October 18, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Okay, welcome everybody to our October 18th Friday session. For those who don't normally attend our Friday sessions, this is really an opportunity once a month for the board to kind of connect and discuss things. We normally take no action during these meetings, but we just have our questions answered. Maybe we're asking questions of staff or someone, or we're discussing things among ourselves. As well, we welcome you to listen. It's not a public hearing, so we will not be offering public comment opportunities, but we'll have two major opportunities. Those in November, November 12th, and what's the second date?

November 26th.

November 26th. So there'll be lots of chances then for the public to engage with us, and we will look forward to that. Today we are... really talking to each other about the various aspects of the Washington University overlay, and I suspect it'll be focused primarily on the Big Bend piece. And we will probably have questions for staff about certain aspects of it, things that folks have asked us about. And we may at the end have some time to address Washington University who is here with any questions we have specifically for them. So with that, I just, I think, you know, we're going to try to stick to the five o'clock deadline so that those who have other things going on can get to that. And so we're going to Um, with that, I will, what, what normally happens is we usually kind of go in order of seniority when we, when we, uh, give our opinions or especially when we have questions. So I'm going to just do that and I'll start over here with our.

Yes. Oh yes.

But Ana has some things. I

just wanted to say we've had multiple meetings with individual residents, with neighborhoods and others, and received obviously a lot of feedback throughout this process. Um, I'm going to have Anna Krane share a screen here in a minute, and she's going to walk through just a few additional staff-recommended regulation changes. We've just got four slides here based on some of that feedback that we've received to date. So Anna is going to walk through those, and then we'll open it up for discussion.

just wanted to say we've had multiple meetings with individual residents, with neighborhoods and others, and received obviously a lot of feedback throughout this process. Um, I'm going to have Anna Crane share a screen here in a minute, and she's going to walk through just a few additional staff-recommended regulation changes. We've just got four slides here based on some of that feedback that we've received to date. So Anna is going to walk through those, and then we'll open it up for discussion.

Sorry, Anna. I knew that and forgot. Yep, no problem.

Okay, so first – There are a few items that I'm recommending changes on that address some comments, as David mentioned, that we've continued to gather. So I'll touch on those quickly. The first idea is plane surfaces. So in the previously amended draft, we removed the ability to have a plane surface on top of a building. Washington University submitted a letter in response to this requesting that a field be allowed on a building that is essentially at grade. The field would be a building built into the side of a hill. So what staff's recommending is having a maximum height that the field would be above the surface. So we would use grade here. And at the highest corner, there would be a maximum of five feet before that field would be level. So essentially, the playing surface would be less than a story above grade from the high side is what we're looking at. So the building would have to be pretty much built into the side of a hill, depending on how that grade works. So that's what we're recommending. And then there is also discussion about playing fields. So this orange line here is 80 foot. setback from the northern boundary that we established for plane services. One of the additional requests that came in that same letter from Washington University was to allow plane services to be closer to the northern boundary with FONFON because it would require less regrading to have a plane service there. So we are proposing that a plane surface without lights be allowed to be 10 feet from the northern property, but if the plane surface were to have lights, then it would have to meet that 80-foot setback. So that's the staff's recommendation for that point. Transition zones and trees are another very important aspect for maintaining the existing character of the lot. So a few recommendations here. One is adding a transition zone requirement. So there are two homes here that were previously, existing houses that were previously not within a transition zone area. We have an established tree growth area and the goal of the established tree growth areas is really to limit any sort of construction activity that might impact existing trees. So the goal for those established tree design areas is to protect our existing trees, whereas the transition zones protect existing trees but also then require additional plantings to meet the definition of a transition zone. So one area that we're recommending is because these homes and road that it would be demolished don't have a ton of existing trees right now, we would recommend extending the transition zone in that corner so that they would be planted. And similarly, a transition zone here to try and capture a few more additional tree areas that might be impacted by an access point and regrading. But if we can maintain those, we would like to as well. Tree canopy coverage. So we ran as these areas have been extended for the existing tree growth and the transition zones, ran an additional calculation about the canopy coverage of trees today. And so we're recommending increasing from 20%, which is what's required in the draft today, to 30%. And that would... basically capture the canopy that is required by the expanded tree areas that we have. And then we also recommended we added some more strict language about retaining walls within established tree growth areas and when they could be used and when they could not be. access this has been a big topic especially with the hillcrest residents so we're adding some more language that would restrict how the access might come from dartford so right now the established tree growth areas here is outlined in red and just mentioned the larger transition zone requirement so this yellow box is roughly 340 feet from the corner so we're recommending a few things Basically, we want to continue to support the neighborhood access from Dartford that goes onto Concordia's campus as you can today. But we wanna make sure that that access doesn't become the most convenient route for Washington University students to get from South 40 to this campus. And so what we're proposing is a restriction that would not allow any paths, walking paths or biking paths to go through the established tree growth area in this corner. They are allowed in other areas, but they would not be allowed here. And then we would also not allow a connection point within 340 feet of this corner. So you can see on the diagram here, essentially what we would be stopping and we would have to review all this under site plan review are the two black arrows. So there would not be able to be a walking path from Dartford that comes right into the site to a field or a facility. what they would be allowed to do is continue some sort of bike or walking path that connects to the existing Concordia entrance. And then 340 feet south, which is approximately where this drive is that Concordia is proposing as part of their housing, that's where a connection point then into the site could be. So the idea is that anybody walking down Dartford would then have to traverse through Concordia's campus to come back into the site, making it the less obvious choice of path. And then with parking, with surface lots, we're proposing that we require trees based on the number of parking spaces. So this is a pretty standard parking design anyway for most surface lots that you have tree islands, but we recommend adding in specific requirements. So one canopy tree for every 15 parking spaces. And then we have also heard about solar from some of the residents and wanting to support that. So if they were to establish some canopies for solar arrays that went over service parking, then we would do that in exchange for the canopy trees within that lot area. And then we also are recommending adding some language to encourage the use of permeable pavers for the parking spaces themselves. And that is the summary.

Good. All right. I'm going to just go around with basic questions, either questions for what Ana just presented or other questions that you have for staff.

I mean, I think also, I guess some of the things I was just going to ask was, and maybe I don't know that this always seemed obvious to me, but the areas where we're providing tree protection in the different corners are Would you imagine like from a residential perspective that those areas really wouldn't change very much then? You know, because we're really trying to support not changing the topography of the area. So on that map, when you have these big, you know, protected areas, then will things look largely the same?

Yes, I'm going to share this for Rick and everybody on Zoom. I think it'll be easier to talk through as I have the map up here. Yes. So within kind of what I just mentioned previously, so there's two different goals. So the established tree growth areas that are outlined in red. There we go. Get rid of that. Those are really intended to protect the existing canopy and the trees that are in that area along with regrading. So essentially within the code, we're saying you can only have regrade if it's supporting an access point that runs through that area. or if you're using retaining walls to keep the grade as it exists today within those established tree growth areas while you're changing grade outside of them. Similarly, within the transition zones, we have a lot of similar language about limiting your regrading, again, with the goal of any regrading happening at the boundaries of these so that what you see today as far as how the trees are naturally growing and topography and And everything else that happens within these protected areas would be maintained.

So then a lot of, I mean, because there's a long big bend just, I guess, east of the sidewalk. I mean, it pitches down pretty significantly and goes, I mean, you know, based on what the existing. So a lot of that, again, that natural topography, unless there was, you know, potentially a path that went through would look then bad. Very similar to the way it does now then.

Right. Yep. There's just a few areas here and down here where there are some existing connections to MSD. So we expect that through this, those connections will be changed, probably improved in many ways from what's happening. But the natural flow of water into those areas occurs today. So there will be some regrading or changes likely to occur in conjunction with those connection points for MSD, which is why that they've been highlighted in the transition zones as opposed to in the established tree growth areas where we're really restricting regrading but connection points that would come off for a vehicle access point this language is what would encourage the design that they have to choose there's probably going to be some kind of a bridge or something associated with the road there because they're going to have to show us how they're using a design that minimizes regrading and minimizes any impact to those existing trees in the area And so with all of these trees that are here today, if we limit how many they can remove, they're going to have to do a more engineered road than you would see on a lot of other sites.

And I guess the one other comment, I just I'm still concerned about how big the retaining walls could potentially be on the site. I understand that there's a step, but I just don't want to see a two foot step. on top of a 13 foot step. So I'm just concerned because the max retaining wall right now can be 10 or 15.

So it's 15 is what would trigger a step. So you could theoretically have a 14 foot wall and then a step in a one foot wall. So that's something I think if we, I just don't want to see that.

That's my concern. So I just want to make sure that if it were to get to that size, that we would step it, you know, that there would have to be some sort of natural break, you know, there, but if it's 15 feet, then it, has to be five foot and then five foot or something

like that. And I'm assuming you're really also thinking about where that's visible from outside of the district, right? Yeah, I guess it wasn't really. Yeah, something near the residential properties, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Susan. Thanks. Just a couple of things about what you just presented when you were showing the earlier slide The changing the boundary, the northern boundary. Does any of that back against residential? It's all against the font bond.

It's all against font bond. So this setback here is 150 feet from the residential property. So there's an increased setback there. And you can kind of see here the Hillcrest neighborhood ends still within this tree growth area. So everything else on this large parcel is font bond.

I like the increase in the canopy cover and remind me wasn't isn't the city standard which I know we don't meet in all areas 40% tree canopy.

Though the city standard right now for institutional uses is actually just a replacement of the caliper inches that you're removing so we don't have any sort of long term plan on what canopy coverage, we would like sites to have right now with institutional we do for residential. Right it's

also difficult if you're trying to do solar and you're trying to have fields, but yeah 30% there the I think. I don't know the answers to this, but as we look at the accessibility and respecting the neighborhoods and and cutting through. That again rubs against our like our local communities plan and comprehensive planning talked about accessibility of neighbors a walk ability. The inclusiveness and you look at how our campuses are used now and and our neighbors have those green spaces so. it's got to be a balance that we can reach, and the more the other part of that that I think I hear a lot about people concerns very relevant concerns about traffic increases and. This may be a question for WashU later is who's being drawn to this property? If it's primarily students who may live on the South 40, maybe walking and biking if it's easy for them to do versus taking cars or if they're pulling from somewhere else, yes, there will be a traffic increase. But trying to make it so that alternative forms of transportation are very viable is something that we need to keep in mind as we do this. So Yeah, I think that's really a challenge because some neighbors want things separated and other people want it to be a very welcoming community feel. So it's just, I don't know what the answer is, but I do have to raise that. That's all I got.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'm just, you know, we've learned so much about zoning in the last 18 months is remarkable and really appreciate the staff proposing this option and helping us understand it. And really great gratitude and appreciation to the residents that have engaged in the process and given us feedback, particularly where we've been able to have specific feedback and like walk the property with people and really like imagine things and think about stuff. And I know that's what that's been really helpful. So yeah, I like a number of the... proposals that you presented today. The solar panels over surface parking, I see that other places and I think that's a great use of that if we can encourage that. And I'm with Bridget on wanting shorter retaining walls. I mean, like even eight feet seems kind of high. So I'd love to know how you can, what you can do to look at how that part is written. And so one of the things, like, as I've gone through this thinking about, like, how do we, how do we consider the ability to, for this property to be useful to the property owner while also preserving the existing topography and the existing character. And I think a lot of, I think what you're proposing with the tree protection, existing tree protection and transition zones is a big part of that. I think really working to limit dramatic grading seems like it would help too. So the only other thing I would say at this point or question or for consideration in the future is what it looks like because University activities are often, I would imagine, somewhat scheduled here. And then what does it look like to build in requirements that the university make use of all of the parking it has on its main campus and shuttle people to the property or something like that? Like what... What ability do we have to think about what that looks like in order to reduce the like potential individual impact of even like visiting teams and stuff like they could park in the main place and have a shuttle and I mean wash you as a whole system and stuff so I'd be interested in thinking about what that looks either encourage or require that where we can. And I don't know if that would be something that would be in the overlay, that we can put in the overlay so that then when we have specific proposals, if the overlay passes and specific proposals are presented, that we have like the vehicle to review that and consider it. I think

that's all for now. Okay, very good. Thanks. Alderman Gary Feder.

that's all for now. Okay, very good. Thanks. Alderman Fader.

Since I think we have like three weeks before there's a first reading on a bill, I think maybe time to do some more editing if that's necessary. One area in the document, the last version I have that I still find confusing is in the section on development standards on coverage and density issues. There's a section about the number of venues that are available either indoor or outdoor and also a discussion about the capacity of these facilities, particularly the indoor facilities. I'm not trying to rework it now, but I thought the language in this document that talks about the seating capacity seemed confusing to me. It seemed to say that the intent was a design of limiting seating capacity to 300 seats per facility, but then the next subparagraph talks about one facility with 500 seats. So I don't know if that's intended to be an exception to the general rule. In any case, I found that confusing. And we all know that Washington University at the last plan commission submitted a letter asking for consideration of some further changes to the number of venues. And again, there's been no discussion of that. I don't know that's intended today, but I think that also does need to be addressed to come to some final conclusion about what do we think are the appropriate number of indoor and outforce facilities and what the capacity is, because I'm sure that's of great importance to the residents. My final comment was just that, and it may be something we don't want to get into, is I know in our downtown area, we have situations where which is obviously different. We have underlying zoning and we have overlay districts downtown, but we also have the applicability potentially of planned unit development of PUDs, which essentially in a sense starts from ground zero and says, you know, under certain circumstances, you can have a planned unit development and in effect sort of wipes out the underlying zoning and the overlay districts. I've talked to Ana about this and to David. It is my understanding for a number of reasons that that would not seem to be applicable at all in this area because it's residential. It probably does not meet the standards so that there could ever be a PUD successfully implemented. But to the extent that we are, I think, trying to make residents confident that if this is overlay is put into effect, that this will be essentially the law that controls the property. I don't think it would be a mistake to indicate something that says that this particular area is in no event subject to the applicability of a PUD. Again, it's maybe bells and suspenders because it's probably already implicit that that's not available, but I don't think things change, and I think it would not hurt to have at the very end of the ordinance something that says specifically that PUDs don't apply. We did that with one of the areas on Maryland Avenue where we specifically said you can't apply for a PUD in this particular site. It was potentially applicable there. So it really was, I think, necessary to express our intent. I don't think it would hurt here. So that would be one suggestion I have. I don't know if Ana wants to speak further to that, but at least I know that she and I talked about that as at least something to consider. And as I said, my other thing again is I think we need to make sure we figure out this question about the number of venues and the capacity. That's important that we go through that. Thank you.

um so yeah just one sec so i i do that was really my only question is about the the capacity and sort of the the numbers that we're talking about being clearly defined here and and then if you want to also if we can address that now so that it could be clarified that'd be awesome

So I did change the language to make it more clear about the capacity. So essentially the goal is that all of the venues would be designed with a maximum permanent seat capacity of 300, but there would be one exception that they could have one indoor venue with a 500 seat capacity. So that language we'll make sure is more clear. As far as the number of facilities, I have not changed that yet. So WashU in their letter requested some additional language that would allow 500 Then outdoor venues, but a six total. So when you include indoor and outdoor so there's some language in that letter that's also been posted on engage Clayton so I figured I would allow you to direct staff on how you wanted to respond or or make any changes based on that.

Okay, well, help me with some math. So if everything is, so if there's five with 300 and one with 500, that would be 15, that would be 2,000 is the max that we could ever have at one time? Is that right?

Oh, for the permanent seats? That is the maximum for permanent seats. But then we also have a maximum for outdoor attendees. So we have that 900 people maximum. And then we would only allow two events of that to be happening at the same time.

So could we conceivably have all 2,000 plus people The two indoor events happening all at the same time? Would you have everything happening at the same time

here? You would be capped at 1,800 outside and potentially 500 indoors.

Okay, so a total would be a total of that. That would

be a max situation. That's also assuming that the full 300 permanent seats are built at every playing surface.

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out the maximum that we would have going in and out of there at any given time or the worst case scenario, I guess you could call it.

And would those events like we're describing, would those be the type of events that require a permit or is that like the programming that could happen on a regular basis? So

if they had an event with 500 people that was not a university, so if they had a base... a university baseball game that would not trigger a special event permit but if they were having a different event on the campus that had 500 people then that would trigger a special event and they're capped at 10 total for the whole year

yeah

okay so 2300 is pretty much the maximum then at any given moment the worst possible time the worst possible all right i just wanted to clarify that i think i don't know if We can decide if we think that's reasonable or not, but at least we know that. Yeah. And then if you want to address Gary's other question real quick about the no PUD, do you want to talk about that?

Yes, I can. So with the planning of developments, there are two different kinds that our code contemplates, a residential planning development and a mixed-use planning development. For residential planning development, you can only do that when your base zoning is residential. So Since the base zoning remains R2 for this property, even with the overlay district, you could only use a residential PUD on the site. They wouldn't be eligible for the mixed-use PUD. And under a residential PUD, the definition is that 100% of the use is residential. So that argument kind of... says the use wouldn't be these athletic fields. If they wanted to add conditional uses that are already allowed in the base zoning district through the PUD process, then they would still have to meet the burden of a conditional use permit in order to do that. So essentially trying to go the route of creating a residential PUD on this property would be the same process of just getting a conditional use permit.

So, or we can talk about whether or not

we. I guess the question is, does that mean that the insertion of a no PUD provision is irrelevant or, you know? Right.

I think based on how the PUD code is written today, it wouldn't, it wouldn't it would be a silly process for them to go through because it wouldn't change any of the process that's already established. However, if the board is concerned that there could be changes to the planning and development code, in the future and there's concern about that, then all of a sudden becoming a process that would be eligible, then the recommendation would be to add some language here. What we've done in other ones is essentially we say that the PUD process cannot modify any of the regulations outlined within the overlay district. So that would be a way to protect in case there's the idea that something might happen to the PUD code in the future that would change how it would be applied to the site. I'd

like to see that added, if only because I think it basically is a statement of the board that four years from now or whatever, we don't really want to see this be different than that, that it's at least this board thinks that that should not be used under any circumstance. Mm-hmm.

Seems like there's nothing to lose. Right, there really isn't anything to lose in this. Thank you,

Jim.

Yeah, so-

Rick, Rick, pardon me. I always forget the person on Zoom.

Thank you. So I have some thoughts and then a couple of questions. So first, some reflections. We've spent over a year engaging the public and the directly affected neighbors of the two overlay districts. And we've received obviously a tremendous amount of feedback and a lot of concerns over both overlay proposals, but it's pretty clear that the big bend overlay, which is what we spent all the time talking about so far has generated the vast majority of the content comment and concern. And it's perhaps very obvious the reason for that one site, the South 40 site is highly developed. And so the potential or risk of adverse change or significant changes is significantly less than obviously a green field. And so when I think of our residents, I think about how they've made significant investments in their homes. They've come to enjoy a particular way of life, and it's certainly feeling threatened by the overlay proposal generally. But more specifically, the awareness that a significant change in use of the subject site is being considered. this whole process also has made me a lot, much more aware of the impact our neighbors are experiencing from the amount and speed of traffic on big Ben, the risk post to pedestrians, bikers, um, and especially the sidewalk on the East side of big Ben. And so as we think about all of these things, all of the feedback we've got, I think that collectively we've all, um, recognized, um, that the future of the Big Bend site, that it's likely to get developed. And so what we can do is try to get ahead of this and develop a strategy that mitigates the potential adverse impacts to our residents. I know we've done a tremendous amount of public engagement. The staff has developed these highly detailed limits and requirements found in the overlay districts. And so we've gone through and identified all of those many, many times. Mark Doyal, Unfortunately, I don't know that we've been successful Elaine our resident concerns this process that we're proposing is new. Mark Doyal, it's precedent the precedent for its effectiveness and Clayton is simply not known or there's not comfort in that. Mark Doyal , And unfortunately, we have sketchy details at best regarding the proposed development of the site. So this results in our affected households fearing the unknown, fearing a worst case scenario, given that no details have been provided to counter that concern. So my question then is that obviously what we're trying to do is create a situation that affords our residents the greatest protections from adverse impacts of future development. So David and Ana, if you could, Please explain. My assumption is that we're getting much greater protections than our current process would otherwise provide our residents. So summarize for me how our residents are benefiting from this from a process standpoint.

So there's, I'm trying to figure out how to summarize this rather quickly. It's a longer explanation, but overall what we're trying to do here is be more restrictive at the outset of the process. So what we currently have in place is single family zoning that under its list of conditional uses allows universities and institutions to if they go through that process. And what that conditional use process again does is it allows the Board of Aldermen to put conditions on a particular use to mitigate any potential nuisances. And so right now, that's our starting point. In single-family zoning, if you look at the R2 regulations, is really meant to regulate specifically that single family homes. 7,500 square foot lots is what's contemplated. So if you look at those restrictions, that's really how that zoning code is built. And so what would happen is if the city was to receive a conditional use permit, for athletic fields on this site. Let's use the Big Bend overlay area as an example. What we would have to do is apply those R2 standards to that site. You know, obviously there would be a list of potential nuisances that we would want to mitigate as it relate to noise, lights and those things. But what we'd be working with as a starting point is single family setbacks, the height provisions that are specifically written in there for institutions, which are a little bit more than what you would see, obviously, for single family homes. But that's what we're working with. So again, more single family residential standards, applying those to an institution. What we feel the more appropriate starting point would be knowing that this is the intended use of this property would be to use the board's legislative ability to build into our code, a very restrictive starting point for the standards. And so what you see before you tonight or over and over again throughout all these presentations are these really deep transition zones, deeper setbacks than you would see in the single family zoning. The tree protection areas that are adjacent to the neighborhoods here, specific regulations as they pertain to retaining walls, access points. We're very, very restrictive with things like lighting on the site, noise, those types of factors. We're building all of those in at the outset. So what would happen is if an application came in for a an approval, a site plan, a very specific site plan about what they would ultimately do, we would apply those standards to that site plan. And we would still have to go through the plan commission process to review that site plan and also the architectural review. So none of that goes away. You still have an approval process with a very specific set of criteria that would have to be taken into account as we go through that process. So if you look in our ordinances, The plan commission has to look at site characteristics and other things. And we've actually put out a lot of information that puts out the conditional use information side by side with the site plan criteria. And you can see that they're very similar. The only part of that step that really goes away is that conditional use permit going to the Board of Aldermen so that the Board of Alderman could put conditions on a potential project related to really time, place and manner type things. So again, noise, lights, how the property is actually operating. and so what we've tried to do is be restrictive as possible with this overlay district so that noise and light and all of those things are already taken into account in our code because right now if you look at again light standards and we put this out there on those comparative tables as well we don't have the height restrictions we don't have The Dark Sky requirements we don't have all of that stuff built into our code those would all have to be applied administratively and that's what we're trying to do is just ratchet this down and make this starting point for this entire process, much more restrictive than it would otherwise be. I cannot find, certainly in this area, any other example of a community trying to regulate major institutions or even private universities, anything like that, using single-family zonings and conditional use permits. The way this is done pretty much everywhere is you build these custom-tailored either overlays or standalone zoning districts so that you have a very, very restrictive starting point for applications that come in. And that's the point we're trying to get to here because we've done it over time with the conditional use permits. We've showed over and over again how on the South 40, for instance, it's been very problematic where you have a huge stack of conditional uses that have been approved over time. It's a very unpredictable process and it has been historically unpredictable here in the city. And so we're trying to add that predictability to it. And again, the biggest point here is start with a much more restrictive starting point and much more, um, just a better understanding for everybody involved, what may potentially happen there. And then we'll still go through the site planning process, site plan approval process, if and when something is actually submitted here to the city. So we feel like we're not really losing anything from a process standpoint. Those safeguards are still in place. And actually our starting point is much more restrictive than our current standards.

Thank you. Can I add one thing to that? I'm sorry. The other huge advantage, I think, of this is that it's not a bunch of one-offs. It's not every single field coming. This can be dark sky standards or whatever for the entire site versus depending who's sitting on this board or everything else as each individual field or building comes, and it may be different. And to control that site to protect our neighborhoods in the field, this is a much more comprehensive look at it. Rick, does

that?

That's okay. I appreciate that. So I want to ask a question, though, and I think you addressed it, David, but I just want to reinforce it. And that is one of the things that's been very frustrating, I think, for our constituents is the fact that we've not seen a site plan. and so the dilemma is that really this discussion has been more about zoning and not about a site plan and so these processes i think have gotten confused um and our residents have found it very frustrating to think about proposing zoning essentially an overlay when we don't see a site plan so My question is, does the overlay proposal in any way affect our ability to address issues or concerns with future site plans for this site when compared to the current process requiring a CUP?

I would say that we would be much more restrictive with the overlay than we would otherwise be. I don't think you're losing any ability whatsoever to restrict or put restrictions in place that would mitigate any of those factors that are listed on that site plan approval criteria. So again, I'm sure we could pop it up here and I know we made it public. There is a very specific list of criteria that the plan commission would take into account in the event that they receive a site plan application. And again, those are very closely aligned with what you see under those conditional use standards. So I don't believe that there's really much of a change there. You're just more restrictive when you start. Did that answer your question? We don't have the specific plan right now, but the standards are in place where if and when we do get a specific plan, we can still use that administrative ability through the plan commission to make sure that the site's compatible with the neighborhood.

Right, so what I'm trying to reinforce here is my impression that everything we're doing along the way in this process is to raise the bar in a way that protects residents greater than they presently are being protected. without ceding any of the authority or our ability to control future actions. We've simply made it much more narrow and arguably we've tried to address the concerns that residents have expressed to us and we've been very specific to include them in this overlay. So I just want to make sure that my understanding is correct.

That is correct.

Thank you. That's all.

Okay. Jeff, your turn. A

couple questions in no particular order. Ana, you mentioned earlier on one of the edits that you were going to have a plain field log close to the font, but without lights. Is there... I assume we have the ability to put some sort of clause like that for any other field on... any of the fields that we wanted. So for example, if they're going to build a field next to Tuscany Park, we could have that same restriction on that if we so want it.

Yes. The ordinance, you can add any of these restrictions.

I'm just thinking about in terms of lights and complaints of lights and the more that you can move the lights to the interior of the project may help alleviate some of the folks' concerns. That's what I was thinking about. Two other questions that I think get to the third question, which is – clearly I am not an arborist, so I don't understand kind of how tree works, but I know a lot of folks have expressed concern that, yeah, we say we're going to protect the trees, but there's really no way to protect the trees. So, I mean, so that's one. I think the second issue is obviously we also say that like MSD is going to stop the runoff and we're going to require them to not have runoff. But I know a lot neighbors have concerns about the runoff. How can we enforce some of the stuff we're putting in? And I guess, what's the worst case scenario? Like, are we talking like a hundred dollar fine, $200 fine if they violate it? Like what's, what's the real stick to make sure that WashU actually follows all the stuff we're laying out to protect the folks. And that's for either of you.

First of all, they would need to demonstrate compliance with all of these regulations, the time of site plan approval. So if this was to come to the plan commission and we received a site plan for it, it wouldn't just be the site layout itself, but there would be pages and pages of, They'd be required to submit an acoustical study, a lighting study. There are all the stormwater requirements that they would have to demonstrate compliance with. There would have to be a tree protection plan that shows those tree protection areas and make sure that, you know, those are all, that all the siting is appropriately placed there. So we would make sure through the site plan approval process that all of those things are being addressed. We also have the ability again under site plan approval to apply the criteria for site plan approval to those plans at that time, so we would you know, make sure that. If we needed to make a particular adjustment and it fell under that criteria list we could try to do that at that particular point in time. All that to say, we have a lot of authority during site plan approval and really it's our task at that point to make sure that the plans are compliant with the standards now if. If you're asking about after it's built, if we continue to have

issues, what's the remedy there? The first part was helpful. I think the second part is if WashU goes ahead and it's done, how do we enforce the people limits or dark sky or any of that? And then what's the ramifications if they don't?

Yeah, so certainly occupancy permit is something we have control over. So when these things are built out, then again, they'll have to meet the MST requirements that we're going to require as built in certain cases to make sure that things were built according to plan out there on the site. Obviously, something we're going to go through with our inspection process. So before we would issue any sort of occupancy permit for it, we would make sure that what's actually built complies with the site plan that was approved by the plan commission and of course that site plan approved by the plan committee should meet all of the standards of the ordinance so we have that check right there if we're to find down the road that there's some sort of violation once the property is occupied then at that particular point in time it becomes municipal code violations because all of these things are built into our actual ordinance And that would be a couple hundred bucks for violation. That's how the fine structure is set up. Now, if they did that multiple times, you could always go the route of trying to find them every day for violations and things of that nature. But yeah, I mean, those are not just with this property, but any property in town. Once it's built and operating, if you have a particular issue, then you're going to go through that process. And potentially an injunction if we had a repetitive problem that went unmitigated.

I think that's what I had now. I may have more later as we start talking the next couple of weeks in terms of some of the lighting stuff, but I'm good for right now. Leave you enough time to ask your question. Mayor.

I think I don't really have too many questions now. They've all been asked very ably. One question I do have, and this is just coming from a walkthrough that we did yesterday. I think they're different, different neighborhoods, different streets, different homeowners have different desires about what's next to them. And an example is yesterday, the field house was more desirable than a playing field perhaps or a playing field without lights is more desirable than a plain field with lights or whatever so I guess my question going forward is, you know, how do we wrestle with that. Are we going to actually try to incorporate some of those. ideas into the overlay uh is that something you would all suggest or would we um handle that at site plan review set times or or what i

think what what anna went through tonight uh those are recommended change uh really does that, especially on the north property line. I don't know how specific we would get with the locations of specific fields and what those might be. Baseball has to be within X number of feet of this. I don't think we'll get to that level of detail, but the standard that we talked about this evening, which is the reduced setback along Fontbonne, if they were to utilize that, it would require a building in that location or an unlit field. What that's doing is trying to direct Those uses to their perimeter and that in turn puts the lit fields towards the interior of the site. So I feel like that particular change addresses a lot of the concerns you heard yesterday.

Any other questions.

Yeah, I was just gonna say, or because I know there's at least a few folks here from Tuscany Park and I don't know how many people are online but you know there's been significant dialogue between the whole crest residents on Dartford and a bundle to include members of the board and staff walking the property with them to talk about and, and kind of validate what's being proposed and clarify some understanding and stuff. And so I just, I know I'm really open and interested in doing that along Tuscany park too. So y'all know how to get ahold of us.

I think all of our board members have been extremely interested in generous with their time in terms of individual meetings and And staff has to and we've walked properties we've met with people where we're still open to doing that we won't discuss this again until November 12 and so there's lots of time for further input if if it's needed. And we, we have. We have three minutes left and so i'm just gonna say at this time I know we have some wash you folks here. One question I have for you, and I see that you've given us some ideas, some more specific ideas about what you might want to put where in different scenarios. We've made those public. We will. They're online. Okay, good. So public can look at that. Or do you have any, I mean, do you have any preferences at this point? Do you give us any other information about how many, you know, how you're going to use this property and what the intent is, just intramural sports or are there other things? I mean, the more we can know about this, the less ambiguity there is, the more we kind of count on the future. Any comments or anything you'd like to add to what you sent us to answer those questions?

Thank you. Thank you for having us, and thank you for having this session. The engagement with residents, with us, has been really, really powerful, and I think will ultimately end up in a good result. We don't know much today, as has been pointed out. And I certainly get this. We don't have a lot of detail. And part of that is driven by the fact that until we know the box, what the overlay is going to require, it is really difficult for us to get to a point where we can look at engineering and stormwater issues and where we put specific pieces. But I think we've been consistent in saying that when Concordia approached us after they completed their master plan and had decided to move their housing, build new housing in the core of campus. We started a dialogue with them about this 27 and a half acres We went immediately to an opportunity for athletic facilities, and we specifically referenced moving the softball and baseball field off of the South 40, and then to decant the old CBC site. where we have about 35,000 square feet of indoor uses. And then we have that turf field. We've talked a lot about that site until we have an option to relocate those uses. We can't really engage in any conversation about future options. So with moving, decanting, That campus and moving the fields is frankly a baseline. And those are what you see in the test fits. You just see things kind of moving around. Again, they're very basic. I get that. There's no infrastructure. There's no walking paths. But we've been purposeful about not adding that detail until we get all this feedback and know what we're designing to. And I think just for a little bit more technical side on what we can put there and what we're thinking about, I'd ask Tom Kirk. from Bolin Swinsky Jackson. He is our lead architect and he's been, he actually generated those test fits and I think can answer maybe this one, but also if you've got some more technical questions about the four points we raised or anything along those lines.

Let me just go in. I know it's five, but does anybody have any questions for these guys right now?

Mary, can I just ask you a couple of questions? Would you imagine, you know, cause I understand you're wanting to move the softball and baseball fields off the South 40. And then you've got obviously the CBC site. So moving that intramural, which that field is always used just for intramurals. You don't ever have a varsity soccer game. Like

we do some varsity activities on that site. Joanna, do you, We don't do, okay. I think you're right then. I think the fields are mural and club.

And then you're adding tennis courts, which tennis courts are, you already have tennis courts on like the campus, like the Danforth campus.

Yes, and we've got the tennis courts there. And of course, Concordia has courts there also, which are not currently in use. But one of the outcomes of working together is that we've been able to do some efficient work you know, efficiency with shared facilities.

Okay. You would share, you would, the idea would be to share the tennis courts with Concordia.

The idea would be to give them access to the athletic facilities at that site. And then, you know, which addresses both our campus's growth needs for a very long time without having to step outside our existing footprints.

So you're not necessarily replacing CBC facilities and the softball and baseball fields. You're also kind of like, but you're saying, or like, because you're going to share the facilities with Concordia, you're kind of replacing what Concordia is losing when they, I guess, you know, move all their housing. So, I mean, cause they have a soccer field, so it's kind of replacing what they already have so that they can still access it. And then in terms of increasing your I mean, you don't know of any reason that you're increasing your athletic needs, I guess, your varsity athletic needs or your intramural athletic needs.

No, for right now, the existing program is all we're talking about. We're not talking about an expansion of programs.

Okay, and then my last question is just, you know, a lot of residents are concerned because, you know, you have purchased Fan Fan. So, you know, that's really on everybody's mind. So in terms of, you know, Fan Fan is a flatter space. I don't really want to see all those beautiful buildings come down, but can you speak to all at all about just... if there are any plans for the site or anything WashU's talked about, if they plan to use those buildings for offices, or can you speak to that at all? Because that's certainly on everyone's mind as well.

Yes. And clearly when we started talking to Concordia, Bonbon was nowhere in our conversation other than as a neighbor. So this past spring, they ran into trouble really quickly unfortunately. So now we own the site and we've leased it back under a master lease to Fontbonne. So they have exclusive use of their campus at least until the end of calendar year 2025. which is not

far off.

No, but just, you know, we're not accessing it. Just, we want to be very respectful of their goal to have as quote unquote normal of a year as possible for their students, faculty and staff. So when we acquired the site, we took it, we had the existing CUPs or FONPON transferred to us. So when they vacate the site, say at the end of 2025, the first thing we'll do is study what we can do under the existing CUPs and how that matches up with our uses on campus. If we get to a point in larger campus planning where we start to contemplate uses which are not permitted under the existing CUPs, then we would come back and we'd engage in a process much like this. We'd talk to the community, we'd talk to the city, and we'd likely have to go through some major process.

But would you imagine using some of the parking facilities? You know, would you consider that as you're developing this site? I mean, there's a lot of parking on Fun Fun, right? So,

you know, again, I don't know if that's permitted. However, we are required under the overlay to when we do submit a site plan, we have to actually get an independent parking assessment and whether they permit sort of, you know, cross-collateralization, if you will. It would be great, but I don't know.

Okay, and then I guess that will come. Okay, thank you.

Yes, and I'll try to be fairly brief. And the use of the other properties is very much on people's mind. And the fact that we don't hear anything about that and how it's going to work with this as we talk about doing this comprehensively and prospectively, that is a big issue. So the more information you all can share on that, as you know, I think that's really helpful and also builds trust with everybody. You know, Bridget just mentioned the parking and I'll kind of go back to a real question I have as we look at traffic is a huge issue. Big Ben's a problem as it is today. And I mentioned this earlier. I wonder where you think most of the students or the people using the property will be coming from and will you provide providing the shuttle services, and along with our livable communities plans, the safe sidewalks, the bike paths, the connectivity, perhaps some type of transportation from the Metrolink stops or whatever to reduce that traffic both on Big Bend and the access points as well as parking in on the sites and then the noise and everything else that comes with that.

So we know Big Bend is an issue. We heard that over and over again, just like you have from residents. It's clearly an issue. Our goal, I think we'd have to have a multi-pronged approach. The first would be, yes, they're going to be students, whether they're intramural club or varsity. And whoever comes along, coaches, family members to watch, whoever. But the predominant audience for this site would be students. First of all, we want to encourage a pedestrian and bike path of travel that is not through the neighborhoods. So it would be our plan to do an up-to-date, you know, attractive bike ped path along Big Bend. That sidewalk that's there right now is inadequate and Not good. Dangerous. So that's, and we would connect that all the way up to Wydown. So the South 40 traffic would be, you know, bike and ped would be encouraged on that path. In addition, we have a very robust shuttle system, as you know, and we fully plan to utilize and to bring that to bear on this site for, you know, students who live maybe not on the South 40. We would have a robust shuttle service. And third, since the overlay requires that we have a parking study when we submit the site plan, we will know that the city will require us to have the site adequately parked, you know, in addition to these other avenues.

Yeah, and that one, that one, also stops me sometimes because if you go parking, people drive. You don't park on the main campus and take the other routes over. So providing plans to encourage that type of behavior or the walking and biking, I think would be very helpful to all the neighborhoods.

We did hear from Hillcrest too. We heard a lot of back and forth about pedestrian access through Dartford. Some folks were really against it. Some

folks

really wanted it because they wanted the poorest nature of the site to continue since that's sort of part of the culture. It's part of our main campus culture as well. And we were agnostic on that. So I actually like the idea of having a pedestrian path open that connects in a way that doesn't take you to the fields, but that takes you instead to demand. you know, or to Captain's School. I think that's certainly a really interesting idea. I also heard from Tuscany Park that they have folks that want to get to Des Moines as well. And that's just something I'm hanging on to. I don't have an answer for it, but, you know, I think it's something that when we get Tom working on the site plan that we'll wade through.

Yeah, and a big theme in our comprehensive planning in Livable Communities, again, was the connectivity between neighborhoods and everything else. And I'm sure neighborhoods are all concerned about what's going to be happening on the site and whether it's open or not kind of depends upon the vibe that's that's there um the sustainability i think that you've shown before that you're always very conscious with that the more permeable surfaces you have the solar planning and all that i think is critical to our community and something else that came up in all of our planning um It's like there's one more thing. Oh yeah, where was it? When you talk about a sixth field and I look at these plans, I can't figure out how you could fit more on here. You wanted a fifth field.

I think what we talked about is having six elements in total on the site. Okay,

and that would be the building as

well. A mix of buildings and fields, but there would not be more than six things on the site.

All right. Okay, thank you. Moving on.

Yeah, my only thing is a comment. You can sit because I don't need you to answer now. But you have started to be more forthcoming with information, which is much appreciated. And still, I think the greatest understanding that many of us have of what type of activity is likely to take place here based on the activity that takes place on the campus locations that we know you want to consolidate to today. Our greatest education on that came from our newest member of the plan commission who like just actually looked up your baseball and softball schedules and emailed somebody to get information about attendance. I don't know, but that was very helpful. And I would really appreciate it if you would take the resources of the university to bear to provide us more of that kind of information. We can't Google your intramural schedules maybe, or it might be hard, but you can get that information and it would be really great for you to be transparent and share it with us. So thanks.

Good question. Anything else? All right. Well, we thank, thank you guys for being here. Oh, I'm sorry.

I just want to ask maybe if Mary could address this, um, Ana talked about the size of the facilities and the number of facilities. And in your letter, you suggested language that is different than was in the prior ordinance in terms of number of playing fields and the size. But you haven't offered any rationale for it. So to the extent Ana has say, I'm looking for direction from the board. I don't know at this point if this is a matter of semantics, how this is worded, or if there's still a substantive difference between what the staff thinks is appropriate in terms of number of venues or the size and If there still is some disagreement, then I don't know from Washington U's perspective why you think you need more other than, I guess in theory, more is always better, but maybe not. Okay.

Good afternoon. As Mary said, I'm Tom Kirk at Bowen Swinsky Jackson Architects. So great question. This kind of goes back to something the mayor asked, which is really the $64,000 question, which is which one of these test fits are you going to do? we showed a variety, we could show more. The point of doing these test fits, and I'm going to get back to your question about capacities and sizes, was to really show it's not which one does WashU want to do, it's just they want to maintain some future flexibility to plan this site, right? So whether it's softballs to the left or to the right, they just want to be able to decide that. Especially when you consider this is not going to be built all at once, right? So just thinking ahead, want to maintain some flexibility for what goes where. Now, again, all within the confines of this overlay district, meaning you got to meet all the light and noise requirements. You have to meet the setbacks, et cetera, et cetera. So I think just wanted to bring some context to your question, Mayor, about sort of which one of these do you want? It's more about we want to show that there are a variety of options and we want to have the future flexibility to kind of pursue those. Again, staying within the the overlay district. I mean, it's kind of like if you were going to build your house and you picked up the zoning and opened it and said, okay, I'm going to meet these setbacks. It's going to be so high. I'm going to make the noise and light. And then you turn the page and it says in the kitchen needs to be in the basement. So we just want to maintain sort of the opportunity to say, well, the kitchen should be on the second floor or the first floor, you know, within this compliant house, want to be able to make some change choices about what goes where of the hundreds of lines that are in that 12 page zoning overlay wash. You had four. comments. And this goes to where you're headed with the capacity thing. One of them was about the capacity and one was about the quantity of fields. The other two, one was about the fields over structure, which Ana spoke to. The other one, you know, we also about this setback up at Fonfon also spoke to. So that's something we can now have some dialogue about. That's great. Remaining two, one of them was about capacity issue. in terms of seating. And the other one was about quantity of fields. And we just spoke about the quantity. What WashU is looking to do is you think of this as just a parking lot. They want to be able to park six vehicles. They want to either have two that are trucks and four that are sedans or one truck and five sedans.

So my more specific question is, for example, the ordinance that was reviewed prior to plan commission said basically one indoor venue with a maximum of 500 seats. And the response was we want two with 500 seats. So what I'm looking for is I understand. You'd rather have two than one, of course. But is there something from your past experience as a university that would suggest that it would be unreasonable for us to say just one, whereas having two would be reasonable? What's the rationale as opposed to just saying change it? I'm not sure I understand it.

Sure. And that's why I wanted to bring up this, start with the six vehicles. So there may only be one building. the one SUV and the five sedans that has 500 seats. But if WashU were to have two buildings and four fields, again, maximum of six things, it goes back to flexibility. If you have all these sports, you know, if you have kids who swim and the reason they swim at 530 in the morning is there's so much pressure on a pool outside of school hours to schedule all that swimming. Same thing is true at the university level with athletics. You gotta remember, there's like 30 teams, these club teams, you know, volleyball, badminton, There's pressure on these facilities. So if there's two facilities, they would just like to have the ability to not say we can only use this one facility that has 500 seats because what if someone's, you know, that facility is being used by volleyball. It'd be great if we can move this other venue over there and still have the seats. It's just about future planning and flexibility. Again, it's not to increase the size of the population on site. We already talked about that. It actually wouldn't. So it's just to have that ability to have that future flexibility to have the venues each have the opportunity to have seating. OK, thank you. Yep.

Any other questions for WashU? OK. All right. Again, thank you very much for being here to answer questions. I know our staff will be connecting with you on some of these changes that were talked about today. And we will look forward to seeing everyone else who was attending to hear about this probably on November 12th. So with that, we can adjourn. Do you want to have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Okay, we are adjourned.