February 23, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

We have five people. Thank you. Good evening, everyone and welcome to the plan commission ARB for Wednesday, February 23. We will, of course, have people in the audience and if they wish to speak, please raise your hand and you'll be allowed in at the appropriate time. Let's start with the roll call.

Chairman Steve Lichtenfeldt.

Here.

Helen DiFate. Here. George Hedeck.

Helen DeFayette. Here. George Hedeck.

Bob Denlow.

Bob Demlow.

Ira Berkowitz. Here. Carolyn Gatiss. David Gipson.

Ira Berkowitz. Here. Carolyn Gatiss. David Gibson.

Okay, thank you. We have minutes from the previous meeting on February 7th. Are there any changes to it that have not been recorded? Seeing none, I'll make a motion to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, we have Stephanie in the attendee room and not in the participant room. Stephanie Carr. Oh,

okay. Can we let her in? She's

in. Yep.

Yep, there she is. Sorry.

Damn

lawyers.

Thank you very much.

Welcome. No comment, Ira. In new business, item number 1906 South Merrimack has withdrawn from tonight's meeting. We will probably see them in the near future. Is that correct, Anissa? Okay, so we can go right into item number two, which is to Ridgemore Drive.

Okay. The subject property is a corner lot within the Clavac Park neighborhood located southeast of the intersection of Ridgemore Drive and Y-Down Boulevard. The applicant is proposing to install a new fence to enclose the rear yard in a portion of the front yard along Y-Down Boulevaard. The majority of the fence will be four feet in height and constructed from aluminum, with the portion of the fence along Y-down being six feet in height and comprised of a cedar cap and trim fence. There are variations of front yard fences located on or near street frontages throughout the city. The variation is based on neighborhood character, lot configurations, and road conditions. Historically, the ARB has preferred that front yard fences are ornamental or decorative and set back from the sidewalk or street by landscaping. Ydown Boulevard is one of the busier roads with existing front yard fences that are six feet in height. The applicant is proposing the fence to be located a minimum of 10 feet from the Ydown Boulevard sidewalk. Between the location of the proposed fence and the sidewalk is a significant landscape buffer. Therefore, The proposed wooden fence will likely not be visible from the public right-of-way and will not impede existing sightlines. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed fence is compatible in design and materials with the surrounding area. Our recommendation is to approve with one condition, that all clearing activities shall be limited to minor trimming necessary for the installation of the proposed fence and no trees shall be removed. That concludes my presentation.

Okay, thank you. I see Mr. Martin is in the attendee list. Could he be allowed in?

Okay, thank you

uh good evening mr martin thanks for allowing me in do you have anything to add or a question on the staff report

no i think that more or less captured i will say about the clearing is we don't intend to clear the landscape buffer on the side of the tree line opposite the fence so in other words the And any trimming that will be done will be to the landscaping that's on our side of the tree line, where the fence would be, if that makes sense.

It does. And that means what we see as we're walking, biking, or driving down wide out, it will not differ much except for having a fence behind all the trees for the 10 feet. That is correct. And that is a pretty standard as you go up and down, wide out directly to the east of your property. I believe they are back at the 10 foot distance, but they don't have a wood fence. They do have an aluminum fence at that point. Okay. Of course, I'm partial to the aluminum because it gives a little more view in and out. But we do have the wood fences as you're proposing, as Anissa has put in the staff report. And I really don't have any great ideas. opposition to it. The one thing I would say is, will there be, there's a horizontal roughly three feet above ground. I assume that will be on the interior and not on the exterior.

What do you mean there's a horizontal three

feet? There's a horizontal wooden piece that runs side to side, and it's shown in the cap and trim that you have submitted. If you can see this. Oh, I see, yeah. See that? Yeah. Is that on both sides or one side only?

I don't know. I can confirm. I will say that if it's on the inside, then we will Joe Piazza, Of course, have that facing our yard, but I don't I don't know for certain whether that's whether that's on both sides or not. Joe Piazza , Our neighbor at four has, I believe the same cap and trim and i'm just not certain whether. Joe Piaizza, It has that the three foot divider on that or not.

I would recommend if it's only on one side, that it be on the property owner's side, not on the public view side. When you verify that, if you could send that information back to Anissa, we would appreciate it. Okay. Let's see. Bob, any comments?

Yeah.

And

that right? It'll be behind the landscaping buffer. That's correct.

George? I just want to make sure that what I read was correct, and now I don't see where I called it, but somewhere I saw that the wood fence on most of this is mentioning six feet in height, but in the package, and it may have been on your bid, that it was showing it as four feet in height. The wood fence will be six feet in height. Correct? That's correct. Just want to make sure. Okay. No other comments on it. Helen?

Nothing further to add or nothing to ask about. Everything's been covered.

Okay. Ira?

Sorry, forgot to unmute. Yeah, Mr. Martin. Yeah, I would just add, and I'm not really adding. I think Steve and Bob covered it. But I would like to is there some way that we can ensure that the landscaping that is there now remains there and is maintained there. you know, because it's not, you know, you're not looking at it, you know, Mr. Martin, you won't be seeing it. We will, because we all use Y-Down. It's one of our, a lot of us use Y-Down as our favorite recreation area on the weekends. So I just want to see if there's anything, and this is, or anything we can do to make sure that there is, there continues to be that landscaping that will protect us from having to see a cap and trim fence like this eventually or ultimately along White Island.

Well, I'll jump in here and I would suggest that perhaps you put on another condition on the approval. And that would be to maintain landscaping in front of the fence to buffer that view of the fence from Y down. And then that way it would go on and they would have to maintain landscaping somehow. And if the current landscaping was removed or died, then they would have to replace it. Mr.

Martin, is that acceptable to you? Would that be all right?

Yeah, that's fine. I do want to point out, because I think I'd be remiss if I didn't, and maybe you guys were not on the board for these approvals, but directly across Y down from us, there are a couple of wood fences that look pretty new that have no landscaping in front of them. And I understand maybe the difference is there's no sidewalk over there. But then our neighbors to the east that we've Talked about, I guess the difference with theirs is that it's aluminum and not wood. It's because they don't have a significant landscape buffer either. I will absolutely commit to, we don't have any plans of taking out the landscaping between the fence and the tree line and the sidewalk. No plans at all. And I will commit to keeping it there. I don't see any reason we would ever take it out. But I just want to make sure that things are, um consistent down the road and i'm not that i'm not missing anything on that because they're you know i mean in the event that um something dies and i'm out of compliance briefly or anything to of that nature i just want to make sure that i fully understand

Yeah, my guess is that you would, I'm sure get some kind of a notice if there was some kind of an, if it was noticed that there was, you know, some landscaping that was dying or, you know, being removed, you'd get some kind of notice before anything would happen so. But I think to put in there as a condition I think it's not just for you it'd be the for the future owners of your house and all that so. um that we would it would be understood i appreciate your comment about the the wood fences across the street i saw that as well but yeah this is that there's no sidewalk there um and i think the whole issue is on your side of the street i didn't actually not see any wood fences of the nature you're asking to put in they have aluminum fences You can see right through them. They're just not as imposing as these wood fences. So there is a difference. I

understand.

Thank you.

Anything else,

Simon? No, as long as that landscape gets maintained, I'm happy. Can I ask Mr. Martin, why is it you feel like you have to have that level of privacy on that side? Um,

Just general privacy. We have three. If you look through to that side of the house, we have three big doors right into our main living room. And that is where my little kids are playing all the time. And it's where we spend a lot of time in the house. So You know, with the landscape buffer and a wooden fence, then we have more privacy. And I don't believe it takes away at all from the pleasantry of walking down, wide out. Especially because it'll be set, you know, it's not as if it's going to be right on the sidewalk and you're going to have to be reaching out and touching this fence. It's going to be set well back, 10 plus feet back in my estimation.

Right. No, my question really was intended just to find out if you were having any particular issues and if the city would be needed to help you in some way. That's all.

No, I appreciate that very much. No particular issues.

Ira, to follow up on that, I'm familiar with the house and its previous owners. And the way it's situated on the site, as well as how Wydown curves there, it's very, very visible. And I went... went down to look at it. And I felt, yes, we have to balance the privacy for the resident as well as how the public perceives the fencing that goes up. And I came to the conclusion that the wood fence that would parallel Y down would be okay when I saw that the fence running from the northwest corner of the house out to the wood fence would be the four-foot aluminum. So it doesn't really totally enclose the yard with wood, but only the part that parallels Y down. Is that correct, Mr. Martin? That is correct. So you would have some privacy, but not 100% in there. That's correct. Okay. Any other comments? We do have two conditions, one as council has suggested that we put in from after Ira's comments. Do we have anyone making a motion to those? I

Second.

in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Martin, and we'll look forward to seeing everything going on. Good luck with it. Thank you all very much. I really appreciate your time. Welcome to the neighborhood also. Thank you. Thank

you.

Okay. We have come to the conclusion of our new business already and we'll move into other business. And we have two discussions. Do we have anyone in the audience for the first discussion?

There are no hands raised.

No hands, okay. Let's see who's in there. Only Gary Feder is there. Okay. Well, that was to be about the planned unit development point system for the affordable housing provision. I thought that representatives from the Community Equity Commission Housing Subcommittee would be here tonight. Okay. Gary, if you hear me, are you on that commission?

No hands, okay. Let's see who's in there. Only Gary Fader is there. Okay. Well, that was to be about the planned unit development point system for the affordable housing provision. I thought that representatives from the Community Equity Commission Housing Subcommittee would be here tonight. Okay. Gary, if you hear me, are you on that commission?

I believe that Susan and Richard Lintz that are on that.

I believe that Susan and Richard Lentz that are on that.

Okay. I hesitate going ahead with a discussion without a representative.

Right. I do believe Gary is the board liaison for the CEC. So maybe we let him in and let's see what Gary has to say. Anything that's great. Let's hear from

him. I don't see him anymore.

Well, he's under Robin's name, right? That's

Gary. Right. Okay. Hi, Gary. If you would unmute yourself. Thank you.

Okay, I'm unmuted and I'm not really Robin but I'm happy to add some comments.

Okay. I'm sure you've seen the discussion item that David Gipson put together, and we'd like to discuss it if you are the proper person to give us the background and other details for it.

Okay. I'm sure you've seen the discussion item that David Gibson put together, and we'd like to discuss it if you are the proper person to give us the background and other details for it.

Well, I'm happy to give it a shot. Obviously, I'm a liaison member, and frankly, it would have been my preference that one of our appointed members would speak to the issue, but I have been involved in the discussion. So I'm happy to give you a little bit of context. Um, Prior to my joining this particular commission, this issue of affordable housing had been discussed. So although I was a bit of a late comer to the discussion, I think the idea that's being set forth here and since then we've actually created also a housing subcommittee which is even looking further at these issues. So we have the broad commission And then we have the housing subcommittee. I think the objective has been to try to figure out if there are ways to make more affordable housing available in the city of Clayton. I would say sort of the bottom line is that at this point, the commission as well as the subcommittee feels that if there was any place where you could address as a practical matter in the city of the issue of affordable housing. First of all, it would be in the multifamily area, not relating to single family. Single family seems way too challenging to address the issue. So certainly it would seem to be in the area of multifamily. And beyond that, it also seems if you were going to address this as a practical matter, it would likely have to be with new multifamily housing as opposed to existing multifamily housing. So that really brought us to the question of where, if you're going to address it in multifamily and you're gonna address it with new kinds of development, the most likely place you would look at would be PUD zoning since most multifamily projects that are coming forth, including probably some that are actually pending in front of the city right now, would involve some kind of need for exceptions, for example, to density, height of building, setbacks, those kinds of issues. And since we have an existing PUD ordinance that recognizes the need for exceptions and then has created a point system for ways in which the PUD applicant could essentially trade increased density, setback, etc., for some type of public benefit. The idea was to look at the PUD ordinance, which already includes in the benefits section a discussion about the provision of affordable housing as being one way in which you could get certain points, certain credits that would offset essentially the variances you were seeking. I think that David Gipson, because he couldn't be here, did a video which I assume the commission members have seen and sort of talked about the PUD approach. As he said, I think the purpose to bringing it to plan commission was just to get some initial reactions. I think as David said in his video, the thought would be that as this thing moves forward, there would be an effort to reach out to people in the development community to see how they responded to this possible change, to see how pragmatic it is. And also to, as I said, probably take it back to the commission one more time for further analysis. But I think the critical changes at this point was to sort of firm up the language, try to make it more clear what actually is meant by affordable housing, using, I think, some HUD-based regulations to deal with the economic status of someone who would be seeking to take advantage of what I think would essentially be a reduced rent kind of situation. And the point system now for all of these benefits generally rate goes from zero to five for most benefits. And those, as you know, I think as you've all probably dealt with this would include include things like additional artwork, or art displays, electric charging stations, a variety of different things. This is an effort to one, clean up the language that relates to affordable housing, makes it more specific, but also makes the range of points that could be awarded 0 to 10 as opposed to 0 to 5. And I think the concept is that since this is perhaps a difficult benefit for a developer to undertake, we should consider making the number of points that's available a larger amount than might be available under certain other benefits. So I think that's the concept. And beyond that, I'd be happy to answer other questions. But that's my understanding of what is in front of the Commission for discussion is this issue. I personally think there's still a lot of things that would have to be thought through, both in terms of the way the language is presented and also to determine how effective a mechanism this is going to be. But at least this is a starting point to present this concept. So I'll stop at this point.

Well, I'm happy to give it a shot. Obviously, I'm a liaison member, and frankly, it would have been my preference that one of our appointed members would speak to the issue, but I have been involved in the discussion. So I'm happy to give you a little bit of context. Um, Prior to my joining this particular commission, this issue of affordable housing had been discussed. So although I was a bit of a late comer to the discussion, I think the idea that's being set forth here and since then we've actually created also a housing subcommittee which is even looking further at these issues. So we have the broad commission And then we have the housing subcommittee. I think the objective has been to try to figure out if there are ways to make more affordable housing available in the city of Clayton. I would say sort of the bottom line is that at this point, the commission as well as the subcommittee feels that if there was any place where you could address as a practical matter in the city of the issue of affordable housing. First of all, it would be in the multifamily area, not relating to single family. Single family seems way too challenging to address the issue. So certainly it would seem to be in the area of multifamily. And beyond that, it also seems if you were going to address this as a practical matter, it would likely have to be with new multifamily housing as opposed to existing multifamily housing. So that really brought us to the question of where, if you're going to address it in multifamily and you're gonna address it with new kinds of development, the most likely place you would look at would be PUD zoning since most multifamily projects that are coming forth, including probably some that are actually pending in front of the city right now, would involve some kind of need for exceptions, for example, to density, height of building, setbacks, those kinds of issues. And since we have an existing PUD ordinance that recognizes the need for exceptions and then has created a point system for ways in which the PUD applicant could essentially trade increased density, setback, etc., for some type of public benefit. The idea was to look at the PUD ordinance, which already includes in the benefits section a discussion about the provision of affordable housing as being one way in which you could get certain points, certain credits that would offset essentially the variances you were seeking. I think that David Gibson, because he couldn't be here, did a video which I assume the commission members have seen and sort of talked about the PUD approach. As he said, I think the purpose to bringing it to plan commission was just to get some initial reactions. I think as David said in his video, the thought would be that as this thing moves forward, there would be an effort to reach out to people in the development community to see how they responded to this possible change, to see how pragmatic it is. And also to, as I said, probably take it back to the commission one more time for further analysis. But I think the critical changes at this point was to sort of firm up the language, try to make it more clear what actually is meant by affordable housing, using, I think, some HUD-based regulations to deal with the economic status of someone who would be seeking to take advantage of what I think would essentially be a reduced rent kind of situation. And the point system now for all of these benefits generally rate goes from zero to five for most benefits. And those, as you know, I think as you've all probably dealt with this would include include things like additional artwork, or art displays, electric charging stations, a variety of different things. This is an effort to one, clean up the language that relates to affordable housing, makes it more specific, but also makes the range of points that could be awarded 0 to 10 as opposed to 0 to 5. And I think the concept is that since this is perhaps a difficult benefit for a developer to undertake, we should consider making the number of points that's available a larger amount than might be available under certain other benefits. So I think that's the concept. And beyond that, I'd be happy to answer other questions. But that's my understanding of what is in front of the Commission for discussion is this issue. I personally think there's still a lot of things that would have to be thought through, both in terms of the way the language is presented and also to determine how effective a mechanism this is going to be. But at least this is a starting point to present this concept. So I'll stop at this point.

Okay. Thank you, Gary. When you were saying recommending up to 10 points, What is the purpose of that? Is that to make it more readily available to gain points in the PUD process or some other reason?

Well, I think first of all, the idea of going to 10 points was to make it a potentially more attractive benefit than some others where you would be limit, where you'd sort of be capped at five. And I believe if again, in the video and in the provision that's been set forward, it's actually an effort to be pretty objective because depending on if you are seeking that as a benefit, whether you can get two points, five points, 10 points is actually not really as subjective as some of the other PUD criteria, but it actually relates to the percentage of units within your development that you would set aside for affordable housing. So, and I don't have it in front of me, but I think it essentially was as much as to get 10 points, I think you would have to, as I recall, dedicate at least 20% of your overall units to affordable housing. So it's not as subjective actually as some of the other PUD benefits where it's pretty much ultimately in the eyes of the commission and the alderman to determine whether something is worth two points or four points or five points this is actually would be a little bit more objective because it was sort of arithmetically tied to your commitment to provide affordable units so um like i said the language is more defined than it was previously i still think there are areas that sort of big interpretation as to exactly what they mean. But again, I think the idea of the commission was to present it to this plan commission ARB to get some reaction and then again take it back after getting some reaction as to how you all felt about it.

Well, the objectivity that you talked about lends it to be a more quantifiable number related to the points, which is quite different from most, if not all of our other points benefits that we deal with. So I think we, as you were saying, we probably need more information and more discussion on that. But I think the baseline is we do have affordable housing in our PUD points process right now. But this could certainly... add a little more punch to it to see where we could make it go forward. But you also mentioned that we should be getting information from the developers. And I think that's a very crucial part of the process. And I don't know when that would be. In fact, I don't remember seeing it in David Gipson's summary that he had recorded for us. So I think that's something we need to look forward to. But let's go around and see if there are other comments. Bob?

Well, the objectivity that you talked about lends it to be a more quantifiable number related to the points, which is quite different from most, if not all of our other points benefits that we deal with. So I think we, as you were saying, we probably need more information and more discussion on that. But I think the baseline is we do have affordable housing in our PUD points process right now. But this could certainly... add a little more punch to it to see where we could make it go forward. But you also mentioned that we should be getting information from the developers. And I think that's a very crucial part of the process. And I don't know when that would be. In fact, I don't remember seeing it in David Gibson's summary that he had recorded for us. So I think that's something we need to look forward to. But let's go around and see if there are other comments. Bob?

I mean, it was really

It's in there, but it doesn't have a quantifiable basis to it

I think the actual language, which isn't terribly helpful right now, says something that in the list of public benefits, it says a commitment to provide. I think it says to provide more affordable housing, which sort of begs the question, what do you mean by more affordable housing? I mean, I think affordable housing is a defined term as is workforce housing, certainly under HUD regulations, and it relates to the amount of Robert B. Income that a family can actually attest to is what their what their income is and and those are some of the provisions that deter and then there also are considerations of I think in affordable housing, what percentage of someone's income, can they. dedicate to housing as opposed to other types of uses. Certainly the language I think that's being proposed is clearer than the language we had previously. I just would add myself, I'm not quite sure whether a Washington University graduate student whose parents are basically providing most of their income, whether that person would qualify for affordable housing. I don't think that was the objective of this type of provision, but I suppose theoretically if we were trying to get more students to live in our Clayton apartments, that could be it. But that's just an example of where I myself still have some questions from an interpretive standpoint as to how you actually would qualify people for these kinds of units.

I don't think so. And

You know, that certainly underlies this whole discussion is that while it's sort of great from an aspirational standpoint, there's still a question as a practical matter whether given values in the Clayton area, given the cost of our apartments, John Lund, Whether new or you or whether new ones are ones that have been around for a while, can we even get to a point where. John Lund, We really could could have housing that we would call affordable, I think that was part of the reason, by the way, and I think it was one of the last slides and david's presentation about going to the development community which would be. to try to talk to some developers, either the people who are currently have projects pending or those who had projects recently approved and essentially say, hey, if you had a project and you were going through the PUD process, how likely is it that you would find affordable housing to be a more attractive benefit to provide than others, how big a problem would that be for you? And my concern would be that it's unlike doing things upfront where you're going to be spending money maybe you didn't plan to spend when you opened your project. But this is probably a long-term commitment. Over some period of time, you're gonna have to set certain units aside for people who meet the criteria. If you have trouble meeting those criteria, you have empty units. I mean, you can sort of go on from there, but that's what we really wanted to talk to some developers about is how important is this to you? Would you be willing to actually maybe make some economic, take some economic risk in order to help us reach this goal. And, you know, people might say it's a nice, it's a nice goal, but I don't know as a practical matter that I would do it. If I could get my PUD approved some other way, maybe I'd go in that direction just because it's easier and it's at least it's upfront and I don't have the long-term concerns. But those are things that I think we haven't talked to applicants about yet. And We were thinking that would be valuable before we go any further.

Okay. Bob, to follow that up, several years ago, I think before any other of our current members, we did have a proposal from a developer to do micro unit apartments. Helen, you may have remembered that. And it really went nowhere because it He couldn't satisfy the parking or many of the other requirements that we had put in. It was also well before the PUD points system. Um, The developer was stating that he was trying to attract people that could afford lower cost housing, but there were no restrictions on it. There was no Section 8. There was no income limit, if I remember correctly. Either Helen or Stephanie, either one of you may have recalled any of that. And if you have comments, it may be pertinent or not at this point.

I did, I was not on the PCA or B at the time, but I know the architect and the developer that were proposing it. And I did, you know, go online pending applications and checked it out. And, you know, with the cost of, of building, and again, the land and everything else, what was being proposed was, I would say, the best they could. But it had many areas where if I were going to rent a small apartment, I would say no. It fell short in things that I think people of any income are looking for. They're not basic amenities, but we've come to expect them. And the parking was an issue. And I think knowing architect and developer, I think it was all tied to the cost of trying to achieve a lower cost product. So that's where I see affordable housing. I don't know that you can give enough points to make it economically desirable, feasible. I think for what we're discussing now for the HUD system that we need to have a developer's input You know, they will know costs. That's their whole thing. But I do recall the project you're thinking of, Steve.

Yeah. One of the things that came out of the discussion over that, over several meetings, was that the cost of developing those micro units was uh, probably exceeded on a per unit basis what the rents would be compared to many of the older housing stock that we have in Clayton. And, uh, many people saw that there was really no benefit to that because they said we had in quotes affordable housing already. Um, And I'm only bringing that up. I'm not stating it as a fact, but only what certain people came back and stated. I think we would have to look at everything. And I think what we're hearing is that the developer really needs to be involved in this. But let's go on. George?

I wrote out several pages of notes here. And I'm not going to go into all of it. So I'm going to try to focus in more down the road. One, I want to make sure that we differentiate between two different types of income levels here. There's what's generally referred to as workforce housing, which are individuals that make above 60% AMI. And then we have what's generally referred as well as affordable housing, which is generally the Section 8 program that Bob mentioned. And that's for individuals earning below 60% AMI the view of David's presentation led me to believe that what is being proposed right now is really targeting workforce housing, which are the individuals that are doing the service, you know, the wait staff, the bar staff, Snooks employees, all these other different individuals. And that's the type of housing that we're looking to increase in Clayton. Gary, is that a correct comment as far as...

Yeah, George, I think that is correct. I think the feeling was that at the committee level, we looked at both of those definitions and it seemed like the workforce sector was the one that was being, if either the workforce sector was clearly the one that would make the most sense. So that's, that is, that is correct,

George. Two other comments as far as development costs. Um, The deeper the income skew is, the harder it is to develop obviously because you've got rent restrictions that are gonna be out there. The old Katie's Pizza building, a developer had approached me a while back on that one before it came up with the concept that there's now trying to figure out if they could actually do affordable housing. There's truly affordable housing, the 60% or below AMI levels. And it was determined that the development cost was just too high. So I don't believe that we're going to be able to see true affordable 60% below AMI housing come into Clayton. We really should be talking more about the workforce housing in these conversations. I have a couple of concerns or things that I want people to think about down the road too. When you start placing income restrictions on these properties, I'm assuming that you're gonna be doing that through a land use restriction agreement of some sort or deed restriction on there. Who's gonna monitor? that these properties are maintaining affordability. So down the road, we need to also think about how we're gonna monitor these properties. If we're gonna give additional point for affordable housing, we need to understand who in the city is gonna be able to monitor these and how they're gonna monitor them. The other piece as well, which is more for development community is what is the duration of that restriction? Are we looking like a 10 year restriction, 15, 30? How long is that restriction gonna stay in place? To another comment that came up earlier was we need developer input. Absolutely, we need developer input on here. The Green Street team that has come forward with the 50 South Beamston and soon coming forward with World News. Several of the people on their development team have experience in affordable housing. And they have been underwriting these deals to look at the economic viability of what's going on with those properties. I would imagine they can easily plug in some of these variables on these income limits and the rent limits, and see if these properties are gonna be viable to help us guide the points. I don't want us to set up something that is going to fail. And what I mean by fail is that if the points are inadequate to encourage affordable housing, there's no point in even including this or working on this forward. So we need to make sure that what we have in our PUD And what we hear from the developers are in line to make sure that we get workforce, sorry, I said affordable, workforce housing in the community. So I think it's very important that we reach out to the development team. Gary, who is on that housing subcommittee? Do you know?

Yeah, if I can remember who's on it, Chris Schmese, Ben Uchitel, David is certainly on there. I'm sure we can provide those names. I may be forgetting a couple of people. The subcommittee has actually only met, I think one time.

Ted Wheeler is also on the

committee.

strongly encourage that that committee, it sounds like it's all members of the equity commission at this time. Is that correct?

Yes, and I will add, George, that one of the things we've talked about is bringing in some consultants or people who are experts in this whole field to give us some more thought. For example, people, and this sort of relates to a lot of the other work that the commission is doing, you know, this whole notion of, is Clayton a welcoming committee, a welcoming community? So I think part of it is to get people who either have already expressed interest through other organizations in affordable or workforce housing. We talked about, should we try to get somebody who is active in the residential real estate brokerage industry to talk about, For example, from a racial perspective, is it really economics that keeps more persons of color from moving into Clayton? Or is it actually affordability? Because I think there's some thought an earlier point that in many ways we have by some definition a fair amount of affordable housing it's just that some people particularly persons of color even if they could afford it would still choose to rather live in university city or somewhere around us because they would feel more welcome so it's a complicated issue as to why we don't have a more diverse community from a racial standpoint, and it may not just be a question of economics. So we are trying to actually bring in some more people to talk to the housing subcommittee about the issue. But again, the committee only has met once, but you're right, Georgia, at this point, it's really made up of people who are already on the the DEI commission, and so it doesn't have a lot of outside influence so far or outside information.

You know, Gary and fellow committee members here, you know, St. Louis has a plethora of companies that deal in affordable housing. U.S. Bank is one of the largest investors in the nation. My company does affordable housing, Gardner Capital, does affordable housing. Jeff Smith's company, AEP, does affordable housing. A lot of them have locations here in Clayton. And I think that if you could reach out a little bit more to some of the development arms and the investor arms, you'll get a better perspective of what's going on nationally and what can be done in the city of Clayton. As to Green Street, again, I know that development team has individuals that have underwritten and developed affordable housing. And I think someone from that group would be a big benefit to the housing subcommittee out there. One other thing that I wanted to bring up too, Gary, for your information as well, you may want to reach out to the Urban Land Institute here in St. Louis to see if they have any studies or could do any studies for the city to help on this.

Hey, Lori.

And then the last piece there too is that I would be careful about looking at this in a vacuum with only the city of Clayton. We make up a small percentage of the population for the county, and I think we need to know in some ways, understand what's going on with the county as well. It's gonna be very difficult for our community due to its size to implement a lot of this. And I think we should be reaching out to the St. Louis County Team Housing Authority and see what we can do as far as partnering with getting some of that done. I think it's a great idea. We need it. We absolutely need it. How it gets done though, I'm not 100% sure.

Thanks, George. Helen, do you have other comments?

No, nothing more than what I've said. I think we need the development and investment you know, putting in their perspective on it to get something that will be workable and will be used. So that's it for me.

Thanks. Ira, further comments? No.

No, I really appreciate everybody's comments so far. George, thank you for that. You're a source of great information. I think, you know, I had understood that workforce and affordable were different. I think that I've read also that somehow Section 8 does cover both of them though. That's what I've understood. Maybe I'm wrong. I think this whole question is fantastic. I'm so happy we're talking about it. This is the first actual meeting I've had of people who are very involved with the city, who are actually discussing this issue. And so I'm thrilled by that at this point. And so I hope we can keep doing that because there are issues. A lot have been raised here tonight, but I think they can all be handled and they can all be resolved and dealt with. Helen's right. The developers have to be on board. I think, you know, we have to understand some of their budgets and how it all affects them. The point system, you know, quite frankly, may not be enough. It may not be enough, and we have to realize that and be cognizant of the fact that there may have to be more. In the 90s... Hello, Robert. In the 80s and 90s, I know the city of St. Louis was heavily invested in having low-income housing as part of the developments that were involved, that were coming up all through the Bolivar and through even the central corridor of the city. And those redevelopment agreements would carry in their requirements. for the developments to contain a certain percentage of low-income housing. But that was in exchange for incentives. They would be able to receive a tax abatement of, you know, upwards of 50 60% for 20 years. And that was a great incentive and that became something that they bit, you know, and they took, they went ahead and did. So we, you know, the point system I think, you know, maybe a very very good beginning it may not be the end all. And I think we have to consider that part as well. So, but I think there's a way to get this done. And Gary, I really appreciate your comments about the issue of whether or not we're talking about diversity as a means that this becomes a tool for increasing our diversity in our city. And it's possible that it does, and it may not in the end. We have to be aware of that too. Workforce housing, I know there's a ton of reasons for having it. Some of it is sustainability, some of it is so people can live near where they work. This is the kind of thing that Clayton has a lot of people working in it and out of the people working in it, there's a low percentage of people that actually live in it. So this is an important balance we need to have in the city not just of diversity of economics and in diversity, perhaps hopefully of ethnic backgrounds and racial backgrounds. So anyway, that's kind of my comment, but my comment is really to say, let's keep talking. Let's keep trying to work this through. So, and thanks.

Mr. Chairman, may I ask who is Lori Lewis? That's on the call right now. Does anyone know? Lori Wilson. Wilson. Yes, please.

Um, uh, Lori Wilson is part of the city, uh, uh, employment structure. And I believe she is taking all the notes. Is that correct?

Uh, she is our new administrative assistant. So, um, she did the minutes for the meeting date before fails me, but she did the most recent minutes that you saw and she'll be doing them moving forward.

Thank you. I just wanted to make sure we didn't have a participant that needed to speak to. She belongs there.

Okay,

Steve. Can I add one thing to what Ira was just talking about? One of the things that was talked about very preliminarily was that something that might qualify for points for workforce housing would be that a criteria may be in addition to or maybe instead of an income generated criteria would be, for example, to say that if you work for the Clayton Police Department, the Fire Department, Public Works, or even for the Clayton School District, that that would qualify because irrespective of income, that at least would address this issue that we have probably very few people who work for our school district or our city who actually live in Clayton so that that might be. And of course that would be a further incentive for why you might want to offer that type of opportunity, because that might make it much more likely that people who work for the city will continue to live in the city and work for the city as opposed to going somewhere else. So that was another aspect of this. And I will add that David Gipson's concern when that was raised was that, for example, many young members of the police force who, let's say, have You know, they're married and have one child. While that might seem like attractive to live in one of these apartment units with a lower rental figure, that for many of these people, they would still rather live in St. Charles, have a small single family home, that their actual payment for the mortgage out there when compared with the rent, that it's part of this American dream that people wanna have a single family home so that although it sounds like a good idea, there's also a question as to whether it would actually attract a lot of our staff. But I don't know about that. It does seem to me it's an interesting aspect of workforce that isn't just tied to income production.

Steve. Can I add one thing to what Ira was just talking about? One of the things that was talked about very preliminarily was that something that might qualify for points for workforce housing would be that a criteria may be in addition to or maybe instead of an income generated criteria would be, for example, to say that if you work for the Clayton Police Department, the Fire Department, Public Works, or even for the Clayton School District, that that would qualify because irrespective of income, that at least would address this issue that we have probably very few people who work for our school district or our city who actually live in Clayton so that that might be. And of course that would be a further incentive for why you might want to offer that type of opportunity, because that might make it much more likely that people who work for the city will continue to live in the city and work for the city as opposed to going somewhere else. So that was another aspect of this. And I will add that David Gibson's concern when that was raised was that, for example, many young members of the police force who, let's say, have You know, they're married and have one child. While that might seem like attractive to live in one of these apartment units with a lower rental figure, that for many of these people, they would still rather live in St. Charles, have a small single family home, that their actual payment for the mortgage out there when compared with the rent, that it's part of this American dream that people wanna have a single family home so that although it sounds like a good idea, there's also a question as to whether it would actually attract a lot of our staff. But I don't know about that. It does seem to me it's an interesting aspect of workforce that isn't just tied to income production.

Okay, great point.

Very good. Thank you, Gary. Actually, thanks to everyone. I know I've learned a lot tonight myself, and I think as everyone is probably in agreement, we need to keep talking. I think we should be moving it along as quickly as we possibly can and involve everyone who may be a stakeholder in it, the developers, the investment companies, as well as the CEC Commission and the subcommittee, as well as our leadership, the Board of Aldermen, and certainly our legal counsel also. So to move it further, Gary, would you be the one that would be taking our discussion back to the CEC at this point?

I would think by process of elimination, Steve, that would be me.

I'm glad to hear that. And then maybe some of the items that we've talked about will be incorporated and we can move to the next step. I would hope.

Right. I think the minutes of the meeting and for those who... who were not here tonight, I think to be able to actually watch the discussion would be helpful too. So we pick up all the nuances of comments that have been offered.

Yes. Good. Well, are there any other questions before we close this discussion? No? Okay. Well, I think that's been very helpful. Thank you, Gary. Steve, is Carolyn here? I think I saw her pop in and then drop off.

Oh, okay. I didn't know if she was just not on my screen for some reason.

She popped in, was always muted, and then disappeared.

Okay.

So I think the answer is no.

Okay. Don't want to diss her. I want to make sure we acknowledge her as she is.

Right. Okay. Okay, thanks everyone. I think that was a great discussion and we'll get back and have more discussions and move it forward. So thank you. We can then move on to other business item number two, and that is talking about the conditional use permit. And if everyone is ready, we'll get into that. Anissa has the PDF of the PowerPoint. And my intention with this is more or less a review and question time, because we've all gone through this multiple times sitting on the PCARB. So it should be fairly familiar to us. But if we go to the next slide, You'll see what I've put together and it's based on the code is that we certainly need to know what is a conditional use. I think we've all heard it over and over. There are certain requirements, there is a defined process, there are criteria for approval, and then there are many actions that we don't always see but they are in our regulations. So I don't want to read anything, but I'd like to leave it open and you'll see some discussion points on the next several slides. And everyone, please feel free to break in, ask questions, make comments on either items that we have experienced, over discussing and approving conditional use permits in the past or something that may not make sense at this point. So let's move on to the next one. And what you'll see is basically what we see NISA puts into every conditional use. And the underlying words are, the conditional use has to be essentially desirable, necessary or convenient. But one of the questions about it is, will there be any detrimental effects? And we know that. We've talked about parking, traffic volumes. There are other things, noise and pollution. All those things come up. I'm sure we have many other items that you can all think of that we have come up against, and you can throw them in here. But basically, this is what the conditional use permit is to help us understand and to guide the development so that we do not have many detrimental impacts to our city. And of course, up there is the section that you can find. And hopefully you all have the E code on your electronic gadgets so you can pull anything up that you wanted virtually any time. Any question about the basic what is the conditional use and how it leads us to the CUP? Nope. Well, let's move on to what is the process? And here again, I think you'll see that what I've put in here is things that we have discussed all the time. You know, the uses that we have to go through. We know that child care group homes, home occupations, Of course, PUDs and SDDs, the special development districts, they also come under it. Most of you may not have been around when we've had the marijuana facility discussion of a couple years ago, but that also fit in there. We see second units, which we have had a couple of them in the past few years. And those are related to specific zoning, residential zoning districts. So we really have to go under what the chapter is saying for what requires a conditional use. Of course, there are exceptions also and we've seen it recently in multi-use facilities. And you can see in there if it's in a mixed use building which is a conditional use and then it may be approved as part of that planned unit development And I put the article in there that you can certainly read in detail. So, there are exceptions that we have seen before and we will see again as we look at certain upcoming multi-use projects. On the next sheet, the procedure, let's go one more, sorry. The procedure here, if you look under 5B, we all know that after reviewing and discussing and talking with the applicant, we can approve it or we can add additional conditions or we can deny it. And then we need to... Oops, I don't see the bottom. We are to forward that on to the Board of Aldermen for review also. And later on in the process, you'll see that the Board of Alderman essentially will review it and do the same thing, but they can also send it back to the plan commission. We'll go to the next sheet. And here's the Board of Aldermen. And gee, I see it printed differently, Anissa, than my printout. But of course, the Board of Alderman also has to have a public hearing about it. And it can be approved by resolution. And The board may approve, add or delete, or refer it back to us. And the board can vote by a simple majority, or they have to have a minimum of five votes if it's contrary to the plan commission. And Ira, I'm not sure, well, I assume you've gone through several of these on the Board of Aldermen by this time.

We have, yes.

And I believe we have seen a couple of them be referred back to the plan commission, and then the process can be redone again.

Mm-hmm.

So it's a fairly simple step-by-step process that we go through, and hopefully this will clear it up. And I don't know if any of you have questions on the process itself.

I'll just say the interesting part of it is, you know, so the decision made by this body does then actually does have some weight. And that's the whole point of needing five votes in order for the Board of Aldermen to then overturn your decision. So it's very important, I think, politically and for the applicant that they be able to pass muster here on this level with this architectural review board or planning commission. But other than that, I think Steve, does it say five or does it say a supermajority? I'm trying to remember.

I thought it said five, but now you bring up the supermajority. That is in there somewhere. I was trying to keep everything to one line, but I see it changed it in the PDF. So I did leave out the word supermajority

Right. So we've had some confusion at the board level about what constitutes a super majority, and does it mean if we have only five members sitting, do we have to have four out of the five? So I just wanted to point out that even those rules are not all that clear to us.

I think we'll have to clarify that. I'll mark that one down.

Yeah, all right. I might be wrong. It might say five, but I remember having discussions about what the supermajority means.

Yeah, good point. Okay. Any other comments on the process? No? Well, then let's go on to the next sheet, which starts the criteria for approval. Here again, I've tried to put in the section so you can always find it. What you'll find on the next three sheets are basically exactly what we read in the criteria whenever we are reviewing a CUP application. And Anissa and her predecessors, I think have been very diligent in putting it in. I'm not sure that we need to go over it, because I think as you look on this sheet and the next two sheets, you'll see that it's about the size, the coverage. The landscaping, water runoff, which is always a big concern, and parking demand. Are we going to flood the streets with more cars? Things like that. So all of those, you know, we could probably discuss later. forever on each one. But those are all the items that we see regularly in our staff report, and we certainly discuss them in detail with the applicants. So unless there are questions about it, I'm not sure we need to go into it because we're all very familiar with it. I don't hear anything. And of course, I don't see any faces right now except one who's speaking. So then this last part is the actions in the CUP process. And there's several parts to that. There's the amendment. There's a transfer of a CUP. There's acceptance of conditions of approval, revocation. And I think there's one other one. Oh, special use permits and time limits on the approval and then appeals. We don't always see all of these occur. Some of them have come back to us when we have had to change one. There was certainly one that we dealt with recently with the proposed hotel on South Central because their time limit had expired and it had to be re-approved. And we did look at their CUP again. We essentially found no changes, so it went ahead. that would fall under the time limit, which is one year. And that's in several pages from here. But are there questions on the process after a CUP has been approved by the Planning Commission and sent on to the Board of Aldermen? For anything else, I mentioned if you have to amend it, there's certain items and processes that have to be followed. Or as I said, we've also seen transfers from one owner to another. We would have to change the CUP to allow that to occur. And the time limit thing, can probably be the most prevalent one that we would be dealing with.

Can a CEP expire for lack of use? Specifically thinking here on some of the restaurants that have had to close, whether they are under a CEP or not, but they've been closed for more than a year, would they have to go back in for a new CEP or would that ultimate still be activated as long as they just paid fees?

Stephanie, can you shed any light on that?

Yeah, so I'm looking at the ordinance now. I have not looked at the expiration. Okay, so here it is, 405-900, time limit on approvals. Approval of a CEP or approval shall be void unless a building permit is issued within one year from the date of approval by the Board of Aldermen. A written request for an extension of time must be received by the city clerk not less than 45 days prior to the expiration of the original one-year period. The applicant shall bear the burden of providing just cause for delay. It doesn't look like there is an expiration if they go dormant for a certain period of time. But once a CUP is approved, they do need to obtain a building permit within one year of the date of approval.

So for restaurants that have permanently or somewhat closed their doors during COVID or any other business for that matter, if they were operating under CEP and someone wanted to reopen that, they would not have to come back in for process. To process that, they could just come in and start opening it, assuming they don't need a building permit.

Well, they would still need to transfer the conditional use permit then to the new operator. And that goes, I believe, to, oh, if it's a minor transfer, it's not subject to review and approval by the Board of Aldermen, but all substantial transfers are subject to review and approve by the Board of aldermen.

Is substantial defined?

Yes, and then I'm taking this straight. I'm quoting directly from the ordinance. The following is a list of transfers that represent a substantial change from the provisions of the originally approved conditional use permit. Number one, a transfer involving a more intensive use. I foresee that as being, let's say that you had a simple restaurant that served maybe bakery items and that maybe didn't serve liquor or something like that. And then you go to a restaurant that is now going to serve liquor or that maybe will have extended hours. That might be a more intensive use. Number two is other changes deemed to represent a substantial change as planning and development service or his or her designee.

Mm hmm. And while we have just a short break, I did review the language on the super majority or the vote of five. And Steve's slide was correct. It is a simple majority. However, it does require, and I quote here, a vote of at least five members of the Board of Aldermen to approve any application contrary to the City Plan Commission recommendation.

So, Stephanie, would that mean if there are only five attending aldermen, all five would have to vote for it?

Correct. It would need to be unanimous.

Okay.

If there's only four, even though they are quorum, they would not be able to vote or not be able to accomplish anything.

Exactly. If they want to vote in a way that's contrary to a recommendation of the plan commission, then they cannot do it if only a bare quorum shows.

Okay. Do you know which section does carry that language about a super majority? I know there's something. I don't know. Apparently this is not it.

Yeah. I will look for that. I'm looking for that. It'll take me just a minute though.

Okay. Thank

you.

Other comments or questions on the additional CUP process actions? or are there any comments at all or other things that need to be clarified? A very nice summary.

Nicely done, Steve. Thank

you. We'll hopefully save it so anyone that wants to look at it, it's sort of a condensation of many, many pages in the code. Okay. And Anissa, I believe we still have a couple more items in our educational system. Is that correct?

We do. And I do think that we'll have room on the next agenda potentially for one. So Helen or Ira, I will reach out to whichever of you is my lucky target coming up here shortly.

Oh, I did mine already. You probably missed it. You just weren't here, I guess.

It's like, oh no, did I forget? I feel so bad.

It was a brilliant presentation.

Oh,

I

thought so

too.

I will continue looking for that. And then what I will do is I will email it to Anissa and then she can email it out to all of you.

That'd be great. Thanks, Stephanie.

And one other thing, Anissa, I don't know if Susan got a chance to talk to you before she left. What we had spoken about is perhaps in one of our discussions about the zoning code, maybe we could work in a discussion about recent developments with respect to telecommunications and antennas and that kind of thing, because there is some recent federal law, which takes away some of our zoning authority.

Okay.

Well, in answer to Anissa's original question. So Helen, I don't want to speak for your schedule. My schedule is if the next meeting is in two weeks, there's no way I can prepare anything between now and then just what my schedule is right now.

Okay. That works fine for me because The next meeting I'm close to, I'll be in and out of town with some building code development hearings. So our next meeting is good for me.

7th.

Yep.

Okay, I had one other thing I wanted to bring up. Well, a couple, I think. If you were able to look at the housing study, George, I know you requested that. Anissa, I don't remember if that was sent out to everybody or not.

No, I had just responded to George, but I can send it out to

everyone. It is very dated, very dated. So please keep that in mind.

But what I did see in there is that it did recommend more rental housing opportunities in the downtown area. And from that we have now seen over 700 built and be occupied. And we see that we're getting another at least 240 or so. And then there are other proposals coming in. So I think the outcome of that was very interesting, that we did follow what the housing study said. But George, I agree. It was way out of date for today's world where we are. So take a look at it. Also in there you will see several built or proposed buildings. And one thing that interested me was Montgomery Bank had a proposal in there that you can find on the World Bank. on the world news site that will be coming up to us in the near future. Take a look at it because I'm not going to say it's a great piece of design, but it has some elements in it that we may want to bring up in the future. We don't know what Green Street is proposing at this point. Secondly, you may have seen that there is a new rental housing project going up on the southeast. It's proposed on the southeast corner of Kings Highway and Lindle, what many people call the Chase Park Plaza former parking lot, and it's immediately adjacent to 100 on the park, I believe its name. It's quite a striking building. And as the- I'm sorry? Who's the

developer?

Coppler? I don't know. I only saw the photo. Coppler is in it. Well, they own the

property.

I don't know who else is in it, but it's a striking example of contemporary architecture. And I'm bringing these things up because I think as we look at some of these proposals coming up, we need to really demand a higher level of architectural design than we've been seeing in the recent past. So those are my comments. Look around. Some people are doing it, but sometimes our developers are not.

Yep. And as you know, I was in Chicago recently taking care of grandkids. But I had time to walk around. There are some spectacular multifamily buildings going up there. I don't know if they're given incentives to do things, but it's worth a trip. If you haven't been to Chicago, wait until the snow is over because we had a foot of it when we were there. So my message is we need to improve the quality of our architectural design. And that also backs into our planning of the projects that are coming up. Granted, we have some pretty tight sites. So the process will be somewhat difficult. But think about it and look around and let's see what we can make happen.

Steve, may I say something about that? Because I think you're right. I've been trying to toot that horn for years. And that's why I was excited to be on this commission for this term. I think we have to hold the line. We are it. We're the... We are where the buck stops and we can make it happen. If you're in Chicago, I assume you've taken on various occasions the architectural tour through the canals. Oh, yes. Yeah. And they are fabulous. And I remember asking the tour guide, I took it about five years ago. I said, how is it that over the years, I mean we're talking about 70, 80, 90 years of architecture and building in Chicago, how did they manage to be able to have such incredible, just beautiful designs? And she said, the tour guide said that they actually had a separate committee set up for the purpose of awarding a architectural design award to that building, a building over, let's say, a five-year period that wins the award and that there was actually money with it. And it seemed like, gee, that's pretty simple, but does it really work? Her point was architects like everybody else are competitive. And even though it may cost a little more, the developer and the architect They like knowing. They like pointing to, hey, you know what? I did that. That was my design. That was my development. And they can point to it with pride and know that it had architectural significance, something that we're not getting in our city. you know and so maybe there's a maybe there's a process there for us to also take on and look at you know a

i mean i mean look at the pineapple building in in central west end right the uh

yeah 100

yeah i mean that's What does that take to put something? Now, obviously I don't want that one, but I would like something. I mean, that certainly was not something I'd ever seen before. Why can't we get something of original design, creative design in our city? I'd love to see it, but I think it's up to us to hold the line and make sure it happens.

Start deducting points for square boxes and flat roofs.

yeah.

Right. I think if they know that we are going to be incredibly critical of their designs before they even get here, it's going to force them to do that even on the first try and not wait for us to take a look at their first try and say, are you serious? Yeah.

They should be aware of that before they even start the citizen conversations if it's required in their process. Right.

So good. Great points, Steve. Thank you for bringing that up. Well,

I think we're going to have to reiterate it in a regular basis. And Anissa, I know you're listening to this, so we will certainly work as a team with our staff and get it out to the developers and the architects that want to come in and be part of our uh clayton context so thank you all for the comments um we can certainly continue this uh as we will continue other things so any other comments tonight

uh george yeah the um sustainability advisory committee is um starting to explore some different things as it relates to sustainability and one of the topics that came up were solo solar panels and trying to increase usage of solar panels. They wanted me to ask or to feel out how this group felt about some modifications and easing up on the location of solar panels on roofs. More specifically, I think we are restricted to not allowing them on the front of a house. And a lot of our properties, our street grid is east, west, north, south. So we've excluded roughly 25% of properties where it would be most beneficial to have solar panels on them. But I just wanted to get a feel from this committee if anyone is, I'm sure you would be open to looking to changes, but what the initial gut reaction is to that.

I'm totally in favor of modifying our code to allow for solar panels to be on the front of houses. I don't find them to be unattractive. I think they are incredibly useful and I think they're a great advertisement and a great use in the community. I don't think anyone should be prohibited or inhibited. My house happens to face the sun, so it would be something I could possibly do. And I would love the opportunity and I know a lot of my neighbors would too. So I think we should look at modifying those rules.

I agree with you, Ira and George. And I would be certainly in favor of looking at it in depth with a possibility of changing our regulations.

Okay.

Helen?

I agree. I think we need to look at it.

Bob, do you have any comments?

has said already. I'll let the committee know that we would be willing to look at any changes that they may come up with and discuss it. Good. Thank you,

George, for bringing that up. Let's see, Bob, any further comments?

Good. Well, we've always considered you as an honorary architect, so I appreciate your comment. Helen?

Nothing further to add to what you have said, Steve.

Okay. Ira?

I think we've had some great discussions tonight. I really appreciate all of them. Thank you.

Good. Stephanie, anything further?

Nothing further this evening.

Okay. Thank you. Anissa?

Nothing for

me.

Okay. And I'd like to thank Lori for joining us and we'll look forward to the meeting minutes. So with that, we'll look forward to seeing everyone. And hopefully Carolyn will be back on March 7th. So not quite two weeks. Thanks, everyone.

meeting.