June 3, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Planning Commission ARB for June 3rd, 2024. Ryan, let's start with the roll call.

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Carolyn Gatiss?

Bridget McAndrew?

Helen DeFayt?

David Gipson?

David Gibson?

Here. Thanks. We have minutes from the previous meeting on May 20th. Are there any changes? Seeing no hands, do we have a motion?

All in favor?

Opposed? Okay. Thank you. We'll start with new business and that's 8,001 Forsyth Boulevard is the applicant here. No? It's an architectural review board on signage. Is it someone?

I am here. I'm sorry. I was trying to unmute myself.

Okay. Good. Well, then we'll get started with the staff

report. The subject property is the Forsyth Point PUT located on the north side of Forsyth between North Brentwood and North Merrimack. A signed subdistrict was approved in November 2022 and amended in February 2023. The applicant is proposing an amendment to allow two additional sign locations, and the signs have come about with a request from First Watch, tenant of 8001 Forsyth. The ground floor of Forsyth Point contains retail base separated from the floors above by a concrete brow. Signs placed on the brow or just below the brow are referred to as retail tenant IDs. Signs placed in the window below the brow are also referred to as vinyl retail tenant IDs. On the west side, at 8027 Forsyth, the retail bays have an option to either select the standard or the vinyl sign. For the east side, 8001 Forsyth, retail tenant may only select the vinyl option. Visually, the eastern and western sides of the building feature the same brow with a window wall below. The sign descriptions identify the retail tenant ID as the preferred sign and the vinyl retail ID as the substitute. Given that the retail signage is present on Brow for the west side of the PUD and that the descriptions identify the vinyl signage as a substitute rather than a preferred sign, staff are of the opinion that allowing the two additional sign locations would result in a minimal visual impact. Staff recommend approval is submitted.

Okay. Joe, do you have anything to add?

No, basically what First Watch is trying to accomplish is to get, I guess, an illuminated set of letters up on that brow, similar to what the neighbors along the building there have and on the other sides of the building. It just gives them a little bit better visibility. I think it doesn't detract from the building since there's already others set up this way, so they're not the first ones in place. The signs themselves are pretty... And inconspicuous as far as they're a black letter during the day and then they light up white at night. So they're not a real bright type of letter either.

Well, having reviewed the sign ordinance, it seems to fit just fine. And I think the building was designed to allow all the varieties in there. I have no problem with the first watch sign. I think it's done in good taste and we're looking forward to first watch being there. So coming back into where they used to be, so I have no problem. So Bridgette?

I also have no problem. Also just looking forward to having first watch back. And like you said, I think it's just kind of mimics what some of the other tenants have done in terms of signage. So thanks.

Ellen.

I think it looks fine. I guess it occurred to me why wasn't it done initially? It makes sense. So no problem.

Carolyn.

Okay. David? No comments or questions. Okay. We have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted. Do we have a motion?

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you, Joe. Thank you all. Have a great evening. You too. Well, we've very quickly gotten down to item number two, the Clayton 2040 Comprehensive Plan. And this will be a public hearing, so we'll open it as a public hearing now. And then, Ana, I believe you're taking the lead.

All right, so I'm going to go through a summary of the document that we have here. And I'll kind of breeze through this and then we can entertain any questions that come up for the public hearing. So an overview of comprehensive planning, the goal here is really to comply with the Missouri statute that requires a city plan for physical development of the municipality. The city of Clayton has been operating under the citywide comprehensive plan that was adopted in 1975 with updates in 1989 and then again in 2010 with the adoption of the downtown master plan. So this took a step back and looked at the city as a whole. A couple of things to remember with comprehensive planning. So we're looking at the current community's outlook on the future. So comprehensive plans are somewhat a moment in time in that we're gathering engagement from people that live here now, but we're trying to plan for future generations and businesses and what our goals are there. So we cover, generally speaking... fiscal related goals. We look at the natural, the built environment. And then we also brought into the fold under this plan, which differs slightly from our previous plans, a little bit of the social, cultural and regional environment aspects and what are our goals looking like there. But really at the heart of the comprehensive plan is land use planning, that physical development. And so that's why it ties a lot back to the plan commission who under the Missouri statutes will actually adopt the plan rather than the board of aldermen. So the process began in April of 2023 with the existing conditions analysis, and here we are in June of 2024 wrapping up. So we went through essentially four phases, starting with looking at where we are today, and that resulted in the existing conditions report, which is available on engageclean.com. Then we really dove into community engagement, which lasts throughout the entire plan, but phase two really focused on that. gathering, talking to a lot of people, understanding what the vision is and what aspects of land use planning we wanted to dive into for a little bit more analysis. Then phase three was again looking at that land use planning, future land use maps, identifying some of our goals as it relates to physical development, and then ultimately creating a final plan for draft comments and review, and then hopefully adoption. So overview of the community engagement process. So, as I mentioned, this really has lasted throughout the entire project. We had a steering committee that was developed and I'll really thank all of the members of that steering committee and involves representatives from the plan commission, as well as some of our other existing committees, sustainable advisory sustainability committee equity commission. And then other just at-large community representatives that worked for the entire last year on a lot of meetings. And so that was very helpful to connect us with different stakeholder groups and other community members. We have a website where we did online surveys as well as just general comment posting. And we got over 4,500 visits to that site total throughout this process, which is really great. And out of that, we had 923 what they call informed visitors. So those are people that either downloaded information from the site, completed a survey, posted a comment. And I will mention that only one of the three surveys was actually online. hosted through the Engage Clayton website. So all the participants of our second and third surveys would not be tracked in that 923 informed visitors. And then we also hosted three public houses. Those were the larger events at the Center of Clayton, two of which we hosted in conjunction with Liberal Community Master Plan. We had three ward meetings. So Ward 1, Ward 2, and Ward 3 met separately with attendees to really dive into the kind of goals, the concerns, the vision for And the issues facing those wards individually. Pop-up events were how our consultants were able to meet with a variety of people who maybe weren't necessarily there to engage with the plan. So we attended art fair. We worked in conjunction with some of the city's other hosted events like the Cardinals home opener lunch. We went and had a day where we tabled at DeMond Park and so on. And then we also had specific committee conversations with some of our existing, um, commissions and committees here at the city. And then our consultants also did additional focus group and stakeholder meetings. So a big part about engagement is how it led to our 2040 vision. So the engagement is broad, and this is something that I've spoken with some people about, especially the board of Alderman looking at what the plan says. So when you're engaging with a community, you, a lot of times maybe have 30 seconds to speak with somebody. Maybe it's two minutes. maybe it's a multiple day conversation. But for those shorter conversations, we really need to keep it broad with those and then interpret what the concerns or the vision or the goal out of it is. In our engagement, we cover a broad variety of topics that people think about when they think about their community. It might be housing, but it could also have been safety. It could have been city services, recreation, all of that. Really took a lot of those broad conversations and try to focus them down into seven vision statements. So the goal here is if you said in 2040, Clayton is a vibrant, safe and welcoming community where everyone feels they belong. So this is where we translated the larger general engagement throughout the process down into seven vision statements that we'll come back to throughout the plan. And then we need to dive the vision into what our objectives are. So the plan is oriented in objectives and key results framework. So the objectives are really those goal statements where we want to be, and the key results are the tasks or the activities that you're going to do in order to reach those goals. So we organized our objectives. There are 17 total objectives into four categories. First category is housing and neighborhoods. This category has four objectives and 18 key results there. The highlights of this really the themes under housing and neighborhoods have to do with preserving and enhancing diverse housing options. So we heard a lot about a strength of Clayton being how people can go through multiple phases of housing. Maybe they start an apartment and move into a single family house or they have the opportunity to live in a condo. All of those different options are one of the strengths. And then we also at the same time heard a desire to continue to build some of those that we don't have a lot of, such as maybe the attached single family. We also heard a lot about the need to address affordable and attainable housing options. So how do we protect maybe the more attainable housing price points that we have in the city today? But also how do we encourage more to be built for other populations that might struggle to move into our community? prioritizing neighborhood identities, really taking stock in how neighborhoods feel different across the three wards and how do we protect that from either areas that are experiencing a lot of demand for new construction as well as those areas that maybe just have smaller infill or renovation projects on their housing. Sustainability is a theme throughout all four of these categories. So really prioritizing and enforcing some sustainable principles within our regulations. And then a large other theme within our neighborhoods is the safe, connected, and service neighborhoods. So how people interact getting to maybe the small commercial node that's adjacent to where they live in the residential areas, as well as just the general safety being a large positive that our community feels for choosing to live in Clayton. Commercial development and the economy is the second category. There are six objectives and 25 key results within this category. Some of the themes here are really promoting a development of a variety of scales of retail. So we talked about retail, office space, really diversity in terms of what the price point is for those different ones, as well as the size or maybe the the uses that are being supported by those new developments. There's also really a desire for vibrancy and attractive and creative corridors. How do we use our public spaces that are adjacent to our commercial areas? How do we activate them as well as what the buildings might look like, the materials and character of those? There is a desire to really make sure that we have a resilient economy and how do we diversify our revenue base. So this is an area where the kind of physical and land use development starts to coincide with some of our fiscal goals as a community. Enhancing the commercial and residential transition. So really being mindful and thoughtful of how we physically develop when it's residential right adjacent to a commercial district. How do we transition between those two? And also enhance the connections to really... bring neighborhood people down into the commercial corridors, but also protect them to a certain extent. Another theme that's really highlighted within the plan is treating downtown Clayton as a neighborhood as opposed to just commercial developments with a generation of new residential units within our downtown and that continuing to be a trend. How do we change our outlook on the spaces within our downtown Clayton area? And then also looking at our regulatory consistency. So what are our zoning codes say and how does that translate into the development process that people are participating in? The third category is transportation and connectivity. So there are three objectives in this category and 14 key results. A big part of the transportation and connectivity that we heard is really supporting walkability within our downtown areas. So how are we using Again, how are we planning the public spaces, the sidewalks, outdoor dining, those aspects? Capitalizing on our transit access with both bus and metro. And right now, looking at the existing conditions data, it told us that a lot of people who live in our community or work here are not using that as their source of transportation. But how could we plan in the future to try and encourage that to be a bigger source of how people live and then also developing a multimodal city so within this category i will note that there's also a few of our key results that really refer people back to the goals that are being developed in the liberal community master plan that's where those consultants are taking the deeper dive into a pedestrian planning bicycle access planning and so we want to make sure that our land use regulations on private property reflect the goals of that plan So that's where you'll see maybe less specific key results in this category of the plan, but that doesn't mean it's not as important to our community members. It's just that most of the deeper planning for that topic is being done in our other plan. And then the final category is community character. And this category had four objectives and 14 key results. And this one, we heard a lot of people talking about how are we a regional leader? How do we work with our neighboring communities? How do we with our institutions and other organizations that are located within Clayton? Promoting dynamic cultural activity. We heard a lot about the events that Clayton provides for the community and really encouraging those to continue on strengthening some of our academic and educational relationships. So similar, how do we take advantage of some of the key institutions and organizations that are located within our city? planning for a sustainable future, and then also prioritizing some historic preservation. This relates to our neighborhoods, our commercial corridors, everything, but really just taking more of an evaluation of that character. So just going to go into a couple of those themes a little bit more. So downtown as a neighborhood is a really significant theme in a lot of the different categories. It comes up in obviously the commercial development and the economy section, but also in community character. So here we're really highlighting those additional housing units. It was clear that the ones that are being constructed today, people still feel that continuing to prioritize and allow housing units to be developed within downtown is a good thing for our future. So how do we look at what our regulations say today? Are there any barriers to that or that we can remove? How do we continue to encourage it? But then also how through our land use development code, can we encourage some of those other amenities or other aspects of development, that physical development of downtown that helps support the the neighborhood, additional opportunities for gathering? What does our pedestrian infrastructure look like? And how do we support kind of this multi-generational aspect of downtown Clayton? And so you can see on the diagram here, it calls out some of those objectives that would directly relate to downtown as a neighborhood, but also keeping in mind how those connect to our fiscal goals. How do they connect to decisions that we're going to make in our built environment? But also, again, that other aspect that's newer in this comprehensive plan compared to our previous ones where we focus on that social, cultural and regional environment. So some land use code themes, a huge part of the comprehensive plan relates to our land use code, which includes seven chapters. So that's zoning regulations, overlay districts, subdivision regulations, all of those. So a big theme here is really looking at four categories when it comes to land use code. So we have bulk and size, design and architecture, environmental impacts, and then attainability and affordability. So the themes touch when you look at the land use code for these themes, there's a few ways that we can highlight to approach you know, implementing our plan. So when we look at bulk and size, a lot of what came up, we think about the transition areas. What's the height? What's the density requirement? How did neighborhoods, maybe it's a residential neighborhood transition from single family to multifamily. How does a commercial area transition to a residential area? And then also that bulk and size when it comes to infill development for residential It could be a tear down of the house and rebuilding a new house. It could be building on a vacant lot, but a lot of it comes into that height in that transition zone. We also talk about building setbacks. Creating plazas in our downtown was something that came up quite a few times in various ways. Again, relating back to how do we promote vibrancy? How do we promote opportunities for gathering both spontaneously and more planned through events? But then also building setbacks come into play when we think about our historic subdivisions. So looking at neighborhoods that were platted out, a lot of our neighborhoods were originally platted as private subdivisions and then eventually became turned over from a private subdivision to part of Clayton's right away. And so how do we reinforce some of those historic patterns of how those neighborhoods were originally plotted within our codes. And then density comes into play, similar to what I was mentioning before with those transitions, but also parking requirements. Design and architecture looks more at our materials. So there were discussions about how we might look at some of our guidelines for architectural guidelines a little bit differently depending on the front of the yard versus the rear of the yard or the neighborhood character and where we're developing things. that historic preservation comes into play where there are some neighborhoods that would really like to have more strict regulations, but there are other ones that do not feel that way. As we go through the process of looking at implementation, identifying some of those patterns in different areas of the city. Environmental impacts, this is a big topic for pretty much across the board in the city, especially when we look at our residential neighborhoods. Stormwater has become kind of a larger topic that comes up more regularly now, looking at our lot coverage requirements and our green space, and then also tree preservation. When we did the very early engagement we asked people a lot you know what do you why do you move here what do you see the benefits of moving in clayton and tree preservation the the large trees and the shade and kind of that picturesque walk down the sidewalk in our residential neighborhoods that came up time and time again so really making sure that we're on the development side protecting and enhancing those aspects And then attainability and affordability is another area that came up both from a commercial standpoint as well as a housing standpoint. And so looking at what tools we have at our disposal from zoning code, but then also as far as incentives we might want to use or when we might feel that those are appropriate to help close the gap for some of our affordability. So land use code themes, thinking about all that I just went over. Depending on where you are in the city, there's going to be a little bit more of a lens that's either going to look heavily at the new construction side or the preservation side, or maybe a mixture of both of those, depending on what's happening, the context of that area. So kind of mentioned that before, some areas there maybe isn't as much of a distinct character existing today. And so how do you address what we want to see in built in the future with setbacks or density, other things without that clear character, but then other areas, there's a very well-defined sense of how the structures appear both in their size, but also maybe in the materials and et cetera. So maybe preservation becomes an important aspect of those neighborhoods. Yeah. The next section, the larger section within the plan is our future land use map. So that's what's up here. Future land use map really creates the base for our zoning district regulations. So when somebody were to rezone property, part of what we're looking at is are they rezoning to align with our future land use math? When we evaluate all of our existing zoning districts, we're gonna again look to see how those zoning districts relate to what we've identified for our future land use maps. But you can see that it is very generalized, large categories of land use. So people kind of what I mentioned on the previous slide who live in one area that has a single family land use designation might interpret single family to mean something very different from a different neighborhood. So that's where our zoning code starts to come into play and identifying maybe a lot size or using other tools to reinforce some of those historic character where we want to or establish character where we need to. So to help provide another layer to what our future land use designations are, since they are pretty general across the city, we created a form and connections map. And this is where we layered a lot of what we heard feedback from the community that will really help us tailor our zoning code. So identified on the map is just kind of a general density meter. So it doesn't put any actual density numbers to anything, but it helps us identify where some of those important maybe transitions are going to have to be. or where we might support more density, as well as the building height. So a lot of what we heard is the community tends to support kind of the existing patterns. So we don't have a ton of land that is just open and ready for redevelopment, but we wanna make sure that our, zoning code will then reinforce some of those existing patterns as infill development happens. So the darker areas of blue is where we kind of identified some higher density, and then as it goes more towards the white color, that's the lower density areas. We also identified for building height because building height and density are a little bit different sometimes. So we identified those. We identified the activity nodes that came up from residents during our engagement process and where we kind of wanted to center activity. Then we also emphasized some connections. So there were some, especially in our ward conversations, we heard from some people about neighborhoods that they live in and how they want to emphasize their connectivity to other maybe it's a amenities that the city has maybe. it's a park, it could be one of our activity nodes so we kind of highlighted where those important connectors are. But then we also highlighted the gateway so that's slightly different so the connectors are how we're we're looking at areas of the city. And how they might connect to other areas of the city, whereas the gateways are how we're bringing people from outside of Clayton inside to maybe an activity node or a commercial corridor or something similar. So for implementation, really, it's going to fall into four categories. Regulatory, so that's the biggest tool for this. That's our land use code. So those are regulations that are also then adopted by their codified. So they have an enforcement mechanism directly within our municipal code. As a plan commission, this is where a lot of your tool of implementing will come from as we rewrite some of our zoning codes. Policies, that's going to fall more into the category of the key results that are going to be the Board of Aldermen's responsibility. So policies are usually going to go through them and less likely to have policies really adopted by the plan commission. And those are going to be slightly more enforceable than guidelines because of how they're often attached with some sort of approval process that the Board of Aldermen has. Then we'll have guidelines, which you all are very familiar with. We use that for our Architecture Review Board to help facilitate architectural review. So looking at those preferences and priorities, but these are not codified. So there's more flexibility that's allowed through adoption when we create those guidelines. And then there's also a category that I would say some of our key results fall into with studies. And this is where we're going to need to do a little bit more analysis for those specific ideas before we are ready to actually implement them. Or they might be related to the livable community plan, which goes through a process for capital improvement projects and whatnot. So the implementation matrix, I'm not going to go through all of it right now, but that is at the end of the plan and it outlines all of the objectives and key results. A big part of this tool is that it's going to be used by city staff and our mayor and board of aldermen on kind of an annual basis to help us identify objectives Out of the 71 key results that we have in this plan, what are we going to tackle on an annual basis? And then also kind of track how we're doing as far as it goes for implementation. So in the matrix, each key result is laid out and it identifies how that key result relates to the seven vision statements. So it will help us kind of see, you know, is this key result important because it touches on a lot of them or maybe it highlights one really well? So it really just is another tool of how do we compare some of these key results. We also identify potential timelines that consultants have recommended for various reasons, maybe ones that they recommend us tackling first, ones that are going to take a little bit longer. They might require more of that in-depth study or analysis before we're ready. And then also who should be the responsible party? Who's going to be the primary kind of staff usually working on that? But then who are our partners, which might be boards and commissions within the city or other organizations that we could work with to implement that. And that was my very quick overview of the comprehensive plan summary.

Well, I'd like to thank you for that summary. I thought it was excellent. I went through it late this afternoon when I found it and compared it to many of the notes that I made in the big 180 page plus comprehensive master plan. So I really thought that the summary was terrific. But I also have to say that I thought the master plan itself was fantastic. I think it really captured the desire of all the people that gave input to see where we're going. But I think I... said one thing I had a problem with last time, which I still have, but I know there's no answer. And that's the implementation matrix. I still find it extremely difficult to get in my head how it's going to be implemented. And I realize that the staff is really going to be leading us through that over a long period of time. So I know the work is cut out for everyone here. But I think it's terrific. Before I saw the summary, I went through and relating to the four objectives, I think they were called. I had a whole bunch of things, but just to summarize it, I was looking based on the large plan, sustainability, rehabilitation, preservation, and related to that also you can go into affordable housing. I think you've really... gone into all of that, as well as the impervious coverage where you've heard me say I think we need to lower it. And then one of the very last things you brought up was incentives. And I think that there are probably places where we can think about that. It was under the land use code themes, grants and tax incentives, maybe something that could help us sustain, preserve, and rehabilitate more of our properties. so um I think we're in good shape and uh am eager to get it moving into the implementation stage but let's see if we have any other comments Richard

um I mean I would certainly Echo what Steve said Anna thanks for the wonderful summary um I think it was a you know it it certainly you know gave us. highlights in and it's it's obviously hard to condense the what is a hundred and 70 page document down into you know, a short presentation. But you did a great job. And I think, too, Steve, I echo your concern about the matrix. It is difficult to digest. I think one of the recommendations that the consultants certainly said is it is something that has to be, you know, it will be something that will be certainly discussed. most looked at and, you know, implemented by staff. But I think it will be great to look at it, make sure that we're touching on the plan on a yearly basis that the Board of Aldermen and Plan Commission every year will kind of think, okay, now what did we accomplish this year, which I think will be a great way to kind of revisit the plan every year. and start checking off boxes on that implementation matrix. So we can kind of look at it and be like, this is what we did this year and let's see what comes next. So I think that'll be a great way to at least touch base. So we are keeping track of it so that we're starting to implement some of the things that our community wants, that we heard our community wants. So I think was great. And I just want to say it was a great, I'm really pleased that I was on the steering committee. I thought it was really interesting. It was great to hear from so many people and be involved in the events. So Ana, thank you. I know that it was a lot of work for you and Ryan and Hobie. But, you know, I know it was a lot of work for your staff. So I thought the consultants did a great job, but thank you very much for kind of spearheading that. I know it was lot of work, but I was very happy to be a part of it.

Ellen?

Ditto everything that was said. Ana, you did a great job this evening condensing, I believe it was 186 pages. I went through, initial response was kind of like, I'll print it. And then I looked and said, no, I will print the implementation matrix. The PDF of the whole thing is on my computer. But I think the implementation matrix, as overwhelming as it may be, I think it's excellent. I mean, it's very direct and you can visually see, okay, this is the time frame. This is green or no, it's red or it's orange, yellow. I think it's well presented and really makes it more user friendly from my perspective. i think this everything else led up to it but this is the key to moving forward so i think everybody did an excellent job and you know i'm looking forward to the implementation

carolyn

I did create an Excel version of this. Yes. And I've kind of added additional columns, started showing that to the Board of Aldermen at their annual retreat a few weeks back. So yes, we've expanded some more columns that I think will help us be more user friendly. And I expect later this summer, we'll go over as the plan commission then kind of what our implementation steps will be for this coming year and our goals will be, uh, and we'll monitor it on an Excel moving forward.

David?

Before we open it up to public comment, I'd like to thank, of course, our staff, Anna, Ryan, Hobie, and certainly David also, but also the Board of Aldermen, and especially you, Bridget, for sitting on both boards. That's a real time-consuming job, as I well know. But I think our professional leadership is really superb. And it's been, I think, about 40 years since we did a comprehensive plan. And it's about time. And we haven't been able to get it going in the last year. 20 years that I'm aware of. So I congratulate all of you for bringing it to this point. We're not finished, but we're at a point where we can really begin going forward now. So I thank all of you very much for getting us to tonight. So any comments from the audience? I know, come on up and identify yourself.

Hi, I'm Steve Kissel 521 West Polo 38 year resident. I applaud that we are doing a master plan. Maybe the school district should take a clue and do the same thing. One of the things, so it seemed to me the land use didn't change a lot. in general. I get the corridors and the entry points and all of that kind of thing, and those are pretty planning documents. I spent six years at HOK. I saw tons of those kind of arrows and circles and things like that. So that's, I mean, that's all good. I like it that we haven't planned on being critical at all, but it's like the one you stayed the same one of the big questions i have is anywhere in this is there a discussion of the future of office because it seems to me in 2040 downtown Clayton and the office buildings are there will be empty. I worked in the railway exchange building for two, eight year terms and it's empty. My wife worked in one bell center. It's 42 stories and it's empty and that's downtown St. Louis. Hopefully that's not Clayton, but at the same time, It seems from a master plan land use standpoint that office, there needs to be some serious thinking about that. And if somebody wants to build an office building anymore, and I know we just had a few built, we'll see if we have any more, but when they're built, it almost seems like they need to be designed to become condos someday. One thing about one Bell Center, I worked for HOK when that building was built, that is never going to be anything except maybe someday it'll be dropped. So Big open floor office buildings that have cubicle type spaces don't turn into condos very easily unless somebody owns every floor. I don't know if that's the future of One Bell Center. So that was one thing I wondered about. Another thing I wondered about is affordable housing. I'd like somebody to define affordable housing. I can't afford to live in Carswold, but I'm very happy on Polo Drive. I love that we try to do all that sort of thing and incentivize it, but I really would like somebody to define what's affordable in Clayton because one of the great things about Clayton is you buy a house somewhere else, and then as it's said in the discussion, you work your way up. You get an apartment. You get a house. I used to work in Clayton at the County Highway Department. I used to walk on Polo Drive every day, just at lunchtime, just to get a break. I never imagined living there, but I bought a house in the city and then found a wreck on Polo Drive and fixed it up. So I guess I don't understand the idea. I think you have to work hard to get... affordable housing in Clayton. And that's, you have to earn kind of that affordable housing in Claydon. So I guess I'm a little confused by that term. Another thing is sustainability. I don't think tearing down any house in Clayton is very sustainable. We're gonna see, I live on Polo, we have 52 homes, we've torn, we will be tearing down our fourth and I hope we never tear another one down. And that's something that you do talk to in here, the conflict between new construction And you said something about certain neighborhoods really don't want to see new construction. I don't want to speak for everybody on pole, but from my point of view, I don't want see any more new construction after we get this new house that we're going to get someday. I was amazed still hasn't started yet after all the big rush. But so I guess I would love to see the code get, as you mentioned, stronger on impervious area, keeping houses in scale and that sort of thing. So there's one big thing out of the master, but if that comes out of it, if some revisions to our zoning code come out that keep more houses in Clayton that fit in the neighborhood and are somewhat historic standing and less being torn down for something new, I think that would be a great gain out of all of this. One final thing, There is a separate committee, Mike Malik started it on transportation and I've been out of town every time they try to meet amazingly. That's still a sidebar to this and it's on walkability and sort of how to make the city more bicycle and pedestrian friendly. Is that still going on?

Yes, so the Louisville Community Master Plan is focusing on biking and walking plan for the city as well as parks and recreation.

Okay, because the meetings have not timed out well for me, but I would love to go to another meeting of that committee. I made the first one and then they've had two since. And that's a separate subset of this big master plan.

It's really a parallel plan, so there's another group of consultants that are leading that one. And it's not finished yet? It is not finished. They're working on their draft, the first draft now.

Okay, so I will be glad to participate in that. Well, I'm glad we have a master plan. What will it take to change the zoning code? Will that take the Board of Aldermen? Will that take The Planning Commission? Will that take staff?

So that's going to take the next year plus probably for us. I think we're going to likely tackle that in pieces, but that would go through our text amendment process and then potentially rezoning, depending on if we do change districts or zonings. But that will require public hearing with the plan commission and then ultimately would go to the Board of Aldermen for adoption.

Okay, so to change the impervious area as Steve talked about would be basically an ordinance, I guess, or a revision to an ordinance. Okay, well, thank you all very much. I appreciate that it was such a crowded public hearing.

Thank you, Steve. Have we had any hands up from online participants? No? Oh, okay. Hello, Linda.

Hi. Hi. I'm Linda Auburn, and my sister and I own 6607 Clayton Road. Our family has owned that since 1938. So we know that it is a high point historic preservation district. And when you talk about community character, our biggest concern is the redevelopment and the mixed use of the old CBC, now Washington University piece of property. It is much higher and it was built up many years ago when they put CBC on it. And we're concerned of the height of the buildings that will be in the mixed use. And if they will bring that high area down to street level to put the buildings in, it's going to make it like a canyon and that it remains in a historic preservation area that we're not going to have some ugly buildings in there, that's our biggest concern. We don't know if they will tear down the old CBC building and what they're going to put there. That's our biggest concern because when you go down to San Benito, that area is very low. And if you put three and four story buildings on the current land as it sits now, it's going to look like they're in a canyon. And it doesn't affect our property, but we've always been very concerned about the area since our family will continue to own that property for many years to come. It's generational. We have families still living there. And we feel that we want to make sure that That whatever you do with that Washington University CBC area is in character of the area itself. That's our big concern. Do we know what zoning is going to go in there?

No, through this plan, we do not. We've identified it as mixed use, and that's about as detailed as it gets other than some minor discussion generally of height and density in that whole area, that corridor along Clayton. But any process to actually zone that would be a future discussion.

Okay. So we don't know what the height of buildings will be in that area? No.

No, I mean, there's current regulations if somebody were to redevelopment and then there's the existing buildings. But through the comprehensive plan process, we won't go as far as to specify a specific property with a height. We talk generally about heights in different areas as a tool to help us when we get to the phase of implementation. But right now, we would not designate a height in the comprehensive plan for that property. Okay.

Linda, this is Steve. To follow up what Ana was saying, I think we try our best to look at the context of the neighborhood that any development or redevelopment will go into. So as we look further into that, if and when we have an actual proposal, I think keeping context in mind will be very important. And of course, your property is very near that. So we understand your concern.

Right. And we appreciate that because, as I said, our families own that since 1938 and we have seen all the redevelopment. I'm 75. And so we've been there a long time and have history with that property. And we keep that property improved. So, and it will stay in our family, as I said, for many generations to come. So we are concerned what goes in there. We appreciate the fact that you will look at that as this all becomes redeveloped.

Okay. Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Were there any other hands up at any point? No.

Okay.

Okay. Well, are there any other comments from the Plan Commission? Or any others from the audience? Okay. Well, we do have a recommendation that the Plan Commission, well, we've conducted the public hearing, and I guess, do we need to go over the resolution? or just approve it. I assume we've all read it, right? Okay. Well then do we have the resolution?

Yes. I move to approve resolution PC 24 dash zero one, a resolution of the Clayton plan commission adopting ratifying and endorsing Clayton tomorrow, 2040 comprehensive plan as the city plan of the city of Clayton, Missouri.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Do we need? We're fine. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. I think we've gotten to a major milestone in this process and now we'll be able to get to work, which is very good.

Yeah, just thank you all. And another thanks to the steering committee who put in a lot of time over this last year.

I think our consultants also did a very beautiful job with it and we're ready to go. Also, we'd like to thank Kevin O'Keefe for gracing us tonight. Thank you for coming. And let's see, Helen, any comments?

No, not tonight.

Bridget?

No comments.

Carolyn?

David? Nothing tonight. Ryan, any words of wisdom for the future?

I expect the next one to be pretty short. There's only one item I know of. We have a, as you guys might be aware, there's a few items going through site plan review right now. I do not expect those based on the current level of revision to be around for the next June meeting, possibly July though.

Anna?

No, no comments.

Any words of wisdom from you, Kevin? No. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. The public hearing is closed. I sort of forgot that, but we're adjourned.