October 16, 2023 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Planned Commission ARB for October 16th. It looks like we have the applicant online for our new business, so we'll get started with the roll call.

Steve Lichtefeld? Here. Carolyn Gatiss?

Bridget McAndrew?

Bob Denlow? Here. Helen DiFate?

Bob Denlo? Here. Helen DeFate?

Here.

Kami Waldman? Here. David Gipson? Here.

Amy Waldman? Here. David Gibson? Here.

Okay, we have minutes from the previous meeting on October 2nd. Are there any changes? Do we have a motion? I

make a motion to approve the minutes.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Okay, thank you. And before we go on, Ryan, I'd like to thank you for putting on the start times so that when we go back to the recording, we can find out where we are. That's a good thing. Also, before we proceed, I'd like to introduce Story Coomer. She's a member of the Mayor's Youth Advisory Council, and she'll be with us about once every month. Now we can move on to new business in that 630 West Polo Drive. We'll start with the staff report.

The subject property is located on the east side of West Polo Drive between Middle Polo and South Hamley. The property is zoned R2 and is developed with a two-story single family home. The applicant is proposing demolishing a portion of the rear of the home to construct a two-story addition surrounded by new landscaping and a patio. The surrounding neighborhood commonly includes two-story homes with bricks, stone or stucco as primary materials. Additions are commonly found at the rear of homes or as side screened porches. Materials often match the primary residence but secondary materials can be found on some properties. The addition will match the roof line of the existing home and will only be visible from the yards of adjacent properties. The solid to void composition of the addition is slightly different than the existing structure with large windows making up the northern half of the addition. The addition proposes matching the existing home's materials with brown stucco and a red tile roof. A stone vineyard chimney would be located on the northeast side of the addition. Stucco coins and profiles are proposed on the addition corners to match the character of the existing home. Patios comprising porcelain pavers would surround the addition and would be bordered by new stone walls and landscaping. As proposed, the addition complies with the requirements of the R2 district and architectural review guidelines. Staff are of the opinion that the addition would result in a minimal visual impact and would complement the existing home and surrounding area. Staff recommend approval as submitted.

Okay, thank you. Fiona or Helen, who would like to talk? Helen? Would you like to add anything to the staff report? Ellen, do you hear us?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Okay. The report is fairly accurate. There's nothing more that we want to add to it. We're really trying to match the character of the house.

Which I think you've done exceedingly well. Um, That pretty well sums up what I have to say. I think it'll be a great looking addition. It'll add more functionality to the house. There's no visibility from the street. It's all within the buildable area. I think the materials look very good. They were described by Ryan in the report. um i really have no problem at all but let's see uh what everyone else says carolyn

looks great are we going to see the proposed landscape architecture design or just curious

the size of the addition does not require formal landscape

No, it's really beautiful. I absolutely think it's a great job.

Thank you.

Bob? I love all the light, the glass. the feel of it and uh the architects are i know them they do a lot of good work around town ellen

no questions it looks great

amy

yeah no comment except that it's it's a beautiful addition i think um just like the overall materials that you're sticking with it and just the the light that it's going to let into the house looks great

david no comments or questions Okay, Ellen or Fiona, do you have any more comments?

No, thank you for your comments.

Okay, well, we do have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted. Do we have a motion?

Make a motion to approve as submitted?

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Okay. Well, we've approved it when will the work begin.

We're hoping beginning of the summer.

Oh, okay well, good luck with it. it'll be a little hard for us to watch, but we'll find a way to sneak around there and see it going up. So thank you for bringing in a very nice project. And we hope it goes very smoothly. So thank you.

Thank you.

There are a couple other people online. Any comments? No? Okay. Then that will really bring us to the end of our meeting tonight, but let's go around if there are any comments. Cami?

No comment.

Helen?

No comment.

Bob? This is the all-time record with the fewest attendees since I've been

here. I think you're right, since I've been bridget

no comments

carolyn

definitely the all-time record for the shortest meeting um since four four how many years have i been on this thing so yeah no no comments thank you

david nothing tonight ryan nothing anna

Yes, really briefly. So some of you, I know Bridget and Kami still have your comp plan and Helen, there are comp plan signs out front of your yards. Last week we updated those and added a little blurb about upcoming ward meetings for the comprehensive plan. So we're going to do Meetings, one for each ward, which will allow for some smaller group discussion about neighborhood level concerns for each ward. So we added little signs onto the existing comp plan signs that advertise the date for Ward 3. And we've also put out additional signage within Ward 3 advertising for an upcoming community meeting. So just to announce to everybody here, Ward 3's meeting is going to be on Monday, October 30th. at 6.30 p.m. at the Center of Clayton. Once that one ends, we have a couple of weeks that we can redeploy the signage into Ward 2 for their meeting on Monday, November 13th at 6.30 at the Center of Clayton. Then again, we'll redeploy the signages for Ward 3 and they'll have their meeting on Thursday, November 30th at 6. 30. So we have also sent out invites related to this meeting to any neighborhood association, condo buildings, property managers that we know of and have contact information for within ward three. Um, but this is a opportunity for the ward specifically to, to voice some concerns and have the ear of our consultants. So we ask that you guys also, you know, spread the word, um, to share and then make sure that we have good attendance levels for these added meetings. Um, and all those dates are also on the city website and the comprehensive plan website, engage clean.com. So The survey for Engage Clayton will close next week. So that's another friendly reminder for anyone who has not completed the online survey for Clayton tomorrow. They have until next week to do so before that will close. And then in addition, we have a steering committee meeting coming up for the comp plan as well as the Joint Plan Commission Board of Alderman meeting next month for an update.

Anna, how is the survey? I mean, have people been filling out the

survey? Every time we send out a reminder for the survey, I can see a spike in attendance or people visiting the website. But not that many people are actually completing the survey to turn it in. So right now we have around, I think, 140 survey responses online. And we would obviously like to increase that, but we don't want to leave it open forever because we do want to use some of the feedback from this and the other engagement to actually draft some components of the plan. So when we close this next week, once the kind of draft recommendations are set and we go out to get feedback again responding to those draft recommendations, we've been discussing other ways to try and push out maybe shorter versions of surveys or other ways to gain quicker feedback so people don't feel like they have to sit down and take a long survey. I do think the other, you know, unfortunate unavoidable part was the mailed survey happened around the same time and i do know that there are a lot of people who their response has been well i already completed the survey by doing the mail the one that was mailed to the house as opposed to the one online however the one that was emailed out does provide some information for both the level community plan and the Clayton Tomorrow Plan, and they did meet the statistically significant threshold for theirs. They got over 300 responses. So we do have that survey back as well that we're using, our consultants are using. So while I would like to have close to 300 responses for the online survey, I don't think that's going to happen at this point.

Yeah. Anna, can I ask you one thing? With all the input you guys are trying to seek, and you're doing a great job trying to get input, do you think you've learned anything that you would not have known had you not done these surveys or anything?

Yeah, that's a good question. So far, I think it's kind of backed up some thoughts that we thought the community has. The biggest point about this is to understand that how many people feel a certain way. So it is a little bit hard when we hear comments from people that are really involved within what's happening within Clayton, they come to our meetings, they're already engaging with us outside of this process. So we kind of expected certain answers because of the people that are already engaged with us. What we're trying to do with this outreach is get the members of the community who are not necessarily already engaged with city government to provide responses, those are the ones where we're hearing slightly different opinions because we haven't heard those opinions before. But I think overall, the kind of theme of what we're hearing is not too, is pretty expected, I would say. So, yeah.

The sign I put up has

disappeared. Yes. As I was going around putting out the ones for the Ward 3 meeting, and I had some printouts of ones, so we knew where we had the last placement of signs. I was trying to add to those. There's a handful of them. I mean, that happens when you put yard signs in the right-of-way. They don't always last forever, so that has happened.

Do we get a new one in our neighborhood, or...?

Um, we did, I did mention it to the consultants and they're looking at doing, um, getting another round of print. We don't have any more to place. So they, they're looking at what it would be to get another round printed. And if we want to deploy those kind of as the trigger of the next phase, because there was similar to with when the emails go out, um, that, uh, Gabby and the communications team sends, there was a spike when we put those yard signs out of people visiting engaged Clayton.com. So, we're discussing if it's beneficial to do another order of them and place another round of signs out once we have the draft plan that we want people to look at. So that might happen. I'll let you know if we do. Thank you.

Yeah, if anybody wants

to hand out

questions

little flyers with their trick-or-treater bags. Just let me know.

That's all I have. Stephanie, any legal? Well, I guess we're finished in record time. So we're adjourned and we'll see you on November 6th, I believe.