September 7, 2022 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening,

everyone, and welcome to the Planned Commission ARB for August, for September 6th, 2022. If you have any electronic devices, please turn them off or silence them here in the chambers. Anyone participant virtually, raise your hand if you have a comment. With that, we'll start with the roll call. Steve Lichtenfeld.

Here. Carolyn Gatiss. Bob Denlow. Here. Helen DiFate.

Here. Carolyn Gatiss. Bob Denlo. Here. Helen DeFate.

Here.

Kami Walden.

Here.

Ira Berkowitz. Here. David Gipson. Here.

Ira Berkowitz. Here. David Gibson. Here.

We have minutes from the previous meeting on August 15th. Are there any changes to it?

No. Do we have a motion? Motion to approve the previous minutes.

Is there a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you. We'll move into new business. The first one is 103 Linden Avenue. And is the applicant here? Just raise your hand. Thank you. Okay, Ryan.

The site is located on the northwest corner of Maryland Avenue and London Avenue and is zoned R2 single family dwelling district. The property owner is seeking approval of an already constructed retaining wall that falls within the secondary front yard along Maryland Avenue. The retaining wall was originally submitted for review as part of a building permit in 2021 to replace a non-conforming deteriorating railroad tie retaining wall. A combination of communication and structural challenges led the applicant to construct the retaining wall without having gained ARB approval. The applicant is now seeking to rectify the situation. The subject retaining wall is constructed of VersaLock weathered standard blocks. The blocks vary in size, color and have rolled edges. The project is in conformance with the requirements of the architecture review guidelines and the R2 zoning district. Staff is of the opinion that the retaining wall as constructed is compatible with the surrounding area and recommends approval as submitted.

Okay, thank you. would the applicant like to come up and give us any further information?

No,

okay. Let me ask if there's anyone else in the audience who has a comment on 103 Linden for the retaining wall. Well, then we'll open it up for the ARB. I think it's a great improvement.

Anyone else have comments? Ellen?

Yes, I'm wondering. I too like it. I think it looks much better. Oh, I think it looks much better with the stone than the railroad ties. I assume given the height that you have structural drawings and everything. Okay.

Sounds good. Sounds, yeah.

Given the height, the seven foot height, you've got quite a load on it.

We can't hear any of that, those

of us who are remote. You should talk into the microphone. If you could summarize that quickly, is the green light on the microphone? Okay, then if you could just summarize

your answer to Helen. I'm doing it. You still cannot hear.

Speak directly. I'll

just summarize it. He has provided the engineered drawings based on the height of the wall, but they will be reviewed by staff and make sure that everything is okay.

Okay. Sounds good. One other question. Is the railing above the retaining wall new?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Looks good.

Kami?

I definitely think it's an improvement. I have no issues.

Okay, my problem is- It's an

improvement. It's good.

Am I done? No. Oh, hold on. Ira, any comment? Well, no, it's clearly an improvement. So I don't have any questions though and I appreciate all the other comments. David?

No questions.

Okay. We do have a staff recommendation to approve the retaining wall. Do we have a motion?

I move to approve the staff recommendation to approve, the retaining wall.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay. You're on the way. Thank you. You're welcome to stay. It will move on to new business item two, which is 222 South Central. And it's the applicant here. Okay, thank you. Hold on.

The subject property is located on the east side of South Central Avenue between Bonham Avenue and Forest Park Parkway. This property is zoned high density commercial and is developed with a multi-tenant office building. The proposed outdoor area is located on the second floor, on the top of the parking garage and extends onto the roof above the first floor extension. The proposed alterations do not change the building shape but will allow for the use of the root space at the second floor level. The space will include two metal percolas that will be visible from the street. However, most of the improvements will be screened from direct view due to the height and location. Surrounding buildings include office parking, a hotel is under construction, and the improvements will activate a space currently underutilized and add desired amenities to the office building. Such amenities are common downtown. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed project is compatible with the existing building and surrounding character. Staff recommends approval as submitted.

Okay, thank you. Would you like to come up, identify yourself and give us any further information? Absolutely.

My name's Carl Day. I'm a representative from Koch Development. We own the 222 South Central Avenue building. And I appreciate you all hearing me out tonight. A few of the things that we're looking to do is we have a you'll see on page two of the application that we submitted, but we have a space on the first floor of the building that's slightly bumped out from the main shell of the building and the rooftop of that space is underutilized. Keep up with the Joneses. We are upgrading all of our amenities in the building, the gym, our conference room, and we're going to add a rooftop patio. It's approximately 2000 square feet. So on the roof of that space, which the space is currently occupied by a tenant called Netscope. They recently opened for business here in Clayton. It'll be on the roof of their space and the railing system around the top of that patio will be similar, if not the same as the railing for the patio on the roof of the 212 Merrimack apartment building. Just a block and a half around the corner from us. It'll be basically the same railing. The paver system that will make up the decking on the patio will be an Ipe 2x2 Trek-style decking system, which is common in a lot of commercial decking systems that you see around the nation now. It will have two pergolas, although I will say the pergolas themselves, we are still kind of kicking the tires on those. We may not build the pergolas. It may just be a patio without them. We're still working on that, but we are requesting approval for the pergola construction as part of this. I believe it's pretty simple. So if you have any other questions.

Thank you. Are there any comments from the audience on 222 South Central?

We

do have

one raised hand on Zoom. We

do.

Kirsten Malloy.

I'm sorry, I'm architect on the project and so was just wanting to make sure it was available for any questions.

Oh, okay. Thank you. I'll make a comment. I've always wondered why that area wasn't made more active. And I think it would be a real positive to that part of South Central Avenue. You mentioned 212 South Merrimack. I believe that's about 20 stories higher. So there's a little difference there.

Well, the balconies on that building have the same railing system, I believe, for all of the individual balconies for each apartment. And so you do see those on the lower levels. I believe the first apartment's probably five or six stories up, but it's going to be a similar system. I'm just trying to give you something to compare what we're going to construct to.

Well, it looks good on the drawings. Thank you. I would hope you would go ahead with the pergolas that would give it a little more height, a little more prominence, and more of a three-dimensional feel to it.

They're definitely on the wish list. As you know, over the past several years, the construction costs have gone through the roof. So all of these amenities are quite expensive. And so it's something that we're trying to justify. But I do believe we're going to build them. We're just still working on that aspect of the cost.

Bob? I think it's obviously, it's very nice. I really do hope you build a pergolas. I think it adds more of a human touch to that area. We'll definitely keep that in

mind. Thank you. Ellen?

I would agree the pergolas bring a scale to an empty open space. So, but I think it's a great idea to use it and put people on the street. Looks good.

Thank you. Amy?

I agree. I think it's great idea, great use of the space. I did have a question about the glass on the railing. Is that like tinted or a color or anything, or is it just clear?

It will not be tinted. I believe it will be clear. Kirsten, can you confirm that for me?

Yeah, it'll be clear. We're planning to match the same glazing that's used at 212. So that language is consistent in that area of Clayton. So it should be clear.

Yeah, I do. There's no tenting on

that. Okay, and as far as like the railing itself is that tying into any of the metal within you know the existing window systems on the building.

yeah we're trying to match the millions that are currently on the building we're going to match them as much as much as possible, the building was built in the mid 60s so it's a little difficult but well. Right just

because the apart or the condos whatever they seem like very bright and vibrant and I know, like you were saying. It might not be the best fit on an older building. So something to think about.

That's why we got Kirsten.

Yeah.

Make it look good for us.

That's it.

Thank you.

Ira, any comments? No, I'm glad you're doing it. I'm assuming it's not open to the public, but it's private property. It's perfectly okay to do as you please. But I like the improvement.

It is a building amenity for tenants use only. We're open to having, we're allowing our tenants to have parties up there, but yeah, it is gonna be a building amenity. So it won't be open to people on the street.

Understood, understood.

David? No questions or comments.

Well, we really appreciate you reinvesting in the building and adding a more human touch to it. Absolutely. Do we have a, we do have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted.

I move to approve the staff recommendation to approve the application as submitted.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye. Okay.

Thank you. When will we see it? Hopefully by the end of the year, but the patios don't get used in the winter. So we have a little bit of time, but definitely by spring. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to the third item in new business and that's 301 Gay Avenue. Let me ask staff first. We have three basically similar. Do we vote on those independently or can they be combined?

Well, they're similar, but they're for different addresses. So we will need a vote for each address. Okay.

Then we will start with 301 Gay Avenue. And this is the applicant here, okay? Just hold on. Brian, is this yours? Okay.

So the subject property is the site of the Clayton Schools Family Center in Gay Field. The project consists of a sign plan that includes freestanding, wayfinding and wall signs. Each sign differs slightly but conforms to a consistent design with other signs on the property and other signs within the Clayton School District The only sign with proposed lighting is the wall sign on the family center, which is not expected to impact the surrounding environment. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed signage meets the standards and spirit of the sign code and is compatible with the surrounding property. And staff recommends approval of the sign plan as submitted.

Okay. Would you like to come up and give us any further information about the consistency of design?

John Potter, hi glad to be here Eric Wilson i'm with bond architects. John Potter, I do have a district. John Potter, Member here with me if we have any questions I can't answer but generally the start of this was. kind of standardization with the school district. They developed some imagery and some verbiage in a font that they wanted to put out consistently amongst all the schools. So with that, we've been doing some safety improvements at the schools over the past couple of summers. You may or may not have noticed some of those happening. And part of that was to move a couple of the entries at a couple of the schools. In order to move the entries, we now need to direct people to those entries. So that's at Merrimack and Glen Ridge. And then the Family Center, which is the first one we're talking about, is the small kids, the pre-K. And we want to just... make the signage updated. It's very old. I'm guessing most of you wouldn't even recognize it if you went by there without looking for it. It kind of blends in and goes away, and most people can't find it. So just trying to improve the wayfinding on the district.

See if there are any comments from the audience on the wayfinding for the school district. No? Well, I think it's a great idea. I like the use of the logo that you've developed. But I'm curious, have you tested these out? How far, what distance you can actually read the type on the blue stripes?

Yes, so we did some research as we always do with signage. So we've got the font in the proper form so we can see it based on the distance with the roads we have. So when you're approaching the family center on Gay, it's a small road. You're not traveling fast. The signage doesn't have to be that big. We're just trying to make it visible. The sign that's on the wall next to the entry on the Family Center is also a little bit bigger, but it's readable from the street.

It answers my question, Bob. No comments. Helen.

No comment. They look good.

Amy.

Very thankful you're doing this. My kids have been attending the Family Center for 10 years and it is always hard to tell people like how to get there and to recognize it and, you know, if you overshoot it, you know, it's kind of an ordeal, but I think the signage looks great. I'm just curious as to like on the curve wall that why not use the Family Center logo on that wall? versus just

the school district? Because it's not just the family center entry, but they have the facilities and gay field. And part of this is to get people to stop taking deliveries to the family center. So we're going to put some more internal signage along the road that leads back to facilities that hopefully stops deliveries from going to the family center

makes sense. Ira. Yeah, no comment looks good. David, no comments or questions.

Steve, I will note Carolyn's joined us. Thank

you.

Sorry about

that, you guys. I barely made it from Illinois to here. So sorry about that. I do have a question about the sign as to were there any thoughts to making it more of like a WashU sort of concrete embedded sign into the wall as opposed to completely different than the wall. Did that come out of play? I don't know if you know what I mean by that, but I mean like not blue and everything, but have the graphics embedded into like a stone.

I think I know what you mean. I don't know that we talked about it in great deal. We were trying to not touch that old stone wall drastically. So the sign sitting out in front of it, mounted off of it was the least kind of damaging to that old wall that we could come up with that's still highly visible as you make that left turn into the entry there at the family center.

Okay. I just wanted to ask because it just seems like it's something that is just like a graphic placed on top of something as opposed to integrating it.

Anything else, Carolyn? No.

Okay. I do have one other question. Will any of these signs be lit at

night? The one on the family center that's on the building itself, we've asked that you guys approve it to be lit. We don't have plans to light it yet, but there's a planter in front of it so we could put landscaping lighting and light it from the outside. We think it's gonna be visible enough without being lit, but that's the only one currently We plan on having a light on. The rest will be on

that. Would that go for the entry signs at the other two schools?

Correct.

Well, on 301 Gay, we have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted.

I move to approve the staff recommendation approving the application for the signs.

Second.

PB

John

Gerstle,

All in

favor. PB John Gerstel, First one down. PB John Gerestle, we'll move on to 400 South merrimack.

So this subject property is home to the Merrimack Elementary School. The project consists of a sign plan that includes freestanding signs, wall signs, and a fence-mounted sign. Similar to the previous one, each sign differs slightly but conforms to a consistent design with other signs on the property and other signs in the Clayton School District. No lighting has been proposed for any of these signs at this time. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed signage meets the standards and spirit of the sign code and is compatible with the surrounding property and staff recommends approval as submitted.

Eric, anything further about Meramec school?

No, most of these signs are just way finding so that deliveries and the entry is more known. And we're also identifying the afterschool program entrance and exit.

Any comments from the audience on the Meramec school signage? Here again, this building has a lot of entries, it seems. And I think I finally figured out where the new entry is. Of course, when my kids went there, the entry was right in the middle of the front west facade. And you can't do that anymore, so. I think it looks good. It's well thought out. Meramec has its own logo, as do all the schools. And here again, the signs have a consistency.

Bob? No comment. Ellen?

No comment.

Amy, your

kids

go there.

They do. So this will be very helpful. It's funny because I was like locating the new main entrance because I've yet to be in it. So that's awesome. But yeah, no comments.

Ira? Yeah, I don't have any. I have no comment either. Carolyn?

No comment.

David? No comments. Okay. Well, again, we have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted.

I'll make a motion to approve as submitted.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. One more. We'll move on to 7447 Wellington Way.

similar to the others, but this is the side of the Glen Ridge Elementary School and the project consists of freestanding way finding signs. Like the others, these are identical in design and conform to other signs within the Clayton School District. No lighting has been proposed for the signs. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed signage meets the standards and spirit of the sign code and is compatible with the surrounding property and recommends approval as submitted.

Thanks. I have one question. Which is the main entrance door now?

It's

on

Wellington. So the parking lot is on Oxford,

right behind it.

Then it's on Oxford. My apologies. It's on the north side.

On the north side, okay.

The old entrance was on Wellington, yeah. flip to basically the other side of the building.

Okay, that one I couldn't figure out on the drawing. There again, I think all the comments are the same. Bob?

Same response, no comment.

Ellen?

No comment.

Amy?

No comment.

Ira? No comment. So this is where my son went to school. And I always wondered, I mean, there are several entrances and I always wondered which one would be the appropriate one to use when you're bringing your kid into school. I guess this defines it pretty well. I think that's great. Thank you. Carolyn?

No comments.

David. No comments. Okay, again, we have a recommendation to approve.

We'll make a motion to approve as submitted.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay. Thanks, Eric. Thank you, everyone. When will

the signage go up?

Yeah, we're gonna bid it out. So it'll be a bid project for the sign. So it would probably be, if I had to guess spring.

Good, we'll look for it.

Okay, moving on, we are going to go to 7801 Forsyth. And again, it is a commercial sign modification. Is the applicant here?

The applicant is elected to table this one to the next meeting.

Okay, do we need to vote on that? Do we have a motion to table 7447 Wellington Way?

I'll make a motion to approve. Sorry, table.

Second. Just to clarify, that's 7801 Forsyth Boulevard.

Yes, thank you. I'm trying to find it here.

I read the wrong one. Yeah,

sorry. Thank you.

We have a second.

All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Okay. Now we can move on to

items seven and eight. And that's 7533 Westmoreland. I think I got that one correctly. And I know the applicant is here. So Ryan, let's start with the site plan review.

So this site is located north of Westmoreland near the Hanley House and is zoned R2 single family. The project consists of the demolition of an existing home and the construction of a new single family home. The staff report details review criteria, which I'll summarize. And the project is found to be compatible with R2 zoning requirements, lighting requirements, and standards set by Public Works. Stormwater runoff is projected to increase by 0.02 cubic feet per second and has been deemed acceptable. There is 8,443 square feet of existing canopy coverage on the site with 6,853 square feet being removed. 2,000 square feet of new coverage is proposed and the total coverage will be 3,551 square feet, 39 square feet over the requirement and native trees will total 50% of the coverage. Staff is of the opinion that the project meets criteria for the site plan approval. The staff recommends approving on the condition that to protect future operation and maintenance of the dry well. The applicant shall record the approved site plan with St. Louis County and submit proof of recording to the city prior to the issuance of a building permit.

Okay, thank you.

Who's here to speak for?

Evening, I'm Lauren Struttman. I'm here with Steve Ensley from my office and Eric Peetbier from Bowles and our homeowner Stephen Rosenblum is here in the audience also. The builder is Jeffrey Holmes, but he is out of town and could not be here tonight. And we're here to present the site plan and the landscape plan for a new home at this address.

Can she speak more into the microphone? Sorry.

So you have in your packets, the site plans for bowls and our landscape plan from Baxter gardens. And I know you were all also sent an email letter of concern from the neighbors. And I think Eric's going to address that as well. We did email to everyone a response letter from bowls. I'm not sure if everyone got that response letter or not, but yeah, I can pass out copies of it. And I'll let Eric kind of

take over from here. Hi, I'm Eric Viemeyer

from Vols Engineering or Vols Incorporated. HAB-Jacques Juilland- civil engineer of record for this project, as you can see, on the board in front of the lectern and, as stated by Mr hell. HAB-Jacque Juilland- The project is increasing the runoff by point zero two cubic feet per second. HAB-Judy Nogg- Pardon me, but there's being mitigated by dry well located in the rear yard, the site was currently draining to the rear. With the drywall, there is a zero increase to the neighbors in any direction, even to the public right of way. So any questions on the drainage aspects of the project before we get into other concerns?

Well, looking at C4, the drainage area maps,

it

looks like there's really no change. Am I hearing you and reading it correctly?

That is correct. Yes. We are not changing where any water is going. We're just managing the increase to mimic a zero increase in any given direction.

I know it slopes down toward the north. How does it relate to the east and the west?

Well, it doesn't slope to the east or the west. And then to the south, there was a small area of the front yard that goes to the Westmoreland right-of-way that the new area is a little bit smaller to offset the increase in the front yard. So everything was going to the rear and everything else is still going to the rear. So that increase is mitigated by the dry well in the rear yard.

And the driveway will go down to a rear entry, low grade garage. Correct. And I think I saw, was it a trench drain down there?

Verify. Based on the city's definition of below grade, it's an at-grade garage.

We don't have a French drain off the end of the driveway just because there's still plenty of lawn space between the edge of the driveway and the rear most property

line. Any other questions on drainage?

Can I just make sure I understand? Is it your understanding there's a water runoff problem before you do your work right now?

There is no water issues, to my knowledge, on the existing property. But

you're going to increase the water runoff? We're

increasing it by 0.02 cubic feet per second.

A negligible

amount? MSD doesn't concern runoff increase of any consequence until you get to 2.0 CFS. So this is, you're talking just, you know, a couple gallons per minute.

Unfortunately, I wasn't home to see this letter. Do you have a neighbor complaining about potential water runoff?

No, no. I believe the issue is the proximity to the right-hand property line.

The proximity of the driveway?

Proximity of the proposed home. We are about six inches off of the five foot setback on the right hand side, which pushes the proposed house a little closer to that property line than the existing house. The neighbor's house, which they know is over the five foot setback and is rightfully grandfathered. So their complaint is that we're now only eight feet plus or minus about eight and a half feet from their house with the proposed structure.

So they're over, they're aligned by grandfathering a long time ago.

Correct.

And you're still going to retain the, you'll still be within the existing setback line.

Correct. Yeah, we are within the buildable setbacks and we're actually not even on the setback. We're more than six inches away from the setback line.

Thank you. Any

other questions on the setback or the drainage area before we move on? No, hearing nothing. I do have another question and this might be more toward the property owner, but I'll pose it to you. The future pool being on the northeast part of the site, seems like it might be on the shady side of the backyard as opposed to if it were on the northwest side.

We were only showing it for a placeholder just for impervious coverage calculation purposes. We showed that pool which is accounted for in that 0.02 cubic foot per second increase. It was merely for calculation purposes only. Nothing has been designed. Nothing is actually even planned. It was just a thought and it is only a placeholder.

Thank you. Oh, the owner would like to comment.

It's basically a pipe dream for me that Andrea doesn't want. So we'll see if it really happens.

I hear that.

Okay. Is

that clear on the plans or are we approving that?

The plans state that the pool is future by others. Yeah, but-

It is not included in our review. However, if I understood the drainage and runoff calculations were based as if it were to be installed.

Correct. That way, if however many years down the road, it might happen. The homeowner doesn't have to replace their drywall. So for the current condition, we are over detaining.

The way it is on the plans, if you were to approve it today and they changed their mind and did want to build the pool tomorrow with a new house, it would be approved to be that way. So it's really their choice whether or not to build it now or build it in a year.

So we're approving the homeowner's right to build it today or tomorrow?

You're approving the plans as they've proposed them, which include a pool of that size and a pool deck of that area. Some of the items that are on a site plan you can modify slightly when they actually go through the building permit process. Sometimes driveway shapes change slightly and the location of a front walkway changes. This pool would be another example of that. We recommend that when people are considering pools, they include them on a site plan going before this board, especially because of the stormwater calculations that they've referred to. So now this board would be approving and understanding based on the stormwater calculations of the pool what the conditions would likely be, but they are not required to build the pool just because it's shown on this plan.

I had one other question, and that's because on my miniature drawing, I could not see the north-south dimension from the garage door to the back of the driveway turnaround. And then the brass receptacle sort of cuts the corner off.

Right. From the face of the garage, which is under a rear deck, it is 24.88 feet to the rear of the driveway. And the trash closure is five by eight offset from the left property line. We have minimum setbacks for that. And impervious coverage was a concern. So it was encroached into the driveway area. but within an area where we felt it was not going to impact the movement of vehicles in and out of the garage. Seems a little tight. Yeah, yeah. But that's what happens when you have a 50-foot wide lot sometimes. Just trying to maximize everything we can for the homeowner.

Well, cars may be getting smaller in the future, so... We'll see. Any other comments on site plan review? And I just scanned your response.

Were there any comments related to that? Eric, I think you've more or less addressed everything in your letter.

I tried.

But if there are any comments on my letter, I am more than happy to answer them.

Any further comments,

Ira, Carolyn? You may not have seen the Vols Incorporated letter. I

I have not. Well,

basically it includes most everything that Eric either addressed or

responded to. Driveway location, house location.

Those are the main items. Right. Mostly that the house is now taking up more space, but it's still within the setbacks and the neighbor has grandfathered in an exception to the setback and is complaining that the house is not too close to hers. Is that correct?

Yes. Okay. All right. I get it. I understand. Thanks.

Any further comments?

Well, what is our response to that complaint? If I missed it.

Well, what we've heard is that the proposed house is greater than the five foot setback on the east side of the property. five feet six, something like that. And that places the house within the buildable envelope on the site. Did that answer it, Carolyn?

Yes, that's fine. Thanks.

Were there any hands

up?

Didn't see any hands up.

Well, we do have-

Steve?

Yes.

I do have a question. When you talk about landscaping being planted on that side in question, are you or will you keep in mind that a tree that's planted near the property line all of a sudden encroaches and according to the letter that was written, There is a concern about maintenance. So will you be cognizant of that? You know.

Fortunately, I'm probably not the right person to answer a landscaping question. Well, in

general, Lauren. You know, a fir tree, something that suddenly takes up some of that three feet, four feet they've got left can be a problem for painting, you know, ladders, that kind of thing. You can't get it in.

Actually, based on the Landscape Architects Review, we changed from a larger tree to the columnar hornbeams, and Steve and Andrea actually live on the first frame house on Westmoreland just past Mel Disney, and they have an amazing yard with a a person who does incredible gardening and they take very good care of their yard. If you look at the flowers and the plantings, and I wouldn't expect that they would have a tree that would overgrow and get into the neighbors. Yeah.

Okay. We were very

careful about that.

That sounds fine. I was just concerned that the very narrow side yard does present a maintenance problem. I mean, you can get scaffolding in, a ladder, but it really is a challenge.

And they live on the street and have done an incredible job as an example.

Okay, sounds good.

Any other comments? No? We do have a staff recommendation to... approve as submitted. Do we have a motion?

I'd like the motion to approve as submitted.

Sorry, who was that? Oh,

sure. Please come up and identify yourself.

So I am the person in question. My husband and I are the ones who wrote the email today. So my name is Annalise Schaefer, and we live at 7527 Westmoreland. I wanted to start off by saying there are several points that we can agree on. So we have lived on Westmoreland Avenue with Stephen and Andrea for 15 years. We consider them as good friends and very much have enjoyed having them as neighbors. We also agree that the new construction unquestionably will bring an improvement to the street. As Andrea and Steven know from our meeting with them two weeks ago, when they first shared the drawings with us, we're very happy for them. It's an exciting opportunity to build a new home and we look forward to having them as next door neighbors following the construction. So after reviewing the drawings more carefully, after Andrea and Steven kindly shared them with us, we had concerns. We expressed those concerns to Andrea and Steven, and they responded that the drawings could not be changed because they had been submitted to the ARB, so it was too late to make any changes. They also provided some information that any changes would result in additional costs to them, and this is how we ended up here today. And honestly, we really wish it were not necessary to speak out against these drawings. So the issue, as was noted, and one that the ARB is precisely well suited to consider relates to the distance between the planned home and our home. So as we all know, the side setback requirement in Clayton is five feet, and the design for 7533 satisfies that requirement. And also, as we all know, the purpose of side setbacks in general relates to access, security, privacy, and aesthetics, the importance of a uniform appearance. As far as I'm able to tell, Clayton does not have any rules for the distance between homes or structures, only the distance between a home and the property line. Because that required minimum distance is five feet, we can only assume that the intention was that Clayton homes have at least 10 feet between them. And that is not the case here, as you all know, so our home was built in the early 1900s as was noted, it is less than five feet from the property lined and his grandfathered in. Significantly, and this really has not been discussed here today, the current driveway is on the east side of the house. And under the proposed plans, the driveway will flip to the west side of the house So in the end, on our side, on the east side of the new construction, there will be eight feet between homes, an unprecedented distance. On the other side of the new house, there will be two driveways and green space. So that is a significant disparity from the east to the west. So in sum, this is not simply a case of checking boxes to ensure that a new design is within code, but we submitted as especially important for this body, the ARB, to consider whether we'll enable this unprecedented distancing between our two homes given the impact of such close proximity. So the impact is there are four primary effects. So one is the negative impact on our property value. The additions to our home have been to the back of the house. So looking from the street, ours is a modest size home that sits behind a large birch tree. So the close proximity of a much larger home will accentuate the disparity, perhaps creating the appearance that our home is a teardown. Secondly, minimize natural light to the spaces in our home that we use the most. So our first floor has an open floor plan with large windows on the west side. We spend most of our time in this central area where we enjoy much natural light. And we know that we will lose some of this light unquestionably with a larger house next door, but we are trying to minimize that. And an eight foot distance will severely minimize our natural light. Number three, reduced access to the west side of our home for maintenance and upkeep as was mentioned. And my husband, Paul Taggart will address that separately. And finally disruption to the aesthetics of the street. So this is the point that is especially relevant to this body. there are 19 homes on our side of the street. And in all instances, with the exception of two, there is a driveway between the homes. For those two instances where there is no driveway, the distance between one is 15 feet and the other one is 16 feet. So here it will be a significant change from anything that exists on our side of this street. So we submit that maintaining the driveway where it currently is on the east side of the property would address these concerns. So this was the change that we had asked Andrea and Steven to please keep the driveway where it is. So Andrea and Steven indicated to us that there is an additional expense to them if the driveway is maintained on the east side, we don't know the scale of that expense. And so what we don't know if that additional cost is sufficiently compelling to allow this impact on our home and the impact on the aesthetic of the street. And so we hope that this committee will consider our input and allow additional time to evaluate the impact on us. We simply want more time to evaluate. We've already begun those discussions, we have spoken with architecture, real estate and attorneys. And all of our concerns have been validated to this point. There will be, they predict in their expert opinion, a negative impact on our home. So because we learned of this so late, we are simply asking for more time to do an independent evaluation, hopefully have more discussion with Andrea and Stephen and enable a more informed decision by all parties. Thank you.

Thank you.

Evening.

I'm

Paul Tigard, Annalise is my spouse. I have a few mostly technical points to add. If you could turn on the PowerPoint for me. I think it's called Presentations. Presentation. Nice anodyne name.

Just one moment so I can get this put on Zoom. Please. So I'll just start

speaking

as

you prepare. Let me first say again how much we enjoy having the Rosenblooms as friends, our kids have gone to school together, we raise vegetables together, the streets community garden, can you start the

presentation view please? Thank

you. You can leave it there, it's fine. And we joined them together with many other families in opposing the, for several years, the introduction of high rise construction of the Maryland School subject well familiar to the ARB. Ultimately, we were successful in helping preserve the opportunity at the school with which Centene eventually created a useful, attractive and neighborhood compatible campus. We also like very much the new house plans and think they're gonna be a great addition to the street. And we commend Andrea and Steven for their investment and dedication to the street and the city, but we are strenuously object to the placement of the new house because it disrupts the canonical house, driveway, house, driveway alternation that characterizes pretty much all Clayton neighborhoods. So we're back again here discussing what constitutes the basics of what makes this a livable community? How do we protect Clayton neighborhoods? Certainly we do so by improving home quality handsome new houses, as Andrea and Stephen are doing with their plan. But we don't do it by promoting such close proximity, such as to degrade the value of existing neighboring homes. That's our main point. For visual context, I use this illustration, which I've copied from that prepared by the designers, Volts, did I get the name right? Right, very good. And this was kindly donated to us by Steven and Andrea. And this is the visual representation, the one and only for the three houses in contiguity as a elevation, so-called contextual elevation. The new house is in the middle and it shows vertical elevations and the displacement of the highest points between the three homes. And if for reasons that are, you know, unknowable by us. Everything looks great here, except that the dimensions about which we are most concerned are incorrect. According to this drawing, our house is further off the property line than is actually in fact. And the indicated space between the two houses is therefore inaccurate, inexplicably. Our house is east shifted in this rendering by three to four feet. This mistake, for lack of a better word, happens to coincide with the one major concern we have. This only underscores the strong feeling that we are basically an afterthought in this design process. We're not asking for any sort of a major role, but there's been no advisement or discussion prior to the submission of proposal. And the single representation of our house in these discussions is counterfactual. So we're not asking for much, but just that it's expected a typical Clayton home space to stretch our figurative arms around our property. We also have some practical concerns with such a narrow space to the plan density of landscaping as was previewed a minute ago. As well as the highly highly proximate structural entities above and below ground level cantilever room additions, as well as basement easements, could you have the next slide please sorry I show up here, I show a correction of good pleasant person excellent according to our understanding. of what is the actual placement of our home vis-a-vis the property line and which we think more faithfully depicts what we term exceedingly too narrow interval.

Next slide, please. Here again is the

contextual elevation on top. As originally rendered and on the bottom is a further copy of one of the elements in proposing the plan, this is the. 90 degree tilt of the proposed house in the space in between and i've clumsily inserted next slide please. From the plot of copy a an outline of our House as it would be situated, you know I tried to be accurate in the distancing.

Can you scroll down a little?

No, I think that's it.

Oh, okay.

So speaking to the point that was raised by Ms. DeFate, were we to try and use a 28-foot ladder to access our west side, it would be essentially impractical to reach much of the surface. Could I have the next slide? Yeah, so here's an illustration of a 20-foot ladder. And from people that we work with We're told that we need a seven foot basis to properly situate the ladder. 28 foot ladder reaches the 26 foot dormers. In fact, we're having the house painted this year and this week we hope to have people working on that side of the house. And we're relying as we have historically on the access, kind access given of the existing driveway that interpose between the two houses. As you can see, a seven foot basis is going to be severely challenging to achieve when the new structure is in place. And when the density of landscaping and I don't have the ability to touch here but the The plan as proposed is, in our mind, highly dense. The trees, the bushes, the cantilevered aspect, the egress, which the right, the eastward aspect of which comes within one foot of the property line. All of these constitute large scale obstacles, as I see it, to gaining access to do what is proper maintenance for household. That's which is expected to maintain the appearance and the property value in Clayton. That sort of access is that which we also offer our friends to the east of us they've been doing a lot of projects they've required access via our driveway we're happy to support them in that because that's the general game plan for the Community. And I also want to emphasize that we've been very supportive of those neighbors on the east, because they're newly into the House and they've had many recent petitions to the ARB for improvements to their home, including new additions, AC relocation, etc., all of which is to say we're not against change per se. Rather, We simply are against the plan to remove the intervening driveway because we think it will present substantial challenges from which we seek relief. So next slide, please. Just a couple more and I'll be done. Why not leave the driveway in between our homes? Can you push, please? Why not keep the driveway here and flip the garage to the northeast corner? Can you flip, please? preserve the house driveway, house driveway pattern that is essentially canonical in Clayton. So we sent in a request for consideration with Steve and Andrea, and they kindly relayed that to your group and you kindly answered and you have copies of that. I've also copied the two responses. Click please. From Eric, click again. And so I'll just read them out loud. These are the two points that speak to the consideration of where goes the driveway. The decision to place the driveway on the left was due to the left rear portion of the property being lower than the right rear portion of the this resulted in a more amenable condition for rear entry, lower level garage. And then the other point is flipping the House to provide a driveway on the right hand side was evaluated excuse me and deemed impractical. flipping the House would require a retaining wall that would require could require geo grid or reinforcing into the neighbors you are to the right, I believe that should be neighbors you are to left but it's not an important point. We have difficulty reading into this we don't we don't see enough detail here to understand what is what have been the calculations and how are they, how are the conclusions reached to call something amenable is to my mind in substantive detail. Likewise. the supposition that a retaining wall could be evaluated but was deemed impractical does not give us the wherewithal we need to agree or disagree in the continuance of this conversation for as long as we are continuing it. In fact, you know, retaining walls sound as if they are, according to this, we read them in that they are somehow too impractical or too expensive or somehow unusual. But in fact, they are a common feature. We heard of new ones being put in. Could I have the next slide, please? Here's an example of one, next can you click please? It happens to be on our property. It's the East property line. It's a 60 to 50 foot wall elevation grade changes from 0.5 feet to four and a half feet on the North side. It's been in place for as long as we've been there for over 15 years. And it seems practical to my mind. And I would like to see a clear evaluation of the cost because that seems to be the basis by which As was indicated, a right side driveway was evaluated. So if this is a realistic evaluation, it would be nice to see on what basis that might be pursued or denied because the cost is prohibited. Finally, we have very small potato questions about the drainage simply because on the last slide, we noted on the drainage map indications of diversions to our property, about which we don't understand, but we are not expert in the engineering or the regulation of drainage. And so our question is to simply request clarity on the history, permission structure, if any, and any future implications of this specific aspect on our house or future owners of our house. Once again, additional time provided by the ARB will be helpful in promoting answers and eventual resolution. Thanks very much for the opportunity to present remarks.

Thank

you. That what we've just heard makes me ask, is there a retaining wall on the

proposed driveway? Will there be?

HAB-Masyn Moyer- I can't hear.

HAB-Jacques Juilland- Sorry microphone got turned

off

as stated in my letter, the right left rear portion of the lot is lower than the right rear portion, which is why we. HAB-Judy Nogg- Did the original design to have the driveway on the left coming in around to serve the rear entry if we were to flip the House, we would have more excavation on the right hand side. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, creating the very likely potential for a retaining wall along that property line. PB, Harmon Zuckerberg, Or we would have to raise the House which we cause needs some significant modifications to the roof design to keep us within the height restrictions.

um. If you had to flip the house and have the driveway on the east side, and it was going downhill requiring a tainting wall, then the actual land mass for the 7527 house would be only Three feet wide, is that correct? Plus or minus? Yeah,

plus or minus.

Before it would drop into a downgrade.

Correct. Please come up to

the microphone. Please come up.

I think I understand what the question was, but honestly it would be very much appreciated to have time to consider this. Consider the impact on our home if the driveway was maintained on the east side and there was a retaining wall And there was this loss of space or whatever you just described. We are not architects. We are certainly reaching out to friends who are architects and real estate agents to get their input. And this is exactly, this precisely goes to why it would be very helpful to get more time.

Well- I think we hear what you're saying. And that's why I brought up there might be a retaining wall and a change of level between the two houses.

So if that's a negative thing, that would be good for us to know. And we would like to evaluate that in the big scheme, the holistic scheme of the impact of having this minimized space by moving the driveway.

In prospect. It is not a deal breaker for us. We could conceivably agree to that. Well, but again,

more time would be. That really isn't in the proposal right now that we're considering it. I just brought it up after your presentation, not from the engineer and the architect's presentation.

Show implications of either way.

Yeah, I see positives and negatives on each one, but we're not voting on it. But I would like to hear comments from the rest of the plan commission on that, if there are any.

What I'm hearing is that, I don't know your names again. Annalisa Paul. You're about three feet. you're two feet over your five foot setback. You're three feet from the line. The existing house where the applicant lives is much farther back than five feet right now. And they're going to move up to five and a half feet with a new home. Is

that

right? So on one hand, you're saying, even though you have the right to build up to five feet, we don't want it. We want you to go further back, we've had the benefit of a driveway. It's been a pattern. I'm hearing you. And that all things equal, why can't we just flip the driveway? But what I'm also hearing, it's not all things equal. If you flip the driveway, there's potentially added costs and maybe water runoff or just... Topo issues, a change. And I hear that. So I'm hearing you. I can respect their property rights to be within five feet. You're grandfathered in. I live on... a street where everybody is right on top of each other, and we still like each other. I know that. But that's not what you're really saying, you know? And you're saying just for you to use a ladder, you're going to have to use the neighbor's land anyway. I just, you know, seven feet. I mean... I hearing. And then the other thing I'm wanting to know is when did you find out about these plans? Is it just a couple of days ago, two weeks ago? Okay. Well, in some ways, I know you met with the neighbors and I know this is difficult for you. Um, but I'm trying to see, shouldn't they have the right to utilize their legal rights? And at the same time, is there a pragmatic way to be neighborly, flip it and let life go on. But there are some real potential costs and not just financial, but physical detriment to the other neighbor maybe. So this is what I'm hearing.

I have a question for Bowles Engineering. If you flip the house, the driveway, where do you need to start the retaining wall?

Hopefully it would only be no further than the front setback. I believe that's code. No, I'm saying along

the length of the driveway. Is it at the end of the driveway in the back that you'll have the retaining wall? Or is that wall coming up almost to the front yard or the front yard

setback? Probably up to the front of the building, of the new house.

The house, you'll start. So in effect, at three feet, the house adjacent will have three feet, and then there'll be a drop. Correct. I find that scary, nevermind how much space you need for a ladder, even if the three feet worked as the distance for the ladder to make the safe angle. You're asking painter, maintenance, whoever, to climb on that ladder Quite honestly, that's scary. If there's yard there, even if the yard is with a house only five feet away, that gives you some wiggle room. True. Your neighbor is not going to complain if the base of your ladder is a few inches over the property line or... whoever is going up the ladder needs to kind of swing around and physically be over the property line i think putting a retaining wall on that side if that's what's required that is scary

between

your house and yeah,

they've asked what side the retaining wall and discussion would be and it would be between the two houses in question. We really need you to speak in the microphone so that it's recorded. Thank you.

Again, an apologies for asking these questions here, but we're not architects. But if there's no retaining wall now, and there's a driveway there, and we maintain the driveway there, why would a retaining wall have to go in? I apologize if that's a stupid question, but I don't quite understand.

Is the current garage in the current house low grade in the back?

It's in the back of the house. In the

basement?

Mm-hmm. It is. You go down to the basement and you walk out of the basement into the garage.

if I may. I believe the existing garage and basement is significantly shallower than the proposed basement, which predicates that this needs to be lower than the existing, which then leads to the need for a retaining wall if we have a driveway on that side.

So then whichever side the driveway is on, it will be a deeper slope than the current existing drive. Correct. Because it has to get down to a floor level that is lower than the current house's basement.

Correct. The only way to avoid that

is to raise the house.

Right.

And then we have a roof, And we also have a front floor issue that we have had in several other new homes where we do not like to raise the front of the house where you have big, long steps going up that do not fit into the neighborhood. Right, right.

I might add, we put an eight foot ceiling in this garage and then we're going to step down into a nine foot basement. We did that to lessen the rising of the house and lessen the lowering of the house on the lot too. So the cars can live with an eight foot ceiling, which is really the minimum we get a garage door in. So we don't have an exorbitantly tall lower level garage either here.

That was on my architectural question list because I don't think I've seen that. I'm accustomed to stepping up from the garage into the basement.

We've done that quite often in Clayton because the grade of the driveway can't be more than 8% without hitting the driveway and cars don't need a tall ceiling. So we'll pull the cars into an eight foot garage and then step down into a nine foot ceiling lower level. And we're actually gonna step up to go out of their lower level. And that was to mitigate the height.

Annalise or Paul, any other comments right now?

Ira or Carolyn, any comments? I would just have a question. I don't know. What is our latitude in being able to tell a homeowner that they're not entitled to use the legal setback for their house?

I mean, are we even able to do that?

If that question is directed to me, then you really don't have any leeway because this is site plan review. You're acting administratively, which means that you don't really have any discretion when it comes to ordinance requirements if the site plan conforms to the ordinance requirements. And right now what you have is you have a provision that says they can build as long as the structure is not more than five feet from the property line. They meet that requirement, and therefore the structure meets the requirement. As far as the driveways, it's more of a technical requirements for the construction, and Public Works has promulgated standards for the construction of driveways. You don't have a requirement right now for placement of driveways dictate that they can't be on the same side as a neighboring property owner's driveway.

Thank

you for that clarification. Yes. Did that answer it, Ira? Yes, that's what I was wondering. So thank you. Thank you. Any other comments on the site plan review?

I actually would love to have a little bit more time to review the driveway issue. I'm questioning everything after the presentation today from the homeowners the neighbors. I'm not really understanding why it couldn't be in the same place that it was with some more expense perhaps, but still. I can only imagine living in a house and the other house encroaches by that many feet and you get shading in your own living room or dining room or whatever. I kind of feel like I need more information. I don't know if other people feel that way on the board.

Carolyn, I have one comment. It's sort of related to that. If the proposed house is five feet plus some inches away from the property line and it had been designed with the driveway on the east side, then the east side of the house would probably be 10 feet plus or minus from the property line. The house, if I'm reading it correctly is about 29 feet high to the midpoint of the roof. It seems to me that whether the house is five feet from the property line or 10 feet from the property, line is not a substantial difference at all. Whether there's a driveway they're pushing it to 10 feet or not leaving it at the five foot plus. I think either one will have the same effect on the house next door at 7527 of being a much larger house than they currently see. And following what our council has indicated a few minutes ago, I think that our requirement is to stay within the regulations that the plan commission can vote on.

If I could just jump in here too, I think the physical size of the house is a big 800 pound elephant here. And I think Stephanie so correctly summed up our dilemma, if you want to say it like that. When can you deny somebody the right to fully exercise their legal rights, their legal property rights? And for us to start taking a position, well, in your case, we're not because being a good neighbor means you should not be able to exercise your full rights. That's a little concerning to me given what our role is in the big scheme of things. We're not the legislative branch of Clayton's government here. We're here to carry out existing legislative policies. So my position would be to move forward with a vote today.

Thank you. Come up and we'd like to record you.

I would just add that we've spent-

Steve.

Stephen Rosenblum, the homeowner on the street but hoping to build on this additional lot we own this house as well. We have spent, yeah, I think in a lot of time this past week and a half PB, David Ensign & Co- Trying to figure out how we can make this amenable and work and it it just doesn't seem to be any way to flip that driveway without either lowering the size of the House or adding in another drain. PB, David EnsIGN & Co- And when we initially looked at this, we thought we might keep it there, and then we thought we moved it over to have a shared driveway which still didn't work with the other neighbors so that we can make the driveway possibly smaller to move the House over. but I think we've run out of options and there would be considerable cost to change the plans and add a pump and a retaining wall. So that's where we're at. We have not asked for any variances. Again, we are friends, I would say close friends with Paul and Annalise, and I think we can work through this, but we have truly tried over the, didn't realize that there was the two foot, John Pimentel, encroachment you know that was grandfathered in so or at least I didn't realize that i'm sure lauren and all of them had, but we are not trying to put never want to you know disrespect a neighbor or take away from their property value.

Thank you. John Pimentel , Other comments. David, any comment? Well, we've gone through it. I think Bob, you summed it up pretty quickly that the new house is very large and the effect on the house to its east, whether it be moved five feet or not would still be about the same. It will be a large house. We Any other comments before we move on on site plan?

I do respectfully disagree that there is no difference between five feet or 10 feet. I think if you do the geometry and think about the light that will be coming in, there will be significant difference between what you've described as five feet and 10 feet. So with all due respect, we do not agree that that is the case. And this is what we wanted to find out. there might be additional costs to maintaining the driveway where it is. We would feel better if we knew what those costs were again, is the neighborly thing to do. And I would also submit, yes, it's true that this body is not responsible for legislative change, but that's why this is the architectural review board. That's why this body is responsible for considering aesthetics and considering consistency. This will set an unprecedented distance between the house, an unprecedented minimal distance. We're not asking for them this to be denied. We were simply asking for more time to do more evaluation. Who knows, with that more time, we might agree with Andrea and Stephen. This is the best way to do it because we agree in the full scheme of things, you should move the driveway to the west side. As it stands right now, if you look, as I said, if you look from the front of the house- and you see two driveways in green space on the left and eight feet on the right, it really is a significant disparity with a negative impact on us. And what we wanted, what we had hoped for was an opportunity to really weigh the different costs, the cost of keeping the driveway where it is and the cost of moving the driveway. And that was simply all that we're asking.

Well, as far as weighing the costs, that doesn't come under our purview. That would be between the two property owners. From an

aesthetic benefit. I mean, because this relates to aesthetics, we were hoping that the architectural review board would consider it.

Well, we haven't even gotten to the architectural review board yet. This is really planned commission. I know they do overlap a little bit, but we're really looking at the site plan at

this point.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other comments? Helen.

Steve, not to belabor this, but with the five foot side yard requirement, you're allowed to encroach up to two feet with a bay. So if one neighbor builds their house five feet from the property line, with a bay of two feet, they're three feet from the property line. If the neighbor on the other side decides they want a bay, they can do the same thing, two foot bay, three feet left. So you really only have six feet between whenever you have a bay on each house. And I don't believe there's any limit on the number of bays that you can have. That's left up to the code official. So eight feet

is better than three. the next door neighbor mentioned that they do have a bay window. We do see that

on the front elevation. It's a first floor bay on the west side of your house. Yeah, we do see that. And I think it was in your presentation, you took that into consideration also. You

did not? Oh, so then it

needs to come up to the podium. Sorry. The

question was, did I take into account the distance in towards the property line of our cantilevered aspects? And the answer was no. I only used the foundation line, which is actually not consistent. At its greatest, it's three feet from the property line. At its least dimension, it's one foot from the property line And I'll just reiterate that in the plans is a basement egress, about which I know nothing. I would actually like to know more about that, the need for that basement egress, whether it's a legalism or a choice. But its eastward aspect of these stairs, as I understand the drawing of the stairs, come within one foot of the property line. So we're cheek to jowl in these plans. There's no six foot or eight foot dimension as is being used to characterize this prospect. There's lots of interaction, and it's going to be filled up. I've said my piece.

Thank you. Well, any other comments? No? I think we... Our charge is to make sure that's

on Zoom, on your screen. Okay. Ryan, would you

like to read that so that it's in the record?

Sure, so James, forgive me, I'll butcher the last name. We're sure with Baxter Gardens, we sure was the main designer for the West Mullen property, but I'm going to zoom for 118 Topton Way property. In regards to cost, a typical retaining wall is around $50 a square foot and an average height of four feet and approximately six feet long. That cost would be north of 12,000, including any excavation permits, dig back or geogrid, et cetera.

Okay, thank you. Hopefully that puts it in perspective. But as I said before, we're not dealing with cost concerns.

Any

other comments? We do have a recommendation to approve as submitted, and I'll repeat what we've heard from our legal counsel. And I think Mr. Denlo's comments were very appropriate that we will work to make sure that the building envelope according to the regulations is followed. So do we have a motion?

I move to approve the staff recommendation, which approves the application.

Just to clarify, with the revised staff report, which included the condition that they record the dry well with St. Louis County and provide proof of recording?

Yes. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Nay. Thank you.

There's an A.

Oh, thank you, Carolyn.

Sorry.

Okay, we can move on to the architectural review.

Hi. So this summary covers the architecture review portion of the previously discussed project. The post-masting of the home is similar to nearby homes, which range from one to two stories. The home to the west is shorter by just over nine feet, and the home to the east is shorter by just under six feet. Homes in the immediate area include a variety of building materials, including brick, stone, siding, and succo. The home to be demolished is stuck on the proposed home The home to be demolished is stucco and the proposed home is also stucco with stone accents. The proposed roof is clad with charcoal blend artificial shingles. Black casement windows are proposed. The applicant is proposing a Hollywood or ribbon drive with an 18-inch wide strip of grass. This is not permitted, and the applicant is requesting modification. This driveway type can be found in the city, but is not common. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed house is compatible in terms of mass and height with nearby structures. And so we recommend to approve on the condition that the ribbon driveway shall only be located along the side of the house and shall not extend into the front yard beyond the covered porch.

Lauren. Good evening, this home is proposed

as a stucco home. A black architectural shingle roof. I've got a small sample of the stucco and the whole base of the house will be a limestone veneer all the way around the back. There are a lot of older homes on Westmoreland and actually we drove down the street tonight and there were 11 homes with siding on Westmoreland, counting Steve and I. And one of the homes was siding we did about 15 or 16 years ago. It's kind of a shingle style home and it has a stone foundation on the whole base of the house to make it blend in with the older homes. So again, the materials are black windows, the limestone on the foundation and stucco. And we have a nice variety of windows and roof lines that break up this house. And I'm here to answer any questions on the architectural design.

Okay, have you seen the revised staff report? Yes. Do you have any comments on the bold part that was added?

I think out of all the streets that we work on, Westmoreland has an awful lot of variety of home styles. And we really felt the home we're replacing is a stucco home and my clients really wanted to build a new stucco home to replace it.

And when you say stucco, that's real stucco, correct?

It's an acrylic stucco. It's not ephus. And it's put up in a very detailed manner with cement board substrate and a drainage layer. And it's quite a process to do it properly. And they're doing a very high grade of stucco.

I think the house looks good. I have no problem with the materials. I think it'll fit in the context of the entire street when you look at it. The house is larger than some of them, but we're seeing houses of this size with the steeper roofs being built at this point also. I do like the historical appearance of the house from the street. I think it softens it. It relates to the rest of the street and the way you've pulled the roof down on the front, I think helps. And as we've talked before, we see this big roof, but we know in reality, it's going to look much

shallower. Bob. I really like

the lines and I like the soft arches you have in the front and it's

nice. I like to walk past it. Thank you. Ellen.

Well, ditto what Steve said and you already answered the stucco question. And yes, the fiber reinforced Portland cement stucco is, it's a good product. There'll be control joints and expansion joints and yeah, they basically will probably disappear visually. They're not going to pop out. I only have a question about the ribbon driveway and And it's probably more for the owner. How are you going to maintain grass in that little strip?

They have a wonderful gardener. I'm gonna say this

is purely for aesthetic reasons. This doesn't count, I guess, for permeability or anything. It's another one of my wife's, Lauren, look at this great picture. We love how this driveway looks. Originally she wanted kind of a crisscross thing. But that would be very hard to maintain. So she is convinced that Brian, who we adore, who is our gardener, can maintain it and we can make sure that it looks nice.

Again,

that's another one that maybe in a few years we pave right over it because it's not looking great. but for now, she's willing to give it a shot.

You know, Steve, I like the way you pass everything to your wife.

Oh, believe me. She's imagining. No, she's real.

Now, I'm sure it will be challenging, but if you're up to it, that sounds good. No further questions.

Well, following up on Helen's question about the ribbon driveway, Steve, do you agree with the staff recommendation that the ribbon only begin at the front face of the house. Did I say that correctly?

Yes. Okay. Not in the front yard. Okay. Jamie?

I think it's a beautiful home as well. I do like stucco. I know that will be the only house on that street, but I know you're replacing one, so I think that makes sense. I mean, I do have a little concern with the height difference between, you know, the two neighboring houses. I think at one it's just, oh, it's nine foot, just over nine feet. I'm just curious how that, because I know there's a lot of new homes also on that street, how that compares with some of the newer homes, because it's much taller than the older homes and what that looks like.

So the architecture review board guidelines allow us to mitigate between a new home and existing home. And one of the methods is to do the columnar hornbeams along the east side of the home. And that is one of the approved methods for mitigating the height, which is definitely explained in our view of all the homes. And that's what we've done. And I believe that's acceptable to staff to do the mitigation. Okay.

Yeah, it does dwarf them a little bit, in my opinion. Otherwise, I think it is a beautiful home. I love the black and the white. Looks nice.

Ira?

Yeah, I mean, architecturally, it looks outstanding. And, you know, and it does look a little large next to the others near it, but there's a ton of houses in that neighborhood that I think are comparable. And so I'm very comfortable with the way it's gonna blend into the neighborhood and the way it does. I think it's a great house and good luck

to the builders. Carolyn?

Yeah, I am chiming in here. We're on Weinstock Residence, correct?

No, we're still on 7533 Westmoreland.

Oh,

okay. We're on the ARB now.

Oh, that's fine. No, I had no comments. Thanks.

No comment on the landscaping?

No.

David? No additional comments or questions.

Any comments from the audience on the architectural

review? No.

Well, we do have a staff recommendation and you've already said you agree with the condition about the driveway. Do we have a motion?

I move we approve the staff recommendation approving the architectural plans.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Hey, thank you very much. And what

is your timing? Good luck with it. And

good luck with it. Having been in the two house ownership for a while. Okay, now we can move on to item nine, which is 118 Topton Way. Where is that?

Let's

see. Ana, is that you or Ryan? I have, okay.

So this property is located on the east side of Topton Way between Maryland Avenue and Kingsbury Boulevard. This property has a zoning designation of R2 Single Family and is located in the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. The proposed project consists of the demolition of an existing home and construction of a new single family residence. The staff report details review criteria, which I will summarize. The project is found to be compatible with the R2 zoning requirements, planning requirements, and standards set by Public Works as well as Clayton Gardens Urban design district. Stormwater runoff is projected to decrease by 0.028 cubic feet per second has been deemed acceptable. There's 5,969 square feet of existing canopy coverage on the site with 4,771 square feet being removed. The plan provides a surplus of 4,447 square feet of canopy coverage and meets the native tree requirement 37% native. Staff is of the opinion that the project meets the criteria for the site plan approval. Recommends approving on the condition that any outstanding comments from contract reviewers and city planning and development be addressed prior to the issuance of a building permit.

Okay, thank you. Who's going to speak first?

Hello, my name's Michael Cyr. I'm with Forney Plus Architecture. We are the applicant for the owner, Martha Weinstock, and her husband, Dr. Leonard Weinstock. On our team here tonight, I have Doug Leipziger with CDI, who's the civil engineer for the project, and Paul Derner. Paul Derner is actually the design architect for the project, while we'll be the architect of record for construction drawings. He's the designer of records, so he'll be speaking more to the design of the project. Also on the Zoom, I notice James from Baxter Gardens. They're the landscape architect for the project.

Probably get to everyone, but I think we'll want Doug first.

Good evening, everybody. As was mentioned by Ryan, the new house will replace an existing one on Topton Way. The grade of the property slopes from east is the high side, west is the low side, top to the way being on the west side. The house itself, the new house will have, since we previously was talking about setbacks, the side yard setback for the house on the north side is 10 feet and the side yard set back on the south side is a little bit, it's 18 foot eight inches. And the drainage for the property, like I said, goes from Tyside East to West. The new house will have a garage area that's underneath. It's in the basement level or approximately basement level. And the driveway collects the stormwater. The stormwater for the driveway area is collected to a pumping system and it's pumped out to Topton Way to a pop-up emitter in Topton Way All of these storm drainage goes to Topton Way, to pop-up meters for the roof of the house. There's not a storm sewer nearby that we could connect

to. And that's all I have.

Well, we know that the wine stocks have had severe flooding. And I guess my question is, How are you regrading or what else is being done to prevent flooding in the basement of the new house, which I think is a little lower than the basement in the old house?

Yeah.

And both houses have a...

below-grade garage. Correct. I'm not sure about the existing house, how that is. I'm guessing it's pumped. I don't know for sure. The new house, the pumping system will be designed to handle the 100-year, 20-minute storm. MSD and Clayton both require design to 15-year, 20 minute storm, design storm. We're actually going to the 100-year 20-minute design storm, which is a stronger storm as the worst case scenario, and it's also a duplex pump. So if there's one pump that's not working, another pump can handle the, hopefully they'll both be working, but if for some reason one goes out mid storm, there's another pump as a backup. And most of the yard will not go to the pumping system. It's just the area of the driveway because it's lower. There was really, Without a storm sewer in Topton Way, there's no way to drain it the way the house is designed without having a pumping system.

Is that pumping system electric with battery backup?

It is electric with generator backup.

Yes, I saw the generator.

So if you wanted to get away from having a pumping system, it would mean pretty much a redesign of the house. but I would never suggest that. No, I mean,

this is what is desired. Okay. Bob, comments? I just want to make sure, where's

all this water going from the pumping system?

It gets pumped to the front yard, 10 feet from the front yard. There's a pop-up emitter and it drains from there into Topton Way right away. And then Topton Way... It's kind of flat in that area, but it drains towards the south, towards downtown. I

mean, from what you're describing, what Steve said, it must have been a very serious problem before because it just sounds like the owner wants to make sure

that

his investment is really

protected. Correct. And we're actually having a regardless of this meeting, we're having a meeting with the owner on Friday just to discuss it more with the drainage. But the goal is to minimize any possible flooding that could happen. Sounds like you've done that. I've tried. The rear yard, I should mention, has a area drain. So because the yard, the neighbor further east is higher. So if there's any water coming from the neighbor, we put a drain in the backyard And that gets right around the new house and outlets in the front yard as well.

There is a drain in the rear yard? Correct. It's just east of the

driveway. Oh, okay. I see it now.

I should also mention that there is really no drainage towards the neighbor's properties. It's all just going towards Topton, and that'll be maintained with the new development.

Are you regrading the rear yard and the front yard? A

little bit, just to make sure that I can catch all the stormwater before it goes where it's not wanted to go.

And there's also some other hand up. I don't know

that. No, no questions.

We'll get to the end up in a minute. Kami. I

have no questions.

Ira.

No questions. Thanks Steve. Carolyn.

I do. Um, I have a question about on A1 about the stairs. The number of stairs typically requires a landing in between. How are you dealing with that?

This is on the architectural plan? Yes.

Well, yes, but it's part of my landscape impressions.

So there's three steps from the front porch kind of foyer area. And then there's three

like 15 steps here.

Yeah, so if I don't know if you've seen this area of the street, but there is a pretty good grade up to the building. And that's how it is now. And it is really that instead of having like a bunch of stairs right at the front of the building, this was kind of matching what was going on now with a step every five to six feet.

Doug, I think Carolyn is referring to the long stairway at the end of the driveway going up to the backyard.

Gotcha. Yeah, so that's to get back up to the rear yard. I'm sorry, what was the question?

About a landing, correct? Oh, a

landing at the top of it? Thank you.

at the bottom intermediate.

Oh,

okay. Meeting code.

I could interject on that. My understanding is from the code, you can have a flight of stairs rise up to a total of 12 feet without a landing by my, I don't have a specific calculation in front of me, but I believe we'd only be rising about eight feet. The stair is currently shown with about a six inch riser. So that might be quantity wise, why you're seeing a lot of stairs. But the total rise of the stair is only approximately eight feet.

Thank you for

clarifying. I wasn't sure

where

the question

was. Carolyn, if you look at that, if you look C3, I'm reading that it's roughly 566 at the base of the stair. And I think it's 573 plus or minus at the top. Doug, you may correct that. Which means it's about seven

to eight feet. Correct.

Seven to eight feet means...

HAB-Masyn Moyer- In vertical areas

almost yeah okay. HAB-Marsyn

Moyer- All

right, next question fence detail on a one would sense.

HAB-Terry Palmos- Yes, six foot wood fence with. HAB-terry Palmos- Two feet of lattice on the top.

Okay. HAB-Marysi Gatsby- And then the hold on. metal railing describe or have a, you know, example for us? Metal fence?

On top of the retaining walls. So typically the builder for this project is Michael Lauren Development. They use classic craft metal. They fabricate them. It's a real wrought iron rail. It's on an aluminum one. And then they're fastened through the caps of the wall down into the structure of the wall. There's no ornamental design plan for the rails. Drawing would represent what it

is. So iron, aluminum, what?

I believe they typically use iron, but I would have to.

Can you come introduce yourself?

Please identify yourself and speak into the mic. Mike

Gretchen from Michael Lauren Development. We're the builder on the project. I believe it will be aluminum. There's an aluminum fence on the south side running down between the neighbor on the south and the home. And so stylistically, I think we'll be consistent with that type of design. I think we're showing a pretty basic design in the plans right now.

It is shown on A4.2. And I believe, yeah,

that's the south side. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Did you find that Carolyn.

Well, I'm looking at eight a 4.0 talking about You know, different kind of

ornamental PB, Harmon Zuckleman, All right. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Anything else PB, Lupita D Montoya, No. PB,

Lupita Д Montoya, We're good.

David? Nothing additional. Okay. Ryan Holtzman, you have your hand up. There, you're unmuted. Comments?

Just one quick question. We're actually the neighbor to the south side. More so, it's not really totally specific to 118. We're at 114, but all these homes, we have a similar drainage type system and it would be great for the Winesocks to not have water issues, but is there... In terms of adding storm drains, is that something that this board considers or? When do those things get discussed? I mean, because there really is just one which is on Maryland and Topton all the way at the southwest corner. And it's not just 118. It's our house. I mean, all of them in a row here all just, you know, it makes Topton like a river. You're talking about the

public storm?

Yeah.

In the Topton way? Yeah.

Right. Because obviously you guys can't tap into it, we can't tap into, but I was just curious if that's something that comes up for consideration as I know in the winter, it's definitely a safety concern. Again, I guess it's not exclusive to any one of us.

I can't speak for City of Clayton, but typically, if you want a new sewer in Topton Way, unless there's some kind of plan with MSD in their whole planning system, usually that's where new sewers come from is MSD or if Clayton does their own public works projects. Okay. And your third option is to do it at your own costs, but I know a lot of people don't want to go that route.

Yeah. It would be part of the MSD system. So any adjustment would need to be approved and authorized and planned by them, but we can certainly make that comment known.

Oh yeah. I mean just, and I'm sure the, the wine stocks would agree. I mean, you know, it's just, it's, it's, they all, it's on a, all on the downslope and all these, you know, six homes in a row, just all dumped right into top of the way, which is great. It comes off the Hill, but you know, there's multiple pump systems. We've got a double pump system with a generator like your, describing, it works great. But Topton Way is just, you know, it's a canal. So and there's only that I've seen one storm drain that feeds pretty much the entire street for the first eight homes going from south to north. So yeah, if you can make note of it, great. But no objection to the home. It looks beautiful. We'll do that.

Any other comments from the ARB? No, only on site plan. We

do have,

let's see,

staff recommendation to approve as submitted. Do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve as submitted

all in favor. Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Now we can move on to the architectural review.

So this summary covers the architecture review component of the previously discussed item. The proposed massing of this home is similar to nearby properties, which range from one to two stories. Homes located along Topton Way range from, most of the new construction and fill homes are two stories. The proposed massing is similar to those other new constructions in the area. Both adjacent homes are recent constructions of a similar size. The proposed house features a primary building material of gray brick with cased stone and hardy board siding accents. The proposed roof is clad with black asphalt shingles and black casement windows are proposed. The applicant is requesting alternative compliance for a below-grade rear entry garage. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed house is compatible in terms of height, mass, and design with nearby houses. The staff recommends approval as submitted.

Great. Welcome, Paul.

Thank you. Nice to be here. As you alluded to a minute ago, the Weinstocks, the clients in this situation have lived at the current colonial style ranch house for several decades now and would like to replace it with something more to their current needs. And so what you see is a two story house that is mast so that it works out well with the other neighbors. It's very similar in overall profile with its hip roof and its general height. We've tried to divide the facade up so that it has a nice composition with very interesting elements. We have a handsome bow window in the study. We have a recessed arched entry with a, The house has stone dressings that compliment the gray brick. The stone dressings, for example, form a silk horse under the second floor windows that returns to both sides of the house to give detail to the sides. We've made the side elevation that has the garage side, which you can see more easily because of the setback. We've tried to make it a very handsome composition with all the windows lining up with a projecting bay window in the dining room. The garage itself is very recessed from the line of the facade, so you probably won't even see the garage door from the street. The landscape plan is very elaborate. The clients are avid gardeners and it presents a basically informal landscape with a lot of different interesting specimen trees that are flowering types. There's also a lot of interest in hydrangeas and azaleas and that sort of thing, so it should be quite a landscape event of its own right. The sidewalks and driveways are of a limestone-colored exposed aggregate. The new plan and site plan allows for much of the rear yard to be reclaimed as a yard rather than the dugout driveway that was there before. And the brick retaining walls that hold all that up are at the same brick type as the rest of the facade. So the hope is that it presents a balanced and interesting facade all the way around. as a clean contemporary look to some degree because of the darker windows and the downspouts and gutters. But at the same time, it's got a sort of traditional massing and detailing to it as well so that it should fit in with the overall scheme of the street.

Thank you. I really like it.

And what I really like is the asymmetrical quality of the front. So many of the houses we're getting in the neighborhood are very symmetrical with the center entry door. And this is very refreshing. The bow window, I think fits in beautifully. It brings back a little more history into the house. I think the materials are great. The front it, From the contextual drawing, it looks like the first four elevations are about the same on that side of the street, which I didn't realize until I went by it. But it looks good. I really have no problem with it. But let's see what everyone else says.

Bob. Paul, I think it's terrific. i'd like to walk by this two times a day. And you know when Steve says he likes the entry way off Center besides having a facade broken up it really works and it's not it is refreshing to see something that you don't see very typically on that street,

I think that was conscious that with two symmetrical houses on either side. to some degree you're kind of competing with that and you either have to out symmetrical them or give something completely different. So I think that's why we, and I think you can see what the landscape attitude as well. It's a little bit more of a casual attitude toward things rather than super formal.

Well, I would use your

term. It's just a well-composed house. It really is. Ellen?

I too like it. It's well done. I especially like the horizontal bands of stone to reduce the massing. It's just a nice detail and the oval window in a closet is, and it's light, which is great because when you're dealing with picking clothes, you want to be sure that the color is correct and not altered by whatever lamps you're putting in there. So I think you've done a great job.

Well, of course I agree with you, but at the same time, I didn't think about picking your clothes. It was just to make it a nice looking window.

I did a window. It was narrow, rectilinear in the closet and it really works. So I like that you've copied me.

Amy?

I agree. I think it's a beautiful home. I loved the curved window. And what is the material on the dome?

It's a metal roof that's going to be a copper color.

Okay. Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think that that's a really unique aspect that you don't really see everywhere. So, and I, like I said, I love that curve.

Ira.

Yeah, I love it. I love the front facade. I think it's beautiful. I like that oval window. You know, it just, it just sticks out. It just, you know, it's a, it's a lovely, beautiful house. Thank you.

Marilyn.

Yep. Agree. Lovely.

PB John Gerstle, Any landscape comment.

PB Sarah Silver, Besides periwinkle and the thinker. PB Sarah Silver , No.

PB John Gerstel, Okay, David looks fantastic.

PB John Gerстle, Well, we do have a staff recommendation to approve is submitted before we go, I think we see a sample of the dark Gray brick and. What else is, what is next to it?

Oh, okay. We have additional samples. Well, I imagine it's black window frames and-

And the gutters would probably match. And the roof looks like a black or charcoal gray. And is it natural stone or manmade? It's cast. Oh, it's cast?

I think this drawing is, I think, very accurately colored and looks exactly like what we're trying to have it look like in all the samples.

Almost looks like a photograph. Right. We do have a staff recommendation. Do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Okay.

When will this get started?

I'd like to get going on.

Well, good luck with it. It's a good looking house. I know the wine stocks will be happy to get back into it. We have now come to the final one, number 11, the minor subdivision platte. 128 to 132. Do we have anyone representing it? Oh, you are, Doug? Okay. Glad you sat down. Okay, then. Hey, Ryan, are you doing this?

So the subject properties are located on the east side of North Brentwick Boulevard between Kingsbury and Maryland Avenue. This is just north of Maryland Wall Condos. The properties are zoned R4 low density, multiple family dwelling district. And the property currently addressed as 132 North Brentwood has a single family home and the property address is 128. That's the South one closer to the condos is currently vacant. So lots were originally created via a subdivision, but they were purchased by the same owner to have more yard space. The consolidation would increase the side yard setback from five feet to 10 feet. And so because of that, that current home would have been put into the side yard setbacks. So the applicant went before the board of adjustment, which they gained approval on September 1st to have a variance for that side yard setback. staff is of the opinion that the lot is consistent with other lots located in the immediate area in regards to size frontage and arrangement. And so staff recommends approval sent to the Board of Aldermen with the conditions that the applicant provide a mylar for the appropriate city of Clayton signatures per subdivision ordinance requirements after Board of Alderman approval, and that the applicant file the plat with st louis county recorder of deeds office and submit proof of filing to the city within 30 days of board of alderman approval

okay thank you further comments doug

just so everybody's kind of aware of how we got to where we're at now uh As you may recall, at one time all four of these lots were meant to have a single family house. Michael Lauren who just left owned the lots 140 and 128, the outside lots. And then another developer, B Slavin Residential, owned the two interior lots. The two interior lots have been developed. 136 is finished and there's a new owner living there. It's last year, I believe. And 132 is currently in construction. B. Slavin Residential, he normally builds his houses before he has an owner, and then he sells during construction, whereas Michael Lauren typically waits until he has a buyer before he builds his house. In this case, B. Slavin started first on both of his houses, the middle houses, and The person that ended up buying 132, the Montessori Trust, Michael Silver, trustee, he bought the 132 house, the one being built right now. And he also, I guess maybe I should have had Michael stay, but he decided he was having, I guess he was having difficulty selling the 128 lot, but Ultimately, the owner of 132 ended up buying 128 with the goal of, depending on if it could be consolidated or not, the goal of making it into one more cohesive lot. The 132 lot is close to its coverage, maximum coverage for patio or driveway, not driveway, but patio or other amenities and The hope is that if both lots are combined, he could put more coverage on behind the house and on the side of the house and make it into one more cohesive lot. So that's kind of why we're here today. As was mentioned by Ryan, the side yard, if the consolidation goes through this because of the way the code is written, the side yard would become bigger after consolidation, because it's based on the width of the lot. So we went to the Board of Adjustment last week and got a approval on the variance for that since the house is already in construction. If we would have known back then what we know now, maybe we would have done the original subdivision a little differently, but this is kind of where we are now.

Well, we have had a few other property changes similar to this and we've never moved the house. So it's not going to happen that way. So luckily the Board of Adjustment gave the variance and it seems like we just have to go ahead and approve it right now.

That would be ideal.

I really, I don't see any issue with it at this point, but does anyone else have an issue? No. Ira or Carolyn? No. David? No. And you understand the two staff recommendations? I do. They're pretty standard. I agree. Yeah. Okay. Well, with that, do we have a motion to recommend approval to the Board of Aldermen?

I move to approve the staff report of the consolidation of the lots.

Second.

To the Board of Alderman.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. OK. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks for sticking around. No problem. I mean, I'm sure you'll see me when we have something to want to build there or add to it.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Doug. I think we've come to the end of the meeting. Kami, do you have any comments? No comments. Ellen?

No comments.

I believe I won't be here next time.

Thank you. Ira? No comment. Carolyn?

No Carolyn.

Carolyn's

gone. Okay. I'm here. Any closing comments?

No. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. David? I will also be absent at the next meeting. I'll be away to conference. Brian?

No comments.

No. Stephanie?

No comments tonight.

Thank you for your legal opinion. That helped greatly. Okay, well, we'll see many of you on the 19th. Okay, meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, my captain.