September 16, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Planning Commission ARB for September 16th. If you have any electronic devices, please silence them at this time. Ryan?

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Bridget McAndrew?

Here.

Helen DiFate?

Helen DeFate?

Here.

Kami Waldman?

Kami Wallman?

Here.

Jim Arsenault? Here. David Gipson? Here.

Jim Arsenault? Here. David Gibson? Here.

We have minutes from the previous meeting on September 3rd. Are there any changes?

Yes. Steve, they should reflect that I recused myself for 139 North Beaniston.

Okay. Ryan, you got that? Okay. Do we have a motion?

I will make a motion to approve the minutes of September 3rd and then showing the amendment that Helen just made.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Okay. We'll move on to new business. The first item is 176 Carondelet Plaza. Is the applicant here? Okay, hold on. We'll get started.

Okay, Ryan, I believe this is yours. The applicant is seeking a conditional use permit for the operation of a restaurant, Rooster, on the subject property, which is located on the south side of Carondelet Plaza. The property is zoned plain unit development and is developed with a mixed use structure. Proposed hours of operation are 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., seven days a week. The restaurant measures 6,266 square feet and would include 140 seats. No outdoor dining is proposed at this time. Adjacent street parking and an attached garage would accommodate parking. Deliveries would be made in the morning via the front of the restaurant. The restaurant will continue to use the existing recycling and garbage pickup services. Staff have the opinion that the restaurant meets the requirements governing conditional uses. The staff recommend that the Planning Commission recommend approval of the CEP to the Board of Aldermen.

Okay, thank you. The applicant, come on up. Give us your name and address and how you're related to the project and add anything you'd like. Okay.

Is the microphone on? Yeah, is it green? So push the

button.

I

can start over. Apologies. My name is David Bailey. The address is 176 Carondelet. I'm the owner of Bailey's Restaurants. We have two existing restaurants and this will be our third location of that one. We have several other restaurants throughout the city. And I'm just here to say thank you for your time and see if you have any additional questions and hope that we can get the conditional use approved.

Well, we're excited to have you come to Clayton. Thank you. Many of us have been to your other locations and we're glad you're coming in. But I do have a question. You're taking over the former golf tech position. location is that correct

in addition to the former white box space the two spaces are being joined

in looking at the plan um is it all table seating with waitresses or waiters

it is all full service seating correct

yeah um and it seems like there's a wall separating the two areas was that intentional

So the way that we, um, redesign the space. It is there's a foot difference between, um, the Eastern half and the Western half as far as the elevation. Um, so on the Eastern half, we have, um, the bar and that would be where if someone was getting a coffee to go or a carry out order would walk in on that level and they would be able to see it set at the bar right there as well. That's where our kitchen and everything is on that side as well. And then some of our dining. And then on the lower level, we combined part of what used to be white box with the rest of the golf tech space. And we left a partial wall so that when you enter the space, you'll only see about half of our entire dining room. So that on a weekday when things are slower, we can have the tables occupied in the front area. And then on the weekends, we expand into our back dining room and then to our two smaller sort of more private dining areas. But it is all interconnected. You can move freely throughout the entire space, get to the restrooms from any point within the space on either side.

Well, we hope you're busy all week long, not just weekends. Looks good to me. Bridget?

Yeah, it's great. We're so excited that you're coming to Clayton and going to occupy that space. I just had a question. Are you guys using any Styrofoam products or anything like that, or is it all...

we've never in the 20 year history of my company used any styrofoam products at all. Um, we are green dining Alliance certified. Wonderful.

Yeah. We're trying to expand our green dining Alliance in Clayton. So I'm so happy to hear that. So

yeah. And in addition to that, we, we source as much locally as we can. And we also have our own bakery, our own commissary. So all of the bread products, all of the sauces, all of the jams, everything is actually made in house. Um, and we'll be, we, uh, within the kitchen in the Clayton property, we'll be able to produce things daily like biscuits and all kinds of things like that on premise.

Great. Wonderful. I don't have any other questions. Thank you.

Helen?

Welcome to Clayton. Thank

you.

I've enjoyed your restaurants downtown. When are you going to be open?

We're hoping for mid-October. So we're actually on punch list at this point, and we had our first hiring fair Friday morning. So we've started to solidify our opening staff. So it's all coming together.

Sounds

good. No questions. Thank

you. Amy?

Yeah, welcome. So excited that you guys are going to be here. And I love that you guys will be offering the private dining rooms. That's great. But yeah, everything looks good.

Thank you. Jim? No questions. I think it's a great use of the space, so welcome. Thank you. I

appreciate that.

David? I don't have any questions.

Okay. Are there any questions or comments from the audience? No? No hands up? Okay. We have a staff recommendation to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the Board of Aldermen as submitted. Do we have a motion to that?

I will make a motion to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the Board of Aldermen as submitted.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thanks very much. We look forward to the opening.

Thank you.

PB John Gerstle, Okay we'll move on to the next new business and that's 801 seminary place and we actually have three parts to it, the cup or conditional use permit and the site plan review and the architectural review so. PB John Gerstel, Ryan.

Um, just one, one before we start, there are a few seats left in this room. Um, feel free to take those. We also have an overflow room, which is the conference room down on the first floor. If you just walk down the stairs and go straight ahead, you'll enter that room. So I know some of you are probably here for the overlay and others are maybe here for earlier items, but the number of seats that we have in here is actually capacity per the fire code. So if you can find a seat and if you're unable to find one of these empty seats, I can help you find the overflow conference room downstairs. Thank you.

We do have two seats up front right here.

So this summary will pertain to the conditional use permit on the agenda. The applicant is seeking a conditional use permit to allow for the construction of new parking and residential structures on the subject property, which is Concordia Seminary. The proposal includes the demolition of existing housing on the west side and new structures to be located west of the chapel towards the center of the campus. I'll provide a summary of the CUP criteria, but a full analysis can be found in the staff report. The property includes residential, institutional and recreational uses. Existing student housing is present along the north and west sides of campus. A portion of the existing housing located on the north side of campus would remain in place while the remainder would be demolished. Tennis courts to the west of the historical institute would be demolished and replaced with a two-story parking structure with one story partially below grade. The neighborhoods to the north and west primarily contain single family structures. The neighborhoods to the south and east contain a combination of commercial, multifamily, and single family structures. Given that the new structures would replace existing residences that are proposed to be demolished, and that there are existing structures that would buffer the proposed structures, and that the proposed and surrounding uses are primarily residential, staff are of the opinion that the use is compatible with the surrounding neighborhoods. The new structures would include 81 units and multifamily structures and 78 would note that in the staff report it says 72 that is correct to be 78 units in in the dormitory. A total of 285 beds are proposed across the entire development, the plan also proposes 338 parking spaces corrected from 342 and the staff report. Between surface parking and the proposed garage, the proposed parking will exceed the minimum parking requirements. Staff do not anticipate adverse impact regarding light, noise, odor, infrastructure, or emergency services. Staff recommend that the Planning Commission hear the proposal, take public comment, and provide comments for further revisions.

Okay, thank you. Is the applicant here? Come on up. identify yourself and add any comments you'd like.

Hello, I'm Angie Esslinger. I'm an architect and associate principal at Lawrence Group. I am here on behalf of Concordia Seminary to describe and provide a brief overview and then open the floor to questions. I have two colleagues with me as well, and I'll let them introduce themselves.

Hi, I'm Jordan Wilkinson, landscape architect with Lawrence Group. Available to answer any questions in that realm. Thank you.

Hi, Alyssa Burkemper, civil engineer with Koln Associates here to answer any questions about stormwater SWPPP or anything relating to civil.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have anything to add to the staff report?

I was gonna provide a brief overview just to give the room an idea of what we're doing beyond the wonderful report that was written. Do you want me to point you to the folder? It's, oh, I can do it. Sorry. It's a PowerPoint, but I promise it's only like 10 slides. And I only did it Because I thought it'd be easy to get it on a big screen. This should be it.

Good.

So if I do a slideshow, it'll still work fine. Okay. As stated, I'm here to provide a brief overview of the proposed development. Concordia engaged the design team to help solve a problem. The Woods Apartments, which are located on the western portion of the property, are in need of significant repair. We studied several options to reposition the housing. The proposed development area is located at the core of campus. I was supposed to state the addresses 801 seminary place that I forgot. This graphic shows the proposed development area, which is at the core of campus one of concordia his goals is to improve upon and reposition the housing around the seminary Chapel and historic core of campus to enhance Community for the students and families that reside. There are four different product types being put into this development. One is a group of townhomes. One is a three-story apartment buildings. One is a residence hall. And the other is a two-story open air parking structure. We were able to nestle that into the existing topography so that two-story structure will actually feel more like one as it's sitting into the hill. We are all here to answer specific questions based on the packet you all have received and any from the audience. And that's really the overview I wanted to provide to just give people an idea.

We'd like to go through everyone up here, then we'll come to the audience. You will have three minutes maximum

each.

We have as long as we need. Yes. Yes, you are.

I do want to click through these slides very briefly just to show you some of the visual renderings of the project. These are some of the statistics involved. There are 75 of the existing apartment units I mentioned on the western side of the property. We will be demolishing those and rebuilding 81. There is an existing single student dorm that houses 75, and we are proposing a new building that will house 78. The existing parking spaces on campus is total 633 and we are proposing 657. There's parking at the apartments on the western side of the property that will also be demolished, and then there's parking around the chapel that will be demolished as well to be able to allow for the green space and housing to be built. This shows a before and after. On the left is the current condition. You can see the circular or half circle parking going around the chapel, and then you can see the proposed development plan on the right. So the townhomes are at the north, just north of the chapel. The three-story apartment buildings are to the west of the chapel.The residence hall is to the south, and the two-story parking structure is at the southwest corner down by that number eight. We have just a few renderings to communicate materials and style. The chapel is on the right side of the screen. We are trying to complement the materials on campus without actually replicating them. They have slate roofing and limestone. That's not very economical when you're building housing. So we tried to do our best with color and material use. The building on the left is the proposed residence hall, which would be all brick. The building in the distance is one of the three-story apartment buildings, which would be a cultured stone to match in color and style of the existing limestone on campus. The photo in the middle of the screen is a snip of the townhomes. We would vary from townhome to townhome brick and then stucco or Ephus we're introducing stucco or ethos to the campus but felt it was complimentary and provided a little bit of variety to the exterior elevation of the buildings. We also have we're relocating an existing playground there are two playgrounds proposed adjacent to the green space that was previously shown one is for the younger age group. two to five, and the other is for older kids. Again, all of this will enhance the community around the chapel. The photo at the bottom right is also another view of those three-story apartment buildings. We tried to use the material in general, architectural elements to complement the chapel. This is a view from the southwest corner of this parcel, and it is of this two-story parking structure we spoke of. It's open air. We're trying to minimize its impact visually on the area. And the way the terrain worked out, you can enter from the lower level where that gray car is. And then you can enter up at the upper level where the car is on the upper left side of the screen. There's no communication between the levels of the parking structure. This is just a snip of some of the materials that we have. The first four circles at the top of the screen are some existing photos of what's there. I spoke of the limestone and the existing slate roof, and then that's just a snip of the concrete pavers. The four materials shown at the bottom of the screen, the proposed brick veneer on the left is what we would use at the residence hall. What looks like a shingle would be a proposed synthetic slate roof tile to mimic the style of what's on campus, but we are proposing a change in color. Currently, it's patinaed and we're trying to just go with more of a natural earthy tone. And then the proposed stucco and ephus is pulled from the color palette of the existing stone. The bottom right image is a rendered version of cultured stone veneer. Again, we would match the style and scale and color blend of what's already on campus. And this is just some of the plantings that we propose. And I don't know any of their names, but he would if you guys want to know more. That's all I have.

Okay. I have a question. What we're looking at, the conditional use permit, the way I understand it is it's only about 60% of the current Concordia property. I may be off on the number. Is that correct? That sounds

accurate.

Okay. If you could go back to the original site plan.

Do I do it? you're talking

to that's where i picked up roughly 60 percent um

to this line is what you're talking about right and it's this this portion of campus

yes

right

so concordia retains about 60 percent and you are really only looking at the shaded area

only the area that's lightly shaded in white yes that's what we're considering the development area

okay It certainly makes the Concordia campus, much more compact. Yes, and more in the historical higher education design where you have buildings around a central area. And of course we have the chapel in there also. I like it, even though it seems like it'll be a major change on that campus with much higher density in the redeveloped portion. But that's the way it has to go. And I think the differentiation of what... in the planning the foreign types of buildings makes a lot of sense it gives them a lot of variety also but this is conditional use only we won't get into site plan or architectural yet um so I really have no problem with it okay Bridget

um at the really the only question I had related to site plan was we are increasing um pervious coverage pretty significantly with the change in the plans. And I was just wondering, maybe Alyssa, right? Maybe she could talk a little bit about just drainage. You know, water is a big issue in this world. So just talking about where the water is going. I know there's some big basins you guys plan, but if you could just kind of address that a little bit, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you for your question um so we actually submitted the site plan that you guys have received back to msd the local sewer agency. And they are aware, there are concerns of drainage in this area there's a watershed divide right through the site river to Paris, the north and then deer creek is to the south. Both watersheds have a zero increase limit, so what that means is that you cannot increase the runoff from the site. From the current or excuse me pre developed condition and both of these watersheds the pre developed condition is the. So the pre developed condition sorry. essentially means back to green and it's undeveloped. So we would have to account for the runoff from the pre-post, which means that the site is currently green and there's no pavement on the site today. So because of that, we would provide detention, which is currently proposed as underground detention, which are just underground pipes under the pavement. MSD typically requires water quality, which is infiltration, but they have stated that due to the site development and the proximity to existing buildings and residences, MSD is agreeable to a variance on the infiltration component to reduce the likelihood of seepage impacting the neighborhood buildings. So because of that they would um completely forego the infiltration which they typically require um just to avoid any seepage to neighboring buildings and we'd only have to detain the water which then would reduce the total runoff from the site

so any increase would go into the basin

correct so anything leaving the site would have to be below that pre-developed condition

And I know the area slopes east obviously in terms of outside and then I mean that area that's under construction, obviously to the north is buffered by a lot of green space and your own property which of course you don't want to flood so and then the area to the south there's also largely a buffer so. Okay. And then I also just had a question, maybe for angie. So it looks like it looked to me like a lot of the new buildings, there was an increase in students but it looks like you're doing a pretty apple like apples to apples like it sounds like the buildings the living units that you're destroying. You're basically just constructing, like, just to match what you are taking down the woods apartments,

we are

creating new living spaces.

No, we're diversifying what options are on campus, but I believe it's 75 that we're removing and 81 that we're going back with. And that 81 is the townhomes and the three-story apartments. The residence hall numbers aren't in that. That's where we compare the existing 75 dorm spaces to the current 78. And that's just because we have three floors and there's 26 per floor. Okay.

So there's not a plan for an increase in student population. It's just going to be pretty similar. So

it's really solving a problem of housing that is in need of significant repair. The dorm move, though, is to bring the single students closer to the core of campus as well, because currently they're located on the far east side, right adjacent to the park.

And then I'm assuming next time you'll talk about where HVAC units will be located. It's just not on the plans, I guess. Yes,

we did not include that graphically. In the three-story apartment buildings, we will create a mechanical well in the roof so they will all be up off the ground and hidden. Within the roof plane, you will not see them. Same with the residence hall in the renderings, you can see that there's a central portion that drops down and that's a flat roof portion and that's where mechanical equipment for that building would sit as well. The townhomes are very much residential in nature, and so a condensing unit that you would typically find at your own house, we have to find a location for nine. So I assume they will be clustered based on the four and the five townhomes that are stuck together on a pad and screened appropriately. I actually have a question for you, if I may. Would you allow a cedar fence as a screen, or do we need to stick with, say, what we're going to do at the trash enclosures or things like that?

That probably would be more of a question for staff.

If they can't answer, we can ask later.

I would say that either of those options would work if you wanted to propose something that was similar to your other screening on-site. Otherwise, generally, cedar fences are appropriate for HVAC enclosures. Okay,

thank

you. And then my last question might be for Jordan because of landscape. So all the plantings... you feel comfortable are pretty drought resistant, so that you're not having to constantly water and just the new plantings are proposed. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about

that. The vast majority of the plant palette right now is native. I think it's roughly 75% to 80%. And those that aren't native are well adapted to our climate. So we've been paying very close attention to that. And they will stand up to drought and rain conditions as well.

I think that's all the questions I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Helen?

I have a question about what will you do with the area where you're demolishing the existing residences?

They're being torn down because of the level, the state that they're in and what's going to actually be developed there is yet to be determined.

Okay. So in the interim, you will be turning it into green space? Yes.

It can't come down until the new is built. Right. It would be very a long time from now, but yes.

Okay. That's other than that, nothing.

Okay.

Amy? Amy?

So I guess I do have questions for the site plan, but I'll wait on that. But as far as the CUP, I think I'm okay with everything. Just out of curiosity, so everything when we're looking at this, the project scope area, so everything to the west of it, all of those will be? demolish is that right

on that ring road that curves around yeah there's okay i don't know the number off the top of my head of how many buildings but yes they all come down

okay and then to the north is that

to the north of the property outside of the white area

correct like within the property but just outside of the scope

yeah outside of the white everything stays okay

thank

you

jim i have no questions or comments on the cup okay david questions or comments

Any questions or comments from the audience on the CUP only not on site plan or architectural? Come on

up. My name is the green light on It was, now it is.

Okay.

My name is Alan Kalb. I live in Forest Ridge subdivision. I remember about 20, approximately 20 years ago, the Clayton Architectural Review Board gave a CUP to Concordia Seminary to build multifamily dwellings on the west end of their current property. Now, 20 years have passed. And I heard tonight that it is more economical to raise those buildings and to repair them. I'm interested in knowing how long the new buildings are expected to last.

Well, we'll defer to the design course. Thank you.

I'm only smiling because I don't honestly know how to answer that question. We hope to design and build buildings that last more than 20 years. Unfortunately, I can't speak to what exactly is failing in the existing buildings. I can say that the townhomes and the three-story apartments will be built per current code, and they will be built out of it's mostly wood construction on the interior. The residence hall is built with metal construction, metal and concrete, and brick veneer. And then the southwest parking structure is also concrete. That doesn't really directly answer anything. Again, we hope our projects last more than 20 years when we put them in.

Thank you. We would hope so also. Mr. Kalb, I think the other thing we we and all property owners know is not only is the quality of initial construction important for longevity, but so is ongoing maintenance. So you have to put those two together. Hopefully, I would think these buildings would probably last substantially longer than 20 years. Any other questions on CUP only? Come on up. Oh. Sorry, didn't see.

I have a question about, I was disappointed in the- Give us your name and address. Anne Martin, I live in Tuscany Park. I was disappointed I was around when they did the married student housing and argued at great length with the wind architectural group about the lack of quality of materials in the buildings. Hopefully that's not gonna be a problem again. It seems like a big waste. of money to not use it more than 20 years i have a question i couldn't hear the drainage description could you show me where the detention basins are and exactly where those drain

I have a question about, I was disappointed in the- Give us your name and address. Ann Martin, I live in Tuscany Park. I was disappointed I was around when they did the married student housing and argued at great length with the wind architectural group about the lack of quality of materials in the buildings. Hopefully that's not gonna be a problem again. It seems like a big waste. of money to not use it more than 20 years i have a question i couldn't hear the drainage description could you show me where the detention basins are and exactly where those drain

we will get to that in the site plan review next okay we'll stick with the cup currently

My name is Jay Kanzler from 20 Southmore. Back to the idea of why this is happening. I guess I would ask, would the Concordia have the same belief that it was cheaper to raise these and build new ones if Washington University wasn't overpaying for the property? And why would you conceivably believe that these buildings would last any longer than the last one? And is that really true that these buildings need to be raised?

I'll do my best to answer this as well. And am I supposed to face you or face that way?

Face us and they can see you. Okay, little screen.

Yeah. So the first question.

We need Angie, we need to record it. So

I was just gonna say, could you remind me what the first question was?

This was cheaper to raise these properties than repair them if Washington University wasn't overpaying for the property.

i believe that concordia was looking for a housing repositioning solution before washington university and concordia had conversations about that portion of the property second question

any other questions on the cup

well he had three i just forgot the other two

The other one was, what kind of study was done? Why is it more economical to raise an entire development than it is to repair?

I can talk with the client and provide an answer to that at a later date. And I don't have that answer right now.

I think, Angie, he also wondered about whether like how in terms of the like what the status of the construction or what can you speak at all to the condition i guess of the current structures do you know about that at all

i've been inside of them but not maintaining or being part of that i can't speak intelligently to that so again we can provide additional information as a follow-up

any other questions on the cup process no were there any hands up no okay OK. We do have a staff recommendation that we hear the proposal, take public comments, and provide comments for future revisions in lieu of actually voting on it tonight. Are there other comments from the plan commission? Ellen, Jamie, Jim, David? No. Okay, then in that case, we will move to review it again at a future date.

Thank you.

We need to... I think we need to... Yeah, make a motion.

I'll make a motion to... or continue the discussion on the CUP for a later date.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Well, Angie, now we'll move on to the site plan review. And either, well, I guess all three of you may be involved in this. Brian?

So I'll summarize the review criteria, but a full analysis can be found in the staff report. As described in the CUP, staff report summary, staff are of the opinion that the proposed uses are compatible with the surrounding area. Dumpsters will be located throughout the parking areas with screening. The existing disturbance area has an impervious coverage of 37.2% and the proposal would increase to 53.3%. per msd 15-year 20-minute storm calculations the affected area's existing runoff is 26.36 cubic feet per second the proposal would result in a runoff of 33.15 cubic feet per second an increase of 6.79 inlets would be placed throughout the site and would connect to two underground detention basins additionally the inlets and detentions would connect to the existing msd sewer system The site presently has 1,973 caliper inches of trees with 1,780 to be removed. The plan proposes 157 caliper inches, which is 1,034 caliper inches below the replacement requirement. A caliper inch deficiency requires payment to the city's forestry fund at a rate of $250 per inch. A payment of $258,500 would be required. The plan commission has the authority to approve a reduction of up to 20% of the required caliper inch replacement. While some existing trees will be impacted, much of the development is planned for areas that are used as open or recreation space, including a parking lot, soccer field, tennis courts near the chapel. Trees are proposed throughout the development with the remaining replacement opportunities located outside of the disturbance area or within the central green. Concordia plans to demolish the existing recreational facilities, leaving the central green as the main opportunity for recreational space. The applicant has made a good faith effort to retain as many trees as feasible and has proposed understory plantings throughout the site. Given the institutional use of the site and the proposed enhancement staff are of the opinion that a 20% reduction in the minimum required caliper inch replacement is appropriate. This would reduce the required replacement caliper inches from 1487. to 1,189.6 and the applicant's required replacement would be reduced from 1,034 to 736.6 caliper interest or from $258,500 to $184,150. The plan exceeds the native species requirement with 78.1% native proposed. There are additional tree protection measures recommended by the city's contracted landscape architect that can be addressed under a construction permit. Access to the site would not change. Existing utilities are depicted on the plans. The specific location of new utilities has not been identified and staff are of the opinion that the location in which new utilities would connect to existing utilities should be identified. New lighting is proposed throughout the campus. The specific locations and quantities of light poles are identified as to be determined. Staff are of the opinion, that final lighting details should be provided to ensure compliance with the lighting requirements. Staff recommend that the plan commission hear the proposal, take public comment and provide comments for further revision. Okay,

thank you. Anything to add?

No, we're open to questions.

Well, we've already had a few comments on impervious coverage, water runoff, landscape design. I would pass it on to the rest of the plan commission if there's anything additional before we get the design team up here to go into more depth. Bridgette?

No, I think I apologize. Steve, I kind of jumped the gun earlier, but I don't have any additional questions at this time.

Ellen?

Nothing more. I think we've mentioned the HVAC units.

Kami?

I just had a question about the trees because normally we talk about like canopy coverage and this is kind of the first time I'm hearing like the caliper part. Like what is the difference with that?

So under our existing tree and landscape regulations, a non-residential use on a residentially zoned property replaces based on the caliper inches that it removes as opposed to a canopy coverage. This is an example of when you have larger trees, even if you you know, you take down a tree that's maybe 10 caliber inches. Well, you're replacing it probably with three caliber inch trees. So even if you're replacing it with a large tree that grows over time to replace the shade that you've lost, you're still deficient in the caliber inches. So it takes, you need a lot more open space to be able to replant on a caliber inch replacement fee. So that is why staff's recommending that 20% reduction on based on what they're doing.

So So right now, we're just eliminating a bunch of trees that have a really thick diameter trunk. But when we're replacing them, are we replacing them with trees that in 10, 15 years will grow to the same canopy coverage as the existing?

Probably not in 10, 15 year, but eventually yes. They will be medium to large trees that will be quite impactful.

like 2030, you know what I mean? Cause these are really old trees. Right. And so we are getting a deficient amount of canopy coverage. So I guess we can't plant more because then eventually they would.

Some of the trees that have to come out are like 40 plus inches in diameter. Um, and you know, upwards of 80, 90 years old, perhaps a lot of them are not in the best condition, unfortunately. Um, but some are, so the plan is to, um, make up for that deficiency with either adding more trees, which we already have based on the landscape reviewers comments and then combining that with, you know, the forestry fund.

No, but for the site, even if you, you know, add to the forestry fund, that's not helping our site.

I mean to add to make up for that entire caliper deficiency on site would be like an additional 250 300 trees like it would probably not literally fit on the site so. We're responding to the comments and trying to make sure that we're getting everything screened and properly shaded as we can. We've got shade trees along all the walks, parking lots. We have flowering and evergreen trees around the buildings for foundation plantings, as well as screening around the trash enclosures, and then at the property line borders as well. So we're really... There are a lot of trees in there, and I understand it's deficient, but that's just kind of, unfortunately, the nature of the site.

Is the intent, though, with your landscape design that 20, 30, 40 years, like the canopy coverage would be something that you're aiming for to meet the existing conditions now?

Absolutely, yeah. Okay.

Thank you.

I

have another question.

Yes,

that's all my questions. Thank

you. Jim? My questions were regarding the trees too, for the most part. I was just wondering if you could kind of go to the plan, kind of illustrate maybe where a lot of this canopy coverage is coming out because then too, it's like, at least in the renderings and stuff, there did still appear to be a pretty large amount of open space and $184,000 is quite a lot of money to have to pay to the city's forestry fund. So I didn't know if there's any sort of plan for that or it sounds like you're going to combat that with a percentage of additional trees and then some to the forestry fund. I didn't know if any, if you would put any specifics to that or maybe a little more detail to that. So I guess those are my two questions.

Sure. So, It might be hard to see here, but most of the trees here, if not all of them in the center of the shaded area around the circle drive have to come out as well as some of the trees to the north. You can see in the overlay where the parking kind of does a right-hand turn towards the east at the north end of the site. So a lot of those larger trees are affected with that. So we are doing our best to preserve some of the trees around the border and around the chapel. One of the comments in particular, I can remember from the landscape reviewer was adding some more shade trees south of those townhomes. Which I believe in your packets in front of you we've already done so that's one example of how we're adding some additional trees to kind of make up for that deficit. But the, there is a goal to have a large kind of multi use green space in the middle kind of as a commons area as a quad for for different uses so we're lining the edges of that and providing shade for the high activity areas the paved areas, but the large green portion in the middle of the site will probably not be filled with trees. um the design is evolving so we will respond to the architecture and make sure that we're designing in coordination and supporting that um so i still think there is there are going to be some added trees but there will still be a deficit as well that answer questions

uh yeah i mean i didn't i didn't know if there were any like specifics in place but i'm getting the sense that there probably aren't specifics at this time and i don't I don't believe we're going to be voting on site plan tonight anyway, most likely. So we probably don't necessarily need specifics right at this time, but that's something I'd be curious for at a future meeting.

Okay. Thank you. David, I don't have any questions.

Steve, I had one more quick question. Sorry, I forgot. As far as the way these, especially like the A and B townhomes, is the front facade, is that facing outward towards the parking lot? And so like what's, in between like the chapel. Are those the decks?

Yes, the front door of those townhomes is facing north, which is up on the screen. And they're two story in height, which is a lot more reminiscent of the existing single family homes just north of them. So we were trying to not dominate the chapel with any of the heights of our buildings, but most specifically that area because they are backyard neighbors to those homes that are already there. The Backside of the townhome is a deck that's off of the second level and then a patio off at the first level. And it is quite a few feet lower than the pad that's around the chapel itself. You can see two retaining walls there.

Oh, is that, so that's like a, there's

a retaining wall here and a retaining wall here, and you drop. So we maintained as much as we could in this area and actually tried to keep the trees, but they just, the drip edge is so large that they probably won't survive construction. So we have a flat pad here. I'm trying to see if we have a bigger, better visual. No.

So the chapel is up high and then you step down to all the other buildings

the chapel yes is approximately five six seven feet higher than um the green space and then the green space drops very slowly as it goes to the west

and so are all the buildings front facades facing out away from the chapel so you're really when you're in that space it's kind of everyone's backyard

just the townhomes that's perfect That, yeah. So that's the residence hall on the left, and that is its front door. You can see there's a little bridge that connects from the sidewalk into the front door, which is at that second level of that building. That is the front door that will be very much facing north onto campus. And then the three-story apartment buildings that are situated on the southwest corner, straight west and northwest, the front and the back look exactly the same.

And so just for the townhomes, you were thinking to respect the neighbors to the north to do that?

Because of their proximity. Okay. Sorry.

That's okay. Angie, I have one other question too. The picture of like the playgrounds and stuff, other than perhaps under the playground, everything else is like grass, right? I mean, the playgrounds look like they might have some special service, which I understand for accessibility. But other than that, Right under the playground, everything else is grass. Yes.

Okay. Thanks. If you look at the photo in the upper right corner of the screen, that's actually looking at a townhome on the right, and that's the back of the townhome. And you can see some tiered retaining walls stepping up to the left, which is going up to the chapel. So you can get a feel for the fact that they're a little bit lower in height.

Any comments or questions on site plan review from the audience? Come up, we need the recording.

I'm Anne Martin from Tuscany. I couldn't really hear or understand the drainage plan with the increased impervious area. Could you tell me, show me where the detention basins are and to which stormwater system do they drain?

I'm Ann Martin from Tuscany. I couldn't really hear or understand the drainage plan with the increased impervious area. Could you tell me, show me where the detention basins are and to which stormwater system do they drain?

If you could go to see 5.0. Thank you for the question so currently today, there is a watershed break that goes right through the Center of the site. And the north half drains the north and then the South drinks to the south, so we would have one detention basin for each. watershed so there'd be one placed on the south and one place to the north, to match that existing drainage pattern.

Could you go to see. I think it's

3.0. Thank you. So there's two, they're a little hard to see because it's all gray. The large hatch boxes that are just above building C, yes, that right there is the north watershed or will manage the north watershed. And then there's one to the south just below G. And those are underground detention basins. So you cannot see them as a person just standing.

Do those drains.

So they'll match the existing drainage pattern. The South Basin drains to the south to an existing storm sewer system, so they would do the same pattern as well as to the north. The north goes to the east.

Is it the storm water system on San Benito to which it drains?

Yes.

I will tell you... Anne,

if you're going to... We need you in the microphone, otherwise...

As someone who lives directly in line with that stormwater system, which was put in in 1974, that stormwater system is already overtaxed. And when the storm, when it fills up, when there's a lot of rain, it knocks, it comes, builds up two feet high at my property where there's a masonry wall. It's knocked that masonry wall down over the years five times. Each time that breaks down, it's $18,000 to $20,000 for repair. When my wall comes down, the five times it did because that system was overloaded, it goes directly into my neighbor's basement. And just luck would have it, they had just completely redone their basement and it was destroyed. So there's a real problem with the stormwater drainage that goes to San Benito. I can tell you because the damn thing went through my yard with 12 foot deep, 12 foot wide hole through my yard. And it has not solved the runoff. So adding more to it is a direct insult to Tuscany Park. I think MSD needs to be in on it.

Thank you.

I understand your concern. So we submitted to MSD and they provided some conceptual feedback. We have not performed a full study yet of that San Benito sewer system, but MSD's requirement is that you cannot increase the runoff from the site for the pre-developed condition. So we would have to consider right now that this whole site is grass and that we have to meet those requirements and that runoff requirement. based on if the whole site is grass so basically just to put it in a simplified term we would have to reduce the runoff from what is currently there today

Alyssa though maybe and maybe this would come to the next meeting just understanding so you know the water goes to the north basin and then there's water that comes to the south basin so understanding I think it would be helpful so the water comes to the South Basin, when it fills up in a major rain event, I think it'd be helpful to understand, okay, then what happens? It's not that it just drains into a sewer inlet along San Benito, right? Where does it, I think understanding for the next meeting where that water goes, maybe it goes, I don't know, 20 feet underground that then gets looped out to, you know, the watershed, De Pere watershed, wherever it goes. I think it would just be helpful, I think, for everyone to understand where it goes.

Well, I could clarify too, these detention basins, they are designed to hold water For a certain amount of time, so that it releases at a very small rate and currently on the site just because of the requirements that were. mst had back in the day, there is no detention on the site, so we would be reducing the runoff

okay yeah and again, so if the again in a 100 year rain event which seems to happen every two years understanding that you know how long, maybe that basin would take and to fill up and then. you slowly release understanding, I think, just how that works, just so people feel comfortable about. Absolutely.

Understood. Thank you.

Any other questions? Silly

canal cats from number three, Tuscany Park. Just two little, two questions. I live just south of the current student housing, and I'm looking here at parking and thinking about parking. When the graduate student, when student housing was built, at that time, the city of Clayton had rules that you had to have, I think, two parking spaces for each residential unit. And as a result... It was built in such a way that the Concordia Woods, which were really woods at that time, have now a great big scar down the middle. Because you had the road and then you had many, many parking spaces, which in all of these years have never, ever all been full. And the reason for that is obvious. The guys walked to work. And if they did have two cars, well, there's an enormous parking lot by the gym. You don't need to park two cars right by your house. So that was that sort of history. But as we think about the future, somehow we're not thinking that necessarily we have to be driving. It isn't necessarily a sort of a Clayton ethos. We're going to be driving everywhere. Maybe we're thinking about bikes and walking and all of this sort of stuff. And so I'm wondering, what are the requirements that you have put in place that have determined the size of the parking garage? And maybe should that parking garage be made smaller? I don't know because I haven't looked at the numbers and I don't know your criteria. But that's question number one. Question number two is... Our neighborhood has lots and lots of beautiful oak trees. And over the years, we've seen some of these oak trees die. And unfortunately in my front yard at the moment there is one that is almost dying. It's going to have to be taken out. And I had an arborist come and she said, well, You know, you have to be really careful because in fact, if someone does something, if they plant a tree, a good old tree, the roots go out and they go beyond the reach of where the branches are. And so I'm looking, I couldn't quite see what was happening with some of those trees there, but there was, I guess, a retaining wall which from the trees was supposed to be behind it. And I'm wondering, hey, what does that do to the roots? Do arborists think that that's a sensible thing to do? So that's another question. I don't know exactly, and I guess part of that is that I also think that when I come from out of town, I have a kid who lives in California, God help him, two kids who live in California. I come home, it's green. And I hope it's one of the defining nice things about Clayton. So I don't like the idea that we reduce green. And my experience has been often that promise when trees have been cut down, for example, at the top of Concordia, when Fontbonne wanted that extra parking lot, we were promised that the trees that would be cut down would be replaced with other trees and that these would be maintained and so on. And well, I can't quantify what happened, but I walked down Big Bend in the summer, and it used to be shady. And it's now from the whole of the summer unbearable in the middle of the day because there's no shade anymore. So whatever promises were made about reducing, replanting the trees, Well, they weren't... Maybe I misunderstood the promises. But maybe they should have been made to... You know, lots of people like to walk down there. And Big Bend, it makes a big street look nicer if it's got trees around it. And, you know... There's a whole tree thing there. And finally, and this is just an architectural thing. There was the picture of the entrance to one of the buildings, which was on the second floor. Does that mean the people on the first floor are looking at a retaining wall? Are they living in a basement? Sorry. I'll start.

This is Angie at Lawrence Group. I'll start by addressing the architectural questions. The parking garage itself is, I believe, 48 spaces per level for a total of 174 per level for a And we did do the parking count based on the current zoning, which is two spaces per unit for multifamily housing. And then for the residence hall, I think it's one space per three residents per And that is how we establish the parking count we did not want to provide less parking that we were taking away, we have a surplus of I believe 30 plus spaces. We can look closely at those numbers and see how that fits with the current zoning code. Regarding the last question she just asked the building F on the screen right there, you can see that that's an approximately 25 feet, I'm going to guess space between the front facade of the building which would be the north side, and what is very much a retaining wall. The concept was to provide a three-story living space adjacent to the chapel, but not dominate it. So we positioned that second floor level at the grade at that parking lot that you see just north of it as well. So we created a bridge-like condition in that area for the first floor residents to look out is what's considered a dry creek bed area. Let Jordan explain that better than myself, but the intent is that it's a an attractive retaining wall, which is up for people's judgment of an opinion on that, but that we would landscape that area and light it well and there's also no foot traffic through there for safety reasons.

So is that the area that you're talking about? Is that, so it's not like, that's not the dorm area then? That

building F is the residence hall. Right.

Oh, so somebody would primarily have their living space only on that ground level then?

Yes. If there's 26 per floor, 13 potentially would face north. Mm-hmm.

Is there walkout space available or is it no one's walking through that?

We don't want pedestrian traffic walking through there on purpose just because of safety and because you are down. But it will be very well lit and very well landscaped and attractive. But there is a stairwell that exits on either end of the building. There's a stairwell. So there's a modest opportunity to be in that area, but you cannot walk back through it.

And then maybe for next time too, it'd be helpful. I mean, I'm all for reducing parking because I agree like people aren't buying and using cars the way they used to, but maybe next time if you're able to get some information from your client from Concordia to kind of understand if the parking they have, you know, is used. And I think that would be helpful as well.

Okay, one item of note as well about the parking garage itself. We didn't put it there only because we had space to do something with that area. We did it on purpose because we took away the parking that was around the chapel briar. And the parking spaces that flank the A through E buildings will probably be utilized by the people that live in those buildings. So the chapel parking can be in the parking structure, which is G on the screen. Okay. Do you want Jordan to speak to the landscape?

I will kind of reiterate what we already talked about. So we understand there are some big trees coming down. There's only one tree that I believe that we're preserving close to the chapel that would conflict with the retaining wall. Clayton has some very rigorous code requirements, as you know, that make us document the tree protection plan. So the drip lines, the critical root zone, which does extend beyond the drip line, has all been documented and you can see that in Cole's plans with the tree protection plan, so any tree preservation that we do, we have to detail it out, show it on the plan, So if they're if we're recommending any route pruning to save the tree, rather than just digging through a route, so it is pretty involved and we're complying with all the code requirements there. And all the trees are shown on our landscape plans l 300 l 301. We have a lot of trees and we're going to be adding more and diversifying the palette. We understand the need and desire for shade, so we have quite a few shade trees going in and yeah that's all I can say.

Oh Lily did that answer the question. If you have more to say, please come up for the recording.

I'll leave it for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Jordan. Any other comments or questions? Come on up. And this is on site plan review. Thanks.

Your name? Yeah, John Qualley, Brentmore Park. So can you go back to the site where you've got the shaded area? But first of all, does anybody here have copies of this? I mean, the presentation. Would it be helpful to get copies of the presentation? Can we get can we get copies? Or is there a website to go to so that we have all that you're putting all this information up here? We're getting it. We're concerned about the entire thing. And and we're getting it. Is there a way that we can get so we can study it?

Sure. Ryan, would you describe

it? The PowerPoint being presented is being presented by the applicant tonight, so afterwards we can get a copy of that. Can they give us a copy? Yeah, we'll put it online afterwards. Okay. The plan sheets, the black and white ones that we scrolled through, those are already available on the city's website under pending applications. I'd just

like to get this. Okay. A second thing is, could you put the site back up, the shaded area? Because I couldn't tell the distance from... Yeah, okay. So yeah, so what is that 1,115 feet from Big Bend? Just go back to the... Is that 1,185 feet?

Yes.

From Big Bend?

Yes.

To the left? Okay. So when we drive Big Bend, there's a very serene area there. And so are you telling us that you're going to knock down all the trees that are in that area? And... I'm just talking about from the shaded area, which is the development area, right? Then to Big Bend. What's happening with that area?

We're doing nothing with that area in this development except tearing down the housing units. Okay. That are here along this road and these housing units. That's all that'll come down.

Okay. And the trees. Trees are involved in that area.

If the trees are associated with the demolition of the home and don't survive, then yes, they would come down. But we're not intentionally removing any trees in that area.

Okay. And then on the other side, it's 1,040 feet to the east. And what's going to happen there?

Nothing for this development is happening in that eastern area either,

nor to the north. One other question. Are there any plans for a phase two development to take into that space, either side?

Not from Concordia. Phase one is the townhomes, the three buildings and the parking garage. Phase two would be a renovation of an existing building, so just interior. And that's to allow for the residence hall, which would be our phase three. And there is potential for a welcome center someday, but that is literally a box on a plan right now. Okay, okay. And it's not in that treat area.

Okay, thanks. I think I saw another hand there.

Joan Downey, I'm on Tuscany. I just want to reiterate the importance of getting the public informed about the decrease in the percent of impervious land, given that now we're going to have a much denser gray box um i want to illustrate ann's um point about how bad the drainage is maybe two or three times ago when her wall was knocked down i happened to be home during a heavy rain and tuscany park itself our basketball court filled about three feet i was to here So I have a lot of doubt about how good MSD is at assessing and giving its variances. So I'd like to just alert our staff to that. It's much worse than Anne has had to live through it, but it was gone. The water went away somewhere in about an hour. So I'm sure the Clayton staff didn't know.

Any further comment from the audience? And Ryan, any hands up? No. Okay. Any further comment from The Plan Commission? No. Okay, well here again as Ryan told us, we were to hear the proposal, take public comments, make comments, and then we will continue this at a future meeting also.

I'll make a motion to continue the discussion on the site plan review to a future meeting.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay. Now we can move on to the architectural review.

Housing on the west side of campus is to be demolished. The buildings are two stories comprised of red brick and sit along a street that doubles as parking. Housing on the north side of campus comprises of brick single-family homes, and a portion of these structures would be demolished. Essential northern portions of campus are a combination of the central chapel, academic buildings, recreation space, and green space. These structures comprise of varying red and brownberger stone. The proposal includes the construction of seven new structures. Two of the structures would comprise of two-story townhomes located on the north side of the chapel. West of the chapel would be a new green space playgrounds and three three-story apartment structures. South of the chapel would a three-story dormitory, and southwest of the residential structures would be a parking garage. The garage would be built into a slope, have two levels, and present as one story. Parking lots and walking paths would surround and connect the new structures. The structures would be located centrally on campus. The remaining single-family homes on the north side of campus would buffer the Hillcrest neighborhood to the north. This, in combination with the presence of nearby trees, fencing, and rear yard garages, should result in a minimal visual impact to the residents of Hillcrest. The dormitory to the south of the chapel would replace an existing structure. The High Point neighborhood to the south would be buffered by the Concordia Historical Institute. Staff are of the opinion that the proposed structures would result in a minimal The proposed garage would be the most visible to neighbors of High Point to the south. Given the garage's low profile, the presence of fencing and garages adjacent to the residential properties, and limited street view from San Benito Avenue, staff are of the opinion that the proposed garage would have a minimal visual impact. The proposed new structures would be combination of brown brick cultured stone and stucco with black windows in synthetic slate shingles. The rb guidelines to require that at least 75% of a facade be a primary material most facades meet this requirement and the use of stucco on the remaining facades is likely to have a minimal visual impact. staff are of the opinion that the uses and materials are compatible with the existing site and surrounding area staff recommend approval with the condition that the plans be revised to identify the location of screening materials for HVAC units.

Okay, thank you. Ready?

I'm willing to take questions from anyone in the room as I've already spoken about everything you just mentioned.

Okay. If you go back to the elevation where we saw the townhomes in the back and the residence hall, I believe, toward the left.

Can't pass it, so holler if I hit what you're talking about. This one?

Yeah. From this... vantage point and a few of the others, I thought the buildings look like they fit on the campus. They're really very simple, but they do pick up some of the brickwork that we see elsewhere on the campus and some of the stonework arches. So in general, I think it looks pretty good. Uh, the, uh, um, stone retaining walls, uh, I think look very good and your dry, uh, lower level in there. Um, I did not realize that's what it was. I would hope that there'd be a little more landscaping in it, uh, to make it look more palatable from those windows. I only say that because in college I lived in one of those lower level, um, and it, uh, wasn't the greatest view. The roof pitches that I see do relate to the chapel on site, and the way you've described the air conditioning units as being in recessed units on the roof makes a lot of sense, except for the nine townhomes. which are more residential in character. So with those comments, what we're looking at here, the palette of materials and colors that you showed, I felt quite comfortable with what you were showing architecturally. Let's see if there's any concurrence or not. Bridget?

I agree. I mean, I think a lot of it does blend together. They all I mean, they look, I think the townhomes, the different materials, I think it's nice how they kind of alternate with the stucco and the brick. I just had a question. Just in terms of elevation, do you feel like the new buildings are still lower than the chapel since it's kind of up high? Is the chapel still going to be kind of the highest structure in the campus area or?

The intention is that the chapel feels that way. Our actual ridge line of the residence hall in the three-story apartment building rivals the ridge line of the chapel. I can find the exact dimensions and share that information. The intention was at grade level, which is more at a human scale, when you're walking around, you will feel that the chapel has a presence, and that's why we put the retaining walls on. so close to the chapel, which unfortunately forces us to lose a few trees. That decision was made so we could make up some grade change and get the green field lower and then the pads of the adjacent buildings lower so they didn't feel like they would dominate the chapel.

Thank

you.

Ellen?

I do have a question about the stucco. Are you using Ephus for sure or is it still in the...

We have not made that decision yet. Stucco and Ephus, to be honest, I've worked in St. Louis for 20 years and I've done stucco once. That doesn't mean that it can't be done here and done well. Most of the housing projects I work on honestly can't afford it. Ephus is a good material. I believe you as a community allow it if it's a specific drainage type of Ephus, but I honestly can't answer which one the intent is. The exterior look of those two products are the same. It's just how it's made up.

Okay, what was concerning me or what I was wondering about is the joints that you need in Ephus, which in stucco it's monolithic. So how will you be handling the joints if you go with the Ephus?

You are correct that there are more joints in the Ephus system. Stucco does actually have a requirement as well. It's just much wider before you hit a joint. If I can click ahead to the next image. can't see those buildings well enough this is the building i'm trying to show this front facade is the um cultured stone so the segments of stucco or ephus are actually quite narrow so i'm hopeful that the width wouldn't have to be broken up with a vertical joint but the vertical will definitely have to have a horizontal joint at some point as you go up the three stories we would be thoughtful and try to align those with other banding on campus or try to make it thoughtful as we were putting that in.

Okay, it's a bit more pronounced. There's more area of stucco or Ephus on the town homes.

Yes, yes, there is. So on the screen right here, this would be an Ephus or stucco product as well. So yes, there would have to be a joint here. There are recommendations by both products of where joints should live. Sometimes they claim they need to be on either side of a window. Sometimes they claim they should be between things. We would have to follow the compliance from the manufacturer recommendation, but that is something that we will have to be thoughtful about

and

it's not currently showing.

Other than that, I have no questions.

Amy?

Quick question just on how kind of the three types of buildings all relate because like when I look at the apartment buildings, I understand, you know, with that you know, that curve, um, where you, you know, with the EPIS behind it, like that kind of relates to the chapel. Um, and then I just don't see any tie in really with like the townhome design or, you know, the, um, the actual, uh, residential hall, um, just kind of how they like the architectural elements. I'm not seeing how they all kind of give a cohesive feel. Um, then also just, you know, like your palette, I know you kind of showed it or the brick, you know, in the townhomes, the same brick that's in the, um, in the residence hall, like they're showing very different, you know, like on, on these renderings, like the townhomes look really gray and the stucco looks really gray or the Ephus, whichever. Um, and then you have like kind of a warmer palette for the, um, apartments and then a different altogether feeling for the, um. the residence hall. I'm just kind of wanting to understand that a little bit better.

Sure. They are three very different living products, so we were trying to differentiate them with their materials and scale and style. The townhomes being so close to the single family residences to the north, it might be helpful if we present again To maybe share some existing photos of those properties to give a little bit of context, we took those details. To heart when we were looking at do these townhomes have a large overhang at the roof, for example, and they don't because the existing homes that are there just they don't and we're not replicating we're trying to just compliment what's next door. The Gray in the cream tan color of the townhomes. and then the dark brick are absolutely not the same brick. They would be the same scale of brick for both products, but they are absolutely the opposite side of the spectrum, but they're pulled from the blend of the existing limestone on campus. So there are dark variations and there are very Creamy tan gray variations. That's why we went two different directions on that. And then the three-story apartment building, which you can probably see best up here, is actually kind of a combination of all. We have a little bit of dark in the stucco to try to... It's almost a blend from the lightest tone over to the residence hall, which gets to be the darkest brick tone. We were trying to complement all three things with their color. But the styles are very different.

As far as the brick tone, I know you were saying you pulled them from kind of the far ends of the spectrum as your way to kind of bring it in a little bit, just because I think there's such a stark difference. And then they're all within the same space. I just don't know. I think it would be interesting when you show your palette again to show all of those bricks so that we can really understand how they're all kind of fitting together.

Yes, we can do that.

Thank you.

Thank you. Jim? Jim?

My comments pretty much directly mirrored what Helen said. When I saw the EFIS on there, I would have concerns about the EFIS, and I would have a lot of concerns with the seaming. If there was a way to bring in another material other than that, I think that'd be good, especially if there's already concerns kind of from the audience about longevity, and that's not a material I typically associate with longevity. Other than that, I don't really need to repeat anything else.

Okay. Thank you.

David, questions or comments?

Okay.

I'm sorry, Steve. Andy, and I think it would be helpful, too, if you're able to bring more pictures and materials next time. Absolutely. Even just more pictures of the big development, just understanding how everything relates together would be helpful.

Absolutely. Any comments or questions from the audience on the architectural review? Anne, come on up.

I'm Anne Martin again. I live in an all stucco house, so I'm not unfamiliar with real stucco. I thought Ephus was outlawed in Clayton. It had terrible drainage problems. I believe it's the same material that Taco Bell is made of. And I think it looks cheap with the seams. And it used to be illegal. I don't know why that would have changed because there's big drainage problems associated with it. It doesn't breathe.

I'm Ann Martin again. I live in an all stucco house, so I'm not unfamiliar with real stucco. I thought Ephus was outlawed in Clayton. It had terrible drainage problems. I believe it's the same material that Taco Bell is made of. And I think it looks cheap with the seams. And it used to be illegal. I don't know why that would have changed because there's big drainage problems associated with it. It doesn't breathe.

Well, there have been many improvements in the product. And Angie, maybe you could quickly explain that on the EFIS.

I can't speak to the exact improvements, but I know that many come and are specified with a drainage channel built in. For those that aren't aware, EFIS stands for exterior insulation finish system. And that's basically a skinny layer, maybe an eighth of an inch of a plaster stucco surface over an inch and a half or two inches of rigid insulation. So built into that rigid insulation backing layer. our channels that allow water to get out i do agree that stucco is a superior product to evas

other comments on architectural no any hands up no hands up uh any further comments from the plan commission We do have a staff recommendation to approve with the condition about the HVAC units for the future, but I would recommend that since you will be coming back for both the CUP and the site plan that we also have you come back, as several members have said, to see more about the materials. And if it's possible, quite often we like to see a small sample of each material. We get a better feeling of the color, the texture, the scale of it. And if you can do that, we would appreciate it. So again, I would recommend that we continue the architectural review to a future date.

I will make a motion to continue the architectural review it to a future date

second

all in favor.

I

host

Okay,

thank you. We will look forward to your return. Okay. We have been going for 90 minutes now. And I'd like to suggest a 10 minute break. And we'll be back at 710.

Okay,

we're gonna get started if there's anybody lingering down there.

Thank you all for coming back. We still have a few items to go on the agenda. And we will get started with the next, which are public hearings for actually four different public hearings for 801 Seminary Place and 6500 Forsyth Boulevard. And if you have the agenda, you can see them on there. And Anna is going to start it out. And I believe then you'll come back to... Well, I'll let you just describe that.

Okay. Thanks, everyone, for being patient tonight. My name is Anna Crain. I'm the Director of Planning and Development. I've spoken to many of you as we started this process. Tonight, I'm going to go through a presentation. Some of you will recognize some of the information I'm presenting. I'm going to start with an overview of how we got to overlay districts. Then we'll go through a summary of the proposed South 40 overlay district. There will be a discussion open under the public hearing with the Planning Commission as well as the public. And then we'll go through an overview of the proposed Big Bend Overlay District. So those are two separate items here, but a lot of the introductory slides I'm about to go through are applicable to both. So just to share the start, the importance of community planning, what we're doing here is really trying to make sure that our community is well-informed, well-planned moving forward as we develop a collective vision. So we've really intentionally hosted many outreach events. meetings with our institutional partners at Concordia Seminary and Washington University, as well as the various neighborhoods that surround those two institutions and other members of our community. The idea here is really to provide a balance of all of our community interests and provide some continuity across time as development occurs, and also ensure that land use patterns are rational and orderly and there's some predictability to those. So the planning timeline for our community event really started over a year ago, even earlier than the first meeting on this date. So in June of 2023, we had our first community meeting that was held at the high school where we invited our institutional partners, the city staff, as well as the various neighborhoods and residents to come and learn about what institutional overlays are and why we're proposing them with the project. Since then, we've had series of meetings, small-scale neighborhood meetings, individual resident meetings, meetings with institutions to come up with draft overlay district regulations. And that has taken us through to here in September of 2024. So an overview of what this project is, you'll see on the screen, really highlighted are a few of our existing campus areas. So in Washington University, they have the Danforth campus, which is actually not located in incorporated Clayton. It's in unincorporated St. Louis County. Washington University's South 40 campus, which is located in the city of Clayton. We have Concordia Seminary, and you heard a lot about them just recently. before this presentation and what their project is with their housing. Then we also have Washington University's South Campus, or some refer to it as the old CBC site along Clayton Road. And then we have Fon Fon University. This project, the first element of it we just heard about is Concordia's relocating their housing. And what that has led to is some open opportunity area on the Western portion of Concordia Seminary Campus that has led the WashU proposals that we are going to be thinking about tonight. So as we think about planning and how we do rational land use planning and how we balance interests of our communities over time, in response to what would we do with the existing development, and that's a conditional use permit, staff evaluated what our current regulations say today and felt that there are some regulatory gaps that lead to inconsistencies or unknowns and are not the best planning practices for institutions. So if you look at a lot of our neighboring communities here in St. Louis region and elsewhere across the US, institutions are not typically managed through a conditional use permit process for many of the reasons that I'll outline here today. An overlay district allows us to address some of the specific contexts of each of these campuses and their specific uses that are proposed and create much more strict regulations moving forward. So staff and evaluation of where we are today is recommending an overlay district that covers WashU's South 40 campus, which we're calling the South 40 overlay district. And then another overlay district that would cover the Western portion of Concordia Seminary's campus right now, which we're the Big Bend overlay district. At this point, I know many people in the audience are aware that Washington University has purchased the old Fon Pon campus. You'll notice this is not included in the proposed overlay districts. At the time, at this time, Fonfon is going to continue to operate on that campus through the end of summer of 2025 as they currently do. And after that, Washington University has stated that their interest is to continue operating the uses that you currently see Fonfon operating. So therefore, we're not at a point where we're going to see large changes. However, if the goal or use of that FONPON campus changes, then that's when the city would evaluate an overlay district similar to how we are proposing to tonight. So the purpose of zoning is really to do three things. We want to regulate the use of land, so residential, commercial, what kind of commercial use might be, what kind of residential goes on different properties, where are they located next to each other? We wanna regulate the intensity of that. So if we think about residential, the intensity of A multi-family use is going to be very different from a single family use. And then also the bulk of that use, that's where we start to get into the physical development of a site through zoning. So regulations like a setback, a building height, and those sorts of things on what you see. Currently, on the right-hand side is a snip of our city's zoning map. The brighter yellow color is single-family residential. The duller yellow color is also single-family but with a larger minimum lot area so those intensities are slightly different. Orange is a multi-family and then the small bit of pink here on Demand is our commercial district. Under this current zoning map, you can see that we manage our institutional uses, our universities, colleges. religious institutions through a conditional use permit. So they're actually zoned to be in a single family zoning district, but then we put a conditional use permit on top of that. Conditional uses are those within our code, and this is language pulled directly from our zoning code. Our conditional uses are those that are essentially desirable, necessary, convenient. So they're deemed to be appropriate uses within a district, but they might be associated with some traffic, parking issues, or other impacts that we would want to regulate through additional conditions. So those conditions are placed under the conditional use permit, which we might regulate or further restrict hours, maybe hours of operation, site access, those sorts of things in order to try and mitigate some of the impacts. But the nature of the conditional use is that we've we've determined this is an acceptable or an appropriate use for that zoning district. We just know that there are slight differences with that use that we might want to regulate further with a specific permit. Currently under the R2 zoning district, which is that single family zoning district these properties are currently governed by, colleges and universities are allowed as I mentioned as a primary use for the conditional use permit and accessory uses for those colleges or universities are also very broad. So right now we just say college and university and don't really regulate any specific aspect of what part of that college or university may or may not be allowed. We're saying that in general, that college is allowed, but there might be aspects that we need to regulate further through a conditional use permit. So you're probably thinking, well, if we've been regulating them through conditional use permits, why the change? So really, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, I want to get into those best planning principles, best planning practices to create a better path forward to regulations. So again, pulled from our code here, overly districts. are essentially creating special regulations that are adopted to address specific subjects that we think require special treatment. So really similar to the concept of a conditional use permit. It's just that we're adding those regulations through the form of an overlay district that would apply across time as opposed to a conditional use permit, which is just applying to that specific building or use that we've approved under that one permit. So the advantages of an overlay district is that we're really creating a box for that long-term phase development. As people change on various boards, the regulations are really going to stay the same. And this leads to a lot of cohesive development. It allows for that transparency where residents and The institutions both have expectations that they understand moving forward, and so it allows them to plan more appropriately over time for how they develop. And a really important aspect of this that I'll emphasize a few times is really shifting the starting point to the beginning of that planning process to make more specific and restrictive regulations that are then used to evaluate projects moving forward. And the parameters, so when we think about zoning and what we do as planning professionals up here, combined with what we've heard from the residents through that year plus long of engagement, it really comes down to preserving neighborhood character with four primary concerns. Number one is they don't want to see it. So that's how we can regulate with our zoning, building heights, transition zones, lighting regulations that we'll go into. We don't want to hear it, so what are the noise limits along the edge of this overlay district and how did the uses inside of the overlay district operate, what are some again some setbacks or transition zones. Don't want parking or traffic in the neighborhoods. This is where we can start to regulate where we might prohibit or encourage different access points. And then how do we evaluate parking on the site? And then also, we want to know about the projects. So understanding that it's still important to have a very open public process when a specific plan is developed. So that's not in the overlay district, but we'll outline those meetings moving forward. So thinking through all of those parameters, the goal here from a staff perspective when we drafted these regulations, create more prescriptive regulations at the start that will better guide the design and development of each campus given the primary uses and the neighborhood context. So this is how we can really start to, again, create that specific starting point for each campus individually as opposed to right now which starts with a very general idea of a college use within a single family zoning district and all at the same time we want to establish these expectations and procedures for review of the projects so a really important point with the proposed overlay districts this is not approving any sort of specific project for this site if the overlay districts were approved by the board of aldermen Washington University would still have to come back and apply for a specific development plan. They would not be able to put shovels in the ground the next day. We would still have to go through site plan review and architectural review, which are both public meetings as you just saw examples of both of those previously with Concordia Seminary's request. So this project is just outlining the starting points for how we would review or regulate the development moving forward, but does not actually approve any development itself. So to think a little bit more about that review process, something that we're able to do here under the proposed overlay districts is clearly identify what would require site plan review and architecture review board. And again, those are both public meetings that are advertised and hosted here with public comment. So the changes here that we have are really to put into scale with what uses are proposed on the site and what reviews are appropriate. So a great example is adding the requirement for fields with 2,800 or more square feet of surface area have to go through site plan review. That size of a field right now today is not an automatic trigger for site plan review. So knowing the athletic type of uses that they were proposing, for example, on the big bend overlay area, we wanted to make sure that those types of uses would trigger the public review process of site plan review. And then just to summarize how this relates to our existing process on the left side, I tried to summarize all of the criteria for review of a conditional use permit down into six really quick bullet points out of the roughly 18 or more conditional use permit criteria right now. And on the right hand side, I summarize site plan review criteria down to seven out of the over 20 points under site plan review. So you can see there's a lot of similarities. Under site plan review as we're proposing with the overlay district, the plan commission would still have the ability to request and require modifications to a site plan to address concerns or issues that that might have on the surrounding context when it comes to traffic. The site layout environmental protections such as drainage that was being discussed previously landscaping, tree protection, signage if it were applying, and as well as just general conformance. So you can see that a lot of the areas that tend to be the most concern for neighborhoods or adjacent properties would still be something that the public would be a part of the review process once WashU would actually be ready to develop anything under an overlay district just as it would today. Okay, so that was a great little summary of generally how we got to an overlay district as the recommendation coming from staff. And now I'm going to walk us through a little bit about what we're proposing with the South 40 overlay specifically. So the South 40 overlay, a big piece that I'll mention introducing this element, we have an existing South 40 campus. Right now there are not really significant changes being made contemplated by Washington University. So a lot of what our overlay district is proposing is to regulate similar to what we see now. So codifying various conditions that have been placed over time on different elements of South 40 campus, as well as outlining regulations for the path moving forward. So here we're proposing, and this is one of the largest deviations, is that instead of having specific uses or a general use of our conditional lease permit, we're adding more specific uses under primary and accessory uses that would be allowed in the overlay district. So here we really wanted to focus in on what the existing uses are on the South 40 campus so they do have some grounds for teaching college university classes and then also dormitories and residence halls, which is the really the primary point for the South 40 campus. Attaching to that, we got a lot more specific with accessory uses. So this is where we keep thinking about creating that box and shrinking it down. How can we become more specific and prescriptive with our regulations? So we really looked at what the existing uses are on campus and our accessory uses which we do define within the overlay district, have to be subordinate to that primary use. These are all uses that support residential life. We proposed a larger list and through the community review, we've pared it down much more specifically to what they're doing currently on the site. And I'm going to not read all of these because we can go back to them as we get through comments just to save some time. Another element that we're proposing under the Overly District that I think really further tightens the regulations compared to where we are today is actually outlining some prohibited uses. So we have a prescriptive code. It says if you're not listed as an accessory use or a primary use, you're not allowed. So that use would not be allowed if it didn't fall into one of those two categories. We still have heard some concerns from the public about the potential of those Uses under the accessory list being for the general public as opposed to supporting the residential life of the South 40. So to further clarify all this, we've added the provision that the uses need to be for WashU and their students and their faculty that are on that campus. In addition, we've specifically outlined full graduation, wild and 13, which are three events that Washington University currently hosts on other sites. Those are specifically prohibited and will not be allowed to be hosted on the South 40 campus. In addition to those prohibited uses, we also wanted to further create some guidelines for events that are hosted on that site. So we're proposing that outdoor events that have an anticipated attendance of non-South 40 residents, so not the students that are living in their dormitories, of 500 people or more than a special event permit is required. The city has an existing process already for a special event permit that people can apply for, and it notifies all of the department directors that here at City Hall and allows us to evaluate what that use is specifically and any timing issues or other things that might be appropriate. But the big part about it is that we're aware that this event would be happening. Housing density is another one that I think is even more important when it comes to the South 40 campus because the primary activity and use of this campus for them is residential life. So currently we do not have any restrictions with the density. There have been various conditional use permits issued to different dorms over time. that have specified different caps on the number of beds allowed in the South 40. And what we've ended up is we have some conditional use permits that talk about an overall maximum number of beds. We have some that talk about a number of beds only allowed in a certain building. And those kind of conflict or change over time as different phases are constructed. And so what we're proposing under the overlay district is a maximum density of 94 beds per acre. So this would result in more beds than they currently are utilizing on site right now. There are actually beds within some of the buildings on South 40 that they do not occupy with a student. So it's an empty bedroom because of certain restrictions on different conditional use permits for buildings. So evaluating that in combination with the baseball and softball fields that are currently located on South 40 that they would like to replace with housing. This would result in slightly more beds than we have today, but it wouldn't result in a really different context in terms of the built environment. And I'll get into that as we cover some of the other regulations. Building height, we're proposing a maximum of 67 stories. That is the tallest building that currently exists on South 40's campus. So again, we wanted to really narrow in on continuing the context of what we see today on South 40. So one of the newer buildings that is the tallest building is currently 67 feet and that's where we're proposing to maintain as the maximum throughout campus. Lot coverage. We are proposing a maximum of 60% lot coverage, and we are proposing to continue the restriction right now that building footprints cannot occupy more than one third of the site area. So impervious coverage, lot coverage, that would be building footprints, parking lots, streets, paths, and walkways. decks, patios, all of those sorts of things. Again, we wanted to make sure that as the pattern of development continues over time, we're seeing something similar. So we've maintained that maximum one third of the site area for building footprints. So as I mentioned earlier, this is an element that sometimes is regulated in a conditional use permit, but you're reacting to where they're proposing the site be located. So something that we wanted to do across the whole site is just provide some guidance on where we would like primary, secondary and prohibited access points. So in this case with South 40, we have an existing condition that's working pretty well. So we really want to reinforce maintaining that. So we're outlining a primary vehicle entrance point, a maximum of one along Forsyth Boulevard, maximum of one on Brentwood Boulevard. And then on Wydown Boulevard, it would be limited only to a pedestrian and bicycle access point or an emergency vehicle access for the campus, which is as it exists today. Secondary access points. So those are the ones that are not intended to carry all the load but are important for some of the convenience factor or other just circulation, especially between the various campuses that WashU has here so we're allowing those pretty much any boundary of the site. And then another area is that we're prohibiting vehicle access from Ellenwood. So again, that really ensures that there would not be a connection through another, through a neighborhood to provide the access to this district moving forward. One thing I will mention before I leave that, though, is that the conceptual diagram that's shown on the screen here, this is a conceptual one that identifies some existing points that are there today in connections. But an overlay district does not tell you exactly where that vehicle point is. What we're doing is that we're trying to guide access points and we're restricting access points. But when somebody actually designs a building and we go through the process of reviewing some of the traffic impacts and other analysis, that's when an actual location of any sort of vehicle point would be approved. So this overlay district, even though this is a diagram to help understand, shows arrows in various points. This is not part of the overlay district that would potentially be approved by the Board of Aldermen. It's just for information. So lighting is another big one that we hear a lot about. It's something that we see all over. So we're really restricting the lighting standards through the overlay district in a few ways. Number one is we're introducing dark sky principles as a guideline. Some of you may have heard seen different presentations. The city is currently going through some evaluation processes related to Dark Sky and urban parks. Dark Sky is an international nonprofit that helps combat light pollution in various ways. So we have a lot of, they have design guidelines to help with the color of light, the glare of light, the spill, how you're designing that. So for the residential use focuses, we really want to use those as a guideline. Dark Sky also has an actual certification program related to athletic fields and recreation fields, and we will be requiring that moving forward. And that will impact us because it provides a whole nother level of review and inspection. A big element here is limiting the time hours. So we can address lighting and the impacts in a few different ways. One is kind of the design element with dark sky. Another is the operational element of light. So here we're proposing that light of the playing fields is limited to 7 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., with an exception for university baseball and softball Indians that are underway by 10, and that's associated with some of the NCAA Division III requirements for WashU. To address all of this, a photometric plan will be required. That's part of what we would review during site plan review and part of also what staff would review, not only through the initial request for site plan review approval, but then also through the actual construction of any lighting. Setbacks. So here on the right-hand side is a map of the existing campus. This orange line here outlines our proposed setbacks. You can see within the R2 zoning districts, we're talking about a district that is regulating single family lots of 7,500 square feet. So that is a much smaller lot than what we're dealing with when we think about the entire South 40 campus. So we wanted to set specific setback regulations that are more in context with how the site is developed today and how we want to develop moving forward. So you can see here along Big Bend, 50 feet setback. So that's pretty much lining up with the existing buildings along Big Bend. Along Wydown, the proposed setback minimum is 60 feet, which is actually further back than the existing buildings on Wydown. But on the north side here on Forsyth, we propose only a 40-foot setback. This is to help support the concept of Washington University shifting their activity and their density north towards their Danforth campus and away from Y-Down, which is more of our residential area. So that's why we wanted the larger setback on Y-Down and the smaller setback on Forsyth. And then on the east side here, we have a setback requirement of 40 feet And I'll get into the transition zone requirements in a minute. So the transition zones on the same image here are these green shaded areas. Transition zones are a new proposal within our overlay district. This is really something that comes from the concept of wanting to be more prescriptive in why we have our codes. So instead of just having a setback requirement for a building, we're adding in transition zones that have specific planting requirements. They have further restrictions for other elements such as parking lots and drive areas and retaining walls. So really the goal is instead of just a physical setback of a building, we also want you to intentionally design the transition zone areas for planting, for trees, for screening elements. That will do a much better job of providing some of the buffering related to lighting impacts or noise impacts than just a simple open setback would. So here we're requiring some Year-round screening that can be landscaped or a combination of landscape and wall with that transparency depending on where you are along the site. On the South 40, the transition zone requirement along the east side here, which abuts the homes on Ellenwood is only required if the university were to sell these properties and it was no longer common ownership. Right now, Washington University owns many of the homes here. I believe all of them actually. And so the idea is that if they sell those back to the private market, then these transition zones would be in effect. Along Y down here, the transition zone is already required. And you might be thinking, why doesn't the transition zone cover the same depth as the setback requirement on Y down? And really that's again to kind of reinforce some of those existing patterns that you've seen along Y down. There's a great combination of some passive usable lawn space As well as retaining walls and planted areas and fencing, and so we want to kind of support the continued use of that. will cover it a little bit in a few slides, but we also want to really protect some existing grade, and so the way that they've built different buildings down below grade here on why down similar to what we saw in the Concordia proposals, we wanted to also allow that condition to be maintained. So grading, perfect segue. We are requiring terracing plans. An element we heard a lot about from the community is that we don't really want to significantly alter how the existing patterns are for topography. It impacts drainage. It impacts existing trees. It has a lot more impact than you might think just in regrading. So we're going to require terracing plans, and we have a condition that they cannot – simply lift or reduce large portions of the site to result in one flat grade across the entire district and we kind of reinforce that with a requirement that the changes in grades or retaining walls that would be 15 feet in height or more would require a step back so as this diagram shows Once you hit that level of creating a difference in height of 15, then you have to have a minimum of a four-foot area that can be planted between those grades. So that encourages, again, that terracing. It encourages building buildings into existing slopes or other ways to utilize those slopes. But then also if there is a larger grade, then we're providing that green space so you don't have just a large wall area. And similar to grading and we kind of reinforce this within our grading and also in our sustainability requirements is that idea that you cannot increase the amount of stormwater that is exiting that area from the pre construction conditions. Tree requirements. So this is a really big one. We kind of, um, started heading in that direction with the previous review. So currently we're on a planting of a caliper inches removed. And so as I mentioned before, um, that ends up with a whole lot of smaller trees that are not necessarily able to all grow, um, to the height. And so you don't necessarily get the large canopy trees being planted in ways to support their matured growth, you end up with a whole lot of little trees all clumped together. So we wanted to switch and look at a canopy coverage requirement, knowing that our goal is a certain canopy coverage that we wanna be maintained across the area. The city had the contracted landscape architects look at the existing conditions for the South 40 campus. So what are the tree growth is right now? What's our canopy coverage? what's an appropriate amount moving forward. We're recommending a minimum of 25 percent of canopy coverage. In addition to that, we have many more provisions within the proposed overlay district that specifically speak to protecting existing trees during construction activity. during regrading choices and other elements to really reinforce that first, we would like you to save all the large canopy trees. And then if that's not possible, we need to plant in a way that we're always looking to the future to maintain that canopy coverage. with parking and loading because of how the different uses are mixed along with the operational characteristics of those. So for example, Washington University doesn't allow freshmen students to have cars on campus. South 40 is primarily freshmen dormitories. So we will require parking studies and we'll use those specific parking studies for those uses to determine what the appropriate parking is as opposed to what we have in our code right now which just says that you need two parking spaces per for dwelling unit, for multifamily or one per three beds. And then we will also require the loading space for food preparation areas. So there's cafeteria uses here currently. Noise is another important one. Right now we have some really limited noise provisions within our existing code and then we rely on some of the St. Louis County ordinances for more in-depth enforcement of noise. And so we're proposing to add some much more restrictive and prescriptive regulations related to noise. We're proposing outdoor noise and music allowed 7 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. with the exception for those university baseball and softball games, this matches with the lighting regulations that we're proposing. We're also proposing to require primary and secondary speaker systems depending on the activity. So this would allow us if there's a field or if there's a patio or something and there's speakers for amplified noise, we'll understand where those speakers are located, how they'll be operated, and in what conditions one might be used over another. We also have a proposed maximum decibel level of 60 at residential property lines for steady noise and 70 for repetitive noise. So this is 60 is a conversation, essentially, a loud conversation. So it matches pretty similarly with what the existing conditions are today. And to further enforce that and also really understand how sound will travel, we're going to require an acoustical study that is performed Similar to a photometric plan to check lighting, the acoustical study would be how we would check the different systems against the noise requirements. architectural standards. So we talk a lot about high quality materials and architectural standards here with our architecture review board. But most of the guidelines that we've adopted within the city right now are really related in responding to single family. So what we wanted to do is create some architectural standards in the overlay district that really speak to the scale and type of building products that would come with an institutional campus. So in this, we've covered various things from facade materials to the design of roofs and parapets and materials that are used there, what are the window opening, where walls and fences might be located, what the appropriate heights or materials are for the different walls. For example, we might have a wall that's used to screen a trash enclosure, and we want that wall to maybe be differently designed than pedestrian fencing that's located along maybe a hillside within the campus. And then we also have requirements for screening and other mitigation of mechanical equipment that you find throughout the site. But really, the big piece with architectural standards that are proposed is that it provides a foundation for review for the Architecture Review Board when they are looking at these more institutional uses as opposed to trying to apply some of our material guidelines of a single family house to a large dormitory building. Sustainability is an element that we hear a lot about from the community related to this project, but also others. So one of the other elements that we're proposing within the overlay district is to add a section that specifically creates some sustainability guidelines. And here we're setting the threshold for new buildings to be designed at LEED Silver. Um, we're kind of promoting the idea of renewable energy on the site. Again, we're, we're really saying that efforts seem to be made for best management practices for stormwater, granite and drainage. We're requiring stormwater quality mitigation for synthetic turf. So this might or might not be something that MSD would separately require, but we're making it clear that if they are going to use any sort of those synthetic turf materials, At the very least, there's going to be some sort of quality mitigation for that stormwater. And then we're also requiring native species of plants, flowers and shrubs and trees that would be perennial within the district. So the idea here is some of these are really strict, such as we will require the stormwater mitigation program. for the turf. Some of them are a little bit more guidance, so efforts need to be made to do certain things. But the idea is that we're giving a lot more teeth to the plan commission when you actually get a project put before you as to what is your criteria for review. And so instead of just generally saying, we hope sustainability is one of the items that you would review a site plan against, we've thought of some of the elements that have been at the forefront of our community's minds related to sustainability, and we're putting those into that overlay district. So the next steps, so tonight we recommend that we have some discussion and gather input related to this and follow up with another plan commission meeting on October 7th. That was the summary of the South 40 particularly. So I think it would be great to have a discussion related to just the South 40 overlay district that's been proposed. And then I'll go through a similar presentation that provides an overview of the proposed big bend.

Thank you, Anna. That was really in depth. And I certainly appreciate it. And it was certainly much better than trying to read all the pages in here. PB Harmon Zuckerman, I did have a few comments. PB Harmon Zuckerson, Mainly around the special event permitting. I think we'd like to hear a little more about that. PB Harmon Zuckerberg, Also the occupancy of the maximum bed count of 94 beds per acre, how that would work compared to what we have right now and what could be done in reality on that site. I think I understood the setback transition zones, but it seemed to me that the transition zones could be a little deeper. I believe on Y-Down, it went through some of the existing buildings. PB, Harmon Zuckerman, But will those buildings stay for the foreseeable future. And if not, why not make the transition zone a little bit deeper. PB, Harmon Zuckleman, The 25% canopy coverage. I think that in my mind was in conflict with what we were talking about on the Concordia campus, but may need a little more definition there. Basically, all the others, I think I understood, but I'm throwing those back as questions that I'd like to hear more about. do you want to address those yeah

why don't you i i we can we can do some address unless you would like the whole board to speak first

i'm sure there's going to be some overlay there probably

is so i'll leave it up to you do you want me to respond to any of those or

um no i'd like to everyone to uh chime in richard

Yeah, I was also curious about the maximum bed size and a little bit more information about the special event permits. I was also, I guess I'm still a little unclear about, you talked about access points, and I guess maybe did you mean that the current access points are what they are, but under future development, the access points could potentially change, but they're not necessarily going to change in number depending on what street you're coming from. I was a little unclear about that. I was also curious, you know, about the existing noise regulations what they are right now so potentially you could have outdoor games and music until 12am. Obviously it sounds a lot better to reduce the time but I'm just kind of wondering how that affects the college campus or I mean I guess I'd be curious. It'll be interesting to hear from residents whether they actually hear outdoor games and music till 12am. And then also just understanding you're talking about, you know, the Dark Sky, which is great. It sounds like Dark Sky is obviously an external organization that comes in and evaluates it, which is great, but also understanding so each project will have to have a separate, you know, lighting and acoustical study as they come. So I guess just understanding process a little bit more.

Ellen?

You have all my questions, so nothing further.

Amy?

Just to piggyback on what Bridget said, just like that whole diagram with the vehicle intersection points and just kind of how that works, just a little bit better understanding with that. Because then I know like Big Bend isn't like under our jurisdiction, right? Is that MoDOT? And so just kind of how it all works with intersections and traffic and things like that.

Jim? I don't have any additional comments that haven't been covered. I'm just looking forward to hearing public comments. David, I do not

have any questions. Ana, would it be better to hear public comments now or would you like to respond first?

I think I'll respond to some of this because there's probably people in the audience that have similar questions so we can go through that and then keep going. Okay, so first I'll bring... My PowerPoint backup. Sorry, I got it. There we go. OK, so for the access points. So, Bridget, you were getting along the right lines of how we've drafted this. So to actually evaluate specifically how the vehicle access point would be designed. So does it need a stoplight? Is it a right turn in, right turn out, left turn lane, right turn lane in all of those elements of it? where exactly it's located within the boundary of a district. Those things need to be evaluated as we actually have a site plan to respond against. So instead, what we're trying to do is be really prescriptive about areas that we already know we would not allow that vehicle access point because that would allow them to better design the site moving forward. So if they understand we can't use certain roads as our outflow points, then they're not going to try and design a circulation concept that includes it. that we would have to fight back against. So we know we're already starting with it. So here on South 40, we have existing points that have been designed based on the capacity today through time, through the conditional use permits. So we're reinforcing those because the goal of the South 40 overlay district is not to substantially change how that site is operated or accessed today. So right now we're able to reinforce the idea that there's going to be a single vehicle access point from Big Bend and a single vehicle access from Forsyth. And those will continue to allow for the appropriate flow based on how that site is used.

But right now, there's nothing on Y-Down. So then any future development wouldn't allow a vehicle access point off of

Y-Down? Right. There is the access point that provides access to the service parking lot that's utilized by the church next door. So we would allow that to continue. That's kind of an important thing. Something that we want to continue for the neighborhood because that allows that church to have onsite parking that would not overflow into the neighborhoods. But the access point beyond that parking lot that actually goes within into the South 40 district is gated and it's only used for emergency access. Or it's open for a specific special event access that might be approved for that one time. So that's kind of what we're trying to reinforce here is that we wouldn't want them to go through any sort of design that relied on YDOWN providing some sort of primary flow for the campus for vehicles.

Okay. And so, excuse me, so off Big Bend right now, you just have one. And so this is kind of saying design around having that just one access off Big Bend. Right. Okay. Would they be allowed to

have an additional one? The way that the overlay district is proposed right now, no, it would be one. So they would have to go through an amendment process and provide reason for that. You were right on your comment too earlier, Kimmy, that Big Bend is controlled by St. Louis County. So ultimately the city... really doesn't actually have the say over exactly where those points are located, but through our regulation of the private property, we're able to really help them design to limit that. Because of how this site is located between two major intersections at Big Bend and Forsyth and Big Bend and Wydown, it'd be unlikely that even St. Louis County would want multiple access points there because of how that could be pretty disruptive between those two signals. So we're reinforcing the condition that you have today.

And then Anna, like if we, so that's, you know, what the overlay would propose. So if the overlay does not come to fruition and WashU wanted to potentially propose, you know, an additional access point at Big Bend or at Y-Down or on Forsyth, they could ask for that under the conditional unit or under the CUP process.

Right. They could ask for it. And what the impacts are that why it's needed, et cetera, and review it under a combination of site plan review and, and a conditional use permit. Okay. Okay. So then I'll go to. The next one here related to the setbacks and the transition zones. So transition zones, as I mentioned, those are really essentially the same as a setback but more restrictive. So here, instead of just saying a building, Can't be located there we're saying it's can't they can't be a building there can't be a parking lot there can't be garage. we've even going so far to say that a driveway can't just run through the middle of a transition zone, because the whole point of the transition zone. is really reinforcing that as a landscape buffer so that's where it needs to be heavily planted there should be canopy trees, maybe evergreens. maybe some other additional screening to supplement that with a wall. But we're really prescriptive in what you can have there, not just saying a setback, which was applied to a building. And so then on Y down here, the... the buildings there over time as we're writing this overlay, anticipating that the housing along the southern portion here would be removed and replaced, again, shifting everything north towards the campus. So we've proposed this transition zone here is a smaller one that would allow for a little bit more flexibility where buildings are set back further from Y-down, but you would see a mixture of intentionally planted areas, but maybe with some passive space used If you wanted all of that setback along Wydown to be really intentionally a landscape buffer, then that's when you would recommend extending that transition zone to cover the full setback area.

So it could be extended to the 60-foot building setback?

Sure.

Well, comparing the Wydown to the Ellenwood one, The Ellenwood one seems to be in line with the building setback, but the Wydown one does not. I would think they should match in concept, even though their dimensions would be different for different reasons.

Okay.

Okay. Special event permits. That's the next one I had that you asked some questions about. So the special event permit is an existing process with the city where somebody can apply for that special event permit. Oftentimes it's related to maybe a neighborhood having a block party. So they want to close down access to a section of a street for their party. So that street's going to be closed down. So the review goes through planning, public works, the fire department, the police department, the economic development department, just so we can all be aware of there's this event that might have an altering traffic patterns. There might be more people in the area than usual, but we can also review that against some of our other criteria for how it might impact neighborhoods. So, okay, is this event going to need more parking? Is there something the city needs to do to address that? Or do we need to notify people about that? Currently on South 40 campus, Washington University has been submitting requests for special events permits. For some of their outdoor activities that they have on the site right now. And it's just a way to notify all the parties involved and then we can additionally spread word of that if needed. We haven't received any complaints or other things associated with the times and dates where they've had these activities that they've notified us about that we can compare against But it's really for the South 40 because there's already going to be that live-in population of residents that are spending their time there. It's more just a way for all of the appropriate people at the city to be notified when there's potentially more people coming to that campus than you would see on a normal basis.

So does that mean in addition to ceremonies, wild 13, other similar activities could be prohibited?

um so we prohibited those because those are ones that we know about specifically and were brought up many times by the neighborhood um i mean if there are other events that you know of that have caused issues or other things that are concerns and we welcome to hear about those as well

well any others i guess would fall into the fourth bullet point

right so the out right now that outdoor event one is kind of a catch-all for other things that might happen Um, and then the bed count question. Okay. So the, how we got to the 94 beds per acre, um, it might actually be easier if I go to a slide. where you can see the campus. Okay, so 94 beds per acre is what we're proposing. How we reached that is we took the number of beds currently in South 40 dorms right now, and we took the area of campus that those dorms cover. So that's all the area minus the area of these two athletic fields. And that gave us a rate of 94 beds per acre. So the idea is to continue that density, but now they can stretch it across more of the site because it didn't include these before. So that's where I'm saying it's going to add beds. However, we're still restricting how that density is developed by the height of buildings, the coverage of building footprints and some of the other elements. So really the development pattern can't drastically change as far as density goes on the site as they would shift north to cover the athletic fields because we have those other elements in place.

So then the current... number is the total site acreage minus the two fields correct but then would they be allowed 94 beds per acre or whatever the acreage is for those two fields?

Right, so we would spread the 94 beds per acre across the entire district. So that's where the total number of beds would increase under the proposed overlay district. But the restrictions on how they develop buildings are what we've tightened up. So we used kind of the density to understand how they're developing buildings right now, recognizing that a part of... The two overlay districts is the idea that Washington University would like to relocate these two fields down to the Big Bend campus on the Concordia Seminary site and would free up area for them to rebuild housing closer to the Danforth campus. So this area, in the long run, if these two overlay districts are approved, would transition from athletic uses to residential life.

So then, if the three sweet buildings along why down were removed and I think there are three more along big bend those could then essentially the capacity could be moved to the fields right.

But then on a just piggybacking on that, though you couldn't you could never build like you can never build 94 beds on every acre on that site because. when you say the building footprint, it can only be one third of the site, right? So it's not like you can take every acre and put 94 beds on every acre because the building footprints, which, and you said that was like footpaths, that was

basketball courts. There's a few. So the lot coverage is 60% maximum. The building footprints, so that wouldn't include the paths, is one third of the site. So building footprints themselves can only cover 33%. And then on top of that, we have the height restriction of the 67 feet. So if you think about the... Even if they made really tiny little dorm rooms where you would just walk in and fall on your bed, you're not... They're not going, they're still restricted so much in how they would develop the site with those that I would be surprised if they built every single individual acre. Well, they couldn't really. I mean, they couldn't build, I suppose. No, because they would have to build like a really tiny, skinny little thing up there.

Right,

right.

I have another quick question. So all of the, if we move forward with this, all of these, you know, like the transition zones and the tree canopy, is that all something that they would need to start implementing or is it just when new builds happen?

So it will be kind of phased, especially with the South 40. So there are going to be some elements that wouldn't conform. So the buildings on Y down might not be in the sub-X. So they would be protected of those under the non-conforming conditions of our code. But if they were to replace them, then they would have to move them into compliance. And there will be other elements that kind of as they go moving forward, so the tree canopy, for example, that's something that if an overlay district were adopted and they know that canopy coverage, they'll do that exact inventory of all their trees and they'll be able to immediately start working towards a canopy coverage requirement. It will take a little bit longer to phase all of the actual physical buildings in over time. Okay. I think that, was there anything else I missed? Through all of them? I think I got through all the ones I had bulleted.

Ana, one more question then. Would you anticipate then as they're building new dorms and maybe taking away others from They would still have to comply with the one third requirement, though. You know, I just feel like I don't want there to be overlap where for a while we've got a bunch of dorms that are existing and then we're adding more dorms and a promise that, oh, the other dorms are being taken down. So they would as soon as new building is triggered on the site, like. another building might have to come down in order to comply with their requirement.

Right. We wouldn't allow an overlap. There might be a slight overlap with one building that's under construction and not being utilized, but through approvals of site plan review and their construction permits, we would be able to prohibit or prevent the idea that two dorms are occupied at the same time that would result in them non-conforming. Okay.

I have one more quick question. You talked about special events and that access being opened on Ydown for possibly for special events. I think when people hear special events, also just the first thing they think of is like a large party, at least to my knowledge. The only time I live relatively close to this, the only time I've seen the Ydown access open is move in and move out, which I'm sure would be considered a special event. So can you speak to what those special events that you typically see are now? So just maybe add some color to that.

Yeah, so a lot of them are really activities focused on like the residential life of their freshmen. So they might have like a food truck or something coming into their lawn area or some sort of activity like that where they're getting their freshmen and sophomores or other people living on the campus to engage with each other to learn about activities that are camp, you know, different things on campus that they can join clubs, that sort of a thing. But that's mostly what we've seen. So they might have some sort of incentive like food or a live band during the day that brings people to that area of the lawn. The move in, move out is really the only time I can think of that the Y down access has been opened. And that was even not really a flow. It was more so using that parking lot as a drop-off point of vehicles as they kind of maneuvered in and out. So through the special event permit process, it's a process that's already created that will allow everybody to review things. And so instead of kind of them doing something do we know do we not do we say yes or no now we have an official process that they'll supply all the information for and then the as it's currently written in the conditional use permits that govern various areas that would be the same moving forward special events where the city manager is the only one who could say yes to using that access point

you have any other questions for us um where we move on

No.

Then we'll take some comments from the audience. Okay, this is on the South 40 proposed overlay district. If you come up. Keep your comments short. Give us your name and address.

I'm Hillary Anger Elfenbein, 106 Aberdeen. I'm a 16-year WashU employee, 11-year resident of Clayton. I want to express concern for the notion that WashU is limited to 94 beds per acre. The reason provided is because that is what it is now, which is not really the result of an analysis or study of some kind why that number is optimal. That is simply the number it is now. And the reason why this matters is because of affordable housing. I want to hazard a guess that most of the people in this room are above average income and homeowners, and I don't hear the voices of renters represented in these kinds of discussions. And every individual who is housed in a WashU dormitory is one individual fewer who is out in the rental market driving up housing prices for renters and reducing the availability of rental housing. And I don't see any reason, I have not heard any reason why WashU should be restricted to some magical number of 94 just because coincidentally that happens to be the number now. So I would ask for there to be a study and actual research-based reasoning rather than simply saying, oh, 94 is what it is now. Let's say that that's a magic number and we must use that as the precedent. um but my my bias again i work for washington university but my bias is really looking at at having the housing that's available and that is a space where students can live and and be outside of competing um you know the students have deep pockets it's a well it's a university of wealthy students and they're out in the community able to afford uh and drive up the housing prices so i really would like to again at the risk of being repetitive release that arbitrary 94 number and increase that. Thank you.

Other comments?

Hi, I'm Jean Most. I live in Hillcrest on Aberdeen. I have a question about the process of changing from CUP to the overlay, and I've struggled with this for the last year. I'm more specifically concerned about it with the Big Bend overlay, but I even hear in the questions among you the issue of clayton having to try to figure out what things wash you might want to change in order for this overlay to be a solid proposal that protects the residents i will repeat this when we get to the big bend overlay but i just think it's relevant here because there are specific issues like the housing that they might tear down, in fact, they've been planning to a long way down, which would generate new questions, which I don't think we can anticipate. So first of all, I don't think that we residents should have to be paying staff time to figure out what's gonna work as an overlay. I haven't had anybody answer that particular objection to me. I know how hard the staff has worked, and I credit them for what they have done. And it's much more obvious to me when we get to the big bend because I've been much more concerned about that overlay. But I think it overlaps on this. How does that process happen before you surrender the ability to have a CUP? I understand that it's bulky and time-consuming, but it's really time-consuming for us to hire consultants to figure out what wash you might be able to do. So that's like a broad view. I have specifics that I want to bring up if I can completely change down to the details. I have received recently a need to distinguish between bicycles and electric bikes. It's a new phenomenon. They're going fast on Aberdeen. I've been seeing this for about a month. I don't know if they're the same people. Those things travel fast, and they've got the fat tires. I think they're a hazard. It's a different discussion, but I think in the context of this where it says unlimited access points, we need to start to think about electric bikes. They're almost like a vehicle. I'm concerned about the outdoor of 500 or more requiring permits. I really need to clarify that. When I looked at it, I'm looking to see who might misinterpret that. Is it suggesting in the way it's written that it's 500 or more if it includes people who are not WashU? Because I think they're going to have a lot of events that include 500 and more. So the way it's phrased might be suggestive of if it's going to include outside people, meaning like they're going to have 13 that's open to the community. So I would like to be sure. 500, I wanted that for Big Bend, but I'm confused about it for this overlay. And then something that hasn't been mentioned but is a point that I read in the proposal. There's a little phrase, I don't remember the number I thought it was going to be presented that way for rooftop athletic activities is that the wording. would be allowed and then allow certain heights to go up. I'm wondering what that is, is that pickleball? Is that I mean, we've seen golf go on rooftops. So I know this is minutiae, but it's in there. And I'm not sure right now which part it's in. But I want to emphasize that I'm not the only citizen who thinks we should not abandon the CUP, especially given that we have Fonfon looming. We get through this, but then it's like we have to go to the drawing board and predict what's WashU going to do when they figure, oh, we've got Fonfon too. I'm very concerned that this is not the time to give it up. I see a long-range plan to do it, but short term, I'm very concerned about giving up that ability. Thank you very much.

Other comments?

Jay Kanzler, 20 Southmore Drive. I have, I guess, a rhetorical question. Are there any other overlay districts? No. So we might as well call this the Washington- Where are

you talking about? In Clayton. In Clayton? Yes. There

are? Okay. Abandoning the conditional use permit the same way, okay? We sat through tonight the conditional use permit, the site review, and the architectural review, and the process works, okay? This- when you have the constitutional or the conditional use permit, it's more general. It's kind of like a constitution. It's flexible. It allows the people making the decision to understand what's going on at the time. It doesn't have to be set in stone today and applied in 20 years. But more importantly, it takes away an important right of the public to be involved in the process. you're taking all of that conditional use stuff and throwing it over, which has already been pre-approved by WashU. So they've got what they want, and you've taken it away from us. So we can't come to our elected officials and say, but what about this? What about that? It's actually insulting to say, you are selling us something that is a benefit. There is not one thing in a conditional overlay that that isn't available through the conditional use permit, through the site review and through the architectural review right now. There's nothing that we're gaining from that. We are losing. And finally, as it relates to why are we doing two different overlay districts? And then we'll have font bond coming in. Why not wait? Those three are connected. And then we can talk about an overlay district for the university because it's not a different institution. It's one institution. We can talk about an overlaid district and what that should look like for Washington University. But right now, we're doing it piecemeal. Isn't this exactly what you say you're trying to avoid? Piecemealing it? Well, that's what we're doing. Thank you.

Anna, can I ask a point of clarification just before we get any more comments? Maybe I have a misinterpretation of these overlay districts, but I see this as a tightening of regulations, not a loosening of regulations. Reducing what can be done on these sites versus the conditional use permit, which is more open. It appeared to me from your presentation, this would narrow the uses on the sites, not expand them. And then on top of that, I think it's worth clarifying that we wouldn't be giving up site plan or architectural review on anything that was built on these. That's still a process that would go through. It would just not be the conditional use permit as it stands. Is that correct?

Yes, a goal is to narrow it and then provide the detailed review. So as we just saw, a lot of the questions that came up about Concordia were actually addressed under site plan review rather than the conditional use permit. So that's the idea here is to narrow down how we would approach these two different campuses and then review that with public input and other things still provided through to request change through site plan review.

Other comments?

Hi, I'm Bronco Maroussac. I'm a resident of Tuscany Park and I agree with both of those two earlier comments. Those are great comments. And the other piece that's so important, I do understand administratively how You bring this forward to the public and you have these separate meetings and the hearings. It is so difficult to coordinate resources and to try to combat some of this when we're in disagreement or we're just confused. We've got all these different meetings with different neighborhoods. It wasn't until last week. last week that a number of the neighborhoods, thank God for a resident of Forest Ridge pulling us together to get a common purpose and come forward and dispute this. Just dispute the whole methodology. Resources are difficult to coordinate with neighborhoods and put together. Washington University is singular in purpose and what they want. This is our chance now, but it's difficult to say, okay, the entire process is great. Oh yes, if we look back, we did have our opportunity. You had your chance to put forward what you disagreed with. But again, coming back to the early commentators, we can't foresee the future. This is difficult for us and it's certainly difficult to coordinate all the neighborhoods that are affected by this and try to come forward with common purpose and understanding. Thanks.

Other comments?

Sorry to come back, but this issue of 94 beds, you know what I'm referring to, the current condition. I was not concerned prior to tonight about that being part of this overlay. Upon hearing you and seeing the diagram, however, I don't want tall buildings on Y down. And if you're granting that 94 per acre or whatever that measurement is, I don't see how we avoid having that conflict come. We know they want to tear those low dorms down. So does this mean you would have to go in acre by acre and say where 94 is okay and close to Y down where I would see them, I hear them? You'd have to adjust it with an overlay idea? I don't know if you can even answer that tonight, but that is one of the things that I see as a red flag.

Thank you. Well, we're taking comments tonight. We may not have answers at this point. Any other comments?

Max Ramsey, 29 Dartford. I'm more concerned about Big Bend, but I just want to point out one of the only problems I had with the South 40, and I can't really list any problems I had other than it was quite a few years ago, but they blasted music till midnight. And we tried to complain. We tried to get somebody, you know, it's a nice night. You want to open your windows. But the music was just blasting all through the neighborhood. I don't care about that anymore. But what I do care about is about PAs and loud music at Big Bend. And so I think the Clayton process failed before, like the flooding. And that music was just plastic. I don't want 60 decibels, but anyway, I just want to say, I'm just not sure that's what you're doing is going to take care of the noise pollution. Thank you.

Any other thought? I saw a hand.

It's clear to me that staff has worked very hard and thought through many, many scenarios. And I think that many of those things are very valuable. But I just wonder, can't those criteria be applied in the context of the conditional use permit thing? uh in other words keep conditional use but make washu aware make anyone aware that these are the criteria we are going to among others that we are going to use as part of the conditional use permit procedure if And of course, there can be other things. It was mentioned electric bikes. Well, we didn't know about electric bikes five years ago. And new things may come up, and the conditional use permit process can handle that. But if you set a system which says, OK, well, under the conditional use permit, these are the kind of things we are thinking about, They then have much more planning ability, but we as the residents haven't lost our ability to convince our aldermen to say, well, if you don't do what we like, we'll run a candidate against you next time. You know, democracy in action. And a gentleman earlier, I think, was alluding to that. And I'm hoping that's the way we could resolve some of

this.

Please speak into the microphone.

My name is Shelby Shager and I live at 14 Southmore. And instead of all of us getting up, would it be possible to see a show of hands of people who agree with Jay's comment about the conditional use piece staying in place, because I think there's a lot in this audience that probably agree, but we probably don't want every single person taking the time to come up, because most of us are most concerned about Big Bend. So is that possible to do?

We're not going to take a roll call or a hand vote tonight. I think we're getting the idea. I'm sure staff is hearing every comment that is being made.

Okay.

We have one coming up.

I'm Ray Tait, 12 Tuscany Park. I just want to pick up on a comment that was made a little earlier, which is that the overlay district, as we're currently discussing it in relation to several distinct districts, does seem to ignore the impending, or I guess the completed, purchase of Fontbonne, such that Wash U will in fact have contiguous properties along Big Bend. and I would argue that it would be useful to consider some of the infrastructure that Fontbonne brings to this project, as it might apply, especially, I think, to the Big Bend overlay. And in that regard, I think I'm referencing what several entrances to Fontbonne that already exist on Big Bend? Might some of those obviate the need for entrances into this proposed overlay district, parking lots, et cetera? So again, if an overlay district is going to be applied broadly, I would propose that it look at the entire parcel and consider the various elements that those parcels bring. Thank you.

I'm Ray Tate, 12 Tuscany Park. I just want to pick up on a comment that was made a little earlier, which is that the overlay district, as we're currently discussing it in relation to several distinct districts, does seem to ignore the impending, or I guess the completed, purchase of Fontbonne, such that Wash U will in fact have contiguous properties along Big Bend. and I would argue that it would be useful to consider some of the infrastructure that Fontbonne brings to this project, as it might apply, especially, I think, to the Big Bend overlay. And in that regard, I think I'm referencing what several entrances to Fontbonne that already exist on Big Bend? Might some of those obviate the need for entrances into this proposed overlay district, parking lots, et cetera? So again, if an overlay district is going to be applied broadly, I would propose that it look at the entire parcel and consider the various elements that those parcels bring. Thank you.

Other comments, Ann?

I'm Anne from Tuscany Park. I think if you did take a poll, I don't think this room usually fills this full with people who are against a proposal like this. If I can, I've lived in the area, I'm going to guess longer than anybody, 72 years, same house. And I've got some insights into this proposal. Originally it was R2, just like everything around it. A number of years ago Concordia wanted to build headquarters for the Missouri Senate in this same spot. It was again controversial. That whole proposal was denied by Clayton because the project was too big and they didn't want to allow ingress or egress on the Big Bend because it was considered too dangerous. In this, all these, there's about 30 pages of documents associated with this proposal. Nowhere in it, speaking of the size of things, there's no place that shows the square footage of what we're looking at. And like all these things were documented thinking we're not gonna like, we're flailing at nothing because we don't know the size. There's so much that's not stated. And if you don't mind, I appreciate while the two enjoyed Ana's presentation, so you didn't have to read all this stuff. However, I'd like to comment on all of this stuff and by page, if you don't

Well, we need to.

It's going to be short.

Are you talking about the South 40? No. Okay. Okay. Well, we're not at the Big Bend yet. Any final comments? No. Anna, any further comments at this point?

Nope.

Okay, well then I guess we should be moving on to the Big Ben.

Anna, do we need to make a motion at all to continue? Or is it understood that the public hearing

is open right now? You can continue it now if you would like before I start. Okay.

Yeah. Right. So I'll just make a motion to continue the item related to 6500 Forsyth Boulevard, the text amendment, and the rezoning to a future meeting. Seconded.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, it's continued.

Okay, so now we'll start with the Big Bend Overlay District. The big show. Okay, so as I mentioned before, primary... goal of the overlay districts is really to narrow down what college and university uses are and aspects of those are allowed in the different areas. So for the big bin campus, the primary use is athletic and recreational facilities. So we've really narrowed it down, um, as a primary use, and then all of our accessory uses are uses that would support that primary function of athletics. A really important part here we've heard about from the community is the concern that all of a sudden the plans will change from WashU, and next thing you know there's a WashU office building built on this site on Big Bend. Well, the way that the Overly District is drafted, that wouldn't be allowed unless they went through the process of changing the overlay district, which would be the same public hearing process that we're in right now. So it isn't as simple as them just applying for a different building because we've restricted the uses so much. Prohibited uses very similar to South 40. We heard concerns about the same large events. So those are prohibited. And then we also made it very clear that if the uses on this site are not for the general public, it's to support Washington University and their athletic uses. events in capacity are slightly different from what we talked about with the South 40 district. So here, as opposed to just events with 500 people that are not South 40 residents, we have 500 people are more for anticipated outdoor events in general. The only exception would be university sponsored. So a baseball game A WashU baseball game would not require a special event permit if they anticipated 500 people. But any other event would, and it would be a maximum of 10 permits a year. So this is where we're really given the context of what's being developed and the various outdoor spaces and open areas. That come with athletic and recreation fields. We're eliminating those outdoor activities that are not directly associated with the primary use switches, Washington university athletic events. And then in general, um, we wanted to cap the overall event capacity. And based on some of the discussions previously over the summer, that is proposed to be capped at 1,200 people. So unlike the special event permit, though, this 1,200 does apply to all types of events, including a Washington baseball game. Another thing that we heard is really trying to address the capacity. So we don't want to strafe it. We don't want a large sports stadium. We don't have large music events. And so that's where we introduced the maximum seating capacity for permanent seats for spectator venues of 500. lot coverage here. We wanted to reduce that, so the maximum lot coverage is 40%. We want to really reinforce that this area and the context we're starting with, there's a lot of green space, and we're also looking at a use that's going to require large swaths of open space that can't be impeded by any overhanging trees or tree canopy or other elements. And so we want to further restrict how they could develop that site, um, to really kind of maximize the green space. So the recommended lot coverage is lower on the big bend at 40%. For building height, the, the, um, proposed is 65 feet and we do have a 15 foot overrun. built in there for stair access, mechanical equipment. It was mentioned athletic fields on the roof. That's all proposed right now with the 65 foot. How did we reach that? We looked at what some of the existing context buildings on institutions in the area are combined with what really needs structurally to provide the internal clearance for the athletic facilities that are going to be required. And that's how we reached the 65 feet. site access here. So as you mentioned before, this is a diagram that was presented by Washington University during one of their early presentations. It's used for illustrative purposes, the goal being that we're really trying to focus where the access points are from the perspective of what boundary they may or may not be allowed from, but the specific location of where the blue arrow is for vehicle access in this site would need to be approved after a site point review and through St. Louis County with specific analysis. The goal here though, is to really direct all the movements in and out of the Big Bend overlay that are primarily through other institutional uses and really protect the access points that come directly from the adjacent residences. We know that there is a desire to keep the access point from the Hillcrest neighborhood, that walking path. So that would be allowed how we've outlined the overlay district here, but what would not be allowed is reestablishing that access point for vehicle access into the site. So it really says that all of the vehicles need to be coming from Big Bend or they could come through Fontbonne to get onto the site but they can't come from the south through San Benito. They can't come from north through Hillcrest and Dartford to access the site. But we also want to open the door for pedestrian activity because we've heard from a lot of our neighborhoods this is a really much needed and desired kind of cut through to connect some of our neighborhoods from Big Bend to the east to DeMond, to Captain, to Y down, all those elements. So we want to support that. And we also want to... reinforce continuing the existing bicycle and pedestrian paths that Washington University has started to build along on Big Bend. You can see them adjacent to the Danforth campus right now, north, and continuing those down to connect those sites to, again, really prioritize or promote pedestrian and bicycle access over vehicle. Lighting. So I mentioned we're using dark sky. So there is actually a certification program for sports lighting that we would require that for any sort of athletic field. So they have really specific standards that help really narrow down the field of light to light what needs to be for the use there, but really prevents kind of the spill and the glare and lighting areas that you don't need lit using the appropriate kind of temperature or color of light. All of that's really covered. They have a process where you apply with all of your plans and your lighting specs and You get a plans approved through Dark Sky, then you construct it and they actually send inspectors out to inspect the sites. So through the city's process, we'll still have a photometric plan that will be required. And then we'll have a post-construction photometric plan required. But in addition to that, for the sports lighting, we're also going to require that they go through this program that will include additional inspections by Dark Sky. The lighting time is the same that we've proposed for South 40, so that's 7 a.m. to 9.30, with the exception for university baseball and softball innings that are underway by 10. Maximum horizontal light levels at property lines, so 0.5-foot candles. This is equivalent to a full moon, and this is going to really require the lights to be down, as I mentioned, to light what they need. So it does result in slightly higher, as you see here, poles. But the angle of that is important because if we have a shorter pole, then the light is going to face outward more and that's when you start to see the light from further or you get glare or overflow of light. If the poles are slightly higher, that allows the angle of the light itself to be more directed down and shielded more easily from other sides where the light is not needed. And then again, we'll require that photometric plant to show compliance before they construct anything and then after. For setbacks, this is what we have on the proposed site. So it's very important. We agree and we heard a lot about the existing trees that have created this kind of natural buffer around the edge of this portion of Concordia's campus. So we have large setbacks that are placed in areas to really support maintenance of that. And then also kind of extend it to areas where it does not exist. So we are proposing along the north side, a 90 foot requirement here along the Hillcrest neighborhood. It goes zips down to 10. So it allows much closer as we relate to the font on campus, but where our residential neighborhoods are, but there's 90, 80 is proposed on the south. 100 along Big Bend, and then where the campus would abut the housing that we just heard about from Concordia Seminary. We have, depending on the height of the building, a 10-foot setback, or if it's a taller building that goes up to the 65-foot maximum that we propose for building height, then they would have that 50-foot setback here. So this is similar. The context here is similar to what you would see mirrored by Concordia on the other side, and really similar to a single-family setback. Another element to include here is that our setbacks for athletic fields right now in our code, we don't really have a starting point for that. So we have a five foot starter except for the transition zones. So that's where this 80 foot, a hundred foot, 90 foot transition zones are even further protected from athletic fields, not just buildings. So I kind of covered what a transition zone is under the South 40. So here you can see we've pretty much aligned the setbacks with those transition zones and the major areas. And this is where really the elements of protecting those areas is really important. Um, one thing I do want to mention is also the established tree. Protection areas that we have. And I apologize. I didn't highlight that on this slide, but the, the tree protection areas are additional areas above the transition zones that we highlight around areas with really large existing canopy trees that have even more protections against, um, grading, uh, against any sort of disruption of the root zones, et cetera, to really support maintenance long-term and preservation of those trees. So those areas highlighted are along here where we have the existing buffer that's just north of Tuscany Park. We have a large one here that goes along Big Bend, and then we also have another one Over here against Hillcrest, the areas and the shape of those were identified looking at the existing topography. Um, where there are utilities or other buildings existing on the site that are going to be demolished as part of the process of Concordia moving their housing, those sorts of elements that might disrupt those existing areas. So we tried to work around those. And so in some cases, the tree area will go further into the site than the transition zone. And in some areas it is within a transition zone. Grading and drainage here is the same. So the terracing plan, I know this is a really important aspect of this property. It has much more change in grade throughout the Big Bend overlay than you would see in the South 40. So it's even more important to require this terracing and not allow for large clearances to flatten out one grade. So It's a good planning practice, and it will also help reinforce the idea of saving and maintaining as many of the large canopy trees as you can with the goal of really protecting that ring around the outside. Tree requirements. Okay, here's the image with our established tree protection zones. For the Big Bend Overlay District, we're proposing a 20% canopy coverage. The reason for this is, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to have large areas of athletic fields in places where it's going to be harder to have trees that have a large canopy that overlap those athletic fields. So you're really concentrating the growth of the larger trees to the outer areas of the site and then some pockets in between. Whereas with the South 40, you can really distribute those canopy trees throughout the entire site. So again, we had our landscape architect look at all of this, the existing conditions and moving forward. So we'll require that. And then we'll also require the maintenance of these established tree growth areas that are important to maintaining the existing character of some of those buffer areas. For parking similar, we're gonna use a parking study. So this will allow us to evaluate as different buildings and uses are proposed specifically on the site, how those will operate and what parking would be needed to support those. For noise, this aligns the same as what we talked about with the South 40 overlay district. So we have the operational standards that limit the time for noise. And then we also have the design characteristics that impact how the site is laid out and how speakers are laid out with the requirement of speaker systems, the cap of decibel levels and the acoustical study requirement. For the architectural standards, I didn't go into all the details, but they cover the same things as South 40. But they're going to be different because of the character of the buildings, even within the institutional use here on the athletic sites and facilities that we're going to see are going to have a different function and character to them than the dormitories. And so, again, we tried to create a nice list of standards that will help the architecture review board evaluate different facilities as they're proposed on the site. For sustainability, LEED will also be required. We're reinforcing promoting the use of renewable energy and best management practices for stormwater. We're requiring the water quality management for synthetic turf. And we also have the native species requirements for perennials within the district. So these sustainability efforts are really reinforced across both sites together. So next steps, similar to the last one, we recommend that we have public input discussion from the plan commission and the public, and then come back in October with changes based on what we've heard.

Okay. Well, of course, a few comments. I don't think I really understand buildings and on this property and the maximum height of 65 feet. Did I hear that or read it correctly? And right now, that site goes up and down. But if they're going to build athletic fields, that site will probably have to be leveled out quite a bit. So what type buildings could be going in there and why would they be 65 feet high?

Sure. So the buildings, they're going to level out elements because their baseball field will need to be flat. But the idea is that they'll have to terrace it. So the entire buildable area of their site wouldn't all be at one level with giant retaining walls on either end. They'll have to terrace that. Buildings will actually probably help that because You can have entrances at various levels and that's kind of how you would maybe get from one field at a lower elevation to a higher, you could connect through a building. Um, buildings could be indoor gymnasium. There's probably going to be some multipurpose indoor space, some training facilities, workout. There might be some parking that's within a structure. Those elements, those all those accessory uses that would support an athletic campus could be located inside of a building that would support the function of the open fields.

So then that would mean that it's not really a relocation. of the South 40 athletic fields. It could be a complete athletic complex of its own.

So what the uses that have been conveyed to us right now are the baseball and softball field located on South 40, the multipurpose field and all the indoor uses located on the South Campus or the old CBC site, those would all be relocated to this overlay district.

Well, my comment initially, it seems overbuilding on the site, but I think we need to see more definition of it.

Yeah, we're not going to know more definition until they come to site plan review. So that's the piece I think is important. difficult sometimes to understand we're creating the parameters that they operate within and then as they come to us with site plan that's when we would have specific elements but for creating the overall parameters that we want to operate with we want them to operate within it's looking at those existing athletic uses on south 40 and the ones on south campus

I guess my basic fear is recreating a minor field house or all the other athletic facilities that we see currently on the west end of the Danforth campus. PB, John Gerstle:" That was my main comment. PB, John Gerстle:" Another one was access on the access it looked like that there were arrows going between the Concordia. PB, Johngerstle:" facility and the.

That's correct. So we've, we've allowed, the overlay district would allow those cross access between the two campuses should both property owners want, but it is not a primary vehicle access. So the site wouldn't be set up where a vehicle wanting to go to the big bend overlay district. We wouldn't mandate that Concordia allows their campus to become the entrance to the overlay district.

Could that allow, uh, each institution to, um, participate in events in the adjacent institution?

If they wanted to.

Okay. That's it for now. Let's go around. Bridget?

I just had a question. The rooftop facilities, Ana, what would that be like?

Yeah, I think that's a good one to think through. The idea behind adding that was really as we think about the terracing effect of the properties. If they built, let's say, parking into the side of the hill or they built their bathrooms into the side of having an athletic field on the top of that structure would make sense. So I, that was the goal and what we set this up for. But the idea, and I think that I'll acknowledge this is probably a gap in the way it was drafted. The idea of having a soccer field or something like that on top of a 65 yard

Right

foot building is not the goal. So that's one that I have noted here. It was more, um, if you see the smaller structures, that's a good way to kind of cap the top of a building with an active use while still mitigating heights and grades.

Okay. Yeah. I just am a little concerned. I just don't want to see like a golfing something on the top of a gymnasium or something. So, um, I guess also too, because we're also just trying to understand how this changes from the CUP. So right now, like for instance, it would seem to me really attractive from if you were living in Tuscany Park to have an 80 foot setback versus a 15 foot setback, which is what our residential zoning looks like. So I guess, so, I mean, in theory, If we proceed down the CUP process or, you know, remain in that vein, WashU could come to us and propose some sort of athletic facility that could be 15 or 20 feet from that neighborhood. Is that, would that be correct?

Right. They could ask for that. And then that's when we would have to go through the evaluation process of that specific proposal and what we may require.

So then, again, looking at each separate project on this Big Bend overlay, again, there would have to be some sort of reaction to it in terms of understanding where it relates to the neighborhood. each time something is proposed, right? Is that?

Yes. And that, that is, and that will somewhat continue through site plan review under the proposed, but the starting point is much better

because they would already understand that they would have to be 80 feet away from a neighborhood or a hundred feet off of big bend or 90 feet away from Hillcrest versus maybe then starting, they start at 60 feet and we say, no, that's not quite far enough. Okay. And then also like for issues like sustainability, you know, we want buildings to be sustainable. So if they propose a building that's not lead silver, again, as a starting point, and we would say no, you have to go back to the drawing board, it's got to be lead silver. And then also requiring a reaction from the residents to all these specific issues, I guess, in each instance. Okay. All

right.

No additional questions.

So if we proceed with this overlay district and WashU comes with some idea and fits in with all the parameters, is there a way for us to say, actually, this probably still won't work?

Yes. So under site plan review, there are still criteria for review that fall under the purview of the plan commission. And that relates to, um, and I can, I can flip to it. There's a lot of things when you go to, um, So you can see here the column on the right-hand side in blue, this is all the criteria for review that gives a plan commission authority to change something. On the left-hand side, this is everything that is criteria for review under a conditional use permit. If you actually look through both of these, there's a ton of overlap. So through site plan review, if we looked at a specific site plan where they said, here's how the access to the site's going to work and it's going to serve this use. And then we would do an analysis, right? Here's the traffic demand and patterns that are likely to occur under site plan review. You can, you have the authorities, the plan commission to request modifications to their site plan and to minimize dangerous traffic movements or create more efficient flow. Under environmental protection, we have health and safety of long-lived trees. So there's a lot of those same protections that you still have the authority to request changes. The difference is that it would be the plan commission who has the authority to request that change, whereas in the conditional use permit, it would ultimately be the Board of Aldermen. But the actual conditions or the criteria that you're looking at to make those changes would still exist under the proposed overlay district.

And during like those site plan reviews, then public would be able to comment on those and share their grievances or their opinions on everything. Yes. And then another quick question on that 65 foot height requirement, where did that number come from?

So that one came from looking at some of the existing buildings that are across the institutions and then understanding what the internal clearance might be for these proposed uses. So if you look at a building that would be an indoor gymnasium, what the clearance height is for the use inside of that. And that's how we ended up with the 65.

But really nothing around this is similar in height to that in this overlay district.

I did not pull the heights of all the Fonbon buildings, but it is similar to the buildings that you see, like I mentioned, the newer buildings. on South 40 are all between roughly 60 to 65 feet. One element that I will mention that's not here, which I can provide more of a diagram to help explain under when we return at the next meeting, we have changed the definition of how we're gonna measure height within the overlay districts. So right now we have a height measurement is based on existing average grade to the mean slope of the roof. And what you would do is you would take average grade points of either the existing building you're demolishing or the new one that you're placing on the grade before you changed it and averaged that out. And then you would take that height. Obviously, especially with the Big Bend, as Steve mentioned, there's a lot of topography changes. And we really want to encourage not changing that topography and building into the site. So we're actually going to switch and use the definition based on how building codes define height. So it's a slightly different way of determining what the grade is. And then we've also built into this requirement that they can't change the grade of where a building footprint is going to go by more than six feet per that definition. without special approval through site plan review so really trying to reinforce that they couldn't kind of build grade up or cut grade down in order to accommodate a much taller building so i'll provide i can provide more of a diagram on what that would mean because

i wonder if we also maybe look at you know like this if we you know for a gymnasium if we have required like a 65 foot building maybe we kind of try to keep that more in the center that property and keep it even for you know have some of the smaller shorter buildings kind of near the perimeter and keep the the larger ones on the inside um and just my last quick question was like the um the 500 seat is that like so like if i if they build a baseball seat and there's just 500 seats that can be filled

The maximum would

be, yes. Okay. Is that like also for like maybe this gymnasium?

Yeah. The 500 seat was really to ensure that we didn't end up with some sort of large stadium venue, either indoors or outdoors. So the 500 capacity is pretty similar to what you would see at a lot of like smaller high school gyms. You might get 500. But the idea is to keep it pretty small so that we don't end up with this capacity that then would turn into the large events.

So if there's like two fields, is there going to be maybe a softball and a baseball? So would each of those be able to have 500 seats or at each one of them? Yes. Okay. And so then the 1200 people, how does that? work into that.

So the 1200 people is for an event, the way that we have written it, the way that baseball field and they built capacity, which I don't really expect, but let's say that they do. If they built a 500-seat baseball stadium, then they would only be able to accommodate 500 people sitting, but they might have other standing areas that would accommodate the rest that would get you up to maybe 1,200 total participants in that event. Thank you.

Jim? No additional comments or questions?

David? No questions or comments. There might be some comments from the audience. If so, please limit your time so we'll get home tonight. Give us your name, address, and keep it short.

on Cal 5 Forest Ridge. The zoning for this area, I understand is residential. Is that correct?

Yes.

Yes. And CUP does not affect zoning. Is that correct.

That is correct.

CP is zoning. Right. Does does the overlay district affect zoning?

Yes, they're all zoning matters. I beg your pardon? They're all a conditional use permit and the proposed overlay would both be a zoning matter.

No, what I mean to ask is if we create an overlay district, does that eliminate the underlying zoning as being residential?

No, it just modifies. So the provisions of the overlay district that specifically modify the underlying zoning district would replace it. But if there's something within the R2 zoning district that's not modified by the overlay district, then it would still apply. But in this case for the Big Bend area, it would modify the uses to only be these athletic focus uses. So it would remove single family residential as the use for that particular site. But the characteristics of the single family zoning would be maintained.

Thank you.

We

have some Sir, sir, you were up first.

Sure. Thank you, Todd. Okay, Jonathan Katz, Three Tuscany Parks. There are two points. One I may just have missed, but in the discussion of the South 40 overlay, there was a sound criterion of no more than 60 decibels at the property line. I didn't see that in the discussion of The Big Bend overlay and that is very important because athletic fields tend to have loud announcements. The second point I wanna make about The Big Bend overlay is that there's a topographic change of at least 50 feet from the north end of that overlay to the south end. That implies, since athletic fields have to be flat, retaining walls are a total of 50 feet. If you want to know what that looks like, go look at the backside of Menards. That's a 20-foot retaining wall, and it's really impressive.

My name is Josephine Weil. We live at number 34 Forest Ridge, and I think it's pretty clear that we don't want this. We don't want the traffic on Big Ben. We don't The stadium's lights at 65 feet or whatever they are. We don't want lights at night. We love our residential areas, and we love children being able to run around and not worry about all this extra traffic. Love Wash University. We support it very nicely, I think. We were at the Chancellor's home last Friday night. We are not against Wash University expanding anywhere they want, but not across the street from us or down the street from us. I understand now that maybe Concordia needs that money to put in this new housing that they're planning. and that's maybe how it got started. But there are plenty of places for Washington University to put new stadiums, new... You know, we were at the University of Chicago graduation. We had a son who went to New Jeffery Yorg University. Miles and miles of schooling. They have to take Ubers or cabs or whatever to get to some of the things. It's fine. They don't all have to be underfoot in Clayton, and that would be my comment. I also have here... One of us here gathered 100 names just today of people who are against this and Clayton who can't be here. And we are really, truly against this. Thank you.

My name is Josephine Weil. We live at number 34 Forest Ridge, and I think it's pretty clear that we don't want this. We don't want the traffic on Big Ben. We don't The stadium's lights at 65 feet or whatever they are. We don't want lights at night. We love our residential areas, and we love children being able to run around and not worry about all this extra traffic. Love Wash University. We support it very nicely, I think. We were at the Chancellor's home last Friday night. We are not against Wash University expanding anywhere they want, but not across the street from us or down the street from us. I understand now that maybe Concordia needs that money to put in this new housing that they're planning. and that's maybe how it got started. But there are plenty of places for Washington University to put new stadiums, new... You know, we were at the University of Chicago graduation. We had a son who went to New York University. Miles and miles of schooling. They have to take Ubers or cabs or whatever to get to some of the things. It's fine. They don't all have to be underfoot in Clayton, and that would be my comment. I also have here... One of us here gathered 100 names just today of people who are against this and Clayton who can't be here. And we are really, truly against this. Thank you.

Hear me all right because I'm wearing, am I, is it coming through? Okay. My name is John Hutkin. I'm an 11 Brentmore Park. I'd like to cover a couple issues. The first just about the sign, cause I'm in the real estate business. I mean about the sound, whatever sound that can't be handled. We like just to even get a CUP for one of our properties that we own for Panera Bread and We just, it's just the voice coming to the person making the order. And it was 70 feet away just to their backyard, not deep into their further to their house. And we had to have the equipment and all of the wall and all that too, just to prevent that think about 500 people getting excited plus the players plus another 500 potentially at another venue at the same time, there's no way you can measure that sound. It's not possible. It's any, you can't even get that somebody to validate, oh yeah, we'll contain it under that. So let that go. That's not even possible to get what you need to do for the tenants, for the tenants. I mean, we lease, we're in the real estate that we rent to, so excuse me, to the homeowners. The biggest piece of this puzzle about, we keep hearing about traffic Well, the real problem is safety. The street wide out is iconic. When I grew up in Clayton, or my grandpa and I was in Clayton a lot, that street was always an amazing jewel, still is. If you go around, what's the least jewel part of wide out? I'm not getting on one, this isn't just bad mouth Washington U because I want Washington U to do well. But you go down that street and see the dorms that they put up. That's the least attractive thing up there, at least in my perspective. Now, why is the traffic dangerous? I'm driving, I mean, because I was driving here because I live on Big Bend and wide out. and there's like 12 people just on the side, and I'm always watching for them. And half of them are wearing black. There was one couple that she had a white shirt on. Nobody pays attention. I mean, they should do better. It's dangerous as it is. I mean, I don't know. If you start entering a whole new version of traffic coming into that location, and the central point is to enter off of Big Bend, It is, we are maximizing or not maximizing, we are accelerating the opportunity to have a significant accident or just a safety problem in general. I don't know if you put a name on it, but the possibilities would be exponential from where it is right now. And when you go down and this, that iconic wide out, it has, when you go see who's on that thing, there's nothing even close to it except Forest Park, which is a much bigger opportunity. But I mean, you see, you've got runners, you got joggers, you got lots of families on their bicycles. I've seen families with, they've got their kids on the back and they've got with their bicycles. I'm always very careful because I'm saying, are they going to fall over or they can get out of the line or whatever? You've got to be conscious. And the police are there. I will say this. The police are great here. So you've got the high school that sent these out. You've got the Glenridge. I went to Glenridge when I was a kid. You've got a preschool right there by the entrance. of uh where they're talking about putting the entrance to get into this place it just doesn't belong there it's not like and then i wait somebody mentioned what's it going to look like with all that level what is it going to look Like is that they would are doing a cup or doing some other way we would have seen it we would have seen what they're going to do what is that going to look like right now does anybody know how far the houses are backed up right now from the from the road that they have there now. Anybody know? It's 270 feet, I walked it off. And all those mature trees, that's what it looks like. Now we're going to just wipe that out. In order to get that flat, because it's got so much movement in it, they're going to have to take the trees with it. So they're going to lose all the, I guess they're going to loose all the mature trees. Anybody know, is that true? Okay, yes, thank you. You'll lose all the trees. It's going to all be flat, and it's going to have a completely different appearance. Now... So it's going to be, if we need to do the rendering, since they aren't doing it, we do CUPs all the time. We've got the renderings. We show all of the topography in big, bright color and big pictures. And that's how, I haven't done it here, but we like Creve Coeur or Chesterfield. uh it's amazing that it's like this thing is like done in the dark and there's there's nothing we see except stick pictures and the the idea of going down well let's see what they need they don't know what they need because they can't see it where everything's been done in the blind it's like divine and conquer i will go over this one we'll go over to that one we'll see this one we'll see that one what we talked that's the division

John, we need to wrap it up. I do know that you've talked about sound issues and safety and traffic issues. If there's any other specific item pertaining to Big Ben... No,

I'm good. I'll let somebody else come up with those. But thank you for your time.

So my name is Karen Kanzler. Excuse my voice, I didn't have bring water. I live at 20 Southmore and I guess I'm gathering that you all have spent a ton of time working on the idea of WashU taking over this new property and building on it. And that's great that you've spent all the time. I'm just wondering, I might be missing something, but what kind of revenue does the city of Clayton get from Washington University? Is there some revenue stream?

Well, that could be answered, but that really isn't pertaining to what we're talking about.

Okay, well, let me just move forward. It was sort of a rhetorical question anyway, because I think we all know that they, you know, they're not for profit. So my main point is the environment, about talking about doing, well, really both of the South Florida and also the Big Bend, what you're calling the Big Bend. But those... And WashU already owns the South 40, and we're talking about Big Bend right now. So Big Bend, I know the city of Clayton embraces the environment and the trees, and I know both of you have asked questions as pertaining to the environment and all that. And you've talked about, Anna's talked about the buildings were requiring they be LEED certified, LEED silver, and that's great. But if we take a step back and look at what is happening to these two properties, because they're combined, the South 40 Some of their changes are contingent on WashU getting the Big Bend property to move some fields so that they can build more housing on. So I guess my point is all of the energy and the environmental impacts of tearing down buildings, all kinds of buildings, tearing down trees, re-landscaping, making, you know, whether, you know, tiered embankments to accommodate what we're talking about, all of this is just enormously harmful to the environment. And not to mention the light and the sound and the problems that all of my neighbors and friends that I've talked to in Clayton have said that they really, we don't want this. You know, our neighborhood in Southmore, that we're paying property taxes of around $20,000 a person. And on our small little street, that's probably close to $600,000. that we're paying in property taxes. So when you add all of the other, the communities that are surrounding this area, why is Clayton even considering allowing WashU to do this? And if not from, I mean, you know, we all love WashU. Both my parents went there and it's a great institution and I love having them up the street. But this particular place the environmental impacts. And I don't think, I think we're losing sight if we're saying, well, we're going to make them be LEED certified, but But they've got buildings they can already use. They don't need to be torn down. The property, the housing that would be torn down from Concordia, that was built within 20 years. It looks nicer than what they proposed to build to replace it. I mean, it seems... I mean, the idea that it's worn down and they have to tear it down is... just seems really ridiculous. But I think the environmental aspect alone should be compelling to a city that is very concerned about, you know, greenways and everything. And what are we getting back from? What is the city getting back from this? What are we getting back allowing this to go forward? And I'm pretty sure, you know, most of the people that I've talked to agree 100% with it. Thank you.

Hi. I'm Jeff Milbrandt, and I've lived in Clayton 35 years. I've been a faculty member at WashU for 41 years. Our new motto is In St. Louis, For St. Louis. It's supposed to improve the community of St. Louis. And this project does exactly the opposite. I mean, this is a horrible project. Just to not mince words. You know, when you drive down Big Bend now and you see all those trees and green space, there's a certain kind of peace and serenity that comes over you. And what we don't need are ball fields there and ruining all that area, new stoplights, et cetera. The problem with doing this piecemeal is that it ruins our leverage. So if you make it where you don't OK this now, piecemeal, there is a plan B. WashU has a plan C. They probably have a plan D for what they want to do if we don't pass this, if we don't let them set up an entire sports complex in another green space area. There's a few green oases in Clayton yet. This is one of them. And now we're going to try and destroy that for ball field. So I think it's a really bad idea. I'll leave it at that. Thanks.

Joan Downey, Tuscany Park, WashU faculty, 35 years, just retired. I have several points. First, I need to thank the staff that have worked really hard. I don't know. I didn't know any of this kind of stuff a year ago. Every time I read a new document, lengthy as they are, especially the one with all the red lines that told me what changed, was informed. So y'all have done a lot of work. What I'd like to see is all that hard work put on that side of the column that you had, that tells WashU and anyone else what Clayton expects from them. It seems to me that every version has gotten better and better. And again, I didn't know anything about decibels, et cetera. I've really learned about what I don't wanna hear like a vacuum cleaner all the time or pickleball at night. So I think this has been productive, but we are running late. And this is two piece meal. This should just stop now. Wait until we hear WashU's FOMPOM plan. They have plan A through Z, I am sure. And then all this work can be put to productive use so that Clayton can present a single informed public informed mission for what this place should continue to look like. As an example, this events and capacity, I was an assistant dean on the Danforth campus. My office is in a freshman dorm. There are 10 dormitories on the South 40. We would have 1,200 celebrations of an athletic intramural event, one dorm against another. That's one a month. for 10 months. Is that reasonable? All that traffic down Big Bend one time a month? That will make Weill look like every month. WashU would have to fence the entire footprint because You're not going to just have 500 people. One of the dorms is 500 or more. And they're going to come from the South 40, from the dorms off Del Mar, from all the apartment buildings that WashU owns off Del Mar, where the off-campus kids live. So there would have to be a fence because there's no way with every piece of grass being an entrance, that you could limit this to 1,200 people. No way. There would have to be a fence. That would mean security, gating, bracelets, all kinds of stuff because there would be at least 10 permits a year. So that needs to be reviewed because that is uninformed about what's really happening on the campus. And I appreciate all the hard work done, but I would like to see all that work invested in the column that says, this is what this committee expects before any plan comes to us. I don't understand why we have to mandate these boxes that I do feel removes the public's capacity to input at an early stage. Y'all can set the rules. Just put everything that you've worked on on the right-hand side of that colored column so that anyone, including WashU, knows what's happening if they want to build or come into Clayton. Thank you.

Daniel Martinez, 22 Southmore. So I apologize if I came in a little bit late. I was actually on Southmore trying to make a left onto Big Bend to get here. So it just took me a couple of hours to do. So I do wanna say, I do want to say what isn't funny is the lack of due diligence that y'all have put into traffic study. It's deplorable. You guys actually have to do a better case study and understand how traffic flows. My kids are 15 and 12, and all they know is every morning when we go to school and make a left, they got to hold on to their drinks and hold on their seatbelts because I'm about to gun it going across South Bend to make a hard left. I just think that we need to do a better job of understanding the traffic flow before we build anything or approve anything. My second point has to piggyback off what Karen said. It is interesting that WashU has a $12.5 billion endowment, but yet I pay more property tax than them. I do think as a city of Clayton, once you give someone land, you're never going to get it back. So do we really want to have WashU who has a ton of land, unbelievable facilities? Do we really want to give up that much land and never get anything from it. Thank you.

Bronco Marusic, Tuscany Park. I'm on the borderline. I am on the south border of the Big Bend Overlay District. I looked at that beautiful 80-foot transition zone and said, are you kidding me? I mean, the idea of the buildings going up, athletic facilities, I moved into Clayton uh over 40 years ago to attend washoe law school and fell in love with the neighborhood fell in love with community my wife and i moved into tuscany park 23 years ago with our daughter sophia and in tuscany park i found a neighborhood to this day we have two-thirds of the 12 families there have been there for over 22 years And the idea that all those wonderful things that happened in my backyard, the parties, the play dates for my daughter, the neighborhood, the friends coming over for just casual, nice little time is going to be interrupted because I'm going to have these athletic fields in my backyard. Um, that's not why I moved to Clayton and I realized that you have certain restrictions and things you're dealing with here. And I appreciate all the work in the overlay district, but I will fight forever on this on, uh, for a conditional use permit, just to try to argue that these limitations aren't enough. And I just don't know what else those other limitations are going to be that I need to think about when they start getting proposed. Appreciate your time. Thanks.

Hi, Ava Wilkinson, 10 Southmore Drive. And as a student, a kid and a soon to be new driver, I'm 15 years old and even I know that this is just going to make everything even worse than it already is. The traffic on Big Bend is already atrocious and it's so hard to turn left out of my neighborhood that my parents are not letting me do it because it is so unsafe. Adding another traffic light to Big Bend would make it more time to get to school. And I go to school earlier for after school activities and things. And adding another traffic light would not only make the time that it takes to get to school a lot longer, but also make it a lot more unsafe. Me and a lot of my friends like to walk to Walgreens and just around there. And we walk in that green space because it's not safe to walk on the street. And that traffic light would also make it even more unsafe to do so and that green space is also so beautiful and you'd be cutting down so many trees. Thank you.

Chuck Shagrin, 14 Southmore Drive. I've lived in my home on Southmore since 1977. I'm opposed to the project. I sent you all a letter earlier. No doubt you've read it. Thank you for paying attention to everyone's comments.

Again, Jake Hansler, 20 Southmore. I do have one quick comment. Ms. Waldman, thank you very much for your questions. They have been spot on. The thing about the overlay district though is that a lot of the things you said, well, what if we wanted to move it over here to the middle? Or what if we wanted make it 120 feet setback? I was a lawyer for WashU. WashU has a room full, dollars to donuts, they have a room full of drawings right now for all of this. And what they know is that these are the minimums. So if they come in here with those drawings that meet the minimum requirements, no, you can't say no. If you want the ability to kind of keep control on these projects, to make those changes, to kind of make sure that the overall picture fits, then you want the conditional use permit hearing. You don't want these changes. standards that have been drafted by WashU in light of the drawings they already have.

Michelle Dillon for Southmore. It's past my bedtime, so I'll be fast. I was a trustee when Fontbonne approached this we were in this room talking about their parking lot that they had to have. And certain things were put in place to keep us all safe. They were totally disregarded. Ride in, ride out doesn't happen. 95% of the kids coming out of there and staff go left. there's no way to enforce it. We've called the city, we've called the county, we've called with no help at all. It's created a very hazardous situation and this whole thing for the Big Bend overlay will make it so much worse. Thank you.

hi debbie summer tuscany park and my house will back up to the new ball fields if it goes through um i think we're all here because we're all on the same page you all are claytonites right and we care about the quality of life here and i am cannot find one benefit this will have for those of us surrounding the project if anybody can i want you to come up and talk about it But I'm concerned about that because it's of no benefit. I think the safety issue that has come up multiple times, which is outside of any of the diagrams as traffic increases on Big Bend. We already have many people testify to how difficult it is to turn in and out. What about the preschool, Clayton Early Child Center? The entrance to that building will be directly across from the one entrance and exit to this project. So if you have a big event when parents are coming to pick up their kids, It just sounds like a nightmare to me. I don't know how you can justify doing that and have the traffic and the parents and the kids and the turnarounds that many of us experience. We constantly have people turning around in our neighborhood in Southmore, and I'm sure they do in Oak Knoll Park. So in terms of safety, I really want us to focus on that because that impacts everything not just the WashU student impacts all of us up and down Big Bend. We've had the county approve the Fontbonne entrance, which has been a nightmare. Walgreens has that cutout, which people do illegally, where they cut out in front of us on Big Bend. And as many of you have experienced, the speed limit has gone from 30 to 35 in the last 15 years, which means more people speed. And then we're adding on top of that a lot more people. So I want us to really think, as you all consider, because you all proposed this to the Board of Aldermen. Is that how this works?

Eventually, yes.

Eventually. So let's really think about how we can enhance our whole neighborhood and not detract from what we already have. Thank you.

John Qualley. I live at 11 Brentmore or 13 Brentmore Park right across from the softball fields. And, you know, I was thinking, as people were talking, when they have a softball game at night, it is a whole different deal. And talking about sound, when John was talking about the, you know, when he had this restaurant and talking in the machine, let me tell you something. I don't know how you stop the sound. Because we have it. We have it. So I'm thinking about where we are, and then I think about what could go down the street and the lights and the numbers of people. And I don't think anybody in this room will come on over to my place and we'll have some wine and we'll sit out there and we'll see what's going on at the softball field when they have the lights on and see how it just changes the entire environment. Light and sound.

Hi, Anne again from Tuscany Park. This has been a contentious area for years. I mean, since the 70s. And I can tell you that there's been a bunch of proposals that weren't passed for this area. I began to tell you about the Missouri Synod wanting their world headquarters in there. Clayton at that time said, no, it's too big and it's too dangerous. You can't have ingress or egress from that onto Big Bend. After that, the married student housing, same thing. It was... too much traffic, there is no ingress and egress again onto Big Bend Road because it was too dangerous. And what's changed since then is the congestion on Big Ben's only increased. We've got Centene's traffic has it been Big Bend, the road was widened, a cloverleaf was installed at Highway 40 and a speed limit as Deb said, it was increased. and all of this uh actually adds up to big bend being rated f by the county highway department is there a lower grade than f for the county highways okay f means that um the the street is fully saturated that means It's loaded. So we're adding, what, 1,200 people all coming at the same time, all leaving at the same time on a road where it was deemed even years ago that it was too dangerous to have the ingress and egress. The F-rated highway, I'm not sure how far it extends, but for people at the south end of this, we're also adjacent to one of the most dangerous intersections, Clayton and Big Bend. Over the years, I think at one point it was the second most dangerous intersection in all of the county. It's obviously adding this much more congestion is not a good idea. The traffic study that was done was done on January 24th and 25th, kind of a cold time to measure pedestrian traffic on roads. By the way, pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk is all on the east sidewalk. It involves walkers, students, people with dogs and all sorts of little vehicles, the electric bicycles, electric scooters and all that stuff because it's too dangerous to be on Big Bend. It's just not safe. When the study was done, by the way, it rained half an inch on January 25th. The study also didn't include the area around Tuscany Park and already rated that whole area is just rated badly. And I think being so close to an intersection just compounds everything. And of course with Walgreens coming in and out as well. On WashU's plan, the little plan that we saw for the Big Bend sidewalk, that whole improvement that they were adding ends before it gets to Tuscany Park, creating a bottleneck. right at Tuscany Park, right where the sidewalk actually has zero setback from the street. In other words, when you're walking on that sidewalk, which is 31 inches wide, you are right next to the traffic, which, by the way, doesn't go 35. And in fact, it's a drag strip for motorcycles and cars during rush hour usually. I've never seen them get caught. I don't know if you know it, but Big Bend was such a problem in Kirkwood that they reduced the speed limit this past July. Kirkwood City said we're lowering the speed limit back because Big Bend was such problem going through Kirkwood. I'd like to refer to some specifics in the packet that's the overlay regulations. On page two, the 1200 participants at events far exceed anything like the Missouri Synod that was proposed there exceeds the married student housing traffic. Also on page two, it's listing 40% impervious coverage. This entire ravine, as you've seen, the entire area is a natural ravine that drains into a large retention basin. The retention basin fills during heavy rains. when they remove, by the way, all the trees and vegetation from this area. There will be nothing there. You talk about a pretty hot, dry, horrible area. And you'll find this, I'm not saying 400 and exaggerating, it's in the packet. In fact, I think it's on that unreadable pink and blue sheet, which by the way, I don't know if this is what you got. I can't read it. And so the suggestion was, oh, make it, it's impossible. This is even enlarged. I don't know that's what you're looking at too. With all the vegetation removed, and it is actually 399 trees. Water percolation and infiltration is drastically reduced. Percolation and infiltration are what the pervious land can absorb, take care of, and filter the runoff. with 40% impervious coverage. That's almost half of this entire area. Exactly where is the water gonna go? As Dr. Katz was telling you, the elevation drop is 51 feet from elevation 585 to 534. Where does this runoff, increased runoff, where does it go? Right now, remember that sewer? It drains into that stormwater sewer, which lucky us goes through Tuscany Park. If with a 51 foot drop in elevation, there's massive retaining of soil there, huge movement. And forget about any tree coverage if the low spot for the 534 foot elevation is where the retention basin is, how exactly, how are you gonna catch all the water when all of that has to be raised up? If you want a field, it's gotta be flat and it's gotta be no vegetation. And to me, it's massive earth movement. And retaining wells up to 20 feet high is kind of crazy.

And we need to wrap it up where...

However... I'm just almost through.

Well, OK, we'll take one

minute. Page 8. Any new construction where the proposed grade plane deviates from existing grade by more than six feet has to be addressed. There's nothing like a, it's not, we're talking not about any six foot grade. We're talking about 51 foot change in grade. Page 9. Oh, I'll skip to 11. where it describes efforts in capital shall be made to incorporate best management practices for stormwater draining and grading. We need specifics. There's no indication of the grade change at all, which is huge for that area. When we're talking about making this compatible. There's nothing about this that's compatible with the district character. It offers no benefit to the residents. When I'm talking about the kind of bad effects of that much activity up and down the sidewalk. The kinds of things when we're cleaning up our little area by the sidewalk, the kind of stuff we're picking up are panties stuffed into a beer bottle. We've got condoms. It's not boomer traffic,

We've gone on nine minutes now. We appreciate the comments, please. It's time for someone else to have the floor.

Steve, there's been a couple of hands up for a while. Do you mind if I let them? I see them.

From the overflow room, my name is Ian Hageman. I live at 10 Aberdeen. I'm a trustee of Hillcrest. And just for disclosure, I'm a dean at the School of Medicine, Wash U. We've sent representatives to every meeting that's been held. I have to say there's been a fair number of them, and I think the process has been good. I think the comments have been heard. And personally, I think the red line document that was posted is fairly responsive. And so I look forward to a continued process. A couple of things that haven't been said. I actually think that within our subdivision, there's a range of opinions. spanning both extremes from in favor to obviously quite opposed. A couple of concerns specific to Hillcrest, one is pedestrian impacts from students cutting through, so to speak, the northern boundary on Dartford. Hopefully we can work together to, if this goes through, to maintain and kind of underline the integrity of that street as a residential neighborhood just to help inform students that they are passing through a public right of way where people are living. Other thing that I wanted to mention, you know, there's quite a bit of parking inside that Fontbonne envelope already. The five foot setback for parking along the Northern edge is a little bit scary to some of our Hillcrest residents. And then my last point echoes something that was said before. I think WashU has allowed some worst case scenarios to proliferate by being very sketchy about some of what would go inside of this overlay district. And it's possible that they could assuage some concerns by producing some drawings that would maybe capture the imagination a little bit better, especially for the treatment of Big Bend and Fontbonne, which again has been very sketchy so far.

Hello?

Yes, go ahead. We

hear you.

Hi, this is Bob Maher at 102 Arundel Place in Hillcrest. I see that we've been here now for four hours and 15 minutes. I was happy to see that Concordia had plans. It defies belief that after I asked in June, I proposed that WashU must have drawings, must have an idea of what they want this whole area to look like. It defies belief that Concordia has well-developed plans and WashU has nothing for us to look at and make as part of our evaluation. I Point two, I was happy to see that on the accessory definitions pages for each of the South 40 and the Big Bend, that removal of, I think there are points 15 and 17 respectively, the catch-all kind of free pass for any... So we had a number of exceptions in each sheet. And then each... sheet had as an exception that any other use related to university purposes or some kind of generic get out of jail free card, I am happy to see that those were removed. However, there is a nearly as defeating tenant on there now that says temporary buildings could be allowed. And I think that that would that must be defined as we move forward. Now to the uses specifically that we've kind of outlaid, so events underway by 10, from past performances, when do those events that are underway by 10 end? And so that means a baseball game that begins at 9.59 with PA and music, when does that finish? So then on the terracing that will be, well, we've already covered the terracing. The terracing on those natural ravines, if they are allowed and we do move forward, the terracing cannot, you know, I sure hope that architectural review will not allow concrete, you know, And as far as finally, we've heard multiple times that the plan commission will have ultimate authority over the final go-no-go. Who does the plan commission, who do they answer to? And does the public have any recourse to decisions levied by the plan commission? And with that, I have my, that's the end of my formal written comments. I agree with the vast majority what everyone else has objected to however. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Amelia Louder. I live at 110 Arundel Place on Dartford right next to Concordia and I'm a student at White Owl Middle School. And I'd like to say that when WashU, if WashU, builds this sports complex in Concordia, that's going to be taking away a big center for students that hang out together. It's a beautiful place. And also, it's a big impact on the environment that's going to happen right next to our neighborhood. It's not going to be the beautiful place that we moved here for anymore. And for a university that says its students are going to go forward and pave the way for the future, if Washington builds this sports complex here, they're going to be going back in time. Thank you.

Good evening. Andrew Lieberman, One Southmore. Thank you guys for being patient and hearing us out. Really appreciate it. A couple of things. I echo a lot of the comments that everyone said, but what really matters to me and I think a lot of people in this room is safety. I have two children, live right on Big Bend at number one. I want my kids to be able to go to the movie theater and be safe, get to school and be safe. A failing traffic study, with it is the way it is now, doesn't make me feel comfortable. And I think if something were to happen and you guys approve this, I can't imagine how you would feel, okay? So in addition to that safety, It's ironic that an institution as well-respected as WashU would want to take down that many trees. It's just, it would be an eyesore. If we wanted to live next to a stadium, we'd move downtown, right? So we're not in that predicament. And what other folks have said, which I totally agree with is, is where's the benefit for us, the residents of Clayton, the taxpayers? You know, how do we benefit? And so for those three reasons, we are opposed to this. And there are a lot of folks that weren't here tonight that are opposed to it. And there's got to be a way for you guys to realize that. Let's just shut it down. Shouldn't happen.

So I'm Jerry Lauder. I live at 110 Arundel. I couldn't let my son stage me. So again, we live right at the end of Dartford. We'll be backing up immediately to this complex. And to add on to what many folks have said, you know, I think we're going into this without the information that I think you and we need to make informed decisions. I'd like to focus on two things. One is the noise, as my neighbor at 102 mentioned. Without pictures or without plans, we have no idea where these fields, et cetera, are going to be positioned. And all those trees that act as noise detectors dampening barriers to our neighborhood will likely be cut down. So even if you do an acoustic study now, which I think is fantastic, like the gentleman mentioned earlier, it's not going to give you valuable information, right? Because we don't know what's going to be taken down and what's going to change with the level of the field, the topography, etc., and what is actually going to be the noise on our doorstep. So I really think that that needs to be taken into consideration because I think it's going to be much louder than folks, you know, expect, and particularly to myself, our family, and our neighbors that live adjacent to this field. The second thing or another thing is the south end or Tuscany area the Tuscan Hills neighborhood or wherever, mentioned drainage. And we have that same issue on the north end. When we get a heavy rain, we have a river of muddy water running down from the seminary And they've tried to mitigate this in the past with the water catchment. And it's not coming from the road with the small individual households. It's actually coming from the hill where the condominiums are. So I know that there's a plan that there should not be increased water runoff, and that's fantastic. But I think there's clearly a runoff issue with the property currently. both on the south and the north ends i think you know this will need to be addressed but again appreciate your work but i think there needs to be a lot more information given to us as the surrounding neighborhoods and yourselves to really make a plan thank you

okay um

I'll be quick. Jeff Kirschman here on behalf of the White House. First of all, I want to compliment Anna and Ryan in the Planning Commission for a very thorough, comprehensive, lengthy, inclusive process. I think its process has been great. I think it arrived at the wrong conclusion. I just want to point out to you a couple of things. This whole issue of Concordia's relationship to the city was addressed in the city's master plan, which you all spent a lot of time on just about a year ago, I think. And let me just read a couple comments in the master plan about Concordia. Concordia Seminary enjoys a positive public perception attributed to its expansive, well-maintained grounds, avoidance of dense development, and absence of undergraduates. Anticipating a stable student population, Concordia Seminary envisions a future focused on leveraging its existing land rather than seeking to expand. And finally, in summary, Concordia seminary maintains a symbiotic relationship with the city of Clayton. fostering positive community interactions and envisioning a future characterized by strategic partnerships and responsible land use. The campus understands the value it brings to the surrounding community through access to green space and other amenities, and plans to continue being a partner in shaping the future of Clayton in a way that respects the surrounding neighborhoods. That's what you all wrote in the comprehensive plan within the last year. And I would suggest to you that this proposal does not in any way respect the character of the surrounding neighborhoods. Second, I just want to comment quickly about the difference between an overlay district and a CUP. A CUP specifically says that one of the criteria is compatibility with surrounding areas. That is not an element of your overlay district. Second, a CUP allows the residents, if they submit petitions from enough people to require a super majority by the Board of Aldermen to approve the CUP. That is not the case with an overlay district. There are tremendous advantages. for the residents who oppose this and being, if the project is governed by a CUP rather than an overlay district. Finally, just ask yourselves, let's say you live in a million dollar house, a $2 million house, a $3 million house. And if you're talking about people who live in Forest Ridge or Tuscany or Southmore, that's the kind of value that those properties have. To put athletic fields with lights, with noise, within yards of those properties is going to devalue those properties. There's no question about it. They're worth more without it than they are with it. So does this property make sense? Would you want this next year houses? I don't think so. Thank you.

We'd like to thank everyone for their comments. I believe the plan commission members and the staff have certainly listened to it, made notes, and of course we will be continuing this process into the next few meetings. So I believe we have...

Yep, I will make a motion to continue these items related to 801 Seminary Place and the text amendment and the rezoning to a future date.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you again. And we still have another agenda item. But if you're not here for that, we'd appreciate if you could quickly depart the council chambers.

Thank you.

Hmm.

can you put it on on slideshow thank you good evening

welcome back

thank you steve any report is anna going to read something uh

uh actually i think ryan yeah i think we don't really need to read the summary um we're all in this room i think pretty familiar with what This project is that's being proposed. If something to show us. Yes, I think Helen first. Oh,

I will be recusing myself for this.

Okay, thank you.

For what it's worth, very quickly, as an architect, I really like overlay districts because they allow me to know what you guys want. That's the whole point of them. I think Ana was making that point, though people didn't understand it. Conditional use permits are shots in the dark.

Okay,

now on to the main show. We have talked about the site plan already, and that's already been approved. So I would ask that comments from the audience pertain to architecture review items only. Thank you.

Well, thank you for your brevity, Tyler. I think we appreciate that. Also, what we see here is the latest iteration of the facade, correct? If I understand it, it changes so you're attempting to make them look less identical, correct? And the facade changes are really on the facade and just wrapping around the two sides, correct?

We did also change just the window mullion pattern and the backs and the sides to match what was going on in the front.

Yeah, I did see that. Which I'm glad to see that it keeps moving on. However, I don't see it changing what my initial comments were. And that is that if you need to take a phone call, please leave the council chamber. I don't see it changing my initial comments that I've repeated in each of the ensuing reviews, that we still have two very large buildings that do relate to each other, even when some of the materials and the designs are somewhat changed from one facade to the other. But they read as a single entity. I know they're on two separate legal properties, but I fear that they look like a four-family condominium. So I am very concerned that it's not really meeting the context or the compatibility requirements and the integrity of the neighborhood as is. I'm certainly not against duplex units, but I think they need to be of a smaller scale that fits in with the rest of the neighborhood. If we do go ahead with this, and of course that may be the outcome, I do think that it will promote more dense developments in the neighborhood. somewhat to the point that someone may come in and want to request a change from R3 to R4. I really don't think we should go for that, and I will move on.

In that case, may I make a presentation?

I thought you already did.

Well, I didn't realize you were going to say that. So now I need to make a presentation to respond.

Well, before you do, Tyler, I haven't changed my comments from day one, from one, two, three or four.

And I was going to explain how I'm responding to your comments in this latest design.

It's fair.

I showed last time every building up and down the block. The common theme in all of them is two stories and a certain width, kind of massing scale. These buildings follow that exact same pattern in terms of the width of the building and the height. There's no different than any other building on that street. The roof line, what we've changed is you mentioned the tower, the towers and that that was what was making them read together because we had symmetrical towers around the entrance and also the height made them appear taller and all of that. So in this latest design, what we've done is eliminate any notion of a tower whatsoever. You couldn't look at this and say there's a tower. The roof now covers everything. That was the intent of this, pull it down. That roof line, that gutter line is exactly the same height as all the others, as I explained last time, and it has not changed. So in terms of them reading larger, I don't see how you could, respectfully, don't see how could see them as being larger than the others when they're the same width and the same height.

Certainly understand your comment we're not here to engage in conflict, but. To me they still read together. Okay. Richard.

I'm having a little trouble with the color palette. Would you imagine that the colors would look similar to what's on the screen?

The two bricks that I brought last time, the red and the brown, are what we're proposing here. With any rendering, it's a little bit difficult to depict exact brick color renditions. But the red and the Brown are common colors seen throughout Clayton. I pointed out before that's similar to your sidewalk pattern. So that is, we're still proposing the same thing whereas one of the buildings that one in the foreground will be red with brown accent, the other one will be brown with red accent. And I apologize for the colors on the screen and the rendering, I know this happens in every rendering, it never reads like the actual bricks.

And then just because from the perspective of somebody who's not an architect, these are substantially taller than their surrounding structures. Not at all. Well, the roof line is. I'm sorry. The roof line is. No. I am looking at this. And this shows that the pitch of the roof is significantly higher than the surrounding. I'm looking at your plants.

First of all, the gutter line is exactly the same. The peak at the top may be higher, the ridge, but the ridge on a hip roof, again, while we're doing hip roofs is diminishing into the distance, does not read like a flat elevation, which is what you're seeing there. And you use the word significantly higher. The fact that the, the gutter line is the same as the others, even if the ridge is, and I think just is probably three feet higher than the others. So averaging that out because that's where your mean roof line is red would be 18 inches. I wouldn't call 18 inches significantly higher than other buildings.

I mean, I guess I would think it would be 18 inches, more than 18 inches, because it's the pitch above that middle window. If you're looking at the property on the left, that seems like that would be a lot more than 18 inches to me. The

property on the left? Yes. That is not indicative of the rest of the block. That is the one anomaly that happens to be next door to us.

Your property on the left it just looks like it would be a lot more than 18 inches again i'm

same roof pitches, the one on the right, I mean the same building height as the one on the Right okay same.

Right and I i'm sorry I know you don't want to talk about this, but I would like to talk about the air conditioners because I think it's just worth bringing up I was not here for the first meeting so i'm just trying to understand why they came off of the roof to the ground.

Because we were told that having air conditioners on the roof impacted noise to neighboring decks and terraces and was loud and everything.

I'm just, again, I'm asking. I listened to the meeting, but I don't remember it coming up very often. Is it your experience that noise carries or who was talking about this? A noise engineer? Again, I'm just asking.

I don't remember, yeah, who brought it up.

Is it problematic from a building standpoint to put it on the roof? Is it easier or harder? I don't know. I'm not a...

Well, it's going to... I mean, just imagine what a hip roof with an air conditioner sitting on the top of it would look like. I mean, it's going to make the building taller. You're going to have this funny-looking screen at the top of it. These are not flat-roof buildings. If it was a flat-roof building, putting an air conditioning unit on the top is a little more obvious but still requires a screen around it and makes it appear taller. So this is all an effort to shorten – And we redo i'll also emphasize that our buildings used to be closer to the side yard setback they were right on the side yard setbacks of what is allowed. When we brought the air conditioners down, we pulled the buildings back off of those setbacks to allow for more ground in order to put those air conditioners on the sides. And having them on the sides is a very common thing. I realize that the problem here is that the building next door, or the resident who's concerned about this, their entry happens to be on the side. That's the way it

is. And also just again from a building perspective, even just from your own tenants, putting the units just on the side is versus putting them in the rear of the yard? How is that different from a-

In the rear of the art, it disturbs everybody who's out in the back of the yard sitting on their patios or whatever to the degree that air conditions are going to disturb people. But that's the other point we're going to point out. We're talking about high efficiency units here that are modern. These are not air conditioners from the 1950s that are very loud and humming and all that kind of stuff.

Well, but even high efficiency units as they age become louder and louder. So I'm just trying to understand. I think that the residents who are concerned didn't really have the ability to speak in the first meeting. And in the second meeting, I think they were dismissed. So I'm trying to bring up something and ask some questions for my own benefit.

Fair enough.

Those are all the questions I have right now.

Jamie?

As far as the height, besides changing like the perceived height, have you actually changed the height at all since the initial?

Not appreciably. And we're still below the allowed height requirement.

Because I just, you know, over and over I've heard it's too high, it's too high. So I'm just curious why that has not been changed.

Because again, I've said this in Clayton before. When you all establish in your zoning code a height limit, then that's the number I need to hit. I can't be taller than that height limit or it wouldn't be allowed. If the height limit is 35 feet, then a building that is 34 feet 11 and 3 quarters of an inch is within that height limit. If you want them to be or make change the zoning code and make the height limit 25 feet, whatever you're

looking at like a street where this is like the tallest, you know, angles up the street I just think that. all that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at the entire environment, not just like-

I agree, but do not look at those flat elevations on the page because nobody ever sees a building in flat elevation. You see it coming in perspective up and down the street. And what's most important, or the reason why, I'll explain it this way. In, and Ana, back me up here, in terms of measuring the height of a building that has a sloping roof, you do what's called the mean average between the peak and the ridge, or I mean the gutter line and the ridge. The reason why you do that is because you don't perceive the full height, so you're allowed to take the average. What's most important visually from the street is where that gutter line is. That is what you really see. That's the top of the wall. That's the point at which the roof starts going back. It's the most important line in terms of the visual aspect. You can see it right there on the screen we have taken that gutter line and specifically lined it up with the two buildings to the right exactly the same you see it in perspective right here if you just follow that line down

yeah i mean i can see on your elevations as well um yeah it's just i feel like with constant feedback i would have probably adjusted that

i can't make um i cannot um When you've got floors that have, you know, minimum ceiling heights. There's just short of let's see what's what's something you I could push the entire building down into the ground so that the first floor is is buried, but I don't think that would be a good living condition either.

I don't think so. Okay, that's all my questions right now.

Jim. I guess I want to start with a point of clarification with Anna. If I'm not mistaken, would the air conditioners be part of site plan or part of architectural review? They were approved as part of the site plan. Okay. So really, we don't need to spend any time on air conditioners because that's something that's already approved at this point? Yes. Okay. Then I guess moving on to the architectural elements, I will certainly give you credit. There is... there's the stair towers are gone visually from the outside. Those have been completely removed. I will say, you know, when we're talking about perceived height and stuff, but from what I see on the left building by changing material, especially at the peak, it's almost drawing attention up to that peak. And I feel like we're trying to draw attention away from the height and it's almost calling attention to the height and And I think also it's like to a point you say it's below the height limit. Well, I mean, we sat here for several hours before just talking about how limits can be a problem. And just because something's within the limit doesn't mean that it necessarily makes it right for an area or makes people comfortable with something. And this property is sitting at the highest point on the street. Clearly the height every single time has come up as an issue to your own admission that the height of the building has never changed. Certainly how it's addressed has changed, but the actual height of the building. So I can see some things being addressed. I can see others that have been left. And I guess that just kind of puts us where we are now.

I agree with you in terms of the change in material draws attention to that peak up there. I totally agree with that comment. Why I did that was to make the roofs look different. I would have gladly made them both just standard hip roofs, but I was afraid that then the comment would be they look too much alike. So I was trying to come up with ways to make them look different. So one has a dormer and one has this, there's a term for it, architectural term that I can't remember, the hip with a little gable at the top. It's a certain kind of hip, but anyway, half hip maybe. I did that because I was trying to make them look different. If you all say here tonight as a condition that you want them both to look like a standard hip, the one on the right, I will gladly do that.

Yeah, and I think I will agree you have solved one problem by differentiating the abilities that make them look different, you've created another problem by drawing attention to that height.

It's almost like these rules are impossible to meet.

I'd like you to appreciate that we're here at 1020 at night so you can present your case. This isn't supposed to be an antagonistic process. I would just like this to go a little more respectfully, if you don't mind.

I respect your comments. I've been listening to them for four meetings now and I don't know how to meet them. I've been trying.

Well, at least from my standpoint, as we stand here, we have three people who have discussed height. Height seems to be a problem. I would address the height.

Anything further, Jim? No, I'm finished.

David? I think you've made significant progress separating the two buildings. That was a concern that had come up over and over again along with the stair towers. So I think we've come a really long way with this not being a designer, I don't know how to address the height issues so i'll. i'll see it to you and the others that have more design experience to maybe weigh in on that, but from where we started, I think we're getting a lot closer. To neighborhood character and we're getting a little further away from that uniformity that was a concern early on. Okay.

We have some people in the audience. Are there any comments?

I believe at the last meeting, when we talked about the air conditioners, you made a comment that you were going to bring that issue up later on. The meeting got abruptly stopped. And you never got back to your comments. I don't know what they were going to be, but I'd like to hear. I'm also very happy that the city of Clayton is proposing a noise level of 60 decimals where these air conditioners are outside our door. One unit would probably be 60 decimals. Now there's going to be four. So your proposals on noise limits currently have the county come out and do a noise test i guess once they're put in but then you'll have some pretty upset new residents if they have to be moved in terms of the height it dwarfs our house and when we built our house 30 years ago we had to reduce the our height back then because it was quote too high so whatever works for that so

I'd like to hear your comments about the air conditioners. Um, well, what I have seen over the years is that even though something may have been approved, there can be an amendment to it. And quite often, uh, that is, uh, agreed to between the two parties and then come back to the city and make an amendment. Um, That right now, we have approved it where the air conditioners are shown on the site plan. So I think right now it's out of our purview at this point.

Okay. Well, when it's hot, we're going to have the noise test done. The new residents won't be very happy. These guys will be gone, but maybe the new residents will have to change them.

Hi, everybody. I'm back. I'm Steve Burrows, and my wife Barb is on the Zoom if she hasn't fallen asleep. And we live at 142 North Bemis and across the street from the structures, as you know. And we've reviewed the most recent submissions by applicants, and we oppose it for the following reasons. While we appreciate that the applicants have attempted to address the issues raised at the past three meetings, their changes fall short and the structure continues to present more like a condo development, which is more common on North Merrimack and North Central between Kingsbury and Del Mar Boulevards, but not in Old Town Clayton. So thinking about why it continues to present this way, it struck us that all the other two family condos on the block have one driveway that serves the back-to-back structures. However, in the case of 139, because the driveway services two back-to- back structures, we think this reinforces the way the two buildings present as one massive structure. So this combined with the similar exterior finishes continue to make the two structures present as one development, which we don't think is compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. For example, the similarity of the wood treatments on both homes tend to make a visual connection. The balconies and front facing windows all have similarities and reinforce the same visual connection. The brick on both structures is basically the same color, again, reinforcing that visual connection. And as mentioned, the single driveway also reinforces that visual connection. So what are some possible solutions? Well, one way to mitigate the massing issue would be for one structure to be 100% different from the other in design, exterior materials, in every way, and more in the classic traditional design, more common in the neighborhood. And I want to point out just for a minute, Tyler mentioned he showed pictures of all the homes on the block last time. That's not true. He showed pictures of all the homes on the west side of the block. So he didn't show any pictures of the east side, which has much different structures in general. A second solution would be to eliminate the single drive serving all four units and replace it with a tuck under driveway for each individual structure, which is pretty common in this area. A third option would be to have the ways along the sides of the structures, as is the case with the three the other three two family condo units on the block. So we believe one of these ideas or more would go a long way to finally achieve the design which is compatible with the neighborhood. You know, at the last meeting, the applicant made a statement about the neighbors not wanting any construction on this site. I want to be on the record that that's ridiculous. What we do want is a building that is consistent with the neighborhood and not a condominium development. When the applicant's done, we're never gonna see him again. But we'll be living with these structures forever and we want to fit in with the neighborhood. And unfortunately, we're having our fourth meeting on this when it could have been settled two meetings ago if the applicant would just listen. Thank you, I appreciate the time.

Any other comments from the audience?

um thank you for staying so late this is late late night for all of us so i'll try to be brief cheryl anderson miller 130b north central avenue and as i've discussed at several previous meetings this project backs up directly to my property so as i said in a letter to you this is literally a not in my backyard project Tyler and Doug, this is a significant improvement from that very first super, super modern view and I think that you've come a long way. I agree with David. You've come a long on this, and you've really been trying to work with Clayton. I do have a comment that if these designs are accepted, I feel like the building on the north, you can't really see it because of the... Yeah, thank you. The pillars that are supporting the roof line on the north building on the deck just feel really flimsy and cheap to me, and I think that that would just have a better look if those were bigger. I do still have a lot of concerns about the integrity of the buildings around. um this week there was major demolition going on and there was one day that i don't know what was going on on that property but there was a lot of heavy things being dropped and my building literally shook most of the day so i have asked and asked that the project be very concerned about the integrity of neighboring properties And after my building shook all day, I'm now concerned about my foundation. Not only of my building, but of the garages. So I agree. I think something should be built here. And I think that we're making progress that direction. Thank you.

Any other comments?

Susie Forsythe, and first of all, I want to apologize for when I get tired, my head jogs. And I don't want you to think I'm either commenting or not commenting on what all of you say. When I first got here and I thought to myself, we're not thinking about just one building. We're thinking about four new, I mean, two new sections in each one. And I welcome people to move into the neighborhood, but I don't understand why with all of us that have been coming and addressing both Tyler and the other, it seems to me that if you built anything and if you really wanted to be in the neighborhood you'd build something exactly like somebody else had and we came in and we would applaud and say welcome to the neighborhood i think i would say that this well anyway i'm not for this plan thank you so much for listening

I live at 132 North Beamiston. And believe me, we would love to have this property built on, but it needs to fit in the neighborhood. I don't know what this is on top of the roof there. That does not fit in the neighborhood, I know Ed Ellerman built my house and I spoke with him. He really created Old Town. He built houses, he built condos, but they all fit in the neighborhood. We'd love to have this developed, but it needs to look more like our neighborhood. It just doesn't look like Old Town. It looks like New Town. So that's my comment.

Thanks. Mary Kay Wohler, 141 North Bemiston. How do we appeal the air conditioners being replaced where they are? They were arbitrarily put there. I think you even said at the last meeting, Steve, that there were other options for the air conditioners that we would discuss later. Then they conveniently broke into the meeting and you had to adjourn it. So we never got around to it last week. And now he's already dismissing it. So what? It's there. Total disrespect for anything.

All I'm suggesting is what I've seen occur previously, and that was when the two parties would get together, come to an agreement. If that occurs, then you could request through the planning department to have it reviewed.

i see maybe i misunderstood i thought you said there were other options for the placement of them

well i think there are

you do think there are

sure but uh we're not here to discuss uh locations tonight that the locations were approved in the site plan a couple meetings ago

yes i agree i was there but we didn't get a chance They showed up on the plans. We saw them the day before, so we had no idea what was going on, why they were right outside her door. So we came to the meeting, and then again, we broke up the meeting basically and said, moved on to something else, and you said to them, well, just put them where you think they go, and that's where you put them.

Well, they were approved at that previous meeting, and really that is not on our agenda tonight to revisit that.

So we have to come to some kind of agreement to have something done?

Well, that's really up to you. I can't tell you what to do, but if you want to communicate with the developer, that's certainly your prerogative.

I'm understanding that's what you're suggesting then.

If you want to do it, I'm not telling you to do it.

There's a difference. I understand.

Yeah. So, thank you. We're really not working on that tonight. Any other comments? It's 10.33 p.m. I have no idea why it did that.

Tyler, I was kind of looking at the plans. Your first and second floor plans are identical on this. Is there a reason for that? No. Is there a mistake? I was trying to understand, is the kitchen on the first floor or the second floor? Because based on these plans...

There are two units. So there are two units in each building. The way the units work is that the lower unit has its main living area on the first floor and its secondary bedrooms on the lower level. The upper unit is a reverse of that. It has its main living areas on the second floor and its secondary bathrooms are on the top level. So they kind of mirror each other.

OK, but I mean, I'm just there must be a mistake on the plans because you've got identical second floor and first floor. I'm just trying. Are the kitchens on the first floor or the second floor?

That both because there's a kitchen in each unit, the first floor is the upper floor of one unit and the second floor is the lower low or the other unit,

I guess I go my. I guess my point I was trying to understand like you don't necessarily need a third floor right, I mean i'm sure a lot of then

the upper unit would not have any secondary bedrooms.

But they would have two bedrooms or how many bedrooms there. So one of the, they would have, they would have the

master. I think behind the kitchen is the master and like a den. The other bedrooms are upstairs.

Right. But there would be at least more than one bedroom though. Right. So you're trying to provide three bedrooms. Is that what you're trying to. Provide?

Yes.

Okay. Yes. In a,

in a unit, that's the size that we're talking about. Three bedrooms would be normal.

Okay. I mean, I'm just trying to create, I mean, we're not creating a single family home. We're creating duplexes that might just only fit two bedrooms. Like if you want to reduce the size, I would guess some of the other duplexes on the street probably only have two floors and maybe only have two bedrooms.

Yes. If my client wanted to provide two bedroom units, we'd be a different discussion. If my client wondered provide single family houses, it'd be a different

I think probably some of the other duplexes on the street are a lower height because they're smaller units.

Maybe, I don't know. I haven't seen their... Or they have smaller living areas. There's a lot of different ways. Right, I'm sure

there's a lot of ways you could configure it.

And they were built 30 years ago or 20 years ago to a different market even 10 years

ago.

There are many differences over the 30 years that we've seen. Today, you're building much more higher floor-to-floor heights than we had 30 years ago. We do realize that. But we have seen in other areas of housing that we've reviewed is quite often we've tried to keep the level of the house low i understand your problem you have the garages below that raise it up so there's so many things that we can talk about that um you know We really can't get around today.

Can I ask a question just for clarification going forward? Sure. I heard one of the neighbors say that, as I understood you correctly, that you prefer garages facing the front on the street, tuck under garages. Is that correct? Because the whole premise of this was to hide the garages. If you're asking

me, that is not correct. I do not really like seeing the garage doors on the front. I don't know about everyone else. Hopefully that answered your question to me. My concern is that the ARB has the responsibility to review and maintain the context, the compatibility, the integrity the character of the neighborhood. I feel that these two buildings, that to me are reading as one development, just don't do that. And even though I really like the iterations you've gone through, I think the facade has changed greatly. I just don't feel it meets the character of the neighborhood at this point. And that going forward from my point of view, It would open up Pandora's box in the rest of the neighborhood. We do have some other vacant land available in Old Town, and I think we would be hard pressed to control that if we were to go forward. That's my problem. Basically, I'd like to see this land redeveloped. I think the house that had been there, it lived its useful life. No one came forward to bring it up to date. It had to go. And I would like to see more development here. I just think this is not meeting the needs of what the ARB is supposed to uphold.

Well, I can assure you that we will not come back with an iteration of this period and the only way I see this being resolved is if. My client Doug is willing to come back with a different program because this is a program issue with the program that we currently have you're not going to get around this height and mass period, and I can change the elevations. Hundred times and you're still gonna have that same comment

And I agree with your comments Any further comments We do have as usual a a staff recommendation to recommend approval as submitted. Doug? Doug Cohen?

I just have one question. So if this is getting too frustrating for everybody, but if I don't want to come back with front entry garages. I'm just going to let everybody know that we're not going to do that. And if we came back, we want to have as much green space as possible. Right? Yes. Okay. So we came back in, you know, when we have zoning rules and high rules, it's frustrating for everybody that if we meet them and it still doesn't get passed, that's, this is, I don't see that in other municipalities, just so you know. That gives us a guideline. We come to it and we get denied. That's very frustrating. But if we came back with, for example, Two houses. There's still going to be three or four air conditioners in these houses. That's life. The air conditioner complaint doesn't make any sense to me. If there's houses there, single family houses or duplexes, the difference between four units of AC or three is not going to be that much. And four units kicking on, three units kicking on at the same time at a house is rarely have ever happened. But, you know, my team, and I'm speaking for myself, this is informally, but if we came back with two houses, right, two unique houses with a driveway in the center to keep the green space, so it's a shared driveway, and we go to two houses, I'm assuming that that's going to make everybody happy because I can't afford to keep dealing with the delays like this. So, you know, I'd just like to have a conversation, an informal conversation, that if we came back with two houses with a driveway in the center, a shared driveway, is everyone going to be happy about that? Depending on the look of the house, of course. Is that where we should start? Because I've pissed away about $80,000 in interest so far. So I have to stop the bleeding.

Well, Doug, I don't think we can set what it's going to look like without seeing what's going to

happen. That's what I said. I know that my team can come up with a good-looking house. I'm not concerned about that.

I certainly wouldn't disagree with that. The design team could do it. I think it has to be within the context

of the neighborhood. That's what I'm asking you. So we don't want to have front entry garages, right? So if it's side entry garage, I don't think we want to have two side entry garages, two driveways on the side and coming in. No, we don't want that.

I don't have a problem with the shared driveway.

I'll go on record. I don't have problem with the shared drive way. I

don't

either.

No. I've never, from the beginning, I've never had a problem with the

share drive. That was a comment, but you've heard our comments. Apparently most of us have no problem with a shared driveway. We do see that in many neighborhoods. It's not the driveway. It is the combination of the entire design that reads as much larger, much more massive than anything else that we have in the neighborhood. I

mean, I think we're challenging that, but it appears that way maybe because it's at the height of the rest of the street. But overall height, I don't know if that's the problem. Anyway, one more thing. If we came back and we said it was a shared driveway in one duplex in one house, totally unique, does anyone have an issue with that?

We would have to see it.

Assuming that you... These are all hypothetical. Of course. But I think we would perhaps want to save one of the because it's an affordability issue for the public right instead of having a series of $4 million homes it's kind of nice to have. Not that there's not a lot of money, a couple of 2 million instead of two fours so you know it's a little bit more inviting for the public. in the marketability to have a duplex where they're two and two, and then a house that is four, I could stomach that. And then, but I think the problem that we're having is that in order to have a dupex, we have to have that height. We have to have 10 foot ceilings. I mean, we have to three bedrooms. I mean, those are things- You don't

have to have three bedrooms. You want three bedrooms.

Well, if you want to...

I'm just trying to... You don't have to have three bedrooms.

Yeah.

You can create smaller living spaces, two bedrooms and a den that has a day bed in it. Yeah, but that's just

not what the market is calling for, is what I'm saying.

I don't think there's anything modern

about that anymore. Sorry,

if you're...

I've been up and on that blog. If you have a comment, raise your hand, and we need to record it.

Am I missing anything, Tyler? Okay.