June 4, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good afternoon and welcome to the June 4th City of Clayton Board of Adjustment meeting. The time is now 5.01. My name is Rick Bliss. Today I'm presiding as the chair for this meeting. I'd like to start with introductions of the board members, staff, and council, and welcome our newest member, Scott Schweizer. Scott, if you'll want to start and just introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is Scott Schweizer, and I recently joined the board. I live on Audubon Drive off Y-Down, and I'm excited to be here to do my civic duty.

Neil? Lee Hanson. Liza Streett.

Neil? Lee Hansen. Liza Street.

Bryce Woollen.

Bryce Woolen.

Virtually. Kyle.

Thank you, Kyle Cronin, Council for the City of Clayton.

Ryan Helle, Planner with the City.

Ryan Helley, Planner with the City.

Thomas Morgan, Planning Technician with the City.

Thank you. Board members and alternates are appointed by the mayor and approved by the Board of Aldermen. Members serve without any monetary compensation. This board consists of five regular members and three alternate members. All members must be residents of Clayton, hold no other office or position in city government. Four votes in favor of granting a variance are required to decide in favor of the applicant. This is a duly advertised meeting, proceedings are on the record. I'll ask Ryan to call the roll, please.

Scott Schweizer? Here. Lee Hanson?

Liza Streett?

Liza Street?

Bryce Woollen? Present. Rick Bliss? Here.

Bryce Woolen? Present. Rick Bliss? Here.

The first item on the agenda for tonight's meeting is the approval of the minutes for the last meeting, which was held on March 5th. Are there any questions, comments, or corrections? I noted one, which was Anna Etzkorn's last name was misspelled. I think it's a Z instead of an S. If there are no other changes, is there a motion to approve?

A second? I second. All in favor say aye.

Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we'll move on. The first item on the agenda for tonight's meeting, excuse me, that tonight we have two applications on the agenda. The first is an appeal from Tony Camacho is the applicant on behalf of Catherine and Jeff Yorg, who are the owners for the property located at 7401 Cromwell Drive. Are the applicants ready to go? Hold on for just a second. Come on forward if you'd like. Anyone wishing to speak either in favor or in opposition to the application needs to be sworn in. I'll ask Rebecca to swear and anybody who might want to make any comments.

great. We'll start with Mr. City Attorney. Does the city have any exhibits to be offered for consideration?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. The city offers the following exhibits. Exhibit A, the Code of Orbitances of the City of Clayton and the Clayton Comprehensive Plan, excuse me. Exhibit B, the Zoning Review Application and Denial Letter from Hobie Croft, Planning Technician. Exhibit C, the Appeal to the Board of Adjustment. Exhibit D, the Plans and Survey which were provided by the applicant. Exhibit E, the staff report. And then there's two additional exhibits which were emailed by Mr. Helley to the board. An email comment received from Karen Fine and Robert Canterman, residents at 7407 Cromwell Drive. And then an email comment, that's exhibit F. And then exhibit G, an email comment received from Sam Fiorello.

Any objection to those exhibits? Okay, very good. If you would step forward, give us your name and address, and we'll turn it over to you to tell us what's going on.

Hi, I'm Kevin Maloney. I'm with Patriot Sunrooms, and this is Jeff Jeffery Yorg. Okay.

Hi, I'm Kevin Maloney. I'm with Patriot Sunrooms, and this is Jeff York. Okay.

I'm Jeff. Yeah, the homeowner, Catherine, couldn't be here, so you've got me.

Lucky us. The floor is all yours. If you want to walk us through what you want to do.

Well, there's an existing deck on the back of the house there. And then obviously you look at the site plan or the plot plan and you'll see that the house is positioned at an angle and the deck is there and there's a garage, existing garage back there. So what the orgs are wanting to do is to convert that deck area to kind of a room addition it's more of a sunroom type of addition it's going to match exactly to the way the house looks now same footprint where the deck is basically now um with an exit going off to the side with a small landing there

and when you look at it so and The design is going to line up directly to the house. So part of the reason why the variance we need on my left, I have to figure out which direction that is, is so that the room can align right up to where the house is. So we need that extra foot on part of that. And I don't know where exactly if the foot is to hold on whole length of it or whether the foot that we need for the variance is on the back and i'd have to look at it but that's why we need the extra foot otherwise it's going to be just very weird and disoriented um non-alignment to the side of the house and um the cantermans who live next to are the ones who sent the letter and saying that they're fine with it i've talked to them the fiorillos live on the other the northern side if you look at the top side if you're looking at this um it's one of the things as a family we were looking to do for a while. We've spent probably two years thinking about what this is going to look like, and we finally come to a conclusion of how we wanted to lay out. But because of the nature that Kevin was saying, the nature of the house, we have very little backyard and very little to do anything back there. So what we're hoping or asking you for is just given the nature of the House and where it sits, to be able to have the variance to be able to put the addition we want that's going to be the size that we If we shrink it too much, it's not really going to make sense for what we're envisioning. So that's the general gist. The other piece I would say, and you don't see it on here, On the deck, there's actually, for those of you who have a chance to make it over there, there's a very large imported Italian pizza oven that is there that will be going. But when you actually mark off the distance between the garage and the room, it's actually gonna be, the walls of the room is gonna actually be farther away from the garage than where the current, greater separation than where the current pizza oven is now. Granted, it's a room and not a pizza oven, but when you actually walk behind it, there's actually gonna be more space When you take the pizza oven out, which much to the chagrin of the guy who sold me the pizza oven, which is my neighbor, Sam Fiorello actually sold me the house and then he moved next door. I've offered him the pizza oven. He doesn't want it back. But when we take that out, we'll actually have more space than what you have now in terms of as you guys are thinking about the variants and the reasons why the setbacks are where they are. Just be aware that there will be more space.

And the footprint of the deck is larger than the footprint of the addition. Correct.

So if I may come around, do you mind? Sure, come on. So where the deck sits now, so this is the room. The deck actually kind of juts out here a little bit more. So I apologize, I don't have a visual picture, but it juts out here. So we're actually going to bring... that in open this space up so the room will actually be there's a there's a sets of windows sliding glass doors that are here we're going to Center off those and actually be smaller than what the deck is from a footprint standpoint I don't have the exact numbers but we are going to shave it in probably another two or three feet that is why

okay

driveway is not being made any bigger because it's already paved underneath that deck there so it's just

an old patio that sam put the deck on years ago and we aren't outdoor people so we decided for our family we wanted the room but we wanted it big enough to fit kind of the needs we have but again that's that's how we kind of came with this so it goes enough space not to encroach on our neighbors um too much. And as I said, both of them are okay. I've walked them through it all. I've sent them all these drawings and they've all been fine with kind of what we're looking at. And I think it's, again, I think it's one foot we need going towards the Cantorman's house to basically line the house up with the deck. And then I think it's a couple of feet to go towards the garage to make the house, to make the size make sense for us. But again, that's just the deck size now without the pizza.

i guess there are two different variances that are being requested here yes so there

is the One foot going to my left, I'm looking at the screen. And that's the one that would, instead of the 30, I think we have to have 30 feet from the side yard. Because it's sending our backyard, even though we have very little backyard, I guess it's the 30 feet. I'll defer to the city on that. But it's 30 feet. We need one foot to basically line the house up. along the rest of the house so it looks right otherwise you'd have just like weird little like jet in and to make it square and then we need the three feet um instead of being a 10 feet variance a 10 feet gap between the garage and the wall we're asking for seven feet but again that seven feet is actually going to be farther away from the garage than what it currently is now if you consider the pizza oven in the deck i know they're two different structures but from a from a The ability to get behind the place. We're actually going to have more space with this than we do now. I think I got that right, Siddy, but I think those are a little

different. Okay. Anything else?

No, and I'm

happy to answer questions you all have. Let's see if anybody has any questions. Liza? Lee? Scott? Bryce? I do not. I want to ask Ryan a question. Is it staff's observation that granting the requested variance is not likely to result in a detrimental impact to light and air between the structures? Correct. Is it also staff's observation that granted the requested variance is likely to impact public safety or welfare?

Correct.

It appears that there will be an adequate supply of light and air to the adjacent properties. Correct. Improvements would not increase congestion in public streets. Correct. Would not increase the danger of fire. Correct. Would diminish established property values in the surrounding area. Correct. Maybe enhance them. But I'm told that's right. Um, the one question that I have, um, really that to, I think kind of to protect you, the homeowner is the request is for a 1.1 foot five inch variance. And this is based on, and then also the second request is a three foot variance without a detailed survey. staff has estimated, if I understand it correctly, how much of a variance should be requested. If we were to approve the first one, which is 1 foot 5 inches, and your as-built survey comes out and it's 1 foot 8 inches, for instance, how does the homeowner stay protected?

So to kind of clarify in this circumstance, whenever the documents came to us, the applicant did not provide a specific measurement that they were looking for. The survey was provided and the plan here is based on a survey, but we use our softwares that we have to provide our best estimate as to what that measurement is going to be. So that's what the requests are that are here today. We're an applicant to be granted the variance as requested by build it, and then find that they actually encroached further than the variance allowed, they would have to come back before this board to request another variance to approve what they had done. Say this board was to not approve that additional variance, then the structure would have to be modified or removed.

So it's on the builder to cite it correctly

in

conformity with the requested variance.

It is incumbent upon the person constructing that structure, were the variance approved, to make sure that the structure as constructed complies with the variance. It's on you, Kevin.

No wiggle room there, huh?

If you need wiggle room, you don't, you ask for it up front, basically.

I think we're okay, you know, based on, I mean, we may... it's not the first time we'd have to shave an inch or something but i i don't really see that happening

no but it is it is a um if if we were to again it would be up to you guys whether to grant either of them but if we were wanted if we wanted to request a larger variance to give us a little bit of wiggle room How would we make that request? Could we do that today? Or would that be something we would have to go back and make the request? And maybe that's a city attorney question. But to your point, I'd rather have an extra inch or two to play with. The intention, again, is to build it so it runs right along the house line so it looks lean. But I don't want you guys to wind up in the technical issues and wind up having to make it not look right because we're off half an inch.

If this board wants to approve a variance alternative to what was advertised, that is your discretion.

Okay. What would you recommend?

Well, it's really going to be up to the applicant ultimately if there can be a reasonable determination made that Ryan could opine on kind of on the fly as to something that would be appropriate in terms of the amount of wiggle room. There would be no issue with you all adopting something different than what is specifically being requested. And I think that makes sense from the economy standpoint, getting it out of the way all at once.

Based on the application, on the publication and things like that, it seems that we should go forward with the requested variances. It puts the onus on the builder to do it correctly. And if there's going to be a problem, then they can always come back to us.

Very true.

Fair enough.

The only reason why I'm pausing, to be honest with the board, is I would hate to be in a situation where we build a, I mean, We'll probably be within an inch or two, I would imagine. So, I mean, I don't want to take up your time to come back, but I also want to be thoughtful that I don't want have to go back and argue with a builder about being off of it. And more importantly for me is I don't want it to be off and have it look misaligned on the rest of the house because we happen to have miscalculated an inch or two.

I think we're putting the builder on notice right here and now what he's needing to do.

Well, we've done those calculations and based on our calculations, we're okay.

Okay.

Yeah. Very good. If something does happen, we know where to come back.

We'll be here. All right. May I have... A motion. A motion, please.

there a second? I second. All in favor say aye.

Aye. All opposed. All right. The first variance is approved.

And a second? I second. All those in favor say aye.

aye. Opposed? Variances have been granted. Thank you. Good luck. Moving on to the second application, an appeal from Michael Younglove, who's the applicant on behalf of the school districts of Clayton. the owner for the property located at 7447 Wellington Way. Someone here to talk about this? Before we go further, Rebecca, we'll see if, where are you in? Okay. Mr. City Attorney, does the city have any exhibits to be offered for consideration?

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The city offers the following exhibits for the board's consideration. Exhibit A, the Code of Ordinances of the City of Clayton, along with the Clayton Master Plan. Exhibit B, the Zoning Review Application and Denial Letter from Hobie Kropp, Planning Technician. Exhibit C, the Appeal to the Board of Adjustment. Exhibit D, the Plans and Survey provided by the applicant owner. And Exhibit E, the staff report.

Any objection to that? All right. If you want to step forward, give us your name and your address and tell us what you want to do. Is it green? Christian?

Okay. My name is Emily Johanson. I'm a project manager with Paragon Architecture.

Doug Leipziger. I am a civil engineer with Civil Design Incorporated.

Okay. Don't think I'm going to present any information that is not already included in your packets, but I'm just going to give a little bit of a summary of what we're requesting and why. There's a few different variances that we are requesting, specifically four variances. I'm going to talk about the first two, and then Doug is going to talk about second two regarding green space ratio. So the first variance we're requesting is on maximum building height. Presently, the way the ordinance reads is the maximum is either two stories or 30 feet, which the current building as it stands is Does not sit within either of those 2 requirements. So, um, the existing building is 3 stories and it sits about 56 feet tall at the maximum building height. Um, we are proposing an approximate 40,000 square foot addition to the building in addition to interior renovations of the existing building. And the maximum building height we are proposing for that addition is currently around 54 feet and six inches. So just to point out that we're not looking to exceed the building height as it stands today. So that's the maximum building height. The second variance we're requesting is the front yard setback requirement of 30 feet. Because of the location of the property, we have more than one front yard setback and with incorporating 21st century learning environments and requirements in addition to A very main portion of the addition, which is a storm shelter that also is going to serve as the gymnasium for the school. Looking at what size that addition could be and where it could be placed. Also taking into consideration the historical significance of the south facade of the building that faces Wellington. Placing the addition where we have it on the north side of the property seemed the most realistic and practical. But in order to incorporate all of those 21st learning spaces, including the, in addition to the storm shelter, we exceeded the, we're currently exceeding that 30 foot setback requirement. So we are requesting an approximate 13-foot, 7.2-inch variance, and that's from the exterior base of the facade to the setback requirement line. That summarizes the second variance request. I'm going to let Doug take over.

Good evening, everybody. uh following up the other two requests are both related to green space ratio and as you can see from the report we are exceeding with the proposed condition the green space ratio for the property with its current zoning kind of piggybacking on what emily said the building having to be larger to accommodate the modern classrooms that are in but then we needed more space on site to get everything that we could, that we want to have for the district and provide for the students. So the green space for the entire property exceeds by a little bit over 20%, I believe. And for the front yard, it would be a variance of around doing a 2.15 so definitely exceeds the green space ratio we don't have the landscape architect here but their goal is going to be to do their best to merge the site back into a natural setting as best they can given

okay Anything else? All right. Let's see if there are any questions. Scott?

I do have a couple of questions. Thank you. Number one, was there any consideration given because this is so close to Oxford Street? You're only, I think, 16 feet from Oxford Street. So it's totally going to change the character of that street, which faces a number of houses. And it's also quite tall. Was there any consideration given for putting some of the classrooms and some of the space to the east of the school and splitting up the addition, maybe moving some of the green space that's currently to the east of school to the Oxford Street side to mitigate that change? And also a question in terms of the calculation for the green space ratio, the front yard green space ratio, is that just for the oxford street corridor or is that calculation based on oxford street glenridge and wellington together because it's certainly taking up quite a bit of the oxford street side and anybody who lives along that street there their houses value are going to be horribly negatively impacted by this plan

i can get the second one real quick

make sure that the microphone picks you up

the the front yard green space ratio is based on all three streets based on all three

And Clayton allows that, allows you to, if you're on a block like that, to bleed one street and in favor of the other streets? Or does Clayton require you to have that 55% be for all of the streets involved?

So any frontage of a street is considered a front yard, regardless of whether it's the front or back of a building. So this property has a very extensive front yard spanning three sides.

I will answer your first question, but I wanted to follow up with what Doug said. The existing play field that is on the east side of the site is currently grass. And part of the scope of the project involves turfing that field. And turf does not contribute towards green space on the site, so that affects the percentage as well. So it's not going to be... Sorry, never mind. But I'll answer your first question about the addition on the north side of the site. Because

there are beyond the turf on the east side of the site, there are playgrounds, there are all kinds of different, there are green space buffers, there are all

Putting that additional towards the East side of the site, but presently the scope of the project does not involve nearly as much work over on the East side of this site. And so we were looking to preserve some of the existing play fields that are over there. Additionally. The way the existing building is is. It's linear, right? So most of the rooms sit are it's a double loaded corridor. So most of your room set off of very main corridor that runs east to west. And so if we were to elongate the building even more than what it already is, we would be looking at building code issues such as dead end corridors, difficult meeting egress path requirements. And also we needed to have a space that would incorporate the 7,000 square foot space that is going to be the storm shelter slash gymnasium. And we did not have the space on the east side of the site to incorporate that.

It still appears that you could incorporate a gymnasium space for shelter on, say, the north side of the property and incorporate some classrooms on the east side of the property. And split it up and meet various codes. So I feel like given the negative impact it's having on the neighborhood, all considerations should be given to alternatives.

And one of the other reasons that it wasn't extended east is there's certain amount of play fields that are needed for the school that we actually had at one time a parking lot to get because as you can see there's no parking on the site currently which is something that's still being worked through separately from this issue but we had some parking shown but it had to be taken off because of certain events that happen yearly that the school is very protective of and wants to make sure it can happen And also, architecturally, even though I'm not an architect, the front of the building has a certain look to it. And historically, it doesn't have anything to the east. But it could bring up a potential issue about the historic look of the building if you start extending eastward. I'll also say that the building does encroach into the setbacks as designed currently, which is not ideal. However, the good thing about the east side not being a building, it gives more of a buffer between the school and the neighbors further down the street.

Right. There are a lot of different items to the east beyond just the play field that could be shuffled around some to the north side of the property to split some of the construction. I

agree. But it does become a budgetary issue as well, which I know that budget is not the only thing that matters here. But since this is a taxpayer funded project, we want to make sure we're using dollars wisely.

Right, but it still should this should not I don't think people voted to negatively impact the Community voters didn't vote for this specific design, so I think that should be taken into the Community impact definitely needs to be taken into account.

This. This proposal goes before architectural review board.

Correct the next step if variances were granted would be that this design would go before the planning Commission and architecture important

Thank you okay. Well, backwards, doesn't it?

You need to, so first we want to make sure before something goes before the Planning Commission Architecture Review Board that they meet all the zoning requirements. The elements that that board looks at are things that tend to have a little bit more maybe nuance or flexibility, but things like you can't go before a Planning Commission and get approval of something that does not meet a setback. Staff can't recommend approval of that. However, if a variance is granted for something that would not normally meet a setback, then we can take it to that board and say, hey, they went before the Board of Adjustment on this date. Board of Adjustment approved this variance and they can proceed.

Any questions? I'm following up on what prohibits changing that so that the classroom is on the east side.

Can you clarify the question?

it's set up there the bulk of it is on the i assume that's the north side which is all building in how tall 50 feet tall or 54. that's not going to impact negatively the housing along oxford

They are requesting a height variance. Something that you can evaluate as part of that is whether or not there's practical difficulty or hardship to which they should be granted that variance. The architecture view board would look at something like neighborhood character, whether or not the structure as designed fits in with its surroundings.

This is a residential area and that's a school. I don't know how that's going to fit in the surrounding area. It doesn't compute.

Schools are permitted conditionally. Schools are permitted use via a conditional use permit in residential areas, and the conditional use is something that is considered a desirable use but may have other externalities that you might want to mitigate.

Isn't this rather a moot point since they have the right of eminent domain? They can do whatever they want?

Is correct, so the because it's a school they technically don't have to go through our process they wanting to be good neighbors are choosing to go through our processed.

Thank you.

I didn't get any feedback from any neighbors, and we send out notifications to any property within 200 feet.

Okay. Have the neighbors seen what it looks like?

Everything that we have is posted on the city's pending applications page. I

understand that. How many people go fishing on that website page to look at these things? I would think a more proactive approach would be necessary when you're talking about a project like this in the middle of a residential area.

Maybe our representatives here can speak to the outreach that they've done in the community about this design.

So, Desi, with the state of Missouri sets recommended classroom sizes

at each level.

Recommended.

Thank you.

At each level. And what was your, oh, the gym size is based on a regulation size basketball court for the elementary level.

On behalf of the school.

Am I able to ask the district to provide an answer for that? Is that okay? Do you want to speak to that?

Yep. Come forward.

address.

My name is John Brazeal. I'm currently the chief financial officer for the school district, actually outgoing. My term ends at the end of June. I've been involved in the PROPO projects and designing these projects today. The Enrollment in the Glen Ridge Elementary School has remained relatively flat with some moderate or slight decline over time. But our educational needs in a building are quite different than they were when that building was built. Formerly elementary school students typically spent most of their day in one classroom. Today we have many specials that they attend, so there's more classrooms involved. We have world language, we have orchestra, and a variety of other special subjects that require additional classrooms. So we've divided up the building over time and put spaces in basement for instruction. We have more other specialty services such as social workers, special school district staff that are in the building, and we continue to divide it up into smaller spaces. So as we try to restore it, to the use of a typical building with recommended sizes for classrooms and appropriate spaces for all those ancillary services, it does grow. Additionally, part of the growth in this building relates to the gym. Putting a gym on there that is recommended today for elementary schools and developing that as a storm shelter and has self-contained restrooms and things like that that all grow the size of it, we end up with the amount of space that's discussed here.

My name is John Brazil. I'm currently the chief financial officer for the school district, actually outgoing. My term ends at the end of June. I've been involved in the PROPO projects and designing these projects today. The Enrollment in the Glen Ridge Elementary School has remained relatively flat with some moderate or slight decline over time. But our educational needs in a building are quite different than they were when that building was built. Formerly elementary school students typically spent most of their day in one classroom. Today we have many specials that they attend, so there's more classrooms involved. We have world language, we have orchestra, and a variety of other special subjects that require additional classrooms. So we've divided up the building over time and put spaces in basement for instruction. We have more other specialty services such as social workers, special school district staff that are in the building, and we continue to divide it up into smaller spaces. So as we try to restore it, to the use of a typical building with recommended sizes for classrooms and appropriate spaces for all those ancillary services, it does grow. Additionally, part of the growth in this building relates to the gym. Putting a gym on there that is recommended today for elementary schools and developing that as a storm shelter and has self-contained restrooms and things like that that all grow the size of it, we end up with the amount of space that's discussed here.

We currently operate a school there. Sorry? We currently operate school there.

That location. And the amount of people and services that will continue to operate there will not change.

That answer was provided by our consultants. I was not involved in that answer.

Yeah, I would second that question. And also just again back to why the proposition, oh, focused on renovation as opposed to this major expansion that's only 16 feet from the street with a 50-foot tall structure. I

think you're talking about the difference between wants and needs. Yeah. Yeah. No. Okay, I'll ask some questions. What is the setback right now on Oxford? How far back from Oxford is the current building?

I don't have that available currently. It's in the drawings, but I don't have it.

You're proposing to be 16 feet, right?

Correct. What is it now currently? It's behind the current setback.

Sorry, what?

I don't have it with me, but I can get that information if you'd like it. Maybe we've got it over here. Let's see what

Thomas can come up with

something.

I don't know that this actually has a measurement.

I didn't see anything on the drawings that

I had.

Right now, you can see the building line is quite a bit behind the setback. However, it's a huge, it's a big parking lot that goes almost to

So what you're looking at in this image up there is the existing building as it stands today. So

Can you come up here and point it out so we can all understand? And maybe you can discern the true measurements.

There's no dimension.

Where does the new building end? By eyeballing, you're about splitting the difference.

A little more than

splitting the

difference.

Right now. Here's

just make sure that I don't know if there's a microphone on over there can hear you. You're also welcome to take that one with you if you do need to go

we can do that yeah okay do you want to do that for.

So currently it's a parking lot. That this is the edge of the building currently the parking lot goes all the way to maybe about I guess and feet from the property line sidewalk. Correct there will be landscape. That's been still being decided.

A question for Ryan. Does or can a conditional use permit allow for variances? Or is that just two different things?

No, it would not allow for a variance unless there's something that's specifically called out. So, for example, there's something in the code that allows the city council to modify parking, but there's nothing in the code that is solely with this board. Okay, thank you.

I share Liza's observation that your answers to some of the questions relied heavily on standard elementary dimensions. Where does one learn about standard elementary dimensions?

So we utilize the state of Missouri Department of Education, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recommended classroom sizes at each grade level.

Would you happen to know, for instance, what the second grade dimensions would be?

I believe I'm about 95% sure K through two is 850 square feet. Yes, per classroom.

Okay.

Yes, the current square footages of the classroom do meet the DESE recommended.

Okay. Let me ask, Bryce, do you have anything to add? I do not. Thank you. I'll ask Brian these questions. Is it staff's observation that granting the requested variance is not likely to result in detrimental impact to light and air between structures? Correct. That staff's observation that the proposed addition is not likely to impact green space character of the area or to increase the urban heat island effect. Correct. Is it staff's observation that deviation from strict application of the zoning regulations would not constitute a change in the district map?

Correct.

Pair an adequate supply of light and air to adjacent properties?

Correct.

Increase congestion in public streets? Correct. Increased the danger of fire? Correct. Materially diminish or impair established property values within the surrounding area? Correct. Observation? I'll add, editorially. I'm going to ask Mr. City Attorney this question. It states here that Missouri law is quite clear in that the district's constitutionally derived power of eminent domain means it is not subject to the city zoning authority. Do you concur with that statement?

I do concur in a general sense, yes.

Given that, Would you say it's still necessary for us to vote up or down on any of the applied for variances?

Excuse me. I would advise that the board render a decision based on the board's best approximation of, you know, how this meets the city and what you know the fairness of the variances and and whether the variances should be granted pursuant to the standard conditions I would recommend that the board render a decision given that there is an application actively before the board I think it um that's the way the process is intended to play out and I I do think that that should should happen

but you say that the application while it's before us yes I acknowledge that but it's of no force in effect

Um, I wouldn't say that it's of no force in effect, but, um, generally, I'm sorry, uh, as Ryan alluded to earlier, uh, and as the, as the, as you stated at the beginning of your question, um, when you've got two political subdivisions of the state, they have independently derived authorities and, um, a municipality such as Clayton, um, will generally speaking have very little ability to impose its will upon another political subdivision with a different source of legal authority such as a school district other than for matters of genuine health and safety concerns generally speaking and i'm not trying to opine on anything that's present before the board tonight but in a general sense things that are not genuine health and safety concerns, such as potentially cosmetic things, are not historically going to be something that a city is going to be able to enforce. So I do agree that there is a strangeness to what is before the board tonight in terms of There's a contradiction there between the legal advice that is being provided and the city's position, staff's position, and what you all are asked to review and your traditional elements and the things that you typically consider. I agree that there is a strangeness to that and contradictions there, but it is ultimately up to you all to render a decision.

This board in the past has seen applications fail for lack of a motion to approve.

And that would be, in effect, a denial, yes.

Okay. Okay.

May I ask a question? Sure. Related to what we're talking about. If we're not granted our variance requests, what happens next, I guess? It's

up to the school board. It sounds to me like you go forward anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, Kyle, but this board is... We're listening to the presentation. We're trying to be nice. But at the same time, we're pretty feckless in all of

this. I can't say we can let them violate the city's ordinances, but I don't disagree that there is a certain degree of futility to the whole thing because they, again, have an independent organization constitutionally derived authority over their property as a political subdivision of the state that is not overseen by the city, which is a separate political subdivision in the state. So there is a degree of futility to the exercise. I agree. I agree with you there. Yes.

So if we, excuse me, but if we deny the variance and the school board decides to go ahead, are you going to defend the city in court? Yes or no?

Am I going to defend the city in court? Well, we will defend. We will certainly defend the city's interests to the best of our ability as the realities of the law permits. That was a

nice non-answer. Thank you for that non-answer. I have another question relative to this. You're eliminating parking lot, correct? Where are those cars going?

Correct. We are... Are

you building a parking garage?

We are not building a parking garage. The parking solution is still in design, so we do not know yet. The city is going to be hiring a third party to do a traffic study, and the results of the traffic study will help inform the parking solution.

How many parking spots are going to be eliminated?

There are 21 spots present.

21 spots. no matter what your your study shows you've got to replace 21 spots with 21 spots

yeah that that has not been worked out and it's going to be part of a future uh

didn't that be part of the plan i mean we

did uh try to bring that as part of a as part of a variance request but we were told by the city that that is not something that can be a variance

I'd just like to add a note. I mean, the school district has said that they're asking for our input. They're saying we don't have to submit this, but we want to be good citizens and get input. So I think we... They're asking for our input. So I think we should definitely give them our input, not just say, oh, well, we don't really have a say. They're specifically asking for our input, so I think we should Definitely

offer our input. They're asking us our input ability to agreeing to what they're proposing. The only input I see them asking for is us to agree to their request. That's the only input we're giving. Nothing that we have said today is going to impact that. That's not within our purview.

But they're saying, even though it's not within our per view, they're wanting to be good neighbors and asking us. So, I mean, if they didn't want to ask us, they could have just gone ahead.

Absolutely correct.

Could I also ask? Go ahead. Ryan, a question. You had noted in your comments that you saw this new giant 50-foot tall building 16 feet from Oxford Street as having no impact on the value of real estate on Oxford Street and having no change to the character of green space on Oxford Street. How did you arrive at that conclusion? What analysis did you do? How did you reach that conclusion?

So I'm going to... I'm going to bridge this a little bit because as a member of staff, I need to give you feedback as a member of the staff. But I'll also let you know that I used to live about a block from here until about a year ago. So I'm very familiar with the neighborhood. I've spent plenty of time walking around there. It's not foreign to me by any means. People move to Clayton for a lot of reasons, but the school district is a significant driver of people moving to Clayton. I have no reason to believe that if the school district says that something is in their best interest, is going to improve the school, that that's going to somehow result in change. issues for the properties across the street. I would also say that I'm sure that whenever this building was first constructed, there were probably folks who had issues with it. My experience with any form of development is that the process of change is very difficult for those presently there. For those that live thereafter, they never know any different. I am not a real estate agent. I am not somebody who assesses property. However, it is very reasonable for me to assume that if this is an improvement to the school, that the future residents of Clayton, somebody who might move into those properties, are probably going to be fine with a successful school across the street.

I think that doesn't address, that's making a lot of assumptions and something that benefits the community as a whole wouldn't necessarily benefit someone who had to live right next to it. So I think that's making too many assumptions. And there are, as we said, there are other spaces on this property to build that don't impact that side of the street as much.

They could impact... There are residential properties that are on this block. To suggest that putting something to the east of this would have no impact on those versus something put to the north, having an impact on properties to the north is... A bit of an assumption as well.

Well, we're talking about degrees of impact because a 50 foot tall structure 16 feet from the street is going to have much higher impact than something to the east, or if you split it up and have some classrooms to the east, you have much much you have, I don't know how many 60 feet there you have so much space there so it is, it's quite a bit of difference.

Are there like four or five homes on Oxford fronting the back of the school as opposed to the east? There's only two. One on Oxford, one on Wellington Way. I'm

sorry. On Oxford Street, homes that are fronting, that are...

On Oxford, there's homes on Oxford right now that face the school.

You can see the property lines are actually delineated on this page right here. You can see that there's one, two, there's three that are four that are directly across from the existing structure.

Thank you. Okay. So there's four directly facing something that's going to be 16 feet from the setback line. Right. With your suggestion of moving more things to the east, there's only two houses on the east end of this property. One fronts Wellington Way and one fronts Oxford. Two houses on the

eastern part of the... Oh, that face this,

correct? Yes.

But they're quite far away from the existing school. And so even if you...

Wellington Way. Okay. No, Audubon's farther. Oh,

No, it's Wellington Way.

right. Well, let's see if there's anybody who wants to put forth a motion to approve any of these variances. There are a motion. Hearing none, applications have failed.

Thank you.

Okay. Ryan, how are we looking for next month?

I do have one application in, so I know that we will for sure have a meeting in July, I believe. It's top of my head on my calendar. Is that July 2nd?

Yes.

July 2nd.

Looks like we'll be reconvening July 2nd. Okay. Very good. Is there now a motion to adjourn?

Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Meeting is adjourned.