August 2, 2021 — Meeting Transcript

Chairman Steve Lichtenfeld.

City Manager David Gipson. Here. George Hedich.

City Manager David Gibson. Here. George Hedich.

Helen DiFate. Here. Robert Denlo.

Helen DeFate. Here. Robert Denlo.

Here.

Carolyn Gatiss. Here. Aldermanic Representative Ira Berkowitz. I don't see Ira. Maybe he'll join us later.

Yes, I have two. The first one is with regard to 6611 Clayton Road and the architectural review portion. Tyler Stevens noted that the windowless bedrooms are allowed by code since the building would be fully sprinklered. And I think that's important to put in, in case we look back at those minutes for another situation. He did say that he mentioned that specifically Karen Hollweg, But I think it would remind us of. Karen Hollweg, How windowless bedrooms can be allowed. Hal

Hal Hallstein , Three. Hal Hallstein .

Karen Hollweg ,

Right yes okay. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, You could probably add it on. PB, HarmonZuckerman, On page four. The second time he's referenced, which is the third line from the top. That's where he's specifically talking about windowless bedrooms.

Right.

Yeah.

And then the other was on page seven of the minutes. The third reference. Let's see. Okay, one, two. Karen Hollweg, Six lines up from the bottom john whole refers to an occupiable face and the rest of it was inaudible on the recording but he noted that the wording porches and patios would be deleted that reference. HAB-Masyn Moyer- That's it. Otherwise, they look excellent. PB Harmon

Pitts, I was not there. Should somebody else make

PB

approve the minutes. PB Harmon

All in

Anisa O'Malley, And the first project is 8140 kingsbury boulevard this is site plan review. Anisa O'malley, The 6000 square foot site is located on the south side of kingsbury boulevards between North foresight and North Brentwood. The property has a zoning designation of R2 single family dwelling district and is located in the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. The project consists of the demolition of the existing home and the construction of a 3,157 square foot single family residence. The existing garage is proposed to remain. The criteria for review are detailed in the staff report. Staff found the proposed construction consistent with code in terms of compatibility, equipment screening, drainage and impervious coverage. There are two items of note with regard to landscaping and lighting that I would like to call out specifically. In terms of landscaping, the proposed landscape plan provides an attractive planting design of trees, shrubs, perennials and ground cover. There are two mature street trees on the site that will be preserved and the plan provides a surplus of 240 square feet of canopy coverage. The City of Clayton's landscape code requires that a minimum of 33% of newly planted trees be native. The applicant has proposed 10 new trees, three of which are native for a total of 30%. Although this falls slightly short of the 33% requirement, staff believes that the intent of the landscape code was fulfilled. The native tree requirement was introduced in order to prevent a non-native monoculture from comprising the majority of a project's landscape design. The applicant has provided a diverse planting mix, and furthermore, the subject site is relatively small and could likely not support additional tree plantings. In terms of lighting, the plans did note that there is exterior lighting proposed at the exterior doors. However, information regarding the type of lighting and wattage was not provided. There are eight criteria which the Plan Commission should take into consideration when reviewing site plans. These are located on page three of the staff report. In conclusion, the height setbacks and impervious coverage as proposed are in conformance with the requirements of the R2 single family dwelling district and the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. Stormwater will be adequately managed on site and the landscape plan features plantings that are appropriate for the size of the site and character of the neighborhood. Staff is of the opinion that the project meets the criteria for site plan approval. Our recommendation is to approve with the following conditions to be reviewed and approved by staff prior to the issuance of a building permit. Condition one is to revise the civil demolition plan to include the tree protection fence locations with a note, the fencing must be in place prior to the start of any demolition or grading operations. And the second is to revise the elevations to know the type and wattage of the proposed lighting which must not exceed 75 Watts. That concludes my presentation.

This is Ryan Meeks with THD Design Group. Oh, Ryan Meeks. Sorry. This

is Mike Thompson with Thompson Design Group, the architect.

Okay. Yes, the stormwater drainage will be... The pattern will be very similar to the existing stormwater drainage pattern. You can see most... Well, the site is almost split in half as far as flow to the west, which is drainage shed A and then flow to the south, which is draining shed B on the right side. And then there is some water that flows to the street. And so those drainage areas are staying pretty close to the same. There will be a little bit of additional flow to the street. It's a very minimal amount, 0.02 CFS. But in my opinion, it's better to have a slight increase to the street than it is to have a slight increased to a neighboring yard.

Okay. But it's a fairly simple drainage plan since it's a small site and because we're not increasing the impervious area we do not need to provide stormwater management or stormwater detention.

Yes, it will be to the north to Kingsbury Boulevard and it's going to be very slight. Nothing that's going to cause an issue with storm drainage along the street.

Right, it's almost negligible.

I didn't have any comments actually on this one.

Anyone else?

No, actually. For once. Yeah, no. I think it looks great.

I don't see any.

I'll make a motion to approve with the staff recommendations.

Aye.

okay i'll stick around.

Lupita D Montoya, Once again, this is at 140 kingsbury boulevard this is further review of the design and materials associated with the construction of a new single family residence. In terms of compatibility, the homes located east of Forsyth Boulevard and Clayton Gardens are predominantly two stories in height and are constructed of brick with siding as a secondary material. The basic massing of the proposed two-story home is articulated on all sides with windows and doors. The proposed massing and appearance are similar to other newly constructed homes in the area. The existing home to the east was constructed in 1941 and is around five feet three and three inches shorter than the proposed home. The existing home to the west was constructed in 1941 and is four feet, eight and three inches shorter than the proposed home. As required by the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District requirements to avoid tall blocky building forms, new structures shall incorporate a transition in height and scale through one of six possible techniques The proposed house is not significantly taller than the existing homes to either side. A hip roof with gable dormers is proposed, which lowers the slope of the roof line and the perceived height of the house. An approved mitigation technique is utilizing such dormers and sloping roofs to accommodate upper stories for major renovations and new constructions. In terms of building materials, the project is consistent with other homes in the neighborhood. Existing homes have traditionally been dominated by the use of standard size brick in a variety of red tones. However, the brick has been painted in some instances, including at the adjacent property to the west. Stucco stone and siding materials are also observed within the immediate area and surrounding the subject property. The proposed garage is an existing garage and is intended to remain. The primary material of the existing garage is red brick with a dark brown paneled garage door and dark red roof shingles. The existing garage will be painted gray to match the proposed structure. In conclusion, the project as proposed is in conformance with the requirements of the R2 Single Family Dwelling District, the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District, and the architectural review guidelines. HAB-Masyn Moyer- staff is of the opinion that the design is compatible in terms of mass height and design with existing nearby homes and our recommendation is to approve as submitted. PB, Harmon

Mike Thompson, Hello. I don't know how well you can see this, but a small board here. Got a rendering out of the painted brick with stone accents. The lantern type lighting on each side of the front door and there will be on the rear doors also. Black vinyl windows. Actually the front door will look like this, but black instead. PB, David Ensign — He & As the existing garage there which will will be painted to match the existing or the new house. PB, David Ensigne — He & And copper copper roofs for the base. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, In any questions

Okay, thank you.

Vinyl windows. They will be black, but they are vinyl windows.

PB John Gerstel:" Oh I see okay um yes we'd be willing to do that. PB John Gerстle:" Would either vial or aluminum planning.

I'll add a little bit more to it. If they're looking at Anderson's windows, there's a nice composite material out there that looks very much like wood. So something that we should be considering down the road too. Okay.

okay

i

have one quick question do we allow ephes Karen Hollweg, Or do we require stuff out Karen Hollweg,

Susan.

Karen

Hollweg, I'm sorry. Do we allow Ethan. Yes. Karen Hollweg , We have not done that on residential it's been stuck. Oh brick. Karen Hollweg,, Wood or stone.

Karen Hollweg, Okay, the base are noted as eat this.

Hal Hallstein, So yes, the water managed ethos yeah. Karen Hollweg,

yeah that would be my only concern that. Karen Hollweg , We don't allow it, we have not allowed it for residential.

Karen Hollweg, Yeah, we haven't allowed it and we haven't discussed allowing it. So, so far, it's still those materials that we use that I described.

Karen Hollweg, Stucco. There's not a lot of it.

John Gerstle, Right. Yes, it's just on just on the side with a fireplace in that side bay. Yes, it would not be a problem.

Okay.

Yes. Other than painting the garage brick, what other changes are you going to make to the garage, if

any? Well, I mean, the shingles will be made to match. Gutters made to match. The windows have to be changed out in order to match in the garage door. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Okay, so it will be made the maps, the new house. HAB-Judy Nogg, Okay, that's all I want. HAB-Masyn

Moyer, You painting it too. HAB-Jacque

Juilland,

Yes. Okay. HAB-Michael Leccese, Okay. HAB–Michael

Yeah, this is Mike Mandlin.

All right, so a couple things, guys. Mike, we've got a couple things that were wrong. They are Anderson Woodwindows.

Oh, good.

Okay. So they are the Anderson Blackwood windows for the 400 series. And then as far as the side, the materials on the side, we're not going to go with the Ephus. It's basically, it's a stucco board that we all use. That same material that Clayton has approved in the past. If that's okay with you guys, that type of material that we've used in the past. So... Those were the two, I guess, the two issues. The other issue is the lights. Those are going to be gas lights at the front door and on the garage. We'll have gas, you know, copper lanterns there along with the rear doors as well. So we'll have those gas as well.

That's lovely. Love that.

No, we do not. Okay. They're pretty common to us.

Mark Warren, I think that's it will will submit is resubmit as far as noting the gas lighting and then also the type of material for those box phase and. Mark Warren, I believe the other thing was the the tree all the tree will put the fencing up around the trees as well, so we'll have that all will resubmit all that.

Okay.

I'll make a motion to approve as submitted with clarification. Can we add that? certifications on the Anderson 400 series and the gas lighting be submitted to staff.

And you probably also want to include about the EVAS.

I'll second the motion with those three contingents.

Once we get the demo permit, we're anxious. Actually, this is for my wife and myself. We're going to be moving in there ourselves. We're looking forward to being back in

Yeah, we're looking forward to it. Thank you, everybody. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Steve.

The project is 7600 Forsyth Boulevard. This is a request for consideration of an amendment to the approved special development sub-district 2A plans to add a medical office land use to the existing allowable use of retail for the ground level of the east parking garage. constructed as part of the sub-district 2A development plan. The addition of the medical office lane use is limited to this area of the existing garage. The request will require Board of Aldermen review and approval for the plan amendments. The subject property has a zoning designation of Special Development District and is part of the multi-phase Centene Clayton campus. Sub-district 2A is bordered by Forsyth Boulevard to the north, Carondelet Plaza to the south and east, and South Weill Avenue to the west. The special development district plan approved by the Board of Aldermen on February 23rd, 2021 via ordinance number 6681 is the current ordinance for the master plan. As you may recall, this ordinance was an amendment to allow for a financial institution use in Sub-district 1 earlier this year. Concurrent with this request is an amendment to Subdistrict 2A to allow for the medical office use, which is the second public hearing item on this agenda. This presentation will cover both the SDD master plan amendment and the Subdistrict 2a amendment concurrently. The criteria for approval are listed on page two and three of the staff report. Staff reviewed the application based on these criteria, as well as consistency with a Downtown Master Plan and the STD as a whole, and has found that the request is consistent. I won't go into detail on every item, but I will be calling out items of significance. In terms of the Downtown Master Plan, the Downtown Master Plan has a goal of activating the street with pedestrians through the use of multiple techniques, including retail at the ground level and enhanced public sidewalks. Allowing a medical office land use to the list of permitted land uses for the ground floor level in the east parking garage will add pedestrians to the sidewalks in that area of the site, although probably to a lesser degree than if the space was used for retail or restaurant purposes. Staff has asked that the applicant specify the proportion of the ground floor of the parking garage that will be dedicated to the proposed medical office use as well as the existing retail use, but the information was not provided. Given that the intent of the downtown master plan and the STD is to encourage retail, staff believes that some further clarification on the retail versus medical office uses as necessary. In terms of traffic and circulation, the proposed addition of medical office as an allowable land use will not impact the existing vehicular or pedestrian circulation. There are also no impacts to building design, drainage or landscaping as this is solely a use request with no exterior changes proposed. In conclusion, staff is of the opinion that the proposed amendment is consistent with the goals of the Downtown Master Plan and the approved Special Development District Plan provided the concurrent amendment to the Special Development District Plan is approved by the Board of Aldermen. Our recommendation is to recommend approval of the requested sub district plan amendments to allow for the addition of a medical office land use to the list of permitted uses for the ground level of the sub district to a parking garage as indicated on the attached plan with the following conditions, as noted in the attached ordinances. First is to remove the reference to the ground floor of the corporate auditorium from the SD2A and B and C proposed column on sheet G004 of the special development district plan. And second is to provide information regarding the proportion of uses, medical office and retail in the ground floor of the sub-district 2A parking brush. This concludes my presentation.

Sure. First of all, thank you very much for allowing us to present tonight. I think it's pretty straightforward. Activating the sidewalks is the premise. Understanding the mix and caliber of tenants that could come and will come to this end of Forsyth, I think, is strategic, especially in this time. Across the street, House of Wong is going to be planting roots, which I'm excited to see. The art galleries and of course WashU's footprint. And then on the end, their true fusion. I think it's a logical start as of right now on that end of Forsyth to continue to create that foot traffic. I think the use works very well for this space. As much as we all would have liked to see a restaurant maybe in this corner, I think the space is not loaded for that type of use, meaning the floor. There is an elevator shaft in the back there for future retail if that we ever decide to make something different there. But I think as of right now, I think as a as a good start to help activate the sidewalk and bookend as it were for right now. I think the fit, I think the tenant fits the need as well as the boutique approach to medical office and a lot of what we're hearing in the industry situates some of the medical office uses right in the heart of retail centers that we've been seeing, not centers necessarily, but central business districts where there's a lot of walkability. So for all those reasons, we felt like it was a good mix and it fits well with the neighborhood. And we think being that we have the parking garage there, I think the question was asked and we didn't answer how many parking space would be utilized. Of the exclusive use of that garage by Centene's employees, we would be carving about 25 spaces out of it for tenant use. And at which point the tenant would validate their client's parking. So that's all I have. I'm sure there's some questions I'm happy to answer.

Tobias, is this going to be like an urgent care?

No, sir. What is

this?

No, sir, it's a dentist, orthodontist, really it's an orthodontist office where I envision many young people coming and interacting with the space. My hope is that the adjacent space to it, the 900 square feet, might become something that could augment that, that, that younger demographic. I wouldn't say ice cream because dentists and ice cream don't go well hand in hand, but, but, but I don't know. The notion is 900 square feet right next to it. You could do something pretty cute. So I think if we get that young demographic, we might be able to have some fun with those spaces.

I have a comment in a one soup probably goes well with dental and orthodontics. Um, As far as the square footage, you had said that there's a 900-square-foot piece of retail space right next to it. What type of space are we talking about for this office, this medical office?

Well, I don't have any finished plans in front of me, if that's what you mean, as far as what type of space. I'm not sure I follow your question.

What I'm hearing you say is on G3,

Yes, sir.

There's a block, just a square block that shows this space. I'm assuming that's actually two spaces.

Actually, no, sir. So to the left of the drive or the entrance is the subject space we're talking about tonight. To the right of the entrance, there's a small 900-square-foot retail space already zoned that was originally contemplated when we went for our master plan approval.

Okay, so actually there's not even a marking on here on sheet three, it really tells me what space we're looking at in particular. But it's to the left of the entrance of the garage in SDA. Yes, sir. Okay, that changes my thought quite a bit here.

We would not, but I think, sir, your general question is, are we carving up a space to put within a space? Maybe. And the answer is no. I think the space that we're identifying and talking about tonight is not loaded for anything other than office use, given the double Ts and the way in which it was designed. So we felt like this was probably the most economical and wise thing to do relative to the type of construction and the retrofitting that would be required should we change the use.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

So in the original plan, it was never meant to be a retail.

Originally, it was the just for all of you who keep score. It was originally it was the ticket office entrance, if you recall.

Oh, I remember now. OK, yeah.

Yeah,

I do remember

that. And then the walls blocked up on the other side, which we intend to do the artwork that everybody's so eager to get get approved. So which we're working on.

Tobias, can I just ask you, I'm trying to think of a dental office on the first floor, a storefront, taking over a storefront in a downtown area. Yes, sir. Are you aware

of any? Yes, sir. And I failed to say, or I meant orthodontics, but actually I was in North Carolina a couple of weeks ago in Asheville. Have you ever been to Asheville, sir?

It's one of my fantasy places to go.

Yes, I've been. It's wonderful. That was one of the places I saw it, which is a very interesting type of Central Business District demographic. I never would have thought in a... It felt almost like a San Francisco-type density. It was very odd. Not odd, but interesting, I should say. That was the first. Of course, there's a lot of it out in the county, in St. Louis County, that is, in Chesterfield and Creve Coeur. You'll see a lot of that. But I don't, my vision was that it was not that type of retail center type feel because we want to create the foot traffic right and we want the density and the walkability and shopping strips is not what we do here in Clayton so my hope was is that we would create, you know, the bustle of young people coming in and out for a quick orthodontic visit, and oh while they're here. right next door is a really cool lunch place, or right across the street is a gallery that mom or dad can go mess around at while I'm getting my braces fixed. That's the kind of notion that we're playing with on this corner, and I think it's going to work well.

Tobias, I have one more follow-up question for you as well. One, we've come in twice now for changes inside these zoning and what's allowed in the uses, once for the financial services industry and now for medical.

Yes, sir.

Do we need to anticipate more coming in?

You know, it's a great question. Mr. Dunlow advised us all at the last meeting to start thinking a little bit bigger relative to the world that we're facing and seeing right now. We kind of, we laid the groundwork with you guys at the last meeting that we appreciated the financial consideration or financial institution consideration in the zoning. And we talked about the fact that potentially this would come up. I think The general answer, short answer is no. I feel like we have enough room within the zoning now to work with the variation of type of caliber of tenants we're seeing. I think the good news is that we're seeing all credit tenants first and foremost. We're not seeing mom and pops, you know, one-offs. We're seeing a lot of financial wherewithal behind the entities that are coming to the campus. So that's checkbox number one as far as my duties to the client are concerned. Number two, I think we're also seeing quality in what they're proposing to do. We're not seeing neon signs. We're not saying crazy stuff that architecturally isn't pleasing. So that to me is the other important thing. And then lastly, how does it work with the mix of potential that we could have? And are we boxing ourselves in? So for all those reasons, I feel like the zoning and the permitted uses are well within or will be now within the volume that we're seeing.

And that is your comment on boxing in is where I was going with that as well. I'd rather not continue on a piecemeal basis. and would rather have a bigger picture on this. And I know that's difficult in today's environment.

I think the answer to your question, or not your question, I think your challenge would be going forward when developers like myself and others come before the body, I think putting restrictions on the type of tenant that we can put in, I think it serves a purpose when there's incentives you know, monetary incentives that are dependent upon sales tax generation. That makes sense to me. But when you're talking about a large campus that may or may not be incentivized, I think and especially in this climate, I think quality of tenant is going to trump every day of the week because putting mom and pops in there in this climate right now is too big of a risk, especially for the amount of class that we want from these tenants. They're not going to put the money in the space unless they have substantial wherewithal. And the way in which we built the space from a white box configuration to build in here in Clayton to the standards in which we want It's not cheap. And so we end up having to subsidize it on the TIN and then ultimately ask for the guarantee on the back end. And sometimes these tenants can't support it. And then that was before COVID. Now you're in COVID when, you know, it's a shoestring operation. So I think credit is really important.

Thank you. I appreciate that information.

Can I ask a quick question? Is there any idea of the length of lease?

Yeah, you know, I don't think it's long-term, Ms. Gatiss. I think it's short interim to fill a gap until we understand what the future holds. I think everybody's aware of the public comments that Mr. Neidorf made, so I would prefer not to speak about those tonight. But I think generally, I think there's hope for more work for us all. But I think in the interim, the responsible thing to do for everybody is to generate that foot traffic, to help us think about what we can do and what we need to refine in future phases. Because I think it's important to make sure that we're evolving our architecture and our design and our plans with the things that we're learning from our constituents, whether it's our future tenants, whether it's a building occupants, whether it's the city or whether it's my client. I think there's a lot to be said for putting the pencils down and thinking again.

I think more I was asking to the city Should there be limits set to certain... Well, I guess we can't do that as developers. But if we're going to fill spaces just to fill them, which is a great idea because it's wise and a good thing to do for the streets and everybody else. But is this like a 30-year? Or is it 20-year? Or 15-year? Is it five-year? you know, I mean, the vision of the city is based on, you know, a master plan and everything else. So when we get like a use, like a orthodontist office, is that going to be there for the next 50 years? It's going to be there the next 30 years. It's going to there for the next five years, 10. You know, I don't know. I'm probably just being esoterical, but I'm just kind of wondering what, when we have a vision for the city with uncertain, circumstances right now, how do we approve something that, you know, I mean,

you guys know what I'm asking.

I do. I mean, I think I'd point no further than the car wash right down the street from me. I mean, you know, I think that's just a great example of your point, right? I think at some point you may want to say, you know, it may be permitted, but is it the best use for the space? But it's been there. There's always been a car wash there. I get it. And so you don't want to be in a spot where there's always been a dentist office there, right? Yeah, you're right. I think my compromise or my response to you is in the end, I think we have to rest on the fact that we've got good planners and good policy that will aid us in having class and quality tenants. I think if we have the bar set in such a way that the architectural finishes and the space has to be in such a way, that fits with our campus, I think that's a good insurance policy as to the quality that we would have on our campus. Personally, that's the only remedy I could see. Having a zoning sunrise and sunset I think could cause, you know, as far as how we future plan, future developments could cause problems. I don't know. That's just my conjecture.

Okay. I was just commenting more on the current climate with COVID. Yeah, I know. Get it. It could change in one year. and be like, sort of like everybody has retail. Everybody's

happy. I do think it's fair to say, I don't think because of COVID we're talking about this use. That's not fair. Oh, OK. I think this use was around before COVID. And I think the boutique medical notion is coming around in many different ways. I think you're seeing it. OK, that's

fair. OK.

OK.

Steve, I have something to say. Can I? Sure, Ira. Yeah, can I speak? Yes. How are you, man? Are you aware of your background shows? Yes,

sir. I'm in St. Louis. I just got back from vacation.

All right. Good to see you.

Good to see

Yes, sir. Yeah, I remember that very well. Yeah, I Remember that we had a lot of discussion about that. We're hoping that you wouldn't have taken so much space for ticket taking, but I remember it was ended up being approved. Yeah, there's a difficult climate type to bias and I really do appreciate the situation that you all are in. You know, that end or that area. right now is pretty without much, whether it be retail or not. I wish the dentist, well, I am going to support your application only because of the situation with the time that we're in and because I think it will be difficult to get retail in there. If that was marked for retail and we're thinking we were going to get retail, I might have a different point of view. Under the circumstances, I'm inclined to go ahead and support your application.

Thank you,

sir.

Yes, I do have a question. The elevator lobby and the stairs that come down in the corner of the space, if I park in the garage... and I'm going to see the orthodontist, can I walk down the stairs or take the elevator and then go directly into

the office? Yes, ma'am. Very good connection, but different. So the stairwell on the, that would be northeast corner there is an egress stair only for the parking garage. There's no entry from outside. However, and as well as that elevator that you see carved out there, that's a future elevator that hasn't been built. HAB-Jacques Juilland, There is, however, a corridor that flanks this space that has an elevator for pack of elevators. So basically you can pull in park take an elevator down to this quarter and never enter outside at all and not get wet in the event of elements. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay,

that I understand that and I don't know how else you would handle it. HAB-Marie Slaughter.: : But it does reduce the number of people that will be walking to the dentist.

I thought about trying to strike the balance between keeping traffic off the streets and adding parking spaces. We could have easily put a blacktop on the green grass that's currently out there, but I didn't think that would be tasteful. I think, and as well as keeping people from queuing in the street, our thought was that it wouldn't necessarily be activated by cars coming in and people coming back out as much as it would be people living in the neighborhoods and walking to get their orthodontics done and then having lunch or, and then walking to the gallery. I think if you're driving to park there, you're coming from wherever else. And I think that's a different demographic.

No, I agree.

I would hope that our families and kids from from, you know, behind the Centene University and Clayton Gardens and maybe even down by Wash U if there's some kids with braces come over.

Yeah. No, I really it's a challenging area to put retail in even not given today's circumstances because most retailers want to be in a group. That's right. And Here your group is across the street, but it's not retail. It's true fusion. It's an art gallery. It's not your typical retail.

No.

So I think this is a good use. Hopefully it'll stay in a Renew with fleece.

Yes, ma'am. I think we, I think we got some ideas we're cooking on. So I think, I think your challenge is also accepted. I think we owe the city in the future, a thoughtful development behind these spaces where we can continue the excitement and the street activation challenge accepted.

We vote twice. Once on each. So for a total of two, there are two separate applications and two separate amendments. One to the master plan and one to the sub-district plan.

Yes, correct. Rather than duplicate it, we just combined it, but it will require two separate votes.

it. Yes.

And I may have my ordinances mixed up here and I apologize. On the one that is three pages, 2021 810 which looks like it's the same date on it and i'm sorry it's the one that's the longer one um i thought we had approved uh financial cert institutions only in the tower portion and i don't think that's clear on the second page

it's the first whereas on page two of five

Yeah, so it looks like it's just referencing the earlier approval, the financial institution. And it's not really clear as to what sub-district it was. It just references the fact that an amendment was made. And what we could probably do is say... Whereas the Special Development District was amended to include financial institutions in such sub-districts as set forth in that ordinance. And then reference the date, February 23rd, 2021 in the ordinance number. We could change it that way.

Yes. That works.

Um,

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay i'll take a stab at it, but it looks like to a party that to a would be for the second bill.

um. HAB-Marsyn

So i'll try to make a motion. HAB-Marysia Oberlander, that's a discussion here i'll make a motion to. RECOMMEND APPROVAL BASED ON STAFF RECOMMENDATION NUMBER ONE FOR ORDINANCE REPEALING PREVIOUSLY ADOPTED SPECIAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN AS DISCUSSED THIS EVENING. And Stephanie's comments, I'm sorry, repeat that for me.

Yeah, I would just say with the change to that whereas clause on page 205 as previously mentioned. And then I'll draft that up for Susan and Anissa.

Okay, all right.

What she said.

Yeah, thanks. Is that good? I'll second

make a motion to approve with staff recommendation to provide information regarding the proportion of uses medical office retail and ground floor of sub-district 2A parking garage.

Thank you, Ira. Take care.

Okay, great. Tim Brahan is in the attendees list. He's from H3 Studios. So David, if you could move him over, he'll be here to assist us as well. Really for the benefit of the folks in the audience, I'm just going to give a brief overview of kind of where we are and where we've come from. H3 Studios has been under contract with the city to assist the city with the updates of two existing downtown overlay districts, the Central Business District and the Downtown Overlay District. This study conducted over a period of 18 months began with a consultant, H3 Studios, identifying the study area, conducting an onsite survey to identify existing conditions in the study area. And once that data was collected, we proceeded to work with interactive work sessions conducted with the plan commission, the board of aldermen, a combination of the board and the plan commission, planning department, a steering committee which was comprised of key developers, residential property owners, property owners and business owners as well in the study area, the purpose of which was to gather feedback to establish the vision, the principles, and the parameters for new design guidelines and new development regulations for the study area. So on June 21st, in front of this board, Commission H3 gave you a refresher presentation, including an overview of the summary of the public process and identifying key decision points and the resulting drafts of the development standards and the design guidelines. On July 19th, the Planning Commission called its first public hearing wherein they reviewed both the draft development standards and design guidelines and gave staff direction for I would say mostly minor changes. On July 27th, which was last Tuesday, H3 Studios gave the same refresher presentation that was given to the Planning Commission to the Board of Aldermen. And the board listened to that presentation and also had access to the proposed ordinance and design guidelines, commented on them, and took public input at their first public hearing. So tonight is the second public hearing, August 2nd, in front of this board. And the next public hearing with the Board of Aldermen will be next Tuesday, August 10. So that's just a little background of where we are. All of this schedule is posted online on the department's web page under pending applications. And then the city also has a news area of the webpage that contains all of the Zoom meetings we've conducted to date in terms of public hearings and the documents that are under consideration today, including the staff reports. I did want to share with the board, I did send to you the link to the Zoom meeting for the Board of Aldermen. I hope that you were able to review it. I like Zoom for that reason. I think it's nice to hear from the people that are actually speaking about the item rather than me as a third party having to interpret what I think they mean to you in writing, which is why I sent it to you. But if not, and for the benefit of the audience, I did just want to summarize very briefly some of the conversation. And we did have public comment, and I'd like to summarize some of that because it led to some discussion with the board And they wanted you all to take up the same discussion item on a topic related to setbacks. And Tim was there at the meeting on Tuesday as well, so he's very familiar with the discussion and some of the questions that were raised. As an overview, really some of the questions That were raised by the board, there was questions on the differences in heights and upper floor step backs. question on why the height limit of 25 stories was selected. And then there were some questions from the public about the step backs and why the step backs were selected. And Tim gave a very good explanation of why through the study both the height and step backs were decided upon by you know, the steering committee in these public meetings as a whole. There was another public speaker, Mr. Hank Winkelmann, who raised two areas of concern. The first was that he was advocating for six-foot front yard setbacks rather than a zero-build-to line for front setbacks. He noted that this would allow or preclude the encroachment of balconies into the right-of-way for one of the reasons why he was supporting this change. And it would allow for adequate space for outdoor dining and walkway width. He also had concerns over the corners, the intersection corners within the study area, specifically the articulation of the corners His suggestion was to require a certain area of open space to be utilized at the corners or along the frontage. Right now, as it's structured, the code says 85% of the building frontage must be on the build-to line and 15% does not have to be. So that roughly leaves 15% for somebody, a developer to play with. But Mr. Winkleman's suggestion also was that we require a certain amount of open space to be located at the corners. And so that was discussed quite a bit by the board of aldermen. Rich Lentz reminded the board and us of the conversations we've had about streetscape And his question was, how much of this design assumes we will increase the sidewalk space as a city? And the question to Tim was, does any of these requirements anticipate or assume that the sidewalks remain as they are and have a zero-build-to line? And if the plan is for the sidewalks to remain as they are, would it be appropriate to push the buildings back so that we could get wider sidewalks without the city having to engage in a major infrastructure project to widen the sidewalks and get the appropriate turn radiuses and all of the complications associated with making public right-of-ways wider. And so Tim's comments had to do with the fact that, or really noted that these really were the recommendations for wider sidewalks in the area were really outside of the purview of these actual development standards. So it is a recommendation. He did note that there was no anticipation that it would be implemented and also noted in reality that would be a major redevelopment project for the city and at great cost. Tim's comments were that the recommendation for the zero foot build two line was driven by maintaining the contextual relationship with the remaining buildings in the area. And this was stated as a desired outcome really early on in the process, that we were trying to retain the seal, especially along Central Avenue, that the existing buildings gave us. And so that really was the impetus behind trying to retain those zero built zero build to front yard setback requirements. The standards as they proposed do permit in a variety of ways to allow setbacks, but the challenge again with requiring the six foot setback as opposed to the zero foot is that you'll get an inconsistent relationship between the buildings along the sidewalks, for example, traveling down Central Avenue. Karen Grove- David had noted that this type of widening of sidewalks can't really be regulated through zoning again taking a reconstruction project to make the all the drainage turning radius traffic signals and sidewalk wider in that area. Karen Grove- So it really comes down to dollars and figuring out a way to get it done in the future, or accepting the reality. that it may not ever happen, that we may not ever get wider sidewalks in certain areas of the city because of the cost and all the implications associated with that. So from that perspective, the board kind of left this conundrum in your lap. And that is for you to discuss it and consider how the plan commission feels about the suggested six-foot setback. I hope I've been able to explain it to you enough for your understanding. I know Ira was going to be carrying the water on this for the board as well, so I hope I was able to give him at least an intro if he has more to say. Certainly encourage him to do so. And then I will continue my presentation by letting you know. So I'm kind of off the schedule and off the history on to what we're looking at today. I did take very detailed notes from the July 19th meeting and the changes that you had suggested and recommended have been implemented in the draft documents that are before you tonight. If you notice anything that is not as a miss from what you stated, please let me know now or later if you wish. I'll continue to review the document and obviously any changes that you direct us to make tonight will be written into the document and then this ordinance will be headed to the Board of Aldermen next Tuesday. So I'll be working on that as early as tomorrow when this meeting is done. And the other thing I would note, going through the staff report and the staff recommendations, So when we discussed with H3 about the possibility of defining what a small lot is, if you recall that discussion, the suggestion was made that they would come up with a definition. Mr. Chairman, I think you weren't sure what small lot really was intending to mean. And the point we made was, well, we could just bring it up at the Board of Aldermen That was not brought up at the Board of Aldermen. Consequently, after drafting the ordinance and loading all this up, Tim did provide me with a definition of small lot and also regarding the Planning Commission's comments about bay windows and Oriole windows. I think, Helen, this was you, must have a maximum. You wanted a percentage coverage of the frontage, I believe. And so they made that suggestion as well. So in your staff report under staff recommendation, I'll note that, and there are two typos here, if you'll bear with me, section 410.110A6, which is page 11, staff is recommending whenever possible to develop with smaller lot increments and the highlighted in red not to exceed 100 feet in width is the definition that was proposed by H3. And then in section 410, the second recommendation to amend the document would be section 410.160D bay windows and Oriole windows we would like to add to the ordinance, or we recommend you add to the ordinance must have a maximum coverage of 50% of the building facade. Again, that was suggested by H3. So those are the only two corrections I have that need to be put into the draft ordinance, but everything else in the draft ordinance should reflect your comments from the July 19th meeting. This is your second public hearing. You're welcome to have another public hearing if you wish. You would just have to continue this public hearing if, as a result of your discussions tonight, you feel you're not ready to move this on to the Board of Aldermen. That certainly is your prerogative. But I will leave it at that. Page 2 of the staff report has our recommendation that you amend the sections I noted and send that on to the Board And that concludes my summary presentation.

Mr. Chair, you're muted.

Yes, I have a question for Tim. When you say must have a maximum coverage of 50% of the building facade, is that a requirement? Could I have 10% coverage?

PB Harmon Zuckerman, Yes, Helen. That would that would be a maximum that would be a max maximum allowable coverage. So it could be any any could be anywhere up to 50% and if that if that language needs to be further tweaked to clarify, please let us know and we can we can look at that.

Hella Pannewig – Assistant City Attorney, It's just, I guess. Hella Panrewig – Assistant City Agent, Seeing reading that part must have a minimum clear height. And that's understandable because of the sidewalk below. And then it says maximum depth of six feet, maximum length of eight feet. Reading that I get the feeling, okay, I've got anything up to six feet, anything up to eight feet. And then when it transitions to must have a maximum coverage, Initially reading it, it sounded to me that I was required to have a maximum coverage.

No, I can understand that. And I think if we either changed it to say something to the effect of along the same lines as those other requirements said, you could simply say maximum facade coverage is limited to 50% or something along those lines. But yes, I think we can absolutely look at the language and I understand where that may be confusing the way that it's currently written.

Yeah, I think, I mean, my solution was very much like what you proposed, just delete the must have of, just put maximum coverage of 50% of the building facade

Yes.

That's it. So, okay. Now that was just a concern that if I were designing something and reading it, I might go, whoops, I'm steering clear of this because 50% is more than I want.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Okay. No, I think that's good. I like it. You know, well done.

Thank you.

mean, with respect to what the Board of Aldermen had discussed? Yes. Is that what you want?

Right. I mean, you know, one of the things that we've always wanted to see happen downtown, of course, is vibrancy. It's a big part of why we are supporting development as much as we are. The vibrancy helps in so many ways. I was very supportive and probably more instrumental than most in trying to get the entertainment district established in the city. I got some good feedback. I know Bob, you also supported that. And I think when you're gonna build right up to the sidewalk, and you don't allow for having all sorts of other functioning and activity at the sidewalk level, we're really cheating the city out of really one of the components that I think we all wanna see happen. And so the concern I think of the board is, you know, making sure that we don't, you know, we don't keep building. I think, and I think the Bucky Brown's project was, is built where it's right up to the, you know, right up to the building line without having a setback. I think there is some setback further up, but it really doesn't help for ground level activity and ground level you know, vibrancy in the city. So I think it's something we have to look at. One of the arguments against it, I understand, I don't know if it was Tim, but I think it was, is that we, you know, the articulation becomes a little bit wonky. We end up having buildings that are up to the building line and others that are not on the same block. And it kind of doesn't, it's not consistent. My concern isn't so much that because a lot of the developments that we're looking at will take up an entire block And so they're taking down the old buildings. They're taking down the buildings that might have been already built to the sidewalk. And so we would still have entire areas where the setback is more to our appeal. So I think the other thing is that we may be taking buildings, they may be redoing buildings that are not set to the building line and now putting them up to the building line. which is something I don't think we want to have. So I'm really concerned about it. I really think this is our opportunity to really design a lot more of our downtown the way we really want to see it and not based on just, you know, what the developer necessarily wants. So that's kind of how I see it, guys.

Can I interject? Yeah. I tend to agree with Ira. I also tend to agree with Tim in a way, but I think what I'm looking at is okay. I don't know if you can see this, but if you have buildings with different setbacks, which is what we're going to have for a little bit, right? You can protect the street in different ways, right? Sorry. You can create different ways to hold the street architecture, right? It doesn't have to be six feet back. It doesn't have zero feet back. There's a variety of difference all through the entire world, especially Europe, where you go back and you go forth. And there's ways to create that wonderful space in the street. And I listened to the recording from the meeting. And when Michelle Harris said, you have to start at some point. You've got to start doing what you really want at some point, no matter where the lines are right now, where some of the buildings are. I mean, look at Hanley. Would we have done that again if we had a choice? I mean, now? I would say probably not. We would redesign that road altogether even though it's not under our control, under Clayton. But I'm just saying that there are ways to control how the street and the sidewalk is experienced, whether or not it's at a zero or a six or a 10. There's ways to control all of that through urban design mechanisms. that make it more special than saying you have to be at a certain whatever. So for me, I kind of feel like Hank had a point. I mean, I don't know all of his point. I just heard the end closing arguments and the presentation. But I kind of feel if we're going to make this a special place, we have to consider variation a little bit, especially with land uses and things that we learned even tonight that are gonna be a little bit different than sidewalk cafe. It's gonna be a little different as we go here forward, right? So I guess my point is, I think we can make the streets a little bit more interesting and still hold the architecture of the street and create a space without having the same building setback. That's all I had to say.

Other comments? David. And just to clarify, Susan explained something that I had talked about in the meeting and I wanted to add a little context to that. When I'm talking about the wider sidewalks through zoning, the only way to really attain that is by increasing the setback. to try to do it on the public side, if we're talking about a half block or something like that, you really have to re-engineer the entire street to make that work. So had we asked Bemis in place to build at the zero lot line, but we wanted a wider sidewalk, the only way to do that would be to move the curb out. And if you move that curb out, you just... impacted the drainage on the entire street. You've impacted the lane alignments, the turn radius coming down Maryland onto Central. You have to put in new mast arms because you have new lane width. Moving that curb line is very problematic. So if we're really trying to seek wider sidewalks and wider public space, we need to do that, keeping the curb where it's at and picking up more space with a setback. So that's the point I was trying to make there and saying that it's, it's hard to accomplish it through zoning if, If it requires them to move the curb, that's where I think this really becomes an issue. Because it's just a massive undertaking to go there. No, I

wasn't talking about the curb. I was talking about the

job. I just wanted to clarify that for everybody. That if we want extra sidewalk width, it's not asking the developer to move the curb out and picking up space on that side. It's got to be on the building side and moving that building back to get the width there.

May I? George? Arcades have we, I'm trying to look at this real quick and I don't remember if you ever discussed it, but an arcade is another solution to that as well, where you could have the ground floor with an arcade and upper levels up to the lot line, which is utilized quite a bit in France and different areas as well. But it provides the continuity of the facade or the long block or the linear, facade that you expect on a block, but then also gives you that outdoor area where you can sit in a protected area.

That's being utilized on foresight point, I believe.

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that on Bemiston Place, the developer did that along Maryland, gave the sidewalk, I think it was six feet and hung the building out to the build two line, the property line. So the sidewalk became larger, but yet the building, it maintained, there isn't a real long line because it's the whole block that they're utilizing. but it was moving that ground floor back. And Forsyth Point is an even better example of it.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, Yes, Steve. That's correct. And the first round of revisions that were submitted. PB Harmon Zuckerson, In conjunction with city staff prior to the first public hearing. PB Harmon Zuckerberg, Clarified and remove some contradictions within the original draft relative to the chamfering of building corners. You're correct.

I guess

Steve, if you would permit me just one second. There are some additional provisions in the code that I just wanted to draw folks' attention to that do permit those setbacks that, again, are designed to modify the basic build-to-line requirements. And those include within the Build 2 Line regulation, the note that specifies that a certain percentage of both the ground floor and upper floor facades are permitted to be set back up to 12 feet, as well as there is a specific requirement frontage type, a cafe frontage type which is designed to permit an inset open air dining area adjacent to the sidewalk. So we do think that it's very important to be able to permit a variety of active ground floor and sidewalk spill out uses Within the district. Currently, the code does that through a number of different mechanisms that modify that basic zero foot build to line. But of course if it's you know if it's the boards and the city's prerogative to look at having a consistent that is set back from the parcel line by some distance, whatever that distance may be. That is certainly something that we can look at as well.

Well, if it's so, it would depend on how it was written into the code. But if it was a six foot, if it was written as a six foot build to line, then that would in fact be a mandatory setback. And all buildings would be required to be placed at a distance of, six feet behind the parcel line, according to the commonly accepted definition of a build two line in form-based coding. So essentially what you would be doing is you would be requiring each individual parcel owner to essentially dedicate six feet of the front of their parcel or of their street frontage to a public sidewalk zone in that case. And you would then be achieving a wider sidewalk, but it would be being done on an incremental basis and would essentially be the responsibility of the private property owner to provide that amenity on their property in front of their building.

So there are different ways that that can be done. And again, this gets to the specifics of the type of building form that you're trying to achieve. So if you had a mandatory, let's say that you specified a six foot build two line at the ground floor, but then you permitted say a zero foot uh zero foot build two line or you required a zero foot build two-line on any upper floor or perhaps you set it for upper floors at a range between between six feet and zero feet for for example um then of course you would be getting an overhang condition which could be treated in a variety of ways that the aforementioned arcade or colonnade frontage would be would be a common way of doing that. And again, then the question would be, is that the desired form characteristic for this area? And likewise, would essentially mandating an arcade or colonnade for the entirety of the district, would that be the desired form standard for this area? or do we want to allow for a variety of treatments and a more incremental step back approach at the ground floor by permitting certain percentages of the ground floor facade and the upper floor facade separately to be set back with a distance of up to 12 feet. That provides incremental insets that that are up to the discretion of the architect and the builder for exactly how to configure those. But they then again provide those outdoor spaces. And I think part of this also comes down to the fact that different ground floor uses will automatically tend to prefer different ground floor treatments. So, you know, for instance, a retail storefront is not necessarily going to want a 12 foot setback at the ground floor, but a, you know, a restaurant or a bar very well might for outdoor seating, outdoor seating and dining. So, you concept of this district was to allow for a maximum amount of flexibility that's appropriate to the urban form. while still maintaining a coherent and contextually relevant or relative urban form of one building to another, which is why we've structured the code in the way that we have. Again, it's not to say that it is the only way of doing it. There are certainly many solutions, but with the principles of you know, wanting to allow for and to actually facilitate durable buildings, long lasting buildings that can support a variety of uses at the ground floor and in the upper floors. And, you know, to provide a variety of different types of outdoor spaces and relationships of ground floor program spaces to the sidewalk. We We structured the code in the way that we felt would best achieve those goals.

I actually don't think this is a commentary or question about what you guys are doing. I think it's mostly about distance of sidewalk to building in general in our city. I mean, at least for me. I don't think it has to do with... You have good intentions. I believe that. So for me, it's kind of like there has to be a certain amount of distance between the baseline of the building to the edge of the curb so that pedestrians can walk our streets. And if we have varying widths or whatever, that's fine, but there has to be some clear path to have us you know at least have a place to walk and there's so many places i can tell you about that are just like you're like you're in danger of a car hitting you sort of thing so i just want to make sure that we're all happy with whatever we come up with here and we can sign off on it that's all

at a

May I make another comment here as it relates to sidewalks and utilization of sidewalks? The areas that we have the problems are really where, one, the sidewalk is not right enough, obviously, but two, that we're allowing outdoor dining. So in essence, a business is using our sidewalks and prohibiting or impairing the pedestrians through that walkway. Is it upon the city to provide that extra sidewalk? Or is it upon the builder and the owner of the building to provide that extra seating space? And I would tend to say that it's the onerous is upon the building owner and developer to provide that space. And I tend to think that the arcade may be the best solution for this in general.

So

can I say something else? If I use it as an example of the loop, if you walk down Del Mar, which I do quite often, their sidewalks are plenty wide. And that's for whether they're dining or they're not. Their retail establishments also would have plenty of sidewalk in front of them and they have plenty of opportunity for promoting their goods or whatever they want to do window-wise. and it doesn't hurt them at all to have a white sidewalk still right in front of them. And so I'm not sure why it's a problem I don't have a problem with the arcade because I understand, I mean it even protects from weather if you're gonna use it for dining or other things. I don't have problem with the arcade but I still think there needs to be that added sidewalk throughout the city. We should use it as a rule. We have handicapped people who would like to be able to use our sidewalks and be free to use it. And not only use it, but actually have people walking beside them as they're using our sidewalks, enough room for that to happen. And when we start putting tables out and we start allowing business owners to use and encroach on the sidewalks in many ways, it really does hurt, I think, a lot of people's vision of enjoying our downtown area. So that's my comment.

So I'm fine with that, Steve. I appreciate your comments on that. I don't have a problem with having the building come out on the second level as we did on Foresight Point. I think that's not a bad solution. I think that works okay. So it wouldn't be my first preference, but it's certainly one that I can accept.

I appreciate that.

I don't know what happened to me. I think I took a siesta or something. I dropped off for 10 minutes. Yeah, you disappeared. No one else did, huh? That's that Twilight Zone. I've always been of the belief that for Clayton's downtown to really be vibrant, you design something that makes as many feet on the sidewalk as possible. You can have as many high rises as you want, concentrate as many people as you want, but if they're not outside, they're not walking, we have a problem. The city just rolls up after dinner. It looks like a ghost town. It's sterile, whatever you want to call it. So that is the goal to get feet on the sidewalk. Steve, I love your idea where we can go six feet back. to accommodate the businesses and allow disabled people, people walking in both directions, a husband and wife with a little baby in a carriage or just a bunch of kids walking up the street. We have very narrow sidewalks, generally speaking. That is a problem to creating a vibrant downtown. And Steve, I love your idea.

Yeah, I think I agree with you. I like your idea, Steve. But I would give the flexibility to build to the line or set back six feet so that we don't require this arcade which will become boring, monotonous, dead space sometimes. And I do think, I mean, I'm a big fan of wider sidewalks because I hate walking single file when you're with a group of people But I think some of the restaurants have taken advantage of the ability to put tables and chairs on the sidewalk. And then you add to that people who say, oh, well just move your chair around here. And they start reconfiguring kind of that table for four instead of being four here and two here and two here. It becomes for around and it's something that I think we should be more stringent about, remind the restaurant owners that there needs to be a clear path of so many feet. And if you can't fit a table there then that's kind of the way it goes. because sometimes you're trying to work your way through a whole maze of tables. And it's great to see people, but it's not user friendly for the pedestrian. I would like to see, yes, you can go build your building back and do an arcade type or you can put your building right at the build two line.

I tend to disagree with that in some ways, Helen. One, if you don't have something on a setback side of it, you're going to have that building to the sidewalk, which is narrow anyway. And what I see happening are businesses or restaurants coming and say, well, we want an outdoor dining permit. And all of a sudden you're stuck with another roadblock in that sidewalk. So I don't think it's an either or. I think it's going to have to be In my mind, an arcade concept or you build six feet back all the way up one or the other. Otherwise, you're going to constantly be narrowing that sidewalk down the public right away.

Were you referring to upper floors, Helen?

Yes. If you choose not to do an arcade type design, the building has to be set back six feet

all the way. I just wanted to make sure Helen was referring to the upper floors and not the ground floor level.

OSBT-Karen Hollweg- No, I would not let it be set back from the bill to mine on the upper floors I think if we do that, then I would ask him if the building setbacks that are set on each street assuming the build to mine as it is written now do those setbacks at six stories do they change. because suddenly you're making everything wider and you wanna keep some feeling of not enclosure, but kind of like a cozy space versus a big, large open space. I do know there was one shop on Central It served food. It was on the west side of Central, North Central. And it was a storefront that was right to the sidewalk. And then when the restaurant went in, I forget what the storefront was before, but when the restaurant went, they set the storefront back so that they could accommodate more seating. And it also gave them protected seating from rain or that kind of thing. So I think if owners, building owners want to accommodate a restaurant, there are ways that you can do it and still

keep the kind of creative element Well, I feel like we're getting far from the... Well, all right. Well, I want to ask a question. One of the things that I've noticed when it comes to arcades and things like that, a lot of people, if it's not continuous, they question if they're supposed to be in there. And as an urban design person, you know, Tim knows that I have background on that. when you start walking and you see an arcade all of a sudden, off to your right slightly six feet or whatever, it's like sort of like, can I go in there? Is that my, can I walk there? So that gets a little confusing to me. I don't wanna set that as a precedent, but if we wanna have that, that's great. The other question I have is if we wanna do, a setback for buildings to allow for more sidewalk, can we make that part of our list as a point system? Remember the point system of things that are good for the city, like art and everything else, sustainability, all that stuff. Can we make it something that we put into the point system if you HAB-Juliette Boone, Can put your building back six feet and give more sidewalk that that gives more benefit to the city up Susan. I'm sorry. Go ahead. HAB-Judy

HAB-Julie Peters, So one of the reasons why we're doing these design standards is to hopefully set the standard so that people don't come in and amend the standards through the PV process. And so what we were doing in the past was we were wiping out all of our adopted standards by adopting a PUD and taking them all out. So the point system is only available through the PUD process. I'm sorry. All right.

Well, sorry about

that. Can I, may I quickly, may I quickly restate what I think the problem is? Um, how do we change the utilizations of sidewalks from dining purposes to pedestrian purposes and i think that's the question that we're trying to answer right now

i don't know that that's the question we're trying to

that's that's what i think the question is that's why i'm saying can i restate this

Okay, but George, I think we want both, don't we? Don't we want people to enjoy our city and sit out there and have dinner?

We do, but sidewalks are public. Dining areas are private. And that's what I'm trying to say there is that we are allowing a public aspect to become private by allowing dining on our sidewalks.

Did somebody ever ask Tim while I was out about his opinion about a recess six feet, but then above being to the line?

Well, Robert, again, I think that there are many ways that that can be done. And I don't... There's nothing... there's nothing intrinsically, in my opinion, good or bad about that condition. I think that what it's going to involve is a more detailed look at what the form implications of that are going to be and how those frontages are treated. Because, you know, as as Helen and George and others on this call have, uh, are on this meeting tonight have, have articulated, you know, there are, there are clearly, um, benefits and challenges to that. And understanding the actual physical implications of what the built environment looks like under those conditions is something that we have not really explored in this process thus far, because it wasn't something that we were considering in the past. And we would need to look at that. So again, I think it's It is absolutely a situation that you see in many places. You are seeing it in a few places in downtown Clayton. You're not seeing it very many places yet in downtown Clayton, but if that is something that the board would like us to consider and then we can certainly work with the city to consider that.

I just think it would be helpful for everybody to look at that section. That's on page five. Tim had referred to this before. So Mr. Chair, what I think you're talking about is on the top of page five there under 1A exceptions, you'll see that it says the second bullet is up to a maximum of 25% of the total facade length can basically be set back from that build-to line. And so is the suggestion you're making that we tinker with that 25% number or at least talk about that and maybe changing that to 50 or 60 or something else? Yes.

that is. No, I just wanted to show where that would fit into this code. And I think it's important to look at how it's drafted right now with that 25% as a maximum to kind of understand what the starting point is.

May I interject? Is that a maybe or are we talking more will be at this point in time? This is written as a maybe. Right, but I think what we're saying right now is it will be. Correct. Thank you.

Can you repeat the page?

I'm

sorry.

Mr. Chair, I'll also mention when we get to the point where you call on the public, we do have a hand up.

It is listed as a public hearing.

Thank you.

No, I'm good for now. Thank you.

Yes, that is correct.

No, no laughing. It's now been sketched upon as comments have come through.

Sorry. That looks awful.

was awful? Artistic ability is wonderful. Can I flip the argument just a little? You know, I'm listening to everybody and it sounds like, okay, we widen the sidewalks. We make it more attractive for people for walking, make it more conducive. That's the point you're trying to make. And it usually doesn't, deals with what I'm hearing is when we get to the restaurants, trying to navigate through a couple of sections of restaurants on the sidewalks. But you know, I just throw this out to you. The reason that we don't have more people on the sidewalks is not because the sidewalks aren't wide enough, it's because there aren't enough suitable destination places other than lunch and maybe dinner. Aesthetically, it's not very attractive. Widening the sidewalks would help a little bit. The buildings and everything, it's not like the Loop. The Loop is a fun place to walk around. Storefronts right up in your face. It's a little grunge feel to it. It is wonderful. I was just in Nashville last weekend. Boy, I wish St. Louis was like Nashville. It was just... Every storefront was open glass and music and everything was coming out. Just a wonderful quality of life feel. We have kind of a dead feel in Clayton downtown because their office buildings closed up glass. It just isn't a whole lot. So my point is, are we looking at it the wrong way, maybe? Maybe it's not the sidewalks that isn't the problem. Maybe having them up against the line isn't such a bad thing aesthetically because you have all these other buildings that are on the line or what have you. Maybe that kind of works and the fundamental issue I will say is, you know, The look of the buildings, not enough destination places. We roll up at night at six o'clock, all that kind of stuff. That's why we don't have people on the ground and the width of the sidewalk at the end of the day is quite secondary except for a few patches where there's restaurants.

Okay. Can I respond? Yep. Okay. So if I have a business and I have a very cool Restaurant business. I'm trying to point to a place here and I want to create, I can't point this way because it's really opposite my brain. If I want to create an outside seating here in order to feed my business, that's great. If there is a, like we talked about tonight, a orthodontist office here, that's fine. And then you skip a little row and I'm going the wrong way. If you skip a little, I can't do it that way. whatever, if you skip that way and you go down the line and you have different uses, that's all great. I don't think, I think we're trying to build what we have already. We have really good businesses. We have a lot of great restaurants. I mean, St. Louis is known a lot for even Clayton. Clayton is a wonderful city where we have beautiful, wonderful restaurants that we have thrived on for years. I've been here for 20 years now. 22, I want to say. So, you know, I have to say it's very walkable for the most part. And we walk, we live right in White Owl Forest and we walk to different restaurants and I enjoy that. And I want to see that increased and enhanced and, you know, enlivened. So to compare it to Nashville, you know, if we could increase the experiential atmosphere of our place, I would say let's go shoot for higher than Nashville. I love Nashville, but I'm just saying, I mean, if we're gonna go for the moon, let's go for places that you have like tiny little stores and tiny little restaurant where everybody just comes and it's like a village. It's wonderful. But I think we've got something here already. And it's just a matter of what we let get developed. Right? So what we're looking at right now is Tim and the wonderful firm of H3 has come up with this wonderful plan. And what we're trying to do now is figure out what the dimensions are with stuff in the human comfort zone of what we feel would create space for people to want to be in, right? So I think we need to decide what we all think is good and what the public think is good you know, from their memories. Like, actually, Bob, what you're saying is, you know, what you found that was good there. How do we bring that here in a way? But not literally, but just experientially. How do we make this place better for everyone by bringing what we know is good?

Carolyn, what you say is you're on all fours. I really respect you for what you say. The only thing I would slightly differ is I characterize Clayton as basically can only grow restaurants and that's it. And now it's going to grow an orthodontist office and it has banks on corners, but downtown Clayton is just restaurants and nothing else in part, not because of Clayton, but because our real estate is so expensive, it can't support the dying retail. that is around here, you know? It just is. You know, I love wider sidewalks. I'm kind of like on a fence. I'll call it the Steve idea, although he doesn't want to take credit for it, I know. You know, there's something nice about having a straight line. I get that. But if I was probably to choose, I would probably want to have a, Carolyn, I think I would like to have a wider sidewalk. But the fundamental question is not that the wider sidewalks are going to do anything. It's just that the uses to which we have on the ground floor in Clayton isn't working. I don't, you know, restaurant after restaurant after restaurant We need more than that. And, you know, the market controls what goes on the first floor. That's why we're having an orthodontist at that end cap of that building and not a restaurant or not, you know, something else. That's all.

So can I say something, Steve? Yeah, go on, Ira. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a chicken and egg thing. And I think, you know, Bob's hitting on, well, you know, he's totally right about what he says. I mean, it's not like we're going to build wider sidewalks and then they will come. You know, it's not going to be that simple. I mean, you're not going to build a wider sidewalk and then people are going to go, hey, Clayton's got wide sidewalks. Let's go to Clayton. Yeah. Yeah. So that's not the idea. That's not what's going to happen. But, you know, I go to the loop like Bob, you mentioned the loop and so did I. You know, I go there at seven or eight o'clock at night on a Friday night. If they didn't have wide sidewalks, people would be walking in the street. You just have to, you have to start somewhere with making the city conducive to having the foot traffic that we wanna have at some point. And if you end up with sidewalks that people can't possibly walk on, if there are more than three or four people walking on the sidewalk, then it's gonna be also, it's gonna be a negative. You know, I look at Forsyth where we have sauce on the side. Has anyone tried to navigate that sidewalk? I mean, it's impossible and I certainly couldn't bring somebody in a wheelchair over there. It's just impossible to navigate. So we've got to stop having those sidewalks. We have to make sure we have plenty of room And if we have establishments, whether it be a Froyo or some other that does require some tables out front, we wanna know that there's room for that. And when they build the building, we don't know what that's going to be. People come to us for development and they say, oh yeah, well, we're developing, but they can't tell us what that retail is going to be over the next 20 years. We can't guess. And so what I'm just saying is I would like to see, it would be good for us to have some kind of a standard, you know what, let's get a six foot setback so that if you're going to have tables, that particular retail establishment today is great. you know, is selling dog food. And then tomorrow is selling real food. And it's the next day, it's going to be a restaurant. I mean, you don't know what it's going to but we should leave open the option for all of these storefronts in these areas that we have a lot, you know, where we want to get a lot of foot traffic. We want to bring it all in. But yeah, no, I agree, Bob. The white cyborg's not going to bring them in. I agree with that 100%. It's just how do we set the city up with our infrastructure so that we start somewhere with building what it is we want to see happen in the city?

Our words of wisdom. Can I bring back George's question? in sight where he was saying, well, there's private space and public space. So let's say I'm walking down the sidewalk and this sidewalk has six feet under the canopy. And now I assume the tenant is gonna try to do something with that space. And let's assume he's not a restaurant. Let's get away from restaurants for one second. What is gonna happen with that space? Is he going to put plants there? Is he going put, I can't even remember. If it's an orthodontist, do you put a, I don't know, sign up table or braces of display?

I

don't know but the fact that it's private space gives rights to the tenant to try to use it for something. And if the restaurant next door has tables there, I want to be able to use it for a something. And as the end result, if there's no restaurants on that street, are all the tenants going to use that space and we're back to where we were? I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. Take away the restaurants for a minute and what's that space going to look like?

So may I interject there? Because I think it kind of came up from that. The six-foot space that I'm referring to, I don't want it referred to as sidewalk. The sidewalk is really what's already out there in the city has, be it the three feet, four feet, whatever it may be. The six- foot space is to remove the utilization of the sidewalk by those businesses and allow them to use it in that six-foot area. If you look at north central now Most of the businesses are closed on the block where Bemis and Place are going. But if you look at how Barcelona has used up the entire side of that sidewalk, that would all be in that six foot space. And we would still have the sidewalk that we would need.

Well said, George.

That's the best example I can think of.

Is 25% of the width of the building? The property line, basically.

it's all of the dimensions referred and all of them are keyed to the property line, yes.

Let me point out something here and look at a couple of examples as far as what that percent may be if we're going in that direction. JP Fields is using the entire front of their facade for dining area. Barcelona has expanded for the entire half block, if I'm not mistaken. of Central Avenue. Posteria is using the entire facade for their dining area. Wasabi I don't think is using anything now, and I cannot think of other ones, but I

think

Avenue is using their entire facade plus other buildings. I think that the percentage needs to be pretty high because it is desirable for those places to have that outdoor dining, those dining areas that are in the open.

PB John Gerstles, So here's the way that I would rephrase this paragraph, if you want to meet if I were to write this paragraph now is that one street frontage ground floor facades should be set back not maybe. should or will be set back from the build-to line for the building entrances, open air, seating, dining areas, and other pragmatic uses up to a maximum of blank or up to a maximum blank percentage. Second, upper floor facades should be built to the build-to lines. However, with the step backs going on there first, you know, then the step backs above floor six.

George, can you repeat that first line you were giving us?

The ground floor facades either should or will, depending on how we end up here, be set back from the build-to line for open air seating, dining areas, and other programmatic uses. So basically where it says the exceptions, that is the first sentence.

So if I have no plans for a restaurant, then what?

then it would be for the entrances or the other programmatic areas. You can say today you have no plans for a restaurant. What about five years from now?

Well, where I'm locating my building, there really isn't many restaurants. It's not really a restaurant area, I would say to you. And so I don't foresee that in the foreseeable future.

Again- Five years, 10 years, 15 years, 30 years. What's the useful life of a building?

It was a good response, Bob. But in all honesty, that's really not. I mean, there are restaurants all over the city. We really don't have like a restaurant row or anything, you know, so we kind of restaurants everywhere. We have them down at Pino's and we got we got restaurants at all places. corners and crevices of the city.

I agree with you. I was just thinking out loud.

And again, useful life, Bob, on that side of things too. I mean, you can look at some of these other places where you never thought there would be a restaurant that was originally a warehouse in downtown St. Louis that was manufacturing. And 30 years later, we've got a restaurant and a bar in it. So, you know, the building uses change over time.

Sure.

No, I said it should or will. We change it from maybe to forcing it will.

And set a minimum and a maximum.

Yes. We have to do it

so much. We

revert that to this has to be done.

So does this afford us any greater right-of-way width of sidewalk for pedestrians?

I think it protects our right-of- way that we have now.

In some areas, it's not enough.

Well, then you're asking for the private owner to basically dedicate some of its private land for pedestrian areas. Like we do that for roads all the time. I

would consider that eminent domain in some way. It actually

moves the property line. Yes, is what you're doing. You're moving the property line. You're moving with the dedication.

space there's a whole technical aspect to this as well, whether or not. If they decide that length is a sidewalk, whether or not you do an easement so that the property line doesn't move, therefore you're not affecting the building line. There's some things to think through there. Wouldn't we be better off? How do you get the concrete to match if something happens to that sidewalk? People are going to think it's a public sidewalk, but it's on the private side of that line. I mean, there's a lot to consider there. Can I make a

suggestion that this is another meeting for all of us at the ARB to come together and discuss privately? It seems like it's very complex, and we need to have further discussion. Susan, how does that work? Well,

Right. I know. I know. All right.

Can I just

interject? It seems like it needs to be further discussed.

On what George is saying, maybe the balance is at some places we probably do need to widen sidewalks, but maybe the compromise to move forward would be we want to protect the sidewalks we have from encroachment. period and then we adopt the formula but but instead of trying to figure out well this this part of a street, we want to work on widening. Let's start taking private property away from the property owner. I think we start going down a slippery slope that's going to be very hard to regulate and to manage. But if we draw the line, let's protect the sidewalks we have for public walking, public access for all the positive reasons we already talked about, and then do the percentage Maybe that's the way to

tonight. I would like to add that I think, and I noticed Stephanie left the meeting. I would like add we might want to just have a little bit of legal advice in terms of You know, we keep talking about widening the sidewalk, making the assumption that that's what the developer is gonna do with that extra six feet. And there's no requirement to do that in the code as it's written. And in fact, that could be considered taking a private property in some form or fashion. So I do think Stephanie needs to weigh in a little bit on that if we're gonna make it a six foot across the board requirement.

Susan, I don't think our point was to widen the sidewalk within the six feet, but find a place for the tables and chairs of the restaurants that did not encroach upon the sidewalks.

Understand, I think you can probably get there through the percentage by perhaps increasing the percentage that's already proposed and allowing for some creative placemaking that way. I think that's one way you can do it. But you are still going to have to rely on the developer to use that space in a way that protects the sidewalk and what you want. And I'm not sure you can get there without more specific requirements in either the design standards the design suggestions or the development standards. So I think that needs, I think there does need to be a legal aspect that needs to be considered. And I'm sorry Stephanie's not here to at least give us some advice on that. But I agree. I think if, I think the percentage increasing the percentage might be the way to go if you want to wrap this up tonight. That's my opinion. I do agree with Tim. on the design implications. If you're talking about doing arcades and things like that, that is a whole different look. That is a whole different impact on our streets. And I wouldn't wanna go to that extreme without studying those kind of design implications before we went that route.

PB Harmon

Well, the thing that bothers me is we've been assuming all along that if we make somebody set back their building, that they're going to put pavement or concrete in front and people are going to be able to use it, the general public. And so I don't know that you can force somebody to do that. I mean, what if they wanted to put a small walkway and a bunch of landscaping in that six-foot area? You're achieving some open space, but you're not really achieving protecting your sidewalks.

Yeah, you are because you might have used their land, but they can't use the sidewalk.

Right, right. If they want to come back and put in a restaurant inside there, we can force that to be changed.

Not under the scenario I described. If somebody wants to put... If you say you're going to set back six feet and they want to put a landscape bed in there full of plants...

We could deny an outdoor dining permit. Right.

Yeah, but we're not talking about doing that in these regulations.

And we're getting piecemeal again.

Yeah.

Sorry, but it seems like we're getting piecemeal again. I

think the point is we're there to protect our sidewalks. If there's some setbacks that are in there, it's their land to do with as they sort of please. But they can't encroach on the sidewalks as they are now.

Right, that's right. I wouldn't be opposed to landscaping if they wanted to put some plants and some things in that space instead of tables and chairs. You know what? If it adds to the streetscape, that's fine. I don't have a problem with it. We'd kind of like to throw more plants and flowers and all that on our streets, on our sidewalks anyway, if we have room.

So the six feet zone that you're talking about is ADA and sidewalk, or are we talking about willy-nilly here? I'm so confused right now.

We're talking about the six foot zone being behind the existing sidewalk.

Okay. And it would

belong to the developer. On the private property. Yes. Correct. Okay. So the city's right-of-way wouldn't change at all. You just wouldn't have any private encroachments onto the public right-of- way at that point.

Zuckerson,

Yeah. PB John

Gerstle, It would be a minimum out in my mind.

you're going to say shall, you've got to set a minimum amount. And then if you're worried about it going to 100% or you're worried about them using too much depth, then you can set a minimum and a maximum amount and give them a range that they have to hit. So you could say you have to be set back between 6 and 12 feet. There you go. You have to be setback between 25% and 80% of the frontage, something to that effect.

Right. I like that. Carolyn, you need to turn on the lights in your room.

Yeah, I'm about to actually. Can we hear from Tim on this? Tim Braham?

Yeah. What in particular would you like my input on?

I think in general, that's a fine solution. I would 100% agree with David with David's position that if we're establishing a shall requirement, then a minimum and maximum percentage and depth needs to be specified. And I think, you know, A six-foot minimum to 12-foot maximum seems reasonable, well within the range that we're considering. I think what we may want to do, instead of specifying a... defined numerical value, though, is we could say it's an it's it has it as an average six minimum average of six feet or a maximum average of 12 feet that would again permit even some additional some additional flexibility and it would permit things like chamfers or, you know, angled walls if that was desirable. And I think that, you know, 20, 25 to 80%, I think that seems fine. you know, yeah, no, no, yeah, no. I appreciate that. I mean, I, I think, you know, 80% might be a bit high, um, you know, maybe it's 70 or 75%. I, I would just, just going back to the discussion from previously of the arcades, um, you being developed because someone is permitted to set back the entire facade by that distance. And then again, I think it's just a matter of what dimensional or what percentage requirement makes sense given the form, given the desired urban form. but I think it's the right approach to achieve what everyone has expressed is their desired outcome tonight.

You're on mute,

I'll bring Mr. Winkleman over.

Okay.

Good evening, Hank. Good evening. Wonderful to see the energy, the interest, the sort of fluidity of ideas being grown and developed. And I very much appreciate I want to acknowledge very quickly that the issue of the setback as it relates to the sidewalk and the pedestrian experience is really significant on Maryland. And it's as we begin to look at the future opportunities on Maryland that go down by the post office, and who knows, And I think the Beamanston Place project has actually pulled the face of the building off the built-in land by about three feet in order to make that sidewalk work and be able to develop the parking that they would love to have in front of their retail establishments. And as we continue down Maryland, thinking about it, we go past the... let's call it, building that was developed on Central to the lot line with its very exciting store that's basically filled with goods. It's that pharmacy store. It's a very, let's call it undistinguished gateway to Central and It doesn't have pedestrian life or let's call it people with restaurant ideas as a part of it. And the building form projects all the way to the building to land. And as we go to the next block and we look up and see the setback that is created for the for the corporate tower that is there and across the street at 8,000 on Merrimack. Then we go down that very steep hill and we get down to, we get on Maryland going down that very narrow sidewalk to get to the building that has Oceana. And it gets into the real question of what's gonna happen on that site and how much outdoor dining could come there. And returning to this whole idea of going down Maryland, put it into the one up you're driving your car. And what does it look like And you can look up and you can see the Maryland condo building with its beautiful balconies that are projecting out. And they're projecting out above the setback that they created and that they landscaped at the base of the building. And so are any of the new buildings that we're building going to have balconies that extend out over their private property? So if they're going to have balconie that are projecting out, it seems to me they need to only extend out as far as their property line. You know, Maryland, quite frankly, Steve, sort of reminds me of Hanlon. We're just talking about a very ragged, uneven, one inconsistent, sometimes not very attractive. And what's even more important is that all of those intersections are gateways that are bringing people into the city. So I... I could have taken this discussion and said, let's go down Forsyth. Once again, it's a very sort of steep street as it rises up towards Central and goes downhill again. In Georgia right, the let's call it the arcade was sort of the solution for the development there that preserved an adequate public zone to get down to Brentwood, you know where people want to go. But if we back back up on Forsyth, you talked about the problem that dealt with the little restaurants that are between Central going down to Bemisfin that you sort of stumble over as you're walking downhill to get to the intersection so i would almost like for a conversation that you all have to deal with two types of almost i'm going to look at it on google earth i'm going to talk to you about what the form and the uses are and then i'm going to take it into looking at the graphics that a consultant can produce, that'll show you what it would look like with his proposed facade building lines and setbacks. So let the design data mature and look at it from that, and then write the ordinance. But if it's gonna be a form based code, develop the form. what you have now is in my mind very unattractive and whether it's at the pedestrian line or whether it's in the higher elevations of the control of projections or the control of consistency of setback, it doesn't work. So the six foot concept was a way of sort of giving all of the different intentions of the developer an opportunity to grow with an understanding of the uniqueness of all of these sites. And the fact that we all know much will change just as we had the discussion about the Centene project And I think there is also a lot that can be learned by walking both along the Centene project and back along Carondelet. And looking at the setbacks on Carondelet, the storefronts, the way the plane of the building sets back after two stories so that the massiveness of the base doesn't become the, the defining, let's call it wall that blocks the enjoyment of reading the roof lines. Um, I could say a lot, but I really want to say I've taken a lot of photographs of all of these places. I have built the proposed master plan in SketchUp. I found that just horrible. I found it also incredibly difficult to figure out what the law was really going to allow in terms of setting the building and carving it out. Helen, just like you, I stumbled over the whole issue of balconies and where would they be and how would that percentage, I'm not sure I could have drawn it. And so I challenge in a way, go back and do a drawing and in many cases, put the drawing in the context so you can then sort of better rationalize what is its neighbor and how does that influence it? So that's my suggestion. Return to developing the form and then go to the wall to in essence allow it to be created. Thank you.

I do have a question. If we allow the Bill 2 line to be set back six feet, And then the second, the floor above, second floor would be at the build two line zero feet. If I do that with my building, may I have columns coming down from the second floor to the zero build two line or must I cantilever it?

Right, but then I'm actually building my building to the zero build two line. I'm just carving out pieces for dining, for landscaping, whatever I as the developer want to do. So I'm building to that zero build two line.

No, but I'm

thinking that we're saying that you need to build to the six foot setback for a certain percentage maximum, say 75% maximum of your facade. But if I bring columns down, then my building can be at that zero build two line. It's... looking at how the language could be manipulated.

Okay. No, I would agree with that distinction. But is that a routine distinction? Isn't your structure part of the facade?

I think it'd be a pretty easy thing to define, to say that the columns would... We can take care of that in the definition section.

Okay.

That's something we could work around. Because I can't imagine that the columns are going to be six feet deep and take up that entire... that entire setback. They're probably going to be three feet or something, so you'll have space between that column and the building. Yeah. That's something we could define or work into the exceptions there.

It's a great point, but I think it's something that's fairly easily handled.

Right. I mean, we were, I think, looking for you all to weigh in, which you have. I'm not sure what the expectation is for concluding this conversation. I don't know if, is there a vote or I don't know what's intended at this point. Steve, so you'll have to help me here. go from here?

I think my inclination would be to give Tim a day or two, I don't know his schedule, but to digest where we think Think what we think we've decided on and see if that has other ramifications that right now, you know, we're not thinking of. Let him digest it and come back to us and say, that's great. You know, I would recommend it. Or, well, if you do that, you're going to create this thing change or this issue. So, I mean, that would be my offer to Tim. Would you like to take a day or two to kind of sleep on this and come back to us with, you know, you're wrong or sounds good, go for it. I

would prefer that over us making any kind of vote tonight.

Yeah, I... I would agree. I think we need to continue the public hearing.

Susan, do

No, I mean it's certainly the board's prerogative that what that will do though is essentially you would have to continue this to your next meeting which is the third or I'm sorry third Monday in August and then the board wouldn't be able to hear it next week so they'd have to continue. So we'd be looking at the end of August when all was said and done. I think you owe it to yourself to get Tim's input. We've come this far. I certainly don't want to prolong it, but it's a pretty critical question. So that's my recommendation.

We don't want to necessarily prolong, but at the same time, there's no hurry here. I don't think we're looking at any major developments that are on the horizon that we have to somehow beat before they get, you know, before us type of thing. So I'm okay with us giving Tim an opportunity. Helen, I think your idea was a good one.

No, that's fine. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't know what my exact schedule is because I'm... We've got a deadline this week. I'm headed out of town on vacation next week. John will, of course, still be here. But we will put our heads together as soon as we can on this and see if there are any potential unforeseen pitfalls or concerns that arise from this approach.

PB Harmon Zuckerman, So you're not. So you're saying you won't be able to meet tomorrow night and is it what you're saying. PB David Ensign,

Now, PB Sarah

Well, I'll find a Maui to meet him in his family. PB David Ensigne,

not. I will have to check with John, but we'll be in touch with Susan and David if there are any concerns about that.

Yeah, real quickly, Mr. Chairman, this was what you and I had discussed about reinstating the educational... portion of our agendas when we have a moment. For the newer members in the past, as staff had listed a bunch of zoning or land use related topics, mostly based off the content of the land use regulations and the zoning regulations. And then each member of the board would pick a topic. So for example, One of the sections deals with plan unit development. One of the sections deal with conditional use permits, another with site plans. And so that plan commission member would choose from the list of topics we would present and then when we had an opportunity on a shorter agenda, we would schedule that and that board member would actually make a presentation to the rest of the board members and basically explain that portion of the code to the rest of the board members and ask questions of staff and talk amongst themselves about what the various code sections mean and do and some of the criteria for consideration by this board and that sort of thing. The last time we did it, it spurred some pretty good discussion I think some of the board members were surprised about what they learned about various sections of the code that they didn't realize was there before. But everything you do is based on our code, so there is that need to understand, at least understand from a working perspective what the code says and how it works and the criteria and standards that you're to abide by. I just brought that up at your request. And if the board's okay with it, our planning commission's okay with it. We'll put a list together and then you all can choose.

more recent.

Yes, I did site planning.

be the first. I'd be fine with that. I'm well-versed in all of it.

No, nothing more.

George? I'm just hoping Carolyn will come pick me up and take me home.

me

halfway i'm fine i'm fine george i can walk

halfway and meet you

i'm just trying to be lighthearted i'm good oh you're sweet thank you george bob

no he's muted no he's muted uh

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Know I all the comments and I hope everybody knows that my heart is, you know, everything for the city. And, you know, I just have a passion about it. And unfortunately, HAB-Marsyn Moyer- Again, so from afar maybe, although it's my nephew's wedding. I'm sorry, not birthday, wedding. So it's kind of hard.

Well, his wedding is on Saturday.

Yeah, well, I'll tell you, just to comment, my third session here with everybody here and I'm so impressed with how dedicated Everyone on this commission is. It's been a really just fantastic for me and I hope I can learn, continue learning from all of you since you've all got a breadth of information. It was interesting hearing you talk about us taking a section of the statutes and sort of presenting them to each other. I'm looking forward to that. I think that would be really great. Good idea. Good thing to do.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, sure. I have one. I don't know. I talked to David about this after my first session. I'm not sure if this has been talked about because I had to leave early the last time. But I wonder if we could have, if you could... in the reading on the staff summary of these projects and these applications, only because we've all read them. I assume we've all read it. And so we're hearing them again, and they're also posted. And if people are here and they're not panelists, they're here, they can read them also online. So, and I appreciate that there probably needs to be some presentation, but maybe we could have a shorter one

did, and I didn't know if that was a coincidence or if it was planned, so I'm sorry. And thank you very much for that.

Okay. Very good. No, it's perfect. Balance is perfect. Balance is important. So that's good. Good.

Nothing from me.

I just want to confirm, Carolyn, you're out on the 16th. Is that correct? And you're not available to log in? Is that

correct? Hold on one second. I know I'm out, but let me see if I could actually phone in.

I just don't want to send reports to your house or anything. No, I'm in New Jeffery Yorg. Okay. Anybody else out on the 16?

I just don't want to send reports to your house or anything. No, I'm in New York. Okay. Anybody else out on the 16?

So electronic reports are okay?

Okay. Thank you. That's it. Thank you.