Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Found it?

It's not in the laptop. It's in the tower. Okay. I should have known that. There you go.

All right. Thank you.

Let's see.

It's on. Yeah, there we go. That's great. Should we wait? So far. Or two more.

This didn't get a lot of no's either. I apologize for that. This is equality, not equality. Exactly. Right? Yeah. So we'll wait two minutes. And then we'll just run. Yes.

I'm actually really excited to see where this looks. So we're kicking off multifamily mixed use today. Oh, cool. So what were you?

Yep. So we get to see this next month at PC?

You get a special meeting this month, remember?

So if you just want.

Will we have a special meeting?

Yeah, we'll have a special meeting. And is this maybe part of the special? Special meeting will be on ADUs. Yes.

Ordinance for ADUs. Yes. Yep, but today it's about kicking off multi-family mixed use, so our team can start rolling on that phase of the project while we continue working on ADUs. Love it. And just keep making progress.

I find this interesting, and I am not well-versed in architectural history at all, but Spanish Eclectic is different from Monterey Colonials. And I'm quite sure there are specifics for why. I just find that curious. And that, of course, is definitely, well, no, that's for those. No, but Nancy, there are real reasons. There are. Oh, but there are real distinctions, and an architect would be like, well, no. Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, not big wire that way. Yeah. Yeah.

So. You bet.

But I brought something to take notes with. Yeah. And sorry if we didn't bring more, more, more pieces. Yeah. To hear your presentation. But we'll do our best to. Nancy and I are good at that. Nancy and I are nothing if not decisive and directional.

So if you are representative, then we know what we need.

Okay, no problem. You just let us know what you need. I'm quite sure.

Tonight is our last presentation before you tell us that we have key questions for you tonight.

Cool. Well, we have answers to those questions. And if we don't make them up.

We don't do that. We have a whole channel. Where is it?

Between the two of us, we do actually have a pretty decent radar on the general, right? I would say yes. Where is everyone? It's such a riveting topic. You know, most of Marnie's topics are riveting. They're really significant. It's like, oh my God, you guys. In fact, I used that word last night with Graham because he, I can't go to some of the meetings this week because I'm giving a presentation. He said, oh, what's your presentation about? And I said, oh, it's absolutely riveting. And he's like, oh, aren't we humble? I speak on a couple of things, including the evolution of the written word. Because written communication fascinates me. And going way back 25,000 years to cave paintings and shared community through that kind of communication. And we've actually sort of bent around backwards because, you know, we went all the way through having an alphabet, right? I mean, first we had little stamps in play, and then we, the Phoenicians, of course, gave us an alphabet, and we're still using a lot of that today. But before the alphabet, there were symbols. Icons, yeah. Icons, yeah. And what do we use today? Emojis. It's like... Wild, really, when you see. And some of the earliest sort of vocabularies with symbols come out of Asia. And it's stunning how easy it is for a modern person to read ancient Asian culture and because of how clear some of the symbols are. And I think their language is even built on differently from the way that English

languages yeah one of my one of my nephews is an expert in Chinese and he actually translates he's become such an expert he actually translates for Chinese people yeah so he goes to China a lot anyway he was teaching me about Chinese characters and how he built them yes and the meaning of one piece added to another and I'm sure all those other well a lot of those other languages that use those figures are similar.

There's a few, I think there's five seminal languages like that. And another actually is Mayan language. That's actually one of the core languages. And as you take a core symbol and then as you add different things to it, it can take on completely different meanings. That all fascinates me.

And it often isn't a word, it's a sentiment or something way deeper than one word. We're ready to rock? Okay. So you all are representing Carmel?

We are, yes.

You have a lot of weight on your shoulders then. Okay. Okay.

Yes, it'll be available on YouTube. I was trying to see if I could see who else is on Zoom. I don't know if I have that ability. So we do have one. We have Kevin Roos on Zoom. So just so that we're aware, Yeah, so this is being Zoomed live, will be recorded, will be available on YouTube after as well. So I'll let Tony go ahead and kick us off.

OK. Showtime. OK, and for the people recording this, do I need to speak any closer to the microphone?

You're pretty good.

OK, whoa. Okay. All right. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for coming out tonight. And for those of you online, thank you for watching. Thank you for participating in this workshop tonight about... mixed use and multifamily objective standards, specifically about architectural style. And we'll get into that. But first, I want to introduce the team. We have another person that is from OptiCost here with us tonight that is working behind the scenes. But before I introduce her, just introduce the team. Cecilia Kim, planning manager. She runs the day-to-day activities of the team and the work and the schedule and staying on budget and everything else and working with the city and coordinating with them. Joseph Avemonte in the back there, he's the Jedi Master of the research. He has primarily done most of the research with our guidance and with our introduction here and there, but he's mostly So if you have specific questions about architectural style that we can't answer, he's probably the one to go to in the first place. And then Stella Contagiani, she's a senior designer at Optikos and she helps out in a lot of our projects so she's going to be active on this one going forward. So thank you for the team being here and thank you for you attending. We have, we think, a very exciting topic tonight about architectural style. Often when we present in communities about standards, everybody wants to talk about architectural style. It's what people go to because it's one of the biggest things that people can grab onto. They feel comfortable talking about it. It's very apparent. So it's unfortunate that more people aren't here, but this is being recorded so they can watch it. We have... This tonight to go through, we're going to talk about where we've been very briefly. Again, I just want to underscore before we get to going too far that tonight we're trying to be light on the presentation and shift it over to hearing from you all and whoever else attends on some key questions that we have for you, okay? The, again, the topic is architecture style for mixed use in multifamily buildings. And then there'll be a poster exercise in the next steps, which Cecilia will walk you through. So where have we been, especially for those online that might not have come to other meetings? I remember both of you from this first meeting that's on the screen. And just as a quick summary, that first meeting was about what are odds? What are objective design and development standards? And we walked through that. We talked about how the state is only allowing cities to apply objective standards going forward on mixed use and multifamily projects as opposed to letting cities continue to apply discretionary review or process or negotiating those projects like they used to. So current state losses that you cannot do that anymore You have to apply only with subjective and so the state did not require that cities adopt objective standards it's more cities found out that what remained after they looked at their zoning codes and Determined what was subjective and objective there was far more subjective because you were we're all relying on processes that require negotiation and discretion review so by definition what remained was very little objective content. And that's why cities around the state are scrambling to prepare and adopt these. So you're not the only one. Every other city is doing this in some other way. Meeting number two then shifted specifically to the first part of the scope of work. The council said that when we were scoping this and setting it all up, the council was very clear that the community wanted the ADU We have been working with you all and with Marnie and the city to prepare that draft. And we came back at community number three and showed key elements of that draft and got comments and input from you on that and incorporated that and worked further with Marnie. And Cecilia will talk about that. talk about that more at the end of this, but basically we have information to share on October 21st where that's culminating and going toward the end of that process. Tonight, we want to shift gears completely. We're not talking about ADUs at all. We're talking about the buildings, say, just to put it very simply, the buildings that would occur in the downtown on Ocean Avenue and the side streets. So that is what we're calling and the MF, multifamily objectives design and development standards. Any questions so far? Yes.

Tony, you mentioned the state speaking about objective standards. Is that within the context of affordable housing?

It's aimed at producing more housing, and whether most of it is affordable or not, that's another matter. There are provisions for affordable housing in the law, but the main thing is that the state is trying to produce more housing.

Thank you.

Okay. So, style. Architectural style. It's, you know, I can tell you doing presentations for many cities, this is one of the things that people love to talk about because You know, in and of themselves, the details are interesting to a lot of people, but not necessarily to everyone. What's interesting to everyone is the end result. Like, why do people come to Carmel and spend money besides the fact that it's at the ocean? It's because of beautiful environment made of different architectural styles and beautiful examples of those buildings here, the collective, right? So, giving you the key findings first, then we'll walk through some of the details in the downtown, we found 14 styles, different, just very, you can see the posters here, styles that you would say that's different from the other one. I see some similarities, but they're different styles that we couldn't lump together. 14 different ones. And man, I have to tell you, so many cities want the opposite. Just pop into any city hall and part of the discussion tends to focus around Can we make it fit in more and look like everything else? That thing, that new building looks too different. They're actually fighting the very characteristic that makes Carmel Carmel, the collecticism of it, right? Welcome. Thanks for coming. Are you here for the workshop or for a building permit? Somebody came in earlier for a building permit through this room, so just check. I know why I'm here. Okay, excellent. Well, have a seat. Great, thank you. So we're talking about architectural style tonight for mixed use and multifamily buildings, just to make sure. Okay, so of those 14 styles, eight styles were observed in limited numbers, let's say, maybe up to two buildings we found with that style in the downtown. And six of those were on many. So to go further, nearly, well, nearly 60, 57 of those 169 buildings that we studied in the downtown, a third of them easily were Carmel vernacular. And the further you look beyond the areas that we studied is more Carmel vernacular. What is that? There's a whole poster on what that style is about. But when you stand back and you look at what makes Carmel Carmel in the downtown, yes, it's the beautiful Monterey and Spanish and the Tudor and the storybook. But what there is most of is Carmel vernacular buildings. And that is, it's almost like a background to those other styles that stand out. And we were talking on the way up today, it, It's like that Carmel vernacular. There's so much of it and it's different in and of itself as well. It's not monochromatic on how that style is that it serves as this other styles that just pop and you notice them and you're walking on the street, well look at that beautiful Tudor building, look at that beautiful Monterey Colonial building and they stand out because of the Carmel vernacular. So just something to keep in mind. And then 112 buildings, the majority of it, two-thirds were in one of the other styles. But the primary style that makes up most of what you see on any given block is the Carmel vernacular. So here are all the styles. And I won't read them so that you're not attacked audibly here. You can see them on the screen there. And we'll go through them. But these are all the styles that we found. So the first one. as I said, is caramel vernacular, you're going to have an opportunity to look at all these styles in detail on this poster. So I'm not going to go through all these characteristics here. I'll just simply point out that there are eight elements in each of these styles that we documented. So the primary material, the openings, are they rectangular? Are they horizontal? And again, these are primarily, like, what are we seeing more of? It's not... Because you might say, well, I found a situation where it's actually a little different like this. That's that's the art part of this. There's a science part and there's an art part. And so they're mixed here. This isn't all all science. The windows, the eaves, whether they're, you know, projected, whether they're moderately projected. roof materials, what type, is it a shingle, is it a tile, the pitch, is it shallow, medium, really steep like a Tudor, the roof type, is it hip, is it flat, is it gable, maybe something else, and then architectural features, and you can see there are chimneys, things like that. So those eight elements are looked at for every style and then responded to, and you'll see on the posters. So here's Carmel Vernacular, Spanish Eclectic, and you all know your buildings better than we will ever know them, so you recognize where they are. Studer. Bay Region Modern. And the reason there are some houses in here, you might say, why are there houses? Because the study area, like here at City Hall, it grabbed this side of the street. And we thought, well, let's grab the other side of the street. And so there are houses on that side of the street. So that's why you're going to see houses in some of the pictures. However, these standards that we're talking about tonight are for non-house buildings. Post-war modern, minimal traditional, craftsmen, Monterey Colonial, Cottage, and then these other styles where they were very limited in number, where we found a few of them, but they weren't the prevalent architectural style like the other ones that we just went through. Storybook, Post Adobe, Organic, but they were documented. French Chateau, French Country. So French Chateau is right next to us, that beautiful courtyard building, yeah. Okay, so let me stop there and just give you a couple of thoughts before Cecilia introduces you to the poster exercise we're going to have you do. We were talking about this, that right now the scope of work says we... to work on up to six styles for this project. Even though you have 14, we can afford to do six by the scope and the budget. And that was worked out with the city council. So I want to make something really, really clear before you start doing anything that The way to look at what, so the question is tonight, what styles do you want in your objective standards so that when people come forward with a mixed use or a multifamily building in Carmel, in this study area, they will be, required to select one of these styles for their building. So by definition, or by default, if you say, here are the six styles we are going to allow in this area, any other style would not be allowed. They could not propose it. They could not come in with something that wasn't one of those six. So the other thing to think about, though, is six styles is a lot when you think about how many you already have. And when you think about how developed put on their building. What do I mean by that? For example, storybook, we would advise you to not choose storybook because the developer's not likely to choose storybook as a style because it's so expensive to do. They're just going to discard it. So you might have used your budget in a way that wouldn't really get you much by selecting storybook, right? Developers tend to, and by talking about developers right now, I'm not intending to talk about them critically. I'm talking about the experience that we have with them and how they build buildings. So they're looking to do it as economically as possible, right? Unless they're just spending money for fun. They're going to do it economically, right? Economic styles or the economically friendly styles tend to be the ones that have the stuck here in Carmel. Tudor could also rise to that because it has a lot of stucco and has the half timbering that divides the stucco. So those are two styles that they probably would gravitate toward if you ask them of all these. Of the other ones, the more detail and the more finessing, the lower that goes on the list. It could be, so two things, I just want to leave thoughts with you. One thought is do you really need all six styles or would you rather have a spend effort on a subset of that, four styles, just for discussion? That's one thing. The second thought I want to leave you with is when you stand back and you think about what makes Carmel Carmel and why it's so beautiful, the Carmel vernacular style just sets that background, that stage set. if you will, for those other styles to really just pop. You see the Monterey Colonial in the corner, you go, man, look at that thing. It's standing out because there are Carmel vernacular buildings around it that let it stand out because Carmel vernacular is so subdued in comparison visually, right? So as a Carmel resident, um if i was one i would ask myself the question how many more of those buildings that really pop could we stand or stand is the wrong one could we take into this area that would not change it to look like that style primarily like what if all the new buildings that you got were all tutor for example that that could look cool but it might change the perspective the What if they all came in and they were white Monterey Colonials? They might be beautiful, but it might start looking like some other place than Carmel, maybe Santa Barbara. People start to think, oh, wow, this place started to look like Santa Barbara, right? It's not the worst thing, but Carmel has its own unique feel. And so a big test of this whole process is how do we add new buildings that that keep that eclectic, super diverse look. Yeah, so anyway, those are two thoughts I just want you to take in, and then Cecilia's gonna walk you through the poster exercise. Yes?

You said one thing here that I was not expecting, but it maybe is true, you'll tell me. I hope it's true if I said it. You said that in these multi-use, multi-family, buildings when new requests come in they could only use whatever we end up with but isn't isn't it more true that if they want to fast-track their project they would have to use whatever it is that we come up with in get this approved but if there's something that somebody wants to do entirely different outside of the scope of odds They could do that, but it has to go the slow boat path.

Okay. Yeah. But, okay, so to clarify, yeah, those are two related things. But, okay, so an applicant still has a choice to opt out of your standards and apply. To use the objective standards, yes. But that has nothing to do with architectural style. It's something that they can do regardless of architectural style. What I mean is that people who use the objective standards are subject to the standards, and Carmel is going to be requirements for architectural style, and there are going to be certain limited number of styles. We don't have the scope and budget to regulate all 14. Yeah. Yes.

Before we go a step further, Tony, could you please speak a little bit to the Carmel vernacular style? And the basis for my question is this. Because it is eclectic, Is it a good candidate for an objective design and development standard?

So we were talking about that. Joseph, come on up.

Nature of the Carmel vernacular.

Yeah, we were talking about that earlier. And I was talking to Joseph that it's likely that if you wanted to regulate this one, if you wanted to go forward with this as a style, that just look at the screen. There are three versions right here that are very different. But that's the whole beauty of the style. I'm going to say a couple of things and then Joseph, just add to this as you feel, okay? it could very well be like what we've done in other styles. Like in Santa Barbara, we found that the Tudor and the cottage style in that city were very related, but they were different enough to need their own standards, but not completely different standards. So we found that there were standards that related to Tudor and cottage that they both shared, but then they branched off in how they did windows and maybe dormers and maybe the roof pitch and that cottage did a little differently than the Tudor did, and so we called one a subset. So we had, I think we called it the cottage style overall, and then there was Tudor, and then there was, I can't remember what we called cottage subset. But there is one way, like just let's say for simple discussion purposes, we could find three varieties of Carmel vernacular and deal with them as subsets of the greater style. That's one approach. Joseph, any other thoughts?

I have a question. Well, we're still getting off the lawn to someone else. Have you ever developed a piece of property? No. But you made a statement that developers would always take the cheapest route. I didn't mean it that way, sir. That's the way it came across to me as a developer. Developers have a unique situation in Carmel. Quality sells and quality selling and I'm looking at your styles, like as an example, your arts and crafts styles, definitely not arts and crafts. Arts and crafts would be like the Frank Lloyd Wright house or a green and greens. This is arts and crafts. Yes, they're more expensive, but in my experience, spending extra money, you happen to live in a town where the average price of a house is three and a half to four and a half million dollars. So you can do truly arts and crafts. You could do mission, you could do lots of different things. But I mean, what I'm looking at is probably what I would consider a tear down in that bottom picture. And the top left one would be expensive because it's stone. But the things you show on the street, that's the way the street's been for my entire life. So I'm just saying, don't think that a developer will take the path of the least cost. Like you said, stucco. Stucco is forced on us quite often by the guidelines you have right now. And I have been in meetings where, well, you can't do that. You have to do stucco. What makes this town special is that you don't, with the people who started this town, which was my grandfather and people like that, They did what they wanted. They came up with unique things. The reason Frank Lloyd Wright came here and did more than one house. A lot of people just think there's one, but it's because it was different because she could do what you want. A lot of the people came here after the earthquake in San Francisco, they wanted to get away from control. So you got a lot of unique, eclectic, very different things. You start saying, well, you follow this path. Oh, you'll get special treatment. Well, that's what you're going to get because a lot of people will take that path because they don't want the waste of time. I'm just suggesting don't think developers are going to take a path that costs less. You have a house that's unique. I've never had a house I had to sit on for more than 90 days. I never build for other people. I spec, but I do unique and different things. I think some of the things you said, I would take real homage with.

Thank you for that feedback. What's your name? Fred Kern. Hi, Fred. I'm Tony. Thank you for the feedback. I didn't mean to cause any...

It doesn't matter whether you meant to. It's what you said. You've never developed any property, so you don't know what you're talking about. I've been in this town my whole life. And I've heard these, I don't know, we need to organize. We need more guidelines. We need, we need, we need. Left to their own devices. You can sell a house for $4, $5 million. You're going to make something that gets everyone's attention. You're not going to go for this path of least resistance. So that's a bad assumption.

Okay. Well, I apologize for the misunderstanding because that's not what I intended. I'd just like to clarify a few things. We are not here to make things easy for the sake of making them easy and dilute what makes caramel great. It's the opposite. We are trying to figure out how to make more of what makes caramel great and put it at the standards. And the reason we're doing that is not because we believe in more control. If you actually got to talk to us, you'd see that we don't want to do, we don't believe in that much control. The state of California Maybe you haven't been at the other meetings. Have you been able to come to the other ones?

I follow it, but the reality is I'm watching this path you're taking, and the path you're taking is more controlling. You can say whatever you want. We don't need any control. I'm completely against control, and I'm But there's guidelines you can follow, like how tall the building is, how many square feet the building is. A lot of people are fighting those things. I don't fight those things. But you can design within those guidelines how tall, how many square feet. These are simple things to do.

We agree. But the thing is, in California, as of 2018, the state of California passed this Housing Accountability Act. I'm very familiar with it. Okay. And they keep amending it. And the latest amendments of a couple of years ago told cities, I think you walked in right as I was saying this, it told cities that they could no longer apply any content that was not objective in their zoning codes.

And I agree with that.

Okay. zoning codes, most of it is subjective because they were relying on processes like what you're just saying. Let's work it out. Let's talk about it. Let's design this thing. But the states said you can't do that anymore. So when the cities realized that, let's say, just simplifying it, of the 100 pages in a zoning code, 15 pages actually had objective content and the other 85 had subjective content. Cities said, oh my gosh, we're not going to have anything to say about the buildings that come in and we have to stamp them approved. So that is why Carmel and other cities are going through this process to adopt objective standards, not for any other reason. can we can we move on please we've got time you can move on all you want i was discussing things that he actually said okay then can you take it offline and do it after i appreciate that thank you i think i have as much right to speak as you did ma'am okay well thank you very much fred thank you for your comments and uh i hope that through this process we demonstrate to you how much we do care about carmel and how much we're trying to actually keep what you're doing and not dilute it. So yeah, thank you. Let's go through.

Thank you, Tony. So as Tony mentioned, he walked you through the different styles that we found in the downtown area. And what we'd like to ask of you today, I gave you a handout that shows you a map of the downtown study area. So this shows the area where we did find these styles. And so that's not to say there may be different styles outside of that. And so if you do identify any, then please let us know. But our first exercise is to be able to understand from you what it is, which styles, select up to six, it can be two, three, or up to six, from the 14 that we've identified that we should regulate for mixed-use and multifamily buildings. Again, we're not asking you, oh, which one do you like better, which one looks better? It's for future buildings, mixed-use and multifamily buildings in the downtown area primarily, which styles should we regulate in the objective design standards? And again, going back to Fred's point and Nancy's point, if the styles are not regulated in the odds, it doesn't mean it's off the books, right? It just means that then they would not go through the odds streamlined process. They would be opting out of that and going through a discretionary process, right? So it's still possible there could be other styles applied to future buildings. It's just these are the ones that we're hearing from you should be included in the odds for streamlined entitlement processes. Right. So that's the first exercise. And to be able to do that, you can see this list here. You can write numbers next to them, 1, 2, 3, 4. So you're keeping track of how many you select. Or you can just put a check mark next to it. The styles are on the posters over there. So you can see the details of the key elements we're looking at for each of the styles that characterize that particular style. These posters were used previously at our first and second community meeting, so that's why they have the dots on them. You can disregard the green dots, right? So just use the handout. And then after you take a look at those, these two smaller posters here actually show a sample of the design standards for different elements for a particular style. So these go through things like what standards can we regulate for a wall? For instance, do we need base middle top standards? Should we regulate the expansion joints of a wall? Details like that. And what we're looking for you at this point is, is it too much detail? Do you not want to regulate things like this to this level? Or are there any standards or topics missing that we should be looking at? For instance, like, you know, the facade length or I'm just throwing things out here, right? And so the idea is to go through those and kind of think about is it too much detail? Is it not enough detail to regulate these design elements for a particular style? And that's what the second page of this handout is intended for. So you can see each of the topics that are listed in this table and then see what that means as an actual standard by looking at this sample here. And if there's any other comment you want to leave with us, you can write it down at the bottom here too. All of us will be available here to answer any questions. There are very technical terms on there, so feel free to ask us questions about that. And we're happy to also have further conversations about this entire process, about each of the styles, and how they might apply to future buildings as well too. So we'll give you about 10, 15 minutes or so to go through this exercise, and then we'll sit back down and kind of have a conversation on your thoughts.

Cecilia, we have a hand raised online. Oh, yes. Kevin, are you able to unmute yourself? Do you have a question?

And perhaps the question is, for people online, how can they participate in this activity? We will have the presentation available on the city's website, as well as this handout. So if you would like to fill this out later and send it to Marnie at the city, we can have that available.

Thank you.

And if we can get objective on .

Sure.

Looking at the examples, I think the word is well-suited to describing the .

Right. And I'm a planning commissioner. Disclosure.

And so I am hard pressed. to see how these come together other than we have these really cool buildings throughout town. And we would consider them to be Carmel character. And I would consider all of these to be Carmel character. But I don't know how else I could objectify.

We don't have standards for this quite yet. But what we are recognizing is, even if you look at these photos, this one kind of looks like Spanish eclectic. This one kind of looks like cottage, maybe. So that's where, when Tonya was saying we could have categories and subsets, maybe the Spanish category has

I'm going to tell you, these are very poor examples, so you take one of them at a time.

And you're lying to whoever's in charge here. But that's also something that once you understand which styles that you can work to have regulated.

It doesn't mean it's arts and crafts.

Then you get these people using it to build some more trash.

If you look at things in this town that have been done, like for instance, they tried this movement where we're going to stop. to be clear in our outcomes are.

I don't see any of that here.

We actually have the Wells Fargo Bank building, which was an architect who stole Frank Lloyd Wright's work. He was a known plagiarist.

This is what you have. I know this town. And if you look at the real good examples that are in this town.

And to be very honest with you, this is going to be a very challenging yet exciting one for Carmel.

Because then it will help define what Carmel vernacular is. You look at your French Chateau. arts and crafts or Wells Fargo Bank building.

That's a good example. That's all I'm saying. And then when you say subjective objects, what we need to do is get away from subjective because what we did was like that woman.

They don't know what they're talking about.

Is there fear? They're insignificant if they're there.

It's not.

So I can find those kind of activities in common. It's usually a group of people that start thinking their opinion is much more important.

And I would rather let...

Oh, the Ulrika Plaza. Yeah, it is that one, right? Yeah.

I think we have four. The other part of it is not built yet. Oh, because we have a poster.

Well, that was a rendering. So there's...

They're still building the garage. They're taking it out.

Now they're at the podium level. So they're making progress.

Were there four buildings, two that you could see from the street and two inside a courtyard? Correct.

Yeah. I'm presuming that the WUI and the fire code all gets embedded into all of this. Right. That's all baked in. And I wish we had some architects on the design elements. Had to do with skylights, because in Carmel we require the nightshades. Okay. So that's a requirement. Okay. Are we allowed to require that in affordable on a skylight? It's an objective standard. So yes. So that would be yes? Yes. Okay. And we are going to be receiving our new updates. It would really help me to have the opportunity. We're going to see this again, right, in a little bit? Yeah, so that we can start that overlay of the new guidelines. Tom says they're coming out on Friday for review. Those are all one, right? They are, but they also, they kind of inform commercial, you know, even though, yes, they are R1.

But there are some tendencies in there that I think might inform things like, you know, when you've got a surface that is all contiguous, that's something that in general we don't like. We like to have offsets, you know, something like a protrusion of the recess or something. Right, so does that come into this anywhere, or anyhow? Because, you know, like,

It'll come in regardless of style. It would affect the whole building. By the way, you said you had to leave at 5, right? Can we do a little wrap-up before you leave? Can you give us five minutes? So Marnie and Mel, since she has to leave at 5, we were hoping to have a discussion with the group before you left. Yeah, let's just sit down and have a discussion here. Come on up, guys. Let's sit down and just hear your observations and questions. I mean, we want to hear from you as much as we can.

Why don't you go, because you're going to bounce. So the four, I only selected four, of which maybe you could do that parent-child relationship for the subsets. But I only marked four as the ones that I think we need to have the odds on, which is Spanish Eclectic, Craftsman, Post Adobe, and French Chateau. So those are the ones that I marked as the ones.

Sorry, go ahead again.

So Spanish Eclectic, Craftsman, Post Adobe, and French Chateau are the ones that I would like us to build off of. It's an opinion. So I don't know, do you want to do your list?

Well, I have three of your four. Okay, so that's great. So I also believe, like the Spanish Eclectic, I definitely am in favor of multiple projections on facades. and that step back, especially on the second story, and or, you know, for entrances or however we can do that. I find that very Carmel. I like the post-war modern. I think I like the idea of bringing in that element, but I prefer the post-war modern to the Bay Region modern 100%. Craftsman, yes. I did not have the post-Adobe. I did have the storybook. You know, for a smaller building, that might be super cool. I think an architect could do something. You know, let's put Claudio on that or June. I mean, they do beautiful work on that.

And the French Chateau. So just a comment on the storybook. There is a lot of sensitivity right now, just for whatever it's worth, use it or not, that the town is being overly marketed for storybook. so that people, when they come to town, they only want to see the storybook houses. And they are an asset to us. We get it. But there is a communication in the community saying, no more storybooks. So it is a thing, and you may choose to use that or not.

I haven't heard that, so I'm glad you said that.

It's pervasive. Really? There's a lot of that.

I must be living under a rock.

yeah um can can we go back to the upper story step back so uh in the examples that we we have here there are recesses in the second floor like that second poster over there in the spanish eclectic is that what you're talking about yes yes yeah so that is that is a just just to be clear on what you're expecting like also on the bottom pictures in uh The bottom left picture shows two recesses. Those are not, we would, just so that we're clear.

Recesses.

Those are recesses in the facade as opposed to an upper story step back where the whole story is pushed back.

Oh, okay, so I will write here recesses.

Yeah, and I'm only saying that so that when we prepare standards, you would say, what?

Yes, no, that makes sense. I'm glad you asked that, the correct word.

Well, it's also the outcome that I'm pointing out. The outcomes here have part of the facade of the street, but some of it is pulled back to create a deck or an area.

Yes, but the recesses... because of the scale of our city, that the recesses would be better in proportion than a full line of pullback. Yes.

Because then it looks like, yeah, OK, just wanted to be clear.

But that seems to give us that, because we already have a lot, so much of that, as you know. So our home residential area, but the front of the house is all kind of like one big wall.

But what they did to accommodate the change in look and feel is that, At the roofline, in between the first and second floor, it was actually a kind of a quasi-roof that went roofline that protruded out. So it made it look like they were actually two different surfaces. But the reality is that the surface is contiguous, top floor and second floor. But this kind of makeshift roof thing made it look like there's two. So it kind of gives the effect of recessed or protrusion or whatever it is. But just as a point of reference.

So can we talk a little bit about, so thank you for that, these guys reported it all. Can we talk a little bit about, let's say the mayor said, we're only going to have one style. You said all new buildings have to be this style. Well, give us two, your top two.

Let me ask you this, Marnie, how many new buildings are we going to be getting? One, ten? What do we think?

Well, Arena's $349,000.

Yes, ma'am. But these are multi-dwellings at the same time.

In the next ten years?

So we might have... Five. Five?

In the next 10 years.

There can only be one kind.

Well, let's say two.

Let's say your top two. My top two, I'd do Craftsman and French Chateau. Those were the two that I would do. Craftsman and French Chateau, okay. And then what about you? If you made me pick.

See, and I would do Craftsman also. I don't know if I'd do French Chateau or Spanish Eclectic. I could live with that. Yeah.

So we have three right there.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Right. And definitely waving off storybook.

Yeah. I believe that's a good call. But, again, I'm not the only decider here.

Well, and it also might be the least likely for an architect and developer. That's what we think. But you might be surprised, as Mr. Kern was saying. Exactly. That, you know, it is a special place. They want to stay there. Yes. We do attract very talented architects and very well-heeled developers. You do. Next question. Yes, ma'am. Sorry.

Go ahead. What's your next question?

No, no, no. That was just the question I wanted to make sure I asked before you left. So what else can you tell us about what you were observing or what you're thinking about?

So on this, I kind of like where it's going, I think. I'm wondering if it is a little too deep. Just so that you've got a little bit of space to play. I mean, one of the things on windows that I know you guys talk about in planning commission a lot, it's making sure we don't have a whole lot of really big windows. That they're divided. That they're divided. So, you know, is the level of granularity that you have here too much? I need an architect to say that one way or the other. I'm not qualified to make that.

By the way, maybe after this meeting you could go and look at these with more calm and maybe some of your friends. But something we always point out, not everything drawn is regulated. So that's something to keep in mind. Everything is drawn so that whatever is regulated is in context of what that style would have it be.

How it could play out. Right.

So not everything drawn is regulated. It's really important to keep in mind because you look at it and go, whoa, what imagination can I have now? But actually there's a lot of flexibility in there because not everything drawn is regulated.

Okay.

Okay.

So, you know, yeah, I need an architect to say, to provide comments. I just am not qualified. So you might get more touch on that than I would.

Sure. And the objective design and development standards, I know that in the end what they'll provide is a framework for the architect from which to derive the options that they have for the design. but they are not set in stone. It's not going to say a wall must be this height, the window must be this wide, but it will create parameters within which the architect will design their buildings. Yes? It could be.

It has to provide a range. If it doesn't say, the way it works is, again, you don't have to, as an applicant, you don't have to choose this path. You can opt out and go to the planning commission, right? You can by the state those standards have to say here's the minimum or here's the maximum here's the range but it can't say you know let's talk about it but you can't say that that would defeat the objectivity of it so as preparers of objective So we would know what we'd love to, like what you were talking about implied some flexibility. And I just wanted to clarify that.

Oh yes. No, I recognize it's, it's a range and, but, but it is not a, um, it's not a specific single option that there is a range of menus usually when possible, you know, but there is like, for instance, a maximum height range.

Yeah, that's already covered by your ordinance. So just to peel that back a little bit. So whatever your zoning currently allows, whatever that zoning envelope is, we have to enable that. We can't tamp it down. We can't chip away at it. to where they couldn't achieve it. The state's going to test that. They're going to look at the standards. They're going to say, oh, you know what? This looked like it was a two-story zoning envelope and it could occupy 80% of the lot. And the standards look like it's now one and a half stories and 60% of the lot. We would fail then. So we have to what you currently allow. What we're doing is working on the building that would occupy it and working on that, as opposed to, well, let's allow less square footage on the footprint. We couldn't do that. I'm not saying you were applying that, just wanted to make that super clear. Well, thank you very much for your time.

Thank you for trying to dash. Yeah.

And all the... All the people you represent. So you two guys are, oh my gosh, how many people are you representing tonight?

I don't know how many we're representing. 3,000? About. Maybe.

That's huge. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. Well.

Well, thank you. Nancy is extraordinarily experienced in town. And so she brings a wide and deep bench of experience in town. Yes. Well, thank you. You just lost a good one.

Yeah. Well, thank you to the three of you that have attended here tonight. Yeah.

Yes, well, it's our pleasure. And look forward to what comes next. So you'll make some decisions about which styles you'll develop? Or what happens next, Marnie?

Yeah. Tony, do you want to?

Go ahead from the city side. Go ahead. What were you going to say?

I don't know.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so we have to make some decisions in order to stay on schedule to deliver this to the city in a timely way. So anything else you can provide after this meeting in terms of additional feedback to the city would be helpful because right now we're going to say we're talking to 3,000 people. plus whatever this woman represents. You all are representative here tonight. So we're making some assumptions on what we're hearing. So based on what we've heard, the feedback, we're going to take that and run with it.

And let's make sure we hear from Mr. Kevin Roos, who's online. I know he's trying to participate, but he can't see these, right?

So I was talking with Cecilia earlier today. So we are going to post some information online so that folks can fill out the form. We will send out an announcement in the Friday letter. So that folks are redirected to our website. They can watch the video that will be posted online. And they can also participate by filling out the form and going through the exercise and submitting their top six styles. So we will solicit more input.

So there's some window that sounds like we're going to identify an end to that window, a date. And then after that date, we'll sort the feedback. propose a path forward on that we'll so to be clear after that feedback we'll say okay what this looks like to us is these six styles or maybe people only selected four you know so we'll respond to the city and and and report that and with our recommendation unless it's super super clear like do this we're going to probably have to interpret some of it and say here's what and then have it verified by the city, then we'll start preparing the standards.

My one final comment, after first saying thank you to all of you for doing this, it's extremely helpful, and I'm very excited to have this adopted here. My final comment goes back to that Carmel vernacular style.

Okay.

Marnie and I were having sort of a side conversation while we were at the boards here. And it had to do with my concern that an odds definition of that style might require such broad basics that we would receive at the city designs that might actually vary significantly from what we had intended through this process.

Does that make sense? Yeah, but I'm not trying to convince you of that style. I'm broadening out to the function of these standards that they would have to follow it. They might submit something that doesn't comply, but by definition, they wouldn't comply and they'd be kicked out of the process.

And I suppose, Tony, it's the definition because it's eclectic. And it's not that I would, I mean, I think I wouldn't mind seeing how you would define that objectively. But with the examples that we have, it's kind of, for me, it's very hard to see how that could play out. It's a very broad style. In a way that would really be effective both for the city and for, you know, property owners and developers. And, you know, there's a lot of… And we have a lot of cool other stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, really cool, kind of specific. You know, I don't think we'd have to worry about it being too cookie-cutter. At all, I think it would create beautiful buildings in town.

Yeah, especially in Carmel, you do attract the higher end of designers and applicants. You just do. But you never know when you're going to get that one unscrupulous applicant, unscrupulous designer that says... This is all I have to do. That's why we're advising you and other cities to be very intentional about what you select and what you select to regulate. Because for the unscrupulous applicant and unscrupulous designer, admittedly there are fewer of them, they will go that route. They'll say, what's the least I can do? So what you're talking about with um, criminal vernacular. There's a lot of wisdom in that, that to avoid it, to, uh, to avoid it and avoid, um, unnecessary, uh, or unintended outcomes and, and fights and all that stuff that, that might, uh, come about because of that. So, um, yeah, I mean, and you have, one of the things that Fred said, we actually had a great conversation afterward. He, he, um, He didn't shake my hand. He gave me a fist bump. He says, I don't shake hands. I fist bump. And I don't know if this is still recording, but he seemed like a friendly guy afterward. He was very amiable and even offered to walk us around. But what he said is we should be shooting for when we write the standards, whatever styles we do select, that there are better examples in town than the ones we used. And I didn't know enough to say, I don't know about that. So I just took his word for it. So I asked him, then send them to us. If there are better examples, then please send them. Because what we did is we looked at the study area. What he was suggesting is, well, outside of the study area, there are better examples. So if there are, and we should be aware of them as we write the standards, please send them to us. And maybe you just need to contact him. Because I said, let's get on Zoom and drive around on Google and spend two hours with you. He said, I don't do Zoom. So, okay. Then send us the examples. So that's a request of you all. Because he had a great point that and it's true when you write standards like this the whole idea of a form-based approach to standards like this is you are basing them on outcomes that you desire yes and so if the outcomes that we are desiring to make are not based on the best outcomes that you have then we need to know what are those best

And, Marnie, I'd be happy to, maybe when Tony comes back with the handful of styles, I mean, I'd be happy to try to help come up with some of those examples, if that would be helpful, just having a look. I know some of these are absolutely excellent. But who knows? There might be one or two others. Right. Right. Yeah.

We need to be aware of that. Yeah. So, okay.

Thank you. A thousand thanks, and Marnie, thank you for all the work you've put in in the background. Thanks for representing 3,000 people. Yes, I look forward to what comes next. Yeah, thank you. For sure. And I will, I'll definitely look at these again when they get up online. Okay. So thank you.

Well, thank you, Mel. Thank you for coming. All right. Have a good evening.

I think that concludes our meeting. Thank you so much.

Thank you.