t rely on that to qualify our residents. Every person who lives in our homes
must go through the exact same rental qualification process. If you are going to be
over 18 and you are going to live in the home, you need to appear on the home on the
background check and you need to appear on the lease. So there’s not a situation
where like mom and dad are in absentia paying for their kid’s apartment home.
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
Everyone goes through credit checks, rental history checks. If you’ve been evicted,
we don’t rent to you. If you have a passive attack to a landlord, we don’t rent to you.
Criminal background checks. If you have a certain amount of DUI’s in a certain
amount of time, we don’t rent to you. Felony convictions in a much longer time, we
don’t rent to you. So in that way, we are able to control who lives in our neighborhoods
more tightly than single family neighborhoods whose HOA declaration doesn’t address
that. That was very important to our neighbors, this part of our business plan, was
very important to our neighbors in the single family subdivision around us. We are
stricter in our rental practices. We meet or are stricter than Aurora’s rental ordinance
in that. We’re starting our rents around $1.67 a square. That’s just under $2,300 a
unit. At the bottom of the page, you can see what the homes are to look like. Again,
there is a different garage door here. There are the shake accents over the gable.
Again, the concrete driveways. All our roads and driveways are concrete. They are
more expensive, but if we are going to maintain them then we want to be solid upfront.
Just a couple of our exteriors here, which you’ll see the actual renderings in a minute.
Interiors, we have minimum 1,300 square foot floor plans, they are like 1,294, granite
countertops, wood plank flooring, all the upscale finishes that you would expect to see
in a neighborhood asking these rents. But what I think is so cool about this is the
picture on this side with the bedroom where you can look out the window and you can
see what it looks like to live in a home in a Redwood neighborhood. You can see that
streetscape and it’s very warm and attractive and, again, not the sort of parking lot that
you would typically associate with traditional garden story multi-family. So here is the
site. North of us is Indian Trail and east is Randall. You can see we are surrounding
by Golden Oaks there and the Walgreens on the corner and the massive water tower
there. My CEO keeps asking me can we get Redwood on the water tower. I’m like no,
they’re not going to let you put the Redwood on the water tower. This is our concept
plan. Jill already previewed it up for you and you’ve all seen it in your packets. It is 36
acres, 198 homes, which is 10% fewer than we had originally proposed. There is 7
acres of detention. All that green space adds up to about 55% of the site. There are
sidewalks highlighted throughout, walking trails, a big shelter and some of these might
be familiar to you. Nothing has changed on this since our original presentation. We
are still committed to this sort of beautiful entry. This rendering has not changed at
all. We’ve been committed to this from the front, so the beautiful double boulevard
entry. You’ve got the detention ponds on each side with fountains. You’ve got that
really nice curvy view coming up to that main detention pond, which leads to the
overlook area. This is when you are coming in the entry. If you turn to the left, you
can see our leasing office and if you kept going straight, you curve around to see
those front porch homes leading up and around to that main detention pond. Then
here are some of the homes along the way. You can see that there is stone on the
front elevation, the dormer to kind of vary the streetscape. The other way we can vary
the roofing is with raised roof trusses, which we have a few of here to deal with some of
the elevations, the shake over the eaves. This is when you come up and around the
corner with the shelter and sort of the overlook onto that really nice pond. These are
the Forestwoods. Again, we’ve got variation in color. This one has the raised roof
truss and, again, everything’s got the upgraded garage door with the windows and the
carriage details. A really pretty neighborhood here. Some shake accents on the
buildings. There should be no surprises in here. This is just a comparison with our
homes around the corner, our neighbors in Golden Oaks. We are very aesthetically
compatible with what they have over in their neighborhood. You can even see some of
it in this comparison of the photos side by side on the bottom with the trims and eaves
and the type of siding, so really just a nice flow up from the single family down through
this medium density multi-family neighborhood down to the commercial area and over
to Indian Trail and Randall. If you have any questions or concerns, I’d love to chat with
you about them.
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Mrs. Anderson said I have question. I remember last time you spoke about there is
no street parking. Is that correct?
Ms. McIvor said that’s correct.
Mrs. Anderson said so could you show where guests would park for the residents
there?
Ms. McIvor said yes. First of all, each home has 4 parking spaces, 2 in the garage
and 2 in the driveway. But you can see throughout the neighborhood there’s little
parking pads throughout. There are 73 additional spaces throughout the neighborhood
for people to park in, for their guest to park in. There is no on-street parking. It is in
the lease. It is spelled out if you park in the street, we will tow you.
Mrs. Morgan said staff would recommend conditional approval of a Resolution
approving the Final Plat for Redwood of Aurora Subdivision on vacant land located
north of W. Indian Trail and east of N. Randall Road with the following condition:
1. That all the comments of the Engineering Division be addressed prior to approval
of Final Engineering.
MOTION OF CONDITIONAL APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mr. Choudhury
MOTION SECONDED BY: Mrs. Anderson
AYES: Chairman Pilmer, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Choudhury, Mr. Elsbree, Mr.
Gonzales
NAYS: None
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Building, Zoning and Economic
Development Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 9th at 4:00 p.m. in Council
Chambers.
21-0950 A Resolution approving a Final Plan on Lot 1 and Lot 2 of Redwood of Aurora
Subdivision located north of W. Indian Trail and east of N. Randall Road for a ROW
Dwelling (Party Wall) (1130) Use (Redwood USA, LLC – 21-0950 / AU08/4-21.335
-Fsd/Fpn – JM – Ward 6)
Mrs. Morgan said staff would recommend conditional approval of a Resolution
approving a Final Plan on Lot 1 and Lot 2 of Redwood of Aurora Subdivision located
north of W. Indian Trail and east of N. Randall Road for a ROW Dwelling (Party Wall)
(1130) Use with the following condition:
1. That all the comments of the Engineering Division be addressed prior to approval
of Final Engineering.
MOTION OF CONDITIONAL APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mrs. Anderson
MOTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Choudhury
AYES: Chairman Pilmer, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Choudhury, Mr. Elsbree, Mr.
Gonzales
NAYS: None
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Building, Zoning and Economic
Development Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 9th at 4:00 p.m. in Council
Chambers.
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22-0045 An Ordinance Granting a Conditional Use Permit for a Cannabis Dispensing Facility (2115) Use on the Property located at 35 N.
Broadway (WAH Group, LLC d/b/a Leafing Life Dispensary - 22-0045 /
AU22/3-22.011-CU - TV - WARD 2) (PUBLIC HEARING)
Mrs. Vacek said the subject property is located at 35 N. Broadway and is currently
zoned Downtown Core District zoning. Just to give you a little background on this
property, in April 2020, a Special Use, which now is referred to as a Conditional Use,
was approved on this property for a cannabis dispensing facility. After that approval,
there were 2 extensions approved in late 2020 and 2021 granting additional time for
compliance of that Conditional Use, due to the COVID pandemic, which suspended the
cannabis dispensing licensing by the State. The State did have the lottery and the
then Petitioner failed to receive a license and did not request a third extension.
Therefore, the Conditional Use was terminated as of October 28, 2021. The Petitioner,
WAH Group, LLC, is requesting approval of a new Conditional Use for a cannabis
dispensing facility. The proposal includes leasing the first floor commercial space in
the existing 2 story building to operate a cannabis dispensing facility. The area is
about 3,500 square feet. The second floor is currently a State Farm insurance
company and that will remain for now. The Petitioner does have the option to purchase
the entire building. If that purchase occurs, the Petitioner is planning to expand their
offices up on the second floor. Just to make another note, the Downtown Core does
not have parking requirements. However, there are several public parking lots within
walking distance of this proposed area. I will turn it over to the Petitioner unless there
are questions for me.
Chairman Pilmer said are there any differences from what we previously approved?
Mrs. Vacek said I guess the only difference is, is that the previous Petitioner was
looking at maybe expanding into the basement. This Petitioner is not looking at any
expansion into the basement.
The Petitioner was sworn in.
Hello. My name is Mazie Harris and I am the Managing Partner of WAH Group. We
call it WAH Group, doing business as Leafing Life Dispensary. I’m also an Illinois
licensed attorney and my address is 180 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 3700 in Chicago,
Illinois. First of all, I’d like to thank everyone today and thanks to Mrs. Vacek and Ed
Sieben for all of their work to assist us today with this. As I stated, our name is WAH
Group, LLC, doing business as Leafing Life Dispensary. I reside in Chicago, Illinois.
I’m a licensed attorney and I run a boutique private practice in downtown Chicago, and
I have 4 specialty areas, DUI, Cannabis, Personal Injury as well as Real Estate Law. I
also sit on the Board of the Water Reclamation District as the Vice Chairman of the
Civil Service Board. I also serve as Commission of the Court of Claims and we
preside over hearings when people sue the State. I would like to take a moment to
introduce my partners. One partner is Jesse White, III. Jesse White also lives in
Chicago, but he grew up in Naperville, attended Neuqua Valley and he is an engineer
by trade. Also, my other partner is Kenneth Askins. He lives in Matteson, Illinois and
he is a manager of a Social Service agency where they help homeless veterans. Also
I would like to also introduce, we have an Advisory Board of 5 members and 2 of the
members are here today. I’d like to introduce Scott Winslow. Scott Winslow is the
former CEO of Michael Reese Hospital and he has within the last 50 years served
either as CEO or a consultant in the health care industry. We’re glad to have him here
today. Also I have John Kendall. John Kendall is an Illinois licensed attorney. John
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sits on the Board with me. He is the Chairman of the Civil Service Board of the Water
Reclamation District and he is one of the top patent and trademark attorneys in the
State of Illinois. It is a federal bar. Patent and trademark is federal. We also have 3
additional Advisory Board members who could not be here today and just to show you
the diversity of our Board, I want to give you information about those Advisory Board
members. One is Terrence Johnson. He is a retired Chicago police officer and he is
currently employed with the Illinois Secretary State Police. Nina Feign is also an
Illinois licensed attorney and she works with publicly traded companies. Then Chris
Gardner. Chris Gardner is a motivational speaker and businessman. Many people
may know Chris from the book, the Pursuit of Happiness, and the movie where Will
Smith played him. So as you can see, we have a very diverse Board to assist our
company in its growth. Just to give the Commission some information about Leafing
Life Dispensary, we made 12 applications in hopes of being awarded 10 licenses,
which is the maximum. We were grateful that we were awarded 2 licenses. One
license is in what’s called the Chicago, Naperville, Elgin BLS Region, which allows for
us to open a dispensary in the City of Aurora. Illinois, the Act as you know, was
enacted in June of 2019. It became effective January 1, 2020. Illinois has some of
the strictest standards, the most stringent standards as it pertains to cannabis
dispensary in the United States and what we like about what the City of Aurora did is
that your Ordinance is very complimentary to the Act. Why we say that is that the
Ordinance has designated 2 slots for Social Equity applicants and that’s huge and it’s
keeping in mind the mission of the State and that is to bring true social equity to this
industry. Now I would like to first speak, I guess I’m speaking to the Commission, but
I also feel like I’m speaking to the crowd, I would like first to speak with everyone
regarding what is the designation of a Social Equity applicant. The Act defines the
Social Equity applicant as an Illinois resident who owns 51% or more of the business
who has either resided for at least 5 of the 10 preceding years in a disproportionately
impacted area or someone who has been arrested for, convicted of, or judged to be a
ward of the juvenile court for any offense that is eligible for expungement under the Act
or an applicant who at the time of the submission of their application had a minimum
of 10 full time employees and 51% of these employees have resided in
disproportionately impacted areas or they’ve been arrested for, convicted of, or judged
to be a ward of the juvenile court for any offense that is eligible for expungement. Now
this next statement I’m going to make, I’m going to explain why I’m making this
statement. There were 185 licenses awarded and all the 185 licenses awarded in 3
lottery rounds all went to social equity applicants. So when I say we are true social
equity applicants, I mean we are true social equity applicants. We qualified as a social
equity applicant under the first prong and that is that we have lived in a
disproportionately impacted area for 5 out of the last 10 years, and why we say true is
because the Act allows for individuals who have not lived in DIA areas who have not
been exposed to that higher employees in order to qualify as a social equity applicant.
Now the next question is why did we choose this beautiful city of Aurora? I can’t say
it’s because the Mayor’s running for Governor because that was just announced, but
we chose Aurora because Aurora is the second largest city in Illinois. Now I want to
say first we were looking at Chicago to open. With me practicing real estate law, we
do a lot of zoning and land use work and with that, I’ve been in a lot of Alderman’s
offices and I’ve sought for different approvals for my clients. So I felt that it would
have been a conflict to walk into their offices now and ask for approval for myself.
Then we started looking outside of the City of Chicago and Aurora is the second
largest city. Not only is it the second largest city, but Aurora is growing. The Mayor
discussed with us the plans that he has here in Aurora, his staff, the Zoning and
Planning staff, as well as Alderman Garza, and when you look at being a real estate
attorney, the housing trends, the housing trends in Chicago, people are moving out of
Chicago. They are moving to the suburbs, they are moving out of state, but what we
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find in Aurora is that the housing trends, a house stays on the market approximately
10 days here before it is under contract. So you have where people are moving in. So
what happens when people are moving in? What we find is that older individuals are
moving out and younger individuals are moving in. What does that bring? It brings
new vibrancy, it brings new ideas, it brings a new desire to explore their city and who
does that benefit? It benefits the City of Aurora and it benefits the businesses. Being
situated in the Downtown Corridor, we believe with the work that Mayor Irvin has told us
about, we believe that the downtown area of Aurora after the pandemic or it’s pretty
much over, will be a very vibrant city and the downtown area is somewhere that we
would like to be. As Mrs. Vacek indicated, we rented the first floor of 35 N. Broadway
to operate our dispensary. We are entering into a 10 year lease and we’re looking to
expand from 3,500 square feet to 5,000 or more square feet on the second floor
location. State Farm is there currently. As Mrs. Vacek indicated, this location was
previously approved for a license to operate a cannabis dispensary. That’s how we
learned of the site. One of our Advisory Board members, Chris Gardner, we were
determining, since we have 2 licenses, if we were going to raise capital in order to open
both dispensaries or if we were going to sell off one license. Well in that, he put a
gentleman on the phone by the name of Peter Stazone. Peter Stazone, he really did
come to talk about investing. He wanted to tell me how he was awarded this license in
Aurora. However, they were not granted a license by the State. So after we talked for
a while, he said hey, go look at the space. Maybe the owner is still interested in
leasing the space for a cannabis business. So what I did first, I’m not saying that I’m
a very busy attorney, but first I had a site visit conducted by a third party contractor. I
wanted them to go out. I wanted them to survey the area and let me know if the City of
Aurora was the perfect location. Their report came back not satisfactory. They told
me that it wasn’t a great place to open a dispensary. But Peter was still calling and I
knew that I had to meet with Peter again. I said okay, well I don’t want to just say no
without us going out to personally look at it. So we decided to conduct our own site
visit and so I came to the downtown area and I inspected the site. A beautiful
building. I’ve always wanted to own a bank, an old bank building and this was the old
Broadway Savings and Trust. So I said wow, maybe this is a sign. Then when you
stand there at the corner and you’re standing and you have 2 arterial streets, New York
and Broadway, it was just traffic, traffic, traffic. I could see, even though we were in
the middle of a pandemic, I could see what downtown Aurora is and I could see that it
was the perfect location for our dispensary. So the next thing was to meet with Scot.
So we met with Scot and I will tell you in business, you know you think if you just meet
with somebody and say you have a business, I want to lease it, I need the space, then
let’s do it. But no, you have to like the person. So when I met with Scot, he is a very
likable person. We hit it off. The whole team came back. We went to dinner with
Scot over at LaQuinta and we said okay let’s do this. This is our location. Then from
there Pete Stazone put us in contact with Mayor Irvin and we met with Mayor Irvin and
his staff, Ed, and Tracey. You want to be with a city where you have a committed
staff. You want to be in a city where they have a vision and you want to be a part of
that vision. I believe that where the City of Aurora is headed, we believe that we have
a bright future and it’s no wonder that the City of Aurora is called the City of Lights.
We believe that our future is very bright here in the City of Aurora. Now Pete, as well
as Scot, as well as the Zoning and Planning Division, apprised us of the concerns that
were raised by the community residents. I would like to address those issues
because we take that very seriously. One issue was about the long lines. Now on the
onset, originally when this started January 1, 2020 when cannabis became legal to
purchase, no one knew, no one could predict how these dispensaries would operate.
People had a vision of what cannabis consumption was. People feared the worst.
They feared that there would be a line around the corner of essentially what people
thought about cannabis because it was illegal, of drug addicts that would be standing
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
in line. However, 2 years have passed and we have seen that a cannabis dispensary
operates just like any other business, like a 7-Eleven. People come and they go and
they are not in the business for a long period of time. However, we are going to
address that concern and what we are doing is we are going to implement a software
called Next Me. It is a waitlist software. The software will allow our guests to check in
virtually or in person if they walk up and they will scan a QR code using a self-service
kiosk or an online widget via our website. The guests will receive an SMS text
message once they sign up and we will customize that. We can tell them not to stand
outside. We can encourage them to park in a certain lot. This allows the guest also
to virtually view their position in queue in real time, as well as they can view our daily
specials so they are ready when they come in the door. Then the guest will receive
what’s a final text notification to check in when it is their turn for service. We believe
that this will eliminate long lines. The next issue I think was raised by the city and it
dealt with the ventilation plan. So Illinois, if you’re not aware, Illinois is one of the most
regulated states, as stated before, when it comes to cannabis. The cannabis is
tracked from the time that that seed is placed into dirt until the time that it is sold.
The State of Illinois is tracking that plant, that product, the entire way. Now when the
product comes to the dispensary, the product is already packaged. It has to be,
according to the State rules, it has to be hermetically sealed. That means that there
is no odor that can escape. Products are packaged before the come to the
dispensary in 2 ways, either by the cultivation center or by a licensed infuser. So when
it gets to us, our staff is only scanning in the product to place it into our inventory and
then scanning the product again upon its purchase. However, there could be an issue
where one of the products come, one of the products arrive and maybe the bottle was
broken, so maybe cannabis can seep into the air. So for that, even though there isn’t
a cross ventilation system with the upstairs tenant, which is State Farm, we are willing
to address this concern and we will install charcoal scrubbers on our ventilation
system. This will ensure that no odors will go to the upstairs business, any of the
surrounding businesses or any of the common areas where both our customers and
staff are located. The third issue, which was a major issue, was security. With our
plan submitted to the State of Illinois, we submitted a detailed security plan. That
security plan received the most points possible from the State of Illinois. We
developed a 2 tier security system. One is that the State requires every dispensary,
every cannabis business, to have cameras. Those cameras have to be recording 24
hours a day, 7 days a week. These cameras will be installed not only in the interior,
but on the exterior of the building. Now the 2 tier system, we will also hire a private
security company. We not only have 1 security guard, we’ll have 2. One security
guard will be in the waiting area with our staff and the other security guard will be in the
dispensary. The security guard that’s inside the dispensary will be tasked with taking
walks around the building to make sure that everything is okay. To further comply with
the Act, and for security purposes, we will install shatter proof tinted film on all the
exterior windows to prevent the display of any cannabis products. We will make sure
that it is aesthetically pleasing because Mayor Irvin said he wants this to look like the
Apple Store, so we have to make sure that we do that. Also for security, we will make
sure that anyone who enters the establishment will have a valid issued government ID
stating that they are over the age of 21 to purchase. We will also light the exterior. As
you know, a well lit area deters crime. We will also limit our hours of operation.
Although the Act allows us to stay open longer, our hours of operation would be
Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and
on Sunday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. To go back to about the cameras, the State requires for
the cameras to be inspected regularly. If your security system is not working, you
cannot operate. So we will make sure that we comply with the State rules and if there
are any problems with our security equipment, we will not open during that time period.
The next issue, which is the major issue, we read the transcripts and we saw that this
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was a major issue with the city residents, and that was parking. What we liked about
the space and what we love about the space is the fact that there are 4 or 5 parking
lots in the adjacent area and right behind the building is Lot E. Lot E has
approximately 111 parking spaces and then you have Lot M that has 49 spaces. Lot N
has 63 spaces and Lot R also contains 36 spaces. Now I will first indicate that I have
been driving out here regularly at different times of the day and the evening to see if
these parking lots are full. The parking lots are not full. I wanted to see the traffic to
the businesses in the evening time and I looked at the parking and there was always
ample parking. First, we will encourage our customers to take into account the
restaurant like LaQuinta across the street who had indicated that their busiest hours
are in the evening. We will encourage our customers to not park in Lots N and not
park in Lot E during the other business’s busiest hours. We will encourage them to
utilize other lots. We can inform our customers of that through our software, through
the Next Me waitlist software. Also, as we told the city, is that we will also have
placards in our waiting area encouraging them or informing them of the additional lots.
Now parking is not only for our customers. Parking is also for our employees. What
we found is that the parking lots have a timeframe. I believe the timeframe is 3 hours
of parking. We don’t think it’s wise or safe for our employees to have to run outside
and move their vehicle. We’ve been in talks with Dolan and Murphy, but I’m trying to
think it was Bob Dolan. We’re trying to secure monthly parking for our employees.
Now Bob did indicate to us that the lot on Spring Street is currently under contract.
However, something could happen with the contract. We’re supposed to contact Bob,
he said in the middle of the month, to see what’s happened with that. If we can’t
secure monthly parking at that lot, we will look to secure monthly parking at another lot
because it is important for our employees who drive in order to be able to park and not
run out every 90 minutes or every 3 hours to move their vehicle. As I stated, it’s not
safe. Next, we wanted to talk about when people think about cannabis they think, well
I don’t know what they think now. I know what they used to think. It used to be kind
of like a seedy thing. So with aesthetics, first of all it is a beautiful building. We have
promised the Mayor that we will make it look like the Apple Store as much as we can
and it will be well lit and we will keep it in the beautiful condition that it is in now. We
are happy and we hope to be considered or be a business in downtown Aurora. I don’t
have to tell this Commission about the benefits that a cannabis dispensary brings to
the City of Aurora because you have a location now in the City of Aurora so you know
and Zen Leaf is currently here. It can increase foot traffic to downtown businesses. It
is a source of tax revenue for the city. We have spoke with Alderman Garza and we
have committed to her that we will hire local Aurora residents and we will work with her
to do a hiring fair. We also plan to hold educational clinics and seminars regarding
cannabis to the community. We also had to submit a Community Engagement Plan
to the State of Illinois and say how we would engage the community. We had some
ideas and it was a great idea in terms of allowing for, there were certain offenses that
are expungable under the Act, but then there are certain offences that you have to go
and you have to petition in court, so we wanted to work with a firm in order pay to
assist these individuals to go into court to expunge any cannabis offences for them to
individually petition. But not only that, I was a member of the mock trial and I believe
that it is very important to work with young people in their teenage years in order to let
them see what a young attorney looks like. I had a mentor and I want them to take
part in mock trial competitions and we’re looking to engage the City of Aurora in order
to work with the teenage population in order to put these mock trial competitions in the
City of Aurora. So that is my presentation and thank you for the time.
Mr. Gonzales said I have a question for you. When I’m looking at your floor plan, I
noticed in the public entrance going into the right you have seating there, a waiting
area. I know this came up in one of the other Petitioners that came forward, any
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individual walking into that location must have an ID, a state issued driver’s license, to
be allowed through to make a purchase. Are you going to allow anybody who has no
license or who is just going to be hanging out and waiting for their friend to go through,
to be hanging out in that vestibule area?
Ms. Harris said no. In order to wait in the waiting area, you have to have a valid ID and
it has to indicate that you are over the age of 21. No one else can hang out in the
waiting area.
Mr. Gonzales said is there going to be some sort of signage that will be on the front
door or somewhere that’s going to allow people to know before they walk through into
the facility that that’s going to be posted somewhere?
Ms. Harris said yes, that will be posted.
Mrs. Anderson said I have a question. How many customers can you accommodate at
one time?
Ms. Harris said that’s a very good question. It’s funny, I did think of that question, but
the city will require, because of the space of 3,570 square feet, the number of
customers that it can hold. Now as an attorney, I’m thinking about with my, because I
don’t know the city ordinance as it pertains to the city, but I know about 1,200 square
feet allows for 44 occupants. However, we wouldn’t have 44 people in there at a time
because then that results in a long line. I would say that at any given time we would
have at least 8 to 10 people in the dispensary.
The public input portion of the public hearing was opened. The witnesses were sworn
in.
My name is Birnie Harper. I’m here representing Wayside Cross, which is at 215 E.
New York Street. If you look at that picture, we are right next to Lot E. I live in
Naperville, 1220 Laurel Lane. By the end of next month, or early next month, I will have
been working at Wayside Cross for 12 years. Wayside Cross has been in the City of
Aurora for, in June it will be 94 years. We’ve always had a wonderful relationship with
the City of Aurora. We had a little dispute a couple of years ago, but we like the City
of Aurora. It’s always been a nice place. The whole time that I’ve been there, I’ve
been attending Aurora Downtown meetings, lots of meetings with Scot. I moved here
from Fort Smith, Arkansas, which is a city similar to Aurora in an amazing number of
ways. I was always a downtown person there. I’m really impressed with everything that
is going on here. I would say when I went to work at Wayside, the main 2 buildings
were 120 years old and they were slaughterhouses in there and they were well passed
their useful life. I guess it goes back about 5 years now, we’ve spent about
$13,000,000 building the new building and rehabbing all the other buildings there. We
redid the store, the apartments there. We have people living there. What we basically
do, and tonight there are 65 men in that building trying to rebuild their lives. People
don’t just check into Wayside, you know I’m not doing good, let me go in there. It is a
commitment. The reason they go there is because they don’t have any other place to
go. I’ve heard that time and time again. I’m very impressed with the wonderful
presentation. It looks like a wonderful company. I’m not here to object to having a
marijuana dispensary in downtown Aurora. I’m only here to object about that particular
location. Curing yourself, and it used to be a much older population at Wayside and
now they are young and their addiction is much more drugs than alcohol. It’s hard.
You know, Lent started today, and a lot of people during Lent try to give up something.
It’s hard. It’s hard to give up sweets for the 40 days of Lent. These people are trying
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to give up drugs and alcohol for the rest of their life. They stay a minimum of 7
months. Most stay a couple of years. They don’t all make it. They flunk out. Some
of them come back. Some of the lives are wrecked. We just had a person die in a
car wreck last month. It’s hard to be that close to it. We used to have, and I want to
commend the City of Aurora for all the nice things they’ve done in Lot E. The first
thing they did is they put in the much better lighting. There’s a smoking area at
Wayside and there’s a fence there. There hasn’t always been the nicest people on the
other side of that fence. I came to work one day and 7 guys got kicked out because
they had a little drug transaction with stuff being slipped through the fence. Now with
the light, the President of Ukraine said the other day the light drives out the darkness.
That’s helped. Now I just noticed today that there’s a fence around all that area under
the railroad tracks, which will make it even harder for anybody to get there. We just
don’t think that this particular location is a good spot. It is a temptation. They are
going to see people parking in there. They are going to go. I suspect that every once
in a while somebody will check out the product in the parking lot and they will be able
to smell it, so it’s hard. When we had the discussion about the playground, the issue
was 500 feet. We didn’t want to have anybody living within 500 feet of a playground.
Well, I did my amateur stepping and we are about 360 feet with this one. I would just
ask you to deny this location and let this very fine company find another place in
downtown Aurora. Thank you very much.
My name is Clara Diaz. I’m the owner of Balderas Beauty Salon. I’m working since
1990. It is located at 25 N. Broadway. My only concern with this new business is it will
negatively affect smaller established downtown businesses because of current lack of
parking. We have been struggling to continue operation for many years and we are
worried about the future if this parking situation does not get fixed. There already is
not enough parking available in downtown Aurora. Let me give an example. On First
Friday’s, a successful event, there is not enough parking in downtown Aurora. Lot E in
downtown Aurora is completely full during First Friday’s. From what I understand, there
is also a large residential housing project as well to come downtown Aurora in the near
future. This new business will increase and worsen the already existing parking
situation in downtown Aurora. You know guys or many years are here in Aurora and
you know what I’m talking about. I want to know how the City of Aurora will resolve this
parking problem. Our small business community is worried about losing clientele and
potential visitors to our places of business. (Inaudible) does not exist in downtown
Aurora. I want to say to the new business, welcome. They are my neighbors now, but
I just want to share with them and with you guys what is a big problem, parking. I’ve
been working in Aurora since 1990 in my shop and I work so hard to continue working.
That’s why my neighbors are coming together and we bring to you guys the situation.
Thank for your time.
My name is Mark Hogan. I run Tavern on Broadway at 24 N. Broadway. Just a couple
of quick comments, pretty much what Clara already stated. Parking is a huge issue in
downtown and I really don’t like someone standing up here and telling me it’s not. It is
a huge problem. It is disingenuous for somebody to stand up here and say that I’ve
come down here and there’s never a parking problem. There’s always a parking
problem in downtown Aurora. The lot in back of my property is full normally with either
casino employees or customers. The street full during the day. I have to park in back
of LaQuinta many times when I come to my business to work. Parking is a huge
problem and it is going to become more of a problem. I feel like I’m wasting my time
right now talking to you because I’m kind of betting it’s already a foregone conclusion
that you’re going to approve this, but just don’t tell me that parking is not a problem
because parking is a huge problem in downtown Aurora and it’s going to get worse.
For the Petitioner to tell me that you’re going to ask your customers not to use a
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certain lot, that’s not going to happen. These people are going to park the closest
place they can, in back of my building, in back of Clara’s building, over by the Fire
Department and all these parking lots are going to be full coming and going. It’s an
issue now and it’s going to become a much bigger issue. That’s all I’ve got to say.
Hello. My name is Dulce Vargas and my mom owns the health food store, 21 N.
Broadway and yes, parking is a huge issue. There have been plenty of times with I go
to my mon’s shop and there is no parking for me to park and I’ve got to circle the
parking lot a couple of times until someone moves and I’m able to park there.
Sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes. So parking is a huge issue. When
my mom did give up, she had her own personal parking spot down there, they did say
we’re going to redo the parking lot so there’s more parking and that’s great. So far, it’s
worked. It’s not ideal, like I said, sometimes 10 or 15 minutes or 20 that I have to
circle the parking. But for them to say that there’s plenty of parking, there’s not. With
what you said, you at least are going to have about 10 employees, I’m guessing, so
that means 10 additional cars there that are going to be there the hours of operation.
So I don’t know how it’s going to work. Unless they build another parking lot, I don’t
know how it is actually going to work for the people that already have businesses there
and have their regular customers. I never even thought about Wayside. That is a
huge thing. So I want you guys to take that as a consideration. Either try to fix the
parking issues or do something about it, but for someone to tell us that there’s plenty
of parking, there is at certain hours of the day if you drive by there at 10 o’clock in the
morning, yes there’s going to be parking. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, no there’s not
and that’s when most of these businesses get their clientele. Thank you.
Hello, good evening everyone. My name is Rigo Ponce. I’m representing 23 N.
Broadway, Bella Jewelry. I also live there at that residence at the apartment upstairs,
so I’m also here on both ends for residential and businesswise. Parking is an issue.
I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. Anytime there is an event at the
Paramount, anytime there is a First Friday, anytime there is a RiverEdge concert, I
know the police are out there dealing with parking and people crossing. It’s always just
a mess. That’s just our biggest issue businesswise with the cannabis. I could care
less, but parking-wise for my business it is an issue and it’s always a reoccurring
issue. I know parking in the street, there’s discussions that that’s no longer going to
be available. I’m not sure how or what’s going on there, but I know there’s been
discussions of removing street parking in order to widen it because I know there are a
lot of accidents with parked cars and things like that. That’s just the main issue, just
parking businesswise and then I do have think about the Wayside Cross now. It’s
more of an ethical thing. They are trying to rebuild their lives. I understand. I’m sure
there’s room for everybody in Aurora. If that location doesn’t work out, I’m sure there
are plenty of buildings. I know River Street, Lincoln Street, there are a lot of buildings
open-wise. The main issue would be the parking. That’s just what we are all here
trying to say for our businesses and that’s it. Thank you guys.
Good evening. My name is Nancy Grey. I’m at the 14 N. Broadway. I feel like a
broken record at this point because they already pretty much put our problems out
there about the parking mainly. Weekends, we own a boutique where we have
centerpieces that are heavy, dressers that are heavy, and it’s hard for our customers to
find somewhere to park, especially when it’s in the street area to try and have all these
types of things come out and load it onto their vehicle. With Tavern, we are like right
by each other. That back parking lot is almost always full. We tried to see about
getting a parking lot for use as business owners as well and there’s no resolution for
that either. It’s hard enough for customers, well for us, us actually having a business
there, imagine the customers. We have asked before at the City of Aurora what can
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we do to get a parking spot, us as owners of these businesses and there hasn’t been
real resolution for that. I just wanted to put that across too.
Good evening everyone. My name is Scot Bode. I live at 340 Robinson Way in
Batavia, Illinois. I’m the owner of 35 N. Broadway. I operate a business in town called
PME Cake Supplies. We currently office out of that building and we are in the process
also of reconditioning another warehouse that we’ve been renting in a development area
of Aurora on the south side on Middle Avenue. When we came to Aurora about 10
years ago and invested heavily in the downtown area, and I’ll truncate what I mentioned
when we first spoke on this on March 4, 2020, my sentiments are much the same
today only it is 2 years later. We made a major investment in that building and in
Aurora. Aurora has been wonderful to us and that’s why I am continuing to invest in
Aurora again. We simply have outgrown that space. We’re a destination. We’re not a
fast traffic outlet ourselves. We are a destination. The building does not suite us
anymore in the sense that we’ve expanded our wholesale business dramatically and we
need more space to operate. I had the opportunity to get to know this new group as
well. During the initial times when I met them, the first time I believe we spent 2½
hours together getting to know one another. I can rent it to anybody or sell it to
anybody. It’s not listed, but this group is a group of character people, people of good
character, and I enjoyed the opportunity to get to meet them and know them and now
have the chance to work with them. Two years ago, many of the sentiments that were
shared then are also shared tonight about parking. Again, I’ve been down here for now
10 years. Two years ago it was 8 years. Up until that point in time, there has never
been a parking problem for me at that facility or in that area. Tonight I came at 6:45.
There were 59 empty spots, not including empty handicap spots, that were available,
so greater than 50% of it was empty. I show up to my office anywhere from 7:30 in the
morning to 10:30 in the morning, depending upon whether I’m working at my warehouse
first or not. Personally, I have never had a problem finding a spot ever during the
week. The one time that I could not park in the E Lot was on a 4th of July parade the
second year we owned the building. That is the one time that I could not park behind
my building. I do agree that businesses need parking and that there are some areas
in the city that perhaps are parking challenges. Currently in Lot E there are not. I want
to make that point. Also to clarify, I know Wayside Cross does wonderful, wonderful
work. They treat more than just people that have drug or alcohol problems. They treat
people that have many other issues as well. I have never not wanted anyone to get
help no matter what their affliction or wrongdoing or wrong way in life was. They need
the help and the team, Birnie, and everyone at Wayside Cross does a wonderful job.
That being said, temptation is truly everywhere. It’s in this room tonight. It’s
everywhere. I walk back to my car and on my way home, at home, anywhere you can
find temptation. The back side of that building does not have anything that would be
tempting about it. It will be a business, a fast traffic outlet, no different than the
Petitioner indicated, a 7-Eleven or a convenience store would also be a fast traffic
outlet. You come in. You go out. As I mentioned the first time I spoke on this March
4, 2020, if anyone on the Planning Commission would like to come in and take a look
at the building or discuss anything further with me or have any other questions, I’m
available at your convenience to meet or to view the property. I will leave with that this
evening that the city has been wonderful to new businesses coming in. I’m an
example of that and that’s why I’ve continued to myself invest in Aurora and rebuild
properties that I can utilize for my business and help to make the neighborhood better.
Thank you very much.
The public input portion of the public hearing was closed.
Chairman Pilmer said I think really the questions tonight were primarily around parking,
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
but before we go to that I have a question, so I might ask the Petitioner if they could
come forward regarding staffing levels. I know you shared with us hours of operation
are less than what is permitted by the state laws, but maybe if you could just share
approximate staffing during the day or in peak hours how many people.
Ms. Harris said there will be approximately 10 to 15 employees at the location at all
times. The State requires 2 at all times, but we will definitely have 10 to 15 employees
at that location. I would just like to add, and I know that it’s closed, but as we stated,
we will not encourage, we would not allow, not even encourage our employees to park
in those parking lots and the reason is, is because of the fact that there is a time limit
on those lots. Our employees will be working 8 hours a day. It is not safe for our
employees to run out to try to move their car to another location. So we are going to
secure monthly parking for ourselves and for our staff.
Mrs. Anderson said I have another question actually. You mentioned before you hired
a third party to come and view this site initially before you came out. So why did they
tell you this was not a good site initially?
Ms. Harris said well because we were in the middle of a pandemic and they saw that
there was no foot traffic and they were just looking at that and they were saying that
the downtown area was a 2 block area, so in their opinion because they didn’t see any
movement taking place, they didn’t think it was a great site. We were able to see past
the pandemic. We were able to see past the fact that there was no foot traffic. As
Scot indicated, we are a destination location, a business. They are coming there for a
purpose and they are coming there to purchase something and to leave like they do at
a 7-Eleven.
Chairman Pilmer said I might ask staff, I know we covered this back 2 years ago, but
for all the Commissioner’s benefit, Lot E is directly behind, but can you maybe just
share if it’s possible to show the various lots. I know where they are by location, but
not by designation and they are all open to the public. We’ve got Lot E directly behind,
but behind the Fire Preservation is Lot…
Mrs. Vacek said I think it is like N.
Chairman Pilmer said but really there’s parking on all 4 corners, some behind the
property across the street, which I think we’d all agree is always congested and some
of that might be due to the casino, but the parking to the north I believe we talked
about is excess Lot E and then the lot behind the Fire Museum is also available in the
immediate area as well as there is excess throughout the downtown.
Mrs. Vacek said correct. As Mazie pointed out, there is a private parking lot up on
Spring that they are talking to the Petitioner on, on trying to get some leases on there.
I think it is under contract, so if that contract lapses.
Chairman Pilmer said then the other question regarding, I guess, the proximity to the
neighbor to the east, which is the Wayside Cross, but as far as permitting and site,
this meets all the state guidelines as well as the city.
Mrs. Vacek said correct.
Mrs. Vacek said just to kind of go over the Findings of Fact, the first one, the project
will not be detrimental or endanger the public health, safety, morals, comfort or the
general welfare as this is an existing retail building. This use really is just a diversity of
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
a retail use and it will help with the growth and diversity of the businesses in the
downtown. The Conditional Use will not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other
properties in the immediate vicinity or diminish or impair property values within the
neighborhood as this use, again, is essentially a retail use and one that is highly
regulated by the state and the city. The Conditional Use will not impede the normal
and orderly development and improvement of surrounding property for uses permitted in
the district as the use is utilized as an existing retail and office building, which is
located on 2 major streets with several public parking lots near the property, including
directly behind the property. There is adequate water and sewer capacity to serve this
project. It does conform to all other applications and regulations of the Downtown Core
zoning district. With that, I will give you the recommendation. Staff would recommend
conditional approval of the Ordinance granting a Conditional Use Permit for a cannabis
dispensing facility use on the property at 35 N. Broadway with the following conditions:
1. That the Petitioner agrees that the required documents submitted pursuant to the
Conditional Use petition are subject to re-review and comment by staff if a State
license is issued for the subject property. The Petitioner further agrees to make the
requested modifications based on the said re-review prior to the building permit being
issued on the subject property.
2. That the exterior cladding of the building, including any peeling, cracking and
spalling be repaired prior to occupancy permit.
MOTION OF CONDITIONAL APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mrs. Anderson
MOTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Gonzales
AYES: Chairman Pilmer, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Elsbree, Mr. Gonzales
NAYS: None
PASS: Mr. Choudhury
FINDINGS OF FACT
1. Will the establishment, maintenance or operation of the conditional use be
unreasonably detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, morals, comfort, or
general welfare?
Mrs. Anderson said no, and this is listed in the staff report.
2. Will the conditional use be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in
the immediate vicinity for the purposes already permitted or substantially diminish and
impair property values within the neighborhood, factors including but not limited to
lighting, signage and outdoor amplification, hours of operation, refuse disposal areas
and architectural compatibility and building orientation?
Chairman Pilmer said I would state as listed in the staff report, the Conditional Use will
not be injurious to the use and enjoyment of other property in the immediate vicinity or
diminish or impair property values within the neighborhood as this use is essentially a
retail use and one that is highly regulated by the city and the state.
3. Will the establishment of the conditional use impede the normal and orderly
development and improvement of surrounding property for uses permitted in the
district?
Chairman Pilmer said, again, this property, the Conditional Use that is being asked for,
will not impede the normal and orderly development and improvement of surrounding
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Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
property for uses permitted in the district, as this use will utilize an existing retail and
office building which is located on 2 major streets with several public parking lots near
this property, including the lot directly behind the building.
4. Will the proposal provide for adequate utilities, access roads, drainage, and/or
other necessary facilities as part of the conditional use?
Mr. Gonzales said the utilities are already in place.
5. Does the proposal take adequate measures, or will they be taken to provide
ingress and egress so designed to minimize traffic congestion in the public streets?
Chairman Pilmer said the property is located on the intersection of 2 major streets with
several public/private parking lots within walking distance of the proposed location,
including the lot directly located behind the subject property.
6. Does the conditional use in all other respects conform to the applicable
regulations of the district in which it is located, except as such regulations may in each
instance be modified by the City Council pursuant to the recommendations of the
Commission?
Mrs. Anderson said yes, it does conform.
Mrs. Vacek said this will next be heard at the Building, Zoning and Economic
Development Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 9th at 4:00 p.m. in Council
Chambers.
A motion was made by Mrs. Anderson, seconded by Mr. Gonzales, that this
agenda item be Forwarded to the Building, Zoning, and Economic
Development Committee, on the agenda for 3/9/2022. The motion carried.
22-0150 A Resolution Approving the Final Plat for Lot 1 of North River Subdivision located at 2-12 N. River Street (JH Real Estate Partners, LLC - 22-0150 /
AU22/3-22.048-Fsd - JM - Ward 6)
Mrs. Morgan said this is just a lot consolidation. If you are familiar with the Hobbs
Building and then the 2 buildings beside it, 6-12 N. River, the redevelopment is
happening to that building. They are combining the building. They are doing
commercial on the first floor and residential above. There is going to be some interior
circulation for the residential and because of that they are crossing a lot line and have
to do a lot consolidation. Happy to bring this forward. Very excited, as a
preservationist, to see this building being adaptively reused.
Mr. Morgan said staff would recommend approval of a Resolution approving the Final
Plat for Lot 1 of North River Subdivision located at 2-12 N. River Street. I should say
originally staff had a condition to sign the school/park agreement, but we just this
afternoon have received that agreement, so that condition will be removed.
MOTION OF APPROVAL WAS MADE BY: Mr. Gonzales
MOTION SECONDED BY: Mr. Choudhury
AYES: Chairman Pilmer, Mrs. Anderson, Mr. Choudhury, Mr. Elsbree, Mr.
Gonzales
NAYS: None
Mrs. Morgan said this will next be heard at the Building, Zoning and Economic
City of Aurora Page 17
Planning and Zoning Commission Meeting Minutes March 2, 2022
Development Committee meeting on Wednesday, March 9th at 4:00 p.m. in Council
Chambers.
A motion was made by Mr. Gonzales, seconded by Mr. Choudhury, that this
agenda item be Forwarded to the Building, Zoning, and Economic
Development Committee, on the agenda for 3/9/2022. The motion carried.
PENDING
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mr. Sieben said our next meeting will be in 2 weeks, March 16th.
ADJOURNMENT
A motion was made by Mr. Gonzales, seconded by Mrs. Anderson, that the
meeting be adjourned. The motion carried by voice vote. Chairman Pilmer
adjourned the meeting at 8:30 p.m.
https://www.aurora-il.org/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Minutes/_03022022-2834
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