July 1, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Planning Commission ARB for July 1st. If you have any electronic gadgets, please silence them at this time. Before we begin, I'd like to welcome Jim Arsenault as the newest member of the Planning Commission ARV.

Thank you to this large crowd who came out to support me today. I assume that's why you're all here?

So he will be one of our seven people. We are down to tonight, but we still have a quorum. So we'll get started. Ryan.

You've looked in film here. Bob Dylan here. Helen to fade

Kami Waldman

Amy Waldman

Jim Arsenault here.

Jim Arsenal here.

Okay. We have minutes from the previous meeting on June 17th. Are there any changes? Hearing none do we have a motion.

Motion to approve the minutes.

all in favor. Opposed okay, thank you will move into new business of the first item is 7817 Forsyth Boulevard is the applicant here. Tyler, are you?

I believe he's online. He raises his hand.

Yeah, I'm trying to get mine. Yeah, hi, my name is Randy. I'm a land surveyor with Stock and Associates, and I'm here to talk about the lot consolidation if need be.

Okay, we'll get started with the staff report first. Okay, Ryan.

7801 and 7817 Forsyth are located on the north side of Forsyth between Beamiston and Central. The properties are zoned high-density commercial and developed with single-tenant commercial buildings. Both properties are owned by M1 Bank and would total 24,860 square feet. Staff are of the opinion that the proposed consolidation is consistent with laws in the surrounding area. Staff recommend the plan commission recommend approval to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. One, that the applicant provide a mylar for the appropriate City of Clayton signatures per the subdivision ordinance requirements after Board of Aldermens approval. And two, that the applicant file a plat with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds Office and submit proof of the filing to the city within 30 days of Board of Aldermans approval.

Okay, thank you. Randy, any further comments? No, none at this time. Thank you, though. Okay, then I do have a question. This, in effect, will make an L-shaped piece of property. Is that correct?

Well, that's how it does look to me, too. There's an L-shaped peace there in the middle, and, well, the upper right-hand corner is not part of it.

Okay, but the large rectangular portion is also owned by M1 Bank. Is that correct? Yes.

Property go from North Central to the alley over to probably an older strip of land. But there's one upper right-hand corner piece that's not part of the subdivision, not part of the consolidation.

I don't believe it starts at North Central. I believe it starts at the alley, roughly a third of the way east from North Central.

Oh, I see that now. I'm with you. Yeah, you're right, sir. Apology.

Okay, so what we're talking about is the L-shaped that starts at the northwest corner of North Beamiston and Forsyth and goes west and then goes north up to the east-west alley.

Correct.

Okay. And then the parcel in the crook of the L is also owned by M1. Was there any consideration to consolidate that into the proposed L shape?

Not that I'm aware of, no.

Tyler, do you have any

comment? Yes, I can add light to this. You are correct in that all three parcels are owned by M1 Bank. The proposal that you're weighing tonight is to consolidate the other two. The reason why the third property is not included in this has to do with regulatory issues that are larger than... local things, the FDIC in other words. And I don't fully, I'm not a banker, so I don't fully understand all of this, but I do know we discussed this with the client and for reasons that the entity that is left out here is you'll notice that the title of it is different. It's M1 Bank Shares is the owner. And it's a different type of entity. It has to do with some of their processing stuff on the backside, not so much a public bank branch per se. The rest of it is more the public realm. We will be coming to you in a couple weeks. We're on the agenda for the property that we're talking about, 7817, which is the old wine merchant building, because that is going to be the kind of second phase of the construction that is happening outside the window right now. That building will be utilized as additional office space, kind of making a campus. I mean, the whole block is the M1 campus, but the ownership has to be kept separate from those two entities due to federal regulations.

Okay, thank you. Well, that was my only question, but let's

go around. Bob? Tyler, so the bank's going to consolidate these buildings parcels, and you say they're going to be making a campus, what's going to happen to the wine merchant building itself?

That building will be turned into additional offices, additional kind of part of the staff that's going in. We've been calling the main building the headquarters building, the one that's under construction now. The other is... We don't really have a name for it other than it's additional. It's just additional

space. Is this building facade going to be the wine merchant facade? Is this going to be preserved in whatever remodeling you do? Do you even know?

You will be very happy when we come in a couple of weeks, when you see it, we are preserving and restoring the exterior front facade. And we are doing the same with the sides, enhancing it in some ways by adding windows that it doesn't have because it was a always considered, you know, like a slot alley building. So we'll be adding windows to the side. But all of the limestone and the historic presence of the front will remain. We're cleaning it up to a degree. There's some damage and some other things. But the idea is We planned all of this, all three buildings. We always knew it was going to be a campus. So we came up with a palette of materials that would be consistent across all the buildings. The owner very much wanted them to look like they go together as a set but are not all the same. As you may not be able to perceive it right now under construction because the sidewalk barricades are still in place. But if you look behind those, the entire base of the headquarter building has a brick kind of base to it that matches the building on Bemiston, the other one that's left out of this. That base language will be continued to the wine merchant. It's already kind of started there. But limestone, brick, and glass are the three main materials.

Well, I'm very impressed with what you've done already with the bank building, so I'm looking forward to what you do with the remainder. Thank you. Ellen?

Jamie?

No comment.

Jim? My only question is, what is the purpose of the consolidation? So like what are you able to do by consolidating these lots that you wouldn't be able to do if they were separate?

Part of it has to do with circulation. I say almost all of it has to be with circulation, but then also kind of treatment of facade. There are two things that you'll see when we come in a couple weeks. We are adding to the building the one modification I said we weren't changing it. That's slightly not true. The one modification we are making to the building will be in the back to add an exterior kind of balcony on the second floor. And there will be a staircase that comes down to tie it all together because there's an event space in the Beamiston building. And so it all kind of flows together. That staircase is going to cross the property line. part of it. Also, in order to clean up that building, the lower portion of it was never really meant to be seen. It was always below grade. And now that we have done the work to the other building, we put in that parking garage below and we kind of lowered the deck. It now has an exposed side to it that doesn't look very good. It was underground for many years. And so we will be adding a planter bed to that that's all brick to tie in this kind of brick-based concept. that will actually be on the other property. So most of this consolidation is because in order to really tie it together, we need to cross the property line in a couple places.

That's

right. Okay. Are there any comments from the audience or from anyone online? If so, come on up or raise a hand. Do we have anyone, Ryan? No. Okay. Since there are no other public comments, we do have a staff recommendation. Randy, are you still there?

Yes, I am.

Do you agree with the two conditions that are in the staff recommendation?

What were those two conditions about the staff recommendation other than getting my plats filed in on time, you know, like the 30 days after your approval? Well,

that's basically it.

Yeah, we're on the design team. We're ready to go.

Okay. Well, with that, we have a recommendation to approve this to the Board of Aldermen.

I second this then.

Sure.

Second.

All in favor? I posed. Okay. Thank you, Randy. We we've gotten through it. It will move on to the next item number two, which is 118 South Hanley Road. And is the applicant here or online? No, no hand up. Okay, well, let's hold this off till the end of the meeting. Let's go to the next one, which is 120 South Central Avenue. And is the applicant here or online? hey jim can you hear us yes i can okay we'll start with the staff report ryan

the subject property consists of the southern half of the block bounded by uh south beamston south central and bonham avenue the property is owned high density commercial and is developed with a commercial office building The applicant is seeking to replace existing ground signs on the site located at the southeast and southwest corners. New signs would be slightly larger with a total area of 20.82 square feet, a height of six feet, and space for six tenant names. The signs would be double-sided, made of aluminum, and have a black and gold color scheme. Ground signs are limited to one per property. However, staff have the opinion that the signs will have a minimum visual impact given that they will replace existing signs. As proposed, signs meet the size, material, and placement requirements for new ground signs. Staff recommend approval is submitted.

Okay. Jim, do you have

any comments? No, not really. Just our client, which is a sandstone group, is looking to update those signs and kind of bring them a little more up-to-date.

well they definitely are more up to date compared to what's out there right now and I think they'll be more striking with the two colors on it so and the locations are going back exactly where the current signage is so I have no problem Bob I don't have a problem either

Amy

Jim. No issues for me. No issues. Okay. Any comment from the audience or online? No. Okay. We have a staff recommendation to approve as submitted.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, when will we see the sign in place? It'll probably be six to eight weeks. Okay, good luck with it and

thanks for coming in. Okay, thanks

guys. As the applicant for 118 South Hanley come in, No? Okay. Well, then we'll move on to items four, five, and six. Oh, okay. Randy?

Yeah, I'm trying. Hey, can you hear me now? Yes. Yes, I'm trying to represent item number two.

Okay. 118 South Hanley?

Correct. That is correct.

Okay. Let's start with the staff report.

The application consists of the consolidation of 112 South Hanley Road and 118 South Hanley Road are located on the east side of Hanley between Carondelet Plaza and Colorado Avenue. The properties are zoned high density commercial located in the Clayton Plaza overlay district. The parking lot for 112 South Hanley sits on the north side of the site and is split between the two lots. Staff are of the opinion that the proposed consolidation is consistent with lots in the surrounding area. Staff recommend that the Planning Commission recommend approval to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. One, that the applicant provide a MILR for the appropriate City of Clayton signatures per the subdivision ordinance requirements after Board of Aldermen approval. And two, that the applicant file apply with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds Office and submit proof of filing to the city within 30 days of Board of Aldermens approval.

Okay, thank you. Randy, I don't see any problem with this. This seems to be something that maybe should have been done years ago. But do you have any further comments?

No, they're trying to combine those two lots into one parcel.

Good. And it's the same conditions as in the previous one that you spoke. So do you have any concern about that? No, we're good with those conditions. Thank you. Okay.

Bob? No comment. No problem with the consolidation. Ellen?

Amy?

Jim? I don't have any problem with the consolidation, but I would like to say the front planting bed of the property has become quite overgrown and be nice if the applicant or someone in ownership could get that cleaned up a little bit.

Thank you. Randy, could you convey that to the proper authorities?

Absolutely. I wrote some notes down here for everybody. Thank you very much for your time today. Okay.

We have a recommendation to approve to the Board of Aldermen with the two conditions. Second the staff recommendation. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Thank you, Randy. Thank you, everybody. Have a good day. PB, John Gerstle:" Okay, now we'll move on to items for five and six. PB, John Gerстle:" And then all of those are at 139 North Emerson will begin with the minor subdivision plat and we'll start Ryan.

So this report for a subdivision of the subject property submitted in conjunction with staff reports for site plan and architecture review. The property is located on the west side of Bemiston between Maryland and Pershing. Site is zoned R3 and contains a single family home. The project includes the demolition of existing structures, subdivision of the lot into two 50 foot wide lots and construction of two duplexes. Lot sizes on North Bemiston are largely consistent with some outliers. Majority of the 31 lots fronting the street have a width of 50 feet. As proposed, the subdivision complies with the requirements of the R3 District and staff recommend that the Planning Commission recommend approval to the Board of Aldermen with the following conditions. That the applicant shall revise the signature blocks to reference the correct year prior to the Board of Altman meeting. Two, that the applicant provide a mylar with the surveyor's signature and the property owner's signature for the appropriate City of Clayton signatures per the subdivision ordinance requirements after Board of Alderman approval. that the applicant file a plat with the St. Louis County Recorder of Deeds Office and submit proof of filing to the city within 30 days at Board of Aldermen approval.

Okay, thank you. Tyler or someone else?

would you like to do them all at the same time or just the lot well

uh this is really independent of the site plan review and the architectural review so uh I think we need to go ahead with this alone

no problem I can split the presentation let me go ahead and get it up on the screen

All

right, well, good evening, everyone. It's nice to see you. I'm Tyler Stevens of Core 10 Architecture here on behalf of my client, Doug Cohen. And we have three items, as you know. So this just gives you a general case. Everybody doesn't know the general area of what we're talking about. Maryland and central is kind of the edge of downtown just across Maryland is the old town neighborhood. The lot is located there in the yellow square. So you can see that this is just a block off of Maryland to the north and That general area. This is an existing photo of the lot as it stands right now. The house, it's right there in the middle, has a single family on it that is... I was going to say it's original, although I don't know. I assume no house was built before this on that lot. This goes back to the origins of the neighborhood, which, as you can see here, this diagram shows on the left the original plat of the... neighborhood, the lots were all kind of set out for single family houses. Number five right there is that is the lot we're talking about. And you can see it has a house located on it. This is why I said I'm not sure if it's original because this house shows it right in the middle. But the other the existing house is kind of off to the right. But the whole neighborhood was kind of set up this way originally. The next graph over here shows the lots as they stand today. You can see that almost all of the lots have been split into two, which is very much what we're, it's the same thing we're talking about. And if you want to ask the question of why, which is always the first question that comes to my mind. Why has this been the pattern of the neighborhood? My kind of educated guess has to do with the zoning, as it's written. The zoning which came into place well after that house was built was And I think actually, I'm going to say that the zoning was after 1988. I don't know if, Ana, you know exactly when the zoning was put in. It doesn't really matter, but it's relatively recently. It allows for one and two families. That's kind of the way this zoning is written. And the lot sizes are such that splitting these lots in half has always made sense. The third diagram on the right is the number of properties that have two families. Because as I said, the zoning allows for one or two family. Those in the red squares just on this block, there are others on other blocks, but are two families. And so what we are talking about is taking that lot there in the gray, splitting it in half and creating two family structures next to each other. They do kind of work in concert, and we'll get into that later in terms of the site plan review. But as for splitting the lot and the pattern in the neighborhood, it's very much the precedent that's been happening for many, many years, and we think is in keeping with what's there. That's it. I can go on.

I know that.

I mean, just this diagram here gives you an idea of what would happen, what we're going to be talking about. If you split the lot, what is the result? So this shows two structures. These are the two structures we will be proposing and their general mass. The interesting thing that you can note about them, which we'll talk about more in detail later, is that they're kind of, it's two, I don't know what you'd call it, two rectangles that have kind of a chunk out of the middle. We'll get to why that is, but if you just look across the street, you see another building with a chunk out of To the north, there's another building. This chunk is out of the corner, but it's on the side. The next building has a chunk out of it. Again, you want to ask the question, why? Why does this keep happening? And we'll get to the answer to that. But the point is that the resulting building you will get by splitting these lots is very much in keeping with what's been happening over the years.

Well, Tyler, the way I understand it is we can split this 100 foot wide lot into two 50 foot wide lots without having any consideration for what's coming next in Items 5 and 6. We'll deal with those later. But apparently, the Plan Commission has that right with approval by the Board of Aldermen following our approval. I don't see any reason that would stop us from splitting it into two parcels. and um but let's see uh what our other members say bob

um i i never like um subdividing land until I see what the game plan looks like, so to speak. I mean, there's definitely the trend to split in two pieces. And as Steve says, that doesn't mean you approve the project itself, but you're accepting the trend. And I guess someday, if the project doesn't succeed, then you can always put it back together. But the trend definitely is to subdivide the lots. You very successfully showed that trend in your earlier chart. And that's all I have to say. Helen?

Okay.

1976? In 1976. 131 and then across the

And you put them together?

Oh, no.

it.

Sure.

Well, I'm glad you brought up the 1976. Is that the date? Because the reason why I said 1988 is because there's another building that we'll talk about later that's a larger, a larger condo building that takes up several lots, and it was built in 1988. So that's why I assume the zoning went in after, because... That means that that building was an exception to the

Yeah, on the corner.

numbers, but I'll trust you.

plus. Sure. Amy.

You're amazing. I just had a quick question, I guess, for Ana. When we were looking at that 33 Dartford Avenue, we weren't able to divide that flat because the requirement was 60 foot wide. Is this just because this is a different zoning? Yes, this zoning district allows 50 foot wide. Okay. Good to know. Yeah, I mean, I guess when you kind of see like the trend that is being set, I think this does make sense. And again, I agree with everybody that it's good to know the plan forward. So I'm okay with it.

Jim? I don't have any comments that anyone else hasn't made yet.

Are there any comments from the audience? And please remember, we're only looking at the subdivision of this 100-foot wide lot. When you come up, please give us your name, your address, and keep your comments short.

My name is Patricia Kiesel Sutherland. I am the owner of 143, which is the front half of the duplex, which you can see two buildings to the north of his red ones. I'm also representing my parents, Lorraine Kiesel and Larry Gooden, who own the back half of the building, so that between us, we own the whole building. One thing I want to make sure everyone is aware of is that the reason why our building has that notch that Tyler was pointing out was that it was originally designed to have a mirror building similar to his design at 130, at 141. So it should have been a mirrored situation just as he's proposing. The second building was never built. And the lot was sold off. As a result, the driveway was originally put in prior to the sale of the lot. And there is an ongoing encumbrance and easement between the two properties. Tyler is right. There are five standalone two families on Bemiston. But again, they're standalone right now. There isn't a shared driveway. It's only our property that I'm aware of that has this ongoing issue with the property to the south that was developed later. So I just didn't know if that was of note as far as subdividing it before knowing what the plan is. Thank you.

Thank you. Other comments? Any online comments? No? Well, we have three conditions recommended for approval. If there are no further comments, do we have a motion?

Just to do a comment, Steve. I think there's some... I think there's a consensus. There is a trend to subdivide it into 50 foot lots. I think the only question is, do we want to hear, is it relevant to hear the plan for the subdivision today? And the answer is probably no, they can subdivide it. They can subdivide it,

but some, I moved to like a legal opinion. I

already got one.

Oh, okay.

You know, this is yes, this is no. I can read what she says.

Bob, are you finished?

I'm done with comments.

Before we go ahead, we have one more hand.

Oh,

okay. We need to record you. All

right.

If you could come over.

I'm Suzanne Forsythe. I live at 159 North Central. And back in 1974, we bought three lots. Each one was 50 foot by 160. And at that time, Mr. Gelbach, who was, I believe, acting as a planning commissioner or something, said that we were moving into the only R3 district in the city of Clayton, better known as Old Town, mostly occupied by the people that were taking care of the government, which was in the center core. Now, my question is, by a single house being on a 50 by 160 foot lot, is required to have a five foot setback. I would like to know if it's a duplex or two family, how much of that lot is able to be used rather than spaced? Do you understand, Steve, what I'm saying?

It is the same setback, whether it is one or two family.

So then there would be grass, ground. I would like to know how far they can stretch the envelope on that lot is what I'm really interested in.

Well, they can stretch it to five feet from the adjacent property line.

And then what would it be to the back line?

I'd have to look.

But you understand I'm interested in how big an occupied space that would be on a 50 by 100 compared to a single home.

Well, it's the same envelope. allowed. Okay. I don't, I can't see the

setback. The setback, it gets a little, the rear yard setback is a little bit different in the Sony district because if you don't occupy a certain percentage of your buildable area, your rear yard setback has less. So in this case, which they'll get into in the site plan review there, there's a 32 foot rear yard setback,

but

it's the same single family or duplex.

Thank you.

Steve, can I take up your offer and ask the attorney? Sure. Stephanie, if we were to go forward and approve the subdivision, it is not relevant at all as to whether we approve anything subsequent to that.

That's correct.

In terms of what kind of building or house would be built. Is that right?

Right. And so what you're doing here is just approving the subdivision of the one lot into the two lots. What they do with those two lots going forward is a different question. And there's also a different standard of review for the commission. What we did do is make sure that if they decided not to build on both of the lots or leave the house on the one, that subdividing the lot did not create a nonconformity by the existing structure. So right now the existing structure appears to comply with setbacks and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but would comply with the setbacks as the lot is subdivided. So by subdividing, you're not creating any kind of nonconformity. So they could choose to leave the house on the one lot and build on the other lot, or they can choose to go forward with their plan. Just subdividing the lot does not dictate what's going to happen next.

Thank you. Anything else? Ellen?

Yeah. I don't see any prohibition in doing that.

Amy, anything else, Jim? No. Okay. Oh, we do. Okay.

We know who it is. Now you had your hand raised.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes, I just wanted to say that that's one of the most beautiful houses on that in that whole area. And it should certainly be considered in approved taking this first step and approving the subdivision is the first step in demolishing a piece of history that can never be replaced. And it seems the crown jewel of that street and could be kept and preserved and rehabbed and made into something even more glorious than it already is. So I just wanted to speak up a little bit for the sake of that beauty. that nobody wants to see get torn down because it's something that makes Clayton special.

Thank you for the comments. Could you identify yourself for the recording?

Yes, my name is Jenna Greentree.

Okay, thank you.

Let

us have your address also.

I used to live, I currently live in California. But I used to, I grew up in Clayton.

Well,

thanks for calling in. You're welcome. We do need an address for the record. This is for the public record, everyone that speaks.

424 French Avenue, Grass Valley, California, 95945. Thank you. You're welcome

Any other comments or online? No. Okay. We have a recommendation to approve to the Board of Aldermen with the following three conditions that were read in the staff report.

I second the staff recommendation. All in favor?

Aye. Opposed? Okay. We can now move on to item 5, which is the site plan review. And we'll start with Ryan again. So

a full description of site plan review criteria may be found in the staff report, but I will summarize some of the key elements. The area contains a combination of single-family and two-family homes, and the proposed duplexes are permitted in the R3 district. HVAC units are proposed on the roof and trash storage is proposed between the duplexes. The R3 district limits impervious coverage to 55% of the lot area. The coverage is proposed to be 58.6% for Lot A and 58.1% for Lot B. The applicant is requesting additional coverage per Section 405.204.B, which states that in instances where an applicant can demonstrate just cause, the Planning Commission shall have the authority to approve a modification of up to an additional 5%. The applicant is proposing the use of a permeable paver system by Turfstone. While pavers are permitted, the zoning code does not include them as a method to meet coverage. The zoning regulations establish coverage requirements to prevent an overabundance of coverage, manage stormwater and ensure the preservation of green space. The recently adopted comprehensive plan identifies the community's desire to reduce lot coverage and masking of new structures to reduce the impacts of runoff from heavy storm events and more closely match the historic character of neighborhoods. Pervious pavers are not recognized as pervious due to their variable permeability, largely dependent on maintenance and specifications of the pavers. If the pavers were recognized with a permeability proportional to their open area, they would measure as 60% impervious. And if this was applied to the paver areas for the driveway, both lots would have a coverage of roughly 54%. Per Section 405.204B, the Planning Commission must find that the applicant has demonstrated just cause. The property is rectangular and relatively flat aside from a slope towards the street. The property does not appear to demonstrate any unusual geographic features. Project is not limited by existing site structures due to their proposal for demolition. Additionally, there is no mandate that the proposal be of a scope which requires more than 55% of the lot to be covered. Staff are of the opinion that the applicant has not demonstrated just cause. The proposed runoff for lot A is 0.51 cubic feet per second, which is an increase of 0.07 cubic feet per second. The proposed run off for lot B is 0.51 cubic feet per second, Low wells are proposed connecting to downspouts and pop-up emitters. An inlet in the center of the driveway would be connected to a pop-up emitter in the front yard. A note on C1 states that a pump failure may result in ponding into the garage and basement. The applicant has stated that this risk will be communicated to buyers. Staff are of the opinion that the proposal should be revised such that the circumstances of the site would not require mechanical intervention to avoid ponding in the garage and basement." Existing canopy coverage is 69,262 square feet with 63,902 square feet to be removed. The plan proposes adding 5,500 square feet of canopy coverage to the remaining 6,465 square feet and this would result in a total of 11,960 square feet of canopy coverages which is 7,005 more than required. The plan exceeds the native species required with 77.8% native proposed. Staff are of the opinion that the circumstances regarding coverage and stormwater do not meet the criteria for approval of site plan review and recommend that the item be continued to a later meeting to allow the applicant to consider revisions.

Okay, thank you. Tyler?

So the site plan, as you can see here, this gives you some context in terms of the rest of the neighborhood. You will note we're talking about setbacks and impervious areas. Those are kind of the two main things in site plan that the massing of the building is not any different than what you see in other buildings surrounding it, with the exception of the house next door, which is an original. Well, I don't know if it's original. It's a single family. So it has a Different massing, but you'll notice if you look in terms of other buildings up the block setbacks. In fact, this one's even longer. The one that was referenced somebody owns here. So it's in keeping with that I'll describe the I mentioned before the notch and why it's there that gets very much into both impervious and setbacks. This diagram shows the lot itself. And the way the... Ana alluded to the fact that the setbacks are a little bit complex in this neighborhood. Typically, you would have a set front yard and rear yard setback and sides. The front is measured by the average of the street, which is what we have. It calculates... We're actually... 10 inches further back. Not that that matters for anything, but basically in line with the average. The rear yard is what's flexible. So the rear yard is called out to be a set distance, which honestly I can't remember if it's 35 or 40. Oh, it's a percentage of the depth, right? But anyway, the way the zoning reads is that if you only occupy 80% of the buildable area, then you're allowed to reduce the rear yard setback. Again, the question is why? Why was their zoning written that way? I think it is very much in keeping with what the city was wanting to do with this neighborhood in terms of two families, one and two families being allowed in here. And it has followed the pattern all along. The hatched area that you see here, if I draw a rectangle, represents the buildable area. You'll notice that we come in a little bit in the back, but the main thing is this notch. By doing a notch in the middle, you're not building 100% of the buildable area, you're kind of reducing the mass of the building in such a way. And by doing that, we're allowed to shorten the rear yard setback. So what you see here is the result of that, which still keeps into the zoning setbacks. We are not asking for a variance or an exception of any kind. This does allow this notch to happen. Now, the advantage we have, and it's very nice that this was teed up with the lady that spoke about the other house where it's paired. By having a paired set of buildings like this, if you mirror them, you can have these notches across from one another and utilize this as a shared driveway and what I call a parking court to kind of get into the garages. There is a reason. I think that this is just better architecture for the city, and it's towards the goals that you're really trying to achieve with regards to impervious area. as it's been explained to me over the last 22 years. And those of you who have been on the board at least 22 years, which maybe Steve qualifies, I don't know, you might know that I have been bringing this up with the staff and the board countless times of projects over those last 22 years. Because the goal is to produce more, not only runoff, you know, controlling runoff. That's one thing that ties into MSDs kind of directives of what is pervious and impervious, but then also to preserve green space in the city of Clayton. And I've made the argument before, which I'm going to make again tonight, that by doing this, By having a shared driveway in the center and a parking court, that allows us to keep more of the front yard green. If we were to like right now, as we propose, we're over the 55 percent. However, we're below 60 and you as a board are allowed to have some leeway between the 55 and 60 percent in terms of an approval without it being a variance. If we were to get under the 55, if you were to say, no, you have to do that. The way that we would do that, and pretty much the only way to do that is to eliminate the parking court and have two driveways that go right into the front of the buildings. This is a pattern that you've seen in several other buildings in this neighborhood where you have a large driveway. It is wider than normal because it's going down to two car garage typically and takes up a lot of the front yard. It's two curb cuts instead of one curb cut, which is not as good for pedestrian traffic. And it eats up more of the front yard so you have less green space. Now what does it get you in return? It gets you green space in the notch in the middle, which is nice, but I would argue is not appreciated by anyone other than the people living in the building. It is my opinion that it is better to put green space in front of the building on the street where everyone sees it. This argument is something that, as I said, I've made this before. I don't understand why the city of Clayton does not consider pervious pavers to be part of the calculation. MSD certainly does. In fact, MSD pushes for them and is something that, in my opinion, would be good. However, I'm not trying to get you to change the zoning tonight. I'm simply bringing it up and showing you that we just recently in 2019, which was just a few years ago, made this same argument over on Alamo. There are some townhouses that were just completed on Alamo. This is a picture from there. This is almost the exact same condition. And at that time, we had the same kind of proposition to the board, which is that if we take away the pervious pavers and parking court, that's what's causing us to be over the 55%. But these are pavers. As you can see, it's kind of a concrete lattice that has... You can do a number of different things. You can do it with gravel or you can do it with grass even. We actually proposed grass in this project to the board and you all, the board, I know that it wasn't you who were members there, I don't think, in 2019, but... The recommendation was to approve it with gravel, not with grass because it was deemed like it would last longer. People were afraid of the grass dying as cars were driving over it. But essentially this makes for a better solution and allows the water to go through and you, the board, approve that extra 5% on this project. As I said, same condition. It also goes to the note that the staff brought up in terms of potential lower level ponding, water going downhill and these driveways are sunken. So that's always a concern. By doing a pervious paver like this parking court in front of the garages, you eliminate that concern. Water would not pond here any different than it would pond in a front yard. of grass. Now I know sometimes water does pond in a grass yard, but the point is that that is considered pervious surface for all of that. So I think that it's a good solution. It was done here. It's working very well. I think it actually produces a better look too and is why we're talking about this. I would rather, as I said, put the green space out in front of the building rather than in this court in between. The last thing, though, is the sniff test. If you were to do all this, what do you end up with as a massing? And when we look at the massing compared to the other buildings along the block, you will see that it does not look out of place. The only building that looks out of place, ironically, is the single family that's next door. Everything else has been changed. I did not make those changes. They have been happening for years. So that is the pattern of the neighborhood So in terms of the site plan, the setbacks, all of those, we feel that this is a good solution. As I said, it brings less curb cut, more green space up front and allows this parking court to have some drainage through it that alleviates burdens with MSD and is in the center of the property. If someone were to say, well, that's not a good look, I'd rather see all asphalt or concrete which in my opinion is a lesser look, it's not something that is appreciated from the street. Those are my, yeah, that is my presentation of the site plan only.

Okay. Thank you. Of course, I think we all have certain concerns with this, but we are looking only at the site plan right now. There is certainly contextualism within the neighborhood that we'll be getting into in the architectural review, but it also fits in a little bit here with how many large developments we're going to have on the hairs of 50 foot lots. Now there may not be that many more to do in the future, but my concerns really are about the impervious coverage, the water drainage that you're talking about, the overall density and of course the landscape design also, which we'll need to get into. But basically I do follow along and agree with the staff report on the impervious coverage issue and the potential flooding that could occur. And I certainly understand and respect your statements, Tyler, but also about the just cause, whether you have demonstrated it or not. And I do go along with the 55% of the lot to be covered and do not really see reason to go beyond that at this point. The stormwater runoff also I think really needs to be looked at again for our purposes. The other thing, uh, Ryan, I may need your help on this in the landscaping. The, uh, existing canopy is 69,000 square feet plus with 63,000 plus being removed. I couldn't do the mathematics to come up with how, um, Only 7,000 square feet more is required, if you could help me on that one.

Yes. So the requirement is actually not based on how much is there today or what is removed. It's the percentage of canopy coverage that's required based on the size and the zoning district. So in the R3 district, and I can pull it up, there's a percentage of canopy coverage it's required for the lot. And so that number, the 7,000 you're talking about, is what would be needed to maintain compliance with that minimum canopy coverage. So it's not actually related to how much was removed.

Thank you. So when we, I'm sure you've seen the eight considerations for the plan commission. And I'm not sure that our site plan really accepts all of them. But most of them really are for the architectural. And that includes special features, preservation of architecturally or historically relevant structures, architectural styles, a creative approach to using the land, which I think you certainly have, and creation of a desirable environment. And if you'd like to address any or all of those, I think everyone would like to hear it.

Well, I'll go back to what you just said there, creation of a desirable environment. The majority of the buildings that I have done in Clayton are over in the Topton-Brighton neighborhood. And that neighborhood is an urban design district that has its own regulations above and beyond the zoning. And in those regulations, there are some things that I... Personally feel make for a really nice neighborhood. They are one of the big things that it talks about is garages talks about the idea you get extra your impervious is based on where the garage door is located. If you put the garage door on the side, if you put the garage store in the back, you get bonuses to your impervious coverage. I personally I think those are fantastic rules. And if you look at the Topton Brighton neighborhood, you will notice that all of the development which most of that neighborhood is also new. Very few of the original structures remain. And in my opinion, it's a very wonderful environment, very walkable. You don't see big expanses of driveways. When I come down here, one of the things that I don't think is as nice here is the fact that you have many new developments with large driveways in the front, sloping straight down to a below-grade garage that has big doors facing the street. Now, as I said before, that is the way you meet impervious because it's a much shorter driveway. You enter as soon as you can right into that building. And I don't think that that is the best design for the buildings. That's not why we did not, you know, go that direction. As I said before, if you, I guess if you all think that that is a better design for the neighborhood to the point of what you just said, you know, character of what's there, we can do that. I honestly think that a shared driveway with an entrance on the side where the only people that see the garage doors are each other, you put all of that in a nice little parking court hidden from the street is a better approach. It makes for a much longer driveway, however, and so that's why we get into this impervious issue. We were trying to solve it with pervious pavers. And this board has in the past agreed that that is a good approach, as I mentioned with Alamo. And that's why I'm asking here tonight that in terms of approving the extra above 55, we're not talking about going up to 75 or 80 or some massive amount. We're still within the confines of what you all can approve. And by doing that with the condition that it has to be pervious pavers, I'm not asking, we would not say, oh, you approved it, so now we're going to change it to concrete. You can place that condition on us, that we have to have pervious pavers be maintained, all of the regulations that go along with that. And as I stated before, I think that makes for a better plan, more green space up front, put the... less, put the non-green space inside the project where no one sees it.

Okay. Well, going beyond that, let's go around and see other comments. Bob?

Tyler, the shared driveway, I actually like it. I think to make something pedestrian friendly as you walk down the street, whether it be Bemiston or Linden or whatever, the idea of walking past a garage door, you know, 15 feet away from you, 20 feet away from you versus walking past, uh, a living room windows and dining room windows. There's just no comparison. And the fact that, uh, the driveways, um, often are steep and, and, and short, uh, which does nothing for the pedestrian experience.

Or the front facade of the building. Excuse me? Or the front facade, which gets into architectural

review. So in terms of aesthetics, a shared driveway offers some real benefits, as you discussed. Anna, what I don't understand, why does MSD have one policy and Clayton has another? on impervious or pervious.

There's a lot of things that we will have that as a municipality, you can modify how we approach certain regulations. That's something that we're going to, when we redo our zoning code in the next year, we'll debate more and discuss and determine what's best for us. But MSD is looking at things on a much more of a regional scale. And so a lot of their regulations are not looking at things on the level of impact that we see when we're talking about a 50 foot wide lot compared to entire watershed basin. So that's where some of the differences come into play.

At the same time, like Steve said, I do have some concerns for the stormwater runoff as the staff report discussed. So I think there's still maybe some work to be done. But the idea of the shared driveway, actually, I'm of the opinion it can work.

We have our civil engineer here. If you'd like to hear more about how the water is being managed, it's not that we're just going to let it roll down that hill and disappear into the ground. We do have stormwater management. We have drains, pumps, all of those things, if you'd like to know the specifics.

There's some other people who want to give comments first. Helen.

So one thing just to point out to make clear, you're right in terms of there's a lot of land currently there right now. And you were saying that currently it floods onto your lot. The mere act of us building a building, we're talking about only a five-foot setback on that side. So now the amount of water, rather than being all the water that rains into the yard flowing down towards your yard, we're just talking about a five-foot strip of land now, which is where this 0.07 or whatever, it's a very minor amount. The rest of the water hits the roof. The mere act of putting it there and we pick it up in a gutter. By picking up that water in a gutter, we can then take it away from your yard and handle it. So if anything, this improves your situation.

yeah so i'm ryan holmes i'm from voles incorporated the civil engineer on the project um So currently, I'm going to elaborate a little bit on what Tyler's saying, what I think you're stating. So a lot of this, this yard is kind of split from kind of southeast to northwest, the drainage area in that western side all. runs to what I understand to be your property. Under these proposed conditions, we've got a larger impervious footprint, slightly larger, right? However, where now we've just got this five foot side yard that's draining south towards your property, we're We're taking all the runoff or all the stormwater that's hitting the footprint of the building, and we're piping that, the gutter downspout to the front yards. And that's going to go into this drywall system. dry well is discharging towards bemiston so nothing nothing is getting towards your property at that point however should that dry well fog up or anything it's it's in the front yard where it's going to overflow into bemiston it's not going to come south so when you look at the grades on what we're proposing how that front yard is elevated up there that's where we're discharging kind of in Each lot's got their own separate system that's being by the downspouts. That's going to discharge through a pop-up in the front yard and drain sheet flow towards the street into the public MSD system.

That's where it's picking up the downspouts coming down the side of the building. So that's the high point in the line. So it's flowing, it's running along the side of the build towards the front yard. So that pipe is picking up the rear corner downspout and piping along the side of building to that front yard drywall system.

ahead, I'm sorry.

We do have, so there is a small area outside of the building footprint and outside of that rear terrace. So basically the southwestern corner of the property, basically that five-yard setback and then the rear corner, that southwest corner, where today, present day, it drains towards 131 North Bemiston. And then that will continue to drain towards 131 North bemiston. However, the overall area that's going towards that property is much reduced because a large chunk of that that drains towards 131 today is is now going to be within the footprint of the building which is coming towards the front yard via that six inch pvc that you were referencing

The dry well does daylight. So that six-inch pipe enters the dry well system. And then it allows for that infiltration, the volume that we're giving it. to meet the stormwater regulations that Clayton has in place. And then it does daylight out whatever does not infiltrate through into the soil and the system. It does daylight out, but it daylights out in the front yard and sheet flows towards the street.

Correct. Yes.

What you are getting at is correct. There is not.

That is overall for that lot.

Yeah, that doesn't mean 0.707 is additional towards your property. That means for that specific lot, that is the total. However, the majority of that is coming towards the street.

Yeah, the reason for... We did have an increased amount of grading that we were showing previously. However, in order to meet some of the tree preservation and things like that, we have largely eliminated a lot of the grading in the front yard, and we're holding the existing grades in place. But in the

have to look, but... I mean, I think largely we're trying to hold the existing grades. There's only so much you can do in six feet.

we've put up C3 so that everyone in the audience can see what's being talked about also. So, Helen, if you and Ryan could refer to this drawing, I think it would help.

nothing. Grade lines are all there through the whole property, but there's nothing to show there because it's not changed flat.

They are all on it. Wow.

The rain comment, I hear this

on almost every project because runoff is a big concern as we get more and more deaths. And I can tell you that because of the regulations of MSD and because of the regulations from the city, any time we build something new, the rain gets better because we have to pick up all that water and control it. The fact that we are building across the site improves your situation immensely, because right now it's just runoff from the yard, a rather big yard. By putting our building there and picking up, having an entire drainage system that has been designed, we will solve your problems. The amount of water going to your lot, instead of being whatever large square footage it is now, will be greatly reduced to just this one little corner.

an increase.

That increase calculation is based strictly on impervious versus pervious coverage and does not take into account any mitigation measures proposed.

down. That's not true. There is an elevator and everybody has an entrance off of that parking court. There are garages that you pull into, and there's an elevator inside that is unique to each unit.

Sorry, ma'am. If you're speaking, you have to come up and introduce yourself for the record.

My husband and I own both 127 North Beamiston, which is a condo, and 151 North Beamiston, in which we are remodeling. Now, as far as Helen's point, if someone has a problem with walking, whatever, they will not be buying that particular unit. And it could happen to anyone where you own something, you fall, you need a walker, and you can't get into your unit, whatever. That will happen. You go to a rehab unit for six weeks, and then you go home. This has nothing to do with the building. That's all I have to say.

We're only looking at the site plan.

Okay, the site plan. But the previous pavers? Let's just move on from here, I think.

Helen, did you have more?

Sorry for the public. We're going to go through the plan commission members and then our chairman will open public comment. Thank you. Kami?

I guess I just have a question about the impervious coverage. Why are we not just making the building smaller to meet the requirement? Like how much... Please speak into the microphone if you're going to respond to her. I mean, how much square footage would that take off

your footprint? It takes off a significant amount to each unit. What is that? It's roughly 460 square feet, basically, per unit. So yes, to answer your question, yes, that is another solution. However, we're not going over the setbacks. We're not going beyond the buildable area of the lot. So we just...

But you are going over the requirement of impervious coverage, right? So I would think that that would be, instead of trying to find all these different ways and things, is just to tighten it up a little bit on the...

Well, 450 square feet is a lot.

Sure. These are big condos, right? So I think, I mean, to me, that's kind of an obvious solution. And then just also with regards to like the drainage coming off into the streets, I know you talked about like Topton and Brighton neighborhood. A lot of those families are on those streets having problem. Like MSD cannot keep up with the flooding that's coming down those streets. So those are issues that our city is dealing with. And to your point of like impervious coverage and, you know, or the, I'm sorry, the pavers, right? You know, we get like universal design. So to the point of like, well, not everyone can walk on it. Sure. But I mean, this could happen to anybody, like you said, it's an issue. You want, when you're designing new buildings to take that into consideration. I'm sure you do that. I don't even know, are these ADA accessible pavers?

The pavers themselves? No, they don't need to be because the building is fully accessible.

To get to an elevator, you do not need an accessible path?

You come in by car arriving in your garage.

So anyone else visiting it, it's not accessible?

Uh, no, but that's also not required by code. I

know. I'm just thinking of like

every single family house that's there today is not accessible.

Agreed. But this is a brand new build and you know, like through like the, um, Sorry. Through like the comprehensive plan we were talking about, like when we're, you know, infilling these older homes or infilling these older lots, we want to like look at that and say that, you know, I guess the developers were saying these are for like 65 year old plus people old, you know, and so it's like, what do you do with that if you don't have accessibility to things like that? So it's something that

When it comes to the buyers of these units, I always have to yield to the market demand because nobody ever designs a building specifically for one particular buyer. Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Sure, somebody probably does. The point is that these units have been designed according to the market demand that is there that we're being told by the real estate agents. And the renderings, which we haven't even got to yet, have been public for quite some time. And the reaction has been incredibly positive. A lot of people calling very excited about the opportunity to purchase them. So that was not a hindrance to any of those people. It's a different buyer. As I said, we do a lot of condominiums. Those condominiums are for people who have accessibility issues because that's a totally different animal, not a two-family. Sure. I'm sure they don't all have pavers. Well, they don't have stairs inside either. These units are two-story. Both of them are two-story units. So if you had accessibility issues, you wouldn't buy a unit like this anyway because you wouldn't be able to go from your living room to your bedroom.

Right. Just something to think about.

Jim, we'll get to the audience in a few minutes. Jim?

Yeah, I guess just kind of looking through all this, I do agree with you when you say that a single driveway is a more elegant solution than two front-facing driveways. The situation here, though, is that we're not talking about a shared driveway versus two front-facing the current single-family home that exists versus two units with a shared driveway. You know, the Planning Commission can provide a modification up to 5% of just cause as demonstrated. The city doesn't believe that that threshold has been met. And in this case, you said the hardship in this case is the developer would have to take roughly 460 square foot off each building. So...

Go ahead. I didn't pose that as a hardship because I know it's not. Okay,

I'm sorry. I shouldn't use the word hardship then. What that would cause the developer to do, basically we're being asked to grant that extra 5% so the developer is able to put 400 plus extra square feet onto each building. So I think in these situations, when you're granting that extra 5%, you have to look at the benefits And who's receiving those benefits. And in this case, you have a neighborhood that is taking on considerable more water that's losing 63,000 leaf caliper inches of trees. So I'm just not quite sure that the benefits to granting that extend to the neighborhood rather than extending just to that developer for speculative development.

It was my proposition that the benefits are to the city in terms of a better front yard design.

Tyler, before we open

it up. Oh, Jim. A better front yard design as opposed to what's there right now or versus two front facing driveways? Because our two front facing driveaways, I don't believe is not what we're considering. We're considering. It's allowed though. It is allowed. Correct. But that was something that would also come before this board. What's being considered right now is a shared driveway versus the site plan as it exists today.

Before we open it up to the audience, the 400 plus or minus square feet, is that per each of the two buildings?

Per unit. There are four units total. So that's a total of 1,700 square feet, basically. Which is significant.

Well, that is significant. If it were 400 per building, it would not be that much. So really... It would be about 400 per unit. Right, 460 something. Roughly a 22 by 22 foot square that would have to come out. This is part of architectural, but the stair tower is about that square footage. I don't know off the top of my head, but okay. Four floors, roughly. It's somewhere in that vicinity. So I'll just leave that with you. You have to have stairs to get up to the unit. Yes, you do. I was just looking for where 400 square feet was. And if you take it at four floors, I bet you're at 100 square feet per floor in

that stairwell. But we need 460 per unit. So that would be, you know, 900 or so on per building. Yeah.

Well, we're not here to design it. I'm just pointing out that there are ways possibly to shrink the building. That's up to you. So did you have any other comments, Tyler, before we open it up? No. Okay. We're ready to take comments from the audience. And again, it's only on the site plan review, not on the building review. So when you come up, please give us your name and your address and try to keep everything short. Come on up.

Hi, I'm Mary Kay Wohler, 141 North Bemisden. This is my husband, Mark. We've been at the house for 30 years now. We are on the other side of the property that you're talking about earlier at your place. Every single thing that you said applies to our side of the street too. Our side of the building, too. And we actually are downhill. Look at the way the street runs. We are downhill from where you are. So we get it even more. I have not heard or seen anything that would apply that would alleviate all the gutters and all the pipes and everything else in the world. You can't control with the rainwater.

All that water that's going to go to the streets is going to run down the hill to our house. And I heard the comment when the specs were read, there was some comment made, and maybe I misunderstood, that we're going to notify the buyers that this water runoff or flooding could occur. I forget how it was read. What

was the context of that?

The context is that due to the possibility of ponding, the developer would have to notify prospective buyers of that

risk. It's already got a problem built in. It's existing. I mean, it appears that there's a problem already existing that was going to happen. We've got to notify the buyers of this. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, so...

Hey, thank you. Other comments from the audience? Please give us your name and address first

origin to 24 North Baymiston. My site plan comment does relate to the architectural design. But it's essentially when you're looking at it in the rendering, you have it's massive compared lot size most of those single families are or duplexes are a single lot this is a bigger complex it's more like what you have in central avenue when you have that impervious pavers and then or the pervious pavers you still have hardscape so the overall visual is a much larger complex than what you have with these standalone duplexes and single family So I just think that it's something, and also, excuse me, the size of that water. But I do think that there are things you can do with the design. I like the shared driveway. We intentionally have a rear driveway. We had to give up a lot. We didn't get an extra 5% for putting our driveway around the back. And we took it off our square footage. So yeah, that's an option. I'm not a developer. I built my own house. But I think these are all considerations that should be taken into, the board should consider it as part of the architectural review. I hope that makes sense.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Other comments?

Patty Kiesel, Sutherland 143, North Bemisden again. Two quick comments. You know, when we were discussing the cuts for the driveway, the comment kept being made by a non-resident of the neighborhood that if you were walking down the street as I do multiple times a day walking my dogs, that I wouldn't like the cuts. The cuts still have sidewalks. I'm always on the sidewalk. I would say that what's more distracting and more, I don't want to say dangerous or an imposition are the people that do have the water lifts in their front yard and the waters coming over the sidewalk and then flooding the spaces. And you're having to walk through all that additional water. I also reached out to the MSD engineering department and our company is an environmental remediation company we have vac trucks vac trailers we have a permitted wastewater treatment plant so when it comes to wastewater and storm water we work with companies we work with residences who have their basements flooded by sewers and the engineering department said they haven't been contacted at all about any preliminary site renderings They also said that although Bemiston has two separate sanitary and stormwater sewers, that within a block of the location it is a combination sewer. So by the addition of additional, you know, water into the sewers, whether it be down the street, because of the lack of permeable space. You're risking it may not be a backup on Bemiston, but within a block, the houses that have a combination sanitary stormwater sewer could risk sanitary backup as well as stormwater backup. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, come on, Ryan.

I just want to say, I'm not sure who was spoken to at MSD, but we have submitted. We do have a conceptual review. I can provide the MSD project number if you'd like. Sarah. Sarah Cameron? Okay.

Well, Ryan, if you could give that project number to staff.

We have it. It's on the plans. Did you have

it?

The P number is written on their site plan, yes. Oh,

okay. All right. So that's the P

number. So we have MSD number 24MSD-00.

That's a blanket number that we put on there before we submit the project. So what we've done so far is we've submitted for the conceptual review, which MSD has basically said they have no stormwater requirements on this project. So I'll provide that to staff. and all the stormwater falls under Clayton regulations, so. Okay.

Good evening. My name is Richard Hackman and my address for purposes of this discussion is 314 North Central Avenue. I was disappointed when I heard people in the audience be dismissive of a previous speaker because they resided in California. I too have my primary residence in California, but I also spend two to three months of the year in Clayton. More than that, it's the community I grew up in and a place I still care very much about. If people don't live here, want to spend their time investing in this community and trying to make it a better place, we should welcome that. As for the project, as a child I watched much of Old Town get torn down and rebuilt. That process has had many benefits for the neighborhood and the community. It's also had downsides. The greatest downside that I see is the over-densification of lots. If developers want to build duplexes, they should be allowed to, as long as it's permitted by our code. But we shouldn't grant concessions to further densify these lots at essentially the expense of open space in our community. 460 square feet times four is 1,840 square feet. The clear solution is reducing the size of the development to fit the zoning. Duplexes are already relatively large compared to the classic homes in Old Town and the townhomes. I think the solution here is clear. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Jane Matosian and my husband, Al Van Amburg, who's here with me tonight. We live at 119 North Bemisden. We're a few houses south of the proposed development. In hearing Tyler speak, most of what he was saying was that this is within the character of Old Town. It's not. All of the existing duplexes are one building. They're not two facing each other. And they're trying to unilaterally turn Old Town into, he said, an urban design district, which is what Topton Way and that area is. And that's not what Old Town is. And I kept hearing him talk about the character of Old Town, and this proposal is not in keeping with what the city has planned and the development of Old Town. talk about the water i agree absolutely with what my neighbors have said about the water we have water issues too it's got to go someplace and it has been disastrous for many people we had to completely redo everything in our yard to combat the water that was coming into our home on the lower level because it came downstream from the neighbors, not the neighbor's fault but that's where the water has to go. And this project will just create more problems for the neighbors and for the neighborhood. Thank you.

Steve, I ran some numbers based on the footprint and the lot coverage to Kami's question. So looking at the proposed coverage for Lot A, that's 4,689 square feet. The maximum 55% would be 4,398.35 square feet. So that would require the removal of 290.5 square foot of footprint of building. to comply. And for lot B, it would require the removal of 246.65 square feet of building to comply.

So then that's the footprint. That is the footprint. So if you extrapolate that up four stories, it would be about 1000 square feet per duplex. Is

that correct? Well, the building footprints are not exactly for everywhere, so I wouldn't feel comfortable extrapolating in that manner. But if we just look at the footprint, that's what would be required to be removed. Now, how that would be removed within the different duplexes or the number of floors, I would leave that up to the designer. But Just square footage wise that it could be removed by the deck or anything. If you want square footage to be removed to come into compliance with the impervious requirement, that's the amount that needs to be removed from each lot.

Thank you. Other

comments? I'm Rick Bliss, 7515 Westmoreland. Just a couple, one comment, one question. Tyler has this titled context massing. What's really it should be is maybe is context missing. There are 26 different buildings on this block on both sides total. He shows four or five here. I don't think it's really fair representation of what the neighborhood is like. The other thing that I was curious about is there was some conversation in the staff report about the trash enclosures. And it seemed that what's proposed was much smaller than what staff was looking for. And if there is an increase in the footage of the trash enclosure, that would presumably lend more problems for the impervious coverage calculations.

I believe you're correct.

Thank you.

While Rick just brought up the context drawing, Tyler, we have two houses on either side on sheet A.001. I think as you think about it in the future, we may need to really look at the entire street. And it could be smaller, of course, but I think we might get a better vision of that context drawing. I know that's not really on the site plan, but it was brought up. Any other comments? Were there any others online? Okay. Thank you. Any further comments or questions from the commission members? No. We do have a staff recommendation to continue this item to a future meeting to allow the applicant to consider revisions to the coverage and the stormwater and any other comments that were made on the site plan review. Any comments on that before we call for a motion? No. And I think we're ready for a motion.

I move that we approve the staff recommendation that this item be continued to a later meeting date to allow the applicant to consider revisions to coverage and stormwater.

All in favor?

Aye. One question, Tyler. We think July 15th would be an appropriate date.

It's two weeks. Getting thumbs up from the audience. That would be great for me because I have to be here anyway for another project. And we will certainly take into consideration all these comments that were made. I do want to just clarify one thing before we go forward. Any basement level garage, which this is going to certainly have no matter how we configure this, will be below grade. And Anytime you have a below grade, you have these pump systems that we're talking about. So that's not, I know there was a lot of comment regarding, you know, notifying buyers and everything like that. That's not unusual. And that's not going to be changed because we're, unless we build the garage up on street level, which I don't think anybody wants. So just warning on that, that we will not be changing that pump system because that's just the way it is whenever you go downhill in a garage and

hear that okay okay we have uh

one more item see just for the timeline though just um so that everybody's on the same page if you plan on trying to make that 15th meeting we would need the revised plans by the end of the week so that staff could actually review them yes because our staff reports are drafted next week so timeline wise we in order to respond back to anything they revised Can

we

leave it

then at the applicant's desire instead of a date-specific?

Right. The motion was not continued to a date-specific, so we're okay. We'll work with Tyler based on when he submits.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll move on to item six, which is the architectural review. And again, Ryan,

will you lead off? The property resides in Bemiston subdivision in the neighborhood colloquially referred to as Old Town Clayton. The neighborhood includes a combination of single family and two family homes ranging from one and a half to two and a half stories. The duplexes would be stacked with a shared driveway. The high proposed would For each structure, it would be 2.5 stories or 32 feet 10.5 inches. The property to the north is a single-family home constructed in 1995. The property reaches two stories but presents as three due to the below-grade garage. The property to south is a single- family home constructed in 1918. The property reaches 2 stories with much of the facade presenting as 1.5 stories. The duplexes will present taller than the property to the south but will likely present similar to the property to the north. The proposal presents a unique design that incorporates architectural features less commonly found nearby. The design includes distinct geometry with asymmetrical styling and unreal casement or picture windows. The roof line is bifurcated with the interior facing roof lines featuring a more modern angles, while the exterior facing roof line includes elements of a traditional roof with dormers. The front features horizontal brick accents. The surrounding area features a variety of styles, but largely includes greater elements of symmetry, either form or materials. Roofs are often hipped or gabled with dormers. Windows often incorporate grills and styles include double hung windows, bay windows, and French door windows. Some rounded or more modern windows can also be found nearby. While there are modern styles nearby, they tend to take a traditional form and incorporate more modern elements. The proposed design would be a departure from the character of the area and likely have a significant visual impact. The duplexes are proposed to be constructed of brick with wood siding. The front facade is depicted with large windows with a steel variant extrusion and aluminum cladding. Traditionally sized windows clad in aluminum are proposed on the side and rear facades. Asphalt shingles are proposed for the roof. The garage doors are proposed to be a dark gray metal. And brick-faced concrete retaining walls and planter beds matching the primary structure are proposed in the front and rear yards. Wood decks with metal fencing are proposed in the rear yard. Generators with wood enclosures are proposed adjacent to the wood decks in the rear yard As proposed, the project meets the architectural review guidelines for material requirements. The trash enclosure with wood screening is proposed between the duplexes. The plants do not identify the enclosures as having a paved surface and are not counted towards the impervious coverage. Should a paved surface be added to the enclosures, then coverage would need to be adjusted accordingly. Each duplex is allocated one trash enclosure measuring 13.64 square feet in area. The architectural review guidelines provide calculations for trash storage areas. These figures require that the proposed development have 31 square feet of trash enclosure per dwelling unit or 124 square feet total. Staff are of the opinion that the architecture review guideline calculations for trash enclosures likely require more area than needed per unit, but that additional trash storage may be required than provided in the current plans. Staff are of the opinion that the trash enclosure should be revised to accommodate at least one 95-gallon trash bin and recycle bin per unit. The section of drive behind the front setback is proposed to be a permeable paver. Although the permeable pavers are not an improved material, the proposed location between the duplexes obscures them from the street. The staff are of the opinion the aesthetic use of pavers behind the front set back would have a minimal visual impact. ac units are proposed atop each duplex wood enclosures are proposed matching the duplexes with siding the use of wood enclosures top asphalt shingles is likely to create contrast additionally the use of vertical enclosures in conjunction with the angled roof below may contribute to a greater perception staff are of the opinion that the applicant should consider redesigning the enclosures to better blend with the roof in terms of materials and surrounding geometry As proposed, the design meets the height setback requirements for the ARTIE district and the facade material requirements for the architecture review guidelines. The design is departure from the surrounding area. However, there are no urban design districts or residential historic districts governing the design. Staff recommend approval with the following conditions, that the trash storage area shall be revised to accommodate a minimum of one 95-gallon trash bin and one recycle bin per dwelling unit. And the HVAC unit enclosures shall be revised to better blend with the surrounding roof and submit the design to staff for approval as part of the building permit submission.

Okay, thank you. Any comments?

I have a question. Oh, Jim. I'm just I'm just wondering what it makes sense to continue architectural review to a later meeting if site plan is already being updated to maybe give opportunity to address what's what the what the city has already said for staff review, as far as trash enclosures, HVAC enclosures and all that or would it make sense to go through with this process knowing that the plan is probably going to change?

I think that's correct, but I think we owe the applicant to hear more comments that they may have to reflect upon before they come back. So I feel at this point, we do need to go ahead with it. Tyler?

Yes, thank you. Just to start before I even get in. The two comments from staff in terms of the trash enclosure and the HVAC units on the roof, we're amenable to both of those comments. That's not a problem. We can revise those as directed. So if that helps. So when we first heard about this project, I was very excited because as I've mentioned here before, I've done a lot of projects around Clayton over the years, but I've not done anything in the Old Town neighborhood. I say excited because when I first came to Clayton It was not too many years after that building that I mentioned before was built in 1988. And that was done by Lou Sauer. And Lou Sauer, I don't know if you know who he was, but he was an architect here who had some notoriety. I'm sure Steve knows who Lou Sauer was. And that building, which I'm going to show here in a minute, is one that I've always admired. in terms of a language of bringing modernism into a historic neighborhood and doing it well. And now that it is whatever, 2024 minus 1988 is, now that it is that old, I think that it shows as a really good representation that has been highly regarded by many people and still fits into the neighborhood. I just say that in terms of our preamble. We started with the idea of looking around the neighborhood. What do we see around here? And as I said, there have been many modern structures built in this neighborhood. A lot of these lots have changed as we just have talked about, splits and various things. So we started picking up, and these texts are small, so I apologize for that, but there are various elements that you can find all throughout the neighborhood that we started cataloging and gathering. The idea of tall vertical elements in the front with front-facing gables like that chimney that you see there, wood being used in conjunction with brick on front facades around windows, Tall window sets like the one in number three there that are largely without mullions, modern in their presentation. These are all buildings, if you look at the maps, you can see where they're located, the dots one, two, three and four. So all within the area. There are also some other ones even more recently constructed that have a very beautiful modern tone to them in terms of the use of brick. with banding, horizontal banding, very simplistic kind of lines and language. Again, the large expanses of glass. The one down on the bottom right, number four, that one has a similar kind of tall glass stair tower in the front. I apologize, it's very small. But it's that same kind of language. And the point is that we were cataloging various things. We didn't just do this in a vacuum. to create something that is from outer space. That's not how we design. I'm going to highlight three particular buildings. This one was built on North Central fairly recently. I don't know exactly the date. This is a townhouse that presents as very modern, but in my opinion is not in keeping with the neighborhood as much, even though it was approved, because it's largely a flat roof structure. It does have a little bit of a mansard going around it. And then these large elements like the entry, the front-facing garage, again, which I said is very common. But the point being that this is a new project that was approved by you all at some point. The older buildings that I referenced first that I have always admired, this is another set over here on Central. This is a pair of buildings very much like what we were talking about that are paired together with kind of a court in between. There's only one garage facing the street at which I'm curious about. I presume maybe there's one large underground garage that's all connected, but I don't know exactly if that's true. So this is different in the sense that this would be considered one structure. It's a one large structure. I know that that's been mentioned before. We're not proposing one large structure. We are proposing two families that happen to be next door to each other. So I don't think it's quite fair to compare them to a larger single development, which would present more massively. But you can see here the elements of modern windows, vertical elements, the massing, all kind of similar. This is the building that I first referenced, however, 149 North Central, which I have always admired. I think this is a wonderful building. I have talked to many people who lived in Clayton many years, and I've not ever heard anyone say anything bad about this design, although I'm sure there are people that hate this building because that's always the case, right? Architecture is subjective. And we as architects are charged with kind of leading design in a community, working with appropriate materials that last and doing details in a way that will hold up over time. Those are some of the... Elements that you all as a board are charged to regulate to make sure that we do that. So we don't come in and propose something built out of an inferior material or a detail that's going to fail. These, again, it's two sets of building connected by a large garage underneath. But the massing you'll see in the elements are very similar. We use this as kind of a model of what we're doing because, again, I said I have admired this building for a long time. There are brick walls that kind of come out to the front, creating various little yard elements. It's a street-facing gable, as you can see on both of the buildings. There is a combination of wood and brick in terms of materials, breaking up the facade a little bit, the massing. There are vertical elements here and here. That are all brick that are presented in conjunction with the gable. And then finally there are horizontal balconies on the second floor that kind of tie it all together. It rendered in a different material. So, altogether, I think this is a really good composition and one I said we used as a, as a model for this. in the neighborhood, very much in context with what we're talking about. So I know that people have many opinions in terms of that, but what I'm just saying is when you study architectural details and look at how things are derived, I would argue that this is in keeping. This is a diagram that shows sort of the progression of the front facade, because in buildings like this where you have narrow buildings that face the street and are fairly tight on the sides, really the front is the main element of the design. I mean that's it. That's what everybody perceives. So if you start with a traditional gabled building here on the left, certainly the idea of splitting that into two halves is not unusual. Creating a vertical element out of one half, that's what I was talking about, the building we just referenced. But then breaking down that facade to kind of get the scale appropriate to a street which is single and two-family houses, we start breaking that down, adding angles into it that further break the mass, putting windows. In this particular instance, we're doing windows on the corners to notch it out. I think that that presents a really nice look. And then finally, when the two are paired, We did not want to create mirror images of one another. The two facades are different in terms of their lines, however they have similar elements, similar materials. And then we also shifted the large window of the stair just to give it that a little bit of motion and action between the two. So that's where a lot of this front facade comes from. When you put that in context to the street elevation, you can see, as was mentioned, we are not asking for anything above the height that is required in the neighborhood. We meet that. Even the roof shape, the massing is very much in character with what is around us. And so I really don't see, yes, it's a different language in terms of it doesn't look like a colonial house. That's true. But I don't think anywhere in Clayton's ordinances are we required to design colonial houses or bungalows or arts and crafts or anything like that. If we blow this up a little bit, go into a little bit of the front facade and where it comes from. Again, nothing is arbitrary and that's good design always has a reason. The circulation is the main reason for this, the way the front facades are set up. We've been talking about these as two families all along, which they are. However, we wanted them to present more as single families from the front. So traditional two families might have two doors facing the street. We have set this up and designed it in such a way that each building has one door, and there is a common circulation element which is this kind of stair tower in the center. And those two towers by mirroring it and flanking it around the driveway make for a kind of a A central element that then tapers off towards the neighbors and further blends, keeping the more modern elements in the center, the more traditional to the sides with sloped roofs and dormers and whatnot, porches. If I take those front facades and show you, if we just look at the front, this is the lower level plan. We're using elements that you find around the neighborhood. There's a There's an entry, there's a porch in this case, which is enclosed into like a little sitting room. And then there's the stair element. All of this allows the unit to circulate in the front, these two, to get from one floor to another while letting the majority of the light come in from the sides. We wanted to have a lot of glass in the front facing the street because that makes for a better looking streetscape, but at the same time provide some privacy to the units. So that's why putting these elements in the front and allowing the stair tower to be the main window gives you both light and privacy. That's the bottom floor, as I said. If you go up to the second floor, then the same unit has different elements so that the two are not just monotonously stacked. You have a porch in the front that is on the second floor for that front unit, which creates, again, breaking down the scale, getting a little shorter and creates elements that are common to residential neighborhoods. The stair then rises up and your entry is pushed back behind it which then leads into the rest of the unit. The stair tower has the large corner window, which allows light not only into the entire stairwell, but then back into the unit a little bit as well, although it has a lot of glass here in the front. just follow those elements, and this has to do with materials now. Those elements which are very much similar to that other building by Lou Sauer that I mentioned have a series of layers. In the front, you have glass and brick that creates kind of a profile screen to the front. That's where brick detail occurs, the edging of various elements that stick out from the building. Behind that is what we're calling kind of the skin of the unit itself and that is where the wood occurs so this is a wood facade in the, in the kind of the second layer back there. And as you watch these come together then the elements. all mesh together and create a series of layers that lead you into that front. It adds a lot of kind of complexity and design interest to the front facade while doing all of the things that I just mentioned, providing circulation and privacy to the units themselves. The rest of the unit is fairly simple in terms of its detail and massing, and that's not also out of character with additions that are placed on the backs of houses and various things in the neighborhood. Some flat roofs and various things that are always held to the back, which is what we're doing here. So that leads back to this element, which again, full circle, I think that in terms of regardless of how you use the materials and the details massing wise falls in line with the rest of the neighborhood. The last element that I want to talk about, which is more of a detail, but this is a The concentration of this detail is something that's been very important to our firm over the years. We've done it different ways. I'm not saying they're all detailed this way, but the idea of a thick wall. This is, for those of you who understand architectural history and look at how buildings have been built, this is something that's happening for centuries. Originally, buildings were, if they're stone, you know, very massive walls. Even in the city of St. Louis, if you go to brick structures downtown, The walls can be two, three feet thick. So very massive and that makes for a window detail that looks really inset to the building. That mass of the wall is carried out. That then evolves down the line through history. Wall number two here is very much what you see in Clayton, the turn of the century kind of architecture. My house was built in 1925 and it's the same thing. It's three wives of brick. I imagine many of the old houses in Clayton are similar. That is a slightly thinner wall, but it still presents as a good detail for the window. In modern times that gives way to brick veneer. We are not allowed to, by the building code build a masonry wall like that anymore three wise brick. I have no idea why I would love to do that but they don't let us. So we do a wood wall behind it with a brick veneer, this is. I don't say that this is a lesser it's just a different way of doing it. And you can have that same thickness. And our firm, we detail it with a thicker than normal veneer and airspace than was required. And what you see in other buildings, and I would argue that that's one reason why our buildings stand out in terms of that window thickness detail. Further evolution of that, what you see a lot in modern buildings is just a simple flat wall covered in some sort of cement board or something. That to me has lost the thickness and the character. So our proposed wall section down here, we'll have the brick veneer going back to this second one because that's traditional. But to make it read more massive, we've come up with this detail, which I think presents really well, which is kind of horizontal frame around the window itself. And when you look at the rendering and you know that, now that you know that and you look at this, you start, oh yeah, that looks like a very thick wall that that window is set into. And all of the details, all the windows are that way, even the portal around the door, the big tower. It gives it much more character that is in keeping with historic character of architecture. And you can see then the layering effect with the brick, the wood, the glass. As I said before, I am not gonna stand up here and say that this is not a modern, very modern design and language. It certainly is. That was done before. In 1988 when Lou Sauer came along, those buildings were very unusual for this area. And he was allowed to build them. I'm sure there were people who were up in arms about that. But over time, good architecture proves itself out. And I think that these well, my litmus test and it's easy for us to look at it and say it's great because we designed it. My litmus test is always putting it out to the public. You may know that this rendering has been in the paper. It's been all over. That's why everybody knows about this project, right? It was sent out very early by my client because he wanted to get some feedback and some marketing. And the feedback that we received was, overwhelmingly people, wow, that's fresh. That's original. That's beautiful. These are not my words. These are feedback that we have received. Now I know that there are other people who disagree with that. Those people by and large are probably in this room and live right around it. You know, as I said, I can't, no design is going to please everyone. That's the nature of art. There are paintings, there's music, there are books, poetry that people love or hate. That is called art. And we as architects are kind of trained and tasked with using the skills that we have and know the languages of architecture to present forward a fabric for the city. And so that's what we feel like we have done here. We This is that front facade. We've continued around. I could show you other things, but I think that this would stop there and this gives you an idea of what we're talking about and maybe the understanding of why. Because as I said, nothing is done in a vacuum or accidentally.

Thank you. Thank you, Tyler. I think that was a very effective presentation and I think it answers a lot of my questions. I don't know about anyone else, but I do have some comments. Number one, if this were a perfect world, we would probably see a proposal to preserve and renovate more of the older homes in our community, including 139 North Beamiston. But it isn't a perfect world. So it's incumbent upon all of us to look at new progressive even changes that we may have to deal with going forward. So with that, I am certainly open to looking at this. But I do have some architectural issues with it. When I look at the context drawing that we did have up before, the street context, There. Okay. What really stands out to me is the massiveness of what we would call the stair tower. And in effect, that amount of glass reads to me like almost a commercial building. And Then when it is topped, it goes up much higher than virtually any of the other houses on the street. So my real concern with the front facade is the height of the tower itself. The other thing that you said is there's one door to enter the two units. I thought there were two doors. You go up to the porch and there's one door that you see and one door that we don't see that goes into the stair tower. So each unit does have its own individual entry door. Is that correct? Right. And that's pretty apparent in the plan that you showed. So that's quickly my east elevation concern, that it tends to be overpowering. I'm not saying that it's wrong, but it just seems to be out of context with other more contemporary buildings in the area. The other thing is, I do see some details in it that refers to some of the historical and cultural designs that we do see throughout Clayton, including in Old Town area. I wish we had a little more that it would tie in a little more, but that's only a comment. But when we get to the north and south elevations, the north elevation of the north unit, the south elevation of the south unit, to me, it is one monolithic, unbroken, almost like a ship has come in and docked. And the solid to void ratio of the massive brick to the openings is really great. It's almost like there aren't enough windows. Now you showed us with the light going through the unit, but that's only one point. And when I stared at those outer elevations, it had sort of a prison-like feel to it, the monolithic with no detail, no setbacks, no breakups. That's my reaction to it. I don't mind the length, but I wish there were a little more care given to it to make it look, to make it an easier visual to the neighbors. then there we are. That's what I was thinking like the ship has come in. When we look at the internal area, it's less, but I understand those units would be looking directly at each other. But here again, it seems like we have very, very little void compared to the massive solid. My other concern is the air conditioning units up on the roof. And we have had some problems in the recent past with the noise coming out of air conditioning units going across the property line, more so than when we have them on the ground level where they tend to have a little more softness around them. So I would think you would take a look at that also. But I think I've hit most everything, you know, the restoration preservation. How do we relate to that? We're buildings coming down. We know it's not a perfect world. I'm concerned about the commercial appearance and the. High Tower, which I know you showed us a tower, but that was about two stories tall in that other building. I do like Lou Sauer's work. He was a close friend, and I think he introduced many, many design elements to the city of Clayton, which have held up over time beautifully. So with that, I think I'll turn it over to my colleagues. Bob?

I think Steve has made some good points. But when I look at architecture like this, I think I'm seeing art. And I always love seeing art. The composition of the different depths, the mixture of materials, not just everything is vertical and horizontal. You have some curves and lines, which, God forbid, downtown Clayton lacks. If I walked by these buildings, it would turn my head 100% of the time, and I would probably have a smile as I looked at them. At the same time, I don't think you have to stay in conformity with all the architecture that surrounds you, especially in a changing neighborhood. And this is definitely a changing neighborhood. The height could be an issue, you know? Does it look like a residential place? For me, it sufficiently does. Like somebody could live there. It's not going to be an accountant's office or something like that or a commercial building. But it's... It really is very creative with how you use glass and different materials and the setbacks. To me, it's very attractive. The next question is, if I was living on that street, how would I feel about walking by that building or living next door to that building? It's a bit of a tough answer. I think with Steve's comments about the rear of the building almost looks like a ship coming in, it kind of does. But you don't see the back so much as it is the front. I think maybe the height and the size is perhaps a factor that neighbors would be legitimately concerned about. That's all I have to say. Ellen?

For the record, he said no.

Sorry, sorry.

I know that. So, no, they're not intended to be heat pump units.

Large space. Yeah, it's a roof deck. It's a roof.

Yes.

everybody's deck?

Everybody wants one.

Excuse

me, ma'am. If you're for the record, if you're in it,

please hold your comments. We'll take them at the end.

amy

beautiful beautiful buildings um i do think it is out of context with the neighborhood i think you did you know that evolution of the architectural elements where you kind of started with the one and then you hop you know to this it's kind of like if you would go back a couple lengths in the evolution i think you wouldn't fit better in this neighborhood um To me, it reads very commercial. It does definitely read as two buildings that are related. I understand they're two individual, but I mean, I know they're not exact mirror images, but they read like that they're one. So I think that, its height, the architectural elements, I know, again, the evolution of one, but they're different. They definitely stand out in the street, in this neighborhood. Again, it's very well designed. I know a lot of the masking and the design elements are there. I just don't think it fits in this neighborhood.

Jim?

I don't want to rehash too much of what other people have said, so I'll more just kind of keep it to it. I also have concerns about the compatibility with other properties in the neighborhood. I also just take into consideration the Clayton 2040 plan that, you know, this planning process kind of just wrapped up as far as asking the community what they wanted. And one of the things that came up about that is just these very large buildings being built right up against the setback lines. And these, as Steve kind of mentioned, these very large long walls kind of right up against the line, which is kind of antithetical to what those people are asking for. kind of, you know, what people are complaining about and that kind of stuff. I do agree for the need for contemporary architecture as well that, you know, not everything just be a facsimile of the past. I agree that certain elements of this certainly can be found around the neighborhood. But I believe, you know, just kind of taking, you know, this element from this house, this element, this house, the sum of those parts, I do believe kind of presents context for the surrounding area.

Thank you. My only question for you, and this is a question that I've asked this board several times in the past. The zoning regulations indicate what proper height is for any neighborhood. And in this neighborhood, it's 35 feet. We are not 35 feet tall, yet you have all said that it's too tall. So my question is the same as I've asked on many projects in the past. If we meet zoning, and yet you say it's too tall, what height am I supposed to be going to?

Well, to respond to that, we know what the allowable height is. But we also have a visual height, which may be different than the allowable height. And I think we're talking about the visual height. The allowable height typically relates to the peak of the roof or the midpoint of the roof line. I think visually it's very high on the front. It's just my comment.

So there's no answer to how tall is too tall?

Well, no, we know how high you can go and whether you're up there or not. To me, it's a very tall front and it's really only the stair tower. I think the two entry and terraces and those are very well modulated and they have a much more horizontal appearance to them. So it's in great contrast with the stair tower, only making the stair tower smaller visually look taller to me. So, I don't know if that's an answer. It's a comment. It was the intent.

Okay.

Did you have anything else or shall we open it up?

No.

Okay. We'll open it up to the people. We have someone coming up. Again, we need your name and address.

North Beamston Avenue. which is a house that my friend Helen designed. Now, it is next to her house and it is not at the end of the block. It is a condo. There are two of us with a driveway in front of the house that goes underneath to a four-car garage. So I'm not quite sure what you were saying, Helen, before when you said that the condos are at the ends of the block. number one, and number two, this thing with the height is very interesting because I don't know whether Tyler's telepathetic telepathically, whatever, trying to guess what the visual is on this. But I think he's asking, at least I understood, what is the height? If it's not 35 feet, then you have to give him a number. You can't just say, oh, it looks too tall. That's not an answer.

Well, Nancy, what I was saying is it's the proportion that really shows what the height is. And it's a completely vertical element. And I compared it to what's adjacent to it, which are more modulated, different materials, different setbacks, and somewhat more horizontal. So when you look at the two, One looks much higher than the other.

Okay, but if the height is 35 feet, then it's 35 feet. Otherwise, the rule would have been 29 feet.

They

can go

up to 35? Yeah. I'm not sure how high it is. I

understand why that's an issue, but...

Well, this architectural review is a visual review. So that's where the comments come from.

And

So where on Beemiston is considered a multifamily?

Yeah. But that's considered apartments. Right.

All right. But on our particular block, we only have one and

be two family. They're just two of them.

were

Nancy either come up, but we need to hold off on the conversation. We're only looking for comments.

I understand, but so would you be happier if there were two different designs? It is a unit. Right.

well maybe that's something that you need to well

uh sir sir please hold off

i mean maybe that's something doug and tyler need to need to yeah i

excuse me we have someone waiting in the wings come on up

I'm at 141. Yep, please speak, name and address. 141, we're right next door. Not to complain, but 30 years ago when we came before the committee, we had dormers in our plans and it was considered too tall. And we had to remove those to make ours appear to be much lower than it was. So... You know, I understand the visual concept. I mean, we were forced to reduce our roofline at the time by this committee, so. Thank

you. Come on

up.

Talk into the microphone, name and address.

Andy Rossman, 151, 127 and 151 Bemiston. I have a question of how we proceed here because it seems in the last section of discussion, we're getting into awfully subjective criteria. And it's going to be... Everyone has very good points, which I primarily quite well understand. Yours, for instance, you're looking at an aspect ratio of a building. I'm also an architect, a computer architect, but nonetheless. So I understand your point, but those are very subjective criteria that you're proposing as well as yours. And so, as well as a comment you made earlier about some of the other, like the pavement, And you make a good point, but you cannot dictate what someone's product and marketing should be. I mean, that's not your job, right? You must admit it's an opinion. Same with your objections about the visual aspect. Someone else proposed that this is a beautiful piece of architecture of art That's in contrast to what, yeah, maybe was suggested. So I think we're going over very subjective criteria and we're not gonna be able to arrive at a good decision if you don't set the rules of permitting here to be more precise and more, let's say, objective. Are you finished? So I'm asking, what are the series stated regulations and how it's simply a matter of accepting how you feel on the basis of aesthetic criteria or is there something that's set more precisely in the objective criteria that we can use?

Well, the architectural review board tends to be more subjective than does the plan commission, which tends to be more objective

based on

the codes. And we are not here to redesign or to design. We're here to make comments based on aesthetic, visual, how we see it. And that is to go back to the design team and let them come back. It tends to be a negotiating process if you've been here for many of our other architectural review boards. We will get through it. We're not saying that it's an absolute no. We're giving our comments hopefully to fit within the context, the historical, the cultural area of Clayton. And hopefully it will be the end product when the design team comes back that we will move further into it.

So this phase... is not a determining factor to a permit, but rather, what is it? As you said, it's just commenting. So it will have no impact on permitting.

On permitting? Yes. You're suggesting that now. They won't go to the permitting until until after the site plan review and the architectural review board review are completed and passed. So permitting is in the future.

Yeah, but it's not contingent on an approval by your board. of the architectural agreement, on the architecture basis only.

Permitting

is contingent upon the approval... Of the architecture as well. Yes. But that's not what you're saying. You're saying that it's just commenting. You just told me it's merely commenting. So if it's merely commenting, then it's not... It's not a contingency for permitting.

The comments, sir, the comments are hopefully to allow the applicant and the review committee to come to a consensus to go forward. Okay. we haven't reached the consensus yet. There have only been the comments from all the members and from several of the citizens about looking at the building. And those comments will go back to the applicant. They can massage them, do whatever they want. We're not here to design it. We'll look at it again. We're certainly not in any way saying, no, we're turning it down. We're looking for something that works the best for the city of Clayton.

Yeah, I understand the process, but I just want to know for sure that the level of subjectivity in this last session has been, to me, a little bit difficult to...

I'd invite you to come to more of these meetings because what you will see is that the comments that are made, sometimes they are acted upon by the design team and sometimes they're not. And it's not a win or lose situation. There's a lot of gray area in this. And what we hope to do is to come to a consensus from how we see it as individuals. I'm

happy to hear

that. That's what you're trying to do. And working with the design team. Yeah, that makes sense. In a way, I'm sure the design team has already worked with the developer in that. And it's been a give and take. So

we're the give and take. I've gone through the process myself. in california in southern california and and and palo alto which is much more expensive than here and uh new architectures that have come up there similarly uh faced some criticism but ultimately the introduction of new architecture into a place like palo alto was uh it's been going on for 10 years and it's very successful so

Okay. Well, thank you for

your comment. Thank you for the feedback. Susie?

Some of you know me, some of you don't, but I am Suzanne Forsyth, 159 North Central. My comments are meant for everybody that's in this room. And Bob, I would like to tell you that in 1976, my husband, 1974, my husband and I bought two lots on North Central. The idea was I had grown up in a duplex on Davis Place, and we also owned a duplex on David's Place. My husband grew up over on Aberdeen and Clayton And then we own 18 Brighton Way, which I'll get to later. But I want to tell you, if there's anybody that knows anything about change, here we are and we have two lots. We're going to build a house on a 50 by 160 foot lot. We go to the city of Clayton. There has been nothing built in Old Town Clayton in 27 years. We were the very, very first. So if anybody knows about change or going along with what is going to the future of our area, I love Old Town. I wouldn't go to any place else and I hope to heaven's name that I can be there when I go someplace else. But what I would like to say is the juxtaposition about what we are in Old Town and the project before us by the client of Tyler, who I've seen here at a lot of other meetings, is out of context. We have a certain feeling, those, the people that I'm with tonight, one lives in a duplex, one used to live in a duplex over on Beamiston, another who lived in a house on North Central, but tore it down and built. We're all familiar with our nice people that make this town beautiful. grow and we try to come to grips with their what they would like us to do and what we would like to do and we all seem to be able to come together. I would like to say that when they came over, because there had been no rules or regulations for townhouses or duplexes, our goal was with the builder that we had, that he would build us a house on our lot. And then next door, we had a plan for a duplex so that when we got too old, we wouldn't have to worry about where we were gonna go and live the rest of our life. And in doing that, a lady that lived in another part of Clayton, her husband died and she and her son came over and said, Todd, I want my mother to buy this lot and move in next door to you. Todd being my husband, the lady said, well, how much do you want for this lot? My husband said $22,500 for you. Hazel, we'd love to have you as a neighbor. So our house was built by Hank Altpeter of old brick that had been torn down in the expansion from Grand Avenue into the city of St. Louis. And he also built the front neck. He bought forest green. So they were delighted that we were using old brick all over the whole house, but they told us what kind of a roof we had to have. and shutters, we have one bay window, the driveway. Everybody worked together because there had been no rules. Granted, we don't have a place to put our garbage now, but it would be a requirement today, and I think that's wonderful. We also, we had buses. Do you know that the streetcar used to run through our neighborhood? So Old Town is a wonderful, wonderful place, and I love it, but the aura of privacy that everybody seems to have, even though we're only five feet away from our neighbor, or we have a backyard. We have a pool in our yard, which was a requirement that where we built it and how we built and so on and so forth. I'm not going to get into all of the particulars of the plan that was up there. The whole idea of it and juxtaposition of what I have seen grow and be so proud of being a part of in Clayton with how we have been able to come to the meetings and get something that really fits in. I'd like to know, in a place such as this, how many are they building this for a family? Listen, I was in my 40s when we moved here. I'm 93 now. So I would like to know, what size family are you building those buildings for? A couple?

They're not children.

No, but people with children. You said everybody was calling and saying how lovely they were. Shorts of people. Okay.

Well, that is... Susie, not to take away from Doug, but I believe all four units are basically three bedrooms.

Okay.

Right? I think that hopefully answers your question.

Yes, it does. It does indeed. And I thank you all for letting me get up here and say that I would like for you to consider how... I think the way that Old Town has been revised... And knowing us, I would just like to say that they changed the day that we moved in and we owned 18 Brighton Way and the same man that built ours went over and redid. At 18, we asked to be a condominium not a duplex. This is the only R3 district in all of Clayton where you can build a house or a duplex. And 18 Brighton Way, look what has happened to 18 Brighton Way for us just going and working with Clayton, and they turned it into a place where you could build some of those big places. Thank you very

much. Thank you, Susie.

My name is David Henson. I reside directly across the street from this new project, a proposed project. So this is what I see when I walk out. We'll see when I walk outta my place. Also, my neighbors, or I live in a two, there's two units. Behind me is, I'm at 140, behind me is 139. That's Kevin and Debbie Seelman, okay? I'll speak for them first because they're not, they couldn't be here, they're away out of town. And their comments are simple. They're not against the development. However, they thought from the design that it could be dialed down a little bit. So I think the presentation was that this was aesthetically pleasing. flows, but that's a little oversell, I think. This is definitely a very nice design, but it is quite different from what we have on the 100 block of North Stevenson. Secondly, From my perspective, again, not against development. We could live with it. However, you know, I think some modifications could be made just a little bit slightly, maybe blend in slightly a little bit more. We're good. But I do want to, you know, tell you that from two perspectives, mine and my neighbors in the back. So that's it.

Thank you. Any other comments? Come on up.

Hi, I'm Farsh Gilak. I'm at 8400 University. And I got recruited here about eight years ago to direct the research at the Shriners Hospital. And my family and I looked all over St. Louis. Frontenac, Ledoux, Olivet, and Clayton. And we moved to Clayton. in part because of the architecture, because it's so beautiful and it's diverse, eclectic and evolutionary. And the area that we live in, there are old houses, there are new houses. We have very contemporary houses that have a lot of these elements. And I think this is art and I love these buildings. These are gorgeous. We have buildings like this juxtaposed with other older buildings. keeping elements of the old and the new, I think, brings them together. And when we have visitors, we walk them around our entire neighborhood and say, oh, look at this beautiful building. It's got glass. It's got windows. We like the smaller lots. The issue of the lot size, having lots of grass and lawn is not a blatant thing. That's why we move there, right? You want a huge lawn, you can go to Ledoux. We also have... Right back up against these new condos on Gay, which have these upstairs porches. It's not an issue. They're right across from us. So we can see them, they can see us, but they can't really because of the way the buildings are set. So I don't think having that loss of privacy is an issue. So I'm in strong support of this because I think we do need to have change and we need new architecture. We need art in Clayton. If you walk around downtown Clayton, there is art everywhere. And I think that's very different than the rest of St. Louis. And it's what brought me here. So thank you. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Patty Chapin. I live at 148 North Central, so I'm behind and three doors down. I'm very concerned about our loss of privacy with this huge rooftop terrace. So in rethinking how you're going to add complexity and interest to use your to the sides and the back veneer, maybe instead of an upper and lower level, maybe it's a side by side, something to think about. But I am opposed to the rooftop light and noise. Thank you.

Thank

you. I do want to call out that I know there's some discussion about stormwater runoff and flooding. So we did have water. Now, we're on the other side of the street. I'm not sure how the sewer systems feed or what have you, but we did have flooding once. I know my neighbors right across the street, Mark and and Mary and, and Helen, I guess they have they've had flooding on their side. So I'm not there. That is a concern for water runoff. I'm not sure what how that affects the other side of the street. I just want that one on reference maker.

Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, Nancy Georgian 224 North Bemisden. What my comments are generally that that the purpose of this committee is to assure that we have continuity and consistency within the neighborhood. I'm not against the development. I'm not again the subdivision. I like the concept of the shared driveway. I do think it's oversized, and I agree with what Helen was saying. You've got these two buildings that looks like a complex. Part of the R3 zoning is to have single family and duplexes, and that's what kept it. Now, I'm close to Susie. I've been here 57 years, and I've lived and worked in Clayton. I grew up on North Central, and I live on North Bemiston, and I think that maybe that we're toning it down or something. I'm not against modernizing it. I just think this is a little too much. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Come on up.

Hi there. My name is Ann Carter, and I live at 215 North Central. And Susie, lover, Change is going to happen. We all know that. And we've seen it on Central. You go through the gates, you've got 139. All those buildings were contemporary. On the right-hand side, at one point in time, incredibly contemporary. Right across from my building. We have, is it central on the park? Yes. Very contemporary. But they have fit in beautifully. So at one point, probably the reaction was the same. But I think it is a piece of art. And I will mention one thing. I was on the Ledoux board for the flood committee. And we were actually encouraging pavers. because it would stop the runoff. So you might want to check into that a little bit. Okay? Thank you.

Hi, my name is Mary Kay Wohler, 141 North Beaniston. I'd like to add a little bit to what Patty said, that the concern about the deck, the rooftop or second story deck in a residential home. I think Helen might agree with me. A few years ago when parties in the park were on Central, we could dance along with the music on our street. And I can only imagine if there's a second floor open air deck fairly big size, having a nice party. And at least parties in the park used to have to be over by nine. I don't know what the rules would be in a neighborhood to have something going on like that and not have any control over who's coming and going and how the music is. It's a concern. I just think it doesn't belong in a neighborhood like we have. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other comment?

One comment, and I've been working for some time on trying to get a building that is in back of me that has blazing lights at night on the fourth floor. There's no reason I wrote a note to them and I said, we have been putting up with this thinking you were just getting settled in, but that was going on since last year. i've been talking to bridget and she knows and suggested that i get in touch with them and i've been trying to do this as a neighbor telling them because it shines in my bedroom and all other people on my street as well and it's on the fourth floor and the ceiling lights in that building have been going on so I can imagine what Patty or some of the people that are backing up to that building is going to have the problem. And it's not nice to have a neighbor that is blaring or having lights that are shining in. So please take that into consideration. Thank you.

Jane Matosian, 119 North Central. And I agree with the comments about context and I don't need to repeat them. But what I will repeat is this isn't Gay Avenue. This isn't downtown. I can go down and see the M1 building, which I think looks great where it is. I think they've done a wonderful job. But we don't need the M1 building on North Beamiston. I also want to talk to you a little bit about the air conditioning. Not a lot of people have talked about that, but we live behind the library. When that library was built, I came to this organization, to this committee and questions were raised about the noise and the library director assured Clayton it was not going to be a problem. Once that building went up and those air conditioners went on, that's all we heard on and off with the air conditioners. We also had a light problem with the library's lights shining into our bedrooms. Glad my husband's gone so he doesn't have to hear this. But we contacted the library many times. Finally, they had to bring out engineers to take studies of the noise. They had to go in and make significant changes because of all the noise to our house, to our neighbor's homes from the air conditioning. They had to put filters, cones on the lights. So it was a problem that it took a long time to address and could be addressed early on.

Thank you. We do have a hand up, correct? Mr. Burroughs, can you hear us?

Yes, good evening. Can you hear me? Yes. Great. My name is Steve Burrows, and I'm here with my wife, Barbara Burrows, and we are 25-year residents of Clayton. And about six years ago, we bought a vacant lot and built a new home on it. And with the guidance of the ARB that we didn't always agree with, but we pursued, we believe we have a very beautiful home that fits in nicely with the neighborhood. We oppose this. Our address is 142 North Bemis. We oppose this design because it does not meet the stated ARB goal of, quote, conforming with the style and design of the surrounding structures, close quote. That's on the ARB website. Separately, we submitted a rather lengthy report that included 30 photographs, give or take, of all the homes on Bemiston Avenue that none of which bear the slightest similarity to this design. Reading the staff letter, which admittedly says, and I quote, the proposed design would be a departure from the character of the area, close quote, it just seems to me that there's a lot more work that needs to be done on this. So We oppose the design, and we would recommend that the ARB ask for a complete redo of the Bemiston-facing side of this structure. And we remember not too many years ago, there was a proposal for what's now Bemiston Place. At the time, the ARB strongly rejected that proposal for good reason. And now we've gotten to this new structure, which is more appealing. So I would urge the ARB to do the same in this case until the design has the compatibility requirement of the ARB. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And Mr. Burroughs, we did receive your letter with photographs as well as from several other citizens and all of us on the commission did receive that. So thank you.

Thank you very

Any other Doug, please tell us who you are.

My name is Doug Cohen. My lovely wife Esther and I own Douglas properties. We've done several projects in Clayton over the last 30 years. Three first of all offhand in the Brighton Way mid rise area that I think we were the first ones to introduce a single door at three and a half stories. Were you on that committee then? And I remember some of the committee members were like, oh, I want to have really small, cheap apartments over there still. And now look what we got. So that was a big change back then. It went, I mean, now those condominiums go up to $3 million. So, I mean, that was a big chance 25, 30 years ago. And I would probably say that most, if not all people are happy with how that area around Shaw Park has been developed. It's prime area and beautiful architecture. And, you know, that's what it's turned to. It's been amazing. As far as some of the comments here, first of all, I want to thank everybody here. You've done a great job. And when we come back, it's not going to be in two weeks. I could tell you that. when we're going to shoot for the end of July, and we'll come back with some tweaks, and we'll get through this, and everyone will be happy, and then, you know, we could all move on, and we can have a really terrific project that everyone would be proud of. I have 100% confidence in that. I would not have hired Tyler if I didn't think that from the get-go. One of the things that I think we'll come back to with a tweak is that the rooftop deck is an important and an integral part of this design. Right now it's eight or so hundred square feet. And I think we can tone that down to, you know, I don't know, 400 feet or so, but I don't see a difference between a party on a 400 square foot deck blaring music or a party on a rooftop deck doing the same thing. But the people, one thing that we have to keep in mind is that these are not, you know, 30 year old people that are party animals buying these units. These are empty nesters. maybe a kid that comes home now and then from college, mostly snowbirds. They're going to have another house somewhere else. When this project was brought to me from Ann and told me there was an opportunity on the 100 block of Beamiston, I was like, let's go. You know, I think that's a trademark that's going to be an amazing accomplishment for our company. And we're well suited for it. And like I said, I just want to say one last time to thank everybody that's here and helping out. But at the end of the day and at the end of The Project, I'm 100% confident that we'll come into something that's going to be really amazing for the city. Thank you.

Thanks, Doug. And I think speaking for the commission, we're ready to work through this. And as you've seen in the past, we usually come to consensus and we go forward. So that's the way. The other thing is we do have a noise ordinance in the city that people should be aware of. I believe it's at 10 o'clock. on noise ordinance but i could be wrong

that would be a police department

right and usually um so there are certain time limits on certain things like construction activities and and certain levels of noise but even um you know a level of noise during the day could constitute you know an offense under the ordinance um so um we'd have to take a much deeper dive into that to see what the actual decibel levels are and all that

thank you we've come to a point we do have staff recommendations however following the site plan review I would recommend that we continue the architectural review also to a meeting in the future second all in favor aye opposed okay Thank you, everyone. We appreciate citizen participation. Wish we had it more often. Well, maybe not, but no, we do appreciate it. And we thank you all. So before we finish, we have a few things. Jim? Sorry,

everybody in the public, the meeting is still going on. So if you would like to have any discussions, please go outside so we can finish the meeting. Thank

you. Yes. Please exit the council chamber. Thank you. Jim, do you have any first meeting comments?

No, I just say overall, thank you to the rest of the board. Obviously there's a bit of a learning curve for this and this maybe wasn't the most ideal meeting to experience that curve, but I appreciate all your guys' help. Good. Well, we're glad to have you here.

Kami?

Ellen?

Bob? Welcome, Jim. I think it'll be a great addition. You really do your homework very impressive. It's good to be back, but I won't be here next time. I'll be out of town

again. Okay. Ryan, did you get that? Okay. Jim, I believe you're out of town.

Yes, I won't be at the meeting on the 15th either.

Okay. Ryan any words for us for the next meeting?

Unless the Bemiston project is submitted in time, I expect it will be a much shorter meeting. I think there's only one item I know of this.

Sorry, it will not be shorter. We have a presentation of the overlay districts that are proposed for Washington University and Concordia. So I expect we will have public here for that one as well.

Good. Thank you, Stephanie, for your comments. Any further comment?

Nothing further this evening.

Okay. Thank you, everyone. We're adjourned.