November 12, 2024 — Meeting Transcript

Thank you. Well, welcome everybody. I think this is the most people I've seen in this council chamber for years and welcome you all with see a lot of familiar faces and some that I don't know. So anyway, thank you for taking time out of your spare time, your evening to come and be with us tonight and listen and give us your input. We will begin our seven o'clock session if the city clerk will call the roll.

Alderman McAndrew. Here. Alderman Buse. Here. Alderwoman Patel. Here. Aldermen Gary Feder. Here. Aldernan Rick Hummell.

Alderman McAndrew. Here. Alderman Buse. Here. Alderwoman Patel. Here. Aldermen Fader. Here. Aldernan Hummel.

Here.

Aldeman Jeffery Yorg. Here. Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager David Gipson.

Aldeman York. Here. Mayor Harris. Here. City Manager Gibson.

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe. Here.

All right, now's the time in our meeting when we ask for public requests and petitions. And this would be anybody that has come here tonight to talk about something that is not on our agenda. Any other topics? So if there's anybody either on Zoom or here tonight that wishes to address us on something not on the agenda, now's your chance. And seeing none... We will move on to our public hearing. Tonight, we're going to be holding a public hearing to consider requests for several things. Number one would be a conditional use permit for 801 Seminary Place. Number two, a bill which is an ordinance to amend the code to establish the South 40 overlay zoning district. And number three, an ordinance for an amendment to establish the Big Bend overlay zoning district. So those are the three things we really want to hear from all parties. That's what we're doing here tonight. Tonight is a time for this board to listen to you So we will not be talking a lot. Our director, well, our city manager is going to share with us a few key facts first to just get us all grounded. But then we are going to be listening to you. So we will not respond to each and every comment that is made. Just so you understand, it's not that we don't want to engage. We just are here to make sure we hear from as many of you as possible. And to that end, we're going to ask you to be respectful of others. If you could keep your comments concise, we'd appreciate it and everyone else will appreciate it. If you've got something to say that's different from what's already been said, that is terrific. If not, no point in repeating. I would also ask you to kind of be ready to jump up and talk as one person is speaking. Maybe be ready to be next. And we also wanna let you know that tonight, we are having our first consideration of these items and then we have another opportunity scheduled on November 26th. And each time we will allow 90 minutes for all of the input from you all, all of the comments from the public for that. So each time there will be 90 minutes for that. So there'll be plenty of opportunities for everyone to speak. All right. And with that said, I will now begin by opening the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Yes, Mayor. The first one will be the resolution, which is the conditional use permit at 801 Seminary Place. This is a public hearing and subsequent resolution to consider a conditional use permit or CUP to allow the construction of new residences and parking on the Concordia Seminary Campus. Institutional uses are permitted in this zoning district subject to approval of a conditional use permit. The subject property is bounded by DeMunn Avenue to the east, Big Bend Boulevard to the west, Tuscany Park and High Point neighborhoods to the south, and the Hillcrest neighborhood and Fontbonne University to the north. The proposal includes the demolition of existing housing on the west side of campus and relocating residents towards the interior of the campus. A new welcome center is identified on the plans, but is only conceptual at this time and would be subject to a separate review. The new structures will be relocated just west of the chapel at the center of campus and surround a central green space. The new structures include two three-bedroom townhomes containing a total of nine units with 27 beds, three apartment buildings with two and three bedroom units. The apartments will have a total of 72 units with 180 beds, one residential hall containing 78 studio units, and one parking structure with 148 spaces. Staff are of the opinion that the proposed use is compatible with surrounding uses and complies with zoning regulations. The project provides sufficient on-site parking, exceeding the minimum requirement. The proposed use is not expected to cause any adverse impacts related to traffic, noise, pollutants, lighting, utilities or other emergency services. The landscaping plan is adequate and site access remains unchanged. At their meeting on October 7th, 2024, the plan commission made a motion to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the Board of Aldermen per the staff recommendations. The motion is approved unanimously. Staff recommends that the Board of Alderman conduct a public hearing and consider approving the resolution granting a conditional use permit to Concordia Seminary with the stipulations contained in the resolution. And I know we have representatives from Concordia here this evening if you have any questions.

Very good. Thank you. First, I would like to ask if there are any, well, would the people from Concordia like to address the board in any way? No. Okay. Okay. Very good. Are there any comments or questions from the audience on this particular item? And anybody online raising their hand? Somebody's watching that, right? Um, okay. I do not see anything on that. So in that case, I will close the public hearing on this item only. It remains open for the other two items and I will ask for a motion.

I moved to approve resolution number 2024 dash 21 granting a conditional use permit for 801 seminary place Concordia seminary. Second. Any discussion?

All right, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Very good, that item passes. We can move on to bill number 7044, the public hearing that has remained open for these agenda items. This would be for establishing the South 40 overlay.

That's correct, and we will actually combine this with the public hearing

and

discussion on the next bill, which is bill 7045. Right, right. So this public hearing, actually, do you want to request a proof of publication?

Yes, and I'll request proof of publication.

Thank you. This public hearing and requests are to consider amending chapter 410 of the land use code to establish a new overlay district, to regulate a residentially focused university campus under article 16 South 40 overlay zoning district, and to establish a new district to regulate an athletics focus university campus under article 17 big bend overlay zoning district. The proposed text amendments would establish the definitions, regulations and boundaries of each overlay district. In addition to the text amendments, this is a public hearing and request to rezone the property address 6500 Forsyth Boulevard to be in the South 40 overlay zoning district and to rezone the western portion of the property address 801 Seminary Place to be in the Big Bend overlay zoning district. The four requests will be addressed together in this report and public hearing, but represent separate items on the agenda and will require separate votes. On September 16th, 2024 and October 7th, 2024, the plan commission held public hearings to solicit input regarding the proposed amendments. The plan commission discussed a shared desire for coordinated development by the university under more transparent guidelines to protect adjacent residential neighborhoods. Members supported the amendment as a step in the necessary direction and understood that review of project specifics and details would be facilitated under site plan review. The plan commission voted seven to zero to recommend approval of the proposed overlay districts. Staff recommends that the Board of Aldermen hold a public hearing and approve the ordinances. And I do have a presentation this evening. It will be very similar to what we did at the plan commission, but for those in the room that are new to the project or interested haven't necessarily kept up with the changes over the past few weeks. We'll be highlighting that through the presentation. That loaded under PowerPoint. Okay, so we start these conversations and we've done this going back a year and a half all the way to those first meetings we held at Clayton High School by talking about the importance of community planning. So well-planned communities seek to do the following things, develop a collective vision through public dialogue, provide long-term continuity across time and successive elected bodies, balance community interests, protect public and private investment, ensure that land use patterns are orderly and rational, and establish a predictable set of regulations for all stakeholders. This community's discussion in this public hearing, they're intended to further these objectives. What we have here is a timeline of this process. So as you can see, going back to June of 2023, that was the first community meeting that was held. We also published at that point in time, the engageclayton.com website. So I know a lot of you have used that as a resource and should continue to. We'll continue to upload information to that for this and other initiatives here in the city. Then in July of 2023, we held meetings with individual neighborhoods, another large community meeting in March of 2024. We then had the draft district regulations that were established and then posted on engageclayton.com. More neighborhood meetings, another round of those took place in April and May of 2024. In May of 2024, Washington University also held their own neighborhood meetings uh with the adjacent property owners and then there were additional revised overlay district regulations that were published in response to those meetings that were held there was a planned commission meeting in september of 2024 and again on october 7th of 2024 That's when the recommendation was made to the Board of Aldermen to approve the overlays. And then here we are tonight with the latest versions. But as you can see, there have been a series of revisions that have been posted throughout this process in response to public comment and feedback that has been received. So just for general knowledge and location of this particular, the areas we'll be talking about this evening, we'll be talking a lot about the South 40 campus, which is up here at the corner of Forsyth and Big Bend. More specifically, we'll be taking about the athletic facilities that are currently there and what would replace them. The Concordia housing relocation that was just approved on this agenda, the conditional use permit there, that allows Concordia Seminary to take basically the housing that's located on the western side of their property adjacent to Big Bend and move that to a central location of their campus. Washington University would then take the fields that exist at this corner of the South 40 campus at Big Ben and Forsyth and move those to the vacated property on the west side of the Concordia campus. They would also take the intramural field and the gymnasium that are located at the CBC site, the old CBC site, which is known as the South 40 campus of Washington University, and move those uses to that site as well. So that's the overall project overview and kind of how the phasing on this would work. I do want to talk about the comprehensive plan a little bit. This was adopted this year in June of 2024. We had a lot of community input that went over years worth. We had lots of community meetings. We broke those meetings down into wards. We had community-wide meetings. We had surveys, all types of input. But we do want to point out that on the future land use map, both of the areas that we're talking about this evening are identified in the comprehensive plan as institutional areas. And there's some reasons that were given there and some objectives, which was strengthening the relationships with the institutions. to facilitate discussion about future needs and goals. The East Residential District is one of the character areas that we've established in the Clayton Tomorrow Plan. The vision for that area is a historic single family neighborhood living symbiotically with nearby institutions while also providing residents with access to significant green space and neighborhood scale businesses. And then High Point to Munn, the objective there is to grow at human scale with dense development, active streets and a variety of residential options and a walkable commercial district while retaining the area's historic character. So it's important to point out what the comprehensive plan states about these particular areas. This is a version of the zoning map, or at least a cutout of the zoning map. And you can see, and we've highlighted this throughout those meetings as well, We presently have single family zoning on all of these institutional properties, the same zoning that we use to regulate properties in Hillcrest, Tuscany, parts of High Point and other neighborhoods around. So we are regulating essentially institutions with that single family zoning. And what we do with zoning is we're seeking to regulate three things. That's the use of land of buildings, the intensity of the land use and the bulk of the use. So when we're talking about the use, what is it? Is it residential? Is it commercial? Is it institutional in this case? What's the intensity of that land use? So within those uses, for instance, residential, you can have a variety of intensities. So a multifamily development is much more intense than single family development, for instance. And then you have the bulk of the use, and that's really the design characteristics. What are the setbacks? What are the height of that building? How much of the land is the actual use itself taking up with the built environment? So that's what zoning seeks to regulate. And again, we'll be talking about those aspects as we move through. the evening. And so how we've been regulating those universities or those institutions within the single family zoning district historically is through the use of conditional use permits. And conditional use permits are defined in our ordinances as those types of uses which are considered to be essentially desirable, necessary, or convenient to the community but which by their nature can create additional traffic volume, parking beyond the development's private capacity and or detrimental impact on adjacent or neighboring properties due to noise, pollutants or other characteristics. To assure that detrimental impact is avoided or mitigated each request for conditional use permit must be reviewed approved and issued a conditional use permit essentially. The Board of Aldermen has the authority and the ability to put conditions on that particular use to try to mitigate any potential problems that may arise as a result of it being there. And so the two areas that we're going to talk about tonight, and we're going to about overlays specifically, which is a different concept than what we've done historically, is the South 40 overlay district, which is again at the corner of Forsyth and Big Bend. And then this proposed Big Bend overlay district, which has the athletic campus that would be on the west side of the Concordia site. And so overlay districts are not new to the city of Clayton. We have these in other areas within the city limits. Overlay zoning districts are specific areas of the city for which special regulations have been adopted to address specific subjects that require special treatment. in light of historic or topographic features, existing land use circumstances within or near the district, geographical characteristics or sound zoning policies. Essentially what we're trying to do though is create that box for long-term development. We're trying to build cohesive development, make it predictable so that we know what's gonna come in and what the rules will be when they start to apply for those site plans. It shifts the starting point to highly specific and restrictive baseline for that project consideration. So again, what we're aiming for here is predictability for the community or the adjacent residents and also anyone that might seek to develop that particular property. And so as we've developed these overlays, we've had certain parameters in mind, certain things that we've been striving to do, and that's preserve neighborhood character and quality of life for nearby residents. And the considerations that we've applied to this, and we've heard this time and time again from residents, is we don't wanna see it. So things like building heights, making sure that those are appropriate, making sure that we have transition zones so that these buildings and uses are set back at appropriate distance from adjacent neighborhoods, and also lighting, restrictions. So making sure that any lights that are used on the property aren't going to cause a nuisance. Residents don't want to hear it. So we can attack that with decibel levels, setbacks in those transition zones that I just mentioned. And then also that you don't want traffic or parking in your neighborhoods, which is a common theme. Proper access points, ample convenient on-site parking. Those are the types of restrictions you can put in an overlay and that will help alleviate those concerns and then finally wanting to know about projects you know concerns that if we put an overlay in place you still want the ability to comment on specific plans as they arrive arise and that they go through a proper process and that does exist in these overlays because we do have requirements that anything that comes up specifically so a field for instance is proposed they would have to go through site plan and architectural review with the city's plan commission architectural review board And in those overlay districts, we're trying to create more prescriptive regulations at the start to better guide the design and development of each campus with the primary uses and neighborhood context in mind. We want to establish expectations and a procedure for review for specific projects as they develop. Again, it's very, very important to understand that establishment of an overlay doesn't approve the end use. It doesn't approve the site plans. They actually have to come back in with each specific project and go through an approval process for those. And there's a set of criteria that have to be met in order for that approval to be granted by the plan commission. So again, this does not constitute approval of any specific project. They still have to go through that process where public meetings would be required. And so to illustrate that project review process, we have this graphic put together. You can see the existing process here that for instance, Washington University would need to go through if they were applying to put athletic fields on that particular site. They would have the project design and conception under those R2, those existing single family residential regulations. They would apply for the conditional use permit, a site plan review, and also an architectural review. Staff and other professionals that we have under contract would review those plans, make a recommendation to the Plan Commission Architectural Review Board, who would take public input, and ultimately make a recommendation to The Board of Aldermen, who would receive more public input. The Board of Alderman only though considering the conditional use permit. So for instance, with the Concordia project, we just saw the conditional use permit approved by the Board of Alderman. If you were here over the past few meetings at the plan commission, you saw that the plan commission actually went into the details on the site design and on the architecture. So the site plan review and the architecture review took place at the plan commission architectural review board. The board of aldermen is simply looking at the use of the property itself. And then finally, the final step, of course, is to apply for your construction permits. Under the overlays, the proposed process, there's public input at the beginning. That's what we're doing right now to establish those overlay district parameters. So that's an action ultimately that would be taken by the Board of Aldermen. And again, that's what we're here doing tonight is considering those particular concepts. Project design under conception and overlay regulations, so they would design it using the overlay standards. Then they would apply for site plan review and architectural review, just like you do under the CUP process. Staff would review that, taking those same things into consideration. So there would still need to be a traffic study, a lighting study, a noise study. We would need to look at the stormwater plans to make sure that those are all compliant. All of those things would be checked during that process. There would be public input to the Plan Commission and Architectural Review Board, and then ultimately they would make a decision. If it passed, construction permits would be issued at that point. There still is the opportunity, though, that if there was an aggrieved party that met the standards in the ordinance, then that aggrieved party could appeal that decision of the Plan Commission Architectural Review Board to the Board of Aldermen for further consideration of that site plan approval. So everyone has an understanding of the existing process, the proposed process. And as you can see here, the only element that changes is the Board of Alderman looking at the conditional use permit itself. The site plan review the architecture review that's where all the conversation took place for the Concordia seminary project, for instance, all of that would still be intact with this particular process. And again here's the criteria for those plan reviews, you can see under conditional use permit compatibility but surrounding area size and intensity abuse appearance and layout traffic and parking noise lighting odor. and good planning practices or some of those criteria. Under site plan review, a very similar traffic and parking layout, environmental protection, landscaping, signage, general conformance. Those things would be taken into consideration through the overlay, through the site plan review process when compared up against the overlay. the district character and criteria for review. So there's general criteria for review that we just have in the code of ordinances, and that's not being altered at all through this process. But what we would have through the overlay is specific criteria for review to address the concerns or priorities particular to the context of this overlay district. So highly specialized restrictions that we don't have in place anywhere else in the city recognizing that the athletic use is different than what we have in other districts. It prohibits the use of the plan unit development to modify overlay requirements so plan unit development is something that exists in other zoning districts it's really kind of a customizable. zoning district, if you would, where a developer can come in and get relief from the zoning code in order for an exchange for public benefit that is not an option for Washington university under this particular overlay scenario. It also adds layers to the plan Commission consideration of the site plan review process so. You can see here sustainable design some of these these these characteristics that have been added to the overlays site development than focuses on regeneration and restoration that incorporates best practices for stormwater management. site development layout that prioritizes preservation of existing trees and topography integrating new facilities with existing context looking at minimizing noise and light trespass from the district planting that's relying on native species that's more stringent than what we have in our regular code utilities and service functions that would be screened from public view again taking into account visibility and noise and then fostering a built environment that is uh friendly to the presence of people who are living, visiting or working in that district. And so as we went through this process, as I mentioned, we've had a number of amendments that have been made. There have been five major revisions in total that have taken place. And so as We've gone through this, we've heard a number of things. So on the Big Bend overlay, which is the athletic side again, The site capacity is too high and will result in overcrowding that impacts adjacent property. We've reduced that overall event capacity now down to 900. If you remember when we started, it was 5,000, so a significant decrease in the number of attendees through this process and a limit of two such events occurring at the same time on the site. We now have a permanent seat capacity that's been put in place for spectator venues of 300 seats. They could have one indoor facility with up to 500 seats, but the rest would all be capped at 300. We've limited the outdoor playing surfaces to five facilities and have an overall limit of six facilities on the site. There were concerns about playing surfaces on top of a below-grade structure that would be an efficient use of space if the field is not multiple stories up. So residents were concerned about a five-story, or not a five-story building, but like a three-story building, for instance, that had a playing field on top of it with lights. We've made it very clear that if there's gonna be a playing surface on top of a structure, that it needs to be below grade, not more than 12 feet above the grade plane of the building. And we have a diagram in a moment that will show you what that looks like. Pedestrian access from Dartford to the facilities will promote this as an easy cut-through, but residents enjoy walking to Concordia Seminary. So the residents in Hillcrest know that entrance well, where the bollards are at. I think people have enjoyed use of the seminary property for some time, but it's also easy access for students potentially. with the athletic fields there to make that crossing uh so trying to prohibit access to the big bend facilities within 340 feet of the northeast corner of the site but allow for that bicycle pedestrian access that residents currently enjoy fields without lights would be acceptable on the flatter ground adjacent to fontbonne so we've reduced the northern setback for fight for fields without lights to be 10 feet so trying to encourage either an unlit field or a building up against spot bond where it really gets close to the Hillcrest neighborhood, rather than one of the fields that would have lights like the baseball or softball field. And then for both of these retaining walls, we heard a lot about that. So we have standards in there that relate to retaining walls and also parking lots designed with sustainability in mind, concerns about heat island effects. So we've added some requirements in there for tree planting within those areas and also allowed solar arrays to be used to replace the tree requirement that you see here, one canopy tree per 15 spaces. So these are some of the things that we've heard. And some of these have been more recently through the last couple of hearings that have been incorporated into the draft regulations. On the Big Bend Overlay, which is the athletic site, just to go over this one more time, as far as the uses that would be allowed there, the primary uses is athletic and recreational facilities, both indoor and outdoor, or playgrounds. That's it as far as primary uses. We have a number of accessory uses that are listed. All of these really relate to athletic and recreational facilities. So you can see here offices that relate to recreation athletic events including competition and practice band playing when it's indoors commencement but not the whole school commencement concession facilities, the list goes on and on. Early on we had a number 16 that was kind of a, you can go to the plan commission and add something to the list if you'd like. that has been stricken from the list of accessory uses. So if it's not on the list, if it's not expressly listed as an approved primary or accessory use, it is prohibited. So this list is it. And then uses providing services to the general public outside of events and activities are also prohibited. So this needs to be really utilized by patrons of WashU. And then finally, those full university graduation ceremonies, as I mentioned, would be prohibited on the site, as with the major events that are held currently on the Danforth campus like Wild and 13. Those would not be allowed within the Big Bend overlay either. As far as events and capacity, Outdoor events with anticipated attendance of 500 people or more would require a special event permit from the city, and we would only issue a maximum of 10 permits per year for that. University-sponsored athletic events like baseball and softball games, those would be exempt from that requirement. Maximum outdoor event capacity for any event would be 900 people, and a max of two outdoor events, each with 900 people at the same time, that would be the absolute upper limit. As far as permanent seat capacity, and this is at the spectator venues. So the fields, be they indoor or outdoors, 300, although you could have one indoor venue with up to 500 permanent seats. So you could have a gymnasium with the pullout bleachers that would seat 500. a maximum of six playing surfaces with a maximum of five of those outdoors. So you could have five outdoors and one indoor building if you wanted. You could have four outdoor surfaces and two indoor surfaces under this scenario, but in no case could you exceed six. Site access, the primary site for vehicles would actually be off of Big Bend. So we have an alignment here that's kind of preliminary that's aligned with the entrance to Oak Knoll Park. So a vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian would all have a primary entrance on Big Bend. There's a secondary entrance on the eastern and northern boundaries. And so you can see here we've got the access from the Concordia Seminary site And that's basically unlimited that they could cross there. We did put some regulations in here that would steer the direction of anybody coming to the site towards Concordia to come back on and trying to dissuade or discourage people from using this for a cut through as an easy way to get into the athletic site. So if you wanted to access the athletic site, you would actually have to go over here and back around rather than just taking the direct route. On the southern side, there is an emergency entrance that currently exists at Concordia Lane that would remain in place. And we would prohibit any kind of vehicular access from Dartford. So right now we've got those bollards in place that wouldn't change. We don't want any kind of vehricular access from that particular street. Buildings and setbacks. Let me move this out of the way here. Okay, so building height existing. This is what's under the R2 regulations right now. So this is what's in place today. If we received a conditional use application or a site plan with the current regulations, this is what we would be considering it up against. Those are building heights that range from 30 feet to 110 feet for institutional uses. We have a total height right now our maximum height and the big bend overlay of 67 feet with 15 feet of overruns that would be an elevator shaft or HVAC on top of a building. That height restriction is limited to 50 feet if you're within 150 feet of a residential property so if you're near the edges. Then at that particular point in time, there's a blue line that's shown here. 50 feet would be your max. As far as the setbacks are concerned, currently on the north end of the property, there's a 5 to 15 foot setback. That's being extended here, 10 feet to 90 feet. That 10 feet would have to be an unlit field up here in the Fontbonne area. Otherwise, if you had a lit field, it would need to be set back 90 feet. on the south side right now it's a five foot to a 15 foot setback that's been increased to 80 feet so along this area of high point and then tuscany you can see that 80 foot setback on the east side of the property which is adjacent to concordia it's currently 30 to 50 feet it's 10 or 50 feet depending on where you are on that line uh and the building height but Again, it's up against the institutional use rather than residential property. And then on the west side of the property, it's 140 feet as far as that setback is concerned. And that's coming from Big Bend there. And the idea, of course, is to preserve the trees in that particular area. We'll talk about transition zones in just a minute. So I do wanna point out though, that that buildable area does not include any of these areas that are in red up along the residential properties here at Hillcrest, down here at the High Point neighborhood or Tuscany. And you can see the significant buffering that's in place along Big Bend. As far as those playing surfaces, Again, we put this provision in here that allows surfaces on top of a below-grade structure. We show the grade plane here that we use to measure that. So that's the grade plane. They could only have 12 feet above that level with a plain surface on top. Anything taller would not be allowed. So plain surfaces without lights are allowed to be 10 feet from the northern boundary. And again, that's that pocket here next to Fontbonne. If a plain surface were to go there in this particular area here inside of the blue and orange lines, we would have a restriction in place that would not allow any kind of lighting. Those transition zones, it's a new concept. We don't have it anywhere else in our zoning code, but we've written those specifically for this particular use, recognizing that we want that separation and that protection for the neighborhoods. It provides a landscape buffer between the institutional use and adjoining areas. Must be free of buildings, parking lots, and garages. So you can cross through it, but you can't actually build anything in it. It requires year-round screening accomplished with landscaping. or a combination of landscaping fences and walls on the north side of the property. We have a 90 foot transition zone here. It's actually much deeper, as you can see in this particular section. We've matched that tree preservation area that so you can see that it's actually much much deeper through this section on the south side it's a 90 foot transition zone that's required along high point and when you get along tuscany you can see that its event again much greater due to the tree protection area on the east side of the property it's um 210 feet and then the west side we got 140 feet for those transition zones Canopy coverage is what we're using to regulate tree preservation on the site. So the overlays utilize tree canopy coverage rather than caliper inches, like we typically do. Caliper inch is the diameter of the tree that's measured basically at your chest height if you were standing next to it. And so it does not have a connection to the type of tree or the maximum growth size of the tree. What it results in a lot of times if you start to require a lot of little trees everywhere is that none of them actually grow to full maturity where they provide a nice big canopy. So what we want to do is ensure that the trees that are planted are going to result and a large canopy coverage on the site. So we've evaluated the existing canopy coverage compared to the development pattern likely to support the primary uses of each district. So again, trying to make sure that if trees are coming down, trees are going back in, but they're not little bitty trees all over the place. They eventually grow into large trees with healthy canopies. Those tree requirements, you can see here again existing we would use caliper inches that are removed. In this particular scenario, we go to within the overlay that canopy coverage requirement, which is a minimum of 30% of the site and 80% of that canopy has to be deciduous. And then additionally we have a requirement that at least 33% be native and require a mix of species on the site. So you don't want all one species, for instance, that they were all ash trees that were planted there and you get an emerald ash borer, you lose all the trees on the site. That diversity is important. And we've also established those tree growth areas that are protected from excessive regrading, tree removal or construction activity. And those are delineated again up in these corners and along Big Bend. So the trees that are in that area will need to remain in that area. This is a transition zone down below. There is an area of utility work that would need to happen down here. So it's a little bit outside of those tree protection areas, but largely all of these trees that are shown here within the aerial photo would need to remain on the site. Graining and drainage on the site, they would have to have a terracing plan that's required for any large scale regrading. They can't go in and just flatten the entire site. They cannot create one elevation across the entire district. They can have walls that basically step to create that difference in grade. a 15 feet or more, but again, can't grade it all to a flat site. We're recognizing here that there is significant contours, significant gray changes on the site and we want to preserve that as much as possible. The max wall height is 10 feet when facing residential. So you won't just have a giant retaining wall along those residential properties and they cannot increase the amount of stormwater exiting the site from the pre-construction conditions. So as site plans come in, The engineers will have to verify exactly how much stormwater is leaving the site currently, and they would not be able to exceed that amount as they go forward and develop. As far as lighting standards, we would require dark sky outdoor sports lighting certification. The lights for the playing fields would be permitted from 7 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. The only exception would be, and these are NCAA rules, if you had an inning underway before 10 o'clock, that inning can actually go past 10 o'clock and conclude. There is a maximum horizontal light level at property lines, which is half a foot candle. That's equivalent to a full moon. This is going to require that they have their lights facing downwards so they're keeping that light on their site so it's not spilling over into adjacent properties. The maximum height of field lighting is 80 feet. We've talked about this quite a bit. Sounds like it's really high. It is high. But the idea is that the light shines straight down. If you have shorter light standards, the light tends to shine outward. And that's where you get the light trespass onto adjacent properties. So as the lights go up, the light standards themselves, the light shines down on the field that doesn't project out and off of the property. The maximum height of parking lot and roadway lighting would be 20 feet, and we would require what's called a photometric plan. So they would have to show us every light on the property, the spillover from that light, if there is any, show what those levels are, and we would make sure that all of them are compliant with that requirement here that's half a foot candle at those property lines. To give you an idea of what dark sky fields look like, we have a couple of photos here. Here's a dark sky field looking at it from the outside. You can see that these light standards are taller. They're shining straight down. The field is lit, but it's dark all around. And you can see that illustrated in this photo as well. It's dark along the edges. The field is well lit. And this would be compliant. They'll have to provide, again, diagrams that show that all the glare is being contained here and that the lights are shining down on the fields themselves. As far as noise, we recognize that our current ordinance allows outdoor games and music from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. That's something that wouldn't be acceptable next to these residential properties. So we've proposed that outdoor games and music allowed would be allowed from 7 a.m. To 9 30 p.m. The exception again would be consistent with the NCAA rules that that's the ending that the ending that's underway by 10 p.m. Could conclude. We would require primary and secondary speaker systems to be used depending on the activities. So primary system would be the PA and other things that are used for varsity level sports and activities. The secondary speaker system would be a lesser speaker system, not using the general PA that could be used for intramurals or practices or that sort of thing. They don't put out as much noise. We've kept the sound levels at 60 DBA at the residential property line for steady noise and 70 DBA for repetitive noise. And we shared some sound information in the past that was collected at those property lines. So this is in keeping with what we hear in those areas. And then finally an acoustical study would be required at the time of site plan review. So an engineer would actually have to seal and certify those documents, those plans to show the speaker system, the orientation of the speakers so that we could ensure at that point in time, that those decibel levels would not be exceeded. We have parking lot design standards. So again, one canopy tree, I mentioned this before for every 15 spaces on the site, they could use solar panels in lieu of the tree requirements. And we also encourage the use of permeable pavers for parking spaces. We would also require a parking study for every field or every building that's built on the site to make sure that parking is adequate. As far as the layout tests, we've posted these on engageclayton.com. I know that a lot of you have seen these. Basically, no facilities could be placed within the red areas on the site. So you can see again, the significant buffers along Big Bend. It's really hard to see probably on that screen, but we've got all these little dots in here. That's actually a survey that shows all the trees on the property, but you can see exactly how those edges would be preserved and how much of a buffer you have against those or adjacent to those residential neighborhoods. They cannot use those red areas to regrade the site either. So these are going to be largely undisturbed and planted. Regulations direct activity to the interior of the district or along the property line shared with the institutional uses. So what we really want to do is try to push as much as possible the lit fields to the center of the site or over towards Concordia, keeping unlit fields or buildings adjacent to the residential properties so the noise and light concerns that residents have could be alleviated with some additional distance and buffering measures. We have the addition of parking, circulation and drainage areas that are further going to limit the ability to construct additional facilities. So you can see once you have those tree protection areas and the transition zones in place and you start putting fields on the site, you put parking on the site, those types of things, you're really out of room and limited as far as the number of facilities that could be placed there. And then finally, site plan review requirements, as I stated before, will allow for review of the construction details and projects. So they'll still have to go through that process. A few additional regulations. We have lot coverage restrictions, parking and loading, again, requiring a parking study, architectural guidelines, and then sustainability principles that are built in. So the next steps for Big Bend is to gather input tonight through the public hearing. And then the Board of Aldermen will have another meeting on November 26th, another public hearing. and that will again be at seven o'clock. And then quickly I'll go through South 40, which is the property at the corner of Forsyth and Big Bend. And so we have the primary uses that are listed there, very similar to what you see there on the site currently. So any grounds or buildings used for teaching, research facilities, administration, dormitories, residential halls, housing, those types of things that support university residential life. And you can see on the accessory uses, that's exactly what we have on this list. Again, there used to be an additional one, number 19, that was the Anything that might not be on the list that the plan commission might allow, we've taken that out completely. So just like with the big bend overlay, if it's not specifically on this list, it cannot happen. And again, we prevent the big events from being here and also limit the access of this property, the use of the property to WashU patrons. As far as housing density, it's not something that's defined in the municipal code right now. We've regulated that through the years with that CUP or conditional use process. The current density, not including the athletic fields. So if you look at the area outside of the purple but within the black, It's actually 94 beds per acre that we have there. The proposed density for the entire site that we have is 94 beds per acre. So with the athletic fields, if they were to move to the Concordia campus, west side of that campus, the big bend overlay, then dorms could go in here. And again, the ratio for the entire South 40 still could not exceed 94 beds per acre, so you would have additional beds, but the overall density, we're going to try to cap it, or we would cap at 94 there. Buildings and setbacks, you can see the existing regulations again for institutions 30 to 110 feet in building height, 67 feet would be the limit under the proposed South 40 regulations. And that's the height of the tallest building that's currently there. So if you look at the campus, the tallest structure that they have, that would be the limit going forward. On the north side of the property, the setbacks are currently 30 to 60 feet. 40 feet would be the standard under the overlay. On the south, you can see it's 30 to 60 feet, it would be 60 feet or 150 feet if a building was over 50 feet tall in the overlay. 30 to 50 feet on the east side of the property currently 40 feet would be the requirement, the overlay going up to 60 if a building was over 50 foot tall or 50 feet tall and then on the west side, 30 to 60 feet would be a 50 foot setback within the overlay district. Transition zones, again, this is new. It's not something that's currently in the ordinance. This area has to be free, again, of building and parking structures or parking lots and have the screening requirement. We would have on the north side no requirement for a transition zone, so that's along Forsyth and adjacent to the rest of the WashU campus. On the south side, 60 feet along Wydown. It would be 30 feet along the east side of the property, if not under common ownership. So currently, Washington University owns all of these properties. If that were to change and they were to sell those and they went into private hands, at that point in time, the transition zone would be required on the east side of property. And then on the west side of the property along Big Bend, there's no requirement for a transition zone. Additional requirements, as you can see here, relate to events, slot coverage, site access, grading and drainage, tree and landscape, lighting, noise, all of the things that we talked about in Big Bend. We have those for the South 40 regulations as well. And so the next steps on Big Bend, just like, or the South 40, just like the Big Bend site is to gather that community input here this evening and then hold an additional hearing on November 26th. And then the board will consider the overlays. And so that's it as far as my presentation this evening and the information I have.

Did you want to address the athletic uses as conditional? Sure. And whether or not we can just refuse to issue the CUP outright? Yeah,

happy to. So we've received a lot of questions to this point about why we would do an overlay versus a CUP and doesn't the CUP or the conditional use process offer more protection perhaps than the overlays do? So there have been a lot of questions that have been sent our way as it relates to conditional uses. So We have some answers to those questions that we've put together as professional staff and consulting with other professionals and legal staff as well. And so the first question I have on here is, are athletic fields and facilities available uses in the R2 zoning districts under the current zoning code? So does the ordinance currently allow these things to happen? The answer simply is yes. The ordinance does allow as conditional uses within the single family district, recreation facilities and recreation fields as conditional uses and also colleges and universities and accessory buildings and uses customarily incidental to permitted uses not involving the conduct of business those are conditional uses as well so again recreation facilities are clearly listed there as our uh colleges and universities and their accessory buildings within those r2 regulations There's ample case law around the country to establish that athletic fields and facilities are, at the very least, customarily incidental to colleges and universities and are indeed a normal, important part of those institutions' educational purpose. Another question that's come up quite a bit is since athletic fields uses are at since athletic uses are merely conditional as opposed to permitted. Can the city just refuse to issue a cup one is sought, the answer to that is no we can't just simply say no to an application for an athletic field. within this particular zoning district. These conditional uses have been available under the city's zoning regulations for many years. Having long ago made the policy choice that such uses are reasonable and conditionally available to property owners, the city cannot ignore its constitutional obligation to approve such usage If an applicant demonstrates compliance with the CUP standards through reasonable development and or operational conditions to remedy adverse impacts that are supported by competent and substantial evidence. So again, we can't just say no, we have to try to apply conditions to mitigate any potential nuisances on the site and those need to meet a reasonable standard. If the city cannot just reject a CUP application out of hand, can it just say no to an athletic use if it feels that the use at a given location would be inappropriate? The answer really is maybe, but the city's success in sustaining that choice to deny a CUP is intensely fact-specific and the city must bear the burden of establishing that its decision is supported by competent and substantial evidence. If the city imposes similar conditions in the course of acting administratively on a conditional use application, each one of the conditions may be challenged as to whether the city has presented competent and substantial evidence that the specific restriction is necessary to address specific potential adverse consequences that are shown by the evidence likely to occur. So what we're basically saying there is we have to give a... a fact-based reason for each one of the conditions, every one of the conditions that would be placed on that conditional use permit. So it's very, very fact specific at that point in time. And if you look at the criteria, we feel that in this particular case, it may be difficult to turn something down because it looks like reasonable conditions could or probably would in this particular case mitigate those nuisances. What about serious and depreciating effect criteria? Or what about the serious and depreciating affect that's mentioned in the ordinance? What about that criteria for a CUP? To deny an application that would be using that criteria, we must present factual evidence that granting the requested permit would have both serious effect and depreciating effect on surrounding property. So both of those things would need to be present. Serious effect and depreciating affect. Given the fact that recreational facilities and fields have been in use in residential areas of Clayton and the surrounding neighborhoods and other cities for many years without report of depreciation of value for the surrounding properties, meeting that evidentiary burden on the administrative review of denial of a CUP could be a significant challenge for the city. And then finally, can't all of the overlay restrictions just be placed on a conditional use permit as conditions of approval? As stated earlier, if we impose similar conditions, so conditions that are alike in the course of acting administratively on a CUP, each one of those conditions may be challenged as to whether or not we've presented the competent substantial evidence to support them. It would be difficult for the city to remedy an anticipated nuisance through one condition and then continue to add more conditions related to that faded nuisance. acting legislatively through the overlay process, which is what we're proposing this evening, these similar conditions would simply be viewed as characteristics of the use. So that's a pretty big difference between our legislative ability through passing an overlay versus our administrative reviewability, which is reacting to an application that would come into the city.

Thank you very much.

Happy to post these as well on Engage Clayton. So it could be reviewed.

Yes. Okay, great. Thank you for listening to all that. I know that a lot of you have heard some of this before, but I know there are some new faces here too that have not, so I appreciate the fact that we allow them to catch up and everybody be on the same page. At this point, I'm going to open the discussion, and what we normally do is to have comments or questions from the audience first, and then we will entertain any questions questions, et cetera, from our board afterwards. So I would again, just reiterate, be considerate of everybody here who may have something to say. So try to be concise. I know it's hard. And if you're just repeating something that's been said, I would encourage you to not do that because we know why you're here. So you don't need to repeat. Okay. Again, 90 minutes and it's eight o'clock so we can get started and just start popping up to the microphone and please make sure it's on. There's a little green, the button and the green light should be on and state your name and your address, please.

My name is Larry Mooney. I live at 6366 Widown Boulevard. I'm a proud homeowner and citizen of Clayton. I thank the mayor and the Board of Aldermen for their service to this community, and I recognize the great good that Washington University does for our community. But I ask that you vote against these overlay proposals. The Concordia overlay proposal is incompatible with the surrounding neighborhoods. The proposed uses will detract from the beauty of the adjacent neighborhoods. Washington University should be pursuing these major changes through the conditional use permit process, not overlay districts. Overlay districts do not restrict Washington University to uses compatible with the surrounding area. The conditional use permit process does. Further, the conditional use permit allows neighbors to understand exactly what will be built and what uses are proposed. The overlay process does nothing to allay the anxieties and fears of the neighboring homeowners. I understand that the city staff advocates for the use of these overlay districts, but I assure you that the homeowners and citizens of Clayton do not And if the goal is to have thoughtful comprehensive planning, why should the planning not include font bond the parcel between the two proposed overlay districts. Wouldn't it make sense for the city of Clayton and for Washington University to pause these separate overlay district proposals and allow for thoughtful, comprehensive planning of the area? I respectfully ask that you vote no.

Thank you. Okay, let's keep it rolling. Who wants to be next? What? Oh, there's one online. Okay, thank you.

I've got a question on Anne Martin. There's a CUP in effect already in the Concordia Woods. What are the setbacks of that CUP?

I've got a question on Ann Martin. There's a CUP in effect already in the Concordia Woods. What are the setbacks of that CUP?

Defer to my staff on that.

They're 200 feet, just so you know. Also... I don't remember what you called it, but when you're aggrieved about an action of the board, I'd like to protest the Board of Aldermen's review in that what they saw is not anything like the current proposal or whatever proposal we're on. They saw a traffic study that's wildly out of date that accounted for 650 people coming and going, not 2000. Could you go back to the it was the site conceptual plan showed two fields? Yeah, one of those, the one with two fields. Oh, that's convenient. See that one. The top drawing, whenever you're showing us an overlay, you're always showing us the married student housing on the bottom two. On the left one, where is the field house? On the left picture, where's the field house?

So these are just conceptual layouts. This has a small- Oh,

so there's no field house. Okay, look at the one on the right. Where's the field house? Is that like, am I not seeing it right? Is it three times bigger? And where are the five playing fields that were proposed in the October 7th letter from WashU? And possibly two field houses. I don't see any reference to that.

There's

three playing fields there. There could be five, right? And there is a tiny field house on the left, an enormous one on the right, and there could be two of them. I'm just saying I object to... uh those inaccurate things uh where it stands now and this is what are we on the 12th uh concordia washu already has suggested they want um any group of six of these new things whether it's uh five fields and one field house that aren't even shown or four fields two um uh two uh four plane fields and two field houses the numbers are off the charts um The passing of that whole thing with the plan commission is just, it's not acceptable. They didn't have access to any accurate or current plans or safety studies. Thank you.

All right. Would someone else like to speak? Oh, online. Yes, I'll go online. Sorry. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Johnson, we're getting you online to speak here.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay, my name's Kyle. I live at 8500 Maryland Avenue. I just was calling in because I wanted to express my support for the project. I believe that moving the fields to a place where... More dorms can be built will be beneficial to the university because I know many students are forced to live off campus, especially far from campus and areas where crime has been an issue. So I think for public safety, it would be a good idea to approve this plan. I yield my time.

Thank you. Next person.

Good evening. My name is Jay Kanzler. I live at 20 Southmore Drive. I have one quick question and then two quick comments. The first question is to the board. Does the board, do any members of the board have now or expect to have any relationship with Washington University that might create a conflict of interest in voting on this or that might create an appearance of impropriety because of that relationship. And then I'll make my two comments. The second one is, and again, I will reiterate what Judge Mooney said. Why are we doing this piecemeal? We have the left and the right, and we have this whole swath in the center. There's no hurry, right? Soccer games will go on. Softball games will go on let's do this in one kind of comprehensive approach. And then finally, in the kind of casual conversations that have been going on in the neighborhoods and otherwise, some of the aldermen and some of the people said, well, if we don't do this, WashU will sue us. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. But that's not how we should govern, worrying about that. This is an area, the Concordia part is zoned residential. WashU knew that. They have no legal right to come into a residential area and say, I want to now build non-residential structures. There are lots of things they can do with that property. Concordia did lots of things. They had married student housing that was consistent with a residential district. They have no right right now. They will not win a lawsuit. But if we implement the overlay districts right now, that establishes the right. OK, that rubber stamps what they want to do. And then, yes, WashU will be able to sue the city of St. Louis if we don't give them what they want. And we're going to hand that to them in opposite, you know, when everybody here, everybody in the community around there is in opposition to it. Doesn't make sense. Thank you. Thank you.

I know I said it wasn't going to respond that much. I just want to clarify, you did ask a question. Does anyone on the board have a conflict of interest with regard to Washington University? And the answer to that is no. We have one member who has had, you know, relationship with the university and I'll let him address that very briefly.

So I am one of, I think, 75 practicing attorneys or retired attorneys who are not on the faculty of Washington University, but do on occasion, in my case, once a year. It is now one week a year, teach classes online. My remuneration in 1970, this past year, was $1,800 for my one-week class. I am not teaching any classes in the upcoming year. And it's very clear to me, although I will say I am a proud graduate of Washington University, that I have no conflict. My service over 50 years has been always to the city of Clayton and the Clayton School District. And I hardly think my one week this year of teaching a class would constitute in any way an economic impact on my vote. And I've been elected to serve the citizens of Clayton, and I would not consider recusing myself, and I will not.

very good thank you and then i just want to point out one other quick thing um you stated that this is a residential zoning it is r2 and i'm going to have the city manager tell us again the definition of r2 yeah

so as the mayor said it is zoned r2 which is single family residential but within that single family residential district there are a number of uses that are contained within the zoning code both permitted and conditional that aren't residential in nature And again, the recreational fields, as I mentioned, being one of those, as well as universities and associated uses.

Thank you. So that is included. All right. Next, please.

Jonathan Katz, 3 Tuscany Park. So I have a very technical suggestion to make about the proposed overlay district, supposing you adopt it, which I fear the odds are you will. 60 DBA sound at the property line is really quite intrusive. And of course, the property line extends quite large and abuts many residential neighborhoods. So I think you should change that to 50 dBA, which from my knowledge as a physicist is a much more tolerable level of acoustic noise.

Thank you. And I'll call upon you when we start looking at leaf blowers. Okay. Thank you. Next person, please, if there is someone.

Joan Downey, 9 Tuscany Park. The overlay district requires the citizens of Clayton to predict every permutation of its immediate and future fantasy use. Therefore, I ask that you add to the prohibited list any use for Division 1 and Division 2 athletics. Thank you.

Just to say too, when you were offering the suggestions, I mean, I think you can see we're all sort of furiously taking notes. So we do plan to try to incorporate tonight more suggestions if there are some that we can do. We're definitely listening for that. So I thank you for that. Anyone next?

Good evening. My name is Jean Cowan. I live at 1 Dartford Avenue. I spoke at the last meeting. I'm hoping I can be less emotional tonight. I've learned a lot over the last four, five, six weeks. My house bumps directly to Concordia as well as to Fontbonne. I wanted to come out here again tonight to just reiterate, I second everything Judge Moody said. I remain completely opposed to the overlay. I'm entirely against having any, I think someone said, it might have been that gentleman, a athletic complex. I've been a resident of Clayton for 32 years. I purchased my home 17 years ago And I understand it's an R2 district, and we keep reiterating over and over that they can have this athletic use. But when I purchased it, it is a residential area. There's a couple little fields. There's a tennis court. I'm fine for them to do exactly what there is right now. But the fields, I believe, are inconsistent and incompatible with the area. and must be stopped by our elected officials. Like I said, I've lived in Clayton for 32 years, and until now, I've never had any concerns that my city officials would be doing something so detrimental to its taxpaying residents and to my quality of life. As a minimum, my final comment is that I think that the Board of Aldermen should definitely put a pause on this. What is going on with bond? Why are we doing this piecemeal? We need to take a big picture and look at it as a whole instead of just blanketly approving this overlay. Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the board. My name is Bill Remus. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Cape Sokol. I'm here representing Marilyn Edison. She's the owner of 30 Southmore. I'll try to be brief. Her concerns are obviously very, very similar to the concerns that have been expressed this evening by others along the lines of the impact of the change in character of the neighborhood proposed. She also has some unique concerns given the fact that her house, while it is in the Southmore subdivision, its access is only on to Big Bend directly. And she was right across from the Big Bend overlay, or what would be the Big Bend overlay. This creates problems for her primarily, I think, with respect to the impact on traffic and her ability to get onto and off of Big Bend as traffic increases during events, or just... based on whatever is going on as traffic stacks from what we understand would be the Oak Knoll light, which would be installed, not the Southmore light, which obviously we're very hopeful that that's the way this goes if that's in fact what happens. But there's also concerns about lighting visibility, noise visibility, construction disruptions. Trying to make sure I'm not missing anything else. changes in grade, the effect or the ability of the 100 foot proposed buffer to actually serve as a buffer, an effective buffer from whatever might be going on. And she certainly would appreciate some attention being paid to the impact of all of these things and all of these changes that are being proposed and really, really adversely impacting a home which is right there facing facing the proposed development.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I'm John Hutkin.

I

want to put my inspiration hat on here, so hopefully this can be heard. There's a bigger picture in that my sense is there's a lot of distrust here because there's nothing shown. All this is blue sky. There's pictures of, oh, that's not really what we're going to do. We don't know what we're going and to take away the CUP has guardrails on it. I know I've heard it was spoken about what you can do and can't do. Well, I'm in the business of that. And I've talked to five different attorneys in four different law firms. And the CUP is a very effective way. And I just want to say this. I am in favor of helping Washington U. I want to support Washington U. It's a major piece of this whole community. But The density that they want to put of all the fields in one place, in that place, is a very difficult situation. It may not be, and I don't think it's necessarily to do that much, compatible with the neighborhoods, and is it compatible with the comprehensive plan? So I think that... Keeping the CUP in place and working on it when it's happening in time and space. Because two years from now or three years from now, I don't know what it's going to look like or what they're going to be asking for. I think all this good work that's been done and trying to put restrictions on it. That could be a base in which this whole thing, so that doesn't go to waste, but the CUP needs to stay in place. It would be taking away our rights. And I think that's underlying a feeling of mistrust. So I don't see to, I put this whole thing on pause, this pause for inspiration and and really take a look at maintaining that because they don't even know when they need it. Why do they even need to get this passed right now? Since there's a claim, we don't know when and we don't know what. But we've got these pictures up here where the CUP lets everybody know exactly what's going to happen. And we don't have that. And there seems to be an absolute refusal to do that. And then the CUP would get everybody on the same page and there could be collaboration between the residents and Washington U. Right now, it feels that when anyone thinks of all these things that they're gonna do, how they're gonna protect you, it's all about protection. I keep hearing that we'll be protected by a CUP. That's what it's supposed to do. And I think it's capable of doing from the legal advice that I've received. You talk about all these things are going to promise attendance, sound, water issues, traffic. I know everybody here probably is in good intention and they would be there, but when they're going to do that, is everybody going to be here and have that same enthusiasm to protect? I noticed the police are here. Do we call the police when they don't do these things? Yes. We come in, how is that even handled? If let's say they break the rules, how is that going to be done? I know as in one of our properties, we had a national company and they had rules and our option was they had to leave. After they did it five times, they parked five times the parking so they had to leave and they did. So I just feel that the major focus is we keep our CUP in place and Washington U will have every opportunity to present exactly what they wanna do and when they wanna do it.

Thank you. We have somebody that's been raising their hand online, so I'm gonna let them go and then you can be next or whoever. Okay. Yes. Thank you very much.

My name is Ben Uchitel. I'll be very brief. I've studied this, and it seems to me on balance the overlay use is a better purpose and a better procedure for what we'll be doing in the days, months, and years ahead with respect to Washington University. So I support that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is David Edison. I'm from 30 Southmore. And at the risk of getting in trouble with the principal, I would like to repeat what other people have said. I do believe that we are doing this piecemeal and I do believe that you need to hear that as many times as possible. And I'm not going to apologize for that. What I am here to say, to point out how, as an indicator of how poorly this fits into our surrounding neighborhoods. Currently, the speed limit by my house, 30 Southmore, is 35 because if it were 30, the police of Clayton say they cannot enforce it. Well, what are they going to be able to do when we bring in 2,000 screaming sports fans? Do you think they will have the resources? Are you planning on bulking them up? What are you going to be doing to address the fact that the police already can't control our neighborhood? They already can't control their streets by their own admission. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Bronco Marusic and my wife and I, Gina, we reside at 2 Tuscany Park. We are on the southern border of the proposed overlay district. I am a surrounding use. I have in Tuscany Park, I have 11 other neighbors besides myself. Eight of those neighbors have lived there over 20 years. I have three neighbors that have lived there over 30 years. We have never, ever considered that we would have college athletic facilities in our backyard. And My point is there's so much difference here between what every resident comes up here and says, and what we believe the conditional use process provides for people like me, which are a surrounding use, which is not there for the overlay district. How is it that we're so apart? Because when I talk to every board of aldermen, I get the same sort of sense that we're wrong and you're right. I hope that's wrong. I hope that there's at least enough time to pause, step back and say, okay, we've got some legal issues here. We've got some more issues to look at in relation to the full scheme plan. But obviously there's some pretty intelligent people before me who came up and said some great things related to the CUP process. And I echo all that as well. Thank you.

Other comments?

Look, mom, I'm on TV. All right. First, I want to start, you got to lighten it up a little bit. Thank you guys. You've been kind of- Don't forget to say your name. Oh, sorry, Mayor. Andrew Lieberman, number one Southmoor. You may know my wife, Angela. She's a real firecracker on Facebook. We love her. Thank you. So a couple of things and some observations. Number one, during the sales pitch from Mr. David Gipson, we didn't hear anything about the traffic study. And the lady who was silenced, you guys didn't want her to present. She lived in the neighborhood 70 plus years. That's just disrespectful. And you should be ashamed of yourself. So during the sales pitch, we didn't hear anything about traffic study or didn't elaborate on it. And it's because it's not a comprehensive plan. We have a lot of smart people at WashU. I mean, I'm even wearing a sweatshirt because we love WashU. WashU in St. Louis for St. Louis. There have been, back to the traffic study. The reason I bring that up is because you guys are gonna protect us. You're gonna vote with your conscience and you're gonna do what's right. And I believe that. I got to meet a lot of great people and have conversations with people that probably should recuse himself, but that's irrelevant. I think Gary's a good guy. I think he probably does have our best interests at heart. But I think what we need to do is step back and maybe pause for some inspiration Because in that failing traffic study on Big Bend, which somehow it just like losses over almost like the wool being pulled over our eyes, telling us that a overlay is better than a cup. An observation I made during the... The time since the last meeting when the planning committee got together and just unanimously voted for this to send it to you guys, after hearing from probably 60 pissed off residents that pay taxes, I noticed the next night there was an accident on Big Bend. Okay, there's another one on the 22nd. There was one on the 26th. I believe there was one on the 4th and there was a car flipped over tonight. OK, so I have young children. I care. And I think you should, too. During the sales pitch, ironically, the Red Cross was calling. I give blood. Right. If you guys vote for this, you should probably also sponsor some blood drives because this is not a safe area. And the one thing I brought up. One of the things that the at the Clayton Center of Clayton. was with Mr. David Gipson, egress ingress. And oh, well, no, that's a county. The county controls Big Bend. Well, if you do something that's dangerous and make this dangerous for our children and our community, it's not Big Bend or the St. Louis County. It's the city of Clayton. And I realize you're done in spring and you can't run. So it doesn't really matter to you maybe. I'd like to believe you live here and you want to do what's right. I another observation tonight notice when Concordia wanted to do their, their living arrangement so that to pave the way for this. It was a conditional use permit. I didn't hear anybody object because we're protected by that. Okay. And I don't know. I don't know why an overlay loosey goosey plan that keeps there's where there's scope creep and it changes. how that helps, okay? So that's another thing. And unintended consequence, right? When there are construction projects like this, like there was at Wash U, people driving down Skinker or riding down Skinker on their bikes, they fall off, break a clavicle or whatever because there's mud in the road, there are unintended consequences. When you guys vote for this or hopefully against it, the overlay project, there are unintended consequences. And if something happens after this, like the pedestrian getting struck near Glenridge just on Friday, I mean, I think we're opening ourselves up to having to step back and think, God, I probably should not have voted against it because Big Bend is already too dangerous. And so I'm not against coming up with a plan where we get together with WashU and come up with something and think, okay, PonPon's there, but they just kind of dismissed us when we brought that up. And so as a taxpayer, the relationship between WashU, they do a lot of great things. They've got a lot of smart people. They cure cancer. They do amazing things. But I look at WashU and the relationship we have with WashU almost like that, like with my kids. I love my kids. I Love WashU. My kids don't pay the bills. Taxpayers do, right? But we still love them. And sometimes you have to tell your children no. So it's really that simple. It's all about doing what's right. And I've made some jokes and whatever, but I'm serious. I'm passionate about this. This affects me and will affect me every day. And who do we call? Who do we call when they've got a flooded basement? Are you going to come over with a shop vac mirror? everything's been overtaxed. The infrastructure is not ready. And when you start sawing down the trees, I guess we'll have plenty of firewood. I mean, that's good. And maybe those owls that we used to hear, maybe we won't hear them. But I want you to vote with your conscience. I want you to do what's right because some of you have aspirations to maybe run and become mayor. Oh, one other thing. We have hundreds of signed... petitions here. I don't know what we're going to do with them, but what I can say, and I think I even got to meet a few people. I ironically met his wife. She wouldn't sign it. He obviously didn't sign it, but that's fine. If anybody wants to sign it that hasn't, I've got them up here. Thank you for your time. I yield the rest of my time to Anne Chase Martin. Thank you. Thank you.

Look, mom, I'm on TV. All right. First, I want to start, you got to lighten it up a little bit. Thank you guys. You've been kind of- Don't forget to say your name. Oh, sorry, Mayor. Andrew Lieberman, number one Southmoor. You may know my wife, Angela. She's a real firecracker on Facebook. We love her. Thank you. So a couple of things and some observations. Number one, during the sales pitch from Mr. Gibson, we didn't hear anything about the traffic study. And the lady who was silenced, you guys didn't want her to present. She lived in the neighborhood 70 plus years. That's just disrespectful. And you should be ashamed of yourself. So during the sales pitch, we didn't hear anything about traffic study or didn't elaborate on it. And it's because it's not a comprehensive plan. We have a lot of smart people at WashU. I mean, I'm even wearing a sweatshirt because we love WashU. WashU in St. Louis for St. Louis. There have been, back to the traffic study. The reason I bring that up is because you guys are gonna protect us. You're gonna vote with your conscience and you're gonna do what's right. And I believe that. I got to meet a lot of great people and have conversations with people that probably should recuse himself, but that's irrelevant. I think Gary's a good guy. I think he probably does have our best interests at heart. But I think what we need to do is step back and maybe pause for some inspiration Because in that failing traffic study on Big Bend, which somehow it just like losses over almost like the wool being pulled over our eyes, telling us that a overlay is better than a cup. An observation I made during the... The time since the last meeting when the planning committee got together and just unanimously voted for this to send it to you guys, after hearing from probably 60 pissed off residents that pay taxes, I noticed the next night there was an accident on Big Bend. Okay, there's another one on the 22nd. There was one on the 26th. I believe there was one on the 4th and there was a car flipped over tonight. OK, so I have young children. I care. And I think you should, too. During the sales pitch, ironically, the Red Cross was calling. I give blood. Right. If you guys vote for this, you should probably also sponsor some blood drives because this is not a safe area. And the one thing I brought up. One of the things that the at the Clayton Center of Clayton. was with Mr. Gibson, egress ingress. And oh, well, no, that's a county. The county controls Big Bend. Well, if you do something that's dangerous and make this dangerous for our children and our community, it's not Big Bend or the St. Louis County. It's the city of Clayton. And I realize you're done in spring and you can't run. So it doesn't really matter to you maybe. I'd like to believe you live here and you want to do what's right. I another observation tonight notice when Concordia wanted to do their, their living arrangement so that to pave the way for this. It was a conditional use permit. I didn't hear anybody object because we're protected by that. Okay. And I don't know. I don't know why an overlay loosey goosey plan that keeps there's where there's scope creep and it changes. how that helps, okay? So that's another thing. And unintended consequence, right? When there are construction projects like this, like there was at Wash U, people driving down Skinker or riding down Skinker on their bikes, they fall off, break a clavicle or whatever because there's mud in the road, there are unintended consequences. When you guys vote for this or hopefully against it, the overlay project, there are unintended consequences. And if something happens after this, like the pedestrian getting struck near Glenridge just on Friday, I mean, I think we're opening ourselves up to having to step back and think, God, I probably should not have voted against it because Big Bend is already too dangerous. And so I'm not against coming up with a plan where we get together with WashU and come up with something and think, okay, PonPon's there, but they just kind of dismissed us when we brought that up. And so as a taxpayer, the relationship between WashU, they do a lot of great things. They've got a lot of smart people. They cure cancer. They do amazing things. But I look at WashU and the relationship we have with WashU almost like that, like with my kids. I love my kids. I Love WashU. My kids don't pay the bills. Taxpayers do, right? But we still love them. And sometimes you have to tell your children no. So it's really that simple. It's all about doing what's right. And I've made some jokes and whatever, but I'm serious. I'm passionate about this. This affects me and will affect me every day. And who do we call? Who do we call when they've got a flooded basement? Are you going to come over with a shop vac mirror? everything's been overtaxed. The infrastructure is not ready. And when you start sawing down the trees, I guess we'll have plenty of firewood. I mean, that's good. And maybe those owls that we used to hear, maybe we won't hear them. But I want you to vote with your conscience. I want you to do what's right because some of you have aspirations to maybe run and become mayor. Oh, one other thing. We have hundreds of signed... petitions here. I don't know what we're going to do with them, but what I can say, and I think I even got to meet a few people. I ironically met his wife. She wouldn't sign it. He obviously didn't sign it, but that's fine. If anybody wants to sign it that hasn't, I've got them up here. Thank you for your time. I yield the rest of my time to Anne Chase Martin. Thank you. Thank you.

Others who would like to speak?

My name's Marie Bone. I live at 28 Southmore Drive. And thank you to everyone and a particular shout out to Jeffrey, who spent a good bit of time with me over the weekend explaining the value of overlays versus CUPs. In my opinion, the current draft of the overlay is inadequate because it is not comprehensive. It does not include the font bond property. Because it does not include the thought bond property, it does not take a potential advantage of mitigating precisely some of the traffic on Big Bend, which is already horrible. and dangerous, and which could in fact, and which will in fact get much worse. Given the numbers that are presently in the overlay, the notion of dismissing 900 people simultaneously from events onto Big Ben primarily, is really a staggering thing to consider if you live across the street from it, or you live in a neighborhood along Big Bend, which relies on Big Bend to get anywhere. In addition, I believe that the volumes that are permitted in terms of number of fields, number of people are excessive. They will produce too many people too many cars, too much noise. And that while it may, Mr. David Gipson, it may at one point have had permitted 5,000. If you back up to the initial meetings, consider this, what the university talked about was replacing its intramural fields both of them a field house with showers etc and the possibility of an indoor court attached to that that was an intramural this is an intercollegiate athletic complex and they don't have i mean they're worlds apart so um I believe that the current draft fails to use the language we were given, balance the various community interests and needs. It fails to protect the public and private assets. It has already caused depreciation in value of homes. One of our neighbor's who was considering putting his house on the market has been told he has to disclose this as an impending detriment to his property in any offering of his home on the market. So I believe the best answer would be to defer, to improve the overlay and attend to that balance, that protection and to be comprehensive with the font bond property. Thank you. Thank you.

My name's Marie Bone. I live at 28 Southmore Drive. And thank you to everyone and a particular shout out to Jeffrey, who spent a good bit of time with me over the weekend explaining the value of overlays versus CUPs. In my opinion, the current draft of the overlay is inadequate because it is not comprehensive. It does not include the font bond property. Because it does not include the thought bond property, it does not take a potential advantage of mitigating precisely some of the traffic on Big Bend, which is already horrible. and dangerous, and which could in fact, and which will in fact get much worse. Given the numbers that are presently in the overlay, the notion of dismissing 900 people simultaneously from events onto Big Ben primarily, is really a staggering thing to consider if you live across the street from it, or you live in a neighborhood along Big Bend, which relies on Big Bend to get anywhere. In addition, I believe that the volumes that are permitted in terms of number of fields, number of people are excessive. They will produce too many people too many cars, too much noise. And that while it may, Mr. Gibson, it may at one point have had permitted 5,000. If you back up to the initial meetings, consider this, what the university talked about was replacing its intramural fields both of them a field house with showers etc and the possibility of an indoor court attached to that that was an intramural this is an intercollegiate athletic complex and they don't have i mean they're worlds apart so um I believe that the current draft fails to use the language we were given, balance the various community interests and needs. It fails to protect the public and private assets. It has already caused depreciation in value of homes. One of our neighbor's who was considering putting his house on the market has been told he has to disclose this as an impending detriment to his property in any offering of his home on the market. So I believe the best answer would be to defer, to improve the overlay and attend to that balance, that protection and to be comprehensive with the font bond property. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Josephine Weil. I'm here with my husband and grandson, Sammy, and we live at 3 Forest Ridge, and I think all of you know my position on this overlay. We feel that it's not a good deal. I want to tell a funny little story. I thought it was sort of funny anyway until I've changed the... the manor. Last Friday, I decided that that was the day I should run into a little dog store in Clayton and buy a fancy winter coat for Baxter, our dog. And in running in, I didn't notice that there's a step and I flew across the floor. I didn't fall or I would have broken a leg. I flew into a cabinet and I'm sitting there stunned and a pool of blood is coming all over me. When you hurt your face, it bleeds a lot. And suddenly I'm sitting there with this blood everywhere. And this man comes up and says, do you need any help? And I thought it was so great. I mean, here, yeah, I need help. I need some Kleenex. I need some paper towels to clean up this blood. He said, do you think I should call EMT? I said, that's probably a good idea. So I was taken to the trauma center at Barnes and tomorrow morning I'm being operated on. I'd be there at 530 with my shoulders broken, but that's okay. What I love about that story is that man didn't rush up with papers to have me sign saying, you won't sue us, et cetera. I'm not interested in suing them. It's a nice store, and it's just a family store in Clayton. And I think one of the problems here is that a lot of us feel like we want to keep a family approach to Clayton. And we feel that in our neighborhoods, we have that. And with Fontbonne as it is, we stroll across the grounds. We love the openness of the area. There are no fences. It's easy. We're all friends and we get along and we love being in that neighborhood. And I think WashU's approach is more corporate. And we love Wash U, don't get me wrong. I have two kids there right now, a niece and a nephew, and we've been very supportive of Wash U. But I think right here is not where we want Wash U. There are many places it could be. And this is really a beautiful residential area, and we'd like so much to keep it that way. I'm sorry, Michelle. But I think it's fair for everybody to disagree. I just hope that you all can hear our story as well as we're hearing yours.

Yes, thank you. We are definitely hearing us. Thank you and good luck with your shoulder.

My name is Pauline Kim, and I live at 97 Arundel in Hillcrest. And I want to thank the staff and the members of the board. I sort of got late coming to these meetings. I've learned a tremendous amount, and I appreciate everything that has been shared over this process. One of the things I've learned a lot about is the difference between the CUP and the overlay, and I know there's a difference of opinion about which would be more protective. And I don't really want to address that. I want to speak to the fact that the current draft that is being proposed of the overlay I think is not sufficiently protective. If the goal is to be protective, I don't think it's sufficiently protective. And once the overlay is in place, that will be the floor. WashU will be able to sort of do what's in there. And so I think it's really important to get those standards right. A number of us in Hillcrest put together a document with some proposed amendments. We were trying to be very concrete and engage directly with the proposal. And I think that there's a number of areas where I think that the overlay could be strengthened in terms of protecting the neighborhood interest while still dealing with wash use interest here. For example, not expanding to cultural events. keeping with athletic, go back to the original proposal that the city put forward of limiting it to four outdoor fields, re-examining the height of the retaining walls and how closely they can be spaced. I think all of these things would have a really significant impact and are worth looking at again more closely. We just got the most recent draft that is being proposed, I think at the very end of last week. Becky and who else? Oh yeah, Bridget were there over the weekend and very kindly talked us through it, but we have had very little time to react to the specifics in this proposal because it has been constantly changing. But I think a number of us still very strongly feel that there needs to be more amendments and it needs to be more protective before it is approved. So we hope you'll take the time to do that.

And I just want to say, we do have plenty of time to do that, that's why we divide this up into two sessions.

Okay, well my name is Angela Lieberman, I live at 1 Southmore. I got to say, you know, my I am right across the street from where this is going to be right across from font bond who could what could potentially be something else. And I got to say you know I've been calling alderman I've been reaching out, you know, posting things on the internet and looking up things on the internet. I really, there's really a lot of, there's been a lot of mistrust. There's a lot of distrust right now, mistrust with you guys and disrespect. I have to say this. I feel completely disrespected. We told you at these meetings we don't want this. The planning committee pushed this through. We talked to our aldermen. Our aldermen are saying, oh, we have to do this. We have to do this, and they're using fear tactics and gaslighting. I feel like I was gaslit on this. Well, what can we put in the overlay district that would make it okay? We're saying no to the overlay district. That's like giving them a blank Lego table and letting them put buildings on it. There's nothing on the plan. They don't have a plan yet. An overlay district gives them a blank canvas to make the plan up as they go along. If you can't say no to WashU now, you sure as hell won't be able to when you give them a blank Lego Let me talk about what some of the aldermen said. I was saying, let's do it. Let's keep the existing current CUP, which includes married housing. One of them said, I don't know. I haven't read the CUP, the current one.

Oh, cool.

Wow. You're making a decision on this. You're telling me the overlay district is right and you haven't read the current CUP. Another person said, I don' trust wash you. I kept hearing, what can we put into the overlay district that would make it okay? You know, that's not your job. You are not a marketing rep for WashU. We are telling you no to the overlay district. It's not your job to say what could we put in it. Just say no. Just wait. Pause. Say no to this one. Let WashU come back with something else that has an actual plan on it that we would be happy with and we would be content with. Let's see. There's nothing that you could put into this overlay district that would make it acceptable. We need to say no to this overlay district and have them come back with something else. And we don't need any fear tactics like, well, if we do that, then they will come back with something worse and we will lose control. That's not true. If anything, it sounds like you've lost control already because you can't say no. It just really seems like you can't say And we love WashU. They're pillars of the community, but we also have to have boundaries with them. And maybe some of you need to look in the mirror and practice saying no. I'm just saying, I want to say, you know, we're not opposed to new development. Just use the CUP. Yeah, use the existing cup. Residential is fine. This overlay is a terrible idea. I've also seen all the accidents. There's constant traffic. It's also by Y down, middle school. It's walked down there every day and you want to add 18 more people in another entrance on Big Bend? It's not okay. Not appropriate use of this stretch. Thank you.

Jeff Leonard, 8038 Davis. I don't have a horse in this race. I live on the other side of Clayton. I think there are a lot of pros and cons to this proposal for the overlay. But I just want to say one thing. There's been a lot of insinuation that there is ulterior motives going on and there is fear mongering and a sales pitch. I've worked with all these folks. I worked on the comprehensive plan for well over a year, kind of sat shoulder to shoulder with these folks and their motivations are above board. No one here. has got some motivation to hoodwink anybody. If anything, everybody bends over backwards to try to be as open and transparent and take the input. And I just would ask everybody to tone it down and let the process, the participatory process work itself out. These folks will listen and we'll come up with the right conclusion. So I just wanted to say thank you to everybody.

Okay.

hi my name is Carol need him, I live in tuscany park and when it first thank very much thank the staff and. The alderman and all of you here present for the care and the specificity of the work you have done on this Thank you very, very much really appreciate your meeting with us and. we've come a certain distance if the alderman approve the big bend overlay please protect clayton residents quiet enjoyment that's the term in real estate right us lawyers the quiet enjoyment by imposing reasonable requirements in the overlay this is our only chance to put in those requirements and i want to just conjure a moment we would never imagine that it would be a good idea for our neighbors, our next-door neighbors, to have music booming and loud parties every night of the week. And even if they cut off at 10 p.m., every night of the is too much. Normally when we have parties, you know, we tell the neighbors we're going to have an event and we invite them to come, but we don't have one every night of the some airbnb with a thousand people on the backyard you know booming noise um that's too much that is not appropriate so i urge i'm going to focus on noise section 410 980 and i'll send this in writing as well but Amplified electronic devices under A1 should be prohibited other than between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, all day Friday, all day Saturday. You can have sporting events. You can have music and announcements during varsity athletic competition and allow baseball and softball to, if an ending is underway by 5 p.m., to continue to completion. I suggest part four be amended to provide it's allowed between 9am and 5pm on Friday and Saturday only for varsity athletic level games not allowed at other days and times, certainly not allowed every night of the week. That is too much. Section 5 of 410.980, the maximum noise level shall be 35 dBA for steady state and 40 for impulse sound. I measured along the property line behind Tuscany Park, behind number four, and I have measurements of 32.5 dBA, 33.8 dBA, 40.5, 42.4, these were taken the afternoon of October 12th. That's the current quiet noise. You can literally hear owls hooting and birds chirping. You can hear birds chirping now. If you have a noise level permitted of 60 and 70, that's way, you can't hear birds chirping. That's vacuum cleaner sound, that's loud. And to have it permitted all the way until 10 p.m. is ridiculous. as a next-door neighbor, and even a person farther away. I mentioned earlier in a planning meeting that when the Oak Knoll music is going on, you can hear it all the way across to where the CBC football field is now. You can hear the music, except for the places where there's a building in between that stops the sound. But you can hear that music from Big Ben and Clayton Road all the way several blocks over of course we're going to be able to hear music and announcements um and i don't know if you um have heard those tornado announcements you know there was that one at what two in the morning recently or you know a storm warning and when they have it like you know there's a siren sure but then there's a garbled speaking you're you're attention is drawn to it. It's different from the white noise of traffic. Your attention is drawn to impulse sound, speaking sound, announcer sound. And when your attention is repeatedly drawn to the announcers of a game, that's disruptive. That's highly disruptive. So my suggestion is that we revise the standard to 35 dba for steady sound and 40 dba for impulse sound as the maximum at that property line that's currently what the noise level is on the measurement and that ought to be not exceeded in the overlay district thank you very much

My name is Shelby Shagrin. I live at 14 Southmore Drive and I've lived there over 40 years. I don't want to be repetitive, but I do want you to understand that I agree with everything that Judge Mooney said and for the reasons there is No reason that we can't pause this is like asking us, giving us a paintbrush and canvas and say approve the entire painting I think it's really incredibly important to pause and not vote for the overlay at this point in time, thank you. Hello.

I'm Jean Most. I live in Hillcrest at 95 Aberdeen. You know almost all of you what I'm going to say. I'm going to try to say it a little differently. I think that there is a really difficult question interpreting What is an appropriate use? What is a reasonable project to put in this very residential neighborhood? I'm sorry that historically institutions were allowed to be there. But the fact is, for whatever reasons, there's a huge disagreement. None of the residents who have been here consistently believe this is an appropriate use of that property. Instead of dealing with that question of who is to decide what's a reasonable use, I'm looking for your quotable zoning code or to try to interpret what's not compatible which we think it's not compatible. I would like you to think as our neighbors and fellow citizens What is the impact of this project? Forget about all that zoning language. What is the impact on our historic neighborhoods? My 100-year-old home this year, I have to do a lot to keep a 100-year-old home in good shape. I committed to being Clayton. I'm from New Jeffery Yorg. I'm here because my husband is hired at Wash U and is successfully running a department in the School of Medicine. A large part of his job is recruiting people. Wash U knows that people like us are invaluable to recruiting people. It's not an easy sell. When he brings people to dinner, And I adjoin them to say why it is that I've been able to be happy here for this long. It's because I had a responsive government, not because I felt distrust like I was being hoodwinked into something. There is something missing in this conversation. It's the impact on all of us. We know we're going to see it, hear it, and feel it. And I'm sorry to raise my voice again, but we know we're going see lights and the disruption of that terrain and the disruption of the tree canopy. We know that we are going to hear an unacceptable level of noise for hours that are far exceeding what they are now. We know it. It's not invisible to any of us. It's going to go on for hours and hours. I have taken it upon myself to walk over to the intramural fields, and when I was there, sometimes it's quiet and sometimes it's very, very noisy. We know we are going to feel an increase in hazardous and deleterious traffic. We are all concerned about it. If you're stuck on Big Bend, well, people are going to come down Y-Down. If you're stuck in Y-Down, they're going to take other routes through our neighborhoods. You might say, Darford can't have a pass-through. We already know trucks come through all the time. This is what goes on at our Hillcrest meetings. How can we control? We finally got speed bumps. I feel there's a disconnect between what's a compatible, reasonable use and what's the impact statement for all of us. And tonight, I want you to think about the impact carefully. Vote no because it's not ready. It's not going to be ready until we know what's going to happen. at the Fontbonne campus, which I am living even closer to, and a wide-down school district is there. Please vote no tonight. Thank you.

I'm Jean Most. I live in Hillcrest at 95 Aberdeen. You know almost all of you what I'm going to say. I'm going to try to say it a little differently. I think that there is a really difficult question interpreting What is an appropriate use? What is a reasonable project to put in this very residential neighborhood? I'm sorry that historically institutions were allowed to be there. But the fact is, for whatever reasons, there's a huge disagreement. None of the residents who have been here consistently believe this is an appropriate use of that property. Instead of dealing with that question of who is to decide what's a reasonable use, I'm looking for your quotable zoning code or to try to interpret what's not compatible which we think it's not compatible. I would like you to think as our neighbors and fellow citizens What is the impact of this project? Forget about all that zoning language. What is the impact on our historic neighborhoods? My 100-year-old home this year, I have to do a lot to keep a 100-year-old home in good shape. I committed to being Clayton. I'm from New York. I'm here because my husband is hired at Wash U and is successfully running a department in the School of Medicine. A large part of his job is recruiting people. Wash U knows that people like us are invaluable to recruiting people. It's not an easy sell. When he brings people to dinner, And I adjoin them to say why it is that I've been able to be happy here for this long. It's because I had a responsive government, not because I felt distrust like I was being hoodwinked into something. There is something missing in this conversation. It's the impact on all of us. We know we're going to see it, hear it, and feel it. And I'm sorry to raise my voice again, but we know we're going see lights and the disruption of that terrain and the disruption of the tree canopy. We know that we are going to hear an unacceptable level of noise for hours that are far exceeding what they are now. We know it. It's not invisible to any of us. It's going to go on for hours and hours. I have taken it upon myself to walk over to the intramural fields, and when I was there, sometimes it's quiet and sometimes it's very, very noisy. We know we are going to feel an increase in hazardous and deleterious traffic. We are all concerned about it. If you're stuck on Big Bend, well, people are going to come down Y-Down. If you're stuck in Y-Down, they're going to take other routes through our neighborhoods. You might say, Darford can't have a pass-through. We already know trucks come through all the time. This is what goes on at our Hillcrest meetings. How can we control? We finally got speed bumps. I feel there's a disconnect between what's a compatible, reasonable use and what's the impact statement for all of us. And tonight, I want you to think about the impact carefully. Vote no because it's not ready. It's not going to be ready until we know what's going to happen. at the Fontbonne campus, which I am living even closer to, and a wide-down school district is there. Please vote no tonight. Thank you.

My name is Tommy Castellano, and I'm a current seventh grader at White Owl Middle School. I live in the DeMond neighborhood, specifically 6461 Zambonita Avenue. I'm here to share my thoughts about colleges being welcoming neighbors. Our house is next to Concordia Seminary. The seminary is a very welcoming neighbor. They leave their grounds open to the public. My friends and I can play soccer on their fields. I can walk my dog. They even let my dog swim in their fountains. We love living next to the seminary and hope they stay for a very long time. My friends and I can also play soccer on the Wash U field at CBC and are often told to leave the property. We aren't doing anything wrong, and we're just playing soccer when the field is not in use, but we are still told to leave. We would love it if Wash U was as welcoming to the community as Concordia is. I also often drive with my mom over to the Ladue Fifth Grade Center to play soccer. Those fields are open to the public and the public can use their tennis courts. It's a great experience and we would love if WashU would take them as an example for what it's like for fields to be built for our community. We hope that the residents can use and enjoy whatever fields or sports complexes are to be built in the future. They won't be gated off and locked and the community won't be told to leave. If WashU could create a plan that also includes the community, I think we would all be happier. Concordia fits with our neighborhood and Concordia families can use the fields and the parks to play. to have WashU gate everything off, build something that matches nothing around it and keep everyone from using it as equally as we invite them to use our spaces does not feel like being a good neighbor. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Susan Furtick and I'm at 7 Dartford Avenue. And as many of you can imagine, I feel a bit in a panic because I feel like I'm about to be surrounded by WashU. And that was not at all what I intended, imagined, ever dreamed of when we moved here over seven years ago. I do want to take a step back and thank all of you, because I know you guys have been putting in loads of time and energy and your own heart and soul into all of this. And I know it, and I appreciate it. I just, I really want you to feel where we're coming from on this. And I want you to think about what is it that we are trying to create for Clayton for our future? What is the future we imagine? Because I was reading some of the things in the 2040 plan and it really doesn't feel like this, what we're doing here. And I feel like the plans... are inconsistent and incompatible, certainly with the life that I am living right now in my home. When I sit on my back porch and I do hear the birds, I hear bugs. At nighttime, I hear owls and I actually hoot back to them because the guy that works at Fontbonne's library or used to, he taught me how to call back to the owls and then they call back to me And that's not going to continue with this. I just, I can't get the point across enough. Please think about it. Think about the future you can create with this decision. Is it really the Clayton that we are trying to create? It's not the Clayton I moved to. It's not the I imagine. It's not like I said this, I don't know how many months ago, the first time I came to one of these meetings, I never in a million years would have thought buying a house in Clayton that my property value would go down. And it will. It absolutely will. And I just, I can't imagine our elected officials are going to let that happen and not just let that happen, but kind of vote for it to happen. Please don't. I sent an email very, very late last night with all of the things that I, the restrictions and things that if this, please don't, but if it does happen. So I'm hoping that the email I sent last night will count and I don't have to repeat everything that I put in there. But what I would like to say is someone else has mentioned it, but Wash U in St. Louis for St. Louis, they do have choices and they do have options and they are in St. Louis and they are in the northeast part of their campus that they own and I'm sure they could own more there. It's flat and they could put all their fields there. They could do whatever they want there, but instead they want our space that is safe and quiet and residential and beautiful, because that is a better thing to market to their potential families for their students. What about us? What are we marketing to your residents, your taxpaying residents? And how are you marketing to future residents? I mean, truly think about what is about to happen to our community. Wash U has options. You guys have options. I beg of you to please think about this choice. What can we do to change this? Because this is not compatible with what we want. So I do want to ask you to please vote no on the overlay. I ask that you please do pause because like I said, I am surrounded by WashU potentially. I would like to see the big picture plan and not vote on things piecemeal. We need to see the big pictures here. And I feel you're about to make a really big decision that's going to change Clayton forever. And this is a really big deal. So please think about that and think about it from your residents perspective, not wash use perspective. Think about it from our perspective, which is your perspective also as residents.

Thank you.

Are there others that would like to speak? Lily, do you want to speak?

Lots of people have... I'm Lily Cannell-Katz from 3 Tuscany Park. Lots of people have raised lots of points with which I'm in complete agreement. I request that you, at the very least, pause this whole process. There are two things I'd like to bring up. One of them is that if this overlay passes, what we're going to have is... East of Big Bend, we're going to have a strip of Wash U all the way down, except for Tuscany Park, to Clayton Road, which is going to be Wash U, which is going cut off the rest of the Third Ward, the whole of the Third Ward from the rest of Clayton. and uh one of the i don't think that's a good thing and in fact what we have seen historically is that washoe is buying property buying property on foresight buying property in the neighborhood just south of foresight they're now uh coming down all the way down big bend and this It's kind of a problem. And it's more of a problem because WashU actually has dealt, in my opinion, very responsibly with various security issues that it has had to deal with, especially in the last year. But unfortunately, the only way you can handle these security issues is by having very impenetrable fences. which means that WashU is almost certainly in this whole development, if this goes forth, going to have to fence off the whole region. And that means that the Third Ward is even going to be even more cut off from the Second Ward and the Third Ward than it has ever been before. we, of course, understand that Concordia is private property. Nevertheless, everyone in Clayton has been in this end of town, has walked their dogs there, has the children who walk to school through the Concordia property. It's In spite of the fact that it is owned by an institution, it has allowed for easy movement back and forth. And that's going to go if you approve the project the way it is right now. And so I'm very worried about that. I think this separation of the third word from the rest of Clayton is not a good idea. Another thing is that I look at this process and I see, I understand the virtue of the overlay is that it's a legislative thing. It's a big long-term thing rather than something you have to come back to multiple meetings each time. But to me, that suggests that if you're doing something really big like that, it's like defining not R2 but something that could be R3 or R10 or something like that. And that seems like that shouldn't be a process that starts in reaction to someone's possible plan. That's a process that should start from thinking about your Clayton master plan. Your Clayton master plan is, what is your vision for Clayton? I'm suggesting it shouldn't be that the third ward is separate from the rest of the wards. But we have an idea about downtown Clayton as office. We have residential things sprinkled with neighborhood parks that our neighbors can easily access. And what this overlay does is instead of being a really well thought out, this is our plan, our vision for how we want Clayton to be. Instead, it's reacting to someone else. And that would be great, actually, in some sense, if you had someone who wants to build a house and you say, well, you know, a different type of design or something. But that's not it. This is now changing the whole character of a major part of the Third Ward. And therefore, I think it would really be worthwhile stepping back and saying, well, have we really thought of this in a strategic way, in the most deep strategic way? which I'm not at the moment quite convinced that you have, in spite of the fact that I appreciate the enormous amount of work you guys put in and the willingness of you to meet and meet again and explain the difference between CUPs and overlays and all of this stuff. Not easy. Finally, a few weeks ago, I had a cousin who had never been here across the pond who came to visit. And we sat in the backyard and she said, oh, it's so lovely. And we listened to the elves and the elves. And then we looked up and I said, look, there's some hawks. And most people in this room, I suspect, have seen me walk up and down Big Bend for decades, if you've been in our end of town at all. And so I've noticed the things that kind of work and the things that don't work. One of the things that doesn't work so well is actually the softball fields up by Forsyth. And there, what they have is the flat field with a parking structure underneath. And there's supposed to be some little plantings that sort of soften the look, but they don't really. Okay, but Clayton in its overlay plan says, well, we're going to soften looks. We're going to insist on plantings and so it will be nice. We're going insist on light standards, we're going insist on sound standards. But when it really comes down to it, you can have a very hard time enforcing those. As I understand it, the light, it's a $250 fine, maximum fine for a sound violation. And when things went wrong with the Fontbonne carve out for the parking lot and they planted little trees instead of big trees and you had to react later on and change your tree ordinance, it's not easy for you to get that enforcement right. And so I'm very worried about that. I see your good intentions, but this is the show me state. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lily.

My name is Rand Summer. I'm for Tuscan. You've heard from to Tuscany, three Tuscan and I'm for Tuscany. I was we're all being incorporated into the college campus. I think you need to redo those studies. I think that the sound study is fallacious. It was done out on Big Bend. Come to my yard. It's 20, what, 30, 32 decibels. I really don't want a vacuum cleaner on until 10 o'clock every night. I mean, you wouldn't either. Who would want that? So so what about the traffic study? Why don't you guys come out over to our house at 4 p.m. on during the weekday or 730 to 8? I mean, the traffic trying to get out of there is horrendous. And by the way, I've had one traffic accident. I totally told my car. It is not safe. You have a middle school right down the road from there. Think about this. You're going to change things forever. I think you should pause.

Oh, okay. Yes, we have somebody online. Just, and you've already spoke. Well, you can, but let them, yeah, have a turn. Okay, go ahead.

Yes, thank you. Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. This is Jerry Lauder. I live at 110 Arundel. And I do in Hillcrest, I do want to thank you for all your time and effort. I am speaking in opposition of the overlay and again hope you will all vote against it and in support of the existing CUP. And one of the main reasons is, well, I think, you know, a lot of the discussion of the overlay has focused on the restrictions of what can be on top in and of the district, but is really not focused as much on the infrastructure and the infrastructure deficits of the surrounding area and the property. For example, I know there's been a lot of talk at the planning committee meetings about the flooding that occurs in, just for example, the flooding that occurs at Tuscany Park. We also see that on the north end, and I've seen video of two different storms of the torrent of rain and water coming off the seminary property. And I think since you currently don't have plans from WashU about what's going to be developed within this overlay district, it's really hard for you and us, I think, to determine the impact on the existing infrastructure and what's that going to take. I think once this overlay district is passed, whose responsibility is it? You know, is it then whether it's the roads, whether it's the water runoff in the sewer systems. And I think if you had if you would pause and request require whatever the case may be to have, you know, formalized plans like they did with like the seminary did. And everybody could see what was going to be done and could anticipate the impact of what may occur to the to the infrastructure, I think it'd help you make a better decision about what can be done. The second thing is I just spoke with the real estate agent that sold us or helped us buy this house, been in the business over 20 years. And she said there would definitely be a 10% to 15% decrease in the property value of our home. And again, we live right... and particularly on homes adjacent to this property, this type of zoning. And so that's a huge concern for me, and I think it should be for you as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Will you allow me to have 30 seconds? Yes. Okay, so sorry, I forgot. So I moved to Clayton from University City. And so I had a lot of friends who lived in Ames Place. And I don't know about you, but if you're familiar, WashU put a paved sidewalk all the way through Ames Place to get so the kids could get to the loop and easily go back and forth. crime increased tremendously in Ames Place during that or since that because of all of the traffic of WashU students. I know they're great students, they're great, but they are kids and kids do things. And if you think about a thousand students coming through our neighborhood from the fields back to the school or wherever they're going, It's so often it's crimes of opportunity. They may not intend to do something, but it happens. And in addition to that, when we have more of these kids who are around 20 ish. I mean, we are also putting our young children at risk. Again, I'm not assuming WashU kids are terrible kids. They're not. But we are exposing our young kids who walk around freely and safely now at greater risk because there's youngish people going back and forth, back and forth. And it may not even be WashU students, but it's increased traffic. And that's something else we need to think about. And then the final little part is about the picture. You don't have to pull it up, but the drawing of the baseball and softball fields. So I am so opposed to those fields being right there because just looking at them, the shape of them, they are like a giant megaphone, the shape of but that's the noise they will be right into my house, right into our neighborhood. And I can tell you that since those fields were placed up at Forsyth and Big Bend, the noise has increased so much. We hear it all the time and it's increased greatly. And I'm extremely opposed to that. So I would like to say if there are those fields, which I hope there aren't those fields, how about no sound systems? None. How about that? While you can build their field somewhere else that allows the sound systems, we don't have to say yes to that, do we?

And we're getting close here it's about 20 after nine so in about 10 more minutes we're going to close down the comment section possible, so I think a lot of you have spoken, but are there any others that would like to address us on this matter.

I just have a question. I want to make sure I understand. Jeff Kirschman, 6464 Cecil, on behalf of Richard Waugh, is this hearing going to be continued into the next meeting?

Yes, it is.

Okay.

We will have a public hearing then. That's the main point. whether we close this tonight introduce a new one or it'll be

recessed

until

the 26th

okay it'll be recess that's the right word

yeah okay i'm gonna reserve my time until then if that's okay

okay well that's fine with us yes thank you

they don't want us to they want to make sure people are out of town

okay

we are

meeting every two weeks uh none of us want to meet uh right before thanksgiving but we're doing it because we

so

Okay, I think we take comments from the podium. So, Mr. Gershwin, do you have any other comments? I'm sorry.

Just the other question I was going to ask is could you give some consideration to continuing this to the week at the meeting after right before Thanksgiving?

We can give it consideration.

Thank you.

Okay, very good. All right. I think that closes down our public comment session then it looks like. I don't want to cut anyone off, but I don't see anybody else. Nobody online with their hands up? Okay. In that case, put my glasses back on i want to again thank everybody for the very thoughtful comments appreciate your um willingness to be here and communicate your thoughts to us i know it's very important to you we all know how important this is so we do not take those comments lightly and um and we will now just be considering some things among ourselves um We can recess the public hearing at this point, and then we can ask staff any questions or ask for any more information or suggest any changes to this ordinance that we'd like to after hearing this at that point. Okay. Sorry, maybe I wasn't close enough to the microphone. We are going to recess the public hearing now and we will have an opportunity for our board to ask questions of staff to suggest changes to the overlay that they have been thinking about and maybe have thought about since hearing the comments here tonight. And then we will, pursuant to what we've said before, we'll be having another discussion hearing on public hearing on this on the 26th or whichever date we decide to have it so

do we do we there was a request for a break yeah mayor i am very eager to share my thoughts and offer amendments that i hope will um address many concerns that the residents have raised and i would really appreciate a bathroom break

yeah so we'll have a We'll have a, is five minutes enough for you? It is for me. We can try. Okay. Go for it. We'll have a quick break and then we'll come back and do that. And we will hear from the ward one alders first. Okay. You're ready to, ready to go. And what I'd like to do is again, as I said, open this up for the board to discuss, have questions, suggest any changes they think of right now. And because a lot of you are ward one residents, I would really like to start with the ward one alders on this. And Becky Patel is our senior ward one alder woman. So we'll just, we'll start with her and her, I know she has suggestions.

Thanks very much, Michelle. I'd like to start by thanking all of the residents who've engaged with just a tremendous amount of time and energy over the last year and a half. Not just in the public meetings that David reminded us about in his presentation, but at Ward Coffees and like visits to our houses and like casual meetups on the street and informal meetups at the park and all of the things that we've done, walking the property and talking about it. I know that there is a real disconnect here and it deeply troubles me that folks feel that we are... like not acting in what we believe is the best interest of the community. And I just want you to know that I take it very seriously when folks say we don't feel protected because I don't wanna be in the position of telling you like, I know what's better for you. And so that is one of the reasons I have tried so hard to engage and be in discussion so that we can try to achieve some common understanding of what we're talking about here. because zoning is complicated. And many of you are used to the way that we did things for a really long time. And we have new staff in the city of Clayton who have phenomenal expertise in this area and are trying to lead us to a better way. And so I would like to briefly address some of the topics raised. And then I have 11 areas in which I will be proposing amendments. So I would just like to reiterate that a property owner or someone leasing property has a legal right to develop the uses under consideration under the existing base zoning at this site. The vehicle that is currently in place for doing that is a conditional use permit. We believe that the overlay, I believe as we have been presented and understand it from all of our professional consultation, is that an overlay provides a proactive legislative solution vehicle for us to put stricter guardrails in place at the beginning before specific plan submission in order to legislatively layer multiple mitigations to ensure we preserve the existing topography and character of the site as much as possible. The CUP process that many people know and love has three components, site plan review, architectural review, and approval of the use. we believe that we cannot prohibit this use. And so the CUP process will not provide protection that allows us to prevent an athletic use at the site. What the CUP does provide is site plan review and architectural review board, and those processes and all of their public hearings and all of that are included in the overlay. Everything that someone has to submit today to a CUP, they have to submit for a specific plan to be reviewed and approved under the overlay as it is drafted. They have to have new stormwater studies, new traffic studies, a new traffic study that will take into account the fact that the lesser of the property who is trying to change like establish a use there now has access over via font bond like that would go into a new traffic study when a specific plan is proposed so that we can take that into consideration when going through the details. Those are very real issues, stormwater and traffic, and our Plan Commission and Architectural Review Board are expert in reviewing it and dealing with those issues. And you will be notified via mail to your house just like you are today anytime there's a proposal like that within a certain distance of your home or your property. So I just want to be clear that if there is a different protection that you feel like you are getting today from the CUP, I would love to understand what that is, how you perceive that, so that we can consider how to incorporate that into the overlay. So I know you all know how to get a hold of me via email, so please do. With that, I want to go ahead and propose some amendments for consideration and discussion amongst the board. Because I do agree with some of the folks who spoke that while we are saying the overlay is designed to be protective, I don't think as it is drafted right now, it sufficiently protects the existing character and topography of the neighborhood. And so the very first amendment that I would suggest we consider is something that amends the purpose statement at the very beginning to include the goal of minimizing impact on and protecting the residential character of the surrounding neighborhoods. I also suggest that we amend to not allow Division I or Division II athletics. I suggest we also amend to remove an allowance for a venue with 500 permanent seats. I also suggest that reduce the maximum number for events of 900 to 600 and retain the cap of two of these events at any time. I also recommend that we strengthen the language around the events permit requirement. There is a statement in that section on getting an events permit that says not including university sponsored athletic related events, which I think is overly vague and provides potential for a gray area. So I would suggest that that be stricken from the language around the event's permit requirement. And I suggest that we reduce the total number of venues on the site from six to five and the total number of outdoor playing surfaces from five to four. I suggest we reduce the building height to 50 feet. Everything I can find on Google is that that is sufficient for a gymnasium. And so that's what I propose, that that would still allow a use similar to the one that we have heard the university might like to relocate from the old CBC. And that we further reduce the building height within 100 feet of the property line to 40 feet. So today those are 65 and 50, I think, and I'm suggesting 50 and 40. And that we further reduce the retaining wall height from 10 to eight feet on the perimeter of the property. And that we increase the depth of the like step between tiered retaining walls that we increase that from four to eight feet within the perimeter of the boundary. I also propose that we extend the transition zone on the south boundary to align with the existing tree protection area along the north side of Tuscany Park, and that we consider requiring a higher wall on the southern boundary We heard from the residents in Tuscany Park that the wall that they have between their neighborhood and Walgreens has actually significantly reduced the noise that those neighbors experience and hear from Walgreens. And so the neighbors on the northern boundary seemed, the southern border of the site, the northern side of Tuscany, seemed to have consensus about wanting that same sound protection on their side. The last thing I want to do is point out, some of you may or may not have known that we got a letter from Matt Barton at the Stainless Audubon Society. And he had a number of recommendations based on what he had heard, what the Audubon Society had heard about the plan and what they'd reviewed about it. And I'm very pleased to report that we do meet all of the recommendations that he proposed. And that's all I have.

Very good. I spoke with Matt today about that letter too, and he was really pleased to hear that we've incorporated so much of that already. And of course they want to work with whoever in the future on all the details. Absolutely. Okay. Other award... One Alderman, Rick, you have things to add.

I want to join Becky in expressing my thanks also to the city staff for all the time, energy and your expertise that you've put into this very thoughtful process. Certainly to our neighbors for committing their time, energy and thoughtful consideration in the process as well. I want to share some thoughts that I have, at least in terms of the kinds of things that are influencing my thinking so that you know where I'm coming from, based on all the things I've learned going through this process. We really even had any discussion about the South 40 overlay. And so I think that's largely because it's an area that's largely developed and we're not seeking any change in use. So there's not a lot of controversy that comes with that. But when we were talking about the overlay for a largely undeveloped site, with an intent to permit uses that don't already exist and are inconsistent with the adjacent uses, it's an entirely different situation even though the processes may be similar, how to contemplate them is much different. So some of my comments might echo some of Becky's here, but I believe that all landowners have the right to use their property consistent with the community's ordinances and regulations provided that it's consistent with the applicable zoning. That said there are times when a permissible use of the land may not be adequately constrained by the existing law to mitigate the adverse effects a proposed project might have on the adjoining properties or the infrastructure of our community. The potential use at this Big Bend overlay site is clearly one of those times. I recognize that our existing zoning for institutional uses is inconsistent with how these sites are actually used and have been developed. My interest in studying and supporting the Overlay District concept is to create stronger legal requirements and conditions that either recognize the existing use of a highly developed site like South 40 or create strong requirements and limitations for a largely undeveloped site like Big Bend. which I'm hoping the result is that there's greater expectations and assurances for all landowners, the owners of the subject sites, the owners of adjoining sites, and future owners of all sites as to what to expect. That said, I still have some concerns and questions about our process as it relates to the Big Bend overlay before I make a decision on how to vote. First with regard to timing and impact, I wonder have we adequately addressed the significant issues when we haven't been given a detailed site plan? Or saying it the other way, have we overreached with some requirements because we're contemplating development that might not even be feasible due to the unique factors of the site? are we doing things out of fear and then perhaps want to over-regulate something? So it goes either way. And so what I'm worrying about is that it may be premature. Regarding future development of the Big Bend site, does the overlay district provide a stronger zoning benefit to our neighbors than the current CUP process? We've had lots of discussion on this and it's clear we don't have consensus on that. Does the authority of the plan commission and ARB and the Board of Aldermen get meaningfully diluted by adopting these overlay districts? And if so, how? Does the creation of the overlay district somehow provide some kind of a pre-approval of site development that doesn't already exist today? And if so does that risk outweigh the benefit of these legal standards requirements and expectations that we have outlined in the overlay districts? So at the end of the day, my desire is to provide our residents and especially my constituents with the strongest and soundest legal protections that our city can afford them. It strikes me that passing an ordinance in the form of an overlay district provides a highly descriptive protections that don't currently exist and creates a very high bar that could bar any potential legal challenge that might arise in the future. That said, I have certainly heard loud and clear that many residents believe that the CUEP process is superior based on a belief that undesirable development could be stopped or severely constrained. And that may be true in some instances. However, my understanding is that our burden to constrain is much higher when contrasted with the overlay process. So in sum, the struggle here is that we don't have a site plan. I'm certainly not opposed to the idea of a site plan being brought forward and looking at a conditional use permit. I just worry that this is the time for us to consider the best protections we can offer to our residents. And I'm concerned that failure to do so, we may have some regrets down the road. um i want to join excuse me join becky in adding one more amendment out of her list of many amendments um perhaps you made this one and i just missed it um but um and that was i would like to see us um you know limit um amplified noise to just fridays and saturdays if you didn't already make that one and if you did i apologize

I actually meant to make one. How did I miss it? Oh, yeah, the noise that the start time for amplified noise match the current restriction for motor driven lawn equipment, which has a later start time on the weekends. That was that was an idea that I had.

Well, mine is to Friday's and Saturday's. So anyway, those are my comments.

Okay, very good. I think now what we typically do on any other topics is just go in order of seniority for questions and comments, if any. And so I think we'll start that way now. And usually I go last, which there's probably nothing left to add. But yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, again, and I appreciate everybody's comments tonight. I'll just say I think just in addition to the amendments that have already been offered. Um, what struck me is in a couple of people said it tonight is, um, I don't ever want to call this an athletic complex. I would like, you know, when WashU came to the city and said, um, that they wanted to get rid of the CBC site, um, Concordia said, you know, we don't want all this land. We want to move our, um, we want to move our housing closer to campus. Um, so there, and WashU wants to move the athletic fields closer to the undergraduate to the South 40. Um, You know, I think it became something where we were replacing what's at the CBC site. And also, I think in comments that WashU said to us in a discussion session about trying also to have some shared athletics use with Concordia, which I appreciate. They have tennis courts on their site, which will be, I guess, destroyed under this proposal. So I guess I would rather think about the amendments and creating this area for WashU as, again, more of a replacement for something that they're losing at the CBC site because they want to get rid of it. So thinking about how we can... make this adding a couple fields, they want to move the baseball and softball field, thinking about replacing the multi use field, potentially an indoor building, which they have at CBC, and potentially the tennis courts. But I want to get away from thinking about this as an athletic complex. And I think a lot of the amendments that we're proposing tonight, reducing the amount of attendees, certainly trying to reduce when events can occur, how late they can occur, I think could do a lot to just making this a group of fields for largely intramural athletics, except for, again, the baseball and softball fields. So I think one of the things too that I thought about was, and this was suggested I think in an email that came through to us, you know, under some of the accessory uses, I'm not sure why we ever need to have graduation exercises ever on this site. This is an athletic field area. So I'm not sure we need to have any sort of commencement, convocation or graduation exercises. It seems to me that they've done fine so far doing that all on the South 40, or on the South 40 and obviously their main Danforth campus. I'm also not sure why we need to have student and campus lectures, speakers, and other cultural events. Again, I support a student's desire to have intramural athletics on the site. And again, replacing what they've had at CBC, but I'm not sure why we need to have, you know, have an ability or a place where they can have campus lectures, speakers and other cultural events. There are plenty of places that they can have that on the Danforth campus. I'm trying to think where I think those were the big thing. That was the additional amendment that I thought of in addition to the ones that have already been proposed. And Susan, if you want to, I think I had a couple. That might be it for now. Thank you.

Don't hesitate to interrupt me. Of course, you all are organized and I've got notes everywhere. I appreciate the comments tonight and throughout this whole process. It certainly has pushed our thinking. I'm sorry, I can't hear it. It certainly has push our thinking and I do appreciate those of you who recognize the amount of heart and effort that we put in here and that we truly are your neighbors and we truly do care and we truly have been as transparent and as professional and um on your side we're all on the same side here and i think we sometimes forget that so i appreciate those of you who specifically said that and hopefully everybody does realize it i've spoken with a lot of you and i'll give a little bit of my back my thinking on it too the overlay district again as has been said and i'll try not to repeat a lot of it is that this is private property of and it's and it's being It's owned by and potentially being leased by very important community members. And we have certain rights and responsibilities as a city government to respect everybody who is a part of our community and to respect those property rights. Given that, the overlay district, as we've gone through it with our professional staff, who have been amazing through this whole process, it does appear that we do get more protections in getting the things that we all, and you all have told us, from sound, from density, all those different things, topography, if we put an overlay on the existing zoning as this development goes forward. And development is going to happen there. You have to realize that. What do we want and how do we best protect and enhance, not just protect but enhance our city? So the The things that have hit me is that it comes down to a lot of it is the use of the property. I appreciate very much what you said as well about it not being called an athletic complex. Because as I thought of this, when the zoning was put in place, I suspect that the city in enacting it was thinking of a Bacali campus with the dorms next to the field and the academic buildings. And WashU has certainly expanded beyond that with its national reputation and its excellence And Concordia as well has been such a wonderful neighbor in opening up its spaces for the entire community to use. But yeah, I don't, the athletic complex idea is not something we look forward to. And the amendments suggested by my fellow, all the persons all make a lot of sense in keeping it what I think serves everybody's needs and Clayton into the future and is consistent with our long-term comprehensive planning. the limiting of the playing fields to apply to five playing surfaces, reducing the height of the buildings. I had double-checked the height of the center of Clayton and that was, there's some confusion whether it's inside measurements or outside, I was given, but it was at 40 to 50 feet, so somewhere in there if we can, and that is tall enough for the basketball field and for the uses there, and so I would agree with that, that we reduce the heights of the building so that WashU can still meet its athletic needs, yet it won't be any taller than it needs to be. The capping, the seating, I think that Becky, you suggested not having two events at once, but limiting the number of people, same type of thing. The idea is to keep it so that the number of people coming to campus for the events is controlled at any given time. And so whether we limit it to one event at a time of 900 or you reduce the events, it doesn't matter. The point is with something in the overlay that limits it to maybe 900 to 1,000 spectators at a time or participants at a time coming to the campus. WashU has always been phenomenal and quite the model with sustainability efforts. And we do have those things in the overlay as well with the dark sky compliance and the LEED certification. Something else that came up tonight, and that I think we're all very aware of is keeping our is being one community and the use of the different campuses by us as open spaces and comfortable back and forth is something that I think is very valued. There are two parts of this. In reading the overlay, maybe I misread it, limiting everything to just university use. I think that we have all been to events with the city or the school district or something else that were hosted by either the seminary or by Fontbonne or by WashU. And I would like to keep that opportunity there too in the overlay, not just It can only be WashU things. It may be more of a community-based event. How to handle the ability to walk through spaces. Some neighbors that we speak with want everything, make sure it's closed off so that they're not bothered or not hearing noise. Other neighbors say, I want to be able to have those open fields available for me to get through. I don't know what the answers are there, but I would certainly hope that We can come up with the height of the walls that they should be and that washes is respective and open to that at the same time realizing the security concerns that led to a lot of the closing off of the other campus areas. Other ideas, other things that we might want to put in the overlay is, let me just leaf through it real quickly here. Part of here again with the sustainability, we have in here that there's a preference for permeable pavers and somewhere else it talks about impermeable coverage cannot be more than 60%. I would suggest that we change that impermeable coverage limit to 50%. That would also give more encouragement to use the pavers, the permeable pavers where possible. The as far as I had the limiting the noise and the amplification by days and hours, I think it's a great idea something that with the lighting that. I actually didn't understand how it works we talked about it, the lighting lights out at 930 yet if an inning started by 10 o'clock so if the inning hasn't started by 930. I didn't understand how that worked, and maybe what we want to do is say that any inning in play at 9 o'clock can continue and just move that back by an hour. Same idea with the speakers and other events there. WashU has wonderful facilities that can be hosted elsewhere without any impact on these neighbors. Let's see if there's anything else. That hasn't already been mentioned here. Hold on. Yeah, I think that that's it for now. If I think of something else, I will

speak

up.

Very good. Thank you so much. Okay, Alderman Gary Feder.

Very good. Thank you so much. Okay, Alderman Fader.

As my wife would attest, there's a lot of things in life I know nothing about. One thing I do know something about is zoning. I alluded earlier in the evening to the fact that I've taught a one week class that There's a class in real estate law, which includes one day on zoning. So I've been involved with a lot of zoning matters in my career. I've also, because I was on the school board, know that there are two things that I think people care more about and get more emotional about than anything, and that's what affects... their kids' school, and what affects the area around their property. So I fully appreciate the level of emotion that everybody in the community has brought to this. I hope it will remain constructive and not personal. It shouldn't. I think someone said earlier we are genuinely trying to do the right thing here. It's not a question of who we like better, WashU or the city. And certainly, I think all of us just are trying to figure out what's the best way to move forward. I think there are a few scenarios here in my own mind that are worth thinking about. One is if we don't pass the ordinance, what happens then? I think some people in the audience would like to believe, I think not realistically, that Washington University will sort of go away and the project will die. I think that is highly unrealistic, not only because of Concordia's involvement, but simply because in many ways this makes a lot of sense to Washington University, and I think they will go forward. And I believe, contrary to what many people think, that if this fails or paused as the term has been used, I think while there will be some initial official grumbling from Washington University, the reality is Washington University would be perfectly happy with going forward with the CUP application. In fact, prefer it to the ordinance that is being pursued here. But I'll get back to that in a minute If we pass the ordinance, I will say again from my zoning experience that even without the provisions that have been suggested by my colleagues tonight, even as it stands right now, it has more restrictions, I would think, than any CUP I've ever seen in terms of across the board, the level of restrictions. The reality is that if this ordinance is passed, the overlay district at some point A year from now, WashU, I believe, will come forward under the overlay. And at that point, they may say, well, we decided to do this and this. And so some of these restrictions, they'll say to the plan commission, we need some flexibility on. And you know what the answer is? There is no flexibility. These are the restrictions that are built into the ordinance. It's a piece of legislation. The city has upfront decided on all of these regulations dealing across the board with what can be done. It's also not the end of the line because it has the plan commission and the ARB. Many of us have been to plan commission meetings and know that we have a very rigid plan commission with a lot of very experienced people. I have seen them, for example, you take the issue of stormwater, which I know Ann referred to in her video. I've seen the plan commission say on stormwater, that's not adequate. We need to change this significantly or we're not going to approve it. So the plan commission is willing to turn things down and will turn things down. And all of that is built into this ordinance. So I believe on balance, and I will say this again as a former zoning attorney, strategically, If I were Washington University, I would not be disappointed if this was paused. I would not be disappointing if this was rejected. I'd be happy to go through the CUP process because I believe Washington University will do better for itself in the CUP. Because what they will do is without the overlay, now they're looking at a CUP that basically has no regulations. They're starting at ground zero. with regulations that actually only apply to single family properties. They will have, I think they're architects here tonight. I'm sure they have engineers. They will come up with a plan. They'll go through the list of everything that's supposed to be regulated in some fashion, traffic buffering, et cetera. They'll come up with what they say are based on best practices and other projects or what they believe will mitigate all of these potential negatives. And they will be less restrictive than what's in this ordinance. They will be more intrusive in terms of the property. Now, you can argue, well, of course, the city's going to say, no, you have to do all the same stuff that was in the ordinance that we had back in November. Now, if I was Washington U a year from now, I would say, well, it seems a little odd that now you want to impose all these restrictions again on us. But back in November, when you had the ordinance in front of you, you voted it down. So I think there is at least a likelihood that what will happen here if we turn down this overlay is you will get – under your beloved CUP, you will get a project that is much less desirable from the neighborhood. And I understand you don't want us to tell you how we're trying to protect you, but genuinely we are because we have no reason to do anything else. You're our constituents. Washington U isn't our constituent. So as far as I'm concerned, we are trying to protect you the best way we can. You may differ with my opinion. I understand that. But my opinion is that this route is the best way to go. And that's why, again, many of the recommendations that were made for amendments tonight I think have only come up in the last few hours. I'll be interested to see what staff thinks about that, what we collectively think about them. I think there are a lot of good suggestions. I think if you look over the last four months, This ordinance has gotten more restrictive. Every time it has been reissued, it is more restrictive than the one before. And it seems almost certain to say that the one that will be considered at our next meeting will be more restrictive than any we've ever had. For some of you, it doesn't matter how many restrictions we ever have. You will not be satisfied. But I hope for many of them, you will be. And I believe it's the best protection. So to the extent we take any action tonight, I still would withhold any final opinion until I see what the final ordinance looks like. But I'd love to see it move forward because I believe it's way we should do so. So thank you.

Thank you. Okay, last, but you're not really last, I'm last. So go ahead, Jeff.

At least you didn't say last, but not least.

No, I was going to, but you stopped myself.

So I've got a couple of thoughts, a couple of questions for staff, and then a couple of kind of thoughts on echoing some of the, what's called amendments and some of my own. I've struggled with this some, and some of you I've talked to about it is, you know, listen to all the comments tonight, trying to process what, and how to factor those into my thinking. And there's a couple things that I just kind of need to say up front. Like, I'm a WashU grad. I play D3 baseball. Like, I get what D3 sports is, and I get what WashU is. But I would also be remiss to not mention that I think a lot of the comments tonight – expose a distrust of not only some of the stuff the city has done and i recognize but also wash you and the inability of their willingness to communicate with the neighbors and i get that there may not be finalized plans i get some of that but My sense of this, and from what you all have said, both tonight and other calls and planning meetings, is that feeling that they're listening and lack of communication of what they're thinking did not help the situation and did not help you all feel well. So, you know, I obviously watch you folks that are here. Like we can't force you to talk to folks, but I hope you kind of take that away as future things come down as to how communication helps, even if there isn't a specific way to answer all the questions. As it relates to this project, as I mentioned to some of you, I think part of the challenge is you all think about it from a public policy standpoint. We're trying to, it's like, should we have it? Should we not have it? We've got to think about it from public policy standpoint, but also from a legal standpoint as to what we're allowed to do and what we're not allowed to do as a city government with, we've talked about privacy rights, talked about other things. There's a balance of both of those that we're trying to strike that so when there are times that you hear us talking about the overlay versus the CUP, it's not like we're trying to convince you as much as it is. What you're hearing is I think all of us are wrestling with that challenge of what the policy question is versus what the legal situation is that we are functioning in as it relates to a deal like this, which gets kind of this overlay CUP process. And like others have said, I think from a conceptual standpoint, I think an overlay from a judicial standpoint provides more ability for us to do what we need to protect you all, given the feedback you've given us. Then we can do under an administrative role on the CUP process. So that's kind of, in my mind, kind of a philosophical idea. Now, when you get to this specific one on the ground, I will say that I've still got some questions, some of which I had before coming tonight, some of which, I think, have been raised with you all on comments and raised some process questions, raised some concern questions that I'm still kind of processing. And I come at this with a... let's get this right. If it takes a little extra time, that's fine. I don't necessarily mean that means it needs months, but I don't necessarily think that making a decision after input from residents tonight, feedback that we've gotten in emails the last couple of days in that is necessarily means that we need to go right away like i think we could wait a few weeks we could wait a month or two like i i don't think it needs to go super fast we need to get it right and i think you can take a little time to do that and i don't so much care what the calendar is um so with that as kind of my comments a couple questions for staff if i may and then a couple comments so um I know a lot of folks have expressed questions about traffic and why we need to dump it on Big Ben. Why can't we dump it on Dartford? Why can't we jump it through Fontbonne? Why can't We

like,

I'm not saying I want to do any of that. My question though is I think it's fair in this setting to ask the question of why Big Ben versus why someplace else? Because I think it's, I would like to know, and I'm sure some of you are just kind of at least know the answer as to how we got to the Big Ben.

I think the simple answer, and well, let me start by saying that the traffic study that was performed is purely preliminary. So anytime a site plan may come in under an overlay, they would be required to provide a new traffic study with each one of the playing facilities, whether that's an indoor building, it's an outdoor field, whatever. As we go through that process, one of the things the plan commission would consider would be a traffic study. As far as the preliminary traffic study goes, As far as the capacity to get cars into this site big bend makes the most sense if you look at the neighborhood streets. If you had an event, so you had an athletic event that had 150 200 people at it that sort of thing we would rather that traffic come from big bend. Then come from dartford or come from Concordia lane punching through you know the high point neighborhood. it's all residential streets outside of big ben so the the big question for us was what's the capacity uh on big ben so that was what the preliminary traffic study was attempting to do is take a look at what's the capacity on big ben what happens if you add cars for those events to big ben can it handle it and if not what kind of improvements might need to be made in order to facilitate that and we got that preliminary look that said you would need a signalized intersection to make sure that the site could empty appropriately. And you would also probably need some lane adjustments for those left turn movements that you would now have on Big Bend, the center turn lane that would go up to Southmore. So that was to give us a preliminary understanding of what may happen if these uses were added to that particular site. But there's really no doubt in our mind or the traffic engineers looking at it that it's... better it's advantageous to use big bend to go for your ingress and egress than any of the residential streets um that that touch that site on the north side so put it

in kind of a simple way big ben is the least bad of the potential of the box the least bad okay correct um second question is people have talked about pop on in a lot of different contexts but um can you walk through a little bit as to why we can't just extend this overlay to font bond and just make it all one big discussion point

We certainly could, but what we're working with on the Big Bend site is an athletic overlay. The uses are all customized for that. The primary uses that you see are athletic in playgrounds, and that's it. And so if we were to extend it to Fontbonne, the Fontbonne site would then be locked into these athletic uses as well. we don't know at this point in time i mean washu has stated publicly that they don't know at what those uses for the font bond site will be long term if we had some sort of idea some sort of certainty then we would try to include it here but not knowing what it is i'm not sure what putting an athletic overlay on that site would would accomplish for us and also in those those meetings with neighbors I think a lot of those neighbors, certainly in the Hillcrest area and along Dartford, would probably not want the athletic uses to extend up through the font bond site adjacent to the backside of those properties. So with the uses being unknown, it's really difficult to regulate what should or could happen there.

And I guess the third one is, and this is just clarification or confirmation for me is, The overlay doesn't change the R2 zoning, as I understand it. So none of the allowed uses, such as residential, would necessarily go away with the overlay? Or how would that actually work?

Yeah, so the R2 is still there. This is being laid over the top. But these regulations will supersede the R2 regulations.

Okay. Okay. okay a couple just thank you david um couple amendments i kind of echo what other folks say i would say there was a provision in there about a potential parking garage i would just make the argument that if you're going to build a parking garage i'd prefer it all on the ground as opposed to being anywhere above ground um similar to kind of where the the garage is on the danforth campus um I don't know if that was assumed into the five fields in one building, but in fairness, I don't want a field house and then a big parking structure. As for the campus lectures, I agree with Alderman McAndrew. I don't know we need them. I'm less concerned about it happening. I would just require them to be inside like we do for a few other of those reasons. And so if the university wants to have an event inside, fine. But I agree, having them outside doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense with what we're talking about. As for the reducing size, I was close to reducing 500 to 250 and 900 to 500, but I can be okay with Bridget's idea of 600. I think the idea that we've heard over and over and over again from... Community is we don't like it, but if we have to live with it, let's try to minimize the amount of traffic of people coming. And one way to do that is limit the amount of people who can be there, right? So whether you do that with limiting the size of the events, whether you limit that with the amount of events, I think it's kind of all of what we've talked about. There is a small provision, but I think it matters to me in one of them. It says... the capacity of the the field house for permanent seating doesn't include bleachers that can be pulled out and to me bleachers that can pulled out or basically permanent seating they just can be pulled in and out but it still goes to the overall volume of the place which i think is what you're trying to regulate with a seating capacity so if i read that right i think i would like to include the pull-out bleachers as part of the permanent seating calculation

I'm not mistaken. I believe the pullout bleachers are okay. That's the case.

And I may have read it wrong. Um, um, changing the field numbers is fine. I do think there's, I think it requires one building. I don't necessarily know if I, and again, if I read it right, it seems to require fields and then one building. Like I don't really care whether I think the university should have the flexibility to either build a building or not. I'm more concerned about the overall footprint of the, the volume. Um, I think there's provision in that it allows for taller lights in certain cases. I'm not sure why we would need taller lights. I feel like 80 feet's enough. I'm open to pulling that amendment back if there's a good reason why we want taller lights, but I feel like 80's enough. And then the outdoor music piece, I forget who mentioned it earlier, Again, when we played D3 baseball anyway, the odds of getting us up by 7 in the morning was never going to happen. So I'm not sure why we can't just limit it at 8 or 9 to at least allow for the noise level to start at a more reasonable time when at least most younger kids are up. At least my kids are up by 8 most days. So moving that time from a start of seven to like starter eight or even better at nine, especially kind of on the weekends is to be respectful of the folks and pinging a baseball and softball bats and all of that stuff so. that's all i've got so thank you mayor.

Can I may or i'm sorry, can I just can I just jump on the back of it yeah so the it says 300 seats per facility for permanent seats. But I guess, again, going back to why I don't want this to become an athletic complex, I'm trying to kind of imagine what 300 seats on bleachers would look like or how many bleachers that is. Ana, do you have any – I mean, I'm just trying to picture. I guess I just don't know why, again, why we're trying to replicate an intramural field because, again, that's all WashU other than softball and baseball, which I can be more supportive of the 300 seats. But at the tennis courts or also at the multi-use field or soccer field, whatever they want to call it, I'm just not sure why we need 300 seats. So, I mean, I can maybe support a few bleachers, but I'm not sure why we need to allow for that many seats.

Yes, the 300 was based on an estimation of the seat capacity at the existing softball and baseball fields, which are proxy. approximately 250 to 270 seats the bleachers at the old cbc school um that's a around a thousand or more that was built obviously with the high school um built those as opposed to the university so that was how we estimated that seating capacity

okay um Again, you know we're not we're not trying to recreate a football field, which is, you know, CBC had, you know, of course like football games there so I would be supportive also of, you know, potentially decreasing the amount of permanent seats at the outdoor fields, other than the softball and baseball field.

Very good. I can just add the other way to do that. The other way to do that would be to include the temporary and the pullout in that total number. In flexibility.

Oh, excuse me, Mayor.

Go right ahead.

On the South 40, I actually had one comment on that. Maybe it's already built in there and I don't know the footage, but I'm thinking about why down and the development or why down and knowing that you've got mature trees that are there some older kind of lower level buildings. Is there a way that we can either increase the setback there or build some sort of similar tree protection zone if if it's there, then let me know on some of the existing trees, so that we don't have a situation where. the prettiness, if you will, of Y down gets disrupted on that half when presumably new dorms and other things are built. So I don't think it needs to be crazy. I just, to the extent we can try to protect some of those trees and build some sort of protection zone there, I think we'd all appreciate those of us who run it every day to see it. So, sorry, Michelle.

No, that's totally fine. Yeah, do you want, I think that's actually an important point for the audience to also hear about because we did receive questions some comments related to those two. So on the example of Y down, we have a transition zone of 60 feet that is in the proposed overlay district. We do not have established tree growth areas. There's a kind of an important difference between those two elements, which I think will help maybe you inform us directly on what you mean for a potential amendment. So established tree growth areas are really around areas with large amounts of existing canopy trees. And so in the established tree growth areas, the main goal is to truly protect those established trees. The transition zones, especially when you look at the big bend overlay district, those are in areas that sometimes do have established trees, but are also in areas where they're not the same density of established canopy trees that there are in the established tree growth areas. So the transition zones have a planting requirement. That the goal of it is to create new versions of establishing your theory so essentially within the transition zones we're going to require additional plantings that those areas start to match. The established tree growth areas, as opposed to the protections of just the established to grow there, so if we extended an established tree growth area, for example. east along the southern boundary of the Big Bend overlay district to cover the area that's currently a parking lot and the tennis courts and the existing field house that Concordia has. If we just extended the established tree growth area east to cover that, it wouldn't have the proactive requirements of new plantings. And so we would be protecting an area that doesn't have any trees. And so that's why that's a transition zone. So that's an important distinction between the two. So for the Y-down example, Right now that's a transition zone, which does have protections for existing trees, but it also has proactive planting requirements, not just the protections. And so I think with thinking about that, with the context of Y-Down, we could either further refine the Y-Down transition zone, specifically in the South 40 overlay district to add some more of the prescriptive protection language that you see in the established tree zone established tree zones in big bend or you could create an established tree zone

i followed most of that um i think the ultimate goal would be the folks on when when when and if development happens there the folks on dartford and the foot and my kids will be at white down at the time can look across and see some trees before they see a bunch of dorms whether that's keeping the existing trees whether that's adding new trees with the existing trees like That's what I'm trying to accomplish, is just adding somewhat of a visual buffer.

To add to Ana's point, because, you know, I live right there, and I don't... There really aren't, on the north side of Y-Down, there are many... mature existing trees. It is really quite bare. We actually hear from residents sometimes that they wish there was better landscaping there and so on and so on on the berm and all that. So that's why I think it makes sense for it to be a transition zone to actually encourage that planting in the future. And it would appear that there's not much to protect. But check it out.

Yeah, and I can look at the setback again. Do you know what the setback is now compared to what you're proposing?

So we're proposing a 60-foot transition zone and setback there along Y down at the South 40 currently.

And is that what it is now? Do you know, or is it?

Well, I don't want to speak incorrectly, so we'll let David pull that up. So you can get on the aerial the buildings today. This is the aerials are skewed slightly but the buildings are actually some of them are closer than 60 so the setback here on the south, we did increase that slightly from all the buildings that you see today.

So, and again that's what I'm trying to accomplish so if we feel like we're there then I'll defer to you so thank you mayor.

Jeff, you know my one question on the established tree growth, and I'll let them, and I won't

talk anymore. You guys can make as many comments as you like.

On the established tree growth there has been people have expressed concerns that sure you can try to protect the trees but as soon as the construction starts it's going to be damaged to the root systems and everything else and so you can put whatever you want on paper it's not going to mean anything. Do you have any response to what

how that All works, I think that a lot of the site plan review process covers a lot of those questions we saw with the Concordia project that went through the plan Commission. There are a lot of comments made about protecting trees so as part of site point of view, one of the elements that we would require in addition to everything under sapling is the stormwater pollution protection plan. incorporated in that is essentially your construction activity management. And so we look at site plans, and we have existing trees, and they'll note any impacts within the critical root zone of those trees, and that's how we would establish our tree protection areas, where you actually have to provide a physical fence that prevents construction activity. So we look at it, first of all, in the light of what are the post-construction conditions and how does that post-construction condition impact the trees? But then also, what are the during construction impacts? And so that's where they would have to dictate along the site what's protected during construction, how you're protecting it, where your construction entrance might be, where storage of construction materials on the site might be, how you're will be sodded but are currently gravel or dirt or everything else so all that construction activity is looked at by professionals that we have under contract here for that as well as our internal staff and our plan commission so that's really how we do that and then through the construction permit process that those plan documents are all attached to their construction plan so if there's an instance where maybe a neighbor notices that tree protection fencing has been removed or there's mud coming from the site or our inspector during their regular visits the site notices any of those conditions they'll require immediate remediation of those and if there isn't compliance and then we can actually post a stop work order which would halt all construction until they correct the issues to ensure compliance

Anyone else? Okay. I don't have anything so earth-shattering to add. I do want to say, just remind us all, we talk a lot about WashU tonight, but this project of reforming that space is a project that's a collaboration between WashU and Concordia. And I just want to sort of emphasize them in this process because although we easily approved what they want to do, I think their, the collaborative effort is really foundational to enabling them to do it. And we've all seen what the pressure is on small universities and colleges. And I, and I really do feel like, um, As city government, we want to try to protect that entity lest it go the way of or some other universities that are experiencing problems. Number two, I also want to emphasize that this plan, this overlay as it is now with whatever details we change, the basic overlay does conform to our comprehensive plan. That plan was developed over a year with robust input from the entire community. That community said, we want this to stay in institutional use, which it is now. It now has a university. It has sports facilities and housing. We want it to stay that. That is what our community told us, and that's what is in our plan. I do support all of the suggestions that you all made. I mean, I'll be eager to see how the staff can recommend that we incorporate all those that make sense in an organized way. And I know we will see that. So I appreciate that and I appreciate all the suggestions that were made. The one thing that we haven't really addressed specifically that really kind of hit me is that the young man who hopefully went home and has done his homework and is in bed now brought up and Lily's comments echoed it, is the sort of the openness and the shared use of all of our school playgrounds. I guess why downfield is fenced off, maybe, I don't know. But in general, all of our schools are open. Concordia has always been open. And I know there are issues with people cutting through things and all that stuff. I don't know what all those issues are, but I guess I would challenge us and challenge WashU and Concordia and ourselves to try to take a look at this project in that regard. And is there anything we can add to the overlay that that underscores that that that that puts that as a place of importance and and gives us a mechanism to enforce it i don't know if there is but i do think it's it's just um you know we've all been we've all had experiences where things have been cut off i mean uh centene university sorry wherever you are um they fenced off their little playground that was really not what we wanted um we we in in my own neighborhood uh someone built a detached garage and cut off a cut through that the elementary kids were using that was not good and so if there's a way to incorporate that concept here i'm i'm challenging us to try challenging us to try to do that so that being said i think is my time up oh no okay um that being said Why didn't you ring that earlier I don't know um I just want to then overall say you know everybody here is very. earnestly trying to do what we think is best for the whole community and the whole city of clayton, including all of our partners. And it's an opportunity, I think, with this overlay to set really strong parameters to raise the bar to move the starting line. to have any development that wants to be their start at a much higher place, a much more restrictive place, a place with more trees, more bird sounds, better lighting and all of those things than we would be starting off with under our current zoning. And so I support that effort and it's great to be able to consider something strategically in a holistic way for this entire property rather than one small project at a time where we might experience people poking through all those great trees along Big Bend. Oh, well, we want to do this now, so now we have to poke through here. Here we have comprehensively designed the perimeter of this property, and I think that can be a very valuable thing for us going forward here. So with that being said, if there are no further comments from our board.

Would it be appropriate for me to make one concrete amendment at this time? Or would I wait until the overlays are introduced? If the like amendment like a concrete amendment would be offered right now, I would like to offer an amendment to each overlay and I can offer them separately if I should to just strike the delayed effective date, thank you.

Yes, forgot about building on there's a

motion on the floor that needs a second

yeah someone's second Thank you and we'll vote on that amendment right. All those in favor? All those in favor of that, changing the effective date to effective immediately after?

Aye. Aye.

Any opposed?

I just wanted to pick up on what Alderman Yorg said, and also the request that we consider not having the second vote the week before Thanksgiving. It might be helpful for us to see how these proposed amendments actually play out into the proposed overlay. We have two votes, I think as everybody knows. The first is to introduce it, introduce the bill, and the second then, which we typically would do two weeks later, to approve it and i'm asking the board is to consider whether we want to go forward with the first tonight or if we want to delay that for a week and two weeks and see how the um proposed amendments and discussions come forward and play out in the overlay

i i think that i mean i'm open to everyone's opinion of course i i just feel that we have asked everybody to bear with us through a number of meetings Our staff has been focusing almost all of their efforts against this project for some time now, and we can certainly have those amendments out there in the revised version viewable in time for our next meeting. It's two weeks away, and we can also add amendments at that time, at that meeting. So my personal feeling is I would rather just move ahead, but obviously open to everyone's opinion. Anybody?

I agree.

And are we comfortable having that as scheduled, which would be the Tuesday of before the holiday?

I am. I am.

I just want to echo Susan's. As a reminder, I made this argument back on the strat plan that we had like a month ago that I thought the timing was weird, and especially on the Thanksgiving week. So I would echo Susan on basically pushing all of it back a little bit, but I've already kind of said that part, but definitely on the Thanksgiving week, but...

And as far as... We can go either way. But as far as, you know, being respectful of everyone who's come tonight and everything else, those conversations have been had. And whether we take the vote tonight or we take it in two weeks and then have that first meeting in December being our second vote is not a big delay. But it's, you know, I will go with whatever the general decision is on here.

feel like there's consensus on moving ahead tonight with first reading and moving ahead in two weeks but okay all right so that is I think what we're going to do but thank you everyone for your thoughts with that I think we're ready to introduce or ready to have a motion or introduce the bill

I guess I'll start with the South 40. Yes, you start with the South. I'll introduce bill number 7044, approving an ordinance for an amendment to chapter 410 of the municipal code to add a new article establishing the South 40 overlay zoning district to be read for the first time by title only.

Good. Any further discussion on this? Okay. Mr. City Attorney? Okay.

As

amended.

I apologize.

City Attorney. We've had it introduced and seconded, and we have no discussion. And so are you going to read it? It's late. I

don't know. amendment chapter 410 of the municipal code to add a new article establishing the south 40 overlay zoning district bill number 7044 first reading

all right all those in favor aye opposed good

I'll introduce Bill number 7045, approving an ordinance for an amendment to Chapter 410 of the Municipal Code to add a new article establishing the Big Bend Overlay Zoning District to be read for the first time by title only as amended.

Second. Further discussion?

Just a comment. I just want to be clear that... What we're doing at this time is we're advancing a bill that we know that's going to be amended, that we'll have another opportunity to consider, and we preserve our right to either vote for or against it at that time. Correct?

Absolutely. Yes. Thank you for stating that. I should have. Okay.

I would add that the city charter requires that all bills be given two readings.

Okay. Okay. So we've had it introduced. We've had a second. Did I hear that?

Yes, second.

Further discussion other than that? Okay. And Mr. City

Attorney. 7045, first reading and ordinance amending title four land use chapter 410 overlay in urban design zoning districts of the municipal code of the city of Clayton, Missouri adding article 17 big bend overlay zoning district and other actions relating to it.

Thank you. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Nay.

All right. With that said, I think we've finished that part of our agenda. As we stated, as Rick so eloquently stated, we will bring this up again in two weeks and we will have an amended overlay to consider. You can come and react to that and we will then decide what to do. Thank you very much for being here and being patient. We still have one item left on our agenda, which is our consent agenda, which is are minutes, and anything else in there? A contract. Oh, a contract. OK, yes. Anybody want to talk about the contents of the consent agenda? No. All right. So I'll take a motion.

I'll move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

All those

in favor? No, roll call. Sorry, roll call, roll call.

Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Gary Feder? Aye. Aldeman Rick Hummell?

Aye. Alderman Buse? Aye. Alderman Fader? Aye. Aldeman Hummel?

Aye.

Aldman Jeffery Yorg?

Aldman York?

Aye.

Mayor Harris? Aye. All

right. Do you have anything further to report? Okay. Okay. And given the hour, I think we can forego our roundtable discussion. Although I'm happy to stay and hear it from you. No? Okay. Well, take a motion for adjournment. Motion to adjourn. Second. In favor? Aye. Any opposed? Very good. Thank you all.

Man,

oh, man, oh.