Planning Board approves final site plan, recommends special land use permit for 36977 Woodward

The Birmingham Planning Board on Oct. 22 voted unanimously to approve the final site plan and design review, and recommended approval of a special land use permit for a proposed three‑story office building at 36977 Woodward Ave., InvestWise Financial. The board attached conditions including modification of the building’s street frontage or a variance, limiting the overall building height to the ordinance maximum or obtaining a variance, adding bike racks and complying with city department requests.

Summer Aldred, a city planning department staff member, told the board the project returned after preliminary review on Sept. 10 with several changes but still did not meet two key ordinance items: street frontage and maximum height. "It is still a recommendation of staff that the applicant must modify the site plan to have 75% of the street footage or obtain a variance of 21.675 feet from the board of zoning appeals," Aldred said. Under the TZ‑3 zoning rules cited by staff,…