Architectural Review Board - Regular Meeting

Authority to speak for the organization. Further details of the quasi-judicial procedures may be obtained from the clerk. At this time, I'll ask our board members, do we have any ex parte communications concerning either of these items to disclose? All right, that's four no's. So, Mr. Clerk, if you can move on with the swearing in of our witnesses.

Yes, all those who will be providing testimony, please raise your right hand and do swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, you may proceed with the staff presentation on the first item.

Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Well, we received the confirmation of the written acknowledgement of the seven conditions and they're in agreeance with it. It is my opinion that the proposed glass railing at the dock for 88 Ball Bay Drive follows the village appearance code and zoning ordinance. The village planning and zoning consultant and the parks and public spaces department has reviewed the plans and concur that the plans also comply.

Is there a digital version of that on screen?

Just for the record, I got my glasses on and I saw the applicant. I have discussed the project with him, recommended architects, unbuilding in the village as well, general contractors, and just ancillary issues. But I just wanted to disclose that it's not going to affect my impartial nature of my position here.

Okay, thank you, Board Member Schlachter. So the minutes will reflect that you have disclosed that ex parte communication. Appreciate it.

Good afternoon. My name is Cesar Rosario. I work, I'm the project manager for the project at 88 Belle Bay Drive. This house is a new house which is under construction. It was approved a few years back. A ARB re-approval was also done in 22 where some landscape was modified and the board approved as well. In this case, we are proposing at the client's request a glass railing guardrail at the edge of the dock along the waterway and a wood and rope railing on the dock itself. So the seawall is proposed to have the glass railing and the dock itself is proposed to have the wood and rope.

As you can see here, there are samples. In the PowerPoint that you want to show us?

Yes, let's move ahead here. So this is the location map, site plan of the current outline and survey. Photos of the original home before it was demolished. And the neighbors. These are the general zoning data information, which is not impacted at all.

Just for clarification, this already came before the board in this format, and all that's changing is the detail that you're discussing? Exactly.

Okay, we can move to that point. Exactly. So this is the last one that you approved. It's identical except for the railing, which is being proposed. This is the current plan. If you look on the left side of the page on the screen, you'll see the curving seawall, and on the outside edge is where the glass railing is proposed to be. So you're installing on the edge of the seawall?

On the edge of the seawall. I see.

There is a glass door, which is at the mouth of the dock, and from there on, it's rope and seawall. that is proposed.

That's the only item which is different.

This is a comparison of the previous approved and the current proposed. It's identical with the difference of the glass handrail. Landscaping may have had minor modifications to layout of undergrowth and that sort of thing, but generally it is identical. This is the first floor, no change and no impact for the record. Second floor, no change. roof plan similar. These are the general calculations for zoning which are not modified at all. If you see on this elevation on the bottom of the sheet you have the back elevation and you see the general layout across the bottom of the glass rail across the span of the seawall and the dock in the foreground No change to these color elevations. And this is a breakdown of the individual components of what is being proposed. At the top, you see the finish of the dock, which is meant to cover both the seawall and the dock itself. Just below it, item B is the glass railing itself in combination with the base shoe, which is item C. You can see, well, I suppose we can do it in the next, when we have an image.

I'm just curious, what's the material on the dock? Is it Ipe? Is it a synthetic deck? It's proposed to be PVC, synthetic wood.

That's the sample you have there.

That's this sample here.

Yes, it was advised, it was given to us for its durability at... clean look and simulation of the natural without the deterioration and the necessary maintenance that the actual wood would entail. Anything else you want to show on the slides? I think not. The rope railing is pretty self-explanatory. And these are views of the current home. I will just jump now to the images of the dock and what it looks like. So here you see the edge of the seawall, the proposed glass rail, which is meant to be laminated clear. The only thing you would see is a shoe that would support the rail across the board. Toward the center is where the glass door would be and of course the access to the dock. This is another view. And lastly, a little closer with the approach to the seawall itself. And so that is, in essence, what is being proposed. The client wants a simple, clear view of the water, also an obstructive view back into the home and the landscaping, which has been you know, elaborated in a very beautiful way by clad architects, landscape architects. And so this is the resolution. These are formal submission of the civil drawings, which have already been approved. And we similarly have the landscape plan colored identical to what was approved with the exception of the proposed glass rail.

Okay.

So we have some comments from the public that perhaps we just put it out there. It's a simple statement from Neka Logan or Nika Logan. Basically, she loves the railings. Just asking about the materiality, you know, make sure that is non-corrosive.

Yes.

And so on. So it's an aluminum shoe, right? Correct. So the shoe is aluminum.

It is meant to be painted with Kynar during our paint, so it's durable. Here's an example of the quality of the aluminum and the quality of the finish. It's meant to be high-end, smooth, highest type of enclosure for the shoe itself. Any board questions or comments?

I have a comment or question, actually.

I have a question.

Go ahead.

You first.

It appears you have two slips there. There was one image where you showed piles separating the deeper space that's nearer to the seawall from the one where you're currently showing a boat. That second slip will be inaccessible unless you add another gate in the glass partition. The one with the smaller vessel? Well, currently you show a single vessel on the bottom side, right? Right. To the right, it goes a little deeper. And I was just curious if that's intended to be a functional second slip.

Yes.

Because you show some piles that separate it into two slips, possibly.

So let's go back to the rendering to see from another point of view.

So there's one gate that accesses the entire dock system.

Yes.

You don't have a secondary gate where you have, like, the letter B there on the seawall, so to allow for a second slip there. Right.

It's all accessed only from the dock and from the system.

Yeah, so what you're saying, the glass is basically obstructing, but I think they're accessing from the actual L-shaped, you know.

This one. Exclusively.

I just had a quick question related to the rope and even the glazing of how they're envisioning keeping them clean. Especially because the rope's white.

Yes. Well, I think the nylon nature of the rope itself doesn't really absorb the dirt that usual cotton rope would. It's a

Let's just see.

This looks like this is an actual 1-inch version.

So it's really not really permeable. It's maintained fairly clean.

And I think just a good power washing would probably take care of anything that soils it.

This is sort of visually minimal intervention here, so.

Yes, that's the idea.

Good integration, and I thought she was asking who's going to clean the glass, but that's a different question.

Yeah.

There's a glass cleaning company that's going to come. Indeed, so let's put it out for a motion.

Motion to approve with no conditions or comments.

Second.

Can we just solicit? Public comment in the room, just to be sure.

Anyone in the public that wants to address this item? I don't think so. We have a very crowded room today here.

Again, motion to approve with no conditions or comments. Second.

Second.

Okay. Let's vote.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

So we have four votes out of four members of the board approving the project, beautiful project. And we'll now look at 88 Camden Drive.

Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Palacios, Mr. Borges.

Thank you. Thank you.

Board members.

All right, so for 88 Camden Drive, state your name just for the record.

Hi, my name is Fiorella Salamanca. I'm going to be representing the house, 88 Camden Drive.

And you're representing the architect?

Yes.

Okay, very well. Very good. It's already on the screen. All right, so...

Okay. Okay, so let's start. So the house, as we all know, is located on 88 Camden Drive. It's located on a lot that is about 11,240 square feet. All right. What we're presenting right now is a 6,566 square feet home. It's a residential house for an end user. Actually, the client is present right now. Let me go a little bit over the presentation and then we'll go over the rest of the details. Well, this is a neighborhood analysis context and you can see the neighborhood is growing and there's a lot of two-story, new single-family residences around the area, a lot of them under construction. Here's our site plan and our site analysis. We're not asking for any variances. This house meets all the requirements on our zoning diagrams and calculations. The house is composed of, again, a front entrance in which we're trying to create a design that has a curvatory like elegant like features to the house. We're really trying to break away from the regular box scenes, you know, like characters that we see all over the place and just trying to come up with a nice more like organic form, you know, to fill in this house and like with a massive of the volume itself but at the same time just bringing it more like within a curvatory structure. The house itself has one single car garage. The first floor has 14 feet ceiling heights. This is something that the client really wanted. They really wanted to make the house, since we pretty much maximized as much as we could, they really wanted to bring as much ceiling height as they can for the first floor to almost resemble double height space ceiling, but not really having it there. We have a very beautiful entrance, which is going to have a dining room, family room, a living room. This is for a Jewish family. So we have two kitchens, you know, two kitchens to these washers. There is a Passover kitchen as well, a very big pantry. The first floor has only one bedroom and one full bathroom. We also have three half bathrooms on the house. because of the amount of people that sometimes come into this house for Shabbat and other events that they like to have on Fridays. The second floor has five bedrooms and five full bathrooms, as well as one laundry space in here and an office. And, you know, like the spaces, like I believe, as you can see, they're very well laid out. Our mechanical equipments are going to be on the setback right there on the south side, as you can see them. You know, like they're going to be hiding. You're going to be able to see them on the elevations. We're going to use most likely a PVC fence, you know, like wood like around the mechanical equipments and nobody will be able to see them. And let me go to the colors. So here's the shots of the house itself, as I was mentioning. And again, we were trying to just come up with a very fun design, you know, like some very nice curvatory structures, more like to try to like break away this volume from a simple box in the situation and just creating something a little bit more organic and fun that we actually think it goes with the land itself. So I believe the material board is in front of me.

The materials that we're proposing is a travertine look like tile stone.

Oh, sorry.

Here's the material board.

The materials we're proposing, it's a travertine look like stone that we're showing. We also have PVC louvers for more durability. And right on the middle of the staircase, like, does this have a pointer? No, not really. Okay, sorry. So right on the middle of the house, pretty much where you see the car, this is our double height, like, One of the main things that we wanted to bring up, it's a double-height staircase in which we're trying to create a very nice architectural feature on the interiors and the exteriors. And to break that volume, we decided to make this a specific area of a different material.

The material is here.

going to be this tile is kind of like an H bronze tile. If you see it on the sun, it's a little bit metallic. So it gives the house like an extra kick that we would consider. So here's more or less how the site would look from our aerial views. And again, let me just go back into the other pictures. And pretty much, I suppose I'm ready for comments.

Thank you for that. Should I read some of the neighborhood input before we go into the board discussion? So once again, email from Nneka Logan, for the record, at 88 Kendham Drive. Very interesting project. It's a large home. She counted the bedrooms. She's always concerned about the capacity for parking. So she's noting that she feels that parking is not adequate, but I don't know if any board member has the same concern. Very clean lines. I mean, she's looking at height. I mean, so we could make these comments available to the architecture team. So you could review and evaluate and consider. It's not really something that's going to. affect today's vote on this, but it would be good for you guys to look at the comments and just sort of consider some of the comments and their sensibility. Just looking here, because we always have a comment.

Yeah, also just to add, because the first floor is 14 feet, right? And as the board knows, After the first 18 feet, the house for every additional foot is supposed to go one additional foot in. We actually, you know, like because of the massiveness of the house, the house is actually on the second floor a lot more in than it's supposed to be. So I guess that also helps out to break out. You know, yes, we do have 6,500 square feet, but the volume is a lot more recessed on the second floor than, you know, like what it should originally be.

Thank you for that. One clarification. This resident often comments about the setbacks, and I think she's mistaken if I'm not.

Mr. Building Official. Yeah, what she was explaining is that after that height, then you have to have more setback, and the house is set back to, and also the zoning... And we've reviewed that for that purpose.

And they are in compliance.

Yeah. They meet the percentage that could be right at the setback, and they meet the setback area and its percentage to the overall site facade. So all of that seems to be in compliance. There are no variances on that. Mechanical equipment, is that something you're putting on one of these Narsetal terraces? Is that what you're doing?

Yes, so we're putting it on the terrace. The reasoning by putting it on the terrace was mainly so it can be more accessible in case one of the equipment tends to, you know, like break down and they wouldn't have to go all the way to the roof with a specific, you know, like equipment, machinery in general. So that's the reason why it's right there on the south facade. It's within the setbacks, right? So we do comply. But again, the idea is for this south facade, I guess, to be more of like a utility service area since also the laundry is right next to it. The clients also felt like it was more appropriate to just keep this location for it. Again, we're going to cover it. It's going to have a nice ornamental fence, like nice PVC, wood-like fencing around it. I do have some... Here, where is it? If you see the bottom one to the right side, you can see the wood fence right there. So we are thinking of potentially putting a PVC wood fence around the equipment.

Yeah, and you're providing access to that area through the laundry room. Correct. You have a service door there, right? Yes, correct. So that takes care of that. Okay.

The comment in regards to the height, they're noting 38.67 is NGVD. If you do the math based on the base flat elevation and the freeboard, it's 967. When you subtract it from 38.7, it's 29 feet height, the house. It's not the 38.67. The actual house is only 29 feet high.

Which is in compliance with the height. Correct. With the height of the 30 feet. So there's some more comments here from Casey Seifert, which will also be provided to the applicant.

Mm-hmm.

So let me just highlight some of the major concerns. This individual lives right around the street. Okay. Okay. She's urging you to carefully examine whether the doors of a large SUV could be fully operated inside the planned garage. So it's a concern about the size of the garage. So the garage, as noted in your presentation, doesn't really, oh, okay, so it has like a nine-foot door. The garage... It doesn't have a width dimension here. It has a length.

What's that? It should show. I'm so sorry if I can't remember, but I believe it should be like 14 feet inside. I just can't read it. I believe it's 14 feet on the interiors, 14 feet by 19 and a half or 14 feet by 20. I can't read it.

Okay, I see a dimension line here that says, I think, 13.4. Yeah, it seems to be 13.4. Something that happens when a lot of these joints are somehow uploaded, their resolution goes down, so it's kind of hard to see some of these things.

Are you zooming in on that? Are you able to see that at that resolution?

Yeah, which, you know, it is adequate. It's a tight garage for sure.

Just for the record, the other note that she's stating is that apparently the garage is a side entry. If you see the plan, that same plan, if you scroll up a more, it has 22 feet. For backup.

Right.

So it has the required backup. Originally, it wasn't like that. And to cover those two questions, that's the answer.

Yeah.

Yep. So it works. Originally, it didn't have it. Right. But when we went through the cycles, that was achieved because of that.

Correct.

Yeah, the challenge always is to make sure that they don't have to back out of this garage all the way to the street, that there's a way for them to maneuver and be able to go out frontally. That's always a challenge.

This has been a consistent comment from the residents, so I just want to... comment on this, opine on this, just so it's on the record. There's been comments about the side entry garages. And from the architectural perspective, that's actually generally a more, in my opinion, I think in general consensus among the industry, is preferred versus front-loaded because you're not looking at that facade. So we understand there's some constraints with that in terms of navigating that with a vehicle. But so long as you can access it, which is for the residents, that's a concern. The other one that this resident mentions is the crowding on the streets, which is, you know, how many cars can you fit for a five-bedroom house on the parking area and garage, which... Have you done studies to show that?

Yeah, well, I don't have the studies with me, but technically it's one single parking garage, so you can fit one. There on the north side of the area, you can fit two cars comfortably. And as you know, we approached a house, we should be able to fit two more cars. So technically four cars within their lot, plus the car garage, so five cars in total.

Would it be possible to put a lift with a 14-foot clear height in the garage? Is that practical?

Up to you, David.

We're torn because we're hearing the opinions often of the community, and so we have some responsibility to weigh on that.

Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

I do believe, you know, like by code, I suppose, the parking, you know, you're required to have at least two parking garages. I'm sorry, two parkings in general. And I believe it's within those two parkings, one has to be part of the garage, you know. And, again, we do comply, but we do hear the hesitance from.

Yeah, just for the record, because this particular neighbor is sort of saying that we have failed as an ARB board on the question of parking capacity. Yep. You know, as long as they meet and comply with the zoning ordinance, which they do, you know, we typically have not imposed any additional item in terms of where you park cars, right? We do understand that sometimes if you have an event, you may end up, you know, having 10 cars to deal with or more. And that's a problem in the village, right, because things are tight. But I see it happening in all coastal island locations. Correct. parking is always, there's never enough. So that's, I think, why we as the ARB board have really not gotten too much into that because it's not really part of a requirement. The beautiful renderings you have here, you see you have plenty of outdoor deck area so one could think that you know in a special event you could accommodate most of your guests um within the property and then there's always going to be potentially some overflow in the neighborhood that that's what the neighbors are concerned about yes and

And, I mean, as you see, you know, there is potential for more, for possibilities to add more parking. Clearly, that was also something that, as I was discussing with my client, they did want it, like, that area where the car is showing right now, right, like, they originally wanted to make it bigger, but to be able to comply with the amount of greenery that is also required by the city and everything else, this is, you know, like, where we ended up, like...

Yeah, so there's no access to the roof at this point, right? Correct. There's no equipment on the roof. There's nothing. No equipment, yeah. Good. Okay. Yeah, so board dialogue, comments, suggestions?

A question for the city. Where do we stand? I know there is some discussion regarding the consideration of synthetic turf as pervious or impervious. Has that not been brought into the regulations?

So there was some discussion of the village engaging in regulation of artificial turf, but that was before the last legislative session during which a statute was enacted that preempted local regulation of artificial turf. What the statute actually did was charge DEP with coming up with uniform standards for the state. And that requires them to engage in rulemaking and various things that they haven't done yet. But once those exist, we're preempted from doing anything different from what DEP announces. So most cities around the state that were in the process of doing this have paused rather than adopt something that's immediately going to be preempted by whatever DEP chooses to do. Last I heard about this was maybe... A month or two ago, so maybe DEP has announced something, but that's what I know at this time.

So under the current regulatory environment that this applicant is going under, the synthetic turf is or is not allowed as a pervious surface?

It's not allowed. I believe we're not counting. You know, we are not counting it. I'm so sorry to cut you off. In our calculations, we're not counting the turf. The turf is technically counted as concrete, you know.

Basically, we're following Nehemiah County Chapter 18 and requires it to be live material. Okay.

It has not been modified.

Correct.

I bring that up because it's the potential answer to the parking discussion. So you could park on a synthetic surface without damaging it much easier.

Yeah, I know. And, I mean, if we could, we know it's not allowed, but if we could, I'm pretty sure we would turn, you know, like turf has less maintenance, so we would turn this into turf with pervious concrete underneath and, you know, drainage in there.

Currently you're not showing any synthetic in the front yard, right?

We have in between the parking strips, just because technically grass can't really grow there, but that's as much as we're showing. And again, it's not counting towards the calculations.

Okay. So a few questions. Out of curiosity, because we as architects always have these concerns, you have a beautiful stair element in the front facade, a lot of transparency. So how do you deal with privacy issues in that glass? I mean, are you thinking of a roll-down, you know, shade type of, you know, treatment?

So right now, actually, that's something that me and the client were exploring. I did provide them with different possibilities of potentially putting a reflected mirror glass on the front. That was one of our possibilities at the front. The second one was to create some glass that was going to be tinted. But we also know that during the day and at night, then the neighbors will be able to see you again. that their possibility was to, the new things that people are putting the fox in between the glass in which with the clickers you can turn them on and then, yeah, the smart glass and it becomes frosted. I believe that's most likely going to be the route as, you know, like a curtain going all the way down in here may just ruin the actual interiors of the architecture.

You have a detail that is always a challenge, which is between the stair and the glazing, you have to meet the four-inch sphere concern. Correct. You have to sort of look how you detail that, so... doesn't destroy your beautiful aesthetic.

I had a similar concern on the vertical atrium with the vertical circulation. One possible solution is to use the front yard and the landscape to solve that problem. If you were to mirror the building plan or more easily mirror the parking, and you would have a little less direct access to the garage, but then you would put the parking in front of the blank volume there, And the landscape would be directly opposite of that glass facade. So you could, in the foreground, put palms, small trees, something. So you actually have like a view of the garden as you move up and down. You have more privacy when you're moving through the space.

Also, just because of the privacy issues, let me go back in here. This is something I did work out with a client. If you can see on the top area where the staircase is located, this staircase, you know, like double height front situation, it's technically just facing that, like, I'm going to say right now an empty wall, but we're doing, like, a very beautiful architectural feature, but it's just facing that. So you technically cannot see inside the house whatsoever. You're just, you know, seeing this scenario, and on the second floor it's the same thing. You're just facing the wall, so you're just seeing that scenario, and the client was okay with that being shown. I do, sorry, I do understand the concern of privacy and potentially, you know, like adding some landscaping. It is something that we have considered. I think my client has a big concern more with the amount of mosquitoes that there is within the areas and they wanted to minimize the amount of plants that they can bring into the space, because plants, you know, they bring water, there's a cost for mosquito infestations, or so, you know, like, they seem to think that Bow Harbor has a, you know, like a problem with the mosquitoes in general in the area. So, but I do understand the concern with the privacy.

So you're kind of balancing between the privacy and the air movement, which is what the plants themselves don't bring the mosquitoes. It's just where the air is not moving, the mosquitoes prefer where there's less or more stagnant air. The water is not a really big issue except for certain exceptions. But you have five bedrooms, and every morning and evening, traversing up and down those stairs, you're not going to be fully dressed, I would imagine. So I would really, really encourage you to add some sort of at least partial visual screening there with landscape. I think it will be a big regret every time you go up and down that stairs in the morning and evening, you know, not dressed. I mean, the smart glass solves the issue.

You just have to sort of... Yeah, get used to the switch on and off. And also the smart glass creates a little bit of a milky white type of thing. It's not like 100% transparent, something that sometimes catches people by surprise. But it is a smart solution because, you know, again, you get frosted or, you know, something that could be translucent but give you the privacy advantage. on a constant basis. But it's always a challenge of sort of putting the stair so much in the front. I think it makes sense based on everything else, the kitchen, your pantry and your Passover kitchen and all these things. It makes sense for the stair to be pushed towards the front. unless you would make it a feature and it's more in the central part of the house, but that requires significant redesign.

We actually explored that idea to begin with, and it was something that the client did not want. She did not want to have that staircase on the front of the house because her concern was, I wake up in the morning, so I want to be able to just go down the stairs into a kitchen with nobody, you know, like creating that privacy on her house, not having to go down.

I think that's important, right? Yes. Because we're working for a program for an end user, and the stair allows you to come into the kitchen get your glass of milk and go straight up again. And I mean, it's not the norm, right? That the stairs kind of hidden, right? You have to sort of find it. But I think that's the mandate from your client. So in terms of materiality, let's talk about your travertine. You say travertine tile. So that's a porcelain tile?

Yeah, the porcelain tile. We actually have a sample right there. It's going to be the one that we're going to use. It's a matte material.

The challenge is this. You have very nice curving corners that bring some softness to the architecture, which I think is sort of a theme that you're trying to work with. How do you do those curved surfaces with a travertine tile?

Actually, we've done it on a couple other projects in Miami Beach. I can name you a couple of them, but the tile person that we have for the installation, they're going to cut the tiles in about two inches, and they're going to, you know, like...

So you do strips, and then you segment it. Correct. Yeah. I see.

They're going to strip it and segment it and try to make it as seamless as possible. It has worked out on our previous project, so this is what we're trying to accomplish here.

You know, I think as architects, right, one of the things that we need to be aware of is how things age and how things get maintained. We find in this environment that people want to live the lifestyle of this beautiful place, but they don't want to be spending a lot of effort in maintenance. The tile setting on those walls, are you doing mechanical fasteners or are you gluing it with like an adhesive paste?

So we haven't really discussed those details just yet. Those are things that I would have to talk to the client about.

The reason that's important is the way that it ages.

Of course, I do know that they want things that are with the minimum amount of touch-ups and maintenance on the feature as possible.

Yeah, all your exterior, I mean, all that that looks like wood is actually aluminum, correct? You have a sample there?

Yeah, it's a PVC aluminum, sorry, you know, wood-like look.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's like, I mean, so that system, right, it's now very popular. We find it everywhere. in McDonald's and Burger Kings and Walmarts and in $50 million homes. So it's kind of interesting because it's very durable. Personally, as an architect, I'm kind of allergic to it, but it is maintenance-free. And you're turning the corner with it, I would think, on the second floor. You didn't give us side facades for material application, but You know, you're not stopping that material right at the corner.

We are stopping it. If you see these sections over here, so we are eventually stopping the material, you know, but we're trying to find not just stopping it right.

Yeah, but it seems like you're returning on the site. Correct. Yeah.

Yes.

Which is nice because it really makes a more definitive commitment for that material. The thing is that that material, again, you've got to understand...

Yeah, I know we also debated, again, using the other one that is like the aluminum with power coated, but it's not as durable as the PVC one. Yeah, the other one is also more beautiful and it shows sometimes a lot more of the wood grains, the look like than everything else, but it's not as durable and definitely they wanted something that was going to be very durable for them.

So you got line, plaster, stucco, you know, as a base, right? Yeah, as a base. You have these other elements that you apply. Again, you know, just a friendly comment from an architect about the way you mount that and it's in the front and how it performs, you know, because I try to do mechanical faceting of those systems, you know, as much as we can. It is a bit more expensive. You do have a house on the other side of the street that has... perfect examples of how they cladded the house and how they mechanically fastened and how the material allows oxygen to get behind that. But typically what we see is that the low cost is that this thing is mounted with an adhesive paste and And at times that starts to fail, you know, um, over time just because the water gets back there and starts working on that. So I do think that, you know, we, we need to be careful with those things overall as architects. Um,

Yeah, I mean, we're definitely going to apply, you know, like waterproofing on the walls before applying any materials. That's definitely, you know, like we don't know if we're going to go maybe silk elastic or broken waterproof or something else. But definitely even those things only last you for about seven to ten years on the maximum warranty, and they need to be reapplied. So I totally hear where you're coming from. It will be a discussion that I will have with the clients, you know, going forward in the future and how they want to apply this material into the wall.

More comments from the board?

I have some more.

Go ahead. The knife edge detail that you have on the first floor balcony and the top is different. And I'm curious why you would do that when you would never see that top, the difference in that top detail. From a low angle, it's always just going to appear like a single knife edge.

Oh, I'll explain. So actually, because we have, like, a one-foot parapet on the top, technically the top is a little bit thicker than the bottom. And to not have just, like, a massiveness of, like, you know, one volume coming in, we decided to kind of, like, bring it back and forth in that area. You know, that's why you see that detail there. Got it.

Also to contain the water and contain the waterproofing. And then my other comment is where you have that –

void in the center, a little bit bothered me that you departed from that detail. That is a unique feature in design language that you have, and it seems a little inconsistent to not try to replicate that where you cut through that volume.

Okay.

Does anybody else have, does that bother you at all? Any other board members?

Not really. I think, yeah, it's a good design. I think always going to be concerned, and we're just sharing it, you know, to make sure that the house weathers. I mean, that wonderful opening that we love as architects open through the sky at the entrance. We've had situations where immediately the client wants to put some kind of skylight glazing system because the water is coming through. I mean, we're in the tropics, so that's always a concern. But you have a canopy that is at a lower level, right, that protects the door and its entrance.

Correct.

But, you know, if you get one of these torrential, almost tropical storm type of event, then, you know, that cutout, again, it's a beautiful feature. It just has sometimes long-term reconsiderations sometimes.

Yeah, and also one of the ideas of, you know, coming up with this, like, openness and having it all the way open to the sky was, you know, to potentially consider for Sukkot because, as I mentioned before, my clients are religious and this is, you know, like one of the main features of the house that they really enjoy. Like, you know, they were like, hey, this can be open in the front and we can potentially use it during, you know, that time of the year. Got it.

Indeed. Okay. All right. Motion? Motion.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Second.

All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. I'm sorry.

There's nobody here, but public comment. Let's just say there's nobody here.

There's no public. Nobody showed up.

The 18 conditions.

Yeah, so all the conditions on the report that was issued, you're okay with all the conditions?

Correct. Correct. I read them.

All right. Fantastic. Thank you. So I think we could vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Four votes out of four board members.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. So we call the meeting to an end. We adjourn the meeting. And we have a December meeting.

Not yet. I was just talking to him. No, he's here.

December 4th is what the schedule is.

Let me get to my calendar.

I don't know how the rest of the board feels, but once you get a date, it would be great that we're issued a calendar invite so it gets into our calendar whether we want it or not. It's always helpful because... You know, you send an invite, but not a calendar invite.

You know what happened? This is just a side. Like, we never confirmed the calendar for the year, so I never created it. Because we went from January all the way until September without a meeting. And then, like, on the September meeting, we didn't confirm the calendar either. I'll send out an invite.

I think that helps. When you have a crazy schedule, you don't know what day it is or what month. Exactly.

I'll send out an invite. All right. Thank you.

Now, who needs, wait.

Let me pause this. I need to get stickers for you.