June 16, 2025 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the plan commission for June 16th. If you have any electronic gadgets, please silence them. Ryan?

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Bob Denlow?

Steve Lichtenfeld? Here. Bob Dunlow?

Here.

Susan Buse?

Here.

Helen DiFate?

Ellen DeFate?

Here.

Jim Arsenault?

Here.

David Gipson? Here.

David Gibson? Here.

We have minutes from the previous meeting on June 2nd. Are there any corrections? Seeing none, do we have a motion?

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay. We'll move on to new business. Item number one has been postponed at the request of the applicant to the next meeting in July. So we'll move to item number two, 7404 North Moore Drive is the applicant here. Okay, we'll start with the staff.

The subject property is located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Bland Drive and Northmore. The property is zoned R2 and is adjacent to the city limit with University City. The applicant is seeking to construct a fence in the western front yard along Bland Drive. The property sits on a corner with the front of the primary structure facing Northmore Drive. The western yard along Bland drive includes trees and a detached garage and driveway. The applicant is proposing to install a three-foot tall cedar fence with lattice on top and horizontal plank on bottom. It would be stained medium brown and would be located along the western front yard. It would be set back one foot from the sidewalk by landscaping. Front yard fences are common nearby and are often wood and are often up to six feet tall. Staff are of the opinion that design aligns with neighborhood character and would have a minimal visual impact. Staff recommend approval is submitted.

Okay. The applicant could come up, identify yourself, and add anything you'd like.

Hi, my name is Robin Sawitz. I'm here about the fence. Sorry about this. First time driving up here. Okay, so this is the house. It's on a dead end. There's only three houses that look into the side slash backyard of the house. So impacting minimal people. Hopefully. Other houses, I know they're in U City, but they have pretty big privacy fences nearby. That's the house that is kitty corner to our house has that fence around the side and back. I know we're asking for the fence to be pretty close to the sidewalk, but a lot of that is because we have this massive patio that would make it really hard to construct a fence through kind of the center of the patio. So the fence would look like this. It's like the bottom two-thirds solid, the top third that open lattice structure, so hopefully nice and unobtrusive. And then this is what the fence would look. The fence would follow along this pink outline. questions.

No, but I like the fence. I think it looks really good. You're going to put plantings in front of it on the street side. And because you're really on a dead end street, I don't see any problem with it being so close to the sidewalk. So I have no problems with it, but we'll go around. Bob?

I tend to agree with Steve. This is a three foot tall fence, right? Yeah. And the distance between the sidewalk and the fence is how much?

Like

a foot?

All right.

Yeah,

so we're planning to do little tulips in front. It's not the best image. But something like this, like little plants in front of the fence. Soften the look of it, because I know that's what our neighbors will see.

Susan?

I don't have anything. No objection.

Ellen?

I do have a question about the height. That says four feet.

That is a typo. It should say three.

Okay, because the... Information goes from three feet to four feet. And it will look different, obviously. I like the three feet and I like the lattice. I think that'll look good. The one foot distance back, are you removing the edging stones at the sidewalk? If you're a foot from the edge of the sidewalk, you're going to have maybe eight inches to plant if you leave those stones.

We can probably go a foot back from the edging stones in most places. We just have some big trees that are, I tried to draw them on here, that are really close to the sidewalk. So I think in some areas it will, maybe it will be more of that eight inches from the stones, but in other areas it could be 12.

Okay. Yeah, and if you could go over 12, I think planting would be a lot easier. You know, it's hard to plant in 12 inches. And depending upon where the fence company actually locates the fence, you know, it's going to be plus or minus 12. the foot that you want. If you err on the side of more, you're more likely to be able to plant. But I think it looks good. I like what you're proposing.

Jim? I have no issues. I appreciate your visual context that you brought to it too, which we don't necessarily always get. So thank you.

David? I don't have any concerns.

Okay. Any questions from the audience or hands up?

No. Okay.

We have a recommendation to approve as submitted.

I move to approve the staff recommendation adopting the plans as submitted.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. When will we see it?

By the end of this summer is the goal.

Good luck.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, our next item is item three, and that is 8025 Bonham Avenue. And is the applicant here or online?

Hello, I am in the Zoom.

Okay. Are you Joe Caradona?

Yes,

I am. Okay. We'll get started and be back to you in a minute. Brian?

The subject property is at the northeast corner of Bonham and South Brentwood. The property is zoned PUD and contains a mixed-use building known as Clayton on the Park. Kings Bay Diner, a restaurant tenant, is seeking approval of window decals which have already been installed. The tenant received a violation notice regarding the decals dated May 14th. The applicant is seeking approval to retain the window decals depicting chess pieces that will align with the restaurant's branding, but they contain no text or logos to qualify as signage. The decals occupy a maximum of 20% or less of the window area and do not obstruct the visibility and transparency of the windows. Staff are of the opinion that decals have a minimal visual impact and recommend approval as submitted.

Okay, Joe, do you have anything to add to that?

No, I think that kind of sums it up pretty well.

Okay. Well, I do have a comment. I think it is the best addition to that facade that I've seen in years. And having just had brunch there yesterday, and we were sitting right behind the bishop, it was sort of exciting because you could see the chess pieces there, but you could also see outside. Yeah, that was a goal of ours. And I'm

very happy to hear that. Thank you for saying that.

So I am in favor of it. I'm glad there are no words to it. People should understand what they are. And I think it's a good selling point for the Kingside Diner.

Absolutely.

Bob? No problems with it.

I like it. It looks great. Thank

you.

I like it too.

Jim? No issues. David no concerns any comments from the audience or any other hands up. We do have a recommendation to approve as submitted.

I move that we prove the staff recommendation adopting adopting the plans as

submitted.

All in favor aye opposed. Okay, thanks Joe

thank you.

Okay, we have come to the public hearing. And it's on a text amendment. And let's see, we need to open the public hearing. Oh, safe. We will open the public hearing at this point and start with honor.

Okay. So we have, I'm going to walk you through a brief overview of the proposed text amendment to address short-term residential rental. So this started after we were approached by a property owner in the central business district who was interested in converting some office space in the existing building that they've had issues renting to office tenants, to short-term rental units, which they have done in other cities before. So we held a few discussion sessions, one with this board and move forward with drafting text amendment regulations that I will go take you through here. House is jumping around. Okay. So the proposed text amendment would impact three chapters. Chapter 405 is our zoning regulations. The text amendment process to modify 405 requires a public hearing that this board makes recommendation of the Board of Aldermen on. The proposed changes for Chapter 500 and Chapter 605 do not require plan commission. input. However, they're part of the overall way that we propose to address this type of a use. So we've included all of that within your packet and I will cover all three chapters today. So the purpose and permit requirements that we have, the purpose here is, as we've mentioned before, to expand the allowed uses for some of our older, smaller properties within downtown Clayton that the community has expressed a desire to save but are struggling to keep up in the office market today with competing against the larger buildings that have more parking, have amenities, have larger floor plans available to office tenants. And so these smaller buildings are finding it more difficult to compete for those users. And so we wanted to provide an alternative layer of uses that might be attractive to those buildings. that would hopefully enhance the longevity of that and allow for property owners to reinvest in those uses. But we also recognize that there are kind of unwanted characteristics of short term rentals that other communities across the country have experienced. And so we want to address and mitigate those as much as we can. We are proposing to permit these through two different permit processes. The first would be a conditional use permit process, which this board is very familiar with. We use that for restaurants, a lot of other different types of uses. It allows for an initial zoning review with staff as well as this board, the Planning Commission, to look at the use and then make a recommendation to the Board of Aldermen who would host a public hearing. Conditional use permits are issued to the property, so it could cover potentially multiple short-term dwelling units, but it would have a whole process for us to review specific criteria as it relates to a specific location for this proposed use. and potentially add additional requirements or conditions to mitigate impacts of that location. In addition, we're proposing a short-term occupancy permit process. This would be an annual permit, so the conditional use permit would be issued one time, and as long as that use remains operating on the site, they don't have to come back to the board for annual review. But the short-term occupency permit process would be issued to the specific dwelling unit that's used for the short-term it would be issued annually. So that would allow us to have that kind of check in as we go along to make sure that compliance is being maintained. So location requirements, one thing that we've wanted to do is focus the location for these. Again, as I mentioned earlier, a big part of allowing short-term rental units is to try and provide another avenue for us to maintain some of our older building stock. So we've added in multiple layers of location requirements that narrow down to those buildings in particular that we are trying to allow this use within. So the map on the right layers all of the regulations that are listed in bullet points. Essentially what we're starting with is that we will only allow these within built properties that have a maximum of four dwelling units. So that could be four dwelling units, could be a combination of two short-term rental dwelling units and two standard residential rental units, but it could not include 10 units typical residential rental units, and then an additional four of short-term dwellings. So any dwelling unit, regardless of how long you're renting it, either under our typical occupancy permit requirements or through the short-term process, it would be a maximum of four. We've narrowed down the location into our central business district. A lot of the concerns and issues that have come up in other communities are when the short-term rental units start to be located within residential neighborhoods. And so we've restricted the use of the Central Business District and then further restricted it to property that's zoned high-density commercial by only having this as an allowed use within the high-density To further restrict the type of building, we have a minimum of two-story requirement for the building. These short-term rental dwelling units have to be located on the second floor or above. So the building needs to have two floors in order to occupy for that. We're looking at buildings that are constructed prior to 1955 and that have a gross floor area of less than 20,000 square feet. So again, trying to provide these smaller building opportunities kind of a new life. And then we added a separation distance of 500 feet between properties with a short-term rental unit. So on the right hand side, all the grayed out area that's located outside of the central business district. So we're focusing in and then a majority of the map along the northern edge. These properties here are not zoned high density commercial. So those are kind of left out. They wouldn't qualify. The red dots, those are the locations of properties that would qualify just with the minimum location requirements that are listed. As an example, though, the property owner that initially brought this request to the city is this central red dot here. So if a CUP was issued to this property for short-term dwelling, then the buffer of the 500 foot buffer would make all of the properties that are outlined in blue ineligible for a short-term dwelling unit. So you can see that a lot of the desired properties are centralized here off of Forsyth. But if one of those were to operate a short-term drawing unit, it would kind of knock out the majority of the others resulting in just a few locations that would be eligible. For definition, we're gonna add short-term dwelling rental as a specific definition that would allow occupancy for shorter than 30 days but not less than 24 hours. For occupancy here, we have within our property maintenance code requirements for bedroom for occupancy, that's a minimum of 70 square feet for a bedroom. Or if there would be multiple occupants, then you would have a minimum of 50 square feet per occupant. So that's how we would calculate the maximum occupancy for a residential unit. For short-term dwelling, we're capping that total occupancy at a maximum of eight or our typical calculation for occupancy, whichever is less. So if there were a property that that under this calculation of 50 square feet per occupant allowed for 10 occupants, that under the short-term occupancy permit, that unit would still be capped at a maximum of eight. And then we also specified that the unit cannot be rented more than once within a 24-hour period and that operators may not advertise an hourly rate. For general requirements, the owner must maintain a guest registry that's available to all law enforcement and city personnel upon request. So this would have information for a guest that they would maintain. We also have a requirement for information that must be posted inside of the unit for the guests to view. These are some of the elements that we would then look for in our inspection under the short-term occupancy permit. but it has to have a contact of an authorized agent. There needs to be evacuation diagrams, copies of the conditional use permit specific to that unit, as well as the short-term occupancy permit, a list of the operational requirements, which I'll go over in a second, and then also a schedule over the restrictions that we have within the city that the tenants would need to abide by, such as noise ordinances, street cleaning requirements, trash recycling, parking, etc., And they also need to list that maximum occupancy that we would establish through the calculation I previously went over. In addition, they would be required to maintain the habitable unit with a regular cleaning and sanitizing service that's provided as well as some of the basic necessities for this unit to be occupied such as towels and sheets, that sort of thing. We will require weekly trash and recycling collection services that need to, how that will work with each tenant needs to be provided as part of their information that they post for guests. And then we're starting with a minimum requirement of one off-street parking space per unit. The conditional use permit already includes a process where the Board of Aldermen could modify or alter that parking requirement through the CUP review. So this would allow us to evaluate the specific locations, the conditions of the number of units, what the parking situation is there, and potentially they could either increase or decrease that parking requirement, but we're starting with the one parking space per unit. For operational requirements, a lot of the operational requirements refer back to other sections of our code that already exist, such as our noise or nuisance requirements. But in addition, we also are going to require that owners and operators do not prepare or serve food or beverages to a guest. excuse me, we also require that the use of the short-term rental is limited. So there cannot be any large social events or gatherings such as a wedding or a reception of that nature. The short-term rental should really just occupy or be operated as a dwelling unit. And during the term that the short-term mental is occupied, there needs to be a local contact provided to the city that would be able to respond within an hour to any complaints or issues that arise. For the suspension, revocation, and penalties process, under the short-term occupancy permit, we've outlined a process where the city manager could suspend, revoke, or potentially reinstate a short-term occupency permit. So they might reinstate it after being suspended if they abate the violations that are occurring. When an SOP would be suspended, Suspended or revoked, the city manager would need to statewide provide that reason for suspension, the length of it, any requirements for reversing that to the authorized agent for this unit. The city manager's decision could be appealed through the Board of Aldermen. So this is a new process that we have established within the proposed text amendment. For a conditional lease permit, there's already a revocation process outlined within the existing code that would be followed. The one other element though is that we would essentially deem the CUP suspended if the city manager is going through that revocation process or suspension process for the short-term occupancy permit of that associated unit. Essentially when something is suspended, they would not be allowed to actively list or lease that short-term unit until the process is complete. And then under penalties, we have specified the penalties for first, second, or third or more violations within the code and also reference that the owner, operator, authorized agent, or tenant could potentially be found to have completed a violation that would be subject to those three fine penalties that we have outlined. So the next steps, I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys have about this, but there's a public hearing that's currently set for June 24th before the Board of Aldermen, depending on the results here, that will continue on. So that is the brief summary of the short-term rental regulations that we have proposed.

Okay, thank you. I have a few questions to start out. Have the local hotels weighed in on this?

So this process has been public, the process that's been there. We haven't really received significant comments from many of them. I know a few of the smaller ones have asked questions. Most hotels are going to be in opposition of this because they'll see it as direct competition. Our goal in how we've addressed the short-term rental use being allowed is to try and target properties that are not going to be direct competition for hotels. by limiting the number of properties that it would be eligible for. And again, instead of trying to make direct competition for hotels, we're trying to create an opportunity for people to reinvest in those small properties.

Okay. Well, I think the 500-foot separation really will limit competition for the hotels because there'll be very few. If we were to approve it and the Board of Aldermen approves it, and that first applicant that wants to do it on the corner of Pemeston and Forsyth, if it doesn't work, how will they get out of it? Because someone else may be wanting to come in and do it. Is there a process for changing that? What do you mean by get out of it? If they decide after, let's say, one year that they don't want to continue it and maybe they could go back to renting it as an office space, which would, of course, require cost. But could they request that their SOP and even the CUP could be reversed?

Right. So their short-term occupancy permit, the SOP, would need to be renewed annually. So they could let us know that they're not operating it in that manner, and it would end earlier than that, or they could just not renew it. With a conditional use permit, similarly, if they cease to operate the business for a year, then that conditional use permit is deemed expired. And so at that point, we would not recognize it as valid. Now, we would hope if somebody wasn't operating anymore, they would also... we would become aware of it sooner than that, um, one year mark, but they would, if they let it lapse for a year, then they would need to come back through the process to get a CUP again. So at that point other properties would be eligible.

Okay. Um, is there any quality standard that they must, uh, attain or could, uh, could these units be, um, put together on a very low cost basis to allow people to rent them at a lower cost than they would at any of the hotels in the area. And I guess that comes down to the inspection process

Right. Well, we don't intervene in the market in terms of what the dollar amount that people are renting them at. We will not get involved in that. But we will, with the inspection process, maintain a certain level that qualifies or conforms to all of our requirements for it to be habitable. We will. But I mean, obviously, people could spend... you know a range of five thousand to five hundred thousand dollars just you know on countertops or finishes or other things that they choose but we don't get involved in that level of how much they've spent on it as long as it meets our standards within our property maintenance and our occupancy codes then they would be issued a permit

what about security for these uh i don't remember seeing that um in the text amendment uh but would there be locks to allow only the people that are renting to enter

uh so we do require i mean within our minimum standards for occupancy there the doors have to be functioning that sort of thing but there's nothing within the code right now that says the type of lock that you might have to have on a door um if that's what you mean

well uh i'm concerned if you have four units upstairs, each one will have a locked door. But what about the main door to get into the building? Will that be locked and a key or a pass card would be given out to each of the units in the building? How do you keep vagrants out?

Sure. I mean, I think we don't have any requirements like that. We don't for any of the buildings, quite honestly, any of our apartment buildings. We don't have certain security requirements for that. If there's something that you want us to go over potentially with our city attorney about how we could be involved in requiring it, then we can certainly discuss that.

Okay. I think something should be looked at. When you're in a hotel, there's usually someone monitoring who comes in and out. And it seems to me if you're renting a place for short-term occupancy, there should also be a level of security that should be understood. So I would recommend that. And then, of course, you did mention the one-year SOP inspection and a regular five-year inspection also that was in the text.

Right. So the annual inspection for each dwelling unit, there would be an SOP issued. So we would have to inspect each dwelling unit every year in order to reissue that permit as opposed to our traditional occupancy permits, which are reinspected on every change of tenant.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. I have several questions. These properties that you have looked at, how many have elevators? Because you could only have one of these units beginning on the second floor, if I understand it.

So we didn't so many of the properties i'll go back to the map here, so some of the properties are currently office or other uses so when they do that change of use, then, as they improve it for a residential use that would trigger our building codes. So under the actual code process, then that's where it would be reviewed on what might be required for egress or elevator access or anything like that would be under those. So within the zoning code, we don't go into that requirement.

Is it conceivable we would be developing, I'll just call them Airbnbs, where you walk up to the second floor?

Yes, there are ways within the code that these buildings could potentially be converted to a residential use without requiring an elevator.

To me, to bring in short-term rentals into Clayton is because it will serve the purpose of being more affordable for larger families, perhaps, that don't want to rent out three hotel rooms. I think there is a legitimate market. They would be cheaper than a hotel room, like a weekend wedding, something like that, where people are coming in from out of town. And I think it would help facilitate the idea of you park the car and you do all your functions in downtown Clayton. After I say that, I see a restriction of you can't have one if somebody beats you to it and you've got to go 500 feet that can knock out several of them, it seems to me. And I assume the purpose is to try to minimize and not scare the hotels.

Right. We don't necessarily want to create a density of locations. That's something that we found was a best practice across the community. And so especially with a lot of communities who allowed short term rental without a lot of oversight and regulation have found it much harder to tighten the reins. So we thought that it was best to start with a slower approach of being very intentional and restrictive in creating those co-locations of where we might get a lot of buildings in a row with this type of use. So that's how we resulted in the recommendation of the 500. I mean,

when I see the concentration of red dots on this exhibit, I mean, it's hard to gauge 500 feet. But I see three on one block, two next to each other, two next to which other, two almost next to each other. Realistically, maybe we're looking at the creation of a half a dozen.

Right, it really depends on where that first one falls. So that's where in this diagram we created the buffer around the property that has expressed interest in this use. And so you can see then with the blue properties that are shaded here, those would all not be eligible. So if the first one who's for express intent goes for it, then I think there are one, two, three, four, five properties that we've identified as eligible that would be remaining.

I'm just a little concerned if the first one, for lack of a better term, is a ma and pa operator that just gets by. Puts in a rug, puts in a few chairs, calls it a day. And then you have a professional developer who comes six months later and has the resources to really make it look nice. And it's bigger building with more space. And he is squeezed out. And that's the reality we will be dealing with. And I'm just a little bit disturbed by that. I'm not sure. I think the 500 is, from what I hear, basically cannot scare away the hotel people because they got millions of dollars invested. And I'm wrestling with that distance requirement. The other thing I want to ask is, If a hotel operator sits right there and says, we have a bigger investment per square foot to run a hotel and we're held to higher standards than a B&B would be, is that accurate probably?

I wouldn't really be able to comment on the dollar per square foot right now, but they wouldn't necessarily be held to any higher standards. It's just a different form of operation. But the regulations that we've outlined here for the short-term rentals are very prescriptive with a lot of oversight. Whereas our hotels, if they are meeting those standards, a lot of the actual operational standards for hotels are are kind of oversights of the actual brand name on the hotel. So if it wants to be a Marriott Hotel, people from Marriott are much more involved in how that daily operation of that hotel is meeting their standards to keep the brand name compared to what we're doing to keep an eye on the actual hotel operations because the use itself of the hotel would comply and wouldn't have the requirements of Marriott the short-term occupancy permit, annual inspections, or the conditional use permit process.

And you have in there a restriction that says no social events shall take place in these units. Now, that is a broad term. And if I have a family there with some out-of-town guests and I'm up to 20 people in a B&B, do I have a social event? It's basically just, you know, a wedding party with some out-to-town guests people coming by. What have I created here? Is a policeman going to come by and say, well, I'm just counting 20 people here. By my personal definition, that's a social event. And you can't have it. We're going to send the children someplace else to a hotel or something. I don't know.

Well, our law enforcement people are very reasonable. So we have that language based on, again, a lot of best practices. So they shouldn't be advertising this as the host location for the wedding itself. Now, if they have a maximum of eight people, as per our code, that are staying there overnight, we're not going to have a police officer posted outside of every one of these, counting the number of people that go in and out. However... If they're creating violations or nuisances that trigger the code, and then we come to find out that there's also an event being hosted there in violation, then we'll enforce those regulations. But really, the idea here is that it's very clear from the onset that these are operating as dwelling units and not as the venues for hosting events.

And you said you've checked other cities, so... We're not pioneering anything new here for a downtown.

Right. No, we're really not. The communities that we looked at, large, small, coast to coast, to see how everybody is dealing with – because there are a lot of pros. As staff, we're recommending this to you. We wouldn't have gone through the effort of really drafting and having the conversations with the board – If we didn't think that this use had some benefits to our community, we do think it does. But we've also seen from other communities that have gone on to start with essentially no regulations what has happened there. So we wanted to implement what other communities have learned the hard way into our community as a starting point.

I assume, Anna, that a hotel tax is not triggered with the creation of a short-term rental, is it?

Right, because we can't have a hotel tax. That's a separate issue that we couldn't state through state regulations. We don't have a hotel taxi.

Well, I can tell you and your staff have spent a lot of time thinking this through, and I appreciate that.

Susan?

Okay. Yeah, I've got a couple things. First, I'll start with really how you ended. There's a lot of research and best practices that went into it this proposal, which we really appreciate because I think that, and it's part of the rest and the restrictiveness as well, because I think that we've all experienced communities that aren't very happy with how the Airbnbs have taken over. Um, but there's a history now and you've, you've lined it pretty well to put, put this together and it is easier to, to expand than to restrict something once it takes off. So, um, yeah, this is pretty impressive. my questions will go to zoning as well as you know the other code the licensing and things too and I also pick up on the wedding thing because we just returned from a wedding where we had the biggest place so even though there are only two of us staying there before we got on the bus to go to the wedding we probably had 25 people coming up to you know cousins and nephews and things like that. So that is a real thing. And I don't know how you define, I had marked that too, how do you define commercial or large social event or gathering? Maybe this has to stay more discretionary in however you do it. But the more that can be clear, because families do gather, that's the whole purpose of having this type of accommodation. Let me see here. Do we not allow regular bed and breakfasts? Do we not have those? Um, I believe that we do with certain regulations. Okay. It was just a question cause I saw it, especially, you know, pulled out of here. So I, I just never thought about that. The, uh, one question kind of a, kind of a lawyerly question when it says a permit will expire upon sale or transfer of the property. Um, Sometimes there's a corporate ownership and the corporation ownership, the shareholder may change. Does that trigger this type of a clause or not?

Yes. So the same way that with our other existing conditional use permits, if ownership changes, they can submit an application for a transfer of that conditional use permit to the new owner. Typically, if the conditional use permit hasn't had any issues or violations and the new owner isn't changing anything about the operation, then we can administratively approve that transfer. And so we do that and the board doesn't realize it. But if they are going to change elements of the operation or if there had been issues with compliance previously, then we wouldn't administratively transfer that conditional use permit. It would be recommended to the Board of Aldermen.

If it's the same corporation organization? holding it, but different ownership of the corporation type of thing.

Well, so it's whoever the permit is issued to. So with a lot of our restaurants are issued to LLC. So if the name of that LLC doesn't change, then that permit is issued to that LLC. But if they're changing the care of name that we have on our permit or they're changing the name of the LLC, then that's when we would go through that transfer process.

And this is kind of because we just came from a similar situation as well. When you say that there's not prepared and or served food or beverages, a lot of hotels and Airbnbs and things like this do have that welcome basket and things like that. So I don't know how you address that, what terminology still allows for that type of stocking of a place with the tea and the coffee and everything else, which is pretty darn common. So just making sure that whatever your research has shown to allow for that type of accommodation and taking care of guests. i think that's it i think it addresses a lot of the um concerns it's narrow enough yet allows for something that that gives us and we've heard over and over again we want more fibers so you want more people on the streets all these things downtown we have to reactivate buildings and i think this captures a lot of that and gives us an opportunity for it thank you ellen

I think this is well done. Staff has done an excellent job on it. And the questions I had basically have been answered. Steve asked them and Bob asked them. So I have nothing further.

Jim? First thing, Bob, I just wanted to say at least this property that kind of brought this question at least is a professional developer. And in this case, they've already stated that they want to do restaurant on the first floor too. So something that's a little more transformative, I think, than just maybe cobbling something together. I see it. It's a model that they've done before. So they have history in it and kind of know what works. You know, if we're looking at something for vibrancy of downtown, I do think it's something that could add vibrancy to downtown.

Nice to hear.

My, the two specific questions I have on a first for location requirements it says the building has to be built 1955 or earlier. I just think off the top of my head you know we have properties let's just say they're built in 1975 they're still 50 years old. What was the reasoning behind putting it at 1955.

Yeah, so we did an evaluation that found the different properties that would qualify based on all the different categories that we had and where those were located, etc. So again, with the desire to focus on some of the older buildings that are centralized within areas where we want that smaller fabric maintained, that was one of the first cutoffs. So you can see the dots here that are in red, a lot of those are are within the areas when we're doing our zoning review right now that were identified as areas we might want to keep the smaller buildings. So we just looked at that. The slightly older buildings could come into play. It just opens up another layer of downtown. And again, we decided we wanted to start small. So this seemed like a good starting point that still gave enough options to see what happens. There's still a handful of properties that are eligible, so we didn't start so restrictive that we wouldn't really get anywhere with this regulation, but we're not starting so big that it's going to be just across the entire downtown area. So that's kind of how we narrowed it down.

All right, yeah, and I think it's pretty obvious because they approached the city that we're going to have one that's going to apply. Let's just say we get a year, 18 months from now, and they're still the only one, and we have a building, let's just say it was constructed in 1980, but it meets everything else. Or we have, if you look at these red dots, the ones that are closest are probably not going to move in that direction, but some of these that are just on that border of 500 feet Are they able to come and apply for a variance for that? And something we can take into account if there's only been one for a period,

a long period of time? Sure. So they could sponsor a text amendment that would come before this in the Board of Aldermen to expand those regulations. So then we could evaluate if we open it up what that would mean. We also do have a use variance process through the Board of Adjustment. where they could appeal for a use variance that would only apply to their property in particular. So either avenue is available, but there isn't anything administratively or just the plan commission could approve. It would require the same process with a hearing either before this board for a text amendment or a hearing through the Board of Adjustment process.

Okay, but that could possibly take place through the Board of Adjustment and not have to go

through an entire text amendment. It could, but when you do a use variance, you have to meet those levels of hardship for your use. So it's a different threshold to meet when you go through a variance process. It's very specifically outlined as to what your hardship requirements are to be met. But the plan commission or the Board of Aldermen could also say, it's been a year, we only saw one, we want to think about this a little bit more and we could evaluate the different potential impacts or ways that you could address. So there are options, but like I mentioned before, this is a level that staff feels comfortable starting with.

Yeah, my only concern, and I think it's smart to try and keep it restrictive, but my only concern is that it's so restrictive that maybe only one property would qualify. And then it's tough to kind of see how it rolls out. And I understand being restrictive and I understand like if we go from zero to 20, that would certainly be a problem. But Also, I worry about being so restrictive that we don't really get anything out of it. Like just some of the zoning changes that we've made even in this last year, how we, the zoning that we have superseded with that, you know, no one never took advantage of. So hence the change. Those are just my thoughts off the top of my head.

David? I don't have any questions.

Okay.

Do we have any comments from the audience? Come on up and identify yourself.

Thank you. My name is Peter Smith. My wife and I live at 23 Brighton Way. I am wondering why with just one request for allowing Airbnb in Clayton, what the sense of urgency is in considering and possibly allowing this type of activity? The restrictions being discussed, which are very thoroughly elucidated and certainly sound very pragmatic and good, are nonetheless somewhat arbitrary. What constitutes a social gathering? What constitutes food and beverage, etc.? Some points that have been brought up here. And I think they're likely to be challenged by other owners, the 500-foot, etc., You all have just said that if somebody wants to come and do more of these, that this commission or the Board of Aldermen or some other entity in Clayton government would consider that and possibly allow that. Well, my wife and I live on Brighton Way. There are three apartment buildings that I think fit 100% of the requirements of this rule. They just happen to be outside of the high-density buildings. But we've seen this body and the Board of Aldermen consider entertainment zones. which were restricted, and then they were expanded. We've seen this body in the Board of Aldermen say you have to serve a certain amount of food, not just alcohol. That was amended. We've got one. I think we're allowing up to five pot shops if they step forward. This just isn't the kind of vibrancy I think Clayton is looking for. I've been living off and on in Clayton since 1968, and I remember when Clayton was vibrant before – with all due respect, this body and your predecessors and the Board of Aldermen and their predecessors came along and said, no, let's build 10-, 12-, 15-, 20-story faceless facades with nothing on the first floor. So I think this urgency about vibrancy is a self-created wound, and I don't think inviting the kind of... I think they're called house parties in the city. One last night there were, I don't know how many, two fatalities, I guess. Great research on other communities and their experience with Airbnbs, but how about the community a few miles to our east and their experience with short-term rentals? I think it's been horrible. And when we talk about all these rules that need to be observed by the rental entity, the person who rents it, who's going to enforce those rules? Well, it's going to be the Clayton Police Department. I don't think that's how I as a citizen want my Clayton police officers spending their time policing house parties in downtown Clayton. So I'm concerned that this is the camel under, the camel snows under the tent, that this will grow. Your concern, I don't want to put words in your mouth, is that we're preventing it from growing. And I almost applauded like, great, let's at least prevent it from growing. But I'm sensing, well, if more people want to do it, we'll come back and we'll expand it or we'll reconsider or we'll take some of these restrictions apart. And I'm waiting for the day when the three rundown four-unit apartment buildings on Brighton Way show up and say, well, what about us? You know, these units are... I'm surprised Clayton hasn't cited them. They're disaster areas on the outside, and they're all four units, all built before 1955. When are their owners going to come and say, hey, we want a variance. We want a CUP. Why can't we do this? We're just half a block away from the zone where you allow it. So my concern is that with one request, there's no sense of urgency. how many requests do we have in six months? You've now teed this topic up. You've made it public. You're going to have some hearings. Why don't we take a wait and see attitude? You can always do it later, but you can't always undo it later on. I think you mentioned people in other communities have thought it's harder to rein them in than to restrict them in the first place. So I think this is the wrong kind of vibrancy for Clayton if it mirrors other cities, especially our own sister city, the city of St. Louis, and I urge you, please vote against this. Thank you.

Any other comments?

My old neighbor's here. It's kind of fun. I'm Terry Curley. I currently live at 139 North Central, and I have a few questions as well. Some of them answered. I do think the preparation is really well done. I was able to read all the information on the projects, but I'd like to say at least 48 hours. 24 hours is just not enough. If we're going to do this, I think we should do it for at least 48 hours, I also have a concern. I read some information that Mr. Shafley, David Shafley, who is the person who's trying to get this going, he wrote in assurance that he would have someone who was very capable, who had a lot of experience, who is going to be in charge of this. Is he representing the VRBO? Is he representing the Airbnb? If he's saying this, is that what's happening or could this just be a free-for-all, and anybody that found it could go through VRBO or Airbnb. So I don't know if I misunderstood what he wrote, but I saw an assurance that there was going to be someone who was going to be on top of this. And I do think we have to have that if we're going to open this up to, like I think Mr. Smith just said, what's going on? A few miles east of here, recently as well as before, we're getting people in there that are just finding out there's a group of people, there's a party, there's whatever. I think we have to be very careful about that. And I just don't see how one person is going to monitor this. I just don't understand. And I'd like to know if one of you know what David Shapley's intentions are. Do you have anything from him other than what I just quoted that he said? Do we know anything?

No. Well, since there isn't a process for this use currently, there hasn't been a formal application or anything. He's attended a couple of meetings and obviously said stuff in the newspaper. But first, if this is adopted and it creates a process, then the application process would be where we would actually learn any details about his property in particular.

Okay, well, I read it and I thought, you know, I'm going to question it because I wondered how this person was gonna manage all this. That's all I have to say right now. I just wanted to see where we were and let you know that we're concerned. And I represent other people from my condo association and the people across the street who couldn't be here. So thanks for your time.

Thank you. Any other comments from the audience? And I don't see any hands up online. Is that correct, Brian? Okay. Any further?

Anna, I just want to go back to the social interaction that is just so broad and so meaningless to enforce. You know, it's so discretionary. I think when you use the word nuisance, Maybe we leave out the social interaction, and there is a well-known standard. If somebody reports loud noise and somebody calls that a nuisance, then the city has a legitimate protection goal there, and it's a well-known standards. The phrase social interaction is just dangerous.

I mean, nuisance is already going to apply. So this was trying to target a different issue. What we can do is continue to work with our city attorney to refine that language as you want. We're trying to keep it a little bit more broad to give ourselves a little bit more enforcement of it. But I hear everybody so we can work on restricting that further.

Either delete it or you say...

I don't really want to delete it because it's trying to target something...

In the creation of a nuisance shall be forbidden.

Right, but I think the other element which we can make more specific in this language is that this use cannot be advertising or hosting events. That's where the difference is that we'll work with our attorney to get the appropriate language on, but What we don't want is somebody to rent out this Airbnb and then send out invitations to 50 people that they're having their wedding reception there. That's what we want to prohibit. So we tried to keep it a little bit vague to capture that, but I understand if people are concerned about that being too vague that we can work to address it more.

Yeah, because the specific language in here, we do have under E1 those operational requirements, specific references to applicable noise, public health, those types of requirements. So the city's noise ordinances would apply and that's how we enforce large parties through our police department already. And if you look at number three, That social part, as Ana said, we're talking specifically about commercial or large social events or gatherings such as weddings or receptions. Those are prohibited. So this is really targeted to those larger type events. So we can look to see if we can dial that in a little bit more. But I just wanted to kind of reiterate that this is intended to stop those larger gatherings and those that are advertised and some of those in the city that have been particularly problematic they've actually had people buying tickets or you know they set it up on eventbrite or one of those sites and people are buying admission to these really large parties so we want to make it very clear that those are prohibited and i will mention again we've got that whole section that deals with revocation suspension so if we had a severe issue with one of these the city manager has the authority to immediately suspend the permit till the board of aldermen can hold a hearing to potentially revoke it so there is a pretty good hammer there for bad actors as far as owners that allow this sort of thing we can put a stop to it very quickly if they have a lot of overhead invested to try to convert this former office space into residential space i can't imagine that they would be too loose with those those operational requirements but um we'll go back and talk to the city attorney and see if we can tighten that up a little bit i

had one thing to that uh i thought the enforcement requirements were pretty good with it wouldn't be able to pull it pretty quickly um the other i did have a question though ryan and anna as you went through looking at what's been done in other places the 24 the 48 hour requirement did you see variances on the minimum length of stay anywhere?

Yes, there were a lot that actually just listed the maximum. What we found is some of the smaller communities such as Evanston, Illinois, that's similar in how they're running in downtown to us. That's where we started to see the introduction of that minimum stay language. So again, our goal is kind of to capture those couple nights. So from increasing it to a 24 to 48 hour standpoint, that's not likely to really impact the type of rentals that we're targeting. So I don't have many issues with increasing that if that's something that this company board thinks would be a good idea but really most part we saw more caps on the opposite end than we did on that minimum requirement

what's the minimum here

typically an airbnb once you get your cleaning expenses and everything else you're going to stay longer anyway but i don't know that there'd be any harm in expanding it

right any other comments Well, it sounds like we need to reword a few things in there. And I would recommend that we not go to a vote at this point, but have it come back.

Sure, so you, just to make sure that we understand, so you want me to revise, so you'll leave the public hearing open then to bring it back. So you want us to look at the language for, that's on the screen here, that references commercial or large social events or gathering to make that more elaborate in what it's referencing. Is there any other language pieces that you wanted us to look at? Well, I

think the 48 hours piece It probably should be considered also. I

think the provision of food and beverages to limit that to basic refreshments.

Yeah, I have that. Sorry. I just thought it was an easy change that we didn't need the attorney. Yep. With the 48 hours, you're just recommending that we change that. I don't think we need to evaluate that. Because if it's just certain recommendations like that, you can include that in your motion when those are straightforward. But this one, I think, is the language about the events is the piece that would require some additional analysis to propose to

you. I agree with that. Anyone else disagree? No. Peter, we need you recorded.

I was still able to

come up and speak. The public hearing is still open.

Peter Smith, 23 Brighton Way. Is the commission willing to consider, since it seems like the train has left the station here, willing to consider an, these aren't the legal words, but an unchangeable requirement that it only be allowed in the high density, I'm not sure what the term is, and it cannot ever be amended to get out into more residential areas?

Actually, a Board of Aldermen cannot bind a future Board of Aldermens legislative discretion. So we can't pass an ordinance saying that it can never be changed.

Okay, so then it can be changed and it can go into residential neighborhoods as written?

Any ordinance can be changed or written to do anything, as long as the state law doesn't prohibit it.

Can I reiterate, please vote no.

Peter, I would say this. I think the purpose of this ordinance is to revitalize the older buildings that are having great difficulty renting. part of their spaces. I don't think that's in the residential area.

Well, I understand, but as I say, on Brighton Way, we have three buildings that fit that criteria. If you come take a look sometime, Mr. Denlo, at these three buildings, they're very poorly maintained, not characteristic of the rest of the neighborhood. We've got $2.5 million condos going up right across the street from one where you know, the screens are falling out of the windows. There hasn't been a blade of grass in the yard in the 18 years we've lived there. It's all weeds. These would be, if I own that building, I'd say, wow, this is great. I'm going to turn this into an Airbnb because there's typically one literally next door to us. There are four units and rarely are there more than two. I've never seen, I don't think I've ever seen three of them rented at one time in the last 18 years. So I think it'd be a perfect opportunity if I were that owner to say, hey, we're just outside the high density Cut us a break. You know, we can't make money renting these things. Let us turn them into Airbnbs.

In this case, it's outside the radius and it's residential. It's not this whole ordinance is aimed at commercial, not residential.

I understand, but I also thought I heard that any ordinance, any whatever can be amended. Is that, did I misunderstand that? That this can never be amended? It can only be inside commercial high density? Because I would be fine with that.

Well, I think the purpose as it's written is specifically for these older commercial buildings in the Central Business District. The whole point in this case is to limit it, not to expand it too much. And by expanding it to residential, then you open a whole different scenario than what's being discussed here. So-

Well, sir, you have more confidence in future boards than I do that that won't happen.

If you have a homeowners association. It's very typical today to put in

restrictions. You can't have a legal entity on Brighton Way. Each building, each condo building certainly does have a homeowners association with restrictions. We're not allowed to have Airbnbs in any of our nine units. And I don't know about the other condos. They may be the same. But you can't have a homeowners association on a public street. you can have a neighborhood planning committee or party planner or whatever, but we can't require, only the city can require that these apartment buildings meet certain standards. Thank you.

Any other comments? Okay, do we need to vote on continuing keeping open the Do we have a motion to keep the public hearing open?

I move with regard to the short-term rental proposed ordinance that we continue the public hearing to a future date to be agreed upon.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Okay. Thank you. Okay, so the public hearing will stay open, but we will move on. We have one more item, and that's the discussion session on the floor area ratio.

All righty. So at the previous meeting, we sort of gave a broad overview with a lot of the changes we were looking at for commercial properties in Clayton. That was a lot of information, so we wanted to break this one out to talk about a little bit because it is one of the bigger items that came up in discussion. For area ratio, what is it and how is it applicable in our commercial zoning? So floor area ratio is a relationship between the square footage of a lot and the gross square footage of a building. I want you to think of this more as a density regulator rather than specific dimensions of a building. And a good way to illustrate that is this example that you see in front of you. So, this is an example of if you had a floor area ratio of one. You see 100% of the lot covered, one story. 50% of the lot cover, two stories. We end up with this because what you're doing is you are dividing that gross floor area of the building by the gross lot area. So, it's a density regulator versus something like a height or a setback, which is actually going to impact where you put the walls of a building. Now, why would somebody choose to regulate with floor area ratio versus some sort of other mechanism? Because it does control that bulk and density, but it's not gonna be so restrictive in terms of the actual style or architecture of a building. It's much more flexible. So it might not regulate the total height of a building in a place like downtown Clayton, that might be more appropriate to not regulate the height. But we do wanna have regulations for density Because there are things you want to manage, such as traffic infrastructure, things like that. So going over those proposed changes to floor area ratio, there is no floor area ratio in C1. In C2, it is 1.5. We're looking at a floor area ratio of 5. And then HDC, it's currently 3, looking at 13 for callouts of 3. And what the goal of this is to do is to right-size our floor area ratio. It's not going to allow anything larger than what you would already see in Clayton, but it is going to make it so that way properties are actually legal in terms of their floor area ratio. So this map that you see in front of you, all the properties called out in orange are properties that exceed that floor area ratio of three. Most of the proposals that you see coming before you to do something in downtown they're proposing that floor area ratio of three they go through the PD process and they want something larger. So we want to make sure that folks can can come and build something here, that is right sized appropriately for the environment. Then this map that you see in front of you is one that you saw before and shows you the range of floor area ratios throughout downtown. There is not a concentration, say, of high or low floor area ratios in one spot. It's pretty diverse and spread out. And then on the right there, we have some examples of existing buildings with their floor area ratios. With that, does anybody have any questions or comments about floor area ratios specifically?

Well, this is really to... get everything legally under the floor area ratio because we've exceeded the ratio of three almost everywhere, it looks like. And how did we do that?

A lot of that would be through the PUD process, but I mean there's buildings in downtown Clayton that have a greater floor area ratio of three that were approved before the current zoning code. So I can't speak to how a lot of these buildings got there, but the character of downtown Clayton certainly is a greater floor area issue of three aside from those pockets we've talked about with those older buildings.

Well, we've seen this before. And I believe this is the right direction to go. I think it would help us in the future understanding the density issues that we may be dealing with. I think your presentation is terrific. It shows us where we are, where we should be and how we should look at our floor area ratios related to the density issues in downtown.

Yeah, I think this map's also really powerful in terms of where we're trying to go as you were talking about. So one of the pieces when we've reflected back on our PUD process over the years and what we've gotten out of it, there aren't a lot of buildings where you're going through and the discussion through that PUD process has been this is too high of a floor area ratio because most of them fit within the context of the overall floor area ratio within downtown. So it's kind of one of those elements that was pushing people into a PUD when they maybe didn't have to really be there. That was one of the elements we're trying to right-size, except for in these specific areas where we want to control the density a little bit more. So that's where we will keep that lower threshold for the floor area ratio. But the other areas where we want those buildings – to maintain some of the larger density format to fit in and fill in some of those gaps within our downtown we don't want to send somebody through a pud process or a variance process for elements of a design that we want them to do so that's where that doing this and then i think also it's helpful for ryan as he kind of walked you guys through what a flurry ratio is If you think to a lot of the discussions we've been having recently in our residential neighborhoods, we've been talking a lot about buildings that kind of meet the maximum height or meet the setbacks but are still feeling really large compared to the context of the neighborhood that they're within. And that's where this introduction of floor-air ratio is a good complement to your height or your setback because they can all kind of work together to get you that character that you want rather than just relying on one without the other.

I think had we had this understanding in previous years, we may have been able to avoid some of the PUDs that we went through and the issues that come up with them. On the residential side, boy, we really need to look at that because things are just out of hand right now.

Can I just ask this? With regard to the downtown Clayton, I'm just thinking of all the pods that we have gone through over the years. And I just don't recall a floor area ratio discussion going on as opposed to horse trading. Yeah, you could have two more floors, but we want a little more open space here or there. But I just don't remember hearing F.A.R. discussions. Am I

right? They almost all I mean, all the recent ones, they exceeded the floor area ratio because it's a three currently within downtown. I think that's just the element of people weren't pulling that out because a lot of people probably saw that number in the table, especially the public, and couldn't connect it to anything meaningful, a floor area ratio of a three, and they're asking for it. I don't know. What do we have here? Forsyth points and 8.2. Okay. So to people looking at that table, all they saw was that means they need to have five more public benefit points. So yeah, you're exactly right. It was a line item in there that didn't really mean much to people. But where we started to get into that discussion was more with the height of the building or the step back portion of the building. That's where really we started to have the discussions about what the impact is to the public experience, the pedestrian experience or the shadow impacts or other things. And that's where we want to raise it because this the floor ratio really is not what is impacting or what people think are impacting their experience.

As you guys go through the process, as Steve was starting to say, is the FAR going to become a more relevant concept for downtown Clayton?

I don't know if it's necessarily going to become more relevant, but it's not going to be the trigger that sends somebody into a PUD. The only way it would be the trigger is if they're exceeding what Ryan's recommending, which would be a pretty significant building because it's at 13 you're recommending, Ryan? Yeah. So if you look at the screen on here, the combination of that exceeding the 13 and With other elements that would trigger the PUD process, it would be big. So we've kind of right-sized it in that way. I hope, though, that the floor area ratio will become a more relevant topic for discussion, as I mentioned with the residential side, because that's something that internally we've reflected on a lot as a way to address some of the concerns we've been hearing. But within the downtown area, I mean, having no height maximum but a floor area ratio But as Ryan showed you in those examples, floor area ratio doesn't necessarily mean a height reduction. By having a low floor area ratio doesn'T necessarily mean you have a short building. So that's where that gap was. People seem a little bit more concerned with the height and areas than the floor area ratio of downtown.

Having a floor area ratio I think can send a message to a developer potentially going forward. And also, it may make it easier for them to understand what we're looking for. Because we've had developers come in who really don't understand it. And that's when we get into the problems of the horse trading and everything else. So I think it's the right direction to go. Good presentation. Other comments? I'm sure we'll see this again.

Yes, yes. So we're going to go to the Board of Aldermen to take them through a presentation similar to the one that we did last time with you all kind of showing them the direction. Ryan will talk through the downtown and then after that is when we'll formalize our text amendment process and bring it back through.

Sounds good. Well, thank you for the work. I think we've come to the end. Jim, any comments? No further comments. Helen.

No further comments.

Susan. Tom. Always a pleasure. David. Nothing else tonight. Ryan. Nothing else. Anna. And Stephanie, I know you've been there. Thanks for zooming in.

Oh, certainly.

Okay. Well, we'll see you all in the first July meeting. I think that's the seventh? The seventh. It's about three weeks. Okay. We're adjourned. Thank you. Thank you,

everybody.