good evening ladies and gentlemen
welcome to the May 6th Urban Village
Development commission meeting lots to
cover we got a little bit uh we we
started on a different time uh hour this
this time uh we just had a uh training
session so thank you all for coming out
uh at this hour of
8:00 uh first I'd like to obviously meet
call the meeting to order uh and before
we move on to our official business I
would like to uh welcome our two new
commission members we have two new
alternates today Anne finny and Lindsay
Comfort welcome to the commission you're
in for a ride um and uh we also have
moved two alternates up to uh permanent
positions Eric olssen and Jim kerts
thank you very much gentlemen um and
this is now your full commission uh just
to let everybody know everybody here uh
that's participating has either been
involved uh or has reviewed the entire
record uh through this process so that U
everyone is in a place to participate
tonight so thank you very much for doing
that uh this time I'd like to
go correct
yes yeah Carl was just letting me know
that alter Nets will participate but
will not be uh voting on any on any
decisions um I'd like to go ahead and go
to the approval of the meeting minutes
from April 15th uh is anybody have any
questions or edits uh of that of those
meeting
minutes yes
Eric that's what happened in real life
Eric I'm
sorry uh so let me let me find the page
and let me get back to you real quick
sorry here okay well in in uh in the
interest of time we'll go ahead if
that's
okay can we make that change a little
later or do we need to do it right now
need to do it now need to do it now okay
so no pressure Eric
meantime yeah
Scott uh I didn't recall within within
the document seeing any call outs around
uh a comment that I had made specific to
proceeding on 8 and N the call out
specific to the water
tanks is that ringing a bell no as as to
whether or not those devices being in
place prior to construction
starting so you're ask resir asking are
you asking me a question or are you I'm
curious if that is something that needs
to be called out within the meeting
minutes because that was a key question
that was raised during that session so
if if that was if you're
asking if you're stating that you feel
that a piece of um te a discussion is
not reflected in the minutes then yes
that should be reflect correct and so
could you maybe summarize that so the um
or was that the summary that was the
summary I didn't see anything called out
specific within in the documentation
that indicated that call out okay so
we'll make that amendment I found Eric's
uh uh paragraph of concern it says Olson
ask what is included the maintenance of
walls that are existent Talis slowman
replied maintenance would include
inspections as well as replacement costs
Olson noted and that's it um and that's
page uh 7 of 49 on this on this document
that I have so if we could please amend
that to finish the sentence that would
be great okay anything
else say um I don't know where do we get
that I'm not sure if he remembers do you
remember you recall what you noted Eric
okay we'll go back in the record and
amend that okay so are you
um so the the minutes you're asking the
um recording secretary to um look at the
notes or or look at the videotape or
listen to the record and complete that
sentence based on what Eric said yeah
unless Eric can give it to us now I have
no idea what that
was I don't have any idea either I just
uh caught that so could you could you
give us the page again yeah it says 7 of
49
yeah really good I remember
that okay okay yeah it's probably it's
probably typed in it just probably got
cut off on the printing okay all right
anything
else all right let's go ahead and uh see
if there's a motion to approve the
minutes I as amended sorry as amended I
move we accept the minutes from the
April 15th 2014 meeting
motion second second motion Eric
seconded all in favor all opposed okay
unanimous pass we had one oh abstain we
have that one abstention I apologize you
were not here correct okay thank you one
exstension all right um let's see uh we
are going to have uh a lot lot of stuff
going on tonight I'm I'm going to start
with Lucy in just a moment we will have
public comment uh little bit of a a
slight change in in How We Do things
very slight but since there are a lot of
people that want to speak tonight and I
want to make sure we're getting to
everybody and through everybody uh there
is a signup sheet if you haven't already
signed up I'm going to ask that you do
so if you do not sign up U by the time I
take the clipboard we're not going to be
able to take your testimony this evening
I just want to make sure we have a lot
of enough time for everybody so I'm
going to ask that everybody please sign
up before uh I grab the clipboard and I
will give everybody one last notice to
do that before we actually go into that
so that's what we do what we will do
tonight and at this time I'm going to go
ahead and turn over to
Lucy so I just want to make sure that
everyone has met the new Commissioners
yes I went through that okay great sorry
thanks for listening and just
kidding my strength do I need to start
over uh no no so um tonight uh there are
a couple of extra copies out there if
people are interested I've handed out to
the Commissioners The decisionmaking
Matrix I just want to remind you that
this is a quasi judicial
matter which means you're acting as a
judge which means that we need to go
through the Quasi judicial checklist
this evening um you are um this is a
continuation of the public hearing from
April
15th um the at April 15th meeting
Parcels eight and nine were um
recommended to a recommendation was made
on those to the council and um the
commission asked for a couple of items
to be brought back to them relative to
parcel 7 and that's why the public
hearing was continued so um there are
four questions I'm going to ask the
commission tonight um to confirm that um
we're um following through on appearance
of
fairness so the first one is um does the
he I'm going to read each one of these
and then I'll just ask the commission to
say yes or no just as a group um does
the decision maker have a reasonable
impartial attitude towards the
request yes okay is the dis decision
maker free from any direct or indirect
Financial benefit that would result from
approving or denying the request yes
okay um if an exp parte contact has
occurred have they been revealed at the
hearing uh we actually do have one thing
to bring up uh during the April 15th uh
public hearing on this preliminary plat
if you recall we went into there there
was a recess for a moment two recesses
and and during one of them we uh we had
a number of people come up to us and ask
us and ask us questions that we said we
could not discuss at this time but there
was a very brief M moment where the
Commissioners did discuss one piece of
it and uh went back and and spoke to
Lucy and we were informed at that time
that we cannot have that conversation uh
to ensure that UVC is in compliance with
the requirements of this proceeding um
the Commissioners who are present
declare uh the SE parte communication
now and we want to know if there's
anybody who wishes to object to
anybody's participation in this um I
recall it was well can I can I add the
discussion was essentially which way are
you guys leaning so that we had an idea
of where the discussion should go I
don't think we discussed anything
substantive of what the issues were um
that's my recollection just wanted to
add that so um is there any uh any
objection to any of the commission is
participating further on
this so seeing none so seeing none we're
going to proceed with the hearing okay
thank
you is there a fourth question oh I'm
sorry we we actually just did the fourth
question has an opportunity been given
to object to the decision makers parti
participation because of ex parte
contacts so that was the piece that we
just did okay thank you
you
may so we're discussing continuance of
uh parcel 7 in this conversation can we
reference and and discuss Parcels eight
and
nine um not only is they relate to
parcel 7 because you've already made a
recommendation on Parcels 8 and nine to
the coun so that should limit our
conversation tonight right okay thank
you good question thank
you
now Dan's going to make the presentation
Let's
see we can switch
back so along um some of the similar
lines um this evening is the
continuation of the public hearing for
the preliminary plat of Talis parcel 7
as we've said parcel 8 has already
received a recommendation today during
preparation for this evening's
continuation of the public hearing it
was discovered that the staff briefing
response memo number two was not
distributed in the packets sent to the
Commissioners the applicant and parties
of record after consultation with the
city attorney it was determined that the
memo did not contain new facts that had
not been previously presented rather it
contains staff's conclusions on
consistency of the application with the
development agreement professional
opinions of Staff regarding
modifications proposed by the applicant
and responses to public comment as such
this evening staff will provide a more
detailed presentation than usual
covering the Memo's Salient
points um therefore the continuation of
this public hearing May proceed and the
Commissioners May render a
recommendation on this permit this
evening if they choose if anyone objects
they should clearly raise this point
during the comment period and specify
the basis on which they
object
okay so now you get to see a really
detailed
presentation
so the first part of the presentation
are the modifications proposed to parcel
7 plat responding to the UVC requests um
from the April 15th public hearing so
the first um modification is related to
the Western buffer and Reservoir um the
applicant has proposed the uh
modification to the plat um that was
removing the existing pair of Tanks
adjacent to parcel 8 and relocating that
pair of Tanks adjacent to parcel 7 and
um removing the road out of the buffer
by parcel 7 the purpose of the western
um 50 50 foot buffer is to avoid
residential impacts to the buffer um uh
on the park excuse me and vice versa
that is concerns that trees might fall
from Cougar Mountain wildlands Park onto
homes if they were closer than 50 ft or
that activities on Residential
Properties could impact the park
unoccupied structures such as a water
tower um were considered acceptable the
devel velopment agreement specifies that
there needs to be a vegetated buffer not
a native or protected
buffer um The Proposal uh creates less
impact than the existing situation in
that the road that serves the existing
two tanks is being removed from the
buffer um they will rate the current
tank location to seamlessly transition
to Cougar Mountain Wildland Park um this
is consistent with an amm
0412 EV that was approved in 2004 and uh
was supporting correspondence from 2000
and
2004 So to that end the applicant had
proposed two conditions those are both
shown at the bottom of the screen with
their concurrence we revised those
conditions to the two shown at the top
of the screen um and I will read those
into the record so the first new
condition says prior to acceptance of
the second 9116 tank and Reservoir
Access Road the 752 Reservoir and access
road shall be removed from the 50ft wide
Westerly buffer following remover
removal of the reservoir and Road
Disturbed areas shall be restored with
an appropriate native pallet of ground
cover shrubs and trees including
Evergreens the restoration plan shall be
permitted and performance bond posted
prior to final plat for either parcel 7
or eight whichever comes first the
landscape restoration work shall be
completed that is installed inspected
and maintenance Bond posted prior to
acceptance of the second new 9116 tank
which is the one by parcel
7 the second condition um which also has
been um accepted by the applicant is
that the 916 Reservoir Access Road shall
be outside the 50-ft buffer walls are
grading may occur within the buffer but
shall be restored with an appropriate
native pallet of ground cover shrubs and
trees including Evergreens as determined
by the designated official the tanks May
remain within the Westerly buffer as
approximately shown in the applicant's
proposal of April 30th
2014 the reservoir site footprint shall
be minimized while maintaining necessary
functionality as determined by the
designated
official so before I move on I want to
give the commission an opportunity to
ask questions Michael Lucy just so I
understand this we are going to tear
down functioning water towers and
replace them in a different location on
the
property so we are relocating them um
and there is a
um so this may be where I want to pull
Dan in but as I understand it the net
cost is um equivalent or less than
building new tanks
and the city prefers not to have four
tanks to
maintain Dan is giving a thumbs up just
so you
know so how okay two
questions so they're not going to be
torn now they're just moved right so
which okay thank you and then total
footprint of the
site that they're going to be moved to
will that be let me let me ask you
another question first um total water
capacity the way I read the plan before
there were going to be four water towers
how are we going to make up that extra
water capacity by H by only having two
towers now so um the reason and and
again I'm teetering on my knowledge here
but my understanding is that the reason
that we needed four tanks was based on
the pressure zones and not the volume of
water so that they are able so by moving
the two tanks into the higher pressure
Zone they are then able to serve all the
homes Dan is confirming that with
another
th you guys get more information than I
do and was there any look at the actual
number of
um well I guess this is going to result
in less footprint of actual property
that is
developed this will result in um less
shall we say impervious area within the
50 Foot
buffer okay okay Eric did you have
something uh no he he de answered that I
just want to make sure it was the exact
same tanks that are going to be
relocated okay so they're going to be
recycled okay okay very sustainable any
other
questions no okay thank you
okay um and then I just wanted to point
out that um if there were walls um that
were located in the buffer um that they
had to be constructed in such a way as
to allow full revation of the buffer
this is an existing condition which we
talked about last time we're not
proposing any changes but I just wanted
to bring it to your
attention um Jeff is it Michael's asking
do you care so I have one more question
sure these tanks that are are they're
currently in
use where's the water supply going to
come from while they're being moved so
they're own they're going to be taken
out of service one at a time
okay that's why the condition is related
to the second tank being in place um so
because they can only be taken out one
at a
time can I ask a quick question um
previously this required
um a modification um that was the 2004
so now what happens with that property
that you know the water towers were
previously on what's going to happen to
that that's the one that's going to be
fully revegetated
okay and Lucy just one notation on your
staff recommendation uh just for clarity
this is a a quazi judicial process
tonight yes and you're saying their
revised conditions as part overall
recommendation to city council to
approve the preliminary plant are we
approving that no so your
recommendation could be to approve to
deny you so what I we're making a
recommendation to you on what your
recommendation should be I see okay it's
a recommendation to a
recommendation thank you for clarifying
thank
you
okay so the second modification that the
applicants proposed is to reduce the
eastern wall in parcel 7 by
approximately 10 ft so that its height
is between 29 and 39 ft so I've just I
grabbed their um nice little graphic and
added um this
yellow uh uh line right here to just
illustrate which wall we're speaking of
you said 29 and 39 it says 20 and 39
just to be clear thank you for listening
thank
you so our recommendation is to again
accept um the revi uh accept the revised
conditions as part of an overall
recommendation to the council to approve
the plat um the uh applicants proposed
condition is at the bottom again ours is
just above it they have seen that and
they are um have said that they're fine
with it which um is to revise the
eastern wall design and height in parcel
7 to be no more than 39 ft this will be
reviewed with permits which include the
wall design
any questions Scott so just a quick just
a quick clarifying question um can you
direct with the mouse other walls that
are of that elevation within the current
area so um if if you'll um indulge me
I'm going to talk about that a little
bit more um when we go through some of
the public comments that we um received
so I'd like to wait I'll have a little
bit bigger version and I think they'll
talk about it as well that's great thank
you so then I just wanted to notate when
I reviewed this uh graph or picture uh
that was very enlightening to see the
existing walls in Talis much of which I
I would say
uh would people would not be aware of
and so I appreciate that thank you
you're
welcome
um and then the last modification that
we proposed um is not from the
applicants but is uh followup to
something that we talked about when we
were considering all three Parcels being
recommended to council last time so
staff has attempted to capture the um
discussion that came up last time so um
again it's um a recommendation to add
the following condition as part of your
recommendation to council and the new
condition is um the Northern end of Road
a will terminate as a driveway to the
northernmost house currently lot 17 the
RightWay May extend to the northern
property line but no extension of Road a
will incur occur until such time as the
city council has made a decision that
would support such
extension this will be reviewed with the
final plat and with the site work permit
which includes roads so um here's parcel
7 on the left um I've done a blow up of
this area right here this is Road a um
you can see that the plat um currently
just has a driveway and not a road
coming to the um northern property line
um but if the applicant chose they could
extend the right of way to that Northern
property
line yeah go ahead Carl um Eide fire and
rescue Etc I think we've talked about
this before but can you address that
please so um East Side fire and rescue
has reviewed all the plat and we've
talked to them several times um where
there are these dead ends um such as
here or um the area that we're looking
at right now they would um use this to
back into and turn around or back
straight out and turn and go out that
way so it's it's um I talk about this a
little bit more but the idea is that
where there are dead ends the um
required fire turnaround has been
embedded into the street system
and I'm sorry go ahead so it's in the
street system but not the Terminus is
what you're
saying I'm calling the Terminus where it
stops at the driveway right well right
this it it's um the the turnaround are
these three pieces here as opposed to
the driveway itself thank you and and
these are two-way roads correct all of
them okay everything's to okay thank
you
okay so this so the road width is
standard Road
width in some
cases
um parallel parking on street parking
may have been removed or sidewalk may
have been removed from one side but
otherwise the widths are standard the
travel lanes are standard width I guess
the
okay okay so now I'm moving into the
second part um which is responses to
public comment that had been received
since the April 15th um public segment
of the public
hearing um so there was one uh um email
that we received on um the wall behind
Fred Meer um and that um based
on the city's
either the I think it's the estimates
that the city e either received or
developed
to sorry to maintain and replace that
wall that that indicated that these
walls were
um unreasonably expensive um
and the um evaluation of that wall that
I received was that it was um designed
reviewed permitted constructed and
inspected in King County to King County
standards um while that area was in
unincorporated King County and it was
subsequently annexed to the city of
issaqua after it was built and
accepted the County's design and reviews
process is not the same as the cities
and um that wall configuration would not
have been um approved in the city and
therefore we have no concerns that or
think that we do not think it's relevant
to these walls because because it would
not be allowed to be constructed so are
you saying that the
city's process and permit process and uh
design and review process would be more
stringent than what king County's
was is Dan showing a thumbs up I think
Dan fell asleep
no he's saying no he would not be more
stringent just
different P can I ask a followup
question can you
speak Dan if you say something will we
hear you Dan you're on the big screen
can you hear me yes
yes um some of the audio is syncopated
so I didn't hear all of the questions so
if you could repeat the question I could
probably respond better sure what I was
asking was uh we're referencing the wall
behind Fred Meyer and that it was all
permitted and reviewed and accepted by
County but it would not have been if it
had been um submitted in city of isqua
so my question is is are isqua's
processes and permit reviews more
stringent than what king counties were
um so I mean just the fact that we that
isqua wouldn't permit it I don't know
what that means
exactly um I think that stringent is
probably not the right word because I'm
sure there are many people at King
County that would say their processes
are just as stringent and thoughtful and
um reliable as ours are I think a better
word is different and in this particular
case that wall would not have been
constructed in that
configuration um in the county process
so I think stringent is a bad word only
because of the connotations not related
to this particular discussion but I
think the um impression that you're
trying to leave by using that word um
Jeff is the correct one so just to lay
the concerns of probably both the
commission and the public um uh I don't
know how to best to word this I
guess the I don't know I I don't want to
put King County in a bad place but um
you you wouldn't see you don't expect to
see the same kinds of concerns you have
on that wall behind Fred Meyer in the
city of esqua because we'd have a
different
process
yes okay
all right yes Eric uh so my my question
would be when was that wall built and
have the both King County
regulations uh changed since then or
should I say improved since the building
of that wall to where that wall would
not be built that way
today I can't answer that Eric I'm not
familiar with King County's codes and
processes I can say that that wall would
not be duplicated in Talis today okay
very good thank you
Dan any
followup questions or anything
Shantel just uh can you remind me at all
that that uh you don't know I don't know
but is it's at least 20 fet I would
think probably more than that I would
think more than
that
um the second
uh bundle of questions or comments were
around maintenance and replacement cost
and the burden on the um homeowners
association um staff response is that
you that the scale and height um the
scale of the height and design of this
wall has been reduced it is now
comparable to many other walls at Tallis
uh and that if the HOA discovers that
these walls have a greater expense
associated with maintaining them that um
they have tools that would allow them to
assess at a higher rate the homeowners
that benefit from them and um that
uh the uh and that's a tool that they
have anywhere currently um if if a
certain feature that benefits a certain
group of homeowners um results in higher
maintenance um or operation costs they
have the ability to um issue a sir
charge
okay so grading and walls um this is
where I'm going to spend most of my time
um the comments uh were that the site
doesn't respond to the topography the
walls are too tall um this is
inconsistent with the development
agreement so I want to start by what
does the development agreement say and
these um are taken out of appendices A
and B which are the goals and guidelines
for Talis um first of all um the
development agreement acknowledges some
of the site challenges um that um it
contains mountainous terrain and it has
the Topography of Cougar Mountain and
second that it directs a balanced
approach um in that you balance the
considerations for example of topography
with building placement um that
vegetation and topography are both
dominant characteristics of the
community and part of the reason that I
mentioned this and I think the applicant
will touch on this um more in their
presentation that um there was a
conscious Choice by the applicant to not
clear the open space between um parcel 6
which is down here and um the proposed
area for parcel 7 to maintain the
existing budget in here and um so the
walls and uh grading within parcel 7 is
partly a result of
that um in trying to balance a number of
aspects and and I also want to point out
that there are some standards that are
dictating some of the constraints that
you see on regrading and
design and one of those is Road grades
and um
Ada so if you look at the roads um
leading up to and in this parcel um the
colors show up more or less the ones
that are in Red so um leading up to the
plat um leading up to the reservoir and
um this uh kind of little Back Road
connector um those are all 15% that's
the maximum that's allowed 12% is is the
actual maximum but you're allowed to for
short distances exceed
15% um the other uh element that drove
uh this plat was the intersection that
is circled in yellow here um trying to
meet um American with Disabilities Act
for um um
wheelchair ramps and connections across
this intersection pretty much drove
every single um grade in the plat so um
if if you have any questions about that
I'm going to ask you to ask the
applicant I'm just eval I I know that
about this plat but I can't tell you a
lot about um exactly how that was um
some of the different things they tried
around that okay
okay so um I guess this isn't really
much bigger uh but this is that graphic
um that uh the applicant
prepared um they're identifying that the
wall in yellow would be limited to a
maximum of 39 ft um that does not mean
that the whole wall would be 39 ft but
that there are some portions of it that
would reach 39 ft um there are uh at
least two walls in Talis that a similar
height and this is just by me observed
looking at the drawing they provided um
the walls below between Copper Ridge and
Timber Ridge um along here and then some
of the entry walls along here and and I
think Eric makes a good point I called
them invisible walls I think one of the
challenges is that a lot of the walls in
Talis are below homes and behind trees
and that unless you're on a trail um you
may not actually see them so so the
graphic um does highlight how many walls
have been used
to create um tales that exists
now so I also wanted to point out some
of the things um uh the parts of the
development agreement that talk about
walls these are some that I selected um
and I point these out because they're
both in the um guidelines in appendix B
around residential
neighborhoods um and uh chapter six
around fences and walls um that
acknowledge that um there will be retain
that there that retaining walls were
anticipated I guess to say um so that in
the more mountainous development areas
um homes are nestled in and step up the
topography retaining walls um are used
to accommodate grade
changes um and then in chapter six it
discusses that the very beginning of
that chapter um that uh walls will be
used to provide retaining functions and
that we practical they will be
terrorist um so the conclusion staff
reach is that walls are an acceptable
tool to allow construction of
development parcels and that the
proposed walls are uh as modified are
within the range of existing Talis
walls any questions Carl couple quick
ones
um I think you said this and I might
have been taking notes so how many um
walls are of similar height within Talis
already so I identified two um there may
be more and that would be a good
question for the applicant who did the
original did the base analysis all right
thanks Scott for pointing some out to me
so that helps thanks and I'll wait for
the applicant as well and the applicant
can respond to this as well um how much
of that eastern wall would be of that
Max height you said the entire thing is
so I'd be Keen to understand how much of
it is
up to the max okay and I'll wait thank
you thank you
Shantel follow up to that um it didn't
look like any of those walls were so as
close to the
houses as the the one that is being
built here is is there I I would
actually disagree with that Shantal um
if you I'm not sure it's as a parent but
in Copper Ridge the homes are so that's
one of the really tall
ones
thank
you okay
okay
um then I wanted to move on to
grading um these are selections from
both appendix a goals and B uh
guidelines
sorry um Mountain Village character is
under goal number one so that's right up
from front
um and it says um that the Urban Village
will be adapted to reflect the
mountainous terrain um and that um this
means development that conforms to the
Topography of Cougar Mountain
um and that has designs that respond to
the
topography uh and then I wanted to
provide the words along the bottom those
are all um quotes um conforms stepping
Nest nestled blend respond so that I
think is setting sort of the framework
for what do we expect from the
grading so I don't know whether um this
crazy graphic will make sense to you but
here's what I did I looked at the um
grades on the various Lots now most
almost every single one of these Lots
has a big step in the middle so there
and there and there so that
means that you know each lot is like
this and if you look at those lots what
you generally see what I did was try and
bundle them so if if that part of the
lot was in the 720s meaning between 720
and 729 it was colored as a
720 so um what I see in this is that we
start down here at 720 then we have um
and here is 720 then we have a row of
730s so we're going up 10t at a time
basically um then
740s 750s 760
770 70 780s going across here 790s and
then up to the
800s so I think what we see what this
graphic demonstrates to me is that for
instance along this Edge it's stepping
up about 40 ft that from here to here
we're stepping up 80 ft and that
essentially around this kind of um
intersection that I was saying was such
a challenge the whole project is
stepping up and pivoting around the
hill and so um I think that's important
because um when we look at this in plan
it's easy to read it as a
two-dimensional um sort of flat plane
but when you look at it in a more um in
two Dimensions but trying to express the
three three dimensions of it I think you
see that it does step up and respond to
the topography more than is initially
apparent lots of hands
him this reflect the change that's made
that's a great Point Tim I do not have a
new plan so this is the U this is the
original plan that you have looked at at
the last two meetings and ever every
graphic that I've used in this section
on grading and walls is from the
original submitt so um I did not get a
new plan that showed um how that 10ft
reduction along this Edge um is
reflected although I do believe it was
um it wasn't at one end or the other it
was kind of in the middle I think well
and and my understanding was that almost
all of the change in the Wall height was
going to be contained in those lots 1
through 16 that were right along the
wall and it wasn't to my understanding
going to extend beyond the street so
that means that those which now had a a
10- foot change in grade from the wall
to the street we now going to have about
a 20 foot change and I don't I don't see
that as an issue necessarily they were
talking about a housing plan that would
be adaptable to that so so what I would
recommend is because I haven't seen a
grading plan plan and and you're asking
a question about this graphic from the
original I would recommend that you ask
the applicant how this um illustration
might be revised as a result okay okay
someone else had their hand yes
Michael Lucy maybe this question could
wait for the applicant but is this going
to be um a net import or export or just
a zero of fill and back fill for this
grading plan so that would be a question
for the applicant that's not something
we usually see until construction
permits
an just to be clear is there just the
one wall at the bottom of the graphic
that we're looking at or are there more
walls there that just not seeing so
there are more walls those walls um are
either Terrace or are in like up to for
instance there's a wall uh like right
here or right here that I think is about
20 or 25 ft um I'm you may need to ask
the applicant for the specific Heights
because I don't know if I'll remember
them
all well I'm I'm looking at these so see
these bubbles that are along here those
give you the heights of the wall and
what I'm seeing without being able to
really read the details this is a single
digit and then a decimal point and then
a fraction so I my understanding of this
wall is for instance that it's sorry the
mouse keeps going to sleep these are um
relatively low these are more in the
double digits as I said up to about
25 okay
okay so this again is a graphic that the
applicant provided with the first subal
um and what I've done is kind of finagle
it um the um this is again the old wall
this shows 42 feet and we um they have
committed to reducing that to 39 feet um
this is a section that was taken with
the original plat proposal through about
here and um what I've done is just used
a um the house that was shown here and
continued it up the hill to approximate
how the houses stepped up
between the wall and and the uh East
Western most street so I apologize I
keep turning the map um for um
convenience so um North it would be over
here and so um I what this Graphics
shows is that and then these are the
elevations so um this area here is at
elevation 759 then here is
770 780 786 cuz there's a little wall
right here
and then up to 798 so that's heading
east right yes left to right sorry West
left to right so what's the elevation of
the street was it shangra La I think on
the east side of the lower end of the
slope all the way down here yeah I don't
know that I'm sorry I mean I I estimated
that I made a I did a graphic estimation
this is you know if this is so I don't
know how accurate this is 540 I believe
okay so there's a significant amount of
topography and and um landscape if you
will or trees and so forth between the
road and the wall right but uh here's
the thing where this car is right here
that's not shanger La way that's the
back of Rose Crest where's I don't know
Rose um um oh
mire
um so this SE
was cut um you know about starting about
here and going up uh and we're at the
back of this project mire Ryan says okay
and there is topography between there
and shanga way because you can see there
are two walls so um what they're showing
there doesn't even take you all the way
down to shangra right okay so what's the
distance between that road and the
wall
from east to west from east to west
correct and I mean if you were just cut
it straight across so you're saying from
here to the wall yep
exactly Mike's doing his calculation
3 he's goingon to do a good job hey
let's congratulate Mike he just had his
first baby so the reason that I'm
leading this meeting instead of mik he's
gonna be a good dad with homework he's
been gone the last two weeks on
fraternity
leave so can I see exactly where are you
trying the
distance 11 so it's coming down to
here so are you doing it from the wall
yeah from the
wall so maybe
325
yeah so we're estimating that it's about
you know given that we think we know
what the section was cut about 300 to
325 ft
from from
here to
here so
Lucy again this is probably a question
for the applicant but you know as I look
at it in this cross-section I wonder why
there's no terracing
opportunity so when you have a wall uh
um and and I I think they may be able to
speak to that better than I do but when
you have a a a slope that's this
steep then you would have to um if you
wanted to slow you know make this more
gentle you would have to uh have walls
that were quite
tall to catch up with the grade going
down
here because essentially you would be
pushing everything out further into here
to make it more
gentle
so you'd either be taking out some of
the open space or potentially building
similar walls
okay okay thanks for that information
any questions
okay so in thinking about this a little
more I I think the thing that struck me
is that it's not grading or walls that
in this circumstance it's grading and
walls to to respond respond to the
mountainous terrain and that the purpose
of the wall that was put in wasn't to
create a flat site it was to um in
conjunction with stepped grading to
create a site that was buildable where
buildable area was allowed and I think
that's an important thing to remember is
and we'll I'll talk about this a little
bit more but about 70 to 75% of the site
has been preserved and there was about
25% of of the site that was allowed to
be developed and where that was allowed
to be developed they were allowed to um
clear 100% if they chose can you repeat
that one more time
slowly um because I think it's a very
important Point yes can I wait till I
get to the slide that shows it better
you may and but if if I could just go
back to that slide for one second the
the drawing so I just want to be clear
here so so can I say one thing about
this slide this is a cartoon okay I like
cartoon
okay I relate really well to cartoons so
that's fine um it's not anime
unfortunately just to be clear then um
so the the
wall and I maybe forgive me if I'm sort
of assuming something here but correct
me if I'm wrong the wall whether the
height is 25t 35t or 42t whatever will
likely not be
visible because of the the slope and the
topography and the landscape and all of
that from either the road or the homes
down
below truly not that visible um is that
a true statement yes the one place that
it will be most visible is from the
trail MH down at the bottom and we've
added a condition that um landscape
especially some evergreen trees need to
be provided along between the trail and
the wall I recall that and there's some
other conditions around the design of
the wall okay so okay thank you and
obviously those conditions will not
impede maintenance or inspection of the
walls uh
okay so roads um there were some
comments about uh concerns around there
being only one Road in and out of Talis
um and then specifically related to the
plat that the roads were too narrow for
emergency access or school buses there
were dead end roads which would
interfere with emergency access that
dead end roads weren't consistent with
the plat and that there wasn't a proper
connection to the main road so um I'm
going to take these kind of one and a
time um there is it's true that due to
the Topography of Talis the uh sort of
the steepness um along sr900 that there
is only one everyday uh connection in
and out out of the project um but that
isn't the only Connection in and out of
the project there are a couple of others
and for instance uh James Bush Road um
in an Em which is currently now only
available for emergency um vehicle use
um if there was something catastrophic
that happened to Talis Drive James Bush
Road for instance could be used um to
accommodate emergency um access even by
residents um the access and standards
were reviewed at the time the
development agreement was adopted by
Eastside fire and rescue the isqua
police department and Public Works
engineering um they agreed to the
standards and thought they were
acceptable um and the uh fire
turnarounds for instance that we
mentioned earlier there is a standard
for fire turnarounds and they are not so
terribly visible because we do try and
embed them into the overall Road design
so they don't show up um school buses do
not want school district is not asking
to access every single Road um there may
be roads where residents would like
school buses to access um the school
district would love really wide roads um
that is not what we build in the urban
Villages for a number of reasons but we
do work with the school district every
year to discuss what um areas they want
to access where they want to have school
bus stops where they would like to be
and work to accommodate their
needs um and finally dead end roads not
finally actually just finally for this
slide dead end roads are generally
avoided in any of the urban Villages
however sometimes due to topography
critical areas or the edge of a project
it's not possible to avoid a dead end
Road um and uh this project has
topography and critical areas and is on
the edge of the project um and in fact
the guidelines in the development
agreement anticipated um that that may
happen and provided us with um Direction
on how to handle them and when and where
to consider using
them Eric I just want to reiterate uh I
think we had a matter of record I asked
Dan a question last time about traffic
and uh the initial study was with this
whole area built out and so this
additional um homes uh will not impact
the traffic as far as needing an
additional study right and I'll provide
a little more information about that
coming up because um that came that has
come up in public comment as
well um then about the connection to the
main road um what I'm showing here is
the colored image on the left is um a
clip um a snapshot from the original
plan that was included with the adoption
of the development agreement um kind of
preliminarily showing how different
areas might be accessed um and then the
black and white um image on the right is
what is propo what either existing roads
or um roads that are proposed within
this plat and I think you can see that
generally speaking the configuration is
quite similar and anticipated that this
would be the kind of connection that
would be provided to Talis
Drive
okay so traffic good call Eric um so the
comment was that the traffic analysis is
no longer AA uh is valid and that
there's too much traffic in Talis
already so I think what we have to do is
start with one of the basic building
blocks of the development agreement
which was how much allowable development
was um evaluated as part of um the
original um when the agreement was
adopted so what the agreement had would
was that there would be
1735 dwelling units 800,000 Square ft of
commercial and 50,000 Square ft of
retail so what's been built so far
although um for those of you like Jeff
who've been around forever um uh you'll
be surprised at some of these numbers
because um things there are land use
permits that have been improved but not
built so I'm trying to reflect built
things um less than 1,400 dwelling units
have been built um not even quite the
whole 300,000 Square ft of commercial
has been built and no retail has been
built we're anticipating some re retail
later this year um but generally that's
been one of the hardest um because uh
there isn't a frontage on
sr900 um so it's been really a challenge
for the projects that have proposed um
retail to um get
funding um so these numbers the the
original uh ones up here at the
top um are the ones that were used in
the environmental impact statement and
uh the traffic study that went with that
at the time that the development
agreement was adopted so we're
significantly under the um total impact
that was evaluated for this project um
in terms of the traffic study the
environment the entitlement and uh
traffic capacity are closely linked and
they were coordinated um in the
agreement uh or the the agreement and
the road Network were coordinated um
between each other and the proposal that
we see is consistent um with the
agreement with the traffic and the road
Network that were originally included in
the development
agreement Michael um Lucy when we do a
traffic prediction like this and we have
commercial in uh
residential I I've heard discussion that
often commercial will offset trips
because the assumption is that people
will live where they work because
there's no retail or commercial built
out here has that affected the initial
traffic prediction that was
made so I'm going to um flip to my
computer off oh
lost I've
had intern connection okay maybe we can
just do it by speaker phone
possibly go ahead and speak
Dan Dan can you hear me I can hear you
so um there's a question I I don't know
if you heard Michael Beard's question
regarding um traffic and that you know
the original assumptions and traffic
studies often are about um commercial
and retail offsetting each other because
people living where they work could you
um could could you speak to where if we
have not built um
commercial well other than Timber Ridge
um commercial
um we have not built any retail how that
impacts the validity of the traffic
study um in this particular case it
doesn't impact the validity there wasn't
a large commute trip reduction or
captured trip allowance in the original
development and the um residential that
has not been built and the commercial
that has not been built more than
compensates for any of the credits that
were given in the original
analysis do you need a translation of
that Michael can I help yeah so think
about it it's not an offset it's a um
it's a reduction so so if you added the
residential trips and the non-resident
IAL trips together there's actually a
reduction because of the internalization
that's
given to the to the mixed use project so
because the commercial is not there yet
Michael those trips aren't actually on
the street grid so there's not there's
not a problem if it doesn't happen if it
does happen then you get a you basically
get a a benefit for the Mixed use
happening all within one area does that
make sense I can understand that that's
kind of at odds with the Urban Village
concept as I understand it with reduced
trips and a walkable Urban Village so
think about it you so you're mixing your
your things together a little bit so
from a traffic analysis standpoint
that's the environmental review that's
done and that's to make sure that
there's no unmitigated impacts the goals
for a mixed use walkable Community is is
they they share the same benefits but
they're different
okay
yeah yes I'm sorry okay thank you any
other
questions no thank
you so density there was a concern that
parcel 7 was at the top of the density
range and thus the proposal was
inappropriate um Talis is developed with
uh each parcel is assigned low middle or
high density category um parcel 7 is
assigned a um low category of 3 to 12
dwelling units um per acre uh which
would translate into 34 to 137 Lots
what's proposed is 56 Lots which is in
the middle um unless there is um some
other aspect of the development
agreement that it is in conflict with
the um uh applicant gets to
decide and then I was just noting here
that um along with uh things like
density um compliance with circulation
such as roads walks and trails
Recreation utilities and critical areas
were evaluated in the staff report and
The Proposal complies with those
standards okay
um there was a concern that um the
development of these Parcels would cause
a huge scar um the photo on the left is
from 2006 um and it shows that the area
was cleared about 10 years ago um and uh
that uh few additional trees will need
to be cut as part of this project but I
do want to point out um that the
applicant does have the right to remove
100% of the treat and I'll speak to that
in a little more detail with the next
item so um there was a concern that um
there wasn't sufficient open space being
provided so I wanted to kind of run
through the basic assumptions that are
in the development agreement about how
Talis would be set up the project
contains
627 Acres total so the protected area
south of tibits Creek which is so here's
um the the West Fork of tibits Creek all
this sort of um dark green color um is
protected Acres that's 388 Acres about
62% of the site um
was right off the bat protected and um
unless there are Hazard trees there
won't be any activities down
there then north of that Creek um there
was an assumption about um how much open
space would be created based on critical
areas because even though they're
allowed to develop any developable area
north of the creek that did not allow
them to develop um what we call critical
areas which would be things like
wetlands and streams um so you see some
of these um this is again that original
plan this this one over here is the
original plan that was in the original
um when in the development agreement
when it was adopted and you can see some
of the creeks and wetlands in this sort
of um light kind of aqua
color and um but you can see also so
this is um the 2012 aial I believe um or
no actually this is still the 2006 I use
that because the it's was taken in the
summer and everything's brighter green
and it's a lot easier to tell what has
trees and what doesn't
um you can see that for instance in the
Northern areas of Talis um there's an
open space that runs through here and
through here um there's some areas uh in
the middle there and this area was shown
as being completely developed so there
are some areas that the applicants um
over the years have voluntarily set up
as open space um and that been that
would not receive further
development so your total protected
space um or op and open space is about
460 Acres the the reason I say about is
the 388 was definite but because um any
developable area north of the creek
could be developed it was an estimate at
the time because all those critical
areas were going to be further evaluated
with each development
permit um but there was an estimate that
would be about 150 acres um of land that
could be developed that would be about
24% of the total acres and on that
develop vable land all um trees could be
removed okay thank you so just to
reiterate uh and this is probably more
for the benefit of those that were not
involved in the development agreement
earlier and I I recall a lot of this
conversation is that Talis is more than
just what we all recognize as the
current housing and Commercial and so
forth it there was a conscious decision
and this is benefit for the commission
as well I think there's a conscious
decision to protect a large number a
large amount of property in order to get
the density and the activity on this
24ish percent uh in the Talis community
so I just think it's an important thing
to keep in mind it may not change your
thinking or your feeling about how much
stuff is right near you or where you
live but it's important to understand
the larger context I think right I mean
essentially it is a cluster development
um they're cluster clustering a higher
level of density onto the developable
acres north of the creek to set aside um
hundreds of Acres elsewhere in the
project and I just want to second that
as well and this is a very clarifying
and revealing that uh of the
627 uh development
Acres 73% essentially are preserved 73%
of that development is preserved
right I think that's a very in a very
good point thank you Lucy you're welcome
so some of it is preserved as uh Native
growth protection area some of it is
preserved as critical areas and some of
it is set aside as open space the other
thing I think that's important to note
here and this is true for a lot of the
stuff that we look at is in a lot of
cases the developer has a lot of choices
to make and um and often times as as
we're actually seeing here while it may
not feel like it they've actually made
the decision to not either clear as much
as they could have or develop as much as
they could have even though it does
sometimes feel like they're doing more
than you think they should and I I say
that out loud partially just to remind
myself sometimes because the developer
also has rights and there's a
development agreement in place that you
know is in writing that's been approved
so yes Michel sorry Lucy Lucy who
actually owns that property that's uh
south of tibit Creek currently I believe
the city owns
it
okay I I understand what everybody's
saying um at the same time I I think
it's there's also an argument to be made
uh for open space versus for instance
tdrs and I think a lot of times the open
space needs to be accessible and so to
me uh what would be a valuable
calculation I I doubt you're going to be
able to come up with this real quickly
but how much of that open space is
actually
accessible um you know a lot of times in
clustering obviously there needs to be
improvements made so that people can
access the open space etc etc um so yes
I do see you know 388 Acres uh being
provided for open space is a terrific
thing uh I just wonder how much of that
is
accessible so I I think that um I have a
couple thoughts Jim one is that there is
an extensive network of trails I think
that's a real high value of people
who've chosen to live at Talis and the
original Master developer who isn't
involved anymore um built a lot of
trails and many of the builders who have
developed neighborhoods have added to
those now obviously mostly what I'm
referring to are trails north of tibits
Creek however there are um several well
well-known um Trails South of Tippets
Creek for instance coming out of um 11
here there's the be Ridge Trail that
comes out and I think heads off to the
West um but as I was um as many people
in the audience tonight will verify I
was reminded that we're not just um
setting aside the protected area for
humans um but there was also a high
value placed on the advantages for
wildlife so um it it's actually a
balancing act between making it
accessible to humans and then also
setting some of it aside as area that um
Wildlife who have existed in the area
can continue to use and I I do believe
uh Lucy if you can confirm there's also
a trail that goes from the be Ridge
Trail to sr900 as well I believe you're
right I I don't have
that my experts are confirming okay
Shantel
so um this area is permanently protected
yes and that's in addition to
this was a 4:1 5 to1 so I don't think it
it mirrored the 4:1 program so it
mirrored it so so this is part of the
four the 73% is the 4 to1 so this was
not in King County so it was not it was
not a requirement but the city was
working along the same framework um
voluntarily then right okay Eric just to
to clarify the developer uh owned all
this land and then handed that land over
to the city of isqua the preserved land
is that
correct okay okay thank you
okay so there were some concerns about
um drainage at um Mountain Air and
alante um I just had this little map uh
that showed where that is so the parcel
sevs up here alante is down here in
Mountain Air um
I think the important thing to say is
that generally speaking um the alant the
drainage in alante and mountainaire are
not part of this plat they aren't under
review and those particular um drainage
techniques are not proposed in
association with PL this plat so that's
really a separate um topic from review
of this
plat Jeff yes go ahead Michael Lucy I
just did want to take a little exception
to to to what we're discussing here
because uh this was presented to the
commission and the public by the
applicant as a reason for why the the
future walls were work and I I believe
the statement was there have been no
drainage issues in Talis so basically
you can trust our design um and I think
the fact that there have been drainage
issues in the past is applicable to this
application right here so I understand
it's a different uh it may be a
different technique but I do think the
historical relevance to this developer
building walls and having them fail is
applicable to this project I'm not sure
I I think you're going to have to ask
the applicant this but I'm not sure how
many of those walls they would have
built or have designed I mean this is
the fourth Master developer that we've
had uh and so there has been a series of
people who have designed and built walls
uh or Drainage Systems um as part of the
project so I I mean I I your point is
taken and I be glad you can if you see
Dan and he cares to add to it um I'm
happy to let him uh provide more
information but I do think it's
important to say that that this isn't
necessarily the same group that has
built other were they representing
themselves as the HOA at that point in
time or the developer when they said
that
statement
I don't know because I'm I'm not
remembering the exact moment when that
was
made at the very least you know I I
would like to understand from the
applicant when they come up that they
have at least uh are aware of and
understand maybe what has failed in the
past and that they're taking steps to to
uh mitigate that or avoid that again um
not not again sorry if they weren't
involved in the building of it but at
least to understand it so that it
doesn't happen again in the property
right I think it's important to keep
that conversation in the context of
what's proposed in this particular plat
agreed that's what I'm saying though is
to understand that it's the same
topography it's the same land it's the
same you know neighborhood and so forth
generally I think it's just important
that they that it's recognized as we've
done with other parts parts of the
community whether it's Highland or Talis
understanding previous concerns can help
mitigate or
improve current or future building sure
so does does Dan indicate that would
like to comment he gave a thumbs up
thank you
Dan I don't
either all right an did you have
something yes with the walls that are
proposed in parcel 7 do we have any uh
historic uh references that we can make
elsewhere regarding drainage and you
know the you know regarding these issues
with this type of wall That's proposed
for parcel 7 have there been ISS issues
have there been uh any precedents uh for
problems what have we seen in that
regard so Dan can you speak to that did
you hear that I did can you hear me yes
yes um probably the best example of that
wall that we have direct experience with
are the walls on Highlands Drive in
isaco Highlands the largest walls as you
exit the freeway and move up into the
project um those are mechanically stable
I Earth walls with the technique that's
most likely proposed in parcel 7 and I
think it's probably safe to say that
those walls as a type are the most
common walls that are being built today
and that's because they are a really
extraordinary combination of stability
and Longevity and so um they're probably
the um best option we have to minimize
long-term cost and minimize impacts on
the
community thank you Dan are they the
same kind of walls that stretch back in
uh along the the the top of the
wall
yes
and what is the expected stability uh
lifespan of these
walls um that's probably a question
that's better left for the applicant
um but these walls are generally made
out of uh sandwiching a grid between
layers of soil and the grid is very
often a polyethylene or a polypropylene
product that's the same thing that our
milk cartons are made out of that we're
worried about not decomposing in
landfills for 10,000 years so I'm
suspecting that the material the grid
material itself is going to be there for
a very very long time
um did I switch no
so Lucy just so let me just add that um
there were some materials that the
applicant provided um with them and so I
I just like I think Dan's right that
they would probably be best able to
respond um to those question you want to
hold your question or you want to ask
that's exactly where I was going it's uh
referenced on page Pages 43 41 I'm sorry
44 thank you thanks okay okay let's move
on so um we received a comment asking
the um that the plat move Lots away from
the edge of the western buffer so for
instance lot here here here those kinds
of lots be moved away um the purpose of
the western buffer was to as I said
earlier um prevent impacts from the
residences on the park and from the park
on the
residences um parcel 10 has um a similar
configuration and has been in place
probably a good eight years and um we
haven't um had any problems and and we
feel that this is essentially a buffer
to a buffer um and that the agreement
was 50
feet questions
oh sorry uh there was a question uh
comment about providing signage
prohibiting bikes on Fourth path Trails
not to change the standard but to um
just sign it because they aren't allowed
um there's a construction condition that
um directs us to do um Trail find way
finding signage um in order to assist
users and we would consider that a
subset of that um existing
condition Eric I I just want to really
clarify quickly uh so uh and the trails
that we're talking about are trails that
that go across this development and
obviously will not extend into to uh
Cougar Mountain trail system right
Cougar Mountain has is in King County
and they have their own trail standards
and allowed users and um that would I
mean that actually touches on a matter
that came up there was a request to
allow horses to use the trails within
Talis because they're allowed to use the
trails within um cougar uh Wildland Park
and um the city does not feel that
that's
appropriate ending up in streets and um
we also you know the development
agreement is a contract between the
master developer and the city and it
would be have to be a joint agreement to
make that change and at this time the
city um doesn't feel it's a request that
they would like to make so um fits into
that same point you're
making um access easements uh the county
asked for some access access easements
to and through the water um Reservoir
sites basically we're just saying this
plat isn't the place the city is going
to have the rights to access those and
it's really a negotiation between the
county and the city based on Gates and
keys and all kinds of stuff none of us
are interested
in um then there was a whole series of
things that came up that are essentially
outside of the preliminary plat and I'm
just going to kind of quickly go through
these let me know if you have questions
one was the annexation um there is a
request the city has received a request
um and without really much detail yet um
to Annex the property north of this plat
that is in King County so this plat um
does not in any way predispose the
council in terms of how they are going
to make that decision that is a um
Council process uh the annexation
involves meetings with the um planning
policy commission PPC and then uh with
the council it would also if this
property was going to be brought into
Talis require a major modification of
the development agreement which would
also have to go through council at the
same time as the
annexation um and uh what we ask is that
if people are interested in being a part
of that process and being aware of the
different meetings and opportunities to
speak and comment on it that they should
contact Trish heinanen um her telephone
number is on the screen um and she can
make them a party of record and the city
will contact them as those meetings
occur second comment was about design of
homes being concerned about how the
homes would be designed and and look um
a plat is subdividing property for sale
Andor construction um and though the
layout of the Lots has some implications
for the character of the neighborhood
the actual design of the homes is a
separate process
primarily um the responsibility of the
Architectural Review Committee so um
that's really outside the realm of the
plat there were some concerns around the
master developer how things had been
maintained how things had been built um
that really needs to be addressed
directly through the master developer
those elements are not part of the plat
um and they could also um uh use the HOA
to make those comments uh there was some
concern about a power line north of
Talis um that it should be placed
underground um things that are outside
of the um
plat uh which um are not part of which
are either outside the plat or even
outside of Talis unless they were
specifically identified as required
elements of the development agreement
the the plat and the um actions in Talis
can't address those um people we also
received comments that real estate
agents had um given misleading
statements or that the marketing
materials they received were Incorrect
and you know this is something the city
always really regrets hearing about we
really encourage any buyer to come to
the city and talk to us we're happy to
tell you what is and is not allowed on
on property um but we um don't get to
review the marketing or real estate
agents materials before their use so um
we we don't really have any control over
that
unfortunately um there were some
comments about um The View preservation
regulations that have been adopted in
the removal of trees um those are um the
homeowner association uh regulations and
processes um the city looked at those
for conflicts with the development
agreement and but otherwise we were not
involved in the approve approval or um
objection to those regulations because
they're really A Private Matter between
Property Owners although at this time we
understand that the removal of trees uh
associated with that has been
stopped so I I have more of these but
before I go on to the next page I wanted
to make sure see if there are any
questions about the ones on this slide
I'll have a comment when you're finished
with the list oh
okay um there were some questions about
comprehensive plans for schools um uh
again that that really isn't part of the
plat the city does work with the school
district uh we coordinate together
although uh the school district really
is the primary planner um and driver and
they have demographers to anticipate
where growth will take place and what
kind of facilities they need where um it
also should be noted that um however
that um the plat every home in the plat
will have to pay an impact fee um those
impact fees are established by the
school district and are adjusted each
year based on um what they think a
single family home or a multif family
unit should have to pay um to support
building the appropriate fac facilities
um and although no school sites were um
included in the Talis development the
city is working with the city to try and
identify some additional sites for um
future
facilities I've already really talked
about the equestrian issue um that this
is really outside the development
agreement because it would be a change
in rules um there was also a comment
about uh from the county that they're
looking at some of the steep slope
Hazard standards and changing them um I
mean the the most superficial answer is
that again to change standards we would
have to um work with the master
developer but I think a more important
point is to say that um because there
are some steep areas uh involved with
this uh this property there were um
steep uh CR geotechnical studies that
were performed with the plat they
required a double peer review which
means it was sent out to two more
geotechnical Engineers to review the
conclus the information conclusions
conditions Etc so in effect there is a
localized evaluation of slopes and
identification of site specific needs um
related to this um property and then um
subsequent to the memo I just wanted to
point out again that Parcels 8 and nine
have already been sent to the Council
and so they're not a part of this um we
also um received some additional
comments around the hours of
construction noise um and some specific
designs related to the constructions
that really is again not part of the
plat there are City standards or
development agreement standards around
hours of construction noise limits um
Etc and those would be addressed at that
time okay thank you for that so just for
everybody's uh benefit I guess uh um
while many of these or all of these in
some cases are hot button issues for a
lot of you and they're you know totally
valid and relevant to what you do and
where you live and so forth I think it's
just important to to just remind
everybody that you know she's putting
this up here for a reason we don't have
any purview over that we can't discuss
it we can't make any decisions on it we
can't open up any further discussions on
it certainly tonight we're not going to
be ruling on any of that stuff we're
getting into any of that discussion I'd
like to ask that when we do get to
public comment section that you do not
address these we're running we are
running out of time um and I encourage
you to to address the appropriate uh
parties for any of these things that are
of concern to you and I you know I
completely support the processes
processes that are in place to do so but
tonight is not the the time and here is
not the place to address these issues so
I'd appreciate that kind of support
thank
you so that concludes my not very brief
summary of the memory memo and if there
aren't any other questions then I would
turn um the presentation over to the
applicant okay before we do that any
questions Eric well I have a question I
just have to say that the work that you
and your staff put in to formulate all
these responses which is the most that
we've ever had that I can recall and I
think great work it's really been
enlightening and informing I hope the
public sees that as well and uh and I
just want to say thanks for your work
thanks thank you um have two other
comments one is just to follow up on
this I also want to make it clear that
it's not that we don't think these are
important we just can't discuss them so
whether whe whether we think they're
important or not is irrelevant tonight
so I just want to make that clear
because I know that they are to some
people certainly the other part uh is
that just before we go to the applicant
I'm going to ask that if you plan on
speaking tonight once again I'm going to
have you fill out that form uh you have
to go to the second page now because
we're ready beyond the first page um and
and uh and I'll be retrieving the
clipboard um at the end of the
applicant's presentation if you haven't
signed up I'm not I'm not going to allow
you to speak tonight so please do so
thank
you computer this one yeah yeah okay so
if if you need a comment from
Dan uh this one laptop you're on PC got
it
okay so if commission members if you
want to get a drink of water maybe take
a quick break it's probably just take me
couple of minutes I don't want to take
your chair there Jeff no thank you so
we'll take a three minute recess is that
enough or okay three minute recess
thanks just trying to get the cookies
all dive in there
Scott
my yes people are watching
CH
okay all right thank you commission
members uh thank you public for being
here so far this evening with us my name
is Ryan Coleman I'm with tri Associates
representing the applicant uh and from
the applicant we also have Darren Pew
with Talis Management
Services um looks like we lost
Dan Dan Hayes was here earlier uh he had
some other things to attend to but we
also have Jeff Cox and Tom Matt uh with
tri Associates Ted sheeper with Tara um
and and he'll be able to address some of
the the wall design issues that were
brought up but real briefly I'm going to
try and keep it brief but I don't want
to leave anybody in the dust give you
guys time ask some questions um I'm
going to go through some slides I did
hand out uh the images that I that I'm
providing up here there's some images uh
for anybody in the public that wants
them as well they're the same as what
I'm projecting on the screen I just find
it sometimes it's easier to have them
you can look a little more closely at
them and the screen's not the greatest
um no offense
so what I want to review is uh the
Western buffer and reservoirs Lucy has
covered some of this so I'm just going
to kind of address some of the questions
that I heard uh topography review of
parcel 7 talk a little bit about the
wall design why we arrived at the design
that we did for this plat is there have
been commission questions and and public
comment related to that and then um give
you a little bit more detail about uh
what it means and how we how we arrived
how we were able to reduce the Wall
height the eastern wall height of parcel
7 by 10
ft uh so this is basically what the the
redesigned Reservoir sites will look
like um and this is just a snippet of
the site plan that is in your packets
and we'll be up here a little bit later
but as the condition has been read and
as we've agreed to this is the area of
the 752 Reservoir pad and access road
that will be removed uh the the tanks
will be repurposed for the 916
reservoirs
here the road will be removed those
areas will be
revegetated and in
exchange the 916 access road is outside
the buffer here um it did require a
little bit more wall a little bit more
Wall height um but we felt that was
probably an appropriate tradeoff to
retain that vegetative buffer uh and you
can kind of kind of do an eyeball check
the area of 19 16 Reservoir um access
area because they need some access for
equipment and trucks and and whatnot the
reservoirs itself is um uh a third to
probably half of what the revegetated
area or what the 752 Reservoir and
access road was so as as was allowed as
Lucy pointed out as was allowed through
the amm the road on the reservoir um
removing the 752 Road and Reservoir and
having just the 916 tanks there's
actually a net gain of vegetative buffer
um and one other thing that's probably
important to point out is that by having
these tanks here it allows them to be
screened on at least three sides by by
native vegetation as opposed to if they
were um brought out to outside the
buffer they would be much more exposed
much more visible and they would also be
um at least 20 feet taller so they would
have a a greater visual
impact any
questions comments
okay uh so I want to walk through some
of the some of the similar conditions
that there are in Talis um and Lucy
talked about this a little bit as well
there are standards that we have to
apply um but more than that you know in
the very beginning of the of the
development agreement and I wrote about
this in my memo as well when when we're
approaching when a developer is
approaching a design and when City staff
and even the commission is approaching
their review it's not just standards and
it's not just goals and it's not just
guidelines but you have to balance kind
of all three of those things and that's
what we've done our very best to do with
this application we appreciate the
public process it has challenged us a
little bit um and we have we've done
what we can to respond to those and and
what we're presenting tonight is that
but we also feel it's appropriate to
bring into context what has been done
elsewhere in Talis um and we've talked
about how the development Nestles into
the hillside how it responds to
topography and terrain and here are some
examples Talis drive as you're driving
down it you might think it feels kind of
flat but it's not it's it's pretty steep
it's on average 8 to 12% and the 12%
grade is right at the max um with
without having to go into the um or ask
for the allowance of going up to a 15%
grade for a very limited
length uh this is in the uh the alante
neighborhood um this is lingering
Pine and this is a section of Road
that's at 15% and here you can see how
the homes have been designed to respond
to that terrain it's not by any means a
flat neighborhood Wilderness Peak
sometimes referred to as Talis 5D
similar situation where this section of
Road here is about 10% and then it gets
a little bit steeper down to 14% And
then kind of levels levels out again to
an 8 to 10% Road
grade uh few more examples we've got uh
the beage drive entry into Trey Aris and
that again is approaching the maximum
12% grade and
then the uh The Bridges Community um
Parcels 10 11 and 12 just south of the
parcel 7 application is is a fairly
steep neighborhood um much of it at the
12% and and again a few portions of it
uh going up to that 15% uh top threshold
for short portions where it's
allowed so I guess showing those images
I hopes kind of gives a little bit of
context to the commission and shows how
other areas of Tal have responded to
terrain have balanced uh the goals and
the guidelines and the standards um and
have and at least in in our opinion and
I think staff would agree have uh have
achieved and delivered that vision of a
Talis a Mountainside Village Urban
Village so this excuse me if something
happens when I get up here I get all
choked
up this image is similar to the one that
Lucy did um um but I will point out that
this is with the revised grading um so
it's it's uh Lucy's image was from the
original plat
application after the wall was revised
some portions of shangra La way um had
to get a little bit
steeper and and to create this Ada
access um uh table in the roadway here
which has to be at about a 2% grade um
caused this this section of road right
here to get a little bit steeper um but
outside of that you know we've got Road
grades that are between 1 to
4% 15% coming up here on Drive C
accessing the Eastern portion of parcel
7 um
14.9 to 4 a half% so the the road is
again it's not a flat pad it's it's
responding to Terrain we're trying to
balance the road grades and um and even
balance cut and fill and that was a
question that was raised and I'll come
to that in just a little bit you can see
there are some section lines through
here we did provide some
sections
um but I want to talk a little bit more
about topography parcel 7 uh it does it
does slope
significantly um from west to east
there's about 20 uh I'm sorry about 160
F feet of grade change from where the
reservoirs are to about where the bottom
portion of the wall is um I've talked
about standards how we're limited and
how much we can you know we can't just
build a 20% road so that we don't have
to do a bunch of grading so we don't
have to do walls um it's just not an
option that we have in our Arsenal um
I've shown you some of the similar
grades in Talis and again what we what
we feel we've proposed and even with
these revisions that we are uh and and
staff has responded to this as well that
we're compliant with the development
agreement you've seen this image as well
um one question was where are some
similarly tall walls
um uh Trey RIS parcel 5c uh they get up
to about 27 ft here um 5D they have
portions up to 31 ft and these are again
are are directly supporting homes um um
there are some as well in
um I forget the name of this uh uh
Ascent thank you um this is parcel
forign Ascent that's up to 29 ft we've
got Wall Systems and and when we think
of a wall system these are some of these
walls they were able to be terrorists
because they weren't fighting a a
falling uh grade condition so they were
able to uh terce but it's still 40 feet
of wall here at the entry as well as
here at the bottom of Timber Ridge and
we've got some SE we've got some
sections through some of these
neighborhoods as
well um but what's what's interesting is
that some of these walls some of these
tall walls um some people have probably
never even seen or even knew that they
were there and this one actually um I'm
wondering how many of you know or may
know where this
is wilderness
uh
one yeah that's true yeah this one is
below Wilderness Peak this is shanga
there's a little key map right here
here's Talis drive you come up you turn
right shanga way here's as scent here's
Rose Crest um this is about 26 feet tall
there is an arch Culvert there's a
stream that flows through it this road
has been in
place a dozen years at least uh same
with Wilderness Peak here is a section
of a 31 ft wall this is a very similar
condition that you would find at the
bottom of the the eastern wall of parcel
7 um it will be a a a stone-faced kind
of wall it won't be a keystone faced
like this is but it will have a a
concrete masonry unit armoring the wall
face I'll have Ted talk a little bit
more about that
design there will be a trail at the
bottom um we have designed it so that
there will be some intervening landscape
between the trail and the wall to soften
the visual appearance but this is very
similar to what you would see at the
bottom of parcel 7one and I think what's
important is that you can see the
existing
vegetation really does a pretty decent
job of screening
it uh I can zoom into these a little bit
more and I will just because they're
kind of interesting um this is Timber
Ridge um also sometimes referred to as
Parcels 162 and 3 in Talis it's um so
you go up Talis Drive turn left on shyar
way it's the two and three story um town
homes on your left or on the on the east
side of
shyar
not I'm sorry Copper Ridge I should read
my own slides that's a good clue thank
you um so you can see here there there
as well was a fair amount of grade that
uh that copper r was taking up and they
did it again through a series of
stepping grade through the building
through walls and in this situation they
were able to Terrace this is a 40ft wall
section here they were able to Terrace
it but I think what's important to note
is that when they were coming down here
at the bottom of their partial boundary
they weren't chasing a 40% slope they
were able to bench that out fairly
easily on on onto what is now the uh the
LCS or the Timber Ridge uh portion of
Talis
and uh similarly here Wilderness Peak uh
a lot of terrain taken up through homes
um as well as the wall at the bottom and
again here we've we've got a pretty good
representation of what the eastern wall
of parcel 7 would be doing um it uh
provides um uh the building the building
site for parcel 7 um and they were able
to minimize Wall height with some
terring but again it's primarily
screened with existing
vegetation this is the uh um I just
wanted
to uh kind of give Contex in this is
this is one of the site sections we'll
spend a little bit more time on this is
parcel 7 um but here again you can see
how the terrain is pretty consistent all
the way down and we have done our best
uh to take up durin through some grading
some walls through the buildings uh
again the the topic tonight has been
this this taller wall here at the
Eastern portion of parcel
7 um and how we were able to reduce the
visual height of the wall was by
bringing this trail head up a little bit
we put a Rockery at the bottom so we
kind of lifted the topography there we
uh are filling against it and land
scaping part of it but again this is a
very accurate representation of the
existing
vegetation um going down to Mountain Air
that will help screen the visual impact
of that
wall and we did a very scientific study
uh I bought balloons at the uh Party
Store four of them four 16inch balloons
um I actually had to use an arrow to
show you they're right here they're
Orange um but I was was standing I had
uh I took someone from our office and I
had her stand right right about here
right about where this this wall would
be floated those balloons 40 ft in the
air and I walked down the hill I
couldn't quite get down to the trail
because it got pretty steep going down
there um but basically I was standing
here looking back up through the
trees and what you can see this blue
line is approximating where the top of
that wall would be um but you can see if
you were farther down that Hill that
vegetation would be screening it and
similarly what I tried to do was walk
back up the hill get about to where the
level of that wall would be so that you
could see the existing vegetation behind
it that will remain uh will be there to
help screen
it so Ryan I'm sorry we have a question
from Scott
here thank you can you go back one slide
please I'm just curious in regards to um
is there another example of a hill
Hillside uh constructed in this manner
with the span of Earth from the upper
retaining wall to the lower section
within Talis
today that would be representative of
what we're talking about
here like in 5D I'm sorry Wilderness
Peak so we're saying that wilderness
Peak is a a similar example to
what Thee the the next slide would
translate to could you maybe just to
make sure we're saying the same thing
can you say in what ways you're asking
if it's similar yeah go ahead and jump
over to the to the next slide so the
distance of that upper retaining wall
to think it says
too to the lower that that span of Earth
sorry Talis mire oh this right here yeah
so from here to that point to here yeah
it's about 300 ft 300 ft so your your
previous slide is representative or
similar to that
span um and where I'm going with that is
I'm just curious in regards to that
distance of slope with that grade
associated with that tall of a wall
placement I'm just curious looking for
similar examples of what's in place
today I guess I'm having trying
to I think what what he's saying is in
the pre in the previous slide you're
saying there's 300 ft of vegetation
before you hit the wall and he I think
if if I'm correct he's asking in
5D is that same distance if you go to
the previous Slide the distance on the
far right of the vegetation how many
feet is that
before you go to a road or something
it's uh quite a bit actually let me uh
not sure why this got so big hang on um
so that wall is here that section that
we took was right through Wilderness
Peak here and
so my guess is that it's um probably
about 500 ft to
sr900
maybe 300 ft to the
pond
you mentioned Timber Ridge so that that
wasn't representative of Timber Ridge
then is that
correct it was actually Copper Ridge
coer coer Ridge oh
yeah perfect that's exactly what I was
trying to do okay thank you all right
Jeff go ahead Michael Ryan I have a a
question for you can you go to the that
right there
um if I understood this you said that
the bottom portion of the large wall in
question will be backfilled with with
soil so is it going to still be a 48
whatever foot tall wall but the bottom
portion of will be buried
now I I'll have Ted I don't know if he's
got an idea of of how big that footing
would be um but you wouldn't see it it
would be underground so we're not I
guess my question is is the total
elevation of the wall being reduced or
are we just going to bury the bottom
portion of it to make the exposed
portion less visible other words is the
exposed portion is as high as 49 ft at
its highest point righted Sorry
39 the O the overall height has been
reduced by primarily changing the
grading and we also moved the wall we
changed the configuration of the wall so
we cut the angle and we moov the wall
back into the hillside
um at the at more at the beginning where
it makes the bend and so instead of
instead of it uh coming out and being a
little bit longer we cut it at a farther
angle to both add some modulation but
that also cut it back into the hillside
um which reduced the particularly that
we were concerned about the highest
point again the whole wall was not 48 or
49 ft we had a high point in the middle
so by cutting that wall back and
changing the angle of that wall we were
able to move that wall back and then at
the at the end where uh right here
uh so at one point the Wall came out to
this point to right out here and kind of
followed the trail and we actually
pulled it back quite a bit which is what
Darren's saying to move it to move it
back because we had extra room back in
here in lots and so we pulled the wall
back up the hill to be able to shorten
that High Point um and then also raised
the grade at the bottom supporting that
so we could shorten that whole length L
of it to be to be at that 39 ft or below
okay so is the is the top ele is the top
of that wall approximately similar an
elevation to what was proposed
beforehand um approximately okay all
right thank
you yes
Tim uh so I understand what you're doing
with the wall and I'm kind of curious as
to what happened with the grade of
shangra La where you said you increased
the grade from having to do that how how
does that how does that
compute where where does the where did
you lose it if you didn't change
anything about the grade of those lots
where did the shangra LA change its
grade so instead of the the original
design if I had Lucy slide up here this
road was a much more consistent about
11% basically from here to about here so
it looked like this and what we did is
we steepened this ption portion and then
flatten this portion out okay and then
and then steepened it again
so this table in order to make this kind
of a flat tabletop this elevation didn't
change but this section got a little bit
steeper so that we could get up and and
flatten that out is the street in the
same spot where it was yeah so you've
made those lots one through five or six
a little bit smaller than what they were
before the street didn't move no the
Lots the Lots themselves are a little
bit shallower than they were before the
Lots again we shifted the wall over to
get the hill to shorten the wall and the
dimension of the Lots here got shorter
or the Lots got smaller uh to
accommodate that thank
you Michael has another question Ryan
earlier you said something about that
being an ada8 table is that is this the
only ada8 table that we see in the whole
development and I'm curious why we have
one here is Dan still on
well
he's
right what was the question I'm sorry it
was about responding okay sounds like
maybe Darren can respond to the Ada to
the Ada within Talis and specifically
this Development question just seven
yeah because that's all we can talk
about but I remember I remember earlier
we asked are there any Ada parking or
sidewalks and it was no but then I see
one here but the sidewalk you still have
the 88
uh access ramp issues and this is this
is a Citywide issue it's a Statewide
issue it's big way bigger than Talis but
it it is getting significant attention
throughout the city and throughout all
communities and so um very
specifically uh matter of fact that all
of the grades in the plat changed based
on the Ada ramp design requirements to
meet that and one of the very stringent
requirements that that Dan specifically
has said is they're going to come out
and check your ramps and if they don't
meet the spec they're coming out and so
we spend a lot of time with the grading
just kind of why you're hearing that and
adjusting even as far back down as the
intersection of eight and the access
road coming up the hill so that's really
why you're hearing a lot of that is
because it's very new to current current
standards and and a current I know it's
a pretty big within the city as far as
Citywide so but every every intersection
meets requirement I think why we're
hearing it here is because this was such
an unusual spot in in is that correct
just anything any place you have steep
grades yeah and you're trying to make a
flat Ada ramp be it becomes extremely
difficult just conflicts there right the
reason we heard about it here is because
that was a very difficult section
correct but the but it's elsewhere
through anywhere you have an
intersection there's the Ada requirement
satisfied okay thanks did you want to
ask Dan something
um did did that address the answer okay
we're okay okay
thanks I don't know why I did
this
okay so just real briefly um we talked a
little bit about trying to balance the
goals the guidelines and the standards
and one of the things that Lucy had
mentioned uh was that that an option
that was considered early on um was
instead of having a tall wall was that
we could actually come in here and uh
engineer a slope design as opposed to
the wall and saving the vegetation so
this this gray area represents where
vegetation could have been
removed and the result of that would
instead of a wall with vegetation would
have just been a an engineered slope um
it's about uh a one and a qu to one it's
taking up um roughly um 80 feet of grade
over 100 foot
distance
um but what we decided was that wasn't
what we wanted to do we didn't feel that
conformed to the development agreement
it wasn't in the best interest of the
community so again what we've what we've
gone back uh We've redesigned it we've
looked at how we can reduce that uh that
Wall height reduce the visual impact and
um I've talked a little bit about the
section but again you know paral 7 is um
we feel is conforming to the grades and
um the wall has been reduced as we've
talked about a little bit so these are
just some more sections on that Ryan can
you make any comments or can anybody
make any comments about the graded slope
alternative versus the wall in terms of
structural stability
it would go through the same kind of
review as a wall would um because it's
it's a it would be considered a
mechanical unit um it would go through a
similar critical area study and a
geotechnical study peer
review it' be held to the same kind of
standard as a wall question go ahead Co
so then you can Ryan can you give a
couple bullets of why you guys didn't
choose it and why you said it didn't
conform to the way you interpreted the
dev agreement well as Lucy pointed out
before one of one of the goals of of
Talis is to retain areas of vegetated
open space and although this could have
been one uh one area where we chose well
we're retaining some areas um it just
didn't
feel in keeping with the spirit of the
development agreement and uh would would
have a greater
cost um I'll I'll speak a little bit to
some of our decision- making although
those are great comments um the the
slope um quite frankly is probably less
money than the wall um but it does
create greater clearing we're opening up
a lot more space um the trails down
there we didn't really feel like it was
going to be
um
acceptable primarily you know tree
cutting is not really a popular thing in
in t or anywhere within isqua and it it
just seemed inherent to us to just go
ahead and put the wall in you know
looking at at that as an alternative
you're going to clear all those trees
and really open that Hillside up which
is not going to be pretty you get into
the tree cutting issues we probably felt
that was going to be a bigger deal than
we thought the wall was going to be at
the end of the day even though the
Wall's probably more expensive than than
doing the engineered slope so Darren
could I just clarify one point it you
not only clear that slope but at and I
just cuz
um uh people may not have the decoder
ring for what Ryan was saying which is
that it's an armored slope which means
it would never be planted it would be
have a kind of surface treatment that uh
would maybe appear Like a Rock but it
would not it's not that it's cleared and
then replanted it's cleared and treated
as if it's almost like a Wallace is that
correct likely um you know we we worked
with Ted a little bit on what whether it
was feasible or not um again we really
looked at the tree cutting issue and the
clearing issue is being a bigger
detriment more know from public comment
if nothing else um as you know being one
of those taboo things you don't want to
do in Talis has cut down trees and and
again from from our perspective we just
kind of inherently went to you put a
wall in you don't have to clear all that
you save all the tree cutting seemed
like a good idea at the
time it's still a good idea
but
thanks any other questions that's I mean
that pretty much covers what I wanted to
cover again we talked about the grading
and the and um the modulation of parcel
7 through the
site um but I do want to kind of briefly
cap everything like I said we've reduced
the Wall height in the eastern wall
height of parcel 7 by at least 10 feet
by doing that we're retaining a lot of
vegetation uh the existing vegetation
that's there which is a a mixture of
deciduous and uh conifers would provide
some
screening um we're going to have Ted
talk a little bit about some of the
additional information that we gave the
commission attached to the packet uh
regarding wall design life of the wall
maintenance of the wall um and then
again at the very beginning I talked
about the uh the redesign design of the
916 reservoirs on the road um so at this
point I'll have Ted come up and uh
actually BR I'd like to start that okay
come up thank you Ryan for all of that
information appreciate
it also talk about balancing of
export so uh Ryan was mentioning there
was a question question about uh import
export balance um we're uh in partiel 7
we're we're pretty much at a balance uh
some of the material will come down we
do have some unsuitable material that's
been identified through the soils report
uh within parcel 9 kind of in the in the
draw in in parcel 9 that needs to be
excavated out and removed and so
there'll be some material that'll be put
back in there so it'll be some export uh
certainly from the site obvious
obviously clearing debris vegetation
will be exported off the site that
anything that's not ground those kinds
of things uh import would be likely
limited to uh import back fill needed
for the walls things of that nature but
that's a limited quantity so generally
we're trying to balance and we don't
want to uh export large amounts of
material it's not cost
effective um so I think that was one
question
um wall design
uh was a question that that was started
last week and I know Carolyn with um uh
Tara I think was uh maybe caught a
little bit off guard with the question
and wasn't prepared to answer that and
so I've gone back and and I'll had have
Ted speak to the the geot technical
component of the design but we've gone
back and talked to and the materials
that I provided in the in the package uh
were kind of the summary components of
that but basically the the wall compon
components that are used in conjunction
with the geotechnical design are tested
and are used at a design life of 114
years and the 114 years if you looked at
at what we wrote in the memo in addition
to that
information um at 114 years and why they
use
114 is beyond me um can't answer that
question uh wash dot uses typically
either 75 years or 100 years uh they
tested theirs at 114 years um again I
don't know why that is but that's the
specifics of it um but the basis of that
testing is that at 114 years based on
the degradation of the material it still
exceeds the original design requirement
at the day at day one
so at 114 years it the material still
exceeds the design requirement for
today's design at the original uh
installation of the wall so that doesn't
mean the wall just collapses at 114
years um it's still there the facing is
made out of concrete um I think the
discussion from Dan was that it is made
out of uh uh a geow woven polyethylene
or or plastic material that I don't know
anybody knows what the life of it is but
they only test it to 114 years um um
so I put in my in the memo that we wrote
just using a 1.5 safety Factor you're
looking at something in 150 to 165 years
if you talk to the manufacturers and
anybody that's familiar with the
concrete of the product they can't tell
you how long it may or may not last they
can tell you they'll guarantee it'll
last at least 115 years um so that's
kind of the basis of the information
that we have so I I just wonder if you
could just uh briefly speak on on I
thought that uh previously we were to
understand the life of the wall was 50
years so now we're hearing 14 if I'm
correct so if you can just speak on that
yes again I Carolyn with terara
Associates who was here to speak on some
of the geotechnical issues off the cuff
was asked what she thought the life of
the wall was and without benefit of any
technical data um not maybe not her
expertise on that technical data she
responded with 50 years um either way
I'll still be on the commission so no
there's no question that's what she said
and she was kind of you know I was
standing here and she's like um 50 years
so we've subsequently gone back because
there were some concerns about that
lifespan and wanted to get the technical
data that supported what the actual
design was um how long will the walls
last nobody can tell you um they've been
they they they've really been using this
mechanical uh stabilized Earth system
for about 50 plus years there are walls
that have been in existence that long
that that are functioning fine and
that's as much as anybody can tell you
there's concrete block stone masonry
buildings that are 200 300 years old you
know when does the facing start to
degrade you know all of those are
questions I'm not sure anybody can
answer but I think certainly something
in excess of 115 years which is is
probably going to exceed the life of
most of the homes that are going to be
there well I I appreciate that answer it
is tough to or yeah we're going to go
with questioning so understand the you
know I think the technical data supports
that you know they're they're confident
that that material is going to be at the
design strength at 115 years and
Beyond thank you um so Tad anything I'm
sorry Darren we have one other question
I'm sorry go ahead so I just wanted to
tag h on to uh Eric's call out there
that and I very much appreciate you
providing the supporting details Pages
uh 43 through 45 in support of that call
out and the the adjustment of what was
50 to 114 I think it's valuable
information so thank you there's uh I I
saved you the other probably 20 pages of
of that technical memo which I'm sure
you didn't want to read and I didn't
understand either but that that
basically covered the the the substant
portion of it
um so wall wall maintenance um I guess
I'll skip ahead and we'll save Ted for
last um we you know there there's also
been a significant amount of concern
with wall maintenance wall maintenance
cost I think this the life cycle and
design information helps speak to some
of that um I also provided uh a copy of
the uh Golder wall report or summary of
the Golder wall report that's been done
uh there have been wall reports done on
all of the Walls Within Talis since the
Inception uh primarily on an
approximately an annual basis sometimes
they've gone one and a half to two years
but pretty consistent since all of those
walls have been built I think from the
summary that you saw maintenance has
been um really limited to cleaning of
the drains um uh in in the drainage
systems that are installed as part of
the walls um sapling removals uh things
of that nature uh there's been no uh
indication of any um structural issues
with any of the walls um at at any of
the heights um currently I will say that
those walls that are that that are in
Talis currently are a a masonry unit
wall which are uh we're looking at a
concrete face wall which actually has a
higher design strength than the masonry
units so we would expect less issues
with the wall that we're proposing than
maybe expect expected with a standard
masonry unit uh primarily because
they're a little more porous than a
concrete face
um I just want to say I appreciate that
report because uh it really adds a lot
of clarity uh initially when I heard
maintenance uh I really had a lot of
concerns with that but seeing these
reports seeing how the walls are doing
and seeing how little maintenance uh has
been required uh I think it's a lot of
good information for the public for the
residents of talsa I appreciate that
thank you um in addition to that I also
looked at and of course I managed the
HOA for approximately 5 years before we
turned it over from 2007
to 2011 I think when we turned it over
to the residence um and in that time we
spent probably around 5,000 or so
dollars a year in some of that
maintenance that you're seeing there
with just drain cleaning most of that
incorporated within just the landscape
maintenance contract it's not a specific
something specific that somebody comes
out and does um you know there are some
cleaning recommendations which I think
you've seen in some of the uh photos
where you just get some of that uh
phosphorus which is inherent to the
masonry units uh that white bleaching
that kind of bleaches out potentially
that's really some of the cleaning
aspects that they're talking about that
are you know quote optional it's kind of
more of an aesthetic thing than it is a
structural uh issue but those are things
that they recommend you know people
consider um I did review the current HOA
bud budet for
2014 uh again no wall maintenance uh for
2013 other than the standard Landscaping
Maintenance that I um have have
indicated uh was expended or is
anticipated going forward
um on that basis uh then we also looked
at longer term issues um some you know
concerns about what kind of Burden are
we potentially placing on residents and
and replacement costs um I did speak
speak to in the memo um uh
obviously really the only um full
replacement of that wall is likely to be
some kind of catastrophic event which
would be generally covered under an
insurance issue um you know an earth God
forbid an earthquake right something of
that nature that would be of such
magnitude that it it's not a maintenance
issue um other maintenance issues again
if we assume um that something happens
to the face and the face and the
concrete face degrades options for
repair of that include um uh drilling
back into the Earth mechanically
stabilized Earth uh through the face
adding some uh additional um reinforcing
probably a mesh potentially some rebar
uh and then covering that with a shot
creete face which would be similar to
some of the other walls that we've seen
within Talis the full Granite um thing
things of that nature just to to reface
that and and fix that component of it um
I I put in an estimate of that I got
from the people who do the shot creete
based on the square footage of that
large wall at about 400 to 50 to
$600,000 um for a a full repair of the
facing of that entire wall um that's
about equivalent to what the cost of
that particular wall is I've I've made a
couple of statements I said all the
walls which include some of the faux
granate other walls that the U uh soil
nail walls in the cut areas as opposed
to the fill walls they're a little bit
more expensive because of the
architectural facing so that adds to
that cost but that particular wall is
about $600 to $700,000 for the we call
it the big wall what kind of the wall in
question um if you look at that wall on
uh just the
lifespan well let's look at it a
different way we take the entire 200 2.5
million uh for which includes 7 eight
and N all three of those Parcels uh for
the walls and we assume that in 114
years they failed and we had to replace
them and this is in today's dollars so
we're not accounting for inflation and
uh those kinds of issues but um that
$2.5 million um
divided by the approximately 1500 homes
within Talis over 114 years equates to
approximately $1 13 to $15 per year per
home as a reserve for an entire
replacement of those Wall Systems in
addition to that with regard to the
overall Walls Within Talis we're
proposing uh approximately 60,000 Square
ft of total wall um that one the the big
wall is about half of that
um that 60,000 ft uh that if you go back
to the wall and I had Triad go back
through their designs and they've
completed most of the designs of all the
walls uh and do a calculation of the
existing walls there's approximately
270,000 Square ft of existing Walls
Within Talis
today we're adding approximately 60 to
that if you if you add add those
together and divide by the total units
including the 153 that we're proposing
we are increasing the average by about
8% per unit per housing unit
so um proportionately we are adding a
little bit more wall area B than is what
currently exists within Talis uh again
though the calculation on though the um
Reserve required on an annual basis
would be about $133 to15 if you had to
replace them all in 114 years and that's
kind of worst case scenario so I think
although I know people are concerned
about that burden I think the the the
math kind of bears out that based on the
life of the actual life of the wall
repair costs and actuality of having to
replace all of them the the burdens
probably fairly small on on an annual
basis um so with that let Ted answer any
other questions and I'd like um Ted to
also address Michael your question about
the uh the one particular slide issue or
or it's not even a slide I won't even
call it a slide issue but um drainage
issue uh that you requested
okay good job
Darren you looking for a job uh Ted
sheeper uh Terror Associates uh uh
shepher S as in Sam c h p p r address
12525 Willows Road Kirkland Washington
um I guess I just to defend my young
engineer who said the life uh designed
the life of the walls 50 years as a as a
as a young student as civil engineers
were taught uh you know design life for
Civil Works are typically in the 50 to
100 Year range so and and it is just
that as design life it's it's it's it's
actually what you say that uh you design
the structure so that at the end of the
design life you better go look at it to
make sure it's still in good shape if
it's still in good shape move on um it's
some similar to like you know the the
Egyptian pyramids right they've been
around for thousands of years the the
materials that are used in this
construction they mechanically
stabilized Earth walls there's no steel
component steel is very corrosive uh
degrades and and when it corrodes it
fails uh these are polypropylene
highdensity
polypropylene reinforcing grids and
concrete uh and it's it's it's designed
to work with the Earth they're very
stable Wall Systems uh in fact in uh
seismic design uh they're shown to be
and have proven to be much more stable
than conventional cast and place walls
are um simply because they work with the
Earth uh and uh and reinforce the Earth
in providing the stability so anyway
enough on that so if there there's any
other questions on wall
design um the other uh I guess issue
that was brought to my attention is a is
a uh is a slide that occurred I believe
in
2010 uh on the Talis 7 uh parcel uh on a
slopes Down Below on the T Talis parcel
think it's on the slopes down below
where where the wall is going to be
constructed I'll point this out so there
there was a drainage issue that occurred
and I think the YouTube video that's
been um famously uh quoted and will
haunt me for the rest of my life uh we
did have in in the area below of above
lingering Pine uh above 6B uh a
subsurface drainage issue that occurred
that uh Bas have to stand the microphone
I'm sorry so a subsurface drainage um
event where water was coming outside of
the Hill it caused uh mud to basically
flow with that drainage and um overflow
mud into two lots
um into okay in the mouse thank you into
two lots uh down below over top of the
of the walls that are there so there's
two existing walls that are Terrace
there uh the walls themselves were uh
undamaged uh was simply um the mud that
did flow over the top of of them into
the backyards um and then we've had Ted
subsequently look at that so I'll have
him address that further I just want to
give you some context as to where that
occurred uh yeah basically that slide is
would be referred to as a subterraneum
blowout um really wasn't so much of a
slide other than an uh an erosion
feature you know if the surface water
runs off over the crest of the slope
it's uncontrolled it erods the slope
from the top down and all that material
just deposits down below what happened
here is that is uh infiltrated water
from up on top you know Gathering uh
below the surface built up some um
pressure behind the face of the slope
and it blew that particular portion of
the slope out it was a fairly small area
that was impacted if I recall looking at
it was maybe 10 to 15 ft in height AC
crosswise it was maybe on the order of
20 ft or so um the material slid out on
the flatter portion of the slope and
then the water continued to run the the
the size of the of the seep if you will
where the water was running out was
probably on the order of maybe 8 to 12
Ines in diameter and it was just flowing
water out of there that water continued
to flow for a couple days afterwards and
then it finally just diminished when the
when the supplyer reservoir water that
was captured behind the the hillside was
was deplenish the storage was gone it
ran out and it stopped um yes Eric well
so so in some ways semantics for Layman
you know whether it's a blowout or a
slide uh you know it was a issue of
concern and so I think what uh we'd like
to see maybe addressed is how will that
uh be avoided in the future by this
development or is that something that
would be considered in this development
oh ABS absolutely it wouldn't have
occurred if the development had been
there okay because basically all the uh
precipitation is captured by the storm
drainage system and that is then carried
away and discharged in a controlled
manner uh here we have the open space up
on top precipitation just continue to
fall over this entire area portions of
that ran off did get captured by the
temporary system that's in place but we
still have quite a bit of water that can
enter the Surface by infiltration and
gather below and it did that over a
number of years um with the development
you know impervious surfaces uh it
captures that and controls it so you
don't have that same amount of
precipitation getting into the ground
um that blowout you basically is wasn't
an impact to the overall global
stability of the slope it was a
localized area um and like I said if the
development had been there it wouldn't
have occurred thank you for that
appr all right thank you any other
questions for
Ted or Darren or Ryan thank you okay
thank you very much all right at this
time I think we're going to move to the
public comment portion one last chance
to sign up I'm going to retrieve the uh
clipboard here if you haven't signed up
um I'm going to ask that you don't speak
tonight uh we would like to get through
this and again please remember the
topics that we can and cannot address
this evening um and in the interest of
time I'd like to ask everybody to keep
their comments to three minutes if you
can um but we want to we want to hear
you so uh do what you got to do
so I'm going to go grab the clipboard
here
all right when you uh when your name is
called if you could please go to the
microphone um give us your name and
address and uh share your comments uh it
is important that you um address the
microphone directly so we can get
everything on record and if I butcher
your name I apologize in advance I'll do
my best
so let's go ahead and start are we ready
Lucy and
team I was just trying to get a plan up
there in Cas anybody wanted to point we
get stars all right uh Miss lford lford
is that
right the floor is
yours so my name is my name is Cynthia
leford I live at 24 08 Northwest Harmony
way and
um uh Lucy did a really good job in
pointing out some of the things in the
um uh development plan we are uh a
Mountain Village character we reflect
the elements of Cougar Mountain and this
means that we need to adapt to the
physical characteristics of the land uh
the location of the buildings should be
considered the natural elements of the
St stepping up hills sides and taking
views and lighting to account so now the
develop Bears plans it's 800t long wall
uh 38 Max but maybe smaller uh to me
that's flattening out cougar um we could
see that it's 15% grade to get up there
but it's only a 1% as you get up there
so we are flattening out Cougar Mountain
with this um with this wall um I know we
have a lot of people that uh be seeing
this wall we're going to sell it as View
Property I I really like that he had
this with all the tall trees but those
trees um are either going to be short or
we're going to have a conflict like we
have now with people wanting views um
we're going to see the wall we're going
to see the homes from all over isqua and
that's not really what um talis's uh
character is about I would like to see
maybe not so much of a wall but less
homes put up there and a little bit more
of to forming to the to the terrain that
we have currently uh we have a lot of
smaller walls we talked about smaller
walls and T towers and I'm surprised at
how many homeowners living uh have
drainage problems isol gets about 20
inches more rain than biew and Cougar
mount we get slightly more even as we
come up from 900 up to the top of the
bridges it's always raining far far more
so um we have a lot of drainage problems
and people already having problems with
their homes now and so for the developer
to say well that problem wouldn't occur
if the buildings were there um gee I'd
like to look 30 years into the future
and see if you know we look back and
that's true because today we are having
problems and we have um the development
already
there uh the roads now we do have a
maximum of 12% and I looked at every
single one of the roads except for an
alley an alley can be at 15% but it can
only be 18 ft wide and Lucy is right
that in section 7 I found a modification
purpose and intent of an administrative
modification of Standards is to provide
flexibility to modify standards for site
conditions Traffic Safety critical area
protection or to further the vision
established in dependencies A and B of
the agreement that means making it more
of a mountain Village character so the
modification
was and she had it up here the road
grade may increase to a maximum of 15%
slope for a maximum of 600 ft well it
states that the purpose for that
modification is to avoid excessive sight
grading not just to put in a walled area
and flatten it out on
top uh culd aexs were versus the dead
end you know love this every time I come
it's a dead end and then it's going to
be a hammerhead and now it's going to be
somebody's driveway until the developers
stated that um we're going to have this
Dead End Road um we're going to have the
fire truck turnaround and the Hammerhead
it clearly states that a hammerhead
turnaround allows access to limited
number of residents the entry is only 20
ft wide and allows for parking on one
side what it says is that when a culd
toac is necessary and in this case this
is a culd DEC it should be a CLD DEC not
just a dead end Road not just a really
wide Road a going into somebody's
driveway so that later on we can use it
for something else the effect of the
dead end should be minimized by
providing an amenity at the end of the
culdesac such as a pocket park a
Viewpoint or a
home so in this case we've got an
apparent men amenity at the end of this
culdesac which appears to be 49 acre
Housing
Development so in conclusion I feel that
this development although it looks like
it's tried hard but it's not really
maintaining the community character um
I'd like to see less homes a little bit
more up and down I love the the picture
of the bridges um if that's a 15% grade
most of us stay in when it snows and
when there's ice on the road so they've
got this one road that's coming out at
15% all the way from this handicap area
all the way down and then our road is
steep also we have a lot of accidents
and for one way of getting everybody off
that Hill seems a little bit too uh
steep so we've got the um uh 800t wall
flattening out the goog moment the um
the lack of a cold a sack they've got
this dead end Street um I'm very worried
um about the future drainage problems
and the walls themselves um a lot of it
is that whether the city wants it or not
they're going to be the ones with the
Deep Pockets and they're going to be the
ones reliable for anything that happens
and um I feel the parcel needs to be uh
redesigned fewer homes higher step UPS
no dead end roads and I really would
love that those 100 foot conniver trees
are not cut down because they are
absolutely beautiful and I know that
Lucy keeps saying that you can cut down
all the trees but those are out standing
thank you thank you Miss
leford uh Bruce
Bailey hi Bruce Bailey I am um a member
of the TR board and so I'm coming here
tonight to uh speak on behalf of the
board
um we heard
concerns at our last board meeting can
you just tell me board is yeah the Talis
residential Association it's a
homeowners board for for Talis I I also
live in Talis um can you please identify
your address for the record yes 2247
Northwest Boulder way thank
you so um our
last uh HOA meeting we had good
attendance there we had uh and as you
know we can we can make some noise about
some things in Talis um so we had some
good attendance there one of the
presentations we saw was about partiel 7
and I was also at the last meeting and
the the concerns about partial 7 were
concerns that that that you all had last
time I was here okay you brought up some
great some great uh some great points we
talked about maintenance uh you talked
about boy that's a great idea if you can
move the wall down that much in 10
minutes let's see what you can do in
three weeks I remember what was said we
talked about
modifications um so uh the Talis HOA TR
which is the Talis residential
Association shares those concerns and so
you know I come here as their Ambassador
tonight there's not one of us on that
board that doesn't have a concern but I
also want you to know there's not one of
us on that board that is
anti-development not one of us if it was
our land we wouldd want to develop it
too we're sorry that you bought some
land on a 40% grade though you know and
it and it's tough to uh to develop we
understand that so I just want to
outline to you what some of the concerns
were at those at those meetings because
we think you should hear them so first
of all the first concern that comes up
is the encroachment of the 50-foot
buffer zone which separates Talis
Community from the adjacent
Parkland and while there has been
modifications made that's a concern
because the development agreement calls
for nothing to be in there I believe it
says except for a water crossing now we
have
walls or roads and water towers we don't
get it where I come from we call that an
end run so uh the next one is the
proposed construction of the 800t
wall
and and and the cost of it the civil
engineering of it and I applaud
everybody here for their great
presentations of of all the other walls
in the neighborhood and in the community
there but you know none of those walls
are on a 40% grade so we think this
one's very unique we think the civil
engineering of this one is is unique and
and it needs to be addressed differently
those those other walls are very
different okay uh the cost of the wall
who's going to bear the cost so we heard
the the residents loud and clear you
know they don't want they don't want
responsibility for it you know what the
board doesn't either we we applaud you
know the scientific studies that have
gone behind this and how Stout and
stable and solid this was wall is going
to be we only wish you would have built
our
Fountain okay so we invite anybody to
come over and put your toes in it if it
had water in it you know the insurance
policy H doesn't cover it
so we're at odds with that so we have
some real concerns here to say we have
trepidation is an understatement we're
Beyond trepidation we're scared you know
there is water issues there we've talked
to people above us on Cougar Mountain
and and you know these water things
occur all the time you know there
there's instability up there they don't
know why there's a development going on
on a 40% grade now I've walked the 40%
grade that's called the surprise Creek
Trail I've walked where all those
properties are I've walked down to where
the Bedrock was was found you can't
stand there it it's steep okay that's
you you you know that I don't know if
you know what the the degree of
steepness is in ski slopes it's not 40°
they call those like triple Black
Diamond okay
so that's a steep area we have real
concerns with that and I understand
who's going to own the retaining walls
we don't want to we don't want to be
responsible for that we want to be on
the record for knowing that
um we really want you to think know that
we feel like parcel 7 although we're
behind you know development just doesn't
do it in the spirit of the
community it just doesn't it doesn't fit
the bill it needs to go back to the
drawing board um we're back to the
proposal of dead end streets now in a
steepness of grades while the
illustrations were great we had lots of
illustrations throughout the community
of 15% grades and 12% grades and I know
what it's like I ride a bike you know
I've ridden up Talis drive from the
bottom to the top three times this week
that's a steep grade okay I get it you
know now start adding that above the
tree line there I used to live in San
Francisco you get a few more you've got
hidde Street that's what the cable car
goes up they have stairs that go up that
you know dead end streets those
illustrations where all those grades
were weren't dead end streets okay you
know I was coming up Talis the other day
we had a moving van they can't get
around t tal it's tough okay so they're
parked the wrong way on Talis because
they can't turn around okay so we're
we're about M making modifications culde
saacs makes sense to me because a car
can go down to the end of a culdesac and
turn around an emergency vehicle can go
down to the end of a culdesac and turn
around you can't really go into
someone's driveway you know it's an
emergency
you know I don't want to wait for the
fire truck to go over here and then back
up into here and then turn around and go
over to here it just doesn't work for me
my house is burning you know we've got
we've got we've got things happening it
just doesn't make sense okay you know
there's there's something else going on
with a dead end into someone's driveway
I I I
think I do
um so at the end of all this we I think
we've done a
good scientific study of the traffic
deal I don't get it you know 150 homes
and and you know a couple of cars per
garage I think it's going to increase
traffic you know so as it sits right now
we we or we're I'm supposed to pass the
Hat by the way for the fountain you know
we're looking for 100 grand to get that
thing back up up and running you know
and we have a we have an insurance
policy by that we have these things that
are supposed to be moving forward to to
collect it you know what they get there
and we don't have the money for it so
our our deal is is at this point in time
we don't want to take on the
responsibility of of a 800 foot wall
that that's maybe 39 ft tall and uh God
knows what it's going to cost to to
maintain it it's just it's scary for us
so at this point in time we don't want
those responsibilities and I'm
reflecting this as the voice of the
people that have come to us and
expressed that I wish more could come
here tonight and express that too but I
think we'd be here pretty late so I I
agreed to do that for us all and do that
for the my fellow board members as well
so I thank you for the time that you've
given me thank you and if I just remind
everybody please keep the conversation
ger main to the topics at hand this
evening uh and if you can keep your
comments to at 3 minutes I obviously I
don't want to stop you we've been over 7
minutes per person so far and uh yeah
we'd like to keep it moving if we can so
uh let's bring up uh Scott feffer thank
you pronounced it
correct hi my name is Scott feffer I
reside at
2444 Northwest Stony Creek Drive uh
within Talis um I'll keep my comment
short I won't go to my five-page script
uh considering we had a two and a halfe
2 and a half hour presentation that
basically did not change my mind about
my opposition to a lot of what's going
on uh I do agree completely what has
been stated by Bruce and Cynthia so far
um I I think that the only point that
they haven't brought up is um certainly
safety concerns I have with shanger lawe
um the 15% grade along shanga combined
with the uh the sharp radius of the
roadway around the water tower area in
particular is definitely a safety uh
Hazard adding these developments and the
potential for the additional acreage to
the north to that roadway in my opinion
is very bad planning and I am an
architect that has uh worked for 30
years designing uh developments and I
spent 15 years negotiating development
agreements with uh with school districts
and developers so I have a little bit of
understanding what's going on um but
there's real safety concern it is very
slick I leave in the winter 4:00 in the
morning to go to the airport all the
time I beat the deicing truck and it's
very uh precarious situation getting to
the bottom of the hill uh adding all the
additional traffic to that uh I think is
problematic and needs to be uh
considered uh greatly I think that uh
engineering of the roadways should be
looked at a little bit differently and
and the steepness should be um either
cut down or uh find another way to
address uh the development uh and
certainly need to reduce the uh
sharpness of the radius um because when
you combine the two together uh going
downhill uh out of control and having to
make a turn at the same time is not uh
not an easy way to get to the bottom of
the hill so from there uh I yield the
floor thank you very much thank you sir
uh Karen Porterfield
Karen Porterfield 2498 Northwest Stony
Creek Drive well this has been an
educational evening I will have to say
but I find it a little bit ironic on the
day we get the announcement in the paper
that um May 10th we are celebrating 226
more acres for squa mountain and the
opening of of more Trails on Tiger
Mountain that we are talking about an
800t wall on Cougar Mountain find that
very concerning I'd like to start and
I'm addressing my remarks to the
official uh published um responses that
the staff did from our last meeting i'
like to start with um the first quote
retaining walls are necessary in this
parcel to create buildable pads for the
buildings well I'd like to Echo what was
said earlier
the topography has not changed this was
not a surprise to the Builder they knew
what they were getting into when they
chose to buy this piece of land now I
say this as somebody who's developed
multif family housing in Washington
Idaho and Montana so I too am not
against development but I appreciate the
appropriate
development the next remark is the
comment this wall is unlikely to be seen
offsite well for all of us who live in
Talis we're onsite and so it's a little
disingenuous to say that if you're
offsite it's okay we live with it and we
will see this every single day next
remark the preliminary plat states that
walls will be owned and maintained by
Talis homeowners
association I think Bruce said it very
well um but I would also like to point
out two things you may not be aware of
um as part of the HOA agreement as it
was uh developed perhaps by the owner
who um has so happily said he was in
control of it for many years commercial
um costs are capped at 4% increase a
year so when we are looking at this wall
or these walls we have to build a
reserve as somebody who's done risk
management we're looking at between 60
and probably 70% of all replacement will
have to go into Reserve majority of that
burden falls on the homeowners it does
not fall on the commercial so please
keep that in mind next quote um making
efficient use of the land well there's a
difference between effective and
efficient effective says we are
following the Topography of the land as
laid out in the initial agreement
between the developers the community the
city and the
environmentalists efficient for this
particular Builder is to put up a big
wall and have flat space on top because
that's easy and cheap to build so big
difference between effective and
efficient uh next line This Means
development confirms to the Topography
of Cougar Mountain I am not quite sure
how building now a 39 or let us
translate it four story wall confirms to
the Topography of Cougar Mountain and
for those of us who live in the bridges
and yes I have walked up from the bottom
of the hill up to my house that's a big
slope um we confirm to the topography
and we get good exercise whenever we
take the dogs out um the next one I'd
like to remark on this challenge of open
space has been met at Talis by
dedicating approximately 73% of the land
as open space this is an opinion of the
staff
only like to go back two more pages as I
wrap up my comments um wall design
considerations a few additional thoughts
tall walls form an effective separation
from development and Wildlife well as
somebody who has worked in
Alaska I am not concerned by a few
bunnies or some deer and in all the
years I've lived there I've seen one sad
and rather mangy coyote so to tell tell
us that these tall walls are being put
here for our safety or for the safety of
the wildlife seems a bit disingenuous in
trying to say this is why this wall is
good I bring up these comments because
what I find troubling is I'm wondering
as the staff has put this together if
they see themselves as an advocate for
the best for the city and the residents
of the city or if they see themselves as
an advocate for development and support
of this
Builder I'm asking the question I don't
know the answer but I would like you to
keep it in mind from the 2 and 1 half
hours that we had between the Builder
and the city and the can you please keep
your comments to 3 minutes or less for
everybody who has come here tonight it
again does not feel that there's been a
strong balance between all the different
needs thank you thank
you for the record I'm just asking if
you can keep it to three minutes you
don't have to but in the interest of
time it's just the courtesy I want you
to say what you have to say but that's
all uh Ken conis
Mark Ken Kix Mark 5713 285th Avenue
Southeast in isqua I was going to refer
to an earlier slide that showed the open
space and give you a little more history
about how that happened because there's
a story there that I don't think people
know that you need to know how did you
get that 73 Acres of 73% of open space
land everything south of Tibbits Creek
the developers did not want to give that
believe me they wanted 15 million for
that and we tried a lot of ways to find
15 million from the city state parks
King County Parks the trade-off was this
is why you now have 800,000 square feet
of office space in Talis the only way to
get that 73% of open space was to give
the developer an additional 800,000 ft
of office that made it economically
viable in addition they agreed to create
a net Improvement in Downstream water
quality because a law at the time said
you can discharge 50% of the phosphorus
from your development site right into
the creek and right into Lake samamish
would have which would have created big
alga blooms and killed the lake
this developer agreed to create a net
Improvement through their drainage
systems and by restoring the biano mine
coal Coal Mine site so there's a lot of
stuff like that you all need to
understand that gets us to where we are
I'm very proud of what happened with
Talis we still are building out what was
agreed to so now let me focus in on my
area of concern which was the 50-ft
buffer and you heard me speak to that
two weeks ago I also o believe you got a
copy of the letter I wrote in 2000 on
mountains to sound Greenway letterhead
which referred to the earlier 752 tank I
disagree with what was said by Lucy in
the city's position that it's okay to
put water tanks in the 50-ft buffer
because it's not a residential impact no
paragraph
4.3.2 is very clear in the development
agreement and says the only exceptions
in the buffer are Trail or utility
Crossings not water tanks not facilities
not roads not retaining walls no
exceptions so why was an exception made
in 2000 because if you look at the
letter I wrote it's very clear in
documenting that there were identified
public benefits to making an exception
to locate those water tanks in the
buffer and save additional trees uh
reduce the clearing footprint and have
greater public benefits by allowing that
one exception that however does not open
up the rest of the buffer to be used for
whatever anybody wants that's where we
got a problem
so that's why I was so opposed two weeks
ago to the entire idea of a road two new
water tanks and retaining walls in the
buffer the new proposal to remove the
old tanks put them on a lesser
footprint is in my mind not a bad
uh option to to take I would support
that however I want to be on record and
urge you all to watch us very closely no
other intrusions of any sort are allowed
in the 50-foot buffer under any
conditions unless it's a trail or
utility Crossing or unless there is some
other public process to create an
exception due to the overriding public
benefits thank you thank you very much
uh Miss Valerie
feffer my name is Valerie feffer I live
at 2444 Northwest stoning Creekway in
the bridges of Talis and I'm here in
support of my friends and my neighbors
and I 100% agree with everything they've
said and I would just like to reiterate
some more personal
concerns um some background my husband
and I moved here about three years ago
we raised our children in the midwest I
grew up in the Southeast and if you know
anything about real estate you can
certainly get twice the house for half
the price there so to move here and to
make the decision to buy a home here was
a huge impact especially as we're
nearing and over 50 years old looking
into retirement so it was a big
investment we looked for two years we
rented um and then decided to build a
home in the
bridges because we're empty nesters and
our children are grown and almost gone
they keep coming back but
um it was a good fit I'm a teacher I
wanted a unique uh neighborhood I didn't
want swing sets in every backyard I
wanted a smaller home with privacy with
uh views and we found that a year ago we
found
that a couple of weeks ago on my spring
break I woke up to chainsaws because of
miscommunication 100 trees were cut down
in my backyard I'm sorry we made a
mistake we've reached a compromise I'm
I've trying to move on from that but now
I'm going to have an 800t wall in my
front yard so this is something I paid
twice as much for half the
house I have a hole in my backyard I
have a thousand plus headlights coming
twice a day up and down that Hill into
my bedroom window into my neighbor's
bedroom window into my dining room
window I feel like a dog at my dining
room table Counting Cars now it's like
and so now I'm going to be watching um
cars go up the hill watching U for the
next couple years watching a wall be
built um all the noise the construction
I'm not happy I'm very
concerned um our dues have increased
250% we've lived in this home less than
a year and a half and our dues of
already increased
250% um like I said you know 5 to 10
years from
retirement that that does something to
the
budget I would just like it seems like I
hear a lot of I'm sorry I
think we've done our
best probably most likely safe to say
I'm not
sure it's not not very
comforting I know my neighbors agree
with me or we wouldn't be here um rather
than social hours in our living room
this is our social hour and we are
committed and we will stay
committed in
conclusion some days I wake up and I
think I'm ready to sell I'm ready to
sell go to Florida go to Mexico go
anywhere just get
away but
um
I hope that the city can restore my
faith restore my neighbor's faith and I
hope that we can reach to a mutual
agreement and compromise thank
you thank you Miss Feer Lisa
milowski good evening or shall I say
good night to the
commission um I think since our last
meeting I have sent a letter to the city
council outlining some of my concerns
I've hope you've seen that okay um so
some of those concerns have been
addressed tonight thank you very much to
the staff and to uh the applicant for
addressing that I really do appreciate
that the one concern that is not being
addressed uh to my satisfaction is the
failure to recognize potential flooding
and landside Landslide risks um I think
we've all seen the YouTube video
um and I've also mentioned the uh
flooding that was in the back of alante
and that was in December of
2007 um that was still when the
developer was doing the maintenance on
the drainage behind alante I'll also
remind you of um so that's still an
issue and in the documents that I've
received um this is page 32 of
49 there's the statement in accordance
with Section 240 C5 steep slope hazard
areas
alterations this is in the tals
development agreement I believe a quote
the designated official may allow
alterations and elimination of steep
slopes through approved grading
activities provided that slope stability
is maintained or
enhanced the design requirements are
required so that the alterations result
in a slope that is maintained or
enhanced and are included in the
critical area study that has been
approved by the City file number STP
14001 approved on March 24th
2014 so I've been talking about flooding
since the April 1st
meeting this study was done on March
24th why was I not told when I first
started talking about flooding that I
could still appeal at that point within
the 14 day
window and I have just received this uh
critical area study today and it's 130
some pages so I haven't been able to
thoroughly go through it and I will try
to do my best to do that but my question
is were Professional Engineers and the
city officials that approve this
critical area study aware of the actual
Landslide INF fiding occurrences in
Talis when they approved it now there's
a difference between models and
simulations from an engineering
perspective and actual real life
situations
models and simulations predict and they
give us ideas of what will happen when
we don't have the situation to examine
they do not replace the actual situation
and the actual occurrences that happen
they're just predictions and models they
never account for everything that the
real life situation will account for
this is true in this case this is true
in whenever we're making predictions
about wall performance and slope
stability and this is true in traffic
models these are all things that are
predictions and simulations so you have
to believe us residents even though we
have to advocate for ourselves here when
we say there are problems because we
know the actual real life situation
they're presenting models and
simulations and
guesses not real life stuff we are
telling you that and I'm telling you
that there's been flooding and mudslides
since up um I've been saying that since
April 1st and there was a time at which
an appeal could have been applied where
that approval of the critical area study
could have been examined again and now
it has not been done so now I want to
know now what do I do now who do I go to
to say how are we going to deal with
this flooding and Landslide risk so I'm
still wound up about
that there have been this is on page
nine of one of the many documents
emailed to me I'm sorry I don't know
which one but there have been drainage
issues associated with mountainer and
Aliante neighborhoods which have
resulted in slides this is a concern for
paral 7 and the staff I think this is
their recommendation the drainage lines
mentioned are not within the plat and
this aren't under purview of this permit
also this drainage technique is not
proposed under the plant currently under
review and thus is not an issue with
this
permit okay I interpret this to mean
that there are no drainage lines above
or west of mountain a yaas no wonder we
have flooding no wonder we have
mudslides wow
we have no
drainage okay not good something has to
be done to resolve that we're going to
develop on top of that those are exactly
the concerns I outlined in the letter to
the city council and I'm more concerned
now now I'm more eager to go over that
uh critical area
study okay this is on a different little
bit different subject here um okay so on
page 39 of the 49 page document
the the applicant explains the need for
large retaining wall because of the
grade changes in the predominantly this
is mostly in the north south
direction of the uh Main Road through
p7 there is no written evidence that the
applicant is committing to taking
upgrade in the predominantly West East
Direction okay via home designs such as
daylight basements we talk about
daylight basements and they're shown in
the the Graphics or the drawings that we
see but there is never any written
statement that they will do daylight
basements so um I would like to see the
UVC
require or will the applicant State the
applicant I believe has been very
cooperative and is doing their best will
they state that 100% of the homes in p7
will be daylight basements or double
daylight basements to take up this
grade so I think that's all I wanted to
say I'm eager to go through the critical
area study and I would love to hear what
I can do to help us not get into trouble
with flooding and Landslide risk uh for
those sites thank you thank
you uh Miss Julie
Clark my name is Julie Clark I reside at
915 be Ridge Court Northwest in Talis I
haven't prepared notes in advance so I'm
just scribbling things as people have
been speaking this evening but I am
concerned about a couple of areas that I
will talk about and then one is the wall
I know there's been a lot of discussion
but the cost for our HOA is um going to
be extremely high if we need to replace
this wall or when we do I know they are
saying 114 years but the reality is um
if the wall goes out it's probably going
to be more of an issue I'm guessing than
just this concrete
plastic device that's holding back the
wall there's probably going to be more
damage done than just a wall giving out
there will be homes affected there will
be lives
affected um just as in the mudslide
which was considered a
small
blowout um that really impacted at least
two famili family lives it may have only
occurred in two backyards but it really
had a significant impact on their lives
as this flooding in alante would have
had impact on other people's lives as
well um I I heard that they're planning
to plant trees at the base of this large
wall and as other people have mentioned
about tree cutting for view
preservation um at some point the people
who live in in these homes will want to
have their views restored as they've
paid great sums of money for the view
that they are purchasing with their home
and um so I don't know how you can avoid
that if you're going to have trees
growing how you can restrict the height
on those and cover the wall at the same
time
um we talked about four different Master
developers with different walls
throughout Talis we've talked about the
re this wall over behind Home Depot and
how the construction of that wouldn't
have occurred today in isqua if that was
a part of isqua but the reality is
technology changes and with the
technology changes we always think we're
in we're inventing something new and
stronger and better than before but
things still fail even with this new
information and on the
roads
um with the elevation of these roads on
garbage day on bus days when well the
school buses if they come up here they
may not since it's a deadend road these
children will have to walk all the way
down to perhaps Talis drive and shangra
LA to catch a bus but
um on narrow roads I can tell you it's
challenging on garbage day for cars to
come to go in different directions so if
you have a Street that's not a one-way
Street you've got a garbage truck coming
you've got two vehicles trying to pass
this garbage truck one from behind and
one from the front it's it can be very
challenging and so um something needs to
be addressed on that and then having
these very steep
hills um inclines of 15% 12 to 15% it it
will be challenging along with the
narrow roads as well as for um emergency
vehicles and I do want to point out out
that I've heard that there are other
options for getting in and out of Talis
but the only two that have been
mentioned or that I've seen and writing
or heard um this evening are Talis drive
and James Bush Road and in an
emergency uh people will be driving
across people's yards to get down James
Bush Road as it has the ballards in
place so um if that's too steep of a
road for people to use on a regular
basis I think it will be a challenge um
in an emergency as
well um and I would be curious to know
what this other option is for getting
out of
Talis thank you thank
you uh Paul Boon next up thank
you I'm Paul Boon I live at uh 655
Wilderness Peak Drive corner of shangra
La way and Wilderness Peak Drive and the
old model home built in O in uh
O2 advertised in Alaska Airlines
magazine you can see the picture of the
house it's it's nice to live there and
I'm going to quote three slides uh one
slide said uh underneath the wall
undisturbed vegetated
slope another slide said existing
vegetation provides screening
and then another slide
said existing vegetation to
remain uh among that vegetation you're
referring to there are some trees that
have been growing since World War
II and those are old enough I don't see
too many folks that old those trees um I
hope you really mean that they are to
remain that's all I have to
say
thank you very
much uh I know I got this wrong last
time so I apologize Tony lender did I
get it right that time CL pretty
close I'm just going to butcher it just
for fun next time just
kidding I'm Tony Laton I live at uh 24 I
said last time you said I was
wrong but it's recognizable so that's
good thanks I live at 2408 Northwest
Harmony Way in Phoenix no really isqua
just to see if
you're okay um one of the concerns I had
in look in studying uh the Topography of
this uh development for seven is the
road into the area uh
the uh I guess Lucy mentioned that you
could have 15% grade for 500 or 600 feet
that's not quite accurate what it what
it states in the development agreement
is you cannot exceed
12% for more than 600 feet
so and when I looked at the maps of that
road going in it seems very questionable
whether that really is the case I know
it's a little preliminary perhaps but to
me it's a very bothersome aspect
especially because that's the only way
into to that development and so for
emergency vehicles and everything that's
a real concern the next thing that
bothers me is this termination it's
pretty clear in the development
agreement that there's three ways of
terminating at a dead end you can have a
hammerhead you can have a culdesac or
you can have a auto Court an auto Court
this one looks like it's close to being
an auto court but an auto court is has
to be on a private Street not a public
road so that is a clear violation of the
development agreement and I think most
of us kind of understand why they're
interested in that sort of
violation but I can't really mention it
it's interesting though it's called Road
a then finally uh the high walls uh
there's an issue of Maintenance of the
walls because of the steep slope that
they are on uh and I think uh Mr Pew
made a very good case for the materials
in the wall and and I I imagine that
that's probably pretty accurate the 114
years but there's more to it than just
the materials of the wall it's how well
the wall is anchored and the stability
of the slope that it's being anchored to
and if there anything that goes wrong in
that process which as homeowners we're
not able to really verify we don't have
the expertise then and and also any
shift in the
geology besides even a major earthquake
that could be a huge liability issue for
us thank you thank you Mr
Laton all right next up Brook
Sullivan first I just wanted to say I
know probably be on behalf of all the
public too thank you I I think you are
volunteers I actually don't really know
but it's late and thank you for serving
the community and trying to um maintain
the Integrity of isqua and the way it is
now so um really quickly I just really
have two comments um I just want to
understand why we are doing this road
design and what and we've talked a lot
about dead ends and and culde saacs and
and we there's a statement in here that
says U this plat illustrates examples
where it is difficult to completely
avoid their use but we've also seen
illustrations tonight of all of those
steep grades in Talis that exist and all
of those are Loops I don't I don't know
of a dead end in Talis as it stands
right now I could be I could be wrong
but I live on one of those steep grades
and it is a loop so it is still a
concern to me I don't necessarily
understand why other than obviously the
unstated reason that I won't talk about
um and probably also I'm guessing to put
in more homes which I don't I don't
think in reading it is a reason to avoid
a a loop looped Road or a dead or avoid
a denden I'm sorry um and then the other
thing which I don't know if it's fair
game but it was already talked about by
one of the presenters so it is on the
cost side and I'm I'm sure you guys
understand or have heard about the way
the HOA is structured right now and that
really home owners have very little
power little to no power right now in
our neighborhood um just the way the
Voting is structured and so I would
encourage this commission and the city
council before making decisions about
things that could affect our cost um to
to consider joining and trying to trying
to fix that for us so as homeowners we
actually can have a fair shot at voting
on what you know costs and stuff that we
will actually incur um so I'm I'm not a
developer or an engineer um I am an
accountant though and um I do think that
the numbers that were kind of discussed
of the 8% increase or $13 a resident
might be wrong because the number of
units includes a lot of people who live
in commercial units and those are capped
so I don't know the numbers cuz I
couldn't like jot them all down but I
would just encourage that if possible
this commission and the city council to
work with the HOA to try to make it more
Equitable really for the homeowners who
are bearing um the cost which could be
the wall but anything else that is
maintenance in this neighborhood that we
all have to do so thank you thank you uh
let's see is it Clifford
cancelosi did I get that right I didn't
I'll try harder next time apparently uh
thank you uh thank than I I will go
quick I do appreciate uh and uh Echo all
the comments from my uh my residents the
residents of Talis I'm I live in alante
at 883 Summer Hill Ridge uh and I think
the comment I'd like to make is um there
is uh now we've alluded to it on a
couple a couple times which is the the
thing that must go unnamed um but I what
I would urge the council to consider
strongly is that the the traffic uh
patterns that are coming off of Talis
today are starting to have a pretty
significant impact on sr900 backing
sr900 deeply up into May Valley uh and
the the combination of more traffic
coming off the hill through these
developments and through potentially uh
some other development that can go
unnamed uh at the moment um with in
addition to the rally property
developments that are going on in the
isqua area I think the combination of
all these things need to be taken into
consideration together and I'm not sure
whether we're looking at these things as
uh points in time or single events as
opposed to taking a more holistic look
at what these whole patterns look like
uh when we first put the plans together
about how big Talis was I'm not sure we
had the plans in place on how much
additional growth would be happening on
May Valley Road and also down in the in
the Floor of of isqua proper so I would
just uh urge us all to take that into
account thank you
thank you very
much next up uh Connie
Marsh I don't think I've ever seen yall
this late at
night I know my eyes are bloodshot
anyway uh Connie Marsh I don't live in
Talis I live over on squawk but I have a
store at 11 75 Northwest Gilman
Boulevard suet
B1
um I love them all what can I say uh
water
tower um I don't know if you look at the
language
on how you could even do an
administrative minor modification one of
the things is that you uh have to do a
little Seer review and you're supposed
to
avoid
impacts to the area and I keep looking
and saying why does it have to be in the
buffer why can't they put it down out of
the buffer and just build it a little
taller I think the visual impacts from
offside are probably going to be exactly
the same um I do appreciate the fact
that that they've gone to the effort of
trying to Mosey it all around just
saying of course even better would be
good uh I don't like having the
retaining walls still being allowed in
that 50ft buffer because retaining walls
are not a water
crossing um and so I don't think that
they're allowed in that buffer given the
language that is stated and then you
know it was the Quasi judicial
appearance of fairness things and so
fairness is in my brain and I'm not sure
that it's fair if the larger HOA is not
going to take responsibility for this
wall to put it on this very small number
of homes and I'm not even sure that
that's within your jurisdiction but all
long in these development agreements
when the developer has control all kinds
of things are shoved into the homeowners
association because they can be and this
is going to happen again and it just
doesn't seem fair to me because they are
not here to speak for their future
selves I'm here to speak for their
future selves it's not fair thanks thank
you
Connie and uh finally Mr David
kapler
he's going to sing the finale for us uh
David kapler 255 Southeast Andrew Street
um the justification for the uh the
amendment that allowed the uh existing
water towers there um was some public
benefit was identified and one of the
things in the letter that Ken wrote as
representating Mountain Sound Greenway
was to preserve a significant block of
mature trees on the down slope side of
the tank facing his isqua and I90 well I
was up there today to the tanks and all
the trees down slope of the tanks are
small scrub Alders that had definitely
come in since um you know the tanks were
built located there so there was no
significant trees left um in terms of
the relocation of the the
tanks um mixed feelings about having
them in the 50ft buffer they will be
shorter now Ryan had a slide where he
showed the buffering on the edge and
went around the backs side of the tanks
I'm not too worried about the tanks
being viewed from somebody in the
park um if the tanks are going to be up
in the back of it let's get some of that
buffer is significant trees out in front
of them because um the map is even the
new map which this is the old map even
shows more space between where the tanks
are and the most East Western houses so
I think you can talk about bigger trees
in front of those tanks uh that could be
um that buffer could be uh more than
just a vegetative buffer which is what
is talked about in the rest of the the
50ft buffer important part of that
buffer is so when trees fall down they
don't land on people's houses so um what
goes into that buffer certainly needs to
be native type plants but we don't
really need trees that are going to end
up over time time being danger trees to
those
houses but we can certainly get some big
stuff in front of those tanks I believe
um color of those tanks drives me nuts
they're green but they're sure still
bright um when you see those tanks up at
the um samamish water and sewer has some
of the the ones that they have up in the
plateau with the the paintings on them
it's pretty amazing it would be a neat
addition
there um there were
item number 12 was the things that were
outside of the jurisdiction tonight but
there was a statement in F saying that
they believe that some of the treath
stuff going on in Talis was in
compliance with the development
agreement I disagree with that statement
I think that's what's been proposed in
some of the tree elimination other parts
is definitely uh not in character or
legal um the wall is basically going to
be at the same elevation so they're
going to hide the body bottom of it more
but the the part you really see is still
going to be up at the same
elevation apparently um there's going to
be some additional Landscaping at the
base of the wall but remember if they
have to do any work at that that's the
most
vulnerable that that vegetation could be
eliminated I think and I think it's been
kind of addressed in a condition I want
to make sure it's strong enough that the
real need is to get some encourage some
evergreen trees below the trail which
down slope and those are going to be you
know a long time before they're up there
causing any view blocks from the houses
on top but they will immediately start
helping from the view from down below
and especially since so many of the
trees are deciduous in that
area the dead end thing dead end streets
I spent a lot of time in Kahani in
January and February um not City wasn't
thrilled with me up in the colani area
about an election they had and and I
could not believe how many delivery
trucks were constantly during the
daytime going through the residential
areas up there and up there in khani and
those other plats they big wide streets
and there's you know but
um I do not like the somebody has a
private driveway they can park in their
driveway especially on that more
Northerly Road end I think you need to
have Provisions for a reasonable
turnaround that is a No Parking
uh turnaround um in that given the
narrow streets of parking that's going
to occur in the rest
um that's not all my concerns but um
some have been addressed already for
sure thank you thank you Mr kler okay
this will conclude the public comment
portion of the meeting uh at this time
we are going to have some uh some time
for uh staff and applicant um response
and and then we'll get into discussion
do you have questions now or do
you do we need a recess we do need a
recess okay um I I I'm going to re
reiterate though that um when we get to
our discussion point and likely I don't
know what kind of response they're going
to have we're not going to be able to
address views we're not going to be able
to address HOA we're not going to be
able to address uh Road standards and
grades if they're within compliance or
in compliance um home types we will not
be able to touch that flooding and
Landslide off landslides off uh off of
this uh plat we we also cannot discuss
um uh the the traffic component you know
it again if it's in compliance it's in
compliance and also the number of homes
so there are plenty of other things we
can talk about um but I just want to
make that very clear even if we wish we
could we can't because we can't affect
that can I ask clarification to that if
the traffic the drainage issues at
caused by the development yeah I think
it's if it's specific to partiel 7
absolutely happening outside of it yeah
yeah I mean if it's directly related I
think we can discuss it like that
drainage problem right there resp thank
you but I just want I just want to
remind people uh that we're not ignoring
those issues we just simply can't
address them so thank you we'll go to
how long do you need we are 10 minutes
okay so we'll see you back here tomorrow
10
minutes
okay we're back
on uh I think I'm going to turn this
over to miss slowman okay so given the
lateness of the
hour um and though we've heard a lot of
heartfelt and um concerns from the
public we feel that in general our
initial presentation covered most of
these topics and instead of trying to go
through and um respond to all the
comments we've heard we'd rather respond
to specific questions that the
commission has in
um that you need to address that you may
have to reach
a recommendation so at this time we're
not going to we're not going to
specifically reut so that's the the
staff's position does the applicant feel
the same way or do they want to
respond uh yeah our our position is that
we feel that the proposal as stated and
reviewed tonight uh as well as the
staff's recommendation meets the uh
development agreement conditions and uh
we're again understand the cons concerns
but we feel we we meet the conditions of
development agreement okay thank you
we'll move now to commission discussion
and uh if you have any specific
questions for staff or applicant um
we'll go ahead and address those
directly so uh
the
didn't I'm
sorry I'm sorry public comment is over
we we can't take any further public
comment at this time uh it's time for
commission discussion and if you could
please just I'd like to acknowledge
whoever's going to speak just so that we
can keep this thing moving so I'll go
ahead and start with Eric yeah I just
wanted to see if uh the developer can
your microphone on yeah okay can give
some clarification as to the the reasons
why the water towers uh do need to be
put in the buffer zone
presumably if you could speak on
that
uh It Again part of that is City staff
uh they've always been contemplated
since 2000 the original 884 which is now
based on a pressure Zone 916 it's just a
pressure zone change uh was always
contemplated to be at that elevation the
city uh operations and maintenance
people wanted at the highest level to
get the the best service it it still has
to be the same height um we feel it's in
a better position than it is there than
still sticking out in front where it's
going to be 20 ft taller and closer to
the to the residences and more
visible
Jim uh just I'm actually a little bit
concerned about uh the walls that are in
the buffer and
um you know why is it one wall or
multiple
walls it might just be one the the
original proposal which I think you're
talking about the upper walls where
there's some Terrace walls in that one
corner of the buffer um we've already
made a design choice to take those out
of the out of the buffer I think he's
referring to the water tanks no I was
actually oh I'm sorry I
apologize um at this point are the are
the revised water towers are those the
only things encroaching on the buffer
yes
thank
you so there's one wall
around so supporting that the water
tanks there's uh a wall in the in the
front to make the grade change right
there in front of the water tank and or
around the perimeter of the water tank
just in that area and that's all in the
buffer or on the edge of the buffer it I
I couldn't tell you it may be out it may
be on the front edge of the buffer it'll
depend on where the tank is sighted
specifically within that 50 ft I think
Mr kler was you know potentially saying
move it back farther and it keep
something in the front or whether it's
towards the front of the buffer it could
be right at the front edge of the buffer
I don't think we've gotten that far in
in the design process of that okay thank
you and it could wrap around the edge
you know as it ties back in you know
just just to support that pad basically
okay just supporting the pad and the
only other question I have is
you know it seems to me that that um the
HOA the
TR is that right yeah um is pretty
adamant about not taking
on uh the walls and
so so the the condition as I understand
is written uh provides for two options
one is that at the hoa's discretion or
the TR discretion through some
discussion or not can determine whether
they accept or don't accept the walls I
think the city has
concerns that from a management
perspective the larger HOA should be in
control of that as as for for various
reasons um but I think the second
component of that of that condition is
that if that's not the case then a sub
HOA would be responsible for that and
there are are U precedents within Talis
where uh a sub another sub Association
is responsible for the walls within
their development so it can be one or
the other and it's at the hoa's Choice
per the condition the way it's written
is that
accurate okay shant sorry let me make
sure Jim did you get your questions
answered okay Shantel so related to that
then can you speak to the the cost of
that per household or would it still be
distributed across the all community
would it be just some the the only way
it would be distributed across the
entire Community is if the HOA
actually accepted that responsibility
which is again at their discretion not
at our discretion and if they don't what
happens who then the sub Association
would be responsible to create reserves
associated with the walls in each one of
those Parcels with the money coming from
where the homeowners which the old the
153 that are associated with this
parcel seven yes okay at the same time I
would also request that you know if if
they don't want us to be if they don't
want to be bured with these walls then
you can't also ask that development to
be burdened with the maintenance of the
other walls so it's a kind of a two-way
street there which is more to the
comment of what the city's concern
before you walk away is it is it just
seven or would it be seven eight and
nine I'm just curious are the walls the
the condition I think the same condition
exists for 78 and N the way it's written
that cor okay so just to put it in
perspective and just and this is not a
statement as to a support or not support
of this is I think they said there are
there already 270 or 280,000 Square ft
of walls throughout Talis and this would
be another 60,000 Square ft of wall um
and presumably those other walls whether
it's known or not are you know the
burden is on the HOA at least probably
most of them maybe there are some sub
HOA concern conerns
but I mean it's that and Landscaping and
other things that that fit into that so
let's just keep that in mind on the
broader perspective so good B ugly ask
another question um couple people have
brought up um mature trees in some area
not sure exactly where they meant I
assume it was at the foot of the of the
wall um is is it the intention to keep
those trees um is that part of the areas
that will not be
cleared um I I can't speak specifically
I believe they were talking about this
area down here below which is the intent
that we're not going to cut any
additional trees in below what's shown
here um I I don't if you know there's
also an area in here that were not
clearing um again which is uh a buffer
between uh the bridges and this this
development so un unless it was another
area that I'm not aware of in in this
area below the the development we're not
intending to eliminate any trees in
there can we ask Mr chair if it was the
the area that was mention yeah I believe
that's the area but I don't know who I
can't remember who brought that based on
the comments and the view preservation I
I feel pretty confident that it's the
issues that they've seen
um that they've seen the last few weeks
with view preservation issues elsewhere
in Talis so again just to be clear I
think
they along the Shang shanger
Trail
yeah is that above shanga
Trail is that
here
yeah we're we're not in intending to you
know obviously you can see there's
there's a this is a water crossing
that's what this cut is right here uh at
some point through there because that's
where the 752 water line will connect
back up to the new location but we're
not intending to clear this I do know it
it's hard to tell I know there's in in
this 50ft buffer there's also some large
trees you know they're they're big
they're huge I I agree so no it's intent
not to not to touch those so let's let
the record show that the intent is not
to to clear those treed areas but let's
be very clear that they have the right
to clear those should they for whatever
reason change their mind or need to for
whatever that's it's in the development
agreement that they can correct Lucy
yeah but the record shows that they're
standing in front of us saying that
their intent is not to do that unless a
condition was put in place that they
cannot there's no condition right now
that says they can't right that's
correct all right
Michael uh Lucy um is there a precedent
for an HOA to build up a reserve fund
for a capital project like this I know
that they have to pay maintenance fees
but but replacement so as I understand
it and I am not an expert um by any
means I as I understand it that's a
state requirement of
HOAs that there have to be Reserve
studies for all the things the um HOA is
responsible for and um budget to replace
based
on
um I don't well they have to budget to
be prepared to replace things okay I'm
glad I'm out on my HOA board anymore
sorry Michael but but just to hop onto
that so that's related I had asked last
time about bonding and so that's when
the bonding
might come into play I don't think it
would be a bond a bond is
um like we use bonds to ensure that
something is built that it's completed
um Andor
maintained um it's it's actually a
reserve account that in in which funds
are accumulated in you know you make
certain assumptions about the lifespan
of the you know that a playground ground
is good for 15 years or 20 years and and
the cost of replacing it is X and
therefore you have to put in so much per
household per year to achieve that
um being able to replace it
so um it just seems once we get over you
know a million dollars in an HOA it
seems like that's a pretty complicated
situation to be in and so what is a
complicated situation an HOA having that
much uh Reserve M excuse me Reserve
money set aside it just seems like an
interesting situation to me um but I
guess that's a legal thing um my my real
question with this is H why were we not
able to or why was a um a loop put in
why was a loop not put in at the North
West corner of
s uh rather than a dead end and then
potentially putting some sort of
alternate foot path between Lots 32 and
33 or 25 and 24 so we don't have the
total block length I know we're
concerned about block length for
pedestrians but seems to me we could
just Loop that and not have the Dead End
Street so I'm going to go up to the map
just to make sure I I'm glad you I'm
glad you asked that because that's
actually one of my questions too is why
couldn't that road have just become a
loop instead of cutting off at four or
five properties
in go around 27 to 17 I
think sorry 37 to
17 I I'm I'm pretty sure it's a there's
some great issues with because we're at
15% there and as we tried to any
anything we push it farther it starts
exasperating the grades and we weren't
able
to and I can't speak specifically but
there was a design reason why we we we
looked at even moving it one lot over
swapping lots and there was a grade and
design issue with the percentages
allowing us to do that in that
location there there are other um
just I will say that you know the the
loop here and the fire turnaround is was
reviewed by um fire and rescue and the
distance basically that distance is is
based on a maximum that is their
allowable distance for that um dead dead
end piece and there are instances in in
at least three three other plats within
Talis that have similar although
probably not quite that long but similar
deadend um driveway accesses
um within Talis that are similar to that
so I recognize this is uh an you know
the edge of the property which is one of
the one of the criteria concerns when
when you talk about a a stub or a dead
end I guess um and I also recognize that
this that East Side Fire and Rescue and
Emergency Services have approved this
but I also recognize that um you know I
we have to ask the question I have to
ask the
question you know if it can be changed
to be more convenient and more uh
practical for residents you know what
are the reasons why it wasn't or it
isn't and if the answer is the you
wouldn't be able to do it because of the
Steep roads then that's the answer but I
believe it was grades because we I think
we did look at you know it seemed like a
logical just to make the loop and make
it easy confirm that I'm I'm heing I
believe it was do we know the answer to
that Tom do you
recall because I mean I can't I'd hate
to find out that it's you know because
we can preserve two more Lots or three
more lots and you know and that's the
answer so just to make sure that we
under that we understand or that I
understand the question is about putting
the road here instead
yes or some configuration around there
so that
there's a loop instead of a dead end
okay um so this road is at
15% um so it's right at the
maximum and
uh so by bringing the road this
way um there was a reason
Luc want to get Dan Dan on
there just ask I
mean where is where is Dan
Atlanta no
Atlanta amount of aor he's
talking that elevation right there is
the same all the way up there and it's a
Shor distance and it's over 15% that's
why so you want ahead and answer that
that says unless it's pred by grade you
connect it right so we can do that
um in looking at the grading drawings
and Ryan looking at the grading drawings
we we basically at the top edge
here that grade is consistent across
there bottom wall at the bottom of the
wall so if it if it went around here and
you have a shorter distance this grade
exceeds 15% because you've now got the
same the same grade that you have to
take up in a shorter distance and this
is already at 15% so we did try and look
at moving it over to shorten that even
flopping it in that lot but the grading
the grading drawing does not allow for
that because of the percentage Dan go
ahead good morning Dan it was grade
related all that for four words what did
he
say and you do have the same basically
you're carrying the same GR TR across
that that distance and trying to cut
down in a shorter amount of distance so
um that's precluding
it I'm sorry this we can't have any more
public comment at point so you know an
option is that I can draft a condition
that we um unless it's precluded by
grade that we push Drive C to the north
and connect at a northern point with Rod
a yes I would like I would like that um
but I'd like to extend it a little bit
further and understand first I'll ask
the question understand why a a culdesac
could not be put in there 100 feet
diameter is that a question or is that
an answer that's an answer um so it
would have to be relatively level so 100
foot diameter level
culdesac um the lots are about a 100
feet wide so um to do that would you'd
you'd lose about four
lots and I guess if We're
looping if if it is possible to Loop um
it seems like that's preferable to ABS
but I'm just trying to look at the
options if if a loop isn't
possible I also think it helps to
understand the reasoning behind not
doing it
agreed yeah yeah I mean I'm I'm not
saying this doesn't fit the letter of
the agreement I it does but but you know
I don't I don't know that personally I
would like it if I live there and I
think it could be difficult or
challenging but I'd like just to
understand what the options are right so
I I think I'm just
guessing
um so first of all I'm not sure you
could get a flat culde saac but you know
I think these lots are approximately 100
feet deep so 95 so I'm close um so you
know it would be something that went
from the middle of this lot to the
middle of this lot and then uh walls all
the way around
it and then uh you know so you would
probably
lose
um about
um you'd lose two to four LS so why does
it have to be 100 feet because right now
we have nothing we have go to someone's
driveway and turn
around so the standard for a culdesac
back is 96 ft um especially if you're
ask and I assume that's a fire
turnaround called a sack so that's um
the standard that's in the development
agreement well but we I'm I'm don't know
but can we ask I mean we've already said
that East Side Fire and Rescue is Happy
backing around the corner and whatnot so
it doesn't necessarily need to meet
those condition but some a way that
someone could do a three-point turn in
their car or something rather than
driving in their driveway just would
would so I I you know I'm not going to
make up a standard at midnight um so we
could we could explore that if you want
the condition to include exploring that
I just can't I can't commit to something
I I don't know but we're asking the
question for the options that's fine I
totally get that I have one other
question on the potential option too and
um and this isn't ideal for for lot
placement necessarily but uh if you took
if you took the bottom end of that
shorter Road and you shifted it uh go up
to the to the connection right there if
you took that and you shifted that up to
the north a little bit yeah and you just
ran it that way is that the same no
where the corner is right now on the
West Side yes is that the same problem
as if you were to Loop it around I mean
in in other words pivot the road right
to make a loop as opposed to trying to
create a loop all the way around the Ed
so um my guess is I'm guessing that um
making it diagonal might help some
because then it's longer as opposed to
shorter when you're trying to take up
more grade but I don't know if it's long
enough okay because that road was
already at 15% all right to put a pin in
it this Fe this meets the the letter of
the agreement and could and should be
approved as is from a technical
standpoint I think I'd like to request
and tell me if you you agree that we put
a condition in there that explores
multiple options to make this either a
loop road a culdesac or some variation
of this road to Pivot it uh to make it
uh less of a deadend scenario would you
guys agree with
that yes yes yes
okay okay I'll work on something thank
you very much all right Next
Issue anyone is this questions or is
this discussion both okay guys what are
we going to do about this
wall well uh so one question that I I
have a concern about is is I've never
seemed to remember having this level
discussions about HOA and uh what gets
covered by the HOA and there's also been
some uh various information from both
the developer and the HOA who you know
as far as vot votes and and I sort of I
get a sense that that is that really
part of our purview it's not we can't
discuss that at all okay so I just want
to have some clarity on that for the
public that though like I absolutely
share the concerns but if it falls
outside of our purview then it does but
the discussion of the wall doesn't fall
out of our purview so I appreciate that
Eric um I'll just give you my opinion I
suppose um I've never done that before
but I'll do it now is
honest I mean I'm always concerned about
uh stability and maintenance and that
sort of thing
um but that's what engineering is for
that's what studies are for I'm not an
expert in these areas um I'm pretty
certain that if I questioned every study
and everything in my neighborhood I'd
probably freak out too um because I just
don't I just don't know and we talk
about somebody talked about modeling
versus real life and I've had these
discussions before where I say hey on
paper it looks great you know that the
roads are this wide or that we have this
much parking but in real life the
reality is different and we learn that
unfortunately sometimes too late and
when it comes to safety of wall and you
know drainage and that sort of thing
it's that's not acceptable that said I
think we live in a world where you know
engineering and liability and all these
other things are not taken lightly and I
can't technically question this stuff in
a way that takes me beyond the purview
that we have so from a visibility
standpoint I don't have an issue with it
I think that the 300 ft between the
between the road or the the homes and
the slope and the and the wall are not
an issue I think by addressing the 10-
foot um difference is great changing the
we can't talk about what kind of of
homes are being built whether they're
daylight basements or otherwise that's
not again within our purview but the
fact that they're willing to make those
kinds of changes
um to to fit this I think is great I
don't think with visibility is an issue
I think there are a lot of other areas
where this would be it's happening now
and people don't really even realize
that it's there and if they do in fact
follow the conditions that are put forth
with screening and so forth I think it's
acceptable now from a again a
maintenance and stability question I I
can't get into that level of detail in
the role that we that we
play that's my opinion
yeah I just I I share that some of the
concerns about getting into the
technical issues on the wall I'm
hearkening back to my first year in
engineering school where they said they
showed us examples where it was
mathematically impossible to break the
speed of sound and then they finally
figured out how to do it then they could
do it so even our best Engineers we run
into issues I think we had Professional
Engineers who certified the Fred Meer
wall and then it's got issues so I I
just have this nagging concern over that
wall um in general and then putting the
burden again the HOA and TR is out of
our our purview but that it is part of a
larger equation to do the right thing by
the development agreement and everything
that the vision of an Urban Village and
the entire community and not becoming
those segregated pieces um the other
pieces and and we can come back to the
wall on a second I had a question on
um I think it was Dr Miz macowski I'm
mispronouncing the name because I
haven't seen it written the critical
area study that she was referring to
Lucy can you shed some light on what
that was for me
please so um because of the grades in
this area to um modify the steep
slope uh or just the grades in the area
some of which are sleep uh sleep
thank you Dr Freud yes hello um steep um
required a Geo technical
evaluation um and then that was
peer-reviewed um that study was issued
at the end of March and then there were
um and then the staff report was
issued a week later I think I don't have
exact ly all the dates in my head um I I
think Miss marowski is is
identifying a concern that um from her
perspective um her comments related
to
flooding
and the blowout as Mr Shephard refers to
it um should have triggered for us
identifying that study to her
um separately from reading the staff
report I don't I don't think that we
made that connection there was no intent
to withhold information I just don't
think that we um made that connection I
think the second piece is that within
the purview of the UVC in which we're
reviewing this plat um that is a
technical study
um which it and and you your group and
therefore all of us are doing a planning
level review it's very specific in the
development agreement that it's a
planning level review and that would be
outside the we we wouldn't ask or really
want um the Commissioners to be giving
us technical perspectives not trying to
yeah
absolutely hang on hang on Jim second
are you finished Carl yeah I go ahead
okay thank you sorry about that um you
know we're sitting here saying that the
the discussions regarding the uh the
homeowners association are not within
the
purview um but in a way I I I still
believe they are uh they're gerine to
the whole thing because uh part of part
of what we're discussing is character
and how it relates to the development
agreement and how it you know follows
through and adheres to certain uh
elements within the development
agreement and my biggest fear is that we
have uh a
wall um and it has to be supported by
150 some odd homes and God forbid
something
happens uh and there's not enough money
to cover things and all of a sudden I I
think you know we have an eyesore and
that's not within the character of an
Urban Village either you know a
Mountainside Urban Village uh so I think
it is Germain and I I just wish there
was a way that uh we could you know come
to some sort of agreement between uh the
developer and the
TR uh you know the way I look at it if
you look at the the number of square
feet that each home uh is taking on for
wall throughout the entire development
uh you look at it now with the roughly
1500 home homes looking at 270,000 FT
it's it's less than 200 square ft per
home uh if you look at the um the amount
of square footage in in wall for the new
homes 60,000 Square fet it's roughly
twice that so it's it's less than 400 it
just seems like there's still a way that
the two groups can come together and to
make sure that
um this this these walls aren't somehow
or
orphaned um and um I guess yeah I mean I
I hear what you're saying I
just I think we're speculating and and
stretching I mean lots of things could
happen with lots of
things I don't I don't want to be you
know flippant or think that things can't
happen but I think we could go down many
paths about what we think is going to
happen to a slope or how we think the
houses are going to be designed or how
the views are going to be or you know
the maintenance of um plantings and you
know the HOA raising their rates by 200%
or 250% or whatever we can't get into
that we you know everybody lives some
people live in neighborhoods that have
HOAs that you have some control over no
control over you can get involved and
you know like Mr Bailey has and others
Mr Bailey right um and I I just don't
know that we can go down that path as
much as we'd like to support or help or
answer or whatever it's all a big guess
for us and I think it'd be fairly
irresponsible for us to make a quasi
judicial decision based on that kind of
speculation I'm saying this is the
chairman of the commission as opposed to
my personal opinion but that that's what
I that's how I view it I I respect what
you're saying but I just don't know that
we can go down that path because we're
just guessing you know it's it's like
saying at the movie theater at ESO
Highlands we think they're going to be
200 people in line instead of 45 people
in line therefore they need to make the
queue bigger we we can't decide that
I know it's different but I'm just
saying it's it's it's equally a stretch
so I think one one thing um I I
understand I think the HOA and residents
have done a really good job
communicating how strongly they feel
about taking all of these walls um I I I
would like to point out that as true as
that is um there has not been an
probably been an opportunity for the
applicant and the HOA to to actually sit
down and talk about their concerns the
actual costs
um you know there are estimates that the
um applicant has made um but you know
it's a it's a big job to try and
estimate all the walls versus and who
owns them and which ones are in the
total HOA and which ones are in sub HOAs
we've had a lot of discussion around
that so I'm not saying that the hoa's
mind will be changed it may not be and
and that is their right um
but I'm not sure that that issue has
been fully explored um which is kind of
the point Jeff's making I I also just
did for my own curiosity which is
probably dangerous um at this hour but I
I just said if there were 15 homes that
were allotted this as a as a sub HOA and
it was
$600,000 to
um replace or significantly repair that
wall and you had 114 years that's like
$350 a year now that's a lot of
money um on the other hand if that is
that would have to be set up by final
plat um whether you're in whether that
wall is going to the full HOA or to a
sub HOA which means that at the time um
that someone's buying a home they would
have the opportunity to consider that as
part of
their of the pieces they consider and it
may be that for that view and that
location
it's that investment is worth
it yes Eric um so so I understand it's
not our purview and I I do share some of
Jim's concerns uh I think it's clear uh
that the HOA and a lot of the res
residents this is just a major issue uh
we've seen cases in the past with other
developments where the developer uh and
residents uh did talk and come to a
resolution to the satisfaction of of
both parties and so I I guess what I'd
like to see is is an encouragement that
perhaps something like that can take
place it's not within our purview but I
like to uh State you know for record to
encourage a discussion with the HOA and
a developer to see if they can't come to
some sort of understanding and
resolution uh and that's what I'd like
to just pass
on thank you thank you Carl did you have
something
else yeah I want to know what our
options are to move this towards
conclusion because I think the energy is
about dying I I do want to I do want to
touch on a few couple other things real
quickly though just be I took a lot of
notes during the public comment and so
the answer is no Carl yeah right sorry
sorry it's late for me
too um somebody mentioned views and you
know the fact is that like probably
every other community views change over
time again I think it's it's really up
to the developer the the builders to
disclose or to share what those views
are going to be like so if we know trees
are going to be there and they're not
going to have a view they need to
understand that when they're buying the
home if the trees are are not fully
grown and and they're going to grow over
the year over the years people need to
understand that I've lived in my house
for 14 years now and the backyard has
changed quite a bit because things grow
including my children um so I you know I
don't think views again they're not part
of our purview but that's sort of a
either a buyer beware buyer understand
kind of situation somebody mentioned
open can I can I add something to that
so I think that the trees that would be
planted at the base of the wall the goal
would be to select trees that were
scaled for the wall not to goes above
that but I think the bigger issue that a
lot of these residents have experienced
directly is um Divergent opinions if if
I can call it that you know of what is
valued and you know trees versus view um
and versus privacy and um I I in in
stopping um in getting the HOA to stop
or suspend the tree removal I think that
there's a great opportunity to try and
revisit this issue for a more holistic
Land Management plan or Landscape
Management plan um
that may recognize the sensitivities
that that they that there are for all
the people with inal yeah I agree and
that that's a good point and I did hear
what I think was contradictory comments
about you know that the views are going
to be blocked but then I also heard you
know but we want the wall covered so I
think we we just have to understand
there's got to be a balance there and
whatever that ends up being it ends up
being but um then somebody mentioned the
open space and that 73% was an opinion I
don't think that was an opinion I think
that was a reality right they that of
the Talis
developments sorry protected protected
and open space so the 388 which is 60
some odd percent I can't remember right
now that has been protected from the
very beginning 62% is what I saw okay
62% the um 71 acres in the north was an
estimate at the beginning because all of
the developable Acres could be developed
but there as I was trying to show in the
um slide that had the aerial photo and
the original plan there are areas that
have been set aside as open space that
weren't required to and we didn't have
the time and haven't done that
calculation because they were allowed to
develop the developable areas so that's
why we say it's approximately 73% so
it's safe to say between 62% and 73% of
the entire Talis land for whatever
reason I know Mr coning Mark talked
about this a little bit for whatever
reason was set aside to be protected or
or not developed um and was open space
so I just think it's still that's very
important because for those of you that
weren't involved early on you know there
was a trade-off and which leads me to
the next part and that is the number of
homes and
traffic um they're all they all fit
everything that we see here all fits in
uh within the um allowable limits and in
fact the homes the number of homes we're
talking about putting on here is
significantly less than what they could
be putting on here and so I just think
we need I just need to share that with
everybody because whether I like it or
not it's it's a fact and there's no
basis for us to to dispute that um from
a legal standpoint or otherwise right um
so I just want to make that very clear
as
well okay all right I yes that's it for
me yes
an is this on okay
um my concern um was regarding some of
the comments about flooding in existing
neighborhoods why that might be
happening uh what's the impact in
whether or not
anything like that can occur in parcel 7
and what mitigation has been thought
about for
that I'm going to see if we
can wake up Dan there Dan just see know
Dan's in Atlanta right now us on
streaming he's about 15 seconds behind
so he'll be talking a few seconds it
fits right in with Carl
then
Dan Dan are you
there here okay can you do you have
something that you could add to this
conversation well it's kind of difficult
over the phone but um basically the um
flooding can occur anywhere um it
happens throughout the city it's not a
good answer um on this particular
context but this is really not a wall or
a critical area issue it's a utility
permit issue um and we'll be looking at
that with the knowledge that we have of
the site um and the history there for
those kinds of issues um some of it is
related to the drainage systems that are
installed some of it are related to
development some of it are related to
just natural processes you know it's um
unlikely that every situation can be
prevented in the future as there are
other parts of the city that also have
flooding issues um in torrential RS but
uh it's not something that the
engineering staff is unaware of or treat
casually and with every project that we
do we learn and apply that knowledge to
the next
project
thanks thank you
Dan did that get your question answered
an okay anybody else have anything to
discuss Shantel so one of my concern
throughout this was
on the the the roads and the 15% grade
and the comments I mean we live in a
place where it does freeze quite quite a
few times over the winter um but it does
seem like it's definitely not unique to
that area that there's quite a few other
places in TS including the the main TS
drive like do do we have 15% grade on
tus drive or 12 12 to 15 I think it was
12 based on what ran was sh so this does
make it a few more places but it's not a
unique issue so I guess it's one of
those that I worked through for myself
that um concerned me a lot concerns me
in terms of knowing what the impact of
uh living on a hill is from my own P
perspective and uh adding to it but it
is something that is not unique to that
area area and is uh
um people would be coming in with their
eyes wide open so yeah I think that's
right I mean My Eyes Wide Open yeah
people make a decision on where to live
based on many many reasons and hopefully
they're they're not blindsided by the
fact that if they live on a hill and in
somewhere where it snows that they could
be stranded or or whatever um hopefully
that's not the case and hopefully things
get deced and people don't abandon their
cars but the reality is they do and so
we just have to be conscious of that
cognizant of that I guess
um what's that yeah we do don't we I
also think that that's it's outside of
our purview to say no you need to have
it is I mean that be 8% there are many I
mean if it fits within the development
agreement it fits within the development
agreement we can't we can't argue that
we can we can ask for things like you
know options around on the turnaround
and so forth but if it it just because
we want to turnaround there if it's if
it takes us out of the grade we
you know we can't make that happen right
um all right what else I want to make
sure everybody has their concerns
heard now I need to address Carl's
question of what's next yeah option so
do you uh do you have that condition for
us can we hear that real quick or
here okay uh a proposed new condition
32 um do you want me to put it up on the
that would be great thank you can do
that I'll read it out loud too just
because and as Lucy is bringing that up
for display our options are to vote Yes
No Okay so our options as I understand
them are to
approve uh the application permit
application um as discussed and amended
tonight um to
deny to to recommend denial of the
application um and I'm assuming there's
always the option to table this to
further discussion um but I'm not sure
what that what the impact of that is or
if there's if there's basis say the say
the options again approve uh recommend
approval recommend denial or I'm
assuming there's always the option that
we don't vote and table it for another
uh discussion but I don't know what the
basis of that would be so you could
continue it um the U the other option is
to send it forward without a
recommendation without a recommendation
okay all right so let's go just talk
about this real quick uh the proposed
new condition number 32 explore
redesigning the northern Terminus of
Road a to eliminate or reduce the
deadend portion options could include
moving Drive C to the North or adding a
c
toac Jeff got the pretty written one
that's great writing um does that
represent what we talked about I mean I
I'm assuming that the record shows that
you know moving luy Drive C could be can
I suggest maybe a non-fire turnaround
for the culdesac so it doesn't have to
be the 96 feet because I think okay I
think the point is they've already got a
three-point turnaround so it could be a
mini culdesac because it doesn't have to
meet fire service yeah I mean if they've
already approved the current setup then
putting a non-conforming culdesac in
there shouldn't change the fire issue
yeah you can just call it a c yeah
Co
cult um oh but I guess my question is
question sorry but moving Drive C to the
north I guess that does everybody
understand that that means either
literally moving it to the North or
pivoting it up whatever the option is I
don't know that we have to get so
prescriptive in this condition or maybe
we do the great thing is we have a lot
of videotape of tonight that's awesome
I'll send it to my
grandparents
um kidding no I I think we understand
the options and you know I didn't we're
not saying it has to be an
orthogonal connection so I big word for
this time night
warning um okay so that would be is
anybody have any questions on the recond
on the on the proposed condition 32 as
ju just um I mean one of the options
also is to somehow and and I'm I'm not
an engineer
um although I pretend to be one
sometimes um to eliminate the N2 to make
it a
loop if by remove by moving Drive C to
the north you could potentially
eliminate most or all of rad a and I
just we just don't know if that's
possible from a grade
perspective
right okay so I just want to ask if the
applicant understands what we're talking
about here I think so yes okay I just
want to be clear just I I don't want any
you know any ambiguity around that Scott
you had something else yeah just a point
of clarification in regards to the four
options that were identified so approve
deny table and my question being move
forward without recommendation what does
that mean and what does that translate
to so that means that you send it
forward to council without recommending
making a recommendation to approval to
approve or
deny you just send it forward with the I
conditions that you've got right now and
by the way it's not it's not approv or
tonight it's recommending approval
recommending that the city council
approves recommending that they deny
continuing this or sending it forth to
the city council to deliberate on it and
make their own decision with our with
this record in place I guess right and
they would they would have to review our
record meeting minutes and probably
watch this they get everything as it is
now um and so they and we meet with them
I mean we sit down with um land and
Shore and go through and you know what
were the concerns you know they're going
to want to know how what the history was
and why you made uh the recommendation
sorry or not that you did
yeah okay so before we before I ask for
a motion I'm going to ask for any
additional commentary or questions from
the
commission
okay so at this time I'm going to ask if
there's anybody willing to read the
motion um and then we'll do a vote
um if let's put it this way we'll we'll
read read the motion see if it gets
seconded if it did we'll do a vote and
if if I don't if we're not satisfied
with it then we can talk about moving
forward without a recommendation as a
reminder the I appreciate the
participation of the U alternates uh but
you will not be voting on this at this
point is there anybody that would like
to read the
motion no okay well that's that's a good
start so let me ask this question
is can I can I pull I can pull them
correct um sure okay I guess I I'm gonna
I'm going to go ahead and pull based on
the the four options that we have
recommend approval recommend
denial uh uh move it forward without a
recommendation or continue I'm gonna
pull each one of you and ask you to give
me your answer so we can decide how to
move forward
Eric
nope no questions just
answers person there's still
uh I understand we're looking at the
development agreement and and that this
Falls within most of that but I still
think there there's been so much back
and forth that at this hour I I just
don't have the clarity that I want to
make a decision what's your answer so
what are the choices again re if we were
to vote I'm going to PLL would you
recommend approval recommend denial
continue or push forward without a
recommendation at all to the right now I
I would push forward without a
recommendation so you'd send it to the
city council without a recommendation
Jim I do not see um that the uh
developer has not done everything um
asked according to the development
agreement so I would recommend approval
okay that was a couple double triple
negatives so you're you're saying that
you think that they fit within the the
the uh letter of the agreement okay
thank you
H that's an interesting way of putting
it given that it has not been motion is
not being made it's not being Su that's
why I'm polling right now you're not
actually voting that is basically Bing
but um no you can always change your
opinion I'm just trying to get an
understanding of where we
are late
um you know I tend to agree with with
him that you know I the the conditions
of the development agreement are
somewhat being met that things have been
moving in the right direction in terms
of
understanding the
concerns I still have concerns about the
wall the liability issues the the safety
of
it
but I yeah it's one wall among many
others in a community that's built on a
hillside so H I probably would say
approve MH okay
Michael I think I'm trending towards uh
not approving this right now okay
Scott
so in light of all the information all
the commentary um I still have some
reservations in regards to the slope and
of course the wall I think that's my my
big hang up yeah for me personally um so
at this time I think I would look for
some additional guidance and look to
move forward without recommendation so
push it forward to city council okay
Mr Lee I'm trying to work the microphone
um I think I I share the opinion that I
don't have a good
reason not to approve I'm going to do
one of these double negatives because I
think it meets all the pieces of the
development agreement but I don't know
that the applicant and the citizens have
had enough discussion on obviously
that pain point that issue specifically
the wall um so I'm going to recommend
move it forward to the council so that
they can have that time for discussion I
don't think keeping it here and
continuing our discussion will change it
okay thank you um so I I guess I'm going
to ask one more time if someone will
read the motion and I tell me if I'm
going out of bounds here but I'm going
to have somebody read the motion if
somebody's willing to Second it then I'd
like to call for a vote um approve
recommend approval recommend denial and
if there are more
abstentions than uh than the Quorum
allows then I I would look at that as um
a vote for moving forward with without a
recommendation is that fair sure sure
quick question I could have said
anything quick question Lucy um now if
we were to recommend or not recommend
does it go forward with all of our votes
so the council would see that there were
two three people
abstaining two against whatever the so
the minutes will absolutely reflect that
um we don't usually in the not or the
recommendation include that but you know
we could make that a part of it if
that's important to
you so there's seven of us here to move
forward we have to have a four yeses is
that correct yep okay so I just have one
quick question if the only way we could
get this added was would be to approve
it would this go forward with with if we
were to just pass it to the council
would this still go forward the new
condition we could recommend that right
yeah I'm I have to say I'm just having a
hard time hearing you guys um so could
you say what you said again Michael sure
thing
um my question was how do we get this
new condition added on here if we don't
adopt this approve this and we just pass
it forward to the council will this go
forward as
well so I I guess you can move it you
know we're in somewhat Uncharted
Territory um for me at least um so I
would recommend that you send it forward
with these conditions without a
recommendation so it's if that's the
vote that that right in following
Michael's scenario not what I'm
recommending that you actually do it's
still part of the ven I think yeah no I
think I think that's absolutely
fair you guys can take a vote on just to
add this to the staff report basically
so you do that separately as a
standalone item and then that'll stand
if there's a majority that support that
if there's not then it goes to just part
of the record okay thank you let's well
I move that way hold on time out time
out so the there there actually there
were um
four conditions that were added on the
motion those are the ones that I showed
tonight
so the new condition 28 29 30 and 31
that I showed would need are not part
they were part of the the memo that
never arrived okay so can we start with
somebody proposing that condition new
conditions 28 29 30 31 and 32 are added
to the record we'll vote on that first
right and then we'll go into this
potential motion okay I propose that
conditions 28 29 30 31 32 are added to
the vote or okay so we have we have a
motion do we have a second okay moot
motion by Michael seconded by Eric is
what I heard let's have uh all in favor
of these um conditions being added to
the staff report all in favor say I all
oppos
unanimous thank you all right now motion
for approval now I just want to say and
again it's late so correct me if I'm
wrong here
but if we if we vote to deny we have to
have some basis and understanding as to
why we denied it um that fits within you
know the sort of the legal definition of
of of this um development agreement as
to why we said no and and that's
particularly important for staff because
part of the motion the second part
is that we go and write findings and
conclusions that support the
recommendation so um since the materials
that we've prepared so far are
supporting approval um if if the
commission chooses to go another way we
it would just we would need to
understand the basis of that so we can
draft the findings and conclusions right
okay so who is brave enough to read the
motion and you have to read it all the
way through
Jim thank
you
wow okay uh I moved at the Urban Village
Development commission recommends
approval to the city council of the
Talis partial 7 preliminary plat file
number pp1 14-
0000001 as described and evaluated in
the staff report dated March 25th 2014
and plat drawings received February 19th
2014 briefing response memo dated April
1st 2014 briefing response memo number
two dated May 2nd 2014 and subject to
the conditions therein and as amended
tonight do I now need to go through each
condition
yes new condition number 28 prior to
acceptance of the second 9116 tank and
Reservoir Access Road the 752 Reservoir
and access road shall be removed from
the 50 foot wide Westerly buffer
following removal of the reservoir and
Road Disturbed areas shall be restored
with an appropriate native pallet of
ground cover shrubs and trees including
Evergreens the restoration plan shall be
permitted and performance bond posted
prior to final plat for either partial
seven or eight whichever comes first the
landscape restoration work shall be
completed installed inspected and
maintenance Bond posted prior to
acceptance of the second new 916 tank by
partial 7 new condition number 29 the
916 Reservoir aess Road shall be outside
the 50-ft buffer walls or grading may
occur within the buffer but shall be
restored with an appropriate native
pallet of ground cover shrubs and trees
including Evergreens Evergreens and as
determined by the designated official
the tanks May remain within the Westerly
buffer as approximately shown in The
applicant's Proposal of April 30 2014
the reservoir site footprint shall be
minimized while maintaining necessary
functionality as determined by the
designated official new condition number
30 revised the eastern wall design and
height in partial 7 to be no more than
39 ft this will be reviewed with permits
which include the wall design new
condition number 31 the northern End
Road end of Road a will terminate as a
driveway to the northernmost house
currently lot 17 the RightWay May extend
to the northern property line but no
extension of Road a will occur until
such time as the city council has made a
decision that would support such
extension this will be reviewed with the
final PL and with the site work permit
which includes roads new condition
number 32 explore redesigning the
northern Terminus of Road a to eliminate
or reduce the dead end portion options
could include moving Direct Drive SE to
the North or adding a
culdesac and I move that the Urban
Village Development commission direct
the development services department to
prepare findings of fact and conclusions
for review and approval by the UVC
chairman affirming the UV DC's decision
to move the Talis partial 7 preliminary
plat file number pp14
0000001 subject to the conditions listed
in the staff report of March 25 2014
briefing response memo of April 1 2014
briefing response memo number two of May
May 2 2014 and as amended tonight okay
before we continue on I want to ask one
question condition
31 is in conflict with condition 32 if
30 if I'm going to make the Assumption
if
32 uh if they're able to move the road
then 31 is moot no it's not because it's
talking about the extension of Road a as
oppos all the way to the north Northern
property line okay and so one friendly
Amendment there was a phrase that I
added up here that didn't get written
down there onto the end of 32 yes please
read that thank you okay I'm rereading
new condition number 32 explore
redesigning the northern Terminus of
Road a to eliminate or reduce the
deadend portion options include moving
Drive C to the North or adding a call
toac which doesn't meet fire service
standards okay so we have a motion do we
have a
second we do not have a
second new territory for me
here
okay so no opportunity to vote
then at this point I guess I'm going to
ask um who will then
support I'm going to ask two for two
things I'm going to ask if you're going
to support continuing this conversation
to another
meeting or if you prefer to um move this
forward uh and sorry recommend sorry
move this to the city council without a
specific
recommendation and which by the way I
want to ask a question about whether we
approve or uh recommend denial and it
goes to the city council either way is
there room for public comment when the
city council gets this no if we move
this to them without a recommendation is
there room for for public comment no
there's remember that one public hearing
that I just want to be be well we heard
that they didn't hear that yes so
there's one public hearing and um that's
it okay so and if we continue this there
very likely not another public hearing
is that correct
so um if you are if you're saying
continue this so that it comes back to
the UVC at at another meeting you would
need to continue the public you've
closed the public comment portion but
the public hearing is continued okay
it's good to
know all right so I'm going to ask for
two things I'm going to ask if you
prefer to continue this or to move it
forward without a
recommendation
okay I'm going to ask for your votes who
would like to continue this to another
date continue this hearing to another
date okay who would like to move this
forward to the city council without a
specific
recommendation I don't raise your hands
high
please okay
for Eric Shantel Scott and Carl and do
we need to qualify this the the non
recommendation
recommendation I mean do we have to give
a basis for it for for no
recommendation
Keith well I think that is your
recommendation I mean your
recommendation is to send it forward to
the city council without a position of
approval or denial okay so that is your
recommend so you have a recommendation
actually the majority of the full
members have voted to forward this
application to the council without a
specific recommendation from the
commission okay that's the motion that
you've made yes even though it wasn't
that formal okay should I formalize it I
think so so I guess what you could do is
then amend the motion that where it says
re recommends approval it the word
approval is substituted with move
forward to the council okay should he
reite reread that portion not the whole
thing um so how how about I just say
this for the record the commission by a
vote of four
affirmatives and three
extensions uh is recommending that this
um application moved to the city council
without a specific approval or denial
recommend Commendation and that the city
council take up this issue and make
their own determination based
on um their so too many words um I I
think what you're just saying is I mov
that the Urban Village Development
commission recommends so that's the same
um um
uh move forward this
application to the city
council um specific recommendation
without a specific recommendation for
Talis paral 7 blah blah blah I have to
say that I can't remember you can just
say what she
said what Lucy
said so we're moving this forward to the
city council without a specific
recommendation of approval or
denial so with that I want to thank the
staff and the applicant could you could
you actually call a vote oh sorry I need
to call the vote again okay yeah we that
so she isn't um the recording secretary
isn't entirely clear who voted which way
okay we'll do that we'll call for a vote
again to move this to the city council
without a recommendation all in favor
raise your
hand Carl Scott Shantel and
Eric all
uh yeah um so all
opposed any
extensions okay three extensions
did you get that Susan Carl
Scott I'm
abstaining and Michael's abstaining and
Sh and Jim's
abstaining
okay all right so now okay are we good
with that is that formal
enough okay now I want to thank
everybody for coming in providing their
comments I want to thank the commission
for their consideration I want to thank
the staff and the applicant for all the
work that theyve done I'm afraid that
probably nobody's satisfied and I that
bothers me um that's not how I like to
Pride over commission meetings but we
are where we are and that's where we are
so um do we need to talk about any any
new business we got lots of time
okay all right then at this time at
12:52 a.m. on May
7th
Jing this
meeting Stay classy San
Diego