for all right good evening and welcome to the December 16th meeting of the wetta Planning Commission I call a commission to order pound there go um unfortunately chair Stockton's unable to attend um this evening um my name is Chris planton I am the vice chair and so I will try to fill her shoes for tonight um next I'd like to read the information for our hybrid meeting for those who care to join remotely um you can join by um meeting number ID is 814 2288 7154 and the pass code is 514 894 members of the P public May attend this Planning Commission meeting in person or watch and listen remotely by viewing the meeting on Channel 8 WCTV and at the city's website ww w w.a. org backw CV public comments during the public forum and or the public hearing portions of the meeting may be provided in person in meeting in advance or by logging into the zoom call and raising your hand during the public hearing when your name is called in the meeting you'll be seen and heard in our council chambers and on the cable channel you'll be asked to unmute and then you may begin your comment all public comments must include your full name and address uh next planner corals would you like to please call the role absolutely uh commissioner El here commissioner Schwab here commissioner planton here commissioner camon present and please note that Commissioners Severson and Stockton are absent all right thank you next up on the agenda is the approval for our agenda this evening are there any updates um or discussion on the agenda okay if none I'd ask for a motion for approval motion to approve the minutes I second all right any discussion all those in favor I I motion passes please note that the agenda has been approved next is the consent agenda um on the consent agenda is the approval of the meeting minutes of November 18th 2024 again are there any questions for staff or other Commissioners all right if none I'd ask for a motion of approval so moved Cameron second schi all right any discussion all those in favor I all right the motion passes that brings us to our public hearing items on our agenda the first is 5A which is considering a zoning text Amendment for chapter 909 Des our design standards and minor calls would you like to walk us through this portion I can um and I probably should have brought this up during the agenda approval but it might make sense to switch these two items since we have a couple of people in the audience all right um so move to 5B considering the zoning text Amendment for chapters 955 r3a district and 920 parking sounds good and that's on me I could have organized our agenda a little bit better so uh this will be a somewhat short presentation with a lot of discussion based on a fairly Long Engagement process over the last couple of months so consider these slides a high level summary that we can dig into any part of so the chapters that we're discussing amending today are chapters 955 which is the r3a single family district and 920 which is parking and loading and both of these are for zoning text amendments for a little bit of background uh over the summer uh staff heard concerns from the city council about the fast-pace and character of single family Redevelopment in the core neighborhoods over the summer this was generally in the areas uh north of Wisa Boulevard and South of Highway 12 hemmed in by uh sort of uh Benton and Barry in general there was a council Workshop held on September 17 to sort of preliminarily discuss the issue at that Workshop staff was directed to prepare a moratorium on Redevelopment within that uh specifically bounded area for the council's consideration the council considered it in October and the moratorium did not pass so there was no stoppage on development over this fall uh through that process Council directed staff to continue working on the issue and actually expand the scope of the study to all of r3a which is everything in Orange uh on the map there on the slide on October 21st the staff brought forward 10 potential changes uh to the Planning Commission these are uh zoning solutions that could possibly address some of the concerns that uh residents were bringing up these were not all necessarily ones that we knew were going to move forward but they were ones that we wanted to make sure that we got in front of Planning Commission after that we opened up a visual preference survey online for the community for about two weeks in November we got 87 responses on that which was blew me away I was very surprised but very heartened to see the volume of responses the detail that people put into their responses it was extremely helpful to us when considering what zoning solution should move forward uh that went out to all our 3A residents uh both in the Yetta weekly so there are a couple of residents who took the survey who might not have been part of r3a but that's okay and then everyone in r3a which is about 250 homes also received a letter and that letter included a link to the survey as well as information on this public hearing this evening so they were notified that way uh we also sent out a memo with those 10 potential zoning solution to single family builders for comment in November it was important to us to reach out to the building Community because you know they're the ones who are designing and and planning a lot of the actual homes that we see and so we wanted to get an idea of all of these Solutions potential Effectiveness and viability and so that helped us edit down to our our final uh couple options as well and uh on top of that we also had an open house uh both for residents and one for Builders November 25th we ended up having a little bit of cross-pollination at the at the resident uh open house because a lot of our Builders locally are also residents and so they came to that meeting and we had a really great discussion with everybody so after all of that engagement we were able to take our number of proposed solutions from about 10 to about two solutions that we think will do a really good job of um bringing bringing the kinds of changes that people want to see without necessarily being overly restricted or heavy-handed on uh new home designs to summarize before we get there uh there were obvious you know with 87 survey responses and two open houses and a written public comments that we reive there's a lot to sift through but these were the key takeaways I wanted to make sure that the Planning Commission could ground themselves in as we talk about these options uh based on that visual preference survey we saw that residents generally like homes that are a bit smaller they appear Charming they have you know a green front yard and then uh sort of the activity in the house is oriented towards the street and it sort of deemphasizes the garage and the driveway as in these are not the dominating elements of the front of the house uh most residents also believe that elements like Landscaping setbacks front doors porches and improvie surface are the items that are most important to consider when we're talking about what neighborhood character is which can be a really vague phrase if we don't distill it down into those kinds of topics but residents are split on a ton of other issues uh there was a huge range of reactions to whether Redevelopment is a positive thing you know there's a subset of the community that you know definitely feels a little apprehensive about change but there's also a significant subset of the community that likes to see Redevelopment and likes to see new houses and property values go up and overall change um concerns about future impacts to properties if you know if we're to do something that's more restrictive what does that do to the value of my home when I sell it in a couple years and it probably gets redeveloped and then of course you know as always discussions about what is the role of the city is it too heavy-handed to consider some of these regulations or is it the role of the city to step in and address some of these issues with you know a firm sort of Outlook but I think that one of the key survey responses to directly take away from is that one that's called out in the yellow box just there uh and it's basically that we asked people we asked all the survey respondents you know when the Planning Commission and the city council and staff look at all of the potential zoning Solutions here is it more important that we end up with a variety of new houses or that we end up with you know houses that look how we want them and that those houses look pretty uniform in the way that WIS Zetta houses should look and the overwhelming majority prioritized variety and so that informed a lot about how we thought about um the overall restrictiveness or incentive based nature of of different solutions so our first of two solutions um has to do with what is actually a pretty minor thing in the code but has a big effect on how um lots are laid out in town so right now if you're building a new driveway on a property you have to set that driveway off 10 feet from the side yard lot line it gets pushed in towards the middle of the lot and that's true in all of our residential zoning districts and it's also true for curb Cuts so that entire area of pavement gets moved off significantly from that side Lot line we are proposing to reduce that from 10et down to 3 feet uh that three foot number was chosen uh because it feels like a practical amount of space for fencing Landscaping it's enough space that property line disputes are a little less likely it's enough room to put some snow clearance if that's what you want to do you know you don't have to and when it comes to setbacks nobody has to build out to the setback but it's always likely that they will so we want to make sure that we build in those sort of fail safes but what that does is it opens up the sidey yard for driveways so a lot of the Lots in our 3A are 50 55 60 ft wide so instead of having to push a driveway all the way in 10 ft and then also you know put a house on the other side of that in order to sort of route your driveway all the way all the way around the back of the house now you can build that house out closer to the principal structure setback which is 10 ft and still have room around that to get that driveway maybe to the back and you know this is again you know relaxing a setback doesn't make anyone build out to that but providing that option is something that based on the building permits we see come in and have to ask people to revise that's an option that we think people would pursue a lot more often if given the opportunity to um moving that driveway off to the side also means that it's no longer longer in the front yard quite as much it might mean that someone has their garage a little bit further over that sort of thing the added bonus of this one is that it does brings some current non-conformities into compliance so there's certainly older driveways throughout town that are right on the line or close to it and instead of being you know incredibly non-conforming because they're way within that 10- foot setback they're uh now a lot closer to being in conformance so that's uh that's more helpful to those property owners and those three images on the bottom of the screen there are all existing houses in wetta that have uh that side driveway in the in the setback the other proposal uh is to increase the front yard setback uh but only for garages uh you know there was a lot of discussion about front yard setbacks and in these neighborhoods is there a historic front yard setback that we should be adhering to we looked at the setbacks throughout the neighborhood and there is not one setback that we used to have and now we don't there plenty of houses in the 1920s and 30s that are at the 20 ft that we have today there are houses in the in the 40s 50s 7s that are 40 50 feet back so a huge variety but what we did find is that you know that current principal structure setback of 20 ft is feeling close to the street for a lot of residents but moving that entire setback further back is going to bring a lot of homes into that non-conformity state which makes Administration property changes a lot more difficult for those homeowners however that survey and those open houses did find that many residents would like to deemphasize the garage specifically it's not so much the house itself that they have a problem with it's that garage being so dominant in front and you know there are a couple Solutions we talked about for trying to bring back that garage but a small additional setback of 5 feet seemed like a low impact way to do that so there are two impacts you know that two main impacts that that could have on a lot you could either have you know most of your house at that minimum setback with the garage pushed back 5T which is going to deemphasize the garage or if it's really important to your design that the house that the you know the garage and the front door are totally in line with each other the whole house just moves back those 5et so not a really restrictive huge setback change the lot depths in this area generally support it if someone is in a unique condition that's when we start talking about variances if that becomes really tough to comply with uh but again not as intensive as those as some previously proposed Solutions these are these are tabled Solutions this is what you'll see a lot of um information on in the packet uh you know they include additional design standards for single family homes this was one that um Administration was going to prove really difficult for and again uh wasn't really in line with that variety that people were looking for a couple of other these were ones that were good to talk about but were not super realistic uh I think that the one that got the most discussion uh both among staff and among the community was a potential impervious surface bonus for having your garage in the rear yard uh and there's a public works comment in the staff report that goes into really good detail as to why uh that might not be the best practice at this time but that you know if these you know two solutions that we're proposing today are not producing the kinds of variety that we're looking for that could be something that we discuss a little bit more in the future it's just because it can be such a slippery slope to start incentivizing thing you using impervious surface that it's best that we at least wait on that if not you know never do it all that being said uh happy to take questions for staff and then after that you'll have your discussion and make your motion to uh recommend approval or denial thank you thank you planer corals I'll bring that back now to our commissioners any um one of us have questions for staff at this time I have one okay I'm sure that there are other communities that have narrow Lots like these the ones that primarily are up in that r3a district and I'm wondering if you've talked to any of them to find out if they've tried similar um actions to try to alleviate the issues and if they did were these ones that tend to work did they find that there was any push back or or negative issues that occurred as a result of uh a side setback that was changed or not being able to have the garage exactly where you wanted was there any problems that you came across I did not end up speaking specifically to other communities I did research a couple of other ones um one of the things that comes up a lot in communities that have a really strong grid system narrow Lots those standard sort of under a quarter acre lots is that often they have Alleyways in the back and uh in one of the I looked at Portland Oregan as one example they have that's where that um the solution that we didn't end up bringing forward that sort of maximum of percentage of the facad a garage can take up that was from Portland's code and part of the reason that works for them is that if you have to put the garage in the back you can access it via an Alleyway and so a lot of the narrow lot Solutions made a lot more sense in like an actual sort of urban core type neighborhood as opposed to the little bit more unique situation we have here which is a strong grid up there but not necessarily um alleys to facilitate that rear of lot development uh in terms of whether um you know having gar or having driveways closer to the side Lot line is generally a problem I think planners waer can probably speak a little bit more to it but it's not a significant problem in other communities until they actually start overlapping with each other and then it's a little bit tougher to figure out stuff like property lines and fencing and that sort of thing but we still have that setback of three feet so in communities like Richfield or Bloomington or other even this the city um this must have come up you know closer to home in Minnesota but you don't know of any other um actions that they may have taken I think that the key thing to consider there is that our 10- foot setback for sidey driveways is pretty pretty restrictive when compared to those cities I don't think they necessarily had to make a a conscious choice to really relax it down as much as we are they've already been in that condition of having driveways a little closer thank you um Vice chair if I may just add uh I think planner corals answered it very accurately the the alleys are implemented in many of the cities that you listed um the other thing we both heard from the building Community as well as my past experience in other communities is often it's addressed through a PUD where that particular subdivision may be requesting something unique and there's a specific essentially zoning District created for that so we we are kind of unique in that these are you know pre-planted lots that don't have alleys a lot of times not always but because of tree cover or uh topography uh that we we we don't have those same alley so it's not it wasn't it's not easy to look at another community that is in the exact same situation we are particularly that many of the communities that are more of our um you know our cohorts uh do this uh through a PUD which wouldn't work going back through existing lots to do other questions I have a question um Eric um sorry um consultant Weber um what are uh just I was looking at the proposed text and um what are the current um driveway setbacks in all of our residential districts is it 10 feet that is correct it's 10 feet and so and what we're proposing is to not just R3 and r3a but for all of our residential districts to move it to 3T no um I can pull it up it's it's specific it's all of the residential district except for R5 uh which is our multif family district and that's primarily because those buildings tend to be um because of their size tend to make need that sort of commercial buffer of parking between between properties so have we done any like analysis on what on how that impacts some of the um other residential districts besides R3 because previously our discussion really been constrained R3 right yeah and I can speak to that a little bit more our R4 and r4a districts are a little bit more dense than R3 the r3s uh but they're actually primarily for more tow houses and uh closer net areas so that relaxing that driveway is going to help those properties especially moving forward into the future when we're looking at town houses that might have closer driveways to each other uh which will mimic conditions that we have in uh some of our townhouse divisions that are puds like planners wber was talking about uh when it comes to the districts that are less Den than r3a so R1 R2 that's not going to make too much of a difference because those lot uh front edge minimums are much larger so for instance in r1a you know the minimum lot width is 200 feet so a difference of of 7 feet is not going to make a major difference in those areas because it's unlikely that people are putting their driveways very close to another anyway it's just something something that we've processed variances for over the years and in those discussions it's been sort of like what are we doing in terms of talking about the actual practical impact that that has on the neighborhood Okay add question yeah so the reason for making it applicable to all of them with one exception is that that will keep them from having to get puds did I understand that right or did I I think that the the Pud issue came up just because um when you see closer side uh closer sidey yard driveways in other locations throughout town it's probably because they got a PUD the main reason behind uh including those other zoning district is that it's it was kind of hard to find a reason not to include them in general it's a it's a good change to make in this district and relaxing it a little bit in the other districts didn't really have an appreciable harm so other than having R5 stay at that 10 ft and and you don't see a a problem with Neighbors being too close together with someone's driveway being three feet from someone's property line I personally don't and I know that in um a couple of especially throughout R1 there's a couple driveways that just cross other properties so it's not that those conditions don't necessarily happen occasionally but 3 feet feels like a reasonable buffer to give yourself the room you need for Logistics yeah we uh we could give you quite a few examples particularly in the R 1A the the largest of the lots that for topography or Wetlands or other reasons you know the lot lines might look normal but um where the driveways are certainly have a wide variety doesn't change where the house is located just changes how you access the street just trying to anticipate if it could be a problem you know like somebody uses their driveway as parking lot you know that the neighbors might not be f with that okay thank you any other questions okay at this time I'd like to open up the public hearing um for 5B which is considering the text amendment to chapter 955 which is the r3a district and 920 parking there's anybody in the audience that would like to come forward um if you do please state your name and add chair plon my name is uh Dan gusterson 1040 East Circle Drive by Zetta um Val and I have talked about my property many times um over the years um I've had many conversations with her predecessors as well um we own a 2un home in a single family neighborhood uh if that makes any sense while the use is allowed um the area for our lot is um smaller than is what is required today which makes it legal non-conforming um over the years we have discussed with the city of we Zetta rebuilding that 2unit uh property under the conditional use permit that was granted in 1978 it's been it's been filed at the county and so in hearing that the city of wetta is not interested or is trying to minimize garages and driveways our our home is nothing but garage and driveway as you stand in the in the street and look at it and we want to make sure my wife and my family and I want to make sure that when the opportunity presents itself to um rebuild that structure that um these changes that are being proposed don't happen have a negative impact on our ability to have um garages and driveways be part of um the fabric of our community um and Val and I were discussing um our last conversation and she and I didn't remember it exactly the same as you might imagine and so we we probably will be talking in the next couple of days but I I just simply wanted to point out that um there are many 2unit properties in y Zetta and they represent a unique opportunity for redevelopment and an opportunity to upgrade housing stock and fit in line with much of what has occurred on Rice Street and under Steve B's Redevelopment um around town and just please don't short Change us as we sit on the most valuable piece of property that we own um and you contemplate these changes I ask a question thank yes I'd like to ask you a question sir go ahead um so your concern is that your two family structure has primarily the garage in the front and and driveway and the driveway in the in the front yes and you're concerned that if this passes that you won't be able to rebuild that in the same way um potentially I I just want to get clarify I don't quite understand everything that's going on there because there's been so much that's been proposed over the last little bit I admit that and I to to be candid I I read a lot of city council packets and planning commissions and don't fully understand what's happening there I saw a lot of sketches a lot of ideas so I just more um being protective of our interest um and coming forward and um so as it is written this would be a problem for you well the the the structure our structure uh right now is within the is within the would be within the 25 foot proposed setback okay um would would be one potential uh downfall and I'm not sure how many two unit structures um the city has considered as they um contemplate those those setbacks and these kinds of things so thank you thank you Mr gipson thank you anyone else in the audience right um L corals anyone online I have a few people watching but no one who's indicated they'd like to speak okay at this time I'd like to close the public hearing on um sorry on the text Amendment for chapter 955 r3a district and 920 parking and bring it back to the Commissioners for discussion any comments I would just if I can I would just comment to to your question to our um citizen um little hard to know exactly how it would impact them until they present plans and go to design steps but what what it says to me is if there were a two if they tore down a two unit structure and wanted to build another 2unit structure you'd end up Pro they' probably be required to have a driveway on each side be able to go to three feet on each side and garage would be 5 feet further back than the front so instead of maybe right now having two garages in the middle I don't know what it looks like with doors on the sides and the driveways in the middle it would end up having to look different with the home in the middle garages on the sides and you know and they could go up to three feet to the Border that's just speculation but we can't really answer those we don't really know how wide his lot is yeah um I'd like to ask the city that question what do you see a potential problem for people who are in Mr gasen situation uh I think that um I think that speculating on specific properties is maybe not the role of of this meeting today I know that Mr Gus and I have talked before about his property but in general uh the driveway regulation is meant to be an expansion of what people are allowed to do rather than an expansion of what people are allowed to do rather than a restriction and that the uh garage setback is going to be I would think tackled on a property by propy basis any comments no good thank you okay anybody else mean before we vote or yes yeah yeah everybody's all right well okay go I'm thinking okay um might have no short of act oh go ahead just a um a question for um consultant Weber and um planner quarrels um just in terms of like the the language around um driveway cut right and is that really just the the curb or the curb cut sorry I think it's referred to is that really just saying that the curb cut can also be three feet off the property line yes areas where where there's curb because there aren't a lot of curbs yes so curb cut is any place where the driveway comes and meets the street okay and yes so our our original red line was actually just moving the driveway and then Public Works pointed out to us that they'd also be open to moving the curb cut as well so you don't have to have an S curve in your driveway to to make that happen I have one other comment okay thank you it it seems that this is from the discussion we had in the workshop that this is a pretty measured approach compared to all of the things that we talked about that could possibly be done that would be the least disruptive um to builders and and new homeowners who want to build there the thing that you always have to consider is that Styles colors designs change over time every generation or so and there's always going to be um people who like or don't like a particular architectural Choice um we just don't want to get in the way of that because that's you know freedom to express yourself and how your house looks so these seem to be like I said very measured approaches and do not seem to conflict with anything uh as I looked through um um um land use is it will it be a positive effect on the area yeah I think it would um and I don't think it would negatively impact uh property values maybe just the opposite so in terms of what we're looking at here I I don't see a problem um so I don't have an objection okay um thank you um I'd like to thank staff um for initiating that survey and getting such a great response having open houses and getting and summarizing all that feedback I think it's really important for all of us and it was great to um have the community so involved I mean that's how this process should work so um nice job on that I think these this isn't um overarching or overstepping anything I think it um supports a creative use in the neighborhoods um it's not WID sweeping allows for flexibility um and does not negatively impact um home values as a first step um so I um I'm in favor of the amendment I don't know of any other comments well then at this time I'd like um see if any commissioner would like to make a motion oh yeah there's that I'd like to make a motion to direct staff to prepare prep a draft Planning Commission report and recommendation with appropriate findings reflecting a recommendation to approve uh on the appli approve on the application for review and adoption at the next plan commission meeting thank you commissioner El may I have a second second thank you commissioner yeah um any further discussion no all those in favor say I I please note the motion passes now we'll move on to 5A which is considering the text um Amendment for chapter 909 the design standards planner corals would you like to provide an update happy to this will be a slightly longer slightly longer update it's a little bit a little bit more a little bit more detailed uh so this is a series of updates to our design standards chapter which is chapter oh it's 909 so ignore the title of this it should be chapter 909 uh for some background we had a we've had design standards for a long time but we had a really major rewrite in 2021 as one of the first items in the zoning study uh since then we've used them on many new projects throughout town uh some multif family commercial uh mixed use really wide variety the list of updates that we're proposing here are really many to address uh common questions either that come up for applicants or questions that staff has to find themselves asking a lot and reans answering as we go and in general just to improve administrative efficiency the Planning Commission reviewed a draft of these changes at the November 18th workshop and provided some really strong feedback that we were able to integrate into this current draft of changes and then uh just as a note for the r3a changes uh we notified all of those Property Owners specifically these changes did not require a specific neighborhood notification because they're Citywide so it got its standard notification in newspaper and uh what we typically do in the y a weekly as well so to go right into it there's a couple of categories but the first is massing breaks so on each of these slides the actual Red Line uh is up on the top of the slide and I don't necessarily need to read every one of those each time and then the explanation is just below so for these ones for this one it's adding some clarification uh to development that is located between Lake Street and Lake minetonka which is not too many properties the idea here by adding the words pedestrian and where possible is to provide more consideration for those Parcels south of Lake Street where um a massing break may not provide uh the things that we're looking for which is you know potenti uh specifically a view of lake minetonka in some places that might be because the elevation is not favorable to it there might be a building in the way way something like that so the idea behind adding those changes is to um make it a little bit easier for applicants to have that discussion with the city about what uh massing brakes need to facilitate what purpose uh upper story step backs so in uh in every uh design standards District uh buildings over a certain number of stories need to what we call step back their uppermost story and the idea is to um you know provide for more light and to come down to the street and also to feel a little bit more pedestrian scale on the street so you're not looking straight up at the entire height of a tall building it steps back and you can't see the uppermost floor so the previous uh regulation uh you know it it depended on the district but generally and wi Zetta Boulevard is a key one that was always noted as the uppermost step uppermost story would need to step back and we always treated that as the third story we realized in administering it that this wasn't always clear about whether the uppermost story could be the second story if it needed to step back immediately after the first story now that wasn't the intent of the design standard so we wanted to make sure that we clarified that by saying that those twostory buildings are not required to have a step back when we brought this to the Planning Commission meeting the workshop in November the feedback that we heard was that it shouldn't just be you know the uppermost story that should be stepped back we should be very specific as to saying it should start at the third floor because the previous discussion behind saying the word uppermost was to provide for you know say we have a four-story building on wetta Boulevard someday that that would start at the fourth floor so based on Planning Commission feedback we changed that to the third floor which is now the case across all of the design standards districts is that it starts at the third floor rooftop equipment is something that uh we've always had to take a really um a really really fine eye in administering the idea behind these changes and so we've got coming up here we've got rooftop equipment in the Lake Street and Bluff districts rooftop equipment on wetta Boulevard and then some other changes regarding how we treat rooftop equipment deviations these first uh couple of red lines are designed to provide for so let me back up a little bit on Lake Street you're not allowed to have rooftop equipment at all the idea being that if you are up the hill uh somewhere in the bluff District or anywhere else you should be able to look down out upon the lake and not have to see some sort of you know Smoke Stack or vent or something like that on the roof so we don't allow equipment on the roof the question for Builders then becomes okay where do I put that then if I can't have those venting things on the roof where do I put them what that's led to is some really Creative Solutions involving you know HVAC units in parking garages or tucked into second floors or or all these sorts of things but one uh solution that comes up fairly frequently now is the idea of having sort of a notch cut out in a building basically saying I'm going to use a little bit of my upper floor enclose it make it look like the massing is part of the building but actually have my mechanical equipment in there so if you were looking down on it you would be able to see it however it wouldn't be coming up and obstructing your view of lake metat Tonka it would just be sort of within your eyeline without obstructing so because we've noticed that that solution is favorable to people or rather not you know producing a huge issue in the community we decided we wanted to be a little bit more specific with it within the code uh and also add a little bit of language just saying you know the most important thing for mechanical equipment visibility in general has to do with that street level view as well and so that applies to uh all of the districts we did update this one a little bit uh based on Planning Commission feedback on that Workshop as well uh there was a minor code change that basically said okay if it's not on the roof and it's not on the ground where is it so we made that change as well on wi Zetta Boulevard you are allowed to have rooftop equipment but we were very restrictive as to how large it could be uh previously we said it could be uh 3T tall and 9 squ ft in area which is about a 3X3 Square which is really just about a like a residential air conditioner like very small what we noticed based B on um specifically mechanical deviations that came through um if you go back and look at the Wells Fargo mechanical deviation discussion this was a big part of this um what we're proposing to allow is expand the allowed size of mechanical equipment no larger than any other mechanical equipment allowed in town which is 5T but again double down on and this will come up in the next uh slide that the most important thing is that it's not visible from the street we're okay if you have a larger unit we get that for these bigger commercial buildings you need a larger HVAC unit it's not practical to have tons of small HVAC units scattered about the roof and in some cases it's not practical to put that on the ground which is another allowed place that it is in the case of the Wells Fargo discussion part of the issue with putting it on the ground was that every side of the building faces a public right of way and so since there was this hidden place to put it up on the roof it makes sense to allow that condition in a couple more places um so the area of IND individual mechanical equipment units is now not restrained anymore however you still can't take up more than 25% of the roof and that's a pre-existing regulation that we felt it was reasonable to keep in this is that note I mentioned earlier this is mirrored in that Lake Street area again it's basically saying that Notch approach is also okay here and that the most important thing is that it's not visible from the street at the end of the day I mentioned rooftop deviations uh we have a list at the end of the design standards that notes all of the sections that are eligible for minor deviations a minor deviation is one that the Planning Commission doesn't have to look at it's for stuff like materials changes if someone wants to use a different type of brick or um you know if someone wants to provide a different number of spaces of bicycle parking that's something that staff can administratively look at but we noticed that mechanical deviations were also on that list and this was this is interesting to see because this is typically something we want to talk about because the condition of height and of roofs in this town is generally very important we've noted in the past and we've for that reason we've preferred to review those deviations with the Planning Commission and the city council now combined with the other changes that were proposing we're allowing larger mechanical equipment taking this off of the minor list and making it a major deviation like most other things means that really only the biggest um changes are the ones that are going to come in front of Planning Commission and city council it really has to be a lot of mechanical equipment to Warrant this review and we think that that makes sense based on the deviation discussions that we had uh for other buildings that proposed uh oversized mechanical equipment um and that's that one for um I also mentioned appeals being one of the things that we looked at right now if someone has an issue with the determination that the zoning administor has made in the city the default process is to go through the variance process and this makes sense for the rest of the zoning code however in design standards we have a major deviation process and a specific set of criteria for that so all we wanted to build in was to say you know when it comes to these minor deviations staff makes a determination saying yes we approve it under the criteria or no we don't approve it under the criteria and we wanted to make sure that if an applicant wanted to appeal that decision from staff that it would go through the deviation process and not the variance process so that it would come back in front of Planning Commission and council with design standards criteria and not variance criteria and then our last ones are very small one of them is a typo um this type of lighting we were asking for was virtually impossible and then the other um which is actually kind of a bulk of the red lines is we've got some changes to masonry uh that are just more in line with the market and current building codes and how Mason how masonry works and I'll note that those ones were specifically drafted by City architect so I will try my best to answer questions on them if you have them but I am not the expert in that area so similar to our last presentation questions uh public hearing which I neglected to include discussion and motion thank you thank you planner corals um Commissioners any questions for staff at this time take this as a no I can go back to any slide it's I know it's pretty dense okay at this time I'd like to open up the public um hearing portion um of the meeting for um agenda item 5A considering a zoning text Amendment for chapter 909 design standards is there anyone in the audience would like to jump up seeing none all right planner corals is there anyone online uh no one who's indicated they'd like to speak all right then I will close the public um hearing portion um of this uh agenda item 5A and bring it back to the Commissioners for conversation and discussion anyone have any comments I think I think well you all did a great job I wasn't at the workshop I wish I had been it sounded interesting uh and staff has done an excellent job I really think this clarifies things um makes things U more more precise in terms of what's allowed and what's not eliminates any um inconsistencies so I think it's well done okay well as I read it it's it's very in line with that discussion we had at that Workshop I mean almost right down well right down the line so I have no objections to it at all thank you for your time in the workshop two weeks ago and for putting all this together appreciate it y agreed um especially like that these minor deviations won't fall under the variances category now it makes it much easier for applicants and for staff and for everyone so um I think job well done um all right with those comments may I have a motion yes oh y okay good yes you may yes uh motion to uh motion to approve uh motion to direct staff to prepare um and uh draft of the Planning Commission report and recommendation with appropriate findings affecting a recommendation recommendation of approval of on the application for review and Adoption of the next Planning Commission nailed it um may I have a second second I can read any comments no all right um may we take a vote all those in favor say I I motion passes so we get to move on to other items um Vice chair regarding the development activities probably the the biggest development happening in the city is the the Redevelopment of the former Wells Fargo the uh you know that was a three-phase Redevelopment the Wells Fargo and the office building are now occupied uh regarding the former building that will turn into apartments and Tow houses um the demolition is uh substantially complete next will be uh installation of the underground parking and then the construction of the building over that um you may also notice it's more Redevelopment activity than development activity the gas station has been torn down uh we've been discussing with the developer a potential um Redevelopment activity they have not submitted their application yet but that's something that we likely will have in the Planning Commission in the near future and then uh we're also talking with a number of other uh developers but a couple updates uh moments of wetta we're currently negotiating that uh development agreement um we've previously approved the uh development agreement for 2011 Lake Street so now um they're revising or or getting ready to submit their um their building uh permit they have discussed possible demolition here this winter but they'll wait for for construction till spring and then other development applications that we have in that we're reviewing but are not deemed complete yet um is uh 200 Lake Street and then we've met with the developer from uh Ferndale Bluffs that they are um preparing their resubmittal which is expected this week so activities you'll see down the line any questions regarding devel I thought I saw um either a new application the memory care facility on wetta Boulevard pasted uh east of Crosby I thought there was a submitt for a name change and is there anything happening there uh for formerly Cano now harbors of wetta okay yep so they're uh I don't know how characterize it exactly but they're they've they've gone they've gotten their approvals from planning commissioner from city council it's just about next steps for them so we'll have an update for you when we have one okay I have one question it isn't really about wetta but motanka just a question If you happen to know what's going on I just noticed a big pile of of dirt at the um uh nursing home what what is it called Ridge Crest Ridge Crest Hill Crest Hill Crest one right on was at a Boulevard yep so they're replacing that with another memory care facility and I know that City minat tanka on their website has a really good development page for it with all of the background that's led to that but a memory care place I believe so yes okay thank you yeah thank you um Planning Commission meeting schedule 2025 2025 uh I think our only you know our next meeting is going to be uh January 6th in the new year and then uh you know I I don't know if we're going to plan any sort of Celebration but it I think it's going to be what 65 years of the Planning Commission oh if my math is correct I noticed that a couple of months ago when I was in the archive so I don't know maybe we'll bring cupcakes or something but we'll see 65 years that's a big number sounds like something to celebrate all right well we comes to a close here um may I have a motion for adjournment so moved may I have a second second any conversations or discussions all right um all those in favor say I I motion passes the meeting is adjourned thank you