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Planning Policy Commission - Special Meeting Auto captions

Wednesday, October 7, 2020

6:30 PM · 2h 41m
Topics tracked across meetings:
Olde Town Subarea Architectural Standards for Single Family - Duplex AB 7846 4/6
Amending IMC 16.35, Construction Hours AB 8045 1/2
1. CALL TO ORDER
1a
Commission Membership
packet pp.3
Staff report:
Planning Policy Commission About Staff Liaison Created in 1983, this commission serves as a Christen Leeson, Senior Planner policy advisory body to the Mayor and provides Email guidance and direction for Issaquah’s future growth through continued review and improvement to the Regular Members City’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan and related 2020 – Ron Faul land use documents. 2020 – Joan Probala 2022 – Joy Lewis Membership 2022 – Janice Carle The Planning Policy Commission is comprised of 2022 – Bill Rinehart seven regular members, with four-year terms; and 2022 – Jason Voiss several alternates, with two-year terms. All 2023 – Vacant members are appointed by the Mayor and subject to confirmation by the City Council. Terms expire Alternate Members April 30 of the year listed. For more information, 2020 – Robin Beukers see IMC 18.03.
2. AGENDA ITEMS
2a
Draft Olde Town Architectural Standards for Single Family Duplex, (D)
Keith Niven, Director, Community Planning Christen Leeson, Senior Planner · packet pp.5–29
Topics: Land Use
Staff report:
The City updated the Olde Town Subarea Plan in 2018. The Plan includes the following goals, policies and immediate action to preserve the traditional character of Olde Town.
0:00 really quickly oh shoot okay
0:08 okay that's that's great i appreciate it
0:12 good evening everybody i'd like to
0:14 welcome you to uh the virtual meeting of
0:17 for the discussion of the draft of the
0:19 old town architectural standards for
0:21 single and duplex uh
0:24 a single family duplex
0:26 so it's a joint meeting
0:28 and uh
0:29 with the development commission and the
0:31 planning commission
0:33 the
0:34 the planning policy commission and so
0:36 welcome everybody
0:38 uh we have some uh development
0:40 commission administrative business
0:42 to deal with first
0:45 i don't know who's on the line from the
0:47 development commission but uh
0:49 i i guess i would like to
0:51 ask if we have a forum or a quorum for
0:54 the development commission to approve
0:55 the minutes
0:57 okay would you if you're on the
0:58 development commission would you please
1:00 um by the way um richard i can see
1:04 people's um pictures
1:06 so uh this evening we have richard
1:08 sanford mike brennan mel morgan
1:12 kevin price brook shore
1:15 arthur schulte
1:17 i believe those are all the development
1:20 commission members
1:22 along with yourself of course
1:25 perfect so we clearly have a have a
1:28 quorum so
1:29 i would like to uh
1:31 ask the ask the development commission
1:33 i'm
1:34 making the assumption that you've had a
1:35 chance to read the minutes of july 15
1:38 2020
1:41 there are no comments or
1:44 changes i would recommend that we
1:46 administrate we approve those minutes
1:48 but i'll open it up for comments or
1:50 questions first are there any
1:55 could you
1:57 hold up your hand development
1:59 commissioners if you do not have any
2:02 comments or questions
2:07 that would indicate that mike brennan
2:09 has a comment or a question
2:11 no okay
2:15 uh and because i believe that um
2:18 chairperson so i cannot
2:20 see everyone's images i would ask if you
2:24 um for the development commissioners if
2:27 given that you have no questions or
2:29 comments
2:31 do you
2:32 agree to approve
2:37 can you raise your hand again so that we
2:39 have it on video
2:43 okay
2:44 that's the majority
2:47 okay so i'll make the presumption that
2:49 the minutes have been approved as
2:51 submitted i appreciate that
2:54 so our next order of business is uh
2:56 agenda item the next agenda item is the
2:58 draft old town architectural standards
3:01 and my understanding is kristin reeson
3:03 the senior planner is going to make a
3:04 presentation of those
3:08 before before you start ms leeson uh i'd
3:11 like to indicate that the audience will
3:13 be allowed to make comments at the end
3:15 of your
3:17 at the end of your
3:19 presentation
3:20 uh i don't see anything on the agenda
3:22 that has comments being made by the
3:24 development commission or the committee
3:26 the
3:27 the planning and the development
3:29 commission
3:30 or the
3:31 sorry
3:33 so uh i'm not sure how that's going to
3:35 work in lucy you might might help me
3:37 with that
3:40 i believe that this will follow a fairly
3:43 standard format
3:45 where kristin will make her presentation
3:49 if you have some questions
3:51 if the planning policy commission
3:54 or development commissioners
3:57 would like to um
4:00 ask questions for clarification
4:03 then you could maybe open it up to the
4:05 public and then follow that by
4:08 commissioner comments
4:11 chairperson so let me know how i can
4:13 support you
4:15 uh in identifying commissioners i don't
4:17 know if you can see the presentation or
4:20 their hands being raised
4:22 yeah like unfortunately i can't do that
4:25 i can't see anybody and so i'll just
4:28 trust you to identify the commissioners
4:30 that want to want to speak have the
4:33 members of the public signed up already
4:35 are there people waiting to speak
4:41 um i
4:43 am not sure who i don't know whether
4:46 doug or kristen is aware of uh any
4:50 public who have uh are in attendance
4:53 or who have indicated they would like to
4:55 speak this evening
4:57 at the moment i haven't received um
5:00 any sign up sheet for this meeting and
5:02 looking at the participants list i don't
5:04 see any members of the public on right
5:06 now
5:08 okay well i think from a process
5:10 perspective what we'll do is we'll have
5:11 the presentation made i'll ask the
5:13 commissioners if they have questions for
5:15 explanation
5:16 and understanding and if
5:18 after that i'll ask if there are any
5:20 comments to be made by the public and
5:21 then we'll adjourn so uh
5:24 miss leeson would you please begin
5:28 i would love to i have a i have a weird
5:30 situation going on i don't know if you
5:32 all can see me or not even though i'm
5:34 sharing my screen i have this up
5:36 uh webex is up on here twice so i'm not
5:39 sure which one is um working so well
5:41 we'll see what happens
5:42 so thank you for coming i'm kristen
5:45 leason senior planner with community
5:46 planning and development
5:48 and tonight we are here to discuss the
5:50 draft new architectural standards for
5:53 old town
5:55 so we're going to share a draft
5:57 of the code the draft code language with
5:59 you
6:00 we want to walk through another joint
6:02 commission meeting before our ppc
6:04 recommendation to make sure that we have
6:06 our ducks in a row and we want to
6:08 identify any
6:10 required edits that need to be made
6:12 before we move on with this
6:15 so so far what's happened and what's
6:17 coming and september we held a
6:19 stakeholder lunch with a smaller group
6:20 of people
6:21 and then in january we held a rainy and
6:24 cold but successful walkabout in
6:26 workshop
6:27 february 12 we held a
6:30 planning a joint planning policy
6:31 commission and development commission
6:32 meeting we went straight from there to
6:34 city council for one of their study
6:36 sessions on february 26th
6:39 we got a lot of feedback from a lot of
6:40 people so since then we have been
6:42 drafting our standards
6:45 we want to get back your feedback as i
6:47 mentioned before we go back for
6:50 a planning policy commission public
6:53 hearing in the fall of 2020 and then
6:55 tentatively we would go to the city
6:57 council for action in the winter of 2021
7:01 so i do before i move on i want to note
7:03 that we've had a slight change in things
7:05 the initial plan was to
7:08 update the existing cultural and
7:10 business district and multi-family
7:12 standards that are in place
7:13 as well as create new single family
7:16 standards but once we started editing
7:19 the existing standards we realized that
7:21 those needed to be unpacked quite a bit
7:23 more
7:25 we've decided to hold off on those until
7:27 2021
7:29 and
7:30 continue moving us so that we can talk
7:32 to the public it's kind of hard to get
7:33 out there and talk to them right now so
7:34 we really want to be able to engage them
7:36 in this process
7:37 and so we're going to hold off until
7:39 2021 but we are going to continue
7:40 obviously with the single family
7:42 standards
7:45 you all should have received a draft
7:48 preliminary
7:49 standards in your packet
7:51 i'm going to walk through this at a
7:53 pretty high level
7:55 if you all want to get into specific
7:57 architectural details and start talking
8:00 you know look closer to the ground
8:02 that's great but it's not my forte so we
8:04 are fortunate to have uh lucy slummon
8:07 piece niven and in the background in
8:09 case she has to our consultant samantha
8:11 suiter is here as well
8:14 so the topics and would you all let me
8:16 ask can i get a general feel would you
8:18 all like me to move
8:19 to do one topic at a time and then you
8:21 all can discuss it or do you want me to
8:22 move all the way through and then we can
8:24 talk about it at the end
8:32 any feedback
8:35 i would suggest one at a time
8:38 but that's that's mine
8:40 okay
8:42 i'm open to either yeah i think that
8:43 makes sense too
8:45 that's kind of where i was headed so
8:47 that's what we'll do
8:48 so our topics are mass and scale
8:50 roof design building materials and
8:52 colors windows doors and front porches
8:55 front yards and driveways and garages
8:58 feel like i'm asking you to pick a door
9:00 all right
9:01 so the area of applicability for the
9:03 single family standards is the single
9:05 family duplex zone so the standards
9:07 apply to any building within that zone
9:10 and it's highlighted here in the goldy
9:12 beigey color that we have
9:15 the first topic was mass and scale so
9:18 what we heard was don't regulate the
9:20 architectural style we like the eclectic
9:23 nature that's here let's let's allow
9:24 some creativity but what we don't want
9:26 are big boxes we don't want these huge
9:28 things that
9:29 tower over the rest of the existing
9:31 architecture in old town
9:34 so the intent is to promote um buildings
9:38 that are consistent with the scale and
9:40 character of the surrounding area
9:43 to avoid
9:44 essentially big boxes
9:46 and to encourage thoughtfully designed
9:48 buildings that once they're built people
9:49 say oh i really like that one i'm glad
9:51 it's here
9:52 so some of the ways to do that
9:55 are to
9:59 recess parts of the building so if your
10:00 building is 30 feet you cannot go more
10:02 than 30 feet on a building without any
10:05 kind of articulation or assessed
10:07 building so you can see that you can
10:10 your street facing facade would have to
10:12 have an entry feature such as a front
10:14 porch or some architectural detail you'd
10:16 have to have a change in plane
10:18 um maybe a recessed or a projected
10:21 portion of the facade and then like a
10:23 street facing gable might be up there
10:26 two-story buildings would have to vary
10:27 the building height and the roof shape
10:30 and all buildings would need to use
10:31 articulation techniques such as the
10:33 groupings of
10:34 um windows or balconies or trim details
10:40 and if you're looking for it in your
10:41 packet if you have it there in your
10:43 standards it's in it's on pages six and
10:45 seven so that's
10:47 what i have for mass and scale so any
10:49 thoughts questions comments
10:54 hi this is richard sanford development
10:56 commission just wanted to ask so in
10:58 terms of process
11:00 are we commenting on the parts of the
11:03 document that correspond to this part of
11:06 your presentation mass and scale then
11:09 as we're going through
11:11 yes yes okay and and just uh to clarify
11:15 um do we have any constraints on our
11:17 comments or scope is there
11:19 something in particular that you want
11:21 from us you know because i have
11:24 for example comments throughout the
11:26 document and they're on uh various uh
11:29 content issues do you want just those
11:31 addressed by each of us as we're going
11:34 through that part of the manuscript
11:36 yes and you know keep keep in mind i
11:39 think
11:40 um development commission
11:43 they
11:44 which serves huge benefits to bring this
11:46 to you but we need to make sure that
11:47 it's implementable and you're we need
11:49 you to help us make sure that when you
11:51 all are looking at something that mike
11:52 and although you don't look at single
11:54 family that often but if you were um
11:57 make sure that it's implementable for
11:58 you all is this something that we could
12:00 really look at and
12:01 regulate
12:03 we are still looking at it it's a draft
12:05 so if you see any smaller things like
12:08 grammatical or typos that kind of thing
12:10 we don't need that
12:11 um we need to know that it makes sense
12:15 okay so um should we go each with our
12:18 comments in order referring to each of
12:21 these uh go one by one and i guess this
12:24 is a question for the chairman
12:34 chairperson soa do you have a preference
12:37 how comments are
12:39 given by the various commissioners
12:50 okay um i can't uh doug yormick can you
12:55 see if uh richard soa the chairperson
12:59 is um still on the call he he's still on
13:03 the call he's muted right now and i'm
13:05 trying to unmute him and the computer is
13:08 not allowing me to do it
13:10 okay
13:12 um so
13:13 um in the interim
13:15 i'm going to
13:17 suggest
13:18 that um
13:20 maybe we get one comment from each
13:23 commissioner and just keep continuing
13:25 going round robin until all the
13:29 both dc and ppc commissioners who wish
13:32 to comment
13:33 have had an opportunity
13:41 since i'm on
13:43 talking anyway i want to kick this off
13:44 so we can move along okay
13:46 so i'm going to back up a little bit
13:48 before this i want to look at the title
13:50 page page 9 of 29 in our handout
13:54 um i see it's numbered 18.19
13:57 uh does that refer to a chapter of the
13:59 imc
14:00 then yes yes
14:03 okay so the current that current section
14:05 is reserved for cbd and adjacent
14:08 multi-family m and multi-family h
14:12 uh right so this is single family duplex
14:16 is that right
14:18 yeah
14:19 and so the intent is for this document
14:22 to become part of the imc
14:24 and i guess my i'm trying to get in mind
14:28 where this is in hierarchy of the
14:30 documents for example
14:32 um the central isoqua development design
14:35 guidelines are part of the sids
14:38 an external document from the imc that's
14:42 only included by reference
14:44 but is this directly part of the code
14:47 whereas the architectural standards for
14:49 centralistic wall are going to remain
14:52 part of an external document or i wonder
14:54 what the planning was
14:56 there so both um
15:00 so um imc 1819 contains
15:05 old town
15:06 in 1819
15:08 central isqua in 1819 a isqua highlands
15:13 in 1819b and talus in 1819 c
15:18 so in in many ways it functions as
15:22 sub areas
15:23 and so
15:24 this is an expansion
15:27 of the regulation for old town
15:30 to go beyond just multifamily and
15:33 commercial to include single family
15:36 whether it is a separate document or a
15:43 will be incorporated into code
15:45 publishing i'm not sure we know that at
15:47 this time
15:50 but i think
15:52 it will be as effective as adopted as
15:57 any of those other sections okay saying
15:59 said answers that i was just wondering
16:00 about the numbering of that section
16:07 that's my question
16:12 anyone else
16:13 uh mel raised his hand so yeah
16:16 this is mel and and um i'll jump in and
16:19 thanks for setting up the meeting and
16:21 all the work uh kristen that um
16:24 your team has been putting in on this so
16:28 in reading your the preamble to this and
16:31 then watching the city council
16:34 meeting with a discussion as you put it
16:36 i think they wanted uh a light hand in
16:39 terms of
16:40 restrictiveness of of what these
16:42 standards would be so some of my
16:44 questions
16:45 uh would sort of address that uh in
16:49 uh hopefully not too much detail but
16:51 want to be careful about language and in
16:53 this section for 1.2
16:56 and 1.3
17:00 it the first paragraph of 1.2
17:03 says specific strategies include
17:07 and then 1.3 says appropriate scaling
17:10 elements include
17:12 and to me that sounds like it could be
17:14 interpreted as the four items listed
17:18 under 1.2
17:19 are the only things that could be used
17:23 and so i'm wondering would it be better
17:25 to say specific strategies may include
17:29 on both of those bullet points if if we
17:32 assume that there are other things that
17:34 could meet that
17:40 lucy
17:42 snowman i'm going to defer to you on
17:44 this one
17:47 so um
17:49 mel that's a topic that we've been
17:50 discussing quite a bit
17:52 um as staff
17:54 and and i think kristin mentioned this
17:56 but i think it's worth discussing
17:59 that while you all
18:00 the commissioners are and the public are
18:03 reviewing this document
18:05 simultaneously staff are doing the same
18:08 thing
18:09 and um one of the big topics was um uh
18:14 the the exact phrases throughout the
18:17 document that you're identifying i think
18:20 our feeling is that these phrases and i
18:24 think this is an important point to
18:25 discuss
18:26 from staff's perspective these phrases
18:29 are too vague
18:31 because they
18:32 both
18:33 leave an infinite
18:36 number
18:37 and may not
18:38 capture the intent
18:40 now we did receive a comment from the
18:42 public that there was not enough
18:44 flexibility so i think the question that
18:47 would be wonderful to hear from the
18:49 commissioners and and i would encourage
18:51 all of you to discuss this now if you
18:54 have input
18:55 is we think it's important
18:58 we're not necessarily trying to remove
19:00 all flexibility
19:02 and i know the development commission
19:04 has opinions on that from the design
19:06 manual
19:07 at the same time we think it's very
19:09 important that the public the property
19:12 owners
19:14 their
19:14 consultants such as their architect
19:17 as well as staff
19:19 have some predictability
19:22 about which elements um will achieve
19:25 this
19:26 and so i think we would love to hear
19:28 from the commissioners uh your thoughts
19:30 about
19:31 predictability versus flexibility
19:36 i i guess from my perspective
19:40 again
19:42 listening to what the council members
19:44 were saying and and the impression i got
19:46 in terms of
19:47 how they wanted how restrictive they
19:49 wanted it to be my feeling would be more
19:54 may include instead of shall include
19:58 with the provision that it it i guess
20:00 gives i have a lot of faith in
20:03 the city staff to say we don't think
20:06 that actually
20:07 reduces the mass of the building what
20:09 you're proposing here are some other
20:11 things that could do it so i would be i
20:13 think a little more open to being less
20:15 restrictive just my thought
20:20 any other oh i'm sorry keith go ahead oh
20:23 i was just gonna say mel our
20:24 commissioner morgan my apologies keith
20:26 niven director of uh community planning
20:28 and development
20:29 uh so
20:31 so there's a quandary here in my mind
20:34 you know one is
20:35 uh that
20:37 that flexibility that i think you're
20:40 you're kind of striving to find
20:43 and staff's um
20:45 you know staff's ability to to get those
20:49 things when it's not prescribed in code
20:52 i think what where lucy and i um kind of
20:55 were leaning was rather than just give a
20:58 list that say strategies include it
21:01 might be strategies include but you have
21:04 to pick at least two
21:06 right so that there's maybe
21:08 treating it more almost like a menu of
21:10 choices but being it explicit so that
21:14 staff aren't arguing with applicants on
21:17 whether something is not mentioned meets
21:20 the intent or not that was that was i
21:22 think where we you know there's we're
21:24 going through a lot of litigation right
21:26 now over um ambiguity and code and i
21:29 think we're
21:30 looking at
21:32 regulating less things
21:35 but being clear on what the expectation
21:38 is so that not only us but the community
21:41 have certainty on what's going to come
21:43 out of this so for whatever that's worth
21:45 that's what i wanted to put on the table
21:48 and the only thing that i would add
21:51 to that explanation is we do think it's
21:54 important to be clear are you supposed
21:56 to do all the things on the list if you
21:59 to keith's point if you do one of the
22:01 things on the list
22:04 so that it um
22:05 [Music]
22:07 that a user whether staff or the public
22:10 would understand and and i just want to
22:12 say even though we're maybe doing this
22:14 round robin of comments i would when we
22:17 have a topic like this that a
22:18 commissioner has raised i would
22:20 encourage all the commissioners
22:22 to participate in the conversation
22:25 rather than
22:26 waiting until it is their opportunity to
22:29 comment so feel free to join in
22:31 commissioners
22:34 all right this is richard can you hear
22:36 yes
22:37 okay
22:38 i'm uh
22:40 i think that the the
22:42 assailant point in both 1.2 and 1.3 are
22:46 the the sense that uh for instance a
22:48 two-story building she'll vary the
22:50 building height the roof shape to reduce
22:52 the mass the building is received from
22:53 the street
22:55 specific saying specific strategies may
22:57 include directs the people to be to be
23:00 able to direct any developer or any
23:03 uh citizen to be able to look at that
23:04 and say
23:06 is my recommendation doing this or not i
23:08 don't think the and the same with the
23:10 facade articulation it says appropriate
23:13 scaling elements uh
23:16 shall may include
23:19 this kind it gives them the idea that
23:21 this is what they ought to be looking at
23:22 the development commission i think would
23:24 generally feel pretty comfortable if
23:26 somebody
23:27 came up with a different idea i'm not
23:29 sure what that would be but if they come
23:31 up with a different idea we could put it
23:33 push it back to say well does it does it
23:36 comply with the
23:37 the general sense of what the
23:40 the criteria is supposed to be doing i i
23:43 would i think no commissioner morgan's
23:45 on on a good thought there of
23:48 that
23:50 not necessarily i don't think we're
23:52 going to see a lot of weird stuff i
23:53 guess is what i'm saying
23:58 hello
23:59 this is commissioner
24:01 price from the development commission um
24:04 i guess when when i think about it i
24:06 think about it
24:08 a different way i think i think most
24:10 people look at this through the lens of
24:13 themselves as a homeowner and if they're
24:15 going to be remodeling
24:17 and so they should but
24:19 i look at it through the lens of a
24:21 builder or developer coming through
24:24 and
24:25 i i think
24:27 we need something that's more
24:34 help preserve and maintain the character
24:38 of of this district and
24:41 i that said i wonder is there a
24:44 mechanism for departures
24:48 so so if if a homeowner is trying to
24:50 perform
24:52 but potentially they don't have the
24:53 budget or the means
24:56 is is there is there a mechanism for
24:58 departures i guess
25:01 i would err more on the side of
25:04 these guidelines need to be well as
25:07 written i think they're pretty good but
25:10 i think
25:11 less flexible at times i think the
25:13 commission needs footing i think staff
25:15 needs footing and i think the applicant
25:16 needs footing
25:18 that's predictable
25:20 and and then i had one other question on
25:23 that point
25:24 section 1.2
25:26 a two-story building now does that apply
25:28 to buildings greater than 30 feet in
25:30 width or is that all two-story buildings
25:33 and should that language say all
25:35 two-story buildings
25:37 that would be all two-story buildings
25:39 and so that clarification could be made
25:42 yes okay
25:44 thank you that's all i had for now
25:47 are there other commissioners that would
25:48 like to speak on the topic of uh sort of
25:51 predictability versus flexibility
25:54 this is this is doug jormeck assistant
25:56 planner with community planning and
25:58 development um
26:00 we have a question from commissioner
26:03 lewis in the chat and before she goes i
26:06 wanted to just mention to everybody that
26:08 that's here if you can use the chat
26:11 function to say whether you have a
26:13 question or a comment so then we can go
26:15 through them in order instead of kind of
26:17 jumping all over the place
26:23 this is why doug is the trained manager
26:25 and i am not
26:28 thank you doug uh commissioner joy lewis
26:30 here i wanted to start out by saying uh
26:31 thanks for um everybody who joined this
26:34 meeting a lot of times when we're
26:36 looking at enforcing code having dc
26:39 whisper into our ear and be able to give
26:41 us your institutional knowledge is huge
26:43 for us to be able to say that even
26:45 though you guys don't necessarily look
26:46 at these projects at this incidental
26:48 level for single family homes being able
26:50 to help us with really what can be
26:52 enforced is hugely helpful so i want to
26:54 start out with a thank you and you know
26:56 keith kind of took my thunder to be
26:58 honest so um i love um
27:00 this section because i think it's one of
27:02 the most concrete ways that we can
27:03 really um direct
27:05 and preserve the neighborhood
27:08 you know we did hear from council
27:09 wanting to have a lighter touch
27:11 but i think that this is a particular
27:13 section where we need to have a stronger
27:15 hand
27:16 and i had the idea of saying why don't
27:18 we actually specifically say you need to
27:21 pick at least two out of our list for
27:22 instance or maybe that's three depending
27:24 on how council feels but being able to
27:27 give applicants the choice of saying you
27:29 can either um you know you can either
27:31 have um
27:32 you know a change in roof line you can
27:34 either have a balcony you can you don't
27:35 have to have them all but you have to at
27:37 least have some sort of combination and
27:38 then that gives them the leeway to feel
27:41 like they're having some sort of say
27:43 rather than we have to do all these
27:44 different things so um when keith
27:46 started going into his suggestions about
27:48 conversations with lucy um i i'm really
27:51 a big fan of making it more concrete and
27:54 actually making it more prescriptive
27:56 and saying you get to pick out of these
27:57 multiple choices and so i think that
27:59 makes a lot more sense to me
28:01 as far as a um as an implementation
28:04 rather than leaving it kind of more
28:06 open-ended so that's kind of where i'm
28:08 coming from on the map
28:13 the next
28:14 person uh is arthur
28:18 yes thank you
28:20 yes this is arthur can you hear me okay
28:24 okay perfect uh thank you this is arthur
28:26 with the development commission um i
28:28 echo the the previous comments regarding
28:30 you know a more prescriptive path and
28:32 more restrictions i you know i think you
28:34 know everyone likes options um you know
28:37 i think the other benefit of that is
28:39 you know some of these developments you
28:41 know they're being bought up or lots
28:43 they're being bought up by developers
28:45 right and
28:46 they don't always have the best interest
28:48 in mind in terms of the community i mean
28:50 sometimes it is about maximizing
28:52 floor area
28:54 reducing cost and so on so i think if
28:56 some of those restrictions are in place
28:59 that will help guide them
29:01 um so that you know when it comes to
29:03 developing the property and selling it
29:05 later on um you know the the building
29:08 fits the character uh you know of the
29:10 community so that was my comment thank
29:12 you
29:15 commissioner shore
29:19 hello
29:20 brook shore
29:23 as i was reading the document i felt it
29:26 was
29:28 fairly prescriptive with the shells but
29:31 i thought that the
29:32 includes
29:34 kind of weakened those shells a bit
29:37 and
29:39 so i do agree with the um
29:41 idea of including a certain number of
29:43 items that should be used
29:45 because that would
29:47 um allow some very prescriptive
29:51 things but also allow for a little bit
29:53 of creativity too
29:56 that's all
29:58 commissioner brennan
30:01 thank you
30:03 it's always the tug of war between
30:05 prescriptive which provides
30:06 predictability and
30:08 and they less
30:11 prescriptive and more flexible which
30:14 allows more creativity but you also get
30:17 a lot more variation so a question was
30:19 asked earlier i think commissioner price
30:21 asked about
30:23 the option for deviations or
30:26 administrative adjustment of standards
30:27 and what the process would be or if
30:30 there's if that has been
30:32 integrated into the thinking here in the
30:34 administrative provisions
30:36 so that if you run into situations where
30:39 like
30:39 a lot configuration or a corner lot or
30:42 something that's not well
30:44 dealt with in the more prescriptive
30:47 approach that
30:48 is defined in some of these um design
30:51 standards there's a an off-ramp that can
30:54 applied and some discretion granted to
30:58 administration
30:59 to make those changes not not an arduous
31:02 process but something because what i
31:04 really appreciate about this the way
31:06 this is set up is for each of these
31:08 sections you provide an intent statement
31:10 here's what we're intending to do or out
31:12 of the outcome we want from these
31:14 provisions and that's that's kind of
31:16 helpful in providing that guidance but
31:18 anyway the question back to
31:20 to the staff is
31:22 administratively what is the thinking
31:24 about deviations or alterations of
31:28 standards
31:33 so as uh
31:34 as um keith nevin director of community
31:37 planning and development so
31:39 as lucy and kristen mentioned earlier um
31:42 we're reviewing this concurrently with
31:44 you guys so so i'll be candid uh
31:48 commissioner brennan and commissioner
31:50 price we had not thought about
31:51 departures at least i had not um if
31:54 ultimately we
31:56 land with uh um a more
32:00 menu type but prescriptive clearly
32:02 prescripted set of regulations i like
32:05 the idea for departures
32:07 um and i think we would have to figure
32:09 out
32:10 how
32:11 to incorporate that so everything is not
32:14 a departure but and and you know in the
32:16 development agreement in for issaquah
32:19 highlands that we had once upon a time
32:21 there was a certain amount of quirks
32:23 that were allowed to kind of help with
32:25 that creativity and and that's kind of
32:27 what came to mind when commissioner
32:30 price brought up departure so i think
32:31 it's definitely something that
32:34 uh probably wants to have some lags
32:36 depending on how the rest of the
32:37 conversation about the manual goes
32:41 i will though just point out that
32:43 central isquad design manual does not
32:45 allow any departures
32:47 uh so uh we we have uh a couple of
32:51 different uh poles that we're operating
32:54 between
32:55 and i'm not saying that that
32:57 establishes
32:59 or removes the ability to do it i'm just
33:02 making sure that the planning policy
33:04 commissioners who may not um be familiar
33:08 as familiar as the development
33:10 commissioners are
33:12 with the way that um particular document
33:15 was decided
33:18 i can't raise my hand but mr richard
33:20 again
33:21 i think that
33:23 the
33:24 the 1.2 and 1.3 as far as the standard
33:27 are really defining an end result
33:29 like it's writing a specification that
33:31 says this is what this is what we want
33:34 and we don't
33:35 i don't
33:36 i don't know that we need to limit i
33:39 guess my sense is we don't need to limit
33:41 the
33:42 creativity of the people that may
33:44 may be able to come up with something i
33:46 think we've given them good ideas i
33:48 think that the
33:49 document does give them some good ideas
33:52 on i guess i'm not
33:54 not too keen on the idea of saying you
33:56 have to pick two or
33:58 three or one or whatever it is but just
34:00 say here's the end result here's what
34:02 our expectation is uh here's some ways
34:04 that you can redeem that obligation
34:08 show us what you got
34:11 we might be surprised they might come up
34:12 with something really terrific
34:16 so one one thing i would one way i might
34:19 describe that for the commissioners to
34:22 consider is
34:24 the way staff
34:26 the terminology staff use is performance
34:29 standards versus prescriptive standards
34:32 and i believe what chairperson soa may
34:35 be describing
34:36 our performance standards in which you
34:38 describe the expected performance
34:41 and not necessarily the methodology for
34:43 achieving it
34:45 prescriptive standards are as their name
34:47 prescribing
34:49 how you achieve that it must be five it
34:51 must be
34:53 this this or this
34:54 and
34:55 they each have their advantages and
34:57 disadvantages and um i'm appreciating
35:01 hearing
35:02 the
35:03 distinctions
35:04 i'm just acknowledging that we use both
35:07 tools in the city
35:12 uh commissioner schulte
35:18 you're muted commissioner schulte
35:22 already mentioned my previous comment
35:24 thank you lucy
35:27 that was earlier
35:28 i said question but it was going to be
35:30 comment
35:31 sorry
35:32 uh and then commissioner voss
35:37 jason voice here with the planning
35:39 policy commission
35:40 let me just begin by saying thank you
35:42 staff and thank you development
35:44 commission for inviting us
35:47 into your virtual home tonight
35:49 this is i believe your guys's meeting
35:51 time
35:52 so i do also want to say thank you for
35:54 the clarification because reading
35:56 that i was a little concerned that they
35:59 had to pick all of these different
36:00 options so i'm in agreement i think
36:03 having a menu a choice of options
36:05 is a good idea allowing people to pick
36:08 but not giving them a free reign because
36:10 unfortunately i am not of the belief
36:12 that everyone's going to have a good
36:14 option
36:16 sometimes we all know that you don't get
36:17 to pick your neighbors
36:19 i do having a menu where people can pick
36:23 multiple different items to
36:25 accomplish what the city and what we're
36:26 trying to do is a good idea
36:29 my question for staff
36:31 is you have cities like clyde hill and
36:33 medina who are going through this
36:35 process right now
36:37 has anyone looked at
36:39 actually reaching out to your guys's
36:41 colleagues out there
36:42 clyde hill
36:44 are tearing down old houses mixed in
36:46 with new
36:48 new houses and new construction
36:50 on the daily basis and you're seeing how
36:52 these two cities are doing it i'm
36:54 wondering if anyone's reached out to
36:55 them
36:56 to kind of understand what their
36:58 standards are because they've done a
36:59 pretty good job with it
37:03 i would uh turn to kristen and
37:06 samantha yeah this is kristin leeson i
37:09 haven't looked
37:11 locally i know that our consultant has
37:15 looked at
37:16 many other cities particularly on the
37:18 west coast
37:20 that she has either worked with or is
37:21 aware of but i have not looked at clyde
37:23 hill and medina so worth worth a look
37:26 yes
37:29 yeah and i'll jump into there are some
37:31 areas that want to preserve
37:34 a historic landmark area um and the
37:37 difference with with issaquah with old
37:39 town is that it's not a historic
37:41 neighborhood um there's this eclectic
37:43 character so um
37:45 in terms of a lot of examples out there
37:47 this is more on the flexible side of
37:49 things where we want to allow
37:51 this eclectic mix of different styles in
37:53 architecture
37:56 i think that's a good point we
37:58 definitely want to look and see what
38:00 other people are doing but there's
38:03 i i guess this goes back to city
38:04 council's um
38:06 comment about having a lighter touch
38:08 because it is on that more flexible
38:10 eclectic mix on on the spectrum
38:20 um that was the last uh
38:24 person who indicated a comment on this
38:26 topic
38:28 okay so if there are no others i will
38:31 move on
38:32 well that was the last one on
38:34 commissioner soha's
38:37 our commissioner sanford's list i don't
38:39 know if other commissioners
38:42 if they could indicate in the chat
38:44 if there are any other
38:47 topics related to mass and scale
39:00 i'm gathering that commissioner sanford
39:02 has some additional
39:04 comments thank you you saw me typing
39:06 lucy i did it okay
39:09 yeah i have several actually so i don't
39:11 know if we're well i'll i'll start and
39:15 with one and then we'll see where we go
39:16 from there i guess
39:18 i'm looking at on page 14. i'm looking
39:20 at 1.3 it includes the word further
39:23 does that mean that both 1.2 and 1.3 are
39:27 required
39:29 and 1.2 refers to two-story
39:32 dwellings so do these would these two
39:35 sections apply only if a building is
39:37 two-story
39:43 commissioner sanford just to make sure
39:45 that um we are tracking when you say
39:48 page 14
39:50 correct sorry page 14 of 29 in the
39:52 handout
39:54 and i guess that's i can't even read the
39:56 document
39:58 page number that would be
40:00 i guess it's it's page six in the
40:04 in the document
40:05 page 14 of 29 the handout and what i'm
40:08 referring to there is 1.2 and 1.3
40:13 this is kristen loosen
40:14 and yes i mean if you have if you have a
40:17 two-story building
40:18 then yes it is required that you vary
40:21 the building height or roof shape to
40:22 reduce the mass of the building and you
40:25 would need to do articulation techniques
40:27 such as window detailing or window
40:29 groupings
40:30 or changing color or material if you
40:32 have a one story building obviously you
40:34 only have to do 1.3
40:40 that would be required for one story
40:46 okay so
40:49 and if so if it's one story
40:52 uh the articulation technique would not
40:55 be required if the building is over 30
40:57 feet
41:00 and if you have so
41:06 if the building if the building is two
41:08 stories
41:09 you have to do 1.2
41:11 and 1.3 right if the building is one
41:14 story you just do 1.3
41:18 unless it's longer than 30 feet long
41:22 and then 1.1 would come in whether
41:26 it was
41:27 two-story or one-story okay and i guess
41:30 my comment was i just didn't quite
41:31 understand what was going on there so
41:33 maybe some wording could clarify that a
41:35 bit
41:43 did you want me to go on or do other
41:44 commissioners have comments
41:46 a few more on this section
41:50 keep going
41:51 uh it appears that commissioner price
41:55 has a comment
42:00 hi yeah i had one more comment i was a
42:02 little confused about um
42:04 well it's commenting the question um the
42:07 30 feet thing so it applies to width
42:09 does that apply to the length of a
42:11 building i think good tools to regulate
42:13 bulk mass and scale are planes like roof
42:16 plane roof ridge wall plane
42:20 does it also apply to the length
42:25 well it applies to the street facing
42:27 facade so
42:29 i i guess
42:31 with
42:32 i see that as width but something is as
42:35 length but it's it's the piece that
42:36 faces the the front of the building that
42:38 faces the street
42:40 agreed and so that's the only thing up
42:42 for grabs really at this point is that
42:45 the question okay and so we're not
42:47 interested in regulating the the side
42:49 walls or the ridge lines or the planes
42:52 um it's really just about the street
42:54 facade and how the
42:55 it presents itself to the the street
43:00 street front correct okay well then i i
43:04 guess
43:04 i'll reserve my comments
43:08 i just think those those things are good
43:10 methods to regulate
43:12 mass bulk and scale
43:16 but i think you've captured them all
43:17 well
43:19 where you're wanting to achieve
43:24 those goals so that's all i have
43:28 commissioner sanford
43:30 yeah so i guess we've heard basic
43:33 fundamental concern here from the
43:35 community and the city council the
43:38 concern is they want to prevent box
43:41 buildings right huge boxes so i'm
43:44 wondering if
43:45 the requirements adequately do that for
43:47 example
43:48 could i build a building that is 30 feet
43:52 wide with one window on one floor
44:02 in other words these a lot of these
44:05 articulation and mass reduction
44:08 standards only kick in at over 30 feet
44:10 so i'm wondering if i could have a 30
44:12 foot building with one window on the
44:14 second floor according to the standards
44:16 that we currently have now
44:19 well if it was
44:20 two stories it would have some
44:22 additional requirements
44:24 um i i think one of the uh challenges in
44:28 finding the best way to to have a
44:30 discussion about this is
44:33 windows and doors are another uh section
44:37 of the uh
44:41 standards another uh sort of division
44:44 subsection if you will and um so
44:48 the challenge is that some some tools
44:51 address
44:52 one section and some address another so
44:56 we recognize that windows um play a role
45:01 and that has been
45:03 described more generally
45:05 in this section
45:07 and is somewhat more specific in the
45:09 windows and doors section
45:13 yeah i guess my reading there was that i
45:14 think it only called for one window per
45:18 floor back in the window section but
45:20 we're getting a bit ahead there but it
45:22 was in the area of general concern about
45:25 creating a big
45:27 undefined unarticulated mass building
45:30 you know that my concern was related to
45:33 i was wondering if the is there an
45:36 overall far limit in the code that
45:37 applies to a single family house in
45:40 other words
45:41 the you know these standards are getting
45:43 at a lot of that concern regardless
45:46 regarding enormous mass buildings but i
45:49 wonder
45:49 could
45:50 um a property owner buy a lot and
45:53 essentially fill it up with a one-story
45:56 building with no yard or anything else
45:58 around it hi this is this is kristin
46:01 leeson and
46:02 you know there are impervious surface
46:04 requirements so there are there are no
46:06 far standards for single-family homes
46:09 there are impervious surface
46:11 requirements though so the impervious
46:13 surface in this area is 50 percent
46:15 is what they can do
46:18 so you can fill up an entire lot with a
46:20 single with a one-story single family
46:22 home
46:23 and the uh impervious surface
46:26 would include the building
46:28 driveways walkways
46:31 terraces
46:32 anything that would impede the
46:34 absorption of
46:36 rainfall
46:38 is considered impervious surface so it's
46:41 not even that you could fill up half the
46:43 lot
46:44 with a home
46:45 unless you
46:47 eliminated all other
46:50 surfaces
46:51 okay great thank you
46:53 and
46:54 i guess my only other comment in this
46:57 section is
46:58 pages 15 and 17.
47:00 um they go they kind of go into the
47:02 background about character of old town
47:04 and so on and when i read this those
47:06 really struck me as more conceptual
47:08 introductory kinds of information i
47:11 almost expected those pages to be
47:13 flipped in other words in those two
47:15 sections to occur
47:16 before the actual uh how-to sections so
47:20 the what or the rationale comes before
47:21 the how-to just a comment
47:26 yeah i think that's all i have
47:32 thank you commissioner sanford does
47:33 anyone have any additional comments on
47:36 mass and scale
47:42 hearing
47:43 oh i'm sorry go ahead
47:45 i really did like the diagrams and and
47:48 the the dimensions shown on those that
47:50 seem to it really seemed to clarify a
47:53 whole lot uh it just made it it made it
47:55 pretty obvious to be able to take a look
47:57 at a picture and see it so i i want to
47:59 commend
48:00 the consultant or whoever whoever did
48:02 this that i i think that's that was
48:04 really good piece of work
48:07 thank you right
48:12 okay so i'm going to move on
48:16 i think
48:20 there we go
48:21 it's a roof design
48:23 so there was there was a
48:24 bit of a co
48:26 disagreeing opinions here on ruth design
48:29 so the community and the ppc in dc
48:32 wanted to prohibit flat roofs
48:34 the council however wanted to allow some
48:37 flexibility and allow flat roofs as long
48:41 potentially they were green roofs or
48:42 rooftop decks
48:47 we want to ensure that the roof is
48:48 complementary to the style of the
48:50 building
48:51 and that you don't have large unripped
48:54 uninterrupted expanses of roof that can
48:56 really contribute to the massing of the
48:57 building
48:58 so the roof shape is required to be
49:02 coordinated or
49:04 consistent with the massing to create
49:06 human scale and then any roof that's
49:09 over 40 feet in width
49:11 must include a change in roof shape roof
49:14 line pitch or gable to break it up and
49:16 then flowers were proposing to allow
49:18 flat roofs but at least 50 percent of
49:20 the flat roof should be either for a
49:22 green roof
49:23 or a rooftop deck
49:25 that can be used sort of as a as a
49:28 as an open space
49:30 so okay
49:32 that was quick
49:33 but that's roof design so any comments
49:36 there
49:38 commissioner price
49:42 hi thank you um i have one comment on
49:45 2.2
49:47 um and i i like this guideline a lot
49:50 i i regulate a similar guideline in
49:53 other work i do
49:54 and
49:55 the the one thing that i can always fall
49:57 back on
49:59 is the word plane
50:02 in it it
50:04 you can break up a roof
50:06 many different ways but if that plane
50:08 left to right horizontal plane
50:11 is not somehow articulated broken up
50:14 altered deviated then um
50:17 it it doesn't meet the guidelines so
50:20 that's a suggestion for me to add the
50:22 word plane if you want
50:24 um part two of that is i would be in
50:28 favor of
50:30 flat roofs if they provide amenity space
50:35 ecologic function which i think is what
50:37 we're saying is it is it an activated
50:40 deck terrace uh or is it is it a green
50:43 roof and then if those make their way
50:45 into this then then
50:47 those two have a limit on their size
50:51 that's all i have thank you
50:54 commissioner lewis
50:58 commissioner joy lewis i uh i had a
51:02 question but first i wanted to mention
51:04 um kind of a concern i had about the
51:06 flat roofs when we had spoken about this
51:09 in our previous meeting before the work
51:11 session the council did we had talked
51:13 about wanting the availability for
51:16 homeowners to be able to have more
51:17 efficient homes such as with solar
51:19 paneling the concern um with like for
51:22 instance allowing for um green roofs is
51:25 maintaining them right so you can put in
51:28 a green roof and have it uh fail have a
51:31 homeowner that decides to not maintain
51:33 it in a way that then you have a blight
51:36 effectively so um wanting to say yes
51:39 we're going to give this variance to be
51:40 able to have very specific types of flat
51:43 roofs i'm a proponent for but i worry
51:45 about how we make sure that a home that
51:47 maybe then is not being maintained can
51:49 then flip and become the opposite um
51:53 and then as far as like doing like a
51:55 rooftop deck i mean i feel like that's
51:58 like the cali party girl almost
51:59 everybody loves the idea of a rooftop
52:01 deck um but i come at it from my um from
52:04 sitting on the ubdc
52:06 um and really we talked a lot about how
52:09 we wanted to encourage community and
52:12 there seems to be these discussions
52:13 about um
52:14 encouraging people to be able to really
52:16 engage with their neighbors in a way and
52:19 bringing them in the front of their home
52:20 right that's why we have different
52:21 regulations from the alley versus the
52:23 front facing side of the home how do we
52:25 want people at a street level being able
52:27 to come out and i feel like rooftop
52:29 decks don't necessarily encourage that
52:31 the same way that maybe a front porch
52:33 does so i'm a little more cautious about
52:36 that variance for a flat roof that i
52:38 wanted to mention because
52:40 when we think about old town and
52:41 creating and really protecting this
52:43 community um that's where i kind of
52:46 would start to have a little bit of a
52:47 concern so i wanted to mention the
52:48 differences between those two
52:52 thank you commissioner morgan
52:55 thank you lucy um i'm going to throw in
52:57 one quick just comment before question
53:00 and the and this would be on two one and
53:02 two two
53:03 if there are possible strategies include
53:06 and then on two two it's appropriate
53:08 strategies include and i guess that
53:10 would just get back to that question of
53:12 is it may or shall and then
53:14 uh difference between possible and
53:16 appropriate and something i'm sure
53:17 you'll work out
53:20 my question i've got a few questions
53:21 i'll just do one at a time here the on
53:24 the
53:25 2.2
53:29 if i have this right no i'm sorry on 2.4
53:32 on the flat roofs
53:36 exceptions to the standard shall be made
53:39 for green roofs and rooftop rooftop
53:41 decks i didn't understand what that
53:44 meant in terms of how the exception
53:46 would work would it mean that
53:48 um any green roof or rooftop deck
53:51 doesn't count
53:53 towards the 50 percent um
53:57 anyway if you could explain how you
53:59 think that would work and if that needs
54:00 to be more defined
54:02 thank you
54:03 hi this is kristin leeson and i think
54:07 you and i would say it different ways
54:09 but i think it's the same thing
54:11 and that
54:13 you can
54:14 you can only have 50 percent unless
54:17 you do
54:19 a green roof or rooftop deck
54:21 in which case you could do more of that
54:24 but fifty percent of that rooftop deck
54:26 has to be green roof or or uh deck
54:30 does that make sense
54:33 it uh sort of but it doesn't seem to
54:35 read that
54:36 way i guess i'm thinking if i'm a
54:39 developer and i said okay i've got a
54:41 i've got 10 square feet of of
54:43 green roof so now i can do 80 of my roof
54:51 yeah i i guess my thought would be it
54:53 seems like it needs
54:54 some more explanation of how the
54:56 exception would work
54:58 okay
54:59 yeah
55:03 and i've got a couple other questions
55:05 questions but i'll come back
55:09 commissioner sanford
55:11 yeah uh thanks lucy on 2.6
55:15 this is about colors of roof material
55:20 we allow metal roof in 2.5 what about a
55:23 green metal roof then would that be
55:25 excluded
55:32 i'm just asking because i see lots of
55:34 green metal roughs that uh you know
55:36 pretty attractive seem to suit
55:38 the general uh context so
55:45 so this is kristen lisa and i'm going to
55:47 jump in here and i'm going to say
55:50 we need to look at it again but i
55:52 interpreted as yes
55:54 as long as it fell kind of within that
55:56 color scheme
56:00 that maybe need to be clarified but i
56:01 believe so
56:04 yes okay yeah thanks in that 2.5 it
56:06 didn't seem like you know this was a
56:08 reference to the color scheme that had
56:09 been used elsewhere but this suddenly
56:11 got very specific that we wanted more
56:13 muted dark tones for the roof here that
56:16 would preclude anything else so i just
56:19 wanted clarification on that thank you
56:22 mr morgan
56:24 yeah actually that was my one of my
56:26 other comments um the questions on that
56:29 and i guess it was why do we specify
56:32 just medium and dark partly when i look
56:34 on the previous page on on
56:38 page 23 i think it is a 37
56:42 one of the examples they show existing
56:44 homes has a very light colored
56:46 roof on it and so i wonder if is there
56:50 and we talk about it being eclectic is
56:52 there a reason why we want to be that
56:53 restrictive on roof color
57:01 um i i would um i uh
57:05 kristen or sam may have some specific uh
57:08 thoughts about this
57:10 um i would add that
57:14 in general the lighter colors maybe not
57:17 the example and thank you for pointing
57:19 that out
57:21 there are uh
57:24 sometimes used very light colors which
57:26 tend to be more reflective
57:29 um and i think that there was a desire
57:33 to have that blend the roof blend in
57:35 with the overall building
57:38 and given that um
57:41 i think that desire there that may have
57:43 led to it
57:44 um i don't know if there is a limit um
57:48 to what what you know what would be
57:50 considered medium for instance
57:54 it's a good point that we need to
57:56 clarify
58:04 i believe uh sorry my mouse has just
58:07 disappeared uh
58:10 commissioner schulte
58:12 yes this is arthur with the development
58:14 commission thank you um
58:16 i guess i've got a comment uh looking at
58:18 2.5 and 2.6
58:21 i almost feel
58:23 like those could be merged together
58:26 2.6
58:28 i could see that potentially being an
58:30 issue if
58:32 you have a small footprint for you know
58:34 one story home you know in that case the
58:37 roof really is the dominant
58:39 almost the dominant feature um of that
58:42 building so
58:43 you know it's like how do you address
58:46 that at that point um
58:48 seems like there might be an opportunity
58:49 to actually merge 2.6 and
58:52 incorporate some of the the earth tones
58:54 that you're
58:56 you're trying to uh you know describe
58:58 there in 2.5
59:02 you know with these smaller building
59:03 footprints i mean roof roof materials
59:05 tend to dominate on some of these
59:07 smaller homes
59:09 that's just kind of my thoughts thinking
59:11 out loud
59:14 commissioner morgan
59:16 you know um thank you lucy had a comment
59:19 on 2.2 or sort of a question comment
59:23 um the roof surface visible
59:28 shall not extend 40 feet without a
59:29 change in shape and pitch and so forth
59:32 and i wondered why the previous section
59:33 on mass and scale
59:35 uh came into play when we went beyond 30
59:39 feet and so i'm wondering why would we
59:41 allow our roof to go up to 40 feet
59:43 without change in pitch and scale would
59:46 30 feet
59:48 be more appropriate for requiring some
59:50 kind of break and so forth
59:53 and a related question to that
59:56 visible from the street does it only
59:58 mean the roof line that is parallel to
1:00:01 the street or does it also mean if i can
1:00:03 see the roof that goes back into the lot
1:00:06 beyond that distance does that count too
1:00:09 so this is this is kristin leeson and
1:00:12 our consultant sam suter and i had a
1:00:14 long discussion about this today and she
1:00:16 still just explains it better than i do
1:00:18 so i'm going to defer to sam really
1:00:20 quickly
1:00:21 sam so the intention with uh the roof
1:00:24 line being longer is that if you have a
1:00:26 you know 29 and a half foot building
1:00:29 then you could have a nice healthy
1:00:31 overhang
1:00:33 for your roof and 40 feet might be a
1:00:35 little bigger but
1:00:36 i don't know it felt kind of silly to do
1:00:38 you know 38 foot of a roof expand that
1:00:42 was the intention though um that you
1:00:44 know for those smaller module
1:00:46 houses um similar to some of those more
1:00:48 traditional you know
1:00:50 mid-century homes with the pyramid roof
1:00:52 or something that you could still do
1:00:53 something similar to that without having
1:00:56 to have an elaborate roof design um
1:00:59 but i'm open to your thoughts on if that
1:01:01 makes sense or not
1:01:03 no thank you that makes a lot of sense
1:01:04 with the overhang included too so i
1:01:06 appreciate that and then the other
1:01:08 question about the depth does the depth
1:01:10 and the lot count as well or is it just
1:01:13 the parallel to the street
1:01:15 yeah i and i think kristin correct me if
1:01:17 i'm wrong but i think the way we've been
1:01:19 talking about it is people have
1:01:21 what we heard from the community is that
1:01:24 they cared more about how it looks from
1:01:25 the street
1:01:27 so in the spirit of trying to be a
1:01:28 little more flexible we were thinking
1:01:30 more about visible from the street would
1:01:32 be any of those street facing
1:01:35 roof pitches
1:01:37 would have to comply but if you're going
1:01:40 deeper into the lot or parallel to the
1:01:42 lot or anything behind that
1:01:44 it wouldn't wouldn't have to follow
1:01:46 those standards
1:01:50 commissioner sanford
1:01:55 thanks lucy richard sanford uh 2.5
1:02:00 uh maybe that's perfectly fine with the
1:02:02 other commissioners but it occurred to
1:02:04 me do we want to encourage wood shake
1:02:06 uh unless we qualify something like
1:02:08 pressure treated or fire retardant
1:02:12 my thought was that it could still be
1:02:14 permitted but not necessarily
1:02:16 highlighted in the list and the concern
1:02:18 there is uh flammability i know this was
1:02:22 a big issue in california recently
1:02:27 i would i and and i don't know if our
1:02:30 consultant sam can answer this or um
1:02:33 one of our two architects who serve on
1:02:35 the commission i i believe that the
1:02:37 building code uh
1:02:40 restricts um or has certain requirements
1:02:44 to reduce the flammability of shakes if
1:02:46 they're used but um i am not an expert
1:02:49 on the building code
1:02:54 okay thanks yeah i think i
1:02:56 i searched in imc and i don't think i
1:02:59 could find any reference in there to
1:03:01 this but it may exist elsewhere that was
1:03:04 my point thanks
1:03:06 and that's a that's a good point to
1:03:08 clarify commissioner sanford that the
1:03:11 building code
1:03:12 is it is an international building code
1:03:14 with some state and city specific
1:03:18 amendments
1:03:19 but the code itself would not appear in
1:03:21 the imc so unfortunately neither you nor
1:03:24 i have access
1:03:26 to that code and
1:03:29 i would uh
1:03:30 have to defer to the building official
1:03:32 to find out more
1:03:40 yeah and that's a good point this is
1:03:41 arthur again that's a good point richard
1:03:42 uh um and lucia
1:03:45 i deal with larger structures than
1:03:47 single-family homes but you know there
1:03:49 is a element of fire protection that has
1:03:52 to be incorporated into the roof
1:03:53 structure it may not be above but it's
1:03:56 neces you know usually it's within that
1:03:57 cavity
1:03:59 of that roof so um
1:04:02 you know but it is a good good point in
1:04:05 terms of residential single family i'm
1:04:06 not too familiar with that code specific
1:04:12 commissioner price
1:04:17 hi yeah um you know generally
1:04:20 um the building code will
1:04:23 regulate
1:04:25 fire with respect to structures and
1:04:28 their proximity to the to the property
1:04:31 um and then there may be
1:04:33 more stringent codes in certain
1:04:34 communities but
1:04:36 uh the international residential code
1:04:39 just out of the box isn't necessarily
1:04:42 going to prohibit cedar shakes
1:04:46 and and so
1:04:48 sure you could have them i guess my
1:04:50 opinion on them is they look great for
1:04:52 about a year
1:04:54 and then
1:04:55 then it's kind of a nightmare
1:04:59 they are charming
1:05:02 for a while i'll put it that way
1:05:05 and i think the tendency these days is
1:05:07 to not even install those um
1:05:10 you know i've seen a lot of houses where
1:05:12 they're just ripping them out and
1:05:13 replacing them with uh asphalt shingle
1:05:15 or you know standing seam metal roof
1:05:17 just just just because of durability and
1:05:19 just the amount of maintenance that's
1:05:20 required with those
1:05:22 that's the other thing to say about them
1:05:24 is they are the most expensive money or
1:05:26 roof money can buy is a cedar shake roof
1:05:29 you'd think it would be metal but the
1:05:30 cedar shaker typically cost prohibitive
1:05:33 and well that's not true a slate roof is
1:05:36 the most expensive proof but
1:05:38 i don't know i i wouldn't necessarily
1:05:40 prohibit it
1:05:48 are there i don't see any more
1:05:51 comments uh
1:05:53 indicated in the chat box do any
1:05:55 commissioners have
1:05:57 additional comments on the roof design
1:06:07 seems like we can move on to the next
1:06:10 i want to i i want to bring up what that
1:06:12 what uh commissioner sherman
1:06:15 or stanford i'm sorry said about
1:06:18 that explanation of the existing reforms
1:06:21 of old town i think that would be a
1:06:22 really great paragraph to move up
1:06:25 before you even start talking about the
1:06:27 roof design it just kind of sets the
1:06:30 stage for what's fall so i think that
1:06:32 that you should consider that
1:06:37 thank you chairperson
1:06:39 fella
1:06:43 okay so the next topic to discuss
1:06:47 topics are building materials and color
1:06:51 and again we heard a variety of things
1:06:54 the public was more concerned with
1:06:56 durability rather than what the exact
1:06:58 material was i think their bigger
1:06:59 concern though was that
1:07:02 things that this didn't increase the
1:07:04 cost of having to do any of these things
1:07:06 they wanted to make sure that things
1:07:07 were cost effective and practical and
1:07:09 not expensive
1:07:10 administrators wanted more guidance
1:07:12 regarding what materials were
1:07:14 appropriate or inappropriate
1:07:16 and the council
1:07:17 actually didn't want to focus on the
1:07:19 style of materials they were concerned
1:07:21 about the durability
1:07:22 but really are more would like to apply
1:07:25 that city-wide rather than just to old
1:07:33 materials need to
1:07:35 highlight architectural features i do
1:07:39 i apologize back and forth
1:07:41 materials need to highlight
1:07:42 architectural features and complement
1:07:44 the massing the street facing facades
1:07:46 need to use no more than three types of
1:07:49 cladding materials
1:07:50 preferably natural materials such as
1:07:53 siding brick
1:07:54 shingles and the colors you can have no
1:07:57 more than three colors this we did
1:07:59 clarify however that uh
1:08:02 real stucco and t11 are prohibited they
1:08:06 will not be used
1:08:08 so what we're proposing to do is to
1:08:11 use the muscle color book for this
1:08:14 and it
1:08:15 really it it's good it doesn't designate
1:08:18 colors it's not like the existing
1:08:19 standards and the cultural business
1:08:21 district and the multi-family area it
1:08:24 doesn't say these are the colors that
1:08:25 must be used
1:08:26 this is non-trim this one on the roof it
1:08:29 it opens it up a little bit more so
1:08:31 essentially what would happen is that
1:08:34 trim colors and accent colors are open
1:08:36 they can be whatever
1:08:38 primary colors though have to fall
1:08:40 within if you can see on here
1:08:42 need to fall within
1:08:46 below this 14 range here
1:08:49 right there and if someone comes in with
1:08:51 the color and says no no no my color
1:08:53 would work there is a system that is
1:08:56 outlined
1:08:57 uh in the muscle system uh a way to say
1:09:01 no see here it to prove that it does or
1:09:03 does not fit within that scale so that's
1:09:05 what we're proposing to do there and it
1:09:06 leaves it pretty open and our cons sam
1:09:09 told me not too long ago that most
1:09:11 cities actually only allow about up to
1:09:14 so for us to allow up to
1:09:17 14 is pretty uh lenient pretty open
1:09:22 and you know part of this is that people
1:09:24 wanted to leave the eclectic feel in old
1:09:26 town and if you start to make everything
1:09:27 be gray or beige or something then you
1:09:31 lose some of that character
1:09:33 and then as far as the materials go we
1:09:35 wanted to create a sense of human scale
1:09:37 and encourage
1:09:39 or just kind of complement the overall
1:09:42 style of
1:09:43 old town
1:09:45 so that's
1:09:47 again quick that's what i have from
1:09:49 building materials and colors so and now
1:09:51 it's up to you any comments
1:09:58 commissioner sanford
1:10:02 great thanks lucy uh let's see uh 3.1
1:10:05 refers to the city's building materials
1:10:09 i couldn't find that anywhere uh where i
1:10:12 i guess it's a question for staff how
1:10:14 would i find the building materials list
1:10:19 so this is christian oh go ahead lucy
1:10:23 no you go ahead christmas i was just
1:10:25 gonna say i don't believe we have one
1:10:28 yeah we we couldn't find it either
1:10:32 yeah thank you
1:10:34 question great so
1:10:36 we're gonna have to we're gonna have to
1:10:37 figure that one that one's uh that one's
1:10:39 in staff review right now okay great
1:10:41 thanks
1:10:50 commissioner
1:10:57 commissioner price did you um
1:10:59 indicate that you wanted to make a
1:11:01 comment
1:11:07 all right um i i briefly did
1:11:10 but i think i answered my own question i
1:11:12 i wanted to just make a comment that
1:11:14 there should be
1:11:16 some provision for accents and it's it's
1:11:19 in here and um i was going to suggest a
1:11:22 percentage but i think
1:11:23 through trim
1:11:25 and accent
1:11:27 you've captured it maybe you go
1:11:30 one step deeper to to define
1:11:34 where accents can occur but
1:11:37 that feels a little restrictive
1:11:40 i i think this is pretty good as written
1:11:42 actually so that's all i have
1:11:46 commissioner sanford
1:11:49 thanks uh in 3.2 it says material shall
1:11:52 be used as scaling elements so does that
1:11:55 mean that more than one
1:11:57 primary material is required
1:12:04 this is
1:12:05 kristin leeson and
1:12:08 no we've talked about that
1:12:11 and said that more than one should be
1:12:13 required but right now the way it's
1:12:15 written you can just have one material
1:12:18 you all correct me if i'm wrong but i
1:12:20 believe that that's the way we left it
1:12:24 okay and i guess the way i i took that
1:12:27 statement materials plural shall be used
1:12:31 it seemed like it was requiring more
1:12:33 than one so that's just my put on that
1:12:40 commissioner brennan
1:12:43 so just a quick question and maybe it is
1:12:46 you know
1:12:47 trying to stay consistent with kind of
1:12:48 the eclectic nature that you're trying
1:12:50 to create in old town but in 3.8
1:12:54 it talks about
1:12:56 high intensity extremely bright
1:12:58 fluorescent or metallic colors
1:13:00 aren't allowed except for
1:13:03 accent colors trim and accent colors so
1:13:06 in that particular provision
1:13:08 trim and accent is not those
1:13:11 elements of the building are not
1:13:12 regulated at all people could paint them
1:13:15 whatever color they
1:13:16 choose because you can get some pretty
1:13:19 i've seen some pretty interesting
1:13:22 on buildings out there um
1:13:25 you kind of wonder what they're thinking
1:13:27 uh but that you could end up with some
1:13:29 interesting
1:13:31 you know results from that um but if
1:13:34 that's
1:13:35 you know the flexibility the creativity
1:13:39 the kind of unique nature that will
1:13:42 allow for that
1:13:44 but not regulating it at all it does
1:13:46 allow for
1:13:48 um you know bright
1:13:50 very bright accent colors
1:13:52 well and i uh commissioner brennan i
1:13:54 guess the question i would have for you
1:13:57 is when we look back at 3.4
1:14:01 there are chimneys foundations pediments
1:14:04 columns trims railings door
1:14:08 doors
1:14:09 and so my question to you is
1:14:13 should
1:14:15 those
1:14:16 unlimited options
1:14:18 have a
1:14:19 more limited list such as front doors
1:14:23 as opposed to
1:14:26 all the items on the list which um
1:14:30 maybe have more variation but maybe not
1:14:34 an unlimited number i i i'm not
1:14:36 advocating one way or the other i just
1:14:40 have an indication that you might be
1:14:42 thinking about some of that
1:14:44 yeah it does it allows you know
1:14:47 you know there are a lot of elements
1:14:49 that fall into that category and then in
1:14:51 the glossary you also
1:14:54 define trim um
1:14:57 which is a little more narrowly defined
1:14:59 around but essentially says exterior
1:15:01 materials applied to
1:15:03 accentuate design elements on the facade
1:15:05 especially windows and doors
1:15:08 still fairly broad but focused around
1:15:09 windows and doors
1:15:11 uh again i mean what you
1:15:14 can do obviously is amend that if you
1:15:16 end up getting things that you don't
1:15:19 want to see happen you can always come
1:15:21 back and amend later but it does open
1:15:23 the door for
1:15:24 quite a bit of flexibility if people
1:15:26 choose to go there
1:15:28 most people won't
1:15:29 but you might get one person in the
1:15:31 neighborhood that
1:15:32 wants to make a statement so
1:15:37 commissioner schulte
1:15:41 uh yes thank you lucy uh question i
1:15:43 guess for staff uh looking at
1:15:46 uh 3.3
1:15:48 primary versus secondary materials um
1:15:52 for example if we look at that image of
1:15:54 the house
1:15:55 on that same page at the top left that
1:15:57 more modern house
1:15:58 that's almost
1:16:00 getting to a point where
1:16:03 any one of those materials could be a
1:16:05 primary so i guess my question is is it
1:16:07 up to the homeowner if the material
1:16:09 looks like
1:16:11 it's equally disturbing if the two
1:16:13 materials look like they're equally
1:16:14 distributed around the building is it up
1:16:17 to the homeowner to establish what that
1:16:19 primary material is
1:16:22 if and when they do that
1:16:27 does the city
1:16:29 have the authority to come back and
1:16:31 require them to reduce
1:16:34 the secondary material square footage
1:16:36 does that does that make sense um it's
1:16:39 kind of that gray area what what is
1:16:41 defined as the primary material on a
1:16:43 building that
1:16:44 could be could be any any material
1:16:51 so i guess what i'm saying is you know
1:16:53 you know do we wanna
1:16:55 do we wanna incorporate uh
1:16:58 you know a math requirement here
1:17:00 you know square footage requirement or
1:17:03 is it more just kind of visual
1:17:05 hey this looks like the the more
1:17:07 dominant primary material and that's
1:17:09 that's what we're going to classify it
1:17:12 so this this is kristin leeson and i
1:17:13 would note that you mentioned you know
1:17:16 which one's the most dominant material
1:17:18 on the building but this really only
1:17:20 applies to the facade
1:17:23 to the street facing facade
1:17:26 okay so it's okay right just the street
1:17:28 facing facade and i
1:17:30 lucy could correct me if i'm wrong but i
1:17:33 think that would be easy enough to
1:17:35 measure when you're looking at square
1:17:36 footage
1:17:42 and kristen correct me if i'm wrong is
1:17:45 there someplace that establishes it as
1:17:47 being
1:17:49 more than 50 percent of my
1:17:52 confusing
1:17:54 calculations i i see that it's not here
1:17:56 in this section i didn't know if there
1:17:58 was a definition
1:18:00 further back um we talked about that
1:18:03 during staff review lucy okay is getting
1:18:07 because i think uh commissioner schulte
1:18:09 is bringing up the good point it should
1:18:11 not be subjective or discretionary what
1:18:13 the primary material is and so i think
1:18:16 we suggested
1:18:18 uh more than 50 or the majority of the
1:18:21 facades um material to to get to that
1:18:25 space
1:18:26 so i'll jump in here and chris and i
1:18:29 were talking about this and we're saying
1:18:30 well it all depends on the facade design
1:18:33 um and i think that picture
1:18:35 on the left is a good example um where
1:18:38 if you have three materials because you
1:18:41 could have more than two you know you
1:18:43 could have up to three types of cladding
1:18:46 so if you have
1:18:47 a primary and then two secondary in
1:18:50 theory then the primary might not be
1:18:52 fifty
1:18:53 but it still might be the most prevalent
1:18:55 material so we didn't want to get to
1:18:57 that percentage because we didn't want
1:18:59 to be overly prescriptive but i think
1:19:01 when you look at the explanation the
1:19:03 primary is the most prevalent and then
1:19:05 the secondary is used to highlight or
1:19:07 accentuate certain certain elements so i
1:19:10 look at that picture and i see the
1:19:12 um like the lighter wood color as the
1:19:15 secondary material because it's
1:19:17 accentuating that projection and
1:19:19 accentuating the windows and it's less
1:19:22 that like um
1:19:24 the shingle material um but i
1:19:27 my thought and how chris and i talked
1:19:29 about it is we don't want to be too
1:19:31 prescriptive like you must have one
1:19:32 predominant material you can have two
1:19:34 that are kind of balanced and cohesive
1:19:37 so it's still it is in that gray area a
1:19:40 little bit but um if if you think it
1:19:43 should be more prescriptive we can
1:19:44 totally add those percentages in but we
1:19:46 wanted to be a little looser
1:19:49 with that as well does that make sense
1:19:51 it does yeah thank you very much and as
1:19:54 mentioned earlier i think once you're
1:19:55 looking at the the street elevation the
1:19:58 facade elevation it'll be much easier to
1:20:00 tell here at this angle you've got some
1:20:02 of that brown material wrapping around
1:20:03 the corners so it gives the illusion
1:20:06 um you know it might be equal square
1:20:08 footages you know of both materials
1:20:12 i do have another part another question
1:20:14 in the in the previous meeting
1:20:18 that i watched
1:20:21 there was a mention about
1:20:23 or there was a picture of a metal
1:20:24 material a kind of a metal
1:20:28 shingle almost a reflective
1:20:31 was there a reason that was not included
1:20:33 in the prohibited
1:20:39 i'll jump in um that what we heard from
1:20:42 council was they they think it's great
1:20:45 to allow those and that metal uh
1:20:49 shingle was actually it's in issaquah um
1:20:53 yeah and so we grabbed that as an
1:20:55 example and said is this is this too
1:20:57 much because we were trying to find
1:20:58 where to draw that line and they said
1:21:00 you know we don't think this is going to
1:21:01 become a material that a lot of people
1:21:04 use but we don't know if we necessarily
1:21:06 want to draw the line there
1:21:09 yeah fair enough i think that makes
1:21:10 sense again i don't think it's a much
1:21:12 commonly used material but yeah just
1:21:14 curious
1:21:17 thank you um commissioner voice and my
1:21:20 apologies for mispronouncing your last
1:21:22 name last time thank you
1:21:25 staff's flow
1:21:27 come on
1:21:30 so i'm going to mr brennan commissioner
1:21:32 brennan's point as far as the accent
1:21:34 materials and the accent trim colors not
1:21:36 being included in the color count that
1:21:39 terrifies me
1:21:41 i'm thinking of columns i'm thinking of
1:21:43 trim i'm thinking of wraps around
1:21:46 windows and to think that that could be
1:21:50 included in the color count as as far as
1:21:54 get tell me if i'm wrong that's actually
1:21:56 not on the chroma scale
1:21:58 that's allowed to have those hyper
1:22:00 bright colors
1:22:04 yeah so
1:22:06 so i think we're envisioning columns
1:22:08 that are neon green
1:22:10 with a porch that has
1:22:13 their foundational waynes caught running
1:22:15 around that could be
1:22:17 you know just neon yellow
1:22:19 i know most people wouldn't do that but
1:22:22 again
1:22:23 um you never know you never know
1:22:26 somebody like to mr brennan's point
1:22:27 might just want to make a statement
1:22:30 yeah so i
1:22:31 i where we have talked about i think
1:22:33 people definitely didn't want to
1:22:34 regulate the color of the doors they're
1:22:36 like if you want to paint your door lime
1:22:38 green go ahead and do it and then we
1:22:41 were looking at some beautiful craftsman
1:22:42 homes with a lot of you know
1:22:44 architectural detail with different
1:22:46 colors and we're like we don't want to
1:22:48 limit that
1:22:50 so i think you you found um a weakness
1:22:53 in how we've defined it and i i think
1:22:56 in my opinion it would be consistent
1:22:58 with what we've heard so far to
1:23:00 not limit the brightness for doors but
1:23:04 possibly limit for these other accent um
1:23:07 colors and and i don't think that would
1:23:10 inconsistent with what we've heard and
1:23:12 it would prevent that worst case
1:23:13 scenario that you pointed out because i
1:23:15 don't think people would want to see a
1:23:17 multi-color column porch or something
1:23:19 like that
1:23:21 but right now it how it's written it
1:23:23 would be possible to do that and i i
1:23:25 think that's a weakness in how it's
1:23:26 written so that's a that's a solid point
1:23:29 excellent excellent thank you yeah i
1:23:31 think doors i don't think really anybody
1:23:33 has a problem with you know i believe
1:23:34 there are a couple pictures with some
1:23:36 beautiful doors but
1:23:38 like i said the idea of columns and
1:23:39 stuff being those colors would be
1:23:41 terrifying
1:23:42 so thank you
1:23:45 commissioner morgan and uh yeah jason
1:23:48 had the exact same comments that i was
1:23:50 going to have about that and and i would
1:23:52 wonder about 3.7 b
1:23:57 perhaps there should be a limit on
1:23:59 number of accent or trim colors so that
1:24:02 we wouldn't run into
1:24:04 five different colors being used on
1:24:06 windows on
1:24:08 roof line trim on
1:24:10 railings and so forth so
1:24:13 thank you
1:24:16 sanford
1:24:19 thanks lucy um
1:24:21 commissioner schulte uh sold my question
1:24:23 on the uh metal shake or steel building
1:24:25 or whatever that was in the presentation
1:24:27 uh before the i think uh city council
1:24:31 but on 3.6 my understanding is we do
1:24:34 want to prohibit to include that or
1:24:37 allow it
1:24:38 if it
1:24:39 if a builder chose to do
1:24:42 metal or steel shake house so the way i
1:24:46 3.6 would preclude that
1:24:50 i don't see it as either a natural
1:24:52 looking material or one that's commonly
1:24:54 used downtown
1:25:02 and that's an interesting point uh that
1:25:07 natural looking might allow a metal
1:25:09 shake but it would have to be of a color
1:25:12 and a pattern
1:25:14 say a pressed pattern for instance
1:25:16 that appeared as if it was a shake for
1:25:20 instance i see okay so i i may have the
1:25:24 wrong house in mind no you have the
1:25:26 right house in mind i'm not disagreeing
1:25:28 with what you're saying i'm just saying
1:25:30 that it wouldn't preclude metal being
1:25:32 used but it wouldn't be metal that
1:25:34 appeared as metal
1:25:36 um it would be metal that
1:25:38 was simulating
1:25:43 horizontal siding or shakes or other
1:25:48 natural
1:25:49 materials
1:25:51 okay yeah and i i wish i could remember
1:25:55 exactly where this example occurred i
1:25:56 thought it was in the meeting with
1:25:59 city council but there was a a
1:26:01 rectilinear a box house that looked
1:26:03 clearly
1:26:05 chrome almost you know and i guess on
1:26:08 closer inspection it had some variation
1:26:11 that made it appear more natural or wood
1:26:13 no i i'm i'm in fact agreeing with you
1:26:16 commissioner sanford i know the house um
1:26:19 it does appear to be made of metal
1:26:23 shingles not metal shingles trying to
1:26:26 appear as wood shingle okay and i
1:26:30 believe that the way this is now written
1:26:31 was to preclude
1:26:33 the metal shingles that appear as
1:26:36 aluminum or metal
1:26:39 but which but would allow
1:26:42 metal shingles that appear
1:26:45 to that simulate wood shingles
1:26:48 okay so the example in the meeting then
1:26:51 would not be something that we would
1:26:53 want to encourage in the standard
1:26:55 yeah okay thank you
1:27:00 uh commissioner price
1:27:07 hi thank you um i can appreciate so far
1:27:10 how all of these guidelines have
1:27:12 primarily addressed the street facing
1:27:14 facade but then as i i read through
1:27:17 section 3.5 it says prohibited would be
1:27:19 stucco and t-111
1:27:22 is that to say that stucco and t-111
1:27:24 couldn't return down the sides of the
1:27:26 house and along the back of the house
1:27:34 did you hear me
1:27:39 this is great kristen okay i was gonna
1:27:41 say i did hear you but no i think that i
1:27:43 think what was intended here was that
1:27:46 stucco and t11 could not be used on the
1:27:49 building
1:27:51 but you're right right above it it talks
1:27:53 about street facing facades so we could
1:27:56 clarify that if
1:27:57 if i'm right and that was the intent
1:27:59 yeah and i just wonder a little bit you
1:28:02 i can appreciate that it's about the
1:28:03 street facing facade but
1:28:05 you know we as humans don't live in in
1:28:08 elevation we live in perspective you
1:28:10 know so if you're walking down the
1:28:12 street you see so much of the sides of
1:28:14 these buildings so i wonder is there
1:28:17 a possibility to say
1:28:19 and and that that siding
1:28:21 should return
1:28:23 down on the first third of the house
1:28:26 something like that you know the picture
1:28:27 on the same page illustrates my point is
1:28:30 it's very much about
1:28:31 the the corner of that house and you
1:28:34 read the sighting returning down the
1:28:35 face of the house now
1:28:37 i i just go back to the builder
1:28:39 developer mentality of satisfying the
1:28:41 guideline and you have
1:28:43 shingles across the street facing facade
1:28:45 but then as soon as you you turn the
1:28:47 corner it's it's a free-for-all and um
1:28:52 i just i feel like the integrity could
1:28:54 be lost almost um
1:28:57 without some sort of language that
1:29:01 wraps the corner
1:29:02 um i don't know if anybody else has any
1:29:04 thoughts on that
1:29:06 so this is kristin and
1:29:08 you know um
1:29:11 i'm going to let somebody else speak
1:29:13 after me but one of the things that i
1:29:14 think we've been very conscious of is
1:29:16 trying to not make these requirements
1:29:18 expensive for people to do
1:29:21 so the reason i'm going to let somebody
1:29:23 else speak is because i don't know about
1:29:24 the cost of these things and if that
1:29:26 really does add on to it but that we do
1:29:28 want to be
1:29:29 wary or cautious about
1:29:32 making these requirements cost
1:29:34 prohibitive so now i'll leave it up to
1:29:36 lucy or sam or keith
1:29:39 well i guess what i would say is
1:29:42 i also am probably not the best person
1:29:45 to estimate costs
1:29:47 i do think that's why we have chosen not
1:29:49 to regulate all sides of the building
1:29:53 but i do think commissioner price makes
1:29:55 a very good point that um
1:29:58 in for instance the architectural
1:30:01 standards that are used in esquire
1:30:04 islands and talus i don't think it's the
1:30:06 first third
1:30:08 i think it's you know some number of
1:30:12 maybe three to five feet
1:30:14 so that as you're walking down the
1:30:17 street
1:30:18 the front facade does not feel
1:30:21 like i jokingly call lick and stick
1:30:24 architecture um but that it has a sense
1:30:28 of three dimensions
1:30:30 and that uh and continuity um even if
1:30:35 the entire uh building if those maybe
1:30:39 more expensive or
1:30:40 more um
1:30:43 interesting materials are not used on
1:30:46 all sides um i think that is pretty
1:30:50 common and a good thing for us to um
1:30:52 consider
1:30:55 yeah and i i agree that's a good point
1:30:57 and i'm i'm trying to look at these
1:30:59 standards and i think
1:31:00 um the one that really emphasizes or
1:31:03 really says the street facing facades is
1:31:05 the one that limits the number and what
1:31:07 we were talking about is we didn't want
1:31:09 staff to have to go through every
1:31:10 elevation and count and get really just
1:31:13 into the minutia of counting all these
1:31:15 numbers um
1:31:17 but i'm looking at 3.2 and i could see
1:31:19 us adding something on 3.2 because it's
1:31:21 talking about you know scaling elements
1:31:24 you know complementing the mapping and i
1:31:26 think that's a good point to talk about
1:31:29 how the massing is more than just that
1:31:31 front side it's it's the other side but
1:31:34 when we're regulating massing we're just
1:31:36 talking about the front facade and i can
1:31:37 see us then
1:31:39 increasing the
1:31:40 you know that standard a little bit
1:31:42 because
1:31:44 the material should
1:31:45 continue to
1:31:48 down the side of the building to
1:31:49 accentuate the massing but it's still
1:31:51 not as
1:31:53 you know onerous as making someone
1:31:56 modulate the sides of their buildings
1:31:58 does that make sense so i i could see us
1:32:00 adding something like the first third or
1:32:02 the first you know 15 feet or something
1:32:04 like that whatever that threshold is um
1:32:08 and i i think that could be a happy
1:32:09 balance um to you know making sure that
1:32:13 the building is still respecting that
1:32:15 people see it in three dimensions and
1:32:16 not just that the side especially the
1:32:18 materials
1:32:22 thanks for considering that i i think it
1:32:24 would go a long way and i'm probably
1:32:26 being too cynical
1:32:28 about the nature of people but
1:32:32 i i just think it's worth exploring at
1:32:34 the very least and if you decide it's
1:32:36 it's too much
1:32:39 at least consider it i think is is a
1:32:42 good idea so thank you
1:32:45 yep thank you for that comment it's a
1:32:46 good one
1:32:48 commissioner sanford
1:32:54 lucy i didn't know i even put up a chat
1:32:56 but i'm glad you anticipated i was going
1:32:58 to do that
1:32:59 um so
1:33:03 i can have three colors so
1:33:06 would anything keep me from having like
1:33:08 a red green and
1:33:10 yellow rainbow house as long as the
1:33:12 chrome is under 14.
1:33:22 well i was ready to answer and now i'm
1:33:24 not sorry
1:33:26 i i think i think that it is possible i
1:33:29 mean we are
1:33:30 regulating the brightness but not the um
1:33:35 appropriateness of the three colors that
1:33:39 you might choose to pick
1:33:44 currently written
1:33:45 right and i remember i did hear that
1:33:48 mentioned in the city council meeting i
1:33:50 knew you had a good illustration of
1:33:51 several of those houses before and i
1:33:53 couldn't i couldn't remember either from
1:33:55 the previous meeting or the city council
1:33:57 meeting the side
1:33:59 that everyone came down on i thought in
1:34:01 general that
1:34:02 no one wanted to
1:34:05 leave the door open to that experiment
1:34:08 yeah i i think it's worth adding another
1:34:11 letter under that standard saying
1:34:13 something about you know you can't have
1:34:17 three horizontal color bands on the same
1:34:20 facade um and i i think
1:34:23 yeah i think it would be worth adding
1:34:25 adding something to just say that that's
1:34:27 prohibited okay
1:34:30 yeah that would be kind of parallel to
1:34:31 the stucco and t 111 comment on the
1:34:34 other page and just you know it's just
1:34:36 thinking
1:34:37 maybe you could have a little picture of
1:34:39 one down in the lower right saying that
1:34:41 then you know calling out that
1:34:43 applications like that are not allowed
1:34:46 because i noticed that the month cell
1:34:48 color book is also defined in the
1:34:49 glossary so maybe that could be a space
1:34:51 for it
1:34:55 commissioner boyce
1:35:00 thank you and just to bring this back
1:35:02 one comment to commissioner price i i
1:35:04 don't think you're being cynical
1:35:06 uh unfortunately i know a lot of
1:35:08 builders that they'll do something like
1:35:10 that they'll stuck on the whole front of
1:35:12 the house and as soon as it turns the
1:35:13 corner it's just sighting
1:35:15 they'll wrap windows on the front of the
1:35:17 house and as soon as it turns the corner
1:35:19 it's just a vinyl window
1:35:22 it's definitely cost prohibitive
1:35:26 to not do it so i'm just
1:35:28 unfortunately i think it's part of the
1:35:29 reality i appreciate you guys maybe
1:35:31 putting in some language about going
1:35:32 back 10 15 feet or a third or however
1:35:36 you guys want to word that but
1:35:38 um it's definitely something people do
1:35:40 to save money there's no doubt about it
1:35:42 so i think
1:35:44 uh miss sloman had mentioned licking
1:35:46 stick yeah it's it's definitely part of
1:35:48 the practice so anything we could do to
1:35:50 discourage that would be great i don't
1:35:51 know if there is a little bit of wording
1:35:53 we could add but
1:35:54 i don't think you're being cynical
1:35:59 commissioner schulte
1:36:00 ah thank you and i'm in complete
1:36:02 agreement i think a material returned
1:36:04 for a certain distance uh makes sense
1:36:08 you know especially when you look at
1:36:08 some of the houses around here where you
1:36:10 have a two story next to a one story um
1:36:13 you know that siding that returns all
1:36:15 the way to the side becomes dominant
1:36:16 right and
1:36:18 um you know it
1:36:20 it's a balancing act because when you're
1:36:22 talking about material transitions
1:36:24 they're far easier to do and they and
1:36:26 they look far better when there is
1:36:27 modulation on the side
1:36:29 um you know verse a straight up color
1:36:32 transition on a flat plane or
1:36:34 um you know a metal transition on a flat
1:36:37 plane off to a siding material that
1:36:39 doesn't look as nice so it
1:36:42 but uh
1:36:44 you know i know it
1:36:45 you know our goal is again to focus on
1:36:47 that street facing facade and
1:36:49 you know maybe when the owner explores
1:36:51 the the return of the material on the
1:36:53 side maybe they incorporate a a
1:36:55 modulation element um on that facade as
1:36:57 well to make it look look better as well
1:37:00 i'm just thinking in terms of you know
1:37:02 areas or
1:37:04 lots that you know are narrow and
1:37:08 don't have the same size scale buildings
1:37:10 next to them
1:37:11 i think it's important to keep in mind
1:37:13 those transitions as they wrap
1:37:15 wrap around
1:37:17 and to the point that you're making
1:37:18 commissioner schulte i i would tend to
1:37:22 make it a percentage
1:37:24 uh with no less than x feet
1:37:28 because we have
1:37:30 it is an eclectic part of the city and
1:37:32 we have everything from what i
1:37:34 lovingly call freestanding apartments
1:37:39 rather large homes and i think using a
1:37:42 specific number of feet could
1:37:44 make that
1:37:46 material on the side that uh out of
1:37:50 proportion
1:37:51 um to the uh those side facades
1:37:56 but i think we want to ensure that there
1:37:58 is a certain minimum
1:38:01 running length of the material but um
1:38:05 uh start with a
1:38:07 portion or a percentage
1:38:09 agreed i think the percentage makes
1:38:11 sense otherwise uh you're traveling
1:38:12 around and you're seeing all 10-foot
1:38:14 return materials right it'll look kind
1:38:15 of odd as you're as you're going down
1:38:17 the street
1:38:22 i believe that was the last person who
1:38:25 indicated they had a comment on the
1:38:27 building's
1:38:28 materials in color do any commissioners
1:38:31 have additional comments
1:38:36 okay then moving on
1:38:43 to windows doors and front porches
1:38:46 so it's kind of funny uh we heard that
1:38:49 we need to require a door and a window
1:38:51 to face the street
1:38:54 i remember at our
1:38:56 walkabout meeting in our workshop it
1:38:58 went anywhere
1:38:59 from one window to multiple and came
1:39:01 down to one but we needed to allow
1:39:03 flexibility and not be too prescriptive
1:39:06 uh we want to
1:39:07 encourage human oriented design maintain
1:39:10 a lively active street
1:39:13 and provide weather protection those are
1:39:15 our intents there
1:39:17 we need to do we do have to have one
1:39:19 window grouping on the front facade
1:39:21 front entries must have a prominent
1:39:23 presence and be emphasized with
1:39:25 architectural or design details
1:39:28 so that's high level summary but i think
1:39:30 it covers it and
1:39:32 it's open for discussion again
1:39:37 commissioner
1:39:38 morgan um thank you lucy
1:39:41 yeah the the one window when i read that
1:39:44 and if i'm a developer i might say great
1:39:47 i can put in a one foot by one foot
1:39:49 window
1:39:51 on my front facing street facade and
1:39:55 i've met the requirement
1:39:56 i think as as commissioner sanford
1:39:59 brought up before
1:40:02 that sort of possibility and it doesn't
1:40:04 seem like that would
1:40:06 um with all these other things we're
1:40:09 talking about making attractive street
1:40:11 facing things to say we're gonna have
1:40:13 just one tiny window is there a
1:40:15 possibility that that could be
1:40:18 there could be some minimum percentage
1:40:20 of the facade
1:40:22 shall be windows
1:40:27 i this is kristin i think we could
1:40:29 probably
1:40:30 sure fit that in there and you know
1:40:32 maybe it is
1:40:33 one window but it's a window that has a
1:40:35 certain diminished dimension or
1:40:37 percentage of the facade
1:40:39 yeah or a grouping that takes up a
1:40:41 percentage of the facade that would be
1:40:43 great thank you look at that
1:40:49 oh i'm sorry go ahead well no i've got
1:40:51 just one other quick one here so since
1:40:54 since i've unmuted i'll throw it in the
1:40:57 on 4.4
1:40:59 talking about entries and appropriate
1:41:01 strategies
1:41:02 um and it mentions
1:41:04 plants framing the door either planted
1:41:07 or in pots
1:41:08 and it seems strange to me that you
1:41:10 could say
1:41:11 a potted plant would count as an
1:41:15 architectural feature given that those
1:41:19 things that could come and go very
1:41:20 easily
1:41:23 uh we reached the same conclusion
1:41:25 okay thank you
1:41:29 hi commissioner joy lewis here uh to uh
1:41:33 to commissioner morgan's point i like
1:41:35 the idea of um of reference to a
1:41:37 percentage of especially for the windows
1:41:40 but especially when we talk about
1:41:42 about scale rather than saying feet i
1:41:44 think it's more appropriate to think
1:41:45 about what percentage we want to have
1:41:48 surrounding a corner of a home and
1:41:51 really having things suit for instance
1:41:53 like what size of the windows are there
1:41:55 in the rest of the home if all the off
1:41:57 all the windows are one by one then
1:41:58 maybe that does make more sense you know
1:42:00 so being able to allocate a percentage i
1:42:02 think um
1:42:04 of that front facing or saying that um
1:42:07 windows need to be of of kind to what
1:42:10 else is being put into the home i think
1:42:12 would be another way to put that
1:42:13 but again defining that kind of amount i
1:42:16 think is
1:42:17 is appropriate in this case
1:42:22 commissioner sanford
1:42:24 thanks
1:42:26 4.2 that point regards
1:42:31 front doors
1:42:34 but 4.2 a
1:42:36 is talking about street facing windows
1:42:38 in a duplex so i wonder if that uh if a
1:42:41 should actually be a sub part of 4.1
1:42:49 actually yeah and still related to that
1:42:51 i wonder
1:42:52 as i'm reading that
1:42:56 i'm wondering why it specifies for
1:42:58 side-by-side duplexes with a window but
1:43:01 not duplexes and stack configuration
1:43:05 i think that was a typo i think the
1:43:07 window should have been door i think
1:43:09 that was an error that i didn't catch
1:43:12 until now because we are talking about
1:43:14 the front doors
1:43:16 okay i see okay thank you
1:43:22 yeah that makes much more sense
1:43:27 commissioner schulte
1:43:29 uh thank you lucy um on let's see here
1:43:37 and 4.4 so in 4.4
1:43:40 one potential strategy is a recessed
1:43:42 entry um i think if if you provide it
1:43:45 seems like to me if you provide a
1:43:46 recessed entry
1:43:50 may not need to apply to provide a four
1:43:54 feet wide in depth weatherproof because
1:43:56 when you've got the entry by default a
1:43:58 recessed entry by default you've got
1:43:59 some weather protection there so
1:44:03 you know maybe
1:44:04 maybe some wording that um
1:44:07 you know still requires some kind of
1:44:09 roof element but maybe not as deep uh as
1:44:12 long as it's accompanied by a recessed
1:44:14 entry just a comment i had
1:44:21 we've reached the end of commissioners
1:44:24 indicating they have a comment do any
1:44:26 additional commissioners have comments
1:45:01 anybody out there
1:45:04 kristin is still muted
1:45:08 but i was having a fabulous conversation
1:45:13 i apologize
1:45:14 you skipped over um the front yards yep
1:45:17 now i was talking about front yard you
1:45:19 all missed it
1:45:21 sorry one second there we go thank you
1:45:25 let me try this again so
1:45:27 one of the conversations that we had
1:45:29 with every group was looking at
1:45:32 the existing housing that's on a street
1:45:35 do you look kind of at where the average
1:45:37 house is set back and then require
1:45:41 all houses to fall within you know
1:45:43 certain feet of that setback and
1:45:45 everybody said
1:45:47 no don't do that so i just wanted to
1:45:48 explain that first bullet
1:45:50 uh allow for usable space active front
1:45:53 yards you know maybe play bocce ball out
1:45:55 there prohibit from front yards that are
1:45:58 completely hardscape and require a
1:46:00 walkway from the street to the front
1:46:04 um these are
1:46:06 what we try to do we want to have
1:46:08 clearly defined and safe walkways create
1:46:11 active front yards
1:46:12 and active front yards yards where
1:46:14 people can be active
1:46:16 and ensure natural environments and
1:46:18 natural plants are integrated into the
1:46:20 design
1:46:23 the front yard cannot be more than fifty
1:46:25 percent impervious
1:46:27 so if somebody decides to put a small
1:46:29 basketball court or something out there
1:46:31 it can't be more than fifty percent and
1:46:33 any privacy fences above four feet must
1:46:36 be sent back away from the street so you
1:46:38 can't have a six foot fence
1:46:41 up to your property line it has to be
1:46:43 set back further
1:46:46 so there we go
1:46:48 you all can talk now
1:46:51 commissioner morgan
1:46:53 thank you lucy um
1:46:55 question is how do you define
1:46:58 the front yard
1:47:01 and then
1:47:02 because of that how do you say the front
1:47:04 yard shall include no more than 50
1:47:06 percent impervious
1:47:08 surface
1:47:13 i believe that the
1:47:15 front yard is defined as the space
1:47:18 between the front plane of the house and
1:47:23 street
1:47:25 property line
1:47:26 um i'm i'm doing that from memory
1:47:30 i think there actually is a definition
1:47:32 in the imc
1:47:34 oh okay i didn't see one in the glossary
1:47:37 so perhaps it would be
1:47:39 helpful to include that in this glossary
1:47:42 as well then so it's
1:47:44 known
1:47:45 we probably will not duplicate
1:47:48 but i do think that the glossary needs
1:47:50 to clarify that these are definitions
1:47:53 that are additive
1:47:55 to the um glossary in the imc so that if
1:47:59 there are terms
1:48:01 such as front yard that need to be
1:48:04 defined that it's the intent is clear
1:48:08 there may be additional definitions
1:48:11 found
1:48:12 in 1802 great thank you lucy
1:48:20 commissioner price
1:48:23 thank you lucy so i guess i'm confused
1:48:26 on this point um
1:48:28 you know looking back at the uh
1:48:31 the video and
1:48:33 and understanding sort of the
1:48:36 the patterns of this district that there
1:48:39 is some variation some have a distinct
1:48:41 setback or
1:48:42 or appear to have a distinct setback um
1:48:46 sometimes they're much closer
1:48:49 are we saying there is no
1:48:51 defined front yard setback whether it's
1:48:53 averaging
1:48:55 contextual or a hard line
1:49:00 uh every
1:49:02 uh just to be clear uh yes
1:49:05 every
1:49:07 zone in the city has a front defines
1:49:11 what front yard front setback is
1:49:13 required
1:49:15 i think that um
1:49:21 kristen was trying to indicate was that
1:49:24 beyond that there would not be a
1:49:26 contextual
1:49:28 setback so
1:49:29 if the required front yard setback was
1:49:32 15 feet
1:49:34 but the houses on the street were at 20
1:49:37 you did not have to build at 20 because
1:49:41 that's where your neighbors houses were
1:49:44 got it okay
1:49:46 and then and then second to that is is
1:49:48 to promote some of these
1:49:51 ground level
1:49:52 features that are human scale ie porches
1:49:56 um or or single story uh elements are
1:50:00 there provisions then for
1:50:02 depth and width of
1:50:05 a porch beyond the setback
1:50:08 is is that up for grabs
1:50:11 so that if there was
1:50:13 um uh
1:50:15 for instance a 15 foot setback um
1:50:19 the building could not be closer than 15
1:50:21 but the porch could is that right is
1:50:24 that your question yeah so are we gonna
1:50:26 provide some provisions for allowing
1:50:28 people to perform
1:50:30 um you know say if you're not really
1:50:32 altering your facade but it doesn't
1:50:33 otherwise comply it's right on the
1:50:35 setback geez it'd be nice to have a
1:50:37 porch on there um
1:50:40 is is there say a six foot deep six foot
1:50:42 wide um
1:50:45 departure or
1:50:47 something of that nature to allow for
1:50:51 promote the guidelines basically
1:50:57 or do we feel like that's not necessary
1:51:02 i guess what i would say is at this
1:51:05 point um
1:51:07 i don't think that that has um
1:51:10 though that tool has not been employed
1:51:13 there is a setback and um
1:51:16 but that is an interesting point
1:51:19 if the main tool
1:51:22 that's
1:51:23 identified to provide
1:51:25 to address say mass and scale
1:51:28 um is um
1:51:32 is a porch and you are right at the
1:51:35 setback what are your options
1:51:39 couldn't you just build a porch that was
1:51:41 that didn't occupy more than 50
1:51:44 of you that wasn't more than a 50
1:51:46 impervious surface
1:51:49 you could build your porch out into your
1:51:50 yard as long as you didn't consume more
1:51:53 than 50 percent of it is that correct i
1:51:55 read that
1:51:58 i don't think anything that was covered
1:52:00 would fall
1:52:01 when i'm looking at 5.2 i believe that's
1:52:04 the section you're referring to
1:52:05 commissioner soa
1:52:08 and when i look at that
1:52:11 all of those elements would be a plane
1:52:15 as opposed to something that would be
1:52:18 covered
1:52:20 like a porch
1:52:21 so i don't think those would
1:52:24 that that 5.2 would accommodate
1:52:27 or give you the flexibility to do a
1:52:30 porch in your setback
1:52:33 and i just want to add
1:52:36 that i just am looking at the imc i
1:52:39 don't believe actually front yard is
1:52:41 defined there's just front setback
1:52:44 so if we're using the term front yard we
1:52:47 probably
1:52:48 just for staff that we know that we need
1:52:52 tie front yard to front set back
1:52:56 for clarity
1:52:59 just to add to that i just checked the
1:53:02 the zoning for the front set back and
1:53:04 it's 10 feet
1:53:08 i don't know that still feels pretty
1:53:10 small that i don't know if we need to
1:53:11 explore
1:53:13 an exception to encroach into that with
1:53:16 porch
1:53:18 and a lot of the houses that we saw have
1:53:21 a much greater setback than 10 feet
1:53:24 but if that's something that you think
1:53:25 is worth exploring we can definitely
1:53:28 you know do some more looking into that
1:53:30 yeah and it may be the exception you
1:53:32 know um and but i in my opinion arguably
1:53:36 this is the
1:53:38 the most critical piece of these
1:53:40 guidelines is the front porch you know
1:53:42 it's the element that faces the street
1:53:45 provides protection
1:53:47 it provides human scale it modulates the
1:53:50 facade it's doing the heavy lifting
1:53:52 across all of these guidelines in my
1:53:54 opinion so
1:53:55 um maybe we cross that bridge when we
1:53:57 come to it if there's
1:53:58 you know
1:54:01 everybody's
1:54:03 you know wanting a front porch all of a
1:54:05 sudden but
1:54:06 for whatever reason the setbacks uh
1:54:08 prohibiting that
1:54:10 maybe
1:54:11 maybe there's an adjustment to standards
1:54:12 down the road or something to that
1:54:14 effect um
1:54:15 i think you guys have studied it much
1:54:17 more and have an understanding of the
1:54:19 context and whether that actually is an
1:54:22 issue or not i just know i've broken
1:54:24 many people's hearts um telling them
1:54:27 they can't have a front porch and they
1:54:29 they just can't understand why
1:54:32 well i mean it's worth i i think the
1:54:34 situation where it would be the the
1:54:37 biggest problem um is in the constrained
1:54:39 lots if it's next to the creek or you
1:54:42 know there's some other site condition
1:54:43 where it's um being really limited to
1:54:46 where you can place the building so it
1:54:48 might be worth just adding a standard
1:54:50 similar to how we did that in the
1:54:52 garages and driveways to say if you have
1:54:55 a constrained lot and you know because
1:54:58 of site conditions
1:54:59 you know you're building right up to the
1:55:01 setback there's an allowable exception
1:55:04 a porch encroachment or something like
1:55:06 that i i think it's worth worth
1:55:09 exploring because i agree the the front
1:55:11 porch is is you know doing a heavy
1:55:14 lifting throughout the document so um
1:55:16 i think that's a valid uh standard to to
1:55:20 explore
1:55:21 thank you
1:55:24 mr sanford
1:55:30 thanks um
1:55:32 in this section it's really about front
1:55:34 yards and it covers a lot of fences and
1:55:37 gates and so on and
1:55:38 uh i wonder if you might consider
1:55:40 retitling this front yards and and
1:55:42 fences or something but
1:55:44 my main question was i wonder if uh
1:55:49 fence material should be addressed here
1:55:51 for example i'm thinking about uh
1:55:54 which is chain link okay uh what if
1:55:56 somebody does a
1:55:58 concrete block front fence
1:56:01 um i think imc when i i looked for chain
1:56:04 link and it it seems to
1:56:06 allow it only in commercial context and
1:56:09 utilities and screen
1:56:11 i'm just wondering if people might
1:56:13 be able to build curious front fences
1:56:24 that was one of those that we
1:56:26 thought that the existing code does
1:56:28 enough
1:56:29 to limit the materials
1:56:31 and we did talk about whether or not we
1:56:33 wanted to explore that but what we heard
1:56:37 the code i think prohibits barbed wire
1:56:41 maybe another one or two
1:56:43 pretty pretty offensive materials but
1:56:46 aside from that we're like if people
1:56:47 want to do it we'll we'll let them uh
1:56:51 yeah that was my question too i looked
1:56:53 at the code in that the one i found is
1:56:55 18.07.120
1:56:58 and i couldn't find anything in there
1:57:00 really prohibiting somebody from putting
1:57:02 chain-link fence out there
1:57:04 uh there are other places where i
1:57:06 believe chain link is
1:57:08 precluded um or specified in what
1:57:11 locations it can be used and i
1:57:14 don't believe it's residential but we'll
1:57:16 confirm because i think that is um
1:57:20 that's probably a pretty
1:57:23 i consistent
1:57:23 tell you
1:57:24 that interestingly uh a fence is defined
1:57:28 as an obstruction through which bees
1:57:30 will not readily fly
1:57:34 okay thank you i feel a lot better about
1:57:37 i thought we all would
1:57:39 a murder hornets prohibited okay thanks
1:57:44 uh commissioner morgan
1:57:46 so i i wonder if my seattle east prank
1:57:49 precinct modern
1:57:51 which is a giant concrete block fence
1:57:54 would work but um we'll leave that aside
1:57:58 the question i have
1:58:00 is on the 50
1:58:02 impervious calculation on 5 2 unless
1:58:06 it's designed to be used as space for
1:58:08 people such as patio seating does that
1:58:10 mean that if i decided i wanted to
1:58:15 make my entire front yard hardscape
1:58:20 as patio seating and outdoor dining
1:58:23 that i could do that is there any
1:58:26 limitation
1:58:28 on that
1:58:31 so yeah
1:58:32 oh go ahead kristen i was going to say
1:58:34 you could do that um
1:58:36 have seating and dining and a patio out
1:58:38 there but
1:58:39 only 50
1:58:40 of your front yard could be impervious
1:58:45 well it says
1:58:47 no more than 50 percent impervious
1:58:49 unless it is designed to be used as a
1:58:51 space for people that's right
1:58:54 so i think staff actually had the same
1:58:56 concern that um the
1:58:59 implication of this was that you could
1:59:01 do a hundred percent
1:59:04 and yet there's also the 50 percent
1:59:08 impervious limit for the total lot
1:59:12 that would be a lot of territory to use
1:59:15 up in impervious um
1:59:18 so we're we're gonna we're looking at
1:59:20 that section um to try and get clarity
1:59:23 about what the actual intent is
1:59:25 okay and maybe the overall 50 does it so
1:59:28 thank you
1:59:33 commissioner brennan
1:59:35 uh that last question was right on uh
1:59:37 what i was thinking too i thought uh and
1:59:40 the in the
1:59:42 follow-up about there is a maximum
1:59:44 impervious for the entire lot that would
1:59:46 also govern so it sounds like you've got
1:59:48 that one i decided way in real quick
1:59:50 also on the kind of the idea around an
1:59:52 exception to the setback for like a
1:59:55 front porch i appreciate what
1:59:57 commissioner price is trying to
1:59:58 accomplish that does get a little tricky
2:00:01 um if particularly if the setback is
2:00:03 only 10 feet in this particular zone
2:00:07 when you start doing that and providing
2:00:09 exceptions and then you start creating
2:00:12 you know sort of
2:00:13 a view blockage for people as they're
2:00:15 looking up and down the street as their
2:00:17 neighbor's house kind of sticks out a
2:00:18 little bit farther so that that just can
2:00:20 create a lot of conflict in a
2:00:22 neighborhood as redevelopment happens so
2:00:24 i think
2:00:25 um thinking about exceptions into
2:00:28 required setbacks is something
2:00:31 that should be
2:00:32 um looked at very cautiously because it
2:00:34 also sets a precedent for other parts of
2:00:36 the city too as others may want to
2:00:39 pursue similar sorts of exceptions so um
2:00:43 you know
2:00:44 they're always you've got to
2:00:46 design to the limits of you know what
2:00:48 the code allows you to design to and and
2:00:51 that's the
2:00:52 the challenge obviously so
2:00:54 i just again just
2:00:56 urge caution about exceptions to
2:00:58 setbacks particularly toward the street
2:01:04 thank you commissioner brennan and
2:01:07 commissioner voice thanks for
2:01:11 explaining that your question had been
2:01:13 answered that is a good point to any
2:01:15 commissioners if you've entered
2:01:18 saying you want to make a comment
2:01:20 and you no longer need to make it um
2:01:23 just uh let us know through the com the
2:01:25 chat box
2:01:27 commissioner schulte
2:01:29 uh yes thank you i guess both a comment
2:01:32 and a question i uh
2:01:34 i'm in agreement with commissioner
2:01:36 brennan and i'm also in agreement with
2:01:38 commissioner price as well
2:01:39 i think
2:01:41 providing flexibility to
2:01:43 to add a porch in the future is great
2:01:45 but you do also have to add some
2:01:48 restrictions on top of that as well and
2:01:49 you know there might be a possibility
2:01:51 that they do a second floor addition
2:01:52 right on top of the porch so
2:01:55 that kind of stuff you got to regulate
2:01:56 and as commissioner brennan mentioned
2:01:59 will affect the views even more so
2:02:03 and then you have to look at the design
2:02:04 of the porch as well i mean you can
2:02:05 create a very open porch um that
2:02:09 still allows good um
2:02:12 good sight uh but at the same time you
2:02:15 can create one that
2:02:16 has a lot of accents and blocks a lot of
2:02:19 views too so
2:02:22 you know if we end up allowing a porch
2:02:24 extension to occur
2:02:26 then i think there has to be additional
2:02:28 regulations in place
2:02:30 and then my other part uh the question
2:02:32 in this case uh on 5.3
2:02:37 i guess the start of the second sentence
2:02:39 uh privacy fences can be in front
2:02:42 of portions of the street facing facades
2:02:45 so is this
2:02:46 saying that i can do
2:02:48 fences that are greater than four feet
2:02:51 and if so it might be good to clarify
2:02:54 privacy fences in excess of four feet
2:02:56 can be in the front portions
2:02:59 blah blah blah is that is that the is
2:03:01 that the case
2:03:02 you can do six
2:03:04 taller than four feet where letter c is
2:03:11 yeah i'll jump on this here and so right
2:03:13 now um
2:03:15 you can build a privacy fence so you can
2:03:17 build a fence up to six feet tall in
2:03:19 front of the house as long as it uh
2:03:21 abides by the setback so 10 feet you can
2:03:24 build a six foot fence
2:03:25 awesome
2:03:26 and so what we're saying is
2:03:28 you can do that as long as it's um
2:03:32 behind the front facing facade so yeah
2:03:34 letter c is showing that because there's
2:03:37 that little portion that little um
2:03:40 portion of the building that's
2:03:41 protruding out behind it um we're not
2:03:44 saying that you know your entire facade
2:03:47 needs to be clear but you still need
2:03:49 your front door and your porch and that
2:03:51 front portion can't be blocked by the
2:03:53 privacy fence that's the intention with
2:03:54 that standard okay thank you
2:04:02 um but i do think we need to define
2:04:04 privacy fences as well um i've heard
2:04:06 that too so it's on the list
2:04:08 yeah i know i i think that makes sense
2:04:10 too because when we're looking at this
2:04:12 visual where we've got abc on the screen
2:04:14 uh c just says privacy fence uh i i
2:04:17 almost want to put the word hi in front
2:04:19 of privacy high privacy fence you know
2:04:22 located where c is
2:04:25 and and
2:04:27 i think sam also brought up a good point
2:04:29 which is
2:04:32 you know it says as long as the portion
2:04:33 of the building and the front entry
2:04:35 feature is visible from the street she
2:04:38 mentioned porches
2:04:40 and so i think that we
2:04:43 may need to do some wordsmithing
2:04:45 on this just to be clear not only about
2:04:48 the height of the privacy fence
2:04:50 but um that
2:04:52 you know the um a porch
2:04:55 a front entry
2:04:56 and the main
2:04:59 closest street facing portion of the
2:05:02 facade is
2:05:03 um the fences behind all of those things
2:05:08 or not blocking those things i think the
2:05:10 illustration does a great job i think
2:05:12 our words just might confuse it so we
2:05:15 probably just need to get them to match
2:05:22 i don't see any more commissioner
2:05:24 comments on front yards um have we
2:05:26 concluded the discussion of this section
2:05:30 i think kristen has said yes
2:05:36 that was the slip of a hand but i think
2:05:38 we'll move on to driveways driveways and
2:05:40 garages
2:05:44 what we heard is that
2:05:46 when you can make driveways and garages
2:05:49 be oriented toward the alley
2:05:52 and when alleys are not available
2:05:54 prioritize the human experience over the
2:05:56 car experience
2:05:58 so to do that we are prioritizing
2:06:01 pedestrians over cars our intent is to
2:06:03 prioritize pedestrians over cars and
2:06:05 minimize conflicts between cars and
2:06:07 people
2:06:09 so if there is alley access then the
2:06:11 garage and the driveway shall be
2:06:13 accessed from the alley
2:06:16 the garage can be in front if there is
2:06:18 no alley
2:06:20 um you want the garage to appear
2:06:22 secondary to the house
2:06:24 so it is
2:06:26 preferably set back i either not
2:06:29 connected to the house and further back
2:06:30 or it is set back from the front door
2:06:34 and it cannot take out more than 50
2:06:35 percent of the facade
2:06:37 there are lots with exceptions such as
2:06:40 those that are on constrained lots that
2:06:44 say back up to the creek
2:06:45 and some that dude there are a couple of
2:06:48 blocks in there that do not have alleys
2:06:50 associated with them so those would have
2:06:52 front lots
2:06:54 i think i touched on
2:06:57 the overview there let us know what you
2:06:59 have to say
2:07:02 commissioner price
2:07:06 thank you um i only have one comment
2:07:09 here and this may be too far-reaching
2:07:11 and too prescriptive but
2:07:13 in the instance where a garage
2:07:17 faces the street because there was no
2:07:19 other option for either
2:07:21 alley access or they elect not to put it
2:07:23 in the rear yard um that if it's a
2:07:27 double wide garage it'd be designed and
2:07:29 specified to appear
2:07:31 as two single doors as a as opposed to
2:07:35 wide expanse i think it just goes back
2:07:38 to the pedestrian experience the human
2:07:41 scale
2:07:42 and and especially in some more
2:07:43 contemporary homes there you know you
2:07:46 see a lot of just black flush metal
2:07:48 doors and then you just get this black
2:07:51 metal door you know like across the
2:07:53 front of the house and even though the
2:07:55 massing may be diminished the the door
2:07:57 itself becomes the dominant element
2:08:00 and just to illustrate that point on
2:08:03 32 on the upper right hand corner
2:08:08 the white the white house that happens
2:08:10 to be in the alley but those are the
2:08:12 type of doors i'm talking about they
2:08:14 don't necessarily have to be carriage
2:08:16 style doors but most garage door
2:08:18 companies offer
2:08:20 a door that looks like two doors even
2:08:22 though it's a double wide door
2:08:25 that that's my two cents um i'd be
2:08:28 curious if anybody else thinks that's
2:08:29 too far reaching
2:08:36 i i will add that where we had there was
2:08:38 a portion of issaquah highlands that
2:08:41 due to the soils had to have garages
2:08:44 in front of the house and that was
2:08:47 actually one of the requirements
2:08:49 now this was um
2:08:51 one or two blocks out of the entire area
2:08:57 it it
2:08:59 it isn't an unusual uh
2:09:02 one to incorporate
2:09:08 yum i like it for whatever it's worth
2:09:15 commissioner
2:09:17 uh yes thanks lucy um i'm not sure they
2:09:20 have the same page numbers um
2:09:23 i guess it's
2:09:24 page 15 of the document
2:09:27 uh or page 23 of 29 it might print out
2:09:33 it's above 6.3
2:09:36 and i'm looking at that illustration on
2:09:38 the top left
2:09:40 of the page is that
2:09:43 this when i first saw that i thought
2:09:46 that it's the same as on the slide right
2:09:48 there on the lower left i thought that
2:09:52 offended both
2:09:54 6.2 and 6.3 uh the garage was very
2:09:57 prominent there it struck me as a kind
2:09:59 of what i've heard referred to as a
2:10:01 snout house
2:10:02 and so i wonder if that's on a
2:10:04 constrained lie and if that's why that
2:10:07 garage is positioned that way
2:10:11 i'm i'm going to um
2:10:16 sam or kristen would need to speak to
2:10:19 um their selection of of that i think
2:10:22 that there it's got a set of detailed
2:10:24 car doors uh garage doors
2:10:27 so there may
2:10:28 and and the way it integrated into the
2:10:30 house
2:10:31 um in spite of it i agree being a snout
2:10:34 house
2:10:35 i also think it's an interesting one to
2:10:38 discuss uh the commission's
2:10:42 interest in at least one window on the
2:10:45 ground floor
2:10:47 facing the street because
2:10:49 in this case we have
2:10:52 the proportions
2:10:54 we didn't get a chance to discuss this
2:10:56 um so
2:10:58 i'm uh as
2:10:59 this is where the staff discussion comes
2:11:04 uh 6.2 d
2:11:07 um on constrained lots came out of
2:11:09 issaquah highlands
2:11:11 um and
2:11:12 uh talus where we have very narrow
2:11:15 townhouse lots that are sometimes
2:11:18 you know
2:11:19 16 to 20 feet wide with attached town
2:11:23 homes which may be a is is not really
2:11:26 the circumstance that we're looking at
2:11:28 and so with a door and a window facing
2:11:31 the street i think we've got some
2:11:33 challenges to identify what our actual
2:11:36 constraints are and
2:11:39 if the commissioners concur with
2:11:42 commissioner sanford
2:11:44 on that particular image
2:11:47 as not being our goal
2:11:51 or whether we think on a constrained lot
2:11:54 that would be an acceptable solution
2:11:58 yeah i'll jump in here and the intention
2:12:01 with that picture and the caption isn't
2:12:04 isn't addressing this so i i apologize
2:12:06 for that oversight but that was um to
2:12:09 show a constrained lot and
2:12:13 there are some examples of these so if
2:12:16 you go on the next page you can see some
2:12:18 examples of
2:12:19 houses in issaquah that
2:12:22 um have garages facing the street
2:12:24 they're not so um
2:12:27 i mean you can see one that's similar
2:12:28 but um
2:12:31 when so with the zoning the minimum lot
2:12:34 width is 50 feet um and then when you
2:12:37 start talking about
2:12:38 lots uh in the creek corridor with the
2:12:41 easement there um you can get into
2:12:43 scenarios where you might have a really
2:12:45 constrained narrow lot so um
2:12:49 i i think it's
2:12:51 within the realm of possibility that you
2:12:53 might have a building that's really
2:12:54 narrow that way um without an alley
2:12:57 access um
2:12:58 so that's the intention there um lucy
2:13:01 brought up a good point about you know
2:13:03 how you would apply the the window and
2:13:05 then i don't know if
2:13:07 you know the windows on the garage door
2:13:09 would count in that scenario so we would
2:13:12 we need to play that out a little bit um
2:13:15 more but
2:13:16 in terms of the constrained lot scenario
2:13:19 i'm curious if you guys think that is
2:13:22 okay um and if not you know how we want
2:13:25 to address those situations where
2:13:28 where we're really you know struggling
2:13:30 to fit everything in that way
2:13:32 yeah i guess the thing that just struck
2:13:34 me about that image was that it was just
2:13:37 so close to 6.3 which says garage shall
2:13:41 be designed to appear secondary right
2:13:43 and that was was just so clearly primary
2:13:46 and now maybe it could be healed by just
2:13:48 some language in the uh
2:13:50 in the caption you know this is a
2:13:52 constrained lot example or something
2:13:54 yeah and we we can move it too so it's
2:13:56 not so obvious
2:14:01 well well this is mel and i um i had an
2:14:03 issue with that photo as well too though
2:14:05 because the
2:14:07 right before that in the page before in
2:14:09 6.2 d it says the front door in the
2:14:12 space on either side on a constrained
2:14:15 lot of 36 feet or less would be
2:14:18 no less than six feet and then when i go
2:14:21 to that next page it sure looks to me
2:14:22 like that door
2:14:24 and wall is less than six feet
2:14:30 and so
2:14:31 yeah it just it
2:14:33 i could see what like it's a nice
2:14:34 looking garage door but i would totally
2:14:36 agree it's just not a picture that helps
2:14:38 the cause for this
2:14:40 and in addition to that i would agree
2:14:43 with commissioner price
2:14:45 in situations like this if we're going
2:14:47 to have garage doors
2:14:48 front and center on a lot that breaking
2:14:51 it up into individual garage doors
2:14:53 instead of one monolith garage door is a
2:14:55 good idea
2:15:01 those are good comments but i'm sure we
2:15:02 can find a much better picture that
2:15:05 isn't so conflicting so we'll we'll swap
2:15:07 that one out and
2:15:10 get a better example
2:15:13 great i did have one other
2:15:16 comment on 6.5 e
2:15:19 the on-site driveway length shall be no
2:15:21 less than 18 feet and it looks like a
2:15:24 lot of our examples appear to be less
2:15:27 than 18 feet and i wondered about
2:15:30 if we do have lots that are constrained
2:15:34 or even with a 10 foot minimum setback
2:15:38 is 18 feet going to
2:15:41 work for everybody and and was there a
2:15:43 reason behind the 18 feet
2:15:46 um i can speak to that one um we do need
2:15:49 to clarify that the 18 feet is not
2:15:52 required when you're getting access from
2:15:54 the alley
2:15:56 however if you are getting access from
2:15:58 the street
2:16:01 if you
2:16:03 a typical parking space is 18 feet long
2:16:06 and so
2:16:08 our concern is that it will impede fire
2:16:12 access if there is no sidewalk
2:16:15 or with a sidewalk it will impede
2:16:18 accessibility
2:16:20 because the vehicle will hang off the
2:16:22 property
2:16:23 so while i um
2:16:26 understand the
2:16:29 concern and constraints
2:16:32 issue
2:16:33 i think that um
2:16:36 what we have seen
2:16:37 we have tried a couple of we used to
2:16:39 allow them
2:16:41 to be they had to be more than
2:16:44 18 or more
2:16:46 or um
2:16:48 less than eight or ten to indicate that
2:16:51 there was no parking and what we
2:16:53 discovered is people would park and just
2:16:55 block the sidewalk
2:16:56 and so um what we have to ensure that
2:16:59 fire and pedestrians
2:17:02 have access and that
2:17:04 in parking your vehicle on site you are
2:17:08 impeding those other
2:17:11 modes
2:17:13 okay thank you
2:17:18 commissioner brennan
2:17:21 yeah just a quick follow-up on that so
2:17:23 in in that constrained lot situation
2:17:26 where you've got the garage that's kind
2:17:28 of predominant
2:17:30 if if the zoning setback is 10 feet and
2:17:33 you say
2:17:35 18 feet is the minimum driveway length
2:17:37 that you would need to have essentially
2:17:40 ascend you've established an 18-foot
2:17:42 setback for the building
2:17:44 and and so that that constrains those
2:17:46 constraints constrained lots even more i
2:17:50 totally get the reason for
2:17:52 the 18 feet
2:17:54 but i'm just you you're
2:17:57 taking away another eight plus feet of
2:17:59 buildable area by doing that so just i
2:18:02 just thought i'd point that i don't know
2:18:04 it's it's a balancing act and i
2:18:06 understand that but it would by it would
2:18:08 de facto create an 18 foot front yard
2:18:10 setback
2:18:12 well only for the garage the rest of the
2:18:14 house is supposed to be in front of it i
2:18:17 i do recognize the point though that
2:18:19 you're making which is if you have a pie
2:18:21 shaped lot
2:18:22 with the pointy end of the pie facing
2:18:25 the street it could be difficult to have
2:18:28 both access to the garage
2:18:33 a front door and things and and be able
2:18:37 set one at say 10 feet and the other at
2:18:40 18. i i assume that's the concern
2:18:44 yeah i i guess it'll just
2:18:46 it would probably be a very unique set
2:18:49 of circumstances it would probably
2:18:50 require a little creativity and
2:18:52 flexibility by everybody to figure out
2:18:54 how to balance the standard or the
2:18:56 requirements but
2:18:57 it's just
2:18:59 it does create another constraint but i
2:19:02 i know what you're talking about i've
2:19:03 seen it i've walked down sidewalks where
2:19:05 cars are hanging out on the sidewalk and
2:19:06 it frustrates you because you gotta walk
2:19:08 out into the road so um i get that goal
2:19:12 well and um
2:19:14 there may be a need at some point that
2:19:16 we do some test scenarios on some of
2:19:19 these um
2:19:21 items to pick a constrained lot for
2:19:24 instance um in
2:19:26 old town where this would apply and see
2:19:28 what the implications would be of trying
2:19:31 you know just in in terms of even
2:19:32 defining a footprint
2:19:39 commissioner sanford
2:19:41 saying so on 6.4
2:19:44 i was unclear about the use of the word
2:19:47 may there
2:19:50 um the driveway of street facing garage
2:19:53 may not be the only paved connection
2:19:55 from the street to the house
2:19:59 it seems a little ambiguous to me that
2:20:00 it could mean it might or might not be
2:20:04 or it must not be
2:20:08 the intent was must not
2:20:19 uh commissioner schulte
2:20:22 uh thank you uh question on
2:20:25 i guess on the first page of driveways
2:20:27 and garages the top left image where
2:20:30 does the
2:20:32 where would the boundary for the the
2:20:35 front yard be established um i
2:20:37 understand it's the the plane of the
2:20:39 house but
2:20:40 does that plane cut across the driveway
2:20:43 and if that's so
2:20:45 then is that driveway calculated towards
2:20:48 the impervious or pervious calculation
2:20:50 depending on the material
2:20:57 so the driveway does count toward
2:21:00 the impervious on the property
2:21:02 okay considered front yard as well
2:21:07 as we've talked about it tonight yes
2:21:08 part of that would be in the front yard
2:21:11 okay but um being that it's not defined
2:21:13 we might have to clarify that yeah it
2:21:16 might be yeah agreed it might be good to
2:21:18 establish some kind of relationship from
2:21:20 the the previous uh code section of you
2:21:23 know yard uh front yard and then a
2:21:26 relationship to
2:21:28 how what there's a driveway how does
2:21:29 that impact
2:21:30 the front yard
2:21:32 and this is uh keith niven director of
2:21:35 community planning and development
2:21:36 commissioner i think you're bringing up
2:21:37 a good point and i think we're gonna
2:21:39 need to run some numbers
2:21:41 if the intent is to push the garage to
2:21:43 the back of the lot
2:21:45 which then as the image shows you end up
2:21:47 with a big swath of impervious because
2:21:50 the driveway has to get all the way to
2:21:52 the garage
2:21:53 you know when you take out the building
2:21:56 and this long driveway have you exceeded
2:21:58 the 50 impervious so i think we're going
2:22:01 to have to look at whether that could be
2:22:03 contrary to
2:22:05 one of the other standards yeah yeah
2:22:07 that's great thank you
2:22:12 uh that is the last commissioner who's
2:22:14 indicated they had a comment or question
2:22:16 are there any further
2:22:18 comments or questions on this section
2:22:38 okay so i'm moving on
2:22:41 um before i forget though
2:22:44 it is clear to me
2:22:45 that all of you not only read the
2:22:47 document but you also watch the council
2:22:50 meeting and i really really appreciate
2:22:53 that you did that i think this has been
2:22:54 a great discussion and i think that's a
2:22:56 good part of it so thank you for doing
2:23:00 something that continues to come up and
2:23:01 we are still discussing ourselves
2:23:04 on a staff level
2:23:06 our additions and adus and i should
2:23:08 mention that you all did i did forward
2:23:09 you comments from nancy davidson who
2:23:11 could not be here tonight
2:23:13 and we will address those comments in
2:23:15 the next packet that goes out with the
2:23:17 architectural standards because some of
2:23:18 those are thinkers we need to we need to
2:23:20 talk about them
2:23:21 um but one of the things that came up
2:23:24 was development and redevelopment which
2:23:25 would be additions in adus accessory
2:23:28 dwelling units
2:23:30 the questions are do and this is we need
2:23:33 your input here we don't have any
2:23:34 standards yet do you want to regulate
2:23:37 additions and accessory dwelling units
2:23:38 meaning does the accessory dwelling unit
2:23:40 need to match the new standards does it
2:23:42 match the existing house
2:23:45 same with additions
2:23:46 and if so to what extent so if it's an
2:23:49 addition
2:23:50 you know something that we've talked
2:23:51 about initially we talked about
2:23:54 value of the house
2:23:56 um you know if it's a certain percentage
2:23:58 of the value of the house then you have
2:24:00 to come into compliance but that could
2:24:01 mean that you go put in new windows and
2:24:03 you have to redo the whole house
2:24:05 so then we started talking about well
2:24:07 maybe it's
2:24:08 square footage you know if you do 50 of
2:24:10 the square foot of the house then you
2:24:11 have to come into compliance
2:24:14 those are things that we've been talking
2:24:16 about and we would love your input on
2:24:18 this i don't know if you want to start
2:24:19 with additions or adus or just jump in
2:24:21 and do the whole thing
2:24:23 but i'm going to let somebody have at it
2:24:29 first up
2:24:32 commissioner sanford
2:24:35 you know i think if we had the perfect
2:24:37 world we would all love adus to be
2:24:40 perfectly consistent with the primary
2:24:42 dwelling but from what i heard or
2:24:44 surmised from the community meetings and
2:24:48 the city council's reaction it seemed
2:24:50 that affordability was very important uh
2:24:53 encouraging
2:24:57 allow people to age in place
2:25:00 encourages affordability for all of old
2:25:04 i i didn't hear a lot of stress coming
2:25:06 from people over the idea that an adu
2:25:09 may not be
2:25:10 consistent with the main structure so i
2:25:12 guess
2:25:15 i i've kind of changed my position on
2:25:17 this i think i would not be for
2:25:18 regulating too much consistency with
2:25:20 adus if at all
2:25:24 commissioner voice
2:25:28 well i'm going to respectfully take the
2:25:30 opposite tact
2:25:32 i actually do believe the adu should be
2:25:34 somewhat
2:25:36 in compliance with the actual structure
2:25:39 i know these lots are small and because
2:25:41 they're small
2:25:42 i think it's important that any
2:25:43 additional dwelling units do resemble
2:25:46 the house
2:25:47 or the main structure so whether that's
2:25:49 building materials
2:25:51 style colors
2:25:52 the more
2:25:54 that they have in common the better and
2:25:56 i think if we're talking about the human
2:25:57 experience and what it is to walk down
2:25:59 the street
2:26:00 uh those could very quickly develop in
2:26:03 the eye sores
2:26:05 that's my piece
2:26:08 commissioner lewis
2:26:11 hi commissioner joey lewis uh i second
2:26:14 commissioner voice's opinions um and i
2:26:16 wonder if maybe there should actually be
2:26:18 a difference between editions and adus
2:26:21 maybe edus are able to have a little bit
2:26:24 more leeway as far as design elements as
2:26:26 far as versus
2:26:28 the addition to a home
2:26:31 keeping in mind that you know
2:26:33 all the work that we've put in to try to
2:26:35 focus on affordable housing and using
2:26:37 adus as a tool i do think that there
2:26:39 should be a different measure that we
2:26:41 think of as success so even if that is a
2:26:44 coordinating color palette you know um
2:26:46 to what the existing home is really
2:26:49 minimal uh requirements i think it's
2:26:51 completely reasonable to say that it
2:26:52 doesn't need to be in the exact style
2:26:54 and character um of the home but i do
2:26:57 worry about um
2:26:59 the opportunity um to kind of really
2:27:03 a blight on the property especially when
2:27:05 everything is so close together so i
2:27:07 think that there is a balance that needs
2:27:09 to get struck
2:27:10 and so putting really minimal
2:27:12 requirements i think is something
2:27:15 that is it possible or breaking up again
2:27:17 the additions of the versus the adus
2:27:21 um i do think it's also i as you were
2:27:24 speaking i was thinking that
2:27:28 may be in the backyard
2:27:31 and not even visible from the street so
2:27:33 that i think is one thing we're going to
2:27:35 need to explore is if you have a garage
2:27:37 or an adu that's in the back
2:27:39 to what extent is it even regulated by
2:27:42 this code
2:27:44 if for instance it's accessed off the
2:27:46 alley
2:27:48 do you have any additional thoughts
2:27:49 about that
2:27:51 you know i think that these are small
2:27:53 lots and where it's a it's a tight
2:27:55 community and so the idea that it would
2:27:57 be unseen is pretty unlikely either by
2:27:59 your neighbors or those that were saying
2:28:01 everyone needs to access your home by
2:28:03 your alleyway um so
2:28:05 i you know i i personally um
2:28:09 when building additional structures on
2:28:11 my own property um have i find that i
2:28:15 find it best to integrate some of the
2:28:18 home's natural character in that that
2:28:20 being said you know when we recently put
2:28:22 up a shed we my husband did a beautiful
2:28:24 job doing cedar shake on just the front
2:28:26 side of it and we recently restained and
2:28:29 painted it after two years
2:28:31 but i will say that um you know having
2:28:33 elements you know but we painted it in
2:28:35 the same colors of our home right so
2:28:37 even though there are some differences
2:28:38 there are some similarities and so
2:28:40 um allowing people some leeway i think
2:28:43 is nice but i think it's also important
2:28:45 to think about um
2:28:47 having a congruent nature to them
2:28:50 thank you
2:28:52 commissioner morgan
2:28:54 um yeah i would agree with the idea that
2:28:58 significant difference between the
2:28:59 detached accessory dwelling units and
2:29:02 additions
2:29:03 and on the addition side i would very
2:29:06 much feel like it needs to integrate
2:29:08 into the design of the existing
2:29:11 home that is there
2:29:13 so it doesn't start to look like an
2:29:15 add-on
2:29:19 because in some homes it may be an older
2:29:21 home that that doesn't fit any of the
2:29:23 requirements and if we start to say well
2:29:25 it needs to fit the recurrent
2:29:26 requirements and you're attaching it to
2:29:28 the current house
2:29:30 that's not great then if you start to
2:29:31 say you need to change the entire house
2:29:33 to match
2:29:35 and that becomes very cost prohibitive
2:29:37 so i would say for attached
2:29:39 additions i would say they should
2:29:42 match the existing home for detached i
2:29:44 would leave
2:29:45 that open to the requirements that we've
2:29:48 got here because i think a lot of times
2:29:50 those detached adus can be
2:29:53 very interesting
2:29:56 additional
2:29:57 units added to a property
2:30:01 and and the other question about coming
2:30:04 into compliance i think i would feel
2:30:06 like setting that bar fairly high
2:30:09 uh for the if nothing else the sake of
2:30:12 the environment i'd hate to tell
2:30:13 somebody
2:30:14 um you want to make changes to half your
2:30:17 building so you need to tear off all the
2:30:20 siding and the roof and everything and
2:30:22 essentially redo the whole thing so i
2:30:24 would set that bar fairly high for what
2:30:27 restriction would be thank you
2:30:32 price
2:30:36 um i i think
2:30:38 this is such a tough one right and and i
2:30:40 guess i had a question right out of the
2:30:42 gate uh and then i have a comment is
2:30:45 are you allowed i'm just not familiar
2:30:47 with the code are you allowed to do adus
2:30:50 and dadus
2:30:52 in essence are you allowed to have
2:30:54 accessory dwelling units within the home
2:30:56 or is that just a duplex at that point
2:30:58 you you can have adus within the home
2:31:01 it's not considered to duplex there's
2:31:02 there are measurement requirements
2:31:04 associated with it but you can do it
2:31:06 and so when we talk about additions it's
2:31:08 not specifically about adus or dadus
2:31:12 it's editions and adus that is correct
2:31:16 okay well yeah it's tough and it's
2:31:18 complex and it's really hard to pin it
2:31:20 down you know to commissioner morgan's
2:31:22 point um what if the house is already
2:31:24 completely
2:31:27 cited in t111
2:31:29 you know and and then they're doing a
2:31:30 second story addition are we are we then
2:31:33 saying
2:31:34 you know
2:31:36 okay well
2:31:37 go ahead and continue the t111 because
2:31:39 it's congruent or then should it somehow
2:31:43 meet the guidelines i feel the best
2:31:46 mechanism in place is just
2:31:49 establishing a threshold but i think it
2:31:52 has to be somewhat ambiguous i'm
2:31:54 confronted with this all the time
2:31:56 and i bump up against what's called a
2:31:58 substantial alteration
2:32:01 it's gray it's super great and it's at
2:32:03 the discretion of staff
2:32:05 in most cases and you can demonstrate
2:32:07 that um
2:32:09 you're not exceeding the thresholds but
2:32:12 it comes down to somebody declares it i
2:32:14 think the best definition i see out
2:32:17 there is are you extending
2:32:21 does the remodeler edition substantially
2:32:23 extend the useful physical and or
2:32:25 economic life of the building or
2:32:27 significant portion of the building so
2:32:29 that's gray you know it doesn't say 60
2:32:32 or it's not based on the value of the
2:32:34 home assessed or
2:32:36 or retail um it's
2:32:39 i don't know i i feel like it's
2:32:41 you have to have some language in there
2:32:43 but ultimately it comes down to
2:32:46 the discretion of staff and who's before
2:32:48 them is it a little old lady or or is it
2:32:51 you know um somebody that swooped in and
2:32:54 and bought a million dollar house in on
2:32:56 the valley floor and wants to completely
2:32:58 remodel it and um
2:33:01 so i i you know it's it's tough i
2:33:03 probably haven't been helpful because i
2:33:05 think it's a really really hard one to
2:33:07 pin down
2:33:11 commissioner brennan
2:33:13 so uh quickly on the adus
2:33:15 that are separate or detached adus i
2:33:18 agree that the standard should apply to
2:33:20 any new building that's being
2:33:22 constructed
2:33:23 as far as additions are concerned
2:33:26 i think there needs to be some form of a
2:33:28 control in place most additions i think
2:33:31 will probably be fairly modest and and
2:33:33 you wanted to integrate in with the
2:33:35 existing architecture of the building
2:33:37 but but somebody could also come in and
2:33:40 do a major modification to the building
2:33:42 they could strip off the siding add a
2:33:44 second story
2:33:46 and they would be able to come back in
2:33:48 and do whatever they want because they
2:33:50 would be exempt from all of the
2:33:51 standards if it's considered an addition
2:33:55 definition or an addition and a remodel
2:33:57 so i do think
2:33:58 you need to think about it and
2:33:59 commissioner price was talking about you
2:34:01 know substantial remodel or you know
2:34:03 extending the life of the building
2:34:05 uh something that is a trigger and it's
2:34:07 probably going to have some discretion
2:34:09 that says when you cross this threshold
2:34:12 you actually do need to either
2:34:13 proportionately comply or comply with
2:34:15 the standards for the building to
2:34:17 prevent somebody coming in and
2:34:19 essentially doing a work around the
2:34:21 standard by leaving a part of the
2:34:23 building standing
2:34:27 commissioner
2:34:28 schulte i'm in agreement that i think
2:34:31 the the additions
2:34:33 should should have more restrictions to
2:34:35 them i mean i i don't know that it makes
2:34:37 sense to do two different roof types for
2:34:38 example you know for additions um
2:34:42 seeing as how is a roof
2:34:43 unless it's flat is pretty dominant uh
2:34:46 visually um
2:34:49 it's a good point that commissioner
2:34:50 brennan brought up regarding
2:34:52 certain thresholds
2:34:54 uh i guess the other piece of the the
2:34:55 negative piece about thresholds is
2:34:57 someone can barely reach the threshold
2:34:59 right and still
2:35:01 not have to comply so that that's
2:35:03 something else to keep in mind so i mean
2:35:05 you know having a restriction of a
2:35:07 thousand square feet for example and um
2:35:10 you know if that triggers a threshold
2:35:12 they they may not quite get there with
2:35:14 it with a thousand square feet so
2:35:16 and i think in it
2:35:17 you know just standalone structures adus
2:35:21 i'm in agreement with uh you know with
2:35:23 there being less restriction on on those
2:35:27 i i think uh
2:35:28 um again with the with the assumption
2:35:31 that there are
2:35:32 maybe there is a threshold like that
2:35:34 prevents you from doing a second story
2:35:36 on that adu you know whether it's a
2:35:38 square footage or just the percentage of
2:35:41 the main structure um
2:35:43 those are kind of my thoughts
2:35:45 and the reason being for the less
2:35:46 restrictive for the the adus is
2:35:49 you know that at one point it may be
2:35:51 converted into a studio or
2:35:53 or even
2:35:55 you know a shed in itself it may not
2:35:57 become a living quarter
2:35:59 um you know living quarters you know at
2:36:01 one point maybe come and serve a
2:36:03 different use
2:36:06 altogether commissioner stanford
2:36:09 also uh this discussion reminds me there
2:36:12 was a comment from the community on
2:36:13 exactly this
2:36:15 uh wondering exactly when this would
2:36:17 apply if uh redevelopment happened
2:36:20 occurred in the house if there were
2:36:22 additions to the house or worth if there
2:36:24 were separate attached
2:36:26 uh structures so
2:36:28 uh this
2:36:30 it's kind of essential it seems to this
2:36:32 discussion but also i'm wondering about
2:36:35 applicability of this standard in
2:36:37 general and if that could be defined a
2:36:39 little bit more clearly up in the
2:36:40 applicability section in the beginning
2:36:42 what really triggers
2:36:44 when the standard goes into effect
2:36:54 commissioner sanford was the last
2:36:56 commissioner to indicate that they had a
2:36:58 comment or question do any
2:37:01 additional commissioners
2:37:03 care to comment or
2:37:05 add a question on this topic
2:37:09 yeah i would like this richard i'd like
2:37:11 to uh you know i think that
2:37:13 part of the whole point of having
2:37:16 having some architectural standards were
2:37:20 to maintain
2:37:22 some of the
2:37:23 eclectic character of
2:37:26 of the community you know eclectic
2:37:29 character of the old town and so
2:37:34 i think that my sense is as long as as
2:37:36 long as your
2:37:38 what you're proposing is a remodel
2:37:43 isn't changing the form in effect
2:37:44 changing the form or function of the
2:37:46 facility then you then you
2:37:48 are not necessarily constrained what you
2:37:50 need to do what takes should take
2:37:52 priority is matching the facility not
2:37:54 the standard
2:37:55 once you start building new uh
2:37:58 or even building detached editions
2:38:01 that's when that's when the new standard
2:38:03 ought to take place right i think so
2:38:13 any additional comments
2:38:29 i'm glad i'm glad the question was
2:38:30 brought up because i i that was one of
2:38:33 the main concerns of the at least the
2:38:35 comment that i saw from
2:38:38 the one of the people on the public and
2:38:40 i guess we haven't asked is has anybody
2:38:42 from the public joined our
2:38:44 the discussion
2:38:48 nobody from the public
2:38:51 is on the discussion right now
2:38:57 i i would like to let you all know that
2:38:59 this was sent out through next door to
2:39:02 all of the contacts that we have in old
2:39:04 town and that area is also sent out to
2:39:07 all the parties of interest as well
2:39:09 so it has gone out and it's on our
2:39:11 website and i think it's part of a news
2:39:14 one in the newsletter as well so it's
2:39:15 it's gotten out there
2:39:24 well if does anybody have any questions
2:39:26 i you know our next step is to take this
2:39:27 back to we'll make
2:39:29 changes great conversation tonight
2:39:32 um we will do a little research make
2:39:35 some edits to this
2:39:37 and then we plan to take it to ppc in
2:39:40 the fall so are there any other last
2:39:42 minute questions or comments that you'd
2:39:44 like to throw out there for us
2:39:50 uh just a big thank you kristen and to
2:39:51 the remainder of the staff for just a
2:39:53 great presentation great visuals
2:39:55 um a lot of great progress
2:39:58 great
2:39:59 you're welcome yep
2:40:01 yeah i think i think we learned through
2:40:03 trying to come up with a design guide
2:40:06 that we went through
2:40:08 you did a great job this this really is
2:40:11 i mean it really is great the pictures
2:40:14 are great the the plus the the the uh
2:40:17 i'm going to get them wrong with the the
2:40:20 intent and the standards really really
2:40:23 helped and i i really i really uh liked
2:40:25 the pictures too i thought it was all in
2:40:27 all a really great package
2:40:29 great thank you
2:40:31 commissioner voice mentioned that he
2:40:33 would like to make a comment
2:40:35 yeah i'd just like to echo my fellow
2:40:37 commissioners fantastic david thank you
2:40:39 for having us development commission uh
2:40:42 thank you city staff and again i
2:40:44 would like to just say the same comments
2:40:46 a tremendous packet
2:40:48 love the visuals love the walk through
2:40:50 great presentation kristin and thank you
2:40:54 yeah thank you
2:40:57 all right see you next time
2:41:05 so lucy is do we need to make a formal
2:41:08 adjournment of the meeting
2:41:12 keith is not a
2:41:14 yes all right uh
2:41:17 at 9 13 i'd like to uh call the meeting
2:41:20 adjourned thank you all the excellent
2:41:23 participation i appreciate it you all
2:41:25 you all did a really good job thank you
2:41:29 great thanks everybody

Attendance

Council / Members (13)
Planning Policy Commissioners Present: Richard Sowa
Joan Probala
Mel Morgan
Joy Lewis Kevin Price Janice Carle Michael Brennan Jason Voiss Richard Sanford Brooke Shore PPC Commissioners Not Present: Arthur Schulte
Alternate Ron Faul
Bill Rinehart Administration/Staff: Robin Beukers
Alternate Lucy Sloman
Land Development Mgr. Keith Niven
Director
CP&D Christen Leeson
Senior Planner Doug Yormick
Assistant Planner Samantha Suter
Consultant