Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette From left, Kristine Bradof, Bill Leder, Ben Ciavola and Tom Merz listen to reports at the Houghton Planning Commission meeting Tuesday.

HOUGHTON — The Houghton City Planning Commission met Tuesday to go over member reports and approve a site plan review for a two-story five-unit apartment building on Memorial Drive. In his report to the commission, Houghton City Manager Eric Waara explained the old Keweenaw Chamber of Commerce Building on Shelden Avenue was supposed to close on its sale on Tuesday, but the wire transfer did not come through in time and was expected to follow through on Wednesday since all paperwork regarding the transaction has been completed.

The site will be the new location of U.P. State Bank and will also be the location of mixed unit or residential buildings by Moyle Development. Waara said Moyle is hoping to complete the site plan review by the end of May.

Waara also shared with the Commission the location of the temporary home for the Chamber of Commerce. “The chamber is actually going to bunk here (City Center) upstairs temporarily, transitionally, if you want to look at it that way. The plan is they’re going to co-locate downtown with someone in another building, but it won’t be ready until the fall.”

Bill Leder reported the Zoning Ordinance Committee met on Monday to review the draft of the storm water management ordinance.

“I think arguably the stormwater management section is the most complicated section, most technical section of the zoning ordinance,” Leder said. “So it’s not an excuse, but it’s taking time and we really want to get it right. So we are making progress. I think the consensus was that we’re feeling pretty good, that we were getting pretty close to the end on that part of our overall work, and then we’ll move on.”

After the reports, the committee moved onto the site plan review. The site plan for the apartment building is the former location of Plowe’s Funeral Home which was purchased last year by Phil Acciacca. A garage that was on the site will make way for the new building and accompany the apartments which replaced the funeral home. The plan will now move to the county for further approval before obtaining the building permit.