St. Clair Shores City Council approves capital improvement, master plans

ST. CLAIR SHORES — The St. Clair Shores City Council approved the master plan draft in a 6-1 vote and a capital improvement plan in a 7-0 vote at their meeting on Dec. 2.

Councilwoman Candice Rusie cast the opposing vote against the master plan draft.

In an interview, Community Development and Inspections Director Denise Pike explained the master plan is a visionary document stating where the city is looking to evolve. She said it includes the current conditions of the city including demographics, its physical profile and more.

“It also talks about where do we see transitions happening, where do we envision that would be in the city,” Pike said. “It talks about current (conditions), but then it talks about (the) future and really kind of lays out a road map to get to one place from the other.”

Pike also said the current master plan is a revision of previous master plans and that the last one was completed in 2016. Work on the current master plan started in 2023. Pike said the consultant from Spalding DeDecker was requested in March 2023 and their first meeting about the plan was held in the same month. In total, the master plan took around $78,000 to create.

Pike said three large scale plans were completed in this 24-month period: the parks and recreation master plan, the city’s master plan and the capital improvement plan. The parks and recreation master plan was approved in January 2024.

Over the last two years, the city had over 800 survey responses from residents and nonresidents. Pike and City Planner Liz Koto said there were four focus groups. Pike said they were happy with the number of responses they received. In a Social District outreach program, the city asked eventgoers what they liked about the city, why they came to St. Clair Shores and what would make nonresidents potentially move to the city.

“We felt very confident that we were able to get the public input that helped inform the plan,” Pike said.

The final draft of the master plan needed to be approved by Dec. 31 if they want to receive grant money. Koto also said because they used grant money to pay for the update, it has a due date. In 2022, the state of Michigan put out a request for proposals for grant applications, Koto said, through the high water infrastructure program.

“The idea was that a community would submit a plan that would address the issues of flooding and high water in coastal communities. As part of this update, we submitted a proposal to include a resiliency plan,” Koto said. “The idea is that we presented a bunch of different concepts and ideas that the council could choose to implement to better address the way that the city physically prepares for climate change.”

These things include having natural shorelines, planting more trees and anything, Koto said, that could combat shocks and stresses on the land and people.

“That was incorporated as part of this update so we could get the grant money for it,” Koto said.

She said there isn’t a state law that puts a specific due date on the documents. However, there is a state law that requires communities to review their master plan every five years. Addendums and amendments can be made to the master plan over the years if a significant change is needed. The process to make amendments includes a public hearing and additional statistics.

“Substantively, the master plan was largely OK,” Pike said. “There were some areas that we modified that we basically bolstered. But the real difference between previous master plans and this master plan is the resiliency chapter.”

The capital improvement plan is related to the master plan, Koto said, and it explains the major purchases over $10,000 by the city. She said some of the goals of the master plan should line up with the capital improvement plan. Examples of large purchases include the new buildings for the police and fire departments and fire trucks. Routine maintenance is not included in the plan.

“It would include new streets, new utilities,” Koto said.

Pike said the capital improvement plan is the financial forecast for the city in terms of what resources they need to get to the goals in the master plan.

“It’s, ‘What do I want to do and how am I going to pay for it?’” Pike said.

Though the capital improvement plan is mostly based on the input of the city administration, the City Council and the mayor, Koto said public comments are always welcome.

At the meeting, Rusie took issue with the errors she found in both documents. This included out-of-date items and already completed projects still in the documents. She said it was strange to read about renovations to the police and fire stations in the master plan when they are complete replacements.

“This is coming after a long time, a lot of plans of the TAMP plan and all the issues, the parks and rec master plan and all the issues, the Nine Mile DDA plan which we didn’t even see,” Rusie said of the master plan. “But it included some weird stuff it’s said to be on the DDA including a road diet proposal. And it’s just like I kind of have some sort of fatigue going with all these plans right now.”

Councilman John Caron said added spreadsheets in the council packet about the capital improvement plan included things that were already completed, and some years just were not filled out at all. He also said some other items that should be included were not included.

“Just kind of having this included,” Caron said. “It’s like, ‘Hey, this is the only document we had. Let’s throw it in it.’”

Caron asked that a few items from the capital improvement plan be edited including removing columns in fiscal years 2024, 2027 and 2028, as well as other amendments. These additions as well as a request to revisit the document in January and on more dates were added to the motion.

Caron said during the master plan discussion he appreciated that his comments were taken into consideration when creating it.

Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Dave Rubello said he’s had every opportunity to ask Koto and Pike what he wanted to. He explained the significance of the master plan with the help of Koto. Koto explained that there wouldn’t be a grant that they couldn’t apply for or not be able to apply for because of the master plan.

“I appreciate these things, and I spent dozens of hours looking at this,” Rubello said about the master plan.

Both documents are available for public viewing on the city’s website at scsmi.net. Currently, the drafts of both documents are available as well as the survey for the master plan.