June 5, 2023 — Meeting Transcript

We want to do roll call to start with. Steve Lichtenfeld. Carolyn Gatiss. Here.

Bridget McAndrew.

Bob Denlow. Here. Helen DiFate.

Bob Denlo. Here. Helen DeFate.

Here.

Kami

Waldman. Here. David Gipson. Here.

Waldman. Here. David Gibson. Here.

Okay. Welcome everyone to the Planning Commission. At this time, please turn off your cell phones and electronic devices. Yes, ma'am.

It should be. Is that an issue for you, ma'am? I said they couldn't. There's on the Zoom right over there. Okay. Okay.

If you wish to speak on an item, please wait until I ask for public comments. When there is an item you wish to speak, click to raise your hand if you are on Zoom and you will be given permission to speak. If you are in person, please come up to the podium and make sure the green light is on at the bottom of the microphone. You start by giving your name and address for the record, as opposed to just sitting in the chair and blurting out a comment. We have to record everything that is being said, and we have to know who was saying it. If someone has already made the comments you have in mind, please just state that you agree with comments already made and do not repeat them. Okay. First thing we have are the minutes. From the meeting on May 15th, 2023. Are there any changes to the minutes from anyone? Hearing nothing. If not, I'll entertain a motion. Carolyn.

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Second. Second. All approved. Aye. So passed. How are you?

We have somewhat of a long agenda. We'll try to keep it moving. The first item of business deals with 8133 Pershing Avenue. With that, can we get a summary?

Is the applicant here or online?

He's online. Okay, thank you.

The subject property is located on the north side of Pershing Avenue between North Brentwood Boulevard and North Forsyth Boulevard. The property is owned R2 and is part of the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. The property is developed with a two and a half story single family home with a detached rear garage. The project consists of painting the brick facade, portions of the wood trim, and the garage with an off-white color. The existing structure is made up of multiple shades of red and tan brick, a stone porch, and concrete driveway matching city sidewalks. The applicant is proposing to paint the residence an off-white color. The manufacturer describes the paint as a sleek and stylish shade with a touch of cool gray. Houses in the 8100 block of Pershing are mostly red brick with siding or stone as accent materials. There are several examples of painted brick. Darker colors predominate, including more cream, tan or gray shades with white paint more commonly used and modeled patterns. This proposal would be the brightest tone of painted brick on the block, but would represent more variation on a theme than a wholesale departure from the ordinary. Staff are of the opinion that the proposal is compatible with the surrounding area and recommend approval as submitted.

Thank you, Hobie. Do we have a picture to put on for anyone who wants to see it from the house?

Yeah, Ryan will pull it up.

Okay. And I understand is James Meyer here in virtual?

Yes, I am here. Can you hear me?

I can. Bob Denlow here. Jim, you go by?

I can. Bob Denlo here. Jim, you go by?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Do you want to tell, so we're looking at a picture of your house and essentially you want to paint it off white. Do I understand that right?

That is correct.

Okay. Are there any comments you want to make as to why you're doing it or anything else you want to say?

No, I think that the staff report was accurate. There has been an addition to the back of the home and the brick that they used on the addition is similar, but not consistent with the current brick and we don't care for the contrast. And we think this home would look better painted the off white shade that we have suggested and appreciate your consideration.

Okay, Jim, that's fine. Personally, I always liked the natural color of brick, but that's my taste and it's your house. And that's all I will say on that one. Carolyn?

Yeah, I agree with what you just said. But yeah, it is your house. So I have nothing more.

Okay, next.

I guess I disagree. I think you don't look really nice painted off-white, so I wish you the best of luck. I don't have any comments other than that.

Thanks.

It would have been good if we could have seen the brick that you don't like that match that bothers you. But I understand what you're saying, that you're looking at it, we don't see it. We will never see it unless we're invited to your house and we go out the back door, probably. Are you going to paint the stone

No, what we would propose to do is to keep the stone, it's relatively close to the color of the paint and we think that the natural color of the stone will look lovely with the paint. And I think painting the stone would be the wrong thing to do. So we think that it's going to be good together with the off-white color that we've chosen.

Okay. I have no

further questions.

Next.

I think it's going to look

great. I have no problem with it.

Okay. Do we have a motion to, is there somebody who will make a motion to approve the staff recommendation?

I'll make a motion to improve the staff recommendation.

Second.

All right. All approve? Aye. Okay, so approved. So passed.

Okay, Jim, you're done.

Thank you all very much. Will there be some sort of memorialization of this or a permit or how do we go from here?

Yes, you'll receive an email tomorrow from staff at the next steps.

Excellent. Thank you all for your time. Bye-bye.

Next, regarding 8000 Roslyn Drive. Is the applicant here?

Yes.

Okay. You could just stay right there for one second. A summary of what it is that you're seeking to do.

The subject property is located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Roslyn Drive and South Merrimack Avenue. The property is zoned R2 and is developed with a single family home. A site inspection on December 6th, 2022 identified work performed without a permit on the subject property. A code violation case was opened, a stop work order was posted on the property, and the owner was notified to apply for the necessary permits. The applicant applied for a building permit on December 13, 2022, seeking approval for the reconstruction of and replacement of an existing deck. The permit review process resulted in multiple rounds of comments being sent to the applicant, with the most recent sent on February 9, 2023. The applicant did not respond to the comments sent in February, and the building permit was not issued. Inspections occurred on March 31st, 2023 and May 2nd, 2023 that identified additional work completed without a permit. Each re-inspection was accompanied by a mailed notice of violation. An application for architectural review was received on May 8th, 2023 for the review of the constructed deck. The applicant provided plans and a rendering of the proposed deck when the applicant applied for a building permit in December 2022. The applicant indicated that the new deck was to replace the existing deck of the same footprint. The plan provided depicts a deck above a consistent grade, consistent railing material and lattice screening the underside of the deck. Side observation identifies a deck over sloping terrain, two different railing screening materials and with no lattice. No revised plan was provided reflecting these changes. Staff are of the opinion that revised plans should be provided when the applicant applies for a building permit. Additionally, a survey was provided depicting the previous deck that was replaced. The previous deck measures roughly 30 feet by 14 feet and roughly 12 feet 7 inches from the western property line. The plan provided for the new deck indicates an increase to 32 feet by 16 feet. This increase likely resulted in increased impervious coverage. Staff are of the opinion that an as-built survey be provided as part of the building permit process. The replacement deck is a composite with the framing as pressured treated lumber. Marketing materials mentioned that the texture mimics natural wood grain. The deck features two vinyl products, a seven foot tall vinyl privacy panel screens from the neighboring property on the Western side, while three foot tall PVC railing sits on the Southern edge and on the steps leading to the deck. The proposed composite decking and pressure treated lumber are materials consistent with the architectural review guidelines and compatible with the existing colors and character of the subject property. The white vinyl railing and screen systems introduce a stark color contrast from the existing character are highly visible from public right of way, and do not conform with the architectural review guidelines. Staff are of the opinion that an off-white taupe or brown railing and screen system would be more consistent with the property. Staff recommend approval with the following conditions. The applicant shall obtain a building permit for the deck and work with the building division to schedule the required inspections that were not performed due to work being completed without a permit. The applicant shall include an as-built survey and revised deck plan that identifies impervious coverage, setbacks, and deck dimensions when applying for a building permit. This approval does not modify, waive, or alter any other codes adopted by the City of Clayton, permits, or inspection requirements related to design and construction of the deck.

okay um

thank you are you brian sir okay good evening um so um do we have a picture of the deck at all that can easily be brought up or is it a lot of trouble A color picture? If there isn't one, fine. The pages

that are loading on the screen right now are the original plans that were submitted for the deck. No color picture of

the deck. Okay, we'll just move on. We all have the pictures. I was hoping the audience could see what we're talking about so they could listen on more easily. Ryan, you got the floor. Is there something you want to add?

Well, I take issue with some of the characterization of the process here. This was and remains a deck repair. The footings, the substructure, the header along the heading, most of the substructure, heading along the house with the flashing all remains the same footprint as the original deck. What happened is that as we were repairing it, there were recommendations made by the contractor that exceeded the original scope. However, I don't believe that impervious calculations are even an issue here. We're talking about a deck with dirt underneath it. We've never changed the slope of the property as mentioned in the summary in the beginning, that was there, that remains there. When I contacted Or when I was contacted by planning and zoning, they asked me to put together a set of drawings which I was able to do on the Menards website because they did not exist when the project began because it was a repair. So I put something together at their request. What is depicted there from the Menards website is the best that I could do. It was not foreseen that this would have to be permitted as it was a repair of an existing deck. So yes, the privacy fence that went up that I'm sure you have a picture of was new. That was not something that was there. The railing, the white vinyl fence, which I brought up a piece of here as a 20-year warranty that I know is not administratively approved, so I'm here to show you that if you'd like to touch it. I don't think we've heard anything here today about any structural concerns or problems, and I think he said there have been at least three reinspections. I don't know if that was done from the street or if they entered the property. Uh, but they've obviously been close enough to get some detail for their summary. So I, I do have some concern about that. Now we are on an exposed corner. Uh, we have gone to great lengths to not put a fence up because I think that would be more harmful to the, uh, railing we've actually put up 10 trees that limit the view from down the street to the deck so as those grow in there will be no view at that location so I am I am not a an architect I am not a planning professional I have tried my best to comply with their requests there was a statement that I did not reply to an email. I dispute that. I've continued to communicate as much as I can and provide materials, links to products, and everything that I can to assist with getting this resolved. I think it's a quality deck. I think it was made with good materials. I think it increases the value of the home. And if it is visible from the street, I think it only makes it look better. So I do take issue with their concerns. And for the first time When I got that report, I now hear that the color is a concern. So I guess we're here to talk about off-white versus white as well. So I'm here to answer any questions you have to try to speed this

along. Brian, the good news is I don't think we're here to rehash the past so much. I know the city had you apply for a billing permit in December of last year and it's been going on back and forth and we're trying to bring it to a conclusion.

That sounds

wonderful to me. The staff had recommended to approve it subject to three procedures, basically, you know, they weren't for, I can gather, they weren't saying that it was made effectively as it is. You did not go through the process of having inspected and something like that. and they want to go through that process. And I did also saw the comment that Dwight, and I personally kind of agree with the staff on this one, Dwight jumps out tremendously, kind of garishly. I know what you're saying, I'm not sure how I feel about that in the end, but, um, the white color just, you know, with a, what is a very attractive home you have and the white just kind of like, you know, what's going on here. I want to ask, uh,

Why did you do it? Why? So we, we don't like the color of the home. And as we rebuild and or as we we redo the home and do things, the color of the We like the white, we like the gray. Those are the colors that we prefer as opposed to a taupe or an off-white. And again, I think that, you know, again, we are in an exposed corner, right? So unlike the first project where you would never see the brick unless you were invited to the back of their home, I don't have that same courtesy with folks coming and inspecting from whatever angle they may see. So we've put up these trees to try to reduce that so that we can have some privacy, but without doing offense, which I think would be more of an eyesore than anything. So we're working

on it. Comments? Carolyn? Sorry, I'm here. What?

Any comments?

Actually, no, not really. If it is only a repair, then minus the screen wall, I'm not really sure why a permit was needed. So I kind of agree with. But I need to hear more from the city on that because. I mean, it sounds like he said, she said a little bit. So if there could be more information on the sequence, that would be helpful.

I mean, I don't, I guess I'm not sure that's really necessary. I think the bottom line is that there's three recommendations and Brian, I think, you know, there's a process we have to go through. So, you know, when staff is, you know, they're people doing renovations all around the city. And so we have a process to make sure that people go through so that we make sure, like you said, that things are safe structurally. So, you know, I think staff did the best they could. And I think ultimately we have three recommendations and I think as long as you're willing to comply with them, there's not much more to discuss. So, I mean, I don't, they're not recommending that you change the color. So, I think we,

again, I'm fine with the staff recommendation. So, yeah.

Hello.

Yeah, I'm curious. What were the deck boards before? What were you replacing? Were they treated or cedar?

I couldn't even tell you what was underneath four layers of painted wood that needed to be replaced for safety. Okay, so it was wood. It was in poor condition. Yes, it was wood.

Okay, I think what the... city, and I can't speak for the city, I just think what they're looking for is you've switched from wood to a composite. The framing is different. The structural framing is different for composites. So that's If I were looking composite, seeing an old deck and then seeing composites, I would be concerned about the structure personally. And when you look at, who is it? Menards. Their fine print says final design should be performed by a registered professional engineer to ensure all applicable building codes and regulations are met. It's in the fine print, which most of us don't read. I do. So I think from the standpoint of you've changed a material. And the structure has to be able to work for that material. I think the building permit process is important. If you were coming back with wood, then it's wood. Wood works the same historically. So I think what also got you in trouble is things, this shows a hot tub. which again is a different loading situation. So you didn't realize it when the city sees it, it sends up red flags I would suspect. So I'd be fine with complying with the three requirements that the city would like, staff would like. I

agree. I think just follow the staff recommendation will be fine. I get your point about the white. I think it is a stark contrast with your house, but I do understand that you are trying to update your house accordingly. Um, so I can appreciate not wanting to work backwards. Um, your house is very exposed. I'm familiar with it. Um, and I think, you know, like the trees and all that will definitely help until you paint your house to kind of go with the deck in the back. But overall, I think it looks good, but I definitely think, um, Going through the permit process is important for sure.

I have no problem with going through the permit process. I started that process. The recommendations that are bottom of that page have not been anything that have been given to me lately. It was just asked that I come here today.

Well, I got news for you. We're asking legally that you comply. Yeah, I have no

problem.

Okay. You know, I think everybody's trying to move past the past and we're trying to help you enjoy your house and what you did and we just gotta go through the building process, building permit process. And the three recommendations, you know what those are? Number one, the applicant shall obtain a building permit for the deck and work with the building division to schedule the required inspections that were not performed due to work being completed without a permit. Number two, the applicant shall include an as-built survey and revised deck plan that identifies impervious coverage, setbacks, and deck dimensions when applying for a bulk building permit. Number three, this approval does not modify, waive, or alter any other codes adopted by the City of Clayton, permits, or inspection requirements related to the design and construction of the deck. Basically, we're going to put holy water over your project by complying with the project process. I think you have a problem with that?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the staff recommendation with the three conditions that I just set forth?

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

A second?

Second.

All approved?

Aye. Approved. So passed. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Appreciate it. Good luck to you guys. The next one is South Central. Is Crystal I'm going to mispronounce the name. Hog? Hodge? No, I'm sorry. Zaidman is the owner or Crystal Hodge. Are they here? I'm here. Rochelle? Yes.

What is your relationship to the property?

I'm the designer on the project.

Okay. First, Rochelle, we're going to hear a summary from Hobie.

The property is located on the west side of South Central Avenue between Davis Drive and Clayton Road. The lot is developed with the two-story single family home, is zoned R2 single family dwelling district and is located in the Davis Place subdivision. The proposed project consists of the construction of a two-story addition to expand the kitchen and master bath of 450 square feet. Although this is smaller than the standard requirement to appear before the ARB, the applicant is seeking approval of white vinyl siding as the primary exterior material. The architectural review guidelines limit the primary facade materials to brick and stone. Siding is a permitted accent material, which may account for up to 25% of a facade. Vinyl is not a permitted siding material. The architectural review board may permit modifications to the architectural guidelines, including increasing the allowed percentage of siding on a house and the use of vinyl products. The applicant intends to use either colonial white-colored Main Street brand siding manufactured by CertainTeed or white-colored residential siding manufactured by Royal Building Products. The latter's marketing materials describe a low-gloss cedar wood grain, which captures the look of natural wood, while the former offers a choice between natural wood grain or brushed appearance. The proposed rear addition is clad entirely in siding. The proposed design does not comply with the primary material or siding material guidelines. The existing two-story brick structure features white siding as accent material. The two-story sunroom contains vinyl on both the front and rear, while the former garage does so on the rear only. White vinyl or wood are common materials on window frames and dormers in this block of South Central Avenue and both the east and west sides. Siding can be found on limited examples of additions or accessory structures. These examples are commonly roof gables, side facades, or rear facades. While the existing house features white vinyl siding and the applicant is intending to continue the style, the use exceeds the secondary material maximum. The applicant submitted the document with signatures from two Davis Place trustees as well as five neighbors on South Central Avenue and South Merrimack Avenue. Staff are of the opinion that the use of white vinyl siding should be reduced and that brick or brick veneer should be used along the bottom half of the proposed addition. Staff recommends approving with the following condition. Brick or brick veneer should be used along the bottom half of the proposed addition to match the existing brick on the house.

Okay, thank you very much. Rochelle, are you there?

Yes.

Would you like to make any comments or say anything?

Well, it's just... It's going to be a tough sell just due to the cost of the brick. And there are several houses in the neighboring them that have the white siding kind of flanking all four sides. So it's kind of a, I don't know how I would convince them to move forward with the additional expense of brick when they have neighbors with siding.

What I understand that the staff is recommending is that the bottom half of the proposed addition is to match the existing brick on the house. And the second point I want to bring up is that the addition is actually quite small. It's only 450 square feet, which from the staff's experience and my experience is considered a rather small two-story addition to a house. So I would say that in response to what you just said. As

far as the cost?

Well, as far as what the city of Clayton would like to see with regard to this two-story addition. With regard to cost, the two points I'm keeping in mind is you're talking a total square footage of 450 square feet. I don't know what the exterior surface would be, but it won't be that big. But I don't want to spend your client's money. And the second thing is only regards to the bottom half of the addition.

Right. Is there any other alternative material, like maybe a Gordon Batten siding or a vertical siding?

Let me guess. St. Louis being a brick city, let me think about that for a little

while. Maybe like a brick wallpaper? No, I'm kidding. Well,

let's go ahead with comments while you meditate on this. Carolyn?

Yeah, I agree with the city's comment. I don't have any other comments on that.

All right, Bridget.

Michelle, I guess i'm just curious what is the big what is the cost difference i'm not you know I don't I don't unlike i'm the automatic representative on this board, so I don't work in construction so i'm just kind of curious what the cost differential

is. I think it's close to 15,000.

So it would be $15,000 more to do the entire addition in

brick? To do just the

bottom half in brick. Just the bottom half. Okay. I don't know. I mean, I had kind of a difficult issue with this one and I didn't have a chance to drive around. So what neighbors are you talking about that have white vinyl siding on both? Is it their adjacent neighbors? Do you have any idea or?

So there's a neighbor across the street and they have, I don't know really what, it's almost like a lean to style of addition and must be like an old mudroom that's siding. And then I think what other people have done to kind of maybe skirt it is they'll do like a screened in porch or something on the bottom half. And then on the second story, they'll have the siding on the addition portion above the screened-in porch. That's what they have next to them. And then they also have, currently they have an addition that's there when they purchase the house that has siding on it, but it's only on two sides. It's a little bit of a hodgepodge. in that neighborhood just because the lots are sort of small I think people have just sort of tacked on additions

right

they're all a little different

um and then this addition is just gonna I mean it'll be um I guess it won't necessarily be visible from the street because it'll be directly behind like kind of that back door area

correct so the back on the first floor um The portion of the addition will be one glass exterior door and then three glass windows that will be over the kitchen sink. And then on the second story, we'll have two windows facing the back of the house. So that's what you'll see, but you will not see the house from the street.

I mean, I guess I would be, you know, there is a lot of vinyl already in the house. There's that, you know, vinyl on, it looks like a, I don't know, between like a door and then what looks like kind of a, maybe a three season room, not the actual porch, I guess on the, that would be the west side of the house, but the other side of the house there's also some vinyl. I mean, would you consider putting, you know, brick even up? There's that layer of brick on either side of the house. where you could at least match the two sides, maybe to the bottom of the windows. Yeah. I mean, I, I would, I, that would be a good kind of middle ground for me. I can't speak for the rest of the panel, but I guess I'm somewhat, you can't see this edition from the street. There is a lot of vinyl already in the house. So I, I mean, again, that's already introduced within the house. So you know, again, like matching it so that at least you have however many levels of brick that is that matches the other sides that do have that brick up to the windows. Okay. That would be my comment.

Okay.

Okay. I agree with Bridget. I would take brick up to the underside of the kitchen windows and then wrap it around on the three sides. And that will begin to tie in the addition with the rest of the house. So it looks like it belongs, which is important for resale. It doesn't look like something that was just kind of pushed on the back of it. And we did the cheapest, and I know the cost differential with brick to siding, especially vinyl siding. So I would be, I could accept and live with brick on the three sides up to the underside of the kitchen windows. Okay, that's great.

Lee?

I agree with Bridget and Helen. I actually did drive the street today, and there is quite a lot of vinyl signing introduced in all the houses. Not quite to this extent, however, but noting that this is on the back of the house. And really, when I was driving by the house today, you couldn't see. Like, there's really no way from the street side that you would be able to see this addition. So I think I'd be okay with what Helen and Bridget are suggesting.

Okay. I think Bridget's insight is persuasive, and I don't have a problem with that as well.

And

to the applicant, Rochelle, how do you react?

I mean, that's better than having to go halfway up, so that's good.

Okay.

I appreciate the compromise.

Okay. With that being said, do we have a motion to approve the staff recommendation with a substitute condition? That is that the bricks on the proposed addition would go up to the underside of the kitchen windows and wrap around the three sides of the addition. Is there somebody who'll make that motion?

Sure, I'll make them. And I guess I would say, and again, Rochelle, I don't know if a brick veneer would be less expensive than an actual brick because staff suggested that's, you know, again, so I guess that would be up to you and your client. But

I was actually going to ask if a brick vaneer would be, if that would be okay, if that was more cost-effective solution, would that still suffice as brick?

Is there a comment from somebody on the staff? No,

that's

what we recommend to either one.

Either one.

Yeah, so I think that's fine. Okay. I'll make a motion that it be approved subject to introducing brick or brick veneer up to the, I guess, window wells.

Kitchen window. The

kitchen window and wrapped around

on three sides.

And brick veneer would be acceptable. Is there a second? Second. So approved. How many people?

Aye. Aye.

Okay, it has passed. Rochelle, congratulations.

Thank you. Okay, next

we're at 55 Crestwood. There's a site plan review and an architectural review, and I propose we entertain them simultaneously, although at the end there would be two votes, one for the site review and one for the architectural

review. No, this is

a different one. Okay. Is there a Mark Rubin here? Good evening,

Mr. Chairman and members of the Architecture Review Board. My name's Mark Rubin. I reside at number four Hillvale in Clayton. Tonight I have Chris Pike, my architect, who's going to go ahead and present on my behalf.

And Mark, just so we have the big picture, what your proposal is you're going to demolish the existing home and build a new home.

That is correct. So the new home, two stories, full basement, also with a detached garage. And it's approximately about 4,800 square feet. And I'll let Chris go ahead and take you through the presentation. Thank you. Do you have any questions? More than happy to.

Shouldn't we have the staff report first?

Yes. I'll summarize this type interview and they'll go into the architecture review. So the subject property is located on the west side of Crestwood drive just north of the streets intersection with hillville drive. The property is owned are two and is developed with a single family home, the applicant is proposing the demolition of the existing structure, the construction of a new single family house and accessory garage. The proposal meets the setback height and impervious coverage requirements of the archie district. HVAC and trash are adequately screened. The proposed runoff is 0.81 cubic feet squared, which represents a 0.12 cubic foot squared increase. A modified French drain and pop-up emitters are proposed. Existing canopy coverage is 4,521 square feet with 1,694 square feet to be removed. The plan proposes adding 6,250 square feet of canopy coverage, which is 3,926 square feet more than the replacement requirements. The plan also exceeds the native species requirement with 77.3% native proposed. Gas and water will connect via the front of the house. Electric and sewer will connect from the rear. Staff are of the opinion that the project meets the criteria for site plan approval. with two recommendations, sorry, two conditions. Revise the inconsistencies between the architectural civil and landscape plans, including the number of AC units retaining wall along the north side of driveway and front walkway. And then tree protection fencing shown on the demolition plan does not match the required location of protection fencing based on the size and type tree. Revise the location of fencing to match the landscape plan. And for architecture, the surrounding area comprises two-story single-family homes with a variety of architecture. Common building materials include brick and stucco with stone or wood accents. Most homes have overlaid hip roofs, gray asphalt shingles, or red terracotta tiles. The home is proposed to be two stories, similar to homes in the surrounding area. The front door is slightly recessed from the front facade with an arch door and windows. There's variation in the roof lines, bay windows, and archways help to integrate the new house with the existing character of the neighborhood. New house is proposed to comprise off-white brick, stucco wood siding accents, black aluminum windows, an overlaid hip roof, and gray shingles. The detached garage will match the primary structure. The driveway, front walkway and rear patio are proposed to be exposed aggregate. An existing wood fence will remain on the west and south sides of the property. A new wood fence is identified on the north side of the property but has been identified by the applicant as not within the scope of work. An existing railroad tie retaining wall on the south side of the property will be replaced with a VersaLock wall. The details of the modular block wall sign will be submitted as part of building permits. There are two architectural knee walls proposed on the site at the site point at the northeast and southeast corners of the house. These walls will be brick to match the primary structure. The northern wall will also provide screening for HVAC units. Landscaping surrounds the north and west sides of the property. The selected materials comply with the architectural review guidelines and staffer of the opinion that the proposed design is compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. Staff recommends approval as submitted.

Thank you. And can you put your name on the record, please? Sure. I'm

Christopher Pike with Thomas Allen Group Architects.

Okay. So pretty much

everything's been said already. It's a two-story house with a rear entry garage in the lower level, kind of the basement level. It's pretty much all brick, but we have stucco along the one side. If you want to look and kind of go over the materials real quick, If you look at the color renderings on sheet A10 of the architectural. Just one second.

Do you have a picture of the proposed house so

the public can see it? You can go ahead. Sure.

Look at your sheets. So obviously, you look at the front elevation, that's all brick. Except for the chimneys that are up on the roof, we will have those as stucco. The colors of the brick and the stucco that will match. And what is your role with the project? I'm the architect. Yes. And if you look at the left side elevation, we've broken up the mass of veneer by doing a stucco on the second floor up above. And then when we get back to the outdoor room, which is the rear of the property with the archways. Do you want me to slow down a little bit so you can?

No, it's

okay. With the archways at the back of the property. Okay. unfortunately, I'm looking at my color rendering here. They look kind of blue. It's not blue sighting. I apologize. Definitely not using blue. It's sort of a medium to dark gray, sort of a rustic weathered kind of gray. I just love my printer. It works really well. So I apologize for that. But anyway, and then you wrap around to the right side. You've got two insets at the first floor. And then a box bay up above, those will be stucco. But pretty much most of the houses break.

Okay. And if I can

ask, the house that you're knocking down looks pretty good. Yeah. Not that this is so relevant, but I'm just curious.

Well, I could speak to that. Actually, structurally, it's pretty compromised. If you get close up to the house, it's really bad inside, actually. Yeah, I mean, between roof leaks, poor drainage and maintenance problems, I mean, it is really compromised, definitely.

Okay. And the new house you're building... Usually when people demolish homes, they build much larger homes. But yours is only going to be a 2,800 square foot home. Your new one?

It's

actually about 4,900. 4,900? Yeah, correct. Where

did I

read 28?

So that's probably per floor. So it'd be a little less than that. But

yeah, exactly.

Trying to get an idea of the scale and make you jump around to pages here. But you get an idea of scale if you look at my neighborhood perspective sheet If I can find it. She day too. We are pretty much in scale with all the houses surrounding it. Okay. Yeah. On a two, you can kind of get an idea.

Okay. Well, it, it looks beautiful. I mean, to say the least, obviously a lot of thought and planning has gone into this and the staff doesn't have a problem with it. I certainly don't have a problem. Yeah. There are two matters. One is the site plan review and the stormwater drainage. We always ask how you guys dealing with, is there a water issue and how are you dealing with it?

So we have a French drain in the back. If you look at the civil drawings, you'll see on page and I'm going to

flip to it here real quick. Page C4,

you see a green and bluish rectangle on the back of the property where we're handling the water. And the site just isn't changing much. We're, you know, the slopes staying the same. We're locked in. You know, we've got three houses, you know, each side and behind us, right? So we're not changing anything, obviously, around there. We're just kind of keeping that all. the same. So we're just handling it all back here, back by this detached garage in the back corner of the property.

And regarding landscaping, we keep a guru here, Carolyn,

who's

in outer space right now, talking to us. And she is a stickler for landscaping issues and And so I'm going to just address this to you right now. What can you tell us about the landscaping?

So what he mentioned earlier is we, uh, we kind of exceeded some of the stuff like the native plants, but we kind of left. I like to leave this to Baxter gardens and bill over there. He does a really good job for us. Um, uh, I'm not the expert at this stuff, but he kind of listens to what we want and and knows the area and tries to do his best job for us but we kind of have the perimeter of the property here landscaped. We're kind of impeded upon on our neighbor on the south side south side right. Yeah, I'm sorry south side by retaining them all offense so we can't really do much but our driveways there, but the rear of the property and the other side and then around the front of the property around the HVAC condensers at the front corner we have a wall like he mentioned, but we also have landscaping as well.

And did you see the two conditions regarding the site review, basically talking about just inconsistencies?

Yeah, it was just a mix-up. The civil engineer forgot to take an HVAC condenser off the drawings. So that's

not a problem?

No, we'll get that fixed immediately, yeah.

Okay. And with regard to the architectural review, you must have done good work. I don't see any list of conditions on it. Thank you. Okay. With that, let me just go around the room. Carolyn, do you have anything to say on either the site review or the architectural review component?

Well, I think if he's in agreement with the staff recommendations for site plan review, that would be good. I actually like the planting plan. I like the plant choices. The only one I never will like is boxwood, but

it's not my

home, right? But yeah, just agreeing with the tree protection fence and all that. So that's what I had on that. Now, as far as the architecture, I really feel like I think it's a really nice building. It's a beautiful building actually, but it seems more like three-story to me from several of the elevations and it seems like it's pretty massive in that regard in the elevations anyway. So I didn't know how you were feeling about that because if you look at... Sorry, I have an animal bothering me. If you look at three of the elevations, it looks like it's a three-story building. But I'll leave that to the building architect people to talk to you about.

Is your ceiling, is your roof line much higher than

the adjoining neighbors? No, it is not. We are well below the maximum. We are a foot or so, maybe two feet below the maximum. To the midpoint. Yeah, to the mid, yeah. But if you look at, once again, A2, that kind of does line up. I kind of sized front doors and scaled our rendering proportionally to the other houses. Regarding the three-story feel, the neighbors' houses and fences are close enough to where you're really actually never going to see that view this this side view or this rear view of the house because you know the driveway you know 15 feet away or there's a driveway and then a fence 15 foot away on the one hot side and then same on the other side if not less so your your views are a little bit impeded and then by the landscape and we're going to have but if you see once again l1 which is our landscape plan you can see kind of how we're giving the privacy there to the rear yard so yeah

I think it's compatible with the houses around it. I think that's fine. To me, it just felt massive in the renderings anyway.

So Carolyn, I will make mention kind of like my last house at Hillvale. So the plant materials, artelope kind of weighs in a little bit on making some of these plant choices as well.

That's probably why I liked it.

Yeah, I like you. I'm definitely sensitive to the landscaping as well.

Yeah, no, I thought the list was excellent. And I know people want evergreen as well for winter interest and boxwood is correct.

So no boxwoods. No, it's okay.

And Renee, by the way, knows that I feel she knows I hate boxwood. Yeah, it's all right. It's all good.

Bridget?

No, I mean, I think it's a really pretty house. I mean, it's very attractive, obviously. I don't have any concerns architecturally. I am curious on that A2. So does that actually really kind of mimic the height related to the other houses as

close as i can get by photographs without walking up to a neighbor's house and measuring their front door and then calling them but it won't you

know it's not going to exceed yeah jason houses it's

very very yeah from what we can gather it's very comparable in height correct

so if you think about it too i mean so our basement height's nine first floor is 10 and then second floor is nine so i mean kind of our stack is really not significantly different than what we're surrounded by

Okay,

okay. And then it looked like you were taking out a tree is that is that a.

Is

that a nice to hear or somewhere

I. So we, I think it would just have to do with the construction and it was those feeder roots from what I understand carolyn probably speaking more to this, though it wouldn't survive, you know so.

Well, as long as you're

protecting the ones that you can yeah sure yep. Helen.

I like it. But I do have a question about the lighting.

Okay.

I'm assuming from the elevations that the exterior lighting proposed at all exterior doors and it'll be recessed down lights.

I I would say at the front door will probably be a recessed down light. So the front

door, yeah, underneath the covering will be recessed down. The two above on the right, those will be gas. And then,

you know, it's really... At the garage doors, I guess we probably could add some sconces of some sort, yeah. There will likely be some sconces in the

back. I put everything on dimmers. I mean, so I'm emphatic about that. I mean, I very much like ambient, you know, well-managed light. Maximum 75 watts.

No, I guess my question, and it may be more architectural, the two lights at the front, which will be gas lights, why there? Is that it's a

balance of items going on, on the one side you have two smaller thinner windows on on the one side of the French doors and on this side I didn't think you wanted to mimic it, we have the downspouts the collector heads or whatnot. And the lights just felt like they fit right there in my mind. And, you know, other images, when you design houses like this, we all get on the internet. We all search, you know, Mediterranean style houses, for instance, right? And kind of come across a lot of images that really kind of sat with me. And I liked the lights flanking the French doors. Just that simple.

Okay, everybody has their feeling. To me, I understood why you wanted something. And I know on an elevation, it might be a squiggle that you put on it because it looks right. But then translating it to two gas lights or two lights, and it's not a significant difference pair of doors or balcony. That bothered me. But other than that, I like it.

I think it's beautiful. I think it is a beautiful home. I like the variation in the materials with the stucco and the brick. I'm glad it's not blue. I saw your face. It's really warm. I saw your Thumbs up there, but yeah, overall it's

beautiful. Okay. With

that, the staff has recommended approval and it appears that the board here is of similar mind. And so we're going to have- Bob, do you want to check if

there's anybody in the audience?

Yes.

Just in case.

Before we take a vote, is there anyone in the audience or online who would like to comment? No one here and no one online to my knowledge. So therefore we're ready to move to the final step. And that includes with regard to the site plan review, the staff has recommended it with the following condition. Number one, revise the inconsistencies between the architectural civil and landscape plans, including the number of AC units retaining wall along the north side of the driveway and front walkway. You don't have a problem with that. No, you're not. And number two, tree protection fencing shown on the demolition plan does not match the required location of protection fencing based on the size and type of tree. Revise the location of the fencing to match the landscape plan. No problem. Okay. Is there anyone here who will make a recommendation to approve the staff report? with the two. I'll make

a motion to approve the site plan review with the two staff recommendations.

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

A vote? Aye.

Aye.

Aye. No one? So approved. Thank you, Mark. Good luck to you. Thanks very much.

When I

see your tent on the front lawn as you're watching it and living there. Okay, oh, architectural review. Yes, yes.

I'll make a motion to approve the architecture review with.

There's no recommend.

Yeah. Thank you.

Second. Second. Approve. Aye.

Aye.

So approved. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we

have 26 and 27 Brentwood. Those are two separate legal properties.

Brentmore

Park. Brentmore Park, and so there's technically two site plan reviews to be voted on and two architectural reviews to be voted Is Jeff or Lizalot Fox here?

No, the Foxes are not here. I'm Alan Rory, principal with Mainline Group. I'll be presenting the project today.

Okay, Alan. And you are the architect?

We're at the architect's office. Okay. And do we have a summary of the

plan? Do you want me to, like the last one, read them both?

Yes. We're going to entertain them both at the same time.

So again, I'll just summarize that this is two lots, but they kind of function as one. So there is a site plan and architecture review for each lot, but it was written as one site plan staff report and one architecture review. So as I summarize this, we have four actions at the end of this. The subject properties comprise two lots on the northwest corner of the Brentmore Park neighborhood. Both lots are zoned R1 and are developed with single family homes. The property is under common ownership, and the proposed project will result in the two lots functioning as one. The owners have chosen not to formally consolidate the lots through the subdivision plat. The project has been considered in a single staff report. However, the properties require separate permitting motions and approval. The existing home on 27 Brentmore Park will be demolished. The site will be regraded and landscaped. The existing curb cuts will be removed and a new cut will be made for a new driveway. A new pond and landscaping will surround the entry. On 26 Brentmore Park, a combination of pavings, patios, fencing, and retaining walls are proposed to be demolished. The recreation space to the north of the home is proposed to include a new sport court with basketball hoops, lighting, and a pavilion. The outdoor space to the east of the home, that should be west, the outdoor space to the west of the home is supposed to include a new terrace, pergola, pool fencing. Paving will connect the renovated areas. The full analysis of the review criteria are detailed in the staff report. The height setback and impervious coverage as proposed are in conformance with the requirements of the R1 district. The combined differential runoff two properties result in a 0.264 cubic foot squared decrease. Extensive landscaping is proposed. Both properties will see proposed canopy replacement and native species requirements exceeded. Existing utilities will remain connected and the utilities will branch to the proposed pavilion. A 15-foot tall light pole is proposed at the sports court. The light will be partially shielded and measure 900 lumens. The proposed light pole conforms to the requirements of Section 405.360.M, governing outdoor lighting standards in residential areas. Shielding of the light and the new plantings along the property line should mitigate the potential impacts. Staff are of the opinion that the project meets the criteria for site plan approval and recommends approval on the condition that any outstanding comments provided by Public Works shall be addressed in revised plans as part of the building permit process. Thank you very much. Still have to do the architecture. Other than the proposed driveway reconfiguration and landscaping, the majority of the proposed elements are located on the interior of the site with limited visibility from the exterior. The proposed structures and additions conform to the setback requirements and featured sign elements to blend with the existing character of the property and neighborhood. Surrounding properties often contain pools, sport courts, patios, pergolas, pavilions or other accessory structures. The subject properties contain an existing pool, patios and tennis court. The proposed parking court at the front of the house will replace the existing circular driveway. Per the R1 district, large lots can receive approval for circle driveways and front yard parking areas. The proposed design provides ample screening of the parking area. Front yard parking areas and large driveways are a feature on the majority of the lots in the Brentmore Park neighborhood. Staff are of the opinion that the proposal is compatible with surrounding properties. The proposed driveway comprises a combination of cobblestone and asphalt. As the drive diverges and curves around the pond, the material changes to poured asphalt. The driveway branch to the north remains asphalt, the branch to the south and front entry changes back to cobblestone in the proposed parking court. Cobblestone will border the entire driveway. Asphalt is not an approved material per the architecture review guidelines. Brentmore Park is a private neighborhood which features a variety of driving materials with most common being asphalt. Staff is of the opinion that the proposed use of cobblestone and asphalt for the driveway is compatible with the property and surrounding neighborhood. With the exception of the asphalt driveway, all new pavement areas will comprise of stone and paver systems that are compatible with the existing home. The proposed pavilion is located on the northern end of 26 Brentmore Park between the existing tennis court and the proposed sports court. It is proposed to be aluminum, dark gray or brown in color to match the trim on the existing house. Roof shingles match the existing home as proposed. The pavilion will include an outdoor kitchen and retractable screens. The proposed pergola at the rear of the home will also be constructed of aluminum and composite instead of top of new stone patio. Additional stone paths will connect to the pool and sport court. The property has an existing breezeway between the garage and residence. The proposal includes enclosing the breezeway with glass door and windows. Stone will connect the front entry parking court to the proposed drive adjacent to the garage. The new sport court will be enclosed with a chain link type fence similar to that of the existing tennis court. Staff are of the opinion that the proposal will have some visual impact, but that the material and landscaping will be compatible with Brentmore Park neighborhood. Staff recommends approval as submitted. Okay. Thank you very much.

Alan, you have the floor.

Okay.

Thank you for the board for considering this. Just to give you a little bit of background, this project started in some ways 24 years ago when we did a large addition pool house and renovation with the current clients, the Foxes. And the driveway comes in at a very acute angle to the house and the house is almost 180 feet long, beautiful merits and young Cotswold style built in 1927. And as we looked at the site, told Jeff, I said, you know, if ever there comes an opportunity to purchase this neighboring property and we could bring the entrance to the house as far away as possible and line up with the center line of the door and then do more of a landscape feature further away. And then we could make the driveway to the back of the garage area separate and So that allowed us to fill in the port to share with steel and glass windows compatible with the hopes windows that were originally built in the house and have walkways out. So it separates the sort of staff and everyday drive area from the formal parking court drop off. So from the street, we do have this for the paving portion, but it will also have the edging and to the point it meets the asphalt driveway. And we're doing 20 feet of width on the asphalt driveway up to the main parking court and 14 feet going back to the service area. When we get to the parking court, we're going to go four by fours and four by eights to create that parking court. The idea here being that the driveway essentially is monolithic in color between the cobblestone, the drive court and the asphalt that's being proposed. Can

I stop you right here, Alan? What I understand is Jeff's house is staying and the adjoining house is going to be demolished.

Yes.

Right. So he's going to have a playground when he's all said and done.

That's essentially what we're trying to create is give the house some visual relief and create a lawn panel in the front. We also have a 53 by 53 foot pond that's set at grade. It's a lily pond. This is not a fountain element with the same stone as the house. So when you come in, there's a little bit of reflection from the main house, but it also gives a focal at the end of that radius. So it's something that people kind of soften the site. And with regard to the parking that

you just referred to, because I don't want to interrupt you too much. The parking lot, I'll call it, whatever you want to call it. How big is that?

It's 53 by 56 is the drop-off area in front of the house. There's some more ancillary parking areas behind the garage, but they're pretty much shielded by the garage itself and with the landscapes.

And is this parking lot going to be landscaped? Yes.

Kind

of heighted, so to

speak? We didn't want to use large trees because we do want to maintain the view. So we basically have a mixture of annuals, perennials, and some medium height shrubs in the landscape plan to add color and pop. But we're trying to essentially open that view up to the lawn panel to the house. So the house is the backdrop for the lawn. And when we talk about the parking lot, Is it going to be striped with cars? Am I looking at a church parking lot? No, no, no. And it's really, I wouldn't call it a parking lot. It's really a drop-off court. Okay. And there is additional plant screening between the auto court and the street itself. So you're not going to drive by and go, oh my gosh, they must be having a party. There's eight vehicles out front. The idea was that by adding more parking in the back behind the garage, it'll help alleviate the problem because right now they have a circular driveway that when people come over, it's essentially full of vehicles almost constantly. So we're improving that situation, I think, immensely. Okay. Um, I know you guys had a chance to go through it. We have the tennis pavilion, um, a little correction. The tennis pavilion has more of a wood Douglas fir column and the, the, the structure X pergola, which is one of those that have fins that close like at the country club at St. Louis club, um, that's behind the house. So the tennis pavilion is really meant to compliment all the materials of the main house. Um, trying to think what else oh and just to address the asphalt and I know cost is really never a concern on those sort of things but but this driveway because of what we're doing here we're creating 16,500 square feet of drive and parking area and so if we were to do we're going to do the cobble as drawn with the cobblestone the drive court and the asphalt it's you're talking in the 280 some thousand if we had to go to a chip and seal it would go up seven percent if we had to expose to aggregate it go up 37 landing almost just shy of 500 000 to do that so my reticence on that is that the part of the north curve of the driveway is going over the infill of the basin of the house that we're infilling now they're going to use rock and we're going to use lifts and compaction but it's pretty much gonna be guaranteed. There's gonna be some settlement through there. If we do it in exposed aggregate and it fails, we're gonna have to cut that section out and it's almost impossible to get a match once we do that. So I do have reticence on the ask of not using asphalt and using concrete just from a practical aspect of the ground is going to move and asphalt would be a lot easier to correct. when we get movement there so okay

and what i understand also from reviewing the report both parcels both addresses are going to be kept legally separate yes

we actually last february not last february february before last filed for a consolidation and by the time it came through we wanted them treated as one because we wanted it to be reviewed as msd as one we wanted one permit The trustees stepped up and raised legitimate concerns. We met with the trustees at his house and went through, and their biggest concern was all the indentures are written for 20, you know, the amount of lots that are there. If we consolidate, does that nullify the indentures or make them have to do more legal work to make that work out? They were a little bit worried about the precedent. And more importantly, if the current clients moved on and somebody came in and decided hey, we're going to take this old house down and build a new one what size house could they really put up in there and then is it out of scale with the neighborhood so what we're creating is basically more of a park setting in front of his home. which is architecturally significant. And so those were legitimate concerns. So we agreed to just proceed forward with the separated lots, but treating them as one lot. And Ryan's been particularly helpful with our office on working through some of the issues. We have gone above and beyond in terms of the tree preservation because it is like a mini arboretum over there. There's, we have 200 and, 36 trees we've we've identified them and tagged them and have gone through and had the arborist do a report on each and every one so we know which ones are coming out which ones are staying and and keeping the significant ones

um all right anything else you want to add at this time

i believe so i mean uh it goes without saying that uh it's a magnificent home to be preserved and um know taking down other houses always i always have to think twice but i i get it here and uh it's going to be twice as gorgeous when it's all said and done in my book um you know and i'm sure it will be done first rate uh with that let's just have comments now from from people on the board uh carolyn um

I think it's beautiful too. I think you're doing a nice job with tree preservation, which makes this arborist very happy. And you're taking out all the calorie pairs, I see. So thank you for that. The environment thanks you for that. Your own forest thanks you for that, or their forest, I should say. Let me see. I had one on that, which is not a lot. On the plant schedule, you have shown 346 little missy, little leaf boxwood. That's going to be tough to get that kind of quantity. So you might want to think about breaking that up into some other plants. And we just had the conversation about boxwood, and that's not why I'm saying it. I'm just saying you're probably going to have to do that anyway.

Okay.

define the quantities and then annuals you should be fine with. And then the perennials to be determined, I think is fine too. Clearly you kind of are staying with somewhat of a native palette or at least adaptive native. One thing I do have to say to your landscape architect though is try not to use so many varieties and use cultivars due to pollinators sometimes will not go to varieties like for instance where are we uh These slippers, oak leaf hydrangeas, probably not that bad. But just, you know, when you have it with the Allegheny and then the Golden Globe and then the Henry's Garnet is fine. You know, sometimes you end up with tricking bees and other pollinators into thinking that they're going to get something from the plant and they don't. And it's... bad it's bad news for the environment but overall i think it looks fabulous and every all the detailing that was done was really nicely done

thank you very much

that's all i had

I mean, of course, I think it's beautiful. I was a little disappointed about the asphalt driveway, but I guess I understand your point about the settling. I have a driveway that's settling now that we have to replace a piece of. So I appreciate that. And I know, I mean, I'm familiar with the area, obviously, and there are a lot of asphalt driveways in the neighborhood. And I do like that you're complementing with the different stones in the various areas. And staff didn't seem to object to it. So And, and I guess nobody from and I appreciate the comments from the neighbors. You know, I don't like to see houses come down either. The one that you're tearing down is not very attractive so I, you know, It's probably the least attractive of the entire Brentmore Park subdivision. I'm not sure there are any neighbors in the audience, so I would expect that everyone is okay with the plans, as you mentioned, with the trustee support. Yeah, we did get the trustee approval. As long as I guess there's not anybody else in the audience that's concerned about it, I don't have any other objections. Well, then

I think it's well done, you did an excellent job and I don't mind the asphalt because I think that distinguishes between the primary access and then the secondary. So even though you will be able to see the House directly in front when you're on the cobblestone it's still it's i'm secondary so. It focuses you. So I like it.

I

think it's beautiful, very well done. All the details of creating the pergola and the tennis court house or whatever to all tie in, it's very well done.

Is there anyone in the

audience or online who would like to comment on this project? No one? No one.

Any other further discussion? Okay. Well, then I will entertain. We need two motions with regard to the site plan review and for each property. So with regard to both 26 and 27, the staff recommendation is to approve it with the same condition. And that is any outstanding comments provided by Public Works shall be addressed in revised plans as part of the building permit process. Do we have a motion to approve the

staff recommendation

with one condition? Go ahead. Go ahead, Carolyn. I'll

make a motion to approve 26 Brentmore Park with the staff recommendation.

Okay. Any seconds?

Second.

Okay. Vote in approval? Aye.

Aye.

So approved. And then with regard to 27 Brentmore Park. Carolyn?

Yeah, I'll make a motion to approve 27, sorry, Brentmore Park with the staff recommendation.

Any

second?

Aye. Aye.

That's been approved. And then we move our attention to the architectural review and that the staff has recommended it with no further conditions.

I'll make a emotion. Yeah, I'll

Second? Second. Vote?

Aye.

Approved.

Okay. I'll make a motion to approve 27 Brentmore Park.

Second? Vote? Aye. So approved. Okay. We are good. Thank you, Ellen. Okay, next we have...

201 to 215 North Merrimack Avenue and 8015 Pershing Avenue. And we get a summary, and we have several recommendations to consider to recommend to the board. This is new construction commercial residential project, including rezoning, PUD, a site plan

review, Okay.

Can you open the public hearing? And

we have to first open up

a public hearing for that. Do we have the summary done first?

Yes, Ryan will make a summary and then the applicant can make a presentation.

Then we go to public hearing.

Sure.

Okay.

Thank you. So we have three staff reports that are related to this particular item. The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to summarize the PLAT staff report, and then I'm going to just summarize the PUD rezoning and site plan review, and then I will summarize the architecture review. So the four subject parcels are located at the Northwest corner of the intersection of North Merrimack Avenue and Pershing Avenue. The lot consolidation request is in conjunction with a new mixed use residential and commercial development on the property. The development includes rezoning one parcel from R4 to C2, and then rezoning all properties from C2 to a planned unit development. The proposed plot will consolidate the existing lots into one lot measuring 63,112 square feet. Objectives for consideration include compatibility, density, use, and others listed in the staff report. Staff are of the opinion that the lot is larger than residential lots to the west, but is consistent with lots located on North Merrimack Avenue in regard to size, frontage, and arrangement. Staff recommends that this board recommend approval to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. That the applicant provides a MILR for the appropriate City of Clayton signatures per the subdivision ordinance requirements after Board of Aldermens approval. Approval of this plat is concurrent with and intended solely to facilitate redevelopment of the subject properties as authorized by the rezoning and planned unit development approval. Ordinance adopted concurrently herewith, which rezoning and PUD approval is subject to lapse and the time limits specified in the city's land use regulations section 405.1460. Accordingly, if the plat approved hereby is not filed with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds prior to the deadline and the time limits applicable to the rezoning and PUD ordinance, have foresaid the approval and authorization for filing of the plat shall lapse and this ordinance shall be of no further force and effect. And that the applicant files a plat with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds Office prior to application for construction or demolition permits for the property as approved under the rezoning and planned unit development ordinance. Moving on to the staff report for the PUD rezoning and site plan review. This request is for a public hearing to solicit input regarding the rezoning planned unit development and site plan or a proposed mixed use development. The project was originally presented to the plan commission on October 17th, 2022 for conceptual review. A community conference was hosted by the applicant on January 5th, 2023 to solicit feedback from the surrounding community. The rezoning PUD and site plan are being considered together in this report. The proposed project will also require approval of the architecture plans by the Architecture Review Board and approval of the subdivision plan by the Board of Aldermen. The purpose of the PUD is to foster appropriate use of existing buildings and enable compatible redevelopment, which provides public benefits as identified in section 405.1380 and achieves the objectives outlined in section 405 dot 1360. A PUD must provide these public benefits to the surrounding neighborhood and to the city above and beyond what can be reasonably achieved by the application of the zoning provisions of the original zoning district. The site is located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Merrimack and Pershing. The properties along Merrimack are zoned C2, and 8015 Pershing is zoned R4. The site is vacant with the exception of a commercial structure at 215 North Merrimack. Adjacent land uses include residential, office, hotel, and parking. The project consists of the demolition of the structure at 215 N Merrimack, the rezoning of 8015 Pershing from R4 to C2, rezoning of all four lots to PUD, the consolidation of the four lots and the construction of a mixed use commercial and residential development on the site. The proposed development will range in height from four to six stories and contain a combination of residential units, a commercial space, amenity space, parking, and publicly accessible outdoor spaces and improvements. There are 145 proposed residential units ranging in size from one to three bedrooms. Parking will be accessed via an entrance on Merrimack. The garage will be positioned on the two lowest levels and include 183 private spaces, 11 public spaces. The public spaces include three compact spaces, three standard spaces, and five EV spaces with charging capability. Private spaces are separated by access gates. Primary entrances face Merrimack with townhome units on the ground floor, the primary residential entrance, and a commercial space at the corner of Merrimack and Pershing. The corner also includes a proposed public art and a patio. The city standard downtown streetscape is proposed along North Merrimack Avenue, outdoor patios and landscaping line Pershing with the standard sidewalk with tree lawn. Additional townhome units, a sidewalk and landscaping face to the west. Staff are of the opinion that the development contains a reasonable ratio of uses. The project is located at the edge of downtown in an area that will serve as a transition from the commercial to residential areas. A small amount of commercial will support the goal to maintain Meramec as a commercial street, while also supporting the increased density. The project seeks relief from certain development standards that are set forth in the current C2 district and have been identified in the staff report. A PUD must provide public benefits above and beyond what can be reasonably achieved by application of the zoning provisions of the original district. All PUDs shall provide at least one public benefit or combination of public benefits that total at least 10 points beyond those additional points required for desired code alternatives. After a minimum 10 points is achieved, the developer shall provide a public benefit or combination public benefits totaling at least five points for each code alternative requested. The staff report identifies proposed public benefits and a staff analysis. Proposed benefits include architectural distinction, curb cut reduction, affordable units, sustainable building practices, green infrastructure, below-grade parking, public art, open space, streetscape enhancements, and EV charging. As part of the analysis of the proposed project and benefits, staff review Sorry, just one second. As part of the analysis of the proposed project and benefits staff reviewed other PUD projects that were scored in addition to the specific content of this project. The staff's analysis of the proposed benefits results in the point total of 33 which is above the minimum required of 30. A full analysis of PUD and site plan approval criteria are detailed in the staff report. These criteria include the downtown master plan, compatibility with the zoning code in the surrounding area, environmental and landscape factors, infrastructure, lighting, traffic, design, use, and public welfare. The proposed development would provide mixed use development on a vacant lot along Merrimack. The proposed development aligns with the downtown master plan by increasing density, contributing to a mix of uses, providing street activation and contributing to streetscape improvements. The development is providing public benefits as identified in the report. Staff are of the opinion that the proposed plan conforms to the requirements of a PUD and provides an appropriate number of specific benefits. Staff recommends that this Board recommend approval to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. A streetscape plan shall be reviewed and approved by Public Works prior to commencing installation activities. Public art on the property shall include a minimum of one monument piece. A specific plan and rendering of the public art shall be submitted to the Public Art Advisory Committee and Board of Aldermen for approval. In the event that such artwork does not merit three points and the applicant does not make timely changes, a PUD development plan shall be reconsidered by the Board of Aldermens. All signage shall comply with Chapter 425 signage unless a separate sign district specifically for this project is developed and approved by the Architectural Review Board. Lighting facilities shall comply with applicable city codes and shall be arranged in a manner which will protect roadways and neighboring properties from direct glare or other interference. And public benefit 405.1380B4 shall be revised to a minimum of two affordable units and that determination of affordable should be reached prior to approval by the Board of Aldermen.

for the architecture review.

So the development falls within the Meramec Gateway District as identified in the Downtown Master Plan. This area is defined as a transition between downtown and nearby residential neighborhoods. The plan calls for mid-rise mixed use development that steps back as it transitions from Meramec to residential neighborhoods. The plans seeks to create pedestrian friendly spaces and street activation with streetscape improvements, landscaping, and the elimination of surface parking. The building is proposed to reach six stories along Meramec and transition to four as it moves west. The structure will be similar in height to structures to the north and south. As the building transitions to four stories, it will be similar in high to the condo building to the west. Parking is mostly shielded from street view behind residential spaces. The plan also includes streetscape and intersection improvements. Staff are of the opinion that the proposed development meets the goals identified in the Downtown Master Plan for the Meramec Gateway District. Properties to the north contain a combination of multifamily and dense single-family residential units. Properties to east contain a combination of commercial, multifamily, and single-family structures. Properties to south include commercial and office uses. Properties to west contain some multifamily housing with more single-family homes farther west. Surrounding buildings range in height from two to seven stories. The form of the surrounding structures are generally rectangular with mostly flat roofs or hip roofs. Many properties feature plazas, landscape terraces, or planters along the front facades. The proposed development incorporates many design features to help mitigate the size and scale of the building. The step down in height from east to west concentrates the tallest portions along Meramec Avenue. The use of recessed balconies, roof overhangs, and variation window sizes create interest along the facade. and break up the length. The planter beds and raised terraces features also integrate buffering techniques seen on adjacent properties. Multifamily and commercial structures nearby often comprise a combination of brick or window wall facades. Single family structures often comprise brick with stone or wood as accent materials. The proposed development will be constructed with a combination of brick and cladding. Tan brick comprises the majority of the exterior, gray brick will accent upper portions of the structure. Gray masonry units will accent retaining walls for landscaping and patios. Red brick will accent columns along the commercial entrance. Windows are proposed to be either colored brass or black, depending on the location. Balconies will include dark bronze metal railings. Dark bronze accent material panels will shield portions of the parking from street view. HVAC units will be screened by a parapet wall on the roof. Brick accent banding pattern brick screens and recessed brick columns will elevate design and materials. The primary strike materials will result in a unique building appearance that is also cohesive with colors and materials in the surrounding area. A PUD must provide public benefits to the surrounding neighborhoods into the city above and beyond what can be reasonably achieved with the zoning district. The proposed design conforms to most of the requirements of the city's zoning regulations. The proposed development is of a design and scale that meets the goal identified for the Merrimack Gateway District in the Downtown Master Plan. Design incorporates architectural design is compatible with surrounding area. Staff recommends approval as submitted for the architecture.

I'll just know quickly for the staff recommendation is 30 points which matches the minimum not 33 points.

Okay, and just so before we start with presentations. There are three considerations. One is consolidating the four parcels into one lot, which is the pink. The next one, the blue, it says major subdivision plot is a project type. This is the architectural review actually. It's just misprinted there on the blue forms right here. And then of course the yellow is the plan unit development with the score sheet for the public benefits. And with that, is there somebody for JSR Clayton LLC? And we're going to talk about all of the applications at one time. Okay.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Once again, my name is Mark Rubin and I am with Keeley Properties. We're located at 222 South Central, Clayton 63105. I am joined by our architect partner and team, Joel Foose and Neil Chase from Trivers & Associates, and they'll be presenting tonight. We also have Jay Brockmeyer here from Grimes Consulting and Engineering, so he'll be able to answer any civil engineering questions as it relates to drainage or otherwise on the site. Having said that, I'm going to go ahead. Joel has a presentation prepared, so I'm going to let him walk you through it. Thank you.

Can you give your name to the microphone, please? Joel Foose. Trivers.

I have control over this. And just so the audience knows, after the presentation of these speakers, we'll open it up for public comment. Okay, great.

Okay. All right. Again, my name is Joel Foose. Good evening to everyone. I'm going to walk you through essentially the packets that you have in hand. I will start that I guess we were here in last October. uh which seems like a long time ago now but i should let you know your process has been working there's been a lot of conversations the building has evolved uh through a lot of iterations feedback we got at that time a lot of conversations with residents and neighbors that have really evolved this structure to the point that it is today so i think back in october We were 206 units, 240 some odd parking spaces. Now we're at 145 units. with about 180 or 194 total parking spaces. So it's changed quite a bit. We lost the floor as well. It used to be seven stories, now six. So it's, it's changed a lot and you know, we appreciate everyone's input to get to the point that there's collective buy-in as these projects develop in your community. walking through this a little bit again, this is everything that you guys have in the submitted packet you know we have gone around. You know the neighborhood here really looked at the surrounding buildings give some heights that we're working towards and really making sure the building is nestling into that you know and. I think Ryan, as he was describing this, talking about the step down from really the C2 parcel down to the R4 parcel, even though these will be combined into one. We are really making a deliberate change in the way the building is articulated to really connect more to that, the 220 building there to the west. Along with this, as Ryan mentioned, through the Clayton Master Plan, we really try to use this as a driver to understand the best way to really give the benefit and to really think about what Clayton has been trying to achieve through the Master Plan. This Merrimack North Gateway, I think it was mentioned as a transition piece. We really feel this building is an excellent transition from the more commercial building directly to the south. really into this residential block and then the single family really to the north and west beyond this structure as well. Yet still providing some additional density, that change in the streetscape, hiding all that parking behind the building, really a lot of the goals that Clayton has outlined in the master plan. So this is where we are. This building sits at the corner at Pershing and Merrimack. Some of the conversations about the public benefit, we really have extended out this corner really to try to activate more out of Merrimack, and we really want Pershing to remain this feeling of a of a quiet residential street. So we want to keep that traffic off Pershing towards Merrimack. Initial conversations, we had a garage entry initially on Pershing. The neighbors would really like to have seen that move to Merrimack. And so we moved all of our parking entry towards the Merrimack side. So no vehicular access that's accompanied in our building is going down Merrimack. And so you really start to see this more taller commercial side here towards the Merrimack side, a two-story corner here that is activating by a small retail space, the cafe, which really can help. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, You know, not only a minute ties the building but also some public benefit to the neighbors as well and then further along you go here you've gotten the town homes that the front Merrimack as well with the residential units above. PB, Harmon Zuckerberg, um. As you come down Pershing, and this is almost at Pershing and Brentwood, as you come down and start to look back towards the building, this is really where you see that big change. Back when we looked at this in October, that mass that you really saw back at Merrimack continued very close to the Brentwood building here. And we have since pushed that back, pushed it down, even pushed it over a little bit more from the property line. And we created an outdoor space here that we really have opened out towards the residential units. So the condo building across the street, as well as our neighbors to the west, and really made this a space that if someone's out for a walk and they want to come and hang out by the fire pit or whatever it might be, that's open to the residents around. And, you know, really trying to give some of that space back from the building as it helps to align for that setback that really was important to give the building to the West some proper space. Um, This is a little bit of what that view is here, a little closer. I think what's interesting about this is there's now a connection for these units that go back along this mass here. These are our townhome units as well, but what's wonderful about them is that they are accessed from inside the building, so you can park. You can come in, you can access it through the inside. You can use that building as its autonomous self or you can come out to this sidewalk and exit out if you want to walk your pet or go on a walk. just as you would as a contributing member to the neighborhood. And so it's really a way for us to give some proper spacing away from the Brentwood condo and allow them not to feel that they've got a building slammed up against them or even looking at the backside of the building. This allows that to be lit up with living space and people that, you know, it's creating life and they're not looking at the back end of the buildings. And so we really try to be very sensitive about what they would be looking at across the way there. And this is a little bit closer view of that patio space we were talking about. We're also restitching that connection up towards Merrimack on the sidewalk. Right now it's after the demolition. There's not a whole lot there that's contiguous. So we're recreating that tree lawn and then picking up that Merrimack streetscape as we get towards the intersection itself. Another thing that you'll see articulated in the landscape plan and the civil plan is also this walkway is duplicating for a lot of our water detention and using it as a rain garden, and also we have online a Rene from Arbelope Studios who can speak to that if anybody has questions regarding the landscape architecture component. But what that does is it allows us to really, you know, contain the runoff from this site, keep it away from, I think that we heard that a lot from the neighbors to the west as well to keep that rainwater from getting away from their unit and we're actually sloping back to this rain garden collecting the water filtering it and then sending it off through the MSD system. But what we're able to do on that is really to use the landscape to accentuate that and make that less utilitarian and more celebrated. And then the view here is the view coming up from Merrimack as well. You know, this is not a view that we wanted to ignore. You've got people that are entering Clayton. This is essentially, as we said, the North Gateway. So this is coming up from that intersection at Kingsbury and Merrimack. Again, The building steps back to acknowledge the building here just to the north of us. We are taller than that. But the building does step back a little bit in that notch to allow that building to breathe there a little bit. Some of the feedback we got too, as you can see here on the entries, this is the entry to the garage. We really try to make that feel much more keeping in the residential patterning and spacing to allow that to be perceived as more of a residential scale, even though this is a multifamily residential building. I might pause it here and I'm going to jump to the video. Yeah.

Yeah, please. Quick comment. I do want to mention we are- Mark, can

you state your name for the microphone?

Once again, Mark Rubin with Keeley. I do want mention we are still having conversation about the space on our western side with the neighbor or the condo members there, just about a couple of the species on the plantings. So nothing significant, but A couple of things we might want to bend around a little bit.

I'm not sure if we have any boxwoods over there. I don't think we have any box woods. We're going to come down here on

the building a little bit. A couple things I want to point out in the staff report, we do want to model these condensing units. These are part of these types of developments, but I want you guys to notice as you PB Harmon Zuckerman, As we go around the building that you don't see those as as visible portions, especially down from the street at any stretch. So that is a part of the way this is articulated allow that to happen. PB Harmon Zuckerton, You know, from the from the rooftop. As we come down on this, you can also see the articulation here on the streetscape. That's the Clayton Master Plan, tree grates, brick edge. And then we are returning that back to the level here where we have this commercial terrace. and then it switches to the tree lawn back from here. And we really wanted that to be a deliberate line of, you know, really saying the public stays up here along Merrimack and not necessarily down Pershing unless you're, you know, a neighbor or a resident headed that way. Also back here, you see a little bit of this pullback of the residential terrace. And we try to use some elements here to break down the mass of the facade, allow people to have some outdoor space. A lot of these buildings around here, even the neighbor's building there to the to the south of us along Pershing, have these moments of covered outdoor space, terraces, balconies. And we try to weave those elements into this building as well. You'll see elements here with projected balconies, outdoor terraces, covered balconies in different locations, projected balconies on the courtyard side, and really try to think about how we can weave those in. And again, a building associated with its context can take a lot of different forms and a lot of different ways. And if you've got a massive right, you've got to make some nods here. And so that's something that we're really trying to be cognizant of as we come around here.

I'll keep going here. So as we come down on the street,

As we come, we're gonna walk around here on Pershing.

I'm trying to pause it. Bridget, would you mind

moving to your right? Just a skosh. Yeah, there you go. Sorry. I'm just gonna back up a little bit. I was trying to do it without having to make you move. So I apologize. You know, this area here, again, is going to be the commercial space. There are residential units above here, but really we wanted to have a marker here on the corner. The insets and the brick here, and I'll talk about some of the architectural detailing as we go through it, but if you go up north on Kingsbury, there's buildings that have these white or glazed brick elements. Some are white, some are this terracotta, some are green. And so we want to weave in some of those little moments of these special pieces of masonry and you'll see that here really try to articulate it in the corner. Majority of the building is masonry. So we have this buff color masonry here with darker accents as we go around. But the majority of the building, particularly on the exterior face is that. Again, one of the things that we were able to do during some of our changes here is this space along on Pershing. We did have more of an amenity out facing here. We've since then changed that to be more units along there as we change the scale of the building. As you come around here, you can see that step down, that change. Some of those nods, as you can see, The the overhang here to the 220 Brentwood building and we're picking that up a little bit here and each one of these locations have some opportunity for some outdoor spaces to be had for residents as well, to get them you know connected. to the surrounding area. So as we come back around here, we move up what we call the muse and this is the rain garden space here as you go through and you see these little stoops, these little moments here where you're coming through and you can access these units. So each one of these bays here are is a unit. And so somebody can come out here, come across this sidewalk and walk down to the street level. We also have moments of some additional brick detailing. Again, some of these houses as you go to the north have some protruding brick and we're going to try to pick that up in some detailing ways as well. As you come back up as we go look through the building, there's a very minimal slot here that is open to the amenity deck. We really try to privatize the deck not only for the residents of the building also the residents surrounding the building that maybe um don't necessarily want to see everything that's going on in there either um you know but we will say i mean the desire on this this is not a um You know, this is not a collegiate geared toward building. This is, you know, this is a building that's probably going to be a little bit more, I would say, tame in their outdoor activities. So... So there's just a small opening here as you look into the courtyard, as you come around. Again, stepping down to the scale here, some relief. This is the garage here to that adjacent multifamily. So we're touching two multifamily projects here on the north and the northwest quadrant. Again, looking down at Mende Didak, you get to see that change in scale as you come back up here to Merrimack, the building here to the south, that commercial building. the Hampton Inn over here. So we're one floor taller than that Hampton building, but we're one story shorter than the Gershman building to our south. So again, we're coming back down here to the Merrimack as we start to look back towards the building here. along this elevation. Again, stepping back here as you can see the apartment building and we step back this corner to align with that as you come back around to give a little bit of a nod to where that building is placed. Some outdoor spaces here, balconies that flank that and balconies here on the second floor. These are some of the town homes here. So each bay here, you can enter off the street and has a little raised patio with planter beds that give a little bit of a buffer between that public space and that semi-private space, which is these private terraces. And then these are second floor balconies. And this is all a part of the town home space here. That's a front in Merrimack. So we have five of those along the Merrimack Elevation. And then again, as

we swing back around to the corner. Okay. Jump back, let's see.

As we went through, again, this was a lot of the conversations about windows, styling, types, colors that we try to take into consideration with that. As you can see, there's a varied articulation around the surrounding area, as well as brick. Everyone thinks that there might be one type of brick around, but there's many types of bricks around this area as well. And here's a selection of what we found around the neighborhood as well, including some of these glazed brick details that we've seen. Again, in material palette, we've got a couple different types of brick here. This light color brick, the dark, We have those handy as well, including a architectural CMU unit, which is used on a lot of the planter walls and bases that you've seen. That articulated glazed brick here. Windows, we have a couple metal accents and the metal balcony and railings here. So

you can just see those. So again,

trying to use a lot of earth tones in it, nothing too garish. I think one of the comments that we got from our initial October conversation was maybe a little bit more desired simplicity. And I think you always have to be careful if you get too simple and it looks too austere and um maybe not doesn't resonate enough and so we really tried to think about where the accents are needed and try to do some um additional um um editing on what we could do with that and so we really try to edit down the palette and make it something that's um you know very calming and uh um This is really a breakdown of the way we have the units. Again, these are larger units. The average unit size is 950 square feet, which is quite large. Again, we have 145 units. We're parking 183 private spaces with 11 spaces that are open to the public that are in that garage space. The planting plan, again, we've been working with Arbelope on the planting plan, again transitioning of what we would do along the Merrimack frontage down Pershing and then through our mews. And then of course on the buffers edges here and I'll definitely let Irene speak to those questions that may come up but using a lot of natives, using a lot of plants that really are simple and elegant and beautiful. The floor plan, just to get everyone oriented here a little bit. The building, I'm actually going to step up here to this plan here on the left is the Merrimack plan. Merrimack, as you come in on the street here, because the building slopes so much down to along Pershing, you can come in here on the north and go down to the parking level, to the lower level, or you can stay on this top level here. And so you see, you really only have this one connection here to Merrimack where the garage and loading zones are. and then the rest of it are all surrounded by townhomes in orange here, in this burnt color. The amenity spaces which are in the violet and the lobby spaces here, the yellow which is the cafe, and then additional units that are ringing it along here in orange and again on the rust color around. Again, everywhere we have a frontage to a residential street or residential building, we have residential units of fronting. I'm going to go back downstairs before we go upstairs. As you go down, again, subgrade parking as you come down this ramp. And then, again, as the building is stepped, instead of exposing that parking as the building is stepping away, we have a lower level of units that come in here The rust color units are the two-story units that connect to that upper level. And then these units here ring the parking area as well. So it really gives us building really have no inclination of the parking whatsoever. And to accommodate additional parking, we do go down about a half a level here. If you guys remember that site, it slopes really from the Northeast to the Southwest. And so we tried to use the building to sink it down a little bit and take advantage of that existing topography to do that. As you guys know, the subgrade parking is not a cheap option to do, but we're making it work here to provide the CBB required or recommended amount for our building itself. So again, going back up to the Merrimack side, level two, you come up in this corner here to an amenity space and that opens out onto the courtyard. And again, that is ringed by units all along here. So you have courtyard facing units on the inside and then again exterior facing units outside. that really are very similar to the footprint below. And then we continue that upwards. As you can see over here on the fifth floor, you lose that mass on the west. Again, this is about where that R4 and C2 designations are. And so that has really dictated how we've masked the building and really try to be sensitive on how that works. And so you'll see that change in the articulation of the exterior. As the building comes up. And you move up here to the upper levels as we go up through the building. Additional roof plan. Elevations. With the video, I don't know if these are as helpful, but I think you really start to see some of these heights that we're working with. Again, the adjacent Gershman building here, the parapet mechanical level is up at this level here. The top story is here. Our top story is one level below that. So we're shorter than our building to the west or south, excuse me. The Hampton across the street that most people know, we're one story above that along the Merrimack corridor. And then as you can see, if Pershing dips down, here's the 220 Brentwood building here. And really our residential level is the same as what they have. They have a level that's tucked underneath this roof and we have a residential level that's right here. So we're not any taller than that. The north elevation, again, as we step down, we're trying to be sensitive about, you know, we have single family residences back here. So really no inclination of that shadow casting onto those units from that side. And then the four-story unit here on the far west as we come down along Pershing, you can see the two-story condo building here and the way the building actually steps back from the street and then steps up as well in plan to allow that relief to happen from Pershing. And then finally, the interior courtyard that really you're not going to be able to see from the street. You know, some people like private space and not be connected to the streets. So this gives them a nice opportunity to do that and to have a nice living space that looks down onto the

internal courtyard. I think with that, any questions? Sure. Yeah. Great. Okay, I'll wait.

Is there anyone in the audience or online who would like to comment about the project or what Joel had to say at this time? Just step on up and grab the mic and introduce yourself.

I have some questions. I'm Tom Lucas at 8010 Pershing. And just... It's a condominium, but across the street, you see the little tan across the street from there. That whole building, I'm on the end of both stories are there. So all the windows that are across the street from them are mine. So that's why I'm so interested in it, this little context there. One question I had, Ryan, I just noticed three documents were either revised or posted today for this project. Was there anything that we should know about

there? Because I didn't get to look at those. Are you referring to the documents posted on the pending applications page? Yeah. Those are just the most recent documents submitted to us by the applicant. Was there any substantial change in those? Nothing that wouldn't have been identified in the staff report or presented here.

Okay. And then, you know, questions I guess I had. I think you mentioned both, it was both a buff brick and then the dark gray brick, but it looks like on that residential section that's across the street from me, it looks like there's a fair amount of black or dark gray metal. Is that correct? Like the one, the top story or story and a half or so is metal, is that? Sure.

when you

answer it stand up in the microphone so that we

can on the on the dark gray portion on the upper levels that's ethos which is it's like a stucco type material

okay yeah um yeah because a lot of people have had comments about that from my neighbors And the only other thing which I've had discussions with them multiple times, which isn't a big deal. There's talk about in addition to the kind of plants, I will say they did get a lot of input from the neighbors after that original concept meeting, would suggest that they get a lot of feedback from neighbors and listen to us and I believe they have. So I'll say that, that really is. But there's the current building at 220 North Brentwood to the west of them has a sidewalk go into the back door, and I believe it may only be for a fire exit but i'm not sure i've never seen anybody use that. And there's been some requests by some of us to when you look at their drawings there's two parallel sidewalks a few feet apart to maybe take that one side walk out so that and then get an easement, so that the 220 building will have access to the new sidewalk. And they said, yeah, they'll do that. But that'll be like a procedural thing that you would deal with that

it doesn't necessarily get reflected in. Thank

you. Tom, thank you for all

your emails. Spent a lot of time. We appreciate it.

Please come on

out.

Please give your name.

Yes, my name is Keith Kramer. I live at 308 North Brentwood Boulevard. And I'm about a block away from this project to the northwest. As previously said, over time, this project has evolved. The developer and architects have really listened to us, the residents, and have really tried to come up with a project that we would like. And I believe they have in this case. I'm in favor of this project. It's a scale that fits in. It'll be a great project in addition to Clayton. Thank you.

Is there anyone else?

We do have one online.

Hi, I'm Carrie Kennedy. I live at 172 North Brentwood Boulevard. My main comment is more procedural for the city that if we have a scheduled meeting, I think there should be a cutoff of when new documents are added to the website. I don't really think that you know, maybe that's within 24 hours or one business day or something. But I don't think that you guys should think that residents are checking the website hours before the meeting to view the most recent documents. And I hope that that can be adhered to or something. I mean, is there some sort of minimum amount of time at which documents are kind of finalized to a website before a meeting? So do you expect people to be like checking it the last couple of minutes right before

the meeting?

The

three documents added today were just copies of the staff report, not actually new plan documents.

Correct. So I just feel like as a resident that I want to come to a meeting prepared, seeing the most current documents. And so I think there should be some expectation of me not checking this, you know, 30 minutes before the meeting.

I mean, I feel like we can just, we can certainly assure Carrie that anything, I think anything that we talk about tonight is absolutely just related to the plans that were proposed and that you would have seen,

you know,

any staff comments or anything that we talk when, you know, if there was something proposed this morning that would be different, I think we would have to address that with them saying, you know, staff has not had an ability to comment on any anything new that had been proposed and as like Commission members, we need some lead time as well, so.

Gotcha. But those staff comment documents weren't on the website prior, were they?

No, the plan sets were uploaded on May 19th. With the staff report documents, we do try to put them online in advance of meetings. As you can see, we had a lot of items on our agenda. And so just creating the staff reports in order to distribute those out to everybody on the board in advance, we did that beforehand. just the end of last week and then upload those. But if there was anything that was ever submitted to us, we request that those documents are submitted at least two weeks in advance of the meeting. So that's why they were uploaded on the 19th. And we would call out if there was anything submitted to us today, but there hasn't been any new submissions from a plan perspective. It's just the staff reports that were uploaded today.

Thanks for your time.

Okay. Anyone else? Is there anyone on Zoom? Chris? Who? Linda Bartle? Who are we calling?

Linda. Linda, are you on?

Basically, we've had the architect for the project speak.

202 North Brentwood.

Yes, Linda, yes.

Okay, great. Now we got the view.

Linda, can you please state your address for the record?

Okay. Thank you.

you. And I appreciate everything that's been done.

Okay. Who's next? Chris Wilson, are you on? I can hear me.

I can hear you.

Okay, this is, I mean, I'm a 202 Brentwood. My question is, before there was said there's going to be some kind of a traffic study done. Was there any traffic study completed? I believe so. Is there any way we can see the car see it.

Yes, we can upload a copy online. All of these are also public record. If you would like to send an email, we can also send it one directly, but Ryan will have those posted on our pending applications page.

Okay. Thanks. That'd be great. And I'll say that Keeley's been good to work with. We've had many meetings with them, lots of back and forth and, uh, So as other people have said, this was a much different building than it was back in October. So thank

you.

Is there anybody else we have not heard from that wishes to speak at this time? Hearing none, I guess we're ready to move forward. So with that, Joel, I

just got a couple of questions for you before we start going on. First of all, hearing from the neighbors, I mean, you guys really bent over backwards and it's nice to hear that. It really is. The second thing is... This is just me speaking now. I think your apartment townhome concept is one of the most humanizing projects I've seen coming before us in a long time. I mean, you've got open space. You've got courtyards. You've got direct access to the streets. You've got a coffee house. You've got great plantings, it seems like. I think the neighbors must have really worked on you guys all for the better. no i mean uh do neighbors make a difference in meetings damn right they do you know And I only applaud them. But at the end of the day, you guys, it's your money and it's your conception and the architect and the developer. And this is really, I think, as Clayton transitions to a true mixed neighborhood of commercial and residential, I mean, would I want to live there? Where's my neighborhood? Where's my coffee house? Where's the green space? How close is a park to here? Which there is one close to here. And you border a lot of residential properties too. And I think this is very thoughtful. very well conceived. I mean, in the best sense. And I've seen a lot of residential projects come through Clayton in the last few years. So from my point of view, I just think it's and the way you step down to the rear, it's just all the right moves for making a community in a downtown area. And I just wanna say that we have to talk about the public benefits for PUD a little bit. I'm really curious, you got two units that are, what is it? Affordable housing is the term you use. And that's so interesting to me as a public benefit. And it's gotta be 80% of the median of the St. Louis County income what i was trying to research that today i got varying figures what

is the median income for st louis county only

I'm Jason Braidwood with Keeley Properties. We're going to have to dig in. There's really no, it's amazing, county or city level, there's no rule of thumb for this. We have to be one of the biggest communities in the country without a stated affordable housing policy. So we really look forward to working with Ana to come up with the right metrics. St. Louis County is probably the most appropriate metric to use. versus like a census track or something like that?

Well, I did my sophisticated research, Google, and the headline was 97,000 for St. Louis County. Just said it. And then I went to kind of like a different level where depending upon the number of residents, it could be 70,000, 50,000, and you're going to do 80% of that.

Usually we use a HUD standard. I think David's pulling it up right now based on the number of members in the household,

what the median income is. Housing and Urban Development puts together a table for the 80% median household income, and they publish that every year and update it based on the number persons in that particular unit. So if you have for instance, four persons in a unit, 80% of the median household income would be $75,900. So in this particular case, that would be the income requirement in order to get into one of those two units there. You would have to be- It would be

like an average income of like 91, 92,000 and 80% of that would be 75,000 and they would have to come up with a rently fee of $6,000. So it's actually-

30%. Mark, can you come up to the mic?

What's

30%? We typically use

30% of the median household or 30% of the 80% median household income to determine what the rate. And the

staff is recommending that. How do you feel about that? I

think we might've thrown it out there. Ana has been a pleasure to work with. We have some projects in the city as well and some around the country. And in terms of public benefits, The amount of money it's going to cost to build this building the rents and i'm sure you've had many other folks present to you that the rents. are just going to need to be higher and higher and higher, and I really don't think it's an exception it's not like we're we're unique in that regard. 145 units isn't a ton to grab even just two and say, hey, maybe this can be someone who works public service or something like that. It's just one little step that we can try to take. So to get the points that we need for the PUD, we have to think outside the box a little bit. And some of these units are going to be very, very expensive, just like the rest of the new constructions that are coming out of ground.

If you have a family of three and it's 30%, the rent's going to be fairly low in that

sense. A two-bedroom in this building is not the cheapest thing in the world. The townhomes really live two stories, so they're going to be like homes in many regards. We look forward to working with staff to figure out how to find the right two units for the folks that want to live in the

building. Okay.

With that, I'm going to pass it around to the board members. And Carolyn?

Yeah. I have to say I like the project too. And obviously I can appreciate the landscape. Hi, Rene. Hi. So it's really thoughtful. I agree with what you said. And I didn't have any comments other than what you've already said. So it looks great.

Do you want to, are we going to do the points

now? We'll do

it right after we go through one time.

I just have a few comments and, you know, I just, because I just want to make it clear, I represent the area where this building is going to be. So, you know, overall, of course, I mean, I think it's a beautiful building. I think you've done a great job. I love all the patios, and I love how the roofline changes. I love the different elements like brick versus deco. I think that all looks great. I am not an architect or a planner, so I feel like my job sometimes on this board is really to talk about how this affects our community, and this is a planned unit development, so we have to make sure there are enough public benefits, and I know we're going to talk about that, but just making sure there are public benefits to allow for passage of the PUD. So just a few questions I have related to is how, you know, during construction in the event that this does pass, will you have a plan for construction workers so that we don't have people parked up and down Pershing? I just, you know, I want to make sure, I mean, I think The community, I think, seems really largely behind this project. But construction, as you know, is painful for

anybody.

So I guess I'm just curious how you're going to mitigate that. It's

not the first time that's been come up. So Mark is ready to answer that question.

Yeah, I'm Mark Rubin once again. We will have a staging and a mobilization plan put together so it's not something that we can be just kind of nonchalant and, you know, an improvisational with at all I mean it has to be well organized and so we'll be working on that with our contractor. Obviously there's not immediate parking right there. So we're going to have to, people are going to have to be shuttled, I mean, to some degree. So chances are we'll have to enter into an agreement with, you know, whether it's over towards U.S. Bank and, you know, Gershman, and we're ultimately going to have to shuttle some people over there. So we'll be thinking through all those steps as we go.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, I just want to make sure that we're thoughtful about that. Okay. And then how will you manage, I think it's great that you guys have public parking. How are you going to manage that? Do people just kind of come and go? I mean, I know that you have arms that come down for the residents. So will people just be able to come in and park, presumably to maybe go to the coffee shop or?

Yeah, we have on the ground level plan, there's gates that are separating, internal gates that separate the public parking. And so I think Keeley's been exploring operation systems that allow you to control that via an app, or you can connect it with your phone and allow people in. We've done a recent project where the gates have been open, like the 11 spaces that are accessible are open during business hours and then they close those gates at night so people aren't walking in and out of the garage. So I think a lot of that is through management considerations on how that is, but there's certainly a delineation between public and private.

I mean, I don't think you have the issue, like if this was a project in downtown, like the new construction, the new building that's going up now that's right there. you know that there's not the office issue in terms of people going into park all day and so I just want you to kind of be thinking about that I guess so because parking is such a premium here in Clayton so and then do you I also I mean I'm assuming the neighbors have talked to you about HVAC so do you feel like the HVAC units are screened appropriately so that the noise isn't

floating

around.

Yes, and we've done an acoustic analysis of that, and yes, that's certainly below levels.

And I'm sorry, I'm looking. In terms of the commercial space, I mean, that's one of the, and I know we're going to talk about public benefits, but I think everybody knows about the retail problem we all have. So I guess, and this might be not a question for you, Joel, perhaps more of a question for you guys, but what do you do? You know, we're going to provide public benefits potentially to this commercial space, which will hopefully activate the neighborhood and, you know, have a wonderful space for people to go have a cup of coffee or smoothie, whatever the case may be. But do you have an idea of what might go in there? I guess my concern is, you know, we provide these public benefits to developers because they're going to have retail spaces, which I understand we as a city require, but, you know, making sure that the rent for whatever is basically at a cost that you can actually get somebody in there,

if I'm making sense. Jason Braidwood again. It's the perfect way you phrased that, the rent that can get somebody in there. We don't have the commercial space modeled in the financials. So our appraisal is complete. The appraisal doesn't reflect it. Our bank is not expecting it. We are not expecting it, yet we do have the build-out cost reflected in our budget. That doesn't mean we're not going to chase because you guys are giving us the opportunity to have a commercial space and we're going to strive. Frankly, it's part of our program. We want it for our residents just like Kingside. We put Kingside into Clayton-on-the-Park for the same reason. If I had to guess, and I think I shared this back in October, I think we'll be sponsoring our own cafe And it's not necessarily perfect, but we're going to have staff there. So we're going to manage this building. I'd like to actually move the firm there. I don't think we have enough room for that. It's not that big of a firm, but I don't think there's enough room in the building. But we are going to have four some odd people that work directly for Keeley in the building. And to kind of blend that into a lobby cafe that is used by our residents as well as the public and our neighbors walking in and then using the outside is kind of what we envision. So, you know, we know the Ferguson family really well. If we could like serve qualities and get a license for that and they would just we'd have a license agreement with them, but it would be our risk. It's kind of what we're envisioning. It could be a wine bar with the same type of philosophy. So there's a few restaurant owners that Mark and I know pretty well that we're talking to. I just think it's going to be a little bit more programmed than set lease, set walls, and a full net lease like that, to exactly your point. We have to get creative on this. No one's going to cover the typical rental cost.

I mean, I think you're outside of downtown, so maybe you don't get necessarily office workers. But I think if you have a gathering space, people in Clayton Gardens to the west are single family homeowners condos will love the space there because they have a ways to go I mean there's places that are closer to gay avenue but that's a good ways away from somebody who lives closer to Brentwood so I mean, I think it would be a great. benefit to the surrounding areas as long as you actually get somebody in there. But if you guys are going to program yourselves, then that's less of an issue.

I would say that it would be easier for us to figure that out economically with the building if it was 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. versus 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. So coffees, I can just see the neighbors using them and that's what we want. The more neighbors that like our building, that consider the folks that live in our building, their neighbors and their colleagues. That's better for us leasing. So it goes absolutely hand-in-hand. Why do we listen to the neighbors so much? Because it was free advice as to what they want to see around them. They're our customers too. And it would be the same for the retail, same concept.

And just my last question, I so appreciate it. It sounds like you've had a lot of discussions with the neighbors to the west, the neighbors to the north. Have you talked to people on the south side as well? There's some apartment buildings or-

the south being the Gershwin building I mean southwest and

I'm

actually

okay no and I apologize I meant more to the apartment buildings to the yeah it would be the north like immediately yeah

okay I have had a conversation with him as well so he's aware of the project he's actually he's owned that building I think since the 70s right so he was great

okay you know thanks

Great questions, Bridget. Helen?

Yes, I really like the massing, the changes that you made, the stepping down. And I like the townhouses along the east and west. It brings more people in proximity to the street, more so obviously on the east. And That's important. It brings the street, it makes it safer. There's eyes on the street. And I like the use of brick, the way you're switching the bonding patterns. It creates interest but it's not changing colors drastically. And then the glazed accent color will be neat. I do have a concern though, or first a question. Is the community terrace along Pershing, is that accessible?

Yes. Yeah, you see the steps in the corner, but as Pershing rises to the east, there's a ramp consideration. As that grade goes up, that allows us to tie into the elevation a little easier, and then we have an accessible entry on the eastern side.

Yeah. No, because there's people that aren't necessarily in a wheelchair, but they're in a walker or... Parents with kids and strollers.

Yeah,

absolutely. The other thing is the townhouse walls along Merrimack. How high will those walls be as I'm walking down the street? Will they be here or?

They'll be like 18 inches.

Okay. So if I'm sitting out, if I'm renting one of those units and I'm sitting out on my patio and you walk by, you will see me and I will see you.

Yes.

I shouldn't be out at my jammies having morning calls.

I mean, you can. I mean, if that's what you want, but... You're on your own risk.

Yeah. No, I have no problems with that. I was just concerned that there would be a high wall that would separate it from the

sidewalk. Okay. My last

concern is Oh, first of all, do you have samples of the Ephus, the colors?

We don't have samples of the colors. I would say from a tonality, it's close to this stone color that we have. Okay.

Is that the dark Ephus or the light Ephus?

That would be the dark ethos and the lighter ethos would be a lighter tone than that closer to the brick coloration.

Okay, closer to the brick because on the renderings which I realize are not the color is never that accurate. It just looking at the community garden on Pershing that view the aethys, the lighter aethys looks strange next to the brick?

It won't? No, we're not going for strange. So yeah, we'll definitely, we won't make it strange. But yes, if it's reading that way, then yeah, we will certainly look at that a little bit harder to make sure it doesn't.

Okay. My last concern is You're extending the public sidewalk. So you've taken away a parking space.

Along

along your Mac.

Yeah.

And then you're talking about extending the cafe there. Now, I realize with the existing buildings that we've got, we've allowed you know, cafe on the sidewalk. This concerns me that you're taking public space for a retail venture and you're also asking for points for putting artwork there. Being that it's public, That bothers me. I think the artwork should be on your property, and I would suggest the community garden as a space. The other thing with putting artwork and people at that corner is the visibility when you're turning left across traffic to go north. And I don't know, I looked online, couldn't get a definitive number for that angle, the visibility angle they refer to. But it's fine if you're in an SUV or a truck, no problems. But if you're in a lower car, it's hard to see. So I think the artwork would be better in the community space and keeping most of the cafe seating outdoors on your property, maybe one or two. But when you get all of the street requirements met, like poles, trees, That space that you've taken, that you've extended, you've only got about 144 square feet. It's about a parking space, eight by 18. Yeah.

It's going to be, I don't think it's going to be comfortable. Okay. So. Yeah, I mean, I think that was

everything that you're saying. I mean, I, you know, I'm following you. So I don't think there was anything that was necessarily hard and fast, especially in the art piece to say this has got to be here. You know, I think we were trying to find ways to maybe have a moment of cross walk opportunity across Merrimack and mid block because it's so there's really not an opportunity to cross it at that point. So to allow that to neck down a little bit, but I would say you guys don't want that. Certainly something I'll talk about

great widening it.

For the outdoor dining permit, that's when we would review placement of any tables and chairs in relation to our requirements for pedestrian access as well as the site distance for vehicles.

Okay. And I know renderings, historically, sidewalks look very wide. And in reality, when you ask a dimension, oh, it's three feet that you could walk straight.

I was going to say, we need to instead of we're talking about instead of doing these videos, we need to give you guys some VR headsets here and walk through these. And then you can really experience that Helen.

I hope we have that problem that we need that much seating outside. One thing, I don't know if it was noticed, but the seating as you turn just one window bay down Pershing also could be used and that's on our property kind of stepped up a little bit. I mean, that could be three or four tables even. So we don't have to encroach on the Merrimack side. We kind of wanted to activate the street, but it's all about what's comfortable to

You know, Helen, if I could just say something, because I think you're on to something. I would say that corner there could be like the meeting place for that neighborhood. You need open space, you need outside tables, and you need a coffee house. And people like in Daman area, where Caldey's is, I mean, the streets are crowded with people, you know, because that is the meeting place. And the art to me is quite secondary to creating the meeting place. And I agree with you that putting the art in the public way kind of could be an obstruction to certain people. And the truth of the matter, I don't think it adds me personally, doesn't add as much as having a gathering space.

I told you not to put the art there. That was probably

me.

We certainly, whatever art that- And Helen

caught

you. She's on to me. Let's just say that some artwork finds its way to that corner specifically. We're certainly not looking for anything opaque or large or obstructionist. So I have some ideas, but your art commission probably has much better ideas. And Joel and his team will work great on that so point completely taken and we'll work with on it to make sure it's configured right to be both demand like but at the same time. celebrated.

Anna, is there, I mean, just taking space from the right-of-way, how does that work with our code? I'm just curious.

The curb, Public Works has done an initial review of this. This style of kind of like the extension at an intersection is a best practice for some of the same reasons that Helen brought up because it naturally creates better sight distance as well as a better experience at crosswalks for pedestrians. So the bump out itself is something that we would recommend how they activate it. That was kind of the different scenario that was discussed, but I will say within the outdoor dining permit, that is where we would address any specific layouts that we require the five feet for the pedestrian access route the par so all of those elements if they wanted to extend and use that area for outdoor dining we would make sure that the number of tables fits with those requirements, but the art piece, that is something that can be worked around as we actually get a piece of our work from them in the future.

but taking a parking space is not an issue, really.

No, I don't know that that actually is losing a parking space where they actually are removing parking spaces have to do with the access for their garage from what is there currently because there were some other access points for the buildings that were demolished at the corner. So based on our traffic and parking analysis, They aren't removing any parking from the street that Public Works or our traffic consultants are concerned about.

What's also nice about kind of combining the leasing office, our people with the retail is that you have, you know, 10 hours a day, our team able to maintain that outside seating, you know, actively versus relying on a third party retailer. So it's, you know, one throat to choke kind of with, you know, who's in front of you right now.

I mean, as Clayton downtown tries to create its residential neighborhood, having gathering places is paramount to its succeeding. And this is a potential site.

It worked pretty well at Clayton on the Park when we put the sea sculpture in. The benches were inadequate though, I think. The fountain was nice and a lot of people took pictures with their kids on that sculpture, but we can do a little bit better job this time around to make sure that people can actually kind of hang out, if you will. yeah

just one quick thing to add um but i do think we have an opportunity there because we're flanked by that residential pocket so you know on yeah you know with plate on the park it's a little bit different so yeah i do think it's a great opportunity and call these is a great example of it

right

right right uh

that's

it did you have anything to add

just an agreement with everybody i think you guys did a phenomenal job at you know listening to the neighbors i think All the details that you spent, like aligning the different roof lines with the neighbors and all of that was really smart. I think you guys really listened to us and to them. I really love the idea of how on the backside of the building that people can enter into their units from that because I think that would really help engage the building behind it so they're not just doing at the back of the building. It's really like a neighborhood kind of little pathway feel. I thought that was very smart. the public spaces, is it the corner and the fire pit? Are those both for public benefit? Okay. Okay. Yeah, because the fire pit might be a little confusing, but I mean, people might take advantage of that. But yeah, overall, just similar comments. So nice job. Thank

you. Okay. Okay, next let's... A PUD requires public benefits and there is a cheat front and back. The staff awarded 30 and we have to be at 30 if we so choose to approve the PUD, okay? And instead of spending all night reading everything and doing everything. So what I would like to recommend is just briefly state which each one is The staff, like the first one is constructing, building, exhibiting architectural distinctions and significance that would make the development unique. They, the developer recommended five. We gave, the staff gave three. And keep in mind as we go through, if you're going to go less, you have to, you know, then we drop under 30. And then that, you know, for whatever that's worth. So my question is, does anybody on the board here, on the commission, have a problem in awarding three or have any comments on that you would like to make? One way or the other.

I do. I mean, I think because this is really, I mean, I say this because If this were to go on to the Board of Aldermen, I think this has become a really kind of a sticking point for the board. Our ordinance is really written for architectural distinction. So, you know, I think when people at least members of the Board of Alderman think about architectural distinction, I think if people really, really kind of thought that it's something that potentially is like the genie gang building, like the new like 100 Kings Highway. which is, you know, we all understand was, you know, leveraged out the hill. It's hard to build a building like that. So I would potentially go down to two points, not because I don't think this is a beautiful building, but I think it's just, I'm not sure you could say that somebody is going to drive down the street and like, you know, like their eyes are going to pop out of their head. I think it's a beautiful building. So I would potential go down to two As you think about you know again if this were to pass it, that is a sticky issue for the board right now because I think the way our ordinances written. The points at that particular point can be problematic so.

As for me, I would be at three if not higher because I love the color tones. I love the fact how you've taken residential, you've opened it up directly to sidewalks. I love the way you integrated the greenery. I love the you did the courtyard. I did the step down. It is not a hundred. Well, let me start with this Clayton buildings. I could fall asleep walking past a lot of them. Okay. This one is definitely on the right track. I give Trivers and Keely and Mark credit. I think you're on the right track, and I would go at least three. That's how I would be.

I guess I would say it's not architecturally distinctive. However, I think given the environment that it is, it does fit in very nicely. You guys have listened to all the neighboring. It's I think it's very distinct for this area and it's well designed for it. And so to me, that's why I would definitely give it a three.

Okay. Does anyone else dispute the three or?

No, three.

Okay.

I'm leaning towards three as well.

Okay. So that would be a three. My fantasy in Clayton downtown is to find an architect who'll put a curve in. And not just straight lines, you know.

I hear curves are expensive.

Or an angle. Okay. The next one is a provision of new or enhanced public infrastructure. greater than the minimum code requirements, including but not limited to the establishment of on-site common areas exclusive of yards as defined herein, streets, curbs, sidewalks, sanitary sewers, stormwater sewers, landscape buffers, lighting. This was requested at two and the staff awarded two. Does anyone have a problem with that? Hearing, go ahead if you want to. Hearing none, the two is acceptable.

I would actually go to three.

Okay.

I think the landscape went above and beyond and it needs to be recognized for that instead of getting cookie cutter stuff that we get some of the times.

Carolyn, I agree with you. I give it a three too. So we'll just average it out to about two and a half.

I would also note there's another category that speaks more directly towards open space and landscape that you could. That's true. We'll

stick with two on this one then. All right. The next one is greater housing density with enhanced design standards where appropriate and which results in more affordable housing and ensures that community character is maintained. And this is the one they are. giving two affordable residential units which is really cutting edge for Clayton you know so is there anyone and they asked for four and the staff awarded they asked for five and the staff awarded four does anyone have a problem with the award of four points

no

can i just ask in our last ud project how many points were awarded for the affordable housing

two points were awarded for this single unit by the board of aldermen

um i mean nonetheless i would consider going up to five that's where i kind of made up my point that they lost and

i would give five too because this is this is the next phase of a lot of housing projects and and You guys are really breaking the barrier for a lot of future developers coming into Clayton. So I could give five, but I guess we could live with four right now. Okay. Next one deals with sustainable building design and construction. There you talk about heating, cooling, recycled materials. And these are all 111. And the staff awarded 111. Does anyone have a problem with 111? Not hearing any, that is acceptable. The next one is projects which provide and protect green infrastructure such as planned and managed networks of open spaces including parks and features that use natural means such as vegetation to capture, store and infiltrate stormwater runoff including bioswells, green roofs and rain gardens. They asked for five and the staff awarded four. Does anyone have a problem with the award of poor? Not hearing any, that is acceptable. Next is the inclusion of below grade parking. I just flipped the page so everybody knows. Inclusion of below grade parking facility which meets the parking requirements for the development They requested four. They gave, they requested three. The staff gave four, mostly because it is below grade parking, which is hard to find, you know.

I'd give them an apple

too. I think that was very good, you know, to do that. So anyone have a problem with four? Okay, four it is. Next is a significant form of public art, which they have to put in. And we kind of talked about that. And as in all the projects, nobody knows what it's gonna look like. And the tradition seems to be we award three because it's gotta go to the arts commission. And I don't have a problem with that. Okay. Is there anybody who has a problem with the award of three? Not hearing any, that is acceptable. Next is an appropriate amount of open space is provided and available for active or passive use by the public, such as courtyards, grassed areas, patios, landscape spaces. They requested five. We gave two. If they made their pool public, I'm sure it would go up to five. But that being the case, two is acceptable to me, of course. Is there anyone who has a problem with the award of two points? Not hearing any, that is acceptable. Okay. The next is... It's broken out. Any other public benefit which is determined by the Board of Aldermen to meet the purpose and objective set forth in 405-1360... And then here includes the inclusion of six publicly accessible EV charging stations and the neighborhood cafe. Now, as a latte addict, I mean, you can't give enough points for that. Anyway, this was something I don't see every time, this category. So therefore, you do not seek any, but the staff in recognition For example, the EV charging stations which are becoming more and more a common issue to be dealt with. You gave four and the cafe, you asked for five on that and they only give you one. I give you five in a heartbeat. There's no issue on that one. But for purposes of tonight's meeting is one in four acceptable? What is your

view? The one does concern me because again, I'm all for the cafe on their property, but I don't think we should award a point or any points for them doing things on public property.

My feeling is if they could take some of the public property and make it a public benefit, not just concrete to walk on, but make it a public gathering place. I hear what you say, Helen, but this is just me speaking for myself. I think that is what Clayton is missing so desperately in downtown Clayton. Places where we can congregate. whether it be a little park, a coffee house, some entertainment, which we are sorely lacking. I wish we could talk to the Board of Aldermen in expanding the entertainment, but that's for another day. I

think it should go up a little bit. I don't think up to five, but I would be comfortable with two or three. And

I didn't want to interrupt

you, Helen.

No, no, that's

okay.

Helen, I think Jason might have mentioned it, that area on Pershing, which is about six feet in the narrowest, and then it opens up because the undulation of the pilasters and the windows have room for outdoor tables there. And then we are about 10 feet off the property lines. on the on the east side, so you know, and then there's the bump out which we've been talking about before is probably another 15 feet out so. goodness up against the building, but you know there is some room there.

Well, I would move up, I would certainly move up, I think it's safe to say that the average would be at least one for tonight okay. And the EV charging stations, four. Does anybody have a problem with four?

Okay.

Not hearing any. Then we've gone through and the total would be 30. Okay. With that, I believe we

are ready for... What? We'll take a look. At this time, I

aim to understand we were to close the public hearing before we take votes on the various actions. And so it is hereby closed. As we look at the pink sheet, which is the consolidation of the four parcels into one, to the developer, have you seen this? The conditions that are attached to it? Okay. They recommend approval. The staff recommends approval to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. They're kind of lengthy. The first is that the applicant provide a miler with a surveyor's signature and the property owner's signature for the appropriate City of Clayton signatures per the subdivision ordinance requirements after Board of Aldermens approval. We need better English writers, I think, on that one. Number two, approval of this plat is concurrent with and intended solely to facilitate redevelopment of the subject properties as authorized by the rezoning and plan unit development approval ordinance adopted concurrently here with rezoning and putt approval is subject to lapse and the time limit specified in the city's land use regulations. Section 405.1460. Accordingly, if the plat approved hereby is not filed with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds prior to the deadline and the time limit applicable to the rezoning and PUD ordinance aforesaid, the approval and authorization for filing of the plat shall lapse and this ordinance shall be of no further force and effect And finally, number three, that the applicant files the plan with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds Office prior to application for construction or demolition permits for the property as approved under the rezoning and plan unit development ordinance. Are you guys aware of those? Just procedural stuff. Okay. Do we have a recommendation for the staff recommendation together with the three conditions hereby specified by me?

I'll make a motion to approve, recommend approvals to the Board of Aldermen with the three conditions.

Second by anybody?

Vote aye.

Aye.

Okay, so approved. Next, we go to the architectural review application where the staff recommends approval as submitted with no other conditions. Do we have a recommendation?

I'll make a motion to approve. Okay,

second? Second.

Ayes?

Aye.

Okay. Finally, it's for the PUD, the yellow sheets, the Mixed Use Development Residential Commercial. It's titled and the staff recommends to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. A streetscape plan shall be reviewed and approved by Public Works prior to commencing installation activities. that the public number two public art on the property shall include at a minimum, a monument piece, a specific plan and rendering of the public art shall be submitted to the Public Art Advisory Committee and the Board of Aldermen for approval. In the event such artwork does not merit three points and the applicant does not make timely changes, the PUD development plan shall be reconsidered by the Board of Alderman. Number three, all signage shall comply with chapter 425 signage unless a separate sign district specifically for this project is developed and approved by the architectural review board. Number four, lot lighting facilities shall comply with the applicable city codes and shall be arranged in a manner which will protect roadways and neighboring properties from direct glare or other interference. Number five, public benefit 405.1380 parentheses B parentheses four shall be revised to a minimum of two affordable units. And that determination of affordable should also be reached prior to approval by the Board of Aldermen. Are you guys familiar with that? Okay, no problem. Do we have a motion to approve the safe staff recommendation with the five conditions?

I'll make a recommendation to approve to the Board of Aldermen with the five conditions.

Second.

Ayes. Aye. So approved. Congratulations, gentlemen.

As long as we're still on the record, your introduction to us after Joel presented was fantastic. So I just want to make sure that we thank, especially Ana and her team, and then our neighbors. Mark's done this a couple more times than I have here in St. Louis. We've never been welcomed like this before. at Keeley, at Coleman, Coleman Group before that. They have been so supportive, so open. And this is how the process should work right through tonight. So you guys have been so efficient. It's been great. So thank you.

That sounds like we were too nice. But thank you very much for your comments.

Mr. Chairman, if I may, the agenda has the question of rezoning the property from its current classification. Did they do that? And unit development, which is a distinct question from approving the proposed plan unit plan.

I thought in the pink one to consolidate the four parcels into one. That's not a rezoning though. Correct. Um,

A distinct vote on the question of rezoning the property to planned unit development

district. We have a motion to convert the rezoning to a PUD regarding the four parcels. Is there a motion in support of that?

I'll make a motion to rezone the four parcels to the PUD.

Second.

Ayes.

So passed. Thank you, Stephanie. And that concludes you guys. Congratulations. Classy all the way.

I'll also mention for the public, we have added the traffic and parking studies that were completed by our consultant to the website. So they'll be in the pending applications page when you go back.

Did I And neighbors, nice to have you here tonight. So

that concludes our agenda. And to follow Steve's tradition, is there anybody who has anything to add tonight? And I want to thank the staff for keeping me on track most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time.

You did great.

Okay. With that, I think we can adjourn the meeting. Carolyn, good night in outer space.

Yep.

And thank you as always.

All right. Bye everybody.

Okay.