October 23, 2020 — Meeting Transcript

Alderman Buse? Here. Alderman Sokol?

Here.

Mayor Harris? Here. City Manager David Gipson?

Mayor Harris? Here. City Manager Gibson?

Here.

Thank you. Okay, I guess we have an official meeting in session and we need a report from the city manager.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. And June, just so you know, there is an There's a Lynn in the attendee list, and I believe that's the applicant for this liquor license here. This is a liquor license for Wasabi Sushi Bar Clayton, LLC, doing business as Wasabi Sushi bar located at 7726 Forsyth Boulevard. They are requesting a liquor license to sell all kinds of intoxicating liquor at retail by the drink, including Sundays at 7726 Forsyk Boulevard. The police department has completed its review of the application and supports the issuance of the requested license. The planning and development department has adopted the application with no objections. The applicant has chosen not to submit a petition from surrounding property owners and first floor tenants. As a result, we are aware that this application must have a super majority vote of five board members in order to be approved. Staff has requested that a representative be in attendance at the meetings. Staff recommends passing a motion to approve the liquor license to sell all kinds of intoxicating liquor at retail by the drink, including Sundays.

Thank you. June, Carolyn Gatiss is trying to get in as well, just FYI, if you didn't see her chat. All right. David, you said you think the attendees are here, or the the attendees, the...

The applicant is Lynn. And Lynn has been moved to a panelist and if Lynn could unmute. We can hear from the applicant.

Okay, there you go. Lynn, do you have anything you'd like to tell us?

Yes, good afternoon. I believe I was summed up our stance with the cover letter that accompanied our license application. And for those of you who haven't seen that, I just summed that up by saying that while this is a new location, this is not our first restaurant in Clayton. We've been on 16th South Central Avenue for 15 years And we chose an absolute great time economically to decide to go bigger. We feel blessed and fortunate to be able to expand our footprint in Clayton during these trying times. And that this allows us larger space, we can accommodate more people and it's a space that does not have nearly the limiting factors that the older building on Clayton Avenue presented us with. We believe we've been a good public citizens during the last 15 years and would like to see us, we'd like to stay in this space for more than 15 years. So that's our take is we enjoy John Potter, Being a part of the Clayton environment and John Potter, Find the the assistance from city personnel through the years that I've been associated certainly to have been to been excellent and very accommodating to businesses. So with that said, I look forward to John Potter, Hopefully receiving this John Potter, This license and being able to continue as I say for for as long as we can into the future.

Okay, great. Any discussion or questions from the board or anyone else?

Just that we love Wasabi. We're there all the time. We love you for

that. Thank you.

We always do takeout, so I'm excited one day to actually be able to sit inside. So it's great that you'll have a bigger footprint and you'll be even closer to us.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, Lynn, in all my efforts to make sure everybody can hear and see us. I missed whether you said you had an opening date in mind.

Opening date, we are actually doing carryout at the moment without the alcohol. So our opening date would be as quickly as we can get this license. We also have three other locations that we would like to open up. Currently with all of our locations, we're doing carry out and curb service only. We would like to open at least on a limited basis to inside seating with the weather getting to where it is. Upon hopefully a positive vote on this license, We intend to open up this weekend inside for not only the Clayton, but also our St. Charles Kirkwood in town and country locations as well.

Great. Well, good luck with all of that. And as you know, here in Clayton, we're trying very hard to help all our restaurants doing everything we can. So I hope I know you'll reach out to David or Gary Carter if you need something. I noticed there's an additional parklet now on Forsyth that Centene is providing. Yes. I hope you will have some more days to make use of that. I will. Good luck, yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other comments? Okay. David, do we need to... We need to make a motion. Do anything? Do we just need a motion? Without my script, I'm pretty much...

We'll need a motion and a motion.

I'd like to make that motion for Wasabi Sushi Bar Clayton, LLC doing business as Wasabi Sushi bar to approve a liquor license to sell all kinds of intoxicating liquor at retail by the drink including Sundays at 7726 Forsyth Boulevard.

I'll second that motion.

All well said. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Okay, you've got your liquor license.

Terrific. One question, if I may. How quickly can we pick that up?

Go ahead. When you hang up here, you can call the finance office and we'll get that going. We want to generate some sales tax.

Yeah. Okay. That's what we like to hear.

All right. Thank

you.

Thank you. All right, Mayor. We'll just need to adjourn this meeting and then open the work. All

right. So we need a motion to adjourn. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay, great. So we're moving into the bulk of this meeting. Just first, David, I'm going to let you do some introductory language here, but I first just want to welcome the members of the Architectural Review Board. It's great to get together with these esteemed professionals and get their opinion on this work. And it's great to get together with them just in general. So welcome to all of you, and welcome to any of our visitors or neighbors and or steering committee listening in. I think the steering committee, the members that are here, and the members that couldn't make it need to get a round of applause, Zoom applause. for all the time and effort that they've spent. Tim, how many meetings has the steering committee had? I found this on the web.

We had four official meetings with the steering

committee. One of which

was a very rainy sidewalk in

Hawaii. So we walked around downtown. And so thank you to all of those members because everybody was really important in giving their input and will continue to be. We had a representative from the neighborhood. We had a commercial developer. We had a restaurateur. We tried to get a real balance of people on the steering committee so that a lot of perspectives were represented. And of course, we had Mr. Lichtenfeld, and we had Rich and Bridget and myself. So a lot of work's been done, and we've been anxiously awaiting sort of the culmination of this project, and I think we're getting there. So the other thing that I can mention is that this project originated about a year ago when Joanne and I sat in a room with Susan and Janet and fearing what developments might appear along Central and Maryland said, what are we going to do? What can we do to make sure we maintain the type of environment there that we want, make sure that we maintain a place on Central where people want to be that preserves the character of the way it is now. And then we had these discussions as a board. And I did send out to everyone some documents that kind of summarize those discussions and the staff report request for board action to hire someone like H3. And of course, H3 was the firm we hired. And they've done a great job bringing us all along. So without further ado, I'll let David take over and kind of help John and Tim run this meeting. Thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Mayor. I actually think you covered a lot of it there. I want to welcome Tim and John back for this discussion. I know that the Planning Commission had a chance to look at this a few months back, kind of in the early stages of the Board of Aldermen as well, but the Steering Committee has been working hard. So today is really to show what work has been done, what progress has been made. We're getting to the point of the project here where regulations are being drafted and for the development standards, the guidelines are being put together for the design or the architectural component of the study. And it's exciting to see that progress. So H3 is going to share that information with you today. The next step in the process will be to once again solicit feedback from everybody that's on the call here and part of the steering committee planning commission and the board of Alderman. And once we receive that information, we'll finalize those actual regulations. And then we'll have to bring those forward through the plan commission and the board of all women, uh, ultimately for adoption. So, uh, we are in the late stages here of this study. I think we probably have a question or two that will be asked along the way where we need confirmation, um, that the standards we're putting together are accurate and the desire of the consensus of the individuals involved. And, um, so, uh, yeah, without delaying this anymore, I know we're just about 1.30 and we had this scheduled to go until 3. I'm going to turn it over to Tim and John, and I'll let them jump into their presentation. And then I think we're going to have some really good discussion here. So I look forward to it.

Thank you, David. Can everyone see the presentation? Yep. Great.

So welcome, everyone. And it's nice to be with you to take you through some of the evolution of the work that we have done. To the next slide. And with the objective that this forms the basis for the final draft of this. So we will share with you, and there's a lot of information here, we will share with quickly and thoroughly as possible. But I want to say, you know, you will get this full presentation for your more detailed review over time. So this for us is a review session. There are a couple of really important questions we're going to ask you for your consideration because these are a couple of issues that the steering committee didn't finally resolve and give a clarity of direction. So the next one, Tim. And just to, with that as the idea, I want to be clear, one of the key things is that we're considering this area, which you can see highlighted as one overlay district. If you know the history of the evolution of the overlay districts, they've slowly been eaten away And there were two of them. There were subtle differences between them. Some of the previous action reduced one of them just effectively to one half block. So we have combined them and extended them based upon the understanding of the creation of the entertainment overlay. So this is sort of a modified central business district core overlay district. Next. Just to remind you of where we have come from in terms of the issues we've dealt with and the key objectives of this study. We obviously, right in the beginning, did the interviews. We also did stakeholder interviews, and that sort of directed us to focus on particular things. We've come back to you before on a number of the earlier issues, and then This was the work with the steering committee. And again, we back to present that work with you. And this was our walking route with the middle of the rainstorm. So it was quite interesting as we move through. Next. So just to be clear, because there's a lot of information here, we will go through this with you. We'll then send you this presentation. And if you can get back with David some comments and written comments by Friday, November the 6th, we will be continuing to develop this as the final regulatory document as we move forward. Thanks. So into this, just to be really clear, there are two components to this work. The first is development standards, and the second is design guidelines. development standards are the actual standards. They determine where the building's placed on a site, how high the building is, and the basic building envelope, maximum and minimum building envelope. The design guidelines turn that envelope essentially into architecture, landscape, and open space. They deal a lot with trying to encourage the character of the district you would like. So both of these are important components. And importantly, they need to work together. One alone doesn't achieve everything. But one is regulatory. You have to do this. One design guidelines typically is advisory. So there is a big question as we move forward, which of the design guidelines would you like to make regulatory? And which could be advisory. And so that is a topic of discussion towards the end. But great districts are made by a very well integrated combination of these two things. And I will try through the presentation to highlight where we could see those combinations coming together so you can understand. But zoning alone doesn't create a great district. The design guidelines are really essential because they are all about the character, the type of architecture, the materiality as well. So next. So as you move through, and that's sort of the point under the flexibility, the ARB and the planning commission, essentially the planning commission looking over the zoning, and the ARB are looking over the design. really need to work extremely well together to deliver a good project. And we would suggest that all of those meet together from the initial steps, because sometimes you can do a small scale modification in the zoning to get a much better building out of it and a more appropriate building for the district. And again, I will highlight it as we move along. But what we're trying to search for here is design excellence. And that is high quality design, building materials that match the type of character you have in this district. And again, I'm just going to emphasize, we've really focused on this district, not the entirety of downtown, just to be clear on that. So then I'm going to turn it over to Tim who will take you through the development standards, and then I'll come back and we'll go through the design guidelines.

Thank you, John. So as John was mentioning, the development standards, these comprise the draft recommended regulatory and zoning updates to the Overlaid District. And as John was mentioning at the beginning of the presentation, based on feedback from the steering committee, the current two overlay districts, the downtown core overlay district and the central business district core overlay district have been in this proposal and these draft recommendations combined into a single new district and expanded. I'm not going to go bullet point by bullet point in terms of the legal description, but as you can see, we're maintaining the Northern District boundary along Maryland. Of course, the Ceylon development, which was done as a PUD is excluded from the boundary. We've actually extended the district east from its former boundary at the center line of North Bemiston. We've extended it to the property line behind City Hall and the post office. It comes down, crosses Forsyth to the alley. We further extended it south all the way to the center line of Carondelet Boulevard because of the opportunity that this block presents for potential future redevelopment. And then it continues following essentially the existing boundaries along the center line of Forsyth up North Merrimack and then back to Brentwood And of course, this large half block area here as John was mentioning that has also been excluded because of the approval of the Forsyth Point development as a PEG. The development standards consists of six categories of regulation dealing with the placement of the building on the site, the overall height and the envelope characteristics or kind of the buildable area volume characteristics of the building. which you can see the outline here. And so what we will do now is we'll go through each one of these in detail and show the proposed draft recommendations for the development standards updates. Mark Benthien, ECA- For those of you on the steering committee this information will be familiar we've obviously spent a lot of time going through and working through the details of this over the past several months and we've now formalize this in into the draft development standards so. Mark Benthien , ECA- Beginning with section one the building placement. This recommends establishing a build two line in place of a setback for all primary street frontages. And those primary street frontages are indicated on the diagram by the bold dashed line. And fundamentally, every parcel with a street frontage, that frontage is considered to be a primary street frontage. And the build two line for the primary street frontage is zero feet. So it's a zero lot line condition. The buildings are intended to be built right up at the property line to the sidewalk. And that applies for the ground level up to floor six. And we'll get into the setback momentarily. A couple of notes on the build two line. in order to encourage articulation and typical storefront design. We are recommending that ground floor facades are permitted to be set back from the build two line for building entrances, open air seating and other programmatic uses. That setback can be a maximum of 12 feet and that those setback areas can comprise a maximum of 25% of the total facade length for the ground floor. Moving to the upper floor facades, anything above floor one in order to again permit and encourage articulation of the facade. The upper floors from basically floor two to floor six, we're recommending that those be permitted to be set back up to a maximum of 12 feet or up to a maximum 50% of the total facade length. And so what this is designed to achieve is that you don't have buildings that are simply kind of extruded pancakes from the ground, but that you are actually permitting and encouraging a degree of setback and articulation both at the ground level And at the upper floor levels and at the ground level, we want to have a lower percentage of that setback because we do want to encourage us a consistent street wall. But by the same token, we want to allow for setbacks for building entrances and other ground floor features that can contribute to vibrant street activity and support the kind of uses in the district that are desired. Um, setback, um, refers to, uh, any, any areas where the building facade, um, is, is required to be set back from the parcel boundary. And this applies to both side lot conditions. So what you see here illustrated by, uh, call out B. So this is where, where parcels abut other parcels and then alleys, um, what you can see in call out C, which is where parcels abut a service alley. And so for side street setbacks, there's a range permitted of zero feet minimum to five foot maximum. And for alleys, zero feet minimum to 15 feet maximum So in principle, what you see is that while side lot setbacks and alley setbacks are permitted, at the same time, 100% coverage of the building on the parcel is also permitted. And then building form, this refers to the percentage of the build-to line that is required to be built. So you can think of this as the footprint. We are recommending that for the primary street build two lines, again what you see here in call out D, the heavy dashed line, that a minimum of 85% of that total build two line is required to be built. And that is further modified with the note that on corner parcels, like this parcel here, where you have two, build two lines that face streets, the building must be located at the corner. So on all developments that are corner developments, the building has to be primarily oriented to the corner to hold that corner and create an urban form condition. Moving along to building height, section two. We are recommending that we establish both a minimum and a maximum building height throughout the district. The minimum building height, and again this refers to the height of the building measured in stories or feet from the mean adjacent grade to the eave of the base or the parapet wall. A minimum building height of three stories or 40 feet is specified for the entirety of the district. So any new buildings that would be built within the district would be required to be built to a minimum height of three stories. And again, that is to maintain a sense of urban form and a minimum level of density within the district that is compatible with the existing the context of the existing conditions. We've also set a maximum building height and there are two maximum building heights set in the district based upon location of parcels. The first maximum building height is 10 stories or 140 feet, which are the parcels indicated in red. These are basically the parcels between North Merrimack and the Eastern edge of the district and from Maryland Avenue South to the service alley between Maryland and Forsyth. And then for all other parcels in the district, item G, these would have a maximum building height of 25 stories or 300 feet. That maximum height is further governed by upper floor step-back requirements. Upper floor step back refers to the setback of upper stories and is required above a specified building height. This is organized by street frontage, and in all cases it would occur for building height beginning above floor six or 80 feet. And so for all frontages of North and South Central Avenues, which are indicated in red, that step back would be a 40 foot minimum. For all frontages of Forsyth Boulevard indicated in pink, that would be a 50 foot step back. And that is designed to essentially respond to the setback of the St. Louis County Police Headquarters, which is a significant feature immediately adjacent to the district. Along Maryland Avenue, indicated in blue, that step back would be required to be a 60-foot minimum, again, to further modulate the density from the residential neighborhoods to the north into downtown. And then along North Bemiston Avenue, the step back would be required to be 70 feet. And again, that is to generally match the setback of City Hall, which like the police headquarters building is a significant feature of the district. And so the step backs are designed to, again, further modulate height and permit additional height above that six stories, but effectively do so in a way that minimizes that canyon effect on certain streets and is responsive to other adjacent existing conditions. Please note in these guidelines that there are no upper floor step backs required along either North Merrimack Avenue or North Brentwood Boulevard. And then the building height regulations further provide requirements relative to finished ground floor level and ground floor and upper floor ceiling heights. So the finished ground floor level, which refers to the elevation of the finished occupiable ground floor above adjacent grade is zero feet. So we want to ensure that these buildings have a ground floor which provides unobstructed access from the sidewalk into the ground floor program space that's typical of storefront development. The ground floor ceiling height, referring to the distance between the finished floor and the ceiling of the ground floor is a 12 foot minimum up to a 16 foot maximum. Again, we want to ensure a sufficient height to accommodate restaurants, primary retail and other active publicly accessible commercial uses at the ground floor. And then upper floor ceiling heights, which is the same measurement for floors above the ground floor. There's a nine-foot minimum and a 12-foot maximum, again, to key with kind of typical office and residential development patterns. And so what you can see, and I'll just run through a couple of quick model views of the district and the implications of these massing standards. This is the minimum height throughout the district. So this is the three story minimum height that you see illustrated. The maximum height before the upper floor step backs come into play is six stories. So in other words, the entire district could effectively be built out at a six story height as shown here. And then finally for height above six stories, the required step backs would come into play. And here you can see the modulation of the height from the 25 story 300 foot maximum essentially south of the service alley and at the corner of Brentwood Boulevard in Maryland. And then that modulates down to a 10 story maximum height with the required setbacks on the various corridors. And again, this is designed to essentially modulate from the most, the tallest building height and highest density within the core of downtown moving north towards Maryland and modulating down to the scale of the adjacent residential neighborhoods. You can see another view of that. This is the minimum height of three stories, the maximum no step back height of six stories, and finally, the maximum height with the variation by block. Section number three deals with encroachments. This refers to any building, part of a building or other feature that physically overlaps or overhangs an adjacent property or adjacent public right-of-way. This typically applies to things like signage, awnings, balconies, bay windows or Oriole windows and outdoor seating and dining areas that might be located on the sidewalk. For the primary street frontages, a maximum of a six-foot encroachment is permitted to allow for those types of features. And then for side conditions, side lot conditions and alley conditions, no encroachment is permitting on those boundaries. Moving on to number four, ground floor and upper floor building use requirements. On the ground floor of the entire district, the permitted uses would be entertainment and dining uses and primary retail uses. Primary retail would refer to typical shops selling goods that the public would access. And for upper floor secondary retail or service uses, office uses and residential uses would be the permitted uses. One note regarding primary retail, we are recommending that because of the focus of North Central Avenue as kind of the main destination hangout street restaurant row of the district and of downtown as a whole, that primary retail along North Central would be permitted as a conditional use, not as an allowable use. And that... A use condition would have to be granted for any primary retail along North Central Avenue. Section number five, parking and building service. Number one, dealing with the location of these areas. In principle, the intent of parking is that the parking be located at the interior of the block. and that above grade parking is required to be set back from the Build 2 line. Any parking below grade may be located at the Build 2 line, and so you see the zones above grade parking is indicated in dark gray, the low grade parking indicated in light gray. So for above grade parking, there's a required setback of 60 feet minimum from the Build 2 There is no required setback from the side and no required setback in the alley. For below grade parking, that is permitted to go all the way up to the build two line. So there is no required set back for any below grade parking. It may use the entire footprint of the site as necessary. In terms of access to parking, We are recommending that parking and building service will generally be accessed from existing service alleys as indicated in red with the following two conditions. If the parcels to be developed have access to or but an existing service alley, parking and building service access is required to occur from that service alley. Number two, if the parcels to be developed do not have access to or but an existing service alley, parking and building service access may occur from adjacent streets subject to the following requirements. No access may be provided on North Merrimack Avenue North and South Central, these are viewed and currently function as primary pedestrian streets. And so up interrupting building functions along those streets with parking and service access is undesirable to the future character of the district. And so any access would by default really need to occur from either Forsyth Boulevard or Maryland Avenue. We want to maintain a consistent commercial ground level condition on Merrimack Central and Beamiston. Furthermore, if street access to parking or service is required, it may not be provided within 60 feet of a street corner. So again, we want to ensure that the street corner conditions, the building corner conditions support that walkable characteristic and that buildings are able to create signature corner features within the district. And then we are still working through with the city, the required number of spaces, parking spaces provided for the use types within the district. And there's been a lot of discussion within the steering committee about the requirements for parking and their various approaches to best practices for parking space requirements in dense urban districts such as this. One thing to note, and we went through this in some of our earlier presentations, the current parking requirements within downtown Clayton and within this district in particular are in many cases prohibitive to developing higher density buildings, particularly when it comes to Mark Benthien, ECA- restaurant and retail parking requirements, so we want to ensure that as we work through and determine those parking space requirements that we're not putting into place required parking minimums which are detrimental or or or contrary to the vision of the district that we're trying to achieve. The final two sections of the development standards deal with building types and frontage types. So beginning with building types, the purpose of building types is to ensure that buildings within the overlay district are consistent with the character goals of the development standards. The building types are a series of model buildings for development, which are both regional in application and particular to the neighborhoods. All building types presented herein are presented throughout the overlay district. And so we have identified six building types, which are appropriate models for development in the district. These are a live work building which is a multi-story building that can have flexible space for both residential, office, studio space, shop space, et cetera, as well as part-time retail access on the ground floor. And typically as illustrated, these are developed as walkable storefront type buildings. A flex building, which is again a zero lot line storefront type building that can accommodate a variety of office, residential or secondary retail service type uses both on the ground floor and the upper floors. Commercial block building, which is a primary building Mark Benthien, ECA- A commercial ground floor storefront ground floor in a mixed use building that again permits office space or residential development on on the upper floors. a high rise building, which can be mixed use with ground floor uses. But the upper floors are given typically to either residential use or office use. And in some cases, those uses are split where you may have some office floors and some residential floors. And we know that those types of high rises are relatively common in downtown Clayton. a podium building, which is a style or type of high rise building whereby you have a podium that addresses the build two line and typically covers most if not all of the lot on the lower floors. And then it has a tower condition which is stepped back on the upper floors. And so again, the podium building type And there are a number of these types of buildings in downtown Clayton. This is designed to work with the required setbacks within the district. And again, these can be both residential office or some mix thereof with retail commercial space on the ground floor and typically structured parking. And then finally, the liner building, which is a building type that's specifically designed to mask a parking lot or parking garage. And again, these buildings can be used to either as part of a development that would include potentially public parking or some sort of a district parking structure behind located on the interior of the lot. Finally, the frontage types are designed to provide a series of options for how chosen building types will address the street and the defined character of that interaction between the building and the public realm. Frontage types have variable applicability to different uses. So as it states here, for instance, a shop front or cafe frontage type would be appropriate for primary and secondary retail uses. Whereas other building or as other frontage types like balconies or bay windows would be more appropriate for residential uses. Frontage types are really elements of the building and they can be mixed and matched on the same building. So it's not as though one building has only one frontage type. But it is recommended that each building type must have at least one of the frontage types in order to maintain that character that is desired for the district. And all the frontage types presented would be permitted throughout the overlay district. Frontage types would include stoops for residential development, awnings and canopies done in conjunction with commercial storefront space. Balconies, which would be appropriate for upper floor residential or even potentially office development. Bay windows and Oriole windows, these would be protruding elements on upper floors for again, typically residential but also potentially office development. And then shop fronts, which is a typical commercial storefront. and cafe frontage types, which is a type of commercial storefront specifically for dining establishments whereby you could have open air seating that's actually recessed into the building and could be screened with movable windows or other types of architectural elements at the ground level. And so Again, the importance of these frontage types and the requirements of these frontage type is to begin to within the development standards ensure that buildings are incorporating a variety of elements that not only contribute to a vibrant relationship between the building and the sidewalk but also create buildings that have a sense of texture and scale and character, similar to what you find in the existing conditions of many of the historic buildings in downtown today. So again, these requirements are designed to provide mitigate or prevent the construction of just simple extruded flat fronted buildings with no features that really provide any integration between the building and the public realm, such as typical of many of the office buildings that were built in Clayton, for instance, in the 1970s and 80s. So that concludes the presentation and discussion of the development standards. And so we'd like to pause here before moving on to the second portion of the presentation dealing with the design guidelines for questions and discussion. And we have really one key question for the group today, which deals with the building height on the various blocks within the district. This was one area as John mentioned earlier in his introduction, where we have not received consensus guidance from the steering committee to date. And so we would like to spend some time talking about the maximum building heights within the district as proposed, as well as the variation and points of transition for those building heights, particularly along Maryland Avenue considering that interface of downtown with the residential neighborhoods to the north. And then certainly any other questions and comments that you have on the materials presented so far.

Tim, just to add into that, the one consensus was the, on terms of hype from the committee, was it needed to step up down to the neighborhood or step up. So that idea of the step, as you're looking at this, the idea of it stepping down like that was the principle upon which we worked. The question is, have we got the steps right and how best to do them is the key question.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, Yes, that's right.

Thank you, john and I can I ask a question before we start answering your question. Yes. PB, Lupita D Montoya, When we're looking at this picture that the items that are on the north side of Maryland that are read to that does that readiness have a significance, ie, we don't think they're going to get developed. We do think we get developed

No, thank you, Joanne. That's a good question. So what this massing model is showing are the existing zoning districts in Clayton and the maximum building envelope that is permitted within those zoning districts under the current zoning code. So what you're seeing there in red, that is all within a single zoning district. And the blocking that you see is kind of the maximum building envelope that's permitted in terms of height regulations and setback requirements. Great.

That makes a lot more sense. Thank you.

Sure.

And to answer your question directly just while I'm on, I think this is exactly what we were talking about. And you've done a great job of bringing the massing down where we abut residential areas using setbacks to create a little bit more height and looks very much like what I had hoped it would look like. So I like it. I did have a question back on like 1.4. Can you go back there or do you want to hear everyone's answers? I mean, I don't know though.

PB, Harmon Zuckerman, I'm good. Oh, we can we can jump back there quickly. Sure.

It was after this. PB, Harmon

Zuckerberg, Was it the use requirements.

No wasn't us. Isn't there more sections. It was encroachments PB, Harmon

Zuckleberg, Encroachments. Okay. PB, HarmonZuckerberg,

Would you just do that. I kind of spaced out when you were doing that one. What would be the encroachments that could happen here.

So, So encroachments would-

These are all those frontages you were just talking about.

Correct, so right. So a typical, the types of elements that would typically work as encroachments would be things like building signage, balconies, awnings, windows. And those would refer to primarily things above the ground floor that would overhang, as well as designated outdoor seating areas, for instance, on the sidewalk. And so in order to encourage the type of texture and variety of development as it addresses the street, we are recommending that there be a primary street encroachment allowance of up to six feet. So in other words, you could have building elements that protruded or overhung up to six feet into the public right-of-way. But then again, in order to ensure the ability to do party wall continuous development, it's the recommendation that those encroachments would not be permitted on either the side lot conditions or alley conditions of the parcels.

Could you just go to the next slide after encroachment? Was that the one

on... That was building use.

And now the next one.

Parking.

Okay. Well, I've forgotten the other question I have, but that answered my initial question. Thank you.

OK.

Thank you.

But just to clarify the encroachments, you're also saying that we are requiring a certain amount of frontage of those frontage types so that the encroachment define how far those frontage types can extend into the right-of-way. Correct. Is that correct? That's right, Rich. Yes.

How do we make sure that even, I mean, I understand that these frontages are going to create some interest and some articulation. How do we make it's not the same? Like, you know, you can almost get boring in your encroachments.

So that's actually just part two of the presentation today, which is the design guidelines.

Sorry. Okay. I'll shut up now.

Tim, this is Steve. On the encroachments, is that six foot amount, is that by right or by decision of the plan commission, et cetera?

So as currently proposed, it would be by right, up to six feet by right. Now that of course is up for discussion with you all today and with further review. But as currently proposed, that would be a by right.

And Steve, why does six versus two, as an example, is if you have a balcony You want to make it functional, not just an aesthetic piece that is of no use. So the sensitivity of how far out is really about use. If you think of an awning, a lot of people have these little thin awnings at two feet versus the ability to go out six feet, which covers, for instance, a dining table, right? there was some logic of thinking through how far out

I think that is so important because this is Michelle um I was just talking to someone this morning about another development and um they made that point that the I was talking about Juliet balconies versus what you're talking about and What they said is that, you know, people can't really do anything on their Juliet balcony, but on a real balcony, you can have a little bit of furniture. You can actually be out there and it's an extension of your space and it connects you to the street. So I love it that you guys have put that in.

Yeah, this is Steve again. I like the idea of the encroachment because it gives a lot more texture and character to the facade of the building. But up PB Harmon Zuckerman, Up to six feet that could effectively cover much of the sidewalk on a primary street at times. PB Harmon Zuckerson,

Right. So one of the one way we need to do that and we it's coming up in the design guidelines. Steve is you can't have an approach with 16 the entire length of your building right so it would have to be modulated in terms of its length. And that's what we're working through. So the idea isn't that we're going to give them, you know, six feet forever in an entire length. It would have to be modulated by and relative to the size of the building.

Does this correlate with the 25% figure you gave us for, I can't remember what it was called, but how much in the primary streets, Tim's nodding his head. Tell me, tell

me what you're

trying to say.

It's related, it's related. So that 25% figure and the 50% figure, we can go back to those slides, that deals with how much of the primary facade is permitted to be actually set back from the build two line. So if you figure that, so if the build two line is zero, we're suggesting that the ground floor, you could have up to a quarter of the total length of the facade setback minus 12 feet from the build two line. And then for upper floors, it would increase to 50%. And that would allow for articulation. Correct.

You have the setback and then you also have the, what are we calling the parts that go into? The encroachment. So

as a combination, you have a zone of basically 18 feet six out, 12 in, is 18 feet that you can play with to make the building interesting. Right, right. And at different levels. And that gives, so the whole point of this is that you don't just get, as Tim said, just a simple extrusion of the volume up. You've got 18 feet to play of in and out. So even when you look at the, salon development across the way on Central, they've got a portion of their facade set back. Probably about 25% of the portion is set completely back after the first floor is up, which means that it doesn't feel as long a building in the street. So what we're trying to do here is give the developers the opportunity to break up their facade so it doesn't look as if it's one long or one big building, right?

Can I make a comment on the frontage again? And maybe I didn't hear everything on it. I want to say that I heard that the buildings would require at least two different types of frontages. Was there any differentiation made between ground floor and upper floors? I could see that we could have a couple of frontage changes on the ground floor level, but no changes on the floors two through six. And it would still end up with a very flat facade on large buildings.

So, George, at the moment, we have not introduced any changes any percentage regulation or anything like that, or as you were saying, but that would certainly be something that we could look at.

In other words, they don't even have to use any of the frontage times as the way it's written today. They could do a building without the frontage times. This gives them a greater option should they wish to do it in that 18 feet idea.

My question is on the front. I spent yesterday afternoon in the sustainability committee meeting in George. You can tune in anytime. And there was presentation by staff and a subcommittee there about going toward the safe streets, making our streets accessible to every user, to cars, to bikes, to pedestrians, et cetera. And I'm trying to get my head around how this fits with a zero setback and the flexibility. I understand the flexibility and not having just a monolith along the street, but we have to take in that's coming to the board as well. And we need to take it in consideration as we look at the design of this area to keep it accessible and welcoming to everybody. And I'm kind of struggling with how that fits. The other part, again, related to yesterday's meeting where we were talking about recycling and things like that is as we look at alleys and the alleys become more restrictive, whether we like it or not, our recycling and trash collection is our reality. And it will evolve as we go forward. I don't want us to take away the flexibility to respond appropriately to those very real issues. And I'm hoping that's taken into consideration as we look at this.

Absolutely. I'm not sure what we're doing would affect service at all, but what we should do is we should get those guidelines as they're coming out and cross check them for you and be able to get back to you clearly.

But if we build out and take away, as buildings come out further and further, we lose that flexibility to respond in the future. For example, even with the zero setback, if at some point we want, I mean, it pulls the art inside, it pulls the seating potentially inside And once you have a building there, it's harder to do bump outs of a sidewalk or something else and trying to be able to move forward.

I'm not sure I'm following you. Within the design guidelines, we try to do the same thing about bump outs and dealing with the street. So as we get into the design guidelines, the sidewalk and the right-of-way, we've got some recommendations for that to ensure that. I mean, certainly universal accessibility is key. In terms of the alley, the owners have the opportunity to sit back slightly from the alley if there's need be or on the ground floor have service areas there. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your

question. Let me follow up with that, and maybe this is what Susan was getting at. Based on your design guideline, excuse me, the building guidelines, particularly on the corners, you have essentially, I think, precluded the idea of a piece of art like we have in front of Herbie's or that we're going to have in front of the Komen buildings on either corner. Is that correct? Are those pieces of

art in the public right-of-way or are they on

private

property? They'll

be on private property, but the building has to be set back enough to leave that space there.

I don't think so. I think the common ones are meant to be on right-of- way, I thought. But the one on Herbie's is certainly...

You can set back your building for 25% of the length or the facade of your building can be set back from the street. So for instance, if you want to set back your corner, you could set back your

corner. I thought Tim was talking about corners being sort of sacrosanct that you had to have a corner building. No? Did I miss that? Well,

let me see exactly what it says. If this is an area that we need to reconsider, we can certainly reconsider it.

So what corner parcels with two or more building must be located at the corner? So

that's actually, and Rich, we may need to clarify this language. So this deals with the percentage of the bill due law. Not necessarily the step back or setback permission. So for example, if we look at the lot at the corner of Maryland and Brentwood, the 85% couldn't be located, sorry, I'm drawing crooked lines, couldn't be located here. It would have to be located here. Now that being said, there's nothing to say that you couldn't notch your corner in that would still be considered to be a built frontage if you wanted to notch the corner of the building in. It's just that in the event of that you're not utilizing the entire build to line with building, it needs to be located at the corner. Does that make sense? So I guess in other words, if...

Can we build another Herbie's where we have all that patio space and it's very lively at night

You can build another Herbies, yes. The setback for the duration would only be 85, would be 15% of there. So it's this figure. In other words, if you wanted to, if your developer came in and said, you're building Herbies, you would have to make an exception to this requirement on the one street. not on the other street. What this is trying to do is to ensure that in fact, there is the general continuity of the street facade. That's the intent. And when you get, if you think a quarter of the street is set back at a different setback. And if that's just by right, it gives you very little control of the sense of the continuity of the facade. There's no reason if someone came in and it made tremendous design sense that you wouldn't give a particular exception on that case. No regulation withdraws the right for an exception to be given. One minute.

Was any consideration given to doing corner setbacks to where, especially along Forsyth Boulevard, where you look at Napoli, the city hall on those corners, we have some green space, dining space outside. And we're just looking at this as well as, you know, we're trying to encourage people coming downtown and some open air activity as well that the corners along Forsyth almost preclude themselves in my mind to having required setbacks for outdoor dining or for outdoor activity so that we can expand upon those intersections for activity.

In the

design guidelines,

we actually talk about corners and we try and suggest that chamfered, we call them chamfered corners. So Herbie's is a classic example of a chamfered corner. um they they'd be encouraged

yes i would i would take it a little bit further and say instead of being encouraged to being required along certain areas

maybe we should get to the design guidelines because it sounds like we're starting to ask those questions

uh just before we do i would i'm gonna second uh joanne's comment about your uh hitting the step down Um, I think it looks great too.

So just before we leave all these topics, then I, I know that the, the, uh, team wanted to get everybody's thoughts on the height, um, particularly on Maryland, um, and Rich and Joanne have weighed in that they like it. Um, I don't know if anyone else has, but, um, If John or Tim, you just talked just very briefly, or even David about why 10 feet make made sense to you as opposed to eight feet or six feet or 12 feet. Is there any rationale there? I think it might have to do with market demand and all kinds of, you know, stuff like that. If you could address that a little bit, because I really would like to make sure that as we move forward now, you know, we have some kind of consensus on that particular, height requirement?

Maybe I can start and then you could tie in. I think there were a couple of key things we wanted to establish first, is first at what height the step back it could. And salon was one of those sort of markers as was the parking structure on Forsyth. They all roughly about six stories. We looked at that relative to daylight and sun to the street, and it seemed to be made very nice, comfortable street. So we established sort of that sixth floor as where the step back should have occurred. And then the next thing that in terms of doing this with the direction that we wanted to step down from height in the core, and we stepped down to the neighborhood, the next decision was given that the existing buildings here and here, how would we step back coming this way as well from the corner hike through there? So in looking at this, the setback was established at level six. So let me just clear this again. At level six there. And then the next sensitivity was how does the height step? We were very concerned in terms of the alley, where buildings can expose the backs and the sides of the alley. So the idea was we should step at the alleys would be the place so you have a front of a building like this and the front of a building like this. And two, the two backs are in the heart of the block. So that's why we stepped at from six up to 10 to the alley and then step up again.

This is Helen. I I'm sorry. I thought I was muted. I'm not. I think the, I like the six foot, the six story height along Maryland, because when you look at the North side of Maryland, especially Bemiston, the land really goes uphill. And with the six story height, it eliminates really the possibility of looking down on a rooftop that rooftops usually aren't great to see. They're interesting, but not aesthetically uplifting. And I think the three-story height there would be the same height as some of the residences. When you take even the ridge of the residence, that height, and then when you place it on land that's considerably higher, then the six stories works. I like that.

I apologize if you already told us this, but have you gotten feedback from the residents?

Yes.

Okay. I think

I know that Kathy is listening. Kathy, I'm having trouble seeing all the participants on my iPad here. Would Kathy, would you, if you're still there, would you like to make a few comments? Because you were our... Oh, now I don't see her. Kathy Beeline. I don't see you on

the list. She's

there. Okay, great. If you wanted to... sort of summarize what your Kathy was our steering committee person that kind of was from the old town neighborhoods, then kind of bringing that perspective to the steering committee. So maybe you could make a few comments on that.

Okay. Um, in terms of high, you know, going sort of specifically there, um, six feet is hard to argue with because of the Ceylon, uh, I would love to see that entire block at six feet, but I do understand the fact that you have to transition. I mean, if we're doing 20 feet on Forsyth, that it makes sense to have some kind of a transition. I can't fully sort of visualize the 70 foot setback from Bemiston and the 60 from Maryland. But that said, 10 feet is better than the 20 feet that was originally proposed and seemed way out of line. So anyway, those are my thoughts.

And I think Kathy, I appreciate that. I mean, I don't know if you meant like discussions with residents outside. I mean, Kathy's been a really valuable member, but outside of Kathy, no, there has not been a lot of discussion with know the people immediately affected in old town um i will say that yeah originally when we talked about having high stories because you know john and tim talked about having 15 20 stories potentially along central because if you notice the step up one of their concerns which they brought to the steering committee was these blank walls so as you're looking you know you are having these step up but you're having these blank walls which you know, aren't necessarily architecturally appealing. But I at least I thought it was better to potentially deal with a blank wall versus having a 20 story building at the corner of Maryland and Central. So, I mean, I was kind of more willing to take the chances of a blank wall that you could make architecturally appealing versus having these giant buildings right along Maryland. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, I mean, and I agree with Bridget. And to be more specific, no, I don't, unless you all have created some sort of environment for it, I'm not aware that the residents of the adjacent neighborhood have really been included in the discussion.

This is George. I do have one more comment about the setbacks or the height requirements, especially as it relates to south of Forsyth. I believe that area could have additional height and not impact anywhere else. I truly appreciate and like the setbacks going up to Forsyth or south from Maryland to Forsyth, but the last section from Forsyth to, what is that, Carondelet on the next

block?

I think that could be higher. We could allow additional height back in there.

Yes. One thing that's come up on that section is that it is geographically quite high. Was that something that the team was looking at, just the physical geography of that area?

We took that into account. And Jane, it's really interesting you say that because we felt that height is from the median level. So naturally, because of topography, The same height here would be higher than the same height there. And we thought that was positive for the city. So you got some texture in the skyline. If everyone did everything they could do, you get that nice texture because of the topography. And we thought it was very rich skyline.

John, can you speak to the height and massing right on Brentwood Boulevard in Maryland?

Right there.

The blue, yes.

So again, the sense was given the existing building here, given the building you've just approved here, and the additional... HAB-Jacques Juilland. Height that has been established outside of our district along Brentwood HAB-Jacque Juilland. And the same thing happening here with that same height is that high. We just thought that the corner that corner condition coming basically like this as an idea and then stopping the HAB-Jacquez Juilland. Would be was the appropriate way to deal with that corner net why that's That really matches more an idea of the corner being made like

that. How many stories are you showing there and how tall is the building where Herbie's is?

So currently, the zoning at the overlay standards of the corner, the blue box that you were just referring to, Kathy, is shown at 25 stories, 300 feet, which is a little bit less than the Maryland Walk development across the street.

How about in relationship to the building where Herbie's is?

I don't recall offhand the height of that building, but I want to say it's in the neighborhood of 10 stories or so.

Okay. It just seems abrupt to have that mass and that height right there.

I will be happy to look at that and come back with all the exact heights around here for you and show you options.

Does anybody else want to comment on the basic height? You know, the 10 feet from Maryland to the alley, that's the max. And then 20 feet from the alley to Forsyth, that's the maximum there. Any other commentary on that?

Mayor, I just have one quick addition. The 8,000 buildings that's at the corner of Maryland and Merrimack, that would be on the southwest corner. We show that blue mass that basically runs from Brentwood to Merrimack on that side of the road that we were just talking about. That existing building, it's somewhere around 18 stories, I believe, the 8,000 buildings. And given that hill, PB Harmon Zuckerman, The if you were to do 20 stories 25 stories on that Brentwood frontage. PB Harmon Zuckerton, You know that is at a lower topography, I believe that building that's at 8000 so those heights are actually pretty comparable to what's already there. So that blue box doesn't really take into account that that existing building. PB Harmon Zuckleman, In place. So I just wanted to point that out that we already have a pretty tall building there at that corner. PB Harmon Zuckerman, That takes up half of that block. Sorry, I'll turn it back over to the group. I just wanted to point that out.

That's good. I've got a question, if that's okay. Everybody hear me, I hope? Yes. Yeah. So I guess I know you had, you had mentioned earlier on that you're not talking at this point. I don't know if maybe you're talking later about... upper level setbacks. Is that something that we could incorporate into this if we thought that upper level setbacks were something we wanted to do in certain streets such as Central Avenue?

So Ira, we are currently showing upper story step backs on Central Maryland between central and the east boundary and along Forsyth and along Pimas.

You're showing them at six stories, right?

Six stories, correct.

And then are there setbacks above that?

Currently, there are none.

I thought that's what Ira was asking, but I might be wrong.

Okay, so an additional step back along like say at 10 stories or whatever the case may be

Right. I mean, I think the, and I guess I'm looking at the face of Central Avenue in order to look at that in terms of the density that I think we, I mean, I personally would like to see not happen as much as possible in order to keep some of the charm of Central Avenue. I'm wondering if that's something we could be looking at now.

Yeah, absolutely. We can look at that. One of the things that we did put this model through a test, we tested whether a developer could actually build within this model, just sort of come back to the market reality of typical floor plates, the residential floor plates, office floor plates. That's how we sort of, we wanted to check for instance, does this make economic sense from a typical developer floor paint size. So we can look at and we will look at other step backs and come back to you on both of those counts.

But right now, you're showing us, for instance, on Maryland and I guess that's being a six-foot building with a four-foot setback with another setback for 10 stories.

These are very significant setbacks in comparison to what is typically required in the south. I mean, 40 feet setback, 60 feet setback, 70 feet setback. They're very significant setbacks. And part of the logic for those was we would like to make these roofs that you see here actually occupiable. and useful, as opposed to saying it's a 10-foot setback, which you can really do nothing with. But with the size and scale of these setbacks, they can actually become useful. It took the inspiration from a discussion that you had when you were going through here on how the two towers and the space between the two towers could impact a useful space. So just understand that setbacks are more significant

than normal. When you say useful, what do you mean? Useful how? Occupiable. Occupiable.

Like they do at the Crescent with those outdoor, big outdoor decks. They have the top story of the Crescent has huge outdoor decks, which are probably very desirable right now. That's what I'm imagining, something like

that. Okay, so outdoor usefulness. Yes.

So I have a question then about these setbacks to clarify for me. We have different setback, different streets and I think you, and they're all at six stories. So Bemison has the largest setback of 70 feet and Central has the smallest of 40 feet. And I'm just, can you, you may have said this in the past but what is the logic there?

So we were trying to relate the upper floor step backs to key key buildings or district features that impact different streets. So on Bemiston, the main feature that we were responding to was city hall building and its front lawn and setback from the street, which is approximately 70 feet. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Along foresight 50 foot setback. We were likewise responding to the San Luis County Police Headquarters building and it's in its front lawn. HAB-Jactes Juilland, And then along along Maryland. We were we were really trying to modulate and provide a significant step to pull any additional height away from the Maryland lot line in relationship to the neighborhoods, but also to provide a footprint as John was saying for a tower for additional height that would work with typical building designs and development models. The 40 foot step back on central, again was informed by maintaining that developable footprint on the upper floors. But the 40 foot step back when we began to model it and look at the implications of the ground level, it still provided a very distinct perspective break at the six stories. So when you're a pedestrian standing on the ground, you get the sense that it's essentially a six, sort of a six-story enclosure of the street. And it's, interestingly enough, it's, you know, six stories are 80 feet and that right-of-way is 80 feet wide. So it's a good relationship of the street wall to the overall width of the streets.

So I thought that might be the case. So what's happened, and I don't know if there's flexibility here, but what's happened is Central Avenue has made up the difference for developable square footage so that the other frontages could have a bigger setback. I am concerned a little bit about how the 10 and particularly the 20-story height on Central with just the 40-foot setback is going to, what kind of an environment that's gonna create. I understand also about the six foot or six story, sorry, I know a couple of us keep interchanging those words, six story setback or step back that level. I understand you've aligned that with Ceylon, but nothing never said that Ceylon was the best thing that could have happened there, you know? And then no, you know, sorry, no offense to anybody, but maybe that should have had a little setback at three stories and that would have made it more in keeping with what Central already is. And so I'm wondering, what happens if we along Central create a step back at three or four stories instead of six stories? Do we get a better sense of not just the whole block being walled off by tall buildings. I think that's kind of, that's a concern that I have even with a 10 story max.

Well, and the other consideration of that in terms of when we saw two points you brought up relative to the 40 foot setback on our step back on north central When you look, for instance, at this group of parcels at the corner, that's where Starbucks is located. We wanted to be sensitive to this ability for smaller incremental redevelopments as opposed to these half block consolidations. And so given the existing parcelization, I mean, this is kind of a skinny floor plate, but that definitely works within a typical residential model. Relative to the choice of six stories as kind of the maximum base height before you get to the step back, That was also, there was also a consideration of again typical development models with with Ceylon being an example of that where you would have a ground level fireproof construction of commercial space and parking, and then five to six stories of typically wood framed residential construction above it, which is a fairly standard mixed use development model in the St. Louis market. And the concern was that by restricting that, you would end up having the exact same condition that you currently have. And one of the reasons why this project came about, which is the fact that the current design guidelines for the districts don't allow enough flexibility for development and thus every development comes in as a PUD and is evaluated completely independently of the guidelines that you have. So we wanted to make sure that the allowances for building envelope and building size were sufficient, that they responded to the market and that you weren't pushing by default, pushing every development into that PUD mode in which case none of what we're talking about

today even applies. If I could add, if you would abstractly starting to design a street that is 80 feet wide and you were thinking of the ideal proportion to have that sense of street, you wouldn't have the street height at the edge half the width of the street. It would be more closer to one-to-one as an ideal, and then understanding that the size a tree, a relatively mature urban tree is about four or five stories. So I'm saying for the width of North Central, if you were doing abstractly, three would be a bit low, five would be ideal. And so the buildings around became the driver. So if we were doing it completely from start, three would be little bit too low. But I want to reinforce the idea that doesn't mean it's six stories like Ceylon, which is just straight up. The whole point of what we're trying to do is that that six stories is articulated and textured and it's got more interest to it. And you'll see as we go into the design guidelines, we actually ask people to vary that booth height. So you get that sense of texture, which is what North Central is all about.

Yeah, okay.

Tim, this is Steve. Did I understand you to say that you were looking to maintain smaller developable parcels in the downtown area? We

wanted to make sure that the updated guidelines did not preclude the ability for smaller developments, correct?

Okay. Well, if we look at the north side of Forsyth from central to Merrimack, we have, I believe, about a six-story building right in the middle of the block. And what that has done, and that building has been there for decades, it's made the northwest corner of Central and Forsyth a very, very narrow site which may never be able to be developed. So I have a little concern about maintaining those smaller proper developable properties uh if we were to run into this situation again right

and so that's that's why for instance the the minimum the minimum building height was was kept to three stories which which is in our judgment you you could build a three-story building on any single parcel within within the district and that, you know, the building up to six stories before the required step back and then calibrating the step backs both in regards to the desired character of the street, as well as the existing context of the parcels. It's not to say that it wouldn't make more economic sense for a developer to consolidate parcels and do a larger development. That's typically always the case. But we didn't want to write the standards in such a way that the only way that you could develop under the standards was to consolidate and do a half block development. And so I don't know if that answers your question. I mean, yes, you're absolutely right. And we realize this too, that there are a number of small, narrow, some oddly shaped parcels, some parcels that are basically landlocked. They don't have access to an alley in the back. And yes, we would... absolutely concede that realistically, is a parcel like that gonna be developed independently? Likelihood is probably not. But we wanted to strike the appropriate balance between allowing enough building volume that meets the market without pushing developments into the PUD, but also not requiring so much building volume that the only way to do a development is through a large scale consolidation of parcels.

Well, I thank you for that explanation and I do like the flexibility of what you're proposing. In reality, I wonder about the value of the land and developing some of these smaller properties, which then may force them into a consolidation and going toward a PUD. Hopefully not, but thank you.

Not to cut off conversation, but I think we have about 10 minutes left of the workstation. And we haven't got to the design guidelines. And so David, I'm looking at you all in terms of how would you like to handle this? Do we get you another one to go through the design guidelines? What do you feel? In 10 minutes, I could give you some key bullet points that when you receive the presentation, you can consider. How do you think we should do this, David?

Let me ask you this. Do you feel like you have a clear direction on the issue of height. And I know that's one of the key questions that we need to answer to formulate those regulations.

Yes, I think we have one corner that we will come back to the group, the Brentwood, Maryland corner, just to give you the precise levels and everything else on that. But yes, I think we do. Okay. Go

ahead, David. David, can I just interject for a second? Just because I know we're talking about height. You know, one of the parts, Terry Curley is one of the participants. She lives right inside Old Town and she just Put a note out on the chat saying that she's concerned and would prefer the building height be at six stories. I mean, I just want to assure the people, even though maybe the board is giving John direction, that all of this is not like we're voting on any of this today. I just wanted to assure that anybody who's listening, I like the six stories with the setback. I appreciate that there will be some step up as we get along central, but I just want to make sure that all participants who are listening understand that even though we're giving John some direction and the planning commission is weighing in that we're in no way trying to codify anything today and that there'll be much more public discussion as we go on as to things that we might vote on later.

That's absolutely correct.

Right. So will, will there be public hearings about this? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. And then the only, my only other question is with the zoning that's being proposed, can a developer still go after a PUD or apply for a PUD?

Yes.

Yeah. So it doesn't solidify really anything.

I do think what's driving developers to the PUD process is the fact that they can't do anything by right that really meets the market reality. I think if we had zoning standards where they could come in and develop by right, and it worked as far as the market's concerned, and the products that you typically see built within this region I think that they would go that route because it's much easier than going through a PUD process. The PUD process has a point system involved. It takes a lot of work. It takes a professional service hours for your architects, your engineers, and your designers to take you through that process. It takes a whole lot more on the legal end as well. So if there's a development that you can put in that meets the by-right standards, I think that's going to be the preference. We just don't have any by right standards in the downtown area that align with what we're seeing in the market at this point. So to answer your question, still do a PUD, but I think this will drive people towards the typical process.

I would think also that given the effort that we are putting into it, we're going to be much more, and I'm talking about both the Board of Aldermen and the ARB, much more likely to stick with the standards that we've spent all this time developing than to even entertain the thought of making exceptions. That's a

great

point.

And this way they don't have to give us public benefits, which will be a plus for them, for developers. They don't like to do that.

And the fourth positive is that when they sit down with Susan for the very first time, they will have a roadmap that's pretty specific. And so a lot of hours won't be spent developing plans along behind the sky, PUD, whatever they think they might want to do. They should have a good roadmap when we're finally all done with this. But just reinforcing Bridget, there will be many, many meetings. All of them will be public in terms of getting this to its final phase where we approve something. So just to reassure. Okay. Thank you. I'm guessing that no one wants to keep going for another hour and get this done. No,

I would be happy to, but we might be losing some people. But I certainly would like John to take through this before we get this independently. So if we can't spend more time, we need to set up another meeting, in my opinion.

OK, cool. All right, so John, you want to just give a brief overview on the guidelines then?

I'm not sure I can do it in three minutes. Five minutes,

I don't know.

Do

you want to say anything about them? I know you're going to send them out.

Well, David, do you want to send them out before they present it? Because they're quite technical and I'm not sure everyone gets the reason we do it.

I think with the design guidelines, it's probably better if we walk through it together. I think that was helpful with the presentation today and I think it would be with that component as well.

Give me a thumbs up.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay, very good. I just want to, I'm going to just want to please plead with everybody. Let's get this done this next meeting done quickly so that we can move on while we still remember what we talked about today. HAB-Terry Palmos-

Are we going to get the material to review now. HAB-Marsyn

Moyer- Guess not. HAB-Jacques Juilland-

We can send out the development standards. I think that we just talked about because I certainly want to solicit any comments, anything you might have forgot to talk about today or something hits you in the middle of the night and I wish I would have said that, pass those along to me. I'll compile those and discuss those with H3 as we formulate the regulations. Those are the standards that we went through today. As for the design guidelines, let's attack that the way we did today where H3 will walk through, give it some context, explain how we got to where we're at And then we'll take the discussion from there. I'm just afraid if we send out in advance, people may spend time putting a lot of comments together and questions together and maybe not have the context quite right or totally understand what the intent is behind it. So we'll schedule a second meeting. We'll send out a doodle poll immediately here and get the next date put together. In the meantime, you will receive the information you saw today, all of those slides. Take a look at it again. If you have questions, if you have comments, concerns, anything like that, feel free to send those along to me and then I'll discuss those with H3 and then we'll come back and bring that to the plan commission and the board at a later date.

Everybody good with that process? I just don't see any reason not to get them now so I could at least look at them and be just a little bit more knowledgeable than seeing them for the first time now and then being asked, give your comments now.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- But we're not going to be asked to give a comment. We're going to walk through john in an organized manner with context, give him some HAB-Marsyn Moyer- Whatever comes to us at the time, just like this time, but we will also have the opportunity afterwards to get to ask more questions like we will this time we're going to HAB-Massyn Moyer- Going to certainly have. I have some more deeper question dive questions. HAB-Jacques Juilland- I just

want, I just want everybody to have the same base of understanding when they start looking through those John Gerstle, Development guidelines of the design guidelines. So I, I think it was helpful. The way we did today and it's certainly not over by any means. Again, I want your comments. I want your feedback on it. John Gerstle , And we'll do the exact same thing with the design standards as well. But I want everybody to really have the same baseline. John Gerstel, If that's fair

and that's a good idea.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, john. Thank you, Tim.

Thank you very much. Have a great weekend.

TGIF. Bye all.

Bye.