February 20, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Planned Commission ARB for February 20th. Any electronic devices, please turn them off. Brian, we'll start with the roll call. Steve Lichtenfeld?

Here. Carolyn Gatiss?

Here.

Bridget McAndrew?

Bob Denlow? Helen DiFate?

Bob Dunlow? Helen DeFate?

Kami Waldman? David Gipson

Amy Waldman? David Gibson

here.

Okay, we have minutes from the previous meeting on February 5. Are there any changes?

Yes, I can hear you.

Now we're good.

Okay, I've heard no changes. Okay, do we have a motion?

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

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay, thank you. We'll move on to new business and that's at 111 Topton Way. We have a site plan and an architectural review. Ryan, if you'd like to begin.

The subject property is located on the west side of Topton, just north of the street's intersection with Maryland Avenue. It's zoned R2 and located in the Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. The property contains a one-story single-family home, and the project scope includes a renovated front facade, rear addition, and driveway renovation. A 2021 building permit was issued to allow for construction of a rear addition, and the project is still under construction. The applicant has submitted plans for additional work, and the combined scope requires site plan and architectural review. The following is a summary of site plan review criteria, and a full analysis can be found in the staff report. New HVAC are proposed on the south side of the home and screened with landscaping. Trash will be located adjacent to the garage and rear stairs screened with a gate. The existing stormwater runoff per MSD 15-year 20-minute storm calculations is 0.464 cubic feet per second. The proposed runoff is 0.521, which represents a 0.057 increase. Downspouts will connect to a flow well with a pop-up emitter in the rear yard. No SWPPP review has been completed at the time of the staff report drafting and should be reviewed prior to or as part of a building permit. Existing canopy coverage is 2,858 square feet and all trees are proposed to remain. The plan proposes an additional 1,750 square feet, which is 1,260 more than required. Native plantings are proposed to be 60%. Utilities will remain connected and operational. The project meets the height setback and coverage requirements of the R2 district and staff are of the opinion that the project meets the criteria for site plan approval. Staff recommend approval with the condition that the outstanding review comments from the city's contracted super viewer shall be addressed as part of the building permit submission.

Okay, thank you. The applicant. Okay, come on up. Identify yourself and add anything you'd like.

My name is Phu Tran, and I don't have anything to add.

How long have you lived at the house?

About three years.

Well, it looks like a much more functional addition to the original house, and... I'll be honest, I really didn't have any room with it. It goes pretty far into the backyard, but it's in the building setback lines. And I am okay with it on the site plan review, which is right now. But let's go around the room. Richard?

um, no, um, It's a Joe Dawson is my contractor and we planning to as soon as we get approved, we plan to move forward rapidly.

Joe Dolson. So we became involved about a year ago with the framing component of the original edition. And during that process, the edition that you're looking at in the front portico came into the scenario. And so it just really kind of hit a dead end there because By my advice, getting the systems, the plumbing, electrical, HVAC going prior to having this addition approved and in the works would most likely end up being counterproductive. And so that's what kind of stalled it. We got the original edition and got it on the roof, and then it went back to this whole process. I think what ultimately brought it to a halt was just the additional work that The owners want it to do. And

correct. And that was the it was around that time, maybe a little bit prior when the whole sunroom and all that went back through the architectural process. And getting that concept drawn out is, I didn't see it until then. And so that was, like I said, we got the thing under roof and then thought that there was no, and got the windows in. Bricklayer went as far as he could on the exterior, but then it was, in my opinion, pretty big risk to try to start putting other components together inside with the mechanical components Before the addition was approved. Like we couldn't have moved forward to drywall and other things.

In my opinion, until that was done.

I don't know about six months. There's still a lot of like just starting an addition. We have to catch all that up. We got the concrete work and everything else. Yeah.

Well, I will say that it'll be it'll be staffed and and managed to move. But there's a lot of work to do there. So I don't think I don't know that six months is possible. OK,

years. There's, there's very nice folks around there but I've heard the exact same thing.

So I will say that the rest of the house is ready for all the mechanical. The framing is completely done on the original part. But the way we're going to approach it is to get the foundation of the addition, get all the concrete in place, and then get that up under roof and then go back to all of the other mechanical components before drywall.

But again, it's a lot of pieces.

get them to complain about the noise next.

Ellen?

No questions on the site.

Carolyn?

I didn't have any questions either. Thank you.

David? No questions or comments on the site plan.

Okay. You understand the staff recommendation about the outstanding review comments from the city's contracted reviewer shall be addressed as part of the building permit submission.

Yeah, I understand.

Okay. Well, we have a staff recommendation to recommend approval with that condition. Do we have a motion to that effect?

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

All in favor.

Aye.

Opposed? Let's move on to item number two, which is the same address, but the architectural review.

The surrounding area includes a combination of residential and commercial structures. Nearby homes range from one to two stories and are largely comprised of brick and stone. The property of the south is a three-story commercial structure with a stone and steel exterior. The addition would be a single story, which would not increase the massing as viewed from the street and would result in a product smaller than many surrounding properties. The south side of the addition, including the covered porch, would be constructed of a brick matching the existing structure. The west and north sides of the screen porch would comprise a window wall with white cement fiber trim. Concrete stairs with a bronze railing and brick exterior would be located to the north of the porch. The renovated front facade would include a covered brick front entry and new brick pavers. Existing white trim on the roof gable is proposed to be removed, and new black windows with gray shutters are proposed. The existing driveway will be replaced with a new exposed aggregate drive and will be increased in size to better access the garage. Landscaping is proposed on the south and west sides of the addition and will also act as the HVAC screening. The foundation is not significantly exposed on the front, but exposure grows along the side and rear, and the applicant proposes to paint the foundation gray to match the trim and shutters. As proposed, the project meets the material requirements of the ARB guidelines in Clayton Gardens Urban Design District. Staff are of the opinion that the proposal is compatible with the existing structure and surrounding area. Staff recommend approval as submitted.

Okay. Any comments on the architectural review? Okay. I think the street facade really is an improvement with the new front porch and everything else going with it. Are all the windows new? All of them, all around the house. Okay. Okay. As far as the appearance. I thought it looked good. I am curious about the landscaping plan, but we'll get to that when Carolyn has her turn. But Bridget on the architectural.

Ellen.

I do have a question about the sunroom. Is it glass enclosed or screened. There's a kitchen in the house proper and then there is sliding glass doors shown to the sunroom and there's another kitchen in the sunroom. Is the sunroom an inside space or an outside space?

The room with the inside space.

Inside and there'll be a its own mini split unit will heat and cool that space, but it will be separate from the HVAC and be able to sealed off that is an exterior door going from the back of the original edition into the sunroom. So it could perform as a very, uh, I guess, elaborate screen porch because of the amount of glass and be able to open those, but it can also function as, uh, an actual living space, uh, being with the heating and cooling. Did that answer your question or are you asking something different?

No, I was trying to understand why there's two kitchens.

You and me both. Uh, this is, uh, apparently, uh, I never did find out for sure what the different cooking is, but I think my understanding is like there's a lot of prep work that you all do and you prefer to not have that throughout the house as far as when you're cooking to have it kind of separated with the volume of

preparation. To make it, we want to make the house clean so all the cooking, heavy cooking probably outside is Second kitchen is small.

Okay. I didn't know whether or not you were thinking of a separate unit, you know, like a living, a contained living space, studio, apartment kind of thing.

Not like another family.

Not a separate unit. Okay. Instead of we... cooked separately so it won't smell the whole house.

Okay.

So when I was trying to understand, because he asked me when we first got involved and that's what kept throwing me. So the idea is that if someone doesn't want the second kitchen, if they ever decide to relocate, whatever, that room would then be a very nice, it'd be a four season room. It'd be a nice space. Just take the simple kitchen out and you have a really nice space back there. And so that was the objective. And I think they got it as far as what they were trying to do.

Yeah. Okay. Other than that, I don't have any questions. Thank you.

Carolyn.

Yeah, I'm here. I'm looking at the north. No, I'm sorry. On the landscape plan the west side. Are we adding a fence? Um, or a line. I'm sorry. I'm not sure what that red line is right now. Overhead elect overhead maybe, but it's right through a tree. Yeah. Thank you. Landscape plan. Yeah. See the red Is that existing? It's got to be.

There is a fence

back there.

Yes, that's where the existing electric service is. Okay. Someone was

dumb before you guys. Sorry. Okay. Okay.

I'm looking at the north arrow on it is throwing me off a little bit, but what is going on on the north side? It looks like you have a little bit of a slope there. There's a property line, but there's no planting in there. What happens in that area? Well, it's just driveway. There's

no... Does she have a retaining wall there right now?

Or is it just sloped? It's just sloped. from the next house that's just a driveway then

okay but what is the landscaping on the other side of your driveway do you know

just the grass

say again

it's a grass grass

thank you couldn't hear um okay i didn't really have any questions on it um No, I really didn't. I think it looks okay. I mean, I don't know what else to say on it. I think it Looks okay.

Thanks, Carolyn. David?

No questions or comments.

I did have one other question. It looks like the entire original back wall where the West wall has been taken down. Is that correct? That is correct. And the new addition is essentially in place. It is right now. Yes. So what was the structure like when you took that exterior wall down?

It was, well, we addressed it with a large girder truss. Oh. And so it had, I think, three bearing points across the entire width of the house down to the original foundation. So the girder stacked right on top of it, and the old roof system was hangered onto that, and the new trusses were hangered on the other side of it. Okay.

That

answers it. I

didn't see anything in the drawings, but that was previous.

Yes, that's already been completed.

That answers it. Okay. We do have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted, and I don't think we have any modifications to it. So do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve as submitted. Seconded.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay. Well, we won't ask when it will be completed because you've already had that conversation. So good luck with it. I'm sure everyone will be watching it. Got a

reputation.

done. Say that again?

It'll be a good addition for both the house and the neighborhood when complete.

Okay.

Thank you.

Well, thank you.

Okay. Well, we've moved right on to the discussion session, and that'll be about the PCARB annual report. And Ryan, are you going to lead that off?

So this staff board just kind of gives a summary of the changes between the 2023 and 2022 calendar years as far as applications that have come before you guys as the Planning Commission and Architecture Review Board. There was about a 22% increase in the number of applications. Architectural review is still the biggest one. As a share, that's slightly decreased, but we did see a lot of other applications, notably PUDs more than normal and those associated applications that typically includes. There's usually plot applications and site plan review and such. And then there was also additional text amendments that occurred over the past year.

When you put this together, if anyone... either here or on the Board of Aldermen, requests. Do you have all the backup information available to them if they're curious about it?

Yeah, this was just generated from the full spreadsheet of all the applications and identified where they were, what type they were, the meeting date that they were reviewed at or when they applied. So there's a lot of data behind it folks are interested in.

Well, in our case, we all have the agenda items. And if people keep anything else, we know. But I was wondering about the Board of Aldermen. They could have that information. Well, this is clear and concise. Bridget, any comment?

And we do, I will just for the context. So Ryan has the full spreadsheet, but just last year is the first year that we created an annual report in citizen serve our permitting portal. So that's why we only compare it to last year. In all the annual reports prior to that, there was more of a manual poll that was done to track everything. And so it's not exactly consistent with how we're able to do the electronic polls now. So that's why

Going forward, we'll see much more consistency.

Right. Now the report's the same. And the other element that Ryan did is when he created that summary table for you, the way CitizenServe report polls, it will poll any address that has a meeting date. for a plan commission meeting. So that would mean that a plan development, for example, that came to you multiple times before it got approved, he pared it all down to just be that application type. So the other information that he could provide is how many meetings does it take a project to get approval? Those sort of elements are now in the report. So if we wanted to track that type of a data analysis, Ryan can do it now moving forward.

So we can actually see how many meetings we had to go through for certain projects. We had that ADL on South Central, and I think they were here four times.

Right. So we could, you know, with the spreadsheets, we can break it down in various pivot tables or whatever we might want to do to see on average a single family residential goes this many times or a plan unit development takes this many meeting approval dates or kind of any of that. Or we could look up a specific address and see how many times that was on a meeting agenda.

I think having that information can help us as a large project is coming in with a PUD where we can figure out how long it's going to take and how many.

Yeah, we already do that as a staff level. Usually when we meet with somebody who's doing a PUD or a larger development for the first time, part of that initial staff review is what we'll go over next. And we'll kind of give them an estimate to help them with their timeline on how many meetings it typically takes for that type of a project and so on. So we're already kind of using that data.

Sounds good. Helen?

It's information well presented.

Marilyn?

Agree with Helen. Looks great.

David?

Looks great. Thank you.

Do we need to vote on this? No. Good. I'm sure it would pass, but thank you for the effort and for explaining all the backup information also. I think we're getting a much more in-depth amount of data now, so. Well, let's see. Helen, any further comments?

Nothing further.

Bridget?

No, nothing further.

Carolyn?

Nothing other than I might hear our Starbucks is coming back on Hanley and Whiteown. Last I heard.

Maybe David can help us

with that.

Yeah, nothing definite at this time. I know that the

reached out to the media and said, hey, I'm going to fill this space. But there's no timeline associated with it.

I had heard Summer, and it was a franchise of Starbucks. Franchise owned.

Yeah. Without the

media.

We didn't have anything concrete just yet.

Okay. Well, I hope that space gets filled. I'm going to start crying if it doesn't.

Okay. We've had a lot of rumors over the past couple of years since they closed, but Bridget, I think your comment was the most appropriate. Yep. Brian, anything

new? So I actually had folks reach out to me about that space, about Starbucks going back in. It hasn't been anything as far as like getting the process started, just general inquiries. The only other inquiry I've had about that space is somebody inquiring as to a smoke and vape shop in that space.

We'll leave

that up to

you.

Oh, God. Oh, no, no, no. Nope. Nope. Okay.

Anna?

Nothing.

Stephanie?

Nothing this evening. Thank you.

We do have a meeting coming up on March 5th.

Yes, that's the next. So the comprehensive plan steering committee is March 5th and we've invited back the plan commission and the board of aldermen to join as well. So I know some people won't be able to work that with their schedules, just hearing about it later, but hopefully we'll get a good group again after the success of that last joint meeting.

And I see you've put out the electronic version of that meeting.

Yes, so the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee folder, that shared folder that was online today, made sure it was up to date with all the most recent recordings. And I also shared that with the Board of Aldermen if they wanted to catch up on the recordings as well. So they have it for the last meeting.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

Anything else from anyone? If not, it's one of our shortest meetings. So we are adjourned. Thank you. All

right. Thank you all. Take care.