January 13, 2026 — Meeting Transcript

Good evening, everyone. It's Tuesday, January 13th. We're going to start our regular Clayton City Council meeting with a couple of discussion items. The first is a discussion about a Black History Month event and then a discussion about our Shaw Park Tennis Center lighting. I think our economic director, Gary Carter, is going to talk about our Black History Month event.

Thank you, Mayor. I will attempt to be as brief as I can to save you time for your lighting discussion. So I don't know if you remember, but back in the fall, late summer, we had a conversation. and whether you wanted to attempt another Black History style event like we did last year, and the direction was to pursue something and see what we could come up with and then bring back the options to you. Admittedly, we are at the final hour of making that selection, but we'll come back to that statement at the end of this presentation about future as we conclude here. But we have two options for you tonight. um event option one is uh partnering with the black rep on a touring show that they are offering it would be on february 11th 2026 about 5 30 time frame we would have it at the center of clayton we're estimating about 150 families or the occupancy of that space and it would be targeted to families and students Um, it does, uh, we think does meet the goal of, uh, one of the event goals are promoting diversity and a sense of welcoming and Clayton. And again, we would be partnering with the black rep on this event. It is a live performance. Um, it is, um, you can read the synopsis there, but it is a, um, Story of struggle and overcome that exactly what the, um, word means itself. Um. And we would market that in the traditional fashion of the website, the media, social media, clean connection. The school district would also be assisting with that promotion also. And then we'd have the usual event banner here at city hall on a press release. The budget is $2,200. We would budget $1,000 for advertising. When we use social media, we do use paid targeting advertising for that. The black touring production fee is $1,000, and then we'd have a contingency of $200 to make up that $2,200 budget.

Gary, can I, is there a reason? So we would have it at the center of Clayton given that it sounds like a production of some kind. Is there any reason to try to have it at the high school auditorium because there's a stage or is that not an option? I'm just curious. I didn't like, would it just be in one of the meeting rooms at the center? It

would be where we had the event last year. But

there'd be a performance, right? There

would be a performance. This is a touring group, so they are used to venues not necessarily requiring a stage. And there was a timing issue working with the school district on the stage also. Again, something we'll come back to later in the discussion. The second option is a virtual option with Opera St. Louis. It is a virtual performance, so there will be no location. There is a date of February 28th and a specific timeframe and Opera St. Louis would work with that Zoom and we would share that along with the school district. Again, meeting the same event goal. It is a 30-minute pre-recorded abridged performance of the opera, but with a virtual live Q&A with performers in the audience participation. Again, the same marketing plan as we had before and generally used with all of our events. And really the only cost associated with this is the advertising. Opera St. Louis is covering the cost of the actors while they're doing the Q&A. So what we're looking for tonight is whether you want to do one of these, both of these or not. And then the second part of the conversation is as we went through this fall, we really did not have enough time. to come up with something meaningful. And my question really on the second part is, if this is something that you might want to consider going forward, we'd like to engage in these conversations, say tomorrow, in order to get a long lasting, sustainable relationship built with some organization probably one of these two or some other organization but when we're discussing this topic we you know we always caveat it that it's based on the council approval um but with the normal cycle that we've been in with the event presentation coming with the budget presentation you know it's it's late spring early summer before we get to that point to start that conversation and we would still have a caveat of you know subject council approval but if you know if you'd like to give us some direction tonight if we'd like to continue this type of um event in the future we get started on that this winter instead of late summer

does anybody have any initial thoughts or want to get us started or a

couple questions uh with the uh We've been patrons of the Black Rep for a long, long time. So I'd love to support them. But you mentioned school board or school district partnership. What is that? What's the school?

Really, that's promotion.

They will help promote it as well, Justin? Are they helping with the cost, the financial promotion? They

will do their own channels within their own community.

Okay. And I did wonder too, even the Y down stage, depending if the numbers are right, there's something a little more. um it's not nice about a stage but that's something that i

think that's something that would be for future um it's just simply a time constraint this year um with the operation that we had going

right and why is the uh neither cost is that large but one is twice black rep is two thousand something and opera theater is around a thousand and it's mainly promoting what's the difference in what's the cost difference

Um, the, uh, black rep, I believe it was has a, um, this is part of their touring operation. Um, so they contribute to that. They, they have a fee associated with that, with the opera St. Louis. Um, this is something special that they've put together for us. Um, they're covering the cost of their actors for the Q and a part, albeit over zoom, but, um, different structure of partnership.

Yeah. And partnering with opera theater right now would be phenomenal as well. I think

they thought that too.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, both of these sound like great ideas.

Yeah, I support doing both. I don't see why we wouldn't given the cost and also because they're different types of programs like so they might interest different people. I'd love to see us try to do both. And I definitely support efforts to build like an ongoing, like an expectation that we will like support and partner with these organizations going forward. It doesn't have to always be in February, but like that, I think would be awesome. And I think it would be mutually beneficial for all of us. I mean, this is exactly what people ask for in the comprehensive plan. And if we can deliver it for this cost.

If I had to pick one, I would go with the black rep. But I would tend to agree that given the cost is nominal, I'm not sure. I personally would much prefer also a live, fully live production to one that's sort of a hybrid. I'm not sure that's all that appealing. But again, I think the cost is minimal. Both cases, as I understand, we're dealing with the school district, which is good. We'd like to have a continuing relationship with the opera theater for obvious reasons. Black Reps, nice company. So the reason it may give us a little more direction in terms of what we'd like to do in the future. We see how these two events, how they draw. I don't know. Obviously, they're probably close to one another. So I don't know if one takes away from the other, but I'd be willing to give it a shot.

Same. I think both of these would just be great for our community. I would, you know, like to see the first in the theater, but I definitely understand the time constraints. So hopefully next year we can do something and, you know, just get a better stage for the group.

Yeah. And I'd like to compliment both these organizations because they, they, were very supportive and responsive. We were initially working with another group. It took a different turn, not even presenting that tonight. And these two really stepped up to help us.

It sounds like you have your answer. It sounds like if we can do both, I think that would be great. And that pursuing some sort of partnership on a routine basis would be wonderful. with one or some combination of the organizations. So, yeah.

Thank you.

And I just added, just my thought in terms of next year, I think would be interesting to see is, you know, what does the city and the school district separately bring to this kind of event? I mean, it's nice we're both promoting it. We're both promoting the same event, but... Is there, are there things in the city's history that we'd like to sort of deal with that are reflective of an event in the school district? I mean, they, we have different perspectives and so it would be more than just, we're both going to market it, but you know, we both helped to design a program that reflects the interests of both the city and the school district. I think that would be awesome.

Great. Thank you very much. All right. Next up, we're going to talk about some lighting at the tennis center.

Tony's on our way up to talk through the Shell Park project, and we did have information that we included in the packet about the two alternatives. Turn it over to Tony.

Great, thanks. So before you tonight, there are two proposals from Musco Lighting who participates in the Sourcewell Cooperative Purchasing Agreement that we are part of. The first proposal is really, it simply replaces the lighting, the luminaires themselves on the courts. It's courts one through nine. We do not have lighting on court 10, just as a reminder. And so it would simply replace the luminaires on those poles keeping the same poles, which are about 20 feet, which is low. So the lighting technology has come a long way. We talked about this at the Livable Community Plan meeting the other day. So it would provide more uniform lighting full court lighting there probably will still be areas that are a little bit shaded but not nearly what they are right now um because we did get the grant uh we got a grant in the amount of 226 000 and some change or 266 and some change from the municipal park grant foundation uh option number one is less than the grant that we got so we are we would be obligated to pay about 15 percent of the project total um and the city does have that within its budget so um we would be well within the budget if if we just decided to go with proposal number one proposal number two replaces not only all the luminaires on all the light fixtures but all the poles as well So what would happen is all the poles will be replaced on the outside of the fencing. That would happen first. They would have all the conduit run ready to go. Then we would probably need to have the courts be down for a day or two, no lighting. So we would have to coordinate that with both our tennis center contractor and the high school to make sure that that doesn't interfere with any of their matches. Then they would... transfer the power and everything over to the new lighting system then they would go in and remove all the poles um they are removing just the poles and um it would still leave the base the conduit that our staff would then be required to uh remove to ground level so there wouldn't be any any tripping hazards or anything like that. But the second proposal would make Shaw Park Tennis Center fully dark sky compliant, and it would provide the most even long-term lighting system for the tennis center. The higher the poles, the poles would be 40 feet. Right now they're only 20. So the higher the poles, opportunity you have to direct the lighting exactly where it needs to go. And it would provide the most uniform lighting of the two proposals. Oh, that project would be over budget. The cost for that project is looking at about $460,000. Justin and I have talked extensively about this. We would recommend a 10% contingency for this project because even though Musco did put in what they felt like was a good buffer for having to replace the conduit, things like that, the electrical down there is really pretty old. The tennis center lighting was not replaced when we did a tennis center remodel in 2012. And I've spent the last few days trying to figure out exactly how old that lighting is, and I can't find anything. So we would recommend a little bit higher contingency to allow for if there are any problems that have to be addressed at that time with the electrical system. And then we probably would be charged if we have to stagger the installation based on high school match schedules or what's happening with our programming at the tennis center. And there will probably be a little bit of an upcharge for that, but we think it could be absorbed within a 10% contingency as well. With that, with the amount that the city would have had in its budget, which was $175,000 plus the municipal grant funding that we got, assuming there was no used contingency, we would be about $18,000 over budget if we go with proposal number two that replaces both the poles and the light fixtures.

Tony, how old, like how, I mean, it sounds like the polls are also really old, the current polls. So do you have any idea how much longer the polls will

last? They're not in bad shape, honestly. They're really not. Their only main issue with them is that they're too low, really. Yeah, there's none of them that are in danger of failing right now. Or falling over. No, no. We don't have the salt issue in the tennis center. Yeah, so no.

I know there were a lot of numbers there. So option number one, if we went that route and we use the contingency of 5% in there, you're looking at just over $42,000 of actual city capital fund dollars that would go towards that project. Correct. For option number two, assuming we use the entire 10% contingency plus that overage plus what we had budgeted, you're looking at about 239,000 and some change that would be paid out of the city's capital fund. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood the total amounts. You're looking at about 42,000 versus almost 240,000. So yeah. With that, as Tony said, we're just looking for direction. And at the next city council meeting, we'll actually have the contract for either proposal one or proposal two be considered at that point in time.

On option two, Tony, it says the installation is expected to take three to four weeks. Yes. Does that mean the facility would probably be closed down for three? No.

Good question, though. Thank you. Sorry. I forgot to mention that. No. Well, first of all, the lead time on the polls will be about 10 weeks. It'll take three to four weeks just to do all the work. And that's going to happen outside of the fencing. So they will be there during the day, likely seven to three. So once the high school there is there practicing, they'll already be gone. And then the work will happen. The majority of that work will happen outside of the few minutes here and there. Um, it might shut down a little bit of play once we, once our staff has to go in there and bring the, um, the base and the cut out the bolts and all that to ground level. But that's also something that we can certainly work around who's playing there during the day.

Anybody have any other

questions? I had a question. The, um, looking at it two different ways. First of all, when I was crunching my numbers, they came up differently from what you just said, David, is there, uh, And I always hate leaving part of a grant sitting on the table. It sounds like we wouldn't, like $80,000 we wouldn't use of a grant that we already got. We'd just return it. And then if we went with the more expensive route and we took the full grant, roughly $267,000, that gets down to 193. So does it go up because of the contingency or? I'm not calculating. You know what? It's the same idea. Yeah.

On proposal one, our costs out of pocket would be the 15%, which is $32,700 plus 5% of the overall total, which is $218,000. So that's how I came up with the $42,000 for proposal one. On proposal two, it's the $175,000 that we have budgeted plus another $18,300. That's for the overage plus the 10% contingency on the project, which is 46,000. And so that's how I came up with it's 239,000 and some change on that one.

Okay. So I had two questions. It sounds like the appropriate lighting is the higher poles and it's for dark skies as well as for tennis play, quality of the courts. Correct. And also I think Bridget kind of touched on this. How long... Are both of them, are we investing just to restore something or are we investing for the same length of time for both? Are we investing, if we replace all the poles, do we get more life out of this at a higher quality? Yes. We do. Yes. Yeah. Because

we could always be circling back. If we just replace the fixtures, the luminaires, we could always be circling back to now there's new better lighting technology that could get 98% of the court covered versus whatever, 90% of the court being covered right now. Does that make sense? Yes. Yeah. Yes, you are getting a better long-term investment if you replace the poles. And the luminaires.

Plus not walking away from the $80,000 of grant money. And then the other question I had is given the school districts heavy use of the courts, are they a partner in trying to get the best quality court there? As

far as monetary, I would say absolutely monetary. Yeah, I mean, no, we have an agreement with them and it doesn't really call for any monetary compensation for any of the court improvements there. And quite candidly, they don't use it a lot in the evenings when the lights are on. Only if their matches early in the spring season or late in the fall season would go past that. a normal time. I mean, they're usually, they don't use them quite as often, the lighting quite as often. In the

evening. Yes. But they do use them pretty heavily in the daytime. Is that agreement, do they, my understanding is, do we pay all the upkeep and everything on the courts? Yes.

Yeah. And they do all the upkeep on field seven or Adzick field or Gayfield when we use that. Okay. That's all. Go

ahead.

Yeah, I was going to ask about the service life. So you confirmed that. And then when you described the contingency for proposal number two, it sounded like it was related to really the age of the electrical systems. And it seems to me that that could still be an issue in proposal one. Is there a reason? I mean, I know you're not replacing as much, but if the actual electrical system is flawed or easily damaged by construction,

I mean, yeah, I guess theoretically it could. But based on what we're replacing with all the conduit and everything, the poles and everything, I think there's more of a chance with proposal number two. And proposal number one, they did look at our for both proposals. They did look at our electrical system. And so they suggested luminaires that would fit what we currently have. I think it's just if they get underground and there's unknown when they're doing the whole pole replacement, that's what's a little bit more concerning.

Okay. Well, given the better law, longer life of service, better lighting, dark sky compliance, all of those things, I definitely support proposal two.

I have to say, when you presented this, option two sounded better than option one. On the other hand, when I read this, I thought it was awfully damn close because the description of option one is... It does not fully achieve dark sky compliance, but it significantly improves lighting quality and comes very close to meeting dark sky standards. The upgraded fixtures will provide more uniform, energy-efficient illumination across all courts, directly addressing the longstanding issues created by the outdated lights. So that sounded pretty good to me. And at $42,000, it sounds a lot better than the $239,000. So, you know, again, I probably would lean toward option two, if only because I know that directly next door on the Shaw Park project, we're going to be looking at some of the same issues. I feel pretty from everything I've heard. I think we'll probably move in the direction of the dark sky, which to me makes sense. It's a whole new project. You're starting from scratch. It seems a little odd to me that we would have this property, which is directly next door to And we would not opt not to do dark sky there. I know David's made the point that the whole park is never going to be dark sky because different parts of the park require different lighting. It does seem to me somewhat appealing that maybe a good stretch of Brentwood Boulevard directly adjoining properties, you know, are all have the same quality of illumination. So although I'm somewhat bothered by it, mostly the economics of it, I would still probably go with option two, although with a little grain of salt.

Fair enough. I think that the either lighting option is going to be significantly better than what is there right now. So, and then to your point about the project next door, yes, with option number one, there would be light spill over into that project. So if we're looking at having the livable community master plan project at the site of the former ice rink, dark sky compliant, then this would bleed, proposal number one would bleed over into that.

By the way, I'm just sort of curious, thinking about Brentwood Boulevard, as we continue to move north and we think about lighting at the other facilities, the dive tank, the pool, are those future issues in terms of lighting or are those always going to be different? Just like the fields may be different because the lighting doesn't really work the same.

In my opinion, the pool, it would present a set of challenges based on safety concerns. So I would want to see, I have not fully delved into that, but I would really want to see a lot more data before we went that direction at Shaw Park Pool.

Just one thing of the potential comprehensive nature of our lighting plan and the more properties it covers, the more the whole thing makes sense to me. Fair enough.

They're pretty busy. The lights go on a timer, so you do have to push a button if you're not familiar for them to go on. But they cannot stay on past 11. But there were probably people there till midnight if we let them. But it's pretty heavy. Yeah.

Yeah, I was just curious if you guys figured out any like return on investment, because like the little diving I did that shows that these, you know, an option to fixtures like. In three to five years, there's savings with the energy and the maintenance on it. And so if we can recoup that within three to five years that might sell this a lot easier.

I did not do an ROI analysis right off the bat, but I can tell you that we replace lights multiple times a season out at the tennis center right now. It requires us to rent a lift. and then have those lights on hand for us to replace those. So yes, the LED factor, the longevity, that should all have a better return on investment for us. But I did not do a full analysis. Yeah. I just did like a really quick chat

GPT on it. And it did, it said really, you could like recoup these, you know, the difference in the initial costs in like three to five years. So that's something to consider.

And right now, the way the lights are, when one goes out, it is very noticeable. So it really, It's really, I don't want to say a detriment, but it's not great.

And then when I was just doing a quick search, they said like the U.S. Open, you know, is all going to dark skies for all their tennis courts too. So that's kind of interesting. And

they would be lit under proposal number two to high school and college competition standards. Yeah,

cool. Thank you.

Well, Tony, thank you very much for the presentation. I mean, I think similarly, while I would love to save some money because I keep thinking about the garage at the police building and in places where we've spent excess money that's been unexpected. you know, hopefully we won't have to use the whole contingency and we won't be that significantly over budget. So I think for all the reasons other people have stated, I appreciate that if we do this once, we won't have I mean, you said you can't remember how old the current lights are. So I'm hoping that many, many years from now, our parks and rec. Somebody

else will say this. Somebody else will

see it. So yeah, I think doing it right once and hopefully getting just, you know, a very, very long shelf life for these slides would be much appreciated. So I would also support going towards proposal number two.

Great. I will bring that contract to you at the next meeting. Couple weeks. Yep. All right. Sounds good. Thank you. Thanks. Great. Great.

Well, yeah. Council Member Waldman, would you mind making a motion to go into closed session? Yeah.

Yes. I move that the Board of Aldermen hold a closed meeting with a closed vote and record as authorized by Section 610.021, 1, 2, and 3, revised statutes of Missouri relating to legal issues, real estate, and or personnel, negotiation of a contract pursuant to Section 610.0112 RSMO and or proprietary information pursuant to section 610.0 2115 and or information related to public safety and security measures pursuant to Section 610.021, 18 and 19 RSMO.

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder? Aye. Councilmember Rick Hummell?

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Fader? Aye. Councilmember Hummel?

Aye.

Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you.

All right, we will take a brief recess and be back at seven o'clock. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. It's our January 13th City of Clayton City Council meeting. If I could call the roll.

Council Member Buse? Here. Council Member Patel? Here. Council member Gary Feder?

Council Member Buse? Here. Council Member Patel? Here. Council member Fader?

Councilmember Rick Hummell?

Councilmember Hummel?

Councilmember Yorg? Councilmember Waldman? Here. Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager David Gipson?

Councilmember Yorg? Councilmember Waldman? Here. Mayor McAndrew? Here. City Manager Gibson?

Here.

City Attorney O'Keefe? Here. Thank you.

All right. The first part of our meeting is called our open forum. So it's just an opportunity for citizens to address us on any matter or any item that is not on our agenda tonight. So if you're going to speak to us about an agenda item, I just wait for you until that agenda item is called. But if there's anybody that would like to address us about something that's not on the agenda now would be the time to do that. No, Mr. Arnold, you're welcome to come up now. And Steve, if you want to just make sure that the microphone is on up there, there's a light that should be green at the bottom. So you'll push that button until it is it is it green now?

Yep. Okay, green means green means go.

Yes, go ahead. You have three. And then as I mentioned earlier, you've got three minutes.

Okay, well, much longer than three minutes. So I'll just touch on some things. Can I hand these and let you pass them around? I made up 10 copies. Oh. Yeah. A long time since I've come up here and it's difficult for me to address you all because at some point, either you're my neighbor and the mayor or a family member and the mayor or neighbors and friends and been here, I think almost as a consistent resident of Clayton for 75 years. And there may be people living here that are older than me uh, that live in Clayton, but I don't know how many people have consistently lived here, uh, nine months before they were born and through 75 years and never lived outside of Clayton. So anyway, I see this city, uh, change from, uh, what it was to what it is. And, the more that goes on, the more disappointed I become. Um, and, um, It just is getting to a point where I can't stand to be patronized on things. And if anything, gets me more upset at situations like that. So I have these things written down in no specific order. I probably would have addressed some of these things a year ago, but due to my 10th spine or cervical surgery, which was a 12 and a half hour surgery. Thank you, Michael Polinsky, my neighbor. And then developing blood clots. I had one hell of a year last year. So I'm down to a minute already. This is not going to work. Anyhow, I've been doing a lot of walking to recover. And so one of the things I'd like to see have happened is a crosswalk at Brighton Way. It may not have a stoplight, but it needs at least a crosswalk or something like a parkside where you can press a button that has flashing lights. I don't understand why there's not at least a cross walk there. You can almost kill yourself trying to walk across the street. Additionally, I don't understand why there's no – I'm a property owner in Olivet, and when we redid our parking lot, we had to make sure we had the proper handicapped spaces. And from Forsyth to Brentwood, there are no handicapped spaces that are legal represented handicapped spots. So something needs to be done to have there's one in front of Gabonzo beans, but it's not even a legal handicap spot. So I don't understand why we're not addressing more of those situations. I don't know who to. OK, this isn't going to work. So I go sit down now.

Why don't we, Mr. Arnold, I will, again, one of the reasons- Please call me Steve. Steve. One of the reasons we put this in is just so that we can get through our business and listen to... We are definitely concerned about what you're saying. I will say that I would be more than happy to give you three more minutes to succinctly finish what you here to say, because I know it's difficult. I'm just going to touch on these real quick. I just know physically it's hard for you to come here. So why don't you, I'd be happy to give you three more minutes to get through what you'd like to

say. I respect that and I appreciate it. I'll try not to go into depth upon things. Okay. We've been through at least two or three city managers and each time there's a new city manager that comes on board. I've heard we're going to have a new telephone system and you'd be able to reach somebody. I give up because you still can't get anybody. I just come because I'm close by, and you leave a message, and maybe an hour or two hours later, I'm going to sit in my house and wait for someone to call back. It has to start at the top and filter down. You cannot reach anybody. Um, the streets, sidewalks and curbs are just falling apart. I brought a gift for whoever wants it. This is the crumbling curb at Straub's on both sides of their parking lot. And, uh, uh i've all summer long i've addressed it with different messages i've left and even somebody from public works was driving down brighton way when i was walking and i mentioned it to them so i brought you off some rocks from the curbs i stopped and i brought them i'll leave those to wherever they need to go i don't understand why that wasn't addressed all summer long um The monuments, it's taken me five years. We have Wydown and Hanley looking like an extension of the botanical gardens. And we have broken down monuments for Clayton Gardens. Finally, the monuments have been rebuilt. But I don't know what's going to be done to plant those and be able to maintain them. In the meantime, we've got a guy over the summer who's out watering flowerpots. And I asked him one day, is he going to water the plants at the monuments? And he had no idea what I was talking about. Traffic signals. I don't know who has changed the cycling of the traffic signals, but they're horrible. You can be sitting and there's no traffic and we have left turns and nobody making left turns. They're just horrible. Um, and David, you have been nothing but patronize me since you've been here. I don't know why we need an assistant city manager, get out and see what's going on in the city. Walk a single block a week, a month, something, get out and what's going on. I I've said that from day one, I don't understand. Uh, and so I just talked about the central business district traffic. Um, and then the, uh, Last thing that I will talk about is the block of Maryland Avenue between Brentwood and Forsyth. Brentwood and . Did I not bring it? Wait a minute. Maybe I gave you everything. Hold on. Here it is. Sorry. There you go. Between Brentwood going west to Brighton Way, actually, it's just absurd. It's ridiculous. You can kill yourself. You told me, David, that we saved 80% of the project. We had to keep it that way. And after a certain amount of time, it was going to get changed back. In the meantime, all we did is stripe the same thing we had. And literally, you can kill yourself. And there's a list of the city people who wanted changed along the 8100 block of Maryland. And it's people that told me they'd be happy to sign it, but they weren't around when I went to have it signed. Please change that back as soon as you can. The police department doesn't even use the bike lane. And then lastly, real quick, I don't know his name. By the way, thank you for changing their name to Parking Thank you. You can

thank Council Member Waldman for that.

Thank you. Thank you. You know how much that's been a problem? Yep. Okay. They are what they are. In the meantime, I don't know his name. I will identify him as the African-American guy. He and I had a horrible incident. He's now given me two tickets for parking in front of my house. Yes, my car was going parked in front of it for a whole 15 minutes while I went in and used the bathroom and came back out again. And when I happened to be going on my way to where I was going, he was giving another ticket out on Maryland Avenue. I stopped and told him. And he was smiling at me and laughing at me. And he did all but spit in my face. I don't know what it's going to take to get him fired and gone. I don't want to hear it's a personnel matter. And I will stop at nothing to get this man fired and out of here. Okay, so that's quickly. We have some of the things that I've left for you. I'm happy to sit down with anybody and go over these things. But I am very passionate about this city and all the things that are going on that shouldn't be and things that need to be going on that aren't. Thank you, everybody. I appreciate it. It's a thankless job. I appreciate everybody. You're my friends. You're my neighbors. And I'm just a proud Claytonian.

Thank

you for coming. Go Hounds. Here, I don't know who to get in.

Why don't you just leave it right there? Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate everybody. Happy New Year. Healthy, happy New

Year. All right. So is there anyone else? The first item on our agenda is related to some stormwater control. I will open the public hearing and request proof of publication.

Yes, Mayor, this is a public hearing to consider text amendments related to stormwater control. And Anna Krane, our Director of Planning and Development Services, has a presentation.

Yes, Mayor, this is a public hearing to consider text amendments related to stormwater control. And Honor Crane, our Director of Planning and Development Services, has a presentation.

Okay, thanks. So I'm going to go through a pretty brief presentation. There's obviously a pretty hefty red line version that you were all provided with your packets, and we've had many presentations to go over the details that got us there. So I'll give us a little overview, remind us where we came from, and then answer any questions that you might have about lot coverage. Okay, so implementing the comprehensive plan, the key result that we are working on right now is developing a coverage reduction program that identifies innovative ways to reduce the amount of impervious coverage and promote green infrastructure. Listed underneath are five other key results from our comprehensive plan that are directly or indirectly tied to the overall concept of lot coverage. A huge theme from our comprehensive plan engagement, which you all are very aware of, was the impacts of lot coverage and stormwater runoff, as well as really analyzing how we can protect and reinforce the character of our different neighborhoods. So we pulled out lot coverage and green space analysis as part of neighborhood character, but also from the sustainability standpoint. And looking at lot coverage, there are three principles that our code's really addressing with the provisions that we have there today. Preserving open space, and especially in our residential neighborhoods, this presents itself in a few different ways, mainly with the front yard and that character you have along the street. Managing our stormwater runoff, so the idea that water will naturally infiltrate into the open space areas and permeate into the soil as opposed to running off of the impervious surfaces. And then also a third part kind of incidental with our lot coverage is is the reduction of the urban heat island effect, which is where the heat from the sun is kind of absorbed into those impervious and hardscape features. And then that raises the ambient temperature of the area. So when you reduce lot coverage, that's one of the ways that you can start to impact your urban heat island effect. Reviewing those principles in light of the existing regulations that we have and what we heard throughout the comprehensive plan, we learned a few things. We looked at the patterns of new construction and most of the majority of new construction, whether it's a teardown rebuild or additions, Pretty much all construction is bringing the majority of lots right up to the maximum threshold for lot coverage. We have also found that not only are we bringing up the maximum coverage, but we're doing so really with the square footage of the home. So the footprint of the house is taking up a larger percent of the lot When you look at the newer constructed houses compared to the previous homes that might have high lot coverage, but there was a lot more coverage that was actually distributed through driveways, detached garages, other improvements on the home. We've also seen a significant increase in the use of dry wells and pop-up emitters to direct stormwater, collect and direct stormwater within sites. And this is happening all over with this modernized technology and the ability for homeowners, single family homeowners to implement those tools. It's a lot easier to keep the water away from their foundation. So we see a lot more sump pumps being installed on existing homes. to collect that water around the foundation of their structure, and then pop-up emitters are used to push the water out in a different spot of their land or a dry well to collect off the roof, etc. And then also some of the feedback, I'm not going to go over every point, but some of the feedback that we heard from residents during the comprehensive plan really directs back to that character of neighborhoods as it's related to the size of the house, the openness, the perception of the density, as well as a lot of concerns about flooding. So our initial conclusions found that the way the existing coverage regulations, we have lot coverage maximums in our residential zoning districts that really tries to address all of those principles with one regulation. And then we have a chapter that has stormwater regulations that right now is really geared towards the larger sites, the sites that are disturbing areas of close to an acre or over an acre. And making sure that we're compliant with regulations for MSD for those larger site disturbance areas. So we found that the success of using one maximum impervious coverage regulation to address stormwater and green space and neighborhood characters is no longer a successful way to do that. As I mentioned, the new technology is allowing people to meet that lot coverage element of it with but still change the character, but also create a different nuisance problem with how stormwater is being directed. So to address these concerns, we recommend splitting out the requirements. A big shift when you look at the red line version for your residential sections is just nomenclature. So we're putting the idea of protecting the green space and that green space ratio up front within the regulations. So as opposed to saying we have a maximum lot coverage, everything is now converted to say we have a minimum green space requirement. So we're separating the green space ratio from the stormwater regulations. They're still very much going to be connected and how you actually see it play out on sites, but we really separated that out. And this is to increase the green space for most of our residential properties. We've added a hardscape mitigation feature, which is defined in the new regulations, and that would allow for a 2% decrease in green space so you could have a little bit more coverage when you're deploying one of those hardscape mitigation techniques. And then we also revised some of the incentives within the urban design districts which provide for changes in your green space ratio based on your garage placement and location. So the chart here shows you an analysis of our existing average green space. So through the comprehensive plan, we gathered data that tell us what the existing coverage is on every lot. Now I will say this is not 100% accurate. We didn't go out and get property surveys of every property. It was utilized through different spatial analysis. So there is going to be a little bit of error because we also have a lot of tree canopies tree canopy coverage in residential areas. So there's a little bit of an error of this, but we use the same data for the whole area. So you can see that within our R1, which is our largest single family lots, there's actually significantly more green space on the average lot zoned R1 than there is required. So that red dot is telling you what our existing requirement was. So we've raised that requirement up within the R1 lots. There's a variety of R1 size lots, though. Not everything is about the same size. So we didn't want to raise it all the way up to that existing average because in modifying this, what we didn't want do is create a significant number of existing non-conforming conditions of lots. So we raised it up a little bit there. Similarly with R2, we've increased that in R3. Multi-family districts remain pretty much unchanged. And even in R7, we've actually lowered it. And that's just based on, as you can see here, our existing character of the lots that are zoned in those higher density. Multi-family districts is significantly higher coverage. There's a lot of surface parking and other elements that are not likely to be removed. So the target of this exercise was really for our one, our two, our three lots that are experiencing the most of the development pressures right now. We also broke this down. It's included in your packet based on neighborhoods. So we actually looked at what the zoning district is and the neighborhood to understand what the changes and the patterns are in various neighborhoods. So you can see the kind of brighter yellow color. Those are our two lots or our two neighborhoods. um and there's a variety there's some of our r2 neighborhoods that have a lot more green space than is required and we have some r2 that are actually under that green space requirement even up today and if you'll notice some of the areas such as high point that's our smallest lot size so the average high point damon lot is actually smaller than the minimum r2 standard so that that creates a lot of development pressure in and of itself But another important one to call out is Clayton Gardens R2, which is under an urban design district. But this is also the area where we have seen the most significant concentration, that in Old Town, of new single-family homes, of teardowns. So clearly there's a little bit of a discrepancy with how the new homes are being constructed and maintained, those lots being maintained in terms of the coverage capacity. Because typically where you see the most new construction is where you should be closest to compliance with your regulation because those lots have been constructed more recently. So as I pointed out before, we're turning to green space. So we've included a definition of green space and then a hardscape mitigation feature. This definition of green space really is separate from impervious coverage, and there's a few different reasons. Within our stormwater regulations, we wanted to, as much as possible, align with how MSD calculates because they provide a lot of technology matrices and other elements that are reviewed on a more technical level. So in terms of stormwater, we want to align with MSD as much as possible. But in terms of green space, since we've separated this out, we want it to align with how we're trying to reinforce neighborhood character. So this is a change from the existing lot coverage definition that we have. And then a hardscape mitigation feature. So this is a new definition that we're adding. We've been very specific because we're trying to prevent what's happened in the past where people can employ dry well, for example, which they might be able to show us with engineering calculations of that dry well. is going to mitigate and hold the capacity, the quantity of water that's created from their additional coverage. But it's hard for us to say that that's going to have any sort of impacts on maintaining the character. So instead, with the hardscape mitigation feature, we've identified that we're trying to address more than just stormwater. We're also addressing the urban heat island effect, also addressing the potential loss of additional habitat and carbon dioxide sequestration sequestration. So we've identified specific types of mitigation features that are going to address more than just stormwater. So for example, if we have a permeable pavement system, those are shown to also reduce the urban heat island effect compared to an asphalt pavement, for example. A rain garden or a bioretention cell or a green roof, those are planted features. So that is a way that we can overcome the loss of natural habitat by adding a larger patio, for example, to a house with planting that it goes beyond just a typical grass and provides more to your habitat in exchange. So that is how we've actually come up with those very specific elements. These are also all systems that are identified within MSD's technology matrix. So there is an element of engineering accountability tied to them, too, that we can utilize through MSD.

Can you describe what a bioretention cell is while we're on this slide? Yeah.

So a bioretention is essentially a swale that's planted intentionally, so the water will go into some sort of a swale that is created in the ground. It kind of collects the water. It's very similar to a rain garden, but a bioretention swale is typically done in a way where the water is still going to traverse it. It doesn't collect it in a pit. So you might see a lot of times along sidewalks, you can see them in the city of St. Louis where they have kind of connected culvers almost and gaps in what we have tree wells. They have kind of this collection. It would allow the water to actually continue to flow through, but it's providing some element of natural absorption through that process to slow it down. So the water does leave the bioretention. There's one, a bioretention is being installed behind Forsythia. That was one of their ways of addressing stormwater. So what we're trying to address with our stormwater regulations, and if we've used our green space in our zoning districts to address that character and the ratio of hardscape to natural area within the residential, our stormwater regulations are trying to address our peak flow rate. So the actual speed that water is leaving a site and our volume, which is the amount of water. So as we all know that we were having a higher frequency of high intensity events. And so when those high intensity events happen, we want to try and slow the water that leaves the site because that's when you get kind of that immediate flooding because it overwhelms the system. And so even just grass, it overwhelms the grass pretty quickly and then grass becomes an impervious service. So trying to reduce that peak flow rate, slow the water down leaving the site. And then also if we can restore the natural way of water infiltrating into the ground to recharge our groundwater. So, the stormwater recommendations address a lot and I've tried to summarize those down into six points. We worked very closely with one of our on-call consultants, engineering consultants who currently does our stormwater pollution protection reviews. to really try and target some of these specific types of technology that we're seeing and address it within our own regulations. MSD has a lot of requirements and regulations, so in some cases, we've really just replicated their language. Our code already refers back to compliance with MSD, but by replicating their language within our own code, we also will now be able to really ensure compliance and reinforce that within our own reviews rather than just continuing to dictate that they go back to MSD for waivers. So one of the biggest changes that we're revising the differential runoff calculation from a 15-year, 20-minute storm event to a 100-year, 60-minute storm event. So this will increase ultimately the volume that somebody might have to capture on site. So the 15-year storm is a storm that has a 15% chance of recurring within a year, and we're going to a 1% chance of recurring. I'll get into the calculations of the coefficients and stuff if you want to, but essentially I'll show you an example of how it will capture more water. The second one is that we're ensuring that our drainage areas are balanced and that we direct discharge away from adjoining adjacent properties. So we have small lots and kind of higher density when you think compared to our region for a lot of our newer houses. And so as much as we can direct water away from the adjacent property, typically, especially in R2, from one foundation to their neighboring foundation, it's somewhere between 10 to 15 feet of distance. So that's not a lot of space. So trying to make sure that the water isn't being directed just to an adjacent property. We want to manage our downspout discharge, pop-up emitters, other daylight points. So again, we see a lot of systems where we're collecting water from one part of a site and we're moving it to a different part of the site and letting it go there. So we have some more prescriptive requirements such as 10 foot setbacks from property lines for these daylight points. In some cases requiring, in other cases strongly recommending that there are multiple discharge points, especially along slopes, so that we don't, again, really just funnel the water in one site. And then also the addition of erosion control measures. So if they are daylighting on a slope, how do we prevent the erosion from just essentially creating a direct pipeline of that water? So again, trying to spread it out across the site. We are also substantially increasing the analysis that's required when people submit for site plan approval or for the approval of these systems to really understand our existing conditions. So MSC within their regulations already identifies that drywall systems are not ideal for our type of soil and our area, yet they approve them on a lot of plans. So this is an example of where we're pulling some of their requirements There's a provision that they actually restrict below-grade garages unless specific conditions that are outlined by MSD are met. And that's a provision that we have verbatim moved within our code so that we can perform that additional analysis ourselves as well. So this includes understanding some testing where the water table is, the soil type, etc. So that will give us a little bit more room from our initial staff review to our plan commission and then even through our inspection process to make sure that these systems are functioning as they're designed. And then we've also created some guidelines for the design and maintenance of these different systems, such as a sump pump, a dry well, or other BMPs, which are the best management practices. So that's kind of the term that encompasses all of this, the bioretention, the rain garden, etc. So we've outlined specific conditions where dry wells just are not going to be accepted, along with some more analysis for when they are. And then we have identified some of the retention cells that are recommended for water volume on larger sites versus smaller ones. And then we've also established elements such as a minimum infiltration rate.

I'm sorry, can I interrupt you for a second? Where you're saying like if the whoever's building the house, the drywall is shown because the soil is all clay and it's at any level like it's not the drywall would not be useful or productive at all. So, in our packet, you have a micro detention is an acceptable approach to manage water for sites less than one acre, which most of our homes are on less than one acre. Because that would be where if a dry well doesn't work, then they would potentially have to go a micro detention route. Really? I mean, yeah, like if there's going to be a lot of water coming out, I just don't know what a micro

detention. Right. So the micro detention is really just a larger term. And I'm going to go to the definition. One second here.

I was just trying to understand what alternatives will be available for people where a dry well is not an effective. You know,

sorry to absorb water. No, it's a little while to scroll down to the right section. So we aren't going so far as to prescribe if-then specifics. We more just wanted to prescribe the analysis that needs to be done and how they'll prove their engineering concept a little bit further than what we have right now. So micro detention is a larger generalized term that's going to cover more than just a dry well system. And let me – I thought I was there, but I'm at the wrong – There we go. So this is going to be a single or a series of small stormwater detention areas that can absorb or detain some or all of the stormwater on the site. So with a rain garden, for example, could be a micro detention. So there are other elements where they would have to actually show us that they're going to collect that water and it's going to infiltrate. With a drywall system, if it's all clay, it's not going to infiltrate, that's the problem. Then it's just going to act as a conveyor It will just hold water, store it, which you don't want it to do for over 48 hours. And then it will discharge through that daylight. So with things like rain gardens, amended soils, there's other ways where you can use plantings or other intervening features to actually make sure that the water is absorbed. Yep. Good. And then finally, we've established the future maintenance and testing requirements. So we have a form that was included in your packet, which is our draft form. Where homeowners, the idea here was to try and reiterate right now if somebody puts in one of these systems to comply with our existing regulations, they have to record a deed restriction. We're going to level further. We're going collecting the information that people are actually checking on these systems. A lot of times with our newer houses, many of those are constructed before there's a homeowner involved. And the homeowner might come into the process a little bit later when a dry well or a rain garden or something of that nature has already been established as part of the site plan. And the home owner might not understand the maintenance or the importance of that feature. So the idea here is that we have specific reporting requirements that are support we're trying to keep it at a level where a homeowner could do it themselves for the near future and then we'll see how that goes if we need to elevate it so this is a from your packet some of the examples we looked around with help from our consultants to find some easy guidelines that could be followed by just a basic homeowner who doesn't maybe have an engineering experience compared to some of the more technical tables So quickly, I'm just going to give you guys an example of how the stormwater regulations that we're proposing would play out on a site and how those combine with our green space requirements. So here's an example of a redevelopment. So this is a new single family house that I took examples of homes or projects that have gone through the process previously in the last couple of years. So this is house on a just over 8,000 square foot lot that's zoned R3. In the case of our proposed regulations, this would result in an increased green space ratio, but it would actually result in no detention. So under the existing calculations, which is this first column here in blue, under the existing calculations and our existing impervious coverage maximum, there was a requirement based on a 20-year event for on-site capture and mitigation of eight cubic feet of water for a storm event. So that's how we handled it. The new house went from 53% coverage of the lot to just about 55, which is the maximum. So that's a pattern we see. So the coverage increased. If we just adopted the proposed stormwater regulations that we just reviewed here, then the new project would be reviewed against the 60-minute storm event, which would require capture and on-site mitigation of about twice the amount of cubic feet of water. When you pair the proposed stormwater with the proposed green space adjustments, this is where you see that the result is decreasing the amount of coverage on the site. So then there's no longer a requirement for on-site mitigation. So this is where we're trying to balance a little bit of making things... too much more expensive with all engineered solutions so it's a little bit of a balance here we recognize that the project would be altered because there would be a less coverage so that exact project that was approved previously for this home would not be approved under what you're reviewing tonight But we would also be a little bit less reliant on engineered systems because we would in turn have a little bit more of that natural space. So under the proposed regulations, it would actually, when you combine everything, have a decrease in the flow off-site during a storm event compared to the existing conditions. The next example is of a large addition that was done to a roughly 1,000 square foot lot on an R2 zone property. So this example would result in a decrease in the green space compared to existing conditions, but an increase in what they would have to mitigate on site. So under existing conditions, everything the way it is currently is. they would be required to capture about 46 cubic feet of volume of stormwater and mitigate that on site under just the proposed storm water again it would just over twice as much volume of water would need to be captured when you combine that with both the stormwater regulations proposed and our green space regulations There's an increase, so we go from about 46 cubic feet being captured to 56 cubic feet being captured. So there's still an increase in capture along with a decrease in the overall coverage of that site. So this is where we're trying to balance a little bit of our impacts on how property is developed. But I wanted to be very transparent that the proposed regulations before you tonight would result in a lot of projects being smaller footprints of houses or smaller overall combination of the footprint driveway.

But you're saying because of, because of that increased green space that we're providing, then more, there is like, there's more places for water to go. So there wouldn't necessarily be as much of a need for dry wells or any sort of like, I guess, mitigation efforts by just creating. So just increasing, or I guess, increasing the green space, decreasing the impervious areas. that there's that substantial of a change in water flow.

Right, and it's a little bit of we're trying to find that happy medium. We don't want to be over-intrusive in terms of what we're requiring people to do, but the idea is that by decreasing that coverage and allowing for more natural infiltration opportunities paired with A much more extensive analysis of the stormwater up front would hopefully be less reliant on engineered systems that can fail. The only way to really get the water off is if everybody started reconnecting their sewers to MSD's sewers, which I don't think MSD is going to do anytime soon. So we have to rely a little bit on a give-take of where that balance is. And so we've tried to strike a balance between... continuing to support the way people want to improve their property without having over-reliance on engineering.

Can you help me understand? like the left side is what's in place today calculations based on our current yes regulations um I believe the proposal is the proposal before us the green it is but then you are also showing us if we did the stormwater part without the green space part we'd get the orange

Correct. The orange would be if we left our green space lot coverage regulations as they are today and only implemented the change in our stormwater calculations. Thank you.

And really, Ana, the big stormwater calculation is related to the storm event, right? Yeah. Making sure that you're capturing water based on a 100-year event rather than a 20-year event.

And on that 60-minute. So that's the big piece. So this here, this PI factor... So you can see that actually changes based on your event, but we're assuming a longer-term event of capture. So we're assuming a storm that, based on the 100-year storm event, so that's a storm that has a lower percent chance of happening every year, but we're going to capture it for the full 60 minutes versus the 20 minutes, and that's what really impacts the actual on-site capture. Okay.

Or the last slide. I know there's some comments in the audience, but why don't we first kind of go around? I'm sure people have some questions or thoughts, and then we'll take any questions or comments from the audience. Every time

I see this, I just realize how critical this is and just so impressed with how comprehensive what you all are doing because it's a very difficult balance. We want to respect people's rights with their properties and their development plans. Yet, what do we hear? We hear we're losing the character of our neighborhood. We need the green space. Houses are too big, but I want my house to expand here. And how do you get all that? And also, how do you make sure our neighborhoods are sustainable? So in 15 years, we say, yeah, our water's fairly under control. We have the green spaces. I love the fact that you're looking at it not just as an impervious surface, but the heat island and everything else that's involved in keeping the character of our neighborhoods sustainable. And, So I did wonder, and you mentioned amended soil. I hadn't heard that term before. And when people are building, do we look at the fill soil or whatever the fill dirt they use or anything else?

Yes, we don't really get involved too much with that right now. A big one of the elements that's kind of covered within the process that we've added for analyzing the stormwater, a big element is the compaction of the soil, especially when you're talking about infiltration. So with our smaller lots, Something that we're studying now is related to our tree. protection measures, same thing goes for stormwater. We don't have a lot of space for the actual construction activity to occur within our smaller lots, which results in a lot of the area directly below trees or what becomes a front yard or becomes a rear yard is used and very compacted during construction. So one of the elements that's newer that we'll have to build into our inspection review and process when permitting is how can we protect that area so that if that is where a dry well or a rain garden or existing tree roots are, how can we prevent that compaction so that the BMP will actually function afterwards? And there's some back and forth with how amended soils really work. And that's where as much as possible we referred back to MSD and their technology matrix because they're the ones who really spend the time studying stormwater more intensely within our region. So sometimes they might not have the ability to review a little project on a 7,000 square foot lot in Clayton compared to everything else they're doing in the region. But they've set the standard as far as what should be more functional within us. So that's where with amended soils and some of those other options, we're going to continue to refer back to what MSD is finding is functional. Right now, really what we've done with these changes is take over or take a little bit more of the accountability and the analysis part. During site plan and permitting.

I also have a question. When we talk about the green space required for the lot and there's the hardship or the just cause exceptions, if somebody is going to change that a little bit, is there a definition of those terms anywhere?

So for right now in our... Lot coverage, there's a clause that allows the plan commission with just cause to approve an additional 5% of lot coverage. That just cause is not a hard threshold to meet compared to some of the language with a variance where you have hardship definitions and other things that are well established. Just cause isn't as much established. So part of what we've tried to do is throughout even more than the green space and stormwater here, but in all sorts of elements you saw within our commercial districts, we're trying to give a little bit more insight into what the intent and purpose of some of our regulations are, especially regulations that are available for some sort of modification by the plan commissioner, the ARB, because that will allow for that threshold of just cause to be met. So in the cases here with the definition of hardscape mitigation feature, that's where we're trying to take a little bit, we're trying to move it a little bit more into the administrative task of yes or no, does it meet this definition of hardshape mitigation feature? So we're trying to remove a little bit more of that kind of guesswork of what just cause would be. That'd

be great. And another question, because we've had some lots that have been, we recently had a lot that was consolidated, two lots, and we're looking at the percentage per lot is, I guess if somebody has a really large lot, a double lot, they could build to the 51% of the entirety or the 55%, whatever it was there. Would that If at some later date, somebody wanted to divide those lots again. Would it be I guess planning commission could then again consider. Whether the coverage was enough to allow the lots to be divided.

Yeah. One of the things that we would look at is creating nonconformities when you combine or subdivide a lot. So when they are combined, the reason that everything is a percentage is it's a ratio compared to how much you're building on. So that's the ideas. We wouldn't want to just say everybody gets 5000 square feet. They have to have 5,000 square feet of green space, but then you have somebody who has a 10,000-square-foot lot and you have somebody that has a 6,000-squared-foot lot. So that's where the percentage and the ratio comes into play. If they were to sometime in the future subdivide a lot that had been developed, then each lot would need to be conforming to the regulations on its own merit. So it might be something that we would review as staff and say you need to remove 50 square feet of driveway on lot B in order for it to comply once you've subdivided.

The other part of this that I think will be very effective for us is the follow-up. If somebody has a mechanical system in there and making sure that it continues to work with the homeowner being responsible and understanding the responsibility to make that happen, of course, with the natural means always being a better, more reliable source of control. So it's great. Thank you.

I have a few questions. How, assuming we adopt this, how does it go into effect and impact pending or in future projects?

Yeah, that's a good question because I know we have a resident here that brought that one up that will bring that to your attention as well. So the ordinance that was initially prepared would put an effective date at the time that you approved it. I don't have any objections to a delayed effective date if that's something that board wants to consider. I think with changes of this nature, you're always going to have the people that apply for and claim they didn't know that the rules had changed. So we'll run into that a little bit, no matter what. I would recommend an effective delay date of maybe a month, no more than two, because we can do a push for those people who might be in site plan design right now and try and reach them. But there's also going to be a lot of people who don't necessarily contact us with questions. And if they went just to ECODE, and didn't look at our rollout of the changes, they're going to be designing to what they're seeing on ECO2. So if we have too much of a delayed date, we're going to also create new people who are starting new projects that will continue to not know that we've made this change. So that's where I would say let's try and find that happy medium where we're going to capture the people that are already maybe talking to their engineer right now about site plan review and try and make sure that everybody else that hasn't reached out to it to anybody to design it yet would be notified. So then the only way to protect your rights against the code that it is before you've made any changes is to actually have your application submitted to us. So if somebody submits for a site plan review today, then they are protected as of whatever the regulations were for them at that time of submitting their application for review.

And then if they end up having to, like, amend their submission or make changes, it's still subject to the code on the date they submitted it?

Right.

Okay. Thank you. This might seem like a nitpick, but on the chart of the R1 through R7, I think it was 4, 5, and 6 were staying the same, but 7 dropped. And I didn't see examples of R7s. Yeah, R7 is an

interesting one. Right. We went back and forth a lot as staff about how do you how do we address these multifamily zone lots? R7 is currently only a handful of parcels that are actually on Brentwood Boulevard directly across the street from the tennis courts. So it's a it's an interesting story. group of zoning that doesn't, they're very, very different. So if you look at the condo building that's just north of Forest Park Parkway, there's no front yard or any grass, but then condos at Park Tower has some resemblance of a front yard. In both cases, you also have a lot of surface parking. So that one's kind of a zoning district that we're already evaluating with everything else we're doing from a zoning review standpoint. So we decided that one, based on its existing character, we could bring it down, get lots a little bit more closer to compliance. But I think that whole chunk of R4 and higher, we're going to be doing a much more intensive review. kind of refresh of what those zoning districts allow anyway in the coming future. We also are not seeing a very big concentration of redevelopment of that. So most of those higher density multifamily zoning districts, it's more of just a continuing as it is. We get a lot of, we've had a handful of interior rehabs with those in Morelands and in the DeMond High Point area, but we haven't had a lot of teardowns. So that's where we kind of just left those a little bit.

Thanks. Who completes the inspection and test procedure and how often?

So the requirements for checking on the dry well, which a homeowner could do themselves, we have or if they have a rain garden or whatever it is on this checklist that we have proposed here.

And I'm thinking it says they don't need a professional credential, but it does say the results must be certified. And so I'm curious what it means to certify.

Right. So on the checklist for the maintenance inspections, that is something that we've tried to design so a homeowner could do that themselves or a property manager. And they can certify it by signing this form is essentially what we have there. So they're just like

attesting to it.

Yeah. So they're attesting and submitting any pictures or anything else and fill out the form. For the infiltration tests, basically what we've done in the code is that we've said those should be signed and sealed or an engineer should be doing that unless that requirement for an engineer to do it is waived by the director. The reason that we've done that is because some of the smaller projects, so if a homeowner is just putting in a deck or a pool or something and they have a smaller feature, then there's this simplified pit environment infiltration test procedure that most people will be able to do, follow document in a way that we can accept it. But for somebody who's doing a completely new house and they have an engineer as part of the process, then we want that engineer providing that and completing that analysis and providing it as part of their full package rather than the homeowner doing it and providing it to an engineer who designs the larger system.

Thanks. The last topic I'm interested in is, I appreciate the potential overlap with MST. So I appreciate relying on their expertise and ensuring we're not creating complications or variants with that. And I'm trying to think about the extent to which we are actually duplicating what they're doing as a form of waste versus, like, if we're doing some of the... Like, how do they review and enforce the things that they have in place that we are duplicating? And what does it mean for us to be duplicating it?

Yeah, that's a great question. I'll... Trying to think about how to respond to this. So we do have a requirement in our code where MSD does review of the projects. So that's where there's a requirement for a P number is how it designates that they're in the process, MSD is reviewing it. What is a little bit unclear though is how intensive that review is and how much of it is an application gets submitted because we are not provided any sort of input. We don't know how MSC is reviewing it. We just know that somebody submitted to them because they show us proof of that P number. So we're finding a lot of projects that have things like what they call a below-grade garage. So we have these basement garages where there's very specific MSD provisions that basically say they aren't allowed unless you get an exception, but they're happening all over for us with P numbers. So that's where there's a little bit of our scale of projects that's having a lot of the direct impact on residents that we were really hearing about is too small of a site disturbance area to really be on the radar of MSD for an intensive review and follow-up inspections. It's not triggering any sort of required inspections, it's not triggering the required agreements between MSD and the developer for the long-term maintenance and review. So that's where the goal with what these provisions are that we've incorporated is to try and fill a little bit of that gap. So doing the same things, using the best practices that MSD has outlined that they very much utilize on the larger project sites, trying to fill the gap for the smaller sites for the city. So I'm not sure there could be a little bit of overlap and it could be as this project or as projects move forward after we've adopted new regulations that they are doing more reviews. And that's where we try to leave a little bit of opportunity within our review and analysis in the code. that we can address that with MSD as we move forward. But it provides us with the opportunity now to point to a locally adopted ordinance and say you're not complying with this.

Thank you.

I think our friend Nancy, who's a constituent in Ward 3, has some comments. And I'd probably mostly defer to her comments. But it seemed to me that although she had a number of issues, the ones that struck me were one that Ana's already addressed, which is the issue of the effective date of these ordinance changes. Because the point being that there are probably a bunch of folks who have houses in the works where they are already have designed engineering, or from an architectural standpoint, have come up with plans which will have to be revamped. But I think there seems to be some consensus in talking to Ana earlier that some kind of deferral makes sense. The question is how much should it be? Should it be a month, two months, four months? Just enough time. And, of course, I think we all know who are the people who generally build houses in Clayton. who the architects are, the engineers, the ones who show up most frequently. And certainly I think making sure those people are aware of the changes would help. The other thing that I think jumped out, but I guess again, I'll let Nancy address it because I think she's speaking from an Old Town perspective. which is R3, and what the impact of these ordinance changes would be on the R3 district, which is somewhat unique in that R1 and R2 are single-family only. R3 is single-family and two-family. And then you get the four other ordinance zoning areas, 4, 5, 6, and 7, all of which are multifamily. but encompass the other uses as well, the single family and two family. But I think her point, which I'll let her address, is there's something unique about R3 and its emphasis on townhomes or duplexes or other two families, and the concern that R3 is more like R4 than it is like R2, and as a result, The ordinances, as it's currently drafted in front of us, don't really make that distinction. But I'll stop there to say that, you know, I think Nancy had some good comments and I hope we can address them because I think these are the points that I derived mostly from her written response. So I'll stop there for now.

Yeah, we're kind of a little bit in the middle. We're in a more unique circumstance compared to a lot of our neighbors west where the pattern of how subdivisions were outlined and developed is significantly different. So anytime you look at new subdivisions now, there's really centralized stormwater plans for the whole neighborhood. So we kind of came at an, Clayton's at an interesting time where we have more of a mix of neighborhoods that are on combined sewer systems still, some that are partially separated, some that are separated, some that have sidewalks and inlets and roads and others that really just have more culverts and then their inlet to the MSDs at the bottom of the road. So we're very unique in that aspect of so what our problem is that we're starting with. And at the same point, we have a lot of infill development and a lot of our infill development is in very concentrated areas. So that all results in some of the impacts. We've learned a lot from some of our communities. So some of our neighbors, like Olivette, they have instituted a little bit more of an inspection process that they utilize, and they have already done that. We have other neighbors who have rain garden credit programs that were looked at. And so we kind of tried to balance a little bit of, again, how do we not rely too much on engineering, but also what are the implications? How can we actually make sure that we're enforcing and monitoring whatever regulations that we apply? So we tried to find a little bit of a happy medium based on our staffing right now and our analysis of this. So I think it's a little bit of

Yeah, you're leading into the analysis that we've already kept off here with residential areas. I would assume in the future development patterns could change, but if there's a continued path of teardown and rebuild in neighborhoods, then this will impact how those new houses are developed. Right now we have, depending on neighborhoods, some strict limits, though, on three stories. Most of our, especially R1 and R2, R2 is limited to two-and-a-half stories. there is definitely additional analysis that we need to do for the neighborhood character standpoint. So part of everything feels like there's two homes are too big and lots are covered too much. That's a little partially addressed by what you have before you today. It's going to be partially addressed by the analysis that will come before you. in the coming months. So we've finished now our neighborhood inventory. So we actually now have data for every single residential parcel in the city, with the exception of our seven lots that I already mentioned that talks about the bulk, the massing, the height. And we're doing analysis of lot width, setbacks, everything like that. So you'll see all that soon, which will in part address what you have. I think if the pressures continue, it might be something where we look to allowing additional half stories so that homes can still hit square footages that we want. But in exchange, there would be larger setbacks or something else so that the massing, that shape of the box that people can build within their lots changes slightly to address these kind of pressures of different angles.

I don't know if it's as easy to say directly a consequence of this. It might be a little bit here and there, but part of what we're analyzing the the. the development patterns in clayton gardens are somewhat unique there were a lot of characteristics of how that area was originally plotted and constructed that led that made it easy for the teardown boom to occur because you have especially on the west side of forsyth you had wide lots with one-story ranch houses and so under the zoning regulations tearing down that house, you could significantly increase what you could replace it with, which drove the value of the teardown being more valuable than maintaining that single family house for a lot of people. When you get outside of that neighborhood, you go into Davis Place, for example, you go into Clabrack, you're not running into that same condition with the wider lots and the houses that are so much underdeveloped what could be built that results in that replacement. Now, this is going to have some impact because we are reducing the amount of coverage of a lot compared to where it is now. However, we have spent a lot of time looking at the existing conditions of a lot of those lots, and that's what that chart by neighborhood kind of outlines for you. We are reducing in many neighborhoods, we're increasing that green space to align pretty closely with what you have in your average lot of that neighborhood. So it's not an easy question to answer. Could be a little bit of it. Could be a

Yeah, so the Board of Adjustment can grant variances under our zoning regulations. So under the zoning requirements for our residential zoning districts, that's where we've established the green space minimums. So within that, the Plan Commission has the ability to approve that additional or reduction in your green space when you institute a hardscape mitigation feature. Anything beyond that, modifying the minimum green space beyond that specific provision would be under variance requests for the Board of Adjustment and they would have to prove their hardship case to the Board of Adjustments for that. Board of Adjustment doesn't have oversight over our stormwater provisions. So in that case, it's a little bit of a different area. Those you just, you have to meet them. There is a provision with the below grade that's kind of why we've referred back specifically to MSD so there is a process by which MSD can approve that waiver but really most of what we've added within the stormwater provision, this chapter for stormwater is a lot of this technical analysis. So it. Instead of what we do right now where we say, okay, it looks like all the calculations make sense. You're going to have a dry well before you install the dry well, make sure you check to see if there's any clay soil where you're putting the dry well. Now we're saying you have to show us that there's no clay soil before we approve that site plan. So we're not really substantially altering a ton in terms of what the stormwater requirements are. We're just moving a lot more of that analysis to put it up front compared to after. Or we're moving a lot of those best practices from recommendations that we get from MSD or recommendations that are included within site plan approval from the Planning Commission. We're just putting them in there as requirements up front.

That's the short of it. They might not.

Yes, thank you very much for all this hard work because I know how much of stormwater is an issue. And you mentioned the 100-year storm happening like 1%, but that's really not the case anymore, right? We're seeing that more and more and more, right?

Yeah, and that's where it's interesting when you look at stormwater stuff. So it's pretty clear. It's evident from the data from NOAA, from all of the – we're getting – the annual volume of precipitation that we see is higher than it's going up. So we're seeing that and we're seeing that in all different types of storm events from the really short, high intensity ones that create a lot of water in 20 minutes. And then we're seeing it of the kind of you have a week worth of storm after storm after storm that's maybe at a lower intensity, but it builds up and it saturates around. So that's where we're trying to address a little bit of the peak flow and the volume of aspects of it. And hopefully we got the, we got that correct.

Yeah. I just think that number is deceiving because it is happening way more than it used to. My other question, I don't know if you can go back to like that chart where it had all the zones listed just so I can fully understand. Yeah. So for like this, for example, so if I'm like an old town R3 and I like buy a lot that has this existing amount on it, And then I guess that's under, right? So then you'd be okay just rebuilding it as it was, but I can't go much bigger. Is that

right? Right. Yeah. So this is where, and I'll let our resident talk about that one a little bit more, but this is where we're at a little bit of a crossroads with what's happening with R2 or R3, sorry. and the development moving forward. And what we've recommended here, we were seeing a lot of single-family development in the R3 district. So we recommended handling it closer to how we are for our single family. However, there's that larger elephant in the room of still wanting to promote that as a townhouse, and so I think that's what the residents can speak on. So this could be an area where... you want to move that one back down towards the R4 districts to truly treat it as a multifamily. Again, with the neighborhood character piece being the goal for the green space, I have no objections to shifting where R3 is to more closely align or to align completely with what we have for R4. The biggest pieces for R3 is that because there was such a concentration of of new development on small lots, we do have substantial concerns from residents about stormwater. So that's where we lean the other way and handle it a little bit more like R2. I do feel pretty confident that some of the stormwater regulations control measures that are proposed before you would address a lot of the concerns that we do here within the R3 district. But as we mentioned before, the easiest way to infiltrate water into the ground naturally is to have more green space. Yeah.

So like in Daman, for example, that if I was a developer and I wanted to go in there and just like renovate an existing building that I could keep, that as is?

Yep. You could keep it as.

Okay. So it's just

for like... Yeah, but they tore it down and built it back up, then it would be something different. And we've had... And this is where I think there's a lot of analysis that needs to be done in our R4 and really in our R5 districts because R5 is an interesting one where the lots in DeMunn R5, so that's everything east of DeMunn Avenue, so behind our DeMunn Business District. We also have R5 lots in High Point, which is the area that surrounds CBC. So the type of... property within r5 there's very different types of development so this is where going back to what we talked about with zoning a lot zoning addresses there's just a lot of aspects of zoning that all relate together to address something and right now we're plucking stormwater and green space out of a much larger conversation about neighborhood character for some of these districts So then would that apply then to this? So basically what this chart is showing you for the R4, R5, and R6 districts, we're not proposing any changes in the green space chart. Other than changing the term from maximum lot coverage to minimum green space, the ratio is unchanged from what it is today. But none of them meet it? Right. So the existing is that we have a reduction in – we have less green space in these zoning districts than we actually require on the average lot. So some lots comply and some don't. The average lot does not comply with our existing regulations, and we have proposed not changing that at this time. Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I mean, Anna, I just want to echo what people, I mean, it's incredible that you've, this is a Herculean task. So thank you for going through all this. You know, you and your staff have done a great job of addressing, you know, so many concerns that came out of our comprehensive plan. You know, and also just to piggyback on what Rick was talking about. So, you know, in areas where we have seen these below grade garages, you know, we've got, you know, language in our ordinance now that says they shall be prohibited unless there's 51 percent or more, which on these streets, I don't think there's 51 percent of so. Going forward, people aren't going to be able to build a below grade garage, which I tremendously appreciate because I've stood in people's backyards who are downslope from those garages and they can't really use their backyards anymore. I sincerely appreciate that. And I think it's great to have this narrative shift to green space rather than pervious and impervious. I mean, I think it just strengthens why we want to see more green space. Everybody wants to see more green in our comprehensive plan. There are a few places in the, in this code or in the proposed ordinance that we've got like should and shall. So I'm a little concerned. There's just in a few places where I'm, it seems like maybe it should be shall. Are some of these, are some of these adapted from MSD or cut and pasted? Like, you know, like, so I I'm a little, and I, I went through a lot of this, but I just want to make sure that we're going through this with a fine-tooth comb to understand where it should be should and where it should be shall. Can you remind those of us who aren't lawyers what the distinction is? Well, I mean, shall is like you have to do it. Should is like, yeah, you should do it, but it's not required. Shall is the most strict.

Within the terms that we've used within chapter 430 of the stormwater, those are intentionally sums. Some is shall, there's a may, there's a should. Those are used. The lot coverage is change to green space ratio, the one with the page that you pointed out, those I would say we would want them to be shall. The minimum green space provided shall be. So if there are any maize stuck in that, then that would be something that I would think we would want to consistently use shall for.

Okay. Yeah. Like there's one, you know, on the MSD stuff, it says like number two, and there's not a page, sorry, there's not a On this copy that I have. But for instance, there's one that says stormwater discharges should be directed away from adjacent private property. Well, that feels like it should be shall. Right. I mean, we want I mean, it's I mean, unless there's I guess maybe unless you're suggesting that there's no way to do it.

Right. And that's an example of one where the should is stronger than may. Right. Yeah. It's like that in between of May and shall is the shoulds. So those are strong ones because we can enforce them. But there's it's hard to predict every condition in that. So what we've tried to do is really identify when you're directing water, there's going to be natural slopes. What we don't want to do is create an ordinance that makes it so everybody who's building something comes in and completely regrades a property because that's also going to disrupt larger stormwater patterns, drainage patterns, everything like that. So there's going to be instances where water... naturally on existing grades is going to flow towards an adjacent property. What we're trying to do is make sure that we're not compounding on that natural flow with directed flow on top of it. So there's a little bit of, we need some shoulds that we have some flexibility gives a little bit more room for us as staff and any contracted reviewers that we utilize within that review to require changes of people.

And above kind of where I was reading, you know, it says, for instance, changes in flow patterns post-construction shall not result in an increase in stormwater runoff onto an adjoining lot. And I only say that because, you know, you've got... So will we... you know, we've got these drainage maps that they show pre and post construction. But we won't as a city be enforcing that. I mean, I mean, you know what I mean? Like I'm trying to understand because I've told people before, if you've got a real water problem, it's a civil action between, you know what I mean, are we actually going to require pre- and post-construction drainage areas and maps? And if they don't comply, then what's they have to do? I mean, you know, I'm just trying to understand what our enforcement mechanism is.

Yeah, so we do require and will continue to require the pre- and post drainage area maps. So that's something that we already look at is not increasing. Right. The water that's going in a certain direction. So we can enforce that and making sure that they design not to do it. And then we can enforce it and that we do as built surveys after the fact to check against the engineering where it becomes a little bit more of a civil as if people modify that plan. So that happens a lot of times after the house is done and somebody's lived there for five years. Now they change where their drainage discharges, elements like that. So there's a little bit of whatever they're doing cannot increase an issue. And that's something that we wanted to have language. Stormwater is an incredibly difficult code enforcement case for us to solve against. So we're trying to strengthen a little bit of the teeth that we have to evaluate these issues and enforce them. But A lot of what you tell residents today is going to be the same moving forward in terms of it being a civil issue.

Okay. And then I was just curious, sub pumps, which are used all the time, as you suggest, for addressing stormwater at trapped locations. Can you just explain what a trapped location is?

Because it says should be avoided. Yeah. So at a trapped location, that's where the water is being collected essentially in a certain area and there's nowhere for it to go. So you're using a sump pump. That pumping feature to pump it to somewhere else. So what we really don't want to do is somebody to design a site where they kind of have all of the water go to a location at a below grade area or a lower grade, and then they use a sump pump. to take all that water they've collected and then discharge it at a single point somewhere else. So it's trapped, it has nowhere to go. They're using that pump feature to get rid of it. So a lot of that's similar to the MSD requirements that talk about not using pumps for the below grade garages that we've replicated the language. It's a similar thing. So you're creating this trapped water issue that then you're using the pump to move it to somewhere else. Yeah.

maybe at this point, if there's any comments from the audience. I know we have at least one. So Nancy, if you would like to come up and address us. Okay.

Yeah. Well, so I'm Nancy Georgian. My husband Mike and I are building a new house at 304 North Central in the R3 District. And we previously built one at 224 North Bemiston Avenue as well. So I'm quite familiar with the neighborhood and with all of the dry well regulations and the issues that we have. I also do want to commend the staff. They have done a tremendous amount of work. This is a very complex situation. They put in a lot of effort, and I really appreciate their thoughtful approach. I do want to have, I have four points for consideration. One, as Gary mentioned, thank you for reading that long email. The effective date, I know of several projects that are underway. And so I have actually notified one builder that this is pending and he was not aware of it. And so I do think a two or three month future effective date. And as somebody mentioned, reaching out to known developers and architects. really would be an excellent thing to do. I think it would be very helpful. Second, a few comments on the urban heat island mitigation. I know at the December 1st meeting and then again tonight, Ana covered a lot of issues about different cooling strategies and mentioned they're looking at these impacts. You know, it may be that it's just too complicated to do it this way, but I would love to see a real analysis on those heating, heat mitigation projects pavers, cooling roofs, other things that could be tied into this whole package. I mean, really a comprehensive approach for both the heat mitigation. We can't do anything about the downtown. Tree canopy is the single most effective heat mitigation. And if it's shading a patio, you're hitting that double... Benefit for stopping the heat retention We can't do anything. It's too late to get it's impossible to have tree canopy in downtown So I do think that should be considered as a comprehensive approach the macro level stormwater and I support many of these stormwater measures that they've outlined, but they're micro solutions to a macro problem. And we really need to look at this long-term. This is going to help. There's no doubt about it, but many cities and many larger than Clayton, Grand Rapids, Los Angeles, they've looked at this and they've looked at the infrastructure and they've worked on improving the infrastructure. This climate change is not going to go away. It doesn't matter what's causing it. It doesn't With the development, I honestly learned something tonight about bioswales. And I'm going to be asking about a bioswale instead of a drywall that's on my site plan, which has been approved. So I'm covered by the old regulations. But we know that the infrastructure is insufficient. Climate impact is going to continue. Drywalls are ineffective in our clay soil. I have to comment Clayton is appropriately named. Rain gardens are costly maintenance. Nobody maintains them. We have projects, including our own with a sewer ejector pump.

Okay. Okay. You can continue. Okay.

Because sewer ejector pump, because of these seven, we had seven foot basements. We now have eight and a half foot basements. And we have to have a sewer ejector bump because we cannot, otherwise we couldn't have plumbing in the basement because the sewer lines are too high. They're too shallow. So this is extensive. I mean, there are ways that you can, requiring the best management practices for new construction doesn't address the long-term need for infrastructure, system-wide improvements. know can we have a city-wide a small annual city-wide fee like the sewer lateral feed to start building a fund that we can have for improvements in our sewer infrastructure and other infrastructure you know a reasonable fee from new construction but i would encourage the you know both the council and the planning department to start thinking some longer term, big picture things, because we're talking about Clayton. It's very special. I haven't been here as long as Steve, but I have. I did move 58 years ago. I grew up in Old Town. Our house was one of the first teardowns. I've watched the neighborhood change, which is one of the reasons that I'm commenting on the R3. It's my neighborhood. It doesn't impact me, but I love the neighborhood and I love Clayton. And From a characteristic standpoint, R3 is far more similar to R4. We have about half of the R3 district, and especially if you include the block of Merrimack, which is Old Town, that is all R4. They've carved out Cato developments there. in the middle of Kingsbury and Bemiston, and that's zoned R4. But all down Central Avenue, you're going to find R4 construction that shows as R3 on the zoning map. So the zoning map, it doesn't really show you the impact of how that neighborhood is. You have to walk the streets, and I walk them every day. We have additionally significant number of R2 multifamily. That is part of what Clayton was looking for. But the change, which I approved, I agreed with it, that we made a change, Anna can tell you better than I can, to not allow the side entry for these townhomes. They stopped building the townhomes in that district because when you have those narrow lots and this six-foot setback, which is what R3 has, R2 has for a minimum setback on the side yard of five feet, Our three is six foot. That's only two feet, but it makes a huge difference on having a side driveway. So when you're looking at this development, you're looking at neighborhood character, the setback and the change to a 50% instead of 45% to 50% on green space is going to greatly impact What is going to be developed on the remaining lots? And by the way, there are only 13 original lots. R3 was developed this way because those were the old farmhouses. Those were the old houses. Half or more of those remaining 13 original houses should be torn down. Anyway, I've gone over many times. I have submitted all this. I did a zoning map that I said show... This is not a sea of yellow like the rest of the R2 districts. I thank you very much for listening to me, and I thank the staff.

Thank you, Nancy. Does anybody have any other comments or questions for our staff?

Well, I'm curious about, Anna, if you can say anything about what system-wide infrastructure improvements would look like that would

Yeah,

I want to think longer. I'm not saying we don't know.

I mean, I'll start by saying that I really agree in terms of the macro issue that what we're doing here isn't going to solve that macro issue. But that's what MSD is for. They're the regional entity that has authority and control over all of that underground infrastructure and the larger regional stormwater issue. So that's really something that we're going to have to elevate beyond myself and our planning staff to address that issue.

Okay. I mean, that's kind of what I was thinking is like, we don't control the sewers and eat stuff. Yeah. So, okay. Thank you.

I think we could go different ways. We could do a first reading tonight, incorporate any changes anybody would like. We could certainly count this as a discussion item tonight and delay voting tonight. I mean, I'm open to any ideas. I mean, it is a lot to take in. There might be, I think if we were to do a first reading, there's different, you know, amendments that could be made next week or, you know, or there might be changes that we could do tonight. So if anybody has any strong feelings one way or another, I mean, I am certainly excited. I would certainly vote yes on a huge portion of this. I think this is incredibly important for our community. But if there are certainly amendments that people want to introduce, I'm open to that. Or if people feel the need to digest this a little bit more, we can talk about it again in two weeks. I'm open to anybody's

thoughts. I'd be supportive of that. deferring it for two more weeks. I think just the one issue that Nancy has raised about R4, and is it more like R2 or R3? I'm sorry. Is the R3 more like R2 R4? What should it be? Is there a, as drafted, this is more restrictive on R3 than it is on R4. And I think Nancy's point was which I'd be interested, but maybe in two weeks to hear from Ana about is that R3 really has been a central place for townhomes, duplexes. For example, there are no duplexes. There haven't been one built in Davis Place in 100 years because they're not permitted. We have them as non-conforming, but we still have them. But R3 obviously does have a fair amount of these townhomes and And I think the point that Nancy is making is that when you restrict the or if you mandate a larger amount of green space and you couple that with a fairly restrictive side yard requirement, you shrink the lot or the building on the lot to a point where perhaps townhouses are going to be very difficult to build. I don't know if that's a valid point, but that's the point I think that is being suggested here. And Anna can address that now, but I think it would be probably preferable to maybe spend a little more time on it and deal with this in a couple weeks and see where we are. Can you

remind us what R3 is? Is it only duplexes or it can be single family or duplexes? It's one or two family. One or two.

And what areas do we have it aside from? It's really just the area that Nancy referenced in Old Towne.

There's not like Ward 1 where we have duplexes and stuff. That's not R3. Correct. Okay.

And what street is, like, because Old Town is mixed, right?

There's different. Yeah, there's different. So it's Bemiston and a portion of Central, North Central. Is R3. Yes. Yeah. Nancy has the actual zoning map here if you want to pass it around. Another thing, I mean, that's the kind of mid-orange.

Yeah. plate and marked the forge is what it actually are.

Yeah. Significant

.

Yeah, it is a mismatch. Yeah, it's another. And I would only suggest that I did. I have heard from multiple people throughout the years that they would prefer more green space. So, I mean, I think there are differing opinions. You know, I'm not suggesting Nancy's not. I mean, I know she bring up good points, but there are people on Bemisden and Central who I know would happily agree. appreciate more green space and seeing a return to perhaps more green space on lots that are redeveloped. So I think there's diverging opinions on that. You might want to come up to that.

Yeah. I just, Mike and I are only using 38% of our lot per building. We're going to have 62% green space. So I believe in the green space. What I'm saying is that this reduction, first of all, the neighborhood doesn't warrant that if you're looking at neighborhood characteristics because of the houses and the size of it. But my concern is when you're combining the setback with that additional reduction in green spaces, We have streets that have far more than 51% front entry garages. That is what created this front entry loading. You just walk down Central Avenue, and if you go down the 300 block of Central Avenue, we're going to be one of the few houses that does not have a front entry garage. You have the same thing going down Bemiston. And so what I'm saying is looking at this in total, There's 13 lots remaining. There's very little change in the green space that's going to happen in that community, but this could have a big impact on the design and the development and could further deter any additional multifamily for the duplexes. So that's my point. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, I was going to ask like what it would be like to because we do have we did hear from the community a desire for townhome style development. And so what would it look like to actually have different rules? Like if you're actually doing a two family instead of one family in the R3 that you have different a different set of.

Yeah, and that's part of what we will be addressing. We're doing right now some of the other key results that were a huge part of characters in field development standards, analyzing our setbacks, analyzing our lot area requirements, analyzing height. So if there's... A desire to, I think one thing you could do is revert R3 back to how it is right now and not change that one. When we come through with the larger package of understanding the barriers to townhouses and other infill style development, we can always amend the... minimum green space requirement as part of that larger change. So what we've started the process of right now, similar to the commercial development districts, is all of our residential districts. So within the next year, we plan to come to you with revising all residential districts into that unified development code format. So this isn't, we're not going to solve every problem right now and we can't, there's nothing preventing us from going back to make a change In the future, what's before Unite is hyper-focused on stormwater and green space. So they're really the context of other elements of neighborhood character are not part of that review.

What would it be like to say, like, the R3 is the only area where the proposed minimum green space is increasing and outside of the existing conditions? Mm-hmm. And so I appreciate the comments and the need for further study and consideration of other options. And I wonder if we couldn't just amend this to change that so that R3 doesn't change the proposed minimum green space from the existing, and we put in a delayed date, and we can pass this. That's what I would be interested in understanding folks' openness to. knowing that it sounds like do we even need an r3 do we what is it like right i mean let

me suggest uh i i do feel an urgency to put this good work into effect and uh from what you just said anna if it was reverting the r3 area to to the current standards not making that change because that's coming back to us anyway that makes That makes good sense. If we wanted to do a first reading tonight, that would help give notice to the people who, the developers, the people who are looking at building now. And we could still, it would start the notice period and then we could have it affected in say a month after another reading without delaying it much more than that. Tossing that out for what people think. That way we're getting additional notice. We're reserving that issue of the R3 until there's further analysis of the character of the neighborhood, and yet we're moving it forward with the urgency that I think it deserves. Does that make sense to people?

Yeah. And I certainly want to move the process forward. I'm only suggesting we could close the public hearing, postpone action to the 27th and then do both readings on the 27th. But I'm open to doing a first reading if you want. I think that again allows, I think that would allow me, that would give me a little bit of comfort because then I feel like I can really dive into, I just want to make sure that concerns that I've certainly heard from the neighborhood that I'm not not addressing them so

I mean it doesn't sound like we have unanimous consent for two readings in one night anyways so I would make a motion to move the proposed minimum green space in R3 to the existing minimum green space and delay the implementation date by one month from passage

I would say one in that motion I don't know what the proper process is. I would say delay the effective date to one month from today.

What you're doing right now is you're amending,

your

motion is to amend the proposed ordinance.

I made a motion. It's pending a second or... Ah, right. And you're

asking if you can amend my amendment. Correct. I don't know the process to do that. Again, I'm feeling urgency.

Correct.

Councilwoman wishes. Right.

Make a motion to make an amendment to the proposed amendment. Have the effective date one month from today. What if

we don't

pass? Assuming it passes.

accepting it as a friendly amendment? Because I like it being like based on us taking

action. One month for the date of passage.

One month from the date of passage, yeah.

And I ask, the amendment seems to me to be to change the intent of the ordinance as written, as proposed to actually amending the language that's in front of us. Is that correct?

I mean, I think I would be very specifically changing the specific language that has 50% as minimum green space in R3 back to 45. Or like putting it to 45 and then adding the statement that the... Text amendment goes into effect 30 days after the effective date. That's what I believe I proposed and Rick seconded. After the date of passage. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can I clarify? The language talks about two minimums. One is the front yard setback has to be a certain amount of green space, and then there is a separate minimum for the total lot. So I don't know whether are we changing one of those or are we changing both of them? Minimum

green space, no setback difference.

I didn't answer my question. Are we changing?

Minimum Green Space for the front yard and total yard, total lot. Oh,

I meant for just total. I mean, I'm open to other amendments or discussion.

Yeah. So there are there any other? So we've we've got two motions, one amendment. Does anybody want a second council member abuse related to the effective date? And I'm happy second. Second. Yeah. So there's two seconds for the two amendments that are currently on the table.

Motion to amend the motion. First of all, Council Member Buse's motion would be to amend Council's motion by making the amendment effective. All right.

And this only goes to the effective date, just making it a month from from passage.

Yeah,

correct.

Do we vote on that now, Kevin? Debate is concluded. Yes. Gary, are you still concerned about that? I don't

have any problem with extending the date. I'm still saying that this is not accurate. If we're telling the staff and we're amending the ordinance, which has two provisions relating to the amount of green space, are we changing one of them or are we changing both of those? That's not our discussion on this particular thing.

motion on the floor is to amend council member Patel's motion by deleting reference to our three changes, only amending the bill to adopt an effective date 30 days after passage.

I can live with that. Oh,

and has discussion ended related to that? That's fine.

Wait, then does Council Member Patel's go away? No.

ripe yet. All those motion is to just have a sooner effective date. So all those if we want to change it, then we vote on her motion amended or not amended.

Okay, so Council Member Buse's motion. All those in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? Nay. now um council member vote

it's the ruling yeah of the chair

i i the eyes passed because i think there were two nays

yes

and you were an eye i was an eye yes

the motion

yes

the motion on the floor now is to amend the bill to adopt an effective date 30 days after the date of passing

No, it would be 30 days from today because that's what Susan proposed and the council just approved. And I want to be clear that my intent is to modify Section 4, Chapter 405A, a minimum of 50% of the total lot shall be covered by green space, so that it says instead a minimum of 45% of the total shall be covered by greenspace. As an effect, that is my attempt to clarify for my colleague the intent of my original amendment, which I did not realize was unclear. And I appreciate the

But the motion on the floor at the moment is only with respect to the effective date of the

ordinance. It passed. It just passed. The

motion to amend Council Member Patel's motion.

But it passed, so now my amendment is

on the floor as effective

date only.

It's been amended by council. I just would like to, my impression of the rules meant, thought that that meant that the amendment that's on the floor now is 30 days from today and 45%.

Your motion was to do A and B. Council member Buse made a motion to amend your motion to do only B. That motion passed.

That's not true. She made an amendment to change the date from which the 30 days starts. Like she modified one of my two provisions. She didn't eliminate one.

I think she wanted to do both in one amendment. Right, yeah.

Keep the green. Yes, green space. And I was just trying to move up the effect to clarify that then. Okay, that's what I think everybody because the motion just

that's what I thought you were doing. Okay, just included the second we

just need to clarify that's what so we can I say, can I restate my amendment or accept her friendly amendment given that I know my colleagues are in favor of it. And in that case, I'm moving that it's effective 30 days from today and that the subsection I noted moves from 50% to 45% for our three.

Second.

So she made the motion and Council Member Buse seconded. Is there any further discussion?

Can I just ask? There is a sentence in here on R3, Section A, that's the second sentence says, a minimum of 50% of the total lot shall be covered by green space. I understand the proposed amendment is to change that sentence so they would read a minimum of 45% of the total shall be covered by Green Space. Is that correct?

That is correct. Yeah.

I think that would just be a more accurate way of phrasing the motion.

So we've got a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? So the motion passes. Aye. Okay. And now I will

close the public hearing. Council Member Buse. I would like to introduce Bill number 7123 as amended, approving text amendments to Chapter 405, Chapter 410 and Chapter 430 related to stormwater control to be read for the first time by title only. Second. Any discussion?

Mr. City Attorney.

pages down in the bill i apologize bill number seven one two three first reading an ordinance amending chapter 405 chapter 410 and chapter 430 to adopt revised green space and storm water management regulations

all those in favor aye any opposed the vote passes six to zero

so and i don't think we're gonna open the amendments even with the memos we don't want to go forward today on the second reading or do we i i would prefer not to do that but it's fine yeah so

all righty thanks again anna for all your hard work with that and nancy thank you for your comments All right, moving on. Next item is our consent agenda. Is there any discussion from the board or council? Sorry. Council Member Buse. I move that the

board approve the consent

agenda. Second. Any discussion? Council Member Buse, Council Member Buse I'm sorry. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council Member Gary Feder.

agenda. Second. Any discussion? Council Member Buse, Council Member Buse I'm sorry. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council Member Fader.

Aye.

Council member Rick Hummell.

Council member Hummel.

Aye.

Council Member Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you. All

righty, moving on to some new business, and we have a condominium plat at 8250 Forsyth Boulevard. Mr. City Manager?

Yes, this is an ordinance approving a condominium flat at 8250 Forssyth Boulevard. The subject property comprises a multifamily structure with one commercial unit. 38 residential units and 82 parking spaces. The condominium development known as Forsythia is a planned unit development. On October 24, 2025, the applicant submitted an application, condominium plat, bylaws, and declaration. The plat is in compliance with all applicable codes, ordinances, and standards, and staff recommends that the City Council approve the ordinance with the conditions set forth and the ordinance itself.

Thank you. I will open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from the council? Any from the audience? Council Member Buse.

I move, I introduce bill number 7124, approving condominium plat for 8250 Forsyth Boulevard to be read for the first time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? Mr.

City Attorney.

Bill number 7124, first reading. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plat for the forsythia on the park, a condominium located in the city of Clayton, Missouri.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Council Member Buse.

I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7124 on the day of its introduction. Second. All those in

The

vote passes 6-0. Let the minutes reflect that the Board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce Bill No. 7124, approving a condominium plat for 8250 Forsyth Boulevard to be read for the second time by title only. Second. Discussion? Mr.

City Attorney.

Bill No. 7125, second reading and consideration for adoption. An ordinance providing for the approval of a plat for the Forsythia on the park, the condominium located in the city of Clayton, Missouri.

Council Member Buse. Aye. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council member Gary Feder.

Council Member Buse. Aye. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council member Fader.

Aye.

Councilmember Rick Hummell. Aye. CouncilMember Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Councilmember Hummel. Aye. CouncilMember Waldman. Aye. Mayor McAndrew.

Aye. The next item is a contract to get that new signal on Brentwood after the tornado took it down. Mr. City Manager.

Yes, the Public Works Department is requesting approval of a construction contract with Gerstner Electric for the repair of the traffic signal components near the intersection of South Brentwood Boulevard and Orlando Drive, which was damaged during the May 16, 2025 tornado. Two responsive responsible bids were opened on December 23, 2025, and Gerstner Electric submitted the lowest responsive responsible base bid in the amount of $141,694. Staff is recommending acceptance of four ad alternates that bring the total contract amount to $180,335. In addition to the contract amount, city staff requests authorization to approve change orders and an amount not to exceed $9,000, which is 5% of the overall contract. The city will seek reimbursement from FEMA and SEMA, which is the state emergency management agency, for up to 85% of the value of the work. Leave time for the poll and master approximately 12 weeks. And if approved, ordering of the materials will be the first priority. Staff recommends that the city council approve the ordinance authorizing a contract with Gerstner Electric in the amount of $180,335 plus a contingency of $9,000. Thank you.

I'll open the discussion. Are there any questions or comments from any council members? I just

have one question. Any updates on FEMA or other processes? Go ahead.

Sure. So we've submitted a lot of information. We've had multiple reps at FEMA at this point. They are really far along looking at our debris removal costs, which, you know, that was money we spent up front to get the debris out. And then our public safety costs that were associated with the storm and our response for the individual projects themselves. Matt's been working with FEMA on getting the approval for those projects. I was going to say, it's a pretty...

It does vary per project, and some projects are further along than others. Our sidewalk project, for instance, we're close to finalizing, I think, paperwork to be getting that reimbursement. Others require different amounts of requested documentation that we're going through the process on, but... It is kind of following the priority order that we established with these projects as we report post event. But some of them are easy, smaller dollar values. FEMA has different capabilities of releasing funds. Others take a little bit more work and involve our insurance company with some of our buildings. And that will ultimately determine how much FEMA is reimbursing, whether or not that is an insurance claim for a building. So it's not an easy answer, sorry.

No, it

isn't, because we're also trying to get a handle on the timing of these reimbursements. Some will be true reimbursements like debris removal and other things. There is the possibility that for some of these larger projects, FEMA's basically going to pre-fund that work. And then if for some reason when we actually get to the project it costs more, we can go back to FEMA to try to get the additional money. We're still working through what that looks like. And each time we get a rep, it seems that it changes a little bit what our process is going to be. So but that's where we're at at the moment. We're working with them and speaking with them on a regular basis. I know Matt's sending them documentation every couple of days, it seems so.

Don't have any obstacles to report at this point.

Staying persistent and thorough. That's good. Thank you. All right. If there's nothing else, Council Member Buse. I introduce bill number 7125, approving a contract with Gerstner Electric Incorporated for the Brentwood Traffic Signal Project to be read for the first time by title only.

Second. Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7125, first reading. An ordinance approving a contract was Gerstner Electric incorporated for the construction of the Clayton Signal Repairs Fiscal Year 26 project.

All those in favor?

opposed?

Council Member Buse. I move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number 7125 on the day of this introduction.

All those in favor, aye. Any opposed? The vote passes six to zero. Let the minutes reflect that the board has given unanimous consent.

I introduce Bill number 7125, approving a contract with Gerstner Electric Incorporated for the Brentwood Traffic Signal Project to be read for the second time by title only.

Second.

Any discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7125's second reading in consideration for adoption. An ordinance approving a contract for Gerstner Electric Inc. for the construction of the Clayton Signal Repairs Fiscal Year 26 project.

Council Member Buse. Aye. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council Members Gary Feder.

Council Member Buse. Aye. Council Member Patel. Aye. Council Members Fader.

Aye.

Council member Rick Hummell.

Council member Hummel.

Aye.

Council members Waldman. Aye. Mayor

McAndrew. Aye. Thank you. The last item on our agenda is a mutual aid agreement for Public Works Services.

Yes, the Public Works Department is requesting authorization to renew and execute a Public Works Emergency Response Mutual Aid Agreement with surrounding municipalities and other political subdivisions within the St. Louis region. This is the agreement that provided much of the assistance received from partner cities after the May 16th tornado. The revised agreement will be effective beginning February 6th, 2026. Execution of the agreement does not obligate the city to provide assistance if doing so would impair our own ability to serve our residents. There is no direct fiscal impact associated with approval of this ordinance. Any costs incurred by the city when providing aid to another entity are subject to reimbursement under the terms of the agreement. likewise the city would be responsible for reimbursing other entities when clayton is the recipient of aid staff recommends that the city council approve the ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute the public works emergency response mutual aid agreement

thank you i'll open the discussion any questions or comments from the council

um i have one so it seems like this is just with like a handful of municipalities am i understanding correctly

that's correct

not

everyone participates

but we got help from different from more people than that i thought

yeah current agreement is somewhere between 10 to 20 people i think it's at 13. uh the proposed agreement we've already got 13 signed on and i think there's seven more that will be coming um Not everybody in the region does participate, but the large majority of the people that did assist us were part of the agreement.

Okay. I think I'm just maybe confused. Like, oh, there's more in here, like in different formats? Like, different cities have different information.

You're seeing individual pages that they just attach to the document to verify it.

And so is our expectation that the group is staying the same?

It's actually... growing larger. The agreement does allow for changes and people to add throughout the years. I think it's just been 10 years since we had officially renewed it and had an ordinance passed for it. So the organization, this is organized through his APWA and the person who administers this felt it was time we did a full-scale renewal, but people will still be added throughout the year. And we encourage more people to join

And we don't have to approve every time someone else joins. We approve that we're joining and whoever organizes it all recommended that we do this. That's why we're doing it. Got it. Thank you very much. Anyone else?

so it's on page 130 of the packet which is straight from the document um we end up paying basically what their payroll rate is.

Correct, correct. And with the equipment and the labor that's reported to us, we pass that through to FEMA, so we're paying it, and then we'll be getting the reimbursement portion for that.

We would have them check in every morning when they would show up, and then we'd track all of their hours, and then those cities would end up billing us at their payroll rate at the number of hours they worked.

else? council

member abuse i introduced bill number seven one two six approving the renewal of the public works emergency response mutual aid agreement to be read for the first time by title only

second

any discussion

mr city attorney

bill number seven one choose six first reading an ordinance authorizing the city manager to enter into a mutual aid agreement for public work services

all those in favor aye opposed the vote passes six to zero

council member abuse i move that the board give unanimous consent to consideration for adoption of bill number seven one two six on the day of this introduction

second

all those in

favor

aye aye

opposed let the minutes reflect that the board is given unanimous consent council member abuse

I introduce bill number 7126, approving the renewal of the Public Works Emergency Response Mutual Aid Agreement to be read for the second time by title only.

Discussion? Mr. City Attorney.

Bill number 7126. Second reading in consideration for adoption. An ordinance authorizing the city manager to enter into a mutual aid agreement for public works services.

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council Members Gary Feder?

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council Members Fader?

Aye.

Council member Rick Hummell? Aye. Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Council member Hummel? Aye. Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew?

Aye. So that brings us to the end of our agenda. I'm going to suggest because I know there's potentially some people waiting for us that we not engage in our roundtable tonight. Council Member Waldman, if you could go ahead.

I move that the City Council hold a closed meeting with a closed vote and record as authorized by Section 610.021, 1, 2, and 3, revised statutes of Missouri relating to legal issues, real estate, and or personnel negotiation of contract pursuant to Section 610.02.112 RSMO. and or proprietary information pursuant to Section 610.02115, and or information related to public safety and security measures pursuant to section 610.0 2118 and 19 RSMO.

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Gary Feder?

Council Member Buse? Aye. Council Member Patel? Aye. Council member Fader?

Aye.

Council Members Rick Hummell? Aye. Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you,

Council Members Hummel? Aye. Council members Waldman? Aye. Mayor McAndrew? Aye. Thank you,

everybody. Thank you for coming.