March 21, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

Chairman Steve Lichtenfeld.

David Gipson.

David Gibson.

Here.

Ira Berkowitz.

Here.

Carolyn Gatiss. Here. Bob Dummel. George Haddock.

Here.

Helen DiFate. Here.

Helen DeFate. Here.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. I'll

Oh, I will join on some of these at some point in time. It's been a great honor to work with you all over the last couple of years.

This project is the review of the design and materials associated with an addition to a single family residence at 123 Topton way. The 8,880 square foot site is located mid block on the west side of Topton Way, north of Maryland Avenue. 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 deck and the construction of a 360 square foot single story solarium addition on the rear elevation of the home, as well as a 79 square foot wooden deck off the rear of this addition. New roofing on the entire home and solar panels are also proposed as part of this project. The existing home has a primary building material of red brick with hardy lop siding as a secondary material. The proposed rear addition will be constructed primarily of glass with hardy panel trim. Per the Clayton Gardens regulations, primary building materials of brick or stone must comprise at least 75% of each elevation with one accent material not to exceed 25%. Although the accent material of Hardy Labs siding on the rear facade exceeds this requirement, at 33% this condition is existing. With the addition being primarily composed of glass, staff is of the opinion that the proposed materials are compatible with the existing home and the Clayton Gardens UDD requirements. A new gray asphalt shingle roof is also proposed on the entirety of the home, as well as a solar panel array. The panels will be located behind and below the north to south ridge line of the existing roof and will not be visible from the street. Per the Clayton Gardens UDD, no more than 40% of the total lot may be covered by impervious material. However, incentives for additional lot coverage may be earned depending upon the garage width and location. The subject lot has an attached rear entry garage and contains a one and a half story home. Therefore, the maximum impervious coverage allowed is 60%, and the proposed project meets this requirement at 59.9%. A 500-gallon rainwater collection system is proposed under the addition. Overflow is to run into the existing rain garden on the property. Staff's recommendation is to approve with the following conditions to be addressed prior to the issuance of the building permit. First, all exterior electrical lines for the proposed solar panels shall be painted to match the color of the single family residence. Second, a plan noting the species of the proposed AC condenser landscape screening as well as tree protection measures for existing trees must be submitted with the building permit application. That concludes my presentation.

I can share some thoughts if need be here. Can you all hear me? We can. Terrific. Please identify yourself first. I am Jim Boleski, architect. And Andre Cazell, my client. We have a... As... Anissa just indicated there, we have a 360 square foot three season room going on the back of a home here. And it's a shed roof and a couple of solar panels and skylights on top. I'm open for any questions.

So directly behind our addition with the original design back I did this house years ago. We did a little rain. That was back when we were doing rain gardens and it's still back there. It's pretty much directly behind our addition right here.

It's between the addition and the property line.

It is not at the property line.

It's

No, if you look at the site plan, you can see the stone walkway that comes off of the driveway. There's an existing rain garden in there. Oh, I see the... The center of which is... probably 18 feet off of the property line.

Quite honestly, the 500-gallon tank is going to take most of the rainfall um they're intent on using storing the water and using it to water the property as time goes on but so it's it's a it's a very big rainwater tank and we have three downspouts going to it i don't expect a lot of over overage and yes i mean the the um The little bit of overage that could occur would be captured by the rain garden, yes.

watering? I believe it's... The discussion so far has been gravity.

no this will be a separate tank i'm not i'm not sure if there's an existing irrigation system i don't know of one

yes there is uh there is an irrigation system on the property right now But the idea is to use the water from this tank and the overflow as well as the stored water instead of the irrigation in the, at least in the back of the property. The front lawn is irrigated by the irrigation system.

No.

Yes, it cannot be connected. The pressure generated from this tank that will be lying on the ground is way too below any kind of irrigation system, the pressure that's needed. The irrigation system is on the city water, which has 90 PSI pressure, whereas this tank will generate minimal pressure, if any. So it'll be just the outflow from it through the drip system.

I had no further comments. Thank you.

Yeah. I appreciate the rain barrel. or cistern, I guess with that many gallons. It's pretty large. It looks like you're in the right gravity flow to use that water for the front. Are you doing a drip irrigation in the front?

No, in the front there is a regular irrigation that is fed by the city water.

So the rain barrel water goes to what?

goes to the back in the back we have two uh fairly large surge trees and 11 large arborvitaes as well as additional arborvitae that roll and surround the condensers okay i see that now um i commend you i'm using rain water mitigation As we experience in living in the trails for many years, the 500 gallon is the largest. I don't know if we'll be able to see quite as many maybe it'll be only 400. But right now all of the downspouts are drained out and it's not a problem.

Okay. No, I appreciate that. Steve actually asked my questions for me and you answered them. So thank you. I'm good.

Helen?

No questions, really. I think it's a good addition. Well done in handling how it meets the existing. And I'm delighted to see the two-foot walkway, in essence, for the fire service on the roof consistently exactly where it should be. So you are to be commended on that. But no, I think it'll look good and it's a great addition. So no questions. Thank you.

Ira? Yeah, no, I don't really have any questions, just a comment. I think i applaud anyone who's willing to put in solar panels um i i'm really uh excited that we're seeing more of that and so sir i appreciate it thank you for doing that

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

Thank you.

Okay. This is a public hearing to solicit input regarding a proposed amendment to Chapter 405, Article 9 Special Development District related to the addition of a public benefit. Both the Planned Unit Development District and the Special Development District regulations have requirements for the provision of public benefits in exchange for flexibility from traditional zoning restrictions. The current PUD regulations pertaining to public benefits consist of a point system with clearly defined public benefits and values for each enhancement, whereas the SDD regulations list general acceptable public benefits but do not have a point-based system. When the PUD regulations were revised to allow for the current point-based system, it included a point category for the enhancement of offsite city-owned parks or public facilities and the installation of streetscape standards. The STD public benefit section does not make any specific reference to these types of enhancements or facilities. The Board of Aldermen discussed this discrepancy in January of 2022 and proposed legislation to add the language to the list of STD public benefits. The language would read, enhancements to offsite city-owned parks or other public facilities, such as the replacement of recreation related facilities or the installation of streetscape standards where none currently exists. Staff's recommendation is to consider the draft SDD public benefits regulations and to make a recommendation of approval to the Board of Aldermen. That concludes my presentation.

So to date, we've only had two PUD applications under the points rating system that was Bemis in place and Foresight Point. And you're correct, neither one utilized this particular provision, although it was written into that code in 2019. So with these projects that are in the pipeline right now that are having community conferences, we haven't gotten to the point of the project where they've talked about the number of points that would be required or what they'll submit in order to achieve those points. But this is on that menu of options, so to speak.

Okay, I'll jump in. I think it allows some flexibility that it gives another option. And I think if we see that in five years after a number of PUDs and STDs, that it's not being used then eliminate it. But I do think that most developers are going to give things that benefit them and their site, their project. And this is, it only gets them points. It's money spent on points and not on enhancements of their physical project. So we may never see it being used, but I think it's worth giving it a try. The city benefits. We as the city benefit as a whole. And it may be in an instance where they want to do something in a neighborhood that doesn't need additional amenities, that it could be directed to Helen A. An area that could use some benefits it's not seeing as much development, because of the nature of the area so i'd be willing to give it a try. PB

Tyson, You know i'm looking at the zoning map now to see where we have std setup and what i'm kind of noticing is one it. Most of the land is already fully developed or in phases anyway. So, you know, looking at what we've got now, I don't see that as needed. I think, though, that for future use, there are some large tracts of land that this could be a benefit to. Specifically, you know, there's Concordia Seminary, which I hope never leaves. There's the old CBC, which could be redeveloped at some point in time. So I think we need to consider putting it in there.

Thank you.

Yeah, I tend to agree. I was looking at this pretty hard today thinking about it because we don't want to give people the opportunity to offset their obligations, but we also know that certain areas cannot hold certain requirements and then to allow them to occur in other areas that really have the room for it. I think it's actually a good addition to the code. I'm in favor.

Yeah, I mean, Steve, I appreciate your points. I was thinking about some of that myself. I think when a developer takes a look at maybe other areas of the city as a way to provide for the public benefits part, I can see several instances, though, where doing that would actually enhance the development as well. You know, there may be developments along Brentwood Boulevard that might very well look to Shaw Park. and say, hey, you know what, we're right next, we're right across the street. We'd like to see something instead of an empty lot right there. And so we'd like to maybe help with developing that area right across the street, it will help us maybe rent our units or make it more palatable for tenants or whatever. um and then i think we also had the the guys who developed the ceylon um i think they've made some contributions to help with maryland park now that was not as part of the an sdv or anything or a pud but it was certainly money they thought was well spent uh to help them also for their the tenants that are living over there uh to have some green space only a a short a short walk away from their from their facility So I think it's not to say that this would be a total waste. I think it would provide some flexibility, as Helen said, and provide some opportunity that a developer may very well choose and may very well want to see happen anyway, and then maybe perhaps get this little push by way of satisfying their public benefit requirements under either one of these. So I'm in favor of adding these and making them a part of the list.

Okay, thank you. David? And I don't have any concerns with the addition. Okay.

just had a point of reference because you just mentioned about the points. And I believe this is being used for the STD, which does not have a point system. Correct.

Yeah, I'll make a motion to recommend to the Board of All of them approval. Second.

Hey, stop by anytime. You know,

we're in the same neighborhood. I see you all the time. Hey, you know, that's what walking is. I rarely see Carolyn out on the street though. So

come on. I walk everywhere. Oh, he was making a joke. I'm always walking. See

y'all around.

Thank you, George for all

your work here.

Yeah, this is my turn. Although I don't know that there's any much more I need to say. Anisha covered the entire STD ordinance, so I think we're done. Okay, all right. I get it. Not really. Okay. All right, so the STD, Special Development District, not to be confused with an STD, which I think is a little more of a serious condition. I mentioned that because there was a meeting in the Board of Aldermen early on when I first started, and I referred to an STD as an STD by mistake. And it was... It was quickly pointed out to be my, especially by Joanne, who of course was not shy about these things and let me know that they are very two different, very different animals. So, all right, well, good. So the STD, the purpose of the STD and you can follow along with the presentation in writing or listen to me, either one. is to allow complex large-scale projects to be developed in phases. And I believe those phases are also referred to as special districts, which become part of the whole package of the SBD. The intent here is... It needs to be three acres in size and it also provides all sorts of flexibility for the efficient use of land and the resources. So that's basically the purposes, the benefits that the purposes engage with or hope to encourage is more impressive architecture, a coordination of architectural styles, and a preservation of historic buildings and elimination of some deteriorated structures. That's basically my summary of the benefits that can be derived from using an STD. David, do you want to go to the next page? Thank you. So well, it's not on here. But one of the requirements, of course, is that it's already a C1C2 or high-density commercial for an S1. So these can be submitted. Let's remove the problems here. OK. So the application should have on it the general components and the proposed developments. It should ensure that various components of the project meet the criteria of the special development plan, and the sub-district plans shall be required for each phase of the project. And they are all subject to plan review and architectural review. So the general public benefits is the use of tracts of land, which provides a cohesive and phased development. It also has an extraordinary landscaping and green space provision. The garage entryways are consistent with the surrounding neighborhood. And there's an architectural distinction and significance Next, David. Expensive use of high-quality building materials, provision of new public infrastructure, like streets and curves and the like. And it provides for reduced sale or rental for a percentage of the residential units, which we talked about last meeting, about having perhaps fair housing or workforce housing kind of thing. And then there's the LEED certification, which provides for environmental benefits to the city and everyone else. Now, there are certain benefits that are separately illuminated for the Central Business District. There's an inclusion of below-grade public parking, parking in excess of what's required. street level landscape garden or plaza for public use, inclusion of special access features or provisions for a planned public transit facilities and public art, architectural distinction and significance and extensive use of high quality materials. I will say before I go on to the next in terms of the plan approval process, I was on the Board of Aldermen for the extensive study of the Centene project, Centene 2, which I think was probably our last special development district, I believe, that was approved or at least been implemented. Part of my chagrin about all that is that many of these public benefits just never made it into that project. There may have been some, a few, but when it comes to, certainly they had an enormous amount of parking, certainly way beyond the statute that was certainly included in their project. I'm not sure that's any big benefit to us anymore. But the landscaping or the green spaces or any of these really, I think really high level, high priority type of benefits I don't remember any public art that's over there. It might be some kind of a fixture of some kind, but for the most part, I don't really see any kind of a public art or highly impressive architecture. They're not ugly. Those buildings are not ugly, but I'm not sure that they really meet with the criteria that we have here for the public benefits. So I'm not sure why that is, but I'm wondering if there's some other way to make sure that some of these things can be included properly in the future, which I think is the whole idea behind the point system on the PUDs. And I was very aware of the fact that we do not have a point system in this particular ordinance for David, you go on the next page. So basically, there's a public hearing. Then the plan commission will meet and discuss and make their recommendations to the Board of Aldermen with or without conditions. And I think that's it. Okay. It's purely at the discretion of the Board of Aldermen. And once it's approved, the plan and the subdistricts become the specific zoning regulations of the property. And if I recall correctly, each of the subdistrict then becomes subject to approval through the ARB and then on to the Board of Alderman. The sub districts are individually approved. They then have a one year lifespan. The overall SDE plan does not have a subset. It does not go away. I think that goes on for as long as they want. And then subject to any written extensions and all that. So I think that's it. Dave, is there more? No. So that's the basic general summary of how special development districts work.

Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, I was an alderman from the beginning of that project and I remember seeing their website and boy, they bragged about all the green space they were going to have. It was going to be enormous. And then suddenly one day it was gone. It didn't even exist. It was like at the point of approval. And I was like, wait a minute, what happened? Well, we didn't, it's not required. They didn't have to do it. So it wasn't part of any planning process. And It would be, I think, I understand that David and I had a discussion about this this afternoon, so I don't want to speak for David, but I know he had made some points about, you know, we haven't had the point system around for maybe a long enough time to really decide whether it works or not. And I think that's probably right. And I think the point system, as it's set up, needs to be continually refined. I mean, we talked about fair housing. Is the point system enough for that? Probably not. Well, what do you do? And what's worth five points and what's worth four points? And Steve, as you did tonight in terms of talking about getting discussion going, I did the same thing with the Board of Aldermen when we talked about Forsyth Point. And people would say, yeah, well, we gave this many points for this and five points for the artwork. And I said, you haven't even seen the artwork. giving five points for it. There seemed to be a lot of issues within the way the process was working that we became aware that, you know what, we need to maybe refine this more and more. At the same time, the idea of having a point system as a leverage or as incentive I think is still a very, very positive one to look at going forward.

No, I think Ira did a good job characterizing our conversation earlier today. I still believe at this point that the PUD point system's very experimental. It's something that's uncommon in most municipalities. When you look at PUD regulations or anything that's like the SDV regulations here, They speak in generalities, you may have a list of desired benefits, but not as specific as we see with the point system. So being that we've only had two projects and as I referenced earlier, we have several more that are currently, you know, in that community conference type stage. You know, let's see how this goes after a few more projects continue to make some tweaks and then if we need to expand this over to to the STD, I think that's a conversation worth having. Because the STD is something that does not come up very often. There are, I believe, three of them in the city right now, which would be the Novella properties over there on the Forsyth curve, the 17 campus. And I believe the enterprise campus, maybe the other one and Lisa, I could be wrong on that, but anyhow, it's, it's not something that comes up very often. It requires at least three acres in order to even be considered. And we don't have a lot of properties like that in the city. So I, I, my personal preference would be to let's go ahead and monitor the PUD point system, make some adjustments as we go. And if it works well, then let's, let's look at expanding it over. So yeah, That's kind of my take on it, my personal view. But I think Ira did a good job capturing everything.

No, I would agree with you, David and Ira.

I do agree. I do have to say that I'm working on a project right now in Texas where they require a point system to complete your documents and instead of achieving the landscape goals, they circumvented it with the point system and having a masonry wall and a a wooden double-faced ball actually gets the plants, I'm sorry, the points for having a good site. So I just want to make sure that we have the requirements in place and then the points are on top of that, any kind of points that you get. on top of that. So I think that's fine. But right now, I'm dealing with people going, you don't need those trees on the street because you have a masonry wall. And I'm going, oh my god. So I just want to make sure Clayton doesn't have to deal with bad landscape design.

So I don't see, first of all, any legal issues with the point system as it is right now in the PUD. If you wanted to take that and put something in place like that for the SDD districts, then I don't see an issue with that as long as the process is substantially similar. And that is a rezoning in conjunction with the approval of the plans. And so then you would be using your legislative function and applying that then to determine whether you wanted to do the STD on a particular parcel.

you.

That's correct.

No, but I can think of what you were talking about. I would love to talk about native plantings and appropriate and proper ways of designing in buildings. landscapes in the community as a topic for me, that would be wonderful. I would love it. So with that, I'll move on to the next person.

mine sooner than later. Is it spring? Karen Hollweg, An open to to having that discussion amongst everybody of how to prepare your guard for spring and talk about invasives and. Karen Hollweg, Good choices all that that would be great for me I already have the lectures so it's. PB John Gerstle,

, For me

No, nothing to say further. And I don't have any thoughts on a topic yet. So that's it. I'm sure you

Oh, yes.

Okay.

No, I don't have anything to add. I think continuing our, I guess, our architectural education, architectural board education is a great idea, Steve. And I've learned a lot from everybody else who's presented here. So of course, it always helps when you present because then you have to learn what you're presenting about. It's good for both sides. So we should continue it and any ideas should be welcome. So I appreciate you putting it out there. Okay, thank you.

I would just mention that we're going back in person with the board of Alderman on March 29th. Uh, the room is now live. Uh, we can do hybrid meetings and conduct those in public hearings and interface through zoom, uh, there in the chamber. So as soon as this commission is ready to go, if we're ready to go now, we could go back in on April 4th and, um, uh, meet in the room again, uh, which would be great there at city hall. So if everybody's all right with that, we'll, we'll schedule it, um, to take place at that point in time. Are there any concerns with going back in person?

Well, we can still choose to appear by Zoom,

correct? You still have that flexibility, correct. So if you're out of town and still want to attend the meeting or for whatever reason you need to do it from home, you could still log in and participate that way.

For the time being, at least, you know, we had to build in that capability and I'm sure we're going to have, you know, another wave of this at some point that could change things again. So we want to be as adaptable as possible and that hybrid setup is part of it. So for now, that's how we're going to be continuing and we'll just kind of monitor things over time.

there in person, which is great because we can get back to actually looking at and handling material samples and that sort of thing as we consider projects. Yes. Good. What about

the public?

The public as well. Yes, we will.

I was going to say, could you go through the requirements?

I was just going to go through the protocols that we have in place. So we have the metal detector at City Hall. They could set up for board meetings. To be honest, I think I had one, maybe two meetings with the plan commission before everything was shut down when I got there. So I can't remember if we had an officer at the front for plan commission meetings as well. Either way, we'll have to put somebody there because what we're doing is we're checking vaccination cards. If you are fully vaccinated, then you can attend the meeting without a mask on. If you are unvaccinated or can't provide proof of vaccination, you would be required to wear a mask in the chambers during the meeting. The one thing that we are figuring out right now is the occupancy limit, so we are spacing chairs out. They're not a full six feet apart but we've come up with a kind of a diagonal pattern with the chairs that allows we feel this adequate spacing. We've got to count that up and figure out what our occupancy is. We're going to post that on the agenda So we're going to let people know kind of ahead of time what the protocol will be. There will be something going out in the Clayton Connection on Friday that talks about Board of Alderman meetings and all other board and commission meetings. So all of the meetings will be held with those same protocols, and that'll be true for us as well. Any questions about that?

Absolutely. And if we need to adjust and adapt, then we'll do that. Everyone's very good at that at this point.

We're excited to get back in there.

Nothing further this evening.

Nothing from me. Steve, I might reach out to you a little bit just to kind of go over what your normal meeting process was like before switching to Zoom so I can have that understanding and Yeah, if everyone can be really patient with the technology, I'm excited and a little nervous to use it. So we'll see how that goes.

you all. Have a great night.

Good night, everybody.