P&z - Regular Meeting

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Excellent. First item up is to approve the minutes from July the 15th of earlier this year. Do we have any comments, suggestions, excuse me, or do we have a motion to approve? I thought they were well done. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Second. He beat you by a second. All in favor? Motion carries. Uh the next item then is a presentation from design workshop and economic and planning systems in regards to ADU incentive programs.

Yeah. And just as a brief introduction, um, in 2024, the EPS, uh, economic planning systems, uh, uh, conducted the Basalt affordable, uh, community housing needs assessment. And uh some of the recommendations that were in that needs assessment uh included implementation of an accessory dwelling unit ADU imple uh incentive program uh as well as research and adjustments uh to the town's affordable housing mitigation requirements. And so uh the town has contracted with design workshop and EPS uh to do implementation of those programs. And so they're here this evening uh to present those programs. Uh Bach has reviewed them and made some recommendations that we can go over after the consultants make their presentations. Uh we've got Jessica Garrow here this evening from design workshop and we also have online we've got Avery Weiss and Brian Duffne from EPS.

Thanks James. Uh again Jessica Garrow with Design Workshop. really excited to be with you all tonight. Um I'm going to cover the accessory dwelling unit program and then there's an opportunity for discussion um and then we can move into presentation from Avery and Brian on um housing mitigation. So um we are working together on this project and excited to share some of the um information with you and um get your feedback. So for this portion of the presentation um want to share information on an accessory dwelling unit kind of background within basalt as well as within the state as a whole. Um as part of our work with the town um we interviewed a number of homeowners associations about accessory dwelling units and so have some feedback um from those conversations. a few precedent programs. Um, and then we completed a feasibility analysis uh related to the potential construction of accessory dwelling units here in Basalt. Um, and so based off of all of that have a few recommendations um for your consideration tonight. So in terms of accessory dwelling units, a number of benefits come from opportunity for folks to have an accessory dwelling unit on their property um as well as benefit to the community. So, it creates opportunity for different types of um housing that is smaller and really kind of it fits in with a neighborhood character. It creates that opportunity for both workers but also multigenerational living where there maybe is a mother-in-law suite or as you um have kids who are are getting older, maybe they're coming back to work um back in um here in Basalt and they need a place to live. Um it's an opportunity for that. And then it can provide an opportunity for affordable housing, below market rates, and then for the property owner, some supplemental income that may assist them in also being able

to stay within the community. So these are some general kind of comments and um benefits to ADUs that are seen throughout throughout the country. Um wanted to highlight this house bill. Really importantly, this house bill does not apply to the town of Basalt, but it has some really interesting framework that we wanted to share in terms of thinking about what the overall context of accessory dwelling units within the state is. So, starting this year, it required certain communities, these are Grand Junction and communities on the front range, um to allow one ADU for all um single family parcels. That is a byite requirement. there's not a review related to that. It's a byite requirement. Um it limits the ability of local governments to institute certain limitations when that ADU is built. So um you can't require new parking. You can't necessarily require any specific design standards or owner occupancy. So there's some kind of openness um in in some of that. um it does override homeowners association rules and it applies to all PUDs. And so this is really a um an aggressive measure I would say um in terms of really pushing ADUs as something that is um of interest uh at the state level. Um there is some state funding uh to support communities who are implementing this. So again, it does not apply to Basalt, but it's an interesting kind of just overall understanding of the framework um within the state on accessory dwelling units. Um here in Basaltt, we do allow ADUs in different neighborhoods. Some have been approved through a plan unit development process. Um there's some limited ability within um zone districts to uh currently develop um ADUs. And so you can see here on this slide, it's not really allowed

by right in any existing zone district. It's really only permitted through a special review and only in certain areas that are just about 7% of the overall land within our community. And so there's a really limited um area for um for ADUs to be able to um be constructed. There are also multiple conflicting definitions of accessory dwelling units, community housing, accessory units, accessory uses, things like that. And so um some of our recommendations are about really clarifying um some of those pieces. Um, and this is starting to get into a little bit of the um, feedback we heard, but as we assessed um, the code and thinking about what are opportunities for um, for accessory dwelling units. There is a kind of burdensome PUD process. If you're um, in a PUD that did not allow an accessory dwelling unit as part of the original approval, you have to go through really a full PUD process to make that happen. And that was something we heard from HOA is as one reason why they may not pursue um that as an opportunity. But it's a multi-step um review which also in is time and money um in terms of a homeowner perspective. Um again that kind of dispersed and fragmented code language. It's in a couple of different places and um opportunities to really clarify that. And there's some permissibility kind of question marks with how that language is currently written. So, moving into the HOA engagement um and the feedback, we uh we talked with a number of um of HOAs and um kind of ran the gamut. So, um some really positive comments of yes, kind of interested in accessory dwelling units. think this is um a good opportunity for the community as a as a whole and having some kind of support from the town might help folks in their um homeowners uh areas uh to

move forward with this. But they also expressed some concerns related to their own HOA covenants that do not allow accessory dwelling units and that the requirement to update those existing covenants is is pretty high. It might involve them needing to hire an attorney. it involves a vote of the homeowners association and so it can be pretty difficult for an existing HOA to um to allow this but again kind of general support for ADUs as an idea. Um then there were some specific concerns about if ADUs were allowed in in you know in their HOA my HOA there's concerns about opportunities for ADUs to not be used for housing and instead for short-term rentals and that that has an impact on the kind of neighborhood character. some concern about having more people within um their neighborhood and also impacts related to things like parking etc. Um precedent programs in the state. So um the uh slide in the middle this is uh our image in the middle this is showing that state program that I that I talked about from that state bill. These are the areas where it applies and where the state funding is is available. Um, Durango did a um, ADU program recently. They did legalize ADUs citywide. They did not do anything to address HOAs, but from a from a city perspective, it is allowed. There's a rebate that they provide and they do have compliance checks um, related to uh, participation in that program. Um, Eagle County also provides um, some support for accessory dwelling units. they link their um financial support to a specific deed restriction and have some requirements related to who can be in there. So um it needs to serve the local workforce. So again we did a feasibility analysis

thinking about properties here in Basalt. What opportunities are there and what is the the financial reality for a homeowner to actually move forward and develop an ADU on their property if the town created that um pathway. So, we ran a scenario that assumed a 700 square foot accessory dwelling unit. Um, we have a construction cost here of $500 a square foot. So, the total construction cost is uh $425,000 that could get a potential rental income um kind of we're thinking on on a on the high end here of um just over $3,400 and they can have kind of rental income increases. So that's the basis of our model. Ultimately, you might begin to break even in year 8. And there um okay um there it's financially feasible in the long run, but the upfront cost to actually move forward and develop that is going to be a detractor to some folks. This assumed that they were not getting a construction loan and things like that. And so um when you add some of those financing mechanisms in it does have kind of a longer term um potential cost. So um then we looked at what are some strategies to kind of close that financial gap to make it maybe a little bit more feasible. And so this could be creation of a of a grant program. Um grants are awarded based off of um some specific um circumstances that that folks might meet. There's maybe a um financial limitation. So, a maximum grant cap using that Eagle County example of $150,000. Um, and then there might be some um associated deed restriction requirements or occupancy requirements. The other option is the potential for a revolving loan fund where the town is providing a lowterest loan or a no

interest loan to a homeowner who is uh developing the ADU. And as that's paid back over time, the town is able to then use that funding to then support the next um homeowner who's interested in the accessory uh dwelling unit program. These are some of the ideas that were included in in our um memo related to terms of participation. So we recommend based off of our experience working in a lot of other communities that you do not just allow a blanket ADUs are allowed anywhere. There needs to be some limitations so that it is meeting the needs um of the community from a housing perspective. And so what we've started to um formulize here and would really appreciate feedback on is um requirement that the tenant needs to be working in um town limits or within the three-mile planning area. Maybe there is some prior employment for someone who is retired but um supporting kind of a long-term community member. Um needing to meet those those criteria whether it is someone you're you're related to or not. um but not having an income limitation really. It's it's focused on a work requirement. Um leases of one year to sort of address that short-term rental um concern and then um a a deed restriction required if there is a a funding mechanism from the town. So if someone did not want to participate in a loan program or a grant program from the town, they may not have the same type of uh deed restriction um on that ADU that uh someone who does participate in that program might. Um final two slides um in terms of thinking about implementing ideas related to um ADUs a couple of kind of code and

programmatic pieces. So the first um in kind of short term over the next um few months to a year really would be clarifying definitions around ADU and accessory structure. Um next would be thinking about opportunities to update the PUD section of the code to help streamline the ability for those existing PUDS to allow um ADUs. Um providing some support for HOA covenant amendments. So, this is not something that would live necessarily in the land use code, but might create kind of some model amendment language so that an HOA doesn't need to hire a separate attorney. They have some language that they might be able to use. And then um working uh through establishment of a grant and loan program and then longer term thinking about should we allow ADUs by right in all zone districts? Maybe there's a standalone ADU code section and then implementing a grant and loan program. Um, I'm going to stop there. I know that was a lot um to share, but happy to answer any questions. Um, Michelle and James, did you have anything to add?

Just that uh the Balt Affordable Community Housing Commission Bach uh did review these recommendations and were supportive of the recommendations that were provided by Design Workshop. Um, and uh yeah, we would open it up for questions and and discussion. Go this way. Bill questions. Yeah, I do have some questions. Um, the the memo touched on this, but this is a situation I personally have. I I I have a I live in a like a five-bedroom house by myself now because all my kids have moved away. And um could could you rent out your primary house, build an ADU, and retire into that?

Yeah, that that's one of the things that we I think would want to propose as part of this. So, if you had prior local employment and then are retiring into your ADU, that that would be something that should be permitted under under the program to support that kind of longevity of keep because I I couldn't actually do it on my house because I have 30% slope everywhere but where my house is. So, I couldn't actually build anything there. But other people could have a similar situation. Yeah. which uh HOAs did you contact as part of this study? I don't have that immediately but I can I can follow up with you.

How many are there? That was my question as well. How many ads? Has hohas? We've got a lot. Um you probably have um you know single family uh HOAs. you've got at least six or seven. Um, you know, multifamily HOAs, they're basically building by building. So, um, you got a lot of those.

I think I know for certain that there was discussion with um, Riverside Drive and somewhere in the funny part about the Elron single family neighborhoods is there are multiple HOAs in there. Um, I know that there at least one or two were touched on there as well and Southside talked to Capress Meadows as well. Yeah, Sus Meadows, Southside, Riverside, and then there was the Elkrun and I was going to ask that's so Meadows. Okay, but no discussions with multif family HOAs or any of Not not in this moment. No, we

No, we we focused on um the primarily single family neighborhoods. Um kind of thinking about this typology. But when you surveyed the HOAs, did you correlate that with the quantity of second homes versus primary homes? Because the dynamic on that is radically different.

It is. and um you know these were kind of interviews and conversations with their HOA leadership and and kind of property managers and um really consistent feedback and and some of those comments about short-term rentals were some of those HOAs where there maybe has been some change between primary and second um homeowners and and so that's where some of those concerns come from I think because in my HOA you wind up dealing with lawyers really past.

Um, the feasibility analysis you presented really does just hit towards inventory, inventory, inventory. I mean, the rates that you're providing are absolutely free market rates for what we're seeing here locally. Um while I agree that inventory is the first problem before you can solve all the rest of the problems. Um you do very clearly state that this is not feasible with uh funding mechanisms in its current sense. Yeah.

Um that's absolutely the reality of where we live at. Um but your deed restrictions that you put in place the the idea there if we are providing funding then those deed restrictions would create that labor required tenant eligibility. not income driven tenant uh eligibility. Correct? Yes. Let me go back to

Yeah. So, ultimately there's there's two there's a couple different proposals in here and one of the items is that um to make well there are several hurdles obviously to say the least to having happen. Um, one of them is just if we were to excuse all of the land use entitlement issues and everyone was allowed to do it, just the financial flexibility. Yeah.

So, doing some sort of program that incentivized home owners with an incentive to place a deed restriction on it or to create, as Jessica mentioned, a revolving loan program or some other financing mechanism um would be important to actually. So, um, It's definitely a long-term strategy. There are a lot of things to get through and overcome, but that's those are some of the considerations.

And just maybe as a bit more background, the the current requirements on ADUs in the town are that one of the two units, either the main house or the ADU has to be resident occupied. So, um it would be a step up to require employment uh limitations. questions. Uh based on other communities have tried this, do we have a projection to how many units you would uh generate here?

Um no. And part of that is kind of needing to understand um how aggressive do we want to be, right? Is this a we want to allow it everywhere and so there's maybe you know some additional opportunities or is it a a little bit more more targeted um and therefore you're going to get fewer um fewer adus um so that's analysis I think we we can do what I would say is this is one piece of the overall picture in thinking about housing availability within the town and it is not your silver bullet right there's no one silver bullet And so this is not going to get you 100 new units, right? But maybe it gets you 20 and that's 20 community members who are able to stay stay here in Basalt.

But if it's five, you wonder if it's worth the effort that's getting into it. Yeah.

Um would this like if the town got aggressive with it, would it go to ballot or would it be a council resolution? Well, so there would be um a couple different avenues for this to go and one would be um through land use action and through zoning to allow adus to happen in all of the zone districts. So that's a pretty big lift and then second from there um is dealing with the HOA covenants and so that's where this discussion about having a template to come in. So there's it's multi it's multi-layered. You know, there are potentially some HOAs that might be friendlier and might want to be the first HOA to take it on. Um we probably all know a friend or a neighbor that has an ADU that might benefit from legalizing it from some financial incentives there. Um so but it's multipromp for sure. I have a friend that has a unit, but HOA won't let him rent it out.

So, I thought streamlining the legal aspect of it was a really good idea. How has the Durango I mean, they kind of gave it a blanket. Do do what you need to do. Yeah. Has that faced a lot of legal challenges from HOAs and neighbors and how has that worked? Um, yeah. So what what we understand from that program is um part of the city's approach was we're not going to get in the business of dealing in within the HOA drama

and so we're going to allow it and you property owner are going to have to do that. So you're kind of you if you're in an HOA that doesn't allow an ADU you can go through the process and get approval from the city but you may still have an issue with your with your HOA. And so there are some risks for um homeowners to do that and and that's probably impacting the number of these that are being developed. So you still have to get approval from your HOA. Technically you do, but some people choose not to and then they go through whatever litigation they go through.

Understood. I was also going to ask about um if you had any projections on how many units this might create in basalt, but I was thinking more in terms of lot size just you know like I can't really see adding an ADU to my house for example, you know, unless I wanted to have no backyard. Um so was there any consideration in that sense of how many this might bring us?

Yeah. So really good question and I think some um probably additional detail in terms of code language of the difference between a attached ADU where may maybe you have space over the garage that you inside your house that you would be willing to convert and then add maybe an exterior staircase versus a detached. And um I think what we've so we we haven't done a a projection on that in terms of looking at at lots and things, but that ability to have the attached ADU and a detached is one way to enable kind of more opportunity. Okay.

I have one more question. Is it possible? I know it's not preferable, but is it legally possible for the town to use a brute force method with the HOAs like the House Bill does or is that the difference in legal abilities? I am not a land use attorney and um Jeff Conklin should answer that question, but my basic understanding of of land use law is that the town cannot just force that. Yeah. that it it violates some but the state can do that but the state can okay because the state has preeemption

yeah I that was a rhetorical question but I t your rhetorical be if they have success maybe we can influence them to expand it out the town lobbyed for them not to do it when they were proposing it my question gets back to the numbers do we have an inventory on how many ADUs are in town right now yes we do um at least legal ADUs. Um my recollection is we're in the realm of about uh 40 to 50. Okay. Yeah. Which could influence like when you're asking how many you're talking when you're

we really have three three neighborhoods where we have them. We've got some were uh permitted in um Aspen Junction, some were permitted in uh Sus Meadows and uh some are in the Hill District in the R310 district. Cool. Any more questions? So, are we going to the next presentation or is there another presentation with the There is another presentation. Uh, I think staff would ask whether P&Z has comments about the ADU program and if

Yeah, I have to have concerns questions.

Yeah. Well, first off, I think the big the biggest challenge for this, especially the part with separating the uh the ADU from the community housing part is um at least in my subdivision, which is Aspen Junction, there's some very powerful latigious people there who would a either a try and stop anything like this from happening or b trying to manipulate the system so they get a free guest house. And I see that as like that, you know, because a big part of my career was spent trying to circumvent land use rules so rich people can get what they want. And I can see lots of avenues in this to do that where you could kind of squeeze it in so you wind up with a what's called an ADU, but it's really just

additional. Yeah. It's just more square footage for It's another bedroom. Yeah. Yeah. uh it just has a kitchen in it. Take the potential grants from the government then you're much more much more much more much more much more much more much more much more much more much more much more much more strict about what you can do with the unit. I know but a lot of people are like they don't care you know it's like avenue if this is a third house you don't really care about taking a loan out to do that. It's almost two different Yeah that's what I'm saying. Those are the people who want to manipulate the system. The people who are going to take the loans out would generally be rule following people. I think

to that point we have not this out, but we did have this conversation with Bach and it's not there are not any details on this, but creating some sort of priority system so that people who are applying for the limited grant funds that eventually may become come available. There's a priority system on who gets those and how that works out. Is it going to be the most livable ADU? Is it going to be benefiting a full-time working resident who's going to stay in their house because they can do the ADU? Is it a second homeowner? And kind of trying to figure those things out. So, I think that might be along the lines of your

Yeah, it's just there's with these type of very very complex regulations, there's all sorts of unintended consequences that can that can come up and there will it will no matter what you do. That will happen. And and Bill, I think that that speaks as well to the multiple conflicting definitions that we have within our code. And you know, low hanging fruit right there is well, we could always still just combine everything into one location in the code and clean all that stuff up as best we possibly can without changing a whole lot. We are, of course,

we are that's on the list. Other comments? Uh, a question just popped in my head, Jessica. The you mentioned the Eagle County program. Does that affect us here in the valley much or is it Um, it's open to anyone in Eagle County. So, there is some impact, but is it being used a lot here that you know of? Um, no. It's primarily used in the um Veil Valley. We've we've had some questions about um whether people could use it in different locations in town, but unfortunately, you know, those questions have come from areas where they're not not in Eagle County. Well, they're in Eagle County. The ADU is not allowed.

They're not in R3TN. Gotcha.

Thank you. Any other comments? Yeah, I have a I have a few more comments that are just um I don't know, not in any particular order, but in general, you know, I really like the idea of this program and support the spirit of it. And then just thinking about it, questions come to mind like Aspen has all these ADUs and I think a long time ago there was a incentive program to build them, but then most of them aren't used. So, you know, I wonder how about the enforcement of um of getting people to use them for the intended use. Um, you know, then I think maybe more pe people would be more inclined to want to rent them out, want to create them and rent them out when they're building uh from the ground up, new construction, as opposed to adding them to an already existing building. Um, and there was one other thing I another thought I had that just went out of my mind along those lines, but um, yeah, I just I I think there's so many questions about it. So, uh, I don't I don't know how you narrow all that down into a workable policy, but I imagine it will take many more discussions before that happens. I I have one more comment and when we've I've been part of a whole bunch of master plans that we've done and a lot of them had a lot of you know public input and there's a a ton of veiled language that people use that's really just nimi nimism things like you know excessive traffic and parking and um neighborhood character and then there's the big one small town character which is really they're just afraid of brown people and that's what a lot of people are you know that's really where it goes and it goes

there quickly and you got to be very careful when you have those discussions to sort of sus out where people are really coming from about that stuff I I did think of my my one other um musing about this is uh I wonder if if you're allowing somebody to create this and then there's a restriction that they you know have to keep renting out out or something. It's possible that somebody could create an ADU and then discover that they hate being a landlord. Um, you know, I've had that experience with renting a townhouse I owned in another community. Um, when I first bought in Basalt and, you know, after having to evict somebody and that was a a really unpleasant process. I swore I would never be another landlord. So, um, yeah, I would think there needs to be a door left open for people who give it a try and just run into nightmare situations that they're not forced to keep renting. Well, if you take the $150,000 from Grant, you're going to have to keep renting it.

Well, that could be a lot of mental anguish. I I mean, I think Aspen is an excellent test case for what, you know, their incentive program was and what those ADUs are now, which just frankly sit empty. Um, you see, no enforcement.

There's no enforcement. You see them in every application. It's just additional square footage and and uh an avenue for more space. Um, I do think the PUB process is extraordinarily burdensome and and if we are trying to fasttrack HOAs and their opportunities to work within their covenants, um, if there is a process that the town can take to fasttrack the the PUB side of things um, for modifications uh, to adhere to whatever code we look to potentially implement, um, I think that that's a a a quality time-saving and cost-saving effort.

Did Bach discuss enforcement at all?

Bach asked, you know, how we would enforce and I think, you know, generally the answer would be we would enforce similar to the way we enforce uh deed restricted uh units in multifamily development. Now um you know on an annual basis we require the tenants to provide uh proof of employment and you know with the deed restricted units we have to look at income and stuff but if in this program it was just employment we we would require that on an annual basis to re-qualify tenants in in their units in the ADUs. I I do want to compliment everyone involved. This is an extremely thorough report which I read from beginning to end and I because I found it very interesting, you know, and I I think you guys did a great job. Thank you.

Thank you. Comments. What would be helpful for staff is if we could just have one general notion that you are supportive or not of this program generally knowing that we'll have to come back a lot of details and a lot more items to flesh out but just would you do a first and a second or could we just take that and go with it? You can you can run with that if anyone wants to. um as as presented generally. I'll make a motion to take what she said and turn that into a motion. Excellent. Second, I guess. All right. Cindy seconds. All said, Bill.

All in favor? I I Thank you. All in the interest of getting out on time. We're ahead of the schedule. Um well, there's we still have EPS. Um, uh, Brian and Avery, do you want me to share screen with us? Yes, please. Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, we'll we'll try to keep it brief and I apologize. This is maybe not as interesting as uh the edu presentation. Um, let's see. All right. And just quick audio check, can you hear me? Okay. Yes. Yeah.

Great. Great. I'm I'm Brian Deffany. I'm principal at Economic Planning Systems down in the big city of Denver here. Um my colleague associate Avery Weiss is uh has done a lot of the research on this. Um and uh thanks thanks for having us again.

All right. Go ahead. So this is what we're going to cover. Just a quick quick definitions of um inclusionary zoning and linkage. The reason we're doing this um James, you might be able to add a little more background here, but there were some questions that came up um that was people I think some people were looking at the the housing requirements in some surrounding communities and seeing that they're requiring 60 70 80% 90% mitigation is the word um of housing impacts. Um and why isn't the salt requiring that? Um and compare kind of comparing that to the current inclusionary housing ordinance. um set aside rate, which is uh 20% of all new units in a project or 25% of the square footage. Um so we've got just a little bit of clarification on on that stuff and then a couple of uh thoughts and considerations for you to uh to uh to take. Um next, James, did you have anything to add or Michelle to that background?

No, I think I think that basically like the why are we here? mitigating enough for new development whether it's resial, commercial, and can everybody hear Brian? Okay. Brian, if you could Michelle's super quiet. Brian, if you could please speak up a little bit. Uh, there's nothing else to add from us. Okay. I'm gonna try switching to my headset. See if that works better. How's that? Worse. Worse. Uh oh.

That's all right, Brian. As long as you can just kind of talk as loud as you can, that that's helpful. And Lily, please. Is that better? Yes. Yeah, much better.

Okay, I'll just shout. Sorry about that. Okay. Um, so um I'll keep it brief. In so inclusionary housing or inclusionary zoning are is different from a linkage program. Um inclusionary zoning is is um it's enacted under zoning zoning and it simply requires new projects to set aside a percentage of the new units in a project as affordable. Um if you're a legal geek um I think sounds like there is one in the room. Um, it's to date been considered an exercise of the police power just like building code enforcement, you know, any other sort of normal regulation of health, safety, and welfare that that towns do. Um, the linkage programs um are a form of an affordable housing impact fee, and they they kind of work differently under the law. They they're um um they're as a as a form of an impact fee, they're an exaction. Um, so there's a little more legal scrutiny on how they're used and how they're how the fees are developed. you have to do a nexus study to establish the nexus and proportionality of the fees. Um, and that that's where you see the you know the different job generation rates and then how many earners per household and these you know the all this math that goes into what the actual mitigation requirement is. Um so the nexus study establishes all of that. Then the policy aspect of it is the actual mitigation rate of whether we want to um you know if it's three employees generated per thousand square feet do we want to mitigate 100% of those or 50% you know or some some number like that that's the policy piece um so basaltt um has IHO on residential development and has residential has linkage on non-residential I realize my heading is a little confusing there next

um So, our our um consultant um I guess recommendations or things for you to consider and think about are um we think you should maintain the current Idaho set aside at uh 20% of the units, 25% of the floor area. Um it's in line with pure communities with in the valley. Um there are some exemptions for smaller for what were then defined as smaller homes um of 3,000 square feet or less that uh we think could be reconsidered. We'll talk about that. Um, uh, Avery is going to talk about some changes to how mixed use is applied. Um, but we do think you've got, um, some grounds to increase your your mitigation rate on the non-residential linkage, uh, program. Um, using developer and annexation agreements, um, is something you kind of already do. We've just kind of continued doing that. Um, there are, and then the last one is really just to moni kind of monitor. Um there are some communities that are looking at fees that would establish a nexus between a substantial renovation and its employment generation. So taking a you know modest home and completely gutting it into something that's you know you know quite a bit more expensive um and that sort of changes the way it operates. That's yeah so a lot of um let's see here up and down the valley um and throughout Colorado. So most um most highcost mountain communities are using linkage um are is using linkage programs as opposed to inclusionary housing um within the valley. Basalt and Carbondale um I think are the only ones that have inclusionary housing on residential um and then Basalt has commercial linkage on non-residential but if you look at the ones that apply that use affordable housing impact fees or linkage fees are um Aspen Avon Crested but Gunnison County Jackson Wyoming Mountain Village Mount Crested View Pitken County San

Miguel County uh Snow Mass Village Turide and Teton County. So it's it's it's sort of his historical interest on why why that happened. Um but that's that's kind of the landscape out there. Next um so on the Idaho basalt does have the the kind of the highest um set aside um for new residential um kind of in the region and we don't see any any need to change that. Avery is going to show you some math where that shows how the Idaho actually generates a bit more in terms of housing and fees. Next, um I think this is something to consider. Um we did identify um exemption in the code that exempts um projects with three or fewer new residential units from the Idaho um if they're smaller than 3,000 square feet. Um, we talked about this with Bach. Um, and if I'm remembering correctly, I think they were interested in maybe lowering the threshold, but but keeping the exemption, but maybe lowering that threshold to 2500 square feet for a single family home. Um, so that that's just something to uh for you for you to think about. Next, um, back to you, Avery.

Sure. Uh, hello everyone. And, uh, how's my volume? Trying to annunciate. Good. Sounds good.

Okay, great. Um, yeah, so just looking at some of the, uh, peer mountain communities that use residential linkage for residential mitigation. Um, this chart shows the mitigation rates across different communities. Uh, so you can see there's quite a bit of variance ranging from like 20% to 100%. Uh a trend is that higher cost communities uh tend to have the higher end uh mitigation rates. Um so like Jackson with 100%, Aspen 100% uh things like that. And you'll also notice in the chart that there are some communities that adjust their mitigation rate based on the size of the residential development uh in an effort to limit the impacts on smaller homes. Um, so for example, San Miguel County actually has uh a 0% mitigation rate for uh a th00and square feet homes. Uh, but as you go up in size, the mitigation rate increases. And then uh so this chart shows the commercial uh linkage mitigation rates. Uh so there's a bit more variety, a little bit less of a trend here. there there is still a bit of a trend of higher communities uh higher cost communities using higher mitigation rates. You can see that basalt at 15% is on the kind of lower end of uh peer communities. That's part of why we uh think that basalt could increase their mitigation rate to we recommend something around 30% uh to be a little bit more in line with peer communities. Um and then in the in the next uh slide we'll walk through uh some case studies that kind of highlight how you know the

Idaho regulations how they result in affordable housing versus the uh linkage uh regulations. So this case study is uh 24 new residential town homes of totaling 24,000 square feet. Um and so you know we did some math to kind of calculate what how many units would be generated in in each of these scenarios. Um, and just to, you know, walk through the kind of skip through skip to the end of the math. Um, in Idaho, under the current Idaho regulations that Basalt has of 25% of square footage, it results in, uh, 6.3 total affordable units needing to be required in this kind of example and a total fee amount of $3.2 million. while the same scenario in a residential linkage program, it results in uh two affordable units and about a third of the total fee amount. So even with a a 100% mitigation rate in residential linkage, because of all the other math, because of all the factors that uh go into a linkage equation, it actually results in significantly fewer total units to be uh mitigated. Um, and we can stop now for questions on the last slide or or we I could keep going. Um, I

think this is the punch line on the next one. Oh, sorry. No, I think Bill's saying to keep going. Keep going. Yeah.

All right, keep going. Um, so this slide is more aimed at uh exploring how Basaltt applies their uh mitigation uh their mitigation regulations to mixeduse projects. Um, this kind of supports our recommendation for kind of clarifying it and simplifying it because right now there's kind of a a choosing of a mitigation rate depending on which is higher, whether it's residential or commercial. Um, but it's a bit it's a bit confusing. It's a bit ambiguous. Um what we're recommending is a hybrid approach where you apply the mitigation the commercial mitigation rates to the commercial space and the residential Idaho set aside rate to the residential square footage. Um so in this case study we looked at 65 residential units uh totaling 37,000 ft and 9,000 square ft of commercial. Um, so under the current regulations where you're where the developer is picking one uh set aside rate um walk through the math, it totals about 12.1 affordable units and a fee of $6.1 million. And if you use a hybrid approach where again you're just applying the residential to the residential square feet, commercial to the commercial, um it generates slightly higher uh total amount of affordable units to be generated at 12.7 and pretty similar fee of 6.5 million. Um so it's it's generating basically the same amount and it's just a little bit more straightforward regulation. And then on the third column on the right, we also looked at what the impact would be of increasing the commercial mitigation rate to 30%. Um, and it adds in the same project, it adds about three affordable

units. So like total of 15.8 affordable units needed to be generated uh to be mitigated and then also a fee of $8.1 million. It just seems a little cleaner to us to put the the linkage regulation on the commercial and the IHO on the residential. And

Avery, if I could please uh just maybe provide a little bit of background on that. Um, back in 2009, the town adopted the mixeduse requirements where the town would require the higher of the commercial or the residential mitigation and then forgive the lower. The town did that because uh Eagle County had done that right before the town adopted that and there was lots of concern about uh jurisdiction shopping between Eagle County and the town of Basalt at the time. And so the the recommendation now is to you know require the commercial part to be mitigated for and the residential component to be mitigated for um because there's a little bit less concern about jurisdiction shopping at at the current time.

Y that's that's it. I can just restate these really concisely. Um maintain our suggestions are maintain the current IHO rate. um reconsider the exemptions for smaller homes. Um u do what Avery just talked about, apply the on mixed use, apply the IHO to the residential, apply the linkage programs to the non-residential components. Um you could consider increasing the ma the mitigation on commercial or non-residential to 30%, maybe a little more um to be more in line with other other communities in the valley. Um and that's that's kind of the meat of it. Happy to take any questions. Cool questions.

Question. In your first example with just the town homes, um I wasn't clear why there were um mitigation by units and a fee as well or was the fee the building cost? Which one? Go ahead Avery. Sorry. Residential there. There was the example of the town slide I think the case study I guess. Yeah, on the case first case study. Yeah, that one. Yeah. Um

we included the the percentage of units um just to kind of show what that would look like as well. I I think in the basalt code it's you you have to use whichever is the higher fee uh the higher units. Um so but we just showed it just so you can see how the uh you know if you're using the 25% square footage that's how how the um that would be the total fee amount the total units and then if you're using the percent of units it generates slightly fewer total affordable units to be mitigated and lower fee.

So so the town code allows for the town council to accept mitigation in several different methods. one one being units on site uh two being uh units offsite three being cash and loo yeah I thought it was an either or I didn't think it was both at the same it's not both but they're showing kind of the comparison of you know if if council accepted cash and loo how much larger so both options are in one chart okay I get it thank you so I I have a question I have a question um this is mostly for staff

within the town right Now, how much um approved unbuilt commercial is there? And and adjacent to that question is how much in the flume is there for commercial to be to be approved that's even possible because I think that that number is diminishing. Yeah. And my question to EPS was, do you did you do this data in a vacuum or did you take that relevant information into your study?

Well, to to answer answer your question on uh approved, unbuilt, um in town, we we basically have zero approved, unbuilt commercial except for uh BCC, which is currently being built. Um and in the future land use maps that we have in the master plan, um there is commercial components uh in Southside that are identified uh along Southside Drive and then there is also um kind of the commercial component in Jadwin property and Scott property as well. Um but it's not significant.

Yeah. So it's that's a diminishing number. Rapidly diminishing number. Yeah. Right. And Yeah. And a little context too from the the housing needs assessment, you know, we you know, we were finding through the work and through discussions with James and Michelle that as you as you point out like the town's pretty close to built out. Yeah. And so

like a lot of these tools inclusionary housing ordinances and commercial linkage fees, right? They're all you you have to get development to for those to be effective to generate units or fee revenue and the needs assessment ultimately recommended you know or identified that the town should start to think about diversifying its toolbox. So that that's part of the reason that um you're hearing about programs like ADU incentives um you know buy downs or deed restriction incentives um um you know the the STR regulation discussion. It's all of that stuff is kind of coming out of the you know the the land use context. Brian, on a on a counterpoint here, we also have a significant number of vacant commercial lots and recently developed commercial lots that are sitting un with no tenant in tow. um which feels like a potential direct result to the fees which we are burdening these mixeduse development projects with and then therefore the fees that they have to pass down to the tenants to potentially provide a viable commercial location. Um

well Ben, you have to weigh that against the fact that they didn't want to build it in the first place that they only built it because we required that they build it. Yep. as part of their their approvals because in in all my years, you know, programming projects, most developers would rather die than build commercial space, and they'd only do it when they were absolutely required to do so.

You know, the residential was where the money was. You know, they they they just did it because they had to. Was there any discussion on the vacancy the the the current vacancy scene in the commercial sector?

No, this I mean this wasn't a real deep dive into those topics. It was really just looking at how the current regulations work. Um and you know that's one of the policy considerations that that people have when they're when they're selecting these rates is what is you know what might be the impacts on on economic development on non-residential development. But all that being said, commercial space is more likely to be redeveloped and remodeled than residential space. And are are there tools available to look at remodeling opportunities even to capture housing mitigation from

even tenant improvement if we're just talking about cash and loo that's um I think right now no but a couple of communities are looking into looking into establishing a nexus for substantial renovations um that that you know significantly change the character of something and and collecting housing mitigation on that. I'm not sure James if you know if like net increases in square footage if you capture mitigation on that for non-residential.

We we explored this with Bach and u currently as Brian said there are some communities that are trying to establish a nexus on uh major remodels. um they're not not quite there yet and there hasn't been any challenges yet. Um so staff had suggested kind of a monitor it and see if it's a tool that we can uh implement u after we kind of see if there's challenges on on that nexus. Um see how it goes. It's kind of the approach. It's it's Pittkin County. Cool.

Pitken County. We've been focused on this side of the table. We're going to go this way. Right. Um I don't know if you guys agree with me with this and and I apologize. I'm not as comfortable with your acronyms as you guys are, but I was surprised that you did not suggest that we be more aggressive with our requirements. And you know, if we're at 15% mitigation for commercial and aspen at 65 and you said we could double it, but I don't get why you wouldn't triple it or more or go from 25 to 50. Am I missing something or what's the downside of more aggressive uh requirements?

My my favorite non-answer. It's a policy decision. Um, so I think we're just kind of eyeballing it between kind of saying, well, you're not Aspen. Um, but looking at, you know, some other, you know, there aren't many places outside of Aspen or Pittkin County that are above that are above like 40 or 50% or so. So, it's kind of it's it's a qualitative not a lot not a lot of science behind that. I I think and I had a question on that. I mean, you look at everything we're comparing to, all of those have ski resorts. Yep.

Basalt is not a ski a resort town. So, I is this really the best communities to be comparing our regulation to. I understand the housing needs and everything like that. I question a little bit comparing Basalt to that list of towns versus other towns near some of those towns. But I I question a little bit. Should we be pushing so much on the development community? I mean, I do think that that has some negative impact to development and pricing that you see. And so, was there thought given to the communities that we compared ourselves to versus grabbing kind of the higher echelon of resort communities? Yeah, the these are the communities that have these programs, right? So once I think to your your point, when you get out of the mount the you know the base area portal communities, the ski resort host communities, um these types of regulations aren't as prevalent. But but Brian, you you show, you know, Eagle as an example in in our IHO version, but the data for them within the table as a relative comp to, you know, Aspen to Aspen is to basalt as Eagle is to Veale. Um, you know, that that data isn't correlated. Um,

but again, you're talking the residential versus the commercial because we stand alone in residential with Carbondale and just a few of the other our IHO versus their IHO. That that's Oh, is that shown right there? That's the IHO. Oh, sorry. That's the IHO. We're talking about commercials. Apologies.

It is a little bit tricky because it's not apples to apples with the different zoning regulations, but that's certainly a thing. And that might be a reason not to take it to 50%. that might be a reason to be at 15 or to take it to the mid level of 30%. Rob, Rob Rob, to kind of go back to your question maybe a little bit uh on the commercial mitigation rate. Um the the town originally back in 2009 because um there was a desire to continue to see commercial development to create that jobs housing balance to a certain extent. Um and and so you know that that could be a consideration on the mitigation rate for commercial now as well. Um but but at at that point in time we were just trying to match Eagle County for the most part.

When was Willix annexed in town? It was uh originally annexed in the late 90s 96. I'm still trying to work through the cost, supply and demand requirements, right? If you build, if you make the requirements higher, you're saying the costs are higher to build and therefore prices are higher. Yes. But if you don't build Yep.

you have supply and demand, you have a lower supply. The demand is the same, so prices go up. And I mean that's the kind of stuff that I thought these guys would sort of dig into the study of you know the case studies and get behind the numbers. Um that's why I rubbed the the the vacant lots you know as as available locations where businesses can enter into versus if we are develop pre you mean already developed existing developed developments. Okay not commercial vehicle space not okay storefronts. Yeah, that's a little bit different than vacant lots. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, where are these vacant lots?

Not lots. Apologies. Storefronts. Vacant. Vacant commercial storefront. Okay. But obviously that's more they could delve into, but there's lots of reasons why they're vacant, right? And not just that, we required them to build housing. Yeah. Yeah. To be clear, the commercial fees do not apply to vacant storefronts. Yes. Right. Okay. Completely understand that. I'm I'm I'm saying as a result of potentially higher linkage fees when they built it, they when they build it, then that those developments are saddled with that that debt or that capital stack and need to then pass it down to the tenant.

But isn't that just a bad business model that if you can't adjust to what your clients can afford to pay, then you're not you're not getting anything, then the building isn't viable at all. I completely agree with you, but that's what development kind of seeing. Yes. Yes. If we're not incentivizing anything to go in there, then Right. But there's a lot of there's a lot of causes of an empty storefront and you can't say it's because we made them build affordable housing. They can't get employees. They have competing with Amazon. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's lots of there's there's a lot of it. It all goes cyclical to what our our problems are as a community. I I agree with that. I do not think that the answer would have been to build the storefront without requiring the housing. Y

that is really the basis here is that we're trying to mitigate new development and redevelopment could be on vacant property. It could be something like a BCC that is redeveloping a tired property which we know there are plenty of generically around town. And so capturing as a tool for affordable housing the mitigation rate to to to get there um just to bring them back all of the things are valid and we don't want to have rates that disincentivize anything. But um quite frankly in our building we're not seeing a lack of land use applications.

So again I don't see the downside of more rigid requirements.

I might offer really briefly um the Aspen example is a is actually an interesting one. Their base rate is 65% for commercial, but they're actually ratcheting up by 2% every single year to get to 100%. And as a policy conversation, their council at the time felt it was really important to go to 100%. If you are generating an impact and we need to house the people that are being, you know, employed, we we want to get you to 100% mitigation, but that's going to take them 25 years plus to get to get to that. And so thinking about kind of how do you implement a change to that mitigation rate that ratcheting up is is one option to consider

but also taking in consideration Rob's point. So instead of 15 compared to 60 it's 15 compared to 100 eventually eventually. So it be that discrepancy becomes even greater. So if it's if it were undeveloped hypothetically then then we have more requirements and you can't make it work then don't build it. But if you do build it, we want the maximum housing. More of a global conversation, but um they started it.

You know, as you look further into the future as to what this community is becoming as a result of what the communities surrounding us are are becoming. Um the reality is pretty obvious. Um but at the same time we're not a ski community uh um directly and the players that you're seeing in Aspen are making unound financial decisions to live out those those goals and aspirations and have those loss leaders and they're okay with that because they have the storefront in in a in a desirable district. Um,

but again, storefronts versus actual commercial developments, which general storefront, not not actual vacant storefront. Apologies for I mean, at the end of the day, this is there's not a lot of things in the pipeline to where Bill started this the comment like there's just not a lot of commercial development that's going to be happening here unless we expand the UGB or change underlying zoning. Sure. None of this is going to happen. But it's the same conversation where the residential development true how much mitigation do we want and it goes back to the same we don't have inventory to to house the residents to do so to put the commercial in place.

So maybe that would be actually a really helpful item for clarification for staff is we did have focusing on the residential for a minute. We had a lot of discussion about um the current exemption in our code for units that are 3,000 square feet

um or smaller are exempt from any mitigation. And you might remember just in this last year you looked at a land use application that um was for a 4,000 foot home and the applicant decided to shrink it down to 3,000 so they wouldn't have to book any um had a lot of discussion about that 3,000 square foot and decided that that was still sizable enough to require um an ADU in most circumstances and is recommending 2500 square f feet be the exemption. Is there a a yay or a nay or a general feeling on that kind of area?

And that's only on projects that are three or less units um created. I'm inclined like with Rob and I'm not putting words in your mouth to we need housing. We need the the inventory to to include them personally. I would agree with that. It's like we talked about if Okay. Well, it's a small unit. It's only 2500 square feet. So, it's going to be local. It's already You're not falling for that again. Yeah.

No. Well, I also I correct me if I'm wrong, but um what you were just saying, Rob, about um with the commercial and the housing, it's not that direct, right? Because commercial is only paying a fee. So it's not necessarily it's not it's not turning into housing as if it were a residential project where a certain percentage of the units are going to be like there could be a big time lag between that fee being paid and what eventually it needs to in the housing being generated unless it's a mixed residential because it could be applied to the residential.

Yeah. So, I guess I guess given the given the um slow pipeline or maybe non-existent pipeline of of commercial stuff coming toward us, what we're going to see I think we want to I think we want to in my mind focus more on the residential right now. Mixed use is what we're going to see because what we're sort of asking for. Yeah. But this the smaller units, you know, we're not falling for that again, right? just because they're smaller low-end fixtures. So So they're going to be for locals, right?

Just to just to clarify just in case since um because this exemption is is only for developments of three units or less. So most likely it's it's not going to be in a mixeduse development. It's going to be more probably in Bill's neighborhood, someone who's redeveloping a lot a house there. And so is that house it's 3,000 square feet. Is that should it still be exempted from an ADU requirement or if it or should we shrink it down if it's over 2500 square feet it should be required to mitigate? I'm saying it should be 1500 or pick a number 2,00 because

you're saying ADU or is it the Idaho? It is the IO I was going to say with the ADU. Wait a minute. Can't we not enforce it if the homeowners association doesn't allow it? storefronts messed everybody up. Well, the applicant's going to stand there and say, "Look, they're 1500 square foot units, so they're going to be for locals, you know." Yeah. And then we say, "Okay." And then they're advertised in Denver, you know, for a million bucks for Europe. It feels like it needs to be a net square foot complex because if you're talking about three units, 1500 feet, I'm I'm right there with you. You'd see it on the Sabbeast the next day for for what

and we'd all puke. Um I I do think I do think single family feels we have limited opportunities to provide inclusionary housing and if there are zero commercial opportunities unless the urban growth boundary is present upgraded and then we think about the priorities. of what's more important, housing or or commercial. I mean, we have limited development opportunities. That's the re that's the limiting reason.

The last time we tried to increase the urban growth boundary for only affordable housing, 100% affordable housing projects, council would not approve our master plan. Was that the keep the baltult crowd? Was that the keep the baltult crowd? Chris Seldom. And um it was and it was like there were two master plans. It was it was a nightmare. And and that was 2020. Was that the 20 2007? That was one uh that was before that. 2007. Yeah. 2007. Yeah. We're different than 2007. I'd like to hold on to that.

I I was still gunshy about that. It was extraordinarily ugly. Yeah. May I? All right. I'm gonna if we could kind of have I've got four items for for general direction here and we don't have to get to the answer of the exact numbers of mitigation just whether we're generally um in agreement with these areas. um maintaining for our residential mitigation, maintaining our 20% of the units and 25% of the square footage as we talked about. You want to raise it or you giving No, I'm giving a thumbs up. I think we need to raise it.

I I wouldn't mind seeing it to go to 2525. I I not a debate. My thing is we're already higher than other things and but I mean thumbs up with leaning that direction. So, as a minimum, maintain it as it is as a minimum, but consider going higher. I would encourage you to go higher. Yeah. Because it doesn't matter what we do. Council will do whatever they want to do. We might as well keep advice. So is that is that is that true across Can I get thumbs up across the board on a minimum of what we existingly existing have for residential, but you would like to see it considered to go higher? Yeah, I would love to see you know some sort of carrot to go higher.

Okay, that's helpful. Yeah, carrot to go higher I think is a an in addition to clarifying the confusion of which for the mixeduse development which one we're going with a okay hang on oh sorry one second um for nonresidential for commercial development only not mixed use commercial development only increasing the link the linkage fee from 20 15% to 30% Rob's gonna say higher. As a minimum place to start as a as a starting point. Good place to start. Yeah. I'm a carrot to go higher.

To go higher. I would agree with that. Weird. Well, thank you. Okay. Um mixeduse calculation. We talked about breaking that out to get a little bit more. So instead of taking the higher of commercial or residential, just calculating it straight up on commercial is commercial, residential is residential. Add both. Yep. Definitely. That's super helpful. Last one. Don't get stuck on the numbers. Just generally

because we got to figure this out. I'm with you on it. um is is should we lower the square footage of a single family of a small three units or less for single family units? Should we lower the threshold of what is exempt from mitigation there? Yes. What what I have a question. What is mit like for a single family home? If I built a 30,000 square foot 30,000 one foot square foot home, what would my mitigation be? 25% of the floor area of that 3,000 square foot home. What's the cash in L of that? Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to build. So, if someone did the 4,000

if I live in a certain neighborhood, I'm not allowed to. So, what do I have to pay? So, for example, the the last land use application that came in that was at 4,000 square feet and need then they needed to mitigate um their cash in L was somewhere in the realm of I think it was 100 120 Yeah, 120,000.

Does it apply to remodels or just units? So, not to get stuck on figuring out what the number for the exemption is, but should we look at lowering the square where the size of should we look at lowering the threshold for the or I guess you could say raising it? Should we look at making the size of the residential unit smaller to be exempt from mitigation? I would say yes. Yes. Yes. Although I'm not quite sure what you like to give into 1500 instead. Yeah.

Yes. So, so for my own brain, I looked at 120,000 divided by what the average construction cost of a 4,000 foot house is, and it's less than 5%. That the town is including in a fee. Um, yeah, I guess I'd go vote less, too. Michelle, is it on the table or Hold on. Brian's asking

another I think another question related to that and if you want to just if you want to move on just tell me to shut up is would you just just eliminate all exemptions? So, let's say you had a you had one infill lot um you're building a a vacant infill lot or building a new home on it. I think right now you would be exempt from all the IHO requirements. If you eliminated all exemptions, um you'd you'd be casting a wider net. Why would the green field be currently exempt? It's less than 3,000.

If the unit was less than 3,000, it would be exempt because they would only be creating one unit. I I think there's a certain area where people are building small like I take my own personal experience. I built a 1,400 foot home and it it took every dollar we had and if that increases by 50 $60,000 I probably don't live in this valley anymore. And so I'm not building a big home. I'm building a twobedroom small home for my family. And I think there's somewhere in there that that line should be drawn. I don't think it should be personally.

I I'm in agreeance with with that. I totally agree. Sorry. Sorry. But then I would Okay. So then then it's deed restricted. It has to be No. No. I remember it's only for three or less. No, but I think that that the three or less is a scary part. Cindy and Rob, if we're giving the exemption for your small home, which I think we should do, but we don't want when you build it, I don't want you to sell to someone in Denver for big money in 20 years, right? That should then stay in the more local housing market. And if you're not paying the $50,000 now, then if the cost of that is later, you have this deed restriction that says you have to sell it to a local.

But that's not part the discussion today. Sorry. No. I agree with you. I think the exemption for I'm more interested in changing the three and less. I I the threes is very problematic. I think a duplex or a triplex is different than a single family home a little bit and lumping those together I think is I I completely agree from a not to cut this off. I think they're good conversations. We're a little off we're a little late on our agenda time and this is really splitting hairs at this time. Yeah. So, so may I please to finish this have a motion that you like the minimums and you'd like to see it get more aggressive going forward as we You worded it so well before. You want to try?

Yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that. I'll do I'll do it just like I did before. What she said like we did before. All in favor? I. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Taking my microwave. No, I gave you 10 minutes. Uh, the next item then is a public hearing on 230 Park Avenue, a special review with a site plan review. I will give that to staff. I didn't think they were here. Well, they would still it might be staff. She could get a change of actors now. Yes, Sarah's stepping up. Yeah. And we have the the applicant team is coming in as well in just a moment.

Great. I think they trouble walks in. You're welcome to join me table. I can uh if one of you guys doing I can swing back once uh your bloody ages. What's going on my man? Hello. Hello. Well, you know me, Sarah Noni with the playing department. I see everyone knows J Thornley with Connect One. And don't forget about Brad in the back there too

and Brad Elliot who is the architect of this project. Um this is for 230 Park Avenue. The application is for site plan special review as well as community housing review. And the PNZ is asked to make a recommendation on this to town council who is the final decision maker on this matter. Uh next slide please. So just to center you this is located within the Balt Industrial Park. The lot is zoned in PUB, industrial PUD, and it measures just over 29,000 square feet in size. Next slide, please. Give you some idea of the existing conditions. You're probably familiar with this site. Um, it's currently improved with a 6,800 square foot singlestory block building. Uh, it's used by Sage Construction as a storage primarily and then there's a small cabinet maker studio as well in there. Uh, the site lacks any defined parking. As you see, it's very open. It's on the corner there. There's no organized way into the site. It's kind of like a free-for-all to pull into the site. Uh, next slide, please. The applicant's proposing the addition of a second story to the existing building. This will all be uh used as residential units. There's five residential units are being proposed. Two studios, two one-bedrooms, and one three-bedroom unit. Uh the parking is proposed to be organized on the site. Um they are also proposing the addition of 10 off-site parking spaces that are accessory that don't count towards the parking requirement. Um they're asking for two uh or rather proposing two access points through the site uh into the site with circulation through the site um and landscaped open space at the rear. You can see at the upper leftand corner there. And next slide, please. And here's some images. I'm sure the applicant will get into some more images, but here's some images of the proposed development, some

renderings that were provided. Uh, next slide, please. So, staff has reviewed this against uh several discussion items um that we are proposing that the PNZ consider uh including the consistency with the zone district as well as the 2020 master plan. There's several site planning items, housing mitigation, the livability of the units, occupancy prior occupancy priorities as well as accessibility. Um, if you want to go to the next one. Thank you. So, starting with the consistency with the industrial zone district as well as the master plan. Um, so you know, residential uses uses uh within the special I'm sorry, within the Let me recenter here. Little off. I'm trying to go fast here. Um, residential uses require special review approval within the industrial zone district. They're not a use by right. And so the main requirement, the first requirement we look at is to ensure that the residential use is subordinate to that primary commercial or industrial use on the site. The applicant has made some uh slight changes to the floor area, which before this meeting we'll get into um as we go down the road here. Um we were at about 5,800 square feet. They're proposing 6,000 square feet of residential floor area at this time. Um the existing use on the site is 6,800 square feet. So you see that the residential use is indeed subordinate to the existing use. Staff also looks at the compatibility of the residential use, the compatibility of the use with the site as well as the desiraability of housing. So we see that the proposed units are generally intended as workforce housing. Uh there are different sizes being proposed that can accommodate a range of tenant types from from singles to roommates to to actually families. Um they're adding residential above the existing building. So that does respect

the existing site and the layout. It doesn't sprawl into the site. Um the applicant is proposing that inclusion of open space uh landscaped area at the rear which softens the site from the pavement as well as the heartscape. Now, we do see this is uh this graphic here showing kind there's a precedent for allowing residential uses within the industrial zone district in certain areas. And if you can see where these are located, the red uh the red star indicates the subject site. And there's three other locations where industrial uh residential has been approved within the industrial zone district. Um and two of them being right next to it. If approved, the applicant would be required to include language within all those residential lease agreements indicating that the uses are within the industrial zone district. Uh they may include noise, trucks, heavy machinery, etc. Um you know, as as uh consequence of living there, I guess. And this has been included in other mixeduse sites within the industrial zone district in recent years. So this is pretty um pretty common place. Regarding how this meets the master plan goals, this does provide housing that serves residents across a range of demographics as well as incomes. It promotes housing close to commercial uh supports live work arrangements and it supports uh providing additional affordable housing opportunities. Go to the next slide please. and getting into the site planning issues. Start with parking and staff's analysis of the parking is made with the assumption from conversations with the applicant team that silage construction and affiliates will have full use of that ground floor space. So, we've looked at this um the code requirement for warehouse being one space for every 1,00 square feet requiring seven, you know, bumping that number up, rounding up to seven total

spaces um on site for that use. Then the residential above requires nine total spaces and so staff has included a recommendation that the residential parking uh be signed for that use on the site to protect those spaces. The applicant has also proposed 10 off-site spaces for general public use and this is similar to the condition that's found at the neighboring lot at 204 Park Avenue which has nine headin parking spaces. Um so staff has discussed this internally um and staff has become supportive of this condition as well as the HOA for the busel industrial park. Um the reason is it really better organizes the parking in this area. It contributes to more parking availability for general use in this area as well. Um, right now it's a little chaotic. If you've been over there recently, a lot of times you'll see cars kind of stacked and parked every which way. So, this really does help organize the parking, but staff does want to require um angled parking rather than head in. Um, so we've worked with the applicant team on that. and the applicant will be required to enter into a license agreement with the town for the maintaining of the parking spaces including plowing those spaces during the winter. Uh we'll stay on that slide. Um regarding those two sites of ingress, egress, ingress and egress, um the applicant is proposing to fence the property and offers those two entry points and this was something that was considered by the review agencies as well as staff from a safety perspective. Ultimately, it's being supported by staff in the review agencies. Um, this is a condition that's found elsewhere in the Balt Industrial Park. The applicant has explained that there's they have box trucks and large pickup trucks with trailers that will be going into the site um utilizing any one of those rollup doors, those overhead doors there um to to bring items to the site or or retrieve them from the site. and having

that circulation through the site and that ability to do that is really a lot safer than stopping traffic, having somebody, you know, out there while another box truck pulls out. So, um, ultimately staff was supportive of that two entry point condition. Um, regarding the combined residential open space that is up at that upper leftand corner of this screen. So the code typically requires each unit to have a minimum of 50 square feet of private open space and that's generally seen through you know patios or or upper decks. So three of the five units that are being proposed is the two studios and the one one bed one of the onebedrooms does lack private open space. So the applicant is requesting to fulfill that requirement through this combination of open space on the site. Um the space will be landscaped, have picnic tables, seating. Um they're proposing a grill and so working with the fire department and which where the location um would best be suited for a non- charcoal grill. And so combined open space areas have been seen uh been approved at several developments in the nearby Willletstown Center in recent days. Um we've seen that at the hub, the Willlet 7 building, the Lumen residence, as well as 110 Harris Street. Those all have combined open spaces and some are very successful like the hubs. Um so the the staff has created a condition that the applicant will be required to meet the standards of the new wildfire resiliency legislation if approved as well as the non- charcoal grill model and placement for approval by the fire district per their requirements. And lastly, uh the applicant has provided uh snow storage on the site. There's two hatched areas that uh we have worked with the applicant to ensure that that would satisfy the the requirements of being able to plow that lot as well as a space at the front of

the site for the trash area. The applicant has worked with their um their sanitation or waste management.

Waste management. Thank you. uh their provider for the site to ensure that those two large rolloffs are adequately sized to handle recycling as well as um as well as the trash for the site and ease of moving it in and out and that's why it's placed where it is. I think we can go to the next one. Next slide. Thank you. So, regarding h housing mitigation, so this project with its five uh proposed um units is required to meet the residential inclusionary housing requirement by providing community housing that's equal to at least 25% of the total net square footage of the residential de development and 20% of the units. I know you guys are just talking about this actually and this is being met through the deed restriction of the two studio units. Um so the numbers here have the sizes have changed um slightly. I'm going to let the applicant address that. you'll see it's slightly different than what you've seen in my in staff's memo and uh the applicants can can go through the floor plans and address why that change has occurred. So, it's being met. So, at this point um I think we're at 1,53 square feet of of floor area which satisfies that um 25% of floor area and the two units um as well satisfy that 20%. These are proposed to be deed restricted at a category 2 rental rate per the requirements of the code and the applicant will be required to file a deed restriction prior to to receiving CO. The applicant has uh provided a draft occ uh draft deed restriction document with an occupancy priority for consideration. Um the applicant has you know requested that first priority be given to current employees of the owner and its affiliates that meet the income and work requirements guidelines or requirements per the livability guidelines. Um the second priority

that's being proposed is for former employees of owners of the owner and affiliates who meet the qualification and occupied a deed restricted unit while employed. and then it reverts to the waterfall tiered priority system that's within the town's uh the town system. So, this item was reviewed by staff as well as the south affordable community housing commission, the Bach group at their um August 14th meeting and ultimately this was the the one thing that was not supported by Bach. Um so the intent is to provide work you know house of workforce in these units and we believe that the intent of the applicant applicant can speak to this more is to um ensure that someone who is residing in one of the units who changes job would not immediately need to leave the unit. Um the staff at Bach agreed that this could be handled through lease terms rather than included within the occupancy priority. So that is the one area we um looking to strike that um that request. Uh, next slide, please. And regarding livability, again, Bach reviewed the units against the town's livability guidelines at its August 14th meeting. And with that exception of that occupancy priority, as previously stated, Bach was overall supportive of the application as it relates to the affordable housing unit, noting that the units are above average in size. They're quite generous, in fact. Um, each unit contains a full-size tub, a stove, adequately adequate kitchen space. Um the exterior storage units are provided at the rear of the site. Um and I think I have that on the next slide. Yeah, there's an area where that's circled. That's where the uh the exterior storage units are and bike storage will be accommodated for on site. Regarding accessibility, the upper floor units uh may be access accessed either by the way of stairways or by the elevator and all

units will be built at a type B uh residential units. So the applicant the applicant reviewed the pardon me that's what happens when you write too many things instead of just notes. This is reviewed by the town's review agencies uh who provided conditions which are included within staff's memo. And so this is for the review process. You know, to reiterate, the PNZ is being asked to make a recommendation to the town council on this application. Staff suggests first hearing a presentation from the applicant. Um asking questions to the applicant or staff for clarification and opening up for a public hearing, engaging the PNZ a discussion. um and if comfortable providing a recommendation this evening to the town council on the application. So I will uh turn it over to to Giles and Brad step back here.

Welcome Jiles again. He looks comfortable there. Oh well thanks for saying everything I was going to say. Um you got it.

Oh my god. I'm Giles Thornley uh with uh Connect One Design but we're now Lionhe Heart but maybe changing our name. So, sorry about the confusion. The landscape architects, land planners here with Tarly. I think she's on the on the Zoom. Um, she knows a lot more about this project than I do and has been working with Brad on this project. Um, and yeah, I mean, you you've done a great job of covering everything I wanted to go over um, in terms of uh, the history of this site. We were we were tasked to take a look at this industrial site with new eyes, you know, as something as a design opportunity. And um we have gone through a lot of iterations to get to the point that we are today. And we really feel like this is going to set a nice precedent for this industrial area. Everything that we've designed here has multi-purpose. It's deliberate. It's enriching. It's not just hemmed in there. It's not just an afterthought. It's very carefully put together uh thanks to this team. So, we talked about the ingress egress. That's going to be a massive help. I don't know if you can share the screen or just you know the that'll do. That'll do. Donkey.

Okay. Um if I could share my screen, I'm happy to. Okay. Is that is that an option? Yeah. Yeah, that's an option. Great. Great. Tal's in Lafayette today. Lovely little town of Lafayette, I think. So, we got a few more before and afters to show you. Talia has raised her hand.

Yeah, it's actually not giving me the option of joining as a panelist um and sharing my screen. You're you're on as a panelist on one of them. Perfect. Okay, there you go. Twice the power. Maybe three times. Four times. There's so many so many of me. Okay. Great.

Great stuff. Yeah. So, we got some Yeah. I mean, you've given a lot of thought to this project. It's been great to work on. I hope you hope you've enjoyed uh what you've seen so far. I'll just go into a few more details. If you zoom in to your top right hand um leftand corner so we can show the commissioners the before and after shots. Yes, these are AI renderings. Yes, they are look a little bit more beautified than they are. But um this is the general intent to sort of rew um add some uh significant uh changes to the very openmouthed uh entrance there is today which is bit of a sea of asphalt. Um we're considering putting in a fence split rail fence to delineate the space instead of the uh um chain link fence there is today. A little bit more view in. Again, we're looking at the practicalities of people living here and working here. Uh little entry monument and then the materiality. Uh I'm not going to say too much about today, but we're trying to move away from from concrete and looking at a a product that's along the lines of like a really solid uh binder with a crusher fines called uh called CFKA granite. Um just because we note the polluting power of of concrete and we can do better. Um if you zoom over and see the next view where um Brad's architecture has gone up one story as you can see with the before and after and we're trying to make this a more friendly human scale entrance uh for the folks that are coming up the stairs. Uh they got mailboxes uh in that area as well as uh bike storage. um in there and uh we've considered you

can just see a wee snippet in the corner there of a drivable grass. Uh so it's not going to be a sea of asphalt or concrete connecting the two uh egress points. So we got a drivable grass surface that we're thinking there from a storm water perspective. I think that's been uh put into the calculations. Um keep zooming zooming over tally. This is the view from the neighboring neighboring lot uh at the bottom here uh which we're not doing a whole lot in terms of uh additional trees or screening but that's just to show you the the bulk of mass uh from the neighboring property. Um and you know we we have been following the wildfire guidelines very strictly and have had uh several conversations with the fire wildfire district and received their comments favorably. Um and then we're into the area that we're referring to as the the mini forest. um an ecologically diverse area um that would that meets the snuff test of all the non-combustible uh uh vegetation in that area. But it's al also becoming a mini park for these folks who are living here. Sarah said it's going to have picnic table. It's also doubles up as a detention basin. Um and there'll be a we walking path around it as well. um just to and a place to sit down with your laptop. So, that's that's some of the before and after shots. Um and then if you scroll through, this is the packet that was submitted. Um and yeah, this is probably the best best one to look at. The angle parking we've talked about. Thank you, Sarah. Talked about all the parking ratios. Thank you, Sarah. Uh there's the the bit in the middle that's the drive drivable grass uh that will probably not

be used in the winter time. So we're not uh need don't need to plow it. Um we've got plenty of movement uh for uh fire trucks, dumpster trucks. I think there's a circulation drawing that Tyler can flip to next. Um there we go. Um and you know Mr. Silich has a good variety of vehicles that we are accommodating in this design. Uh but again, uh elegance and aesthetics are very important to him and to us and uh yeah, you know, this it's a very a series of overlays of uh design which I hope uh I hope you guys like. Uh we've got a lighting plan as well. Uh the next page uh all meets the town of assaults uh minimal lighting ordinance. And I think that's about it. Am I missing anything, Talia?

I don't think so. Um the bike storage, we didn't really get into a whole lot of detail with that. Sorry if this is nauseating. Let me pause and zoom in a little. But yeah, the there's a few open air park uh bike parking spots and then the closed lockable bike parking in here and um just some nice entry experience for the um people who are living in the units where they're easily accessing their mailbox and um entering into the social space where the grill is located.

Yep. There'll be some different textures and colors as the welcome mat into as it gets closer to the uh to the apron of the of the building. Um yeah, I mean honestly Sarah knocked out the pot. Haven't got much to say. I had a whole presentation. You you killed me. Thanks very much. Well, that's going to be okay. Brad, you want to talk about the floor plan? Yeah. Um, are you able to get those sheets up? Yeah. Uh, Talia, if you could please stop sharing your screen. I'll I'll bring up

uh I will also just throw in I think the the one thing uh that hadn't been touched on yet is um there is current he uh he currently has uh car chargers installed. Um I don't know if you're aware, but he's up to I think eight electric pickups.

Wow. Um he uh John's been really happy with how that's working. So he's basically in the process of uh replacing vehicles uh with electric. You know, he's he's got one, you know, like I said, he's he's got some big like, you know, diesel trucks that he needs to use, but uh anything for pickup down to uh uh Maverick hybrids. And so we have that facility there. We're looking at um where we're going to be able to bring that out to make it usable for tenants. So, we will be adding that as well. Um whether whether we current cabinet maker is planning on leaving um sometime in the near future at which point John's going to be taking that space over for his single use. Um and and we're not, you know, we we've got enough access doors. We don't really need to do anything on the inside. We're just going to leave it. and he'll take it over for storage access whatever you know develops and best and so then on the upper level um after a lot of discussion uh and I you know I'll be honest some of it is do we only want to do four units and make our lives easier um but because of the size we had and where we were coming out John felt that you know he wasn't going to reduce the amount of housing to try to dodge the town basically. So, he's got the five units. Um, we've got a couple of smaller studio units that we're allowing the, you know, for for the town's uh use. And then we have the um with his agreement that he's proposing. Then we had the two onebedrooms uh something a little nicer. And then uh and what was part of the discussions is we jumped up to a three-bedroom unit. Um the idea being especially, you know, he's got a fairly large construction company. If he needs to bring in

mid-level people, typically those are people with families, and um I I think we know that that that's a that's a tough nut for people to be coming in for right now. you got a couple of kids, you got a place. So, it's a place he can bring some buddy um who can then basically work out of that building um and raise their family or you know and if then if they find them building you know for a year or two or maybe several but uh it gives a little bit more flexibility again if you know if he has multiple employees uh who are looking for a place he can have three residents you know three single people in it but um I think his thinking is more of uh you know He's got he's got kids. If they want to come back into town, you know, if they're married and want to come back, this this could be a reasonable place for him andor, you know, that mid-level management people that is a free market unit. Um, so I think that works. And then yeah, what we, you know, we did try to accommodate uh I know we have the private area and and the very lovely park that Giles has done, but we also uh tried to create a nice entry deck that's more accommodating so people don't feel like they're just going down a little three-foot narrow walkway into where they're going. It gives the people the ability to put some plants or some things right outside their units to personalize them a little bit.

No grills. No grills. No grills allowed,

but you know, a chair and some plants and, you know, just something to personalize them a little bit and, you know, make it their own out in front of their unit and still have room for people to walk around and not being a problem. Um, yeah, we have the the one onebedroom comes with its private deck. We have a private deck for the threebedroom as well. And then for the threebedroom, we're also planning on doing a um rooftop deck on the roof above. Um, I don't I'm not sure we've mentioned that, but it it would only be mainly because of practical use. It would only be for the three bedroomedroom unit. Um, and then we also were going to planning on putting solar panels up on the roof. I think we showed them in some of our 3D elements. We tried to, you know, the I think we've Sarah and I have discussed, you know, while we're looking at doing all these as type B um sized openings and and areas in the bathrooms and whatnot for that kind of use. Um the studio one has sort of been, you know, marked as if, you know, if if we need an accessible unit in the future if somebody wants it or if there's, you know, if that news comes up. Um we've tried to be accommodating. You know, there's been there was discussions about the accessibility. We added the elevator. Uh there was a concern that we wanted the accessibility to the three-bedroom unit. So, we brought that piece over. Uh that created a little redesign to get our floor areas back to snuff. I think that's what Sarah was mentioning. If you if you look at the older application, you'll see some size changes in the studio 1, studio 2, and that's because we took 50 square feet out of studio 2 to make it the three-bedroom apartment accessible to the elevator for uh the fire department at the fire department and the building department's request. And uh so he then had to expand them a

little bit to get their square footage back. Um yeah, and so the studio one was the linear kitchen and the clos area ability to expand that bathroom if required. We think that that's a pretty reasonable uh futurep proofing without creating a just a absolute accessible unit at this time. Cool.

You I don't have anything to add. I just wanted to get up in case you had any questions for for staff or we're going to open up to to commissioner questions first. So Mike, I guess we'll start there and come around. Um no questions at this time. Cindy, um excuse me. I had a few. Did um PNC do a site visit to this property? Did I No. Okay. I wasn't sure if we did and I missed it. You know, we we considered it too, but we know you've been out in that area a lot lately. So, um I was just wanted to get a little more information on the other three units. Are they going to be rental or um owner? Rental. Okay.

And then is there any um what's the you said generally intended as workforce housing? What does that what does generally intended mean? You know, I I think without reading too much into it, I think where I was going with that is um typically I think we see um our smaller units as workforce housing units, you know, um within the industrial zone district. Um the applicants are um you know, proposing a three-bedroom unit, which is atypical, I would say, for this zone district. Um however, as they've mentioned that this could be used for a recruiting tool. You know, there could be a lot of different ways to use this. So um it is a free market unit. Um so I guess you know maybe you know maybe not don't read too much into that. I think this is workforce housing. It is within the industrial zone district. Um, you know, it's just a different different type of animal than we've seen before. That would that one

is the intent for other silich employees to to have those other units available to them mainly and then if you can ask they don't it would be advertised. His right his his intent is he he's got employees who are looking for places. He's got a, you know, I think, you know, part of the trigger is this is he's got a couple of um of project managers who are basically moving, you know, once a year from, you know, and every time they move, the housing is getting more expensive. And so, um, he's hoping to bring them in. Um, and so, yeah, right now his intent would be it would be 100% silich employees.

Okay. Thanks, Rob. Um, is there any prohibition on short-term renting only on the deed restricted unit on those two units? Right. Um, is is the elevator required? It is. It is. Um, my memory is sping me exactly why now. I think it's because it's over it's over four units. That's why. Yes. Thank you. We're going to ask about the uh ADA or you get on it. I'll get there. Yeah.

Okay. That's why I was over the elevator, but I know that's your your realm. So, that's all for now. Okay. My questions. Um first off, um the ADA part is is comments, so we'll get to that later. Um first off, these are mostly for Giles and they're about survivability things. Detention area. Usually detention areas are like full of cigarette butts and and crushed styrofoam cups. Um how are you going to keep the landscape alive and that it's I think that's going to be a challenge.

Yeah, I mean that it's comes down to maintenance like it does with everything. But yeah, you're absolutely right. Um with with detention basins, they're very rarely filled with any water whatsoever and they they're just sort of depressions that collect trash and garbage. Um that's that's something on the property owner to to make sure it's maintained and and picked up. I mean, it's it's a great point. I'm just just gonna point that out. We all know what a detention looks like. They look nasty. After they look nasty, but um you know, it's a nice little area for everybody. So, pardon.

Detention basins um also tend to be a little bit more sparse than this. This one has um quite a bit of planting and that coupled with the social space around it. Um, I know John wants to keep this looking nice, so the maintenance will be important for him, but you know, I don't think it's as common that we see so many plants um in in a detention basin, so that might help as well. Yeah, I hope that works.

Well, it's it's also it's it's four basically it's four possibly eight employees. So it it's not like it's a 15 or 17 unit apartment building where it's just strangers out there. Uh and John's there regularly and his other you know his other people. So don't know how know well you know John but there's not going to be debris collecting in that area. There's no tolerance. Okay. Good. Good. Yeah. And the next one is about the um the drivable grass.

Yeah. I have proposed drivable grass on a number of occasions and have been told resoundingly that it never works here. So I hope you have some method or otherwise I've been lied to and um that it just doesn't work. And one of the people who told me that might have been you. So yeah. No, that

there are Japanese specific systems out there that they've had a very bad time with like the the plastic cups. It's called invisible pave two system. Uh as soon as a plow hits the edge, it's like a Persian rug. The whole thing gets pulled up. Um some of the blocks that are too heavy and wide, there's not enough uh area for for the soil to grow, sorry, for the grass to grow within the soil. Soil gets too hot or too frozen. We're looking at a system that flips out on its head and it's got a lot more medium for the grass to grow. Um, and there's no plows that are going to be over this, but we haven't actually specified a product at this time. And Bill, I will never lie to you.

All I'm saying is hopefully you have something that works. Got far too many drinks down. Both of those things can happen. No, it'll be it'll be a drivable grass of some Okay, good luck. Specification. I'm sure there's some new method that can keep that stuff alive. Yeah. Well, leave it to the architect and the landscape architect to rag on the civil improvements. I really appreciate you guys just going right for the gut and the the detention basins. Um uh my question twofold. Um you mentioned that you were required to provide fire access via the elevator to the three-bedroom unit.

The goon needed to fit in it. Yes. They they were concerned about if there was an emergency in the three-bedroom unit getting their gurnie up the the stairs that existed there. It's a you know it's motori I've been working with Brooke. She sent she sent me specs a few days ago. Um it's it's a motorized 200 pound item that they they were um between that and the ADA accessibility. We're actually probably going to be expanding the size of the elevator. It's one of the things we're looking at to make How is that feasibly accessing the three-bedroom unit? Be the I see the the deck in the front. James, can you bring that back up?

Um and and again, and that's what I'm saying is there there's this is the one minor change between uh that may have been become a coordination item is if you look to studio, I see it now. It goes through and I've got, you know, so that closet's been converted into a secondary access to the access point that they can then and I'm going to have to, you know, I had that a little bit walled off to give it some privacy, but again to get the gurnie through it that I'm going to be expanding that opening into the office area. Where on the site plan are you proposing EV char where is the where in the site plan is existing EV charging? Because I see there's fuel out there there

there's obviously a lot of functional logistics going on here. I'll I'll stand up and then James James can Yeah. catch it. But these two units right here, yeah,

are existing chargers. So, one of the discussions been that the car would be able to come up here, park, charge, and then like I said, it, you know, again, because we're we're doing some we're we're doing some active management that could be more difficult if there are a lot of tenants, but with a small number, um, we're feeling like we can do that, mark that as a short-term place the tenant can come up, park, and then go back into their parking space so that they can share accessibility and or John's equipment can use it. It there's actually if you look there's an indoor and an outdoor charger back to back. There's actually two outside and one inside. Um inside will stay private to John's commercial use. Uh the one outside then can be shared.

Are chargers allowed indoors with the new NEC code? See Michelle is shaking her head. Okay. Right. Yeah. We'll we'll sort that through, you know, if we have to deal with that. That's fair. We will. But um but we are going to have it out, you know, we're going to have the one outside. Okay. And you know, my preference is to keep it with the building as compared to start trenching and relocating. No, I I those are absolutely val valid concerns. Um, so that yeah, that's that's no other questions. Just a clarification question more for Sarah. The the tweaks in the numbers still work out as far as they do.

Okay. Yes. Yep. Still mean that 2520 the things that we need to meet for the affordable housing mitigation. It's still less than the um the primary use of the site. Cool. If there are no more questions, we'll open up for a public hearing at 8:06. James, we doing the online thing or not really? We we are doing the online thing. Um but we have no attendees. So awesome. Uh as I see no one here in the audience, we'll close it. We'll say it's 807 for the record. Um commissioner comments. We'll start with Ben and work our way back.

I think this fits holistically into the general improvements that we want to see here on Park Avenue. I really like the attention to the green as it flows around from 204. I think it fits into the improvements that we're seeing in 298 immediately to the south and what we would hope to see on the opposite side of the street as the skio parcel hopes to redevelop in the future. Um, I think your traffic document is a load of malarkey with what the building currently uses with the amount of truck traffic it sees with the functions of a GC in the valley. Um, but I do agree with the parking calcs and what the town has worked up. Um, but I do know that there will be a lot of more in and out than we expect uh out here. Um those are my comments.

Okay. Um my comments are just uh basic suggestions. First off, I think it's a great project. You know, it's simple. It's industrial. It's needed

and you know, I know John is a is a rarely responsible guy. And so I think I don't really worry about any of the the vagger parts of this. Um, I would like to make a couple suggestions that uh on the exterior component of the residential part if there could be a few material changes just to make it seem a little more fun on the outside. You know, just simple cheap stuff, but you know, it's just kind of, you know, it's just like living in a warehouse. And if you could just do some colors or some, you know, a pop here, pop there.

Yeah. little things to make it feel like humans are there as opposed to, you know, pickup trucks. Um, fair enough.

And also my other suggestion is, this is the one I always make on this type of thing, and you've gone mostly there is is to make one of the units a real type A, especially if it's going to go to someone other than Silich. Um, you know, the idea of making it type A convertible where you could all you have to do is, you know, change out some of the cabinets and fixtures, you know, but um if a a real type A there's just not that many of them around here and so on every I had to do this on every project that make one of them a real type A unit.

Still love it. I don't have a huge objections to this particular project. Um, you know, when we build housing, I like to build jobs as well. Um, but this sort of has jobs built into it. So, I feel better about that. I would not like to see those rent those units put in a short-term rental pool for Christmas or anytime. Um, I mean, my questions are more of a global nature. This neighborhood is now changing changing its face and the units that we've seen previously that we have approved were pre-existing units. They were already there when we sort of legalized them. This is in my memory the first time we've added actual brand new units to the neighborhood and

uh Reds was was we added but the other two were 298 to the south I think we added to mitigation dis whatever Red's company was. one. Yeah. But other than that, you're right. The others were already existing, right? And I mean, you just look at down the road that this is a neighborhood that's going to be changing and that's going to

be a bit of a can of worms, right? And if you guys get to that light at 8:00 in the morning, it's backed up way past Park Avenue or to Park Avenue. Um, so that that's going to need to be addressed. You know, could you say this is close to mass transit? Well, if you cut through the the the top place and go up the hill and then cut back through, it's it's not really mass transitoriented. I mean, in my mind, if you don't see the bus, you probably don't ride the bus, right? So, I mean, those issues, you know, address this, but also I think stuff we need to think about in the long term. That's all.

I think it looks like a really good project. It's my only comment. Yeah, I think you guys have done a good job kind of organizing and beautifying the rightway in there. It's a little bit chaotic as it currently stands. So, I think organizing egress and um adding a little green space into the rightway is a a nice thing for that neighborhood. But overall, I think it fits.

I'll echo the all the other comments. I just double down on Rob's comment about the short-term rentals. Um I think it's with all the projects now it keeps coming up that we all feel that way. Um I don't think that's what you're looking to do but just you know again that global kind of conversation that we're having. Uh that being said would we like to have a motion? And if I if I can just add any motion, I would just suggest making it with staff's recommendation about the um uh the housing waterfall. Thank you.

Um this is preliminary. No, this one round of review. So this is the only time you would see it as PNZ. Yeah. Okay. You can add you can because you're making a recommendation you can add on to your recommendation or anything like that. That's on you.

Sorry to make it. I'll just I'll I'll make a motion just uh to recommend approval of this uh and follow all staff recommendations and conditions. We want to include STR on that as a recommendation. No. No. Anybody else? Um, I don't know if this would be a difference between a recommendation or I mean I think we could add not not a condition but I think we could maybe I would add that we would we would like to see it remain in the full-time rental pool.

If if you guys want that, we'll put it in put in our our recommendation, but I I I have no strong feeling about one way or the other. I lean towards it. If you lean towards it, then let's just throw it in there. Put it in there. Yeah. Making suggestions to council. Yeah. Good. Let's do that. Add the STRs in there. It's a lot easier than than suggesting that they put a restriction on there. Frankly, we have a motion. Second. Second. Mike, do you want a roll call or just a vote? Uh, you just do a vote. All in favor? I. Motion carries. Thank you, Commissioner. Good luck.

Thank you. Thank you. And thanks for making fun of detention. Thank you. Um, it's so true. I know we're over attention, guys. I know we're transitioning through these things. We're already a little over uh commissioner and staff comments. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Stranger. Yeah, I'll see you around. See you, Brad. Brad,

I'm just I don't have very [Music] projects are are mid stream right now. So, I really recommend everybody look at let's talk.net. That being said, there's a couple um look forward to before the end of the year hopefully. three new art pieces that are being contracted through the the public arts commission consignment program. Um so look for those before the end of the year which is very exciting. Um on a separate but other area in town over here over on Confluence Bridge which is the bridge by 7-Eleven that has now finally been completely um cleared of improvements. We have a plan that is being refined um to finish that design and have it built out. Um where we are right now is we're looking to re finish the resurfacing of that before the winter, make that safe and then install the landscaping and all of the the next spring which is part of a bigger project for that entire intersection in the school area also referred to as a safe routes to school project.

Can I ask you about that bridge? What's the background? because I remember I mean it seems not too long ago it was probably maybe at least a dozen or so years that all that landscaping was added and now it's ripped out. Yeah, for sure. So, what was happening was the surface was failing. Um and when we went to pull up those initial pavers, we learned that the landscaping planters that had existed had no lining. And so there was um uh uh water damage. damage. There were plants growing underneath the pavers. So, it was actually degragating the integrity of so just it wasn't done correctly the first time or

I don't know if it was meant as a forever improvement. Um but they had Yeah, for that reason we had to remove them. Um but they'll be replaced with a like design but something different.

Um so that's coming. And then um The town is working on um some more information for the Willlets housing and community space in the Willlets area across the street from Taka. Um keep your eyes open for an opportunity for um the whole community to comment on the housing there and the community space as well. Um we're having some um immediate neighbor meetings there as well, but we'll be looking for general public information on that too. And then my last um for now is that one of our members as we all know had has expanded her family and has resigned from this board.

Just wanted to appreciate her commitment to the board and um wish her luck. Good luck, Katie. That's all I'll do. Are we looking to add a member? Um well, you know what is lovely is that we have with Katie, we had full board plus two alternates seceded. So, we certainly can have another member. Um, what will happen is we'll discuss this later, but an alternate will move into a permanent position. And we may or may not add an alternate. We always can. There's a seat available. So,

I think we should because it seems like a while our numbers get thin. Yeah, I agree. Awesome. Can I ask one one or quick question? Um, with a unit that is getting building four or less um apartment apartments or dwelling units on it, does it not have to get town approval? I was they were mentioning how they did this project decided just, you know, stick with five even though even though it meant going before the town. I wasn't aware of a They were talking about the elevator requirement, I think.

No, I think they misstated the exemption. I think they were looking at the three or less exemption, but because they had over housing mitigation. Housing mitigation. I was I thought they were talking about some rule I never knew existed. Okay. to your discussion earlier about maybe units three or more should be considered differently than single family homes.

I I have a quick question. Um this goes back a long ways. James may know the answer to this. on various applications that involved the Roaring Four Club. Sure. We as a board had asked that they be allowed to drive their golf carts into town. This is when electric cars were not a thing at all. And um we put that in in our recommendations to council a couple times. Um I I don't whatever happened to that because no one I've never seen that happen once. So, did it actually not make it into a final um application or is it something that we allowed them to do that they just never do?

I'm not sure. I don't have the answer to that, but we can figure it out. Have you seen a lot of golf carts in town? Can I drive a golf? I've never seen one. That's the thing. I I don't even see them on the bike path. You know, it's like they're probably not the Yeah, I don't I don't think they are. Well, um but we could probably make that happen. mean as like a I'm getting pulled over for driving my golf cart down. No, no, that's the whole the whole point of this is to allow these things to happen so they could do that. Um, you know, because it's like other that that they're taking their, you know, escalate into town. It's true.

So, I I thought, you know, we we proposed this as a thing and it's sort of a micromobility adjacent and why not pursue it, you know, at least a little bit. It's something that could could be done without too much fuss. I mean, we'd have to approve regulations to allow it to happen because they're probably not legal as it is, but we could fix that if we wanted. We can't even deal with ebikes on the bike path. I think if you try to put a golf cart on that, like people are going to have a heart attack. Okay. Okay. Well, let's just

I love I love the idea, but it's 8:21 and no offense, I want to go home. So, I know it's been a long day. Have you seen all the letters and complaints? Do we have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor? I. Meeting is adjourned at 8:21. Continue. Ben, who knew you were so passionate about Well, first of all, I didn't know you had a golf car. I don't and that you're so passionate about retention.