October 5, 2026

Machine-generated transcript — may contain errors.

Good evening, everyone. And welcome to the plan commission for October 5th. If you have any electronic gadgets, please silence them now. Ryan.

Steve Lichtenfeld. Here. Helen DiFate. Here.

Jim Arsenault. Here. Chris Breton. Here.

Blair Kweskin. Here. Susan Buse. Here.

We have minutes from the previous meeting on September 14th. Are there any changes? Seeing none, do we have a motion? I move.

You did reach out to me earlier just noting a couple of changes. Just under the Under the conditions of approval for Napoli, we'll update that because there was a word that was left out there and we'll double check the vocabulary. Oh, okay. Minor.

Okay. We're ready. I move to approve as submitted with the correction. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay, this is the time for the open forum.

If you've signed up to comment on anything that is not on tonight's agenda, please come forward. Mr. Lentz? Thank you, Steve.

Susan, Ryan, Anna, thank you. And the rest of the committee, thanks very much. Two things. One is that I do want to thank you all for all the work you put in on these zoning regulations.

It was quite impressive when I saw all the analysis that was done. So and I know it's been a lot of work and discussion. The one comment I have, which is related to that, but not exactly a zoning issue, I think, and that has to do with landscaping. I know this committee, whenever you look at new development, are always very attentive to the landscaping plans and whatnot.

But as we try to keep our neighborhoods safe, looking the way we want them to look, which is the whole point of these zoning codes changes. I think we also have to think about the landscaping. I'm at 6375 Alexander, and we have had one house that was purchased, and actually it is one of our historic houses, a Marison Young house. It was purchased by someone they...

rented it, they stripped out all the landscaping and just left it without any landscaping. And there's nothing we can do about it. I just think there's got to be some way. I know the city will if something gets overgrown, the city can go in and ask to get it cut down.

But this is sort of the opposite issue. And I don't know where that fits. But I would just bring that up to your attention. Not only do we need to be mindful of it on the new development, but on the existing as well.

Thank you very much. Thank you. We'll leave that up to staff. Okay, we'll move into business matters.

Starting with old business, the first item is 48 Arundel Place, the applicant. Hold off, we'll start with the staff report. So this application was first presented on August 17th and was continued. The subject property is located on the south side of a rundle between Dumont and University Lane.

It's zoned R2 and is in the Hillcrest subdivision. The applicant is seeking approval for the construction of a rear addition. The following revisions are noted from the previous submission. The addition would comprise of black standing seam metal with black picture windows.

Stained wood is proposed for recessed portions of the rear facade. And the roof line is revised to a flat parapet, which would exceed the height of the other line of the existing house by about two and a half feet. Although the addition incorporates design elements, which are likely to have some visual impact, staff are of the opinion that the location, massing, and material configuration of the addition are positioned such that they limit the visibility from adjacent properties. Staff note that this meeting is the last opportunity to review this application within the 60-day window.

The Architecture Review Board must take final action at this meeting unless the applicant waives the 60-day review requirement. Staff are coming to approval as submitted. Okay. Great.

You'd like to add anything? Sure. First, great to see all of you. Last time we were on Zoom, so good to be in person.

My name is Ryan Hoffman. This is my wife, Anne Hoffman. We really enjoyed the conversation we had last time and appreciated all of your feedback. We tried to take all of that into consideration and incorporate as much as possible.

So I think you'll see, at least if you've had a chance to review the first few slides, that some of those comments, what they were as a reminder, but also how we brought them into this new vision for the extension on the rear of the home. But yeah, welcome your comments, recommendations and feedback. Okay. Well, we too are glad to see you back, especially in person.

And this is a somewhat radical redesign, but it's also in many ways, a breath of fresh air. And I think it works pretty well in the neighborhood. The addition will not really be visible from anyone on the street. You do back up to Concordia, which has fewer people on it.

But there are a few things I'd like to bring up. The parapet height, the way it meets the roof, really doesn't seem very elegant. I'm not sure how that would be fixed. I understand why it's doing that.

But the flat roof behind it, and I could see it on the elevation on the rendering we just had, you need a parapet a certain height. So I'm not sure if anything can happen. The massing really seems appropriate compared to many of the other houses with additions. They also are blocky and similarly looking, but with very different materials.

The materials, I think, are creative. At first, I thought maybe the east and west walls should be brick. But after taking a look at it, looking at the house, I'm okay with the vertical steel. The one thing, Ryan, if we could go to, I think it's page six.

It's the rear elevation. Yes. This is different from the above rendering, and I actually like this better. You'll hear from me soon.

I like the wood inset in there. I think it lightens it up. It makes a better relation to the big opening below it. So we'll hear what everyone else says.

I'll stop there. Helen? I like the changes you've made. The one thing that bothers me, and I realize that these are computer-generated elevations and renderings, is the scenes.

On the metal panels, the windows are not set so that there's a seam here with the window equal, equal in. They're set randomly in the panels. Okay. Can you show me where exactly?

I think I'm struggling to follow. Okay. Okay, it's more so, okay, the side elevation where you have the chimney bump out. Oh, yes.

The door, this part of the door, the fireplace here and here, and then you have a seam. Yep. Seam. So wanting to make them symmetrical or line them up?

Yeah. Your window above is not centered, and it's a challenge to do it. That's the downside of panels. But I think since they are really the design element, those verticals, The inside elevation and the outside elevation both need to work.

I agree with you. Having said that about the steel panels, are you aware that steel can oil can? Say more. Steel can oil can.

What does that mean? It warps. Oh. That will happen with heat or freezing temperature.

Yeah. I've read, I've done research and read about it and familiar with some of the like, of course, temperature changes and the fact that we experienced severe, of course, cold and dry spells or hot spells as well. Yeah. See if you can find or ask the supplier about it.

Because you're expecting one thing. And when it does that, when the oil canning happens, it's a surprise if you're not prepared. It happens a lot of times we use steel metal for roofs. And there it's not as noticeable.

But here you've got a large expanse. So read the product, the manufacturer's literature. Will do. Yes, absolutely.

I did come across that when we were reading about it. However, I do know, at least I've seen that black standing seam steel is like a pretty regularly used material in modern structures. So I would imagine there are manufacturers that account for that and plan for it and installers that know how to do that properly. But from what I understand, a lot of it comes down to installation process and the materials and the seal that you create underneath.

So it's something I agree we would need to stay very close with our contractor on to make sure that is accounted for in addition to the supplier. Yeah. The other thing is... dings from a small rock or stone that a lawnmower might throw up okay and are the panels full height of the building or will there be a joint that's a good question i don't i don't actually know i have to ask our architect um I know with hardy board, which we had previously, there would be a joint in the middle, right?

With the standing seam steel, I'd imagine that has to – it depends on the manufacturer who we end up going through. I'm not 100% certain because we haven't selected that yet. Okay. Those are details.

But with something this simple, those will stand out somehow. I think my main thing is the seams and the positioning of the windows, doors, that kind of thing. Great. No, it looks good.

Thank you. In agreement with you, with the rounds and rounds we've gone back and forth with our architect about making sure windows and doors line up, and then when we make changes, making sure that all those adjustments are made again and again. But looking at it, you're absolutely right. I think that upstairs window is actually not centered by the fireplace any longer, which it should be.

And then part of what we did since last time, when we bumped out the rear to create the inset windows, is it added and so now the windows are no longer centered with the whole like wall exterior so yeah but you're absolutely right these are things that we need to like double triple check before we get a they're the details thank you jim yeah i think overall this is definitely a big step in the right direction my only thing and i worried this might be an architect question, too. Just as far as that connection between the new and the old, where the new roof meets the old roof and stuff like that, I didn't get a great sense of how that connection's made. And I'm just thinking of water sloping down the back of that, how that is handled and downspouts and just that level of detail I didn't necessarily see. And I was curious how all that functions.

Yeah, I asked the exact same thing too. And I was a little surprised to see the height of the parapet as well. I thought we were going to be able to get it lower beneath the gutter line actually. And when talking to her because of the truss height and because we are trying to match the nine foot ceilings that we have on the existing structure with the new structure to carry that.

It ended up needing to be, according to our architect, a little higher. And then so this for the roof as it connects should go above the gutter line but slope down towards the, I guess, rear south-facing part of the extension. And then the gutters are in the very front kind of east and west corners, if that makes sense. Inside, yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so what's the roof material, I guess, on the main house, and then what's the roof on the addition? And then how is that connection made between those two materials? The existing structure is like a 30-year architectural shingle.

It's asphalt. I'm not sure the material for the new structure yet. You don't know what the roof of the new building is going to be or the addition? No.

I know it's a rubber material, but I don't know the specifics. I'm sorry. Okay. I don't have any more questions, but thank you.

Okay. Thanks. Bruce? I love it.

I love the fact that you kind of heard what we were saying about if you're going to go whole hog, go... go hard or go home. I think you did. I would agree with Steve that I really liked the addition of the wood in the back there too.

I think it's a nice design element that takes it up even another notch. So if you had to decide between, you know, Can we do this with the wood too? I would go in that direction. I think that what you'll hear when you talk to installers of the standing seam, I think that you'll hear – they'll say, yeah, we can minimize that oil canning by reducing the width of the standing seam.

And then you get into some kind of design aesthetics. Do you want these real narrow ones that don't have the oil canning or do you want the wider ones that are more – you know, visually like what you've shown here and willing to accept the risk of that oil canning. A lot of it, you're right, does come down to installers. And so I would definitely vet any installers that you have doing this one.

I'd make a point of driving out to projects that they've done to see and not just relying on if they've done standing seam metal roofing because it is a thing. Some people actually like the idea of oil canning because it shows that it's metal and it's not flat like the hardy board. So... I think you're well aware and you're going into it.

And I appreciate Helen bringing those things up, like the rocks and things. But if you go in with all eyes open and know that's what you're getting, then you're not going to be disappointed afterwards. I love just the little details that you've added to it. I think that the reveals are a fantastic addition, the picture window down at the bottom.

So I have no concerns about this and think it's a smart idea to run the standing seam all the way around it. Thank you. Later. Hi.

So I missed the last meeting, so I did go back through some notes and things like that. I love the intersection of your traditional tutor to you're this modern building. From a design professional, I struggle one with the parapet, the joint of the new house and the old house, I really dislike. Also, I think it's important that your windows from new to old are in some alignment And that could be, as you were saying, that something got shifted in this new round.

But I do think that that's important from a relationship standpoint because I am struggling a little bit in seeing that. I think that... In general, as a committee, I want to make sure that we're not setting a precedent by saying you don't need to use brick, that the entire exterior doesn't have to be brick, that we're waiving our percentages here. I love it.

I think it's really cool. But in the back of my head, I keep thinking about that and taking that into consideration because, as you said, with hardy board, you can achieve a similar aesthetic. And that's something that we've said we can't do. So I just want to make sure that as a committee, we're thinking about those things still.

To Steve and Chris's point in regards to the wood, maybe that's bringing in some brick back there to just sort of pull that together. But I love the intersection of the designs. Thank you. Susan?

Design-wise, I have no problems with it. My concerns actually are maybe tied to what our public comment tonight was, Mr. Lentz, about the environment. Okay.

And we spoke about this last time. This is a south-facing primary. There's a lot of glass. Even in your picture show, there's a lot of reflection.

And the city has been moving toward having the bird safety and we've been taking the city buildings and also talking to school districts about making sure that the glasses they have, especially when there's green reflections near the park or somewhere else, that you're using bird-safe glass. I saw in here that you have more setback. It's more recessed. I don't know that that is something that meets the standards of the two organizations that are cited there.

And I think the recent data is that, you know, we think of tall buildings as the primary bird collisions. It's actually, I think, over 40 percent are on residential So that's something that I would ask you to address and provide whatever certification is appropriate out there to staff to make sure that you're addressing the bird safety of the project. The other part of it with all the lighting and the glass is the city has been doing, and maybe we've had banners out too, trying to do the dark skies, especially during the bird migrations, which are May and September, I think. And With the lighting from the inside coming out, we would ask that, I don't know the age of your kids, but lights out from like 11 until 6 a.m.

on a home like this would be pretty darn critical to help the migrating birds actually get through the neighborhood. And this all goes toward the habitat and everything else around us. Even if the structure itself is not visible from the street, the impact of these types of steps is felt by all of our neighbors. So that's what I would like to see happen.

Okay. Do you know, you mentioned certifications for the like bird safe class. I did visit both those websites. I didn't see like a specific standard or like a certification process.

Do you know of one? I was looking like an hour ago to find that certification name and I wasn't finding it. I know that when the city has looked into it, it's whether you're putting dots in the windows or whatever it might be. And some are very subtle.

WashU has some windows that are bird safe that you wouldn't know it to go by. It's not like you see. Oh, okay. Like the zoo's got some things that are very obvious.

Mm-hmm. but they don't have to be. And there's a standard that I think the indentations or the unevenness has to be two feet by four feet apart or something. There is a standard out there.

I can't tell you what it is right now, but if it's something that you all could find, especially with that amount of glass. You're going away from, again, the primary material with that kind of variance. I think this is something the city has put on its own agenda for its own buildings and to communicate that to the community. So on a project like this, I think that would be great.

Also with the quality of the project that you're doing, to keep it up to current standards would be a really great thing. Yeah, sorry. I think, yeah, we would like to do that as well. We think the recess will hopefully help with that and it should reduce some of the glare and it should provide some cover.

And that way it should make it more, I think, visible to birds. But also we're happy to put a material on there if we need it. I did look at the website, and a lot of what I saw on there, I think it's a really large library. A lot of them are highly visible, like even to us.

And I don't know that that would be the aesthetic that we're looking for, but I think if we can find one that's smaller and visible to birds, but maybe not distracting from the design, I think we would really be happy with that. Yeah, and I think it's kind of critical, the comment too, about we're varying from our standards. If it's done... with that type of awareness of the other priorities of city, that's pretty important.

So that's what I'd like to see happen. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any comments from the audience?

Sure, come up, identify yourself and speak into the microphone. My name is Raj Taylor at 204 Gay Avenue. And I just had one thought. This is taking me back to my grad school days, but I just had one though is that you might be able to solve the inelegant transition of the parapet roof with the Existing house by just doing a even a small reveal of where you wanted the line to be.

And just a ghost might might that little line might solve that problem and take the edge off a little bit without a total redesign. So it may be something to quickly just sketch you in an AI to see how that looks. So that was just a thought. Thank you.

Any other comments. I have a few more from what Blair was bringing up about setting a precedent. Every so often we have that question come up. I think we do our best not to set a precedent, but to deal with every application as it comes in.

So I feel confident we can go ahead with that. On the steel that Helen has brought up, some of the panels actually have a backing on it, which can help the oil canning effect. Also, the shorter the length of the panel, the more contraction and expansion will occur without forcing the oil canning. But I don't think any of us are really saying we need horizontal lines in there.

I think we like the verticality. So I think you need to work with the material and the installer. Then I have a comment on downspouts. Your current house has downspouts on the outside of the building.

Right. But you are proposing that the downspouts are in enclosed. And I would suggest that you ask your designer to insulate that space. You really don't want it to freeze in there.

And I'm only saying it from experience. It is a mess. I can imagine. As soon as I saw they were inside, it was our architect's idea.

And I was like, wait, where are they? One. Two, okay, I hate the sound of leaky water, like dripping water inside my house. I do not want to hear that ever.

And she assured us we can insulate or use rock wool and it should at least dampen it. But I think... You know, you love water on a tin roof, but inside the wall, I never want to hear it. So we did discuss insulation and yeah, I think if it's not, I'm going to go crazy and probably have them like put it outside the house later.

It'll, I think drive me crazy in my bedroom. So I'm with you. Okay. And then I want to bring up one other thing, and that's about seeing the materials because we like how this looks, but we're really not sure what all the materials really are.

And we do like to look at the materials to feel confident with them. So I strongly recommend and I'll leave it up to the rest of the group whether we need to have you come back with the materials or submit them to the staff. I could. I feel like I'm usually the one who's on the side of they have to come back in and see the materials.

I'm with you, too. I do think in it. I do think in this case too, if you were able to bring the materials and I think on top of that, if you were to bring your architect, so we could, I think there's a lot of architectural questions that in, you know, obviously it's like you are not an architect, so you're not going to be able to answer all those questions. But there's some very technical questions that we have that I think an architect in maybe one or two minutes could really allay a lot of our concerns or really speak to kind of the more technical matters on how some of this stuff comes together that would make us feel good about all this.

I know a lot of these questions, certainly some of this is certainly some of this is visual and you know how it's going to look, but also it's how it's going function because none of us want to approve an addition or something like that, that then has to be torn off 15 years from now just because it's not highly functioning. So I think I'd probably lean maybe a bit on those sides if you guys were okay signing off on the 60 days and coming back with not necessarily a dramatically different plan, but just being able to see the materials and bringing someone who can maybe answer just a little more of the technical questions. Would that involve, that's another review before this board live like tonight versus just bringing them by, materials by? Actually, according to Ryan's staff report, this is the final date before the 60-day review window, correct?

Correct. So we need to take action if we want to see something else. Do we need to take final action or the applicant would need to waive the 60-day review requirement? Would you be interested in waiving it?

Can I ask a... Yeah. And our architect is in Italy right now, so enjoying her vacation. So just so I understand, so it would be the next architectural review board once our architect's able to be here and we have materials?

It would be this forum like this? But that would be after the 60-day review window. And if we take no action, it is automatically approved. But we haven't seen the materials yet.

So we probably could not approve the materials. So if you would agree to waive the 60-day preview window, we would be able to uh see it at the next meeting did i state that correctly can i make a quick comment about that um just to piggyback off what jim said because i also would like to see the materials and while i love pretty pictures um i think that these elevations and plans are really important and this document set doesn't have any details in it yeah and so i think that that information is really helpful great okay i think at that same point in time you get to my issue as well which is the uh The bird safe glass. Again, I don't know the certifications, but the measurements and what qualifies. That information is out there, and it's cheaper.

It's more effective if you do it at the time of install. So I hope that could be part of the material review. Okay. Sounds like we should waive it.

And the process? I'll follow up with you after this with a form for you to provide back. You can provide that tomorrow. Okay.

Sounds good. Then in that case, I think we will continue this until the next meeting and hopefully wrap it up with the architect, the materials, and your presence. Sounds good. Thank you all.

Appreciate your time. Yeah, we need a motion. I have a question real quick for Mr. O'Keefe.

Can we make the continuing contingent on them signing the waiver? I just, I don't want to create, I'm not so worried necessarily about this specific situation, but I don't want create a situation in the future where someone verbally says, oh, I'll sign the waiver, but then afterwards doesn't and then tries to say like it's automatically in effect. So I don't know exactly how all that works. We're going to print one right off now and have it signed tonight.

Works for me. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

I move to continue this to our next meeting, October 19th, since the applicant has agreed to waive the 60-day period. Second. If you would like, we have other business tonight. And if we're going to have a form to sign right now, you might want to pass this down, voting on the motion until later in your agenda.

And we'll get the signed form before you vote on it. We'll do that. Mr. Hoffman, if you would wait while we get that taken care of.

Okay, we will move on to new business. The first item is 105 Carondelet Plaza. And is the applicant here? Okay, we'll start with the staff report.

seeking a conditional use permit to allow for the operation of a restaurant on the subject property located at the northeast corner of the intersection of South Henley Road and Crandallette Plaza. This property is a mixed-use office and retail planned unit development. The tenant space was previously occupied by Tony's, which closed in February 2025. The restaurant would include approximately 116 interior seats and 37 exterior seats.

Parking is handled via a combination of street parking, the adjacent garage, and valet. Deliveries would be made via the adjacent alley and loading dock. The restaurant will use existing recycling and garbage pickup services via the alley. The proposed hours of operations are 430 p.m.

to 10, Sunday through Thursday, and 430 p. m. to 11, Friday and Saturday. Lunch may be introduced later from 1130 to 3.

Based on the information regarding the operation of the restaurant as provided by the applicant, staff are of the opinion that the proposal has met the criteria for a conditional use permit. Staff recommend that the Planning Commission recommend approval to the City Council as submitted. Okay, thank you. On up.

Hi, how are you doing? Tim Spiegelglass, Spiegelglass Construction Company. Thank you guys for being here. This is a previous location.

They're basically coming in inside, doing new interiors, not touching the kitchen at all, and not touching the patio at all. So the exterior stays as is? Correct. What about the revolving door?

The revolving door is not part of Tony's. That's actually in part of Centene. Oh, that's in the lobby of Centene. I think he means the revolving door on Hanley.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes, that's staying as is upstairs will be a party rooms is basically what it's going to be. Well, it looks good to me.

It'll be great to have it occupied again and see more activity at that location. But let's go around. Ellen? I'm glad to see it coming.

I have good memories of Delmonico's. When are you planning to open? Contingent on this, I'm not sure I'd let the owners answer that question. Okay.

No other questions. Jim? Yeah, very excited for the plan. Excited to see the private dining aspect of this because I think that was part of the downfall of the former tenant.

So I'm glad to see that added in to keep the space going. So no other questions. Thank you. Chris?

The only question I have is, in one part I said that the occupied area is going to remain unchanged, but then I also see there's an addition of 400 square feet to the mezzanine. That we are not doing that. Okay. That is not.

No, there, there was a mechanical issues in there. They tried to add more seating, but that is okay. So the X, the interior and exterior will remain unchanged with the exception of doing the build out for the client. Okay.

No, looking forward to it. There is a wall that is moving that we are demoing inside of it. Okay. Yeah.

Looking forward to it. Later. Full disclosure, Tim is my brother-in-law. I'm fine with it.

Susan? It all looks good. I hope as you operate the restaurant, you'll consider Green Dining Alliance standards. What was that?

Green Dining Alliance Standards and Operation of Food Establishments. The city supports that as well and helps cover some of the costs of that. It's just a matter of not giving out extra utensils and just being responsible in recycling and things like that. Okay, perfect.

The owners are on and they just heard your comments. Great. All right. Thank you.

Any comments from the audience? Okay. Any hands up? No hands up?

Okay. Okay. Well, we have a staff recommendation to approve sending the CUP to the City Council. I move to recommend approval of the conditional use permit to the City Council Second.

All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay.

Thanks, Tim. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, if I may. We have received the signed waiver of the 60-day time limit with respect to the Hoffman application.

And if it is the commission's pleasure, it would be in order to take up the motion to continue the case at this point. We shall do that. I move to continue. 48 Arundel Place to our next meeting.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed?

Okay. Thank you. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Yeah, thanks.

And I will get that. We actually have a, in the same chambers on Tuesday, or Wednesday, we're having a Cool Cities, which is presentation on the critical nature of trees and things like this. So I'll have plenty of people there to find out exactly how to make sure you do it right. So yeah.

Yeah, I don't think at the time of construction that it's as much a big a deal. To convert something existing, it can be more difficult. You're putting little dots in your windows, but you're not in that situation. So I will, thank you.

I'll find it for you. Thanks. uh if you have more like technical questions I know you mentioned them Jim for our architect if y'all have them can you could Ryan send them to us just so we can like flight them to our architect before she comes or would that be helpful just to ensure like we have everything you need for next time yeah I think if we send it all to Ryan Ryan can you then send it to Mr Hoffman To also these meetings go on YouTube, like a day or two after after the meeting. So all this can be pulled up and they can they can review it all.

Sorry, so one technical question I heard from you was about the roof and the new roof structure, but I thought you mentioned there were more that you had. Well, go ahead, Blair. I was just going to say, I mean, so generally speaking, when a document is submitted for construction or is submitted to us to review, instead of just seeing the elevations with as a picture or, you know, as a flat elevation, generally you would see some details, some information on, you know, height information, alignment information, material information, which then would lead to some additional pages that show specific details. As an architect, your architect will definitely know what we're talking about, but just sort of seeing how things are built.

how it's put together. Okay. Where like plans and then yeah, like where you're, you know, the gutters, the everything. Yeah.

And to that, like that, those plans would typically show how that connection is made, what the, what, what material a is, what material B, how that connections made, how, you know, water is to go through all that type of thing. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

Cool. Okay. Just want to make sure we're prepared for next time. Thank you.

okay now we'll go on to uh the next item which is 167 North Central and I believe the applicants are here and we'll get started with the staff report subject property resides on the west side of North Central just south of the streets intersection with Pershing the property is zoned R3 and is developed with a two-story single family house the applicant is proposing the use of permeable pavers to manage runoff and erosion in the rear yard The applicant is seeking approval via Section 4052040, which allows a 2% reduction in the minimum green space with the use of a qualifying hardscape mitigation feature. Staff went into it on September 3rd. The Board of Adjustment reviewed and denied a request for a variance reducing the minimum required green space from 45% to 42.7%. This request before the Planning Commission differs from the request before the Board of Adjustment in the following ways.

One, the patio dimensions were reduced for the Planning Commission application. Two, the patio material was revised from concrete to the permeable pavers. And three, the applicant's reasoning presented to the Board of Adjustment focused on the health of the occupant with subject property while the application before the Planning Commission focuses on erosion in the rear yard. The applicant has provided sufficient information regarding MSD approval of the pavers and staff are of the opinion that the pavers qualify as a hardscape mitigation feature.

Additionally, staff are of the Justification for the use of the pavers in the rear yard is erosion. Staff note that erosion challenges could be associated with construction, that alternatives which preserve green space may be viable. Staff are of the opinion that the applicant has not demonstrated just cause. Staff recommend that the Planning Commission not approve the request.

Okay, thank you. The applicant... Good evening. My name is John Greller.

I'm the attorney for the applicant. I hope everyone's doing well this evening. What we'd like to do in light of the report we got from Mr. Helley just today would be to ask for a continuance in order to gather more information.

There are several issues raised that we believe we can address sufficiently to shed light on some of the gaps that Mr. Helley cited in his report. So if possible, we would like to continue it to the next date. I'm open to that.

Helen? Sounds good to me. Jim? Yeah, I'd be fine if that's what you wanted.

Chris? Yeah. Claire? Same.

Susan? No problem. We will make a motion to that effect. I move to continue 167 North Central Avenue to a future date to be determined.

Second. Before we vote on it, are we within a 60-day window here? This would be the start. This is the first.

Okay. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Okay. Thank you very much. Hopefully see you.

Just for the record, too, because the 60 days has not been waived, if we don't receive any additional information for you, your item will be placed on the last meeting agenda prior to that 60-day window. Understood. When we have the additional materials, we submit them to Ryan for review. Okay.

Thank you. Okay. Thank Well, that has brought us to the public hearing portion. And the first one is the rezoning and text amendment of the R7 high-density multifamily dwelling district.

And let's see. Ryan, I believe you're going to lead us through that. Okay. So the consideration of this rezoning has kind of come about in conjunction with some of the other revisions that we are looking at related to zoning.

And I'll go over what those are. So the R7 high density multifamily dwelling district consists of four parcels located on South Brentwood between Bottom and Forest Park Parkway or Shaw Park Drive. In 2024, Clayton adopted the Clayton Tomorrow 2040 Comprehensive Plan, which established a framework and policy direction for future land use decisions. Feedback from that plan demonstrated that residents want zoning to reflect the existing conditions of their property and character of the surrounding neighborhood.

After reviewing the current zoning, staff observed that many requirements R7 do not match the existing conditions for these properties or the character of the surrounding area. This kind of mismatch can sometimes present challenges for current residents who may want to improve, modify, repair, alter existing elements of properties. When reviewing options to either amend R7 or rezone to an existing district, due to just the high density and urban nature of these properties, amending R7 would duplicate multiple aspects of M3, including density coverage and setbacks. Presently, all parcels conform to the requirements of the M3 district with one exception.

The M3 district requires properties to either have a mix of uses or have a minimum of 120 dwelling units per acre. Presently, one of the properties, 250 South Brentwood, is the only structure which would not meet that use density requirement. Rezoning would not require this property to make any of the changes. The properties are currently developed with a high density residential uses parking and one ground floor restaurant.

The properties are in the central business district character area, which the comprehensive plan identifies as a high density mixed use area for with future land use designation of mixed use. The subject properties are adjacent to other M3 properties containing residential office, retail, restaurant, and commercial uses. Rezoning to M3 would permit a broader range of non-residential uses consistent with downtown and the surrounding development. Staff are of the opinion that the subject properties are compatible in terms of dimensional requirements and permitted uses with M3 and that rezoning to M3 is consistent with the surrounding area and comprehensive plan.

Staff recommend that the Planning Commission hold a public hearing, consider public input, and then provide the public support, recommend approval of the rezoning to the City Council. Okay, thank you. This will open the public hearing and I think we can comment on it. It seems like a simple way to clean some things up.

And we can also then get rid of the R7. which we really haven't used much. So I think that really helps. And in other areas, we've seen that R7 has already been dropped off the matrix.

So I did go through, and I'm sure everyone did, all the permitted uses. And I did not find any that jumped out to me as being incorrect, as being either a conditional use permit or outright permit. But let's see where we go. Helen?

I think it makes sense to change it to the M3. I, too, went through all the conditional and permitted uses, and it seems to be better than And M3. So I have no problem. Jim?

Yeah, I agree. I think it makes sense to change it. I don't think it makes sense. To have a designation.

Anywhere in Clayton. That only represents four buildings. So I think. The added flexibility.

I think. Can only be a positive. Chris? Nothing further.

Good work, staff. Larry? Nothing further from me either. Thank you, guys.

Susan? I agree with the comments already made. Looks good. Any comments from the audience?

Come on up. Hi, my name is Nicole Whitesell. I'm a resident at 250 South Rutland Boulevard. And I have two questions.

One clarifying question for Ryan, where you said that that address doesn't meet the requirements for the M3. So I'm trying to understand if it doesn't meet the requirement, why would why would that if we're not going to be you said that we wouldn't be needing to make any changes? I don't understand make rezoning something that doesn't meet the but yet with this caveat that we don't have to. So therefore, then I'm concerned about the future impact of when could that change?

And then how does it impact me as a resident in the condo that I own, that I live in, in the city of Clayton? Yeah, great question. So when we're evaluating what zoning is going to be appropriate for the site, if we're talking about existing zoning, we want to look at all of those different characteristics that are going to apply to the property. So what's the maximum height?

How many dwelling units are allowed to be on that site? What are the setbacks? Those kinds of things. And whenever we looked at R7 for this property, We have found a bunch of different items that were actually not meeting the requirements.

So not currently meeting the density for a couple of sites. A lot of those buildings presently don't meet their setbacks. They cover more of the site than the zoning district allows. One way to solve that challenge is that you can modify a zoning district and you can change things about it such that all those properties would conform, or you can maybe rezone it to a more appropriate zoning district.

In evaluating the options for these sites, we felt that maybe rezoning to the surrounding zoning was going to be more appropriate for that site. It would create the one nonconformity related to density, but that doesn't compel any changes. Additionally, it would be fewer nonconformities than under the current zoning district, if that makes sense. And would there be any future impact of, you know, how does that work in terms of the nonconformity component?

Is there a clause in there that says that that particular, you know, address is grandfathered or I'm just, I'm also like looking down the road for, I left Davis Place and sold my house when I became an empty nester and bought in that building for a particular reason. So I'm concerned about the long-term impact then of that zoning change. and how that would impact me as a resident in the home that I purchased. Yeah, so this rezoning, it's not going to compel any residents on this property to do anything.

These properties are going to be considered legal non-conforming if there is something that doesn't meet a requirement. Right now, that density component is the only element that wouldn't meet a requirement, so the only example that could come to mind, say somebody wanted to I don't know, reduce the number of dwelling units on that property, say they wanted to tear down a wing of it or something and consolidate a bunch of units, then that might be something that they'd have to go get a variance for in evaluating. That would get us closer to compliance, wouldn't it? Okay.

Yeah, so only reducing the amount of dwelling units would be something that would possibly need to go for a variance or be of concern to current residents. So as it stands, then it would be fine? Correct. And are there any other requirements within that zoning in terms of certifications or sustainability or anything like that that would be impacting the existing building?

No, I mean, the M3 district has some elements related to architecture, site plan review. That really applies to new construction. These buildings as they are, we expect them to be around for a very long time. They're already built.

Those elements that apply to new construction wouldn't be applied to these buildings unless there was just a substantial, substantial change on the site. The intent of M3 is it's supposed to be more flexible for residents. An example that we saw with the tornado is there were definitely a series of properties that were maybe damaged by the tornado, but maybe they had some nonconformities and they had to jump through a lot of hoops to maybe get approval to reconstruct and improve their properties. And so hopefully one of the benefits of going to M3 is that residents of these properties can maybe feel a bit more comfortable preparing for changes or maybe not having to worry about repairs in the future.

Thank you. Can I ask a question in that regard? Yes. It's kind of, it's, I think more towards Ryan than you, but sort of piggybacking off that.

What is the current unit count in? 29. I think. 29 units?

In 250 South Brentwood Boulevard? Yeah. And so if they were to, if somebody were to purchase a second unit and join those, as you were saying, they would need a variance and that would make them closer to code or farther from that? If you wanted to combine two units and the property was below the minimum density requirement, you'd be moving further away from compliance with that regulation.

And so if they came before us with like a revised condo subdivision plat, then they would need a variants to get approval of that. And the legal non-conforming goes with the building, not with the current ownership. Is that right? Right.

It's related to the structure as is. Ryan, I've got a question as well. I'm just wondering, is there anything that would cause the applicant concern if she went to sell it in 10 years down the road? Is there anything in this that would make a buyer say, no, we don't want to touch this?

Generally, the questions that I'll get from folks specifically in condo-related spaces is, are there any nonconformities related with the site? So right now, if somebody calls me and they say, are there nonconformities, you know, I'll list out the things that are talked about in the staff report, whether it be, you know, the coverage setback elements. If somebody called me and asked about that for these properties, the only nonconformity I would have to provide them is if it was specifically for 250 South Brentwood, specifically related to the unit density. Any other comments?

I just think it's also probably worth pointing out that the unit density, the nonconformity is more on like That's more like a total building issue, not necessarily individual condo issue. And I use issue there very loosely because I think what Ryan was saying is with the current R7 zoning, there's multiple kind of infractions, if you will, against that zoning. So this clears some of that up. I don't think...

I could understand where your concern would be from a condo owner just at change and being like, how does this change affect me? But it's definitely not a change as, oh, like, this makes the building very easy to demolish. And that's my concern, that Clayton has some ulterior motive to demolish the building down the road. As, like I said, I've been a resident of Clayton.

I moved here from the city recently. to send my daughter to Clayton schools. And we've been, I've been a resident since 2013 and we lived in Davis place and just sold our house two years ago. And so I was kind of, when I got this, I was like, Oh, well, you know what's going on.

That's. And then again, I, you know, I, I think about all those what ifs and that's, this is something that came up at a, at a past meeting. And so like in this case, it's not as if the building is owned by one person where one person can, you know, let's just say it was a rental and the owner that said like, oh, I can build something now that can fit 10 times as many units. I'm booting everyone out and we're going to build this mega building.

In this case, you have 29 separate owners. So those 29 owners would all have to agree to sell. It's not like five owners can get together and the entire complex gets sold. So I think that that can maybe allay some of your concern with that specific non-conformance in this case.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Any other questions for me? Okay, we do have a staff recommendation to recommend the approval of the R7 to M3 rezoning to the City Council.

okay i move to approve the to recommend approval of the rezoning from r7 to m3 to the city council second all in favor aye opposed okay we will move on to the oh um That public hearing is closed. We will move on to the text amendment, and I believe we will open it after we hear the staff report. I'm sharing the right window here. All right, so this is the second time here before the Planning Commission that we're going over these draft changes.

I know that we've gone over these before, but we likely have some new members of the audience or some new members online. So I'm just going to do a summary of some of those items that we have talked about before. So as part of the comprehensive planning process, one of the elements that we looked at is Is the zoning appropriate necessarily for all of the residential districts that we have? Additionally, is there a way that we can do zoning a little bit better?

And so this is the draft that has kind of come out of that evolution. The vast, vast majority of this draft is structural. What does that mean? So if you read the zoning code right now, you're going to read the paragraph, the literal words on the page.

The maximum height in this zoning district is X. And then that's repeated in every zoning district. While that can be useful just looking at items in your zoning district, it does create a lot of language for somebody to read through if they want to understand the zoning code. And so what we're moving towards in this direction is a unified development code that consolidates a lot of repetitive language and brings elements into more of a...

like a chart and graph structure, and we'll get to some of the examples of what that looks like in a second. But what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk through the sections of this zoning code and kind of explain what some of the formats changes or maybe the zoning changes are. So this first section here, definitions that were adding elements in this. And these are items that maybe we talk about regularly, but maybe we don't have a clean definition for.

So this actually gives us something with a little bit of teeth to understand this is literally what this means here. There's a couple of modifications, but largely it's additions of items that we've talked about. Bay windows, finished floor heights, half stories, elements that maybe weren't clear before. Jumping into our next section here, the purpose statements.

So these purpose statements have been adjusted slightly, largely in vocabulary. So previously, like the R6 would have been medium to high density multiple family dwelling district. But with the rezoning of R7, that's now our highest density dwelling district. And so we've just adjusted that language accordingly, but the intent of these zoning districts, the purpose of them has not been modified.

Applicability changes from last time, not too much, just some language updates based on advice from city attorney. So getting into our dimensional regulations, this is where you really see the structure of this change. So previously for like the R1 district, you'd go and you'd read in a paragraph, you know, the minimum lot width is 80 feet. Well now you just look at a chart and you can sort of compare all of those zoning districts there.

The only change here that we're looking at is one is our five lot width, adjusting that from 50 feet to 40 feet. Currently it's 50 feet, but the vast majority of lots in that zoning district are 40 feet wide, adjusting that to more match what that district looks like. The additional dimensional change in the R3 district, there was previously a dwelling unit ratio with the lot area. However, it was equivalent to the minimum lot area.

So it was redundant. We'll just go ahead and remove that item. Something added from last time. An element that we didn't want to miss is that our current zoning code has language in there that discusses fee simple lots and townhome style development.

We realized that was left out of the previous draft, so we wanted to add that back in. No changes to that element, but we just want to make sure that that was still in this draft. A similar element here, the R3 district has a unique components related to its setback as compared to how much of the billable area it's covering. That element was left out of the previous draft.

So we'll just want to make sure that that's in there. Given that we are adjusting the R5 lot width, we maybe wanted to adjust that side setback. Presently, that side setback is eight feet. However, there is a provision in the current code that says if you're below a certain width, it's actually five feet.

Well, now that we're reducing that lot width, it kind of nulls that call out that was there before. So we're just reducing that from eight feet to five feet. Ryan, didn't we always have it as... 10 of the front width was the side setback yeah so that's actually still in here it's just up a little bit higher here so the the the uh side yard setback in any of the districts is ten percent of the lot width but we have a minimum and a maximum so i probably should have stated that more clearly adjusting the minimum side setback from eight feet to five feet okay Our permitted encroachments, those are largely consistent across all of our districts.

Our height elements here. Okay, so one change that you'll see is that under the current zoning regulations, a lot of height elements for like institutions, churches, colleges, those are actually in the use table. Then since that's a dimension, we want to make sure that in our dimensions table. Another change here.

Right now, fencing, if somebody has a secondary front yard, maybe say that they're on a corner, the process and language isn't the cleanest for them to come before this board and maybe ask to do fencing in that space. So we've cleaned up that language and we've provided some administrative options for folks that maybe are on those busier roads or roads that have more of a character of fencing and secondary front yards. Accessory structures. So previously whenever we talked about accessory structures, originally we were looking at a reduced setback of one foot from side and rear yard lines specifically for smaller accessory structures due to the character of a lot of detached garages in Clayton.

Went back and looked, since that was a topic of discussion last time, went back and looked at the pattern of those There are actually fewer than I expected of those examples. I don't know, maybe they just all came in a cluster. I always say when it rains and it pours here, there's a lot of trends that go on. But looking at what those were, there was definitely a range.

There were some that were, you know, foot off the property line, but the vast majority were You know, a plus or minus three or four feet and so we've adjusted the recommendation that we're making from. From that one foot set back to three feet off of the side and beer line and since we're proposing adding a little bit more space we cut out that component requiring distance from structures on other property. That. exception.

The 12-foot height, where is that measured to for an accessory building? The midpoint of the slope of the roof, unless it's a flat roof, in which case it's just right on top. So the top of the roof could be much higher. It could be a little bit higher.

I went back and looked at a lot of our garages that have been proposed over time. If you think about, so the standard height is 20 feet. If Clayton Gardens is 16 feet. Originally we were looking at 14 feet, but even that seemed a little bit tall.

And so I went and looked specifically at garages in Hillcrest because those tend to be smaller, shallower roof lines. And those tend to be about 12 feet in height. And so 12 feet is really going to Restrict some of that verticality that I think would cause residents concern 12 feet to the midpoint to the midpoint Jumping into our permitted uses table. So at the last meeting, there was a comment related to can we find some more appropriate language around group homes?

Right now, the language that we have is still consistent with state laws to protect group homes. However, we did find this language consistent in some other cities, persons living with physical and or mental disabilities rather than using the word handicapped or other language. We think that even though it doesn't use the word handicap, which is in the state language, we think that maybe this language balances the intent of that with maybe some more modern vocabulary. So another change is currently in the residential zoning, you can put a parking lot as your primary use if you are within 500 feet of a non-residential zoning district.

To give you an idea of that distance, if you're thinking about Clayton Road, that's the distance of those commercial properties all the way back to San Benito, which is the last street before you get to Concordia, which is a pretty considerable distance. And originally we were looking at maybe 200 feet. We kind of came back and looked at that again and said, maybe it's just more appropriate to make sure that there's adjacency. So this section has been revised.

So rather than say within 500 feet, we're now looking at then they need to have adjacency to the property in which the parking lot is providing the parking to. Another change you'll look at under uses is presently institutional uses were kind of spread out throughout the zoning code. So we just consolidated that all in one place so that way people don't have to fish around for the different regulations related to those items. So then we jump over from our base zoning to the residential infill design guidelines.

This is the new component that's kind of coming in here. And the purpose of this is just to really ensure that residential development is consistent with quality and character of existing structures in the residential neighborhood. This is going to apply to the R1, 2, 3, and 5 zoning districts because these are the zoning districts which have not maximized their buildable area. So infill in these spaces is going to be a lot more context sensitive than maybe in the R4 or the R6 districts.

Not that we... don't want to be sensitive to infill in those neighborhoods, but generally infill, the scary part of infill is usually the massing. And those other districts have already maximized their buildable areas. There is an alternative compliance section pulled directly from the urban design districts.

It provides applicants the opportunity to explore maybe creative approaches that don't fit neatly into the zoning code or into these infill design guidelines. They can come before you guys and ask for those options. Building height, scale and massing. A lot of this is pulled directly from the urban design districts.

We pulled the successful components, but those which were not successful, we kind of left out. We've made it three very concise options. You got to do something. You either got to have a step down related to your adjacent properties using partial stories or an increased side yard setback if you want to have a taller structure.

We also modified that side yard setback component because in its current form, it's one to five, a one foot setback for five feet of height increase. We don't think that has been successful. So now it's a one-to-one comparison. Finished floor height, that's going to be what is the elevation of your first floor related to the neighbors.

There have been examples where maybe a new home came into a neighborhood and a lot of the front doors were maybe two steps above grade and then this one's maybe 10 steps above grade. That really stands out. It makes the building look a lot taller as we added this finished floor component to sort of create that cohesion among properties. Basement exposure limit.

Right now, basements are not counted as a story in terms of height, but if enough of the basement is exposed, it certainly looks like a story. So we want to make sure that that exposed facade is counted appropriately in terms of height for new properties. elements of dormers here. We want dormers to maybe have an appropriate facade ratio.

We're looking at no more than 50% of a facade. We do not want, based on feedback from folks, we do not want dormers to necessarily just be a pathway to creating an additional story above. We want half stories and their features to be appropriately designed in proportion. projections.

This is going to address things like your bay windows or maybe cantilevered rooms. There's a lot of good language out there in other urban design districts or communities that we looked at that address these components. One thing that we've seen consistently from new homes that maybe the residents of the architecture view board hasn't been a fan of, is using projections just as a way to get as much square footage as possible. Whereas this language here is gonna sort of tailor projections to me more appropriate to their original intent.

Bay windows, smaller projections, but also encouraging facade relief where those projections are appropriate. Garage width and location, this was pretty much pulled directly from urban design districts. Garages are not a dominant feature for homes in Clayton. They're generally rear entry or detached.

It's not that you don't often see them on the front of homes. You definitely do in some examples, but that's the minority of homes, and they tend to be a small proportion of homes. So just making sure that we're carrying that character over. architectural design, and this is just meant to address a few of the smaller elements.

We talked about this a little bit last time, and you guys thought that maybe a sort of a purpose statement would be helpful here, so we added one in. The architectural design of residential structures in Clayton varies among neighborhoods, streets, and individual properties. While individual structures may have distinct architectural styles, they often share common design elements that create cohesion with their surroundings. This section provides reference points to a design that is context sensitive while allowing unique architectural expression.

And so this is going to address like your roof pitches, orientation of facades, building elevations, materials, just giving folks something something to sort of reference for those different elements rather than maybe having no idea where to begin. This gives a discussion point and a design point for people to start with. So that's gone through all the sections. One point I'll note before discussion is that last time we did talk a bit about the R5 dwelling density.

I've already talked enough at you in this moment. I do have a couple slides to talk about R5. If you guys would like to talk about these components before jumping to R5, that'll probably be a little bit more digestible. Well, I'd like to go back to the garages and the basements.

Within the recent times, we approved a house with a basement garage. And if I remember correctly, it was more than 50% of the building width. So therefore, under this, it would be considered a full story, which would then make that house a three-story house, correct? Correct.

So if this regulation had been in place, that garage would have either need to be reduced for them to get the height that they were looking for, or they would have need to bring the total height of the property down. Right, that. So going forward, we have this extra strength that we can use where we did not before. Right.

But also Ryan included the alternative compliance. So for example, if there was a block where that it, because of grades, the majority of the homes on the block had exposed front entry garages that would have counted them as a story, then that would be context that an architect could provide to you all for consideration of that home within its context versus another street. So the flexibility is still there. but we're pointing out important elements of design that architects should be taking into consideration and intentionally designing against rather than just presenting a house and not thinking about the context.

Thank you. Other comments right now? I think it's, you did an amazing job. covered everything i think it would be hard to you know try to get an exception or find something that was overlooked so i don't have any questions Yeah, I disagree with all the people walking out on Ryan.

I think staff has done a great job here. And I mean, there was a lot of back and forth, I believe, last time. And we were, I think we were focused on some very minute details. And I think I'm always struck how you guys are able to thread the needle and come back with just slightly worse language that seems to achieve that.

So great job. The only comment that I have, and good work for all of this, I'm still struggling a bit with the descriptor of the group homes simply from the use of the word disability. And I just did a quick little search, you know, what are other ways of phrasing it? Maybe it's group homes providing supportive residential services.

or group homes for persons with physical and or mental support needs. And I'm just trying to be as forward-thinking as we can with it, but I don't know legally if we have to use either the term handicapped or disabilities because of some sort of Fair Housing Act conditions or anything like that. So I leave it in your hands, but maybe some other conditions that just removes the term disabilities for something else. I would not recommend getting too far from the statute.

You know, if you use different language, the courts are going to assume you intend something different. If you use the defined language that's already there in the statute, then that is a given in the event of judicial review or some challenge. Then everybody knows what we're talking about. So the more creative we get, and albeit more sensitive and more informed in the way we approach it, it creates the risk of being misunderstood.

Yeah, and that's what I thought maybe was the instance here, but thank you for clarifying that. Nothing further for me. Thank you guys for the hard work. Susan?

Thank you. Okay. Any audience comments? I'm going to leave all of my treasures here.

User? I just have a question. And The permitted uses, where on the institutional side, everything is conditional except religious are permitted. My impression would be that the reason you would want conditional uses is to make sure that there's adequate parking.

And coming from a subdivision that has two churches in it, parking is a big issue. I'm just wondering if that is that the way it's always been. It's always been permitted that churches get to be wherever they want. They're currently a permitted use.

Yeah, I'll just say, though, that just because they're permitted doesn't mean that they're exempt from the parking requirements. So we do still have parking minimum requirements within our parking code. Now there is a process under a conditional use permit that they can receive a waiver potentially from the city council to reduce that parking requirement. But technically, unless they were pre-existing of the code, which I'm willing to bet your neighbors are.

I'm not expecting a lot of new churches going to be built anytime soon. Yes, if you went in tomorrow on the house next door to you and turned into a church or something, they would have to meet the parking standards. Thank you very much. Well, if I could add also, under Missouri case law, the Missouri courts have interpreted the statutes authorizing cities to zone land use have also determined that churches are exempt from any municipal authority to zone land use for religious purposes.

They're beyond the reach of the zoning code, not the health and safety codes like parking and such, but as a land use, they are beyond the reach of city's zoning authority. Is that only for religious institutions? Yes, sir. Or could it cover anything else?

No, no, it's religious. At the zone, yeah. Is there another comment? Alan, I live in the R5 district, so I've got an R5 question, which I know you guys are going to hit R5.

So I've got one about the dimensional regulations in Table 1, so I don't know if it's worth holding that or just go for it. Okay, dimensional regulations. I was here last meeting, and there was a gentleman that came up and talked about density, if I understood him correctly, because he had a lot of really great information to say in a very short period of time. but was just thinking about that coming from a design background.

So I'm looking at the code as a resident and then also looking at the code is how I would use it in my daily life if I were, if I had a client, right? So I know there's been a lot of like concern about lot consolidation and being an R5 resident, I would be upset if somebody came in and did two lots consolidated next to me and then built a giant house. I know we're going for a more dense district in R5. So a comment I would have is there, is there any, Is there any comment about adding in almost the opposite so going at it for like instead of a minimum lot area per dwelling unit also adding in something of like a maximum lot area per dwelling you know something where you could like get.

Make sure you don't have a mega house on consolidated lots so anyway i'll leave that for you guys, then either comment I guess goes to about the scary massing part which I think somebody said, which was kind of funny to me so looking at the R five. Section 405.1720, building height, scale, and massing. It excludes R5. I think I might understand why it does that.

I think it asks the question on why it excludes R5, so if I'm thinking about a big scary massing going in that's something that might be out of scale with adjacent neighbors, then maybe I go down to projections. Projections gets really specific into some historic detailing. I'm not opposed to it personally. I think this is all excellent, but I think it misses for them the r5 district we don't get the same um idea about like massing and jogs or steps there's a lot of porches in r5 there's a lot like none of those buildings are big giant rectangles with a big flat facade there's always some push or pull in that mass be it a two-family a single family or one of the larger multi-families So then I just feel like R5 kind of gets missed in that.

And then I think it then gets catched by like the architectural details in 405, 1780 as a fail safe, but was just thinking about that of maybe having like the projections loosen up. or something where maybe R5 can fit in there. Because I think the worst case scenario, in my personal opinion, is that we have a big giant flat rectangle brick facade that has no ornamental detailing, but it also doesn't have any contemporary character. And that happens from time to time doing work in St.

Louis City. Sometimes that happens a lot too. So doing the kind of weird flat faux historic that just kind of looks off. So just thinking how we could nestle R5 into some of the language of this, or I guess probably looking probably to understand your reasoning why of like how R5 is excluded from the scale and massing.

Thanks. The comment, Ryan? Yeah, one of the reasons that we did not, now I think that you can look at this context and always change it, but in the building height scale and massing, R5 was not included as being required for that one due to a lot of the widths of lots and the side appearance of them. So a lot of the R5 buildings are relatively small flat and square when you look at side facades.

So stepping down and other things requiring that might result in a very unusual massing that doesn't fit in, but I understand the comment about the front facades having a lot of relief in the R5. So I think it's up to you, but we also did in the the neighborhood design guideline book, which we shared with you all prior to this, but plan to discuss at a future meeting, bring in the concept of facade relief in R5. Now that is less binding because that's a guideline book adopted by the ARB rather than a codified requirement as we're looking at tonight. So think it's up to you when you think about the r5 context if you would prefer that to be a codified um requirement then i would just strike the provision not being applicable to r5 from that sentence if i may not be an architect i think um i think that makes sense sometimes we want to make sure the code isn't just reflecting what's already there but what we want the city to be if we're starting from scratch so if um if it's if it's a better way to protect the arc the architectural integrity that we're trying to preserve um putting it back in there might be good idea and anything that's not complying would just be they wouldn't have to change at this point right it would just be for anything new i think that's the Sorry, I think that's why Ryan and I, we debated that.

Would it be appropriate to include R5 in this list or not? I do think that it's appropriate to include as we've done in some of them, but the three provisions that we focused on here specifically in the building height scale and massing section are pulled from successful techniques that have been used in our one and two family zoning districts well. And that's the biggest piece. I mean, in a lot of large sections of our five dormers and partial stories, are not really the norm there.

Now, you can find examples of them in our R5 district, so it's completely abnormal. But that technique might not really always be appropriate as a way of integrating the scale of the building. But the finished floor height is very appropriate in the R5 district when you go down those blocks. or the facade relief within the front facade of a building is a very appropriate tool.

So that's why I think that if we wanted to codify an R5 scale building height massing section, we might need to look at what the three tools are and modify those slightly to be geared towards tools that are more appropriate for our five districts than the tools that we have identified here. i guess until this discussion i really didn't see a problem removing r5 from this still not sure i understand it completely if we were to put it back in but anna you said we would have to change items one two and three for r5 We wouldn't necessarily have. So maybe if we want to pull like San Benito or something, an example or demand, it might help with that context to talk about those three tools that we've recommended. So yeah, just go in on San Benito or Alamo or one of those blocks.

That's a good point. Yeah. So if we look at these buildings, so you can see to pass the stop sign, there is a slope group that appears to maybe have a window there. But if we pan across the street, everything's flat.

Or if you pan to the right and look back up San Benito. The majority of those buildings, we've got great street trees here. So it's hard to see, but the majority of those roofs might have some element of maybe a little bit of a mansion, but they're all flat roofs. So if one of these buildings were to come down and we start replacing them and they have to choose between adding a half story so having dormers or stepping down the massing to meet the neighbor we're not really those techniques in a lot of r5 aren't going to result in a massing that then fits back to the context we're trying to protect So I think the fear and the concept of needing to protect the massings is absolutely correct in R5, but the three tools that we've targeted in that code provision are more specifically targeted at the neighborhoods with the one and two family dwellings that are using those types of techniques, such as a step down on the side elevation and a half story with dormers or an increased side yard setback.

i just don't think those three would really get us what we're wanting within the r5 district so then um that was really clear thank you for showing this because i now understand what you're talking about so to uh an earlier comment should we have a an additional section right so that's right so in the um the the large document of neighborhood typologies that we shared, that we will talk about at the next meeting. That's where we started to call out more specific patterns for different neighborhoods that have some of the same language as this section that Ryan has presented tonight. The difference being that the section tonight before you for consideration would be codified. So it would be within our ordinance.

So that's just a little bit, you're saying that this is a little bit of a stronger tool that you all have because the council has adopted this into the code versus just a guideline packet basically is what the other tool would be for your ARB hat to have on there. So the threshold of alternative compliance, that's a process that's that is specifically outlined within the code that somebody would have to follow and meet, rather than a little bit more flexibility that's created within the separate guidelines that ARB might adopt. So if the protections that we've proposed in the code consideration tonight that would apply to the R1, 2 and 3 districts. If you want that same codified element for the R5, then I would suggest that we would need to modify that section to present three specific tools for R5.

Comments on which direction? I'm kind of curious, would you be willing to come back up and kind of talk about some of like maybe talk about like a hypothetical situation that you're concerned about so we can maybe, you know, talk about some of these things more specifically than broadly from a resident perspective? Perspective, who's concerned about this? And also it might, I don't want to, I definitely want you to say this, but Ryan, since we're going into R5, it might be worth Ryan doing a little bit of his presentation on R5 because I think that will help you and us have a more deep conversation because Ryan has gone deep into some analysis of R5.

Get all my Zoom pieces out of the way here. Here it is. yeah so we can kind of see here the extent of the r5 district but just to help orient folks um so at the bottom end of this map here this is where we have clayton road this street this vertical street that we have going here that's damon this big piece of gray over here that's concordia seminary and we've got uh cbc former cbc down here So last time, a lot of our discussion of R5 focused on the dwelling density in that neighborhood. And so we really wanted to dive into the data and understand what does this neighborhood actually look like?

We'll see if I can even keep track of all the things that are on this slide in the coming one. So bear with me. So there's currently 724 dwelling units. A third of those have a non-conforming density.

One in six of those is a single-family house. If we look at this... this map that's over on the right here, this is gonna be our unit count and we can see that there's definitely a cluster of a lot of those single families or duplexes. Generally the trend in renovations or new construction moves towards larger unit sizes with a fewer number of total units.

And we did find that there's definitely variety of trends in terms of the dwelling units, like the quantity of dwelling units related to the density, there's certainly trends of those components. So lots with four plus units average 1,386 square feet. I probably wrote this wrong, forgive me. The requirement is the number of dwelling units per lot area.

So 1,386 squared feet of lot area per dwelling unit is how that should be written out. We could see in this chart up here is sort of difference Demonstration set. So right now if we average all of our units in R5, the average lot area per dwelling unit is 2,358. The median, so we're looking at the actual distribution, is 1,633, whereas our current requirement is 1,500.

I think the person that spoke last time was talking about 1,000, which is equal to our R6 district. On the right here, this is the potential number of dwelling units that you would see across those. If we look down here on the bottom left, this is where we see actually how those properties look in terms of their lot area per dwelling unit. There's somewhat of a clustering but they're definitely spread out in terms of the amount of density.

Moving on from this, following that up is what is the actual demo vulnerability of these sites? So we broke these down between Daman, High Point and High Point Addition. Those are all the subdivisions. To clarify, Daman is pretty much everything that you see fronting Concordia here.

High Point is gonna be everything east of Seminary and then High Point Addition is everything west of Seminary. Demo vulnerability looks different between demun and both of the high point subdivisions. Demun is definitely lean in the preserved direction. The high points are lean in the redeveloped direction.

And this is based on the land value ratio. I am not a real estate expert by any means, but generally I found that once you get above a land value ratio of 0.45, so 45% of the value being in the land area, That's when you start to lean redevelop. Once you get to 0.6 or higher, that's where you're really leaning into redevelopment. And we can see the high point and high point addition.

Granted, this data is a couple years old. A lot of those properties lean into the redevelopment incentive. There's probably some nuance there. There's probably elements of the dwelling unit density, elements of the lot coverage in the parking.

But this is just kind of a broad estimate. and then did a quick correlation analysis, and found a really weak correlation actually between density and redevelopment. And so when we're talking about this question of dwelling unit density, does changing the density impact whether or not a property is likely to be redeveloped? Maybe but not really.

It's probably a different factor in that analysis. I think something that's going to be helpful to understand a lot of the state I'm throwing at you is let's look at an example. There's not a ton of recent examples of new construction in R5, but the most recent one being 917 Concordia Lane. And this picture you see on here is what it looked like before redevelopment.

So it's a 5,800 square foot lot. That's 44th percentile of our five lots. So it's a little bit below the average. It's a single story.

It's four studios. That means you probably got four occupants, but you could have a maximum of eight occupants. It had four onsite parking spaces, net dwelling unit densities around 1450. The appeal for this is largely going to be to your smaller household types, your students, your young professionals, maybe other smaller household types like retirees that want less space.

The first proposal for this site was three stories. It had four two-bedroom units. So you're probably looking at eight occupants. It had proposed six to eight on-site parking spaces.

This is the nuance of this site. So if you want to provide the amount of parking that the code requires, they would have needed either a variance for a reduced number of parking spaces or an increase in lot coverage. At the time it was lot coverage, now we're on green space. It had the same dwelling unit density as the original structure, but would have had more occupants living in it.

Their variances were denied for this one, so they ended up coming back with a different proposal. But this was still, even though it was going to be a new construction, was probably going to appeal to a smaller household type, probably your young professionals, your young families, your retirees. This is the final proposal that was approved. Three and a half stories, three three-bedroom units.

So you're probably looking plus or minus nine folks living there, but you could technically have a maximum of 18 occupants. Six onsite parking spaces. That's interesting. It can technically house more people, but it is required to provide less parking.

1,938 square feet of lot area per dwelling unit. So it meets that requirement. It's because of the larger unit size, it's probably going to appeal to maybe folks that have a little bit more money or maybe your three bedrooms doesn't mean it's a large family, but it's not your smaller families. It's probably not your younger family.

So you're probably pricing out a lot of those smaller households. This paints a really interesting picture of what development looks like or could look like in the R5 district. The original for the site, we had four studios. That's probably not going to get built today.

One might hope, but it's probably not going come back around. The proposal that would have technically been the same density did not meet the requirements and also would not have been permitted due to either the parking or coverage regulations. And then the final proposal is a different type of unit for that size altogether. It's probably more in line with the direction that these renovations and new constructions go, but it definitely changes the typology of housing in that neighborhood.

It changes the type of person that's probably going to live in that neighborhood. And so there's a few key takeaways from these findings that we looked at. So there's a lot of different housing typologies in R5 that are probably all going to fit in one way or another. But the trend is definitely towards larger unit sizes or fewer units in total when you're talking about renovation or new construction.

There's probably going to be a likelihood of development in R5 in the near future, just given the land value ratios in that neighborhood. Density is weakly correlated to potential redevelopment. Not that it's going to have no impact, but I wouldn't consider that being the deciding factor for whether or not somebody wants to redevelop And reducing the dwelling unit density does not mean it's gonna reduce the occupant density. Right now there's a reduced dwelling density than what was originally there, but you're probably gonna have a lot more people than what the initial proposal was.

So our opinions, our takeaways from this is that changing the density is likely to impact the type of housing rather than the occupant density. Changing the density is likely have a minimal impact on redevelopment potential. Doesn't mean it couldn't, but it's probably minimal. And that your actual barriers to smaller unit types are probably going to be parking.

So when it comes to this discussion of density in R5, it's probably more a discussion of the typology of housing rather than number of dwelling units that are appropriate. Well, could some of those points go back to Section 405, 1720 and be incorporated there? Is there a specific component that you're... I'm not sure.

I'd have to really think about that. Yeah, I mean, I think there's anything Ryan necessarily just proposed that would need to be included. I think we're kind of throwing back a question at you all on what direction do we want to go. And this being an example of the results of the different impacts.

So the design on the right... is what meets our density. So we've replaced four studio units with three bedroom units. So this new construction meets our density.

The protections that are being added by Ryan in terms of the design of the structure would likely have changed this facade appearance because the finished floor height, the basement exposure, those things were not calculated for that project. So in the proposal that Ryan has presented today, the density is not changing so that this building on the right That density is still what we would get under the code today, but we're kind of trying to change the form of how that density comes into play. So the question to you all is, do we care about the density aspect? Do we wish that a four-unit building could have been constructed and replaced a four-units building, or are we comfortable with that change to three?

And there's also the interesting component that we talked about last time that Ryan incorporated in previous R5 presentations about if a building is non-conforming because it has more units than would be allowed when you tear it down, does that increase the value of that structure? Because somebody buying, essentially what happened here is the price of buying this parcel, tearing down the building and constructing a new building meant they needed to hit a certain value per unit. And so you're either able to have the units priced at a lower dollar value because you have more units or Or you have to do what they did here, increase the value of each unit, which got you bumped up in bedrooms. Diagonal from this, there is a building that is being completely gut renovated that has a higher number of dwelling units and would be allowed on that property.

And so they're gut rehabbing it and not changing the number of units. to protect that nonconformity, but they're reinvesting in it. So that's one of the pieces that one thing that we try to balance is would we have wanted that building to be completely torn down because they could have built the same number of units in its place or not? No easy answers.

I think, oh, go ahead, Blair. Thank you. I think you bring up a really interesting point, and I know I missed the comment that led to that, but to me, that depends. I mean, you know, it depends.

you don't want everything to be super high per square foot because then we're, as you were saying, pricing out people that maybe want to start a family and get their kids into the district and can't afford to be in some of these higher price spaces. So in that case, I do think it is important to have some quantity of that lower price point to allow for that. But where is that threshold? How much do we allow?

you know, for that build, it's tricky. I don't know. I think some of the difficulty here, at least for me is first, the only property that I can remember having this conversation about is the one that's on the screen in this area, which makes this whole thing more difficult, which gets back to my comment to why I wanted to hear from you as far as like your thoughts on that. So to be a thought experiment.

Now, if you go, For example, if you go to Clayton Gardens where we see stuff all the time, then you can kind of pick up on patterns as far as you say like, okay, what do I like? What do I not like? Or not necessarily on a personal level, but like on a design level. And some of those are very easy to hammer in here then such as the...

you know, where it's changed from one foot height reduction, one foot side set back to one foot height as opposed to a one to five ratio. Like that's a very easy thing you can point to that you can see developers going to over and over and over again, their bag of tricks. Problem is we don't have a whole lot of redevelopment in this area. So a lot of it we're working on hypotheticals.

On this specific building, the only complaint that I specifically remember was only about the height. Maybe I'm getting that wrong, but that was the complaint. And it wasn't... I know we fought for inches and I think we got three inches and we're really happy with that.

At the same time, when you drive by that building, you're like, yep, it looks pretty tall. But also, I don't know if anything we're discussing today would shear a whole level off of this, which is what Most people who were against this development wanted, they wanted an entire level taken off. And economically, I don't know if that makes sense. At the same time, I don't have any changes are necessarily being made that encourage people to go out and purchase these buildings and tear them down and have something monumental in its place.

Gained earlier about step downs and stuff like that. With these widths, I don't how much of a step down You could even incorporate if you want to. We see that in Clayton Gardens where people complain even that those lots, which are wider or they have more area, more to play with that, they can't do a meaningful step down in there. Which goes back to, I guess, why I wanted to, as someone who's clearly thought about this, I wanted to kind of hear some of your machinations to play into the conversation.

Please. Wow. Okay, so this is a funny one because this is quite the example. But I think it triggers some interesting conversation about thoughts on that.

Okay, so taking a step back then. So living in the neighborhood, I think that it is a more apologetic It is a more urban, approachable neighborhood in the Clayton community. So it feels a little bit more like St. Louis City than some of the single-family neighborhoods in the area.

So I think to the point about how the step-downs would be presented differently, I totally understand that. you feel like you're in a small, so I lived in the New Orleans for a while too. And I got the same feel from the Morelands as I do in this neighborhood for the most part. When you're in those apartment buildings, you feel like you are in a smaller density neighborhood.

So as opposed to going to some of those larger apartment buildings or downtown apartment building here, you really feel like you're new neighborhoods which I think is approachable for young families people are here, you know, out of the country, like lots of different types of people are living there. I think that's really exciting. Young people, students, I mean, truly the diversity of occupants in like the Morelands neighborhood and this neighborhood is actually really amazing. I didn't expect that before I moved into those neighborhoods.

So you don't feel like you're in this giant apartment building if you're in any of the housing types there. There's a lot of historic character in the neighborhood that, I mean, you get so... None of the buildings are big, giant, fat rectangles without any building relief. But they also have a lot of the historic character that is harder to get now, as we all know, right?

Like you're going to get like really intricate brick patterns. You're going to get really pretty like doorways then with really interesting doors. You've got a lot more porches. You've got the step backs.

So they're not quite as... like glamorous, I guess, as some of the buildings that are being shown right now, but they still have a lot of depth and character to them. And they're very approachable. I think one of the pieces of that may also be kind of hearkened to the idea of scale.

And so while I think that it's exciting that these are showing some of the density, the the building heights are almost the same two stories as three stories. So I do think as far as the idea of like some semblance of a massing comment in the code could be interesting because on the building on the right, if that third story had like actually been more of a balcony and stepped back, this is just, again, my opinion, then it would have looked a little bit more like a two-story building that fit in with the neighborhood. So I guess they say that as far... And like, you know, those probably had like 10...

10 foot ceilings. So going back to the kind of think the affordability and approachability of the neighborhood, if you're a young family or somebody on a middle to lower income threshold, you're probably not living in a building with 10 foot ceilins. So I do think there's like a height scale that is sort of interesting to play into what density and affordability looks like. I don't have a good answer for that.

But otherwise, I think in general, people love this neighborhood because it has a lot of character. And I think it's not a bunch of, it's a lot of people who care, who live in the apartments and the single family and double families. And so I think it's interesting, but I think again, there's an approachability, like a tangibility and a tactile nature of the buildings that people really love and are drawn to. And again, I think it tends to look more like a single family neighborhood.

It's kind of a decoy. But I think that some of the building, the character maybe of the buildings that are presented here do look a bit more like an upscale single family home, which isn't a bad thing. Sorry, I'll stop rambling because you've really poked it. I'm trying to find the answer to this myself.

But there's something to the architectural character of this that is less approachable in my head and doesn't really fit as far as like a mass and form than the other buildings in the neighborhood. And I think, again, that's why people like living in the neighborhood is that mass and form and a little bit of character. Thanks, guys. I might be talking too much in this part of the conversation, but at least my thought when that's going through is I know specifically We were talking about R2, and I know we threw out a neighborhood like Clabarack Park as an example, where I believe your comments, Ryan, were more along the lines of you don't want to make any changes that are going to speed demolition.

In that case, it incentivizes it going. What I'm hearing a lot with that comment is you like the character. of the neighborhood. So we just wouldn't want to necessarily incentivize the removal of that character where so much of the zoning is more new buildings that are being built, which I think at least part of it is trying to just not stick our thumb on the scale that's saying redevelop this area versus redevelop this area, but put meaningful barriers in place that kind of I think the goal of this overall is to keep the character of the neighborhoods.

Um, and it's just looking at how does this zoning maybe speed up or not, or slow down any possible demolition. I think that's really almost the only way we can look at this type of thing because we can't, it's difficult once we do have a building owner in place. And I know, um, I know we've talked about ceiling heights before where, you know, up here several of us have lower ceiling heights and have absolutely no problem with it. But we have a lot of developers who come before this board who act like it's unsaleable, anything lower than nine foot inability.

That's just, it's a death sentence. So I think I'm just reiterating what everyone has said is this is very difficult and it's a tightrope to walk. Seems like we're in a quagmire. Which way to go on this?

Yeah, and that's kind of where, I mean, I wish I knew how to predict the future perfectly so then I could make sure. that it went the way I wanted. But in the proposal right now, we're trying to introduce additional design standards that will bring more of that context as a requirement for consideration, but we are not changing the density. And I would say at this moment, that's our recommendation.

While Ryan and I have had endless numbers of conversations about all of the Data he's analyzed and I he knows, and I think he also agrees that it's very interesting. And we're always thinking of like, oh, what about this? And look at this number. But at the end of the day, what we do not want to do is.

accidentally swing the scales by creating a significant increase in value that the land then holds. And that's what might happen if we start messing around with density too much and what's allowed right now. So the way we have it right now, it's kind of a little bit, we hope, of a layer of protection of the existing buildings and trying to reiterate a reinforcement and investing in those structures that you have. And doing things like the owner who recently purchased the property that I mentioned across the street because they are increasing the value by increasing the finish, you know, redoing the finishes and that sort of stuff.

I'll also note that next... well, I guess we're technically already in the next fiscal year because it started on October 1st. But one of the follow-up analysis that we will be undertaking is the concept of preventing lot consolidations that result because That's a question that you all have posed for multiple zoning districts. And so that idea of providing maximum and minimum densities and what does that look like?

How can we do that? How can we enforce it? And then also just the concept of approaching the zoning code in our property maintenance codes from the concept of. housing affordability.

That is all what we're going to dive into in the next round. So I would anticipate that when we're looking at these zoning codes with that lens on, that there'll be additional things that we would ask you to consider. But at this point in time, the changes are all more based on that mass saying and not based on those those other two affordability pieces. So Right now I'm leaning to leaving it as it is written.

I am as well. Agreed, and I'll repeat the wow. That's that somehow this analysis is a lot. Other comments?

Where to go or where to stay? I would recommend leaving it as it is. I think I would, too. I'd be in agreement.

Agreement. Well, then. And I think maybe we have an answer that we can I guess we could go ahead and then recommend approval to the council. The way it is written.

I move to recommend approval of the proposed text as submitted to the city council. Second. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Okay. That was great work, and the wow comment I think was very appropriate. We're seeing a lot of complexity and comprehensiveness in all of this that sometimes is a little difficult to understand on our side, but thank you for helping getting us through it.

What do we have next? That is it. So Ryan will now make similar presentations to the city council at their public hearings. So we shared with you, did not print it in the packet.

We shared the electronic version of the neighborhood design guidelines and did that because they cover a lot of neighborhoods. And so we figured you might need more than a weekend to kind of leaf through it and consider everything before that first discussion. So the goal would be that we'll have a discussion about that at our next meeting. Again, not taking action.

Similarly, we're going to present that to the city council. The neighborhood design guidelines are adopted as it outlines in the introduction of that document by the architecture review board. They're not codified by the city council. But they talk about a lot of neighborhoods and our city council, I think, does a good job of making sure that residents are also aware of these considerations and everything else.

And so we want their input as well. So we plan to present it to you all to get that ball rolling. So you really have ample time to consider what's being discussed. um proposed then we'll go to the council and have a discussion with them and bring back any feedback from the council to you all before you actually act as the architecture review board in any manner of that document but we do intend at the upcoming meeting to do more of our traditional walk through with that packet i have not studied it in great detail yet yep but i must say being graphical It really makes it pop out at you, the ideas.

So I'm eager to get back into it. Great. Any other comments? Claire?

Not for me. And thank you for attending. I didn't catch your name, but thank you. Chris?

Nothing further. Good work. Jim? No comments.

Ellen? No comments. Susan? Nothing more.

Brian, you have any voice left? Nothing else. Anna? As usual, Kevin, thank you for your expertise.

Good. Well, we will see you in about two weeks. I forgot the date. Oh, October 19th.

And we are adjourned.